The Demoness of Waking Dreams
Come, Sleep.
Come, Dreams.
Come, DARKNESS.
Ex-cop Brendan Clarkson is an angel with an edge. His tough exterior is the perfect camouflage for his job—hunting down the most dangerous criminals on earth. A self-reliant and demanding lone wolf, Brendan is the perfect angel to track and capture demoness Luciana Rossetti.
Beneath the surface of Luciana’s cool, green-eyed beauty lurks the heart of a malevolent killer. In the winding streets of Venice, she lures Brendan into her dark world of pleasure.
They are perfectly matched. Angel and demon. Man and woman. But only one can win the battle of wills, of strength and of desire.
Praise for the novels of
“Hauntingly beautiful, Stephanie Chong’s
The Demoness of Waking Dreams
boldly turns the classic struggle between good and evil into a lush, unpredictable love story. Angels and demons collide in Venice, which is as much of a character in this book as Brandon and Luciana. I’m anxiously awaiting the next book in the series!”
—
New York Times
bestselling author Stephanie Tyler
“Chong delivers a wicked tale of a sexy guardian angel battling for a not-so-lost demon’s soul.”
—
New York Times
bestselling author Caridad Piñeiro
“Stephanie Chong taps into a delicious fantasy older than time, spinning it masterfully into a sexy, moving tale that feels fresh and new. I am sincerely her newest fan.”
—
New York Times
bestselling author Maggie Shayne
“Mix a spirited angel with a sexy demon, and you get one heavenly read!”
—
New York Times
bestselling author Kerrelyn Sparks
Also by Stephanie Chong
WHERE DEMONS FEAR TO TREAD
Look for Stephanie Chong’s next book in the Company of Angels series, available September 2013.
To Valerie Gray,
la miglior fabbra.
Contents
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
—John Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale” (1819)
Prologue
Chiesa del Santissimo
Redentore
Present Day
W
ho will it be?
In the austere marble interior of the Renaissance church, Luciana Rossetti stood watching the opening ceremony of a festival she despised. Dusky light filtered down through the soaring windows, dimly illuminating the bronzed crucifix that loomed high above the altar. At precisely seven o’clock in the evening, the priests started their solemn procession up the nave, to the front of the church.
Yes, a priest would make a fine sacrifice,
she mused, imagining those ornate robes of cream and gold, spattered with scarlet.
Or easier pickings? A member of the wide-eyed crowd of worshippers and tourists?
It hardly mattered to her. She hated them all equally.
Besides, every human being ended up in the same place, eventually.
Dead and buried.
Idiotic mortals,
she smirked to herself.
You have no idea what the afterlife really holds. If you did, most of you’d run screaming down the aisles of this Church of the Most Holy Redeemer right here and now.
A single bead of sweat trickled down between her perfect breasts, dripping into the bodice of her silk dress. Her pale emerald eyes pressed closed for a moment, shutting out the sunlight warming her face. Unlike this crowd of fools, she had not come to celebrate the Festa del Redentore, the
Festival of the Redeemer.
No, she came for darker reasons entirely. To pay tribute to a darker force.
Luciana Rossetti came to hunt.
From amongst the revelers crowding the church on this hot July weekend, she would select her annual sacrifice. A single victim, exchanged for certain privileges and freedoms granted to her within the demon world. An offering delivered to the Prince of Darkness.
An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.
A soul for a soul.
The head priest at the pulpit droned on in Italian, sermonizing about forgiveness.
About redemption. About salvation.
“We give thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation he brought to Venice, in saving our most serene city from the plague in 1577. In loving gratitude, we citizens of Venice built this church,” he said.
Salvation,
Luciana thought,
is a funny thing.
Fifty thousand people had died during that bout of plague. One-third of the population was wiped out, their bodies dumped into mass graves. Half a century later, the plague swept through Venice yet again, returning to reap another eighty thousand souls. However, the priest didn’t bother to mention that. What could one expect from a man wearing a medieval headdress, so obviously stuck hundreds of years in the past, roped into rituals and incantations.
If that’s salvation, I’ll take the alternative,
she thought.
Behind her, someone muttered in a low voice, grumbling discontentedly about something that Luciana could not hear. Turning, she saw it was an old woman in the pew one row back. An old grandmother standing with her family. On seeing Luciana’s face, the old woman’s wizened features contracted with fury. Her voice broke the silence of the crowd, shattering the air of reverence with a cry.
“Demonessa!”
the old woman shrieked, pointing her bony finger at Luciana.
“Una demonessa nella casa di Dio!”
A demoness in the house of God.
Every soul in the church froze, turning to stare in the direction of the crazy old
nonna
who was carrying on in such a way. Luciana shifted under the scrutiny, put on her most pious smile and tried her best to look as innocent as a dove. Standing at the end of the pew, she tensed herself to flee. Hoped that wasn’t necessary.
Humans rarely recognized her.
But once in a while…once in a very long while…
“Mamma! Basta!”
shouted her son, a balding man of about fifty who flushed red with embarrassment as he ordered his mother to stop. To the entire congregation, he rattled out a flustered apology involving Alzheimer’s and missed medication. Then he dragged the old woman away, with the old bat spitting and shrieking as she was pulled down the long nave and out of the church.
Mutters of sympathy came from those standing around Luciana:
“Strega pazza…stronza vecchia…” Crazy old witch…
Gesù Cristo,
the demoness swore to herself.
Humans. What a pain in the ass.
Outwardly, Luciana smiled and shrugged.
T
he ceremony resumed. When the tedious incantations and rituals finally ended, the clergy paraded down the center aisle past the congregation, on their way out of the church. A few of the priests caught Luciana’s eye, eager to see who had caused all the fuss. She gave them each a pious little smile. But most of their gazes dipped lower, to her glistening cleavage.
Men of God are still men, after all,
she thought.
The crowd dissipated, flooding out into the early evening. Toward the picnics and the celebrations, the boats decked with garlands of flowers and leaves, balloons and paper lanterns. There would be music and dancing, and once the sun went down, fireworks.
In the emptying church, Luciana lingered. Sauntering toward one of the side chapels, she knelt in mock prayer on the cool marble, even as she cast a furtive gaze over the thinning crowd.
Who will it be this year?
Who among them will be the chosen one?
Tonight she had a craving for a handsome young man. One man, whose life she would transform for one spectacular evening. Whose most secret fantasies and wildest desires she would fulfill in a single night. One man who would play with her the game of seduction. One man whose life would end before the rising of the sun.
She turned, her gaze catching upon a man who stopped her cold.
Chi è?
She had to stop herself from saying it aloud:
Who is that?
Tall, dark and handsome.
Yes. But those three words weren’t the first that flooded into her consciousness.
Dangerous. Wild. Angry.
Those were the words rushing through her mind.
He was sculpted more solidly than a Michelangelo, the muscled bulk of his toned arms etched with tattoos. Close-shaven dark hair, the cut of a military man or the like. Shaved purely for functionality and not aesthetics, she sensed. Light gray eyes, focused and intense. Eyes the color of rain. The aura of a restless ocean. His looks contrasted starkly with the preening
mammoni,
the mama’s boys who seemed to proliferate in Venice.
He was beautiful. No pretty boy, this one.
The set of his broad body, the confidence of his stance marked him as foreign.
Not Venetian. Not Italian. Not European.
Not human.
The thought startled her. Although why it should, she didn’t know.
Overhead, a single bird circled the church’s dome. A rapid flutter of wings and a tremulous coo, lonely in the empty space. The tourists beneath craned their necks and pointed upward. Luciana glanced ceilingward, too. It was only a pigeon, one of the filthy winged rats that had infested Venice for centuries.
Still, the noise set a doubt churning in her mind.
The sound of wings often heralded the arrival of another sort of flying nuisance.
His face was as beautiful as any immortal she’d seen. She closed her eyes, directing her energy toward him. And waited for the signs. For the deep knowing. For the sensation of power, immortal and extraordinary, which emanated from all divine beings.
The flare of energy came. No mere internal sense of intuition. But a hit of energy, a palpable shock that blew through her. Rocked her backward and almost pushed her off her feet.
Angel.
In that same instant, a flock of pigeons swept through the open doors of the church. They rose to join the one circling overhead beneath the dome, the single bird suddenly multiplied into a wild clamor of cooing and wing beats that filled the rounded space.
The noise of the pigeons and the voices of the tourists blended into a cacophony, shouts in a tangle of languages: Italian, English, German, Japanese…and a dozen more, all the people pointing and staring at the circling birds overhead. But the thunderous flutter of wings and human voices melded into a flat buzz that quieted before it faded away entirely.
At least to her ears.
Luciana was aware of only him. The first man and woman, meeting in a wild garden paradise. Or the last man and woman on earth, standing on an arid plain at the end of time.
Angel and demon.
Sworn enemies.
They stood in the chapel, and his gaze remained steady. Eyes locked on eyes. In that moment, Luciana felt the rush of centuries blow past her. Felt as if she had been made new again simply by the presence of this man.
Who seemed to peer into the depths of her very soul. Just as she saw into his.
For an instant, she forgot about the hunt. Forgot about revenge and her desire to obliterate the Company. Her mind went blank, and the only thing she knew was that moment, standing in the now-quiet chapel with the last rays of sunlight on her face.
With him.
If he were a human man, she might have been able to leave him to his precious Redeemer. To allow him to walk out of the church, out into the thronging festivities among the Venetians, to experience the city’s pleasures. To watch the fireworks, drink some cheap Prosecco and then tomorrow morning, to leave.
To live.
Then, as quickly as the moment had begun, it was over. The noise of the birds overhead and the clamor of the crowd rose to a deafening roar, the humans now pushing each other to get away from the chaos. And Luciana came crashing back into the present moment, back to the reality of standing here in this too-hot church that she hated.
Back to the reality of exactly how much she hated this man and all his kind.
She would destroy him. She
must
destroy him.
She had never sacrificed an angel before.
What better way to pay homage to the devil? Yes, this man would make a fine offering. She curved her lips into a smile honed over centuries, a smile she knew spoke of pleasure, without the need for words, beckoning to him across the rain of gray feathers that littered the air around them.
Screw redemption,
she thought.
Let the hunt begin.