The Demoness of Waking Dreams (Company of Angels)

by Stephanie Chong

  Nothing was going to keep Luciana down.

  She reached the fence, looking up at it, studying the ornamental wrought-iron spikes at the top. It was about a dozen feet high, difficult to climb under the best of circumstances. And now, exhausted as she was from this whole ordeal, it would be impossible.

  That fence stopped exactly where the lawn ended and gave way to a small stretch of sandy beach. Straight ahead lay the open ocean. But the waves were turbulent, and the beach was bordered on both sides by craggy rocks. Luciana had thought simply to slip around the end of the fence. But as she touched it, she felt a flash of pure energy that blinded her as though she’d run into an electric current. She fell to her knees, clutching her head. Between her temples, a blinding white light pulsed, combined with the most powerful pain she had ever felt.

  She screamed, a shriek that must have carried up to the heavens and down to hell. But not a soul came to aid her.

  She looked up, toward the main building.

  Where the ethereal beings who held her captive stood in a long row, looking down at her from the vantage point of a wall of glass that stretched along the second story.

  Watching.

  The Company of Angels had her penned in.

  “What was the point of that?” Brandon asked, standing with the rest of the angels at the window as they watched Luciana writhing on the ground. He started toward the door, determined to go get her. “It was just unnecessarily cruel.”

  Arielle put a hand on his arm, stopping him. “There’s no need. I’ve sent a couple of my people out to take her back to her room.”

  The Company watched as two of the Guardians went out to collect the demoness.

  “The point of that was to prove that we do, in fact, have the facilities to keep Luciana securely locked up. And to teach her that there’s no point in trying to escape,” Arielle said calmly.

  Brandon looked toward Michael, challenging. “I cannot believe you’re letting this go on.”

  “I agree,” said Michael. “That did seem unnecessary. Arielle, in future, please refrain from any needless disturbances to the detainee. Your track record is spotless. I know you understand your responsibilities in terms of safeguarding the best interests of everyone involved.”

  “Yes, of course,” Arielle said smoothly.

  “For now, this meeting is adjourned,” said Michael.

  The Company began filing out of the boardroom, the angels muttering quietly to each other about what had just happened.

  “Wait,” Brandon said, turning to Michael. “What about me? What is my role here?”

  “That is your own decision. The Chicago unit is functioning well at the present time. No problems have been reported. You may stay or go as you choose,” said Michael.

  Then he, too, turned and walked out of the room.

  Leaving Brandon staring out at the spectacular view, wondering what the hell he was going to do.

  “I need to talk to you,” said a voice behind him, startling him. “Man-to-man.”

  Brandon turned to see Julian Ascher standing there.

  “Man-to-man, I think you’ve got your head shoved up your ass,” Brandon said. “At least when it comes to Luciana.”

  “You may well be correct. So I need you to listen.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “As Michael said, we’re all working for the same thing. The greater good of humankind.”

  “I don’t buy that for a second,” Brandon said.

  “Call it guilt, then.” Julian sighed. “There are things I was never able to admit to before. There are things you don’t know about Luciana. Things that are important.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Julian held his head in his hands for a moment. When he raised it, he looked squarely at Brandon. “This isn’t easy to say. But I have made some terribly bad decisions when it came to Luciana.”

  The story Julian spun out before him was a tale of a young English lord, a future duke, who had traveled to Venice on his Grand Tour. Who had stayed because he was mesmerized by the beauty of the city and its people. Fundamentally, it was the same story Luciana had told Brandon only a few nights ago on the Lido.

  Except when Julian told it, he did not blame himself entirely for what had gone wrong.

  “We were two young people who had fallen madly in love. But then I, arrogant young man that I was, began to doubt and then test that love. I found Luciana’s attentions lacking, and thought she did not truly care for me. I ultimately made the decision to leave her to fate, and left to go home to England.

  “I had not seen Luciana for ten years when I spotted her in a crowd in London. Luciana came to me with a story of a difficult marriage, of beatings, of desperation. And we resumed our affair. Soon after, she asked me to kill her husband. I challenged Harcourt to a duel. Neither she nor I expected her drunkard husband to show up sober, nor that Harcourt would be such a good shot. Yet with a miraculously steady hand, he hit his mark. And I hit mine.

  “Both of us bled out on the winter snow of an empty field.

  “In hindsight, I have finally come to a place in my life where I can take some responsibility for what happened. I no longer blame her for the choices I made.”

  “Maybe you should tell her that,” Brandon said.

  “If you think it will help, I will go talk to her. But I doubt she’ll listen to me.”

  “Even if she doesn’t listen, it’s something she needs to hear.”

  * * *

  Luciana huddled inside her cell of a room, miserable and still filthy from her capture and her attempted escape.

  For celestial beings, these angels have no sense of decency, she thought.

  She glared up at the video camera in the corner of the room.

  Going into the small bathroom, she finally stripped off the ruined silk gown and threw it in the garbage bin. Stood in the shower and felt the comfort of hot water pouring down over her tired body. There was a folded outfit on the bed, a modest white dress that reminded her of a hospital gown. She put it on. Then she sat down on the bed, wondering where Brandon had gone. Wondering what these angels planned to do with her.

  What do they expect me to do? Curl up in the fetal position and give up? she thought bitterly. I have survived for over two hundred years. I am not giving up now.

  She knelt and began to examine the chair, contemplating whether she had the strength to unbolt it and throw it through the window.

  The series of electronic beeps sounded. The metal bolt slid open.

  The man standing at the door made her wish she had unbolted the chair.

  So she could smash it over his head.

  Julian Ascher.

  When they had said he was a changed man, they had not been kidding. The difference in him was palpable on his face, on his body. As long as she had known him—and it had been a long time—he had always been smug, arrogant and self-absorbed.

  Now, he seemed lighter, somehow. Brighter, somehow. It made her sick.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said flatly.

  Julian sat on the edge of the bed.

  She recoiled, moving away from him.

  His hands shot up in a gesture of pacifism. “I didn’t come to hurt you, Luciana. I came to ask you to consider what the Company is asking of you.”

  “Why should I?”

  “A lot has passed between you and I. There’s something I need to say to you.” He paused. “I need to ask your forgiveness.”

  She blinked, the shock of that word hitting her, slamming into her like a slap in the face.

  Forgiveness.

  A word more profane than any curse she had ever heard.

  That word was like a sucker punch to the gut.

  Drawing in a deep breath, the words that poured out of her seemed so inadequate, so profoundly failing to express the utter fury that burned inside her. But she let them stream out of her anyway.

  “How dare you,” she ground out, advancing toward him in the small space.
“After what you did to me? To my family?”

  “I am deeply regretful for the harm I caused you. Looking back, there are many things I would have done differently, if I could. If I could change things now, if I could only go back in time…” Julian paused. “But I can’t. So I hope you’ll accept my apology.”

  “Complimenti to the Company for brainwashing you so thoroughly,” she said. “Serena St. Clair must have gold between her legs. Because the devil knows that you would never have spoken such words as apology or forgiveness before. Not in the more than two centuries I’ve known you.”

  “Luciana, I truly—”

  “Vaffunculo,” she hissed in the instant before launching herself at him. “And in case you forgot what that means, it translates to ‘go fuck yourself.’”

  * * *

  When Julian came out with three bloody lines raked down the side of his classically handsome profile, Brandon was unsurprised.

  “There is a reason she carries out these sacrifices each year, a reason her hatred has escalated over time. You must find out her side of the story. Get her to confess everything to you. She must make the transition to our side. That is the only way to end this. Because if you don’t, Arielle will dispose of her as she sees fit. Luciana has done some inexcusable things in the past, but I still believe there’s good in her. You’ve seen that. I know you have.”

  As Julian left, one thing was clear to Brandon.

  Julian Ascher was not telling the whole truth.

  But he was right. There was a reason Luciana believed she had to remain a demon.

  A secret she was hiding deep within herself.

  And Brandon meant to find out what that secret was.

  When he entered her room, she was sitting at the head of her bed, looking out the window into the darkness, staring out over the ocean. Outside, the moon and stars were so bright that the light flooded into the room and illuminated her pale face.

  It was an image that was entirely in keeping with the rest of his experience of her.

  Ethereally beautiful, but absolutely miserable.

  In the stark emptiness of the room, the vibrancy of her beauty was more stunning than ever.

  “Go away,” she said without turning to look at him. “You should have left when you had the chance. Did someone order you to stay?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “It couldn’t have been the bossy one,” she said quietly, still staring out the window. In the moonlight, her profile was delicate, the vulnerable lines of her difficult to reconcile with the woman who, twelve hours earlier, had injected him with poison. “Tell me, was she always an ice queen, even when you were sleeping with her?”

  “What makes you think that?” he growled.

  “Spare me. You angels are incapable of telling a decent lie,” she said.

  “I came to check on you. I thought you might need a friend.”

  Luciana rolled her eyes, finally turning to address him, her green eyes almost leeched of their spark. But not quite. She told him, “You’re not my friend, and I don’t need your pity.”

  “There’s a difference between pity and compassion.”

  “Please. I don’t need a lecture right now. What would someone like you know about pity, anyway? You’re as smug and perfect as the rest of them. Dressed up like a bad guy with your tattoos. Beneath that tough-guy exterior of yours beats a pure heart. It’s the same story for all of you. I bet you lived like a monk before you died. Isn’t that what it takes to be an angel?”

  He didn’t answer, refusing to let her goad him into anger.

  He wanted to tell her that he knew the difference between pity and compassion, because he had given and received both.

  To be perfectly honest, he didn’t know how to help her right now.

  He hadn’t even figured out how to help himself.

  But he asked anyway. When he did, it came out entirely wrong. Perhaps because he was tired. Perhaps because her anger touched something in him that was still raw.

  Whatever the reason, even as the words came pouring out of his mouth, he regretted them.

  “What is it you want so badly that you’re willing to sell your soul to the devil for it?” he said. “Is it that you love power? The thrill of killing? I don’t believe that for an instant. What is it you don’t have? What is it that you want?”

  You. You are what I don’t have, she thought, looking at him. Well, that and revenge.

  “Julian told me his version of the truth,” he said. “About what happened between the two of you. It seems like perhaps the two of you have just come to a ‘he said, she said’ disagreement about events.”

  “Julian is fundamentally incapable of telling the truth about our relationship.”

  “Whatever you want to tell me, I’m willing to listen.”

  But there was nothing.

  Nothing she could think of that she would want to say to Brandon. Nothing she had to say about Julian that didn’t involve entering into a world of bitterness and regret. What would she say? That Julian had treated a seventeen-year-old girl with casual disregard, stripping her of her virginity and abandoning her to fate. That, over the centuries, he had toyed with her emotions time and again, causing her to hope each time that he cared about something more than just her body or the power she could bring him in the demon world.

  “Nothing,” she said. “There is nothing I wish to tell you.”

  Nothing you would understand.

  “Have it your way,” Brandon said. Under the scrutiny of those piercing gray eyes, she felt like she had been shrunk to the size of a pea. “But for your sake, I really hope you’ll reconsider. There is more at stake here than you can begin to guess.”

  Let them take me, she thought, closing her eyes. Perhaps it will be a relief after all this time.

  “Forget about forgiving Julian. I don’t think that’s the real issue. The question is whether you can forgive yourself for all the suffering you’ve caused. If you were given the chance, could you let go of your guilt and start over again?”

  “The world doesn’t work like that,” she said. “I know Julian was redeemed. That the Company saved him. Now he gets to sleep with an angel every night, and go to bed scot-free. Good for him. I don’t know how Julian got over his guilt, but I know that’s not going to happen to me. Redemption is not an option.”

  “You’re wrong about that. If you give me a chance, I’d like to show you how wrong.”

  “That’s impossible,” she said.

  “Why are you so quick to believe in tragedy over miracles?” he challenged.

  She knew the answer to that immediately.

  Because her entire life had been steeped in tragedy.

  Because what little grace she had experienced during her brutally short human life had been ripped away and buried in an unmarked grave. Because everything and everyone she had ever loved had been destroyed or had soured against her. Because in the time since then, a very long time indeed, she had neither seen nor experienced anything that told her anything different.

  Because she had laughed at redemption, had mocked those who sought it.

  Because nobody had ever offered her redemption before.

  There was a myriad of reasons why she could not be redeemed. But how could she express that to Brandon, who seemed to have an infinite capacity to try to forgive, even if he never quite accomplished that task? Who was haunted on a nightly basis by the most unspeakable act a human being could do to another. Who simply bore his excruciating nightmare and got up the next morning, went on about his day.

  But she didn’t have the strength to explain any of that to him.

  Not now. Not tonight.

  “I don’t know why you stayed,” she said instead. “Now you’re stuck here with this lunatic band of rabid do-gooders. I know you dislike them. Not as much as I hate them, but you understand.”

  “True. But I’m also stuck here with you,” he said. “Good night, principessa.”

  He walked o
ut and closed the door gently behind him.

  * * *

  Brandon was beginning to question his sanity and his motives.

  That night he lay in the room next to hers, which mercifully had not been converted into a prison cell. Separated only by a few inches of drywall, timber and dead air, he lay in the comfortable bed. The real barriers, the psychological, emotional and spiritual barriers between them were being stripped down to thin slivers that barely held them apart.

  Leave. Just get up and leave, said his brain. This is no longer an assignment. Let Arielle deal with Luciana. The demoness is not your problem anymore.

  What kept him there was the knowledge that beneath it all was a terrorized young woman whose life had gone badly off the rails at the age of seventeen.

  He closed his eyes and slipped into sleep.

  Sliding into dream, she came for him, grabbing him by the arm and yanking him with her.

  “I’ve had enough of revisiting my past for one day. What about your past?”

  Luciana took him to visit his wife, Tammy.

  “Don’t visit your loved ones,” was the order Michael had given him.

  Not every Guardian was given that advice.

  Many of them went back, to check up and to watch over their loved ones.

  Why Brandon had been forbidden from visiting was a mystery to him. But he had obeyed nonetheless. Now, with Luciana standing beside him, he felt vaguely guilty for disobeying, even though he had no control over where she chose to take him.

  Besides, he told himself, it’s only a dream.

  Tammy still lived in the house Brandon had bought for them, a few years after joining the Detroit P.D. Standing across the street from the house, he saw Tammy come out and speak to two little boys playing in the yard. Brandon smiled, happy that she was happy.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Luciana. “I don’t want to stick around in case she sees me.”

  “It’s just a dream,” said the demoness scornfully.

  “Still,” he said. “She might remember.”