Where Demons Fear to Tread

by Stephanie Chong

  Love. Yes, love.

  That was the only thing that could stop the damage Julian was unleashing. If it was possible to cause an angel to fall, it was possible to engineer a demon’s redemption. A long time ago, a part of Julian had once been good. That goodness still existed in him. Serena would see that goodness, if she spent enough time with him. And she would make Julian see it himself. Of all the fledgling angels, Serena’s heart was the most innocent. She’d never known romantic love in her human life, never been scarred by it.

  Serena’s innocence must remain untainted by the knowledge that she had been deliberately set up to lure Julian. He would smell that knowledge on her. Serena would be unable to hide it, since she was completely incapable of artifice or deceit. And if he sensed that she had an ulterior motive, he would never open up to her.

  If Serena succeeded, it was worth the risk. Worth the enormous gamble of sending a fledgling angel on a dangerous mission she wasn’t even aware of. To Arielle, there was nothing particularly surprising about that. Every day, humans and angels alike were sent on divine missions without knowing what they were doing. Or why.

  Serena must succeed where I myself failed, the supervisor thought as she shut the file. She tucked it away in the cabinet and prayed for Serena’s safety.

  Arielle would be here to guide the young angel. And the Archangels would be watching over her from afar, even if they couldn’t always be seen or heard.

  But if Serena fell…there was nothing anyone could do to save her.

  That night, Julian watched Serena sleep. As an Archdemon, he was no longer bound by his physical body. He dematerialized at will now, moving between dimensions with the ease of a human crossing the street. Concentrating on the young angel’s image in his mind’s eye, he located her easily. Someone had cast a protection charm over her house, but the charm was weak and easily broken, rather like picking a cheap lock. After that, it was easy to gain entrance.

  Serena’s home was as pretty and inviting as she was. The large windows must have gotten a lot of sun in the daytime, because plants flourished everywhere. The furnishings were not expensive, but comfortable and homey—the kind of thing he supposed an interior designer might refer to as ‘Shabby Chic.’ Pastels and soft fabrics dominated. It was a style that was entirely too feminine for his tastes, and it made him vaguely uncomfortable.

  As she lay in her frothy white bed—how cliché, for an angel, he thought—he perused her sleeping form. Drifting close, he paused, hovering over her in his disembodied spirit form. The covers were thrown back, revealing her pale limbs in the moonlight. She wore only a baby-doll T-shirt and a pair of boy-legged panties. What a pity she didn’t sleep nude.

  He incarnated into his human body. It was the only way he could feel physical pleasure, and pleasure was his goal tonight. He was already hard and aching for her, frustrated by the abrupt end to their afternoon encounter at the yoga studio. Edging closer, he stroked the soft skin of her cheek. She gave a little sigh of satisfaction. Awake, she’d never have let him touch her like this.

  But now, as she slept, he took liberties that would have made her shriek with fury during waking hours. He got into bed with her, sliding under the covers with a carefully practiced stealth. Gently, he reached for her pert breasts, caressing one through the soft fabric of her T-shirt. The nipple hardened beneath his fingertips. She moaned, but rolled away from him. He brushed the nape of her neck and followed the touch with a gentle kiss. In her sleep, she fussed and swatted at the back of her neck.

  She wasn’t awake—if she were, she’d be screaming bloody murder. He withdrew a little and waited until her breathing resumed its slow, even pattern. Propped on one elbow, he studied her face, illuminated by the moonlight that spilled in through the sheer curtains. She might have terrible taste in interior decorating, but he’d rarely seen anyone lovelier, angel or otherwise. The crescents of her long eyelashes fell on flawless cheeks. He studied her perfect little nose, the moist curves of her perfect lips.

  He slid a hand around her thigh, gliding along the silk of her skin, toward the bottom edge of her panties. In the next moment, she shoved his hand away and sat bolt upright in bed. “Julian, no!”

  Just in time, he dematerialized. Awake, she peered straight at him in the darkness, a frown etching itself between her eyebrows as she clutched the blankets to her chest. She sat for long moments, staring at the air where he hovered, as though sensing, but not seeing him. Finally, she settled down again, closing her eyes and falling back into slumber. He slid away, disappointed.

  Once again, he’d misread her. This afternoon he’d been sure that she was willing to surrender herself to him. And now, he was in danger of ruining his chances of having her.

  But he would have her. He would simply have to be a bit smarter about things, he reminded himself again.

  He would have to do things the hard way.

  Chapter Four

  At home that night, Julian swam laps in his outdoor pool to take the edge off. Having a human body was a pain in the ass sometimes, with its highs of physical pleasure and its lows of pain. He dove in, submerging his lust in the cool blue of the water, and tried not to think about Serena.

  Instead, he thought about choices.

  He cleaved his way through length after length, his thoughts racing. In his mind, he considered himself nothing more than a provider of choices when it came to the corruption of human beings. In the vast majority of cases, he found he could achieve his end goal without involving himself directly in criminal activities. No, there were plenty of middlemen willing to take care of that. He simply made sure he was around to make a full range of choices available. In Nick’s case, for example, he’d simply provided the choice of partaking in illegal substances and illicit sex. In other cases, the choices Julian offered to other humans involved large sums of money.

  His muscles began to ache, but he swam hard, his thoughts still churning.

  Nobody has to choose damnation. Julian had never forced a soul into hell. The power of suggestion went a long way, he’d found over the years. And where that failed, there was always good old blackmail. Almost everyone had made a choice or two in their past they’d rather keep hidden, a skeleton they’d prefer remained in the closet. He wondered if Serena had any skeletons in her closet. More than likely, he guessed that it was simply filled with pastel sundresses and yoga clothes. He was struck by a sudden desire to find out.

  It was well after 1:00 a.m. when Julian stopped swimming and summoned his personal assistant. Harry, an African-American family man in his mid-thirties, had been happily managing an English pub in a quiet suburban neighborhood until his sudden and untimely death three months ago. He arrived, breathless, within minutes of Julian’s call.

  “I trust your children are all doing well,” Julian said.

  To provide for his four kids after he’d died, Harry had resorted to pickpocketing clubgoers at Devil’s Paradise. When the Gatekeepers had caught him, Julian had found over four thousand dollars in cash on him and several handfuls of jewelry, including a silver bracelet filched off the wrist of the club’s general manager. Julian had seen his potential, and hired him on the spot.

  “Thriving, thank you,” Harry said. “You’ve been very generous. I’ve been sending most of my salary to my wife. She thinks she’s getting payments from a life-insurance policy.”

  “Excellent. I need you to do me a favor. There was a young woman who came in last night—an angel. Serena St. Clair is her name. Find out everything you can on her. I’d like to know what kind of choices might influence such a person, if you know what I mean.”

  “Consider it done, sir,” he nodded, signaling that there was no further explanation necessary. He slipped back into the night as quietly as he had come, leaving Julian confident that the job was in good hands. Harry, of all people, knew the value of choices. He had become a demon because of a few unfortunate choices he’d made during his human life, choices that he regretted bitterly. And now he was wil
ling to do all the wrong things for all the right reasons.

  Oh, yes, it all came down to choices, a matter of finding which choice would determine the point at which a person cracked. Sooner or later, Julian would crack Little Miss Perfect. He just had to find out what that choice was.

  Each day that week, the gifts Julian sent became more outrageous. On Monday, it was flowers and chocolate—three-dozen red sweetheart roses and the biggest box of Belgian truffles she had ever seen. Tuesday, a basket filled with French perfume. Wednesday, a tiny Yorkshire terrier puppy with a gigantic, floppy bow around its neck. A courier arrived with a jeweler’s box on Thursday. Serena opened it to find a diamond bracelet glittering against the dark blue velvet. Friday, he sent her a ticket to Paris—on his private jet.

  She sent each delivery back immediately, without so much as a phone call, a note or even a text message. It irked her that he thought she could be bought. That she would abandon her duty to Nick for a few expensive items, gifts that appeared to bear no personal thought behind them. They were the sort of offerings that a man might guess any red-blooded female desired.

  But even more disturbing was her own reaction to the gifts—she wanted to keep them. Each and every one of them. What’s more, she wondered about the man who had sent them. Who was he? And how far would he go to get what he wanted?

  Oh, she was content with her life as a yoga teacher, and more than happy to perform her angelic duties with enthusiasm. But in the year since she’d been ordained, she’d lived frugally, without the comfort of family, or the little pleasures that men in her human life might have brought her when she dated them. In fact, in the past year, she’d shied away from male attention entirely, living almost like a nun.

  How long had it been since anyone had sent her flowers or chocolate? She hated to admit it, but the gifts had brought a smile to her face when she’d opened the door. But none of them had affected her as much as the puppy. She’d snuggled him longingly, burying her face into his soft fur as he squirmed around to lick her. He had a tag on his collar that read Milo. It had almost broken her heart to send him back.

  On Saturday morning, she woke up half expecting to see a new sports car parked in her driveway. But there was nothing.

  As she drove to the yoga studio to teach Nick’s private lesson, she told herself she ought to be relieved. But if she were totally honest, she had to admit that she also felt a tinge of disappointment. Apparently, Julian had an attention span of a fruit fly.

  But it was probably—no, definitely—for the best. Life would go back to normal now that he had forgotten about her. And that was what she wanted.

  Wasn’t it?

  While Julian distracted Serena with the deluge of gifts, he planned. And a few days later, Harry came back to report. While Julian sat at his desk, Harry summarized what he’d found.

  “Serena was born about six hours up the coast, in the town of Carmel. Mother and brother still live there. Father died of a heart attack at the age of forty-six, when the girl was thirteen. She went to college near home at UC Santa Cruz, traveled afterward, then taught yoga full-time. Died last year in a car accident on the Cabrillo Freeway. She was twenty-three years old.” Harry paused, swallowing past what Julian guessed was a lump in his throat. “Joined the Company of Angels immediately upon termination of her human life. They relocated her to L.A., like they move almost all of their members, so she’d be around fewer of her friends and family who might recognize her.”

  Even if someone from her past did recognize her, Julian knew that if she created any glaring inconsistencies with human reality these days, the Archangels would correct her mistakes. They could lift angelic imprints off human memories as easily as wiping chalk from a blackboard.

  Just as Julian himself could erase any trace of demonic activity.

  “Vices?” Julian said. This was the part he’d been anticipating, always the most interesting part of someone’s life.

  “None. She was a quiet kid after her father died. Not much to report from her high school years. She partied like any normal college kid, but seems to have straightened out right after graduation. Otherwise, she had no apparent vices.”

  Impossible. “There has to be something. Maybe you didn’t dig deep enough,” Julian said, frowning.

  Harry looked affronted. “I dug plenty deep. There just wasn’t anything that interesting to find. She lived a good life.”

  Harry had more—pages of details on her class schedules, jobs she’d worked, her dedication to yoga, trips she’d taken, the kind of car she’d driven, who her friends had been. But nowhere in his report were the kinds of things Julian really wanted to know. A thousand other questions burned in his mind. Who was the first boy she ever kissed? How many lovers had she taken? How many hearts had she broken? Had anyone ever broken hers? Had she ever known real love?

  Questions he could hardly ask Harry.

  The report spoke of a life unlived, dedicated to service from a very young age. In Serena’s human life, there had been precious little room for the passions, the desires, the joys and the screwups of being human.

  “How pathetically short,” Julian commented aloud. Her life had a sort of unlived quality that made Julian ache strangely for her. Harry, too, seemed to have been affected, deep in thought as he shuffled through the pages. There was nothing left to say, but Julian could see him standing there, trying to make sense of what he had found. He’s thinking of his own kids, Julian thought as he watched the man.

  “Thank you, Harry. That will be all for now.”

  After Harry shut the door, Julian was left in utter silence. He felt like someone had died, as though he ought to mourn her. She was a blank slate, this girl, the paper description of her life so bland as to make her seem expendable. But in person, from the very first time he had looked into her eyes, Julian had read so much more. He had seen her tenacious loyalty to Nick, the ferocious pride that gave her the courage to stand up to a demon—Julian himself—who was much more powerful than she was. And he had seen in those eyes a desire…a desire to know. To feel. To exist.

  No, Serena was not a woman to be mourned. For even though her human life had ended, she was not gone, after all. She was still very much alive and kicking in the material realm.

  And here in the material realm, he would delve into her unexplored desires. Would find a way to get inside of her and exploit whatever it was she most wanted to learn, to experience, to be. Would ply her with the things she had missed out on during her fleeting human life.

  All he needed was a way in.

  Perhaps she would be lured by material objects. He sent all the things that usually worked for him: flowers, chocolate, perfume, a baby animal, jewelry, a romantic escape…. But by the end of the week, all the gifts had been returned and Julian realized he would have to try another tactic. Family was always a good starting place, as Julian had proven so many times, most recently with Harry. At least the Company had kept Serena close to her family so she could watch over them from a safe distance. It was a fact Julian would certainly use to his advantage.

  Maybe the brother…

  On Friday afternoon, Julian wandered into Andrew St. Clair’s photography gallery, a large, warehouselike space in the quiet seaside town of Carmel. The gallery’s bare concrete walls were hung with pictures—portraits, mostly, some of them Julian recognized, and others he didn’t. But famous or not, all of the subjects were lovingly photographed, shot with the careful eye of a true artist.

  With the exception of one subject, perhaps a little more lovingly photographed than the rest. There was a substantial section of wall devoted to Serena, half a dozen photos of her at different ages and in various locales. Even as a baby, she’d been beautiful, the blue of her eyes intense in the photographs.

  “Who’s this?” he asked, keeping his tone bland.

  Andrew shuffled up beside him, stuffed his hands in his pockets. Julian noted the family resemblance in his hair, a shade darker than Serena’s, and his eyes, which
matched hers exactly. “That’s my sister, Serena.”

  “Is she a model? An actress?” he suggested casually.

  “She did a little modeling when she was younger. She was scouted in high school, but she never had any real interest in it.”

  “Really? Why so?” Julian prompted.

  Andrew shrugged. “Serena always had her head in the clouds. Used to wander on the beach for hours, just daydreaming. She studied philosophy at college and then she went to India for a year. Came back a changed woman, she said, and started teaching yoga.”

  “And now?” Julian said, prodding for the inevitable. He knew what had happened, but wanted to see the brother’s reaction. He took great pleasure in the suffering of others.

  Andrew smiled gently. “She died in a car accident last year.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Julian said, and was surprised by his own reaction. He meant what he’d said. He swallowed down the emotion that blocked his throat, not allowing it to surface. How strange…

  “It’s okay. Serena was a hero. She saved a woman and her two young daughters.”

  So she had a bent for self-sacrifice. Wasn’t that interesting? He filed the information away for later. But surely the little angel had a vice or two, whether Harry or Andrew knew about that or not. There would be time enough to find out. He was in no particular hurry, except for the increasingly insistent needs of his body. And those, he could ease at any time. All he needed was a warm and willing female, and not necessarily Serena.

  Andrew continued to gaze at the photos, lost in a moment of sadness. “I just wish she’d had more time. To live life. Serena was a beautiful girl, but she was so serious all the time. I’m not sure if she ever really knew how to have fun. I don’t think she ever fell in love.”

  Interesting. But there was more there. Julian could feel Andrew’s mind resisting, secreting away some bit of information that he deemed unfit to share. Julian wanted to know. He looked Andrew straight in the eyes and asked casually, “Why’s that?”