Bethalie rapped on the door of the condo, waiting patiently for her knock to be answered. The door was opened in good time by Kelli, wearing nothing but a pair of panties and a tank top, her blonde hair put up a pony tail and her pretty face free of makeup.

"Hi, Kelli.  Where's Lance?" she asked the girl, who was looking at her with that delightfully vacant stare.

"I'm sorry...do I know you?" Kelli questioned, her expression running to slight suspicion.

Bethalie felt her stomach tighten. "I was here yesterday to see Lance, remember? Is he here?" He was. Both cars were parked right there behind her.

"He's upstairs sleeping," Kelli answered, her suspicion swiftly replaced by discomfort. "Um, but...you said you were here yesterday? Because, I-I...don't remember seeing you..."

Again, Bethalie felt her stomach clench. Damnable Warlock. He needed to be taught a hard lesson. "Kelli, I need to speak with Lance. Either you wake him up or I will," she said in a tone meant to quell any further conversation.

Kelli pursed her perfectly plump lips together. "You can wake him up. He gets really cranky if I wake him early." That declared, the girl turned and went back to her spot on the sofa, picking up a magazine and beginning to leaf through it. It looked like the same magazine she'd been leafing through before.

With Noah right behind her, she made her way through the condo and up to the bedroom Lance slept in. She pushed open the door and stepped into the pitch black room, finding the switch and flooding the room with light.

"Goddammit! Why can't you leave me alone, bitch!" the whiny voice growled from beneath the covers. "I need my sleep!"

Bethalie started to move for the bed, but Noah beat her to it, streaking across the room and physically snatching Lance from beneath the covers, jerking him off the mattress by the throat. Lance shrieked like a little girl, kicking and flailing as Noah whipped him around through the air and then held him there, feet off the ground, his body wriggling and writhing like a pale worm on a hook.

"You will not disrespect my female, Warlock! No matter how you treat your own!" Noah snarled giving Lance a hard shake that had his appendages flailing wildly. All of his appendages. And it wasn't pretty. "Beg forgiveness or die!"

Hmmm. Maybe having a territorial Vampire mate wasn't so bad.

Lance's wide, stunned eyes turned to Bethalie and his mouth opened and closed a few times, but no sound came out.

"Noah, he can't talk if he can't breathe," she pointed out, moving across the room to perch on the end of the bed.

It took her words a moment to make it through and then Noah let go of the dangling Warlock, letting him drop to his knees with a hard thud, coughing and sputtering as he sucked in a breath.

"Beg forgiveness!" Noah ordered harshly. "Grovel at her feet like the filth you are!"

Oooh. She wouldn't mind a little groveling.

The naked man at Bethalie's feet looked up at her, his expression a mix of fear and anger. "I-I'm sorry, Ward. Please forgive me," he said hoarsely.

Was that just a touch of sarcasm lacing his words? She thought it was.

Noah let out a frustrated growl, clearly unimpressed with Lance Morgan's groveling skills, but Bethalie held up a hand. "That's good enough, Lance. Thank you."

"What do you want, Ward!" Lance demanded, struggling to his feet. "I have told you everything I know!"

"Oh, Lance, I don't think you have," Bethalie said easily, smiling at the irate and naked Warlock glaring at her. "Tell me about your relationship with Jenna Hawes."

Lance's beady eyes widened and a wave of fear rolled over his rodent like features. "You needn't bother with her, Ward! My sister has nothing to do with whatever is going on in this city!"

Bethalie's spine stiffened. Sister? Jenna Hawes was Lance Morgan's sister? Yes...yes, the mouse like features...  Well, this was perhaps the piece of the puzzle she'd been searching for.

"Lance, just exactly how long have you been divulging the names of offenders to your sister?" she questioned easily.

Lance's mouth fell open. "What! Have...have you been snorting Belladonna! Good fucking god, woman, do you think I'd be that stupid!"

"Yes. I think you are that stupid," she answered plainly.

Lance's mouth fell open even further, which didn't seem possible, but was. "I have never leaked the names of the offenders who get turned in! Not to my sister, not to anyone!"

"You admitted to me that you speak to a friend about your work," she reminded him. "Is that friend in fact your sister?"

Lance blanched. "I-I...I do talk to her about work, but I have never told her a single name that comes across my desk!" he vehemently stated, shaking his head as if he couldn't believe the audacity of the charge being lobbed at him. "Do you think I want it to get out that I work on the Narc-line and that I have loose lips! They would kill me Themselves!"

"So, what you're saying is that you have never once in recent days spoken to your sister about anyone in particular," she reiterated. "You have never let a single name cross your lips and fall on your sister's ears."

"Never!" Lance spat at her. "My sister would be the last person I'd spill names to! She couldn't keep a secret if her life depended on it!"

Something in Lance's denial of wrongdoing struck a chord with Bethalie. He might be lying right to her face, but that little spot in her gut was usually a pretty good judge and that spot...believed him. And that actually squashed her little theory flat.

Suddenly, Lance's dark eyes narrowed and his rodent-like features took on a very accusatory expression. "Why are you asking me about my sister, Ward? Why would you even be bothering with her?"

That was a very good question. "What do you know about your sister's doings, Lance?" she asked, getting to her feet so she could look him in the eye. She was getting kind of tired of looking at pieces that only Kelli should be seeing. The poor girl.

"What do you mean?" he demanded, clearly confused.

"I mean, what do you know about Jenna's life. Where does she spend her time? What do you know about the people she surrounds herself with? That sort of thing." Hopefully, he wouldn't make her ask again.

Lance actually snorted at her, his face scrunching up in a look of utter disdain. "You are snorting Belladonna! My sister is a grown woman who does as she pleases! I am not her keeper!"

"You sister is growing quite a stash of Datura, Lance. There's enough of it on her property to immobilize dozens of Vampires. Why would she need that much Datura, do you think?"

Her question had Lance's disdain very swiftly turning to fear. "Oh no! You will not try and pin this on my sister! She has nothing to do with what's happening! You can move onto some other Darksider!"

"Oh, but I really want to concentrate on Jenna," she replied. "Why would an average Witch, minding her own business and up to nothing in particular, need to grow so much Datura? Can you tell me that, Lance?"

Lance's mouth again opened and closed a few times. "I-I don't know what my sister keeps at her house. It...it isn't even her house!" he declared in what was clearly a sudden rush of inspiration. "She doesn't even have a job, so she lives with her friends! One of them owns the house!" It was slightly grating that Lance seemed to enjoy talking in exclamation points. "Whatever's going on there, she probably has nothing to do with it!"

"Of course, that's your opinion. But, in my opinion, it seems your sister may be involved in some hinky doings, Lance.  All the roads I'm sent down seem to lead right in her direction."

Actually, all the roads she was sent down seemed to lead slap into the same brick wall, but he needn't know that.

"Ward, Jenna has nothing to do with this! She just...doesn't!" Lance hissed angrily. "She knows that my work is important to our livelihood! She wouldn't be involved in something that would risk my job and my paycheck! Without that our mother will be turned out in the street! And she's no murderer! Besides, why on earth would she want to kill and drain a bunch of Vampires! What would she do with so much blood!"

Good questions all.

"Lance, old friend, I think you might have a bit too much faith in your kin," Bethalie stated, trying to sound sympathetic. "So, if I were you, I'd distance myself from her until it's all sorted out one way or another."

Lance's only response was to silently open and close his mouth until he started to remind Bethalie of a fish that had been tossed up onto dry land.

"Oh, and Lance, don't tell your sister that we've spoken," she stated, turning and heading for the door.
 I'm sure you know what I'll do if you cross me," she tossed over her shoulder.

Bethalie left the bedroom and trudged back downstairs, finding Kelli right where she'd been left. "Thank you, Kelli," she said to the girl, who looked up from her magazine and smiled. "I'll be seeing you again."

She and Noah exited the condo, stepping out into the deepening evening shadows and climbing back in the van where Mace and Evyn were waiting. Bethalie let out a sigh as she belted into her seat, beginning to feel as though she was beating her head against that damnable brick wall she was perpetually running up against.

She hadn't gotten a scrap more information out of Lance than any of the other times she'd questioned him. But, that did not mean that his sister was completely innocent. Did it? Even if Lance wasn't leaking names of offenders to the girl, she still had contact with some of the dead Vamps, which had to mean something. Right?

"How'd it go?" Mace questioned from the back seat.

Bethalie could only shrug. "Eh. I mean just...eh." Not that she'd really expected anything other than just eh, but still, all the running around and questioning rodent faced Darksiders to absolutely no point and purpose was wearing on her nerves.

"Where do we go from here?" Noah asked, starting the engine and pulling away from the condo.

Well, if this was an ordinary hunt and she'd just officially run out of leads and directions to go in, she would go right back to the start, figuring one more sweep of all the previous leads couldn't hurt. But, that seemed a waste in this case.

Lance Morgan was the only person she'd come across with access to those names. And she honestly believed he wasn't divulging those names to anyone. He seemed too yellow to risk his own neck, not to mention his paycheck, like that. The Warehouse connection hadn't really panned out because she'd seen with her own eyes the amount of men that were stumbling over themselves to get near the Sister Witches, so it was probably just a fluke that Leonard Keith had wound up with Jenna Hawes' number. And if Lance really wasn't leaking names of offenders to his sister or anyone else, then Jenna Hawes and her friends might not be involved at all. They might simply be growing Datura in their garden for some completely benign reason that she wasn't privy to, her not being a Witch but simply an uninformed Ward.

She was starting to think that the dead Vampires all being on her list of targets was just some phenomenal fluke.

If it was mere coincidence that the dead Vampires had all been turned in to the Narc-line, then she needed to point herself in another direction. And the only other direction she could come up with was trying to find out why someone was killing and draining Vampires. On that topic, she had not one viable answer. 

Why someone, anyone, would need to kill four Vampires, each containing five to six liters of blood that was only viable for a few hours outside the body, was mind boggling. What could a person, or even three, do with that much blood?  Witches certainly wouldn't want to use it as a food source. But, blood was used in some of the more negative spells, though she doubted it would take even a novice Witch that much of it to accomplish her purpose. And why slit the wrists? That was a slow way to drain a body. Slicing the main artery in the neck was the fastest way to exsanguinate someone. Messy, but fast.

"Bethalie?" Noah's voice interrupted her raging thoughts. "Where should I drive?"

Bethalie let out a breath, feeling her head starting to pulsate from all the questions knocking around beneath her skull. "Let's go to Stoney's. I could use a drink."

"Bethalie!" Evyn gasped, appalled. "You don't drink!"

"I know," she said flatly. But, nothing else was working, so she'd just go back to her old standby way of operation.

She'd go back to the beginning and check everything one last time. After that, if nothing panned out, maybe she'd just turn in her notice and go back home to Tennessee. At this point, early retirement did not sound so horrible.

*  *  *  *  *  *

The four of them trooped into the hole in the wall that was Stoney's Pub just after nightfall. It was still too early for the crowds to be out in full swing, so the joint was less than jumping. Which was a blessing. It had been a long day and Bethalie was not in the mood for all the noise and hassle of a bunch of drunken and rowdy Darksiders. She'd be forced to put down half of them just to keep from losing her mind.

As they approached the bar, Seth the barkeep looked up, a friendly smile splitting his face. "Hey, Ward. You're looking kind of ragged. Are They working you to death?" he wondered as everyone took a stool, even Noah, whose desire to be near her outweighed his disgust for the seedy bar.

"Yes," she said flatly, feeling as deflated as she sounded. "I don't suppose you've heard anything about what's been going on, have you?"

Seth lifted a brow at her. "What are you asking me about? The reason behind the Narc-line being shut down? Or the fact that one of us was found by a human and the remains are being studied even as we speak? Or are you asking me about all the theories running around about whose doing it?"

"Yes," she answered again. Yes to all of it. In fact, if he could just solve the whole stinking thing she'd be more than grateful.

Seth gave her a sympathetic smile, picking up four glasses from behind the bar and plunking them all down. "You all look like you could use some liquid strength. What'll it be? On the house."

"Scotch, straight up," Mace said, rubbing his hand over his face.

"Stat," Noah said, looking about as beleaguered as a beautiful Vampire could look. "And a scotch, straight up."

"I-I'll take some water," Evyn put in uncertainly, even though Bethalie knew there was no way her assistant would be drinking out of a glass that Seth had washed.

"Ward?" Seth questioned.

"I don't suppose you have any coffee for Bethalie?" Evyn wondered before Bethalie could answer.

"You don't want the chaff I sell to the customers, but I always have a pot brewing in the back for me," he answered. "Will that do?"

"It'll do," Evyn said, sliding off her stool. "Can I make it for her? You'll never get the proportions of sugar and creamer right."

Seth shrugged. "I'll lead you to the break room."

Evyn rounded the bar and she and Seth disappeared through a swinging door off to the left, leaving Bethalie to stare at all the bottles lining the shelves behind the bar. Maybe now would be a good time for her to start drinking. Maybe it would help her somehow.

"Are you alright, mīla?" Noah asked. "You look at your wits end."

Maybe that was because she was at her wits end. "I'm good," she lied.

"You're lying."

Damn.

"I'm okay. Really," she said on a sigh. "I'm just...I'm not cut out for this end of the business. I'm better at putting the bullet in the head of the offender than finding the head the bullet is meant for."

"But, you do find the head the bullet is meant for. This is no different.  You're still hunting down an offender," Noah said by way of a little pep-talk.

"It is different," she whined. "I hunt the names I'm handed, I don't have to go looking for the names. And if I can't find a target, they go on my Bucket List and I wait them out. This time, I can't wait them out. I have to find them and I don't think that's possible at this point."

"Ah, come on, Bethalie," Mace put in consolingly. "You've gotten this far. Maybe you just need to take a step back and look at things from a different perspective."

What the hell did that mean? "My brain hurts. Please, don't talk in riddles," she whined some more.

Mace chuckled and Noah sat stiffly, his expression annoyed. "You're thinking too hard about the issue. It's like staring at a jigsaw puzzle for hours, looking for the right piece. You can't find it, so you get up and do something else and when you go back to it, the piece is usually sitting right in front of you."

"It pains me to say this, but I think Tuck is onto something," Noah begrudgingly stated. "We've all done nothing but focus on this problem for days and days. You're thinking has to be all scrambled up. Mine is."

"Well, what do you suggest I do?" she wondered. A vacation to someplace tropical sounded nice, but she doubted The Big Guys would approve a leave of absence at this point. Not with Darksiders dropping like flies.

"Do you ever have fun, Bethalie? Or do you spend your every waking minute chasing down monsters and lobbing off their heads?" Mace asked.

She only rarely lobbed off anyone's head. It was much cleaner to shoot them in the head or stab them in the heart. "I have fun sometimes," she defended weakly.

"What do you do for fun then?" asked Mace.

Bethalie considered that for a minute. It was fun to chase a target down and beat him into a pile of meat. It was fun to shovel Mix over the bodies and hear them start to sizzle. It was fun to practice her techniques on Vlad the workout dummy...

Oh God. She needed a life.

"I think you should go out tonight," Mace posed the idea, seeing that she was having difficulty responding. "It might do you good to cut loose a little."

She would not argue at this point. "What do you suggest?" Clearly, she had no idea what fun was or what it meant to have it.

Mace shrugged a large shoulder. "The Warehouse looked like a good spot to have some fun. Why don't you go there?"

"But, I've already checked out that place. It was a dead end," she said.

"No, Bethalie. As a patron, not as a Ward," Mace said patiently. "You can dance to that awful stuff they call music. You can get hit on by all the horny, drunken idiots. You can make all the women there jealous with your...cool."

Ah, yes. The cool factor. She'd never considered that she actually had any of the cool factor.

"Again, it truly pains me to admit it, but...Tuck is right," Noah inserted, sounding slightly nauseous. "It might be good for you to get your mind off all this. And The Warehouse is a far better place to be spending your time than this...pit."

They made a good case. Surely, a night out would help put things into perspective. Come to think of it, had she ever really had a night out? Well, there were her little forays down to Vegas once a year, but those nights were more along the lines of therapeutic relaxation. And the things that happened there, she and Evyn never spoke of. It would be too...awkward. "Alright. We'll hit The Warehouse tonight."

That seemed to satisfy Noah and Mace and they both lapsed into silence. Evyn and Seth returned shortly, Evyn carrying a mug of coffee in her hands and Seth looking slightly pained. A little jolt went through Bethalie. She hoped poor Evyn didn't have a breakdown back there.

"Here you go, Bethalie. Drink up." Evyn put the mug in front of her and Seth went about pouring out two glasses of Scotch and pulled a bottle of Stat from beneath the counter.

"What are we doing now?" Evyn asked, watching Bethalie closely as she picked up her mug.

Bethalie shrugged, taking a sip of the steaming, bittersweet liquid that was not as good as her iced coffee, but was at least tolerable. The jolt of caffeine that hit her stomach seemed to instantly perk her up. "Apparently, we're taking the night off to go dancing."

Evyn's brows shot upwards. "What?"

"I am being forced to go out and have fun. At The Warehouse, no less," she answered.

"Well...okay then," Evyn said, taking the news all in stride.

"So, can I help you with anything else, Ward?" Seth asked, his eyes hard on her.

"Not unless you can tell the name of the person who's killing Darksiders," she said.

"I can't. But, I would tell you if I could. I think the longer the Narc-line stays down, the bigger the chance that Darksiders will start to think it's open season on Daylighters. And that won't be good for any of us."

Seth the barkeep made a good point. The longer the Narc-line stayed down, the more comfortable the Darksiders would get in thinking they wouldn't get caught cheating on their diet. And that would be bad for everyone.

*  *  *  *  *  *

It was still early when they left Stoney's Pub, giving everyone time to go back to the garage and freshen up. But first, Bethalie made a little pilgrimage to Sue's building, leaving Mace and Evyn in the van while she and Noah made for the door. Noah couldn't get past the barrier, so Bethalie went in first, rushing up to pound on Sue's door. And even though he knew he'd be with her in only a minute, as soon as she was out of sight, Noah started to rage and the reverberation of him throwing himself against the barrier rocked the building.

Sue answered her frantic knocking and without a word, quickly darted away to summon Noah into the building before he wound up shattering his bones trying to force his way inside.

Teddy ushered Bethalie into the space, immediately whisking her to the kitchen and trying to ply her with tea and cookies, which she didn't want, but of course that didn't matter. Manners and Southern hospitality demanded that every guest have their bellies filled and their thirst quenched, whether the guest liked it or not.

"Here she is, safe and sound," Sue's voice sounded through the space and Bethalie turned away from the table to find Noah descending upon her, his face a mask of agony.

He had to bring himself to a quick stop before actually reaching out to grab her. Had she not been wearing her coat, he would have made sure they had a proper reunion, but the silver shrouding her prevented that.

"Are you alright, mīla?" he rasped, his gravelly voice taut as a bow string.

Bethalie nodded, afraid to speak for fear of how her own voice would sound. So, instead, she turned to Sue and Teddy, who were standing with their arms around each other, watching her with expectant expressions.

"What can I help you with, Bethalie?" Sue wondered, her sharp gaze boring into Bethalie and staying firmly away from Noah.

"I just need a little information on Datura," Bethalie replied, trying to ignore the feeling of having her soul prodded.

"What do you need to know?" Sue asked, seeming to relax a bit.

"Well, I know what I use Datura for, but why would a Witch need to grow a massive amount of it?" she asked.

She herself was no novice when it came to herbal work, but people were always coming up with new and different ways of using any one particular herb. She hoped that Sue was up on the latest, or perhaps the oldest, fad.

Sue lifted a shoulder in an easy gesture. "It's used for a lot of things, if the hands are skilled enough. Conjuring and medicinal purposes...wreaking havoc with the Vampire set, as I'm sure you're aware.  But, a lot of the younger ones have started using it for more...recreational activities."

"Meaning?" Bethalie wondered, having absolutely no clue what that noxious flower might be used for that could be considered recreational.

"Meaning that if its seeds are dried and crushed and rolled in paper with a few other herbs, smoking it will get the person as high as any drug the Daylighters can manufacture. And it's perfectly legal," came the answer.  "Of course, its easy to grow, but you need the space to process it, the drying tables, and the know how so you don't poison yourself and your customers."

"So, if someone was growing a yard full of the stuff, that would mean they were..."

"Either up to some seriously dark conjuring, some heavy and dangerous medicinal work...or more than likely, growing it to use or sell to their friends," Sue replied. 

Bethalie felt herself falling further into the abyss. So, the Datura was most likely just another dead end? Perfect.

"Witch, I need a word with you," Noah suddenly spoke up, surprising Sue so that her eyes went as wide as saucers. Without waiting for a response, he stepped away from Bethalie and walked across the space toward the clutter of shelves and tables, clearly expecting Sue to follow after him.

For a moment, it appeared that Sue wasn't going to move, but then she let out a breath and went after him, leaving Bethalie to stand with Teddy, who was giving her a sympathetic smile.

"This is a tough one for you, eh?" he asked, keeping an eye on Sue and Noah.

"Does it show?" Bethalie asked on a sigh, finding herself suddenly feeling defeated and depressed.

She was going to lose her job over this. She couldn't possibly figure this mess out, which meant They were going to terminate her and she would have to go back home and be...normal. She'd have to find a husband and settle down and learn how to use the kitchen...and she didn't want to do any of those things! That sounded like the most torturous kind of living death! She'd rather have her head ripped off by a frothing Vynüsta Demon, and no one in their right mind would want that. Especially considering what that breed of Demon would do to the body after beheading it. Yet, she'd rather have her corpse defiled in that heinous way than ever settle for wearing an apron and baking cookies! Well, once she learned how to use the oven.

"You'll get through this alright, Bethalie," Teddy assured her with a fatherly tone of voice. "You're the most mule headed woman I've ever ran into, outside of Sue, of course. I don't believe you'll let all this take you down."

Bethalie looked up at the man, wishing she had as much as faith in herself right then as he seemed to have in her. At that moment, she felt like she had bottomed out.

"I heard that!" Sue called across the space, sounding cheerful.

Terry grinned, giving his head a shake. "Eh, it'll all work out. Sue won't say this to you because...well, you know how she feels about the other sorts, but she thinks you've got a good man to lean on now.  He'll help you through. He'll be standing next to you when your world is emptied, is what she said."

Bethalie shot a quick glance toward Noah, who was turning to head back to her. Noah would be there when her world was emptied? She had no idea what that meant, but if Sue said it, it usually was. Though, it didn't exactly sound like something she should be looking forward to.

"We should go now," Noah said to her, reaching out and taking hold of her hand.

Bethalie nodded, wondering why Noah thought he was being so sly when he was most definitely not. She knew he'd asked Sue for more of the concoction, just in case she decided to try and dose herself with silver again.

"Thanks for answering my questions," Bethalie told Sue, letting Noah lead her toward the front door.

"No problem," Sue answered, following behind them so they could be let out of the building. "Come by any time you need me. I'm always right here."

Bethalie smiled at the woman, feeling a small gush of comfort. It was kind of nice knowing that Sue was there, just a few doors down, no matter what. It was almost like having a piece of home without having to actually go back home, which she was trying very hard to avoid.