Enid walked the streets of Rome. After wandering for an hour, she found herself at the Colosseum, even that as old as it was, was still younger than her. She’d seen it when it was new, the only occasion she had to visit Rome during the classical period before she turned her back on her father and the Imperial Council.

Well old girl, I feel like you look.

Her mind wandered back to the day she had stood here beside Sextus. He had asked if she’d go for a walk with him. He was the man she knew as a true father and even all the anger she felt towards him for Mariana’s death. She agreed if only because she felt she owed him her life. They had walked the Roman streets her in a dress, him in his tunic. He had stopped on the very spot she stood now and spoke to her for the first time he had pulled off his mask of calm, loving, leader. Instead, she could see a face drained of emotion and fight. It was the anniversary of the death of Enid’s adoptive mother. He took her hand that night and looked into her eyes.

“Enid, one day I will no longer be able to go on, and on that day I will have to choose my replacement. I thought it would be Lucius, but he is not the man I hoped he would be. It is like I have lost my entire family. Plutonia died last year, Mariana is dead, Lucius is a stranger to me. Only you remain who I believed you to be. If you prove to me, you are worthy you will succeed me and it will be a terrible burden.”

Enid remembered disbelieving his words, even though her gift told her he spoke the truth. The anger of his betrayal of Mariana had welled up at that moment and she had snapped. The cracks were still there in the stone, even two thousand years. She recalled her words the had been filled with spite and rage.

“I don’t want your power! Mariana is dead because you killed her! You did this to yourself!”

The anger had radiated from her and sent him flying backwards cracking the stone between them. She had stalked over to him drawing her sword, she stood over him her sword raised in two hands ready to thrust Bloodseeker into him.

“Everything you love is gone because you burned it all down! I’m all you have left because I was the only one strong enough to survive you. And I have my real father to thank for that strength. That realization that everyone will betray me and hurt me.”

Her hands had shook with the rage flowing through her. She had wanted so badly to end him right there. To kill him, blame him for all of it, every bit of bad in her life and the world. She had her first epiphany at that point. He didn’t have his hands up defensively, he didn’t look frightened, he looked relieved, his chest raised, ready to meet the blade. He looked like he was ready to welcome an old friend. Enid had sheathed the blade and offered her hand.

“You want to die. I won’t let you. Lucius is too evil to replace you. I can’t do that to the world, and neither can you. Find someone who deserves the power. It’s not me.”

He took her hand and pulled himself up. He looked at the damage to the stone at his feet.

“You have grown powerful Enid. I hope your wisdom continues to keep pace.”

“This was a test, wasn’t it?”

“Everything is a test my daughter.”

She looked back up at the remnants of the Colosseum and to the damaged stone at her feet. She heard someone walking behind her. She glanced back expecting police, but instead she saw an old man with a cup. He was disheveled and looked half starved. She looked back at the colosseum content the man wasn’t a threat, or food. She heard him speak, it was oddly in Latin.

“Do you have a bit of coin for an old man?”

She spun around and looked more closely at his face. She recognized it immediately.

“Fuck off Ezekiel.”

“So, no coin then?”

“If I had any to give you I would just in case it would get you to leave me alone.”

“You seem quite rude, considering you’re speaking to an archangel.”

“Considering how you fucked up my life today; I think I’m being downright polite.”

“That wasn’t me.”

“Who was it? My fairy godmother?”

“No, that was Michael.”

“I thought Gabriel was his messenger?”

“She is, but Michael wanted to do it. He likes you, now that he has come to terms with the fact, you’re the one destined to fight the Black Son and not him.”

“So, he used my face as what…a sign of respect?”

“No, the sword you use, it is the one thing that is unique to you and no other. No one else can lift it without succumbing to it. Sarah’s identity and mission needed to be beyond question.”

“Ya, but he left a copy impaled in the floor of St Peters”

“He was always a little dramatic. You’re the only one who can move it, should you choose.”

“What am I supposed to do with a giant chunk of silver?”

“I’m sure you can think of something, child.”

“Child…what am I twelve?”

“To one of God’s Angels you will always be a child.”

“What are you doing here?”

“What am I always doing.”

“Following God’s orders like a little bitch?”

“Ouch.”

“Am I wrong?”

“No, you are not wrong.”

“So then why did sky-daddy send you now?”

“That is a new one. I bet you won’t say that in front of Mariana.”

“She’d have a heart attack.”

“He sent me to talk with you. He decided you needed a grown up.”

“Me, need a grown up? I’m two thousand years old.”

“Well sometimes humans need someone older than themselves to have a conversation to help them put things in perspective. A parental figure. You have real shortage of those types, don’t you?”

Ezekiel looked at her expectantly.

“Well, you’re not wrong. It’s too bad you’re dressed like a bad copy of every homeless man ever or we could go sit someplace and talk over food.”

“I thought you didn’t eat.”

“I can eat at night; I just don’t get any sustenance from it.”

Ezekiel snapped his fingers and suddenly he was the very picture of Italian gentlemen, still looked to be in his sixties but he was dressed in a dapper suit.

“Better?”

“A bit overdressed but whatever.”

“Lead the way.”

Enid pulled her tablet out of her bag and tapped a few words into it and twenty minutes and one car ride later they were in a restaurant. Ezekiel looked slightly impressed.

“You know for someone who is as old as you, you handle this new technology very well. Most of your kind aren’t so adept.”

“Evolve or die, it’s the law of nature.”

“While true, I do not wholly agree with the concept of evolution. Trusting it to create the fittest for survival seemed…like gambling.”

The pair were led to seats. Enid pulled off her soiled hoodie and tossed it beside her. Ezekiel looked around the restaurant.

“This looks very American.”

“If you have a problem with the choice of venue then maybe don’t visit me at 1:30 am.”

“What should I eat?”

“I don’t know, what do you like?”

“I am not familiar with…food.”

“Get a pizza. You probably don’t have any money, do you?”

In response Ezekiel pulled out some Roman coins and put them on the table. He gave her a proud smile.

“I did remember I needed that, thank you very much.”

Enid put her face in her palm and slid them towards Ezekiel.

“Those would have been useful in Rome, but not Rome, Italy. You truly have no concept of time, do you?”

“What’s wrong with those, they are gold.”

“Just stop. I got it.”

A waitress approached the table and looked between the pair. Enid spoke in Italian.

“Hi, could we get two cokes, and a meat lover’s pizza?”

“Anything else?”

“No thank you.”

The waitress nodded and sauntered off.

“I do not understand what is wrong with the coins, I even made sure I aged them.”

Enid leaned on her elbows, face in hands.

I'm surrounded by idiots.

“They are worth millions of dollars then, but this place would not take them as money, you need Euros, or a credit card.”

“Hmm, well I have learned something new. I guess these are useless.”

He scooped them off and offered them to Enid. Enid looked down at them and sighed, then took them and tossed them in her bag where she had at least a thousand of them already. Enid reached into her bag and pulled out a plastic baggie with a stack of Euros in it and pulled out bills totally one thousand and slid them across the table.

“Here, these are good anywhere in the world in the twenty first century.”

She also pulled out enough to pay for the meal they had ordered and a good tip and put the bills in her jeans pocket. Then put the baggie back in her Atlantean pack. She glanced around, no one was really paying them much attention. She shrugged. Ezekiel took the offered bills and folded them and put them in his jacket pocket.

“Strange how they put more value on paper and plastic then the do on actual gold in this day and age.”

“Well society has come to realize things only have value if you give them value.”

“What do you value Enid?”

“Family. And a good blade.”

“Yet you carry that.”

Ezekiel pointed at her Atlantean bag.

“You asked me what I value, not what I do.”

Ezekiel nodded. He watched her while glancing up at TV now and again. Images of the angel kept showing up. Enid stared at the table waiting silently. Ezekiel looked up at the flat screen and back down to Enid.

“He did a good job, very good likeness. Tell me what is a forty-kiloton nuclear explosion?”

Enid coughed on coke.

“Someone detonated a nuke?”

“What is a nuke?”

“Do you know what happens when you split an atom?”

“No, what happens?”

“Enough destructive power to level a city. In one bomb.”

Enid pulled out her tablet and searched for nuclear detonation and showed the video to Ezekiel whose eyes grew wide and his face got very pale.

“They have such power?”

“For about eighty years.”

Enid craned her neck so she could see the news feed. It took a couple of passes of the Italian for her to get every word. Seismic detectors have picked up a possible nuclear explosion in southern Europe. With a strength of forty kilotons. There has been no increase in radiation and no visible signs were present. Scientists are still investigating. She saw the time it had been detected and sunk into her seat wishing she could vanish.

“Is it bad?”

“Depends, it was me.”

“You blew up a nuke…as you call them?”

“Keep your voice down.”

Their pizza arrived along with new drinks. Enid pulled a slice of pizza over to her plate and poked at the crust. Ezekiel copied Enid’s behavior then said quietly.

“So, you blew up a nuke?”

“No, I got angry. Usually a bit of wind, nothing destructive, but this time it was way worse.”

“That makes sense.”

“What do you mean that makes sense?”

“Well, you are the inheritor of the Second Son’s legacy. You are God’s most powerful creation.”

“Slow down, what do you mean most powerful creation?”

“The man you called Sextus was built to enforce God’s will on creation. You have now inherited his power.”

“What kind of maniac would do that?”

“Sextus.”

Enid opened her mouth to say something then closed her eyes. She spoke in Enochian knowing no one would understand but them.

“Why would God let him put that kind of power in me? I’m a nobody, I’m worse than a nobody, I’m right next door to a sociopath.”

Ezekiel tugged on the point of his goatee. The wrinkles around his eyes contracted slightly and he looked Enid up and down.

“Tell me child, you have had the power to wipe out entire cities for millennia why have you not done so?”

“I didn’t need to, it would have alerted the humans to our existence and, oh, cities are full of innocent people.”

She said the last part like she considered it common sense, rolling her eyes as she did so.

“You’ve killed innocent people before.”

“Because I had to save more lives than I killed.”

“Sounds like justification to me.”

“It isn’t justification, it’s just facts. If a hundred must die to save thousands, then that’s what needs to be done.”

“Aren’t you playing at being god then?”

“Someone has to, it’s not like he’s been getting involved.”

“So that templar keep you razed to the ground, it was for the greater good? There were innocent nuns in there, servants.”

Enid closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. She took a bite of her pizza and pondered.

“If I just killed the witness it would have been suspicious. What kind of attackers would leave people alive? A monster attacking the keep and killing a witness that leads to an inquisition, thousands of pugmentia die, tens of thousands of humans die, falsely accused, or in retaliation. My way all the evidence was removed, a hundred templars, forty servants, and one witness die. Muslim’s get blamed yes, but the crusade was happening anyway. I minimized the damage to life.”

“How do you know more would have died if I had not intervened in this way?”

“I saw it happen in Rome. Humans will destroy what they don’t understand, and they won’t be discriminate about it, meaning innocent humans get swept up in their purge. Nero burned the city down trying to kill us, how many died? Picture that across Europe and the middle east. It would have been a blood bath.”

“Yet you did nothing to try and stop the world wars.”

“Nothing was going to stop those. The humans wanted war and it wasn’t my problem. Human on human violence is on them. Look there must be a line. My line is I don’t interfere with human politics, violence or crime.”

“So, if you saw a child getting beaten you wouldn’t interfere?”

“You know I would.”

“Then, is there really a line?”

“Are you trying to make me feel like I have no moral compass?”

“No, I’m trying to make you realize you have morals, and are worthy of the gifts given to you. Yes, you have your issues, but you rarely use your abilities without due consideration of whether it is necessary or not. When you do it’s in the heat of the moment. The very fact you don’t want the power speaks to your worthiness.”

“Obviously I’m not, I just obliterated several kilometers of woodland.”

“You were not aware of the power, now you are, you will show better control in the future.”

“Ever heard the saying ignorance is no excuse?”

“It is done, you cannot change it, technically you could but I’m not about to let you.”

“Thank you for your help then.”

“Fiddling with time is a delicate thing. If we were to correct your little incident, is an abuse of that power.”

“I would not want to; I am the sum of my history.”

“So even if given the chance you wouldn’t erase or change the past?”

“I would love to go back and save Lucius but then how much changes? How many lives am I impacting so that my soul mate isn’t displaced by a psychotic pre-biblical enemy? Probably millions by now, looking at Narfordshire. Eyre wouldn’t exist. No, I would not do it. Too much possibility of harm.”

“So, you disagree with what Lilith has done?”

“I would love to say I do, but if it is to prevent the Black Son from destroying all of creation…then she probably is in the right.”

“Do you not see? You are morally and ethically worthy to wield the power of the Second Son. You don’t crave it; You will use it responsibly and you are capable of using it when necessary.”

“But I don’t want it.”

“You are the only one who God trusts wielding it. Eyre will inherit it one day, but she is not ready yet.”

“Why do I feel like I’m being moved around a board?”

“Probably because you are. God plays the long game. He is rarely overt and only when necessary to move it a long.”

“I hate being manipulated.”

“I have some advice, one ancient being to another, play the game, do your part, collect your reward. Resisting will only make you angry and will get you nowhere. I promise you I will make sure you are well compensated.”

“Wait you’re bribing me to be a good little god-minion?”

“No, I’m just telling you he already knows what you want and has made sure it will happen.”

“I want world peace, a normal life, and my first husband back.”

“Well two out of three isn’t bad.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll see.”

Enid grabbed her hair, narrowed her eyes and growled.

“You sound like Sextus.”

“Thank you for the compliment. He was a good person.”

Ezekiel took a bite of his pizza and quirked an eyebrow.

“This is amazing.”

Enid looked at him, blinked a few times, shook her head and picked up her piece of pizza and ate it. More to prevent her from saying something snarky then any need for sustenance. Once she finished chewing and getting her snappiness out of her system she spoke again.

“I need to come back during the day.”

“Yes, I dare say you should.”

“Thanks for the talk Ezekiel, I sort of feel better.”

“It is my pleasure child. I see now why the humans have children.”

“It has nothing to do with biological imperative to reproduce?”

“Of course, it does, humans who didn’t make more humans would be useless to God, however, I see that the ability to pass on wisdom, and advice in a parental way is a gift.”

“I will admit that is a pleasure.”

“You look so young it is easy to forget you’ve had four children of your own.”

“And twenty-two grandchildren. Not that I got to spend much time with the last lot.”

“What happened to Eyre’s brother?”

“He turned me down, was having too much fun living he said. He died in fifteen-nineteen.”

“Long-lived for a human.”

“Did you forget I ate from the tree of life? My children all lived long lives.”

“Ah yes that does have an impact on human life span a human who eats from it could live for a thousand earth years.”

“Why would you let it out of the garden then?”

“Oh, I don’t choose who gets to eat the fruit, that’s God.”

“So, every single fruit that has been eaten has been authorized by him?”

“Yes.”

“Oh…that’s pretty good security.”

“The only two beings that can go in and out of Limbo with no help are Lilith and myself.”

“But Mariana went.”

“Well, she cheated, but God didn’t stop her.”

“Of course, he wouldn’t stop his perfect obsessive compulsive, unrelenting, uncompromising little angel.”

“I sense the source of your anger tonight was your sister?”

“Yes. She just refuses to compromise, it’s all in with her, all or nothing. She never sees the grey areas. She doesn’t understand that sometimes you need to compromise.”

“You’ve had two thousand years to mature, she has had fifty years. When you were younger, were you not more uncompromising? Full of your ideals, certain of what you believed in?”

“She was a hundred and fifty years old when she got my husband killed.”

“You are old enough to know this, but you cannot blame Maria, for Mariana’s choices. She may look the same physically, but she is not the same person.”

“I know. I know. It is just hard.”

“Emotions are never easy; They were never meant to be easy.”

“Thank you. I think I needed an adult perspective. That wasn’t my daughters.”

“You are welcome, child. Now tell me more about this pizza thing.”

Enid smiled and the pair chatted for another hour before paying for the meal and walking on the streets of Rome until about ten am. Enid explaining the different buildings and functions to Ezekiel. Describing how cars worked. They finally parted ways when Enid reached her hotel.

“Thank you, Ezekiel. I feel better.”

“You are most welcome Enid, thank you for telling me about the human world.”

Enid waved and walked inside. Ezekiel walked around a corner and vanished into thin air.