"S-sorry about that," he said, hanging his head in shame. "I didn't m-mean to r-run out on you. Reyes and I don't rreally get along."

"Reyes and a lot of people don't really get along," I said.

I'd made another pot of coffee and was in the middle of pouring when he popped in. I'd need all the energy I could muster to face this Dealer guy. Which was a cool name. Any demon living off the hard-earned souls of humans didn't deserve a cool name. It was like when the media gave cool names to serial killers and terrorists. They didn't have the right to anything cool, in my opinion. Of which I had many.

"Reyes told me you used to visit him in prison."

If I didn't know that Duff had exactly zero blood pumping through his body, I would've sworn he'd blushed. "Oh, th-that. I was just k-keeping an eye on him."

"Why?" I asked, sitting back at my kitchen table. It was nice there. Homey.

He drew his shoulders in, unable to look at me. "B-because. H-he kept going to s-see you."

That baffled me more than a little. Flummoxed, I asked, "You mean, incorporeally?"

"Y-yes. He shouldn't have."

"Why's that?"

"B-because he's n-not a nice person."

Interesting. "That's funny. He said the same thing about you."

His gaze shot up in surprise. "He d-doesn't know me. He w-wasn't there."

This was getting more intriguing by the moment. "He wasn't where?"

"At my h-house. Where it h-happened. But because of it, they took me away and th-that's how I m-met Rey'aziel. I didn't know he was the d-devil's son when I m-met him, though. He was j-just an inmate. Like me."

"You were in prison?" I asked, more than a little taken aback.

I could tell by his expression he was waiting, no hoping, that the world would swallow him. His shoulders concaved even more. His chin tucked in shame. "Y-yes, Charley, I was in p-prison. I knew Rey'aziel w-wasn't like the rest of us, but I d-didn't know how different until I died."

I wanted to ask him why he'd gone to prison, exactly what happened, but if Duff had wanted me to know, he would have told me. I didn't want to push him, but I did want one thing. "Did you die in prison, Duff?"

"Y-yes. Kind of. I had b-been paroled and was j-just about to leave when it happened."

That explained why he was in civilian clothes when he passed. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"N-no. It won't change what happened. B-but you were l-looking for me?"

"Yes, I was. I wanted to ask you about Mr. Wong." I pointed to the new subject of our conversation as he hovered in the corner. "When you first saw him, when you showed up a couple of weeks ago, you seemed to recognize him."

"N-no, I don't know him." He took a step back like he was going to leave.

I stood and put an arm on his shoulder. It was a show of encouragement, but that's all it was. A show. I really did it to keep him there. I'd recently learned that as long as I had physical contact with a departed, he or she couldn't vanish. It was great. But the moment I lost contact, they could disappear before my eyes and I had no way of getting them back. Or so I thought. Angel swears I can summon any departed I want to at any time. It was an interesting concept. One I'd try someday, but today, I just wanted to know more about Mr. Wong. No idea why the urge suddenly hit me. It just seemed important. His story seemed important.

"Duff, I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable. I just want to know what you know about him."

He glanced over his shoulder toward my roomie, then shrugged at me. "I don't know anything except what I see."

"What do you see?"

He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly as he studied him. "I see a f-force, like a thick shield around him. It's powerful. I c-can see that, too. Power. Strength. Like he's m-made of it."

Man, I needed to learn that trick.

"Can't you see it?" he asked.

"I wish. I've tried. I'm just not sure what to do."

"I I could help you," he said, stepping closer.

Maybe Reyes was right. Maybe he had a crush on me. Then again, maybe he really could help me.

"Then," he continued, his expression full of hope, "you could see what Reyes is."

I felt Reyes's heat flare to life around us. Duff jumped back in surprise.

"Duff," Reyes said as he materialized in the doorframe, "are you trying to get me in trouble?" He was doing his menacing bit again.

Duff didn't say anything. He dropped his gaze to the floor in submission. Or fear. I wasn't quite certain which.

"Reyes," I said, my tone warning, "I'm just asking him about Mr. Wong. No one seems to know anything about him except he has a power or a force around him."

Reyes glanced over, barely interested. "I didn't notice before, but, yeah, I guess he does."

Duff laughed.

"You have something to share with the class?" Reyes asked.

I was just about to warn him again to be nice when Duff said, "That was a mistake."

"What was?" Reyes asked.

"You not noticing."

Reyes frowned. He seemed confused when he looked back at Mr. Wong. Then even more so when he turned back to Duff. He suddenly wore a mask of suspicion. Wariness.

I began wondering a lot of things, not the least of which was why Duff had suddenly lost his stutter.

I had a lot on my plate: A naked dead man riding shotgun everywhere I went. A mysterious Asian man hovering in my corner who was made of something powerful, whatever that meant. Another man who sold his soul to a demon who was indifferent to the fact that it was for a good cause. A demon who was going around tricking people out of their souls so he could eat them. Which, ew. A rascally neighbor who'd proposed to me and was expecting an answer sometime this century. And an ongoing child-abduction case that had led me to believe that my man might have a brother he either does or doesn't know about. I was so not good at tying up loose ends. And to top it all off, I was one step closer to getting my BFF slash receptionist laid by my uncle.

That was so wrong. No matter. Life was good.

Until I lost seventeen million dollars in a card game.

I looked across a table set in the middle of a dark, smoky back room of a warehouse and studied the Dealer. The demon who supped on souls in his spare time. He was not what I'd expected at all. Then again, what did one expect when meeting a demon? This guy was terribly handsome, if a little too Goth for my tastes, and much younger than I'd imagined. He couldn't have been more than nineteen or twenty, and he looked like he came straight out of a vampire novel, with shoulder-length black hair, a white ruffled shirt; and a six-inch top hat that he never took off. There was something horridly attractive about him. Maybe it was his confidence. His perfect skin. His long, pale fingers. Or his penetrating bronze eyes a color so rich, so vividly chromatic, I'd never seen anything quite like it. I'd found myself caught in his mesmerizing gaze on several occasions throughout the evening.

But I had to remember, this wasn't really the demon. This was the unfortunate human the demon had chosen to possess. So the beauty that encased him was stolen, just like the souls from which he took nourishment.

He seemed just as fascinated by me. He'd focused all his attention on me the moment I arrived, and rarely looked away. At any other time, that kind of constant inspection would be unnerving. Tonight it was intriguing.

The only thing that broke the spell was a darkness that even I could see. It escaped him when he turned his head too quickly or leaned forward too abruptly. The darkness, the demon inside him, would hesitate a microsecond too long and leave a smoky trail of its essence, like a child coloring, unable to stay in the lines. I had to keep one thing in mind at all times: Underneath all that charisma and spellbinding charm lay the heart of a demon who stole people's souls.

Reyes didn't exactly like the plan I'd come up with, but I didn't give him much say in the matter. I was here for the soul of my client, Mr. Joyce. Not for Reyes. And as far as I knew, Reyes's soul was fine. But I did as he'd asked. I'd dropped my hand beside my chair the moment I sat across from the Dealer and summoned Artemis, my guardian Rottweiler who liked nothing more than ripping out the throats of demons. She rose up out of the floor until her head lifted my hand. Normally she'd roll over for a belly rub, but she sensed the demon in the room instantly and had been keeping an eye on him ever since, waiting for my command.

I patted my boot to make sure Zeus was still in there. I'd brought the knife Garrett Swopes hunted down, the one that could supposedly kill any demon on Earth. Including Reyes, which explained why Garrett had hunted it down in the first place. I felt better knowing it was close. I knew what a demon was capable of. I'd felt the slice of their needle-like teeth as they slid across my skin. I'd felt the stab of their razor-sharp claws as they dug into my flesh. I'd felt the icy chill of their breath as they readied to rip me to shreds. Zeus was definitely nice to have around.

I patted my boot again.

Three other players joined us all men, all desperate, all searching for something they couldn't get at a card game. Did they know what the Dealer was? What he could do for them? Did they know how much it would cost them in the long run? It was one thing to die. It was another to lose one's soul. To come to a complete end. To exist no longer.

I nodded when Angel showed up. He stuck to the shadows at first, but once the game got under way, he went to work.

This was a game of luck and skill. It took total concentration. Damn it. I sucked at concentration. And I wasn't all that lucky either.

Artemis watched the Dealer like a leopard watched its prey. Anytime he leaned close to deal or to gather cards or chips, a low rumble escaped her chest. No one there could hear it, of course, except for the demon. But to his credit, he never flinched. He pretended to be oblivious, but surely he could see what I was. He could hear Artemis and Angel. He didn't seem particularly worried, though. Angel sucked at cards as bad as I did. I was down a cool seventeen mil. Or seventeen hundred. Probably seventeen hundred. I'd lost track a while ago and was now waiting for him to bargain, to offer to forgive the debt if I'd just give up my soul. He had yet to make that offer, but the night was young. Really young. We'd played only one hand.

Even with Angel walking around the table, telling me what everyone's hands consisted of, I lost. Probably because knowing what everyone was holding didn't matter. I had no idea what constituted a winning hand. If two pairs beat three of a kind. If a full house beat a straight flush, two poker terms that always reminded me of a house full of people with only one toilet. Not sure why.

"You gotta get better at this shit, mijita," Angel said. "You only brought two thousand dollars and you just lost seventeen hundred. In one hand."

A minuscule smile played about the Dealer's mouth as he watched me. He could clearly hear Angel. Could probably see him, too. But I wondered if he could feel Reyes. The human body he'd inhabited may act as a barrier, making him unable to feel the heat that engulfed the room as Reyes watched without materializing. It was impossible to be certain.

"If you're going to send a boy to spy on me, make it a boy worth my time."

So he was ready to drop the charades. I was cool with that. I never could remember the difference between the gestures for words and syllables, anyway.

Angel was offended. Naturally. "Are you talking about me, pendejo?"

The Dealer spared him a humorous glance. "I could feast upon your soul, little one, and still have room for dessert."

I leaned forward to get his attention back on me. "You can't have his soul. You can't take a soul unless it was handed to you willingly while the person was still alive. I know the rules, asswipe."

"Such colorful language, Reaper. And you did your homework. I'm surprised. It's not your style."

The other men exchanged sideways glances, confused, wondering if they'd missed something as the Dealer studied me. "Is that really what I think it is, in your boot?"

My hand went to the dagger instinctively.

When I didn't answer, he asked in awe, "You found it. I didn't even know if it was real."

"It's real. Very real. But how did you know I had it?"

"Its glow, of course. You can't see it?"

"No." This not being able to see what other supernatural entities could was getting old.

He absorbed that, his expression calculative, then explained, "Let's just say it makes an impression."

The Dealer gathered the cards, getting a little too close to me, and Artemis let out another guttural growl. The hairs on the back of my neck rose. Thank goodness she liked me. I couldn't imagine what the demon was thinking.

He shuffled and said casually, "Call off your dog."

I reached down and caressed her ears. "She's fine right where she is."

"Not that one." He began dealing. "Rey'aziel."

He did feel him. And he clearly knew who he was.

"He's fine right where he is, too."

He finished dealing, his long fingers nimble as they handled the cards like a seasoned pro. Then again, he probably was a seasoned pro. "Show yourself," he said to Reyes.

And Reyes materialized behind me. I looked up at him. "I'm not doing well."

"I can see that."

The other men at the table were now completely confused. This was poker. High-stakes poker. Not the strip poker I usually played. I sucked at that, too. And the Dealer and I were talking crazy. Poker did that to people.

"Rey'aziel," the Dealer said without looking up from the cards. "It's been a long time."

Reyes stepped to the side and leaned against the wall. "Funny, I don't remember you."

The statement seemed to sting him. He flinched so quickly, I almost missed it. "You wouldn't."

Surprise flashed in Reyes's expression. He pushed off from the wall and seemed to be staring straight through the Dealer. I looked again but saw nothing.

"You're marked," he said, astounded. "You were a slave."

The barest hint of a smile lifted a corner of the Dealer's mouth. "I was."

"You're Daeva." Reyes scoffed as though suddenly disgusted by the creature before him. "You were created from the souls of my lost brethren. You never fell from heaven."

The Dealer cast him a pointed stare. "And neither did you, or have you forgotten?"

"Not at all. I just thought I might have a fight on my hands. This shouldn't take long," he said as he stepped forward.

The Dealer stood, his chair scraping against the floor and falling back as he faced the son of the man who'd apparently created him as well. The light illuminated his face a bit more, and he let a wide, brilliantly white smile spread across it.

Angel grabbed my arm and pulled. "Charley, let's go."

"Still don't recognize me?" the Dealer asked Reyes.

My nigh fiance laughed softly in surprise, but it wasn't a humorous laugh. It was filled with astonishment and, if I had to guess, an ounce of reverence.

"You escaped?" he asked as though that surprised him the most.