The Demoness of Waking Dreams (31 page)

Without a word, he folded his big body into the passenger seat and she took off, heading north. Away from L.A., where Arielle would have the city crawling with her own people, every Guardian within her control likely on high alert.

“If Arielle catches us, it will be worse than death, just so you know,” she said, gripping the steering wheel. “She’s probably planning to waterboard me in her new meditation pond. And she’ll scrape off your hide and fly it on the flagpole in front of her center as a warning to the others.”

“Then we’d better not let her catch us,” he said.

He turned around and checked out the rear window, looking back every thirty seconds.

“Quit it,” she told him. “You’re making me nervous.”

“I’ve never run from anything in my life,” he said. “Plus, I’m used to being in the driver’s seat. Distract me. Tell me the rest of the story of how you became a demon.”

“We’re not on a road trip where we share bagged snacks and our most intimate secrets,” she said irritably. “Why do you want to know? That’s all in the past.”

“It’s part of you. It defines you.”

She sighed, checking the rearview mirror herself. There was no one following them. No one above them. And the road ahead was straight and clear.

“Fine,” she relented. “Where did I leave off?”

“Julian and Harcourt killed each other in a duel. What happened after that? I want to know how you died. How you came to be what you are.”

She heard him shift, searching for a comfortable position in his seat.

“Oh, that,” she said, exhaling deeply. “Let’s see…

“I buried my husband in his birthplace in England. And then I went back to Venice. I expected to find my parents and Carlotta. But I returned to Venice too late.

“When I arrived at Ca’ Rossetti, it was a stranger who opened the door. My parents were no longer living there. They had sold the palazzo when they ran out of money. I finally tracked them down in the poor quarter of the Campo San Barnaba, where they were living in destitution in a single room above a tavern.

“They told me that Carlotta had died in childbirth, not long before my arrival. Her last baby did not survive, either, my parents told me. They also said that the old pedophile remained as wealthy as always, and had refused to help them when they had asked for his aid.

“Soon after my return to Venice, the old pedophile died, too. But not of natural causes.

“He became my first victim. In Carlotta’s name, I learned the art of poison. I began to study on my own, through books and experiments. But on the island of Sant’ Ariano, I found a woman who taught me far more than I had ever imagined. Her methods were ghastly. But after ten years of being beaten by my husband, after knowing my sister suffer so miserably, after she and I had spent so many years as chattel, shuttled from one miserable fate to another…well.

“I had never dreamed that a mere woman could feel such a power.

“After my revenge on the old pervert, a kind of satisfaction settled over me. But it was not enough, I knew. I felt a sense of elation then. Of knowing that there was justice in the world. And that it had nothing to do with God. Over the next year, I honed my skills, searching for other victims, seeking out ways in which I could increase my power.

“In the end, who came for me was not God, but Harcourt.

“Harcourt, like so many other men I have known, blamed me for his death. He strangled me, dragging me down into the bowels of hell with him. I did what I had to do to survive. I took my revenge on my husband yet again, making a deal with the minions of hell to ensure that he was permanently left in the lowest reaches of hell. In order to do so, I used every resource I could to barter and trade. Eventually, I clawed my way out of hell and became a Rogue demon.

“The brothel above the glass gallery was the first place I was sent. To my shock, when I arrived there, Carlotta was already working there.

“During her life, she had taken her own revenge on the prostitutes her husband had hired. She blamed the women for infecting her with the disease that killed her unborn children. My sister was too much of a coward to take care of the real culprit, her husband. As her punishment, she was sent back to earth into an existence of prostitution herself. It was a ghastly situation.

“I knew I had to get myself out somehow. And that’s when I made the bargain with the devil.

“One single human soul per year, delivered during the Festival of the Redeemer. The devil was so pissed off that the Venetians had found a way to cheat him of his beloved plague that he wanted to find a way to desecrate the church they had built in honor of the Redeemer. To me, one sacrifice per year did not seem like a large price to pay in exchange for my freedom.

“While I was struggling my way up through the ranks of the damned, Julian Ascher had already gained a position of prominence in the demon world. From time to time, we crossed paths, but it wasn’t until recent years that I began to think in earnest about destroying my former lover. I traveled to Las Vegas and took up with Corbin Ranulfson, specifically to find a way to take Julian down. I failed, quite miserably. That was when I ran into the Company and met your friends. And the rest,” she said, “is history.”

Brandon was silent, twisted in the passenger seat of the small car to look at her, to listen.

“There is more, of course,” she said. “Behind every story is another story. There are infinite layers of stories, as many stories as there are stars in the sky. But for tonight, that’s enough,
mio caro.
”

“I have one question,” he said finally. “Do you think you could ever be good?”

It was her turn to fall silent.

At last, she said honestly, “I
want
to be good.”

Whether she was capable of being good was another question entirely.

She drove until dark. All the way up the coast of California, until they crossed the state line into Oregon. Sometime in the middle of the night, she finally ceded the driver’s seat to him, and hours later they crossed the border into Washington State. They drove into the next day, until neither of them could keep their eyes open. When the sun began to dawn on the horizon, they had almost reached Canada.

“We have to stop and rest,” she said. “We can’t just keep driving forever.”

They found a cheap motel, paid cash that Luciana managed to pickpocket off an unsuspecting motorist at a gas station. Parked the stolen car behind some bushes around the corner. Went inside and shut the curtains.

“I suppose this is as good a place as any to hideout for a while. Until Arielle cools down,” he said.

* * *

Lying on the hard motel-room bed beside her in the darkness, Brandon tried to sleep.

All he could think about was the story she had told him in the car.

How difficult her human life had been.

And how things could have been different for her.

I want to be good,
she had said. He believed she could.

If only…

She turned her head to look at him.

“I must be dreaming,” she murmured, lifting one hand to trace the side of his face. “To be here with you now, seems unreal. I want every minute to count. I want to be here with you.”

By moonlight, he worshipped her, in awe before the grace of her.

A cathedral of flesh and bone, her clavicles like buttresses, the architecture of her as fine and as strong as old stone. He found the altar of her spine, traced the path of it with his fingers, a pilgrimage of her body. Bent her backward into his hands. Kissed the tips of her nipples, her breasts, those fragile domes. Her body was his sanctuary. He entered, reverently, so quietly he might have been a penitent come to lay offerings at a shrine.

A prayer dropped from his lips. Her name.

Whispered as devoutly as if it were the name of God.

By the time they were finished, he knew without a doubt that she was a part of the sacred, as much as he was, as much as any of them were, and that she would always be.

“I want to slay dragons for you,” he said as they lay in the darkness, their sated bodies pressed against each other. His breath burned in his lungs, but whether it was from exertion or from anguish, he did not know. “I want to scale mountains and swim oceans.”

She shifted uncomfortably, pushing out of his embrace. “You don’t need to do that. I’m right here. And I can fight my own battles. I’m strong enough to do that on my own.”

“Yes, but are you strong enough to walk away from the fight? You could turn your life around if you were willing to let go.”

“Stop preaching,
angelo mio.
Don’t you think I’ve heard centuries of it? Do you think I’m going to change now?”

“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.