Kiss of Angels Page 13

  It was not honor that had driven him to that final choice, the offering of the second sip, the blood of life. It was a hope of revenge. The dead could not be preyed upon, and he had made a promise, kneeling beside her in the gouting flames: if they crossed paths again, her life would be forfeit.

  She may not have known it then, but he had: the world was too small for them not to meet again, and the Old Races far too few. She had changed everything for them, had made them reconsider their laws, sacrosanct from time immemorial. Only one had remained untouched, but it was the one he had cast off long ago: do not kill one of our own. He was the master of his kind, and would not be held to such demands, not when his people verged on destroying themselves through their lack of discipline. That was what Margrit Knight had seen, that Ursula Hopkins could not: that his choice had been the necessary one, and that, among other things, was why she had been granted the title Negotiator. In a lifetime of uncounted years, she was one of perhaps five humans to be granted a title by the Old Races, and the only one to have earned it so quickly. Weft and warp, tangle and trouble. In all those years, very few women had undone Janx and Daisani so thoroughly, so swiftly. Fewer still had lived to tell about it.

  Do not tell humans of our existence. Do not breed with them. Those were the laws that had changed profoundly, and in changing them, the loss represented by Ursula's retreat was far greater than anything Margrit Knight might have anticipated. Bad enough, if inevitable, to have lost Sarah; to have lost Ursula's mother. Time would have taken her away regardless, even with the two sips of his blood in her veins. Perhaps Janx would have taken her before time did; Janx's fire was difficult to resist, even for Eliseo, who had spent millennia warming himself with it. Losing her to Janx would have been infuriating but acceptable, because in time he would have found a way to repay that particular gift.

  But losing the daughter, the half-human child he never imagined to have: that was an offense beyond repair. That was a place inside him given over to outrage, a place so cold that he buried it as he had buried Eliseo Daisani, as a name, a thing, too fragile to consider resurrecting. His face, changed by the slipping, shifting skill of a master vampire, could never betray him, and so he could never permit himself to look at the wound, the insult, the damage hidden within, for fear it would betray what his face could not. For years already it had been tucked away, less fuel to his fire than the pursuit of money, which had always been his mortal persona. That, if he thought about it, was Janx's influence too, a dragon's treasure the only thing precious enough to garner a dragon's rivalry and friendship, and a dragon was the only friend a vampire might have. So the acquisition of treasure had become part of Eliseo's life as well, though what he regarded as worth coveting was never quite the same as what Janx desired.

  Well, except for the women. So very often, the women. That, though, was not a matter of rivalry, or at least not most often. It was that a woman who could draw one of them was the sort who could draw any of them, and he and Janx were in perpetual orbit around one another, exposed to what the other discovered. Even Vanessa, who had never looked a second time at Janx, and in whom Janx had never been truly interested: even she, Janx would have stolen if he could, in the name of habitual competition.

  It was not a comfortable thing, admitting to himself that he missed Janx's companionship. Less comfortable still was the fear that it had been lost forever; that he had gone too far in the capturing of his brethren. That Janx, for all his disdain of the ancient laws, might never admit to the wisdom of it, and hold Daisani in censure for all time.

  Too much. Too much had been lost, and it stung, which it was not meant to do. He was too old, too cold, to care, and yet. And yet.

  #

  And yet there are things now in this world that were not meant to be, and he has all unintended sat down beside one of them, and that changes the game. Again, still, for always. She remains very still, absorbing the impact of his words against skin that might well be stone, and into that stillness he asks, because he has need of the knowledge: "What is your family name?"

  "Jefferson."

  For the third time in a matter of minutes, Eliseo Daisani is surprised, and this time he shows it with a blink. "Hajnal Jefferson?"

  "Hajnal Maria Jefferson. My grandfather was a Buffalo soldier, and my mother never married. His is the name I was born with."

  A gargoyle's forename and a black soldier's presidential surname. Daisani's mouth twitches as he murmurs, "A thing that should not exist, indeed. Hajnal." The name is easier to say, now that that he can hang its full, unexpected weight in his mind. "There are very few like you, Hajnal. Very few children of the Old Races and humans, and until a very little while ago, you would have been killed if you were discovered."

  He is not entirely certain of that: he would not have killed her, because a curiosity is of more interest than a death. The selkies, who saved their race by breeding with mortals, certainly would not have killed her, nor would Janx or Alban, and Biali would certainly have made an exception for his daughter. It is possible, perhaps likely, that there are far more half-breeds than Eliseo is aware of, and suddenly, for the first time in years, he has purpose again.

  Hajnal is neither afraid nor surprised at what he says, and for the space of a breath Eliseo wonders at that. Only the space of a breath: then it is obvious, that she has lived the entirety of her life aware that discovery would mean death. Humans are good at many things and excel at a few, among which destroying that which is different is chief. Hajnal, as if she was waiting for him to realize it, only speaks after he's come to the conclusion: "And now? What has changed now? Why would I not be killed?"

  "Because our people have, as a whole, opted for survival instead of slow dignified death. Children like you are our hope."

  "I am no longer a child."

  She is, of course: anyone who says otherwise always is, though by human standards she has certainly long left childhood. From his perspective—but then, from his perspective, entire cultures and faiths are infantile, so perhaps his perspective hardly matters. So he nods, because there is no use in giving offense. Not when he wants something from the girl, even if it's something still forming in his mind. "Not by years or experience, no, but in the sense of inheritance and perpetuation. There are relatively few young among us—"

  For the first time, real humor flashes across her face. It cracks the stone facade that is her father's legacy and brings her mother's beauty into play. She was disturbing, then intriguing; suddenly she is appealing as well, though the brilliant smile disappears as quickly as it came. It leaves her voice so solemn that it laughs, though, and the hidden laughter is as warm as Janx's fire. "Hence the name Old Races?"

  The first and truest answer is, "No," though a moment's reflection begets a dry, "and yes," as well. "We call ourselves the Old Races because we came before humanity. Before this world had decided on its form, on the four limbs its creatures would have, before it had become what it is now. But also yes, now, and perhaps it has always been, that we are Old because we have so few young."

  "How can we be older than the world?"

  There is a response there, one that burns deeper in him than any he will ever voice. The vampires say they are not from this world at all. But that is not an answer he will give this girl or anyone else, and so he says something else, something that is perhaps equally true: "There is a serpent at the heart of the world, a thing of fire and power and fury, and it is mate to the earth itself. Perhaps the Old Races came from that mating in its earliest incarnation, before there was a dream of humanity."

  Having smiled once, Hajnal is more willing to show expression. Her eyebrows furl, not even making a line between them. "Is that true?"

  "It's certainly true that there's a serpent at the heart of the world," Daisani says almost blithely. "I've known at least two people who have met it."

  She is suspicious, an emotion that sits well on her flawless features, but she is not willing to ask again, for fear she is being made
a fool. A child indeed, even if her years are many. "We need you," Daisani says to that fear, as much as anything else. "We need children of both worlds, Hajnal, and you…can walk in sunlight. Your father can't. You are proof that our children can be greater than the sum of their parts, and neither part is lacking."

  "What do you need me for?"

  "Revolution." The word escapes him before he's thought it through, which is as well, because the other answer is revenge. "Not war and blood, though that will come too. But to move forward, to become part of this world, to belong to it the way humanity does, there must be revolution. We must put ourselves forward quietly and boldly all at once, and our children are best suited to do that. There is a woman." Daisani sucks his teeth, then spits the words, giving credit where it is due: "A lawyer, in New York. The Negotiator. Margrit Knight. She has begun all this, began the changes that make children like you…permissible. She will lead this revolution, or her children will. I can teach you what it is to belong to the Old Races, Hajnal Jefferson. She can show you how to belong to the world."

  A glimmer of hope unclenches from within Hajnal, and Eliseo recognizes what it is she desires. She's cautious, though, saying, "Why would you teach me what it is to belong? I'm nothing to you. Is my father your friend?"

  "Your mother sipped from my veins, and blood is all. You are something to me for that alone: within you beats my own pulse. But it is also—" Daisani draws a sharp breath, allowing himself a revelation: "It is also that I have seen children who were raised apart from us, and they have their own rules, their own laws. That's their right, their prerogative. But I think it's a lonely way to live—" and he has hit on something there, something that runs as deep in the half-human gargoyle girl as it does in the full-blooded vampire, alone these several years, "—and within the Old Races you might at least be allowed to relax the human facade a while. It may be decades before you can do that among humans."

  "Centuries," she says with a pragmatism he was trying to avoid for fear of driving her away. "But you've just said the Old Races have only just begun to acknowledge half-bloods. Would they really accept me?"

  "Enough will. Biali will," he says gently, and in that moment she is his. This is what she wants: to belong, to have a father, to understand whence she comes. It is a very human need, but she has known nothing of the Old Races, and thus is vulnerable to a promise of them.

  He knows the rituals of human affection, and slips his arm around her shoulders, drawing her close to kiss her hair. From here he can scent the dye in it, coloring it to the social normative of black. From here, too, he can feel the incremental relaxation of the stone that holds her, of the face she wears so mortals cannot hurt her.

  They can hurt her, of course. They can hurt her far more badly than they will ever hurt him, but that is what revolution does: demands pain. It demands sacrifices, it demands martyrs, and it demands blood before it begets change, and no one, not even the Negotiator, can manage a revolution without blood. So be it: Margrit Knight is not wrong. The Old Races must become part of the world or die, and Eliseo Daisani chooses not to die. More, he will do all he can to be certain of who does die in Margrit Knight's war, and of all those he intends to protect, the girl who ran from him in shocked betrayal is first among them.

  Ursula Hopkins is her father's daughter: she is rash, easily angered, prone to acting without thinking. It is her nature to be on the front lines, her nature to put herself in danger without ever believing it will touch her. Daisani is much older than that, and knows better. Knows, too, that there is no easy way to dissuade an angry child; that it is easier to redirect one than change its mind. And so redirect he will: Biali's daughter is perhaps more temperate, but little is as unchangeable as a gargoyle determined to follow a certain path. He will get Hajnal Jefferson killed in the name of belonging, and is easy with that. For that cost, his own daughter might survive, and that is well worth the price.

  "It will be all right," he murmurs, and knows he tells a lie.

  AFTERMATH

  I have lived in deserts all my life, never entering the human world. I have watched as it has encroached upon us: watched the yellow dust kicked up by their vehicles racing across sand, watched the engines of their jets draw white lines across the hard blue desert sky. I have been curious, even eager to explore their world, but it is not the way of my people, and particularly not the way of our females. I have waited for this to change, and as I have waited, some things have changed. Amar, the male I refused to marry, has become a power in the human world. Not a power for good, but one who feeds and encourages mortal vices, hoping to help their seven billion souls destroy themselves. Many of the djinn are sympathetic to his cause, but I think him a fool. There are too many of them, and there have always been too few of us.

  It was still to him that I went so that I could for the first time leave the desert sands and cross the ocean, there to meet the woman who killed my brother.

  #

  Margrit ran during the day now, and the one-time cadence of ir-ra-tion-al that matched her feet pounding against the pavement had faded. She was faster than she'd been before Daisani's gift, her feet slapping quickly enough that the syllables would only blur into a word anyway, but mostly the interminable repetition had been born of the scoldings and lectures she'd received for the late-evening jogs. Those had stopped when she'd changed her schedule. That, and there was nothing to match the irrationality—or at least the impossibility—of what her life had become anyway, so the word had lost its power. A breeze pushed her along as she glanced skyward and smiled at the slowly-setting sun.

  Her mother was pleased that Margrit had stopped working so many long hours, and rightfully attributed the change to Alban Korund's presence in Margrit's life. Furthermore, Rebecca Knight knew, at least on a surface level, that Alban was no more human than Eliseo Daisani or the djinn Tariq. Margrit had never, would never, understand the reserve in Rebecca which allowed her to not ask, to accept Daisani's impossible speed or Tariq's dissipation without needing to know how and what they were.

  But that reserve was a gift, as well. Rebecca had not asked about Alban's unusual hours, had adapted without question to the occasional very late, post-sunset dinner in summer, and had made an effort to visit or invite Margrit and Alban to Queens for meals during winter's earlier nights.

  That was a far cry from the mother who had argued with Margrit over dating a white boy, especially when Tony Pulcella had been considerably browner all around than Alban's alabaster skin tones and shining white hair. It made Margrit wonder what exactly had happened between Rebecca Knight and Eliseo Daisani some thirty years earlier, but it wasn't an inheritance of Rebecca's reserve that kept her from asking. It was common sense: her mother would talk about it if she wanted to, and so far hadn't wanted to. In the meantime, there was no point in rocking a surprisingly stable boat.

  Curiosity was killing her, though. Margrit reached the end of her route, stopping to stretch against a park bench and smile again at the sky. She was still a good lawyer, still dedicated to Legal Aid, but even she had to admit her life was more balanced now. With Tony, they'd struggled to fit a relationship in between their careers; with Alban her work day began and ended on the sun's schedule, so the hours they had together were uncompromised. It had seemed impossible at first, but the gift of healing blood from Eliseo Daisani had decreased Margrit's need for sleep considerably. Another breeze wrapped around her, cooling sweat on her body enough that she shivered. Feeling chastised, she bounced on her toes, doubled over to grab them and grunted happily at the stretch in her hamstrings, then straightened again and left the park at speed, determined to make it home before the sun set.

  The wind chased her, but that was only usual in New York's canyon streets.

  #

  She does not look like a killer.

  I have known killers; the male who wished to marry me is one. His gaze is always calculating, though not always cold. Margrit Knight's gaze is forthright and discerning, but not edge
d. She seems to me a woman of resolution, difficult to turn aside once set on a path, and I wonder if that resolution is how my brother's life ended at her hands. It is not difficult to imagine the contempt he would have held her in: she is petite, curvaceous, and as dark-skinned as I, though her hair is dark brown and full of corkscrew curls to my straight black, and to my brother, all of those things would have spoken of weakness. But then, her very femaleness would have seemed weak to him, and he was never one to understand there are different strengths in different people.

  I drift through street lamps, following her as she runs at a speed that seems to me to be one of those strengths. I had not thought humans to be so quick. But then, there is something of the Old Races about her, a lightness in her step and a grace in her movements that I would not have expected in a mortal. I wonder at that, because she is not, I am almost certain, the chimerical daughter of one Old Race parent and one human parent. We are too cautious about breeding outside the tribes, and the few laws all the surviving Old Races live by forbid it.

  Or they did, before Margrit Knight challenged those laws on her own behalf and on the behalf of two women nearly as old as I: the daughters of Eliseo Daisani and Janx, called dragonlord. The truth is I owe Margrit Knight my very presence here: had she not put our world in such disarray, I, a female, would not have been permitted to leave the tribe, not even to confront my brother's murderer. Perhaps they could not have stopped me, if I had been determined to go; perhaps I could have traveled the long way around, chasing the wind across continents and small bodies of water until I reached my destination, but it was faster and easier, certainly, to take a sky-scarring jet over the ocean, and to drift from a private air field to the tall glass city that is New York. I would be overwhelmed if I allowed myself to be, but I cannot allow that, not if I am to see this thing through.