The boba place was a bit sketchy, Charlie thought. But the town they were in didn't have too many good options, and beggars couldn't be choosers. Not like he'd ever gotten sick since he'd become a sorcerer either, so he wasn't terribly worried about the hygiene, or lack thereof, of the place.

"Brown sugar milk tea with pearls, regular ice, one-hundred and ten percent sugar, please," Charlie leaned against the front counter of the boba tea place and held a finger while he placed his order.

"Disgusting. Dunno how you can stomach that kind of drink," the boy behind him stood shorter than Charlie, slightly pudgy in comparison to Charlie's lanky height, "Green tea with pearls, light ice, ten percent sugar."

The cashier scribbled their order onto a sticky note and passed it back to the employees making the drinks in the back of the store, "Your order will be ready in five minutes. Order number's 785."

"Cool, thanks," Charlie shot finger guns at the cashier and grabbed their receipt before turning back to Evan and walking towards a table to sit down, "You might as well be drinking water at that point, Evan. It's not good for the soul, that pitiful amount of sugar you put in your drink."

"It's not good for your body, that ridiculously huge amount of sugar you put in your drink," Evan pulled a chair back, sat down, and placed his elbows down on the table. He grimaced immediately after, removing his arms from the table. His skin peeled away from its surface with a schlick, "Gross. Table's all sticky."

"Yeah well, we are at a dodgy boba place in this backwaters suburb," Charlie grinned, "It'd be weirder if the tables weren't sticky, huh?"

"Still gross."

"Uh-huh," Charlie peeked over Evan's shoulder. The joint had a little television hung up in the corner of the store, playing a local channel covering the football game at the high school, "Oh cute, they've got their local sports channel on."

Evan didn't even bother turning around to look at the television. He closed his right eye, a faint pulsating red light glowing from beneath his eyelid.

"Oi, we get it, you can control tech and whatnot, no need to show off with your sorcery all the time."

"Says you," Evan leaned back in his seat, "And what am I even looking for? Football game's not even started yet."

"Apparently not much point to watching in the first place," Charlie said, "I talked to a girl before I exorcised that one devil. The local high school's team hasn't won a single game in years. A curse, supposedly. After a star player died a while back."

"You think that actually was the source of the devil?" Evan crossed his arms and tilted his head back towards the ceiling.

Charlie shrugged.

"Does sound plausible, does it?" Evan twirled a finger around a lock of his hair, "Star player dies; classmates and his team are devastated. They lose games because of their low morale and morale dips even further. Negative feelings compound and bam, devil is born. And then the devil starts messing with the sports even more and cements its presence by ensuring they always lose, so morale dips even lower."

"Sound theory as any," Charlie said, "No use speculating, though. Devil's already dead."

"Right."

"Hey, the Sharks might even win this game!"

​Lily checked the time. She'd spent a couple hours now loitering behind the bleachers, doing nothing. Idly, she rolled up her right jacket sleeve, exposing her forearm to the autumn chill. Ugly brown circular burn scars dotted her arm, pockmarks against pale skin.

She didn't feel like going home yet.

Lily rolled her sleeve down and took a drag from her cigarette. She watched the sun dip further into the horizon, scorching the sky into a burning purple-pink. Lily let out a puff of smoke, slowly letting the fumes curl their way from between her lips, and frowned when she thought she saw sparking golden flecks intermixed with the smoke. When she blinked they had already disappeared.

A trick of the light.

She snuffed out her cigarette. The football game was starting soon. There wouldn't be too many spectators. It was a home game for the Sharks, and losing was just about a foregone conclusion. Hardly anyone would be sitting in the bleachers above her, if anyone bothered to show up to see the Sharks lose in the first place. But not worth the risk of getting caught smoking if anyone did happen to show up and smell her smoke.

A drop of water hit her on the head and Lily flinched at the sudden sensation of cold. She rubbed her hair and cast a rueful glance around, "It's always raining in this shitty town, huh?"

She looked up at the sky and saw only grey fur and rows of teeth, slick with drool. Beady eyes, slowly dripping tears, cast a baleful look down at her.

"Ah…" She exhaled, wondering what the hell she was looking at.

The teeth drew in closer.

"Ah, oh shit!" Lily threw herself backwards while the… whatever it was, threw itself at the ground, chomping down and missing her by inches.

The thing drew itself up to its full height, standing two heads above Lily. It flexed its arms and grabbed one of the support pillars of the bleachers in one of its hands, yanking and twisting the metal as though it was puddy. Steel screeched and buckled, collapsing onto itself. The monster held the commandeered support like a baseball bat. It grinned at her with all its rows of teeth.

Lily stared at it.

Its grin stretched wider.

"785! Order 785?" The cashier from earlier called their order number. Charlie got up to grab the drink that he'd ordered. Evan remained in his seat, now with both eyes closed.

"You coming?" Charlie asked, "Our order's—"

"Charlie," Evan cut him off and grabbed his wrist, "We gotta go. Now. Back to the school. Look at the TV."

On screen, spectators and players scrambled around in confusion. One of the football goalposts knocked itself over, as though brought down by some invisible force.

"Wait, I thought I exorcised the devil at the field?"

"Well, either you didn't, or there were more that your dumb ass missed. Either way, people are gonna start dying if we don't book it there right now," Evan snarked as the both of them rushed out of the boba store. It was starting to get dark. The sinking sun burned the sky into twilight above them.

They sprinted out into the parking lot, heading for a black SUV parked by the curb.

"I'll drive, you run damage control?" Charlie didn't wait for a response before clambering into the car and slamming the door shut. Beside him, Evan scrambled into the passenger seat. He hadn't even closed the door yet before Charlie slammed the car into reverse, backing their way out. He pulled out onto the street and just barely managed to swerve out of the way of oncoming traffic.

"Way ahead of you," Evan replied, "Don't drive like an idiot."

"Me? Never. I'm a level six driver."

"Right."

Evan prayed that Charlie wouldn't get the both of them killed and closed his eyes. After a moment of blackness, Evan's world exploded into red.

He saw interlocking chains of electricity, waves of power waiting for him to pull on their strings, abstractions of technological communication. Pulsing waves of noise the radio, tangled mazes of internet forums, and the constant ping-ping-ping of texts sent between phones. Evan narrowed his search, looking for anyone talking about the local football game.

Then he got to work.

A systematic blackout on information about the football game was in order. The local news channel broadcasting the game was suddenly wiped from the network. Any kids texting about what had happened would find that they didn't have any service. Once they got in range of the football field, Evan would start wiping the memories of any phones that had recorded anything at the game.

It'd been drilled into them from the start. Ordinary people couldn't find out about devils. Sorcerers like them needed to do their dirty work beneath their noses. Even if devils were ordinarily invisible to normal people, even the consequences of their existence needed to be hidden.

They were about to get such a scathing lecture from their supervisors, Evan griped.