Arriving back at the secluded house that used to belong to the vampire sisters deceased aunt, Jade Mark and Rowan were unsurprised to see Ash's black landrover parked outside. They entered one after the other, jumping the trick step they all knew was there. Rowan plonked herself down on the sofa at Ash's feet, Jade doing the same on a single armchair next to it whilst Mark explored the kitchen for food. Ash didn't lift his head or open his eyes; "Did they get back ok?"
"Kestrel is with her," Rowan told Ash, "She'll be fine. Stop worrying, and tell us what's going on instead."
"Mary-Lynette told us that you were attacked yesterday as well. By werewolves." Jade said simply.
Ash lifted his head to look at Jade, "Did she say anything about me?"
"She said you hadn't changed."
Ash's head fell back onto the couch with a groan.
"I think you've changed." Jade said thoughtfully, "You've got bags under your eyes now and you're stressed all the time."
Ash threw a pillow at her.
Rowan chucked Ash's legs down from the couch so that she could pull her own up to hug them with her arms, "Not that she'll have much luck, but Kestrel said she'll try to talk you back up in Mary-Lynette's mind."
Ash remained quiet.
"We want to help Ash. Is there anything we can do?" Rowan's steady eyes were on Ash.
He sighed then pulled himself upright on the couch, "Right now Hunter has people out in Briar Creek looking for something called a 'Wild Power'. They're just people; people with…abilities I guess. It's down to these wild powers to make sure that the night world doesn't rule again." Ash stole the bottle of Lucozade from Mark's arms as he walked in laden with food and waited whilst he settled on the arm of the one seater next to Jade. "There's this stupid human in the garage. Bunnie or something. She's been messing with witchcraft. The light shows that she's been throwing out with all her attempted spells have made Hunters people think that there's a Wild Power in town. Yesterday when we were attacked Mary-Lynette used something that Bunnie must have given her – something that threw out a blue light which looks a lot like the wild powers magicks. Now they think that Mary-Lynette is the wild power."
"Which explains the day-time full-view attack today." Rowan said.
"Yeah," Ash said taking a swig of the lucozade. "I was lucky you guys came along when you did."
"Well on the only road that leads from our house to town, I think you'd be pretty unlucky not to run into us." Mark added logically.
Ash inclined his head in agreement, "Mary-Lynette is going round to Bunnie's house tonight to look at a book that she's been using for this witchcraft. A book that Jeremy gave her."
"Jeremy the werewolf?" Jade asked.
"Do you know any other Jeremy in this town."
"Why would he teach Bunnie witchcraft? What would he gain by doing that?" Rowan voiced the question they were all thinking.
"I don't know. I'm going to find out tonight. I'm going to look at this book after Mary-Lynette has left."
"Don't be stupid Ash," Rowan told him, "Mary-Lynette's already angry at you. If you go around checking on what she's doing she'll only get more and more upset. We can let Kestrel check out this book; she's going to be going everywhere with Mare anyway."
"The best thing we can do to help is to try and find where Hunter's cronies are hiding out." Jade told him.
"There can't be many places where they could stay unnoticed in a tiny town like Briar Creek," Mark agreed.
Rowan went straight to the point that was on Ash's mind, "The best way that you can help Mare forgive you for whatever you've done is to give her some space. We'll focus on finding Hunter's people. Let her find out what's going on with Bunnie."
Ash looked at Rowan with a steely gaze, but he knew she was right.
"Okay," Mark said rubbing his hands, excited to have a new supernatural mystery to work on, "So lets brainstorm. Whereabouts in Briar Creek are they most likely to be hiding?"
"There's those woods, where you found out about us." Jade told him as she softly butted his arm with her head. He looked down at her, reaching his arm out around her shoulders. "And there's a few empty houses on the other side of town."
"Ok," Rowan said, "You two can check out the empty houses then and I'll do the woods. Ash…"
"I'm going to check out Mad Dog Creek." He interrupted before she could suggest anything.
"Ok. Sorted." Mark finished. "Meet back here say about 11 latest? If someone's not back by then, we assume they've found Hunter's men."
As the two sisters and Mark headed for the door Ash added quietly, "Keep your cell phone's on. In case Kestrel run's into trouble."
The three of them gave a wordless agreement and then headed for their assigned area. Ash closed the door as he left, opting to take the more stealthy approach of walking to Mad Dog Creek.
"What did he do?" Kestrel asked as softly as she could.
She and Mary-Lynette were in Mary-Lynette's car in the slowly fading daylight on the road to Bunnie's house. Mary-Lynette, both hands on the wheel, looked straight ahead, a short period of silence stretching between them before she finally answered;
"You know why you've been itching for a fight for so long?"
Kestrel raised her eyebrows then grimaced with embarrassment slightly, "Because I got romantically involved with a human then wasn't allowed to kill him when he turned out to be a slime ball who hit on Rowan?"
Mary-Lynette chuckled. "Yeah."
Kestrel waited a short while, to see if Mary-Lynette was going to embellish. When it became clear that she wasn't, she asked, "So Ash… hit on Rowan?"
This drew a laugh from Mary-Lynette. "I wish. At least if he'd tried that he would have a nice bruise to show for his efforts."
"So what did he do?"
Mary-Lynette sighed. "He kissed someone." She said simply. "A vampire. A vampire who likes to kill girls. That doesn't sound like a very changed Ash to me. It sounds like an old Ash; a pre-Briar Creek Ash; a killer vampire Ash."
"How do you know?" Kestrel looked concerned.
"I just do." Mary-Lynette didn't want to tell Kestrel about the intimate moment gone wrong that she had shared with Ash.
Kestrel took a few minutes to think and then finally said, "I don't know about him kissing other girls, vampire's or not, but he definitely isn't killing again. You don't need to worry about that."
"How do you know?" Mary-Lynette hated to think that Ash might have reverted to his more evil ways, but given what she had seen when he'd bitten her, she couldn't deny the possibility.
"He smells like rodent." Kestrel said simply, "Ash is a proud person; nothing but the best. But I can smell the rabbit on him."
"Rabbit?"
"Mostly rabbit. He's got traces of deer and sheep's scents as well."
Mary-Lynette felt like a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She didn't have to hate Ash for being a bloodsucking evil monster. Just for being a lousy-kiss-other-girls- boyfriend.
"Kissing some vampire…that definitely sounds like the old Ash." Kestrel thought out loud, "But don't dismiss him straight away. He could have had a reason. Maybe she kissed him."
Mary-Lynette thought about the scorching kiss she'd seen Ash administer on the leggy blonde in his memory, "She definitely didn't start the kiss. He just hasn't changed." Mary-Lynette decided; "He can't change."
"Talk to him." Kestrel told her. "Give him one chance to explain himself. If he hasn't got a reasonable excuse," she shrugged, "then I'll hold him and you can put on some steel toed boots and have a field day with his shins." She smiled wickedly.
Mary-Lynette couldn't help but smile at Kestrel's suggestion.
The two girls arrived at Bunnie's surveying the small house with interest. Bunnie answered the door in her typical attire; jeans with a bright pink sweat shirt and her blond hair tied back in a pony tail. Mary-Lynette introduced Bunnie to Kestrel and then they followed her upstairs to her room. Kestrel wandered to the netted window peering out into the dark suspiciously whilst Mary-Lynette plonked herself on Bunnie's bed. Bunnie knelt and slid out a big leather bound book from under her bed. Heaving it up onto the bed, she pushed it towards Mary-Lynette. The book was large and hefty, the pages brittle and yellow. It was obviously a very old book. Mary-Lynette fingered through the pages with disgust. If this book had belonged to a witch before, then she hadn't been a particularly nice one. The book contained spells to bring about dismemberment, infertility, a life's worth of bad luck and as far as she could see nothing nice or useful. Ingredients listed made Mary-Lynette's stomach reel thinking about it; puppies ears, man's tongue, baby's blood.
"It's horrible." Bunnie said watching her finger through the pages. "There's little spells right at the back all squished onto one page. That's where I got the protection box from. And the big highlighted one that I've been trying to do doesn't have any horrible things in it like that."
Mary-Lynette flicked to the back of the book asking, "What sort of ingredients did the big spell that you were trying to do have in it?"
"Mostly just weird plants with some pig and cow organs, but I got them from the butcher alright. It said to soak them all in sheep's blood. The butcher had that as well."
Mary-Lynette looked at her horrified, "Bunnie why would you try and do a spell with those sort of things in it?"
"He said I was a frost witch. I wanted to see if it was true. I wanted to see if I could really do magic. The highlighted spell was the one that had the least nasty ingredients. Beside's it's a happy spell. It's called, like, Reassuring Candy Loops or something."
Bunnie now had Kestrel's attention as well, the vampire stood intently surveying the book in front of Mary-Lynette, "Show us which spell it was in the book." She ordered the air headed girl.
Bunnie reached in front of Mary-Lynette to flick back pages whilst the book was in her arms. When she reached the yellowed page the vampire and her half sister looked at each other and cursed.
"When did you do this spell Bunnie?" Mary-Lynette demanded.
"I've been trying for a while."
"How long is a while?" Kestrel growled at her.
"I don't know. Erm…"
"You best start thinking faster." Kestrel warned.
"I thought I'd done it right last night. But nothing happened."
"Nothing that you could see anyway." Mary-Lynette got to her feet. "We need to go and check the grave." She told Kestrel. Kestrel nodded gravely. "We're taking this book." He turned back to Bunnie, "Do not do any more spells until you speak to me again."
Bunnie's head nodded.
With that Mary-Lynette and Kestrel practically ran from the house. The climbed into the car, throwing the book on the back seat, and the tyres squealed as they pulled away to speed down the road. On the back seat, the book lay open on a yellowed page, the highlighted title read; 'Resurrectum Canis Lupus: Lycanthrope'