A/N: Just so nobody gets confused, Hamilton is Shadow—they're the same person, Shadow is his code name, or whatever. Understand it? Good.

Again, I'm terribly sorry about the lateness of updates—I have an increasingly busy schedule, and that results in writer's block. I'm trying as hard as I can.

Chapter Four

Illyria.

Wesley's voice, strong and forcefully calm, resonating through Fred's mind as a memory as she curled up into a tiny ball, trying to get warm.

Illyria, come back.

She couldn't believe it when she'd first heard the words come from his lips, and still refused to believe it now. Illyria was dead; Wesley was out of his mind.

You have made your point, and I am willing to negotiate if you let Fred go.

Illyria couldn't make a point—she couldn't do anything. Fred had killed her months ago; she alone was in control of her own body. She was still paranoid, yes, but logic dictated that the dead stayed dead, especially when it was the dead's soul that was slain, not just the body. Illyria had to be gone; all Fred had to do to prove it was to wake up from this very strange dream and feel Wesley's arms around her, his warm body between the sheets, his soft skin.

Unconsciously Fred felt around the bed, trying to find him, but by all appearances she was utterly alone. Her eyes flew open and she saw the one thing she dreaded to see: she was in the loft bedroom of her soul's house, the air frosty around her. Alone.

"No!" her voice emerged as a mere whisper, as if the still air was unable—or unwilling—to receive her shriek. Fred threw back the covers and tiptoed like a ghost across the room to the antique vanity, silently interrogating the mirror, watching her own sunken reflection, her pale skin and shadowed eyes and the tears that began to roll down her cheeks. Wesley had called Illyria into the body, trapping Fred in the soul's house, and the physicist had no idea why; for this she cried. For Wesley and his love, she cried. Fred stood in front of the vanity and cried into the silence, the tears warming her face.

Suddenly rage boiled beneath her skin; her arms moved, and Fred swept her hands sideways across the surface of the vanity, swiftly clearing away the singing jewellery boxes and scattered gems in one violent shove that sent them all crashing to the floor, the broken shards glittering as her scream of helplessness and fury rang in the air. Fred sank against the polished wood, a sob forcing its way out of her throat, and she buried her face in her hands and sat among the slivers of glass and porcelain and cried for herself. I don't understand…why? Oh, god, why have I been taken from him again? Why?

She had survived five years in hell; she had been ripped away from her soul mate twice and had killed an ancient demon god. All manner of strange things had happened to her, but at the moment, Fred Burkle had never felt as lost as she did now.

----

The girl-prisoner awoke very slowly, hardly daring to uncurl her body to check if the men were still there. The rusty chains on her wrists chimed as she unclenched her blood-drenched fists. Her blond hair was knotted and tangled, soaked in sweat.

Again. Again and again and again she was awakening to taste her own blood in her mouth and listen to the ever-present invisible voices in her mind as her wounds got rubbed in the dirt of her cell and laced through with infections. Every day, weaker and weaker, but she could never die.

The girl sighed into her tears and closed her eyes again. She remembered a time, so far away now that it was almost a dream, when she lived free and her wrists were not tied down. The details of this life were fuzzy and blurred around the edges, and every time the girl searched for them she found them farther and farther away from the reaches of her thoughts.

Before she could find them, though, the voices took over her mind, whispering—

Betrayer.

He has betrayed us.

Deserter—

Called on the demon.

TRAITOR!

—echoing in a rising crescendo until the girl's hands flew to her ears and she bit the inside of her cheek to silence a scream, drawing copper-tasting blood that soured her tongue but kept the girl from crying out.

No matter what, she must not cry out.

----

"You know, you don't have to just stand around. You could help me."

Illyria shot a scowl towards Wesley, who was sitting behind his desk, looking through his books. She began to pace again, folding her arms.

"I will not reduce myself to slogging around in the muck of chaos to search for information," she said proudly. "I have no need for research; I know all."

Wes sighed. "You might, but I don't," he muttered under his breath. It was just past nine in the morning, an overcast and cloudy day; Wesley had showered and dressed properly without breaking down again, and had managed to get Illyria to stay in his office without anyone seeing her. He was trying to put his little meltdown out of his mind, but couldn't blame himself for it; at least now that he'd gotten past it, Wesley was able to work very calmly—strangely calmly, considering the conditions of his research. Illyria was very much like a gunshot and morphine at the same time; she was more painful than he could have ever imagined, but yet she was also a numbing agent, forcing Wes into absurd normality around her. He knew that Illyria was cunning, egotistic and very powerful, but she wasn't evil by nature; Wesley trusted her to keep Fred safe, even if it really was all just for Illyria's gain.

A knock on his door jarred him from his thoughts, and he looked up and met Illyria's annoyed eyes.

"It has been making noise for several minutes," she said. "I should rip its head from its body for the insolence it shows."

Gunn's voice, muffled by the door, came to Wes' ears. "Hey, English, are you in there? I want to talk to you."

Wesley sighed, crossing the room and reaching for the deadbolt. "'It' happens to be Gunn out there, and I'd greatly appreciate if he kept his head," he replied. "And stay here, all right? I don't want anyone seeing you until the opportune moment."

And with that Wes walked out of the office, shutting the door behind him but not locking it. He knew that keeping Illyria under wraps was pushing her patience; if she thought she was a captive, only god knew what would happen.

----

"Gunn? What can I do for you?" Wesley asked, standing outside the office. Gunn forced a very fake smile.

"Not too much. I just wanted to congratulate you on the completion of the Davidson project. It took a lot of guts, but you did it really well."

Wes' brow furrowed. "But Charles, I didn't—"

"—and no hard feelings about you taking the case, right?" Gunn cut him off sharply, throwing Wesley a look that was hard to interpret. "I mean, I looked over the work that you did, and I couldn't possibly have done it the way you did. Congratulations." Gunn stuck out his right hand towards Wes.

There was an awkward pause as Wesley stared at his friend's outstretched palm. Suddenly he understood and nodded, grasping Gunn's hand warmly and smiling.

"Thanks. I think all that hard work paid off," he said, and felt a piece of paper slide, invisible to anything that might have been watching, from Gunn's palm into his own. "Good to know someone cares."

"Of course, English," Gunn replied, visibly relieved that Wes had finally understood. "Anyhow, I gotta be going, but see you around, all right?"

"Right," Wesley replied, and headed back into his office. Shutting the door behind him, Wes opened and read the note that Gunn had passed to him.

Wes—I'm sorry to have to communicate with you in this way, but you know that we're always being watched, and this matter is of utmost importance that must be kept a secret. The White Room isn't working; the Senior Partners are going nuts, screaming like banshees, and for no reason. Two people have died trying to go in there, and I can't risk any more. Nobody knows what would cause the Senior Partners such anger, but I have a pretty good idea; I think that they're detecting a major presence of the Powers That Be, bigger than Cordelia ever was. I don't know where the PTB's presence is coming from, but I do know that it's worrying me. The Senior Partners are evil; we can't ever forget that. The Powers are the forces of good; what if they're finally reprimanding us for joining the evil side?

Wes read the letter twice, and then silently conjured a fire spell in his hand and burned the paper until it was nothing but a pile of ashes in his palm. As he threw the ash away, Wesley saw Illyria standing, arms folded, watching him, and he was suddenly hit with an alarming memory.

When Fred killed me, your gods forced me to protect her soul.

That's what Illyria had said. Your gods. The Powers That Be.

She must be the presence, Wes realized. The Powers must have put something in her during her imprisonment in Fred's soul, something that's showing red alerts on the radar of the Senior Partners.

He looked up to meet Illyria's eyes, and she glared.

"You look at me as if I am some sort of leech," she challenged crossly. "You are impertinent, Wesley. Why do you dare to degrade me so?"

Wes shook his head, breaking the gaze, knowing that Illyria would never back down. "Nothing," he replied weakly. "It's just…nothing. I was—Illyria?"

Illyria was staring past him, her eyes milky. She had put up her hand, stopping something that wasn't there; her body was frozen, tensed and ready for anything.

"Illyria? What's going…" Wesley trailed off, unable to finish his sentence. Deep inside his heart he felt something spark and grow, spreading through him like crystal formations of ice.

Illyria turned towards him, her vacant eyes the colour of an overcast sky. A single tear that did not belong to her trailed its way down a blue-tinged cheek.

"Betrayer," Illyria whispered in a stranger's voice, and suddenly she wasn't there. In her place stood three women: Lilah, Fred, and a young woman that Wesley did not recognize, a girl with blond hair and blue eyes and blood staining her skin. Their faces were stormy with rage.

"Fred—"

"Betrayer," The three spoke together, their voices haunting and hollow and dead, cutting Wes off. "You have deceived us. You will kill us. Betrayer."

Wesley took four or five very small steps towards the three women until he stood squarely in front of Fred. His hand moved to touch her cheek, but her skin burned him, forcing Wes to pull away, gasping softly in pain. Fred, never once showing any emotion, raised her own hand and slapped him across the face, a blow that stung Wesley's skin and sent an icy shock through his blood.

"You have betrayed me," her voice was an icy, unnatural whisper that Wesley would never forget. "You are a traitor of the soul, and the soul shall take what you hold most dear as a result." For a moment Illyria's image shone through Fred's body, like a glimmer on water; Fred stepped back into line with the other two women, and then Wesley's attention was drawn to the third, unidentified girl as she spoke in a voice worn down by screams.

"My traitor," she whispered, and suddenly, inexplicably, she turned into Illyria.

The image faded, the three women disappeared, and suddenly it was just Wesley and Illyria alone again in the office, trying not to exchange equally shocked stares. Wes' cheek still stung from Fred's blow, and when he looked in the mirror he saw a mark in the faint shape of a hand that flared red and then faded.

Fred, Wes allowed himself a brief moment of thought for her. But I haven't betrayed you…I'm trying to help. I'm trying to help you.

And then the lights above his head exploded, forcing all other thoughts out of the way as the room darkened, illuminated only by the cloudy daylight from the windows. As Wesley watched the broken glass from the lights shower the room like snow, he thought he heard a voice screeching with fury from the depths of Hell, a voice that was every horrible thing in the world combined into one sound—the true voice of the Senior Partners:

My traitor.

----

In his office, Hamilton saw the power go out and clenched his fists in frustration as his computer winked out and the presence of the Senior Partners rushed through his veins like a shot of caffeine. That damned girl—she was going to lose him his job, and for what? Just to accomplish his mission.

That old man had better pay a good price, he thought. I'm putting everything on the line for this, and I'd better get double in return.

With a sigh, Hamilton rose from his desk and trotted off to see what he could do to calm the Senior Partners down and keep his façade intact.

----

Inside her cell, the prisoner shrieked when the lights suddenly shattered, plunging her into the darkness. She dragged her body into a corner, curling herself into a tiny ball, crying with fear.

"Oh, god, don't leave me alone with them," she sobbed as the voices descended. "Don't leave me in the dark. Please. Please…"

The voices of the Powers That Be began to resonate in her mind again, and the girl's crying increased. Their message was clear: We are very displeased.

The girl screamed again, covering her eyes with her hands, a desperate attempt to silence them. "Stop it!" she screamed. "I didn't do anything! I didn't do anythin! I just want to go home!"

----

Deep inside her soul's house, Fred raised her head from her arms as a disconnected scream rang and echoed faintly through the air. I just want to go home!

Fred sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, suppressing an absurd smile.

So do I, she thought, wiggling her toes to warm them up. More than anyone knows.