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Most people assumed Monster Hunting was all about tracking and fighting. Sneaking your way through a remote forest at twilight to cut the head off whatever bloodthirsty creature was infesting it. Ulysses had always advised that you couldn’t just rely on that of course. And despite outward appearances, every one of the hunters who’d come to that ridiculous funeral would have agreed that you needed some research skills to make it in the profession.
Elsa had always preferred the research. She’d much rather spend a week in a library working out how to calmly dispatch a monster in a single evening than take multiple fights to do the job. Less stories to tell, but better to actually protect people. That clash wasn’t why she’d left home, but it was why she’d been disowned in the end. Ulysses could cope with the idea that his daughter might only end up inheriting the bloodstone rather than being the one to wield it, but her lack of ‘respect’ for the ‘Art of the Hunt’ was too much.
She’d like to think that was why they were all dead and she wasn’t.
She had too much self-respect to lie to herself like that however.
The one thing Ulysses and the others had never understood was that sometimes it was actually a better use of time to prevent the monster attacks from happening. Oh sure if a bunch of cultists were trying to summon something they’d intervene, but beyond that the idea that spending a couple of months tracking down some key artefact in the ritual would save more lives than slaying a few beasts over the same period would was an idea that was as remote to them as the finer details of quantum physics. Whereas she’d taken the lesson to heart years ago after a particularly bloody fight that had just resulted in retrieving something she’d had the opportunity to lift from a small gallery weeks earlier and hadn’t.
Which is why she was currently in an auction house in London, waiting to bid on a silver table centrepiece that she was pretty certain just happened to contain what one old text referred to as the ‘Rosbeke Chalis’ and, that being the case, could be used to summon a Tarasque. If summoning some sort of medieval dragon-like thing was your idea of a good time.
She’d arrived when the auction house first opened, registered, carefully examined the centrepiece to confirm her suspicions and then proceeded to note down a few other items that would help cover her presence there- an antique dinner service, some cutlery, some Murano glasses and a coffee set that was nice enough she thought she might actually use it. Not that it would help if she was actually recognised of course, so she’d spent the rest of the time finding a discrete corner where she’d be mostly out of sight while the auction went on.
The one disadvantage of that was losing the opportunity to see who else was taking an interest in the piece in question. An issue compounded by her position which meant anyone in front of her would, at best, be showing the side of their face.
By the time they’d arrived at the centrepiece she’d acquired the dinner service, lost on the Murano and cutlery and identified three people she reckoned she’d be trying to outbid for the lot in question. One she was pretty comfortable just dealt in silver- he’d put low bids on everything that came up but dropped out once it went over the probable scrap price. A second was either doing a variation on her strategy or was a genuine collector of 18th Century furnishings. The third was an elderly gentleman on a phone who seemed to delight in pushing up the price on anything ‘pretty’ regardless of its actual quality.
“Lot 278: An early 18th Century-style Surtout de table in silver, hallmarked for Vienna. Object consists of an oblong mirrored platter, pair of three-branch candelabras and a chalice with lid and plinth, potentially of earlier date. We have several bids on the internet, so I can start us off at £45,000.”
Elsa grimaced at the potential internet interest. Silver put in a desultory opening offer and then folded quickly. She joined in on the flurry of bids that quickly drove the price past £100,000, by which time the internet had mostly dropped off. Everyone else in the room had bowed out, Pretty was tailing off and Furnishings appeared to be keeping pace with her.
“And we have a new bidder, that’s £110,000 for number 76”
The sudden announcement left her craning her neck to look, catching a glance at a thin looking woman who, she was sure, hadn’t bid on anything else previously, and immediately getting a sinking feeling. Something that only worsened as her occasional interjections forced Pretty out and the cost over £250,000.
Elsa used one last bid to get a surreptitious photo with a small wrist-mounted camera before dropping out herself. Surprisingly Furnishings held on as the price climbed steadily towards £400,000, the room entering the tenseness of a group of people realising that a potential enemy is being made.
A silence that was interrupted by the woman finally losing her patience.
“Enough with this charade. I bid £1.4 million. If you can go above that, Sir, you may have it.”
The general intake of breath was audible. The result, inevitable. The auctioneer looked towards Furnishings, clearly questioning, checked with the internet bids, and quickly formalised the sale. Thin seemed, if anything, bored by the whole affair and quickly stood up, moving to the back of the room where payment was organised.
It took another three quarters of an hour to wrap up the event- during which she managed to snatch up the coffee set for a rock-bottom price- after which she let the crowd slowly filter out before heading to make her own payments. As she did so, there was a distinct sense of being watched that slowly crept up on her. A feeling that only got worse as she made the required authorisations, asking for shipment to be made to a house in Eltham she’d been using as a bolt-hole for the best part of two decades now.
A feeling that only ended when she turned around to see a somewhat familiar face standing a few feet behind her.
“Hello, Elsa.”
“Jack.”
“Sí” he replied, with a slight smile. As if she might, somehow, have forgotten him.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
Because what else were you supposed to say to a werewolf who’d murdered a dozen people in your home and who you weren’t ever actually expecting to ever see again, certainly not on another continent?
“I like travelling. When I can.”
He started scratching behind his ear.
“Look I... I appreciate you might not want to... well with last time ending like it did. So, I’m going to go pay for my purchases and if you’re not here when I’m done then... I’m glad you’re OK?”
He turned just a bit too quickly to be casual and headed towards the cashier, leaving Elsa to wonder whether she was ready for this conversation. And it was at this point that Elsa spotted the paddle Jack was holding, and in particular the number on it.
Well that settled it.
******
Jack took a careful breath before turning around. Partially to calm himself, partially to avoid the awfulness that would come when he inevitably noticed Elsa’s scent fading away in her absence.
To his surprise she was still there.
“Outside?” he suggested.
Elsa simply nodded, allowing for an awkward moment of transition as he tried to work out how best to apologise for turning her home into a bloodbath, the words tumbling out as soon as they were in private.
“Um, look I know I said it’s not really me when I’m like that but I still...”
“Furnishings.”
Jack blinked, his train of thought not so much derailing as plummeting off the edge of a viaduct.
“¿Sí?”
“You were buying furnishings. Early 18th Century.”
“¡Oh! Sí, they tend to... hold up better.”
Elsa gave him a look that could only be described as ‘please stop assuming I’m a moron because you are, in fact, an open book and are not fooling anyone in the slightest.’
“And the centrepiece? I assume this means it is the Rozebeke Chalice?”
“I... ¿Qué?”
“11th Century Chalice? Flemish? Silver? Dangerous in the wrong hands?”
“Uh... maybe then?”
Elsa looked at him for a long moment, then seemed to settle a little.
“You really don’t know about it do you?”
He shrugged.
“No. But it certainly sounds important.”
“Then why were you willing to spend £400,000 on table setting you can’t even touch without hurting yourself?”
“Because it was made for my grandfather.”
******
Elsa had demanded coffee and relative privacy before they went any further. Which is why one awkward taxi ride later they were sitting outside Caffè Tropea with a plate of cannoli between them, dappled sunlight filtering through the surrounding trees.
“Right. Your grandfather. Who I’m assuming wasn’t...?”
“No. That.... sort of started with my father. Who, before you ask, has not been around for a very long time.”
She gave a small nod, then closed her eyes and, quietly asked what she was sure was the question he’d been expecting.
“And... you?”
“1758. It’s not an anti-aging method I recommend”
She let out the subconsciously held breath and returned the small smile he’d given her.
“Alright so if the centrepiece was made for your grandfather in Vienna in, what, 1720-something...?”
He nodded.
“Then it can’t be the Rozebeke Chalice.” Which would be both annoying and a relief.
Jack shrugged in a manner that suggested her hope was about to go down in flames.
“Maybe not, but the Chalice was an old family heirloom he’d had incorporated into it. And some of the Soxisch came from Flanders originally so...”
He must have noticed her somewhat lost looking expression at that comment.
“Ah, sorry, the Saxons. German speakers I mean.” There was another shrug. “Transylvania was... pretty multicultural back then. Soxisch, Români, Székely, Roma... all sorts.”
She stared at him for a moment.
“Sorry, Transylvania? But I thought...? What about... the face paint? Honouring your ancestors?”
“Ah, that’s Mamá’s family. Her father was the Conde de Moctezuma.”
Elsa gave an expression that suggested her brain was attempting to reboot. A nearby crow gave an enquiring caw before Jack threw it a piece of pistachio cannolo. A dog ran by with his owner, giving Jack a sideye as he went.
Elsa, finally, responded.
“What!? As in...?”
“Sí.” He shrugged again. “And Mamá moved us to Mexico after the werewolf thing started with my father. Which is why this ended up... well wherever it’s been the last couple of centuries after the villagers decided they didn’t like having a werewolf for a Baron.”
For a moment Elsa wondered at how casually he could talk about such matters. Perhaps a couple of centuries was enough time to deal with grief.
“You didn’t think about going back? Trying to find a few things?”
He gave her another one of those sad smiles.
“It was after my first moon by then and with the journey time... I couldn’t even think about crossing the Atlantic until Brunel came along, and by then... it had been decades.”
She allowed him a moment before moving on.
“Alright. So we’ve got a potentially dangerous artefact that also happens to be a family heirloom, purchased by somebody who was willing to pay massively over the odds and was clearly there specifically for that. “
Jack just nodded at that, allowing her to continue.
“Which means we need to track her down. And we probably shouldn’t use an internet café for this.”
“I have a... shelter of sorts nearby.”
Elsa gave him an enquiring look.
“Well. Cellar. With a cage. It does have internet though?”
“Guess it’s my place then. I’ve got a spare room. No cages though.”
Jack’s expression took on an aspect that rather resembled a rabbit coming face to face with a 40 tonne articulated lorry barrelling down a B-road in Snowdonia.
“But... after what I did to... you want me to come to your house? Here? Again?”
“Jack it’s fine.”
“Jack...?”
She carefully reached up, turning his eyes to face hers.
“Three reasons Jack. One, Ted did most of the damage. Two, I never liked that room anyway. Three, you’re not the one who decided that the best thing to do with a caged werewolf in human form was to forcibly transform them so they’d have the means to break out and motive to kill everyone around them.”
He glanced away.
“Elsa, I don’t need you to lie to me just to make me feel better.”
“I’m not. It was a bloody stupid room for bloody stupid ceremonies done by a bunch of bloody stupid idiots who were so obsessed with the idea of the Hunt that half the time they forgot why they were hunting in the first place. I don’t need something like that in my house. I don’t want something like that in my house.”
She suddenly noticed how withdrawn he’d become.
“Jack?”
“You’d have preferred it if they just shot me in that cage. That is fine, it cannot have been a... pleasant experience for you”
She reached a hand out to rest it on his .
“Not preferred it, no... respected the decision maybe? I mean don’t get me wrong you’re a far better person than any of them...”
She paused a moment, then went quieter.
“Do you realise you and Ted are the only people in that whole place that night who didn’t try to kill me at some point? Even the... other you didn’t really try.”
“And this is supposed to make me feel better?”
Elsa shrugged.
“I don’t really do that sort of thing. But it is the truth. And I’ll have the Bloodstone nearby if you’re that worried.”
His expression remained unconvinced.
“Look I’m all the way out past Greenwich and don’t particularly fancy a commute so it’s either my place or yours. And since mine actually has beds that makes the choice pretty clear. Now, are we going to sit here and angst about things that aren’t actually your fault or are we going to get going before we have to resort to take out this evening?”
Jack looked for a moment like he was going to refuse again, before finally shaking his head and getting up.
“Sounds like I don’t really have a choice here.”
“No, not really.”
“Well. I shall endeavour not to scratch up your furniture then.”
Elsa smirked in reply.
“Try it and I’m getting you some dog chews.”
He laughed, the nervous atmosphere of the last couple of minutes dissipating.
“I don’t think I should properly introduce you to Ted. You might give him ideas.”
“Yeah, well next time you see him, thank him for the new garden for me. Taking out the skylight really improved the airflow.”
Jack’s chuckle was soon buried beneath the last of the cannoli, the ghost of his concerns still dancing in his eyes. For a moment Elsa wondered about what she was doing – inviting a known werewolf back to her base of operations so they could plan a joint operation together. It was rash, stupid even to get so close to someone she might end up having to kill in future if the impressions she’d been getting of him were wrong.
And yet...
As they gathered their belongings, headed for the nearest tube station, had a private smile about the name, headed down for the train...
Her gut was telling her that any werewolf who’d been around for closer to three centuries than two, and who hadn’t spent all that time minimising their kills as much as possible, would have been known to Ulysses, to the rest of the hunters, would never have been able to just sneak into the funeral like that.
And as she started gently teasing him about how there really must be a connection and getting an amused no, it’s quite common actually response, she started to wonder if maybe this time, she’d actually found a hunter who actually understood what the point of it all was.