CHAPTER 28

Margrit awakened with a pounding head and the befuddling idea that she’d heard a gun.

Instinct drove her to sit up, but her muscles were rubbery and she faltered, barely able to lift her head.

Crimson spread out in front of her, the only clear thing in her foggy vision. It was warm, though cooling rapidly, and sticky, and she thought it should mean something to her, all that red liquid so close to her. It smelled of copper, only discernible because she lay so close to it. Other smells were far more overpowering: fire, smoke, barbecue. Her stomach rumbled and she tried to clap a hand against it, but her movements were too clumsy, and all she did was smear a hand in the blood.

Hunger twisted into nausea as she realized her unthinking recognition was right and that she lay in a pool of blood.

Recollection slammed into her, a shock of adrenaline giving her the energy necessary to jerk upright. Her vision cleared as she twisted to face the room, the world sharpening into hyperdefined focus.

The first sound she made after coming back from the dead was a laugh.

No one else heard it: it was too low and raw a sound, as she took in the impossible things spread out before her. Her blood in the foreground, yes, and the air thick with smoke and flame. Bodies, some charcoaled, some flayed, some gnawed upon as though an animal had gotten to them, lay scattered around the floor, and amongst them stood gargoyles and a dragon in their elemental forms, and selkies and a vampire who looked human to an untrained eye.

And under the dragon’s claw lay Anthony Pulcella, who didn’t belong there at all and who was about to pay for his audacity with his life. Beyond him was Grace O’Malley, only slightly less out of place, her peaches-and-cream complexion paled to ghostly white. Janx was speaking, something Margrit hadn’t known he could do in his dragon form, and then he coiled upward, clearly preparing for a final strike.

“Dragonlord,” Margrit said, and her voice was a disaster, “you will not.”

Not if she lived a hundred years would she become accustomed to the lack of movement that came over the Old Races when something surprised them. Every being in the room save Tony went deadly still, bewilderment spasming over the detective’s face. Margrit thought he hadn’t heard her: the ruin of her voice was so quiet she’d barely heard herself, but the Old Races had better senses than humans did.

Janx, with terrible precision, turned his long face toward her, complex double eyelids shuttering over eyes that burned emerald with challenge. His gaze was weighted, heated; all the things she had come to be accustomed to from the dragon. For the first time she felt no fear at all; could, indeed, barely remember why it was he’d frightened her. “You will not,” she said again, and air imploded as Janx returned to his human form.

“An unexpected surprise, Margrit Knight.” The dragonlord looked furious, hands repeatedly clenching into fists.

Relief swept Margrit as his change agreed to her demand, or at least gave her further time to negotiate. She sagged toward the floor, then ground her teeth and forced herself upward. Not just to sitting, but to her feet, a distance she wasn’t at all sure she could travel. But then there was a hand at her elbow, supporting her, and Alban was at her side, his eyes round with hope and astonishment.

Margrit laughed, so breathless it would have been fragile had her throat not been ruined. As it was it scraped, a gurgle as dreadful as her last breaths had been, and she whispered, “Hi.”

“I thought you were dead.” Alban’s hand on her arm was delicate, as though he doubted what he saw and touched. As though she might shatter under his grip, a possibility that felt alarmingly real. The nausea she’d felt before remained in place, symptomatic of light-headedness and blood loss, but she managed another broken laugh.

“I think I was. Mostly dead, at least.” Sick and trembling or not, she felt filled with laughter, its music bubbling up in her as a form of relief. “Daisani saved me. I think Tariq didn’t cut quite deep enough, and Daisani’s blood saved me. I was so sad I wouldn’t get to see you again.” She swallowed and stopped speaking, every word a strain. The room was unbelievably silent, her harsh voice and Tony’s labored breathing the only sounds in it.

Every one of the remaining Old Races stared at her in the same astonishment Alban did. Overwhelmed by their gazes, she turned her face against his chest and held on with all the trembling strength she had at her disposal, grateful for his cool, stony scent and solid presence. Exhaustion held her too thoroughly for joy to turn to desire, but she could feel its call deep within her, wanting life to be celebrated.

“Margrit?” Tony’s voice sounded almost as hoarse as her own did. Margrit released Alban, uncertain she could keep her feet without his support, but there was no need: Tony was there, crushing her in his arms and mumbling disbelief into her hair. “You were dead, Grit. You were dead.”

Another raw, shaking laugh broke free. “I got better. Do you remember—” Speech hurt, and she was grateful when Alban took over, words deep and tempered with sympathy.

“A gift from another of our kind, detective. One sip of a vampire’s blood offers health to your people. You recall how quickly she recovered from her injuries in January.”

Tony looked up at Alban, then set Margrit back a few inches, his hands on her shoulders hard with relief and concern. “So fast the doctors thought their X-rays must’ve been wrong. But this, Margrit, I mean—your throat…”

Margrit put her fingers against the cut, shuddering to discover it wasn’t yet fully closed. “I think every time I get hurt it steps up the recovery time. I got the shit beat out of me last night.” She looked beyond Tony, finding Grace, who looked strangely insubstantial amongst the Old Races. Even Tony’s strong coloring helped make the tall vigilante look less real than those around her. For a moment an answer swam behind Margrit’s eyes, but it slipped away again and she whispered, “I could feel myself healing, then. I think I might not be alive if it weren’t for you.”

Grace executed an elegant bow, flourishing with her fingers as Margrit looked back to Tony. “What are you two doing here?”

Janx grumbled a warning that Margrit silenced with a look, while Tony fell back a step and shook his head. “Wish to hell I knew. She came out of nowhere and said I had to come with her.”

“When a cadre of gargoyles goes off looking for trouble, Grace knows to call in a ringer. I didn’t know we’d find a mess as bad as this one, but sometimes it takes old-fashioned human ingenuity to get people’s attention. I figured the copper shooting off a round or two would do it.”

“You have a gun,” Margrit said blankly.

Grace wrinkled her nose and slipped the weapon from the small of her back, then knocked open the chamber to shake its contents onto the floor. Nothing fell, and with a semiembarrassed shrug, she said, “No bullets, love.”

Margrit stared at Grace, remembering too vividly the way she’d pressed the gun’s barrel to her forehead. Her stomach lurched with the dismay of discovering old fear had been useless, but before she found words to protest with, Kate, quiet and sullen, said, “I thought we were the ringers,” to Ursula.

Janx turned on them both, clearly glad to have a target for his ire. He was nearly purple with indignation, and a purposeful pair of gargoyles stepped forward to prevent him from launching himself at the girls. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” he demanded. “Did you think you could come into my city, my territory, and proclaim yourself without challenge? Did you—”

“How did you even know I was here?” The curiosity behind Kate’s question was clearly genuine, startling Janx and sending a pang of regret through Margrit. The half-blood children of the Old Races were so thoroughly denied their heritages it was no surprise that Ausra had succumbed to madness. Kate and Ursula had fared better, but Margrit doubted either of them truly understood the world their fathers had come from.