Kiss of Angels Read online

  Four hundred years: it had been four centuries since the siryns were seen regularly, and two hundred years since the last ones had been seen at all. Their knowledge of human language was archaic, and Kate hadn't begun to learn other tongues than English until she was nearly a hundred years old herself. They were lucky they could communicate at all: she certainly couldn't emulate the clicks and whistles she'd just heard echoing under the water, and much to her father's disgust, she had only the barest grasp of the dragon tongue. "My name is Katherine, and my father is Janx."

  One by one the other siryns came to the surface again, whistling at each other. One swam closer to Kate, then rolled, a shiver rippling down her body as she did.

  Bioluminescence bloomed from her temples to her tail in orange and blue spirals that lit the water around her. Kate gasped and clapped one hand to her mouth, gazing at her in astonishment. "Thou'rt lovely, lady."

  The siryn who had first spoken gave the glowing one a look of exasperation that transcended species, but the single phrase of admiration Kate had uttered encouraged the others to spin and bring their own light to the darkness as well. The leader was the last to concede, and her colors glowed more deeply than the others', as if she could express disapproval through light as well as sound. Kate, still speaking through her fingers, whispered, "They ne'er told tales of this, my ladies. What a crime, that thy secrets should go untold."

  "Nought else keeps us alive, save that they go untold. I am Mymyrat, and your sire is known to us. How came you by that lyre?"

  "It was in his hoard. I—"

  "How canst thou play it?"

  Kate glanced at the instrument, tucked safe against her chest. In the siryns' luminescence it had depth of color unlike anything she'd imagined: it was a thing of magic, awakening to not just her half blood, but the very presence of the people it had come from. "My mother is human."

  "So was mine," Mymyrat spat. "It does not lend me the power to call songs from those wires."

  "Really?" Kate looked up, eyebrows drawn down in surprise. "Your mother? I thought siryns were like the harpies, mostly women…."

  Exasperation slid across Mymyrat's face again as one of the others laughed. "Mine father, then, if you must have the truth, but—" She stopped herself, and Kate fought down a laugh.

  "But that lacked dramatic impact? Sorry." Laughter won after all, or at least, a smile did: she smiled at the siryn with sudden deep affection. "Accept my apologies, I prithee. I would have spoken as you did, for the impact, mine own self." More quietly, she said, "Can none of you play it, then?"

  "We tried. All of us who were left, tried, in hopes that we might crown a new queen and survive another long night beneath the ocean's waves, but the lyre is as silent for us as it left Ninanak. Why you, a child of flame and sky and man, should be able to bring forth its voice—"

  "Mayhap that's why. All the things you are, I am the opposite, save for the blood of man."

  "And that is wild," said the siryn who had laughed. Her voice was light and sweet, a soprano's in comparison to Mymyrat's deep alto. She spoke again when Kate looked her way. "The blood of man is wild. It frees us, but only for a price. Mayhap thou canst as well."

  "Free you? For a price? I wouldn't. Not for a price," Kate amended as Mymyrat's face darkened. "If I could, I would. Of course I would. There aren't that ma—" A memory of her sister came to her, all at once: Ursula's anger at learning about Daisani's betrayal of the vampires. Ursula's determination to right that wrong had been clear. She hadn't said so, but Kate had known where she was going, when she left the wreckage in New York. There were so few of the Old Races left: to condemn any of them, even wisely, to eternity, went against Ursula's soul. Kate—whose own people had not been betrayed—had not been certain her sister was in the right. And yet to see herself now, standing before a handful of siryns and about to make promises to them, it seemed that in her core, she agreed with Ursula after all.

  Their world had been simpler before The Negotiator had entered it, Kate thought ruefully, and finished the promise she had begun: "If I can help somehow, I will. There aren't that many of the Old Races left to begin with. I wouldn't stand by and let you come to harm—or even simply waste away—if I can stop that from happening." She had fallen entirely out of the Elizabethan cadences and word choices by the end of her speech, but the phrasing of that era was, in the end, close enough to modern: after casting glances between themselves, the siryns nodded their understanding. More, their luminescence brightened, unquestionably reacting to their emotions. Mymyrat's remained the darkest, the most tamped-down, as if she was the least willing to commit to hope. She was old, Kate thought: old enough to remember Ninanak as a living queen, and bound by the caution of experience.

  "Come with us. We will bring you where you must go, to be of use to us."

  "Come with you? Are you nuts?" Kate trusted her sentiment, if not her words, were clear enough, but reached for how she might have said them as a child. "Art thou mad? I am, as you said, a creature of air and fire. I will not go into the sea. I cannot!"

  Mymyrat squealed with enough force that Kate flinched back, struggling to cover her ears without dropping the lyre. The sound lodged itself in her bones, rattling her, and the series of furious clicks that followed left Kate's chest feeling bruised and airless. She had thought the siryn could tear a human apart, but they wouldn't have to resort to physical attacks. Their voices could kill men.

  Which was just as the legends had always said. Kate gave a shuddering laugh and crawled painfully from the hip-deep water that she'd stood in. "Were I human, thou wouldst have rendered me senseless and of no use to thee at all. Mind thy voice, Mymyrat, and tell me whence I am required, and why."

  Anger creased the siryn's alien features, and it was the soprano who finally responded. "The island men call Crete, there to return our voices, lady dragon. Play the lyre on the southern shore, and those who can will come to thee."

  #

  Those who could were waiting for her. Dozens of them, diving and surfacing again, watching a dimple in the southern shore in anticipation. Kate saw them as shadows in the water from the cliffs above. Sailors had been told for centuries now that they were seeing dolphins or manatees in the water, not women who were also half fish, but seeing them now, there could be no mistaking their forms for other than what they were. Even from dozens of feet above them, they were clearly female, and clearly—well, not fish; they were mammalian, but they were no more manatees than Janx was.

  Kate, imagining her father's expression at being likened to one of the mellow warm-water beasties, grinned, then leapt lightly from the cliff to the rocks below. She landed easily and spat as salt water, kicking against rough rock, sprayed her. It was no cove there, no quiet safe harbor; if it had been, neither she nor the siryns would have dared to meet there. Humans could scale the cliff, or dive from it, if they were enthusiast enough, but there were innumerable easier and more pleasant places to explore. Bits of sand and smooth stone were occasionally revealed by the shifting waves. Kate took the highest of them and sat down cross-legged, holding the lyre in her lap. It, she suspected, would be less offended at getting wet than she was.

  The first notes sang true and called the siryns to the surface. Kate glanced skyward at the afternoon sun, and for the first time thought she should have waited until nightfall: human surveillance was ubiquitous now, with their satellites and drones. Too late now, but the Old Races would need a magic to hide them from that kind of observation, if they were to survive long enough to merge with the modern world. "Mymyrat asked me to come," she said, then wondered if she ought to speak Greek, and a Greek of four hundred years ago besides. But she no more had the skill for that than she did for swimming, so she shrugged and hoped the music might say it for her.

  Besides, they'd known she was coming: perhaps Mymyrat had somehow sent word ahead. Whales could send songs all over the world. Siryns no doubt could as well, if there were enough of them. So she looked for a song of greeting in
the lyre, and found one. A rush of sorrow-filled joy rippled through the gathered mermaids, and for the length of the piece none of them moved. Then two came forward and left the water, shedding their Old forms for human ones.

  They were still tall, as humans, and retained the powerful builds of born swimmers: broad shoulders, tapered hips, strong thighs. One worked her mouth as if becoming accustomed to it, which she probably was: humans had simple flat teeth, compared to the more dolphin-like sharp teeth the siryns had. "I am Kekeal. I haven't worn this form in some eighty thousand tides," she said carefully. "Forgive me if I am…awkward with it."

  Eighty thousand tides. Kate glanced skyward again, this time at a moon she couldn't see. Eighty thousand tides, at two a day, was close to sixty years. The human world had changed considerably since Kekeal had gone into it, but not so much as it had since Mymyrat had been part of it. She looked back at Kekeal, who waited for her response with untested patience. "You'll be fine. My name is Kate, and Myrmyrat sent me. I have Ninanak's lyre from the dragon Janx's hoard, and…I'm meant to play it for you."

  At the queen's name, Kekeal glanced at the other siryn who had emerged with her. She was smaller than Kekeal by the length of a hand or more, though she still stood inches taller than Kate, and her hair, drying swiftly in the sunlight, turned the color of amber. Kekeal's was darker, though still in the same hue; together with Kate's own red hair, they ranged from embers to flame. "You are Janx's daughter?" Kekeal asked. "The half-blood? This is how you can play the lyre?"

  "It is not enough," the other siryn said before Kate could do more than nod. "Blood tells all. She must be of his blood, or the lyre would not speak to her."

  "His—Orpheus's?" Kate grimaced at the second siryn's nod. "If he had children, I suppose I could be. It's too far back to track, but something like every other human male is descended from Genghis Khan, and that's only a thousand years ago. Granted, Khan did put an unusual amount of effort into trying to impregna—" She broke off at the siryns' uncomprehending and uncaring expressions, and returned to what matterd to them: "You're certain Orpheus had children?"

  "We are."

  "Then he could be one of my forefathers. But if it takes his bloodline and an Old bloodline to play the lyre, why didn't you—"

  "It was not enough. They had children, Ninanak and the betrayer, but not one of those children could play the lyre either. So it went into Janx's hands, for safe-keeping. And now all these centuries later, it is his child who can play it?" Suppressed rage glittered in the other siryn's eyes, and Kate again thought that if she was human, she would be wise to fear these creatures.

  But she was not human, and she had come halfway around the world on a moment's notice to offer her help. No more than any other being did she care to be met with fury for such a gesture. She lacked Janx's age and size: she could not bring the strength of her presence into the mortal world with such authority as he had. But she was still dragon, and four centuries in age: she surrounded herself with that, and felt its weight suddenly change the air around them. Half a breath more and she would change, but she didn't need to change. She only needed to remind this raging sea-creature that she, too, was to be reckoned with, and if there was a taste of flame in her next words, so be it. "Aye, it is the dragon's child who can play it, and if the blood says it must be so, then it is the bard's grandchild, too, and if I have the strength to play it, sea-dweller, then perhaps I have the strength to destroy it, too."

  Her hands were not—not quite—clawed as she clenched them around the lyre, but her dragon strength was in them, and the enchanted wood creaked within them. It had survived centuries; the whim of a dragon should not take it from the world, but neither should the help of a dragon be lightly cast aside.

  "No!" Kekeal thrust a hand out, not quite catching Kate's arm, though the wish to do so was clear. "No, please, do not. Forgive Inhihine; she feels the inability to play that lyre more deeply than any of us, and it hurts her to see that someone else can fulfill the destiny she could not."

  "That she couldn't?" Kate's hands slowly relaxed around the lyre, releasing the strain in its ancient fibers as she gazed at Inhihine. "You're their daughter. Orpheus and Ninanak. You're the child who couldn't play the instrument that stole her voice."

  Inhihine turned her face away, answer enough. Kate put the lyre down, not entirely trusting herself with it at the moment, and spoke again when she had gathered herself. "Then you are their hope, aren't you. If I can release the songs back to you, the siryns can breed again. Without you—without me—there is no hope for your people." She breathed a laugh. "Cousin."

  "I am the last of their children," Inhihine whispered. "Two sisters and a brother, all long dead of despair. I cannot allow myself to die and take the last hope from my people, but neither is this living, dragon's daughter. Cousin," she echoed, but the word had poison in it. "Will you play for me? For all of us?"

  Kate sank back to the stones, drawing the lyre into her lap once more, and when she answered, it was a whisper, too: "Of course I will."

  #

  A song waited in the lyre: a song of comfort and gentleness. A lullaby, the sort a mother might once have sung for her daughter. Inhihine wept; Kate knew that without looking, and still played without surcease. From lullaby to lament, the music grew, and from time to time Kate opened her eyes to look at the strings in surprise: still only an octave, but they carried richness and depth beyond their ken. Different voices were plucked from the wires, until the siryns in the sea answered with their own music, sometimes broken and uncertain, other times strong and proud.

  They were none of them human, and a spell had been cast long ago: the need for sleep fell away in the face of those truths, and Kate played on through sunset and moonrise, through the dark of night and the rising dawn. No mortal came to disturb them, and the music went on, every song the lyre had ever known, the voice of Ninanak, the siryn queen, released into ever-changing days. Clouds gathered and rain fell, then cleared away again; it had taken untold hours to create the lyre and pour Ninanak's music into it; to unwind that magic took at least as long again.

  She didn't know it was the last song the lyre held, not until the thing turned to dust under her fingertips. Her hands fell together in a useless clutch, trying to catch the fragments whisking away on the wind before she lifted her gaze in weary, sharp hope to meet Inhihine's eyes. Ninanak's heir met her gaze for a moment, then turned swiftly to her people and opened her mouth to sing.

  The sound that emerged was pure: sweet and true and without flaw, and—Kate knew it from the first note—not the stuff of the lyre.

  Inhihine knew it too. Within a few measures she faltered, and fell to her knees with a cry of despair. Kate grasped again at the particles of dust, already long-since torn away by the wind, then let her hands drop as she looked helplessly from Inhihine to Kekeal, and finally to the gathering of siryns who had waited so long and so patiently. One by one they sank beneath the water, but not to disappear: strains of music, like whale song given half-human voice, began to shift through the changing waves. Harmonies grew, expanded and fell into discord before finding their way again, and the song they sang was the first that had come to Kate's fingertips when she'd played the lyre on Janx's lonely island. It had been nameless then, that piece, but now she knew it for what it was: an elegy for a lost queen and the end of hope. Tears did not come easily to dragons: they were water, and anathema to the fire, but Kate wept into her hands as she listened to the last song of a people. She wept that a man had betrayed them so many centuries ago, and for the twisting of stories that had made Ninanak's truth into a myth, and most of all, that she herself had failed them, here at the end of the tale. There was a humming at the base of her skull, a buzz of building regret, and she spoke to shake it off, even though they had not yet finished singing. "What will you do?"

  "Dive too deep to breathe, perhaps." Inhihine broke off to respond listlessly, all the strength of her song washing away in the spoken word. "All of us toge
ther, at once, and in the toothed whales' hunting grounds, so our bodies might offer sustenance back to the sea. Better that than to rise bloated and be found by men. You play well. Will you take our story to the gargoyles, and sing it for them so our memories are not lost even to the Old Races?"

  "I don't play that well. Not without the lyre." Kate clenched her teeth, swallowing against the ringing in her ears. Even other immortals weren't meant to stand at the heart of a siryn lament. It shook the stones under her feet, too, endless vibrations sung by inhuman voices. "But yes. Of course I will. I'll give them everything I can remember of your songs, and I'll make sure Ninanak's story is remembered. Inhihine, cousin, I'm sorry, but I don't think I can stay any longer. I'd like to hear the end of your song, but…" She touched her nose, which tickled, and came away with a streak of blood.

  Inhihine lost her listless tone. "Your ears—and that is not—"

  Kate swiped, then scrubbed, at her ear, caught between alarm and astonishment as her fingers turned red as Janx's scales. "It's not what?"

  "It's not our song!"

  The cliff wall behind them dissolved into fragmented stone. Sound burst forth, such sound as to knock Kate from her feet. She knew an instant's disbelief: nothing could unfoot a dragon; even a gargoyle at full strength could no more move a mountain. Beneath disbelief, instinct warred with caution: they had gone undisturbed for days, but surveillance still rode the skies, and a dragon's transformation was vastly larger than a gathering of siryns. The sea reached up to claim her before she had decided, and a thrill of genuine fear turned her guts to ice.

  She landed, astonishingly, in the unfaltering hands of siryns. Dozens of them, all breaking off their song to leap upward and catch her above the waves, and to catch a dragon's mass, even in mortal form, was no small thing. Kate gasped, almost laughing, then did laugh as she was cast forward again, returned to the rocks she'd been thrown from.