Pomegranates full and fine

by Unknown Author

  It had been easy to leave without the rest of the pack. She had simply risen with the setting sun, dressed, picked up her keys and walked out the door of the house that the pack shared. The others hadn’t yet stirred from their resting places. If they had been up, Miranda had been ready with a story that she was going hunting without them tonight, that she wanted to feed alone. It was the same story she used when she had to attend a ceremony of the Bandog or when Solomon wanted to meet with her. It could also easily have been the truth. It was often very disturbing to feed around Tolly, and Blue was like an animal. Matt’s feeding habits were closest to what she preferred when she had the luxury to indulge them: slow and intense, the pleasure of feeding prolonged. What she would have done to Tango if the woman had not been a changeling. Fortunately, Matt’s very specialized tastes in frat boys meant that the two vampires had never had to feed together. Miranda was profoundly grateful for that. She had enough trouble putting up with Matt at the best of times. Feeding with him would have been almost as sickening as feeding with Tolly.

  She found a parking space and pulled into it, beating out a station wagon full of a harried-looking mother and three screaming children. The woman glared at her angrily, face tinted orange under the lights of the lot, but kept going. Miranda ignored her. She reached forward to switch off the radio, but paused as the news came on.

  The pack’s murder of the bartender last night and the protest that had broken out into a small riot downtown were at the top of the news. She had heard the stories before during the drive out to the airport. Nothing had changed. An autopsy had shown conclusively that Todd Hyde had died from internal bleeding, the result of a severe, prolonged beating that had left him with multiple broken bones and massive damage to his internal organs. Police were denying any leads in what the media had started to call the penny murders, but there had been arrests and numerous injuries in the wake of the riot protesting “police inaction” in the deaths. Three police officers and twenty-five protesters had been treated and released or were still in the hospital with serious injuries, partly the result of violence during the riot, partly the result of a car ramming through the riot. One protester was in critical condition in the intensive care ward. Ironically, it seemed that the devastation wrought by the car had hastened the break-up of the riot. Police were searching for the car and its driver, but just as in the murder cases, they had no leads. Gays were already calling for a public inquest and planning more demonstrations.

  Miranda turned off the radio and sat in the shadows of the car for a moment as a plane thundered into the air overhead. She had heard news stories before that she knew could ultimately be traced back to the Sabbat. A couple had been events in which her pack had been involved. When she had listened to those stories, however, all that she had felt was a sense of elation, the same feeling average humans got when they appeared on television. A feeling of “look — there we are in the back!” Certainly that had been her reaction, and the rest of the pack’s, when Blue had turned on the television yesterday evening so they could watch the report on the first murder. But tonight, for the first time, she wasn’t feeling that elation.

  She was wondering about the consequences of the murders. They had inspired a riot. People had cared about the dead men, and they were angry at their deaths.

  She wondered if Tango had heard about the second murder and the riot. The changeling must have. Miranda wondered what her reaction had been.

  The roar of another plane taking off brought her back to attention. Miranda put the parking chit up on the dashboard and got out of the car, heading toward the terminal building. There was a covered pedestrian overpass across the taxi drop-off zone. The woman in the station wagon must have found a spot closer to the terminal, because she and her children were walking into the stairwell of the overpass just ahead of Miranda. The woman let the door slam shut behind, right in Miranda’s face. For someone from Toronto, it was a sharp gesture and a deliberate insult. It was savage, angry Sabbat instinct for Miranda to send dark, frightening shadows flitting after the family, crowding them in the empty, echoing stairwell. The vampire thought about snatching one of the woman’s children away from her. But she stopped herself, banishing the shadows.

  The woman was tired. She had let the door close

  — was that so terrible a thing that Miranda would kill a child in revenge? Who was the family meeting at the airport? A father? Grandparents? Miranda followed the family out of the overpass and into the bright and crowded terminal. The crowds swallowed them up. She let them go, cursing the attack of conscience.

  It was Tango’s fault. She thrust all thoughts of the changeling from her mind.

  It took her a little while to find the Lost and Found office in the maze of the terminal. A bored-looking man stood at the counter, idling flipping through a magazine. He barely glanced up as Miranda approached, but kept turning pages until she had stopped in front of him. “Can I help you?” he asked in a voice that implied he would have preferred to do anything but.

  “I’m here to pick up some unclaimed bags.” “Name?”

  “Riley Stanton.”

  The attendant finally looked directly at her. He snorted, and a sort of smile smeared itself across his lips. “You’re not him?”

  “No.” Miranda gave him a condescending glance.

  “I’m not. How observant of you.” She pulled Tango’s paper out of her pocket and handed it to him. “I’m a friend. This is the flight number he was on. Apparently his name and address are on the bags.”

  The attendant glanced at the paper, then passed it back to her. “Sorry.”

  “What?”

  “Only the owner can pick up unclaimed baggage. And he has to have proper ID.”

  “Well, the owner can’t make it out to the airport. He asked me to get his luggage for him.” Miranda set her mouth in a hard line and gave the attendant a dark look. ‘‘Give me the bags.”

  “I can’t. If Mr. Stanton wants to call and make arrangements to pick up the bags at a convenient time, he can do that. Or if he can provide identification at the Air Canada office downtown, we can send them in and he can pick them up there.” The attendant’s eyes drifted back down to his magazine. “But we can’t give unclaimed baggage to anyone but the owner. It’s policy.” This time, Miranda didn’t even try to control her anger. Shadows fell across the man’s magazine. He looked up again. Miranda caught his eye. “Let me inside,” she hissed.

  Her will bored into his. He didn’t have a chance. “There’s a staff entrance around the corner,” he stuttered.

  “Go unlock it for me.”

  The attendant disappeared. Miranda stalked around to the door, her anger a red haze in her vision. The attendant was standing just inside the door, holding it open for her. “I...”

  She didn’t let him finish his sentence. She hadn’t fed yet tonight and she hadn’t fed last night either. She was hungry and she was angry, a bad combination for vampires. The Lost and Found office was quiet, and the corner by the door was secluded. Miranda pushed the attendant back against the wall and forced his head to one side. Her fangs descended, and she bit into his neck. He gasped. Once.

  The blood was good. Miranda drank her fill, leaving the man weak and pale, but alive. This time when she tilted his head back, he barely had the strength to resist. His eyes were wide. “Your waking mind will forget me,” Miranda ordered him, “but I’ll come back in your nightmares again and again.” The man shuddered.

  Miranda found Riley’s bags, a battered leather overnight bag and a big heavy suitcase, and went back out the staff entrance. Some of her anger must have lingered around her, because the crowd parted for her, stepping out of her way and pulling children aside. In the pedestrian overpass, the shadows thickened with her passage. And after she had put the bags in the trunk of her car and pulled up to the parking lot’s exit booth, even the parking attendant sat up and treated her politely, taking the chit she held out as if half-expecting her to seize him and drag him i
nto the car. Warily, he kept one eye on her as he slid the ticket through a cash machine.

  The machine beeped and churned out a merry little electronic tune. The parking attendant blinked. “Congratulations, miss,” he said to her nervously over the noise of the car radio. “You win.”

  Miranda looked at him with blank disinterest. “Free parking?”

  “A cellular phone.” He pointed to a poster taped up on the window of his booth. Random customers will win free* cellular phone courtesy of... Miranda’s eye skipped to the bottom of the page, where a counterpart to the asterisk highlighted the phrase * Activation and subscription fees extra.

  She glanced back up at the attendant. He was holding out a brightly colored box with a stylized telephone on the lid. “I’d rather have the free parking.”

  The attendant swallowed. She let her cold gaze stay on him for a few more chilling seconds, and he blanched. “Enjoy your phone,” he said quickly, shoving it through her window. “Thanks for parking with us.” He stepped back and slapped at a button to raise the exit gate. Miranda pushed the box into the passenger seat and drove away.

  Ten minutes later, the box began to ring.

  The car skidded into another lane of traffic as Miranda snapped her head around to look at it in surprise. All around, horns honked in protest and brake lights flashed on. Miranda turned her attention back to the road. In its box, the cellular phone continued to ring. Miranda did her best to ignore it.

  “Hey, hey!” laughed the radio DJ as a song ended. “Well, you know, we don’t usually take requests here on the Ricky Bent show, but this was such a classic I had to do it — especially when I found out we actually had it in our collection! From Solomon to Miri, here are the Harmonic Dialtones with Baby Answer My Call.”

  This time the car shot across two lanes of traffic amid horns like a chorus and brake lights like fireworks as Miranda hastily pulled over to the shoulder and grabbed for the phone box. Vampire talons split the heavy packing tape that sealed the box, then Miranda was wrenching out blocks of foam packing. The ringing phone was wrapped in a thick layer of plastic. Miranda tore it off and unfolded the phone, fumbling for the connect button.

  “It took you long enough,” said Solomon sarcastically.

  Miranda sat back in her seat. “Sorry,” she replied into the mouthpiece, “but I wasn’t really expecting someone to call me on a phone that hadn’t been activated, yet. Let me guess: it wasn’t just luck that got me the phone.” '

  “Mages make their own luck. You won’t have to pay an activation fee either. I decided it was time you went cellular. I got tired of having to use magick to locate you when you weren’t at home.” Solomon paused. “Where are you now?”

  “On the 427 above the Queensway.” Miranda glanced over her shoulder to check the traffic, then, cradling the phone between her head and shoulder, pulled back onto the road. She shifted the phone back into her hand and drove while she talked. “Heading back into Toronto.”

  “What the hell were you doing out at the airport?” “Feeding,” Miranda said simply. She wasn’t sure that she wanted Solomon to know about Tango any more than she wanted the pack to know. But if Solomon had used his magick to locate her out at the airport, there was the possibility that he had seen her collect Riley’s bags as well. She hoped he hadn’t.

  “Feeding?” he asked incredulously. “At the airport?” She relaxed a bit. Maybe he hadn’t been watching her. “You know those urban myths about kids

  disappearing at airports?” she lied.

  Solomon chuckled. “You’re evil, Miri.”

  “You didn’t give me a cellular phone just to make small talk, did you? What do you want?”

  “Come out to my house right away.”

  “How right away? Is this for the Bandog or...?” “Neither. It’s about the pack’s next job. Assignment number three.”

  Miranda frowned at the phone. She had to get the bags to Tango — she had promised them to her first thing tonight and she had been hoping that she might have a little time to talk to the changeling. She couldn’t very well tell Solomon that she had an errand to run. “Should I bring the pack? I’ll drop by and pick them up.”

  “You don’t have to. David has already gotten them. That’s how I found out you were somewhere else.” Miranda cursed silently as he talked. “How long is it going to take you to get here? Twenty minutes from where you are, then ten through the city to my place?” “That sounds about right.” It sounded too right, actually. At a normal driving speed, it would take her almost exactly that long to get to Solomon’s home. Miranda cursed again.

  “I’ll see you in half an hour then.”

  “All right. Wait! Solomon!” Miranda searched for a pen or pencil in the car. “What’s my phone number?” He gave it to her, laughing. She gritted her teeth against the sound and scrawled the number on the lid of the phone box. “Thanks.”

  She hung up and tossed the phone back into the box. Half an hour left her no time to get the bags to Tango. The changeling would have to wait. She would see her after she went to Solomon’s. Except that... Miranda slapped her hands against the rim of the steering wheel. Except that after the meeting with Solomon, the pack would be with her again. She would have to get rid of them before she could see Tango. And what if Solomon wanted them to commit another penny murder tonight? Her stomach curdled. She had to give the bags to Tango before going to Solomon. It would only take a few extra minutes. Solomon wouldn’t notice. She could make the time. Miranda pushed the accelerator down and the car flew forward, surging along the highway.

  * * *

  Tango paced back and forth through the living room of Riley’s apartment. Some mindless sitcom was playing on the television, the canned laughter of the soundtrack cackling out on cue. She had been waiting anxiously for Miranda to appear since the sun went down. For the first hour, she had been able to persuade herself that she was just being ridiculous, that Miranda couldn’t possibly have had time yet to get out to the airport and back. She had actually even managed to sit still long enough to watch two sitcoms and a fragment of a third. Then the anxiety that she had been putting off all day had finally begun to sink in and she had lost interest in the bawdy humor of the television. She kept it on now for the sound only; the silence when the set was off just seemed to make things worse.

  Where was Miranda? Had she been able to get to the airport? Did she have Riley’s bags? What would be in them?

  The sitcom ended and the news came on. More repeated footage of Todd’s body being removed from his apartment, but now also scenes from the demonstration that afternoon. Tango had seen them already as well, played out on the early evening news: a home video of a protest turned angry, of demonstrators shrieking at police officers and grabbing for them, of officers pushing back and sometimes striking out. More video of the aftermath of the riot, the flashing lights of squad cars and ambulances, the people that Dex had run down crying and screaming, all of it jolting and jumping as the owner of the video camera fled from the scene to avoid arrest. Tango steeled herself and watched it all over again, choking back her anger at Dex.

  When the sidhe had stopped to let her off at Riley’s apartment, he had gotten out of the car to inspect the damage inflicted by the protesters. The long smears of blood decorating the sides of the car like racing stripes would, he had decided, wash off easily. A couple of shallow dents on the hood, however, had sent him into a silent rage. Tango had walked away in disgust. Even from inside the building, climbing grimly up the old stairs, she had heard the roar of Dex’s Mustang pulling away. It had reminded her of the roar of some ravening animal.

  The news was almost over before the intercom that connected to the front door of the building finally buzzed. Tango was on it almost instantly. “Hello?”

  “It’s Miranda.” The old intercom distorted the vampire’s voice. “I have the bags.”

  “Come up.” Tango pressed the button that would unlock the front door, then ran out and down the stairs to me
et her.

  Miranda looked pleased to see her there. “I can’t stay,” she said hurriedly. She passed her the bags. “Here.”

  “Miranda, what...”

  “I can’t explain. I’ve got to run.” She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a torn piece of cardboard. “Give me a call,” she added, thrusting the cardboard into an outside pocket on one of the bags.

  Then she was gone, back down the stairs and out of the front door. Tango, staggered by the whirlwind of her arrival and departure, struggled back up the stairs under the awkward bulk of Riley’s luggage. The bags weren’t too heavy for her, just clumsily big. Once she was in the apartment again, she set the bags down in the center of the floor and laid Miranda’s phone number by the telephone. For a moment, she contemplated the luggage that had been causing her such tension all day. The little luggage locks were still attached to the zippers. Hopefully that meant the bags hadn’t been opened since Riley had checked them in San Francisco. Tango knelt down before the suitcase. She didn’t have a key, but a faint thread of Glamour made her fingers strong enough to snap the feeble metal with a twist. She unzipped the suitcase and flipped back the lid.

  She had heard a dry rattling inside the suitcase as she’d carried it up the stairs. Now she knew what had caused it. There were eight packages of crayons lying on top of the clothes in the suitcase, the kind of big packs that contained ninety-six crayons each. Tango frowned in confusion. Crayons? She lifted a box out. It was still shrink-wrapped. What would Riley have wanted with crayons? Could it have something to do with the reason for his kidnapping? Certainly nothing else about the disappearance made any sense. She worked a kenning, trying to sense Glamour on the boxes.

  What she sensed made her heart sink in disappointment. She unwrapped the box in her hand and opened it, dumping the contents onto the floor. They weren’t crayons now that the box was open, but joints of some kind, wrapped up in twists of brightly colored paper. The magickal drugs that Riley had purchased from the Cult of Ecstasy, disguised by Glamour so they could be smuggled across the border. There was no clue here to his kidnapping. All the drugs told her was that he had at least completed his errand to the Cult while he was in San Francisco.