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Title: The Wren Snare
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fenderlove
Rating: R.
Summary: Not all Slayers make it into the written record. Beguiled, betrayed, and bedraggled, Elsbett Quartremain is a Slayer on the run from the entrapments of a destiny she never wanted.
Notes: Miss Quartremain appears in Part III of my fic Twelve Christmases in the Life & Unlife of William H. Pratt.
The Wren Snare
However Elsbett Quartremain had envisioned her life prior to being Chosen it certainly did not entail hurdling down a dank moor in the dead of night in a carriage that might have well been driven by Lucifer himself. Even after receiving her Calling, she could not have imagined that the reason for being jostled in a buggy in such a violent fashion with all her worldly belongings would be because she was being pursued by the very people who were supposed to protect her.
It all began with him.
In her mind's eye, Miss Quartremain could remember so clearly the day that would forever mark her, though she understood that the mark, both physically and metaphorically was with her since her birth, possibly since her conception, even still since she was a preconceived protoplasmic thing. The day had begun ordinarily enough as she accompanied her mother and younger sister, Ernte, on a shopping excursion. When they returned to the Sherbourne Hall, the Quartremain family's ample and sturdy home for several generations, Elsbett's father was sitting in his study with the door ajar, talking jovially to a young man of average height and build. The man would be introduced at supper as Mr. Charles Chalmers, a Londoner come to do business with Mr. Quartremain. Mr. Chalmers was affable in conversation though something in the manner of his gaze was off-putting, at first, to Elsbett.
It was as the meal was being cleared that something unusual happened. Mr. Quartremain ushered his wife and youngest daughter out of the room, which left himself, his daughter, and Mr. Chalmers alone to converse. Elsbett felt her stomach roll into knots, some keen romantic fantasy played about in her head of being suddenly married off to a stranger from the city. Certainly her father would never do such a thing to her.
Mr. Quartremain turned quite seriously to his eldest child and told to her a story of how he had once encountered a strange beast, a great black hellhound with eyes like burning coals, upon the moor from which he had barely escaped with his life. Elsbett had heard this story many times, always as a cautionary tale to keep her from straying too far from beaten paths between their home and town, but her father's tone and manner of telling became far more serious, more ominous. It frightened her tremendously in that moment more so than it ever did when she was a child.
When Mr. Quartremain had finished, Mr. Chalmers began to speak of many young girls who had been called upon to fight such creatures- werewolves, vampires, and the stuff of tawdry fiction. It was nonsensical enough to make Elsbett laugh at how seriously they sounded, but before Mr. Chalmers had completed his tale, Elsbett had been converted. She was one of the few Chosen, a Vampire Slayer.
Oh, how dashing Charles Chalmers had been with his flowery words about Destiny and Fate! How romantic his ideas appeared through speeches Elsbett later realized were calculated for the ultimate emotional resonance! How droll the notion of traveling the world in search of adventure and valor to a country girl of sixteen who had seen nothing of the globe save the prison of forested tracts and the atlas pages in her father's library. And he was handsome, no older than thirty with piercing grey eyes and a pleasant, open face.
With her heart overflowing with prospects, Elsbett was placed in the hands of a man who her father had known for less than a day. She had packed what belongings she thought were the most necessary, and not even the terrible sobs of her mother and sister in their confusion as she was helped into Mr. Chalmers's coach could make Elsbett shed any tears of her own as her excitement nearly burst from her. She did not look back at the comforting warmth of Sherbourne Hall as the coach ambled away, but in hindsight she wished she had savored it, taking in every nook and eave, as she knew now she would never set her gaze on it again. At the time, however, Miss Quartremain had the delightful visage of Mr. Chalmers to behold in the cool starlight that filtered into the coach's little windows, and for a country girl prone to fancy, it seemed like such a face could sustain her interest forever.
Charles Chalmers could get hanged for all Elsbett cared now as she shoved a heavy hatbox filled with stakes from where it had fallen on her lap as the shadowy forms of the moor shook in the chill night air as the carriage sped along. She sighed heavily, cursing the day she met her Watcher or, as she more rightly referred to him, her Jailor. He had lured her away from a comfortable existence where she might have made a good match (being the daughter of the wealthiest wool merchant in the whole county had its benefits, though she had not appreciated it fully) and into a hellish reality of beasts she could scarcely fathom. Though there was some compassion towards his situation for having been born to a family of Watchers, those who take Slayers as their charges to train them in their duties, her heart had no room to bear it any longer as Chalmers, as both a man and a soul not predestined for the dangerous task of being Chosen, could simply walk away to find a new purchase in life.
The beginning of her Slayerhood had been pleasant enough inside Chalmers's townhouse in a posh area of London proper. She had to adjust to dressing both herself and her hair without any assistance, but she managed. Chalmers told her stories of the Slayers of years past, and it seemed to Elsbett that there were a lot of Chosen being chosen and once one was she was not long for this world. She vowed that she would be the best Slayer on record, living into old age as an example to future generations, but she also wondered how many other Slayers had also taken such an oath and failed to meet it.
There was also the matter of exercise, learning fisticuffs and boxing as well as how to manage all manner of weaponry. It took more time than Miss Quartremain's limited patience would have liked, but eventually she became competent enough to exit the townhouse and begin to patrol the cemeteries of the districts for creatures of darkness. Chalmers was always there documenting her progress in one of his little moleskin journals. Elsbett grew to like him in a way, playing housewife to him when she was not reading or training. She made tea and ironed his shirts. What won her over to Chalmers was that her dismal failures at the latter made his more stoic facade erupt into uproariously laughter after she burned a hole through a shirt straight through to the board underneath. She found herself laughing along with him, and, without realizing it, she had given her heart over to him.
Perhaps it was because Chalmers was the only person she knew to trust and had contact with in those first weeks except for the demons she slew, and none of them were great conversationalists to her knowledge. Perhaps it was because he flattered her, told her that she grew lovelier with each day, that her hair was redder than ever a holly-berry was, that her eyes more lushly verdant than any jungle pass, and he lavished every moment of attention on her entirely. Maybe still it was loneliness, frustration, or the simplicity of a young lady becoming aware of her own natural urges. Whatever the cause, Miss Quartremain began sharing a bed with her Watcher against her better judgement and worries of her reputation. She remembered idly pondering the idea that perhaps Watchers and Slayers were to marry, as if her case were the natural progression of things. However, Chalmers flatly assured her that their actions would be considered taboo in their world, and that she should never reveal how they lived to anyone.
After three months together, Chalmers began to take Elsbett around the city for non-Slayer-related activities, such as the theatre and to dinner parties as well as giving her gifts of fine gowns and small tokens of jewelry. Miss Quartremain learned the social graces and manners of refined London ladies, a splendid counterpoint, in her opinion, to the rough physical training she endured in the course of her duties. She found that she was an excellent dancer, could converse wittily on a range of subjects, and that she too could be as charming as Chalmers ever was. She captured the hearts of many young men who gathered around her like a little retinue of footmen, ready to speedily attend her every whim and desire. Elsbett had been quite happy that Chalmers had never reacted with jealousy towards the fellows who filled her dance card. He seemed to glow with a certain amount of pride as he watched her win arguments over books she had never read and legal matters she barely knew anything about. It was probably because Chalmers knew that no matter how many men received her flirtations that she would be returning to his bed at the end of the night.
The novelty of intercourse and violence, however, quickly waned. Elsbett had always found the chase to be the most exciting part, and Chalmers was, unfortunately, very little overture and all show when it came to their relations, but he was warm and kind enough. Miss Quartremain discovered that she wanted something more from her life, away from dreary London and all its many demons though she could not be sure what that something would be. In her imagination, she saw herself tippling champagne, gambling a small fortune away on billiards, and having some scandalous affair with a crowned prince of Europe, not the soldier-laundress-mistress of a bachelor-scholar.
Much later, while fleeing across rutted dirt roads in a carriage filled with trunks and parcels that fell about her like unwieldy boulders, Miss Quartremain longed for that lackadaisical life again though perhaps without Chalmers in the picture. Things turned so quickly to the abysmal that she sometimes wondered if she had imagined the earlier pleasantness entirely. It had come that Chalmers had to travel on Council business out of town, leaving Elsbett to her own devices for a few days, which she greatly enjoyed. However, when he returned, he was not alone.
Chalmers introduced Miss Quartremain to the new Mrs. Chalmers, Lucy Collyweston. She was another member of the Watchers' Council. The young lady was even-featured and happily plump, and Chalmers patted her hand as though she was a favored pet. Elsbett was stunned to near silence upon hearing the news, quietly excusing herself to her chambers. Though Chalmers had staunchly repeated that a marriage between a Slayer and Watcher was forbidden, she had always entertained the idea of the two of them eloping. Hot tears ran down Elsbett's face, and she was shamed by them. She did not love Chalmers, but there was still a sting to her pride knowing that he had gone and disregarded her by marrying another without so much as a word.
When Chalmers eventually worked up his nerve to speak to Elsbett in her room, he tried to placate her with his apologies and his 'dearest Elsie's. He attempted to explain that, because of his place on the lower echelons of the Council, he would have to prove himself through Elsbett's efforts as the Slayer, and there had been rumblings amongst his superiors that the relationship they shared was becoming inappropriate. His new marriage was only to keep the rumor mill at bay. Miss Quartremain could have throttled him, could have defenestrated him, but she refrained. She should have thanked him for his sudden turn because she felt liberated by the revulsion that coursed through her.
The freeing feeling, however, would not last as a horde of Watchers descended on the townhouse a few weeks after Chalmers took his new bride. Apparently, the marriage was not enough to deter the suspicions. Miss Quartremain's first meeting with the superiors Chalmers always spoke of was disheartening to say the least. The three Watchers that questioned her in her bedroom were somewhat older than Chalmers- a Miss Wyndam, a Mr. Fairweather, and a Mr. Pryce. They were quite nosy into her daily routines, her patrol routes, how Mr. Chalmers spoke to her, if he was prone to laying his hands on her body in any way other than what was necessary for training purposes. True to the promises she made when she and Chalmers had first begun having intercourse, Elsbett told them nothing that could be construed as inappropriate. However, something in her voice must have belied the truth since none of the three believed her.
There was quite a commotion as she was forced out of the house and into a hansom with the Watchers. An older gentleman, presumably another Watcher, was lecturing Chalmers about some trouble that had occurred with the previous Slayer- "Remember what became of Spelling and that Callan girl!" The old man looked at Elsbett with a stern, hateful glint in his eyes as she was led away; he muttered something about not letting boys become Watchers until they were over fifty years of age. To Miss Quartremain's estimate, if Slayers becoming romantically entangled with their Watchers was a problem, age would not make a difference in its frequency of occurrence, might even exacerbate the fact.
From the comfortable living of the little townhouse, Elsbett was escorted to a monstrous-looking building in another part of London. It appeared so foreboding and gloomy that she did not want to enter it. She was forced inside and up a narrow back staircase to a dingy little room with a thick metal door. There were no windows nor amenities save the sparse bed and a small toilette area with a rather grimy wash basin. That was where the Watchers kept her locked away, allowing her no contact with another save the matronly woman who, with an expression of pure contempt, brought her meals to the door.
And so it was for a few weeks until finally the older gentleman, who had been chastising Chalmers while Elsbett was taken away, came to speak to her. He never introduced himself to her, which she found extremely rude, but he spoke with great authority so she assumed he must be the Director of the Council. He railed at her for an exhausting length of time about decorum and propriety that must be upheld by the Slayer. He then reminded her with much emphasis that she was replaceable.
Replaceable? Like an old blotter or a broken doll? Miss Quartremain tried to show no fear at the word, but she felt helpless even with her strength.
Miss Quartremain's life inside the Council itself was tedious and dull. There were no more party invitations nor theatre tickets in those days. She spent a good portion of every day studying stack after stack of diaries written by the Watchers, only being let outside of her room at night to train and exercise. The Watchers gathered around to evaluate Elsbett, tsking that Chalmers had taught her how to box and how unladylike it was. Miss Quartremain was beginning to wonder if she would ever get to slay a demon again. They brought her captive vampires to spar against, and she did not feel that it was at all sporting what with the pitiful creatures half-starved and weakened. Dispatching them was a mercy, really.
Days bled together, and an anger brewed in Miss Quartremain's breast that festered and raged until she could barely contain it. Her thoughts directed that frustration at the Watchers, but more squarely on her former Watcher. She imagined him to be her supreme Jailor, having led her down this path, holding all the information, the keys to her fateful imprisonment. Even more of a betrayal than the grand adventure she had hoped for becoming a life of cloistered rigidity, Charles Chalmers ultimately misused her heart. He held the organ within his hands, poetically speaking, and crushed into into powder more savagely than Elsbett had ever wielded a stake. Though she never loved him, Elsbett felt strong emotions for him, and he had reciprocated those feelings even as he was reproachful of how wrong their situation was.
After a month in captivity, it occurred to Miss Quartremain that she could run away. She could never be sure how she had been so blind to that possibility, though she supposed it had something to do with feeling like property, as her father had basically given her away like an old chair and would have controlled her life by holding all the pursestrings had she remained anyway. It could have also been because she had never used violence against a human being; though the more her brain stewed over being kept as a warrior concubine, the more tantalizing it became. A single fist to the dinner matron's face had been all that was necessary to incapacitate her while she was arriving with Elsbett's evening meal, and Miss Quartremain was off down the staircase, using her strength to push and practically throw anyone who got in her way as she escaped into the night, on her own into the world with no money and no possessions save the clothing on her back.
To not fall completely into ruin and destitution while hiding in the vast city, Miss Quartremain took to small incidents of pickpocketing and theft, which allowed her to utilize the stealth and speed her Slayer powers afforded her. She never lacked a meal or a warm bed while in the city though she was in a constant state of looking over her shoulder for the faces of the Watchers. She was more frightened of the other Watchers she had never seen before; she had heard there were very many. There was also a worry of what they might try to do to her for escaping. It was not as though Elsbett had given up her Calling as she explored London. She was able to slay more demons than ever before without the tight reins Chalmers had instilled into her by parading her into his social circle. Still, what did she have to fear from them? They weren't Slayers; they did not hold her strength in a bottle. While strolling the edges of the city in the first days of her solo journey, Miss Quartremain felt powerful, and she quite enjoyed it. There was nothing that would make her want to give her new freedom up.
Two years of unfettered travel had made Miss Quartremain worldly in public life and a mighty combatant in her personal Slayer life. She took on pseudonyms as often as she did lovers as other women might change a pair of gloves. Through a few fortuitous exchanges with village leaders in more isolated parts of the British Isles, she was able to earn her living by slaying troublesome demons and vampire clans that terrorized local communities. Instead of needing someone to keep her up, Miss Quartremain kept her lovers instead, and it pleased her to have control over her finances and her affections. Still, while comfort was to be found in the arms of a strapping youth or a fellow traveler, Elsbett was always attempting to stay one step ahead of the Council. They had come close to finding her several times, and she was saved by only a few narrow escapes. She would not stop slaying, though she knew the tales of her heroics would reach the Watchers eventually, setting them back on her trail. They could not take her Destiny away from her; this was her gift alone.
And then he appeared.
Miss Quartremain knew he was a vampire the moment she saw him at the Christmas party at Loxley. He was beautiful, all finely sculpted features, blonde curls, blue eyes. Had he been human, Elsbett would have gladly paid his way anywhere he wanted to go. Still, she thought she could get some enjoyment out of him before she had to place a stake in his heart. Perhaps she would keep some of his dusty remains in a locket in hopes of finding a breathing soul who might have the same lovely features one day.
Unfortunately, Elsbett had underestimated how quick the small framed vampire would be, and he escaped her, setting the house on fire as he went. By the morning, there were at least thirty dead or wounded, and somehow the blame for the disaster had fallen on the beautiful red-haired temptress who held court earlier in the evening for all the eligible bachelors rather than the lanky, unassuming young man who spent most of the evening stuffing his face with pikelets and watching the ladies dance. The mob that pursued her out of town frightened her only slightly as much as knowing that the Watchers would be setting out after her too.
And so Miss Quartremain found herself in a carriage heading into North Yorkshire with trunks of her weapons piled around her. She was going home. Her family would give her shelter until she could go on her way again. The thought of seeing her little sister and parents after nearly three years since her Calling took her away filled her with such hope. The horses were being driven hard, and after they passed the old town inn nearest Sherbourne Hall, Elsbett was foolish enough to feel relief.
The whinnies of horses behind the carriage made her heart sink. Men were crying out for the driver to stop the carriage though Elsbett retorted by screaming for him to keep going. With her senses heightened, she could hear the approach more clearly, and it would not be long before the carriage would be stopped in some way. Fearing the worst, Miss Quartremain grabbed a single hatbox and threw open the door to her compartment, leaping into the pitch blackness of the moor. The moment her feet hit the ground she was off running through damp grass and mud.
Her father had warned her of the moor, that whole men and horses had been pulled down into the bogs never to be seen or heard from again, but drowning in peat would be a far more dignified end than being locked up in some prison until the Watchers decided to rid themselves of her and hope for a more complacent Slayer the next go-around. Her skirts were drenched, and she found that moving grew slower the longer she went on. There were tromping steps behind her as a Watcher on horseback ordered her to stop.
Elsbett turned at the voice. In the light from the lantern he held above his head, she could see the face of Chalmers, grown older and far less pleasant. His voice was like gravel, his eyes hot with anger, and he was unshaven. Miss Quartremain knew what she must do if even Chalmers, for all his previous faults, could now look and speak to her with such contempt.
As she continued at her slow gait, wading through waist-high grass, Miss Quartremain threw open her hatbox, removing a single pistol, letting the other weapons and the box fall to the earth. She took aim at Chalmers and wondered if the hurt she experienced meant that she still had some small feeling for him. Perhaps, but she did not feel like that young girl anymore.
Chalmers ordered her to lower her weapon, to surrender, promising she would not be harmed if she would return to the Council. Looking over her shoulder, Elsbett could see beyond a row of trees that little streams of smoke were rising into the starlight- her family safe at Sherbourne. Turning back to the Watcher, his cohorts approaching swiftly, a strange smile spread across Elsbett's face as she leveled the pistol steadily.
"Charles," she called out, watching Chalmers's brow furrow in the lamplight, "how is your wife?"
And with all the speed afforded to her by whatever mystical force created the first Slayer, Miss Quartremain squeezed her eyes shut, whipped the pistol back towards her own chest, the barrel pressed between her breasts, and fired.
Had she not been a good Slayer? Elsbett had rid the world of what evil she came across, had tried to keep her affairs to herself. Was it enough? Could the world drift along without her in it? One word repeated in her mind in those brief flashes of consciousness she had left- replaceable.
The sky was ink-stained by the predawn light as Miss Quartremain's body lay undisturbed in the cool oversized mud puddle in which she had landed. A rustling in the bushes nearby caused all the birds in the trees overhead to take flight. From the brush came an enormous paw followed by another until the body of an enormous beastly dog emerged; its eyes like a stoked fire. It growled at the body in the water before stomping its great meaty paws into the soft earth to get closer for a better scent. The snout of the creature nudged the body, and Miss Quartremain stirred.
Groaning in intense pain, Elsbett's hand flew to her chest. The hole left by the bullet was there as were burns by the powder, but the cold of the water and mud must have staunched the bleeding. She figured that she must have missed her heart entirely when she fired to still be alive.
Staring into the great red eyes of the creature looming over her, Miss Quartremain croaked out, "Guess it wasn't much of a target to aim for."
The hellhound tilted its head from one side and then to the other before licking her cheek with its slobbery tongue.
Holding onto the beast and with much difficulty, Miss Quartremain pulled herself to her feet, remaining somewhat stooped from the pain. Surveying the area she noted that there was no sign of her carriage nor the Watchers that had pursued her. Her gaze was drawn to the tree line at the edge of the moor, the scent of fresh roasted game and baking bread light on the air.
Keeping her grip on the enormous dog and not completely sure she could survive the long walk, the Slayer smiled weakly, "Let's go home."
Author:
fenderloveRating: R.
Summary: Not all Slayers make it into the written record. Beguiled, betrayed, and bedraggled, Elsbett Quartremain is a Slayer on the run from the entrapments of a destiny she never wanted.
Notes: Miss Quartremain appears in Part III of my fic Twelve Christmases in the Life & Unlife of William H. Pratt.
The Wren Snare
However Elsbett Quartremain had envisioned her life prior to being Chosen it certainly did not entail hurdling down a dank moor in the dead of night in a carriage that might have well been driven by Lucifer himself. Even after receiving her Calling, she could not have imagined that the reason for being jostled in a buggy in such a violent fashion with all her worldly belongings would be because she was being pursued by the very people who were supposed to protect her.
It all began with him.
In her mind's eye, Miss Quartremain could remember so clearly the day that would forever mark her, though she understood that the mark, both physically and metaphorically was with her since her birth, possibly since her conception, even still since she was a preconceived protoplasmic thing. The day had begun ordinarily enough as she accompanied her mother and younger sister, Ernte, on a shopping excursion. When they returned to the Sherbourne Hall, the Quartremain family's ample and sturdy home for several generations, Elsbett's father was sitting in his study with the door ajar, talking jovially to a young man of average height and build. The man would be introduced at supper as Mr. Charles Chalmers, a Londoner come to do business with Mr. Quartremain. Mr. Chalmers was affable in conversation though something in the manner of his gaze was off-putting, at first, to Elsbett.
It was as the meal was being cleared that something unusual happened. Mr. Quartremain ushered his wife and youngest daughter out of the room, which left himself, his daughter, and Mr. Chalmers alone to converse. Elsbett felt her stomach roll into knots, some keen romantic fantasy played about in her head of being suddenly married off to a stranger from the city. Certainly her father would never do such a thing to her.
Mr. Quartremain turned quite seriously to his eldest child and told to her a story of how he had once encountered a strange beast, a great black hellhound with eyes like burning coals, upon the moor from which he had barely escaped with his life. Elsbett had heard this story many times, always as a cautionary tale to keep her from straying too far from beaten paths between their home and town, but her father's tone and manner of telling became far more serious, more ominous. It frightened her tremendously in that moment more so than it ever did when she was a child.
When Mr. Quartremain had finished, Mr. Chalmers began to speak of many young girls who had been called upon to fight such creatures- werewolves, vampires, and the stuff of tawdry fiction. It was nonsensical enough to make Elsbett laugh at how seriously they sounded, but before Mr. Chalmers had completed his tale, Elsbett had been converted. She was one of the few Chosen, a Vampire Slayer.
Oh, how dashing Charles Chalmers had been with his flowery words about Destiny and Fate! How romantic his ideas appeared through speeches Elsbett later realized were calculated for the ultimate emotional resonance! How droll the notion of traveling the world in search of adventure and valor to a country girl of sixteen who had seen nothing of the globe save the prison of forested tracts and the atlas pages in her father's library. And he was handsome, no older than thirty with piercing grey eyes and a pleasant, open face.
With her heart overflowing with prospects, Elsbett was placed in the hands of a man who her father had known for less than a day. She had packed what belongings she thought were the most necessary, and not even the terrible sobs of her mother and sister in their confusion as she was helped into Mr. Chalmers's coach could make Elsbett shed any tears of her own as her excitement nearly burst from her. She did not look back at the comforting warmth of Sherbourne Hall as the coach ambled away, but in hindsight she wished she had savored it, taking in every nook and eave, as she knew now she would never set her gaze on it again. At the time, however, Miss Quartremain had the delightful visage of Mr. Chalmers to behold in the cool starlight that filtered into the coach's little windows, and for a country girl prone to fancy, it seemed like such a face could sustain her interest forever.
Charles Chalmers could get hanged for all Elsbett cared now as she shoved a heavy hatbox filled with stakes from where it had fallen on her lap as the shadowy forms of the moor shook in the chill night air as the carriage sped along. She sighed heavily, cursing the day she met her Watcher or, as she more rightly referred to him, her Jailor. He had lured her away from a comfortable existence where she might have made a good match (being the daughter of the wealthiest wool merchant in the whole county had its benefits, though she had not appreciated it fully) and into a hellish reality of beasts she could scarcely fathom. Though there was some compassion towards his situation for having been born to a family of Watchers, those who take Slayers as their charges to train them in their duties, her heart had no room to bear it any longer as Chalmers, as both a man and a soul not predestined for the dangerous task of being Chosen, could simply walk away to find a new purchase in life.
The beginning of her Slayerhood had been pleasant enough inside Chalmers's townhouse in a posh area of London proper. She had to adjust to dressing both herself and her hair without any assistance, but she managed. Chalmers told her stories of the Slayers of years past, and it seemed to Elsbett that there were a lot of Chosen being chosen and once one was she was not long for this world. She vowed that she would be the best Slayer on record, living into old age as an example to future generations, but she also wondered how many other Slayers had also taken such an oath and failed to meet it.
There was also the matter of exercise, learning fisticuffs and boxing as well as how to manage all manner of weaponry. It took more time than Miss Quartremain's limited patience would have liked, but eventually she became competent enough to exit the townhouse and begin to patrol the cemeteries of the districts for creatures of darkness. Chalmers was always there documenting her progress in one of his little moleskin journals. Elsbett grew to like him in a way, playing housewife to him when she was not reading or training. She made tea and ironed his shirts. What won her over to Chalmers was that her dismal failures at the latter made his more stoic facade erupt into uproariously laughter after she burned a hole through a shirt straight through to the board underneath. She found herself laughing along with him, and, without realizing it, she had given her heart over to him.
Perhaps it was because Chalmers was the only person she knew to trust and had contact with in those first weeks except for the demons she slew, and none of them were great conversationalists to her knowledge. Perhaps it was because he flattered her, told her that she grew lovelier with each day, that her hair was redder than ever a holly-berry was, that her eyes more lushly verdant than any jungle pass, and he lavished every moment of attention on her entirely. Maybe still it was loneliness, frustration, or the simplicity of a young lady becoming aware of her own natural urges. Whatever the cause, Miss Quartremain began sharing a bed with her Watcher against her better judgement and worries of her reputation. She remembered idly pondering the idea that perhaps Watchers and Slayers were to marry, as if her case were the natural progression of things. However, Chalmers flatly assured her that their actions would be considered taboo in their world, and that she should never reveal how they lived to anyone.
After three months together, Chalmers began to take Elsbett around the city for non-Slayer-related activities, such as the theatre and to dinner parties as well as giving her gifts of fine gowns and small tokens of jewelry. Miss Quartremain learned the social graces and manners of refined London ladies, a splendid counterpoint, in her opinion, to the rough physical training she endured in the course of her duties. She found that she was an excellent dancer, could converse wittily on a range of subjects, and that she too could be as charming as Chalmers ever was. She captured the hearts of many young men who gathered around her like a little retinue of footmen, ready to speedily attend her every whim and desire. Elsbett had been quite happy that Chalmers had never reacted with jealousy towards the fellows who filled her dance card. He seemed to glow with a certain amount of pride as he watched her win arguments over books she had never read and legal matters she barely knew anything about. It was probably because Chalmers knew that no matter how many men received her flirtations that she would be returning to his bed at the end of the night.
The novelty of intercourse and violence, however, quickly waned. Elsbett had always found the chase to be the most exciting part, and Chalmers was, unfortunately, very little overture and all show when it came to their relations, but he was warm and kind enough. Miss Quartremain discovered that she wanted something more from her life, away from dreary London and all its many demons though she could not be sure what that something would be. In her imagination, she saw herself tippling champagne, gambling a small fortune away on billiards, and having some scandalous affair with a crowned prince of Europe, not the soldier-laundress-mistress of a bachelor-scholar.
Much later, while fleeing across rutted dirt roads in a carriage filled with trunks and parcels that fell about her like unwieldy boulders, Miss Quartremain longed for that lackadaisical life again though perhaps without Chalmers in the picture. Things turned so quickly to the abysmal that she sometimes wondered if she had imagined the earlier pleasantness entirely. It had come that Chalmers had to travel on Council business out of town, leaving Elsbett to her own devices for a few days, which she greatly enjoyed. However, when he returned, he was not alone.
Chalmers introduced Miss Quartremain to the new Mrs. Chalmers, Lucy Collyweston. She was another member of the Watchers' Council. The young lady was even-featured and happily plump, and Chalmers patted her hand as though she was a favored pet. Elsbett was stunned to near silence upon hearing the news, quietly excusing herself to her chambers. Though Chalmers had staunchly repeated that a marriage between a Slayer and Watcher was forbidden, she had always entertained the idea of the two of them eloping. Hot tears ran down Elsbett's face, and she was shamed by them. She did not love Chalmers, but there was still a sting to her pride knowing that he had gone and disregarded her by marrying another without so much as a word.
When Chalmers eventually worked up his nerve to speak to Elsbett in her room, he tried to placate her with his apologies and his 'dearest Elsie's. He attempted to explain that, because of his place on the lower echelons of the Council, he would have to prove himself through Elsbett's efforts as the Slayer, and there had been rumblings amongst his superiors that the relationship they shared was becoming inappropriate. His new marriage was only to keep the rumor mill at bay. Miss Quartremain could have throttled him, could have defenestrated him, but she refrained. She should have thanked him for his sudden turn because she felt liberated by the revulsion that coursed through her.
The freeing feeling, however, would not last as a horde of Watchers descended on the townhouse a few weeks after Chalmers took his new bride. Apparently, the marriage was not enough to deter the suspicions. Miss Quartremain's first meeting with the superiors Chalmers always spoke of was disheartening to say the least. The three Watchers that questioned her in her bedroom were somewhat older than Chalmers- a Miss Wyndam, a Mr. Fairweather, and a Mr. Pryce. They were quite nosy into her daily routines, her patrol routes, how Mr. Chalmers spoke to her, if he was prone to laying his hands on her body in any way other than what was necessary for training purposes. True to the promises she made when she and Chalmers had first begun having intercourse, Elsbett told them nothing that could be construed as inappropriate. However, something in her voice must have belied the truth since none of the three believed her.
There was quite a commotion as she was forced out of the house and into a hansom with the Watchers. An older gentleman, presumably another Watcher, was lecturing Chalmers about some trouble that had occurred with the previous Slayer- "Remember what became of Spelling and that Callan girl!" The old man looked at Elsbett with a stern, hateful glint in his eyes as she was led away; he muttered something about not letting boys become Watchers until they were over fifty years of age. To Miss Quartremain's estimate, if Slayers becoming romantically entangled with their Watchers was a problem, age would not make a difference in its frequency of occurrence, might even exacerbate the fact.
From the comfortable living of the little townhouse, Elsbett was escorted to a monstrous-looking building in another part of London. It appeared so foreboding and gloomy that she did not want to enter it. She was forced inside and up a narrow back staircase to a dingy little room with a thick metal door. There were no windows nor amenities save the sparse bed and a small toilette area with a rather grimy wash basin. That was where the Watchers kept her locked away, allowing her no contact with another save the matronly woman who, with an expression of pure contempt, brought her meals to the door.
And so it was for a few weeks until finally the older gentleman, who had been chastising Chalmers while Elsbett was taken away, came to speak to her. He never introduced himself to her, which she found extremely rude, but he spoke with great authority so she assumed he must be the Director of the Council. He railed at her for an exhausting length of time about decorum and propriety that must be upheld by the Slayer. He then reminded her with much emphasis that she was replaceable.
Replaceable? Like an old blotter or a broken doll? Miss Quartremain tried to show no fear at the word, but she felt helpless even with her strength.
Miss Quartremain's life inside the Council itself was tedious and dull. There were no more party invitations nor theatre tickets in those days. She spent a good portion of every day studying stack after stack of diaries written by the Watchers, only being let outside of her room at night to train and exercise. The Watchers gathered around to evaluate Elsbett, tsking that Chalmers had taught her how to box and how unladylike it was. Miss Quartremain was beginning to wonder if she would ever get to slay a demon again. They brought her captive vampires to spar against, and she did not feel that it was at all sporting what with the pitiful creatures half-starved and weakened. Dispatching them was a mercy, really.
Days bled together, and an anger brewed in Miss Quartremain's breast that festered and raged until she could barely contain it. Her thoughts directed that frustration at the Watchers, but more squarely on her former Watcher. She imagined him to be her supreme Jailor, having led her down this path, holding all the information, the keys to her fateful imprisonment. Even more of a betrayal than the grand adventure she had hoped for becoming a life of cloistered rigidity, Charles Chalmers ultimately misused her heart. He held the organ within his hands, poetically speaking, and crushed into into powder more savagely than Elsbett had ever wielded a stake. Though she never loved him, Elsbett felt strong emotions for him, and he had reciprocated those feelings even as he was reproachful of how wrong their situation was.
After a month in captivity, it occurred to Miss Quartremain that she could run away. She could never be sure how she had been so blind to that possibility, though she supposed it had something to do with feeling like property, as her father had basically given her away like an old chair and would have controlled her life by holding all the pursestrings had she remained anyway. It could have also been because she had never used violence against a human being; though the more her brain stewed over being kept as a warrior concubine, the more tantalizing it became. A single fist to the dinner matron's face had been all that was necessary to incapacitate her while she was arriving with Elsbett's evening meal, and Miss Quartremain was off down the staircase, using her strength to push and practically throw anyone who got in her way as she escaped into the night, on her own into the world with no money and no possessions save the clothing on her back.
To not fall completely into ruin and destitution while hiding in the vast city, Miss Quartremain took to small incidents of pickpocketing and theft, which allowed her to utilize the stealth and speed her Slayer powers afforded her. She never lacked a meal or a warm bed while in the city though she was in a constant state of looking over her shoulder for the faces of the Watchers. She was more frightened of the other Watchers she had never seen before; she had heard there were very many. There was also a worry of what they might try to do to her for escaping. It was not as though Elsbett had given up her Calling as she explored London. She was able to slay more demons than ever before without the tight reins Chalmers had instilled into her by parading her into his social circle. Still, what did she have to fear from them? They weren't Slayers; they did not hold her strength in a bottle. While strolling the edges of the city in the first days of her solo journey, Miss Quartremain felt powerful, and she quite enjoyed it. There was nothing that would make her want to give her new freedom up.
Two years of unfettered travel had made Miss Quartremain worldly in public life and a mighty combatant in her personal Slayer life. She took on pseudonyms as often as she did lovers as other women might change a pair of gloves. Through a few fortuitous exchanges with village leaders in more isolated parts of the British Isles, she was able to earn her living by slaying troublesome demons and vampire clans that terrorized local communities. Instead of needing someone to keep her up, Miss Quartremain kept her lovers instead, and it pleased her to have control over her finances and her affections. Still, while comfort was to be found in the arms of a strapping youth or a fellow traveler, Elsbett was always attempting to stay one step ahead of the Council. They had come close to finding her several times, and she was saved by only a few narrow escapes. She would not stop slaying, though she knew the tales of her heroics would reach the Watchers eventually, setting them back on her trail. They could not take her Destiny away from her; this was her gift alone.
And then he appeared.
Miss Quartremain knew he was a vampire the moment she saw him at the Christmas party at Loxley. He was beautiful, all finely sculpted features, blonde curls, blue eyes. Had he been human, Elsbett would have gladly paid his way anywhere he wanted to go. Still, she thought she could get some enjoyment out of him before she had to place a stake in his heart. Perhaps she would keep some of his dusty remains in a locket in hopes of finding a breathing soul who might have the same lovely features one day.
Unfortunately, Elsbett had underestimated how quick the small framed vampire would be, and he escaped her, setting the house on fire as he went. By the morning, there were at least thirty dead or wounded, and somehow the blame for the disaster had fallen on the beautiful red-haired temptress who held court earlier in the evening for all the eligible bachelors rather than the lanky, unassuming young man who spent most of the evening stuffing his face with pikelets and watching the ladies dance. The mob that pursued her out of town frightened her only slightly as much as knowing that the Watchers would be setting out after her too.
And so Miss Quartremain found herself in a carriage heading into North Yorkshire with trunks of her weapons piled around her. She was going home. Her family would give her shelter until she could go on her way again. The thought of seeing her little sister and parents after nearly three years since her Calling took her away filled her with such hope. The horses were being driven hard, and after they passed the old town inn nearest Sherbourne Hall, Elsbett was foolish enough to feel relief.
The whinnies of horses behind the carriage made her heart sink. Men were crying out for the driver to stop the carriage though Elsbett retorted by screaming for him to keep going. With her senses heightened, she could hear the approach more clearly, and it would not be long before the carriage would be stopped in some way. Fearing the worst, Miss Quartremain grabbed a single hatbox and threw open the door to her compartment, leaping into the pitch blackness of the moor. The moment her feet hit the ground she was off running through damp grass and mud.
Her father had warned her of the moor, that whole men and horses had been pulled down into the bogs never to be seen or heard from again, but drowning in peat would be a far more dignified end than being locked up in some prison until the Watchers decided to rid themselves of her and hope for a more complacent Slayer the next go-around. Her skirts were drenched, and she found that moving grew slower the longer she went on. There were tromping steps behind her as a Watcher on horseback ordered her to stop.
Elsbett turned at the voice. In the light from the lantern he held above his head, she could see the face of Chalmers, grown older and far less pleasant. His voice was like gravel, his eyes hot with anger, and he was unshaven. Miss Quartremain knew what she must do if even Chalmers, for all his previous faults, could now look and speak to her with such contempt.
As she continued at her slow gait, wading through waist-high grass, Miss Quartremain threw open her hatbox, removing a single pistol, letting the other weapons and the box fall to the earth. She took aim at Chalmers and wondered if the hurt she experienced meant that she still had some small feeling for him. Perhaps, but she did not feel like that young girl anymore.
Chalmers ordered her to lower her weapon, to surrender, promising she would not be harmed if she would return to the Council. Looking over her shoulder, Elsbett could see beyond a row of trees that little streams of smoke were rising into the starlight- her family safe at Sherbourne. Turning back to the Watcher, his cohorts approaching swiftly, a strange smile spread across Elsbett's face as she leveled the pistol steadily.
"Charles," she called out, watching Chalmers's brow furrow in the lamplight, "how is your wife?"
And with all the speed afforded to her by whatever mystical force created the first Slayer, Miss Quartremain squeezed her eyes shut, whipped the pistol back towards her own chest, the barrel pressed between her breasts, and fired.
Had she not been a good Slayer? Elsbett had rid the world of what evil she came across, had tried to keep her affairs to herself. Was it enough? Could the world drift along without her in it? One word repeated in her mind in those brief flashes of consciousness she had left- replaceable.
The sky was ink-stained by the predawn light as Miss Quartremain's body lay undisturbed in the cool oversized mud puddle in which she had landed. A rustling in the bushes nearby caused all the birds in the trees overhead to take flight. From the brush came an enormous paw followed by another until the body of an enormous beastly dog emerged; its eyes like a stoked fire. It growled at the body in the water before stomping its great meaty paws into the soft earth to get closer for a better scent. The snout of the creature nudged the body, and Miss Quartremain stirred.
Groaning in intense pain, Elsbett's hand flew to her chest. The hole left by the bullet was there as were burns by the powder, but the cold of the water and mud must have staunched the bleeding. She figured that she must have missed her heart entirely when she fired to still be alive.
Staring into the great red eyes of the creature looming over her, Miss Quartremain croaked out, "Guess it wasn't much of a target to aim for."
The hellhound tilted its head from one side and then to the other before licking her cheek with its slobbery tongue.
Holding onto the beast and with much difficulty, Miss Quartremain pulled herself to her feet, remaining somewhat stooped from the pain. Surveying the area she noted that there was no sign of her carriage nor the Watchers that had pursued her. Her gaze was drawn to the tree line at the edge of the moor, the scent of fresh roasted game and baking bread light on the air.
Keeping her grip on the enormous dog and not completely sure she could survive the long walk, the Slayer smiled weakly, "Let's go home."
