Penumbra - part two
Summary: This fic was born directly out of this discussion: Wesley and co. seem to remember everything that happened in s3/s4 save for Connor himself. What kind of narrative would Cyvus Vail have implanted in their heads to explain everything that happened to them without Connor? This story attempts to answer that.
So remember how I said two, maybe three parts? Yeah. Make that a possible four/five. wesley is just so much fun to write god
Penumbra
Part One
Part Two
One summer night, Cordelia goes for a drive and never returns.
They spend the next three weeks tracking down every possible lead they can find; Gunn and Fred prowl the city by day and Angel by night; Wesley sits in the prison he’s made of his office and contacts every interdimensional sentry that he can think of. They gather in the lobby every evening to gather what they’ve found, the residue of powerful spells crackling like electricity around them.
Their hopes dwindle as the days go by. Angel stops coming out of his room; if he brooded before, now… he seems like he’s collapsed into himself, a singularity point for a despair so powerful that the whole hotel seems to sag with it.
Four weeks and three days after Cordelia disappears, Wesley brings them a case. Fred and Gunn stare at him like he’s committed a grave transgression, and Angel refuses to even meet him.
Wesley nods, and walks back into his office as if in a trance. He picks up the phone, dials a number.
“Mr. Wyndam-Pryce,” Lilah says before he can say a word, “This is perfect timing. When can we meet?”
-
They don’t realise just how… off-kilter they are until they’re ambushed by Holtz and his army of young upstarts at their own hotel.
Wesley is entangled with a particularly tenacious youngster who seems determined to regale him with stories of ever-escalating gore in between trying to chop his head off with an axe.
“And after I stuck my axe into that monster’s head,” the man tells him, “I gouged its eye out. And ate it while it watched!”
“Oh.” Wesley ducks underneath another swing. “I once ate a live octopus,” he offers mildly.
The youngster stops, grimaces. “Ew,” he says.
“Indeed.” He lunges forward and knocks the young man out with the butt of his weapon. Around him, more of Holtz’s men lay defeated, while Holtz himself is nowhere to be seen. Neither is Angel, come to think of it.
Just as Wesley is about to wonder out loud, there is a terrific crash, a sound like every window in the building is shattering, and Angel lands in the centre of the lobby several stories down from where he’d been fighting. Holtz is standing there, looking down at them with the manic grin of the truly deranged (of a man long, long past his endurance).
“Let me tell you a story,” he says, and Wesley jumps, because the voice sounds so close, like Holtz is standing next to him and whispering in his ear. “Of a monster that wantonly destroyed the lives of thousands, and pretends now that it can redeem itself by some miserly token effort at saving others.”
Wesley whirls, but there’s nobody next to him (there’s nobody next to him), and Holtz hasn’t even moved his lips.
“You, of all people, understand what true penance means-he must suffer as he made others suffer; he must die in ignominy, reviled, not with the gilded trappings of a hero.”
“Uhhh…” It’s Gunn. “Is something going to happen, or are we just gonna stand around all night-”
Angel rises to his feet with a roar and leaps, but Holtz is standing there no more. They look around, and all of Holtz’s soldiers have disappeared, as well.
(redemption cares not about image; it is only about the debt you owe to the world, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce.)
“I think I’m going mad,” Wesley says.
“I think we all are,” Fred says.
-
“Here’s what I think,” Wesley says. “Holtz and his followers definitely seem to have some kind of a demon on their side. An infinitely powerful one.”
Lilah pours out their drinks. “Oh, really? And what makes you think that?”
He runs a nervous finger along the rim of the glass she’s just handed him. “Special… circumstances. Their ability to extricate themselves from situations without so much as a by-your-leave, their intimate knowledge of every one of Angel’s movements, our inability to locate them, and, well.” He cuts his eyes away. “Other things.”
Lilah smiles, leaning back into her seat, crossing her legs. “All of those things can be accomplished with… extensive resources and good contacts.”
“Like those afforded by a pan-dimensional law firm, perhaps?”
She takes a measured sip of her drink. “I can neither confirm nor deny that, Wesley.”
Wesley laughs. “Of course. I shouldn’t forget who I’m dealing with.” He leans forward. “What makes you think I can’t find these things out, right here?”
“Because we only offered you access to our library, not our entire archives. There is something called attorney-client privilege, Wesley; we do have principles, you know. At least-” and here her smile goes positively feral, “-more than you seem to have at this very moment.”
“Indeed.” Wesley laughs. “And isn’t that an extraordinary little notion.”
She leans forward, places her hand on his. “That’s one word for it.”
-
“Portals,” Wesley announces.
Fred and Gunn look up at him blankly from where they’re bent over a book together. Angel grunts disinterestedly.
“This is about Holtz, by the way,” Wesley adds quickly.
Now they show interest, gathering in the chairs in front of his desk.
“Holtz is using portals to get his army-”
“Minions,” Gunn provides.
“Right, minions, in and out of battlefields without suffering casualties or drawing too much attention.” Wesley adjusts his glasses. “Using spells that powerful on a regular basis will drain a human of all life force in no time, but in this case I do believe something more sinister is at work. Something that we may be ill-equipped to handle. Something-”
“It’s a demon,” Angel says grimly.
“I was getting there,” Wesley mutters.
“It only makes things more complicated,” Angel says, getting up. “Not impossible.”
“Well, if you had let me finish, I would’ve told you that not only do I know exactly what demon it is, but also how to counter it.” He pauses. “Maybe even kill it.”
There’s a few moments of silence before Angel says, “Well, you got your dramatic pause, go on.”
“This demon is called Sahjahn. Belongs to an ancient class that took particular pleasure in causing as much mayhem as possible, until a certain power saw fit to-well. De-power it, if you will, by making it incorporeal, and reducing it to an essence that could be stored in an urn.”
“So-demon genie, huh?” Gunn cracks his knuckles. “How do we kill the bastard?”
Wesley smiles. “It’s incorporeal, so we can’t exactly stick a knife through it-”
“Well, we can worry about that after we find it.”
“And I probably have to add here that the thing can traverse timelines and dimensions with the utmost ease, and is probably anywhere in the past, present or future, right now-”
“Y’know, you can just admit that you actually have jack-squat when it comes to a plan.” Gunn crosses his arms. “I mean-it’s not like you’ve not done it before.”
The smile slides off Wesley’s face. He says quietly, “I did say that I have learnt a counterspell. I know how to make Sahjahn manifest in the present, in his material form.”
“When did you find this all out, anyway?” Angel asks suddenly. A lesser man would’ve quailed at his glare, but Wesley stands his ground. “I mean-I’ve hardly seen you in the office, lately.”
“I do happen to have resources outside of this building, Angel. And a home, unbelievable as it may be to some.”
“This is home,” Angel says. There’s a strange sort of silence after that, charged with a tension that makes Wesley’s palms sweat and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
Fred laughs uneasily. “Well, what’s home without family, right?”
“Right,” Wesley says.
-
It’s night, and Wesley sits in the garden outside of the hotel. Moonlight dapples through the leaves and the scent of jasmine wafts languidly across, lovely and intoxicating. If Wesley were feeling a little more whimsical, he might compare it to one of those gardens from a PG Wodehouse novel: a backdrop for complex romantic entanglements, relationships begun and broken in an ever-expanding love polygon. Perhaps, he thinks, it’s not really whimsy; their lives have been bit of a sordid soap-opera, lately.
Then again, Wodehouse novels were required to have a happy ending. He doesn’t suppose an Apocalypse would qualify as one.
“Hey, Wesley.” He looks up to find Fred making her way towards him. “I was looking everywhere for you.”
He smiles. She looks almost ethereal in the moonlight; her skin shines, and her coltish awkwardness as she picks her way across is ridiculously endearing. He wishes-
“So.” She sits next to him on the bench and smiles up at him. “I hardly see you around here these days.”
Wesley chuckles. “I have been… rather busy. And-it doesn’t seem like my presence is required anymore these days so much as it is… barely tolerated.”
“Oh.” Fred shakes her head. “Angel’s-well, after Darla, and what happened to Cordy, he’s not exactly in a great place right now, you know? And he’s kinda bringing everyone else down with him, true, but you know Angel. He’ll be back out there, fighting the good fight, in no time. And-” Here she takes his hand. “-you’re definitely not unwanted here, Wesley. You-you’re the boss! I can’t imagine what we’d do without you.”
“Can you try?” Wesley asks, softly.
She looks at him, uncomprehending.
“Try… imagining how it would be. If I were not here.”
She laughs, knocks her shoulder into his. “Don’t be silly, come on.”
“Please, Fred. For me.”
She lets go of his hand, blinks. “I… we’d be lost, I think. I mean, without you sitting there, figuring out all that stuff from all those different languages-and! There’d be nobody who can stop Angel and Gunn from running out there swinging around swords willy-nilly and nobody to brew tea in the morning or do that little dance you do when you think nobody’s watching, which is actually really cute, and-” She takes a deep breath. “We’d… miss you, Wesley. So much. Isn’t that enough?”
His hands are shaking again. “Yes, yes, that’s-” There’s some damned thing clogging his throat, and he coughs. “That’s enough,” he says, more loudly, “That’s all… one can hope for, I suppose.”
“It’s everything.” Fred tilts her head, tries to meet his eyes. “Wesley… you aren’t-you’re kind of scaring me right now, actually. After Cordelia-”
“You have nothing to fear, Fred,” Wesley says. “At least, not from me, not right now.”
“Then what are you planning?”
Wesley smiles, looks to the sky. It’s a full moon tonight. “I’m thinking of investing in a prize sow and naming her the Empress.” He grins at her. “What do you think?”
-
At long last, the spell is ready.
Wesley’s researched extensively about this at Wolfram & Hart, but he’s well-aware of the crucial flaw in his methodology: everything that was available to him was controlled by the very firm that he’s fairly sure is representing the enemy as well. He has cross-referenced some of what he’s learned with a few of his more… pan-dimensional contacts, and so far, everything’s been fine. He only hopes that everything else lines up in similar fashion.
Wesley lights the last stick of incense. “If this works-and it will,” he quickly adds when Lorne makes a distressed noise, “Sahjahn should not only materialise, but we should be able to kill him.”
“Let’s hope that happens,” Angel mutters, picking up the part of the incantation assigned to him. He says some of the words under his breath, struggling get his tongue around them.
“Right.” Wesley picks up his own paper and looks at his friends, who’ve formed a loose circle. “Is everybody ready?”
“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Gunn says, quickly squeezing Fred’s hand in his. Wesley pretends not to notice.
They start the spell, progressing from one incantation to the next. Angel’s is the last in this particular round, and the moment he begins to chant, the lights begin to flicker, and they can feel a tremor under their feet.
“Earthquake?” Lorne whispers. “Or perhaps something more sinister?”
Wesley shushes him sharply.
As the spell goes on, the tremors get bigger, until pictures are falling off the walls and the potted plants lining the lobby are toppling over. Angel continues doggedly, until the smoking bowl of herbs at the centre of their little circle explodes, sending all of them flying back.
“What the hell just happened?” Gunn cries, hacking as he takes in the billowing smoke.
“I don’t know!” Fred yells. “Is everyone okay?”
“Peachy keen,” Lorne says, picking himself up with a groan.
“Angel? Wesley?” There’s no answer from either of them, and Fred waves her arms about, trying to make the smoke clear faster. “Are you guys okay? Wesley, did the spell work?”
“Oh, I’d say it worked just fine.” It’s Angel’s voice-the smoke finally clears enough for them to see him holding Wesley against him, arms trapped, knife held at his neck.
“Angel, what-?”
“Angel, shmangel.” He rolls his eyes. “Vampire with a soul, indeed. Has about as much appeal as ‘Mint with a Hole’. Speaking of which, apparently they don’t sell those things here! Now that’s a travesty.”
“Please,” Wesley whispers. “Please, all of you-you have to get out of here.”
Angel laughs, short and barking. “Now, that? Not gonna happen.”
Without warning, he swiftly brings the knife-blade across Wesley’s neck, then lets go. Blood blooms in the knife’s wake. Wesley collapses to the floor, too numb to feel anything beyond the indescribable flash-burn of the initial insult, clutching at his bleeding neck.
Angel grins at them. “Y’know-I’d stay for the blood an’ all, but I think I’m in the mood for takeout tonight.”
And he leaps out the front door and is lost to the night.
-
(tbc)