Callie flushed and looked down at her hands. “Well, I’m not much of a fighter — not directly. I’m more of a watcher, like a sentinel. When I see evil, I let them know. Sometimes they don’t do anything. But sometimes they send John. He’s one of the fighters. Sometimes they send others.”

I took another bite. It was a good sandwich — sliced turkey and Colby on soft white bread. The mayo tasted homemade.

“Who’s ‘them,’ exactly? Some kind of secret society?”

“I don’t know how much I should tell you about that,” she said uncertainly.

I hadn’t really expected a clear answer.

“So why don’t they always send a fighter when you tell them you’ve seen evil? Don’t they believe you?”

I was sure hoping they didn’t.

“They believe me. I don’t know why they ignore the demons sometimes. I don’t understand it, really.” She paused, looking troubled. “That creature in the cemetery — it’s been there for as long as I’ve lived here. I keep telling them it’s there, but they always say it’s okay so long as no one knows about it. I don’t see how that could be. It’s on holy ground, even.”

I stared at her. Maybe my photograph had prompted a full-on psychotic break.

“You could fight it yourself,” I suggested.

She looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “It’s eight feet tall and has teeth like a shark. And claws. And horns. It would kill me.”

“Ah. Well, it’s probably best to leave it alone, then.”

Callie nodded, and a few moments passed in silence.

“John says you can’t actually see it?” she asked, cocking her head at me.

It was an oddly birdlike gesture. But then, she was vaguely avian — slender and tiny, with a long neck and pale, sharp eyes. Her light blond hair was even sort of feathery.

“No, I’ve never seen it.”

She looked pensive. “That’s really unusual, I think.”

“Oh?”

She nodded. “I’ve heard of people who can photograph demons, but not without seeing them first. It’s like you make music you can’t hear. Well, not exactly.”

She drifted off a bit, thinking.

Whoever these people were, they hadn’t done Callie any favors on the sanity front, filling her head with this stuff. I felt sort of angry on her behalf, which was surprising since I didn’t even like her. Then again, I’d never talked to her at length. There was something childlike about her. I’d always assumed she was nasty, what with all the moral crusading, but maybe she wasn’t. Nutty, but not nasty.

“Callie, did you hear that my sister-in-law is missing?”

“No.” She hesitated. “Do you think she’s in trouble?”

“I really don’t know.” Damn, no help there.