Chapter Six
" The number has three digits," Wesley began to explain, sitting down and beginning to scribble on a pad. " It's quite simple, although arriving at the number is a little difficult to follow."
Lorne put his hand on Wes' arm, stopping his scrawling. " Hold up, Sugar Buns. Just how did you have this sudden epiphany?"
Wes could not help but smile. " Fred."
Angel frowned. " What?"
Wes put down his pen. " Fred. She somehow entered my soul, although only for a few minutes. I was able to see her…touch her…" Wes began to write again. " Anyhow, Charles and Lorne, you were right about the decoder pins; that's the way we figure it out, or at least the way I'll prove it."
Gunn folded his arms, grinning. " Told you so. Are we not geniuses?"
Wes nodded and spun the pin. " Yes. Right. The phrase is really much more like Calla than I first thought; the letter '' can be replaced with 'e' for the code, since in Calla, the two sounded the same. Keep that in mind.
" Anyhow, when you set the pin so that A equals 1, B equals 2, and so on, and add up the numbers that correspond to the letters in reperire præter amare, you get a sum of two hundred and fourteen. Are you all with me so far?"
Angel nodded. " Two hundred and fourteen, got it."
" Reperire præter amare has nineteen letters in it," Wes continued. " If you set the pin nineteen places forward, like so, the 1 ends up beside the S, and the 2 beside the T, et cetera. If you add up all the numbers that correspond again, you get three hundred and forty."
Lorne did some quick math in his head and nodded. " He's right so far, kids."
Wesley had a smile on his face; he felt like he was back in the hotel, showing everyone at Angel Investigations his findings after a particularly hard day of working at a prophecy or ancient puzzle. " If you add up the digits in those numbers, you get seven both times. Three plus four plus zero is seven; two plus one plus four is also seven. The first two digits in our number are sevens."
" And the last?" Gunn wanted to know.
" Three hundred and forty minus two hundred and fourteen is one hundred and twenty-six. Add up those digits, one plus two plus six, and you have nine. The number derived from the phrase is seven hundred and seventy-nine." With a flourish, Wes wrote '779' on the pad and underlined it.
" Still don't know how to prove it!" Spike sing-songed, followed by a yelp as Angel elbowed him in the ribs. " Bugger!"
Wesley shook his head. " I can so prove it, Spike," he said, his tone growing more serious. He raised the source book, bringing the spine close to him. " Illyria's cult of worshippers, especially their daily rituals and way of life," he ordered.
Placing the book flat on the table, Wes waited while the information spread itself on the pages, and then began to flip until he came to what he was looking for. Looking up at Spike, Wesley turned the book around and pushed it towards the vampire.
" Spike, Illyria's followers counted everything in increments of one hundred and thirteen," he said softly. " Their year had three hundred and thirty-nine days in it; she had one head priest, and one hundred and twelve minor clerics, in every dimension. If you subtract one hundred and thirteen from seven hundred and seventy-nine, you get—"
" —Six hundred and sixty-six, the devil's number," Angel finished, meeting Wesley's eyes. " That's…it's got to be it. Seven hundred and seventy-nine is the number. We've got the number."
Wes nodded. " Yes, we do. Thanks to Fred."
Angel grinned and stood up, clapping his friend on the shoulder. " Wes, we're going to save her. We're all behind you. We're going to work as a team to make sure that we get her back. It'll be just like old times in the hotel. A team."
Wes tried not to think of Fred and Cordelia, the members of their group that he valued so dearly now gone from their ranks. He nodded.
" Yes. The old team."
.
Fred was dreaming again, dreaming of a heat that didn't exist in her cold, cruel reality. A fireplace, a hot bath, Wesley's warm embrace, none of it to keep her warm.
She awoke to find the windows frosted over and icicles hanging from the roof. When she cautiously tried standing, Fred found she could sort of walk, if she leaned on the wall for support.
The hot water tap refused to work, spurting only icy liquid. Even after making tea, Fred could not warm up. Her breath exhaled as a thin wisp of white steam.
Exhausted from her short trip downstairs, Fred crawled on hands and knees back up to bed and slid gratefully between the sheets. As she lay there, the idea that Wesley had implanted in her brain surfaced again, and Fred frowned in thought. She couldn't possibly kill Illyria. It couldn't be done; the demon was so strong, and Fred was only human.
" Oh, Wes," she whispered. " You've gone completely insane. I don't know where to begin."
Unlock the door.
Fred sat up as the English accent rang in her head again, reverberating into a headache that made Fred, in her weakened state, cry out in pain. When she opened her eyes a few minutes later, Fred found herself looking at the corner of her bedroom, across the floor and next to the window seat, where there was a slight crack in the yellow flowered wallpaper.
Fred slid out of bed and crawled across the floor to the corner. Without really thinking about what she was doing, she curled her left hand into a fist and struck at the wall, once, twice, and on the third try she punched a hole in the plaster. The opening looked like a black hole among the sunny innocence of the room, the eye of death looking to suck up all the good in the world.
Nursing her bruised knuckles, Fred reached into the hole with her other hand and felt around; among the cobwebs (an indication that this place was not a part of her soul's house, as Fred hated spiders) sat something smooth and solid.
Fred pulled the mahogany music box out of the hole and sat back, folding her legs. Blowing the dust off the top, Fred carefully lifted the lid of the music box, smiling briefly as a chiming version of 'Greensleeves' floated past her ears and into the frozen stillness of the room. It was her favourite classical tune, and Fred used to have a music box that played it as a little girl.
Inside the box lay a gorgeous gold locket, sparkling brilliantly in her eyes. Enchanted, almost in a trance, Fred lifted the heart-shaped locket out of the box and opened it; the inside was engraved with the word 'Love' in English, French and Latin.
Moving as methodically as a robot, Fred closed the locket with a click and undid the old-fashioned clasp, bringing her hands up behind her neck to fasten the chain. However, as her fingers were about to touch, something whispered in her brain: No, no, not right, not meant to be, a trap!
Fred gasped and her fingers snapped open, dropping the chain. The locket fell to the floor and crumbled into a million tiny spider-like bugs, which crawled into the hole in the wall and disappeared before Fred could scream.
Fred shook her head, trying to clear her mind of the spell's final clutter. The locket had been a trick, meant to keep her from her goal. She tried not to shudder at the thought of what might have happened had she put the necklace on completely.
In her mind, Fred imagined Illyria sneering and muttering, " Curses! Foiled again!" This image was so absurd and bizarre that Fred began to giggle, covering her mouth to muffle the sound. It seemed very out of place in such conditions.
Once Fred had calmed down, she closed her eyes. " That won't work, Illyria," she said to the silence. " I'm better than that, and I'll prove it to you."
The dust moving across the light was her only answer.
.
Wesley was in his office again, carpeting the floor with books.
Gunn and Lorne stood outside in the hall, peering through the glass beside the door at their friend in wonder as he flitted around the room, pulling books from the bookshelves, talking to himself, writing notes, losing notes, finding said notes again and occasionally ripping other notes up.
Gunn looked at the demon, suspicious. " What the hell did they put in his tea, Lorne?"
Lorne shook his head, never looking away from Wesley. " I have no idea, Sweet Cakes, but I have a feeling it wasn't decaf. Or even tea, for that matter. Maybe someone thought that Slurgan Demon bile would be a great additive; it's about twice as affective as caffeine, and wears off much slower."
" He seems to have forgotten our entire conversation about doing this as a team…why won't he let us help?" Gunn wondered. " He's been in there for the past fifteen hours."
" Oh, good, he's still at it," Spike wandered over to the window, holding a bag of popcorn. " Hope I didn't miss anything good." Munch.
Gunn glared. " You did it to him, didn't you, Spike?"
" What? Put something in Percy's drink, like? Naw, I found him like this, mate. Bloody amusing, though," he offered the bag of popcorn to both men. " Want some?"
Gunn was about to knock the popcorn out of the vampire's hand when Wes opened the door and appeared, worn out, holding a piece of paper in his hand. He looked at the three men.
" Oh, Gunn and Lorne, I was hoping I'd be able to find you," he said breathlessly. " I need you two to find the Eye of Animus. The lock to the Kei-An Box won't work without it. There's a magic shop on 30th and Broadway that should have it, is that all right?"
Spike was indignant. " What, no assignment for me?" he asked, only half kidding. Wes gave him no response.
Gunn and Lorne exchanged looks and nodded. Gunn sighed as he took the paper from his friend.
" Wes, man, you've got to take some time off of this. Go and take a nap or something to rest. You're withering away."
Just as Wes was about to protest, Angel stepped into the conversation. " Gunn's right, Wesley," he said. " Go and take the rest of the night off. We'll handle this, all right?"
Wesley shook his head. " No, Angel. Fred is depending on me; I need to help her."
Angel smiled and put his hand on Wes' shoulder. " All right, then, let me put it this way, Wes; if you do not go upstairs and rest, I will fire you. Do you understand?"
Wesley stared into the vampire's eyes for a few moments, and realized he was deadly serious. " I understand," he replied, and everyone around him breathed a collective sigh of relief.
.
Fred took a few deep breaths. Come on, Fred, she told herself. You have to do this.
With sudden resoluteness, Fred picked the music box back up and inspected it, turning it over, running her fingers over the green velvet lining. She ripped off the bottom of the inside of the box, revealing the music mechanism. Without having to think, Fred pulled out the machinery, ceasing the song of the music box; it lingered in the air as an echo, a ghost, before disappearing.
Fred continued to painstakingly destroy the inner workings of the music box until her fingers hit wood; then she slowed down, peering into the music box to see a brass key sitting at the bottom.
Maneuvering her hand past the remaining mechanisms, Fred pulled the key out of the box, pulling her knees up to her chest and holding up the key for inspection. It was an old-fashioned key, about the length of her palm from her wrist to the base of her fingers; at the head of the key was embedded an eye made of blue glass, with a white and black pupil staring up at Fred.
She grinned, turning the key to let the light from the window catch it. " Okay, Wes," she whispered. " Let's do this."
.
Wes sat at Illyria's bedside, trying to remember if he had ever seen her asleep before. Along with disobeying Angel's order to rest, Wesley had ignored his own rules and was actually in the hospital room, rather than watching Illyria from the safe distance behind the viewing glass; he wasn't sure why, but Wes needed to be close to her. Perhaps it was because of the prospect of Fred being there, too, hidden but still existing.
Looking down, Wes folded and unfolded his hands. " Illyria," he said softly. " I know you can't hear me, and that's good, because you wouldn't like what I'm about to say.
" You're going to die soon, Illyria. I'm going to send you back to where you came from, or, with any luck, somewhere worse. I will have Fred back, and I will beat you. Something I never taught you, Illyria, was that love—especially true love—can conquer everything. I realize that now…for so long, I had no idea what ran the world, and now I know that it's love."
Illyria sighed softly and murmured something incoherent in her sleep. Wesley's eyes widened. He beckoned one of the techs on duty to come into the room.
" What just happened?" Wesley asked softly, looking down at the blue demon.
The medical technician cleared his throat nervously. " Sometimes, when someone's in a coma," he tried to explain haltingly. " Their brain sends random commands. It means nothing, Mr. Wyndham-Price, just a bit of electricity coming from the brain."
Wes looked up at the young man, dread rising in his throat. " Illyria doesn't have a brain," he replied, horrified. " She doesn't use one."
When the two men looked back down at Illyria's body, they found her eyes open, staring back.