Enid sat down at the dining room table with Maria, Eyre and Violet. Allison was in Calgary with her parents who had no idea she was a lesbian. Her father was in the kitchen cleaning up after their thanksgiving dinner. The dining room had become the de facto war room for the Empress and her cohort. Between them sat the printed-out spell to create an unstable pocket universe. The women stared at it. Maria’s pale fingers stroked her crucifix as she looked at the stack of paper. She finally spoke.
“We have had this discussion so many times before, why must we do it again on a day of thanks giving?”
Enid reached her hand out Maria turned hers palm up so their scars would meet.
“Maria, the longer we wait the greater we risk failing. Trust me, he’ll thank us for talking about it again, even today.”
“I have read it over so many times the paper is worn out. No matter which way I look at it, we are incapable of channeling the energy required to create a hole in his creation.”
“I told you, he will be there for us when we need him.”
“Enid, I love and trust you, but that was a conversation you had two thousand years ago. How can you be sure you heard him right?”
“Maria, every time a god damned angel appears they say: ‘Your father will be with you when you need him.’ Then when Michael appeared as me, he said the same damn thing to you!”
“Enid!”
“I’m sorry Maria, you need to have faith, real faith, yes this could kill us, but if we don’t try everyone is dead anyway.”
Violet raised her hand. Enid looked at her and sighed.
“This isn’t school Violet, you’re a big girl now, say what you want to say.”
Violet frowned at Enid.
“Assuming you can make this universe in a stone thing. How do we get him into it?”
Eyre spoke up.
“Obviously we’re going to need the Seers and all of mom’s supporters, lure the Black Son into a trap. Then close the net on him.”
Enid looked at her daughter. She pondered speaking up, but it was a decent back up plan.
“You’re on the right track there Eyre. And to lure him in is easy, I’m going to call him out when I pull that silver sword from the floor with my true face on.”
“Mom! Are you sure antagonizing him is the best option? He’ll know you’re leading him into a trap.”
“He’ll still come.”
“Yes, but he’ll be prepared.”
“He has been alive for millions of years, he is prepared for anything anyway. Look if we have to attack him in Prague the cost in lives is going to be astronomical. My plan is riskier but, in the end, less lives will be lost, unless we fail of course, but we’re not going too.”
“There is no way he’ll leave Prague mom he is too paranoid for that.”
“He will if I out him.”
“Mom, you can’t out vampires!”
“I’m going to call him a super terrorist who has the power to destroy the world and say he’s hiding in Prague on a video that is going to go viral because I’m the spitting image of a saint who is about to lift a sword that is literally merged with rock, I’m going to say God has warned me about him and sent me to retrieve the sword to do battle with him.”
“The council will not be happy with you.”
“They aren’t happy with me any way; They’re all sitting there scared shitless of the day I go after Lucius and take over and execute them all for murdering Mariana.”
“Mom, this is a reckless plan.”
“I’m getting tired of this skulking around in shadows.”
“People will die.”
“People will die anyway.”
Maria had been listening and stroking her crucifix she finally let her hands fall to the table.
“Enid is right. We have already been told the time is now by God.”
“He’s been alive for billions of years, and how do we know he doesn’t mean in a thousand years.”
Enid put her hand on Eyre’s.
“I know you’re frightened, but at some point, we’re just procrastinating.”
“So that’s your plan mom, that’s it, call him out like you’re at the playground. Taunt him?”
“Something like that.”
Violet looked at Enid, really looked at her.
“You’re not telling us everything, mom three.”
“No, I’m not, and I won’t be. Learn to live with it.”
Eyre and Maria both looked at Enid now.
“Mom what are you holding back?”
“I was told to not tell anyone, ever, under any circumstances. And considering the source was the creator of everything I’m going to keep my mouth shut, thank you very much.”
Enid almost said a few expletives in the sentence but after a glance at Maria had avoided them. Eyre gave her mother a look, Maria simply nodded. Violet blinked, having the gift she knew Enid wasn’t lying.
“Fine, let’s hope it wouldn’t save lives huh? Okay, you call him out, he shows up. What then? You know he’s bringing an army.”
“I know he is.”
“And where are we going to do this?”
“Here.”
Eyre coughed.
“What? There are a million people here.”
“It’s our home turf we have the advantage.”
“Yes, but you’re talking about starting a war between two demi-gods and their armies in a city with a million people. The…the innocent lives its unimaginable.”
“Open field, we’re done, we need the advantage city warfare brings. If we fail everyone dies, so I am going to call a few thousand acceptable losses.”
Eyre looked at her mother with disgust.
“You don’t like it, but kid, I’ve fought more battles than you have, we’re the rebels in this situation, they have numbers, we need to make the terrain work for us.”
Eyre stood up and walked away. Enid sighed and the other three women continued their conversation. Eyre felt a hand on her arm. She looked up it was her biological grandfather.
“What do you want?”
“To talk with you.”
“There is nothing to say.”
“You are mad at your mother. I know I am the last person who should speak about… she is right. You need all the advantages you can get in the war that is coming. I’ve seen her, I’ve seen her sitting up at night looking out the window. Drawing out different battle plans and strategies, she has tried to find another way, but there isn’t one.”
“What would you know about right choices?”
“You know what I’ve done, and it has been a lot of terrible choices, but I do know war, and your mother knows it as well, I can tell you do not. Sacrifice is always necessary for victory. The question is who is willing to sacrifice more, you or your enemy.”
She pulled her arm away and walked out the back door slamming it as she left. Enid’s father watched her leave and went back to cleaning up the kitchen sparing a glance at the three remaining women. Eyre returned after half an hour and sat back down she frowned at her mother but gave her a small nod. The conversation had turned back to the spell. Maria was speaking.
“Theoretically a place where reality is less stable could allow us a little more leeway.”
Enid and Eyre looked at each other and said one word.
“Demon.”
Maria narrowed her eyes and looked at them.
“What?”
“The demon, Deloris summoned a demon down in the river valley, it’s a memorial park to my old singer identity.”
“Eyre’s right, reality was already weaker there, and the Demon being summoned and destroyed probably made it less stable.”
Maria’s fingers found her crucifix and started stroking it again.
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“When would we do this?”
Enid spoke after a few minutes.
“All hallows eve, or the winter solstice. I think Hallows eve is the better choice. The mortals tend to believe more into the supernatural that night and the collective reality is weaker.”
Maria nodded, Eyre sighed and nodded.
“So, we have fifteen days to prepare ourselves.”
“Once we do it, we’re on a clock.”
Maria touched the paper the spell had been printed out on with her pale hand.
“Time will not be as short as you think. I provided the energy calculations, and the diagrams Mariana drew without the context to the people you have provided the research grant too. They used their supercomputer to generate the most stable molecular and physical structure to contain it. They were able to produce one crystal. It is locked in in their lab. That crystal should keep it stable for longer than is necessary. Mariana did not have access to a supercomputer, or she would have determined this herself. They were very excited because it is some sort of breakthrough for data storage.”
“I guess we’ll have to steal that then.”
Everyone nodded. Violet gave a small frown.
“Aww, I am going to miss giving out Candy on Halloween.”
“You’re not coming Violet.”
“What?”
“The energies we are going to channel are incredibly dangerous, you are not going to be involved in the ritual, so you don’t need to be there.”
“So, you might just not come back that night.”
“That could be every night, Violet.”
Violet threw up her hands.
“You’ve been training me, I can help.”
Eyre put her hand on Violet’s
“Violet, you are twenty-five years old, and you have no talent for magic. The three us have almost three thousand years of experience between us. Someone needs to watch the old man.”
“I get to babysit the two-thousand-year-old pedophile?”
“Unless you’d rather we just leave him to his own devices.”
Violet glared at Eyre and crossed her arms.
“Fine. Not sure who is worse with the I’m older than you bs. You or your mom.”
“When you’re two thousand years old you can make the rules kid. Until then, please just do as you’re asked.”
“I can’t believe I agreed to live with you two.”
Violet kicked her chair back and walked out of the room. Enid shrugged and looked to the other two. Maria released her crucifix and looked at Enid.
“You could have been nicer about that, the both of you. She was just trying to help.”
“You know as well as we do, she wouldn’t be safe there.”
Maria frowned while stroking her crucifix.
*****
Eyre put her hands on Violet’s shoulders. Eyre looked back at her mother and aunt. Enid was wearing her Atlantean armor Bloodseeker hung around her hip and she was covered with a trench coat. She was leaning on the fender of SUV they were going to take down to the ritual site. Maria was stroking her crucifix and wearing her typical black dress. Her nails had black nail polish. Her straight black hair that came from her mother Aurelia was tied back in a ponytail. Eyre looked back to Violet.
“It’s only been a year, but I think of you as family. If all does not go as planned and we do not come back everything I have will be yours.”
She looked to the house.
“If we do not return, what happens to my grandfather is up to you. I know what I want to do, but the choice will not be mine. Mom would say this if she wasn’t an emotional cripple, but she cares for you a lot too. We are leaving you here because someone will have to fight if we cannot.”
Violet nodded. Eyre pulled her into a tight hug.
“You’re my daughter, whether you came from my blood or not.”
Violet could feel blood slipping down her cheeks as Eyre spoke those words.
“Good luck Mom two.”
Eyre kissed her forehead.
“Make the children happy tonight. If we fail, this could be their last Halloween.”
Violet nodded and Eyre released her and turned to her waiting mother and aunt. Maria got in the back seat and Enid slipped into the front seat putting Bloodseeker between her legs and resting her hands on the pommel. Eyre started the car and pulled away.
“This is going to work. Have faith.”
Eyre glanced at her mother then back at the road. Lightning flashed in the distance. Odd weather for this time of year in Edmonton.
“He’s sending us a storm as a sign.”
“Or its nature’s way of tell us to back the hell off.”
“Eyre, it’s going to work.”
Maria remained silent her fingers stroking her crucifix.
“Since when have you had faith in god?”
“Since this is going to be the only way it works. If he interferes. And he’s been planning this for a long time. He’s going to help. He’ll wait until the very last instant, but he’ll help.”
Eyre sighed and pulled away from the light they had stopped at. They could see pairs and groups of customed people walking into the annual Halloween party at the conference center. The trio watched them. All of them unaware that someone was going to channel enough energy to create a new black hole at the center of their city this night. Eyre spoke.
“Do you ever wish we could just do that?”
“Do what?”
“Get dressed up and go to a party for going to a party’s sake?”
“Yes, all the time. But it’s not for us. After the Black Son is gone, maybe it will be.”
Maria nodded.
“We have been granted abilities far beyond our mortal brethren and with those abilities comes a responsibility to use them to protect everyone from people like us, and from things like the Black Son.”
Eyre nodded. Enid sighed. They drove on down into the River Valley heading towards the memorial park. Eyre pressed a button on her steering wheel.
“Call Vicky Office.”
“Calling Vicky Office.”
“Hello, Chief of Police’s office.”
“Hi this is Eyre, is Vicky available?”
“She is, I’ll transfer you.”
There was a pause.
“Eyre, thought you’d be doing some Halloween gathering or something.”
“Not tonight I’m afraid. Actually, I am, well, Sarah has told me there is going to be a demonic attack tonight, at the memorial park for some singer in the valley. She said someone summoned one there a long time ago her mother fought and that she has forewarning another is coming through. She asked me to call and let you know so that you could, reduce traffic in the area, or at least keep your officers at a safe distance, apparently it has some power that will hurt anyone who sees it. I didn’t understand half of what she was talking about but I know her, and she knows I know you so she asked me to call you directly.”
“Another one of these super terrorists?”
“I know they are becoming a problem. She also warned me of something bigger to come but didn’t give me more details. Anyway, how you treat this is your call you’re the chief of police, I’m just a concerned citizen.”
“Thanks for the heads-up Eyre. Tell Sarah thanks and good luck from us, would you?”
Eyre paused for a moment.
“I will. Have a safe Halloween old friend.”
“You too.”
Eyre pressed the button on her steering wheel to hang up. Enid nodded to her. Maria who had been leaning forward sat back in her seat. Eyre parked the car on the street several blocks away. Enid pulled the strangely shaped crystal from her pack and strapped Bloodseeker on her waist and pulled her trench coat closed. She threw the crystal up and down as the trio walked.
“Mom could you not risk breaking the one-of-a-kind crystal that cost a hundred million dollars and three months to make?”
Enid shrugged and wrapped her fingers around the crystal when it came down after her last toss. Maria’s fingers went to her crucifix again.
“Also, it should not go in a pack after we bind a new universe into it. The results will be unpredictable.”
Enid raised an eyebrow and glanced at Maria.
“Noted.”
They were an odd trio. Two girls who looked like teenagers and a thirty something woman with a streak of grey in her red hair. One looked like the ghost of a Victorian girl, the other looked as though she as dressed up as the superhero Sarah, and the final one was dressed in a t-shirt leggings and hoodie. When they arrived at the park, they were a bit perturbed to see another person already there. She looked female based on her silhouette, when they got close enough that their vampiric night vision was able to discern features Enid and Eyre realized it was Lilith. They walked up to her. She had a sweater and jeans on. Her straight black hair was left free.
“Children.”
“Mother.”
“Grandmother.”
Maria looked at the three other women her hand sliding back up to her crucifix and she began staring at Lilith. Maria glanced down to her side as if someone were speaking to her and her dress swished at the back as if a child had just hidden behind her. She raised her left hand as if to stop something from advancing.
“You are a being of great darkness why have you come here, ma’am?”
“So polite. I am Lilith, Mariana Aurelius. And you may tell your ghostly companions I mean you and them no harm.”
“You can see them?”
“I am the queen of doors, dear child, I can see everything.”
Enid sighed and put her hand on Maria’s shoulder.
“Why are you here mother?”
“You need a fourth.”
“We have a fourth and I’m not sure he is going to appreciate your presence.”
“Then you need a fifth. Hand me the crystal. Once you start channeling the energy, I will make a doorway to slice of creation at the dawn of time via Limbo.”
Maria kept stroking her crucifix and staring at Lilith. Enid glanced at her sister, she realized she wasn’t upset but was trying to do calculations in her head. She let her be. Enid offered up the crystal. Lilith looked at it.
“Funny this little thing is going to be the downfall of the Black Son. Created by the very things he corrupted enough so they could make it for us. Little cuachag, this is dangerous. Are you sure you want to do this?”
“It is the only way, mother.”
Enid turned to take her place in the triad with Lilith at the center holding up the crystal to form a three sided pyramid.
“One last question, daughter, is it true you pulled your father from the ocean and he is living with you?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting. Would you like assistance disposing of him?”
“No thank you, mother.”
“As you wish.”
Maria took up her position. The trio had mapped out the park and determined exactly where the rift to hell had formed. It was also the nexus of all the magical energy in the former burial ground. Eyre took up her position. Maria’s hand fell from her crucifix, and she held her arms out slightly to her side and palms up. She spoke up.
“Hands and arms like this. As we practiced. Does everyone remember the rote?”
Eyre nodded; Enid nodded. Maria started to speak, and her voice took on a strange echoing quality as the words of the Atlantean spell started to leave her mouth. Her eyes started to crackle with the same purple energy they had so long ago when they prepared to battle the Black Son. Eyre’s voice joined the chorus also taking on a similar quality to Maria’s, her eyes began to crackle with the same purple energy. Enid started just after her daughter her voice taking on the same echoing quality. Her eyes began to crackle with the same energy. As they finished their first stanza the purple energy flowed down their bodies and to their palms and began leaping to the crystal that Lilith held aloft. Lilith raised her other hand and thrust it downwards and a ring formed around the entire group. It shimmered with pure white light. The black veins that had started to form along the hands of the ritual casters started slowed their rapid pace. Enid, Eyre and Maria could feel the pull of consensual reality started to tear at their bodies as they pierced it violently with their trespass, Lilith’s attempt to bring a bit of the raw stuff of creation from before the beginning at time had held it at bay temporality but it would not last long.
The trio continued their next stanza. The black veins started to grow thicker as they wormed their way up their arms. Eyre was the first to collapse as her body failed her and she lay writhing on the ground. Enid held out longer perhaps due to her age and strength and the power her father had bequeathed her but she failed as well as she could no longer speak when the veins reached her throat. The burden fell to Maria who despite her protests continued on long past her niece or sister. But she too felt her strength starting to fail. At the last second as she felt her body starting to disintegrate as reality threated to tear her apart she felt a jolt of power and her eyes flashed white and the energy from her palms becoming blinding and finally dissipated the crystal flared with a bright flash of purple then white and became just a soft glow. Lilith was left standing the center of three collapsed vampires. Maria was the worst of the three her eyes were missing, and black veins were emanating from her hollow sockets. Her hands were pitch black and her fingers were missing their ends.
She gathered herself up on the statue of Eyre’s alter ego and created another doorway and shouted into it. Her exertions channeling a gateway to the dawn of time had almost been too much for her.
“Help!”
Out came Violet and Enid’s father who looked at the black-haired human woman. Recognition flickered across the man’s face. Lilith motioned to the fallen, but still alive vampires.
“They will need vampire blood before dawn, or they will fall into a healing sleep for centuries. Mariana will need at least three or four worth.”
Violet started with Eyre, and Enid’s father scooped up his daughter first pulling them through the gateway Violet kept giving Lilith the strangest looks. Finally, Violet picked up Maria and carried her home. Enid’s father approached Lilith who glared at him. He put his arms under her and scooped her up. She clutched the world stone to her chest staring daggers at the man she wanted to do dark things too.
“Morag.”
“I should kill you.”
“It is less then I deserve for what I did to our child.”
Lilith blinked at him. She had never known him to feel remorse. He put her down on the couch. Violet stood up straight.
“Angus, we are going hunting. Any vampire we see comes back here and is dinner for them. My mothers are not dying tonight.”
“I am with you, child.”
Violet paused for a moment. She looked at Lilith.
“Wait, you can open a portal anywhere?”
Lilith who was starting to regain her strength nodded.
“Where would you like to go?”
Violet had a wicked grin as she spoke, which was unlike her.
“Toronto, Ontario, Dayside Apartments, Apartment 103.”