Heart of Stone

Margrit shook her head. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Dark stone.” Biali seemed to get peculiar satisfaction from translating the name, as if it was another jibe at Margrit herself. “Her family bred true, but not often. Hajnal was a rare one. That stone isn’t yours to keep.”

“I’ll give it to Alban,” Margrit said. Biali pushed his lips out, but nodded.

“She’s dead, lawyer. You’re just digging up old graves.”

“But what if she’s not? Could she do something like this?”

“Could a gargoyle rip apart a few human women?” Biali snorted again, sarcastically. “One of our children could kill a mob of unarmed adult humans. If we’d done that a long time ago we might not be so few, and you so many.”

“Is that what you think should have happened?”

Biali studied her, then set his jaw and looked away. “I think your people would’ve outbred us and the war would’ve been lost in time anyway. It wasn’t only Hajnal’s family that bred rarely. Korund’s right, not that I’d say it to his face. There aren’t enough of us. There never have been.”

“Will your people die out?” Margrit let her hair go and wrapped her arms around herself, frowning at the gargoyle as curls whipped her face again.

Biali barked laughter. “We live a long time, lawyer. Maybe when your folk have destroyed themselves, we’ll have a chance to try again. There aren’t many of us, but don’t nail the coffin closed yet.”

“I don’t want to.” Margrit tightened her arms, surprised at her own ferocity. “You think she could do this.”

“Any gargoyle is physically capable of it. But if she were alive, I don’t know why she’d kill women who looked like her. We don’t kill for fun.”

Margrit’s eyebrows rose a little. “I thought you worked for Janx. Beating people up.”

Biali shrugged. “Gotta make a living, lawyer. It’s survival, not entertainment.” He gri

“To get back at us for not knowing you even exist,” she guessed. Biali’s scar creased as he grimaced and shifted his gaze away. “I’m not even sure I can blame you,” Margrit said. “You all live in a shadow world, don’t you? You gargoyles especially. The rest of them can at least participate during daylight. You never even see the sun rise.”

“Don’t feel too sorry for us,” Biali spat. “Our world is something you’ll never know.”

“I’ve seen a little bit of it,” Margrit said. “I’m begi

“There wasn’t.”

“There’s always something else,” Margrit argued. “There’s always a choice. Maybe not a good one, but there’s always a choice. Alban says your people don’t change their names.”

Biali’s eyebrows drew down. “That’s for dragons and dji

“But what if you had to make a choice?” Margrit asked. “What if you had to change?”

“I got no idea what you’re talking about, lawyer.”

“My name’s Margrit. Margrit Knight.”

“Knight,” Biali said after a few long moments. Margrit ducked her head, savoring the small triumph. “I got no idea what you’re talking about, Knight.”

“Alban said Ausra means dawn. Just like Hajnal does.”

Wariness came into Biali’s eyes. “So?”

“So I think two hundred years ago, Ausra was Hajnal. And I think you know where she is.”

“I told you before,” Biali grated. “I never heard of Ausra.”

A woman, bedraggled with travel but carrying herself with pride, stepped into Margrit’s line of vision. Her hair was black with rain, the water pulling curls out of shape, and her skin was amber-tinted, translucent. She was lovely, delicate in facial structure and body, but there was a coldness in her dark eyes, an absolute lack of empathy that made Margrit feel uncomfortably like prey. Not until the woman shifted her shoulders, half spreading graceful wings, did she recognize her as a gargoyle.

Shock coursed through Margrit, the crash of her heartbeat suddenly noticeable. It felt wrong, too slow, and at the same time as if it had suddenly leaped to a rabbit’s pace. Then Biali’s rough voice came from within Margrit’s own throat, filled with astonishment. “You’re dead.”

A sharp smile cut the gargoyle woman’s face and she moved, so quickly Margrit flinched, trying to avoid her.

Memory shattered with the movement, leaving her alone on the rooftop facing Biali. Margrit held a hand to her head, blinking from the echoes scraping around in her skull, then lifted her gaze to the gargoyle. Nothing had changed in his sour expression; no hint remained of what had transpired between them. Alban hadn’t known humans were capable of hearing the telepathic link that allowed gargoyles to share their memories. Neither, it seemed, did Biali.

A faint smile curved Margrit’s mouth, telltale admission of having won a round. “You’re lying.” The confidence in her own voice fed on itself and she stepped forward, challenging the blunt-featured gargoyle. “I don’t know if your kind go crazy or not, but-”

“We don’t.”

Margrit’s smile faded and she rubbed her temple again, as if doing so would push away the memory of the gargoyle woman’s cold eyes. “Well, that means Hajnal, or Ausra, or whatever you want to call her, is killing people deliberately and with malicious forethought. That doesn’t really make me feel any better. I know that the human justice system can’t deal with this, Biali. We’re not equipped to, even if it’s humans who are dying. Is there-Do the Old Races have a justice system? You must,” she said, the realization striking her even as she spoke. “Cara called Alban an outcast. Why? How did that happen?”

Biali laughed, a sharp sound. “Cara? That’s not a name belonging to one of ours. Who is she?”

Margrit hesitated, remembering the young mother’s reticence in naming which races others of the Old Races belonged to, even when it proved clear that Margrit already knew they existed. “A woman I’m helping. A new case.”

“Oh.” Biali’s lip curled, turning his scar into an angry wrinkled slash in the nighttime shadows. “That selkie girl in the vampire’s building. Her people are dead, lawyer. Don’t listen to stories told by the last of a dying race. It’s superstition and lies. Our justice system is nothing like what you’re talking about. War tribunals, maybe, but even those aren’t something you’d recognize.”

“I know what a war tribunal is,” Margrit said dryly.

Biali turned his head and spat to the side, his disgust palpable. Margrit watched him, not yet finished with the conversation, but curious about his anger.

“You know what your war tribunals are. Ours are different. We can’t afford the kind of battles you people pick.”

Margrit shook her head, letting the subject of Alban go. “You can’t afford a renegade gargoyle, either. You loved her once, Biali. I need your help to stop her, to locate her and find a way to get her out of sight, now.” The guy’s a copycat, Tony. Margrit wished she hadn’t said those words. “Doesn’t she understand what will happen, if my people catch her?”

Biali put his weight on his knuckles, shifting and frowning one-eyed up at Margrit. She waited a moment, then stepped closer to him. “Do you know where she is, Biali?”

“No. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. Whatever’s between her and Alban is their business, not mine.” He scowled at her. “Korund took my eye and gave me my life. We don’t owe each other anything.”

“Not even the survival of your species?”

Biali shook his head. “Not even that.” He turned, loping a few strides away, the space around him imploding as he shifted from human to gargoyle form.

“Biali!”

The scarred gargoyle turned back to her. The right side of his face was shattered, raw stone with edges smoothed by time. What was left had once been handsome, in the massive way of the gargoyles, though he’d never been as chiseled as Alban. How much of that played into the ancient antagonism that stood between the two, Margrit wondered. “You loved her once, Biali,” she said. “Would she have wanted you to walk away from this?”