The Demoness of Waking Dreams (30 page)

“No. I shot you full of cyanide, just like you did to Brandon. You should have figured that out by the time you didn’t go to hell. And you should have figured out that I’m not a murderer. Not like you.”

“What do you want?”

“Oh, there’s a lot I want from you. I know you have a lot of knowledge, and I hope we can channel that knowledge, together, for the greater good of humankind. Perhaps once we’ve gone through this poisoning process a few more times, you’ll begin to work with me.”

Torture,
Luciana thought wildly.
She plans to torture me.

“Brandon will never let you get away with this,” she managed to choke out.

“Brandon is going home to Chicago,” said Arielle. “You’re going to tell him you want him to leave. He is far better off without you, in any case.”

That’s the one thing you’ve got right,
the demoness realized.

Arielle held up a fistful of Luciana’s vials.

“I’ve got half a dozen more like this, stashed away,” said the blonde angel. “You know exactly what is in them. If you dare disobey me, I will hunt down everything that is dear to you and obliterate it from the face of the earth forever. Those Gatekeepers of yours, especially that big one. What is his name? Massimo?”

Luciana closed her eyes and swallowed back a cry, refusing to give the angel the satisfaction of an answer.

“And just think. If you ever did escape, wouldn’t it be terrible to worry that perhaps Brandon was at risk, too?” asked Arielle.

“They say the line between angels and demons is a fine one,” said Luciana, finally turning her head to stare up at her tormentor. “You’re starting to sound exactly like Corbin.”

“Now, now. There’s no need for name-calling. Since you’re going to be spending a long time with us here, you’ll have to learn to be more civil.
Mezza stronza, mezza strega,
” said Arielle as she loomed over the gasping demoness. She kicked her once, in the center of the gut, so hard that blood spilled out of Luciana’s mouth. “You don’t know the half of it.”

Chapter Twenty

B
randon bore down on the gas pedal, veering along the curves of PCH as he raced back toward the retreat center. He cranked the stereo up. The entire car rattled with the pounding beat, the screaming guitar riffs from a heavy-metal radio station threatening to blast out the windows and his eardrums.

No music was loud enough to drown out his memories.

A babble of conversations with Jude flooded into Brandon’s mind.

Now, he could not help but dwell. Not just dwell.

Seethe.

In the hours before Brandon had entered that alleyway, he had fought with Jude.

“We need to go down there tonight,” Brandon had insisted.

“Buddy, we’re off duty.”

“We have a job to do,” Brandon insisted. “I have a hunch about this.”

“Suit yourself,” Jude said angrily. “I thought you were going over to play poker with the guys. I had other plans for tonight. But if you really want to go, then so be it.”

Of course, they had gone. And Brandon had never gotten a chance to set things right with Jude. Had never gotten to tell him how much he had appreciated his friendship over the years. How much he missed the guy. Loved him, even.

He had always regretted not telling him that.

Jude Everett, the hero.

Who had captured and arrested his shooter.

Am I still supposed to feel grateful? What were your plans that night, Jude? Were you planning on banging her? Are you still a hero if you were sleeping with your dead partner’s wife all along?

Jude’s grinning face floated in his mind’s eye.

Brandon floored the gas pedal. The car shot forward.

The rush of speed accelerated his anger. Fed his frustration. The next turn came a little too fast, a little too sharp. The car swerved out of control. He slammed on the brakes. The wheels spun out under him, sending the car rotating 360 degrees…720 degrees…how many revolutions it spun, he lost count…the palm trees and scrubby landscape and ocean blurred together into a dizzy splotch. The front bumper—or was it the rear?—bashed against the guardrail, sending the car flying across the road diagonally.

And then it stopped.

The radio was still playing something loud and thrashing.

He shut it off, sat in silence.

Mercifully, he had not crashed through the guardrail and ended up in the ocean.

Thankfully, there were no other cars on the highway.

No one else he could injure while he worked out his own horrific issues.

He looked at the tattoos covering his arms, the multitude of designs and images interwoven as if they all fit together somehow. Right now, he didn’t want to think about any of it. Not about any of his past Assignees, not about any of the angels, not about the inked wingspan sprawling across his back. He wished he could crawl out of his own skin right now. And leave it all behind.

Pull your shit together,
he told himself.
Because if you don’t, the rest of the Company is going to do it for you. And Arielle will be the first in line.

Go back to Chicago. Stay in L.A. It hardly mattered. All the things he had counseled Luciana to do—
forgive
—he would have to figure that process out for himself.

How he was going to do that, he had no idea.

But he was going to have to start somewhere.

He turned on the ignition again, and headed back toward the Center.

Arielle came out to look at the car, her mouth pressed into a thin line when he pulled into the driveway. The early morning sunlight glinted off her perfect hair as she eyed the large dent in the rear bumper, shaking her head with disapproval.

“When I let you borrow that car, I trusted you would drive it responsibly,” she said.

“Now is not the time,” he growled.

“Come into my new office and we’ll discuss this like rational beings,” she said, crossing her arms. “If you’re dealing with something, perhaps I can help you.”

I seriously doubt that,
he thought. But he went anyway, too tired to resist.

“I’m afraid you’re becoming exhausted, Brandon. I think it would be best if you went back to Chicago. As much as I appreciate having you here, I’m sure your own unit needs you more.”

He stopped listening as she enumerated a number of other concerns she had about him. His head began to ache.

“I need to clear my head before I make any decisions,” was all he said.

He stood up to go. Arielle bent over her desk, attending to her endless pile of paperwork.

But as he was about to leave her office, he spotted something in Arielle’s garbage can.

A little glass vial.

Plain, innocuous.

Empty.

Exactly like the ones Luciana used.

Is she okay?
he wondered frantically.

If she is, I’ve got to get out now and take her with me,
he told himself.
But how?

Without saying a word to Arielle, he slipped out of the hallway and walked briskly to the surveillance room. Where the video monitors showed Luciana in her room, lying on the bed. She lay there, still and bleeding.

Is she dead?

The tips of her fingers began to curl, and she reached to wipe a little blood off her mouth.

Still alive. She survived whatever Arielle did to her while I was gone.

The Guardian on watch duty turned around. “May I help you?”

Brandon just smiled, his eyes flickering away from the monitors. “Just checking things out,” he said, hoping he sounded as banal as he intended. “Pretty impressive setup.”

Julian was the first person he ran into as he stepped out of the surveillance room. Brandon tried to blow by him, fully focused on getting to Luciana. But Julian caught him by the arm.

“Where are you going in such a hurry?”

Brandon dragged him into a corner and told him in a hushed voice, “I have no time to explain. I think Arielle has gone crazy. I saw something in her office. I can’t tell you everything now. But man-to-man, Luciana’s in danger.”

Julian did not seem surprised. But he said, “Arielle is my supervisor. Technically, she’s also my Guardian.”

“You ignored her for over two hundred years. What’s another half hour? I swear, that’s all it will take. Help me. For Luciana’s sake. She needs our help,” said Brandon. “Now.

Julian paused, frowning. “All right. But Arielle will crucify me if she ever finds out.”

“No, she won’t. Because you’re footing the bill for this place. Now think. How can I get Luciana out of here?”

“As you saw yourself, Arielle has this place surrounded by an energy field, like a giant fence. If you try to break Luciana out of that wall, her head will all but explode.”

“So is there any way out?”

“You can’t break her out by going through the fence. But theoretically you can go
over
it. Way over it. My helicopter is parked on the launchpad outside. Take Luciana. I’ll distract Arielle for as long as I possibly can.”

“I’ve never flown a helicopter,” Brandon said.

“You don’t have to fly it for long. Just get over the fence and far enough so that you have enough time to get away. Then ditch the helicopter and find a car.”

He rattled off a list of instructions, and Brandon tried to commit the details to memory.

“Press the red starter button on the left-hand side, master avionics switch on, fuel valve master on, roll on the throttle to power the engine…”

Brandon blinked, trying to absorb it all.

“Just remember, too much throttle and the helicopter will get too much liftoff.”

“What would happen?” Brandon asked.

Julian grinned, giving him a hearty pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. That’s the beauty of being immortal.”

Whatever,
thought Brandon.
I just hope this works.

* * *

Luciana was still lying on the bed, feeling nauseous when the series of electronic beeps sounded again. She thought,
God, who is it this time?

Brandon rushed in, yanked her up by the arm. “Come on. I’m getting you out of here.”

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, not moving.

“Now is not the time to ask questions,” he barked. “We don’t have time. It’s your choice. You can either come with me, or you can stay here with Arielle. But you’ve got to trust me.”

In her gut, something flickered, a tiny flame of hope. She leaped off the bed.

He twisted her arms behind her back, secured her wrists together with a plastic tie.

The little flame of hope flickered, dimming inside her. She resisted, trying to twist away. “Not this again!”

“I told you,” he said. “You’ve got to trust me.”

He led her out into the hallway, where a few Guardians strolled, going about their assigned tasks. He marched straight ahead, head up, not bothering to hide from any of them. One of the angels stopped him at the end of the hall, just before a set of locked doors.

“Where are you taking the detainee? Do you have clearance to move her?”

“Arielle asked to see her,” he said. “In the main office.”

The angel nodded and buzzed them through the door.

“You’re crazy,” she muttered. “She’s going to flay us alive if she catches us.”

“Be quiet. Keep walking.”

He marched her down the staircase, out the back exit.

To a helicopter that was parked on the round slab of concrete. He opened the door and shoved her in, strapping her into the passenger seat. When he took the pilot’s seat, he started muttering to himself, flipping a number of different switches. In an alarmingly random fashion.

“Have you ever flown one of these before?” she asked, her heart faltering a beat.

“No, but what’s the worst that can happen?” he grinned.

He eased a lever forward, powered the helicopter on.

The rotor blades began to rotate, the noise drowning out any possibility for debate.

Arielle came running out of the main building, waving her arms at them. Brandon saw her, but did not stop. He pulled up on the control stick. The helicopter jerked off the ground, lifting off in a crazy circle like a broken midway ride. Arielle ducked, running back toward the building for cover.

For a moment, Luciana felt certain they were going to crash.

Better to go down fighting,
she thought, holding her mouth shut.

Sweat dripped down Brandon’s face as he gripped the control stick, struggling to get the helicopter stabilized. His gray eyes pored over the instruments with intense concentration, flicking switches as he tried to figure out the complex machine. The look on his face was one of sheer determination. Why and how he had deemed
her
worthy of such an effort and such an immense risk, Luciana didn’t quite know.

Finally, they swung up and over the wide lawn, pulling smoothly into the air and away.

On the ground below them, Arielle looked up, shielding her eyes from the bright morning sun with her hand, her meticulously styled blond hair blown terribly out of place, whipped by the draft of the helicopter as they flew away.

* * *

“Let them run,” Arielle said calmly to the Guardians who gathered around her, watching the helicopter make its wobbly escape. “There’s no point in tracking them. I already know exactly where they’ll both end up.”

* * *

“Zuccolo,”
Luciana muttered, clenching her jaw as she sat immobile in her seat. “You are completely crazy.”

He landed in a field with a bump, breaking one of the landing skids on the bottom of the helicopter so that they ended up lopsided.

But still intact.

In the stillness, he began laughing. Out of shock, she thought.

Her hands were still bound behind her back. “Let me out. Now.”

He obliged, muttering about needing a car. She jumped out of the broken helicopter and collapsed on the ground, inhaling deeply. After a few moments of recovery, she got up. And headed toward the highway.

“Stay here,” she told him. “I’ll take care of the car.”

“Wait, Luciana. We can’t steal—”

He was shouting something, but she ignored him.

A moment later, she returned in a little black BMW Roadster.

“Get in. Don’t ask how I got it. Nobody was hurt. I don’t want any more discussion, not after you almost crashed us back into the afterlife. And this time, I’m driving.”