Back at the house, Netta was surprised to find that the Selkie's energy seemed to have rejuvinated. The Monster flitted through the living room, looking at pictures in frames and examining personal items with obvious excitement.

"Master never let me come in here - she was frightened of what her family would say if they saw me." When It spoke, the tended to sound softly garbled, as though It were always speaking under water.

"Why's that?" Ophelia asked.

As she was walking, a few of her Sisters seemed adamant to fuss over her various bruises and scrapes, to the teenager's obvious annoyance. Finally, she closed her eyes and gave the older Witch, Morgan, who had been examining the side of her face carefully, a good shove.

"Enough - I'll check myself out later."

Elluvia looked back at Ophelia, the smile that had been growing on the Monster's face gradually. "It was unwise to allow any of you to meet me before we had gone through the Sacred Contract."

The surprise from the other Witches was obvious to Netta.

Finally, Wu, a beautiful Witch of Asian descent broke the silence by saying, "She wasn't just hiding a Monster from us - but a Monster betrothal?"

Miss Kienna from where she sat in her winged armchair. "Why did she wish to keep your preseance and the nature of your relationship with her from us?"

Morgan answered again, saying, "Maybe it has something to do with the fact that this one has something that I would guess to be lady parts as opposed to the traditional male ones."

Some of the other Witches tittered in surprised laughter. Ash might have chuckled, or it might have been him coughing.

Elluvia turned to look at Morgan, her head cocked to the side. "If you mean it's because I prefer to take the physical form of a woman, then, yes."

Ophelia spoke up then, a note of despair in her voice. "Why wouldn't she tell me? How long has this been going on?"

Elluvia turned to regard Ophelia with something akin to gentle sympathy in Its eyes. "She wanted to tell you most of all. I - I fought to have her come out with the nature of our relationship, but she feared that she would be... torn from me."

Netta bit her lip and found a memory, unbidden, rising up in her. She found that she had turned to regard Ash with a glance that he returned with a sober, knowing look. She looked down and shook her head to clear the sudden - unwanted - recollection.

Miss Kienna, with a distraught look on her face, said, "If she feared ostracization or punishment for her relationship with you, I can assure you that I never, ever would knowingly love a Sister of mine less for her passions and preferences."

There was a long, surprised silence in the room.

It was some time before they continued with their conversation with the waif-like - but, obviously, somewhat powerful Selkie. When they did, it was only once Ophelia had been shuffled off to her bed.

Miss Kienna offered the awkward looking Monster a place to sit next to her. Then she began to ask It the questions that they could have possibly asked in front of Ophelia.

"You say that you saw Anais' murderer. What happened?"

Elluvia looked at all of the women and fidgeted.

"I did not see who they were - all I could do was sense its preseance, before it kill- before it did its business."

The sigh that came from the others was palpable.

Finally, Netta spoke up then, a thought that she had been keeping to herself bothering her.

"What's needed is a speaker to the dead. Or a Seer."

"Yeah, well, with our luck, no one here quite fits the bills," Morgan answered.

Netta spoke up, reluctant but feeling the neccesity of it.

"I... may know someone who's a bit of both."

Calliope arrived a day later, looking worse for wear. At the sight of Netta, the Witch gave her apprentice a weak smile.

"I believe that there's some request that's been cast for my talents?"

Netta nodded, smiled, and whisked the woman in her arm, walking her to the house.  As they walked, Calliope spoke to her in a conspiratorial voice. "You need to get this Monster of yours on lock down, Incubi or no."

As they entered the house, Netta quickly answered, "I already did." In the next voice, Netta, looking out at the anxious room full of Witches that she was the guest of, said, "May I present the talent Seer, Calliope of the Oleander Coven?"

Miss Kienna walked towards them, her hand extended. "I wish to extend to you a welcome to our home, Miss Ca-"

Calliope interrupted then, turning away from the women to look squarely at Netta. "What? What's this about you "already" being with It?"

When Netta didn't answer, she continued, gesticulating angrily. "Don't tell me that you consummated with - It - not just allowing It to soak up the Madness, without any of your sister's aid? And with no Mark to boot?"

The women in the room were staring at them, their eyes large as they looked at Netta and then back at Calliope.

Before Netta could answer, Ash said, "Should I have sent an invitation before or after I lit the candles and threw the rose petals on the bedspread? Would you have like to have officiated the thing before or after one of us came?"

Netta buried her face in her hands, her eyes slamming shut. "Oh, Goddess, no." She looked up and didn't know if she were more horrified or relieved to realize that Calliope's ire was directed at Ash.

Calliope pushed Netta aside and jabbed a fat finger towards where she must have supposed Ash to be.

"You. This is all your fault. Your M.O is all about tempting women into making horrible, awful decisions and then taking advantage of them. You're a black widow of the worst sort, and I think I would have preferred the young one to have copulated with a - a troll. At least the most in the way that a troll can do with conniving is brute force."

Calliope blinked, then looked over at Netta, her eyes revealing fear, trepidation. "It can take control of you, if you copulate with him even one more time. Did you put any thought into that, before you let this happen?"

Ash cocked an eyebrow up and lifted a hand up to gesticulate nonchalantly. "Are you done? If all I wanted to do was to take advantage of a woman sexually, don't you think that I could have done it and gotten it over with sometime in the seventy odd years that I have been waiting for her to acknowledge our relationship?"

Calliope stomped her foot. "This one must have been scaring away Monsters since Its met you. It's no wonder that she's never had any suitable one approach her."

Netta cleared her throat and waited for the older Witch to look at her. "Do you think that you could wait to talk about this until after we've spoken at length with the dead Witch's spirit? The same one that these lovely women are grieving over?"

Calliope turned around and looked at the women staring at her.

She smiled a little too largely. "U- um, I apologize for that just now. I was not made aware of our mutual friend here getting an elopement with an Incubi."

Miss Kienna blinked and looked at Ash. "He's - an Incubi?"

The women waited outside of the kitchen as Netta and Calliope spoke alone.

With the door to the cozy room shut, Calliope turned to look at the younger Witch.

Netta tried to pretend that she was interested in finding something in the fridge to eat. She took the brief silence to look in the packed space of the fridge, trying to decide what she should say.

She was saved from finding a way to say what something first when Calliope slammed the fridge door, forcing her to back away from it. Glancing to the right, she found the Witch standing there, her face a grim mask.

"Do you mind to tell me what this one is?"

Netta felt her mouth open, and before she could think of what she was going to say, Ash answered from the opposite side of the room, his face twisted in an insincere smile.

"Funny question - I haven't quite got that one decided myself."

Netta closed her eyes, then tried to find some aspect of calm to work from.

Finally, she answered, "Ash is an Incubi, remember? We spoke about this-"

Calliope interrupted, saying, "-and we also discussed what you would do if you decided to take It up on Its desire to become your Familiar." She shook her head disapprovingly. "I only hope that you haven't... copulated with It more than what was necessary." The way that Calliope said "copulate" made it sound to Netta as though the term referred to something foul and ethically corrupt.

For a moment, the way that she said it made Netta think, hungrily, of Ash's expression of that foul action.

Ash spoke up, Its voice a bored drawl. "That depends on what you would want to call "neccesary"."

When Netta turned to look at Ash, she saw the Monster chuckle, rubbing Its thumb along the rightmost bulb of Its nose. "Seeing as how she's my Witch now, I believe that all of this is our personal business." In spite of the supposed good cheer of his voice, there was a quiet warning to it.

It chilled Netta to hear it, and she had to look away from that flat, bright quality that Its purple eyes had taken on.

Calliope asked Netta what he had said, and before Netta could decide what was best left out, she shared what he said.

Calliope ordered Netta to repeat what It had said, and with the pressure of Ash repeating what It said, Netta, reluctantly, agreed.

When Calliope spoke, her voice rose in annoyance.

"Listen here, Beast, you need to be aware of the fact that we - none of us - will abide your attitude once everything is back to normal -" she paused, and Netta saw the way that the older woman's eyes darted over to her before she added, "relatively speaking."

Netta spoke then, thoroughly tired of the both of them. "Can't we worry about this later, possibly? Not that I'm not excited to discuss the future of my intimate life with the either of you, but I think we have other things to worry about right now."

Calliope blinked, then sighed. "About that - we need to talk about something else as well."

Uh-oh. "What's it about?"

"I've been doing some research - through some of the secret channels. It turns out that we're not the only ones experiencing some... bizarre phenomena."

Ash spoke then, Its voice a sharp cut. "If by "strange phenomena", you mean Witches acting nuts, then I suppose that can be construed as some sort of phenomenon."

Calliope spoke to Netta, saying. "Dear, I don't know how to say this - there've been a string of murders - well, unfortunate accidents that seem to be more than a little bit unfortunate."

Netta stared for a moment at Calliope, staring at her for so long that it seemed as though her face lost its detail.

Netta more felt herself say it than was aware of saying, "What do you mean? To humans?"

Calliope shook her head slowly. "No, not humans."

Netta swallowed, then found her gaze drawn as though irresistibly to Ash's face. Looking at the Monster, she saw how It looked cold, almost emotionless.

She turned away, looking back at Calliope.

The older Witch said, "Someone - a few someones - is hunting Witches down." She sighed, running a hand over her face tiredly, knocking her glasses partially off of her face before she could right them.

"There've been found - on the bodies - etched in this symbol that seems to suggest that the murders are ritualistic."

Netta leaned back against the counter, fearing that she might fall down. "Why?"

There were no specifics in her mind, none that she could grab onto.

Calliope let out a hiss of breath from between her teeth and shook her head. "Why do these things ever happen? Old fairy tale nonsense - fear of this winter. Of the death of magic."

Ash spoke up, the sound of Its voice startling Netta, who found that she must have almost forgotten that the Monster was there. "Which fairy tale we talking about here? Cinderella? Beauty and the Beast?"

Calliope said, "Found on all of the bodies - it's an ouroboros made of horn. Antler. Carved into their flesh to mark them - as sacrifices to the Traitor King." She made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat, crossed her arms over her chest.

At the sound of that name, Netta found that she could not suppress a maddened bark of laughter. "The Traitor King? You mean the Bogeyman? Lucifer himself?"

Calliope looked up at Netta, a sober, wary look on her face. "Some have likened that one to those figures from human mythology. The different here is that we have a cult - a subdivision of Witches - on our hands that seem to believe that they can have Lucifer at their will."

Ash spoke up again, appearing next to Netta to clap a hand on her shoulder.

"Good luck with that. I know you megalomaniacs think that you can control everything, just because we're at your beck and call, but that sounds to me like you're all getting in for a lot more than you asked."

Netta shivered, for some reason remembering, unerringly, laying beneath Ashwood, their naked flesh pressing together in a mad waltz.

Netta shook her head viciously to dissipate the thought, and said, "Witches are hunting their own?"

"Who else could find our kind? This must be some kind of a - a Doomsday cult that thinks that they can control the coming of Ragnarok. Why else would they want to bring the King back, except to attempt to bring about the end of the world?"

When Netta said nothing, Calliope continued. "And we're involved in all of this, unexpectedly. Xi must have been involved in these insane Witches' conspiracy, certainly. Maybe they're promising that the next step following the Traitor King's destruction will be a rebirth of Old Magic, of the rejuvenated power of Monsters. Maybe even thinking that they can try that coup over humanity once more, like in the bad old days."

Netta closed her eyes and rocked back against the counter, surprised by the continued, light weight of Ash's hand on her shoulder. She glanced over to the Monster, taking in the wry upturn of the false man's lips, then looked back at Calliope's serious expression.

Slowly, she asked, "How does any of this have to do with me?"

Calliope answered in a biting voice. "Young woman, you are duty bound to the fates of not just your Coven members, but your own kind as well. Now that you are in possession of a Familiar, you should consider yourself as being in war time now. If someone is seeking to kill us, I believe that they have heavily entrenched our Coven into their business." She smiled a soft, sad smile. "It is our duty to stop their horribly misguided bloodshed before they kill many more of us. For what they did to poor Xi's mind."

Calliope stared into Netta's eyes, her eyes magnified to large, overly soft blue from behind the heavily magnified lenses of her glasses. "Proof that we're involved in this must be in this is the fact that you had a nightmare that drew you here. It is the magic in our blood that calls, draws on all of us, like a siren's call -"

Ash interrupted, snorting in disgust before It said, "Or a noose."

Calliope's mouth fell open softly, desperation clear on her face as she likely saw Neta's reation to the Monster. "My dear, you cannot run from your family. Fate draws us all together as much as our magic does."

She sighed, hesitating, then continued. "I know your time with us was not the happiest, but you cannot let old wounds stop you from being where you belong. Now is your time - alongside your Sisters. There is something in this house that pulls us here, of that I am certain."

Netta looked down blindly and tried to find something solid to hold onto in her mind.

The preparations for communing with the very fabric of time and matter remain as varied as the methodology for cooking.

It looks like art, something that could be done haphazardly. In reality, it is closer to the careful science of chemistry.

Netta was well aware of this, even as she was struck, for the first time, seeing Calliope from the perspective of an outsider.

Short, plump and with a mismatch of clothes that looked as though Calliope had thrown everything on in a pitch black room and had hoped for the best. Calliope was every bit as unreasonable as she looked the very part of.

Nevertheless, Calliope's best talent, aside from her abilities, was what she called her "bedside manner".

Once the embarrassment of her entrance had gone, Calliope called for everything that she would need, while having the demeanor of a concerned auntie towards the other Witches.

Once everything was ready, Calliope shook her head and clenched her jaw in a few measured stretches.

Sighing, she said, "I need to speak with the person closest to the deceased."

Ophelia stepped forward and allowed the woman to take her dark hands in her paperwhite own.

"Can you imagine as much as you can of her persona? Her smell, her voice, her tics - just immerse your mind in as much of her as you can, until I tell you to stop."

Ophelia looked bothered, as though she were about to say something. Seeming to think better of it, she slammed her eyes shut, her face becoming a stone edifice once more.

Everyone in the room, save for the two whose hands were cojoined, shifted restlessly, nervously.

When Wu leaned in an began to whisper to Morgan, Calliope turned her head and gave a steady glare to the two. Wu slowly inched away from her Sister.

They remained like that for an untold amount of time.

Finally, in the ocean of still time, Calliope called out, "Back! Bring your mind back - I have your sister in my mind now."

Ophelia snapped er eyes opened and snatched her hands back.

Taking a step backwards, the teenager rubbed at her hands compulsively, as though she had plunged her hands into a spider's nest.

If Calliope noticed the movements, she did not show that she cared.

"I need help. Dears," she addressed the whole room, turning to look at the ones that were not in her immediate eye sight. "I need all of you to help me as much as you can. Draw on your Familiar's powers and channel it all through me. With luck, I can make do with everything in this room right now."

"What if you can't?" Miss Kienna asked.

Calliope frowned deeply underneath her thick glasses. "I was hoping for a bit more belief in my abilities - but if it's not enough, then we'll need to draw on more power from somewhere, certainly. We'll discuss that at a later time, if and when it comes up."

Everyone got into a circle and joined hands. It felt uncomfortable to Netta to be joining hands with these women, it felt a little primary school.

Without thinking about it, as she took the proferred hand of Miss Kienna in her own, she turned around and looked at Ash, who gave her a sarcastic salute.

For some reason, that gave her strength to keep in the circle.

Calliope chanted, and at first all they did was listen.

After some time, a few began to chant along in time with Calliope, as though they were reciting from memory.

Soon, others did the same, until the space of the room was filled with the sound of the chanting until even Netta felt compelled to join in, her voice joining theirs in a perfect complement.

This continued for a minute longer, until Calliope stopped, and everyone else stopped as well.

It was as though the words to the chant left Netta's mind, as though they had been pulled out, like a tooth.

"What is the matter," Miss Kienna ordered.

Calliope clenched her eyes shut and writhed violently. "I - I need more power - there's something blocking your young one's voice from calling out to me."

Calliope opened her eyes wide and looked directly at Ophelia in the circle. "The one who killed your twin is a powerful one. I can tell you with certainty only that it was wanting to kill not only her, but also you."

Ophelia squared her shoulders and stared back at Calliope.

"I wish it would've," the teenager declared, her teeth bared. "I would've killed it."

No one said anything.

Calliope coughed, then said, "I did not mean to worry her - I can feel that the murderer's preseance has left your wood. I doubt that it will return to finish its ghastly work."

"You don't know that for sure," Wu said softly.

"But none of this changes the fact that I do not have enough energy to push through the barrier that whatever the murderer has erected."

Calliope paused, and she glanced over at Netta meaningfully, before she looked away, quickly. "The only way to amass this kind of power - would be to ask someone to do something that's unspeakable."

Netta had been looking down at her feet, and she felt as though she were watching herself standing in that circle.

She wondered, for a moment, what they could do now. She found nothing to answer her but a corner to be backed into.

In their dour quietness, Netta swore that she could feel the pressure of their pointed attention on her. In order for her to draw on further power, she would have to pay a terrible cost.

Oh, Goddess, protect me. It was a desperate plea - and one, it seemed, that went unanswered. For this was a way that seemed to lead only, reasonably, to her being killed by her own kind.

Ash, the source of this danger, called out from where It stood, leaning against the wall. "So - does that mean that we're done here?"

The Monster addressed Netta then. "We're done here?"

It would take a great sacrifice, by someone capable of new magic, surely, to be able to build that kind of power that could be drawn from.