[center][h3]One week earlier[/h3][/center]

	"What do you mean we've lost her!?!" Grand Master Stephen Bulkley's voice boomed within the confines of his luxurious office in the headquarters of the Andover Society.

	The terrified young man, standing slouched in front of Stephen's desk, started twisting his hands in sheer terror and mounting discomfort. "S-she's dug in deep, sir!" The young geek started muttering. "W-we c-can't find any d-digital fingerprint to link her t-to."

	Stephen stood up abruptly, eyes blazing with fury. "You mean to tell me that in this age of information and global surveillance you can't find one woman we've managed to track through ages in time without electricity and runnign water?!?"

	The poor tech expert shrunk even more within himself and barely managed to contain a yelp of fear when Stephen sprung out of his chair. He took a terrified step back when Stephen rounded his desk and approached him menacingly. An audible gulp disturbed the tense silence in the room with lush and flamboyant interior.

	"You do know what [i]she[/i] is capable of?" The question not really a question.

	This time the poor tech guy couldn't even force his throat to swallow the lump of fear, lodged there. He shriveled up even more so before the wrath of his employer and Grand Master.

	"Listen to me and listen well!" Stephen shoved his face into that of the young man before him. His eyes scalding hot with unrestrained fury. "I don't care what you have to do. FIND HER!" He pulled away. "Or else..." He finished in a saccharine tone that somehow managed to be even more menacing than his enraged one.

	"Yes, sir!" The geek managed to whisper his response and wasted no time escaping the room with the looming madman of a Grand Master. On the way out he cursed his foul luck thrice over that he was born into the Bulkley family and was bound by this crazy legacy to pursue, find and destroy a woman that was probably centuries since dead and was made up to be this immortal witch by some crazed puritan witch hunter with a grudge against women with brains and balls bigger than his own!

	Inside his office Stephen approached a glass case, containing a weathered old diary of sorts. The name on its cover read as belonging to one 'Minister Jedidiah Bulkley'.

[hr]

	Nik sat up in bed, drenched in sweat, still reeling from the effects the dream had had on her and that one sentence that kept haunting her at odd moments in her waking life and in her dreams.

	[i]"You're only making it easier for me, you do realize that, darling?"[/i] The venom that had dripped from those words. The hate. The scorn.

	Sara scrubbed her face with her hands remembering one of the biggest mistakes she'd ever made, spurred on by her unbearable loneliness and the fatigue of carrying the hate against humans on her shoulders for millennia if not more. Or namely her affair of sorts with one Margaret Mary Bulkley.

	Of course she didn't know at the time that that was not her maiden name. She hadn't know Mary was married to a puritan minister, or that she'd used her to get from Sara what she wasn't getting from her husband. Nik had been a scratching post for the cunning, conniving minister wife. And as soon as she'd found out, she'd put an end to it. Margaret Mary of course hadn't been happy about it. Quite the contrary, actually. Hell, indeed, hath no fury like a woman scorned. She'd found Sara deep in the cottage in the forest where she lived and had confronted her with vicious words and vile threats. It was then that Sara finally had realized what a terrible creature Margaret Mary actually was. Smart, true, but also duplicitous, selfish, self-centered, greedy. Everything that she detested in the human beings. And she'd shared a bed with her. Nik felt dirtied somehow. And stunned that she'd failed to notice Mary's true nature prior to her outburst in Sara's cottage.

	"Who are you to throw me away, like some cheap whore?!? I am a minister's wife! I am a lady of renown! And you, you are nothing but a tree hag! A... a... a witch! Oh, yes, a witch is what you are! And you will pay dearly for how you've wronged me! YOU WILL PAY!"

	And true to her word, even without realizing how self-compromising her speech had been, Mary had put the bug in the head of her husband to find and burn the tree hag, for she was clearly the Devil's consort and could not be suffered to live. And so it had begun. The honorable Jedidiah Bulkley started sending out group after group led by his own sons, to find and bring the witch to justice. And Nik, unscrupulous in her renewed hatred towards the humans, had dispatched them all to their choice of afterworld.

	Soon enough the honorable Minister had no more sons to send after the infamous by now tree hag. It was then that Margaret Mary had decided to pay Sara another visit. And that was when she uttered the sentence that still haunted Nik to this day.

	"You're only making it easier for me, you do realize that, darling?" An ugly smirk had spread her thin, vile lips. "Severing his line, you leave room for me to start my own. A line that would be dedicated to exterminating you by any means necessary. Even if I'm not alive to witness it." Mary had laughed then. A screeching horrible sound. "Oh, I'm not stupid. I know your secret. I've heard the tails of a wood siren, [i]protecting[/i] these woods for centuries. I put two and two together, love. You know far too much about these woods for just one lifetime. So hear now my promise to you." She rubber her belly as if to draw Sara's attention to it. "I will build my bloodline to serve one purpose and one purpose only. EXTERMINATING YOU!"

	Sara'd said nothing. It would have been pointless. She knew now what she hadn't seen from the start. Margaret Mary was crazy. And Nik ending their affair had only served to unlock Mary's innate vicious nature. But Sara had spent her whole long life staying away from the eye of the humans, the threat of one crazed little human woman was not a huge concern. Or so she thought.

	After that last confrontation the tree hag had disappeared from the town of Andover in Essex County, Massachusetts. And eight months later a son was born to Minister Jedidiah Bulkley. But a son that unbeknownst to the honorable Minister, he hadn't sired.

[center][h3]Present day[/h3][/center] [center][h3]The woods of Pelham Bay Park[/h3][/center]

	Centuries may have passed, millennia, eons, while Nik held Aaliyah's wrist in her own, seeing her own name written there in Bulgarian, and yet somehow her brain could not compute the situation. Her name, tattooed on a stranger’s wrist with today's date blazing and pulsing somehow with the rhythm of Nik’s own heartbeat. And the pleasure coursing through her blood like thick molasses. She gulped transfixed, but was pulled out of her reverie or stupor, or who knows what when Aaliyah sharply pulled her had from her grasp as if burned by the touch.

	Sara opened her mouth to say something. Apologize?!? But was yet again stunned silent when her eyes caught a movement from the other woman. Aaliyah's hand was now reaching for her. Uncertain, tentative. Nik inhaled sharply, her nostrils flaring, her eyes widening. And like a moth to a flame, she leaned forward until Aaliyah's fingertips brushed against her cheek. Nik, closed her eyes in bliss, a soft moan escaping her lips. There it was again! The now familiar connection. Stronger than anything she'd ever felt in her long life. Universes exploded and were born behind her closed eyelids! He heart hammered in her chest in sync with the pulsations of Aaliyah's tattoo and Sara's own name emblazoned there.

	A small voice somewhere deep within her begged for caution, but Nik was helpless against this pull she felt towards this alluring creature in front of her. If it was to be a mistake, she was helpless to stop it from happening. She felt... No! She knew this was bound to happen. And she would accept the consequences whatever they may be.

	Sara stepped even closer until Aaliyah's entire palm lay gently on her cheek, slowly opened her eyes, now midnight blue from all the emotions swirling within them and gently raised her wrist for Aaliyah to look at. There was no doubt in her mind that the other woman would be able to read the mysterious script there.