Several days had passed since Aya had returned to the manor with Zac in tow and for several days she had avoided him. Apart from walking in on him and that knife, she had managed to evade him and his annoying questions. Remembering his blood all over the table, she grimaced. The sound of it had pierced through her head, splitting it open.

For two thousand years she had learnt to deal with people, read their emotions, decipher the meanings to their words, decode their motives, untangle their wicked webs of deceit, but she had no idea how to deal with the insinuated meaning in Zac's words, the words he spoke as they drove to the manor.

I don't want you to leave.

It was the first time she had felt so protective of someone and it was an alien feeling. No one wanted her to stay once they knew even the smallest sliver of truth about her and she gladly compelled their memory of her away. These vampires knew nothing but the barest facts. Her greatest secrets would remain buried. They had to.

The impenetrable wall she had built around herself had always served her well. All that kept her going was the purpose she had set herself to last her eternity. Revenge. There was no room for anything else, so to save Zac from her, she compelled the memory of their kiss away. It was for his own good.

But those words. Maybe compulsion wasn't enough this time. She shook her head and pushed those thoughts away. It would do her no good to dwell when there were bigger threats lingering.

She finally had an opportunity to end Katrin for good. Her first and possibly only opportunity, but it all relied on Gabby. The young witch had access to powers that were immense, but were still beyond her reach. She needed to learn how to use them. If this happened, she was confident they had a chance of prevailing. The young witch just needed a push in the right direction.

Aya had invited Gabby to the manor where they could talk freely. The brothers were gone somewhere she didn't really care about. Brotherly bonding, pulling Zac back on the wagon. They needed a game plan and soon. Enough time had passed in which Katrin could put together whatever grand scheme she had up her sleeve and they needed something to at least counter it. She'd been distracted by one particular brother far too much.

“I've dealt with spirits before but not the spirit of a witch,” admitted Aya, pushing her thoughts away. “Just the living kind.”

Gabby sighed, the stress obvious. “I'm so lost.”

Aya frowned. “Give me the grimoire. I can have a read of the older stuff.”

“You can read that?” Gabby was surprised. “I don't even know what language it is.”

“I'm older than it is. I've been around long enough to learn a lot of different languages,” she replied, flipping through the pages. Coming to rest on the spell that had summoned her, she groaned. “This one we can do without.”

Gabby grabbed her arm as she went to tear the offending page out. “Don't,” she pleaded. “It's all I have of my Grams. Don't destroy it.”

“We need to get rid of it, Gabby. As it is now, it's just a call. With the right inflection, it could become a summoning,” Aya warned.

“You mean, physically summon you?”

“Yes.”

“No one will take the grimoire,” she said confidently. “It's safe with me.”

“Fine, but don't say I didn't warn you.” She continued to flick through pages, stopping to read when something caught her interest.

“Nothing?” Gabby asked, when she handed the grimoire back.

“I don't know.” She sighed dramatically. “There's no one in your family who you can talk to? Other witches?”

“No,” the young witch said, shrugging. “My parents have no power they admit to. There’s my grandmother, but...”

“I would advise you think about contacting her,” Aya said, giving her a little nudge with her words.

“I'm not even sure where she's living,” Gabby protested.

“Well, you better get a clue.” Aya raised an eyebrow at her. “She might be the only one who can help you find what's in there.” She jabbed a finger at Gabby's heart. “Otherwise dying might be the best solution for all of us.”

When the brothers finally came home, it was late afternoon and Aya was in the garden, sitting on the stone bench, staring at the sky. She assumed they had been doing some brotherly vampire bonding thing. Stay away from my girlfriend and stop eating people type exercises. Building bridges so they could get over it already.

“How was your AA meeting,” she said seriously as she heard them come up behind her. She didn't have to turn to know that Zac was glaring at her. It was the first time they had spoken since the knife incident.

The brothers weren't fast enough to catch the movement to their left, but Aya was up from the bench and in front of Zac grasping a stake that had been thrown at him in a millisecond. And it was thrown back just as fast, a thud as it found its mark. She growled in annoyance as an unknown vampire came from the garden behind, stake in hand lunging for Sam. But she was there again, grabbing the male vampires wrist, stopping him dead in his tracks.

She sighed, exasperated. “You people never learn.” She squeezed her hand harder around the assailant’s wrist, a crack echoing across the garden and the stake dropped to the ground.

The vampire grimaced, but kept coming, obviously on a kamikaze mission. There was no way he would survive her.

Aya grabbed his hair before he could duck and drove his head into the ground so hard there was a loud crack as his skull broke. Aya held his head in place as blood began to pool beneath them. If she moved it even slightly, the vampire’s brains would spill out of his broken skull and he would be good as dead. Her eyes were chillingly opalescent as the sent of blood filled the garden and she hissed deep in her throat.

“When you get to the other side, tell that bitch Katrin that she'll have to try harder than that to best me.” She let her grip slacken and the vampire’s eyes glazed over as his brains slid out of his broken skull.

Turning to the brothers, they were still in the same spot, shock etched on their faces. Only a minute had passed, but it was more than enough to get the job done. Her eyes refusing to clear she sneered, “Do that peace of shit a favor and stake him.” She was beautiful and terrible all at once.

“Your eyes...” Zac whispered. “What...?”

Aya grinned wickedly. “I'm a new kind of monster, vampire. One of a kind. Limited edition.”

“But you are a vampire?” asked Sam, picking up the stake, warily.

“Unfortunately.” She rolled her eyes sarcastically, the color shifting back to their regular icy blue.

“Then why are your eyes white?”

“Consider me an albino. Cataracts from old age. Storm from X-men,” she replied sarcastically.

Zac raised his eyebrows. “You learn quick for someone who's been out of it for decades.”

“Adapt and survive; or die. I don't know about you, but I'm a survivor.” She pushed past him, going back inside.

Sam ran after her. “Aya, wait.”

“Katrin is amping up her game finally,” she said, not waiting to hear what he had to say. “Put your game face on, Samuel. Whatever she's going to try will happen very soon.”

“She's testing our defenses,” Zac said, coming up behind his brother.

“Aww, there's the Captain we all know and love,” she said, mockingly.

“Give it a rest. It could also be a diversion. Sam, I suggest you check in on Liz and Gabby. I will have a look around the grounds.”

“I would be more worried about Gabby right now,” Aya said. “Going after Liz would be pointless. And besides, there's no one else here.”

“How do you know?”

“Why do you still have to ask?”

Sam grimaced. “I'm going to check on her.”

“I'm coming with you,” Zac said.

Sam held his hand up. “No, stay here. It might be exactly what Katrin wants you to do. I won't be long. I'll call once I know more.”

Zac looked to Aya, but she just shrugged and went inside.

“Fine,” he said, reluctantly agreeing with his brother. “Call me the second you know anything.”

“I will, brother,” Sam reassured him and disappeared around the side of the house.

While they waited for news from Sam, Zac convinced Aya to help him bury the desiccated vampires in the yard. Between them both, it didn't take long to dig holes deep enough to conceal them for a very long time. Graves were something Zac had become familiar with over the years.

“Why are your eyes white, really?” he asked, when Aya made it clear she wasn't going to speak to him.

She sighed loudly. “Because they are.”

“Why won't you tell me anything about yourself?”

“There's nothing you'd want to know. I'm a vampire. Plain and simple. Why are your eyes green and mine blue? Because that's the way we were made. The end.”

“You've heard more things about me in the last few days than Sam had heard in his entire life.” He tossed his shovel aside, annoyed at her evasion and wiped his dirty hands on his jeans.

She glared, leaning on her shovel. “I never once asked you to divulge your secrets, but you did anyway.”

“Yeah, you practically beat them out of me, Aya,” he scoffed, remembering the night they'd spent at the motel. He wasn't quite himself then, coming down from the disgusting high of stalking human blood. “You can walk into any human house without being invited, the sun doesn't bother you in the slightest, your eyes are fucking white and you seem to know where the hell I am before I even get there. Who the hell are you, Aya? You're like a fucking ghost.”

“I don't owe you anything, Zac. Least of all an explanation.”

“Of course you don't.” He ran his hands through his hair in frustration.

“Don't worry about me when you've got your own problems to deal with.” Her tone was sharp and he flinched.

“Thanks for reminding me, Aya. Real smooth.”

She sighed heavily and sat down on the bench. “It's always been about control, Zac. You may be good at killing, but it’s not all of who you are.”

“You don't need to tell me this,” he said, sitting beside her. He didn't really want to hear it, but assumed he was going to anyway.

“It's about control for all of us. Some choose to harness it, some choose to relinquish it. It is the intent that separates good from evil,” she said, looking at the sky. “Why do you hold onto your humanity?”

Zac shrugged, remaining silent.

“It's for Sam's sake, isn't it?” She peered out the corner of her eye, judging his reaction.

He was scowling, looking at his hands. Finally, he said, “I don't want to be this monster, but I can't help myself.”

“You have to do it for yourself. You might think you're doing Sam a favor, but you're not. If you don't want it, then you're making it harder than you need to. You can help yourself.” He was still looking at his hands, wringing them as she spoke. “Tell me, what would you have done after the Civil War?”

“I don't know.” He would have continued in the army, perhaps. Joined the new United States. Maybe as a Confederate they would have taken him and put him on trial instead. It wasn't something he was at liberty to think about once he had turned. That life was gone.

Aya turned to look at him, pointedly. “That's the best answer anyone could ever hope for.”

He was confused. ”What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “If you don't know, then you could do anything.”

Zac sat a moment, trying to process the notion. His life had been taken away from him, but he still had a say as to what he did next. He'd always believed that Victoria had taken all of his choices and left him to be the only person he knew how to be. A monster. But maybe he could be more than that. If only he knew how.

He hesitantly reached out to touch her hand that rested on the back of the bench, Aya eyeing him warily as he did. She edged back ever so slightly, so slight that only his vampire eyes could see the gesture. Her expression was blank as they stared at each other, until her eyes unfocused and her body became rigid.

“Zac...” she said with a sharp note of panic. Then she was gone.

Zac sat dumbfounded for a moment. She'd disappeared. Not like she had done before, where she'd moved too fast for him to stop, but vanished. Regardless, he still got up from the bench and searched the house, calling her name. Finally stopping in the study, he roared and sent the papers that littered the desk flying, his face in his hands.

They had been so stupid. Katrin was coming for Aya, she didn't want him anymore. Her voice had been one of surprise and panic like she didn't understand what was happening and he was powerless to stop it.

Aya had vanished into thin air.