Disclaimer: Angel belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, not me.
Author's Note: Sorry about the short first chapter, but it's hard to get into Illyria's head. She is the god-king of the primordial ooze after all! This one is more involved. Eventually, this will turn quite shippy, but I'm not going to tell who yet! Reviews, of course, are always welcome. They give me warm, fuzzy feelings.
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Cordelia Chase blinked twice as the light began to fade. Little dark spots skittered across her vision as she looked around. She was back, she realized, back in the lobby of the Hyperion. She moved to take a step forward and stopped when a low voice bellowed, "Halt!"
She looked up and saw Fred. Or rather, what had been Fred. The blue-haired woman glared at Cordy from across the lobby. "You are about to put your foot in the one called Spike."
Cordelia looked down and saw a small blue box like the kind bank's mailed your refill checks right at the hem of her white robe. She quickly took a step to the side. "So you survived."
"Yes. Even in my weakened condition, I am still more powerful than the soldiers of the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart," the demon-god replied without her usual haughtiness.
Cordelia had watched since her death, had seen Fred's spirit be destroyed, had seen this god-king of the primordial ooze move into what had once been her friend's body. It wasn't much of a surprise that Cordy didn't like Illyria. She folded her arms across her chest and returned the demon-god's glare. "And what about them? Is Angel in that other check box? What were you planning to do now?"
Illyria looked down at corpses at her feet. "I do not know. It did not seem right to leave them where they fell. I brought the half-breed called Angel in here so he would be at home when I gave him the final mercy. It seemed appropriate."
Cordelia blinked. She hadn't expected that, hadn't thought the demon possessed the compassion to think of such a little thing as bringing Angel in here to die, where he might be comforted by his surroundings. Suddenly, the realization that Angel was dead…all her friends were dead caught up with her, and she sat down hard on the lobby floor beside the check box holding Spike's remains. "Why'd the Powers bring me back if everybody's already dead?" she asked of no one in particular. "It was supposed to be simple you said! Angel was supposed to turn back on to the right path and would need a seer again. You said I was just supposed to come back and be the seer until I found someone else to pass the gift on to! Where the hell did everybody being dead come in to play?"
"You are mourning," the god-king informed her. The creature that had once been Fred crouched down in front of her. "You are a Higher Power and yet…" She one gloved hand and caught a tear that was trickling down Cordy's cheek on the tip of a finger. She placed the finger in her mouth, sucking the tear off on to her tongue. "You shed droplets of salty fluid. How is this so?"
"My friends are dead," Cordelia said as more tears flowed down her face.
"They were my companions as well. I have no peers—no one can match my power—but these…these creatures have a strange hold over me. A weak, emotional hold." Illyria sounded as if she were disgusted with the thought. She rose and walked back to stand by Gunn's head. "It will take much power," the god-king muttered to herself as she circled him. "It might permanently weaken me…it must be done." She dropped to her knees beside Gunn and sunk her hand into his gaping gut wound.
Cordelia's mouth dropped in horror as she watched the Old One at work. She tried to protest, but all that came out was a squeak.
Illyria looked up at her with those frighteningly inhuman eyes. "Do not fear. I do not desecrate his corpse. He was a most loyal creature. Perhaps, I have the strength to return him to himself."
Cordelia gulped and averted her eyes from where the demon had her arm up to the wrist in Gunn's stomach. "How do I help?" she asked, looking down at the spotless white robes that were the customary garb of Higher Powers when they visited the mortal plane.
Illryia continued on like she hadn't heard Cordelia's offer. "I will need the help of a she-creature. One with whom this mortal shared an emotional bond, the kind involved in mating. She will be the life-bringer to lure back the soul. I can restore the shell to functionality, but recalling the soul is beyond even my power. Odd, that a mortal will be able to do it."
Cordelia listened to the Old One talk to herself, surprised at how Fred-like the chatter was becoming as Illyria worked. At least, that's what Cordy assumed she was doing with the magic that was leaking from her hand and into Gunn's abdominal cavity. She could feel the power leaking from the demon to the corpse. She hadn't been able to do that before…when she had come back possessed by the creature that had been named 'Jasmine', but then she had been trapped, a prisoner in her own body, unable to do anything to help her friends as Jasmine attempted to take over the world. It had been horrible to watch, like a slideshow of the Holocaust that went on for hours and hours while you just sat there, wanting to turn away but unable to. She shuddered a little at the thought.
After what seemed like an eternity—and might well have been since Higher Powers didn't wear watches and there were no clocks left in the Hyperion—Illyria withdrew her hand from Gunn's torso. The wound closed up behind her, and Gunn began to breathe.
Cordelia rushed over and threw her arms around the prone street thug-turned-lawyer. "Gunn! Wake up!" she said, shaking his shoulders.
"The shell is animated, but the soul has not returned," Illyria said absently as she held her bloody arm in front of her. She was looking at it as if Gunn's blood was the most fascinating thing in the world. A red droplet was about to fall to the floor, but the demon stuck out her tongue and caught it like a child would catch a snowflake.
Cordelia wrinkled her nose. "So, Gunn's breathing but nobody's home?"
"I have summoned the life-bringing she-creature. She will come and call the soul back to the body."
"Who?"
"The one who has done so before. The shell has memories of this one dying." This time, when the god-king said 'shell', Cordy realized that she meant Fred. "The life-bringer restored him. She will do it again."
"And what if she can't?"
Illyria didn't answer but walked over to the check box that Cordy assumed held Angel's ashes. The blue-haired demon said down on the floor and crossed her legs in front of her. Then, with a formal deliberateness, she removed the lid from the box and stuck a finger in. Gunn's blood ran down her arm, propelled by more than gravity, and spilled across the dust. "This will take more energy. He has been dead a long time." Those freaky blue eyes looked up at Cordelia. "You will become bored."
"Ok…" Cordy stood and dusted her hands off on the robes. It left little smudges on the pure white cloth, but she didn't care. All the purity and light had been making her teeth ache anyways. "I guess I'll just poke around for a bit."
The downstairs of the hotel had been stripped—the weapons' cabinet emptied, the books in the office gone, even the pouf had been taken. The only things that were left were…junk. She found the checks Illyria had dumped out of the little boxes that were now serving as coffins for Spike and Angel. The name on the top of the checks was Wesley's, and Cordelia felt more tears leak down her cheeks as she put them back under the front desk. There was a Polaroid stuck between the shelf and the front of the desk. She pulled it out and bit her lip as she looked down at a picture of herself cradling an infant Connor in her arms. It must be one of the ones Angel had taken when they'd brought Connor home from the hospital. He was such a cute baby, she said, petting the pictured baby's cheek with the tip of her fingernail. A tear dripped off her cheekbone and landed on the white part that edged the photographed.
Reluctantly, she stood, holding the Polaroid in her hand. She didn't want to put it down, but there weren't any pockets in this ridiculous getup. "First project: find real clothes." She paused and wrinkled her nose, "I'm talking to myself?" What were the odds that Angel had left any of her old things here? Probably not very good, but she went upstairs anyway and began going through the rooms the Fang Gang had once inhabited. Everything was gone. The place had been pretty trashed when Jasmine's followers had all tried moving in, she knew, and then Angel and the others had moved to Wolfram & Hart. He must have sent a cleaning team back to get there stuff and generally pick up the place. The furniture had been left behind, and most of it was covered with white dust covers. She found the room she and Connor had lived in when she was pregnant with Jasmine. Just looking around the room made her shutter, and she closed the door and quickly headed down the hall, trying to put as much room as possible between her and the bad memories.
Eventually, her wanderings took her down into the basement. The cage they had built to contain Angelus still stood in the corner, the door open. She closed it and turned away. The washer and dryer sat in the corner, and, on a whim, she peaked inside and almost squealed with delight when she saw that someone had left a load in the dryer. Quickly, she pulled the clothes out and spread them out across the top of the appliances. It looked like a mix of Connor, Angel, and Fred clothing. Somebody must have done a little tidying before the move to the evil law firm. Quickly, she stepped out of the thin-soled white velvet slippers and shucked her robes, letting them lay on the cold concrete floor. Fred was so much smaller than Cordy had ever been, even in high school, but her undergarments were the only ones in the building, so Cordy wiggled into the too-small panties and decided to go braless. She pulled on a pair of Angel's black trousers, rolling them at the waist for they weren't too long, and then used a bit of clothesline she found on the floor as a belt. Then, she tossed one of Connor's baggy, nondescript long-sleeved shirts down. It covered the mess around her waist, but she still felt like a bag lady. Shopping was definitely in order. Unfortunately, she didn't have any money, and she doubted the demon upstairs carried a wallet.
As she leaned against the dryer, hugging one of Angel's black t-shirts to her chest, the basement door banged open, and Illyria appeared at the top of the stairs. "I require more human blood."
"I don't know how human I am," Cordy said as she picked up the Polaroid and headed up the stairs, still carrying the t-shirt, "But you can have some of mine."
"Your blood has more human properties than mine," the demon-god assured her as she led Cordy across the lobby. Gunn still lay unmoving with a check box on one side and Wes's corpse on the other, and next to Wes…
"Angel!" Cordy shrieked as she flung herself across the room at the naked body of the vampire that now lay where the check box-coffin had been only a half hour before. Even as she did so, she knew he was just a body without a spirit, but she couldn't stop herself from hugging him.
"It was an effort to restore his body," Illyria said as she moved to the other check box, "But his leadership is needed."
Cordy wasn't listening as she clutched Angel tightly to her. It took her a minute to realize that he was… "He's breathing!" she exclaimed as she let go of him. He flopped back and smacked his head against the marble floor. "Oh, dear." She pulled him back up by the shoulders, he head lolling back like an infant's. "I'm sorry," she apologized needlessly as she felt the back of his head for a lump. There was a little bit of one that mad her wince as she felt it.
"I could not restore the body to its formerly dead state," Illyria explained. "Now, your blood is required."
Reluctantly, Cordy lowered Angel's head to the floor—gently this time—and stood. It didn't seem quite right to leave him lying there naked, so she carefully arranged the t-shirt over his, uh…manhood.
Illyria offered her a dagger as she came over. Cordy didn't want to know where the demon had found it. Swallowing, she drew the blade across her lower arm and let the blood trickle into the check box. It damped the little mounds of Spike-dust and welled around them. "That is sufficient," Illyria said after a few moments. She squatted down and inserted a finger.
Cordy nodded and retreated, setting the bloody dagger down on the front desk. She didn't want to leave Angel and Gunn, even if it wasn't really them, but she also didn't want to stay here and watched Illyria work. She fled back to the basement and the raw memories there.