Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

attempted a delivery so late. The baronessa usually sacrifices her victims well before the toll of midnight. She’s a very efficient hunter.”
    “Not this year,” Giancarlo said grimly.
    “It was not her fault,” Massimo said.
    “I never said it was,” the other Gatekeeper said quickly, his furtive gaze sliding to Massimo. “Don’t tell her I suggested it might be.”
    They waited.
    There was no sign of the black funerary gondola, no sign of the dark-hooded figure.
    “Satan is not coming to collect,” said Giancarlo.
    Massimo looked down at the black cloth that lay in stillness on the bottom of the boat. Tried his best not to imagine the body within, stiff and cold. Tried not to imagine her face, her brown hair spilling on the floor of the palazzo in the pool of her blood.
    “You missed out,” Giancarlo said. “That girl was a fantastic lay.”
    “Don’t speak of her like that. Have some respect for the dead,” Massimo said.
    Giancarlo snorted at the wistful look on Massimo’s face. “Better to die young and leave a beautiful corpse.”
    That was something both of them knew firsthand.
    Returned to earth and preserved at the age of their deaths forever.
    By the time the sun began to rise, the Gatekeepers realized they had come far too late. What would happen to the baronessa, Massimo didn’t know. He genuinely worried for her. In two centuries, had never seen her this worn, this tired.
    “What should we do with the body?” Giancarlo said. “Throw her overboard?”
    Massimo looked over the edge of the boat, into the water. Here, in front of the Redentore Church would make as fine a resting place as any. “All right.”
    They weighted the corpse with the concrete blocks they had brought for such a situation, though had never needed until tonight. Then they tipped her over the edge, slipping the body into the water with a little splash. The top of the cloth she was wrapped in came unraveled. Massimo watched as her brown hair drifted downward in the water. The last tendrils of it seemed to reach up toward him as the girl disappeared into the depths of the canal.
    Once she was gone, he started the motor and headed home.
    “The job’s done,” Giancarlo said.
    But not done well. They didn’t realize the extent of it until they returned to the palazzo.
    Where the girl was waiting.
    Not the full body of her, just a flicker of her spirit, floating in the window near the place where she had died. Her voice, ghostly and beautiful, drifted out to fill the canal. The faint but sweet strain came from an aria that he recognized from Puccini’s Tosca, the last role she’d sung.

I lived for art, I lived for love,
I never did harm to a living soul…

    “The baronessa is not going to like this,” Giancarlo said, voicing both their thoughts. “Not one bit.”

Chapter Six
     
    Sunrise over the Grand Canal
     
    B randon awoke in the early hours of the morning, went to the window overlooking the fluid curve of water that sparkled in the pale light. Somewhere out there, Luciana was plotting.
    The first place he started looking for the demoness was the last place she had run last night.
    Rio Tera dei Assassini.
    Even in the early morning, the sun was already blazing in the sky and a sticky heat was settling over the city. In the light of day, his destination looked as charming and as innocent as any other street in Venice. On the corner stood a bookstore stall with racks of Italian publications. There were a few souvenir shops, and restaurants with their colorful awnings. And of course, tourists milled about the street on this too-sunny day.
    The glass gallery was not difficult to find. A few humans stood examining the glassware displayed in the window.
    He pulled open the door and went inside.
    The glass shop showed no trace of a struggle.
    The shelves were restocked, every piece back in perfect order.
    Not a drop of blood in sight. No stray shard of glass to tell the story.
    The immaculately dressed shop assistant sauntered over to him.
    “May I help you with something, sir?” she said in English.
    Does every single demon in Venice have green eyes? he wondered fleetingly.
    “I’m looking for a woman,” he said. “Her name is Luciana Rossetti.”
    Nothing on her face moved but for the slight widening of her eyes, the barest recognition of the demoness’s name before she recovered her composure. “I’m sorry, sir, I am not familiar with any person by that name. May I interest you in a handblown