Pomegranates full and fine

by Unknown Author

  down to the floor. “Kneel and be silent!”

  Tango watched the glittering point of the duke’s sword and felt the Glamour around her. All of the Glamour of the court... all those years of denying herself an epiphany. Duke Michael was everything she hated about sidhe. Her fingers itched. Her palms felt tight. A single clench of her hand and her ring would become a knife. Three steps. One to carry her close to the duke, too close for him to use his sword. A second to catch and pin his sword arm in case he tried to anyway. A third to thrust her knife through his heart. She could hear her breathing. She had been so close to losing control of herself in the last week. It would be so easy to slip back into Shiv’s ways, to teach the arrogant sidhe what was really important. So what if the five other Kithain discovered that the infamous assassin of the Accordance War was in their midst? Dex and Sin would have to die, but Riley, Marshall and the troll... they might be allowed to live. She was tired of resisting.

  The Glamour poured into her like water through a crumbling dam. She didn’t have to spit to summon her strength this time. Her hand started to clench.

  Someone caught it and held it open, forcing her fingers apart, preventing her from making the gesture that would summon her knife. Miranda, vampire strength straining against nocker strength. Tango turned to glare at her. Miranda caught her gaze. Her voice silenced by the duke’s magic, the vamp ire couldn’t command her, but her will could still wash into Tango’s mind. Tango felt numb suddenly. A hazy grayness overwhelmed her. Miranda forced her to her knees, then fell herself. Tolly scrambled down as well, so that they were all kneeling before the duke.

  The sidhe lord smiled grimly. “Even the vampires have some manners, then. Tango, do you admit that you had dealings with a mage?”

  The numbness of Miranda’s will bolstering her own helped. Tango sucked in a deep lungful of air, then another. The rage that burned in her began to ebb — a bit. “Yes,” she snarled. “I had dealings with a mage. But if your rules prevent a Kithain from trying to stop a Nephandus, then the rules need to be changed.”

  “But they are still my rules,” Duke Michael reminded her. “And there is nothing you can do to change that.” “No.” Riley looked up suddenly, then stood. “There is. Your Grace, I challenge you to a duel. A fior, trial by combat. If you win, we submit to your justice.” Duke Michael turned to the pooka. Tango caught her breath. Fior was an ancient faerie tradition, the ordeal of truth. Trial by combat was just one form of fior, and one that was seldom invoked. The results of the duel would be binding — she just hoped Riley knew what he was doing. “If you win?” the duke asked him.

  “You will do everything in your power to help us stop Solomon. Tango and I go free.” He pointed at Miranda and Tolly. “In addition, sanctuary is to be granted to these vampires until the fior is decided, and after, if I win. And you will give the one back her voice.”

  Duke Michael narrowed his eyes. “The vampires are intruders here. I don’t owe them anything.”

  Riley returned his gaze. “No, you’re right. You don’t. But it would be pretty damn cheap to deny them.”

  The duke was silent for a moment. He glanced at the other sidhe, at the troll, and at Marshall. They all regarded him blankly. It was the lord’s decision to make. Finally, Duke Michael snorted. “Very well. Your demand for fior is accepted. The stakes will be as we have said. The vampires are granted sanctuary, and the female, the return of her voice.”

  “The weapons?” asked Riley.

  Wordlessly, the duke sheathed his sword and reached for two pool cues hanging on the wall. “Choose,” he said, presenting them to Riley. “Eight-ball. A pure game. No Glamour permitted.” He nodded for the troll to rack up a set of balls on one of the tables. His smile was predatory. Tango’s heart sank. She had seen the duke play.

  “Fine.” Riley examined one of the cues, then the other. He chose the first. “Would you like to use the high table?”

  The duke’s eyebrows rose. “All right.” The troll moved the pool balls up to the table at the front of the room, the one at which Tango had first seen the duke playing. “How many games do you want to play, Riley? Two of three? Three of five? Five of seven?”

  “Seven of twelve.” Riley chalked up the tip of his cue, then blew the excess chalk off in a little puff of blue dust. His lips twitched, then burst into a wide, confident grin. “And you might want to close the court to spectators beyond the ones who are already here. Do you really want everyone to see you lose?”

  Duke Michael frowned. Tango bit her tongue, partly to keep herself from laughing. Riley must have known that the duke would chose pool as the fior combat, and that meant he felt he had a good chance at winning. But the other reason she bit her tongue was because she recognized the grin on Riley’s face and his tactic of offering such self-assured advice.

  He wasn’t absolutely positive that he could win.

  The duke gestured for Marshall to go up to Ruby. “Tell her not to let anyone in.” Then he waved his cue toward the pool table. “Break,” he told Riley.

  If Miranda closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that the two changelings were dueling with swords rather than pool cues. The swift clash of ball against ball was the strike of one blade against another. The drawing back and darting forward of the cues made the sound of steel slashing the air. Thrust. Parry. Feint. Lunge. Clash. Ring. Clatter. Then the soft dropping of balls into pockets — or blood to the floor from wounds.

  Riley and the changeling duke paced around the table, circling each other. Each chose his shots with care, striking strategically, seldom missing his targets. When one did miss, he hissed in pain. The two men were sweating as if they fought a strenuous duel as well. The duke had stripped off a black silk shirt, and played in a tank top. Tango held Riley’s outer shirt. The pooka wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Clap your hands if you believe in faeries.” Every few shots he would turn his baseball cap around, wearing it forward, then backward, then forward again. He glared at the duke hotly, flashing him that mad, confident smile whenever the duke glared back. For his part, Duke Michael looked as fierce as a howling blizzard. He didn’t smile at all.

  At first, both duelists had played with supreme confidence: Riley flamboyantly, Duke Michael with the precision of a surgeon. Riley had won the first game. Duke Michael the next. Riley the next after that, then the duke again. Then Riley had won two in a row. Duke Michael had rallied to win the next two. Riley’s smile had turned tight. Suddenly, all of the showiness was gone and they were playing hard, serious pool, back and forth against the green baize.

  The spectators sat atop other tables, or leaned against the wall. The big man Tango said was a troll crouched in one corner like a huge, ugly statue. The handsome twins, Dex and Sin, stood against opposite walls, eyes alert, obviously watching Riley to be sure he didn’t cheat. Whiplike Marshall kept watch at the door, presumably to ensure that the duke’s prisoners didn’t try to escape. Tolly sprawled across a pool table, fidgeting nervously, his body deforming and distorting so rapidly it was uncomfortable to watch him. He had been playing with billiard balls, stretching his fingers wide and wedging balls between each of them — until one of the balls had dropped like thunder to the floor. Riley had missed a shot. The changeling had whirled around and given Tolly such a harsh snarl that the mad vampire had put all of the balls down instantly and silently, and had not touched them again. Riley managed to win the game.

  Miranda herself sat next to Tango. The two women were quiet. Miranda couldn’t think of anything to say

  and Tango____ Miranda glanced sideways at the

  changeling. Tango had been avoiding even looking at her since the long duel had begun. Miranda looked down at her feet, cursing silently. She thought she had made a breakthrough when Tango had let herself be hypnotized, but there was still a distance between them.

  An uncomfortable distance. Maybe Tango was ashamed of what she had almost done tonight. Miranda had seen her hands clenching in anger and understood inst
antly what it meant. She hoped that her intervention had helped, and not just angered Tango further. Right now the changeling was grim-faced as she watched the duel. At least Miranda hoped she was grim-faced because of the duel. It was impossible to guess what she thought about anything else.

  Riley lost another game. And another. The pooka just kept grinning at Duke Michael, but Miranda grimaced. And then yawned.

  She sat upright with a start. Tango’s head snapped around to look at her. “What?”

  “The sun’s coming up,” Miranda murmured. She could feel the dull weariness of daytime creeping over her. She looked around for Tolly. He was already asleep, lying curled up underneath one of the pool tables.

  “There are no windows here,” Tango pointed out. “You’ll be fine.”

  Miranda shook her head. “That’s not what I’m worried about.” She had slept days in places that were at much greater risk of exposure to deadly sunlight than the deep Kithain court. “What happens if Riley loses?” “He and I will be punished. At worst exiled — which isn’t such a bad thing.”

  “No. To me and Tolly.” Miranda shuddered. “Our sanctuary here only lasts until the end of the game.” Tango was silent for a moment. “If he loses,” she said finally.

  Riley’s smile wavered for a moment as one of his shots slapped the bumpers on either side of a pocket; the ball rolled back out into the center of the table.

  Miranda closed her eyes, listening as the duke played the table. His last shot missed. Riley won the game — narrowly. Six games to six.

  She heard Tango shifting, settling down onto the floor. The changeling reached up and touched Miranda’s knee. “Miranda.” The vampire opened her eyes. Tango was sitting on the floor. She was holding out someone’s jacket, left behind in the changeling pool hall and now folded up into a pillow. She pushed it at Miranda. “Lie down.”

  Miranda was too sleepy to protest. She took the folded jacket and stretched out on the pool table. The makeshift pillow smelled of tobacco smoke and, strangely, marigolds. Through half-closed eyes, she saw Duke Michael line up his shot. He missed. The sidhe’s hair was wild, his tank top untucked and damp with sweat. Even his false eye seemed dull with exhaustion, but he grinned. The only shot left open to Riley now was difficult. Very difficult. Miranda forced her eyes to stay open, to watch the shot her life depended on. If Riley lost, she and Tolly would be thrown out of the court and into the sun. Riley’s smile was strained as he bent down. In spite of her best efforts, Miranda’s eyes drifted away from the pooka and the sidhe, settling down on Tango. The nocker was watching the game intently, but she glanced up to meet Miranda’s gaze and give her an apprehensive grin. Miranda reached one hand over the edge of the table. Tango took it and squeezed it nervously as she looked back to the game.

  Riley’s cue snapped forward.

  Miranda’s eyes slid shut, the irresistible force of the rising sun tugging her eyelids down. She heard two soft impacts — like a mortally wounded man falling to his

  knees. Then...

  The wounded man collapsed and died with the sound of a single billiard ball falling into a pocket. Tango shouted something and pulled away from her. Miranda couldn’t understand what she was saying, but she sounded excited. The duke was choking out something as well, something formal and not very happy. Something about yielding.

  Miranda slipped into safe, dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Laura, make much of me;

  For your sake I braved the glen

  And had to do with goblin merchant men.”

  The sky lay over Toronto like a dirty quilt, stifling all movement. In some places, a hot sky is clear and sharp, the cruel blue of a flame. In Toronto, a hot sky is soiled, smudged dark with pollution on the horizons, hazy with pale humidity at its heavenly apex. A hot sky is almost white. The sun is a gateway into an unforgiving furnace. Trees wilt, cool green fading in the heat reflected from the buildings, the sidewalks and the streets. Even the shadows burn, their edges fraying and drifting apart in the heat.

  The wind was dead. Breathing was a labor. The air hit Tango’s lungs with all of the weight of a lead pipe. July 17th, she had heard on the radio when she first emerged from the Kithain court into the white light of noon, was shaping up to be the hottest day of the year so far. It had already surpassed a fifty-two-year record for the day, and forecasters were expecting the temperature to rise even higher as the afternoon progressed. By three o’clock, it had set a new all-time record.

  Toronto mourned the victims of last night’s penny murders. Parents returning from a night out had found their three children beaten to death in their own home. •The story screamed from every newspaper box and blared from every television and radio news report. It seethed in the mind of every person in the city. Protesters had begun gathering early: at police headquarters, at the division offices that housed the taskforce investigating the murders, at Queen’s Park, at Toronto city hall. The number of protesters, like the temperature, rose as the day progressed. People moved from demonstration to demonstration, shouting their outrage, seeking a target for their anger — and their fear.

  The police hadn’t done enough. The police hadn’t acted quickly enough. The police were holding back evidence that could stop the murderers. The politicians had cut back the police budget too far for them to be effective. The politicians coddled criminals. Soft laws encouraged an increasfe in violent crime.

  The eyes of the media only seemed to make things worse. Local stations carried regular newsflashes and special reports monitoring the situation. The coverage brought more people flooding into the downtown core, some to join the protests, many just to watch. Crowds of spectators gathered around the edges of the demonstrations just as crowds will gather to watch a building go up in flames. A lot of people tried to drive into the core; at four o’clock, two major routes were as clogged as they would have been on a weekday at rush hour. Downtown parking lots were full. Cars were just cruising the streets, horns honking as if this were a party. When people started passing out from the heat, there was no way to get them to a hospital. The streets

  were jammed.

  A middle-aged couple had driven through Yorkville several times in a car equipped with loudspeakers that blared a fundamentalist message of repentance and renunciation of sin, “for the millennium is near!”

  The police were out in full force. Foot officers walked the streets. Mounted officers watched over every demonstration. Cruisers stood on every corner. There were barricades around police headquarters. None of the news reports had shown live pictures of police in riot gear yet, but stock video of police donning helmets, protective vests and shields flashed across television screens frequently. Monday’s riot on College Street and the Thursday morning protest outside of the taskforce offices received heavy airplay as well.

  Just after five o’clock, Tango, Dex, Sin and Slocombe walked heavily down the stairs and into Duke Michael’s court. Riley looked up at them. The air in the pool hall was as hot and sticky as the air outside, in spite of the court’s underground location. The only sign here of the chaos building aboveground was a large-screen TV that was tuned to one television station’s constant news reports. Kithain watched it in between rounds of pool, just as humans might watch a baseball game while they played pool in a bar. Riley’s return to the court and the presence of two sleeping vampires were attracting much more attention. Most Kithain, however, were simply too caught up in anticipation of the coming Highsummer Night party to worry about anything else, big or small.

  Riley had decided that it would be better if they kept the news of Solomon’s plot very quiet. It made things simpler. There was less to explain to the other Kithain

  — and less exposure of the duke’s defeat in the duel. The duke was angry, of course, but the terms of the fior bound him to keep his bargain with Riley. That the pooka was trying to spare him any further embarrassment, he acknowledged only grudgingly.

  Riley didn’t ask Tango and t
he others anything. Tango knew that their return — particularly their uninjured return — was answer enough for him. Still, she frowned sourly at her friend. “Solomon’s gone,” she said simply. “The house was empty.” She slapped her hand against the side of a pool table in frustration. “Damn.”

  “You didn’t expect him to make it easy, did you, Tango?”

  “No.” Tango sighed. “I suppose not.” Solomon’s house had been the first target of their efforts. If they were going to try to prevent the Bandog summoning rite, and the final sacrifices that would accompany it, they had a limited number of options. The first had, of course, been to surprise Solomon well before the rite began. A few Kithain had oracular abilities. Riley had enlisted the aid of one of them, but after repeated attempts, the Kithain had been unable to locate any sign of Solomon in the city. He had either left or was being hidden from magical detection just as DeWinter had hidden them last night. Tango had taken Dex, Sin, and Slocombe to the Nephandus’ home just to be sure that he wasn’t there. He hadn’t been. In fact, the house was absolutely vacant, as if Solomon had been able to eradicate all trace of himself over the last thirty-six hours. The huge, gutted emptiness of the Bandog worship hall on the second floor had been filled in, broken back down into separate rooms, probably through the power of Solomon’s magick. Even the eerie gray tree in the basement was gone. Dex had almost started to snicker in disbelief at her story, except that Sin caught his brother’s arm and pointed up into a shadowy comer of the basement. Hanging from a socket in the darkness was a shattered light. There was a second in another dark corner. The bulbs Miranda had shattered the night of her rescue. Dex’s mouth had become a quiet line.