They were silent as they drove in the countryside, the snow that swirled around everything was like a blanket, or a particle-filled fog. As Netta made herself concentrate, she realized that she recognized where they were going. To Ash's benefit, they were going where he had claimed that they were.

Netta bit her thumb till it grew numb, the guilt she felt for having doubted him shaming her into continual silence.

Ash's voice rose through her thoughts, his voice dry. "Something's wrong."

She opened her eyes and looked through the windshield to see that they had stopped. A tree had fallen over onto the road.

There seemed to be no air in the car.

Ash said, "Stay. I'll move it out of the way. Keep the doors locked."

Netta did as he said without thinking of it, locking the doors as he walked calmly out of the car. Ash's unnaturally tall frame, unfolded as he walked, looked languid, even relaxed, hiding his true demeanor so well that even Netta was surprised when he flicked his left hand and she saw the tree - a large oak, surely - leap across the road into the ravine on the opposite side, as though he had just brushed a leaf.

She jumped. Just how powerful IS Ash?

Netta realized that it was a little too late to wonder that. It would be a good deal of effort, now, to extricate such a powerful Monster from her life. It was a far cry from how she had lived for years without seeing him as anything other than images dancing along her subconscious, sometimes on the edges of her line of sight. Smiling, sardonically, waving.

No, she thought, as Ash turned around, his hands placed firmly in his pockets, the wind not quite touching his almost wild mess of dark hair. No, he's all too real again, just like when I was young.

Only, this time, the boy seemed to have eaten at least three more of himself.

She forgot to unlock the doors to let him in. Ash stood at the driver's side of the car for a moment, still as he looked deeply at her with an implacable expression in his deep red eyes.

In the next moment, something moved so quickly through the air - a bird, Netta thought at first, before it struck Ash - and her spun around. In a split moment, he blinked a few feet to the right, turning in the direction that the thing had disappeared from.

In another breath, another large, whipping branch appeared from behind him and struck Ash in the torso so that the Monster flew forward to land on the ground, head first.

Netta gasped, her first worry that Ash had been injured. As soon as the worry struck her, she watched as Ash reappeared on his feet.

Netta had grasped the handle of the door when she felt a sudden pressure on her, like a weight on her chest. Looking up, she saw Ash's eyes, glowing red.

Don't do that, he ordered her.

Netta's hand jolted from the handle as though it had burned her.

Ash glanced away from her in time to see another branch shoot out and almost get him. He leaped away in time, crouched low to the ground, to get out of the way. In the next moment, he turned to look at the robed person, drawing Netta's attention to it for the first time.

Netta saw Ash's face, saw the almost horrible grin that stretched almost the entirety of his face.

It seemed to invite the figure.

When he spoke, Netta found that she had pushed her mind against his, could hear what Ash said.

"There's barely any pleasure that I can imagine that's greater than killing one of your kind," he rasped.

The Witch laughed loudly, bleatingly, at him, then said, "Aw, does the man-thing want to play without his Master?"

Ash was about to tell her exactly how he meant to play with her soon-to-be corpse, then he became aware of his Master's presence. Ash felt Netta's entire being enter him to his core in a sweeping motion that even she was not aware she had desperately made. In an instant, it took him out of his blood lust. Netta felt the shock of realization as though she were experiencing herself, the impression of ice water being poured on anger and eager bloodlust.

Ash gasped and jerked backward, feeling the growths of something receding into his head, his body falling back into his earlier height and bulk. Her presence in his mind seemed to calm him - the surprise made him forget what he was doing.

It was hard to do, when his good sense had to compete with the complete shock at the feel of Netta doing what he had thought that she would have never dared to do.

Still, Ash managed to dodge a bolt of black thunder that roared through the air to strike him. When he looked up, he realized, angrily, that the Witch had disappeared.

Netta rushed out of the car, barely realizing that she was doing it. Ash, was that-

"One of your kind, surely." He blinked himself back to the road in front of where Netta was now standing outside of the car.

She could feel his emotions, then, feel how he felt, deeply. How to him Netta looked so small in the snow storm.

She could feel, also, how Ash seriously considered putting her to sleep like he had before, so that he could take care of this business without her seeing what he wanted, so desperately, to hide from her.

What she had to see.

They were both aware at the same time of the three presences that appeared behind Ashwood.

Netta was only aware of the people on the road when Ash turned away from her. Seeing the three shadows in the bluster of the snowstorm ahead, Netta felt sick to her stomach with fear.

Might want to stay back on this one, Ash said.

Netta found her mind spinning, as she tried to discover what she could do. "No - if all three of them are Witches, then they'll kill you."

Monsters, ones as weak as the kind that lived off of the magic in the Earth these days, were easy pickings to be tortured out of the physical realm. When they did decide to manifest physically.

Like Ash is doing, now.

Somehow, she managed to scramble to Ash's side. Once there, she took his now-massive hand in her own. Netta felt him jump as he looked down at her. In the heavy snow, his eyes glowed.

Netta felt her mind crossing through his, could feel the swirling mass of contradictory emotions that tore through Ash.

When Ash spoke, his voice sounded ragged, desperate. "Please-"

He didn't get a chance to say anything further, as a blur of motion hit the Monster squarely in his chest, making him stagger back with a cry.

He roared and righted himself, jerking his arms back violently.

"Ohh, you three have no idea who you're dealing with. You attacked the wrong bastard today." Ash cringed as he said it, his left hand grazing over his chest.

Netta cried out, her hands flying towards him. "Ash!"

Then she glanced back in front of her, in time to see that the three on the road ahead had come much closer. They were standing only ten feet away from them.

Around them, the wind died down, so that the atmosphere was suddenly, disturbingly, calm.

When one spoke up, at first Netta had a hard time recognizing the voice. "Who's this lout that you've picked up, Neith? We were told that you had made some sort of a pact with an Incubi."

One of the others spoke up and she, too, had a voice that Netta fought to place - but could recognize. "I know this one, though. She must have been traipsing around with both, because this one must be that pitiful puppy that used to nip at her heels."

The first one laughed, and that's when Netta had to stagger backwards, the memory of that laugh came back to her.

"B-Bathory?"

It was one of the orphans that Netta's mother had once taken in, one of the Sisters. That name gave to Netta the memory of a quiet girl who was nevertheless adamantine in her willpower.

But this, this has to be beyond her -

"Don't call me that, Nettles." Erzebet snapped, taking obvious pleasure in drawing out her cruel nickname - the one that had haunted Netta since her childhood. "You lost the right to do that when you betrayed all of us."

The third, a voice that Netta recognized as belonging to Arabella, spoke up, loud and brash. "Shut up! What are we waiting for - cripple her Monster!"

The second sighed and turned to Arabella, the metal of her large earring flashing in the light of the still running car. Netta recognized her in a surreal moment as being Pallas, the most no-nonsense of the girls growing up. "This is becoming a farce. I'll finish this quickly. Here, dear, is your Romeo in truth."

With a snap of Pallas' fingers, Netta suddenly became aware that the person that she was standing next to was not Ash, but was rather a large, red demon in the very human sense of the term.

The monster was easily two stories tall - truly massive, as when she looked up, she could see the mass of Its thick knees.

Shrieking, Netta flew backwards, forcing herself out of the Monster's mind, realizing that she had somehow become connected to the thing.

The Monster roared, and she felt it trying to force Its way back into her mind.

Netta ran as fast as she could, nearly slipping on ice as she went.

She stopped only when she got to the car, opening the door and backing the car up in a panic-filled motion. Gone was anything, except terror, as she tried, desperately, to keep the horrifying entity from entering her mind.

As she was about to turn the car around, she happened to glance around. What she saw made her stop the car.

All three Witches were surrounding the Monster, striking It. In spite of Its massive size, they seemed to easily be doing damage, blasts of magical light beating against It. The creature roared, even the vicious range of the noise betraying agony.

Netta closed her eyes and felt herself reaching for the creature's mind.

A blaze of black, dark anger filled her as despair rode in closely behind. Netta was moved to escape, to leave Its mind and turn the car away from this madness.

There came a moment, though, when she thought that she could hear Ashwood calling out in agony from somewhere deep in the creature's mind.

Netta stopped as realization hit her.

When she looked back, she saw not that creature from before, but Ash, on his knees and blocking blows from the Witches and their Familiars. Arabella's murderous bear familiar tore at him, claws swiping wildly at his flailing body, and the rest formed a swirl of robes and magic.

Rushing out of the car, Netta felt as though fear choked her. Netta watched as Ash fell face forward, a complete lack of energy in his form.

Running into one of the hooded Witches, Netta cried out for him.

Erzebet turned around and shoved her back. "Don't worry, dear, we'll leave him partially alive so that you can make your good-byes."

Netta cried out, trying to shove past her Sister in a panic-driven attempt to get to Ash. Somewhere, she could hear a woman's voice as it cried out in a tearing, heart-broken tone, repeating his name over and over.

Erzebet shoved back - harder - and Netta fell. As she lay on the ground, she watched as the Witches began to trample Ash as he rapidly lost his physical make-up, his clothes disappearing in a haze. Everything that he did to make himself appear more human began to flicker. His face grew more elongated under the smearing of his blood, and soon he seemed to be sporting a set of horns from his head, great, twirling growths.

One of them cried out in laughter, a bird-like sound. "Oh, my, he's awful endowed for one of his kind! We've got a hopeful one on our hands!"

They all laughed out and continued to plod into him, raining blows. A voice that Netta recognized as belonging to Arabella laughed and declared, "Not as daring as mine, but he seems to have some part of himself for his good intentions."

With a smash, Netta felt the psychic pain of Ashwood as Arabella stomped on his pelvis.

Netta cried out, her hand reaching out, blindly, to him.

And then she felt the sudden, sharp pain that entered her, as though a needle had been shoved in her chest, pumping in poison. She realized, as she herself fell to the ground, that she was experiencing the twin of Ashwood's death.

Clutching her chest, Netta cried out as though she were beign torn apart. Weeping onto the snow, Netta felt the psychic torment in a cramping, whole pain that wrapped itself around her tightly.

She bawled into the snow as she felt Ashwood's force destroyed.

She was made aware of the end of the ordeal only when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Whipping her head up, Netta saw the leering face of Erzebet hovering above her like a sick moon.

"Was it worth it?"

Netta swallowed back the excruciating pain and looked up at the woman. It took all of what was in her to answer her back, to choke back her pain. "What?

Erzebet smiled a matron's sweet smile down at her. She spat on Netta's boilingly hot, agonized face. "I said, "Was it worth it," you fat, useless cunt."

Netta bared her teeth up at the murderer, felt her fists ball up at her sides. She felt her Sister's saliva dripped down her forehead, pooling down the concave of the left side of her nose.

"Every moment was worth it." She forced it out of her lungs, her mind filled with the thought of Ash. Her tears began to course down her face, bringing with them her sister's spit.

Erzebet laughed. "Well, I'm glad that it was as good for you as it was for me. Mother would be pleased with this turn of events."

Netta lowered her head as a psychic pulse shook her body until she had to gasp and clamp her mouth onto her right hand to keep herself from clenching her teeth to the point of breaking them.

From behind her, she heard Pallas snap out, "You're wasting your time on a dead person. Remember - we have a deadline to keep."

Erzebet sighed. "I'm not allowed to have any fun, am I?" Netta felt the pressure of a hand on her chin, forcing her to look up.

The woman's smile had turned malicious, her dark brown eyes looking almost black underneath her hood.

"That one's the fucking Incubi, isn't it?" When Netta didn't answer, the Witch laughed in her face. "It is, isn't it? The one that Mother had to stop you from eloping with. You kept that sex demon with you like some sort of a fucking trophy - that's pathetic. Fucking pathetic." Her final words hung in the air for a moment in the too silent space of the road. She added, "Didn't matter if you were Mother's natural child or not, you were always the runt."

"Bathory, hurry up, we have to set this car on fire!"

Erzebet dropped Netta's chin and started to walk away. "Blah fucking blah - do it yourself, you're so worried about wasting fucking goddamn time -"

Netta turned around in time to see her car ignite.

With a gasp, Netta felt the heat of the fire hit her convulsing body in a blast. Shutting her eyes to the blinding light, Netta fell backwards. She looked up, realizing that she was not that far from the nude form of her dying Familiar.

Turning around, Netta began to creep to him, dropping her head on his blackened, bruised abdomen.

Netta wrapped an arm around his waist. She began to babble softly to him, not caring what she said, not hiding the truth in her delirium. Hoping that even though he was moments from death that Ash could hear her.

She had no time to gaze at his face - the closest, surely, to his truth that she would be allowed to see.

When she felt Ash convulse violently, she looked up and saw that Arabella had returned. She had landed a swift kick to the side of the dying Monster's head.

Netta looked up at the Witch as she glanced down at her. With a grin fixed on her almost sweet, round face, Arabella said, "Shouldn't have chosen a weakling, two lefts do not make a right," and began to lift her foot up once more in what looked like a stomp directly on Ash's head. "especially in the new Heaven that we're creating."

"Don't - do - that." Netta rasped out softly, even as her vision began to turn black.

"Mmm - what was that?" Arabella said, looking around as though she could not tell where the voice had come from.

Clenching onto Ash tightly, Netta lifted her head up as far as she could manage. She cried out, "Don't you touch him!"

Arabella snickered, then she lifted her foot up.

Netta became aware of the fact that she would not be surviving this - not with the psychic amputation of a Familiar that she had allowed to become so embedded.

Her hands clenched on Ash's dying physical form as felt his dying power. She reached down, inside of him, as though she were pulling a sword from a scabbard, transforming it.

As Arabella rose her foot up to bring it down on Ash, Netta reached forward, grasping onto and emptying Ash's power onto her Sister's leg.

Arabella shrieked and, as Netta watched with delirious fury, what looked like writhing black tendrils reached up her body, starting at the leg.

"Oh Goddess - save me!" Arabella howled, tearing at her robes in a blind flurry.

Somewhere, a bear was screaming.

Netta watched in a half daze as the tendrils enfolded the Witch like a flower's petals closing. As her robed body became a corrupted mass, her screaming - and then the bear's - stopped.

She fell, but she never hit the ground, Arabella's body seemed to have disintegrated. The only sign that she had been there were the whisping curlicues of burnt mass that floated, torn away by the wind.

Somewhere, Netta could hear a woman yelling out, as another screamed, "The little bitch killed her!"

Netta forced herself to turn around, putting herself between her Sisters and Ash. She did not know how much was left for her to draw from, but she dove deep into what was left.

She knew that Ash would be proud to know that his death served a purpose in harming his murderers.

Their murderers.

Staring up at the two hooded shapes of her Sisters, Netta watched as one of them approached her. As the shape seemed to be readying to attack her, she heard the voice of Pallas in the distance.

"Stop! I see - more are coming this way! Damn - we won't be able to bring the runt with us - not with only two of us left!"

Erzebet looked down at her and didn't say anything. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she spun on her heel and turned around.

Netta tried to turn around to embrace Ash, but instead pitched forward so that her head hit his chest.