An odd question, and one Caleb wasn’t sure he knew how to answer.During his time in Hell, he’d been focused mainly on survival rather than supernatural politics.Keeping his head down and avoiding as many demonic entanglements as possible had been his main strategy.
“I know it’s not a vacation destination,” he remarked.
That comment earned him a dry chuckle.“Indeed.But more specifically, are you aware of the…well, let’s call them overcrowding issues?”
Caleb frowned.He hadn’t really thought about Hell having capacity problems, but then again, he supposed the prospect made a certain amount of sense.If demons and the souls of the condemned had been accumulating there for millennia, eventually the place would start to get pretty packed.
However, he’d wandered its cold, deserted spaces far more than he would have liked, and so he knew that trying to refer to the underworld as “overcrowded” was a bit of a stretch.For whatever reason, those condemned to Hell — whether human or fallen angel — liked to congregate in certain population centers, cities of steel and stone that possessed an utter lack of anything that could be called creature comforts.
So, once again, Caleb knew Vinea wasn’t telling him anything close to the truth.
“Not really,” he allowed, and decided to leave it there so he could see where the demon lord was going with this.
“The underworld was never designed to be a permanent prison,” his unwelcome guide continued as they reached what appeared to be a large set of double doors.“It was meant to be a place of punishment, yes, but also a waystation.Souls were supposed to move on after serving their sentences.Demons were supposed to have the opportunity to earn redemption.But the celestial bureaucracy has become…shall we say, less than efficient…in recent centuries.”
The demon lord paused with his hand on the door handle, and when he looked back at Caleb, something that looked almost like genuine anger flashed in his dark eyes.“Do you have any idea what it’s like to be trapped for uncounted millennia in a place where hope itself has been systematically crushed?”
Caleb recalled his two years down there — the constant danger, the grinding despair, the way every day had seemed like an eternity.Then he multiplied those terrible conditions by a thousand…by ten thousand…and tried to imagine what that would do to someone’s sanity.
When you put it that way, you could see why some demons were willing to take extreme measures to escape.
That didn’t mean he was going to help them turn Earth into their new permanent residence, but at least he could understand their motivations.
“I have an inkling,” he said.
Vinea gave a satisfied nod and pushed open the double doors in front of them, revealing a vast chamber that definitely hadn’t existed when the building was just a simple wedding chapel.The space stretched out before them like a cathedral, but instead of containing stained glass windows and religious iconography, the walls were covered with what looked like massive television screens, each one displaying a different location around Las Vegas.
In the center of the room, a three-dimensional map of the entire Las Vegas valley hung suspended in the air, complete with tiny points of light that pulsed and flickered in complex patterns.Ley lines were visible as streams of energy connecting various locations across the city, all of them flowing toward a central nexus point that Caleb realized, with a sinking sensation, was directly beneath their feet.
“Welcome to the command center,” Vinea said as he gestured toward the floating map with obvious pride.“From here, we can monitor every aspect of the ritual network.Each light represents a portal site, each energy stream a connection between this plane and the next.”
Caleb moved closer to the map and tried to count the number of active sites.There were dozens — maybe hundreds — scattered across the valley.They had to be far more than the wedding chapels and event venues his little group of demon slayers had been tracking.
“This is bigger than we thought,” he said, and knew the awe in his voice was genuine.
How in the world were he and Delia and Pru and Ty supposed to combat something like this?
“Oh, yes, much bigger,” Vinea agreed.“The wedding venues were simply the most emotionally charged locations.But we’ve also been working on restaurants, hotels, casinos, shopping malls…even some residential developments.Anyplace where humans gather in large numbers and experience strong emotions.”
The scope of what the demon lord was describing only increased the nauseated sensation in Caleb’s gut.From what he could tell, Vinea planned to turn the entire city into a supernatural transit hub.
“How long have you been planning this?”he asked.
“Planning?About five years.Active preparation?A bit less than that.”Vinea’s smile turned predatory.“We had to wait for the right celestial alignment, of course.The conjunction of Mercury retrograde with a full moon while Mars is in opposition to Jupiter — it only happens once every few hundred years.”
Well, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about this becoming a weekly occurrence.
Caleb filed that information away for later consideration and turned his attention back to the floating map.“So, what do you need from me?”
“Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter.”The demon lord moved to stand beside the map, his hands clasped behind his back like a general surveying a battlefield.“The portal network requires a very specific type of energy to remain stable.Not just demon blood, but blood that contains both infernal and mortal essences.The combination creates a sort of bridge between the two planes.”
Caleb nodded, having suspected something like this.“And you need that bridge to be permanent.”
“Exactly.A temporary portal — the sort that is typically used in summonings — is useful for individual crossings, but what we want to build here is infrastructure.We need gateways that will remain open indefinitely, allowing for the systematic relocation of entities who’ve been trapped below for far too long.”
The casual way Vinea described such a mass exodus of demons made Caleb’s skin crawl.“And once they’re here?”
A shrug.“They’ll integrate into human society, of course.Many of them have skills and knowledge that could benefit this plane enormously.Architecture, engineering, medicine — demons have had millennia to perfect various disciplines.”
