Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

again.
    From an Archangel. Impossible.
    Venice was full of their images. You could barely swing a cat without hitting a picture of a saint in this city, but they didn’t expose themselves very often. At least not to her eyes.
    In fact, the total number of times she had actually seen one before was zero.
    The Gatekeepers were gathered in the front room, discussing heatedly amongst themselves. The conversation stopped, and they all turned to look when she entered.
    “Violetta has not come back yet,” Massimo said, pacing back and forth. “It was a mistake, sending that girl out there. She was not ours to begin with. She should never have been kept here. We should have found some way to help her pass on immediately.”
    “Stop worrying about her,” Luciana snapped. “She’s a ghost, not a lost puppy. We have much more pressing things to worry about.”
    “Where were you tonight?” he asked.
    “I had a run-in with the angels.”
    “Angels, as in plural?” Massimo’s green eyes widened.
    She briefly recounted her encounter with the Archangel and fleeing from Brandon.
    The Gatekeepers would never dare speak it, but a question hung in the air, poised among all of them.
    Why didn’t you kill him tonight?
    “You must find a way to end him quickly,” Massimo said quietly. “Without hesitation.”
    “Yes,” she said, pressing her eyes closed, swallowing down the feeling of her own failure. “I know that.”
    “You’ve said many times that demons cannot love.”
    “Love has nothing to do with any of this,” she said, her temper flaring. “Don’t presume to think that it does.”
    “Of course, baronessa, ” he said.
    With a bow, he departed, and she heard him go downstairs to his own quarters, close his door with a small sound. The other Gatekeepers, not knowing what to do without his guidance, dispersed to their own rooms, too, muttering to one another as they went.
    Immediately, she regretted snapping at him.
    Downstairs, Violetta began to sing, a soaring aria that spiraled up through the old stone. Eerie, but in its oddness, more beautiful than any human voice Luciana had ever heard. So she made it back after all. A strange sense of relief washed over the demoness, although why she should care about the girl, she didn’t know.
    Massimo is right, she knew. My resolve is slipping.
    For almost two and a half centuries, she had navigated this city with finesse. Gliding through its streets and taking what she needed, relishing in her feats under the cover of night. She had climbed her way out of hell and rebuilt her household. She had maintained that household with all the dignity of the noble name to which she had been born.
    Never wavering, never hesitating, never regretting.
    Now, with the arrival of this interloper angel, everything had changed.
    Luciana abhorred change. The angel would have to be fixed.
    And quickly, because she was running out of time.
    “You’ve got to sleep sometime,” she murmured, peering out the window into the darkness, knowing that he was out there. “And when you do, I’ll be waiting.”
    * * *
     
    Across the canal, Brandon returned to the crumbling building, back to the windowsill with the boards stripped away. There was no point in hiding from her now—she knew exactly where he was. He would have to find a way to attack the demoness on another front.
    Weaken her defenses without giving her the opportunity to weaken his.
    And as he returned to his observation point, he saw exactly what he needed.
    An opportunity. An opening.
    Her Gatekeepers.
    From what he had seen, there were six Gatekeepers in all, burly young men in jeans and black T-shirts. Because they looked similar and dressed identically, it was hard to tell how many there actually were. Now, through the palazzo’s massive windows, he could see Luciana and her Gatekeepers pacing back and forth, immersed in a conversation that appeared to leave them all dejected. Then they dispersed, each going into different rooms.
    She’s probably told them about her little run-in with me, he realized.
    None of them looked too happy about the discussion that had taken place.
    It was exactly the kind of opening he needed.
    Right now, her security system was on the brink of collapse.
    He slipped out of his hiding place. Not far away, he found a rickety wooden boat tied to a mooring post and decided to borrow it. He rowed quietly across the canal, leaving his borrowed vessel tied loosely to her neighbor’s landing.
    The