Vinea’s unearthly features shifted from amusement to genuine interest.Or at least, she thought that might be the cause of that flare of red in his flame-hued eyes.“Fascinating.The reports of your growing abilities were accurate, it seems.But raw power without training is like a loaded gun in the hands of a child — dangerous to everyone, especially the wielder.”
The demon lord raised one clawed hand, and the air around Delia thickened, pressing against her from all sides like invisible quicksand.She tried to move and found her limbs responding sluggishly, as if she was trying to run underwater.
But the psychic energy flowing through her reacted to the attack, automatically creating barriers of compressed will and determination.The crushing pressure lessened, then disappeared entirely as she pushed back against the demon lord’s assault.
“Interesting,” Vinea murmured, genuine surprise flickering across his inhuman features.“Raw talent combined with instinctive defense mechanisms.You really are quite remarkable.”
“Thanks,” Delia said dryly, even as she reached out with her newfound abilities.The ley line network responded to her will like an extension of her nervous system, power flowing wherever she directed it.“I’ve always been kind of an overachiever.”
The demon lord’s laughter echoed strangely in the transformed space.“Confidence in the face of overwhelming odds.Another admirable human trait.But I’m afraid enthusiasm is no substitute for experience.”
This time, when Vinea attacked, it wasn’t with supernatural pressure, but something far more insidious.Tendrils of darkness reached out from the walls, wrapping around her arms and legs like living chains.The moment they touched her skin, they began to drain away the psychic energy she’d been accumulating, siphoning her power into the chapel’s twisted architecture, making it even stronger, even stranger.
Panic flared as she realized her abilities were being systematically stripped away.The protective barriers around her consciousness wavered, and suddenly she could sense the full horror of what Vinea had created here — not just a ritual site, but a vast machine designed to harvest and process human suffering on an enormous scale.
Focus,she told herself, forcing down the terror that threatened to overwhelm her rational mind.You’re not helpless.You’ve already come farther than you ever thought you could.But you need to fight on your own terms…not his.
Instead of trying to break free from the draining tendrils, Delia stopped fighting them entirely, letting herself go still and calm.The darkness rushed into her, clearly expecting to find a helpless victim.Instead, it encountered something it wasn’t prepared for — the combined love and determination of all the people she was fighting to protect.
Her parents, safe at the wedding reception.Olivia and Alec, now married and beginning their new life together.Caleb, trapped in transformation but still alive, still fighting.Pru and Ty, racing across the city to mount a rescue that might already be too late.
The darkness that had been draining her energy found itself overwhelmed by something it couldn’t process or contain.Love was a force that connected everything in the universe, that underlaid everything ever imagined or felt, everything ever created or shared.And when that energy was focused and directed by someone with the will and the desperation to wield it….
The tendrils holding her burst into white flames that made the demon lord stumble backward, his unnatural features twisted with actual pain as the light seared his unholy form.
“Impossible,” he snarled, his composure finally cracking.“You’re nothing more than a human.You don’t have access to that kind of power.”
“You’re right,” Delia said as she stepped forward, white light beginning to radiate from her skin in pulses that matched her heartbeat.“I don’t.But they do.”
She gestured around them, and at once, the chapel was filled with the presence of everyone in Las Vegas who’d ever fought to protect something they loved.Not physically — she wasn’t summoning ghosts or spirits — but their combined will, their shared determination to stand against a darkness that threatened everything they cared about.
The demon lord’s burning eyes widened as he seemed to realize what Delia had just summoned.“A lattice.You’ve created a psychic lattice.”
“I didn’t create anything,” Delia corrected him, even as she focused on drawing still more power from the connections that bound the city together.If someone had asked, she couldn’t even have said how she was doing any of this.It had come to her out of pure instinct, like knowing how to breathe.“I just realized I could use what was already there.”
Vinea raised both hands, dark energy crackling between his claws.“Clever.But cleverness alone won’t save you from what’s coming.”
His assault began as a whisper in the back of her mind —you’re not strong enough— but within seconds, the doubt exploded into a cacophony of self-hatred that made her stagger backward.Her knees buckled as wave after wave of despair crashed over her, each one bearing the weight of every failure she’d ever experienced, every moment of weakness, every time she’d let someone down.
The psychic lattice she was drawing on began to fray at the edges as Vinea’s attack found its target.The connections that had seemed so strong moments before now might as well have been spider silk, ready to snap at the slightest pressure.She could feel the people of Las Vegas —herpeople — slipping away from her one by one as their own buried fears and doubts were dragged to the surface.
Caleb will die because you’re not good enough to save him.
Your family will suffer because you thought you could play hero.
Everyone you love will pay for your arrogance.
The voices weren’t coming from outside her head — they were her own thoughts, twisted and amplified until they became weapons turned against her.Delia gasped, hands clutching at her temples as the assault intensified.
For a moment, she wavered.What if she wasn’t strong enough?What if all this power wasn’t enough to save Caleb, to stop the portal network…to protect all the people she loved?
But then she felt it — a familiar warmth pushing through the otherworldly static that filled the chapel.Caleb was reaching out to her, and what she sensed in that contact made her gasp.
He was still there.Even consumed by transformation, even burning from within, some core part of him was holding on.Waiting for her.
Together,came his mental voice, faint and fractured but unmistakably his.We do this together.
Delia reached back through their connection, sending everything she had — her love, her resolve, her absolute refusal to let the darkness win.The psychic lattice she’d tapped into exploded outward like a supernova, encompassing not just Las Vegas but stretching out across the desert to the desolate place where Caleb lay in his silver cocoon of fire.
