"So its all your lots' fault! I bloody knew it. Plastic stakes, headaches Marie Antoinette would envy, being starved, turned into a lab rat, helpless to defend myself, used, abused, insulted by wankers I wouldn't have deigned to bite. Turned into a shadow of my own former self, and its all your bloody fault! And the US military/industrial/governmental cabal of course. Knew I shouldn't have eaten all those Vietnam peace protesters back in 1970!"

"First of all you daft sod. It was your own fault for coming back from LA to go after Buffy. Though strictly between the two of us I did rather like the red-hot pokers bit on Angel. Cordelia told me about it. Don't suppose you videoed it?"

"Tragically not. Should have done, but I always get the little buttons muddled up. Besides the sound track would have been ruined by that bleeding Mozart, not to mention that git Marcus."

"And as for your recent suffering, the word karma leaps to mind. I think only your helping avert 3 apocalypses has lightened it to the point you can move forwards now. Besides it wasn't my friends working with those berks behind The Initiative. Quite the contrary, they kept it all very quiet from most of us. Didn't even tell Quentin."

"No? From what Buffy has said about "the epit-gnome of evil" I thought he would be all for it?"

"He does tend to come across like that. But he is really trying to keep things moving in a general fighting evil whilst maximising the paperwork sort of fashion. No the chief conspirator in our own ranks is young Wesley's father. A complete swine of a man, I always thought. I think his own son getting fired, then going to work with a vampire- even a souled one - drove him over the edge."

"So what's their game plan? Soldier boys seemed to be out to create perfect, expendable, cannon fodder. What's their angle?"

"Complete destruction of all non human sentient life-forms, leaving only us and those animals deemed suitable for BBC wildlife documentaries, and the Discovery Channel. Though dolphins may survive the purge on the cuteness factor"

"Bloody hell. Why? And why now? No imminent apocalypse is there?"

"As we discussed earlier. The world gets smaller every day. Communication is instant and global. Truth gets out. The quieter demons that just want to be left alone won't be. So there'll be public yetis and Loch Ness Monsters - charming chaps by the way, just rather too fond of scotch. Big Foot, the flying saucer demons and so on all exposed. Ok, those are all mostly harmless, people probably wouldn't panic.

But vampires, fyrals, m'fashnicks, chaos demons, all the cornucopia of demons out for blood and destruction. That would be quite a different thing. People would panic. Up to now we had had the power, and ability, to suppress the fact that they're out there. Denial spells have worked wonders in hot spots like the Hellmouth, and some of the larger cities where demons gather, like London and LA. But even these won't work soon. Too many people are getting immune. People will learn the truth, and many will panic, threatening the current world order."

"Perfectly happy to see the chaos demons exterminated. Yuk - all slime and antlers. Ooh, throw in the fungus demons too."

"Your friend Clem. The one Dawn has written to me about. The half-demons, the harmless, the assimilated, and the good ones. If they succeed, even the Slayers - since their energy is demonic in origin. You."

"OK. Bad idea. On board with that. Where do I come in?"

"First of all, we are going for a drive. We'll pick up Samuel and then we are off to Lake Manyara. It's a soda lake. Lovely colours, wonderful flamingos. Perfect for the next stage. Put the fire out and I'll pack up. I'm driving."

One long landrover ride back to the village, over the top of the crater, through some heavily forested areas, back through some more huge plains, yet more ruddy widebeest, and baboons making more baboons, we got to a stunning lake.

If I still wrote poetry I hate to think what rhymes I would have come up with for the turquoise of the water and the amazing pink of untold thousands of huge flamingos.

The three-way debate en-route over the relative merits of The Doors, Deep Purple, and The Clash was fun too. Listening to the tapes with the top down and the sun beaming in a nice non-fatal fashion was even better. Even if Giles did make me keep the bloody purple fedora on, and slap on the sun- cream. Good to be with people with good musical taste.

One thing still wasn't good as we crossed the sand to the edge of the lake.

"Arggh, little buggers. Little professional solidarity here wouldn't go amiss. Who would have thought vampire blood would be so bloody popular. Feels like half the mosquitoes of the Great Rift Valley have come to the grand opening of that fashionable new restaurant Chez Spike! How come they aren't laying a bite on you Rupert? Understand not biting the locals, natural immunity an all that."

"Must see if you and Ethan are related, or have/had the same blood group. Do vampires have blood groups? Must find out. He would get eaten alive too.

When we bummed off round India he spent most of the time we weren't stoned off our heads or hunting down really great - but very bad - spells looking for hydrocortisone cream. Then there was that dive of a hotel I picked in Bikaner where the air-con blew in mosquitoes instead of cool air. I never got a single bite. He looked like a blotchy pin-cushion. I think that's one of the reasons he hates me."

"Anyway, time for the next stage. You may be here for some time. Prey empathy lesson time. Don't climb the trees. The lions here can climb them too."