A/N: Good grief, this chapter was difficult to write. Fun once it got started properly, but hard; I think it gets the award for Most Rewrites Required.
Chapter Five
When the lights first went out, Wesley hardly noticed it; he was still reeling from his vision. He looked up and caught Illyria's glittering eyes in the half-darkness, seeing his shock reflected in her gaze.
"Did you see that?" Wes asked, breathless. "Those three women. Fred, and Lilah, and the girl with blonde hair."
Illyria's face was hard to discern in the dark, but she was frozen, listening, head cocked slightly with one ear facing the ground. She put up one hand for silence, and Wesley obeyed, curious.
Illyria's eyes, glistening blue, suddenly blazed with anger and she stalked silently out of the office. Wes jumped up and followed her, hoping to all holy things that she wouldn't be seen as she stalked across the lobby.
His brow furrowed as he followed her across the reception area; something was very wrong. The walls seemed to be screaming faintly. The air smelt burnt; the carpet was darker than Wesley remembered it to be, but that could just be the lack of lights—
Wait—
It was just him and Illyria in the lobby, alone.
They weren't supposed to be alone.
Today was the Davidson case meeting. There were at least fifty royal D'Ordan Demons who had, a few seconds ago, been standing in the lobby.
And two Slurgan demons had been taking their coffee break at the stairs, to Wesley's left. Styrofoam cups lay overturned on the black slate steps.
The new secretary, a Marmond shape shifter demon named Misty, was missing, too.
The demons were all gone. Nothing left but a few sprinkles of ash here and there, thickening the carpet that still held the memory of Fred's blood.
Wesley felt sick. Whatever had caused the power blackout had also just killed every demon in the building.
This cannot be good.
Overcome with dread, Wesley caught Illyria's arm and spun her around.
"Illyria, what's going on?" he asked in a whisper. Her eyes narrowed.
"He is there," she replied, her eyes shifting towards the elevator, and then she tore her arm from Wes' grip and continued to advance on the steel doors, walking so softly that her feet did not make a sound on the floor; Wesley followed behind, compelled to protect her even though Illyria was stronger than he was. He was worried.
What could possibly be in a lift that Illyria would be hunting?
—
Hamilton paced the short distance from one side of the elevator to the other. He had punched in the numbered code to gain access to the White Room, and the button was visible at the top of the elevator's panel, but Hamilton didn't dare to push it. He was fully aware of the anger of the Senior Partners; he could feel it, like razors being scraped across his bones.
We hate it! the voices cried. Get it out get it out! We don't want it here!
Hamilton rolled his eyes. Oh, god, there they went again. The Senior Partners were so traumatized that they couldn't do much other than babble mindlessly the same things over and over, all echoing in Hamilton's head. That girl he was keeping in the basement was more powerful than he'd first anticipated.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he replied for the fifth—no, wait, sixth—time, knowing exactly what was coming next:
You do! You brought it here, and we don't want it! Get it out!
Honestly. They were like children sometimes, so simplistic in their demands. Backward. It made Hamilton sick.
"I'm sorry, but there is nothing here," he said smoothly. This next part was his favourite bit of the conversation, and he had to hide the pleasure in his voice as he spoke again. "Can you tell me what it is you want taken away from here?"
Agonized screams for a few seconds, and then…silence. Hamilton grinned at the thought that he was actually upsetting the Senior Partners, shocking them into tormented silence for another few minutes before they began up again. It was almost a game for him.
Hamilton stopped pacing, waiting for the Senior Partners to begin again, but this time the itch in his mind said something else: Don't open the door! She's on the other side!
"What?"
But before he could question further, the doors to the elevator began to slide open and Hamilton saw who was standing there—and, without blinking an eye, unleashed the most deadly spell he could think of. He was smiling as the door closed again.
Well, she's not on the other side anymore.
—
Illyria reached the lift and stopped, puzzled; Wesley quickly folded himself into the shadowy recess of the other elevator's doors, unsure of Illyria's actions.
"How do you gain access to this room?" she asked, an order, and Wes obeyed by silently pushing the correct button. What happened next occurred in less than two seconds, so fast that Wesley could hardly see it:
The metal doors slid open smoothly with a small ding sound.
Illyria's face contorted into a mask of fury and shock.
There was a flash of brilliant white lightning.
Illyria was blown across the room, smashing into the opposite wall and crumpling to the carpet.
The elevator doors closed.
—
Wesley stumbled back, blinded, and through his closed eyes he felt a familiar light surrounding him; sure enough, when he looked, Wes saw Lilah, Fred, and the young unknown girl, furious, standing before him. Again, Wesley heard their deadened voices:
"There is one who has betrayed us. We shall have our vengeance."
Wesley's eyes widened. "What are you?" he asked softly. Lilah folded her arms across her chest.
"We're exactly what you see," she replied. "We are three loves, three jailers, three opposites from one another."
"What do you mean?"
The bloodstained girl—the one that had turned into Illyria the last time that Wes had seen the vision—stepped forward and put her hand on Wesley's shoulder; it felt like nothing at all. She smiled.
"Call from the basement," she whispered, and kissed Wes' cheek, her blonde hair tickling his face like the ghost of a breeze, and then Wesley was alone again, facing Illyria's crumpled body and the shadowy evil that lurked within the walls and had enough strength to nearly kill her.
—
Deep inside her soul, Fred raised her head as the floor began to tremble. The entire house was shaking; as she watched, objects fell off shelves and others tipped over, smashing on the floor. Fred heard a slow creaking behind her, and she jumped out of the way just in time as the vanity tipped over and crashed to the floor where she had been sitting not moments before. The windows cracked; pictures jumped off the walls and separated from their frames.
And as suddenly as it had begun, the shaking stopped. Fred sat frozen in the center of the room, surrounded by chaos, and for a full moment there was nothing but a lifting silence…
And then, with a booming crash that rattled Fred's bones, black stars exploded in front of her eyes and she was thrown back against the wall. Fred heard the voices echo in her mind, the voice of Illyria and of some strange sweet sound she could not identify:
"What do you want?" That was Illyria. Fred knew that voice very, very well.
We are displeased. Here was the voice she did not know, the sound that made her bones ring softly. The Powers That Be.
"You have no right. I have offered my assistance to Wesley, and he has accepted it. I have agreed to all terms, and he has agreed to mine."
But you are doing nothing. You are deceiving him.
"Do you think I do this for Fred, or for Wesley? You are all ignorant fools; Fred can die, and I shall not mourn her. I imprisoned her in the Kei-An Box, trusting that Kei-An would do his duty as the Soul Stealer and take her away. It was interfered, and now there is a price to pay."
Time is running out. You have a week, perhaps less, before the Soul Stealer takes you both.
"Then I shall do this for my own safety, nothing more. Do not try to play your games with me; I am far smarter than you believe."
We shall see.
Then the voices were gone, and Fred was numb all over. All the pieces fit together now. The nightmares…the flu…falling off the balcony…less than a week?
DYING???
Fred began to shake. No. No, I can't be dying, I just can't. Wesley and I…we're…happy. We're happy. I'm supposed to live a long life with him.
With a final defiant scream, Fred buried her face in her hands and began to cry. She had been faced with the absolute truth of her situation…and all she wanted to do was curl up into a ball that was tiny enough to roll through the cracks in her life and fall back into peaceful oblivion.
—
Wesley gently laid Illyria on his bed, rushing to shut and lock the door before anyone came to find him. He was still unsure of what had happened to her, and he wanted to find out—before his friends did. Calling Illyria back was worse than stealing Connor, and Wes knew it very well. He didn't want to be caught without being able to explain what he was doing—because this time, Angel and the others really would kill him.
So I really am betraying Fred, he thought. That's all I can do; I just betray her, again and again. She was right.
Illyria stirred on the bed. "Protector…" she whispered softly, her head jerking back and forth a little over the pillow. Wesley pulled up his desk chair and sat beside the ancient goddess, watching her with a wary eye. Whatever had been in that elevator—Wes had a nasty suspicion that it was the Senior Partners in some way or shape—had put Illyria under a very deep spell, one that refused to release her from its deceptive clutches. She moaned.
"Hannah…"
Wesley leaned forward, suddenly very interested. "Illyria?"
Illyria's eyes shot open, pale blue, unfocused. "Hannah," she whispered. "Call from the basement."
Call from the basement? That's what the girl—
Wesley's thoughts were very suddenly cut off as Illyria shrieked and gripped his arm like a vice, her blind eyes struggling to find something to see. Before he could control it, Wesley had fallen into the bright blue depths of Illyria's eyes, dropping out of reality and into something very different.
—
The girl in the basement huddled into her corner, shaking, trying to wipe the blood from eyes to no avail. The darkness was reaching out with crooked hands to grab and drag her down into the deeper depths of hell.
I want to go home! This is what she had screamed in those first earth-shattering moments of darkness, but she no longer remembered what home was. There was no such thing. The girl had been chained in the cell forever; she had been born in the harsh glow of the single light bulb that hung above her reach at the very top of her jail. The Lady had always been her captor, and when she was gone the Men had taken over.
The girl had always been alone; she had no age. She had always been there.
I have no name.
—
The first thing he heard was the scream.
Wesley turned, trying to discern the source of the sound, but it was disembodied; it came from, everywhere, and from nowhere.
"NO! NO! NO! I don't want to die!"
Wes tried to cover his ears, but the sound seeped into his mind and echoed there, too. Fred's voice, wild and terrified and hysterical.
Dear lord, Wesley realized in horror. She knows. She knows.
He had no way of reaching out to comfort her, no way to explain what had happened, and Wes could almost sense the coldness that Fred constantly felt. He was her only source of warmth, her soul mate, and he had locked Fred away in a tiny little house where she would lose her mind trying to figure out why he had betrayed her.
Betrayer.
Wesley closed his eyes, trying to find a way out of this strange place, and suddenly he felt a very familiar presence behind him. Wesley turned and, sure enough, Fred was standing behind him.
"Fred," Wes whispered, grabbing her hand. "I'm so sorry. I didn't tell you, and I'm sorry—"
"—find Hannah," Fred told Wesley. His brow furrowed.
"I beg your pardon?"
Fred tore her hand from his grasp and pushed him roughly, surprisingly strong. "Don't you listen to anyone? Call her from the basement! Find Hannah!"
Call her from the basement? This is new, Wesley thought. He touched Fred's arm as she turned away from him.
"I…I'm sorry, Fred," Wes tried again. "Please forgive me."
Fred began to laugh as she faded away slowly. "This isn't Fred, you idiot," she replied softly. "She's not here; I just came to make sure you follow instructions. Find Hannah, and don't betray her. Then you will understand."
And then she was gone, and Wesley was back in his own body, still watching an Illyria who was still unconscious. Wes' brow furrowed, thinking.
"Call from the basement," he whispered to himself, leaving Illyria and locking the door behind him. "Call from the basement…hmm…"
With a steady determination that came from an unknown source in his heart, Wesley descended the stairs to the main part of Wolfram and Hart. He bypassed the offices and elevators, heading towards the staircase the lay hidden behind a door in the farthest corner of one of the hallways; the staircase that led to the vast cellar of Wolfram and Hart.
Pushing the door open, Wesley stood at the top of the stairs and peered into the complete darkness, trying to discern some sort of shape through the gloom. He did not want to go down into the basement without some sort of light, but Wes didn't intend to; he just needed to know.
"Hannah?" his voice came out as a whisper, and Wesley cleared his throat and spoke louder, his voice echoing in the empty shadows below. "Hannah?"
An earth-shattering scream pierced the darkness, piercing Wes in the heart like a knife. He staggered, coughing, and the taste of blood seeped into his mouth as the scream echoed in his mind until he lost his thoughts:
"No! No! I have no name!"
