Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

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.”
    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