Making its location extremely powerful.Two such ley lines had connected under Rubel Castle in Glendora, where Caleb’s father and the rest of the part demons had attempted to open a gate that would allow their master Belial to return to this world.The plan had been foiled, which was why Caleb had spent two endless years cooling his heels in Hell before he had a chance to return to the mortal plane…and why all the other members of the Greencastle group were still stuck down there.
“No wonder it felt so off,” Delia murmured.She’d paled a little, and Caleb reached over to give her fingers a reassuring squeeze.
Pru sat up a little straighter.“You went there?”
“Yes,” Delia replied.“Caleb thought we should check it out, so we popped in there yesterday.And when we were there, we experienced weirdnesses like the temperature dropping and hearing voices that shouldn’t have been there, so we thought something must be up.”
“Although we went back a little while later, and everything seemed quiet enough,” Caleb put in.“So we weren’t sure what to think.”
Pru listened to all this with narrowed eyes.Although she’d been around plenty of supernatural activity when they went on their rescue mission to Laughlin only a few weeks earlier, he got the impression that she would still prefer to take all this with a grain of salt.
Even though the evidence of her eyes and ears was kind of hard to ignore.
“Why do you think you didn’t notice anything during your second visit?”she asked then, and he shrugged.
“I have no idea,” he said.“Just because I’m part demon doesn’t mean I have the answers to all this stuff.It’s not like I took a class called ‘Paranormal Activity 101’ or something.”
That comment made Prudence chuckle, although he thought he detected something almost uneasy about the sound, as if she knew deep down there wasn’t anything remotely funny about any of this.
“Point taken,” she replied.“I was also able to trace a couple of the Styx Group’s financials.Maybe they’re getting sloppy.Anyway, I’m about ninety percent sure they’re the ones behind the shell company that’s buying the wedding chapels.”
“First investment properties when masquerading as the Aegis Group, and now chapels,” Delia murmured.Her slender form seemed very tense as she sat upright next to him on the couch, and Caleb wished he could pull her close and give her some much-needed comfort.
With Pru Nelson sitting across the coffee table from them, he guessed that probably wasn’t a very wise thing to do.Not that she would say anything, of course, but he guessed an eye roll would be all she needed to communicate her annoyance with such public displays of emotion.
“Everything under the guise of some other company making those deals,” Prudence said.“I’m not sure what Styx’s game is, though.”
Delia’s fingers tightened on the knees of her jeans.However, she sounded calm enough as she responded, “Well, in Laughlin, the demon August Sellers was clearly trying to use my power and the power of the Colorado River to open a gate to the underworld.And even though we still don’t have all the details of what was going on during that tournament at the Desert Paradise casino, it sure looks like they were trying to do about the same thing.”
“That’s what demons always try to do,” Caleb said frankly, and both women fastened him with gazes that were a little too sharp.“I mean, besides the ones who come here just to indulge in some petty mischief.But higher-level demons — the ones who can plan this kind of stuff and attempt to carry it out — they’re always looking for a way to unleash Hell on Earth.They’re still angry about being cast out of Heaven millennia ago.”
“That’s a long time to hold a grudge,” Pru said, and he couldn’t help smiling a little.
“True, but that’s how demons are.So when they fail with one scheme, they move on to the next.”He kind of thought Prudence had buried the lede on this one, considering how they’d been spending months trying to get more information about the Styx Group.Then again, he supposed he could see why she thought the issue with the wedding chapels was a little more pressing, since Delia’s cousin was supposed to get married at one in just a couple of days.
“So…they’re going to try to do something with ley line energy again?”Delia asked.A faint crease had appeared between her brows, the one that told Caleb she was wrestling with a problem she didn’t quite understand.“It didn’t work last time, so what’s the point?”
No, it hadn’t, thanks to his intervention.True, he hadn’t even known exactly what he was doing at the time, only that the demons controlling things during the tournament were summoning up the kind of dark magic that could have laid Las Vegas waste.The only thing he’d truly understood was that it needed to be stopped.
And it had, thank God.
“Demons don’t really follow that whole idea of the definition of insanity being something you do over and over again, expecting to get a different result.”Caleb knew he sounded dry, but doing what he could to detach himself from the situation was the easiest way for him to focus and attempt to discover what was really going on here.“And, to be honest, ley lines are the best way to summon the kind of energy they need for that kind of massive magic.They don’t possess it themselves, which is why they have to work with the natural energies in this world.”
“And the wedding chapels?”Pru asked.She also seemed a little puzzled, and he couldn’t blame her.“What’s the point of using those?”
“They’re places where a lot of emotional energy has been focused,” he replied.“So I suppose if you put that on top of the energy already in place from the ley lines, then they’re going to pack an additional punch.The wedding vows and commitment ceremonies create a specifictypeof emotional resonance — hope mixed with permanence — that demons can twist into binding energy for their rituals.Other emotional nodes, like funeral homes or hospitals, have strong energy, but it’s the wrong ‘flavor’ for creating stable gateways.These are all just educated guesses, though — it’s not as if there’s any real science to back it up.”
That was for sure.Magic and science were pretty much the opposite of one another, so you couldn’t use science to explain anything that happened in the magical realm…or the world of angels and demons.
“I’d say you still have a unique perspective on the situation, though,” Delia told him, and again he shrugged.
For all he knew, he could have been making shots in the dark and nothing else.He didn’t want her — and Pru — to think he had all the answers.
Just about the opposite, actually.
Before he could reply, someone knocked at the door.Caleb immediately tensed, while Delia only looked puzzled.
“Were you expecting someone?”he asked, knowing he sounded a little too tense.
