Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

found her, she did not know.
    But he was close.
    She got up and went to the window, peering across the canal. In the darkness, the Grand Canal looked the same as it had every night for the past two centuries. Yes, it had shifted slowly over time. The boats had become equipped with motors and fashion had changed. The old Venetians had slowly died out, and the place had become flooded with tourists. Other than that, the same buildings had stood for centuries, sliding slowly into decay.
    Except that in one of them, an angel sat watching her.
    The most likely location was slightly to the right.
    “Come here, Massimo, and tell me if I’m imagining things,” she said, pointing to the only abandoned building within view. “Is it me, or is there movement in that house?”
    For the past fifty years, it had been boarded up, left to rot slowly because of the impoverished state of the family who owned it, who could not afford its upkeep.
    Massimo didn’t respond, but Brandon was in there. She could feel him.
    In the space of their short time together last night, some strange connection had been forged between them. A connection that she neither welcomed, nor would she tolerate.
    She would have to find some way to break it.
    “Massimo, take off your gloves and go downstairs at once. Make sure all of the doors are securely locked, and the outside gates, as well. Alert the other Gatekeepers. We are under surveillance.”
    “But there’s just one man, isn’t that right, baronessa? ”
    “Just one angel,” she corrected. “And a very dangerous one.”
    Luciana sat looking at the light that spilled over the canal. A lone gondolier rowed in the dark of night, singing of the moon and of lost love.
    * * *
     
    On the other side of the canal, Brandon sat at the window, listening to the melancholy sound of the singing boatman.
    Die my human death again, or be seduced by Luciana in my dreams.
    The choice wasn’t even his. But, God, if he had to pick between them, he didn’t know which was worse. He lay on the hard concrete in the abandoned building, waiting for one of them.
    Come, sleep. Come, dreams. Come, darkness.
    He closed his eyes.
    At the sound of female laughter, his eyes popped open again. The laughter was so low, so velvet that he thought simultaneously of vintage Chianti and very rich chocolate.
    He was no longer lying on the hard floor of the abandoned house.
    Now he was standing in the entrance to the same dark alleyway.
    He saw the flicker of rose-colored silk. He followed.
    He dug in his pocket for his watch and felt its familiar smoothness.
    I’m dreaming.
    Looking up, he saw the black letters stenciled on aging stone: Rio Tera dei Assassini. What he was doing here, he didn’t know. All he knew was that he had to follow.
    Through the door of the glass gallery. In the back of the shop, up the stairs.
    The vast room sat empty. The chandeliers blazed now, illuminating the night.
    A woman with dark hair curling down her back. The pale, perfect skin of that back completely unmarred, not a single scratch or scar on her. No blood, no glass.
    Her hand outstretched behind her, motioned for him to follow.
    Into a magnificent room with velvet furniture. The sound of the door closing behind him.
    When he reached for his gun, it was gone. The shoulder holster where he normally carried it, empty. No matter. She was not the kind of enemy you could kill by shooting.
    Luciana turned, resplendent. With a single motion, she shed her dress. It dropped to the ground, pooling at her feet. Beneath it, she wore merely a black lace bra and a garter belt attached to thigh-high stockings. It was not the clothing he noticed, so much as what it barely concealed. Or rather, what it failed to conceal.
    Her body . Her impossibly long legs, slender and strong. The appealing, subtle curve of her belly. Her high, full breasts, dark nipples just visible through the fabric of her bra in the dim lamp-lit room.
    Decadent. Sinful. And so, so right.
    But it was her face that took his breath away. Those plump lips of hers that seemed to invite him to picture them wrapped around his cock. Her evergreen eyes, her glossy hair tumbling around her in a permanently just-been-laid way that women usually paid ungodly amounts to achieve.
    “You went digging into my past,” she said. “And you found your way here.”
    “It was the only lead I had,” he said gruffly, feeling like he was apologizing.
    “It’s your dream. Your fantasy. You wanted to see me