Page 42 of The Devil Went Down to Laughlin
“What the actual fuck?” Prudence gasped.
“Just keep going,” he said.
They’d reached the stairs, so he was able to throw a quick look over one shoulder to see what was happening before they started heading up to the main deck. Smoke swirled in the passageway, but it cleared soon enough to reveal a tall figure moving straight for them.
August Sellers.
He lifted a hand.
Okay, really time to go.
They were about a third of the way up before the fireball smashed into the stairwell. Caleb clung to the handrail and saw that Prudence had had the presence of mind to do the same. In fact, it looked as if she was hauling herself up purely through arm strength, since the stairs immediately behind her had given way.
Screams and the sound of shattering glass came from the main cabin, and the boat began to list to one side.
Starboard? Port? Caleb had no idea. The only thing he did know was that throwing fireballs around on the lower decks was apparently not a great thing for hull integrity.
They emerged near the kitchen and almost bumped into Ty, who stared at them in consternation.
“What the hell is going on down there?”
“They were putting some kind of mind-control sigil on Aaron Sanchez,” Prudence said, her voice still not much more than a gasp. “And then they saw we were there and started chasing us.”
“And I’m pretty sure August Sellers is about to appear at any moment,” Caleb put in. “So we need to get out of here.”
Ty’s mouth compressed, but it seemed clear he knew they didn’t have time for any arguments. “All right. This way.”
He led them through the chaos in the main cabin — the music had stopped, but people were running this way and that, not sure where they should go — and out onto the deck. This part of the boat felt lower, as if it had already begun to sink.
Well, Caleb had been standing just under this section when he threw those shoe-bombs at their pursuers.
“What now?” he said, looking all around.
But this wasn’t the Titanic, and he sure didn’t see any lifeboats.
“We jump,” Ty said calmly. “We’re only a few hundred feet from shore. It’s an easy swim.”
Under normal circumstances, sure. Caleb had grown up with a pool in the backyard, and he got in at least a hundred laps most days in the pool at his new house as well.
That wasn’t ordinary water out there, though.
No, it was the Colorado River, filled with the kind of energy that didn’t seem too friendly to a being such as he.
Not that they had too much time to argue. August Sellers had just emerged from the cabin, a shadowy figure behind him that might or might not have been Aaron Sanchez.
“And where do you think you’re going?” Sellers demanded.
“Jump!”
A pair of strong hands hit Caleb squarely in the back, and the next thing he knew, he’d gone right over the railing and into the strong, cold current of the river.
Some of it went into his mouth and he choked, thinking it tasted like battery acid. Almost at once, he began to flounder…
…and then a bubble of glowing white light surrounded him, somehow shielding him from the worst of the water’s energy.
Swim, came Ty’s voice in his mind. Head for the Nevada shore.
Luckily, that was easy enough to see, thanks to the lights of the casinos shining in the water. He began to move in that direction, his body remembering the effortless side stroke he used every morning in his pool, even when his conscious mind couldn’t completely think of what to do.
