Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

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,