The room around her seemed to shimmer, the normal world overlaid with patterns of light and shadow that revealed the true nature of the city beneath its neon façade.Every ley line, every intersection point, every place where supernatural power gathered — it was all visible to her now, a vast network pulsing with malevolent purpose.
And at the center of it all, Angel’s Dream Wedding Chapel blazed like a beacon of concentrated darkness, a black hole at the center of the world.
“Delia?”Pru’s voice was more urgent now, and she realized her friend had gotten up from her seat at the dining room table and paused a few feet away.“You’re…you’re glowing.”
She looked down at her hands and realized that Pru wasn’t exaggerating.A faint luminescence surrounded her fingers, a cool blue-white light that reminded her of LED bulbs.But this was different, because it was coming from her.The light pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat, and she could feel it spreading up her arms with a warmth that was both comforting and terrifying.
“I can see it,” she said, and her own voice sounded strange to her ears, as if it had somehow emanated from somewhere outside her body rather than her vocal cords.“The whole network.They’ve obviously been building this for months.Every property the Styx Group bought, every chapel they acquired — they’re all connected.”
She tried to focus on Pru’s and Ty’s faces, on the worry and wonder she could detect there, but the energy patterns kept intruding, overlaying her normal vision with geometric designs that made her want to squint.She could see the flow of power moving through the building’s electrical systems, could sense the way the ley lines intersected three blocks south of here, could feel the pulse of supernatural activity radiating out from dozens of points across the valley.
It was overwhelming and beautiful.
And it was absolutely terrifying.
She wasn’t supposed to be able to do any of this.
Pru’s laptop screen flickered, displaying the map she’d put together of Las Vegas with dozens of red dots scattered across it.But now Delia could see what the map couldn’t show — the lines of energy connecting each point, creating a massive ritual circle that encompassed the entire valley.Not just a circle, she realized with growing horror, but a complex geometric pattern that would focus and amplify whatever energy was channeled through it.
“And Caleb’s right in the middle,” she said, the words coming out flat, weighed down with an unwelcome certainty.She could sense him now, a familiar warmth surrounded by darkness…a candle flame flickering in a hurricane.
They had to do something, or that flame might be snuffed out forever.
Ty moved closer.It seemed the strange glow that surrounded her hadn’t put him off too much, or she guessed he would have kept his distance the way Pru was doing right now, her expression that of a woman who still wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing and definitely didn’t know what to do about it.
“Delia,” he said, “you need to listen to me carefully.I can sense at least six high-level demons converging on Angel’s Dream.Vinea’s brought backup.Seriousbackup.”
The energy surge within her pulsed again, and suddenly, Delia could sense what Ty was talking about.Dark presences moved through the city like sharks circling their prey, all of them heading toward the same destination.She could feel their hunger, their anticipation, their absolute certainty that they were about to achieve something they’d been planning for a very long time.
They were heading toward Caleb.
“We have to help him,” she said, the words fierce, not allowing any argument.“We can’t just leave him there.”
“No,” Ty replied sharply, and she could hear the strain in his voice, as if he was saying what he knew he had to say, even if he didn’t like it very much.“That’s exactly what they want.You and Caleb together, in the same place, with all that ley line energy at their disposal.Your combined abilities are part of whatever ritual they’re planning.”
Delia crossed her arms, and the white glow surrounding her sparked for a moment before blinking out altogether.Had she closed a circuit, or had the energy simply done what it needed to do?
She had way too many questions, and she had a feeling none of them would be answered anytime soon.
“So, what?”she demanded, voice hard.“We just leave Caleb there?We let the demons do whatever they want to him?”
A muscle in Ty’s cheek twitched, but he sounded calm enough as he replied, “We’ll regroup.We’ll find another way.”
But even as Ty spoke, another part of Delia’s mind was reaching out, trying to sense Caleb across the supernatural network that connected Las Vegas.For a moment, she thought she felt something — a familiar warmth, tinged with anger and fear and a stubborn determination that was so quintessentially Caleb Lockwood that it made her heart ache.But then it was gone, blocked by something much darker and stronger, and she wanted to cry.
No time for that, though, not when trouble was assailing them from all sides.
“I have to call my family,” she said abruptly.She’d been so caught up in what was happening with Caleb that she’d almost forgotten about the members of her extended family converging on Las Vegas in the very near future.“Olivia’s flight lands in a couple of hours, and her parents are arriving a short time after that.My parents are supposed to pick them up at the airport.If this escalates any further….”
She didn’t finish the sentence because she didn’t need to.Everyone in that room knew what could happen if a supernatural battle erupted in the middle of Las Vegas while her family members were scattered across the city.Her parents, her aunt and uncle, Olivia and Alec, his family, the rest of the wedding guests — all of them flying blindly into a war zone with no idea of the danger that waited for them.
The thought of her mother trying to navigate McCarran Airport while demons stalked the city made Delia’s hands clench in frustration and terror.Linda Dunne was supremely competent and more than capable in her own world of real estate deals and client meetings, but obviously, she didn’t have any defenses against the kind of supernatural predators that had decided to take up residence in Las Vegas.
“Do whatever you can to keep them away from here,” Ty said at once.“Try to get them to delay their arrival, or better yet, cancel entirely.”
The laptop screen flickered, and Pru cursed under her breath, even as she hurried back over to take a seat in front of it and look at what was going on.She picked up her headphones and stuck them back on.“Shit,” she said, even as she reached over to adjust one of the dials on the scanner.“Something’s jamming the signals.Maybe someone figured out that I’ve been listening in.”
This just kept getting better and better.Pru might have built her career on being unflappable, on being dedicated to finding the truth no matter how deeply it was buried, but everyone knew she was working way above her pay grade here.That she’d been able to discover as much as she had already was something of a miracle.
