Max

"I love you, Max," Kenny said, wrapping himself around her. "I knew we'd find each other."

He really thought that uptight Neera was me, she thought, he should have ripped her apart. No, she wanted to help me, I know that. She's so good it's sickening. "This was nice."

Still Max, he thought, wrapped up in this new body. The body of a witch I thought I killed, and now...she is a witch. She's going to fix me. "I'm never leaving you again."

I like his partial transformation in bed, she thought, how rough and animalistic this gets. Magic...Do I really want to make him human again? I like him like this...Riding the yeti. He can protect this sacred grove for me while I rebuild the coven. Noelle and Ingrid used him that way...He's a killer now, I sense that. He'll kill for me too. "I'm working on undoing it."

So young looking, he thought, but my Max. "Where are you going?"

"To fix you," she admitted. "I know you don't like being the yeti."

"Max, wait."

She turned back and smiled at him, enjoying his mostly human form. "Yes?"

"We...we have a home."

She sighed. "We can't go back there. Look at me, I'm 17 and you're 34. This grove is sacred, I can rebuild the coven with new witches and we can...oh what we can do."

"You want Neera to be one."

"That infuriating Hindu. Do you know what it was like being stuck in her?"

"What are you going to do to her?"

Max smiled at the thought. "No, she wanted to help me. She didn't want to give me her body but she wanted to help me. She very much is a pure soul. Ingrid knew her work would inspire more people to join the coven. That is her role. I need her to write."

"You wouldn't want her body anyway."

"This one is rather nice," Max admitted. I can body hop forever, I'll live forever… "A bit young for sure, but...I like it."

Too young, he thought, all blonde, willowy, half naked in that gauzy dress. All Max in there...my Max. "Can you change it? If you wanted?"

"You don't like me like this? I can't shift at will like the Jinn. It would be," Max mused. "More permanent. Much like you, I'm sure the police have questions for me. I think I'll stick to Lyla McKeon here."

"Lyla?"

"Who she was," she said, kissing him for a moment. "You rest. I'm going to work on fixing your...yeti problem."

Max, he thought, as she burst into light and vanished before his eyes. How did she...I miss our life. Our human life before any of this and she seems to really like this. She turned back time once…

Neera

"Hmm, this is," Neera smiled. "You take such good care of me."

Harry rested his hand on her swelling stomach. "Well, you're making me a dad again, Nee. This old man has a lovely new wife and a baby coming."

She settled back in his arms, looking at her six month pregnant stomach. Us eloping, just the kids, after...I'm so glad he still loves me. He didn't flee after our supernatural adventure. Neera Parker...Dr. Neera Parker. I'm only Neera, I've always been Neera.
"Nee?"

"Hmm, pregnancy brain," she admitted. "I dozed off writing last night."

"I know, you were snoring."

"I do not snore."

"Ah, Nee, like a freight train. How's the book?"

Fiction, she thought, sort off...Max's story. She deserves it told. Even in a fiction book. "It's hard to write."

He kissed the top of her head. "You know...you don't have to. I thought you were going to do Myths and Legends of Japan?"

"I don't want to stir any other...like with...I need a break from that."

"Your publisher and Oxford?"

She winced a bit. "I'll teach the class. I just...I just need a break."

"We're having a baby, Nee. It's not really a break."

Our baby, she thought, that we're going to raise both Hindu and Lutheran, a mix of us...Harry who has held me really tightly in bed every night since we got home from the States. "You're the professional parent, I'm following your lead. I've read a dozen books and...I'm really excited to meet her. To be a mum...and I know that I can be a good mum because of Charlie, Joy and Rosie, and how we're a family. I can't imagine doing this with anyone else."

"Good. I love you, Neera Parker."

Max

I do want to keep him as the yeti, Max thought, leafing through the grimoire. I like him fully transformed, hunting, protecting the grove...he does make a good pet like this. He will kill and protect my new coven. I love him, do I? That old and human Max did, the JInn me wanted to keep him, and this new me? Everything I did was to come home to him and now I'm not interested? I want to build my new coven, explore my witch powers, I think being Lyla is going to be very interesting. Hmm, Rome, he wants to go back? To what? He was indicted for murdering 12 women. They won't know me like this, Max thought, in my new body. Punish them a bit? I did enjoy Jill as Kaitlyn, Carter and the Brock boys into a pet...flex my witch powers a bit?

"Max?"

She looked up, a bit annoyed at his presence. I want him as my toy in bed...and to protect this grove. "Kenny?"

She's beautiful, he thought, this ethereal young girl. I miss my Max though, how we were, who we were. Normal, happy, planning for our future, now I'm this monster and she's been a Jinn, spirit and now a witch. She's in a teenagers body, a teenager I tried to kill, can she fix me? "Find anything?"

"It's Jinn magic," she said. "It's different from mine. Only a Jinn can fully undo it."

"You banished them."

"I did," she said. Ingrid took the box...I won't ever open it. She hid it where only she knew. "I can do something to abate the symptoms, give you more control over it."

"I need to kill. I feel it, Max. I want to rip humans apart."

I am a witch, she thought, I'm connected here. I'm a witch like she wanted, and I'll protect this land with my new coven. Lyla was so scared when Kenny killed the coven, she was bleeding out when I came. She is Ingrid's daughter, revered in the witch community and other covens. They will come for me, and want me to join them.

"Max?"

She smiled at him and shook her head. "I need to be Lyla McKeon. The other witches knew about me. They need to think I am as gone as the others. My name is Lyla now."

"It's just us here."

"Not for long," she said. "Others will want this grove once they know Ingrid, my mother, is gone and the coven killed. I need to be ready for them."

"She wasn't your mom."

She smoothed her gauzy dress and smiled at him. "She was Lyla's mom and I'm her now. I sense other witches waking up, they're calling to me, Kenny. They'll be joining us here."

"It can be just us. We can go away together, have a life. We don't have to," he said. "You can fix us."

"Fix us?"

"Make us human again."

"Why would I want to be human?"

Rome

"Neera Manajan, I guess Parker now, has her memories?" Carter asked.

"That will never hold up in court," JImmy said. "She isn't Max, she made that perfectly clear, even if she has her memories."

"I've called her a few times. She's pregnant and eloped with Harry. She said she's writing a new fiction book and teaching full time."

And she has Max's memories in her head. Memories of a murder case we need...we can't… "I'll call her."

Max

"We were happy," Kenny said. "We were getting married. That thing made me like this, I'm a killer, I hurt people...I want to keep killing."

"And you enjoy it?"

He stared at her with that. "No."

"Oh, be honest with me. You like what you are now."

"I'm not like you."

"No, you're really not," Max mused. "I embraced what I am and what magic can do. You're nothing but a weak human who can't handle his gifts."

"Max."

"But," she continued. "We never had men here in the grove. It is a sacred space for witches."

"You're not a witch!"

She giggled at that. "But I am. Just as Ingrid wanted. You don't belong here."

"I love you!"

"You loved who I was and she's been gone for a long time."

"You turned back time! You could do it again."

She cocked her head to the side and smiled at him. "The witches would come for me, flay me alive this time, turning back time...I don't want to be her again."

"I love her."

She smiled and took his face in her hands. "I know. But you don't belong here either, Kenny. At least not like this."

"Max?"

"Lyla now," she smiled. "Leader of this coven."

"No...We belong together."

"You'll be here," she smiled, as she began to chant. "With me."

"Max!" he yelped, as her magic began to take effect. He felt himself shrinking, his clothes growing baggy as his body as breasts swelled on his new femeine chest. "Max, stop!"

She shook her head and continued the spell as his brown hair grew curly and spilled down as his back and his features grew more delicate on his new face.

"Max!" he yelled again, his voice becoming higher and female, as his clothes shifted into a pink gauzy dress, accenting his new long legs and breasts, as his changes settled down and he stood there as a woman. "What…"

She giggled, taking her in. "Oh,I love it!"

"What did you do to me?"

"You're beautiful," she continued. "You will be the first member of my coven, Kenny, but that name doesn't suit you now."

"Change me back!"

"The yeti is gone and now," she continued. "Hmm, a new name...Elena. Yes, I like that. Elena."

"I'm not a woman."

"You are now, Elena," she said, letting her power seep into her voice. "You are Elena."

He felt his mind go blank as she filled his mind, shaping his thoughts and desires. "My name is Elena. I'm so glad I'm here with you, Lyla."

Max smiled. "Come. We need to find the others that will join us here."