Page 43 of Speak of the Devil

One gin and tonic definitely wasn’t enough to make him forget all his precautions and have the driver go straight to his house.

And because it was Vegas and there were hundreds of rideshare cars roaming the city at any given time, one showed up less than five minutes after he made the request.

“Foursquare Plaza,” he told the guy, even though the driver would have already known their destination from the app.

“Got it,” the man said. He was probably around Caleb’s age, with dark hair and a scruff of beard covering his chin. “Caleb Lowe, right?”

“That’s me,” Caleb replied, which seemed to be enough to satisfy the man that he had the correct person riding in his car.

After that brief exchange, though, the guy went quiet, and Caleb was fine with that. While in general he didn’t mind chatting with his Uber and Lyft drivers — he’d gotten some valuable local area knowledge through those exchanges — today he only wanted to be left alone to think.

Radio silence from Delia, and he didn’t know why he should be so bothered by that. It had only been a few hours since he last saw her, and it wasn’t as if the title check could have been completed that quickly. There was no reason for them to be in contact.

Except for the part where he’d hit her with some pretty earth-shattering information, and for some reason, he’d thought she might have more questions for him.

Apparently not.

Rain continued to fall, not as hard as an hour or so ago, but enough that all the streets were slick and people seemed to drive crazier than ever. Once or twice, the driver had to speed up or hit the brakes to avoid a collision, and Caleb found himself questioning his decision to Uber home. Yes, he knew it would look suspicious to go into a casino bathroom and teleport back to his house from there — the casinos had cameras everywhere, and they’d surely record a strange man heading into a restroom and never coming out, the whole reason why he took taxis and Ubers on the majority of these forays — but that still had to be better than getting creamed in a car accident.

Well, it couldn’t be helped now. His fingers tightened around the strap of the backpack that still hung from one shoulder, although he wasn’t sure what that would do.

Up ahead, the light turned yellow, and the driver accelerated.

Goddamn it.

Approaching from the left was a big black truck, and Caleb knew they weren’t going to make it. The Uber was a Mazda CX-5, a decent-sized vehicle, but that truck still massed a whole lot more.

His body clenched in advance of the impact. While he knew a car accident wouldn’t kill him — even part demons were tougher than that — it didn’t mean it still wouldn’t hurt…a lot.

Wham!

The truck collided with the Mazda’s front fender, and the SUV began to spin, gray skies and raindrops and the other vehicles in the intersection whirling all around him like some kind of horrible kaleidoscope.

And in the front seat, the driver turned to look over his shoulder, his mouth spreading in a horrible rictus of a grin.

A grin that kept widening, now showing yellow, jagged fangs.

Shit.

Even though the Mazda was still spinning, Caleb grabbed hold of the seatbelt and unlatched it. While he thought he might be able to teleport with the thing holding him in place, he didn’t want to waste the time to find out.

Not with that disguised imp in the driver’s seat, a demon who clearly wanted him out of commission for a while.

Still clutching the disguised messenger bag, he visualized the kitchen at his house, with its white quartz countertops and dark blue cabinets…cabinets that held some pretty fine tequila.

He was definitely going to need a drink after this.

And then he was out of the spinning vehicle and safely home. The world still revolved around him for a few seconds until his inner ear got caught up and realized he was now standing on solid ground.

Damn. That had been a close one.

He went to one of the cupboards and got out a shot glass, then headed into the pantry to pick up the bottle of Lalo he’d snagged at Total Wine a few weeks earlier. After pouring himself a half inch or so, he took one gulp, then another, and refilled the glass.

Outside, the rain began to pour down harder, so he went into the living room, turned on the fireplace, and sat on the couch.

A good day to stay home.

If only he’d done that very thing.

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