"Occasionally people realise I'm not human. And Ant and Ira have their own reasons for wanting to make sure no-one notices them. I'd appreciate any help making sure any landlord doesn't notice those things."

    "She'll be more able to do that once she knows the language, but she can help with it, yes."

"Thank you," Shin smiles. "Was there anything else we needed to figure out?"

"Do you need anything else?"

"Mmm. No. Not that I can think of right now."

"All right." She pauses to think, and then signs to Deskyl. "It will be better if she can make a charger for me before she's very asleep."

"Mm. You're probably gonna need Ira for that. But if you can tell me what she'll need I might be able to get it?"

"Maybe we can figure it out."

They consult the internet and come up with a shopping list: Two laptop chargers to cannibalize for parts, plus a few extra components and some wire and tools. "She can use other things instead; if you can get a box of broken electronics, that will probably have everything she needs, too. But this will definitely work."

Shin hums thoughtfully, sends Ira a couple of texts, and gets a pretty immediate response. "Ira says he can get that stuff, I can pick it up during his break - four hours from now?"

"Sure."

Deskyl goes back to sleep.

Shin shrugs. "I'm gonna take a nap, wake me up if you have any questions, DZ."

"All right, thank you."

She gets started on the books.

And Shin takes his nap.

One isn't in English, and doesn't seem to have any translations to hand. The others are in English, or have hand-written translations scrawled on sheets of paper tucked between their pages (whoever did it has atrocious handwriting). The books cover a variety of different types of demon, including vampires, and 'vengeance' demons, and two types of demons from different dimensions that are theorised to be related - one that just eats dreams, the other seems to want to eat the heads of the dreamer as well. There's also information on 'The Slayer' - one human girl who's given enhanced abilities to fight the 'forces of evil' - and an organisation referred to as 'The Watchers Council'.

Does she have any questions?

Some, though the books might cover most of them. How likely are they to run into various sorts of demons? Do the demons have structured organizations that might be negotiated with or disrupted, or are they stuck dealing with individuals? Are there any types of demons that are powerful enough to represent a threat to Deskyl if they manage to catch her by surprise? Who else is working on the demon problem?

Most of the demons they're likely to run into are the ones who're trying to end the world. For the most part, it'll just be vampires, although there's always a risk of others. If they do, none of these books have managed to figure it out - the information is mostly based on dealing with, and killing, individuals or small groups. There's one or two that might - there's a mention of a demon called Olvikan that was only defeated with a timely volcanic eruption, and another mention of something called 'Old Ones', although that seems to mostly be rumours. There's no reference to anyone else working on the demon problem.

It seems like a situation that Deskyl is well enough equipped to handle, then.

She puts the books back and goes online again, this time to look at translation jobs and find dictionaries in various languages; if Shin isn't awake by the time she's done learning Mandarin, she'll wake him to ask if they have a paypal account that she can use to be paid for her work.

He isn't, but he wakes fairly easy when she tries to. And they do! Shin does some translation work. But wouldn't DZ prefer an account of her own?

She and Deskyl should have one, yes. But she expects that the paperwork for it will take a few days, and she'd rather not waste that time.

Fair. Here's Shin's account details. If that's everything, Shin's going to go and grab the stuff from Ira now?

"Yes, thank you."

Shin makes a few sandwiches before he leaves, leaving one on the desk for if Deskyl wakes up, munching on one himself, and obviously taking the other for Ira.

He'll be gone for about an hour.

Daisy is in the middle of translating some text, but pauses to greet him. The sandwich is gone, and Deskyl is asleep again.

He smiles and nods to her, holding up the box he's carrying. "Got the stuff for Deskyl here." He puts it down on the desk, plucks one of the books up, and retreats to the other bed.

"Thank you."

She waits to wake Deskyl until she's finished her work, and then switches over to helping her identify the components in the scavenged electronics. It doesn't take very long for them to have a working charger.

Shin's split his attention between reading and watching. "Heh, maybe you and Ira can bond over fixing things," he comments.