Page 55 of Speak of the Devil

He came back into the living room, a glass of red wine in each hand. After giving her one, he sat down in one of the club chairs that faced the sofa.

Well, thank God for that. She wasn’t sure how she would have handled him sitting right next to her. At least this way, their meeting could feel halfway formal, even if they were drinking wine.

No offer of a toast, which told her he was pretty good at reading the room.

Then again, she kind of already knew that.

“So…what’s up?” he asked, and sipped some wine.

A swallow of wine sounded like a great idea. She drank some down and guessed it was probably pinot noir or a blend, since it wasn’t heavy enough to be a cab.

“I just had a meeting with Robert Hendricks.”

Caleb didn’t appear overly worried by that revelation. “And?”

“He had some security footage of you.”

At once, Caleb sat up a little straighter, his straight brown brows pulling together. “What?”

All right, now it looked as if he was paying attention. “You were coming out of the men’s restroom at Treasure Island, and the cameras in that hallway caught a little blip as your appearance shifted.”

“Well, shit,” he said, although he still looked more annoyed than concerned, as if he was irritated with himself for being so careless.

“It could be worse,” Delia told him, then sipped some more of her wine. “Luckily, the cameras caught you when you were wearing a different face, so Robert still doesn’t know what you look like. He thinks your real appearance is some Hispanic guy who’s around your same age.” She stopped there and gave Caleb an inquisitive glance. “So…where do you get all these faces youwear, anyway? Are they people you’ve seen on the street or something?”

“Some of them,” he replied. “Some I have an AI generate for me, so they don’t look like anyone in particular. Sometimes that seems safer to me.”

She supposed it would. If he was borrowing a real person’s face, there was always the odd chance that someone might recognize him, whereas if the visage he decided to wear only existed in the mind of an AI, that wouldn’t be an issue.

“Still,” she said, “now they have solid proof that you exist…and that you can shapeshift. It’s probably better if you lie low for a while.”

A quick flash of a grin, the one Caleb seemed to employ whenever he needed to reassure her that everything was cool.

“Already on it,” he replied. “After getting attacked by imp demons twice — imps I realized were trying to keep me from going to the casinos — I decided I’d focus on the remodel and get my money working for me a different way. Speaking of which, do you have any financial advisor recs you can give me?”

He sounded so blithe. And wait…twoattacks? Delia only knew of the one from the parking structure at the Bellagio.

“What was the second attack?” she asked, ignoring the comment about the financial advisor. She had a few people she could recommend, but that didn’t seem like the most pressing matter at the moment.

“Oh, I hired an Uber where the driver turned out to be an imp. He intentionally ran a red light, but I teleported myself out of there right after we got T-boned.”

Once again, she had a hard time understanding how he could be so chill about the whole thing. “So…they already know who you are?”

“I don’t think they know it’s me, me,” Caleb replied calmly, and drank some of his wine. “I think they just detected thepresence of someone of demon-kind. They probably don’t know where I live, or otherwise, they would have come after me here. But they obviously figured out I use Uber a lot to get around. So my plan is to keep a low profile until things calm down a little. Luckily, I’ve got plenty of earnings to live on, so it’s not as if I need to worry about heading out to the gambling tables any time soon.”

She supposed that was something.

“And I doubt they’re going to try to kill me,” he went on, sounding way too blithe, considering the situation. “I think they wanted to send a clear warning that they’re not happy with me taking millions of their money.”

Although she’d already done the unpleasant math in her head, she said, “So…the casino owners are working in concert with the demons?”

“Or some of them might be demons themselves,” Caleb said. He still wore a half-smile, making her think he still wasn’t taking this too seriously. “It’s hard to say without meeting them. Has this Robert Hendricks given you any weird vibes?”

Delia wanted to say no, he hadn’t, but after meeting Caleb, she had to admit that she didn’t quite trust her instincts the way she once had. There hadn’t been a single sign, a single comment or word, that had made her think he was anyone except who he professed to be.

“Nothing I can think of,” she replied. “Which unfortunately doesn’t mean much, because it doesn’t seem as if I’m as good at detecting demons as I am at working with ghosts. But he seems like a regular man to me.”

“He could very well be,” Caleb said. “Lots of instances of humans working with demons and having absolutely no idea who they were interacting with. But I don’t see any reason why we can’t peacefully coexist now that I’ve sworn off the casinos.Demons tend to be single-focus creatures, so once I’m off their radar, it should be fine.”

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