Page 7 of Reaper
Saint looked completely stunned by this turn of events.I couldn’t blame him.It’s one thing to meet an angel; it’s another thing entirely to meet one that could grace the cover of theSports Illustratedswimsuit edition.He shook her hand without saying a word, then went back to moving tables.Glory looked over at the bar.“Hello, Mort.Nice body.”
Mort gave her a little wave and a nod.“Thanks.Investment banker from Nashville.She wanted perfect pitch, I wanted to be a chick for a week, especially one with the tastebuds for really spicy curry.”
“That’s a pretty fair deal, especially for you, pal,” Faustus said, stepping over to the bar.“Beer me?”
Mort seemed to have some trouble looking at the former demon, just handed him a Heineken and stared at the bar top.“I heard you’d gone home, Faustus.I…” Mort’s voice trailed off, and the silence that fell over the bar was heavy for a second.
“Yeah,” Faustus replied.“I…Returned.”
“Is it…” Mort didn’t finish his question, but Faustus answered anyway.Like he knew what the demon was going to ask.He probably did, since he’d been asking himself the same question since The Fall.
“Yeah,” Faustus said, his voice gentle.“It’s as good as I remembered.”
I turned away, suddenly feeling like I was intruding on a very private moment between two beings that had seen the literal dawn of time.Saint was still staring at me, so I stuck out a hand.“Truce?”
He looked at Glory, then Faustus, then shook my hand.“Truce.But one of these days, Harker, we’re gonna see who really is the baddest motherfucker in town.”
I jerked my chin at Glory.“Pretty sure it ain’t either of us, pal.”
“I can confirm that, Quincy,” Luke said, having done that creepy-ass thing he does where he’s nowhere around one minute and the next instant he’s standing by your elbow.“But now I believe your guests are beginning to arrive, so if there is more redecorating to be done, we should proceed with it post haste.”
“That’s our cue,” Glory said.“We’ve got work to do on another plane, but all of you remember…” She pointed to Mort, Saint, and for a particularly long moment, at me, then said, “I’m watching.”Then she and Faustus vanished.I noticed Faustus took his beer.Old habits, I guess.
“She’s kinda scary, dude.Hot, but scary,” Saint said.
“You should see her in armor,” I replied.“Even hotter.And way scarier.”
* * *
We got all the tables and chairs moved, but it still took over an hour to get everybody inside, get the “how you beens” and “good to see yas” out of the way so we could actually talk about what was going on.Finally, I stood at the end of a massive conglomeration of bar tables we’d thrown together in a weird conference table shape, and addressed the Alphas, Betas, and Sergeants-at-Arms of eight shifter packs from all over Charlotte.
“I know a lot of you by sight, and more by name, and I’m pretty sure you all know me.I’m Quincy Harker, and I work with the Department of Homeland Security’s Paranormal Division?—”
“You’re the fucking Reaper, asshole,” one particularly belligerent Asian were from East Charlotte called out.Apparently he wasn’t a fan.
“Okay, sure,” I said, holding up both hands to show that I wasn’t currently holding a weapon.Not that I didn’t have a gun in my belt, another strapped to my right ankle, one duct-taped to the underside of the table, and enough magical energy stored to turn Mort’s bar into a smoking crater.But I didn’t have a gun in my handthen.“Some people call me the Reaper, and I’ve had a few unpleasant encounters with some of you over the years.”
“You killed my brother, you fucking prick!”shouted a heavily muscled Black man with long braids.
“Yeah, sorry about that, Dex,” I said.“But we both know Calvin was a dumbass, and a mean one, and that your pack is in better hands with you as Alpha.”Dex’s brother Calvin had decided about six years ago that he should control all the drug trade on Charlotte’s west side, despite his pack having never trafficked drugs before.He killed his way up the ladder of the groups that did move drugs on that side of town, and when a couple of high school kids got caught in the crossfire, I stepped in.And stepped on Calvin.Hard.Seemed like Dex might have held a grudge.
“Look,” I started again.“If we go down the list of everything one of you wants to kick my ass for, we’ll be here all night.And if we’re here all night, we won’t find out why there are at least four dead shifters in Charlotte over the last six weeks.”
A low rumble went across the room, and Becks stepped forward.“I’m Deputy Director Rebecca Gail Flynn from Homeland.I’m technically Harker’s boss, but some of you probably understand that he’s crap at taking orders.But he’s right.There are lycanthropes turning up dead all over Charlotte, and we need to find out what’s happening to them, and who’s responsible.”
“Why, so you speciesist fascists can give them a medal?”Ah, the University weres.Another, painfully and demonstrably progressive, party heard from.The young woman standing in front of her chair had close-cropped pink hair, a nose ring, and the patented anti-government snarl of the poli-sci undergraduate.I did have to admire her dedication to her body jewelry, since every time she shifted, she’d have to re-pierce her septum.
“No, so I can teach those motherfuckers why they call me Reaper,” I said.I still had my hands raised, but now I wreathed them in purple flame, letting some of that same energy bleed out from my eyes.“I might not know all of you, and I know I don’t like most of you, but if anybody’s going to slaughter you in my city, it’s gonna be me.”
“That’s my nephew,” Luke said with the level of droll you only acquire after your third century on the planet.“Always the diplomat.”
6
My display of exceptional restraint (exceptional because it came from me at all, restraint because I neither blew anyone up or set anyone on fire) reduced the tension in the room from a boil to a simmer, and Becks pointed to a big monitor on the bar with four crime scene photos displayed on it.I don’t know where it came from, but it seems like any time a government agency is part of a meeting, there has to be a big-ass monitor.I was just hoping she hadn’t had time to make a PowerPoint.You don’t know suffering until you’ve sat through eight hours of mandatory federal sexual harassment training, led by the person you are actually having sex with on a regular basis.
“These four men were found naked and dead at different locations across Charlotte over the past six weeks.All the bodies were found on a Sunday morning, and they all seemed to be in perfect health.From the two bodies we were able to examine, we know that they were lycanthropes.We are working under the assumption that the other victims were shifters as well.The autopsy reports showed enlarged hearts typical of high-performance athletes, no trace of injury, and completely clean toxicology reports.Their stomach contents consisted of large quantities of meat and other high-protein foods, and very few vegetables.”
“Yeah, we ain’t known for our love of spinach,” Saint said from across the room, getting a chuckle from the assembled shifters.
