Chapter 1
Fourteen-year-old Sarah Fredericks sighed quietly to herself as she sat on the small electric railway, which ran from Innsbruck to Spärtz. The views were marvellous, that much she admitted. Sarah was unable to fathom how anyone could fail to be spellbound by the sight of the mountains covered in their mantle of snow. However, knowledge of the task which she must undertake prevented her from taking full pleasure in the landscape around her.
Rosemary Kitwood watched over her charge with anxious eyes, wishing that she could try to understand what the girl was going through. Rosemary had left her family at a young age, when it had been discovered what she was. A Slayer-in-Waiting, a girl who might one day be the only person who had the strength to fight all the dark, unnatural things in the world. Of course, she hadn't been called. But she had still wanted to help in the fight against the darkness. As soon as she reached adulthood she had applied to become a Watcher herself. Of course, the Council had been rejecting applications from women in recent times, as it was felt by society that a woman's proper place was in the home, but as the Great War had just finished, they were grateful for all applications, and as she had been brought up in the traditions of the Council, she was accepted with open arms.
It had been something of a shock when Sarah had been Chosen. But as soon as she had realised that her ward had become the Slayer, they had been posted to the continent, on the first of what Rosemary deeply hoped would be many missions.
That, she mused, was the reason she was here now, in the Austrian Tyrol. There had been reports of vampiric activity in the area, although the local population did not suspect anything. Putting the weakness caused by the blood loss down to Tubeculosis, the White Mans Plague which even now the doctors were striving to cure up in the Sanatorium which had recently been opened on one of the Alms.
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Their destination, the Chalet School, stood at the head of the Tiernsee, which in it's present frozen state resembled a jet black onyx set among sparkling diamonds. The Council realised that people would grow suspicious if Sarah were not receiving any schooling, and as the school which had opened 2 and a half years previously was well-known for it's aim of giving girls a healthy school-life, an aim which included daily exercise, which often took the form of walks around the local area. Entering Sarah as a boarder would mean that Sarah would be able to explore the local area without it seeming unusual (as a young girl wandering about by herself surely would seem), and would also give Rosemary the opportunity to travel around the local area to pursue other lines of enquiry in their attempt to find out more information about what was happening in this place.
They arrived at the terminus around lunchtime, and after depositing their luggage and taking lunch, or Mittagessen as it was referred to here, at the Kron Prinz Karl Hotel. They made their way to the school for an interview with the head, a Mlle Lepattrë. Although it felt wrong to deceive the quiet Frenchwoman, they had no choice, as the Slayer's work was much easier the fewer people that knew the truth. Rosemary explained that she was an artist, and that Sarah was her niece and ward, having lost her parents and her only uncle, who had been Rosemary's husband through a tragic road accident.
Madmoiselle felt sorry for the young woman who sat before her, her eye's giving the impression that she had seen many terrible things, and so Sarah was to become a pupil of the Chalet School, starting after the Easter holidays as the new dormitories would not be ready until after the break. Sarah knew, however, that this was possibly the closest she would ever get to leading a normal life.