Page 69 of Devil in the Details

The sigil he’d seen on Lou Bishop’s wrist. That one brief glimpse hadn’t been enough for Caleb to tell exactly what it was. Some way of controlling the man? Did that mean he wasn’t a demon, but only someone who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time, a useful tool for Hank to discard when he didn’t need him anymore?

He didn’t know. Sure, he was a quarter demon, but this still felt way above his pay grade.

“Did Ty say anything to you?”

One corner of Delia’s mouth quirked. “He said he knew you’d go on to the next round.”

Caleb supposed he should be glad for such faith in his poker-playing abilities, but that wasn’t really what he’d been asking about. “Anything else?”

Her expression abruptly sobered. “He basically admitted that he woke up these weird psychic powers of mine…not that they were of much help today. But he also said they would have come to the forefront eventually even without his intervention. He just sort of helped them along.”

One mystery cleared up. That didn’t mean a whole lot more of them weren’t still unsolved.

“I guess that’s something,” Caleb said, then poured some more wine for both of them, since their glasses were almost empty. “But I’m not sure it’s enough to convince me to stay in the tournament.”

She’d picked up her glass after he’d refilled it and now settled against the back of her chair, expression earnest. “I have to believe you were there for a reason. Otherwise, you would’ve gotten knocked out early in the competition.”

He couldn’t help shaking his head at that comment. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Maybe she didn’t quite roll her eyes, but he could tell she wasn’t going to let it go, either. “This isn’t about my confidence in your abilities. It’s about believing there has to be some purpose to all this beyond you just figuring out whether you could hold your own at Texas Hold ’Em without any help from your powers.”

Well, that was how it had all started. Idle curiosity…along with a desire to show that he could do just fine at acting like a regular mortal.

But the whole thing had grown far beyond that, turning into some monstrous bloom straight out of Little Shop of Horrors. Backing away now might not even be an option.

Even if he still wanted to argue his side of the situation.

“Sometimes things don’t have any real meaning,” he said. “They just are.”

“Are all demons nihilists?”

“I’m not a nihilist,” he returned calmly. “Just realistic.”

Both her eyebrows lifted, but she didn’t reply at once, and instead scooped up some lo mein with her chopsticks and put it in her mouth. A moment while she chewed, her expression still thoughtful, and then she spoke again.

“I think we both have to acknowledge that our ‘real’ might be a little different from that of the rest of the population. Not when you’re part demon, and I have these psychic powers appearing from nowhere, and we’re dealing with a guy who might be an angel or at least angel-adjacent. In that kind of world, it’s very possible that things do happen for a reason. And if that’s the truth, then you need to acknowledge there may be a real purpose to you playing in that tournament, even if it’s just to protect the other players from getting hurt.”

Caleb wanted to argue that no one had been hurt. Sure, he’d gotten the sense of people’s life force being drained by whatever infernal spell or enchantment Hank Bowers had been trying to cast, but it wasn’t as if the losing players hadn’t walked away from the table under their own power or anything close to it.

Then again, he supposed that having people carried off in stretchers might have been bad for business…or at least would have attracted far too much notice.

Maybe they would have gotten hurt, though, if it hadn’t been for whatever kind of interference Ty Carter and his two companions had been running.

And since Caleb knew he was hip to Hank Bowers’ game, that meant he would be extra vigilant in the next round.

“Okay, fine,” he said, knowing he wasn’t being exactly gracious in defeat, not with that annoyed note in his voice. “I won’t bail on the competition. But if Bowers or any of the other players turn into big, scaly demons and go on the attack, I’m outta there.”

“Oh, come on,” Delia replied. She was smiling now, a sure sign that she knew she’d come out on top in this particular debate. “You know I always carry holy water with me. No matter what kind of tricks they try to pull, we’ll be ready for them.”

Not for the first time, Caleb thought it was a very good thing that he had someone like Delia Dunne to watch his back. After spending most of his life thinking he was utterly on his own when crunch time came around, he had to admit her support was a welcome change of pace.

“True,” he allowed. “Or at least, we’ll be as ready as we can be. But if there’s one thing I know about demons, it’s that they don’t like to do anything that outs them for what they are. They much prefer to work in the shadows.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call running a poker tournament ‘working in the shadows.’”

Caleb shrugged, then popped a piece of cashew chicken in his mouth. “It is when no one else knows demons are involved. See, the thing is, if people are forced to admit that demons are real, then they also have to allow for the existence of Hell. And if Hell exists, then Heaven does, too, and that’s not anything the folks downstairs want to become a common belief.”

Delia didn’t look all that convinced by his argument. “Lots of people already believe in Heaven,” she pointed out.

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