Senga: The Vampire Slayer.
At the end of Buffy The Vampire Slayer's TV run, in the episode "Chosen" Willow combined her magic with the power of the Slayer's axe, to make every potential slayer, a full-blown slayer. All the girls in the world, who could have been a slayer, now are slayers.
Including one shy young girl from Glasgow, Scotland.
She is Senga.
Beware her wrath foul creature of the night.
"Naw. She's no' gawn wae ye."
"But Mr McLeod, she's special, we know how to handle her new abilities."
"Ah said naw. Ah'm no havin' some redhead Yank bitch coming in to ma hoose and telling me ma daughter is so bloody special that she needs to go to some School in Yankee land."
"If you don't like redheads, I could turn my hair black? Trust me, you'd like that even less." Willow was getting more than a little angry at the backward momentum of this conversation.
"I'm sure Mr McLeod, that all you want is what's best for your daughter." Giles intervened, trying to ease some of the pressure that had built in the room.
"An you can piss off an a' ya wee English poof. Noo get oot a ma hoose afore ah call the polis on yas."
"Willow, you have my permission to flay him." Giles commented glibly as he and Willow walked towards the front door." Willow smiled a wan smile. Giles knew that she was sorely tempted.
As they walked down the stairs of the Glasgow tenement building they heard a voice shout after them, "Haw, you." They turned to look at the slightly dishevelled girl who was ambling down the stairs after them. "Ah heard ye talkin' tae ma da. Whit's this aboot me bein' special an' a' that?"
"You're Senga?" Giles asked, and then acknowledging how moot the question was added, "of course you are." Giles looked the girl up and down, her hair was unkempt (to say the least) and her clothes looked as though they had been raided from the dingiest charity shop imaginable. "You, young lady, have more power now than your father could possibly understand, haven't you noticed over the past few months, that you're a lot stronger than you were? Faster?"
"No' really mister. Senga looked puzzled.
"Well, you are. You just haven't tapped into your potential yet. You've been given a great gift, a great power, but with it comes responsibility." Willows softer tone seemed to ease the girl somewhat, "You have the strength to fight the darkness, and you are, what is called, a Slayer."
"Slayer of what exactly?" Senga asked consternation etched on her face.
"Well, vampires primarily, but well, really anything supernatural and evil." Giles put in.
"Oh? Right. OK, then, thanks for comin' to see me." Senga started laughing as she made her way back up the stairs to her front door.
"No one said this would be easy Giles." Willow said as her eyes moved from Senga to her companion. She might wk it out for herself she thought. But by then, it could be too late.
As they exited the close and made their way to the rental car, Willow stopped, she could feel someone watching them, she looked around and tried to locate the source of the feeling, she saw nothing. She shook off the feeling and got into the car and Giles started to drive off.
The curtain of a flat on the opposite side of the road twitched again, and in the darkened living room a voice said, "The witch almost saw me."
"Almost, is the important word in that sentence."? Replied a voice from deeper within the near absolute darkness. "Since the lassie didn't go wi' them, we can assume they wurnae believed. If that's the case, we move the night.
"Dad, I'm just goin' out wi' Jean fae across the way. Ah'll no' be late."
"Mhmm" Came the drunken reply from the living room of the 2 bedroom flat.
"Eight o'clock and he's already pished." Senga rolled her eyes as she closed the door, "Which wan o' the God's did ah piss off to deserve him as ma da'?" Senga closed the door as quietly as she could, she didn't want to waken her father from his drunken stupor. Her friend Jean, was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, "park?" was all that Senga said, Jean's smile answered the question.
It should have been dark, but the street was bathed in the unnatural orange glow of the streetlights, interspersed with the newer white down lighters, supposed to reduce light pollution. The moon shone in a near futile attempt to bring natural light to the sky. The park was only a few minutes from Senga's flat, but the walk refreshed her somehow.
"So how did you get oan in yer exam Jean?" Senga asked idly.
"No' bad ah 'hink. It wiz only maths a hud the day. An' it's no' like the prelims count for any'hin'. Ah hate exams." Jean's simple statement rang out in the quiet street, Senga thought it was strange that there weren't even any cats roaming, looking for something to fight or kill.
"Ah know whit ye mean, that's how ahm no botherin' wae them. Whit does school work huv to dae wi' the real world anyhow?" Senga laughed, she already had a job lined up in Superdrug. They only paid minimum wage, but it would be enough to get her out of her dads flat and into one of her own, at least, that was the plan. Her big plan. To escape the man who'd killed her mother.
"Ah think ah might go tae college." Jean almost whispered. "Ah want to dae childcare an' 'at." Jean looked at Senga, almost asking for a sign of approval.
Senga stopped and looked at her friend in the orange glow, "Aye? You'd be good at that." Senga started walking again, pleased that Jean had a plan in life, an idea to better herself. Senga stopped again. She could feel something odd, she looked around the street, trying to find the source of the nagging feeling she had. She felt what seemed like an itch, behind her eyeballs, and it refused to go away. The street was empty, strangely empty she thought again, but once more she shook off the unease and continued on her way.
The girls reached 'their seat' in the park a few seconds later, and unceremoniously flopped onto the wooden bench. Senga could feel the 'itching' getting worse, she tried to ignore it, but it was getting more and more annoying.
"Aww, Senga will ye' look at the Burberry brigade." Jean said simply, as she pointed over towards the park gate. Senga's eyes followed jeans outstretched finger, and saw five hooded figures walking through the gate. As they got closer, Senga's feeling of unease intensified. Then the figures stopped, just a few metres away from where Jean and Senga were sitting. They stopped and stared.
Senga's natural bravado pushed it's way to the surface of her consciousness, "Aw'right boys, you've hud yer look, now piss off over to the duck pond wi' yer pals. I think wan o' them has a bottle o' buckie, if yer lucky they might share."
"We're no' interested in them." One of the figures spoke. He sounded older than he looked. "It's you we want. Slayer." The figure laughed.
Senga's hackles were immediately raised, instinctively her hands curled into fists, trouble was coming and she was going to be ready for it. "Whit did you call me? Naw, don't tell me, ye called me slayer. You're the second bawbag to call me that the day. Are you wi' them?"
"No, you could say, those were the good guys. Us? Not so much." A different figure spoke this time.
"Ahhhh, riiiiight. You're the vampires then?" Senga asked derisively.
The gang of neds pulled their hoods back to reveal ridged faces and really large incisor teeth glinting in the light. "Yup, that's us."
"So, you're like Vampires?" Senga looked incredulously at the twisted faces before her. "Ah just thought ye had an awfy load a' plooks. Ye can get creams f'r that ye know?"
The vampires laughed, it was a hissing laugh, the kind of laugh you would expect a snake to have. One of them swung a fist at Senga. Incredibly she dodged it, as though some preternatural sense had warned her of the move. She dodged and parried like an expert. "How in the name a God am ah dain' this?" Senga asked no one in particular. One of the vampires grabbed her by the throat. "So ye'll be efter ma blood now eh? Well how about a mooth fu' o' dandruff?" She brought her head forward with as much force and speed as she could muster. The crown of her skull connected perfectly with the vampires jaw. She heard a satisfying crunch and felt bones shatter in the creatures jaw. It yelped in pain and jumped backwards nursing it's injured mouth. Senga delivered a resounding roundhouse kick to his head to knock him into the welcoming arms of unconciousness.
Another vampire immediately took it's fallen compatriots place in Senga's line of sight. "Ye know?" Senga said, almost conversationally, "Ah've only ever seen this kind o' kung fu shite in the films." She finished her sentence with a hearty uppercut punch to the new vampire's jaw. It flew backwards into the park bench Senga had just vacated. Wood splintered and the vampire looked down at it's chest and saw a large section of the wood, protruding from its chest, just as it turned to dust. "Now, that was cool." Senga said out loud. She looked up at the remaining vampires. "So who else wants some?" The vampires looked at each other and fled.
"You awright Jean?" Senga looked down at the ground where her friend had taken refuge.
"Ah 'hink so Senga, whit the fuck wis that a' aboot? Were they real vampires? Whur the hell did you learn tae fight like that?" The questions flooded out of Jean as she staggered to her feet.
"Ahm no sure whit that was about, aye, a think they wur, an' a huvnae a clue." Senga looked at the unconcious vampire at her feet now. Her eyes drifted to the shards of wood from the broken bench, she seemed to be weighing up her options. She slowly picked up one of the larger, sharper pieces of wood and stood over the prone vampire. With a deft, almost instinctive motion, she brought the makeshift stake down into the vampires chest. It's eyes flashed open and let out a momentary gasp, just before it vanished, to be replaced by a dust cloud billowing in the light wind. "Well, that answers wan o' yer questions Jean. They wur vampires."
The following morning, after a fitfull and restless night, Senga got out of her bed with a steely determination in her eyes. During the silent hours of the night, she had come to some startling realisations.
1. Vampires were real
2. The Vampires were out to get her.
3. She had super powers
4. Killing Vampire Neds was fun.
5. She needed to do something about this.
She crept along the short hallway to another door in the flat. She wasn't sure why she was sneaking, she could still hear the reassuring sound of her fathers elephantine snoring from further down the hall, she felt sure that he wouldn't awaken for several hours yet. She inched the door open and entered the darkened room. Her hand went to the light switch and suddenly the room was bathed in a glorious 60 watts of light.
Her brothers room was unchanged since the last time she had been in here. 18months ago, when her brother Davie had been put away, for being a stupid wee boy, who had been dragged down by a bunch of idiots. He was too stupid to have done anything like that on his own. Too naive to have thought of it himself, too kind a soul to have been anything but off his head on drink, or worse when he killed that other lad. Senga pushed such thoughts to the back of her mind as she went to the section of the room she had in mind. She drew back the rug. There it was, the loose floorboard, even the police hadn't found it when they were searching Davy's room after, after what happened. But Senga knew where it was. Davy had shown it to her. She had been disgusted by what she had seen, told him to get rid of them. Davy just laughed as he replaced the floorboard. The same floorboard that Senga now tugged at. It came away easily in her hands, which was strange as Davy had been forced to use a screwdriver to pry the board loose last time.
Senga looked at the contents of the little cubby hole. Then with more than a little trepidation, she withdrew the contents. "Yer pals told ye' that these were for doing the 'work of God'. Maybe they were right efter a'. " Senga looked at the knuckle dusters in her hands. She moved them looking at every detail of them. Solid steel, with but one alteration. She looked closely at the face of knuckle dusters, and saw the cruciforms that had been etched into them. "If Vampires are real, they are so not gonna like these buggers."