Ugandan Night.

I am lying here awake, even though I told everyone else to try and get some sleep. Miss Jocasta McStay, Watcher, is Miss Jocasta McStay, Listener. I’m listening, listening, straining my ears to hear any sound outside the dark village hut, waiting for someone, or something, to try and kill us.

After the day we’ve had, I should be tired enough to sleep, but there are so many images spinning in my mind, and my back and my legs hurt.

Two days since we arrived in Uganda, less than a week since we were in Peru - be a Watcher and see the world!

Be a Watcher and act as a guide, advisor, and mentor to your Slayer, one to one. Now I’m nanny and de facto leader to my Slayer, two more Watchers, one of them’s Slayer, a Slayer who seems a bit too old to have her own Watcher, three potential Slayers, one of whom ‘belongs’ to the third Watcher, a ‘Wannabe Slayer’, the teenager lover of Watcher number two’s Slayer, a robot, (or is she an android?) with ‘past life’ flashbacks of being a Slayer, and just to give us lucky thirteen, last but most certainly not least, a Vampire. Oh, and by the way, I’m very attached to the vampire – to be absolutely correct he’s my lover! I remember a television series when I was young that used to say, after ‘last week on- - -’, ‘Confused – you will be!’ I wonder what made me think of that?

The vampire lover? Yes, it is true what they say about vampires – well they’ve had years of practice, and they do have remarkable powers of recovery. It’s less than a week since we had our one, and so far only, night of passion, since then we’ve been too busy, or I’ve been sharing sleeping space with a teenaged potential Slayer. I don’t know if any of the others are aware of the exact nature of my relationship with Jack, I expect that they’ll figure it out, but I’ve not got around to drawing them diagrams. What on earth will Roxy think? But right now, I really, really would like to have Jack here, holding me, and telling me that things will be fine, that he has faith in me, that we’ll all still be here in the morning. So where is Jack? He’s on the roof, looking out, waiting for trouble. Jack the Watcher.

My back hurts, I can’t sleep on it, and my legs hurt, and my arms hurt. My head is whirling with images. Images of plane travel - thank goodness for access to all the Watchers’ Council bank accounts – fairly comfortable when you’re not in economy. The kids: not sure whether to be blasé, thrilled, or apprehensive, James like the kids, but trying to look world weary and bored, Gabriella and Teresa: striding down the steps of the plane in the Ugandan sunshine in T-shirts, jeans and shades, Jack: smiling, but not really relaxed, covered from head to toe in Factor 50 fabric, and clutching a note explaining about his ‘terrible genetic disorder’. Hope it’s not the same cabin crew on the way home.

Images of Africa – the guide book bit – zebras, antelopes, dust.

Now images of The Caves. Cool, dark, then take the third on the left and you’re in the Shaman’s underground amphitheatre. With up-link, or maybe down-link, to local DTV (Demon Television, that is).

Images of the tests – Donna, determined to be a warrior, fighting a lion. Ross, as ever buoyed up by the need to be strong in front of Gabriella, coping with a Cape Buffalo. Gabriella faced with a gunfight that she could lose, against an opponent as un-shootable as she used to be herself. Louise, potential vampire slayer, having to slay her first vampire.

Then Jack. And me. Two trials for the price of one. I forgot to ask D’Hoffryn whether he got the two of us as a B.O.G.O.F. bargain. I think that’s when I began to see what the tests were all about, although I really only understood after our joint test. Jack, naked in the mid-morning sun, only a thatched shade, tied to the ground. All of us watching ‘Scenes from the Unlife of a Fighter’. Jack knowing that to speak would be failure, but also knowing that at any time he could have pulled up the ropes, picked up the shade, run to the caves, relied on himself to be safe – but failing, where we all needed to pass to be sure.

Images of Jack’s life, fighting, fighting, moving across a battlefield at night, ‘putting the severely wounded out of their misery,’ only I could see some sense in that. Then the shock pictures, was he really in the ‘Britisches Freikorps’, did he really kill some guy the other week when he was meant to be at the match?

My test? To trust in Jack, and my own judgement, and perhaps even if I doubted that, to put the needs of the group above my own feelings. Jack’s test? Similar I think, to trust in me, not just in himself, and to behave more like a person than like a vampire, mind I know people who would have put themselves above the good of the group without a second thought.

Strange to think it was only a few nights ago that I was pleased about the way that we are almost exactly the same height. Only a few nights since Jack said he’d even face the sun in Africa if it would help. Maybe the Shaman could hear those echoes from us? When the ‘film’ stopped, and the thatch started to burn, and I only had split seconds to decide whether to cover Jack with myself, or let him burn, it took one heartbeat to decide, and then it was easy. Even if he had done all those things with no mitigating circumstances, he had still saved Louise because I’d asked him, and he’d still put himself into this position because I’d asked him, and so I had no choice but to try and cover him from the sun.

Then the burning thatch started to drop on my back. Then they let the Matabele ants loose, and I was glad that I’d been allowed to keep my knickers on. I tried not to think about it as they bit, only tried to keep still, keep the sun off Jack. But as they bit my back, then my legs, my arms, and into my hair, I remember saying into Jack’s ear ‘I could move, you know!’ and being very glad that I’d been allowed to keep my knickers on - I wished they’d been bigger. I might be strong willed, but even I might not have been able to keep so still if they’d bitten the bits under my knickers!

When our test was over, I was glad that the Shaman showed the truth behind some of the pictures, but not really for me, because I’d already decided. More so that James would realise that things weren’t always as they seem, and that Jack wasn’t really in the Britisches Freikorps, or feeding off innocent guys he met in pubs.

I wonder why I thought more of James than the others? I think in some ways the kids are less bothered about ‘history’ than what they see for themselves, and they see Jack as an ally, and they really wanted to get their hands on magic rings. Gabriella and Teresa have known Jack for a very long time, they know what he is, and that he is what he is – they would not have passed judgement. Sam? I don’t know Sam that well. I know his judgement has not always been right, even if he had thought mine was wrong, and there had been no explanation sequence, I don’t think he could have queried my judgement, just at the moment I wouldn’t have cared much if he had.

My back hurts, and my legs, and my arms hurt, and the bites on my scalp hurt, I can’t sleep.

More images, I still play them in my head. Jenny meeting her mythical counterpart, olde-world golem versus tech golem – hurrah for modern technology, that’s what I say! James and the Giant Gorilla. (Perhaps a book by Roald Dahl?). Had it not been such a bloody big one it would have been pure farce! And when the Shaman said that we could only communicate with James by ‘appropriate choice of songs’ my mind went blank. Even if some of us knew what he had to do, we couldn’t think of the right way to put it.

When Gabriella suggested that James ‘do it like they do on the Discovery Channel’ all the kids (well except Manuelita) got the giggles, and so did I. Trouble was I then could only think of hymns, which is what comes of having a Free Church Grandma who firmly believed that a good religious up-bringing would be a help to me as a Watcher, just as it had been to generations of other McStay Watchers!

‘He ought to sit down’, I remember thinking – maybe out loud, because Jack, who was beside me, burst into ‘Oh, sit down, oh, sit down, sit down next to me’, that James song, which was absolutely perfect – a James song for James. Once he stopped being ‘aggressive’ from the gorilla’s point of view of course, and began to think about how to be non-aggressive, the gorilla and James became the best of friends, and he’d passed.

Images of that dark haired vampire girl – Drusilla - about to kill Manuelita. I was so worried when everything started to ‘go wrong’ with the Sam, Manuelita and Teresa, trial. I couldn’t see how they could win, if Sam and Teresa did what the Shaman told them to do, then Manuelita was surely going to die, and if they did anything to help her then they would have disobeyed instructions, and failed.

I didn’t know whether to be relieved or dismayed when first Sam, then Teresa intervened. We had failed by saving Manuelita, the rings would not be ours, we would have to fight this thing without them – then the Shaman said that by making the right decisions, despite instructions to the contrary, they had all passed – relief.

Then I realised that we had all passed, except for Roxy – Roxy was to go last he had said. What could he have in store for Roxy? ‘In Store’ was the right question. I wonder how many of the others realised that Roxy, fearless Slayer, is frightened of escalators?

More images swirl around inside my head. ‘Dogs and Pushchairs Must Be Carried’. Must Be Carried. If you don’t have them, they will be provided. Poor Roxy. What a horribly bad tempered dog she had provided! I see it in my head, I hear it snapping in my head – until Roxy punched it! And the Troll! What a bloody big Troll! But I never doubted for one minute that Roxy could beat the Troll – as long as she could cope with going down an Up escalator, and then up a Down one! And she could.

I still can’t sleep, my back hurts, and my legs hurt, my arms hurt, and my scalp hurts, even though Teresa rubbed anti-histamine all over me – except for the bits that my knickers cover! It’s not really fair – some of the ants bit Jack, but he doesn’t still hurt!

The rings, I think of the rings. All neatly laid out in their casket, row on row, nine, seven, five, three, one. We realise that, apart from the Watcher ones, which all looked the same, each ring was symbolically linked to its wearer, no chance of getting the wrong one, but who should go first? I felt like saying ‘You can’ to anyone at all, but instead I said I would, and so James and Sam felt they should do it with me. Nothing – no flash of light, no cloud of invisibility, and then – wait, something – illumination, a knowing, I can see clearly now, as some guy sang, I can think that bit faster, I feel as though my hard disc has been de-fragged – neat (to quote Roxy!). It’s like an all round Watching boost, I could have written all those essays on vampires and demons much easier if I’d been wearing this, I thought. I feel the ring on my finger now, in the darkness, and it comforts me.

Then everyone took their own rings – and it feels weird as the ring adapts itself so that it fits – very D & D. The Slayers rings make them even more Slayer, and Donna and Ross seem to be able to do Slayer things as well as the potential Slayers. Potential Slayers - poor Louise, and Manuelita, facing vampires on behalf of people who weren’t there, but getting nothing. I think we really must encourage Louise with her magic, she does have an aptitude, and after all, a potential Slayer can only become a Slayer if The Slayer dies – and as Roxy appears to be the correct line, Louise will only become a Slayer if her friend (and my Slayer) dies.

The one ring – Jenny’s ring. ‘One ring to rule them all?’ you could almost hear the words in everyone else’s mind. Then Jenny put it on, and nothing happened. Then she just stood, and we all started saying ‘What do you feel?’ and Jenny didn’t know. Then she said that it was something, but she would have to take time to think about it.

In fact she ended up putting lots of her systems on stand-by for the whole journey to this village before she could actually interpret the data changes, and now we know – Jenny’s ring ‘makes her more real’- it gives her teenage emotions! The magic equivalent of surging hormones? It’s definitely made her more ‘body conscious’ – next thing she’ll probably want her belly pierced, or a flower tattooed on her behind! I’m not sure yet why or how it will help us overcome this ‘real and present danger’ – but I’m sure it will.

Jack, now I let my mental eye wander to Jack, and his ring. He put it on, tried a few moves, a few kicks, nothing. He didn’t feel any different. The others began to ask questions, ‘Do you feel this?’ ‘Do you feel that?’, and I began to think of what would help him/us most. Then I thought I knew, but to test it could be dangerous in itself, and how sad for Jack if I should be wrong, after he’d been given a hope. But I had to say it.

‘Could it be to do with the sunlight?’ I asked. He looked at me, at the ring, then said ‘Come on – let’s try,’ and headed to the cave entrance. I grabbed my water bottle and ran after him, and there he was, just putting his finger tips outside – nothing happened. Then his whole hand – nothing happened. I loosened my grip on the water bottle, and felt myself relax a little. Then he slowly walked out of the cave, and grinned.

It took a few moments before he had it really figured out. He did a few kicks and combat moves, stopped, put his hand to his chest (like an American singing their anthem) then called me over, and lifted me up – with a bit of difficulty. How embarrassing.

Then he put me down, pulled me back into the cave mouth, and tried again. He could lift me with one hand. He said ‘Got it! Not human or anything – no heartbeat, but not really vampire either, just human strength rather than vamp strength when I’m in the light, but back to my usual self when I’m out of the light.’ He went in and out another couple of times to make sure, then he said ‘Actually it’s a bit sad – I was going to ask you to go up to the Shetlands for the annular eclipse so that we could take a stroll in the light – no need now.’ ‘Jack,’ I said, ‘that is probably the most romantic thought anyone has ever had about me - and if we survive that long, I would love to go for a walk in the Shetlands with you in the eclipse!’

Jack looked at me very seriously, and told me that I should NOT be defeatist, I was a good Watcher, and we would all be fine – he had faith in me. That really did make me feel better, I’m not being facetious at all. I do feel stronger, and more able to look after this oddly assorted group because a vampire believes I’m a good Watcher! It’s probably a good thing that the rest of the Watchers’ Council were blown up – if they were all still there, they would probably come to the conclusion that I needed counselling! Possibly de-councilling! But I am the de facto head of the Council, and as long as Jack thinks I’m doing fine, then I think I’m doing fine as well! Anyway, Jack’s family have had members on the Council for at least 500 years, so he should know!

The other effect of his ring was only apparent when he went past the car mirror. He suddenly stopped, did a double take, then looked at me and said ‘Oh God, pet, I really do look like my passport photo!’. He looked so stunned that I burst out laughing, and then I decided that I didn’t care what anyone else would think, and I kissed him – not just a peck, but the sort where you eventually have to come up for air – if, that is, you’re human!

So, now we are here, in the village of Sam’s cousin, where he had thought his potential Slayer, Grace, would be safe, and we are waiting to be attacked. I think we have made all the preparations that we can, but James and I can’t agree on the meaning of Roxy’s dream, even with the rings on! I hope I’m right. If I am, our preparations may be enough. I hope I’m right.

I can’t sleep, my back hurts, and my legs, my arms hurt, and my scalp. My mind hurts, from trying to think about everything. I hear a noise – it is starting.

Watcher’s Tales Part 2

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