Vinea.
The Earl of Hell looked nothing like the classical depictions Caleb might have expected.No horns, no tail, no scaly black skin and red eyes.Instead, he appeared to be a man in his late forties, impeccably dressed in an expensive charcoal gray suit that looked as if he’d had it custom-tailored on Savile Row.His blond hair was silver at the temples, and his dark eyes might have been borrowed from a shark, since they contained roughly the same amount of humanity.
For all that, though, he still could have been a CEO, or a senator, or the president of an Ivy League university.
Which, Caleb supposed, made him infinitely more dangerous than any horned beast breathing fire.
“Welcome, nephew,” Vinea said, his voice cool and clear.He had a very faint accent, something that might have been British but felt much older, as if English was a language the demon lord had learned long after his native tongue had been forgotten by any mortal civilization.“I trust my servants weren’t too rough with you?”
Caleb flexed his fingers, testing the bonds that held his wrists.The cable didn’t budge, and he suspected it had been treated with something specifically designed to neutralize his abilities.When the demons had grabbed him outside the chapel, he’d tried to teleport away and found himself…stuck.Not completely powerless, but bound in a way that blocked his usual escape routes.
“Can’t say I was impressed with their manners,” he replied, doing his best to keep his tone light.No point in letting Vinea see how rattled he was, even though the demon lord probably knew that already.“Your people need to work on their customer relations.”
Vinea chuckled, a sound that somehow managed to be genuinely amused and utterly chilling at the same time.“Ah, yes.I can see why Daniel was so fond of you.That particular brand of defiance in the face of overwhelming odds — it’s quite the family trait.”
His father’s name was the last thing Caleb wanted to hear, but he somehow managed to sound casual as he responded, “I wouldn’t know.We weren’t what you could call close.”
“No, I suppose you weren’t.”Vinea began to move, not toward Caleb but in a slow circuit around the perimeter of the chapel, his footsteps echoing strangely in the transformed space.“Daniel always was rather focused on the bigger picture.I can see how that dedication might have come at the expense of those closest to him.”
One way of looking at it, Caleb supposed.Mostly, it seemed as if his father had worked very hard to exert his influence on the cambions and quarter demons in their circle, making sure that no one did or said anything that might attract attention.His iron control had ensured that no one thought they were anything except the high school principals and doctors and lawyers they were pretending to be, their sons nothing more than the good students and athletes they were on the surface.
More than once, Caleb had wondered how Daniel Lockwood had been able to exert so much control over the others.Was it merely a “first among equals” sort of thing, or had Daniel’s father been a slightly higher level of demon than the others?
It was the sort of question he’d never had the guts to ask.
His gaze flicked back to Vinea.The energy patterns in the room shifted and flowed around him like living things, as if reality itself somehow bent in his presence.
“But enough family reminiscences,” the demon lord continued.“I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here.”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” Caleb said dryly.“Along with wondering how the hell you managed to get to this plane in the first place.Last I checked, your kind was pretty firmly locked up downstairs.”
Another chuckle, this one with a sharper edge.“Oh, my dear boy.You really don’t understand how any of this works, do you?The boundaries between planes are much more porous than most people realize.Especially when one has the right kind of help.”
Meaning, Caleb supposed, that someone must have summoned him here.Someone very powerful.
“What kind of help?”he asked, still trying to sound neutral and not terribly concerned about the whole situation.If he could get Vinea to spill the beans on who’d brought him here, then maybe Pru and Ty and Delia would have an actual target in the mortal realm they could hunt down.
Because Caleb wanted to do whatever he could to keep the woman he loved away from the demon lord and anyone else he might have brought here with him.
Instead of answering directly, Vinea paused in his circuit of the chamber and fixed Caleb with that unsettling black stare, such an unnatural contrast to his pale hair.“Oh, what would be the fun in my telling you that?”
Typical.Caleb didn’t know about “fun,” but if he had a bead on who had summoned the demon lord to this plane in the first place, at least he’d have some kind of target to track down once he got out of here.
Ifhe got out of here.
“No fun at all, I suppose,” he said.
An unpleasant smile tugging at his thin lips, Vinea resumed his slow pacing around the chapel, and Caleb could swear the symbols carved into the walls pulsed brighter in response to the demon lord’s amusement.“I see we understand each other.”
Before Caleb could even begin to formulate a reply to that comment, Vinea raised one hand and gestured toward the far end of the chapel.The air there began to shimmer, and in a flash, Caleb could see through the walls, out across Las Vegas, to dozens of points of light scattered throughout the city.
“Behold,” Vinea said, his voice taking on a deeper, almost ceremonial intonation that made the carved symbols flare even brighter.“The fruits of months of careful preparation.Every wedding chapel, every event venue, every place where mortals gather to celebrate their pathetic little rituals of love and commitment.All of them connected, all of them feeding power into this central nexus.”
The vision expanded, and Caleb could see the ley lines that crisscrossed the city, every one of them leading back to Angel’s Dream like spokes on a wheel.But more than that, he could sense the supernatural energy building at each point, power being gathered and focused with the kind of accuracy that implied careful planning and intimate knowledge of both the mystical and mundane aspects of the city.
“This isn’t about random demon-summoning or even a one-time portal, is it?”he said.Understanding had come to him in a flash…along with an additional resolve that the demon lord and his ilk should never succeed in their plans.“You’re building permanent gateways.”
“Very good.”Vinea lowered his hand, and the vision faded, leaving them once again in the transformed chapel.“Although I prefer to think of it as ‘infrastructure development.’The mortal plane has so much to offer, but the current transportation system between worlds is terribly inefficient.”
