still in denial
Title: Ride Of Rides.
Fandom: Buffy/Angel
For Jane St Clair, who suggested it when I was in a suggestible mood.
*
The Wolfram and Hart-issue Rolodex updates itself continually and automatically from Files and Records. Lilah can see the letters and numbers chasing themselves across the cards as she flips through them, looking for Ethan Rayne.
Embarrassing that she has to do this herself. She hasn't yet rated her own people.
But she will.
There. Ethan Rayne, Chaos mage, occasional Wolfram and Hart contractor, currently flopping in a seedy--very seedy--Los Angeles motel. She punches the number into her office phone.
After six rings, a tired-sounding man answers: "Paradise Hotel."
"Put me through to room 23."
"What, for real?"
"Yes," she snaps.
"Didn't think that guy talked to the ladies. Hang on," he says, and the phone clunks a few times as the connection is swapped through. It rings, again, three times.
"Yes?"
"Ethan Rayne? This is Lilah Morgan from Wolfram and Hart."
"Wolfram and *Hart*--well, well. Send around a limo and we'll chat," he says.
Promising. "Half an hour."
*
The limo driver is taking tae kwon do lessons in the hope of making the security team; she knows this, because she has to know everything. At Wolfram and Hart everyone has their eyes pointed up up up.
She's sure this pavement has never felt a limousine before. It rumbles as they drive over it as if exclaiming to itself--well, that might be the case. Los Angeles has seen a lot of magic.
They glide to a halt in the middle of the street and a thin man steps out of the tumbledown motel. The driver opens the door for him and he sits next to her, not across, even though it means facing backwards when the car moves again.
Power game. *Please*. Lilah smiles at him. "Mr. Rayne."
"Miss Morgan--I'll be terribly disappointed if it's Mrs." His black eyes gleam like the buttons on her jacket. His face is human still, but he has that look, that sense of power.
"Miss."
"Then I am charmed." Rayne lifts her hand from her thigh and kisses her fingers. His palm is dry but his lips are wet; they leave a cooling mark on her skin.
A mark. Self-protection 101: don't let sorcerers mark you. Lilah takes holy water and a cloth from the side compartment and washes his spit away, never dropping her smile. "Oh," Rayne sighs, "and I was going to have such fun with that one. Down to business, I suppose?"
"I'm sure you're aware of the temple of the demon lord Suzel," Lilah says.
"A bijou affair, more of a temple-ette, but then Suzel was never much for the bang and the flash." Rayne smiles to himself.
"We want you to destroy it." If Wolfram and Hart can accomplish this task, then Suzel's archnemesis Afras will sign on as a client and Lilah will move up three floors. She's not taking no for an answer.
"Mm. No small task," Rayne says, tapping his nails on his thigh. "What's in it for me?"
"Two million, cash or gold."
"Money!" He laughs. "I have all the money I could ever want! Janus provides."
But that terrible hotel--she doesn't say it out loud, but Rayne replies, "Despair sets fire to the emotions. Chaos thrives in the dankest places."
"Of course." She should have known--money is nothing, only a medium to aid in the exchange of items of *real* value. "What did you have in mind, Mr. Rayne?"
"There is a certain ruby in the possession of Wolfram and Hart--the Lachlan-Smith ruby. I want it."
She nods. "Let me consult with Mr. Manners--"
"No." He closes his hand over hers. "Yes or no," he says.
Power games. Is she strong enough to give him what he wants, or is she simply a flunky he should be embarrassed to talk to?
She meets his eyes and keeps her smile. "We have a deal, Mr. Rayne."
Rayne releases her hand and sits back in the seat with a sigh. "Marvelous."
Now to see if she gets to keep her skin. Lilah turns on her phone and hits speed dial one: Holland Manners' personal line.
He answers on the second ring. "Yes?"
"This is Lilah Morgan--I have Ethan Rayne in return for the Lachlan-Smith ruby."
A pause, while she wonders what color her spleen is.
"Excellent," Manners says. "Bring him in and I'll deliver it personally."
"Half an hour, sir," she says, and he hangs up.
She doesn't even know what the damned ruby *is*--but she won.
"Marvelously done," Rayne says with a wide, amused smile. "Champagne?"
She pulls out the bar and pours them both a flute of the best. "To business," she says.
"To power."
They clink glasses and drink.
*
One of Manners' flunkies is waiting in the lobby to show them into a conference room. Rayne is vastly underdressed and perfectly comfortable in the halls of Wolfram and Hart; he saunters beside her with his hands in his pockets.
"Mr. Rayne. So nice to see you again," says Holland Manners. Before Manners on the table is a large, blood-colored ruby sitting on a puddled velvet bag.
"Holland. Have you died yet? One can never tell in this place." Rayne cocks an eyebrow. They have the same empty, slightly mocking smile.
"Oh, not quite yet. The shaman tells me I could see a hundred," Manners says.
"Your aura disagrees." Rayne reaches for the ruby.
"Just a few papers," Manners says, "the standard freelance contract, you've been through this before."
"Once a handshake was enough--now you're taking it corporate, and where will it end?" Rayne traces a figure on the dotted line that sears itself into the paper when completed. "Magic is wild and free as the wind."
"We're developing a wind farm in western Kansas. Wave of the future, my niece tells me. Always a pleasure to do business with you." Manners and Rayne shake hands and Rayne closes the velvet bag around his ruby.
"Fred? Will you show Mr. Rayne out?" Manners asks his flunky. "Lilah, we have a few things to discuss..." There's a twinkle in his eye that she hopes bodes well.
"Oh, but I'm not done with her," Rayne says.
Lilah and Manners freeze and look back at him. "Oh no," Rayne says, "I need her help."
"My help." Manners looks at her. "Of course," Lilah says.
Rayne smiles and she doesn't like the twinkle in *his* eye one bit.
*
Suzel's temple is a small concrete building behind an abandoned gas station. It looks like nothing more than a storage shed, but Rayne steps out of the limo and heads straight for it.
She doesn't have to tell the driver to stay put. She follows Rayne into the building.
"It's the shoes, you see," Rayne says.
"Shoes." Lilah looks around: inside, the concrete shed still looks like a concrete shed. Disappointing.
"In those shoes, we're of a height. Together we're an echo of each other: man and woman, circles and squares, nature and nurture." He offers her his hand; she takes it and he twists behind her and clasps her other hand so that they stand back to back. "It pleases Janus."
"What do you need me to do?"
"Nothing. Stand there and think about the building falling down."
Lilah looks up, imagining all too *clearly* the concrete crumbling and falling on her head. Surely he won't destroy the building with them *inside*?
He's Chaos, not stupid. Janus doesn't like that kind of offering.
"Chaos!" Rayne cries out, "the world that denies thee, thou inhabit. The structure that defies thee, thou reclaim. I bring thee this offering!"
For a sickening moment, Lilah thinks that *she's* the offering, but then Rayne shifts his weight and brings his boot down on the black velvet bag.
The walls shimmer. *You disturb my temple*--she doesn't hear it, she feels it in her bones.
"Entropy," Rayne shouts out, "this world is thine--reclaim this piece!" The building roars around them and a smoke-like being rises from the velvet bag. The being swirls itself around their bodies, humming a high note in counterpoint to the rumble of the temple.
Cracks climb the walls. Rayne's hands tighten on hers as the being whirls faster around them and darkness gathers in the little building. The being smashes itself into the darkness again and again as hand-like shadows reach for Rayne and Lilah; Rayne tenses and flinches away as one comes close to their faces.
She can't run. How could she run? She clutches Rayne's hands so tight his joints squeak. His thumbnail digs into the side of her hand almost hard enough to draw blood.
The roar of the building grows louder as the concrete begins to shake itself to pieces. *My temple. My temple!* The humming of the being becomes a shriek--and then being and darkness smash each other into nothingness.
And the building falls down. Lilah looks up to see the concrete falling and screams at the top of her lungs.
But when she opens her eyes, she's not dead. The ceiling teeters above them, supported by bent girders and a convenient pile of rubble. Rayne lets his breath out and drops his head back onto her shoulder. "Janus was pleased," he says.
"That was--bracing," Lilah says, and her voice very nearly doesn't shake. Rayne snickers and kisses her cheek as they unlace their fingers.
They pick their way out of the rubble. "Nobody will be able to build so much as a parking lot here for decades," Rayne says, "though it would be terribly amusing if they tried." Concrete blocks shiver into pieces as she steps over them; the roof falls in with a rotten crack.
"Sinkholes? Equipment malfunctions?" she asks. Rayne nods. "Well, I don't think Wolfram and Hart will be doing any urban renewal in this area." She'll make a note in the file.
"Now I take my leave. Do call again--for any reason." Rayne takes both her hands and kisses her fingertips again, this time sending a delicious chill over her skin before she can pull away.
She gives him a real smile, not a professional one, and he turns and walks away.
Lilah climbs into the limo and fingers-combs the concrete dust from her hair. "Back to the office," she says, thinking--three floors up. An office with a window. And a secretary. She's earned it.
*
At the office, she's brought directly up to Manners' office. "Lilah," he grins, "good work. Our shamans are on the line with Afras as we speak. He's *very* pleased with our speed and efficiency."
"Thank you, sir." Office. Window. Secretary.
"Looks like you're be moving up in the world. If." He leans over the desk and turns her hand palm up. "You didn't pledge blood or word to Janus, did you?"
"No, sir, I didn't say a thing."
"Good. Good." He doesn't sit back down; rather he stares into her eyes. "Because there is nothing higher than Wolfram and Hart, and we wouldn't want your loyalties to be divided, now would we?"
"Of course not. They aren't."
"Good. Good." His smile isn't comforting. It never has been.
End.
Fandom: Buffy/Angel
For Jane St Clair, who suggested it when I was in a suggestible mood.
*
The Wolfram and Hart-issue Rolodex updates itself continually and automatically from Files and Records. Lilah can see the letters and numbers chasing themselves across the cards as she flips through them, looking for Ethan Rayne.
Embarrassing that she has to do this herself. She hasn't yet rated her own people.
But she will.
There. Ethan Rayne, Chaos mage, occasional Wolfram and Hart contractor, currently flopping in a seedy--very seedy--Los Angeles motel. She punches the number into her office phone.
After six rings, a tired-sounding man answers: "Paradise Hotel."
"Put me through to room 23."
"What, for real?"
"Yes," she snaps.
"Didn't think that guy talked to the ladies. Hang on," he says, and the phone clunks a few times as the connection is swapped through. It rings, again, three times.
"Yes?"
"Ethan Rayne? This is Lilah Morgan from Wolfram and Hart."
"Wolfram and *Hart*--well, well. Send around a limo and we'll chat," he says.
Promising. "Half an hour."
*
The limo driver is taking tae kwon do lessons in the hope of making the security team; she knows this, because she has to know everything. At Wolfram and Hart everyone has their eyes pointed up up up.
She's sure this pavement has never felt a limousine before. It rumbles as they drive over it as if exclaiming to itself--well, that might be the case. Los Angeles has seen a lot of magic.
They glide to a halt in the middle of the street and a thin man steps out of the tumbledown motel. The driver opens the door for him and he sits next to her, not across, even though it means facing backwards when the car moves again.
Power game. *Please*. Lilah smiles at him. "Mr. Rayne."
"Miss Morgan--I'll be terribly disappointed if it's Mrs." His black eyes gleam like the buttons on her jacket. His face is human still, but he has that look, that sense of power.
"Miss."
"Then I am charmed." Rayne lifts her hand from her thigh and kisses her fingers. His palm is dry but his lips are wet; they leave a cooling mark on her skin.
A mark. Self-protection 101: don't let sorcerers mark you. Lilah takes holy water and a cloth from the side compartment and washes his spit away, never dropping her smile. "Oh," Rayne sighs, "and I was going to have such fun with that one. Down to business, I suppose?"
"I'm sure you're aware of the temple of the demon lord Suzel," Lilah says.
"A bijou affair, more of a temple-ette, but then Suzel was never much for the bang and the flash." Rayne smiles to himself.
"We want you to destroy it." If Wolfram and Hart can accomplish this task, then Suzel's archnemesis Afras will sign on as a client and Lilah will move up three floors. She's not taking no for an answer.
"Mm. No small task," Rayne says, tapping his nails on his thigh. "What's in it for me?"
"Two million, cash or gold."
"Money!" He laughs. "I have all the money I could ever want! Janus provides."
But that terrible hotel--she doesn't say it out loud, but Rayne replies, "Despair sets fire to the emotions. Chaos thrives in the dankest places."
"Of course." She should have known--money is nothing, only a medium to aid in the exchange of items of *real* value. "What did you have in mind, Mr. Rayne?"
"There is a certain ruby in the possession of Wolfram and Hart--the Lachlan-Smith ruby. I want it."
She nods. "Let me consult with Mr. Manners--"
"No." He closes his hand over hers. "Yes or no," he says.
Power games. Is she strong enough to give him what he wants, or is she simply a flunky he should be embarrassed to talk to?
She meets his eyes and keeps her smile. "We have a deal, Mr. Rayne."
Rayne releases her hand and sits back in the seat with a sigh. "Marvelous."
Now to see if she gets to keep her skin. Lilah turns on her phone and hits speed dial one: Holland Manners' personal line.
He answers on the second ring. "Yes?"
"This is Lilah Morgan--I have Ethan Rayne in return for the Lachlan-Smith ruby."
A pause, while she wonders what color her spleen is.
"Excellent," Manners says. "Bring him in and I'll deliver it personally."
"Half an hour, sir," she says, and he hangs up.
She doesn't even know what the damned ruby *is*--but she won.
"Marvelously done," Rayne says with a wide, amused smile. "Champagne?"
She pulls out the bar and pours them both a flute of the best. "To business," she says.
"To power."
They clink glasses and drink.
*
One of Manners' flunkies is waiting in the lobby to show them into a conference room. Rayne is vastly underdressed and perfectly comfortable in the halls of Wolfram and Hart; he saunters beside her with his hands in his pockets.
"Mr. Rayne. So nice to see you again," says Holland Manners. Before Manners on the table is a large, blood-colored ruby sitting on a puddled velvet bag.
"Holland. Have you died yet? One can never tell in this place." Rayne cocks an eyebrow. They have the same empty, slightly mocking smile.
"Oh, not quite yet. The shaman tells me I could see a hundred," Manners says.
"Your aura disagrees." Rayne reaches for the ruby.
"Just a few papers," Manners says, "the standard freelance contract, you've been through this before."
"Once a handshake was enough--now you're taking it corporate, and where will it end?" Rayne traces a figure on the dotted line that sears itself into the paper when completed. "Magic is wild and free as the wind."
"We're developing a wind farm in western Kansas. Wave of the future, my niece tells me. Always a pleasure to do business with you." Manners and Rayne shake hands and Rayne closes the velvet bag around his ruby.
"Fred? Will you show Mr. Rayne out?" Manners asks his flunky. "Lilah, we have a few things to discuss..." There's a twinkle in his eye that she hopes bodes well.
"Oh, but I'm not done with her," Rayne says.
Lilah and Manners freeze and look back at him. "Oh no," Rayne says, "I need her help."
"My help." Manners looks at her. "Of course," Lilah says.
Rayne smiles and she doesn't like the twinkle in *his* eye one bit.
*
Suzel's temple is a small concrete building behind an abandoned gas station. It looks like nothing more than a storage shed, but Rayne steps out of the limo and heads straight for it.
She doesn't have to tell the driver to stay put. She follows Rayne into the building.
"It's the shoes, you see," Rayne says.
"Shoes." Lilah looks around: inside, the concrete shed still looks like a concrete shed. Disappointing.
"In those shoes, we're of a height. Together we're an echo of each other: man and woman, circles and squares, nature and nurture." He offers her his hand; she takes it and he twists behind her and clasps her other hand so that they stand back to back. "It pleases Janus."
"What do you need me to do?"
"Nothing. Stand there and think about the building falling down."
Lilah looks up, imagining all too *clearly* the concrete crumbling and falling on her head. Surely he won't destroy the building with them *inside*?
He's Chaos, not stupid. Janus doesn't like that kind of offering.
"Chaos!" Rayne cries out, "the world that denies thee, thou inhabit. The structure that defies thee, thou reclaim. I bring thee this offering!"
For a sickening moment, Lilah thinks that *she's* the offering, but then Rayne shifts his weight and brings his boot down on the black velvet bag.
The walls shimmer. *You disturb my temple*--she doesn't hear it, she feels it in her bones.
"Entropy," Rayne shouts out, "this world is thine--reclaim this piece!" The building roars around them and a smoke-like being rises from the velvet bag. The being swirls itself around their bodies, humming a high note in counterpoint to the rumble of the temple.
Cracks climb the walls. Rayne's hands tighten on hers as the being whirls faster around them and darkness gathers in the little building. The being smashes itself into the darkness again and again as hand-like shadows reach for Rayne and Lilah; Rayne tenses and flinches away as one comes close to their faces.
She can't run. How could she run? She clutches Rayne's hands so tight his joints squeak. His thumbnail digs into the side of her hand almost hard enough to draw blood.
The roar of the building grows louder as the concrete begins to shake itself to pieces. *My temple. My temple!* The humming of the being becomes a shriek--and then being and darkness smash each other into nothingness.
And the building falls down. Lilah looks up to see the concrete falling and screams at the top of her lungs.
But when she opens her eyes, she's not dead. The ceiling teeters above them, supported by bent girders and a convenient pile of rubble. Rayne lets his breath out and drops his head back onto her shoulder. "Janus was pleased," he says.
"That was--bracing," Lilah says, and her voice very nearly doesn't shake. Rayne snickers and kisses her cheek as they unlace their fingers.
They pick their way out of the rubble. "Nobody will be able to build so much as a parking lot here for decades," Rayne says, "though it would be terribly amusing if they tried." Concrete blocks shiver into pieces as she steps over them; the roof falls in with a rotten crack.
"Sinkholes? Equipment malfunctions?" she asks. Rayne nods. "Well, I don't think Wolfram and Hart will be doing any urban renewal in this area." She'll make a note in the file.
"Now I take my leave. Do call again--for any reason." Rayne takes both her hands and kisses her fingertips again, this time sending a delicious chill over her skin before she can pull away.
She gives him a real smile, not a professional one, and he turns and walks away.
Lilah climbs into the limo and fingers-combs the concrete dust from her hair. "Back to the office," she says, thinking--three floors up. An office with a window. And a secretary. She's earned it.
*
At the office, she's brought directly up to Manners' office. "Lilah," he grins, "good work. Our shamans are on the line with Afras as we speak. He's *very* pleased with our speed and efficiency."
"Thank you, sir." Office. Window. Secretary.
"Looks like you're be moving up in the world. If." He leans over the desk and turns her hand palm up. "You didn't pledge blood or word to Janus, did you?"
"No, sir, I didn't say a thing."
"Good. Good." He doesn't sit back down; rather he stares into her eyes. "Because there is nothing higher than Wolfram and Hart, and we wouldn't want your loyalties to be divided, now would we?"
"Of course not. They aren't."
"Good. Good." His smile isn't comforting. It never has been.
End.