Chapter 3 #3
That was for sure. Magic and science were pretty much the opposite of one another, so you couldn’t use science to explain anything that happened in the magical realm…or the world of angels and demons.
“I’d say you still have a unique perspective on the situation, though,” Delia told him, and again he shrugged.
For all he knew, he could have been making shots in the dark and nothing else. He didn’t want her — and Pru — to think he had all the answers.
Just about the opposite, actually.
Before he could reply, someone knocked at the door. Caleb immediately tensed, while Delia only looked puzzled.
“Were you expecting someone?” he asked, knowing he sounded a little too tense.
“No,” she replied, even as she set down her glass of iced tea and rose from the couch. “But we still get people going door to door here, even though there are ‘No Soliciting’ signs all over the neighborhood. Let me take care of it.”
She headed over to the door and opened it. A moment later, her startled voice traveled back to Caleb and Pru in the living room.
“Ty?”
Ty Carter, the half angel who’d first made an appearance during the Desert Paradise poker tournament and had proved to be a valuable ally during the mission to rescue Delia down in Laughlin.
Although Caleb had warmed to the guy somewhat over the past few weeks, he still couldn’t prevent an unwelcome thought from passing through his mind.
Had Ty been surveilling them somehow, waiting for the right moment to appear?
Over in her club chair, Pru raised a hand to smooth her hair — an unconscious gesture, Caleb guessed.
Still, he couldn’t help being a little amused.
He hadn’t missed some of the glances she’d sent toward Ty during their adventure in Laughlin…
or the way he’d seemed almost admiring of Delia’s best friend during a few stray moments.
Get a room, you crazy kids, Caleb thought then, although he knew the pair were a long way from getting there.
Or anywhere at all, to be honest. Fraternizing with green-haired cuties probably wasn’t part of the half angel’s mission.
Delia came back into the living room, with Ty a few feet behind her.
As always, he wore a T-shirt and faded jeans and boots, his dark hair pulled back into a ponytail.
His cover while living here in Las Vegas was supposedly as a tennis pro at the DragonRidge Country Club, but he dressed more like a motorcycle mechanic during his downtime.
“Ty,” Caleb said, his tone purposely wry, “what a lovely surprise.”
As usual, the man didn’t bother to take the bait. “It’s not a surprise, and you know it. I needed to talk to you once you were all together — and once some of my suspicions were confirmed.”
“Suspicions about the wedding chapel acquisitions?” Pru asked, and the half angel immediately looked over at her.
“Yes,” he said. “So, you already know about it.”
“We know a couple of things,” Delia said. “The rest is just guesswork. But please, go ahead and sit down. I’ll grab a glass from the kitchen so you can have some iced tea.”
For just a moment, Ty looked as if he might protest, to say he hadn’t come over here for a social call. But then he seemed to realize doing so would waste more time than simply going with the flow, so he nodded and said, “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
She headed into the kitchen while he took a seat in the empty club chair next to Prudence. The map she’d produced earlier was still laid out on the coffee table, probably a little too close to the tray of TJ’s goodies, now slowly getting lukewarm.
Ty’s gaze sharpened as he looked down at the map. “So…you’ve already tracked all of them.”
A slight hint of pink touched Pru’s cheeks. “Well, these were the ones whose sales I was able to locate. I wasn’t totally sure whether this was everything, though.”
“It is,” Ty said, then paused as Delia returned with a glass and handed it over to him.
He thanked her and poured himself some iced tea from the pitcher before continuing.
“There are some chapels here in Las Vegas that have so much history and are such landmarks that the owners weren’t willing to give them up at any price. ”
Nice to hear that sometimes integrity won out over cold, hard cash. “We were talking about the chapels’ position on the ley lines that cross Las Vegas,” Caleb said.
“Yes, that’s why the buyers wanted them,” Ty replied.
By that point, Delia had sat back down next to Caleb. “So…the buyers are more demons?”
“Most likely,” Ty said.
“We’re pretty sure the Styx Group is behind all this,” Prudence remarked, and both Ty’s eyebrows lifted.
It seemed the all-knowing half angel didn’t know everything after all.
“You’re sure of that?”
She shifted in her chair so she was facing him a little more directly. “Yeah, it seems as if Styx has its fingers in all this. I haven’t been able to find out much more than that, though. They’re pretty good at covering their tracks.”
“Yes, they are,” Ty said, now looking grim. “They’ve hidden the information about who’s running things so well that we haven’t been able to learn very much, either.”
Not for the first time, Caleb wondered who that “we” referred to exactly.
When Ty had first appeared at the Desert Paradise poker tournament, he’d been working with two other men, but they hadn’t been a factor during the rescue mission to Laughlin, or in the weeks since.
Had they been reassigned, or had someone farther up the food chain decided that Ty could handle all this on his own?
He had a feeling that if he asked, he wouldn’t get a straight answer. The half angel only told them what he absolutely had to, and even then, getting information out of him could be like pulling teeth.
“Why not?” Pru asked.
For a moment, Ty looked almost uncomfortable. Did he not like admitting that the side of the angels wasn’t as omniscient as it seemed, that maybe demons were still able to pull a trick or two on them?
But then he said, “Whoever’s in charge at the Styx Group, they’re very good at obfuscation.
Our best guess is that the company has all sorts of subtle wards running, the sort of thing that makes it impossible to pierce the corporate veil, so to speak, and get a real glimpse of what’s going on there.
So you being able to discover that the shell company buying properties here in Las Vegas is connected to them is something of a feat. ”
Pru didn’t exactly squirm in delight, but Caleb could tell she was pleased by this praise. “Well,” she said, her tone now deprecating, “I think they got a little sloppy. Most likely, they probably didn’t think anyone would be able to put two and two together this quickly.”
“We were thinking that maybe the other reason the chapels were a target is because of the emotional energy that concentrates in those kinds of spaces,” Delia put in, and Ty immediately inclined his head toward her in agreement.
“That’s exactly why,” he said. “The demons will be able to turbocharge the energy they’re summoning, for lack of a better word. And the Angel’s Dream chapel sits right at the intersection of two lines, so it’s probably their primary focus.”
Caleb had to admit it was sort of ironic to think that a place with such a name might be the location of a hellmouth opening in the middle of the city.
“So…what can we do about it?” he asked. Theories and speculation were great, but if they couldn’t come up with a plan to keep the demons from harnessing all that energy, then they — and everyone else in Las Vegas — were going to be in a world of hurt.
“My cousin is getting married at that chapel,” Delia said.
Although she sounded brisk enough, Caleb thought he caught just the slightest waver at the edge of her voice.
True, it didn’t seem as if the two women were very close, but most people probably wouldn’t be too happy at the prospect of one of their relatives getting trampled by demons as they were exchanging vows.
Ty didn’t seem too startled by that revelation, seeming to signal that he already knew Olivia Gunderson was in harm’s way.
“You need to find a way to get her to change her plans,” he said.
“There are other chapels in the city that are safe, so all you have to do is convince her that she needs a venue change.”
This admonition obviously didn’t sit very well with Delia, since she crossed her arms and sent the half angel a flat stare.
“And can you tell me exactly how I’m supposed to do that?
It’s only a few days until the wedding, and I assume I can’t just come right out and tell Olivia that she needs to go elsewhere because a bunch of demons want to open a gateway to Hell in that particular location. ”
“You’re a persuasive woman, Delia,” Ty replied, unperturbed. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. In the meantime, about all we can do is monitor the situation and do our best to keep as many people out of harm’s way as we can.”
“There must be something else,” Pru protested. “Sitting around on our hands isn’t going to help anyone.”
“I didn’t say we should just ‘sit around,’” he returned calmly. “But without a few more facts in our pocket, I don’t know what else to do.”
“Are the other people getting married in those chapels in any danger right now?” Caleb asked, and Ty frowned.
“I’m not sure…but I don’t think so. May thirtieth is a full moon, one that takes place while Mercury is retrograde, and I think that’s why that particular day is going to be the most dangerous.”
Delia’s cousin had definitely picked a doozy of a date for her wedding ceremony.
Next to him, Delia sat up a little straighter, chin lifted in a position he knew all too well.
Maybe the odds were stacked against them, but Caleb knew she would do whatever it took to keep her family safe…and the rest of Las Vegas as well.