House of Cards. C.E. Murphy

voice again. Margrit groaned aloud and shook her head against the door.

      “Right. You don’t kill anybody yourself, right? You just hire people to do it.” Janx had all but confessed to arranging Vanessa Gray’s assassination, and it had been through his cell phone records that Margrit had helped the police track down the hired killer. The man had never gone to trial. Instead, shortly after his arrest, he’d been found spread in grisly detail across the Rikers Island prison courtyard. Rumor said the inmates were told he’d been arrested for child molestation, and had meted out their own justice. Margrit had no intention of asking whether Daisani had taken matters into his own inhuman hands.

      “Don’t be silly, Margrit. Of course I kill people.” Janx sounded downright cheerful, enough that she pulled the phone away to eye it. Uncomfortable as she was with the thought of the Old Races facing the human justice system, Janx’s bald-faced admission was beyond the pale.

      “I am a lawyer, Janx. You shouldn’t go around telling me you kill people.”

      “You’re not recording this conversation, are you?” Thin tension came back into Janx’s voice at the question, lifting hairs on Margrit’s arms. The dragonlord had rarely been anything but ruthlessly chipper in her experiences with him. She was certain she didn’t want to know what was making him cautious, and equally certain she would find out.

      “I don’t usually record my home phone calls, but if you’re going to be calling up regularly to make blanket confessions, I might start. What’s going on?”

      “We’ll discuss it this evening. I’ll send a car for you.”

      “Just as long as Malik’s not driving.” The djinn, Janx’s second in command, had none of the dragonlord’s peculiar sense of honor. That Malik coveted power had been obvious in Margrit’s first meeting with him, but he was no match in personality or intellect for Janx. A nasty, cruel man, he exercised what power he had over those he considered inferior, and Margrit numbered among them. Janx might play with her, cat and mouse, more interested in the game than domination, but Malik would simply hurt her until she broke or died. She had stood her ground against dragons and vampires, but it was the djinn who frightened her.

      Too late, she grimaced at the implied consent in her answer. “Don’t bother sending a car. I’ll get there myself.” Then impulse caught her and she asked, “Tonight?” with as much wide-eyed ingenuity as she could. “You don’t think my boss would be okay with me cutting out for a few hours to visit the notorious House of Cards and rub elbows with a gangster?”

      “If I’d gotten to him first,” Janx said mildly, “I have no doubt it could have been arranged. The situation, I fear, is otherwise, and so I’ll see you this evening. Goodbye, Margrit.”

      “If you’d—What? Dammit!” Margrit glowered at the silent phone, then got to her feet and stomped around the apartment as she finished getting ready for the day.

      A Town Car idled on the street, its driver leaning on the hood so he could watch her building’s front door. As Margrit exited, he snapped to attention, calling, “Ms. Knight? I’m your transportation.”

      Margrit looked both ways along the street, as if someone else might appear and answer to her name. “Are you talking to me?”

      “Yes, ma’am.” He was a few years her elder, far too young to call her ma’am.

      Margrit glanced up the street again, a terse smile forming. “I’m sorry. There must be a mistake. Excuse me.” She turned and managed a few steps before the driver moved in front of her.

      “I’m supposed to give you this if there’s a problem, ma’am.” He offered a sleek cell phone, so small that his palm dwarfed it. “The number you want is programmed in.”

      “The number I want,” Margrit echoed disbelievingly, and took the phone with dismay curdling her stomach. A glass of orange juice had seemed like a good idea minutes earlier. Now it felt like a bottle of acid had been poured into her belly and left to churn. She pressed the dial button and raised the phone to her ear, wincing preemptively.

      “You have a problem, Miss Knight.” Eliseo Daisani sounded distressingly pleased to make such an announcement.

      Margrit, prediction fulfilled, bit her tongue and waited until her impulse to respond with sarcasm faded. “Good morning, Mr. Daisani. Coming from you, that’s an alarming statement.” Coming from Eliseo Daisani, almost anything could be alarming. The appalling quickness with which he moved came back to Margrit as forcefully as the taste of his blood had the night before.

      “Good morning,” he said, undeterred by her stiffness. “I think you’ll want to come to my office to discuss your problem, rather than stand there on the street.”

      “It’s a quarter to eight, Mr. Daisani. I’m on my way to work.” It was an obligatory line of defense that allowed Daisani to chortle indulgently.

      “Of course you are. I’ve already spoken with Mr. Lomax,” he assured her. Margrit bit her tongue again, this time on an exclamation of understanding. Daisani had gotten to her boss first, forcing Janx into the situation he called otherwise. “He can spare you for an hour or two,” Daisani went on. “Obviously, your ride is there, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

      Clichéd protests leapt to Margrit’s lips. “You can’t do this, Mr. Daisani,” was first and most obvious of them, though it was abundantly clear that he could, in fact, arrange her schedule to his liking. “I’ve asked you not to call me at work,” ran a close second, foiled by Margrit neither being at work yet nor having had the foresight to make that request. She said neither, clenching the phone and staring at the Town Car as people rushed by.

      Getting in constituted Daisani winning a round. Margrit ran her thumb over the phone’s number pad with a half-formed thought of calling her boss and asking if the business mogul had indeed arranged for her to come in late. She had no doubt, though, that he had, and that Russell would tell her not to be absurd by refusing the vehicle Daisani had sent for her. She’d end up going regardless, and only arrive at Daisani’s stunning corporate headquarters breathless from walking. Margrit flipped the phone shut and let the driver open the car door for her.

      Minutes later, the security guard at Daisani’s headquarters waved her in without asking for identification. Though it told her there was no chance she’d have turned Daisani down, not having to sign in made her feel better. She pushed the elevator button hard enough to hurt her finger, making a face at her own inconsistency.

      Polished brass walls inside the lift reflected her sour-faced image back at her. Margrit drew herself up, shaking off the countenance of ill temper. There was no point in facing Daisani already on-edge and sulky. When the doors whisked open, she stepped out with at least a semblance of good nature in place.

      On the surface, the front lobby of Daisani’s suites hadn’t changed since the last time she’d been there. It was opulent, with an enormous curved desk of pale wood dominating the room. No one sat behind the desk, and an embossed brown leather appointment book lay at a careful angle on its otherwise empty surface. The rest of the room was equally ostentatious, all the chairs antiques, many of them covered in rich red velvet that Margrit knew was as soft as it looked. Hardwood floors reflected inset lights from the ceiling, but not harshly; the whole room glowed with a warm, winning ambience.

      Because she knew where to look for it, a slightly paler patch on the wood-paneled walls revealed where a portrait had once hung. Margrit walked around the desk and touched the spot gently, unexpected regret rising to clog her throat.

      “Miss Knight.”

      Margrit flinched, yanking her hand away and twisting it behind her back as she faced Eliseo Daisani. “Mr. Daisani. I didn’t hear you come in.”

      The doors behind him, nearly twice the height of normal doors, were open just enough to let him step through. Their size emphasized his: Eliseo Daisani was not a big man, barely taller than Margrit herself. Framed by the doorway, he appeared almost delicate.