Page 66 of Devil in the Details

Two supernatural forces, using the tournament as their battlefield.

When Lou stood to leave after getting knocked out of the game, Caleb noticed something odd — a small sigil visible for just a moment on the man’s wrist as his sleeve rode up. Then it was gone, either hidden again or maybe just fading away.

Across the room, another player was eliminated, and Hank Bowers immediately appeared at that table, offering seemingly casual congratulations to the winner while placing a hand briefly on the departing player’s shoulder. The touch looked innocent enough, but Caleb sensed energy being harvested, collected.

The pattern was becoming clearer with each elimination. Players weren’t just losing; they were being drained. And, judging by the methodical way Hank moved through the tournament area, this had been his plan all along.

Caleb should have guessed no one would be that friendly without having some sort of ulterior motive.

Ty Carter, meanwhile, seemed to be intervening selectively from his spot on the sidelines, allowing some eliminations while subtly influencing others. When Ken made his move against another player, Ty’s attention sharpened, and a counter-current of energy surged, disrupting whatever gambit Ken had been attempting.

“Play to continue for thirty more minutes,” the tournament director announced over the PA system.

As another hand began, Caleb weighed his options. He could continue observing, gathering information, or he could make his move — to try to break the pattern by advancing to the semifinals while disrupting whatever ritual was building.

When he looked over at the place where Delia stood, he noticed her watching Ty Carter’s associates, her cool blue-gray gaze intent on their movements. The taller man had positioned himself near an emergency exit, while the military-looking one had taken up a spot directly behind Ken Steele’s chair.

Their gazes met briefly, and in that moment, Caleb realized she sensed it somehow as well — the supernatural currents flowing through the tournament, the building tension between opposing forces.

He turned his attention back to his cards. Whatever game was being played here went far beyond Texas Hold ’Em.

And he’d have to figure out how best to survive it.

Although Delia hadn’t been able to see everything that was happening at the poker tables, she hadn’t missed the way Caleb had inclined his head toward the burly middle-aged man who seemed to be in charge of the tournament, or at least had a position of some importance in the organization. Whoever the guy was, it seemed Caleb wanted to make sure she kept tabs on him.

She didn’t see anything too out of the ordinary — he made the rounds of the tables, gave several players encouraging pats on the shoulder when they were eliminated, and generally seemed to be acting as both an observer and a support system — but despite all those outward appearances of innocence, she could tell something weird was going on here. Exactly what, she wasn’t sure, but the atmosphere in the room had a strange edge to it, the sort of thing that made the hair want to stand up on the back of her neck.

And then she spotted Ty Carter. He was standing near the bar, but he wasn’t alone. No, two men who looked strangely official lingered nearby, and they exchanged a few words.

She couldn’t hear what they were saying, though, not from this distance, and not with the constantly shifting and murmuring crowds making it difficult to remain focused on anything for longer than a few seconds. The only thing she was able to tell for certain was that the two strangers remained next to Ty for a couple of minutes before they began to weave their way through the crowd, taking up positions at right angles to him, as if they were separate pieces of a tripod or something.

Weirder and weirder.

Ty Carter didn’t seem to be doing much of anything. Whatever the other men had said to him, it didn’t appear to have had much of an effect, because now Ty stood there with his arms crossed, his gaze still fixed on the play taking place at the various tables a few yards away as if it was the most important thing in the world.

Maybe it was.

Would it be completely awkward if she went over and talked to him? Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do if you bumped into an acquaintance in a public place?

The way he reacted to her friendly overture might tell her a whole lot. She didn’t know what was going on at the tournament, and any additional data points could only be helpful.

That seemed to decide things. Since Ty was still standing near the bar, she could make it look as if she’d approached simply to get a drink. And because the tournament organizer had continued to make his rounds of the gaming area, it wasn’t as if she would have to work too hard to keep an eye on him.

Not that she knew why Caleb had wanted her to do such a thing in the first place. Yes, the vibe in here wasn’t anything she’d expected, crackling with weird energy like the atmosphere before a thunderstorm, but that could have just been her nerves talking. She certainly hadn’t seen anything physical that she could actually put a finger on.

It was harder to push her way through the crowd than she’d thought it would be. Eventually, though, she made it to the bar and ordered a white wine spritzer. Something wimpy like that wouldn’t hurt her powers of observation, but it provided a good alibi for why she was over there at all.

When she turned around, drink in hand, she saw Ty Carter watching her with something that almost looked like amusement.

“Hello, Delia,” he said. “Did you come to cheer Caleb on?”

“I did,” she replied. “It looks like he’s holding his own, but I’d be the first to admit that the rules of Texas Hold ’Em are pretty much Greek to me.”

“Oh, Caleb will make it to the next round,” Ty told her. He spoke the words simply, as if they were such an incontrovertible fact that there wasn’t any point in discussing them in depth. “He’s become quite good at all this.”

She supposed he had, or he wouldn’t have even gotten this far. “What brings you here?” she inquired, hoping she sounded as if she was merely indulging some mild curiosity. “Picking up tips for the next time you enter a tournament?”

Ty’s gaze shifted from the gaming tables and focused on her instead. Although the lighting in here was dim enough that she shouldn’t have been able to clearly see their color, they still felt far too bright, piercing and blue as the zircons that were her mother’s birthstone.

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