The couch was very comfortable; I didn't want to get up. I wasn't sure why I was on the couch, rather than my own bed in my own room in my own car, but I was.

"You need to get up, Sasha. It's morning, and we need to talk."

The train wasn't moving; we were probably still at the town we just liberated. I'd had to come back to the train for some booze though; the villagers had been very happy to be freed but we worried about me having a few celebratory drinks.

Bah, their crap probably tasted bad anyway; nothing compared to this brandy I'd found.

"Shut up, Gray, you rat bastard. I'm sleeping off a drunk." I groaned. Why was the bastard bothering me?

"Alright Sasha, I guess we can talk later. But you should know Plague is on her way."

"Then shut up and let me sleep more." How hard was it to understand that sleep was golden?

Exactly three minutes and twenty-four seconds of golden time later, Plague slid into the barstool nearest my couch.

"Quite a party you missed last night, Sasha."

I answered her in the most intelligent way possible. "Mbergle."

"Why did you leave?" She asked as if she didn't know. Maybe she didn't know?

"I had my own party."

Plague looked around at the empty brandy bottles. Fewer than I could have managed before, my tolerance had reset. But that was a win, it now cost less for me to get where I wanted to be when I drank. "So I see. And with my own private stash, too. You don't normally steal other people's booze unless you're angry at them, or they are named Alicia. So tell me, how did I piss you off?"

"You didn't do anything to piss me off. I just made my own party, and found this stuff. It's good."

Plague held up a bottle with a little amber liquid left in it, swished it around a bit, and then finished it off. "It should be, it's almost twice what you pay for your stash. Just one bottle of it."

A good thing I wasn't paying for it then.

Plague seemed to read my mind. "No worries there; it's no more than you deserve for yesterday. Do you know how long Riddle has been active?"

I didn't remember exactly how long, but it was a case of years.

Plague looked over. "Exactly. And you took her out in an afternoon. Made it look easy, even."

I had made it look easy, but it wasn't. Would I have been able to beat her before? Considering I'd pushed power directly into my Eagle and shot it four times, not a chance. We'd still be in the maze and cut off from all the glorious brandy.

"If you stay sane, you could turn this war we're in."

I snorted and shook my hat at her. Did it look different this morning? "I was never sane, Plague. Perhaps that's even what this thing needs."

Plague stilled. "Sasha, what is that?"

Well, now that was irritating. "It's my hat, Plague. What did you think it was?"

"Why does it have spring antennae and a visor on it?"

I looked again. In my hand was a pointy witch hat with those novelty spring antennae worked in. A visor hung off the edges at an angle to go over my eyes, in a faint but pleasant shade of light blue. The visor would retract when not in use of course, though I wasn't sure what use it had.

"No idea."

"You're not...."

"No, the only reason I want to kill you right now is you woke me up and seem absolutely determined to talk at me."

Seriously, it was a good drunk she was ruining.

She smirked. "Good. Let me know if that changes, alright? A warning is all I ask. I'll leave you to it; try and get up and ready for duty in the next hour. Also, nice pajamas."

Se left as I looked down. Ah, just small scraps of silk; I thought it felt a little cold in here. When had I undressed? Why had I undressed? Heck, how had I undressed? I doubted I could even load a gun last night.

I found my uniform; it was dirty. I had spares in my room... which wasn't in the train's bar/dining car.

The suspiciously empty train's bar, considering it was morning. Mid-morning, unless I missed my guess. The uniform was dirty, and smelled, but then again, so did I. I put it back on and tucked my hat under my arm (since with the visor, there was no way it was fitting in the pocket designed for it, and I didn't much feel like concentrating) and strode back to my room as if I owned the place.

Because of course, I owned the place. Gray followed, looking around curiously, taking the environment in.

There were spare uniforms, of course, made fresh just yesterday. And a washbasin, where I traded the water my dirt for it's clean-ness. It probably got the worst out of that trade, but it would just get thrown out anyway

I got changed; the new uniform fit as well as the old one, and stuffed the old one into my pack. Then with a sigh, I focused. The visor melted back into the hat. And the tradeoff for that was cheap - only a doubling of my headache.

I dry swallowed some aspirin as I stuffed the offending thing into its pocket. The antennae were ignorable.

Gray looked on in disapproval. "That's very bad for you. Aspirin can have side effects."

"So can massive headaches."

Silence meant he conceded the point. Wait, if my hat had changed... I opened my small wardrobe.

The witch clothes had indeed changed, to a dress of black trimmed in blue that matched the visor. A very short dress with a dark blue bodice and criss crossed in leather belts around the hips. A set of high boots which would come to about mid-calf on me and also trimmed in blue lay under the dress. There were hints of lace involved in the whole thing.

I shut the door to the wardrobe. That had been right next to my uniforms, and I hadn't noticed. When had they changed? If Auntie Adeline had come in to deliver my uniforms and seen it changed, or worse, had seen it in the process of changing, there would be questions. Questions I had no answer for; it wasn't like any of this came with an owner's manual or how to.

Well, I'd know soon enough.

Now mostly clean and more or less presentable, it was time to get breakfast.

The dining car was packed, and all evidence of my party was now missing. There were large plates of bagels and a few full carafes of coffee on the bar. I sat down next to Plague and snagged one of each.

"So what's the news?" It wouldn't be like Plague to hide unpleasant news from me. Hell, she'd probably dance to dish out something clothing related.

"We move as soon as the engineers get us topped off. Got another rumored witch to hunt, in Scandinavia. And Dustin's team has another suspected witch to hunt in France."

Again, with France. Why was it always France? "Good; we can restock your stash along the way; best to keep busy."

I saluted Dustin with my carafe. "Good hunting."

He gaped at me. "You never wish me good anything."

"Well, part of good hunting implies good riddance." Honestly, the hunt was trusting me a lot here. Only one team, even if it was my former team and they were relying on sentiment to stay my hand a critical half a second or so (something that historically was known not to happen, since witches usually killed their family first) and Plague. I probably couldn't take Plague, and I couldn't run, but they just reduced the number of people who could be carrying the detonator by almost half, after a time where I'd just proven I could kill most of the people tasked to watch me with ease.

Ivan and Alicia were good, but they weren't fast enough to dodge the Eagle.

So yeah, a lot of trust. Dustin forced me to refocus on him: "Well, try not to murder anyone to make your bread while I'm gone."

"That's giants, you idiot."

"Good point," he admitted. "But then again, you could always go reverse giant on us, or something."

Every time I saw Dustin, he got stupider. Maybe I'd make a pie out of him later, or something. "Just get out of here. Even if you're supposed to be riding with us. Just get off and walk."

Dustin staggered back, a hand to his chest. "You wound me!"

His grin was insufferable. "Don't tempt me."

Plague put her foot down. "Yeah, Dustin, don't tempt her."

Dustin got going, his team already geared and behind him. He took a bottle on his way out of course, but it was nothing I'd miss. Slyvie actually waved on her way out. She still didn't say anything, but I think that was more due to the bagel in her mouth.

They were all freshly topped off, power wise. After all, they hadn't used anything yesterday. So they should be fine. At the very least they should be able to run away.

Plague slid up and hip bumped me. "Stop worrying about your boyfriend, Sasha. He's a big boy."

I admit when I threw up my half eaten bagel I attempted to aim for her. She dodged. Luckily, Dustin hadn't heard.

"You better have brain bleach."

I considered drawing on her, but that wasn't likely to end well, so I just reached for another bagel instead.

"Uh, Sasha...." Plague was mincing around my puke.

"What? What are you even doing, there's nothing there."

She stared me down a moment - or tried to. "Alright, that's fair, I guess." She grabbed a rag.

Damn right; after all, I didn't suggest she was getting it on with Auntie or Sinister, and if she threw up as a result of me saying something like that, I'd take my lumps.

"A masterful manipulation of the situation, Sasha." Gray complimented, and I nodded. Best to let that statement go though, Plague could be touchy about compliments made at her expense, and no one wanted to see an angry Plague.

Ivan strode up to the bar, a file in his hands. "What's that? Required reading?"

"The file on the rumored witch on the block next."

Well, that was fast. How did they even get it here? The train was faster than most messages - normally we'd find the file waiting for us, or more often, just go in blind, but to have a full file? I smelled something rotten.

On the other hand, I'd only been to Scandinavia once. I'd liked it at the time; the countryside was beautiful.

"Well, you're not wrong. You guys have been bumped up as long as I'm with you, so we only go after the best targets."

I was fine with that. "So who is our victim?"

"Marcy."

One of the four, and even better, one of the four that had targeted us specifically. Tasty tasty payback was tasty. Ivan paled but nodded like the trooper he was. Alicia would probably gripe, but screw her anyway.

"Works for me," I replied, stealing some of Ivan's vodka. Really, drinking the stuff this early in the morning; pretty shameful of him.

Of course, splitting up the teams this early made even less sense now. It wasn't as if Marcy didn't have a history of hitting our trains directly or anything, and we would make a tempting target. That was probably the point, come to think of it, to look weaker. Dustin in range to reply to a distress call. Or maybe he wasn't, and we were just testing the spies in the other camp; that happened from time to time.

Plague stood up and threw the rag away. "So, it'll be a long trip, or long enough. How about we do something?"

"Like?" Ivan asked. He shifted his weight toward the door.

Plague noticed but didn't call him on it. "Like cards! With Alicia, we have four! And it doesn't even have to be poker, so we won't bilk Sasha!"

What? "Just what are you implying, Plague?"

"That you suck at poker, Sasha. No poker face at all, anyone can clean you out." Plague fired back immediately.

I did not suck at poker! I had the best nothing expression ever! "Bullshit! I'll show you!"

"Oh yeah? Well, sit on down then. I'll go find Alicia!"

"Here we go again...." Ivan muttered, slamming down another shot.

"Screw you, Ivan."

......

The Scandinavian mountains were every bit as nice as I remember. Here we were, standing on top of mount Goldwhatever, on the trail of the rumored witch who had allegedly murdered the town of Bverdalkirk or however it's spelled. It wasn't really allegedly, as the people were very dead, and the library the hunt had maintained was very burned to the ground, but it could have just been a random nut-job with a desire to burn technical works - that an armed police force couldn't handle.

I was getting all too familiar with cold weather gear. I hated cold weather gear. It was confining and made my draw slower.

Now was the point where we got to hike around this cold hell for the next two to three days before finally getting jumped by the witch and her minions and killing them. I kind of wanted to skip all that... and maybe that hint of smoke would be the just the thing I needed. Smoke was visible from a long way out here.

"Plague, look." It was still hours away.

"Hm," Plague made a show of shading her eyes... even though she had goggles on. "Looks like a little one. Not a structure fire, and not dark enough for a vehicle fire."

"That's a campfire," Ivan stated firmly.

"Yeah, that's bull is what it is. I say we start a nice fire of our own. I brought hot dogs."

"Sasha, those hot dogs were probably made with real dog. No telling for sure."

I doubted that. That back alley butcher had an honest face!

"Where would we get fuel for it?"

Trees were kind of scarce where we were, come to think of it. Most of the wood was further down, on the other side of the mountain. Right where the fire was.

"Well Alicia always carries a lot of useless junk. We could burn that."

"Hey!"

"No, Sasha. Let's just make the hike to the fire. Stop being difficult, we both don't want to be here any longer than we have to."

"It's just the principle of the thing, They are beginning to repeat themselves, and it pisses me off."

Plague patted me on the back. "I know. check your snow shoes; we're going."

My snowshoes were fine.

We walked carefully, Alicia broke the trail, and Ivan covered our backs. Plague was behind me, watching. We were all tied together, just in case; even though this mountain was nothing compared to the ones I'd scaled earlier.

The snow was new and loose; we could slide a good distance if we tried. Well, at least to the end of the tether.

"Stop trying to slide, Sasha."

People always wanted to ruin my fun.

Alicia decided to pile on. "Yeah Sasha, quit trying to pull us around."

"Alicia, when you repeat others it just makes you sound stupid."

"Poker loser says what?"

Oh, that.... "I did not lose! ....Much."

Alicia laughed. "Oh come on, Plague and Ivan both took almost a month's salary off you! The best part was the wooden face you tried to pull every time you thought you had a good hand."

"Hey, it was enough to beat you." And beat her I had; she owed me almost a full pound.

"I was too busy laughing to focus on the game," She replied loftily. "Just face it, you're too expressive Sasha. Actually, 'face it' is a good way to describe the problem!"

She had turned back to grin at me, and so missed the sudden eruption of the snow dune in front of her, sending her skidding away. I braced, but the differences in weight made the attempt hopeless; luckily the rope snapped after I ate snow, so I didn't go skidding too far.

I hated a face full of snow more than I hated cold weather gear.

I wasn't fooled by the white fur or the roar. I spat out the snow (thankfully none of it yellow). "Poly, we have got to stop meeting like this."

The yeti actually paused and scratched her head. I couldn't resist: "That is a better look for you, however."

Poly's next roar was a little deafening; some of the snow actually shifted.

The gas tipped me off, and I found myself backflipping before the first whiff. In snow. I landed on my feet and did it again, adding a handspring this time to keep me ahead of the cloud.

"Little Sasha, is that you?"

"Hello, Malodorous."

If she and Poly were here, then the chances were they had backup this time. I started looking around for it. "Another ambush? Then who's down at the fire?"

"Oh, the fire? You don't need to worry about the fire, Sasha. I'll handle them after I deal with you."

Another gas cloud moving across the route of the first ambushed me; I sucked down a little before coming out the other side, coughing a bit. My arm was steady, however, and I had her now.

The shot went straight through the gas, burning through the center of it. Malodorous performed a nice spinning dance step before face-planting in the snow. I coughed up a lung while she groaned and sat up; she wasn't built as weakly as Riddle it seemed.

Plague was on her way, sneaking up as well as one could in a snow-capped mountain to deliver a blow of her own when the expected help materialized.

"The wyld hunter known as Plague tripped over her own shoelaces, and fell in the snow."

Zinger Zoe, another underling of Malodorous, had a special knack for manipulating any field of battle, just by talking. Reality would try to match her running dialogue. She had limits, but those were hard to work past when facing numbers like this.

I popped a shot off in her direction, and to her credit, she moved... but the yeti tanked the shot. The only good news was it knocked them both off their feet, with the yeti on top of Zinger; that should shut her up for a little while. Knives sprouting from the fallen furball showed me that Ivan had finally caught up, and Alicia was beginning to stir.

Another cloud, this one not only caustic but reducing my vision, fell into place between us. I looked around; I was hemmed in.

"I am your opponent, Sasha."

"Bullshit; you're all my opponents."

This was a pretty good ambush; anywhere I went now I was eating gas.

"Let me help," Gray said.

Was he serious? "I'm not stopping you, idiot."

"Right!" Gray exclaimed, sounding all too annoyingly happy. But before he could get going something else happened.

The impact knocked me right off my feet, and half buried me in snow, but above the noise, I heard it clearly.

"Oh, so you're going to deal with me, Marcy? Is that right?" Delivered in a sweet, saccharine voice that screamed fake.

Killer Cat had entered the building.

Catherine Ponder looked like a young girl... and proved the true-ism that young girls could be the scariest things on Earth. A young concert pianist, she had a promising career at an age when I was playing with toys. Then she got a hat and a familiar... and celebrated by taking out a country almost single-handedly.

The rumor was her power was to mimic the ability of other witches somehow, but no one had seen her in action and lived. Well, no one except my mentor, once. Even other witches feared her, above all others. She wasn't even considered one of the four.

She was considered above them.

Cat hadn't been seen since well before I'd become a hunter; the Hunt had considered her retired or dead. We had hoped for dead, but I knew that voice, just as well as I knew Olivia's.

The shadow that was malodorous stopped dead in her tracks. "C-Cat? That fire was you?"

Cat actually hummed in response. "Mmm-hmm! I was all set up, camping, and making smores, so imagine my surprise when I heard someone was planning to deal with me! You're very noisy, Marcy, with all this stomping around and yelling."

Criminy, she sounded younger than me, for all that, she was three times my age. It set my teeth on edge.

But I knew where the voice was coming from, now. Visibility did not stop a true marksman.

I drew my other pistol; Malodorous got the right hand, and Cat got my left; only the best for her.

Malodorous tumbled away, but the answer from my left was immediate: "Oh, it's little Sasha. Hello little Sasha, how are you doing today? It's been awhile, hasn't it?"

Oh, that sound was my teeth grinding. "It's been a decade. And I'm not little, you sawed off runt! Try growing up, you underfed midget!"

And just like that, all my guns were empty. I started reloading... then realized I didn't need to.

"Now, don't be like that Sasha; how am I supposed to know that you've grown? The last time I saw you, you were smaller than me, and I can't exactly see you now. Marcy is ruining everything; I know, hold on and hold still, I'll help!"

A blast of air cleared the clouds of gas... all of them, all at once. I shielded my face, but it didn't move me.

Cat stood revealed, in all her glory. No cold weather gear on her; she was in a dress that was at least half lace and shoes with heels. Malodorous was down, her butt in the air. Cat took the three steps needed and planted a heel on her, shoving her down.

"That's a good look for you, Marcy. Stay right there, okay? I'm going to talk to my good friend Sasha, here."

Then she turned back to me. I was already tracking her; she leaned out of my shot.

"Oh, it's been awhile since I've seen that. You were on pop guns the last time; little itty bitty things." She scrunched up her hands. This time the shot was taken in full by a large suit of armor, easily twenty feet tall, that slammed down in front of her.

"But I've got one question for you, Sasha; why are you holding back?"

What was she on? I unloaded on the armor, which had to be her familiar. The eyes glowed, anyway.

I think I scratched it.

"You see Sasha, I came here because I felt a witch. A witch as strong as Marcy here, or stronger A witch with strength not seen since your mother." She ground her heel into Marcy's back. Marcy did not complain.

"So imagine my surprise," Cat continued. "When I came and found you here." Her gaze focused on me; it was almost painful.

Another blast of wind failed to move me, but it tore my cold weather gear right off. My uniform was underneath, but it wasn't all that was. How did that dress get there? I'd left it in the train. A quick blast of cold, of falling away from myself happened before I snapped back; my hat was on my head. Gray was right behind me; he must have done it.

"Would you care to explain, Sasha?" Cat asked.

The field had gone silent; all of us were standing, not daring to move. Plague had at least three of her concoctions out, Ivan had a full spread of knives ready, and Alicia was a statue. Only the Yeti fur moved, and Zoe was silent.

"Sasha, let me help," Gray said again.

"I'm not stopping you, Gray," I told him.

Plague spoke quietly. "Sasha, who are you talking to?"

The saucer came down from the clouds, followed it's brothers. All five, because this was serious.

What was Plague's problem? "Gray. You know, small guy, gray skin, big dark eyes, a friend of mine who's been with us for days, learning the hunter trade?"

Cat smiled. "She can't see Gray, Sasha. She's never seen him."

The saucers took up a holding pattern around me, revolving around my head in a dizzying fashion. Their shields would protect me, and their lasers would sear my enemies. Their cloaking devices were like Gray's and would hide them until I needed them.

"Oh." Crap.

"Sasha, focus! It's okay, it's not a big deal!" I barely heard Plague's shout. All this time - how long? How had I not noticed?

"Come on Sasha, we knew it was likely to happen! Focus!"

Cat turned to Plague. "Be silent," she said with a smile, in that sugary voice of hers. Plague's teeth clicked together.

I took note that Plague's rot grenades were primed and ready.

Furthermore, she was right; this changed nothing. Gray was in my head, but he was mine. He hadn't blown apart any towns yet; WE hadn't blown apart any towns yet.

"So what happens now?" I asked the witch; Cat had to know how this would end by now.

"Now? Why, my dear Sasha, we talk a bit is all, and I send you on your way. After I chastise these naughty children, that is."

Her heel dug into Marcy's back again. Marcy cried out but didn't move. Cat stepped off her, a little closer; the saucers shifted their formation, and the armor held its hand out.

"Dull, what?"

The armor pointed - but not at the saucers; those were ignored. Cat squinted. "Oh ho! So that's why. It's been awhile since I've seen one of those."

Was she talking about the collar? I could see Plague out of the corner of my eye; one hand was in a pocket.

Cat smiled and curtseyed. "Well, I'm sorry, Sasha. I'm afraid we'll have to have our talk later. See you then, ta ta!"

A bright flash seared my eyeballs; I blinked my eyes clear in a second, but Cat was gone, along with the other witches.

At least all of us had our parts still attached.

"Sasha."

I turned to Plague and caught her gesture. "Oh, right. For the record, I didn't know." A thought sent the saucers away.

She sighed and slumped with a nod. "We need to talk."