The Demoness of Waking Dreams (12 page)

As they advanced closer, Brandon noticed that the ornate entranceway was adorned with carvings of demons, their stony wings folded in repose. Half a dozen goblins, a small pack, perched on the corner of the concrete landing in front of the doorway, like water rats living beneath the palazzo. The creatures hissed at the passing boat, their red eyes glowing in the darkness.

The canal rang with the reverberation of a voice, singing.

“Did you hear that?” he said.

They paused, listening. Carlotta narrowed her eyes at him.

“You will go insane, angel. She keeps a nest of vipers as security guards,” the brothel keeper hissed. “Even if you manage to get past them and capture her, you’ll never pin her down. She will more likely destroy you before you destroy her.”

Then she disappeared into the night, letting him off not far from Ca’ Rossetti, standing on a concrete walkway. And he knew he needed to find somewhere he could keep an eye on Luciana.

* * *

Brandon wandered the alleyways behind the palaces surrounding Ca’ Rossetti, looking for a place to set up surveillance. He found it in an abandoned palazzo across the canal from her, the windows boarded up.

He pushed open the door and entered, his eyes adjusting to the darkness.

Skitterings of unseen vermin and the scent of urine. High walls and a narrow space.

Am I dreaming?
he thought.
No.

Not Detroit.

Venice.

Not an alley.

But rather, the ground floor of a once-glorious noble house. There was a single long room stretching the depth of the palace, completely empty of furniture. The fixtures dated from another century, but which one, he could not even guess. The windows in the back looked very old, made of dusty, nearly opaque glass like round bottle ends fused together in the large frames.

He climbed the stairs to the second floor, which opened into a room that might once have been a ballroom or a grand dining room. Moonlight flooded in through the huge windows. The peeling frescos, smudged images from a distant past, stood disfigured and unrecognizable now. Ornate doorways and ceilings, the plaster broken and chipped, were fallen away in sections in some parts.

He found a spot in front of the window that was well hidden, unseen from the outside. From this vantage point, he could see Ca’ Rossetti across the street, as meticulously maintained as this palace had been neglected. Here, he had a view of not only Luciana’s front door, which opened directly onto the water, but the side entrance, as well.

And he settled in to watch.

* * *

Luciana sat in her workroom, hunched over the table. The cuts on her back had almost healed. Her left hand still throbbed. But she had reset the bone, and in another day or so it would be back to normal. Sitting still was far from comfortable. But there was much work to do.

Massimo hovered over her shoulder, watching carefully, absorbing every word that she said.

“Ordinary poison can harm an immortal body temporarily. But it is not enough to kill an angel or a demon, as you know. However, the poison
I
created proved effective on a low-ranking demon,” she said. “A bellboy working for Corbin Ranulfson in Vegas.”

“So what is the problem?” Massimo asked.

“Corbin stole the last dose of my last concoction,” she said. “We must make more. To do that, I’ll need your help.”

She held one of the vipers just behind its jaws, grasping its head in her gloved hand as she held it over a venom-collecting receptacle. It bit into the plastic-covered glass funnel, the venom squirting down into the jar below.

“This must be done with a very delicate touch, Massimo. The utmost care must be taken not to damage or traumatize the animals during this process,” she explained. “A good craftsperson always takes proper care of one’s materials.”

“Why do we even need these ingredients if we have the essence of death collected from the girl?” he asked.

“We need to build a poison that will kill not only the spiritual, but the physical body. We could use any poison as a base, but I like to combine several different ingredients. Snake venom, cyanide and botulinum, for instance, make quite a nice combination. Along with those toxins, we use the essence contained in the human blood.”

She put the viper back into its habitat. She withdrew another snake and handed it to the Gatekeeper. “Now you try it.” As he performed the same movement, she nodded. “That’s it exactly. It’s time you learned these techniques. There must be someone who can carry on these ways.”

Just in case I’m captured,
she thought.

“Poison may seem like an antiquated way to end a life,” she explained, “but poison means power. There are demons who are capable of ending a human life just by snapping their fingers. However, we lower demons must find our own ways to amass power. Creating a poison that can end the lives of immortals has given us a distinct advantage. But we need more of it. If we can make large quantities of it, we can create a commodity that will be extremely difficult—perhaps impossible—to trace. There are rules in the interactions between angels and demons.”

“Rules that cannot be broken,” Massimo said wearily. He had heard it a thousand times.

“But they can be bent. Angels and demons are not allowed to kill each other. That is the first and most important rule. Everyone knows that. If that rule is broken, then the balance between heaven and hell will be disrupted, and all-out war will be waged on the earth. Humans will be caught in the middle. But if the angels can’t track who’s responsible for the killings, there’s no accountability, no one certain to blame. Poison may be our way around the rules. We will be able to bargain with the rest of the demon hierarchy. We will have a commodity that could affect every immortal in existence. Every creature in existence.”

“Yes,
baronessa,
” said Massimo.

“If we can control the demon hierarchy, then the world is ours. We won’t even have to worry about killing the angels ourselves. And no one will ever be able to hurt us again.”

That was the goal. To insulate herself and her Gatekeepers from pain.

The window was shut, and even though it was unbearably hot outside, the modernization of Ca’ Rossetti meant that the air-conditioning inside kept everyone cool.

Luciana looked up from her work, rubbing the back of her hand against her forehead.

Feathers.

Pigeon feathers. Not just a single feather this time, but several of them. They sat on the corner of the workbench. She dropped her arm, and the change in the air blew them off the table’s edge, where they drifted onto the floor.

“You didn’t open the window this morning, Massimo.”

“No,
baronessa.
”

His eye caught the feathers, and he frowned, puzzled. “Where did those come from?”

The angel was watching them.

From where exactly, she could not say. And how he had found her, she did not know.

But he was close.

She got up and went to the window, peering across the canal. In the darkness, the Grand Canal looked the same as it had every night for the past two centuries. Yes, it had shifted slowly over time. The boats had become equipped with motors and fashion had changed. The old Venetians had slowly died out, and the place had become flooded with tourists. Other than that, the same buildings had stood for centuries, sliding slowly into decay.

Except that in one of them, an angel sat watching her.

The most likely location was slightly to the right.

“Come here, Massimo, and tell me if I’m imagining things,” she said, pointing to the only abandoned building within view. “Is it me, or is there movement in that house?”

For the past fifty years, it had been boarded up, left to rot slowly because of the impoverished state of the family who owned it, who could not afford its upkeep.

Massimo didn’t respond, but Brandon was in there. She could feel him.

In the space of their short time together last night, some strange connection had been forged between them. A connection that she neither welcomed, nor would she tolerate.

She would have to find some way to break it.

“Massimo, take off your gloves and go downstairs at once. Make sure all of the doors are securely locked, and the outside gates, as well. Alert the other Gatekeepers. We are under surveillance.”

“But there’s just one man, isn’t that right,
baronessa?
”

“Just one angel,” she corrected. “And a very dangerous one.”

Luciana sat looking at the light that spilled over the canal. A lone gondolier rowed in the dark of night, singing of the moon and of lost love.

* * *

On the other side of the canal, Brandon sat at the window, listening to the melancholy sound of the singing boatman.

Die my human death again, or be seduced by Luciana in my dreams.

The choice wasn’t even his. But, God, if he had to pick between them, he didn’t know which was worse. He lay on the hard concrete in the abandoned building, waiting for one of them.

Come, sleep. Come, dreams. Come, darkness.

He closed his eyes.

At the sound of female laughter, his eyes popped open again. The laughter was so low, so velvet that he thought simultaneously of vintage Chianti and very rich chocolate.

He was no longer lying on the hard floor of the abandoned house.

Now he was standing in the entrance to the same dark alleyway.

He saw the flicker of rose-colored silk. He followed.

He dug in his pocket for his watch and felt its familiar smoothness.

I’m dreaming.

Looking up, he saw the black letters stenciled on aging stone: Rio Tera dei Assassini. What he was doing here, he didn’t know. All he knew was that he had to follow.

Through the door of the glass gallery. In the back of the shop, up the stairs.

The vast room sat empty. The chandeliers blazed now, illuminating the night.

A woman with dark hair curling down her back. The pale, perfect skin of that back completely unmarred, not a single scratch or scar on her. No blood, no glass.

Her hand outstretched behind her, motioned for him to follow.

Into a magnificent room with velvet furniture. The sound of the door closing behind him.

When he reached for his gun, it was gone. The shoulder holster where he normally carried it, empty. No matter. She was not the kind of enemy you could kill by shooting.

Luciana turned, resplendent. With a single motion, she shed her dress. It dropped to the ground, pooling at her feet. Beneath it, she wore merely a black lace bra and a garter belt attached to thigh-high stockings. It was not the clothing he noticed, so much as what it barely concealed. Or rather, what it failed to conceal.

Her body
. Her impossibly long legs, slender and strong. The appealing, subtle curve of her belly. Her high, full breasts, dark nipples just visible through the fabric of her bra in the dim lamp-lit room.

Decadent. Sinful. And so, so right.

But it was her face that took his breath away. Those plump lips of hers that seemed to invite him to picture them wrapped around his cock. Her evergreen eyes, her glossy hair tumbling around her in a permanently just-been-laid way that women usually paid ungodly amounts to achieve.

“You went digging into my past,” she said. “And you found your way here.”

“It was the only lead I had,” he said gruffly, feeling like he was apologizing.

“It’s your dream. Your fantasy. You wanted to see me like this, didn’t you?” she taunted, fingering a silk ribbon on her garter belt. “Isn’t this what you went searching for? This is what you wanted to find.”

“I’m not after your body,” he said. “I’m only here for one reason. To collect you on behalf of the Company.”

“So you keep insisting. But that won’t fly. Not here, in your dreams. You’re tempted, aren’t you? And there’s only one way you’re going to scratch that itch. You know what Oscar Wilde said, don’t you? The best way to beat temptation is to succumb to it.” She laughed. Then she cooed, “Besides, it’s just a dream. That’s all it is.”

Was it?
His mind reached for the truth, unable to grasp it. He reached for the watch in his pocket and touched it again, just to make sure of what he already knew.