“Don’t worry about it,” Caleb told her, hoping he sounded reassuring and not at all relieved that she hadn’t allowed Mr. Sanchez to occupy too much space in her brain. “Like I said, it sounds like he walked out of the casino under his own power. Maybe he left Las Vegas to regroup. Sometimes it takes a while to recover from a demonic possession.”
“Sort of like the flu,” Delia said, and gave a shaky laugh.
“Something like that,” Caleb replied. It was obvious she was still worried, but at least she seemed willing to accept his explanations about what might have happened. “People react differently to that kind of thing.”
“Do they….?” Once again, the words faded away, although this time, he got more the sense that she was grappling with the best way to phrase the question. “Do people remember what happened to them when they’ve been possessed?”
“It depends,” he said. Then he wanted to shake his head at himself. Here he was acting like he was some expert on demonic possessions, when the truth was that his father had told him very little about the demon side of his nature, much preferring to focus on the human lives they’d all been leading in their quiet Indiana town. Caleb had learned to use some of the powers Daniel Lockwood had passed down to him, but otherwise, it wasn’t as if he’d attended some school for demons and learned all sorts of arcane lore about them.
In fact, most of what he knew, he’d learned from books and movies and websites, all of which could have been a load of utter bullshit.
Delia was still watching him, the elegant arches of her brows lifted ever so slightly. “Depends on what?”
He shrugged. “A whole lot of things. But everything I’ve read seems to say that the longer you’ve been possessed, the harder it is to snap back once the demon is gone. That’s why Hank Bowers is headed for a convalescent home. Aaron, on the other hand, seemed to have only been possessed for a couple of days. That probably wasn’t long enough to totally mess him up.”
And, to be fair, it wasn’t as if Caleb wanted the guy to drop dead or something. On the other hand, if Aaron had been so rattled by his experiences in Las Vegas that he decided to walk away from everything and head home to Laughlin…Delia had mentioned that was where the guy had grown up…then Caleb wasn’t going to be too sad about the situation.
Looking thoughtful, she sipped some more champagne. In fact, her flute was now nearly empty, so he reached for the bottle of Cristal and carefully poured some more for her, then refilled his own glass as well.
“I’m glad to hear it,” she said at length. “I mean, there was never going to be anything between the two of us, but it was totally terrifying to see what happened to him after that demon took over. That’s the sort of thing you expect to see in a horror movie, not real life.”
Unless in real life you were hanging out with a quarter demon, in which case you might have a higher-than-average chance of running into something diabolical.
Maybe he should feel guilty about that. After all, he was the one who’d sought Delia out after seeing her walk through one of the casinos where he’d been gambling back in January. At once, he’d been able to sense there was something unusual about her, a kind of power that most mortals didn’t possess, something that went far beyond her natural beauty and the self-assured way she carried herself.
Back then, he hadn’t known exactly what that power even was. He’d only known that he wanted to find out as much as possible about her.
Now he knew that she’d been a singer in a punk band in high school and college, but had ditched her Doc Martens and the hair dye that made her naturally copper tresses something closer to what Woody Woodpecker might have sported for a much more professional look once she got her real estate license and started working with her mother at Dunne & Dunne. She was an only child and had a tank full of fish at home — freshwater, not salt, because she’d told him a saltwater setup was too much work — and although she tried to stick to salad and chicken most of the time, she wasn’t above indulging in a burger or pizza when the occasion warranted it. Her favorite color was blue, but more teal or turquoise than cobalt or navy, and she had a hidden weakness for rom-coms and Hallmark holiday movies…although she’d vehemently deny it if you inquired about her viewing preferences to her face.
And she was also the bravest, toughest, most incredible woman he’d ever met.
“Sometimes real life can be a horror movie,” he said, recalling some of the choicer battles he’d had with his father, mostly over where he planned to go to college…and what he’d wanted to do with his life.
Once upon a time, he would have wanted to be the person directing those horror movies. If nothing else, he would have had a unique perspective.
That wasn’t going to happen, though, so he’d tucked his dream of working in the film industry away, along with a whole bunch of other half-formed hopes and plans.
Funny how being a quarter demon could really limit your options.
Delia shifted on the couch, and for a wild moment, Caleb thought she was going to reach over and take his hand, maybe wrap her fingers around his so she could offer him some much-needed comfort.
That didn’t happen, of course. They might have touched here and there while in the middle of battling a demon or during other similarly fraught situations, but overall, they’d both studiously avoided any kind of physical contact.
Maybe she was worried about what even a simple hug might lead to.
“Considering everything that’s happened over the past few months, I can’t really argue with you,” Delia remarked. She set down her flute of champagne and reached for a strawberry.
He really didn’t want to watch her eat it and see the way those luscious lips of hers wrapped around the red, juicy fruit, so he looked down at the cheese board and pretended to be engrossed in deciding which kind he should consume next. Just as he was reaching for a slice of Manchego, however, the doorbell rang.
Delia sent a puzzled glance in the direction of the foyer. “Were you expecting someone?”
“No,” Caleb said shortly.
He never had visitors, unless you counted someone dropping off DoorDash when he was too lazy to go out and bring something back himself. Twice a month, he had a cleaning crew come in, but they’d just been here on Thursday and weren’t supposed to be back for another week and a half.
Especially since Sunday wasn’t even their regular cleaning day.
“Probably Seventh-Day Adventists or something,” he said, then brushed his hands on the knees of his jeans and stood.
