Chapter 10
It took them nearly an hour to reassemble themselves in the boardroom, and another fifteen minutes to get the story on their tango with the Order of Taraka from Buffy and the others. Their reaction was akin to 'Not again.'
"Didn't we just get through fighting a great evil?" Gunn asked. "Don't we even get a break between Apocalypses?"
"Actually, its been nearly six weeks," said Xander, "which is more time then we usually get."
"And we're sure that it was Wolfram & Hart who hired the Order of Taraka?" said Wesley.
"Yes," said Angel. "No," from Buffy.
Everybody looked at the two of them.
"Well that clears that up," said Dawn. "Look, didn't you people get a verbal agreement from Wolfram & Hart that they wouldn't interfere with the LA office?"
The Angel Investigations crowd looked at each other for a while. "Yes," Fred finally admitted reluctantly.
"And you don't think that they'd live up to it?" asked Willow.
"Yes because evil forces have never been known to lie to us before," Angel said, sarcastically. "Look Lee Mercer used to work for Wolfram & Hart. If what Fred said about Sunnydale is true, then they're still up to no good. They have to have done it."
"And I'm saying that those aren't the only possibilities," said Buffy in a resigned tone. "I know that they've been the enemy for a very long time, but we all know that there are other equally dangerous things out there who might have commissioned the hit on Leonard."
"And who are capable of making the dead work for them," said Willow quietly.
They all pondered the potential horrors behind this. "You don't think..." said Xander.
"Before we jump to any conclusions, I think that it's pertinent to remember that there are any number of shapeshifting demons who are capable of pulling off what Willow is insinuating." said Giles.
"That's all well and good, but all this means we still don't have any idea who is behind this and what this big nasty that we're going to have to fight." said Faith. "How are we supposed to prepare ourselves if we don't even know what were fighting?"
Giles was about to say something pragmatic about how they could figure this out, when suddenly a new voice added: "There is an easier way to find out."
All the eyes in the room shifted towards the source near the back. It was a tall, well dressed man with beady eyes and black hair. At least it appeared to be black hair...You couldn't because most of the back of the mans head was missing. There was also a very small hole in the front of the head that could only have come from a gunshot wound. No one seemed even remotely shocked that the newcomer had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. What concerned them was what he might represent. Giles had never wished to see a ghost before, but compared to the alternative he hoped that it was.
Buffy was the first to recover. "This is starting to get old," she said without any trace of fear in your voice.
"So you're the one who has brought all of this trouble to our door. I must say, I thought you'd be... Bigger." The man didn't speak calmly and coolly as the First had, rather he seemed ironically amused.
"You don't recognize me." Buffy seemed surprised.
"Well I saw the photos. Believe me they don't do you justice."
"I'm sorry," said Fred, "but have y'all met before?"
"No we haven't. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lee Mercer. I work for Wolfram & Hart."
There was an instant of relief before the tension returned. "So you're really..." Willow began.
"Quite dead," said Mercer calmly.
"You know if these standard perpetuity clauses really are forever, you'd think they'd at least neaten you up a bit," said Gunn.
For a moment, the smile on Mercer's face faded. "Normally they do, but one small infraction and they leave it to serve as a warning. It doesn't hurt, of course, but people do tend to focus on it."
"All right," said Angel, "so you have to wear a hat in public. I'm having a real hard time working up sympathy for someone who tried to have us killed."
"Actually we didn't tell them specifically to kill you. We just said to stop anyone who tries to help Leonard."
"That's semantic nonsense and you know it!" said Wesley.
"Yes, said Mercer, "but when you're in our profession, phrasing is everything."
"Wolfram & Hart gave us their word that they would not interfere with the Los Angeles office," said Fred. "How can you stand there and say you're not interfering?"
"We are living up to our agreement. However just because we said we wouldn't interfere doesn't mean that we won't stop representing clients who might have interests contrary to yours."
Everybody took this in. "And which client was involved here?" Faith asked.
Mercer again flashed an insincere smile. "Attorney-client privilege prevents me from revealing their identity, but suffice it to say he is someone higher up the food chain than you."
"Don't you mean lower down?" said Angel.
"Potayto, potahto." said Mercer coyly.
"All right now that you've finished being cute, what are you doing here?" said Buffy.
"Just to let you know that the people who ordered the hit on Leonard Kopell have been persuaded to call it off."
"Well that was pretty fast considering we only sent the message through Cribb about an hour and a half ago," said Giles.
"In the computer age messages can be transmitted in moments. Besides," said Mercer, "people close to the individual in question managed to persuade him that it would be inefficient and a drain of manpower to continue to seek Mr. Kopell's death while you were guarding him.".
They all considered the implications of this.. "Where are the strings?" asked Xander.
"Our client has made it perfectly clear that by confounding his interests, you have deterred his work. And well... He hasn't put you on his Christmas card list."
"Great," said Buffy "so now we have another enemy and we don't know who."
"Well.." said Mercer, "in the interest of full disclosure, I think that you need to know that you have made a lot of enemies. Several of them right here in L.A."
"And what did we do to piss these people off?" said Willow
"You didn't return their phone calls." Responding to their looks of surprise, Mercer said, "When Wolfram & Hart gave you the L. A. branch, they gave you the L.A. Branch. All the clients, not just the ones that you thought were worthy of your time."
"You know who some of these clients are?" said Willow scornfully. She had gone through the client list and knew who some of the more high-profile ones were.
"Of course we are familiar with the level of contempt you have for them, but the fact remains they require representation of their interests. Failure to do so will result in a violation of our agreement."
"In other words we represent this scum or you kick us out," Wesley said.
"I wouldn't put it in such crass terms, but that's correct," Mercer answered.
"Wait you said we'd made a lot of enemies. Do you represent any of them?" asked Angel.
Again Mercer flashed that insincere smile. "Attorney-client privilege prevents me from..."
"Yeah, yeah you can't tell us. Are these people, who shall remain nameless, going to be after us?"
"We have every intention of keeping up our end of the bargain. We can not, however, be expected to be held responsible for the actions of clients who may not be as inclined to be reasonable." Everybody took this in. "Well, that's all I had to say. Keep up the good work and you shouldn't have any problems. Just walk very carefully."
"Yeah, we'd never have figured that out on our own." said Gunn
Mercer turned around, "Be seeing you," and walked out the door.
"You honestly expect us to just take this? Come back here, you son of a--" Faith walked out the door after Mercer. Giles thought he knew what was going to happen and wasn't surprised when she returned seconds later.
"Gone?" asked Angel.
"Like the wind," said Faith.
"It's not like he would have given us much more information," said Wesley. "We know how infuriatingly vague messengers of evil can be."
"Could he have been any vaguer?" said Xander. "We still have no idea who ordered the hit on Leonard. Wolfram & Hart might have, but at this point I don't know if we can take anything they say seriously. Something very evil is out there and we have no idea who or what. We only know that it's big and nasty, which narrows it down to a couple of million. And now we have to represent all of the clients this office works with in L.A. Or risk a threat to our safety."
"And your point is..." said Giles.
Xander paused. "I didn't really have one. I just thought we needed to review."
"So what do we do now?" Dawn asked. They all considered this for a moment. And then Giles realized that there was only one course of action open to them. "We keep doing what we've started. If things are as grave as we think, we will need Slayers and Watchers to be working at full tilt as soon as possible." He looked at Willow. "Willow, do we still have the complete list of clients in L.A. on file?"
"Yeah, I always keep back ups. And, now that you mention it, a lot of former clients have been calling recently without us responding." Said Willow
"All right, we'll have to meet with them and smooth things over with those who may feel the most wounded."
"And if they're as evil as we think?" asked Fred.
Angel responded: "We'll have to walk a fine line with them. But we've been doing that for a while."
"What about Leonard?" Buffy asked. She turned to Lorne. "Did you get any kind of read on him at Caritas?"
"He's not a demon. He's got a real cowardice complex. And he sings a mean 'Broken Hallelujah.'" Lorne said. "Besides that I can't really tell much about his future or whatever this big threat might be."
Buffy looked at the others. "He came here for a reason. Even if the threat on his life is gone, we can't just let him walk out."
They all thought about this. "We put him on salary," said Wesley. "He'll work with me and Willow in the prophecy department. When he has visions -- and I'm betting they'll come now that he's met us -- we'll figure out the next step then."
"Xander, do you think that we can work with him?" Buffy asked. The youngest man in the room seemed a little surprised that he was being asked.
"He seems like a decent enough guy. I think that we may need to hold his hand a little, but I think that he could contribute in a big way."
"Okay...does anyone have a problem with Angel-Slayer hiring Leonard?" Buffy asked. No one said anything. "All right. Wes, this is your baby, you think that you can tell him?"
Wesley nodded. "I think that the best thing for the rest of to do would be to get back to work."
"Then let's get going." The board members of Angel-Slayer slowly walked out of the room. As he left, Giles realized that the sensation of dread and anticipation that had become second nature to him in Sunnydale was back with a vengeance. In a weird way, he welcomed that feeling; it was familiar enough for him to live with. But a part of him had hoped and prayed that he could have lived without ever feeling it again.
"Angel..." Buffy spoke to him as he was leaving the room. The tone was normal but it still sent chills up his spine. "Could you stay there for a moment?" He tried to stay calm hoping that somehow his friends wouldn't notice that he and Buffy were going to be alone in the same room together. Then he tried to remain calm since he noticed that he and Buffy would be alone in the same room together.
She waited until the room was empty save for the two of them, then she turned off her pager and cell phone at her belt. "Would you mind?"
For a second he didn't get it. Then he started fumbling around his own pockets and hoped he did the same with his own pager and cell phone. Though he was over 275 years old, he still had problems with modern technology.
Buffy picked up the phone in the room, and pressed nine. "Melissa, could you make sure that nobody disturbs us for the next, um... Until I say so." She turned off the ringer..
"I could never remember her name," Angel said trying to lighten the somberness which had suddenly settled.
A smile briefly lit her face. "What can I say? I'm a people person." The smile disappeared. "You understand why I'm doing this."
"Yeah. I do." For a moment, there was silence. "Don't know about you but I haven't been looking forward to this conversation."
"Tell me about it. I wouldn't mind a big monster breaking the door down right now." Both of them smiled...and looked towards the door anyway.
"You're not going to like everything I'm going to tell you," said Angel. "I probably won't like what you're going to tell me. But if we are going to work together, if we're going to coexist in the same place..."
"...We need to know what's happened," Buffy finished. "Okay." They fell silent. "I'll go first," she said, "mainly because my story's a little shorter. It starts when they brought me back...."
When Wesley thought about it later, he realized how used he had gotten, over the past couple of years, to people following his orders without question. He had honestly expected that Leonard would jump at the chance to have a place to work, a source of income and a chance to help fight the good fight.
After putting it in just those terms, it took Leonard only fifteen seconds to answer. "Thank you, but I'm going to pass."
Wesley was flustered by this but only for a moment. "Leonard, are you sure you've thought this through?"
"Gee, have I? I've spent the last six months agonizing over this decision. No, Mr. Wyndham-Price, I do not want to engage in the fight against darkness. I want to go back home and build myself a fortress and never deal with you again."
Wesley tried a different tack. "Leonard, you've been having vision for nearly four years. You came to us for a reason."
"Yes, I did. I came to ask for your protection and to warn you of what's going to happen. I've done both these things. Now I'm going to leave with a clear conscience."
"And that's it? You're just going to leave."
Leonard stared at him. "Do you demand the assistance of everyone who comes to you for help? I don't owe you a damn thing. I can go to bed with a clear conscience."
He tried changing tacks again. "Mr. Kopell. You can't just walk away from this. It should be pretty clear to you that the Powers That Be have chosen you for a higher purpose."
Leonard looked at him. "Well if that's the case, the 'Powers That Be' can go fuck themselves." When he saw Wesley wince, he added quietly: "Are they listening to us?"
"Quite possibly."
"Well, then let me repeat:" He looked up: "Fuck off. I have done my duty to them and to you. You can send me as many visions as you want; I don't care. You want to stop me, either they are going to have to physically do it or you're going to have to send someone. Lacking either, I am leaving." He walked towards the door.
"I knew you were afraid." Wesley whirled around. He hadn't even noticed that Xander was there. "But I find it hard to believe that you would just walk away from this without a thought."
"Believe it," Leonard said. He opened the door.
"Where are you going to run to, Leonard?" Xander asked approaching him. "Colorado? Texas? New York? You can travel as far as you want, but these visions are still going to find you. There are some things you can't run away from. And I think you know that."
"This is where you give me the spiel that I have to fight for the good of the world. That what you're doing is right and I need to help. I don't care. I didn't ask for this; I don't want it." He opened the door again.
"You think I did?" Wesley looked at Xander. There was an expression of pain on his face. "I've been doing this for seven years. I never asked to. I'm not qualified I just did it. I lost friends. People that I love. And I don't have any special powers to make me feel better. I'd much rather be married with a nice job in Normal, USA, but I'm here. You know why?" Xander didn't wait for a response. "Because someone has to be."
"And I have to?"
"You said you thought that God was sending you these visions. Why do you think that He did? Maybe He believes that somewhere in you is a person who is capable of doing this work."
Wesley could tell from Leonard's expression that there was an immense turmoil going through him. His fear and the better angels of his nature were fighting and it was difficult to tell which would win.
"It's like I told you earlier. I can't help you: I'm a coward. I'm not proud of it but it's true."
"You're not a coward, Leonard. " Even though Xander was doing a far better job than expected, Wesley thought he could use the help. "You're just afraid. That's a huge difference and I think you know that."
"There no shame in it," Xander said. "We're all afraid."
The struggle in Leonard's face disappeared for a moment. "Bullshit! Don't give me that 'we're all scared' crap. If you were that frightened, you'd hide under the bed after you saw your first vampire!"
"All right, maybe we're not as afraid as normal people are. But don't mistake us for Agent Smiths here. All of us are human." Realizing what he had said, Xander hurriedly added: "Except for Angel and Lorne. And even they get scared sometimes. You would have to be a machine not to be frightened of some of the things that are out there."
"You know, if you're trying to persuade me to stay, you're doing a pretty poor job of it," Leonard said dryly. Wesley took this and that he wasn't facing the door anymore as good signs.
"All right... But you're not a coward. You killed a Mohra demon without hesitation. From what I understand those are hard to take down even for professionals. That's takes a lot of guts for someone who is as timid as you supposedly are."
"And that automatically makes me what? A warrior? A hero?" Leonard spoke as if he was trying to convince himself that it wasn't true.
"It doesn't make you anything," Wesley said. "But it means that you have potential. In time maybe, with the proper training, you might become someone who can be a force for good." He could see that Leonard was right on the verge of changing his mind.
"You said you came here because you wanted our help. Well part of helping is helping yourself." said Xander.
There was a very long pause. Finally, Leonard looked at them. "All right."
"Okay, you would be working with me--" Wesley began.
"No. I'm not going to work here." He went on: "Don't get me wrong, I'll train with you. I'll tell you about whatever visions I get, but I'm not going to spend twenty-four hours a day doing this. I'm not going to let my work, no matter how important it may be, become my life." Before either could answer, he added: "That's the deal. Otherwise I'm out the door."
Wesley was about to press the point when Xander spoke up. "You gotta place to work?"
"A friend of mine runs a book store in Glendale. Murder Press." On their looks of incredulity, he said: "It's mostly mysteries. I've worked there part-time occasionally. He told me that I had a job there whenever I need it. I'd be comfortable there."
Wesley figured this was about as much as he could expect."Do you have a number where we can reach you?"
"I'm currently staying at the Rock Hudson Motor Lodge about ten miles from here. If you're serious about helping me, you could help me get a cheap apartment nearby. Nothing corporate, though," he added.
"We can probably find something for you," Wesley said.
"Thanks." There was an awkward silence for a moment. Finally Leonard spoke: "All right. Um, I guess I'll see you Monday.... evening?" At their hesitation, he added: "I prefer to begin work at the beginning of the week I don't want to come in Thursday and get a full weeks pay." He tried to smile.
"I...guess that would be okay," Wesley said. "But you should understand, evil doesn't usually take weekends off."
"I guess I'll get used to that." He turned to leave, then turned back. "By the way, here's a stupid question: When do you sleep?"
Xander smiled. "You'll figure it out when you start working with us." He clapped Leonard on the back. "See you Monday."
Leonard walked out the door, but this time Wesley was sure he would return.
"I must say, Xander, that was a brilliant. I was sure he was gone," Wesley said admiringly.
"Yeah. So now we've got another one."
Wesley turned and looked at Xander. Whatever energy he had possessed when talking to Leonard was gone; he now seemed very tired. "What's wrong?"
"Leonard is a very brave man. To have the courage to walk away from all this knowing the consequences, that takes guts. But now..." Xander shook his head. "He came here asking us to protect him and we've signed him up for a job that has death as one of the side effects."
Wesley knew that Xander had been in a dark place for the past few weeks, but he hadn't thought that it was that bad. "If you're so down on what we're doing, why did you speak to him at all? "
"Because we needed him. Because he's going to help us to fight what's next," Xander said. "Because that is what we do."
Wesley didn't reply.
"Come on, monarchy boy, you knew as well as I do that we weren't going to let Leonard disappear into thin air."
Wesley didn't particularly want to admit that it was true, but he also knew that Xander was down. "Xander, do you really think that you should be working here if this bothers you so much?"
"I have considered leaving."
A look of shock crossed Wes's face. "There are construction companies that would hire me. There are other towns I could live in. But the problem's the same as it always is."
"Which is?"
"Somebody has to fight these things. I can't go from doing something that I've done for seven years to doing something completely different. Could you, Wes?"
Wesley thought it over for a moment. He thought about the dark place that he had gone to after betraying Angel. It had been a chance to completely break away and start again. Yet despite his affair with Lilah, and all the darkness he had lived in, he had been drawn to helping people regardless. "I guess not," he finally admitted.
"We are the champions. No time for losers, 'cause we are the champions," Xander quoted. "Fighting for good is in our blood. It's what we are. God help us." He walked away towards the elevator.
Wesley thought about stopping him, telling him it would be worth it in the long run. The problem was he didn't know that it would. It was funny: the kid whose main strength had always been that of the clown had finally run out of jokes. And had touched on something very vital in him. In all of them.
They were doing the right thing. It was worth it. Right?
He hoped for all their sakes it was. -----
To Be Continued in Cookie Dough 3