Chapter 5 #2
They reached a set of double doors that presumably opened onto the main chapel. Caleb pressed his ear against the wood, trying to make out what was happening on the other side. He could hear voices — multiple voices — chanting in a language that made his very bones ache.
That same language had echoed in the halls of Hell, and he’d hoped he’d never have to hear it again.
“Demons,” he mouthed to Delia, who gave a grim nod.
His earpiece crackled again. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast.” Ty sounded less than thrilled with life right then, and Caleb couldn’t really blame him.
He didn’t know what the half angel generally did during his downtime, but it probably didn’t involve acting as bait for some of Hell’s minions.
“I’ve got at least six demons converging on my position, and they don’t look very happy. ”
Well, that was just fabulous.
“Pru, is there any way you can cut the power to the building?” Caleb asked, keeping his voice pitched low so he couldn’t be overheard.
He hoped.
“As if I’m able to do something like that,” Pru replied, clearly annoyed. “I’m just a private investigator, remember? You want a hacker, go find one on the dark web.”
Like they had time to do something like that…
even if Caleb had possessed the foggiest idea how to accomplish such a thing.
He knew he’d been lucky enough just to find the people who’d supplied his fake birth certificate and credit report, and they’d been a couple of petty criminals and not much more.
Okay, his little team would just have to deal with these demons the hard way.
Caleb looked at Delia and saw his own determination reflected in her clear, blue-gray eyes. “Ready?”
A brief nod. “Ready.”
He placed his hands on the double doors and took a deep breath, calling up the fire that lived in his demon blood. The heat flowed down his arms, gathering in his palms until the metal door handles began to glow.
“On three,” he whispered. “One…two….”
The doors exploded inward in a shower of flame and splinters.
The chapel beyond was clearly a far cry from the saccharine space it used to be.
Now it was a nightmare of twisted geometry and impossible shadows, the sort of place any sane person would want to avoid.
The pews had been arranged in a complex pattern that seemed to twist the laws of physics, and in the center of it all, three figures in hooded robes stood around what looked like a portable altar covered in symbols that appeared to writhe and shift in the firelight.
But it was the thing hovering above the altar that made Caleb’s heart pound in fear.
It wasn’t quite a portal — not yet — but it was close, a tear in reality that leaked darkness and whispered with voices that belonged to no earthly creature. Through it, he caught a glimpse of red skies the color of old blood and landscapes of bone and ash.
A place he’d never wanted to see again.
One of the robed figures turned toward them, and beneath its shadowy hood, yellow eyes glared with unholy light. “The half-breed,” it said. “How delightfully convenient.”
“Caleb.” Delia’s murmur practically vibrated with fear. “Tell me you have a plan.”
He flexed his fingers, feeling fire dance between them. “Working on it.”
The demon smiled, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth. “You’re too late, boy. The network is nearly complete. Soon, every chapel in this city will be a gateway, and your precious mortals will walk willingly into our embrace.”
“Like hell,” Caleb said, and hurled fire at the nearest robed figure.
It ducked, but the fireball still caught the edge of its hooded robe.
Judging by the way it quickly and efficiently extinguished the blaze, he guessed these weren’t the low-level demons he’d tangled with before — these were scouts, advance units of something much larger and more organized.
They seemed to work together, almost as if they understood one another’s thoughts, and he could see they were using the twisted geometry of the chapel to their advantage as they melted away from the altar.
But Caleb knew he had advantages of his own.
His demon blood blazed in his veins as he rolled left, avoiding a lance of shadow that speared through the air where his head had been.
The twisted geometry worked both ways — he used the angled pew as a springboard, vaulting over it as flames wreathed his fists like living things.
The second robed figure raised its hands, and the air around Caleb suddenly thickened, pressing against him, reminding him of spring days back in Indiana when the snow melted and left viscous mud in its wake.
He gritted his teeth and pushed harder, his supernatural strength allowing him to burn through that resistance and turn it to so much ash.
Behind him, he heard Delia’s sharp intake of breath.
“The symbols,” she called out, her voice cutting past the demonic whispers that leaked through the tear in the universe above them. “I think they’re feeding power to the ritual!”
As she spoke, the demons’ heads all swiveled toward her, sensing fresh prey.
Shit.
Something about the chapel’s acoustics was all wrong — sounds echoed in directions that shouldn’t exist, and Caleb hoped he could use that disorientation against his enemies. His boots scraped against stone as he feinted right, then pivoted left, drawing the demons’ attention away from Delia.
The first demon he’d hit was already regenerating, its burned robe mending itself with threads of darkness.
It hissed something in syllables that made Caleb’s hair want to stand on end, and in the next moment, all three figures moved in perfect synchronization, as if they shared a single malevolent consciousness.
Definitely not good.
Caleb dropped into a crouch, wishing he’d been more of a brawler when he was back in school so he’d have a better idea of just what the hell he should be doing. But the demon blood within him was a whisper telling him to stop thinking and allow instinct to take over.
Time seemed to slow as his enhanced reflexes kicked in.
The leftmost demon’s claws whistled over his head while he spun, sweeping the legs of the one coming from his right.
As it stumbled, he drove an uppercut wreathed in hellfire into its solar plexus, feeling oversized ribs crack under the impact.
But the third demon was already on him, its needle teeth snapping at his throat. Caleb jerked backward, feeling the wind from those jaws brush his skin. His back hit one of the impossibly angled pews, and for a split second, he was trapped.
Out of nowhere, Delia swooped in low and fast, a heavy brass candlestick brandished in both hands like a club.
The demon, focused entirely on Caleb, never saw her coming.
The candlestick connected with a wet crunch that echoed horribly in the warped space, sending the creature sprawling across the altar.
The portable altar rocked, and several of the writhing symbols flickered and dimmed.
“The altar!” Caleb shouted, realization flooding through him. “It’s the focal point!”
He rolled away from the pew as shadow-fire erupted from the spot where he’d been standing.
The stone floor cracked and hissed, releasing sulfurous steam.
His demon blood responded to the hellish energy, making him faster, stronger…
but also harder to remain himself. He could feel his human side struggling to maintain focus as primal fury tried to take over.
The demon Delia had struck was already rising, yellow eyes blazing with rage. It backhanded her almost casually, sending her flying into a cluster of pews with a sickening crash.
Something cold and furious exploded in Caleb’s chest. His fire flared white-hot, surrounding him with the angry energy of a supernova.
He closed the distance to the demon in two bounds, grabbed it by the throat, and drove his knee into its midsection with enough force to crater the floor beneath them.
The creature doubled over, gasping with something that might have been surprise. But Caleb couldn’t give it time to recover. He spun it around and hurled it straight at the altar, putting every ounce of his supernatural strength behind the throw.
The demon hit the altar dead center. The impact sent symbols scattering, some of them winking out entirely as they separated from the ritual circle. The tear above them shuddered, its edges becoming less stable, and the whispers from beyond grew more frantic.
But the other two demons were adapting, learning from his tactics.
They split apart, forcing him to divide his attention.
One began making complex movements in the air, rebuilding the ritual pattern that had been damaged a moment earlier.
The other circled toward the scattered pews where Delia was struggling to get back on her feet, her breath coming in short gasps.
Caleb’s mind raced, measuring angles and distances with a cold calculation that felt utterly unlike him. The chapel’s twisted geometry created blind spots and unexpected sight lines. If he could use that, maybe —
The circling demon lunged at Delia.
All calculation fled. Caleb simply moved, crossing the space between them faster than should have been possible. He caught the demon mid-leap, his fists pounding into its chest as they both crashed into the wall.
Stone cracked. The demon’s yellow eyes went wide with something that might have been fear.
“Bad choice,” Caleb growled, his voice rougher than it should have been. He could feel his human control slipping, his demon blood rising to make sure the creature would never have a chance to hurt the woman he loved.
And for the first time since the fight began, he didn’t try to hold it back.
Fists pounded again and again, and he could feel the thing beginning to dissolve beneath the pummeling. No, he couldn’t kill it, but he could make sure it never wanted to return to this plane again.
Oily black blood spattered everywhere. Agonized yellow eyes met his…and then the thing winked out of existence.
Behind him, Caleb heard an unearthly howl and whirled.
A white-faced Delia stood there, an empty vial of holy water clutched in either hand, while the demon she’d just splattered was doing a pretty good imitation of the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz, melting into the stone floor in a puddle of gooey black liquid.
As it dissolved, the portal above the altar began to collapse in on itself. The wrongness in the air faded, replaced by the normal atmosphere of an ordinary — if horribly saccharine-sweet — wedding chapel.
Delia shot him a lopsided smile as she patted the purse slung across her body. “You know I never leave home without it.”
And thank God for that. Caleb had also had a few bottles stuffed into the pockets of his jeans, but his demon rage had opted for a more primitive solution to their problem.
He’d have to watch that in the future. While he didn’t regret using violence to dispel their foes, he also didn’t want to Hulk out to the point where he didn’t even know what he was doing.
Ty’s voice came through his earpiece, sounding slightly winded. “Is everyone all right?”
“We’re good here,” Caleb replied, surveying the destruction inside the chapel. It would take weeks to fix the damage, which meant there was no way it could be back online in time for whatever the demonic masterminds behind the Styx Group were plotting. “How about you?”
“Six demons down,” Ty replied, “and I found something you’re going to want to see. There’s a control room hidden behind the north wall. It looks like they’ve been coordinating the entire operation from here.”
A chill moved down Caleb’s spine, and he looked over to see Delia’s arms wrapped around herself, as if she, too, suffered from a cold that had nothing to do with the temperature inside the chapel.
If this was just one control room, how many others were there?
“Pru,” he said into his mic, “we could really use that map of critical locations.”
“Working on it,” she replied. “But based on what I’ve found so far, I think this was just the beginning. The real target isn’t the individual chapels.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
A pause that seemed to stretch forever. Then she said, “I’m not an expert or anything, but I think they’re building a citywide summoning circle. Every location and every ley line is all part of one massive ritual.”
Caleb looked at Delia, seeing his own realization reflected in her face. This wasn’t about stopping one wedding or protecting one chapel from turning into a hellmouth.
No, this was about preventing a full-scale invasion.
“Well, hell,” he said.