Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

raising her eyebrows questioningly.
    “Sorry, wrong again,” Brandon said.
    “What do you want, then?” Luciana said, frustrated. “Tell me.”
    All I want is you, he thought.
    The words, not spoken aloud, hung in the air between them, as visible as if they had been written in black and white. Shouted as loudly as if they had been screamed through a megaphone. Those words terrified her, he knew. Which was why she had tried to put so many people, so many creatures of pleasure between them tonight.
    “Are you afraid of what will happen if we’re alone together, just the two of us? Like it was last time?”
    When you pulled away?
    “Of…of course not,” she said. But she was trembling, almost imperceptibly.
    “I’ve had enough,” he told her. “Take me back to Venice.”
    “Va bene,” she said.
    She swallowed. Something in those green eyes of hers seemed to waver in her resolve.
    Once again, the scene around them shifted. And as it solidified, Brandon’s heart began to pound so hard it almost broke through the confines of his chest.
    When he looked down, the ground was at least three hundred feet below him.
    And he was dangling in midair.

Chapter Ten
     
    T he view at the top of the Campanile at midnight never failed to inspire.
    “You nearly gave me a heart attack,” he said, gripping his chest with one hand.
    With the other, he clutched the brick ledge of the bell tower that had finally materialized.
    “Wasn’t that fun?” she said brightly. “Almost like flying.”
    “Where are we?” he asked, still dazed.
    “Back in Venice,” she said into the breeze. And Venice itself is half the seduction .
    Below, the five domes of San Marco’s Basilica glowed white in the moonlight. The curving, brown-roofed labyrinth of streets wound for miles around them. Where the city ended at the lip of the sea, the dark Adriatic stretched into the infinity of night. Overhead, the stars glittered, a brilliant canopy set against the black velvet sky.
    Venice in the aggregate was more impressive than any single church or palace, no matter how architecturally stunning. More beautiful than any one painting, sculpture or jewel. More breathtaking than any individual violin concerto, dance, glass of wine or dish of risotto.
    “We are at the top of the most famous bell tower in the city,” she said. “This is where Galileo first demonstrated his telescope to the Doge, more than four hundred years ago.”
    Brandon did not look impressed. He leaned out over the edge of the tall brick structure, looked down at the rectangle of the empty Piazza San Marco below and asked, “How do we get down?”
    “Right now, we don’t,” she said. “Just enjoy the view. Almost nobody gets to come up here at this hour of night.”
    It was true that tourists were not allowed here after the official hours of operation.
    But some of Luciana’s most prized victims had been treated to this extraordinary late-night view. And every victim she had ever brought here had been impressed by the thrill of the observation platform and the massive iron bells hanging above, at this forbidden time of night. When each of those victims had died, each had departed his or her human life after a unique experience that only Luciana could offer them.
    Brandon did not seem to appreciate the privilege.
    No matter. She would make him appreciate it.
    She launched into the same story she fed every victim she brought here.
    “This is the special place I like to come to by myself, late at night, when I want to escape the world,” she told him, peering up at him with an appealingly shy glance. “When I want to be alone. To clear my head, and to enjoy the beauty of Venice.”
    “So you’ve never been up here with another man?” he asked.
    “Of course not,” she lied, adding a tiny flutter of her eyelashes for effect.
    “Of course you have.” His mouth twisted into a slow smile. “The question is, how many?”
    “Why do you bother asking questions if you already know the answers?” she said, annoyed.
    “At least there are only two of us here right now,” he said, the smile twisting a little farther. “I expected there to be another orgy.”
    “There’s nobody here except the two of us,” she said.
    She kept her mouth shut, and thought about the golden weather vane on top of the Campanile. In the shape of the Archangel Gabriel. She had always loved the irony of conducting her seductions watched by the figures of angels and saints crowding the