A/N: I found something on the other day that really pissed me off. It turns out somebody lifted not only my story concept, but a few of my lines from this story, too, into a Mary Sued rip-off of my fanfic (and a not really well-written one, either). I'm not going to mention their name, as they doesn't deserve the free plug, but if you're reading this - whoever you are - you ought to be ashamed of yourself. It took me many long hours to write these chapters. So for you to not even ask permission to use my material is just wrong. Writing is about originality, not plagiarism. Very amateur, pal.
Sorry about that little rant, guys. Aside from that, thanks to everyone who reviewed, including MacKenzie Creations, angel098756, Floaging, bajatadancer, EmeraldWings90, Pokee (I'll really think about your offer as a BETA - I'm strongly considering it at this point), Katrin DKS, my girl Imzadi, supernatural-fan18, BloodyTink, Dark Vizard447, Angellufy, teamtiva, ashes at midnight, David Fishwick and Philly cheese dude. You're all awesome!
By the way, there's still a few familiar faces that have yet to pop up. Who? Well, you'll find out soon enough ;) Always enjoy the feedback. Want to see something cool, or a pairing hook-up, or maybe another face pop in? Just hit the Review link at the bottom of the screen or email me.
Now, sit back, grab a soda and get your popcorn ready, because here comes the latest chapter of:
Bring Me To Life - A BtVS/Angel Crossover Event
Part 16 - Orbs, Angst and Angry, Crazy Vamps
Hyperion Hotel - Angel's Study
Now
Darla stood alone in Angel's study, rubbing her arms in a self-comforting gesture, as she listened to the muffled noises of a fight going on outside.
Seeing Lindsey again brought too many memories, very few of them pleasant, back to the surface…
The disorienting, frightened vertigo she experienced as she awoke in a crate after being resurrected by the 'good folks' at Wolfram & Hart.
Guilt over tormenting poor Angel in his sleep with temptingly erotic visions, and getting that poor, clueless actor killed when she and Lindsey tried to set Angel up for murder.
The unbearable agony she suffered as her soul finally began to make her feel remorse for every life she'd violently ended during her four hundred year rampage as one of history's most infamous vampires.
The inescapable fear as her impending death - a result of her newly activated syphilis - ticked ever closer to fruition.
The desperation that drove her to seek out that mullet-sporting, pimple-faced loser of a vampire in that dive of a bar, to turn her.
And of course, the most hurtful - the unheeded plea for mercy in her eyes she'd directed at Lindsey as her psychotic Grandchilde Drusilla turned her back into the thing she'd come to hate, the thing she, at last, was finally able to break free of as Angel had held her comfortingly in that hotel room…a vampire. A killer...
Darla shut her eyes, shaking her head clear of those thoughts.
A part of her was livid at the sight of him - here, now - after all this time. A part of her hated Lindsey for his part in what Dru did to her, taking from her what no one had the right to take. Darla had every reason to hate him…
…so why did her heart jump slightly at the sight of that damnably handsome bastard?
Darla's thoughts were interrupted as the doors swung open and Angel and Buffy walked in, followed by Willow, Whistler, Wesley, Giles - and Lindsey.
Her pale blue-green eyes widened in surprise and outrage as she saw Lindsey's remorseful stare directed at her.
"What is he still doing here?" Darla spat out, as she turned to Angel, not bothering, or caring, to see how Lindsey flinched at the venom in her voice.
Angel shook his head. "Apparently, helping us."
"That remains to be seen," a derisive Wesley muttered not-too-softly, prompting a stern look from Giles and Angel.
Now it was Darla's turn to shake her head. "I want him gone."
Giles approached Darla, his hands raised in a placating gesture. "N-now, now, Darla, whatever it is that this man has done to you, I'm sure we can put it aside for the moment to focus our energies on -"
"He had Drusilla turn me back into a vampire, against my will, after I came back from the dead three years ago," she curtly interrupted. "He's responsible for all the people I slaughtered afterwards as well. Still think we can just put that aside, Giles?"
Giles pulled back, aghast, while Willow gaped in surprise and Buffy's jaw dropped as she recalled what Angel had told her a few hours ago - the story of how Darla was forced to drink from Spike's crazy 'ho of a sire.
Her eyes found Angel's again. "Wait, you mean this guy's the one who had you tazered and brought in Drusilla to…"
Angel only offered her a curt nod, as he was still processing the news of Buffy's apparent…relationship with that idiot Spike.
The cool gesture was not unnoticed by the Slayer, who swallowed hard as she realized just how much Whistler's inappropriate outburst had…complicated things.
Shaking that thought off, Buffy gave Darla, who was shaking with anger, something she never imagined she would ever give the ex-vampire who'd nearly killed her friends and family - a look of sympathy. After all of this time, nearly eight years after being Called, Buffy's worst fear was still the possibility of becoming the thing she'd sworn to kill, a vampire.
Death she could handle…hell, she'd already done it twice. But being undead…Buffy never wanted to do that, to put those she loved through that.
Off seeing Darla's downcast eyes after Buffy looked at her, Lindsey felt a sense of self-loathing and regret wash over him. He was pretty sure if he closed his eyes right now, he could still see that wounded look in her eyes from that fateful night.
Whistler, sensing the former lawyer's feelings, leaned in to whisper into his ear. "Look, Lindsey, she's still a little shaken up, so maybe you shouldn't say anything right now."
His words were of no avail, as Lindsey began to address Darla, struggling to find his voice. "Darla…look, I know I hurt you, and -"
Wincing, Darla threw up her hands as she began to head out of the room. "I can't do this right now."
Wesley quickly caught up to her, gently grabbing her arm. "Darla, wait. I realize this is very uncomfortable for you -"
"That's an understatement if I ever heard one," she scoffed.
"- but we need your help on this," the ex-Watcher continued with an uncharacteristic (as-of-late) gentleness. "You have every right to be furious. But I have to ask you to put all of that aside, at least for the moment. Please, Darla…we can't do this without you."
Lindsey felt bile rise in his throat as she saw how Darla's demeanor changed at Wesley's gentle tone, how she seemed to relax at his touch. He was never able to get that kind of reaction out of her, except for that one kiss…
At last, Darla gave a consenting nod as she sighed. "All right. Fine."
The Englishman rewarded her with a half-smile, which she returned with a full, dazzling one. It was at that moment that Whistler noticed Lindsey's right fist tremble as it curled into a tight ball, the jealousy in his blue eyes strong enough to make them turn green.
Ain't love grand, the messenger for the Powers rolled his eyes, before clearing his throat to speak. "Okay, getting back to the business at hand…we've got ourselves a little badness brewing, y'know?"
"Try a whole heap of badness topped off with extra apocalypse sauce served with a side order of doom fries," Buffy replied. "You said you had intel, Whistler. Now would be a good time to start sharing before I make you start bleeding."
"Hey, if I want this kind of abuse, I'll put on a Red Sox cap and take a walk through the Bronx," he bristled.
"Whistler," Angel ground out warningly.
"All right, all right," Whistler muttered. "First thing's first, though - tell me you haven't done any spells on Possessed Girl tied up out there?"
"We were about to, after we finished asking her some questions," Willow said.
With raised eyebrows, Whistler turned to Angel and Buffy. "You guys actually thought that thing would talk to you? The word 'pointless' comes to mind."
"The word 'pummeling' sounds even better unless you hurry up with the explanations," Buffy chirped.
Opting to suppress the instinct to respond with another quip, Whistler pressed on, placing the large black duffel bag on Angel's desk. Unzipping the bag, he pulled out a blue, egg-shaped crystal the size of a basketball, setting it on the desk.
Buffy raised her eyebrows. "Tiffany's version of an over-glorified Easter egg?"
"Try the thing that's going to help you guys save your seer friend without getting zapped by the Big Bad inside of her," Whistler replied.
A look of recognition dawned on Giles's face. "Dear God. Is, is that what I think it is…?"
Whistler nodded. "Yup. The Orb of Makai." (A/N: It's pronounced "Muh-K-eye")
Willow was stunned. "Orb of Makai? B-but I thought it was just a myth, like the Loch Ness Monster or something!"
"Oh, it's real all right," Lindsey replied. "It's just been out of play for a few thousand years."
Confused, Buffy raised her hand. "Okay, back it up. What exactly is this Orb of…MacGyver?"
Lindsey gave Buffy a strange look at her mispronunciation. He could not help but wonder, how the hell did this girl ever get a 1430 on her SATs? Maybe she cheated, or it was all part of the manipulation…
Off the blonde Slayer's What-the-hell-are-YOU-looking-at? glare, McDonald cautiously explained, "The orb is a sacred relic, thousands of years old. It draws on the power of Makai, a redeemed demon that ascended to godhood eons ago after forsaking the lies of darkness to seek the truth in the light of justice."
Off Buffy's frown, Whistler simplified the ancient tale. "Former bad guy-turned-Champion for the Powers."
"Oh," Buffy nodded. "Well, why didn't he just say so?"
"Wait, I remember this now," Angel jumped in. "The orb was forged by a group of benevolent mystics in ancient Sumeria, centuries ago. In 2500 BC, it was supposedly in the possession of King Gilgamesh."
"The demigod King of Uruk," Darla recalled. "It granted him the strength of a hundred men…"
"And the power to see into the heart of all things," Wesley added. "Beyond magic, beyond all illusion."
"Yeah…but it came into the possession of Wolfram & Hart circa the 22nd century BC after Sargon the Great conquered and pillaged Uruk. He was a client, and gave the orb to the then-avatar of the firm in exchange for the power to create his own empire," Lindsey said. "It was eventually transferred into the vaults of the LA branch of Wolfram & Hart. But there were a ton of other things down there with it. It wasn't all that hard for it to go…missing."
"You stole it," Angel surmised.
Lindsey offered a scornful smirk. "No, I used my library card to take it out on loan. Of course I stole it! Ducked down into the vaults just before the day I quit and left town. Needed a little protection, in case the firm decided to come after me."
Buffy was beginning to feel like the dumb kid in the back of the class more and more, by the minute. "Okay, that's all nice and prose-y. But what the hell does any of that mean for us now?"
"It's said that the orb grants whoever owns it extraordinary powers," Giles said. "Including the ability to repel even divine powers."
"Divine? Like a god's?" the blonde Slayer asked, now intrigued.
Whistler tapped his nose. "You betcha, kid. Would've come in rather handy against Glory, huh?"
A bitter look flashed in Buffy's blue-green eyes at the mention of one of her most hated enemies, the now-dead hellgod that had attempted to kill her sister. "Better late than never, huh? Okay…well, that's nice, but this helps us how, exactly? Are the demons hitching a ride in Cordy's skin that powerful?"
"Well, that's the thing, Dimples," Whistler said. "Only one of those things is a demon. The other thing…well, that's something different entirely."
Buffy and Angel glanced in worry at one another. Nervously, Buffy turned back to Whistler. "This…isn't the part where you tell me that it's a god in there, is it? Because that didn't turn out too well for me the last time."
"Believe me, kid, I wish we were just dealing with some crazy hellgod here," Whistler shook his head. "Glory's just a flyweight compared to this thing."
A sense of growing dread crept over Angel as he asked, "Then what is it?"
The immortal demon paused for a moment…right before he dropped the bombshell.
"A Power," Whistler said. "A Power That Be." He frowned. "Or Is. Or Was, or whatever the right tense is to call it."
Hyperion Hotel - Dawn's Quarters
Now
When Molly and Vi came in to the upstairs hotel room, they found what they'd expected to find - a sad Dawn staring gloomily out the window into the dark night of LA, watching any number of cars pass by. The moonlight illuminated her face just enough to highlight the dim sparkle of tear tracks staining her fair cheeks.
Molly and Vi exchanged concerned looks with each other. They knew Dawn had fallen hard for Connor, so hearing that he was a father-to-be (of demon spawn that was probably going to destroy the world) had to sting more than just a little. Still, to see their friend so obviously broken-hearted was difficult to take.
"You guys planning to take a picture, or is there something you want?" Dawn morosely muttered without turning around.
Red-faced, Vi began talking. "Dawn…we, uh, we just wanted to see how you were doing."
"Peachy," Dawn sighed, her eyes still fixated on the world outside her window. "Keen, even."
Molly raised an eyebrow at that statement. "So, it's a Yank custom to sit alone staring outside a window crying your eyes out when things are peachy?"
"You're British, Moll, you wouldn't understand," Dawn smartly remarked, while roughly brushing her face with the sleeve of her shirt. "And I wasn't crying."
"Dawn, come on. It's okay," Vi coaxingly spoke. "We're your friends, you don't have to be all stone-faced about it."
"I don't wanna talk about it," Dawn quietly said, her voice thick with hurt.
Vi sighed. This wasn't going to be easy. Turning to Molly, she gestured her head towards the window, motioning for her to follow. With uncertainty, the British Potential followed the quirky redhead towards where Dawn sat.
Silently, Vi sat down on the wooden window sill where Dawn was. Off Vi's action, Dawn eyed her friend with a harsh blue-eyed glare, trying to fend off her affectionate concern. Yet, Vi didn't even flinch, staring intently with worried clear blue eyes at the brunette.
Molly watched the staring contest between the two with fascination…
After a beat, Dawn sighed in resignation. "You're good."
"It's a gift," Vi smirked. "Nobody could beat me in staring contests, not even as a kid."
"Yeah, that'll come in handy when fighting vampires," Molly quipped.
Ignoring Molly - who Vi threw a playful, yet annoyed glare at - Dawn rested her head against the giant window's frame as she sorted out her feelings. "This is so…it doesn't make any sense, you know? I mean, I've known the guy for less than a day. It's none of my business who he's boffed before I came here. It's only natural, I guess. I mean, Connor's, like, eighteen, right? And he's a guy…a tall, really cute guy with that whole sexy bad-boy thing going on, and he's all conflicted and brave and he saved my life a few times and -" Her eyes widened. "Oh, God, what's wrong with me?"
"Something's wrong?"
The girls turned their heads to see Amanda and Anna - whose face was still bruised - at the door.
"Oh, hey, 'Manda," Vi greeted. "Almost forgot about you."
"I'm in a high school marching band. That tends to happen," Amanda shrugged philosophically, before brightening. "So, looks like you guys made it back okay. Everything went fine?"
"We got the bad guy - er, girl," Dawn responded. "Buffy, Angel and the others are downstairs pulling a Regan MacNeil on her or something."
Off Anna's confused stare, Amanda replied, "Exorcist reference," before turning back to the others. "That's great! So you guys are, like, heroes…but in that case, what's with the glum faces? And where's Connor?"
Off the mention of that name, Dawn looked away, staring forlornly out the window.
Amanda immediately assumed the worse. "Oh, God. Did something happen to him? Is he…is he dead?"
"Worse," Molly replied. "Dawn found out he's the father of this Cordelia chippie's baby."
Amanda, not expecting that, drew back, her mouth forming a small 'Oh.' Walking closer to the group, Amanda gave her fellow brunette and Sunnydale High classmate a sympathetic look. She had seen how they'd been looking at each other before they took off on their crazy heroes-in-training journey.
"You okay?" Amanda asked sympathetically.
Dawn gave her friend a faint smile for her concern. "Not really. I just feel so…stupid right now." She ran frustrated hands back across her shiny dark hair. "When we were hiding, trying to trap Cordy in the factory, he…told me things. Personal things. A-and I told him stuff, too. About me, my mom, Buffy…I thought we were, like, connecting. He has issues with parents, I have issues with parents. We both have weirdness in our biological backgrounds. Like we were almost the same. I…I really liked him."
Her friends shared a knowing, yet sad look. Being teenage girls, they all knew the pain of a crush gone wrong.
"Well, maybe he had a reason to hide being a daddy-to-be," Vi suggested. Of Dawn's surprised and offended glare, Vi backpedaled. "Not that it's any excuse for hiding it, or anything! But…he grew up in some kind of demon world, right? I'm thinking that's gotta mess up your chances of relating to people. Maybe he didn't get that lying equals badness."
"Isn't that something you learn in pre-school?" Anna scoffed.
"Unless they have child day-care in hell dimensions, I'm thinking Connor probably missed that lesson," Molly primly replied, before turning to Dawn. "Dawn, to be fair, he seemed really upset after you went upstairs."
"And I'm not?" Dawn indignantly retorted. "He lied to me, Moll. I told him nearly everything about me, and he never told me the truth about Cordelia's baby-hellspawn-thing. That sort of secret was kind of key to know while we were trying to take her down. Instead, he conveniently left that part out - and it could have gotten us killed."
Hurt and insecurity flooded the pretty face of the Slayer's baby sister. "What if he…what if it was all in my head? What if it was all a game or something to him?" Dawn's voice was a saddened hush. "What if…what if he never even liked me at all?"
The girls fell silent, unsure of what to say that could be of any comfort to the youngest Summers woman.
"That's not true."
Dawn's surprised blue orbs whipped towards the door, where Connor stood, hands in his pockets, an (even-more-so) tentative and uncertain look on the always-conflicted youth's face.
"I do like you," Connor said, with a soft earnestness in his voice that made the butterflies in Dawn's stomach flutter madly. "A lot."
That response drew a warm smile from Molly and dreamy looks from Amanda and Vi. Even Anna - still freaked out by Connor kidnapping her, and almost getting her killed less than twenty-four hours ago - admitted silently that that was a really smooth line.
With the exception of Lindsey, everyone else in the room grew silent at the horrifying truth revealed by Whistler.
"Y-you're joking, right? Whistler, please, tell me you're joking," Buffy blurted out.
Angel shook his head in disbelief. "That…that's not possible."
"It can't be," Wesley muttered, astonishment widening his sharp blue irises.
Giles removed his glasses, his seasoned green eyes wide in shock. "Y-y-you're saying the Powers That Be, the all-powerful beings that are supposed to represent everything benevolent in this universe, who supposedly watch over mankind and guide the forces of light and justice - are actually behind these horrors?"
"Not all of them," Whistler corrected Giles. "Just one."
"Which one?" Angel demanded.
"As if you'd know, even if he told you?" Lindsey scoffed. "They just give you marching orders through the visions Cordelia used to get. It's not exactly like you're on a first-name basis with them, is it, Nosferatu?"
Angel turned menacing eyes towards the ex-lawyer. "I'm about to be on a first-name basis with both your lungs if you don't start contributing something useful, Lindsey."
"I'd really, really have to agree with him on that," Buffy scowled, folding her arms across her chest as she glared at Lindsey.
Lindsey only snorted. "See, this is the problem with you so-called hero types. You're quick to make with the threats and the action, but the thinking? The brains? Well, I guess that's what you've got your…" he trailed off, disdainfully regarding Wesley. "…flunkies for."
The ex-Watcher stiffened, before his upper lip curled into a sneer as he moved towards Lindsey in an attack posture. However, Darla quickly put a small hand to his chest, imploring him with a soft look not to strike out at Lindsey - who felt another stab of jealousy as he observed how her tender gesture made Wesley physically relax.
Shaking off the feeling, Lindsey turned his condescending eyes back to Angel and Buffy. "It - the Power - technically doesn't have a name…well, not one that can be pronounced by any humanoid tongue."
Buffy frowned, realizing something. "Again with that no-name thing. Wasn't that what Skip was yammering about earlier?"
Angel caught that look in his eye - that shrewd glint when the detective in him figured something out. "He said that his boss didn't have a name. Maybe it does…it just wasn't one that a low-level lackey like Skip would be allowed to know."
"Because of the power in that name," Darla realized, her eyes far away in thought. "I think that's what their weaknesses are. The Powers, I mean. Their power is…in their true names."
"Their names?" Willow frowned. "That's a little weird. Their Kryptonite just a simple 'Hi, my name is BLANK'?"
"It's not so weird, i-if you think about it," Giles mused. "In Kabbalistic theology, God's true name - not Yahweh, o-or Jehovah, but the TRUE name of the Creator - contains too much power for all but the most experienced adept to handle."
"Because they believe naming God would somehow take away His significance," Wesley surmised. "That's it, then. Reveal the name…"
"…and the Power becomes powerless," Angel deduced. Turning to Whistler, he said, "But that still doesn't answer the question as to why this…Power…is here. The Powers That Be have never taken on a direct role in anything, though God knows we could have used their direct help a couple apocalypses ago."
"Yeah, so why'd one of them finally decide to get their hands dirty?" Buffy asked.
Whistler sighed. "This particular Power is something of a…maverick, if you will. Emotional, impulsive, headstrong. Total aberration from the others. But it's also one of the strongest among them, so much so that even the other Powers were always a little afraid of it. The Powers have always believed that mankind has to be in control of their own destiny."
"So, that 'you-are-the-pilot-of-your-own-life' self-help crap is what the big guys are into?" Buffy scoffed. "Sounds like a cop-out for not wanting to fix things, if you ask me."
The half-demon messenger shrugged. "Hey, nobody said they were all-perfect, just all-powerful. Free will, the right to choose…that's what makes the human race the great enigma. For some reason, when humanity crawled out of the primordial soup, they could think and act for themselves. That's why Earth, this realm, has been the focal point of everything in existence. The heart of the great experiment that is life."
"Some beings, demons if you like, they do what they do because they're told to, or because it's instinct. Right from the start. No say in the matter. It is what it is. But humans? Not so much. People can either choose to do something, or choose not to. Choices that may not be great, or smart, or healthy. But they do it because it's their right. Because they can. That's a gift the Powers see as precious - the gift of Choice." He paused. "This Power that brought about the Rain of Fire, amongst other things? Doesn't see it that way. Thinks free will is a curse, not a blessing. Got disillusioned by all the wars, cruelty, racism, hatred, corruption, man's inhumanity to man. Thought it'd pull some strings, shake things up, bring about peace on Earth the old-fashioned way - by force."
"Peace?" a puzzled Willow blurted. "What kind of bad guy's big master plan is to bring world peace?"
"Well, that's where you're not seeing the problem, Samantha Stevens," Whistler said. "This disgruntled Power thinks that it's doing the right thing. That it's saving the world from itself. In its mind, it's not fighting the good guys…it is the good guy."
"Yeah, right," Buffy sarcastically muttered. "Such a good guy that it hijacks the body of one of our friends, rains down fire on LA - killing thousands of people in the process - blocks out the sun to turn this city into an all-you-can-eat demon buffet, and lets Angelus out of his cage to terrorize people!"
"All means to an end, apparently," Lindsey mused. "Everything comes at a price. And world peace? Now that's an omelet that's gonna need more than a few eggs broken."
"And Connor? Where did my son fit into this?" demanded Darla, motherly concern filling her. "Is he another one of those eggs in this stupid omelet?"
Whistler scratched the back of his head nervously, knowing that he was treading on a delicate topic. "Well…"
"Skip was rambling on earlier about how everything was manipulated, right from the start. The Trials and Connor's birth, for example," Angel filled in. His eyes bored with force into the smaller demon's. "How'd this thing use my kid?"
Whistler sighed heavily. "You won Darla a second life, but she couldn't use it because she was already living her second life, thanks to Wolfram & Hart."
"You mean when she worked with Evil, Inc. to try to turn Angel evil again," Buffy queried, shooting Darla an accusatory stare, which the ex-vampire's blue-green eyes averted in guilt.
"She was different then," both Wesley and Lindsey angrily retorted, which caused them to turn to each other in brief surprise, followed by irritated glares.
"Okay, yeesh!" Buffy backed off, noting how Darla's cheeks had flushed at both men's actions.
"I already know all of this. I went through hell and high…well, holy water to win Darla a new life, and it was all for nothing," Angel pseudo-sighed.
"No, it wasn't," Darla quickly, yet softly objected as she met Angel's disheartened brown eyes. "Not to me."
The softened glance Angel gave her in return brought Mr. Green Eyes back in full force inside Buffy's heart - although not nearly with as much force as the 'Cordelia' thing had.
"And not to the renegade Power, either," Whistler's voice drew their attention. "That second life was still Darla's to use, somehow or other, so the Big Bad manipulated things to make her use it to create a life in the traditional way- after Angel's crappy night threw him into Darla's bed."
Darla swallowed. "So that's how I became pregnant with Connor."
Lindsey nodded in sympathy. "Afraid so, darlin'. Child of two vampires - particularly two as strong as you and Angel were - that is one powerful being. His conception should have been impossible. His birth broke all the rules, and that created the loophole the Power needed to reach its real goal. Sorry, Darla, but that boy was never supposed to exist."
At that, Darla shot Lindsey a scowl so poisonous it nearly made him flinch. "People exist for all kinds of reasons."
Picturing Dawn's impish face in her mind, Buffy felt compelled to back Darla up. "Damn right, they do," she stoutly said.
Off Darla's surprised face at her unexpected defense, Buffy offered her a slight, yet civil nod of solidarity, which the ex-vampire returned in kind.
"Wait a second," Angel interjected. "The night of her birthday, Cordy said that she was turned into a part-demon - before she eventually ascended to the Higher Planes. How'd that figure into things?"
"Well, for starters, Skip was lying through his teeth when he told her that," Whistler explained. "C'mon, the Higher Planes? That's a pretty exclusive club. Fatal to demons, humans and other lower beings. It's a realm of complete peace, tranquility, goodness. Unless you're a purely benevolent being completely devoid of any darkness, any malice, even a hint of a bad thought…ZAP!" he snapped his fingers. "You'd be roasted, toasted and burned to a crisp by the cosmic energy there."
"Then it couldn't have been a part of a demon that Cordy was infected with," Darla deduced.
Wesley figured it out. "It was part of the Power's essence. Its own life force."
Buffy's eyebrows raised in surprise. "Wait. So Cordy was actually part-higher power? Wow. And I thought she was holier-than-thou when she was trashing people's outfits with Harmony and the other Cordettes back at Sunnydale High."
While Angel threw Buffy a stern look, Willow gave her best friend a wry smirk; thinking back to the earlier, bitchier days of Cordelia Chase, who was more into visions of over-the-top expensive Manolo Blahniks than visions of helpless souls in need of saving. To this day, it still amazed Willow how that self-absorbed bitca who'd tormented her nearly all through high school underwent such an incredible metamorphosis into a caring, yet brave demon fighter as the Seer, the Vision Girl, the heart of Angel Investigations.
"That explains the weird glowing, floating and all the other stuff she was able to do after that," Angel realized. "Those weren't demon powers; they were higher being powers. And that's why she didn't smell demonic to me."
"It must have changed her on a genetic level, somehow," Willow said. "Increased powers, maybe even a stronger body."
"She was certainly strong enough afterwards to withstand the pain of the visions," Wesley said. "When they had originally started to cause her lingering and painful side-effects."
"Maybe strong enough to hold a Power?" Buffy ventured.
"No. Otherwise, the Power wouldn't have needed this mystical birth it's engineered ever since Cordy came back from Up There," Angel answered, his keen mind connecting the pieces. "I'm thinking it was so that she could survive in the higher realm of the Powers That Be, maybe even - be forced to go there."
"Bingo," Whistler sagely replied. "Without a tether to this world any longer, that broad was Higher Planes-bound sooner or later. Once there, the Power's essence caused the cosmic safeguards to accept Miss Chase as a native being, someone who belonged."
"Until she was ripe for the possessing," Lindsey smirked mirthlessly.
Frustrated, Angel slammed his hands down on the table. "Why the hell didn't the other Powers stop it? They're the higher-ups in the big scheme of things, and they, what - decided to just let this happen? Let the lower beings clean up their mess?"
"Funny thing is, champ, they did try to stop it," Lindsey said. "From what Whistler here tells me, they put in a safeguard when Nameless decided to hitch a ride with your friend back down to our plane of existence."
"Her amnesia," Wesley realized. Angel paled, even more so than normal, as he suddenly understood.
Whistler nodded. "The result of big-time mojo. A divine binding spell that was supposed to keep this Power under wraps, for the rest of the Vision Girl's life. The catch was, if cast, Cordelia could never remember her life, not even her own name. Ever. They had to move fast, though, as the renegade Power's infusing of its essence with that girl was nearly complete. Surprisingly, when the Powers approached your girl on that, she did something that none of them really expected her to do - she agreed."
A flushed Dawn swallowed nervously. "Connor…I, uh, where did you -" She paused, another offended look on her face. "Were you eavesdropping just now?"
Connor paled. "What? No, I, uh…it's the senses. Super-hearing, and everything? I…couldn't help it."
He resisted the urge to flinch at her narrowed blue eyes. "Oh, so you were unintentionally spying on me?"
"It wasn't like that!" Connor resentfully raised his voice, before he caught himself, quietly muttering, "I'm sorry."
After a moment, Dawn lowered her guard. "S'okay," she sighed with an apologetic tone.
Sensing they were in the crossfire of something way too personal to be any of their business, Vi stood up quickly. "Well, uh, I think I'm gonna head downstairs. See what the others are up to, maybe train a little bit. Coming, guys?" She shot the rest of the girls a poignant stare.
Amanda quickly nodded. "Oh, yeah! Uh, training…'cause that's important."
"Because we're all Potentials," Molly added helpfully. "And, maybe Anna would like to meet the rest of the group."
"Uh…sure?" Anna agreed, though still confused.
As the girls made their way to the door, a giddily smiling Vi mouthed 'good luck!' to Dawn before she quickly headed out with the rest of her friends.
Dawn shook her head with a smile at her redheaded friend's enthusiasm before she nervously eyed an equally timid Connor. Well, here goes nothing…
The tense silence between them was palpable.
Connor offered a shy smile that Dawn was fighting to not find so hot. "Um, can I come in?"
She oddly eyed him. "You're already in."
Embarrassed, Connor scratched his head in sheepish fashion. "Uh, yeah, I just thought it was the polite thing to say. That's what Fred taught me, anyway. Though I think it was more to keep me from entering the room, whenever she and Gunn were having sex."
Dawn nearly squeaked at the awkwardness of his statement. Seeing the shame on Connor's boyishly handsome features at his unintentional gracelessness, Dawn released a quiet giggle. "You really are new around these parts, aren't you?"
"Is it that obvious?" Connor grimaced.
Dawn sighed, offering him a faint smile. "It's okay…kinda cute, in a weird sort of way."
His sharp blue eyes brightened at her words. "Cute?" Connor repeated, hopefully.
Realizing her words, Dawn defensively frowned. "Hey! No using that boyish charm on me, Peter Pan. I'm still mad at you at right now."
His face fell at her words. "Oh," Connor said quietly, looking like a puppy dog that just got kicked in the ribs after licking its owner before he slowly, dejectedly turned to go.
Realizing her mistake, Dawn quickly reached out and grabbed a hold of his hand, drawing Connor's confused eyes to hers. "Um, wait! Don't…don't go. This is the part where we sit down and talk," she clarified, her eyes beseeching him to stay.
Connor was growing more confused by the minute. She was mad at him and didn't want him listening in on her, yet she wanted him to stay and talk? Were all the women in this dimension so complex? It was a lot simpler hunting three-headed Sla-Neesh demons in Quor-toth than it was figuring out what human women wanted...
Still, he didn't want to make Dawn any more upset, and he had come up here to make things right with her. What other course of action did he have?
So with that in mind, he tentatively sat down across from her on the sturdy window sill.
"Um…I'm not really sure what to do next," Connor admitted, clumsily.
Squelching down the ever-growing attraction to his innocent social ineptitude, Dawn looked the young man straight in the eye. "Why didn't you tell me about Cordy?"
Connor sighed, dreading that question ever since the Beastmaster had so tactlessly announced the not-so-discreet result of their one-night-stand during the Rain of Fire. "I…I don't know," he admitted. "I mean, everything happened so fast, you know? I just met you right after your sister tried to stake my mom, then suddenly, there's Anna, then we're in the sewers fighting Cage, and we're on top of each other in the factory, and Cordy has a meat cleaver to your throat, and it was all just so - confusing."
Despite not wanting to admit it, Dawn found it hard to dispute Connor's logic. It had been a crazy few hours. There hadn't been any time to sit down and really get to know this cute boy that smelled like cinnamon and budding manhood.
"Well, we're alone here now. So tell me," Dawn said.
"Tell you what?" a confused Connor asked.
Dawn held his gaze. "Everything. I want to know about your life. How you grew up, what happened when you came back, Cordy, the baby, Angel, all of it. Trade me some of your secrets, and I'll give you a few of mine."
Connor had never been a trusting soul. When you've been lied to all your life, it tends to breed trust issues. And, boy, did he have a lot of issues. Yet, there was something about Dawn that Connor just could not explain. He didn't know how, yet, but he just knew…she wouldn't hurt him. Not intentionally, anyway.
So, Connor told her everything. Sparing no detail, however unpleasant.
His earliest memories of Quor-toth, Holtz's fanatical teachings as he'd raised him in that horrible place - an upbringing that Dawn suspected had involved abuse of some sort - his return to Earth and the conflicted feelings he'd had towards his real father Angel, how Justine and Holtz - with his dying breath - had tricked Connor to believing Angel had killed the unhinged vampire hunter, and sealing Angel in that box and consigning him into the ocean as punishment (which drew a surprised gasp from Dawn).
The exhausting weight of lying to Fred and Gunn over the entire summer about Angel's whereabouts, the strange feeling of relief he'd felt when Angel had returned and kicked him out of the hotel, the harsh realities of wandering homeless through LA while scavenging for food in dumpsters and finding shelter in an abandoned loft, Wolfram & Hart's desire to dissect him and poke around in his body, his growing affection for an amnesia-ridden Cordelia, the rise of the Beast - which had culminated in the Rain of Fire - when he'd found intimacy and potential happiness in the fake Cordelia's arms.
His confusion over her rejection and resentment towards his human-demon heritage, the not-too-subtle hostility he'd experienced from the Angel Investigations team afterwards, how the 'baby' inside Cordelia finally gave him something real to tie him to this world, and how the Beastmaster had played on those feelings to turn him against his father and nearly kill Anna, before his mother had saved him…and finally, meeting her. Dawn.
Tears pricked Dawn's eyes as she heard his heartbreaking tale. How could anyone take so much pain? All his life, he'd been used like a weapon, not a person, not a sweet, brave boy who needed to be loved and taken care of…
"I've…I'm just so tired of it all, Dawn." Connor suddenly looked so old, so weary beyond his teenage years as he solemnly gazed at her with blue-eyed pain. "I've been fighting since I was born. All my life. Because of who I am, what I can do…who my father is," he scoffed at the last part. "That's all anyone really cares about with me. That's why Holtz wanted me, why Wolfram & Hart want to stick me on a table and cut me up like a frog, why the thing in Cordelia wanted me as her mate. Everyone wants a piece of the freak. Most people spend their whole lives trying to be the center of attention. Me?" His eyes spoke volumes of the Atlas-like burden he'd borne almost since birth. "Sometimes, I'd give anything just to…disappear."
Without thinking, she moved - and the next thing Dawn knew, her lips were firmly attached to his. Connor's eyes widened, caught off-guard by her sudden impulse as the kiss lingered for a few brief moments.
When Dawn pulled back, her eyes wordlessly questioned him, seeking something only he could give her. Briefly hovering so closely to her lovely face, Connor's senses took flight as their lips locked once again, tentatively at first, yet slowly building into something warmer, something tender…something real. Lips, moist, wet and warm, melded against each other, their bodies molded seamlessly, perfectly into one another.
As if they'd been designed for each other, right from the start. Like a glove for a hand. A pea for a pod. A Key to a lock…
Sometime between here and eternity, Dawn broke off their kiss, panting breathlessly as her face was still only a sliver away from an equally breathless Connor, a dazed expression on his face.
Despite her high IQ and strong grip of vocabulary, Dawn couldn't find any other word to describe the racing of her heart, the heat radiating from under her skin, the gentle numbness in her lips other than a quiet, "Wow."
Connor flashed a rare, yet beautiful smile. "Damn right, wow," he said, a hint of boyish mischief in his voice.
Dawn couldn't help but to smile back at him, but then her eyes grew serious again. "Connor…I have to know. Are you in love with Cordelia?"
She'd caught him off-guard once again. "What?"
"Are you?" Dawn searched his face, uncertainty starting to build in her slender body. "Look, I'm not asking how you felt when you slept with her - the evil, fake her, whatever. How do you feel about Cordelia right now?"
After giving it some thought, Connor finally spoke. "I don't know. From what I've learned, this thing inside of her, it's been making Cordelia do all the things she's done ever since she…came back. The real Cordelia, from before - she was kind to me, but I didn't love her. At least, I don't think I did. As for the baby…if that's what it really is…" Connor paused, trying to give voice to the conflict inside his head. "All I know is, the realest thing I've felt since I've been here, the only thing that even feels like it makes any kind of sense…is the last few hours I've been with you."
Dawn instantly wanted to kiss him again so badly…
"Yeah," she sighed instead. "But Connor, all this…Cordelia, the baby…that changes things a little."
"Dawn," he began to protest, only to have Dawn raise her hand and stop him.
"It's not that I don't want to," Dawn said softly, "because I do. But…maybe we should take it slow. See how everything plays out?"
Hurt and rejection flashed though the young man's eyes. "You don't want to be with me," he said, evenly.
"No, Connor, I do!" Dawn quickly assured him. "I…I really like you. A lot. But you were right. This is all happening really fast. And there's a lot going on around here. Apocalypse, end of the world stuff -"
"Yeah, okay, I get it," Connor replied brusquely, abruptly standing up.
Alarmed, Dawn gaped at him. "W-what? Get what?"
"You found out how much baggage I've got, and now, you want to turn tail and run," Connor replied coldly, though his voice was low and pained with rejection. "It's okay, Dawn, I don't blame you for it."
Dawn's eyes widened in surprise, forcing her to stand as she quickly scrambled to avoid this rapidly arriving train wreck. "No, Connor, you don't understand -"
"Oh, I understand alright," the Destroyer cut her off, his eyes flickering with anger and pain. "I thought you were different, Dawn. I thought you'd understand. But you're just like everyone else…" Both Cage's and the Beastmaster's cruel words echoed clearly in his mind. "You don't want to be anywhere near the freak show."
"Connor…" Dawn implored him, desperately reaching for his hand. But he brushed her off, whirling suddenly as he headed for the doors.
"I'm going out," the male teen ground out, his eyes misting as he left the room.
"Connor!" Dawn cried out his name, but to no avail. She watched him leave in swift fashion. Which left the pretty, blue-eyed and trembling brunette more confused and hurt than ever.
Angel drew back, completely thrown by Whistler's statement. Cordy had been willing to give up everything she ever knew? All her memories of her friends, her mission, her life, who she was?
It was almost too much to take in. He'd always known that Cordy was loyal, but to give up so much…
Wesley, Willow, Darla and Giles were also startled by the news.
Taken aback, Buffy stammered, "W-wait. Cordy agreed to getting her mind wiped? Why?"
Whistler gave a rueful smile. "Wasn't easy for her, from what I'm told. But…the princess said she would rather lose the memories of her own life than destroy the lives of the people she loved. She'd come a long way from being Daddy's Little Girl, that one…so, the spell was cast. Before she came back, it was done." He turned to Angel. "Everything was as good as it could get, until you and your crew woke up the passengers with Lorny-tune's spell - the one designed to get someone's memories back?"
"Something which, by the way, set the wheels of Armageddon rolling in motion," Lindsey shook his head with a grimace.
Angel shut his eyes as a sharp pang of sorrow rose in him. After realizing just what Cordelia, his seer, his best friend, had been willing to sacrifice to protect her friends…and the world…well, it wasn't too different from Buffy's deaths to avert two apocalypses. What have I done? Dear God, what I have done?
Instinctively, Buffy laid her tiny hand on Angel's shoulder in a comforting gesture. She, of all people, could understand how the well-meaning intentions of friends could sometimes backfire. Like when they brought you back from the dead, in your own coffin, thinking you were in Hell - when you were really at peace in Heaven.
"Hey," Buffy whispered to him, drawing the attention of the morose vampire. "Not your fault. Okay? You didn't know. It's not your fault -"
"Isn't it?" Angel demanded, a familiar look of pain and guilt in his dark, soulful eyes. "I was so scared of losing the old Cordelia forever that I let Lorne do that damn spell. If I'd just let it go, simply tried to build a new life with her as she was…but instead, I opened the door for that…thing…to slaughter thousands of people, and taint Cordy's hands with their blood!"
"Angel, there was no way you could have known this would happen," Buffy insisted softly, her blue-green eyes mixed with both sympathy and resolve. "You were just trying to help her. It's what you do. You're Angel. You help."
Before he could offer her a smile, Lindsey mockingly agreed, "Oh, sure. He helped, alright. Angel helped put in motion the events culminating in the very act that's going to help the First Evil finally tip the scales of power in its favor, and destroy all life as we know it."
Fully alert, Buffy's wide eyes shot towards Lindsey's. "What?"
Whistler sighed, knowing that here was where things got…complicated. "This nameless Power hasn't got clue-one about it, but…the other Powers figured out that it was being played, all along. By the First."
"'Played' how?" Buffy demanded, her arms folded impatiently across her chest.
Lindsey cut in at this point. "This Power was making some big-time moves, but meanwhile, the First Evil was making moves of its own. From eons back. It sent in a kind of…parasite, to infiltrate the Higher Planes."
Giles and Wesley traded surprised - yet comprehending - stares. "The other being in Cordelia," Giles uttered.
Willow frowned. "What kind of parasite is this, uh, Beastmaster, exactly?"
"Think of it as a…well, a fallen angel, of sorts. A really old, and really strong one," was Whistler's reply. "One of only two, but they were older than most worlds, something that can't even be classified. Still - they were native to the Higher Planes, unlike the First. Neither of them could be hurt by the cosmic energy there. But, eventually, they got tired of floating above all life without actually living, they yearned to experience the mortal realm for themselves."
"The First knew about that, and played on that," Lindsey took over. "Made a deal with them, a couple eons ago - to start manipulating this Power, whisper in its ear, urge it to change the world instead of just letting things play out. Start setting the stage for the First's big corporeal debut on Earth…in exchange, they could keep Cordelia's body, the First would get the Power's new flesh-y threads, everybody wins - except the humans and all of existence, of course."
This didn't make sense to Angel. How could something as dominant as one of the Powers That Be not realize it was being manipulated? "Doesn't this Power realize that?"
Lindsey shrugged. "Doubt it. Probably too blind on ambition and lust for power to stop now, anyhow."
"Something you're familiar with, I'm sure," Wesley coldly sniped, earning a glare from Lindsey.
"Boys, play nice," Buffy bitingly warned, before returning her attention to Whistler. "So, how'd the other Powers figure it out?"
"Near the end, just before the Vision Girl returned to Earth, one of the parasites got caught trying to slip out of the Higher Planes. The Powers forced it to talk, got the whole scoop on what the renegade Power was trying to do…as well as the First."
"What happened to this other parasite? The one not squatting in Cordy's body?" asked Angel.
The balance demon merely shrugged. "Imprisoned for all eternity, in a cube of hellfire. Was either that or they would've killed it. Them's the breaks when you piss off the big guys. They started sending me the messages later, along with their instructions, and - voila! - here we all are."
Buffy felt a chill run up her spine, a sickening sense of understanding dawning on her. And as she looked up into the now-shocked brown orbs of Angel, she could see that he had put it together, as well.
This was it. Everything that had happened, from months, years and even eons back, was all connected to this…the Big Bad's - maybe the Biggest Bad's - grand scheme.
"The First wants a body." The blonde Slayer swallowed hard. "That's its main goal. It always was. The rest was just the pre-show."
"Or insurance…" Angel suggested.
Realization lit up the eyes of Willow, Giles, Wesley and Darla as they began to place the pieces together.
"Of course!" Giles exclaimed, as he slammed his hand on the table in self-frustration. Why hadn't he seen this before? "Destroying the Council - the Watchers and their methods and mystical means of finding a Slayer - and e-eradicating the Slayer line by killing off the Potentials along with Buffy and Faith, would have eliminated all possibility of a Chosen One rising up and threatening its plans…"
"And stealing Angel's soul would have taken the Champion of the Powers That Be out of play, removing another powerful enemy from its path…" Wesley realized as he and Angel swapped stares, reliving those nightmarish days that Angelus had been on the loose during the Permanent Midnight.
"Sending in a giant rock-covered juggernaut to slaughter the LA branch of Wolfram & Hart took out its number one competition for the apocalypse…" Lindsey added.
Willow got it now. "While raising the über-vamps through the Seal of Danzalthar and organizing the Bringers would have given it an army to command…"
"…meanwhile, the Beastmaster finally births one fresh, straight-out-of-the-oven vessel - something strong enough to hold a Power That Was, despite what that would do to Cordelia - as the First's new birthday suit," Darla murmured.
Whistler brought it full circle. "Thereby allowing Evil Incarnate to walk among men, backed by a vast army of darkness, powerful enough to rule this world…"
Angel grimly finished with, "Or destroy it."
At that, Buffy felt the Slayer within snap to attention. "Unless we stop it first." She looked at Whistler. "If we do this spell successfully, will it get rid of the vessel? The…baby?"
"Only if you destroy the spirit of the Power while you're there," Whistler replied.
"'There' where?" Buffy demanded. She hated cryptic-speak.
"Inside Cordelia's mind," Wesley explained. "The counter-spell we found in the Bisylline Codex creates a link - part mystical, part telepathic - that can connect the infiltrators - two people are required - to the mind and body of a possessed person, allowing the opportunity to expel the invading entity from the one possessed. If we're going up against a fallen Power, it would be best to choose someone with great power or knowledge of the mystical variety."
At this, Buffy's ears perked up. "Two people with power, huh?" She turned to Angel. "Well, I guess that I'm heading along for the Journey to the Center of Cordelia. You in, Angel?"
The vampire gave a subtle nod, his voice grim but determined. "I'm game."
Wesley and Giles exchanged a not-so-secretive look of apprehension before Giles turned to Angel. "Actually, Angel, I'm afraid you can't do it."
That statement surprised both Buffy and Angel, the latter demanding angrily, "Why the hell not?"
"The counter-spell is very specific," Wesley clarified. "Only a living human being, someone with a beating heart, and a body that's alive and breathing, can partake in the ritual."
"And being a vampire, that pretty much nixes you on that," Willow surmised, giving Angel an apologetic glance.
Angel huffed, folding his arms in displeasure. "That's kind of…discriminatory."
Buffy stifled a smile at his unwitting joke before looking around at the others. "Well, I still need a traveling partner. Will?"
"No can do," Willow sighed. "I'm Conduit Girl, remember? Gotta channel your life force through me to maintain the spell."
A worried Buffy now cautiously eyed the redhead. "You sure you're up for this?"
Despite her own misgivings, Willow gave a steady nod. "Cordy needs us. I'm in."
"I should go," Wesley stepped forward, surprising Buffy. "I'm quite adept at spell-casting, and I can handle myself in a fight."
"Singing my song," Lindsey drawled before stepping forward himself. "I've cast a few spells in my day, too."
The former Watcher snorted distastefully. "How convenient. Wolfram & Hart's formerly most vaunted prospect volunteering to be alone with the Slayer as she faces off against two incredibly powerful enemies, in a landscape where she needs to trust someone the most."
"Better than sending you," Lindsey shot back. "From what I've heard of your track record, you'd just screw it all up - like you did with the little 'Oopsie!' of getting Angel and Darla's kid kidnapped by a lunatic into Quor-toth, after you were tricked by a fake prophecy. Nice work there, by the way. Definitely can't understand why the Watchers Council fired your stupid ass."
Angered by the mention of his greatest failure, Wesley edged closer to the smirking ex-lawyer until they were barely a foot apart. "Because you did so much better when you let Drusilla to turn Darla, a helpless dying woman, back into a soulless demon, setting these events in motion long before that happened. Darla couldn't love you with a soul - so did you think that by turning her back into a vampire, that she'd want to take you to dinner instead of make you the dinner?"
Wes cruelly smirked. "I guess some people really will do anything for a date."
For Lindsey, it was like having salt rubbed in an old, unclosed wound. A dark scowl etched on his face as he sized up the Brit. "I guess you'd know that from experience, huh, Head Boy? By the way, when's the last time you shaved, Christmas? You look like a damn hobo."
"Guys…" Whistler groaned in dismay.
"Ironic. You, giving me grooming tips," Wesley coolly replied. "I guess that explains the ever-manly shoulder length hair you have. Or did you finally get in touch with your inner woman during your bout of soul-searching?"
Darla shoved her small, slender body between the two soon-to-be combatants, pushing them both apart. "That's enough! You're both grown men, so, for God's sake, start acting like it! Besides, it's a moot point. Neither one of you are going in with Buffy." She turned to the blond Slayer. "Because I'm the one who's going with her."
Her unexpected declaration shocked the entire room.
Stunned, Angel gaped at Darla. "What?"
Buffy was floored. "You?"
"Me," Darla replied. "I may not be a vampire anymore, but I still remember a few decent moves to get myself out of a jam. Besides, this new body of mine has some level of magical power, thanks to the Beastmaster making me corporeal. That could come in useful."
Giles was visibly apprehensive. "Darla, your volunteering i-is admirable, but I'm afraid I must recommend against it. Despite these supposed abilities of yours, you lack your former strength and any experience handling such magic."
"Then who else is there?" Darla protested. "Willow's the only one strong enough to be the conduit, so she can't enter. Spike and Angel are vampires, so that rules them out. The other Slayer, Faith, what can she offer that Buffy can't? And the rest of you…look. I don't know why, exactly, but I know that it's me that has to go with Buffy."
"No. No way. It's too risky," Lindsey shook his head adamantly.
"Darla, think about this," Wesley argued. "We have no idea what kinds of safeguards are in place once you connect to Cordelia's mind. There are too many -"
"I don't care," Darla sharply replied. "I want in."
A beat. Then Buffy spoke one word. "No."
"What? Why?" a confused Darla sputtered.
"I'm sorry, Darla, but I still don't know if I trust you," Buffy said, her tone frank. "There's a lot at risk here, and -"
"Okay, listen to me!" Darla cut her off, her angelic features twisting in anger. "Look, I get it - I tried to kill you and everyone you love. There's no way for me to ever make that right. And I'm sorry. But understand this - that thing inside your friend manipulated my son and tried to make him an accessory to murder. There's no way in hell that I'm letting that slide. I want that thing dead and gone and unable to hurt Connor again. Now, are you going to play ball, or are we going to have a problem? You might be a Slayer, but I'm a mother out to protect her only son. So I'd say the odds aren't that great for you."
For a moment, Buffy felt her warrior's instincts flare at Darla's ultimatum. Then, she realized that Darla was right. She had just as much at stake here as Buffy did, maybe more. Who was she to stand in the way of a mother's right to avenge her son's honor?
Reluctantly, Buffy sighed. "Fine. Whatever. Just remember what I told you earlier." She added that last part with a not-so-veiled threat.
"Very well," Darla responded, before finishing with a grateful, "Thank you."
"Humph," was Buffy's indignant response.
"That's, that's great, and all," Willow said. "But why the Orb of Makai? How does that help?"
"It'll protect Buffy and Darla from the bad guy's enchantment magic," replied Whistler. "This Power's signature ability happens to be mind control. Powerful stuff. Her thrall can strip any humans and benevolent demons of their free will, make their only desire solely to do its bidding."
"Mind control?" Angel mused. "Huh. That's a first."
"Nice change of pace," Buffy noted.
"The orb will keep Buffy's and Darla's minds protected from that, allowing them to see the Power for what it really is," Whistler said.
The Slayer nodded. "Okay, so that takes care of the mind-control whammy. But what about the Power? Something tells me I'm going to need a little more bang for my buck for that one."
"That's easy," Lindsey said. "You need its name. Thing is, we don't have it. But Cordelia does. The real one, that is. It's locked deep in her subconscious - the only way to tie the Power to the mortal plane. Speaking its name should unravel the Power's abilities completely, and hopefully destroy it. Once you wake Cordelia's subconscious up, she should be able to divulge the name. Hell, it might even be the first thing that comes out of her mouth."
Buffy's blue-green eyes scrutinized him. "You don't have any idea if that's actually the case, do you?"
Lindsey held her gaze, bravely…then he folded. "No, actually, but it's an educated guess. Once the name is revealed, a portal should provide your way out of the mental constructs of her mind. Get in, wake up Cordelia, grab her and get out. If you don't leave before the portal closes, your minds will be lost inside Cordelia's. Permanently."
Angel suddenly grew tense. "Wait…if their minds are stuck inside before they can get out, will it kill them?"
Whistler gave the vampire a grim nod. "Sorry, but yeah. Body can't survive without the mind."
It never gets easier, does it? Buffy groaned internally. "No problem. Get in, grab Cordy, get out. Got it."
"Then we're almost set," Whistler said. "Now if you two lovely ladies will step this way and put your hands on the orb, we have lovely parting gifts for you as you make your trip down scenic Cordelia Chase Lane."
Rolling their eyes at the balance demon's corny lines, Buffy and Darla stepped forward and placed their hands on the blue crystal orb. Whistler then grabbed a small scroll from the black duffel bag and recited an ancient Sumerian chant with gusto:
"Makai, Tamalu Emuq. Makai, Tabalu Kanu Ina Sarratum. Damiq Ina Inu. Immaru Ina Etutu. Makai, Peta Babkama."
(Translation from Sumerian: Makai, Release your Power. Makai, Remove Truth from Falsehood. Good from Evil. Light from Darkness. Makai, Open Your Gate for Me.)
And…nothing.
Buffy stared impatiently at the very inanimate orb. "Don't tell me this ancient thingamabob is broken? 'Cause if it is, then that was pretty damn usele -"
Suddenly, the orb began to glow with a light-bluish hue. The next moment, a powerful gust of wind emerged from nowhere, howling around the room, throwing loose pages of ancient texts around as if they were autumn leaves. It was then that glowing blue glyphs of Sumerian text rapidly crawled across both women's skins.
Buffy gasped as she felt the primeval magic course through the already-powerful Slayer blood in her veins. Darla shivered as she felt a rush of ancient power tingling her nerve endings. She hadn't felt power like this since she was a vampire.
"Is it supposed to do that?" Willow shouted to Whistler over the howling wind.
Whistler shrugged. "Can't say, Red. Never seen it work before!" he hollered back.
After a few more minutes of howling gusts, the winds died down and the orb faded back to its original dark blue color. Both women staggered back slightly, dazed by the spell's effects.
"Wowzy!" Buffy breathed out, though nearly breathless. "I'll buy that for a dollar."
"No kidding," Darla panted alongside her. "That was…a rush."
Concerned, Wesley attempted to go to her side. But Lindsey was a half-second faster and reached her first, his hands steadying her arms. The sight of them so close together made Wesley's five o'clock-shadowed jaw clench in envy.
"Are you all right?" Lindsey asked, an unnervingly gentle tenor, Darla noted, in his smooth Midwest twang.
Shaking the feeling off, Darla brusquely batted his hands away. "I'm fine. And keep your damn hands off of me," she groused, looking away before she could catch the flicker of hurt in those stunning baby blue eyes of his.
"Okay, so are we all set to go?" Buffy asked.
"Not yet," Whistler said. "The spell should be in full effect in about an hour. Meanwhile, we have to wait. Going in before the mojo kicks in will put you both at risk of falling under the renegade Power's thrall."
"So, what, we just sit around and make s'mores for the next hour?" the impatient Slayer griped.
"S'mores, smoothies - whatever, blondie," Whistler quipped, smirking. "Once a full hour's passed, we can all meet back in the lobby to handle the Exorcism of Cordelia Chase. I'll trade some more notes with the English guys here, in the meantime."
Buffy groaned. "Well, how the hell am I supposed to fill up an hour?"
As if on cue, Angel turned to her. "Buffy, we need to talk."
Cringing slightly at the not-too-friendly tone in Angel's quiet, yet hardened voice, Buffy sighed. "Oh. Sure. That works."
Looking to Giles, wordlessly gesturing if she should stay, her Watcher shook his head. "We can handle things from here. But feel free to come in, i-if you wish."
Willow's eyes suddenly widened. "Oh, uh…do you guys need me for anything else? 'Cause if not, I think I'll go and get some stuff from my room, memorize the ritual…"
"Check on Oz?" Buffy smirked, knowingly. Off the redhead's embarrassed blush, Buffy grinned. She hadn't seen Willow with that kind of excited gleam in her eyes since…well, since Oz left. And before Tara's death, of course. "It's okay, Will. Go, patch up - er, catch up with him."
Willow shook her head at Buffy's little Freudian slip. "R-right. I-if anybody needs me, I'll be upstairs, patching up - uh, catching up with him!" With that, Willow quickly exited the room.
"Need me for anything else?" Angel asked.
"I don't believe so," Wesley replied. "We'll call you if we need you."
"Good," he replied, before turning intense brown eyes towards the blonde Slayer. "I'll be in my room," was his not-too-cryptic way of telling Buffy where to meet for one of their infamous heart-to-unbeating-heart talks before he whirled and swiftly exited the study.
A weary Buffy groaned. "Just what I wanted for early Christmas, Santa. My very own lump of jealous vampire crap," she muttered before she left the room.
Whistler gave a dry chuckle. "Gotta love the intensity with those two."
"Indeed," Giles wryly retorted. "We'll be setting up outside. Wesley, Darla, if you care to assist, perhaps things can go faster."
"Right," Wesley agreed, turning to Darla. "Darla, could we speak for a moment?"
"Sure you can, Wes ol' boy," Lindsey cut in. "After me."
"After you what? Leave, I hope?" Wesley icily retorted.
"Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you? Wouldn't want anyone crashing your chance to be a big hero stud," Lindsey replied, before looking at the smaller Darla. "Darla, if I could just have a minute with you -"
"You and I have nothing to talk about, Lindsey," Darla cut him off, harshly.
"It'll only be a minute, Darla," Lindsey spoke softly, his tone changed from roaring confidence to quiet, earnest uncertainty. "Please."
Despite her anger with him, there was something in his voice, something in his eyes, that gave enough of a tug at Darla's heart…
"I believe she told you 'no', McDonald," Wesley coldly cut in. "So why don't you take the hint, and stop wasting our -"
"Fine," Darla rolled her eyes, surprising both men. "But that's all you get, Lindsey. One. Minute."
Surprised, Lindsey gave her a beaming smile, although the unfriendly glare in her haunted blue-green eyes forced him to dim it.
"Darla," Wesley tried. "If you're not comfortable -"
She shook her head. "It's alright, Wesley," she assured him with a soft gesture of her hand. "It'll only be a minute."
The smug look on Lindsey's face was almost enough to drive Wesley to whip out his collapsible sword and cut the ex-lawyer's lips right off his face.
Giles must have sensed it, too. "Wesley, your help with this spell could prove invaluable to helping Cordelia."
The words had their desired effect. Without turning those cold blue eyes from Lindsey, he spoke to Darla. "If you need anything, Darla, we'll be right outside," Wesley said, although he softly, yet poignantly emphasized the 'right outside' part.
"I'll keep that in mind," Darla nodded, gratefully.
After a brief staring match between the two men, Wesley turned and left, Giles narrowing his eyes at Lindsey as he left, leaving only Whistler as the last third wheel.
"Just don't be long, McDonald," Whistler said. "Your love life takes lower priority than the end of the world, after all."
"I got that. Now, git, would ya? You're wasting time," Lindsey dismissively waved him off.
Not to be outdone, Whistler left with one parting shot before closing the door and leaving the wary ex-vampire and the former Wolfram & Hart Junior Partner alone to talk. "Git? What is this, 'The Beverly Hillbillies' meets 'Law & Order?'"
San Bruno suburbs - San Francisco, CA
One hour ago
Eight-year-old Tommy LeCroix had never been over to a sleepover before. His parents were always too busy worrying and hassling him about school to let him do that.
So, naturally, Tommy was psyched when they'd finally granted him permission to sleep over at his best friend Kyle Andrews's house. Kyle had a cool older brother and a really pretty sister he liked. And his parents were super-cool too.
They were already hanging out in Kyle's bedroom playing on a foosball table Kyle had set up in his room, hungrily anticipating the extra large pepperoni and mushroom pizza that was due to arrive at any minute.
But then, the screams started.
Tommy could hear Kyle's mom screaming in terror, then her dad shouting something, and then a loud crash, furniture knocked over, more screams, and then…an eerie silence.
Followed by the lights going out.
Bravely, Kyle told Tommy to stay in the bedroom, while he went to check out the noises. He promised he would be back in a few minutes. The problem, though? That was more than half an hour ago.
Tommy was scared. Too scared to remember the cell phone his mom had given him in case of emergencies that he had in his backpack. Too scared to try checking the phone lines.
He just knew he had to get out of here. Check on Kyle, and then go get help. Slowly, he crept out of the bedroom, the floorboards softly creaking under his tiny weight.
"Kyle?" he called in a hushed, yet audible whisper.
Slowly he made his way down the stairs to the main door, which was left oddly open to the quiet suburban neighborhood.
He barely had time to question why Tommy's parents would leave the door open like that before he saw something just at the base of the entrance to the other room.
It looked like…a hand. A really bloody hand. A hand wearing Mrs. Andrews's engagement ring.
"H-hello?" Tommy worriedly called. "M-Mrs. Andrews?"
Slowly he crept closer to the bottom of the stairs, where his innocent brown eyes gaped in shock at what he found.
Mrs. Andrews, lying lifelessly on the floor, a ring of blood encircling her neck…from where two small, pinhole-shaped holes were.
Her husband lay a few feet from her, his body strewn against a crushed bookshelf, his neck laying at an unnaturally obtuse angle. He could see Kyle's sister laying in the kitchen, her pretty blue eyes wide open, yet completely still. Her big brother was lying face down next to her, a sickening halo of crimson blood around his head.
Trembling, Tommy took several steps back, his tiny red lips quivering in fear, his young mind unable to comprehend the horror that he was seeing…
"Are you lost?" came an odd, female voice from the darkness.
Tommy gasped as he turned around, where he found a dark-haired woman - a strange, pretty and terrifying one - clad in a black dress peering at him in dull fascination through glazed blue eyes.
And cradled in her arms…the bloodied, lifeless body of Kyle.
"K-Kyle?" the boy squeaked out, nearly scared to death.
Seemingly ignoring the fear on the young boy's face, the strange woman kept speaking, her tone odd, and foreign and strangely lilting, while at the same time, utterly petrifying. "Look at you…shaking…terrified…all alone…lost…lost little lamb."
She stepped closer, as he stepped back, watching in horror as she gently rocked Kyle's dead body.
"Baby lamb's gone to sleep," she spoke confidingly to the terrified Tommy, while gently brushing a blood-caked hand through Kyle's blonde hair, leaving a sickening trail of rouge on his now red-soiled blond locks. "But his fleece is no longer white as snow…the other lambs became jealous of his fleece and tore him to itty-bitty pieces, they did…and then he flew away on pixie's wings…psst! Psst!"
"W-what are you talking about?" Tommy stammered at the obviously crazy woman talking in strange tongues.
Her shrill laugh nearly froze him where he stood. "Aww, don't be afraid, little lamb. I've been watching you…from afar. For days, now," her voice went soft, almost tender as she spoke to the bewildered black-haired boy. "I followed you to school one day…watched you laugh…and play… though it was against the rules. Little lamb may have tried to tune me out, but I always lingered near."
With sudden reckless abandon, the vampiress flung Kyle's corpse aside, sending him crashing hard into the other side of the room, where he toppled over and lay still.
In a blur of speed, she was suddenly in front of the boy, whose fear suddenly rooted him in place, tears streaming down his face as the odd woman continued to rhyme with manic glee.
"So I waited patiently about! Until this night…where I appear," she flashed a brilliantly dazzling smile, an odd juxtaposition to the bloody hands she held curled like claws in front of him.
Somehow, Tommy forced his mouth to work. "Y-you…you killed them. Why?"
Slowly turning to see the carnage behind her, the woman turned back to the child, and simply…shrugged. "I was hungry."
"Hungry?" came Tommy's disbelieving squeak.
"Yes. Hungry," she repeated as she crouched down. "Don't be frightened, my lamb. I'm doing you a favor. The world is breaking apart. The moon told me. Told me the world is hungry. IT is hungry…wants to open its jaws. Beneath us. Beneath me. Beneath you."
She barked like an angry dog, making the boy flinch. "It's ready to devour us all. It'll be a beautiful, brilliant slaughter." Her dreamy smile faded, her next words making his blood run cold.
"I just wish you were going to be around to see it, little lamb."
"Me, too," came a child's voice.
Both turned to see Kyle, clean, spotless, and smiling. But it was a mirthless smile. A cold, hollow grin sported on the boy's pseudo-happy face.
The woman regarded him oddly. "I killed you."
'Kyle' smirked. "No, you killed him. Me? I don't die that easily, sweet Drusilla."
The female vampire's eyes narrowed. "You…you're not him, are you?" She shook her head. "No. You're Him. It."
"Who am I?" 'Kyle' asked expectantly.
As she drew closer, Drusilla's glazed, haunted blue orbs peered at the 'boy' standing across from her. "I sense…power. Ancient. Primal." She giggled softly, madly. "And gristle and blood and entrails floating around you in a beautiful halo. Like bees. Bzzzt!"
"So, who am I?" 'Kyle' repeated, that odd smirk on his face.
Drusilla looked to the ceiling, as if asking the stars only she could see a question. "Evil. The strongest. The worst." She grinned. "The First."
"Yes," he said.
"Kyle?" Tommy cried out, hope filling his little heart…which was dashed at the predatory gleam in the eyes of his 'friend'.
"Ah, no, Kyle's dead, kid. But if you leave a message, he'll return your call after the scream," smirked the thing wearing his best friend's face before he turned his attention back to the insane vampiress. "I have to say - I do enjoy your work. Killing that pizza delivery boy moments before they open the door and posing as a delivery girl to get an invite inside? Brilliant."
Dru smirked at the thought of the tall, yet lanky boy she'd left discarded in the bushes of the front lawn, his stomach ripped out, blood pouring from his throat. "He thought I was pretty…that I was attracted to him. And I was," she whispered to 'Kyle' in a joking tone. "He had such pretty entrails."
The First/Kyle chuckled. "I knew I liked you for a reason. You know what's coming, don't you?"
"Fire. Pain, destruction…sweet, beautiful death," Drusilla smiled in a sinister fashion.
"Yes," 'Kyle' nodded, almost with a purr. "But it cannot be done alone. I have…enemies who would see me fail."
Drusilla's eyes scrutinized him, and yet…seemed to look past the First Evil. Into somewhere else, a place only she could see. "The Slayer," Dru spat distastefully, and paused. "And…my Daddy, no, the Angel-beast…and Grandmummy…and my…" Her fists clenched as anger overtook her. "And my Spike!"
"Annoying pests, they are," sighed 'Kyle'. "They're causing some…complications that will have to be dealt with."
Drusilla suddenly began shaking, trembling as if she was seeing something too horrific for words.
"The Angel-beast and the wretched Slayer…they're rebonding, rekindling…and…a brother? I'm a sister?...and Grandmother's frail, and all human again. Her heart's filled with such disgusting good intentions…and my Spike…he…he burns." She moaned as if she was in great pain. "He's all aflame, like Daddy is…I can feel him glowing, embers sparkling in his chest, it warms him…..mmmngh, his skin is burning with it, he's on fire! He's on fiiirre!"
A mourning, terrible wail escaped Drusilla's lips, as her hands clawing at her dark-haired locks. She flew into a terrible rage as she smashed the nearby coffee table to pieces, throwing vases, glasses, books and anything she could find.
At that moment, Tommy finally let instinct take over and he fled, bolting to the already-open back door of the kitchen and running as fast as his small limbs could carry him.
After a few moments of raging, Dru sunk to her knees, rubbing her arms comfortingly. "I'm not pleased," she quietly told Kyle/The First.
"Neither am I," it told her. "But I'm working on something to take care of that. I could use someone with your talents, your…unique…gifts. If you want your 'family' back, then the Slayer can't be allowed to live. Help me rip her heart out of her chest, along with those in her line and all her little friends, and in turn - I'll have Spike groveling at your feet in no time, begging you for forgiveness. I may even give you Angelus and Darla to do with as you please. You can have the Whirlwind back, Drusilla. You can have your family again."
Her eyes filled with hope. "You really can do that?" she asked in her Cockney accent.
"Once my plan comes to fruition…there's nothing that I won't be able to do," the boy smiled coldly. "Would you like to play my little game?"
Dru stared at the ghost of the boy for a moment, mulling, considering…then laughing. "I like games."
The First/Kyle smiled. "I thought you might." It looked past the open kitchen door. "It looks like your meal has gotten away."
The psychic demoness clucked her tongue. "Not to worry. Sooner or later, I catch up with all my lambs." Her thoughts drifted to Spike. "No matter how far they've strayed."
Her hauntingly beautiful features shifted to reveal her true, ridged face - the face of a vampire.
In no hurry, Drusilla slowly stalked towards the door, her prey's scent still lingering in her nostrils, all the while gently humming an eerie lullaby.
"Run…and catch…run…and catch…the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch..."
Kyle/the First stood amidst the bloodbath Drusilla had created tonight, watching in fascination as the deadly predator strode into the night in search of her meal. A creature like that, with her powers, her intuition, her strength, would cause the Slayer and Champion's friends, especially that little bastard Spike, all kinds of problems.
"Such a sweet girl," the First smiled using its false face.
And it wasn't done yet. There were still other beings to contact, other players to put on this board. But once it had placed all of its pieces into play, the First Evil was sure that it would be in place for a final checkmate. The Slayer and Angelus may think they had the upper hand now, but in reality…things were going exactly as planned.
And the First Evil couldn't be happier.
TBC…
Next: After four years, Willow & Oz are reunited at last. How has Oz changed? And what will Kennedy do when she finds out he's back?
Spike and Faith. More bonding, less filling.
Darla and Lindsey finally have it out. Will Darla forgive and forget? Can Lindsey really be trusted?
Darla and Buffy enter Cordelia's mind. What kinds of pitfalls await there? Can they save her? And can they defeat this mysterious Power and parasite? Or have they just sealed their fates?
And, the moment you've all been waiting for - Buffy. Angel. THE TALK. Need I say more?
Well, a buh-be-buh-be-buh-be, that's all for now, folks! Come on. Review. You know you want to ;)…(No, seriously, please read and review!)
Jean-theGuardian
