Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
All right, so he might have used a little demonic persuasion to get Aaron out of the suite at Harrah’s, just as he’d beamed a bit of that otherworldly charm over to Eiza Mendoza so she’d agree that she absolutely needed to come back to Laughlin and pick up the mantle of river guardian.
As far as Caleb was concerned, he hadn’t been out of line.
That was Eiza’s job and responsibility, not Delia’s, and Aaron had served his purpose and needed to be hustled along so the rest of them could get on to the more important stuff.
“Maybe there’s some evidence in Sellers’ office that might tell us how he knew about Delia,” he said as he sat down on the sofa next to her.
Although Caleb had thought she was stunning in that sequined gown, he had to admit she looked more herself in the clothes Pru had loaned her, even if she was wearing black from head to toe.
“And exactly how are we supposed to get in there?” Pru inquired. However, she looked vaguely amused, and he guessed she was just as glad that he’d gotten rid of Aaron Sanchez as he was.
“I doubt anyone knows Sellers is missing yet,” Delia pointed out. “It feels like a century since we escaped that chamber under the Aquarius, but it’s only been a half hour at the most. Also, it’s past eight o’clock, and I doubt anyone expects to see him until tomorrow morning sometime.”
“Unless he was supposed to be attending another river cruise,” Ty said, although his tone was almost doubtful, as if he didn’t quite believe what he was saying.
“No reason for that,” Caleb replied. “The one he hosted did its job, even if we almost sank the boat. Besides, he was supposed to be opening a portal into Hell tonight. I’m pretty sure he kept his calendar clear.”
Both Delia and Pru snickered a little at that comment, although Delia sobered soon enough. “I’m sure all that’s true,” she said. “But even if no one’s going to be looking for him before tomorrow morning, I’m sure it’s still going to be hard to get into his office.”
“I could try swiping another key card,” Pru offered, although she also didn’t seem too sure of herself.
“That won’t work,” Ty said. “Not that I don’t believe you’d be able to get another one, but a key card someone’s carrying on the casino floor wouldn’t work to get us into an executive suite.”
“Right,” she said, and let out a breath that wasn’t quite a sigh. “It’s annoying, because I know right where his office is located. I looked it up on the blueprints for the Aquarius after I found out which suite was his.”
Because of course she had. Although Pru occasionally got on his nerves, Caleb couldn’t deny that she was very useful to have around.
“Well, that’s something,” Delia said, and was silent for a moment, mulling over the problem. “Couldn’t one of you use your powers to get yourself inside?”
“We’ve never been in there before,” Caleb pointed out. He hated this restriction on his teleportation talent, but it was what it was. “If I don’t know where I’m going, I can’t send myself there.”
“But what if you knew what Sellers’ office looked like?” Pru asked next. “Would that be enough to get you there?”
“Sure,” Caleb replied, and Ty nodded, signaling he’d be able to manage the same thing. “But since we don’t know what it looks like, I’m not sure how that’s supposed to help us.”
“Easy,” she said as she reached for her laptop. “I’ll just find an image online.”
Even Delia looked skeptical, and she had a better idea of her friend’s abilities than anyone else did. “How do you expect to manage that? I can’t imagine Sellers would be too thrilled to have pictures of his office floating around on the internet.”
“No, he probably wouldn’t,” Pru said, although she was smiling as she began typing away. “But it’s hard to scrub that sort of stuff, especially if someone posted it in a locked-down Facebook account or whatever.”
Ty straightened in his chair. Almost all the damage from his battle with Sellers had faded by now, with just some slight discoloration under his left eye to show that he’d been sporting a pretty serious shiner only a few minutes earlier.
“If it’s locked down,” he said, “how are you going to find it?”
Pru didn’t look up. “O ye of little faith.”
Another burst of typing, and another. Then she grinned in triumph as she spun her laptop around. “See?”
Sure enough, there was a Facebook post from someone named Ted Donnelly, one that showed a spacious office with an amazing view of the Colorado River below.
Underneath was a not-so-glowing caption.
My asshole boss gets this huge office, and the bastard won’t even dig into his pockets enough to throw us a holiday party this year. I don’t know what happened to the guy — he’s totally turned into Scrooge.
“Well, then,” Delia said with a grin. “Sounds like someone was a little disgruntled.”
“Demons don’t make very good supervisors,” Ty remarked. “Also, even though he would have tried to hide it, once the demon inhabiting August Sellers fully took over, some of his true nature would have begun to assert itself.”
That made sense. Demons were a lot better at making themselves look human than actually acting like real people.
Enough of the chitchat, though. Caleb leaned in to study the photo so he could impress all the details on his mind.
In front of the floor-to-ceiling windows was a large desk of what looked like burled walnut…
very expensive. A pair of fiddleleaf figs — real, not fake — stood sentinel behind the desk, bracketing the window.
Part of the view was obscured by a trio of curved screens that sat on top of the desk, although a large leather-upholstered chair was just visible behind them.
“I’ve seen enough,” Caleb said. He glanced over at Ty. “You good?”
“I think so.”
Perfect. Time to get this show on the road.
“Then I’ll take Delia with me, and you can take Pru.”
For a second, Ty looked as if he wanted to protest that he and Caleb should go alone.
But then the half angel appeared to realize that they’d have a much better chance of getting into August Sellers’ computer if they brought Pru with them, and of course there was no chance Delia would consent to staying behind.
Especially since all manner of shit had gone down the last time they were separated.
“Okay,” Ty said. “But we need to be in and out as quickly as possible.”
Caleb was all for that. Although he didn’t expect that Sellers would be able to claw his way back to this plane any time soon — or maybe ever — he also didn’t want to deal with some over-zealous security guard coming along to investigate any movement in an office that should have been empty at that hour of the night.
“No worries.”
Delia came over to him and calmly looped her arms around his waist. “Ready when you are,” she said.
He couldn’t allow himself to react to her, except for a nod to show he’d acknowledged her comment. A few feet away, Pru approached Ty almost timidly, although he seemed matter-of-fact enough as he put his arms around her and said, “This will be quick, but you still need to hang on.”
A second later, the four of them materialized in front of the big walnut desk.
Because the windows didn’t appear to have any coverings, enough illumination from the lights of Laughlin streamed in to make the rest of the room visible enough.
The photo Pru had found online hadn’t shown the sitting area off to one side, with a leather couch and two matching chairs and a coffee table of what looked like hammered copper, but it was far enough away that it hadn’t interfered with their arrival.
At once, Pru stepped away from Ty and hurried over to the desk. She had her head down, and Caleb wondered if she was blushing, or trying to conceal something about her reaction to the way the half angel had held her a moment earlier.
Hard to say. Although you could walk around in here without having to turn on the lights, some of the finer details were lost.
Caleb was glad of that, though, just because now there was probably a lower chance of anyone noticing they were even here.
He noticed Pru hadn’t started working on the computer yet, but instead was opening the desk drawers and hunting around inside. Meanwhile, Delia and Ty stood behind her, looking awkward.
Well, they all knew that Prudence was the one who’d have to do the heavy lifting here.
“You think Sellers left a file in there with all the info about his demon friends?” he asked dryly.
Her mouth tightened in irritation. “No,” she replied.
“But, like I’ve tried to explain about a million times by now, I’m not a computer hacker.
If I sit down and try to brute-force my way into the jerk’s computer, I’ll get locked out — and probably set off an alarm somewhere.
This may not be the Pentagon or something, but I’ve learned that these casino types have plenty of safeguards built into their systems.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Trying to see if he taped his password somewhere,” Pru said, her response somewhat muffled because she’d gotten down on her hands and knees and was feeling around under the desk.
“You’d be surprised how many executive types do that.
It’s like they carry so many numbers around in their head that they can’t be arsed to remember a password. ”
Maybe, but….
“You do remember that we’re dealing with a demon here, and not some C-suite bozo with a degree from Wharton,” Caleb pointed out.
“Doesn’t matter. Sellers was a real person once, right? And the demon inside him took over at some point?”
That appeared to be the case. Sometimes demons managed to slither their way onto this plane without possessing anyone, but that didn’t happen nearly as often as them simply taking up residence and then doing their best to hang on to their mortal shells, like some kind of diabolical hermit crab.
“I suppose so.”
“She could be right,” Ty put in. “Even demons can’t completely override twenty years of bad human habits.”