Page 27 of The Devil Went Down to Laughlin
Caleb couldn’t see much of the guy’s expression, since he needed to keep his eyes on the road. However, he had to believe Ty hadn’t been thrown off by the question.
“She helped me with a house that had a ghost.”
Not even a lie, since Ty Carter actually had summoned Delia to a haunted house back at the end of March. True, his real motive had been to see how she worked — and to quietly give her psychic powers a boost — but it wasn’t as if there hadn’t actually been a spirit involved, one whom Delia had managed to convince to move on to the next plane of existence.
“Ah,” Pru said, then paused. Her eyes had narrowed slightly behind the cat-eye sunglasses she wore, and Caleb got the impression that her brain was working a mile a minute. “And that was enough to include you on this rescue mission?”
Ty also hesitated, and his gaze met Caleb’s in the rearview mirror. That stare seemed to be asking one very important question.
How much are you willing to reveal?
Up until now, Caleb hadn’t seen the point in telling Pru anything more than she needed to know. The woman wasn’t stupid, however, so he knew she must have realized there were undercurrents here she hadn’t yet begun to plumb.
He had no idea what lay ahead of them. At first, he’d been willing to think…well, to hope…that maybe Delia’s radio silence was due to a simple misunderstanding and nothing more. After Ty showed up, though, he realized they must be dealing with dark forces yet again.
And that meant Pru could soon be confronted by something that defied explanation.
Unless, of course, she had already realized she was dealing with forces that extended far beyond this plane of existence, in which case she might just roll with it.
“There are a couple of things we need to tell you,” he said, then paused, wondering if he should have kept his mouth shut.
Was this a mistake?
He didn’t know. The only thing he did know was that sometimes you had to take a leap of faith.
“Like what?” Pru asked. Her lips had pursed just a little, but it seemed she was willing to sit back and listen to what he had to say.
“Well….”
Ty came to his rescue then, saying, “Do you remember the tournament at the Desert Paradise casino?”
Now she chuckled. “How could I forget? Ley lines and earthquakes and all kinds of weird shit. I got the feeling there was a lot more going on than Delia wanted to talk about, but since we all survived and it kind of felt like no harm, no foul, I didn’t bug her about it.”
“There was more going on,” Ty responded. “Much more. The tournament had been designed as an enormous ritual intended to funnel as much dark energy into Las Vegas as possible. Caleb’s intervention prevented that from happening.”
Both of Pru’s eyebrows lifted behind her sunglasses, and she sent a brief glance over at Caleb in the driver’s seat before she returned her attention to the half angel. “What kind of ritual? What was its purpose?”
“I’m not sure,” Ty said. “The whole thing fell apart before it reached its endpoint, which is a good thing. But no one summons that kind of power unless they’re attempting to do something big.”
All of which Caleb had already known. Like Ty, he hadn’t been able to determine what Hank Bowers and the rest of the demons or demon-possessed minions had been aiming for with their ritual, although he also realized it had to have been something massive.
The energy had dispersed harmlessly, though…well, except for a small earthquake and some shattered nerves…and, as far as he could tell, no one who’d attended the tournament had realized exactly what had gone on.
Even Aaron Sanchez, who’d been in the thick of it, didn’t seem to recall anything about what had happened that fateful afternoon in late March.
Now Pru returned her attention to Caleb. “And you stopped it.”
“I did,” he replied, now a little embarrassed. At the time, he’d only done what he needed to, acting on instinct because his conscious mind hadn’t been able to completely comprehend the forces at work.
“And how were you able to do that, exactly?” she pressed. “This isn’t the kind of thing they usually teach in school.”
No, it definitely was not.
The only explanation was the truth…incredible as it was going to sound to her.
“It’s because I’m a quarter demon,” he said simply.
For a second, she sat motionless in the passenger seat, brows drawn together as she seemed caught between trying to decide whether he’d been joking or whether he was just downright delusional.
