Cordelia knocked on her dad's office door, mentally rehearsing her story.
"Come in," he said quietly.
"Dad—", she began, as she stepped inside, then stopped.
He had the TV on again, tuned to CNN.
On screen, skyscrapers burned.
"... terrorist atrocity ..." the newsreader said. " ... Wolfram and Hart ..."
"What happened?" Cordelia demanded, hoping her fears were false.
"A bomb," her dad said, his face pale with anger. "Terrorists in LA."
"One bomb?" Cordelia said. There were three —no, four— plumes of smoke rising over the city.
"One," her dad said. "They'll be repeating the tape again in a moment."
"... At five past five," the newsreader said. "A news helicopter ..."
On screen the tape played, a police car racing through the evening rush hour.
Out of shot, something flashed, sun-bright.
The camera slewed left, and upwards, to the Wolfram and Hart tower.
The top five floors of the building were glowing, green shading to blue.
"... first device appears to have been an incendiary," the newsreader said, though it looked nothing like a fire, too monchrome.
It looked like high powered magic, the kind Margo had been throwing around, and the timing was right. Nigel had arrived at five, confronting him and his employers had taken a few minutes, and then Xander had thrown the pistol.
The blue thinned as it brightened, furiously buring wreckage now dimly visible within the translucent shell.
There must have been at least as big an explosion on the other side of the portal, maybe bigger, since the pistol had exploded on the far side, though—
A half-second glimpse of new fires burning, on the sixth floor down, then the light stretched to cover it, blue shading to violet.
It had to be part of Wolfram and Hart's magical defences, struggling to contain the explosion, but this explosion was too big to be easily muffled.
The sorcerous light vanished, leaving a cube of pale-blue flame hovering atop the building,
It exploded.
In the buildings all around, glass fell from shattered windows as the offices within ignited, whipped into flame by that radiant blast of furnace heat.
At the centre of the explosion, Wolfram and Hart blazed, its top half vaporised by that blast, thick black smoke gushing up from the stump.
The explosion had definitely been more powerful on the far side, too powerful. Demolishing Wolfram and Hart was good, in principle, but not at the price of this much collateral damage.
Cordelia scowled. The explosion might not have been because of the pistol alone, according to Giles portals often exploded when they were destroyed, but she was pretty sure the pistol was responsible for most of the damage. Margo was so eager to kill demons, she kept forgetting about safety.
"... fifty confirmed casualties in the neighbouring buildings," the newsreader said, "but no reports from Wolfram and Hart, as yet."
Not as bad as it could have been then. Half an hour earlier, when the offices were still full, it would have been carnage, but that wouldn't be any comfort to the grieving relatives.
Even destroying Wolfram and Hart completely wouldn't be worth this, and they hadn't come close. There were dozens more branches, scattered world wide, and behind them the Wolf, Ram, and Hart still stood.
They wouldn't have been hurt by this explosion, not even scratched. Giles had been very clear on that, and this disaster confirmed it.
Just as Giles had said, the rest of the explosion had hit LA, not the trio's domain, even though that was where the portal had led when Xander had thrown the pistol. The trio had inserted themselves between the two sides of Margo's window, so they could attack her, then, when they saw the explosion coming, stepped out of the way, letting it go out the far side, callously sentencing their minions to a fiery death.
Well, the death of a few evil lawyers didn't matter, much. The deaths of bystanders did.
Margo needed reining in.
She had been trampling over everyone since she arrived in Sunnydale, using the implicit threat of Giles's murder by her followers to impose her authority, then dragging Cordelia into danger.
It was Margo's fault that Cordelia had nearly been eaten by Rhunsp, ghouled by Ngralth, and incinerated by Wolfram and Hart. Without her, Cordelia would have been safely at home all three times.
Being forced to call her dame all the time rankled too.
Admittedly, Cordelia's home wasn't all that safe, with the monster in the basement, and Margo had done some useful things, such as providing the apartment, and arranging for self-defence training, but she could have done all that without being so abrasive, and without endangering anyone else's life. Margo could have acted more like Cordelia herself, and charmed everyone into compliance.
Besides, confronting Margo head-on would be like walking naked into a vampire nest, so foolish even Xander wouldn't do it given even half a second to think, and she'd be dead soon.
Perhaps a few pointed comments would be enough to prod Margo's conscience, remind her to avoid overkill, and not drag Cordelia into anything else apocalyptic. It wouldn't be much, but better than doing nothing, and safe.
At least Xander wouldn't know about this disaster. He didn't brood like Angel, flaunting his pain so everyone could see how nobly he suffering. If he found out about this, he'd only look sad for a few days, then revert to his normal good-humoured self, to all outwards appearances.
But appearances were deceptive. Inside, Xander would be tormenting himself over his role in the deaths for months, telling himself they were all his fault, which they weren't.
He couldn't have known what would happen when he threw the pistol, how big the explosion would be. He hadn't meant to kill anyone human, but he couldn't have known what—
—a principle with wider applications. That argument might get Harmony to see sense.
"... has claimed responsibility," the newsreader said, "but a connection with the middle east crisis ..."
"Pointless speculation," Cordelia's dad said, turning the sound off. "We want to know what's happened, not what some half-witted, overpaid, sm—"
Cordelia sighed, heavily.
"Were you after something?" her dad said, interrupting his rant to look at her.
"You both still going out tonight?"
"I am," her dad said. "Having friends over?"
"We're meeting up here."
"The girls?" her dad asked, without a trace of concern.
"Yes," Cordelia reassured him, unfooled by his act. "You'll be back by ten?"
"Nine," her dad said.
"Same problem?" Cordelia asked, glancing at her mom's photo. If he was prepared to leave at all, it couldn't be too bad this time.
Her dad nodded wearily. "I'll be leaving at seven."
Before Harmony and the rest arrived, then. Her mom would be staying in her rooms, with all the doors locked, so there was no risk of her hearing anything undesirable if Harmony got careless, and they should all be gone before her dad got back.
Cordelia smiled, backing out of the door before her dad—
"By the way," her dad said, "I noticed your bed wasn't slept in last night, or the night before."
Careful to show no reaction, Cordelia launched into her prepared story.
"Why are we meeting here anyway?" Aura asked.
"Harmony thought it was a good idea," Cordelia said.
"When did we last all meet up?" Harmony said. "It—"
"Tuesday," Cordelia said flatly.
"Seems like longer," Harmony said. "Wasn't that when you—"
"What was it you did that night?" Cordelia asked, frowning as if struggling to remember.
Harmony glanced at Aura. "It was the night before someone burned down the Bronze. We can't meet there, so—"
"I'm sure it makes sense to you," Cordelia said, smiling dismissively.
"The Adelphi was OK," Aura said, looking nervously between Cordelia and Harmony.
"The Bronze was better," Harmony said, "before someone burnt it down. Didn't—"
"You're not dressed for the Bronze," Cordelia said, looking pointedly at Harmony's floor-length dress. It wasn't her choice, of course, it was Margo's fault, but Aura didn't know that.
"We both know why," Harmony said, meeting Cordelia's stare head on.
"I might have something appropriate in my wardrobe," Cordelia said. "Aura won't mind if we take a look, will you?"
"No," Aura immediately said. "I don't mind."
Harmony looked briefly thoughtful, then smiled at Aura. "You can let the others in, when they arrive."
Cordelia closed the bedroom door, then glared at Harmony. "What—"
Harmony smiled. "You know I can't wear anything in your wardrobe. Your friend—"
"Margo is not my friend," Cordelia said flatly. "Don't blame me for her—"
"You could have—"
"I couldn't," Cordelia said. "I—"
"You could have tried," Harmony said. "You—"
"Would you?" Cordelia said quietly.
Harmony hesitated, answer enough.
"This isn't easy, for either of us," Cordelia said softly.
Harmony smiled. "I know that trick. You can't—"
"I'm older than you," Cordelia said, smiling back. "I don't want to fight you but—"
"Then give me my body back."
"Not going to happen," Cordelia said. "You have to accept that, or—"
"Would you?" Harmony said, smiling triumphantly.
The phone rang, saving Cordelia an awkward moment.
"One of your freak friends?" Harmony said as Cordelia snatched the phone up.
"Mistress Cordelia?" Wilfred said.
"Harmony is here," Cordelia warned him.
"I'm sure we can trust you not to say anything indiscreet," Wilfred said. "Dame Margo would like to see you at your earliest convenience."
"Why?"
"I'm not at liberty to say," Wilfred said. "Shall I tell her tonight, say eight-thirty?"
"No," Cordelia said sharply. "She knows I'm busy tonight."
Blunt, but Wilfred needed reminding where he stood. He wasn't Margo; he couldn't command her. He would have to ask, politely, and give her good reasons to cooperate.
"Who knows?" Harmony said.
"Mistress Cordelia," Wilfred said, "surely you can not think ..."
While he was droning on Cordelia lowered the phone and whispered "Wilfred."
"Margo's lackey?" Harmony said, not bothering to whisper.
Cordelia nodded, putting the phone back to her ear.
"... a minor social event," Wilfred was saying.
"You don't know what's at stake here," Cordelia said. "Dame Margo does. She will understand."
"And yet, despite knowing that, she asked to see you urgently," Wilfred said. "Perhaps you should consider—"
"Did she actually say tonight?"
"Not as such," Wilfred conceded.
Cordelia smiled. "Do you think she'll be pleased to—"
"I'm confident I understand Dame Margo's desires better than you or—"
"I'll bet you do, Wilf," another voice said, male with a faint Scottish accent. "Is it true what they say about the ferrets?"
"Jacob," Wilf said sharply. "Now is not the time for your puerile jokes."
"If we could not laugh in the face of the enemy," Jacob said, "we would have lost that which makes us human."
"Where are you phoning from?" Cordelia asked suspiciously. It sounded like Jacob was another watcher, and not one of Wilfred's friends, so they were probably in some watcher building, but—
"The board's antechamber," Wilfred said, confirming Cordelia's guess. "I agree in principle, Jacob, but our laughter should be directed at our mutual enemies, not each other."
Cordelia sighed. There might be a few dozen watchers listening in, each with their own private agenda, each hostile to both Giles and Margo. It would take all her considerable skill to avoid a mistep.
"If we could not laugh at our bosses, they would be tyrants," Jacob said. "Doctor Scrope—"
"You may not have noticed," Wilfred said, "but I am on the phone."
"That what that plastic thing is?" Jacob said, chuckling at his own wit. "Who's the lassie, anyway? One of Rupert's brats?"
Cordelia bristled, but said nothing. Arguing with Jacob would be too risky.
"Mistress Cordelia is not a brat," Wilfred said. "Do you wish to dispute the board's acknowledgement of Dame Margo's recognition of those three as associates?"
"Associates," Jacob said, sounding disgusted. "I would never dispute the board's wisdom but those three are dancing bears. Doctor Scrope has said that, while he has no intention of challenging the collective wisdom of his colleagues, he personally would not have been half as indulgent."
Indulgent? That ruled Jacob's faction out, if Cordelia ever needed watcher allies.
"Nonetheless," Wilfred said, "the board found his objections unconvincing. Now, if could you leave me—"
"And deprive the lass of the chance to talk to a competent watcher?" Jacob said. "She may only be American, and barely out of nappies, but there is still some small chance—"
"Duck!" another voice shouted, female, and very English.
On the other end of the phone, something exploded.
Cordelia rubbed her ear, then looked suspiciously at the phone. "Wilfred, what's going on there? Why can I hear screaming? Wilfred? Wilfred?"
"Who's this?" the female voice said. "One of Rupert's little helpers?"
"My name is Cordelia Chase," she said flatly. "Who are you? What happened to Wilfred?"
"That's Mr Bodsworth to you, girl," the woman said. "Mr Ingram landed on top of him. I am Mrs Renwick, an aide to Doctor Bownes."
"If you're busy ..." Cordelia said tenatively. End the conversation now and she might never find out what was going on; let it continue, and she risked endless lectures, two unattractive choices.
"Sarah," Wilfred said, sounding slightly winded, "give me that phone back."
"No," Sarah said. "The girl deserves to hear the full truth about your Dame Margo's censure."
"Dame Margo will tell her what she needs to know when next they meet," Wilfred said.
"Why wait?" Sarah said. "Girl, the board was not best pleased by Dame Margo's failure to exercise proper judgement, and the consequent death of innocents. They actually told her they would not expel her, in the light of her future service."
"That all," Cordelia said, "or are you being English?"
"I believe the term you are so feebly groping for, girl," Sarah said, "is litotes. It is exceedingly—"
Over the phone, Cordelia heard something big growling, then the crack of breaking bones, a brief gurgle of blood, and the thump of a body hitting the floor.
"What was that?" Cordelia said quickly, then to Harmony's quizzical glance, "sounds like a fight."
"Sorry about that," Sarah said. "Had to kill a little demon."
"In the board's antechamber?" Cordelia said. "Shouldn't—"
"Normally, yes," Sarah said. "This little contretemps is entirely Dame Margo's fault. Had she not acted with undue haste we would not be under assault by the Morrigan's battle-host."
"Wolfram and Hart?" Cordelia said, naming the obvious suspects. "How many demons?"
"So, you are not a complete idiot," Sarah said. "We believe they are indeed responsible for this act of supreme folly. Just as Dame Margo grossly underestimated her enemy, so has the triune beast. No doubt they calculated the forces they were unleashing against Dame Margo would be sufficient to annihilate, even should her strength be ten-fold greater than what they had seen revealed, and in that they were correct, but for all their caution their calculations have foundered on one simple fact. Those of the dark divide the world into enemies and slaves; we do not."
"How many—" Cordelia began, interrupting before Sarah could go any further astray. Half what she was saying was obvious nonsense, and the rest so obviously true it didn't need saying. None of it was useful.
"Had Dame Margo stood alone," Sarah said, effortlessly overriding Cordelia, "she would have fallen, but she did not. A mere three hundred warriors of the dark court could never hope to overcome the combined arcane might of the board, not even with a full god behind them. When the Morrigan realises how badly her forces are outmatched, she will withdraw, and attempt to take vengeance for her losses on the triune beast."
"Then why are you talking to me?" Cordelia said the moment Sarah finally shut up, not bothering to hide her surprise. "Shouldn't you—"
"You need not flatter me, girl," Sarah said. "Were we aides to attempt to assist our patrons in battle we would prove more hinderance than help for they would have to divert a portion of their strength to protecting us from—"
"You're ignoring—"
"Not entirely," Sarah said, cutting Cordelia off. "We are disposing of those minor demons that come our way, not the warriors themselves, of course, they are beyond us, but their beasts of war. However, it would be remiss of us to let this little scrap detract us from our other duties."
"Mrs Renwick is correct, for once," Wilfred said, in the background. "While I appreciate your obvious concern for my safety—"
His sanity, more like. Coolness under fire was good, much better than panicking, but these watchers were taking it too far.
"—there is no great danger here," Wilfred want on. "It is scarcely any more dangerous than the streets of Glasgow at closing time. Right, Jacob?"
"I wouldn't know," Jacob said, his voice reeking of offended pride. "I am from Edinburgh."
"Edinburgh, Glasgow; what's the difference?" Sarah said lightly. "They're both—"
"Edinburgh," Jacob said, "is the Athens of the north, a refined city of high culture. Glasgow is most decidedly not. It is—"
"I don't want to keep you on the phone too long," Cordelia said, struggling to sound polite. She'd heard more than enough watcherly bickering in the last few days, and this spat wasn't even high quality. Giles and Margo were both much better at verbal jousting than Wilfred and his rivals. "Could you just tell me what you think I need to know?"
If she didn't, Cordelia would just have to find some passable excuse to hang up, and hope none of the watchers would bear a grudge.
"Are you aware of what has happened to Wolfram and Hart's Los Angeles branch?" Sarah asked.
"It blew up," Cordelia said. "Mr Bodsworth didn't tell us the explosion would be that big.
"I didn't know," Wilfred protested. "I thought—"
"Dame Margo was overly vague in her description to him of the risks," Sarah said. "The culpability for the explosion, and the consequent civilian deaths is therefore—"
More growling, a scream of pain, sounds of a scuffle, then a quiet whimpering.
"Stop that, Reginald," Jacob said. "It is most unbecoming."
"Jacob," Reginald said, his voice thick with pain, "I've just had my foot bitten off by an Armagh demon hound. If you think I'm going to bear the agonising pain in complete silence I can only suggest—"
"It was a Fermanagh demon hound," Jacob said. "If you look at the toothmarks on your leg you can clearly see—"
"Mr Ingram," Sarah said, her voice cold as the grave. "Might I humbly suggest you consider the merits of silence. Helping Wilfred tie that tourniquet might not be entirely unappreciated either."
"And what will you be doing, Mrs Renwick?" Jacob said, moving further from the phone. "Gossiping with the lass?"
"Standing guard," Sarah said, "while I inform the girl of what she needs to know. Sorry about that, girl. Mr Ingram's faction has long been considered an embarrassment by all decent watchers."
Then they should have been expelled, but it sounded like they too had a patron on the board.
"Anyway," Sarah said, "Dame Margo has been deemed culpable for the civilian deaths. Furthermore, she has also been found guilty of the lesser charge of imperilling the board's safety. If she had not been so hasty, she would have realised that adequate though the precautions were against the expected they would not be adequate were Wolfram and Hart to prove to be the instrument of a greater evil, as has indeed proved to be the case."
Cordelia untangled the convoluted syntax, and frowned. She'd been thinking much the same herself, but if the board agreed with her, why such a light sentence? Margo's misjudgement had killed people, and put the board members in personal danger. They should have done more than just tell her off.
Of course, there wasn't much they could do to Margo when she was about to sacrifice herself for the world's sake, but still, Margo deserved more than just harsh words, especially after the way she'd treated Cordelia, Buffy, and the others.
And perhaps that was what she'd got. Sarah was English, and a watcher, capable of making ten years in prison sound like a slap on the wrist.
"Now," Sarah said, while Cordelia was still thinking. "That might sound like an excuse for inaction, but it is not. Rather, it is a reason for thorough research. It is the judgement of the board that had Dame Margo spent a little more time in our libraries, and a little less on the streets, she would have realised seventeen points: firstly, that no common evil would dare employ the de la Poers for fear of the council's wrath; secondly, that Wolfram and Hart's pattern of behaviour matched that recorded for the triune beast twenty—five centuries ago, before its apparent banishment; thirdly, that—"
"Renwick," Cordelia said, "we don't have time for this. Tell me exactly what the board has done about Dame Margo, without understatement."
"You need to work on your manners, girl," Sarah said. "The board has deemed Mr Giles's performance adequate, on the basis of her report, and declared his person inviolate. You need not worry about her faction, or any of the other loyalist factions, taking any adverse action against him, or his associates."
Good. That meant Giles was safe, leaving Margo with much less leverage. Confronting her openly would still be too dangerous, but Cordelia should be able to tweak her a little more.
"They have also confirmed her recognition of you and your friends as associates, which means all council members will be expected to grant you certain small favours, such as free access to their outer libraries. While they did not enquire into any private agreements you may have reached with Dame Margo, such agreements lying within her prerogatives, may I take this opportunity to say that if you should wish to repudiate any such agreements with her, or Mr Giles, my party will be able to offer you much better terms."
"I'll give your offer all due consideration," Cordelia said, politely rejecting it. She would not abandon Giles, no matter what. "Was that all?"
"Hardly," Sarah said. "Most of the penalties Dame Margo has incurred would mean nothing to you, lacking as you do any understanding of our great traditions, but I'm sure you'll be pleased to know she has paid an hefty fine, sufficient to pay appropriate compensation to all the civilian victims of her misjudgement, and agreed to conduct herself with greater humility."
That was good, though still not enough, but Cordelia wasn't going to tell Sarah that, not when the woman wouldn't even call her by name.
"Anything else?" Cordelia said instead. "If we talk much longer, people will get suspicious."
"Give me the phone back, Sarah," Wilfred said.
"I don't think so, girl," Sarah said. "Wilfred, you can talk to her later."
Cordelia waited a second, until Sarah had hung up, then took her phone off the hook and smiled at Harmony. "You were saying?"
"... concede the similarity?" Cordelia said, twenty minutes later. "I could no more have predicted the results of my arrival back here than you could have predicted the results of possessing Harmony."
That wasn't precisely true, Cordelia could have given her wish more than two seconds thought, and Harmony should have known she was doing wrong, but that didn't matter. Cordelia wasn't trying to win this argument.
Harmony scowled. "You could have told Giles what you'd done sooner. He'd have known what happened to me, and done something about it, before I got desperate."
Cordelia concealed a smile. By slowly complicating the argument she'd manoeuvred Harmony into thinking calmly about what Cordelia had done, a great improvement. Harmony would still loathe her, of course, but she'd be much easier to manage this way.
"Perhaps," Cordelia conceded. "So could you. Four words would have been enough. The analogy holds."
"No," Harmony said. "The things Margo says I've done are hypothetical. The troubles you've caused are real."
"Like the body you're in," Cordelia said. "What matters is that the consequences are disproportionate."
It was like Xander and the water pistol, or Buffy and Angel. Buffy couldn't have known Angel would lose his soul, so that wasn't her fault; it was the gypsy's.
"So it's not your fault?" Harmony said. "Then whose fault is it?"
Cordelia smiled. "Never ask Giles that. Willow did, once, and they ended up spending hours talking about Aristotle's classification of causes."
"What do you think?" Harmony persisted.
"We're both partly responsible for bad stuff," Cordelia said, "but only partly. We should both do what we can to put it right, and neither of us should be blamed for the things we couldn't have expected.
Harmony nodded slowly. "I didn't know there were any laws against borrowing bodies, so punishing me for breaking them isn't right, but—"
The building shook, a mild tremor, but Cordelia pulled Harmony into the doorway anyway. On the hellmouth, not all earthquakes were natural.
On the opposite wall the plaster cracked, right underneath the window.
Cordelia stared warily at it. Her house had been through earthquakes before—
The plaster crumbled away, revealing a small hollow.
—and nothing like this had ever happened.
There was a corpse in there, entombed under her bedroom window, a baby's corpse, with strange symbols tattooed on the withered skin, its face contorted in an agonised grimace.
"Who did this?" Harmony said, staring at the corpse. "I don't care if they're dead, they're going to pay."
"We've got bigger problems," Cordelia said. "They used that baby as one of the locks on the thing underneath's prison."
Another tremor, and the corpse slid out of the hollow.
"Put it back," Harmony said. "Now."
The baby's left ear fell off.
"Too late," Cordelia said, scooping up her cell phone. "It's forcing its way out."
As Cordelia was speaking, the baby's corpse crumbled, the skin flaking away, the entrails disintegrating even as they spilled across the carpet.
Cordelia swallowed nervously, but did not look away. If the baby was about to turn into a zombie, or worse, she needed to know about it before it tried to kill her.
"Are you—" Harmony began.
"Yes," Cordelia said, backing out of her bedroom. There was little left of the baby now, only a handful of bones scattered amidst the dust, apparently harmless, but this was the hellmouth. "We've had earthquakes before. Get our friends out of here."
"What are you doing?" Harmony said, half sneering, half uncertain.
"Phoning Giles," Cordelia said, pressing the speed dial, "and rescuing our mom. She won't listen to you. Now, go!"
Harmony took one last look at the bedroom, then fled.
"Hello?" Giles said.
"Giles," Cordelia said. "The baby just fell out of my wall."
"Oh," Giles said. "Damn. Have you tried—"
"Then it dusted."
Another tremor, and cracks spiderwebbed across the walls.
"Get out of there," Giles said quickly, "now!"
Cordelia raced down the stairs, two at a time, then turned left. "I've got to get my mom out first."
Giles swore again, under his breath. "Hurry, you won't have long. Anyone else there?"
Cordelia ran along the corridor, dodging the chunks of plaster raining down. "Harmony's getting the others out."
"What's that noise?"
"Building's falling down," Cordelia said, skidding as she turned the corner. "Can't talk."
"We're coming," Giles said. "Please, try not to die."
Putting the phone away, Cordelia flung the door open. "Mom!"
"Cordelia," her mom said, not bothering to open her eyes. "I'm busy."
She wasn't. She was just listening to the stereo, with a glass of mineral water by her side, good for her problems, of course, but now they had bigger problems.
Cordelia stepped carefully over the chunks of plaster, closer to her mom. "We have—"
Cordelia's mom jabbed at the remote, drowning her out in a blast of opera.
Cordelia snatched the remote from her mom and turned the stereo off. "We have to go, before the house falls down."
The lights flickered, then went out.
Cordelia's mom winced as a piece of plaster hit her thigh, then scowled. "This house will not fail down. It can not fall down. Your dad's money has made sure of that, and he got an hefty tax rebate out of it too. They rebuilt the entire back of this house, to the highest standards, and they'd had done the front too, if it hadn't been for—."
"What's this, then?" Cordelia asked, plucking a small lump of plaster from her mom's shoulder.
Her mom frowned, clearly worried. "Not you too. I had hoped you wouldn't inherit my ... weakness."
"What?" Cordelia muttered, confused. Her dad had said her mom just had a little problem with her nerves, but recognising when the house was falling down was hardly evidence of that —
Another chunk of plaster fell, smashing the stereo.
—and her mom's problems would have to wait. "The house is falling down, mom. You're covered in white dust, and the lights are out. How can you deny it?"
The ceiling groaned ominously.
Cordelia glanced up. She couldn't see much in the near darkness, lit only by distant street lights, but she was fairly sure the ceiling shouldn't be bulging like that.
"Our senses are fallible," Cordelia's mom said, "but I will not be fooled. Since what I appear to be seeing is impossible my eyes must be deceiving me, and yours you, once again."
Cordelia yanked her mom from her chair, pulling her sideways.
Her mom's dressing table crashed through the ceiling, crushing the chair.
"This is real," Cordelia said, helping her mom stand back up. "We'll—"
"I thought I saw something vile in the wine cellar, once," her mom said, her facing paling with the memory. "An hideous— but such abominations can not be. My senses fooled me then, as they often since. Mostly, it's ichor-dripping tentacles, skulls wreathed in dark flame, and giant mushrooms, not earthquakes, but the same principles apply."
Cordelia stared, unable to hide her surprise. She'd never heard her mom mention that incident before, but then she'd never been alone with her mom in this state before. Her dad had always been there, to smoothly divert the conversation away from that topic; very smoothly indeed, to have escaped her notice all these years. It seemed there was more to her dad than she had realised.
Her mom pulled away from Cordelia, stepping two paces back. "Don't let your eyes fool you, Cordelia. You know our house can't really be falling down."
The floor cracked open.
Cordelia glanced dismissively at the door, getting out that way would take ages, then looked out of the window.
There was a rosebush right outside, and the ground was sloping more than she remembered, not ideal, but better than the door, even if it did mean heading towards the centre of the block.
"We're leaving," Cordelia told her mom firmly, hoping she'd listen to an authoritative voice.
"No," her mom said. "I spent years in therapy, learning to—"
The floor cracked open, one crack running between Cordelia and her mom, others cutting them both off from the window.
"—ignore my delusions. I'm not ..."
Cordelia groaned. Wrestling her mom into submission then dragging out of the window would not be easy, but it looked like she had no choice. Her mom wouldn't listen to reason, Giles wouldn't be here in time, and abandoning her mom was not an option.
The cracks opened wider, through them now dimly visible the wine cellars, their floors too splitting open.
Cordelia hesitated, gauging the distance, then leapt.
"No," her mom shouted, dodging Cordelia. "I will not surrender to delusion."
The outside wall collapsed, spilling bricks across the room.
Cordelia watched as they tumbled through the cracks, falling into the wine cellars, and the other cellars, deep below the foundations of her crumbling home. Brick walls were most definitely not earthquake proof; her dad had been cheated.
"This is not real," her mother said, folding her arms. "I deny it."
Beneath her, the floorboards broke away, sending her tumbling into the darkness below.
Cordelia lunged to catch her, too slow, and was left kneeling on the edge of the abyss, listening to her mom's increasingly frantic denials.
After a moment, Cordelia looked up. Time to grieve later. Right now, all that mattered was escape.
The former window was tempting, but this room was at the back of the house, and the Delapoor mansion had occupid the entire block, so, even if she could hurdle the chasm, going that way would put her at ground zero, when the horror rose from beneath. She'd have to go through the house, struggling through rubble choked rooms, and hope nothing landed on her head.
Cordelia turned to run.
Before she had gone five paces, the floor splintered underneath her.
Cordelia grabbed frantically at the remaining floorboards, struggling for a fingerhold, but they crumbled away in her hand.
Screaming, she fell into darkness.
Cordelia opened her eyes.
Overhead was darkness, the rent through which she had fallen the merest suggestion of grey amidst the black.
In the distance someone was chanting, her mom, still clinging to denial.
Cordelia smiled and sat—
—tried to sit up, but her hip flared into agony.
Moving more slowly, Cordelia rolled onto her stomach. Her left hip still hurt, probably broken in the fall, but she could endure a little pain.
The numbness in her left leg was more worrying, unlike her right it wasn't even twinging, but Margo should be able to take care of that, once Cordelia escaped.
Cordelia propped herself up on her arms and looked around, struggling to see by the dim glow filtering through the cavern roof.
She could not see much, only vague outlines, black against the grey, but in front of her the ground definitely—
Was it ground? Suspiciously, Cordelia felt at the rocks underneath her, swiftly identifying their too familiar shapes.
—the deep-piled bones sloped down towards a pit, its depths thronged with unnatural shadow, darker than the night.
Overhead, the ceiling was slowly crumbling, great chunks of garden falling away from the edge of the rent, into the void below, and as they fell they dissolved into dust that shimmered and was gone.
No immediate threat then, the horror beneath was probably wasting time on preparing its grand entrance, giving Cordelia a moment to think.
Her mom's voice was coming from somewhere in front of her, in front, and below, so she must be on a ledge, part way into the pit. Cordelia would have to crawl down there to rescue her, even though it meant heading in completely the wrong direction.
At least, she would have to if there was any chance of success, but was there?
Climbing down a cliff of bones would have been hard, even if she didn't have a broken hip; climbing back up would be even harder; climbing a cliff with a broken hip and a struggling woman on her back was the kind of thing only Buffy could hope to do.
No, she couldn't rescue her mom by herself; she needed help.
Gritting her teeth against the pain, Cordelia slowly pulled herself round, until she was facing up the slope.
It was gentler in this direction, one in three at most, and at the top, only a hundred yards away, she could see the gleam of distant street lights, shining through the cracks in the ground at the edge of her block.
It wouldn't be easy, of course, climbing up that slope while racked by pain, one leg a dead weight, but she was Cordelia Chase; she could do it.
As Cordelia smiled, her palms began to tingle, painfully.
Twenty minutes, and thirty yards, later, Cordelia slumped down, breathing heavily.
Behind her, her mom rambled on, her words now a litany of madness, product of a shattered mind.
Not good, but Margo might be able to heal her, and if she couldn't life in an asylum had to be better for her mom than death at the tentacles of whatever horror dwelt below, when it deigned to make its entrance.
Cordelia wasn't foolish enough to waste time looking behind her, but the air was filling with the stench of decay, and the thud of bone clattering against bone as something stirred in the depths.
At least it was moving slow enough to give her a chance to escape, and rescue her mom. There were only a few dozen yards to go now, and the slope was levelling out. In half an hour, she would be free, unless the horror was just toying with her, or she collapsed from exhaustion first.
Cordelia raised one hand to mop her brow, and recoiled.
Her hand was leprous; riddled with decay, pus oozing from the many ulcers pockmarking the rotted ruin of her flesh, and in places she could see the dull white of bone.
Aghast, Cordelia stared at her hand, bile flooding her throat, then she shuddered, closing her eyes against the horror.
She'd seen worse, of course. In her shadow-spawned nightmares she had suffered deaths that made rotting alive while trapped in a pit of bones with an awakening horror seem no worse than breaking a nail, but those deaths had not been real.
This was.
Cordelia looked swiftly around, hoping to see something sharp, but could see only bones, some looking centuries old, others almost fresh.
Maybe if she broke one of the long bones the edges would be sharp enough to cut away the rot.
Cordelia swallowed nervously, struggling to control her revulsion at the thought. Doing that would be difficult, mentally as well as physically, but it was necessary. If—
Cordelia's left knee tingled, just as her palms had, scant minutes before.
Cordelia mentally shrugged, almost relieved. She wouldn't have to cut off her own hand; it was too late for that. No, there was only one thing left she could do, well, two: climb, and hope.
At last she knew why her hand had been growing numb, and where that stench was coming from, but knowing that wasn't much comfort when she was rotting alive.
Pulling her arm back underneath her, Cordelia shook herself. Thinking like that wouldn't help; she had to look on the bright side.
Her hand wasn't that bad. Rotting, yes, but not furred with mould nor swarming with maggots.
Grinning maniacally, Cordelia resumed her slow crawl up the long slope.
A little later, as Cordelia lay prostrate upon the hill of bones, one hand reaching up towards the light, rainbow fire began to flicker across her rotting flesh.