House of Cards

Fire tore through the room, searing the air. Margrit screamed again, shoving herself back toward the shattered windows, the scale falling from her hands. Janx’s long neck whipped around, following Alban with another burst of flame. Alban dove through it, wings tucked close to his body, and came up on the other side with his pale skin unmarred by darkness, his fine white hair unsinged, though the denim jeans he wore were singed and smoking. Margrit’s heart lurched and she cringed at the very idea of that fire.

Alban leaped over Janx, and the dragon followed his movement, spouting fire. Wings tucked to roll, Alban hit the wall feet first and sprang back toward Janx. The dragon ducked his head too late and Alban seized him around the throat. Stone squeezed forgiving flesh, scales cracking under pressure. Muscles bulged in Alban’s arms, his face contorted with concentration. Nothing recognizable was left in his features, only bared teeth and a killing rage in his eyes.

Margrit fisted her hands against her mouth, holding back screams that she feared would draw the titanic combatants’ attention to her. Alban had insisted to her that he was not a man. She’d argued for him being a person, if not a human, finding excitement in his exotic form and alien capabilities.

She’d thought she’d understood what it was to be a gargoyle. Now, cowering in the darkness as a battle raged around her, she knew she had understood nothing at all.

Of the remaining Old Races, dragons had most to be wary of from the gargoyles. Stone burned, but not easily or quickly at the temperatures they could sustain, and even a dragon’s great size made no difference once a gargoyle’s strength took hold of a vital body part. The wings were easiest, even clamped close to the body, but Alban ignored them, flinging himself toward Janx’s throat for a crushing grip there. He had left one of his own kind crippled and blinded. Biali had spat on that mercy, and Alban would not offer the same opportunity again.

Janx drew his legs beneath himself, catlike, then slammed upward with all the violence he could muster. Alban crashed into the steel ceiling, stu

Alban dragged himself into a crouch, ready to face the oncoming flame directly. Only his low vantage point gave him eyes to see what he’d forgotten: Malik’s reappearance, below Janx’s wing, his sword-cane lifted to strike. A warning ripped from Alban’s throat: "Janx!"

The dragon twisted too late, Malik driving his sword into the softened spot where Alban had ripped away Janx’s scale. Janx howled, bucking in pain, and Malik dissolved again, taking the cane with him. A moment later he coalesced once more, this time slashing a deep and terrible cut through Janx’s wing. Janx screamed again, spraying fire across the room, but it whisked through Malik harmlessly, the dji

"Malik!"

Margrit’s voice tore through the room, the high feminine sound a shocking contrast to the deep male roars and the crackling fire. Malik twisted as she rose up out of the darkness, a ludicrous lime-green gun in her hand.

Thin jets of water shot out from the weapon, splashing the dji

She stood her ground, firing the water gun at him, then turning it as though it had the weight of a real gun, holding its muzzle as if she might pistol-whip the dji

Plastic shattered, emptying the remaining water over his face. Malik screamed once more, rearing back to claw at his eyes. Margrit scrambled away, feet dangerously bare on the glass-littered floor.

Pride rose up in Alban and mixed with an overwhelming feeling of loss. That Margrit could defend herself against one of the Old Races was to be celebrated; that humanity could find so many easy ways to defeat them was to be mourned. Malik reached for his cane and shoved to his feet, hair dripping and skin still silver with burns.

Janx had wound his way around the alcove in the brief moments the dji

Time crystalized, until each moment of the fight seemed to last an eternity in which Alban could consider it with thoughts racing ahead. Neither combatant would survive Malik’s suicidal attempt, and Janx, most particularly, could not be allowed to die like this, in the midst of human territory, with human police only minutes away.

Thought, it seemed, was too slow after all. He didn’t remember the decision to leap forward, intent on knocking the dragon’s head aside or shattering Malik’s blade on his own stony hide. Weaponless, the dji

Janx flicked his head to the side as Alban pounced, and instead of crashing into him, his gargoyle bulk smashed into Malik, driving them both against the burnished steel wall.

Bones shattered with sickening clarity above the sound of fire.

Alban staggered back in shock as Malik’s body, as solid and mortal as any human, slithered to the floor, the cane bouncing free of his hand.

A new eternity was born, marked by the crackle of flame and a bewildering hiss of incomprehension inside Alban’s mind. He stared down at the dji

Janx, panting, shuddered back to human form. A grunt of pain escaped his clenched teeth and he clamped a hand above his kidney, trying to stop a flow of blood that didn’t lessen by his shift from one form to another. Even kneeling, even in pain, he dragged in a breath and inserted lightness in his voice as he looked at Malik’s body. "Oh, yes, he certainly is. It’s a shame your third proposal didn’t pass, Margrit."

"How-" Alban’s voice cracked.

Margrit, pale even in the shattered light, came forward with her hands clenched. "Salt water. I had salt water in the gun. I’d been keeping it under my pillow because I was afraid he’d come after me again. I…oh my God. I killed him."

"No." Despair laced Alban’s voice. "No, Margrit. I did."

Janx laughed, a hoarse sound of pain that turned Alban back to him. "Oh, don’t be so greedy, Stoneheart. I think we all deserve some credit for this. Margrit, why on earth did you not use that absurd weapon against Tarig?"

"Tarig?" Margrit’s voice was high and shaking.

Irritation displaced pain on Janx’s face for an instant, his teeth bared and his gaze dropping as though he chastised himself. "The dji

Margrit lifted her eyes from Malik to stare at Janx for a few long seconds of befuddlement. "You knew him? And you didn’t…" She stopped, clearly unable to think of what the dragon might have done, then put a hand over her face. "I couldn’t remember if it solidified them right away or just made them unable to mist. I was afraid it would turn him solid with his hand in Mom’s chest."

"It seems we now know." Janx glanced around the disaster of his alcove. "If I may make a humble suggestion, Margrit?" She nodded tightly and Janx’s voice went dry. "Run. Get away from here. Be anywhere but here tonight, my dear."