Character from Pale by Wildbow
The primary antagonist — a Forsworn practitioner adopted by Kennet's Others as a 'walking trash bin for curses,' whose ability to lie in a world of enforced truth made him the most dangerous person nobody was watching.
Charles Abrams is the answer to the mystery, and the answer is worse than anyone expected. He's a former summoner who became Forsworn — meaning he broke a magical oath, lost his powers, and was cast out of practitioner society with accumulated bad karma that makes every day a little worse. Kennet's Others adopted him as a repository for curses — literally a trash bin for supernatural waste. What nobody accounted for is that a Forsworn practitioner can lie. In a world where the Practice enforces truth through spiritual punishment, someone who has already been punished has nothing left to lose. Charles can deceive Others, practitioners, and the spirits themselves. This made him invisible as a suspect: everyone assumed that if he were guilty, the truth-enforcing mechanisms would have caught him. His former friendship with Alexander Belanger ended roughly ten years prior. His conspiracy against the Carmine Beast was broader than simple murder — it involved binding Others throughout the region and seizing power. The girls defeated him by pursuing him through 'ten thousand years of history' using a poisoned rebar spike. His defeat freed bound Others across the region.
Verona drew a watercolor portrait of him. His presence carries what's described as a scary, unpleasant vibe — the kind of energy that makes people cross the street without knowing why. The Forsworn condition manifests physically in subtle wrongness: involuntary bad luck, misstated names, an aura of karmically earned misfortune.
Also known as: Charles, The Forsworn