"Charlie?"

Alastor woke up in his own bed, in his own room. The last thing he could remember before blacking out was Charlie pressing her lips to his, his heart going crazy, his head spinning, and then things going dark.

"Charlie?" He said looking around. "Charlie!"

Alastor got out of bed and proceeded to look for her. He went to her room first but she wasn't in there. He started to get really scared.

"Charlie! Charlie! Charlie!"

He went down the halls calling her name countless times but she didn't answer. That made him even more scared. Then at last he heard her voice but she wasn't answering his call. She was screaming and crying.

"Charlie!"

He followed her cries to the clinic and from the door windows, he saw that she was lying in bed while surrounded by various medics. She was tossing and turning, breathing hard.

"It hurts!" She kept crying. "It hurts!"

"I know sweetie." Solomon told her gently. "I know."

"Charlie." All heads save for Charlie's turned to look at the clinic doorway where Alastor stood. One head in particular gave the boy a stare full of utter contempt and it stirred suspicion within the child.

"Alastor go back to your room." Solomon said calmly.

"What are you doing to her?" Alastor asked.

"Alastor go to your room."

Charlie let out another cry.

"You're hurting her!" Alastor tried to bolt for the bed but Solomon was quick to grab him. "Stop it! Get off of her!"

"Alastor come with me."

"No! Let me go! They're hurting her! Stop hurting her!"

He fought. He put up a much better fight than most boys his age would but Solomon was able to drag him out of the clinic.

"Alastor listen to me!" Solomon told him.

"They're hurting her!" The boy insisted.

"No they're not. They're trying to help her. Last night Charlie's powers were triggered and her body is having a hard time adjusting to them so it's made her sick."

"Why is she crying and screaming?"

"Because of the fever. Her fever isn't like most."

"What does that mean?"

"Well Alastor, you know who Charlie's father is right?"

"Yes. He's Lucifer the fallen angel."

"That's right and he came from the morning star. His whole body was formed from light and heat, fire sizzling from the sky. Because of that one of his many abilities is pyrokinesis. Something that Charlie inherited from him. She's burning up and full of flames, flames that her body is trying to contain."

"I want to see her."

"Not now."

"She's scared!"

"I know but you will only get in the way."

"You can't leave her alone with them! She doesn't know those people! She doesn't want to be around strangers when she's scared!"

"I will be with her. Either me or Millie or Moxxie or Blitzo but someone she knows will be with her. An adult that she knows. You're a child. You're too emotional and you don't know anything about medical science or her body structure. We do."

"But-"

"Trust me. She'll be alright. Now go to your room."

Alastor knew that Solomon was most likely right. There were very few instances where he had been proven wrong in an argument against him and for the rest of the day he did as he was told. He kept his distance from the clinic and he put all his faith in those medics.

"They're doctors Al." Vaggie had told him. "They know what they're doing. They fixed Angel and myself up pretty good."

"But can they all really be trustworthy?" Alastor replied.

"What does that mean?"

"One of those people looked at me funny."

"So? Lots of people look at you funny." Angel said. "You have antlers."

"Not like that. He looked at me like he wanted me dead."

"That's ridiculous Alastor." Vaggie said. "None of those people know you."

"I know what I saw in that man's eyes. I know hatred when I see it."

"You're paranoid." Angel said. "He was probably just irritated that you were getting in the way."

"Also Solomon hired all those people and you know he has good judgment." Vaggie added.

"But even he can make a mistake."

Still no one supported his suspicions and Alastor did try to convince himself that he was the wrong one. That he didn't know what he was talking about. That it was only childish paranoia and distrust.

But at night he couldn't seem to go to sleep. He tossed and turned, and his bedclothes got all rumpled up. He just kept thinking about the ill girl asleep in the clinic and the hateful glare of that one doctor. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, he switched on the light.

"There's just something in me that doesn't trust a person with that kind of stare." He muttered.

He pushed off the covers of his bed and once again climbed on up into the air vent. Lucky thing Solomon had yet to question him about how he sneaked out of his room undetected like the night before. He crawled around the ventilation and despite the darkness, manged to find his way to the clinic. He then quietly descended into the room where Charlie slept.

Being careful not to make a sound, he stole across to the bed and gazed upon the half angel who was finally at peace. No more screaming or crying, just resting after the spending the day struggling with internal pain. Outside the door there stood Moxxie guarding vigilantly but an instinct told Alastor that he shouldn't leave just yet.

So he hid in a nearby closet but kept the door cracked. There he waited, listening and watching. For half an hour he saw nothing, heard nothing but the faint tune of Moxxie humming one of his many love songs. Alastor almost considered going back to his room but suddenly he heard a loud THUD!

Someone had hit Moxxie really hard over the head and sent him falling to the floor unconscious. The door was slowly opened and a man walked in. The very man who had given Alastor that glare. But he decided to wait just a little longer before acting. To make sure he had good reason.

"Ten years." He whispered, pulling a syringe from his sleeve. "Ten years since you ruined my life. Ten years of trying to track you and that other abomination down. I had to pay a lot of money for plastic surgery and slit a few throats to get into this building but it was all worth it to get the chance to destroy you."

He approached the bed.

"And to think that the very person who wanted to protect you, is the one who allowed me to have access to you."

He was ready to insert the needle and that's when Alastor attacked. He charged from the closet and made a grab for the syringe.

"You!" The man snarled at him. "Oh I haven't forgotten about you! As soon as I'm done with her, you're next!"

"Give me that!" Alastor struggled. "What's in that?! What are you going to do to her?!"

Alastor was strong but still so young and this man appeared to be highly trained in combat. He easily overpowered Alastor, slammed him hard on to the floor, and surprised the boy by chaining shackles on to his wrists and ankles. Shackles that he couldn't break free from him no matter how much of his advanced strength he used.

"Struggle all you want but those chains were specially made to hold lower level heathens like you." The man said. "And to answer your question, this syringe is filled with a lethal venom extracted from the fang of Satan's serpents. Now to someone like you it will only cause a fever but to her, you're little half fallen angel friend, she'll suffer a slow and agonizing death."

"No! You can't do this! Why would you want to kill her?! She never did anything to you!"

"She's an abomination! As you are! She must be destroyed for the good of mankind!"

The closer he moved to Charlie, the more desperate Alastor became to help her. But he couldn't move. He could only lie there on the floor with his hands and feet bound.

"I can't wait to hear her scream as she's ravaged by the poison. I thought about just snapping her neck, giving her a quick and painless death but she doesn't even deserve that! I'm gonna finish her nice and slow!"

That's when something changed in Alastor. The sickening words of this mad man, the mental image of his dearest friend being torturously killed just for merely existing, he couldn't stand for it. He wouldn't stand for it. He felt a new rage stir inside of him. One that he had never known. One that no human would ever know unless the poor soul carried demon's blood within in them.

The lunatic had brushed some of her blonde locks aside and brought the needle near her neck.

"GET AWAY FROM HER!"

That man stopped when he heard the inhuman voice speak his command. Turning around, he saw that Alastor had broken the chains. His eyes burning like the firey pits of Hell, his fangs bared and his claws ready to strike. A howl broke out and he lunged for the source of his fury, injecting his fangs right into his throat. At first he only did what he did to stop him from harming Charlie but once he had the first taste of blood, he found that he really liked it.

Charlie felt like she was somewhere between life and death. One moment she was feeling herself hurt all around and inside then next thing she knew, she was in darkness and unable to move. She was asleep but not of her own will. She had been forced into it. But now whatever had confined her to sleep was weakening and she was waking up.

At first all she could see was a blur and all she could hear was chaos. Unknown figures moving around and sounds that made no sense coming from all over. Eventually things started to clear and what was before her had her completely mortified.

At the doorway their stood Solomon, Blitzo, Millie, Angel, and Vaggie looking on in horror. Although Solomon's look was one of knowing horror. As if he knew whatever terrible thing he was looking at was bound to come but he had been praying to God that it wouldn't, only for him to have to accept the awful inevitable.

Blood was splattered all over the floors and on the walls, at the center of the room there lay a now dead body and Alastor feasting on the corpse like a starved wolf. Charlie had to blink countless times to fully confirm that this wasn't a nightmare. She hoped to God that this was a nightmare and that cannibalizing creature wasn't really Alastor. But it wasn't a nightmare and that creature really was Alastor.

Solomon made the first move. He did everything he could not to startle the boy. The half demon child sensed his presence and turned to look at him. He was smiling. He had slaughtered a man, was eating as much of said man as he could, and he was smiling.

"Easy Alastor." He said. "Step away from the body."

His arm was slowly making a grab for him but despite his primal appearance, he was smart enough to figure out that someone was trying to take his dinner from him. What right did he have to do that? What right did any of them have to do that? He had every right to do as he pleased.

With great force he knocked Solomon back. Blitzo ran to restrain him but that earned him a painful claw that sent him flying. Still they tried to somehow control him but their efforts only ended with them getting more hurt.

"Holy shit!" Angel shouted in terror.

"Alastor, don't you realize what you're doing?! Don't you know us?" Millie pleaded, unable to figure out if she should fight him or stay to protect her husband and the children.

He turned his attention to the spectators. He didn't recognize the people around him. Not Solomon, not Blitzo, not any of them. In this state, he thought them to only be two things: Enemy or food, and he was ready to pounce. But before he could strike, somebody ran over and threw their arms around Alastor.

"Alastor stop! I'm alright! I'm alright!" It was Charlie. She somehow knew what it was that set him off in the first place and she hoped that she would be able to bring him back to his senses. "I'm not hurt! I'm safe now! I'm safe!"

She kept screaming it over and over again until her voice could reach him. It drew him to look at her and one gaze into those frightened blue eyes was enough to give his human heart the strength to overpower his demon mind.

He became calm, his tense body relaxed, his smile fell, and when he finally comprehended what he had done he became just as mortified as the others. The blood on his hands, on his body, in his mouth. The torn flesh between his teeth and under his fingernails. Solomon barely holding on to consciousness from when he hit the concrete wall and the claw marks on Blitzo's stomach. The terror stricken gazes of the bystanders. Through it all he could only choke out four words.

"What did I do?"