Chapter Eight: Favors
(Short Chapter, sorry.)
Andrew nervously waited outside an office. He wished he was suaver. Coolly, waiting for his contact, wearing fedora and trench coat, holding a smoldering cigarette as he leaned up against a brick wall in an alley... No! a lamppost... in the rain. Waiting for a Blue-eyed innocent maven. In reality, he was waiting for an evil lawyer to come out of a meeting, but she was a foxy lawyer. The meeting let out and suits filed out of the office talking about where to do lunch. Andrew slipped in.
"Miss... uh Lilah," he squeaked. The room was like something out of Wall Street. Intimidated, he tried to speak without shaking. "I'd like to talk to you."
"You're going to have to make an appointment with my secretary, kid," Lilah said. She looked up at the sneaker-clad boy and chuckled. "And I don't do the jumping out a cake bit anymore."
"I'm not here to... You used to jump out of cakes?" Andrew looked the woman up and down. He could see it.
"You have three minutes kiddo," She said.
'Right,' Andrew thought. 'I am confident. I am strong. I am woman. No wait.' He strolled over to where she sat at the head of a long polished table. "I have a proposition for you."
"Uh huh," Lilah said looking bored. "Cut to the chase mighty mouse."
Andrew sat in one of the leather furnished chairs. He leaned back but almost toppled backwards. "Ahem," he composed himself. "I need a favor. I know you can bring people back to life. I want you to bring someone back."
"My, my, you've been a nosy little mouse haven't you, Andrew?" Lilah clucked. She leaned forward. "You know, I can have you vanish in a blink of an eye."
Andrew swallowed ."I kn- know. But then you'd have the slayer on your tail so fast you'd beg to die again. And I'm sure Angel doesn't know everything that goes on here."
Lilah grinned. "I like you. Okay, so say I snap my fingers and you get your deceased back. You'll have to do something for me."
"I will?"
"Of course. This is tit for tat, Andrew. I'll want my tat," Lilah said flexing her legs. Andrew shifted, then nodded. "Good. Since I know you're so good at the stealth, I want you to find out who's in that room Angel has guarded. He even has it magically guarded, so none of my employees can get in. It's like he doesn't trust me, but then again, I don't blame him. But you find out who's in there, and we have a deal."
Andrew shook his head. "I want my friend back first."
Lilah looked at Andrew. The kid wasn't going to back down, she could see it in his eyes. "Tell you what, we'll do it at the same time. You find out, I'll work on getting your friend back, and we'll swap at the same time."
"Deal," Andrew stuck out his hand and they shook on it.
"Now, Mighty Mouse, run along," Lilah said and Andrew scurried out. When he got back to his room he was skipping with joy. Xander was going to be so happy, then they'd all be best friends together. It'd be like Three's Company. He smiled, he always identified with Suzanne Somer's Chrissy. But he had the sinking feeling in the back of his mind that he had just bargained with the devil, and nothing good ever came from that.
(Shahid, you must've been reading my mind about Xander and his Anya ordeal.)
