"Ash-"

"We'll talk later," The Monster cut her off, Its voice steel, impenetrable. "you need to reach somewhere so that you can sleep off that trauma. We may not be tied together," it would be hard for Netta to miss the barb in that word. "but there's little I can do to help you, if you're too weak."

"Ash," Netta turned to It then, happiness surging through her. "I thought that you died - were destroyed - I-"

"As I said," Ash snapped. "you need to find some place to sleep. We'll have plenty of time to talk with your Calliope, but you're in no condition to do anything further."

It was silent as Netta drove.

She was passing through the beginning of the town proper when she saw through the bluster of the dying snowstorm, a group of children dressed, beneath the fluttering weight of the coats that they huddled underneath, costumes of cartoon characters and a herd of parents scuttling after them.

It didn't occur to Netta, until she was standing in front of the man behind the counter of the motel, that she had witnessed the pitiful version of this year's Halloween.

The man in the Hawaiian shirt took one look at her and acted as though she was the first person that he had seen in eons.

"Traveling to see family?" Yes. "Bad timing, driving in this. I don't know if there's anyone who's still having a costume party in this weather, let alone some trick r' treaters."

When the man had finally handed over the keys, Netta felt herself being guided away from the counter by Ash down the hallway.

In the cramped and somewhat mildewy interior of the room, Netta walked over to the bed and tore her coat off before she settled on the bed. Hesitantly, she turned to look back at Ash.

Still standing in front of the door, the Monster looked at her with something akin to tiredness, visible even underneath the layers of quiet, angry resolute energy.

It was when It took a few steps further into the room, towards the minifridge, that Netta saw It limp as the Monster walked.

"You're hurt -"

"I'm not physical, I can't be hurt. Unlike you." Ash snapped, throwing the tiny door open with more force necessary. For a moment, all was nearly quiet as the Monster rifled through the small off-white appliance until It returned to walk slowly to Netta's side, brandishing a bottled water.

"Drink this."

Netta accepted it and took a drink quickly. Looking back up at Ash, she said, "You certainly look hurt."

Ash was quiet, and when It reached up to push Its flattened and askew hair back from where some of it had fallen into Its eyes, Netta saw for the first time how bruised It looked - as though Ash had just gotten out of a brawl.

"I am suffering, momentarily, from burning away some of my energy that quickly. I'll recover while you sleep." Ash paused then looked down at Netta. For a moment she saw something - some indecision - burning away in the Monster's eyes before it went away. "I won't harass you while you sleep, so don't worry." He paused for a moment and then stared at her deeply before he said, "This has gone on far enough, don't you agree?"

When Netta was silent, unable to answer It.

Ash continued, Its voice an angry rhythm. "This is - foolish, and now you're in danger from your own kind. You cannot hope to tell me that you think that you can continue along, without my help. Not when you're being hunted."

Anger rose up in Netta, even as she looked down at her feet, a need to defend herself.

"Who's to say I need your help?" The connotation - that she could have another Monster become her Familiar - was clear to the both of them.

Ash made a disgusted sound and began Its mad paced around the room. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. But for fuck's sake, let's be reasonable, for once. If you wanted someone else, you would have killed me long ago. But you haven't."

Again, Netta could only be silent.

The Monster continued. "If I was not in a better condition, I would insist we fuck and get it over with. At this point, I don't know how much longer I can continue playing this game with you."

Netta spoke then, feeling her fingers tightening in the folds of the comforter. "This is hardly a game to me, I can assure you of that."

Ash continued, as though It had not heard her, Its voice at the window to the far left of the room. "I'll tell you now - I can't abide much more of this. It's too bad I'm in no condition for binding - as a man, I can't present myself to you for the first time in the shape I am in, now."

Netta looked up at Ash then, saw the way that It looked at her from where the Monster was positioned. It leaned against the window, the Monster's arms drawn across Its chest.

The carefree playboy persona was gone now. There was only the Ashwood that she knew all too well.

Allowing the fluttering, poisonous smile to cross her lips, Netta said, "You're no man, Ashwood."

Ash paused, Its gaze faltering from her face. "You're right. I may be no man," It sneered, the soft lines of his lips looking ill-fitting, wrong, as the right side rose up. "but neither am I some damned pet. Maybe," Ash looked up at her, and as had happened before, Its purple eyes had vanished, replaced with vibrantly - red - irises. "someday you'll come to understand that all too well."

Ash sighed, lowering Its head and thrusting a hand through thick, messy blond hair. It was as though all of the air had been let out of him.

When Ash rose Its gaze back to hers, the Monster's eyes were purple once more.

"I only have one thing to ask of you. When you wake up, you need to wait for me before you go anywhere out of this room. Do you understand me?"

Netta nodded, then finished up the bottle of water in silence before she handed the empty bottle to Ash willingly and laid back on the bed.

Netta awoke wrapped in the blanket and unaware totally of what time it was.

When she found her phone, she discovered that she had slept through past the next afternoon.

Sitting up underneath the blanket, Netta glanced around her to find Ash.

When she didn't see him in the room, Netta called out, hoping that the Monster would appear, healed and back with Its twisted sense of humor intact.

Netta uneasily set about getting ready to go back to her car. She remembered, vaguely, promising to not leave the bedroom, but found that she could not bear to stay in that room, alone.

After she got in the car and was not greeted by Ash, she felt a sick sense of worry begin in her gut.

She drove for a bit and stopped when she came across a local restaurant. Sitting down to a quick lunch, she looked out of the window after she had placed her order.

She glanced at the lazy procession of cars down the road in front of the tiny restaurant. She may have looked as though she were looking out of the window, but she could not pass a moment without thinking about Ash.

It was the dull sound of her phone's vibrator ringing shook Netta out of her reverie. She picked it up and answered it without thinking.

"Callie, we need to talk -"

When the voice on the other end of the phone turned out, instead, to belong to a male voice that she recognized all too well, Netta thought that her heart was about to fall through her.

"Netta? Oh, Babes, it is you." He took in a deep breath.

Netta exhaled the breath that she had been holding in.

Her heart was beating erratically in her chest, and she raised her left hand up as though she meant to capture her thumping heart in her grasp.

"Wallace. I can't-" She clenched her eyes shut, and was only saved from vocalizing something that she did not think that she had the heart to finish saying when Wallace hurriedly spoke, in that excitable manner of his.

"Babes, Babes - it's fine, it doesn't matter to me what you're doing, I just want you to know that I can return to the city, but I would much rather be with you, no matter where you are now."

His voice - belonging to a young man who was bold in his passions, his determination - rang through the speaker like a ghost. "I want you to tell me where you are, so I can get a ticket and be there as quickly as I can."

Netta blinked, feeling an unexpected tear slip down her face. "I don't want you to do that."

She looked up, feeling the gaze of other people in this small-town restaurant on her.

What must she look like - a well-dressed woman who looked to be rapidly passing the middle of thirty, getting teary-eyed in a phone conversation?

Wallace sighed and it sounded like deflation, sadness. "Why not?"

Netta closed her eyes. She had been making herself believe that her inability to speak to Wallace was because of Ash.

She knew, however, then, that what she felt was caused by simple truths - she was a species beyond his, and the burden she seemed to have found herself with precluded her from romance.

Perhaps, also, from happiness.

"Wallace - you need to move on. I am no good for someone like you." She swallowed, the felt the only words, there, that could do the damage that she needed, to cause a permanent severance. "I'm too old for you," oh, if only he knew how true that admission was. "I don't want you anymore."

A pause, then she heard him breathe, ragged and fast. "Oh, no - no, you don't understand - we need to... talk, you can't just-"

The pain welled up too heavily in Netta until she found that she had ended the call with an unceremonious hit of her finger.

Shaking, Netta closed the phone and sat it on the table in front of her.

Closing her eyes, Netta wrapped her head up in her arms and allowed the tears to come, to feel as the lonely, confused pain took her over.

It felt odd, wrong. It was as though Wallace was some last aspect of her game - of pretending to be human - that she had been loath to give up. It seemed, now, as though it lay severed in front of her.

It was something I had to do, she silently reasoned. I am not a human anymore. I was only hurting him.

No - she felt, then, that she was closer, perhaps to the creature that she was not even certain if she should await the return of.

She did not entertain the thought that he would not return to her - he always returned.

Always had - will.

Pulling up in front of the Tarot Cafe, Netta had not seen Ash since the night before. What was surprising was the pain that bit at her, seemed to grow every time her mind wandered to that empty seat next to hers.

"Please come back," she whispered against the wind.

Inside, found Calliope, who was straightening up what looked like a tarot reading that she had narrowly missed.

"Netta," Calliope said in a breathless, relieved voice as she climbed to her feet away from the short table.

Walking over to her, the older Witch said, "I had grown worried after you didn't show up sooner. What happened?" Netta felt bad, thinking of the time that she spent - unnecessary time - when she had been shopping for clothes.

She bit her lip and allowed Calliope to envelop her in a hug.

"How was seeing Saorise?"

Netta found that she was holding just as tightly to her coven member as she was holding onto her back.

Netta's words were almost muffled by the thick fabric of Calliope's thick pastel pink sweater. "Sia - she doesn't have any idea of what's going on. Oh, Callie, what am I supposed to do next?"

"Oh, dear, all's not lost -"

Whatever it was that Calliope was about to say was cut off by an all-too familiar, imperious voice ringing out from the entrance of the cafe.

"For starters, we need to become real about our relationship."

At the sight of Ash - back, finally, to Its proud and nearly perfect demeanor, but with a certain edge to Its frown that seemed decidedly un-Ash-like - Netta found herself wanting to launch herself at the Monster.

The urge, even after admitting to herself in the car that she missed the Monster, shocked her.

"You're okay - I thought that you were hurt..." Netta trailed off, not wanting to say the other possibility aloud.

Ash looked between them, crossing Its arms. "I thought I told you to wait until I returned before you left. What luck, that whoever ambushed us apparently wasn't capable of taking advantage of the chance that you presented them with by traveling alone."

"Netta?" Calliope's voice called out, hesitant. "Is this what I think it is? Do you have a Familiar that you wish to introduce me to?"

Netta stared down at her feet and suddenly wanted to be anywhere but there at the moment. "Ash, I'm sorry. Okay? It was - it was nearly noon, and I, and you hadn't returned and I couldn't stay in that room alone."

She closed her eyes, then turned to Calliope, unable to continue looking at that tight, angry face. "Callie, this is - that is to say - Ash is my... friend." The term friend weighed on her tongue like a foreign body.

When she looked up, she saw the both of them staring at her as though she had a foot growing from her stomach.

"Seriously?" They both asked simultaneously, one without being able to possibly see the other.

Callie sat back on her heels and motioned to Ash. "Ash, is it? Ash, if you are her Familiar, then you have my welcome to our Coven."

Ash turned to stare at Netta, Its hands motioning towards her. The Monster seemed set on ignoring Calliope's words totally.

"I thought I made it clear that you weren't supposed to leave until I had returned. It takes more than setting me on fire to kill me. What do you think I am, a human?"

Calliope, who could only stare at Netta, said, "Now, Netta, you cannot call this man - I am sorry, a Monster - a friend and expect me to believe it. I sent you out to return with the help of a Familiar, after all. You know that if you got involved with one of his kind, that you're duty bound to report it to, well, to me now that Hera is gone..." she stuttered off, apparently too outraged to continue.

Finally, she sighed and pressed her hands to her face.

Ash walked up to Netta and rested a hand on her shoulder. It waited to speak until she looked up at Its sharp eyes.

"I can understand worrying about me, but I won't understand the next time that I tell you to do something that's a matter of life and death and then you defy me. I don't ask much, Nettles, but I mean it when I ask you to do something."

Before Netta could answer Ash, Calliope asked, "What's happening with our Coven? Why do you look so haunted, child?"

Calliope had refused to let Netta continue with any sort of an explanation, insisting that she make Netta a meal.

As she pulled leftovers out of the fridge for dinner, Calliope seemed unable to stop her own morbid curiosity. She managed to get the whole of the bum-rushed attack on the road to town out of Netta before she had finished heating water for tea.

"If someone's set on killing you - it sounds to me as though you need to take the initiative," Calliope said. "you need to make a Monster your Familiar - and quickly. Don't want to be caught with your pants down. And besides," she snorted. "if you actually managed to kill a Witch, you can't possibly carry the burden of what the murder would do to your psyche."

Netta tried to assuage the fear she felt at those words - and at the idea of what she was telling her.

"What do you mean?"

"Dear, don't you know what happens to a Witch, when she does not die a natural death - when her death is caused by one of her own kind?"

When Netta shook her head, Calliope said, "Our dead are not quiet. We will drive our murderer mad, without the protection of a Familiar to stop them. Witches who kill their own kind have been all throughout history. Some were women who want to rid the world of our kind, brain washed by humans into seeing Witchkind as evil. Any time they do it - and they do it sincerely, not possessing their own Familiar - they always end the same way."

Netta shivered, clutching at her arms. "I've never heard of this. It sounds a little fantastic, don't you think, Cal?"

Calliope shook her head, her mouth fixed into a grim line. "I'm afraid it's true. Whenever a Witch is unprotected, she is pushed to commit suicide, her mind turning on itself. No such Witch has ever survived past the passing of the first night - given time, they're taken over, and their organs shut down, ending the curse."

Netta shut her eyes tightly. "Well, it shouldn't get to that point, anyway."

Ash spoke, the first noise it had made in what felt like a good, long while. "And you think it's a good idea to not prepare for it -"

The Monster was interrupted, unknowingly, by Calliope. "Why do you fear this one's aid so? There's little chance that It can ever over power you - you're a smart girl, you know how to Humble one of Its kind well enough. And I can give you all the magic tea in the world, but it won't protect you - from one of your own kind, in the long run."

Netta tried to fake a smile then. "I wish I could believe that, really, I do."

In the apartment, it was so quiet that for a moment, still very much in shock, all Netta could experience was the sound of the cat clock as it marked the passing of each second, the smell of her magicked tea.

Calliope took a deep breath, shifting uneasily in her seat.

She asked, "How did the two of you meet?"

Netta glanced over at Ash, half expecting It to talk, as if in answer.

When It didn't, staring back at her with a discomforting intensity, she said, "Well, Cal, I was on the edge of the woods that used to be where the local elementary school is, now."