Pomegranates full and fine

by Unknown Author

  Epp seemed upset. “It would take time. I couldn’t do it all today, and the duke wants his report.”

  Tango’s face twisted in annoyance. “You don’t have to get results today, just as long as you promise to do it. If you do that, I’ll do your report.”

  “And make the payments I need?”

  “And make the payments,” Tango sighed. She might find Riley yet. Epp beamed happily.

  “I...” she began.

  A police car roared past on the street outside, siren blaring, Another followed close behind it. Tango just caught the flashing of the second car’s lights as she glanced up. Her stomach knotted suddenly. What was happening in the city now? “Wait,” she told Epp. “I want you to ask your friends about someone else. A woman. A vampire.”

  Epp made an expression of distaste. “Most of my friends wouldn’t know a vampire if one bit them. You’re asking for quite a bit.”

  “So are you. Tell your friends that she’s an ordinary woman.”

  Epp hesitated, then nodded. “All right. 1 promise.” Tango swilled down the last of her coffee. “I’ll get dressed. We’ll make the payments, then go give the duke his report.” She smiled, mostly to herself. If she could find jubilee, she might be able to find Riley. If she could find Miranda, she might be able to put a stop to the vampires’ murderous spree.

  * * *

  With the setting of the sun, Miranda opened her eyes. She could feel dried blood on her face — the remains of the red tears she had been crying when the sun had risen and sent her into the oblivion of sleep. She had held the tears back as she ran through the streets of Toronto last night, only letting them flow freely when she had reached the safety of her

  hiding place.

  Years ago, she had felt like the University of Toronto was the best place in the world. She had been happy there. She had felt safe, coddled in the arms of academia. The Sabbat had snatched her early in the evening from a broad, well-lit path within sight of a fairly busy street and several university residences. The illusion of safety had shattered along with her mortal life. The Sabbat had taken half a dozen of them from the campus that night: her as she walked, Blue as he left the gym, Tolly as he practiced in the faculty of music building, Matt and two others as they reeled back, drunk, from a pub. Matt’s two friends hadn’t survived the Sabbat’s Creation Rites. There was no safety anywhere, she knew now. It was the same lesson that Solomon was teaching Toronto. There was no safety from the shadows.

  But there was still something about the university that called out to Miranda. When she had fled from Tango and the pack, she had gone back to the university, to the big research library. All of the lower doors and windows were locked tight at night and connected to an alarm system, of course, but that was nothing to her. Unnatural strength had carried her up the rough surface of the building’s exterior to office windows on the sixth floor. There were no alarms here. She had shattered a window casually and slipped inside. Then she had climbed up into the dark, windowless depths of the book stacks. In an obscure, dusty corner, she had wrapped the shadows around herself, cried tears of blood, and waited for sunrise.

  For a moment after she first woke, the still, dark air felt so much like the grave of the Creation Rites that

  Miranda instinctively lashed out, trying to dig for the surface and freedom. Those vampires who dug their way out of their own graves were judged fit to become Sabbat. The lack of resistance to her claws brought her all the way back to herself, however. Flustered, she shrank back into the shadows for a moment, looking around to see if anyone had seen her.

  There didn’t seem to be anyone nearby. The lights wTere still on, however; the library was still open. At least she wouldn’t have to break any windows to get out tonight. She could just walk away. There were bound to be students around somewhere, though, and staff at the checkout desk by the doors. She would have to clean her face before she could leave. Luckily, there was a bathroom only one floor up, and she had to duck back to avoid being seen by students only once.

  Miranda scrubbed at her face with cold water and cheap, pink liquid soap that smelled like faded roses and felt like slime. She scrubbed until the only pink that stained the water in the sink came from the soap. Her black clothes were gray with clinging dust. She brushed at herself futilely, then decided that no one would notice. Only she would know where the gray dust had come from. She rode an elevator calmly down to the ground floor, then walked out of the library.

  It was another hot night, and early enough that there should have been people on the streets. There was almost no one, however. The people who were out walked quickly, heads up, hands gripping books and bags tightly, nervously alert. Everyone else must have been inside, afraid of the penny murderer. Miranda bit her tongue. Tonight the pack was supposed to kill someone who had stayed indoors, supposedly safe behind a

  security system.

  It was also the night for the Bandog ritual, she realized, the one at which Solomon would keep his promise to tell her and the rest of the Bandog the true purpose behind the murders. The reason why he was terrifying Toronto.

  Miranda wasn’t sure she could face that ritual. She wasn’t sure she could face the Bandog or Solomon. Or the rest of the pack. Or Tango. Definitely not Tango. Her head ached whenever she thought about the changeling. Tango had shocked and disappointed her with the revelations about her dark past, but hadn’t she shocked and disappointed Tango more? Or wouldn’t she have, had Tango found out everything? As it was, Tango only knew that Miranda was one of the murderers she so despised. She didn’t know that Miranda had also betrayed her to Jubilee Arthurs, or that she was intimately connected with the man who had ordered Riley kidnapped. A lot of the ache in her head, Miranda realized, was her own disappointment with herself.

  She closed her eyes and wavered on her feet. She should feed. Blood would wash away the doubts, or at least blot them out. An image of the changeling called Sin and the woman he had danced with last night came back to Miranda suddenly. They had looked so enraptured... and Tango had looked so terribly, frighteningly like them when she had talked about enjoying her former life as an assassin. Miranda shuddered, walking down the block and trying to forget the flicker of hungry joy that had crossed the changeling’s face. She should feed.

  There was a young woman walking alone in the early evening on a broad, well-lit path within sight of a fairly

  busy street and several university residences.

  Miranda walked toward her. The vampire’s head was raised, ready to strike, predatory. All she had to do was glance into the woman’s eyes and the woman would follow her willingly, would let her drink willingly. Might even die willingly. It would be good. Miranda was hungry. She had fed only a little last night, a fast, brief drink from the veins of the man at Jubilee Arthurs’ house. She would be able to take her time with the young woman, feeding slowly. She remembered Sin and the dancing woman.

  She remembered the assassin’s shadow that had crossed Tango’s face last night, not once, but twice. Outside Club Haze when she had confessed to her past. And outside Riley’s apartment when the changeling had seen the pack’s victims, then turned on Miranda.

  Did she look like that now?

  The young woman was ten feet from Miranda and they were approaching each other rapidly. It would be simple. She had nothing to fear. Wasn’t she Sabbat, the ultimate predator, the ultimate evil?. Wasn’t she an infernalist, feared even by the Sabbat for what she was willing to do for power?

  Miranda readied herself. One glance. They were almost facing each other. She could almost taste the sweet richness of the other woman’s blood. She pushed herself deeper into the warm, red memories of past feedings. Last night, outside Jubilee Arthurs’ house, Miranda had been embarrassed by those memories, afraid of exposing her inhumanity to Tango. Now she wallowed in them, reveling in her inhumanity. It was her strength.

  She glanced at the other woman.

  Tango had finally seen her inhumanity. She had attacked
it.

  The other woman froze. Miranda decided not to take her anywhere. She would feed here, on the path where she had herself first encountered the Sabbat.

  Tango could not accept her own inhumanity — she had enjoyed killing once, too. Who was she to judge Miranda?

  Miranda swept the woman’s hair back from her neck. Smooth skin shone in the lamplight, the woman’s rapid pulse making the shadow under her jaw quiver and wink. Miranda’s fangs descended.

  Inhuman. This was the vampire’s nature. To feed from the cattle of humanity.

  She bit down into the woman’s neck. Hot blood filled her mouth, filled her body, filled her soul with a hard, greedy pleasure. Miranda gnawed at the woman’s throat, desperate for more. The blood erased all doubts of her nature. The woman in her embrace shuddered. A vampire was inhuman. It existed to feed.

  But what had Tango pointed out? The murders that the pack had committed for Solomon were beatings. None of the victims had been bitten. None of the vampires had fed. What nature was there in that? The blood in her mouth tasted suddenly stale.

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

  Miranda rushed eagerly into its arms.

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

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

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

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

  “Miranda?” Solomon asked her again.

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

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

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

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

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

  “Did you go to the airport for her?”

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

  “Were you with Tango last night?”

  “I took her hunting with me.”

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

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

  How could he have guessed at that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

  capillary in her undead body.

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

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

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

  “I don’t know!”

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

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

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

  as in the Bandog.”

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

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