Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, or Prison Break. The lyrics Cass sings are from "God is a DJ" by Pink from the Try This album. 'Bag of Share', which Lorne mentions is not one of my phrases. I have no idea who coined it. Please don't sue me.
Author's Note: Thanks, Imzadi, for the review. There's a more extensive author's note at the end of this chapter.
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"Hey, guys, guess what I…" Cass shouted as she shouldered open the door to her office. She'd left Lorne and Anya looking through files, trying to find the answers Lindsey had just given her. However, the man currently sitting behind her desk was definitely not Lorne. For one, he wasn't green, and for another, his suit was a very boring gray though expertly cut. "Oh," she greeted the newcomer, "It's you."
"You don't sound thrilled to see me, Oracle," the man said.
Cass stepped all the way into the office and shut the door behind her, quickly taking stock of her surroundings. The afghan was in a heap at one end of the couch where Anya had been napping. Neither she nor Lorne were in the office, though the stack of papers on the edge of the desk was proof that they'd been working in here at one point. "You're my supervisor, Gabriel; a visit from you usually spells trouble."
He smirked. "You're not in trouble this time, though I would like to talk to you about certain aspects of your methodology at some point, but that will have to wait—there have been some serious developments in one of your cases." He held out an unlabeled manila folder.
She took it and flipped it open. All that lay inside was a single, small newspaper clipping. "'Los Angeles Family Found Dead in Home; Son Suspected in Killings'," she read aloud. "What's this have to do with anything?"
"Look at the son's name," Gabriel suggested.
Cass skimmed the article. "'Reilly'…'Connor Reilly'." The name meant squat to her, though the look on Gabriel's face said she should. His presence in her office was making her nervous as all get-out. As she told Lorne, this was her first batch of cases working under Gabriel in Human Affairs. She was still sort of on probation. If she screwed up, it was back to the ranks of the foot soldiers for her, and these days, the Power didn't let the foot soldiers do jack shit.
Gabriel's mouth twitched towards what might have been another smirk. "He's better known as 'Connor Angel', the son of two vampires."
Head smack. Cass felt her ears burn. "Well, this is no good," she mumbled as she hurriedly read through the entire clipping. There wasn't much—certainly no details about how the family (mother Colleen, father Laurence, and sister Rachel) were killed. The police would be keeping those cards close to their chests in hopes of using them to trap the killer. Connor wasn't actually named as the chief suspect—that was the newspaper's fabrication—the police merely wanted him for questioning.
"I am guessing that you haven't even made contact with the boy yet." The note of disapproval in Gabriel's voice was unmistakable.
The Oracle set the folder on the corner of the desk and then scrambled up on the back of the couch to get at the top of the shelves behind it. "I've been slightly busy with Lindsey and the Gauntlet," she muttered out of the side of her mouth. She shoved aside a shoebox full of demon horns and pulled out a thick file folder labeled 'Connor Angel'.
"Ah, the infamous Oracular filing system," Gabriel murmured.
Cass hopped down off the couch. "I know where everything is. Consider it another level of security."
"Serving under Michael for so many years has instilled his trademark paranoia in you. And, if you never lose anything, why did you tell the Armory that you had misplaced you sword?"
She swallowed. "I said that I know where everything in my office is, not that I never lose stuff."
She couldn't tell whether or not he believed that. But after looking her over for a moment, Gabriel gave a little shrug and continued on. "Make arrangements for Lindsey McDonald and any other open cases, and then attend to Connor immediately. You will most likely end up working jointly with Cordelia since she is handling the boy's father." Gabriel rose and straightened his tie. "Do try and play nice."
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The Oracle tracked Lorne and Anya back to one of the many lounges scattered along the Hall. They were sitting together at one of the tables, eating sandwiches, and talking to…Fernando Sucre? Yes, she realized as she approached the table, that was definitely the man whose body Lindsey was currently borrowing. He was seated as far around the round table as he could get from Lorne, picking at what looked like tuna fish on rye, his dark eyes darting from Lorne to Anya and back again.
"He's not going to eat your soul," Cass told the short Hispanic man as she pulled out the chair on his left.
Sucre jumped, knocking his chair over as he scrambled to get away from her. "Where'd you come from?" he demanded, eyes wild.
"Through the door…" She pointed to the lounge's entrance.
He squinted at her suspiciously, making the sign of the cross. "Are you human?"
Cass laughed. She couldn't help it. There would never be any chance of her mistaking Sucre for Lindsey, even when they wore the same face. No mistaking at all. "I was human once, when I was still alive."
Wrong thing to say. It backed him up even farther into the corner.
"I'm on the side of the angels." She smiled and held out her hand to him—trying to look as harmless as possible. In the back of her mind, she wished she was wearing the face and hair that she'd used the night she and Lorne had gone out dancing. Then, she'd just slapped it on, trying to find something the demon would find fun. And it had been fun, that night in Vegas. Sin City had shown them its absolute best side in the smoky basement bars and gaudy little dance clubs and, of course, the room in the Bellagio with that damn fruit plate. She couldn't really explain to herself why she hadn't used that face since then. Maybe because she'd been so focused on Lindsey and with him, she had chosen a sleeker, harder persona. But changing now would probably send Sucre straight up to the light fixture and then they'd never get him down.
"I know this is a phenomenal amount of stuff to take in, especially for someone who'd had no exposure to any of it, but you have to believe that we're not going to hurt you," she said.
"Yeah," Anya piped up, "We're the good guys."
Sucre stilled eyed them warily, but he righted his chair and sat back down. "What do you want from me?"
Lorne and Anya were suddenly very busy with their food as Cass sighed inwardly. That was the number one question she didn't want to answer. "Um…I'm helping a man try to escape from Hell," she finally said.
Sucre paused, chewing his tuna fish absently as he considered her explanation. Swallowing, he asked, "Did he deserve to be down there?"
"That's what we're in the process of trying to figure out," Cass continued. "He's done a lot of skuzzy things…"
"Sold his soul to evil for a six-figure salary," Lorne muttered into his sandwich.
"And then walked away from that job." Cass glared at the demon before turning back to Sucre. "He's been a moral yo-yo his entire adult life, but when he died, he was fighting a major battle for the forces of good—the Powers That Be."
"God," the young man said, his hand going to the silver crucifix he wore around his neck.
"The PTB are more like angels, I think, but anyway, this man was betrayed and murdered during that last battle, so there are people who think he deserves a second chance…"
"More like his two hundred and second," Lorne interjected.
Cass scowled at the demon man. "Lorne, can I see you outside?" It wasn't a request—Gabriel's surprise visit had frazzled her more than she wanted to admit, and the anagogic demon was being downright snippy.
She headed out to the Hall, Lorne on her heels. He carefully closed the lounge door behind him. "I feel like a third grader who'd been naughty, disrupting class." The comment was very light, testing.
Cass put her hands on her hips. "Yeah, well, then I'm the teacher and my boss is sitting in on lecture today to observe."
"The PTB are breathing down your neck, huh, angel-wings? Never fun, I know." He tried to pat her shoulder comfortingly, but she shrugged the gesture off.
"What is your deal with Lindsey?" the Oracle demanded. "I'm trying to ease Sucre into an understanding of the situation without making him go ape-shit on us and your trashing Lindsey at every turn is not helping!"
Lorne was very carefully focusing his red eyes on something beyond her shoulder. Since this was the Hall, and everything was uniformly white and boring, he was therefore trying to avoid meeting her eyes.
"Lorne…"
"I never asked for a Higher Power Jiminy Cricket," he grumbled after a moment.
She held up a finger. "We already established this back in Vegas. I'm being nosey here because I thought there was something bothering you, and I wanted to see if I could help."
He arched a brow in disbelief.
Cass ducked her head, kicking the wall gently. The toe of her boot left a black streak across the white paint. "Ok, I'm also annoyed because you're making my job harder than it already is."
Lorne leaned against the wall, folding his arms over his chest. "I just get this antsy feeling each time you mention Lindsey's name, pumpkin tart," he admitted.
She mimicked his pose—maybe this talk would go easier if they couldn't make contact. "I think it's called 'guilt'. You were—excuse the term—demonizing him in there."
"And you were painting such pretty little angel wings for him."
Cass snorted as she tried to picture Lindsey with white feathered wings. Mentally, she added a halo to the picture—dented, a little crooked, appropriate for someone who'd fallen from grace so many times. Then, she stuffed the little mental image into the formal white robes of a Higher Power. The result made her giggle.
"There's a noise I like to hear," Lorne murmured. "Care to share?"
The Oracle shook her head. "Just a goofy picture in my head."
"Sing a little, and I'll see it."
"Um…" Cass was fine with singing in front of people—the trip to the karaoke bar had been a kick—but coming up with something to sing on the spot wasn't easy. "Um…If God is a DJ / Life is a dance floor / Love is the rhythm / You are the music / If God is a DJ / Life is a dance floor / You get what you're given / It's all how you use it…and I feel dumb."
"Don't be, honey cakes, you did fine—on-key, in-tune, and all that jazz," he assured her. Then, he chuckled. "Nice touch with the crooked halo."
"Thank you." She leaned over a little to rest her head against the green demon's shoulder. "Are you ever going to forgive Angel for ordering you to kill Lindsey?"
"Probably—carrying grudges for too long wears me down."
Cass nodded, the sound of her hair rubbing against the polyester of his tomato red suit coat rasping unnaturally loud in her ear. "Are you ever going to forgive yourself for going to through with it?"
He sighed. "That's the real question now, isn't it, sugar bug?"
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They just stood there for a few minutes, thinking. Cass finally broke the peace by mumbling, "We'd better go back inside. Save Sucre from Anya."
"Oh, dear Lord, yes," Lorne agreed. "What were thinking leaving that poor boy with her?"
"Did you ever figure out why she was on my little list?"
Lorne nodded. "The PTB don't have the foggiest where to send her now that she's pushing up the daisies. Our little golden buttercup with her copious bag of share started life as a human, switched to vengeance demon raining ruin and castration down on unfaithful fellows, got turned back into a human, then went demon again, then human, and now, dead."
"Human, demon, human, demon…damn, no wonder They're confused." The Oracle brought a hand up to rub her forehead and sighed. "How'd she die?"
"Helping the Slayers take on something dubbed 'The First' in Sunnydale, which earned her a big gold star in the PTB's book."
"Even though her morality is as dubious as Lindsey's. Do you like her?"
Lorne laughed. "She's as much fun as Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson teamed together—she had the Receiving Office convert all of her lifetime accomplishments into cash."
"Odd, but that could come in handy. Listen, Lorne, I was wondering if you'd be willing to help me out again." She turned so she was facing him, her shoulder pressed against the wall.
The green demon looked down at her expectantly, his red eyes friendly. Quite a dramatic change from the hostility he'd directed at her in the karaoke bar. Cass had looked back over his file, trying to match the cold, sterile facts found within the folder to the warm-hearted demon she'd gone dancing with. She'd come away thinking that since leaving Wolfram & Hart, Lorne had gone out of his way to isolate himself, which was completely against his nature. As the host and proprietor of Caritas, he'd been surrounded night after night with folk of all walks. From there, he'd gone on Angel Investigations, which, if she'd read between the lines correctly, had been something of a family for its members. A family that had begun to crumble when Angel's son had been abducted. Working at the law firm had just finished it off. Now, though he had come reluctantly, Lorne was back among people again, interacting and loving it. The Pylean demon was definitely a people-person. The Oracle allowed herself a small smile—this was how she was going to get him back in the saddle: by surrounding him with people and just letting him do his thing. The empathy demon could not help but be empathetic.
"This is a huge favor," she informed him. "Goliath, gargantuan, huge."
"Cass, I told you I'd help, sweet cheeks. What is it?"
"I have to go to Los Angeles. Technically, I should've already left."
"Angel?"
She shook her head. "No, one of my other charges, but my boss said that I'd probably end up working together with Cordelia. Problem is, I just figured out why the hell Lindsey got dumped in a jail cell in Illinois."
"Really?" Lorne straightened, his brows shooting up in surprise.
She nodded, smiling. "Lindsey's cellmate, Scofield, is the half-brother of Lincoln Burrows, who's on death row. Wolfram & Hart framed Burrows—I need you to go to Houston, Texas and visit the law firm's archives and see if you can find something that'll prove Lincoln Burrows was set up. Lindsey mentioned something about a video tape. You think you could do that—you can take Anya with you if you want." She gave him a pleading look.
Lorne shook his head. "You are about as bad as Angel at the puppy dog eyes, cinnamon crumb."
Cass batted her eyelashes, playing it up.
He rolled his ruby eyes. "All right, all right, your cuteness wins—I'll head down to the Lone Star State and see if I can rustle up your tape."
She beamed. "Thanks, Lorne." She gave him a quick hug. "I'll supply you with a human-looking face and a portal there."
"Just say 'hi' to Cordy for me."
"Will do."
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A/N: …and so begins our first crossover with "Trinity" (to read, go look in my profile). There's probably some overlap in readership anyway.
I had to do this—wrote myself into another corner what with Connor being on Cass's list back in chapter one and me needing a way to break the recent syrupy sweetness that happening in "Trinity" before my teeth rotted (Connor's always good for drama). I have no real overarching plan for these fics—mostly flying back the seat of my pants. "Trinity" lends itself to a framework what with the four boys needing to be restored, but I'm finding all kinds of ways to screw around inside the frame itself. This fic's also operating on the Rule of Four (the four lost souls that the PTB don't know what the hell to do with: Lorne, Lindsey, Anya, and Connor), and Lindsey's running of the Gauntlet added even more structure (the Tests of the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart). When I decided to cross Dea Ex Machina over with the series Prison Break, it was with this idea in mind—Lindsey will help with the escape to save the life of a man set up by Wolfram & Hart. A fitting part of his redemption, and it allows me to write an alternative to the shitty conspiracy offered by the Prison Break writers. Anyway, enough rambling.