Scrapbook Diary Entry

February

Saturday 26th


Hey. This is me, Amber Harmer. No middle name. 17 years of age and self-confessed emo (not that you’d know it - I don’t have time for the whole makeup, planned outfit, hair-styled shebang anymore. Craziness assured.

I found some free time between eating lunch and cleaning my fighting equipment to start this diary I’ve been meaning to get round to for a while. I never could stick to diaries though, even before everything changed for me.

Let me explain, I’m one of the Protectors, at least that’s what we call ourselves. We’re kind of like superheroes-slash-Social Workers-slash- Police Officers-slash-those people who integrate reformed criminals and retired spies back into society under new identities.

That’s a lot of different roles I’m playing, I bet your thinking. Yes, craziness IS assured, like I said. Because it’s not ordinary people I work for/with/against. I specialise in your supernatural category. The Undead, Living Dead, Semi-Human, Spiritual Entities and Magical Persons.

‘Living Dead AND Undead’? I hear you cry. In our book, the Undead are Ghosts, Spirits and Poltergeists, whereas the Living Dead are Zombies and Vampires. Then we get your Semi-Humans (Were-wolves, shape-shifters and Half-Vampires), Spiritual Entities (Angels and Demons) and Magical Persons (Witches and Warlocks). Generally speaking, Spiritual Entities and Magical Persons are no trouble and prefer to keep their business private so we don’t need to get involved often except when we need some help with a case. It’s the Living Dead who are the biggest troublemakers.

I’m pretty sure there are many questions at this point. I was the same when I came across all this stuff too. Seeing ghosts and stuff, getting extremely alert senses, realising Angels and Demons are real… not fun while you’re going through puberty. When I began to talk to thin air and animals and stuff, my mum (oh my dad fucked off when I was 6, better tell you now!) thought I was getting into a bad crowd, and to say that life at school and home was “bad” would be a definite understatement. When Mitchell turned up (the man who explained all of this to me, and became my teacher and trainer) and told me I HAD to grow up to deal with this constantly until I died, I was not a happy bunny, believe me!

Anyway, he trained me, taught me and then just like that, he died September last year. Officially, he died from an accident while gardening. He didn’t. He was killed by a Hunter. They hunt down and destroy everything we aim to protect, which unfortunately includes us, because we stand in their way.

Anyway, he left me alone to deal with all of it, and my teaching uncompleted, so even though I was meant to be starting College, I couldn’t. Instead I feel completely abandoned, stressed out to the max every day and INCREDIBLY bitter, as you can tell, because my world now revolves around this stupid responsibility and I have absolutely no idea if I’ll ever be able to go to College, University, have a social life or a normal job and future. Ever again.

Luckily, I guess I’m not completely alone in this. We, the Protectors have a Support Group once a year so we can like, share notes or whatever, or socialise… I don’t know, I’ve only been once, the year he died, and as I was only an apprentice at the time, I wasn’t really involved in most of the stuff. It was more taking notes and reading books and socialising with the other apprentices at the time.

You’re always supposed to have an apprentice, so neither of you is too over worked, but I don’t think a Protector has ever died without finishing the training of an apprentice before. I don’t even think there’s been a Protector working alone who’s under 21 before. Because trained or not, I’m a Protector now. I pity the county I work in, I really do.

Oh! Before I go – I really need to clean all my equipment – there is a Protector for each county in Britain. I don’t know if other places (apart from Ireland) even HAVE Protectors, but we work in a huge territory. I have to do what I do for the whole of Lancashire. ‘Spreading yourself a little thin’ seems laughable compared to what I do.