Pomegranates full and fine

by Unknown Author

  “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 protester
s 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.”