Darkest Heart Page 4

  “Yes.” A flare of his shadowed aura tightened around him. “As am I. Now, take my hand.”

  I shifted my gaze from the piazza back to Dommiel. He could’ve simply grabbed my hand and dragged me out into the melee. But no. It was important to him that I take his, accepting him in this small way. As if I were tilting toward a precipice, I stepped toward him. Slipping on my mask, I took his hand. His was large and warmer than I expected, gripping me tight, then we were stepping out into the street. At that moment, I felt completely safe and protected, no matter that I was surrounded by my enemies. Somehow, I knew all would be fine with Dommiel at my side.

  He led me toward the thick of the crowd outside the torch-lit arcade leading into Doge’s Palace where people mingled in and out. The demons were beautiful creatures, like the angels they were before their fall. But they let their beasts shine through their red eyes and sharpened canine teeth. No wonder the myth of vampires had existed since time began. Demons, these handsome fanged beasts, had been wandering among humans all along.

  Before the night of the Blood Moon, when the gates of heaven and hell had opened, demons walked among humankind, hiding the beasts within behind their own masks of human eyes and human smiles, casting illusion. But now, there was no need. They let the world see what they truly were, proud of their monsters beneath the captivating veneer.

  I wondered about Dommiel, who still kept his façade in place. His dark brown eye and straight teeth said much about the demon inside. He was still hiding. Or was ashamed of what he was. I couldn’t quite figure out which, and for some unknown reason I truly longed to know.

  I winced as we passed a gold-winged seraph, her lovely pale arms wrapped around the neck of a muscular demon. Her pearl-white mask could obviously not hide the fact that she was an angel cavorting with the enemy. Dommiel tightened his grip on my hand, pulling me closer as we passed, the angel sighing as she kissed her demon lover. They whispered lovers’ words in Italian. Others spoke the same or French or German. Some even lapsed into Latin. Angels and demons could instinctively speak any language of any era.

  Dommiel guided me toward the arches leading into the palace. I noted the bulky forms of two furies guarding the door. So did Dommiel, squeezing my hand tighter.

  Furies were one of three kinds of demon spawn, created by a high demon as slaves to their master. Titans were gargantuan creatures who came in the form of dragons and other beasts of what humans called myth. Essence came in varying forms—mist, smoke, fire, even animals. Familiars like Dommiel’s raven. And, of course, the most dangerous form of essence was transferred through the bite of a high demon. This meant possession and control of the being that was bitten. Hence the desperation that now had me cavorting around Italy with present company.

  Furies were hulking beasts with humanlike forms nearly eight feet tall. But their boar-like faces with jagged finger-long teeth protruding from their snouts, their yellow serpentine eyes, and the single gleaming black horn at the center of their foreheads pronounced their demonic origins. And their menacing purpose. Their yellow eyes followed Dommiel and me as we passed, but they made no move to follow.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, I pressed close to Dommiel’s shoulder. “Who’s the high demon of Venice? Do you know him?”

  “Territories have shifted rapidly since the war began. But from the looks of things, I believe Venice is still in the hands of a demon duke named Valentino. This looks like his kind of party.”

  I laughed inwardly at the Italian pseudonym. High demons often took on human names, wearing whatever fantasy they desired. I glanced at Dommiel, whose name was that of a demon. Or, actually, a fallen angel. In this respect, he didn’t hide who or what he was.

  “Seems he’s moved up since the war began. The Doge’s Palace is a step up from the mansion he used as his lair before.”

  The strains of the orchestra filled the air, a slow cadence, Baroque music, reminding me of the time long ago when I’d wandered the streets of Vienna in search of orphans who needed my help.

  “Does he still believe it’s the eighteenth century?”

  “He wishes it were.”

  Dommiel pulled me close, his hand sliding along the small of my back and gripping me around the opposite hip. I glanced at him questioningly, but his gaze was on the crowd, his dark eye flinty and sharp.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Do you sense something?”

  “Yes.” He pulled my body closer. “Covetous eyes.”

  I took in my surroundings, finding many demon eyes riveted on me. I was accustomed to glares of menace, but that is not how they looked at me now. Their gazes roved, darkening with hunger as they examined me from head to toe.

  “Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea,” he whispered close. “I forgot what a tasty temptation a wicked angel is to my kind.”

  “I might be deadly, but I’m not wicked.”

  “They don’t know that. They presume you’re here for their pleasure.”

  I scoffed, the very idea laughable. “Well, they can keep staring, but I’ll cut off their hands if they try to touch me.”

  “Not if I do it first,” he growled. “This way.”

  He guided me through room after room, the mingling of demons, fallen angels, and wicked humans churning a knot in my gut. Up till now, I’d only seen my own kind fighting battles against the damned. What humans I’d come across were trying to eke out an existence in this new world where the power play of heaven and hell overlooked them. I’d yet come across such flagrant hedonism among all three species. Shame coated me as I watched the angels who cavorted here, indulging in sensual pleasures at the cost of their own souls. When humans suffered somewhere and needed their help.

  “Stop staring at them that way,” whispered Dommiel at my ear. “They’ll sense you’re not one of them. Then we’ll have trouble.”

  “Why are we even here? No one in Twelfth Night would be caught here.”

  “You never know where they’ll be. We won’t find them by wandering the empty alleyways.”

  He pulled me close as a drunk couple nearly fell into me. The demon wore a cape and no shirt. The human woman, bronze-skinned and shimmering with glitter, tilted her slender throat back as she laughed, wearing an elaborate mask and only a skirt of peacock feathers that stopped mid-thigh. Her heavy breasts bounced as her lover pulled her along.

  Lover. That wasn’t the right word. There was no love between these beings. This was nothing more than an orgy of pleasures. The orchestral music grew stronger as we stepped into a ballroom, and my gaze slid to Dommiel. His powerful body led me forward, his confident gait assuring me he was in control. He’d be a beautiful lover, I imagined.

  Why was I imagining such things?

  Dragging my gaze from his body and my mind out of the gutter, I looked up at the gilt and oil-painted ceiling with Rococo filigree. Scenes of the saints of old carefully painted by an ancient master looked down. Beneath them, heathens danced. Whirling in a throng and semblance of those who may have danced here in the 1800s, they looked nothing like the finely dressed men and women of that age. Rather, they were attired as a vulgar horde of the surreal and unnatural.

  “This way,” said Dommiel, pulling me behind him along the outer edge, his gaze fixed on the dais near the orchestra.

  A red-lipped demon with crimson eyes, powdered face, and wig sat at a long dining table, laughing with his guests and watching the reeling dancers.

  “That’s Valentino,” he whispered.

  “Good God.”

  “Exactly. This way.”

  He tugged me toward the back where a reception area was laden with pastries and sugared delicacies. He nudged me behind the table so we could view the room with our backs to the wall. Filling a small plate with a puffed pastry and two chocolates, he handed it to me. I blinked down at it with confusion.

  His mouth ticked up on one side. “I realize you are probably one of those self-denying angels who rarely partakes of pleasures of the flesh.”

&nb
sp; “I have no need of human food.” I stared at the plate, ignoring his innuendo. Yes, I’d eaten at certain events over time to blend in as a human, but I had no need of earthly sustenance. My hesitance had nothing to do with that and more to do with my physical reaction to Dommiel’s nearness. The prickles of delicious heat tingling along my skin. The quickening beat of my heart.

  I’d spent my life guarding and helping humans in need. He was right. I was one of those self-denying angels. It had given me the personal fulfillment I craved. And yet, my senses whispered of a new craving with this wayward, and darkly attractive, demon so near.

  He edged closer, lifting the chocolate to my lips. “This is a place of indulgence. Since I doubt you want to dance with me or behave in other more lascivious ways to look as if we belong here, I suggest you partake of the fare so we don’t look as if we’re angel and demon spies.”

  I rolled my eyes and opened my mouth to protest. He took the opportunity to shove the chocolate past my lips. His index finger lingered, scraping along my bottom teeth and lip as he pulled out. His dark eye flared a deep mahogany color, edged with ruby. The decadent sweet melted in my mouth. I actually closed my eyes, for my senses had never tasted the like.

  His voice was rough as he spoke so close his breath caressed my lips. “You’ve never tasted chocolate before.”

  I opened my eyes, staring at the beast within him. While he bore no fangs—yet—I was captured by the beautiful monster penetrating me with such intensity I couldn’t speak.

  “You’ve never tasted a lot of things before. Have you, angel?”

  “I’m a warrior. I’ve had no time or inclination for lazy indulgence.” He swept the pad of his thumb across my lips, then dropped to the indentation below my full bottom lip, his gaze following the movement. “What I wouldn’t do to show you every first.”

  Placing a hand upon his chest to push him away, I pressed with feeble resistance, noting the firm, hard muscle beneath the fabric of his shirt. My wits scattered, but I managed to find my voice.

  “Back up. You shouldn’t be so close to me.”

  “I think I should be a hell of a lot closer.”

  Movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. A small grimy hand and arm appeared from beneath the tablecloth, groping on the table. Landing on a pastry, the arm nearly disappeared, but a gruff-looking demon without a mask gripped it and dragged out the dirty child it was attached to.

  “Get the fuck out of here, you miscreant,” bellowed the demon in Italian.

  The wide-eyed child clutched the food to his chest and ran toward an exit in the back of the room. Without a word, I pushed Dommiel farther off and followed. I felt him at my back as we came out into an empty corridor, winding away from the ballroom until a gust of winter air pulled me to the left. A door stood ajar where the child must’ve gone.

  Following my instincts, I slipped out into the night air again. Across the way, a group of small children huddled around an iron kettle in which they’d made a fire. Orphans. A pang of pain lashed at my heart at the thought of them out here, hungry and cold. Without protection. Or comfort. I’d spent the majority of my angelic life trying to help just such abandoned children. This apocalypse had created more than I could possibly care for. Especially now that my mission had changed. Nevertheless.

  “Give me a drakuls.” I held up a hand, sensing Dommiel just behind me.

  “Those are human children. What good will a drakuls do them?”

  “They can buy goods from those damned demons indulging inside.” I pierced him with a look, knowing good and well it wasn’t his fault that his brethren lost themselves in decadence when there were starving children right outside their doors. Still, I had no place to direct the anger simmering under my skin.

  Dommiel studied me carefully. “You do know that even if I gave them ten drakuls, they’d still be starving next week. Best to let nature take its course.”

  I flinched. My heart aching that he spoke the truth and there was little I could do about it. “Every kindness and every abuse makes a mark upon the soul.” My voice trembled. “The soul remembers.”

  Staring at me for an achingly long moment more, his gaze shifted to the children. Thin, gaunt figures sharing the one stolen pastry.

  I remembered the dog. “You didn’t seem to think it was a waste to give food to the stray in the alley.”

  He hmphed, his attention on the children.

  “Actually, angel. You may be onto something here.”

  “Onto what?”

  “In my experience, street urchins have more information than anyone in the city.”

  He strode toward them, lifting off his mask and tossing it onto the street. One scraggly girl spotted him first and scampered off down a dark alley. Dommiel raised his hands in a disarming manner and slowed his gait. Little good that would do. He looked as dangerous as any demon prince, the icy wind ruffling his black hair, his patched eye giving him a fierce appearance.

  I followed behind him with soft steps, removing my mask as well. A second and third child vanished at our approach, but the tallest one who’d been caught at the party watched with wary eyes.

  “Whoa. We mean no harm. We just have a question.”

  The skinny boy, whose haggard face showed him to be probably eleven or twelve, though his body was more like that of an eight-year-old, watched with fierce intensity, waiting for a sign to bolt.

  Dommiel stopped well outside arm’s reach but close enough he could speak more intimately so passersby in the piazza couldn’t hear.

  “A question?” The boy asked in Italian. “And what’s in it for me?”

  “Four drakuls. One for you and each of your friends.” Dommiel nodded toward the alleyway where we knew the others were not far off.

  The boy straightened, watching as Dommiel pulled a pouch from the inside pocket of his leather jacket. The drakuls jingled as he opened the drawstring.

  “What’s the question?” he finally asked, his gaze still on the pouch.

  “We’re looking for Marko. Can you tell us where to find him?”

  The boy’s eyes darted to Dommiel’s. And then to mine. Assessing.

  “Don’t know no Marko.” But his tight expression said otherwise.

  I stepped forward, opening my wings to bring attention to who and what I was. It worked, for his eyes widened, sketching the lines of my wings.

  “We mean him no harm,” I assured him gently. “A mutual friend of ours said we could find him here in Venice.”

  The boy tilted his head. “What’s an angel and a demon doing working together?”

  “Now that’s a fine question,” said Dommiel with a sarcastic lilt. “I’ve been wondering the same myself.” He jingled out a handful of coins into his palm. “I’m doing a favor for a mutual friend of ours.” He nodded at me, then held out his hand with the drakuls. “Now will you tell us where Marko is?”

  He eased forward, staring at his palm. “Eight drakuls.”

  Dommiel scooped out more. “Deal.”

  The boy took the coins and stuffed them in his pockets, glaring at us both. “Follow me.” Then he scampered down the dark alleyway where the other children had disappeared.

  Dommiel turned to me with a satisfied grin. “After you.”

  Chapter Five

  Dommiel

  The boy zigzagged one way, then another, winding us away from Valentino’s party and into the darkened shadows that once was a thriving city. Whatever humans still lived here, they shut themselves into quiet corners. A candle burned low behind a curtained window or two as we trailed our little informer, vanishing around yet another corner. I thought we’d been had by the boy when we rounded the building.

  “Where is he?” asked Anya.

  He stepped from a shadow and pointed toward a bridge. The Bridge of Sighs as I recall, which leads into a prison facility.

  “Wait there,” he said before scampering back the way we’d come.

  “There’s no one there.” Any
a gazed across the bridge.

  “No,” I agreed. “But it’s probably being watched from a farther, safer distance.”

  I glanced up the street. Six cloaked figures strode in our direction, the mist curling around their billowing capes. High demons on the prowl with malicious intent. They moved as if they had a specific destination. But they’d derail plans in a heartbeat to pluck a pretty angel apart.

  “Well, it’s worth a try.” Anya started toward the bridge.

  Instinct gripped me hard. I stepped in front of her, covered her mouth with my hand, and pushed her back into a niche against the wall.

  “Tighten your wings,” I commanded in a low whisper.

  She did, making it easier to flatten them against the alcove wall behind her. I pressed my body hard against hers, minimizing our presence.

  “Don’t make a sound.” I emphasized with force. “Not a whimper.”

  Her violet-blue eyes widened, but she only nodded. I covered as much of her as I could, pressing my chest to hers, then cast illusion to hide her wings with a snapping summons of my power. She didn’t see the demons coming, and I had to hide her wings quickly. The shock of my dark touch, my invisible armor wrapping her in a hard grip, had her lips parting in a silent gasp. Our breath mingled in the frosty air as the gang of demons drew closer. They’d sense us and see us. I counted on my instincts being right. That they’d bypass a pair of lovers in the shadows. But if they’d seen her wings, they’d stop for a bit of sport with her.

  Like I’d fucking let that happen.

  “Play along,” I commanded again, hearing the grating dominance in my voice and expecting her to push me off.

  Combing my hand into her hair, I reveled in the feel of the silky strands sliding over my skin before I gripped that black silk in a fist and leaned forward. A force not my own pulling me closer. Her eyes remained wide, her body stiff. But not as stiff as mine. Hell, I’d had a hard-on from the first moment she arched a defiant brow at me.

  The need to get my mouth on hers drove me like a bullet train. I needed to know what she tasted like. Needed to feel the slide of my tongue past those full pink lips. Needed to get inside of her. But she wasn’t ready for me. Not yet. She was hard to read, my angel. But we could play pretend lovers for a minute.