Page 72 of The Devil Went Down to Laughlin
And that meant the usual methods weren’t going to work.
“Delia!” he shouted at her. “You have to drop the shield!”
From behind him, August Sellers released the kind of cackle that only a demon could produce. “You’re wasting your time,” he called out as a crackle and hiss indicated that yet another of Ty’s energy blobs had been absorbed with the dark magic that appeared to have made him all but invulnerable. “She can’t hear you. She can’t do anything except give me the power I need to make sure the portal opens.”
“How are you going to manage that?” Ty countered. He sounded breathless, and Caleb had to wonder how much this battle against the demon was taking out of the half angel. No one had limitless stores of strength, and it appeared pretty clear that Sellers was trying to wear Ty down until he didn’t have any fight left. “It seems like you’re a little distracted right now.”
“Fool,” the demon shot back. “I’m not going to open the portal.”
He paused there, and his eyes glowed red and his teeth seemed to sharpen as he smiled.
“Delia is.”
Chapter Eighteen
The energy of the river seemed to flow all around her. Delia drifted within it, feeling as suspended in its power, its strength, as if she’d been floating in its actual water.
Why had she been so frightened when August brought her here?
This was beautiful.
Everything was beautiful.
He’d told her she only needed to speak to the river, to hear it in her mind the way she could hear other people’s thoughts. The river would show her the way to open the gate and let all of August’s friends in.
He’d seemed lonely when he told her he wanted his friends to be here, that it had been too long since he’d been surrounded by others of his kind. Delia thought she could understand that, since she’d sensed the same loneliness in Caleb, a man who had no one else truly like him in this world.
Caleb.
Was that his voice she heard now?
No, she must be imagining things. All she was supposed to do was float on the river’s currents of power, letting them show her where she should reach out and open the passageway between two worlds.
In fact, she thought she could see the gate shimmering off in the distance. It wasn’t open yet, had only begun to materialize, but soon enough, it would yawn wide, and all of August’s friends would come through.
But then she thought she heard Caleb again.
“Delia! Delia!”
Her eyes flared open, and she saw she was suspended in midair in a room whose walls were made of earth. Off to one side, Ty Carter seemed to be in the battle of his life with August, wild scatters of white energy splashing everywhere.
Alarm flared in her.
She was supposed to protect August, wasn’t she?
“Delia!”
Then she looked down and saw Caleb standing a few feet away from her, handsome features tight with worry, that one lock of dark blond hair falling over his forehead just as it always did.
The sight of him somehow made her come back to herself, as if seeing his face had awoken the deepest, truest part of her.
Of course.
She wasn’t supposed to be helping August. He was a demon. He’d kidnapped her, kept her suspended outside time until he was ready to use her to further his own ends.
But Caleb….
He’d come here to save her, just as she’d prayed he would.
