Thursday July 7, 1861

All the police find of my prey are some torn clothes and a bloody knife near a sewer cover. They only shake their heads. I expect that whatever is left of it will wash up in the river and either the river men or the Mudlarks will find it and claim the small reward for finding a body. More Apes acting like animals. Still, I don't begrudge the scavengers the money. Most of them need the pittance to survive, as few will bother to employ them in better paying tasks. Many Apes seem to hate each other as much or more than I feel contempt for them. To my advantage as far as the police know the Ape escaped and may strike again.

Only I know the truth.

And Jenny.

Part of me is naturally worried for my own safety, but the rest is almost… indifferent. I now possess a great deal of Ape currency; a result of our recent raids on the Black Scorpions banks and finances. Better, I have my own account at the Bank of England, and a slight acquaintance with Apes in positions of authority or power that I can likely influence enough that they will be able to confuse others while I make my escape. I am wiser now than I was years ago when the only defences I had against Ape anger and hatred were the tunnels and sewers of this city, and the power of my claws and venom. Now I could go to a new city in Great Britain, or perhaps go abroad and start again. I always enjoyed travelling, and my time with The Doctor was enlightening. Perhaps I could journey as far as the East Indies or Asia, and start anew!

Although that would be easier with an Ape to assist me. Jenny spoils me a little as she has makes my life so much more… comfortable. She has a solid practical nature that nicely balances her love of stories and heroes. For a young Ape she is very intelligent. It's not that she is well-versed in literature, though her reading and writing skills are improving. Nor does she possess a deep understanding of military strategy, yet she does grasp basic combat tactics very well. And she cannot discourse on the finer points of biochemistry or advanced physics. No, Jenny possesses a much more valuable and important expertise: she understands the English monetary system of the late nineteenth century. Almost as important, she can clean, keep account books, tend wounds and sew. And cook tea, boiled eggs and soft bacon. I can do almost none of those things.

Perhaps my best course of action would be to locate the female Ape Doctor's dwelling and snatch Jenny back. But could I keep her by me for long against her will?

Most likely not, or at least not without an ongoing struggle with my mischievous little monkey. While I have am stronger and more intelligent than either the Black Scorpions or her father, Jenny possesses her own sort of cunning. She has outwitted adults seeking to do her harm in the past. At the least, she would do her utmost to escape if she did not wish to accompany me. She would almost certainly report my deadly ways as soon as she had even the slightest chance.

However, given the contempt many males Apes in this society display for females and hatchlings, will anyone even believe Jenny if she tells them that I am a monster? Thackeray might listen, but Abernathy would simply be at a loss. Or will they mutter darkly about a hatchling who has seen too much violence and death in her young life, and decide she should be confined 'for her own good.' Even I have heard the terrible whispers of the places where these animals keep those they consider 'of unsound mind.' Jenny has suffered enough from Ape cruelty, just as I have. If that happens I'll rescue her. She would be far better off with me, despite the differences between us.

If she doesn't manage to escape on her own first that is. Which I admit would not surprise me.

I will wait until morning, and then see what needs to be done to protect my existence and recover my young human.


Shortly after dawn, I lie alone in my bed for the first time in months, listening to the cooing of the pigeons. I barely dozed last night, worrying what will happen to me now, and about Jenny.

My flat is at the rear of the building, so the noises in the street are muffled. Yet I can hear someone walking up the stairs and entering the small hallway. It's too early for Mrs Brown to be up. Three knocks sound on the door, then stop. That's Jenny! She's come home!

I'm up and open the door before I even think to cover my face. Jenny is alone, a fact that surprises me, I admit. I was almost expecting half the police in London to be with her.

"Morning, Ma'am," Jenny says in a tired voice. "I've got your purse and your cloak. I'll need to wash that for you, it's a bit bloody."

I can only roll my eyes. "The cloak's not important! You don't sound right! What happened with the…girl?"

Jenny just looks at me for a very long moment, with no expression on her face. Finally she says, "She died without waking up again. Never even learned her name."

I have no notion of what to say to that. Finally I settle on "Well, that's too bad. You worked so hard to help her. "

"I …" Jenny looks up at me, and there is something dark in her eyes. Suddenly, she looks… older. "You know ma'am, it dawned on me while I watched her… bleed to death inside and out…that she could have been me. Would have been me a time or two. If not for you, Madame Vastra."

Despite five years of living with a travelling troupe of third rate thespians, I still find the emotion in Ape voices difficult to 'read', but there's something in her tone… as if she can't decide whether to thank me, curse me, or break down and cry.

"What happened… last night?" Jenny continued. "In the Alley? I can see why you ripped his heart out. If I was strong enough, might have done the same thing meself. Murdering Bastard."

It takes me a moment to understand that Jenny means the beast, and not me. I look at her carefully, and ask, "Do you want me to tell you now, or after you've slept?"

"Will you bother to tell me?"

"I will give you a full explanation later in the day, if you ask for it." I cock my head and ask "Have you slept at all?"

"Nodded off in the cab on the way back here."

"Is that sufficient to let you function properly for the day?"

"Doubt it."

I agree with her assessment; Jenny is falling asleep on her feet, and it is making her irritable. She's starting to sound like me.

She turns to hang up my cloak, and a folded piece of paper falls to the floor. Jenny scoops it up, and brushes it off. "Ah! This is for you."

Jenny hands me a note from Doctor Garrett-Anderson. It is terse and to the point: 'Your maid is exhausted and dispirited due to the death of the young women we were trying to save. Let her sleep, eat if she wants to and keep her warm. If she wants to talk, listen to her or find someone who will. Bring her around to my practice next week; I want to make sure she is well, and we have things to discuss.'

I frown. I'm not sure I want another doctor interfering in my life. However it may be advantageous to have a human doctor who can attend to Jenny if she becomes sick or injured.

If she chooses to stay. And if I choose to let her live.

There is no doubt about it; Jenny has suddenly become a very unpredictable factor in my life. She knows far too much about me. I'd meant to tell her more, of course, but in a careful, controlled way. Ease her into the idea of what I really am. Give her just enough to let her choose whether to stay or go, and leave us both safe.

That plan went to hell because of a murderous Ape and my own violent temper. The Doctor was correct when he told me that 'Anger is always the shortest distance to a mistake. And Jenny may need to pay a very high price for my mistake.

Well, I need to think this through. What do I do next?

First things first. I need time to re-form my plans, and Jenny needs rest. "Go to bed and get some sleep," I order her.

"Can't ma'am. I'm all over dirt." Instead, Jenny sits in the chair. "I'll just take a few winks here, and I'll be good to go, honest!"

I could argue the point, but in her own way, Jenny is as stubborn as I am. So instead I simply respond, "As you wish," and then sit at the bottom of the bed with a book to read and wait.

Within minutes Jenny is fast asleep and almost falls out of the chair before I can catch her. I scoop her up in the old blanket; any dirt or blood is far less important than Jenny's well-being, and we'll have more soon enough new blankets that the sacrifice of this old one is nothing. I lay her on the bed and she curls up near the wall without waking. Interesting. She always sleeps that way.

Usually I think nothing of it, as her method of sleeping leaves more room on my bed for me. However now I realize something else about it. She sleeps facing the wall, a slight space there. I can almost see her siblings, cuddled up next to her between Jenny and the wall, all of them sleeping on a pallet on the floor of her family flat. Jenny protecting the little ones. And all of them as far out of reach as possible from an adult in a temper.

A temper such as the one she knows full well also I possess, even though I have never hit her outside of training. And now she knows I am far more dangerous than her father. I sit back in the chair, and watch her sleep. Despite all of that, she willingly returned, and almost apologized for the blood on my cloak!

Now in the quiet of my flat, listening to Jenny's even breathing as she sleeps, I'm simply stunned. All I can focus on is the thought: "Jenny came back! Jenny came back!" She'll be lucky if I ever let of my sight again!

If I don't need to kill her first.


I wake up on the bed, and see Madame Vastra reading quiet like in the little wooden chair. The day is plenty warm, but I can hear a tiny fire softly crackling away. As I shift a bit, Madame looks up from her book, stares at me for a long moment, then reaches over and puts our little pot of water on the hob to boil.

I feel groggy and sad too. My voice is rough when I work up the nerve to speak. "I was a coward last night. I ran. And I wasted time. Ma always said "Help now, Faint later."

"Your mother would point out that you did help. And so far as I remember, you did not faint." Madame did that strange sort of head-circle she sometimes does, and then focused on me again.

"Jenny, grown A.. men have run screaming in fear at the mere sight of my face. You discovered me committing a truly violent act against a fellow..human. I was not dismayed that you ran. You might notice that I was expecting it. I was, however, surprised at how quickly you recovered your wits. Within minutes… and yes I know it felt like longer, but it wasn't… within minutes you were helping that young woman."

"That man weren't no human. He was a monster. But what happened in the alley? You said you'd tell me."

"There's not much to tell. Your sharp hearing picked up the sound the beast… attacking the girl. When we stopped, it only took me a moment to smell blood and then I had a reason to investigate, and I stopped the filthy Ape."

I just shake my head. "Still… sorry I screamed. Sorry I ran, I just... was surprised and scared and couldn't think right. Thought you'd been hurt… and then…"

"You found out that I'd killed him." I wince. Madame can be awful blunt sometimes.

"Not that really. Seen you kill with good reason before. As I recall, there were a couple of Scorpions who were beating me and who wanted to do worse 'till you stopped 'em. Last night though, well… eating his heart was a bit much."

I take a deep breath. This next bits gonna be tough. Ma taught me a little bit about the differences between words, even if I often forget some of it. I take a deep breath and ask the question I've been wondering about all night: "Was what happened last night a reason for killing him, or an excuse for killing him?"

Madame nods, as if she's pleased by the question. Or maybe the fact I know the difference 'tween the meanings. "It was a reason. He attacked the girl with intent to kill. When I entered the alley, he saw me coming. He even waved his ridiculous little weapons at me, and made some remark about waiting my turn. I ignored his words, tore his heart out, and yes, I ate it in front of him as he watched. That was the last thing he saw. His heart being eaten by a female. I thought it a nice balance myself."

"Right, o'course, make sense ma'am." Now I really am feeling a bit faint. "It's all the same I suppose; A bite of heart, a taste of tongue, a morsel of liver, a scrap of sausage…" I really want to ask her why she went for his heart, and not the more… obvious target. But I find I don't quite have that much courage.

From her nods, I can see that my poor joke goes right over her innocent ridged head again. It usually tickles me to tease her like this, even though I know I'm being cheeky. Someday she's gonna catch on to these cracks, and I am going to catch so much trouble. But meanwhile it's great fun for me. Or in this case, at least it keeps my thoughts off the blood for a moment. But I can't pay it no mind forever.

But there's one question I've got to ask, even if I pay dearly for it.

"So… you don't usually eat people, do you?"

"I prefer fresh meet when I can get it, as you are aware, but no, it's an occasional indulgence only. Last night, by attacking the girl, the beast became my just prey."

"'Just' prey? He might not have been much of a man, but…!"

"Rather, my 'rightful' prey I suppose would be correct. By the terms of my atonement for the lives I have taken and the debt I owe, I am charged with protecting the…humans of this world. So the vast majority of you are usually off-limits. Only those who break your laws, and specifically those who are violent, or who directly threaten me or those under my protection, may I kill."

"You're what?" I perk up at that. "You protect people? Why didn't you tell me? That's an excellent thing! That's what I want to do too! You're a real hero! Know you helped save me when I was little and that was years ago! How many people have you rescued since then? Dozens?"

"It's not important."

"Oh c'mon, please? There's me, twice, and Mr Thackeray, and then me again from the thugs and the Scorpions, and the two young servants from the fire in the house the week before last, and me too when I fell half asleep putting out the fire, and Mr Maxwell, and you tried to help the girl last night… that's five people and me a few times now in just a few months. Oh, and you fetched me to help the children and their nurse with the sleepy gas. So that's eight. Who else?"

"Ummm...," and suddenly Madame is avoiding my eyes, "I rescued a young dog for a hatchling once. Does that count?"

"A puppy? Sure, but how many peop…" I stop and frown at her. "Wait… do you mean to say… Madame! Between the time you helped me five years ago, and when you saved me from the Scorpions back in March, didn't you help anyone else?"

"I may have chased off a few Apes who were harassing females but mostly I've kept to myself."

"Ma'am, you really don't like people very much, do you? Doesn't sound like you're keeping to the terms of your ato…ato… debt very well," I grumble at her.

"Atonement is the word you wanted. And the term included an important provision: I could start when the time was right for me to do so."

"And when will that be?" I ask. "It's been over five years!"

"From the list you gave me a moment ago, apparently the right time to start was the evening of the first Saturday in March of this year."

"Oh. Right." Ouch. That night she saved me from Chang and his men, come to collect what my Da had sold to them. Namely me.

"What are you... atunin…um…in debt for?"

"I am atoning for a blood debt. I killed humans that you would consider innocent."

"Innocent? Why would you be killing people who hadn't done you wrong?"

"Because I believed that they had wronged me. I believed that anyone who rode on the underground was responsible for the death of my people."

"Oh… Sell Anne Carnations," I can't help but sigh. "What a dark thing to be talking about on a sunny day. Last night and today are not working out near as nice as I planned. Poor way to say 'Thank you' for putting up with me all these weeks afore I leave you."

"Leave me?" Madame sounds a bit alarmed. Can't be, must be my own wishing she cared a little bit if I stay or go.

"Well, I'm not going far. Spoke with Mrs Brown t'other day. She has a little room she can rent to me. Not near as big as this one, but the rent's not bad, and I can keep cleaning for her and cleaning and mending as you need. I just won't be under foot all the time. You'll even have your bed to yourself again. That's good, right?"

Madame Vastra stares at me for a long time, barely blinking. Finally she simply says, "Even before last night, I knew that you were at a point where you must choose whether to remain or leave. However, if you are to choose to stay near me, then there are things that you need to know, and your courage in returning today has earned you that honour. If you wish to learn, then come with me. Bring your little lantern, you'll need it."

Hmmm. That likely means we're going underground. Madame straps on her sword before reaching for her other light cloak. Good idea. There's all sorts of dangerous people and animals in the tunnels. I make sure I have my knives, both the big one, and a smaller one that a young thug dropped during the Masked Lady adventures. Ready for anything, I am.

I start to grab my little bundle of clean clothes as well, but she waves it off. "Leave that. You won't need it." Blast, no bath today, I guess.


We walk over to the Mansion House station, and Madame buys us fares on the Underground Railway around to Baker Street, switching trains at Kensington High Street Station. When we get off at Baker Street, she keeps me beside her as the rest of the people getting off the train rush for the exit. Once the steam train has left the station and the platform is clear, she leads me to the end of the platform to the train tunnel and then down into darkness. Most of the light is from the station behind us.

We walk a short distance, then turn off into another tunnel. Both tunnels are like big tubes, rounded on the sides and top. This one is even darker than t'other, and dry leaves and old newspapers are scattered across the tracks. This part isn't used much I guess. I take a moment to light the lantern, then follow Madame again. In all of this, she's barely said a word.

We walk a bit more. It's almost silent down here. I can hear a train in the distance, and our footsteps echo with the clack o' the rocks around the tracks and the crunch of dead leaves. Water slowly drips somewhere. Can't hear any voices.

Nice and private. Quiet as a grave. It's cool down here too, and I shiver a little bit.

Madame Vastra stops and says, "Sit down and listen. There are things you need to know."

I sit on a bit of the rail, and put down the lantern. If a train comes through here, I'll feel the rail shaking and get out of the way. The tunnel is narrow, and there isn't really anywhere else to sit.

Madame paces back and forth for a moment, then turns and looks around her. She looks… sad. "Do you understand that I am not human? That I am a member of a reptilian species that long predates Apes… Humans?"

"You mentioned once that you're a Lizard from Dawno'time. Thought you meant somewhere in Scotland."

"Scotland? Why would you think…never mind." She sweeps her arm around. "You were correct earlier. I don't like Apes. And while part of that is simple contempt for a species that I well remember as being inferior to mine, part of it is because your people, in their ignorance and arrogance, slaughtered my clan and my sword-sisters."

"This space around you, this tunnel…this is where I slept for millions of years. Where I would still be sleeping, if the A…humans had never built this place. This is not simply a tunnel."

Madame Vastra gave a great groan, and keeps going on, "This is the site of a massacre. This tunnel, the Apes that planned it, and the Apes that dug it, killed my family. I am the only one who survived."

Uh oh. 'Quiet as the Grave' was right. Too right. Madame Vastra is remembering, and I think I'm not going to enjoy her story.


Author's Notes:

The 'Coming Clean' section of 'Movin' On Up' was originally drafted to be two chapters long, it will now be three chapters as Vastra's feeling chatty. The next chapter will be posted within the next two weeks.

Doctor Elizabeth Garrett-Anderson (from Chapter 3) was the first Englishwoman to qualify as a physician and surgeon in Britain (1865), the co-founder of the first hospital staffed by women, the first dean of a British medical school, the first female M.D. in France, the first woman in Britain to be elected to a school board and, as Mayor of Aldeburgh, the first female mayor and magistrate in Britain. She was born in 1836. Married to James George Skelton Anderson (a shipping magnate) in 1871, and had three children. Died in December 1917 at the age of 81. After Elizabeth Garrett passed her exam in 1865, the Society of Apothecaries changed the rules so that no other woman could take the exams. In 1876 Parliament was passed an act to allow women to enter the medical professions. (Notation for sticklers: Dr. Garrett-Anderson was the first Englishwoman to qualify as a physician and surgeon in Britain who identified as a woman: Dr. James Barry (d. 1865 - the same year Dr. Garrett passed her exam) identified as male.)

"Sell Anne Carnations" - Jenny is indulging in a bit of cockney rhyming slang (hint: she's swearing again.) This is a made-up variation; if anyone know if there is an widely used version of what Jenny is saying, please pass it along to me.

"Madame was accidently awoken by an extension to the London Underground" says Jenny in the "Madame Vastra Investigates" mini-spode, and of course the Brilliant Book 2012 weighs in with a clipping about people being attacked 'on the newly opened Metropolitan Underground Railway which passes close to the Zoo at Regent's Park." The clipping continues that the attacks occur "as the train passed through tunnels near Baker Street." The Metropolitan Railway extension to Swiss Cottage opened in April 1868, and originally there were trains that turned off from the main line (now part of the Circle Line) and went up the extension. As Madame says, those trains stopped running in 1869. I just use a different interpretation as to WHY they stopped running.