Enid and Hazel had been walking silently for hours. Hazel could tell her mother wasn’t in a mood for words. Her mother was a hard woman to know. Sometimes she seemed so carefree and others she was extremely serious and other times she was wickedly vindictive. Like the man with the snake in the morning. She wouldn’t say moody, but her mother would often act before thinking and regret her actions deeply afterwards. She assumed her mother was still upset about the man that had died from the snake bites. She knew her pack would have cheered her mother on, as would most of her village. The man was a violent outlaw. He brought it on himself. Her mother had been thinking that way to. But now she seemed to regret her actions, she knew the others would not. That is what set her mother apart. She was trying to be better than the barbaric past she grew up and now had to live through again. Hazel looked at her mother again.

“I did not agree with the snake today, but you were justified in doing it. Our village would have strung him up and let the crows eat him alive.”

Enid walked trudging through the dunes. She didn’t look at her daughter. Hazel saw her sigh.

“It is not who I am anymore. This time stuck in the past. Its warping my sensibilities again. Even if I was going to kill him…I should have done it quickly and with no pain. He suffered for several hours knowing he was going to die. All I could do was comfort him. I am no better than Isis on her alabaster throne sacrificing slaves to sate her bloodlust. Only I make people suffer first.”

Enid had stopped walking and smacked her chest hard. Enid started walking again.

“You feel bad, that is what sets you apart.”

Enid stopped.

“I feel bad! Big fucking deal! A defenseless man is still dead after suffering for hours. How are my feelings helping him?”

Hazel stepped back as her mother’s anger unleashed her aura of power. She knew her mother wouldn’t hurt her, but she felt utter terror in the core of her being whenever this happened. Enid saw the look of terror on Hazel’s face and screamed into the desert. She leashed in her aura and buried it again.

“I can’t even have a conversation with my daughter without terrifying her!”

She started walking forward and screamed into the night.

“I just want to be normal!”

Hazel hurried to catch up to her mother.

“Are you sure you should be making that much noise?”

“We’re in the middle of the desert, it is called a desert because it is deserted.”

Hazel sighed, if it wasn’t for Lucius’s translation and commentary, she would have totally missed what her mother had done.

“Surely there are animals and people here.”

“Who are more scared of us then we are them. Just keep walking I’ll smell or see anything long before it is close to us.”

Hazel and Enid trudged on for a while before Hazel spoke again.

“Even if we can find grandfather, will he even help us? I mean if there are a bunch of vampires out to devour him, he might just be the slightest bit suspicious of us. And even if he does give us the blood this just seems to keep getting worse and worse. Do you really want to try again?”

“Leave Uncle Remus, Chomaggis and Sextus to me. And I was going over the numbers on the boat last night. I think I see what’s been happening. When and where we do it, is what is changing where and when we end up.”

“So, you know how to get home?”

“Not exactly but I know how to go forward and backwards, and by how much. Well sort of how much.”

“Can you explain it to me?”

“Okay, the earth moves around the sun, and it spins. The sun moves around the galactic center. The galaxy moves around the universe. So, at any point in time, we are not where we were before.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Okay, look you don’t need to know the why of it, you just need to understand that basically if we’re standing still, we’re still moving, moving really fast.”

“How is that possible?”

Enid sighed and dug into her bag for her twenty-first century tablet. And powered it on. Still had thirty percent battery. So, she tapped an icon and showed Hazel while they walked.

“This is universe simulator. This is us.”

She zoomed into Earth and spun it to where the middle east was displayed.

“We are here. Now the earth is moving around the sun the one you see very day, and the earth is spinning on its axis. Watch.”

Enid pressed the animation forward and Hazel’s eyes went wide. Now that she saw it made so much sense.

“Because the earth is spinning on its axis towards the east the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Not because the sun is moving because we’re moving. So, every three hundred sixty-five days the earth makes one full rotation. So, we are never in the same spot we started with that day. The sun.”

Enid centered on it.

“Which is basically just a ball of superheated gas…nevermind that is rotating around the galactic center the same way we rotate around it on the Earth.”

Enid zoomed way out and showed her as the simulation advanced hundreds of thousands of years at a time. Hazel was starting to understand now. She was not dumb just uneducated.

“So basically, if we go towards the spin of the earth, like against it, we end up in the past, if we go with it we end up going forward. The gateway has a built-in failsafe we can never end up in between spaces. So, since it can’t get us to limbo it drops us somewhere along the path of the earth. So, we end up on earth. It’s not perfect which is why we’re usually falling. It can’t put us inside something. Based on the telemetry of the last jump there is also some drag, that drag is what impacts the distance in time. Low drag, small jump, big drag, massive jump.”

“So, if we go east, we go forward, if we go west, we go backwards.”

“Exactly. So now I know when we jump, we need to go forward. The galactic rotation seems to come have something to do with it too, but I don’t know what because that is literally occurring over the scale of hundreds of millions of years. So literally we would only ever be in the exact same spot relative to the galaxy every two hundred thirty million years roughly. But since the galaxy is also moving pretty fast, we are literally never in the same exact spot ever. I don’t know. But I do know for sure if we go east, we will go forward and go west we will go back.”

“Just not by how much.”

“Yes. I need more data.”

“Mom, I don’t understand a half of what you say sometimes even with Lucius translating.”

“Look the scale I’m talking about here is…hard to comprehend. Like the earth, we could fit three earths in a storm on another planet in our solar system. A storm that has been going for well we could check now and see if it’s going if I had a telescope which is one of the things I do not have in my bag. But at least three hundred and forty years.”

Enid shook her hand that was holding the tablet.

“The point is. I can use this to pick a day and time and we can find out exactly where the earth and sun were when I we went to the 9th century, and I can do the same on the time to here. I can also go forward in time to the 21st century and see where the earth is going to be at any given day. So, I can try and predict when and where we should be. Like so we can hit the right point in time in space. But I would be guessing. The Atlantean tablet kind of picks up on what you’re thinking so when I was trying to figure out what is going wrong, or right it built a program on the fly to calculate the fourth dimensional coordinates we need. But it needs five points of origin and five points of arrival. Basically, for the tablet to tell me how to get home we need to do three more non-perfect jumps through time.”

Enid powered off the tablet and put it in her back Hazel was still giving her a blank look.

“Mom, I cannot understand most of this, I have no idea how you do.”

“Sorry, I’m not explaining it well and I think it’s just because mostly I’m just piecing stuff together here and there from things I read. I’m also half making this up as I go along. It’s not like they teach time travel 101 in university.”

“It’s alright. Just tell me what we need to do next.”

“Get across this desert without dying of thirst and starvation.”

“What’s after that?”

“Convince my Uncle Remus, or Chomaggis that I am an imperial in need of help. I’m going to need to use a different face for that the less people who recognize me when they meet my younger self the better.”

“Lucius mentioned someone named Tiamat.”

“Let’s hope she’s not there. She was Uncle Remus’s…I guess mate? She died during the uprising; She was not…nice, at least according to stories.”

“What if she is?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Let’s just hope it is Chomaggis or Uncle Remus. I know them well enough to convince them I’m telling the truth.”

“Okay we get them to believe us, what then.”

“They get my father we get his blood and get the fuck out before the uprising.”

“What if your father doesn’t come before the uprising.”

“Then we go to ground until its done. Its over in a week. It starts with the death of Pepi the second’s mother. Isis retaliates against the death cult. Over the course of a week young vampires all over the known world rise up and attack their elders feasting on their blood. On the second to last day Tiamat is devoured and the library is burned. Then Uncle Remus performs a blood ritual by sacrificing six of his children and brings about twenty-four hours of night where the elders devour the young. Innocent and guilty alike. Of course, some are able to hide and survive but the Pugmentia species is almost eradicated. The Imperials suffered a lot of losses, Tiamat being the only one I can name. Mostly because the Pugmentia gorged themselves on their blood. There were imperials who were involved attacking elders too. Just so you know, I’m basically a target to both sides unless I can prove to the council, I’m loyal.”

“Did the spirit-kin help your father?”

“No, the treaty doesn’t cover vampire on vampire or spirit-kin on spirit-kin infighting, only outside threats. I can’t imagine the spirit-kin were broken up by the Pugmentia being eradicated.”

“No, they are hated and basically attacked on sight.”

“Honestly after cleaning up their shit for two thousand years, I cannot say I blame the spirit-kin.”

“Okay, so everything is perfect, your father gives us as much blood as we need, we don’t get eaten during the uprising, what then?”

“I try my best to guestimate a way home.”

“Three more times?”

“Yes.”

“Can you go past when you were? Like go to your future?”

“I don’t know, if I read the Atlantean textbook on time right, it is impossible for me to go past when I should be temporally, unless I go with someone who has already been past it. Kind of like. If someone came back from say two hundred years ahead of me and they make the door theoretically I can go through.”

“But you’ve been in the past for sixty years.”

“Then if, if the book was right, I can show up in like 2086…I think.”

“And because you’re making the doorway, I can go with you. But if I was making the doorway I couldn’t go past a year or so when we left.”

“Exactly.”

“Then if I want to go home, we just go forward until I get to our village.”

“I did not think of that, but you…can’t make the door, you need to be a vampire.”

“Oh.”

“I mean there might be some spirit-based ritual, but I don’t know of it.”

“Well, if we can’t make yours work it might be worth it, but I’m so young the spirits don’t really like teaching kids advanced things.”

“But hey, once again I am not an expert, nor do I understand half of this and does it apply to Limbo? What I’m hoping is that Uncle Remus has some insight into why Limbo is barred completely.”

They trudged on.

“How far is it mom?”

“I figure with how wide the Red Sea was, we have about 1200 km to go, twenty kilometers an hour, figuring we walk for eight hours a day with food breaks, sleep and rest breaks. Thirty or forty days depending on our pace and the difficulty of navigating the sand. We’ll have to keep an eye out for any oasis we can find.”

“How long would it take you to fly there?”

“Five-Six hours, mmm minutes if I altered time.”

“I am slowing you down that much?”

Enid shrugged.

“It is what it is.”

“If I put up my helmet, you could carry me, right?”

“I don’t see why not, I can throw a train engine, you shouldn’t be that hard to fly with.”

“How long do we have before dawn?”

Enid sighed and looked up at the moon and stars.

“Just under four hours, maybe less.”

“Well let’s fly then.”

“Are you sure? You want to? Moving that fast is pretty…stomach turning for living creatures.”

“It is better than dealing with the heat from yesterday.”

Enid shrugged.

“Put your helmet and let’s try, grab on.”

Enid flew into the air she kept Hazel’s arms firmly pressed against her and she accelerated. Hazel’s grip loosened after half an hour. Enid landed to check on her and found out she was snoring inside her helmet. Enid scooped her sleeping form in her arms and launched back into the air. They were within about a two hour walk of Akkad when dawn arrived. Enid had missed her mark and been off course. She had basically overshot Akkad. She missed having GPS and aircraft control to guide her. She woke Hazel.

“Are we there?”

“No, I got lost. I asked a Sheppard. Akkad is about two hours back that way.”

Enid pointed.

“And this village is Babel, which is about modern-day Bagdad is which is where I was aiming for. So, I don’t want to hear anything about having to walk.”

“We should start walking.”

“Yes, because that is exactly what a vampire would do, walk into town in the middle of the day with the sun streaming down.”

“But grandfather does it all the time.”

“Right now, there is precisely one daywalker that anyone knows of that is outside of Atlantis, and that is my father… me having one would be…actually not that weird considering all the other Atlantean crap I have. Let’s just have breakfast, refill our water containers. I need some place dark so I can change my face.”

They ensured their desert clothes and boots covered their Atlantean armor. They had removed their cloaks and put them in the pack. They walked through the bazaar, it was small and fairly quiet due to the early hour. Several sellers were still setting up their wears which seemed to be mostly produce. There was some cloth. They drew a lot of eyes, two pale women with fair hair stood out. Their swords didn’t help them either, but Enid was damned if she was putting Lucius in the pack and Hazel basically said you can have my sword when I’m dead. It wasn’t as bad as Enid had assumed it would be. She saw several unaccompanied women; One was even bossing a few men around. She’d always thought of Mesopotamia as a place where women were in veils and locked inside. The Roman’s did tend to do their best to make others look like Barbarians. Of course, she believed the Romans over the modern archeologists, who knows more about the ancient world the people who lived in it, or the people piecing it together four thousand years in the future.

Enid wandering through the marketplace wasn’t to browse though, she was looking carefully to see what the coins looked like. Once she had a good idea of what she needed she reached into her pack and pulled out the plastic bag of coins Ezekiel had given her. She picked out eight coins. She put the large plastic bag back into her pouch.

“I’m sure there’s more in there but this should be enough to get us food, and drink, possibly a room. I’m guessing we have about two hundred shekels between these coins.”

“Okay, how much is that?”

“Umm, like twenty years of wages for an unskilled laborer.”

“So…that’s a lot?”

“Well, it’s not going to buy us a palace, but it will feed and clothe us for a long while.”

Enid approached a person selling fruit and bought a few apples and pomegranates. She then bought some bread and salted meat. The food should have cost her quarter a shekel in all. She ended up giving each merchant four times what they were asking for. She only had a few small coins the rest were heavier thus larger denominations. She split the food with Hazel and the pair sat on some sandstone stairs at the edge of the bazaar and began to eat.

“Most of these coins are worth too much.”

“These people don’t have enough to break a twenty-five-shekel coin. I’d be surprised if they have ever seen one. I have three of those, then some smaller ones. That’s getting into why aren’t you just using pure silver territory.”

“So, we’re rich but no one can take the money.”

“Well not exactly but almost, I’m not sure how long we’ll be here for, I’d rather not go paying four times the cost for everything like I just did. Basically, we have trade level currency, not ‘I want to go shopping in the bazaar currency’. Like I want to buy your harvest, here’s a twenty-five-shekel coin.”

Hazel was looking at the pomegranate intently. She turned it around every which way.

“How…”

Enid laughed and pulled hers apart and started eating it bit by bit and Hazel followed her lead.

“This is amazing.”

“Pain in the ass to eat, but delicious.”

“You know I can just hunt for food.”

“Do you know where you don’t find wolves?”

“Where?”

“Deserts and arid plains.”

“Oh.”

“Its fine we’ll figure it out. But this having to eat drink thing is a pain in the ass sometimes.”

“I would not know.”

Enid ate her last piece of bread and washed it down with water.

“The woman who monitors and taxes the Bazaar said we could use her house to get changed.”

Enid stood up and dusted her clothes off. She went over to the well-dressed woman and discussed their agreement, she passed a coin and motioned for Hazel to follow her. Enid changed out of her well abused desert clothes for fresh ones and put on her Sarah the Demon slayer face. Hazel nearly fell over when she saw the transformation.

“That’s…mom that is scary. Please say something.”

Enid smiled when she spoke her voice was different.

“I’m still your mother.”

“Why not go with something that fits in better?”

“It takes time to make a new look. We don’t really want to waste time so I’m just using this face.”

“Go thank the woman, I’ll meet you on the road outside the village.”

Enid slipped out of the house and waited for Hazel a quarter mile outside of the village. Hazel wasn’t that far behind and caught up quickly. The pair walked towards Akkada. The trip was quiet. Hazel preferred not to hear her mother’s strange new voice. She kept looking at her out the side of her eye. Her scent, her mannerisms were the same but the face the body dimensions were wrong. Her mother was attractive, or so she thought, but this woman, she was beautiful, beyond beautiful. She looked…perfect. Everything was right and it was disturbingly so when one was looking very closely.

“If you keep making that face it will stay that way.”

“You’ve been telling me that since I was three.”

“And mothers have been telling their children that since the dawn of humanity.”

“I am just, not comfortable with you looking like that. And sounding like that. My brain is breaking, you smell like mom, but you don’t look like mom. It isn’t working for me.”

“It’s temporary hon. As soon as I can I’ll go back to normal.”

“If you walked into Halvd’s village looking like that men would faint. Because all their blood would flow to their below their belt.”

“I made this face for a very specific purpose. It suits it well. I can do temporary stuff but it’s easy to see through.”

“I can imagine what purpose it had.”

“Ouch, are you jealous?”

“No, but your real face is fine. It’s my mom’s face. Dad fell in love with that face, Lucius did too and Halvd.”

“No, this face has nothing to do with getting men, or women. I needed something Angelic. Men in twentieth century have an odd idea of beauty compared to any other time in history. So, I basically made it look like a perfect version of a teenage cusp of adulthood woman. To their standards, because that would look like an angel.”

“I don’t understand but I guess I would need to see where you are from.”

“Yes.”

The pair fell into silence as they walked along the road. They ran into several other travelers. Some greeted others kept their distance when they saw the blades on their back. They were forced to step off the road when a long line of troops marched past. Enid glanced at Hazel. She was pondering if this was a sign of the beginnings of the uprising. A few men gawked at them, mostly Enid. One fell over himself knocking several down. One of the officers whipped them with his long spear and the scrambled to keep up with the troops. Hazel gave her mother a look.

“Look at the trouble that face is causing.”

“Then it will catch the vampire’s attention too.”

“I thought we didn’t want to get involved in this uprising thing.”

“If it was happening, I think that the vampires in charge of Akadda would be keeping the troops at home.”

“Unless they are getting rid of the army so they can kill Tiamat.”

“When did you get so smart?”

“Lucius said it.”

“Oh, he talks to you and not me now?”

Hazel shrugged.

“Maybe he doesn’t want to talk to his wife when she looks and sounds like some fair folk.”

Truly I wish you’d looked like that when I married you.

Enid frowned.

“Thanks for nothing Lucius.”

Always a treat to get on your nerves dear.

Hazel was smiling, she must have overheard Lucius.

“You keep this up I’m going to keep this face on for the foreseeable future.”

Hazel laughed.

“I guess it does stay that way permanently.”

Enid swatted at Hazel.

“You are a brat. You and Eyre…I can’t believe I’m going to have to deal with the two of you at once.”

Enid became more subdued after that. Hazel glanced at her mother. She’d seen the look before. Hazel had no children, but she understood that her mother always had a keen sense of loss because she did not have Eyre nearby. Hazel pondered her sister who she had seen a picture of and saw a video of her singing in a vampire costume. She saw her mother in the woman. She also saw a rebel. She flaunted the rules by appearing on stage as a vampire, but she saw her in the video taking out fake fangs and removing the make that made her look like marble. She saw in her the humanity that her mother seemed to be striving for. She couldn’t wait to meet her and at the same time she wondered if her mother would still have time for her when Eyre was near. Enid noticed her daughter looking at her. Hazel knew the smile well. It was genuine for the most part but some of it was just her mother putting on a brave face. Even with this face the smile was the same that comforted her some.

The pair reached the outskirts of Akkada about two hours before nightfall. It was a walled city with armed men at its gates. None were stopped as they passed through Enid and Hazel had several eyes on them as they passed through the gates. Not so much on them, more so their weapons. The only weapons they had seen on the road belonged to the army and several men wearing heraldry of the army that were guarding a heavy cart.

“Do you know where the library is mom?”

“No, but it has to be a big building. I doubt it gets a lot of foot traffic. Maybe beneath the temple.”

Enid looked around for a vantage point. She felt a tug at her arm she glanced back at Hazel who was point at a group of men approaching. They weren’t soldiers, but they were armed with knives.

“Idiots, can’t they see we armed.”

Enid glanced around for any sign of a militia or guards. There were none.

“Want to bet they paid off the guards?”

“Who are they?”

“My guess is slavers by the nets and clubs.”

They started to spread out. People had scattered. Enid glanced at Hazel.

“Let me try and talk to them.”

“Sure mom, they really look like they want to talk.”

Enid turned to the man who seemed to be directing the others.

“It would be nice if we didn’t have to kill you all today, maybe you should go find some people who aren’t armed.”

In response two men rushed them with a net. Enid responded swiftly and with a fluid strike of Lucius she severed net in half. As with most materials it was warm butter before an Atlantean weapon. Enid coiled up in a battle stance and held Lucius with a two-handed grip. She looked like a snake ready to strike. Hazel was pulled her larger sword out and was spinning it around and held it up.

The men seemed to be intent on their prize, and completely unaware of what a skilled bladesman looked like. When two tried to grab for her Enid lopped both of their heads off in one swoop, their flesh provided no resistance to the razor sharp and magical Lucius. As she swung the blade over their bodies the blood streamed towards the blade and the crystal became more and more blood red. Hazel cut one in half and continued with the same swing cutting a man’s leg off at the knee. With over half their number cut down the rest began to vanish into the back alleys of the city like rats slinking back to their nests.

“We need to get out of here before people start returning.”

“I was just thinking that.”

Hazel wiped her blade on one of the men’s clothes. Enid’s was still shimmering and spotless. Lucius had absorbed all of the blood and held it for his wife. The pair sheathed their swords and rushed into the main streets. They pulled on their cloaks and covered their heads. The wandered the city sticking to the well watched and protected areas.

“Mom, it’s going to be worse once night falls.”

“How well do you think it is going to do for a bunch of mortals if they come after me after nightfall?”

“And if they have vampires, you said yourself the vampires from this age were more powerful.”

“I doubt they’ll have vampires.”

“It could have been a vampire who sent those men.”

“Seven humans, please. Stop worrying.”

Hazel looked the sun that was dipping low. Enid shook her head. And looked towards the temple.

“My guess is the temple. Access would be restricted, and the priesthood would be controllable.”

Hazel shrugged.

“We’ll go in after dark.”

Enid and Hazel hid themselves in the shadow of an alley between two clay brick buildings. They ended up waiting well after dark as the saw shadows moving around inside. Once it seemed like it was safe, they moved forward. Only to have Enid swarmed by a flurry of shadows. Ripping into her. She tried to fend them off but even with her enhanced speed she was being overwhelmed by numbers. Hazel couldn’t even perceive what was going on she just saw blurs. Hazel shifted into her half-wolf form instinctively when she caught scent of many Pugmentia and started tearing them out of the air. But even she wasn’t doing enough to help her mother and was finding herself overwhelmed. Enid saw her daughter getting ripped up piece by piece. And lost her temper waves of energy began pooling around her and she screamed.

“Enough!”

A massive explosion of force blew out from her shattering the sandstone of the court and the statues of the temple. Hazel and dozens of Pugmentia were sent flying. Smashing through buildings and into stone walls. Hazel quickly stood up and ran to her mother’s side. Her white fur was pink and matted with her blood. Enid was in full momma bear mode. Two shapes shimmered into existence. The alabaster skin, the predator prowl. Imperials. Enid started to chant in Atlantean. Purple lightning crackling over her heads. Hazel looked back at her mother. Enid’s eyes were glowing purple and random bursts of energy where crashing down out of the sky around her. Hazel shifted to wolf form and ran as fast as she could. She could feel the surge of life energy being sucked towards her mother. The Pugmentia were turning black and crumbling the dust. Hazel saw a mother and her young son trying to flee but they were too slow. She shifted to her half-wolf form and carried them to safety. She leaned over them and covered the back of her head with her arm.

The Imperials started trying to run but they found themselves sucked back towards Enid and they clutched their throats turning black and exploding into ash. Four other imperials were further away, and they thought out of reach, but they weren’t. Streams of purple lightning were unleashed from Enid’s hands and their flesh burned off and they fell to ash. What was left of her desert cloths after the assault by the Pugmentia were disintegrated by the dark energy she called on. When the next wave of Pugmentia came at her she reached up her hand and tendrils of purple lightning lashed around them yanking them towards her she closed her fist and the lightning crackled caused a blinding flair and the Pugmentia burst into black ash clouds.

She looked around for any other enemies and she found one. He was watching, waiting thinking he was safe she saw him motion again and more Pugmentia came rushing out. She formed the energy she had stolen into a massive whip of electricity and killed several of the Pugmentia with the lash absorbing their life forces. The shadowy figure started to retreat but he found himself grasped into the air and pulled towards her. She didn’t recognize him which means he didn’t survive the Pogrom. He struggled to escape her telekinetic grasp but couldn’t. She closed her fist and every bone in his body broke at once. He was screaming now. She grabbed him by the face, and it started to melt off as the busts of energy flashed across her hand melting flesh and bone she tore into his throat. She gulped down his blood and then his soul and tossed his body aside like trash. Enid was lost to the blood and had been since she saw Hazel fall. She hadn’t even noticed she had come and gone from beside her. She reached out with her senses and could feel the rest of the Pugmentia out there. She reached out her arms and tendrils of purple electricity arced through the air all around her, almost a hundred vampires were held aloft around her, and she closed her fist tearing their souls from their body and devouring them. The bloodlust left her, and she collapsed on her hands and knees. Energy still arced out from her crackling along the ground. She felt like she was going to explode.

She looked around at the pillars of black ash and out towards the city. A pulse of energy went out from her cracking more of the temple stones and smashing other associated buildings. She was going to unleash of it into the city. She started to realize how many people would die. She pushed herself up and reached to the sky trying to direct all of the energy towards it. A pillar of purple electricity flashed into existence; It was visible for miles around. The last arc of purple energy traveled across her hand and Enid fell backwards unmoving. A silence fell over the city. It was so absolute that Hazel scratched her claw along the sandstone to make sure she hadn’t gone deaf. She looked at the mother and son she had shielded. They cowered beneath her blood-stained silver fur.