The gore had never really compelled Daisy.
In fact, most of the actual dealing-with-the-monsters part of her job had never meant much to her. It was simply a small part of the duty she'd undertaken.
The thrill of the chase made her heart pump with blood, and the feeling of closing in on something, striving for something and taking it down, filled her with purpose and resolve and some savage sense of justice.
But after the chase was over and the roar of a thousand creatures' footfalls all hitting the ground as one left her ears with nothing but a dim and vaguely pleasant ringing, she was left with the dullest part of it; the catch.
She didn't feel revelry in the violence, nor finality in the stillness of death, nor release in the burst of blood and brain matter. The squeeze of the trigger was not nearly as satisfying as that moment of power beforehand where her muzzle was aimed straight and true and the monster knew they had been caught.
Their empty eyes never made her sigh contently. The bang of the gunshots never sounded like a song. The popping of blood-bloated stomachs never made her think of bursting buds of cardinal flowers blooming beautifully against grey corpse skin, because why would it? She held no romance for the crunch-squelch-kill, and little romance for the violence itself. Daisy put clean holes in dirty hearts and that was the end of the story.
Ernie Steadman was Daisy's landlord. Daisy was Ernie Steadman's friend, but he was not hers. She didn't sit about on his veranda or in his sitting room throwing back shitty beers and listening to his and his friends' loud guffaws at things that really weren't that funny because she liked Ernie. Still, despite her normal lack of tact, Daisy could tell when Ernie started lingering outside her door when he could, or greeting her when she passed his porch, that it might be in her best interest as his renter to not challenge his conception of their friendship.
This notion was only compounded after she complained about a broken sink and Ernie had a repairman over the next day, despite having once waited a total of three fucking years to fix a broken doorknob belonging to Daisy's next-door neighbor.
Which was probably why it meant so little to her when she saw Ernie's new piece of furniture.
"Hey, Ernie," she said, walking silently up right behind him and startling the man as he had been watching two movers in blue uniforms struggling to get a large, white cloth-covered shape through the doorway.
She leaned against the popcorn-textured wall, watching the movers with sharp eyes, and nodded towards the shape, "What's that?"
Ernie chuckled a bit shakily, quickly regaining his composure after the shock she'd given him, "Got a new armchair for the house. It's vintage. Made out of authentic leather material, and it's in real good shape too!"
"Oh?" said Daisy, already uninterested.
He leaned closer with a twinkle in his eyes, completely oblivious, "And guess what? It was only two hundred fifty pounds! Real deal, right? And I can tell by looking at it, I think it's real aniline leather! You know, I have a cousin who's — "
"Uh-huh," said Daisy loudly. She could feel her fingers twitching even shoved deep in her pockets and if Ernie didn't shut up soon she would probably be out of board, again.
"You should see it!" he told her eagerly, "Here, come in and take a look. You seem like a woman who knows something about room decor."
Daisy was not, in fact, a woman who knew something about room decor. She clenched her fists by her side, and took a deep breath, promising herself not to get violent, at least for the time being. When she breathed out, it felt like exhaling a bit of smoke, lessening the pressure and allowing her to ignore the scrape of it against her throat for now. Ernie was a shit person, but he wasn't a monster, or a crook. Well, at least no more a crook than any landlord.
She entered Ernie's doorway after him, at his beckoning.
Ernie had the blue-uniformed men place the cloth-covered armchair in his sitting room. Daisy spent a second to cast a slightly disdainful look over his sitting room, as she always did. No matter how many times she'd been in Ernie's place, she still put in the effort to mentally groan about how shitty it looked. Daisy was dedicated like that.
Ernie got no greater pleasure than that he got "saving money", which really just meant he was a cheapskate bastard. His flat showed it too. It was very clear that everything in here was intended to look more expensive than it was, and yet was still bought for less money than it was really worth.
That was the thing about Ernie; he liked deals. He liked feeling special, like he was getting a better cut of meat. He thought himself a real charmer, and prided himself on having connections that could get him places faster, cheaper, and better. He used to be a door-to-door salesman.
He'd never actually told Daisy this, but she knew. She could practically smell the grease wafting off of him.
With some level of showiness, Ernie unzipped and threw the cloth covering off the armchair, revealing…
Just… a really ugly chair, honestly?
It was sort of lopsided and lumpy, and though the shiny, red-brown colour of it might have made it attractive enough, it was covered with lines and spots; what looked like scratches and wrinkles and dark round blemishes, some white and some a darker brown. Daisy supposed Ernie might've been right; this really did look like genuine leather.
Unfortunately (for Ernie, that is, Daisy could care less about his stupid room decor), sometimes genuine leather looked ugly as shit.
All in all, it didn't seem that weird. Just a gross, underpriced chair. Daisy was about to dismiss it and completely forget about it until the next time she was grudgingly invited to another one of Ernie's shitty house parties upon which she would probably glare judgingly at the armchair as she shoved chips down her throat while on her fourth pint of whatever brand of shitty pale lager Ernie had decided was acceptable this time. (He only ever seemed to have pale lagers. That, and IPAs, brought by one of his friends who liked to think he was very cultured and artistic because he got slightly more expensive but equally disgusting beer as Ernie's other friends.)
But then she breathed in and got a whiff of the smell. It… didn't smell like the normal lacquer-y mustiness that lots of leather seemed to have.
It was sort of… fatty and sweet. It almost smelled appetizing, which was weird. It was odd enough that Daisy was stopped where she stood, just breathing it in, completely rapt.
She found her eyes taking in the slightly uneven seams where the leather was sewn together. For some reason, it seemed like a bad idea to get any closer, and she just looked from a distance. She squinted, and she saw just a tiny sliver of color, a flash of pink around the edges where the bumpy seam lines were.
She recoiled, feeling sick to her stomach, though she wasn't sure why.
Ernie looked at her, frowning slightly, "You good, Daisy?"
Daisy was distracted by the spike of irritation at him using her first name like they were casual friends. She opened her mouth to snap at him, bit down on it, then nodded her head quickly, "Fine. Just noticing all the… fat wrinkles. Great quality leather."
He beamed, "I know, right?"
She left him still fawning over the quality of his purchase.
She didn't know what was wrong with that armchair, and quite frankly, she didn't care.