“Wonderful.And how’s it going with the venue?”
“Just fine.I have a good alternative, so the three of us are going to sit down and talk about it when we get to Alec’s house in Henderson.I’m pretty sure we’ll have it all sorted out by the time we meet for dinner.”
“Thank you so much for doing all this,” Linda said, sounding grateful that she wasn’t the one having to deal with all the last-minute changes.“We’ll see you at dinner.”
The call ended there, and Delia dropped her phone in her purse and got in behind the wheel.As she fastened her seatbelt, Olivia leaned forward from her place in the back seat.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate everything you’re doing,” she said.“I know this is a lot to ask, especially on such short notice.”
“It’s really not a problem,” Delia replied, and realized that despite everything else that was going on, she meant it.Family was family, and she would do whatever it took to keep them safe.
Her phone, which was resting in the cupholder, lit up.Another text, this one from an unknown number.
Family reunions can be so dangerous in a city like this.Be a shame if something happened to them.
Delia’s grip tightened on the steering wheel, but she made herself keep driving as if she’d only gotten a text from a client or someone else equally innocuous.Inside, though, her resolve hardened to steel.
Vinea wanted to play games with her family?
Okay, Vinea,she thought.
I’ll play.
ChapterEleven
The holdingroom had no windows, no clock, and no way to tell how much time had passed since Vinea had left him alone with his demonic guards.Caleb had tried counting heartbeats and estimating minutes, but the supernatural energy saturating the chapel seemed to play havoc with his internal clock.Minutes felt like hours…and hours felt like eternity.
Which meant he had plenty of time to think.
And what he’d been thinking about was how he needed to play this.Vinea expected him to cooperate eventually — that much was clear from the demon lord’s casual confidence.The real trick would be figuring out how to appear compliant while actually working to sabotage whatever massive ritual the bastard was planning.
Caleb had spent two years in Hell, and if there was one thing he’d learned during his unwilling residency in that place of eternal torment, it was that demons respected strength but expected cunning.They didn’t trust easily, but they also didn’t expect their enemies to be completely honest with them.A little deception was pretty much a given.
After all, no one wanted to be accused of acting like a goody-two-shoes angel or something.
The trick in dealing with Vinea would be finding the right balance between seeming defeated and maintaining just enough defiance to be believable.
When the door to the holding room opened again, Caleb looked up with what he hoped was the perfect combination of resignation and simmering anger as Vinea entered, still wearing his human guise but somehow managing to make a simple charcoal suit look like the formal attire of a crocodile who’d decided to hit the Strip for some drinks and maybe a show.
“Have you had sufficient time to consider my offer, nephew?”the demon lord asked, his tone conversational, as if they were discussing stock options rather than the potential destruction of human civilization.
Caleb really wished the guy would stop calling him “nephew.”It was a way of trying to put him off balance, to remind him at regular intervals that he wasn’t entirely human and never would be.
But since he’d recognized the strategy for what it was, he wouldn’t let it affect him.
Not much, anyway.
He allowed a few seconds to pass before he answered the demon lord’s question, doing his best to project the image of a man who’d been wrestling with an impossible choice and had finally reached a decision he didn’t like at all.
“I want to know more about the specifics,” he said at length.“If I’m going to help you, I need to understand exactly what we’re talking about here.”
Something flickered in Vinea’s coal-black eyes…satisfaction, maybe, or perhaps nothing more than greedy anticipation.“A reasonable request.Very well.Follow me.”
The two demon guards flanked Caleb as Vinea led them out of the holding room and down that brain-twistingly long corridor.As they walked, Caleb tried to map the layout of the building in his mind, noting doorways and intersections, searching for anything that might serve as an escape route if things went sideways.
Which they almost certainly would at some point.
“Tell me, nephew,” Vinea said as they walked, his footsteps making odd echoes in the narrow space, “what do you know about the current state of affairs in the underworld?”
