The next morning I drove to Joyce Summers' gallery in the west end of Sunnydale. Hawk rode with me. I told him I would be flying back to Boston that night.
"Think I'll be staying with old Ripper for a little bit," Hawk said. "Help him to reduce the vampire population some."
"So you knew a slayer," I said.
"Yeah, Nikki. Nikki Wood."
"Good looking?"
"Like a brick house."
"Did you…?"
"Yeah, we did. And then we didn't."
We were quiet for a bit.
"Given what I've learned about slayers, I suppose Nikki…"
"Killed on a subway train in New York. 1977."
"Was it Spike?"
Hawk looked at me. "You don't miss much of anything, do you?"
"You don't show much, so in your case, the slightest reaction can speak a lot." The expression on Hawk's face told me that Spike would be in big trouble if they ever crossed paths.
"Both Giles and Pendergast, Nikki's watcher, told me when she died that she held the record for longevity in a slayer, more than seven years. She was activated in late 1969, made it to '77. Most slayers don't even make it to their 18th birthday."
"I think that's what bothers me about this more than anything," I said. "Why teenage girls? Why not boys, or men? Even women?"
"Been thinking about that for years," Hawk said. "Came up with a couple of things. First of all, look at a lot of the individual sports girls and women do; gymnastics, tennis, ice skating. You see girls reaching their athletic peak in their middle to late teens. By the time they reach their early twenties, they're actually past their prime."
"OK," I said. "So why not use teenage boys and men, who are stronger to begin with?"
"You remember what we were like when we were teenagers?" Hawk said. "Not that girls can't be violent and stupid themselves, but there is a difference. Think about what gang banger boy slayers would be like."
Hawk paused. Then started to speak again.
"I'm a badass. You know that. You something of a badass yourself. But I can't imagine having the balls to be a watcher. To be responsible for a girl you know you are probably going to outlive. To train her to fight a war against monsters that will kill her. The Watcher's Council really emphasizes detachment, but it ain't possible. The longer a slayer lasts, the more the watcher hopes. I saw how Nikki got to Pendergast. I see how Buffy is getting to Ripper."
"Buffy is just seventeen."
"Yeah, but she's already done things no other slayer has ever done. That vamp leader she dusted in Hemery was named Lothos. He was known as the slayer of slayers. Killed thirteen of them. Buffy dusted him when she was 15 years old. When she was 16, Buffy killed The Master, a vampire so powerful no watcher ever even thought about sending a slayer after him."
"Didn't The Master kill Buffy?"
"Yeah, but she killed him longer and deader. And as an encore, she's killed Angelus and crippled, at least temporarily, Spike."
"So Giles has begun to hope," I said.
"Yep."
"And did Nikki Wood get to you too?"
"She did," said Hawk.