Chapter 11 #2
They’d driven his Range Rover to Kohl’s — Caleb didn’t think it was a very good idea to use Delia’s Kona, even if Ty could flex his angelic powers to make it look as if it was registered to Pru — so the three of them were huddled together now in his SUV, their bags of new clothes and shoes safely stashed in the cargo section.
“Sellers must have her bound somewhere close,” Ty said, and Pru raised an eyebrow.
“I thought Caleb said she wasn’t tied up.”
“Psychically and spiritually bound,” he replied briefly. “It sounds as if her mental voice was strong, though, so I have a feeling she’s still somewhere in Laughlin.”
That was something of a relief. However, it wasn’t as if Laughlin was some tiny burg with just a couple of hundred residents. An exhaustive search would take a lot of time.
“Also,” Ty went on, “she said this had something to do with the river. We already know that Alba Sanchez and her family were connected to it somehow, so I think we should stick with our original plan of going back to her house.”
Failing any other concrete evidence, that did seem like the best thing to do. Except….
“What if Aaron Sanchez is hanging around the place?”
“I doubt he would be,” Pru said, sounding very definite.
“Why not?”
“Because as far as he — and the demons who’re controlling him — is concerned, the house has already done its job. It helped to trap Delia, and that’s what this is all about, right?”
Yes, it did seem as if Aaron had lured her to Laughlin for the express purpose of getting her close enough that the demons could grab her and put her in the supernatural prison where she was being held. All the same, Caleb couldn’t help thinking there were some holes in the story.
“If Aaron was already under August Sellers’ control, then why would he have bothered to put another binding sigil on the guy?”
Ty didn’t look too concerned by the question.
“Those bonds have to be refreshed occasionally. Also, if Sellers is somehow trying to gain control of the river’s power, performing such a ceremony while actually out on the water would only give the ritual that much more strength.
But I think Pru is right. The house has served its purpose as far as Aaron Sanchez is concerned.
He isn’t living there, so I don’t think he’ll be anywhere nearby. ”
And it was probably better to do something other than sit in a Kohl’s parking lot and keep arguing. On that particular Wednesday morning, the place wasn’t very crowded, but still, it might look kind of suspicious for them to keep sitting there.
“Okay,” he said. “Quick detour to the hotel so we all can change, and then we’ll head over to Alba Sanchez’s house.”
It did feel better to get into his new clothes.
Even in the heat of the summer, Caleb wasn’t a huge fan of shorts, so putting on the 501s he’d just bought — the prewashed kind, since they certainly didn’t have time to wait for him to send them off to the laundry at Harrah’s — and a plain burgundy T-shirt made him feel a lot more like himself.
Ty was also wearing jeans and a T-shirt, while Pru had bought black skinny jeans and a sleeveless black top with some interesting lace and pintucking, sort of like a goth Victorian grandmother.
However, while her green hair might get a few sideways looks, Caleb thought that overall they were pretty unremarkable, and not anyone people would remember moving through the crowded lobby at Harrah’s and out to the parking lot.
Once they got to the neighborhood where their destination was located, they had to wait a minute or two, since someone pulling an enormous trailer maneuvered out of one of the trailer parks just as they approached Alba Sanchez’s house, but after that annoying interruption, they were able to pull into the long driveway that led to the detached garage.
Caleb was glad of all the trees that surrounded the property, just because someone driving past and sending a quick glance toward the place probably wouldn’t even notice his big black Range Rover parked back there.
That was the only thing he’d allow himself to be glad about, though. He hadn’t liked going inside the house the first time, and he doubted he was going to enjoy it any more during the second go-round.
“How are we even going to get in?” Pru asked.
“It wasn’t locked last time,” Caleb pointed out.
And they hadn’t locked up when they left, figuring that doing so would only alert Aaron that someone had been trespassing inside.
Ergo, chances were that the house would still be wide open.
When he put his hand on the knob to the back door, though, it wouldn’t turn, signaling that at least this entrance had been secured.
“Well, we didn’t check this door last time,” Pru said reasonably. “Maybe it was always locked and we just didn’t know.”
“Guess we’ll have to try the front,” Caleb said, but Ty frowned.
“No, that would be far too visible. Let me open it.”
He moved past Pru and Caleb and put his hand on the knob. Immediately, the door swung inward.
“Nice trick,” Pru commented as they all went inside the service porch and then moved into the kitchen.
Everything looked just like it had the day before, which seemed to be a signal that no one had entered the place during the intervening hours.
“I guess you can always switch to a career as a cat burglar if the whole tennis pro thing doesn’t work out. ”
Ty’s expression grew pained, but he didn’t bother to answer. Instead, he said, “We need to look for more witch’s knots. If you find one, don’t touch it — just make a note of its location.”
“And what is this supposed to prove?” Caleb asked. “We already know that Alba Sanchez was some sort of witch.”
“A curandera,” Ty corrected him. “Subtle difference. More importantly, I’m almost positive she was someone whose charge was also to guard the river in all ways possible.
If we find more of the knots concentrated in a particular spot, then that might point to the place where she and others like her conducted their rituals.
Such a location would be valuable to August Sellers because of the power concentrated there. ”
Pru didn’t look terribly convinced by all this, and Caleb knew he wore a similarly doubtful expression on his face.
But — even though he didn’t like to admit it to himself — he realized that Ty knew a whole lot more about this sort of stuff than he did, and that meant they needed to follow his lead.
“All right,” Caleb said. “I guess I’ll go back to the basement.”
Even though he really didn’t want to. Sure, his explorations down there yesterday hadn’t turned up any rats or oversized spiders or anything else too frightening, but he could still happily live out the rest of his life without ever having to set foot in another cellar.
However, it felt way too squirrelly to send Pru or even Ty down there just because he would prefer to avoid the place. Better to get this over with.
“All right,” Ty said. “Today, though, I’ll stay downstairs, and Pru can check the second floor. It’s possible either of us might see something the other person overlooked.”
She still didn’t look too convinced, but she didn’t offer any arguments. “Okay,” she replied. “I’ll see what I can find.”
They all went their separate ways, with Caleb once more heading down the basement stairs.
At least this time, he knew what awaited him — namely, some pretty gross shag carpet and a few pieces of furniture deemed too ugly to occupy the upstairs but not so useless that the Sanchezes had wanted to throw them out.
Too bad there wasn’t some 1970s-vintage faux wood paneling on the walls to match that shag carpet, because at least that way he could have tried pulling some of it off to see if any witch’s knots were concealed on the plasterboard behind it.
But the space hadn’t been improved even that much, although someone had once painted the cinderblock with a creamy white paint in an attempt to brighten up the place.
As far as he was concerned, they hadn’t been too successful.
He dutifully made his way along the walls, looking for the faintest of scratches that might indicate one of the puffy, cross-shaped symbols might have been etched there. So far, he hadn’t found a damn thing, and he began to think this whole expedition had been a fool’s errand.
Shouldn’t they be looking for Delia instead?
Unfortunately, they had absolutely no clue as to where she’d been hidden, so maybe it made more sense to follow up on one of the few leads they had here in Laughlin.
His gaze moved to the bookcase. Yesterday, he’d inspected the titles of the volumes lined up on those shelves, but he hadn’t lifted any of the books out of the way to see what might be hidden behind them.
After he’d removed several rows of books, though, he was pretty sure there weren’t any sigils hidden there, either. The whole time, he’d felt the odd energy of the house pressing down on him, heavy and somehow sullen, but it didn’t seem quite as oppressive as it had been yesterday.
Was that because he was getting used to it, or had his dip in the Colorado last night blunted some of the river’s effects?
He hoped it was the second option, if for no other reason than he had no idea whether he might have to cross the river again, or maybe even go out on another boat, and it would be great if being around the body of water didn’t make him feel like he was suffering the mother of all hangovers.
When he started to replace the books on the shelves, the bookcase seemed to shift slightly.
This whole time, he’d thought it was a built-in because there didn’t seem to be any space between the back of the bookshelf and the wall itself, but now he wondered if it had been placed that way precisely to create such an impression.