“Yeah, that’s why I just shot three angels, and why she was holding one off until I could get to it,” snapped Alex. He glanced at the others. Four of them, all looking shaken. “What do you think?” he demanded of the girl with the sharp face. “You’re the one whose life she just saved. Do you want to take a shot at her, too?”

There was a slight shuffling as they all looked at each other. “Her aura...and there was the angel, with her face...” stammered the girl.

“That’s so great that you know how to see angels,” said Alex coldly. “You might want to work on your interpretations a little. Her angel didn’t have a halo, or didn’t you notice?” With his pistol, he motioned for Tex to get up, sending him to stand with the others. “Now, listen to me: she’s on our side. Anyone who doesn’t believe me, you’d better go for your gun and shoot me now – because I’ll kill the next person who tries to hurt her.”

His words hung in the air. Nobody moved. In the sudden silence, the drone of traffic could be heard, along with the fluttering of moths as they battered against the naked light bulb over the doorway.

“Good, I’m glad that’s settled,” said Alex finally.

He took in the tense group, wondering who they were – all the voices he’d heard so far were American. They stared back at him. Apart from Tex and the sharp-faced girl, there was a short guy with wiry rust-coloured hair who looked frozen in place; a curvy brown-haired girl, features tight with worry; a black guy who met his gaze sullenly, arms folded across his chest.

“So who are you all, anyway?” asked Alex. “You’re sure as hell not Angel Killers.”

Tex bristled. “We sure as hell are.”

“Yeah? So that’s why you managed to kill, like, none of them, right?”

Tex’s muscles swelled as he glared at Alex, like a quarterback in a barroom brawl. Before the Texan could respond, the brown-haired girl cleared her throat. “We...we were angel spotters,” she offered. “Back in the US.”

Alex’s forehead creased. “What, you mean for Project Angel?”

She nodded. She had an earnest face and blue eyes, her hair drawn back in a ponytail. “Until just a few months ago. And then—” The girl Willow had saved nudged her, giving her a piercing look; she flushed and fell silent.

Angel spotters. Alex nodded slowly. Yeah, that made sense. The angel spotters had worked for the CIA too, the same as he had – their role had been to locate angels and send texts to the AKs with their locations. They were trained to see angels, but wouldn’t have much of a clue about the rest of it.