Where Demons Fear to Tread

by Stephanie Chong

  “Mr. Ascher requests the pleasure of your company in the back garden,” said the Gatekeeper. “Please follow me.”

  He led them through a long arched hallway, through a set of high glass doors that opened onto a sweeping terrace. Serena felt as though she’d stepped into an old Audrey Hepburn movie. The terrace overlooked a vast garden that sprawled behind the house, strung with white fairy lights and twinkling with lit candles. At the bottom of a curving staircase, a swimming pool glowed a deep, eerie blue. On the lawn beside it, a full orchestra played while couples danced in slow circles on the grass and the white marble pool deck.

  “Please enjoy your evening,” said the Gatekeeper, bowing as he slipped away.

  Surrounded by a cluster of beautiful women, Julian held court. In the fingers of one hand, a glass of champagne dangled. Something he said made the circle of women laugh, each obviously vying for his attention.

  Next to him stood her brother, snapping photos with a camera that was strapped around his neck. Andrew turned. He lowered his wide-angle lens and gave her a long, odd look.

  She froze as her brother stared.

  Confusion swept across Andrew’s face. Many people knew that angels walked among them. Only a few understood how closely. Most human minds were simply unable to hold the vibrations of divine beings. “Think of that eerie feeling you used to get when you were alive,” Arielle had explained soon after Serena’s death. “Like someone was watching over you? Or when you thought you recognized someone on the street, who seemed so familiar? That was not your imagination.”

  Serena watched that feeling of near-recognition in Andrew’s bright blue eyes now. Saw the shiver pass over his body as his mind churned, trying to place her. She had not seen her brother this close since her human death. A handful of times, she’d driven to Carmel to watch her mother and brother from afar, making sure to keep herself sufficiently hidden.

  But now, she wanted to hug him. She wanted to cry.

  Not just for herself, but for him.

  Now here he stood, in the middle of this demon’s domain. Because of her. In need of her protection. She had to get him out of Julian’s grasp.

  The Archdemon caught sight of her and raised his champagne glass to her in mock salute. As Julian’s glittering gaze locked on hers, she felt the obsidian depths of his demon’s soul pulling her toward him, threatening to draw her in.

  At that moment, Serena wanted to kill him. Not just for putting her brother in jeopardy. But for luring Nick into increasing danger. For trying to seduce her. For all the evil he’d ever done to every soul who had crossed over his threshold.

  The thought of murdering another person had never occurred to her before. But right now, she wanted to put her hands around his tanned, muscular neck and choke him senseless right in front of his crowd of privileged guests.

  Oh, it would be so easy.

  One act of recklessness to save hundreds of lives. Thousands. Possibly millions.

  In the clear night sky directly overhead, a flash of lightning splintered across the velvet darkness. A sharp, loud crack pierced the sound of music and laughter.

  A warning from above.

  The orchestra ground to a halt and the entire crowd looked skyward. The only person not looking up was Andrew, who stood shivering as he stared, looking straight at Serena as though he was seeing a ghost. In a way, he is, she thought. Her brother shook his head, trying to jar himself out of his daze.

  “How odd. Not a drop of moisture in the air,” Nick said, scanning the sky. The orchestra launched seamlessly back into song and the guests resumed their chatter. The actor started down the stairs, toward Julian. “Let’s say hello to our host.”

  The Archdemon bent down, whispering to Andrew. Who looked up at Serena again, this time without a trace of recognition. Smiling politely, her brother excused himself to go back into the house to photograph the ice sculpture.

  Relief and disappointment both flooded her at once. Julian glanced at her, and the message in that gemstone gaze was clear: If Archangels can erase angelic imprints, so can Archdemons.

  “So good of you ladies to grace us with your company,” Julian said. Apparently amused by his own irony, he smiled slightly. “And, Nick, always a pleasure to see you, my friend. What a pity that you just missed meeting my new photographer. His name is Andrew. He’s very talented. I’m thinking of taking him on board permanently.”

  “Really?” Nick said. “Sounds interesting.”

  “Andrew would love it. I can provide opportunities for him that he never imagined. He and I have been getting to know each other. We’re practically best friends.”

  No. She would not let Julian have his way. Would not watch her brother’s life go down the drain, no matter what Arielle had said. Her brother was in the prime of his humanity, and if Serena had anything to do with it, he would have every opportunity to live until he was a hundred. As she herself had not had.

  “This photographer is very talented,” Julian continued smoothly, placing his arm around the waist of a stunning brunette beside him. “And ambitious. He could be a great success with the right contacts.”

  The threat was subtle, but it hung in the summer air between them, charged like the lightning bolt that had electrified the sky moments before.

  “Julian, I need to speak with you for a moment,” Serena said. Beside her, Nick stiffened. But he wasn’t in direct danger now. Her brother was. She turned to her Assignee and said, “I want to talk to Julian about the photographer. I need someone to take some photos of the yoga studio.”

  The brunette clinging to Julian’s side pouted. He gave her a patronizing pat on the cheek and said, “I’ll be back in a moment, darling.”

  In the same moment, Serena whispered covertly to Meredith, “Get my brother out of here.”

  Meredith nodded. Serena knew she had to count on her roommate now. She didn’t dare look backward again as Julian led her into the house.

  “You weren’t supposed to come here with a date,” he said quietly as he guided her through the winding hallways of his villa. The levity of his mood seemed to dissolve and he glanced down at her. “Nor were you supposed to bring your friend, Meredith. That’s her name, isn’t it?”

  “You gave me no choice,” said Serena.

  He stopped short, turning to face her. “You always have a choice, Serena.”

  “Get your claws out of my brother,” she said, refusing to back down beneath his intense gaze. “What you’re doing is extortion.”

  “Such a negative view of the situation, my angel.” He pressed her against the wall, leaned the weight of himself into her soft curves. “You need to loosen up. Your brother has been telling me all about you. He said you needed to have more fun.”

  Oh, how she hated Julian.

  But she needed to keep him distracted. To give Meredith a chance to find Andrew and get him out of this godforsaken mess. She must stall for time. There was one way for certain that she knew how.

  “I can show you how to have fun.”

  His voice was low and velvet, rolling through her body and vibrating deep inside her. She had the sensation that he was about to kiss her. Her eyelids drifted shut, and her lips parted slightly, ready to meet his descending mouth.

  The sound of approaching laughter, of another couple around the corner made him draw back. Julian drew a fingertip across Serena’s lips. “Let’s go. There’s someone else I think you’d like to see.”

  Anger bubbled up in her. At her side, her hand curled into a fist. “Good God, who have you brought here besides Andrew?” she snapped.

  He didn’t answer, but tugged at her hand. He led her down a quiet hallway, toward his bedroom, she was sure. She stomped along behind him, struggling to keep up with his long strides. Who on earth has he brought here, and why?

  At last, he opened a door that led not to his bedroom, but to his library. Leather-bound books lined tall mahogany shelves on every side of the room. Along one wall, a large sofa in chrome and leat
her seemed made for long afternoons of reading.

  In a pen in the corner, she spotted the puppy he’d sent her, curled up in a little bed. His tiny head popped up when he heard the door open, and he scuttled over to the edge of the enclosure to greet her, tail wagging furiously.

  “What’s he doing here?” She crossed the room and scooped Milo out of his pen, laughing softly as he wriggled and licked her face. Her anger at Julian retreated momentarily. Perhaps he was not quite the monster she’d thought he was.

  Julian shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against one of the bookshelves, watching her. “I don’t know why I kept him. I should have thrown him to the Nakara.”

  Horrified, she clutched the puppy closer.

  “Maybe you’ll rethink taking him home, after all,” he said. “You wouldn’t want him to get eaten, would you?”

  “You wouldn’t dare.” She gave him her best glare, but it was hard to remain angry when she was holding this sweet puppy. Was it her imagination, or was there something like regret in the shadow that passed across Julian’s face?

  “My angel, I’ve done much worse,” he said gently.

  It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him what exactly it was that he’d done. But she stopped herself, realizing she didn’t want to know. She cuddled the puppy closer, stroking Milo’s soft fur. “Stop calling me that. I’m not your angel.”

  Milo struggled to get down. She set him on the floor; he wiggled off in search of something to satisfy his puppy’s curiosity.

  She investigated the books, browsing as Julian strolled so close behind her she could feel his breath on the back of her exposed neck. She concentrated on reading the titles, trying to pretend she couldn’t feel the heat radiating from his powerful body. Machiavelli’s The Prince, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. A long shelf of Shakespearean plays. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.

  “My, you’re well-read,” she said, swallowing down the growing realization that she was no match for Julian.

  The books spoke of a man with a mind for strategy. A man who enjoyed delving into the ruminations of the world’s greatest thinkers. Who had developed a sensitivity for the intricacies and vulnerabilities of human nature. A man who was infinitely more dangerous than she was equipped to handle.

  His voice was soft behind her. “I’ve had a lot of time on my hands,” he said.

  On one wall hung a framed page of a manuscript, brown with age. She peered closer and read the lines of spindly handwriting.

  In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

  A stately pleasure dome decree…

  “It reminds me of you. King of the pleasure dome,” she said. Her gaze traveled down the lines, catching on the middle of the page.

  A savage place! as holy and enchanted

  As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted

  By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

  She shivered, then turned to find him studying her intently while she perused the manuscript. “I know this poem,” she blurted.

  “Ah, yes, Kubla Khan. The Coleridge manuscript. It’s an original, of course. He was one of my greatest accomplishments.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His usual facade of detachment cracked slightly, and pride infused his voice. “Coleridge was an opium addict. He took a dose, then fell asleep. He always claimed that he had dreamed a few hundred lines of this poem. When he awoke, he started scribbling furiously, penning these first three stanzas. But he was interrupted by a knock at the door, and someone he called ‘the man from Porlock’ detained him for an hour. Afterward, he tried to re-create the masterpiece of his dreams, but of the three hundred lines, he could remember only fifty-four.”

  “So you’re saying you were the man from Porlock?”

  He smiled. “And the one who got him started on opium in the first place.”

  “But that must have been…” She trailed off.

  “1797,” he supplied. “The poem has some lovely lines, doesn’t it?”

  His gaze fell to her lips; she felt again that he might try to kiss her. She cut him off before he could, turning back to examine the manuscript. Behind her, he bent near. Her eyes scanned the words as he whispered them a hairbreadth away from her ear.

  “…close your eyes with holy dread,

  For he on honey-dew hath fed

  And drunk the milk of Paradise.”

  His lips brushed the tender skin beneath her ear. She trembled; her lips parted and her breath broke from her throat. She tilted her head back, giving him easier access to her neck as he feathered kisses along its most sensitive spots.

  One of his hands rose up to skim the bottom of her rib cage, the other hand followed, venturing higher. Through the silk of her dress, he stroked her. Beneath his expert touch, pleasure washed over her.

  Sensations set her body trembling. She was at risk of floating away on a cloud of bliss.

  She wanted to reach back and kiss him with all the pent-up frustration of a week spent yearning for him, spent secretly fantasizing his touch on her body, the slide of his skin on hers. More than that, she wanted to kiss him with all the repressed energy of a year without intimacy with the opposite sex, a year of being stuck in a human body whose needs she denied at every waking moment.

  But she did not. Could not. Would not.

  As his heated mouth roamed the back of her neck, he steered her in slow steps across the room, until she felt her leg meet the edge of the sofa.

  He turned her, held her to his chest, kissed the top of her head with a tenderness that was close to reverence. Without warning, she felt herself falling backward, her body suspended in his arms, until he deposited her on the sofa. She clung to him and he followed her down, easing his weight over her carefully as he caught one of her legs so that it rode the side of his hip.

  It was the move of a master, choreographed so perfectly she had the sense that he must have performed it a thousand times before. He was as skilled as a gigolo and as smooth as Casanova. A warning signal popped up in the back of her mind, flagging her to the risk of the situation. She ignored it, lost in a swirl of sensual delight.

  He looked down at her, easing back to stare at her with an expression of wonder that did not match his demon’s nature. There was something human in him, too. Beneath that fiendish exterior still beat a man’s heart. She saw it in his eyes, felt it in the gentleness of his touch, knew it from the tender brush of his lips.

  Reading her body, his gaze pored over its curves and valleys, exploring her reactions and watching her face as he dragged his fingertips over the delicate skin of her throat, her collarbones. Her body came alive beneath his touch, and she reached out to slip her hands beneath his suit jacket. Through the fabric of his dress shirt, she ran her hands over his well-muscled torso, feeling the contours of his powerful body. Her hands roamed to caress the broadness of his back, sinewy like she imagined a bull’s might be. He pressed against her, nestled in the junction between her thighs, the heat of him seeping through their clothes.

  That little voice inside her whispered, yes.

  He slowly pulled one end of the black silk bow encircling her waist, untying it. As though through a stranger’s eyes, she watched the sash flutter to the floor beside them. Saw the wisp of fabric lying on the floor.

  Fallen.

  A jolt of panic ran through her. They must stop.

  Surely Meredith has found Andrew by now and taken him to safety, Serena thought. They must be gone.

  She caught his wrist, arresting the movement of his hand. “Julian, wait.”

  His hand stilled, but she felt the warm pressure of his fingers, his hand wrapped around the side of her waist, touching the place where the sash had been.

  “Stay with me,” he breathed, nuzzling the sensitive spot below her ear.

  There was nothing in the world she would rather do, but the consequences were too dire. She thought about her duties as an angel, and pulled away, dislodging his hand. “I can’t.”

  He sat up slowly, loo
ked at her with an accusation in his eyes. “You can. But you won’t.”

  She shook her head, and said firmly, “Julian, I won’t let you ruin me.”

  “I’m ruining you? You’re as hot and panting for it as I am, my angel,” he said, a smirk playing around the corners of his mouth.

  “Please, Julian.”

  His eyes levered shut. When he opened them again, the gentleness in him had faded, replaced by his usual disdainful facade. And she knew that this time, there would be no escape. Looking down at her, he said, “I should have expected that this would happen. I thought we could do things easily. But since you insist, it’ll have to be the hard way. Come with me.” He spoke in the same deep growl he’d used last Saturday night when he’d let her go.

  This time, she sensed there would be no escape.

  He grasped her wrist and yanked her to her feet, headed toward the door.

  “Where are we going?” she said, pulling backward even though she knew it was futile.

  His mouth set in a grim line. “To find your brother.”

  “Andrew’s gone,” she said defiantly. She drew herself up to her full height, but even in heels she still stood well below the bottom of his nose. “I sent him home with Meredith.”

  “I gave orders not to let them out,” he said, tightening his grip on her wrist to a point just short of pain. His voice was as smooth and cold as ever, but fury burned in his eyes. “Shall we see whose instructions were more effective?”

  Desire surged through Julian as he dragged her through the twisting hallways, back down to the garden. He could not remember the last time he had felt such a driving sense of immediacy, the rush of emotion burning through his veins. He’d spent centuries learning to control his emotions, because emotions always led to trouble.

  Emotions clouded one’s ability to choose wisely. Emotions led to mistakes, and mistakes landed you in hell. He, of all people, understood that. But tonight, this fledgling angel had pushed him to the brink. If she thought she could waltz into his home, kiss him and then leave, then she was the one who’d made the bigger mistake.