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Really, Johanna should've known that the moment she finished cataloguing that cursed Assyrian pottery they'd do something to fuck her up. She just wasn't quite expecting to be saddled with a goddamned Slayer.
"I don't quite know what to say, Quentin," she averred, instead of reaching across Travers' fake Queen Anne mahogany desk and wringing his neck like the turkey he was. "Surely there's someone better qualified," and less occupied with important work that doesn't involve babysitting some hormonal brat who can bench-press a car.
"No, Johanna, I'm afraid there isn't. I know, I was shocked as well," he tittered as though he had the goddamned right to pal around with her after throwing this albatross around her neck. Or ever, really. He was like the human equivalent of a lukewarm glass of skim milk with a shot of sawdust. "But really, you're one of our best Watchers, and I'm sure any Slayer would be better off with your tutelage."
Johanna smiled politely until she thought she could open her mouth without spitting stomach acid in his damn eyes, and said, "But what about my work in Room 42?"
"Oh, not to worry," Travers assured her. "That'll all be handled."
"By whom."
"...It'll be handled."
"By whom, Quentin."
"...Landen Serrano."
Before Johanna could scream aloud, Travers pulled out the final stop.
"Unless, of course, you're refusing the position."
Of course she wasn't. She couldn't. Refusing to take on the Slayer would be like... like refusing to become a fucking duchess. But come hell or high water, she would defend her right to go back to her apartment and bitch about it to her cat.
And then she was on a plane to America. God, it was sickening. And it was California, worse yet. She wanted to soak Quentin Travers' miserable little head in brine.
Now, she's settled into her apartment, settled into her job as school librarian on top of the goddamned Hellmouth, and settled into intimidating the living hell out of children as they attempt to check out books. At least she can have some fun.
bishopric
bishopric
"Ooh. Positively. Always nice to get a perspective from another practitioner who isn't a gibbering addict. There's some nature coven or other back in Middlesex, but they seem to think the only way to properly go about doing magic is not to do it at all. I wanted to light their bloody pontifical pointy hats on fire."
summa-iniuria
"Chris has thankfully dodged the addiction problem so far. I'll introduce you," she says. "She's coming to pick me up in," she checks the time, "ten minutes."
bishopric
"Well, I don't stay in this hole a minute past when I have to, so coincidentally enough I leave in about ten minutes. I'd love to meet her, given I'll probably be in contact with her more than a bit."
bishopric
"That slot on the shelf does in fact contain a copy. It's expurgated and billed as cultural fiction. And annotated by Hamilton, who I think was madder than Al'hazred could have dreamed of being. You should see her notes on the Black Goat with a Thousand Young, that whole entry is a disaster on legs."
bishopric
"No particular reason to study up, no. You'd be best off sticking to entities who can be physically harmed. And wouldn't drive you mad with the slightest glance at them. We've got fine defenses in place against the various tentacular nasties, at any rate, they couldn't even exist on this plane without some serious prophesy behind their incarnation. Not to worry, there's plenty of horrible things for you to obsessively learn about without getting them involved. You are not going to run out of hostile demonic races any time soon. If you reach the end of your natural lifespan, you may have time to start on the neutral ones."
summa-iniuria
"I'm not sure that's the best priority order," she says. "Knowing how to recognize the neutral species so I'm not tempted to waste my time uselessly murdering them seems handy, for example."
bishopric
Johanna attempts to find a conversational topic, fails miserably, and returns to her book.
summa-iniuria
Hmm. There's still useful information to be had here; she'll have to risk interrupting.
"It seems like it would be useful for me to know - what exactly is a Watcher?"
"It seems like it would be useful for me to know - what exactly is a Watcher?"
bishopric
"Oh. Uh, Watchers- well, the original job description was 'tribal elders who brainwashed the Slayer into a killing machine', but that went out of style, and the purview has expanded somewhat. There's a few hundred Watchers now, and only one Slayer, so the general body runs around taking care of miscellaneous demonic threats and working with potentially dangerous magical artifacts. The latter was my job, until Quentin saddled- until I was promoted to Slayer duty. Which is less brainwashing and more education and guidance, now."
summa-iniuria
"That seems like a step in the right direction," she says. "I would be likely to object to brainwashing."
summa-iniuria
She cheerfully leads Johanna out to the parking lot. Apparently it's very easy to make friends with this girl.
kingsidecastle
And out in the parking lot, there's a woman leaning against the hood of a black-and-white Mini Cooper.
"Who's this?" she inquires, raising her eyebrows at Johanna.
"Who's this?" she inquires, raising her eyebrows at Johanna.
summa-iniuria
"Johanna, my aunt Chris. Chris, the school librarian, Johanna, who told me this afternoon that I'm the Slayer now and she's my Watcher. She wanted to meet you for witchy reasons."
bishopric
"Hello. Um, yes. Apparently you're a witch and also not a hopeless addict or a madwoman, which is very refreshing, and I feel that as an... active... Watcher, I should be brushing up on my practical witchery. Unorthodox, I know, but it can be very handy, and orthodoxy is for the as- the idiots I work with."
kingsidecastle
"I primarily work with chess magic," says Chris. "It's very niche. Metaphor-driven. Flexible, but requires some creativity."