Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

wondered aloud. “Perhaps after you’ve dealt with me, there will be a spear through this dragon’s head. That’s what you were sent here to do, wasn’t it? Destroy me.”
    She said it as a fact, not a question.
    One that he denied, shaking his head. “I told you, I came here to apprehend you, not to harm you. And I have obviously not been successful at capturing you.”
    “But you were successful at every other assignment you had. Isn’t that right? You’ve saved hundreds of people. Maybe thousands,” she said, stroking his skin.
    “I wouldn’t say I saved them. You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. All of my human Assignees have saved themselves. I just showed them the way.”
    You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. Brandon’s words circulated in Luciana’s head. She wrapped herself in a blanket and went outside to sit on the beach, looking out into the darkness of the Adriatic. He came up behind her, kissed her shoulder as she looked out to sea.
    “Tell me what happened to your sister.”
    “Corbin killed her,” she said, not knowing what else to say. “He wanted to hurt me, and he knew where to get me.”
    “I want to know everything, from the beginning,” the angel insisted.
    “You already know about me. You were given a file on me, were you not?”
    “I don’t know your side of the story. I want to hear the words from your own lips.”
    “That’s a very long story,” she said. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
    “Begin at the beginning,” he told her. “I want to hear everything. Especially why you hate Julian Ascher so much.”
    She sighed. “The beginning. If you insist…
    “I was born in 1756, the daughter of a rich silk merchant in a city blooming with gilded lilies. Surrounded by the pleasures of festivals and Carnival, showered with gowns and jewels supplied by the wealth of my father’s silk trade. My sister, Carlotta, was five years younger. I loved her, even though she could be very spoiled and sometimes acted like a brat.
    “All of Venice celebrated in those days, but the city was going downhill. After its military and political position slipped, trade began to decline. Our father invested everything he had in a shipment of silk from the Far East that he thought would bolster our family’s depleted finances. The ship sank, and we lost everything. Our parents panicked.
    “I was seventeen years old when our world of luxury was torn apart. Little by little, the house was stripped. First it was the Tintorettos and the Tiepolos, and then the antique furniture. Then the silver services and the Murano glassware. Our mother’s jewels, our father’s collection of pleasure boats.
    “Our father ordered me, ‘You’ll have to marry, and soon. We’ve no time to spare.’
    “The man they picked for me was my worst nightmare, a man who knew our family through my father’s business connections. Old, fat and degenerate. I had feared him since childhood—he had been leering at me since early adolescence. Since our youth, Carlotta and I had secretly nicknamed him ‘il vecchio pedofilo.’ ‘The old pedophile.’
    “When I heard the news, I cried for three days, sobbing without end on the silk carpet of my bedchamber. My mother tried to bolster me, saying, ‘You’ll ruin your eyes if you cry like that, darling. Then your husband-to-be won’t want you at all, will he?’
    “I hoped that would be the case. Fleetingly, I contemplated slitting my wrists or disfiguring my face. But ultimately, I was too afraid of God to carry out such a death or even to harm myself.
    “‘It’s either marry or go to work in the Arsenale, ’ my father joked, referring to the famous shipyard where workers were employed to build Venice’s naval fleet. ‘Or you could become a courtesan.’ When I realized he was only half joking, I cried even harder.
    “In the end, I realized I would have to find another way.
    “I went to the Redentore Church and lit a candle. On my knees, I begged in prayer, ‘Please, God. Send me a way out of this. Give me a sign.’
    “On the way home from the church, I saw Julian Ascher sauntering beside the Grand Canal. I thought God had answered my prayers.
    “As it turned out, he had not.
    “I loved Julian. Even though I was in a desperate situation, my heart was pure. But Julian used me. He took my virginity. Then he discarded me like a broken piece of glass, a trinket that had outlasted its novelty. The last time I