Buffy the Vampire Slayer was just the latest in a long line of Slayers – but who was the one before her? In every generation, there is a chosen one. She is granted supernatural power with which to confront the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. Buffy Summers was envisioned as just the latest Slayer, and unlike many Slayers, she hadn’t exactly been well-prepared for the task ahead of her.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer gradually revealed there have always been Slayers in the world. There is traditionally only one Slayer at a time, with the next one activated when their predecessor dies. That means every Slayer essentially inherits their powers – but also a death sentence, because Slayers are inevitably drawn into brutal and bloody conflict, and few survive their teenage years. Buffy Summers avoided the weighty implications of this – the fact she had been both blessed or cursed by the death of another – simply because she didn’t really want to deal with them. As a result, Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series never revealed who had been the Slayer before Buffy. Rather, her story has been reserved for two tie-in stories; Nancy Holder’s The Book of Fours, and a short story in the anthology book Tales of the Slayers.
India Cohen was born in North Carolina, the daughter of a popular Filipino actress and a US naval officer. She never quite felt she fit in, second-guessing her father’s identity and suspecting her real father had been unable to marry her mother for some reason. Those concerns were forgotten in 1993, when she was called as a Slayer, and was approached by a Watcher named Christopher Botwell (nicknamed “Kit”). India was living in Japan at the time with her father, and she and Kit traveled all over the country killing vampires and generally adventuring together. She appears to have had similar adventures in the United States, perhaps even visiting Sunnydale and encountering the Master or his agents; certainly he commented that Buffy was “prettier than the last [Slayer],” suggesting they had crossed paths at some time.
India and Kit fell in love, although they never acted on their mutual attraction, both being aware of the rules binding the relationship between Slayer and Watcher. That made India’s death in 1996 all the more tragic, when wanderer mummies attacked her in California, seeking to capture her soul. Kit fell into their clutches, and they used him as bait in a trap for the Slayer, releasing him when he had served his purpose. A heartbroken Kit realized his true feelings, and was left devastated enough to attempt to commune with her spirit. Unfortunately this made him easy prey for a manipulative sorceress.
In the end, India’s spirit did return – after a fashion. She possessed the body of Willow, and she sacrificed her very spirit to save Buffy and Faith in a mysterious, mystical act of spiritual suicide. There’s a certain, sad irony that Buffy’s predecessor was ultimately forced to die for her twice.
