Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

opened directly onto the water, but the side entrance, as well.
    And he settled in to watch.
    * * *
     
    Luciana sat in her workroom, hunched over the table. The cuts on her back had almost healed. Her left hand still throbbed. But she had reset the bone, and in another day or so it would be back to normal. Sitting still was far from comfortable. But there was much work to do.
    Massimo hovered over her shoulder, watching carefully, absorbing every word that she said.
    “Ordinary poison can harm an immortal body temporarily. But it is not enough to kill an angel or a demon, as you know. However, the poison I created proved effective on a low-ranking demon,” she said. “A bellboy working for Corbin Ranulfson in Vegas.”
    “So what is the problem?” Massimo asked.
    “Corbin stole the last dose of my last concoction,” she said. “We must make more. To do that, I’ll need your help.”
    She held one of the vipers just behind its jaws, grasping its head in her gloved hand as she held it over a venom-collecting receptacle. It bit into the plastic-covered glass funnel, the venom squirting down into the jar below.
    “This must be done with a very delicate touch, Massimo. The utmost care must be taken not to damage or traumatize the animals during this process,” she explained. “A good craftsperson always takes proper care of one’s materials.”
    “Why do we even need these ingredients if we have the essence of death collected from the girl?” he asked.
    “We need to build a poison that will kill not only the spiritual, but the physical body. We could use any poison as a base, but I like to combine several different ingredients. Snake venom, cyanide and botulinum, for instance, make quite a nice combination. Along with those toxins, we use the essence contained in the human blood.”
    She put the viper back into its habitat. She withdrew another snake and handed it to the Gatekeeper. “Now you try it.” As he performed the same movement, she nodded. “That’s it exactly. It’s time you learned these techniques. There must be someone who can carry on these ways.”
    Just in case I’m captured, she thought.
    “Poison may seem like an antiquated way to end a life,” she explained, “but poison means power. There are demons who are capable of ending a human life just by snapping their fingers. However, we lower demons must find our own ways to amass power. Creating a poison that can end the lives of immortals has given us a distinct advantage. But we need more of it. If we can make large quantities of it, we can create a commodity that will be extremely difficult—perhaps impossible—to trace. There are rules in the interactions between angels and demons.”
    “Rules that cannot be broken,” Massimo said wearily. He had heard it a thousand times.
    “But they can be bent. Angels and demons are not allowed to kill each other. That is the first and most important rule. Everyone knows that. If that rule is broken, then the balance between heaven and hell will be disrupted, and all-out war will be waged on the earth. Humans will be caught in the middle. But if the angels can’t track who’s responsible for the killings, there’s no accountability, no one certain to blame. Poison may be our way around the rules. We will be able to bargain with the rest of the demon hierarchy. We will have a commodity that could affect every immortal in existence. Every creature in existence.”
    “Yes, baronessa, ” said Massimo.
    “If we can control the demon hierarchy, then the world is ours. We won’t even have to worry about killing the angels ourselves. And no one will ever be able to hurt us again.”
    That was the goal. To insulate herself and her Gatekeepers from pain.
    The window was shut, and even though it was unbearably hot outside, the modernization of Ca’ Rossetti meant that the air-conditioning inside kept everyone cool.
    Luciana looked up from her work, rubbing the back of her hand against her forehead.
    Feathers.
    Pigeon feathers. Not just a single feather this time, but several of them. They sat on the corner of the workbench. She dropped her arm, and the change in the air blew them off the table’s edge, where they drifted onto the floor.
    “You didn’t open the window this morning, Massimo.”
    “No, baronessa. ”
    His eye caught the feathers, and he frowned, puzzled. “Where did those come from?”
    The angel was watching them.
    From where exactly, she could not say. And how he had