Page 34 of Speak of the Devil

“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 downRosemary 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 aboutProject Demon Huntersout 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 wasbanished 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’reverydifferent.” 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?”

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