He thought about Delia, about the way she’d looked at him the night before when she’d told him she loved him.And then he thought about Ty and Pru, about the unlikely team they’d formed and the trust they’d placed in each other.
Whatever happened tomorrow night, he wasn’t going to let them down.
And if Vinea thought he could use Caleb’s blood to open permanent gateways to Hell, the demon lord was about to discover just how wrong he could be.
The door to the holding room opened, and one of the guards entered carrying a tray of food.Human food, Caleb noticed with some surprise.Apparently, even demon lords understood the importance of keeping their sacrificial victims properly nourished.
“Compliments of Lord Vinea,” the guard said, its voice a harsh rasp that sounded like grinding stone.“He wants to make sure you maintain your strength for tomorrow.”
Caleb accepted the tray without comment, noting that the food actually looked quite good — some kind of grilled chicken with roasted vegetables and rice pilaf, along with a couple of rolls that seemed fresh from a bakery.Either Vinea had excellent taste in catering, or he was trying to demonstrate that cooperation would be rewarded with civilized treatment.
As he ate, Caleb continued his careful exploration of the mystical bonds that kept him trapped there.The guards watching him wouldn’t have noticed anything different, but in the background, the part of his mind that wasn’t quite human pushed here and tested there, doing whatever it could to find weaknesses he could exploit.
By the time he’d finished the meal, he’d managed to create several small gaps in the binding network.Not enough to escape, but enough to plant seeds of sabotage throughout Vinea’s carefully constructed ritual framework.
When the guards came to collect the empty tray, they found their prisoner apparently asleep in his chair, looking — he hoped — defeated and resigned to his fate.
They had no way of knowing that behind his closed eyelids, Caleb’s mind continued to work furiously, laying the groundwork for what he hoped would be the demon lord’s spectacular failure.
Now just twelve hours and counting.
He prayed it would be enough.
ChapterTwelve
The Little Chapel of Heartslooked exactly like what it was supposed to be — an attractive, intimate venue for couples who wanted something a little more elegant than the Elvis-themed establishments that made the Las Vegas wedding scene famous but without the stuffiness of a traditional church ceremony.With its white clapboard exterior, stained glass windows depicting doves and roses, and a small garden area perfect for photos, it really wasn’t all that different from Angel’s Dream.
Well, except for the part where Olivia’s original wedding site had been taken over by demons determined to use it as the nexus of their diabolical plans.
Under normal circumstances, Delia would have been thrilled to show the place off to her cousin.The chapel seemed to be everything Olivia had said she wanted for her wedding — classy, romantic, and extremely photogenic.
Unfortunately, normal circumstances had flown right out the window the moment a demon lord decided to use Las Vegas as his personal summoning ground.
“This is beautiful,” Olivia breathed as they approached the front entrance.She’d been quiet during most of the drive from Alec’s house, but now her voice had the first note of genuine enthusiasm Delia had heard since she’d picked up her cousin and her fiancé at the airport.“It’s even nicer than Angel’s Dream.”
“I knew you’d like it,” Delia replied, doing her best to sound casual despite the energy spike that had just washed over her, the resulting disorientation enough to make her stumble slightly on the brick walkway.Luckily, both Alec and Olivia were so preoccupied with studying their surroundings that they didn’t seem to notice anything wrong.
Still, the ley line activity across the city was building toward something big, and Delia’s psychic abilities kept acting like the equivalent of a radio antenna in a lightning storm.
Every few minutes, another wave of supernatural energy would wash over her, and she’d get flashes of things she probably didn’t want to see — shadowy figures moving through the city…red eyes watching from darkened windows…angular patterns of power that connected every supernatural site in Las Vegas, all of them pulsing with an ominous rhythm that made her head ache.
But then Alec looked over at her, and his dark brows drew together.“Are you all right?”he asked, stepping closer as if he wanted to steady her.“You look a little pale.”
“Just tired,” she said quickly.“It’s been a busy week.”
That was putting it mildly.At the moment, she felt like she was running on nothing but adrenaline and caffeine.
The chapel’s manager, a woman in her fifties with perfectly styled, highlighted hair and the kind of professional warmth you’d expect from someone with years of experience dealing with nervous brides, met them at the door with a welcoming smile.
“You must be the Gunderson party,” she said as she extended her hand to Olivia.“I’m Jeannette Hatch.”
“Yes, that’s us,” Olivia replied.“Thank you so much for accommodating such a last-minute change.”
“Of course.Why don’t we go inside, and I can show you around?”
As they followed Jeannette through the entrance, another energy spike erupted, this one strong enough to make Delia gasp and reach out to steady herself against the wall.For just a moment, the chapel’s everyday interior flickered and became overlaid with those same geometric patterns of light that revealed the supernatural network hidden beneath Las Vegas.
Once again, she saw it all — every ley line, every intersection point, every place where supernatural power gathered.And at the center of it all, Angel’s Dream might as well have been a black hole, pulling energy from across the entire valley.
