Summary: A flashback and an invisible man.
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money, Joss Whedon's, yadda yadda.
Thank you a million times over for reviewing, and I'm SO SORRY I haven't updated in so long! I'd apologize even more, but you probably want to read the story (if there's anyone left who isn't really mad!).
Flashback:
"Hi, there."
Lilah looks up.
"Hello."
"You're Lilah, right?"
"Your point being?"
The young man with the long drawl and ill-fitting suit looks taken aback.
"W-well I was just saying hello, s-seeing as we'll be working together. I'm your new fellow intern."
"Wonderful." Even at eighteen, Lilah has already developed her trademark snake tongue.
"Um… Hey, I don't wanna bother you-"
"Too late," she mutters.
"-but, why are you working on that? Isn't it our lunch hour?"
She glares at him with eyes that are half-full of a teenage girl's disdain, the remainder being taken up by her early-blooming ambition.
"Listen, Southern Belle," she snaps. "You just stay out of my way. When your internship is over and you get shipped off to Hokeyville community college, I'm going to be first in my class at Harvard. And when you get your start at some small-town law office, I'm going to be working my way up to the top of Wolfram and Hart. I know where the power is, and you know how to be nice to people. In other words, you're worthless. So don't try to snuggle up, 'cause friction'll only slow me down."
The boy smiles and suddenly Lilah feels shivers up her spine.
"I'll keep that in mind, Miss. Morgan." Opening the cheap spiral notebook he is carrying, he sits down next to her and start sketching. The first thing he draws is some kind of symbol; one of those loopy Egyptian crosses superimposed on the half-circle and mallet from the Russian flag. Above it, he has scribbled the heading, "Enochian."
"My name's Lindsey, by the way," he adds, without taking his eyes off his drawing. "Lindsey McDonald."
Enochian! Dammit!
"Okay, Lilah, calm down," she told herself, sucking in huge lungfuls of gritty city air, smoothing her hair down automatically, trying to recover her composure. "Just calm the hell down. The fact that this old guy uses the same symbols Lindsey studied means nothing." Talking to herself was a habit she had picked up while writhing in hellfire. It was the only way she knew to cling to sanity.
"Let's think about this logically," she muttered, hoping none of her contacts caught sight of her as she stormed down the street, whispering to nothing. Part of the reason they told her anything was the air of strength and capability she had long ago learned to exude. That and threats of the Slayer on their backs. But their respect would probably fly out the window if they saw her now. "Similar symbols doesn't necessarily mean same person. And we all know Sirk doesn't side with good or evil; he just lets Nikki learn from him because he likes her. But what if-"
The idea hit her like a ton of bricks. The invisible man! Nikki had said that those markings prevented detection by technology or magic! If these symbols were what the invisible man was using, it would explain Jenna's vision of empty rooms and blank walls. He was there, she just couldn't see him.
Lilah debated momentarily on whether or not she should go back and offer Nikki her theory. Eventually she decided against it. In the first place, Nikki was smart; if there was a chance that these symbols were the key, she'd guess it soon enough. She had probably guessed it already. Second, Nikki had most likely known all about those symbols before now, seeing as she had been able to explain them to Lilah. It was best to let her research other possibilities, since there was no guarantee that Lilah's hypothesis was correct. For now, the best thing was to start asking after this invisible man.
Most adults in New York City could well remember the days when they were warned not to go into Central Park at night. Ever since the Hellmouth started bubbling up underneath it, however, it became dangerous to go there at all.
Ivane sidestepped a long, viscous trail of slime as he made his way deeper into the woods that had overgrown the entire southern half of the area (the northern part was mostly volcanic rock and fumes, with a frighteningly beautiful oasis in the center. Ivane was one of the few mortals to ever have reached it and lived). The thick trees that would have looked more at home in medieval Germany or Norway blocked out most of the sunlight, and the scant rays that managed to filter down were watery and ugly.
A pair of eyes watched from a thicket, completely still so as not to alert the strange young man's diamond-sharp senses to their presence. They rested first on the most conspicuous part of him – the acid-green hair that stood in natural spikes from his head. The mind that belonged to those eyes turned that fact over mullingly. Next they fell to his thin, lithe limbs and body. He crept along like a cat, so smoothly that he was almost indistinguishable from the gloom around him. His head turned toward a sound heard some distance away through the trees, and a pair of dark brown eyes nearly lit the branches on fire as he stared at them with a natural intensity made stronger by involuntary solitude.
As the immediate threat of danger passed, Ivane turned back in the direction he had been headed, and the eyes followed diligently, their training just as thorough as Ivane's own. They watched unblinking as Ivane followed a thin, barely-visible trail of blood, smeared on branches and spotted on the forest floor. The green and orange murk that passed for light in the park made everything dim and dreamlike. If he allowed the strange air of these woods to lull him into a false sense of security, Ivane would not be the first to die there.
The trail ended at the mouth of a cave, hollowed into a rock and diving deep into the ground, hidden by trees and possibly a weak concealing spell. Ivane leaned in cautiously and brushed the branches aside.
The eyes jerked back in surprise as Ivane let out a muffled cry. Dropping to his knees, he grasped the shoulders of the torn, mangled body he had discovered at his feet and tried half-heartedly to will it into life. But the little girl was dead, and the unseen watcher was unprepared to see Ivane draw his hands across his eyes as he closed the child's staring eyelids and attempted to make her look less… mauled. Then his face set into steel lines as he drew a long knife from inside his jacket and ducked into the cave.
Inside it was black. Ivane felt his way along the wall, groping blindly through the unnatural darkness. The air was thick, close, and warm, with the gasping smell of fear and rotting death threatening to choke the young man and his unseen stalker.
Five feet. Ten feet. Ten yards. The cave didn't seem to end, and with each step Ivane tensed further. He had been inside for a full five minutes, slipping soundlessly along the damp, sharp rock wall, and still his eyes had not accustomed themselves to the dark. He imagined what Kearm would say if he knew he was doing this. What? You went into a dark, definitely demonic place on your own, you couldn't even see, you had no idea what you were dealing with… Ivane, buddy, even normal Watchers aren't that stupid. A normal Watcher would need like a battalion of paratroopers behind him going into something like that. You would at least need me. I'm very disappointed. You're not supposed to leave your friends out of the fun. Ivane smiled tightly. Just like Kearm would never understand Ivane's way of thinking, Ivane would never understand Kearm.
Lilah would probably just stare at him for a while and then walk away, shaking her head and muttering about how the only the idiots get lucky and don't get killed. Nikki would either roll her eyes or hide under a blanket somewhere until Kearm got her out, depending on what kind of shape her mind was in that day. Jenna would tell him he was insane, and Carlotta… Ivane winced. You're not supposed to think about her when you're in danger. It lowers your concentration. Carlotta would snort and walk away.
That hurt worst of all. She wouldn't tell him he was stupid, she certainly wouldn't tell him to be more careful. And Lilah would win the Nobel Peace Prize before the Slayer worried about him. She wouldn't even say his name. Not once, in the three months since he had arrived in New York, had Carlotta called him "Ivane." She never even called him "Watcher." It was "you," or "hey," or, more often than not, nothing at all. Their training sessions were considered frequent if they happened three times a week.
It's not that I don't try, Ivane thought bitterly as he made his way deeper into the blackness of the cave. But I do find it hard to work with someone who pretends I don't exist.
The unseen watcher creeping behind him heard it first – a low, gargling growl up ahead. Ivane registered it an instant too late. Within the space of a heartbeat, the creature leapt.
The battle would have been pathetically brief. Ivane was an expert fighter, but the creature had caught him by surprise and flung him against a wall. With his head swimming from the blow, and his stomach overturning from the bloody carcass of another little girl into which he had been pushed, Ivane delayed once more and had no time to get to his feet. He felt the sharp, yellow touch of a claw on the back of his neck, and for a moment the pressure on his spine increased…
BOOM! It echoed wildly throughout the cave, the thousand repetitions hiding the naturally higher pitch of the sound and making it reverberate like a bass drum. The pressure on Ivane's neck disappeared, and the claw dropped to the floor, mimicking the thud that the creature's body had made instants before it. Rolling onto his back, Ivane saw a spark and then a flare of light, as a tall, thin figure struck a match and touched it to the end of a branch lying on the cave floor.
Raising the makeshift torch above its head, the figure turned to look at Ivane. It was a man of about forty – Lilah's age – with cold blue eyes that examined the young Watcher sharply from behind thin, metal-rimmed glasses. The beginning of a brown beard, the same color as his hair, was just visible in the flickering orange light.
"That was very foolish," the man said, offering Ivane his hand to help him up. Ivane stayed where he was.
"You're a Watcher!" he cried. The man looked taken aback.
"What?"
"You're a Watcher!" Ivane repeated, too confused and angry to remember to stand. "I recognize your accent!"
"So do I," said the man, and something about his voice seemed regretful, although his eyes never changed. "You are one too." Ivane's manner became sullenly defiant.
"And what if I am?" he demanded, as the man crouched down to examine him more closely, pocketing the pistol that had killed the monster. "I suppose you're here to ask why the bloody hell the Slayer isn't dead?"
"No."
"Oh." Time to be civil and official, then. Ivane took a moment to compose himself before continuing as politely as he had ever been taught to speak to an older Watcher. "Well, make certain that you report back to the Council that losing an arm has not hindered the Slayer in the least, and that she is as apt and cunning a Slayer as I have ever heard of."
"You're her Watcher?"
"I am."
"Why the hell did they send someone so young? You will have to excuse my questions," the man added. "I have not been a Watcher for some years now."
"Hm." Ivane nodded, accepting the story after a moment's consideration. "They did not expect her to live long. I was… expendable, but I will count on your word not to repeat that."
The ghost of a smile seemed to haunt the man's face.
"Not a word." He got to his feet, and once again offered his hand. "What's your name?"
"Jefferson Ivane, but whatever you do don't call me Jefferson, and don't tell anyone that that's my name." Ivane took it and stood. "Who are you?"
"Wesley Wyndam-Pryce."
"Every so often," Carlotta announced, "being a Slayer has its perks. I mean, how many careers let you beat up slimeballs for information on an invisible man?"
"Well, the beating up slimeballs part, maybe a cop," Jenna answered as they picked their way through the rubble of the Sunshine Theater on their way to Alphabet City and the Bowery. Rolling clouds made the day steadily darker, and unseen things slithered like mercury just outside their line of vision. "The invisible man? Only thing short of mystical that could get you that particular perk would be a sci-fi writer."
"I never had a way with words."
Jenna was about to come back with a witty comment when a slice of pain hit her right over the eyes and faded into the abandoned storefront in front of them.
"'Lotta," she said sharply. The Slayer heard the urgency in her voice and turned, immediately on alert.
"Back here," was the Seer's only response to Carlotta's look. Motioning for her friend to follow, Jenna ducked into a nearly-hidden alleyway to the right of the building, eyes straining in the gloom.
"I saw this in my vision," she whispered. "The invisible man went down this way, back behind that wall. There was a… a street, I think it had once been part of the next block, but when the two sides of the road were pushed up against each other it was blocked off. There's a place back there… with a burning cross in the window. The door opened… and I guess he went in."
"Is he still there?"
"I don't know. Do you think we should-"
"Quiet."
"What?"
"Sh."
A slow, cold tingle was making its way up Carlotta's spine. Her nerve endings jangled, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. Every last survival instinct, those of the Slayer along with those of a hunted animal, were buzzing frantically, like the hiss of florescent lights over a classic concert.
Terror was climbing through her stomach.
"Oh, my God," she whispered. A hundred memories of a hundred haunted nightmares spun through her mind. Fangs and ridges, blood and laughter… and a voice as cold as a vampire's pulse. "Jenna."
"What?"
"There's something wrong. And move. We're standing over a sewer."
Jenna jumped back in alarm, knife in hand, staring at the manhole below her feet, her eyes wide with fear.
"He's down there," Carlotta whispered. "I feel him."
"Who? The invisible man?" They kept their voices low, as though speaking out loud were too dangerous.
"No. Him."
"Carlotta, who?"
"I-I don't know. I've seen him… I've dreamed… he's… he's here. And, Jenna… he's bad."
Jenna had never seen the Slayer look so frightened.
"'Lotta, calm down-"
"Hello, girls." The voice came from below them, cold and taunting. Jenna gave an involuntary shriek.
"Remember me, Slayer?"
Carlotta was as white as a sheet.
"Who are you?"
"Run, girls. You have thirty seconds."
"Carlotta, what the hell-"
"Run!" Carlotta grabbed her hand and started running, faster than any mortal ever could, but still feeling as though she were in a dream, as though her legs were stuck in molasses. Thirty seconds later, the illusion of the alleyway dissolved, and the sidewalk – all the way up to Jenna and Carlotta's heels – melted away to reveal what had really been there; the yawning gap of the long drop into the sunken subway.
"Carlotta, what was that?" Jenna demanded as they all but sprinted home; it wasn't much safer than anywhere else, but the idea of walls suddenly seemed very secure. "What just happened?"
"I don't know!" Carlotta panted. "I've never seen an illusion that good before! I mean, it actually held us up! Whoever this is has some serious magical firepower at their disposal!" The two girls slowed to a walk.
"Whoever this is? You don't know him?"
"No, I just… I know that voice."
"From where?"
"From my dreams." Jenna caught her friend's arm and spun her around.
"Slayer dreams?"
"Yeah." They kept walking. "We dream about past Slayers… and sometimes about who killed them. This guy… he's killed us before. And it's the voice I recognize. Like he's making fun of you all the time."
"So, is he the invisible man?"
"He might be. I mean, we know he can conjure up massive mystic energy to be able to cast an illusion like that. It could be him or an ally of his. But I know I've heard that voice before."
Kearm slammed the door in disgust. Another empty house. He was halfway to Chinatown, and no one had heard a word about an invisible man since the previous Easter (Kearm hadn't been around for that one. He'd have to ask Carlotta about it.). There had been reports of strange break-ins, however. Magical shops were among the few businesses that had thrived since the opening of the Hellmouth, and several of them had found items missing, despite the fact that no robbers had been detected by magical or electronic means. That might bear looking into.
Three streets later, the signs on the crumbling buildings began to show signs of once having been Chinese characters. There were more people about now – not many, but a few, human and otherwise. Some glanced at Kearm suspiciously; others peered at him as though deciding whether or not he was easy prey. None of those seemed to think he was.
The smell hit his nose suddenly, as he idled past a crumbling restaurant, flecks of paint still clinging to the shredded banner. It stopped him short, as efficiently as a blow to the stomach. The Likhaih demon felt his blood run cold, his knees weakening for an instant, and his wickedly curved, rune-encrusted knife leapt to his hand. It had been nearly two years since that smell had last assailed his senses, but automatically his muscles tensed, sliding over each other as he crouched into the traditional attack position, teeth baring out of habit and eyes and ears on the alert out of instinct.
No one came. No challenger, no crowds, no master screaming orders and obscenities. Of course not, Kearm, his mind told him. You're years and miles and lifetimes away from that place. This is New York City. You fight when you want, to protect your own life, not at the orders of your master. That's all gone. But still the knife glinted, and a growl formed in the back of his throat.
He knew that scent. He knew to the hour how long it had been since he last smelled it. Burnt, ashy, oily, like the smell of burning flesh, one knew instinctively that there was something wrong with it. It was the harshness of it, the sense that there was something in the air that was not right. Two years, since Ivane had released him from the arena, the gladiatorial Hell where that smell and others, sometimes worse, were eternally pervasive. He owed more to the Watcher than he could ever articulate.
But where was it coming from? There was something lacking in it, now that he concentrated more, a bitterness that remained wanting. It was not live flesh that burned, but something dead. Not long dead, perhaps, but dead nonetheless. So it did not come from Kearm's homeland. In fact… his eyes narrowed. It came from within the restaurant.
He found the source at last, behind a closed door within. He could smell other things up here as well, none pleasant, but some particularly telling. There had been a mystical seal on the door up to about five minutes ago, when it had mysteriously dissolved. Now he sensed it building again, as though whoever had cast it had needed to take his energy away for the moment, to concentrate on an even more complex spell, and was only now returning to secure it. But it was still weak. Weak enough for…
CRASH!
The door broke easily – Kearm's bones were heavier than those of your average human. A man leapt to his feet, shirt half-open, a smoldering pile of spell components scattering around the room. His hand flew to the first object he could lay hands on – a broken, jagged piece of wood that lay on the floor, once a roof-support. He hesitated, then froze, however, in mid swing, as Kearm merely stood in the doorway, coolly examining the room.
"A little shabby," he remarked, adding amicably, "but then again, what isn't, in this town? I have to say, you've really used every part of this room to your advantage, so far as I can tell."
The man stared, completely thrown by the Likhaih's friendliness. The British accent might have added to the confusion as well; one does not normally expect a blue-skinned demon with the comb of a rooster, the eyes of a snake, and the hands of a man to sound like a Cockney cab-driver. Kearm used this delay to study the man carefully. Longish, disheveled brown hair, eyes that measured the demon carefully… actually, the eyes reminded Kearm of Lilah. They had the same habit of measuring people, putting off trust until they knew with whom they dealt. The man was stocky, and not tall, and my, Kearm thought. This is unusual. What the bloody hell is with those tattoos?
"Anyway," he continued, seeing that the man was about to speak. "I'm Kearm. Who're you, and why're you burning dead Kith'harn tusks?"
"What the hell are you doing here?" the man finally asked. His voice was odd; not deep, but raspy.
"You know," Kearm went on conversationally, "a friend of mine had a vision about an invisible man, and, well, I think it's interesting that you seem to be using items stolen from magical shops to reinforce spells that, I know from personal experience, hide you from magical surveillance. You want to explain that one to me?"
"I want to kill you so you won't tell anyone about me," the gravelly, energy-charged voice responded.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on there, mate!" Kearm put his palms up in front of him and laughed. "I'm not the only one after you. And if I don't go back, the Slayer's gonna wonder why, and I don't think she'll be all that nice when she finds out you killed one of her friends. So… who are you, why are you using those markings, and what are you doing in the City That Always Stinks?"
The man eyed him warily.
"Tell me one thing, first."
"Pleased to oblige."
"How did you recognize these symbols?"
Kearm smiled bitterly.
"You ever heard of the Realm of Gar-Gabelle?"
"Market-place, gladiator arena, slave trade? Hottest spot for evil in the British Isles and much of the Continent? Yes."
"How do you think they kept it from being discovered by non-magic people? And how do you think they kept us slaves away from the prying eyes of do-gooders trying to abolish the arena and the slave trade? I've known the smell of mixing those markings since before I was born. Mind you, they didn't use that alphabet on us. That looks too Asian, and therefore, higher quality and more difficult. They never bothered protecting us slaves with more than a handful of home-grown Gabellian runes. Now who are you?"
The man hesitated again.
"You said you know the Slayer?"
"Like I know me own hand."
"I need to speak to her."
"Tell me."
"No. I won't hurt her. I'm trying to warn her."
"No."
"I'm not going to tell you. Only the Slayer."
"Too bad."
"Take me to her then."
"Only if you don't bring weapons."
"How am I supposed to know if you really know her or not? I'm not going defenseless."
"Then you're not going."
"You're a Likhaih, right? Give me your word that nothing will happen to me, and I'll go with you – weaponless – to warn the Slayer."
"Done."
They shook hands, and Kearm watched as the man buttoned up his shirt and pulled on his coat, carefully verifying that there were no weapons concealed anywhere. The friends of the famous Sunnydale Slayer had been renowned for their loyalty. The companions of the current one were becoming notorious for theirs.
"So, Likhaih," said the man in his harsh, but not unkind voice as they stepped out onto the street. "What's your name?"
"Kearm. You, tattoo-man?"
"Lindsey. Lindsey McDonald."