Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
The Harry Reid International Airport pickup area was a special kind of chaos on any given day, but today it seemed like every stress Delia had ever experienced in her life had melded into one perfect storm of family logistics and demonic dread.
She sat in her Hyundai Kona at the curb, engine idling, and watched the stream of travelers emerging from the sliding glass doors while her psychic abilities sparked and flickered, making it feel as if her brain was some AM band radio, hiccupping from one station to another.
Every few seconds, another wave of ley line energy would smash into her, making her grip the steering wheel until her knuckles went white.
Get it together, she told herself. She pulled in a deep breath and did her best to center her thoughts on something other than the terrifying fact that Caleb was being held captive by a demon lord who happened to be his great-uncle.
Or something like it. She still wasn’t entirely certain how relationships worked among demon-kind.
Now, though, she needed to focus on a much more down-to-earth kind of relationship.
Your family needs you to be normal right now.
Normal. Right. As if anything about her life had been normal since she’d first started talking to ghosts. Then again, communing with spirits and helping them move on to the afterlife felt like a walk in the park compared to what she’d been through over the past few months.
Her phone vibrated from inside her purse. A text from Olivia, and Delia’s heart skipped a beat before she realized the message was just a standard arrival update and not anything sinister at all.
Flight’s on time. Should be at baggage claim in about twenty minutes. Thanks again for picking us up!
Twenty minutes to get her head together and figure out how to explain why it was so important that her cousin had to choose an alternative to Angel’s Dream Wedding Chapel without revealing that the venue was currently serving as headquarters for an interdimensional invasion attempt.
Piece of cake.
As she sat in the car and tried very hard not to think about Caleb trapped in the chapel…
and her utter inability to mount any kind of successful rescue…
Delia watched a family of four struggle with an overloaded luggage cart, the father looking harried while two small children ran circles around their mother.
Such normal problems. Such beautifully, blessedly, normal problems.
Someday she hoped to have problems like those of her own. Now, though, she had to focus on the very real threat facing her and her friends…and the man who’d stolen her heart.
Another family emerged from the terminal, this group of three consisting of two parents and a daughter who might have been in her early teens, looking much more organized as they made their way toward the ride-share pickup area.
Delia envied their brisk efficiency, their obvious confidence that they knew exactly where they were going and what they were doing.
Her phone vibrated again, this time with a text from her mother.
Just left the house to head to the airport. Your dad’s grumbling about traffic, but excited to see everyone. Any word on when you’ll be free to join us for dinner tonight?
Dinner. Right. Because in addition to managing a supernatural crisis and coordinating a wedding venue change, she also needed to be a dutiful daughter and participate in the extended family reunion.
Working on it, she texted back. Might need to juggle a few things with the venue situation.
The response came back almost immediately.
Everything okay?
Just wedding logistics. You know how it is.
Well, don’t let Olivia’s drama stress you out too much. This is supposed to be fun, remember?
If only it were that simple.
Another wave of energy coursed through her, stronger this time, and for a moment, the airport around her seemed to shimmer and shift.
She could see the ley lines running beneath the concrete and asphalt, could sense the way they connected this location to the network that spiderwebbed across the entire Las Vegas valley.
And at the center of it all, Angel’s Dream Wedding Chapel blazed, a dark star embedded in neon and plate glass.
The connection to Caleb was still there, thank God, the thin, unbreakable thread of psychic energy that he’d used to contact her as she was on her way to the airport.
But she could also sense something else through their bond — his anger, his frustration, and underneath it all, a growing determination that made her worried he was planning something dangerously heroic.
Don’t do anything stupid, she thought, directing the mental message toward the corrupted chapel. Just stay alive until we can figure out how to get you out of there.
Whether he received the message or not, she couldn’t tell. The psychic static from the ley line network was making it harder and harder to maintain clear contact.
A familiar laugh caught her attention, and she looked up to see Olivia and Alec emerging from the terminal.
Her cousin looked pretty much the same as she had during the last family visit to Chicago, if a few years older — tall and willowy, with the kind of effortless elegance that made Delia feel slightly underdressed even when she was wearing her best outfit.
Her dark hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail, and she wore slim, expensive-looking jeans and a pair of strappy sandals that were more than a little impractical for hauling luggage through an airport terminal.
Alec complemented her well — broad shoulders, perfect hair, and the kind of confident smile that probably served him well when dealing with his hedge fund clients.
Or at least, Delia assumed his work must involve something like that.
Her mother had only vaguely said that he worked in finance, which could have meant almost anything.
However, she kind of doubted that a bank manager had the cash on hand to buy a million-dollar house outright.
They made a beautiful couple, Delia had to admit. They definitely were the kind of people who belonged in wedding magazines and luxury travel brochures.
The kind of people who definitely didn’t belong anywhere near a demon-infested wedding chapel.
She got out of her car and waved, pasting on her best “everything is perfectly normal” smile as they spotted her and headed in her direction.
“Delia!” Olivia’s smile was genuine, if a little strained around the edges.
Up close, Delia could see a hint of shadows under her cousin’s eyes that hadn’t been entirely erased by concealer, a subtle tension in her shoulders that spoke of too many restless nights.
“Thank you so much for doing this. I can’t tell you how much it means to have someone local helping us coordinate everything. ”
“Of course,” Delia replied, giving her cousin a quick hug. “That’s what family’s for.”
Alec stepped forward and shook her hand, his grip confident but not so strong that she had to worry about him crushing her knuckles. “Nice to meet you, Delia. I can’t thank you enough for stepping in to help with all the last-minute arrangements. Olivia’s been so worried about the venue situation.”
If only you knew how much more worried she should be, Delia thought. Making sure her pasted-on smile didn’t waver, she said, “It’s really no problem. I’m just glad I was able to find some alternatives for you to consider.”
“About that,” Olivia said, and something in her tone made alarm bells start going off in Delia’s mind.
Like it wasn’t already busy enough in there.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said, about the management issues at Angel’s Dream, and I’m wondering if maybe we’re being a little hasty.
I mean, we’ve already paid in advance, and the ceremony is only the day after tomorrow.
Maybe we should just stick with what we’ve got and hope for the best.”
No. Absolutely not. Over her dead body.
“I really think you should at least look at the alternatives,” Delia replied, doing her best to keep her tone light and casual. “Some of the places I found are actually quite a bit nicer than Angel’s Dream. More elegant, better settings for your wedding photos, that kind of thing.”
“But we’ve already paid them,” Alec interjected, frowning. “We’re talking about losing a decent chunk of change here. It’s not just a simple deposit. And frankly, I’m not sure I understand why we need to make a change at all. The chapel looked fine when we did the virtual tour.”
Another spike of ley line energy coursed through Delia’s system, and this time it was accompanied by something else — a vision, brief but terrifyingly clear, of Angel’s Dream Wedding Chapel filled with writhing shadows and the sound of otherworldly screaming.
“Trust me,” she said, realizing even as she spoke that she sounded much too intense. “You do not want to get married at Angel’s Dream.”
Olivia and Alec exchanged a look, and Delia realized she’d probably come on way too strong. Normal people didn’t usually speak with such vehemence about wedding venues, not unless there was a really good reason.
“Is there something specific you’re not telling us?” Olivia asked, voice almost too neutral. “Because if there’s a serious problem with the chapel, then we need to know about it.”
There it was. Now Delia had to decide just how much truth she was willing to share with her family members.
Not the whole truth — she couldn’t tell them about demons and ley lines and interdimensional portals.
But maybe she could give them enough information to understand that this wasn’t just about wedding aesthetics.
“There have been some incidents,” she said after a pause she knew must have been horribly conspicuous. “At Angel’s Dream and some of the other recently acquired venues. Electrical problems, safety violations, that sort of thing. Nothing that’s made the news yet, but the city’s been investigating.”