"Wesley." That voice. Fred's voice and not Fred's voice. It cut deep, like the murderous knife of Cyvus Vail. Somehow she had come over to join them, without any of them noticing her approach. "It is... pleasurable to see you again."
"Lil, honey. Go annoy the customers for a bit, yeah?" Watching Wesley nervously, Lorne tried to steer Illyria away. It was pointless. Nobody could ever tell Illyria what to do. She frowned at him, and her eyes fixed themselves back upon Wesley.
"You are... functioning correctly? I witnessed your death, and there was... I believe it to have been grief. Then there was fighting and death." She scowled suddenly. "You were supposed to be my guide in this new world. You left me."
"I..." He had always been half mad, with grief and confusion, during their conversations in the past. He had recovered since, to some degree, blessed with a new start; but suddenly the past was crashing hopelessly down around him.
"Nobody left you, Blue." Spike had always enjoyed a fairly good relationship with Illyria. Of all of the gang he had known Fred the least, which perhaps helped a little - though even he had had time to come to love her as well. "It's called death. Tends to bugger up everybody's plans."
"We thought you'd been returned to the Deeper Well." Wesley shot Cordelia an accusing stare, but had he been in a clearer frame of mind, he might have seen from the look in her eyes that she had thought the same. There were higher powers at work; higher powers that seemed to enjoy keeping their secrets. Looking worried, Lorne gently insinuated himself between the ancient demon and his faltering friends.
"We should go to see Lox," he said, trying to keep his voice light. "He's waiting, and he has things he'd probably far rather be doing than getting interrogated by a gang of spooks. Stay out here, hey Lirry? Mingle."
"Mingle?" Her sharp eyes frowned at him, and he smiled nervously. She was no longer as powerful as she had once been, but she was still many times stronger than him, and possessed who knew what abilities. He had taken her in because she needed somebody, in this alien world, though he had loved Fred as much as anybody. It hurt to see Illyria in her stead, but Lorne was always the last to judge anybody. He wouldn't turn anyone away.
"Yeah." He managed a shaky smile, rather dimmer than his usual thousand watt grin. "Mingle. Chat to the crowds. Take a turn up on stage." It had been intended as a weak joke, but it made them all remember the evening when Fred had sung at Caritas.
"I wish to talk to Wesley." There had never been any point in trying to make Illyria do anything. Wesley's eyes sought out Angel, looking for some overdue support.
"We, er..." As thunderstruck as the others, Angel had to struggle to galvanise himself now. He had loved Fred more than had anyone save Wesley, and had taken her death extremely hard. Circumstances had prevented him from giving full vent to his feelings at the time, and he had struggled to deal with Illyria. Seeing her again felt like drinking a shot of Holy water, and he decided not to deal with her now. Instead he grumbled out a simple order, dodging the issue as best he could. "We have to talk to Lox."
"Angel..." Wesley knew better than anybody that Illyria would not just give up, but Angel didn't care. He didn't want to think about this now. Suddenly angry, for no really logical reason, he grabbed Wesley's arm, and pushed him forcibly past Illyria, past everybody, and on towards the door that led to Lorne's rooms. He left Spike to deflect the indignant demon, offering her a cigarette that she didn't understand, and babbling about how she had come to be at the club. She frowned at him, imminent violence simmering in her eyes, but presumably she had learnt that the spells protecting Haven could have unpleasant after-effects for anybody looking to cause trouble. She settled for glowering at him instead, before eating the lit cigarette and following on in Angel's wake. The door closed as she approached it; slamming shut with a noisy finality. It seemed to confuse her, and she frowned for several moments, before disappearing. Clearly she was planning to follow the others to their rendezvous with Lox. Spike scowled.
"Bugger." He didn't want this. Like everybody else he had hoped never to see the infernal demon again. He wanted to glower and lash out, and give in to his mean and moody side just as Wesley had done - but Spike was a practical man. Spike understood the world in ways that Wesley perhaps never would; so instead of indulging in his anger, the vampire wandered into the shadows beside the bar, and disappeared. He wanted to follow the others too. There wasn't a whole lot of point in remaining behind. He wanted to know what was going on as much as anyone.
The demon Lox was an impressive sight by the reckoning of any culture, no less so for his current, slightly debauched sprawl in a bright red armchair, in a room decorated to look something like a Las Vegas showroom. Eight feel tall and coloured a pale shade of red, he was almost entirely hairless, save for a scattering of thin white curls on the top of his head. His large eyes were a pale, watery blue, sharp behind an expensive pair of designer reading glasses, and his long teeth gleamed so white as to delight any dentist who might dare get close enough to examine them. He was dressed in a set of long robes, pale yellow in colour, and sleeveless to best show off his large, muscular arms. Had he been human, he might have been a film star or a politician - as a demon he looked naturally regal. It was suddenly not at all hard to imagine him trying to replace the Archduke Sebassis.
"Ah." He stood up as the team arrived, nodding his head graciously to Lorne. "These are your friends?"
"Yes." Lorne, rarely one to stand on great ceremony, treated the aristocratic demon just as he treated everybody else - with warmth, respect and a kind smile. "This is Angel, Cordelia, and Wes. There's another of them, Spike, but he stayed back to distract Illyria."
"I did not find him very distracting." Walking into the room, eyes immediately fixing themselves upon Wesley, Illyria spoke rather sharply. "The club has never been very accommodating for the kinds of diversion that I enjoy."
"Illyria!" Lox was obviously pleased to see her. "Sit down. Have a drink."
"I do not find alcoholic beverages to my taste. In my world, if one wished to become intoxicated, one drank the flaming blood of the Zaxtra beast." It might have sounded like a boast, but for Illyria boasting was redundant. She didn't care what ordinary mortals thought of her - all life, after all, was an irrelevance in her eyes. Lox laughed.
"The Zaxtra beast. Now that would make a good centrepiece for a dinner table. I'll remember that." He turned his attention back to Lorne. "My apologies. You were saying?"
"Angel. Cordelia. Wesley." Spike appeared in the middle of the room, and Lorne didn't miss a beat. "And Spike. They want to talk to you. They're investigators, and they think that you can help them with their... inquiries."
"They do?" Lox sounded benevolent, but uninterested. "I've heard of you. I've heard impressive things."
"Really?" Angel did his best to sound modest, but it was always gratifying to be told such things. Lox was looking past him, though, his eyes fixed instead upon Wesley. "The Geographical Distribution Of The Moracx, wasn't it? And rather a good piece on the parallels between the languages of various demons from the Xin Dimension. I was particularly impressed by the section on the way that certain demon languages have changed since relocation to Earth. The incorporation of a number of American idioms into my own people's language has annoyed a good many of my older fellows." He nodded, and extended his hand. "It's good to meet, you. Pryce, isn't it."
"Yes." Wesley managed a successful handshake, though the level of concentration clearly showed in his eyes. "You read a lot?"
"As much as I can. I've not noticed much from you in the last couple of years, though. Rumour had it that you'd become a man more of weaponry than of the written word."
"Circumstances changed." Wesley looked faintly uncomfortable. He didn't like to be reminded of how far off the rails he had gone in the last years of his life. Lox nodded.
"And now I hear that you're dead. Tell me, does that make it easier or harder to meet those publishing deadlines?"
"Easier." Wesley had to smile, though only faintly. "Just harder to type."
"Ah." Lox smiled back. "Right. So tell me, Angel, what does your team want with me? If it's to help Pryce with some new research I'm happy to oblige. If it's to do with your famous selfless struggle to bring goodness to the hearts of our neighbours, then I suspect that you're on your own. And if you're planning to behead me on the grounds that I'm a soulless demon... well let he who is without sin."
"I have a soul," Angel couldn't resist saying. Lox nodded.
"I doubt there are many people or demons left in America's Underworld who aren't aware of that fact. I merely meant that we all have our vices - demon and human. You have devoted yourself to protecting the latter at the expense of many innocents amongst the former. Am I suspected of something, Angel? And am I permitted to defend myself, or do I just get summarily executed?"
"Not in my front room. I just had the decorators in." Lorne folded his arms, looking determined. "We're all friends here, right Angel? The spells might end at the door, but keep up the spirit of the thing. No violence."
"It's okay, Lorne. I'm not hurting anybody." Angel's eyes flickered backwards and forwards between Lox in front of him and Illyria off to his side. It was hard to decide just which of them was the more unsettling. "It's pretty simple, Lox. We were warned by the higher powers that you were up to something. They don't make warnings like that for no reason. It turns out that Wolfram & Hart are suddenly interested in you too."
"Ah." Lox managed the by no means simple task of smiling sardonically around a mouthful of inch long teeth. "Well if Wolfram & Hart are worried... I'd heard that you worked for them these days, but Lorne here persuaded me that it was nothing to worry about. Was he wrong?"
"We don't work for Wolfram & Hart." Cordelia put on her best and sunniest smile, which was enough to disarm most species. "Some of us never did. We're just interested to know why they're suddenly investigating you. We have a, er... acquaintance... who works for them." She tried hard not to look at Wesley in case he blushed. "See, a couple of months ago nobody knew who you were, and now it's like everybody does. Which isn't unusual in this town, especially if you have a good agent, but kind of is if you're a demon." Her smile bounced back out again. "No offence."
"This conversation bores me." Pacing restlessly about, Illyria managed to walk straight through Wesley, and frowned at him in obvious confusion. She began to circle him curiously, head cocked on one side.
"Hey, Lirry? Go help out behind the bar or something, yeah?" Beaming at her in a way that clearly said 'Don't atomise me,' Lorne wilted visibly under the force of her answering frown.
"You told me to avoid the 'bar'. You said that I was scaring away the customers." Her expression clearly said that she didn't care one way or the other. Illyria could find anything boring. "Why is Wesley insubstantial?"
"You've only just noticed?" Spike grinned broadly. "The boy's been insubstantial all his life." Wesley opened his mouth as if to speak, but the blond vampire was quick. "And naff off about the bloody pocket dimension. No way would you do it with Cordy watching."
"Hey hey! Children!" Lorne was waving at them, trying to attract their attention. "Lox has things to do, you know. Important things. He's an important guy. Can we deal with this later?"
"Sorry Lorne." Wesley had the grace to sound apologetic, though Illyria had no notion of having done wrong. She scowled around at everybody.
"Lox will not tell you what he is involved in. Lox does not believe in telling the truth to other races." She made a few experimental passes through Wesley's body with one hand, frowning all the while. Angel glared.
"Get her out of her, Wes. I'm sorry, but I need to talk to this guy."
"Yes." Wesley looked agonised at the suggestion, and didn't meet Angel's eyes, but he nodded anyway. "Come on Illyria. We'll, um... find somewhere to talk."
"I would like to talk with you." Her head was cocked on one side again, eyes bright and searching. "But Lox would like you all to go away. He does not want to talk to you."
"Lirry honey, go with Wes. Be a good little destroyer of worlds." Lorne shot Lox an anxious smile. "Sorry. She, er... she gets a little fixated, especially about Brits, apparently." He smiled gently over at Wesley, his eyes far more sympathetic than anybody else's had been. "The blue door, Wes. It leads to my back room."
"Right." Wesley wasn't sure if it was possible for a ghost's heart to break, but it certainly felt as though his would like to. Did he even have a heart anymore? Surely that had remained in his body, wherever that now lay? He wasn't sure of the semantics, but thinking about it was infinitely better than thinking about Illyria - and, by inescapable association - Fred. The parasitic demon was looking expectantly at him now, though, obviously eager to get him alone to talk things through. Feeling the eyes of everybody upon him, he followed the blue-tinted nightmare across the room.
"Well that was... interesting." Lox still seemed jovial. "I like Illyria, but she has an oddness about her. Somehow you're always glad when she's gone away."
"Yeah." Angel wasn't sure what to say - none of them were. The passing of Illyria through their lives was like a wrecking ball blasting its way through everything. It always had been. Dragging his mind back away from thoughts of Fred, the vampire forced himself to focus on the present. He was good at that. Distancing himself from his feelings was second nature. "Look, um... we've got to talk, Lox."
"Of course we do." The big demon smiled pleasantly. "You're worried, you say. You have to make sure that I'm not up to something you'd disapprove of. Just to make sure that I'm allowed to live." Angel began to protest, but Lox stilled him with a wave of one hand. "No, it's alright. You have your duty, Angel. I have mine. I protect my people. I defend my clan. I do what I can to strengthen our position and reinforce our chances of survival, because something in this dimension of yours - of ours, now - is detrimental to the health of many of my kind. No doubt your friend Pryce could elaborate further. If all of this is reason for you to worry, Angel, then fair enough. But remember that if I was a human trying to save his family against the odds, you'd help me. Because I'm red and have big teeth, I don't get that support." His warm blue eyes switched over to point at Lorne. "You're lucky he's never turned against you."
"Hey. Hey hey hey. Come on guys!" Stepping forward, arms outstretched, Lorne tried out one of his favourite showman's grins. "Now we're all friends here, right? So none of that nonsense about killing each other. I told you, Angel cakes, Lox is a friend. And Lox, honey, Angel is one of the good guys. Angel is the good guy. He only kills the evil types. Right cream puff?"
"This isn't about killing anybody." Angel was beginning to wish that they had never bothered coming to the club. Talking to Lox was getting them nowhere. "This is just about knowing what's going on in this city. Who's on which side, and who is getting up to what. It's my job to make sure that the wrong people don't get hurt, so when I get leads, I have to follow them up." He rubbed at his eyes with one hand, beginning to feel the strain. If there was one thing worse than stroppy demons, it was stroppy demon royalty. It was not easy to do his job whilst having to simultaneously stroke a princeling's ruffled feathers. "Look... what are you up to, Lox?"
"Trying to build alliances, Angel." He said it as though in answering the question he was granting some great favour. "My people are dying. Just at the moment there are a lot of tribes hoping to win something from the fall out surrounding the death of Sebassis. A lot of candidates trying to push themselves forward to fill that vacuum. Some of them think that I can help them, and if I can get help for my people in return, then I'm not going to refuse. That's what you've no doubt been alerted to, Angel. My involvement in the rush for a part of the Sebassis Empire. I don't want any of it for myself, but I am a part of the struggle." He folded his arms, and sat down on the arm of the easy chair. "So. Do I get staked? Beheaded? Chopped up into little pieces?"
"Now we already covered this ground, guys. Not in my front room, remember?" Lorne looked back to Angel. "Play nice, hey sweet stuff? A favour for an old friend."
"What do you think, Cordy?" Angel wasn't sure that he liked the sharp look in Lox's watery eyes, but the demon was good at telling a story. Spike made a face.
"I think he's telling a load of old hogwash," he said loudly. Angel glared at him.
"When did you change your name to Cordy?" he asked. Spike met the glare with a powerful one of his own.
"Since I knew that you wouldn't be asking me what I thought. He's lying, Angel."
"Spike, be nice." Smiling hopefully, Lorne turned to Cordelia. "Come on, Cordy. Play fair. Have I told you how great you're looking tonight? Sparkly white really suits you, princess."
"I know." She smiled back at him. "But you don't need the flattery. This all sounds plausible to me."
"Like hell it does!" Spike seemed exasperated. "Look I know my opinion doesn't count for much around here, but I'm a good judge of character. I always have been."
"Sure, Spike. That'll explain why you thought your mother would make a good member of our gang all those years back. And why you think Wesley is still some public school prefect."
"Don't go bringing up my mother." Spike looked hurt. "Cordelia, we all know Angel drawers is a proper tit, but you've got brains, right? You can tell that Prince Charmless is lying?"
"I think he gets the benefit of the doubt for the time being." Cordelia looked around at the others, distracted by Spike's indignant boggling, and Lorne's sudden flurry of air kisses. "We have other avenues to explore, after all. Like all the other people who are trying to take over from Sebassis. There are some nasty names involved in that little power struggle. The sort that are really likely to set the danger klaxons ringing."
"Thankyou my dear." Lox's smile was utterly charming, and utterly convincing. Cordelia found herself smiling back at him through sheer instinct, but Spike merely rolled his eyes.
"Fine. Whatever, go your own way. Look, if we're getting out of here now, I'll go get Wes."
"Tell him he can take as long as he likes back there, doll." Lorne looked concerned beneath the relief at this sudden loss of interest in his friend. "I'll stay out of there this evening. If he wants to talk things through with Illyria, or just stay in there on his own, whatever. He's welcome."
"Yeah, I'll tell him." Spike didn't sound interested. He just disappeared, choosing to travel by his own power rather than trying to open the door. Angel glared after him.
"I swear he gets worse."
"He has much anger about him." Lox shrugged his powerful shoulders. "It's the way of things with some people. Perhaps we're all like that sometimes." He laughed. "All of us except Lorne, anyway."
"Hey, I have my angry days too, sugar." Lorne looked over at Angel. "You're really satisfied with all this, big guy?"
"Yeah, I guess so. For now at least. We might have to come back and ask some more questions another time, but..." Angel shrugged. "It does all make sense. If this guy has your backing, then I guess it's okay." He smiled rather awkwardly. "We should really be going now, but... listen Lorne..."
"Yeah, I know." Lorne looked awkward too. "Open house, right? Or open hotel, anyway. Maybe, Angel cakes. Maybe. We'll see."
"Yeah." There was a lot that was still unspoken between them - a lot of awkwardness, about that last night together, about favours performed, duties done and battles fought. About Lindsay McDonald. Angel sighed. "Come on Cordy."
"Sure." She nodded at Lox, and smiled over at Lorne. "Be seeing you, Lorne."
"Well here's hoping it's not on business, princess." He waggled his green fingers in a cheerful little farewell. "Bye. And take care." He was still waggling his fingers after they had gone, disappeared in a way that he found most disconcerting.
"A nice enough pair," observed Lox. "Everything alright, Lorne?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah." Lorne's mind was in distant places. Dwelling on memories, and thoughts, and wonderings. "I was just thinking. If I'd stuck with them that night, I'd be a ghost now too - always supposing some higher power thought I was worth bringing back from the grave. Makes you wonder."
"I suppose it does." Lox clapped him on the back. "You miss them, don't you."
"Yeah." Lorne remembered being torn in so many ways; having his beloved impartiality stripped away in pieces by somebody he could never turn away; somebody to whom he had never been able to say no. Somebody who still occupied a very big part of his thoughts. "Sometimes. I guess."
"Well maybe you'd better try thinking of something else for a while." Lox was looking at a pocket watch pulled from some hidden niche in his robes. "It's time for your turn on stage, and we've got customers willing to pay to hear you sing, buddy boy. So get going, before our profits start to dip."
"Sure." The idea of singing always brought Lorne's spirits bouncing back up again. "See you later tonight?"
"I'll be around." Lox patted him on the shoulder. "Go get 'em, superstar."
"Hey, you bet." And with a broad grin, Lorne headed off for the waiting stage. Lox waited behind for a moment, watching him disappear along the corridor, hearing the cheer as he went through the doorway that led back out onto Haven's main floor. Lorne's arrival was always greeted with joy by his regulars. They were always hoping that he would get up on the stage to sing. Lox smiled at the sound. It meant happiness, fulfilment - and money rolling in. And with his robes swinging gently around his ankles, he headed off to join in the fun.
A heavy, lingering silence had fallen as soon as Wesley and Illyria entered Lorne's back room. Wesley looked around at the space, eager to look at anything that wasn't blue and Fred-shaped. It was a bigger room than the one they had just left; a library of sorts, filled with shelves bearing CDs, DVD-As, sheet music, music encyclopaedias, and books on the history of instruments, composers, and various musical genres. Lorne was a true convert - something easily seen in the gleaming baby grand piano in the middle of the room, the equally shiny pair of guitars standing next to it - one electric, one acoustic - and the bright brass saxophone that lay on the room's sole chair. There was a sequinned jacket thrown over the back of the chair, coloured black and blue, and reflecting all the light that had blazed into life the moment that the twosome had gone through the door. Wesley had turned the lights on with a wave of one hand, and Illyria had seemed impressed. Magic no doubt counted for something in her world, but Wesley just remembered how delighted Fred had been with his increasing powers, and decided that he didn't care for Illyria's opinion.
"I wanted to talk to you, Wesley," she said in the end. He nodded, reining in his temper. There was no point in shouting at Illyria. He had been on the receiving end of her anger more than once in the past, and he had no particular desire to see it unleashed again here. She might not be able to hurt him anymore - though that in itself was unpredictable - but there were too many things in this room that he had no desire to see damaged. It was a pleasant image, thinking of Lorne sitting in here and learning to use the instruments, or reading about them whilst his favourite music played. He wasn't going to get Illyria angry. Not until he could be sure that he was the only one being hurt.
"What did you want to talk about?" He couldn't quite meet her eyes; couldn't lift his voice above a sullen mumble. It was like being a prisoner, and confronting one's gaoler to hear their demands. She was frowning at him, cocking her head on one side, and he didn't need to look at her to know that.
"You went away." Her tone was accusing. "You were to be my teacher, Wesley. You were to make yourself available to me at all times."
"I died. You were there. You know what happened."
"Yes." She moved closer. "But you came back. You are here now. You did not go away to the place where the spirits assemble. Why did you not come to find me?"
"Why the hell should I?" He was angry then, and looked up suddenly to meet her equally furious gaze. "I never asked you to come into my life, Illyria. I never asked to know you, or to see you. We both know who I'd rather have here with me. Dead or alive."
"Fred is gone." Her voice was sharp. He could almost have hit her, although he knew that it would have no effect. Even if he were alive and fully corporeal - even if he was as strong as Angel - he would not be able to hurt Illyria. "She cannot return to you. I have told you that more times than I care to count."
"You don't say." He turned around, looking at the other end of the room instead, back towards the blue door that had led them both in here. Her hand passed uselessly through his shoulder, and he smirked. She had been trying to spin him around, her haughty self-importance demanding his attention. She had never thought of him as her equal - she never would. Nobody was her equal, in her eyes.
"You should have returned to me," she said, clearly angered by her inability to touch him. He sighed.
"I thought you were gone. We assumed that you had been returned to the Deeper Well. Plus we were prevented from getting close to Lorne, and you were with him." He rubbed his eyes, and sat down on the piano stool. "Look Illyria, I'm really not in the mood for one of your strops. Now you said that you wanted to talk, but if it was just so that you could sulk about me giving you the cold shoulder, hard luck."
"I do not always understand your meaning." Her head cocked on one side again, and clarity flickered into her eyes. He winced. She had cross-checked his words with Fred's memory, no doubt in order to learn what he had meant by a phrase like 'cold shoulder'; and the thought of it made him ill. Fred's memory, Fred's experiences, so much that was still Fred - and yet wasn't. It was all inside Illyria somewhere, but Fred herself wasn't with it. She never would be again. "I did not want to talk about your cold shoulders, I wanted to talk about this place, and what happened to you the night that we last met. I wanted to talk to you about the experiences I have had since then. The many things that I have seen and heard in this place. This 'club'. The strangely loud green one makes sounds from his mouth that are not unpleasant to me, but many of the people that he calls 'customers' make sounds that I cannot believe are pleasant to anyone. It is a strange place."
"I'm sure it is." He forced a smile. "It would take forever to explain music to you, Illyria. You must have had forms of it in your world, and what we have now isn't so very different. Lorne is the one to talk to about it, not me. As for the rest... new experiences are a part of life. You're alive. You can't expect every day to be the same. Life just doesn't work that way."
"You are not pleased to be with me, Wesley." She had no doubt assimilated his words, but her mind was already set upon a new track. He sighed. He had almost forgotten how tiring their conversations could be.
"I'm not delighted, no. You know why."
"Perhaps." She knew, but didn't understand. He probably couldn't expect her to. Fred's life was nothing to her - all life was nothing to her. His own, apparently, had some greater worth, but he had no real idea why. "I... apologise for your discomfort."
"You do?"
"If it will make you happier, yes." She didn't understand when he rolled his eyes at that. "Wesley... would it make you happy if I was to tell you about Lox?"
"Lox? He's telling the others all about himself now. There's no need to worry about him."
"He will not tell the others the truth. Lox is not like most of the creatures I have encountered so far. He has a duplicity about him that I would once have considered to be of great worth. In my world I could perhaps have made use of him, but in this world he bores me. You wish to know what he is doing?"
"I would like to, yes." He eyed her suspiciously. "Why would you want to help?"
"Because I am a part of the team, Wesley. I wish to be of use." She frowned. "I do not know why."
"No, neither do I." He nodded. "Alright, Illyria. You want to help out. So what is Lox up to?"
"He wishes to take over the Sebassis Empire, and more of the world beyond that. He wishes to make this world his, for the good of his people. This dimension is cruel to him, and he wishes to ensure the survival of his race. He will do anything to ensure that."
"Lox? Lox is a Xash. The other demons in the city would never bow to his authority. He's the leader of a dying race, and nobody takes him seriously. He might grab himself some pieces of the empire during the free for all that's likely coming, but to take over the whole lot? He hasn't got a hope."
"He does." She didn't like to be contradicted, or to have her word mocked. "He knows who I am, Wesley. He knows where I come from, and about the powers that are mine by right. He believes that he can control those powers for himself, either by taking them, or by restoring them to me. He knows that they were removed from me, and he knows where they were stored. With those powers, Wesley..."
"With those powers he could destroy the whole world before he really knew what was happening." Wesley jumped to his feet, aghast. "He could obliterate half of this dimension if he handles it all wrongly."
"Well that figures." It was Spike's voice, coming from behind one of the shelves of books and CDs. "I knew he was up to something." Startled, Wesley glared at him.
"How long have you been hiding there?"
"Long enough to hear what's important." Spike shot him a half-amused look. "Keep your stubble on, Percy. I wasn't eavesdropping. I just came to tell you that the others are leaving. They're happy that Lox isn't a threat. Oh, and Lorne says you can stay in here as long as you like. He's worried about you."
"That's nice of him." Wesley didn't sound particularly touched by the gesture - just defensive, and cross with Spike. "Lox has convinced the others that he's trustworthy?"
"Yeah. And there's no way Angel drawers is going to believe otherwise. You should see him at the moment. He's so determined to mend bridges with Lorne, he'd probably give Lox the okay if he was sitting out there chewing on dead kids. I don't know that I can get him to listen. Maybe you can."
"Maybe." Wesley didn't feel particularly inclined to try. There was great danger in Lox's motives - he saw no reason to disbelieve Illyria, since she had no reason to lie - but he felt so drained that he couldn't inspire himself to act. He just wanted to be alone. Let Angel make his own mistakes - sometimes that was how it had to be.
"You will now fight Lox?" asked Illyria, completely failing, as usual, to appreciate his desire just to be left alone. He nodded slowly.
"I suppose so. We'll have to."
"Poor Lorne." Spike sounded genuinely regretful. "He really likes the guy. He's trying to get out of the fighting evil game, and where does it take him? Right into the figurative arms of a guy who turns out to be the enemy. He might never forgive Angel for killing Lox."
"Lorne forgives everything." Wesley was thinking about the night he had hit Lorne, knocking him down so hard and so completely that he had risked causing serious damage. It had all been to aid in the kidnapping of Connor, and Lorne had been the innocent victim caught in the middle. He had forgiven Wesley long before anybody else, and without even thinking about it. For Lorne there had never been any question that the forgiveness might not be granted.
"I will kill Lox for you," announced Illyria, although the declaration rather begged the question as to why, if it was something that she felt needed doing, she hadn't already done. "I shall rip off his head with one twist, and throw his body parts into great fires."
"That's nice, Blue." Spike restrained from rolling his eyes. "But maybe just a little too much at this stage. Maybe later."
"As you wish." She looked back to Wesley, frowning at his evident distraction. "And now I wish to discuss music, and the customs of this place. I wish to discuss the customers, who come here as enemies and yet do not kill each other. I wish to discuss the process of... 'karaoke'. It interests me. Is it a common custom amongst warriors in this world?"
"Hardly, love." Spike was smirking, trying not to laugh. "Listen Wes, I'm going to try to catch Angel. He ought to hear all of this. I'll leave you to your debriefing."
"Yeah. Thanks." The prospect of being left alone here, with Illyria, made Wesley's heart feel heavier than it had in some time, but he knew that Spike had to leave. He was right, and Angel did need to hear Illyria's story. The sooner they started their move against Lox, the better. There seemed to be real sympathy in Spike's eyes when he left, but it didn't really register with Wesley. He barely even noticed when the vampire left.
"You are not happy." Illyria sounded accusing. Wesley didn't look at her. "You are often not happy. Spike referred to whisky when you were like this before, but it does not make the customers here unhappy. Often they mix it with blood. Would you be happier if you were to mix your whisky with blood?"
"Well I've never tried it," his voice almost cracked, so dry did his throat seem to be, "but I'm guessing that no, it wouldn't make me happier. Besides, I'm dead now. I can't drink whisky anymore."
"And this makes you sad? Do you miss the whisky?"
"Maybe." Her innocent question made him feel even worse. Just how much had he relied on the damned stuff during those last days? Just how often had he been drunk, or partly drunk, during his dealings with Illyria in the past? Slowly he sat back down on the piano stool, and ran one hand through his hair. Illyria came to stand beside him, staring down with her usual impassive expression.
"I am... oddly pleased to see you again, Wesley. It was strange to be in this world without you."
"Thankyou." He wasn't sure that it had been intended as a compliment, but he responded to it automatically, unsure what else to say. Her gaze was unending, unwavering, and he had to drag himself back from his torpor in order to deal with it. "What is it that you want, Illyria?"
"I wish to talk to you, Wesley." She seemed to have said that a dozen times so far today; more perhaps. He found himself nodding, dragging himself back from the auto-pilot setting that had been governing his actions for most of the time since he had arrived at the club. She had helped, after all. And he was responsible for her, in an odd and twisted way. She trusted him more than anybody else, and genuinely did seem to need him. Had he not died, he would still have been spending all of his time with her; he knew that. He would still be teaching her, and listening to her, and hating her and needing her, and not understanding any of it any more than she did. There was no real reason why he shouldn't listen to her now. Not if she really wanted to talk.
"Alright," he said, forcing himself to pay proper attention. "Karaoke, the club, music. Just tell me what it is that you want to know." He didn't know how many of her questions he would be able to answer, but then he never did. He never had. Long gone were the days when she had merely wanted to learn the days of the week, and the months of the year. There were inevitable questions still to come that he dreaded. For now, though, he could deal with karaoke. It was at the very least emotionally neutral for him. Folding her arms, she stood in front of him, making him feel like a suspect being interrogated by an overbearing police officer.
"I wish to understand this new music," she demanded, odd eyes glinting in the bright light. "In my world we had drums and some instruments with strings. There was... banging and chanting. It was used to tell tales, summon spirits and cast magicks. Is that what this 'karaoke' is used for? And what is this 'disco' of which Lorne speaks? This 'Aretha', and this 'Elvis'? Do they tell the tales of the exploits of brave warriors, and heap praise upon masters and rulers?"
"Not exactly, no." For a second Wesley smiled, amused by the culture clash. "What did you do in your world that was just for pleasure? Not for magic, not for conquest or for glory. What did you do when you just wanted to put your feet up and relax?"
"Why should levitating my feet be relaxing?" She frowned at him. "If I understand your meaning, you wish to know what I did between battles. Between my wanderings from dimension to dimension, and from world to world. There was torture and execution, and there were songs praising my glory that I would listen to when all of the prisoners were dead."
"Delightful, I'm sure." He nodded slowly. "Well I suppose it's the same thing, in a... very loose sense. It's all just music to listen to. For... fun. It's not about glory anymore though. More about love, really, and when it all goes wrong. Except classical music and opera, perhaps. They're often about glory and brave warriors and things. And torture and death and things like that too, on occasion. You'd probably love Wagner."
"I do not understand your inference. Is Wagner a song?"
"Never mind." He reined in another sigh, but still found that he was smiling, faintly. It was a smile that had no origin in his heavy - if nonexistent - heart, but it was better than being totally disconnected. "We'll, um... we'll come at this from a different tack, perhaps."
"As you wish." Her head cocked itself on one side as she regarded him intently. "Exactly what is 'Bluegrass' and 'Blues'? Is there some special significance to the colour? Is this music written by others of my race, or are there humans who are also coloured blue?"
"Umm..." Wesley shook his head very slowly, feeling sanity begin to drain itself away. Terrific. This was going to be a very long conversation.
Wesley left the club long after the others, finally slipping away and leaving Illyria staring fixedly after him. He half expected her to follow, but was glad when she didn't. She remained unpredictable, then; confusing and confused; and as he wandered out into the street he tried not to think about her. He didn't transport himself straight back to the hotel, although he wanted to be away from Haven as soon as possible. He didn't transport himself anywhere. He just walked, needing the time alone, and wishing that he could feel the cold night air, and the breeze on his face.
Illyria had been a surprise. A big surprise. Losing Fred had been perhaps the worst day of his life; watching Illyria trying to take her place had done such terrible things to his head and his heart, and had left him a physical and mental wreck. He hadn't known how to deal with it, and death had been no great burden, when that had been the life he had been leaving. It had been a struggle to accept that he was being awarded a life after death, when Fred could have no such thing; when he was facing an eternity without ever seeing her again. Believing that Illyria was gone had made it easier, though. Being without Fred was far more bearable when he was also without her killer. Without that constant reminder of Fred's face, and Fred's voice, and Fred's death. Now it had all come back, and the healing that had come with his death seemed stripped away from him, and left in pieces on the dance floor of Haven.
Nobody seemed to see him as he walked through the streets. That wasn't unusual, in LA, where nobody ever really noticed anybody, but it made him feel invisible; made him feel like a ghost. Made him feel insubstantial, and dead, and unimportant. It was a feeling that fitted his growing depression, and matched his sinking sense of self worth. Everything was shook up now, but it was easier to walk, and let the feelings fester, than to deal with them properly. If Wesley Wyndam-Pryce had ever truly known how to cry, he had forgotten a long time ago.
"Hey, Wes. I've been looking for you." It was Lilah, snapping into existence out of thin air, and running a hand through his hair in gentle greeting. He didn't acknowledge her. He wondered how she had found him, wandering through random streets. He didn't know where he was himself, but apparently she knew enough to be able to come to meet him. He hadn't realised that he had long ago ceased walking; hadn't noticed that he had been standing in the same place now for nearly an hour.
"Go away, Lilah." He was huddled up against a cold that he couldn't feel, head lowered to shelter his eyes from a wind that he hadn't even noticed. Nobody was walking by, anymore; no more citizens of Los Angeles, hurrying on with their lives, and failing to notice the anguished ghost in their midst. At some point he had wandered down an alleyway, come to a dead end, and stopped there, foiled by geography. Lilah took his hand.
"Wesley..."
"Not now, please." He really couldn't deal with her games and complications just now. He wanted to be alone, or thought that he did. It was easier to be alone; he had learnt that much years ago.
"Believe it or not, I just wanted to find out if you were okay." She was looking at him with genuine concern in her eyes, but he didn't notice. He wasn't even looking at her. He was looking at Fred, laughing inside his mind, and making plans for a future that they had never been able to share. "Wes, come on. I heard what happened."
"How?" That much did interest him. How was it that she always seemed to know what was going on? She shrugged.
"Perk of the job. You know what Wolfram & Hart are like. I get all kinds of inside information. Nothing escapes their attention."
"If that was true they'd know everything. They don't. Were you there?"
"No." She made a face, obviously annoyed to have been caught out. "Well yes, okay. In a sense. I need to know what's happening, Wes. How am I supposed to know whether or not you're going to keep me in the loop?"
"Why the hell would I keep you in the loop? You're the enemy!"
"Exactly." She smiled at him, gently enough. "I didn't follow you, when you went off with Illyria. I thought you deserved to be alone. I really was only interested in what Lox had to say."
"And?"
"And I don't believe him, but it doesn't matter. My employers seem satisfied, for now at least. They've got bigger concerns than what he's up to. Everything is still pretty messed up thanks to you and your team and your nihilistic little last day on planet Earth."
"Now there's a shame." He felt angry, he felt hurt, he felt who the hell knew what else, and he wanted to be sharp and snappy with everybody. Everybody wasn't there, so Lilah had to take the brunt of it, and he didn't know whether to feel guilty about that, or angry about it, or to hate himself even more for going down that road again, but she was still just smiling gently. Her eyes showed real concern, and made him feel all the more angry. She was supposed to be the evil one. At least if she was being evil he had less reason to feel bad about being cold with her. She let her hand snake up his arm, and gently brush the back of his neck in an almost-hug.
"I offered to dress up as her once," she said, in a voice so soft that he almost didn't hear her. "But I'm not offering to paint myself blue just to grab your attention."
"What?" He was confused now. She shook her head.
"I didn't mind losing you to her so much when she was alive. Now that she's dead and gone, and there's a crazed blue demon in her place, I did think that perhaps things would be different. But they're not. I'm still losing you to her, aren't I."
"Losing me?" He was struggling to assemble her words and meanings, separating all the pieces from the morass of complications inside his head. "I don't love Illyria. I just... I... I don't know."
"It doesn't matter if you love her or hate her, she's still right in the forefront of your mind. Right where Fred always used to be. I know that you're upset about the Texas Toothpick having died, Wes, and I'm right there with the sympathy. I even feel for you now, having to look at her body and knowing that there's somebody else living in it. But the rest? Look at me, Wesley. At me, not at whatever images you've got floating around in front of your eyes right now. Do you want to spend this evening alone in an alleyway with memories of a woman you're never going to see again, do you want to spend it alone in an alleyway with an head full of the egomaniac demon who killed her, or do you want to spend it with somebody who can actually make things hurt a bit less? Your memories of Fred can't touch you. Illyria can't touch you, even if it is somebody's dead body that she's walking round in. I can touch you. I can make you feel better. I can even sympathise, and empathise, and understand some of what you're feeling. Self pity is an addiction, Wes, and you're better than that."
"Maybe." He wondered if, given her death, and her connection to the powers of Wolfram & Hart, Cyvus Vail's mindwipe had ever affected her. He had never quite had the courage to find out. Would she be telling him that he was better than anything if she knew how he had betrayed Angel? Or would she applaud and make him feel even worse still? He rubbed his eyes, and thought about what she had just said. She had a point. Fred was gone, and wasn't coming back. Illyria was... definitely not what he wanted, even if she had been available. All the same, comfort in the arms of Lilah smacked of the past, and a time he had tried to put behind him. Whatever they had had together since his death had meant to be better than that. Less dysfunctional than that. He didn't want to go back to anger and self-hatred, and everything else that had gone hand in hand with that experience. It wasn't fair to Lilah for a start.
"Fine." She sounded almost hurt, which wasn't something that he heard often from her. Evidently she was taking his long period of thought as a rejection. "Whatever, Wesley. Spend the rest of eternity standing in this alleyway regretting everything, if that's what you want. I thought you'd snapped out of all of that since you died. I thought this relationship had actually come to mean something. I guess I was wrong. Not for the first time, where you're concerned." She turned away, and he thought that he saw a greater sadness in her eyes than he had ever seen there before. Lilah wasn't supposed to get sad. This wasn't the way that this worked. He reached out, grabbing her wrist and turning her back round to face him. "What?" she asked. She sounded angry, and maybe a little upset.
"Relationship," he echoed, managing a smile that didn't quite complete itself. "You called us a relationship."
"Yes, I did, didn't I." She smiled too then, though she still seemed upset. "I'd give you a dollar bill, but you'd never manage to take it. Wes..."
"No." He was coming to a decision, though it wasn't an easy one. "Lilah, I... I don't say sorry easily. You may have noticed that. I... don't do a lot of things easily. And... well you genuinely are evil, which really does complicate quite a lot of things. But don't go. You're right, Fred's gone. I don't know that I ever really believed that before, but the truth is that if she wasn't, she'd be here now. She'd have been brought back just like the rest of Angel Investigations were. But she wasn't. I'm not sure that that makes things any easier, especially where suddenly having Illyria turn up is concerned, but... but I'm not choosing her over you this time. Really there'd be no point, would there."
"Not unless you want to spend your death the same way you spend the last bit of your life, no. You actually are allowed to be happy, Wes. Believe it or not, it is permitted."
"Maybe." He looked away, though, and his face closed over again. "Just probably not tonight."
"Fair enough." She pulled him over to the side of the alley, where a blocked up window stood above a jutting out sill. They sat down there together, in the darkness, with the muted sounds of an oblivious city going unnoticed some distance away. "Did I ever tell you about my mother, Wes?"
"Your mother? No, I don't think so. We've never really done the family thing."
"Didn't think so. About ten years ago she was diagnosed with a degenerative illness. A mental condition something like Alzheimer's. At first she still recognised me, even when she didn't know who anybody else was anymore, but nowadays she doesn't have a clue who I am. I go to visit her, and it's her face and her body looking back at me, but it's somebody else who's inside it. The personality and the memory - most of it - belong to somebody else now. It's not the same thing as having the person you think you can spend the rest of your life with suddenly being destroyed by a demon, and I'm not going to pretend that it is. But in a sense it isn't all that different. See, I may be evil - and I may be a lawyer - but I do still have some understanding of feelings. I even have emotions on occasions you know. I just try not to let anybody else know about them."
"Touché." He smiled faintly. "I'm sorry. And that's nearly a world first, so you should try to have that little moment framed."
"Just as soon as Wolfram & Hart develop the technology, I'll do just that." She held his hand, and smiled at him in the darkness. "You don't want to be with me tonight, do you."
"I don't think it would be fair to you if I was." He felt bad for that, but to his surprise she smiled.
"Good. That means we're really making progress. Once upon a time that was the last thing that you'd have thought about."
"Yes." He had the grace to look distinctly abashed. "Not that you were a lot better."
"Me? I was having fun. Working off frustrations. Trying to earn you an impressive reputation amongst your neighbours. It's different now."
"It would appear so."
"Are you sorry?"
"Twice in one evening? You must be kidding." He laughed slightly. "Damn it, Lilah. All the women in Los Angeles. All the dead women in Los Angeles - and there do seem to be a fair few - and it has to be you."
"Sorry."
"No you're bloody well not."
"Of course not. I'm evil." She stood up, still holding his hand, but not exerting any pressure. Tonight they would not be leaving together, and that seemed to be fine with her. "Goodnight, Wes. I know you're going to be far from cheerful tonight, and I know you probably want to give in to that, but don't spend too long brooding. It's not always good for you. Go back to the hotel. Read your books, argue with Spike, do whatever it is that you do with Angel. Throw a party, stake some vampires, slay a few dragons. Okay?"
"Okay." He gave her hand a squeeze. "Goodnight. And thanks for understanding."
"Don't mention it." She let go of his hand and gave his hair a quick ruffle, knowing how much it annoyed him when she did so. "See you tomorrow then. 'Night." She flashed him a quick, broad smile that seemed to set his heart beating faster, even though that was supposed to be impossible now, and a moment later she was gone. He smiled in her electrically-charged wake. Damn it but the world was a complicated place. A screwed up, miserable, heart-breaking place that ripped you up and burnt you to ashes - and a weirdly beautiful, optimistic place that could set you back on your feet almost without you noticing it. Into which of those two extremes falling in love with an evil dead woman fell, he didn't know - but he wasn't supposed to be worrying about such things tonight. So with a little smile, and a little frown, and a very great deal of confusion, he left the alleyway and struck off into the night. He still wanted to take the long way home. Walking seemed to suit his mood tonight.
Angel and Cordelia were gone when Wesley arrived back at the hotel. Spike was sprawled on his back on a couch, clearly still trying to blow smoke rings, but understandably still failing at the first hurdle. He couldn't even inhale the smoke. He opened one eye as Wesley came in, then slowly sat up.
"Wes."
"Spike." Wesley wandered over to sit beside him, rather surprising himself by doing so. "The others out investigating?"
"Looking for more leads." Spike shrugged. "Tried telling them. Silly sods wouldn't listen, 'cause what do I know, right? I'm just Spike." He ground the cigarette into the carpet, then sighed loudly. "Gotta stop doing that. Angel's gonna kill me when he sees all the scorch marks."
"That supposed to be funny?"
"What?" Spike had a smile in his eyes.
"Angel's going to kill you?"
"Oh." The smile came fully to life. "Yeah, I thought it was funny. Lighten up, Percy."
"Shut up, Spike." He wasn't in the mood. Somehow, with Lilah gone, most of the grouchiness had come back, and Spike's legendary games were the last thing he wanted to be dealing with. He rubbed his eyes with the fingers of one hand, then sighed. "I want to sleep for a century."
"Think you'll feel better when you wake up?"
"No."
"Need a drink?"
"No." He shook his head slowly. "I've been so happy lately. All that soul-searching crap was gone, and everything seemed to be going so well. And then that bloody psycho-Smurf comes back into my life. My... oh, you know what I mean." He stared over at the door, half wishing that Lilah would appear, even though they had agreed that it wouldn't be right to be together just now. "Bloody Illyria."
"Take it from one who knows, Pryce. Death, time - they don't heal anything on their own. You've got to help the process along." Spike smirked at the look in Wesley's eyes. "What? I'm not allowed to have insight? Well screw you, Percy. I've been there, you know. And dying, and being dead for a hundred years, didn't help half so much as... well, as having to deal with it all. I did the whole "Facing My Feelings" thing. Buggered off and got myself a soul." He shrugged. "Bit drastic, maybe. Helped, though. And the rest of it. Being brainwashed by the First Evil isn't something I'm recommending especially, but it helped me get over some old issues with me mum. It's all about dealing, mate. Not hiding." He frowned, when to the surprise of them both, Wesley suddenly burst out laughing. "What?"
"Sorry." The Watcher struggled to control himself. "It's just you, confronting your feelings." He began laughing again, and had to struggle to speak. "Sorry. I just... sorry."
"Oh, get stuffed." Spike scowled, but soon found himself smiling too. "Well, it cheered you up, I suppose. Miserable sod. Were you always so damn sulky, or did that come with Wolfram & Hart?"
"No, that came..." Not from anything that he could truly explain. Spike didn't know about Connor. "From a lot of things."
"Yeah. Another bloody emotionally stunted public school pri" He broke off. "Well, whatever. We have other things we need to think about right now."
"We do?" The laughing had subsided, and felt a long way away now, but Wesley did at least feel better again. The depression that had caught hold of him after Lilah had left seemed to have lifted. Spike nodded.
"Yeah. Gotta decide what we're going to do about Lox, haven't we. Angel's still being a right prat, and Cordelia... well, I don't pretend to know what makes her tick. Why any 'higher power' would choose an airhead to be an angel - or whatever the hell she is - is beyond me."
"She's not an airhead. She just... thinks things out a bit differently to the rest of us." Wesley frowned. "What's your point?"
"My point is that Angel's a pillock. He won't listen to me, and you wouldn't speak to him earlier. Too busy moping. Lox could blow up the whole bloody world with Illyria's powers. They might be safe in that pocket dimension of yours, but that gadget that sucked them out of her can spit them right back into her again. Betcha. We're all space dust then, right?"
"If he can't find a way to contain them safely, then certainly a considerable region of the city, or even the state, will be looking pretty... space dusty, yes. Even safely contained, that power has the potential to obliterate..." He shrugged. "Possibly the planet. Possibly more than that, I don't know."
"And right now, Wolfram & Hart have that gadget."
"Yes. They won't give it to Lox, but he can probably take it. I'd guess that he's got insiders working for the LA branch, and that's where the Mutari generator is stored. The local offices are all up and running again now."
"Yeah, I've seen the building. Big and shiny and just like the last one. Exactly like the last one. Probably grew out of the ruins of the old one, like some evil beanstalk clone."
"You bring a whole new meaning to mixed metaphors, don't you." Wesley sighed. "Yes, alright. We have to do something. Do you know where Angel is?"
"No. Tried finding him, but I couldn't. Could be he's somewhere magical. Figures, if he's talking to people who are after the Sebassis Empire. Explains why I can't centre in on him."
"Yes... That doesn't help us, though, does it."
"You got any ideas?" Spike could see the spark of thought in his fellow ghost's highly changeable blue eyes. Wesley nodded slowly.
"Yes, I have. Somebody has to stop Lox from getting his hands on the generator, and the best way to do that is to get it ourselves. We should never have allowed Wolfram & Hart to keep it, anyway."
"Didn't exactly have much choice, mate."
"We should have thought of something. You know, it was Hamilton who gave me the idea of doing that to Illyria in the first place. I always rather suspected his motives, but I thought it would be okay as long as I had guardianship of the device. I didn't expect to be dead a few weeks later."
"Not your fault."
"It was hardly unforeseeable, Spike! I should have been more careful, and I probably would have been, once upon a time. No, it was an oversight, and there's only one way to rectify it."
"You're planning to break into Wolfram & Hart and get the bloody thing, aren't you!"
"I'm the perfect candidate for the job. I can walk straight in there. Angel can't. He has a physical form, at least of sorts. He'd set alarms off everywhere, but I can just walk through it all."
"Yeah, and then walk straight through the bloody generator, too. How the hell are you going to pick it up and carry it out? It won't go through the wall."
"I'll think of something." Wesley idly levitated the remains of Spike's last cigarette, as though to give an indication of his intentions. "Being a ghost is a big advantage when it comes to breaking and entering."
"Yeah, and bugger all else. Wes... I might be annoyed that I can't get Angel to listen to me about all this, but straight now - is it worth listening to? Before you go bursting in there to steal this thing, is Illyria telling the truth?"
"Why wouldn't she?"
"Well... she wants her powers back, doesn't she. She was pretty pissed at you for taking them away. What better way to get them back? And assuming she is telling the truth, it could still be a trap. She could be in it with Lox. So he wants this bloody widget. How's he planning to get it? Planning to get you to go in and snag it for him, maybe?"
"Illyria is telling the truth. About everything. And she's not working with Lox. Why would she? He's just another mortal to her. A total nobody. What she went through with Hamilton might have cracked her confidence a little, but if she thought about it at all, she'd still go in there and get the generator herself. Or try to. She wouldn't even conceive of getting somebody else to do it for her. She'd never believe that anybody else could do what she can't."
"Yeah, fair point. Hardly lacking in ego, is she." Spike nodded slowly. "Okay, so you want to go in there and try to get this thing. Keep it from Lox, and Wolfram & Hart, and whoever. Do you have a plan at all, or is it all just 'deep breath and hope for the best' stuff?"
"I have a plan." Wesley sounded defensive. Spike smiled.
"Which is?"
Throw a party, stake some vampires, slay a few dragons. "Go in, get the device..."
"And get back out again. Great plan, Perce."
"You have any better ideas?" Wesley's temper was still short, and Spike relented a little. As he saw it, the poor guy was sensitive enough at the moment without teasing to cope with as well - and with good reason. He shrugged.
"Not really. Want some company?"
"You want to help!" Wesley was amazed. He and Spike had had a workable relationship in the past, but they had certainly never been friends. On the contrary - Spike seemed to have latched onto the Watcher as a target for insults second only to Angel. "Why?"
"Because it needs doing, you berk. Look, I'm coming, Pryce. Just you bloody try to stop me."
"That shouldn't be too difficult." Wesley was silent for a moment, then nodded his head. The assistance might turn out to be welcome. "Alright. You can come."
"I'm sodding well coming anyway." Spike stood up. "You want me to have one last look for Angel first?"
"No, he'd only want to come along, and I don't think that's a good idea. I'd rather keep the element of surprise as long as possible."
"Fair enough." Spike nodded. "Now, then?"
"You're really sure you want to come?"
"Yeah, I'm sure. You probably don't need to be alone in this." Spike fixed him with a particularly disconcerting glare. "Now?"
"Yeah." Wesley nodded, finally caving in. "Yeah. Now." And together they disappeared.
