The Demoness of Waking Dreams (16 page)

Instead, she stretched her face into a tight little smile.

“Venice is so much more than a cliché for tourists,” she told him. “You come here for the festivals. Buy a carnival mask, drink some Prosecco. Tour the palazzos and the churches. If you consider yourself very stylish, you might have a Bellini at Harry’s Bar. But you will never get another chance to see Venice as the real Venetians know it. I would love to show you the secrets of my home. A part of the city that few other tourists have ever seen.”

That part was no lie.

Before the night was over, he would take a tour to the bottom of a canal.

After all, how many tourists got to see
that?

She pulled the tourist toward one of the waiting gondolas, allowed him to help her into it.

“Take a leisurely route,” she told the human gondolier, rattling off directions that would bring them within stumbling distance of her home. “Listen,” she said, leaning on the edge of the boat. “The gondoliers are singing
barcarole,
traditional folk songs. They sing all the time, but mostly popular songs from the South. ‘
O Sole Mio.’
That is what you hear in the canals so often, and it is not even from Venice. But once in a while, you will find some who sing the old Venetian songs. How beautiful, no?”

But the tourist wasn’t listening. He pawed her, clumsily running his hands over her, evoking nothing but disgust in her.

Soon,
she promised herself.
Soon this will be over, and he will be lying underwater.

Then, the most disturbing thought popped into her mind.

She found herself wishing Brandon’s hands were running over her.

Wished it were Brandon’s tattooed, muscled arms holding her. His beautifully curved lips brushing over hers, instead of this cretin human tourist’s.

And when she opened her eyes, there
he
was.

Standing on the rooftop of one of the old palazzos, high above them, staring down at them. Silhouetted against the night sky by the moonlight, and there was no doubt why he had come.

Luciana gasped out loud.

“What is it?” asked the tourist.

“Nothing,” she said, stealing a glance upward.

The angel was strolling along the rooftops as casually as any human might stroll along the
Mercerie,
shopping for goods.

Neither of the humans below—not the tourist nor the gondolier—gave a hint of even noticing.

In a flash, the angel was beside them, bearing down on them. He ripped the man away from her. Grabbing the front of his shirt, he stared deep into the tourist’s eyes. Quietly, Brandon said, “Get out of the gondola now. Forget you ever met this woman. Your little adventure is over. You will not recall any of this. If you ever try to remember what happened tonight, you will only remember wandering among the streets of Venice, lost.”

The human froze for an instant, in shock as the angel bore down on him.

“Go!”
Brandon thundered, nearly pushing him clean out of the gondola.

In the calm water, the boat rocked.

For an instant, Luciana wondered if the whole contraption might tip into the canal, spilling all of them into the murky water. The tourist clambered out of the boat onto the
fondamenta
and took off without a backward glance.

Expert with his long pole, the gondolier steadied his craft. He frowned deeply at his two remaining passengers and opened his mouth to complain, but Brandon cut him off before he could speak.

“There’s nothing out of the ordinary here,” the angel said, staring deep into the mortal’s eyes. “Please continue rowing, and pay no heed to our conversation.”

The gondolier hesitated and his eyes blanked before he began absorbing the suggestion. Then he complied, and they continued to glide along the canal.

“You again,” the demoness hissed at Brandon. She frowned deeply, leaning back on the velvet cushions of the gondola. Suddenly, she felt cold, the rush of adrenaline from the hunt seeping out of her, replaced by something else. The chill of exposure as Brandon stared at her. “You’re ruining all my fun these days.”

“I’m ruining your fun? You’re the one invading my dreams, succubus.”

“
Zuccolo.
You’re completely crazy,” she said. “I’m not a succubus. Why would I stoop to seducing men in their dreams when I am perfectly capable of doing so while they’re fully conscious?”

“Then what did you do to my dream? How did you control it?” he demanded.

Her brow furrowed in the moonlight, peering at him in the darkness. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“What you dream is your own business,” she said, giving an exasperated sigh. “If you saw me in a dream, it was because you wanted me. Your unconscious mind is running wild. We can pick up where you left off....”

She ran her hand up his thigh. And felt his entire body tense. Yet, he didn’t make a move toward her.

“They’re your dreams, too,” he said quietly. “There are details that I’ve never seen before.”

“Perhaps you’re simply imagining what my world would look like.”

He grabbed for her wrist. She moved away, out of his reach. She leaned over the side of the gondola and trailed her fingers in the water, enjoying the flow of the cool water over them. Biding her time.

“You think you can just grab me again, barbarian? Think. I’ll just escape, the same way I did the first time.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, too low for the gondolier to overhear as she spoke in the angel’s ear. “Besides, after our last little encounter in the flesh, I set up a little insurance policy. If I don’t return to my home by a certain time, my Gatekeepers have instructions to distribute a large amount of very lethal poison among the demon hierarchy. The results could be devastating.”

She smiled, keeping very still and very calm.

The trick to bluffing, she knew, was to believe your own lie.

It’s partly true,
she told herself.
If I don’t return, in all likelihood, Massimo would do exactly what I said. He has all the knowledge he needs to master the art of poison by himself. Even if he is not quite ready yet.

“You’re bluffing,” he said. “If you had a massive amount of that poison, you’d have used it by now.”

“Would I? If you’re willing to take the risk, you can find out for sure,” she challenged back, staring deeply into his eyes. “If you don’t believe me, take your chances. Slap the cuffs on me. Haul me away.”

“You wouldn’t dare release that poison,” said Brandon. “You know you can’t violate the rules between angels and demons.”

“Rules are made to be broken. And if not broken, rules can be bent. Try me.”

“What do you propose?”

“You should consider joining our side,” she said, sliding her hand up his thigh, reaching upward. “I can feel something in you that’s not like the rest of them. Something dark.”

She looked up at him, letting her eyes do their work on him.
She could see him struggling with his lust, the turmoil in those gray-as-rain eyes of his. Saw him clench the muscles of his tightened jaw as he fought to keep his cool beneath that tough-guy exterior.

“What will it take to get you to cooperate?” he said.

“Why should I cooperate?”

“Because you have the power to do the right thing.”

“Don’t talk to me about the right thing. You don’t know what I’ve had to endure to get to where I am. You think Venice is beautiful and sacred. You don’t know the
real
Venice,” she said, her voice deepening into a snarl. “Can’t you feel it? This city is steeped in suffering and death. Not two hundred yards from here, prisoners were tortured. There is an entire museum full of weaponry and torture instruments. I can take you down into the prison cells attached to the Doge’s palace. We can take our own little trip to hell without ever leaving Venice.”

“No, thanks,” he said, staring her down.

“If you look closely, you’ll see the underworld drawn on this city. Etched in the architecture. Gargoyles and gremlins crouching in corners, perched on cornices and tucked into the shadows beneath the eaves. A satanic lion’s head is carved on a palazzo on the Calle Diedo. On the facade of the
Ospedale Civile,
the ‘City Hospital,’ there’s a sixteenth-century graffiti etching of a murderer holding a human heart after ripping it out of his own mother.”

“If you’re looking for hatred, it’s easy enough to find,” he said grimly.

“Never underestimate the presence of evil. Evil exists here. It is real. If you don’t believe me, I can show you. Venetians used to believe there was a dragon living in the lagoon who could be pacified only by the oars of the gondoliers. Do you think that myth was founded on a superstitious fear, or do you think there was some truth to it?”

Around them, the water rippled as the gondolier’s oar stroke pushed through it. Then the canal began to churn, and Brandon caught sight of an object surfacing in the dark water.

The long, lizard-scaled back of what looked like a very large snake.

Brandon blinked, his mind not trusting what his eyes were telling him.

He reached toward his shoulder holster for his gun, but neither were there.

Neither had been there for the past decade.

Whatever it is,
this is not a dream,
he thought.

Massive and furious, the dragon rose. Water poured from its body as it emerged from the canal to tower over the boat. The sheer bulk of it, as huge as a rhinoceros and as fast as an anaconda, hung over them. Its eyes, bright green and verdant like Luciana’s, fixed on Brandon.

Who simply returned its stare.

Despite the pounding of his heart and his gut screaming at him to swim, to run, to flee however he could to escape this beast from the underworld.

But he looked back at the demoness and said in a calm voice, “Put it back. Whatever realm of hell you dragged that thing out of, send it back where it came from.”

“Why should I?” the demoness grated out.

He didn’t remove his gaze from her. “It doesn’t belong in this world.”

Twelve feet in the air, the animal opened its mouth and roared out a stream of fire that singed the air beside Brandon’s head. The gondolier cringed in terror, hunching down nearly into a fetal tuck. Yet Brandon did not relent. He
could
not relent. His calm gray eyes remained fixed on her. For long moments, he stared.

“You can choose to destroy me right here and now,” he said calmly, “but you know you’ll start a war you can’t finish.”

He saw her mouth tighten, flattening into a frustrated line.

At last, the dragon gave a final heated sigh and slid back down into the canal.

Cowering, the gondolier remained kneeling in a ball at the back of the boat.

“Please continue,” Brandon told him, urging the man up. “It was simply an illusion. Just a trick of the shadows.”

For a moment, the gondolier’s human mind wavered with the idea, not accepting it.

“Who would really believe that you saw a real dragon?” Brandon asked him. “It was merely a trick that my friend here conjured.”

Luciana, too, began to cajole the man in Italian.

He smiled shakily, but once again stood and began to row.

“Are you happy?” Luciana said, sitting back against the cushions. “I should have ordered that creature to burn you into oblivion, where you belong. Really, why do you insist on spoiling everything?”

“That’s my job,” he said flatly. “It’s my role to believe that everything and everyone in this world would choose goodness, given the choice. Even you. You can pull out every trick you’ve got up those lovely sleeves of yours, but nothing you’ve got can scare me.”

“I may not be able to scare you. But a darkness resides inside you. It is your greatest vulnerability. If it doesn’t frighten you, it should.”

His heart began to race, more terrified of that truth than he had been of a mythical creature rising from the waters of an illusive city.

She leaned near, whispering in his ear, “I can fix that darkness inside you. I can give you what you want.”

You can’t give me what I want,
he knew.
No one can.

“Young lovers,” said the gondolier, finally emerging from his shock as he mistook the nearness of his passengers for intimacy. “This is a city for lovers. See, we are coming up to the Bridge of Sighs. We Venetians say that if a pair of lovers kiss as they pass under this bridge, their love will last for all eternity.”

The demoness’s hand touched Brandon’s shoulder, a light touch that was as fleeting as the landing of a butterfly’s wing. The profound softness of that contact surprised him.

How can a woman who just conjured a dragon out of the depths of the Venetian lagoon be so gentle?