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Chapter Six

Luckily, Caleb knew he didn’t have to go straight home from Battista’s.

No, after that day’s play, Hank Bowers had approached him and said a group of the players would be getting together for drinks at one of the lounges at the Desert Paradise, and while Caleb had been noncommittal because he wasn’t sure how late dinner with Delia was going to be, he realized now he had plenty of time to get over there.

Sure, he’d already had two glasses of wine with dinner, but he’d eaten plenty, and besides, the demon blood running through his veins guaranteed that he could drink enough to knock out a moose and not suffer too many ill effects.

Not that he planned to get anywhere close to that drunk.

Although this sounded like a friendly gathering, he couldn’t forget that the other people attending were his fellow competitors.

The last thing in the world he wanted to do was give them any kind of an advantage, even if it was something as minor as seeing what he was like when he’d had a few too many.

The competition didn’t allow drinking at the gaming tables, but there wasn’t any reason why someone couldn’t still get boozed up beforehand.

When he pulled into the parking lot at the Desert Paradise, it looked about as full as it had been when the tournament was going on.

Made some sense — while everyone watching the players compete might have left, they would have been replaced by the regular crowds who liked gambling on a weeknight rather than sitting at home and watching TV.

This was a casual get-together, so no signs had been posted.

However, Hank had already told him the gathering was being held in the Oasis Lounge, and it wasn’t too hard to take a quick look at the directory just inside the lobby and weave his way through the slot machines and back to the bar in question.

It was a kitschy kind of space, with lots of fake palm trees and a palm-leaf motif woven into the close-pile carpet underfoot.

About twenty or so people were gathered there, including a few who Caleb knew hadn’t advanced to play again tomorrow.

It appeared that Hank had invited all the competitors, not just those who’d survived the first round.

A brief scan told Caleb that Ty Carter was nowhere in evidence, though. Sour grapes, or was he just worried that being close to that many people in a social gathering might give something away about his true nature?

Hard to say. Or it could be something else entirely. After all, the group hanging out in the lounge was nowhere near the number of those who’d played in the opening round of the tournament, so it seemed as if quite a few others weren’t up to socializing tonight, either.

He didn’t have time for any further speculation, since Hank approached, a pint glass in one hand, even as he extended the other. “Good job, Caleb,” he said with a smile. “Not bad for the first day of your first tournament.”

“I think I was just lucky,” Caleb replied, but Hank just shook his head.

“We all know there’s more to poker than mere luck.”

True. He’d gotten some decent cards, but if he hadn’t known what to do with them, he wouldn’t be playing in the next round tomorrow.

And he’d done it under his own power, too.

For some reason, that was the element of his victory that mattered the most to him.

While he’d definitely use his demonic talents to get himself out of a sticky situation if necessary, it still felt good to know he could be successful being just a regular human being.

“Go ahead and get a drink,” Hank said. “It’s not an open bar, unfortunately, but the casino’s giving us all ten percent off anything we drink tonight.”

Such a deal, Caleb thought wryly, especially since the Oasis Lounge probably wouldn’t have seen this much business on a Thursday night if the group from the poker tournament hadn’t gathered here.

But he only thanked Hank for the information and headed over to the bar, where he ordered a glass of merlot. While beer or mixed drinks seemed more appropriate for this gathering, he’d started the evening by drinking wine and figured it probably wasn’t a good idea to switch now.

Glass of wine in hand, he wandered the room, meeting the other competitors — none of whom pinged his demonic radar at all, which seemed to tell him that Ty had been a one-off — taking their measure.

Put together, they seemed like a pretty ordinary group of people, although with more men present than women.

Caleb didn’t find that too surprising; while women players were becoming more common on the professional poker circuit, they were still far outnumbered by the male half of the population.

Not that there was anything about this group which indicated they were anywhere close to professional poker players.

No, they were skilled amateurs who were looking to hopefully win the purse and put it toward a new car or a vacation or maybe improvements on their house, accountants and public relations executives, doctors and lawyers and small businesspeople.

Still, he found it valuable to chat with each of them and take their measure, even as he knew they were doing exactly the same thing with him.

Caleb wasn’t too bothered by that, especially since he knew he was very good at hiding his tells.

Whatever they were looking for, they weren’t going to find it.

He was glad he had come, though, if only because stopping by Hank’s little get-together meant he hadn’t been forced to go home to an empty house right after his dinner with Delia.

Although he understood that it was a work night — and it sounded as if she had an early client and a full day tomorrow — he still thought it might have been nice to go back to his place and have a nightcap and chat.

Well, except for the part where he didn’t have any booze suitable for post-dinner drinking, thanks to the way he’d been forced to leave his old house.

Maybe that was being a little disingenuous. He could have grabbed his bottles of brandy and whisky, but he’d deemed other items more important, since the liquor he had on hand wasn’t anything special, just stuff he’d picked up on one of his trips to Total Wine.

He’d need to remedy that lack, though. If nothing else, it would be good to have a bit of the stronger stuff on hand just in case he crashed and burned in the next round tomorrow.

And while he learned that a player named Eli Whitaker had a left eye that twitched a little when he got excited about something and another one — Colin Jackson — reached up to smooth his hair if he was embellishing a story, Caleb was just fine with going home about an hour later, thinking he’d put in enough face time and realizing it had been kind of a long day.

Guess that happens when you pass thirty, he thought wryly as he walked out to his car. That momentous birthday had come and gone while he was trapped in Hell, but another birthday was heading his way again this summer.

Maybe by then he would know enough people in this town whom he could count as acquaintances that he could have some kind of party. His new house was practically built for entertaining, and it would be fun to fill it with friends.

Well, probably not friend, friends, except for Delia Dunne.

When Caleb got to his car, he looked all around for anything suspicious, but this part of the parking lot was empty, brightly illuminated by the light poles installed at strategic intervals across the stretch of asphalt.

No sight or smell of demons lurking nearby, no one at all, not even someone weaving toward their vehicle after too much blackjack and booze.

Maybe, as Delia had once said, he really was jumping at shadows.

There definitely didn’t seem to be anything here.

A lift of his shoulders, and then he climbed inside the Porsche and touched the ignition button.

He’d already put up the roof before he went inside the casino, figuring he didn’t want to leave his new car wide open and unattended like that.

Yes, he’d seen a lone security guard slowly making the rounds of the parking lot in a golf cart as he headed inside an hour earlier, but he didn’t know how much good the guy would have done in an actual emergency.

But there hadn’t been an incident. All the same, Caleb wasn’t about to let down his guard. If he’d learned anything over the past couple of years — ever since the Project Demon Hunters crew had entered his life — it was to take nothing for granted.

Delia knew she should have put her feet up when she got home and just watched some TV. It had been a long day, and, with any luck, her broker’s open house would end up producing at least one interested buyer and a quick sale.

But after she’d taken off her heels and slipped into some yoga pants, flip-flops, and a beloved baggy T-shirt, she found herself too restless to sit down on the couch and find something that wouldn’t engage her brain too much, whether another of an endless lineup of home improvement shows on HGTV or maybe a sitcom…

preferably one she’d already seen before so she wouldn’t have to pay too much attention.

Instead, she wandered into her office and woke her big iMac out of its sleep. A few months ago, when she and Caleb had first stumbled across The Styx Group, she’d done her own investigating…and later on, had asked her friend Prudence to look into the company as well.

But even Pru’s vastly superior sleuthing skills hadn’t unearthed anything out of the ordinary, so Delia had let it slide. She’d been busy with work and helping Caleb with the renovation, and because everything had seemed peaceful again, there hadn’t seemed to be much reason to keep digging.