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His mouth opened as if he intended to reply, but the waitress came back then with their glasses of wine and asked what they wanted to order.

Delia stepped in, since she figured she knew the menu better than he did, and ordering first would give him a chance to quickly scan it and decide what he wanted to eat.

“Pasta carbonara, please, and a side salad with balsamic vinaigrette,” she said as she handed over her menu.

The waitress made a notation on her notepad. “And you, sir?”

“The same,” he replied, a bit of that devilish glint back in his dark eyes.

Another note, and the waitress took Caleb’s menu and headed back to the kitchen.

Once she was safely gone, Delia said, “So…someone else at the tournament is a demon?”

He might have winced a little at the “also,” and she realized that had been kind of tactless. Yes, Caleb had demon blood running through his veins, but far more of him was as human as she was.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I could have sworn one of the guys playing at my table was using some kind of magic to influence his cards, but he didn’t win, so maybe I was imagining the whole thing.”

Delia had scolded herself today for seeing things that most likely weren’t even there, so she could relate. On the other hand, Caleb wasn’t the sort of person who manufactured that kind of stuff out of thin air. If he thought he’d seen something, then he probably had.

“Did you sense anything off about the guy?” she asked as she reached for her glass of chianti, and immediately, Caleb shook his head.

“Not a damn thing. That’s part of the reason why I was so startled to see that weird shimmer around his cards.”

No, that probably wasn’t normal behavior for a pack of playing cards. “Did anyone else notice?”

At once, he said, “Not that I could tell. And usually, I can get at least a whiff of sulfur from a demon — metaphorically speaking, anyway — when I’m close enough to one. This guy seemed utterly human.”

“Could he be a part demon like you?”

It seemed Caleb didn’t much like that idea, because his brows drew together and he picked up his glass of chianti and took a sip. “Doubtful. As far as I know, our community in Greencastle was the only one like it in the world.”

“But you don’t know for sure,” she pressed, and his shoulders lifted.

“No, I don’t. It doesn’t seem very likely, though. Ours was…a special case.”

Delia supposed that was one way of looking at it.

From what Caleb had told her, the demon lord Belial had been summoned to this plane and then took over the body and spirit of the very person who’d summoned him, a man named Jeffrey Whitcomb.

During his time on earth, Belial had brought his lieutenants here and had them pass themselves off as human, marrying mortal women and having half-demon sons who in turn went on to have a generation of quarter demons, Caleb’s group.

The original demons had returned to Hell at some point, and the half demons had all been banished during a confrontation with a group of demon hunters back in California, with only Caleb managing to escape after several years of captivity on that other plane.

Knowing all that, Delia could see why he didn’t believe there were any other colonies of demons or part demons in the world. Yes, they came here to wreak havoc or go slumming or however you wanted to look at it, but they never stayed long.

However….

“Just because it doesn’t seem likely doesn’t mean it might not be true,” she pointed out, and now Caleb looked almost pained.

“I suppose. I mean, sure, the possibility has crossed my mind from time to time. But it could also be that this is just a regular demon masquerading as human, one that has some way to hide its nature from someone like me.”

“Is that a thing?” Delia asked, and again he shrugged.

“I don’t know for sure. My father didn’t explain very much about the demon world.

He told me about my powers and how to use them, but the rest of it he sort of pushed aside, as if he thought I was going to be living here and not in Hell, so there wasn’t any reason for me to know about most of that stuff. ”

Kind of short-sighted of him, but she’d been able to read between the lines and guess that Caleb’s father hadn’t exactly been a candidate for one of those “World’s Best Dad” mugs.

All the same, you’d think he would have passed along at least a few tidbits of useful information to his son, just in case some contingencies became a reality.

“Any way to find out if it is a ‘thing’?” she asked.

Caleb let out a breath and swallowed some more chianti. At the rate he was going, he’d definitely need to order another glass.

Not that she could really blame him.

“As far as I know, not really,” he replied. “It’s not as if there’s a hotline I can call to get the skinny on all things demon. But at least now I know to be on my guard.”

Both of them already had been, thanks to the mysterious smudges they’d found at his former house. However, this felt different.

“You still beat him, though, right?” she said.

Caleb’s chin lifted, and he didn’t look quite as deflated as he had a moment earlier. “I sure did,” he responded. “So even if he was a demon in disguise, he’s out of the tournament. I suppose he can still hang around and cause trouble as a spectator if he really wanted to, but he won’t be playing.”

Well, that was something. She had to wait to reply because the waitress returned with their food and a basket of garlic bread. Most of the time, Delia tried to watch her carbs, but she wasn’t about to do something so foolish while having dinner at an Italian restaurant.

They murmured their thanks to their server, and once they’d both helped themselves to some bread and eaten a few bites of their pasta carbonara, Caleb added, “I didn’t see or feel anything else out of the ordinary, though, so with Ty sidelined, maybe this will turn out to be nothing.”

“‘Ty’?” Delia repeated. “That’s the guy’s name?”

“Yeah, Ty Carter.” Caleb bit off some garlic bread, chewed, and then said in musing tones, “Maybe what I saw wasn’t demonic at all. Maybe it was some other kind of magic.”

She lifted an eyebrow. Since she’d already been forced to acknowledge that demons were real, it would be a little disingenuous to claim that magic wasn’t real. “How many kinds are there?”

“I’m not sure.” He swallowed the rest of his wine and looked regretful that he hadn’t asked the waitress to bring him another glass. However, she must have had eagle eyes, because almost immediately she returned to their table and inquired if he would like a second round.

He said he would, and their server looked over at Delia.

However, since she’d been nursing her glass and had no intention of having another one, not when she had to go into the office early tomorrow morning to accommodate a client of her mother’s who couldn’t go see a house at any other time, she only said, “I’m fine. Thank you.”

Once the waitress had departed, Caleb went on, “I knew a woman in California whose family could use magic. Mostly psychic kind of stuff, but they all were capable of much more, thanks to how their father was an angel.”

By that point, Delia honestly didn’t think she could be surprised by much of anything, but she felt her eyes widening all the same. “An angel?”

Caleb grinned, looking much more like his old self. “Does that shock you? I mean, why not? Is the concept that different from demons interbreeding with humans?”

At its core, maybe not. But demons seemed like pretty down-and-dirty creatures, and she could much more easily imagine them getting it on with human women than she could see an angel doing the same thing.

She gave a helpless lift of her shoulders, and he smiled again.

“It’s probably less common,” he said. “But it’s not impossible.

So I suppose I could see that if someone had angelic blood that had been passed down, they might have their own particular brand of magic in their bag of tricks.

If nothing else, it would explain why Ty was using magic even though I couldn’t sense anything demonic about him. ”

Even if that were true, it sort of begged the question as to why someone who was descended from angels would be playing in an off-brand poker tournament in one of Las Vegas’s third-tier casinos.

That was a question she would leave for another day, though. Right now, she supposed the most important thing was that whatever kind of mischief the other player had been up to, it still hadn’t been sufficient to keep Caleb from triumphing…or from moving on to the next round.

Thinking it was time to change the subject, she told him about the open house and how at least two of the brokers who’d attended had clients who would probably want to look at the house tomorrow.

He seemed pleased by that, and if he’d noticed how she’d pivoted from their discussion of part angels and part demons, he clearly didn’t want to mention it.

He paid the check, which she’d guessed he would do.

In the beginning, she would have tried to argue with him and say that she should at least pick up part of the tab, but now she knew to just roll with it.

While she did perfectly fine for herself, she wasn’t swimming in money like he was, and if he wanted to be all magnanimous, she might as well let him.

They went outside, and he pulled a fob out of his pocket. Immediately, a flashy Porsche cabriolet in an unusual shade of pale metallic green flashed its lights, and she sent him an amused glance.

“New toy?”

“Yep,” he said. “Just picked her up yesterday. I thought maybe the demons knew what I drove, so it just made sense to get a set of alternate wheels.”

True, the Porsche was almost the polar opposite of his Range Rover…except for the price tag, she supposed.

“I’m not sure that’s the most inconspicuous car in the world,” she observed, and he only chuckled.

“I know. But I’ve already discovered that when I’m driving it, everyone’s looking at the car and not me.”

Delia hadn’t considered the situation from that angle.

Deep down, she might have admitted to herself that if she saw Caleb driving down the street in that Porsche, she still would have paid more attention to him than the vehicle, but no way in the world would she ever say something like that to his face.

His ego didn’t need the boost.

No, she only said, “I suppose I can see that.”

Voice a little too casual, he asked, “So…do you have a lot of appointments tomorrow? It might be fun to have you come watch the tournament if you’re not too busy.”

“I’m pretty much booked all day,” she replied. Disappointment flickered across his face, and she hastened to add, “But Saturday’s looking pretty clear right now. What time are you playing?”

“The final round of eliminations starts at three,” he said. A corner of his mouth lifted. “So does this mean you think I’m going to make it through tomorrow’s round?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then I’ll take that vote of confidence with me — and I’ll text you to let you know how it all went.”

She offered him a smile, and they said their goodbyes and headed to their respective vehicles. He was the first to pull out of his parking space, the sage green Porsche zooming away down Fremont Street with an aggressive rumble.

About all Delia could do was shake her head. Whatever she might have wanted to say on the subject of Caleb Lockwood, she had to admit he never did anything by half measures.

And she kind of had to respect him for that.