Chapter Text
“I tell you no tales—it was the Adversary that ambushed us. The devil be dwelling in those woods. I saw the fiend with my own eyes,” the bloodied lieutenant besought his interrogators. He sat in the middle of the prisoner of war’s holding tent, his red coat torn and soiled and his hands tied at the wrist. “He wore all black and road a black horse—probably covered in soot from Hell fire. His face wasn’t human. It had these wide, glass eye sockets and a hose where a nose and mouth should be. His breath was raspy as if it was a furnace, and he spoke no words.” The lieutenant tried to recreate the unearthly features he described with his hands. “He had two bayonet blades that he mowed us down with like a scythe. He killed over a dozen men! We shot him several times. I heard the bullets make contact, but they didn’t faze him—he just kept slaying us, one by one, until there were none.”
Major Benjamin Tallmadge and his best friend and fellow soldier, Lieutenant Caleb Brewster, listened prudently, watching the young lad’s facial expressions and body movements to see if they told a different story. But in all aspects, he appeared to be earnest.
“There’s you—he left you. Why is that?” Ben asked.
“He always leaves one. Only one. One to live and tell.” The lieutenant broke down into sobs. “You rebels are the devil’s own if he is defending you now. You’re damned, the whole bloody lot of you!”
Ben and Caleb eyed each other and left the tent with a guard posted outside.
“That’s the third story we’ve heard about this Adversary character in the past week,” Caleb said in a lowered voice so others in the camp couldn’t overhear. “I like the bastard. He seems to be providing the extra butt flap we’ve been needing lately.”
They rounded a corner, heading towards Mr. Sackett’s headquarters.
“He has been doing us favors. But who is he? And why does he hide behind a mask—from us, too?” Ben blew into his hands to warm them.
“To scare the devil into the lobsters, that’s why,” Caleb said. They turned as they heard the cries of the lieutenant rise behind them. He was shouting something about Jesus saving him. “It’s working, too. First time I’ve ever seen redcoats run to us begging for our protection.”
“All the same, have him gagged. We want the British spooked, not our men.”
Caleb gave him a quick solute and jogged back to the prisoner’s tent. Ben continued on to Mr. Sackett, the intelligence part of his intelligence operation.
Ben entered the appropriated town house. Mr. Sackett’s back was to him, bent over a table in deep conversation with someone who Ben did not recognize—a woman in a plane grey dress with an white apron and a green scarf tied around her head.
Ben cleared his throat, and Mr. Sackett and the woman turned. Ben was wary at first for not knowing who this new person was, but he was startled when she met his gaze. She had wavy auburn hair tucked underneath her scarf, fiery emerald eyes, and porcelain skin that was nearly translucent. Her eyes were large and wide but discerning, and her facial features were a strange mixture of hawk and lamb—equal parts predator and prey—but all orchestrated into quite a lovely face that looked like it could play both sides, a talent that could be used to their benefit or to their bane. Everyone looks like a potential menace these days, Ben thought as he forced himself to tear his eyes from her.
“Ah, Major, just the person I was looking for,” he motioned for Ben to the map on the table. “I have it on good information that the British suffered a blow recently. It was a parvola sed fortis blow, yes?”
Ben eyebrows slightly furrowed. “Small but powerful, indeed. I should have been delivering that news to you though. How did you hear about that already?” He watched as the woman picked up a laundry basket and walk past him.
“Oh, Rachel, forgive me. Allow me to introduce you to the Major,” Mr. Sackett said absently. “Major Benjamin Tallmadge, this is Rachel Hazard—technically my second cousin once removed, but I’m referring to her as my niece for brevity’s sake…and new assistant. Recently orphaned from the war, very tragic, etcetera.”
Rachel looked at the Major and quickly curtsied as an afterthought. Ben bowed. “Miss Hazard, I’m at your service.”
Rachel looked at Mr. Sackett then back at Ben, curtsying again, “Charmed, Major.” She ducked out of the door, leaving a trail of rose water aroma in her wake. Ben breathed it in deeply before turning back to Mr. Sackett and the matter at hand.
* * * * *
Rachel’s cheeks felt warm, and she was annoyed at that. She was also annoyed at the corset that clamped down on her rib cage. And to top the list off, she was saddle sore.
She hauled the laundry basket to an unpopulated bank of the nearby river. Scanning the area and seeing no one nearby, she pulled out the black shirt and pants from the bottom of the basket. She scrubbed them with urgency against a large rock, ringed them out, and tossed them back into the basket, piling the other miscellaneous items on top. She had already beat the black frock late last night, ridding it of the road mud that clung to its hem. Once it was dry, she would hide her “costume” back in one of Mr. Sackett’s chests where he said they would be safe from detection.
Wincing, she stood up. The corset was rubbing the bruises where the bullets had hit. “Better than bullet holes,” she kept reminding herself. She wisely wore a bullet proof police vest on her excursions to avoid injury and “fain immortality” as Mr. Sackett had put it. He had been most impressed with her modern contraptions—including an automatic handgun with over a dozen fully loaded clips, grenades, smoke bombs, and other knickknacks that Malone had packed. She felt fortunate that Malone—the greedy treacherous terrorist—had led her right to Mr. Sackett once they made it through the time shaft. Who else would believe that she was from the 21st century? Who else would readily understand the exigency of her tracking down and stopping Malone from foiling the Revolutionary War—and subsequently altering history, as she only knew it?
Her first feat had been saving Mr. Sackett, Malone’s first target. Malone had tried to convince Sackett to join his “cause” on promise of payment and lies that the war was doomed anyway, but when that did not work, Malone had pulled a gun with a silencer on him, which is when Rachel had burst into the room, deftly arraigning the gun from his hands. She had hesitated, not wanting to kill Malone who was her only ticket back home, so he managed to escape, leaving Rachel to explain to Mr. Sackett who she was, who Malone was, and why she was wearing pants. It had been a long conversation that night. After she provided “proof” through predictions about outcomes and intel that only a student of history could know and modern technology, Sackett began to believe her.
Her next feat would be finding Malone and tricking or forcing him back into their time—back to 2014, back to her parents and brothers, and her life—where she didn’t have to wear a bloody corset.