A week later.
---
Daria and Jane step out of the T station closest to the
downtown Legal Seafood restaurant.
"Sunnydale--you think they had something to do with the
Sunnydale earthquake? Just because one of the board
members was there?"
"Jane, why do you think Abernathy joined the
organization's board after his town was destroyed? I'm
guessing that he knew some of the other board members
before. And, doesn't the earthquake seem a bit odd to
you? I checked--almost no news coverage."
"You sound like Artie."
"If you're looking for a probe to be stuck up your
butt--"
"Not my style, Daria. Though I could pick up something
at--"
"Not now, please. I don't know how what happened on
that roof works, but it's certainly not the chemistry
and physics we learned in school."
"Anyhow, we're here. Ready?"
"Not really."
"Me neither."
The two walk into the restaurant and ask for the Harris
party; the hostess leads them to a private room. Four
people at a circular table stand up to greet them; they
recognize only Faith. A man in his mid-twenties walks
around the table to greet them; the skin around his
left eye looks taut and glossy, as if he had had
plastic surgery.
"Hello, Ms. Morgendorffer, Ms. Lane. I'm Xander
Harris. My parents call me Alexander, so call me
Xander."
"Hello." "Hello."
"I believe you've met Faith." They nod. "And this is
Robin Wood." Daria is quite surprised by the couple,
but her poker-face holds. Jane's eyes widen, though.
Faith laughs.
"And this is Roger. Please, sit down. We're all
friends here."
Daria and Jane sit down, and the waitress takes their
drink and appetizer orders. They order various items
to share, and Faith calls the waitress back to ask for
a dozen clams. As the waitress leaves, Xander asks her
to close the door.
As the door closes, Robin tells Roger, "Would you like
to do the honors?" Roger nods and opens his briefcase.
Xander tells Daria and Jane, "We need to protect
ourselves from eavesdroppers."
"Isn't that a little paranoid?" asks Jane. Daria nods.
"You'd be surprised," replies Xander. Roger
interrupts with "Your cellphones, please." Xander,
Robin, and Faith put theirs on the table, while Daria
and Jane shrug. Roger takes a vial of white powder
from his case and a brush; he then brushes some powder on
the three phones. Finally, he takes reaches in his
case for another vial; he takes a pinch of red powder
from it and throws it onto the decorative tea-light at
the center of the table. A red flash suffuses the
room.
"What was that?" demands Jane.
"Magic," replies Xander. "It's a tool, and often a
threat."
"We can't use it often. Power corrupts," adds Robin.
Daria asks, "And absolute power corrupts absolutely?
That's what WCI is named for--watching over each other
to prevent that?" Faith looks down at the table.
"That's part of it. You've been doing research on us;
what have you discovered?" asks Xander.
"Is this a test?" Daria's face turns stony.
"Sure. We need devious and careful people; if you
aren't as tricky as the Devil, we can't use you."
Daria starts: "Okay. You're the Chief Executive
Officer of the WCI, short for the 'Watchers Council
International'. Sounds creepy to us. Your reports to
the State of Ohio list the Board of Directors,
which includes Mister Wood there. The only available
information about any of them was on Father Abernathy;
a Church web site listed him as having served in
Sunnydale."
Jane continues: "A town disappears in an earthquake,
and there are almost no news stories about it. There
wasn't even a 'Sick Sad World' show on it; we suspect
something's wrong with that, but only you would be able
to tell us. So, we looked for Sunnydale on the net; we
found the SHS Alumni web site. Your high school was
much stranger than ours. A gas leak? Anyhow, we found
some of your pictures in the Class of 1999 pages; who
would name a kid 'Buffy' anyway?"
"'Class Protector'? We're guessing that she's one of
your Slayers, and since she's the board member, she's
probably the chief one. We also saw Rupert Giles'
picture on line; he gets a lot of respect for a teacher
in a student yearbook site." Daria turns to Faith and
Robin: "We saw nothing about either of you; if you were
there, you came along later." Faith looks down, but
says nothing.
Jane adds, "You're the 'Watchers Council
International'. Who are you watching? Vampires? Not
likely: you kill them. I'm guessing the Slayers. I'll
bet they like that a heck of a lot."
Faith finally interrupts: "You have no idea. The old
Council either brainwashed their slayers or they pissed
them off daily." Robin and Faith lace their hands
together.
Xander says, "When they blew up, we told the survivors
they could join us or they could retire. But if they
joined us and tried to take control of the Slayers they
would be retired."
"Retired?" wonders Jane.
"About the way Tommy Sherman retired, I guess."
Robin speaks for the first time in a while: "If he's
dead, you're right. Did you figure anything else out?"
"Only that whatever you do, you have an 'in' with the
US and British governments. Dr. Meara's OBE citation
is secret, and she's not military. And your
organization was chartered a week after you applied for
your charter; somebody is looking out for you,"
finishes Daria.
Jane adds, "Your high school yearbooks remind me of
Columbine's."
"We know. There's a nasty reason for that," says
Xander. He turns to Robin and Faith; they nod. "You
two will do. You're good detectives, and
Mrs. Morgendorffer has a good eye too."
The waitress knocks on the door, and Roger hurries to
let her in. She serves their meals, and heads out.
---
"How can you eat that much?" Daria has just watched
Faith devour a steak and lobster dinner; a 300-pound
linebacker would have had trouble finishing it.
""Slayer," Faith mumbled between two bites. "The
Slayer metabolism," adds Robin. "It takes a lot o
fuel to live like that. As far as we can tell, there
are no fat Slayers. She'll work it off tonight."
"One way or another," says Xander. Robin glares.
Jane says, "Is it always like this?" Faith winks.
Daria asks, "So, what would you like us to do for the
WCI, and what would the pay be?"
Xander claps. "Very good. Nice focus." He opens his
briefcase and pulls two folders out, which he hands to
Daria and Jane. "You need to understand how all this
started. You see, the world did not begin as a
paradise; before man, the world was a playground for
demons. Some were invaders from the various
Hell-dimensions, others were simply visitors from other
worlds coming through portals. None liked us. But
when Man became sentient and started to dominate the
world, the demons lost their hold on Earth. Most fled
to their home dimensions or hid in the dark places of
this world."
Robin takes up the story: "There were some exceptions.
The Turok-han, the ancestral vampires, learned to mix
their blood with humans and create the common vampires,
dead bodies animated with a vampire's spirit, and these
could remain behind after the Turok-han were forced to
flee to the Hell-dimensions. And these vampires fed on
humans and warred against them."
Faith finishes up that part of the story. "One early
tribe of humans, the Shadow Men, found a way to fight
the demons. They summoned a demon themselves and
merged its spirit with a young girl of the tribe. She
was the First Slayer, with the power to fight the
vampires and demons, and win. Of course, they chose a
girl because they could control her." With a savage
grin, she concludes, "We won't be controlled now."
"But you have lots of Slayers now," says Daria.
Xander answers, "When they started the system, the
Shadow Men arranged that a new Slayer would be
activated only when the previous one died. And Slayers
died young. One slip, one overwhelming attack, a
sacrificial maneuver, or even a betrayal, and the Slayer
would die. One of the potential Slayers would become
the new Slayer.
"As time went by, the secret of the Slayer was passed
on to other societies and early religions. In every
case, the Slayer was watched over by one set of
priests or another. And in every case, those priests
were royal bastards who treated the Slayers as tools.
They kept her isolated, friendless, without any real
power over her own life.
"Eventually, the old religions died out. Before they
went away, the priests who knew the situation got
together and formed the Council of Watchers, an
organization independent of all the religions,
supposedly neutral to all the governments and kingdoms
of the world, there to help the Slayer and to defend
humanity against the vampires and demons. You can
guess how well that worked.
"They found a way to figure out who the potential
Slayers were. Usually, they got it right, and they had
an agent watching the Potential who got tagged, but
sometimes they missed. A Slayer who thought for
herself was dangerous to them.
"When they finally tracked down a lone Slayer, more
often than not, they tried to let her just get killed.
They'd assign her a black-sheep of a watcher, one
they'd be willing to lose too. That way they could get
one they could control instead. But Buffy and Giles
were just too stubborn to just die."
"So, that's the Slayer story. How did you get from one
to two? Or to many?"
"It turned out that there was a way to Call the new
Slayer before the current one died; it's not something
you'd want to do if you had a choice."
Robin continues, "Xander's being modest here. He
discovered by accident that there could be more than
one Slayer at a time. All that has to happen is for
the current Slayer's heart to stop. We're lucky Xander
took American Red Cross Advanced Lifesaving classes."
"I wanted a summer job as a lifeguard." He hums a song
by Blotto.
"Wait. You weren't one of those Watchers?" Jane looks
confused.
"I was a 16-year-old high school sophomore who heard a
weird conversation in the school library. Then, a
master vamp and its minions tried to take over the
town, and I fought along with Buffy because my friends
were in danger."
"You just wanted to do her," says Faith.
"Well, yeah. But it was more than that. When I found
out what was going on in Sunnydale, I couldn't look
away." Xander turns to Jane. "High school was the
Hellmouth, you see. It held a portal where things
could get in to our world, and Buffy was called there
to keep it shut. Oh, we had the same crap as does
every high school, though we didn't have a Fashion
Club. But Principal Snyder was much nastier than your
Ms. Li."
"You've been checking up on us," says Daria.
"Sure. Dawn remembered your name from an old Waif
magazine, and some of the Slayers like your Melody
Powers stories."
Robin looks at Jane. "That was a very disturbing
exhibit at Young Boston '03."
"I'm glad you appreciated it."
"So how did you get from two Slayers to lots? And what
do you want us for? I can't fight, and Daria doesn't
want to."
Robin answers Jane: "Two years ago, we faced our worst
opponent. The First Evil, the Spirit of Despair, was
trying to reopen the Hellmouth and bring back the
Turok-han. She was doing a good job of subverting
people, and her servants, the Bringers, were attacking
the known Potentials and their Watchers. The remaining
Potentials fled to us. Then, the Bringers used
treachery to slip a bomb into the Council headquarters
and destroy it."
"Small loss," says Faith. "We could have used their
books," replies Xander.
Xander continues, "Buffy and Willow came up with a
plan. They enacted a magical ritual to release the
power of the Slayers and activate the Potentials all at
once. They managed to hold off the vampires until
we--" Faith interrupts, "Spike!" "Yeah, him. Spike
used a magical artifact to seal the Hellmouth. Most of
us got out before the town collapsed."
"Some of you died," says Jane. Xander looks down at
the table. Daria looks at Jane; Jane nods back. The
six of them sit silently for a minute, giving Xander's
sorrow the respect it deserves.
When Xander looks up, Daria asks, "How many Slayers are
there now?" "We're guessing about 1 Slayer per million
people. Our stats are a bit rough."
"And you need people to train them and watch over
them?"
"We're getting that. But, we have a more important
problem. The old council was a corrupt bunch of
overbearing, deceitful bastards. But, they had the
staff and the knowledge to form a strategy. They could
analyze supernatural trends and figure out what to do
next. We need analysts more than anything else. We
think that's a job you can do, Daria."
"And what about me?" asks Jane.
Robin answers, "One of the problems we have is
presenting the knowledge we have. We can use some
people who know graphic design and art. I think you
can work on a reference work of demon identification.
A 'Jane's Dragons and Basilisks', perhaps."
"That's from 'Bored of the Rings.'"
"It's still a good idea."
Xander speaks up, "Jane, I have a special commission
for you meanwhile. When we left Sunnydale, we left
just about everything behind. Buffy and Dawn were left
without any pictures of their mother. I was able to
get an old picture of Joyce from her old high school
alumni society; could you look at this and tell me if
you could paint her portrait? She would be twenty-five
years older than what you see here." Xander hands Jane
a print on photograph paper.
"I could try."
"So, the two of you would have to sign contracts and
confidentiality agreements. It's not to keep you from
doing research or telling Mrs. Morgendorffer; you just
couldn't sell any stories to 'Sick Sad World'. We know
your time isn't really your own; you have exams coming
up, but we'd pay $3,000 for a report on the things in
this folder, Daria, and I'd pay the same for that
portrait, Jane. If it works out, we could arrange for
further work. I'm guessing that you have careers lined
up, so we're not looking to hire for full-time work."
--
Respectfully,
Eric Jablow
|
