Silver flames erupted from his body, no longer the controlled fire he’d learned to wield, but something primal and chaotic.The temperature in the chamber spiked, ancient stone beginning to bubble and melt under the assault.
Delia,he thought desperately, trying to hold onto some shred of his humanity.Have to save Delia.
But the power was too much.It was burning away the human parts that made him who he was and replacing them with pure demonic essence.
The fire consumed everything.His thoughts fragmented, scattering like ash on the wind.The last coherent image in his mind was Delia’s face, the way she’d smiled at him the last time they’d been together, the love in her eyes when she’d said she believed in him.
Then even that was gone, swallowed by silver flames.
Somewhere distant, he sensed Vinea returning, could feel the demon lord’s shock at finding the ritual chamber in ruins and the sacrificial victim transformed into something wild and dangerous.But by then, Caleb was too far gone to care.
The thing that had been Caleb Lockwood lay motionless on the cracked floor, wreathed in silver fire, suspended between transformation and destruction.The power still flowed through him, but without conscious direction, it had nowhere to go.His body trembled with the strain of containing forces that should have torn him apart.
All he could do was wait — for death, for completion of the transformation, or for something else entirely.
He waited for Delia.
ChapterSixteen
The interiorof what had once been Angel’s Dream Wedding Chapel defied every law of physics Delia thought she understood.The space stretched impossibly far in all directions, with walls that seemed to curve and shift the moment she looked away from them.Gothic arches soared overhead, carved from black stone that pulsed with veins of sickly red light, while shadows moved with deliberate purpose across surfaces that seemed to crawl with oil-slick darkness.
But none of that mattered compared to the figure materializing at the center of it all.
Vinea was something that belonged in mankind’s oldest nightmares.He stood nearly eight feet tall, all black scaly skin and burning eyes, and the dark robes he wore dragged on the floor.“Ms.Dunne,” he said, odd, shifting tones underlying his voice and making her ears ache.His tone sounded almost jovial.“How delightful that you chose to join us.I was beginning to think you’d lost your nerve.”
Willing herself not to react, Delia stepped farther into the cathedral of horrors, the psychic energy flowing through her making every supernatural symbol carved into the walls flicker and pulse in response to her presence.The protective barriers she’d built around her consciousness held firm, but she could feel the sheer wrongness of this place pressing against them like a tide of dark sludge.
“Where is he?”she demanded, surprised by how steady her voice sounded.
She knew she’d never been this frightened.Not ever, even when waking from the worst nightmares.
Maybe it was because she knew she couldn’t wake up from this.
The demon lord’s fiery eyes glittered with amusement.“Straight to the point.I do admire directness in mortals.It’s so refreshingly honest compared to the labyrinthine machinations my own kind prefer.”
Before she could even begin to think of how she should respond to that remark, he gestured toward the far end of the chapel.The air there began to shimmer, and Delia’s breath caught in her throat.
Through the rippling space, she could see a vast circular chamber carved from red desert rock under an open sky.And there, lying motionless on the cracked floor, was Caleb.
Silver flames wreathed his form, flickering weakly, as if they didn’t have enough fuel to sustain them.His eyes were closed, his body rigid, and she could sense through their psychic bond that something was terribly wrong.The energy signature that was uniquely his felt fractured, as if something was trying to overwrite his essential nature from within.
“As you can see, your lover has encountered some…difficulties,” Vinea continued, his tone still far too casual.“The boy tried to disrupt my work, and in the process, he drew far more power to himself than his mixed heritage could safely contain.The transformation has begun.”
The transformation.The thing Caleb feared most — his demon blood overwhelming his humanity, taking away everything that made him who he was.
“What did you do to him?”The words came out sharp as the crack of a whip, and she watched Vinea’s smile widen in response to her obvious fury.
“I did nothing,” the demon lord said, and the worst part was that she could sense he was telling the truth.“He did this to himself.In his desperation to sabotage the ritual and protect you, he accessed power sources beyond his capacity to control.Now the demonic essence is consuming what remains of his human soul.”
Through their psychic bond, Delia could feel Caleb’s consciousness flickering like a guttering candle.He was still in there, still fighting, but the transformation was pulling him deeper with each passing moment.Soon there would be nothing left but demon, and the man she loved would be gone forever.
“I have to reach him,” she said, and took a step toward the shimmering portal.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Vinea replied as he moved to block her path.“The ritual chamber is collapsing due to your lover’s interference.Even if you could reach him, you’d both be crushed when the pocket dimension implodes.”
Another wave of ley line power flooded through the city, and Delia felt it flow through her as well, its wild, sparking energy reminding her of downed electrical lines.Instead of fighting the sensation, she embraced it, drawing strength from every psychically sensitive person in Las Vegas, from every connection of love and loyalty and pure grit that bound the city’s residents together.
“You’re not stopping me,” she said, and this time her voice resonated with determined undertones that made the carved symbols on the walls flicker uncertainly.
