The Duchess made an impatient noise.
I knew the answer now. “Sirens are musicians. Fans give them godhood. The public is less likely to trust actors because they’re professional liars, right? But musicians belong to the fans. Am I right?”
A true smile. “Indeed, you are.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “You want a musician to tell people to believe in god? Sorry—gods?”
O flicked her hand as if banishing a bee. “No, not at all. People don’t want to be told what to do or what to believe. We need the siren’s army, but they’ll only mobilize for us if they believe it’s their idea.”
The room sat with the idea for a moment, all of us presumably in perplexed contemplation. I tried to envision a pop star tweeting that god was real and knew exactly how it would go over. I saw them on stage before a packed stadium making speeches or proclamations and it going viral for all the wrong reasons. They’d look and sound as crazy as I’d spent decades believing I was. Besides, no one in the room seemed to have access to a powerful enough siren for the task.
An idea clicked into place. “Anger.”
The others looked at me.
My confidence bloomed. “We have to rally with anger. I took a business class in college and was taught that if a person has a positive experience, they tell one person. If they have a negative experience, they’ll tell ten. If the musician is organically angry, or hurt, or offended, their followers will mobilize to defend them.”
O snapped her fingers in agreement. “Excellent. Now we need to figure out how to infuriate a siren’s army.”
Duchess Vapula offered, “She has an angel and a demon at her beck and call.”
The others looked at me expectantly until I expanded. “Silas is from Heaven. I’m not sure about his citizenship status at the moment. But yes, he’s currently waiting on the roof, and he’s with our cause, whatever we need. And Azrames is from Hell. They’re both all in.”
The pitter-patter of water on the windowpane told me it had started to rain. I paid it no mind, but the PA interrupted our conversation. “Uh, hello? Um, I think there might be a problem.”
O looked over my shoulder. Her brows pinched suddenly. She got to her feet and joined the PA by the window. She pressed her palm to the window, lips parted.
“What is it?” Alessia asked.
“I believe…I think…” O tripped over her words.
“It’s raining blood, ma’am,” the PA said.
Alessia scoffed, but her smile did not match the sound. “Oh, so when you say you’re taking a stand against Heaven, this fight clearly flows both ways. Amazing. They haven’t turned water to blood in thousands of years. If they keep showing up in full force like this, it might not be hard to convince people that they’re real.”
I stared at the red-brown droplets as they hit the window, darkening the pane.
“It appears the other side of the street is dry, ma’am,” the PA said.
Alessia chewed the inside of her cheek. “Interesting…a plague with plausible deniability. It can be written off as a stunt from one of my protestors. Curious, curious. It kind of defeats the point of a plague.”
I closed my eyes, if only for a moment. “Unless the point of the plague is to remind one single person that they’re coming for her. I thought you said the angels couldn’t see me? That’s why I took your snake venom, right?”
I cracked open an eye to steal a glance at the residue onthe mirror.
Alessia looked unbothered. “I assume that’s why they sprayed the whole building. They’re marking the last place they had tabs on you to prove a point. It’s working.”
She passed me a tiny plastic bag.
“It’s not quite an eight ball,” she said, “but it should get you through the next two days. Act quickly, Merit Finnegan.”
I tucked the substance into my bra as I rallied my courage. I could be hidden. I could find a siren. I could do what needed to be done.
Like a slowly opening flower, O’s face changed. Her brows went from bundled to arched. Her lips curled up at the sides. She breathed a small laugh.
“What is it?” Alessia asked, leaning forward. “Something about the plagues?”
O’s white teeth glinted. “We need to unite people against Heaven, right? And you just so happen to have an angel and a demon.”
