Armageddon Saga
Chapter Forty-three: Watcher Letter
By the Lady Sirona ladysirona@LadySirona.com
Dear Aunt Dorothy,
I am sorry to write this to you but I truly need to talk to someone and you are the best person I can think of. You’re a Watcher with the council, I know I can talk to you…and I NEED to talk to you. I need to write of this to someone who will understand.
Charlene and I are also Watcher’s. As you know we are attached to the London Office and are both Critical Care Nurses at the London Regional Trauma Center. That is our mundane job… Whenever a mystical/occult trauma occurs in the London area, we get the assignment. We are used to it now, you know.
The call came in at 6pm. A Priority One Medical Watcher Call. I looked at Charlene. A realPriority One. We have never really had many of those. In fact this will only be our second.
Priority Three is when someone has been injured by occult/mystical means. A standby, a passing victim. The damage can be severe, but there is little danger after the initial insult. An example could be a random victim of a failed vampire attack.
Priority Two is more complicated as you can probably figure. The victim is often a chosen victim of a specific active attack and is known to the victimizer. An example is a victim of a dark magician’s attack. Priority two can be a follow up risk for us, in that whoever hurt the victim may follow up to complete the job. Priority Two has a higher risk for us, in that the victimizer could hurt us trying to get to the victim. We have to be more careful.
Priority One is the highest danger to our patient and ourselves. In a One it is known the Occult-victimizer is actively seeking to finish the job. Priority One’s are actively dangerous to us as the victim. We can be killed or maimed also just caring for the victim.
The only Priority One I ever worked on was when the vampire Ricus made an attack on the Watcher Blake Johnson. Blake had been severely injured and was at our Trauma intensive care unit when Ricus came to finish the job. Ricus killed two security guards, a nurse and Blake before he was finally killed.
The face of the vampire Ricus still haunts my nightmares.
As with every watcher worldwide we had been put on the alert when the Armageddon Battle with the Demon Lord occurred with The Lady Tirla and the Cucularaine. Rumor had eight Slayersgoing into the battle with them. Eight Slayers; The slayer Prime, Secunda and six others. My God what a battle force. They had spent months training and drilling prior to the battle. Wewaited with baited breath to see if the world would end. The world was on the brink of destruction and all we could do was wait.
It didn’t end. They won, but at what cost?
We found out six of the Slayers fell in the battle. Six slayers were dead. Kendra, Slayer Secundahad been flown to London with multiple fractures the night of the battle. Her Watcher joined her there where she was cared for by watcher medical teams.
Slayer Prime was unstable and on life support, and was who was coming to us as the Priority One. Her Watcher, Rupert Giles, her team, and the Cucularaine would accompany her. The Cucularaine, her vampire lover, Angelus. My God.
Charlene and I knew when she came to us that our lives as we knew were over and all that would matter would be the Slayer. Until she healed and went home or died. She would become the center of our universe. We would live at the hospital, she would have her from 7am to 7pm and
I would have her from 7pm to 7am.She was a small frail little thing. Her strength is mystical, and was fully a Slayer’s strength. She required leather restraints to protect her from pulling her tubes and lines. The Slayer had continued to bleed and they took her to surgery to remove her spleen. It was unknown if she would survive the surgery. It was later in the Trauma Intensive Care Unit, when I finally had time to chart whileshe was in surgery that it all that happened became real to me.. Her damage was extensive as well as incredible. I would never expect anyone to survive her complications.
Her Watcher Rupert Giles, was at he side continuously. Her mother and father flew in from the States. Both were appropriately frantic. They were very supportive of her and asked proper questions.
Then there was him.
The Cucularaine. Angelus. I remember him from my studies in Watcher School. "The One with the Angelic Face", who was a legend among monsters for his cruelty and his brutality. A mover and Shaker in the Master’s court late in the previous century he was and one of the most vicious evil vampires known. Now he was the epitome of nervous frightened loss. He sat at her bed side from the moment he arrived. His large brown eyes always watching her. He never rested or slept according to the nurses in Hungary. He never left her side there, and once here, he still didn’t.
He helped with her care. He helped bath her, with her turning and repositioning. He watched her carefully and told us when he thought she was in pain. He did her range of motion excersises and massaged her with lotion. He washed her hair and powdered her skin with loving touches.
I am a Watcher and I am trained and still it was far too easy to forget *what* he was. All he seemed to be was what the cover story was to the regular hospital. The loving concerned bridegroom tending his severely injured pregnant bride.
Until the dressing change.
She had DIC which is a sever clotting problem and was bleeding everywhere. She had saturated her abdominal dressing, and I was changing the packing to her abdominal wound and liver. I had completely forgotten Angelus. There I stood, in a room with fresh blood saturating a dressing in my hand, when I glanced up at him, a vampire. His eyes were fixed on the saturated bloody dressing in my hand. His eyes were a deep yellow, fangs lengthening and I saw that ridges had appeared on his face. I swear he licked his lips.
I was transfixed. What would he do? When was his last feed? Would he go into blood lust and kill me… her? While I stood there terrified, blood welled up in the wound. I watched it with creeping horror. He reached over, took the new fluffs and quickly packed the wound. He then turned away from me hiding his face. I quickly finished the dressing amazed that he had held his blood lust.
When I looked at him again a little later, he was human appearing again. He was holding her hand, stroking it gently. The love he had in his eyes for her was totally heartbreaking to see. It is unsettling to see such love and devotion from a creature we are dedicated as an organizationto destroy.
I know he is different. He has a soul. I saw that soul with every interaction with her. I saw it in every word, gesture, and touch. His soul was in his eyes to be seen by anyone with the eyes to look.
I do not know if Slayer Prime will survive. I hope she does. If not for her, the twins she carries and the world, for him. For him. Her vampire lover and father of her children.
I watched him through the nights of his vigil at her bedside and wonder what he looks like with a smile n his face. Something tells me that The Slayer can make him smile. That for her, his eyes are full of life and love and not the blood stained tears I have seen.
I never even knew a vampire could cry. They didn’t teach us that in Watcher school. I do know I never want to see it again. It is something heart breaking to see. No sound. No dramatic sobs. Just these large bloodstained tears filling his brown eyes and making silent tracks down his pale face.
Her Watcher friends and parents were at her side. But the most heart breaking of all of them was her lover Angelus.
Time will tell if Slayer Prime will live or die. Only time will tell if she and her children will survive.I pray she will. Because if she doesn’t… I fear that Angelus will see something he hasn’t seen in hundreds of years… a sunrise.
Thank you for listening Aunt Dorothy, All My Love Kara
Submitted to personal journal also and watcher central. K