Title: Watching the Watcher (1/2)
Author: Am-Chau Yarkona
Rating: PG
Pairing: Giles/Spike (with much Rupert/William)
Timing: Post season seven or later (ie about 2004), crossing over with possiblities for Joss' BBC series, which may or may not be called 'Ripper' or 'The Watcher'.
Follows on from my fics "In Sickness and In Health" and "For Better, For Worse" but will stand alone (I hope).
Summary: The boys (okay, the man and his favourite souled vampire) have moved to Britian, to 'deal with some ghosts' both physical and metaphorical.
Warnings: swearing (in Latin, Chinese and English, and possibly some others).
Feedback: thristed for like wet things in a very dry place. spam@hagden169.fsnet.co.uk
Disclaimer: Not mine. Joss owns them, if they already exist, and will own the ones he hasn't got around to making yet. No characters were harmed during the writing of this fanfic, and I did as I promised: they weren't sold into slavery (even when they were very annoying), toutured (even for artistic purposes) or forced to wear Xander's clothing (even to make more intresting visual images).
*Comments are in an endnote, but it ought to be said here that the research is mainly duplicateable. Where would a fic writer be without the web?
William's POV, probably throughout.
Rupert's flat, Bath, Wednesady 20th July 200?.
Well, at least he's reading again, even if he doesn't stop to go to bed. The first week we were here, there was so much unpacking and organising that he didn't get to any work. It's good to see him back in his old patterns- even if that does mean he keeps expecting me to help. I might complain, but it's mostly for effect.
"William, do you happen to know what 'amadain' means? I think it's Gaelic."
"Yes, I know. It means 'idiot'- Angelus applied it to me on occasion." I pause, and then add, "I can't believe I just admitted that."
He laughs, gently, and that's good to see too. He doesn't smile as often as he used to. "Well, that could explain Angelus' choice of word."
I chose not to reply to that- I have a right to remain silent- and just watch his face as he settles back into silence. He is at his most handsome when he's concentrating hard, reading or spell casting. His eyebrows draw down and in a little, his green eyes are shaded but I can still see their colour, cool and enticing like a woodland clearing. He's lost some weight since we arrived, and the soft light from the desk lamp in front of him shows his cheekbones, so that they stand out as clearly as I remember mine did- I guess they still do. My Rupert. It took a long time for him to be convinced that he should bring me with him. I suppose he felt that his mission here was private, and some part so it are. There are demons both inside and out, and he has both to deal with.
I won't try and intrude on his private fights, but when he has nightmares I wake him, and when he goes to meet the people who gave him these demons- his parents, the Council, I guess- I will go with him. There's not much I can do beyond moral support, but that I can do. It's one of the few things one really can do with a soul, and not without, being on the moral high ground. I take a certain satisfaction from that.
The other thing I can do is help him deal with the day to day jobs that come up. England must be very short of wizards these days, or Giles in high demand. Barely a day goes by when we aren't 'invited' to a spell casting, an extorsion, the scene of a crime or an occult related mystery. His instinct is to help wherever he can, until he wears himself out and can't go on.
I've taken it as my job to make sure that he stops before he makes himself sick, doesn't get deppressed when there is a problem he can't solve, and- of course- to help by doing research and reading, taking telephone calls and notes, answering letters and e-mails (not his e-mails, true, that won't happen until the moon turns blue and gets eaten by a mutant star-goat, but I answer the ones from Red, keep Sunnydale up-to-date).
My respect for Cordelia, and her work as secteratry to my Sire, grows daily. I hardly know her, but I'm coming to see that she has a tougher time than you'd think possible.
His frown has been getting steadily deeper over the past minute or so, and now he swears. "Pudor tu!" Latin, huh? I guess that's what he's been reading in. "Tu es stultior quam asinus!"
"Found something you don't like, pet?" I ask, mildly. No need to avoid being annoying- he's annoyed already.
"Orcae Ita!" he replies, before realising that he is still speaking Latin and switching to English. "I don't like this at all. The author of this book must have been."
"As frightful as an engine developed solely for the countenance of sexual inuendo by country music?" I suggest. That gets his attention off the offending book, anyway.
"What?"
"I got it off the surrelist compliment generator." I shrug. "It seemed a good compliment at the time, but it does equally well as an insult."
"The joys of surrealism," he says, dryly, but my vampiric hearing catches the added, "I knew buying you a laptop 'so you could keep in touch with Willow' was a bad idea."
"You don't regret it when I can help you with the research, though," I grin. "What are you after today? Should I plug it in again?"
"I don't think the net will be able to help with this. I've been given a description of a ghost of sorts, and I'm having trouble deciding what it could be- hence the Latin and Gaelic books on ghost types."
I pick the lartop up and plug it in. "You could use some other sightings, really. Where is it?"
"In the center of Bath, I think. The Grosvenor Hotel."
"Well, let's try MultiMap first, get a fix on that."
He moves over to sit beside me on the settee, pulling on a jumper on the way. "I like watching you do research," he murmers. "It's nice to watch someone else work, and you look so handsome when you concentrate."
The echo of what I was thinking only minutes ago is eerie, but I ignore it and run a 'nearest hotel' search. Lots of places come up, but not the Grovesnor, and the simple map of Bath plainly isn't going to help.
"Try Yahoo," I say, mostly to myself- it's what Willow taught me. She always used Yahoo as her first choice of search engine, with AskJeeves a close second. Don't ask me why, I only asked her how to put them on my favourites list.
"No luck there, either- a Grosvenor Hotel in Bath Road, Bournemouth, looks good but is clearly not what we're after."
Ten minutes later, Rupert is still watching me avidly- I suppose Watchers are given special training in it- and I'm ready to concede defeat. "The only reference I can find is in 'This Spectred Isle', which mentions the hotel and a 'misty shape that leaves a feeling of cold'. Does that sound hopeful?"
"Yes- where are they taking the information from?"
"The Good Ghost Guide, page 11." I tell him. "I put it into Yahoo- it's a book, John Brooks, 1994. Want the ISBN?"
"No, thank you. I'd know if I had a copy, and I doubt it says more than your web page, somehow."
"Amazon can't sell it to you, either, so I guess it's out of print. We might just have to go into Bath and see what we can find out there- or talk to your friend again."
He shivers, and I put the computer onto the floor and pull him closer to me. "But we don't have to do either tonight- or should I say this morning. Want to go to bed, luv?"
He ignores the second part, and carries on with his train of thought, "We can't really talk to my informant, because she's in hospital, in a coma. The thing she saw- it scared her so much she fell and hit her head. She woke up long enough to tell her husband what happened, and then she."
So that's why he's so anxious to help. He doesn't want this thing to hurt anyone else, and quite right too. However, this extra dimension to the story- and I'll leave why he didn't tell me this before for those dark hours of the night when I'm awake and he's not- makes it sound more like a demon than a ghost.
"Are you sure you're after a ghost, Rupert? They don't normally hurt people."
"You're suggesting it could be some kind of demon? I don't think so." He gets up, and must see puzzelment on my face, because he explains why. "I'm just going to get some extra layers. Your room temprature vampire body might be able to go from America to britian without having to radapt, but my human self still has to get aclimatized to very cold weather, such as England."
That makes me smile, and I get a smile in return before he disappers into the bedroom. While he is gone, I take the opperunity to contiune my research. Occultopedia tells me that cold is common with hauntings, but I knew that anyway, and I can't find any references to people being hurt by ghosts. Warned, yes, but not hurt. Either Rupert's informant was very unlucky, or there's something else going on here- and why can't I hear him moving any more?
I turn the laptop off and call out, "I can't find anything else there, Rupert." When I don't get a reply, I call again, "Rupert? Rupert? Pet?" and begin to move towards the door. Something is wrong here, I can sense it. It's not quite another prescence, the way I feel Buffy or Drusilla, or even the dim sense I have of Angel, but there is something there. Rounding the door, the feeling of unease becomes rapidly stronger, and I almost sprint the last few steps. Rupert is lying on his side, his thick woolen gurnsey half on, his eyes closed and his face pale.
"Rupert! What happened?" I kneel by him, visually checking pulse and breathing, uncertain to touch him without being sure of what I'm doing. These days, I am almost over-aware of my extra strength, and I don't want to make any injuries worse. "Rupert?" His eyelids flicker open as he stirs a little, breathing steadying. "Hush," I say, and cradle him in my arms, unable to bear it anymore. "Hush, you're safe now. Can you tell me what happened?"
"The ghost," he whispers. "It was the ghost, just like Diane saw. Misty and white." I feel him tense his muscles, trying to sit up or stand, but I'm not having that.
"Stay still, love," I say. He needs looking after far more than the kids in Sunnyhell- I don't know why we had so many arguments about whether I should come with him. I lift him up onto the bed, gald it isn't very far, and pull his gurnsey off his arms. Shoes off, blankets up and over him, and then I crawl, as fully dressed as he is, in beside him.
"You want anything?" I ask, "Hot water bottle, cocoa, tea, music, laptop, book?" No response, so I try again- I know he isn't really asleep, because his breathing is too fast. "Cuddle, sexy vampire, kiss, teddy bear, good shag?" There. A faint smile. Normally I'd describe it as 'the ghost of a smile' but that seems to be nearly as ill-timed as one of Harris' jokes.
"I'll settle for a cuddle-and-talk." He still sounds scared, and cold, but when he opens one eye to look up at me, I know he'll live. Not that I'd been very much in doubt, but I had thought that this could be very nasty.
"Okay- whatja wanna talk about?"
"Must you use those riduculous pieces of slang? 'whatja' is not a word."
"Sorry." He must be stronger than I give him credit for- the bugger regains his sense of humour with alarming speed. "Which topic didst thou desirest discussion our of?" There are times I'm glad I learned Shakespeare at school.
I get the smile I was playing for, but apperently he decides not to go along with my game. "We have to find out more about this ghost- or whatever it is- and quickly. If it hurt Diane, and it can hurt me in my own home, who knows who it might go for next?"
"Yes. Do we know what Diane was doing- I mean, was she looking for the ghost? We were researching when it came."
"She's a ghost hunter, but I don't think that's why she was there. Her husband, Kevin, told me they came down to stay for the week and found the hotel by chance."
"That's the Grosvenor, right? The one that wasn't listed on MultiMap?"
"As far as I know."
"Look, Rupert. I don't think there's anything more you can do tonight. It's got very late- it's nearly four in the morning- and you need to sleep."
That gets more reaction than it was intended to. Rupert pushes himself up onto his elbows, and makes like he wants to get up.
"Woah, pet," I say, sliding my arm arcoss him and pushing down- not to hard, but enough to hold him. I may be more aware of my strenght now, but that doesn't always stop me using it. "Sleep now."
"What if- it- comes back? It might attack again, and if we're both asleep."
"Rupert, calm down. I said it was time for you to get some sleep. I'll stay awake- and, when it came, I sensed it. I didn't know what it was, but I felt it, and I'll know it if I feel it again."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Nothing can hurt you now- I won't let it. Once you're asleep, I'll cast that protection spell you taught me. That covers the dead and the sleeping, so if you're asleep it should protect both of us."
"Thank you, William."
"You're welcome."
He relaxes, and shuts his eyes. There is still some tension visible in his face, but that drains away as he is claimed by Morpheus. Yes, I did Greek mythology as well as Shakespeare, you know. Hang on a minute- is it Morpheus I mean? He was God of Dreams, but it was his father, Hypnos, who was God of Sleep. Funny how you remember these things at the strangest times.
I chant the words of the spell softly, "Protegg traversina, dio sogno: protegg quello di cui sonno dur per sempre. Rend thier sogno giusto e thier wonderings cassaforte, Oh dio sogno. Protegg traversina, io implorare voi. Questo cerchio essere ora protegg non lasci esso romp!" The Italian syallables feel round and smooth in my mouth, and make me think of other passages of poetry I know.
What was it Keats wrote about Morpheus? I may as well pass the time trying to remember- it's going to be a long time before he wakes up, and I'm not leaving his side to find something else to do. Something like, 'Perhaps, thought I, Morpheus/ In passing here, his owlet pinions shook;/ Or, it may be, ere matron Night uptook/ Her ebon urn, young Mercury, by stealth,/ Had dipp'd his rod in it: such garland wealth/ Came not by common growth. Thus on I thought,/ Until my head was dizzy and distraught.' From Endymion, I thing. 'Dizzy and distraught' sums up how I feel about this ghost thing well enough. Dizzy, and distraught, and angry. I don't know what it is, and I'm not sure I care. It hurt Rupert, and that puts it in my bad books stright away.
I feel more like Mercutio, teasing and (obviously gay) bright, but with an undercurrent of anger. Or prehaps Tybalt, "What, drawn and talk of peace! I hate the word, as I hate hell, all Montugues, and thee." Careful, William, you'll be quoting great long speechs next- what was it Mercutio said about sleep?
Queen Mab, he said, when he teased Romeo: "O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you./ She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes/ In shape no bigger than an agate-stone," I think that's right- yes, "On the fore-finger of an alderman,/ Drawn with a team of little atomies/ Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep." I look over at the sleeping man beside me, and picture her, with, "wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,/ The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,/ The traces of the smallest spider's web,/ The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,/ Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,/
"Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,/ Not so big as a round little worm/ Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;/ Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut/ Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,/ Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers./ And in this state she gallops night by night/ Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;/ O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,/ O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees," it's nice to think that laywers were bad even back then.
I hear my Sire's been having laywer trouble in LA, and part of me still wants to cheer them on. "O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream," what? like me, dreaming of Rupert's lips on mine, his arms around me and- bad William! You're no better than one of those hormone driven teenagers you look down on. Go back to the Bard, "Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,/ Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:" That's enough to stop you having that kind of dream for a while, or at least to stop you welcoming them.
"Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,/ And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;/ And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail/ Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,/ Then dreams," how does it go? um.., "he of another benefice:/ Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,/ And then dreams he of biting foreign throats," biting? I think it was cutting in the original. Still, I prefer biting, when I can't think, "Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,/ Of healths five-fathom deep;" I could use one of those. I wonder if Rupert's dilberatly avoiding alcohol? In America, he drinks, not a lot, but he does- but over here, he can go for weeks without touching a drop.
"And then anon/ Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,/ And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two/ And sleeps again." Perhaps that's why- when he doesn't drink, the nightmares are less frequent. hard to say which order they come in- America, alcohol, dreams, I think, but who knows. Take away America and alcohol, and he still dreams sometimes. "This is that very Mab/ That plats the manes of horses in the night,/ And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,/ Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:/ This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,/ That presses them and learns them first to bear,/ Making them women of good carriage:" I wonder that they let us study Shakespeare in school. There's sex, and violence, and who knows what else. Maybe it's that we were all boys- I'm sure the girls weren't- wait a minute, what's this?
Outside the protective bubble of the spell, a grey mist has formed. The spell crackles with green sparks here and there, but it holds. Slowly, the mist swirls and forms shapes: a large head with bulging eyes, then another, and another, until they are all around us. I sense their prescences as sepearte beings- these things are alive, although they are not human, but demon. One of them pokes as long finger at the spell, and when it sends a shock out, he pulls back quickly, surprised.
After that, they don't try to touch anymore, just stare at us, faces blank. I daren't speak or move, for fear of waking Rupert and breaking the spell, so I simply stare back, trying to take in any and all information available that might enable us to identify these things correctly. Ten or fifteen minutes later, their numbers have thinned considerably, and soon they leave altogether.
I settle back to watching Rupert sleep, waiting for the time when he wakes and we can go back to work. Lucky vampires don't need sleep every night, isn't it?
* This is based on what spoilers I can get for the BBC series (especially from http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/RipperNews.html, up to when I wrote this, late August 2002), combined with my own ideas about British ghosts, Bath, Rupert's mission and much too much time spent browsing the web for sites on fanfic, the occult, ghosts, and obscure languages. Thanks are due to the web site mentioned above, and these esteemed purveyors of facts and fictions: http://www.occultopedia.com/index1.htm, http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/delirium/mythology/demons.asp, http://www.at.artslink.co.za/%7Egerry/irisha_m.htm, http://www.insults.net/html/swear/index.html, http://www.madsci.org/cgi- bin/cgiwrap/~lynn/jardin/SCG, http://babel.altavista.com/tr, http://www.bibliomania.com/0/2/244/1103/16222/1/frameset.html, and http://lyrics.rockmagic.net/lyrics/ramones/. I also consulted regular Buffyverse sources: Pysche Buffy Transcripts (http://studiesinwords.de/ ), BuffyWorld.com (http://www.buffyworld.com/), the Buffy Database (http://bdatabase.cjb.net/), Sonja Marie's Buffy the Vampire Slayer Links (http://www.bitterwisdom.com/btvsurls/search/search.cgi (and many of the linkls contained therein)) and Who Watches the Watchers for both the title and visual inspiration (especially this page: http://www.geocities.com/thepotters_uk/watchers_frame.html), not to mention the various search engines and standard sites which William visits. You can duplicate my research and his, if you like, and improve on it if you can get to Bath.
Author: Am-Chau Yarkona
Rating: PG
Pairing: Giles/Spike (with much Rupert/William)
Timing: Post season seven or later (ie about 2004), crossing over with possiblities for Joss' BBC series, which may or may not be called 'Ripper' or 'The Watcher'.
Follows on from my fics "In Sickness and In Health" and "For Better, For Worse" but will stand alone (I hope).
Summary: The boys (okay, the man and his favourite souled vampire) have moved to Britian, to 'deal with some ghosts' both physical and metaphorical.
Warnings: swearing (in Latin, Chinese and English, and possibly some others).
Feedback: thristed for like wet things in a very dry place. spam@hagden169.fsnet.co.uk
Disclaimer: Not mine. Joss owns them, if they already exist, and will own the ones he hasn't got around to making yet. No characters were harmed during the writing of this fanfic, and I did as I promised: they weren't sold into slavery (even when they were very annoying), toutured (even for artistic purposes) or forced to wear Xander's clothing (even to make more intresting visual images).
*Comments are in an endnote, but it ought to be said here that the research is mainly duplicateable. Where would a fic writer be without the web?
William's POV, probably throughout.
Rupert's flat, Bath, Wednesady 20th July 200?.
Well, at least he's reading again, even if he doesn't stop to go to bed. The first week we were here, there was so much unpacking and organising that he didn't get to any work. It's good to see him back in his old patterns- even if that does mean he keeps expecting me to help. I might complain, but it's mostly for effect.
"William, do you happen to know what 'amadain' means? I think it's Gaelic."
"Yes, I know. It means 'idiot'- Angelus applied it to me on occasion." I pause, and then add, "I can't believe I just admitted that."
He laughs, gently, and that's good to see too. He doesn't smile as often as he used to. "Well, that could explain Angelus' choice of word."
I chose not to reply to that- I have a right to remain silent- and just watch his face as he settles back into silence. He is at his most handsome when he's concentrating hard, reading or spell casting. His eyebrows draw down and in a little, his green eyes are shaded but I can still see their colour, cool and enticing like a woodland clearing. He's lost some weight since we arrived, and the soft light from the desk lamp in front of him shows his cheekbones, so that they stand out as clearly as I remember mine did- I guess they still do. My Rupert. It took a long time for him to be convinced that he should bring me with him. I suppose he felt that his mission here was private, and some part so it are. There are demons both inside and out, and he has both to deal with.
I won't try and intrude on his private fights, but when he has nightmares I wake him, and when he goes to meet the people who gave him these demons- his parents, the Council, I guess- I will go with him. There's not much I can do beyond moral support, but that I can do. It's one of the few things one really can do with a soul, and not without, being on the moral high ground. I take a certain satisfaction from that.
The other thing I can do is help him deal with the day to day jobs that come up. England must be very short of wizards these days, or Giles in high demand. Barely a day goes by when we aren't 'invited' to a spell casting, an extorsion, the scene of a crime or an occult related mystery. His instinct is to help wherever he can, until he wears himself out and can't go on.
I've taken it as my job to make sure that he stops before he makes himself sick, doesn't get deppressed when there is a problem he can't solve, and- of course- to help by doing research and reading, taking telephone calls and notes, answering letters and e-mails (not his e-mails, true, that won't happen until the moon turns blue and gets eaten by a mutant star-goat, but I answer the ones from Red, keep Sunnydale up-to-date).
My respect for Cordelia, and her work as secteratry to my Sire, grows daily. I hardly know her, but I'm coming to see that she has a tougher time than you'd think possible.
His frown has been getting steadily deeper over the past minute or so, and now he swears. "Pudor tu!" Latin, huh? I guess that's what he's been reading in. "Tu es stultior quam asinus!"
"Found something you don't like, pet?" I ask, mildly. No need to avoid being annoying- he's annoyed already.
"Orcae Ita!" he replies, before realising that he is still speaking Latin and switching to English. "I don't like this at all. The author of this book must have been."
"As frightful as an engine developed solely for the countenance of sexual inuendo by country music?" I suggest. That gets his attention off the offending book, anyway.
"What?"
"I got it off the surrelist compliment generator." I shrug. "It seemed a good compliment at the time, but it does equally well as an insult."
"The joys of surrealism," he says, dryly, but my vampiric hearing catches the added, "I knew buying you a laptop 'so you could keep in touch with Willow' was a bad idea."
"You don't regret it when I can help you with the research, though," I grin. "What are you after today? Should I plug it in again?"
"I don't think the net will be able to help with this. I've been given a description of a ghost of sorts, and I'm having trouble deciding what it could be- hence the Latin and Gaelic books on ghost types."
I pick the lartop up and plug it in. "You could use some other sightings, really. Where is it?"
"In the center of Bath, I think. The Grosvenor Hotel."
"Well, let's try MultiMap first, get a fix on that."
He moves over to sit beside me on the settee, pulling on a jumper on the way. "I like watching you do research," he murmers. "It's nice to watch someone else work, and you look so handsome when you concentrate."
The echo of what I was thinking only minutes ago is eerie, but I ignore it and run a 'nearest hotel' search. Lots of places come up, but not the Grovesnor, and the simple map of Bath plainly isn't going to help.
"Try Yahoo," I say, mostly to myself- it's what Willow taught me. She always used Yahoo as her first choice of search engine, with AskJeeves a close second. Don't ask me why, I only asked her how to put them on my favourites list.
"No luck there, either- a Grosvenor Hotel in Bath Road, Bournemouth, looks good but is clearly not what we're after."
Ten minutes later, Rupert is still watching me avidly- I suppose Watchers are given special training in it- and I'm ready to concede defeat. "The only reference I can find is in 'This Spectred Isle', which mentions the hotel and a 'misty shape that leaves a feeling of cold'. Does that sound hopeful?"
"Yes- where are they taking the information from?"
"The Good Ghost Guide, page 11." I tell him. "I put it into Yahoo- it's a book, John Brooks, 1994. Want the ISBN?"
"No, thank you. I'd know if I had a copy, and I doubt it says more than your web page, somehow."
"Amazon can't sell it to you, either, so I guess it's out of print. We might just have to go into Bath and see what we can find out there- or talk to your friend again."
He shivers, and I put the computer onto the floor and pull him closer to me. "But we don't have to do either tonight- or should I say this morning. Want to go to bed, luv?"
He ignores the second part, and carries on with his train of thought, "We can't really talk to my informant, because she's in hospital, in a coma. The thing she saw- it scared her so much she fell and hit her head. She woke up long enough to tell her husband what happened, and then she."
So that's why he's so anxious to help. He doesn't want this thing to hurt anyone else, and quite right too. However, this extra dimension to the story- and I'll leave why he didn't tell me this before for those dark hours of the night when I'm awake and he's not- makes it sound more like a demon than a ghost.
"Are you sure you're after a ghost, Rupert? They don't normally hurt people."
"You're suggesting it could be some kind of demon? I don't think so." He gets up, and must see puzzelment on my face, because he explains why. "I'm just going to get some extra layers. Your room temprature vampire body might be able to go from America to britian without having to radapt, but my human self still has to get aclimatized to very cold weather, such as England."
That makes me smile, and I get a smile in return before he disappers into the bedroom. While he is gone, I take the opperunity to contiune my research. Occultopedia tells me that cold is common with hauntings, but I knew that anyway, and I can't find any references to people being hurt by ghosts. Warned, yes, but not hurt. Either Rupert's informant was very unlucky, or there's something else going on here- and why can't I hear him moving any more?
I turn the laptop off and call out, "I can't find anything else there, Rupert." When I don't get a reply, I call again, "Rupert? Rupert? Pet?" and begin to move towards the door. Something is wrong here, I can sense it. It's not quite another prescence, the way I feel Buffy or Drusilla, or even the dim sense I have of Angel, but there is something there. Rounding the door, the feeling of unease becomes rapidly stronger, and I almost sprint the last few steps. Rupert is lying on his side, his thick woolen gurnsey half on, his eyes closed and his face pale.
"Rupert! What happened?" I kneel by him, visually checking pulse and breathing, uncertain to touch him without being sure of what I'm doing. These days, I am almost over-aware of my extra strength, and I don't want to make any injuries worse. "Rupert?" His eyelids flicker open as he stirs a little, breathing steadying. "Hush," I say, and cradle him in my arms, unable to bear it anymore. "Hush, you're safe now. Can you tell me what happened?"
"The ghost," he whispers. "It was the ghost, just like Diane saw. Misty and white." I feel him tense his muscles, trying to sit up or stand, but I'm not having that.
"Stay still, love," I say. He needs looking after far more than the kids in Sunnyhell- I don't know why we had so many arguments about whether I should come with him. I lift him up onto the bed, gald it isn't very far, and pull his gurnsey off his arms. Shoes off, blankets up and over him, and then I crawl, as fully dressed as he is, in beside him.
"You want anything?" I ask, "Hot water bottle, cocoa, tea, music, laptop, book?" No response, so I try again- I know he isn't really asleep, because his breathing is too fast. "Cuddle, sexy vampire, kiss, teddy bear, good shag?" There. A faint smile. Normally I'd describe it as 'the ghost of a smile' but that seems to be nearly as ill-timed as one of Harris' jokes.
"I'll settle for a cuddle-and-talk." He still sounds scared, and cold, but when he opens one eye to look up at me, I know he'll live. Not that I'd been very much in doubt, but I had thought that this could be very nasty.
"Okay- whatja wanna talk about?"
"Must you use those riduculous pieces of slang? 'whatja' is not a word."
"Sorry." He must be stronger than I give him credit for- the bugger regains his sense of humour with alarming speed. "Which topic didst thou desirest discussion our of?" There are times I'm glad I learned Shakespeare at school.
I get the smile I was playing for, but apperently he decides not to go along with my game. "We have to find out more about this ghost- or whatever it is- and quickly. If it hurt Diane, and it can hurt me in my own home, who knows who it might go for next?"
"Yes. Do we know what Diane was doing- I mean, was she looking for the ghost? We were researching when it came."
"She's a ghost hunter, but I don't think that's why she was there. Her husband, Kevin, told me they came down to stay for the week and found the hotel by chance."
"That's the Grosvenor, right? The one that wasn't listed on MultiMap?"
"As far as I know."
"Look, Rupert. I don't think there's anything more you can do tonight. It's got very late- it's nearly four in the morning- and you need to sleep."
That gets more reaction than it was intended to. Rupert pushes himself up onto his elbows, and makes like he wants to get up.
"Woah, pet," I say, sliding my arm arcoss him and pushing down- not to hard, but enough to hold him. I may be more aware of my strenght now, but that doesn't always stop me using it. "Sleep now."
"What if- it- comes back? It might attack again, and if we're both asleep."
"Rupert, calm down. I said it was time for you to get some sleep. I'll stay awake- and, when it came, I sensed it. I didn't know what it was, but I felt it, and I'll know it if I feel it again."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Nothing can hurt you now- I won't let it. Once you're asleep, I'll cast that protection spell you taught me. That covers the dead and the sleeping, so if you're asleep it should protect both of us."
"Thank you, William."
"You're welcome."
He relaxes, and shuts his eyes. There is still some tension visible in his face, but that drains away as he is claimed by Morpheus. Yes, I did Greek mythology as well as Shakespeare, you know. Hang on a minute- is it Morpheus I mean? He was God of Dreams, but it was his father, Hypnos, who was God of Sleep. Funny how you remember these things at the strangest times.
I chant the words of the spell softly, "Protegg traversina, dio sogno: protegg quello di cui sonno dur per sempre. Rend thier sogno giusto e thier wonderings cassaforte, Oh dio sogno. Protegg traversina, io implorare voi. Questo cerchio essere ora protegg non lasci esso romp!" The Italian syallables feel round and smooth in my mouth, and make me think of other passages of poetry I know.
What was it Keats wrote about Morpheus? I may as well pass the time trying to remember- it's going to be a long time before he wakes up, and I'm not leaving his side to find something else to do. Something like, 'Perhaps, thought I, Morpheus/ In passing here, his owlet pinions shook;/ Or, it may be, ere matron Night uptook/ Her ebon urn, young Mercury, by stealth,/ Had dipp'd his rod in it: such garland wealth/ Came not by common growth. Thus on I thought,/ Until my head was dizzy and distraught.' From Endymion, I thing. 'Dizzy and distraught' sums up how I feel about this ghost thing well enough. Dizzy, and distraught, and angry. I don't know what it is, and I'm not sure I care. It hurt Rupert, and that puts it in my bad books stright away.
I feel more like Mercutio, teasing and (obviously gay) bright, but with an undercurrent of anger. Or prehaps Tybalt, "What, drawn and talk of peace! I hate the word, as I hate hell, all Montugues, and thee." Careful, William, you'll be quoting great long speechs next- what was it Mercutio said about sleep?
Queen Mab, he said, when he teased Romeo: "O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you./ She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes/ In shape no bigger than an agate-stone," I think that's right- yes, "On the fore-finger of an alderman,/ Drawn with a team of little atomies/ Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep." I look over at the sleeping man beside me, and picture her, with, "wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,/ The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,/ The traces of the smallest spider's web,/ The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,/ Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,/
"Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,/ Not so big as a round little worm/ Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;/ Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut/ Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,/ Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers./ And in this state she gallops night by night/ Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;/ O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,/ O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees," it's nice to think that laywers were bad even back then.
I hear my Sire's been having laywer trouble in LA, and part of me still wants to cheer them on. "O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream," what? like me, dreaming of Rupert's lips on mine, his arms around me and- bad William! You're no better than one of those hormone driven teenagers you look down on. Go back to the Bard, "Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,/ Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:" That's enough to stop you having that kind of dream for a while, or at least to stop you welcoming them.
"Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,/ And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;/ And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail/ Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,/ Then dreams," how does it go? um.., "he of another benefice:/ Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,/ And then dreams he of biting foreign throats," biting? I think it was cutting in the original. Still, I prefer biting, when I can't think, "Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,/ Of healths five-fathom deep;" I could use one of those. I wonder if Rupert's dilberatly avoiding alcohol? In America, he drinks, not a lot, but he does- but over here, he can go for weeks without touching a drop.
"And then anon/ Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,/ And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two/ And sleeps again." Perhaps that's why- when he doesn't drink, the nightmares are less frequent. hard to say which order they come in- America, alcohol, dreams, I think, but who knows. Take away America and alcohol, and he still dreams sometimes. "This is that very Mab/ That plats the manes of horses in the night,/ And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,/ Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:/ This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,/ That presses them and learns them first to bear,/ Making them women of good carriage:" I wonder that they let us study Shakespeare in school. There's sex, and violence, and who knows what else. Maybe it's that we were all boys- I'm sure the girls weren't- wait a minute, what's this?
Outside the protective bubble of the spell, a grey mist has formed. The spell crackles with green sparks here and there, but it holds. Slowly, the mist swirls and forms shapes: a large head with bulging eyes, then another, and another, until they are all around us. I sense their prescences as sepearte beings- these things are alive, although they are not human, but demon. One of them pokes as long finger at the spell, and when it sends a shock out, he pulls back quickly, surprised.
After that, they don't try to touch anymore, just stare at us, faces blank. I daren't speak or move, for fear of waking Rupert and breaking the spell, so I simply stare back, trying to take in any and all information available that might enable us to identify these things correctly. Ten or fifteen minutes later, their numbers have thinned considerably, and soon they leave altogether.
I settle back to watching Rupert sleep, waiting for the time when he wakes and we can go back to work. Lucky vampires don't need sleep every night, isn't it?
* This is based on what spoilers I can get for the BBC series (especially from http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/RipperNews.html, up to when I wrote this, late August 2002), combined with my own ideas about British ghosts, Bath, Rupert's mission and much too much time spent browsing the web for sites on fanfic, the occult, ghosts, and obscure languages. Thanks are due to the web site mentioned above, and these esteemed purveyors of facts and fictions: http://www.occultopedia.com/index1.htm, http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/delirium/mythology/demons.asp, http://www.at.artslink.co.za/%7Egerry/irisha_m.htm, http://www.insults.net/html/swear/index.html, http://www.madsci.org/cgi- bin/cgiwrap/~lynn/jardin/SCG, http://babel.altavista.com/tr, http://www.bibliomania.com/0/2/244/1103/16222/1/frameset.html, and http://lyrics.rockmagic.net/lyrics/ramones/. I also consulted regular Buffyverse sources: Pysche Buffy Transcripts (http://studiesinwords.de/ ), BuffyWorld.com (http://www.buffyworld.com/), the Buffy Database (http://bdatabase.cjb.net/), Sonja Marie's Buffy the Vampire Slayer Links (http://www.bitterwisdom.com/btvsurls/search/search.cgi (and many of the linkls contained therein)) and Who Watches the Watchers for both the title and visual inspiration (especially this page: http://www.geocities.com/thepotters_uk/watchers_frame.html), not to mention the various search engines and standard sites which William visits. You can duplicate my research and his, if you like, and improve on it if you can get to Bath.