Along the crowded wall of seats was a new statue, wedged into a narrow space near a carved vampire. Someone’s long coat was flung over its shoulder, making it easy to miss along the busy partition. Its snarling face was turned away from the camera, but the line of its jaw was visible, both broad and delicate, carefully chiseled. Long white hair fell over its shoulder, beneath the coat. The camera’s quality was too low to pick them up, but Margrit knew the hair would be carved into individual strands, a masterwork of sculpture. Upswept, pointed ears poked through the stonework hair.

“It’s just another statue,” Tony said impatiently. “What’s the big deal?”

“It-” Margrit broke off, staring at the gargoyle on the screen, then sighed. “It wasn’t there before.”

“Of course it was.” He rewound the tape, scowling.

A minute earlier, the gargoyle wasn’t there. Tony snapped upright, scowling with disbelief at the screen. “No way. No fucking way.” He fast-forwarded the tape again, watching the gargoyle appear. “Christ, but this guy’s good.”

“Good?” Margrit glanced away from the screen. “What do you mean?”

“Look at him.” Tony shook his head, grudging admiration in his voice. “Cool as a cucumber. Must’ve had that costume with him. Knew just where to hide. How the hell did he get out of there without us seeing him?”

“A costume?” Margrit asked faintly.

Tony chuckled. “It’s damned clever. He must’ve lit out of there while the camera was facing the other direction, same way he got into place.” Tony slipped an arm around her shoulders, tugging her against his chest murmuring, “Good eyes. Good thought,” into her hair. “Memory’s crazy, isn’t it? You don’t even know you’ve seen something wrong until it hits you. Good job. Thanks, Margrit. It gives me something to work with.”

She cleared her throat, turning her head under Tony’s chin to look back at the screen. “A costume,” she repeated. But it hadn’t been a costume. She remembered, all too clearly, the way the space seemed to shift around Alban as he became something both greater and lesser than a man.

“We’ll go back to the club and see if we can find any traces of the wig, anything he might’ve left behind. I wonder how he got out of there.” Tony loosened his arms enough to inch back and smile down at her. “Thanks, Grit. I don’t know what we’ll get out of it, but it’s more than we had before.” The smile faded into concern. “Go home and get some rest, okay? I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

She nodded slowly, studying the video screen a moment longer. “Okay.” She turned a brief smile up at the detective. “All right. Good luck.”

“Be careful, Grit.” He nodded a goodbye and turned back to the screen as Margrit left, glancing at her watch.

It wouldn’t be sunset for hours. Making good on her promise to rest sounded like a wise idea.

The sky went dusky blue, the sun disappearing behind the horizon, followed by a noticeable drop in temperature. Margrit tightened her arms around herself, still half-asleep. The walk from her apartment to the park hadn’t quite woken her up, despite the chill. She’d slept five hours, which would wreak havoc on her sleep schedule later, but the lingering headache had faded to almost nothing. A phone call to her doctor had assured her exercise after a mild concussion wasn’t a problem unless she was planning on joining a football game, in which case he advised against it. Margrit had promised not to play any contact sports, and went to the park, confident a run would take care of the rest of the head blow’s aftereffects.

She stretched against a park bench, shaking herself out before starting a slow jog. A mounted policeman rode past her, nodding a concerned greeting. Margrit waved, feeling guilty. It was barely past sunset, she rationalized. People were still out, cops patrolling the pathways. The hour she’d be out running wasn’t long enough or late enough to put her in danger.

And the gargoyle wouldn’t dare come out tonight, anyway. He might be seen and arrested.

Margrit’s gaze went to the sky a dozen times regardless, looking for shapes that couldn’t be. Park lights flickered on, casting new shadows that warred briefly with the last of the light from the horizon, then triumphed. The darkness held no broad-shouldered, winged creatures. Wry disappointment churned in Margrit’s stomach and she shook her head, smiling at herself. No rational person would want a gargoyle-an utterly impossible being-haunting her, anyway.

She lengthened her stride, watching the sky, and ran.

HE HADN’T COME.

The knowledge left an empty place in Margrit’s heart, unexplainable disappointment. She stood beneath the canopy over her building’s front door, looking back toward the park. Not that it was visible: streetlights illuminated the lower reaches of the cathedral nearby, its towers gray and ghostly in the night air. The park lay on the other side, well enough hidden that she couldn’t see it even if she wasn’t at ground level. Alban wasn’t going to glide out of the trees like some fairy-tale creature, ready to sweep her up and carry her away from all this.

A little shiver ran over her. All this. What was all this that she wanted escape from? She had the life she’d built, one deliberate step after another. A good school, a successful career, a relationship that looked as if it might be deciding on a sensible adult path. There was nothing to escape. There was no place for a stony-skinned…

Margrit found herself hesitating over the word monster. She’d met monsters, men whose humanity was far more removed than Alban’s seemed to be. Creature, perhaps, or being. Being lacked the pejorative implications the other words carried. There was no place for an extraordinary being like Alban in the ordered life she’d built.

She’d decided that herself, by refusing to help him. Despite his size and strength, his obviously inhuman capabilities, he’d let her go. He hadn’t stopped her with a word, as he might have. Margrit lifted her eyes to the buildings around her own, searching the shadows. Didn’t he know he might have stopped her with a word? With her name? It was how it worked in the stories. She walks away and he stops her with a single desperate plea, her name. It was classic.

And it was the stuff of films and storybooks. In the real world, men didn’t stop a woman with the utterance of one word, no more than a matter could be settled by an angry John Wayne kiss. By all rights, Alban’s behavior had been gentlemanly, no untoward pressure or embarrassing displays. That was the end of it. Margrit shook her head and turned away from the street, jogging into her building and up to her apartment.

“What’s wrong with your cell phone?” Cole called as she came in the door. “I needed cinnamon, too, but I couldn’t get ahold of you.”

She padded to the kitchen. “What?”

“What?” Cole blinked over his shoulder at her. “Oh, Grit. I thought you were Cam.”

“Not unless she’s really been working on her tan.” Margrit came to peer around his arm at the stove. “What’s for dinner? Where’s Cam?”

“She went to get some evaporated milk. We’re out. Did you make something with it?”

“I don’t even know what evaporated milk is, Cole. Wouldn’t it be gone by default? I did use the last of the cinnamon, though.”

Cole turned an astonished look on her. Margrit shrugged. “Cinnamon toast. What, you think I was making cinnamon cheesecake or something?”

“No, but now that you mention it, that sounds like a great idea. Why don’t you?”

Margrit gaped at him in horror. Cole laughed. “Someday you’re going to have to explain your great fear of cooking to me, Grit.”

She climbed onto the counter, ignoring his scowl as she locked her elbows and leaned. “You really want to know?”

“The curiosity is killing me.”