Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

family had died. Not the first time, anyway. To purchase this plot fifty years after their death, to build this memorial to her dead family…it was Luciana’s way of sending a clear message to the divine.
    Nothing is sacred.
    “Eternal rest is a myth,” she said to Massimo as he pulled the boat up near the entrance to the walled cemetery. “And anyone who believes in it is a fool.”
    Now, in the middle of the night, the burial ground was still. Stately cypress trees loomed overhead, guarding the silence of the dead. Luciana swept past crowded tombstones, past long stretches of white crosses and stacked mausoleums. Among the monuments she stumbled, overwhelmed for a moment by the masses of flowers laid atop the graves, by the scent of decaying petals, by the dank smell of foliage rotting in the heat of high summer.
    For a moment, she thought she might faint. She swayed and almost fell, catching herself on the cool face of a marble tombstone, fingers fumbling against its solid smoothness. Righting herself, she soldiered on.
    Massimo trailed after her, following slightly behind her in case she should collapse.
    Until she came to the place she sought.
    In the moonlight stood a solid block of old white marble, topped by a winged figure that might be angel or demon at this point, eroded by time into a grotesque creature. She bent, running her fingers over the grooves of the text engraved on the stone.

Lorenzo Rossetti, 1727–1784. Padre.
Maria Elena Rossetti, 1732–1787. Madre.
Carlotta Rossetti, 1761–1783. Sorella.
“Father, mother, sister.”

    An empty grave, an empty monument. The sole record of three souls whose human remains were lost, perhaps buried beneath the city’s paving stones, or perhaps in the public wells, as bodies of the poor often had been. Whose existence had been wiped out of human memory by the hand of the devil.
    Luciana dug a little hole in the earth and placed the earring into it.
    She said a silent farewell as she covered the small object with earth.
    “Now that earring will rest with two of the women who wore it,” she explained aloud to Massimo. “They were my mother’s before they were mine. And then Carlotta wore them. At least they stayed in the family.”
    He did not answer, but stood silently by, his face as still and white as stone.
    “One way or another, I will avenge her death,” Luciana swore. “This act will not go unpunished.”
    “Do you really think you can best Corbin, baronessa? ” Massimo asked quietly.
    “I have to try,” she ground out.
    “The question is, who do you hate more? Corbin or the Company of Angels?”
    “I hate them both equally. And so I must try to avenge myself equally on both of them. But you’re right. We must pick our battles, Massimo. And since the Company is our most pressing concern, we will concentrate our efforts there. But mark my words. The time for a reckoning with Corbin is coming.”
    She and Massimo turned at the same time.
    Behind them stood the angel. His gaze tracked to the disrupted earth at the base of the monument, then upward to read the names on the stone.
    “Irony of ironies, for a demoness to consecrate her family on holy ground,” he said.
    “You angels are such wimps. None of you have ever raised so much as a whisper about it in all these centuries. Where is your precious Michael now?” she hissed.
    “He may not be here,” said Brandon. “But I am.”
    “And why have you come? To torture me? There isn’t any point. Isn’t it enough that she is gone?”
    “What happened?” he said.
    She reached out, touching the last name on the monument, fingers drifting over the engraved grooves. The explanation stuck in her throat. She only managed to shake her head as a single, angry tear slid down her cheek. She swiped it away.
    “You can put a stop to all of this, Luciana,” he said. “I can help you.”
    She was so tired, so weak. She wanted to believe what he said.
    “Come with me now, only for a little while. There must be somewhere we can go. Where we can talk, just the two of us.”
    She sagged forward, bracing herself against the monument, leaning on the strength of the old stone. She, who prided herself on her strength and her ability to survive, felt so fragile now. Dried out like the petals of the decaying flowers left on the graves around her. As though she might break apart at a single touch.
    Turning to the Gatekeeper, she said, “Massimo, leave us. Take the boat and go