Dean was indeed skilled at cards. Over his years of hunting demons, through countless nights wasted away in bars, he had used that skill to win drinking money, intelligence, and had even once won back a kidnapped person's freedom from a low-level demon.
His fingertips brushed the edges of the cards, his gaze sharp as an eagle's. As he calculated the possible combinations of the community cards, he also caught every subtle clue in the microexpressions of the man across from him. Every bet was as cautious as defusing a bomb.
Angel Potion had given him heightened sensory perception.
Dean had been watching the Card Traveler's microexpressions all along.
The poker table was an ordinary solid-wood table. The shuffling technique was so standard that there was nothing to fault, and the wear along the card edges was even, clearly marking them as a new deck. Dean had checked them; there was nothing wrong.
Nor was there any sign that his opponent was cheating.
Yet the unease in his heart surged like a mad tide, not because his opponent seemed suspicious, but because of a stranger omen: whenever he looked down at his hole cards, blurred visions flashed before his eyes—his wrinkled hands gripping a steering wheel, hobbling with a cane at Sam's funeral, and finally curling up alone on a hard motel bed and breathing his last.
"Focus, Mr. Winchester." The Card Traveler lightly tapped the table with his fingertips, his smile gentle yet distant. "In a fair game, distraction is the greatest enemy."
Dean sharply shook his head to dispel the visions and forced down the last of his hesitation.
The game had reached its final round. Five community cards lay in a row across the table: ten of hearts, jack of spades, queen of clubs, king of diamonds,