Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

Church. Not the real Redentore Church. One that existed in the deepest reaches of her wildest fears. One whose pristine marble facade had been desecrated, the saints and angels beheaded and smeared with a black, oozing substance that seemed to slither toward her.
    “Welcome back to the underworld,” Corbin said smoothly. “We’ve missed you down here.”
    The sky was a mottled red, with dark scarlet clouds streaming overhead in clots, like a sped-up film shot through a bloodied lens. Thunder rumbled from above, and the ground beneath her feet trembled as though it would split open. But she knew there was no farther down she could go.
    “Release me,” she demanded. “You have no power over me.”
    “On the contrary, my dear. I have all the power in the world over you, until you manage to fulfill your end of the bargain. And until then, it’s in my hands to motivate you. Besides, didn’t you just invite me to kill you?”
    He dragged her into the church. It was empty and decrepit, the long nave strewn with rotting leaves and broken plaster. The great crucifix loomed over the altar, the figure of Christ missing and a giant crack splitting the wood in the middle.
    “On your knees,” he thundered.
    “Not for you,” she ground out. “Not this time.”
    He slapped her then. The sting of it reverberated in the space of the church and knocked her to the floor. She looked up toward the rounded space of the dome overhead. And closed her eyes, silently begging. Just one word: please.
    “Do you think it’ll do you any good to start praying at this point, my dear?” he laughed. “Haven’t you learned anything after all this time? Do you think your saint is going to come save you now? That big, tattooed freak of yours isn’t coming to redeem you. I’ve told you so many times. It’s the other way around. Your job is to bring him down here.”
    He grabbed her by the hair, hauling her to her feet.
    “Your little tour doesn’t stop here. Let’s jog your memory some more. This is the little hotel where Julian had his rooms. Where you gave up your virginity to him. And there’s…”
    She knew what was coming next.
    The thing she always tried to forget.
    The thing she hadn’t found the courage to tell Brandon.
    “…the place where you tried to hang yourself after he abandoned you. But you didn’t succeed, did you? When you realized there was nothing you could do to save your family after all. When you realized you had failed. Admirable that you tried again, even after that disaster. Look, here’s the sucker you got to try to help you out of that. Harcourt. My, he hasn’t aged well, has he?”
    She had not seen Harcourt in over two hundred years, since she had clawed her way out of this hell. His skin looked withered, shriveled, older than anything she had ever seen before. His head creaked as he turned to look at her.
    “Ah, my dear,” he said, reaching toward her. “Luciana, my lethal little bride. I have been dreaming of what I would do if I ever saw you again.”
    His ancient, clawed hand reached for her, grasping her around the arm. She almost screamed, but she knew such a sound could trigger a frenzy in Harcourt from which she would not escape. Forcing herself to swallow the scream, she shuddered, feeling the bony claw scrape its way across her chest to close over her breast.
    “So fresh…” Harcourt groaned.
    “Perhaps we can arrange a reunion between you two later,” Corbin chuckled, jerking her away. “But right now, we must move on,” said Corbin. “There’s one more thing I’d like to show you.”
    Pulling her by the hair, he dragged her into another room, this one a distorted version of Carlotta’s brothel. There, in the middle of the blood-spattered room was a pile of dismembered corpses. Among them, Luciana spotted the battered, bloodied faces of some of the girls she’d worked with years ago; others she hadn’t known personally but still recognized, girls she’d seen around Venice. They were mostly girls she’d seen at Carlotta’s only a few days ago, girls who had been laughing and cavorting, and breathing.
    And among them was her sister’s face, her green eyes staring straight ahead.
    “Even in hell, Carlotta is dead,” he said. “Nothing you ever do can get her out of here.”
    Luciana looked at the pile of bodies, death piled upon death, stacked up.
    She saw herself for what she was: a bringer of death.
    One who brought nothing but suffering. She may not have