Pomegranates full and fine (31 page)

What was Tango rejecting in Miranda? She had always know'n that Miranda was a vampire. She had always known what that meant. Killing to survive. Tango had pushed away her ability to kill because she didn’t have to kill. But she had accepted that she could kill. She simply chose not to. She had recognized her inhumanity — and controlled it.

Miranda rushed eagerly into its arms.

She could feel the heartbeat of the nameless human woman whom she held. It was growing weaker. The woman would die if she kept feeding. Miranda had her blood. Did she have to take her life?

Miranda pushed the woman away, licking her wounds to seal them. She left her lying on the path and walked away, back toward the street at the path’s end. She was about halfway there when a black sedan stopped at the curb. David got out and walked briskly around to open the passenger'side rear door. Solomon gestured to her from the back seat. She went to him.

“Miranda.” Solomon wore only a T-shirt and shorts tonight, very different from his typically fashionable clothing. He would change later for the Bandog ritual, but even so it looked as though he had dressed quickly. Miranda slid in to sit next to him. David shut the car door behind her. Solomon just looked at her, then produced a white handkerchief and wiped her victim’s blood from her face. “Miranda, where have you been going with this changeling woman?”

How did Solomon know about Tango? Matt had said something about talking to the mage the night before, Miranda remembered abruptly. The pack must have told Solomon. She felt detached from herself, sated by the feeding, wearied by her own confusion. Only part of her was here in the sedan with Solomon. Another part was still on the path with the unconscious woman. A third part, she realized, was wondering if it wasn’t too late to find Tango again, confess everything and beg her for forgiveness. It would mean betraying the Bandog, but what part of herself had she not already betrayed at Solomon’s command?

“Miranda?” Solomon asked her again.

She gave him a false smile. “Tango’s a pawn,” she lied, the same lie she had told to herself once. “Someone to be manipulated when I have the need.”

“I see.” The car swayed ever so slightly as David pulled back out into the street. They turned a corner. A set of iron gates, with a fountain bubbling in the courtyard behind them, were framed momentarily in the window over Solomon’s shoulder. He smiled back at her and held out his wrist for her to kiss his chain tattoo. She did, although this time she didn’t turn his arm over to lick at his inner wrist. It hardly seemed necessary, though. Solomon had already seized her left hand and begun kissing his way up her arm. Miranda allowed him to do so. Cool detachment came easily to her tonight

— detached because her mind was already distant, cool because she wished that she were somewhere else. Anywhere else. With Tango.

The sensation of Solomon’s lips brought a little sharpness back to her mind, however. Perhaps she could persuade Solomon to tell her why he had had Riley kidnapped. That information might make Tango a little more willing to listen to her. “Solomon...”

The Nephandus sighed and twisted down so that he lay with his head in her lap. “You didn’t answer me, Miranda. Where have you been going with Tango?” “Out.” She brushed her hand through Solomon’s hair, raking her fingernails lightly along his skin in the way that she knew he liked. “Things she liked to do. We went to a movie. We broke into a museum.”

“Did you go to the airport for her?”

Miranda kept her hand moving, sliding from Solomon’s hair to his chest. “No. I went to the airport to feed. I told you that.”

“Were you with Tango last night?”

“I took her hunting with me.”

“When you should have been hunting for the Bandog?” Solomon looked up at her and smiled. “Don’t worry. The murders were still carried out. Matt is good.” He brought a hand, the one not holding the bloody handkerchief, up to caress a strand of her hair. “I looked for you tonight. You weren’t with the pack. You weren’t in the apartment where the changeling woman is staying. 1 finally found you in a library.” His fingers slipped free of her hair. She slid a hand under his shirt to brush his smooth, muscular chest. Solomon’s eyes closed dreamily. “Matt said you ran from her. Why?” Miranda could feel her fangs descending again, but out of fear, not hunger, this time. Why so many questions? Was Solomon jealous? “I was...”

“You were frightened of her? You, the fierce vampire? The strong vampire?” He caught the hand that was down his shirt and pushed her nails into his skin. Five droplets of blood stained the thin fabric of his T-shirt. Solomon held her nails in his flesh for a heartbeat, then released her, reaching up to touch her firmly closed lips. He pressed against the skin over her fangs. Miranda sat like a statue.

How could he have guessed at that?

“I’m right, aren’t I?” he asked. “You w'ere afraid that Tango might find out what a beast you are.”

And how had he known that Tango was a changeling? Matt had known something was odd about Tango, but neither Tango nor Miranda had mentioned changelings. A tremor traveled down Miranda’s spine as Solomon’s finger trailed from her lips to her breast, then farther down.
Jubilee Arthurs,
she realized too late.

Solomon’s head turned to nuzzle her crotch through her black pants as she hesitated. The mercenary must have gone straight to Solomon and told him everything. In combination with what the pack must have told him... Solomon knew it all.

Miranda looked down at the squirming mage in her lap, blood on his shirt, one hand caressing his own crotch as he worried at hers. He was playing games with her, just as he played games with Toronto, using the penny murders like moves in a chess match. It was too much. She wanted to know what had happened to Riley. Tango might forgive her then. The changeling played no games. Miranda glanced at the back of David’s head, then at the rearview mirror. Her eyes met his in the reflection. He was watching them. No matter. She had observed once that when she was so intimately close to Solomon, there was nothing, not even his own magick, that could react quickly enough to prevent anything she chose to do to him.

She gripped his head, bending it back so his neck was exposed, and folded her torso like a contortionist. His pulse hammered under her fingers, but it wasn’t fangs that would be her weapon. She brought her gaze to bear against Solomon’s, her will as strong as her fingers and ready for any resistance. Forceful eyes stared into startled eyes. Miranda’s will licked out, as soft a caress as if she had been licking his wrist with her tongue....

Solomon’s hand, the one that held the bloodied handkerchief, clenched once. Convulsively. Something popped. The stink of garlic tickled Miranda’s nose for a fraction of a second -— then a raging fire seemed to sweep through every vein and

capillary in her undead body.

She couldn’t help shrieking out loud and writhing in agony. She had been wrong about how quickly the mage could react! Solomon pushed himself away from her and sat up. His face was cold with anger. Slowly, he opened the handkerchief to reveal the clove of garlic he had hidden inside it. The crushed clove was red with the same stolen blood that burned in her body. “I was only going to paralyze you as I did Matt and the others that time, but you lied to me, Miranda,” he said thinly. “And you were going to try to force your will on me.” He seized her hair and yanked her helpless head back viciously. The fire of his magick abated a bit. “Never mistake submission for weakness. Where’s Tango?”

The control that she had imagined she had over the mage had all been an illusion. She had never had any control, any power. “I... don’t know.”

“You must,” Solomon snarled. “She hasn’t been at Riley Stanton’s apartment all night, and I can’t use my magick to find someone I don’t know!” He considered her face. “I don’t have time to keep this up all night. I have a ritual to conduct. Tell me.”

“I don’t know!”

Solomon snarled. “I suppose that makes a certain sense, since you did run away from her last night like some kind of frightened rat. Do you know where she could have gone?”

“No!” Solomon looked at her narrowly, then kneaded the handkerchief a little more. The burning in her blood redoubled in intensity. Miranda howled and curled up into a little ball. “Solomon...” she pleaded.

“You’ve been replaced, Miranda. In my favor as well

as in the Bandog.”

Miranda could only stay huddled in agony until she felt the car come to a stop. David got out and opened the door for Solomon. Then he reached into the car and dragged her out as well.

They were parked behind Solomon’s mansion. Three figures were silhouetted by a yard light beside the mansion’s back door. They came forward. Matt, Miranda realized with pain-filled clarity, and Blue, and a third, tall and thin... not Tolly, though. Jubilee Arthurs. The mercenary approached Solomon, but Solomon shoved him away with a muttered curse. Instead, the mage went to Matt. The glance that passed between them told Miranda who had replaced her. She knew that Matt would be reveling in his newfound “power.” Jubilee glared at Solomon’s back, then came over and went through Miranda’s pockets, looking for his Bandog chain. Weak, Miranda spat at him and tried to struggle, but Jubilee just held her down. He found the chain.

“Traitor!” she hissed at him.

“Me? Be careful with that word, Miranda.” He stood smugly and walked away.

“Has Tolly come yet?” Solomon was asking Matt. Matt shook his head and Solomon cursed quietly. Miranda almost felt like smiling: the powerful mage apparently had as much trouble locating the mad vampire as any of them did. Perhaps some stray thread of that brief, rebellious thought reached Solomon, because he glanced back at her. He gestured at her shortly, as though she were little more than furniture. “Pick her up. I’ll show you where to put her.” He smiled briefly in a way that Miranda had never seen before: cold, certain, ambitious, almost demonic. Inhuman. Matt and Blue moved to obey his command without questioning it in the slightest. A smile did flicker across Matt’s face as he lifted her shoulder — a smile of anticipation as inhuman as Solomon’s.

The Nephandus mage led the way into the house. David held the back door open so the procession could pass through. When he looked down at the helpless vampire, his expression was absolutely neutral. It was almost eerie to watch the ceilings of Solomon’s house pass above her. Miranda wasn’t sure she had ever really noticed their detailed plasterwork before. The old white relief designs were oddly beautiful. Solomon finally stopped by the door that led into his study. He toyed with a trailing lock of Miranda’s hair, just as he had in the car. “I’ll see you after the Bandog ritual. I’ll have questions for you.” He glanced at the vampires carrying her. “Make sure she’s willing — and able — to answer them. Then go do tonight’s penny murders. Three victims, scattered across the city. Do it as quickly as you can, so that the times of death are close together. And find Tolly. I want all three of you back here for the ritual.”

* * *

Duke Michael had accused her of lying.

It wasn’t the fact that the arrogant sidhe lord had done so — after all, she
had
been lying when she made her report on the progress of plans for the Highsummer party. But Epp had coached her well as they drove around Toronto prior to attending the duke at his court. So well that at times Tango had wanted to strangle the fat Kithain, She had taken deep breaths, reminding herself that she needed Epp’s help now, and then she had committed the boggan’s elaborate plans to heart, from sunset serenade to midnight feast to sunrise fireworks display. Tango had stood before the duke, recited Epp’s plans, claimed them dutifully as her own... and the duke had seen right through the ruse.

Tango could have handled that. She could have protested. She could have held back her frustration with the sidhe lord’s high-handed ways. Except that Duke Michael hadn’t even given her an opportunity to protest or defend her actions. He had simply accused her, then carried out her sentence: she was to be reminded of the role of a Jester. She would amuse the court until the moon rose. Once again his pool cue had been transformed into a rod of office.

And Tango had found herself twittering like a schoolgirl, telling off-color jokes and tumbling acrobatically around the court.

It was humiliating.

Only a few of the Kithain, she had noticed, did not laugh. Among them were Epp and Sin, Epp looking shocked, Sin looking blackly grim. Dex had laughed uproariously, trading slaps to the back with Duke Michael. Tango also noticed that Epp wasn’t punished. All of the blame fell on her. When control over her own limbs and voice had returned to her, she had barely been able to contain her killing anger. She had stumbled out of the court, up the narrow stairway — even Ruby dared not confront her, not even to provide voiceless sympathy — and onto the streets of Yorkville. The moon had been just above the horizon, a fat silver blade in the hot night sky. She had walked back to

Riley’s apartment, almost hoping that someone would pick a fight with her.

Now she leaned her head against Riley’s door and sighed wearily. She only hoped that Epp had had more success tonight than she’d had. She turned the key in the lock, swinging open the door.

The lights in the apartment were on. Tolly, Miranda’s mad vampire, was sitting precisely in the middle of the couch and staring expectantly at the door, his hands folded in his lap, his knees pressed together.

Tango froze for three heartbeats, scanning the room. There was no sign of Miranda or the rest of the Sabbat pack. Her hand clenched on a fourth heartbeat, and her knife appeared in her grip. On the fifth heartbeat, she stalked toward Tolly, slowly, carefully, holding back with a cool resolve the desire to kill. There were ways to disable even vampires without killing them. If she had had a sharp piece of wood, she would have been more than willing to immobilize him with a stake through the heart. Such a staking wasn’t fatal, just paralyzing. She spat twice, slowly, and let Glamour fill her, invigorating energy lending her the speed and strength that those ways would require.