Part Four
"Tell me that we belong together
Dress it up with the trappings of love
I'll be captivated, I'll hang from your lips
Instead of the gallows of heartache that hang from above."
-Edwin McCain, "I'll Be"
Lilah thought of herself as a patient woman. Trials could last for weeks, rituals for hours, and it was hazardous to her health to appear bored or annoyed during either. So, yeah, when it came to patience she figured she had more than her fair share stashed away in reserve. Everyone, however, was allowed to have her limits.
Lilah swiped at her hair as she pushed open the glass double doors that parted the way into Wolfram and Hart's main lobby. Her fingers came away damp with sweat from the short walk across the lot. The sun never seemed to give up its hold on Los Angeles without a fight; it was a wonder the city was able to support such a thriving vampire population.
The receptionist recognized both Lilah's face and her towering temper and didn't attempt to greet her as she walked past. The corners of Lilah's mouth tilted for the first time since she had entered the building. They learned fast.
The wing of the building that Lilah sought was set deep in the bowels that most people would just as soon forget existed, safe away from prying eyes and the corrosive influence of the sun. Lilah encountered a few twitchy, harried-looking paralegals as she descended, but no one else. The paralegals gave her nods that didn't include eye contact and scuttled on their ways almost before Lilah could nod back. Wolfram and Hart's own brand of professional courtesy.
The smile slipped as she reached her destination, an anonymous gray door set in a hallway full of them. The other doors didn't have two armed guards standing in front of them, though, or faintly glowing keypads that Lilah had to punch a private sequence of numbers and submit a few drops of blood into before the door swung open and allowed her entrance. The door itself was over three inches thick, belying the hotel-suite opulence of the accommodations it kept sealed off from the rest of the building.
The quarters themselves were every bit as lovely and chill as the woman that they held prisoner. The furniture was brilliantly preserved, expensive enough to feed a family of four for years in addition to sending the kids to college, and every piece of it dated as far back as the sixteenth century. The committee who had designed the room had wanted Darla to feel at home but had been unable to agree upon which time period out of the past four-hundred years qualified as "home", so the result was a hodgepodge, albeit a very elegant one.
The beauty of the rooms went far to disguise the fact that they amounted to high-class jail cells. Lilah's smile, warm and welcoming in a way that would have made most of those who knew her well explode into gales of laughter, went even further. "Hello, Darla," she said. "How are you feeling today?"
Darla was stretched out across an authentic Victorian settee that the decorators had found on Ebay and claimed for three times its actual cost in the expense report (a tidbit that Lilah was keeping to herself until she was in need of entertainment). She had surely heard the door open but didn't raise her herself onto her elbow until Lilah spoke, affecting a look that managed to be both sweet and malicious at once. Her smile was as lovely and as sharp as broken glass, and the hair on the back of Lilah's neck rose. "Lilah," Darla cooed, "how nice of you to visit me." She rolled her neck and rose to her feet, wobbling for only a second before she managed to cover the error. Resurrection could do that to a girl. Darla tried to stalk towards Lilah, and the fact that she was not entirely steady on her feet did little to hamper the effect. "I trust leaving the safety of the shark tank wasn't too taxing for you?"
'The things I could do to you if you weren't worth so much.' Lilah's expression stayed warm and professionally false. "Now, now," she chided. "You called me here. If you wanted someone to be rude to, all you had to do was chat with the guards. At least they're forbidden to shoot you."
Darla's brittle, contemptuous glare made Lilah look like a little girl playing dress up. "You stupid little human," she snapped. Lilah refrained from pointing out that Darla was a mere mortal herself now, perhaps wisely; lingering weakness or not, Darla looked as though she could hook Lilah's eyeballs out of her head and lick the juices off her fingernails without flinching. "I didn't want Iyou/I." Lilah was willing to bet that Darla had to strain a muscle to make her lip curl like that. "I want the other one. The one who bled to bring me back."
'Because being stupid enough to argue with an angry vampire is a mark of distinction. Naturally.' Lilah's face flamed; only the knowledge that Darla was cataloguing and enjoying it all allowed her to bring her reaction under control. "My mistake," Lilah gritted. Secretaries ran cheap. She had seen employees killed-had ordered employees killed-for far less. "I'll rectify the situation personally."
"You do that." Darla tried to affect a graceful slink as she returned to the settee. Lilah watched the wobble in her knees and thought of the day when Darla's usefulness would be behind her. "Wouldn't want your prisoner in her gilded cage to grow testy, would you?"
Lilah didn't bother with goodbyes as she turned on her heel and strode from the room. She sneezed as she was passing the guards.
"God bless you," one of them said, his mouth lifting into a sardonic smile.
Lilah allowed herself an inelegant snort, but said, "Thanks," all the same. The guard's eyes were rimmed in red and he sniffed as he spoke. A glance towards his partner didn't show him to be looking much better. 'Great,' Lilah thought as she pulled out her cell phone. 'The whole building's coming down with something.'
---
Lindsey stared at the phone almost without comprehension as it completed its third ring and switched over to the answering machine. 'If you worship me.' Worship who? And why? Lindsey had an uncomfortable recollection of the last time that he had been in a church, at his father's funeral years before. Relatives he had not seen since he was a toddler had taken it upon themselves to point and stare, filing away for posterity the memory of the prodigal son who had broken his father's heart. That was when he had still been relatively innocent. Jesus, if he were to walk into a church today the roof would probably fall in on him.
"I know you're there," a female voice issued from the machine's speaker. "Where else could you possibly be? Quit pouting and pick up the phone." On anyone else Lindsey would have called the emotion that marked Lilah's voice worry. Granted, on almost anyone else he also would have called the owner human.
"Why, Lilah," Lindsey said, picking up the receiver and using the professional tone that they both knew didn't mean a damned thing, "you care. I'm touched." Glancing down at his abbreviated arm, Lindsey realized that he was still shaking. He determined not to look at it again.
Lindsey could almost see Lilah baring her teeth. "A lack of desire to see you lying in a pool of your own blood does not constitute concern," she said. "You're an investment. I don't want to be on the same continent if the Senior Partners discover that they've lost an investment." The bitterness of the second-best was heavy in Lilah's voice. On any occasion where he wasn't half-convinced that he was losing his mind, Lindsey would have enjoyed it far more.
As it was, he told himself that he was not bothered by being referred to in the same language as mutual funds. "You're all heart."
"Sacrificed a few." The line crackled as Lilah fell into a coughing fit. It was nearly a full minute before she came to a panting, swearing stop.
"You don't sound well." Lindsey didn't try to fake sincerity, knowing that Lilah would respect him more in its absence.
"I'm fine." Lilah's breath hitched and Lindsey braced himself for another coughing jag. "Just a virus that's going around the office. You're lucky that you aren't here to catch it."
Lindsey's spine went cold. "Yeah. Lucky."
"Oh." Lilah sounded as close to mortified as Lindsey had ever heard her. "I didn't mean it that way." Oddly, Lindsey believed her.
Lilah waited a few seconds before she put forth, hesitant and nearly sincere, "How is it?"
"It's not there anymore, how do you think it is?" Lindsey snapped before he could stop himself. An accusatory silence came from the other end of the line. Lindsey sighed. "Sorry." He wasn't. "Look, you didn't call to inquire about my health, not unless you've figured out a way to bill me for it."
Lilah uttered a low, dark laugh that would have been more seductive had she not sounded as if she were building up to one hell of a head cold. "Her Highness requests your presence."
"Her Highness?"
"Darla."
"Ah." It was, Lindsey thought, amazing how quickly Lilah could radiate between ruthless professional bitch and insulted teenager. "Why?"
"Didn't think to ask." A T that Lilah Morgan had forgotten to cross. She sounded every bit as surprised to discover it as Lindsey felt. "Not that it would have mattered. You know the higher-ups' position. What Darla wants, Darla gets."
"So long as it's not her freedom."
"None of us can have everything," Lilah said. "I'll send a car by to pick you up."
Lindsey's skin turned clammy at the memory of rancid fever sweat and painful, ragged breathing. "I'll take a cab."
"A cab?" Lilah's shock reverberated across the line. "Why?"
"I have issues." Lindsey hung up before Lilah could respond, to the sound of several thundering sneezes. The ache in his bad arm being, if not forgotten, at least tolerable for the moment, he used his good one to swipe at the sheen of icy sweat that had settled along his hairline. Was this what losing his mind felt like? The certainty that the rest of the world was moving ahead while he remained in limbo a half-step behind?
Lindsey prodded at the deepening stain on the carpet with his toe. His mouth twisted into something an optimist might call a smile. If that was the case, then he had been losing his mind for years.
'If you worship me.'
Lindsey jumped and spun, fully expecting to see a shadowy figure standing behind him. The air in his lungs trembled, but he was afraid that if he began laughing he would not be able to stop. "Get out of my head," he gritted.
Whether the giggle that followed came from inside Lindsey's head or not of it he could not tell.
---
The air-conditioning licked at Lindsey's grateful skin as he stepped inside Wolfram and Hart's lobby. The sun had set hours before and the mercury was still standing at nearly record levels. If it was this bad in June, August was going to be murder. Lindsey raised his right arm to push his hair back out of habit, scowled and returned it to his waist as he remembered.
Lilah was leaning against the receptionist's desk, holding the pretence of a friendly conversation even though the girl was clearly terrified. She looked up in time to se Lindsey drop his arm back to his side and a look of vicious triumph crossed her face, turning her as beautiful and as deadly as a sword. Lindsey obliterated the smile before she could see and revel in that, too, making sure that his smile was every bit as welcoming and false as hers. Lilah could afford to be magnanimous over the phone; she had been promoted to Junior Partner after Darla's successful resurrection and, with Lindsey on sick leave, had no competition for Holland's ear.
'I'll be back by September,' Lindsey vowed. 'It'll be a very different story then.' It was by a supreme act of will that he kept the friendliness in his eyes and the exhaustion out as he crossed the lobby.
"Lindsey." Lilah tilted her head at an angle that made her seem chirpy and sincere, an all-American girl whose only desire was to make the world a better place. Lindsey had seen her use it on judges and juries a thousand times. He wondered why she was bothering to use it on him now, outside of possible amusement. "So good to see you up and about."
"I could say the same for you." Lilah's skin was flushed and tendrils of hair had begun clinging to her temples in spite of Wolfram and Hart's efficient climate control. "Are you sure you should be at the office?"
Lilah's apple pie exterior dropped away at the suggestion of weakness, her spin stiffening and her eyes sharpening into flint. Lindsey thought that she was going to be bare her teeth at him, and in response he felt a twinge of satisfaction. 'There's the woman I know and plot against.' "It'll pass," Lilah snapped. "In the meantime…" Miss America came creeping back. "Someone has to keep up with your share of the work, don't they?"
A million retorts danced on the tip of Lindsey's tongue like razors. He swallowed them back, one an all. Lilah's surprise when he failed to rise to her bait was almost as satisfying as her ire would have been, and the entire spectacle was made better when he responded in the mildest of tones, "I believe you called me here for a reason?"
Storm clouds moved across Lilah's eyes and it was by years of training that Lindsey was able to keep his face blank, even courteous. "Yes," Lilah bit out. "I'm afraid Darla's feeling a bit pushy today. Wouldn't take no for an answer."
"It's going around." Lindsey extended his good arm in an 'after you' gesture. "Lead the way." Lilah did so, coughing once into her hand. The receptionist looked glad to see them go.
If anything, the lack of windows and questionable clientele that frequented the bowels of the building led to Wolfram and Hart's lower levels being kept even cooler that the lobby and offices above, but Lilah continued to cough and sweat as the elevator took them down. They were the recipients of curious looks from the other, healthier lawyers, and more than once Lindsey thought he was going to have to grab Lilah's elbow to keep her from falling. 'Wouldn't that be something,' Lindsey thought. 'The cripple saving the TB victim.'
Lilah paused and frowned at the lone guard as she brought them to a stop in front of Darla's door. "Where'd the other one go?" she demanded.
"Home," the guard replied. "Was sneezing so much he couldn't see straight."
"And why hasn't a replacement been sent?"
"Ma'am," the remaining guard, who was more than tinged with green himself, said, "there was no one else to send. Whole office is coming down with this bug."
Lilah didn't look pleased, but it was rather difficult to argue with the logic when she was struggling to stay on her feet herself. Lindsey eyed her with enough concern to surprise himself as she entered the necessary code into the keypad and fed it the required drops of blood. The door whirred softly before the sacrifice was accepted, then sprang open to reveal the elegance hidden within Darla's quarters. It was all very impressive, and Lindsey felt a momentary glow of reverence for this building, for this company and all that it could give to those who were willing to put in the sacrifices.
Darla was lounging once again on her settee as Lilah and Lindsey entered the room, her limbs sprawled as to make her look as lovely and decadent as possible. She glanced up from the magazine that she had been leafing through with a disinterested expression when she heard the lock snick, dismissing Lilah and turning a smile like the moon's purest light onto Lindsey. His heart stuttered and doubled its pace in a span of seconds. Lilah rolled her eyes, but, red-rimmed as they were, the effect fell short of what she had intended.
"My brave knight," Darla breathed, rising from the settee with ageless grace. Her earlier weakness may as well have never been. Darla's voice was kittenish at the same time that it also managed to be very adult, suggesting all manner of things in three little words. Lindsey had to forcibly remind himself that a lady of Darla's past would have long ago learned the knack of promising the world with a look and meaning none of it.
"Darla," he greeted her, inclining his head and striving for a tone of no more than professional courtesy. "I saw you once before, but I doubt if you remember it."
"Ah, yes," Darla intoned. "During my fascinating sojourn in the packing crate. I was trying to forget that, actually." She flicked her gaze over Lindsey's shoulder, to Lilah. "Oh. I didn't realize that you were still here." All of the layers of silk in the world couldn't conceal the knife in Darla's voice. Lindsey bit his tongue until he tasted copper to keep his expression neutral. Lilah's eyes turned to diamonds.
"I can see that you want to be alone. Lindsey, if you can remember that you're here as a civilian?" 'Hands off the merchandise,' Lilah's stare said, and Lindsey felt a flush trying to start on his neck.
"I'll try to control myself," he replied. Darla laughed, a delicate, bell-like sound that Lindsey wanted to hear again.
Lilah made the noise, half-growl and half-huff, that she normally used to tell Lindsey that there was going to be hell to pay later, but exited without saying anything more. Lindsey watched her go, and it was on the tip of his tongue to warn Darla that annoying a woman as clever as Lilah overmuch might not be a wise idea. Darla, however, was also watching the door, and there was a small, conspiratorial smile playing about the edges of her mouth.
It had been so long since Lindsey had laughed that the sound which first emerged from his mouth sounded harsh and unnatural. Darla looked startled for only a second before her smile broadened, turning into a beam of golden radiance that sent warmth cascading across every inch of Lindsey's skin. He told himself that the smile was uncalculated. "You enjoyed that."
Darla crinkled her nose at him in a way that made her look more cute than worldly. It was this version that made Lindsey take the seat that she offered next to her, though it didn't stop him from giving the elegant world traveler an appreciative once-over when she returned. Darla noticed and pushed her hair back from her shoulders. "I have to get my amusements where I can. Do you think that this-" She gestured to the magazine and Lindsey could hear the sneer that she was not allowing to show on her face. "-counts as riveting entertainment?" Her lip curled. "Really, if I was so important your little group of pencil pushers, you would think I'd merit better treatment."
Lindsey extended his arm to indicate the palatiousness of the room and Darla laughed, brittle and flinty and nothing like her earlier girlish sound. "You Iare/I young. Power isn't things, Lindsey. It's knowledge. And right now that's flowing distinctly one way." Darla placed her hand over her heart, her expression hard. "To go to all the trouble of bringing me back from the dead, bouncing and healthy and above all controllable, just to use me as a conversation piece? You can see where my reservations are arising from." There were, Lindsey was learning, many shades to Darla's smile. He imagined that she had worn this one in her days as a vampire to frighten the lambs before she drained them dry. A shiver ran up his spine, not quite killing the ardor. "I don't like being kept in the dark." Darla settled back in to her seat.
Lindsey could think of only one reason for Darla to say all of this to him rather than Lilah. He also found that he didn't care that much, and perhaps he should have been disturbed by that. "I'll see what I can do," he promised.
Disappointment and maybe-rage ran across Darla's face like insects, gone as quickly as they had appeared. Lindsey wasn't sure that had seen them at all. Darla's expression became serene and trusting again. "Thank you," she said in a tone which suggested that Lindsey had promised far more than a few scraps of information. Blood suffused his face again. Lindsey was only glad that it was choosing such an innocent location. "It's late. I'm sure you're very tired." Darla glanced towards the bandaged remains of Lindsey's wrist, the first reference, oblique or otherwise, that she had made towards Lindsey's injury since he had stepped through the door. Lindsey schooled his face into bland lines, but Darla's eyes showed no traces of mockery or its far fouler cousin, pity. Lindsey found himself feeling grateful towards her for it.
However, he could still take a hint. Lindsey stood from the couch, carefully ridding his posture of all signs of exhaustion or pain. Darla's gaze strayed back to his wrist, becoming fixed there, and Lindsey tried to tell himself that it was no more than curiosity. He ought to be used to that by now.
"That must have hurt a great deal." Darla made no move to rise from her seat, but the raptness of her expression captured him.
"Yes," Lindsey allowed, not sure where Darla was going with it.
"And my Angel did that to you?"
He could have done without the "my". "Yes," Lindsey said again, trying and failing to keep the rasp out of his voice.
"My, my," Darla purred in a way that made Lindsey's skin grow warm. "I suppose we both have a great deal to pay him back for, then, don't we?"
"Suppose we do." Lindsey turned to leave, but not so quickly that he missed Darla's dark, promising smile.
After the business with Darla was attended to, there was nothing that Lindsey wanted more than to escape the building without seeing another face that he recognized or that recognized him. The shadows of his apartment tugged at him, ill-advised comforts, possible madness, and all. He nodded thanks to the lone guard, who raised a lethargic hand in return, and proceeded towards the elevators that had taken him down in the first place. Lilah was nowhere to be found; either the siren song of billable hours had pulled her off or she had given up and gone home to nurse her head cold. Either way, Lindsey was relieved to find himself in solitude.
Thoughts of relief became the last thing on Lindsey's mind when the elevator doors slid open before he could touch his finger to the button. Lindsey didn't step back when Holland Manner emerged, but it was a near thing.
"Lindsey," Holland said, paternal warmth mingling with the surprise that colored his voice. A clammy, skittering feeling broke out across Lindsey's skin, as if he were being crawled over by rats. "You shouldn't be up and about already, should you?" His eyes wanted to know what Lindsey thought he was doing there."
Lindsey's lips parted. He was aware that his smile would have fooled nobody and even more aware that he did not care. Holland had said it himself: Lindsey's sacrifice had made him the firm's fair-haired boy, at least until the next big thing came along. He liked the feeling that came from that kind of power. "Paying a social call, sir," Lindsey said.
Holland's eyes passed over Lindsey's civilian clothing. "Yes, I can see that. Darla?"
Lindsey nodded.
"Just the woman I was going to see myself." Holland moved to go on his way, clapping Lindsey on the shoulder as he passed. Once, such a fatherly gesture would have pleased Lindsey by assuring him of his place. He wondered at the slow simmering, too soon in its infancy to be called hatred, that rose from his gut in its stead. "Get some rest, Lindsey. You've earned it."
"Yes, sir." Lindsey watched Holland go before he entered the vacated elevator. Confident that he was finally alone, Lindsey leaned back against the wall, letting his eyelids drift downwards. His wrist beat out a sick, torturous tattoo that echoed through the rest of his body; he did not think he had been on his feet for so long in one day since getting out of the hospital. And yet-
'I used to be happy here,' Lindsey thought.
---
Darla let her posture slump as soon as the door closed behind Lindsey, hurling herself back against the seat and digging her nails into the fabric. As a vampire she would have been able to smash the settee into kindling with a small fraction of her strength; as it was, she couldn't even tear a hole in the furniture's covering. It was pathetic. IShe/I was pathetic, reduced to a powerless plaything, the one thing that she had sworn she would never be gain.
'If you worship me.'
The voice slid into her head like butter, smoother than the snake, and Darla leapt from her seat as if she had discovered someone setting it on fire while her attention was diverted. "Who's there?" she called, hating the way her voice trembled at the end, hating the humans who had put her in the position to feel such fear. Pathetic.
When the voice spoke again, Darla's eyes widened. Barely rising over a whisper, the words tumbling over each other like water cascading from the edge of a cliff, the voice told her of promises and threats, painted pictures of life and death across the delicate matter of her brain. Of power within her reach if she was only willing to extend her hand and take it. Though her infant soul trembled, in the end Darla was a survivor.
The door behind her opened with a whoosh of air, and Holland Manners stepped in.