Angels of Darkness

endurance.”
    What the hell? “Fighting shape?”
    He nodded. “That’s what she said. I was like, whatever. It’s all the same to me.”
    â€œWas this before or after her brother died?”
    â€œAfter,” he said immediately. “I mean, that was the only reason I agreed. I’ve got work here, correspondence classes, my own workouts, regular classes . . . I don’t have time to be a personal trainer. But she asked, and her freak brother had just died, so what the hell was I supposed to say? She and her friends are a little freaky, too, but at least they aren’t going to the dentist for fangs. Oh, bam!—I just got it. Did this other guy killed have fangs, too? Is that the connection?”
    â€œYes,” Marc said. He’d told the sheriff the same thing, so the lie would be consistent. But at last they were getting to the reason for Jackson’s uneasiness. “What do you mean, freaky?”
    â€œNot the good kind of freaky, you know what I mean? No, they bring in all kinds of books, sit around here reading them.” He leaned forward, lowered his voice again. “And I’m not getting into their business, but after a while, I see a page here, a drawing there. It’s all demon shit. What is it called? Occult. Occult shit. They’ve been coming in for months, reading that stuff.”
    How many months’ worth of reading would the city library have on their shelves? “All of it from that little library?”
    â€œNo, that old librarian there wouldn’t carry something like that. Check this. I went in there once to pick up The Lightning Thief for my little sis, and that old lady told me to be careful, that the Greek god stuff might lead to practicing voodoo—then she called my mom, in case I didn’t pass that warning along. The old lady got an earful then.” Jackson laughed, sat back again. “Nah, Miklia and the others have some volunteer thing worked out, and they use the library loan system. She told me that once when I asked how she could stand volunteering for the old bat—it’s just so that they have easy access to the books they want.”
    â€œDo you overhear what they talk about here?”
    â€œThey don’t talk. They just text each other.”
    Marc’s gaze shot to Radha’s face. Her grin appeared, widening to the edge of a laugh. He could barely stop his own.
    â€œSeriously?” she asked.
    â€œYeah. I asked her if she thought the music in the shop was too loud for a conversation. She said, ‘You never know who is listening’—all serious and shit.” He rolled his eyes. “Anyway. If you want to stay and talk to them, they’ll probably be here around five thirty, just after the library closes. I should probably get back to work. There’s a rush that comes in right at five.”
    It was almost that now. Marc didn’t have anything more for Jackson, not right now. He looked to Radha. She shook her head.
    â€œThank you, Gregory,” Radha told him. “Good luck with the knee and the recruiters next year.”
    â€œThanks. If all goes right, in five years you’ll see me throwing in a championship bowl.”
    â€œI hope it does.” She watched him walk back toward the counter, then looked back to Marc. “Some days, I really like people.”
    â€œYou don’t usually?” Marc didn’t believe that.
    â€œOh, I do. But there are some who make me wonder why the hell we’re doing this: always fighting, seeing our friends killed by demons, always seeing so much crap we can’t stop—and most of it stuff that humans do to each other. Not to mention outliving every human around us. And then someone comes along and you think: I’m going to get that bastard demon just so he can’t touch this one.”
    â€œBut that’s not your only reason.”
    â€œIt’s never my only reason,” she said. “But it feels good. Doesn’t it?”
    Marc glanced at the front counter, where the kid was behind the cash register again, one eye on the television. “It does.”
    Though she’d gotten her way, once again, she didn’t grin as he expected. Instead, her eyes filled.
    Crying? Tension and uncertainty took a freezing grip on his gut. “Radha? You all right?”
    She shook her head, pressed her lips together, and turned her face away. After a long moment, she looked back to