Extracts from the personal diary of John H. Watson, MD

Monday 4 January, 1886

The afternoon had been bleak, the sort of afternoon that drives Holmes to fits of smoking the most poisonous tobacco in his possession, or playing dark and brooding airs on his violin for hours, or worse, to seeking the comforts of the morocco case. I was beginning to hope for something vile and shocking in the evening papers to pull him out of his funk. We heard the bell ring around four, and Holmes looked at me. "We might have some diversion now, Watson," he said. His reasoning here was apparent: neither of us were expecting a visitor. I rose and tidied away the worst of his messes with newspapers and coffee cups, to give our visitor a place to sit, should he wish one. Holmes displayed that streak of vanity I have sometimes seen in him and straightened his dress in the glass, then positioned himself in his armchair in the bow window, with eyes closed ostentatiously. We heard steps on the stairs, then Mrs Hudson's voice, then her knock. Holmes bade her enter. She said that a Mr Rupert Giles was calling, and did we wish to see him. She handed his card to Holmes, who examined it with a puzzled expression. He commanded her to show Mr Giles up immediately.

I noticed that my companion was already intrigued, and eagerly took up my notebook and pen to record the encounter as it took place. I have those notes to thank for the detailed nature of my record of the interview here in my diary, and a most amazing interview it was!

Mr Giles came in behind Mrs Hudson, and stood a little diffidently just inside the door, with an overcoat over his arm and a battered leather case in his hand. He stepped forward to give her room to leave behind him, and I ushered him forward.

Rupert Giles was a handsome man of middle age, over six foot tall, with a powerful build disguised under strange clothing cut too large for him. He had a full head of slightly curling hair, not yet grey, and worn untidily. His face was angular, with strong cheekbones and a stronger chin, speaking of an equally strong character and determination. He had on a neat pair of spectacles, and yet he bore himself like a man who was ready for fisticuffs, as I have seen Holmes at times. His nose had been broken at some time in his life, and not set properly, and a long scar marred his high forehead. I might have taken him for a military man, except that his voice and manner were refined. He stepped further into the room, in response to my urging, and looked about himself as if dazed. He stared from Holmes to me and back again. He set down his coat and case, and stood with a hand on his chest, still gazing steadily at Holmes.

"Where are my manners?" he asked, seeming to come to himself. "I am Rupert Giles." I introduced myself and Holmes. He shook our hands with a little smile on his face, then sat on the chair opposite Holmes.

"What brings you to us, Mr Giles?" asked my companion.

Mr Giles began his explanation hesitantly, stuttering a little. "This afternoon, an artifact of some antiquity and power was stolen from me while I stood in Pudge's Magic Shop. I believe that I am marooned without it. I would like your aid in recovering it."

"Marooned?"

"Yes. It was responsible for transporting me a, a, well, a great distance. I believe it will be required to return me to where I belong."

"The artifact is a magic one, then. You needn't dance around the issue of magic with me. I am a minor adept." Holmes lit a cigarette with a lazy word, inhaling and gazing at our visitor through the smoke. I have seen him do this now and again, though he usually prefers to reserve its use for times of need. Mr Giles smiled and inclined his head for a moment.

"So, we have established that we each are aware of the world of the arcane," said Holmes. "From where did this artifact transport you?"

"Perhaps you can tell me," said Mr Giles, cautiously. "The answer is a fantastic one. I believe you will have more trust in it if you arrive at it yourself."

"If you will permit me," said Holmes. Mr Giles nodded. Holmes rose, moving close to our visitor. Mr Giles looked at Holmes with the greatest expression of delight I have ever seen on one of our clients. He bore Holmes' examination with every sign of good nature, and it was a remarkably close examination, of the sort that often causes our visitors to bristle with offence.

Holmes began by picking up the man's overcoat, laid on the back of the divan. He looked inside at the lining, and gave Mr Giles the first of many piercing stares. He then stepped near to the man and took his hands in his own and examined them closely. He uttered a little groan when he saw the man's signet ring, but did not comment on it or ask any questions about it. Mr Giles had an object strapped to his wrist with a leather band, that looked like a miniature pocket-watch. Some fashionable ladies have taken to wearing their watches on their wrists, but I had never before seen a man do so. Holmes examined this watch with every sign of fascination.

The strange man stood to allow Holmes to examine his jacket.

"Where did you go to university?"

"Oxford. Merton."

"Ah. I'm a Cambridge man, myself. And you read?"

"History."

"And took a First?"

Mr Giles laughed quite silently. "Yes."

"Would you recite something for me?"

"Does it matter what?"

"Anything you know well."

He responded by reciting a poem that sounded rather like nonsense, about a fantastic beast killed by a man with a sword. The stammer vanished when he recited. "Or I could do some Shakespeare, if you'd prefer that to Carroll," he said.

Holmes made an absent noise from the floor, where he was inspecting our guest's boots, which I must say looked to be of bizarre fashion, with a thick sole of strange material. They were more like a workman's boots than a gentleman's. Holmes returned to his feet and walked around our guest, examining his face and hair quite closely. Then, to my great shock, Holmes lashed out with a fist, seemingly with every intention of knocking Mr Giles senseless. Our guest blocked the blow handily, then almost without effort seized my friend and held him with his arm locked behind his back in a position that looked most uncomfortable. I have rarely seen Holmes bested in a dustup, and never when he had the advantage of surprise. Holmes shocked me again by laughing. "You may release me now," he said. "I will not be making the mistake of matching blows with you any time soon."

Mr Giles nodded, then released his grasp. "You shifted your feet to brace for the swing," he told Holmes. Holmes rubbed his hand absently, as if to return feeling to a numbed extremity, and returned to his examination.

Holmes at last withdrew to his armchair, where he sat and gazed at our visitor for a minute over steepled fingers. Mr Giles himself sat down in his chair again, seeming ill at ease. He removed his glasses and polished them vigourously with a handkerchief.

"Mr Giles, would you tell me in what year you were born?" Mr Giles hesitated, glancing once again oddly from me to Holmes. "Come, man! I must know what gulf separates us!"

"Nineteen fifty-four," said Giles.

My friend exclaimed, then continued with the remarkable question, "And when is home?"

"Two-thousand one," was the reply.

"Why come to me and not them?"

"I have been raised from boyhood to admire you. I have to think you'd do a better job than they at finding the artifact."

At this juncture I rose from my chair and demanded to know what nonsense they were talking.

"Time-travel, my dear Watson," said Holmes. "The artifact has dislocated Mr Giles in time from over a hundred years in the future. No wonder you are so desperate to recover it, sir."

"Lord, yes."

"But this is fantastic!" I exclaimed. "How can this be? How can you believe such a tale?"

"Mr Giles has been careful not to tell such a tale, you'll note. As for the possibility of the thing, well." Holmes made a dismissive gesture. "I have read speculation about how one might go about it. It would take fantastic power, but it is possible. The question of whether Mr Giles has indeed travelled in time to be with us is a more concrete one. The clues are, as usual, all before you, my dear, only you perhaps do not understand the significance of some of them."

"You know his methods," said Giles, quietly.

Holmes lit another cigarette, using a match this time. "First, you will perceive that he is a well-educated man, but his mode of dress is most odd."

"Yes, I had noticed that," I said with some heat. "I thought perhaps he'd come to us from America."

"Where is his hat? He was wearing none when he came in, and his hair gives no sign that he has worn a hat at all recently. And his watch! It is obviously designed for a man, obviously some years old, from the creases on the band, and yet made by no firm I have heard of. And it keeps accurate time, but does not tick."

"Quartz mechanism," murmured Giles. "Not invented yet."

"There are other puzzling aspects of his dress. The maker's labels on his coat, and his jacket. The material of the lining of his overcoat. His spectacles, which are not made of glass, and the soles of his boots. These but are more entries in the same column. There is his calling card, which has several baffling sequences of numbers on it, whose purpose I cannot guess, and very strange printing, not letterpress at all. Next, we come to his accent. I can detect Oxford overlaid upon London, and then something else overtop that. But where in London? And what has been rounding off his Rs recently? How is it that I cannot place his accent?"

"Camden, then California. A place that does exist on your maps now, though the accent of its citizens today would be little like the accent I hear daily." Our guest smiled fondly, then his expression changed to one of great worry. He rubbed at his chest again.

"Thus, we have the picture of a man dislocated in time. And we continue! Who is this man? He has worn a ring in his ear, but is obviously no sailor. He has seen much physical combat; you observe the scars and the broken nose and his great skill. And the fingers on his left hand were once broken, and set expertly. But most telling, most telling, Watson!" Holmes sprang from his chair and leapt over to our guest, and flung open his jacket. "He is carrying wooden stakes and a cross in special pockets sewn on the inside of his coat. This man is a Watcher, a warrior and a scholar at once."

Our guest assented.

"And the last piece of evidence, Watson, is on his left hand." Giles held up his hand at this point of Holmes' speech, and I saw the signet ring again. I stepped over to the strange man and, having received his nodded permission, looked at the signet ring. It had an odd stone like onyx, and a Latin motto written around the stone, servo eam. I could see nothing of note about it, and said so to Holmes.

"This is the evidence I suspected you would not understand, Watson. This ring is made only for the Watcher of the active Slayer, and given to him when he swears his oath to her. I can sense the magic active in the ring. You could be the Watcher to a Slayer who has passed, sir, but I doubt it. You do not show the signs. Your great distance from your Slayer is troubling you. You have rubbed your chest no fewer than three times during this interview. And yet, I know of the man who is the active Watcher right now; he was described to me as much younger than you."

"1886," said Mr Giles, musingly. "Farringdon and Rachel, was it? Have they come back to London to deal with Whitechapel, or are they still on the Continent? No, that would be '87."

I at last burst out with my questions. "You must tell me, Holmes, what on earth it is that you are discussing. Slayers? Watchers?"

Holmes made a gesture to Mr Giles and sat down again, smiling to himself. I felt more than a little irritated by his obvious amusement. Mr Giles gave my friend an intimidating glare, apparently equally irritated. "I'm told I love the speech, but I have never actually been able to get all the way through it." He turned to me, then drew a breath. "You know about magic. Do you also know about demons, and vampires?"

"Vampires, yes, Holmes has warned me of something of the sort, though I believed at the time it was one of his little jokes." I cast my friend an apologetic glance. "But demons? What is this?"

"The world is older than you know," our visitor said. He then proceeded to explain to me that vampires were real, and walked the streets of London even as we spoke. I looked to Holmes, certain that our distant traveller was at last revealed to be a madman, but he merely nodded at me.

"As long as there have been vampires, there has been the Slayer. One girl in all the world, to find them where they gather and to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers." He went on to explain the great powers granted to the Slayer, and the Council of Watchers, and his role as a teacher to the active Slayer. I took copious notes as he spoke, so I will not repeat the information here. It was all rather astonishing.

"You understand why I must return to my time," he said to Holmes, with some urgency. "I must return to Buffy. She's in the middle of--" He broke off. "I came to London to beg the Council to research something for me, a very strong demon Buffy has been stalemated with for several months."

At this juncture, Mrs Hudson appeared with tea for three. We adjourned the discussion until all of us were well-supplied with muffins and cups, and had rearranged ourselves cosily around the fire.

"You'll dine with us, of course," said Holmes, "And stay in the spare room Mrs Hudson has yet to let." Our guest made as if to protest. "No, I must insist. You likely have no coinage that would satisfy a merchant. And though, true, you will eventually persuade the Council of your bona fides, I doubt you will do so this evening. No, you must stay with us. And you must tell me of the theft. But first, do have one of these most excellent muffins."