Page 55 of Devil in the Details

“It’s still a kind of communication,” he responded. “So maybe it’s not so strange that it’s started to…branch out, for lack of a better way to put it.”

Delia didn’t think she liked the sound of that idea at all. Over the years, she’d gotten used to her quirky little talent, especially since she thought she could do some good with it. But she’d prefer to stay out of other people’s heads, thank you very much.

“I don’t know,” she said, knowing she probably sounded way too stubborn. On the other hand, she guessed that a lot of people might have an issue with psychic talents popping up out of nowhere, so her defensiveness on the topic probably wasn’t so strange. “I guess I find it hard to believe that my gift…if you want to call it that…could suddenly start morphing into something else.”

For a moment, Caleb didn’t reply. Instead, he ate a bite of shawarma, washed it down with some wine, and then said, “Back in California, there was this woman named Audrey Barrett.”

“An ex-girlfriend?” Delia asked with a curl of her lip.

“No,” he said, now looking amused. “She’s married to a guy named Michael Covenant. He’s a demonologist.”

“Ah,” Delia said, although she couldn’t really see where Caleb was going with this.

“Anyway,” he went on, expression undaunted, “she was a marriage and family counselor when she met Michael. Not a single drop of psychic blood, as far as she knew. But after she was around Michael and was exposed to a pretty crazy demon infestation, her talents began to develop. These days, she’s a powerful psychic.”

For a moment, Delia could only stare back at Caleb. “So, what,” she said slowly, “you’re saying that because I’ve spent all this time around you, my latent psychic powers are beginning to emerge?”

“Something like that,” he replied. “I mean, I wouldn’t say they were totally latent, not when you’ve been communicating with spirits on some level for years. But it’s possible that being around me has made them stronger, made them something a little different from how they started out.”

Well, that was just fabulous. Her life had been humming along smoothly enough, maybe with a little weirdness thanks to the whole talking to ghosts thing, but overall just fine, and now she was supposed to accept that she could sometimes hear people’s thoughts?

“It’s obviously not constant,” he added, as though trying to comfort her. “I mean, can you hear what I’m thinking right now?”

Delia stared across the table at him. His whole attitude was utterly casual, so she didn’t think she’d be able to discern his thoughts merely from his posture.

“No,” she said after a moment.

“Well, then,” he replied, as if that solved everything, and then picked up the bottle of wine and poured them each a little more.

She didn’t think he’d proved anything at all. “What were you thinking?”

“That we should have ordered some baklava for dessert.”

For a second, she only gazed at him blankly, and then an unwilling chuckle emerged from her throat. “I suppose you have a point there.”

He grinned in response. “I’m sure what happened last night was kind of disconcerting. But it doesn’t look as if you’ve had some sort of ‘always on’ mind-reading talent descend on you, so I don’t think it’s so bad. And it could come in handy one day.”

Possible, like if the thoughts of one of the people he was trying to investigate came through loud and clear when she was standing nearby. However, Delia thought the odds of that happening were fairly low, especially when you considered she’d been near Ty Carter for the greater part of fifteen minutes and hadn’t heard a single one of his thoughts.

Or maybe this weird offshoot of her supposed talent only worked properly after she’d had a couple of margaritas. With so many variables involved, it was really hard to say for sure what had caused her to hear Aaron Sanchez’s voice in her head…or what it would take for that mental power to wake up again.

“I suppose so,” she said, but wasn’t willing to allow anything more than that.

Caleb smiled again. “I guess we’ll just have to see what happens next.”

Chapter Fourteen

Although he could tell Delia was rattled by the sudden shift in her psychic abilities, Caleb thought it was a promising development. Of course he’d never ask her to listen to his opponents’ thoughts when he was playing poker — if he wasn’t going to use his demon gifts for that sort of activity, then he obviously wouldn’t ask his friend to do something so morally gray — but still, there was always the chance that she’d be able to see into someone’s head at exactly the right moment and possibly give them an advantage they hadn’t been expecting.

By the time he left her house, she seemed a little less on edge, so he figured he’d done his best. At least she appeared to understand that, while unusual, this sort of thing wasn’t utterly unprecedented, and since she hadn’t heard a single blip from him the entire evening, then she probably wouldn’t have to worry about other people’s thoughts intruding on her at odd times.

He’d gotten her to promise to reach out if anything else strange happened, and then he’d headed home. That drive had been uneventful as usual, so he wondered if maybe the demons had done their worst and he could let down his guard a bit.

Or maybe they’d backed off precisely so he’d get careless.

Well, that wasn’t going to happen. He still checked to make sure he wasn’t being followed, and before he’d left Delia’s house, she’d loaded him up with another half-dozen bottles of holy water.

“I got a refill from Father Bryce,” she’d told him with a laughing glint in her blue-gray eyes as she named the Episcopalian priest who was her source for the blessed liquid, and Caleb could only be glad she was doing her best to handle the situation with as much good humor as she could summon.

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