The Watcher of the Council, Christina Alexopoulou, was beside herself with irritation when, at the insistence of her own family, she had to change her location and occupation. First, she was appointed as a Watcher for a possible Slayer, which was comparable to a barely honorable retirement from active forces in the fight against the dark underside of this world. Secondly, she was simply cut off from the family's assets and left on Watcher's meagre wages. This hindered the rightcheous hunt for evil the most.
Not to mention that contact had not yet been established with the ward, although she was already about fifteen years old. The only consolation was that she seemed to be extremely active in sports, judging by the reviews of the previous Watcher, who did not dare to try and take responsibility by bringing the girl up to speed.
Now this task has fallen to the former special agent of the Watcher Council.
The girl can't even imagine how lucky she is with being her new assignment. Watchers usually apply very separate ways when it comes to relationships with their wards. The main task is not to lose sight of them. But if a possible future Vampire Slayer is initially born among those who know about the underside, then it will be much easier for her to get used to this business. That's why they train them and put them in special schools. There were three such girls who studied with Alexopoulou herself. None of them lived up to the hopes of becoming a Slayer, and one of them already has a daughter at the age when the call of Slayer could be possible. Therefore, Alexopoulou quite rightly assumed that she was also studying at one of those special schools. For some reason, they had not yet thought of taking children from disadvantaged families to such schools, which very much resembled the family of her new ward. And Alexopoulou herself was not very mcuh interested in such subtleties before this appointment.
If the Slayer thing doesn't work out, then she'll get at least a relatively valuable ally in the fight against the underside, and it's more convenient to keep an eye on the offspring.
The thing is, that usually Watchers who were sent from such warm places as Greece, or in general somewhere too far from their home, just dream of returning back and try to arrange a kind of rotation for such cases.
Alexopoulou was sent to this dank Boston place precisely from Greece - her family is originally from that part of Europe, and only a few centuries ago joined the number of families from which Watchers are being recruited. They did not have the blood of Slayers, but at the same time there was some magical heritage, as well as reasons to keep watch and take part in the war against those who hide in the shadows.
Many Watchers, instead of training a potential ally in the fight against the supernatural, prefer to simply keep an eye on them as if they were some cargo.
Christina wasn't going to take that road.
That's why she hid her dissatisfaction with the new assignment far away - as boring as it was unpleasant because of the possible extensive communication with an absolutely distrustful teenage girl. Christina decided to interfere in this girl's not very measured and completely unstable life for a very simple reason.
It all started with her family's conditions - to stay in this exile for a year and not submit a transfer request. Yes, it would have been approved in two months or so, because specialists of her level do not just found on the side of the road. And even more obvious is that she should not waste her talents working as a glorified babysitter for a teenager who may never even gain that power. But then the head of the family, coincidentally one of the high-ranking officials in the Watcher Council, threatened not to restore her position within the family itself. Her suicidal but extremely effective tendencies when performing tasks against demons and vampires had given her a lot of experience, and she couldn't deny that this experience came along with considerable psychological trauma.
What prevented them from simply sending her for a couple of weeks, maybe even a month, to a fairly well-known retreat in their circles, the one near Ashwood Forest, in the area of Crowborough? Or even just let her rest in their family's Tripolis mansion, instead of summoning her there, forcing her to make a long enough flight from central Europe, one might say, getting her there for nothing, and only then they deemed to inform her of the suspension from action?
Arcadia was beautiful in springtime. Unlike New England. No, of course, this region of the United States had its own little twist, but Christina would have been fine with just going on a retreat and lying face down in a pillow for a couple of days to relax, instead of doing these activities, completely unrelated to her previous occupation. After all, if she needs to stay here for at least a year, then it will simply be impossible to remain just an observer. That is why Alexopoulou assumed that she would have to take on the, de facto, custody of this wild girl.
The American secondary education system for ordinary people was ridiculous. That's partially why Christina assumed there would be a huge number of holes in the girl's education that would have to be closed. After all, she wasn't very smart, judging by the reviews of documents from her schools from previous Watchers. And there have been about ten of them, ever since the girl was tracked down and made sure that, yes, she is a carrier of the blood of the Slayers.
Christina Alexopoulou was aware that trying to grow a baobab out of cactus is a futile exercise.
But at least try to make a cactus more dangerous than its version from a pot on the windowsill?
Christina was quite capable of that.
Faith Lehane was stupid and useless so far, but she might have had a chance to become a valuable asset to the Council. The only interesting fact over the past couple of months was that she managed to hide some small animal - like a cat or something similar - from her mother. It wasn't that it was that hard to do, because her mother was either at work or drunk most of the time. This made the girl avoid her parent like fire, because the drunken state was accompanied by the presence of strange men nearby, and for a young girl it was dangerous. Well, the basic worldly wisdom was present in the possible future Slayer, at least there's that.
Yes, it would be difficult, but overall the task was clear.
If Alexopoulou is not assigned a task, then she will set the assignment for herself.
And such a challenge was quite to the liking of the former special agent of the Council. After all, the main thing in a bad situation is to find motivation to make it at least more interesting if there is no way to get rid of this situation.
The new Watcher took over the post.
And she had no idea who else was watching the future Slayer, or who might even need to do so.