Lizzie uttered not a word;
Would not open lip from lip Lest they should cram a mouthful in
Miranda knew she was awake because she was dreaming.
She had heard chat some vampires dreamed while they were asleep during the day. For her, though, sleep was darkness. A descent into bleak, black nothingness. She was oblivious to the passage of time between dawn and dusk. To be sure, she had occasionally woken during the day, but it was always full waking, her instincts sensing something amiss and bringing her instantly to bloodthirsty alertness. Sometimes, however, in the period of twilight after the sun was below the horizon and before full night had developed, her mind would stir before her body. And Miranda would dream.
This dream went on far longer than normal — or at least so it seemed. There was a peculiar timelessness to it.
She lay in a shadowy bower, on a bed of soft, dark cushions. Someone stroked her hair. Half-glimpsed through the leafy branches above, the moon stood still in a star-laced sky. There was fruit in the branches, a curious, shifting mixture of apples (which she hated), pears (she had found a worm inside one once), and peaches (her favorite fruit). Miranda held a piece of fruit in her hand, a piece big enough to fill her palm, but still as light as if it were half-hollow. Lazily, she raised it to her lips (perhaps several times) and bit into it with strong, white teeth. Blood flowed from the broken skin. The flesh of the fruit was woody, the skin tough and dry. The juice was ecstasy.
Somewhere, a dog howled. Something snuffled around outside the bower. She ate her way deeper into the wretched, delectable fruit. Once the blood touched her lips, the hard flesh that contained it seemed to melt away.
“Miranda.”
She tried to ignore the voice, and continued to lick and suck at the fruit in her hand. The voice was insistent, however. She turned her head. Solomon knelt beside her, naked in the shadows. The moonlight lingered on his smooth skin and strong body, caressing his sculpted face. His tattoos were gone. He held fruit in his arms, cradled against his chest and neck. Miranda took another. As she did, Solomon came with it, his warm, living touch sliding up her bare arm and across her breasts and stomach. She was naked as well, although the shadows were her clothing. She ignored Solomon. The exquisite fruit in her hands was so ripe with blood that the red juice welled up from the deep bruises left by the slight pressure of her fingers. Abruptly, Solomon was between her legs, down on his knees in the position that excited him so much, desperately trying to awaken Miranda’s flesh. But the only pleasure Miranda knew was what came from the fruit... or would have, if she could just eat enough of the fruit. The ultimate fulfillment of pleasure resisted all of her attempts to reach it, though. No matter how hard she sucked at the fruit, no matter how hard she squeezed at the fruit, the complete satisfaction eluded her. It was like striving toward climax, but never quite achieving it.
Spilled blood drenched her face and arms and breasts. Someone was still stroking her hair. Something was still padding around the bower, its flickering shape sometimes visible beyond the drooping branches.
Solomon was hurting her. The fruit he had held tumbled from his arms. With each of his thrusts, more fruit dropped in. a rain of black leaves from the bower above. The sweet blood of the fruit fell on her body, though, so she endured the pain, letting him use her as she grabbed at the fallen fruit.
It was dry. It was sour. It was bitter. It was cloying. It burst into decay against her mouth.
Miranda just grabbed desperately for more.
Hands in the shadows captured her arms.
For a moment, she remembered the horror of the Sabbat’s Creation Rites. Limbs trapped by the heavy darkness of grave soil. Eerie, smooth, hard surfaces that were too warm to be rocks, too regular and dry to be buried wood. Black dirt in her mouth and nose and eyes and ears. She struggled, but the unseen hands held onto her arms. She thrashed wildly, panicking. Solomon clung to her, even his caresses causing her pain now. Her flailing arms drew Blue and Matt out of the shadows. The other vampires lapped at the blood that covered her, drinking it in and growing fat on it.
They started biting her, sucking at her body as she had sucked at the fruit. Matt looked up from her breast and smiled venomously. Blood was a mask on his face, his fangs gleaming through it.
Groaning, Solomon thrust another fruit toward her face. It was the largest and plumpest she had seen yet, bursting with blood. Her head strained to reach it, mouth wide, fangs eager.
The hands stroking her hair paused. The thing outside the bower stopped as well, and she saw what it was. David in his dog-head mask, waiting. The leaves shifted. No, it was a huge mastiff. Shaftiel. Waiting for her.
Matt raised the long, gray, misshapen stake, just as he had before, and held it over her heart. One heavy thrust was all it would take. A drop of blood fell from the fruit in Solomon’s hand, landing on her chin. Miranda felt her tongue go questing helplessly after it.
The soothing touch of the hands left her head. The distant moon looked down through the long branches of the bower. Miranda screamed in horror, in desperation, in need, in utter loneliness. Tears tore down her cheeks. She threw herself frantically toward the moon, reaching for it with one free arm... impaling herself on the stake that Matt held.
Blood pattered like taunting raindrops onto her face from Solomon’s fruit. The raindrops mixed with her red, inhuman tears.
* * *
“Miranda?”
It was a man’s voice, rough and not at first familiar. Miranda’s eyes snapped open. For a moment — just a moment — she thought she was still dreaming.
The ceiling of the room where she lay was as close as the branches of the bower had been in her dream. It was slanted as well, tilting down toward one wall. She lay against that wall, a thin pile of blankets cushioning her from the bare old boards of the floor. There was one window, set against the far wall and covered with old-fashioned shutters. The blue stain of moonlight fell through the gaps in the shutters. The room was mostly shrouded in shadows. An attic? An electric lantern stood on a rickety chair, its shade tilted to shed light away from Miranda. In that pool of light, about as far away from the vampire as they could get, were two men. One lay on an old mattress, asleep or unconscious, while the other, tall and older, twisted around to look at her.
Her first, dream-fevered thought was that Solomon had sent the Bandog for her, that that weasel Tanner had tracked her down. Then her rescue from the basement of Solomon’s mansion came back to her. Tango, her flesh shaped by Tolly’s strange powers. If Miranda hadn’t known the mad vampire so well, she would never have believed the changeling’s hasty explanation.
If her need for rescue last night hadn’t been so desperate, she still might not have believed it.
It was a little difficult to accept that the big man crouched in the shadows was Tango. There were clues, however. The way he... she held herself. The strange shape of the body under the shirt. The silver ring that had gleamed in the darkness of Solomon’s basement.
Something else came back to her as well. If Tango had rescued her from Solomon’s basement, if she did look like Tanner, then that meant that she knew about the Bandog. Tolly, Miranda thought. It must have been
Tolly. But that didn’t matter. Tango knew.
The bottom dropped out of Miranda’s heart, and she wished Matt’s stake had been there to fill the hole, driving her down again into senseless oblivion. She wanted to run, she wanted to shrink back into the shadows out of shame, but she was too weak to do anything. Tango chose that moment to tip the shade on the little lamp up so that light poured across Miranda’s body. The vampire winced, not from the sudden brightness but from the exposure that the light brought.
“So,” said Tango in Tanner’s rough voice, “you’re awake. Finally.”
“Yes.” She waited, dreading Tango’s next words.
“You look like hell.”
Tango wasn’t going to mention the Bandog, Miranda realized abruptly. In a way, she wished that the changeling would just confront her about the cult. It would be so much easier and so much faster. She felt as though she were trapped in purgatory, ready to fall at the slightest transgression, but with no guarantee of forgiveness if she were without sin. But she could play the denial game, too. If Tango wasn’t going to mention the Bandog, then she certainly wouldn’t. “I need blood. More than...”
She cut herself off. More than the man last night could have given me alone. Miranda had vaguely recognized the short man as a Bandog. How much had it cost Tango to lead him to his death? Miranda had drunk his blood, but Tango had killed him, hadn’t she? Mention the short man and she mentioned the Bandog. “More than I’ve had recently.” She managed to prop herself up on one elbow. “Tolly did a good job. You never know what
his type are capable of, do you?”
“No.” ^
“You know he has to change you back again?" “Yes.” Tango turned back to the man on the mattress. “He said he would come tonight as soon as he could.”
“Where are we?” '
“A safehouse. Somewhere downtown. You’d know where, I’m sure, but it’s all just streets to me. Somewhere So— somewhere safe.”
So Tango was having as much trouble avoiding the forbidden topic of the Bandog as she was herself. Somewhere Solomon.... Last night, Miranda remembered, Tango had said they were going somewhere safe from location by Solomon’s magick. Miranda wasn’t sure how that was possible. She took a closer look at the man on the mattress: tall, gangly, thinning red hair. The man from under Solomon’s eerie apple tree. There was something else familiar about him as well, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “Riley?” she asked. “Is he asleep?”
Tango nodded sharply. “Yes,” she replied shortly. “He has been all day. Ever since we... got here.”
“What time is it?”
“Just past midnight.”
The sun had gone down hours ago. Miranda had been dreaming that long? Severe wounds could drive a vampire into the years- and sometimes decades-long sleep of torpor. She should be thankful that that hadn’t happened. Matt and Blue’s torture had been terrible. She couldn’t remember everything that she had told them, but apparently it had been what they’d wanted to hear. Or maybe they had just tortured her for the fun of it. Matt had taken particular delight in forcing her hand into the sunlight. The hand was still stiff and largely immobile. It would take a lot of blood to heal fully.
“I need to hunt,” she said again. Not that it would be much of a hunt. She would simply keep to the shadows and wait for eye contact. Then she would call the victim to her. No elegance, no style, just survival. She rolled over onto her side — slowly. It seemed to take five minutes just to complete that simple action. Tango watched wordlessly. Miranda got both arms under her body and pushed herself upright. She was trembling when the feat was accomplished.
“Tolly,” Tango said with a roughness that was not caused by her altered throat, “said not to go outside until he got here.”
It was a petty revenge. Miranda glared at the changeling. Tango wouldn’t meet her gaze. It was probably the sensible thing to do, but it was also a snub. Miranda forced herself all the way to her feet, just to spite Tango. She had to cling to the wall to stay upright. Tango just watched her. Miranda gave her a grim smile of triumph.
“Just remember that you can’t drink my blood or Riley’s,” the changeling said.
“How could I forget?” Miranda walked along the wall to the window. There was no glass in the frame and night air, still hot, breezed through the slats of the shutters. She pushed against them. They were nailed shut, but the nails were rusty and the wood of the frame old. When she threw her rather insubstantial weight against them, they squealed. She did it again. The nails pulled free.
The moonlight turned shadows into dark, thin tissue paper. The window looked west across old rooftops and warehouses, a landscape of slanting shingles, brick walls and pale gray wood. She couldn’t see the street, and she didn’t really recognize the area, but she could hear music close by. Something loud, with a bluesy edge to it. Where there was music, there would be people. Where there were people, there would be blood. Miranda found herself sniffing at the breeze, as if it might carry the scent of blood on it and the smell alone might sustain her. Tolly had said they couldn’t leave this place? She wouldn’t normally believe the mad vampire, but she remembered how Solomon had found her last night. If he hadn’t come for her again, maybe there was something to Tolly’s claim. What could shield them from the Nephandus’ magick? She wasn’t sure. She was silent for a long time. Just out of the corner of her eye, she could see Tango, still crouching beside Riley, still watching her.
“So,” Miranda asked her eventually, “if we can’t go outside, how did you spend the day?”
Tango hesitated for a long minute before answering. “Sleeping. And hoping maybe Tolly would come back early.” She looked down at the floor, then up again. “Where are they tonight, Miranda?” she asked hoarsely. “Who are they killing?”
The changeling had broken first. The veils of secrecy that had hid the Bandog were tearing and falling. Miranda bit her lip. “I don’t know, Tango.”
“You must!”
She shook her head. “I don’t. Everything has changed. I don’t even know why Solomon wanted us... me to commit the murders.” It was hard to say, but it was true. Until last night, the pack had only been hirelings. She had been the only one who knew about the Bandog. Solomon had come to her. “He wanted to terrify the city. I’m sure he had a deeper purpose, but I don’t know what it is.”
“I do.” Tango’s face was bleak. She rose to her feet:, “Three people are dying out there tonight as sacrifices to your demon.”
“My demon?” Miranda gasped. “Shaftiel isn’t ‘my demon’!”
“You are Bandog,” Tango spat mockingly, “aren’t you? Aren’t you ‘his vampire’?”
Miranda turned her back to the window and looked at Tango. “Not anymore. How much did you see last night, Tango?”
The changeling told her. She told her about Tolly’s visit and his connection to Riley; she told her about the ritual, about the pack’s initiation, about the elevations. She told her about Solomon’s plans, including the final sacrifice of Miranda herself. When she was through, she leaned back against a wall and waited for Miranda’s reaction.
The story left Miranda speechless. How could Solomon do this? “That’s monstrous!”
Tango snorted bitterly. “Coming from you, that should be a compliment.”
If she could have flushed then, Miranda would have. “I’m not like that, Tango.”
“No? Then why did you beat six innocent people to death at Solomon’s command? Would you have kept going? Would you have killed all sixteen for him?” Four, Miranda corrected her silently. I only killed four. Only four. For a moment, she felt as mad as Tolly.
She was a vampire. A vampire of the Sabbat. She answered to no one. Humans were her playthings and her sustenance. But she had killed four people in cold blood. And she did have to answer for it — to herself, if not to Tango. She pushed those thoughts back. “1 didn’t,” she said weakly, “know that he was going to try and summon Shaftiel.”
“Shaftiel’s voice,” Tango corrected her. “If you didn’t know that, why were you doing it?”
“For Solomon. He... Shaftiel... they promised me power.” Miranda slumped against the windowsill. “The power to control the pack. The power to rise in the Sabbat.”
“Why?”
This time, Miranda snorted. “You’re a loner. You wouldn’t understand. Power in the Sabbat comes from being able to enforce your will. When you don’t have power, you’re cannon-fodder. The Sabbat creates vampires as shock troops. Newborn Sabbat vampires aren’t expected to last a week. Even someone like me, six years old as a vampire, could still be ordered into a suicide situation by the Archbishop. With power comes safety. I would have done anything to reach a position of safety.” She sighed. “I found out about the Bandog while I was hunting away from the pack. An old man called on Shaftiel to save him.”
“Did it work?”
“Only insofar as 1 stopped because I was curious. The old man led me to Solomon. I learned more about the Bandog and decided to join. Solomon was overjoyed to have a vampire in his little kennel.” Her mouth twisted. “I still haven’t seen any of the power he promised me. And I even made myself his lover.”
Tango blinked in surprise. “I didn’t think that sex was possible — for a vampire.”
“Sex is possible. It’s just empty.” She shmgged, trying to belittle what she had done with the Nephandus. “There was contact. I fed. Solomon enjoyed himself. It was the ultimate submission for him. He craved it, as though being Shaftiel’s servant somehow weren’t enough.”
“So you prostituted yourself for Solomon. You killed for him, and you prostituted yourself for him.”
The words were like a knife. Miranda looked down, ashamed. “You haven’t asked me why Solomon named me a traitor.”
Tango refused to respond. Instead, she turned back to the sleeping man. “You don’t know anything about Riley, do you?”
“I knew that Jubilee Arthurs kidnapped him on Solomon’s orders.” Tango stiffened and Miranda winced. “I’m sorry, Tango. Jubilee resisted me when I tried to dominate his mind. He’s a full telepath now. I let him get away because I didn’t want you to find out about the Bandog. And my connection with the penny murders.” Miranda waited. Again Tango refused to acknowledge her confession.
“Do you know why Solomon had him kidnapped?” she asked. -
“No.” .
“Do you know what Solomon did to him? It’s been almost twenty-four hours since I took him out from under that damn tree, and he’s still asleep.”
“No.”
“Damn it!” snapped Tango frantically. “Don’t you know anything, Miranda?” The changeling was on her feet again suddenly, grabbing at Miranda and pushing her back against the wall. “You lied to me, you murdered, you whored, and you don’t know anything about Solomon or what he was doing?”
“No!” She was too weak to push back.
“Why did Riley have a Bandog bracelet? I found one in his luggage.”
That was why the sleeping changeling looked familiar. Miranda’s mouth felt dry suddenly. Tango wasn’t going to like this. “I think... I think he was a Bandog, Tango. Another member of the High Circle.” Tango let go of her. “No.”
“I’m not sure. I kept my distance from the other members. But why else would he have had a chain?”
“1 had hoped there would be another reason. I’ve been trying to think of one all day.” Tango looked down at Riley. “Solomon said there were five people missing from the High Circle last night. You, the traitor. Riley, I guess.”
“Two of the High Circle committed suicide recently,” Miranda told her. “A third vanished just last week. Solomon never talked about it.”
“Last night he said that Shaftiel killed four Bandog while trying to deliver his message.”
“But Riley’s not dead.”
“No.” Tango considered her friend. “I wonder w'hy Solomon enchanted him, then.” She glanced at Miranda. The vampire knew what Tango wanted to know, but she could only shake her head. Solomon hadn’t told her anything. She hadn’t pursued anything beyond her own dreams of power.
She just wished Tango would ask her what she had been doing in the basement, tortured by Matt and Blue at Solomon’s orders. She could tell her that. Then let the changeling make her judgments.
But Tango didn’t ask anything else. She just sank down beside Riley once more. Miranda hissed softly in anguished frustration.
A creak brought her head, along with Tango’s, up again. Weight shifted against stairs. There was the sound of a latch opening, and a trapdoor popped open in the shadows. Tango’s knife was in her hand instantly, and the changeling dashed forward. Her arm went around the throat of a young woman coming up through the trapdoor. “Don’t make a sound. Who are you?”
“I’m here for Miranda.”
The girl’s voice was wooden, as if she were speaking words someone else had placed in her mouth. Miranda fumbled for the lamp and tilted it so that its light flooded across the two figures at the trapdoor. The girl was dressed all in black, her face pale and her hair artfully braided. Her eyes were distant.
“Who sent you?” Tango demanded. “Why?”
“I’m here for Miranda.”
“Well, you can’t have her!”
“Tango,” Miranda hissed, “let her go.”
“What? We don’t know—”
“She’s not here to fetch me.” Miranda put down the lamp and staggered forward. Without the support of the wall, it was difficult to stay upright. “She’s here for me.” Puzzled, Tango released her hold. The girl climbed all the way up out of the trapdoor and walked toward Miranda. When she was directly in front of the vampire, she pulled down the neck of her shirt and bent her head back.
Miranda fell on her desperately. The girl’s blood was ever-sosHghtly tainted with old drugs and new alcohol, but it was otherwise as pure and rich as any Miranda had tasted. The girl had the sweetness of a vegetarian. Or perhaps it was just Miranda’s hunger that made the blood seem so sweet. She could feel the girl’s pulse in her mouth, growing slowly weaker as her blood made the vampire stronger. But Miranda could also feel Tango’s gaze on her.
Very deliberately, she pushed the girl away. She had taken enough to make herself mostly well again, enough to leave the girl paler than normal and weak — but alive. Miranda looked into her dark eyes. “Who sent you?” she asked. Her will pushed out.
“I don’t know,” the girl answered. It was the truth, Miranda realized. The girl had no idea why she had come here. The memory had been wiped from her mind, or else hidden so well that she might never remember it.
“Miranda?” Tango asked.
“She was sent by a vampire, Tango. A vampire sent her* to me so I could feed.” Miranda lifted the girl and laid her on the pile of blankets that had been her own bed. It felt wonderful to be strong again. “Did you see anyone when you came?”
“No. Tolly just gave me instructions to come here. All the doors were unlocked. As if we were expected.” Miranda frowned. “I want to know who our host or hostess is, then.” She started toward the trapdoor. Tango stopped her.
“We’re not supposed to go outside.”
“I’m not going out, just downstairs.” She stepped around the changeling. The stairs beyond the trapdoor were steep and dark. There was another door at the
bottom. Miranda pulled it open.
A tall, gaunt vampire swept in, pulling the door shut and dragging her swiftly back up the stairs. “Didn’t Tolly tell you not to leave this room? Didn’t he?” Surprised, Miranda had only the briefest impressions of the other vampire until they were back in the attic room and he was slamming the trapdoor shut. Then he turned to face her.
“DeWinter?”
“You’re very lucky to have Tolly for a friend, Miranda.” The Camarilla vampire frowned at her. “But can’t you follow the simplest of instructions?”
Tango stepped forward. “Tolly said not to go outside.”
DeWinter paced around the room like a big, dark bird. “He should have said not to go outside this room. The idiot.” He stopped by the window and pulled the shutters closed.
Miranda pushed past him to throw the shutters wide again. She leaned out as far as she could, searching for some landmark. “We’re in the Box?” she gasped.
“Get back inside.” DeWinter hauled her in again, then pulled the shutters closed with such force that the rusty nails sank back into the dry wood. “People think this building only has three floors. You’ll destroy everything if anyone sees you.”
“We’re in the Box,” Miranda muttered again, half-afraid. “Who knows we’re here?”
DeWinter shook his head. “Myself and Tolly. Possibly the hot-dog vendors — you can never tell how much they know. None of the others.”
“What’s the Box?” Tango asked.
“The last remnants of the Camarilla in Toronto, milady.” DeWinter swept himself in a graceful, flourishing, mocking bow. “Sabbat are forbidden to enter, just as we are forbidden to Leave.”
Miranda ground her teeth. “If the other Camarilla catch me here, they’ll destroy me.”
“There’s not much chance that they’ll find you,” DeWinter said confidently. “If I can conceal you from Solomon, I can conceal you from Swan and the others.” Tango looked from one vampire to the other. “If Sabbat can’t enter the Box and Camarilla can’t leave it — and if the Camarilla and the Sabbat are enemies
— how do you know Tolly?”
“There is no ‘can’t,’ just ‘forbidden.’ There are ways through and across every boundary. Tolly is my student. I tutor him in the arts of concealment. In a way, he is also my colleague. Along with Riley.” He nodded at the sleeping changeling.
Surprise crossed Miranda and Tango’s faces at the same moment. “What do you mean?” Miranda demanded.
“‘O brave new world that has such creatures in’t.’” He patted Miranda’s cheek. “Some of us try to see through the petty squabbles that separate the shadows, Miranda. All of the dark beings of our world share some common enemies — like the Nephandi. It may not be easy for us to work together, but it can be done.”
“What do you know about the Bandog and Solomon, then?”
“Very little.” DeWinter shrugged. “Tolly and Riley were operating on their own. Ours is a very loose alliance. Tolly contacted me for help early yesterday evening. His powers aren’t capable of concealing a group of people while he’s somewhere else.”
“Do you know where Tolly is now, then?” asked Tango eagerly. “Do you know when he’ll be back?” “No,” DeWinter admitted. “And I can’t change you back to your own shape, so don’t ask. Only Tolly can do that.” He squatted down beside Riley. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Solomon has him under some kind of human magick,” Miranda explained. “It’s keeping him asleep.” “Hmm. Can’t be affecting his mind — Riley’s too slippery for that.” DeWinter lifted one of the changeling’s hands to his mouth.
Tango grabbed the gaunt vampire’s arm. “No!”
He grinned. “Easy. Kithain blood can’t do anything to me that I’m not already halfway to myself.” He slipped one of Riley’s fingers between his lips and nipped gently. A tiny dribble of blood escaped from the corner of his mouth. For a moment, he looked like a human connoisseur judging a fine wine; then he spat the blood out and laid Riley’s hand back down. “Just as I thought. There’s something in his blood. Like what you’d find in a sleeping human, but a thousand times as strong. Solomon’s magick has probably jumped up his body’s production of the hormones and chemicals associated with sleep. How long has he been this way?” “Maybe four or five days.”
DeWinter made a face. “It’s going to take a long time for him to wake up on his own, then.”
“How long?” Tango asked worriedly.
“Weeks, probably.”
“Maybe a hospital?” suggested Miranda.
“No,” Tango said. “A doctor would probably just explain this as a coma and hook Riley up to monitors and ventilators.” Miranda watched her bite her lip. “I
think 1 might have a way to wake him up, but it won’t be easy, and it will put us in danger from the Kithain
court.”
DeWinter raised an eyebrow. “What are you thinking of? You could just wait, you know. I’m sure he’ll come out of it sooner or later.”
“We need him sooner, I think,” Miranda replied. “Solomon’s going to summon a demon’s voice.”
DeWinter’s other eyebrow went up. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Well, he’s going to try it.” Tango looked at DeWinter. “He’s going to manipulate the city into riots as part of the rite. The penny murders are his sacrifices to the demon. There are going to be three more tonight, then another four tomorrow along with the riots. Is there anything you can do to help us?”
“No.” '
“What?” spat Miranda.
“No,” DeWinter repeated firmly. “The group that Riley, Tolly and I belong to is secret. We’re a network of contacts more than allies. We can help in small ways, but nothing major. There are other, bigger, badder groups out there that would break us up as soon as they knew anything about our existence. Tolly and Riley are on their own.”
Miranda glared at him angrily. “You have to—” “No. I don’t have to do anything.” He met her gaze fearlessly. “And don’t try anything. I can still let the Camarilla have you. I’m only hiding you because of Tolly and Riley.”
“Fine.” She turned back to Tango. “What’s your plan?”
“The same cantrip I used to burn off the effects of
Atlanta’s pepper spray.” The changeling hesitated, thinking. “I might be able to use it on Riley. Maybe. I’m not very good at working my magic on other Kithain.”
“It can’t hurt to try, can it?”
“No. Except that I can’t do it here. I need Glamour, and the only place I know where there’s free Glamour that I can access is at the Kithain court in Yorkville.” Tango wrinkled her nose. “And unfortunately, neither I nor Riley are especially popular there right now.” Miranda licked her lips. “Is there any way you can do what Sin did? Create an epiphany? In a human, I mean,” she added hastily as Tango’s lips pressed together in anger. “Not by... the other way.”
“No. Creating a Reverie takes time. And we don’t have time.” Tango held out Tanner’s long, masculine arm. “I’d rather we didn’t even have to wait for Tolly to change me back, but we’re not going to have any chance at getting into the court if I look like this.” “You wouldn’t be able to get in anyway,” DeWinter reminded her. “Without Tolly to hide you, Solomon’s magick will locate you almost as soon as you leave my protection.”
Tango nodded. “At least the court will hide us while we’re there. I doubt if Solomon’s magick could pinpoint it.” She ground her teeth. “Where is Tolly?”
As if in answer to her question, the door at the bottom of the stairs slammed shut and, a heartbeat later, the trapdoor flew open. Tolly thrust his body through the hole. He looked like a nightmare.
His teeth were as long as his fangs were normally, his fangs as long as his fingers. His face was pinched and thin. His hair was wild. His eyes were bleeding — not crying the bloody tears of vampires, but actually bleeding. Painful bony spurs stuck through his skin at all of his joints. His body looked emaciated under his clothes. His arms were like long, thin tree branches caught in a high wind. His hands were broken and covered in blood. He slapped them against the walls as he spun around the room, leaving gory streaks and distorted handprints behind. Occasionally, he would slam his head against the walls as well.
“Tolly!” DeWinter yelled.
“No!” screamed the mad vampire. “No! No! No!” He punched at the wall. Miranda could hear the bones in his already shattered hand pop some more. “I don’t want to do this anymore! I hate it!” He flung himself at DeWinter. “They made me do it!” His head wobbled back and forth, deforming as if battered by unseen blows. “And they begged me not to!” He dropped hard to his knees, crawling between Miranda and Tango to reach Riley. Both his hands and knees made smears of blood on the floor. “Let me go, Riley!” he begged the sleeping changeling. “Let me go and we can stop this. You don’t know how bad it is now. It’s worse than we imagined!” He grabbed at Riley.
DeWinter caught him instead and dragged him to his feet. “Tolly!” he commanded, “Look at me!” He caught the other vampire’s head, forcing his face around. “Look at me!” He might as well have been trying to turn a squid. Tolly’s body kept squirming and his head kept changing shape. Miranda reached out to help, grabbing the mad vampire’s chest. DeWinter managed to catch Tolly’s gaze. “Calm down,” he said soothingly. “You have to calm down. Everything is all right.”
Slowly, Tolly’s spastic movements eased and his body began take on its normal shape. Miranda glanced at Tango. The changeling was watching the spectacle with a mingled expression of shock, disgust and awe. DeWinter let Tolly’s head go. Miranda released his chest. Tolly dropped down to lie on the floor. “Are you all right?” DeWinter asked him.
“Now, yes,” Tolly said tightly. He glanced at Riley, then Miranda, then Tango. “You got him out,” he said to her. “You got both of them out. Thank you.”
“I got Riley away from Solomon.” The changeling was watching Tolly carefully, as though she were expecting the name to prompt a reaction in him. It didn’t. “You have to put me back the way I was. Then we can try and wake him up.”
Tolly just gestured with his hands. They were still gnarled and misshapen. With a hiss, Tango dropped down beside him. “This is going to hurt,” she said, a little ironically.
“Fine by me,” Tolly gasped between gritted teeth. Still, he yelped when she grasped his hand and sharply, forcefully straightened out a broken finger. “I deserve it.” Miranda squatted down. “What did you do tonight, Tolly? Who did you kill?”
A red tear came to Tolly’s eye. The scratches across his face that had poured blood before were healed now. “Children. Three children. Then we fed from their babysitter in the garden. Al fresco.” A mad little giggle bubbled between his lips.
Tango caught her breath. Miranda glanced up at her, but the changeling had all of her attention fixed on Tolly’s hands, straightening his bones as quickly as she could.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices Squeezed from goblin fruits for you
Tango led them through the gray darkness of early-morning Yorkville, Tolly following her closely, Miranda behind him. Miranda cradled Riley in her arms. Tango had been reluctant to trust him to her, but Miranda had pointed out that it would be easiest for her to carry his sleeping body. Riley’s tall form would be awkward for the changeling, now returned to her normal shape, to carry. Tolly would need all of his concentration to conceal them from Solomon’s questing magick. Miranda was the obvious choice to act as porter. Tango had finally agreed.
And all of that conversation had, of course, followed hard on Tango’s misgivings about Miranda accompanying them at all.
The vampire shifted Riley’s body around. Tango’s distrust hurt her. She had tried her best to explain why she had done what she had. She regretted it all now, but she couldn’t take any of it back, could she? She could only apologize and try to atone. But Tango refused to listen to anything she said.
Fine. If Miranda had to prove all over again that
she could be trusted, she would do it.
Something scuttled through the shadows. Miranda snapped her head around to stare after it. Just a raccoon. All the same, she wished they had DeWinter with them. Tolly had taken the gaunt Camarilla vampire aside before they had left the hidden attic and asked him to help them. DeWinter had flatly refused. None of Tolly’s subsequent pleading and tantrums had moved him at all. The best he could promise was to keep watch on Solomon’s activities if they failed to stop the Nephandus.
Tango turned into a little alley lined with shops, then, halfway up, turned again, so sharply that the vampires behind her stumbled. The changeling paused in the entrance to a little sushi shop, peering down into the darkness of a steep, narrow stairwell. “Ruby?” she hissed. “Are you here?”
“I never leave.” Miranda, watching the shadows intently, saw an old woman, even smaller than Tango, step out of the brick wall. It was almost like seeing Tolly step out of one of his hiding places, but, at the same time, even more strangely unnerving. Ruby actually seemed to draw her substance from the bricks. The other changeling had her eyes on the vampires from the moment she emerged, as if she had been watching them even before she had eyes with which to watch. Her gaze was openly suspicious, though it lightened briefly when she recognized Riley. “What do you want, Tango?”
“I need to get into the court. 1 need Glamour to wake Riley.”
“There’s no one here right now. Everyone’s gone home except for me and Marshall the night watchman.” “I don’t need anyone else. Please, Ruby? It’s important. Really important.” Tango took a step down.
Miranda didn’t quite catch what happened, but it was as if Tango had stepped onto an escalator going the wrong way. Abruptly, she was back at the top of the steps. “I’m still Gatekeeper, Tango,” Ruby said. “I have a duty.” She nodded at Riley. “What’s wrong with him?” “He’s caught in a mage’s magick.”
Ruby sucked in her breath. “One of the ones he visited in San Francisco?”
“No. One right here in Toronto.”
“Duke Michael won’t like that at all. If he knew, he’d probably forbid you even to try waking Riley up.” Her old eyes sparkled. “I’m glad I’m not Duke Michael.” A broad grin split Tango’s face. “Thanks, Ruby.” “Not so fast.” She pointed toward the vampires. “What about them? The duke might not have any particular quarrel with the leeches, but I don’t think he’d want them in the court.”
“They’re my....” She paused. M;y friends? Miranda thought hopefully. “My allies,” Tango finished. Ruby considered them for a moment longer, then stepped aside.
“All right. You’re on your own with Marshall, though. I don’t have any pull with him. But be careful
— he’s a redcap.”
“Thanks. I have a plan.”
Tango took them down the stairs. Miranda had to walk carefully; the old steps were worn. She didn’t want to drop Riley if she missed her footing and fell. As they reached the door at the bottom, it unlocked suddenly. Miranda glanced back up at Ruby. The old changeling flashed her a smile as she disappeared back into the wall. Tango, meanwhile, was boldly throwing open the door. “I claim sanctuary for myself and my allies in this freehold!” she shouted firmly.
Miranda barely had time to recognize that the changeling court was — contrary to anything she might have expected — nothing more than a dingy pool hall, before a hard, thin, lash of a man stepped in front of them. “What? Who are you?” He saw Miranda and Tolly, and spat. “Get out.”
“I’ve claimed sanctuary,” Tango said. “They’re my allies. They stay.” She paced forward, confronting the night watchman. “I’m Tango. The duke’s Jester? And I imagine you know Riley?”
Marshall’s eyes narrowed. “I know Riley. The duke isn’t too happy with either of you right now.”
“I don’t think he’s banned me from court yet, has he?” Tango asked sweetly. She gestured for Miranda and Tolly to come in, and for Miranda to lay Riley down.
“Well, he isn’t here,” Marshall pointed out. “And I’ve never heard of claiming sanctuary in a freehold.” “Fifth tenet of the Escheat — the Right of Safe Haven. Learn your Kithain laws.”
Marshall sneered. “The Right to Safe Haven maintains the safety of the freehold. It doesn’t mean lawless Kithain can just wander in in the middle of the night.” He hefted a pool cue as though it were a spear. Tango watched it as warily as though it really were. “Get...”
Abruptly, Tango ducked forward and grabbed the cue out of the night watchman’s hands. When she dropped it, the tip hit the floor.... Miranda blinked. The tip hit the floor with the clatter of falling metal?
As if it were a spearhead, and the floor were something harder than linoleum.
Tango had Marshall down on the dirty floor. Her knife was in her hand and hovering near his face. “See this?” she hissed. “This is real. I put this through you, and you stay dead.”
“Sixth tenet,” snarled Marshall. “The Right to Life. You can’t kill another Kithain. Learn the laws yourself!” Miranda saw Tango’s hand waver for just a second. Marshall’s words would have reminded her of what she had once been and done. Miranda’s jaw tightened in sympathy. But then Tango’s hand became steady again. She brought the knife down to prick Marshall’s cheek. “If I do kill you, you’re dead. Do you really want to put that to the test?” She held the knife down for a moment longer, then took it away and pulled Marshall to his feet. She thrust him toward the door. “Go find Duke Michael and ask him about sanctuary and the Right to Safe Haven. I’ll be waiting here when you get back.” Marshall reeled out into the dark stairwell, then spun around angrily. Tango slammed the door in his face and locked it.
“Is there such a thing as claiming sanctuary?” Miranda asked quietly, setting Riley down on top of one of the pool tables in the long room.
Tango nodded. “Yes and no. Under the fifth tenet, Kithain are supposed to be admitted to any freehold where they seek refuge. But it’s not guaranteed or enforced, and freeholds turn away refugees all the time.” “Why?”
“Out of fear that they’ll do what I’m going to do — steal Glamour.” She glanced at Tolly. “Take a break. Solomon can’t get to us here.” The mad vampire relaxed with a grateful sigh. His hands started fiddling with a rack of pool balls, clacking them together, and he giggled. Tango winced, turning her attention back to Riley. She reached for her necklace and took the sprig of heather out of its vial. “I’m not sure this is going to work, or how long it will take,” she murmured to Miranda. “It is going to take all of my concentration, though. Try to keep Tolly quiet.”
That would be tricky enough, but Miranda had another concern. “What do we do if this Duke Michael comes back before you finish?”
“Bluff. Stall. Whatever you can do. Just be careful if anyone points anything at you.” She nudged Marshall’s fallen pool cue with a toe. “This really was a spear in Marshall’s hands. A Kithain chimeric weapon created out of Glamour.”
“A spear can’t hurt me,” Miranda reminded her. “Maybe not, but an ordinary pool cue through the heart would, and you wouldn’t know the difference until too late.” The words were delivered coolly, like a warning in battle rather than advice to a friend.
Tango leaned over Riley and set the sprig of heather on his chest. She pressed her hands to his head, then slowly began to knead his scalp as if she were giving him a massage. Her fingers moved down to his jaw. Her eyes closed in concentration. Miranda turned away.
The entire pool hall... the entire changeling court, rather, had the same feel to it that Miranda had first noticed around Tango when the other woman had walked into Hopeful. Energetic. Dynamic. Electrical. As if the room were vibrating at a frequency so high that it only appeared to be motionless. Miranda had sensed something similar around Sin when they had seen him at Club Haze. The invisible, tingling energy in the court was much stronger than it had been around either changeling, however. Like riverwater to seawater. It was Glamour, she supposed, forever hidden from her. Miranda felt sure that there was more to the court than she could see. Only the shallowest of perceptions came to her now. The metallic clatter of the dropped pool cue, for example. The way her footsteps echoed, as though the pool hall were far larger than it looked. A sense of dark grandeur. Tango’s world was invisible to her, and almost incomprehensible.
Miranda had been watching Tolly whirl around the room for several minutes before she realized that he was waltzing between the pool tables, moving in perfect time, .as if to unheard music. Could the mad vampire see and hear things of the Glamour? Could he enter Tango’s world? It hardly seemed fair. “Tolly,” she asked softly, “what are you dancing to?”
Tolly snorted. “Nothing, silly.” He swept her up as he moved past, bringing her into his slow, rocking dance. “The orchestra’s gone home for the night.”
* * *
Glamour flooded through Tango like sunlight flooding through a prism. In the rich environment of the court, she had no trouble drawing it to her. The Glamour illuminated her entire being. The problem came when she tried to redirect it into Riley. It fractured — just as sunlight passing through a prism broke into a rainbow. She couldn’t focus the Glamour outside of her body, even though the atmosphere of the court should have made it easier. She could have used her cantrip on herself easily, but nothing she did seemed to carry the magic to Riley. She growled softly in frustration and moved her hands down to the pooka’s arms. “Work,” she muttered. “Work, damn you.”
The Glamour just dripped away from him. Again. She tried brushing the heather across his face as she drew on the Glamour, pouring the radiant energy through the sprig. Nothing.
Tango felt like pounding her hands on the table in frustration. Why had she even hoped that this might succeed? It had never worked in the past. In the forty -five years since she had gone through the Chrysalis, she had never found a way to use her magic on anyone but herself. Why should it work now? But it should have been possible! She should have been able to do it. She had to find a way to make the cantrip work this time!
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Miranda push Tolly away. The other woman sent the mad vampire to squat in a far comer, then came over to her. “Is it not...?”
“No,” Tango said harshly. “It’s not.”
“Oh.” Miranda turned away again. She stopped and glanced back. “Is there anything I can do?”
Tango clenched her teeth. “No. It’s not a problem you’d understand.”
The vampire just looked at her. “Try me,” she said, as if it were a challenge. “What’s your problem?” “Forget it! There’s nothing you can do.”
“Do you want to wake Riley up or not?”
Tango didn’t reply right away. She looked down at Riley. They had to wake him, or they would never find out all of what was going on. She and Miranda could only guess at part of the larger picture. Tolly knew something, but couldn’t tell them. Everything else that they needed to know was locked up in Riley’s sleeping mind. “All right,” she snapped grudgingly at Miranda. “My magic won’t work on him. I’ve tried, and I can’t do it!”
“Why won’t it work?” asked Miranda calmly.
“Because I can’t affect other Kithain. I don’t know' why. It just doesn’t work.” She glared up at the vampire. “And before you ask, I’ve tried every trick I’ve ever heard of to get it to work. The connection just isn’t there. I thought I could do it this time, with so much riding on being successful, but I can’t.”
Miranda was silent as she thought. “But you can affect your own body?”
“Easily.”
“What if...” Miranda drummed her fingers on the pool table. “What if you thought Riley’s body was yours?”
Tango stared at the vampire. “What? How?”
“I could hypnotize you. You’ve seen stage-mesmerists make people act like they’re somebody else? If you thought you were Riley — sort of like an out-of-body experience — maybe you could make the Glamour flow. A really deep trance might be enough to make the connection. It would be tricky. I’ve never actually done anything quite like it before.”
Tango considered the idea skeptically. “What would it involve?”
“A deep trance, a lot of suggestion.” Miranda shifted a bit. “And you would have to trust me enough to let me do it.”
Tango barely bit back a snarl. “Forget it.”
There was a fist-sized knot of guilt in her stomach when she said it.
“Why not?” demanded Miranda. “It’s our best chance.”
“You might mess with my head while you’re doing it.”
Why should she? Why would she want to do that to you now? Are you afraid she’s going to turn you over to Solomon?
Miranda’s face was a frozen mask. The vampire’s dark eyes looked down at her. Her lips were pressed tightly together. A human might have been breathing hard, nostrils flaring, but Miranda’s face didn’t move at all. Then, suddenly, she lashed out so fast that her hand seemed to blur, and slapped Tango across the face. “Damn it!” she screamed. “I don’t want to mess with your head! Do you think I enjoyed hiding the penny murders from you? Do you think I was playing games when 1 let Jubilee get away? I hated it!"
“Then why did you do it?” Tango screamed back at her.
“Because I didn’t want you to find out about me! I liked you and I didn’t want you to start hating me. You were the first person in a long time that I didn’t have to play power games with. And you treated me like a person instead of a creature. 1 liked fthatr-
Doesn’t that make sense? asked the guilt in the pit of Tango’s stomach. It rippled larger, and brought a flush of shame to Tango’s face.
Miranda wasn’t finished. “Remember what you said to me that first night at Hopeful? It’s nice to have someone you can talk to and know they’ll understand? Do you think you’re the only one who feels that way?”
Tango swallowed. “I...”
“Do you know why Solomon named me a traitor to the Bandog? Because I was trying to protect you. Because I was with you instead of committing another murder. Because I rejected him.” The other woman stood straight, her arms stiff at her sides, her hands clenched. “I’m tired of power games. I’m sick of killing. I want to do what you did, Tango. I want to walk away from it all. Why can’t you forgive me?”
Tango stared at her. In her anger, Miranda’s fangs had emerged. She looked so inhuman. Say it, whispered the voice inside her. Admit it.
“Because,” Tango whispered, “you remind me too much of myself. You make me remember what I used to be like. You make me remember how easy it was.” She reached up and pressed Miranda’s lips closed, hiding the fangs. “Please don’t.” She looked straight into the vampire’s eyes. “Hypnotize me. Let’s do it.”
“Tango...”
“Do it!” She felt better, but still incomplete. “Hurry.”
Miranda looked like she was about to say something more, but stopped. Gently, she lifted Tango up to sit on the edge of the pool table. Then she caught her gaze again. Abruptly, Tango found herself falling into Miranda’s eyes. It was like diving into a warm swimming pool at night. The sensation was comforting, embracing. She didn’t fight it. Instead, she dove deeper into the shadows. Miranda was speaking to her, the vampire’s voice a distant, eerie murmur of command, encouraging her to remember everything that she knew about Riley, all of the experiences that they had shared. Obedienty, Tango remembered. The recent evening in Pan’s. Winnipeg six years ago. Boston before that. A wild road trip in the early eighties. The first time they met, 1978 in Montreal. Things she’d thought she had forgotten: postcards, Christmas gifts, telephone calls.
“Now,” instructed Miranda’s ghostly whale-song of a voice, “imagine all of that from Riley’s point of view.”
The imagining came easily. Riley’s end of the telephone calls. Riley writing postcards. Riley laughing uproariously as he steered the car off the road and they went jolting across rough desert in the wilds of New Mexico, with her grabbing at his arm and yelling at him.
“Become Riley,” Miranda said. “You are Riley. You are...”
* * *
Riley was barely aware of how strange it seemed to have a vampire tell him to open his eyes and look down at his own body. When she told him to reach out and purify his own blood, he did it — even though he had never been able to do any such thing before. His magic changed the shape of things. It wasn’t healing magic. But Glamour moved through his body and then into his other body, a sweet ripple of light. His other body stirred. The vampire watched the other body carefully, telling him to keep it up. He broke in two the sprig of heather he held and shifted his hands, putting one on his other body’s chest and one over its forehead. Heart and brain. His other body stretched.
“Just a little longer,” hissed the vampire. Riley concentrated, the ripple of Glamour becoming a rush.
His other body opened its eyes. “Tango?” he asked himself.
The vampire smiled. She turned Riley’s head back to look into her deep, dark eyes. “Tango. Come back.” Riley blinked.
^ ^ ^
Tango’s smile matched, and maybe even outshone, Miranda’s. “It worked!” She threw her arms around the other woman. “Thank you, Miranda!” She turned to smile at the bemused pooka, sitting up and looking around. “Hello, Riley!”
“Hurray!” Tolly came bounding across the room like a big, friendly dog, and grabbed Riley tightly. “You’re back!”
Riley hugged the mad vampire in return, then looked around the empty court and back to Tango. “What happened?”
“Solomon kidnapped you....”
“I know that.” Riley shuddered. “The last thing I remember was having my mind rooted through like it was a garbage can.”
Miranda raised her eyebrow. “I didn’t know Solomon could do that.”
“Mages are always full of—” Riley really looked at the vampire for the first time. “You!” He scrambled away.
“Riley!” Tango grabbed him. “It’s all right. She’s on our side. She’s left the Bandog.”
The pooka glared at Miranda. “Really?”
Tolly didn’t give her a chance to reply. He twisted Riley around roughly, dragging him away from her. “Take the geasa off me, Riley,” he begged. “Please! Take it off before I go nuts!”
“All right, you’re released!” Tolly collapsed across Riley’s lap with a vast sigh. Riley looked around. “What the hell’s been happening?” His eyes went narrow. “What day is it?”
“The night before Highsummer.”
“Shit!” Riley pushed Tolly off him and scrambled down from the table. “Solomon was bragging to me. He’s going to...” ■
Tango stopped him. “Easy. We know what Solomon is planning.”
“How much?”
“Pretty much everything, we think.” Tango sat him back down again. “Take it slow. You’ve been asleep for five days.”
“Well, then I’m good and rested.” He got to his feet again and caught Tolly’s lolling head. “How much do they know about the other stuff?”
“Nothing. I couldn’t tell them anything, remember?” Red tears started to drip from Tolly’s eyes. “But if you know about the murders, guess who Solomon chose to do his dirty work.”
“No.” Riley glanced at Miranda.
She nodded. “Our pack.” Tango was surprised to hear a faint quaver in her voice. “Solomon came to me, then pretended to hire the pack.”
“No.” Riley stroked Tolly’s blond hair. “I’m sorry, Toll.”
Tolly twisted around to grab at Riley and cry into his chest. “And I couldn’t tell anyone!” Riley kept stroking his head comfortingly. He looked at Tango.
“So,” she asked him slowly, “why did Solomon kidnap you?”
“You didn’t get the yellow folder? Everything was in there. I thought they might get me sometime, so I wrote it all down, everything 1 had on Solomon. There was a Bandog bracelet with it, too — one that Tolly took from someone.”
She shook her head. “Jubilee... one of the Bandog searched your apartment while you were in San
Francisco and cleaned it out. I got your message to Epp, but the file was already gone. So was the bracelet.” She didn’t mention that the first Bandog bracelet she’d seen had been his. The one he had been wearing at Pan’s, the one she’d discovered later in his suitcase.
“Damn. How did you find me, then?”
“It’s a long story, and I don’t think we have time for it. The duke is probably on his way here.”
The door to the stairway outside unlocked suddenly. “No,” said Duke Michael as he walked into the court. Dex, Sin and Marshall slipped in around him. All three sidhe held naked swords. The redcap had a club. “He’s already here.” Behind the duke, Slocombe, the troll Tango had seen on her earlier visits to court, squeezed through the doorway.
Tango drew her breath in a hiss. “Your Grace, I’ve claimed sanctuary for myself and my allies under the Right of Safe Haven. Marshall must have told you that.” “He has,” replied the duke. His voice was calm, but there was a dangerous edge to it. “But the Right of Safe Haven applies only to Kithain — not to vampires. And for you and Riley to claim Safe Haven in my own court...” His smile was as sharp as the light that gleamed off the blade of his sword. “A criminal might as well seek sanctuary in a court of law.” With a swift gesture, he sent his knights and the night watchman to surround them.
Miranda stepped forward quickly. “Wait! There’s something you have to...”
Duke Michael cut her off with a flick of his sword through the air. “You have no voice in this court, vampire!” Tango felt a flare of Glamour and, abruptly, Miranda was silent. The other woman looked shocked.
Tango glanced at Riley. The pooka grimaced and pried himself out of Tolly’s grasp.
“Your Grace,” he said humbly. He dropped down on one knee before the duke, playing the role of the penitent courtier with perfect ease. “These vampires have risked their existence for us. We four bring news of a grave peril, a peril that kept me from my duties as your Jester.” He looked up. “Will you at least hear our news before you pass judgment?”
If Tango had been the duke, she would have run Riley through on the spot. Dex was making motions that suggested he would have done likewise, while Sin grimaced broadly. Riley’s act, however, was designed to appeal to Duke Michael and his sense of tradition. And it worked. The duke nodded.
Riley launched into a masterful account of the Bandog and their worship of Shaftiel. His words brought to life the eerie atmosphere of the ritual chamber in Solomon’s house. He described Solomon’s plans to create chaos in Toronto and summon Shaftiel’s voice. He very neatly glossed over the matter of how he and Tolly had come to be involved in the whole matter, instead focusing on his kidnapping and imprisonment, and on his rescue by Tango and Miranda. It was an incredibly good story for someone who had only heard the bare essence of Solomon’s plans — Tango suspected that if Riley had known the full events of the last few days and the facts of the penny murders, his story would have been even better.
When he had finished, she was in awe. Even Dex and Sin seemed spellbound. And the duke was nodding calmly. “So one of the Nephandi intends to speak to his dark master, and his plans menace
Toronto,” he said thoughtfully.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“And you have been kidnapped by this Nephandus. You and Tango have done battle with him.”
“Not combat, your Grace, no. But we have met him face to face, and we oppose him.” .
Duke Michael’s sword descended ever so slowly to rest on Riley’s shoulder, right beside his neck. “But a Nephandus is a type of mage isn’t it, Riley?” His voice was suddenly cold and lethal. “You have had dealings with a mage?”
Tango blinked in outraged shock. “We didn’t have ‘dealings’ with Solomon! He kidnapped Riley. He’s ordered humans murdered. He wants to create riots and summon a demon!”
The duke glanced at her only briefly, then looked back down at Riley. “You are both bound to the rules of my court by your oaths. Dealings are dealings!” He tapped Riley with his sword. “You still have to answer for your actions in going to mages in San Francisco against my express orders.” He nodded again as Riley blanched. “Yes. I know about that. Tango told me. You forget that things still happen while we sleep.”
“What about the humans?” demanded Tango. “You can’t just...”
The duke turned his one-eyed gaze on her. “I have had enough of your shouting!” he snapped. “You have fought in my court, you have disobeyed me at every turn, you have resisted my judgments.” His sword came up to point at her. “It is not the place of a common nocker to question a sidhe! Humans are not my concern. Maintaining the order of my court and ruling the Kithain of Toronto is.” His sword described an arc
down to the floor. “Kneel and be silent!”
Tango watched the glittering point of the duke’s sword and felt the Glamour around her. All of the Glamour of the court... all those years of denying herself an epiphany. Duke Michael was everything she hated about sidhe. Her fingers itched. Her palms felt tight. A single clench of her hand and her ring would become a knife. Three steps. One to carry her close to the duke, too close for him to use his sword. A second to catch and pin his sword arm in case he tried to anyway. A third to thrust her knife through his heart. She could hear her breathing. She had been so close to losing control of herself in the last week. It would be so easy to slip back into Shiv’s ways, to teach the arrogant sidhe what was really important. So what if the five other Kithain discovered that the infamous assassin of the Accordance War was in their midst? Dex and Sin would have to die, but Riley, Marshall and the troll... they might be allowed to live. She was tired of resisting.
The Glamour poured into her like water through a crumbling dam. She didn’t have to spit to summon her strength this time. Her hand started to clench.
Someone caught it and held it open, forcing her fingers apart, preventing her from making the gesture that would summon her knife. Miranda, vampire strength straining against nocker strength. Tango turned to glare at her. Miranda caught her gaze. Her voice silenced by the duke’s magic, the vamp ire couldn’t command her, but her will could still wash into Tango’s mind. Tango felt numb suddenly. A hazy grayness overwhelmed her. Miranda forced her to her knees, then fell herself. Tolly scrambled down as well, so that they were all kneeling before the duke.
The sidhe lord smiled grimly. “Even the vampires have some manners, then. Tango, do you admit that you had dealings with a mage?”
The numbness of Miranda’s will bolstering her own helped. Tango sucked in a deep lungful of air, then another. The rage that burned in her began to ebb — a bit. “Yes,” she snarled. “I had dealings with a mage. But if your rules prevent a Kithain from trying to stop a Nephandus, then the rules need to be changed.”
“But they are still my rules,” Duke Michael reminded her. “And there is nothing you can do to change that.” “No.” Riley looked up suddenly, then stood. “There is. Your Grace, I challenge you to a duel. A fior, trial by combat. If you win, we submit to your justice.” Duke Michael turned to the pooka. Tango caught her breath. Fior was an ancient faerie tradition, the ordeal of truth. Trial by combat was just one form of fior, and one that was seldom invoked. The results of the duel would be binding — she just hoped Riley knew what he was doing. “If you win?” the duke asked him.
“You will do everything in your power to help us stop Solomon. Tango and I go free.” He pointed at Miranda and Tolly. “In addition, sanctuary is to be granted to these vampires until the fior is decided, and after, if I win. And you will give the one back her voice.”
Duke Michael narrowed his eyes. “The vampires are intruders here. I don’t owe them anything.”
Riley returned his gaze. “No, you’re right. You don’t. But it would be pretty damn cheap to deny them.”
The duke was silent for a moment. He glanced at the other sidhe, at the troll, and at Marshall. They all regarded him blankly. It was the lord’s decision to make. Finally, Duke Michael snorted. “Very well. Your demand for fior is accepted. The stakes will be as we have said. The vampires are granted sanctuary, and the female, the return of her voice.”
“The weapons?” asked Riley.
Wordlessly, the duke sheathed his sword and reached for two pool cues hanging on the wall. “Choose,” he said, presenting them to Riley. “Eight-ball. A pure game. No Glamour permitted.” He nodded for the troll to rack up a set of balls on one of the tables. His smile was predatory. Tango’s heart sank. She had seen the duke play.
“Fine.” Riley examined one of the cues, then the other. He chose the first. “Would you like to use the high table?”
The duke’s eyebrows rose. “All right.” The troll moved the pool balls up to the table at the front of the room, the one at which Tango had first seen the duke playing. “How many games do you want to play, Riley? Two of three? Three of five? Five of seven?”
“Seven of twelve.” Riley chalked up the tip of his cue, then blew the excess chalk off in a little puff of blue dust. His lips twitched, then burst into a wide, confident grin. “And you might want to close the court to spectators beyond the ones who are already here. Do you really want everyone to see you lose?”
Duke Michael frowned. Tango bit her tongue, partly to keep herself from laughing. Riley must have known that the duke would chose pool as the fior combat, and that meant he felt he had a good chance at winning. But the other reason she bit her tongue was because she recognized the grin on Riley’s face and his tactic of offering such self-assured advice.
He wasn’t absolutely positive that he could win.
The duke gestured for Marshall to go up to Ruby. “Tell her not to let anyone in.” Then he waved his cue toward the pool table. “Break,” he told Riley.
If Miranda closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that the two changelings were dueling with swords rather than pool cues. The swift clash of ball against ball was the strike of one blade against another. The drawing back and darting forward of the cues made the sound of steel slashing the air. Thrust. Parry. Feint. Lunge. Clash. Ring. Clatter. Then the soft dropping of balls into pockets — or blood to the floor from wounds.
Riley and the changeling duke paced around the table, circling each other. Each chose his shots with care, striking strategically, seldom missing his targets. When one did miss, he hissed in pain. The two men were sweating as if they fought a strenuous duel as well. The duke had stripped off a black silk shirt, and played in a tank top. Tango held Riley’s outer shirt. The pooka wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Clap your hands if you believe in faeries.” Every few shots he would turn his baseball cap around, wearing it forward, then backward, then forward again. He glared at the duke hotly, flashing him that mad, confident smile whenever the duke glared back. For his part, Duke Michael looked as fierce as a howling blizzard. He didn’t smile at all.
At first, both duelists had played with supreme confidence: Riley flamboyantly, Duke Michael with the precision of a surgeon. Riley had won the first game. Duke Michael the next. Riley the next after that, then the duke again. Then Riley had won two in a row. Duke Michael had rallied to win the next two. Riley’s smile had turned tight. Suddenly, all of the showiness was gone and they were playing hard, serious pool, back and forth against the green baize.
The spectators sat atop other tables, or leaned against the wall. The big man Tango said was a troll crouched in one corner like a huge, ugly statue. The handsome twins, Dex and Sin, stood against opposite walls, eyes alert, obviously watching Riley to be sure he didn’t cheat. Whiplike Marshall kept watch at the door, presumably to ensure that the duke’s prisoners didn’t try to escape. Tolly sprawled across a pool table, fidgeting nervously, his body deforming and distorting so rapidly it was uncomfortable to watch him. He had been playing with billiard balls, stretching his fingers wide and wedging balls between each of them — until one of the balls had dropped like thunder to the floor. Riley had missed a shot. The changeling had whirled around and given Tolly such a harsh snarl that the mad vampire had put all of the balls down instantly and silently, and had not touched them again. Riley managed to win the game.
Miranda herself sat next to Tango. The two women were quiet. Miranda couldn’t think of anything to say
and Tango____ Miranda glanced sideways at the
changeling. Tango had been avoiding even looking at her since the long duel had begun. Miranda looked down at her feet, cursing silently. She thought she had made a breakthrough when Tango had let herself be hypnotized, but there was still a distance between them.
An uncomfortable distance. Maybe Tango was ashamed of what she had almost done tonight. Miranda had seen her hands clenching in anger and understood instantly what it meant. She hoped that her intervention had helped, and not just angered Tango further. Right now the changeling was grim-faced as she watched the duel. At least Miranda hoped she was grim-faced because of the duel. It was impossible to guess what she thought about anything else.
Riley lost another game. And another. The pooka just kept grinning at Duke Michael, but Miranda grimaced. And then yawned.
She sat upright with a start. Tango’s head snapped around to look at her. “What?”
“The sun’s coming up,” Miranda murmured. She could feel the dull weariness of daytime creeping over her. She looked around for Tolly. He was already asleep, lying curled up underneath one of the pool tables.
“There are no windows here,” Tango pointed out. “You’ll be fine.”
Miranda shook her head. “That’s not what I’m worried about.” She had slept days in places that were at much greater risk of exposure to deadly sunlight than the deep Kithain court. “What happens if Riley loses?” “He and I will be punished. At worst exiled — which isn’t such a bad thing.”
“No. To me and Tolly.” Miranda shuddered. “Our sanctuary here only lasts until the end of the game.” Tango was silent for a moment. “If he loses,” she said finally.
Riley’s smile wavered for a moment as one of his shots slapped the bumpers on either side of a pocket; the ball rolled back out into the center of the table.
Miranda closed her eyes, listening as the duke played the table. His last shot missed. Riley won the game — narrowly. Six games to six.
She heard Tango shifting, settling down onto the floor. The changeling reached up and touched Miranda’s knee. “Miranda.” The vampire opened her eyes. Tango was sitting on the floor. She was holding out someone’s jacket, left behind in the changeling pool hall and now folded up into a pillow. She pushed it at Miranda. “Lie down.”
Miranda was too sleepy to protest. She took the folded jacket and stretched out on the pool table. The makeshift pillow smelled of tobacco smoke and, strangely, marigolds. Through half-closed eyes, she saw Duke Michael line up his shot. He missed. The sidhe’s hair was wild, his tank top untucked and damp with sweat. Even his false eye seemed dull with exhaustion, but he grinned. The only shot left open to Riley now was difficult. Very difficult. Miranda forced her eyes to stay open, to watch the shot her life depended on. If Riley lost, she and Tolly would be thrown out of the court and into the sun. Riley’s smile was strained as he bent down. In spite of her best efforts, Miranda’s eyes drifted away from the pooka and the sidhe, settling down on Tango. The nocker was watching the game intently, but she glanced up to meet Miranda’s gaze and give her an apprehensive grin. Miranda reached one hand over the edge of the table. Tango took it and squeezed it nervously as she looked back to the game.
Riley’s cue snapped forward.
Miranda’s eyes slid shut, the irresistible force of the rising sun tugging her eyelids down. She heard two soft impacts — like a mortally wounded man falling to his
knees. Then...
The wounded man collapsed and died with the sound of a single billiard ball falling into a pocket. Tango shouted something and pulled away from her. Miranda couldn’t understand what she was saying, but she sounded excited. The duke was choking out something as well, something formal and not very happy. Something about yielding.
Miranda slipped into safe, dreamless sleep.
“Laura, make much of me;
For your sake I braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men.”
The sky lay over Toronto like a dirty quilt, stifling all movement. In some places, a hot sky is clear and sharp, the cruel blue of a flame. In Toronto, a hot sky is soiled, smudged dark with pollution on the horizons, hazy with pale humidity at its heavenly apex. A hot sky is almost white. The sun is a gateway into an unforgiving furnace. Trees wilt, cool green fading in the heat reflected from the buildings, the sidewalks and the streets. Even the shadows burn, their edges fraying and drifting apart in the heat.
The wind was dead. Breathing was a labor. The air hit Tango’s lungs with all of the weight of a lead pipe. July 17th, she had heard on the radio when she first emerged from the Kithain court into the white light of noon, was shaping up to be the hottest day of the year so far. It had already surpassed a fifty-two-year record for the day, and forecasters were expecting the temperature to rise even higher as the afternoon progressed. By three o’clock, it had set a new all-time record.
Toronto mourned the victims of last night’s penny murders. Parents returning from a night out had found their three children beaten to death in their own home. •The story screamed from every newspaper box and blared from every television and radio news report. It seethed in the mind of every person in the city. Protesters had begun gathering early: at police headquarters, at the division offices that housed the taskforce investigating the murders, at Queen’s Park, at Toronto city hall. The number of protesters, like the temperature, rose as the day progressed. People moved from demonstration to demonstration, shouting their outrage, seeking a target for their anger — and their fear.
The police hadn’t done enough. The police hadn’t acted quickly enough. The police were holding back evidence that could stop the murderers. The politicians had cut back the police budget too far for them to be effective. The politicians coddled criminals. Soft laws encouraged an increasfe in violent crime.
The eyes of the media only seemed to make things worse. Local stations carried regular newsflashes and special reports monitoring the situation. The coverage brought more people flooding into the downtown core, some to join the protests, many just to watch. Crowds of spectators gathered around the edges of the demonstrations just as crowds will gather to watch a building go up in flames. A lot of people tried to drive into the core; at four o’clock, two major routes were as clogged as they would have been on a weekday at rush hour. Downtown parking lots were full. Cars were just cruising the streets, horns honking as if this were a party. When people started passing out from the heat, there was no way to get them to a hospital. The streets
were jammed.
A middle-aged couple had driven through Yorkville several times in a car equipped with loudspeakers that blared a fundamentalist message of repentance and renunciation of sin, “for the millennium is near!”
The police were out in full force. Foot officers walked the streets. Mounted officers watched over every demonstration. Cruisers stood on every corner. There were barricades around police headquarters. None of the news reports had shown live pictures of police in riot gear yet, but stock video of police donning helmets, protective vests and shields flashed across television screens frequently. Monday’s riot on College Street and the Thursday morning protest outside of the taskforce offices received heavy airplay as well.
Just after five o’clock, Tango, Dex, Sin and Slocombe walked heavily down the stairs and into Duke Michael’s court. Riley looked up at them. The air in the pool hall was as hot and sticky as the air outside, in spite of the court’s underground location. The only sign here of the chaos building aboveground was a large-screen TV that was tuned to one television station’s constant news reports. Kithain watched it in between rounds of pool, just as humans might watch a baseball game while they played pool in a bar. Riley’s return to the court and the presence of two sleeping vampires were attracting much more attention. Most Kithain, however, were simply too caught up in anticipation of the coming Highsummer Night party to worry about anything else, big or small.
Riley had decided that it would be better if they kept the news of Solomon’s plot very quiet. It made things simpler. There was less to explain to the other Kithain
— and less exposure of the duke’s defeat in the duel. The duke was angry, of course, but the terms of the fior bound him to keep his bargain with Riley. That the pooka was trying to spare him any further embarrassment, he acknowledged only grudgingly.
Riley didn’t ask Tango and the others anything. Tango knew that their return — particularly their uninjured return — was answer enough for him. Still, she frowned sourly at her friend. “Solomon’s gone,” she said simply. “The house was empty.” She slapped her hand against the side of a pool table in frustration. “Damn.”
“You didn’t expect him to make it easy, did you, Tango?”
“No.” Tango sighed. “I suppose not.” Solomon’s house had been the first target of their efforts. If they were going to try to prevent the Bandog summoning rite, and the final sacrifices that would accompany it, they had a limited number of options. The first had, of course, been to surprise Solomon well before the rite began. A few Kithain had oracular abilities. Riley had enlisted the aid of one of them, but after repeated attempts, the Kithain had been unable to locate any sign of Solomon in the city. He had either left or was being hidden from magical detection just as DeWinter had hidden them last night. Tango had taken Dex, Sin, and Slocombe to the Nephandus’ home just to be sure that he wasn’t there. He hadn’t been. In fact, the house was absolutely vacant, as if Solomon had been able to eradicate all trace of himself over the last thirty-six hours. The huge, gutted emptiness of the Bandog worship hall on the second floor had been filled in, broken back down into separate rooms, probably through the power of Solomon’s magick. Even the eerie gray tree in the basement was gone. Dex had almost started to snicker in disbelief at her story, except that Sin caught his brother’s arm and pointed up into a shadowy comer of the basement. Hanging from a socket in the darkness was a shattered light. There was a second in another dark corner. The bulbs Miranda had shattered the night of her rescue. Dex’s mouth had become a quiet line.
“What’s next?” Tango asked Riley. “Union Station?” They might be able to deny Solomon the use of Toronto’s big, central railway terminus as the site for his summoning of Shaftiel.
Riley nodded. “If we can. I’m not even sure how Solomon intends to use it. There are people around the station all night. It’s a busy place.”
Sin caught the pooka’s arm and drew his attention to the big-screen television. “I think that’s your answer.” The television showed a big pile of burning rubbish along a railroad track. Firefighters were dousing the blaze. “This video just in,” said the news anchor. -“Vandals dumped garbage onto the GO train tracks outside Union Station, then set it on fire. This is the first act of deliberate vandalism we’ve seen today, a sign of increasing tension in the mobs downtown.” The scene switched back to the television studio, and the news anchor turned to a commentator. “Obviously we’re looking at trouble here, Dwight. What do you think police reaction is going to be?”
“Oliver, I think the smart move would be to prevent any more people from getting into the downtown core. Shut down the subways, redirect traffic — close Union Station and let trains idle outside the city until this
blows over, if necessary.”
“Isn’t that a little extreme?”
“I don’t think Toronto’s ever faced a potential powder keg like this before, Oliver....”
Riley scowled and turned away from the TV. “Solomon’s magick at work?”
“More likely Bandog following orders,” Tango reminded him. She had filled him in on the whole story of what had gone on while he was Solomon’s sleeping prisoner. All except her personal revelations to Miranda, of course. “Magick isn’t the only way to get things done. Could he have Bandog close down the station?” .
“Tango...”
She clenched her teeth. Unlike her, Riley wasn’t saying anything about what was going on, about why or how he had become involved with the Bandog. It was frustrating. She pulled him aside, away from the other Kithain. “I need to know, Riley. Is Solomon capable of having Union Station shut down?” .
“Yes,” Riley admitted reluctantly. “That, and a lot more.”
Tango frowned. She had seen police, activists and the media represented at the Bandog ritual. Who else had been there whom she hadn’t recognized? “How deep does his influence go?”
“Right to the bottom. Toronto municipal government. Metro regional government. Queen’s Park. Business — there’s a baseball game tonight and it’s still going ahead. There’s a Bandog in power there, refusing to cancel the game.” Riley shook his head. “When people get out of that, the situation downtown is just going to get worse. Why do you think Solomon wanted
Miranda in the Bandog? Beyond sex.” Tango shrugged. “He wanted a foothold in the Sabbat. The Bandog are everywhere, Miranda.”
“Even in the Kithain court?” Tango guessed. Riley nodded.
“That’s why Solomon let me in. Nobody gets into the Bandog unless he wants them there. And if people he wants aren’t interested in the Bandog, he’ll use blackmail to get them anyway. Shaftiel has a small cult, but it’s more powerful than it looks.”
“Do we have any allies? DeWinter said the network you belong to can’t help. There must be someone else. Mages?” She grimaced. “The Sabbat?”
Riley snorted. “Would you want the Sabbat as allies? And the mages in Toronto are too busy keeping their heads low. We’re it. We and Miranda and Tolly and the court.” He bit his tongue as a cheer went up from the other Kithain at the latest announcement on the television. Police had finally moved in on a demonstration and broken it up — with only a minimum of scuffling. “At least as many as we can drag away from Highsummer. They want their party.”
“We might have a riot right here if you suggest canceling Highsummer. We have a few Kithain we can count on.” Tango didn’t really trust the sidhe, but there didn’t seem to be much choice.
“Not enough.” He sighed. “I don’t like the idea of going up against a mage openly, even with two vampires and half-a-dozen Kithain. We know Solomon is going to be at Union Station after sunset to perform the summoning rite. At least that means Miranda and Tolly will be awake to help us, but Solomon knows we know where he’s going to be. He’ll be expecting us, and he’ll have all of the Bandog to back him up.” He groaned out loud and rubbed a hand across his face. “Why did he have to pick Highsummer?”
Tango stared at the big television. A line of mounted police trooped across it, horses’ hooves clattering. Protesters got out of their way. An idea glimmered in her mind. A faint, distant idea. Desperate. They were going about this the wrong way. Just as she had been unable to find the Kithain court until she stopped thinking like a human, they weren’t going to find a way to stop Solomon until they thought like Kithain. “What if we use Highsummer to our advantage?”
“What?” Riley’s head came up.
“You’re still the duke’s Jester, aren’t you? Or I am
— it doesn’t matter.” She smiled. “The court wants a party? Let’s give it one.”
Riley stared at her. “You’re nuts. What about Solomon? What about Shaftiel? We have to stop the summoning.”
“But there’s more to the summoning rite than just Solomon and the Bandog, isn’t there?”
* * *
The city seemed to grow a little less tense after the sun slipped below the horizon. The air cooled off marginally, although concrete still radiated the day’s heat. The evening breeze that usually blew off the lake was absent. Everything was briefly still. Like a predator before it leaps at its prey, Toronto was taking a deep breath in anticipation of the night to come.
Miranda wondered if maybe the early evening calm was the result of the Bandog leaving off their mischief-making and going to join Solomon in preparation for the rite that would summon Shaftiel’s voice.
There had been no dreams tonight. Miranda came instantly to full alertness, half-expecting to be surrounded by irate changelings ready to throw her out of the court. Instead, the only changeling in the pool hall was Tango, quietly waiting for her and Tolly to wake. Miranda had nodded to her, then they had both waited in silence for Tolly to stir. Eventually, Miranda had slapped him awake. Tango had explained the day’s events as they left the court and walked out into Yorkville. Much to Miranda’s surprise, Tango had suggested that the vampires hunt.
It hadn’t taken much more encouragement to send Tolly bounding off in search of dinner. Yorkville was fairly crowded tonight, but it was a different crowd from normal. Instead of trendsetters and yuppies, the people in the streets were younger and more restless. There were still some yuppies, of course, but they were in the minority. Most of the people in Yorkville tonight were overflow from the mobs that had been circulating through the city all day. As the brief calm of twilight passed and the darkness grew heavier, they would gravitate over to Yonge Street and down into the heart of Toronto.
Miranda turned to Tango. “This is the second time you’ve encouraged me to feed. That Bandog, and now this.”
Tango’s face was calm. “It’s instinct for you to feed, isn’t it? It’s your nature to drink blood. I never questioned that, Miranda. I never held it against you.” She smiled suddenly. “Go hunt. I’ll be waiting here when you get back. Then we’ll go join the court for
Highsummer.”
“Now? Your party is going ahead in the middle of this?”
“Exactly,” Tango said mysteriously. “Feed well — we’re going to have a busy night.”
Miranda walked away into the crowd, puzzled. She found a suitable victim, a heavyset woman with glasses, fairly quickly. Her blood was good, but the vampire was careful to leave her strong enough to walk on her own. Hunting was easy tonight. There was no need to be greedy with one victim, and every reason for her to leave them alive. Even if Tango never found out that she had killed while hunting tonight, Miranda would know herself. She didn’t want to keep anything else from Tango.
She drank from a second victim, then a third. The blood almost made her feel bloated, but if Tango was right, she might well be hungry again by the end of the night. And it was much more difficult for her to control herself when she was hungry. Just the sight and smell of blood was enough to send some hungry vampires into feeding frenzies. Miranda returned to the place where she had left Tango. The changeling was still there, along with Tolly. Miranda suspected that the mad vampire had not been quite as discriminating in his feeding as she had. “Where to now?” she asked Tango.
The changeling produced three envelopes and passed one to each of the vampires, keeping the last for herself. “Don’t lose these,” she cautioned. The envelopes were thick, stiff paper, and sealed with bright blue wax. The vampires’ names were written on the outside in beautiful, flowing script. Miranda broke her envelope open. Inside was an elaborate invitation, printed on paper that scratched pleasantly against the envelope as Miranda slipped it out.
You are invited to attend the Highsummer Festivities of the Kithain of Toronto, in the twenty-eighth year of rule by His Grace, Duke Michael O’Donoghue of House Eiluned. Let merriment reign! Scrawled at the bottom were the words By special permission, Riley Stanton, Jstr.
“Vampires,” Tango pointed out, “aren’t usually invited to Highsummer.”
She led them back to the court and then a couple of blocks farther to a towering luxury hotel. A flash of their invitations to a security guard got them inside and escorted up to a broad rooftop terrace. The guard left them there and departed hastily, as if paid to ignore, or unwilling to witness, what was going on. Miranda could only stare in amazement. There had been a startling range of contrast between the few changelings she had seen up until now: Tango, Riley, Dex and Sin, Marshall the redcap, Duke Michael, the troll. But there were easily three dozen people — presumably all changelings
— on the terrace, old and very young, dressed formally and dressed very casually, astonishingly beautiful and horribly ugly. Tall, short, fat, thin. A few were as bizarrely deformed as Tolly at his maddest. For a moment, she had the same sense here that she had had in the pool hall. There was more to the party than she was seeing. For a moment, she even thought she saw through the human appearances and glimpsed the true forms of the changelings. Then that sensation was gone, and she was looking at an eccentric mix of humans again. Except that if she looked closely, she could still see a few things that weren’t quite right,
Most of the crowd held delicate flutes of champagne, but a few changelings had flutes filled with bright green concoctions or foamy, golden beer. One, surrounded by cheering colleagues, raised his glass and drank... and drank... and drank until he should have emptied the little flute four or five times over. A chafing dish was opened to reveal tempting, pastry-wrapped hors d’oeuvres, then closed, and opened again a moment later to reveal cocktail weenies. A matronly woman with a nose as flat as a duck’s bill started to sit down. Her chair walked out from under her. Deftly and without even looking, she shifted her well-padded fanny and pinned the errant chair. She didn’t miss a beat of her conversation.
The grand, harmonious strains of Handel’s Water Music were being played by a brass quartet consisting of two deer, a caribou and a moose. All four wore tuxedos.
“Tango?” Miranda asked.
The nocker looked and laughed. “Epp must be having a cow,” she snickered. “She wanted this to be perfect, but you can’t stop the pranks on Highsummer. Don’t worry, Miranda. They’re humans underneath. It’s only an illusion.”
“It would have to be,” agreed Tolly sagely. “Real ruminants wouldn’t be able to work the valves. Where’s Riley?”
They found him sandwiched between Dex and a thin Arabian woman, an eshu, Tango said, draped in billowing white linen. The pooka excused himself and came over to them. “All set?”
“All set,” replied Tango with a nod. “Sin hasn’t reported anything?”
“Not yet.” Riley gritted his teeth. “Things probably won’t come down for a while — maybe not until the ballgame gets out. I hate waiting.”
“What are we waiting for? Shouldn’t we be trying to stop Solomon?” Miranda urged them.
Tango glanced at Riley. The pooka nodded. “We’re going to, Miranda,” Tango told her quietly, “but we have to do it on the sly. A direct attack would be too risky, and we’d never get all of the Kithain to go along with it.”
“So what then? What are we going to do?” “Solomon needs to fulfill two conditions to summon Shaftiel, right? He needs to conduct the summoning rite, and he needs to create chaos.” Tango licked her lips. “We’re going to use the court to break up the protests in the streets. They’ll think it’s part of the Highsummer party. No chaos, no summoning — we hope.”
Miranda felt doubt hit her in the pit of the stomach. “You hope?”
“We’re not absolutely sure it’s going to work. We could end up just creating more chaos.” Riley grimaced. “But whatever happens, we’re going to have Solomon’s attention.” He nodded at her, then at Tango. “That’s why you two are going to disrupt the summoning rite directly while he’s distracted. While the court hits the streets, you’re going to sneak into Union Station.”
She blinked. It might work. Solomon would be hard-pressed to try to compensate for both attacks at once. “Why just the two of us?” she asked. “And won’t Solomon be able to use his magick to detect us?”
“The court should provide a distraction. Hopefully he won’t look for you specifically. In any case, he’ll also have the summoning rite to worry about. Just the two of you because 1 have to play shepherd to the court. Dex, Sin, Slocombe and Marshall are going to be my sheepdogs. You and Tango have worked together — at least a little. She knows about mages, you know about the Bandog. You’re both sneaky. You should be able to mess Solomon up good.”
“All we’re waiting for,” added Tango, “is the riots to start. That’s what Sin is w7atching for.”
Miranda looked at the other woman in shock. “Can’t the court prevent them from starting? Wouldn’t that work as well?”
Riley shook his head apologetically. “Unfortunately, no. What we’re going to do will work best under conditions of chaos as well. We need riots as much as Solomon does — at least to start with. People are going to see some pretty strange things tonight.”
“We don’t want humans to know about Kithain any more than you would want them to know about vampires,” Tango explained. “If we wait until the riots have started, people are going to be more willing to dismiss what they see as figments of their imagination.” She sighed. “I wish we could prevent the riots-altogether, too, Miranda. But we’ll act as soon as they start, and maybe we can keep the worst to a minimum.” “Umm,” muttered Riley. “Actually, there’s just one problem, Tango.”
The nocker glanced at him. “What?”
“We’re going to need to bring Epp on board.” Miranda saw anger flash in Tango’s eyes. “You haven’t told her yet?” the changeling demanded.
“She’s not too happy that I’m back. She’s been avoiding me. Every time I try to get close to her, she slips away or steers somebody into my path.” He smiled hopefully. “Could you talk to her? You came to an understanding, didn’t you?”
“Of a sort,” growled Tango. “I’d go along with her plans for the party if she helped me out. I’d say that deal is pretty much off now.”
“If we don’t tell her what we’re doing and get her to go along with it, everyone will know something is up. We’ll lose control of the court!”
“You were supposed to be the one to tell her!”
A palm-sized cellular phone in Riley’s pocket chose that moment to go off. The pooka snatched it out and flipped it open. “Yeah?” He listened. “Okay. Ten minutes, outside the court.” He signaled Dex. The golden sidhe nodded and began circulating through the party. “See you then.” Riley hung up and put the phone back in his pocket. “That was Sin,” he said grimly. “The cops moved in on some protesters and the protesters fought back. And the Jays won seven to three. The riots have started. We’re on.” He pointed at Tango. “Find Epp now. I have to help get people back down to the court. Tolly,” he added, gesturing to the mad vampire, “you’re with me.”
Tango sighed in frustration. Miranda glanced at her. “What now?”
“We find Epp before someone else does.”
They found the boggan frantically loading fresh hors d’oeuvres into the chafing dish, too intent on her task to notice their approach. When Tango’s shadow fell across the table in front of her, though, she started and looked up. She looked down again without so much as a twitch of her mouth. “So,” she said flatly, “I see you found the vampire you were looking for, Tango.”
Miranda glanced at Tango, but the small woman just shook her head. “I think you know that I found Riley, too.”
“Oh, yes.” Epp straightened up and slammed the cover on the chafing dish down with a clang. “I noticed. 1 also noticed that the duke isn’t saying anything to him. There’s a rumor that Riley managed to work some kind of enchantment on His Grace. And by the way, I asked about that man you were looking for. Nothing.” She peeked inside the chafing dish and swore. It was full of cocktail weenies again. Tango reached over and pushed the lid closed.
“Epp, forget about it. The party’s over.”
“What?” The plump Kithain looked around. The other Kithain of the court were moving toward the elevators, herded by Riley, Dex and Marshall. “No! Not yet!” Her eyes fixed on the pooka for a moment, then flicked over to Tango. “What are you doing?” she spat. She seemed on the verge of tears. “Everything is planned. You can’t do this to me!”
“Epp!” Tango caught her by the arms. “We need your help now.”
“You can’t have it!”
“I could make her agree,” Miranda whispered in Tango’s ear. It would be the fastest, easiest solution.
“No. I want to have her agree on her own terms.” Tango turned back to Epp. “We don’t want to spoil Highsummer, Epp. We know you worked a lot on this party — look at how much fun everybody had here.” “But the quartet. The champagne.” The boggan gestured weakly at the chafing dish. “The hors d’oeuvres.”
“It’s Highsummer, Epp. What did you expect?” Tango smiled reassuringly. “But we need the court for something right now. It’s important, and we can only do it if you help us.” Briefly, she described the Bandog and Solomon’s plot. “We can stop him, Epp. The humans...”
“Oh, bugger the damn humans!” Abruptly, Epp broke down, A sob wrenched its way out of her. “What about Highsummer? What about my plans? I’ve waited twenty years for this, and I’m not likely to get another chance.”
Tango grimaced in frustration. “Riley and I don’t want any credit, Epp. Nobody has to know that all of this wasn’t your idea. We don’t want people to know about Solomon. We want you to claim this as your idea. Kithain are going to enjoy it.” She smiled again. “We’ll put in a good word for you with the duke. You did all of this,” she swept her arm around the now almost-empty terrace, “on your own. And you’ve got the rest of the night planned. That will have to impress him.” “If the rest of the night comes off the way I planned,” Epp pointed out miserably. “I have a feast planned for midnight. Is anyone going to eat it?”
“We might be late, but we’ll be there,” Tango promised. “Heirloom-recipe Cornish saffron buns, right?”
Epp nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“We’ll be there. But you’ll have to make sure everything waits for us.” She paused. “How about it?” Epp sniffled. “I’m not sure.” She glanced at Miranda. The vampire almost growled in frustration. She caught Epp’s eye.
“It’s a good deal,” she told her directly, backing up the suggestion with a bit of willpower. Tango scowled at her, bat the trick worked. Epp nodded, slowly at first,
then quickly and firmly.
“All right.” Tango patted her on the shoulder. “Clean up here and we’ll see you at the feast.” She swept Miranda over to the elevators. “I asked you not to do that.”
“I just gave her a nudge. Otherwise we would have been there all night.” Miranda glanced at the nocker as the doors closed. “How are you planning to break up the riots anyway? Glamour?”
“Sort of.” Tango smiled. “We’re going to have an old-fashioned trooping. A Faerie Ride.”
^ ^
Yorkville had been deserted by humans, but the street in front of the Kithain court was filled with horses. Miranda gawked at them as Tango led her through the crush of animals and Kithain. “They’re beautiful.” One of the horses whickered as they passed and shook its long mane. A richly decorated bridle jingled. “Where did they come from?”
They broke into the center of the crowd and Tango pointed at Riley. The pooka was running his hands along the sleek fenders of Dex’s white car as if trying to sense something invisible. He nodded to himself, then picked up a spool of bright green thread, snapped off a length with his teeth, and tied the thread around the car’s antenna. A look of concentration passed over his face... and abruptly the sidhe’s car was a stunning white stallion. Miranda looked dazed. “Magic? Glamour?”
Tango smiled and waved to Ruby, mounted on a shaggy pony. “Riley can use Glamour to transform objects. Usually he only uses it for small things, like leaves into money. This is a stretch for him.”
“Then all of these horses are cars?” Miranda turned around, staring. “There’s a horse for every changeling?” “No. Some changelings will walk.” She gestured toward Slocombe and Marshall. “Trolls are too big to ride, and redcaps... well, horses don’t like redcaps. Redcaps tend to eat them. Not all of the horses will be cars, though. Some are probably bicycles. Some might be stools, or brooms, or big sticks. The original object just has to be similar to a horse.”
“That doesn’t make much sense.” Miranda frowned. “I mean, a car or a bicycle maybe, but....”
“It makes faerie sense. Children play horse with brooms all the time, don’t they? A stick can be a horse, too. And a stool has four legs like a horse. Look there
— at Duke Michael.”
The duke sat majestically astride a massive horse with heavy, hairy legs, an immensely broad chest and deep-green eyes. A working horse, the type of charger that would have carried fully armored knights into battle. “A... pool table?”
“Probably.” Tango caught Riley’s arm. “Epp’s agreed to go along with this — for a price.”
“Anything,” wheezed the pooka. He looked quite pale and tired. His glasses kept sliding down his nose. Tango looked at him with concern.
“Are you sure you can do this?”
Riley nodded. “I’m almost finished. Just a couple more.” He looked up at the duke. “I think even he is going to enjoy this.”
“Let’s hope so. For Epp’s sake.” Tango told him about the deal they had made with the boggan. He nodded again.
“I can live with that. Listen, you don’t mind doubling up, do you?” Riley took a deep breath. “I don’t want to do another horse if I don’t have to.”
Tango shook her head. “No, I don’t mind. Miranda?” The vampire shook her head as well.
“Good. Your horse is over there. Tolly has her. Help Dex and Sin with the torches and censers. We’ll go shortly.” He rubbed his hands together and blew on them as the Arabian eshu presented him with a single, long'Stemmed red rose. The pooka frowned. “You don’t make things easy, do you, Saeeda?”
Dex and Sin were crouched on an open patch of pavement. Sin was heaping hot coals into a number of brass censers. Dex sat between a pile of long-handled paraffin torches, the kind normally stuck in the ground for outdoor parties, and a much smaller pile of crayon boxes picked up from Riley’s apartment earlier that day. The sidhe was unwrapping the head of each torch and sticking into it two or three of the magickal joints that the pooka had obtained from the Cult of Ecstasy in San Francisco. When they were ready to go, Sin would put the remaining joints in the censers. Dex looked up as Miranda and Tango approached. “1 don’t like working with human magick,” Ire grumbled.
“Don’t be a baby,” Tango warned him. “There’s nothing wrong with it. Where’s our horse?”
“Over there.” He pointed with a torch at a tall, sleek black mare. The horse had bright, intelligent eyes and wore a bridle and saddle decorated with silver. Tolly stood beside it, holding its reins and gleefully
whispering in its ear. The horse was ignoring him.
Tango smiled. “You gave up your motorcycle for us, Sin?”
The black-haired sidhe shook his head. “No. That’s your car, Miranda.” The vampire blinked.
“Mount up!” bellowed the duke over the noise of the court and their newly made horses. Hastily Dex finished the torch he was working on, and Sin prepared the censers. The two sidhe, along with Slocombe, Marshall and Riley, quickly distributed them among the other Kithain. Dex mounted his white stallion, Sin a black stallion. Tango and Miranda scrambled up onto their black mare.
Tango looked down at Riley. “What about you?”
He smiled and waved for Tolly. The mad vampire stepped up to him, then knelt down so Riley could climb across his shoulders as if ready for a piggyback ride. Tolly straightened, but not all of the way. He remained slightly hunched. His arms grew until both his feet and his fingertips were resting on the ground. His face shifted as well, becoming thin and long. His lips pulled back from his fangs. Riley turned his nightmare mount so that they stood beside Duke Michael and his massive horse. The pooka reached up and lit the torch that the duke held. The flame from that torch was passed around until torchlight lit the entire fantastic procession.
Duke Michael waved his torch. “The Kithain ride!”
And then they were off, cantering down the streets of Yorkville like something out of another age. They turned a comer onto Avenue Road, one of Toronto’s larger streets. Most roads were closed now as the police tried to choke off the riots. The few cars that were out stopped, and their drivers watched the spectacle in amazement. Two dozen mounted riders, another dozen attendants on foot, all in solemn procession as though Avenue Road were a wide country lane. Torchlight and smoke from the censers lent an otherworldly quality to the Faerie Ride. Tango felt Glamour flow briefly. She couldn’t identify its source, but a ripple passed through the procession. Abruptly, it was as if someone had worked a far-reaching kenning over the entire court. The Kithain were visible to the world in all of their wondrous-glory. The sidhe were magnificent nobles, the redcaps and trolls fierce and foul footmen. Riley wore fabulous motley, Ruby the duke’s livery. Saeeda, the eshu, wore billows of silk instead of linen. Dex and Sin wore the armor of faerie knights — as, Tango realized with a start, did she. Where the sidhe’s armor was bright, though, hers was dead black.
She turned to see if Miranda, riding behind her, had changed at all. The vampire hadn’t, but she blinked in shock when she saw Tango’s face. The nocker grimaced. “Yes. This is what I look like to other Kithain. Ugly, isn’t it?”
Miranda shook her head. “No, not really.”
“Barrier!” called the duke. The procession moved into a trot, then to a gallop. Ahead of them, the police had put barricades across the intersection of Bloor Street and Avenue Road. The officers manning the barricades were as stunned by the sight of the Ride as the motorists had been. They simply watched as the Kithain thundered closer and closer — then they threw themselves to the ground as the wave of horses launched into the air and leaped over the barrier in their path. Hooves clashed against the ground all around them. The unmounted trolls and redcaps swarmed over the barricades. The officers were left in the wake of the Ride, bemused looks on their faces, smoke writhing around them. The Kithain continued on around Queen’s Park, then down College Street to Bay.
At the intersection of College and Bay, they met the first large crowds of humans. The barricades had been toppled. Police were trying to hold back protesters shouting slogans in memory of the first riot that had occurred here almost a week ago. The shouts died out as the Kithain rode into the intersection. The mob stood still for a moment, then parted to let the wondrous parade pass through. Smoke from the procession kissed the faces of protesters and police alike. The magick of the Cult of Ecstasy’s drugs, coupled with the wonder of the Faerie Ride, began to take effect almost instantly. A calm descended on the intersection. Not perfect calm, because the smoke couldn’t reach that far, but where the procession passed, there was more calm than chaos. In its wake, the riots started to dissolve. A few humans, perhaps more sensitive than the others, perhaps with a little fae blood unsuspected in their veins, fell in with the Ride. Tango and Miranda found themselves riding next to a mounted police officer with a look of wild entrancement upon his face.
The Ride turned south onto Bay. Their route had been carefully planned out ahead of time. The procession of Kithain would make several passes along various parts of Yonge and its surrounding sidestreets. At midnight, the Ride would sweep down on Union Station. Tango and Miranda, however, would leave them now and make their way to Union Station well before then — underground. In yet another belated attempt to curb the number of people getting into the downtown area, city officials had shut down the subway system. The empty tunnels would take the nocker and the vampire right into Union Station. They would enter through one of the stations on Yonge Street.
Tango urged their horse forward to ride next to Riley and Tolly for a moment. “We’re ready.”
“Good luck.” Riley gestured to the duke. The Ride turned onto a sidestreet. Away from the procession, the Glamour that had surrounded them faded. Tango’s armor disappeared. She and Miranda continued a little farther on Bay, then turned onto Dundas Street. There was an entrance to the subway at Yonge and Dundas, and rioters should have been fairly few on Dundas. They weren’t.
The east end of the street, all around the intersection with Yonge, was a mass of people. Tango reined the horse in. “Shit.”
“Do we have any other options?” asked Miranda. “Can we head for another entrance?”
“Not easily. These are the only outdoor entrances in the area.” Tango bit her lip. “We could fight our way through. We’ve got the horse — it should help get us in.”
Miranda nodded. “Do it.”
Tango took a deep breath and kicked her heels into the horse’s side. “Yaw!” she urged it. “Go!”
The charge took them deep into the crowd as people scattered to get out of the horse’s way. Unfortunately, the opening that created went in the wrong direction and closed up quickly behind them. They ended up in the middle of the intersection, surrounded by the riot.
And by people who, already frightened and angry, were not happy at having been charged. The crowd boiled toward them. Somebody grabbed at Tango’s boot. She kicked out instinctively, Glamour surging inside her. She both felt and heard her foot make impact. Her leg w7as released. Someone else made another grab. Then the horse was rearing up under her, spooked by the noise and commotion of the riot. Tango fought the mare, trying to calm her.
With a snarl, Miranda lashed out at the rioters. Talons sprouted from her fingers, slashing into cloth and flesh. Her fangs were bared. Under the neon glow of the lights on Yonge Street, she must have seemed like a demon herself. The crowd fell back. She twisted around, menacing the rioters on the other side of them. They fell back as well, shock and fright on their faces. “Move!” Miranda howled at Tango. “Get us to the subway!” She pointed to the sign and stairs that marked a subway entrance. That gesture alone was sufficient to start people moving out of their w'ay. Tango walked the horse forward, Miranda hissing and spitting, at the people around them.
They reached the entrance. Tango turned the horse so that it blocked anyone from following them, then they slipped off its back and down the stairs. The mare started moving away the instant they had dismounted, but the press of the crowd prevented it from getting far. “What will happen to it?” Miranda asked.
“It’ll turn back into your car at sunrise. That’s the way Riley’s magic works.” Tango contemplated the heavy metal doors that sealed the subway station. This was going to be the hard part of getting into the subway. She flexed her fingers, spat twice, and got a grip on the edge of one door. “Ready?” she asked Miranda as she called Glamour into her muscles again.
Miranda got a grip on the door as well. “Ready. On three? One... two... three!”
Kithain and vampire strength combined ripped the door away. The stale air of the subway drifted up.