Netta had been staring too long at Calliope, and her brain seemed to not want to work in the least. Finally, Calliope leaned forward and rested a hand on one of Netta's. "Did you hear me? Can you understand it?"

Netta pressed a hand to her forehead and took in a deep breath. "I think even if I was fully awake, I'd still have some difficulty understanding what you're saying."

Netta sighed and took a sip of the tea. She was startled, at first, when she felt the surge of magical power starting at her mouth and then spread through her body.

She remembered that Calliope got a few items that had been touched by someone else's magic. Being another Witch who also had no Familiar, Calliope would have to rely on other's magics to work. Among the work arounds that existed was tea that had been enhanced with rejuvenating magic.

How long had it been for Netta, since she had last felt, tasted mgic?

Netta gulped that sip down then took a long drag at the cup, hoping that shaking the thick layer of fuzz that had accumulated in her mind would make what Calliope said make sense.

"We'll have to pick this conversation up at a later date. You seem as though you've worn thin under the weight of exhaustion." When Netta made some half-hearted attempts at arguing with her, Calliope interrupted her, saying, "I think that a good night of rest would help in clearing your head, dear. I figure that you can spend one last night with that boy that you've brought - I can secure a room for you at the Stop n' Sleep. In the morning, you can bid him adieu."

There was no time to think of the rather curious choice of words - saying that she would "secure" a room for her at the fleabag motel in town. She also ignored the tell-tale snicker originating from the creature that only she could see.

Netta took another drag at the cup of tea before she looked Calliope in the eyes. She took a deep breath and said, "I came to see what you needed. I - I have to be frank with you, Callie, I am not much of a Witch. If I ever was one, then it's long gone out of me by now." she shrugged and tried to make it seem as nonchalant as she could manage, when in reality she was close to shaking. "I think that you would be better off with this sort of thing-"

Calliope laughed hysterically. "Dear girl, have you forgotten who you're speaking to?" Netta's brains, rankled as they were, took a moment to understand what she was getting at before the woman answered her own question. "The contract I had with Jaste a good long time ago. If I wanted to do this myself, I would need to make a contract with a Monster and hope that a particularly strong one would be willing to shack up with me."

Calliope shook her head, chuckling. "My dear, I am no spring chicken. No one of any substance would have an old lady for his Master. Also, and this is for future reference," Calliope got up and started to fuss with some dirty dishes in her sink, rolling up the sleeves and turning the hot tap in her tiny sink on. "never leave a compact with a Familiar without taking your power back; there is nothing like the potent magic that you share with a Familiar, and once it's gone with the fleeing bastard, then there's not much more than old, broken flowers that you can offer another."

She turned around to look meaningfully at Netta, a drooping strand of curly graying brown hair that had escaped her loose bun hanging over her glasses. "And trust me - people want good, virile, fresh flowers. Tell me, dear, do you have any idea where you can start in finding a good companion?"

And then Netta became aware that Ash was in the room, when the Monster walked up to the table and began to wave Its hand wildly in front of her. "Hel-lo? Virile flower here!"

Netta thrust a hand through her hair. There could not have been anything that Calliope could have said that would have been more troublesome, where Ash was concerned. The only thing worse than looking over to that overeager, grinning face - was a sobering understanding that she had.

There was no doubt that given the sheer, absolutely unheard of length of time that she and Ash had known each other for, that the Monster would be the perfect lightening rod for her, capturing her power and honing it - no matter how paltry his power would turn out to be.

There was also the terrible truth, that Monsters in this day and age were rare - so very rare that it was becoming unheard of to find one, even for a Witch.

She swallowed and found that she had to close her eyes, to not look at Ash.

"I - I may have a lead on where to find a good companion." Netta was trying with all of her might to not press her hand over her mouth to discourage herself from wanting to vomit. "it's just that there might be some - complications."

Ash stepped over to Netta, leaning over the table so that It was resting on Its elbow, staring deeply into Netta's eyes. Those purples looked as though at any moment they might revolt and show something angrier - deeper.

Calliope stopped in the middle of working a long-handled plastic brush through a soapy mason jar and turned around slowly.

"How complicated are we talking here?"

Netta turned her eyes up to the ceiling. Oh, how to put it delicately?

It was so much harder, she found, to talk like Ash was not there when the Monster was leaning onto the table, staring into her eyes.

Finally, she bit her lip.

"I have - a lead on someone." Against her better judgment, Netta looked down, into the face of her enemy. "- but Its not very strong, I don't think." Those purples seemed to swirl in an angry spiral, darkness almost drawing her in, until she had to look past It, at the old woman. "Not based on what Its capable of, alone."

Calliope clapped her and, grinning, and strode to the table, the soap glancing off of her arms with each step. "Oh, beautiful, I mean, that's some great news. And here I thought that we would need to wander through the desert in this weather and hope that a nice Monster takes a liking to you."

Netta hissed and turned away, unable to look any further at either Calliope or the thunderous, accusing expression on Ash's face.

"I don't think that I can do it."

"Why not?" She could clearly hear the disappointment in Calliope's voice.

Ash said, "You're not being rid of me so easily. I won't let another touch you, for as long as I can help it." Gone, totally, was the deceitfully playful flirting, revealing angry intent.

"We don't exactly - get along..." Netta found it increasingly difficult to step around the real issue.

Finally, she cleared her throat and, turning to look back at the other woman, said, "Me and the Monster had a falling out a long time ago and I am really certain that having a partnership with It would be a very, very bad idea."

Calliope sat down in her chair and hurriedly rubbed off the remaining soap and water from her hands with a dish towel.

Reaching across the table, the older Witch took hold of Netta's hands, glancing through a livid Ash.

Calliope spoke, an almost tender - motherly - smile on her face. "The beauty of this sort of a relationship is how little squabbling matters in the end. Even deep differences that would cause the biggest holes in a human romantic relationship," she said the term as though she had been describing the nastier bits of offal. "can be simply remedied in a manner that is good for the Witch. Remember, all they are are tools." She smiled serenely at Netta. "They can only use what you give them."

"What about issues of personality?" Netta asked, daring to glance, for a moment, into the tight lines of Ash's face.

"My dear, Familiars have no choice other than to be dragged along at the length of tether that you allow them. Given little enough, even the most strong-willed of their types will cave and become exactly the sort of a... man that you would love to spend an eternity with," she wrinkled her nose as she said it, then followed up with, "so I've heard, at least."

Netta pulled her hands away.

Damn her weakness, but she found that the thought of making Ash walk in lockstep to her whims - to tame that patronizing attitude and that sarcastic lilt to Its smiles - was unappetizing to her.

The thought of begin around Ash that intimately, however, pushed her away totally. "Agh - I can't, really, I can't. You'd have to know him - It - Its not even meaty enough to chew through." Blessedly, Ash was silent - but Its brimming anger was hard to ignore.

Calliope sighed and leaned back in her seat. "If you say so, dear. I was just trying to point out the obvious to you before you had to go trudging through the wilds in search of an imp or a toad faerie - which, let me tell you, make phenomenally ugly males even after you've been with one for a century." She amended what she said quickly. "Not that I know from experience!"

Calliope shuddered, raising a hand to her forehead. "But - once you get a contract secured, you must see what you can find, up at the Homestead. I fear that there may be something there, left by whatever may have taken the others." She gave Netta another weak smile. "Just remember, dear, we're still one of the more traditional Covens - when you find a nice Monster, return to me, and I can affix the seal to your skin. If you're going to become one of us, you're going to need protection - don't forget."

After paying for the room, Netta set about trundling her luggage up the stairs, followed by Ash.

It had taken a good deal of effort to not scream at the Monster in multiple instances. Almost as soon as Netta had said goodbye to the oldest member of the Coven, Ash had returned, ceaselessly, to Its old self.

Having finally had enough as she pulled her rolling luggage that refused to roll on the iced metal of the stairs, she snapped.

"Do you shut up - I mean, even for a moment, is it possible that you leave me to my own thoughts, you wretched beast?" To her dismay even her words lacked any true bite, lost in the dulling effect of her exhaustion.

Ash followed her, hands in Its pockets as It hiked slowly after Its struggling companion. "Haven't heard that sort of sentimentality from you in a long while. And, not to step on your toes, Master-to-Be, but aren't you touchy about being seen, talking in public to yourself? Are you so gung-ho about getting the first paddy-wagon to Bedlam?"

Netta, who had managed to get to her room's door, snorted. "This place is a dump in a bigger dump. I think that rats would be more comfortable in an actual dump than this drafty, leaky set of stacked boxes. And who in the hell says "paddy-wagon", anyway?"

The dump in question was a motel that had hardly been updated from its heyday in the 60's and 70's. It was a rusted art-deco, two-tiered building with a rather unfortunate design choice of being open air with a small roof snaking over the walk way on the top floor.

The sound of a door slamming closed close to them made Netta jump. Turning her head out of the doorway, Netta watched as the haggard-looking man passed by their door without taking a moment to look at them as he left. As the man trumped down the metal stairs, Netta rested against the doorway with a sigh.

"Nobody would want to live here, eh?"

Netta sighed and rubbed her tired, tired face. "Shut up, Ash." She regretted saying it almost immediately, horrified at being discovered as a crazy person who spoke to herself.

Turning around, Netta got an eyeful of the room that she had paid twenty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents for.

Even without the lights clicked on, Netta got the distinct impression that she had overpaid by twenty-nine dollars for the right to sleep in the place for the night.

Gloomy and very much cold, Netta clutched her coat closer to her and flicked the light on to reveal the cramped quarters in all of their glory.

Netta sighed and dropped her bags onto the floor.

After hesitating for a moment, Netta picked up a bag and tanked it onto the grotesque-looking bedspread. Rummaging through the bag, she poked through her clothes, feeling a sigh of relief when her hands fell on the familiar hardback Composition notebook.

Pulling it out, she pretended to not notice the very audible groan from Ash.

Beginning to leaf through the book, she heard Ash asked, "What're you doing with that?"

Netta, still concentrating on what to choose from, gave an impatient look at the Monster. "Calliope made me a cup of tea that was infused with magic. Then she gave me the tin of the stuff," she said, pulling the small, rusting red tin that read in large, ornate gold letters on the front, "Gunpowder" and giving it a gentle shake. When she sat it down on the bed, she had to catch it before it fell to the ground when it gave a violent pitch, setting it further back on the bed. "After drinking some of it, it will give me the ability to use fledgling-level magic for a short period - approximately ten minutes. If you don't mind, I would like to use some of it to make this whole situation a little more - habitable."

Netta had not realized that Ash was right behind her until she felt It pressed against her.

Even as her mouth moved to tell it to leave her alone, her voice mutinied. She shivered and shut her arms around her chest, huddling in as she tried to guess Its next move.

As soon as it had enveloped her, she felt Its presence leave her and she could breathe again.

Turning around, Netta found Ash standing to the left of the bed. The Monster opened the tin, turning the gasket lid on top, sticking Its nose in. Ash took in a series of deep breaths, Its eyes fluttering with the pale gold of his almost unmasculine, lace-like eyelashes before It resurfaced, snapping the lid closed on the tin.

"This is a travesty." Ash tossed the thing back to Netta, who caught it and sat it back down on the bed. Crossing Its arms over Its chest in an authoritarian pose, Ash said, "I would hope that any Witch who had to learn the laws of nature would know how unnatural it is to use someone else's magics. It's like watching someone sodomize your wife to know that you're drinking someone else's magic like this."

Ash's gaze seemed to pin Netta to place as she stood, transfixed by Ash's intensity. "Please. Don't waste your own source to use this artificial shit."

Netta forced herself to go back to what she had been doing, flipping between the over half of a century's old spells in her oxidized-brown penmanship. "

I've done decently, when I've needed it, by using someone else's magics." She flicked her eyes for a moment away from the page she had been reading and felt the ghost of a smile on her lips. There was something - almost charming - when Ashwood lost Its cool, that faux-comfortable facade beginng to slip.

It would be best to not let him know about that.

Ash was quiet for so long that Netta raised her eyes over finally to glance at the Monster. It glowered at her, a look that seemed to dare her to continue.

Finally, It said, "Why don't you just tell me that you think that I'm unworthy as a man and that you'd rather cuckold me."

Netta wanted for a moment to remind him that he was no man - not any sort that she had ever seen before.

Instead, she said, "Don't be dramatic. If I was as addicted to the lifestyle as my Sisters, don't you think that I would have done it by now?" After she said it, Netta paused, wondering why she had bothered to say it.

She flipped through the notebook in silence for some time until she found a good amount of what she thought that she was capable of, with how much magic she felt vibrating, unfamiliar and energizing, in her.

She clapped, stepping away from the bed. "Alright, hold onto your ass."

Ash sighed bitterly as Netta copied the spell's steps as carefully as one would a recipe for baking.

It was disheartening to realize, as she tripped through the first step, how out of practice she was. The first few steps, more attenuators than anything, were crucial for the next to come.

It took longer than the estimated five minutes - fifteen minutes for her - because she skipped a step by accident and then couldn't unfurl the energy that she had been weaving without it snagging and gaining an extra aspect or two that would not be good, like turning the room into a catalyst for break-ins.

The next step was much quicker, and Netta worked it out while sitting on the bed with a cover thrown over herself to trap as much heat in the chilly room as possible.

Finally, the incantation - most of which actually took place in her head - was done. Finished, she leaped out of the bed.

"Here goes nothing." Taking in a deep breath, she exhaled it slowly, purposefully, with her hands laid flat against her sides. When she opened her eyes - slowly - she was at first disappointed to see that nothing had changed.

She turned to look at Ash, expecting to see the Monster celebrating her lack of finesse and her ultimate lack of control with magic. Instead, she saw a sober expression on Its boyish features.

And then she felt the room shift as though she were being shot through the air with maximum velocity.

Shutting her eyes, she reached up to grab at herself, all recollection of being in the motel room left her mind. All around her, the air seemed to have taken on the qualities as though the room was flying, and fast.

When, suddenly and finally, the world around her stopped, she opened her eyes only to be pitched forward, almost sprawling on the ground before she could catch herself.

Gasping, she opened her eyes as she looked down.

She was startled - the ground was no longer that dubiously clean, faded green shag, but was instead a decadently rich, deep as amber-brown Earl Grey-colored. Gleaming wood. Looking up, she glanced around her to see that she had been punched into the world that she had carved into the motel room.

Elegantly decorated, if not a little too by-the-numbers, the bedroom that Netta stood in was undoubtedly a clear comparison to the one that she had paid for. The walls were decorated

She left the room, going out of the heavy wood door that was attached to the room and nearly ran into Ash.

Backing up a few steps, Netta looked up at the glowering Monster and could not suppress the smile that she had been holding back.

"First time. Not a big deal."

The rest of the house had bee constructed to replace the image of the ratty motel room and it included a French kitchen, a balcony that was continuously sun-drenched no matter the weather in reality, three bedrooms and several other rooms. She figured from her spell that the extra roomshad to include a sauna, work-out gym and, if she had flubbed a word or two, might include a room with some creature's head poking out of one of its walls, as massive as half of the room itself.

Ash trailed her as she walked through the house with a marked, sullen silence that lifted only when she stepped into the opulent dining room.

The room was decked with gold-flake walls and the two broad windows along the broad side of the dinner party table were open to reveal a summer scene. Netta, seeing the warm vision outside, seemed to notice for the first time that she was wearing heavy layers of clothing.

She gladly took off her coat and shoved her shoes off, standing in the middle of the room with her hands opening and closing, trying to soak up as much of the warmth as she could.

"I must admit," Ash said, coming around Netta closely, brushing against her and making her bristle in respone. "this is impressive, for a human lifetime's hiatus. Mmm. Then again, using someone else's magic is a shortcut. I would call it the Witch's version of an Easy Bake Oven."

It could be hard to miss, underneath the veneer of good mood, the sniping quality of Its voice. But Netta was far too familiar with it.

Netta ignored Ash to take a seat at the head of the table. When she glanced up, she saw that she had triggered the meal to be served.

She could barely see the Monster at the other end of the table above the spread. The food served included a full, split chicken, potatoes in five ways and a selection of everything that had been a staple in her childhood.

She laughed at the sight of it all, just recalling that she had made this particular spell a long while ago, back when this cuisine had been what was the height of her taste bud experience.

"Looks like the menu from way back in the day," Ash remarked, Its voice containing less sharp edges than it had previously.

Netta glanced up at Ash, a daring spirit, brought on by the warmth and the loveliness of what she had created, filling her. "Why don't you join me, old friend?"

Ash twitched Its nose and looked away. "Eat? Like a human?"

"No. Like a good dinner guest."

Ash shrugged. "I have to decline that invitation. Eating is a tragic waste of life, even for me. I see no reason to fake gaining sustenance."

For a moment, Netta was struck by something. It was the thought of Ash eating triggered an odd flicker, like recognition.

She shrugged it off, rolling her eyes.

Leaning forward, Netta took a scoop to create a crater in the side of the mini hill of peppered mashed potatoes.

"You're pretty good at faking being comfortable, but it's always a ruse with you." Leaning over to rip the right leg off of the roast chicken, she closed her eyes, smelling the rosemary baked into its skin, the tickle of pepper dusting the dark, speckled amber quality of the skin. "You've never even tried food before, Ash. You've had plenty of sex, I imagine, but this is a frontier that you won't even go near."

She sighed and took a bite.

It took a few moments of chewing for her to spit the bite that she had just taken out, rubbing her face with the cloth napkin to the right of her wine glass.

Ugh - what had she done to make the chicken taste so burnt?

Ash laughed heartily. "You know, Lovely, the thing about that is - you've never exactly "tried" sex either, and I think that, from my perspective, the pleasure of a woman is much more wondrous than the experience of ingesting a chicken."

Sitting up stiffly in her chair, Netta stared at Ash from across the table. "I'm sure that you would know something about that, now, wouldn't you, you poor, lonesome river ghost?"

Ash leaned over and pretended to take a drink out of Its glass of red wine.