At twilight, halted by the brook:
And for the first time in her life Began to listen and look.
The bright sunlight of midafternoon came streaming down on Tango’s face. She groaned, first flinging an arm across her face in an effort to block it out, then rolling over and burying her face in the pillows of Riley’s bed. Trying to go back to sleep. The stresses of the morning and the night before had exhausted her.
After Miranda had run away, Tango, still riding the wave of her anger, had turned to the other vampires and advanced on them. The vampire in the leather jacket
— Matt — had taken one look at her, then called the others off. A smart move. The pack had piled quickly into Miranda’s car and gotten it going, either through the luck of Miranda’s keys in the ignition or a quick hotwire. Tango had been left behind on the curb, screaming her anger at them. She had thrown Miranda’s fallen cellular phone after them, hurling it hard enough to send it crashing through the rear window of the car. And then she had sat down on the curb, head in her unsteady hands, and slowly pushed back her terrible rage.
She felt betrayed. Miranda had lied to her. Tango had thought that she could trust the vampire. She had seemed so different from other vampires that Tango had known. Eager. Vulnerable. That Miranda had been part of the penny murders the whole time sickened her. That she had thrown the secret of Tango’s own past back in her teeth disgusted her even more.
Her anger and lust for the vampire’s death had felt good.
Tango shivered. It was almost as it had been in those first years after she had stopped being Shiv. She wanted the Rapture so badly it almost seemed like her need was trying.to take control of her body. She locked the Rapture away once more, reminding herself of her promise. She wouldn't kill again. Ah, her soul whispered, but wouldn’t it be nice, too? Those dark desires seethed beneath her skin.
She had walked over to the mouth of the alley, forcing herself to look at the couple that the vampires had murdered. They were beaten to death, their facial features virtually unrecognizable. That was death. Ugly. Not transcendent. Not beautiful. There was no Glamour in it. Because it wasn’t done right. Tango had gritted her teeth and looked up at the apartment windows that faced into the alley. They were dark. No one was stirring. Could everyone really have slept through the murders and the fight? If they hadn’t, could they really have been ignoring them so coldly? She had gone inside to call the police from Riley’s apartment, then back outside to wait for them and to keep watch over the murder scene.
It had taken the arrival of the cruisers and ambulances to bring the apartment building to life. The police had strung yellow plastic tape everywhere, dropping the big rolls over their nightsticks so they could unwind them more easily. Officers had started going door-to-door inside. Detectives had sat Tango down inside a van and she had told them her story -— or at least the story that she’d figured out while she was waiting for them to arrive.
She had been out with friends. They had dropped her off farther up the block. She had been walking into the building when she had seen the bloody footprints on the ground and heard arguing from the alley. She had seen a woman and three men. And the bodies. She had hidden until they were gone, the woman running away and the men driving off. Then she had called the police.
It was a simple story, and plausible. There were no heroic confrontations, no claims to have seen the murder itself. No mention that the murderers were vampires, of course. Tango was pleased with the story. She had debated whether she should tell the police anything at all or just phone in the murder as an anonymous report. In the end, she had gone with the story, if for no other reason than that it gave her a chance for some revenge on the vampires. Now the police would have accurate descriptions of the murderers, and even if they didn’t catch the vampires
— Tango sincerely doubted that they would — the descriptions would make things very difficult for Miranda and her pack.
The detectives believed her completely. They had taken her down to the division offices as soon as the story was out of her mouth. She had repeated it again and again, for every conceivable purpose, staying as close to the original story as possible. When all of the detectives and investigators working on the case seemed satisfied, she gave an official statement. When all the forms had been signed and oaths sworn, she had sat down with a police artist to create composite pictures on a computer. Miranda had been too easy to describe. Tango was surprised and a little disgusted that she could remember so many details of the other woman’s face. Matt and Blue were more difficult. Tolly was the hardest of all because his face had seemed so inhuman. All she could really remember was long blond hair and a pierced tongue. The police artist had seemed satisfied anyway. “You’ve given us more than anyone else so far.”
“Anyone else? There have been other witnesses?” “Just a few people who saw strangers with the victims or in the area.” The artist had smiled. “You didn't hear any of that from me, though. The detectives warned you not to talk about this with anybody, right?” Tango had nodded. “Don’t forget that.”
Tango had almost laughed. Who was she going to tell? And why should she? The truth was far stranger than anything the police could have believed.
It had been almost noon by the time the police had finished with her and said she could leave. They had had to let her out through the entrance to the division’s underground parking garage; the street in front of the division offices was a mass of protesters. Not just gay activists this time, but a cross-section of Toronto’s population. Word of the double murder was out, and people were more frightened and nervous than ever. So were the police. The young constable who had escorted her out of the division advised her not to hang around , the area too long.
“Expecting another riot?”
He had nodded and brushed a hand through his close-cropped hair. “Not even the veterans can remember seeing things this bad. If we don’t get a major breakthrough on this soon....” He exhaled loudly. “I was in the crowds when the Jays won the World Series the first time. That was friendly. If the murders keep up for another couple of days, I think we could be seeing something on the same scale, but not friendly at all.”
Tango had taken his advice, not out of concern for her safety, but out of sheer exhaustion. There had been a small crowd of thrillseekers outside the apartment, gawking at the yellow tape, when she had gotten back. Inside, she had flicked on the noon-hour news for just a moment as she undressed and showered. One television station had been carrying a live feed of the restless crowd outside of the division offices. The newscaster had been making the same predictions for the future that the constable had. Another channel was showing scenes of the alley outside Riley’s building as the murder victims were taken away, the newscaster reporting that the police were allegedly interviewing a witness. Tango herself, of course. The gray-haired commentator on a third station had been sanctimoniously lamenting the loss of decency, morals and manners in Toronto the Good. Disgusted, Tango had switched him off in the middle of his diatribe, walked into the bedroom, pulled down the shades, and fallen into bed.
The sun was warm on her back, but she had pulled down the shades.
She came back to full alertness instantly. Someone had been in the apartment. Someone was in the apartment. Tango could hear them moving around. She could also smell coffee, eggs and bacon. Pulling on the first pieces of clothing that her hands encountered, she slipped out of bed and over to the door of the bedroom. From there she could see into the kitchen. And she could see the plump, older Kithain who was bustling around between the cupboards and the stove.
“Epp!” she snarled loudly.
The boggan jumped, then tried desperately to recover her composure. “Good afternoon, Tango.” She reached for a pot of coffee. “I don’t suppose you’ve had anything to eat today, have you?” The pot shook in her unsteady hand.
Tango stalked into the kitchen, striving to keep the worst part of her anger at bay. The kitchen was spotless. Every surface, from sink to counter to floor, gleamed brightly. Colorful flowers were arranged in an old wine bottle. There was toast in the toaster, an omelette in a frying pan, and bacon keeping warm in the oven. On the table, a single perfect orange shone in a ray of sunlight like some rogue advertisement for Florida. There was a place set at the table, as well. Epp picked up a mug and poured steaming coffee into it. She offered the mug to Tango.
Tango’s gut reaction was to slap the mug out of her hand. She took a deep breath, however, forcing her anger away, and accepted the coffee brusquely instead. She glared at the other Kithain. “How many times do I have to tell you to stay away?”
“I’m sorry,” Epp said meekly. Tango blinked and looked at her in surprise. She hardly sounded like the same person. “But if you’d check your answering machine a little more often, you would have gotten my message saying that I was coming over this afternoon.
You have to pay for some more things for Highsummer Night. You didn’t seem particularly fond of Dex last time, so I arranged to borrow a car and leave him to his own business. Now, why don’t you just sit down and eat before your breakfast gets cold, hmtn?” She had pulled out a chair and slipped the omelette expertly onto a plate before the nocker could even blink again.
Tango looked at the boggan suspiciously. “What do you want, Epp?”
“Me?” Epp paused in the middle of taking a plate of crisp bacon out of the oven. “I wanted to try and make amends for getting off on the wrong foot. Two strips or three?” She considered Tango’s tense form, then decided, “Four. Healthy girl like you...”
“Epp, you want something. I can’t believe that you would be making me breakfast — or lunch, or brunch, or whatever this is -— if you didn’t.” She didn’t mention that the thought of poison had crossed her mind; she didn’t think that even Epp held that much of a grudge against her.
Toast popped up and Epp added it to the table as well, along with a little white bowl of butter. “Try this. I make it myself. Butter-making is a lost art.”
“Epp...” Tango threatened quietly.
Epp bit her lip nervously. “Will you at least promise to listen to me?”
“I’ll promise not to throw you out of the apartment right now!” Epp looked forlornly at the meal she had prepared. Tango growled and sat down at the table. “All right.” She picked up a fork and cut into the omelette. Melted cheese and bright peppers burst out. Tango barely noticed. “What do you want? I’m not in a good mood.”
“It’s not what I want. It’s what Duke Michael wants. He’s asked for a report on the state of preparations for Highsummer.”
“So give it to him.”
“I can’t!” Epp wailed. “You don’t understand the etiquette of his court. The Jester is supposed to be organizing the party, so the Jester has to give the report.” Tango snorted. Epp practically collapsed into the chair across the table from her. “Please!” she begged. “You have to do this for me. I’m so close. Highsummer is only two days away!”
Was it really? Had she been in Toronto for five days already? Tango ate some of the omelette idly, almost mechanically. It had been five days. Only five days, in spite of all that had happened. Five days over which Miranda had built up her trust before betraying her. Tango gritted her teeth. Her anger was still too close to the surface. She didn’t want to go to court and face Duke Michael and the rest of the sidhe like this. Or at all. But... Tango looked speculatively at Epp. The boggan was smoothing the surface of her homemade butter with a knife, nervously molding it into a perfect plane, then whipping it up and starting again. Tango had another opportunity to do something that might help find Riley. Not much of an opportunity, but something. She would be an idiot to let it slip past her. “I want you to do something for me in return,” she said.
Epp looked up with desperate gratitude. “I’ll even remove the curse if you want!”
Tango had to laugh. The boggan’s curse was the least of her worries, unless Riley was now outside of Metro Toronto. She hoped he wasn’t. “You must have some kind of contact network, don’t you?” Epp looked blank.
Tango tried rephrasing her words. “A grapevine? A rumor mill?”
“I have a few friends.”
“How much do they see? Beyond the usual neighborhood gossip stuff, that is.” Tango took the butterknife from Epp’s hand and spread some butter on a piece of cooling toast. “I want to find someone.” Epp’s eyes went narrow. “Not Riley?”
Tango sighed. “No, not Riley, so you won’t be going against any of the duke’s orders.” Not directly at least. If Epp’s contacts — and maybe the contacts of any other Kithain she could get the boggan to involve — could locate Jubilee, however, Tango had some more questions to ask her former friend. She bit into her toast savagely. She might even be willing to let herself use some of the old skills she had neglected for so long....
No. She wasn’t going to do that. The toast, suddenly dry, stuck in her throat, and she reached for her coffee to wash it down. She needed to stay calm, particularly if she was going to walk into the duke’s court. It had been bad enough the last time she was there, but with her old anger so near the surface, it was sure to be even more stressful. And this time, she had to stay calm. For Riley’s sake. Eyes on her plate, temper under tight control, she described Jubilee and what she remembered of his habits. Anything that might help locate him. When she was finished, she glanced up at Epp. “Well?” she asked.
Epp seemed upset. “It would take time. I couldn’t do it all today, and the duke wants his report.”
Tango’s face twisted in annoyance. “You don’t have to get results today, just as long as you promise to do it. If you do that, I’ll do your report.”
“And make the payments I need?”
“And make the payments,” Tango sighed. She might find Riley yet. Epp beamed happily.
“I...” she began.
A police car roared past on the street outside, siren blaring, Another followed close behind it. Tango just caught the flashing of the second car’s lights as she glanced up. Her stomach knotted suddenly. What was happening in the city now? “Wait,” she told Epp. “I want you to ask your friends about someone else. A woman. A vampire.”
Epp made an expression of distaste. “Most of my friends wouldn’t know a vampire if one bit them. You’re asking for quite a bit.”
“So are you. Tell your friends that she’s an ordinary woman.”
Epp hesitated, then nodded. “All right. 1 promise.” Tango swilled down the last of her coffee. “I’ll get dressed. We’ll make the payments, then go give the duke his report.” She smiled, mostly to herself. If she could find jubilee, she might be able to find Riley. If she could find Miranda, she might be able to put a stop to the vampires’ murderous spree.
* * *
With the setting of the sun, Miranda opened her eyes. She could feel dried blood on her face — the remains of the red tears she had been crying when the sun had risen and sent her into the oblivion of sleep. She had held the tears back as she ran through the streets of Toronto last night, only letting them flow freely when she had reached the safety of her
hiding place.
Years ago, she had felt like the University of Toronto was the best place in the world. She had been happy there. She had felt safe, coddled in the arms of academia. The Sabbat had snatched her early in the evening from a broad, well-lit path within sight of a fairly busy street and several university residences. The illusion of safety had shattered along with her mortal life. The Sabbat had taken half a dozen of them from the campus that night: her as she walked, Blue as he left the gym, Tolly as he practiced in the faculty of music building, Matt and two others as they reeled back, drunk, from a pub. Matt’s two friends hadn’t survived the Sabbat’s Creation Rites. There was no safety anywhere, she knew now. It was the same lesson that Solomon was teaching Toronto. There was no safety from the shadows.
But there was still something about the university that called out to Miranda. When she had fled from Tango and the pack, she had gone back to the university, to the big research library. All of the lower doors and windows were locked tight at night and connected to an alarm system, of course, but that was nothing to her. Unnatural strength had carried her up the rough surface of the building’s exterior to office windows on the sixth floor. There were no alarms here. She had shattered a window casually and slipped inside. Then she had climbed up into the dark, windowless depths of the book stacks. In an obscure, dusty corner, she had wrapped the shadows around herself, cried tears of blood, and waited for sunrise.
For a moment after she first woke, the still, dark air felt so much like the grave of the Creation Rites that
Miranda instinctively lashed out, trying to dig for the surface and freedom. Those vampires who dug their way out of their own graves were judged fit to become Sabbat. The lack of resistance to her claws brought her all the way back to herself, however. Flustered, she shrank back into the shadows for a moment, looking around to see if anyone had seen her.
There didn’t seem to be anyone nearby. The lights wTere still on, however; the library was still open. At least she wouldn’t have to break any windows to get out tonight. She could just walk away. There were bound to be students around somewhere, though, and staff at the checkout desk by the doors. She would have to clean her face before she could leave. Luckily, there was a bathroom only one floor up, and she had to duck back to avoid being seen by students only once.
Miranda scrubbed at her face with cold water and cheap, pink liquid soap that smelled like faded roses and felt like slime. She scrubbed until the only pink that stained the water in the sink came from the soap. Her black clothes were gray with clinging dust. She brushed at herself futilely, then decided that no one would notice. Only she would know where the gray dust had come from. She rode an elevator calmly down to the ground floor, then walked out of the library.
It was another hot night, and early enough that there should have been people on the streets. There was almost no one, however. The people who were out walked quickly, heads up, hands gripping books and bags tightly, nervously alert. Everyone else must have been inside, afraid of the penny murderer. Miranda bit her tongue. Tonight the pack was supposed to kill someone who had stayed indoors, supposedly safe behind a
security system.
It was also the night for the Bandog ritual, she realized, the one at which Solomon would keep his promise to tell her and the rest of the Bandog the true purpose behind the murders. The reason why he was terrifying Toronto.
Miranda wasn’t sure she could face that ritual. She wasn’t sure she could face the Bandog or Solomon. Or the rest of the pack. Or Tango. Definitely not Tango. Her head ached whenever she thought about the changeling. Tango had shocked and disappointed her with the revelations about her dark past, but hadn’t she shocked and disappointed Tango more? Or wouldn’t she have, had Tango found out everything? As it was, Tango only knew that Miranda was one of the murderers she so despised. She didn’t know that Miranda had also betrayed her to Jubilee Arthurs, or that she was intimately connected with the man who had ordered Riley kidnapped. A lot of the ache in her head, Miranda realized, was her own disappointment with herself.
She closed her eyes and wavered on her feet. She should feed. Blood would wash away the doubts, or at least blot them out. An image of the changeling called Sin and the woman he had danced with last night came back to Miranda suddenly. They had looked so enraptured... and Tango had looked so terribly, frighteningly like them when she had talked about enjoying her former life as an assassin. Miranda shuddered, walking down the block and trying to forget the flicker of hungry joy that had crossed the changeling’s face. She should feed.
There was a young woman walking alone in the early evening on a broad, well-lit path within sight of a fairly
busy street and several university residences.
Miranda walked toward her. The vampire’s head was raised, ready to strike, predatory. All she had to do was glance into the woman’s eyes and the woman would follow her willingly, would let her drink willingly. Might even die willingly. It would be good. Miranda was hungry. She had fed only a little last night, a fast, brief drink from the veins of the man at Jubilee Arthurs’ house. She would be able to take her time with the young woman, feeding slowly. She remembered Sin and the dancing woman.
She remembered the assassin’s shadow that had crossed Tango’s face last night, not once, but twice. Outside Club Haze when she had confessed to her past. And outside Riley’s apartment when the changeling had seen the pack’s victims, then turned on Miranda.
Did she look like that now?
The young woman was ten feet from Miranda and they were approaching each other rapidly. It would be simple. She had nothing to fear. Wasn’t she Sabbat, the ultimate predator, the ultimate evil?. Wasn’t she an infernalist, feared even by the Sabbat for what she was willing to do for power?
Miranda readied herself. One glance. They were almost facing each other. She could almost taste the sweet richness of the other woman’s blood. She pushed herself deeper into the warm, red memories of past feedings. Last night, outside Jubilee Arthurs’ house, Miranda had been embarrassed by those memories, afraid of exposing her inhumanity to Tango. Now she wallowed in them, reveling in her inhumanity. It was her strength.
She glanced at the other woman.
Tango had finally seen her inhumanity. She had attacked it.
The other woman froze. Miranda decided not to take her anywhere. She would feed here, on the path where she had herself first encountered the Sabbat.
Tango could not accept her own inhumanity — she had enjoyed killing once, too. Who was she to judge Miranda?
Miranda swept the woman’s hair back from her neck. Smooth skin shone in the lamplight, the woman’s rapid pulse making the shadow under her jaw quiver and wink. Miranda’s fangs descended.
Inhuman. This was the vampire’s nature. To feed from the cattle of humanity.
She bit down into the woman’s neck. Hot blood filled her mouth, filled her body, filled her soul with a hard, greedy pleasure. Miranda gnawed at the woman’s throat, desperate for more. The blood erased all doubts of her nature. The woman in her embrace shuddered. A vampire was inhuman. It existed to feed.
But what had Tango pointed out? The murders that the pack had committed for Solomon were beatings. None of the victims had been bitten. None of the vampires had fed. What nature was there in that? The blood in her mouth tasted suddenly stale.
What was Tango rejecting in Miranda? She had always know'n that Miranda was a vampire. She had always known what that meant. Killing to survive. Tango had pushed away her ability to kill because she didn’t have to kill. But she had accepted that she could kill. She simply chose not to. She had recognized her inhumanity — and controlled it.
Miranda rushed eagerly into its arms.
She could feel the heartbeat of the nameless human woman whom she held. It was growing weaker. The woman would die if she kept feeding. Miranda had her blood. Did she have to take her life?
Miranda pushed the woman away, licking her wounds to seal them. She left her lying on the path and walked away, back toward the street at the path’s end. She was about halfway there when a black sedan stopped at the curb. David got out and walked briskly around to open the passenger'side rear door. Solomon gestured to her from the back seat. She went to him.
“Miranda.” Solomon wore only a T-shirt and shorts tonight, very different from his typically fashionable clothing. He would change later for the Bandog ritual, but even so it looked as though he had dressed quickly. Miranda slid in to sit next to him. David shut the car door behind her. Solomon just looked at her, then produced a white handkerchief and wiped her victim’s blood from her face. “Miranda, where have you been going with this changeling woman?”
How did Solomon know about Tango? Matt had said something about talking to the mage the night before, Miranda remembered abruptly. The pack must have told Solomon. She felt detached from herself, sated by the feeding, wearied by her own confusion. Only part of her was here in the sedan with Solomon. Another part was still on the path with the unconscious woman. A third part, she realized, was wondering if it wasn’t too late to find Tango again, confess everything and beg her for forgiveness. It would mean betraying the Bandog, but what part of herself had she not already betrayed at Solomon’s command?
“Miranda?” Solomon asked her again.
She gave him a false smile. “Tango’s a pawn,” she lied, the same lie she had told to herself once. “Someone to be manipulated when I have the need.”
“I see.” The car swayed ever so slightly as David pulled back out into the street. They turned a corner. A set of iron gates, with a fountain bubbling in the courtyard behind them, were framed momentarily in the window over Solomon’s shoulder. He smiled back at her and held out his wrist for her to kiss his chain tattoo. She did, although this time she didn’t turn his arm over to lick at his inner wrist. It hardly seemed necessary, though. Solomon had already seized her left hand and begun kissing his way up her arm. Miranda allowed him to do so. Cool detachment came easily to her tonight
— detached because her mind was already distant, cool because she wished that she were somewhere else. Anywhere else. With Tango.
The sensation of Solomon’s lips brought a little sharpness back to her mind, however. Perhaps she could persuade Solomon to tell her why he had had Riley kidnapped. That information might make Tango a little more willing to listen to her. “Solomon...”
The Nephandus sighed and twisted down so that he lay with his head in her lap. “You didn’t answer me, Miranda. Where have you been going with Tango?” “Out.” She brushed her hand through Solomon’s hair, raking her fingernails lightly along his skin in the way that she knew he liked. “Things she liked to do. We went to a movie. We broke into a museum.”
“Did you go to the airport for her?”
Miranda kept her hand moving, sliding from Solomon’s hair to his chest. “No. I went to the airport to feed. I told you that.”
“Were you with Tango last night?”
“I took her hunting with me.”
“When you should have been hunting for the Bandog?” Solomon looked up at her and smiled. “Don’t worry. The murders were still carried out. Matt is good.” He brought a hand, the one not holding the bloody handkerchief, up to caress a strand of her hair. “I looked for you tonight. You weren’t with the pack. You weren’t in the apartment where the changeling woman is staying. 1 finally found you in a library.” His fingers slipped free of her hair. She slid a hand under his shirt to brush his smooth, muscular chest. Solomon’s eyes closed dreamily. “Matt said you ran from her. Why?” Miranda could feel her fangs descending again, but out of fear, not hunger, this time. Why so many questions? Was Solomon jealous? “I was...”
“You were frightened of her? You, the fierce vampire? The strong vampire?” He caught the hand that was down his shirt and pushed her nails into his skin. Five droplets of blood stained the thin fabric of his T-shirt. Solomon held her nails in his flesh for a heartbeat, then released her, reaching up to touch her firmly closed lips. He pressed against the skin over her fangs. Miranda sat like a statue.
How could he have guessed at that?
“I’m right, aren’t I?” he asked. “You w'ere afraid that Tango might find out what a beast you are.”
And how had he known that Tango was a changeling? Matt had known something was odd about Tango, but neither Tango nor Miranda had mentioned changelings. A tremor traveled down Miranda’s spine as Solomon’s finger trailed from her lips to her breast, then farther down. Jubilee Arthurs, she realized too late.
Solomon’s head turned to nuzzle her crotch through her black pants as she hesitated. The mercenary must have gone straight to Solomon and told him everything. In combination with what the pack must have told him... Solomon knew it all.
Miranda looked down at the squirming mage in her lap, blood on his shirt, one hand caressing his own crotch as he worried at hers. He was playing games with her, just as he played games with Toronto, using the penny murders like moves in a chess match. It was too much. She wanted to know what had happened to Riley. Tango might forgive her then. The changeling played no games. Miranda glanced at the back of David’s head, then at the rearview mirror. Her eyes met his in the reflection. He was watching them. No matter. She had observed once that when she was so intimately close to Solomon, there was nothing, not even his own magick, that could react quickly enough to prevent anything she chose to do to him.
She gripped his head, bending it back so his neck was exposed, and folded her torso like a contortionist. His pulse hammered under her fingers, but it wasn’t fangs that would be her weapon. She brought her gaze to bear against Solomon’s, her will as strong as her fingers and ready for any resistance. Forceful eyes stared into startled eyes. Miranda’s will licked out, as soft a caress as if she had been licking his wrist with her tongue....
Solomon’s hand, the one that held the bloodied handkerchief, clenched once. Convulsively. Something popped. The stink of garlic tickled Miranda’s nose for a fraction of a second -— then a raging fire seemed to sweep through every vein and
capillary in her undead body.
She couldn’t help shrieking out loud and writhing in agony. She had been wrong about how quickly the mage could react! Solomon pushed himself away from her and sat up. His face was cold with anger. Slowly, he opened the handkerchief to reveal the clove of garlic he had hidden inside it. The crushed clove was red with the same stolen blood that burned in her body. “I was only going to paralyze you as I did Matt and the others that time, but you lied to me, Miranda,” he said thinly. “And you were going to try to force your will on me.” He seized her hair and yanked her helpless head back viciously. The fire of his magick abated a bit. “Never mistake submission for weakness. Where’s Tango?”
The control that she had imagined she had over the mage had all been an illusion. She had never had any control, any power. “I... don’t know.”
“You must,” Solomon snarled. “She hasn’t been at Riley Stanton’s apartment all night, and I can’t use my magick to find someone I don’t know!” He considered her face. “I don’t have time to keep this up all night. I have a ritual to conduct. Tell me.”
“I don’t know!”
Solomon snarled. “I suppose that makes a certain sense, since you did run away from her last night like some kind of frightened rat. Do you know where she could have gone?”
“No!” Solomon looked at her narrowly, then kneaded the handkerchief a little more. The burning in her blood redoubled in intensity. Miranda howled and curled up into a little ball. “Solomon...” she pleaded.
“You’ve been replaced, Miranda. In my favor as well
as in the Bandog.”
Miranda could only stay huddled in agony until she felt the car come to a stop. David got out and opened the door for Solomon. Then he reached into the car and dragged her out as well.
They were parked behind Solomon’s mansion. Three figures were silhouetted by a yard light beside the mansion’s back door. They came forward. Matt, Miranda realized with pain-filled clarity, and Blue, and a third, tall and thin... not Tolly, though. Jubilee Arthurs. The mercenary approached Solomon, but Solomon shoved him away with a muttered curse. Instead, the mage went to Matt. The glance that passed between them told Miranda who had replaced her. She knew that Matt would be reveling in his newfound “power.” Jubilee glared at Solomon’s back, then came over and went through Miranda’s pockets, looking for his Bandog chain. Weak, Miranda spat at him and tried to struggle, but Jubilee just held her down. He found the chain.
“Traitor!” she hissed at him.
“Me? Be careful with that word, Miranda.” He stood smugly and walked away.
“Has Tolly come yet?” Solomon was asking Matt. Matt shook his head and Solomon cursed quietly. Miranda almost felt like smiling: the powerful mage apparently had as much trouble locating the mad vampire as any of them did. Perhaps some stray thread of that brief, rebellious thought reached Solomon, because he glanced back at her. He gestured at her shortly, as though she were little more than furniture. “Pick her up. I’ll show you where to put her.” He smiled briefly in a way that Miranda had never seen before: cold, certain, ambitious, almost demonic. Inhuman. Matt and Blue moved to obey his command without questioning it in the slightest. A smile did flicker across Matt’s face as he lifted her shoulder — a smile of anticipation as inhuman as Solomon’s.
The Nephandus mage led the way into the house. David held the back door open so the procession could pass through. When he looked down at the helpless vampire, his expression was absolutely neutral. It was almost eerie to watch the ceilings of Solomon’s house pass above her. Miranda wasn’t sure she had ever really noticed their detailed plasterwork before. The old white relief designs were oddly beautiful. Solomon finally stopped by the door that led into his study. He toyed with a trailing lock of Miranda’s hair, just as he had in the car. “I’ll see you after the Bandog ritual. I’ll have questions for you.” He glanced at the vampires carrying her. “Make sure she’s willing — and able — to answer them. Then go do tonight’s penny murders. Three victims, scattered across the city. Do it as quickly as you can, so that the times of death are close together. And find Tolly. I want all three of you back here for the ritual.”
* * *
Duke Michael had accused her of lying.
It wasn’t the fact that the arrogant sidhe lord had done so — after all, she had been lying when she made her report on the progress of plans for the Highsummer party. But Epp had coached her well as they drove around Toronto prior to attending the duke at his court. So well that at times Tango had wanted to strangle the fat Kithain, She had taken deep breaths, reminding herself that she needed Epp’s help now, and then she had committed the boggan’s elaborate plans to heart, from sunset serenade to midnight feast to sunrise fireworks display. Tango had stood before the duke, recited Epp’s plans, claimed them dutifully as her own... and the duke had seen right through the ruse.
Tango could have handled that. She could have protested. She could have held back her frustration with the sidhe lord’s high-handed ways. Except that Duke Michael hadn’t even given her an opportunity to protest or defend her actions. He had simply accused her, then carried out her sentence: she was to be reminded of the role of a Jester. She would amuse the court until the moon rose. Once again his pool cue had been transformed into a rod of office.
And Tango had found herself twittering like a schoolgirl, telling off-color jokes and tumbling acrobatically around the court.
It was humiliating.
Only a few of the Kithain, she had noticed, did not laugh. Among them were Epp and Sin, Epp looking shocked, Sin looking blackly grim. Dex had laughed uproariously, trading slaps to the back with Duke Michael. Tango also noticed that Epp wasn’t punished. All of the blame fell on her. When control over her own limbs and voice had returned to her, she had barely been able to contain her killing anger. She had stumbled out of the court, up the narrow stairway — even Ruby dared not confront her, not even to provide voiceless sympathy — and onto the streets of Yorkville. The moon had been just above the horizon, a fat silver blade in the hot night sky. She had walked back to
Riley’s apartment, almost hoping that someone would pick a fight with her.
Now she leaned her head against Riley’s door and sighed wearily. She only hoped that Epp had had more success tonight than she’d had. She turned the key in the lock, swinging open the door.
The lights in the apartment were on. Tolly, Miranda’s mad vampire, was sitting precisely in the middle of the couch and staring expectantly at the door, his hands folded in his lap, his knees pressed together.
Tango froze for three heartbeats, scanning the room. There was no sign of Miranda or the rest of the Sabbat pack. Her hand clenched on a fourth heartbeat, and her knife appeared in her grip. On the fifth heartbeat, she stalked toward Tolly, slowly, carefully, holding back with a cool resolve the desire to kill. There were ways to disable even vampires without killing them. If she had had a sharp piece of wood, she would have been more than willing to immobilize him with a stake through the heart. Such a staking wasn’t fatal, just paralyzing. She spat twice, slowly, and let Glamour fill her, invigorating energy lending her the speed and strength that those ways would require.
Tolly watched her come. He did nothing. He didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. Tango stopped a little more than a pace from him. The vampire’s silent stillness was eerie. “What—” she began, but Tolly cut her off.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen this way.” Tolly’s face jumped in a sudden tic, but the rest of his body remained perfectly still. “I didn’t.”
Tango’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t mean for what to happen this way, Tolly?” His words were as calm as his body, and sincere. Tango kept her knife up, however,
ready for anything.
“All of this. Miranda scared, you angry. I’m sorry. But you had to know the connection.”
A reply rose to Tango’s lips — I think I would have been happier not knowing, thanks -— but she held it back. It was better that she had found out what Miranda was holding back from her. It was. “Apology accepted.” She stood to the side, offering Tolly a clear path to the door. “Get out.”
The vampire didn’t move.
Tango waited for a moment, struggling with her temper. Finally she hissed again, “Get out!”
“I can’t!” Tolly’s voice cracked with sorrow-filled frustration.
“I’ll carry you out if I have to.”
Tolly looked as if he were about to cry. “No. You can’t.”
“I can.” She took a step toward him.
“No, no, no!” Tolly’s hands, fingers still knotted together, snapped up to keep her back. As if they had been holding down his legs, one knee shot up crookedly. “You can’t!”
Tango shifted her grip on her knife. “Oh? And why not?”
“I can’t tell you that.” Tolly’s face fell, literally drooping. Tango made a sound that was halfway between a sigh and growl. Tolly’s sagging mouth twisted. “It’s not my fault. That’s why 1 made sure you saw what the pack was doing, isn’t it?”
“You tell me.”
Tolly screamed, a thin wailing sound, and grabbed for her. She hadn’t been expecting that. He didn’t move from the couch, but suddenly long, thin hands at the end of long, bony arms were seizing her shoulders. “I can’t!”
“I can’t kick you out, but you can’t tell me why not?” Tango snarled. She wanted the mad vampire out. If she had to play his guessing game to get rid of him, she would. Tolly nodded sharply and ecstatically. “And you can’t tell me why you made sure I knew that the pack was committing the penny murders?” Tolly nodded again. Tango grimaced. “All right. Why can’t you tell me?”
“I promised!” Tolly crowed triumphantly. He jumped up from the couch and rushed along his own arms to embrace her. For a frightened moment Tango tensed, ready to stab him, but there was no malice in his actions. “I promised, 1 promised, I promised, I promised, I...” ' '
Tango steered him toward the door. “Who?” she asked kindly, keeping him talking. “Who did you promise? Miranda?”
“No. She doesn’t know. The pack doesn’t know. Miranda thought that no one knew about her, but we did! And,” he added proudly, “I kept it a secret, just like I was supposed to.”
“We?” Tolly switched a lock of his long blond hair against her face. “Stop that!” They were almost at the door. Tolly flicked his hair at her again. She batted it aside. “Do that again and...”
“You’re not paying attention!” Tolly tried to tug away, but Tango kept a firm hold on him. His arm simply stretched as he retreated back into the apartment. His movements were jerky suddenly, and his face all sharp angles. “Listen to me! A promise isn’t always a good thing!”
Tango ground her teeth. “Stop this! Just leave!”
“Ken me!”
That Tolly knew about kenning should have told her something immediately, but frustration and stress had dulled her wits. Tango worked the kenning irritably and looked at him. She froze.
Glamour glistened like dew on the vampire’s skin. The Glamour of a Kithain enchantment. The same kind of enchantment that clung to her, a geasa. Tolly’s mysterious promise had been magically enforced. By Epp?
No.
Tolly’s hair flicking in her face. A promise isn’t always a good thing.
“You know Riley,” Tango breathed. “Riley stole Epp’s ribbon and used it to put a geasa on you. You were the blond nondrinker in Hopeful!” A vampire. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? She released her grip on Tolly’s arm. The limb slithered back to its owner like a retracting cord. “Do you know where he is?”
“Yes!” the mad vampire howled in relief. “And I couldn’t tell you!” He collapsed down onto his knees. One hand fumbled in the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a carefully folded piece of blue paper. He shoved it at her. Tango unfolded it. Her note from Hopeful. “I pulled it down so I would remember,” he babbled. “It’s so hard to do anything without him. Miranda was a connection I could use. I hoped if you knew about her, you’d figure it out. But you didn’t. And you’re angry at her now. I’m so sorry. She didn’t want you to know. But I had to show you!”
“Tolly,” Tango asked soothingly, kneeling down beside him, “can you tell me where Riley is?” Her head was light, dizzy with anticipation. The thought crossed her mind that this could be some kind of trick. Some madness of Tolly’s. She couldn’t stand that possibility, though. Just the idea made her feel a little mad herself.
Tolly shook his head. “No. But I think Miranda’s in the same place by now.” He seized her hand and climbed to his feet. “We have to hurry.”
“Why?” Rescuing Riley was going to mean rescuing Miranda? In spite of Tolly’s confession, she was still very angry at the other woman.
“Because you’re the only one who can get Riley out, and I think tonight’s going to be our only chance to get you in.” Tolly sat her on the couch and ran his fingers over her face. His touch felt... odd. Tango grabbed his hand.
“How? Where? Can’t you tell me more?”
“I can only tell things to a person who already knows them. Riley made me promise too well.” He pushed her hand away and touched his fingers to her face again. “I’m sorry, Tango, but this is going to hurt like hell.” He dug his thumbs in on either side of the bridge of her nose and pushed, stretching her cheekbones apart.
They answered grinning:
“Our feast is but beginning.
Dr. Ian Tanner pulled his luxurious BMW up to the curb. From the shadows of the bushes nearby, Tango watched him closely. He was arriving exactly at eleven-thirty, just as Tolly had said that he would. Fashionably late, but for what? Tolly’s explanations of what was going to happen tonight were so incomplete that they were almost useless. She knew what to do next, though. As Tanner got out of his car and shut the door, she stepped out of hiding. The movement caught Tanner’s eye. He glanced around at her. And froze.
It wasn’t every day that a man met himself on a shadowy street.
Tango walked forward as smoothly as she could. Tanner was a fairly tall man, and it was difficult learning to move at such a height. Fortunately, it was a bit like walking on stilts, and she could do that easily enough. Still, her arms felt so long that she half-expected her knuckles to brush the ground. And her chest felt very strange.
Tolly’s ability to reshape living flesh wasn’t limited to his own body.
Dr. Tanner’s eyes grew wide as he watched her approach. Tango tried to ignore the faint whispering that she could hear. When she looked over Tanner’s shoulder, she could almost make out Tolly’s vague form behind him. The mad vampire was murmuring into the doctor’s ear, quiet words that would drive the other man mad as well. At least for a little while. It was a talent that, Tolly had said, was not quite as easily directed as Miranda’s ability to control minds with just a glance, but it got the job done.
Slowly, Tanner began to nod. His hands moved almost of their own accord, stripping off the dark business jacket he wore, then his other clothes. Miranda changed into them, leaving the clothes that she wore, ragged jeans and a shirt taken from Riley’s closet, for him to put on. Tanner’s clothes were a reasonably good fit. Tolly had gotten the basic body dimensions almost right. He had spent the most time reshaping her face and hands, and, rushing in order to surprise Tanner at his eleven-thirty arrival, very little time reshaping the rest of her body. Her shoulders were broader than normal, her chest flatter and broader as w'ell, her waist bigger. Everything else — arms and legs that were the right length but unnaturally thin, musculature that was all wrong for the build, a certain lack of bulging flesh in the crotch — would be hidden by Tanner’s suit. All she had to do was stay out of bright lights and avoid talking to people if at all possible. Tolly had altered her throat just enough to give her a deep, gruff voice that might or might not have been Tanner’s; the differences could be explained as a sore throat, but Tango didn’t want to push the disguise. The greatest danger would be in the personal knowledge of background and acquaintances that she so conspicuously lacked. Every time she talked, she would run the risk of exposing herself as an impostor.
With a few final, whispered instructions, Tolly pointed Tanner down the road and let him go. The man moved like a sleepwalker, but he had a happy smile on his face. “He thinks that all of his worries have been taken on by a clone,” Tolly said. “He’s off to find the sunny side of the street.”
“How long will it last?” Tango pulled on Tanner’s shoes. They were too big. Tolly hadn’t thought to reshape her feet. She decided that the pain of blisters would be better than the pain of more reshaping to correct the problem. She would have to go through the agony of having Tolly stretch and mold her flesh and bones again when he returned her to her own form. She didn’t want to endure that torture any more than was necessary.
“A day or two.” Tolly’s body was in constant motion, though his face stayed calm. Tango had come to realize what kind of concentration it must have taken for him to remain as still and focused as he had been when she’d discovered him. He looked her over and gave her a quick, jerking nod of approval. “Perfect. Here.” He handed her something he had taken from Tanner’s wrist.
A silver chain with an ornate clasp in the shape of a dog’s head. Tango’s breath whistled between her teeth. “Riley had one of these in his luggage.”
Tolly took it back and fastened it around her left wrist. “Ask him about it later.” Tango nodded. They had a plan — of sorts. Riley’s geasa, probably intended to keep the vampire from letting any sensitive information slip, was far more of a hindrance than a help. Tolly couldn’t tell her anything useful. All of her attempts to work out what would be going on tonight, what kind of danger Riley was in, or why Tango was the only one who could rescue him, had failed. Tango could guess at the kind of frustration Tolly had been going through since Riley had been kidnapped. She had, at least, managed to get some rudimentary information out of Tolly. There were ways to work around most geasa. Their plan, such as it was, consisted of Tango, disguised as Tanner, slipping away when she had the chance and going “past the stairs, under the stairs, and down.” Tolly had apparently studied Tanner closely at some time in the past and he knew the house, but when Tango asked why the vampire hadn’t taken Tanner’s form himself to look for Riley, Tolly just gave a disturbing grimace. “I can’t touch Riley now,” was all he would say.
“Why not?” she had asked in return. “What am I supposed to do that you can’t?”
Tolly had said nothing more, but insisted that she would know what to do when she found Riley.
It wasn’t especially helpful, but it was a plan.
“Ready?” the vampire asked her.
“Ready.”
“Good. This sanity was killing me.” His face split in a wide grin, suddenly as chaotic as the rest of his body. He lurched away up the street, in the opposite direction from that in which he had sent Tanner. As they had agreed, Tango followed about thirty feet behind him.
There were quite a number of fairly expensive cars parked along the curb here. One of the disadvantages of Tanner’s fashionably tardy arrival was that he had been forced to park at the end of the queue of cars. The grand old house that Tolly finally walked up to was the center of the parking jam; cars filled the driveway, then spilled out through ornamental iron gates and along the street. Tango tried not to look like she was staring at the handsome house as she followed Tolly up the walk. She had guessed that the person or people who had hired jubilee must have been reasonably wealthy. It appeared that she had been right.
The windows of the first floor were lit up, and she could see the dark shapes of a crowd of people moving inside. Presumably they were the owners of these cars. It puzzled her. What were Riley — and Tolly —• mixed up in? Sinister cocktail parties?
Ahead of her on the walk, Tolly stopped, bending sharply double to sniff at the blooms in a bed of flowers. His expression was blissfully happy.
Tango forced herself to keep walking, though her heart was suddenly pounding in her chest. Tolly had been supposed to reach the door first so that she would have a chance to watch him go in. Now... she swallowed. It was, she supposed, a miracle that they had gotten this far. She passed the mad vampire and walked up the steps onto the verandah of the old house. There was an old-fashioned doorbell in the center of the door, the kind that you turned to ring. She did so. The door was opened by a handsome blond man with an emotionless face. His body filled the doorway. He looked at her, waiting.
Was there a password? She hoped not. Some kind of invitation she needed to produce? Tango cursed Tolly silently. The only thing she could think of was the chain bracelet. She held up her left wrist in a vague gesture, one that she could turn into a brush at her hair if she was wrong. The sleeve of her jacket fell back just enough to allow the bracelet to glint in the light that fell over the blond man’s shoulder.
The man stepped aside, ushering her in. Tango walked past him with a silent sigh of relief.
A wide staircase with heavy banisters of dark wood soared up almost in front of her. A shadowy hallway ran beside it, leading back into the depths of the house. Past the stairs, she thought. But there was a sprinkling of people standing in the foyer of the big house, and more packing a parlor off to the left. She wasn’t going to be able to slip off unobserved. The blond man gestured her politely in the direction of the parlor. “Good evening, Dr. Tanner. You’ll find the usual refreshments laid out.”
“Thank you.” She noticed that a few of the people in the foyer glanced away or muttered behind her back as she passed. Apparently Dr. Tanner was not especially popular. That could be good.
The parlor was a large, pleasant room decorated in a very Victorian style. A fleet of tall glasses full of champagne and a battalion of shorter goblets filled with red wine waited on a table by the door. Tango took a glass of champagne, hoping that Tanner wasn’t a nondrinker. Standing casually, one hand in her pocket in that way that men stood, she surveyed the other people in the parlor.
There were both men and women present in the gathering, more men than women but not by much. Most of the people were like Tanner: middle-aged, with hair just starting to go gray and faces just beginning to wrinkle. A few had a desperately young look to them, a look of fortunes spent on moisturizers, hair-coloring and facelifts, trying to recover lost youth. Some people in the crowd were older, while others, a very few, were much younger, in their early twenties. One and all, however, were dressed in dark, conservative suits and dresses, as though the style were some kind of uniform. All of the guests were also wearing the dog-clasped chain bracelets. Aside from the bracelets, Tango might have felt that she was indeed at a polite cocktail party or a fundraising event. Instead, the gathering had the air of a secret society.
She also recognized some of the people. One of the detectives who had taken her statement on last night’s penny murders. A bald young man who looked teasingly familiar but whom she couldn’t quite place, until she remembered the activist who had urged the protesters on College Street into their clash with the police; he looked very different without all of his earrings. A grayhaired television commentator. Matt and Blue, handsome in dark suits, sipping from glasses of a red liquid that Tango doubted was wine. They might have been humans. The two vampires were largely being left alone, as though they were new members to this club
— Tango noticed that they seemed to be the only ones in the room not wearing chains.. She would have to avoid Matt. Last night he had noticed that there was something unusual about her, though he hadn’t known enough to be able to recognize her as Kithain. He might recognize her oddity again tonight. She turned to wander over toward another part of the parlor... and caught a glimpse of Jubilee Arthurs as he politely declined a canape.
The words to “Good King Wenceslas” instantly snapped into her mind. The psychic mercenary could penetrate even her shapeshifted disguise easily. She had to avoid him. She turned back toward the end of the room were Matt and Blue stood. At least Matt might not recognize her, even if he did notice something unusual.
Tolly saved her by choosing that moment finally to make his entrance. He was loud, he was obnoxious, and he was dressed entirely inappropriately. Heads all over the parlor and in the foyer turned to look at the mad vampire. Matt and Blue ran for the door to take charge of him, apologizing profusely to the doorman and dragging Tolly off past the stairs somewhere. In the direction she was supposed to be going, if she could get away from the party. She took the opportunity to move down into the part of the parlor that Matt and Blue had vacated.
“Tanner!” someone hissed. Tango almost grimaced. Apparently Dr. Tanner wasn’t quite as universally unpopular as she’d hoped. She turned in the direction of the voice. A short, heavy man in a double-breasted suit waved her over. “You’re looking good. Lost weight?” It was the sort of thing someone would say if they hadn’t seen Tanner in some time. Tango felt a little more confident. “Yes. I was sick for a while.” She tapped her throat. “Still got a bit of the bug lingering.”
“I’ve heard that doctors in children’s hospitals tend to get sick more frequently than usual.”
“It’s true,” Tango lied. She glanced at the group the short man had been standing with. They were clustered around the young gay activist. “What’s the topic?” “Mouse knows something, but he’s not saying anything directly. Just a lot of hints that Solomon might be behind the penny murders and that that’s going to be the big announcement tonight. Mouse claims he was involved in that riot on Monday.” The short man shuddered. “I almost hope Solomon is behind the murders. At least that way we’re safe, eh?”
“Absolutely.” Tango took a sip of her champagne. Solomon sounded like the person in charge. If he was, then he was probably the person who had ordered Jubilee to kidnap Riley, And the presence of Miranda’s pack at the party certainly made sense if Solomon was somehow involved with the penny murders. Although in that case, it seemed odd for Matt, Blue and Tolly to be new members to this society, while Miranda was in danger.
The short man dragged Tango over to a tray of canapes, away from Mouse and his adoring groupies. “Listen, Ian. Some of us are thinking that Solomon might be elevating tonight. We’ve got those new members—” he rolled his eyes “—and if Solomon’s doing an initiation, there’s a pretty good chance he’ll take the opportunity to fill the four empty places in the High Circle.” The short man passed her a canape, dark meaty paste on a little triangle of pale bread.
“That makes sense.” The short man nodded enthusiastically and popped his canape into his mouth, chewing noisily. Tango considered hers for a moment longer, then took a more cautious bite.
Tango had eaten a lot-of exotic foods in her travels around the world, and she had found that most meats had a very distinctive flavor. Some she liked, some she didn’t. Cat, no matter how daintily prepared, fell into the latter category. She kept her face calm and forced herself to swallow. The other half of the canape slipped discreetly into the pocket of Dr. Tanner’s jacket. She couldn’t, however, keep herself from drinking the last of her champagne in one mouth-clearing gulp. The short man ate another. She wondered if he knew what they were. “These are different from last time, aren’t they?” she asked him casually.
He licked his lips and considered it. “Maybe a little more garlic.” He pointed at some square snacks on the tray. “Try the rat. It’s very good tonight.”
He knew. Tango felt a little ill. “Thanks, but I had some pretty greasy Chinese tonight. I don’t think anything else is going to improve the way it’s sitting.” Matt and Blue reappeared, Tolly tightly hemmed in between them and dressed in a rather ill-fitting suit. His hands and wrists dangled almost an inch below the cuffs of the jacket, although it was hard to tell whether that was the jacket’s fault or his. The other vampires had found their packmate a glass of blood. “I said I want a straw!” Tolly yelped peevishly.
Polite Toronto manners asserting themselves, the guests at the party ignored him this time, though the short man rolled his eyes again. “The other two aren’t bad, but I don’t know how that one managed to get in.” He sipped his champagne. “They put me in mind of that Delara girl. You know, the tall Hispanic one with the incredible hair.” He stretched up, looking around. “I haven’t seen her yet tonight.”
Miranda? It must be. “Neither have I,” Tango said truthfully.
The short man shrugged. “Anyway, I just want you to know that we’re rooting for you to be elevated. We think you deserve it.”
“Thanks.”
“And if you happen to get Solomon’s attention anytime, maybe you could, you know, put in a word or two for us. Especially me — in light of that thing with the abuse charges, and all.”
Tango looked at the short man carefully. There was a greedy light in his eyes. “Of course,” Tango said with a smile. “We can’t forget our friends, can we?” She wanted to shove his obsequious face into the canape tray. What kind of secret society was this?
A single deep chime rang from somewhere upstairs. It was a strong, echoing sound, like iron gates swinging closed. Instantly, everyone in the parlor set down their glasses, dropped their conversations, and turned to file out into the hallway. Tango tensed. She might be able to hide in the parlor and then sneak down the hall past the stairs and look for Riley. There was another door out of the parlor... no, Jubilee was coming from that direction. There were no other good hiding places. She cursed and went with the crowd.
Out in the foyer, the blond doorman had produced a large wheeled cart like a tea trolley. As the guests left the parlor, he handed them each a full-face mask. Most people received a mask that was solid black, featureless except for eyeholes and a mouth slit. Some people, however, received a decorated mask bright with swirling golden symbols. Tango wondered if these might be the people who belonged to the High Circle that the short man had mentioned. She received a plain black mask, but among those receiving painted masks were the detective, the activist, the commentator and, Tango noticed, Jubilee Arthurs. The vampires received no masks. Fitting the masks to their faces, the guests walked up the broad sweep of the big staircase.
Tango jockeyed to get into the middle ranks of the crowd. Whatever was going to happen, that seemed like the safest place to be. If she were in the front, she would have no way of knowing how to act; if she were in the back, she would be a straggler. Unfortunately, it did mean that she lost sight of Jubilee and the vampires. The stairs came to a landing, then turned and went up another flight to a broad, square-beamed doorway. The crowd was silent. As the guests passed through the door, each raised their left wrist to their lips, kissed the chain bracelet, then walked on, arm held high. Tango did the same.
On the far side of the door, she almost stopped. She definitely hesitated, because someone behind her bumped into her. Hastily she resumed walking, but continued to look around with surreptitious awe.
The entire upstairs of the big house had been gutted. There were no interior walls and no ceiling overhead, just empty space all the way up to the rafters under the roof. Every surface had been painted coal black. The light that came up the stairs and through the door behind her was the only illumination. It didn’t penetrate far. When the doors were shut and the light choked off, it would be like floating in a void. Something shifted in the shadows by a wall. For a moment, Tango thought it was one of the guests. Something shifted again, and she saw the ghostly shape of some huge animal. Heart pounding, she froze, waiting for the thing to lunge at her.
Then a masked guest passed between her and the apparition. The thing lost its depth, and she realized it was a bas-relief carved in the wood of the wall, the shadows of cultists passing through the door seeming to make it move. Her perception of the relief as an animal was correct, however. It was the image of a huge, heavy-jawed, broad-chested dog. The image marched
along all of the walls that she could see in the dim light.
In the center of the huge room was a two-tiered platform. The guests in gold-painted masks were stepping up onto the first tier and turning inward to face the second, empty tier. The other guests were arranging themselves in a broad circle around the platform. The most sought-after places seemed to be in the half-circle that lay between the platform and the doorway. Tango spotted the short man again, standing in that part of the circle, and squeezed in next to him. He scarcely acknowledged her presence. All of his attention was on the platform.
The doors slammed shut as the last guest found a place in the circle. The room plunged into darkness so absolute that Tango wasn’t even sure her eyes were still open. It stayed dark for what seemed like ages, but couldn’t have been more than a minute. There was the deep chime of iron gates again, and, suddenly, intense white light exploded out of the very air. Tango hissed in shock, blinking her eyes rapidly, trying to regain her vision. When she had, the room was lit normally, though still dimly, once more. Black candles guttered high up amid the rafters. There was a man standing on the second tier of the platform. She was willing to bet that this was the short man’s Solomon.
The only thing that he had in common with the guests was the color of his clothes. The man wore black. The similarities ended there. Where the guests were, as she had observed, largely middle-aged, the man was young. Young and very handsome — he wore no mask. His skin was tanned. He wore tailored black pants and a black vest, buttoned up but without a shirt underneath. His arms and chest rippled with muscles.
Earrings shone in one ear, and a gold chain gleamed around his neck. There was a dark tattoo on one exposed shoulder: a dog like those on the walls, but rearing back. Power and charm radiated from him. Tango suspected that to many of those gathered in the circle, he seemed the living symbol of everything that they wanted to be or possibly to possess. Tango saw more, however: subtle clues that experience organized into a larger whole. Solomon was a mage; the blinding white light, possibly his aura of charm and power, was a manifestation of his human magick. She cursed silently.
Solomon waited a moment, probably until all of the people in the circle had recovered from the light of his appearance, then he raised his left arm into the air. There was a chain bracelet around his left wrist as well, although it seemed strangely tight and flat. Almost like a tattoo, Tango thought, though tattoos didn’t glint like metal. He brought his arm down in a dramatic sweep to kiss the chain. The people in the lower circles imitated him, touching the bracelets to the mouths of their masks. Solomon raised his arm again and led the assembly in a litany. After the first line, Tango stopped speaking behind her mask, frightened horror settling into her.
I pay homage to Shaftiei.
I pledge my soul and service to the Sentinel of the Ways,
The Hungry Guardian Who Watches the Three Ages,
The Hound of Thorns,
The One Wrho Waits, the One Who Comes First.
I will obey his servant in this world. I am Bandog.
A mage, Tango knew, had to be careful with his magick. Human magick was a manipulation of reality. If people who did not share the mage’s vision of reality witnessed his use of magick, there could be horrible repercussions as normal reality snapped back against the mage and the paradox of his magick. So mages practiced magick subtly. If they wished to use magick openly, they made sure that they were alone, surrounded by other mages... or surrounded by acolytes who, if they didn’t understand the workings of magick, at least understood the possibility of its existence. Sometimes those clusterings of acolytes could turn into cults.
Especially when the leading mage was one of the unholy, demon'Serving Nephandi.
She — and Riley, and Tolly — had become involved with a demon-cult. Miranda and Jubilee belonged to it.. .
Up on the platform, Solomon lowered his hand. “There are those who wish to join the Bandog. Shall we admit them to Shaftiel’s service?”
“Admit them,” murmured the cultists in response. Tango did her best to speak along with them. Her mask might conceal her mouth, but not her silence. As long as she didn’t have to recite an oath pledging her eternal servitude to some unknown entity, she felt relatively safe. “Let them pledge their souls to the Great Hound.” Solomon nodded and clapped his hands once. A baying, like hunting dogs, filled the air. Tango recognized magick at work, but the effect was no less impressive because of that. The doors at the end of the room split open again. Tolly, Matt and Blue came running in. Close behind them was a figure as different from the cultists as Solomon. It was another man, wearing black pants similar to Solomon’s but with his broad chest completely bare. Around his neck was a studded dog collar. He wore a mask as well, but it was sculpted in the shape of a snarling, heavy-jawed dog head. Blond hair showed behind the mask. The doorman. He carried a short whip, and with it, he lashed the vampires forward. The circle of cultists parted to let them through. The vampires paused in a clear space between the outer circle and the platform. The dog-masked doorman took up a station just behind them. Solomon looked down.
“You have sought out the Bandog. For what reason?” Matt looked back at the Nephandus mage boldly. “We seek to serve Shaftiel,” he replied in a practiced voice.
“For what reason?”
“For his glory, for his return. For all of the reasons that a dog serves its master.”
“A dog must be obedient.” Solomon stepped gracefully down from the high tier of the platform to the lower, and then onto the floor. “Do you know how to show obedience?” He lifted his left arm. Now that he was closer, Tango could see that the glittering chain on his wrist really was a tattoo of some kind. Matt took Solomon’s hand and kissed the chain. For a moment, Tango thought that she saw a mischievous smile flicker on the vampire’s face and that he tried to turn Solomon’s hand to kiss his inner wrist. Solomon resisted however, and said sternly. “That is obedience. But you do not know full obedience.”
The doorman snapped his whip suddenly across Matt’s back. The vampire gritted his teeth against the pain. “This is the first kiss of obedience,” Solomon told him. The mage pressed Matt’s head back to his wrist. “Recite: I pay homage to Shaftiel.”
“I pay homage to Shaftiel.” ■
The whip cracked against his back again. Solomon moved Matt’s head to kiss the tattooed dog on his shoulder. “This is the second kiss of obedience. Recite: I pledge my soul and service to the Sentinel of the Ways, the Hungry Guardian Who Watches the Three Ages, the Hound of Thorns, the One Who Waits, the One Who Comes First." Matt did. The whip cracked a third time and Solomon lifted Matt’s head so that the vampire kissed the mage on the lips. “This is the third kiss of obedience. Recite: I will obey his servant in this world. I am Bandog."
“I will obey his servant in this world. I am Bandog.” Solomon released him and turned to Blue. “Do you know how to show obedience?” .
The whippings and the lesson were repeated again, then a third time with Tolly. Tango wasn’t sure the mad vampire would go along with the ceremony, but he did. He almost seemed to enjoy the whipping. When all three vampires had been taught full obedience, Solomon returned to the platform. He looked down on the vampires again. “Obedient Bandog, know then the secrets of Shaftiel and the mysteries of obedience.” He gestured.
The cultists of the High Circle swiveled around. They had not moved throughout the whippings, but had remained staring up at the platform Solomon had vacated. Now they looked out across the room, at the outer circle, but not at the three unmasked vampires. Their words were almost like a chant.
“The Sentinel of the Ways,” they intoned, “crouches at the gates between the worlds. The Hungry Guardian Who Watches the Three Ages sees the glory that was, the patience that is, and the glory that will be again. The Hound of Thorns brings the chaos, misery and suffering that precedes his own dark masters — he is the One Who Waits and the One Who Comes First. We serve the Great Hound who is the servant of grea ter powers still.” The High Circle turned back toward Solomon. The mage picked up several dark items and held them aloft.
“The Bandog,” he said in a voice that rang off the black walls, “wear masks because Shaftiel’s servants are anonymous in his sight.” Disdainfully, he tossed three black masks down to the vampires, as if he were tossing large bones to small puppies. “The Bandog wear chains, to remind us of our servitude to the Great Hound, and of the Great Hound’s servitude to his masters.” Three glittering chains snaked through the air to the floor. “Don your masks and chains, Bandog, and take your place in the circle.” When they had, Solomon raised his left arm again and kissed his own. The entire outer circle of cultists followed suit.
But not the High Circle. As if by some prearranged signal, they cried out in unison, “The ranks of the Bandog are ever complete, but there are gaps in the strength of the High Circle. We should be sixteen, as the sixteen teeth of the Great Hound, but we are only eleven!”
Solomon nodded. “Death has taken four of the Great Hound’s teeth. Foul betrayal, -this very night, has weakened the Great Hound further.” A quiet murmur ran around the outer circle at the mention of betrayal. Tango could imagine that traitors would be dealt with harshly in a demon'Cult. Her own breath came sharply. The short man had commented that he hadn’t seen Miranda tonight. Tolly had said that the vampire was in danger. Could she be the traitor? Why would she betray her cult? “But we are fortunate,” Solomon was continuing, “that there are those worthy of elevation to the High Circle. The teeth of the Great Hound will be strong once more.” The mage stepped down to the lower tier of the platform again, but this time no farther. “Ian Tanner, come forward and be elevated.”
Scamped upon her tender feet,
Held her hands and squeezed their fruits Against her mouth to make her eat.
Tango froze for a moment. No. Why her? Why now? She didn’t know what she was supposed to do! Had Tolly known this was going to happen to Tanner? She swallowed. Every eye was on her. She had no choice. She paced forward, praying that no one — Jubilee, Matt or Solomon — would notice anything wrong with Dr. Tanner. At the edge of the platform, Solomon stepped back, giving her room to climb up. Hoping that was indeed what was expected, she did. He held out his wrist. She took it and kissed the tattooed chain. It was cool and eerily metallic under her lips, not like flesh at all. “I pay homage to Shaftiel,” she said, the words almost making her gag. She hoped she wasn’t swearing away her soul. She moved up to kiss Solomon’s shoulder. At least that was real, warm flesh, slightly spicy to her nose. “I pledge my soul and service to the Sentinel of the Ways, the Hungry Guardian Who Watches the Three Ages, the Hound of Thoms, the One Who Waits, the One Who Comes First.” She kissed him on the lips, realizing with a start that Solomon was slightly shorter than Tanner. It was a novelty to bend down to kiss someone. “I will obey his servant in this world. I am Bandog.”
“Not necessary...” Solomon murmured, his lips moving against hers. Tango’s heart thundered in panic, “...but good.” He pushed her back a bit and reached up to trace a finger across her mask. She felt the subtle warping of reality that was human magick at work. Tango suspected that her mask now had the gold symbols of the High Circle inscribed across it. “Learn the secret of the High Circle, Ian Tanner,” Solomon said aloud. He drew Tango closer to him. She found herself staring straight past his left ear, across the platform, and toward Jubilee Arthurs. The mercenary was watching her, but with no more curiosity in his eyes than might have been there for any new elevation. Tango concentrated on her breathing. “The Great Hound’s chain has been loosed,” Solomon whispered, his breath hot on her ear. “Take your place in the High Circle.”
Numbly, Tango did so, stepping between the activist and an older woman around to the side of the platform. All she thought about as Solomon continued the elevations was her breathing. In and out, in and out, and she might just get away with this. No one seemed to pay any attention to her, however. They had eyes only for the new members of the High Circle, eager to see whom Solomon would call. The second elevation, a Janice Rothman, received a nod of approval from the older woman to Tango’s right. The third, fourth and fifth elevations, however, caused a stir. In quick succession, Solomon called on Matthew Barrett, Anders Dahl and Adam Tolliver.
Matt, Blue and Tolly joined the High Circle, gold symbols gleaming on their newly acquired masks. Tolly giggled quietly. Many of the Bandog did not seem pleased that their newly initiated members should be elevated so quickly. Solomon ignored them, however, and returned to the upper tier of the platform. He looked down at the cultists, slowly turning so that his gaze swept around the entire gathering.
“Bandog!” he called out. “Shaftiel has a message for you!"
The murmur of the cultists in the outer circle behind Tango fell silent instantly. All Tango could see was Solomon’s impassioned face. “It’s a message that he wishes to deliver in his own voice, a message of inspiration. I know many of you are worried or frightened by the deaths that have struck the High Circle and by the murders that haunt Toronto. It isn’t your place to be worried or frightened — because you are Bandog. And because the deaths, and the murders, and the chaos all take place at Shaftiel’s command.” Solomon’s eyes shone darkly. “Shaftiel sought to deliver his message through a mouth of the High Circle, but none of the four hosts he sought for his voice would do. His power burned out their minds and they died. So he approached me, as he approached me in the beginning. And he spoke to me, telling me the conditions under which the Bandog might hear his voice safely.”
Solomon paused. The black room was so utterly silent that Tango wondered if Solomon wasn’t using some incredibly subtle magick to enhance his words. “Bandog, we are not strong enough to summon the Great Hound into this world in all of his power. We will not be strong enough to do so for many years. We must be patient, as the Great Hound is patient. But now, thanks to Shaftiel, we may summon his voice and hear his words. He has told me how. With the aid of the High Circle, that rite has already begun.” He smiled. “Listen, for these were the instructions that Shaftiel delivered to me:
“Make me a home, Solomon. Let chaos and misery reign and let terror walk the streets. Make me a sacrifice of sixteen lives over eight days, and let horror such that all will tremble and a city live in fear flow from your sacrifices. On the eighth night, make the last sacrifice in a place of traveling and, if there is chaos to my liking in the streets, the Great Hound will howl to the Bandog in their own world, from the mouth of one of their own.” Solomon grinned like an animal.
“Tonight is the sixth night. Six sacrifices have been rendered to Shaftiel. Toronto wakes to fear and falls asleep with terror as a bedfellow. Chaos grows, and breeds more chaos. Tomorrow morning, Toronto shall find three more sacrifices rendered. The sixteenth life, the one that will summon the Great Hound’s voice, will be that of the traitor, Miranda Delara.”
The Bandog were silent for a moment longer —- then burst into enthusiastic applause, as some other group their age might have at the theater or the symphony. Solomon nodded his appreciation.
Behind her mask, Tango went pale with rage and horror. This was why Miranda and her pack had beaten innocent people to death? Had Riley been trying to prevent it? Was that why Solomon had kidnapped him? Her hands clenched in anger. She still wore her knife-ring, although on her smallest finger now. It was tempting to act now and kill the evil at its source. She could destroy the mage who would order the deaths of innocents....
It was too much like her old life.
She forced her hands flat and pushed away all thoughts of murder. If she did that, she would be no better than Solomon or Miranda. There were too many Bandog around. Even if she did manage to kill the mage, she might not get out. She certainly wouldn’t be able to rescue Riley. Or Miranda.
Tango shook her head, prompting a fleeting glance from the young activist beside her. She ignored him. Why should she rescue Miranda? The vampire had lied to her. She was Bandog. She had very likely, Tango realized, helped Jubilee escape last night. She might have been working to muddy Riley’s trail from the beginning. Tango owed her nothing. In spite of Tolly’s wishes, she would not rescue Miranda.
But why had Solomon just named her a traitor? Why were the other vampires being made Bandog, if one of the pack had betrayed the cult?
Solomon was speaking again. “The High Circle has been my instrument in this, the first part of the rite, but all of the Bandog must participate now. You who have sought favor from Shaftiel, promising soul and service to the Great Hound, must fulfill that promise. There are still three lives to be taken before the final sacrifice is made.”
Tango’s breath caught in shock. Solomon, of course, noticed nothing at all.
“Tomorrow, Bandog, you shall rest. Tomorrow night, when the sacrifices are made, you will know it. On the next day, the day of the summoning, you will act. Rouse your families, rouse your friends. Use any means at your disposal. Toronto must be angry, Bandog! It must be frightened! It must wake from its cold, mannered sleep and realize the horror in its midst! There must be chaos in the streets for the rite to succeed. At sunset, come to the place of traveling.” The ferocious, cruel grin came back. “We will conduct the last part of the rite in a place of traveling that is like Toronto itself — a place that is cool, mannered and unchanging, but that for one night the Bandog shall transform. We will conduct the rite in Union Station. At midnight the final sacrifice will be made and we shall bring the voice of the Great Hound into our world.”
Abruptly, Solomon slashed his hand through the air as if he were holding an invisible knife — and plunging it into the sacrifice of Miranda’s undead body. But the gesture was more than just drama. Tango could feel a pressure pushing against her mind, urging her personally toward the chaos that Solomon planned for Toronto. More human magick. She resisted, long years of controlling her own inner chaos coming into play. The Bandog, however, did not resist so easily. Instead of bursting into polite applause, this time they screamed wildly, raised their arms, shook their fists and stomped their feet. Playing along with them made Tango feel ill.
At the front of the platform, one of the High Circle cultists abruptly turned to face the outer circle and held out his arms. The outer circle cultists yelled with excitement. The High Circle cultist to the left of the first was raising his hands, and then the next, and the next. The motion was traveling around the circle away from Tango. She couldn’t see quite what was happening, but the yells of the outer circle grew louder and louder. The young activist turned. Tango turned.
Blood began to run from her outstretched hands as if she had washed in it.
She shuddered violently, remembering that last night of her old life. The sidhe’s gardens. The Bandog just shrieked for more.
“Tonight’s ritual,” Solomon shouted over the din, “shall not end here! Carry it home with you and return with it in two days’ time to Union Station. Live the ritual for two days! You are Bandog!”
“We are Bandog!”
Tango could no longer see Solomon, but she could see the excitement of the Bandog reflected in their jittery bodies. They were waiting for something. From behind and above her, Solomon said, “Then go.” The doors out of the chamber swung open. “Touch the bloodied hands of the High Circle, remember that you share in their deeds, and go for tonight.”
The High Circle stepped down from the platform onto the floor. The other Bandog rushed toward them, grasping at their hands, smearing the blood on their own fingers and palms. Tango saw the short man fighting to get to her and receive the gory blessing from the person he thought was Ian Tanner. Tango ignored him. In the frenzy, no one was going out the door. No one would be downstairs. She would be exposed for a moment, but this was her chance to find Riley.
And her chance to get away from the horror of the black room.
She moved as quickly as she dared. Threading her way through the eager Bandog wasn’t unlike threading her way through a crowd at Pan’s, though at Pan’s her staff T-shirt told people to get out of her way. Here, her High Circle mask drew people toward her. Deftly, she turned them toward other members of the High Circle. No one followed her down the stairs. The noise from above carried to the first floor, but there was no other sound in the house. Pulling off her mask and wiping her bloody hands on Ian Tanner’s jacket, she turned into the hall past the stairs.
Under the stairs and down, Tolly had said. The basement, obviously. She watched for a door or more stairs as she moved, hoping that whatever entrance there was hadn’t been concealed by Solomon’s magick. The only door under the stairs opened into a closet. Tango moved on, but there was nothing else. The hall ended in the kitchen of the old house, well past the stairs and at the back of the house. There was a door, probably a pantry, beside the entrance to the hall, but it wasn’t under the stairs. Unless... Tango flung the door open. The broad pantry was empty of food, but there was another door at its far end. And she could smell the damp air of a deep basement. She stepped into the pantry, closed the kitchen door behind her and opened the basement door. Worn steps led down into darkness, lit by bare lightbulbs. Tango descended.
Either the original foundation of the house had been unusually deep or the basement floor had been dug down. Tango suspected the latter. The dark old beams of the ceiling were well over her head. The floor was packed black dirt. Tango could see why. There was a tree growing in the basement.
It wasn’t a particularly large tree, though its uppermost branches spread out flat against the ceiling and its trunk was surprisingly broad. It was gnarled and grayish, from its bark to its leaves. A strange, sunny glow came from its far side, casting bright rays that must, to judge by the sharpness of the division between light and shadow, have been magical. Or more likely magickal, some effect of Solomon’s human magick. Tango wondered what kind of mage Solomon had been before he became a Nephandus. The Verbena Tradition of witch-mages venerated trees, though to trap one so unnaturally below the ground would have been like blasphemy to them. Perhaps Solomon was Verbena barabbi, a traitor to his Tradition. The time Tango spent wondering was very brief, however.
Lying halfway between the tree and the stairs was Miranda.
Tango stared at her in shock. The vampire was pale and withered, as if virtually all of the stolen blood that flowed in her veins had been taken out again. Wounds and bite marks covered her arms and neck; the bite marks bore the clear signs of fangs. Solomon didn’t have fangs, of course, but Tango wondered where Matt and Blue had obtained the blood that they had sipped in the parlor. The smell of burning flesh hung faintly in the still air. Miranda’s right hand was charred and twisted — fire, or maybe the sunny light from the far side of the tree. Her face was frozen in agony, her eyes dead. A rough stake, fashioned from a broken branch of the tree, ran through her chest and pinned her to the ground.
Tango walked up to the vampire slowly and knelt to run her hand along the gray shaft of the stake. Sickly gray-green leaves still clung to it. A stake through the heart didn’t kill a vampire. It only paralyzed her. Miranda was helpless, but she had been kept alive. For Solomon’s sacrifice, presumably. Something had happened tonight. Something serious enough that
Miranda had had some kind of falling-out with the Bandog. Accompanying the Kithain in attacking Jubilee perhaps? Solomon must have found out about that. If Jubilee had kidnapped Riley for the Bandog, Miranda would have been turning against the cult and Solomon just by aiding Tango. And hadn’t Matt said something last night about Solomon being angry with her?
Tolly had been right. Miranda was in serious trouble.
But should Tango rescue her? The vampire had killed innocent people at Solomon’s command, for the Bandog, for a demon. Didn’t she deserve what she got? Did she? The nocker looked down at the pathetic form of the woman who had helped her. Tango made a decision.
She wrenched the crude stake out of the ground and slid it from Miranda’s ruined chest. For a long moment, the vampire didn’t move. Tango wondered if the vampire really was dead, in spite of Solomon’s talk of sacrificing her. Then Miranda’s lips slid back from her teeth. Her fangs were huge against her shriveled gums. Her mouth worked weakly. Her eyes came back to life. They fixed hungrily on Tango. “Blood.” The single word was like a cobweb blown on a mere draft of air.
Miranda needed blood to heal her wounds. Tango didn’t dare offer the vampire any of hers. The Kithain blood might drive her mad. “No, Miranda. It’s me, Tango.” She showed her the knife-ring. “Tango. Tolly disguised me. You can’t drink from me. Wait.”
“Blood.”
Tango wasn't sure if the vampire had understood her. She forced herself to turn away from the vampire, as people on the street turned away from the homeless and hungry. She walked around the tree to investigate the golden light.
Riley was propped up against the tree’s trunk, his head turned to one side and nodding onto his chest. His eyes were closed, his breathing steady, his face calm. He was dressed almost exactly as he had been when she had met him in Pan’s. Magickal sunlight covered him like a blanket and inspired the leaves over his head to lively green instead of insipid gray. Apples hung from the branches. Riley might have been napping in an orchard instead of magickally imprisoned in a Nephandus mage’s cellar.
Tango hesitated for a moment, then reached for him.
A dry, stick-like grasp caught her arm, stopping her by its presence rather than its weight or strength. “No,” husked Miranda. There were marks and scratches across the dirt of the floor. The vampire had dragged herself after Tango. There was a brief lucidity in her eyes, pushing past the brightness of unthinking hunger. She had understood. “Burns.” She gestured feebly with her blackened hand.
“Not me, Miranda. I’m not a vampire.” But the magickal sunlight would explain why Tolly knew where Riley was trapped, but couldn’t rescue him. Full exposure to the light would have destroyed a vampire utterly. Miranda’s hand must have been forced into it by whoever had tortured her.
The vampire’s warning did, however, make Tango hesitate. There was no telling what Solomon’s strange sunlight might do to her. It could put her to sleep, as it apparently had Riley. It could, in spite of her living condition, burn her as it had Miranda; it might be that anything entering the light was burned, while Riley slept undisturbed. She turned to go back and fetch the broken branch that had staked Miranda.
Miranda’s dry weight was still clinging to her. Lucid thought was gone again. One arm still on Tango’s arm, the other around the Kithain’s waist, the vampire stared hungrily at the jacket she wore. Her mouth stretched open like a snake’s and her tongue came flickering out to lick at the fabric. Tango could feel its papery pressure. Miranda’s head moved closer, jaws wide, fangs ready.
The blood that Solomon had conjured during the Bandog ritual. Tango had wiped her hands on the jacket. Miranda sensed the drying blood, her instincts drawing her to it. There wasn’t enough in the fabric to sustain her by any means, but there was enough to whet her hunger. Enough to break what control she had.
Tango shoved her away. It was more difficult than she had expected. The starving vampire was much stronger than her skeletal, wounded body suggested. Miranda hissed, lunging at her again. Tango whirled off the jacket and pushed it at her. Miranda snatched it out of the air. Her mouth fastened on the bloody stains from Tango’s fingers, sucking desperately at the dry cloth. Tango backed away from her. She didn’t dare turn her back on the vampire again, in case she attacked her. That could be dangerous for both of them. Tango’s blood would render Miranda helpless at the very least. And while Tango had never been bitten by a vampire, she had seen the effects of their bite on humans — the pleasure was said to be so intense that only the strongest wills could continue to fight against it. Her will was strong, but she didn’t want to risk slipping into that ecstasy. Miranda would drain her dry in an instant.
The vampire’s hunger would also spoil their escape.
The back door in the kitchen had seemed the most likely route of quick retreat. Out the door, around the house through the shadowy yard, down the street to Tanner’s car, and then back into the city, back to a bolthole that Tolly had arranged for her. Somewhere, he said, where she and Miranda and Riley would be safe from location by Solomon’s magick. Of course, that plan had been built on the expectation that either Miranda or Riley would be able to walk on their own. In a pinch, Tango’s nocker strength, coupled with the size of Tanner’s body, might have enabled her to carry both of them. There was no way, however, that she would be able to carry even Riley if she had to contend with a vicious, struggling vampire.
There was only one solution that Tango could see, and it wasn’t an option she liked. She had to try it, though. Backing rapidly up the basement stairs, she prayed that Miranda wouldn’t abandon the bloody jacket for a few more moments. She shut the basement door behind her and slipped back toward the front of the house. Luck was with her; a number of the Bandog were still lingering in the foyer and parlor. There was no sign of either Solomon or the blond doorman. Tango spotted the short man who had curried her favor before the ceremony. She caught him by the shoulder. “I put in that word to Solomon for you. He wants to see you.”
“Now?” the short man squeaked.
“Now.” Tango almost dragged him back along the hall to the kitchen and into the pantry. She hated herself for doing this. Even more, though, she loathed the fact that a part of her was eagerly anticipating what would happen next. The short man looked around him with confusion.
“Where’s Solomon?”
“Downstairs,” Tango lied grimly. She opened the basement door. The stairs were darker than they had been before. The lightbulbs had been smashed. The only light was the dim glow of the magickal sunlight. She ushered the short man down the stairs, making sure that she stayed several feet back from him.
Miranda dropped out from among the ceiling beams like a thin, shadowy stroke of lightning. Her fangs were in the short man’s throat before he could make a sound. Or at least before he could make a sound of terror. His last breath was an ecstatic gasp. Then the only noise in the gloom of the basement was Miranda’s frenzied slurping. Tango tried not to watch, but there was no way she could escape that primal, blissful sound. When it finally stopped, she turned and asked, “Miranda ?” The vampire’s eyes were coals in the shadows. “Thank you.” Her voice was deeper than normal, but it was stronger. “Is that really you, Tango?”
“Yes. Tolly....” The story was too long to explain now. “Was he enough?” she asked instead. She felt sick. Sick and dirty.
“No. But he was a start.” Miranda rose. “I’ll be all right for a while. Tango, I’m...”
Tango cut her off. “Later. We have to get Riley out, too. Before anyone misses Tanner or....” She gestured at the drained corpse. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth. “Did you know about Riley?”
“No.”
Tango wasn’t really sure whether to believe her or not. “Do you know anything about the light he’s in?” She found the stake. Something embedded in its broad end cut into her palm as she picked it up. Fragments of glass. This must have been what Miranda used to break the lightbulbs.
“Only that it bums like sunlight.”
“Let’s hope that’s all.” She poked the wood into the sunlight. Nothing happened. Good. She threw it off into the darkness. “All right. I’m going to try and wake him up, but I’ll keep my legs out of the light if I can. If I fall asleep or anything, haul me out. Okay?”
Miranda’s glowing eyes bobbed as she nodded. Tango knelt down and reached slowly into the magickal glow. It was warm on her skin, just like real sunlight. She pulled herself forward. When her head entered the light, she realized that it smelled just like sunlight, too. Sweet, green and muzzy. Her mind felt heavy. The light was putting her to sleep, making her fight to keep her eyes open. She forced her hand to reach out and grab Riley’s shoulder. She shook it hard. “Riley?”
He didn’t stir.
“Riley!” she said again, this time yelling as loudly as she dared. She slapped him.
The pooka groaned sharply. His eyelids twitched. Tango slapped him a second time. This time, his head jerked and his eyes opened. His gaze was vague, like that of anyone who has been woken suddenly from a deep sleep. He tried to focus on her, but couldn’t. His eyes drifted closed again.
It was enough. Tango grabbed a handful of his shirt and began pulling him back toward the shadows. She felt Miranda dragging at her ankles. Taking a more secure grip on Riley’s shoulders, she let the vampire do the work. Reentering the darkness was like plunging into ice water. She was alert again instantly, though Riley remained asleep. Who knew how long he had been under Solomon’s enchantment? Tango started to shake him again, trying to wake him up. Miranda grabbed her wrists.
“Later?” she suggested.
Tango nodded. Taking a deep breath, she drew Glamour into her muscles and stood with Riley’s lanky form cradled in her arms. Miranda went up the stairs first. She paused before opening the pantry door. “Now what?”
“Back door. Around the side of the house to the street. I have a car.”
The vampire nodded and opened the door. The sounds of the Bandog drifted back from the parlor and foyer. Miranda crossed the floor silently, Tango a little less so. Miranda eased open the back door — and then they were slipping into the night and around the house.
Where they encountered a problem. Bandog were standing around on the verandah of the house as guests leaving any party might do on a pleasant summer night. If the two women tried to cross the front lawn, they were sure to be seen. Tango pointed across the broad side yard of Solomon’s property toward thick bushes and trees. “What’s that?”
“A ravine. But there’s a fence,” Miranda whispered back. “I know a better way. Follow me.” She started off. A cloak of shadows covered her, making her almost invisible in the night, probably entirely invisible to those who stood by the light of the door.
Tango didn’t follow. Miranda looked back at her. Tango regarded the vampire suspiciously. Was she sure that Miranda wasn’t just going to betray her again? She didn’t have much choice if she wanted to get out of here. She paced swiftly after the vampire, stepping into the concealing darkness of her shadows. Miranda looked away without saying anything.
They hugged the edges of the yard, staying close to the deep natural shadows of the ravine. Tango held her breath, half-certain that they were going to be noticed at any minute. But there were no shouts of alarm. They stepped out of the yard and around the corner onto the sidewalk. There were no Bandog on the street, and they were hidden from Solomon’s house. Tango let out her breath.
Miranda collapsed.
“Shit!” Tango spat. She squatted down as best as she could, balancing Riley carefully. “Miranda?”
“Too much,” the vampire wheezed. “Shadows take blood to control. I need to rest. Need more blood.” Tango chewed her lip, glancing up the sidewalk toward Solomon’s house and down toward Tanner’s car. Bandog might appear from the direction of the house any time. The car was about half a block away. She looked at Miranda. “Are you going to try and attack me again?”
Miranda managed to shake her head. “No. Not that hungry. But I need... I need blood soon.”
“Tomorrow, maybe? Could you make it to tomorrow? We’re going to a hiding place and Tolly said to stay there until he comes tomorrow.”
Miranda didn’t respond.
Cursing quietly, Tango jogged as quickly as she could down the block to Tanner’s car. She propped Riley up against the car as she dug in Tanner’s pockets for the key. She found it and shoved Riley into the backseat. Then she went back for Miranda. The vampire might have been a gangly puppet for all of the strength in her limbs. Her right hand still felt rough and flaky where it had been burned. The skin of her strong face was likewise rough with scabs from the wounds that had marred it. Only her hair seemed anything like it had been the last time Tango had seen Miranda healthy — thick, heavy and luxurious. The mustiness of Solomon’s basement clung to her. Tango sat her carefully in the passenger seat of the car. It was hard to get her body to stay upright long enough to get the door closed. Finally Tango just left the door open, went around to the driver’s side of the car, climbed in, and reached across the vampire’s still form to pull the door shut. Miranda’s head fell forward onto the back of Tango’s neck as she did so.
For a second, Tango froze. Slowly, she reached up and tilted Miranda’s head back again.
Ian Tanner’s car started smoothly and pulled away from the curb like a ghost. As she drove back downtown to Tolly’s safehouse, pressing the envelope of the speed limit the whole way, Tango realized something that had been lost on her amid the horror of discovering the Bandog’s plans and the thrill of finding Riley again.
Solomon’s rite of summoning, and the accompanying chaos, would happen in two days. On Highsummer Night. .