When her bus arrived, she glanced behind herself but saw no one. Even with her contacts and their enhanced night vision. She shook her head and showed her bus pass and sat in the center seat at the back of the bus. The bus was pretty empty. There were a couple of other people. A girl who appeared to be in her late teens she had earbuds in, she had dark hair. A man in a blue-collar workman’s outfit was sitting near the front. Neither gave her any bad vibes. She pulled her hood up and allowed herself to relax slightly. Still her gift had set her on edge. The bus stopped again and group of four men and two women came on board. They could have come right out of a punk concert in the seventies. Mohawks and all. Her gift started screaming at her immediately, not that she needed it. She saw the brands on their necks. The Pugmentia would do it with heated silver so they would create permanent scars even on their unchanging bodies. This was a vampire gang. Or pack as various elders may call them. She’d seen it before. On the two blood slaves she’d wrecked. They stopped at the man near the front and the one who seemed to lead this brood looked down at him. He had a southern accent.

“You should be at the back of the bus this section is for whites.”

The man who had very dark skin looked up at the group and thought the better of arguing the point and rushed towards the back. Enid shouldn’t have been smiling. Six vampires against her as a mortal was bad odds. Especially since she couldn’t really shoot them with silver bullets the glowing blue wounds and flames would probably breach the secrecy of their little vampire society. And it’s not like she could erase people’s memories. But she was smiling because she wouldn’t have to even remotely hold back on vampires. She could beat them to pulps and she really needed to get the anger off her chest. The vampires stopped at the girl who was listening to her ear pods and was reading something on her phone she hadn’t even noticed. Until one of the vampires slapped her cheek. She jumped nearly dropping her phone. Then one of the female vampires pulled her earbuds out.

“I like these, gonna keep em. Not like she’ll need em.”

“You think this is her?”

“Dark hoodie, dark leggings, dark hair.”

The leader of the group looked down at the girl.

“You have been very naughty. We don’t take kindly to people fucking with our property.”

The girl was staring at them wide eyed. The other female vampire grabbed the front of her hoodie and yanked her towards her. She showed her fangs. Enid grimaced. She hated vampire gang bangers. They were messy and never covered their tracks. It’s a wonder one of her Seer’s hadn’t offed this lot already. She moved to stand but the man who’d fled to the back of the bus looked at her and shook his head. He even lifted his arm. He whispered.

“These are bad people. You do not want to mess with them. Pale ones. We tell stories of them in Haiti.”

Enid smiled under her hood she whispered.

“I know. I hunt them.”

He blinked at her. She stood up and walked towards the group she didn’t pull her hood down she flicked her wrists down turning her wrist plates into punching daggers. Only one of the vampires acknowledged her but by that time it was too late. The closest vampire to the back of the bus collapsed a soon as the enchanted Atlantean armor’s metal pierced her brain from behind. Enid kicked her out of the way and she slashed with her other wrist nearly severing the next one’s neck. She was the one who had been holding the girl. The girl screamed when blood sprayed her. The remaining four vampires had overcome their shock and were starting to react. Enid punched the next one in the gut her blade extending to sever his spine. He went down hard. Their leader swung wild at her. Her blade was still stuck so her dodge was too slow even though she saw it coming and the strength of the vampire fractured her jaw and sent her flying into one of the poles that lined the bus and she smashed through a seat. Her armor absorbed the bunt of the force that didn’t hit in the face. She managed to punch another that came after her in the knee with her wrist blade and he lost his balance. The bus screeched to a halt and Enid yelled as best she could.

“Run!”

The man got away but one of the still able vampires grabbed the girl.

“Not you, we need replacement meat!”

The girl screamed but was powerless against the vampire’s strength. Enid lunged at him but went flying face down into the floor the bus when the leader hit her on the back of the head with one of the broken poles. He tried to stab it through her back, but the pole bent and twisted and with flying out of his hand. He stepped on her back and punched her in the back of the head repeatedly. As powerful as she was, her body was still mostly mortal, and she lost consciousness. By the time she regained consciousness her broken jaw had mended itself for the most part, but her face still felt like she’d been used for target practice by a forge hammer. She could hear the girl who’d been swept up with her whimpering beside her but otherwise she couldn’t see anything because there was some form of bag over her head. She heard the vampire with the southern accent talking.

“No ID? Just a fucking burner phone? What about weapons? She was using something to fuck us up.”

“I checked her wrists she’s just wearing some sort of cat suit.”

“Did you taste her blood?”

“I mean its good but she’s just a mortal.”

“Then how the fuck did she turn that pole into tinfoil? And kill two of us? It’ll take Jake days to heal. Fuck!”

“Hey man, if she’s mortal we can just got the boss to force her to tell us everything she knows, who knows he might even turn her. She’s fucking nuts. Never seen anyone fight like that. And shit she’s mortal. Can you imagine the damage she could do as a vampire?”

Enid wished she could show him what she could do as vampire but alas she was still just mortal. She tried to move her arms but felt a zip tie around her wrists. She could snap it easily, but she was more then happy to let her body heal more before she went Van Helsing on these losers. Her brain was calling them losers by they had managed to take her down. Something no other vampire could really say.

“He’s going to be pissed, we lost two people and two of us are out of action for days.”

“So, he turns these two and we’re back on schedule. Even the weakest mortal is a god as a vampire. You shouldn’t have let that guy go. He saw too much.”

The southern vampire spoke again.

“Fuck that. The boss has it covered. We do need none of those kind in our crew.”

“Dude you’re stuck in the fifties.”

Enid heard someone slam against a metal wall and the southern vampire speak again.

“I am the oldest and I’m in charge you fucking get that through your bleeding-heart liberal head.”

“You’re in charge. Andrew.”

She heard someone hit the cement floor and the southern vampire speak again.

“That’s right I am. Get the boss on zoom.”

“Why me?”

“Because I’m in charge and I want him pissed at you and not me now go get the fucking laptop.”

Enid was pondering the wisdom of her actions. She was here for the drone, not to wipe out a vampire nest. Probably would have been smarter to let them take the girl and leave her be. But when it came down to it, she rarely made the smart decision when she was angry and since she found out Amee had died, she’d been angry all the time. She just hadn’t let it show. She heard a few more curse words then a ding indicating someone had joined a zoom meeting.

“Hiya Boss. So, uh… bad news. We lost a Janie and Kelly. And Jake and Ted…they’re out of action for a few days. But we found a fighter for you. Real good one. She’s the one who took em out. So, uh just like you said we found someone worthy of your blood. Oh, yea we found someone else you know for the fodder part of the plan.”

When Enid heard the next voice, she snapped her zip tie restraint as the memories of a night several thousand years ago in Egypt flooded into her and a promise she made.

“A mortal killed two vampires and severely injured two more. You expect me to believe this? Did it have fur and claws?”

“No boss, no, here this is her.”

“Pull the bag off.”

Enid blinked in the harsh light of the old shop room she was sitting in. She got control of her emotions and kept her hands behind her. After hearing his all to familiar voice she was unsurprised to see her Uncle Remus on the laptop screen. He obviously didn’t recognize her at first. Probably because she had blood on her forehead and cheek from the beating and shortish black hair. She recognized him of course. Including the scar, she’d left him with near the end of their last meeting. Something snapped inside her and she felt the power of the blood flow into her. Her fangs dropped down and she smiled wickedly at the vampire who was in biting distance. Her hair flared downwards and turned red. Her uncle’s eyes went wide.

“Run you idiot that’s a reaper!”

It was too late Enid hadn’t feasted on blood in far too long and she was on the vampire before he even realized he was about to die. She drained him dry. His blood was still dripping down her chin and off her fangs when the southern vampire walked back into the room. He lunged at her but found himself held up with an unseen force. She looked at Remus and spoke in Latin.

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“You sneaky devil. Here I thought you died in the 70’s I even investigated your death. Even father was fooled.”

“Enid, we can…discuss this.”

“Discuss what? Are these your creations? You would pollute our blood with this filth?”

“It is not what it looks like. Just be reasonable.”

“Oh, I’m long past reasonable Uncle Remus. When a mother’s children are threatened all sense of reason goes out the window.”

Enid flicked her wrist towards herself and grabbed the southern vampires neck and grinned down at him. His eyes went wide with terror. The vampires didn’t quite realize how terrifying it was to see a vampire who was a messy eater looking at them like they’re the next snack. Enid’s eyes flared purple and black veins started to spread from them as she looked back to her Uncle.

“Tell me Uncle, does the scar I gave you still pain you? Do you remember the promise I made you in the temple of Akkad while you stared at your dead lover’s face?”

Remus fell out of his chair. He pressed himself back against the wall. The vampire in Enid’s hand disintegrated into black ash. And she smiled at Remus and blew him a kiss.

“I’ll be seeing you soon Uncle Remus. Don’t worry I always keep my promises it won’t be long now.”

He reached out and slammed his own laptop shut. She’d never seen him so frightened even as she drank Tiamat dry. She smiled. This was something should definitely sink her teeth into. She walked into the next room and saw the vampire she’d paralyzed and the one’s leg was chopped off. They were… not happy to see the blood covered vampire approaching them. She pulled out her gun full of silver bullets and shot the one-legged vampire in his good knee. He screamed.

“Where is Remus?”

He held his knee and looked up at Enid.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about! What are you?”

“Oh, me, I’m just your friendly neighborhood Reaper. And you two violated oh so many rules tonight. So, I’ll make you a deal, which ever one of you tells me where to find my Uncle Remus, gets to live, the other, I will devour your soul. So, who wins the brass ring?”

They looked at each other. The paralyzed one spoke first.

“He has an office downtown; He owns the building! Babylon Towers!”

Enid shot him in the head with six rounds from her gun. He screamed and his head sizzled and eventually his body twitched one time. His head continued to smolder. The other vampire looked up at her.

“You said…you’d let one of us live.”

He cowered away from her. She reached down stabbed her fingers through his chest yanking him up by his ribs she extended her fangs.

“I lied.”

She bit into his neck and drained him dry taking every bit of his essence. She had a little voice at the back of her head telling her she was going a bit too far, but she blatantly ignored it. Being a vampire felt good. The blood felt better. She extracted her fingers and let the corpse fall back onto the bed. She looked around and saw a bathroom it had running water, so she washed her face off to remove the blood. She extended her fangs just to enjoy seeing herself with them again. She was back and she loved it. She rinsed off her hands one last time and pulled off her blood-soaked hoodie and tossed it on one of the corpses. She had been wrong about them though; They were all Imperial blooded. Not that it bothered her it just meant the blood was more potent. She looked in the mirror and shapeshifted, so her hair was short and black again. She added a blue streak on one side of her bangs and winked at herself. She thought, God I look good.

She walked to where they had emptied her pack out and she stuffed her belongings back in her bag. Added her pistol to the dimensional space and pulled another hoodie and pulled it on. She took a deep breath and pulled the hood of the teenage girl’s face. The girl was obviously in some form of shock and mostly didn’t seem to notice the vampire with the neck torn out or the pile of black ash. Enid snapped her fingers.

“Hello. What’s your name?”

“Kelsy.”

“Kelsy, I’m Enid as you heard. Now look into my eyes. Excellent. You were kidnapped off of a bus by a bunch of drugged up crazy punks. You managed to get yourself free. You ran and you ran until you got turned around. Once you’re there you’ll call 911 and tell them all about this terrible ordeal. You were the only one taken and they were talking about ransoming you. You have no idea where they might be now.”

The teenager nodded to Enid.

“Excellent.”

Enid reached behind the girl and snapped one half the zip tie and let her run away. She collected the vampire’s cell phones and the laptop. She pulled out three incendiary grenades and threw one on the remnants of the first vampire she killed and one for each of other two vampires. There wouldn’t be enough left to identify anyone. She slipped the phones and laptop into her pack and looked up at the sky with a grin and lept upwards. It had been a long time since she was her old self, and she was reveling in it. She landed on top of a skyscraper and pulled out her phone and checked a search engine for Babylon Towers. She found it and grinned. She pondered landing and just tearing her way through the building until finally confronting her uncle while he cowered and watched for her inevitable arrival but then she realized that only happens in video games and at the first sign of her showing up he’d fly away and she’d have to track him down again. No, she decided to go in quietly. Or if not quietly directly to him. She pulled the shadows around herself but could not see him in any of the outer offices. They were all dark no movement.

Enid decided she would need to breech the building but instead of doing so from the front door she did so through the exhaust vents. She climbed down into the HVAC ducts and listed with her vampiric super hearing. She was giddy as she once again saw and heard the world in what she had started to describe as high definition. She heard him talking.

“She is here in Toronto! You said you had taken care of her.”

As good as her hearing was she couldn’t hear the other side over the conversation at this distance.

“No, I will not calm down. You did not tell me she was from Atlantis! This is the second time I’ve listened to your honeyed words and been screwed.”

There was another pause.

“No, no she doesn’t know where I am. I cut the connection. No, my men wouldn’t talk.”

She had been swiftly approaching his location and now she could hear the other side of the conversation. It was Lucius’s voice, but she knew who really spoke.

“You overestimate your people as you always have Remus. I suggest you come to Prague where you can be protected.”

“No, you just want to legitimize your rule.”

“No, you and I have been allies besides one tiny betrayal on your part out of fear since the dawn of creation, I feel responsible for your safety. If you don’t then you will die. It is as simple as that.”

“Bullshit. You said she was nothing, just an angry vampire, a child raging against the wind. But she’s not. She killed a million vampires in one night! She has the same power as you. And now she’s got Romulus’s as well. What is she?”

Enid was right over him now. She paused, curious to hear the answer.

“She is your doom my friend. It is too late. I am sorry.”

The line went dead. Enid frowned. At least he hadn’t lied. She kicked through the aluminum vent and the drop ceiling landing on top of Remus. Pinning him beneath her. He struggled against her, but her strength combined with her Atlantean armor was too much for him.

“So, you knew he was Chronos, and you said nothing. You are more evil and conniving then I imagined.”

“Enid if I had known it was you in Akkad…if that girl was my niece, I never would have…”

Enid tsked.

“You know you can’t lie to me. I was really hoping you would put up more of a fight. You see I lost my wife recently it has left me very angry. I really want to hurt people but here you were cowering and begging for scraps from Chronos as you have always done.”

He struggled. Enid formed her wrist plate into a punching dagger and punched through his spine at base of his neck knowing he wouldn’t be able to regenerate it without sleeping for a day. His struggles stopped as he was now paralyzed from the neck down.

“Funny how severing one little string of cells can turn you from an apex predator to prey.”

She let the wrist plate reform and she lifted him up and tossed him on his chair which rolled back against the wall, and he stared at her. His eyes were filled with the terror of his impending death.

“Well Uncle Remus, it is time for me to keep my promise.”

She extended her fangs and sunk them into his neck and drank far past satiation. His blood was so pure a few mouthfuls would have done the trick, but she drained every bit of it then she drained his essence. She reached into her pack and pulled out the combat knife she’d retrieved earlier in the night and cut open his chest and pulled the amulet off of his heart which crumbled to black ash. She blew it off and dusted the ash remnants off of the amulet and slide it and the knife into her bag. She tossed an incendiary grenade into the void that was left by his heart and kicked her way through the door. Blood slaves saw her and were about to attempt to stop her when the say Remus’s face. They rushed into the room only to find his corpse was already ignited. Enid ran towards one of the glass windows and lept through it and vanished into the darkness of the September night.

*****

Enid had turned off her communications just before she engaged the vampires in their first scuffle. She was sitting on the beach by Lake Ontario watching the sunrise when she decided to turn it back on she was inundated by two voice comms one from Hazel and one from Apollo.

“Mom!”

“Aunt Enid!”

Enid shook her head.

“How about I do Hazel first?”

“Hazel, what do you need?”

“You had your comms off! What happened?”

“Nothing. I just needed some peace and quiet while I slept.”

“Aunt Enid, your pulse was racing and you were looking at some undesirables before you cut communications. Now I am not sensing any vital signs!”

“Oh yea, I’m a vampire for about another… five minutes. Everything’s fine. I beat them up. Girl got away fine. Everything’s good. Better than good.”

“Mom what did you do?”

“I kept a promise I made a long time ago hon. That’s all. Nice to know its all done, you know?”

“What promise?”

Enid sighed.

“You remember that time your Great Uncle Remus told a demon you could eat you…and forced me to kill a lot of vampires?”

“You didn’t!”

“I did. He didn’t put up much of a fight.”

“Mom! What if you’d turned mortal in the middle of it? You can’t just go doing things like that alone!”

“That is horse shit. I’m a big girl.”

“You’re an old woman, your wife just died and you’re emotionally unstable.”

Apollo scoffed.

“Hazel that attitude towards your mother is uncalled for.”

“Shut up Apollo.”

“I will not. You need to show her more respect.”

“Both of you just hush. Why isn’t Sariel jumping in?”

“Oh, I modulated the signle so her voice would be cancelled out.”

Enid grimaced.

“Apollo!”

“Well, she refused to shut up, what is an AI to do?”

“Undo it now.”

“Yes, Aunt Enid.”

Hazel piped in again.

“Mom, we are here for the drone, not your petty revenge!”

“Petty? He tried to kill you and he violated my freewill. I’d say it was justice.”

“The drone mom. Stay on mission.”

“Shush. I have my uniform; I’m sure Apollo has my school ID.”

Sarial was finally able to speak.

“Actually, it was I who get you the ID. I was hacking binary computers before this one was a shitty idea in one of Maria’s neurons. He is so useless.”

Enid could just imagine Apollo fuming inside his computer core.

“Thank you, Sariel.”

“Anything for you, now make sure you’re eating enough. Grief will tear you up. Food soothes the soul you know. Or so organics say.”

“I have eaten very well.”

Hazel frowned on her holo-display.

“Yea I bet. One whole uncle worth of blood.”

Enid grinned showing her fangs just before they were about to vanish with the sun.

“And I savored every single drop.”

“Gross mom. You have Synth-O”

“Yes, but it is nothing compared to the real thing fresh from the tap.”

Enid sighed wistfully as the first rays of the sun touched her and she felt her heart start to beat again on its own accord. Her fangs retracted, gone once again until she was out of the light of the sun.

“Well. I need to find someplace to shower and get into my unform. And some breakfast. You want to talk call my cell phone.”

Enid cut the comm-link but left her comms online. She dusted her armor’s leggings off and headed to the road and waited at the bus stop. Back to school again. At least all she had to do was walk around with a scanner in a backpack to get a better read on its location. Of course, she’d have to cover the whole damn school on foot. She shrugged there was no help for it and no rush. She couldn’t see any military’s having a secret research facility in the high school and they already had drones now, just not micro-fusion reactor powered antigrav models with 29th century sensor packages. She was glad it didn’t have FTL comms. She glanced at the bus as it stopped and most of her was hoping it was less eventful than the last bus ride, but a small part of her still wanted to break stuff.