Hawk smacked the woman across the back of the head.
"Ouch! What was that for?!" She complained.
"Quit scaring the new kid!" He replied.
"New kid...oh!" She turned to Aegar and bowed. "Hi! I'm Milly! I am so sorry you had to see such a thing! Welcome to the crew!"
"Spies again, Milly?" Hawk asked her.
"Oh, yes. I caught them meeting up with an informant in the garden." Milly licked the blood off her lips and shivered. "I haven't had such a good meal in so long."
And then she pouted. "You need to let me out more often, boss!"
"You know if I let you out, half the population would disappear. No, you're staying down here for the time being." Hawk said with finality.
"Ooh, fine! But I'm keeping the new kid." She turned to Aegar, her bright grey eyes shining with curiosity. "So, what's your name?"
Her bright bubbly way of talking caught Aegar off guard and he answered almost immediately. "A-Aegar!"
"Aegar huh?" She sidled right next to him and whispered in his ears. "Such a strong name. I like it."
Aegar immediately scrambled backwards, his face turning redder than a tomato. He held his hands up as if to ward her off.
"Now, now Milly. Play nice. He's not for eating." Hawk laughed as he crossed over to the door. He paused and turned to look at Aegar. "Get to know Milly. She's an invaluable part of the crew. Don't worry, she's not a vampire. She has a talent for Blood."
"Aww! Stinky boss! Why did you have to go and spoil the surprise!" Milly pouted at Hawk's back as he left the room. Then she turned to Aegar. "I am sure we'll have lots of fun while we wait for the others to get back!"
Aegar wasn't sure if he was or wasn't looking forward to Milly's idea of fun. He glanced at the corpses of the two maids from earlier that were still laying on the meeting table.
"Don't worry about those stinky corpses!" Milly said. "Demonic people's corpses act much like a monsters and dissolve after a set time! No one is sure why this is, but the running theory is that demons are just more advanced forms of monsters. And monsters are just an aggressive agglomeration of mana that's gotten out of control!"
"Look! They're starting to disappear!"
Aegar watched as the maid's corpses started turning into black ash starting from their feet. Even their blood was slowly dissipating into the air. It took about ten minutes by his own estimate for the corpses and blood to fully dissolve and disappear.
"Interesting." That was all Aegar had to say on the subject. It was his first time seeing demonic people and most definitely will not be his last.
"That's all you have to say?" Milly pouted at him.
Aegar for his part went beet red again and noticed more of Milly's details as she drew closer. Her cherry red lips, how the hair peaking from beneath her cover framed her heart shaped face, and how it all complimented her snow white skin.
"Come on, no thorough analysis? A good doctor would always thoroughly investigate his patients." She drew closer to him and he glanced at the two mountains she was squeezing with her arms. "You want to be a good doctor don't you?"
"I-I-I..."Aegar's mind melted down for a minute when presented with so much attention from a female for the first time in his life, but he still managed to gather his wits and speak his mind. "I don't even know if I will have a talent for healing!"
As soon as he said the words, Milly's entire demeanor changed. She went from alluring and bubbly to cold and distant. "Good. Not completely susceptible to female wiles. We will work on that. Can't have you falling head over heels for some floozy and messing the entire operation up."
Milly walked around the meeting table and straightened up a few fallen papers and othering items. Cold and clinical. That's what Aegar would describe her demeanor as. He took the brief respite to look around the meeting room properly.
The center of the room was dominated by a long wooden table with twelve seats, all placed on a lush carpet of black with gold trim. There was a standing board in the corner of the room with something jotted on it, but it was too small for Aegar to read.
Hanging above the meeting table was a chandelier, it looked fancy but was unlit. In fact, now that he's had time to calm down, why could he see despite not a single source of light in this room?
"Ambient light." Milly said.
"What?" Aegar asked.
"Ambient light from the moon and the torches from the hallway." She pointed to slits in the walls he definitely wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't pointed them out. "There small enough that you can't really get an eyeful of what's going on in here but numerous and large enough to let light through."
"Ah."
"Yes."
Having exhausted the conversation, awkwardly he might add, Aegar went back to staring around the room. Not that he missed much. There was a book case alongside one of the walls with what he assumed were operational records from past jobs on it.
He hardly noticed when Milly walked up to him. "Look this way, Aegar."
He looked at her and she...performed a routine medical check up on him! She had him look this way and that, examined his mouth, and had him do a few exercises!
"Excellent." She said after examining him. "In perfect health! I'd expect no less from someone like you."
"What do you mean someone like me?" Aegar asked.
"I can feel it. My talent is powerful and allows me to get a sense for people through the blood coursing through their veins." Milly looked at him seriously. "There's something powerful, something locked away in your blood."
"What? What do you mean? Aegar asked but before Milly could respond, the door the meeting room bust open and nearly flew from its hinges. A tall man in dark concealing clothes with all but his eyes hidden rushed through the door.
"Milly, we need your help! It's Lora! She's in a bad way!"
Milly narrowed her eyes. "Show me."
Everyone rushed through the door. This was not how Aegar would imagine he'd meet the rest of the crew, nor would he realized how important for his future development the job would actually be. He followed after Milly and the new guy. Time to see her talent.