She stripped quickly, hating the feeling of him watching her, taking in the details of her naked body.
He picked the emerald earring up from the floor, pushed it roughly through her pierced ear. Then he held her body against him. “Yes, very ironic indeed. I could fuck you right now if I wanted. But I’d rather wait until after. When there’s time to really enjoy it. When you’ve destroyed that angel and gotten all that pathetic
hope
out of your system.”
He pushed her away. She resisted the urge to vomit.
“Now, show me the poison you’re going to use on him.”
Immediately, she reached under the bed for the syringe of cyanide she kept there.
“Of course. Trust you to keep your most dangerous poison under the bed. Now, was that so difficult? I hope for your sake that you’re not too attached to this angel. Once I have his body, I plan to cut those tattooed wings off of him.”
“What, do you mean
skin
him?”
Corbin smiled, and the urbane, unfeeling look on his face made even her blood run cold.
“Of course,” he said.
She shivered at the thought of it, the image of that magnificent body defiled in such a way. There was no doubt in her mind that Corbin would carry out his threat. That he would revel in doing it.
“Don’t come back until you’ve done your job,” Corbin said blandly. “What a shame it would be if a pretty girl like you were sent back to hell, even if you think it’s a better alternative to being up here. The Gatekeepers down in the underworld will love it. You should last about thirty seconds intact.”
He ran his hand down the front of her body.
She drew back and slapped him.
For a terrified moment, she waited, as something dangerous rippled in those eerie amber eyes of his. He said, “You don’t know what kind of war you’ve started, my dear.”
Then he shoved her roughly onto the bed.
“Don’t waste any more time. The devil doesn’t wait for anyone. Stop stalling, and don’t come back until you’ve done your job.”
Massimo watched Corbin walk down the staircase of the palazzo. As he passed Massimo, who stood on the landing, he nodded cordially and then exited the house.
A few minutes later, Luciana came out of her bedchamber, dressed for the evening.
“Baronessa?”
he asked, noting that her throat was bruised and a little blood seeped from her left ear. “How may I assist you?”
“You must go, Massimo. Leave here now, and don’t come back. You must forget you ever knew me. Promise me you will go.”
She stared at him with her intense gaze, and he nodded.
Then she walked down the stairs and out the front door.
Massimo watched her leave, and said to Violetta, “She’s heading to La Fenice. That’s your territory. Go and watch over her. Please, even if you hate her, do this for my sake. If she needs help, come back and get me. I’m not leaving her. Not when she needs me.”
“Of course not,” the girl said without hesitation, pressing a ghostly finger to his lips. “If we don’t get another chance, then let this be our goodbye.”
“We will see each other again, my love,” Massimo promised her, even though he knew with an aching certainty that they would not have another moment together. “But until then, know that I love you with all of my dark heart.”
* * *
Across the canal, Brandon readied himself for his rendezvous with Luciana.
He showered in the makeshift shower the Venetians had rigged in the back of the house, grateful for the rudimentary plumbing job they had done. The cool water put him at ease, soothing his anxious mind in the relentless humidity.
No, this was a different kind of stakeout entirely.
There was still so much at risk.
“Why did she ask you to meet her at the opera?” Arielle wondered aloud, standing in the doorway with her arms crossed. She watched him as he stood shaving over a stone basin and a propped-up mirror. “That’s such an odd meeting place.”
“Honestly, I think she just threw it out there. I don’t know how her mind works. But you wanted me to win her trust, right? That’s my job, isn’t it? That’s what I was sent here to do,” he said grimly. “I’ve got to change, so do you mind giving me some privacy?”
Arielle’s idea of privacy was to turn around, going to look out one of the windows on the pretense of looking at the canal below. She said, “It’s nothing I haven’t already seen.”
Not for a long time, you haven’t,
he thought.
One of the larger Guardians from the Venetian unit had contributed a black suit and white shirt. Brandon deliberated arguing with Arielle, but thought better of it. Shedding his jeans, he pulled on the dress pants, the shirt.
“I don’t know how the Italians stand dressing up in this heat,” she said, turning around. She touched the open shirt at the neck. “You look like a different man. Not like the usual Brandon I know.”
He pushed her hand aside and headed for the door.
“Are you falling in love with her?” Arielle asked, stopping him in his tracks.
He turned. It was perhaps the first time he had ever seen real emotion on Arielle’s face. Real lines on her forehead, creasing her brow. Real pain.
“Of course not,” he lied. The lie burned in his mouth, and he hated himself for telling it.
“Good. I know you might not agree with our plan to dispose of her. But it will take an eternity to reform her otherwise.”
“I see,” Brandon said. He knew already what was coming.
“It’s the best thing for her.”
He said nothing, but picked up his suit jacket and stepped out the door toward his rendezvous with the demoness.
Chapter Fifteen
“S
inging inside La Fenice is like being inside a diamond,”
a famous diva had once said.
The opera house’s interior sparkled like a diamond. A gold-and-crystal chandelier flowered from the sky-frescoed ceiling. The velvet-covered seats and tiers of mirrored boxes ascended in layers of gilded splendor. The acoustics allowed the bright, beautifully polished voices to ring through the theater with matchless clarity.
Like being inside a diamond.
Trapped inside something beautiful and glittering, yet hard and lifeless.
That was what the phrase meant to Luciana.
In the Royal Box across from center stage, the demoness sat in the very heart of this diamond, looking as flawless as a gem in her white silk gown. Every operagoer milling in the seats below and the boxes around her craned their necks to get a look at her. Of all the things that sparkled inside La Fenice tonight, Luciana shone the brightest.
Yet, all she could think of was death.
She ignored the open stares of her fellow operagoers, not seeing them. The fluttering scores of richly dressed Venetians and tourists who had come to the opera in their summer evening clothes. Drifting layers of cleverly designed chiffon and jewels draping the women. Crisply ironed white linen beneath the dark suits of the men.
One day, sooner than they think, each and every one of them will die.
No matter how beautiful.
They all admired her, of course. They coveted her beauty and the exclusivity of her place. But what these mortals thought made no difference to her.
None of them could alter fate.
Not their own. Not hers. Not Brandon’s.
And she hated this feeling. Of being exposed. A sitting duck.
A pawn of men.
“With the devil as my witness,” she muttered under her breath, “I will never let this happen again.”
She looked at the program, blindly browsing through its pages.
La Traviata.
Of course,
she thought.
The opera with a heroine named Violetta.
Luciana had seen this opera dozens of times, with numerous stars over the years, each more brilliant and more lucid than the rest.
In the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. At the Met in New York. At La Scala in Rome. At the Opéra Bastille in Paris…
But never waiting for a man like this.
She set her gaze on the stage, listening to the music and losing herself in the world of the opera. She loved opera not only because she adored the beauty of the singers’ voices. Not only because she loved to sink into the richness of these stories she had watched so many times, and knew so well.
For Luciana, opera was like traveling backward in time. Through music, she felt as though she could almost return to the past. To a time when she had been innocent and unhindered by the knowledge that death touched everything. Untouched by the reality of being a bringer of death herself.
There was only sound.
When the door opened behind her, a strange sensation throbbed in her chest, a kind of ache she remembered from human life. Something like regret.
She had felt many things before a kill.
Fear. Elation. Anger. A desire for vengeance.
But never anything like this.
I have no choice,
she told herself.
I must perform my duty.
* * *
Inside the opera house, Brandon felt her dark energy smoldering. Unsettled. He tracked that energy up to the second floor of the small opera house, where he could feel the sensual pull of her, simmering.
He entered her box through a small door. Closed it behind him.
Alone, on a red velvet chair, sat the demoness.
His first impression was that he had slipped into another era, two and a half centuries ago. Before his eyes a vision of Luciana drifted. Of the demoness as a very young woman, still human, attending the opera with her family, happy amongst the companionship of others.
The mirage glimmered for an instant and then evaporated, shifting back to the present.
She turned slightly toward the noise of the door, but did not meet his eyes. Her luxuriant, curling hair was upswept, leaving her shoulders and back exposed. Her dress, elegant, bias-cut white silk, poured like water over her bare skin. Along the long column of her throat, he saw her throat tighten, his heightened awareness of her tiny swallow, a motion so subtle, yet so sensual. He wanted to reach out, run his fingers along the length of her neck.
In a dream, he might have done so.
But this was no dream. There was no watch in his pocket.
He checked. He double-checked.
I’m awake
.
He took a seat beside her.
“Did you know,” she murmured, without turning, “La Fenice burned down not once, but twice? In the end, the opera house survived, rebuilt by us Venetians to rise again from the ashes. She is a true phoenix.”
Luciana turned to look at him fully then, those emerald eyes of hers glittering in the darkness, so green against the dimly lit gilt and mirrors decorating the interior of the box.
“You are like a phoenix, too, rising every night after your repeated death,” she said quietly. “And you will continue to rise. On your own. You must know that I can’t go with you. It is completely impossible.”
“You’re making this more difficult than it has to be,” he said. “It can be easy.”
“Easy?” The single word, spat, her brow furrowed. “I will make it easy for you. Go back where you came from. Leave now. Before something disastrous happens.”
“Never. Now that we’re here, let’s at least be honest with each other. We both know that I won’t go home. That I will never leave you alone. And the reason I came tonight no longer has anything to do with the assignment the Company sent me to accomplish. Nothing to do with my mission.”
“Look around you,” she said, ignoring his comment. “There are more demons in the world than humans could ever imagine. We run rampant in this city. We are responsible for everything. From corrupt politics to overcharging tourists for mediocre food in the
caffès.
From natural disasters to picking pockets on the vaporetti. We are everywhere.”
Brandon stared back at her. “So are angels.”
“We are inescapable,” she said, barely hearing him, staring out over the audience of the opera house with wide, frightened eyes.
“Are you talking about Corbin?” he asked. “Because the Company can find a way to protect you from him.”
Her mouth set into a stubborn line. She shook her head, her dark curls tumbling around her. “We’ll win in the end. You know it. My kind always do. We barely have to lift a finger. Humans do it to themselves.”
He couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat. He wanted to bolt the door shut and keep her in here for eternity, in their own little bubble of gilt and mirrors. It wasn’t exactly his taste, but with her here, he would capture this moment forever.
Forget the war between angels and demons,
he thought.
The war going on inside him was a thousand times more dangerous.
* * *
There’s no point in arguing with him
, she thought.
It always results in the same thing.
An impasse.
So instead, she smiled and said, “Let’s not argue about it. We have this time together. After the opera is over, we will say our goodbyes. But until then, let me love you.”
She rose, pulled the curtain shut across the front of the box.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” he said. “What’s the point?”
“In my day, we shut these curtains all the time. The opera was a lovely place to come to have a little party with the people you knew. Half the time, we only listened to the arias.”
To lose herself in his arms. That was all Luciana wanted.
Sorrow. Melancholy. Regret.
These things welled inside her, untouched for so long. His mere presence stirred them.
Her hands reached up to caress his neck.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
* * *
What do you have to be sorry for?
he wondered.
He was about to speak the thought aloud, but the words never made it through his lips.
Instead, he felt the prick of something sharp sliding into the carotid artery. Felt the cool rush of the foreign substance entering his bloodstream. He knew instantaneously what she had done.
Poison.
Releasing itself into his bloodstream. He blinked, holding his hand to his neck.
In that instant, he realized just how mistaken he had been. How badly he had missed his mark. He had sorely underestimated the speed with which Luciana worked, the ruthlessness with which she performed her set task.
Brandon felt the nearness of death. Knew that whatever poison she had shot into him was working its way through the pathways of his body. Through veins and arteries, until it reached his heart. Once there, the heart would stop pumping, the chambers of it cease the circulation of blood. His breathing would stop. The flow of blood, that precious substance, would stop entirely.
Whatever he had expected, he had not been prepared for this. He had made a stupid mistake, coming here. Expecting that what they had shared together had actually meant something to her.
Fight,
he told himself.
Get up off the floor and take her down.
But he couldn’t. Couldn’t move his limbs. Couldn’t marshal his arms to push himself upright, nor his legs to support him. His muscles seized again, his body going rigid as the poison worked its way through his nervous system.
“What did you shoot into me?” he muttered, furious that his control was fading fast, his vision blurring. Even with his reduced capacity to think, he was more furious at the fact that, whatever she had done to him, it was ultimately his own fault.
Didn’t expect an answer, wasn’t surprised when she simply smiled, as angelic as the mother of God herself. She stroked his head and murmured, “There now,
tesoro mio.
It is time to say our goodbyes.”
“Did you stick me with your goddamned poison?” he ground out.
Strychnine, arsenic, cyanide…whatever earthly poison she threw at him, he could handle. He would recover from those things. But none of the angels knew for certain what her special concoction contained.
It had killed a demon. That much, he knew.
Brandon felt himself slipping, his mind fighting to keep control.
He had to trust that in the end, there was a reason for everything. Knew that whatever happened to his physical incarnation, even if this particular body died again, well, he would be recycled.
He forced himself to let go.
Brandon was stuck in a haze.
Am I dreaming?
he wondered.
There was no alleyway. No smell of squalor. No shock of bullets entering his body. Instead, a moment of confusion, caught between two worlds, conscious and unconscious.
He faded into darkness. Dreamlessness.
Heard her bend down and whisper, “Hush, now. Just let it take you.”
Screw that,
he thought.
I’m not going anywhere.
The small door behind them burst open.
One of her Gatekeepers—
Massimo,
Brandon thought—stumbled through it. Near exhaustion, his face smudged with ash, his clothes singed. He choked out, “
Baronessa.
Ca’ Rossetti is on fire.”
Her face, those glittering green eyes trained on Brandon with absolute hatred.
She was out the door in a flash, not bothering to utter a single word to him.
The look alone had conveyed everything.
* * *
Luciana ran out into the mezzanine, down the marble staircase, the quick series of taps that her high-heeled shoes made on the stairs as she ran down them, delicate and light.
Inside the opera house, the first act was ending. Amid the shouts and the cheering, she and Massimo crossed the foyer.
Out into the cool summer night. To the boat tethered not far from the entrance.
He did not question her, but leaped into the boat behind her.
Neither of them spoke as she drove, cleaving down the canals, veering around corners and finally, nearing her home.
She felt the heat of it from fifty yards away as they approached. The roar of it, as if a dragon had come thundering up from the depths of the canal to scorch Ca’ Rossetti with its fury. But her own heart thundered much louder. She felt the weight of that organ dropping into her stomach, through the bottom of the boat, down into the dark waters of the canal.