Page 52 of The Devil Went Down to Laughlin
Ty refolded the map and secured it in his pocket, and for the next couple of minutes, the three of them moved around the earthen chamber, feeling the walls, inspecting the ground underfoot to see if anything in particular stood out.
Nothing.
“I think the map was left here for whoever the next guardian was supposed to be,” Ty said.
Caleb wondered who that was. Definitely not Aaron.
“Does that mean the portal’s been unguarded this whole time?” he asked, and Ty nodded, looking worried…unusual for him, since he usually gave off the impression of a Zen master slumming as a surfer type.
“It’s well-hidden, so that helps, and the witch’s knots are still doing their jobs. Eventually, though, they’ll need to be refreshed — just like August Sellers had to refresh his binding on Aaron Sanchez — so they won’t hold up indefinitely.”
The news just kept getting better and better.
“But someone has to step in at some point,” Pru said, her voice tight with concern.
“They do,” Ty said. He paused before adding, “And it seems that right now, Delia is the best candidate for that particular job.”
Chapter Twelve
As much of a relief as it had been to talk to Caleb, to realize he’d somehow heard her in his mind and that this dark room that held her captive couldn’t keep her thoughts imprisoned, the place felt even more like a gaping hole in the world once their connection had been cut off.
Had her captors found out she was speaking with him and intervened to break their contact?
Maybe, although Delia thought it just as likely that the connection had been severed because she didn’t have the mental capacity to keep it going any longer.
Once again, what she didn’t know about these gifts of hers seemed almost overwhelming.
On the other hand, she’d managed to hold a psychic conversation that felt as if it had gone on for at least a minute, maybe longer.
And that seemed to tell her she was getting better at all this, almost as if something deep in her subconscious knew things her waking mind didn’t.
She moved on the bed or chaise or whatever it was, scootching backward until her shoulders touched a wall.
All right, that meant this place had some actual physical boundaries, wasn’t just a featureless void hiding in some strange dimension with no actual relation to reality. This cheered her, especially since she knew that before her talk with Caleb, she hadn’t been able to move enough to feel the wall or even know it was there.
Did that mean whatever spell was holding her here had begun to weaken, if only the smallest bit?
In another time, she might have laughed at herself for entertaining the notion that magic and spells were even a real thing. But she’d seen too much over the past couple of months to ignore the simple truth that the universe was a much more complicated place than she’d ever imagined.
If the spell was weakening, then she needed to do whatever she could to continue to push against it.
With enough pressure placed on the enchantment, it might finally shatter altogether.
Focus.
She breathed in and out. This time, though, she didn’t close her eyes.
No, she wanted to see whatever she could.
A wall behind her. A bed beneath her.
And it was a bed — a daybed, she realized, with a padded back and padded head- and footboard, which was why she hadn’t been able to tell whether it was a chaise lounge or a regular old bed. The upholstery was nubby beneath her fingers, and even though she would have said she couldn’t see a damn thing in there, somehow she knew the fabric was dark blue, almost navy.
Okay, that was something. Possibly not the most important piece of information in the world, but it told her that she was already perceiving far more than she had a few hours ago.
She stared into the darkness, and somehow knew she was trapped in a small room about ten feet by twelve, the size of a standard bedroom.
Was she in someone’s house?
