The first time was easy. And when people wonder what that means about her she tells me it means that she’s good, damn good, and maybe they should be a little thankful unless they feel like giving the local Neighbourhood Watch an upgrade. Sometimes someone will murmur into their beer that it’s because ‘she’s a sociopath’, which makes them as idiotic as the vampire that decided to hole up on a Texas ranch in summer and then attack the military brat who just wandered in to escape the crowd of the celebratory dinner being thrown on account of some family friend getting a promotion. (It wasn’t too hard to explain the blood stains afterwards. It wasn’t the first time she had been in a fight. At least the racist schoolkids gave her a challenge.)
Of course, the stumblefucks drunk in bars like to think she’s talking about military duty. Of course, if it was always that easy then there wouldn’t be any need for her. All of the vampires and demons and other displaced denizens of various hell dimensions would’ve put this world on their No Fly lists eons ago, regular citizens would be more than a free for all buffet for underworld critters. Slayers would be as out of style as shoulder pads.
So here she is more than a few years and kills later; the mean thing stalking the streets of New York because hell mouths are outnumbering shitty bars in these ends of days and if it all goes up in weird flames she doesn’t want to be stuck in some backwater fighting the locals instead of the demon king of the shrimp world or whatever. It’s been pretty quiet so far, which is weird since every other state she’s passed through has had some kind of supernatural problem the press was busy blaming on brown people, and most of those states only had minor portals open in some angsty loser’s basement. Maybe evil figured the New York traffic was hell enough and skipped to Alaska.
She drinks to pass the time, she sends a few people to the hospital for sending others to the morgue and sends even more people to the police, sometimes she even sets up the easel and paints she found and put up in the shithole otherwise known as her current address. Mostly she waits, walks, and drinks some more. If anyone ever asked her what the hardest part of it all was and she cared enough to answer them, she’d tell them that all of the waiting came in a close second but the hardest part was standing by and watching. Sure, there’s a crime going on somewhere all the time, but the Powers That Be never deigned to give the Slayer the ability to be everywhere and anywhere at any time, and she has to pick her battles. That means sometimes she hears somewhere scream or sees someone throw a punch and she just has to walk away. Throw a punch of her own into a wall, break some bottles, run a few laps around the city. Let people fight their own battles. Remind herself that despite what ideas other people have she knows that the Slayer is less of a hero than a martyr. A sacrificial lamb on the altar of an angry god, holding off heavenly destruction for just a little longer. That she’s an outlier, still alive past twenty, and that despite everything she would really like to remain alive. (This reminder usually drives her to yet more drinking. She’s going to be the first Slayer to figure out if the Powers That Be decided to gift them with a reinforced liver.)
She doesn’t think about Hersh like she doesn’t think about her father or the fact that her mother lives alone in a small but immaculately kept house in an anonymous Texas town, which is to say she always thinks about him. Mainly cursing him for catching that cursed blade and dying, but sometimes she mixes it up and haunts shadowy alleys with her mind replaying memories like the time she mentioned wanting to be a doctor and he laughed.
Slayers are supposed to help people. I’d still be a Slayer and I’d still be helping people, I just wouldn’t have to walk through stupid mud fields and stab djinns and lie to my mother about it. Why can’t I do that?
The clue’s in the name, Shaw. You’re the Slayer. Not the saviour of mankind or the healer. Slayer. Killer. Murderer of evil things. That’s what you’re meant to do. What you are. You help people by killing the things that are trying to kill them.
A glorified guard dog.
A good guard dog. If I train you right. Yeah.
She never did get into medical school, but she learnt first aid. A little too late to save Hersh but fuck him and the rest of the Council and the Powers That Be and divine destiny, she’s more than just a killer. She’s saved people, actually saved them, and not just by killing things that go bump in the night, but by using the Heimlich manoeuvre and pulling them away from traffic and putting them in the recovery position.
At the end of the day, though, first aid only works on an individual basis and she has to save the entire world from the fire and brimstone party that’s coming. So she still waits and walks and burns her throat with cheap vodkas whilst she hunts encounters of the strange kind. Which is how she runs into the witch on the lower side of Manhattan. How she keeps running into her she really doesn’t know. She’s been doing her best to avoid her. Either she’s found herself a stalker or an arch enemy and she’s not sure which. She thinks enemies are supposed to flirt less and attack more.
“So, Sam, what are we up to tonight?” She never told the witch her name, and she never tells anyone where she is or where’s going. The woman either has less of a life than Shaw does or she’s working a serious tracer spell. Hell, maybe she’s an informant for something spooky too scared to actually face her. What the hell kind of a name is ‘Root’ anyway? And how did she get into a fifteenth floor apartment without using the door? If it turns out she can fly Shaw is going to officially petition the unfairness of her life.
“We are doing nothing unless it involves me kicking your ass.”
“There’s an infestation of Lubber demons around 86th Street, we could go pay them a visit. I could give your stakes an extra kick. Make it a little more fun.”
“Right now you’re making the end of the world as we know it sound fun. At least then I won’t have to deal with you popping out of nofuckingwhere to buy me coffee and sweet talk about demon entrails.”
"See you there."
Maybe there's a little excitement left in New York after all.