The Demoness of Waking Dreams (Company of Angels)

by Stephanie Chong

  “Julian reformed himself. With Serena’s help.”

  “Don’t speak their names,” she said, infinitely sad. “Not at a moment like this. Even if that’s true, I don’t think it’s possible for me.”

  “Arielle isn’t the absolute authority on such things,” he said.

  “Shh. Don’t speak of it. Just let me love you.”

  She pored over every inch of him, wanting an explanation for every stroke of tattoo on his body. She wanted to know them all, to memorize the map of ink that covered his skin, a map of his history and his unspoken bravery.

  “I want to remember your body,” she said. “I want your skin to be the last thing I know before I…”

  “Before what? You’re not going anywhere. Not if I can help it,” he said gruffly.

  * * *

  Afterward, he found he could not sleep. He lay staring at the ceiling, wondering if the unfinished business of his own life would ever be resolved.

  “What happened when you died?” she asked as they lay in the darkness, insomniacs together.

  “You’ve seen it yourself, in my dreams,” he said. “Don’t pretend you haven’t.”

  “Yes,” she admitted finally, sighing. “I suppose I have.”

  He sat up suddenly on the bed and asked, “Why do we have this strange bond, the ability to enter each others’ dreams?”

  “Evidence of a cruel and ironic God,” she said.

  He suspected there was more to it than that. Suspected that she had the ability to enter his dreams on purpose. That she had explored the sleeping minds of many other dreamers, for purposes that were far from innocent. However, he put that out of his mind. Right now they were here, far away from Arielle. Safe.

  They lay together, the rhythmic flow of their breath perfectly in sync.

  “Did they ever catch your killer?” she asked.

  In the darkness, Brandon nodded. “They arrested two men, the drug dealers I was hunting. But they always swore they didn’t do it. Said they were nowhere near the alleyway when the shooting went down. They ended up in the Baraga Max—that’s a maximum security correctional facility in Michigan. They were put away for life.”

  “Do you think they really did it?”

  He froze, silence thickening in the space between them. “Why do you ask?”

  “You still dream about it every night. It’s obvious there’s unfinished business.”

  Perhaps some part of Brandon remained a part of the human world because of this unfinished business. As he lay in bed, Luciana’s head on his chest, he stared at the bright stars outside and thought of that.

  And wondered how in the world his unfinished business could be finished.

  “I still can’t sleep,” he said after a long while.

  She laughed. “You’re already dreaming. You just don’t know it. Come, I’ll show you.”

  “No,” he gritted out. “I want to wake up. There’s no need to go through this again.”

  “You need to see this. You need to know for certain who killed you, and you need to confront him.”

  It was the same old nightmare.

  The one he’d relived thousands of times. The one he could never avoid.

  Down the dark alley, past the spilled garbage, the toxic ooze of leaking slime, stench of rotting food and other decomposing filth strewn across the pavement. He followed, unsure of where this was leading. Unsure of exactly what Luciana wanted him to see.

  “I’ve got your back,” she said. “I promise you. You’re not alone. I will not let you die here tonight.”

  They walked into the alleyway, angel and demon together. Back-to-back, his big hand clasping hers, pale and fragile yet strong as silk-covered steel. He reached into his shoulder holster, pulled out the gun. Held it at eye level as he moved forward.

  And when the shooter arrived, time seemed to slow as he raised his gun. But Luciana was faster, somehow behind him, blocking him from moving. The man turned to uncover a face Brandon knew well. A face he had loved.

  The face of his best friend.

  His wife’s second husband.

  The father of her children.

  Jude raised his gun, ready to fire. Not into Brandon’s back this time, but point-blank, aimed toward his chest.

  The shots rang out, as they always did.

  First one, then the other, the same familiar noise he had heard so many times before.

  But not the same pain. No doubled flare of pain exploding in the back of his body.

  Because they were fired into another body instead.

  Faster than a human, Luciana had launched herself in front of him, taking both of the bullets. One of them hit her square in the middle of the chest, the other in her throat.

  He caught her as she fell.

  Held her as though he would never let her go. Even as she bled out on the concrete, and he was unable to do anything to stop it. She smiled as her eyes fluttered shut.

  * * *

  And then Brandon awoke, sweating in fear as he had done every night for the ten years before he encountered the demoness. Awoke with a pain and a knowledge that, at that moment, felt heavier and more terrible than death.

  He fought through the haze of confusion, trying to recount the facts to himself.

  You can’t die in a dream.

  He definitely knew firsthand that it wasn’t true.

  She had taken a bullet for him. It had only been in a dream. But it had happened. She had experienced all the same suffering of death as he had.

  He bolted upright. Beside him, the bed was empty.

  He remembered where she had gone.

  Remembered the last words she had said in the dream, after closing her eyes.

  “I’m going to kill that bastard.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Vengeance. If Brandon wouldn’t seek it on his own behalf, Luciana would do it for him. She would slay this one last dragon of his human life, and put it to rest finally. Because Brandon was too good a man to do it himself.

  As Brandon slept, she picked up the car key from the dresser.

  Slipped out of the motel room, quietly closing the door. And drove.

  As Luciana boarded a plane from Seattle to Detroit, she felt a pang of something that felt almost like sadness. She, Luciana, was not good. Brandon might be convinced otherwise, but she was evil at the core. She had been for centuries, and she would continue to be, until the end of time.

  There’s not an ounce of forgiveness in me, she thought.

  The strange part was that she no longer cared about Julian.

  Staring out the window at the urban sprawl below as the plane descended toward the Detroit Metro Airport, she pondered it. The lightness within herself. The refreshingly peaceful feeling when she ran the syllables of his name through her mind. For the first time in centuries, she no longer felt like vomiting when she thought about him.

  Well, she thought to herself, that has nothing to do with forgiveness and everything to do with Brandon.

  * * *

  It took Luciana the better part of a day to arrive at Brandon’s former home, a small bungalow in a suburb of Detroit in which his wife still lived. A pair of small blond-haired boys roughhoused in the yard outside. Children who, under different circumstances, might have been Brandon’s.

  “Are your mama and papa here?” she asked them with her sweetest smile.

  “Mommy’s at the store,” the younger one said.

  “Don’t talk to her,” said the older boy, a child of about six. He squinted up at Luciana with an ornery look on his face. “We’re not ’posed to talk to strangers.”

  Sighing patiently, she said, “This time it’s okay, darling.”

  The littler boy peered at her and said with the brutal honesty of the very young, “You’re prettier than Snow White from the movie. But you’re badder than her evil mommy.”

  “Well, now, that’s not fair. Even at my worst, I have never laid a hand on a child,” she told him.

  Two pair
s of small blue eyes squinted up at her, relentlessly accusing. If Brandon had melancholy thoughts about missing out on fatherhood, he ought to take a look at these two, she thought. It would cure him of those thoughts immediately.

  She smiled pleasantly and said, “But you could be the first, little man.”

  The small one screamed then, a high-pitched sound that Luciana had only ever heard come out of malfunctioning electronics and once when she had jammed on the brakes of a car. The bigger one joined in, belting out, “Daddaaaaaaaay!”

  The screen door banged open and a big, burly man came out. “Boys? Who you talking to out there?”

  Jude, she thought. The man of the hour.

  “Hello there, sir. I was just having a conversation with your bambini…what is the word in English… I believe it translates to spawn,” she said cheerfully. “But now I’d like to talk to you in private.”

  “You two boys run on back and play in the yard, now,” he told the children warily. To Luciana, he said, “You here selling somethin’?” His leering gaze swept over her body.

  “Not exactly. You have an object that belongs to someone else. I want it back.”

  Jude’s face went ash white. He did not ask what the item was.

  He simply reached into his pocket and pulled out a watch.

  “Jude Everett, you’re a sick bastard.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Never mind,” she said, easily overpowering his weak human mind. “That’s of no matter to you. Just give me the watch.”

  She held it in her hand, the same watch she had seen Brandon reach for a dozen times. In his pocket, in his dreams. While awake, to make sure he was in the real world. On the back of the watch, as she flipped it over, she saw the engraving there of the Archangel Michael.

  “Why did you steal this, you twisted, pathetic excuse for a man?” she said. “And don’t lie to me.”

  “Because I like to remind myself of what I’m capable of doing,” Jude said.

  Of what he had done to his friend.

  An image entered her mind, of Brandon’s body lying on the ground.

  Of Jude reaching down and taking the watch out of Brandon’s bloodied hand.

  “You did it because evil people do evil things,” Luciana said, more to herself than to him. “That was why you did not simply throw the watch into the garbage. Even though you threw away Brandon’s life.”

  He stared at her, his body pulling back in shock at the name. “How do you know about Brandon?”

  “Never mind that now. Come with me,” she said, staring deep into his eyes. “You will not resist.”

  In that instant, she knew she would make her sacrifice to the devil this year, after all.

  Better late than never.

  * * *

  One step behind the demoness was one step too late. When Brandon arrived at his old house, Luciana was long gone. He could feel the dark pull of her, heading away from him. And he knew where she had gone.

  Back to Venice.

  But there was still unfinished business here. Brandon pulled into the driveway that he had driven up thousands of times before. Tammy was sitting outside, watching her children play in the yard. At first, he only saw the side of her familiar light brown hair, shining in the summer sun. As he approached, she turned her face toward him.

  “Go in the house,” she told the boys quietly, her eyes widening slightly.

  “Where’s Jude?” he asked.

  “Went with the black-haired lady!” one of the boys shouted through the screen door.

  “Stay inside!” Tammy told them.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, her dark brown eyes clearly revealing her confusion. She reached out her hand to touch Brandon’s chest, as if expecting it would go right through him. “It really is you.”

  “I’m not a ghost,” he said.

  “What are you?” she asked.

  “I’m something else,” he said, not bothering to explain. “It’s complicated.”

  “My God, it’s like you haven’t aged,” she breathed, reaching out to stroke his face. “Like time has stood still.”

  “Trust me, time has passed,” he said.

  How odd. Seeing her for the first time in a decade…he had always assumed it would be different. He had stayed away all this time. Some angels didn’t, he knew. Some of them were allowed to visit their loved ones, to watch over them. And some of them broke the rules and let themselves be seen.

  But Brandon had always followed instructions.

  Had resisted the urge to go back home and visit. Partly because he had thought that Jude, his best friend, would be there to take good care of her. Would console her.

  Well.

  “Did you know?” was all he said to her.

  She didn’t bother to ask what he meant. Merely shook her head.

  “Not until after,” she said. “I had no idea. I wasn’t even really sure until…”

  Now. The word hung between them as she stared up at him.

  “Can you forgive me?” she said. “There are things I did. Things that happened before you died. I have thought for the past ten years, if only…”

  “You can’t think like that. What’s done is done.” He smiled. “Forget about all of this. Forget I ever came.”

  He kissed her cheek, the feeling of it so familiar and yet so strange, the skin he had once known, now striated with fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. And he left her standing there, his first love, pressing her hand to her cheek in the place where he had kissed her.

  * * *

  Getting Jude to Venice was so easy, Luciana could have done it in her sleep.

  After dealing with the Company of Angels, manipulating humans was a walk in the park, the demoness realized. Human minds were so malleable. After dealing with stubbornly strong-willed Brandon and his complicated dream sequences, Jude was like dealing with a child.

  Nor did the airport security present a problem, for the human security guards were just as easy to manipulate as Jude. Sitting on the flight home, she finally relaxed for the first time in a very long while, more content than she had been the last time she had departed from America.

  “We’re going to a very lovely place,” she said aloud to Jude, who sat next to her.

  Jude, eyes glazed over because she had temporarily suspended his brain functioning, did not answer. However, the fact that Luciana was conversing with herself didn’t spoil her mood in the least.

  Prendere due piccione con una fava. Kill two birds with one stone.

  The expression arose in her mind again.

  In one stroke, she would finally complete her yearly sacrifice.

  And exact revenge for Brandon’s human death.

  * * *

  A beat behind Luciana, Brandon arrived at the airport in Detroit and strode up to a ticket counter.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said the ticket agent. “You just missed our only direct flight to Venice today.”

  His gaze skimmed the dozens of departures listed on the electronic board behind her. “There must be another way. What’s the fastest connection you can get me?”

  Her fingers rattled over her computer keyboard as her eyes scanned its screen. “I can route you through London. It’s a very tight connection, but you might make it.”

  “Do it.”

  Sitting on the plane, he forced himself to sit still without fidgeting. Time was of the essence. His ability to guess Luciana’s destination would determine if Jude lived or died.

  Why Jude’s life was so important to him, Brandon didn’t know. He knew only that it was important, even after what Jude had done.

  Brandon stared out the window, into the clouds.

  Where is she going?

  The Redentore Church is too obvious. She’ll never go back there.

  A voice drifted into his head. Not Luciana’s voice, but the voice of her sister, the day he had met Carlotta in the glass gallery. “…the pieces are lovingly crafted on the neighboring Island of Murano,
where all the studios were originally established because of the risk of fire…”

  And he knew exactly where the demoness was headed.

  * * *

  On Corbin’s yacht, still anchored in St. Mark’s Basin, Massimo stood in front of the Archdemon, offering his services as a Gatekeeper.

  “I’m so glad you’ve come around to my way of thinking,” said the Archdemon. “Now we can work together, toward our mutual goal. The downfall of the Company. And more than that. The downfall of humankind.”

  “Yes, signore,” Massimo said.

  “Luciana trained you well. But you must forget your allegiance to her. She abandoned you to run off with that brute of an angel, Brandon. You know he was responsible for the disappearance of your little girlfriend, don’t you?”

  “Yes, signore,” he repeated.

  In Massimo’s heart, revenge was brewing.

  And it was only a matter of time before he would be able to savor it.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Luciana dragged her sacrifice toward her destination. This time, it was not to the Redentore Church. On landing at the airport in Venice, she commandeered a boat and drove out to the nearby island of Murano.

  To the place she had sworn she would never come.

  To the place she knew she could finish off the sacrifice, once and for all.

  “I’m taking you somewhere very special,” she told Jude as she steered the boat. “We’re going to visit a fornace, a glassblowing factory. You’re going to get an exclusive opportunity to experience the glassworks as no other tourist has before.”

  Jude continued to stare blankly into space, not registering their surroundings or her words. She slowed as she approached the island, winding the boat through the canals until she reached the building she was looking for, where she pulled up and tethered the boat. She led him out onto the fondamenta, guiding him toward the fornace.

  Like the glass gallery in the Rio Tera dei Assassini, the factory had a storefront where products were sold to tourists. Rows of glassware stood in the darkness. Much like the gallery at this time of night, it was totally quiet.

  “I have always hated this factory just as much as I hate the gallery,” she said, shuddering as she tugged Jude through the storefront. She led him to a pair of large iron doors, framed by an archway of colorful mosaic tile. She knocked, and a burly Gatekeeper hauled one of the doors open just an inch.