Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

days. I heard he’s one of you now.”
    “Why are you so hell-bent on revenge against Julian?” he asked.
    “Haven’t you ever wanted revenge on someone who hurt you? I injured you,” she said softly. Her entire demeanor had shifted now, her tone placating with a vulnerability that must be calculated. “Don’t you want vengeance?”
    Brandon gave her a hard look. “You ask a lot of questions. I already told you, I’m just here to do my job. There’s nothing personal about it. So, no, I don’t want to avenge myself.”
    “Everything is personal. You can’t haul me into a room, lock me to a bed and say there’s nothing personal about it.”
    “Absolutely. Given those cuts on your back, I wouldn’t say you got off easy. Let’s call it even.”
    She gave a vicious yank on the cuffs, her temper flaring again. “We are far from even. You will unlock these vile things. You will let me go. Then we will be even.”
    He said nothing, but turned his attention to her back.
    “We should get this broken glass out of you.”
    “It will heal,” she ground out.
    They both knew that was true. Immortal bodies of angels and demons healed quickly, but not instantaneously.
    “If we don’t take care of it now, the wounds will take longer to heal,” he said.
    He unlocked the cuffs, readjusting her hands so that they were bound in front of her.
    He dug in his shaving kit, got out a pair of tweezers. Poured vodka over them.
    When he eased away the fabric of her dress, the rose silk was crimson with blood. Even he winced at the sight. Her back was slashed with multicolored fragments of glass embedded in her skin.
    “This will sting.”
    With a facecloth, he dabbed some of the vodka on her.
    He felt her body react.
    “I’ve burned in everlasting hellfires. You think this is anything in comparison?” she said. She was bluffing. He could hear the bravado in her voice. Finally, she said, “Give me some of that vodka.”
    He found a glass. Poured her a shot. Tipped it into her mouth as she tilted her head back.
    “Give me another one.” She downed that one, too.
    He sat down behind her and cut away the silk of her dress where it was soaked with blood.
    And started digging the shards of glass out of her back.
    Piece by piece, he placed them all in the little tumbler on the nightstand. Until that little glass was full of jagged shards, covered with her blood.
    He pressed the damp towel on her back. By the time he finished, the healing process had already started, the wounds beginning to close. Even when it came to demons, there were miracles to be had.
    Outside, a noise popped.
    The first firework shot into the air.
    A long whistle shot up through the buildings, followed by the boom of its detonation and a series of smaller blasts. From tinny radio speakers in neighboring windows, the sound track of the fireworks floated, the Italian opera music lush and rich despite the surroundings.
    “At least open the window,” she said softly. “This pensione might be cheap, but the location is good and it probably has a view.”
    Brandon went to the window and opened it.
    A panorama of red-brown terra-cotta rooftops spread out before him in the pale moonlight. In the buildings all around, Venetians hung from every balcony, every windowsill and rooftop. Below, the bay was crowded with boats of every shape and size. Each of those boats in turn was filled with cheering Venetians. And every single person craned up to look at the spectacle of light in the sky.
    Her face was upturned toward the dazzling night sky, her pale skin awash with the reflection of colors. A face that, even in her misery, was lovelier than the display of fireworks. More beautiful than this magnificent, decaying city.
    And he, her captor, wanted to wash her misery away.
    The fireworks blasted outside the window. For the second time that evening, color rained down. But this time the accompanying noise echoed in the sky, ricocheting inside his mind like the slowed-down gunfire.
    In the dark, he flinched. His back twitched, his breathing constricted for a moment, his body remembering its human wounds. Physically, he had healed. But the memory of the scars remained, triggered by the sound.
    She must have seen the pain pass over his face.
    “What’s wrong, il mio angelo? Did someone shoot you once?”
    He willed himself back to detachment, told himself to forget about the pain.
    But she pushed onward, pressing her way deeper into the wounds. “Is that how you