Sarah had arrived at the president’s residence with little pomp or circumstance. The president was dealing with the aftermath of the hijacking attempt. His wife and son were attending a benefit that Sarah was supposed to attend. Between the delay caused by the hijacking and the press she had missed her window to join them. If it was all the same to her, she quite pleased to have missed it. Even with her new attitude the thought to of having to be social with people she did not know for three hours rubbed her the wrong way. It was ten pm Moscow time and she was leaning on the balcony of the room she was given. She was wearing a heavy hoody and looking out over the city. She jumped when a teenage girl shimmered into existence beside her and leaned on the balcony.

The girl was almost a foot shorter than Sarah. She was pale. She had long flowing red hair that was a mass of wavy curls. She had vivid green eyes that reminded her of Eyre. She realized this was Eyre’s mother. If she hadn’t been dealing with Lucius for two months she likely would have been more disturbed even in her vampiric form. Enid spoke.

“Kid you are one big mess after another.”

Sarah pushed off the railing and crossed her arms. Enid turned around leaning her elbows on the railing. She shook her head.

“Teenagers. My daughters were the worst even without social media. All those hormones. Though I suppose you’re hiding from those aren’t you?”

Sarah frowned.

“What do you want? Are you like Lucius?”

Enid laughed.

“No one is like Lucius. Look kid, you’ve got a problem.”

“No, I don’t! Go away.”

Enid sighed.

“See what I mean about teenagers? Doesn’t matter what century you’re in they always think they know everything and that adults are idiots.”

“Go away!”

“Sorry kid doesn’t work that way. You’re in my body.”

Sarah blinked and stepped back her overconfidence melting. What she knew of Enid wasn’t extensive, but she did know she was extremely old, and extremely powerful.

“Yea, you can’t really run away from me. We’re both in the body now. You… you were never supposed to exist. But here we are. This body was my survival plan. Well, your family was. I knew it would take me a long while to reform, so I built a family and linked my essence to them. Figured one day a few generations later I’d be born into one of their daughters. Then your father went and fucked everything up. Fell in love, wife dies, he leaves this Earth to find another. Can’t stay here and have kids with someone from this world, no. You were supposed to be my ticket to a body. But with your Earth being so low magic once I was bound to the body I was too weak to take it over. Next thing you know your soul shows up… Fucking asshole all he had to do was stay here.”

Sarah stumbled backwards against the glass sliding door.

“Get out!”

“I would love to kid, but I can’t. And after Isis meddled with us, I can’t even stop it. You’re going to die and it’s going to be my body. Not exactly what I want. I mean a thousand years ago I wouldn’t care if your soul continued to exist or not. I need a body; I take a body. Now, I just don’t want to hurt you, but I am powerless to stop it.”

Sarah felt tears on her cheeks but realized when she touched them, they were blood.

“Yes, kid, vampires cry blood at night. And during the day, if they don’t have an amulet.”

“Why are you even telling me all this then, if there is no chance of saving me?”

“Because there is no chance currently. There could be one out there that we don’t know about. But you took a vampire form and started using your full power. You’re accelerating the process.”

“That can’t be true.”

“Two things about me, one, I never lie to my friends and family, two, I never kill kids. So, believe me or don’t. You keep this up, you’re fucked. And besides, you’re kind of a bitch in this form aren’t you? Seducing Amee? Thinking humans are insects? Trust me I know how easy it is to fall off that cliff. You’re lucky someone is pulling strings. While you’re right they can’t really kill you, they can stop you and trap you somewhere. Imagine that eternity in a little black box somewhere… Not something you want.”

“You’re asking me to just give up the thing that makes me feel like I’m in control for the first time in my entire life?”

“Kid, you’re experiencing the worst parts of me right now. My arrogance, my stubborn pride, my killer instinct. Sure, you feel strong, and in control. But what you have right now, it is not strength. You’re using this to avoid truly feeling anything. That is the tricky part about being a vampire. You can just turn your emotions off. Turn off all those pesky feelings you don’t want. Become the ultimate hunter. Thing is, those feelings, that lack of control, that is what makes you human. Took me a long time to recover from it. The power you feel, it’s as addictive as the rush you get when you drink blood, but it is all an addiction.”

“You don’t understand! My parents, they would have never been able to do what they did to me if I was like this. I would have stood up for myself. I would have stood up to the bullies. I would have saved Samantha.”

Enid shook her head.

“Are you shitting me? You think I don’t understand? Wah, my parents slowed my development down. Tried to keep me safe. Tried to keep me at home. Get over yourself kid. My mother tried to drown me when I was a baby, then she tried to slit my throat. My father... the things he did to me… just be glad I’m focusing on keeping those memories from you. You’d never let a man touch you again. Fucking teenagers. Their lives are always the worst. What you’re feeling right now, that’s me, taking over your mind. You’re losing the fight and the longer you stay a vampire the faster it will happen.”

Sarah’s voice was almost a whimper. All the confidence she’d felt draining from her.

“But I’m so strong now.”

Enid met Sarah’s silver eyes.

“No Sarah, you’re not. Strength isn’t being a psycho-bitch. It’s your friends and family. All your power is meaningless if you’re alone. And even if I wasn’t here, if you kept acting the way you have been, you would be alone. Alone in the world. Then who will call off the MANA agents before you shred them with your telekinesis and plants? Obliterate them with pure entropy? You think I succeeded in saving all of this alone?”

Enid reached out her hands as if to encompass the whole world.

“I didn’t. I had my sister, my daughters, Isis, my seers, my adoptive parents. I am not an army of one. I used to think I had to be to be strong. I used to think if I ever let myself love someone again, I would be betrayed. If I hadn’t learned the lessons I did, I would have never felt true happiness. You are using my worst qualities to feel in control. The problem is: That means you’re giving up to me. So, snap out of it and turn back.”

“Why do you care? If I just give up the body… I… I am just a waste.”

“Are you even listening to me kid? I don’t want to destroy you. You have as much right to exist as I do. Stop trying to take the easy way out. You’re a fighter, you always have been.”

Sarah slid down the wall hugging herself. Enid couched down.

“Do not give up Sarah. I cannot do this for you. I tried but you’re so addicted to this feeling of control and strength you refused to let go. The first step is to let yourself feel something, anything.”

Sarah whimpered as the emotions she’d been holding at bay by stopping her brain from releasing the chemicals started to flood into her.

“I don’t know how.”

“Just decide you don’t want to be a vampire anymore. Let go of the control you think you have. Its simple kid.”

Sarah closed her eyes and started to breathe again on her own, her heart started pounding in her chest.

“Good, good.”

Sarah began to sob as she felt everything again, she looked up at Enid. Her whole body was shaking as she gasped for breath.

“I don’t want to die.”

“I know kid. I know. We’ll figure it out. You keep that vampire trick in your back pocket you’ll need it to rescue my family.”

Sarah was still gulping air in as she tried to stop her sobs her, she held her knees to her chest.

“How can I even look at Amee again?”

“Don’t ask me, that was my wife you were sucking face and blood with.”

Sarah looked up at Enid with her mascara-stained face.

“Was it me or you?”

Enid shrugged.

“At this point it’s hard to tell where you end, and I begin. Separating ourselves… I don’t know. Damn it Isis, why couldn’t you leave well enough alone?”

“What did she do to me? Us?”

“She pulled me out so she could talk to me. She could not really explain to you, but she is very sorry for causing your… death to be hastened. She was trying to help me; She wanted her friend back. She also wants her daughter.”

“She doesn’t care about me at all, just you?”

Enid sighed and nodded.

“Isis isn’t like us. She’s so old… look, you know what it felt like to turn off your humanity, but you remembered what it was like to feel something, anything. This Isis, she doesn’t remember feeling anything. Vampires that old, they just simply forget they can just turn those feelings on again. So, they will do anything they can to get a spark of feeling. It an insanity of a sort. You are a means to an end to her. To get her friend back. To get her doppelganger’s daughter in hopes she can wake some part of her humanity up again. While it is not because she cares, she will do everything in her power to keep you, and myself safe.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Sarah rocked.

“I have no one.”

“You have your grandparents. You have Amee, Maria, Kelly, Misha, Sasha, Carly.”

Sarah shook her head.

“They don’t understand. I thought Isis did.”

Enid frowned.

“Kid, you’re a fighter, if they don’t understand, you make them understand.”

“Am I a fighter, or is that you too?”

“Sarah, you earned all those trophies. You did. You got those A’s in school. You overcame your ADHD to get those marks. The only things I’m responsible for are the shield when you were six, the greenhouse when you were twelve and the last bit of that fight with Goliath. Don’t start second guessing yourself now.”

“What I feel for Lucius, that’s you too, isn’t it?”

Enid sighed and nodded.

“I’m sorry. I should have let myself go. Let my family go.”

Sarah sniffled and wiped away her tears. She shook her head.

“No, you wanted to live, you wanted to protect your children. You’re ten times the mother mine is.”

Enid lowered herself to her knees and her ghostly hands pressed against Sarah cheeks forcing their eyes to meet.

“Your mother loved you so much she was willing to let you hate her to save you from what she saw as a terrible life. Trapped in a different world, away from everything you knew. She tried to save you from yourself, she thought she could stop you from hurting anyone else. Your father risked life imprisonment on a supermax hell world to save you from remembering you killed a man. Your parents love you.”

Sarah shook her head.

“No, you’re the only one who cares enough to be absolutely honest with me.”

“You’re going to die and it’s my fault, you should be furious at me.”

Sarah shook her head again.

“No, you don’t want to kill me, you’re not my enemy and I’m not worth saving.”

Enid narrowed her eyes.

“I think you might be clinically insane. If someone is going to kill you, you do not make friends with them, you don’t feel sorry for them. You figure out how to beat them, Sarah! Get up. Dust yourself off and stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re better than this. Fight, win.”

“I know what you’ve done. You sacrificed yourself twice to save the world. What have I done? The world needs you.”

Enid sighed then swept her hand towards Sarah. Sarah felt a force hit her cheek hard enough to make a crack. Sarah’s hand went to the reddening location of the assault.

“Ouch! What was that for?”

Enid smiled.

“That’s right, get angry kid.”

“That’s assault!”

Sarah was standing now and was starting to get angry just like Enid was demanding. Another force connected with her stomach and Sarah doubled over in pain. The normally fairly well-spoken teenager glared at Enid while holding her stomach.

“Bitch!”

“Bet you want to hurt me now, don’t you?”

Sarah took a swing at Enid and stumbled through her and ran into the railing of the balcony.

“Only way you’re going to be able to do that is to fight me in your mind. Make me go away.”

Another force hit Sarah in the kidneys. She fell to her knees leaning on the balcony. Enid mocked her.

“Maybe you are right, if you can’t even defend yourself, maybe you don’t deserve this body.”

Sarah cried out holding her back. She spun around and took another swing but as the last attempt her fist passed right through Enid. Sarah collapsed on her knees tears streaming down her cheeks. The shorter girl laughed.

“So pathetic. Aww poor little middle-classed white girl takes a few hits, and she starts bawling. I’ll give you something to cry about.”

Another unseen force collided with Sarah’s chin sending her sprawling backwards through the open sliding door and into the bedroom. She cried out in pain. She spoke through her sobs.

“I thought you cared about me.”

“Kid, I’m not your mother, I’m not your sister, I’m not your friend, I’m your enemy! I will kill you one day. Now fight me!”

“I can’t!”

Enid’s foot struck Sarah flat in the chest. The newly developed tissue was extremely sensitive at the best of times. Sarah experienced a whole new level of pain. She clutched her chest and tried desperately not to lose her supper.

“Use your mind! Come on, come at me or are you too frightened? Do you want to die a scared little girl?”

Sarah rubbed her hand along her chin and saw blood on her hand. Something snapped in her and she growled at Enid. She was so angry she just wanted to hurt the red head in front of her.

“Fuck off! Go back wherever you came from! I hate you!”

Each statement was backed up by a strong brutal attack. She swung her fist at Enid’s face, then followed up with an elbow strike and a spinning back-kick. Enid’s ghostly form stumbled backwards under the assault. Sarah wasn’t making any physical contact, but something was happening. Sarah didn’t stop. Eventually an exhausted Sarah was on her knees looking at the bruised and badly beaten Enid. She smirked at Sarah.

“Good job kid.”

Enid’s ghost evaporated. Sarah leaned against the wall panting and exhausted for several minutes. Finally, once she’d caught her breath, she pulled herself up and leaned on the wall as she made her way to the ensuite bathroom. She leaned heavily on the sink and was happy to see that even the slap mark was fading. Her day was bad enough already she didn’t want to have to explain away a random assault inside the president’s residence. She saw Enid’s image sitting on the vanity but only in the mirror. Her silver eyes darted towards her. She was half expecting another beat down. Enid held up her hands in a show of surrender.

“Trust me kid, no more abuse from me. I feel it all too.”

Sarah frowned and winced. The blow to her jaw had made her bite the inside of her cheek. She spit out blood.

“I know what you were trying to do. You do care.”

Enid shrugged.

“You wouldn’t listen to reason. You and I are a lot alike. Even without me seeping into your brain. Neither of us like to lose or be called weak.”

Sarah rinsed with some cold water and spit out. It was still pink. She rubbed the bottom of her jaw. She looked at Enid again in the mirror.

“I don’t want to die.”

Enid nodded.

“Good. Now we’ll just have to figure out how to make it happen.”

“You’re not hurt. That’s not fair.”

Enid shrugged and kicked her legs.

“Not a physical being. Can’t really hurt me.”

“I didn’t have to punch you?”

Enid nodded in the affirmative.

“But hey if it helps you visualize a mental attack, all power to you, kid.”

“I’m not a kid!”

Enid scoffed.

“My daughter is twelve hundred years old by her count and she’s still a kid to me. Why do you think a fourteen-year-old will be any different?”

Sarah frowned at Enid’s reflection.

“I beat you, why are you still here?”

Enid laughed.

“That was just so you’d fight for yourself. I’m here to stay until we can get ourselves separated.”

Sarah wrinkled her nose.

“Like in the bathroom too?”

“Wow. You’re about to be wiped out by an ancient entity and you’re concerned that someone might see you pee? I liked you better as a vampire.”

“You said it would kill me faster.”

“I did. And I did not lie. I did not explain entirely either. You were losing your sense of identity. You were willingly letting my… parts of me take over. There is nothing inherently dangerous about taking another shape. It was the turning off the parts you that you didn’t like. You might not like them, but they are part of what makes you, you. It is all metaphysical and hard to explain. Just suffice it to say, use the vampire thing judiciously. And when you do, try not to lose yourself.”

“I could just make myself older? Give myself bigger…”

“Yea. But do you really want too? You have a lot of maturing to do kid. Why rush it? Being an adult sucks.”

“Being a teenage girl who is a really late bloomer sucks too.”

Enid wrapped her hands around the vanity or appeared too.

“Grass is always greener kid…grass is always greener. Trust me, everybody thinks their life sucks. It’s the human condition. Hell, it’s the sentient condition. I can say that with authority. I’ve met three alien races.”

Sarah did a double take at Enid when she mentioned aliens. Enid smirked.

“What, vampires can’t fly spaceships?”

“How… you can’t go the speed of light.”

“Actually, I can, or theoretically, we can just teleport to another world. Though mostly it’s just us choosing to manifest somewhere else. You’re still locked into this, I’m a mortal, this is my body this is where I am. But we’re technically everywhere. If we’re willing to access our full power, which comes with its own challenges.”

“What do you mean?”

“Kid. This body, it’s the physical manifestation of an Archangel. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“I don’t understand.”

“We’re Seraph. She created all of this…We created all of this. I doubt she could… we could pull off anything god-like at this point. Kind of blew our load when we recreated everything as a multiverse instead of a single rigid timeline. We’re in what you’d call a refractory period and who knows how long that will last.”

Sarah blushed profusely as she realized what the metaphor Enid used meant. Enid rolled her eyes.

“You’re so easy to embarrass.”

Sarah blinked a few times and as she was won’t to do with her ADHD randomly changed the subject as her brain made a new connection.

“Were you really in high school two times? Weren’t you being a bit creepy?”

Enid laughed softly.

“I wasn’t there to pick up guys or girls. Fucking Twilight. I was there to learn the first time. I was planning on straight to university by Eyre being the brat… okay I needed the education. There wasn’t exactly what you’d call a high school in Rome. And the second time I was trying to recruit Maria for a battle.”

“How did that go?”

“Good, once she figured out, I wasn’t trying to seduce her. This Maria seems a bit behind. Lacks emotions.”

“Didn’t you see what Isis showed us?”

“No, I was still recovering from our conversation. Before she intervened these… overlaps were exhausting. Used up my spiritual energy or something. What did she show you?”

“Maria’s soul was pushed out of her body in the battle with that black tornado of purple lightning.”

“Chronos. That makes sense. The Pugmentia in the original timeline must have pre-programmed some emotions or something. Wasn’t quite our normal mental power of persuasion. Too bad Maria got the ghosts to kill him I would have loved to drain him dry and find out what made that power tick.”

“Can we fix her?”

“Fucked if I know. Immortal souls and such are Maria’s thing.”

“But you’re an Archangel…a PL 21.”

“Doesn’t mean I know everything kid. Touching Seraph’s intellect, it’s like touching an alien super intelligence. It shatters mortal minds. She can see every single particle of every single universe all at once.”

“But you’re not mortal.”

“Compared to her, everyone is mortal. Especially once the multiverse happened. She does know everything that has happened, and will happen in every single one of the universes she is monitoring. The others she doesn’t care about. We left them to the demons and Chronos. Their own little infinite playground where they can keep destroying reality over and over again forever. I was born a mortal, I grew up a mortal, even as a vampire I didn’t have a photographic memory. I couldn’t tell you every single person I drank or what Vlad the Impaler’s favorite drink was. I mean it was probably wine. What the fuck else did they have to drink? Anyway, she’s above God now. If I tried, or you tried to access that intellect we’d be overwhelmed and obliterated. Been there, done that. Didn’t even get a t-shirt. Just a used body with a teenage girl in it.”

“What do you mean she’s ‘Above God’ now. No one is above God.”

“Hate to break it to you, but she is now. They were equals but he relinquished control when he told her to create the perfect ordered universe. Honestly it was the only way to deal with Chronos. He was also equal to God but when I destroyed him…when we, Eyre, Maria, Lilith and I, Seraph gained his power too. Making her greater then both God and Chronos.

So, in each of these infinite universes, there is a version of God, a version of each archangel, each angel, Lucifer, Cronos. There is only one Seraph she watches over everything, though I’d say she’s more sleeping then watching. Refractory period after all. When one of these entities tries to interfere or someone tries to time travel they get shunted to one of the wild universes. I called them that. Make sure you quote me when you write your doctorate on this. Anyway…

Basically, there is only one Seraph. She is recovering after that incident in 1942 and that means you and I are free of her influence for the foreseeable future.”

Sarah blinked at Enid’s really complicated lesson, her last IQ test put her at one hundred and eighty so she as far from stupid, but this was so outside her area of knowledge she was a bit lost.

“So she made an infinite group of universes just to let time travelers, demons, and Chronos… whomever that is, destroy at will? All those lives just left to die?”

Enid rolled her eyes.

“She created infinite bundles of infinite universes. She created far more lives than she left to fend for themselves. I created for more lives than were left to fend for themselves. I realized a long time ago, you can’t save everyone, but if I could save some permanently. I made the choice to do this. Otherwise, it was reality ends one time after another, only to be rebuilt. Lilith tried six times before she got one where we beat Chronos, and it still broke after that. This was the best and only way. You’re welcome by the way, the only thing that is going to end this creation is the heat death of this universe.”

“You remember but you said you don’t know everything.”

“Yes, I made the decision just before I accessed…our full power and knowledge. I used that brief instant I had before touching Seraph’s intellect…our true intellect to reorder everything and rewrite the physical laws of the universe. Instead of the single timeline theory, I went with the infinite universe’s theory. Only I tweaked it. Everything that could have happened, has happened, anything that will happen, will happen. So, if someone asked if you had breakfast this morning, the real answer is both yes and no. You’re smarter than I ever was, so this should be simple for you to understand.”

There was a knock at the door to the room. Enid shrugged.

“Physical world calls. That’s your thing. And remember, be yourself, like yourself and it’ll slow this thing down.”