Standing in the bathroom of the gas station, Netta gave a last cursory look at her new clothes. Black pants, a gray hoodie and - oh - a black kerchief to cover her face, if and when the shit hit the fan.

She stood in front of the mirror, examining herself. Her face had become less round, more stark and hollow, and her eyes gave her away in an instant that she was not human. If she was to take comfort in her change in appearance, it was that she looked different from who she once was, so as to not be immediately recognizable.

It was, however, hard not to be struck by the perception that she looked like she had stolen more aspects of Ashwood's features. She now looked well over thirty, with a certain hungry hollow quality to her eyes-

She paused as she looked down at her hands, resting on either side of the dubiously clean sink.

She had wondered what she should use, the tool of her work.

She was interrupted when Ash spoke.

You don't need a weapon. Let me be your sword.

She looked in the mirror, back at Ash, standing against the wall that faced the mirror. His smile was strained, but encouraging.

Not for the first time, Netta wondered what she had ever done without him.

Walking to the location on the letter, Netta kept as low a profile as she could while all in black.

When she got to the place, Netta was surprised by the lack of police tape - or presence. She looked at the sad, lonesome little house, shrouded by the falling snow and the yellow glow of the old street light.

Uneasy, Netta pretended to be lost, then tired so that she sat on the stoop of an abandoned shop. Across the street sat an older home that had been transformed into a duplex. The very same house that she had seen on that news report.

She sat there, feigning cold with Ash's heat enveloping her.

She had to admit that it was far easier to come off as one of the humans - or, at least, sane - when she didn't have to speak aloud to Ash. And to have him speaking, softly, intimately, in her mind -

When Ash spoke, it was in a husked whisper. What are we waiting for?

Netta breathed out a puff of air, wrapped her arms tighter around herself. It was impossible, now, to hide the feeling that she was making a terrible mistake when Ash could read everything in her mind.

Finally, she said, Something. Anything. She's a Witch or else this place wouldn't be this empty, so soon after a grisly murder. I'd wager that that work was done by Miss McLachlan's surviving Coven members or I'll eat a hat.

What do you plan to do?

Netta forced a breath from her lungs, then watched as a huff of her breath turned to vapor. She did not need to breathe anymore - there, too, was something more that Ash had given her. The choice to, as he had once put it, "play human".

Wait to see if there's anything that looks like what could be Witches.

You're not wanting to catch one of your Sisters, returning to the scene of the crime, are you? Beneath the sobriety of his question there was, undeniably, humor.

Netta looked up at the duplex, a smile spreading on her face, in spite of the worry that had been digging at her.

The feeling, of being the sole person in the silently falling snow, changed abruptly.

Looking up with feigned calm, Netta saw the person next to her. Standing where no one had been before was an older woman wrapped in a thick coat. A long, thin scarf that wrapped several times around her head.

Through the layers of heavy cloth, Netta heard her speaking, good-naturedly

"Hidey-ho there, stranger!" She said, waving enthusiastically at Netta. "You're not waiting her for anything, are ya?"

Netta balked, for a minute thinking that she could lie.

Instead, she answered, "I am. I came here because of something that I saw on the news."

The woman laughed. "Ooh, the news? I watched that this morning, didn't see anything about anything of importance that happened in town." She laughed, the sound muffled by the sound of the wind and through the thick layer of the material of the scarf that she wore. When she finished laughing, the woman spoke, her voice dropping, subtlely, from her her earlier good will. "Are you so sure about that? You don't seem. very friendly. Why, someone would even say that you reek of something not human."

Netta stood up, for a moment shocked by the thought that her lack of humanity was so obvious. Trying to steel her voice, Netta answered, "Im as serious as a heart attack."

The woman paused.

Finally, she began to unwrap the mask that was the long scarf from around her face.

Behind that covering was revealed the light brown face of an older woman with the bright liveliness of a Witch in her yellow-green eyes.

When she spoke, it was with a hard, clipped edge to it, all of the hospitality in it gone from before.

"What's your business in our territory, Sister?"

Netta flicked a smile on her face that would have reminded her of Ash if she had seen herself do it in a mirror.

"Me? I'm here as a public service. I am here to catch pests."

The woman tilted her head to the side.

"What kind, pray tell, are you here to catch? The only thing left here are two crows, what with the third having already been dealt with." The bite in the woman's words, the held-back anger in them, was potent.

Heartbreaking.

For a brief moment, Netta felt touched by the ferocity of the Witch, her obvious pain, barely kept in check by righteous, burning anger.

It was a feeling that Netta had grown to know all too well.

"I am not hunting crows, who I have no quarrel with. I am... duty bound in my hunt for some rats. A large family of them, as a matter of fact."

The woman seemed to deflate in front of her, her defenses beginning to break.

"You - someone is already been sent to exterminate the rats who have caused so much damage?" When Netta nodded, the Witch closed her eyes, and when she opened them, the expression on her face said what she did not dare to say aloud. Thank you.

The Witch spoke, her voice barely hiding the emotion that she seemed to struggle to keep in check. "What do you need of me to complete this accursed task?"

In the home of the murdered Violetta, Netta stood and could only look at the mess. The bloody, wretched shards of a near-immortal life that had been shattered in a moment of terrible violence.

Once indoors, she could speak freely.

"How did the two of you manage to throw the scent off of this from the humans?"

Buho walked into the room with a look on her face revealing her pain at being in the room.

"You give too much credit to the morons. Humans love illusions, they even pretend that they're any good at it themselves in an almost sick pantomime of magic. Watch the floor, there's..." Her voice cracked, and it seemed as though she could not bear to say what she was going to.

She stopped as she was about to say something, her mouth hanging open for a moment before she shuddered, and in a trembling voice, said, "oh, poor Violet, gentle Violet..."

Netta was careful where she walked, threading through what could only be described as the nightmare left embedded in the carpet fibers of the living room.   Gore seemed to have been bravely attempted to be cleaned out of the carpet, but still there remained evil, deep red stains in the pure white of the carpet.

"What exactly happened here?"

"Well, me and my wife were off for a date night when it must have happened -"

Netta interrupted, remembering something that the older Witch had shared with Netta as they had climbed the stairs to the wretched apartment. "You mentioned another member left in your Coven. Where was she?"

Buho gave her an unnecessarily hard look. "-as I said, me and my wife were on a date night. When we came home, Violetta did not answer our calls to wish her a Merry Christmas. We thought - I mean, we assumed that she had retired for the night early." She blinked rapidly, then wiped ferociously at her face. "How stupid, to have not been able to prevent - it - then we let her fucking human friend find her corpse."

"So, that'd be why the news aired this?"

Buho threw her arms out and laughed wildly. "Yes. That... horrorshow is why I haven't been able to start hunting those putas who did this to my only other friend in the world. I still am duty bound as a Witch to hide our world from humans, no? Even as it allows those Monsters to slip away from justice..."

Netta waited patiently until the woman had finished regaining control of herself.

Buho sighed, then said, "I have been putting this fire out from the moment it began. Me and Pienna, working non-stop to wipe memories, clean up evidence, destroy footage..."

She slumped then, her exhaustion finally showing itself. "We had hoped - we wished that no one would be able to penetrate our magic."

Netta felt compelled to comfort the Witch in some way, saying, "You did our species a favor by putting all of us first in your mind. The last thing we need is for girls exhibiting a potential for magic to be captured and dissected."

Buho rolled her eyes. "Oh, such a comfort to my dead Sister."

"Well, I'm here, aren't I?" Netta hadn't meant for the words to sound snapped out, and she regretted it almost immediately.

Buho lowered her head, the movement reminding Netta of a flower drooping under the weight of its petals. "You're right. I'm sorry. I... mine and my wife's shared Familiar is exhausted, we're not used to having to live like humans. We're both utterly exhausted, and having our magic siphoned off has made us... cranky."

Netta looked at the woman. "Wait. You two - share one Familiar?"

In her head, Netta could hear Ash laughing.

Buho raised her head suddenly, her pale blue eyes sharp as they seemed to pinion Netta. "Yes. Do you have a problem with that? It may be unorhtodox, but we found that sharing the three of us together makes us happy."

"Oh, I didn't mean to sound like I disapprove. Far from it."

As a matter of fact, Netta mused, her situation could be seen as exceedingly more taboo than hers. The mere mention of her union with Ash could make the woman panic.

The jury's still out if I decide to take your magic and body as my own, Nettles, Ash remarked, not unkindly, reminding Netta that her thoughts were something that he could see.

The woman raised a skeptical eyebrow, then continued. "...anyway, that's all besides the point. We've had to clean up the... remains, and we've been busy cleaning all evidence that Miss Violetta has existed in town..." She sighed deeply. "We've not had the time to clean up here. Take a look all you want."

"Wait - the body - what'd -"

"We cremated her, just like any Witch would with her Sisters, before she fell to ash."

Damn it, Netta thought angrily.

"It would have been nice, to examine her corpse -"

"You know," Buho's voice was clipped, harsh. "if you have such a problem with the way that we live and how we took care of the situation, then maybe you can go find someone else more willing to take advantage of this public service. The corpse - Violet - the image of her laying there is seared in my mind, it's given my wife nightmares-"

Netta raised her hands, defensively, in front of herself. "I'm sorry, I just - I need to see if there's anything that I can use to find anything."

Buho motioned into the living room. "Go ahead."

Netta walked into the room and began to search. She looked, then asked to search the other rooms. Buho allowed her, only showing annoyance when Netta came up with nothing.

As the Witch was remarking that Netta did not seem to be good at anything when it came to finding any clues, Netta, frustrated, began to pushing things aside roughly, looking through Violetta's book shelf.

It was when she started to tromp over the giant pool of blood on the floor once more that Netta nearly felt herself trip on a rug on the floor that was askew.

Frustrated, Netta gave it a healthy kick.

As she did, she saw the rug flop over pathetically to reveal a piece of paper on the ground.

Picking the piece up, Netta looked at the note, confused at first by what she read.

"This looks like a grocery list-" Netta said, reading off what looked like extremely specific sorts of vegetables and fruit. "wait, only there's something odd about this first item - "poisoned apple". Why would someone even list that, it makes no sense..."

Buho, who had been quiet, spoke up. ""Poisoned Apple" isn't an ingredient - it's the name of that restaurant downtown that opened up a year ago."

"A restaurant?"

Netta looked closely at the list, saw that there was indeed no mention of meat - hell, no dairy, either.

"It doesn't happen to be... Vegan, is it?"

Buho snorted. "How'd you guess? Me and my wife went there. Once. We met the chef - real arrogant woman, for a human."

"You met the chef?" Netta turned, examined the older Witch's face.

Buho smiled bitterly at her. "She attempted to have us eat something sub par. When I asked to return her salad, we instead got this babyfaced shebeast that confronted us and told us to try her food again."

Could it be the effect that Ash had on her that was the reason that she felt as though she knew - exactly - what the other Witch was going to say, even before she asked her question?

"What happened then?"

"The damnedest thing. We tried her salad, then my tofu burger. They were both... great. Like, really good."

Netta was quiet for such a long time that Buho looked up at her. "Why do you ask? Wait, you don't think... That woman was a Witch?"

Buho touched the side of her head. "We would have - we should have... felt her influence on us, if that were true. How could she have hidden her power from us, when she used it?"

Netta closed her eyes, held her hand to her head. Goddess, why do I feel like I'm in a bad dream?

Netta muttered, "Either that, or I'm clearly seeing some pattern where there isn't one." And, finally, losing my mind. "Which would be an odd coincidence, seeing as I have rather intimate knowledge of an overgrown child who thinks rather highly of her food." Netta sighed, once more feeling as though she was asking a rhetorical question.

"I do have one question, however - is there any reason why Miss Violetta would have something about that restaurant? Any reason at all?"

The earlier fear on Buho's face faded somewhat as a look of almost prideful, fierce joy appeared on her face.

"Violet would not stand for that human trend of vegetarian shit. She wouldn't have gotten a few feet in the door if she had gone, before walking back out."

Netta had begun walking out of the apartment, the note clenched tight in her hand as though it had been as potent as a written admittance of the murderer's guilt. As she made to leave the building, she felt a small - but mighty - hand clench on her shoulder.

The anger, that emotion that uncoiled within her, ached to lash out. Before she could stop herself, she grabbed the older woman.

Netta's muscles seeming to tell her to throw, to wrench the woman away from her.

As soon as the urge came, it left and all Netta was left with was the sight of the frightened woman, shrinking away from her.

Buho walked backward so quickly that her back hit the wall. Her gaze never wavered, her eyes wide, from Netta's face.

The Witch spoke, her voice shaking as violently as her body seemed to. "¿Qué... qué clase de monstruo es usted?"

Netta did not need to ask the woman to clarify what she had asked her. Or, to be more precise, what she had called Netta.

Still, she wondered what the Witch had seen when she gazed into Netta's eyes.

(Chapter title taken from a line from William Blake's "A Poison Tree")