Part II

Angel ordered her to strip, put her clothes in a pile, and turn a full circle in front of him before she came to the bed.

"You could have a stake under there," he explained.

"Maybe I'm just happy to see you." But she complied, taking the time as she moved to press fingers to her clit, working up what moisture she could. She knew better, after last night, than to expect help from Angel. As soon as she moved to the bed, he pushed her onto her back, straddled her thighs, and pinned her to the mattress with both hands.

He move his mouth down to her ear and whispered, "What's your game, Lilah?"

"Surrender." She tilted back her chin to give him an eyeful of her long neck. "It's a war, not a game, and tonight I surrender." Angel only grunted a reply, spread her thighs, and pushed into her while she was hardly wet. She didn't pretend to enjoy it, because she couldn't imagine that he cared. But she bit her lip against the pain, not giving him the satisfaction of a scream. Surrender, she thought, as she lifted her neck to his razor-edged teeth. Tactical surrender, not submission. An enemy combatant, not a helpless victim. Every surrender holds a victory. Losing the battle, winning the war.

"What's your game, Lilah?" Angel sat on the bedside, pulling on his shirt. She lay back on the pillow, closed a satin robe over her breasts, and pushed a gauze bandage to the fresh wound on her neck. It was the fifth night. She'd been living on red meat and leafy greens, ibuprofen and iron pills. .

"I'm on your side, Angel. I want you to know that."

He stood, fastening the belt around his waist. "You never could fool me, Lilah. Please don't think you'll start now."

"Fine. "I'm on my side. The point is, I'm not against you. At the moment, our sides happen to, well, coincide."

"You tried to help Sahjahn destroy my son," Angel said flatly.

"We were going to let Connor live. You heard Linwood give the order."

"Let him live so you could cut him open while his heart was still beating."

"And that was a mistake. But with Sahjahn no longer a player, since Holtz's bitch apparently trapped him in an urn --" Lilah raised her eyes to the ceiling and mused, "I haven't thanked her for that. I wonder, flowers or a fruit basket?" She looked back at Angel. "I thought we understood each other. I don't do evil just to be evil. I don't hold a grudge for its own sake. I'm not a vampire, I'm not Holtz. I'm not even Lindsey. Don't get me wrong, there's no evil I won't do, but there has to be a percentage in it. Right now, my firm's percentage lies in protecting you and saving your son."

Angel stepped toward the bed, his shadow looming over her. "What's your game, Lilah?"

"Maybe I ought to ask you the same thing. Why haven't you killed me yet?" She raised her hand to the bandage and stroked it. "Or I guess I should ask, why aren't I dead? Because you already pulled that trigger, when you locked me in that cellar with your girlfriends."

Angel reached down and rested his hand around her throat. "Maybe next time -" His finger slipped into the notch above her collarbone, putting pressure on her windpipe. "I'll just drink a little deeper."

The tendons in Lilah's neck strained against his grip. "Why not? You thought she was going to kill me then. You looked me straight in the eye, and you left me to die. I suppose you've already made piece with that choice, so why don't you just do it? Kill the bitch you've secretly been fucking, then play the Get out of Angst Free card." He pinched her windpipe tighter, and she gasped, "You won't."

Angel dropped his hand and averted his face. "You're right. Because I'm not like you."

"No. Because you're just like me. You won't kill me because there's no percentage in it. You get more out of me alive, because I give you something none of them can. They think you're only angry - only grieving - because of the baby." He turned, his expression unreadable. "Of course you want Connor back. But not just because he's your son. That boy was the only thing you have left of her. You can't say that to any of them, so you have to come here and take it all out on me. Because I'm an evil bitch and she was an evil bitch, and just maybe while you're fucking me you can pretend you're fucking--"

Angel grabbed her neck again. "If you know what's good for you, you won't say her name." And then his fingers traveled over her bandage, up to the ends of her long dark hair.

"We need to reconsider these prophecies." Lilah spoke to the assembled lawyers of the Special Projects division. "I believe we've been seeing things all wrong. Our role is not to destroy the vampire's child, but to preserve it." She turned to Linwood. "That's why it's so uncertain which side will the vampire be on. It's not Angel at the center of these prophecies at all. It's the child. And the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world. The prophecies are testing us. If we prove to Angel that we're the best people to protect his child, then we won't only have the son on our side but the father, all in one fell swoop. Win win."

"So what you're actually saying," Gavin cut in, "Is that, as fascinating as the daily State of Lilah's Pussy Reports might be, you haven't actually learned anything from the pillow talk."

"I'm not sleeping with him for information, Gavin," Lilah shot back. "It's a matter of loyalty. The more we can isolate him from his own people, the more he needs us to fall back on. And I've learned for a fact that Wesley is working on a spell to open the Qortoth."

"The problem being," Linwood said, "that according to every reference our mystics and shamans and wizards can find, there is no way to open the Qortoth."

"Would those be the same mystics and shamans and wizards who said the child couldn't be born in the first place?" Lilah asked. "I wouldn't exactly be putting all my money on that horse."

"Whereas an amateur linguist who got canned by the Watcher's Council?" asked Gavin. "He's your go-to guy?"

"So Wesley tries and he fails." Lilah shrugged. "Just that much more reason for Angel to lose faith in him. And if by some microscopic chance it works, I'll make sure I'm on the inside to handle damage control. Once again, win-win."

Linwood nodded sagely. "I must admit, Lilah, that you make a very convincing case. Gavin?"

Lilah smirked, leaned back, and looked at the other attorney. It was like they were in a comic book; she could almost see the waves of rage coming off of him. Peevishly, Gavin said, "Just one thing, Lilah. I've been staring at you for the last hour and. . . what the hell is with your hair?"

She shrugged and flipped her newly bleached, chin length cut. "You know what they say, Gavvey. Blondes have more fun. Not that you'd know about that."

Angel put hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. As was all too often true, his face betrayed no emotion

Lilah sat on the window seat, leaning back on hands. She wore a low-cut red dress; she knew the short blonde hair accented her green eyes, because she had practiced the pose, just as she practiced the soft high voice. "Hello, darling boy."

"You're nothing like her," Angel said. His voice gave no more help than his expression.

Lilah stood and walked toward him, putting extra action into her hips. "Why?" she asked, holding onto the artificial tone. "Because she liked to be in charge?" She stopped in front of him, and pressed a finger into his chest. "If you want me to -" Trailing the finger up, she touched his chin. "I can be in charge."

Angel turned on his heel and walked for the door. Over his shoulder, he called, "You're nothing like her."

Lilah lunged after him, breaking into her everyday voice. "Sorry. I tried to make myself freakishly short, but it didn't take."

"See?" Angel turned, and his annoying neutral stone face had given way to an even more annoying smirk. "You come on gentle, but you can't keep it up." He grabbed her wrist, digging his thumbnail into the soft underflesh. Lilah jerked against him, and tried to pull away, but she realized she'd break her hand off first, and so she went limp and still. "You don't understand her at all," said Angel. "Darla didn't play gentle. She really was." He reached out to stroke her hair. "Sweet. And gentle. And sensitive." His hand tightened around her throat. "Until she was right on top of you." As quickly as he had grabbed her, Angel let go. "You, you buck and you flail and you make a lot of noise, but when push comes to shove you give in. You're nothing like her." A faint smile touched his eyes. "A little like someone else I used to know, maybe."

"Wesley?" Lilah checked her wrist for damage.

"No." She looked up, and Angel's face was stone again. "Wesley," he repeated, and he couldn't keep the burning anger from his voice. The same raw hurt and resentment she'd heard there every time, but now there was another note.

"He's planning to do the spell soon," Lilah guessed. "Wesley really thinks he can open the Qortoth."

Lilah took Angel's silence as the best confirmation she would get, and walked toward her bookshelf. "I must admit, it fascinates me. I'm the one who fed you your own son's blood. Wesley just followed the signs and did what he thought was right. Yet here you are with me, and you can't say your old friend's name without murder in your voice." She picked up a leatherbound volume and tossed it carelessly to him. Vampire reflexes kicked in, and Angel grabbed the book before it hit the floor. He turned up the spine and read the title to himself.

"You a fan?" she asked.

"Paradise Lost?" He shrugged. "I've read it. I guess you pull for the bad guys."

"Oh please. Who doesn't?"

"Point taken."

"I forget." She stepped toward him, casually raising a finger to her mouth. "Why is that Milton said he wrote that?"

Angel played along in the tone of a bored schoolboy. "'To justify the ways of God to man.'"

"Theodicy," Lilah mused. "Explaining the existence of evil in a world created by God's love. Yet, if that's what the poet had in mind, I wonder - why does everyone only remember the devils and the sinners? Remind me how the story goes?"

"The serpent tempts Eve," Angel answered. "Then Eve tempts Adam. Adam knows better, but he can't resist the -" His eyes flicked down her - "seductions of the flesh. So, Lilah, is this your way of warning me against having anything to do with you?"

"Yes. Because I take lessons in sexual politics from a blind Puritan. Please." Lilah rolled her eyes and started to pace. "I went to plenty of Sunday School in my time. Chapel. Catholic schoolgirl."

"Naturally."

"I heard that story pretty often," Lilah mused. "The way I figure it really went down? God says, 'Don't eat the apple.' Lucifer comes along, makes a convincing case for indulgence. Eve considers the argument, chooses with her eyes open. Then she goes home and mentions it to Adam. Of course he is shocked! Shocked!" Lilah shrugged. "So she says, 'Sorry honey, forget I mentioned it.' Then he takes a nap and she whips up a fruit cocktail, says, 'Have some.' 'Sure honey, whatever you say -' They both get kicked out of the garden, but it's Eve who goes down in history as the evil bitch, when she was just playing the percentages. What do you think?"

"Ummm. . . ."

She lowered her eyes at him. "What? I'm taking theology lessons from a vampire now? That's not the point. I'm telling you. Eve was a player. Adam got played. You look at it in a certain way, and he's a victim."

"What are you trying to get me to say? You and Wesley share responsibility for what happened to Connor. Don't think that I forget that for a second. Even if Wesley let himself get played, that doesn't make him any less responsible for his mistakes."

"So Wesley let himself get played," she repeated. "Interesting. And, adding insult to injury, by someone who wasn't you. And that's exactly what you can't forgive him for."

"You all got played, Lilah. Sahjahn played you, and Holtz played everyone."

"No," she answered. "Holtz may have won - in the trapped-in-a-hell-dimension sense of winning, anyway - but all of us were playing against each other. Except Wesley. He was the only one too blind even to see the game."

Angel let out a mirthless laugh.

"Tell me I'm wrong," she said. "Tell me what scares you more. That this spell Wesley's doing won't work. Or that it will, and you'll have to decide whether to trust a blind man with your son's future."

"So, what? I should trust a pack of evil lawyers instead?"

"You know better than that. Trusting us will never be a temptation. But our interests coincide, and we have the resources to help you. That's better than trust." Lilah smiled. "Besides. Someone you don't trust can never betray you." Then she lowered her head and risked the Darla voice again. "You never trusted her in a hundred years. Did you, darling boy?"

Angel looked away, but after a moment he spoke quietly. "Sunset tomorrow at the hotel," he finally answered. "Wesley is going to open the Qortoth. You come alone. And if you try anything - if you even look at me a way I don't like - " He reached out to stroke her hair, and said softly - "you've never known pain before. And you've never seen me angry."