“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.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Swift fire spread through her veins, knocked at her knocked at her heart,
Met the fire smouldering there And overbore its lesser flame
The subway tunnel sloped downhill all the way to Union Station, the closest stop to the lake. The only illumination came from the far-apart maintenance lights and down from the streets above through ventilation shafts. Miranda depended on her ability to see in the dark. Tango held Miranda’s hand and depended on the vampire to keep her from stumbling in the deepest shadows. They walked without speaking. When they passed one of the ventilation shafts, they could sometimes hear the sounds of the riots going on overhead.
There were two subway stations between Dundas and Union Station. They moved through them quickly and stealthily, alert for security guards or cameras. After the second station, the tunnel curved sharply, turning ninety degrees before it reached Union Station. The darkness was at its thickest in that curve. There were no maintenance lights and no ventilation shafts. Tango was completely blind. Miranda held the changeling’s hand tightly. The warmth of her living grasp felt good.
“Tango,” she asked abruptly, “what are you going to do after this is over?”
“Assuming we win?” Miranda could see her smile in the darkness. “I suppose I’ll go back to San Francisco.” “Ah.”
Tango was silent for a minute. “And you?” she asked quietly.
“I’m not sure.” Miranda shrugged, trying to make the gesture seem casual. “The pack has pretty much fallen apart. I could join a new pack, I suppose, but there would be a lot of awkward questions. The Sabbat punishes demon worship with destruction. I’m not sure I could g
o back to the Sabbat’s way of life anyway.” She snorted bitterly. “Maybe the Camarilla would take me. I’m starting to feel like I’d fit right in with them.”
“It’s hard to walk away from a life,” observed Tango. “You don’t have to tell me,’’ Miranda pointed out. “I’ve done it before — a little more literally, of course. It was easier then. I just fell into the role of a vampire. Big, bad, dress in black.”
“Vampires don’t have to be like that. I told you about Elyse.”
Miranda nodded. “I know. It’s just that I used to look down on Blue and Matt — and Tolly — for not really accepting what they were. Now I’m the one having regrets.”
“Miranda,” Tango said softly, “you might have the body of a vampire, but you don’t have to have the soul of one as well. I know you’re strong. You can do this. I can help you.” The smile returned to her face, thin and a little hesitant. “Come back with me to San Francisco. I’ve got friends there. And I understand the vampires are pretty relaxed.”
“I don’t think I want to be around vampires for a while. You understand.”
“Too well.” Tango’s smile became devilish. “How about a job, then? 1 have a hard time finding bartenders who don’t take nips on the side.”
Miranda choked back a laugh. “I’d be looking for a different kind of nip!”
“Just not at work.”
“Not even on my breaks?”
Tango choked as well and stopped. Her free hand felt for Miranda’s mouth, silencing her. “Enough!” she murmured with a smirk. “Solomon may have posted lookouts on the subway platforms. Loud noises will carry a long way down here.” Miranda nodded and the changeling took her hand away. “Even if Solomon doesn’t suspect—”
The first attack came out of the shadows without any warning at all. Tango would have seen nothing at all, or maybe a vague figure. Miranda had only the briefest impression of a big, blond man appearing out of nowhere to slash at her with taloned fingers. She thrust herself aside and the talons raked across her shoulder. The figure vanished again, Miranda came back to her feet, talons sprouting from her own fingers, fangs descending in her mouth. Tango had her knife ready.
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