Israel Alderdice (izzy_alderdice) wrote in v_nocturne_rpg, @ 2009-10-26 15:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | elspeth fry, izzy alderdice |
Secrets at the End of the World
It had been a few days. Hardly any time at all, really. It seemed like quite a bit longer, if only because he'd hardly slept at all. He'd wanted to, of course, it seemed like a reasonable thing to do when one was simply waiting to die. However, it seemed the spirit's ultimate goal was to make everyone crazy, if not by apparitions than by sheer lack of anything better to do.
Though he couldn't speak for the rest of his companions, Izzy thought that it was doing a fine job.
He lay his head back against the sofa and looked up at the ceiling. The house was very quiet at this hour of the night, very surprising for a place full of vampires. Squinting, Izzy studied the hairline cracks in the plaster. In his own mind, he was looking back at the spirit, which looked down on him. It wanted him to crack with hunger and boredom and nervousness, and while he was all of those things and a few more, he'd decided he wasn't going to give it the pleasure.
Elspeth stood in the entranceway of the house, looking out the narrow window pane. Other women slept in an upstairs bedroom set up for them, but her stomach growled and kept her from sleeping. The house was quite cold, also, so she clutched a blanket around her shoulders. Outside, the glow of gas lamps and the occasional passing figure reminded her of life beyond their circumstances. It was terrible to be trapped within easy sight of neighbors. No amount of shouting or pounding brought help. The house was a prison.
She pulled the scratchy blanket tighter. She heard noise in the water closet and craned her neck to look down the corridor. A gentleman waved at her and went back to his sleeping pallet. At least there was water, she thought; Three days without food were unpleasant enough. Afterwards, when she was alone except for a ticking grandfather clock, a long sigh floated by her ear, tickling the hairs on her neck. She slapped at it, as if swatting a bug.
"I hear you! I know you're there," she hissed. "If you want something else, just get on with it!" Same as every other time, the invisible entity retreated and resumed its regular fare: creaking walls, hot and cold spots, foul odors and paranoia. Elspeth swallowed past the lump in her throat. It must be painfully dull in the afterlife, she thought, if spirits locked strangers in houses for entertainment.
At first, Izzy wouldn't have been surprised if the voice was just another trick. He wouldn't have been surprised. After all, it had been quiet for the last...Izzy generally tried not to look at the clock, seeing as how it seemed to make the time go even slower. It could have been a trick, after all, he'd heard the spirit imitate the voices of its captives. Right now, he doubted it mattered, he'd find...from the voice, he guessed Mrs. Fry or nothing at all.
Since the seance, the walls always seemed to be closing around Izzy. He was certain it was only his imagination, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to reach out and grab him again. He tried not to let onto it out of pure spite and kept his back straight and his eyes forward, trying to pretend that none of this had the slightest effect on him. It knew, though, he'd let onto it at first and now it thought that it had him right where it wanted him.
He was slightly relieved when Mrs. Fry did turn out to be there. He smiled a little in spite of himself, and relaxed a little before growing a little more serious. "Is everything alright, madam?" he asked, and then corrected himself, "Relatively alright, I mean." This room was freezing cold, though Izzy happened to be wearing his coat (as he had for most of the time he'd been in here), and wrapped his arms around himself.
"Oh!" Elspeth's fingers squeezed the blanket and she nodded. "Yes, it's fine... Only the usual." After a soft sigh and shrug of her shoulders, she went back to the window, though she kept herself turned to the side, in case he wanted to look, too. "The neighbors have just come home from a party," she said, beckoning him closer. "See there, through those two trees? It's late. They must have been the last to leave." Though she thought of parties as crowded, stuffy affairs, which never lived up to expectations, Elspeth longed to be coming from one tonight. At the very least, to be in a party dress instead of the one she'd had on for three days. "Do you go to parties, Mr. Alderdice?"
For the first time, Izzy looked out at the house across the way. He'd known it existed, or had some idea, but he'd never thought closely about them. They'd been like the people outside who never actually responded to their banging on the window or shouting. He assumed it was useless to think about them now, since he'd never see nor think of them again in a few days - or was it weeks (he wasn't certain how long it took someone to starve to death)? Looking up at the people in the window who soon disappeared into the house, he nodded. "No, almost never," he replied, and then paused for a moment before adding, "Not if I'm not working, though I've not done that in months."
"No?" Elspeth frowned and looked at the younger man's profile. "I thought you worked in Mrs. Daugney's perfume shop." She crossed her arms and let the blanket take care of itself. It was too heavy to fall off her shoulders unless she moved. "After you helped stop my carriage that day, we walked there together. Has it closed, then? It would be a shame, if it has." The boutique was enchanting with its exotic birds and candles. Mr. Alderdice seemed out of place in such delicate surroundings, but he said he cared for the birds, and Elspeth supposed she could see him doing that. He seemed a bit skittish like one, in her admittedly limited experience.
"At - parties, I mean. Before I worked at The Aviary. Sorry," he said and shook his head with a little laugh. He was quiet for a moment, and then continued, "Though if we ever get out of here I can't say I'll be working there much longer. Don't know as Mrs. Daugney would believe me if I told here where I've been for the past - it's near three days, ain't it?" Of course, that didn't actually matter now. He wouldn't have the chance to be there when she found she needed to replace him. He wouldn't have been especially surprised if she had done it already.
"Yes, three." Elspeth's mouth firmed and she imagined what the Inquisition thought of her disappearance, and how it happened at the same time as two colleagues. They might assume secret identities had been exposed and the ranks were under attack. At least her employer would find her excuse plausible! She put her back to the door and stared down the narrow corridor, which ran the distance to an empty kitchen. Four more days, she thought, until they could no longer survive in here. Would they draw straws and resort to cannibalism? Lord, what a horrid thought.
She touched his elbow and said, "When we get out of here, we'll think of a credible story to tell her, that's all. Between the two of us, I'm sure we can concoct something. We'll say..." Elspeth's eyes searched the ceiling for ideas. "We'll say you've been in hospital with a concussion. If you'd like, I can knock you over the head with a candlestick and give you a goose egg." She smiled, but one got the impression Elspeth would not think twice of doing it.
Izzy backed up a little and laughed nervously. "I'm certain she'd simply take your word for it, Mrs. Fry," he said, "I'm sure she'd ask for hospital records if that were the case, or wonder why I hadn't just asked to be taken home, seein' as how that probably wouldn't cost as much." From her smile, Izzy also guessed that he might not want to take her suggestion. "I don't know what I'd do in return for you, anyway."
Elspeth didn't need help in return, except perhaps to reassure her brother, but he was easily brushed off. "Oh, for god's sake, don't look so worried," she said, flapping a hand at him. "I have no intentions of inflicting harm, and few means with which to do it." She walked into the parlor where he slept and stood by the piano. It was no time for merry music-playing, but she lifted the cover and touched one of the keys high on the register. The light 'plink' reassured her that the house was real, a normal residence before this.
"How do you know Sir Armitage?" she asked over her shoulder. "Earlier, he told me you are acquainted, but we were interrupted before he could elaborate." It seemed a secret, because the gentleman quieted when Mr. Abbott came into the study, and they had not been alone together since. Elspeth seated herself on the bench and folded her hands in her lap.
If Izzy remembered correctly, Mrs. Fry did carry a knife on her person (something he thought would be wise from now on), but he made no comment to that effect. He followed her to the piano, and leaned against the opposite wall. "I'm surprised they haven't taken it away by now," he said, "Auctioned it. Considerin' the owners is probably dead."
Mrs. Fry's next question caught him off guard. "Professor Armitage is nobility?" he asked, a little surprised. He'd never said anything to that effect, and his card didn't say anything about it, either. But then he stood up a little straighter. "I do a bit of work for an organization he's affiliated with; he was the one who recommended me to them." He wasn't about to say which organization or what kind of work, though he wondered if there was a point in keeping it secret.
Elspeth lifted her hands and rested her fingers soft on the proper keys, with no intention of striking any, but her left ring finger tapped out a note upon hearing that. She lifted her eyebrows and her postured righted itself. In the moonlit parlor, her face glowed a bluish-white. "Is that so? Hmm." A sudden urge to clear her throat overcame her and she quietly did so.
Well! Who was he, then? Certainly no formal recruit into the Royal Inquisition, because she would've received a notice about that, and possibly a hand in meeting him. That put him squarely in the category of a contracted worker. Aside from Mr. Alderdice's skills with feathered creatures, she could not think of a reason the R.I. would recruit him, unless he had a hidden talent, such as hers had been. This must have been what Armitage wanted to discuss.
"If it is with... the 'Professor'... I'm sure it is noble work, indeed." With a furrow in her brow, she returned to the ivory and black keys, determined not to speak of it until she had more information. But her mind continued to piece together the puzzle. She remembered Mr. Alderdice's timely rescue at her horse carriage, and his brandishing of a fireplace poker two days before. Suddenly, a lightning rod of a revelation struck her. Armitage claimed to have met a dhampir, one he hoped could be called upon for light hunting assignments!
Elspeth snapped the cover over the keys and stared at Mr. Alderdice. "You are him, aren't you? The--" She caught herself and lowered her voice to a whisper. "The dhampir."
"Yes?" he kept his voice as low as Mrs. Fry, though for a moment he was completely bewildered. Of all the connections she could have made from that one statement, he wouldn't have expected her to outright guess his race...and be completely right. Izzy stared at the woman for a moment, still confused and piecing together the implications of all of this. She knew Professor Armitage and she knew that he was a dhampir. She was high-class, but carried a knife on her, and from the admittedly little he'd seen, she looked like she could use it.
His mouth hung open for a moment before he smiled excitedly and whispered, "You work for the same organization, then?" Izzy didn't grasp that she might consider his work for the organization and, more importantly, him, a potentially bad thing, and probably came off a little bit more naive than he would have liked.
Now that Elspeth had his number, Mr. Alderdice's behavior with the fire poker made sense to her. From what she studied of the dhampir, they were a violent lot by nature, some of them literally bloodthirsty. Of course, it was to be expected from the offspring of a vampire, even if his behavior was no fault of his own and he wanted to do good deeds. Keeping an uncomfortably rigid spine, she let the information sink in. It certainly also explained his feat of strength with the horse carriage; if he had not come along when he did, Elspeth's snagged dress might have ripped up the back, or worse.
"I do," she said at last. "I am a hunter."
"A hunter!" To be truthful, Izzy shouldn't have been surprised by that in the slightest, but Mrs. Fry was still a gentlewoman in his view, and from everything he knew (at least, from working at the shop), any regular gentlewoman would have fainted at the very idea of picking up a gun and shooting it at some poor innocent little creature, much less anything dangerous. "What sorts of things do you hunt?" he then hurriedly added, "If you can tell me, I understand most of it's got to be kept secret."
Her lips buttoned together at the reaction. Elspeth knew she ought to be accustomed to it, as it happened often enough in the R.I. in the beginning; After all, she was an oddity. "Whatever I am told to hunt, but most often vampires and were-creatures." Admitting those things hardly mattered, since he was a dhampir. And speaking of that... "You are not as I imagined a dhampir to be," she said, fixing her eyes on Mr. Alderdice. "You are frail-looking and pale, but to be honest, I had attributed that to other factors... You certainly aren't frail, are you? Not really. Of all people, I should not be so surprised when looks deceive."
"Ah, really?" said Izzy, still smiling a little, "I hunt vampires as I'm sure you'd guessed already, but I'd never seen a werewolf until I'd come to London. Are they common?" He thought of the night he met Professor Armitage and wondered if that happened often. If it did, he'd neither seen nor heard of it. When she mentioned him as being frail-looking and pale, he frowned, but made no argument against it. "It's a decent way to look when hunting, I've found. That and edible," he grinned, "Though I daresay I was better at it when I was younger."
"They are more common in the countryside than London," she said. Elspeth inspected the cuticle around a fingernail, where a ragged bit of skin needed tending. She could not stop bothering it. "I'm told there are whole packs of them in parts of Eastern Europe. I think the werewolves we see are people who were bitten elsewhere and brought their sickness home with them between the full moons." Once in the city, they would spread their infection like a plague, if the Inquisition didn't put a stop to it.
She raised her eyes and studied him. There was a question on her mind, and no way to ask without being rude, but if ever she was assigned to work with Mr. Alderdice on an assignment, she wanted to have her answer first. "You're eager to hunt, that much is plain. Does a dhampir enjoy it naturally, in the way of predators and prey, or because it makes you feel better for what you are... penance of a sort?" Elspeth supposed there could another reason, but not one she understood yet.
Izzy's eyes widened. "I'm more blind than I thought, if what you're saying's true." When she asked her question, he waited until she was finished and paused for a moment. He had an answer to it, of course, but the way she was looking at him made him wonder if he should give it. After all, he now had the feeling he didn't want to make an enemy out of her. He didn't want to make an enemy out of anyone in the organization. At the same time, what would it matter if he told her? She wouldn't be able to spread it, and he wouldn't be able to be affected by it. He finally spoke. "I'm never quite sure if I enjoy it or not. It's...exhilarating, I suppose would be the only good description. It certainly keeps the bloodlust at bay - keeps me from becoming a danger to humans." He looked up at her. "It feels like what I was meant to do. It's one of the few things I'm decent at, certainly," he laughed, but then grew serious. "I know too well that I'm a danger to most of everyone I care for, to say nothing of the world at large. This is how I can help. If I didn't hunt, I know it would end in disaster." He was silent again before continuing, "It is penance. I am a monster, there's no remedy for that. This is all I can do."
"I see." Elspeth ran her finger over a chip in the piano's wood. Hearing Izzy refer to himself as a monster didn't sit well, which was strange because deep down, she felt he shared characteristics with them. The dhampir were a dangerous lot, according to her readings; They had violent urges and the physical means to do great damage. Perhaps it was his good intentions that made it such a poor match in her head. She thought that a true monster would not feel guilt, or even wish to prevent itself from doing harm.
"You're not a proper monster," she said, lifting a splinter with her fingernail. "We all inherit sin, in one way or another." Taking a heavy breath, she shook off the content of their talk. "I think tomorrow, we should gather up everyone and put our heads together again. There must be something we're missing. As for now, I think we could both do with a bit of rest."