Page 13 of Speak of the Devil

She let the words trail off there because she honestly couldn’t remember his last name. Still, it would have been easy enough to look up.

“Michael Covenant,” Robert said smoothly. “And yes, we tried reaching out to him, but he told us that he wasn’t traveling to handle cases of infestation or possession while his wife was finishing up her doctorate in Tucson.”

“If that’s even what’s going on here,” Delia replied. “It doesn’t sound as if the demon you’re worried about has taken up residence anywhere in particular, so this wouldn’t be an infestation.”

“I suppose that’s true enough,” Robert said, looking unfazed. “But our problematic friend is still causing a good deal of trouble for the casinos, and we’d like it stopped sooner rather than later.”

Delia wasn’t sure exactly how she was supposed to accomplish that. Sure, she could send ghosts on to their next reward without too much trouble, but a demon? Would they expect her to fling holy water around and say things like,I cast you out, demon!

Somehow, the mental image made her want to chuckle, even as she guessed that Robert wouldn’t be too happy to hear she was somewhat amused by the situation.

“I’m not sure,” she said, each word slowed by reluctance. “This really sounds like something a priest should handle.”

“We plan to ask for the church’s intervention at some point if necessary,” Robert replied, clearly not put off by her comment. “But we don’t want to do that until we’re sure of what we’re dealing with. That’s where you come in. Once you can tell us definitively that you’ve sensed a demon’s presence in one or more of our casinos, then we’ll go to a priest for help.”

Well, that sounded a little better. It didn’t seem as if Robert and the other casino owners had any intention of putting her in harm’s way, only wanted her to use her talents to give them some confirmation that their current problem was much more than a single grifter who’d figured out how to cheat at both dice and cards. Once she’d ID’d the problem, then she could step aside and let the real experts handle it, much like a house inspector who might call out issues with the wiring and the plumbing but who would then have actual contractors come in to fix the problem.

“I can’t promise anything — ” she began.

“I don’t expect you to,” Robert cut in, his tone friendly enough that the interruption didn’t feel rude. “I know this isn’t an exact science. But to show you that we’re serious….”

He reached into the inner pocket of his sportcoat and pulled out an envelope, then set it on the tabletop and pushed it toward her.

Almost of its own accord, her hand reached for the envelope and she looked inside, expecting a cashier’s check or maybe even a check drawn on the casino Robert represented.

But no, the envelope contained several stacks of bills held in place with rubber bands.

“That’s ten thousand,” he said. “If you’re able to find traces of demonic activity in our casinos and we’re eventually able to catch our culprit, we’ll double it. But no matter what happens, you can keep the deposit.”

Ten grand, just for walking into a casino and taking a psychic sniff.

And let’s not forget the possibility of earning twice that amount.

Delia reached for her Americano. “Well, Mr. Hendricks,” she said. “It looks like you’ve hired yourself a demon whisperer.”

Chapter Five

This particular night,Caleb didn’t plan on winning anything substantial. Although he hadn’t sensed anything obviously amiss, his sixth sense told him that it was better to lie low for a while, even if he had no intention of stopping these casino visits altogether.

They were the closest thing he had to a social life.

So he played craps and blackjack and Texas Hold ’Em, won a hundred bucks here, lost fifty there, and did his best to give off the aura of someone who was in Las Vegas to have a good time but definitely wasn’t serious about gambling. Tonight he wore the face of someone close to his age, a Hispanic man around thirty, and drank a couple of cocktails and flirted with the waitress, all while he wondered just what the hell — no pun intended — he was doing here.

Sure, he wasn’t buried in snowdrifts, and sure, no one in Las Vegas knew who Caleb Lockwood even was, but still, deep down he realized he couldn’t hang out in casinos forever, even if doing so helped pad his bottom line.

With the new identity he’d invented for himself, he could have done anything he liked.

Well, almost anything. Part of the reason he’d been okay with following his father’s orders and going to L.A. to find the missingProject Demon Huntersfootage was that he’d gotten to work in the television industry while there, had gotten just a taste of the one thing he’d actually wanted, which was to go to film school and make directing or producing or something along those lines his career. His father had put his foot down, of course, because Caleb’s role in life had been to do whatever Daniel Lockwood said…and to eventually take over as bank president once his father’s tenure on Earth was over and he needed to return to Hell.

Being trapped in Hell was almost preferable to staring at spreadsheets all day.

None of that had come to pass, of course, thanks to the way the half-demons and their sons had been banished from this plane, and even though he was now free of his father, Caleb knew he didn’t dare go near Southern California, not when he was worried that Rosemary or someone else in theProject Demon Huntersgang might somehow be able to sniff out his presence there.

So, Las Vegas it was. But maybe he could pad his resume to get himself a job in local TV news, something like that. It would have to be behind the scenes, since he’d never had any desire to be on camera — and doing so probably wouldn’t have been the safest thing in the world anyhow, considering the way he was trying to maintain a low profile — and yet he knew he needed to find something to occupy his time.

Meanwhile, though, he’d gamble and go to the shows, or hang out in the updated Brady Bunch house he’d bought and do his best to act as though everything in his life was just hunky-dory.

As he went to cash in his winnings, though, a woman with long red hair walked past him, and he found himself stopping so he could stare after her.

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