Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Also by Christine Pope

  About the Author

  This a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO LAUGHLIN

  Copyright © 2025 by Christine Pope

  Published by Dark Valentine Press

  Cover design by Indie Author Services

  Ebook formatting by Indie Author Services

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems — except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews — without permission in writing from its publisher, Dark Valentine Press.

  To be notified about new releases by Christine Pope, please sign up here.

  Chapter One

  Caleb Lockwood didn’t like to think of himself as a hoverer, but he still found himself going back and forth from the kitchen more times than he would have liked — trying to decide whether it was time to get the bottle of Cristal out of the fridge or whether he should wait until Delia got here, starting to pour some cashews into a bowl and then wondering if nuts would be too much in addition to the strawberries and artisanal crackers and cheese he’d picked up at a gourmet shop just the day before.

  Oh, the hell with it. Delia already knew he wasn’t the most understated guy in the world. In fact, she probably expected him to go kind of over the top to celebrate the sale of his former house.

  He got out the bowl of nuts and set it on the coffee table in the living room. The weather was far too warm to even think about having a fire in the floor-to-ceiling fireplace that dominated the space — now that it was the beginning of May, temperatures in Las Vegas had parked themselves in the mid- and upper eighties — but he still preferred to hang out in here unless he was watching TV. That activity had been relegated to his man cave on the lower level next to the garage, where his hundred-inch television held court.

  Good thing he’d gotten over his dithering about the cashews, because the doorbell rang just a few seconds later. Caleb still hadn’t given up hoping that one day they’d get past the point where Delia felt the need to use the doorbell, that maybe they’d be close enough that she’d have a key to the house, but they weren’t there yet.

  No, despite everything they’d gone through together — haunted houses and demon attacks and supernaturally charged poker tournaments — he was still firmly stuck in the friend zone.

  But he smiled anyway when he opened the door, glad that she’d been able to carve out some time from her busy schedule at the real estate business she co-owned with her mother so she could come to the house and celebrate the closing of escrow on his previous home, the place where he’d first landed when he came to Las Vegas. However, he’d quickly realized that he far preferred this property, the one he’d ostensibly bought to flip.

  This was his home now, and he knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Congratulations!” Delia told him. She was holding an elegant white orchid in a black pot, something he knew she’d chosen because it would go perfectly with the black-and-white color scheme of the house.

  And it seemed she’d decided to carry that theme into her outfit, since she was wearing a sleeveless white blouse with some black embroidery around the neckline and black skinny jeans. Against her copper-red hair, the stark tones of the ensemble were particularly striking.

  Maybe one day he’d stop getting blown away by her beauty all over again any time he saw her after a gap of more than a few days.

  Probably not, though.

  “Thanks,” he said, stepping aside so she could enter the foyer. Not even a glance around, which didn’t surprise him too much. After all, she was the one who’d helped him pick out the flooring and the light fixtures and the white-veined black soapstone that covered the fireplace and stretched up to the vaulted ceiling. “I’m glad you didn’t think I was going over the top with this.”

  “Of course not,” she assured him as they headed into the living room. “Closing escrow is a big deal.”

  “Even though we already went out to dinner to celebrate when I accepted the buyer’s offer?”

  “Even then,” she replied at once, a slight twinkle in her blue-gray eyes. “I mean, it’s great to get an offer and accept it, but until escrow closes, a deal doesn’t feel finished.”

  No, it hadn’t felt anything like a fait accompli, especially since the buyer’s offer was contingent on their own house selling. Their home had already been in escrow, but if that deal had fallen through, the whole transaction could have collapsed like a house of cards.

  And while there had been other people interested in the property, he liked the couple who wanted to buy the house. They were in their mid-thirties with two kids, and he knew they’d appreciate the mid-century Brady Bunch vibe of the place. Having to start all over again with another set of buyers hadn’t seemed very appealing.

  Especially since Delia’s prophecy about the collapse of Aegis Holdings had come partially true. The company — which appeared to have been run by demons or at least people possessed by them — had fallen apart after the poker tournament at the Desert Paradise casino just a month earlier. That tournament had been specifically set up to channel diabolical energy through Las Vegas and utilize it for some purpose neither he nor Delia had yet been able to discover, but after Caleb had foiled their plans…using his own quarter-demon powers in a way he still hadn’t quite been able to figure out…Aegis Holdings and most of the people who worked there had pretty much disappeared off the map. The homes they’d owned had been put up for auction, and the glut of properties had caused housing prices in Las Vegas to cool a bit.

  Luckily, his former house was already under contract before the shit really began to hit the fan, and, thank God, the couple who were buying the place hadn’t tried to pull out or renegotiate. Maybe they’d decided it was better to go with a bird in the hand, or maybe they figured the market would bounce back soon enough and it was better to ride out the momentary turbulence.

  “But it feels finished now,” he said, and Delia smiled.

  “Yes,” she said, her tone cheerful. “I should have a cashier’s check for you tomorrow afternoon at the latest.”

  Since today was Sunday, that meant the escrow company was going to be on it first thing Monday morning. While Caleb didn’t exactly need the cash — he had several million bucks stashed in a bunch of banks and credit unions around town, and around the same amount in various investment accounts that his broker handled — he wanted the sense of completion that getting the roughly three-quarters of a million the house had fetched would give him.

  Even if it meant he’d have to open a few more accounts so none of them would go over the $250K FDIC-protected limit.

  Or maybe it was time to start thinking about offshoring his money, even though he’d avoided that step so far because he wasn’t sure whether his fake credentials would hold up under the extra scrutiny. When he’d escaped from Hell and come to Las Vegas, a few inquiries…and a few thousand bucks slipped into the right palms…had gotten him a birth certificate and a credit report under his adopted name of Caleb Lowe. He’d used the birth certificate to get a Nevada driver’s license, but he hadn’t tried for a passport yet.

  Everything was going pretty smoothly, and he hadn’t wanted to rock the boat.

  Delia had moved toward the coffee table and was looking down at the bottle of champagne in its silvery cooling sleeve with some amusement. “Cristal, huh? You don’t mess around, do you?”

  He grinned and took a few steps toward her. “You know I don’t do things by halves.”

  For a second, their eyes met. Caleb thought he could easily drown in those cool, watercolor depths.

  Especially since right now he thought he detected a certain warmth there…unless he was just fooling himself, which was distinctly possible.

  Before the moment could get too tense, though, he thought he’d better speak again.

  “Ever had Cristal?” he asked, his tone deliberately casual.

  Now Delia grinned back at him, her entire face lighting up. She was beautiful all the time, but when she smiled like that, she was positively incandescent.

  “As a matter of fact, I have,” she responded, still looking amused. “One of my friends from college got married to the son of a local developer, and they had a crazy, extravagant wedding. Swans wandering around on the lawn at the country club and a five-course meal and Cristal all ’round — and an open bar for those who weren’t into champagne. The whole thing must have set them back around a million bucks.”

  That was a lot of money to blow on an event that only lasted for one day. Caleb came from wealth himself — he was th
e third generation of demons and part demons from Greencastle, Indiana, and his father had been president of a local bank — but even he was sometimes surprised by the way people threw their cash around.

  Then again, he’d happily spend that much or more to make sure Delia had a perfect day.

  Which was kind of nuts, he knew. They weren’t dating…they hadn’t shared even a single kiss…but he still knew she was the only woman in the world for him.

  And not just because she knew the truth of who and what he was and didn’t seem to care a single bit. Sure, she’d been shocked at first, but now she was someone he had never expected when he moved here, a close friend and a true ally when the supernatural shit hit the fan, which had happened a lot more than he’d planned for.

  “The heart wants what it wants,” he remarked, and Delia’s grin only broadened.

  “I suppose so,” she said. “Still, I don’t think it was a very good investment, considering they got divorced just three years later. No pre-nup, so I think they’re still arguing about who gets the condo in Cabo.”

  “Well, luckily, my real estate deal turned out a bit better than that,” Caleb said. He didn’t want to dwell on her friend’s divorce and would much rather focus on the happy news that had brought Delia here in the first place. “So, I think it’s time for champagne.”

  She nodded, although a certain sly glint in her eyes told him she understood exactly why he’d changed the subject. “And with these high ceilings, you don’t have to worry about blowing a hole in all that new drywall.”

  As if he’d be that clumsy when opening a bottle of champagne. Okay, he didn’t have a huge amount of experience, but all it needed was a little dip into his demonic powers to make sure the cork slid out easily, and soon enough, champagne was flowing into their waiting flutes.

  “Very smooth,” Delia observed, her mouth quirking ever so slightly. “Have you been practicing?”

  “I don’t need to practice,” he replied.

  Her expression sobered a bit, and she gave him a considering look. “No, I don’t suppose you do.”

  Rather than respond directly, he lifted his glass. “Let’s toast to the Baumanns and their drama-free escrow.”

  Delia raised her glass as well. “Good idea.”

  They clinked their flutes together gently, and then each of them took a sip of Cristal. Caleb wouldn’t pretend to know too much about champagne — although he’d been studying wine lately, wanting to make sure he wouldn’t embarrass himself when he took Delia out to dinner — but he thought this was still probably the best bubbly he’d ever had.

  “Go ahead, take a seat,” he urged her, and she settled herself on the sofa, an appreciative glow in her eyes.

  “That’s some good stuff,” she commented, then looked over the food he provided, spread across the glass and black iron coffee table. “And so is all this.”

  “It’s not every day you sell a house,” he said as he sat down as well. On the sofa, too, but far enough away that she couldn’t possibly view his presence as invading her personal space.

  “Unless you’re a real estate agent,” she said with a smile before sipping some more champagne.

  “True,” he agreed. “Speaking of offers, have you heard back about the house in Wyeth Ranch?”

  Because although the collapse of Aegis Holdings had rocked the Las Vegas real estate market, that didn’t mean he didn’t plan to take advantage of it. The property in Wyeth Ranch would be one of their most recent acquisitions if they managed to snag it, and it hadn’t yet been updated and therefore was going for a lot less than most of the other houses that were being liquidated.

  “The auction is on Wednesday,” she replied. A flicker of worry came and went in her expression, and Caleb could tell she wasn’t completely thrilled about getting involved with Aegis again, if only in a peripheral way.

  While he understood her trepidation, he thought she was being a bit too cautious. They’d walked the property with a bunch of other investors who’d been on the same tour set up by the auction company, and he hadn’t detected a single hint of demonic activity in the place. It might have once been owned by a positively diabolical outfit, but the house itself was just an ordinary three-two built in the late eighties and in dire need of some updating.

  Also, Delia hadn’t sensed anything off about the house, either. Although she still steadfastly refused to call herself a psychic, they both knew her powers — which had started as the simple ability to speak to ghosts and help them move on to the next world — had begun to shift and expand after the incident at the Desert Sands casino.

  Well, also after they’d met Ty Carter, a local tennis pro who might or might not be an angel, or at least part one, just as Caleb was part demon. Ty had all but admitted that Delia’s strengthening powers had something to do with him, even though he’d also said they would have expanded without his intervention, if not as quickly.

  Anyway, Delia hadn’t felt anything wrong about the house Caleb wanted to pick up as a cheap flip, which meant he was willing to bid up to a fairly decent price to get his hands on the place. He’d had so much fun working on this house with her that he wanted to do whatever he could to repeat the experience…and making a little extra money on the side wouldn’t hurt, either.

  Also, with the escrow company sending him the payment for the Piñon Drive house sometime tomorrow, that meant he’d have plenty of liquid funds to step in and pay cash if he did manage to have the winning bid.

  “Will you help me with the bidding?” he asked. The auction was being held online, but this would be the first time he’d done anything like this, and he thought it would be good to have her there for moral support.

  Delia’s head tilted to one side, and he thought her expression was one of genuine regret. “I can’t — I already had a couple of showings scheduled with a new client when I found out about the auction. But you’ll do fine on your own. Just make sure you don’t go over $375. That place is going to need at least another sixty or seventy thousand in renovation costs, and you’ll price yourself out of that neighborhood if you go too crazy.”

  Just another thing he loved about her. She was an awesome fellow demon slayer — and she had a brain for real estate unlike few other people he’d met.

  “Got it,” he said. Honestly, it shouldn’t be that big a deal. This particular auction was the kind where you put in your best bid and hoped it would be enough, not the sort where you had to hover over your computer and keep bidding up in increments at the last minute. “Some cheese?”

  They both created little plates of nibbles for themselves, and for a moment or two, they ate quietly and drank champagne, both of them content to enjoy the moment. But then he glimpsed a twinkle in her sea-colored eyes again.

  “You would have had more money to put into the project if you hadn’t given all your tournament winnings away.”

  Because of that glint he’d caught in her eyes, he knew she was teasing him just a little. After all, it didn’t really matter where the money came from for a reno project; you still needed to stick to the budget no matter what.

  “I didn’t want to keep it,” he said. “Sure, I know the casino was just a pawn in Aegis Holdings’ — and Hank Bowers’ — plans, but that money felt tainted to me. Much better to give it away.”

  The whole fifty grand had gone straight to Desert Paws Animal Rescue, a local charity that made sure stray dogs went to loving homes and which also sponsored free and low-cost spay and neuter clinics. Caleb didn’t feel entirely settled enough yet to get a dog…even as he still couldn’t help missing Riley, the German shepherd who’d been his constant companion when he was growing up…but he thought giving a large donation to an organization that worked hard to make pets’ lives better was a good way to show his love for animals.

  Maybe a little strange for a part demon, but…as he’d pointed out to Delia on more than one occasion…he was far more human than he was demon.