Michael Carpenter is big and strong and entirely human. He's also so good and nearly holy that it almost hurts to look at him sometimes. As a Knight of the Cross, he wields a blessed sword and has the amassed might of organized Christianity behind him in the service of righteousness and fighting things that go bump in the night. 

He's a modern St. George, and as a dragon, I should probably be terrified of him. I'm not.

I walked into St. Mary of the Angels to find him arguing, very politely, with a teenage girl. "Go home, Molly," he said gently, laying his hand on her shoulder. "I understand that you want to help, but this is more than you're ready for yet."

Molly rolled her eyes, staring her father square in the face, which wasn't hard, since she was tall for a girl and he was leaning on a pew. "I know I can help, you know I can help, why won't you let me? I can always go home if things start to heat up. It can't hurt to have magical backup, can it?"

"That's why I'm here," I said from behind her.

She spun on me in delight, nearly hitting me in the nose with her short candy-colored pigtails. "Harry!" Molly exclaimed, grabbing me in a short hug. I looked at her father sheepishly over her shoulder, but Michael just looked amused. Molly has a bit of a crush, which is going to be a little awkward when I take her on as an apprentice one of these years. If her mother doesn't kill me first, of course.

"I knew Dad was waiting for some help, but I didn't know it was going to be you!" she said, letting go of me and allowing blessed oxygen into my lungs. 

"Yeah," I said with a shrug, "It was fire and vampires, so I'd better find a suspect who isn't me. You know how it goes."