Catherine, 1918.
She'd heard that when you died, your life flashed before your eyes. It was half right.
Suspended in that half-state, feeling the spell, the power of the Devil pull at her, dragging her further and further from life, Catherine found a number of memories popping up. Some were relevant, some decidedly not but then what could you expect? She was dying in the arms of her mortal enemy, a vampire whose notoriety had spread as far as she, or any werewolf had ever travelled. And yet...
Not only was Lord Hal exactly what every mother warned her daughters about – the charmer, the seducer that would ruin you, albeit one who would probably kill you before you had a chance to worry about your reputation – but her own mother had been very particular in warming her about Hal. Catherine remembered the day her mother had shared the werewolf archives with her. She'd been what, seventeen? Not yet a wolf, she hadn't been home long, having endured the final term at that insufferable convent boarding school, when her mother summoned her. Catherine knew what it would be about – she had received many such summons over the years, whenever Lady Caroline had wanted to lecture her about something or other, namely how disappointed she was that Catherine had yet again been in trouble with the nuns for climbing trees, sneaking out at night, talking to boys or some other tiny infraction that was treated as if she had committed murder.
But this time it wasn't about what she'd done, but what she had to do, namely begin her training as her mother's replacement, leading the werewolves of the future.
"Now you are fully grown-" Lady Caroline cast a disapproving eye over her daughter's appearance, carelessly dressed to the minimum standards. Catherine had made her feelings on formal clothing very clear over the years and her mother had seemingly grown tired of having the same argument over and over. Yet she could still make Catherine feel as if she had not changed from the gawky child with the skinned knees and the knots in her hair who had been sent away to school.
"It is time to take on the responsibilities of your blood. You are my heir, and tonight, at full moon, you will be recognised as such."
"Tonight? So soon?" Catherine felt a stab of panic.
"I have already left it far longer than I should have. You should be grateful that I allowed you your childhood; others would have passed on the wolf long ago. I, however, decided it was best to let you mature first, so that you might better understand what I was gifting you."
Catherine knew better than to argue; she'd been raised with this weighing on her her whole life.
"All those loyal to me will be in attendance – don't pull faces like that, girl! This is of the utmost importance. You shall be quite safe, so long as you do as you are told, do you understand?"
"Yes, Mama."
"Hmm. It would be better if you address me as 'Lady Caroline' from now on. 'Mama' sounds far too informal. It's not as if they won't know you are my daughter; you wouldn't be inheriting from me if you weren't, everyone understands how these things work."
Catherine clutched her hands together behind her back, fighting to keep a straight face. How old-fashioned! When she inherited, there would be some much-needed updating; it was a new century, and the werewolves needed to realise that, to act accordingly. It was one of their advantages – the vampires tended to struggle to cope with a changing world, too stuck in the past, tied to tradition, especially the older ones.
"So, as part of your recognition," Lady Caroline was still talking, barely paying attention to her daughter. "I must share with you certain things that you need to know. Come with me."
Lady Caroline rose to her feet, stiff and awkward in her conservative, outdated clothes and Catherine noted how stout her Mama had become, especially when compared to her own athletic figure. Too many years working at a desk, with no involvement in the field; something else Catherine intended to avoid, when she took her mother's place.
Lady Caroline led Catherine to a locked side room filled with shelved books.
"Wolves have been gathering this information for centuries, and those who hold positions of leadership such as myself are responsible for maintaining and adding to it. You will have to familiarise yourself with its contents."
Catherine's eyes widened – this was an entire library. She'd only just left school, and now she had to start all over with studying?
"To begin with, you should know your enemy."
"I know the enemy. Vampires."
"That is not enough," Lady Caroline snapped. "We do not go looking for trouble. But there are those that do, and you need to be able to recognise them."
She took down a leather bound tome, one filled with thick, heavy papers, sown in individually. She tore out the first page she came to, crumpling it into a ball and tossing it away.
"Staked him myself," she muttered, flipping through the pages then handing it to Catherine when she reached the page she wanted.
"Most of them are nothing. They are animals, incapable of thinking beyond their unnatural lusts and their obsession with feeding. They only concern us when they become organised, commit atrocities, or threaten us directly. Or if you should encounter any of these."
Catherine looked at the page.
"The Old Ones. Not the most imaginative title."
Lady Caroline pursed her lips.
"That's just as well. Imaginative vampires only mean trouble."
There were sketches accompanying the biography of each vampire; some were just a few lines, others covered several pages. The one of the little girl Catherine studied closely – could she really be over three hundred years old? She'd need to remember that, in future; just because someone didn't look threatening, it didn't mean they weren't.
She flipped the page over and... oh, what a pity. That such a handsome face should belong to a vampire. But then, that was to be expected, wasn't it? When wolves made a conscious choice to pass on the lycanthropic legacy, they tended to choose based on strength – not just physical but strength of spirit, those who would adapt the best and be of most use to the - Catherine had to make an effort not to use the word 'pack.' Her mother hated it, called it common; "Only animals have packs. We are a community. A family."
Vampires, however, tended to be shallower, often choosing based on appearance when recruiting, allowing impulses and lusts to lead them. Whoever had recruited this one had clearly had an eye for a pretty face.
Lady Caroline saw the sketch Catherine was studying and huffed.
"That one... I cannot even begin to..."
"You met him?"
Catherine watched as her mother's face flushed redder, growing flustered.
"I had the unfortunate... it was a long time ago. I was young and foolish... it is of no importance. Suffice it to say, this man cannot be trusted and if you should have the misfortune to encounter him, you should not believe a word that he says."
Catherine skim-read the notes accompanying the sketch with interest.
"He's very old... what's this about unexplained absences?"
"There are two schools of thought."
Lady Caroline seemed more uncomfortable than Catherine had ever seen her before.
"One of that he regularly travels far beyond anywhere we have connections. We don't know why."
"And the other?" Catherine found her curiosity was piqued. For there to be so much speculation about him, he had to be worthy of attention.
"That he is unique among vampires in that he regularly regains his conscience. Or something similar."
Catherine read on. Yes, there was mention of this – wolves who had encountered him at times when he appeared to be living separate from the others, causing no harm and behaving in a manner radically different from his recorded persona. Curious.
"He has a title? How would a vampire be granted anything like that?"
"We don't know."
Lady Caroline almost snatched the book from Catherine's hands.
"He most likely lied about it, or somehow charmed his way into favour with royalty in the past. You need to be on your guard if you should ever meet this man, Catherine. More so than the other Old Ones. He is extremely dangerous, in every possible way."
Her mother was completely sincere, earnest in a way she seldom was and Catherine didn't ignore that. If he frightened her Mama, a woman who intimidated every werewolf on the Continent...
"I'll remember, Mama. I mean, Lady Caroline."
"Hmm."
A rare smile crossed the older woman's face.
"Perhaps in private, you may continue to call me 'Mama.' You have a long way to go, child, but I am still proud to call you my daughter."
Back in the present, Lady Catherine felt as if the air was being sucked out from her lungs- she couldn't breathe and it was starting to go dark, though the torches still burned. Dimly, she could hear Hal calling her name, felt his hand on her face but she couldn't see him.
More memories flashed before her – the ceremony where the wolf her mother became had passed on lycanthropy to her, where she had witnessed for the first time the transformation in all its brutality, surrounded by the people who would later become her army in the war with the vampires. Her first transformation – she had been granted privacy for that, at least, allowed to remain at home rather than joining the others in roaming the estate or being locked up for the safety of the humans around. Her mother's death, and her inheritance of the family title and the responsibilities of werewolf leadership. The discovery in the reading of the will as to who her father had been, her frustration at never having been allowed to know him, that the taboo about werewolves breeding extended to forbidding families from staying together.
How Catherine had broken that when it came to the birth of her own daughter, Sophia, who was in the care of relatives, far away. Sophia's father hadn't been a wolf, though Catherine had told him everything about her situation, her responsibilities and if he hadn't been killed fighting in the human war last year, then he would have been the one to raise their daughter now. As it was, Sophia would have a choice, if she wanted to become part of the werewolf community or remain human. Although...
Catherine could feel her own death approaching, and if she wasn't there to lead the wolves, or to raise Sophia, it would all fall apart. Unless this spell worked – and Lord Hal's unsurprising refusal to play his part in the ritual had certainly cast doubt on that - then the vampires would win and the world was lost. And even if it did work, and the war ended, then what would happen to her people? She had not trained a successor. Would they remain as a community, a family or would they scatter? Catherine had wanted to make changes, but the thought of werewolves with no leader, no organisation, roaming free but lost... it was almost as bad as the thought that she would never see Sophia again
She hoped they would stay together somehow. They had to; even if the war with the vampires ended now the Devil was bound, there would still be fighting. Lord Hal certainly wouldn't just give up; he enjoyed the chaos far too much, and he wasn't due to regain his conscience for decades. She'd lost any chance she might have had to convince him otherwise, to redeem him now. Yet he stayed with her, holding her and that surprised her. Despite their flirtation, she had not imagined his black heart could feel anything remotely resembling emotion. But he'd run to her side when she fell, no concern at all for the vampire who was dying as she was, the one whose blood he had used in his stead, and she could hear him pleading her to hold on, through the fog of her impending death. But it was too strong; she couldn't, not even for Sophia.
A sudden bright light dazzled her and Catherine realised she was no longer in her body, but was looking down at it, lying still in Hal's arms. There was a look of genuine shock on the vampire's face – he hadn't known this would happen, and he hadn't wanted it to. Perhaps there was a tiny glimmer of hope after all.
Catherine turned towards the source of the light – a door, newly appeared in the wall and there was a brilliant white light streaming from all around it, calling to her.
But she wasn't quite finished, not yet.
She leaned down, whispering in Hal's ear.
"I'll be watching you, Lord Hal. I warned my daughter about you, the same way my mother warned me. Be very careful."
He didn't seem to hear her. He couldn't see her, so she wasn't a ghost but something else instead.
"Time to go," Catherine murmured.
And she opened her door.
- Okay, so Lady Catherine isn't technically a victim of Hal's, but he got her involved in the ritual that killed her, so she counts. As to all the memories I gave her, there is a bit of 'shoehorning' stuff in, but I really liked the idea that werewolf leadership could be inherited through matrilineal descent.
As to the 'taboo' about werewolves breeding – Nina can't really have been the first werewolf to have a baby? So there had to be a reason why two werewolves together was so unusual (bearing in mind I don't see how anyone else would know Eve had been conceived when they were in wolf form unless George and Nina told them).
Also, there's no proper explanation given in the show as to how werewolves went from organised enough to have an army to no organisation at all, but it stands to reason everything would have fallen apart during/after a war between the vampires and the werewolves and any accumulated knowledge would also have been lost.
– I could follow this with a chapter for Sophia, Catherine's daughter, (I thought about making her a vampire), but I'm a bit uncomfortable with how much violence against women I've been writing recently, so instead I'll leave it open, with the assumption that she remains human and avoids becoming another of Hal's victims.
I do have a plan for the next chapter, which will probably be the last.