Onward we go with Episode 3! I hope you enjoy it!

Outsiders

1.

When she was on the phone with her mother, Effie Trinket could never sit still.

It had to do with the fact Elindra Trinket disapproved of most of what her daughter did and had very little interest for the rest. Currently, Effie was walking around the living-room of The Capitol's penthouseand berating herself for not remembering that before taking the decision to call her mother.

She wasn't close with her mother, she had never been, even before Caesar Flickerman had rung the doorbell one morning to rip her away from her glamorous life in LA to bring her to cold and rainy England where she had been forced to give up school to learn about stakes, blades and crossbows. Not altogether her favorite subjects.

She had been thirteen when her parents had been told she might become a Slayer, late by Council standards since most of the Potentials were located as infants, and neither her father – who tended to delegate to Elindra every decision that concerned their two daughters – nor her mother – who had been far too relieved that the Council wasn't there because of her own magical activities – had opposed her going.

She had been angry with them for a long time about that and she had made her Watcher's life a living hell as a consequence – Slayer training wasn't compatible with one's manicure and Effie had always had her priorities straight: between killing a vampire and protecting her nails, she would protect her nails. She knew how to fight, she had been trained for it, but she had always disliked the physical aspect of it. She disliked the violence of having to slam a stake into a vampire's chest, she disliked the blood and grime that came with chopping off a demon's head, she disliked the looming certainty that death was around the corner… At thirteen, she had loved sunshine, ice cream and slumber parties. England had proved lacking on the three accounts.

In the end, she hadn't become a Slayer and she had disappointed Caesar.

She still remembered perfectly the night he had gotten the phone call about the rogue Slayer that had activated on the Seam's Hellmouth. Maysilee Donner. Sixteen, the very same age as her… She remembered perfectly the way Caesar's face had fallen in disappointment before it had morphed into plain relief. She had never asked why he would be relieved to miss the opportunity of a lifetime – every Watcher wanted to have an active Slayer and go down in history – because she knew. She would never have survived more than a few months and Caesar knew that as well as she did. She had spent the three following years wishing Maysilee would survive long enough that her own calling would be unlikely.

In the end, she had become a Watcher, to make Caesar proud in the only way she could, and she had disappointed her mother too.

In truth, her mother hadn't needed much more incentives to be disappointed. Her meager magical talents had seen to that. Elindra came from a very long line of witches and while she had forgiven Effie's sister's lack of skills due to the fact she had married well, Effie's lack of everything that was important to Elindra was a sore point.

"Of course, there is electricity, mother." she sighed to the ridiculous question. "This is rural America, not the Middle Ages."

She headed to the small table in the corner, ashes threatening to fall from the end of her cigarette. Where had the ashtray gone now?

"Well, excuse me for asking, Euphemia." her mother mocked. "You do seem to like settling down in the most unfashionable places."

"Was I ever given a choice?" she retorted.

"Attitude." Elindra chided. "I never forced you to join those dreadful watchmen. You should have come home and marry a nice young man like your sister did. Put an end to this foolishness."

God forbid she had a little more ambition than that.

Once it had been too late for her to be called, at eighteen, she had found herself without prospects but eager to leave Caesar's house. Potentials traditionally either became Council's operatives or left that life altogether. It was very obvious to both her and her Watcher that she was not made to be a soldier. She had briefly entertained the thought of becoming a model, to leave behind the darkness and the glum of the occult that had followed her most of her life and to embrace the softness and the warm colors of fashion – the only god her eighteen year-old self had recognized and worshipped.

She had probably been the only Potential in Council history who insisted on wearing heels to patrol cemeteries.

Those dreams had only lasted a few months, long enough to realize that Los Angeles was full of younger and more beautiful girls and to remember that living with her parents meant being exposed to her mother's recurrent remarks about how disappointing it was that she lacked magical talents and that the line of Trinket witches would die with her or that she should mind her weight because she would never find a husband if she grew fat. She might have persevered in the fashion world, become an actress maybe, if it hadn't been so glaring that the best she would ever achieved in LA was to become a waitress – well, she could have lived on her parents' money but that made her feel even worse, indebted in a way she wasn't comfortable being given her mother's clear penchant toward black magic. Black witches had peculiar ideas about debts.

She had gone back to England because when she had stopped and taken a good hard look at her life, she had realized it was the only real home she had ever known. So she had gone back, back to Caesar and the darkness she never had any hope of vanquishing because she had not been special enough to become the Slayer. He had welcomed her with his usual smile and twinkling eyes and he had negotiated to have her enrolled in the Watcher academy. Since she had never liked not excelling at something – slaying notwithstanding – she had ended up top of her class. She would have been the best Watcher out there if the Council hadn't been so rooted in traditions and favored the old Watcher families rather than talent. She might make them forget through her perfect manners sometimes but she wasn't British by birth and she did not have a ladyship, two things that were required to climb the Council of Watchers' ladder.

It was one of the reasons she had been so surprised to be sent to the Seam in the first place. It wasn't the first time the Council shipped her off to observe a particular situation and, in some cases, asked her to see what she could do about it, but it was the first time she was assigned a mission of that importance. Anything that related to the Slayer was important. And the fact that Caesar refused to explain why she had been picked was even more puzzling.

"How is it going anyway? You are awfully close-lipped." Elindra hummed curiously. "How is this new Slayer?"

"Unlikely to take a plane to L.A. only to put an end to your business, Mother." she deadpanned.

Sometimes, she thought the only reason Elindra bothered keeping in touch was because of Effie's connections. She didn't know with one hundred percent certainty what her mother was really doing and she suspected she didn't want to know. Elindra wasn't one of the good witches, she used her magic for her own benefits or against astronomical fees.

She worked hard to remain off the Council's radar.

"Oh, how terrible you make me sound." her mother huffed. "Can't I be worried about how my youngest daughter is faring?" It was almost a rhetorical question at this point so Effie let it slide. "Have you been appointed to her yet?"

"I told you…" she sighed, her eyes roaming all over the place for the ashtray that she finally located on the coffee table next to the big red candle – where she had absolutely not left it. She crushed what was left of the cigarette in it and moved to the bay windows. It was drizzling. "Haymitch Abernathy is her Watcher. I am simply here as… reinforcement should they need it."

And, she thought, watching the dark figure of the dead tree against the night sky, it was becoming very obvious they didn't need it.

It had been two weeks since they had all taken down that succubus together and she had never been called to any meeting. She had thought she and Haymitch had reached an understanding but the sum of their exchanges since then amounted to gibes shot on either side of the coffee maker in the high school staff room. He wasn't exactly avoiding her but he was skilled at deflecting her questions and she was reluctant to force his hand so soon. His Slayer, on the other hand, wasn't shy about expressing her feelings. She glared at her every time their paths crossed in the hallways. Worse, perhaps, were the small sympathetic winces of a smile Peeta Mellark flashed her sometimes.

Although why the boy had been involved in the first place was still a mystery to her… Peeta was a nice enough young man but he had no hidden magical talents that she could perceive so she failed to see why Haymitch had found it pertinent to not only allow the secret to be divulged but to take him on a demon hunt…

There were too many things she didn't know.

When President Coin asked for a report, she told her everything was progressing fine. Katniss' training, the reduction of the vampire population, the monitoring of the Hellmouth… The truth was she didn't know for sure because she was being kept on the sidelines and there was only so much she could discern from a distance.

She resented Haymitch for putting her in a position where she had to resort to white lies but coming clean might mean being relieved of the mission and replaced by someone else. Someone who might not have the same scruples she had and who would snatch the Watcher position for themselves… She didn't want to renounce that opportunity too soon. She wanted to keep it open.

"In short, you failed to get promoted again." her mother mocked. "If I were you…"

"I know what you would do if you were me." Effie cut her off. One little spell here, another there… Everyone bewitched and under her thumb…

"Do not interrupt me. It is rude." Elindra rebuked. "Truly, one would expect that someone raised by an Englishman would know better."

"I did not call to discuss the Slayer or my career, Mother." she reminded her, turning her back to the window. The ashtray wasn't on the coffee table anymore. "Can you help with my problem?"

"This is child play, Euphemia." Elindra complained. "If you cannot do it right…"

"I am certain I did it right." she argued, calmly walking back to the coffee table.

She kneeled in front of it and took in the various pots and vials full to the brim with herbs and powder. She made sure the flat bowl was clean before starting the spell again, detailing everything she did to her mother on the phone.

It was child play and she didn't understand why the spell wasn't working.

Everything was where it should be. The flat bowl in front of the red candle, the circle of herbs around it for protection… The preparation was simple and straightforward enough. The last thing to do was light the candle. She did it with the silver lighter Finnick had given her for her birthday a few years earlier and, for a second, she watched the flame dance, aware that the ashtray was now resting on the armchair when it had been right next to her little finger a second earlier.

"Psyche, goddess of the souls…" she whispered, feeling the familiar, if a little frightening still, swell of power inside her chest. "I beg you to come and find the one who is lost." She closed her eyes, focused… When she spoke, her voice was pure command, an order impossible not to heed. "Begone."

She opened her eyelids in time to see the candle snuff out.

She waited two breaths before sighing. "Well?"

"Well. You followed the steps and, as far as I can tell, it seemed right to me." her mother commented in a bored voice.

It was the tenth time Effie had performed that particular spell since she had moved into the hotel's penthouse. Her lips pursed, she stood up and grabbed the ashtray to put it back in its rightful place. "I do not understand why it does not stick! It is not my first ghost. What am I missing?"

It had started with little things: objects moving behind her back, almost inaudible murmurs in the dead of night, the prickling at the base of her nape telling her she was being watched, loud noises without causes… Typical signs of a haunting. She hadn't panicked because most ghosts were not dangerous and she knew how to deal with them but this one seemed very resistant to exorcism. It went away for a couple of days and then came back with a vengeance. It had been harmless at first but the day before she had barely missed a glass that had been hurled across the room in the direction of her head. Every time she banished the ghost to the beyond, it came back stronger.

"Power, darling." Elindra lamented. "You are only an amateur, after all. Do not feel bad for failing. Perhaps you should find someone with more magical strength. I am certain they must abound on the Hellmouth. What about that Watcher of yours? They form you all to the basic of magical arts, do they not?"

Ask Haymitch for help? Never.

He could probably banish a ghost just fine. It wasn't difficult, it didn't ask for much power and the knowledge came in handy, but asking him would put her in a position of weakness when their relationship so far seemed to be all about confrontation. She needed to prove herself, her worth, not to call for help at the smallest difficulty. And a ghost? He would laugh at her.

He had fought a Master vampire, had helped avert at least three major apocalypses, had killed more demons than most of the Watchers combined, had managed to keep four Slayers alive for more than three years when the current ratio of Slayers survival was of one year and a half on average…

She wasn't going to call him because she had a little ghost problem.

"I will manage." she huffed.

"Is he as attractive as they say?" her mother asked in a knowing voice. "He does have something of a reputation in some circles… I admit I am curious."

"He is old and he drinks too much." she declared with, perhaps, a little too much strength. "And he would have died last week had I not saved his life. A fact he seems to have conveniently forgotten. Which, I suppose, also makes him ungrateful. No, Mother, he is not attractive at all."

She was being unfair, of course. She knew for a fact he was only five or six years older than she was, he would probably have managed to get out of the Succubus situation by himself or with Katniss' help and he had accepted to tolerate her presence when he could just as well have made a fuss so Coin would remove her.

She passed in the big bedroom and frowned at the rain that was now hitting the bay windows so hard it almost drowned her mother's voice. The temperature had gotten lower too, enough that there was a chill in the air.

"Just as well." Elindra hummed. "You can do a lot better than a Watcher."

Her mother sneered the word like it was an insult and Effie had to resist the urge to remind her that she was a Watcher too. Although a low-ranking one.

Shivering, she continued on to the bathroom and ran herself a bath.

"How is Lyssa?" she asked, knowing her sister was a topic that would take them away from any potential source of conflict. If you excepted Lyssa herself, of course. Effie had never really accepted the fact that she had been sent away when Lyssa had grown up with their parents.

She suffered her mother's prattling for a while longer, humming and making the appropriate noises at the expected times, while she took her make-up off, lit candles all around the bathtub, studied the room service menu and, finally, undressed and slipped into the blissfully warm water.

It was fifteen more minutes before she managed to hang up.

She washed her hair quickly and then sank deeper into the bath, letting herself soak for a while. It was so cold out of the water that she suspected there must have been a problem with the heating system. She would ask the reception to send someone up when she would order a late dinner.

There were advantages to living in a hotel, after all.

She scooped a handful of bubble baths and made the foam dance in the air, forcing her mind to focus, stretching her magic like a sixth sense to control the delicate matter and shift it into whimsical shapes… A bird, a cat, a plane… It was easy. A little too easy. Basic training. She let the foam fall back in the water and pouted.

Exorcising a ghost should have been easy too so it begged the question: why did it keep coming back? It hadn't been hostile at first but the more she attempted to get rid of it, the worse it seemed to get…

Should she consult Haymitch?

Perhaps, it would help bridge the gap if she sought his help. Some men liked that: defenseless women asking for their wisdom… She hadn't been shy of employing that very tactic on other Council members… He certainly didn't seem to mind her batting her eyelashes at him or flashing him seductive smiles… But, then again, that particular tactic always worked on men who weren't interested in looking past her good looks.

And Haymitch was very partial to her good looks.

She might have followed that road if she hadn't been so sure it wouldn't lead down a rabbit hole…

She liked sex.

She loved sex, she corrected for herself, twirling her finger to make water swirl in the air.

She had used sex as a weapon before, it didn't bother her. Her body was a tool, that much had been hammered into her head since she had been thirteen… Of course, Caesar hadn't meant it that way but she had found it a truly efficient one. Her beauty made people fools as surely as her mother's controlling spells… She had used that to her advantage plenty of times. The escort, some mean-spirited boys in her class had nicknamed her. She didn't care. She got the job done and the Council's directors never asked how she had done it.

Haymitch now…

Simply remembering the interlude in his classroom before the succubus' attack made her hot and that in itself might be dangerous.

She might have had a small crush to begin with.

She had never seen him before Plutarch had introduced them, naturally, but she had read about him. She had read Mags' journals, both the one she had kept during Iris Abernathy's run as a Slayer and the one she had dedicated to Mabel Larson. By the time Effie had discovered his existence, he was watching over his second slayer, Alina Graves. She had read every journal he had kept about his protégées. He was laconic in his writing, stuck to the hard facts and rarely if ever let anything personal slip through. The handwriting alone seemed to express his reluctance to record anything on paper…

It was the enigma of him who had pushed her to approach Mags, to ask for explanations as to how someone so young, an outsider to the Council and its secular lines of Watchers, could have been given an active Slayer. That's how Mags had started mentoring her like she often mentored young Watchers, that's how they had become friends…

The stories Mags would tell… The rumors that were whispered around the Council building… The anecdotes Caesar would consent to disclose from mission reports not privy to anyone's eyes but the board of directors…

She had built such an image in her mind that he had slowly become something of a fantasy she had turned to when she had been lonely – and while she was rarely alone because she had a gift for making friends wherever she went, being lonely had always been something of a problem. It had varied from scenarios where they would meet on a mission abroad and he would recognize her superior skills as a Watcher and made sure she was rewarded for her work by the Council to scenarios of a more… sexual nature. To be honest, even the first category had tended to end up with the latter.

She hadn't been able to help herself. He was a hero.

And he could have been her Watcher if the circumstances had been right and if she had been called. That was a particular fantasy of hers she had liked to visit more times than she cared to count.

All in all, the infatuation had been harmless before she had met him but now it was turning into something awkward and pathetic.

The water that was gently floating in front of her face turned to ice.

Besides, he might have been a hero but he was also a jerk. She had been disappointed. Rude, coarse, the flask he didn't do such a good job at hiding, the not so steady hands, the lack of professionalism… His refusal to admit she could be useful…

He was handsome though. And it would have been easier if she could claim he wasn't still featuring in her fantasies. It was even worse now, perhaps, because she had intimate knowledge of the way he kissed. She knew how his tongue would poke her bottom lip, she knew how his calloused palms would feel over her skin, she knew how he would lift her up and…

It was so easy for her mind to continue the memory of their time in the classroom, to imagine what would have happened if they hadn't been interrupted by that scream…

She had wanted it so badly, then… She had known it was wrong, that there was a chance he was simply affected by the succubus' pheromones, but she hadn't been able to resist his mouth or his hands or his voice…

And he had simply been trying to seduce her into revealing herself as a sex demon… Or so he claimed.

She wasn't sure.

She didn't know.

She did know she didn't want to call him because she couldn't get rid of a simple ghost. She wouldn't show herself to be incompetent.

With a grunt of frustration she dissipated the shards of ice floating in the air and stood up. The bath had turned cold and she wasn't anywhere near relaxed. Of course, the lukewarm water seemed warm compared to the chill in the air.

Was it frost on the mirror?

She had one leg over the edge of the tub when she felt something pull on the ankle that was still in the water. She instinctively angled her fall forward rather than backwards, knowing it would hurt but that it would hurt less than potentially drowning. The side of the bathtub dug into her ribs but she held on to it for dear life even as she felt her lower body being dragged deeper into the tub.

"Psyche, goddess of souls. I beg you to come and find the one who is lost." she said in a hurry. "Begone."

For a second, nothing changed except for her slippery grip on the edge of the tub. Her chin was inches away from the water edge when the scented candles she had scattered around the room abruptly snuffed out. She felt the pressure around her leg loosen and she immediately hauled herself out of the bathtub without much grace or elegance. She lowered herself on the floor, shaking. She snatched the towel from the rack and wrapped herself in it, aware the chill in the air hadn't disappeared and that it was definitely not natural.

Goosebumps ran down her whole body…

The door to the bathroom slammed shut and she licked her lips, considering her options.

"Psyche, goddess of souls…" she started again.

The mirror blew.

"Protect!" she screamed, instinctively lifting her arms to shield her face. The magical barrier stopped the shards but it didn't reassure Effie much or long.

She grabbed one of the biggest broken pieces of glass and didn't let herself hesitate when she sliced her palm open. The door was now slamming open and closed, frost was running up the walls, slowly but surely turning the bathroom into a freezer… She traced a pentagram on the floor with her blood and kneeled at the center, chanting the spell under her breath. She felt it lock into place just as objects started flying all over the bathroom, mainly aimed at her. They crashed on the magical shield the pentagram offered.

"In the goddess' name, I command thee…" she hissed. "Reveal yourself."

She had expected a human shape to appear, the ghost materializing maybe…

She hadn't expected the shift of mystical energy she felt deep into the building's foundation. It was strong enough to suck the breath out of her lungs.

Oh…

Oh, stupid.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She hadn't been exorcising the same ghost over and over again… It had been different ghosts. Something was holding souls prisoner and they had probably been pouring out one at a time through a tiny leak. Minor haunting symptoms… She had been exorcising ghosts since she had arrived. And whatever it was that had been hoarding souls, it wasn't happy about her tearing her toys away from it…

Well, she thought, her teeth chattering, now she didn't have much choice about calling Haymitch or not calling Haymitch… She needed the Slayer.

Assuming, of course, that she didn't die of hypothermia before he could launch a rescue.

You get some Effie backstory! And some magic! And also some dire need of rescue! What did you think? Let me know your thoughts!