Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

home.”
    “Baronessa?” he said.
    “Go,” she said, waving him away. Then she said to the angel, “Yes. There is a place.”
    * * *
     
    In the boat, Massimo worried.
    He watched the Guardian take the baronessa away in another boat, toward the Lido.
    Briefly, Massimo contemplated following, but thought better of it. Although the Gatekeeper worried for himself, he worried for the baronessa more. She had suffered through much. Things no one ought to bear.
    What she was doing now, Massimo had no authority or desire to question.
    Let her have her moment of happiness with that angel, the Gatekeeper thought. Love has no place among demons, but at least she might know a moment of peace. If only a moment.
    * * *
     
    Luciana took Brandon to the Lido, the long stretch of sandbar where tourists sunned themselves, packed as tightly as sardines washed up from the Adriatic. Now, at night, the beach was deserted and lit only by a few flickering lights.
    As the boat veered along the shoreline, she looked behind them, to the receding lights of Venice sparkling in the distance. The city floated like an illusion, like a dream. Like a hallucination.
    Am I really awake? she wondered.
    As Brandon steered, she ran her fingers along the muscles of his arm.
    In no dream had he ever felt so real. In no dream had she ever felt so vulnerable.
    Please. Let me have a little time with him. Just a little…
    Luciana did not know to whom the words were aimed.
    She only knew that her most fervent wish was to be here, with him.
    Anywhere, with him. Without the Gatekeepers and the rest of the Guardians watching, she and Brandon could be alone. If only for a moment, a stolen little bit of time.
    She directed him to a place where they pulled the boat up on the sand. She slipped off her shoes to walk across the beach, retrieved a hidden key near the front door of her little summer villa.
    “This really is the place where I come to be alone with my thoughts,” she said as she unlocked the door.
    “The last time you said those words—” he began.
    “I was lying. Not this time.”
    She led him inside, standing in the doorway of the place that had lain dormant for years. She opened her mouth to tell him how her sister had finally been destroyed, after centuries of hard survival at the brothel. But all she wanted to do was forget. To fill the void in her gut—the big, black, gaping hole of fear and grief that threatened to swallow her from the inside out.
    “Luciana, you’re in a fragile state of mind,” he said, holding her at arm’s length. “I don’t want to take advantage of that.”
    She looked up at him, choking back tears. “I need you. I need this.”
    His hands were in her hair, tilting her face up toward him. “No more illusions. Just us.”
    He kissed her, the force of his passion bearing down on her so fast she no longer had time to think. On the cool floor of the villa, they were on each other, inside each other. Without language, without words. Without hesitation. Skin sliding on skin, muscle pulsing against supple muscle. Water lashing on rock. Waves breaking on sand. Two forces of nature, so physical and so violent in opposition. Yet so dramatic and so beautiful in their joining.
    Rain falling on fire, clashing together to make steam.
    Afterward, she traced a finger over his shirtless chest, mapping the tattoos covering his arms and torso. Slowly, she followed the lines etched in ink, the dragon’s head curving over his heart.
    “Do they hurt, these tattoos of yours?”
    He shifted a little under her touch, but said, “No.”
    “I want to know more,” she said, tracing the edge of a gray feather along the trapezius muscle at the top of his shoulder. “Tell me about this one.”
    After a pause, he said, “That was the first one I got, just after I died. I was shot in the back. My flesh exploded, torn into a thousand shreds. When I was sent back to earth as a Guardian, the tattoo was there. A constant reminder of what had happened.”
    “Not every Guardian has such markings,” she said.
    “The Archangels wanted to remind me of what I’m doing here,” he ventured. “Maybe they thought I had a higher chance than the other Guardians of straying.”
    Maybe they were right, he thought.
    “Most of the tattoos depict different Assignees I’ve had over the years,” he said. “In some form or another. Some of the animals represent the spirits of people I’ve helped.”
    “Am I supposed to end up there, too?” she