Disclaimer: I don't Angel or Prison Break. The Oracle a.k.a. Cass is mine, but if you want to borrow her for whatever reason, just drop me a line and then have fun.
Author's Note: Yes, I know, this fic just got very, very bizarre. There is a logical reason for that. Basically, I've been obsessed with Prison Break and bored with Angel. However, I haven't been able to come up with good ideas for a Prison Break fic, and I've been meaning to work more on 'Dea Ex Machina' for a while now. So, I'm trying to put together the best of both worlds.
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"I'll dig like a psychotic rodent if I have to" –Sucre from Cute Poison
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The Oracle hit the ground running. Her combat boots made loud bangs against the tile floor as she tore down the long white hall. To the human eye, the hall seemed to stretch on forever, lined with gray metal doors like soldiers standing guard along both sides. This was the Home Office. Well, technically, both Good and Evil had to use the mortal plane as their home offices, but sometimes Good employed people it didn't want working out of an office off of Wall Street. Those people ended up getting the work correspondence addressed to this dimension.
There was a trick to traveling down the Hall—it would fold in on itself to bring you to your destination if you had a clear enough mental image of where it was you wanted to go. She was only running because she hated transporting across hell dimensions to get here—always made her soles feel like they were on fire.
Besides, she was pretty sure she didn't have a lot of time.
As she ran, arms pumping at her sides, she pictured the door to her office with its sign '2337' and the picture of Johnny Depp taped below it. The hall collapsed inwards in front of her eyes…and, then, a moment later, her door appeared right in front of her. Didn't give her enough time to stop and she smacked into it still going full-tilt.
"Ow!" she yelped, hands flying to the spot on her skull where forehead had met door.
The door opened, making her jump back in surprise. A green head with two red horns poked itself out into the hall and flashed her a dazzling smile. "Hey, sugar cakes, where have you been?"
"Lorne…how'd you get into my office?" Cass asked, confused. "I thought I sent you to the Receiving Office to find Anya Emerson."
"Oh, you did, doll, and I did—find her, that is," he assured her. "In fact, that little minx is currently curled up on your bargain basement sofa snoozing away. And, I might add," he whispered conspiratorially. She leaned in to hear him better. "She's snoring like a freight train."
That got a giggle out of her.
He looked her up and down, his bright red eyes taking in each blood stain and escaped curl. "You, darling, look like you've been through the wringer—and by wringer, I mean an industrial-sized wringer that takes ten-foot trolls to operate."
She brushed a hand uselessly at the stains. "It's not mine; it's Lindsey's." Now that she actually stopped and looked at herself, Lorne was right—she was a mess. She'd forgotten how much blood a human body contained. Though, usually, when a human was missing this much of the red stuff it meant they were a butchered corpse.
"It looks like you rolled in it…wait, never mind, I don't want to know. How is our eternally prodigal lawyer doing anyway?"
"Well, he's out of Hell, for now."
Lorne's smile widened. It was like a gigantic weight had suddenly been lifted from the anagogic demon's shoulders and transferred into the ether. Not even his giddy, post-swing dancing mood at the Bellagio had been this light-hearted. "That's great!" He scooped her up into his arms and crushed her to his chest.
Her back popped. From here, she could look over Lorne's shoulder at the half-opened door with its glossy and crinkled picture of Mr. Depp at a piano, cigarette smoke curling up around him. "Lorne," she said quietly, "Put me down."
He did as she asked, dropping her rather suddenly. The sound of her boots striking the tile on landing echoed up and down the hall. The Oracle glanced down in either direction—no one. No office doors open; nobody lingering in the hall to smoke or just get out of the enclosed space of their work area. "What's wrong?" Lorne asked.
She looked down at her feet. "I got him out Hell, but there's a pretty good chance he's going to be going straight back." She didn't want to say it—didn't want to tell him that there was only a small chance…miniscule really, that the man he killed was going to get that second chance. Actually, having met Lindsey, this was probably going to be his second hundredth chance. But it was the absolutely last one. If he couldn't handle the Gauntlet, that was it. No redemption. Not if he fucked this up.
"Why?"
"Have you ever heard of the Gauntlet?" She raised her eyes to him, forcing herself to show nothing but seriousness and sympathy.
He shook his head.
"Wolfram & Hart, law firm, is only the latest face Evil's used in the big moral battle for mankind. It's also the most effective. Lawyers aren't inherently scary…"
"I beg to differ, angel wings," he interrupted, managing a weak smile. Her little news had dumped that weight square down on his shoulders again. Killed her to look at him.
"Lawyers are human-looking," she explained. "Not little odd-skinned demons with horns and burning eyes—no offense…"
"None taken."
"Odd-colored demons just popping into peoples' lives and offering to buy souls. Lawyers are…well, sneaky, and it's won Wolfram & Hart more than their fair share of souls. Well, a couple years ago, after Vocah killed the oracles in L.A., the Powers That Be demanded some sort of retribution. Since your friend, Angel, had already taken care of Vocah, the Powers could pretty much ask for anything. They asked for the right to set up the Gauntlet. If a soul in Hell can pass three tests, it can be turned over to the Powers to do what they will with it. Problem is, both Good and Evil can manipulate the terms of the tests and usually do. The whole thing turns into a big, fucking mess—especially when they decided to hold the tests here on the mortal plane, which is where Lindsey's seem to be taking place."
"Where is he now?"
"In the body of a man named Fernando currently imprisoned in the Fox River Penitentiary in Joliet, Illinois."
Lorne laughed. "The lawyer in jail—bless my Great-Aunt Grat's speckled hams, somebody's got a sense of humor."
Cass smiled too. "Or justice. Either way, I get to try and help steer him through the test. And, trust me, he's going to need all the help he can get."
"Then what are we waiting for?"
"You to move your cute little green behind so I can get to my computer."
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Lorne watched over the Oracle's shoulder as she called up files on her computer. The machine, on the outside, looked like an ancient Apple II, but it seemed to be running off a version of Windows the former Host hadn't seen before. It was also loading pages with lightning speed. A picture of an Hispanic man with a shaved head and a strong chin appeared.
"This is the man Lindsey's spirit currently inhabits. From reading over his prison file—which is so much more detailed and useful than the files we've got here in the office, let me tell you—I can't figure out what's so special about him. However…" She tapped a few more keys, bringing up a picture of a young man with a tiny widow's peak and blue-green eyes. Unlike humans, Lorne never really noticed eyes—general shape of the face was more his thing. However, this boy's gaze was so intense that he couldn't help but look at those sea baby blues. "This is Lindsey's cellmate. Name's Michael Scofield, a structural engineer who tried to rob a bank and got himself a five-year sentence instead."
On the couch (which he was still convinced she'd bought at Salvation Army—it was lumpy, smelled of mothballs and Lysol, and plaid. He'd never seen such a hideous piece of furniture before in his life), Anya snorted and rolled over in her sleep. Now, there was a character if Lorne had ever met one, bless his horns. He'd tracked her down to the Receiving Office, just like Cass had told him.
"Good morning," he greeted the demon behind the desk. A carthogret, if he wasn't mistaken—it was sure hard to mistaken the blueberry blue skin and ten tiny silver horns! "I'm looking for a woman named Anya Emerson. Any chance you could tell me where I could find her?"
The desk demon looked up at him and snorted. "Finally. I've been trying to get someone to come get her out of my fucking waiting room for over a year now."
Lorne blinked, a little taken aback at the carthogret's rudeness, but he recovered quickly, smoothing his cravat. "If you could just point her out for me, I'll have her out of here in two shakes…"
The demon pointed behind him, and he turned, following the direction the clawed finger indicated. A pretty, young thing sat in a chair near the back of the room, chewing on her lower lip as she looked around. She wore a lemon yellow sundress decorated with embroidered gold daffodils. Her dishwater blond hair was cropped off at the shoulder and loosely curled. One finger tapped irritably against her knee, the only sign of impatience she was displaying.
He sat down in the hard plastic chair beside her, unbuttoning the bottom button on his blazer first. "So you're Anya," he said. "I'm Lorne." He held out a hand for her to shake.
She regarded it with a look that might have been curiosity. "You are green and demon-shaped, but you are still wearing an expensive suit. I'm guessing you are a demon who understands the nature of money. I have several large wads of it in my purse and will give half of it to you if you get me out of here." She looked down at the handbag leaning against the leg of her chair. It was black velvet with a glittery silver butterfly appliqué on the side and big enough to hold a bowling ball.
"I…" Lorne started.
She bent over and picked the purse up, separating the handles to give him a very clear view of the stacks of one hundred dollar bills sitting in the bottom of her purse.
"All right, I will give you all but one stack. I need to keep some for myself in case an emergency comes up."
He swallowed. "Sparkle bunny…" he started to say before she cut him off with an ear-piercing shriek.
"Bunny? Where?" Anya jumped up on the chair like the stereotypical Victorian lady after seeing a mouse, her brown eyes darting nervously around in their sockets. He was finding this even more puzzling than the bag of money.
Lorne stuck a finger in his ear and rubbed. The woman was definitely a soprano, no doubt about that. "What has you all in such a tizzy, sugar cakes?"
"Bunnies…I hate them. They have these beady little black eyes that just stare at you. And they don't talk. Have you ever heard a rabbit talk? No, because they don't—they just let out these horrible screams like nails on a chalk board when they're going to die. Nasty, nasty little rodents."
"Now, I'll be the first one to admit that I'm no Jane Goodall, but I don't think rabbits are considered rodents." He stood, offering her his hand again, this time to help her down off the chair. "I think you've been sitting in this waiting room just a tad too long, goldilocks—you're acting just a little odd. Why don't we go find ourselves a nice espresso and treat ourselves? On second thought, scratch the espresso—I don't think you need any more caffeine."
Lorne leaned in closer. "You think he's the reason the PTB chose to plop Lindsey in Fox River?"
"I don't know what else it could be."
"Honey child, I don't want to say this but how are we supposed to help him if we don't even know what he's supposed to be doing."
That made the Oracle look up, a smug little smile creeping across her face. "What's this 'we'? I thought you didn't want anything to do with the Powers."
"I helped you out with Anya, didn't I? Maybe it's nice to be doing something good again." That wasn't all of it, but he wasn't ready to admit that—not here. He needed a little more time to think. Or, maybe, time to stop thinking, since that'd been all he'd been doing since he hightailed it out of the City of Angels—thinking and drinking, about how things had gotten so horribly, horribly twisted. Looking back now, Lorne realized that he hadn't once smiled between L.A. and Las Vegas. These ruby red lips of his had been permanently stuck in 'frown'. Then, in blew this little bit of a Higher Power, with all her sweet promises of maybe making everything right again. How could he pass the chance up? Especially when she asked so nicely?