Frost Moon

In polite company, the weather would have been described as 'raining cats and dogs'. From Constansa's point of view, all the little felines and canines of heaven were pissing maliciously down on them. Her mood was foul; she hated babysitting. Mainly because whenever she was called to babysit anyone, it usually led to a major demon invasion and a few razed cities - not to mention the horrible death of the child in question. It just wasn't her forte.

The stench inside the limousine didn't exactly help either. The air conditioning might be state of the art, but that didn't help when it was choking oncigarette fumes. Constansa almost envied Katherine who was on point, scouting the monastery before the rest of them arrived. At least she was doing something. Constansa would have happily traded places with her; just sitting there drumming her fingers on the dashboard was a lot worse than being active and soaking wet out in the rain. Cullen was driving - badly - while Bartholomew and Theresa were trying to comfort their charge, Elisabeth. Fortunately the limo had a flatscreen TV and Theresa had had the foresight to pick up a bunch ofchildren's DVDs to distract the kid. Ricardo was just lounging, filling the car with the smoke from his death sticks whenever he wasn't pretending to be asleep.

The child in question, Elisabeth, seemed like a sweet, polite, intelligent and pretty girl. Long dark curls and beautiful brown eyes were destined to make her man-eater - or woman-eater if she swung that way -once she got older. A couple of centuries ago, Constansa would have felt sorry for the kid. But those kinds of sentiments had received fatal wounds on the many battlefields where she'd fought. After all, the girl was alive, reasonably safe and healthy, and no one close to her had been tortured or murdered yet. Compared to the rest of the Multiverse, she had it good. Constansa remembered how Elisabeth had bravely told her parents that they shouldn't worry and that as long as she had her teddy bear Ursus along to protect her, she would be fine. The parents Constansa did feel sorry for. Here they were, happily striving to make a living and raise a happy family, when out of the blue it turned out that their daughter was a pawn in the game between Heaven and Hell and that she would be taken away to be raised in a convent. They weren't even told the name ofthe convent in question - for Elisabeth's safety. Constansa felt it would be safe to assume that at some point infernal forces would capture them and try to torture information on their daughter's whereabouts out of them.

At least Constansa's own parents had actually planned for her to join the war and were prepared for the price they had to pay - although it had to be admitted that they had expected their firstborn to be a boy. Back in Spain in the 15thcentury it had taken all of her family's wealth and political clout to give her a proper education. Her father was even crazy enough to host Arabic and Jewish scholars, risking the wrath of the inquisition to make sure she was taught proper astronomy, philosophy, and medicine. It didn't pan out quite the way her parents had planned; after levelling parts of Lisbon during a fierce battle, in which Constansa lost control of her powers, she and Theresa were kicked out of their order and had to flee in shame across Europe, with the Inquisition hot on their heels. Compared to that, Elisabeth had it easy.

It was a shitty job anyway. If the soothsayers were to be believed, Elisabeth had the potential to be the most powerful magician of this age. The last time anyone of that caliber was around, he ended up nailed to a cross. And even if they managed to keep her safe for a while, it wasn't realistic that she should fare any better than the carpenter from Nazareth - whom according to people who had known him, back in the day, was a really nice guy. The only reason Constansa and her pack had ended up on babysitting duty was that they were equally despised by all factions of the Church. With Elisabeth under Constansas protection, they were fairly sure Constansa wouldn't play favorites,and would let Elisabeth choose her own way. Which was why this convent was chosen. Run by the Grey Friars, it was one of the few of the Church strongholds which had maintained strict neutrality during the schisms of the last few centuries - schisms that had brought the Church to its knees. Not that the Grey Friars were a particularly nice or friendly bunch - they were equal opportunity haters - but at least they produced mean Knights and Dames of Jesus and Constansa hoped that they would teach Elisabeth enough martial skills to keep her alive.