Pomegranates full and fine (37 page)

his type are capable of, do you?”

“No.” ^

“You know he has to change you back again?" “Yes.” Tango turned back to the man on the mattress. “He said he would come tonight as soon as he could.”

“Where are we?” '

“A safehouse. Somewhere downtown. You’d know where, I’m sure, but it’s all just streets to me. Somewhere So— somewhere safe.”

So Tango was having as much trouble avoiding the forbidden topic of the Bandog as she was herself.
Somewhere
Solomon.... Last night, Miranda remembered, Tango had said they were going somewhere safe from location by Solomon’s magick. Miranda wasn’t sure how that was possible. She took a closer look at the man on the mattress: tall, gangly, thinning red hair. The man from under Solomon’s eerie apple tree. There was something else familiar about him as well, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “Riley?” she asked. “Is he asleep?”

Tango nodded sharply. “Yes,” she replied shortly. “He has been all day. Ever since we... got here.”

“What time is it?”

“Just past midnight.”

The sun had gone down hours ago. Miranda had been dreaming that long? Severe wounds could drive a vampire into the years- and sometimes decades-long sleep of torpor. She should be thankful that that hadn’t happened. Matt and Blue’s torture had been terrible. She couldn’t remember everything that she had told them, but apparently it had been what they’d wanted to hear. Or maybe they had just tortured her for the fun of it. Matt had taken particular delight in forcing her hand into the sunlight. The hand was still stiff and largely immobile. It would take a lot of blood to heal fully.

“I need to hunt,” she said again. Not that it would be much of a hunt. She would simply keep to the shadows and wait for eye contact. Then she would call the victim to her. No elegance, no style, just survival. She rolled over onto her side — slowly. It seemed to take five minutes just to complete that simple action. Tango watched wordlessly. Miranda got both arms under her body and pushed herself upright. She was trembling when the feat was accomplished.

“Tolly,” Tango said with a roughness that was not caused by her altered throat, “said not to go outside until he got here.”

It was a petty revenge. Miranda glared at the changeling. Tango wouldn’t meet her gaze. It was probably the sensible thing to do, but it was also a snub. Miranda forced herself all the way to her feet, just to spite Tango. She had to cling to the wall to stay upright. Tango just watched her. Miranda gave her a grim smile of triumph.

“Just remember that you can’t drink my blood or Riley’s,” the changeling said.

“How could I forget?” Miranda walked along the wall to the window. There was no glass in the frame and night air, still hot, breezed through the slats of the shutters. She pushed against them. They were nailed shut, but the nails were rusty and the wood of the frame old. When she threw her rather insubstantial weight against them, they squealed. She did it again. The nails pulled free.

The moonlight turned shadows into dark, thin tissue paper. The window looked west across old rooftops and warehouses, a landscape of slanting shingles, brick walls and pale gray wood. She couldn’t see the street, and she didn’t really recognize the area, but she could hear music close by. Something loud, with a bluesy edge to it. Where there was music, there would be people. Where there were people, there would be blood. Miranda found herself sniffing at the breeze, as if it might carry the scent of blood on it and the smell alone might sustain her. Tolly had said they couldn’t leave this place? She wouldn’t normally believe the mad vampire, but she remembered how Solomon had found her last night. If he hadn’t come for her again, maybe there was something to Tolly’s claim. What could shield them from the Nephandus’ magick? She wasn’t sure. She was silent for a long time. Just out of the corner of her eye, she could see Tango, still crouching beside Riley, still watching her.

“So,” Miranda asked her eventually, “if we can’t go outside, how did you spend the day?”

Tango hesitated for a long minute before answering. “Sleeping. And hoping maybe Tolly would come back early.” She looked down at the floor, then up again. “Where are they tonight, Miranda?” she asked hoarsely. “Who are they killing?”

The changeling had broken first. The veils of secrecy that had hid the Bandog were tearing and falling. Miranda bit her lip. “I don’t know, Tango.”

“You must!”

She shook her head. “I don’t. Everything has changed. I don’t even know why Solomon wanted us... me to commit the murders.” It was hard to say, but it was true. Until last night, the pack had only been hirelings. She had been the only one who knew about the Bandog. Solomon had come to her. “He wanted to terrify the city. I’m sure he had a deeper purpose, but I don’t know what it is.”

“I do.” Tango’s face was bleak. She rose to her feet:, “Three people are dying out there tonight as sacrifices to your demon.”

“My demon?” Miranda gasped. “Shaftiel isn’t ‘my demon’!”

“You are Bandog,” Tango spat mockingly, “aren’t you? Aren’t you ‘his vampire’?”

Miranda turned her back to the window and looked at Tango. “Not anymore. How much did you see last night, Tango?”

The changeling told her. She told her about Tolly’s visit and his connection to Riley; she told her about the ritual, about the pack’s initiation, about the elevations. She told her about Solomon’s plans, including the final sacrifice of Miranda herself. When she was through, she leaned back against a wall and waited for Miranda’s reaction.

The story left Miranda speechless. How could Solomon do this? “That’s monstrous!”

Tango snorted bitterly. “Coming from you, that should be a compliment.”

If she could have flushed then, Miranda would have. “I’m not like that, Tango.”

“No? Then why did you beat six innocent people to death at Solomon’s command? Would you have kept going? Would you have killed all sixteen for him?”
Four,
Miranda corrected her silently.
I only killed four.
Only four. For a moment, she felt as mad as Tolly.

She was a vampire. A vampire of the Sabbat. She answered to no one. Humans were her playthings and her sustenance. But she had killed four people in cold blood. And she did have to answer for it — to herself, if not to Tango. She pushed those thoughts back. “1 didn’t,” she said weakly, “know that he was going to try and summon Shaftiel.”

“Shaftiel’s voice,” Tango corrected her. “If you didn’t know that, why were you doing it?”

“For Solomon. He... Shaftiel... they promised me power.” Miranda slumped against the windowsill. “The power to control the pack. The power to rise in the Sabbat.”

“Why?”

This time, Miranda snorted. “You’re a loner. You wouldn’t understand. Power in the Sabbat comes from being able to enforce your will. When you don’t have power, you’re cannon-fodder. The Sabbat creates vampires as shock troops. Newborn Sabbat vampires aren’t expected to last a week. Even someone like me, six years old as a vampire, could still be ordered into a suicide situation by the Archbishop. With power comes safety. I would have done anything to reach a position of safety.” She sighed. “I found out about the Bandog while I was hunting away from the pack. An old man called on Shaftiel to save him.”

“Did it work?”

“Only insofar as 1 stopped because I was curious. The old man led me to Solomon. I learned more about the Bandog and decided to join. Solomon was overjoyed to have a vampire in his little kennel.” Her mouth twisted. “I still haven’t seen any of the power he promised me. And I even made myself his lover.”

Tango blinked in surprise. “I didn’t think that sex was possible — for a vampire.”

“Sex is possible. It’s just empty.” She shmgged, trying to belittle what she had done with the Nephandus. “There was contact. I fed. Solomon enjoyed himself. It was the ultimate submission for him. He craved it, as though being Shaftiel’s servant somehow weren’t enough.”

“So you prostituted yourself for Solomon. You killed for him, and you prostituted yourself for him.”

The words were like a knife. Miranda looked down, ashamed. “You haven’t asked me why Solomon named me a traitor.”

Tango refused to respond. Instead, she turned back to the sleeping man. “You don’t know anything about Riley, do you?”

“I knew that Jubilee Arthurs kidnapped him on Solomon’s orders.” Tango stiffened and Miranda winced. “I’m sorry, Tango. Jubilee resisted me when I tried to dominate his mind. He’s a full telepath now. I let him get away because I didn’t want you to find out about the Bandog. And my connection with the penny murders.” Miranda waited. Again Tango refused to acknowledge her confession.

“Do you know why Solomon had him kidnapped?” she asked.    -

“No.” .

“Do you know what Solomon did to him? It’s been almost twenty-four hours since I took him out from under that damn tree, and he’s still asleep.”

“No.”

“Damn it!” snapped Tango frantically. “Don’t you know
anything,
Miranda?” The changeling was on her feet again suddenly, grabbing at Miranda and pushing her back against the wall. “You lied to me, you murdered, you whored, and you don’t know anything about Solomon or what he was doing?”

“No!” She was too weak to push back.

“Why did Riley have a Bandog bracelet? I found one in his luggage.”

That was why the sleeping changeling looked familiar. Miranda’s mouth felt dry suddenly. Tango wasn’t going to like this. “I think... I think he was a Bandog, Tango. Another member of the High Circle.” Tango let go of her. “No.”

“I’m not sure. I kept my distance from the other members. But why else would he have had a chain?”

“1 had hoped there would be another reason. I’ve been trying to think of one all day.” Tango looked down at Riley. “Solomon said there were five people missing from the High Circle last night. You, the traitor. Riley, I guess.”

“Two of the High Circle committed suicide recently,” Miranda told her. “A third vanished just last week. Solomon never talked about it.”

“Last night he said that Shaftiel killed four Bandog while trying to deliver his message.”

“But Riley’s not dead.”

“No.” Tango considered her friend. “I wonder w'hy Solomon enchanted him, then.” She glanced at Miranda. The vampire knew what Tango wanted to know, but she could only shake her head. Solomon hadn’t told her anything. She hadn’t pursued anything beyond her own dreams of power.

She just wished Tango would ask her what she had been doing in the basement, tortured by Matt and Blue at Solomon’s orders. She could tell her that. Then let the changeling make her judgments.

But Tango didn’t ask anything else. She just sank down beside Riley once more. Miranda hissed softly in anguished frustration.

A creak brought her head, along with Tango’s, up again. Weight shifted against stairs. There was the sound of a latch opening, and a trapdoor popped open in the shadows. Tango’s knife was in her hand instantly, and the changeling dashed forward. Her arm went around the throat of a young woman coming up through the trapdoor. “Don’t make a sound. Who are you?”

“I’m here for Miranda.”

The girl’s voice was wooden, as if she were speaking words someone else had placed in her mouth. Miranda fumbled for the lamp and tilted it so that its light flooded across the two figures at the trapdoor. The girl was dressed all in black, her face pale and her hair artfully braided. Her eyes were distant.

“Who sent you?” Tango demanded. “Why?”

“I’m here for Miranda.”

“Well, you can’t have her!”

“Tango,” Miranda hissed, “let her go.”

“What? We don’t know—”

“She’s not here to fetch me.” Miranda put down the lamp and staggered forward. Without the support of the wall, it was difficult to stay upright. “She’s here
for
me.” Puzzled, Tango released her hold. The girl climbed all the way up out of the trapdoor and walked toward Miranda. When she was directly in front of the vampire, she pulled down the neck of her shirt and bent her head back.

Miranda fell on her desperately. The girl’s blood was ever-sosHghtly tainted with old drugs and new alcohol, but it was otherwise as pure and rich as any Miranda had tasted. The girl had the sweetness of a vegetarian. Or perhaps it was just Miranda’s hunger that made the blood seem so sweet. She could feel the girl’s pulse in her mouth, growing slowly weaker as her blood made the vampire stronger. But Miranda could also feel Tango’s gaze on her.

Very deliberately, she pushed the girl away. She had taken enough to make herself mostly well again, enough to leave the girl paler than normal and weak — but alive. Miranda looked into her dark eyes. “Who sent you?” she asked. Her will pushed out.

“I don’t know,” the girl answered. It was the truth, Miranda realized. The girl had no idea why she had come here. The memory had been wiped from her mind, or else hidden so well that she might never remember it.

“Miranda?” Tango asked.

“She was sent by a vampire, Tango. A vampire sent her* to me so I could feed.” Miranda lifted the girl and laid her on the pile of blankets that had been her own bed. It felt wonderful to be strong again. “Did you see anyone when you came?”

“No. Tolly just gave me instructions to come here. All the doors were unlocked. As if we were expected.” Miranda frowned. “I want to know who our host or hostess is, then.” She started toward the trapdoor. Tango stopped her.

“We’re not supposed to go outside.”

“I’m not going out, just downstairs.” She stepped around the changeling. The stairs beyond the trapdoor were steep and dark. There was another door at the

bottom. Miranda pulled it open.

A tall, gaunt vampire swept in, pulling the door shut and dragging her swiftly back up the stairs. “Didn’t Tolly tell you not to leave this room? Didn’t he?” Surprised, Miranda had only the briefest impressions of the other vampire until they were back in the attic room and he was slamming the trapdoor shut. Then he turned to face her.

“DeWinter?”

“You’re very lucky to have Tolly for a friend, Miranda.” The Camarilla vampire frowned at her. “But can’t you follow the simplest of instructions?”