Enid was wearing her Atlantean armor again. She had Lucius strapped to her back, her red hair was tied into a ponytail. She had her hands folded while she waited for Hazel to say her tearful good byes to Hollipah. She smiled as she overheard Hazel telling her friend to mark a stone in the village with the name of children so that Hazel could see them. The mother daughter pair had stayed for a summer in the village of Jethro. Jethro had indeed welcomed them with open arms and treated them as kin, just as Zipporah had predicted. The teenage girls had been inseparable for the entirety of the summer and Enid’s chocolate stash had suffered greatly because of their many late movie nights. She heard someone approaching behind her and it was Zipporah. The wife of Moses opened her arms and hugged Enid tightly.

“I am sad to see you go, friend.”

“I wish it were not so, but I have been ready to resume my purpose for a few weeks already.”

“You are not the woman who I saw enter my home in Pi-Ramesses. She was a broken and lost woman with no light in her eyes. You, you have a fire your eyes. I did not believe your daughter when she spoke of your true form, but I see it now with my own eyes and I am humbled.”

“Thank you for caring for me while I was weak.”

“You were never weak my friend, just tired. To where do you travel now?”

“I do not know, but it will be the right place. My… brother has renewed my faith.”

“You are letting the day escape you while our daughters cry and carry on.”

Enid smiled.

“You misunderstand. We will not be walking.”

“What do you mean?”

“I will paint a doorway on a wall, I will touch it, it will glow, and we will walk through.”

“The Lord guides your travel?”

“I am not sure who guides it anymore, but there are more escaped prisoners, and It almost always leads me to them.”

“So, you will find yourself in battle on the other side.”

“Perhaps, sometimes we are lucky, and we land on their heads, others we need to search.”

“Land?”

“Yes, this way of travelling is unpredictable and often finds us falling. Which is why our armor has wings to slow us.”

“Such interesting lives you live.”

“There is a saying where I lived, a curse of sorts: May you live in interesting times.”

“Sounds like something father would say to someone he wants to insult but is too polite to do so.”

“Exactly.”

Zipporah touched Enid’s shoulder and laughed.

“It is no wonder father liked you so.”

Hazel was finally pulling away from her friend and with a final wave she walked to her mother.

“Are you done with your goodbyes hon?”

Hazel nodded, she was sniffling too much to form much of a verbal response. Enid turned and gave Zipporah a final hug.

“I hope the times you live in are less interesting they have been, my friend.”

Zipporah nodded and waved as the mother and daughter walked towards the abandoned hut by the shore that had been their secret movie theater. Enid pulled out the bowl and looked to Hazel.

“Would you care to do the honors?”

Hazel shook her head and wiped her nose with her hand after sniffling again.

“No mom, you do it, don’t trust myself after last time that was a super rough ride.”

Enid nodded and started mixing the paste of blood and incense. She painted the doorway and touched it. She chanted in the Atlantean language, and the doorway came to life with a bright green flash. Enid took Hazel’s hand and the pair walked through.

*****

The pair came through and were falling once again, their wings deployed and Enid released Hazel’s hand so they could properly control their descent. It was night and there was an orange glow beneath them that covered everything in their view. They had their comms linked through their holo-devices and their Atlantean armor.

“What is that mom?”

“A fire. Keep your helmet on. The armor will let you breathe.”

Enid glanced at her armor’s thermal read outs which were spiking as they hit the heated air just above the fire.

“The heat is goi-”

Enid didn’t get to finish as suddenly a vortex of air hit them and they were tossed into each other. Enid decided she was close enough to the ground she wouldn’t need the wings to land properly so she retracted the energy fields and dove towards the ground. She flipped at the last moment and landed on her feet. She felt a pain in her abdomen that indicated one of the fallen was nearby. A powerful one. She looked up and saw Hazel was still in an uncontrolled decent and mimicking her daughter’s heroics at the Red Sea she lept up and caught her with her own flying ability and landed. Hazel was looking around as well. Enid grabbed her daughter’s arms and put their visors together.

“Do not change to half-wolf the fire is too hot and the air is not breathable.”

“But I feel it out there.”

“So do I.”

She saw a form charging at them out of the smoke. She recognized the blade immediately. It was Bloodseeker. Her younger self was trying to skewer her. She dodged to the side and grabbed her younger self and flipped her on her back, catching Bloodseeker, who while confused recognized its mistress. Her younger self was looking up at the pair. Enid concentrated and made her form change inside the armor. She let the helmet sink into the armor. She looked down at her younger self with her now long platinum blonde hair and ice blue eyes.

“Trust your gift. We are not your enemies the thing you sense is a demon.”

Her younger self jumped to her feet and crouched low. Staring at Bloodseeker in someone else’s hands, something she believed impossible. Her younger self started looking around. Enid could feel the oncoming attack as well. She paused time around herself and tossed the her younger self into a burnt out building and her daughter in the opposite direction. The building was on fire but the armor would protect her. She barely got out of the way as a fifteen-foot-tall demon with glowing veins through its body and slammed into the ground with a flaming spear. It roared and spread its mighty flaming wings. Its flaming eyes looked down at Bloodseeker and then to the person wielding it.

“You are not Lilith’s pet!”

Enid drew Lucius and prepared to fight the demon in earnest. To her daughter and her younger self it would be a blur as the two ancient entities did battle amidst the flaming buildings. She hadn’t mastered this power in her youth. She stepped back and was probably the only being to ever exist to wield two soul blades at once.

“You chase after a child, but you face an ancient. Go home, or you will be obliterated. Both of these blades hunger for your soul.”

The demon lept at her again and she dodged to the side lithely. She could not remember fighting such a thing. It roared again and breathed balefire in her direction, but she simply wasn’t there. It swept the spear down in a slam attack but he was to far away to hit her, or so she thought. The flame spear extended and she was forced to cross the soul blades to block it. Enid twisted her swords to the side causing the spear to crash into the street beneath her feet. This put the demon off balance and Enid managed to catch his arm with Bloodseeker, there was a flash of purple where it slid through his flesh and he howled clutching his arm. He lept up into the air and vanished into the orange sky and black smoke. Enid lept upwards and met him as he was descending for another slam. He closed his fists and turned himself into a battering ram. Enid did not have time to avoid the attack. She had been expecting him to try to avoid a collision. She stabbed Bloodseeker into his shoulder as he slammed into her. Lucius was wretched from her grasp and was falling towards the ground. They became tangled as they fell. Enid’s wings had deployed because her armor had sensed an uncontrolled descent. She extended one of her wrist plates into a punching dagger and punched him in the left side of his face repeatedly as the fell. Bright red flames flared out of his head where she stabbed him. He tried to push her off of him, but she clutched onto Bloodseeker’s hilt and through their size differed she was the stronger of the two.

“What are you?”

“Your end. Brother.”

The pair slammed into the ground shattering the stones of the road. Enid grabbed his left wing and used her feet to find purchase on his armored body and pulled with all her might he screamed in agony as she tore the wing free from his back leaving more red flames leaking out. He rolled off of her and pulled Bloodseeker out of his shoulder and tossed it behind him. Enid was taking her time getting up. The collision had done enough that her armor was nearly out of its energy reserves. She extended her other wrist plate into a punching dagger and shook her head. She could feel the injuries she’d sustained already healing. The demon seemed to be taking longer to heal from her punches. Half of his face was fire. He slammed his fist into his taloned hand. And lunged at her younger self who was still paused in time falling through the air just after she slammed into a wall. Enid lept in front of her and took a claw to her chest. Time resumed its normal flow as she screamed in agony clutching the burning wound in her chest. She could feel it’s venom starting to steal into her flesh and blood. She landed on the ground and looked up to hulking fallen angel. It sneered down at her.

“For all that big talk look at you now. Dead protecting the little bitch. What now? I will rend you limb from limb than kill the wretch and the wolf-born.”

Enid clutched her chest with her right hand and gritted her teeth. She held at her left hand towards him.

“Oh are you pleading for mercy tiny vampire.”

Enid shook her head.

“No brother, you should have accepted my offer.”

The demon howled as both soul blades pierced the flesh of his torso from behind, one striking its heart. He fell to his knees staring at Enid in horror as the blades, one glowing white the other glowing purple started to devour everything he was. His form shifted as he collapsed on his side. Only one of his twisted molted feathered wings remained on his back. He reached out his hand towards Enid. She could see the look of despair in his eyes as he realized the folly of his attack.

“Goodbye brother. At least your suffering is over.”

He opened his mouth but then his body turned into a miasma of green and dissipated the two soul blades clattered to the scorched ground. Enid looked down at her shredded armor and chest. And clinched her teeth as the poison burned deeper into her flesh. She saw Hazel over top of her in seconds. And her younger self looking at her, with something akin to awe. Enid lost consciousness after seeing Hazel bend down to retrieve Lucius.

*****

Hazel let out an involuntary scream as she plummeted uncontrolled towards her living nightmare. She only had one real fear, and that was burning alive. She felt panic rising up to choke her as she saw the flaming building directly below her. She was going burn. Then she felt something gently scoop her up. She looked around and she saw her mother’s face through her visor. Her mother lowered her to the ground in the middle of the street. She was sweating and her visor was streaming up. She felt the hair on the back of her neck standing up. A fallen one was nearby. She would have no weapons that could truly harm it unless she shifted. She looked at the fire all around and only saw her fur lighting up. She felt her mother grab her by the arms and press their visors together.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Do not shift to half-wolf, the fire is too hot and the air is not breathable.”

Hazel was hyperventilating. The fire, the demon. It was too much. She mumbled something without thinking then her mother let her go and vanished into the thick black smoke. Then she saw…her mother wearing roman armor come flying out of the haze and landing on her back. Her mother appeared wearing her Sarah face and carrying a sword that’s presence made Hazel feel sick to her stomach. She had never sensed so much condensed corruption in one place. She was staring at the blade, the fires forgotten for the moment. How could her mother stand to touch such a thing. Her eyes flicked to her mother’s younger self. She was staring at her mother, mostly the sword. Her mother was speaking to her but without her mother’s helmet on and in the noise of the raging inferno around them she lost the words. She watched the younger version of her mother stand. Then next thing she knew she was flying through the air into a burning wall and through another burning wall to the other side of it. She saw a blur of red and blue in the air unable to track what was happening. Then suddenly her mother appeared out of nowhere leaping in front of her younger self and taking a claw to the chest that was meant for her.

Hazel rushed forward preparing to shift only to see the two swords slam into his back and him collapse. Her mother’s injury was terrible.

Quickly Hazel, pick me up before… young Enid tries.

Enid leaned down and picked up Lucius. When she looked back up her mother’s eyes were closed. She rushed forward knelling beside her. She shook her.

“Mom, Mom.”

Her mother did not wake. Hazel was starting to panic again. She pushed the shredded Atlantean armor aside only to see the flesh turning necrotic, sickly green veins were spreading from the wound and inside it she could see glowing green fluid. Tears started to well up in her eyes. She had no idea how to save her. She shook her mother’s unconscious form.

“Mom, mom, wake up. You can’t leave I just got you back.”

She saw a shape walk out of the thick smoke. Her heart caught in her throat as she realized she was looking up at her mother’s face. The eyes were younger and colder, but it was her mother’s face. Hazel could not help but stare at this woman who looked at her through the visor and did not recognize her own child’s face. Hazel felt a hand on her shoulder and it was shaking her.

“Hey, you, snap out of it.”

Hazel blinked at her this young version of her mother tears dripping from her eyes.

“I…you need to save her, I don’t know how to save her.”

“I can help her, child, but you need to let go.”

Hazel looked down and realized she was clutching her mother’s unconscious form to her chest. The younger Enid nodded when Hazel started to loosen her grip on the eldest Enid. The other Enid reached out her hand and the black blade flew to it and she slide into a sheath. Hazel looked at the blade her grip tightening on her mother.

“Child, she will die unless I get her to my father only his blood can save her and the demon’s poison is spreading quickly.”

Hazel released her mother to the care of her younger self.

“I need you to go stop the pugmentia, they are running rampant and I smelled imperial blood that was not your mothers. Someone is in trouble. I need you to do the task you were born for cub. I know I ask a lot, but I will keep your mother safe, you must keep my charges safe.”

“The fire…I cannot shift. My mother told me not too.”

“Use your adopted mother’s soul blade cub, if it responds to you, it will be everything you need.”

Hazel…this is where my mother died, you need to find her and save her! Your grandmother!

“Do you know which direction? I can’t breathe here to sniff them out.”

Her mother’s younger self pointed towards the raging inferno. Hazel swallowed hard.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, now go cub, earn your true name, I will get your mother healed if there is still time.”

Hazel pulled the pack off her mother’s shoulders gently and put it over hers and she drew Lucius.

“Spirits are with you cub!”

The pair of Enid’s vanished into the smoke. Hazel looked to the raging fire and started walking towards it. She started to see the temperature sensors on her armor’s HUD start to climb suddenly and she felt herself starting to burn. Her feet froze.

You need to save her! You can do this. Your armor will protect you; You’re imagining the burning. Push forward, fight the fear. I know you can do this daughter.

Hazel forced herself to take another step forward and then another. She found the tainted ones huddled around a woman. They were biting her.

My mother!

Hazel’s fear was lost in a haze of primal anger, she threw Lucius up in the air and when she caught him she was a nine feet of silver fur, claws and rippling muscles. The first three vampires didn’t even know they were about to die when Lucius severed their heads from their bodies. The blade flashed white as they each perished. Hazel roared at the last eight who had stumbled away from the fallen Empress. They seemed to realize they outnumbered her substantially and started to flit towards flickering in and out of existence. They were not like her mother and she easily tracked their approaching slicing three down in succession with Lucius the other five managed to get chunks of her flesh in their teeth. One paid for it by getting grabbed by her free taloned hand and having his torso ripped from his legs by her vicious teeth she spit his torso out and tossed the legs aside. Only four remained. They seemed to realize that this was not a wolf-born to be trifled with. Hazel was still lost in the haze of red. And lunged at two that were grouped together her teeth finding one’s head and neck, the claws of her free hand the other. The remaining two had begun to flee. Hazel threw Lucius at one and lept at the other her massive silver furred form smashing him to the ground and her teeth tearing into his back. He screamed and tried to struggle away but he was no match for the enraged wolf-born. Hazel smashed his head into the stones until it turned to mush in her claw. She let out a victory howl that echoed through the city.

She found herself trying to breath and the air choked her lungs. She let her form collapse into her human shape and the armor reappeared around her and she could not stop coughing. She walked over the desiccated remains she had thrown Lucius at and pulled her stepfather free.

Quickly check my mother.

Hazel nodded, she was coughing uncontrollably as she approached the fallen vampire. She looked at the woman’s luxurious brunette hair. Her eyes were closed. She was having difficulty getting air into her lungs but managed to speak through the coughing fits.

“She’s a vampire, I don’t know how to tell if she’s alive.”

She is alive, but barely. We need to get her to safety.

“She is supposed to die, we can’t risk…”

She is my mother, damn Enid’s rules, she’d agree with me, she was her mother too.

“What if… what if they think she died?”

She has an amulet, it’s impossible without that.

Hazel reached into her mother’s pack and pulled out a blackened silver amulet.

“We have this, from Tiamat.”

Clever girl! Yes, yes, rub her blood on it.

Hazel did as her stepfather asked and then scooped up her grandmother. She couldn’t stop coughing. The smoke had really done a number on her.

“I’m not sure I can make it.”

You can.

“But where can we take her?”

Mariana’s…Maria’s estate.

“How do you know any of this? We don’t even know where we are.”

We are in Rome, the great fire.

“But weren’t you…dead by then…er now.”

Yes, your mother and I are soulbound, I know what she knows.

Hazel continued to cough. She fell to her knees a few times but managed to pull herself up with encouragement from Lucius and she found herself at a forlorn estate. The bright colors faded with grime. Hazel found a room that still had padding on one of the wooden beds. She put her grandmother down and collapsed. She shifted to wolf form and gave her lungs a few minutes to heal and shifted back. She sighed with relief as she took in a full breath and promptly sneezed because of all the dust she’d kicked up entering.

This place used to hold so much color and life. She would surround herself in it because she felt like she had none. Poor Mariana.

“She is doing fine, you saw her. She has friends, she’s in command of a space station and has an unlimited budget to do experiments to her hearts content.”

Yes, but that is Maria, Mariana…was different. It is hard to describe. Maria is Mariana but she… she is not Mariana.

“I know she had her memory erased and her personality modified. But she got her memories back.”

It is difficult to put into words, daughter.

Hazel looked around suddenly.

“What was that?”

I believe it was the dead angel of death that watches over Maria.

“What? Here? Is it dangerous?”

No, he would know this to be Mariana’s mother. Provided you do no harm to her, or your mother once she arrives you should be safe.

“Well what now?”

Place me beside your grandmother. Then you need to go see if your mother is alright and deliver the bad news.

“Yea, but mom, I mean young mom…this is so confusing, the mom who is not my mom will sense a lie a mile away, I’ve never once been able to get one by her.”

The trick to getting past that is to not lie.

“But you told me to deliver the bad news, hey your mom is dead here’s her amulet? That’s a lie right there.”

Just say you killed eleven pugmentia. Then offer the amulet up. Your mother is quick to jump to conclusions if she is anything, especially when she was young. Chances are she’ll do what she did in the original timeline and go on a pugmentia hunting rampage.

“You are right. You do know her well.”

Even if I did not have a soul bond with her I would know how she would react, at least in Rome. The new her, is a lot more…faceted. You will find your grandfather’s estate two streets over, you’ll know it when you see it. There is a mosaic of your mother on one of its outer walls. And another of myself, and your Aunt Maria.

“I’ll be back with mom, I hope.”

*****

Hazel had let the gloves soak back into armor and she saw the mosaics her stepfather had described. She traced her Aunt Maria’s hair with a sad smile. She was eager to confirm her mother was safe and alive, but she dreaded seeing her mother’s younger self go through the loss of her mother. She had watched her mother grieve so much in the last few months. She wasn’t sure she could take it. And her grandfather. She was going to intentionally let him think the woman he had loved with his all his heart was dead. But, the alternative was that she might never be born and the Black Son might never be defeated. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath letting her neck lean backwards. Her hairstyle had changed while she was with Jethro’s people she only had a single braid down the left side, and it had a few special beads that her and Hollipah had painted together. She lifted her hand and fiddled with them lifting them up to look at them then she went inside the gate to the large estate.

She was attacked immediately by a woman who moved superhumanly fast. The woman seemed surprised that Hazel managed to evade her first few attacks. But the woman was superhumanly strong as well so eventually Hazel ended up on her back hands up defensively with a spear pointed at her throat.

“My mother is here… urm…. Enid brought her back.”

Hazel couldn’t believe how hard it was to remember her mother’s first name. She never used it. She was always just mom.

“The blonde godling.”

Hazel nodded.

“You must be the wolf-born.”

Hazel nodded again. The woman offered her hand to Hazel and helped her up. Hazel was rather shocked not notice that the pair were the same height. Though the woman was a smaller build then the teenager.

“You fight like a spartan, who trained you?”

“My mother.”

The woman motioned for Hazel to follow. Hazel was led into a room that would serve as a dining hall, but the table was currently being used to lay her mother out. The wound on her mother’s chest was gone. And her grandfather who seemed less sad, and her mother’s younger self were leaning over her mother and talking in hushed tones. The Greek warrior woman who had subdued Hazel spoke up.

“Emperor, the vampire’s daughter is here.”

Sextus’s eyes went wide when he saw Hazel.

“She is the vampire that killed Tiamat, and you are the one who destroyed the fallen angel. I had thought I’d imagined it when we could not track either of you down.”

“I…uh, sorry, I’m not sure what I can tell you, grandfather.”

Sextus and Enid looked at each other then back to Hazel.

“Who is your mother child?”

“Uh, Isis called her the Atlantean vampire?”

“You know Isis?”

Hazel nodded.

“She let me stay with her while my mother…was dealing with some things.”

Younger Enid spoke.

“Isis keeping secrets, would have never guess that.”

Hazel’s grandfather held up his hand to his daughter.

“I smell my wife’s blood on you show me what you have behind your back.”

Hazel held up the amulet she had rubbed her grandmother’s blood on. She blinked and Sextus had it in his hand and was standing in front of her. He was shorter then her so she found herself looking into his rage filled brown eyes.

“What happened?”

“I killed eleven pugmentia.”

She motioned to the amulet. She hoped that explanation would be enough because she was starting to get that feeling of absolute terror in her gut when she was forced to be around her mother when her mother would get truly angry.

“I see.”

Hazel jumped when she heard wood cracking. She looked the source and her mother’s younger self had just damaged the table where she was holding on to it. She walked over to Hazel and hooked her finger around the top of the Atlantean armor near her neck pulled Hazel down to eye level with her.

“Where did you find her?”

Hazel was in the midst of describing the building when they heard a gasp and the elder Enid who was still sporting her Sarah face sat up. Fangs out. She quickly retracted them and looked around. Her currently ice blue eyes focused on the amulet in her father’s hand. She looked to his face and knew exactly what night this was. She lept off the table and grabbed her younger self and looked in her eyes.

“You investigated the reports of pugmentia and found your mother’s amulet in a pile of ash. You cut down several pugmentia and returned to your father with the amulet. You went out to hunt for more of the pugmentia in a terrible rage. Go and forget myself and my daughter.”

The younger Enid walked out of the estate sword drawn and looking for a fight. Sextus looked at the elder Enid in surprise. She met his gaze. He tried to resist but the loss of his true love had broken him and Enid was his equal in blood since he had named her Empress.

“You assisted a young imperial who got caught in a fire. Your daughter Enid showed up with your wife’s amulet. You scared the young imperial off in your rage. Enid stormed off to hunt Pugmentia. Forget myself and my daughter. You blacked out in your despair. Sleep.”

Enid touched his arm and her father slid down the wall behind him. She grabbed Hazel’s arm and rushed out of the estate.

*****

Enid dragged Hazel a couple of blocks away and looked at her child.

“It was reckless to leave me with them.”

Hazel started playing with the beads in her braid and looking at the ground.

“I didn’t know what else to do mom, you were dying.”

Enid put her hands on her daughter’s cheeks.

“It is alright. I am sorry you did not get to meet your grandmother. Of course we ended up here on this night. So I can relive her death all over again. Just my luck. The trauma train just keeps on rolling over me.”

Hazel continued to fidget with her braid.

“So umm, should we get out of sight?”

“Yes, good idea. Hmm but where to avoid being spotted.”

“How about Aunt Maria’s place?”

“Brilliant. How did you know she wouldn’t be using it right now?”

“Dad told me.”

Enid narrowed her eyes and noticed the aforementioned blade was missing from Hazel’s person.

“Where is Lucius?”

“He’s back at Maria’s estate.”

“Why would you do a fool thing like leaving him at an abandoned estate?”

“Because he asked me too?”

“Why would he do that/”

Hazel started rubbing the back of her next and avoiding her mother’s gaze.

“What did you do Hazel?”

“Well its what... we did, I mean technically, I mean dad and I.”

“And that was?”

“Well your mom…”

“Yes?”

“Your mom isn’t dead.”

Enid blinked at her daughter in disbelief and wordlessly started dragging her towards Maria’s abandoned estate.