Page 43 of The Devil Went Down to Laughlin
From behind him came the sound of splashing, and he thought he saw Prudence and Ty swimming after him. She also seemed to know what she was doing, but he thought that Ty was sticking close to her, just to be safe.
The rocky shore arrived sooner than Caleb had expected. He dragged himself onto solid land, gasping and coughing, and the bubble of white light Ty had summoned disappeared as if it had never been.
A moment later, Pru came ashore as well, followed by the half angel. Behind them, sirens blared as other vessels converged on the cruise boat, which looked to be partially engulfed in flames but didn’t seem to have sunk any further.
“They’ll be able to save it,” Ty said briefly. “Is everyone all right?”
Caleb nodded. “Thanks for the assist.”
Prudence pushed a strand of wet green hair — looking for all the world like seaweed — off her forehead. “Thank God we kicked off our shoes earlier.”
True. The sandals she’d been wearing had fastened around the ankles and his had laced up, so they would have been difficult to get rid of while swimming.
“What now?” he asked.
She looked over at the shimmering towers of the hotel casinos, their lights glaring in all colors of the rainbow against the night sky.
“We find a place to crash and regroup,” she said. “Come on — let’s get out of here before Sellers figures out which way we went.”
And she began to trudge away from the waterline toward the nearest hotel…not the Aquarius, Caleb noted with relief.
Since he couldn’t think of a better idea, he decided to follow her.
Chapter Ten
“Why Aaron?” Prudence asked. “What’s so special about the guy?”
Caleb wanted to reply, Nothing much, but he knew that wasn’t entirely accurate.
It seemed the guy made a great servant for demons, whatever else his other shortcomings might be.
The three of them were sitting in the living room of a suite they’d rented at Harrah’s, which happened to be the hotel whose beach was the spot where they’d scrambled ashore. Luckily, Caleb had transferred his wallet to his borrowed pants, so it wasn’t as if he didn’t have his credit cards with him. Maybe the front desk clerk had looked sideways at their dripping clothes, but no one was going to argue too much when you were willing to spend five grand a night for a hotel room.
This one had two bedrooms and a large sitting area in between. Although Caleb wasn’t totally thrilled to be sharing a bedroom with Ty, it just made sense that they would take the room with two queen beds rather than the one with the king, so Pru could have her own space.
And now that they’d all changed into the shorts and T-shirts and other items they’d scrounged at the surprisingly well-stocked store by the lobby, they could really sit down and plan what they should do next.
“So….” Prudence began, then paused. With most of her makeup erased by her dip in the river and her dark green hair pulled back into a scrunchie she’d also bought in the shop in the lobby, she looked about thirteen years old, like she was having a sleepover at a friend’s house rather than crashing in a cushy suite with a couple of not-quite-human guys. “August Sellers was messing with Aaron because he’s a vessel?”
“Yes,” Ty replied. “The inherent weakness in his nature makes him the perfect servant for a demon…or someone being controlled by a demon.” He glanced over at Caleb, who was sipping from a glass of water and thinking he should have ordered a six-pack from room service. “Did you get a clear idea of what exactly August is?”
Caleb leaned forward and set the glass down on the coffee table. Since the table appeared to be made of plastic or some kind of composite, he wasn’t going to worry about a coaster. “Not really,” he said. “Things happened pretty fast, and the whole time, he was just far enough away from me that I couldn’t get a good read on the guy. But since he managed to chuck a fireball at us as we were running up the stairs, I’m pretty sure he must be a real demon, not just someone who’s possessed. The guys he had working for him didn’t seem to be demons, though, so I suppose that’s something.”
Ty steepled his fingers and pressed them against his chin. He looked positively Spock-like in that moment, and Caleb repressed a smile.
“Why do that to Aaron, though?” Pru asked. “What’s Sellers’ endgame?”
“Demons always like to have servants,” Ty replied. “In this case, though, I think August Sellers — or whatever is pretending to be him, more to the point — wants to subvert Aaron precisely because his family is connected to the river. I’m still not sure what Sellers’ ultimate goal is, but the more servants he has to help him reach it, the better.”
“Sounds like I need to do a little more research,” she said, and got up from the club chair where she’d been sitting so she could fetch the satchel that carried her laptop and other essentials. Since all those items had been left behind in their cars, it had been easy enough to move the vehicles over here once they were checked into Harrah’s.
Or rather, even though Caleb had been utterly on edge as they hurried over to the parking lot at the Aquarius to retrieve his Range Rover and Delia’s Hyundai SUV, no one seemed to have paid them any attention. If August Sellers had been actively looking for them, he must not have thought they’d have the brass balls to sneak onto his hotel’s property and drive off in the cars they’d left behind.
MacBook Pro in hand, Pru returned to her seat and opened the laptop’s lid. A burst of quick typing, and she said, “Found something on the boat fire. Sounds like the local fire department is attributing the issue to an electrical problem that sparked a fire on the lower deck.”
“Well, I suppose that’s one way to explain away a couple of fireballs,” Caleb said with a grin.
Her mouth quirked as well. “They had to come up with something plausible, I guess. Anyway, the people at the fire department were able to have the boat towed back to the dock, and everyone got off okay.”
