Disclaimer: Wesley and Lilah belong to Mutant Enemy and 20th Century Fox. If they belonged to me, you can be darn sure they'd have their own spin-off show.
A/N the first: Sorry this chapter took so long. Anyway, for those of you who are easily bored by flashbacks (like my excellent beta-reader), I should probably warn you that this fic will have quite a bit of them for the purpose of character exploration. Don't worry, there will definitely be some action later on.
Chapter Three: A Neck is Such a Fragile Thing
"We found him, ma'am."
To say that Lilah was considerably under whelmed would be an overstatement. The psychic had obviously meant the declaration to be resounding and climactic. Yet, Lilah barely lifted an eyebrow.
"You'll forgive me if I appear less than convinced," she answered, every syllable exuding the deepest scorn. "But you psychics don't exactly have the greatest track record. Don't get me wrong. I thought it was hilarious when you predicted "Gigli" would win an Oscar--"
"We have spent the past three days casting our most powerful charms over this map, ma'am. I assure you that our findings are correct."
Lilah narrowed her eyes. "First of all: If you ever interrupt me again, I will have your fingers and toes cut off and used as ornaments for the next office Halloween party."
If the psychic were at all scared, she hid it well. Her eyes merely widened slightly.
"Second of all: Where?"
The psychic flipped the map around so that Lilah could see. "Here," she said, pointing towards the top of what Lilah thought looked like Southern France. "In Bordeaux." She moved the map aside, only to push another towards Lilah. "This is a map of Bordeaux. He's on this road here. Rue Montesquieu. I can get you an exact address--"
"Then get it. Pronto."
And in an instant, Lilah was headed out the door and back towards the elevator. When she returned to her temporary office, she immediately started barking orders at the secretary, who was waiting at the door and twirling a lock of her hair absent-mindedly. "Get on the phone to Oceanic. I need a first-class ticket to France. See if they have anything going directly to Bordeaux."
The secretary (what was her name? Enid or Evelyn or something like that) jotted everything down perkily. "Oh, wow, first-class! I bet you'll meet some hot, rich businessman--"
"I don't meet men," Lilah retorted with a sneer. "Men meet me."
What's-her-name obviously had trouble understanding Lilah's meaning, so she just smiled vacantly. Lilah considered having her tortured. Anything to get that stupid dimwit out of her office.
"Just get it done." And with that, Lilah turned back to her desk and eased herself into the soft, leather chair. She needed to file several papers in order to depart on an overseas business trip.
The secretary, however, didn't leave. "This is all, like, so cool. I mean, France! All the shopping and stuff! So I guess you must have found that missing soul, right?"
Lilah was quickly running out of patience. "That," she said with a clear note of warning, "is absolutely none of your business."
"And that," answered the secretary, also with an unmistakable threat, "is where you are wrong, I'm afraid."
Lilah was shocked for a moment. The secretary's voice was no longer peppy and nauseating. Instead, it had grown deep and other-worldly. Lilah composed her face into an expression of nonchalance as the secretary's face melted away, as if she were nothing more than a wax statue. After a minute, all that was left of the faux-assistant was a puddle of skin-colored slime on the floor. In her place stood a Senior Partner.
"Master Ecnel'ovelam," Lilah intoned. "I must say, this is a lovely surprise."
"No need for flattery," said the demon, waving aside the pleasantry. "Tell me honestly. Was I a convincing airhead?"
"You certainly fooled me. I can't remember the last time I've been so annoyed."
Ecnel'ovelam grinned. "Excellent! I've been working on my shape-shifting and character-acting. I wasn't sure I could pull off 'cheery'. But that's beside the point." He fixed Lilah with a hard, calculating look. "I've come to check on the progress of our purloined soul. You said you're headed to France. Am I to assume Mr. Wyndam-Pryce's soul is currently residing there?"
"I'm just working off a hunch, sir," answered Lilah carefully. "The psychics aren't sure yet. I'm on my way to check it out."
"Best hurry along, then. I'm sure you understand the Senior Partners' restlessness in this matter. You can expect a few more visits until you've managed to find the soul. Patience is a virtue, so naturally…."
"You don't have any," Lilah finished for him. "Of course. I'll have everything together for you according to schedule. No worries, sir."
Ecnel'ovelam grinned wider, showing many rows of very sharp teeth. "I didn't say we were worried." And with that, he vanished in a flashy display of lightening and fire. Show-off.
Lilah leaned back in her chair, propping her feet up on the desk. So the Senior Partners were checking up on her. Making progress reports. She hadn't expected this. It would be quite a bit more difficult to hide Wesley's soul with the higher-ups breathing down her neck.
Why were they so fidgety, anyway? Surely one soul couldn't mean that much to them. Granted, Wesley had been a pivotal player in the destruction of the Black Thorn. No doubt the Senior Partners were readying his own private torture chamber, heating the coals and so forth. But to reanimate a dead employee, give her unlimited resources, and make frequent assessments of the situation? It all seemed a bit much.
Something clicked in Lilah's head. It wasn't about Wesley. Not entirely, at any rate. This was about Angel. The Senior Partners wanted revenge. And what better revenge than the torture of one of Angel's nearest and dearest?
Perhaps the Partners even planned to hold Wesley's soul for ransom. Angel was, after all, still missing. Wesley could be the perfect bait. It would be so easy to lure Angel into a trap….
Yes, it was all making sense to Lilah.
There was a moment when it all made sense to Lilah.
She was running down the empty corridor. Limping, really. The wound in her gut made it hard to progress very quickly. There was a painful stitch in her side, and her breath was catching. She could taste sweat and blood in the corner of her mouth.
Nevertheless, adrenaline was keeping her moving at a steady pace away from the threat. Away from Angelus.
Lilah wasn't used to relying on anyone to save her. Yet as she stumbled along the passageway, she couldn't help but pray that Wesley would swoop in and rescue her, the way he had rescued her from the Beast at the Wolfram and Hart slaughter. If she had time to consider the feeling, she probably would have cursed herself for becoming some stereotypical damsel-in-distress.
Out of nowhere, a hand came at her throat, the same way Wesley's hand had choked her so many months ago. For a moment, she was sure it was Angelus, ready to maul her, torture her, kill her. But Lilah blinked, and the face before her was not that of her least favorite vampire. It was Cordelia, and Lilah breathed a very small sigh of relief. Safe for now.
"He's gonna kill us." It was all Lilah could manage, and all she could think to say.
Cordelia's face remained blank, though her eyes were piercing. "I know."
And in that instant, Lilah understood everything. The pieces came together in her mind. Cordelia was the Beast's Master. She had ordered the attack on Wolfram and Hart. She had released Angelus. And she was going to murder Lilah.
In less than a second, Cordelia was raising a rough dagger over her head. If Lilah had a moment more to react, perhaps even if she'd been in better health, she might have been able to block the strike or move out of its path in time. But she was tired, and wounded, and shocked, and scared. And there just wasn't enough time.
The blade pierced the side of Lilah's neck as if she were little more than a pillow. Pain exploded in her head. Her vision blurred, and she felt her legs give out. Lilah's body hit the floor with hard thump. As the blood rushed through the gaping hole in her throat, her weakening heartbeat only serving to pump the life out of her more quickly, Lilah thought about how she had failed herself.
She could just make out the hazy shape of Cordelia (or whatever it was masquerading as Cordelia). She was speaking to Lilah. What was she saying? Was she insulting her? Yes, something about being a 'stupid bitch'.
I'm not stupid, Lilah thought as she breathed her last. I figured it out before anyone else.
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Wesley was panicking. It had been a long time since he'd panicked.
Lilah was wounded, perhaps fatally. The Beast was only a few meters behind them, his massive hooves pounding steadily. He could catch up to them any moment. And if that happened, there was no telling how many pieces they would be when he was done with them.
He had a nine-millimeter strapped to his hip, but he already knew how ineffective his bullets were against the colossal stone creature. His only chance was the grenade in his jacket pocket.
After the explosion, he grabbed Lilah and moved as quickly as possible down the hall. He could still hear the Beast behind them. The grenade hadn't slowed him down as much as Wesley had hoped. And there just wasn't enough time.
He could have left Lilah behind. It would have given him a chance to escape. But he wasn't in this hellhole for nothing. He had come to rescue her, even if she didn't want him to do so.
Something was pulling at Wesley. He felt a terribly strange sensation, as if he were being poured into a glass. What was happening? His dreams were becoming cloudy….
As a boy, he wasn't particularly fond of physical activities. He couldn't swim, he didn't have the proper coordination for ball, and he was probably the slowest runner in his class.
But there was a tree behind his house. A large, beautiful oak. Wesley loved it. And when he grew tired of being cooped up inside with nothing to do but study, he would often climb up the tree and look out over the grounds. He was always amazed at how grand everything looked from the very highest branches.
One day, as he sat up in the middle of the oak, he spotted a suspicious looking clump of twigs. As he climbed over to it, branch by branch, it became clear what the bundle was. A nest. And snuggled on top was a pretty little bird.
Wesley was allergic to most animals. Those few that didn't cause him to erupt into gales of sneezing usually didn't take too kindly to him. More often than not, he would be on the receiving end of a vicious bite or scratch.
And yet, this plump little Goldfinch let him approach without attacking. Wesley was even able to reach out a finger and stroke the top of her head. He counted six pale blue eggs beneath her.
Wesley made a habit of visiting the bird's nest every day. Whenever he was chastised by his father, whenever he grew bored with the musty house, he would run outside and climb the tree. He desperately wanted to see the eggs hatch, which would no doubt be any day.
One morning, Wesley awoke to a loud thwack on his bedroom window. He walked over, bleary-eyed, to see what had caused the sound. Had someone thrown a rock? But he could see no one on the grounds from his position on the third floor. So he threw on a dressing gown and slippers, and he marched down the stairs and out the door.
It was his bird. His cute little Goldfinch. Lying dead on the ground. For some reason, she had seen fit to leave her nest and fly straight into his window. Her neck must have broken on impact.
And Wesley sat beside her and cried as only a seven-year-old can cry. Great, heaving sobs that racked his body. The grass was staining the seat of his clothes, but Wesley didn't care. The bird's eggs were due to hatch soon. And now they never would.
After almost half an hour of weeping, a plan began to form in Wesley's brain. His father was a Watcher. He had hundreds upon hundreds of scrolls detailing magical incantations. Surely there would be something there….
So Wesley waited until his father had left the house later that morning. He then snuck down to his father's study, which was in the basement of the East Wing. He carefully pulled books off of the shelves, searching for any sort of resurrection spell. Most of the titles were in dead or demonic languages, but Wesley spoke nearly all of them.
After two hours of searching the large office, Wesley found an ancient scroll: "Handbook of the Undead". Most of it was useless garbage about raising zombie armies to take over the world. But at the bottom was a spell that sounded very promising.
So Wesley returned to the area under his bedroom window where the carcass of the bird remained. He knelt beside her and made all the proper markings in the dirt. And he began to read the spell.
No sooner had he read the first line, however, than a large hand grasped his shoulder. Wesley spun around, thinking that the gardener must have spotted him across the lawn. But the face that met him was that of his father, returned home early.
And so Wesley's father marched him into the house and rebuked him for fifteen minutes. "This spell is dangerous," he explained. "You probably would have exploded your brains. The power would have overwhelmed you. And even if you were an expert sorcerer, a resurrection spell is one of the most dangerous things you could attempt. There's no guarantee that the thing you're raising will be the same as you would hope."
Later that night, after Wesley had cried all he could for the bird that had meant more to him than his precious books, he wondered what it would be like to be sucked back into life after death had taken you. What would it be like to be resurrected?
And as the memory faded, Wesley felt his body form, felt his heart beat, felt himself breath for the first time in a week. He was alive.
-----More to Come-----
The guesses so far, here and on Giles(2 votes), Ethan(1), Dawn(1), Willow(2), Cordy(2), and Andrew(1).
Many thanks to cursedgirl, Rissa Rose (I actually considered making the secretary Harmony), Ruth Quist, gopie, -J, irish6red, kittyge, WesLess (I'll definitely explain Lilah's agenda soon), Luckysparkle, torontokid2003, and greensleeves8 for the reviews thus far.
Happy Easter everyone!