"Hi! Hey, is it just a coincidence that the kind of person to have his own personal demonology collection wound up at the Sunnydale high school library? Or are you here for some Sunnydale-related reason?" she asks, while writing a chapter heading in her notebook.

"...I suppose you could say I am," he muses.

"Do tell."

"The name makes it sound like a weapon," she says.

"In a sense," he sighs, "you're right. The Slayer is a girl, usually about your age, who is gifted with the necessary abilities to, well, slay vampires. Or demons. Or, generally, get between this world and anyone who wants to destroy it."

"...Why is the Slayer a girl usually about my age? Why is the Slayer not six people of assorted genders and ages, or maybe a few hundred of them, so they can specialize and cooperate and be in several places at once?"

"Much as I would love to answer that question, the only people who can have been dead for thousands of years," he says. "And the rest of us are stuck with the world as it is."

"That sounds irritating. So you're here for something Slayer-related, I take it? Teach her to throw fireballs or whatever so she doesn't get her uniquely powerful teenage self killed by a lucky shot?"

"No," he says, continuing to clean his glasses. "Not quite. I'm here because the Slayer is missing."

"What, she ran away from wherever Slayers live?"

"When one Slayer dies, the next is called," he says. "She can be anyone of the right gender and age. Sometimes it takes a few weeks or months to track her down and explain her destiny. But it's always been possible to find her. This time... as far as anyone scrying for the Council can tell, there is no Slayer."

"...More or less," he says. "But right now that's a little beside the point. The rumour that the line of Slayers has ended is already going around. If she doesn't show herself soon—to the demons, more importantly than to us—I'm afraid they'll just keep getting bolder."

"I'm not clear on how one person has any significant deterrent effect on the worldwide demon population, however good she is at throwing fireballs," says Bella. "I mean, if she's here where you're looking for her, then how does that matter to a family of demons in Beijing?"

"She has symbolic value," he says. "The mere knowledge that there is a Slayer somewhere, even if she's not an immediate threat, has a quelling effect on demonic activity. There are records of previous times when the line of succession was cast into doubt, and none of them make good bedtime reading."

"Fair enough. So you said more or less - what else do you Councily types do?"

"Watchers," he supplies. "It's the Watchers' Council. Before you ask, no, I don't know why. And our job is to train and prepare the Slayer for hers. We do the research; we study the demons; we help her develop her technique; we keep her informed of everything she needs to know. Assuming, of course, that we can find her in the first place."

"What happens if you get a Slayer who's a pacifist or a sociopath or throws in with the demons or just doesn't want anything to do with you because she's a ballerina and needs to devote all her energy to her Art?"

"I have never seen records of a Slayer joining the other side," he says carefully. "As for the rest... one of those previous times I mentioned involved a Slayer running away from the Watcher who found her. She kept ahead of us for several years. No one knows what happened to her exactly, but we know when the next Slayer was called."

"She had to run," says Bella. "The Watcher didn't just let her go because she was involuntarily involved and didn't want anything to do with him. Is that right?"

"Some Watcher found some Slayer and she ran away. She kept ahead of you - the Council - that's what you said, isn't it? It sounds like you guys chased that poor girl until she died."

"Given that their other option was to let one badly handled conversation deprive the world of its strongest defense against evil," he says sharply, "I'm not sure they made the wrong choice."

"You said it was more important that the missing Slayer reveal herself to the demons than to the Council," says Bella. "She was known to exist, wasn't she? With a whole council full of people with access to all kinds of information and magic I'm stunned they tried to ask anything more of her than that she spend the rest of her life with a target painted on her jugular vein. I'm stunned they used all those resources to hunt down one terrified, fleeing girl instead of trying to learn more about neutral demons or subsidize the development of sunshiney lightbulbs with motion-detectors for use over patios or just coming up with large-scale spells that, sure, maybe they'd eat a few people, but they'd be informed volunteers and they could save way more. I bet something toothy murdered that Slayer when she was twenty-something and then all your colleagues were very relieved because she was in the way and then she wasn't anymore. I can't imagine why anyone would bolt at the first sign of attention from the Stalkers Council, can you?"