He was almost certain he'd killed only two or three of the fools who tried to stop him from entering the club he found Daisani at. Someone hit him with an iron bar. Biali took it, wrapped it around his own fist, and hit anyone who came near in the face as he stormed through the club. After a few of them fell, no one else got in his way.

  Dapper, slight, black-haired and not particularly handsome, Daisani still commanded the attention of everyone at his table. Or he did until Biali found him, and then without a blink the mogul snapped his fingers and sent the others away. Then his eyebrows arched, mockery in their questions.

  "A woman." Fumbling excuse, suddenly absurd in the face of the violence he'd used to approach Daisani. Words were not Biali's strength. "Alban sent me to you."

  The questioning eyebrows shot higher, becoming exclamations. Daisani patted his lips dry with a napkin, then stood, turning to the only other person who hadn't left the table: a woman, narrow and reserved, with a hint of suspicion in her eyes at Biali's explanation. "Vanessa, forgive me. I seem to have pressing business with intimate acquaintances."

  Sudden understanding eliminated the suspicion—the envy, perhaps—from Vanessa's eyes. She knew, then. That was clear. She knew about the Old Races, and that was an edict none of them were supposed to break. Tell humans nothing. An exiling offense, if discovered.

  Biali didn't care what laws Daisani had broken, not now. Not tonight. Daisani marked that, a hint of satisfaction creasing lines around his mouth. "Shall we go, then? Or will I go on my own, which will be faster?"

  "No," Biali grated. He wanted to—had to—be there, and though Daisani could be there inside a moment, Biali would take minutes. Minutes Isabel would be able to spare, because she had to. Because he would not be absent this time, not even if his absence might save her life. This Vanessa woman already knew what Daisani was. That was enough to let Biali say, "We'll take the skies," and within a minute to do just that, Eliseo Daisani's inconsequential weight carried in his arms.

  The park was no distance, not when flight carried them there. Not as quick as Daisani, maybe, but quick enough. Alban was kneeling at Isabel's side when they arrived, his soft murmur of reassurance doing nothing—or perhaps everything—to keep her alive.

  Daisani's pupils enlarged as he glanced Isabel over. "She's all but dead already. This is a meal, Biali, not a rescue. You've wasted my time."

  A snarl erupted in Biali's throat, but Daisani walked away unconcerned. No reason for concern, not when his speed was such that Biali would never lay a hand on him. "Then why did you come at all!"

  Daisani tossed the answer over his shoulder carelessly: "Because you said Korund had sent you. I thought it was for some plausible task."

  "Eliseo." Alban spoke unexpectedly.

  Daisani paused. Turned his head, not quite looking back, but listening. Waiting for a move in the game, Biali thought, though he had no idea what the game was. Alban, though, did, and spoke again. "If you do this, we will owe each other nothing."

  Daisani's jaw came up, tension spreading through his shoulders, then fading. "It is not so simple as that."

  "It can be."

  An ache came into Biali's hands. Not from Isabel's weight; he could hold that forever. From rage at the game these two played, at the exchange that meant both nothing and everything to him. He wanted to bellow, to demand understanding, to command a stop to their wordplay, and yet he held his tongue. Barely breathed around the hurt in his chest, knowing a wrong word would mean the woman's death. Hurry! roared inside his head, so loud Alban should have winced with it, had he touched the overmind as all gargoyles always should. So loud Daisani, who was nothing of the gargoyles at all, should have heard it, and made haste to do as he was told.

  "It can't be," Daisani said ever so softly, but he turned. Came back to Biali and to the woman held in his arms, a woman whose breath came in short, desperate gasps now. A rattle had begun in her lungs. "It's almost too late," the vampire murmured. "I will not have her in this city, Biali. One sip for health alone, but I will not have her here, glowing with fitness and beauty. I will not have her here to wonder at what happened tonight, or at what other gifts another sip might bring."

  Biali nodded, curt, furious, desperate, and Eliseo Daisani smiled. He was not a handsome man, though he could be mistaken for one. Not, though, with that smile. Not with the brief flash of savage black teeth that opened his wrist's veins. Not with the fastidious way he wiped blood over Isabel's mouth. There was nothing handsome, nothing compelling, about him at all, as he did those things.

  But she wheezed again and licked her lips, half-conscious response to wetness there, and with the convulsive swallow that followed, her color improved. From blue ashen to a touch of pink beneath the skin, and with each wetting of her lips, each swallow, strength and health returned.

  "You will owe me," Daisani said, and Korund, strongly, said, "He owes you nothing."

  Biali felt, didn't see, tension sluice through the vampire again. His gaze was only for Isabel, for the slow improvement in her breathing, for the crackling and straightening of bone. But he heard the challenge in the vampire's voice as he faced Alban: "And I?"

  "Owe me nothing."

  Daisani made a sound. Distrust, disbelief, perhaps relief. Then he was gone, a whisk of wind where he'd been. Biali, still clutching Isabel, looked up. There were so many answers there, lingering in the air. Alban's silence in the gestalt had to do with the vampire. With all the vampires, perhaps; perhaps an answer to their dwindling numbers this past decade. It was something, at least. Something he could bring to the others, something he could add to the memories. It might be enough to excuse him from his own exile, from his own long watch over the outcast. It would certainly bring others to the city, others who would question Alban and even Daisani, working to worm their shared secrets into the open.

  And there were the women, the ones Alban knew who had died or, like Isabel, had survived through fortune alone. But they were human, and had Isabel not run afoul of their attacker Biali would have thought no more of them at all. He could let them go, in exchange for Isabel's survival. In exchange for the sure knowledge that it hadn't been Alban who had harmed her, because what reason would she have to lie, even if her attack hadn't been just before sunset, at a time no gargoyle could be awake.

  Biali's voice scraped as low as it went, raw words offering a compromise he would never voice aloud. A gargoyle could lock individual memories away from the gestalt, only offering them upon his death. And gargoyles were difficult to kill. For her life, he would not say aloud, for her life, this night had never happened. "This doesn't mean you're forgiven."

  A smile touched Alban's mouth. "No." His yellow gaze softened on Isabel. "Take care of her."

  Then, like Daisani, he was gone, though less dramatically. Just a big man walking away, leaving a scarred gargoyle and a woman slowly coming back to life.

  He looked human again by the time she awakened. It had never been a matter of debate before, never a matter of consideration. He had never shown his gargoyle face to a human who didn't already know about the Old Races, and they were far and few between. But for hours as Isabel's breathing had steadied, as her color had improved and her wounds had healed, he had held her in his natural from, and had thought often of maintaining it even when health was hers again. In the end, though, it was easier to send her away if she knew nothing, and he had to send her away.

  Her waking breath was sharp, as if it searched for pain and found none. Moments passed before her eyes opened. Before she whispered, "Biali?" and smiled, the same small expression he'd grown so fond of. Then confusion etched it away and she pressed her eyes shut again. "I was hurt."

  "Yes. But you're well now."

  "I should be dead, yes?"

  "...yes."

  Silence, and a slow exhalation. "And you will not tell me how this has happened."

  "No."

  Isabel opened her eyes again. "Why not?"

  "Because I love you," he said simply, foolishly, honestly, "and the thing that healed you would surely kill you if you knew how."

  Astonishment and a smile filled Isabel's eyes. "I thought you did not know those words, mi corazón. Will we be happy now," she whispered, "together and happy, as we should be?"

  "No." Biali closed his eyes in turn, then forced them open again to watch slow dismay wash the joy from Isabel's eyes. "You have to leave, Isabel. This morning, on the first train."

  "Because of the thing that healed me." Her voice had dulled, but hope still lingered. "You will come with me?"

  "I can't." Implacable as stone, that answer.

  Isabel heard it, too, and the remaining light drained from her face. "Why?"

  There was no explaining. No possible way to hide what he was. No days to be spent locked away in solitude while his body turned to stone. No way to travel apart from her, hidden in a train compartment. It couldn't be done. He'd thought about it all night. The only way was to tell her what he was, and that would lead to questions about how she had been healed. And that would cross Daisani's will, and whether there were debts owed or not, if Eliseo Daisani imagined for a moment that Biali had betrayed the Old Races' secrets—his secret in particular—to a human woman, he would be ruthless in his vengeance. Never mind that Daisani had clearly broken laws himself with the woman Vanessa. Unless Biali was willing to involve her in warfare, to level the field between himself and the vampire, he could not risk Isabel's awareness of the Old Races. "Because I'm not what you think I am."

  "You are my fighter, no?" Isabel sat up in his arms, pulling her dress into order as if she instead pulled the shreds of her dignity around her.

  Biali murmured, "Yes," even as he shook his head. "But that's both not enough and too much. Go home to Mexico, Isabel. Go home so that I can at least know you're safe. It's all I can do."

  She wouldn't look at him. "Will you remember me?"

  "Always." A promise that meant more from him than almost anyone, not that she would ever know such a thing. "Always, Isabel. Always."

  She stood and left him without looking back, and in the end, Biali thought, that was what he deserved.

  "That's how it will always be, you know." A smooth voice, one he hadn't heard in a long time. He'd known the dragonlord was in New York. He had to be if Daisani was, the two of them always mixing like oil and water. Couldn't stay apart, wouldn't stay together. Biali grunted, dismissing Janx without looking his way. Janx didn't belong up here anyway, on rooftops overlooking the city. They were a gargoyle's territory, and Biali had kept to them for the weeks since Isabel's departure. He'd checked: her belongings were gone, her house no longer rented under her name. A ticket west had been purchased on the rail line. She had gone home to safety, as he'd asked. It should not have left such an emptiness in him.

  Janx clambered over the roof wall's edge, seating an expensive-clad backside on grimy concrete, and kicked his heels against the wall like a human child, pleased with the detritus that fell toward the distant street. Biali's grunt lowered to a growl. "I didn't invite you to stay."

  "I know. Tremendously inconsiderate of you. Exceedingly rude. Hajnal would be appalled."

  No one expected him to be fast. Not in the ring, not on the streets. He was too short, too thick, like a draft horse. Full of power, not speed. But that was humans, and he never wanted anyone to mistake him for human. A fist lashed out, backhanded blow at the dragonlord's face.

  Janx, infuriatingly, caught it.

  Not easily. Gargoyles were the only real threat dragons faced from the remaining Old Races. Their strength beggared even a dragon's size, if a grip could be gotten. Janx's pretty nose should have been shattered, a red mess across his face like the Italian's. But he'd known. Known invoking Hajnal would beget a response, and so he'd been ready. Had braced himself, dragonly mass invisible in human form, but still present. Flesh smacked flesh, sharp slap of sound. Janx's arm trembled, but held.

  "Tsk, Biali. Tsk, tsk. You know the rules. No fighting amongst ourselves." He released Biali's hand, both of them knowing the stout gargoyle wouldn't throw another punch. "But no one ever said anything against us fighting for one another."

  Biali slid a glance toward the dragonlord. He was cocky, relentlessly cocky, and more beautiful than a man, human or not, had any right to be. He'd never been sure whether Janx's actual looks—handsome enough, with a slim strong jaw and straight nose, with high cheekbones and eyes jade enough to be the stone—if his looks were what made him arresting, or the sheer weight of his presence that lent compelling beauty to well-set features. Either way he used it to charm and frighten. Frighten humans, especially, but not even others of the Old Races were quite immune to the dragonlord's charm. Which was why Biali hadn't left when Janx arrived: there was a warmth to the dragon that not even stone wanted to resist. "You want me to do your dirty work."

  "Is there a more appropriate calling for a man made of stone?"

  "Stone," Biali muttered. "Not dirt."

  "What is dirt but battered stone?" Janx flashed a look toward the ruin of Biali's face, gaze full of pointed innocence. Biali ground his teeth but stayed silent. After a moment Janx gave a moue of exaggerated disappointment and went on. "I'm society, Biali. I provide certain luxuries to the wealthy and curious."

  Biali snorted. "You sell opiates to the weak and desperate."

  "Well, yes. But I do it with style." Wide-eyed injury rolled over Janx's expression when Biali didn't agree, but then he shrugged and began a third time. "I make my sales in the ballrooms and parlors, not under bridges and on street corners. I have people to do that for me." He sniffed delicately, as if he could smell the lingering stench of the unfortunates undertaking that work. "But whether in parlors or pigpens, there are those who cannot or will not pay, and they must be reminded that I own them. You loathe them," he said more softly. "That's why you fight. Why not drop the pretense and accept an opportunity to simply batter them on my behalf? It won't bring her back, but neither does this." He opened a hand, encompassing the fighting grounds below. "You're a thug, Biali. Embrace it."

  "What do you get out of it?"

  "An enforcer I can trust. One I don't have to keep secrets from. One who doesn't edge toward the door when I come into the room." The last words were dry as burning leaves, fire crackling in their depths. "You have no idea how tiresome it is to reassure big strong men that I won't have them for lunch. Particularly when I'm supposed to be threatening enough to keep them in line. Really, have you ever tri—"

  "Janx," Biali said, "I don't care."

  Janx's mouth snapped shut, affront flying across his face. It subsided again, the dragonlord as mercurial as Biali was stolid, and his eyebrows rose a fraction. "There, you see? None of them would ever dare. I'll pay you whatever you want," he added carelessly. "Introduce you at the finest parties, if you want to make them writhe. Name your price."

  "Companionship." The word flew out before Biali knew he would say it, and a snarl followed. Before he could dismiss it, though, Janx smiled.

  "As it happens, I have someone I want to introduce you to."

  Biali grunted again, anger at his own admission keeping him silent. Janx leaned forward, examining the polished leather of his expensive shoes, examining the dirty streets forty feet below, examining the muck-filled river a few yards beyond that. Examining everything, and by doing so making it clear he could wait forever. A stupid game. Gargoyles could out-wait anything, especially a dragon. And yet it was Biali who broke the silence, begrudging curiosity defeating him. "Who?"

  "Someone who won't leave you. Who won't judge or fear or flinch. Her name," Janx murmured, "is Ausra."

  coda

  The child came in the night: a sign of bad luck, the midwife said. Worse luck still, thought her grandfather the don, but he could not insist that Isabel marry as he had insisted her mother do. Mama and Papa were more forgiving, as they should be, and saw only beauty, not ill fortune, in their grandchild. They were happy, all of them. Happy until dawn, when terrible things came to pass.

  Warm fleshy tones turned dull, then black as night. Stone, unmoving, uncaring, unliving. The midwife left, never to return, and if she made it no farther than the hacienda's long drive, then Isabel did not know it until many years later. Mama screamed until the vapors took her, and Papa stood ashen with grim horror, waiting for Isabel to give up the frozen body of her child.

  She would not. Could not. Did not release it, only held its cold body against her breast and wept until nightfall, when the miracle happened.

  Life again. Warmth, breath, shining dark eyes. Hunger and anger and charm and fragile, needy life, all in the body of a child who had turned to stone by day.

  By the third night, the change was becoming familiar. After a week, Mama even joked that a child who slept so soundly during the day was a blessing indeed. And after a month, when a fit of infantile range triggered the other change, the one that sprouted wings and clawed fingertips from the baby's back and hands, then finally Isabel understood why Biali had not come with her. Why he could not, and what secrets he had tried to keep by staying.

  She would not go back to him. Not yet, perhaps not ever. But she would teach his child what kind of creature its father had been: one who loved so deeply that he chose solitude over risk. She would teach the baby to love the story of its father, and if God smiled on them all, perhaps someday father and child would be united.

  On its christening day, she named the child Hajnal.

  FORETOLD

  She had been running forever. Forever: as long as she could remember, even longer than that. A head start. That was all she asked for, it was all she needed, and it wasn't enough. Couldn't be. It wasn't that the price was too high. It was that it would eventually come home to roost. Had to. That had been the bargain. Assuming the bargain would be kept, but then, she knew it would be, even if the witch didn't. Hadn't. Still didn't, no doubt: why would a witch keep her word to any of the Old Races, especially when she drew so much power from their captured immortal souls? But Manto knew; Manto always knew, had always known since she was a hatchling, because the power of prophecy was hers, a gift and a curse.

 

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