CHAPTER SIX

Backwards up the mossy glen Turned and trooped the goblin men

The sudden blare of the television brought Tango snapping out of a deep sleep, her eyes wide and her silver knife already in hand. Stunned by the abrupt awakening, she watched the perky hostess on the screen of the small set atop Riley’s dresser for almost a minute before the time imprinted itself on her brain. Eight o’clock. Riley used his television for an alarm clock. Tango groaned. Her eyelids drooped back down. She’d seen a remote control around somewhere as she'd tumbled into bed late last night. She groped for it amidst the litter of Riley’s dirty clothes.

“...all coming up in the next half-hour,” chattered the television hostess brightly. “But now here’s Oliver with this morning’s news.”

The shot changed to a casually dressed man with a bank of cluttered desks behind him and a serious, deeply concerned look on his face. “Thanks, Jennifer. There’s been...”

The man disappeared into silent oblivion as Tango found the remote and clicked it at the television. She let her knife vanish and collapsed back down onto the mattress. Riley got up at eight o’clock. She couldn’t believe it. Tango closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep. She, at least, was still willing to sleep until noon. Usually that was a function of the hours she kept working at Pan’s. Kithain tended to be a little more energetic than the average human, but even they needed and enjoyed sleep. Today, especially, Tango had sleep to catch up on. The stress of Riley’s disappearance, of the visit to Duke Michael’s court, of Epp’s geasa, of her own abortive attempts to reach the airport... of the entire wearying and maddeningly frustrating previous day, had left her utterly drained.

There was no hurry for her to get up. There would be precious little she could do until the sun went down and Miranda could bring her Riley’s bags from the airport. She might as well sleep. Tango pulled a sheet over her head and buried her face in a pillow. She was glad that she had met Miranda last night. It had been a fortunate meeting. What she had told the vampire was true — it made an enormous difference for her just to be able to talk to someone, anyone, who could understand what was happening, someone who understood what hid in the world’s darkness. It didn’t hurt to have Miranda as an ally, either. She didn’t think any of the Kithain of Toronto would be particularly sympathetic toward her or Riley, even if she were inclined to seek out their company. She had considered going to Ruby, the old gatekeeper, but that would have brought her back to Duke Michael’s doorstep. And that was the last place she wanted to go, right now.

Tango turned her head and screwed her eyes tightly shut, trying to find unconsciousness again. So what was she going to do until Miranda came? The usual tourist attractions came to mind, but they hardly seemed appropriate. Tango couldn’t bear the thought of wandering mindlessly through some museum exhibit or art gallery. She disliked shopping. Maybe she could find a gym and lose a few hours working out. The idea of slamming weights around was satisfyingly physical. Swimming, a run around the city. She almost wished Miranda hadn’t ordered her out of Hopeful last night. She missed the release of her nightly shift at Pan’s.

She peered out from the sheets at the clock on Riley’s bedside table. Eight-oh-eight. Tango closed her eyes again and waited as long as she could, then looked at the clock again. Eight-thirteen. She groaned and pushed herself up. She wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep. Her mind was awake and demanding that her body follow its example.

A long, hot shower helped. Riley’s bathroom was as disorganized as the rest of his apartment. The bathtub was cluttered with a profusion of half-used shampoos, conditioners and specialty soaps, each discarded as Riley’s attention was caught by something new⁷. Tango washed with a rough mud soap and lathered her hair with a shampoo that smelled of coconuts, then wrapped herself in one of Riley’s robes and walked barefoot into the living room. The VCR under the big television in the living room read eight-thirty. Tango turned on the TV. The same hostess as before came on, passing the spotlight to the same anchorman for another round of news. Tango went into the kitchen to look for coffee.

“Murder our top story this morning,” said the anchorman, “as Toronto’s gay community deals with another violent death.” Tango paused, coffee canister in hand. “Our cameras were at the scene on Gloucester Street shortly after the police arrived.”

Tango ducked back out into the living room in time to see flashing lights against a dawn-lit sky. Ambulances and police cars were parked in front of a big old Victorian brick house that looked as though it had been converted into apartments. People dressed in shorts and T-shirts, sweatpants, housecoats and all kinds of other clothing stood and watched as ambulance attendants brought a black bodybag on a stretcher out through the front door. “Dead is twenty-six-year-old Todd Hyde, a bartender at a popular Church Street bar. Police aren’t saying much, but there is widespread speculation that the killing is related to the beating death yesterday of John Elliott. Unconfirmed sources say that Hyde was beaten, and that there are other similarities in the circumstances of the two deaths. A news conference has been scheduled for eleven o’clock. We’ll have more for you on our noon report.”

The picture changed to scenes of destruction in some foreign city, but Tango was no longer listening. She sat down on the couch, still holding the coffee canister, and stared at the screen. Todd was dead. Tango slid down onto her knees and scrambled over to the television. She flipped through the channels rapidly, hoping to catch another segment about the murder on some other newscast. There was nothing. All of the local stations had led with the story^ while the American stations had no mention of it at all. The national news service covered it briefly, showing footage picked up from the first station but not speculating on the facts behind the death. Tango watched again as Todd’s plastic-shrouded corpse was brought out and placed in a waiting ambulance.

And she was ashamed that her first thought wasn’t about the blond-haired man who had tried to help her. It was about Miranda.

The vampire had lied to her. She had said that she and her pack weren’t involved with the first murder at Hopeful, but here was a second murder on a night the vampires had been there! Miranda had...

No. Tango ground her teeth. She was jumping to conclusions. Just because vampires preyed on humans didn’t mean that vampires were involved every time a human died violently. The news said Todd had been beaten to death. As Miranda had pointed out, it was very unlikely that a vampire would beat someone to death. Tango took a deep breath. There was bound to be blood loss in any murder committed by a vampire. If that was true, it would come out later, at the news conference or in an autopsy. In the meantime, she would trust Miranda. She had no choice anyway. She needed the vampire to bring her Riley’s bags.

Riley.

Tango sat back. Both the murdered men and Riley were connected with Hopeful. Could whoever had kidnapped Riley be responsible for the murders as well? She rocked back and forth. If they were... she remembered her notice, torn down from Hopeful’s message board. If they were, her inquiries had led them to Todd. But why? The mysterious kidnappers had to know where she was, had to know that someone, at least, was staying in Riley’s apartment. Why hadn’t they come for her instead?

She tried to persuade herself that it was a coincidence, like the vampires being at Hopeful. There was no need to invoke mysterious figures and the dark forces of the world. Human hatred could be enough to lead someone to murder. The murders could just be gay-bashing, someone lashing out at homosexuals. Just gay-bashing. Tango felt disgusted at herself for thinking it, but she almost hoped that that was all it was.

She reached out and turned off the television. She considered the canister of coffee sitting on the couch. Coffee would taste good right now, but she really didn’t need the jittery high of caffeine. She needed something to do. Working out wasn’t a possibility anymore. She didn’t want to just put in time waiting. She needed to feel like she was doing something,

* * *

Something ended up being the task she had believed impossible last night: sifting through Riley’s belongings for some clue about what was going on. The task still seemed impossible, but now Tango was desperate. She at least had to make the attempt. There was the slim chance that the kidnappers had missed something in the chaos of the apartment.

Of course, they had known what to look for. She didn’t.

Tango started her search with the cabinet where the yellow file had been hidden. For the most part, the old sideboard contained nothing more than unsorted papers and a few large pieces of dusty dinnerware relegated to the top shelf. The papers were largely articles and comic strips cut out of newspapers. Occasionally there was an entire newspaper. The clippings were often surprisingly old. One reported the first launch of the American space shuttle. Others focused on the fashion trends of the early eighties, or on advances in computer technology. One stack the thickness of a telephone book covered four seasons of the Winter Olympics. Tango wanted to scream in frustration. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to what Riley had kept. She tried invoking a kenning and looking over each piece of paper closely. Riley might have used Glamour to disguise something of true importance. But he hadn’t. Each newspaper clipping was exactly what it appeared to be. Tango swept her gaze around the apartment, searching for anything else that might radiate the Glamour of enchantment. There was nothing.

With a sigh, she pushed the papers back into the cabinet and slowly began to sift through the rest of the apartment’s contents. Somewhere along the way, her search turned into a half-hearted attempt at cleaning and organizing. Epp, Tango reflected bitterly, would have been proud of her. She couldn’t help tidying up. She had to try and make some sense of Riley’s belongings. Books went into one pile, loose papers into another, discarded clothes into a third. Dishes went into the kitchen to join an already precarious pile in and beside the sink. Odds and ends — a paperweight, a little brass bowl, a blown-glass sculpture she had once given Riley — stayed where they were. As soon as Tango had an open space cleared, she began to fill it up again with objects and papers that struck her as suspicious. Or at least potentially suspicious. There was no way of being sure. The pile became awkwardly large very quickly.

It felt strange to be going through Riley’s things. Some of what she found astounded her, or surprised her, or simply embarrassed her. She had done this sort of thing before, of course, but that had been when close friends had died. And there had always been other people with her to share in the searching and in the mourning.

For all she knew, Riley could be dead already.

She refused to let herself think that. Tango looked at the big, old-fashioned dictionary in her hands, then over at the clock on the VCR. Eleven-thirty. She had been at this for over two hours. The police would have held their news conference on Todd’s murder. She put the dictionary down on top of a stack of old magazines. This was pointless. She wasn’t going to find anything. With a sigh, she sat down on the couch. The air in the apartment had become hot and sticky, a reflection of the weather outside. Either the air conditioning wasn’t working, or the building was too old to have it. Her shifting and sorting had created a haze of dust in the still air. Dust clung to her sweaty skin as well, and settled in her hair. Another shower would be good, she decided. Another shower, and then she could watch the noon news report. In fact, if it wasn’t for the news, she might have been tempted to spend the rest of the day under the relaxing comfort of falling water. She could almost empty her mind of all thoughts, forgetting about Riley and about Todd. Almost, but not quite.

When she came out of the bathroom, Epp was waiting for her.

Tango stared at the gray-haired Kithain seated patiently on the couch. It took her a moment longer to register that the apartment was absolutely, spotlessly clean. Two big bags and a blue recycling box full of papers waited beside the door. Old human fairy stories told about the ability of boggans to accomplish fantastic tasks — particularly household chores — incredibly quickly when no one was watching them. The stories weren’t exaggerating. Tango growled and advanced on Epp, already letting Glamour fill her and change her into her nocker seeming. “What the hell did I tell you last night?” she hissed. “And how did you get in here?” “I have my ways,” the boggan replied calmly. Tango suspected that Epp’s ways involved a set of duplicate keys. She seized the front of Epp’s dress and hauled her to her feet. Tango’s knife appeared in her other hand. She wouldn’t actually harm the other Kithain, but Epp didn’t have to know that.

“Get out.”

Epp eyed the knife with a calm that just barely disguised a deep, deep terror. “I’m afraid I can’t. I have orders from the duke. His Jester must take a direct hand in planning the Highsummer Party.”

“Really?” asked Tango with angry skepticism. “Why?” She twisted the knife so that light flashed menacingly from its edge. Epp shuddered.

“You’re the only one authorized to use the charge card,” she said, a little reluctantly. Epp pointed at her purse and her ever-present notebook, still sitting on the couch. “In there. It looks like a gold card.”

Tango didn’t release her. “A credit card? A Kithain credit card?”

“Humans don’t let us just take things. We still have to pretend to pay for what we need, and large amounts of cash suddenly turning into leaves in a store’s register is very conspicuous.” Epp looked bitter. “Up until now, the duke had authorized me to use it as well. I even had my own card. But since Riley’s card is missing with him, Duke Michael has had it canceled, and told me to give mine to you.” She glared at Tango. “I don’t like this either. Put me down and we’ll get going.”

“The only place I want to see you going is out the door.” Tango dropped Epp, then reached for the boggan’s purse. It was fat and black, very matronly, but as neat as Tango would have expected any of Epp’s possessions to be. The account card was in her wallet, a shining piece of plastic that looked more like real gold than any actual gold card Tango had ever seen. She could feel the Glamour in it and looked at it again, this time using a kenning. The card was still just a card, except that instead of a magnetic strip, there was a fat, pulsing leech clinging to the back. “Lovely.” She shoved the purse at Epp, but kept the card. “Do without it,” she said nastily.

“What?”

“I’m not in the mood to go shopping. You must have money of your own. Use it. I’m not doing you any favors.”

Epp drew a hissing breath. “Come with me,” she threatened, “or I’ll tell the duke you were going to leave Toronto.”

“Do it!” Tango snapped back sharply. “Then, when the duke has punished me, we’ll see if the next Jester is willing to let you push them around so easily. Or,” she added, “maybe I could start organizing the party myself.”

“You wouldn’t!” Epp gasped.

Tango felt like she was in high school, arguing over who was going to plan the senior prom. But it was her only leverage against Epp, and she was going to run it into the ground even if it meant she actually had to wear a prom dress. She gave Epp a steady stare and said, “I would.”

There wasn’t a trace of bluff in her voice, and Epp knew it. The boggan became very quiet. Tango sat down on the couch. It was time for the noon-hour news. She looked for the remote control. It wasn’t where she had left it; Epp had put it on top of the television. Tango walked over, picked it up and turned on the television, then went back to the couch.

“Tango...” Epp began.

Tango cut her off in a voice that would tolerate no contradiction. “After the news.” Let the older Kithain stew.

The news came on with a flourish of dramatic music. The noon anchor wore the same expression of concern that the morning anchor had, the same somber expression that news anchors everywhere wore. “Good afternoon. Police held a news conference this morning, giving out details about last night’s murder of bartender Todd Hyde.”

The camera cut to a scene of a heavyset man wearing a jacket and tie. The harsh lights of conflicting television cameras gave him an odd, depthless look, wiping away the shadows that might have given him character. He was clearly reading from a prepared statement. “The deceased was found at 6:30 A.M. by a building superintendent responding to complaints from a resident on the lower floor about water seeping through the bathroom ceiling. Upon entering the deceased’s apartment, he discovered the body and the police were summoned.” The spokesman looked up for a moment, perhaps trying to give the illusion of spontaneity to his words, but the flat tone of his voice spoiled the attempt. “The seepage of water was caused by an overflowing bathtub, but the body was found in the bedroom. Preliminary examination suggests that the deceased was beaten to death. His body was then straightened, his arms crossed over his chest, and pennies placed on his eyelids. An autopsy is currently underway.” His eyes went back to his script. “The investigation is being conducted by the homicide squad. Todd Hyde was last seen leaving work at Hopeful, a Church Street bar, at one-thirty last night. If you have any information, please call...”

Someone out of the shot called out, “So this is related to the Elliott murder? Do you have any leads?” The police spokesman looked startled, as if he hadn’t expected any questions.

“We can’t comment on that at this time.”

Tango clenched her jaw. She had been hoping for something more. The same footage she had seen at eight-thirty was played again as the anchor recapped the death in terms slightly more graphic and speculative, then added, “Reaction in Metro’s gay community has been swift.”

A new scene. Tango recognized the interior of Hopeful and the little shrine commemorating John Elliott. Now Todd’s picture had joined his customer’s. A man was speaking, his appearance as different from the police spokesman’s as possible: his head was shaved, he had multiple earrings, and he wore a T-shirt printed with a vivid pink triangle. “The police are doing nothing! Bashing is on the rise and the police aren’t taking it seriously. John’s and Todd’s deaths are hate crimes. Some lunatic is out there preying on homosexuals, murdering us, and what are the police doing? What are the straights doing? They’re shaking their heads and saying ‘Oh, it was probably their own fault.’ Well, we’re not going to let Toronto ignore this.”

The camera came back to the anchor. “No plans for memorial services yet, but we’ll let you know when announcements are made. In other news...” Tango turned off the television, punching savagely at the button on the remote.

Epp cleared her throat. “Tango?”

Tango didn’t turn around. “Take the geasa off me.” “I can’t. You’ll go back to San Francisco.”

“I won’t.” Tango sighed. As long as she had Miranda to help her, she didn’t need to leave the city — although she wished she didn’t have to wait to get Riley’s bags. She would have liked to have them now. “All right, but let’s make this perfectly clear.” She shifted to look at Epp. “I do not want to be involved in this damn party, i have other things to worry about.” “Are you still looking for Riley? The duke...”

“The duke can go screw himself. You plan the party, Epp. When you need something paid for, let me know. I’ll pay for it. Better yet, save the payments up. I’ll do them all at once. I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to hear from you unless it’s absolutely necessary. Understand?”    .

“Yes.” Epp hesitated, then added, “What about today? I have appointments scheduled. I have a whole list of places to visit. I may need the card to pay for things.”

Tango put her hands over her eyes and rested her head against the back of the couch. She wasn’t doing anything else anyway. “Okay. Let me get dressed. We can take my car.”

“Actually, we can’t. The duke told Dex to help me

— or rather, us. We’ll take his car when he gets back.”

“Gets back from where?” Tango asked tightly, head still back.

“Taking your car back to the rental agency.” Epp seemed pleased with herself. “I decided you wouldn’t really need it, so I gave him the keys while you were in the shower. He should be back anytime. By the way, you were charged extra for parking overnight.” Tango heard a rustle of paper. “You’re lucky you didn’t get towed. Parking is such a hassle in Toronto.”

Tango was glad her hands were over her eyes. Otherwise they would almost certainly have been around Epp’s neck.

* * *

Dex, it turned out, was much more like Sin than Tango would have suspected from her brief encounter with him yesterday. Away from the duke’s court, he smiled and laughed a lot. He was as unfailingly polite as any of the humans Tango had met in Toronto, but it was the politeness of noblesse oblige rather than a cold, defensive politeness. Aside from the air of nobility that he sometimes wore like a cologne, Dex was also much less like a sidhe than Tango would have expected. Occasionally, he could be as downright adolescent and immature as a university student at a beer blast. He was a golden boy out of some American nostalgia movie, the perfect counterpart to Sin’s dark rebel. Neither of them were what the ancient faeries would have expected in a faerie knight.

At a bakery, they waited while Epp discussed a massive order with the manager. This was the third bakery they had been to so far. Epp was being very demanding, very brisk and businesslike. She had a recipe for bread like none Tango had ever seen before. Tango had never been much of a cook, but she suspected that Epp’s recipe would produce a loaf not unlike an egg bread, rich and golden and filled with fruit and nuts. It might almost have been a dessert bread, but Epp insisted that it would be part of the main course for an enormous feast. The first two bakeries had looked over the list of ingredients and the almost arcane directions for the baking, and replied that they could make something similar from a variation of one of their stock recipes. Epp had been adamant that the bread be produced according to her recipe. Tango was sure that the staff of the bakeries must have been snickering at her demands almost before the trio of Kithain had left.

At least the third bakery seemed to be somewhat more receptive to Epp’s stringent wishes, and the boggan had come down to talking prices with the manager. Tango groaned as Epp tried to haggle him down. It wasn’t as though there was any need to save money. The duke’s card had an apparently inexhaustible limit. Tango had felt guilty every time she paid for something with it, hoping that the fake credit wouldn’t somehow reflect back on the storeowners. The little credit card machines always approved the card, however, so presumably the credit was being swallowed by some giant credit corporation. “Why does she bother?” she complained out loud to Dex.

The golden sidhe put down a bag of croissants and shrugged. “Part of her nature. You know the joke about the sidhe, the redcap and the boggan who found flies in their beer?”

“Like the human joke about the Englishman, the Irishman and the Scotsman?” Tango yawned. “Englishman covers the beer with a napkin and sets it aside, Irishman flicks the fly out and keeps drinking, Scotsman picks the fly out very carefully and yells ‘spit it out, you little bugger, spit it out!’”

“Basically. Except the redcap eats the fly.” Dex smiled at a saleswoman behind the bakery counter. She blushed and smiled back. “I think this is some kind of ancestral recipe of Epp’s. Something that has been passed down for centuries. I heard her mention once that it’s the original recipe for Cornish saffron buns, given to a Cornish housewife by a faerie queen in exchange for mending her shadow. She’s been saving it for a really special occasion. I hope it’s worth it.” Tango made a grimace of disgust. “So do I. I had something once that an old Scottish sluagh claimed was heather ale made according to an ancient Pictish recipe. It could have taken paint off the wall. Ancient recipes don’t always work out too well.”

“Maybe they need more Glamour to turn out right. Like there was in the old days.”

“Maybe.” Tango considered a basket full of brightly decorated gingerbread men and women. Her stomach snarled at her and she made her decision. “I’d like the one with the yellow skirt, please," she told the woman behind the counter. “Do you want one, Dex?”

“The one with red hair,” he said lasciviously. The woman behind the counter, a redhead, blushed again and gave him two: a gingerbread woman with red icing hair and a gingerbread man with yellow. When Tango tried to pay for three, the server would only take payment for the two that had been ordered. Tango rolled her eyes as they stepped outside to eat the cookies.

“Does anyone from your court ever pay humans for anything?”

“Not if we can help it,” Dex grinned. “If they want to give us things for free, well...”

“I can see why Riley liked it here so much. He’d fit right in.” Tango broke a leg off her cookie and popped it in her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then added, “Did... I mean, do you know Riley, Dex? What can you tell me about him?”

Dex paused. “You know that the duke has forbidden anyone to look for him, don’t you?”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t ask what you thought of him, does it?”

“I guess not. He was a pretty okay guy. I mean, he was a pooka. He lived for pranks. About the only real contact I had with him was through the court after he became the duke’s Jester.”

“Was there anybody that he really pissed off? Anyone who might want revenge on him?”

“Lots of people. Most of the court. Probably a lot of humans, too, not that they would have realized what was going on.” He bit the head off one of his cookies.

“How about a mage?” Tango thought of the little girl’s voice on the answering machine.

Dex almost choked. “A mage? Not even Riley would have gone against the duke’s orders to stay away from them!”

“But he did, remember?”

“Yeah, okay. In San Francisco.” He shook his head. “I don’t think Riley would have tried doing that here. Besides, there are hardly any mages in Toronto. I’ve

heard of one or two, maybe three.”

“What Tradition?” Tango asked eagerly. Some mages were more likely than others to have the ability to transform a person as Riley had apparently been transformed. “Verbena? Akashic Brotherhood?” She groped for a name from the Technocracy, the enemies of the mages. “Progenitors?” Dex just gave her a blank look. She sighed. And she had complained to Miranda about vampires being insular! “All right, how about telling me where I can find them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t play court games with me, Dex. This thing of the duke’s about mages can’t have completely fried your brain.”

“I really don’t know, Tango! I’ve never paid that much attention. All I’ve heard is that they’re do-gooders, not the kind of people who would go out for revenge.”

“Damn.” Tango angrily bit the last piece of her cookie in half. “How about anyone he hung out with? A blond man, maybe?”

Dex shrugged again. “Never saw him with anyone outside court. Of course, I didn’t see him much outside of court at all.”

Tango frowned. “So you don’t know anything about this blond guy?”

“Nothing. Sorry.” Dex brushed crumbs off his fingers.

A knock on the window from the inside of the store brought the conversation to an end; Epp stood on the other side of the glass, her fingers miming a small rectangle. It was time to pay. Tango took her time savoring the last bite of her gingerbread, making the boggan wait. When she was ready, she went in, shook the bakery manager’s hand and put down the account card, ignoring Epp’s hostile glares. “Where to next?” she asked sweetly as the bakery’s credit-card machine coughed up another approval for the phony card. In addition to the three bakeries, they had also stopped at two florists, an interior design supply house, a graphic design firm and a gourmet caterer whose services Epp had eventually rejected. It was getting very late in the afternoon, and most stores would be closing soon.

“A chocolate shop in College Park,” replied Epp frostily. “And you’ll be happy to know that it’s on your way home. We’ll drop you off after we’re finished there.”

“Thanks ever so much.”

Their route took them down Bay Street, a wide avenue between the steel-and-glass temples of business. For all of the street’s width, however, their progress became slower and slower as they neared their destination. “Rush hour?” asked Tango from the rear seat of Dex’s Mustang.

“It’s not usually this bad on Bay.” Dex was frowning at the traffic in the oncoming lanes. It was heavy, but moving fairly quickly. “Something must be happening. Maybe an accident. People are rubbernecking and slowing things down.”

They discovered the source of the trouble as they stopped for a red light at the last intersection before the lot where Dex w'ould park. A mass of people clogged the cross-street, College Street, just past the intersection. Police on horses kept watch over them, while a white-gloved cop stood in the intersection and directed traffic coming along College onto Bay instead. Dex’s was the first car idling at the intersection, so they had a good view of the crowd. Tango stood up to see over the turning traffic. There were a lot of pink triangles visible in that crowd, and a lot of angry faces. People held hand-painted signs with slogans like “Action Now!”, “End bashing!”, and “Justice for John and Todd!” “What’s down there?” she asked Dex.

“Police headquarters.” He had taken off his sunglasses and was looking as well. “We don’t usually get demonstrations like this in Toronto. It looks like it could get ugly.”

Epp glanced away from the demonstration with distaste. “Sex belongs in the bedroom,” she said sanctimoniously.

Dex snorted. “When was the last time...”

“Hold on.” Tango grabbed Dex’s shoulder and pointed. “Something’s happening.”

A young man with a megaphone had jumped on someone’s shoulders and was swaying above the crowd. Tango recognized the activist from Hopeful whom she had seen on the news. “Queen’s Park!” he bellowed. “Queen’s Park! The government has to listen to us!” He put his fist in the air and began to chant, “We’re here! We’re queer! We’re...” The crowd took up his chant and slowly began to turn. The mounted police officers glanced at each other. One of the horses shifted nervously. Its rider reined it in.

Tango glanced at Dex. “Queen’s Park?”

“Ontario legislature. Big, old, pinkish stone building we passed a couple of times today.” He pointed off to the right. “Straight down there about two blocks.” “They’ll be going right past us.” Tango slid down into her seat.

“Nothing to worry about.” Dex put his sunglasses back on. “If the cops are smart and things don't get out of hand, they’ll go by and we can get going again. Pity the poor souls down College where they’ll be marching. They’re going to be completely trapped.”

By now, the crowd had turned almost fully and the front lines — formerly the quiet hangers-on at the back of the crowd — found themselves face to face with the mounted officers. There was a tense moment as the demonstrators and the police stared each other down, then the line of horses opened up, pulling back to either side. The demonstrators began to pour through into the intersection.

Tango didn’t catch what happened next. There was a sudden commotion on the far side of the intersection, near the horse that had shied nervously before. Abruptly, people were shouting and placards were being waved threateningly. The mounted officer was trying to control his horse, but it fought him and reared up. Tango thought she saw a hoof flash out and strike someone.

The shouts of the crowd became screams of anger. More people continued to pour into the intersection, the press of the crowd carrying them forward. Everyone was yelling. Other mounted officers tried to move in; Tango heard the one closest to them start to shout into his radio before a demonstrator jumped up and tried to pull it out of his hand. The officer pushed him down. Ten more demonstrators howled in outrage and rushed forward.    ,

Dex was suddenly sitting bolt upright. “Oh, shit.”

Tango glanced over her shoulder. “The northbound lanes,” she said quickly. Dex glanced back as well and nodded; smoothly turning the steering wheel to escape back the way they had come. Unfortunately, the two cars immediately behind them had exactly the same idea and their drivers were less cautious than Dex. They jerked out almost simultaneously and far too fast. With a blaring of horns and squealing of brakes, one rammed the other. One of the horns continued to wail, adding to the noise of crowd. A second later, a surge in the fighting blocked any chance of going around the accident. Dex stopped, the nose of his Mustang halfturned into the intersection and the raging crowd.

A red-faced demonstrator slapped his hands down on the hood of the Mustang with a bang. “Hets!” he screamed. “Hatemongers! End bashing now! End bashing now!”

More demonstrators joined him, slapping the car and chanting, shouting in Tango’s face. Demonstrators began to surround other cars as well, filling the air with angry yells and the pounding of hands on metal. Tango tried to remain calm, looking for a way out. There was no reasoning with people in this state. Epp was cringing away from them, holding up her notebook like a shield. “Get away!” she shrieked. Glamour filled her, bringing a flush to her fat cheeks, and she worked a desperate cantrip. “Get away from me!” A few of the protesters obeyed meekly, moving away from the car, but there were always more willing to take their place. Epp curled up in her seat, shrieking in fright. Dex...

Dex was white-faced and thin-lipped, sunglasses hiding his eyes. Glamour filled him as well, but it was the noble Glamour of the sidhe, as cold and arrogant as Tango had ever seen it. Grimly, he revved the Mustang’s engine, pushing the roar of the car against the shouts of the crowd. Tango realized what he was thinking. She leaned forward and yelled in his ear, “Dex! No!”

The first red-faced demonstrator took the roar of the engine as a challenge instead of a warning. Still shouting “End bashing now!” he climbed up onto the hood.

Dex’s tightly pressed lips parted ever so slightly. “Get... off... of my., car,” he growled.

“Dex!” screamed Tango.

The demonstrator lifted a foot to stomp on the hood. “End bashing...”

Dex slammed the Mustang into gear and pressed the accelerator to the floor.

Demonstrators’ screams of anger turned into screams of shock and terror as the Mustang plowed through them. Some got out of the way or jumped back. Some

— too close, too tightly held by the bodies around them, or simply too angry to know better — had skin torn as projections on the car caught them, or bones broken as the tires ran them down. Tango felt several horrible bumps as people were knocked to the ground and run over. The red-faced demonstrator yelled as the initial acceleration pitched him forward, a yell that ended in a sickening crunch as his cheek struck the top of the windshield. He rolled down and off the car.

Dex drove across a corner of the intersection and onto the now-empty section of College Street beyond the riot, heedless of whom he struck. A mounted police officer pulled her horse out of the car’s path just in time. Tango stared back at the riot in shock. “You might have killed people back there!”

“Humans,” said Dex with angry dismissal. “They’re nothing.”

“Yeah, well, I bet that cop got a pretty good look at your license plate!” Tango spat, fuming w'ith rage. “Did you ever hear of paint chip analysis?”

Dex laughed, a short, arrogant bark. “She won’t remember us. None of them will. There will be so many conflicting descriptions of us and so many contradictory lab reports that they’d have to bring in every car in the city!” He glanced at Tango in the rearview mirror. “Forget about it.”'

Tango’s mouth twisted and her stomach knotted in disgust. “Take me home.”

“What about the chocolate?” whined Epp.

“Get it another day! Take me home!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

One began to weave a crown Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown (Men sell not such in any town)

Miranda reached out of the car window and slapped the button on the ticket machine. It spat a little bar-coded chit at her. The gate ahead of her rose, and she drove into the airport parking lot, cruising up and down the lanes looking for an empty space like a desperate man looking for a hooker.

It had been easy to leave without the rest of the pack. She had simply risen with the setting sun, dressed, picked up her keys and walked out the door of the house that the pack shared. The others hadn’t yet stirred from their resting places. If they had been up, Miranda had been ready with a story that she was going hunting without them tonight, that she wanted to feed alone. It was the same story she used when she had to attend a ceremony of the Bandog or when Solomon wanted to meet with her. It could also easily have been the truth. It was often very disturbing to feed around Tolly, and Blue was like an animal. Matt’s feeding habits were closest to what she preferred when she had the luxury to indulge them: slow and intense, the pleasure of feeding prolonged. What she would have done to Tango if the woman had not been a changeling. Fortunately, Matt’s very specialized tastes in frat boys meant that the two vampires had never had to feed together. Miranda was profoundly grateful for that. She had enough trouble putting up with Matt at the best of times. Feeding with him would have been almost as sickening as feeding with Tolly.

She found a parking space and pulled into it, beating out a station wagon full of a harried-looking mother and three screaming children. The woman glared at her angrily, face tinted orange under the lights of the lot, but kept going. Miranda ignored her. She reached forward to switch off the radio, but paused as the news came on.

The pack’s murder of the bartender last night and the protest that had broken out into a small riot downtown were at the top of the news. She had heard the stories before during the drive out to the airport. Nothing had changed. An autopsy had shown conclusively that Todd Hyde had died from internal bleeding, the result of a severe, prolonged beating that had left him with multiple broken bones and massive damage to his internal organs. Police were denying any leads in what the media had started to call the penny murders, but there had been arrests and numerous injuries in the wake of the riot protesting “police inaction” in the deaths. Three police officers and twenty-five protesters had been treated and released or were still in the hospital with serious injuries, partly the result of violence during the riot, partly the result of a car ramming through the riot. One protester was in critical condition in the intensive care ward. Ironically, it seemed that the devastation wrought by the car had hastened the break-up of the riot. Police were searching for the car and its driver, but just as in the murder cases, they had no leads. Gays were already calling for a public inquest and planning more demonstrations.

Miranda turned off the radio and sat in the shadows of the car for a moment as a plane thundered into the air overhead. She had heard news stories before that she knew could ultimately be traced back to the Sabbat. A couple had been events in which her pack had been involved. When she had listened to those stories, however, all that she had felt was a sense of elation, the same feeling average humans got when they appeared on television. A feeling of “look — there we are in the back!” Certainly that had been her reaction, and the rest of the pack’s, when Blue had turned on the television yesterday evening so they could watch the report on the first murder. But tonight, for the first time, she wasn’t feeling that elation.

She was wondering about the consequences of the murders. They had inspired a riot. People had cared about the dead men, and they were angry at their deaths.

She wondered if Tango had heard about the second murder and the riot. The changeling must have. Miranda wondered what her reaction had been.

The roar of another plane taking off brought her back to attention. Miranda put the parking chit up on the dashboard and got out of the car, heading toward the terminal building. There was a covered pedestrian overpass across the taxi drop-off zone. The woman in the station wagon must have found a spot closer to the terminal, because she and her children were walking into the stairwell of the overpass just ahead of Miranda. The woman let the door slam shut behind, right in Miranda’s face. For someone from Toronto, it was a sharp gesture and a deliberate insult. It was savage, angry Sabbat instinct for Miranda to send dark, frightening shadows flitting after the family, crowding them in the empty, echoing stairwell. The vampire thought about snatching one of the woman’s children away from her. But she stopped herself, banishing the shadows.

The woman was tired. She had let the door close

— was that so terrible a thing that Miranda would kill a child in revenge? Who was the family meeting at the airport? A father? Grandparents? Miranda followed the family out of the overpass and into the bright and crowded terminal. The crowds swallowed them up. She let them go, cursing the attack of conscience.

It was Tango’s fault. She thrust all thoughts of the changeling from her mind.

It took her a little while to find the Lost and Found office in the maze of the terminal. A bored-looking man stood at the counter, idling flipping through a magazine. He barely glanced up as Miranda approached, but kept turning pages until she had stopped in front of him. “Can I help you?” he asked in a voice that implied he would have preferred to do anything but.

“I’m here to pick up some unclaimed bags.” “Name?”

“Riley Stanton.”

The attendant finally looked directly at her. He snorted, and a sort of smile smeared itself across his lips. “You’re not him?”

“No.” Miranda gave him a condescending glance.

“I’m not. How observant of you.” She pulled Tango’s paper out of her pocket and handed it to him. “I’m a friend. This is the flight number he was on. Apparently his name and address are on the bags.”

The attendant glanced at the paper, then passed it back to her. “Sorry.”

“What?”

“Only the owner can pick up unclaimed baggage. And he has to have proper ID.”

“Well, the owner can’t make it out to the airport. He asked me to get his luggage for him.” Miranda set her mouth in a hard line and gave the attendant a dark look. ‘‘Give me the bags.”

“I can’t. If Mr. Stanton wants to call and make arrangements to pick up the bags at a convenient time, he can do that. Or if he can provide identification at the Air Canada office downtown, we can send them in and he can pick them up there.” The attendant’s eyes drifted back down to his magazine. “But we can’t give unclaimed baggage to anyone but the owner. It’s policy.” This time, Miranda didn’t even try to control her anger. Shadows fell across the man’s magazine. He looked up again. Miranda caught his eye. “Let me inside,” she hissed.

Her will bored into his. He didn’t have a chance. “There’s a staff entrance around the corner,” he stuttered.

“Go unlock it for me.”

The attendant disappeared. Miranda stalked around to the door, her anger a red haze in her vision. The attendant was standing just inside the door, holding it open for her. “I...”

She didn’t let him finish his sentence. She hadn’t fed yet tonight and she hadn’t fed last night either. She was hungry and she was angry, a bad combination for vampires. The Lost and Found office was quiet, and the corner by the door was secluded. Miranda pushed the attendant back against the wall and forced his head to one side. Her fangs descended, and she bit into his neck. He gasped. Once.

The blood was good. Miranda drank her fill, leaving the man weak and pale, but alive. This time when she tilted his head back, he barely had the strength to resist. His eyes were wide. “Your waking mind will forget me,” Miranda ordered him, “but I’ll come back in your nightmares again and again.” The man shuddered.

Miranda found Riley’s bags, a battered leather overnight bag and a big heavy suitcase, and went back out the staff entrance. Some of her anger must have lingered around her, because the crowd parted for her, stepping out of her way and pulling children aside. In the pedestrian overpass, the shadows thickened with her passage. And after she had put the bags in the trunk of her car and pulled up to the parking lot’s exit booth, even the parking attendant sat up and treated her politely, taking the chit she held out as if half-expecting her to seize him and drag him into the car. Warily, he kept one eye on her as he slid the ticket through a cash machine.

The machine beeped and churned out a merry little electronic tune. The parking attendant blinked. “Congratulations, miss,” he said to her nervously over the noise of the car radio. “You win.”

Miranda looked at him with blank disinterest. “Free parking?”

“A cellular phone.” He pointed to a poster taped up on the window of his booth. Random customers will win free* cellular phone courtesy of... Miranda’s eye skipped to the bottom of the page, where a counterpart to the asterisk highlighted the phrase * Activation and subscription fees extra.

She glanced back up at the attendant. He was holding out a brightly colored box with a stylized telephone on the lid. “I’d rather have the free parking.”

The attendant swallowed. She let her cold gaze stay on him for a few more chilling seconds, and he blanched. “Enjoy your phone,” he said quickly, shoving it through her window. “Thanks for parking with us.” He stepped back and slapped at a button to raise the exit gate. Miranda pushed the box into the passenger seat and drove away.

Ten minutes later, the box began to ring.

The car skidded into another lane of traffic as Miranda snapped her head around to look at it in surprise. All around, horns honked in protest and brake lights flashed on. Miranda turned her attention back to the road. In its box, the cellular phone continued to ring. Miranda did her best to ignore it.

“Hey, hey!” laughed the radio DJ as a song ended. “Well, you know, we don’t usually take requests here on the Ricky Bent show, but this was such a classic I had to do it — especially when I found out we actually had it in our collection! From Solomon to Miri, here are the Harmonic Dialtones with Baby Answer My Call.”

This time the car shot across two lanes of traffic amid horns like a chorus and brake lights like fireworks as Miranda hastily pulled over to the shoulder and grabbed for the phone box. Vampire talons split the heavy packing tape that sealed the box, then Miranda was wrenching out blocks of foam packing. The ringing phone was wrapped in a thick layer of plastic. Miranda tore it off and unfolded the phone, fumbling for the connect button.

“It took you long enough,” said Solomon sarcastically.

Miranda sat back in her seat. “Sorry,” she replied into the mouthpiece, “but I wasn’t really expecting someone to call me on a phone that hadn’t been activated, yet. Let me guess: it wasn’t just luck that got me the phone.” '

“Mages make their own luck. You won’t have to pay an activation fee either. I decided it was time you went cellular. I got tired of having to use magick to locate you when you weren’t at home.” Solomon paused. “Where are you now?”

“On the 427 above the Queensway.” Miranda glanced over her shoulder to check the traffic, then, cradling the phone between her head and shoulder, pulled back onto the road. She shifted the phone back into her hand and drove while she talked. “Heading back into Toronto.”

“What the hell were you doing out at the airport?” “Feeding,” Miranda said simply. She wasn’t sure that she wanted Solomon to know about Tango any more than she wanted the pack to know. But if Solomon had used his magick to locate her out at the airport, there was the possibility that he had seen her collect Riley’s bags as well. She hoped he hadn’t.

“Feeding?” he asked incredulously. “At the airport?” She relaxed a bit. Maybe he hadn’t been watching her. “You know those urban myths about kids

disappearing at airports?” she lied.

Solomon chuckled. “You’re evil, Miri.”

“You didn’t give me a cellular phone just to make small talk, did you? What do you want?”

“Come out to my house right away.”

“How right away? Is this for the Bandog or...?” “Neither. It’s about the pack’s next job. Assignment number three.”

Miranda frowned at the phone. She had to get the bags to Tango — she had promised them to her first thing tonight and she had been hoping that she might have a little time to talk to the changeling. She couldn’t very well tell Solomon that she had an errand to run. “Should I bring the pack? I’ll drop by and pick them up.”

“You don’t have to. David has already gotten them. That’s how I found out you were somewhere else.” Miranda cursed silently as he talked. “How long is it going to take you to get here? Twenty minutes from where you are, then ten through the city to my place?” “That sounds about right.” It sounded too right, actually. At a normal driving speed, it would take her almost exactly that long to get to Solomon’s home. Miranda cursed again.

“I’ll see you in half an hour then.”

“All right. Wait! Solomon!” Miranda searched for a pen or pencil in the car. “What’s my phone number?” He gave it to her, laughing. She gritted her teeth against the sound and scrawled the number on the lid of the phone box. “Thanks.”

She hung up and tossed the phone back into the box. Half an hour left her no time to get the bags to Tango. The changeling would have to wait. She would see her after she went to Solomon’s. Except that... Miranda slapped her hands against the rim of the steering wheel. Except that after the meeting with Solomon, the pack would be with her again. She would have to get rid of them before she could see Tango. And what if Solomon wanted them to commit another penny murder tonight? Her stomach curdled. She had to give the bags to Tango before going to Solomon. It would only take a few extra minutes. Solomon wouldn’t notice. She could make the time. Miranda pushed the accelerator down and the car flew forward, surging along the highway.

* * *

Tango paced back and forth through the living room of Riley’s apartment. Some mindless sitcom was playing on the television, the canned laughter of the soundtrack cackling out on cue. She had been waiting anxiously for Miranda to appear since the sun went down. For the first hour, she had been able to persuade herself that she was just being ridiculous, that Miranda couldn’t possibly have had time yet to get out to the airport and back. She had actually even managed to sit still long enough to watch two sitcoms and a fragment of a third. Then the anxiety that she had been putting off all day had finally begun to sink in and she had lost interest in the bawdy humor of the television. She kept it on now for the sound only; the silence when the set was off just seemed to make things worse.

Where was Miranda? Had she been able to get to the airport? Did she have Riley’s bags? What would be in them?

The sitcom ended and the news came on. More repeated footage of Todd’s body being removed from his apartment, but now also scenes from the demonstration that afternoon. Tango had seen them already as well, played out on the early evening news: a home video of a protest turned angry, of demonstrators shrieking at police officers and grabbing for them, of officers pushing back and sometimes striking out. More video of the aftermath of the riot, the flashing lights of squad cars and ambulances, the people that Dex had run down crying and screaming, all of it jolting and jumping as the owner of the video camera fled from the scene to avoid arrest. Tango steeled herself and watched it all over again, choking back her anger at Dex.

When the sidhe had stopped to let her off at Riley’s apartment, he had gotten out of the car to inspect the damage inflicted by the protesters. The long smears of blood decorating the sides of the car like racing stripes would, he had decided, wash off easily. A couple of shallow dents on the hood, however, had sent him into a silent rage. Tango had walked away in disgust. Even from inside the building, climbing grimly up the old stairs, she had heard the roar of Dex’s Mustang pulling away. It had reminded her of the roar of some ravening animal.

The news was almost over before the intercom that connected to the front door of the building finally buzzed. Tango was on it almost instantly. “Hello?”

“It’s Miranda.” The old intercom distorted the vampire’s voice. “I have the bags.”

“Come up.” Tango pressed the button that would unlock the front door, then ran out and down the stairs to meet her.

Miranda looked pleased to see her there. “I can’t stay,” she said hurriedly. She passed her the bags. “Here.”

“Miranda, what...”

“I can’t explain. I’ve got to run.” She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a torn piece of cardboard. “Give me a call,” she added, thrusting the cardboard into an outside pocket on one of the bags.

Then she was gone, back down the stairs and out of the front door. Tango, staggered by the whirlwind of her arrival and departure, struggled back up the stairs under the awkward bulk of Riley’s luggage. The bags weren’t too heavy for her, just clumsily big. Once she was in the apartment again, she set the bags down in the center of the floor and laid Miranda’s phone number by the telephone. For a moment, she contemplated the luggage that had been causing her such tension all day. The little luggage locks were still attached to the zippers. Hopefully that meant the bags hadn’t been opened since Riley had checked them in San Francisco. Tango knelt down before the suitcase. She didn’t have a key, but a faint thread of Glamour made her fingers strong enough to snap the feeble metal with a twist. She unzipped the suitcase and flipped back the lid.

She had heard a dry rattling inside the suitcase as she’d carried it up the stairs. Now she knew what had caused it. There were eight packages of crayons lying on top of the clothes in the suitcase, the kind of big packs that contained ninety-six crayons each. Tango frowned in confusion. Crayons? She lifted a box out. It was still shrink-wrapped. What would Riley have wanted with crayons? Could it have something to do with the reason for his kidnapping? Certainly nothing else about the disappearance made any sense. She worked a kenning, trying to sense Glamour on the boxes.

What she sensed made her heart sink in disappointment. She unwrapped the box in her hand and opened it, dumping the contents onto the floor. They weren’t crayons now that the box was open, but joints of some kind, wrapped up in twists of brightly colored paper. The magickal drugs that Riley had purchased from the Cult of Ecstasy, disguised by Glamour so they could be smuggled across the border. There was no clue here to his kidnapping. All the drugs told her was that he had at least completed his errand to the Cult while he was in San Francisco.

Tango scooped the joints back into the crayon box and set it, along with the other seven boxes, to one side. She turned her attention to the other contents of the suitcase.

* * *

Solomon lived in a discreet old house on top of the bluffs that overlooked downtown Toronto. The house was classically elegant, tucked in among the trees and winding streets that sheltered other expensive homes. Clean red brick, trim that always seemed freshly painted, a cobblestone drive, grounds that were twice as large as most modern building lots — the house would have commanded a very hefty price on the real estate market. Miranda wasn’t sure exactly how Solomon had acquired the house, but she doubted if he had purchased it outright. There were too many other ways to acquire property. Much of the wealth that

Solomon enjoyed came from members of the Bandog, members who were willing to curry favor with money just as she curried favor with sex. Miranda didn’t inquire too closely about the house.

Nothing about the neat exterior of the house so much as hinted at what went on inside. If those private activities were revealed, though, property values in the neighborhood would probably plummet.

Miranda pulled into the drive, past tall, ornamental iron gates that were open to receive her, and parked by the side of the house. There was a side door to the house and she almost used it before remembering that this was supposed to be her first visit here. The pack might become suspicious if she came into the house that way. She went around to the front of the house and across the wide verandah. David must have been watching for her, because he opened the front door even as she was reaching to turn the old-fashioned doorbell. She almost grimaced at his eerie alertness. “I’m Miranda,” she said, as though he were a complete stranger. “Solomon is expecting me. 1 think my friends are already here.”

“Yes.” David’s face betrayed no more recognition than her own. Not that it ever did. “If you will follow me, Solomon will see you immediately.” He turned smoothly, leading her into the dark interior of the house.

She heard the rest of the pack before she saw them. Matt was lecturing Tolly on good behavior. When David led her into the Victorian-style parlor where the pack was waiting, she saw why. They all had wineglasses filled with blood, a courtesy that Solomon frequently extended to her when she visited. Tolly had been using his to paint his face, turning it into a mask of red swirls.

He simply smiled back at Matt’s lectures. At least he had removed most of the piercings from yesterday, although Miranda saw that he had kept the silver shaft that transfixed his tongue. Blue was very wisely staying out of the discussion. Miranda stopped beside him. “How long have you been here?”

He looked up. “Twenty-five minutes, maybe a bit longer. Where did you slip off to tonight?”

“Feeding,” she said shortly.

David cleared his throat discreetly. “This way.” He indicated a heavy, dark wood door that Miranda knew led into Solomon’s study. Blue rose while Miranda snapped for Matt and Tolly. But David shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. I meant only Miranda. She is the one Solomon wishes to see.”    .

Matt flushed. “Why did you bring the rest of us here, then?”

“He will speak with you all after he has spoken with Miranda.” David regarded Matt coolly. “I don’t question his decisions.”

And neither should you was the clear implication. Blue permitted himself a tight grin at Matt’s discomfort. Tolly snickered. Miranda didn’t even look at Matt. She simply followed David as he walked over and knocked on the door, then opened it just enough to permit her entrance. The door closed behind her with the muffled thud of solid wood.

“You’re late.” Solomon was seated behind his desk, a simple, graceful construction of glass and black metal. In stark contrast to the rest of the house, his study was decorated in a very contemporary style. The glass-and-metal desk, matching shelves, black metal-frame chairs. A powerful desktop computer. The curtains on the window, dark and heavy in the rest of the house, had been replaced by blinds. The windows themselves had also been replaced with seamless panes and sleek frames. Solomon’s study faced out into the dark tangle of a ravine. Lights from other houses were barely visible, their brilliance masked by the thick leaves.

“By ten minutes. You didn’t give me much time. I got caught in traffic.” Miranda crossed the room and leaned across the desk to kiss Solomon’s chain tattoo. His hand lingered on her face, but she dropped down into one of the chairs facing the desk. “Thanks for the phone, by the way.”

“Where is it now?”

“In the car.”

“I want you to carry it with you all the time. I want to be able to reach you if I need to.” He smiled and sat forward. He was wearing a crisp white shirt, and the fabric rustled when he moved. “You’re doing a perfect job, Miri.”

Miranda nodded modestly. “Thank you. So what’s our next assignment?” She almost crossed her fingers, hoping that it wouldn’t be another gay man from Hopeful. Tango hadn’t said anything to her about Todd’s murder in the brief moments she had seen her. Maybe she didn’t suspect the vampires’ involvement. If a third man connected with Hopeful died, though.... “We can’t go back to Hopeful again. Nobody has remembered our faces yet, but they will if we keep going there.”

Solomon shook his head. “I don’t want to you to go back to Hopeful. Go out to the west end of the city tonight. Find a prostitute. Kill her the same way you did the others — I like the touch of laying the body

out. And the pennies. Sinister.”

“I’ll tell Tolly you approve.” Miranda couldn’t help wrinkling her nose in distaste. “I don’t know if he’ll be happy or if he’ll even notice, but I’ll tell him.”

“Just as long as you keep doing it. It’s becoming a signature. Make sure the body is found again. Leave it in High Park, somewhere visible.” He folded his hands on top of his desk. “Tomorrow night, I want you to do something completely different. Keep the beating and laying out the same, but choose someone solid and respectable. Middle-class, white-bread, you know. Kill them early in the evening instead of late at night.” Miranda looked at him for a moment, puzzled. “Why?” she asked finally. “Why are you doing this, Solomon? It doesn’t make sense.”

Solomon smiled again and rolled his head backward, gazing up at the ceiling. “I told you not to ask, Miri.” He got up and came around the desk to stand beside her. He offered her his hand, pulling her up out of the chair. “You’ll spoil the surprise. Don’t worry, it’s all planned out.” He slid his arms around her fondly.

“I need to know some of the plan, then.” She looked down into his eyes. He was just slightly shorter than she was. “There could be trouble with the pack if I don’t have something to tell them. Tolly doesn’t care what’s going on and Blue will take orders, but Matt questions everything I do.”

“Trust me. You’re not the only Bandog working on this, you know.” He touched her hair. “Why do you think the police aren’t doing more? Why do you think the media is playing on the worst aspects of the murders?”

Miranda gave him a narrow glance. “Bandog?”

“High Circle.” He put a finger over her lips as she opened her mouth. “You’re not going to ask me who, are you? You know I won’t tell you that.”

She pulled her head away from his finger. “Why gays, then a hooker, then white-bread middle-class? There’s no pattern there.”

“You don’t see a pattern because you know what’s coming next. Think what the average person has heard on TV or the radio, or read in the newspaper. Two gay men are murdered....”

“Someone is killing gays.”

“And the riot today helped shape that impression.” He nodded in reply to Miranda’s silent, narrow glance. “There are some gay activists among the Bandog — radicals, some professionals, a student.” He grinned. “It was only supposed to be a protest. The violence was an accident. But it didn’t hurt.” Solomon’s hands slid down along Miranda’s sides to her hips. “Now, if the next murder victim is a prostitute, what will the public think?”

Miranda thought, trying to ignore the sensation of Solomon’s hands moving over her. “Sex? The penny murders are all sex-related?”

“Right. Everyone knows that gays are promiscuous, don’t they? And prostitutes... well.” Solomon looked into her face. “It’s all sex, isn’t it?” Slowly he sank down to his knees in front of her. Miranda caught him by his arms and pulled him back up.

“Not now!” she hissed. “The pack’s in the next room!”

“So? They don’t have to know.”

“They can’t find out.”

“They’ll think we’ve just been talking.” Solomon started to caress her again. “I need you, Miranda. After last night... I was thinking about you all day.”

The vampire gritted her teeth. She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t feel like it tonight. But Solomon could be as difficult as Matt or Tolly, and she had far fewer ways of controlling him. If she wanted to know all of what the mage was up to, she would have to play along with his desires. She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, they were smoldering with a red hunger. “Tell me the rest of your plan,” she told him, “and we’ll see.” She touched his neck with one fingernail, drawing it along his skin so that it left a long, red scratch in its wake. She stopped with her fingernail at the hollow of Solomon’s throat. She could feel Solomon’s pulse quickening as lust and fear twined themselves together in his heart.

He drew a sharp breath and closed his eyes. “People start to think, ‘These people are dead because they tried to have sex with the wrong person. It’s their own fault.’ Somebody starts spouting psychobabble about repressed sexuality or something. It all becomes sex, sex, sex. But people think they’re safe because they don’t do that kind of thing.” He smiled again, slowly and without opening his eyes. “Then we hit them with a murder that couldn’t possibly be related to sex.”

“Suddenly everyone is a potential victim,” guessed Miranda.

“Exactly. They’re going to be scared.” He seized Miranda’s hand and guided it down to the first button on his shirt. He hooked her finger around the button. Miranda knew this game. She tugged on the button sharply, breaking the threads and sending it spinning off into the shadows of the room. Her hand moved

down to the next button.

“What next?” she asked Solomon.

“We destroy every refuge of security that they have.” Miranda pulled off another button. Solomon’s shirt gaped open over his chest and he gave a little groan. “I want you to'kill a couple, a group.” Another button. “Get to someone behind an alarm system and kill them. Kill a big, tough security guard.” Two more buttons. His shirt hung open completely. Solomon opened his eyes. “The only thing Toronto is going to have left to cling to is its oh'so-polite manners. Cold, perfect Toronto.” He caressed Miranda’s back. “Then I’m going to take that away, too.”

Miranda slid his shirt off his shoulders. She looked at him with the strong, commanding gaze that he wanted from her. “How? Why?”

“I can’t tell you. Not yet.” One of his hands slid up under the shirt she was wearing, caressing smooth flesh that was warm with stolen blood. “Please don’t ask again. The next Bandog ceremony.T’ll tell everyone then. I promise.”

She let the question go, accepting his answer and falling into the pattern of his sex. A reward for his answers. Both of his hands were under her shirt now, lifting it up and over her head. Solomon’s hands caressed her breasts through the silky fabric of her brassiere, then that was gone as well, the clasp released by a single deft touch to the small of her back. Solomon kissed the nipples one at a time, his tongue drifting gently, teasingly, across and around them. Miranda let her head fall back as her hands forced Solomon’s pants and underwear down until they slipped over his buttocks and slithered into a pool of black fabric around his ankles. Then she drew him up, drew his mouth to hers, and they kissed, Miranda’s arms tight around his naked body, Solomon’s lips working with a frantic desire.

Miranda found that she couldn’t match that desire. This might just have been a game, but tonight Miranda didn’t feel like she was a player in a game so much as she was an actor in a play. A play that had been running for far too long. She went through the movements of sex mechanically. Her mind was elsewhere. What had Tango found in Riley’s bags? Was there anything there that would help lead them... her to him? Miranda berated herself mentally. The changeling’s concern for Riley was contagious. Tango was doing whatever she could to find her friend. Miranda was having sex with a Nephandus mage and plotting the murders of unsuspecting strangers. Suddenly, she wanted this to be over.

Solomon finally moved away from her mouth. He ran his fingertips across her body, then glanced up at the lights in the room. Obedient to his magick, they went out. The moon had risen outside and shone in through the window. Solomon stood before her in the moonlight, silver-blue rays casting shadows in the hollows of his muscles and tinting his tanned skin with the pallor of death. Miranda looked at his nude, sculpted body, waiting passively for her touch, then shed her own pants and stepped forward. Shadows slid at her whim, making her larger and more intimidating, at the same time wiping out the relief of Solomon’s muscles. He became flat and featureless, a thin, weak boy. Miranda settled into a chair, her legs apart in the moonlight. Solomon knelt down between them, worshipping her with his mouth while his hands jerked at his hard cock and aching testicles. Miranda put her hands on the back of his head, forcing him into those places that she remembered from the days when this was real sex, and tried to find some passion within herself.

All she could think of w'as Tango and her search for Riley. Her grip on Solomon’s head tightened.

Solomon groaned and shifted, fighting against her strength and struggling to breathe. She let him lift his face for a moment, then pressed him back. Her fingers, she realized, were sticky and warm with his blood. She had broken his skin with her fingernails. Miranda brought her red-stained fingers to her mouth and licked them.

There was passion in the blood. Maybe not true passion, maybe just the hunger of the Beast within, but it was enough. The blood she had taken from the attendant at the airport was like an appetizer. Pleasure and sensation came back to her with the taste of blood. She pushed Solomon away and then joined him on the moonlit floor. “Now,” she growled. She pulled him toward her. Obediently, the mage positioned himself over her body and slid his cock into her. It felt good, but her hunger demanded more. As Solomon thrust in and out, his legs and buttocks straining, Miranda toyed with his nipples, pinching and rubbing them. Her hands strayed across his back, scratching along his spine and teasing into the crack of his laboring ass. Solomon moaned, his eyes flickering with pleasure and his mouth sagging open. Miranda wrenched his head down and kissed him savagely, tongue striking between her fangs. Solomon’s thrusting grew spastic, animal instinct taking

over and driving his body.

Miranda chose her moment. She tilted his head back, plunging her fangs into his neck and savoring the hot, delicious blood that rose to meet her mouth. A gush of salty blood with each beat of his heart. One gush to spread warmth through her body. A second to bring her to the edge of ecstasy. A third to pitch her over the edge. A fourth to bring her short flight to an end. A fifth... oh, for a fifth.... She drew her head away, licking the wounds to close them, and pushed back the Beast. It wasn’t enough. It could never be enough.

Empty, she held Solomon as he gasped and cried out, sweaty and trembling, in the wake of orgasm.

* * *

Reluctantly, Tango hung up the telephone. She had let it ring and ring, but Miranda had not answered. She wondered where the vampire was. Too bad. She would have liked to talk to her. Tango looked at the contents of Riley’s bags, spread out across the floor of the apartment.

Most of the stuff in Riley’s bags had been the things that any man would take on a short trip: a shaving kit, toothpaste and a toothbrush, a comb, some hair gel, aftershave, spare shoes, changes of shirts, socks, underwear, and pants. A book to read. A bathing suit. A roadmap of the San Francisco Bay Area. A bit of jewelry, his silver chain bracelet with the dog-head clasp casually tucked into the toe of one shoe. The rest, like the crayon boxes full of drugs, souvenir T-shirts from Pan’s and Club DV8, and a postcard with the words Thinking of you printed above a sunset photograph of San Francisco’s Coit Tower, were more typically Riley.

Out of both bags, however, had come only three things that were remotely suspicious. One was the post card. There was no writing on the back of it and no address. It had simply been purchased and packed, and while it was amusing, Tango would have been surprised if Riley had bought it for humor alone. He would not have bought it for the photograph. Riley didn’t take photographs when he traveled and he didn’t collect photographs, claiming that his memory was better and more vivid than any still picture. That left the conclusion hinted at by the card’s lettering. Riley had bought the card for someone. The blond man from Hopeful? She still had no idea who the blond man was!

The other suspicious items led even more rapidly to dead ends than the post card. The first was a slip of paper that Riley had been using as a bookmark;-there was an address on it. The second was the map, or rather, several circled locations on the map. Most of the circles marked locations she could identify, such as Pan’s, Riley’s hotel, and several tourist attractions. A circle across the Bay puzzled and excited her... until she realized that it was the location of the Cult of Ecstasy chantry house in Berkeley. Shortly on the heels of that realization came the discovery that the address on the bookmark was likewise that of the chantry house.

She sighed and stood up, turning out the lights in the living room. There was nothing in Riley’s bags that could help her find him. Nothing at all. That left her another avenue of exploration, one that she had been hoping to avoid because it had appeared unlikely to work out. Now it seemed her next best hope. If the little girl she had sat beside on the airplane from San Francisco had indeed been Riley transformed, who had been playing the girl’s mother?

CHAPTER EIGHT

She sucked and sucked and sucked the more Fruits which that unknown orchard bore

The streets and alleys of Yorkville were just beginning to fill with men and women in business suits, some out “doing lunch,” some just enjoying the sunshine outside of their offices, all of them talking about last night’s penny murder. A prostitute this time. Tango had found herself with conflicting feelings when she had heard that on the morning news. She had known prostitutes and she felt bad for the murdered woman, but at the same time, she couldn’t help feeling relieved that it wasn’t another man from Hopeful. And that it wasn’t Riley’s body that had been discovered. She hoped she could find him before that happened. Tango stepped out of the alley and peered down into the dark stairway that led to Duke Michael’s court. “Ruby?” she asked.

“Here to see the duke?” Ruby’s voice echoed in the stairway. The old nocker appeared a moment later. Tango hadn’t actually seen her appear the first time she had visited the court; Ruby had simply been waiting in the shadows. This time, Tango watched as a bulge formed in the wet bricks of the wall, then pulled away, becoming Ruby. “You just missed him. He’s gone out.”

“I know. I saw him leave.” Tango walked down into the stairwell and rapped on the wall where Ruby had emerged. It was as solid as brick and mortar had ever been. “That’s an interesting trick.”

“I can teach it to you if you like. I’ve always been close to the bones of Mother Earth.”

Tango shook her head. “I’ve got about as much talent for working with stone as a sidhe.” She smiled. “Actually, I came to see you.”

Ruby raised one eyebrow up into her wrinkled forehead. “We may both be nockers, Tango, but I’m still the duke's Gatekeeper. Sweet talk isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

“I don’t want in. I need help.”

“What kind of help?” Ruby grinned. “If you want to get rid of Epp, there’s nothing I can do for you. I’ve wanted to take her down a peg or two myself for years, but she’s too close to the duke.”

Tango shook her head and sat down on the stairs. “I’m trying my best just to ignore her. No, I need...” she gestured vaguely, then sighed and looked up at the other nocker. “I need contacts, Ruby. There are things I have to do and I don’t know enough about Toronto to get them done. I’m trying to find Ril—”

“Sister, don’t you go telling me secrets.” Ruby sat down beside her. “Like I said, I’m the Gatekeeper. I owe my allegiance to the duke. If I were to hear that somebody, even another nocker, was going against his commands, I would be duty-bound to report ,it.” She glanced at Tango out of the corner of her eye. “Now say someone were to ask me questions without saying what they were going to do with the answers, well, then, maybe I might be able to help them.” Her face grew soft. “Some of us think the duke should be doing more to find out what happened to Riley — an oath of allegiance puts some responsibilities on the lord, too. You’re not the only one who’s worried.”

Tango smiled again. She had hoped when she came back into Yorkville that she would be able to find something of an ally in Ruby. The old Gatekeeper had struck her as a decent, friendly person. And Tango desperately needed someone else to turn to for help — Miranda was, of course, utterly unreachable during the day, deep in the daylight sleep of vampires. Waiting for her to wake would have wasted the whole day. Tango didn’t have that kind of luxury. “I need to get in touch with someone who could hack into a commercial computer system. Do you know anybody?”

Ruby whistled. “You know something? How bad is

it?”

“Pretty bad, I think, but all I’ve got is a thin lead. Maybe not even that.” She looked at Ruby hopefully. “Any Kithain in the court into computers? A good mortal who won’t ask many questions?” She considered asking if there were any Virtual Adepts, the young, computer-wielding mages, in Toronto, but suspected that the nocker would be as ignorant of mages as Dex had been.

Ruby just shook her head sadly. “Sorry, sister. Don’t know many humans who are into that, and there isn’t a Kithain in the city who could do it — even if you could talk one into defying the duke’s ban on helping Riley. We had a kid who was a whiz with computers. He pulled up roots and took off for Vancouver a couple of years ago. Couldn’t stand Toronto anymore.”

“I can understand that.” Tango got to her feet.

“I’m sorry, Tango.”

“It’s okay, Ruby.” Tango sighed again. “That was just the easy plan, and easy never works. Where can I find a really quiet pay phone?”

“Try the sushi bar. Hardly anybody goes in there anymore. Sushi isn’t trendy enough for Yorkville these days, I guess.”

“Thanks.” Tango walked up out of the dark stairwell and back into the light. Her hand was on the handle of the sushi shop’s door when she thought of something else. Leaning back, she asked Ruby, “Who else is concerned about Riley?”

“Lucas, the duke’s Steward.” Ruby’s disembodied voice came out of the darkness. She had already vanished back into the bricks. “A couple of eshu. One of the sluagh. Sin and Dex.”

Tango blinked, “Really?”

“Don’t underestimate them. They have to toe the line because of their position as knights, but they’re good guys, especially Sin, Dex...” Ruby paused. “I heard you were with him yesterday afternoon. Don’t think badly of him. He has a temper.”

“And not much of a use for humans?” Tango had met a lot of Unseelie Kithain who felt that way.

“No. But he’d die to protect another Kithain. If any of us can help you, we’ll try.”

Tango let go of the door and stepped back down into the stairwell. “Then why am I doing all the work?” Ruby was silent for a moment. When she replied, her voice seemed to come from all around. “Because you can go back to San Francisco if the duke gets angry at you.”

Tango suppressed a bitter twist of a grin and climbed out of the stairwell again, pulling open the door of the sushi shop. A wave of odor greeted her: fish, sharp vinegar, bitter seaweed. There were a couple of tourists lingering in the restaurant, but the sushi chef and the maitre d’ were talking by the bar. The maitre d’ snapped to attention and started over as she entered. Tango shook her head. “I just need to use the pay phone.” His disappointment was so obvious that Tango felt guilty. “I’ll pick up something on the way out,” she promised. “Where’s the phone?”

He pointed down a hall toward the back of the restaurant. The phone jutted from the wall between the restaurant’s washrooms. From the ladies’ room came the loud rush of a toilet flushing. Tango grimaced. Not an ideal location for what she wanted to do, but good enough.

She lifted the receiver of the telephone and dropped a quarter in the slot. Pulling a piece of paper out of her pocket, she dialed the number that she had looked up and written down earlier that day. The phone rang once or twice before a voice mail system picked it up. “Air Canada, bonjour. Welcome to Air Canada. Pour obtenir service en frangais, composez une. For service in English...” Tango didn’t bother listening to the message, but simply pressed two for English service, then the sequence of buttons that would get her to the department she wanted. She had spent ten minutes navigating the voice mail system that morning in preparation for this. She waited as the phone rang and rang before a real person finally answered it. “Air Canada customer relations. How may I help you?”

“Good afternoon,” Tango answered briskly. “I’m calling from the Ministry of Health. I’d like to speak to someone who can provide me with a passenger list for one of your recent flights, please.”

* * *

“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you have the package yet. We’re still waiting for the request form to come through on the fax.” The receptionist pointed to a blue vinyl-covered chair beside a tired potted plant. “If you want to have a seat....”

“Look, I have three other deliveries to make on this run and Mrs. Stanton at the Ministry said to get this thing as fast as I could. Do we really have to wait for a form?” Tango shifted a bicycle helmet in her hands. The duke’s magic account card and a whirlwind visit to a department store had gotten her the helmet, a backpack, bike shorts, an olive drab T-shirt, and a wide enough assortment of children’s stickers to plaster across the helmet and pack. Add her own sunglasses, hair tied back in a ponytail, some talcum powder to dim the glossy newness of the tight shorts, a fast jog around the block to work up a sweat, and an expression of fierce attitude, and Tango was a bicycle courier. Or at least close enough to one to get away with it if no one looked at her too closely. Her own clothes were balled up in the backpack.

“I’m afraid so.” The receptionist smiled pleasantly. “It’s company policy. I could have faxed this to the Ministry of Health easily enough — Mrs. Stanton didn’t have to send you.”

“Yeah, well, you know how it is. Mrs. Stanton’s brother-in-law runs the company and she likes to send us as much business as she can.” Tango gave the receptionist a broad, open grin. “Everybody wants a piece of the government money.” The receptionist didn’t seem particularly amused, but Tango kept her grin strong. “Come on,” she pleaded. “Maybe something’s holding up the fax. Should I have to wait on it? Can’t you just give me the package?” She pointed at a'thick manila envelope on the receptionist’s desk. “Is that it?”

The receptionist moved her hand to cover the package. “No.”

Tango took a deep breath. She wished she had Miranda’s ability to control people’s minds now! It would make getting the passenger list for Riley’s flight away from the receptionist much easier. ‘“No, it isn’t the package’ or ‘no, it is the package but you can’t have it’?”

“It’s the package but I can’t let you take it yet.”

A man came walking along the corridor behind the receptionist’s desk, a cup of coffee in his hands. He glanced up toward the commotion at the desk, then turned into an office. There was a nameplate beside the office door: E. Spielberg, Tango hesitated for a moment. One of her reasons for coming here as a bicycle courier was to avoid dealing with the same person she had talked to on the telephone as “Mrs. Stanton.” But on the other hand, she also knew that the fax the receptionist was waiting for was never going to come, and she needed that passenger list. She crossed her fingers and hoped Mr. Spielberg wouldn’t recognize her voice. “Look,” she told the woman loudly, pitching her voice to carry, “the Ministry of Health wants this pronto. I don’t know what was stirring up the chaos over at their office, but if this package is that

important....”

That got the man’s attention. He popped back out of his office, coffee still in hand. “What’s the problem, Pat?”

“We’re still waiting on that form from Mrs. Stanton at the Ministry of Health, Mr. Spielberg. Everything else is ready to go.”

“Don’t worry about the form. I’ll authorize the request.” Mr. Spielberg picked up the package from her desk and passed it to Tango. “Get this over to Mrs. Stanton right away.”

“Yes, sir.” Tango pulled an artificially battered receipt book from a pocket of her backpack, scribbled in it, then tore out a receipt and handed it to Mr. Spielberg. “Thanks.” She smiled at him, then at the receptionist, as she shoved the package into her backpack. Suckers, she thought on the way out.

She rode the elevator back down to the lobby of the office building. In the lobby, she winked at the young security guard she had flirted with to get into the Air Canada offices. There was a coffee shop in a row of small stores on the way out of the building, and she stopped for a large coffee to go. Under the shade of some modern, stainless steel sculpture in a parkette outside, she settled down and ripped open Mr. Spielberg’s package. There was a note inside from Mr. Spielberg to the nonexistent Mrs. Stanton: “Hope this helps. Air Canada is happy to work with you in tracking down the source of these illnesses. Elliott Spielberg.” It was a charming attempt at damage control. Tango snickered.

The obstinate bureaucracy of the receptionist had been the hardest part of getting her hands on a passenger list for flight 2800 from San Francisco to

Toronto. All Mrs. Stanton had had to tell Mr. Spielberg was that the Ministry of Health had received three reports of people on that flight having come down with food poisoning and that Air Canada’s cooperation in helping to contact the other passengers would be most appreciated, and he had fallen all over himself agreeing to have a list printed out immediately. He had even offered to have it couriered over to the Ministry offices at the airline’s expense, but Mrs. Stanton had insisted on sending a courier to collect it. It had all gone very smoothly, although Tango had had to stare down a tourist who’d wanted to use the bathroom in the sushi restaurant. A flushing toilet in a government office would have sounded very suspicious, even to Mr. Spielberg.

Tango took a sip of her coffee and leafed through the pages. Everything that Mrs. Stanton had requested seemed to be there: names, phone numbers, street addresses, all neatly alphabetized. Tango frowned and took a closer look at the list, then snarled in frustration. There w’ere no seat assignments, and she didn’t know the mysterious woman’s name!

“Damn!” she muttered, throwing the list to the ground. “Damn, damn, damn!” It would probably be trickier this time, but she might be able to make another call to Mr. Spielberg as Mrs. Stanton and convince him that she needed the seat assignments as well. To track the cases of food poisoning by position in the airplane cabin, maybe. She’d have to come up with some other way of getting the list, though. Having the same courier show up twice might be a bit much.

Unless...

She grabbed the list and flipped through it. She didn’t know the woman’s name, but she knew the name of the “little girl” who had been Riley. Cheryl. It wasn’t much to go on. Still, how many Cheryls could there have been on the flight? And if the woman with Cheryl had been pretending to be her mother, chances seemed good that she would be listed under the same last name.

Tango made a complete pass through the list, then came back to two listings under H. Cheryl Hunter... and Atlanta Hunter. The name fit the platinum blond woman perfectly. Apartment 210, 608 Milverton Street, East York, Ontario. Tango had purchased a map of Metro Toronto along with her courier disguise. She dug it out of her backpack and checked to see that East York was part of the city. It was. She could go there without worrying about Epp’s geasa. She breathed a sigh of partial relief. Now all that she had to do was hope that the address was real and not a fake.

She glanced at her watch. Quarter to three. The better part of six hours until sunset. If this woman had helped kidnap Riley, Tango didn’t want to try to go after her alone. And in spite of Ruby’s assurances, she didn’t quite trust Dex or Sin to help her. After dark, she would try to get in touch with Miranda again. Hopefully, the vampire would be willing to accompany her on a visit to Atlanta Hunter’s apartment.

* * *

Tango was waiting just where she had said she would be, near the entrance to the subway station. Miranda glanced at the dashboard clock as she pulled up to the curb. Half an hour late. At least she didn’t have to honk the horn to get the changeling’s attention — Tango saw her right away and came over. Miranda reached across and pushed the door open for her. “Sorry I’m late,” she apologized, “The play was longer than we expected.”

Another lie, but when Tango had called her just after the sun went down, Miranda hadn’t exactly been able to say, “Why don’t I meet you later, after my pack has gone out and beaten someone to death?” Instead, she had invented something about a long-planned evening at an alternative theater, and tickets to a version of Hamlet written from Ophelia’s point of view, a favorite of Tolly’s. Which, of course, had necessitated a fast description of the pack. It was all only .a partial fabrication. There really was such a play, and Tolly loved it. Unfortunately, it had run last year, and then only for a brief time. The lead actress had vanished mysteriously, about the same time Tolly had gone missing for a few days. The mad vampire had come back with flowers in his hair, wet clothes, and a well-fed grin on his face.

Tango had accepted her explanation, though, suggesting that they meet after the show. She had been very clear that this wasn’t a social engagement. It was serious, a potential link in finding Riley, and possibly dangerous. She would owe Miranda another favor, she had said; Miranda had rather hastily agreed in a way that she hoped didn’t sound too greedy. In fact, she had forgotten that she was supposed to be charging the changeling for her services. The urgent concern that Tango expressed whenever she talked about Riley made Miranda feel even worse for being late.

It had taken longer to find a suitable victim than she had thought it would. Solomon’s plan to terrify Toronto was already working. Even early in the evening, and in spite of the apparent connection to sex, people were starting to move around in groups. Maybe they were guilty of a lot more than they seemed. Miranda watched Tango fasten her seatbelt and added, “You know, you really shouldn’t be waiting around on your own with these murders going on.” Maybe the comment would help erase any connections Tango had drawn between the vampires and the dead men from Hopeful.

Tango snorted. “I wouldn’t mind meeting whoever is committing them. We’ll see what happens if they try to pick on me.” There was anger in her voice. “You heard about last night?”

“Yes.” Miranda turned the car back onto the road. “Where to?”

“Left here, straight for two blocks, then right. We’ll drive past the apartment first — I think we should be able to see if there are any lights on. Hopefully no one is home. There’s a parking lot a couple of blocks away. We’ll park there and walk back.”

“You make it sound like this is a break-in,” Miranda observed.

“It is.” Tango glanced at her. “That doesn’t bother you, does it?”

Miranda kept her expression neutral, suppressing a grin at the irony of the changeling’s question. “No.” “Good. I’ve known vampires who were willing to kill if they had to while they were hunting, but who were very sensitive about doing anything else that might disturb humans.” A snort escaped from Miranda, and Tango glanced at her again. “What?”

Bitter irony, thought Miranda. “They must have been Camarilla, trying to cling to their humanity,” she said instead. She spun the car around a corner. “The Sabbat knows that humanity has no place in a vampire’s existence.”

Tango didn’t reply, just looked out the window at the quiet houses moving past. Miranda bit her tongue. Poor choice of words. She drove in silence, two blocks straight and a turn to the right. She slowed down. “Which building?” she asked finally.

“That one.” Tango peered at a medium-sized apartment building that gleamed white in the darkness. Window boxes, large potted plants and colorful windsocks were visible on many of the balconies. “Lights are off.”

Miranda drove on. “That could mean she’s home but asleep.”

“That’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

The parking lot was mostly empty. They parked and walked back to the building. “How are we going to get in?” Miranda gestured at a small bag that Tango carried with her. “You have something useful in there?”

“Yes. Maybe.” Tango shook the bag, and its contents rattled metallically. “I got a whole bunch of stuff out of Riley’s apartment. Whether we can use it or not is another question. I was actually hoping we’d find someone like a security guard or a resident around the lobby that we could get over to the door and you could hypnotize into letting us into the building.”

“I should be able to do that. Then what? Pick the lock on the apartment door?”

Tango shrugged. “We’ll see when we get there. Riley had lockpicks — this sort of thing is bread and cheese for pookas. I used to be pretty good at picking locks, but I haven’t done it for....” She took a breath and blew it out again. “Maybe since the early seventies.”

Miranda blinked. “How old are you, Tango?” “Almost sixty. There are things Kithain can do to slow down their aging.” Tango looked closely at Miranda. The inspection made Miranda uncomfortable. “You?”

“I became a vampire six years ago.”

“That’s longer than most Sabbat vampires last, isn’t

it?”

“I try not to do anything stupid.”

They reached the apartment building. They were fortunate: a couple was just coming back from walking their dog. It took almost no effort at all for Miranda to convince them to hold the door open for the two women. They rode the elevator up one floor rather than draw attention to themselves by looking for the stairs. Apartment 210 was at the far end of the hall. Tango knocked briskly, waited, then knocked again. There was no answer. Quickly, she took a flat case from her bag and drew two thin metal tools out of the case. “Cover me,” she hissed. Miranda shifted to stand between her and the rest of the hall in case someone came out of their apartment. Tango cursed quietly; the light in the hall was poorly placed, and her shadow fell across the lock. She couldn’t see what she was doing. She started a little bit when Miranda brushed the shadow aside. “Handy talent.”

“So’s being able to pick locks. Hurry up.”

It took Tango a few minutes and a good deal of muttered cursing to spring the lock. The door opened and they stepped quickly into the dark apartment, quietly shutting the door behind them. Tango brought two small flashlights out of her bag of tricks and offered one to Miranda. The vampire shook her head. “I don’t need it. I can see in the dark. How did you know this was the right apartment from outside?”

“I pretended to be interested in renting an apartment earlier today and got a tour of the building. Another floor, but apartment 10 is always in the same place on all the floors.”

“All right.” Miranda looked around. “Who lives here and what are we looking for?”

Tango snapped on her flashlight. “Her name is Atlanta Hunter. We’re looking for anything that might have to do with Riley or with a little girl named Cheryl, maybe her daughter. Anything related to San Francisco would probably be good, too. Be as neat as you can.” That turned out to be difficult. Every time Miranda moved and replaced something, it felt as though she had shifted it by a mile. Atlanta Hunter’s apartment was already orderly, clean — and excruciatingly pretentious. The walls of the living room were painted a very light, earthy tan shade. All of the furniture was pale, unstained wood. The upholstery and rugs had coordinating Southwestern patterns. There was Native American art on the walls and Native American artifacts on shelves and in the corners, but the kind of art and artifacts selected more for their aesthetic qualities than their character. Miranda glanced into the kitchen. It was all chrome and white tile. She went back into the living room and started going through the cabinets and shelves. Atlanta had all of the right CDs, all of the classic movies. She had a state-of-the-art video and stereo system tucked away where it wouldn’t interfere with the look of the room. There were no books. The woman’s life seemed frighteningly organized. Down on the bottom shelf of a corner cabinet, however, were a number of photo albums* Miranda pulled one out and started leafing through it.

All of the pictures were standard tourist destinations, mostly from North America, a few from around the world. There were very seldom any people in the photos, except maybe as crowds on a New York street or other tourists snapping pictures of the Saint Louis Arch. Strangely, there were also a number of pictures of very plain rural landscapes, suburban developments and anonymous small towns mixed in with the international destinations. Many of the pictures had dates written or stamped on them. Some went back fifteen to sixteen years. Miranda took the rightmost and presumably newest album out of the cabinet and flipped to the back of it. There were half-a-dozen blank pages, but the most recent pictures, dated only the week before, were of the Golden Gate Bridge, Ghiradelli Square and cable cars. San Francisco.

It was a link of the sort that Tango wanted. She would have to show the pictures to the .changeling. For now, however, Miranda started to put the photo album back. The other albums fell over with a noisy thump. Wincing, Miranda straightened them, then tried again. This time, however, the album jammed against something at the back of the cabinet, as if something else had fallen over. Miranda looked back into the shadows. There was another album there, small but thick. She reached in and fished it out. It was the sort of album where only one picture fit on each page and new pages were added when necessary — a brag book. It was covered in a pretty floral fabric that was completely at odds with the rest of the apartment. At least the pictures in the small album had people in them, although they were always the same two people. A platinum blond woman and a little girl. The scenes in the photographs were the same as those in the other album, one photograph per destination. Then Miranda noticed something else.

The photographs were dated, just as the others had been. To judge by last week’s date, the latest photo was from San Francisco, although it had been taken in an undistinguished airport lounge. But the other photos covered the same range as the scenery photos. Fifteen to sixteen years. And across that range, the fashions changed, the mother’s hairstyle changed, she became almost indistinguishably older... but the girl’s face and hairstyle never altered. They were always the same.

“Tango!” she hissed. There was no response. She looked up. The changeling was somewhere else in the apartment. Hurriedly, Miranda replaced the larger photo albums, then went looking for Tango. She met her in the hallway that led to the back of the apartment. “Did you find something?”

Miranda simply handed her the small album. Tango’s face grew confused. “What the hell...?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t find anything else in the living room. What about you?”

“Nothing.” Tango looked up. “There’s nothing in the master bedroom, and no sign that a little girl ever lived here at all. But the second bedroom is locked.” She tapped the album. “At least now we know we have the right apartment. This is the woman from the plane. And this is Cheryl.”

“What do you think is in the second bedroom?” Tango snapped the album shut and pulled her lockpicks out again. “I’m going to find out.”

The lock on the bedroom door was far better than Miranda would have expected, a key-locking deadbolt that would have been more suitable on a front door than a bedroom door. She held the flashlight for Tango while the changeling probed the lock’s inner workings. It gave her a chance to look around the back of the apartment. The bathroom was done in dark green tile and polished brass, so clean it looked like it was barely used. The master bedroom was Mediterranean blue, perfect, but without character. Pretentious and orderly, just like the rest of the apartment.

“Got it.” Tango stood and opened the door.

It was like looking into another world.

The second bedroom was also decorated in blue, but a soft, powdery, pastel blue. The bed was white with a blue canopy and a thick comforter. A few favored stuffed animals resided on the fluffy pillows, but more crowded the shelves of a bookcase, the seat of a rocking chair and the top of a dresser. There were posters of horses on one wall and a few books scattered around. Behind the door was a growth chart. A table in one corner was topped with fashion dolls and doll-sized furniture. The drapes on the window were a cascade of lacy fabric. On a low vanity dresser were laid out the toys of playing grown-up: brushes, barrettes, a jewelry box, lipgloss, old compacts of blush and eyeshadow, empty adult perfume bottles, a half-full bottle of a candy-sweet girl’s perfume. A coatrack beside the vanity held a big, floppy straw hat, a grand boa, and other clothes for dress-up. There was none of the pretension of the rest of the apartment here, only the feel of a room created by a mother to spoil a precious child.

Except that there was no child. The room was pristine, the bed unwrinkled, the deep pile of the powder-blue carpet showing the criss-cross tracks of a vacuum cleaner, unmarked by a human foot. If Atlanta Hunter cleaned this room, she vacuumed the floor as though she were painting it, backing up toward the door. Miranda felt as though she were walking into a shrine as she stepped across the threshold.

“Maybe Cheryl lives with her father?” she suggested. “No. I don’t think there is a Cheryl.” Tango walked into the room and went to the closet, opening it. The clothes that were inside were all brand new, perfectly arranged. She opened a dresser drawer and lifted out a shirt still creased from the store. “Maybe there was, once.”

“But the pictures? The new clothes?”

“I don’t understand it.” She looked around. “This is the sort of room I would have loved to have as a little girl.”

“Changelings start out as children?”

“Of course. What did you think happened?”

“I thought you were just sort of...” Miranda shrugged, embarrassed now that she had even mentioned it. In spite of what she had said at Hopeful the other night, she was jealous of Tango’s knowledge of the world. She felt a little bit ignorant every time she was with her. Her only real experience with other supernatural creatures was limited to Tango herself and to Solomon

— and she didn’t dare tell the one about the other. “Eternal. Like characters from fairy tales.”

“Maybe real faeries are, but Kithain are born and grow up just like humans. We only stop being human when we realize who we really are. Something like a vampire being Embraced.” Tango touched a set of ceramic wind chimes shaped like prancing unicorns. “What about you?”

“What do you mean? Vampires are Embraced, like you said.”

“No.” Tango smiled and shook her head. “I mean, isn’t this the kind of room you would have liked?”

“I... I don’t know.” it was such a human thing to ask. She hadn’t really thought about her childhood in a long time. Miranda opened the jewelry box on the vanity. A miniature ballerina popped up and began to pivot to the tinkling sounds of a music box. Tango glanced at the jewelry box, then looked again and came over. She pointed at a piece of the child’s jewelry inside.

“That’s the charm bracelet that Cheryl... Riley was wearing on the plane.”

Miranda picked it up. “Cute.” Little gold charms dripped off the bracelet, and there were more in the box. Mostly souvenir charms from the cities and monuments captured in the photo albums.

“Let me see it.” Tango reached for the bracelet. Miranda dropped it into her hand.    •

The changeling gasped suddenly and let the bracelet go. Miranda snatched it out of the air as it fell. She stared at Tango. “What?”

Tango was holding her hand as if she had been shocked. “The bracelet is magical. Enchanted somehow.”

“How do you know?” Miranda fingered the delicate metal. The bracelet seemed perfectly ordinary to her.

“Changelings can sense things like that sometimes. Especially when the magic is very strong.” She blinked and shook her head. “But it’s not enchanted with Glamour, and it doesn’t feel like a mage’s human magick. There’s something... evil about it. Not the bracelet itself, just the enchantment.” She took a breath. “The bracelet feels almost like it’s alive.”

One charm dangled apart from the others, a flat tag engraved Cheryl. Miranda rubbed it between her fingers. “You say Riley was wearing this?” Tango nodded. Miranda licked her lips. “Maybe I’ve been hanging around Tolly too long, but if magic transformed Riley into Cheryl, what better way to do it than with a charm bracelet?”

Tango’s breath hissed between her teeth. “That would be a very cheap, sick pun, but you might be right.” Abruptly, she held out her arm. “Put it on me.” “Are you crazy?” Miranda pulled the bracelet away. “We don’t know what it could do to you!”

“If I’m right, I’ll turn into Cheryl.” Tango grimaced. “I don’t like it either, but this could be the only way for us to know what they did to Riley.”

“But will you turn back again when the bracelet is off?”

Tango looked into Miranda’s eyes. “Cross your fingers and hope.” She pushed her wrist forward again.

Miranda swallowed. If Tango was determined to go through with this, she would help her. Quickly she fastened the charm bracelet around the changeling’s fine wrist. Tango’s eyes went wide with pain and her breath caught harshly in her throat. And then Miranda was holding the hand of a sweet-faced little girl wearing Tango’s clothing.

The transformation was virtually instantaneous. Miranda was stunned for a moment by the speed of it. One moment Tango was herself, and the next moment she was Cheryl, the girl from the photographs. Except that both she and Tango had forgotten to think of one thing: suddenly there was an eight-year-old girl in the dark room, her hand being held by a tall woman whose features were lit eerily by a flashlight. Cheryl screamed in terror, hurling the flashlight away.

Frantically, Miranda fumbled open the clasp on the bracelet and clamped a hand over the girl’s mouth. “Quiet!” she whispered, rocking back and forth. “Quiet! It’s all right.” She looked down at the figure in her arms. It was still that of a little girl. “Oh, shit.”

“Mmph,” mumbled the figure. It shoved at Miranda’s hand. “It’s Tango.” Her voice was normal, but the rest of her wasn’t. She looked down at herself. “My god.” “You’re not turning back!”

“I am, but slowly. Maybe the time the transformation lasts after the bracelet is off is related to how long the bracelet is on — the last time I heard from Riley, he had Cheryl’s voice, but his own memories. I got my own voice back right away.” She hissed. Miranda felt the changeling’s body shifting in her arms, growing larger and filling out. Tango was becoming herself again.

“It hurts?”

“In more ways than one.” Tango carefully picked up the bracelet, not trying to put it on, but holding it as if it were almost too hot to touch. “We were right, Miranda. It was the bracelet... and the bracelet is alive... and there was a girl named Cheryl once.” Tango’s voice was filled with rage. “All of these charms are parts of Cheryl’s life. Someone trapped her spirit in this bracelet!”

Miranda was stunned. “Who?”

Tango shook her head. “I don’t know. But it happened a long time ago.”

“The first pictures of Atlanta and Cheryl are from sixteen years ago.” Miranda growled. “If they’re all like Riley, people transformed.... Could that be what Riley got mixed up in?”

“No. I don’t think so. Maybe.” Tango stared at the bracelet, then said bitterly, “We still don’t know what happened to Riley. They got the bracelet on him at the airport, brought him onto the airplane, and sat him right in his own seat! But someone canceled his ticket

— no, they wiped any record of his ticket off the system. Who could have done that?”

She was shaking, though whether from frustration, anger, anguish or just the effort of controlling her emotions, Miranda couldn’t tell. The vampire gave the changeling a tight hug. Tango hugged her back for a moment. The contact made Miranda feel better as well. How long had it been, she wondered, since she had been held? Not embraced in the course of feeding, not caressed by Solomon, but simply held? Six years? As long as since she had thought about her childhood. She closed her eyes and savored the sensation. It felt good. When Tango finally pulled away, Miranda found herself reluctant to let the changeling go. “Now what?” she asked.

“We search the room.” Tango retrieved her flashlight. “With any luck, there’s something in here that we can use.”

There was, and they found it under the ruffled skirt of the bed. Another photo album with a third set of pictures. These pictures, though, didn’t show scenery, or Atlanta and Cheryl. They showed other people, men, women and children — not posed, but simply candid or covert shots. The photographs were dated, and each corresponded to a photograph in the other small album. The last photograph was a picture of Riley, taken as he was getting out of a cab. Miranda hissed as the significance of the album dawned on her. “Tango! She kidnaps people, then uses the bracelet to transform them into Cheryl!”

Tango nodded grimly. “She could take them with her on planes or anywhere else and no one would be the wiser. Like some kind of magical bounty hunter. But why Riley?” She brushed her fingers over his photo. “Bounty hunters don’t snatch people for no reason. Somebody wanted Riley. This photo was taken just outside San Francisco International.” She brought out the other album and turned to the final picture of Atlanta and Cheryl. The two pictures had been taken twenty-five minutes apart. “Atlanta couldn’t have gotten the bracelet on Riley by herself. He would have fought back.”

“Then she had help, unless she’s a lot more than she seems. Someone to alter the record of ticket sales, too.” Miranda glanced at Tango. “Why the bedroom, then?” “I don’t know.” Tango tapped her chin with the butt of the flashlight. “Cover maybe? Somewhere for ‘Cheryl’ to stay.” She frowned. “This kind of magic wouldn’t be cheap. Except for knowing that whoever is behind this had the clout and contacts to hire a really good bounty hunter, we’re still no closer to finding out where Riley is now.” Tango closed the photo album and set it aside. “I wonder what happened to the other people Atlanta kidnapped.”

Miranda was silent. She knew what the Sabbat did to the humans that they kidnapped. They became a feast for the vampires. The idea was suddenly unsettling to her.

In the silence, she heard the sound of laughter — a man and a woman — and a dull click as the lock on the apartment door opened.