One could rationalize what had happened, of course. Psychosomatic symptoms, thought the son of Colleen and Lawrence Riley, who intended to take psychology classes at Stanford in addition to his other subjects; brought forth by visiting Cordelia's grave. The white-haired woman probably had been in distress herself and not even been talking to him, had, in all likelihood, been as creeped out by him as he was by her. The nightmare was just that, a nightmare. Dreams had no power in real life unless you gave it to them, and well-adjusted, sensible young men would never fall into that trap.

The son of Daniel Holtz thought that was nonsense. Any time something threatened you, you should better track it down at once and eliminate it before it got the chance to carry out its threats.

Angel's son thought he should have expected this, and accept whatever punishment fate was intending to inflict. It wasn't as if he didn't deserve it.

Connor found himself wandering for an entire day. Los Angeles wasn't suited to this kind of activity and never had been; he nearly got run over by a car no fewer than five times, and once or twice even got offered a lift. Then there were the propositions and the mugging attempts, but he didn't count those.

Ultimately, he found himself in front of a church that looked vaguely familiar. When he noticed the door looked much newer than the rest of the building, as if it had been added or restored only recently, he guessed where he was and entered. But the air was stale and had been refiltered a thousand times in the last year. There was no trace of Cordelia there anymore, none at all.

His parents were non-practising Episcopalians who were quite happy with visiting services only at Christmas and on Easter. Connor didn't have any strong feelings about religion either way, and didn't remember any formal prayers beyond the Our Father from his happy Californian childhood, as opposed to the lyrics of the Flipper theme tune. Quortoth memories were different. Holtz had been a Catholic and had taught him how to pray a rosary in English and Latin, with wooden pearls he had carved himself pressed between his fingers.

He also recalled the prayers and hymns written to Jasmine by her admirers last year, and Angel teaching him how to sing what used to be called Mandy to her.

Sitting down in one of the back rows, Connor rubbed his right wrist. It wasn't necessary; the bites had faded, far too quickly for any human flesh. He tried to remember about being stung by insects as a child, and how fast that had healed, and whether his parents had noticed something odd, and found he couldn't think of a single instance, which was unlikely. Obviously, someone had not been completely logical with his memories. The 101 in Greek mythology, on the other hand, was tops. There had not been any need to look up whom he had dreamed about. The Kindly Ones. Eumenides. The Erinnyae. The Furies.

He wasn't even surprised when the door of the church opened again, and a female shape appeared, dark against the light flooding in. What did surprise him was the identity of the voice he heard, for it did not belong to the woman he had somehow expected. Nor did it belong to the faces his nightly visitors had borrowed. It was a lazy drawl he hadn't heard since the days the sun had been gone and darkness had reigned over the Los Angeles.

"Well, well, well," Lilah Morgan said, "if it isn't the boy wonder."

The last time he had seen her, she had been a dead body bleeding on the floor of the Hyperion, and he had demanded that they should behead her in case Angelus had made her into his own. Something in him wondered whether Wolfram and Hart had the power to resurrect everyone who had ever signed a contract with them, and if so, whether that included Angel and the others. Then he told himself it did not matter; Angel wasn't dead, except in the most technical of terms. He couldn't be.

"Miss Morgan," Connor said politely, with the manners that his other lifetime had taught him, and just the faintest trace of sarcasm, "you're looking great for a corpse."

"So are you," she said, striding towards him until she stood in front of him. She leaned forward and touched his neck with her left hand, drawing a circle around his throat. "How about a little bonding over getting your throat cut?"

Before he could stop himself, he had not just slapped her hand aside but had her pinned to the next column. Then he froze. It had been an instinctive reaction, which didn't belong to him anymore. She noticed his hesitation and smirked when he let her go.

"How about telling me what you want?" he said, trying to cover the slow rise of panic in him. Fighting that Schwarzenegger clone to help Angel had been one thing, but if it wasn't to help anyone or save his own life, he didn't want any of it back. "That woman yesterday works for you, doesn't she?" he continued, relieved to have figured it out.

She laughed, sounding not malicious but genuinely amused. This close to her, he smelled the lifelessness on her, which was quite different from a vampire's. Vampires might be moving corpses, but they existed, they were individuals, they were covered with traces of blood and sweat of other people and whatever nest they chose to inhabit. Lilah Morgan smelled of nothing but formaldehyde. There wasn't even perfume to cover it up, and nothing to distinguish her from any other body that had gone through the expert hands of those specialists preventing human flesh from rotting. She was as attractive as she had ever been, but he couldn't help feeling vaguely repelled by her in a way he had never been by Jasmine's true form.

"For me? Darling, I couldn't afford her. Especially now that the Senior Partners have to reestablish their base in these parts. No, I'm afraid the ones who've got it in for you are the Furies. She's their vessel. Such a pity that Daddy isn't around to protect you anymore, hm?"

"I don't need protection," Connor replied automatically, determined not to give her an opening in regards to Angel. He tried to figure out what her game was.

"Ah," said Lilah Morgan, "but what about that wonderful sweet new family of yours?"

He grew cold.

"What do you mean?"

"Brush up your Euripides," she returned. "This is how the Furies operate. They don't attack their prey directly; they take everything from him that makes his life worth living, bit by bit, and drive him into madness and despair. Sounds familiar? But of course," she added, smiling sweetly, "the one who had the fun relationship with madness and despair was old Connor. New Connor is such a nice boy, and he'd better be, because the firm paid quite a lot of money for it. Which leaves just a tiny little problem."

"That there is no reason why I should believe someone with your great reputation for honesty and helpfulness?" he suggested while the urge to strangle her grew almost unbearable. She had to be lying. She simply had to be. He recalled the slaughtered family they had found when tracking the Beast, and nearly threw up when imagining Mom and Dad and Mercy in their place.

"Can nice Connor take out Lyta Hall?" Lilah continued, blithely, as if he had never interrupted her. "Because that's about the only way you can get the Ladies off your back for a while. Kill the mortal vessel they draw the power to manifest from. They'll have to find a new one, and that could take years. But then... sacrifice a human to save your family? Of course you'd never do such a thing."

The silent church seemed to swallow her laughter as he turned his back to her and tried his best not to run the entire way home at once. He would be sensible and call his parents as soon as he got out of here, and they'd be perfectly fine. Because anything else was impossible.

It had taken Lyta a while to find out where the boy lived. She could have relied purely on instinct and let the Ladies guide her, but that would have meant giving up any control she had left, and she wasn't planning on doing that.

She knew so much and so little about him. Just what he had done had come to her in a flash, and in rich detail, because so much of it was so familiar. The emptiness, the rage, the despair. Even the will to throw oneself into madness, because nothing else made sense anymore.

But she only knew his name because it had been spoken in the memory of the event, and she didn't know how he had managed to entangle himself in such a web to begin with. He seemed so young. So very young. Of course, age meant nothing. She tried not to imagine Daniel as a teenager and failed.

The old pain was still there and would never go away, but these days the thought of her son was mingled with some trace of comfort as well, as faint, fleeting but still existing as the kiss he had placed on her forehead. No matter what he had said, their last encounter had proven to her that there was something of Daniel left in the entity he had become, and it was enough to allow her to continue with her life.

Still, she couldn't forget she had failed to protect her child when Daniel had needed her most, and that her subsequent actions had ensured his fate. Watching the young kinslayer, Connor, standing before a grave, had been like looking in a mirror again, showing both herself and the child she had lost. Not that this mattered to the Ladies. But it mattered to Lyta. She had to talk to him before any of this could be allowed to continue.

We're not in the rescue business, they whispered in her. We told you before.

We'll see, she thought, and went to the one person in Los Angeles common sense told her to avoid, the one person who could possibly provide her with some explanations. The woman who had called herself Larissa when Lyta had last seen her was unchanged; the decade that had passed had left no trace. She still had the same mousy brown hair, she still wore the same huge glasses and non-descript clothes. Her carefully cultivated mild-mannered air, however, vanished as soon as she recognized Lyta.

"I told you that a lot of people would want to kill you for what you did," she said, with every syllable dripping in ice. "Including me. That has not changed. What do you want?"

There was a lot Lyta could have replied. Most of which revolved around the statement that Larissa had been crucial in making her actions possible and was in no position to condemn them. But that wouldn't have helped. Besides, she wasn't the confused mess of madness and despair she had been the last time.

"You cut a deal with the Ladies once," she said instead. Larissa's face showed no reaction.

"I did."

"Cut another deal now," Lyta said. "There are things I need to find out."

Another long moment of silence passed between them, thick with things unsaid. Then Larissa inclined her head, and stated, without aggression and in that matter-of-fact way in which she said most things:

"But you are not here on the Ladies' business here now, are you? So what can you offer me? Aside from some physical strength, you have no power of your own, and I don't need a bodyguard."

"Oh, I can always be used as an instrument," Lyta said, with a bitterness she did not have to feign and trying to project a confidence she didn't really feel right now. "Cronus tried to use me that way. He wanted to make me spill family blood, so the Ladies would be forced to devour themselves and he could take their place."

"I heard," Larissa commented, and her eyes behind the thick glasses she presumably didn't even need betrayed just the tiniest flicker of interest.

"Then perhaps you also heard how it ended. That bastard is in Hades now, where nothing ever changes. But nature abhors a vacuum, and so does power, am I right, Larissa?"

With a shrug, Larissa stepped aside, which for her passed as an invitation to enter her apartment. It was rather Spartan; shelves and shelves of books, and white walls, but no pictures, posters or even a radio. The small kitchen corner was spotlessly clean. The only items even vaguely frivolous were a mirror with a silver frame and some scented candles on some of the shelves. The couch in the middle of the room, incongruously, was covered with patterns of psychedelic flowers. One could only conclude that the previous owner of the apartment must have left it here. Gesturing her to sit down, Larissa said:

"I've gone back to Thessaly these days. But continue."

"Cronus ruled time and change. When you made your bargain with the Ladies, you wanted more life. But if you took Cronus' place, you wouldn't have to petition anyone to prolong your immortality anymore. You could deal out your own time."

Larissa returned from an expedition to the kitchen corner with a tea pot and two cups. Given that it was a hot summer day, the idea of tea had something absurd to it, but Lyta accepted it nonetheless.

"Gods aren't exactly living the good life these days," Larissa said, "without worshippers. Or vessels, for that matter. But you're right, there was some inherent power to Cronus which, in theory, is up for grabs now. What makes you think you could help me to gain it?"

Leaning back, Lyta permitted herself a small smile.

"That's for me to know and for you to find out. After you've helped me."

Then she took a small sip from the tea. To her surprise, it turned out to be quite good; not black tea, but something tasting like oranges mixed with strawberries and a third fruit she couldn't identify.

"Tell me what you want," Larissa said, "and we'll see whether something can be arranged."

After Lyta had finished her explanation, Larissa gave her a look as if to ask why Lyta didn't just do the simple thing and let the Ladies deal with the boy, whose guilt, after all, was not in question. But she didn't say anything. Instead, she prepared a bowl, filled it with water and informed Lyta that she needed some of Lyta's blood for a proper scrying. Lyta tensed; the way Cronus had used her blood had almost gotten Pauline killed. But then, she had known that dealing with the last of the Thessalian witches carried a great risk with it before she had arrived here. So she allowed Larissa to take a few drops. Something in her expected the Ladies to protest, but all she could feel from them was a clenched sensation of waiting.

When Larissa was done, she pursed her lips and declared:

"Someone has gone to a great deal of trouble. For starters, your boy didn't attract the attention of the Ladies just by coincidence. They were called, and you of all people should know how difficult that is. Secondly, there is a series of spells on him that bear Cyvus Veil's mark. Veil was an old show- off, but he knew his business, and he was a major player. One thing he couldn't be called was sloppy. So I have to wonder why these spells are disintegrating. Thirdly, that boy shouldn't exist at all. His parents, his true parents, should never have been capable of producing a child. As long as he lives, he'll continue to cause ripples in the fabric of existence."

She took a paper and quickly wrote down an address.

"That's where he lives. And if you want my advice, which you should, then let the Ladies do their business."

"Thanks," Lyta said drily, pocketed the note and got up again. She wondered why Larissa didn't insist that she now deliver the information on how to get what remained of Cronus' power until she saw Larissa's somewhat smug expression.

"Since the Changer poisoned you and created life from your blood, your blood can be used to trace the power that was his by someone with the necessary skills," Larissa said with the patience a school teacher had with a somewhat slow student. "Thank you for providing it."

Lyta had assumed that she would have to go to Greece with Larissa, to the places where Cronus had manifested, and felt foolish. Well, their bargain was concluded in any case, and she could not claim Larissa had not delivered. After crossing the threshold of the door, she turned around once more, and, following an impulse she only half understood, said:

"He has forgiven you, you know. After all, he forgave me."

"And why should I be interested in forgiveness?" Larissa returned coldly, and the door closed in Lyta's face.

His mother had sounded fine on the phone, but Connor couldn't stop running all the various scenarios in which a voice could be faked through his head. Some of them didn't even involve magic. So he borrowed a friend's car and drove home, all the while practising harmless explanations, which his parents would hopefully buy. If they were all right.

The first thing he noticed was that someone else's car was parked outside, a car he didn't recognize, a dusty old Toyota. He didn't even bother with the keys but stormed into the house, kicking the door open, only to find both of his parents looking at him with great consternation. Which would be fine, except the white-haired woman whom Lilah Morgan had called Lyta Hall was standing there as well, like a new arrival who hadn't quite settled in yet. At this point, sensible young Master Riley gave way to Stephen, who yelled:

"Stay away from them!"

"Connor!" his mother exclaimed, shocked.

"Look," Lyta Hall said, "we've got to talk and you need to..."

"No, you do," he said, forcing himself not to rush at her. "You need to go. You need to leave my parents alone."

Her eyes narrowed, and suddenly the air in the room seemed to crackle with electricity. This time, he could feel it happening, the surge of power in her which drowned out any other element. With each word hammered and shaped like a flintstone knife aiming at his heart, she said.

"They are not your parents, kinslayer."

"Now wait a minute," his father protested.

"This boy is not of your blood," the woman said. "But he did spill it. Every day he lives with you is nourished by the dead body of your daughter."

"You are insane," his mother whispered. "Connor would never harm Mercy."

The words fell like rocks from a mountain, burying him beneath them. He tried to say the same thing, but his throat hardly allowed him to breathe.

"You had two daughters. That is why they chose you. Because your eldest daughter was captured and sacrificed by him to give birth to his own. They chose you for the jest of it, and took the memory of your daughter, and replaced it with what never was."

No, Connor wanted to scream, no, that isn't true. It's a lie. It's a dream. Something that never happened. She's a liar, she is mad, can't you see?

Another part of him wanted to say that he had not known. That once his memories were returned, he had not even wondered which family Wolfram & Hart had placed him with, and why, because he did not want to know. Because he loved them.

But what came out of his mouth was a single syllable. "Why?" he said tonelessly. The woman's face tightened, and he could see the small muscles in her cheeks and chin moving in a silent struggle.

"No matter," she hissed, "it was done, and is done, and shall be done. We are not..."

Then she broke off. The sense of menace she exuded drained away, and she looked at him, human once more and utterly horrified. By now, however, he hardly noticed her anymore. His parents were staring at him, and he could feel how desperately they needed him to tell them that this woman was a lunatic who should be put in a straight jacket and taken to the nearest hospital. He opened his mouth to tell them just this, and closed it again.

The girl. The girl whose name he still did not know, the girl who had died because of him. She had been their daughter, and that same spell that gave him the memories of a happy childhood and their unconditional love had taken every memory they had of her. Of the happiness and unconditional love that had belonged to her.

He had taken her life, twice over, and the fact he hadn't known about it the second time didn't make it any less wrong.

I'm sorry, he wanted to say. Forgive me. That was not me, at least not the me you know. The me I knew, until a few weeks ago, when I remembered again.

But that would not bring their daughter back, not her life, not her memory.

"Get... get out," his father said, with his voice broken like glass that had been irrevocably shattered. Later, it occurred to Connor he might have meant Lyta Hall, but in his current state, he took it as judgement.

I love you, Angel said in his mind, returned against all the odds from the cold, empty sea. Now get out.

His mother said nothing. Nothing at all. Her face was a complete blank slate.

You're not my mother, he said to the woman in white, and she replied: I have her memories.

Slowly, each step taking something of his life away, he moved to the door. It wasn't until he was outside again that he noticed that the white-haired woman had gone with him.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Believe it or not, I came here because I didn't want that to happen. I just wanted to talk to you so we could find a way to stop it. I should have known they were simply waiting for their opportunity."

What remained of his self control broke, and he lashed out at her. The first, vicious blow caught her unprepared, but then she blocked him, and he started to fight in earnest. He hadn't encountered a human with that kind of strength since Faith, and at another time, he would have asked her whether she was a Slayer and welcomed the chance to spar. Now, wave after wave of horror and self-loathing caught him and pushed him against her, and he didn't even know whether he wanted to kill her for what she had done, or whether he wanted her to finish the job and kill him.

There was only one way to find out.