Sadde snickers.

"Um. It's a joke thing, I'm pretty sure, and they say they believe in a god made of spaghetti? Or noodles? Or something? Then they've sanctified pirates because they apparently combat global warming, because, um. The number of pirates has gone down, and the amount of global warming has gone up. Whatever, not really important, just that it's basically a fake religion thing. I think."

"It probably doesn't work, then."

"Yeah, probably not, but then I doubt someone's own personal symbol of their faith would work, unless it's a part of the faith as a whole? But it might, and – not that I would actually test this, because I don't want to be eaten – I kinda want to see how big a faith needs to be to have some sort of effect with its holy symbols."

"If we ever find a non-murderous, scientifically-inclined vampire, I'll be sure to ask."

"Ha. I'm not volunteering to go looking."

Nor is he volunteering to become the scientifically-inclined vampire, because again, him without empathy? Scary. Plus the fact that he doesn't want to die, even if he— his body comes back as a vampire.

"No one is."

"I did start dusting them in the morgue a while back, but the live ones took exception."

Theo makes a face at that, but doesn't really have anything to add to the conversation.

Willow closes the book. "Well, that's all we got on vampires."

He nods. "Any idea what sort of demon I could be? ... Wait, nope, you said that my 'symptoms' were too vague, nevermind. Uh. Anything else that demons like me are typically able to do that I might be able to do?"

"Not really? Do you want me to get the book on demons? There's a lot more stuff there, though."

"Uh, maybe? If there's more stuff, it'll take a while to get through, and it's not like I'm particularly desperate to know if my type of demon is typically evil and I'm an exception or something horrible like that."

"Don't you know which of your parents could have the demonic heritage?"

"I dunno – probably not my dad? He doesn't seem particularly graceful. ... I haven't seen my mom in a while."

"Oh, your parents are divorced? You could try asking your mom if she knows something, or maybe next time you visit."

"Um, yeah, they are, but we're not really in contact with her anymore."

"Oh."

"Well, then it's probably her, and she's probably twice as demonic as you."

"Yeah. It probably is."

"How sure are you that the things we figured out over the past couple of days are the only demonic traits you have? It might help narrow it down."

"I'm not sure at all, really? People have commented that I do things fluidly in, like, gym and stuff, but I didn't know it was that weird until you said. There's probably other stuff, like the growling, that I just don't realize is weird."

"...how do you not know growling is weird?"

"Because regular people can do growling too! It's just... not as convincing, and they can't do it like that. I didn't realize that!"

"Can you do it now?"