Thanks to the people who reviewed before, I hope you like this chapter. Reviews of any kind are always welcome.
"So how exactly is this going to work?" Angel asked again. He knew how it all worked—Drogyn had explained it to them—but he just wanted to hear it again. Hearing the exact words about what would happen after Illyria started coming back towards the sarcophagus just seemed like something Angel needed to hear again and again. And now, they'd done it. The sarcophagus was back here, in the Deeper Well, where it belonged, and they had done the spell that merely involved a champion, such as Angel himself, who had traveled from where it arrived to here, the Deeper Well, where it belonged. Drogyn also gathered some other ingredients, but Angel hadn't exactly paid attention to what Drogyn gathered. That didn't matter now. What mattered was that they did the spell. If Drogyn was right, Illyria was making her way back to the Deeper Well here in Cotswolds, England and murdering every person in her path.
How would it work? Would she literally kill every single person between L.A. and Cotswolds? Every person in every city would die? How could there be no survivors? Why would Illyria kill every person in every city, didn't it make more sense for her to just kill anyone who was in her way on the straight path to Cotswolds?
Angel suddenly felt very frightened, liked he'd made a mistake. Thousands would die. Thousands were possibly dying right now, in this instant. Had he made the right choice?
"Illyria was cast from your friend's body," Drogyn began to explain for what seemed like the billionth time. "She will be in the form of something that can maneuver quickly through all the land, jumping in and out of bodies and killing them the same way your friend was dying, only at much higher speeds. They…they probably won't feel too much pain, or even know what happened."
"But they'll be dead." Angel was grim. He'd done this. The guilt was starting to weigh on him. He was trying to do good, to make up for all the evil Angelus had caused. And instead of save a bunch of lives, he murdered thousands for selfish reasons.
If his heart could beat, it would seem to be beating a million times a minute.
"You knew the risks." Drogyn told him.
His soul. He didn't deserve it, did he? He might as well be Angelus to allow thousands and thousands to die. The Powers That Be were probably angry, extremely angry. Cordelia, if she was watching him from somewhere, would be disappointed in him.
"Every city?" Angel made sure. "She'll go to every state and every city and every town? Everyone will be dead?"
Drogyn glared at Angel, but Angel didn't notice. He was asking too many questions, though, and that was beginning to get Drogyn mad. Angel knew he didn't like questions.
"I'm not positive on every tiny little detail," Drogyn answered honestly, because he had no choice. "Illyria will kill everyone. The spell is directing her this way involuntarily, towards Cotswolds, so maybe she won't go out of her way to kill everyone in the United States. But I don't know, Angel, not for sure."
"Hell of a jailer," Spike mocked. He was standing near Angel. "Doesn't even know one of his bloody prisoners disappears and then doesn't know if this Illyria bitch will really kill everyone."
"She will kill everyone in the way," Drogyn defended himself. "I just don't know to what extent."
Something occurred to Angel. Something he should have thought of before.
"What about in L.A.?" he asked. "Will she…in L.A.?"
Drogyn sighed. "No, I don't think so. The spell was so abrupt and she was yanked from your friend's body so suddenly that the pull would have started immediately, saving some lives. How many, though, I do not know."
That meant everyone in Wolfram & Hart would be safe, like Gunn and Lorne, which was good. Of course, the evildoers who worked there would survive, also. The good outweighed the bad, Angel supposed.
But what about everyone else in L.A.? What about…
Oh, no, Angel thought to himself. Connor was in L.A. Gosh, he really hadn't thought this through, had he? Well, it was too late now. Angel just had to hope that Connor was in the safe area, the area where Illyria would not yet kill anybody.
Knox was lying there on the ground, knocked out cold. Gunn was standing over him, quickly contemplating what he should do with him. Gunn, of course, had no idea that Fred was now okay and Angel had done what he could to save her. What he did know, though, was something nobody else did. It was Knox, Knox's fault that the sarcophagus had arrived. He was a crazy bastard who wanted his god to infest Fred's body.
Then again, Gunn wasn't completely innocent, was he?
This was mainly his fault, if anybody else's. He needed a brain boost. He wanted to be powerful again, strong and smart. The whole package deal. He signed papers, unknowing of what they'd bring to Wolfram & Hart.
What they had brought was something that would haunt Gunn forever.
He couldn't think about that now, not anymore. He had to tie Knox up or something before he awoke. If he didn't, Knox could escape.
Gunn quickly ran to a drawer, fished around, and found some rope and some duct tape. He took a chair and brought all the objects to where Knox was lying. He lifted him up and on to the chair then bound his wrists with the duct tape and then tied him to the chair with the rope because two different things tying him down would make it harder for him to escape.
Out of nowhere, the door to the lab flung open and Harmony walked in.
"Okay, seriously, where can I get some good advice around here? I mean, does anybody care about me? I know Fred's hurt and all, and I'm sorry for that, but I'm important too! I have problems that could use some talking out. And I'm deep, you know. I'm important. I think you're all too afraid to admit that you'd be lost without me. But no one listens. And now I need advice. Gunn, you're a guy, right?"
"Uh, yeah," Gunn said, momentarily distracted. "I'm sorry Harmony, but I can't talk now. I'm busy."
Harmony stopped and pointed. "Why's he tied up?"
Anger filled Gunn's chest. "He's tied up 'cause I'm about to show him what pain really is."
"Oooh, pain, that's my specialty. Can I help?"
Lorne sat at his desk. Tears were falling down his face. He knew his Angel-cakes was probably doing his best to find a way to save Fred, but Lorne was still frightened. What if he couldn't find anything? What then? Would they lose their Fredikins forever?
He remembered how the moment Fred had sang he knew. And then when the blood spurted all over Wes's face-
Oh jeez, this was too much for him. Lorne stood up. Maybe he'd go see if Gunn and Knox had found anything useful.
Wes couldn't help himself. He kissed Fred on the mouth, powerfully. Kissing was probably the last thing she wanted to do, but Wes couldn't help himself. Fred, his Fred, was alive and Illyria was gone. He didn't know where she had gone, but he didn't care.
When he finally pulled away, he looked at Fred. Her chocolate brown eyes were open wide in a state of shock. Her mouth hung open just a little bit.
"Wesley?" she asked.
"Fred, you're alive. Alive. I don't know what happened, but he saved you. Angel and Spike saved you."
"Angel and Spike…" Fred spoke in a daze. "They saved me?"
"Yes, Fred. You're alive. You're going to be alive for a long, long time."
"What did they do?" Fred questioned, worried. "Angel and Spike—there was an Old One inside of me. How did they save me?"
Wes understood Fred's concern, but at the same time he really didn't care. He had Fred. She was alive, and that was all that mattered to him.
"Yes," Wes said.
"What?"
"I love you, Fred. I always have and always will. I've loved you since I've known you. Maybe even before that."
Fred broke her gaze away from Wes and looked up at the ceiling. She was a bit too surprised to fully comprehend what Wes was saying. She was dying; she should be dead by now. Why was she alive?
"What did they do?" she whispered. She didn't have a doubt in her genius mind that there was no way she was freed from death without a price.
Spike was glad. In his opinion, Angel had made the right choice in saving Fred. She had once saved him, and he definitely wouldn't have just walked away if Angel had said he wouldn't save Fred.
He lit a cigarette as they waited for this Illyria god or whatever to make her way back to the sarcophagus. Who knew how long this could take? It could take all damn day for Illyria to get back here, which was just insane. They needed to get back to L.A. and make sure Fred was okay.
Spike practically snickered. Since when was he like this? When did he care about a single person so much? Aside from Buffy, of course, he'd never cared so much if a person lived or died.
Oh, well. As long as he wasn't turning too soft he wouldn't mind.
Drogyn was rambling on about something or other, like usual. Spike wasn't paying attention. The bloke bothered him. Him and his stupid ability to not answer a question with a lie. In what way could that help anybody at all, to only be able to answer with the truth? Sometimes lies were just necessary.
Buffy. He couldn't just think about her, run over her name in his mind like it was nothing. And it wasn't like he had anything other to do in this hell of a place. So, he thought about Buffy.
I love you.
No, you don't. But thanks for sayin' it.
Spike would always remember their last conversation and how Buffy was still unaware of how Spike was alive and well.
When he finished his cigarette, he threw it into the hole, wondering if somebody in New Zealand, on the other side, would see it fly past them.
Illyria was flying around in ball form. She did not truly know what was happening, she just knew something was not right. Before she was in a nice body that would work quite well for her, and now she was being dragged through the air like a pointless, useless puppet. She would not allow this. She would get revenge. She would fight.
Illyria dropped out of the sky. She felt the power, something dragging her to another useless human body. Buy maybe; maybe she would be able to stay into this one.
She fell from the sky and made her way to her first body, some sort of mystical force now sending her to the first person she would kill within an instant of touching. Illyria, unknowing, was still inside the L.A. border, but far enough away from the remaining members of Angel Investigations that she would do them no harm.
To be continued…