The Demoness of Waking Dreams (Company of Angels)

by Stephanie Chong

  Failure.

  Somewhere out in the darkness in front of the Redentore Church, the devil’s ferryman waited, floating in his black funerary gondola, watching for her to arrive with the sacrifice she had promised.

  The sacrifice she had now failed to deliver.

  The tall, dangerous warrior of an angel who now lay beside her. Who looked more demon than angel. Who seemed to act out of pure animal instinct more than reason. Whoever had sent him had known exactly where to hit her, and how.

  Inside her, rage and exhaustion swirled. Not only from having aborted a failed hunt, but prior to that, from months of striving to attain revenge that she had not reached. This thug among angels made an unlikely nurse. His hands, so big yet so gentle on her back, were a contradiction unto themselves. The moment he touched her, the pain dissipated. She felt strangely at peace.

  The feeling was so odd to her.

  Peace.

  Is this what Julian Ascher felt with Serena? she wondered.

  For now, she was utterly and completely at his mercy. But it was only a matter of waiting. She would find a way to escape, even now when her strength was at its lowest.

  “I will think of some way to get out of this intolerable situation,” she snarled in the darkness. “I always do. And when I do, I will have my revenge on you all.”

  Sooner or later, the devil would come calling for the sacrifice she owed him.

  And when he did…? Oh, what a sacrifice it would be.

  * * *

  Better to stay up all night than to fall asleep for even an instant in this woman’s presence.

  Brandon had endured countless nights of sleeplessness. But tonight, after all that he had gone through, his physical body reeled from the effects of exhaustion. From the moment he lay down, even on the hard and uncomfortable floor, he fought sleep.

  Sleep was a tyrant. Sleep was his enemy.

  If he fell asleep, he risked falling back into the dream. Or worse yet, falling into another dream of her.

  Sometimes being too close to his humanity was a very bad thing.

  The urges of his body raged as he lay mere feet from her, silent and still.

  In the darkness, he could sense her seething, her anger and frustration almost tangible. He could almost hear the wheels turning in her head. Could almost feel her plotting her escape.

  Tired of staring at the luminescent reflections from the water dancing on the ceiling, he closed his eyes for an instant. Only a second, to rest his tired eyelids.

  And lapsed into sleep.

  Only for an instant, then jolted awake again.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw the full moon through the French doors of the hotel room. How strange, he thought, since the moon had appeared as a mere sliver earlier in the evening.

  Was he dreaming? No.

  He was not in his nightly dreamspace. No smell of urine and garbage. No narrow alleyway. Just the same dingy hotel floor where he’d lain down a moment ago.

  He breathed a sigh of relief. Coached himself to inhale. Exhale.

  But when he turned his head to look at the demoness, she was no longer attached to the bed.

  Somehow, Luciana had freed herself from the bonds of the handcuffs. Had done so silently, in that single blink of unconsciousness. Now, she stood by the side of the bed, looking down at him, a glimmer of triumph in her eyes. Slowly, she knelt beside him. Levered one of her long, slim legs over his prone body to straddle his hips.

  He lay still, flat on the floor. Not daring to move. Not daring to even breathe.

  She took his hand, guided it to her breast.

  He started to pull his hand away, then stopped. Let her. Fascinated, he watched his big hand as it covered the large, firm globe of her breast over the thin layer of her dress. Watched his fingers as they tweaked the pert nipple through the silk. Watched his hand as it traveled down her flat stomach, slipped up under the hem of her dress. Up the smooth skin of her thighs, to touch the front of her panties, a scrap of lace that seemed like it might melt away at any second.

  God, she felt good.

  He whipped his hand away from her and she laughed.

  Lowering herself directly over him, she rocked slightly, pressing the most intimate place of herself against his groin. Leaned down over him and whispered, “I asked you if you had imagined your cock in my mouth. If you had imagined it in other places. And now, it seems you’ll get to experience that.”

  Slithering down his body, she popped open the button of his fly. Unzipped it, and pulled his jeans and boxer shorts down so that his erection sprang free, harder than it had ever been. With such gentleness, she caressed him, sliding her hand down the length of him. He was about to burst.

  No.

  He grabbed her hand, pressed it away from himself and held it there, squeezing hard. With more force than he should, he knew.

  “You’re hurting me,” she growled.

  “I told you I don’t want anything from you,” he said to her.

  She wrenched her hand away. “Then let me go. You know you want to. This is all just a dream. There won’t be any consequences.”

  “Forget it.”

  “If that’s your decision, so be it,” she said.

  Something evil glinted in her eyes. Then the demoness disappeared.

  And he found himself back in the same familiar alleyway, once again assaulted by the scent of garbage and urine. Walking toward his fate with his gun held at eye level, wondering where the hell the demoness had gone.

  * * *

  Luciana slipped out of the dreamspace like a thief stealing away from the scene of a robbery.

  When she awoke, she was still handcuffed to the bed.

  On the floor, the angel still slept, twitching in his slumber, apparently caught in some nightmare. Whatever he was dreaming now was no concern of hers. How long he would remain asleep was entirely uncertain. He could wake at any moment.

  And she would be caught forever.

  She looked around wildly, hoping for some solution to present itself. If only she had a pick or even a hairpin…but there was nothing.

  No alternative.

  There was only one thing she could think of.

  Oh, God. Just do it, she told herself. Do it now, or you’ll suffer worse consequences.

  She sat up in the bed, as much as she could without waking him. Braced her left hand against the wall. Closed her eyes. Took a deep breath in. And slammed her right hand against the left thumb with all the strength she could muster.

  Pain seared through her as the bone broke. The quick “snick” sound it made was like a little twig snapping. She clenched her teeth to keep from screaming.

  Don’t think about it, she told herself, holding her breath as a wave of dizziness and nausea washed over her, threatening to sweep her off course. It’s only pain. Pain is temporary.

  The thumb gave way, and she slipped her hand out of the cuff.

  She took one last look at the angel thrashing in his sleep. And hoped whatever nightmare had come to haunt him was a thousand times worse than the pain she had been forced to inflict on herself.

  * * *

  Brandon jolted out of sleep, spiraling from the shock of his fatal gunshot wounds, covered in sweat as usual.

  But this time, his ear caught the scrape of a window opening.

  His eyes snapped open. His hand flew to his pocket.

  No watch.

  I’m awake. Not dreaming.

  Holy shit.

  The last image he had of the demoness was of her standing on the windowsill with the handcuffs dangling from one wrist, the glint of moonlight flashing off the metal. Her face turned toward him, green eyes fixed on him.

  “You may catch me, but you will never hold me,” she said, her hair whipping in the wind, wild and dark as she slipped out the window, to freedom.

  * * *

  “Luciana Rossetti has escaped. The safe house has been compromised,” Brandon said to the Guardian on concierge duty. “It’s my faul
t entirely. I still have no idea how it happened. I had her handcuffed securely.”

  The other angel, a distinguished older angel with gray hair and kind brown eyes, merely shrugged as he looked up from the desk, relatively unsurprised. “How do you think she has evaded our local unit here in Venice for so long? She is adept at escaping. Luciana is an extremely deceptive individual, something more of a legend than reality to most of us locals.”

  “How is it that she has been allowed to run wild for all this time?”

  The concierge gave a short laugh. “She is the least of our concerns. She is not the only demon in this area. There are dozens of Gatekeepers here, just like in any city. We lack the time and the resources to take care of the likes of Luciana Rossetti. Demons are embedded in this city, as deeply as San Marco. Venice is a city of the divine and the profane, a city of beauty and vice. Both are drawn here, each by the other. I suppose we Veneziani have simply learned to accept that.”

  “I promise you, I will rid this city of her before I leave here,” Brandon said gruffly.

  “If you have taken it upon yourself to try to excavate her from Venice, I wish you luck. But no one will blame you if you don’t succeed,” said the concierge. “Now, if you care to gather your things, we will find you another place to stay tonight.”

  * * *

  Clearing his things out of the room, Brandon surveyed the space.

  The image of her perched on the windowsill was burned into his mind’s eye.

  How did she manage to escape? he wondered. Was she real? Was she even here at all?

  The bed was empty but for a rumple of sheets, showing no clue as to who had lain there.

  But on the nightstand stood the tumbler full of glass shards, mixed with her blood.

  Chapter Five

  The clock tower at the Piazza San Marco tolled three in the morning. Luciana stumbled out of the pensione, staggering into the now-deserted square. In the moonlight, all was silent, Venice sleeping after the celebrations.

  Far in the distance, on the Lido, the young Venetians would party into the night. On the beaches, DJs would spin techno music until the early hours of the morning. Every single year past, Luciana had joined them, dancing in another year of freedom on the beach until the sun rose, glorious and brilliant over the Adriatic.

  Celebrating another year of demonhood, another year of renewed vitality.

  Another year of power.

  Not tonight.

  Tonight was a total and utter failure, she thought, starting homeward.

  After almost two and a half centuries of successful hunting during the Redentore Festival, Luciana Rossetti had failed utterly to fulfill her annual requirements.

  She had been bested, once again, by the goddamned Company of Angels.

  But at the very least, I survived, she thought. And I escaped.

  Her hand throbbed.

  The thumb was bent at a distorted angle. But at least the break was clean, and she was free. What had gone on in that godforsaken little hotel room was now behind her.

  Around San Marco’s square, a few stragglers wandered, stumbled, singing in deep states of inebriation. Any of them would have been easy targets.

  Right now, Luciana didn’t have the strength left to kill a fly.

  She limped home on bare feet, barely noticing the roughness of the cobblestones beneath her soles. By the time she reached her palazzo, she staggered through the door with the last ounce of energy that remained in her body. Bloody and aching, she collapsed into a chair in the portego, cradling her broken hand.

  “Thank you, lord of darkness, for my continued survival,” she whispered. “For the survival of my household.”

  The house was silent, but then a door opened somewhere in the back of the palazzo. Massimo rushed out, his eyes going wide in the dim light at the blood. He blinked, swallowing at the sight of her crushed left hand and the handcuff still dangling from her right.

  “You have returned, baronessa! But what happened?” he said. “We thought the worst. We thought you had been captured by the angels.”

  “I’m fine,” she managed to squeeze out. “I was captured. But I escaped. I saw the boat when I came out of the Redentore, and you were not in it.”

  She ran the fingers of her good hand along the fine carved wood, consoling herself with the familiarity of the furniture. With its solidity, its real presence in the material world. She wanted to hug Massimo, flooded by protective emotion. The thought of losing him was almost like losing a child of her own, or a sibling.

  Yet, for the centuries they had spent together, the formality of a noblewoman and her servant still stood between them. The invisible barrier of a class division that had all but been forgotten in the modern world still separated them, barely present but still palpable.

  “I was attacked while waiting for you outside the church,” the Gatekeeper said. “The attacker tied me up and dumped me in the middle of the Adriatic. I would have drowned had he not tied my bonds as loosely as he did. Once I swam back to land, I searched for you everywhere, but determined that the attacker must have captured you.”

  “He did. I was lucky to escape,” she said. “Where are the others?”

  “Still out searching for you.”

  “Call them in. The ordeal is over. Did you manage to see your attacker?”

  Massimo shook his head. “He was too fast. I have no idea who it was.”

  “He is a member of the Company of Angels,” she told him. “His name is Brandon.”

  The mention of his name passing through her lips made her feel faint; she closed her eyes as a sick feeling passed over her.

  “How badly did he harm you, baronessa? Your hand! And what on earth has happened to your back?” he said, turning her so he could look at it.

  He went to a drawer, produced a pick and quickly removed the handcuffs. She examined her crushed hand. Wincing at the pain, she set the bone of her thumb back into place. Held it there, willing it to stay.

  “I’m fine,” she insisted. “I will heal quickly. You know that. The immortal body always does.”

  He gave her a long, scrutinizing look.

  She was not fine. Yet, he knew better than to contradict her.

  “What about the hunt?” he enquired. “I trust you delivered your annual sacrifice.”

  For the first time in two centuries, she could not answer in the affirmative.

  His face blanched to a very pale shade of white.

  In his green eyes, she saw her own fear reflected back.

  “Perhaps the devil might still be mollified,” he said quickly. “Perhaps it’s not too late.”

  Luciana nodded. “Go out now and find a human. There’s no time to lose.”

  His mouth thinned into a line; something fierce lit in his eyes. “That won’t be necessary. We have a human in-house that might do the trick.”

  Luciana remembered the female scream that had interrupted her homecoming. The shoe with its trail of blood. She swallowed, remembering how she had wondered what the Gatekeepers had been doing with that woman, and why they had been keeping her here....

  “The Gatekeepers have been keeping her as a plaything. It was the others, baronessa. I never touched her, I swear, and I—”

  “Never mind the details,” she said, waving her hand. “Just go get her.”

  Whatever the Gatekeepers had been doing on their own time was not relevant to Luciana. All that mattered was the possibility of fulfilling her obligation to the devil.

  * * *

  “Keep away from that house, my darling girl.”

  Those were the words Violetta Ravello’s grandfather had whispered in her ear every time they passed the confection of stone and marble that sat adjacent to a beautiful courtyard on the Grand Canal.

  “That house is even more cursed than the famous Ca’ Dario,” her grandfather would say. Both of them would shiver at the mention of the now-empty palazzo, whose owners inevitably came to tragic ends. “The gondoliers cross themselves
when they row past it.”

  “Why?” Violetta would ask.

  “No one quite remembers,” he would say, furrowing his brow. “The only thing anyone can say is that it’s evil.”

  How many hundreds of times she passed that palace, Violetta didn’t know. But as she rode the vaporetto on the way to the opera house or to her singing lessons, she would look up at the ornate facade, hoping to catch a momentary glimpse of the beautiful men and the woman she sometimes saw through the stone tracery of the windows.

  What fragments she managed to catch did not look evil to her.

  To her, the palazzo looked romantic and wonderful.

  Now, at twenty-one, she finally understood that it was not.

  Her grandfather had been right all along.

  Trapped in this house, she had become a victim of evil. Her mind had been corrupted by the whisperings of her captors. Reality had become distorted until she no longer knew what was real and what was not. She only knew that she hated the men who kept her here, who used her as their plaything, who forced her to take part in their perverse sexual games.

  These men were not human.

  These men were something other. Something evil.

  “You will experience pleasure beyond your wildest imaginings,” they had assured her, “if you’ll just cooperate. If you’ll do what we want.”

  She had resisted. Until she could resist no more.

  Tonight, standing in the semidarkness of the piano nobile, she was quite sure she was going to die. The grand room was unlike the servants’ quarters where she had been held prisoner during the past few weeks. Here in the dim light, the woman who stood in front of her was one of the most beautiful creatures she had ever seen. This woman Violetta had seen before, glimpsed through the windows countless times over many years. The woman was perhaps a few years older than Violetta herself, but she seemed a universe more sophisticated. She moved with otherworldly grace, drifting as if in a dream.

  And yet, there was something strange about the woman’s beautiful eyes.