I blinked, and Gabe and I stood in the middle of another alley. It looked just like the one in New York at first glance.
Yawning, I looked around. "The easiest way is to call them to us," I said. "If we link, and you give me your magic, I might be able to do it."
He hesitated, tucking a long strand of blond hair behind his ear. "Won't my magic burn you up?"
"Let's find out," I replied with a grin.
Gabriel chuckled and took my hands. In seconds, I felt his power pushing at my mind, tapping to be let in. Opening my consciousness, I let him invade my mind, then his power trickled down, searching for mine. Normally it would've been spread all over my body, but with the humanity blocking it, Gabe's magic had to search for mine.
When his magic found mine, both blossomed across my body, making me feel nearly normal for the first time in a long time. With a huge smile, I sucked in a deep breath. "This feels nice. We should've done this already."
I'd never had to call demons to me across a wide expanse in the Earth realm before. I'd only ever tried calling them individually in Hell.
Throwing out my inner voice, I essentially had to think hard at them.My children. Come to me. Come to me now.
Some of them would have the ability to teleport to me, but many, while able to teleport to the Earth realm once outside the gates of Hell, couldn't move about at will once here. They'd have to run.
They began popping up seconds later. Quickly, I threw up a concealment charm, willing a bubble of protection around us.
"Sit," I said to the hodgepodge of creatures before me. "We'll wait for your brothers and sisters to appear."
A human, with eyes far too bright, stepped into the protective bubble. "Whoever is possessing that human, release them at once and give them a convincing story for what they did while you had control of the body."
The human, a young man in his early twenties, glared at me. "Right now," I insisted. Putting my hands on my hips, I stared at the demon until he sighed.
"Fine," the human said. He stepped outside the protective bubble, shook his head, and walked away.
Another djinn appeared in the bubble. This one was colorful as well but in shades of yellow and orange only. I wondered what that meant about him. "I just got that human," he yelled. "What gives?"
Trickling power into my voice, I stared him down. "Sit down and wait."
He opened his mouth to argue, but I squinted, and he thought better of his sass.
We waited until the alley was absolutely full of demons. Three ghosts, four goblins, two djinns, a possessed deer, another hellhound, and a handful of very low-level demons. They were more blobs of darkness than actual demon and didn't have a specific name.
"I think that's enough," I said. "You are to all return to Hell at once. Find the hole that you escaped from and if you can't fix it, do everything in your power to hide it. Stay in Hell and do not leave again until I or Lucifer gives you permission. Are we clear?"
They grumbled pretty severely, but one-by-one, they all disappeared. The deer ran off, unharmed but now finding itself in the middle of the city. Demons were insolent creatures, but they didn't have much of a choice but to do as I said.
Gabe turned to me. "That easy?"
I smiled. "I wish. If that many are here, think about the massive numbers the world over. There's probably that many again here that didn't heed my call."
His face grew somber. "That is bad."
I nodded. "Hundreds of thousands of demons are housed in Hell, along with Greater Demons, Spirits, and Fallen. Tortured souls, haints, poltergeists. The list goes on."
"Well, we'd better get busy," he replied. "Where to next?"
"Go to the next large city. What would that be? San Diego?"
Gabe saluted me and grabbed my hand. "Your wish is my command, great Mistress of the Dark."
As we disappeared, my giggles lingered in the warm Las Vegas morning air.
Chapter Six
The next six cities were much the same. We stopped at home after a few hours to grab Jellybean. I was confident in his loyalty to me, and he'd help me keep some of the gnarlier demons in line. An irritated vampire had lunged at me in Dallas as we made our way around the perimeter of the United States. Gabriel had dispatched him, sending his soul back to Hell immediately, but a guard dog wasn't amiss.
