A Mermaid s Kiss (Daughters of Arianne 1)

Standing out back, smoking a cigarette, was a man in his fifties, startling them both.

"I didn't suspect it would be manned," Anna whispered. "I assumed it would just be a relay tower or something. What should we do?"

Jonah kept a protective step in front of her. Oddly, the man didn't look at all surprised to find an angel landing on his back doorstep.

For a moment, they just studied one another. The man had tidy dark hair, a white cotton shirt and brown slacks. He wore comfortable loafers and seated next to them was a pair of small dogs. At the sight of Jonah's wings drawing in to his sides, they backed up into the open door, but did not bark.

"That was some stunt," the man said at last. "But I already have my guest lineup for the Are There Really Angels? segment. Don't see why you can't come in and listen to the show for a while, though. Desert hospitality and all. I can at least applaud the effort with some air-conditioning and a beer. I've also got an excess of food if you'd like some."

He crushed out the cigarette and pocketed it. Unconcerned by their lack of response, he shouldered in the door, then turned his attention back to Jonah. "You didn't fly that rig all the way from L.A. or one of those other places where people have more ideas than sense, did you?"

Anna covered her mouth to hide her chuckle. "He thinks you're trying to get on his talk show," she murmured to Jonah. "He's a radio host. Do you want to go now?"

"No." Jonah studied the radio towers. "Let's get you a safe place to rest a bit. There are few coincidences that strong. I think we should go in and meet him."

Travel by Fate . . . He was gaining a grudging respect for the witch and wondered at the true scope of her power. Or if Mina herself even knew what it was.

While he kept all his senses honed as they approached, it was quite obviously just the man and his two dogs inhabiting the radio station, which, while small, had an impressive garden of antennae and satellite dishes.

Jonah put a reassuring hand against Anna's back and followed her in, folding his wings in a tight overlap to manage the door. It was an automatic gesture for him, like folding his arms, but he was glad to feel a lesser twinge from the one wing than he'd expected. It was definitely getting stronger.

The talk show host had stopped to watch him, and his brow creased. "You're well practiced--I'll give you that. You're welcome to leave them outside, though."

"I'll keep them with me," Jonah said, unperturbed, while Anna hid another smile.

"Suit yourself, but be warned, it's a bit cramped in here. Come on in to the studio. I'm running a pretaped show on extraterrestrial sightings right now. Won't be starting up the angel segment until past midnight."

Jonah noted the art on the walls ran to numerous photos, news clippings and articles pinned up randomly, covering all manner of non-mundane topics, from aliens to global warming theories, to angels and the origins and geographical location of Hell.

One of the articles had a photo of their host, probably from five years earlier. Randall Myers. It indicated he'd left a popular station management position to be a talk show host on an independent air-wave, a show which focused on the inexplicable, theories that were mostly scoffed at. The boogeyman in the closet, the existence of dragons . . .

"What would you like? Out here, it's usually water that's preferred. And I've got some day-old pasta my wife made."

"Give it to her." Jonah nodded to Anna. "I'm fine. And you eat it," he added before Anna protested. "You're looking pale, and you know I don't need it."

When she subsided without further argument, that concerned Jonah more. Here where the light was fluorescent, for the first time he noticed the things the glaring sun, the artful shadow of her hat, or the nighttime darkness could hide from him. Her skin was looking damn near transparent, the blue veins close to the surface. Her lips were cracked, the inner membranes of her eyes red. He could tell the shape of her skull, the hollow slope of cheekbones in a way that was alarming.

Randall's face creased in concern as he apparently noted the same things Jonah did. "You shouldn't be bringing someone in a fragile condition out here, just to get your ten minutes of fame."

"He's not--"

"I know that," Jonah interrupted her, giving her a quelling look. "I take responsibility for her well-being. We're not here for your show, Mr. Myers." Having made his assessment of the man, not just from the articles and evidence of his personality scattered about the studio, which was obviously the center of his existence, Jonah had no concern about speaking frankly to him. "We're traveling along the Schism, looking for a gateway into it. Do you know how close we are?"

"Why do you think I know about the Schism?"

"It's here." Jonah indicated the wallpaper of clippings.

"There's no article about the Schism up there."

"Exactly." Jonah showed his teeth. "You study the theories of all things outside the known world, air them, talk to a mixture of the wishful thinkers and the true thinkers, but you don't expose the sacred in your own backyard. You cut a very careful, close circle around it, and it leaves an outline."

"You're a hell of a speed reader." When Randall took a seat in his chair, his dogs hopped onto the sofa beside Anna and eyed the food she was eating. He laced his fingers across his stomach and leaned the wheeled chair back on its stem. Lights winked behind him on the control board. "The Schism is important. I've never seen it, but I know that much. You're still a good fifteen miles from where it's reported to have opened in the past. Not that that means much. You doing it on foot?"

"Possibly. We're required to travel by Fate . . . by chance."

Randall grunted. "Like most sacred places, can't be reached the easiest way."

"Dumb rule," Anna muttered with a tired sigh. Jonah watched, momentarily fascinated as she sucked a stray noodle into her mouth and self-consciously reached for a napkin when she saw him looking.

You're the first purported 'nonhuman' I've entertained out here." Randall's face creased into a wry smile. "Though I could have sworn a couple of my past guests had done enough recreational drugs to have mutated into alien life-forms."

"Who said we aren't human?" Anna chuckled. She rose, swaying a little, and gave the dogs the remains of the bowl. "That's much better. Thank you. W

e should leave you to your show."

"Stay a little while." Randall waved. "You can nap on the couch and your silent companion here can snort with derision at my call-in questions on angels. Stay," he repeated. His attention shifted to Jonah. "The girl needs some rest."

"I am right here," she mentioned to them both.

Jonah held Randall's gaze. "We'll stay," he said.

DESPITE the exasperated face she made, Anna did not seem unhappy with the decision. Jonah put her further at ease by taking a seat on the couch and getting her to settle her head on his thigh. Her body curled inside the curve of his arm and wing while he listened to Randall whittle down the long hours of the night with angel theory. At one point, when he shifted, he found the two dogs had arranged their small bodies inside the curve of his wing as well, weighing down the tip end, an act which caused a bemused expression on Randall's face.

"Angels. Stories of rescues, attacks . . . seduction. Folks, it seems that there's a tremendous desire to believe they are here among us. Maybe to kindle hope, but hope for what? Proof of an afterlife that has a recognizable order, a legion of staff, so to speak? Or just a sense of higher meaning and purpose, proven by the existence of beings more advanced than ourselves? Perhaps, dear listeners"--Randall's deep, melodious voice reached out through the night--"hope and faith ultimately reside in yourself. We are the cells. If we fail, perhaps whatever we wish to call God also fails. Perhaps we're more of an interdependent relationship than we know, and that's why angels might walk among us, trying to keep the cells healthy, eradicate the cancer before it becomes fatal and destroys the whole body . . . that which we call God."

Jonah's brow creased as Randall got on the conference line with a philosopher and a biblical scholar, let them debate the symbolic versus the religious overtones of angels. Then he took calls from people who were sure angels had been active in their lives.