So... Hi? It's been a while, I know. I was waiting for my Beta Reader to edit the next chapters but I haven't had news in months. I sent them a PM a few days ago, got no answer. I'm getting worried. Still, I can't let you wait that long again, so here—have a new chapter! Buckle up, guys, there's a bit of an existential crisis ahead.

For the chapter title, I tweaked a line from Ruelle's song Monsters.

On a totally different note, I finally got to watch the eighth season of Game of Thrones. Did anyone else get overwhelmed by bitter disapointment or is it just me? We could have had two awesome queens but nooo, let's give the throne to a guy who's barely got any feelings left... Anyway.

Oh, and thanks for the faves and the reviews! I'm really glad to know people enjoy my story :)

When Enola was gone, Katrina asked Abraham to carry her son to the living room and lay him on one of the sofas. She sat down in the armchair closest to him while Abraham paced around the room.

"I should probably go and see how Enola is faring," the witch whispered after a minute or two of silence.

Abraham came to a halt and glanced at her sceptically: her tone hadn't betrayed anything but she was unable to hide the reluctance in her eyes. He had to refrain from shaking his head with a scoff.

"I must say, you don't seem particularly keen on that idea," he commented, a sarcastic edge in his voice. "Is she not your friend?"

To tell the truth, he could already guess the reason behind Katrina's hesitancy, but he was curious to see whether she'd admit it.

"Of course she is," Katrina immediately retorted with a sharp look at her captor.

However, the moment these words had passed her lips, her reproving frown softened into a look of unease and guilt that was enough to confirm Abraham's suspicion. On her lap, her fingers entwined into a tight pale knot.

"It's simply that I... Well, I knew that vampires can become quite... ferocious when they lose control, but... I had yet to see it."

Ah, so he had been correct, he thought with a sardonic half-smile. The witch had forgotten that her young friend was a vampire—a predator whose every gift, from her flawless skin to her incredible speed, was intended for the hunting and killing of humans. And although, as he had understood, Enola didn't kill those she fed on, the instinct was still there, curled up deep inside her like a savage creature, red in tooth and claw and swiftly awoken by the bite of anger's flames. Given the look on her face once she'd realized exactly what she had done, he was ready to bet that she too had lost sight of it somewhere along the road. He briefly wondered whether she would accept this... rediscovered part of herself. But really, what other option did she have? Self-loathing? He hoped she wouldn't come to that—what a waste it would be.

"Let me guess: now that you have, you can't see anything else."

His tone had been more derisive than he had intended or even expected, and it earned him a half-piqued, half-puzzled glance from Katrina. Still, he knew he was right. Henry had once told him that most witches inherently mistrusted vampires because of their utter unnaturalness. According to Henry, they had not been created by nature, but by... well, that he didn't know. There was also the fact that they were undead—and witches believed that what was dead should stay dead. Perhaps Katrina had always been more open-minded, judging not a group but individuals, or perhaps she had been happy to overlook her instincts when she had needed a friend. Either way, she was now paying heed to their voice in her mind and their grip on her bones. Much that it pained him to admit it, Enola was a good person—though a bloody nuisance—but it seemed that it no longer mattered. That, to Katrina, her most violent urges now eclipsed her whole personality. Or, in other words, who she was no longer meant anything compared to what she was capable of. And that, for a reason he couldn't pinpoint, bothered him more than it should have. As always with him, his unease translated into aggressiveness.

"Watching one's friend put her fist through a man's chest and tear another's throat with her teeth is not something one can easily brush off," Katrina argued, her tone calm but laced with irritation. "You cannot reasonably expect me to remain as unaffected as you are."

Well, the witch wasn't wrong. He was the Horseman of Death after all. It took more than a fist in a chest to intimidate him. If anything, he had admired the brutal swiftness with which Enola had dispatched the three men. Katrina's visceral discomfort was understandable, he supposed, but the relevant question was, would she make the effort to try and move past it for her friend's sake? Speaking of which, he hadn't failed to notice that she hadn't confirmed nor denied his assertion.

"Perhaps, but I can hardly go to her in your stead," he pointed out testily.

The second these words left his mouth, he knew he had made a mistake—because, judging from the hope that sparked in Katrina's eyes, he had just given her an idea. An idea that made him want to go and lock himself in his room.

"Would you not?" the witch bade softly. "I doubt I will be able to hide my discomfort and I have no wish to make her feel worse—those are the first human lives she has ever taken, you see."

Abraham regretted that he couldn't just snap at her as he would at Enola, but if he wanted to win her heart, he had to be a gentleman and not... well, the Horseman of Death.

"It can't possibly have escaped you that she and I are not on the best of terms," he remarked, his tone laced with only a dash of sarcasm.

"Yes, I know, and if she truly is unwell, I will come myself. Please, Abraham."

He couldn't have been more reluctant if she had asked him to go and poke Moloch with a stick. He wished he had a nose bridge to pinch. The truth was that he had no choice—he had to show her that she could depend on him.

"Very well," he sighed. "I will go."

"Thank you," Katrina replied with a faint smile.

Her eyes were bright with relief but he found that her gratitude didn't please him as much as he had expected it to. Something told him it was best not to linger on that feeling, which was why he swiftly turned on his heels and strode out of the parlour.

All right, all I have to do is to make sure she's not curled up on the floor crying, he thought as he made his way towards the witch's bedroom. She won't be, not here. She's too proud for that. "Is everything all right all right?" "Yes, I'm fine." "Perfect, we're waiting for you." That's it. I'm the last person to whom she'd admit any weakness. Damnation—why did I agreed to this, again? When he entered the bedroom, he strained his ears almost painfully, praying he wouldn't hear any suspicious noise—like, Moloch forbid, sobs. But much to his relief and his perplexity, he only caught the steady rhythm of her voice, as if she were... reciting something?

He approached the open bathroom door as quietly as he could and peered inside. Enola was standing in front of the washstand, her hands clenched around the edge of the washstand and her head lowered, tension radiating from her whole body.

"'Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy.'"

Poetry? To help calm herself down , perhaps. He wasn't familiar with the poem—perhaps he'd ask her about it later. In a rare moment of sympathy, he decided to let her pull herself together in her own way. He still remembered vividly how terrible he'd felt after his first kill and how glad he'd been to find an understanding ear. Right now, the young woman didn't even have that. So, he leaned against the doorway, his arm crossed, and listened as the poem unfolded in her clear warm voice.

"Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bowed her head to hear,
Lizzie veiled her blushes..."

A good minute went by before she fell silent. She let go of the washstand and raised her head with a deep intake of breath... and froze when she detected his scent. She whipped around and directed at him a hard look tinged with surprise. She had washed off all the blood except for a small stain on her chin, he noticed.

"What are you–"

She broke off as painful realization bloomed in her eyes. Her shoulders dropped in sudden lassitude and she let out a short bitter cackle.

"Ah, of course. Katrina can't stand to look me the in eye anymore, right?"

He was probably supposed to defend his bride-to-be but the words wouldn't leave his throat. Perhaps, he thought, because he knew how it felt to be betrayed by a friend.

"She forgot what vampires are capable of," he only stated instead. "As did you, I would guess."

Her body snapped taut as though she'd been whipped and she skewered him with a glare that a basilisk would have envied, a growl rolling deep in her throat.

"Don't you dare lecture me! I know perfectly well that there's a monster inside me—I just chose not to let it out, contrary to you!"

"I'm not a monster, Enola, I'm Death," Abraham pointed out impatiently. "Killing is my very nature."

"But you're not only Death, just as I'm not only a vampire!" the young woman argued hotly. "I'm Enola, you're Abraham—the vampire, Death, they're part of the package, not all of it. They're..." She hesitated for a few seconds, looking for the right words, piecing together the right sentence. "They're what we are, but not who we are. As such, they're not all that define us. We're still people with free will and a conscience, and I decided not to behave like the monster vampires were created to be."

"You locked up your monster and forgot about it, foolishly thinking it couldn't get out! That's what you did."

"And you're destroying what's left of the man inside you! Or are you stupid enough to think that the Apocalypse won't burn him out of you? And when it does, you can say bye-bye to Katrina because that man is the whole reason for her presence here."

Well, that was a lie but he didn't need to know. What mattered was that he was unable to find any valid reply, so he shook his head with an irritated huff, glaring at her.

"I'll go and tell Katrina you're fine," Abraham grated as he made to leave.

Her bark of mirthless laughter stopped him short and he cast her a surprised glance while she turned around and busied herself removing the bloodstain on her chin. His lips tightened as, for the umpteenth time, he wondered what the hell it was with modern people and their ridiculously close-fitting trousers.

"Oh, I'm not fine," she commented dryly, rubbing her chin with her wet hand. "But do tell her I am. There's nothing she can do about it, anyway."

Well, she wasn't wrong there. He turned away but before he could take more than one step, something made him look behind him at Enola, who was drying her hands with a towel. A small part of him—the man, she'd say—insisted that the something was simply the shape of his name in her mouth but, if he could get blue in the face, he'd deny it until he did.

"Talk to Ichabod," he advised, prompting her to look up with a puzzled look on her face. "He'll know what to tell you. About your first kill, I mean."

He strode out of the room before Enola could say anything. The young woman stared after him in confusion, wondering what had inspired such a... softening of his mood. She shrugged, deciding that it didn't matter, and faced the mirror again to comb her tousled hair with her fingers. Since she had already been intending to have a word with Ichabod, his suggestion was completely unnecessary, anyway—and it was without scorn that she thought this.

She tugged her fingers through a last knot and took a good look at herself in the mirror. Her cream chunky-knit jumper was spattered with blood but she could cover it with her coat. There was, however, nothing she could do about the new hollowness in her eyes. It was as if a light that she hadn't even noticed before had been snuffed out when she'd killed the three men.

No matter how many times she repeated to herself that they had been evil people working to bring about the Apocalypse and had deserved their fate, it didn't make her feel any better. She couldn't even tell whether she regretted killing them. The remnants of her innocence insisted that she could have merely knocked them out but the rational part of her scoffed at such a naive notion—this was war, and you didn't win wars by knocking out enemy soldiers, which was exactly what they had been.

Enola shook her head and pushed these thoughts away before she broke down again. She couldn't afford to, not now. Focus only on what you have to do. Right now, that's calling Abbie. Don't think of anything else. Her phone was in her coat pocket and her coat was in the stable. First step: getting there. She picked up the basin and went to dump its content out the window. Then she took a deep breath and left the bathroom, her features schooled in an impassive mask.

Does this count as progress? I mean, their conversation didn't end in a shouting match or an exchange of blows...

Right, so I'll upload the next chapter in two or three weeks. I hope I'll have heard from my Beta Reader by then but I'm not holding my breath. Oh, and just to give you something to look forward to... There are two big scenes with just Enola and Abraham coming up very soon. They're completely new, for those of you who read the first version of the story.