She looked less than thrilled by that prospect, and Caleb couldn’t blame her. Angels and demons were probably enough for one day.
Ty turned away from the cupboard, the amused expression back on his handsome features. “I don’t think we need to worry about witches,” he said. “There aren’t nearly as many as you might think, although I believe some would have called Aaron’s grandmother one. She would have had powers of healing, and she is clearly one of those who used their powers to protect the river and its energy.”
“How do you know all that?” Caleb asked. It seemed like kind of a lot to pick up from seeing a single symbol carved into a kitchen cupboard.
“Because we’ve known for a long time that there were those who guarded the power of the Colorado River,” Ty replied calmly. “In fact, it helps to explain why Aaron Sanchez’s family would have kept this house for so long. It was only when his grandmother passed and there was no clear heir to take on her responsibilities that the trouble began.”
Caleb found himself frowning. “Like Aaron getting possessed by a demon?”
“Yes,” Ty said. “If his grandmother had still been around, that would never have happened. Unfortunately, there are those who, for whatever reason, have a vulnerability in their characters that allows them to be exploited by others. Demons seek out those people, of course, because they make easy puppets. We call them vessels, for in a way, that is the thing they’re most suited to being.”
No wonder Caleb hadn’t liked Aaron. It wasn’t simple jealousy, but a realization deep down that the man had a fatal flaw running through his soul, the sort of thing that might as well have been a beacon inviting any nearby demons to exploit it.
Then again, his dislike could have simply stemmed from the annoying fact that Aaron Sanchez had gone out for drinks with Delia.
“Well, this particular vessel doesn’t seem to be here,” Caleb said. “Now what?”
“We need to check the rest of the house,” Ty replied. “I’ll admit that if he were here, he probably would have heard us and come to see what we were up to, but there’s no point in giving up until we know for sure the place is empty. I’ll look upstairs. Pru, you can check out the rest of the ground floor. And Caleb” — Ty’s eyes glinted again, a signal that he was probably enjoying himself — “you can check out the basement.”
Great. Even though he was a quarter demon and therefore didn’t have much reason to be frightened of things that went bump in the night, Caleb had to admit that he’d never been a fan of basements. The one at his parents’ house had been converted into extra living space, a sort of man cave with an attached bedroom and bathroom so it had just felt like another level in the home, but he’d never forget the time he’d gone over to a friend’s place in sixth grade, and Charlie had suggested they play darts in the basement. That particular cellar hadn’t been improved at all, unless you counted the dart board hanging on one wall and the crappy indoor/outdoor carpeting that covered the concrete floor.
However, Caleb had been willing to ignore the complete lack of decor — an eleven-year-old generally wouldn’t have given a shit about stuff like that — until a rat scampered right over his foot while he was aiming at the dartboard.
Maybe he hadn’t gone running screaming out of the house, but he’d also done what he could to avoid basements ever since then.
However, he was damned if he was going to let Ty Carter see how much this particular assignment annoyed him.
Instead, he replied, “Got it,” and headed back to the downstairs hallway, where he’d already noted a door cut into the wall beneath the stairs. Sure enough, once he opened the door, he saw another set of steps leading downward.
His fingers found the switch, placed conveniently next to the door, and he flicked it on. A bare bulb installed in the ceiling responded at once, telling him at least he wouldn’t have to make the descent in utter darkness.
As basements went, this one didn’t have much to write home about. It only took up about half the footprint of the ground floor, telling him it was probably around five hundred square feet at the most. A ratty plaid couch had been placed up against one wall, and a big, old blocky TV sat on what looked to be a discarded dresser on the wall opposite.
The space was definitely small enough that he could take it in at one glance and realize neither Delia nor Aaron was down here. However, Caleb figured he might as well poke around a bit and see if he could find anything interesting, maybe one of those “witch’s knots” that Ty had located inside the kitchen cupboard.
Not that he even knew what one looked like, since he hadn’t peered in the cabinet the way Prudence and Ty had, but Caleb guessed that something like that would still look pretty out of place down in a basement full of rejected furniture from the seventies and eighties.
On the far wall was a bookcase. Once he started reading the titles, he thought that maybe Ty had been right about Aaron’s grandmother being some kind of witch, since there were lots of titles about plants and philosophy and mysticism. At least half were written in Spanish, so he couldn’t say for sure what their subjects were, although he guessed they were probably more of the same.
Still, while all that was interesting, he didn’t see anything that looked like a witch’s knot — or any other kind of symbol, for that matter. He was just about to head back up the stairs when a small rectangle of white paper on the worn shag carpet caught his eye.
At once, he bent down to pick it up. As soon as his fingers touched the paper, he realized it was actually cardstock, and that what he held was a business card.
August Sellers, General Manager, Aquarius Casino and Resort, it read, followed by a phone number.
Why the hell would there be a business card from a casino executive down here?
Probably not because Aaron’s grandmother had been a gambler.
No, Caleb remembered all too well how his and Delia’s first adversary in Las Vegas had been Robert Hendricks, a vice president at the Dunes casino, someone connected to a shadowy outfit in Southern California called The Styx Group. Despite Pru’s best efforts, they hadn’t been able to dig up very much about the company, and so the investigation had been pushed off to the side after they had to deal with the much more immediate problem of Aegis Holdings.
In that case, “Robert Hendricks” had really been the demon Calach, masquerading as a casino exec.
What if this August Sellers was yet another demon, this one reaching out to Aaron because it had recognized the weakness in the man and wanted to exploit it in whatever way he could?
What if this demon was the one who’d kidnapped Delia?
Caleb realized all this was something of a reach, mostly because he had no way of knowing whether Mr. Sellers was even a demon.
