The vampire barely heard her. It sounded as if Tango were calling to her along the length of a subway tunnel. Her voice was echoing and distant. The whole world seemed distant. Disjointed.
There was a pressure on her mind, as if something were trying to worm its way inside.
Just moving her eyes seemed like an effort, but she forced her gaze up to the top of the stairs behind Tango. A figure stood there, looking down at them. A tall figure, wearing black pants, but no shirt. A dog-face mask was in one hand, a small knife in the other. David.
Tango followed her gaze around. Miranda saw her eyes go wide. “No!” she breathed.
* # *
Another
mage? For a fraction of a second, Tango froze; then she was throwing herself up the stairs at the blond doorman from Solomon’s. There would be time to think later. She could feel the touch of human magick on her mind, presumably the same magick that had captured Miranda. She fought it back and lunged at the blond man. Startled at her resistance, he parried her knife with the mask in his hand. His knife flicked out, just nicking her arm near the wrist. The wound was barely enough to draw
1
blood. A single bright bead welled up against her skin.
Apparently, though, that was enough. Magick poured into her body through that tiny wound, coursing through her veins like a cold wind. She drew her arm back for another thrust. If she could break the mage’s concentration.... Her arm didn’t come back down. His magick had paralyzed her.
The blond man looked at her with a frown. Tucking the knife into his belt, he picked her up with one arm and carried her back down the stairs to stand beside Miranda. “Solomon,” he said into the air. “I think you should come see this. I have Miranda and Tango.”
The chanting from above faltered for a moment, then caught itself and carried on. A few moments later, Solomon appeared at the top of the stairs. He was dressed just as he had been for the Bandog ceremony in his house — black vest over bare chest. A triumphant grin lit his face. “Yes!” He came down the stairs and went over to caress Miranda’s unmoving face. “You poor, sweet fool,” he murmured. “Thought you could get away?”
“Stop that.” The blond man slapped Solomon’s hand away. “I warned you that this obsession of yours was going to lead to trouble.”
“It was your idea to bring the Vampires and that changeling into the Bandog, David.”
“But not as sex toys.”
Solomon glared angrily at the other mage. David looked back at him calmly, with no more expression than Tango had seen him display in opening Solomon’s front door. She was more shocked by the implications of David’s words. She knew that Miranda had been Solomon’s lover, but Riley as well? Finally, Solomon looked away from David. “All right, I think we can talk about this later. We might still be able to salvage things tonight. Where are Matt and Blue? And Tolly?”
David drew his knife and pointed it at Miranda. The vampire’s eyes went wide for a moment. Tango couldn’t move even that much. She wasn’t even breathing — somehow David’s magick must be sustaining her. She supposed that she was lucky he had set her down facing Miranda. At least she could see what was happening. “Down in the subway,” David said somewhat distantly. “They managed to put a stake through Matt and hide his body. Blue may be dead. Electrocuted.” He scowled, then blinked and lowered the knife. “Damn. You’re not going to like this: Tolly was Riley’s partner.”
“What?” snarled Solomon. “Where is he now?” “With the changeling procession, apparently. Do you want to have Matt brought up for the rite?”
“No. The High Circle is going to have holes as it is. I’ll just tell the Bandog something about the High Circle being out making sure that everything goes smoothly. Warding off attacks.” Solomon nodded to himself. “I like that.”
“Don’t change the rite too much. We want the Bandog to be in awe, not annoyed because the script keeps changing.” David gestured at Miranda, as if the vampire were nothing more than an object. “At least we’ve got her back. The Bandog were looking forward to seeing a traitor sacrificed. And it will do them good to see what happens to the people who cross you.” Solomon stepped over to stand in front of Tango. “What about her? Does she know anything?”
David shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t control her mind any more than I could Riley’s. It’s as if changelings are half-mad to begin with. It takes a mage with more skill in Mind magick than I have to control one. I had to use Life magick to stop her, or she would have killed me.”
Tango wished that she had been willing to kill the blond mage. She wanted to scream in frustration, but she couldn’t even focus her eyes to glare at Solomon. What was going on? Solomon knew about the Ride, but didn’t seem concerned. He’d casually changed the summoning rite. At least now she understood Miranda’s confusion when Riley said Solomon had tried to search his mind with magick. It must have been David who had done that.
Solomon smiled suddenly. “I think Tango wants to say something. Can you release her face?”
“Why? So you can gloat?” David looked at the other mage disparagingly. “What would we do with her afterward ?”
“Actually,” Solomon said, his smiled growing broader, “I thought we could use her in the sacrifice. We get rid of that girl we have upstairs now, and replace her with both Miranda and Tango as prisoners. We begin the sacrifice using Miranda, then boom!” He slapped his hands together. “Shaftiel’s voice comes out of her mouth before we can kill her. ‘She is my chosen vessel, so that none of my faithful servants will die,’ something like that. Then he demands Tango as a sacrifice. Miranda kills Tango, Shaftiel delivers his message....”
“And Miranda dies.” David considered the idea as though he were considering wallpaper patterns. He nodded sharply. “All right.” He caught Tango’s chin and tilted her face up to look at him. “But let’s make one thing very clear, Tango. If you scream or try to disrupt anything, you are going to die in pain like you’ve never felt before.”
Abruptly, Tango could move her face again. “If I’m going to die anyway,” she spat, “what difference does it make?”
For a very brief moment, her blood felt as if it had turned into venom. The sensation left her gasping in shock. “Does that answer your question?” asked David. Solomon snickered. Tango shot him a hard glance. “What the hell are you doing, you bastard?” Solomon slapped her sharply. Compared to the pain David had inflicted, it was nothing. “I take exception to that.” Then he smiled demonically. “Hell has nothing to do with what I’m doing.”
Tango stared at him. “What about Shaftiel’s voice? What about chaos in the streets? What about the pacts that the Bandog made?”
“Tango, I think you’re missing the point here.” Solomon drew a finger along the line of her jaw. “You can thank your friend Riley for Shaftiel’s voice and the chaos in the streets. We need to restore the Bandog’s faith in me. He and Tolly shook it badly when they started killing Bandog.” He paused at her sharp breath of surprise. “You didn’t know about that?”
“No. You lie.” Jubilee had told her that Riley had killed a man, and she had had difficulty believing that. But how many Bandog had Miranda said died mysteriously? Three? Riley couldn’t have killed
three
people.
David shook his head. “It’s true. Solomon was able to track some skin fragments on a bracelet stolen from one of the victims. His magick led us to Riley.”
“No,” Tango said again. “I can’t believe it.”
If it was true, no wonder Riley had avoided telling her why Solomon had had him kidnapped. She felt ill with dismay.
“Believe what you like," said Solomon. “As for the pacts — they’re as worthless as the blood they’re signed in.” He glanced at Miranda and grinned. “Sorry, Miri. I had a wonderful time, though.”
“What?” Tango gasped.
Solomon shrugged casually. “There is no Shaftiel.” Tango just stared in stunned silence. “There is no Great Hound, there is no voice to be summoned. We made it all up.”
“But... but why?” stammered Tango. “Did Riley know about this?”
“I don’t think so.,” said David dryly. “As for the why....” He shrugged as well. “Why do Nephandi pledge their souls to any infernal entity? Why did the Bandog join us?”
“For power,” Solomon supplied. “Except we weren’t quite willing to take the step of selling our souls. So we created our own cult. You’d be surprised what people are willing to do and give when they want something so very desperately: money, service, loyalty. Until yesterday, the house, but we knew that would be the first place you came looking for us, so we vacated.” “Sex,” added David wearily,
Solomon wrinkled his nose. “You could have had it if you’d wanted it.” He turned back to Tango. “Let’s face it, Tango, we’re more than human. All of us here are
— you included. Humans are there for us to use.”
“You used Miranda and Riley,” Tango pointed out with quiet rage. “They’re not human.”
“They chose to join us. They offered themselves willingly. Who were we to turn them away?”
Tango clenched her jaw. “So you used them, just like you used the human Bandog — for your own power. You had Miranda tortured and Riley kidnapped. You had fifteen innocent people killed. You started riots. All for your own power?”
“Remember that Miranda and Riley aren’t so innocent, Tango. I doubt if you are, either.”
“Miranda and I,” hissed Tango fiercely, “regret what we’ve done. Do you have any regrets?”
“No,” Solomon said flatly.
“Then you’re not more than human,” Tango spat. Anger seethed in her; anger and disgust and loathing. “You’re inhuman. You’re two of the most inhuman creatures I’ve ever met. Other Nephandi are evil because they serve evil beings. You’re evil for your own sake.”
“Enough.” David cut her off. The blond mage glanced at Solomon. “It’s almost midnight. Are you finished?”
“I think so.” Solomon’s face was dark. “Let’s get this over with. I’ll take care of the girl upstairs. Give me a few minutes, then bring them up.” He left. David sat down on the bottom step, waiting. Tango glared at him. “You...” she began, but he interrupted her.
“Tango, I can turn any word that passes between your lips into a scream of pain. I would suggest that you not say anything.”
She didn’t believe him. Then, as her blood burned a moment later, she did. She kept her mouth closed. After a few minutes, one of the High Circle appeared at the top of the stairs and gestured for David. The blond mage replaced his dog-head mask and approached her with his knife drawn. He pulled her own knife out of her grasp. She couldn’t tell if he was surprised or not under the mask when the knife turned back into a ring, but he slipped the ring onto his smallest finger mockingly. Then he cut her, drawing blood at her shoulders, hips and knees. The knife w'ent back into his belt. David turned to go up the stairs. Miranda followed him on one side, Tango, her limbs moving like a puppet’s at the mage’s silent command, on the other.
For the first time, she realized how helpless she was. That single terror overwhelmed all of the hatred that she felt for Solomon and David. She was going to die. Miranda was going to be forced to kill her. And then Miranda was going to die as well. Tango wondered if the vampire had been able to hear what the mages had told her. She glanced as far to the side as her limited control over her own muscles would allow. She couldn’t see Mirarida’s eyes.
They walked up from the stairs into the middle of the Bandog summoning rite.
Solomon had appropriated the great hall of Union Station for his false ritual. The room was huge and echoing, the walls faced in cold, dark gray stone. Immense pillars with ornate capitals supported heavy arches over passages leading deeper into the station. The ceiling vaulted high overhead, lost in the dense shadows. Broad, arched windows of thick, frosted glass dominated either end of the room. During the day they would have brought light into the hall. At night, they were vast, black sheets. Big, old-fashioned lamps hung from massive chains in the four corners of the hall, shedding a sullen light that did little to dispel the darkness.
The Bandog stood just to one side of the huge hall; the center was occupied by a large clock, the long hands of which stood ominously close to midnight. The
Bandog were arranged in circles, just as they would have been in the ceremony room of Solomon’s house, except that all stood on the same level. The outer circle’s black masks faced the thin-spread backs of the High Circle. The High Circle’s gold-decorated masks faced Solomon. Solomon raised his arms. The Bandog’s chanting round died out with a final murmured chorus of “I will obey his servant in this world. I am Bandog.”
Solomon kissed the bracelet tattooed on his w'rist. A whisper of movement filled the great hall as the Bandog followed suit. Solomon led them in the litany of the full obedience. Tango could hear David muttering the words as well.. She looked at the backs of the Bandog. If they knew what kinds of lies Solomon had told them, if they knew the total falsehood they were so willingly accepting as the truth, she might still be able to stop all of this! She opened her mouth.
David glanced at her.
She closed her mouth sharply. I
can turn any word that passes between your lips into a scream of pain.
But the mage couldn’t touch her Kithain mind. Maybe.... Her eyes flickered across the thin-spread ranks of the High Circle, searching for one familiar old man. When she found him, she focused all of her attention on him. Miranda had said Jubilee Arthurs was a full telepath now, but surely he would still remember some of his old, simple tricks. She filled her mind with his name, concentrating on him alone.
Jubilee’s head came up and he glanced slightly in her direction.
Shiv?
he asked inside her head.
That name gave her a start, but she didn’t try to talk to him. She simply splashed all of what had just happened, all of her conversation with Solomon and
David, across her mind. She saw him start. No.
I don’t believe it.
True,
she replied, focusing her thoughts carefully.
Help?
We’re outnumbered here, Shiv. Even if there were something I could do, how many of.the Bandog would believe that it’s all a hoax? How many would be willing to admit they were being taken advantage of? I know you’re telling the truth. No more than a handful of the others would.
He paused.
I’m sorry.