Page 35 of Speak of the Devil

He didn’t bother to ask what she meant by the question. “Yes, I’m the one who got rid of the ghost. He was a pretty nasty customer.”

Was that a trace of a smile that touched her lips?

“Obviously, or he wouldn’t have tried to push me into the pool.” Her gaze sharpened. “Did he do that because he didn’t want to move on?”

It seemed she’d decided to set aside the whole part-demon thing for now…or at least wanted a few other matters cleared up first. “Considering he was a serial killer who was going straight to Hell the second he stopped haunting that house, yes.”

Now Delia wore the expression of someone who thought she could use a drink, even if she would never be so unprofessional as to say such a thing out loud to him.

“Aserial killer?” she repeated, her tone incredulous.

“Yep,” Caleb said. “The bodies of five women are buried under the floor of the bonus room on the lower level.”

Like most redheads, Delia was naturally fair-skinned. Right now, she’d turned so pale that she looked as if she was about to faint.

“Bodies? How can you know that?”

“Because the ghost passed through me on his way to get to you in that pantry,” Caleb replied. “For a second, our consciousnesses were mingled, and I could see everything about him, could see how hard he was trying to avoid going to Hell. Since that’s exactly where he was supposed to be, I sent him there myself.”

“Well…thank you, I guess.” She was quiet for a moment, then said, “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to deal with all this.”

“You deal with ghosts all the time,” he pointed out.

Her mouth twisted into a rueful smile. “Somehow, this feels different.”

Caleb could see why she might view the situation that way. Leaning forward a little — although he knew better than to rest his elbows on her desk or do anything that might be construed as invading her personal space — he said, “It’s not that complicated. Demons come and go from Earth all the time. A few of them in Greencastle hung around long enough to have offspring with humans, and then those half-demons had children as well. That’s how you get someone like me.”

“So…you’re more human than you are demon.”

A simple fact he’d tried to point out to Rosemary McGuire on more than one occasion. Right now, he could only be glad that Delia was being so sensible.

“Yes,” he said. “So were all my friends who were sent to Hell along with me.”

Her eyes widened a little in comprehension. “The ones who were supposedly on the fishing boat with you.”

It was hard to think of all of them still trapped down there. When crunch time had arrived, though, none of his friends had been close enough to the portal back to this world to have a chance to escape the way he did.

“And their fathers,” Caleb said, adding, “I’m not sure why, but at least in our group, none of the demons had anything more than a single son each.”

“No girls?” Delia asked then, looking startled.

“None.”

His father had never explained why demon blood only bred males, and Caleb still couldn’t say for sure whether that was because he thought it was immaterial or because he simply didn’t know. Considering the way Daniel Lockwood had wanted to maintain an aura of invincibility at all times, Caleb guessed it was the latter.

After absorbing that reply, Delia said, “Are there others like you?”

A valid enough question, one he’d certainly pondered himself more than once. “Not that I’m aware of,” he said. “Or at least, I’ve never encountered anyone else who seems to have mixed human and demon blood. I’m not sure why, except that there were…special circumstances…surrounding our group in Greencastle.”

Circumstances that had involved the demon prince Belial bringing his chosen lieutenants to this plane to carry out his dirty work, but Caleb didn’t think he needed to go into all that now. It was ancient history as far as he was concerned.

Especially now that Belial was dead and could no longer inflict his terrible will upon this world.

Delia’s lips parted as though she wanted to inquire further about Greencastle, but then she shut them again, clearly not sure how she should respond to his statement.

“But that doesn’t mean demons don’t still come to this plane from time to time, for various reasons,” he added. “I just ran into a pretty ugly customer in the parking garage at the Bellagio.”

Upon hearing that revelation, her hazel green eyes widened. “The third level?”

---