The bartender came over, and Caleb asked what they had on tap. He’d already decided a beer was probably his best bet, mostly because he could nurse a beer for a while and not look too suspicious. Also, a beer had a low enough alcohol content that he wouldn’t have to worry about being even the slightest bit impaired. Booze didn’t affect him the same way it might someone who didn’t have any demon blood in their veins, but he still thought it better to play it safe.
So he ordered a Modelo and was a little surprised to see Ty do the same thing. For some reason, he’d thought the half angel — all right, Caleb still didn’t know for sure what Ty was, but “half angel” was a convenient shorthand for now — would order something even wimpier, like maybe a white wine spritzer.
“Do you really think she’s going to have any luck?” Ty asked after he’d sipped some of his beer.
The bar was just chaotic and noisy enough, what with slot machines ringing away in the background and a veritable army of cocktail waitresses coming and going, that Caleb had already guessed no one was paying any particular attention to them. However, he noticed how Ty hadn’t spoken in any specifics and knew he should do the same.
“Hard to say,” he said, then had a swallow of Modelo. Maybe it wasn’t particularly high-octane, but it sure felt good going down after wandering around outside in the heat. “She’s definitely good at digging up stuff online. I just don’t know for sure how effective she is at talking to people face-to-face. Then again, she’s been working as a P.I. for at least the past five or six years. If she sucked at it, I doubt she would have been able to keep going that long.”
Ty appeared to think this assessment was a valid one, since he nodded and drank some more beer. The whole time, though, he kept scanning the casino floor, as though he halfway expected to see August Sellers or maybe some of his lackeys walk through at any time.
“Are there any here?” Caleb asked, and one of Ty’s eyebrows tilted slightly.
“Any what?”
“You know…people like me.”
Caleb knew better than to say the word “demon” out loud.
For a moment, Ty didn’t reply. Then he shook his head. “Not that I can tell. However, there’s a lot of chaotic energy here. It’s hard to pick out anything in particular.”
Well, that was true. Although Caleb was used to the frenetic vibe inside casinos by now, he thought there was something extra here, an edge to the atmosphere that he hadn’t experienced before. It thrummed at the edges of his perception, making him just slightly off balance.
Good thing he’d already decided on only the one beer and nothing else.
The half angel continued, “And you feel it, too, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Caleb replied. “What is it?”
Ty tilted his head in a direction that was probably southeast, although it was hard to tell for sure. “The river. Its energies are difficult for de — for people like you to handle. It’s a little easier for you because you don’t have as much of that blood in you, but you can still feel it.”
That was for sure. Caleb found himself hoping their little foray here wouldn’t require them to actually cross the Colorado River, because he wasn’t sure whether he could handle having all those millions of gallons of psychically charged water flowing right under his feet.
“Good thing I didn’t have any plans to go jet-skiing.”
The half angel actually grinned, then picked up his pint of beer again and took a sip. “Do you ever take anything seriously?”
Well, there was a question. Caleb knew he could be serious when the occasion warranted — he knew his feelings for Delia were no joke, even if he still didn’t have any idea what to do about them — but he also thought there was no point in being all doom and gloom, either. Sometimes a little levity was what you needed to get through the day.
“When the occasion warrants it,” he replied. “But it’s good to know that I should steer clear of the river, just in case. Let’s hope Mr. Sellers hasn’t taken Aaron out on his houseboat or something.”
“If he’s even here at all,” Ty said. “Just because you found that business card doesn’t mean there’s a direct connection with what’s been going on. For all we know, Aaron was just trying to sell the man a house.”
That thought hadn’t even crossed Caleb’s mind. However, he was forced to reluctantly admit that Aaron Sanchez was a realtor — albeit one who’d just gotten fired from the agency where he worked — and some kind of real estate transaction was the most likely explanation for why Aaron would have had August Sellers’ business card.
“What about the Watchers?” Caleb asked next, and Ty shrugged and reached for his beer.
“They won’t intervene,” Ty said. “That’s not their place. But I know they’ve noted our presence here and are standing back to see what we do.”
Which, at the moment, wasn’t much of anything. But they were here now, so they needed to wait and hear what Pru had to say.
She came by about ten minutes later, long after Ty and Caleb had exhausted any topics that might safely be discussed in public. Since she was practically beaming, he hoped that meant she had some good news to share.
However, she tilted her head toward them and then away from the bar, indicating she wanted to talk someplace a little more private.
Fine by him. He was just getting to the point where he would have needed to order another beer anyway, and he would have rather avoided doing that.
The two men followed Pru through the casino and off to a little alcove away from the crowd. Possibly, one time it had housed a series of pay phones, but now it was utterly empty except for a single forlorn-looking trash can.
