Page 34 of Reaper (Quincy Harker Demon Hunter #10)

W hatever I expected from a Department of Homeland Security Official Computer Nerd/Hacker wasn’t what walked into my living room.

First off, the picture I had in my head was a scrawny middle-aged man who still had acne, the kind of basement-dwelling pallor that only Final Fantasy nerds and vampires have perfected, greasy hair, permanent Cheeto stains on his fingertips, and the social skills of someone who’s grown up on a deserted island.

I did not expect a tall Asian woman with spiky magenta hair in black leather pants, a BABYMETAL t-shirt, and fingerless leather gloves with a wheeled hard-sided gear case in tow.

“‘Sup?” she asked, walking over to me and extending a hand. “I’m Xia. You need a computer genius?”

I took her proffered hand, still a little struck by her appearance. “Harker. Quincy Harker. Good to meet you.”

Xia turned back to Flynn and let out a little chuckle. “Does he always do the ‘Bond, James Bond’ thing when he meets somebody? Because that’s kinda cute, but also kinda pretentious.”

Becks laughed. “No, usually just when he’s surprised. I think he was expecting someone who looked more like they just stepped out of The Office reruns than someone who looks like they’re on their way to a Hatsune Miku concert.”

“Miku’s more a Japanese thing,” Xia corrected gently.

“I’m Korean, so I’d be more into BTS or Stray Kids, except I’m obviously a little more hardcore, and less culturally specific.

” She pointed to her shirt. “Besides, I grew up in St. Louis, so I’m more American Korean than Korean Korean. Where can I set up?”

I pointed over at the dining room table, where Nameless was currently sprawled out keeping an eye on these proceedings. “Will that work? There’s an outlet right by the head of the table.”

She looked over at the table and nodded.

“That’ll do for now. Eventually I’ll get my whole supervillain lair set up in the empty apartment Deputy Director Flynn showed me, but I’ve got a shitload of stuff to get delivered before I can have my command center set up.

” She walked over to the table and scratched Nameless under his chin.

“Hi, Kitty. You wanna share the table with me? I’ll share my treats. ”

Nameless just purred in response. Damned cat was a total traitor.

The first time I met him, he clawed the fuck out of my leg, my shoulder, and my head.

Now everybody he meets is his best friend.

Admittedly, he probably saved my life the night we met, so I gave the furry little Benedict Arnold a pass. Mostly.

Xia dragged her case around to the end of the table, flipped it open, and exploded into a whirlwind of activity involving wires, touchscreen monitors, two laptops, a stack of equipment I didn’t recognize, and even more wires.

She pulled so much shit out of the case that I had to peek inside and make sure there wasn’t some kind of dimensional rift in there, but I guess it just adhered to purse physics, where the interior boundaries have no real limit on the amount of shit you can put into a receptacle.

“Um, I guess we’ll let you get set up while I grab some coffee,” I said.

“Great,” Xia said, waving a hand at me absently. “Gimme about half an hour and I’ll be up and running. And if you’re making coffee, I take mine with four sugars. And cinnamon if you have it.”

I glared at her for a second before she looked up at me, smirking. “Fucking with you, boss. Just fucking with you. I loaded up on caffeine before I got here. Oh, and is cursing a problem? I kinda got fired at my last gig for having a potty mouth.”

I somehow managed to keep a straight face, which is more than I could say for Becks, who let out a donkey bray of a laugh. “No, Xia, I’d say cursing isn’t a problem.”

“In fact, it’s pretty much a requirement to work on this team,” Becks said.

She walked into the kitchen and fired up both Keurigs to get some go juice into both of us as quickly as possible.

For my part of breakfast, I walked over to the bar and grabbed the Jameson’s.

If this was how my morning was going to start, my coffee definitely needed to be Irish.

* * *

A few minutes later, Becks and I were on my balcony, the sliding glass door shut firmly behind us.

I leaned on the railing while my loving fiancée and apparent force for chaos in the universe sat in one of the two metal chairs I kept out here for private conversations or exceptional brooding.

If I’ve learned anything watching Batman movies, it’s that if you’re going to look down over a city you’ve sworn to protect, you’re going to need a good brooding spot from which to do so. My balcony was great for brooding.

“Where the fuck did you find her?” I asked.

“She’s one of the best hackers I’ve ever arrested,” Becks said.

“So you found her in prison?”

“No, I found her on parole. I arrested her six years ago, before I came to DHS. She got out a few months ago and got a job working with the Geek Squad. It was the only computer job she could get after prison.”

“So I have an ex-con in my living room?” I asked.

“Oh, get over yourself, Harker. You’ve broken more laws than you even know about, and your uncle is one of the most prolific murderers in history. Besides, she’s the one who hacked into the Colosseum’s network and turned off your exploding necklace, so maybe give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“Oh, she’s got that and more. I just kinda want to know about the criminal background of the people I let near my cat is all. What’s with her getup? She looks like she gets carded buying cigarettes, but if she just got out of prison, there’s no way she’s as young as she looks.”

“She’s around thirty, as far as I recall, and I think there might be more to her than meets the eye. I don’t have any kind of magic, but something about her feels...different, somehow.”

I turned my gaze to the window and opened my Sight.

Sure enough, there was an aura about our new computer whiz.

It was unfamiliar, but didn’t seem malevolent.

“She’s not completely human, but if she’s a demon, it’s not one I’ve ever seen before.

She may be some type of Asian cryptid I’m not familiar with, or maybe she just had some kind of dealings with the supernatural that marked her somehow.

But you’re right, she’s not your average K-pop stan. ”

Becks’ eyes widened. “Quincy Harker, you never fail to surprise me. I had no idea you knew what a stan was.”

“Not only that, I know the song the term came from,” I said. I put on my best Mike Myers voice. “I’ve got layers, Rebecca. Layers.”

“Oh, God,” Becks groaned. “Not the Shrek quotes.”

“My favorite philosopher,” I replied. “If you trust her, that’s good enough for me. Let’s get back inside and see if she’s hacked the Pentagon yet.”

Becks’ eyes went wide again. “Shit, I hope not. She does that again, and I’m gonna be so fired.” She sprang out of her chair and shot back inside.

Again?

* * *

An hour later, after lots of cursing and a promise from me to upgrade the building’s data infrastructure, Xia had something for us.

I called Luke over, and he came into the living room in Burgundy silk pajamas with an honest-to-God smoking jacket on, looking like the nobility he used to be, except more like a parody of British aristocracy than one of Eastern Europe’s most bloodthirsty warrior counts in history.

“What the fuck are you wearing?” I asked, getting a snort of laughter from Becks.

“I was trying to make a good first impression on our new team member, Quincy,” Luke replied, affronted.

“You’re Count Fucking Dracula,” I said, barely suppressing my laughter. “And you come in here looking like the new host of Masterpiece Theatre ? I don’t think you’re making the impression you think you’re making.”

“Oh, he’s totally making an impression, Harker,” Xia said. “As long as he’s going for kinda hot Grandpa Munster, he’s hitting the nail right on the head.”

Luke turned on his heel and vanished, literally moving faster than the eye could follow. In three seconds he was back, this time dressed more normally in charcoal slacks, black dress shoes, a crisp button-down shirt with cufflinks, and a watch that cost more than a lot of people’s cars.

“That’s better,” I said. Luke didn’t reply, just glared at me with a snarl that made lesser men piss themselves. I’d been getting that same dirty look since I was a teenager, so it had a lot less effect on me.

“What did you find, Xia?” Becks asked.

We all moved to gather around the new tech goddess, but she waved us off. “Let’s not with the whole crowding the genius thing. I got enough of that in the prison showers. I’ve patched into the TV so you can all just go sit on the couches and watch my magic.”

“How did you patch into my TV?” I asked, looking for the wires.

“You have a smart TV, Harker. I hacked it. Now go over there and sit on the couch like a good Luddite.”

“Okay, but if you’ve changed my Netflix password, I’m going to turn you into a frog.”

Becks gave Xia a reassuring smile. “He’s joking. He can’t actually turn you into a frog. He can throw you off the balcony, though. So don’t mess with his passwords. He has enough trouble remembering them as it is.”

“Got it,” Xia said, and I swear from the look on her face she was making a mental note to go back in and reset stuff the way I had it.

Once we were all settled, the screen on the wall came to life, and Xia started explaining what she’d learned about the Colosseum, who was fighting, who was betting, and who she thought might be the next step in figuring out who was running it.