Where Demons Fear to Tread (5 page)

It was the sweetest kiss of his life.

He didn’t know how long they stood there, how long he reveled in the sensation of holding her to him, of feeling her woman’s body melting against the hard planes of his maleness. It might have been two minutes; it felt like two hours. He had no idea what, after that disastrous interaction in the practice room, had made her relent. All he knew was that the kiss ended too abruptly when Nick’s voice pierced his consciousness.

“Serena? Julian?” Nick’s voice drifted into the lounge.

Julian released her. They leaped apart like two teenagers caught necking behind the school bleachers.

“How long was I out?” Nick wandered out of the practice room, still blinking the sleep out of his eyes.

Serena had the dewy glow of a well-kissed woman, but her smile was as flat and wooden as the countertop she gripped for support. “Not long. Your body needed to recover. You’ll start detoxing soon. As long as you take it easy on the hard stuff.”

Nick grinned. “Thanks, Serena.” He gazed at her with an infatuated devotion that made her smile soften into something genuine. It made Julian sick. Watching the two of them positively shining at each other, he wondered fleetingly whether
he
would ever be able to make her smile like that.

“Let’s go, Nick,” Julian said gruffly. “There’s something I want to show you at the club.”

“At eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning?” Nick asked, his gaze flickering to the angel.

It was Julian’s turn to grin. Detox be damned. As far as he was concerned, a few shots of tequila and a couple of strippers could cure whatever ailed a man, no matter what time of day it was.

They stood poised in the classic triangular configuration Julian knew so well: demon on one side, angel on the other, unwitting human in the middle. All it took to tip the balance was for Julian to clap a proprietary hand on Nick’s shoulder.

“Until we meet again,” Julian said to Serena, slipping her a wink.

With that, he swept Nick out of the studio, leaving her stunned and flushed, standing by the front desk of the yoga studio, gripping her mug of tea.

Serena arrived late for the Company’s weekly meeting. She sprinted through the lobby of her unit’s headquarters, which doubled as a legal-aid clinic during working hours. Banged on the locked doors of the boardroom, slinking in when Arielle opened them. The thirty other members of the unit, angels of every race and color, watched her as she crossed the room.

Do they know about Julian?

She collapsed into the empty chair beside Meredith. Like her roommate, many of the other angels also had psychic abilities. Some of the older ones were adept at reading minds, able to perceive minute details stored in people’s memories. Serena glanced quickly at their faces, wondering who suspected what.

From the head of the boardroom table, Arielle smiled at Serena. “We were just going over the weekly status reports,” she said, consulting her file. “I see you were assigned to Nick Ramirez’s case three weeks ago. Why don’t you share with us what you’ve accomplished so far, Serena?”

I kissed a demon. Twice.

Thirty pairs of jewel-bright eyes swiveled to Serena. Some of those brilliant stares held the recognition of her own thoughts, her own remorse reflected back at her. It was impossible to hide anything from the Company. Serena opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Arielle’s question hung in the air.

The Company waited.

In the air-conditioned room, a rivulet of sweat dripped down Serena’s forehead. Finally she said, “I ran into Julian Ascher.”

A collective gasp went around the room, and the angels began murmuring to each other. Arielle’s face remained composed, but her lips twitched into an almost imperceptible frown. “Please carry on amongst yourselves,” the supervisor said. “Serena, I’d like to see you in my office. Alone.”

“Now?” Serena’s voice came out in a tiny squeak.

Silence fell.

Never before had Arielle halted a Company meeting.

“Good luck,” Meredith whispered, her forehead wrinkling in sympathy.

Alone with Arielle in her office, Serena talked without daring to look at the supervisor’s face. The words seemed so sordid as they tumbled out of Serena’s mouth. Heat flooded her face. Arielle would never understand. Her life was dedicated to the Company and the legal-aid clinic, and she ran both with a brisk efficiency that did not tolerate nonsense. Here in her modestly furnished office, Arielle’s perfectly coiffed hair glowed halo-bright in the afternoon sun flooding in through the windows.

But when Serena finally glanced up, what she saw in the supervisor’s eyes was compassion, not judgment.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Serena,” Arielle said, sitting straight upright with her hands folded neatly on top of Serena’s closed file. “You did your best to perform your duty. Nick was supposed to be an easy assignment, suitable for a novice angel. The situation has become more complicated now that Julian Ascher has entered the picture.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” Serena asked quietly.

“Continue to do your job. But keep in mind that you are not to sacrifice yourself again. I would have thought that with your one-year mark approaching, you would remember how tragically your human life ended.”

Serena disagreed. By pulling that family out of the car, she’d saved three lives by giving up her own. To her, the simple math indicated that she’d done the right thing. However, one look at Arielle’s face told her not to push that point.

“We’ve discussed this many times before,” Arielle said. “Whatever happened during your human life, self-sacrifice is
not
part of your current job description. You would be of no use to the Company or your future Assignees if you martyr yourself for the soul of this one man.”

“But—”

“Once is enough,” Arielle said firmly. “Nick Ramirez has choices, and he’s bringing this suffering on himself. You are doing your best to guide him in the right direction.”

Serena dropped her gaze again, waiting until the lecture was finished.

“You’re a Guardian now,” the supervisor continued. “You have very clear instructions and a very clear goal. If you succeed at offering the correct guidance to your Assignees, you will continue to evolve through the ranks of angels. One day you will receive your wings. Regardless of the choices your Assignees make for themselves. Do not give in to this demon, even if it means losing Nick’s soul.”

“What about kissing Julian? Aren’t there…consequences?” Serena asked quietly.

Arielle shrugged. “There’s no use fretting over it. You’re a fledgling angel. Sometimes mistakes happen. You’re not perfect. Yet.” She smiled. “But be careful around Julian Ascher. He has the power to destroy you. He could have your soul in eternal damnation if something terrible happens.”

“Like what?” Serena wondered aloud. She couldn’t bring herself to say what was really on her mind:
Would sleeping with a demon automatically get you sent to hell?

After a pause, Arielle said, “It would depend on the circumstances. But love heals all. If you keep love in your heart, you will always be safe.” The supervisor scribbled some notes on Serena’s file, then shuffled it closed and set it neatly to one side.

Serena sighed inwardly. “What circumstances?”

“I really wouldn’t worry about that now,” Arielle said, cutting off the question with a tranquil smile. “If you do find yourself in questionable circumstances, just avoid promising him anything. If you do, that promise must be honored. As you know, that is one of the most important rules governing the interactions between angels and demons. But otherwise, trust your intuition. You’ll know what to do.”

Something was not quite right here. Arielle usually made herself clear, but today she was being deliberately vague. In any case, Arielle shut Serena’s file into a drawer. If Serena wanted answers, it didn’t seem like she was going to get any today. Yet, there was one more thing she had to ask. Before she got up to leave, she said, “Why didn’t you warn me about him?”

Arielle looked up, surprise glinting in her clear blue eyes. “What?”

“Why did you warn Meredith about Julian, but you didn’t warn me?”

For a sliver of a second, a flicker of covert knowledge glittered in her gaze. She blinked, and it was gone. “Again, I wouldn’t spend time worrying about that, Serena. You may go now.”

Arielle smiled placidly and folded her hands on the desk, signaling that the conversation was unequivocally over. Serena knew better than to argue. But as she got up to leave, she wondered exactly what Arielle was hiding, and why.

Young angels were always so impressionable. The girl was remarkably like herself at that age, Arielle thought as she closed Serena’s file. Now she picked up another file. It was Arielle’s own file. There, under Arielle’s name was written the name of her first Assignee.

Julian Ascher.

Two centuries ago, Arielle had been assigned to Julian when she’d been a fledgling Guardian herself. When he’d still been human. She’d been fighting for his soul ever since. Julian himself had never known, never suspected that he ever
had
a Guardian. He had refused to see the signs. Had thwarted all previous attempts to convert him. Now, the Company kept his activities under careful surveillance. And Julian had spent these past two hundred years wreaking havoc and amassing power.

Arielle’s mandate was to stop him. This time, her secret weapon against Julian was Serena.

I knew this moment would come. Julian has taken the bait,
Arielle thought. Yes, Serena had been assigned to guard Nick because it was inevitable that she would come into contact with Julian.

The Archdemon’s major weakness was women—any fool could see that. And Serena seemed as though she had been tailor-made for him. Young, beautiful, so full of the vibrancy that Julian clearly craved. What more could a demon want? He was already hooked. And once Julian got his claws into a girl, he would not back down until…

Arielle leaned back in her desk chair and massaged her temples, willing herself not to think about the worst that could happen. Exposing a young angel to such dangerous forces was a risk, to be sure. But there was too much at stake. Julian’s new nightclub, Devil’s Ecstasy, would open in two weeks. When it did, it would draw thousands of people every night. Massive crowds would be exposed to temptation and corruption at Julian’s whim. His influence was expanding at a terrifying rate.

He was becoming invincible.

Serena
must
succeed in her true mission.
To help Julian experience love.
She must not suspect the nature of that mission until it was accomplished. To make Julian fall in love, the object of his love must be genuine and true.

Love.
Yes, love.

That was the only thing that could stop the damage Julian was unleashing. If it was possible to cause an angel to fall, it was possible to engineer a demon’s redemption. A long time ago, a part of Julian had once been good. That goodness still existed in him. Serena would see that goodness, if she spent enough time with him. And she would make Julian see it himself. Of all the fledgling angels, Serena’s heart was the most innocent. She’d never known romantic love in her human life, never been scarred by it.

Serena’s innocence must remain untainted by the knowledge that she had been deliberately set up to lure Julian. He would smell that knowledge on her. Serena would be unable to hide it, since she was completely incapable of artifice or deceit. And if he sensed that she had an ulterior motive, he would never open up to her.

If Serena succeeded, it was worth the risk. Worth the enormous gamble of sending a fledgling angel on a dangerous mission she wasn’t even aware of. To Arielle, there was nothing particularly surprising about that. Every day, humans and angels alike were sent on divine missions without knowing what they were doing. Or why.

Serena must succeed where I myself failed,
the supervisor thought as she shut the file. She tucked it away in the cabinet and prayed for Serena’s safety.

Arielle would be here to guide the young angel. And the Archangels would be watching over her from afar, even if they couldn’t always be seen or heard.

But if Serena fell…there was nothing anyone could do to save her.

That night, Julian watched Serena sleep. As an Archdemon, he was no longer bound by his physical body. He dematerialized at will now, moving between dimensions with the ease of a human crossing the street. Concentrating on the young angel’s image in his mind’s eye, he located her easily. Someone had cast a protection charm over her house, but the charm was weak and easily broken, rather like picking a cheap lock. After that, it was easy to gain entrance.

Serena’s home was as pretty and inviting as she was. The large windows must have gotten a lot of sun in the daytime, because plants flourished everywhere. The furnishings were not expensive, but comfortable and homey—the kind of thing he supposed an interior designer might refer to as ‘Shabby Chic.’ Pastels and soft fabrics dominated. It was a style that was entirely too feminine for his tastes, and it made him vaguely uncomfortable.

As she lay in her frothy white bed—how cliché, for an angel, he thought—he perused her sleeping form. Drifting close, he paused, hovering over her in his disembodied spirit form. The covers were thrown back, revealing her pale limbs in the moonlight. She wore only a baby-doll T-shirt and a pair of boy-legged panties. What a pity she didn’t sleep nude.

He incarnated into his human body. It was the only way he could feel physical pleasure, and pleasure was his goal tonight. He was already hard and aching for her, frustrated by the abrupt end to their afternoon encounter at the yoga studio. Edging closer, he stroked the soft skin of her cheek. She gave a little sigh of satisfaction. Awake, she’d never have let him touch her like this.

But now, as she slept, he took liberties that would have made her shriek with fury during waking hours. He got into bed with her, sliding under the covers with a carefully practiced stealth. Gently, he reached for her pert breasts, caressing one through the soft fabric of her T-shirt. The nipple hardened beneath his fingertips. She moaned, but rolled away from him. He brushed the nape of her neck and followed the touch with a gentle kiss. In her sleep, she fussed and swatted at the back of her neck.