Page 10 of Devil in the Details

He carefully traced lines of holy water around the glass doors that opened onto the patio at the new place, then did the same thing for the front door and the one that led into the garage. From there, he drew more lines of the blessed liquid on the fireplace and all the windows on the ground floor, as well as his bedroom window and those of the secondary bedrooms upstairs.

Not for the first time, he reflected that it was a good thing his mostly human blood protected him from suffering any ill effects from the holy water. It was anathema to demons, but he might as well have been shielding his house with Evian water for all the damage it did to him.

Although sometimes his mixed blood could be a real pain in the ass — such as allowing him to be banished if the person doing the banishing had the right tricks up their sleeve — during instances such as this, he could only look on it as a blessing.

Once that task was handled, he headed back downstairs, figuring he’d maybe watch the last bit of the Golden State Warriors game that had just started as he and Delia were leaving the restaurant. Although he wouldn’t have done anything so rude as to ignore her to pay attention to basketball, he was still kind of glad that he would be able to catch the final quarter.

He grabbed an IPA from the fridge and headed down to the rumpus room — well, it was more of a man cave now, with dark green paint on the walls and leather couches. The big TV he’d brought from the old house still sat upstairs, waiting to be moved down here, but a slightly smaller one was already in place in the man cave, which made this the logical spot for basketball watching.

Some people might have been bothered by the admittedly gruesome history of the room, how the serial killer who once had resided here had hidden the corpses of five women beneath this very floor. But Caleb knew the killer’s victims had never haunted the house, and with their remains now safely interred — he’d seen a small piece online about how two of the women still hadn’t been identified, but all of them had been given proper burials — he figured he didn’t have anything to worry about.

Well, not from ghosts, anyway.

At the moment, he was more annoyed than worried that demons might have been meddling with his former house. Here he’d thought he’d settled into a new normal…or at least, as normal as his life could ever be, considering who he was and where he’d come from…and now it seemed as if Hell wasn’t quite done with him yet.

So far, though, there didn’t seem to be any sign that they knew he’d moved here, and he knew he’d do everything in his power to keep it that way.

Maybe he should get a different car?

He liked the Range Rover, but he supposed it was possible that it would be harder to track his movements if he had a couple of vehicles he could switch between when necessary. Something completely different from the big black SUV, possibly a Porsche convertible or another similar car. Las Vegas had plenty of high-end vehicles on the streets, so a Porsche most likely wouldn’t even merit a second look.

Well, he’d figure that out eventually.

He picked up the remote and turned on the TV. Commercials, of course, one for a Chevy SUV, with the one that followed a pitch for Budweiser. His nose wrinkled. That stuff might have been okay when he was drinking under the bleachers with friends at his old high school’s football field, but he liked to believe that his palate had improved since then.

And then there was a fast flash of an ad for the poker tournament at the Desert Paradise casino, a quickie with some splashy graphics and a reminder that qualifying rounds started on Thursday and ran through Saturday, with the quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals following the next week.

Since Caleb had already read up on the competition, this was all old news to him. Still, he was a little impressed that the tournament organizers had gone to the trouble of paying for an ad, even a short fifteen-second spot that probably hadn’t cost too much.

Were they trying to get more participants, or simply doing their best to get the word out whichever way they could?

The people running the tournament hadn’t sent an email blast detailing the number of people who’d actually be playing, so he didn’t have any real idea as to their motivations. Now, though, as he sipped some more of his IPA, he began to wonder if maybe Delia had the right idea and it wasn’t very smart to participate in anything quite so visible.

Another swallow of pale ale reassured him, however. This wasn’t one of those huge tournaments that would be televised on ESPN or whatever. No, this was just an attempt by a second-tier casino to draw more spectators in to watch the game play — people who would be inspired by the professionals or semi-professionals playing in the competition and head to the gambling tables to try their luck…and lose, of course, because otherwise, the casino wouldn’t see any real profit.

And profit was king, whether you were the biggest casino on the Strip or some tired old relic from the 1960s that was just trying to get by.

Most likely, if Delia were here now, she’d try once again to persuade him that playing in the tournament wasn’t the smartest idea in the world, especially now that it seemed as if the demon faction had poked up their ugly heads again. However, he’d only argue that he had just as much chance of being spotted by one of them at the local Safeway as he did at the casino, since the tournament was the sort of thing that would probably fly under most people’s radars, even with those short blips of strategically placed TV ads.

Besides, he had no intention of using his powers at the tournament. This was all about honing his actual poker skills, not using magical shortcuts. Without any flashy displays of demonically fueled luck, there was far less chance of any demons noticing him.

Or anyone else taking a second look at his playing, for that matter.

And while winning might be nice — the $50K minimum payout could only help to plump his coffers — it wasn’t as if he needed the money. He would get much, much more from the sale of his former house, especially since the comps seemed to show that it would probably go for at least fifty grand above what he’d paid, thanks to the recent improvements in the market and even the time of year. People liked to buy houses in March. Late November?

Not so much.

The game came back on, and the Golden State Warriors were ten points ahead. He settled against the back of the couch, taking in his surroundings, reminding himself that this was his new home and everything was going to be fine.

Of course it was.

Real estate agents were on call pretty much seven days a week, so Delia couldn’t let herself get too annoyed that her phone started ringing at around five-thirty that afternoon, the home screen showing a number she didn’t recognize. Over the years, she’d trained herself to let calls go to voicemail when she wanted to be left alone, but it wasn’t as if she was busy doing anything important today, not when the listing for Caleb’s house was finished and already live, and she should have been sitting on the couch with her feet up, watching something mindless.

That was exactly what she’d been doing when the phone rang, but she wasn’t so engaged that she couldn’t hit the mute button on the remote and then reach for her iPhone, which she almost always kept within arm’s reach unless she was in the shower or something.

“Delia Dunne,” she said, making sure she sounded crisp and professional even though she was on her sofa with bare feet curled under her and a muted House Hunters on the TV a few yards away.

“Hello, Ms. Dunne.” A man’s voice, also smooth and businesslike. No trace of an accent, so she thought he was probably from the West Coast somewhere.

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