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At the exact same moment, Ty Carter emerged from the crowd to pause near the bar entrance, where he began speaking with two men Caleb had never seen before.

One was tall with salt-and-pepper hair and wore an expensive suit that seemed slightly too large for his frame.

The other was shorter and much darker, maybe Hispanic or Native American, with rectangular glasses and a stiff, almost military bearing.

Neither of the two strangers looked like typical casino patrons.

As Caleb watched, Ty murmured something to the taller man, who bent close to whisper something in return. The short one nodded, looking satisfied.

Just what the hell was going on here?

“Your call,” the dealer said, pulling Caleb’s attention back to the game.

The pattern fell into place with a click he almost felt. Eight tables. Thirty-two players. But the energy wasn’t flowing randomly — it was circulating in a specific configuration, like a circuit board or a ritual diagram. The players weren’t just competing, he realized with a chill.

No, they were part of something larger.

“I’ll call,” Caleb said as he pushed his chips forward. When his fingers touched the felt, a pulse of supernatural energy seemed to flow through the table, connecting to the others like nodes in a network.

The river card was the king of spades.

Ken’s expression remained impassive, but there it was again — that strange little twitch in his left hand. Across the tournament floor, Caleb could now see at least five other players making identical gestures, almost like they were puppets controlled by the same master.

“All in,” Ken announced.

Lou folded immediately, his earlier aggression vanishing. In fact, he looked almost confused, as if he wasn’t sure what he’d really meant to do.

Caleb studied his cards, the board, and then the larger pattern unfolding around him.

Now he realized that the tournament wasn’t just a poker competition — it was a supernatural energy collection system of some kind.

Each hand, each bet, each elimination appeared to be generating and directing power.

And Hank Bowers was somehow orchestrating it all.

“I fold,” Caleb said, deciding that making a strategic retreat was probably the best option here. Much better to observe what was happening than to become part of whatever ritual was being conducted here.

Ken collected the pot without comment, his gaze briefly meeting Hank’s across the room.

As the play continued, Caleb focused less on the cards and more on mapping the pattern he’d begun to sense earlier.

The energy seemed to flow the strongest when big pots were decided, especially all-in confrontations.

When a player was eliminated, a pulse of something — emotion?

life force? — was transferred throughout the tables, following some kind of predetermined pattern.

Caleb glanced over at the spectator area, where he spotted Delia, who seemed to be doing her best to follow the play.

When their eyes met, he gave a small, deliberate nod toward Hank Bowers.

She followed his gaze, her brow furrowing as she observed the tournament organizer methodically making his way around the perimeter.

In his peripheral vision, Caleb saw Ty Carter and his two associates separating, taking positions at different observation points around the tournament area, almost like sentries.

Or maybe counterweights.

But he couldn’t allow himself to get too distracted by possibilities, not when he needed to remain focused on the game.

The next significant hand formed a turning point. Daniel, who’d been playing conservatively, suddenly went all-in pre-flop. Lou called instantly, as if he’d been expecting the maneuver.

“Pocket aces,” Daniel announced, turning over his cards.

“Kings,” Lou responded as he revealed his hand.

The board ran out: seven of clubs, three of hearts, jack of diamonds, four of spades, and — predictably — the ace of clubs.

While Daniel raked in his chips, Caleb suddenly experienced a surge of energy different from the others — purer somehow, less artificial.

Looking up, he saw Ty Carter watching the exchange with something like satisfaction on his even, handsome features.

Whatever ritual Hank was conducting, Ty seemed to be doing his best to counter it.

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.

“Oh, I don’t think there’s any reason for me to enter another tournament,” he said. “That first round was just to give me a sense of how these things worked. My real task is something very different.” If possible, his stare grew even sharper. “But I think you already knew that.”

Right then, Delia wasn’t quite sure what she knew, except that if it hadn’t been for Caleb playing a few yards away from where she stood, she would have found an excuse to get the hell out of there as quickly as she could.

“So…something weird is going on here.”

Ty didn’t even blink. “You’re perceptive,” he said. “I thought you would be able to sense the undercurrents in this room, especially now.”

Delia thought she knew exactly what he was referring to. “Something I might not have been able to do a few days ago. But now that part of my mind is awake, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Ty replied. “And it will continue to awaken further…if you let it.”

“Why did you do that to me?” she asked, even as she realized her tone sounded way too plaintive. “What if I don’t want it?”

He smiled. “Your gifts would have come to the forefront even without my intervention. It just would have taken a while longer.”

What was that supposed to mean? That Caleb had been right, and exposure to his demonic nature would have eventually jolted her psychic abilities out of hibernation, even without Ty Carter’s meddling?”

“Are you…?” Delia let the words trail off, then told herself she needed to grow a spine and ask the damn question now that the man was standing in front of her. “Are you an angel?”

His smile didn’t waver for a single second. “It’s perhaps a bit more complicated than that.”

Applause erupted from the people watching the competition, and Delia shifted to see what they were clapping about.

A group of people stood in the center of the gaming area, all of them smiling.

One of them was Caleb.

“I told you he would advance to the next round,” Ty said.

“Yes, you did,” Delia replied. But even as she opened her mouth to ask how exactly he’d known that, he disappeared.

No, he hadn’t turned away from her and walked into the crowd. He’d just vanished into thin air…and no one standing near them seemed to have noticed a damn thing.

Nice trick.

So, did that mean Ty Carter really was an angel…

or another demon? They all seemed able to teleport.

However, since Delia had never seen Caleb do that sort of thing when anyone else was around, she didn’t know whether he had the ability to make anyone nearby completely ignore the way he was bending all the rules of physics.

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio.

A shake of her head, and then she sipped her white wine spritzer and waited for Caleb to be done with his official business so he could come over and meet her.

They definitely had a whole lot they needed to talk about.