Hazel

Hazel rubbed the back of her head groaning as she regained consciousness. She blinked slowly and looked around herself. She was in cage of gleaming silver and some form of red barrier shimmered just outside the bars. Otherwise she was in a stone dungeon. The information feed from her HUD flickering. All of the monitors were showing offline save her biomonitoring because that was fed by her indent-chit. It was showing she had a concussion. That explained the double vision and vertigo. She glanced down at her wrist. Her holo-tablet was missing along with her Atlantean armor. She was in her underwear. Her holo-web was gone as were here assorted weapons. They missed the contacts, but the contacts were almost useless without the holo-phone. She touched behind her ear and felt for the translator. Also gone. She looked around at the silver cage. In her human form it did nothing to her but if she shifted it would be like walking on acid.

She paced back and forth. She didn’t even know what time it was. There were now windows in this dungeon. She rubbed her forehead. The pain would pass eventually. Faster if she shifted but then the bars would make things far worse. She tried to recall how she got here. She’d landed Apollo in a clearing not far away. Sariel had followed even though she’d told her not too. She’d snuck into the keep with the holo-web. Then she’d been stuck and couldn’t move or breath. Then the hit on the back of her head. She shrugged and cracked her neck and started the ritual to enter slip in between. This cage wouldn’t hold her for long. She traced the runes in the air and called on the spirit half of her soul and thrust her hand forward. She shimmered out of existence in the real world and took a confident step through the bars only to be flung backwards into the other side of the silver cage and through the bars into another barrier. By the time she realized the only real way to stop herself from beating herself senseless by being thrown against the opposite side of the cage was to phase back into the real world and slam into the bars. She finally managed it and slid down the bars at the back and started rubbing her head. She had several more bruises and the being thrown around did not help her.

Hazel was leaning against the rear silver bars of the cage wondering how the demons had prepared for her so well. A silver cage was no simple thing to get ahold of and that magical spirit barrier was something she’d never heard of. She heard the click of strange steps. Like something was approaching but not on foot… high heels? She saw the demon appear. He had two arms, one ending in a pincer the other in a twisted hand. Its body was that of an eight eyed slug contained in a sickly green chitinous shell. It’s seven eyes of varying size focused on Hazel. Its four mouths all spoke at once causing a creepy chorus. Each sounded like a different kind of yes men from the worst villains she’d seen in movies.

“Silly dog. You think it would be that easy to escape the clutches of Tekanon the timebender! Chosen of Lucifer?”

Hazel continued to sit where she was for a few seconds then lunged at him and her fists slammed into the red barrier causing them to sting. There was a flash and it made Tekanon jump. She snarled at him.

“Are you talking about yourself in the third person? I guess you’re as crazy as you are ugly.”

He clicked his pincer towards her.

“Mock me all you want mutt. You’re the one in the cage. I could not find a collar and leash. Mind you defecate on the newspaper like a good mutt.”

“When I get out of this cage, I’m going to peel your chitin open to see what makes you tick before I stuff your head up your ass.”

“Perhaps you are dim-witted. You do not seem to conceive your predicament mutt. You cannot escape this cage and whatever help you expected is not coming”

A tentacle slipped out from under his chitin with her holo-phone on it. There was a bit of slime clinging to the device.

“I assure you, no one can communicate with any of your things here. I saw you coming foolish dog. Set the paralyses trap exactly where you’d step. Set up the perfect cage and circle of power to trap you. Unlike those who have gone before I will not fall for your tricks. Soon we will find your transportation and deal with it.”

Hazel snarled at him again. She was in pain and was extremely frustrated with being outplayed.

“Sit like a good little mutt.”

He clicked his pincer at her again.

“Lilith’s spawn will come to rescue you, my trap for her will be sprung and then you will both meet your new lord and you will endure an eternity of suffering at his hands unless you want to submit to him and be his concubines… He tends to let them keep their pretty faces.”

Hazel paced back and forth her arms crossed eyes locked on to Tekanon.

“You have no idea who my mother is, she’ll see your trap a mile away.”

“Your mother is an extremely troublesome thorn in our side, I will give you that mutt. But she is just a vampire and you are just her worthless mutt of a child. Tell where to find Lilith and I will not torture you.”

Hazel laughed in spite of her predicament.

“The chances of me telling you that are about the same as your chances of winning the Ms. Universe Pageant.”

“I see. Unfortunate. Let us start with something smaller.”

“Is your mother from the time this came from?”

It held up the slime covered holo-phone. She hoped it with sync with her contacts but nothing. He must have disabled the device. She stuck up her middle finger.

“I’d tell you to lick my furry twat, but you look like a hentai monster so I’m afraid you might do it.”

Another tentacle slipped out from the other side of his chitinous shell and energy surged through the red barrier into the bars and into Hazel. She screamed in spit of herself as every pain center on her body suddenly fired off. He held it she had collapsed on the floor twitching in agony. She fought the urge to shift in her rage, then she’d just be burnt by the silver and tortured at the same time. He must have seen the ripple of muscles and fur. He pulled his tentacle back. A shout rung out somewhere far away. Its pseudopod of a head turned towards it.

“We shall resume this later. I believe we have found your transportation. I am intrigued to see what trinkets it has.”

He shifted and with a dexterity and speed that belied his unbalanced form he clicked away on his four spindly spider-like legs. Leaving Hazel laying on the bottom of the cage tears dripping from her eyes. She’d never felt such pain before; She honestly did not know how much she could stand. She was barely holding the contents of her stomach in. Her respite did not last long. The clatter of Tekanon’s legs echoed off the damp dungeon walls. He didn’t even say anything this time he just stuck his tentacle to the red barrier. Hazel felt the pain again. Every nerve in her body was telling she was being ripped apart and boiled at the same time. She screamed he held her there for so long she nearly lost consciousness. Drool was dripping from her lips as she looked up at the demon. His pincer was clacking randomly and he started to pace. He sounded enraged, possibly terrified. Hazel couldn’t tell his physiology and voices were so alien. His tentacle hovered near the barrier.

“What is your mother?”

Enid lay where she had fallen in her agony and looked at his seven eyes. Sweat dripping down her forehead. She was drenched.

“A vampire.”

“Impossible! She defeated our greatest warrior in broad daylight.”

Hazel was still trying to catch her breath but she couldn’t help herself maybe she was going mad from the pain but she laughed out loud. He slapped his tentacle on the barrier and she screamed and writhed as agony.

“Suffer mutt!”

Hazel felt another demon close by, it did not come out of the shadows, but it ripped the tentacle away from the barrier. Her heart was pounding. She was pretty sure she’d have a stroke or heart attack if this kept up for much longer. The voice was feminine, almost seductive.

“We need her alive for the breeding program fool.”

Tekanon’s pincer reached out into the shadows and grabbed something. Hazel still couldn’t discern its face of body.

“I am in charge here! Your breeding program is of no consequence. She will tell me what I want to know!”

He moved as if he threw something. Hazel heard the same female voice echo against the stone wall. She did hear them picking themselves up and saw the shadow of a wing.

“I will not forget this insult slug; The lord will hear of your insolence and after your last failure he will not be kind. If your power was any less useful, you’d already be a footrest for his throne!”

Tekanon paced and then clicked his pincer in the direction of the voice.

“Silence your insolent tongue before I cut it out, gather your useless kin and go find her transportation. It is caught in my webs somewhere.”

Hazel heard the click of hooves and the sound of something dragging along the ground. He clacked his way over to the cell and looked at Hazel with all seven of its varying eyes.

“Now! How did your mother cure her vampirism and kill our champion?”

Hazel knew she’d regret her next words, but she never could keep her mouth shut.

“If he was your greatest warrior and champion, you guys are fucked. My mom schooled him with a dulled blade while being attacked by twenty mortals. And you’re right she cured her vampirism, so she did it as a mortal. Bend over and spread your cheeks she’s got a Soul Blade for your asshole.”

He screamed at her and raised his tentacle towards the barrier. As the pain started again Hazel let loose a string of Russian curse words that would empty a bar full of sailors. It became too much and she fell unconscious.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when started to regain consciousness. She heard Tekanon pacing and his two sets of mouths talking to each other along with the nervous clicking of his pincer. She didn’t open her eyes she just lay here, partially to spy on him and partially so he wouldn’t torture her anymore the KGB had taught her interrogation resistance but not how to resist demonic torture. They seem to have perfected the art.

“We killed her!”

“Silence weakling. She still breathes!”

“Torture doesn’t work. We should appeal to her good nature.”

“Fool. We have broken souls for the lord since we came into existence, she is no different.”

“She is a living being, we pushed too far.”

“Then we’ll trap her soul when she dies, and the real fun will begin.”

“She doesn’t have a soul stupid! She’s a wolf-born. She has a spirit. She will vanish into the spirit realm out of reach. We have no power over them.”

His pincer clicked loudly.

“Then we rewind time!”

“Except we tried that and failed. She’s beyond our power! We must find out how! We are blind to her next moves. Something else was with her that let us see her but now she is invisible to our time sight!”

“Weakling!”

The pincer clacked a few more times as Hazel heard Tekanon pacing again.

“But why can’t we see her timeline?”

“Because you are a miserable failure!”

“If she is a time traveler why is she one…person.”

“Maybe she hides it like we hide it.”

Click-clack-click-clack. The pincer kept going.

“Unless she is…Nephilim…”

“You think her mother laid with the fallen ones? Preposterous. She slays our kind without remorse or mercy. She hunts us. I see fear even in Lord Belial’s eyes. It is why we’re forbidden from speaking her name.”

“Silence your hideous tongue he despises his true name.”

“Lord Morningstar… only divine beings can…or the dead can travel time without…”

Hazel couldn’t translate the word he spoke. But it sounded bad.

“She is either dead, or she is Nephilim.”

“She’s still breathing idiot I can smell her suffering.”

Click-clack-click-clack. Hazel was also sure she heard slim coated tentacles rubbing together.

“Perhaps the child was Nephilim as well. This does not bode well. The Morningstar will be most displeased. One of his ilk is consorting with his most vexing enemy.”

“The child is of no consequence weakling!”

“But if she is from after the death… if she knew…”

“It was Xara’s fault for picking a weak pawn.”

“Which Xara?”

“Does it matter all four of her personalities are disgusting. Fornicating with humans. Wanting us to breed with mutts.”

Hazel shifted when she heard the world child it was involuntary, and she paid for her emotional response as she felt renewed suffering and pain as Tekanon’s tentacle touched the barrier.

“The mutt tricks us. She was spying. Bad mutt!”

Hazel didn’t realize the pain could get worse. But it did. She raised her hand in surrender. The pain subsided.

“Tell Tekanon what you know! Tell us how your mother is mortal again!”

Hazel could barely lift her head after the last surge of agony, but she did her breathing was erratic. Tears dripped down her cheeks again. She was so hoarse from screaming she could barely whisper at this point.

“Amulet from Atlantis.”

He moved closer his head twisting to the side slightly all seven eyes focused on her. Hazel shook her head.

“What child?”

He slapped his tentacle against the barrier.

“And your devices did your mother give them to you?”

Hazel shook her head. Pushing through the pain. She had to know.

“What child? I’ll tell you everything.”

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“The one named Miko.”

“Now the devices did your mother give them to you?”

Hazel shook her head. He raises his tentacle to the red barrier. She held up her hand.

“Please no more. I bought it myself.”

“How are you traveling through time?”

Hazel looked at the tentacle hovering just above the red field, and she did not want any more of that at the moment.

“Limbo, Atlantis; There are cracks like everywhere else… like how you escaped hell. Mom’s using them to time travel and hunt you.”

He clicked his pincer at her.

“As a mortal? Is she mad?”

“She’s a mortal with a Soul Blade. She can destroy you. She’ll be here soon. I’m just the expendable distraction.”

He slapped his tentacle onto the barrier. Hazel screamed. She pleaded with him to stop through her hoarse screams. He removed his tentacle.

“Where is Lilith?”

“I don’t know.”

He raised his tentacle again.

“Please, no more, no more.”

“Then tell me where our Lord’s runaway wife is”

“I don’t know. Please if I knew I’d tell you. I don’t. My mom doesn’t tell me anything. She doesn’t trust me. No more. No more.”

“Where is your transportation? I saw a shadow of it in the time stream!”

“It dropped me off and went back for mother. Your web won’t stop it. It has an energy shield that can burn it away…”

“Good doggy.”

The red barrier shimmered away, and Hazel felt the slimy tentacle from Tekanon slither along her arm and onto her back and along her underwear and onto her leg near the inside of it. Every part of her wanted to grab it and slam the demon against the bars but she had no strength left.

“You behave you get pets; You don’t you get pain.”

The tentacle withdrew.

“We must prepare for your mother’s arrival. You may rest now. We need you ready for the breeding program.”

The barrier shimmered into existence again. Hazel shuddered. She didn’t know what the breeding program was, but she was fairly sure she wanted no part of it. Especially the way Tekanon had looked at her as he slimed her with his tentacle. She lay there for a long while. Finally, her strength started to return. Her regeneration was a fraction of its full strength in human form, but she’d recover faster then a human. Think Hazel! She cried out in her mind. She had her back up clothes in a backpack on her half wolf, along with a translator and her old holo-tablet. She found even in that form she didn’t like being without all her 29th century tech she was so used to now. She looked at the silver cage around her. It would hurt but less so then another round of torture. She sighed and steeled herself and shifted into her half-wolf form. She felt her flesh sizzling almost immediately. She ripped the band of the holo-tablet off destroying it, but leaving the actual holo-tablet intact. She pulled her runners out of her backpack and shifted back. The cage was far too small and not a single appendage was unseared by the silver.

Hazel pulled her runners on and put the translator behind her ear she held the torn holo-tablet band in her hand and used the holographic UI to sync her translator and contacts. She heard the click of Tekanon’s spider legs coming back down the hall. She saw comms come online. Long range was out of commission, but radio was working fine. She saw Apollo’s comm link pop up via radio and knew he’d be getting grainy video feed over the contacts. Hazel stuffed the holo-tablet into her sports bra. She was thankful for what her mom often referred to it as her boob-pocket. She heard his voice.

“Hazel! Your bio monitor has been showing erratic readings. Are you okay?”

Hazel looked around at the cage and then to the demon through the bars. Apollo started printing text on her screen stating he was free of the web and was awaiting her orders. Tekanon came around the corner and smiled wickedly with all four of his mouths.

“I see you tried to shift your way out. Foolish mutt.”

Hazel looked down at him he spoke again.

“Ready for another session? Or will you just answer my questions so we can get to the Xara’s reason for keeping you alive.”

“You know. I don’t think I will answer any more questions.”

“Insolent mutt! I will break you and you will beg for my touch!”

His tentacle touched the red barrier. Hazel did her best yawn. He screamed and hit the barrier again and again with his tentacles.

“Performance issues? There’s medication for that…”

“How?”

He looked her up then down and his seven eyes focused on her running shoes.

“Yea, I kind of figured you stripped me almost naked for a reason. Good old Nikes! Vintage 1984.”

He screamed again.

“You still cannot escape you will start to starve… you will beg for food.”

“Maybe, but the look on your face is priceless. So, are you like, that demon the other demons pick on in hell? You seem like the guys at school everyone picks on…”

“How did you get those things?”

“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know…oh I wonder if your crab arm goes good with butter. Cause I’m going to boil your ass!”

“Unlikely from in there mutt!”

“Mutt? Is that the worst you got you snail-faced, crab-armed, Xara crack licking fuckhead?”

He slammed against the barrier and it went down his tentacles reached into the cage to grab her but she grabbed them first and slammed him against the silver and he screeched as his demonic skin started to blister. The tentacles were slimy, she rapidly lost her grip and he slammed back against the wall once again out of reach. Two of his eyes swollen shut from the acid-like burns the silver had left.

“Hey bootlicker. You know ever heard of danger close?”

He hissed at her from all four of his mouths.

“You speak nonsense!”

“No.”

Hazel gleefully kept her gaze on her as she saw the targeting reticles focusing on him. Apollo was using her contacts to lock on to him. She spoke in almost a whisper.

“You asked about my mother so much. I’m going to tell you all about her.”

She stepped back but not far enough to touch the back of the silver cage. He skittered closer hesitantly, but desperate for something useful to take back to his master.

“There is a poem, a saying really, kind of variations of it, One was from…never mind where it was from, but its oh so appropriate right now. Demons Run when a good woman goes to war. I’m paraphrasing cause its about a man… also beware the wrath of a patient woman.”

“What nonsense is that? You mock me still! I will rip your limbs off we don’t need them for the breeding program!”

“No, no really. Once I tell mom that you and Belial was it? are responsible for Miko…she is literally going to tear about hell looking for you and him. No one survives her wrath. By the way, she had died for us.”

She could see his working eyes looking all different directions and he was almost spinning in place his pincer clicking. She saw the targeting confirmation light up.

“Hey Tekanon. Tell your boss, Seraph is coming. Apollo fire, danger close.”

All six eyes focused on her she saw terror in them as a precision shot from two particle beams vaporized his centaur-like torso and head leaving his chitinous rear half to dissipate into a black miasma. The particle beams also made a line of the silver bars evaporate. Enough so Hazel could squeeze through with some difficulty. She looked down at her various gadgets and slime covered fur covered backpack and gagged slightly before picking up their remnants if only she his slime had evaporated into black miasma. She sighed and picked them up. Her armor was still missing. She didn’t spend too much time dwelling on the gross fur against her skin, or the fact she was running down a dungeon passageway wearing only a pink pair of pink cotton briefs and a black sports bra and a pair of white and pink running shoes from the nineteen-eighties.

“Hey Apollo… can you scan for my armor? And the Atlantean pistol?”

“Commencing deep scan of the keep.”

“Thank you, I’d rather not fight off a horde of demons in my underwear. Where is Sariel anyway?”

“She is not answering comms. Her last message was: ‘If I’m not good enough to help with the mission then I’m not good enough to talk too.’ We should wipe her core. She is very unreliable.”

“God damn her pissy immature teenage personality! And if you have a bad day should we wipe yours?”

“Well no.”

“You guys are… I can’t say living. You two I think you have souls. We can’t just… kill someone because they’re being annoying. As much as I wish we could.”

“You should be quiet now. I am seeing movement and heat signatures ahead of you. Not human. Too hot.”

Hazel looked down at her still red and blistered skin where the silver cage had burned her, half-wolf or full wolf at this point would be a painful experience. Not to mention they knew what she was so silver weapons infused with demon stuff sounded like a bad experience all around. Her skin was so pale she had no camouflage in the dank dungeon that was dimly lit by sunlight seeping in from the odd viewing hole placed for what Hazel was sure was for the noble’s delight at their prisoner’s suffering. She resigned herself to a fight and forced herself back against one of the doors. She sighed with relief when she saw what looked like a servant girl approaching. Her relief quickly turned to fear when she realized it was a demon and it seemed like a powerful one based on how her senses were reacting. She pondered just letting her pass but realized she’d be the one caught on her back foot if it noticed her. So, she did what any true-named wolf-born would do in her predicament. She attacked.

The demon was caught unawares by the mostly naked teenager. Hazel had her around the neck and was trying to snap it, but the human appearance was just a guise and this thing was stronger then her human form. The demon shifted into its true form a six-and-a-half-foot woman with cloven hooves, horns and gigantic bat like wings. Hazel was smashed through the rather solid wooden door. She was dazed slightly. She held her head and pulled herself up with what looked like a pyramid with shackles danglingly from chains over top. She had claws of her of her own. She grinned showing a pair of black fangs that riveled Enid’s.

“You like it rough, so do I, and you picked the perfect room for foreplay.”

The demon flicked her wrists and the tips of her claws glistened in the sun light coming from another viewing hole above her. She lunged at Hazel. Hazel reached down and grabbed the closest thing she could find to defend herself which happened to length of rusted chain. She hit the demon across the face. The demon didn’t slow and pinned Hazel to the wall. Her claws digging into the werewolf’s shoulders. Hazel cried out. The demon whose voice Hazel recognized as Xara leaned in close and licked her cheek.

“You are going to be so delicious.”

Apollo called out through comms.

“Hazel! Hazel! Respond your vitals are spiking! I cannot target your assailant weapons she is too close to you!”

Hazel brought her knee up hard she wasn’t really expecting a reaction seeing as her opponent was presenting as female currently but was pleasantly surprised to see the demon’s face twist in agony. The demon’s face twisted in rage and tossed Hazel across the room into a wooden torture device Hazel had no name for. Hazel had blood dripping from where the claws had pierced her flesh. She tried to pull herself up a couple of times but kept collapsing. Xara rushed over to her and lifted her up over her head and slammed her down onto another torture device. Hazel groaned and stopped resisting momentarily as the air was pushed out of her lungs. While Hazel was stunned Xara started strapping her legs down then her right wrist. By the time she got to Hazel’s left wrist Hazel had enough sense to start resisting but Xara was too strong for her. Hazel felt the pull as Xara turned the crank for the first time. She realized she’d gone from the pot into the fire by escaping her cell. Xara got onto of her and straddled her abdomen.

“Go ahead little werewolf shift. I want scar up that pretty face of yours.”

Hazel pulled against the rack’s straps but with her injuries she didn’t have the strength. Xara’s head quirked to the side, and she looked into Hazel’s eyes.

“My what odd eyes you have. I see shapes moving in them. Let me just scoop one out and see what I can see with a closer look hmm? You won’t need them for what we intend you for, probably better for you if they were gone.”

Hazel tried to pull away from Xara and was shocked to hear another voice in her ear.

“Hmm, so much for his weapons….”

Hazel blinked when she heard Sariel’s voice, she spoke in Russian.

“Where have you been?”

“Hmm maybe I’ll just call back.”

Xara had paused and sat back up when Hazel started speaking in Russian.

“What are you doing… are you speaking tongues or something?”

Hazel ignored Xara.

“No Sariel, I’m sorry, I need the swarm drone, piranha protocol my location! ASAP!”

“I suppose you did apologize.”

Xara started dragging her claws across Hazel’s chest towards herself. Hazel screamed. She spoke with a musing tone.

“Piranha? What do meat eating fish have to do with anything?”

Xara was covered by a shadow that blocked out the sun over the observation hole above the pair. She barely had time to let out a curse word in the demonic tongue before she was being cut to shreds by plasma beams streaming from a swarm of micro drones. As she started to disintegrate the blessed weapons tearing her physical form to shreds, she looked down at Hazel.

“We’ll be back; We’re not done with you yet.”

Sariel cackled.

“And I thought your mother was a bitch. What was that one’s deal?”

The drone swarm sliced through the leather and rope bindings with ease and Hazel sat up clutching her chest. She had some choice words for Sariel but figured she’d need the fighter’s help before the day was done. She pulled herself up and leaned heavily on the rack she’d been strapped to and stumbled to the wall. Apollo spoke again.

“What are your orders, Hazel?”

“I don’t have any patience left for this shit. Kill them all. Wipe out anything moving in the castle and then launch enough ordinance to level it once I’m out. And where is my damn armor?”

Sarial giggled.

“Its what you should have done in the first place.”

“Launch all drones and help out clear out the place Sariel.”

“Absolutely. Finally, you’re doing what needs to be done!”

“I have located your armor. It is approximately twenty meters from your location. To the north east.”

“Thank you, Apollo. Sariel, use the swarm drone to clear me a path.”

“Gladly.”

“And mom does not hear about this mess. Just tell her… we took care of the problem.”

*****

Hazel opened the front door to the keep just in time to see her mother and Empress Matilda walking up the stairs. The look of despondency on her mother’s face was almost too much for her. She also didn’t want to explain why it took her so long. She’d taken three hours to hike from where the fighters were hidden as opposed to her usual fifteen minutes she’d run as a wolf because shifting with silver claws buried in her shoulders was asking to die a terrible burning death. She hadn’t even bothered putting her armor on. She’d just done the walk in her running shoes and underwear. October nights barely phased her even without fur. She shuffled to her mother’s door after she was sure Empress Matilda was gone and tried to open it. It was locked. She hit her head against it a couple times because her arms were too tired to lift. Her mother opened it and her eyes went wide when she saw the state of her daughter. Now that she knew she was near by she synced her tech up with her daughter’s bio-monitor.

What Enid saw shocked her. Dehydration. Nerve damage. Several foreign objects claw marks. Exhaustion. Her daughter had been through hell. She quickly got under Hazel’s arm and led her to the bed. Helen must have heard the noise and rushed to see why her current mistress was up and about. She gasped when she saw Hazel and rushed to help Enid who was struggling under her daughter’s substantial weight. Between the small thirteen-year-old and Enid who was almost a match for Helen in size and body type they managed to get her to the bed. Helen had a few tears in her eyes. She’d become quite attached to Hazel since she’d arrived even though it had only been a few days. Enid shook Helen’s shoulder.

“Helen, close the door and lock it.”

“But she’s… we should summon the surgeon from the tourney camp.”

Enid shook her head.

“Do as I say child, close the door and lock it.”

Helen nodded and rushed over and did as Enid asked. By the time she returned Enid had one of the Atlantean tablets in her hands and was scanning Hazel. Eventually she put it away and pulled out one of the 29th century medical scanners, and a surgery pack. Helen blinked as she saw all these strange magical devices appear from the pack that looked far too small to hold so much. Enid motioned to her and held out a medical scanner.

“Come here. I need you to hold this here so I can get whatever these are out.”

“What are all these things?”

“I will explain in time. Just do as I ask you so we can save her life.”

Enid leaned over her daughter using the augmented vision and HUD from her contacts and the data from the scanner to expertly remove each of the embedded silver claw tips from her daughter. They had been worming their way to her heart, so it had been a bit of a fight. She collapsed back into a chair rubbing her tired face. She couldn’t even give Hazel painkillers because her body would treat them like a poison. She looked at the ten claw tips and back to her daughter who had lost consciousness around the fourth one. Now that the claws were out, she was starting to mend. Enid eventually pulled out the synthetic skin and started to spray it over the many wounds to stitch them together. Thankfully the lacked the normal demonic residue that would continue to poison Hazel. Helen looked at Enid.

“Milady… these don’t look like holy relics.”

Enid rubbed her eyes and leaned forward.

“They’re not. They are from a time far in the future where what you’d call magic is something everyone can do with the right tool. These are like a spoon, or a needle. Just tools made by man.”

Enid motioned to the silver claw tips. Helen moved closer.

“But you said you were angels.”

“I’m sorry to say, my dear, we are not, but we do hunt demons who have escaped hell. And we are on a mission for God, everything is broken and we’re fixing it. I would like very much to have you join us when you’re old enough. You know we’re not human. You can tell that. You also knew when you passed Sir Roland in the hall that he had evil in him did you not?”

“Yes. And the other two…”

“They’ve all been dealt with now. I can only assume Hazel has finished the rest or she’d be dead right now.”

“You must not tell anyone any of this. We still have work to do here. Just know that all will be revealed and when you turn eighteen I will give you a choice, immortality and a life beyond your imagination, or a lifetime of…this place. Now go, get some sleep. Hazel will be better in a few days.”

Helen nodded. Knowing every word Enid said was true. Her gift was strong. She turned to lean but paused at the door.

“Is that why I see us traveling through the stars together and people trying to harm us with strange weapons of light?”

Enid nodded.

“Good night, Helen.”

“Good night, milady.”

*****

Enid woke with a start when she heard Hazel move in her sleep. Few people who didn’t have children realized the hypervigilance having a child provided a worried parent. Hazel groaned and noticed her mother’s tired emerald eyes looking at her.

“Mom, how did I get here…last I remember I was in Apollo…”

“I was hoping you could tell me, hon.”

Hazel moved to get up. Enid shifted and nudged her back into the bed gently.

“Don’t. You’re still weak. Now what happened at Sir Roland’s keep?”

Hazel rubbed her face and let her head sink back into her pillow.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Enid frowned.

“I’ll respect that for now, did you clear out the demons or should I be preparing for a counterattack?”

Hazel nodded.

“I just wiped out anything living or moving there and leveled the place. It was like that house in Japan. Infested to the point of needing to be cleansed.”

Enid frowned as her gift told her there was a lie in there.

“You know you can’t lie to me.”

“Mom, I am one hundred percent sure there are no demon’s left there.”

“Okay. Thank you for taking care of it. I was worried about you and about to ride out tomorrow with all the men I could muster.”

Hazel smiled at her mother.

“I know. That’s what I told them… anyway. There is something else…something important.”

Enid sat on the bed beside Hazel and looked down at her.

“Yes?”

Hazel looked up at her mother. She saw the lack of stress in it for the first time in a while. She felt her mother’s hand push her silver hair out of her face. Hazel opened her mouth and closed it. She decided that maybe poking that hornet’s nest was not the right thing to do at this point and shook her head.

“Its old news mom. Don’t worry about it. Thanks for patching me up.”

Enid leaned down and kissed Hazel’s forehead.

“You know that I would kick down the gates of hell if I had to and tear the universe apart to save your life. And if something had happened to you…”

Hazel smiled at her mother, but with sadness in her eyes.

“I know mom. You would do anything for your any of your kids.”