Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

was, the ink-etched muscles of his arms glistening in the heat. Light poured from him, illuminating every surface. The fires in the ovens seemed to dim in contrast. As Luciana looked up at him amid the dull gray of the factory, his gray eyes radiated. Lucent. Fierce. Powerful.
    But he had come alone.
    And she knew all was lost.
    As powerful as he was, a single angel against a horde of demons could not possibly win. Could not possibly even escape. Yet Brandon himself did not seem to realize that. His broad shoulders were set in a stance of absolute confidence, much like the first time she’d ever seen him.
    “Stop!” the Guardian thundered.
    All activity in the factory ceased.
    Silence fell over the building. The muted rumble of fire inside the ovens crackled, waiting.
    Then Jude’s screaming commenced again.
    Brandon descended the metal staircase, each footstep ringing in the large room.
    The demons stood transfixed for another moment, watching him. Then they began to converge toward the stairway, gathering in a ring around it. Brandishing weapons glowing with the heat of hellfire, they circled slowly. But none dared touch him.
    With bold strides, the Guardian headed toward Jude. Untied him.
    Hauled his own murderer over his shoulder.
    And strode back toward the staircase.
    It was Corbin who stepped forward, blocking his way. “You think you can walk in here and take what belongs to us? Massimo, take care of this intruder.”
    The Archdemon snapped his fingers. Very quietly, Massimo stepped forward.
    With a syringe in his hand and a quick flash of vengeance in his eyes.
    A syringe she recognized. Which she had handed Massimo herself, along with the words, I trust you with this.
    “If this is the end, so be it,” Brandon said. “I have no regrets. I will not run from evil.”
    But Massimo did not move toward the angel.
    Instead, he raised his hand and inserted the syringe into the side of Corbin’s neck. In a smooth, deliberate motion, he pressed his thumb down and injected the contents of that syringe into the Archdemon’s carotid.
    Corbin stood, stunned for a moment.
    “Why?” he managed to gasp out.
    “For my mother,” Massimo whispered.
    “That bitch Luciana is not your mother,” Corbin choked.
    “I know,” said the Gatekeeper. “Her name was Carlotta Rossetti.”
    Corbin swallowed, a simple movement of his Adam’s apple. He touched the center of his neck, then coughed. A scarlet gleam of blood spattered on the ground. And then the death rattle began, moving up his windpipe. The sound of dying Luciana had heard so many times before. The Archdemon fell, splayed on the bare concrete floor, twitching out the last moments of his existence.
    As he lay in his final convulsions, there was a momentary pause.
    The Gatekeepers stood peering down at him, astounded, many of them expecting him to get up.
    So it works, was what Luciana thought. The poison works after all.
    And then one of the ovens exploded. Whether by some divine intervention or set off by some earthbound thing or creature, she could not say for sure. All she knew was that the oven flared apart with a burst of flame that shot out in every direction, blowing out the nearest windows and cracking the floor beneath it.
    The blast of heat rocked them all: demons, angel, human, Luciana, Brandon, Jude.
    But it was not fire that began to engulf the building.
    The building shook beneath them as the cracked floor split open, a vein tearing open to become an abyss. Water gushed in. Faster than any surge Luciana had witnessed, even after centuries of living in flood-famed Venice. Water engulfed the factory floor, rising around the ankles and up the shins of the shocked demons standing inside.
    The horde scattered, running through the now-knee-deep water, pushing and shoving toward whatever exit was nearest. Brandon grabbed Luciana, hauling her out the back door with Jude over his shoulder. Bolting down the fondamenta away from the fornace, so fast she wondered for a moment if they were actually flying.
    Behind them, the water washed into the ovens inside, hitting the fires with a great hiss of steam that rose to the top of the building. Pressure built. And then it ruptured. The roof blew open and the air was filled with shattering glass. The walls shook, old brick crumbling like unfired clay.
    Fifty feet away from the disaster, she turned to look back.
    And like a carrion crow arriving at a scene of carnage, the devil’s black funerary gondola came