Page 11

Chapter Eleven

Delia had sent him a text on Saturday afternoon letting him know to come to her office at eleven on Monday morning so he could sign the offer papers and give the listing agent, a woman named Paige Loomis, proof of funds from his bank.

That was why Caleb was out and about earlier than he usually would have been, going to the bank to get the necessary paperwork, heading over to Delia’s office in the Winchester area. Some of the weather reports had been predicting rain, but only a few clouds drifted lazily across the sky, telling him the forecasters’ talk of storms had been mostly wishful thinking.

Delia greeted him with a smile, but something about her seemed almost tense. Was she worried the deal might fall through at the last minute?

He really didn’t see how, not when he was offering cash and the house had been sitting on the market for so long.

But despite the taut set to her jaw, she sounded pleasant enough as she asked him if he’d like coffee or tea or some water, and she only smiled when he replied that a cup of coffee would be great.

While she was fetching him a cup, the listing agent — a brittle-looking woman in her early forties with highlighted hair and the kind of tight-looking forehead that told him her aesthetician had a heavy hand with the Botox — and her client appeared at the door to Delia’s office.

Caleb stood at once and offered a friendly hand. “Hi,” he said. “Caleb Lowe. Nice to meet you.”

The agent and her client, a man a few years older than himself, with a perpetually worried expression and brown hair that could use a good haircut, both shook his hand. Right then, Delia appeared and gave Caleb the coffee he’d requested.

“Anyone else?” she asked, offering the newcomers another smile, although she still appeared a little too tense.

Both Paige Loomis and her client declined, with the real estate agent adding, “We’d just like to get this wrapped up as quickly as possible. Tim has a meeting with his general contractor at eleven-thirty.”

“Oh, you’re working on another house?” Delia said politely, and the man nodded.

“Two others. So it’ll be a relief to get this one off my hands.”

Paige gave him a sharp look, as though she wasn’t too happy with her client for being so honest about his situation, but Delia only nodded.

“I can imagine. Caleb, you have the paperwork from your bank?”

“I do,” he said, and gave it to her. He’d decided to bring statements from two different “Caleb Lowe” accounts, just to be sure — and to show Paige Loomis that paying cash for the house definitely wasn’t going to drain all his assets. Even with pulling out the $475K for the property on Pueblo Street, he would still have almost two million on hand, thanks to the way he’d bulked up his coffers over the weekend.

Because he’d gone ahead and returned to the casinos yesterday, earning himself another hundred grand. No sign of any demons lurking nearby, so wherever that imp had come from, he didn’t think it had any buddies hanging around and waiting to pounce.

Paige studied the documents he’d handed her and gave a brisk nod. “Everything appears in order. Tim, I think it’s fine to go ahead and sign the offer.”

Looking relieved, he took the pen Delia handed him and placed his signature on the designated line. Once he was done, he handed over the pen, and Caleb signed his name with a flourish.

Good thing he’d been practicing so he wouldn’t mistakenly write “Lockwood” instead of “Lowe.”

With that done, Delia picked up the paper, saying, “Let me make a copy of this, and then I think we’re good.”

After she walked out of the office, Tim seemed to relax enough that he thought it was okay to open up a bit. “You’re taking on quite a project.”

“I am,” Caleb said calmly. “But Delia and I already discussed some options for the renovation, and she’s going to put me in touch with some general contractors she knows.”

“It sounds like she’s being very helpful,” Paige said, in tones that seemed to hint there might be more to her “help” than merely offering some advice to a client.

Because he didn’t want to get into it — and because he knew there was nothing going on between Delia and him, more’s the pity — he only shrugged. “I guess that’s just what she does. But I appreciate it.”

Luckily, the subject of their exchange appeared a moment later, so he didn’t need to say anything else. She handed the original offer agreement to Paige and one of the copies to Caleb.

“Since we’re waiving the inspection, we’ll just go ahead with the title search,” she said. “I assume there won’t be any issues with that?”

“No,” Tim replied, even as Paige opened her mouth to answer. “Despite the house ending up in probate, the heirs were able to provide a clean title. So everything should go smoothly.”

Once again, he wore the expression of someone who thought he was getting away with something. No one present at the meeting had mentioned anything about the home’s resident ghost, and Caleb guessed it would stay that way. There was no reason for him or Delia to announce that the spirit had been sent to its just rewards, and now the only thing wrong with the house was that it was going to need six figures’ worth of repairs and updates before it was habitable again.

“Excellent,” Delia said. “Then, once the title search is complete, we’ll arrange to have the funds wired to you, and that should be that.”

“Sounds perfect,” Paige responded, although something about the set of her mouth told Caleb that she still was a little annoyed — probably because her client had spoken up even though she’d most likely told him she should be the one to do most of the talking.

But at least the matter was handled, and soon enough, both Paige and Tim left, leaving Caleb and Delia alone in her office.

Should he try asking her to lunch? It was now almost noon, and —

“Can we talk for a minute?” she asked.

Something in her tone set off his inner alarms. Was she about to tell him that she didn’t want to be involved in the remodel after all and that he’d need to do the legwork of finding a decent general contractor?

He supposed he could muddle his way through that if he had to…but he much preferred to have her around to offer her expert advice.

Among many other reasons.

“Sure,” he said, making sure he sounded utterly casual.

The corners of her mouth lifted, although her expression couldn’t be construed as exactly a smile. Without saying anything, she went over to her office door and closed it, then turned around and faced him, arms crossed.

“Do you want to tell me about Greencastle?” she said.

How in the hell had she found out about that?

Caleb didn’t know. But with Delia standing there, grim-faced, everything about her posture signaling that she wasn’t too happy to have found out that her latest client had been lying to her about almost everything, he knew he didn’t have a lot of options, not if he wanted to keep working with her.

It surprised him a little to realize how much he didn’t want her to give him the boot.

“What’s to tell?” he said, and her dark russet brows drew together.

“Quite a bit, as far as I can see,” she replied. She moved past him to sit down behind her desk, as if she wanted its bulk separating them in case he tried anything funny.

Not that he would. He wouldn’t lie to himself and try to make it seem as if he’d never resorted to violence in the past, but he couldn’t be his old self, not if he wanted to keep working with Delia Dunne.

“You survived the sinking of the fishing boat?” she asked next.

Because he’d already learned from his mother that the “fishing boat accident” was the explanation his father had decided to use in case something went sideways when the Greencastle demon gang went to California to face down Rosemary and company, the question wasn’t a complete surprise.

No, the big problem was how he intended to respond.

To be honest, he was kind of impressed that Delia had been able to unearth his real identity, even while he was annoyed at himself for how flimsy his new persona had proved to be.

“There wasn’t a fishing boat,” he blurted, surprising himself — and apparently Delia as well, since her frown only deepened.

“Then what happened?”

He’d never had much use for truth in his life. Not growing up, when he’d had to pretend he was just a normal kid from Greencastle, Indiana…not when he’d manufactured an entirely new persona to try to get information about Project Demon Hunters out of Rosemary McGuire.

And definitely not when he’d come to Las Vegas and done everything he could to hide who he was and where he had come from.

Despite that history of prevarication, he instinctively knew that giving anything less than the truth to Delia Dunne would be a huge mistake. After all, what could she do — rat him out to the authorities? A single comment about her latest client being part demon would get her laughed out of any police station in the country.

Besides, last time he checked, not being entirely human wasn’t a crime.

“I spent the last two years in Hell,” he said, and her frown disappeared, replaced by an expression of mixed surprise and irritation.

“Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?”

“No joke,” he replied, then sat down in one of the client chairs that faced her desk, since he’d risen from his seat when they were saying goodbye to Paige Loomis and her client. “I was banished to Hell along with my father and all the other part demons from Greencastle.”

For the longest moment, Delia only stared at him, face now so blank that Caleb had no idea what she might be thinking. Then she said, “You seriously expect me to believe that?”

“Why not?” he returned. “You believe in ghosts. Are demons so very different?”

Something shifted in her expression then, a flicker of…what? Understanding?

Recognition, as though she’d heard someone else say nearly the same thing not too long ago?

“I think a lot of people would say they’re very different.” She reached for the mug of tea that sat on her desk and sipped from it, as if hoping that doing so might help to get her thoughts in order. “Why in the world should I believe you? For all I know, you’re just a guy who has some kind of strange delusions about his origins.”

“Because of this,” he said softly, and opened his palm. For a few seconds, bright fire danced on his hand before it winked out.

Her gaze met his, cool and singularly unimpressed. “That could be a trick.”

Caleb supposed she had a point there. After all, this was Las Vegas, where magicians were almost as thick on the ground as escort services.

“Want me to take my shirt off?” he asked with a grin. “That way, you’ll be able to see that I don’t have any tubes of lighter fluid up my sleeve.”

A barely detectable flicker of her gaze toward his bicep, and then she shook her head. “I don’t think that’s necessary.” She hesitated before adding, “At the house on Pueblo Street…that was you, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t bother to ask what she meant by the question. “Yes, I’m the one who got rid of the ghost. He was a pretty nasty customer.”

Was that a trace of a smile that touched her lips?

“Obviously, or he wouldn’t have tried to push me into the pool.” Her gaze sharpened. “Did he do that because he didn’t want to move on?”

It seemed she’d decided to set aside the whole part-demon thing for now…or at least wanted a few other matters cleared up first. “Considering he was a serial killer who was going straight to Hell the second he stopped haunting that house, yes.”

Now Delia wore the expression of someone who thought she could use a drink, even if she would never be so unprofessional as to say such a thing out loud to him.

“A serial killer? ” she repeated, her tone incredulous.

“Yep,” Caleb said. “The bodies of five women are buried under the floor of the bonus room on the lower level.”

Like most redheads, Delia was naturally fair-skinned. Right now, she’d turned so pale that she looked as if she was about to faint.

“Bodies? How can you know that?”

“Because the ghost passed through me on his way to get to you in that pantry,” Caleb replied. “For a second, our consciousnesses were mingled, and I could see everything about him, could see how hard he was trying to avoid going to Hell. Since that’s exactly where he was supposed to be, I sent him there myself.”

“Well…thank you, I guess.” She was quiet for a moment, then said, “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to deal with all this.”

“You deal with ghosts all the time,” he pointed out.

Her mouth twisted into a rueful smile. “Somehow, this feels different.”

Caleb could see why she might view the situation that way. Leaning forward a little — although he knew better than to rest his elbows on her desk or do anything that might be construed as invading her personal space — he said, “It’s not that complicated. Demons come and go from Earth all the time. A few of them in Greencastle hung around long enough to have offspring with humans, and then those half-demons had children as well. That’s how you get someone like me.”

“So…you’re more human than you are demon.”

A simple fact he’d tried to point out to Rosemary McGuire on more than one occasion. Right now, he could only be glad that Delia was being so sensible.

“Yes,” he said. “So were all my friends who were sent to Hell along with me.”

Her eyes widened a little in comprehension. “The ones who were supposedly on the fishing boat with you.”

It was hard to think of all of them still trapped down there. When crunch time had arrived, though, none of his friends had been close enough to the portal back to this world to have a chance to escape the way he did.

“And their fathers,” Caleb said, adding, “I’m not sure why, but at least in our group, none of the demons had anything more than a single son each.”

“No girls?” Delia asked then, looking startled.

“None.”

His father had never explained why demon blood only bred males, and Caleb still couldn’t say for sure whether that was because he thought it was immaterial or because he simply didn’t know. Considering the way Daniel Lockwood had wanted to maintain an aura of invincibility at all times, Caleb guessed it was the latter.

After absorbing that reply, Delia said, “Are there others like you?”

A valid enough question, one he’d certainly pondered himself more than once. “Not that I’m aware of,” he said. “Or at least, I’ve never encountered anyone else who seems to have mixed human and demon blood. I’m not sure why, except that there were…special circumstances…surrounding our group in Greencastle.”

Circumstances that had involved the demon prince Belial bringing his chosen lieutenants to this plane to carry out his dirty work, but Caleb didn’t think he needed to go into all that now. It was ancient history as far as he was concerned.

Especially now that Belial was dead and could no longer inflict his terrible will upon this world.

Delia’s lips parted as though she wanted to inquire further about Greencastle, but then she shut them again, clearly not sure how she should respond to his statement.

“But that doesn’t mean demons don’t still come to this plane from time to time, for various reasons,” he added. “I just ran into a pretty ugly customer in the parking garage at the Bellagio.”

Upon hearing that revelation, her hazel green eyes widened. “The third level?”

Now it was his turn to stare at her in astonishment. “You felt that?”

“I did,” she said. “I was there on Saturday — I had some business I needed to handle,” she added, obviously thinking she needed to clarify what in the world she’d been doing in the casino’s parking structure that weekend. “The place was crowded, so I had to park up on the third floor, and when I got out of my car, I felt this weird…smokiness…for lack of a better term.”

Probably she’d detected the residue of his fight with the demon, even though it had happened the night before. It seemed she was an even stronger psychic than he’d previously guessed.

Stronger than she probably had any reason to believe.

“You saw me produce fire just a minute ago,” Caleb said. “Well, I had to summon a lot more of it to get rid of that imp. As demons go, it wasn’t all that strong, but any of them can cause some serious damage if they get the drop on you.”

“But it’s been banished?” Delia asked then, the strain in her voice telling him that she didn’t want to contemplate the consequences of having a bunch of Hell’s denizens running around her hometown.

Well, he assumed Las Vegas was where she’d been born. Maybe a false assumption, considering how many people here came from somewhere else, but there was something about her familiarity with the town that spoke of the kind of knowledge someone would only possess after living in one location for their entire life.

“Oh, yeah, I sent that sucker straight back to Hell,” he replied, and she relaxed visibly. Before she could respond, though, he went on, “The weird thing, though, is that a lower-level demon like that couldn’t have come topside of its own volition. Someone must have summoned it.”

Delia frowned again. “Why would anyone do something like that?”

For as cool and confident as she looked, she sure had a na?ve streak running through her. “Because if you summon a demon and do it right, then it’s basically your slave. You could sic it on your enemies, have it be your spy…rub its head for good luck before you headed out to the casinos.”

He added that last bit as a joke more than anything else, although he’d be the first to admit that adding those demonic energies to your own would help to increase your luck…for a while. Sooner or later, though, everyone had to pay the piper.

Well, most people, anyway.

Her gaze grew shrewd. “Is that what you did? Because I assume when you told me you ‘came into money,’ what you were really saying is that you’ve been killing it at the gaming tables.”

Caleb didn’t see any need to deny his means of accumulating his current fortune. “I figured that was the easiest way to get the money I needed. But I don’t need an imp for luck. I make my own.”

Thanks to the demon blood he carried, which was from the highest order of Hell’s nobility. Diluted as it was by his human heritage, it was still stronger than anything a slave demon like that imp he’d banished could boast.

“I suppose that’s convenient,” Delia remarked. She settled against the back of her chair and regarded him for a moment, her green-hued gaze cool. “And I suppose I should say thanks for being honest with me. The problem is, I have no idea what to do next.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” he said, and her brows lifted.

“Come again?”

Essaying a smile he knew had served him well in the past, Caleb replied, “So what if I’m a quarter demon? Does it change anything about the business we’re conducting together?”

She made a small sound of disbelief. “I’d say it changes everything.”

“Not really,” he said. He knew he wanted to sound confident and unruffled, knew he needed to persuade her that they could continue with their plans for the property on Pueblo Street without any alterations. “I’ve never used my powers around you — well, except grabbing that killer’s soul and sending it to Hell where it belongs. But I look at that as a favor, you know?”

“I suppose it was,” she responded. Now her tone was dry, almost amused, and the shift made him think they’d turned some sort of a corner. A pause, and then she added, “But what are you going to do about those poor bodies in the basement?”

Good question. “Well, I have a few ideas, but I suppose it depends on how much I can do when the property technically isn’t mine yet.”

“It’s all right,” Delia said, and her mouth curved into a half-smile tinged with mischief. “The house still has a lockbox.”

And in that moment, Caleb knew he wouldn’t have to worry about her bailing on him. In fact, it seemed she was willing to stay the course.

No matter what might happen.