Pomegranates full and fine

by Unknown Author

  The headlights of her car flashed against the windows of the house at the end of the street almost instantly. Hillock seemed even quieter than the streets around it. Jubilee Arthurs’ house seemed even more tired than the other houses. The siding was a grubby white, the roof a faded blue dotted with the black of missing shingles. Tall old trees behind the house intimidated it into submission.

  There were lights on in the house and a nondescript, battered beige car was parked in the driveway. Tango whistled. “Jubilee’s standard of living has come down since I knew him.” She pointed across the street to another driveway. “Pull in there, then back out and turn around.”

  “I could just do a U-turn at the end of the street.” Miranda had picked the changeling up promptly at ten o’clock. Both of them had already located Hillock on maps of the city, so there had been no need to waste time figuring out where they were going. They had come straight out.

  Tango shook her head. “I don’t want to get that close.” Miranda shrugged and obeyed her, pulling into the other driveway. Tango caught her arm briefly. “Go fairly slow. I want a chance to get a good look at Jubilee’s house.”

  Miranda executed the turn as slowly as she could without making it seem unnatural. “Got your look?”

  “Yes. Let’s find someplace to park. Away from Hillock.”

  Last night they had parked away from Atlanta Hunter’s apartment building so the car wouldn’t be associated with any reports of breaking and entering (or, now, of Atlanta’s disappearance). Tonight they parked away from Hillock Street and Jubilee Arthur’s house simply because there was nowhere on Hillock to park. Jubilee had apparently chosen his location shrewdly and deliberately. The street was so quiet that any strange parked car, especially one with people sitting inside, would be instantly recognizable as out of place. The house also commanded a view of the street’s entire abbreviated length. Between that view and the positioning of the surrounding houses, it would have been difficult for even a person on foot to approach the house unseen.

  They managed it, however. They parked a block away and Tango led Miranda through back yards •— over fences and hedges — to the house next door to Arthurs’. They ended up crouched behind thin bushes growing alongside the rusty chainlink fence around Arthurs’ yard. Two floodlights lit the patchy grass inside the fence. No one would be able to lurk there without being spotted. “What now?” Miranda asked Tango.

  The changeling was silent for a moment. “If they’ve lit the back yard,” she wondered aloud, “why are the sides of the house still dark?”

  “So the neighbors don’t complain?” The houses on either side of Arthurs’ were set at an angle around the end of Hillock Street. The back yard lights wouldn’t bother them; side lights would shine into their windows.

  Tango snickered shortly, then pointed toward the dark eaves of Arthurs’ house. “You can see in the dark, right? Are there any lights up there that are turned off right now?”

  Miranda looked. “Yes. Another pair of floodlights.” “They’re probably on motion sensors. If anyone tries to sneak up, the lights will come on. There’s probably another pair on the other side.” She bit her lip, thinking. “I want a place where we can watch the front of Jubilee’s house without being seen.”

  Miranda glanced toward the front of Arthurs’ house, then across to the front corner of the house they were hiding beside. It was dark — no one was home. She slipped back to the wall of the house and around to the very front. She gestured for Tango to join her. “What about here?” she whispered as the changeling came over. Because of the angle of the house, they had a good view of Arthurs’ front door and window. Shrubs would provide a basic screen. But Tango wrinkled her nose and waved at the street.

  “Anyone driving up the street would see us. What if these people come home? And all Arthurs has to do is look out of his window at the right angle and he’s got a pretty good chance at spotting us, too.”

  “No, no, and no. Not if we’re careful.” Shadows shifted at Miranda’s unspoken command, enhancing the concealing darkness of the bushes and adding depth to the women’s hiding place. It wasn’t as effective as Tolly’s ability to simply disappear, but it would work. She smiled at Tango. The changeling nodded.

  “Good enough.” Tango settled down into the shadows. “Now we wait. I want to watch and try to get some idea of who is in that house before we go in.” She hesitated, then added, “One last thing. Try not to think too much about Jubilee. He’ll know something is up.” “What?” Miranda blinked in surprise. “How?” Tango gestured for her to keep her voice down. “He’s got... well, let’s say ‘gifts’ is a good way to describe them. I’m not sure whether it’s natural or if he acquired the talent somewhere, but Jubilee is'a low-grade psychic. Not enough to be able to read your mind, but enough to give him an edge as a mercenary. One thing he does really well is know when somebody nearby is focusing their attention on him. Sort of like a sixth sense.”

  “So why didn’t you tell me about this before?” “Because it’s harder not to think about somebody if you know you’re not supposed to be thinking about them. But if you didn’t know, you would have thought of him for sure. As long as we were moving, you wouldn’t have had time. If we’re going to be in one spot with nothing to do for a while, though....” Tango shrugged. “I figured this would be as good a time to mention it as any.”

  “Last night you said you knew him.” Miranda looked at the changeling in the darkness. “How?”

  Tango sighed. “I met him about twenty-eight years ago. At a survival camp in northern Idaho — one of those Cold War things where a bunch of wannabe soldiers got together and learned how to survive a nuclear attack and a Soviet invasion. Arthurs had been hired as one of the instructors.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “A bunch of Kithain had gotten together and decided to give these guys the scare of their lives. A Soviet strike force was going to hit their camp. We all thought that it would be pretty funny.” Tango frowned. “I was posing as an instructor, too, a specialist in hand-to-hand combat. I looked about eighteen then, so I made up some story about how my parents had been good American missionaries killed in some communist Third World country, and how I was raised by my exMarine grandfather in Texas after they died.” Miranda gave her a critical look. Tango nodded. “Dumb. But they bought it and started to respect me, especially after I dusted a couple of big teamsters from New Jersey. Everyone treated me like an adopted daughter — except for Jubilee. He didn’t believe the story for a second, especially since he had some idea about what the world was really like and why a young woman might be a lot stronger than she looked. I managed to convince him that I wanted to be a mercenary, and he sort of took me under his wing. So to speak.”

  Miranda’s eyebrows rose. “You had an affair?”

  Tango shifted. “He taught me... things. It wasn’t just an affair.”

  “What happened?” Miranda asked curiously, both fascinated and repulsed by the idea that Tango had had a relationship with the man they were stalking.

  “The Kithain attacked the camp. We went our separate ways. By the way, don’t call me by name around him.”

  “Why?”

  “I changed my name a few years after we met. He knows another one.” The words were bitter and she turned away to watch Arthurs’ house. “That’s enough about Jubilee. Don’t think about him anymore if you can. It helps to talk about something else, or sing songs in your head. I like ‘Good King Wenceslas.’”

  Miranda grimaced. She had dredged up something that Tango didn’t want to remember. She tried the changeling’s trick, concentrating on the lyrics of “Good King Wenceslas.” She still kept one eye on Tango, but the other woman just watched Arthurs’ house impassively. After Good King Wenceslas had looked out on the Feast of Stephen three or four times, Miranda switched over to “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” For a while, she actually managed to lose herself in the song, forgetting not only Jubilee Arthurs, but also Tango’
s silence. Christmas carols were out of place on a warm summer night, though. Sometime in the middle of the tenth day of Christmas, her mind began to wander.

  The rest of the pack would be out hunting by now, probably over to the university first so that Matt could indulge himself, then somewhere less fussy for Blue and

  Tolly. After they had all fed, they would go to Yonge Street and find the victims for Solomon’s next murder. Part of Miranda, the wild side that the Sabbat’s Creation Rites had awoken, wanted to be with them. Running the streets. Hunting in the city’s neon glow'. Drinking rich, hot blood from the veins of a struggling... “Miranda!” Tango hissed. “You’re growling.” Miranda drew herself relentlessly back to the shadows on Hillock Street. “Sorry.” She felt her mouth. Her fangs had descended while she had been lost in her hungry reverie. Miranda almost cursed. It was one thing not to think about Jubilee Arthurs, and another to sink into her vampire instincts. “Sorry,” she said again, “I haven’t fed tonight.” She felt awkward mentioning feeding around Miranda. It was like discussing sex with an angel. “Maybe we could talk?”

  Tango turned back to Arthurs’ house. “You know there was another penny murder last night?” she asked over her shoulder.

  Miranda’s mouth went dry. This was the last subject she wanted to talk to Tango about! “Really?” she replied as calmly as she could. “Another hooker? Another gay?” “A woman out walking her dog. Older woman — the news tonight said her first grandchild had just been born a couple of days ago.” Tango’s voice was tight with anger. “Apparently the police had to throw out all of the theories they were working on. They’re trying to find a connection between the killings, some kind of pattern.”

  Maximum terror, Miranda thought to herself. That’s all. There is no real pattern. She hadn’t known about the woman’s grandchild. She wished that she didn’t now. “What are the police doing?” she asked quickly. “Do

  they have any suspects?”

  “None that they’re talking about. They’ve formed a task force, but people want more. There was another protest outside police headquarters today. People say the police have descriptions of the suspects but deliberately aren’t releasing the information.”

  Solomon had said that she wasn’t the only Bandog working on the penny murders. She knew that there had been no witnesses to see the pack at work. Any rumored descriptions could only be false, spread by Bandog among the media or the protesters — or the police themselves. “Who are people blaming the murders on?”

  “It depends who you ask.” Tango gestured without taking her eyes off the house. “They had a montage on the news. Street gangs and drug addicts are popular. A few people are still clinging to some sort of sex-based theory. White supremacists and neo-nazis. Somebody came up with the suggestion of a devil-worshipping cult.” That suggestion made Miranda jerk, but Tango, intent on Arthurs’ house, didn’t notice. “Everybody is scared, everybody is angry. They don’t know why this is happening. They don’t understand it.”

  “I don’t,” Miranda agreed.

  Tango glanced back at her suddenly. “Really? I was going to ask you what you thought of it all.”

  Miranda kept her face still. Oh, shit. Had Tango guessed? “Why?”

  “You’re Sabbat. Aren’t you supposed to be the ultimate evil?”

  She hadn’t guessed! Miranda felt like cheering, but she held her voice. “Vampires hunt because we have to if we want to survive,” she said, trying to keep her answer short and incontestable. She wanted this conversation to end as quickly as possible. Preferably without Tango finding out about her role in the murders.

  “But why do you kill? Why does the Sabbat take such delight in destroying humans?”

  Miranda fumbled for a reply. “It’s an expression of our freedom,” she said finally, falling back on the propaganda that the Sabbat fed to every new vampire it recruited. “The Camarilla forces its vampires to be discreet, to hide from humans. But vampires shouldn’t fear humans. We’re better than them. Fear and death are our weapons. We are no longer human; we shouldn’t try to act as humans.”

  The words sounded as hollow to her as they must have sounded to Tango. The changeling was expressionless. Miranda faced her in silence. Finally, she looked down at the ground. “Vampires kill because sometimes we lose control of the beast inside us. The Sabbat recognizes what the Camarilla won’t: that we can gain power from letting the Beast loose. But most Sabbat vampires kill because sometimes it’s just easier to let the Beast go.”

  “What do you think, Miranda?” asked Tango softly.

  What did she think? Three days ago, she had been content to serve Solomon and the Bandog, willing to venture into territory that even the Sabbat viewed with fear and loathing. Something had changed since she’d met Tango. She had begun by trying to hide the changeling from the pack and from Solomon, but now she was hiding her own activities from Tango. She was feeling a discomfort that she hadn’t felt in years. Was she really questioning her own morality, or just trying to give Tango the answers that she wanted to hear? Why? Why to either possibility? “I think,” she said, “that it can be very hard to take control of the Beast and accept it as a part of ourselves.” She looked up. Tango was watching her very' closely.

  “There are changelings I’d like to hear say that,” she said. “What about the penny murders?”

  Suddenly the words were in Miranda’s mouth, ready to be spoken. I killed them, Tango. I was told to kill them, and I went out, and I did it. For power. In service to an evil beyond the Beast, an evil that isn’t part of me. But Shaftiel wasn’t the one who had beaten a new grandmother to death last night, was he?

  It was one thing to talk about accepting actions, and another thing to do it. What would Tango say? What would she do? Miranda liked the changeling. She didn’t want to drive her away. Better to let the Bandog remain a gnawing secret than an open wound. Her stomach as low as a shamed, slinky dog, Miranda said solemnly, “Humans have beasts, too. Who knows what their beasts can drive them to do, or why?”

  * * *

  The sound of a door opening and closing brought Tango’s head up instantly, tearing her away from Miranda’s words. Jubilee’s house. But the front door was still shut. “Back door!” she hissed at Miranda. “Can you hide me while I move?” The vampire nodded. Tango rose and slipped around to where she could see the back of Jubilee’s house. Shadows slipped with her. Miranda followed close behind. A big man had come out of Jubilee’s back door and was having a quiet smoke under the floodlights. He looked alert. When something flapped suddenly out of the trees, his eyes sought and found it. Tango didn’t miss the twitch that his hand made toward the handgun tucked into the back of his waistband. She bit her lips, thinking quickly. She wanted to find out what was going on inside the house. Now was her chance. “How far away can you manipulate shadows, Miranda? Can you make them move on the far side of the yard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Use them to get the big guy’s attention. Follow as soon as I’ve got him down.” Tango called up her knife and tried to guess at the end-range of the motion sensors on the lights at the side of the house. She chose her route. At the last moment, she spit twice on the grassy earth, summoning her strength. “Do it.”

  Shadows shifted suddenly in the darkness beyond the house, as though someone were moving furtively behind the bushes next door. The big man looked up. The shadows shifted again. This time his cigarette dropped to the ground and his gun came out.

  Tango was already over the rusting fence and into Jubilee’s back yard before the weapon had cleared the man’s waistband. By the time he had registered her charge, she was hurling herself at his back, knocking him forward with her weight. He slammed into the ground. Tango grabbed the gun away before it could fire. The point of her knife came to rest just below the base of the big man’s skull, his first gasp for breath sending it pricking into his skin. He was a smart boy — he knew what that pricking meant. One sudden word or movement and he could be paral
yzed, maybe dead. No one moved in the dark windows that faced the back

  yard. No one would rescue him.

  “Who’s inside?” Tango hissed quickly as Miranda came across the fence. “Any traps? Security?” She pushed down lightly on the knife as a reminder to talk quickly and truthfully.

  “James. Big guy like me. Living room. Jubilee. Thin guy. Front bedroom. No security inside.”

  Tango found that hard to believe. It certainly wasn’t like Jubilee. But the man under her was sweating nervously. He was telling the truth. She looked up at Miranda. “Can you make him forget us?”

  “It would take too long.” The vampire crouched in front of the man, motioned for Tango to get off, then quickly rolled him over and locked her eyes on his. “Sleep,” she ordered sharply.

  The man’s eyes slid shut. He went limp. Not a perfect solution, but one that would keep him out of their way. Tango dropped his gun beside him and grabbed at his pockets, looking for keys. She found them, a few keys on a plain ring. Stepping up to the door, she chose the one that looked most likely to fit the lock. “All right,” she murmured to Miranda. “Once we’re inside, be ready for anything. You go to the living room and take out the other big guy. Do it fast. I’ll get Arthurs.” She tested the door carefully. It was already unlocked. With a fast glance at Miranda, she threw it open and surged smoothly inside.

  Half a flight of stairs up to the kitchen — empty except for cold Chinese takeout on a worn dinette set. Miranda went straight on through into an unfurnished room, then paused. The blue glow and tinny sound of an old television came from around a comer.

  Tango left the vampire behind. She was already moving down a short hallway, flat against the wall, low to the ground. A closet on the left. Two doors on the right, dark. The front bedroom would be the door on the left at the end of the hall. It was open. Light was pouring out, but the light from the kitchen was behind her. She cursed silently. Her shadow would fall across the doorway. If jubilee was waiting, he would see it. Tango returned her knife to its ring form, gathering herself a few feet from the doorway, tensing. Her shadow was clear ahead of her, bigger than life.