II. Vampire Killer

Soft. 

That was the first thing that Charles thought when he woke up. The panic, thankfully, took a little while to settle into his brain. For at least those first few desperate moments of consciousness all he could do was listen to his senses and his senses said: soft. He was curled up and cozy in a big fluffy bed, that much he recognized. His numerous weapons were stacked up gently on the ornate metal bedside table beside a glass of water. 

Two figures were chatting at the foot of the bed. Even in the dim light of the room, Charles immediately recognized Malicia, but she was talking to a furry woman in an ornate black and white dress. Her fuzzy ears twitched behind her stiff white headband, obviously registering that Charles was stirring. A lycanthrope. The Hunter’s brain went immediately into panic mode, creating at least three plans of attack should the maid turn violent. But instead the woman turned back to her vampiric… mistress? Owner? Charles couldn’t really tell the relationship between the two of them as they kept talking. 

Perhaps realizing that she was being watched, Malicia turned her attention to the comfy killer resting in the bed. “Hey, there you are. You gave us such a shock, passing out like that. Faith here had to help me carry you to the bedroom. I’m sorry. I just… I feel like we have so much in common, I didn’t realize I was probably coming on a little too strong to you. Kept breaking your worldviews and all that.”

“Pfft, those worldviews needed shattering. Everyone in the house could hear him shouting about how monsters are sinners or whatever. Mallie, you are, like, the most patient woman on this whole Earth.” The lycanthrope’s voice was rich and smooth, rough but so gorgeously feminine. 

“W-wait. Who are you?” If the woman was ever going to attack, Charles at least wanted to know the name of his murderer rather than having it be the last mystery he’d ever face.

“Oh.,” The werewolf was taken aback by this question. “I didn’t think you’d even talk to me, to be honest. I’m Faith, and as you probably can tell I’m a werewolf. Be fucking cool about it and we won’t have any problems. Hurt Malicia or anyone else in my pack and your family will be finding pieces of you all over the continent. You got it?” Just to drive the point even further Faith flexed the massive muscles on her arm. A sign of intimidation, typical with such brute force wielding… people.

“Y-yes, Faith.” Charles tried to sink further into the bed to escape from the piercing blue eyes of the wolf girl. “Malicia, is she your servant?”

The vampire let out a light chuckle, “What? No, this castle runs almost entirely on magic. We don’t have a need for servants here.”

“If you don’t keep monsters as servants, then why is she dressed like that?” asked the Hunter, remembering some of the more risqué storefronts with very similar garb for sale that he had stepped into while searching for the Succubus of Berlin. 

“Dressed like what?” Malicia said with one of her trademark tooth-filled grins. 

Charles blushed “The… you know. The uh, that outfit that she’s wearing. It’s not necessarily practical, but um, what she’s wearing is usually associated with people who um keep places clean and all submissive and servile and if she’s not your servant. You know. It’s just. What?”

Malicia’s smile became even bigger as she responded. “Oh you mean this maid outfit?” Charles nodded. “I thought you meant that, I was just hoping you’d say it. But I can definitely see it’s having an effect on you. Cute, isn’t it? No, Faith isn’t a servant. She just looooves wearing her uniform because she’s such a good girl. Isn’t that right Faith?”

The intimidating mass of muscle and fur that was Faith blushed and started eyeing the exit. “God, Mallie, not in front of the human.” Her voice was taking on the tone of a needy whine. A pitiful plea that couldn’t make up for the fact that her tail was starting to ferociously wag back and forth. 

All this did was fuel the vampire further as she quickly edged into the wolf’s personal space, reaching both of her hands behind the canine ears and giving them soft gentle scritches. “Aww, don’t be like that. Who’s a good girl? I know you love these pets, like such a good girl. A good pretty girl who loves wearing her maid outfits for her beloved mistress. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that right? Say it. Tell our guest how much of a good girl you are.”

Werewolves were not supposed to blush. Werewolves were terrible creatures driven by instinct, meant to be pitied for losing their human consciousness to the beast within. Not… blushing, moaning, whimpering dog girls who got lost in headpat ecstasy. 

“I.. won’t…” the puppy whined.

“Aww. Okay. Have it your way.” The vampire stopped her scratches and crossed her arms, a smug smile on her face. Without the bliss of head pats the overgrown dog looked agitated, twitchy. 

“Why are you like this, Malicia? You are just. So mean. The cruelest monster in the whole world. Maybe this Hunter is right about you.” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Faith. I’m just doing as you asked and am giving you relief from the evil pets that seem to bother you so much. Buuut if you want more scritches maybe you should let the Hunter know how good of a girl you are.” Malicia enjoyed every single moment of her furry friend’s suffering, drinking it in like the finest of wines.

For a moment neither said anything, the werewolf weighing how much their dignity was worth versus the enchanting bliss that was behind the ear scritches. “Fine. Have it your way. Hunter, I’m an extremely good girl who deserves nice things. Now fucking pet me again.” Almost immediately Malicia was back in her space, giving her head as much love and attention as one vampire possibly could. 

“See, what a good girl. Good girls get the nice things that they ask for,” cooed Malicia. They kept this lewd display of affection up for a few more minutes before Faith broke away and darted out of the room. After watching her go, Malicia turned back to Charles. “Aww, I think I pushed her a little too far.”

“Is she going to be okay?” Charles worried that any moment now an enraged were was going to break into the room. Although the look on her face when she made her exit definitely wasn’t one of fury.

“Oh yeah, more than fine. I think she just had to take care of something personal. Now, how about you? Are you feeling better? I did a quick scan of you while you were passed out and cast a few healing spells to help with some broken bones that had never really set. You should be a little less sore. No long-term problems. Sorry for not asking for permission, but you were passed out and it was part of me trying to figure out if you were okay.” 

Charles wasn’t really thrilled about having magic cast on him while he was out, but it wasn’t like he had any more reason to suspect that she was up to no good. “Could you ask, next time?”

“Absolutely. Just try not to pass out on me again, okay? You gave me a scare.”

Charles paused for a second, waiting as long as he could before he could ask the most important question. “Why?”

“What? Why did you pass out? I’m assuming lack of solid food, rest, and being presented with the shocking nature of the fraud of your family legacy tha--”

“No, not that.” Charles shook his head before continuing on. “Why are you taking care of me? Why didn’t you just kill me? My family is going to look for me eventually. I’m nothing more than a puppet in a long running game. I’m a miserable excuse for a hunter who can’t even do the thing I’ve been trained for my whole life. Why do you care about keeping me alive when I can’t even do that?”

The vampire walked slowly, approaching the bed as one would approach a cornered animal. She seemed to have picked up that sudden moves tended to spook Charles, although why she cared still was a mystery. “Is it okay if I sit?” She motioned to the empty space in the bed and at a quick nod from Charles she comfortably arranged herself on the mattress. 

“Well, first I don’t want anyone hurt on my watch if I can help it. This is my manor, and the people inside it, unless they intend to do harm to me and those that I love, are under my protection. Sure, you walk in talking a big game, but at the end of the day, from the moment you stepped through the door, I knew that you weren’t going to fight me. Which means that as lady of this manor, I’m honorbound to help.” 

Charles thought about it for a moment and it made sense. It would explain the nonexistent push back against him as he made his way to her throne room. He was deep in thought and almost didn’t notice that she had started again. 

“Secondly, I recognize that pain. I know you’re not too media-savvy or whatever, but we do have a lot in common. I had a lot in common with Dominic Halberd as well back in the day. God rest that bastard.”

“Who?” Charles gasped, trying to rack his brain remembering his family history. He knew of some Dominics way back in their family line, but all of the Halberds blended together after a while.. 

“Oh yeah, me and Dom were really good pals. This was the first time I tried to kill my old man. Dom was a shitty poker player, and honestly not too great of a monster hunter. Dad sent me out to gain his confidence and then stab him in the back, and honestly I just felt sorry for the guy. His brother was the one who’d trained so hard to fight Drac back then, but he got a real bad flu right before taking him on. So you’ve got this nerd who mostly was in charge of magical support trying to lug around that heavy whip. He was… different. And he realized that I was different too. I came out with this whole fire and brimstone thing, trying to scare him to death. I swear to God he fell to the ground and pissed himself.”

“No!” Charles shouted, filled to the brim with second-hand embarrassment. 

“Oh yeah. And I’m looking at the guy and all I can think is, there’s no way I can kill this man. So, I conjure up a new pair of breeches and I’m like ‘Hey… let’s talk.’ Next thing we know, it’s four in the morning and we’ve drank all the wine at this shitty little local tavern and one thing leads to another and. Well, it was a good night. No, don’t look at me like that. All we did was talk and maybe cuddle a little bit. I don’t know. We both just clicked, like clicked really hard. Sometimes I wonder, y’know. Was he a girl too and neither of us knew? Two queer women smacked together by fate and a shared loathing for my sperm donor?"

"All  I could think the whole time was, Dad’s castle was going to eat this guy alive. So I promised I’d help him out. We made our way through Dad’s castle, and I even helped weaken Pop until Dom could get the final blow in. I didn’t realize at the time that getting killed by a Halberd just made Dad stronger, would have taken the opportunity to stake the bastard myself with a carved piece of elm that I keep on me. We promised we’d keep in touch, but he pretty much stopped talking with me as soon as he got back home. The last letter promised that this would be a new era of peace, and then boom. Ghosted. Maybe literally.” 

Charles bit his tongue, remembering now why the name sounded so familiar. Dom the heretic. Dom the betrayer. Worse than Fievel the coward. Worse. Maybe even as bad as Charles felt. 

“What? What are you looking at me like that for? No, before you ask, I’m not being nice to you just because me and your ancestor were buds. Okay? So why do you look like I just kicked your cat?”

“I… can tell you what happened to him, if you like?” Charles offered; it felt like the least that he could do. 

“You can?” She bounced excitedly on the bed, before taking in the look on Charles’s face. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I take it it’s not that happy of an ending.” The vampire sighed. “Alright. Hit me.” 

“Well, you have to understand I got this from my dad. I only knew this because one year he got, like, extremely drunk and whispered to me about the secret shame of the family. A lot of Halberds won’t even talk about him. In fact, I literally forgot about him until just now. Most just pretend like he doesn’t exist.” Charles paused for a moment, trying to read anything into the stony look on Malicia’s face. When that ended up being an exercise in futility, he carried on. 

“When Dom came back to the Halberd house, apparently he was raving all sorts of blasphemy. He talked on and on about the handsome vampire who came to his assistance and spoke of how the two of you took on Dracula and won. That in and of itself was enough to have him be looked upon with suspicion, but it wasn’t until he started talking about reforming the Halberds into a peaceful force that attempted to solve monstrous issues through diplomacy first that, well, people declared that he had been thoroughly corrupted. It wasn’t your fault, I swear. He just was so eager. And I guess everyone thought he was selling out the family.”

“I see.” Her words were soft, faint. Barely heard over the background buzz of the dim lights. “And then what happened?” 

“It wasn’t pretty. He got into a shouting match with Augustus Halberd, still on his sick bed. Words were said, Dom uttered something shocking that has never really been repeated. Which means that everyone in my damn family knows about it but me, I’m sure. Augustus said to his death bed that Dom was raving and ranting, threatening to smother him in his sleep. Threatening all kinds of things that would destroy the family reputation although he never really went into it. Augustus claims that after a particularly frothy rant, Dom drew his whip and Augustus shot first in self-defense. Apparently his bones are buried somewhere in the manor under heavy wards in case he really was as corrupted as they thought.”

The vampire was quiet. Although Charles had seen peeks and moments of her rage bubbling beneath the surface in the past, this calm scared him the most. His heart ached, knowing more of the context to the story. Knowing that potentially, had his family followed Dom’s example, perhaps he would have been able to live a normal life. Maybe things would have been different. Maybe he would be allowed to have a taste of the freedom that Malicia reveled in.

“If it’s worth anything, um, Malicia, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that happened to him.”

“S’not your fault, Charlie.” Malicia mumbled, getting up from the bed. “I’m going to go now. You get some rest, okay. Faith will bring up some dinner. I have a lot to think about.” Without saying another word, the creature of the night sulked out of the room. 

Charles wanted to get out of bed. To run and throw his arms around her in a hug. To give her whatever solace she needed to get over the news of the murder of the man that she considered her peer. But what could he do? He was a trained weapon. A rabid dog. You don’t get love from a rabid dog. All he could do was hurt, just like now. If he’d kept his stupid mouth shut, none of this would have even happened in the first place. He had to just go and tell her the rest of the story. He just had to be a Halberd and stick his ugly face where it didn’t belong. 

For the next hour Charles stared at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to take him. He didn’t see Malicia for the rest of the night. Faith had come and gone, and yet the pasta dish that she had made still sat untouched on the writing desk in the corner of the room. 

The monster hunter wondered why this story had upset him so much. It just added more evidence to the pile that his family were a nest of vipers. Horrible people who would betray their own if they upset the status quo in any way. Was he not like that? Did he not just blindly repeat what was told to him? Would he have done the same thing that Augustus did, had his parents or friends talked about creating a peace with the monstrous? He liked to think that he wouldn’t, but a voice inside his head, a mean, cruel, and uncaring thing with a rattling voice, whispered that he was the same. That he wasn’t the Dom of this story at all. That any trace of the kindness latent in Dominic Halberd had bled out in the floor of Halberd manor years ago, strangled to death with a rough leather whip.

***

“Hey. Hey you. Smelly guy. Wake up.” 

Charles arose from his restless sleep to the jolt of a sharp nail poking him in the ribs. Grumbling, Charles rubbed uneasily at his eyes, slowly opening them to find himself face to face with the blue eyes of Faith the werewolf. At that moment he realized that she was hunched on all fours over him on the bed, a salacious situation that found him almost completely pinned under the weight of the furry woman.

“AAAAmmph!” A start of a scream escaped his lips before she shoved a hand over his mouth. The palm was rough, but not painful. Like Malicia, Charles knew that Faith could presumably snap him over her knees if she really wanted to put in the effort. Somewhere in the back of his brain, Charles realized that that idea might have some merit to it. But he really did not want to examine that any further, so he told that part to shut the fuck up. 

“Shh! I don’t want anyone else to know I’m in here. Mallie might trust you, but everyone else is giving you a huge distance. You don’t really have many fans here, got it, Hunter?”

Charles nodded as much as he could with the force of Faith’s hand holding his head down. 

“Good, good,” the werewolf continued, “Now I’m going to take my hand off and you aren’t going to scream, right? Okay. I’m going to be completely honest here, I came in here to yell at you. I’m not anymore, but I sure came in here to give you a piece of my mind.”

“What? Why?” Charles was so confused. “I’ve just been sleeping all night. I think at least. . . Maybe? What time is it?”

“Five in the morning.”

“Five in the morning? You’re worse than my grandfather. Why are you even up so early?”

Faith blushed and turned away, “I usually make breakfast for everyone this early. And listen, you don’t get to look at me all grumpy like that. The last time anyone saw you awake was like, five o’clock last night. Too much sleep is bad for you or whatever. Anyway, I was coming to yell at you and then I saw this on the side table.” She held up a simple meal of spaghetti with meat sauce, still steaming. “I brought this up to you for dinner last night and you didn’t even touch it? You didn’t even try it. Mallie told me to make it just for you. That was the last thing she told anyone last night before she sulked up to her library and locked herself inside. And so I come here because she’s a wreck and isn’t letting anyone in and I see that you haven’t taken a single bite. A single bite.

“And I want to beat the shit out of you, but I can’t, because it’s rude to take advantage of someone who obviously wants someone to beat the shit out of them. I’m not giving you the glorious death at the hands of a monster that your freaky family probably told you is the only way you were allowed to go out. So what we’re going to do right now is you tuck in and I’m going to feed you this spaghetti, dork, because obviously you can’t take care of yourself.”

Charles' brain was scrambled eggs as he tried to process everything that Faith was telling him. He’d upset Malicia? Of course he did, who wouldn’t be upset hearing that his ancestor had killed what sounded like an old friend in cold blood. Yet another blight on the Halberd family name. In good conscience, could Charles even consider himself a--

He was brought back to the reality of the situation by Faith snapping her fingers right in front of his face. “Uh-uh! None of that, Hunter. See, you’re spacing out again. It’s a miracle you’re still here in the first place. Now, if I get off you, can you sit up by yourself so I can feed you?”

Charles nodded again, and with the weight of the woman removed from his body shakily pushed himself into a sitting position. “I don’t see why you need to feed me. I’m more than capable of doing it myself.”

“Yeah, whatever, I’m sure you are. And yet here it is. A whole plate of spaghetti just sitting here. Wow, completely untouched! So you’ve lost your ‘feed yourself’ privilege for now. I’m sure you’ll get it back soon. If you’re a good boy. Now open up and say ahh.” While she was talking, Faith speared a nice piece of meat and began expertly twirling some of the noodles with her fork. 

“I mean it, I’m perfectly capabmfp.” Charles was cut off as the food was pushed into his mouth by the impatient beast. 

“Good boy." There was something in the way that Faith said those words that rubbed Charles the wrong way, but he chalked it up to her overstepping his boundaries and forcibly feeding him. "You can chew and swallow all by yourself. And don’t worry, it’s fresh. Magic. Duh. It doesn’t lose its heat until someone starts eating it, basically sealed outside of time as fresh as when it was plated. It’s good, isn’t it? I made it myself, family recipe. I keep a nice meat sauce pretty much going weekly for easy meals like this.” Faith beamed, taking great pride in her work, her tail smacking against the side of the bed.

Charles had to admit that the flavors were wonderful. They were rich, hearty, and never overwhelming. The pasta itself tasted freshly made, and had a nice chew that you don’t seem to get as often with mass produced noodles. The sauce had a slight kick of spice, nothing overwhelming but enough to bring the nuance of the flavors out to the forefront. He got a brief taste of tomato, onion, and some chewy gamey meat. By the time he had swallowed, he had completely forgotten that his pride was supposed to be harmed by the way that Faith had been treating him. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” he griped, tilting his head away so that Faith couldn’t see how flustered he was getting at her treatment. 

“Well, I can. And I did. What are you going to do about it? You want me to take the rest of this meal and throw it away? Just dump it in the trash?” Faith cocked her head to the door and began rising off of the bed. 

“No! No, please don’t go. It’s -- it’s really good. Could I please have another bite?” Charles' cheeks were flushed now with complete and total humiliation. He couldn’t even begin to look her in the eyes, afraid of the smug look that the monster surely had plastered on her face. It was infuriating, but this was already the best meal that he had had in years. There comes a time where you must swallow your pride to enjoy something nice, Charles rationalized, and if being treated like a fool was the price of admission, then he was a fool indeed. 

They kept like that until the plate was completely cleaned. After every bite, the wolf would heap praise on Charles for being so good and obedient. Charles, for his part, kept up with the charade and would never admit that he found it kind of nice to have someone care for him once he got over his embarrassment. Despite the roughness of her exterior, Faith never gave him more food than he could handle. Towards the end of the meal, the lycanthrope reached out to gently pat Charles on the head, but stopped when she saw him push back into the bed at the sight of her hand. Whatever she thought about that, she didn’t say. 

“Alright, I’m going to take this back to the kitchen. I need you to undo whatever you fucked up with Mallie or everyone around here is going to hate you forever.” 

“You keep saying that; how many people are here?” Charles asked. Not that he was going to do anything about the information, but it set his teeth on edge to know that there were potentially a large amount of monsters here who specifically had a problem with him. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Hunter? I’m not telling you our numbers, I quite like having my head on my shoulders. All you need to know is that Mallie is a good person. She goes out and finds people. People like us. Hurt by the world. Abandoned by family. People who are viewed as other.”

“Well of course, she provides a safe haven for monsters, yes? I don’t know where I come into this.” 

Faith looked at Charles for a moment and let out a deep sigh. “Not just monsters, dummy. I wasn’t a monster when Malicia found me. I was homeless. My parents kicked me out because I told them that I wanted to be a girl, self-righteous pricks.”

Charles' eyes widened, “Then you’re a changeling?” 

Faith’s ears perked up and she let out a low warning growl. “Hey! Watch it with that shit. It doesn’t bother me, but some of the residents of the manor get really triggered when language like that is used. We prefer to just call ourselves trans, dingus. It’s only monster hunters and the church that use loaded terms like that.”

Wincing, Charles rubbed his temples trying not to look Faith in the eyes. “Malicia didn’t even know what I meant when I said that. She brought up the fae.”

“Of course, she wouldn’t know it. Malicia exists in her own world half the time, trying to figure out what’s best for us. She’s managing magic, expectations, and plotting some half-cocked revenge scheme out of daddy issues. I love the girl, but she’s not entirely average. And no offense, sweetie, but neither are you. Both of you have “damaged goods” written alllll over you.” Faith sighed again. “Look, I know you didn’t ask to be born in your cult or whatever. But try to keep an open mind today, okay? I think deep down you’re a good kid, I guess, but you gotta figure out what it is you actually want, alright? And that’s not going to come from me or Malicia or any of the other monsters here.” 

Charles still was lost in shock. The wolf standing there in front of them used to be a boy, like him. There were no tells. No signs. He looked her up and down again secretly, trying not to seem creepy. Despite what Malicia had said the night before, he still didn’t believe that changing so drastically was a real possibility. That it wasn’t something only accessible to monsters. That a human could change not only species, but gender. He was so curious, and now there was not only nobody to tell him to stop thinking about it, but others who had undergone such a change as well. “Do you mind, I’m sorry if this is a stupid question. Do you mind talking about how the change happened?” 

“Eesh, this really is your first-time hearing about this kind of stuff, huh? Fine. I’d rather have you ask me this dumb shit than drop it on Greg or someone else who’s a little more insecure. I mean there are plenty of books and things out there, but I’ll heft that emotional labor for you.”

“Well, I know about chang--um, trans people. Well, a little bit. I only know about those that change through magic; are there any different kinds of trans people?” Charles worried that he was completely babbling, but continued after he saw Faith nod her head. “Okay, well, I don’t know anything about those. But for magic, I know that they are humans one day and then monsters the next. But besides that, knowledge about that process is forbidden to anyone except for higher ranking members of the clergy that assist us.”

Faith sighed again, this was really getting to be a habit for her. “Well, I don’t know entirely much more than my own situation. Malicia found me and gave me a choice. I could come with her and we would find a mundane way for me to transition and be my best self. Or, if I really wanted to, she would enact a Monstrous Resurrection. She said it like that, all dramatic and everything. Apparently it’s a big time spell that can turn a human into a creature. Considering I had nothing left to live for, I accepted the latter.”

Charles leaned forward in his seat, “What happened then? Did it hurt? Did you get to choose? How did she know how to find you?”

“Alright, alright calm down. What happened was she drank my blood, a lot of it. She explained beforehand that she needed both the energy from my blood, as well as to put me into a near death state; the human soul is more fluid in that situation. More easily malleable. To do that she took me back here to the room that would eventually become my own. It was nice. Tender. More intimate than I expected. She was gentle and calmed me down once the convulsions started. Unsurprisingly, your body doesn’t like it when you start running out of blood. Once I passed out, the spell started and when I woke up, I was myself. Apparently the magic finds the path of least resistance and heals the body for the best case of survival. So this is the best case scenario for me! This fluffy gal that you see in front of you!” Faith’s wolfy ears perked up as she gave Charles a fang-filled grin.

“That’s…” Charles imagined for himself how that would feel. Malicia’s hot breath on his neck. The pain of the bite morphing slowly into the euphoric haze of awaiting a change. Having Malicia whisper sweet nothings into his ear. Waking up the next morning as something better. Something new. Something… that he couldn’t really visualize. 

This caused Charles to pause for a moment. There had to be something, right? Obviously there were parts of himself that he wanted to fix, but for the longest time it was so he could continue to uphold the family name. He wanted his shoulders to be broader like his father. His mind sharp and analytical like his mother. He had worked out so hard to even begin to approach the muscle-bound frame of his grandfather. But all of those were external desires.

If Charles could change anything about himself, what would it be? He liked being tall. He didn’t mind being strong, although he wished for more of the thin wiry build that he’d had before he had gotten extremely serious about weightlifting. His face. Well. That would have to go. He looked so much like his father. The jutting jaw-line. The stern dead-looking eyes underneath the mop of matted brown hair. It would be nice to have his nose smaller, no longer sticking out at an odd angle from the many times it had broken during training. Maybe then he wouldn’t have as much problem with sinus infections; that would be a benefit, surely. He felt the rough edges of his chin, his fingers running against the sandpaper stubble. That could go too. It would be nice to spend less time shaving every day. 

“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you? I can't believe it. She was right about you.” Charles jerked up and saw Faith still standing there, staring at him with a smug expression plastered on her face. He had seen that look before when the family dog stole the Easter ham once. Not that he would say that. 

“NO!” Charles blanched. “No, not at all. I was just, um. Considering what kind of person would even consider taking up a kind of deal like that. It’s obvious that it was just demonic trickery.”

“Sure, sure. I totally get it.” Faith gave Charles a wink and turned and made her way out of the room. “Mallie’s study is just down the hall, Charlie. It would mean a lot to me if you tried to cheer her up. Besides, what else are you going to do? Mope in here all day, O fearless slayer?” With a swish of her tail, the werewolf was gone, leaving nothing but a confused and blushing mess of a former monster hunter behind.