Exquisite Poison (Original Draft)

Chapter 4 - Some Fears Are Made Worse When Revealed in Light

Back in her bedroom, Netta had been working at packing everything that she would need for the trip home.

After deciding that she had nearly finished with the essentials, she had to figure out what to do with the stuff that she could never abandon. There were some items that could never end up in a pawn shop when her roommate would inevitably decide to dig through whatever she had left for money. Worse yet, if he discovered even a hint of the importance of what she had, she could not risk some of her belongings ending up on some Cryptozoology forum on the internet. Probably in one that she frequented.

Fucking humans.

Wondering where it could have gone to, she turned to glance around the room, hoping to find the familiar red-bound spine of the one book she most needed to take.

And then she saw Ashwood, sitting on the back of her desk's chair as though the creature did not weigh a thing. In Its hands was a large, heavy book that It seemed to be reading intently.

Feeling cross - among other things - Netta stomped up to the creature and glared.

It raised Its finger - wait - and lowered that finger to hold Its place on the page. The creature raised Its head, blinking, nonplussed, at her.

"Can I help you? I'm trying to read."

Netta reached forward, took her book back. Before closing it however, she looked down and saw the opened entry in Namoiah Cloister's rare, first print run of The Din of the Natural World, a Bestiary which contained detailed information regarding the many known Monsters of the world. The entry that Ash had been reading - or pretending to - was the entry of the Deep King. Or, more colloquially know, the Traitor King.

Even better known to most Witches and even Monsters as a great big, fat urban legend, even among a world of magic.

"Cute, real cute," Netta muttered, shutting the entry on the famous drawing of the huge, horned beast man in his caped and crowned regalia.

Always a bit much, she had long held in her opinion of that character.

Ash raised Its hands up. Oh well. "Got everything you need for our roadtrip?"

And then it hit Netta. First came the realization that she would be trapped, with no other recourse to make Ashwood go away in a confined space. Not for less than twenty hours, at least.

Second came the sudden, guilt-inducing knowledge that she had forgotten someone.

Digging in her pocket, Netta's hand resurfaced with her clamshell phone and hurriedly called her most frequently called number, paused, then deciding against it, ended the call and sent a text message instead. She didn't trust how her voice sounded then and wasn't entirely sure how she could spin what she would have to tell if pressed to explain.

After she had hit the SEND button, she was aware that Ash had been looking over her shoulder the whole time when Its voice spoke clearly in her ear. ""Gotta go out of town for a week - see you when I come back." You know; I don't know why I never pegged you as a social butterfly, but I suppose, well - even you find people to talk to, share a donut with -"

Netta shut her eyes, dreading what she had to say. "It's my boyfriend, Wallace. I don't want him to consider breaking up with me just because I'm disappearing off the face of the Ear-"

"You have a human pet?" The snarling in Its voice threw Netta off, and she leaped away from It, turning around to see how the handsome, un-human man had hunched over slightly.

In a moment, however, the look - and posture - was gone.

The creature cleared Its throat, raising a hand up to smooth back Its thick, fashionable hair. "My apologies," It laughed, and it sounded - almost - easy-going, carefree. "I was just thrown off there. Did you just say that you have a boyfriend?" It tilted Its head to the side. The purples of the creature's eyes, for a moment, seemed to change.