Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Pru rode shotgun. She’d claimed that she got queasy when she rode in the back seat, and maybe that was nothing more than the truth. Ty hadn’t seemed inclined to argue, and they left the house a little before four o’clock, just as rush hour was starting to ramp up.
At this time of year, they’d have daylight well past seven.
Still, Caleb couldn’t quite ignore the tight feeling in his stomach, the worry that made him push the Range Rover — he’d come to love his Mercedes, but the big SUV was much better suited to taking multiple people along on a road trip — well past the posted speed limit of seventy miles per hour.
If he got a speeding ticket, no big deal.
However, so far he hadn’t spied any state troopers, and he prayed his luck would hold, mostly because he was far more concerned about the delay getting pulled over might cause than how much such an inconvenience would cost. And although everyone in the vehicle had stayed pretty quiet while they were within city limits, once they were out on the open road, Pru shifted in her seat so she could look over her shoulder at Ty.
“So…how do you know Delia?”
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.
“That isn’t funny,” she said, and although she was trying to sound matter-of-fact, he could still catch the smallest tremor in her voice as she pronounced the last syllable.
“I’m not joking,” he told her. “My grandfather was a demon from Hell, and my father was half demon. I’m just a quarter, so I’m not nearly as bad as the rest of them.”
Once again, Pru shifted in her seat so she could look back at Ty. “Is this some kind of stupid joke the two of you have cooked up?”
“No joke,” Ty said calmly. “Caleb is descended from demons, just as he told you. His grandfather was a servant of the demon prince Belial, and therefore among one of the highest orders of demons. That’s why he’s so powerful, even though he’s mostly human.”
She shook her head, the deep green strands of her hair shimmering like dark tourmaline in the bright sunlight slanting through the passenger-side window. “So, what…you’re a demon, too?”
Caleb couldn’t help tensing slightly as she asked the question. Was Ty Carter finally going to come out and say what he truly was?
He should have known better.
“No, I’m not a demon,” Ty said calmly, as if he were called upon to answer that question on a regular basis. “Let’s just say that I’m someone who has an interest in making sure your friend Delia is safe.”
Judging by the way Pru’s lips pressed together again, she wasn’t too happy with that response.
“He’s not going to tell you anything else,” Caleb remarked. “Personally, I think he’s part angel, but since he won’t cop to it, I guess you’ll just have to accept that he’s here to help.”
She crossed her arms and settled against the back of the seat. Something in her expression seemed to signal that she was wishing she could be almost anywhere else, but since she was stuck in a Range Rover heading southbound at roughly eighty miles an hour, she didn’t have a lot of options.
“I’m not sure I’m ready to ‘accept’ much of anything,” she said, her tone caustic. “Sure, some weird shit went down at the Desert Paradise, but I’m supposed to believe in quarter demons and part angels and God knows what else?”
“Basically, yeah,” Caleb said. He lifted one hand from the steering wheel, palm open. This little trick had been enough to convince Delia he wasn’t your ordinary, run-of-the-mill human being, and he had to hope it would work on Pru as well.
For just a second, flames danced on the palm of his hand. Because he wanted them to be harmless, he knew they wouldn’t do anything to the Range Rover’s interior, or to the woman who currently occupied the passenger seat. They were just for show.
Slowly, Prudence removed her sunglasses and stared at his hand. With the flames now gone, he wrapped his fingers around the steering wheel once more.
“You just….” She shook her head. “How the hell did you do that?”
“Those with demon blood can summon flames,” Ty said from the back seat. “It’s a talent that can come in useful in some situations.”
“More than ‘some,’” Caleb replied. “I’ve used fire to send lesser demons back to Hell, so it’s a nice weapon to have in my arsenal. Most of the time, though, Delia and I use her holy water.”
“The stuff she gets from Father Bryce for her house cleansings?”
“The same.”
Pru returned her sunglasses to her nose. Caleb couldn’t be sure whether that was because the glare outside was getting to her, or she simply didn’t want him to see her expression clearly.
“But if you’re part demon, doesn’t it bother you?”
Once again, Ty spoke up. “His demon blood is diluted enough that holy water has no real effect on him.”
“Well, that’s something, I suppose,” Pru said, her tone now positively dripping with sarcasm.
Caleb could see why she’d want to retreat to a tried-and-true defense mechanism. This was all kind of a lot.
Luckily, he always had a few bottles of the stuff on hand, and he’d included it in the kit he’d brought along on this trip, just to be safe. He still didn’t know for sure what they were dealing with here, but a little extra insurance never hurt anyone.
“We’re telling you this because we don’t know what we might be facing in Laughlin,” Ty said, and once again, Pru’s brows lifted.
“I thought Delia went down there to clear a ghost out of a house.”