Atlanta’s expression was abruptly cold again, as cold as if her deal with Pentex were nothing more than a business arrangement. “Of course not!” she snapped. “They didn’t trust me that much. I was just their courier. They told me where to go, whom to put the bracelet on. They took care of the details and then let me enjoy my illusions for a few days.”
“She is crazy,” muttered Miranda.
“Get fucked, leech!” Atlanta snarled. She slapped Miranda’s hand away.
Tango grabbed Atlanta’s wrists. “What happened to the people Pentex had you kidnap? What happened after...” Her mouth twisted in disgust. “What happened after you turned them into Cheryl?”
Atlanta groaned, her icy strength fading as suddenly as it had appeared. “Pentex took Cheryl away. That’s all I know. I never asked.”
“Who took her away? Who contacted you when they wanted someone else kidnapped?”
“Different men. Different almost every time.” Her head lolled back and she started to shake again.
Damn! “What about the last time?” Tango demanded. “What about the red-haired man in San Francisco? How did Pentex contact you?” She shook the other woman. “How did Pentex contact you, Atlanta?” “It wasn’t Pentex. Just a man. He tried to make me think it was Pentex, but it wasn’t.” Atlanta reached up and wiped at her swollen eyes. “After sixteen years, I know Pentex. The man used to work for Pentex — I remember him from before -— but this time was different.”
“How was it different, Atlanta?” They were close now, Tango could feel it.
Atlanta looked at the tears shining on her hand. “He tried to hire me. For money. And he wouldn’t let me keep Cheryl at all. He made me give her up right away. Pentex never did that. The man sent a limo to pick us up at the airport, and it took us to his house.” She glanced at Tango. “I know the address.”
Tango found herself holding her breath. “What is
it?”
“Do you think that Cheryl is still there?”
Her voice was desperate. The question made no sense; Atlanta should have known that Riley could no longer be Cheryl if the charm bracelet was here in her apartment. She was sliding deeper into madness under the pressure of the questioning. Tango hesitated. “Yes,” she said finally. She took Atlanta’s hands. “And we
want to get her for you.”
“I know the man’s name, too.”
“What is it? What’s the address?”
Atlanta’s gaze fixed on something gleaming against the blue of the carpet. “Is that Cheryl’s bracelet?” she asked dreamily.
Miranda snatched the charm bracelet up and passed it to Tango. Tango pressed it into Atlanta’s hands. “Tell us where she is,” she urged.
“The house is at the end of Hillock Street, overlooking a park.” She ran the gold chain and its little charms through her fingers. “The man’s name is Jubilee Arthurs.”
Tango pulled away sharply, so sharply that she lost her balance and fell backward with a thump. Miranda glanced at her. “I know him.” Tango’s lips knotted into a thin, ironic smile. “I know him, Miranda.”
“What? How?”
She waved her hand. “From a long, long time ago. He’s a mercenary — at least he was when I knew him. Atlanta,” she asked, turning back to the blond woman, “did Jubi—”
There was a blissful smile on Atlanta’s face. She was fastening the charm bracelet around her own wrist. Tango cursed, grabbing for it. She was a moment too late.
“Cheryl,” Atlanta whispered happily. Her body shifted, like a Kithain shifting between human and faerie seeming. Two forms in the same space. For a moment, Atlanta and Cheryl coexisted, radiant expressions lighting their faces. Then... “No!” they screamed in unison, Atlanta in horrified anguish, Cheryl in terrible fright. The child buried her face in her hands. The woman lashed out at something. And they vanished. The charm bracelet fell to the rug.
Tango and Miranda were silent for several minutes. Then Miranda reached out and touched the spot where the woman — and her daughter — had been, moments before. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” Tango shook her head slowly. “Magic works in a lot of strange ways. I wouldn’t touch that bracelet.” Part of her felt sorry for Atlanta, but only a part. Pentex couldn’t have been kind to the people she had delivered to them using the charm bracelet. Atlanta’s end seemed fitting. And they had a good, solid lead on Riley now. Jubilee Arthurs. But not tonight. Tango’s stomach twisted. She didn’t think she could stand to see him tonight. Not after this. She stood up. “Miranda.”
“What?”
“Will you come with me to see Jubilee Arthurs tomorrow' night?” Miranda looked up, hesitating. Tango smiled. “Please? I could use your help.”
Miranda’s hesitancy lasted only a moment longer. “All right,” she agreed. She glanced back at the charm bracelet lying on the floor. “What’s Pentex?”
“I’ll tell you about it on the way home, or tomorrow night. For now... let’s just say that Atlanta made a deal with the devil.” Tango started toward the door. “Let’s
go-”
There was no response. She glanced back. Miranda was still staring at the charm bracelet, as though fascinated by the fate of its owner. Tango smiled again, softly. She remembered when she had first learned about all of the varieties of darkness that lurked in the world; the familiar strangeness of her life in Kithain society had suddenly seemed so insignificant. Miranda would be going through the same thing now. Tango went back over and drew the vampire to her feet. “Come on.”
* * *
Let’s just say that Atlanta made a deal with the devil. Tango’s words had been innocent, of course, but they struck a little too close to home. Her words, Atlanta’s eerie... disappearance? death? They reminded Miranda too much of her own deal with Solomon, and through him with Shaftiel. She had always thought that she had nothing to worry about. She was one of the High Circle, the chosen few. She had made a pact, power in exchange for service. There was nothing for her to be frightened of. She was strong. She was in control. She was a vampire, the ultimate predator, beyond human morality, beyond good and evil, beyond weakness.
Just keep telling yourself that, something small inside her said, and maybe what happened to Atlanta will never happen to you.
“Should we have tried to wipe off our fingerprints?” she asked belatedly as Tango shut the apartment door behind them. Usually the Sabbat didn’t worry about trivial matters like fingerprints. What could humans do to them?
“No. There’s too much other evidence that people were in the apartment.” Tango locked the door with keys taken from Atlanta’s purse, then stuffed the keys back under the door. “Between what we did tonight and the pictures in Atlanta’s photo albums, an investigator is going to go nuts on this case. I’m not even sure how long it will be before someone comes looking for
Atlanta. She didn’t strike me as the type to have many friends. Who knows — Pentex might be the next ones to discover her absence, and I doubt if they’ll go to the police.”
Miranda was silent as they rode the elevator down to the lobby and walked away from the building. She was silent the whole way back downtown as well, letting Tango ramble on about Pentex without really listening to what she was saying. Her mind was still back in the apartment with Atlanta’s bracelet and the lingering smell of pepper spray. If she only knew what exactly had happened to the woman, she might feel better. But Atlanta was simply gone. Would that be what happened to her someday? Miranda clenched her hands around the rim of the steering wheel.
They pulled up in front of Riley’s apartment building. “Ten o’clock?” Tango asked.
“What?” Miranda blinked. “Sorry? Ten o’clock what?”
“Pick me up tomorrow night at ten. We’ll stake out jubilee’s house. Is that all right?”
Tomorrow night. Miranda had almost forgotten about that. What was she going to tell the pack this time? More importantly, how was she going to juggle both Tango’s
stakeout and Solomon’s planned penny murder? When she had agreed to accompany Tango, she had been expecting a meeting partway through the night — like tonight. But a stakeout could take all night. She opened her mouth, ready to make some excuse that would release her from the agreement.
No excuse came out. Instead, she looked at Tango, the changeling’s face still puffy and red from Atlanta’s pepper spray. “Ten o’clock is fine,” she said.
“I’ll see you then. Wear something dark.” Tango looked her over and grinned. “Although I don’t think that will be a problem for you.” She opened the door and started to get out of the car, then paused. “Thanks for coming tonight, Miranda.”
“It’s okay.”
“No. Really. If you hadn’t been there, Atlanta would have gotten away — or maybe killed me. I wouldn’t have found out anything about Riley.” She leaned over and pulled Miranda into a hug. “Thanks. I owe you.” “Don’t worry about it.” Miranda surprised herself with the words, but she meant them. “Really.”
Tango pulled away. “Since when did you stop keeping a balance sheet of favors owed?”
“I can do things just because I want to, can’t I?” Tango smiled at her. “Thank you again.” She got out of the car. “Ten o’clock.”
“Ten o’clock.” Tango shut the door and Miranda pulled back out onto the street, watching in the rearview mirror while Tango walked into the apartment building. Then she slammed her hands against the steering wheel.
What the hell was she doing? Sabbat vampires weren’t supposed to make friends outside of the Sabbat! Miranda sighed in angry frustration. Of course, they weren’t supposed to get involved with demon cults either, and that hadn’t stopped her. So why was her growing friendship with Tango bothering her?
The car seemed twice as quiet now without the changeling’s voice to fill the silence. Miranda switched on the radio, but the music just seemed inane. She turned it off again and rolled down the window, driving home to the sounds of the city. Toronto was quiet at night, but it was still louder than the emptiness in the car.
The pack lived in a house just a little bit south of Toronto’s “Little India” district. They had simply moved in one night, killing off the back-to-nature refugees from the sixties who had lived there. The neighbors hadn’t said a thing and continued very wisely to leave the vampires alone — with the exception of one old immigrant Indian woman who lived next door and made signs against evil whenever she saw one of them. Her family always hustled her hastily away. They thought that she was going senile. Miranda knew that Tolly was toying with the woman’s mind. Miranda parked her car, ignored the old woman even now peering sleeplessly down from her window, and went inside.
Matt and Blue were watching a movie stolen from a video store, the sound turned up so loud that it echoed through the house. The pack had quite a collection of pilfered movies, mostly a mix of gory horror and adolescent comedy, selections chosen by Tolly and Blue. Matt preferred more sophisticated psychological thrillers, but he didn’t turn up his nose at slasher movies either. The vampires had a tendency to critique the villains’ technique. Humans yelled at the victims on the screen, berating them for going off alone or hiding where the villains could trap them; Matt, Blue and Tolly yelled at the villains, telling them where the victims were hiding or how best to torture the ones that they inevitably caught.
“Ooo,” groaned Matt as fake blood splattered walls on the television screen. “No! Never with a power saw!”
Miranda grabbed the remote , from the cushions of the couch and reduced the volume of the television to a level that she could talk over without screaming. “Where’s Tolly?”
“Upstairs.” Blue pointed overhead. Matt glanced at her, sniffing.
“You smell like you fell into a vat of salsa or something. Feeding go well tonight?” he asked sarcastically.
The smell of pepper spray lingering on her clothes was hardly the smell of salsa. Miranda gave Matt an impassive, unamused glare. “No,” she said curtly, “feeding did not go well.”
He shrugged and turned back to the movie. “Should have gone out with us. Blue and Tolly did Portuguese. I just watched, of course.” He glanced up again brightly. “I don’t suppose you’d want to drive me over to the university for a late night frat snack?”
“No.” Miranda hesitated, then added, “You’re on your own tomorrow night, too.” Now was as good a time to make her excuses as any.
Her announcement brought both Matt’s and Blue’s eyes to her. “Again?” Blue inquired suspiciously.
“Yes — again.”
The two vampires on the couch looked at each other, then back at her. “You’ve been doing that an awful lot lately,” observed Matt.
Miranda stared back at him coolly, imperiously. “Maybe I have. And if I have, it’s no business of yours, is it?”
“If it would affect the pack, it’s all of our business.” His eyes narrowed. “Is it that woman you picked up in Hopeful the other night? We haven’t seen much of you since....”
“No.” Miranda made her tone strong, but not too quick. A flat denial, not an invitation to query her some more. “Who I’m feeding from is none of your concern. Understood?” Matt gave her a sullen look. A little too sullen. Her arm lashed forward, grabbing Matt’s hair and yanking his head back. Her fangs could have been in his throat. “Understood?” she hissed.
“Understood,” Matt spat. Miranda glanced at Blue. The big vampire hadn’t moved, but he nodded.
“Good.” She let Matt go.
He rubbed at the back of his head. “What about the penny murder?” he asked sourly. “Or had you forgotten that?”
“I didn’t forget.” Miranda turned to go upstairs. “I just can’t make it. You know the drill though, same as the other times. Do it yourself.”
Matt’s eyes came to life. “You mean it? Who’s the target?”
Solomon’s instructions were to kill a couple tomorrow night, destroying people’s belief that they could be safe as long as they weren’t alone. “A couple,” she repeated for Matt and Blue, although she didn’t tell them the reason for Solomon’s choice. They didn’t need to know that. She chose a location arbitrarily. “Take them from Yonge Street. And not too late.” There were a fair number of people on Yonge Street until quite late at night. If the pack snatched their victims from a busy street, it would frighten people even more.
“All right!” Blue gave her a bloodthirsty grin, fangs shining in the flickering light of the television set.
The sight of those fangs in Blue’s big, square, police' officer face sent a sudden chill across Miranda’s back. She’d seen them almost every night for years, but suddenly... their inhuman presence suddenly disturbed her. She climbed up the stairs and out of sight before she permitted herself to grimace. Was that what -she looked like to Tango? She walked down the hallway to the bedroom she had claimed.
Tolly was in her room. Trying on her clothes.
She glared at him silently. Tolly didn’t even have the wit to look embarrassed. Grinning maniacally, he mimicked her, not just in posture and expression, but also in form, his frame shifting in height and shape to match hers. It was like staring into a demented funhouse mirror. Clothing had been pulled out of the closet and thrown across the bed in a heap. The mad vampire had found makeup somewhere and smeared it across his face. Miranda stalked into the room. Tolly stalked forward to meet her, an identical scowl on his face. “Tolly...” she said warningly.
He said the word at almost exactly the same time, then grinned. His tongue was still pierced, but at least now it was with a smaller barbell that permitted him to talk normally. “Whoops,” he added, “forgot something.” His chest filled out abruptly, a sharp and bony imitation of Miranda’s breasts.
Miranda kicked him sharply in the balls.
Tolly’s eyes rolled back and his body folded up. “Ow,” he squeaked.
“Strip,” Miranda ordered him. She grabbed his ear. “Strip, or you’re going to have to grow back bod
y parts.” “Okay! Sheesh.” Tolly began to pull off the clothes. “A guy can’t have a bit of fun?”
“You want fun, go watch movies with Matt and Blue.” She choked and pinched Tolly’s ear until he yelped. He was wearing a pair of her panties. Hastily, he slipped them off. Miranda dragged him to the door. His ear stretched in her grasp. She ignored his tricks and shoved him out. “I don’t ever want you in here again!”
She slammed the door in his face and turned to survey the room, furious with Tolly for disturbing her things. Furious with Matt for challenging her. Furious with Blue for no particular reason. She snatched up the clothes that Tolly had been wearing and hurled them at the closet. Something fluttered to the ground as the clothes flew. The piece of paper Tango had given her with her address.
Miranda stared at it for a moment. The pants Tolly had been wearing were the pants she had worn yesterday. That paper had been in the pocket of the pants. Except then it had been folded up. It was unfolded now, and it wouldn’t have fallen out of the pocket on its own.
Tolly had seen Tango’s address. What would he make of it? Maybe nothing. After all, it was only an address. From downstairs, she head Matt and Blue roar in laughter, either in response to something in the movie or in response to Tolly’s abrupt, naked appearance. At least she hoped they were laughing at one of those two things. Miranda snatched up the paper and tore it into tiny bits. She opened the window and threw the fragments out into the night, watching them spiral to the ground. A movement in a window of the house next door drew her attention — the old Indian woman was watching her. Their eyes met.
The old woman brought up a crude, homemade protective symbol and shook it at her fiercely. Miranda pulled her drapes shut and turned away.
CHAPTERTEN
Tender Lizzie could not bear To watch her sister’s cankerous care
Hillock, it turned out, was a short dead-end street in Scarborough, the easternmost part of Metro Toronto. The houses in the neighborhood were modest, singlefamily homes built in the seventies. The shrubs around them were heavy and mature, the lawns old and patchy. The plastic siding on many of the houses was tired from years of built-up grime. Drapes and blinds were tightly closed over lighted windows. No one was out; the only other vehicle on the sidestreets was a pizza-delivery car. Miranda turned onto Hillock.
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