Fic: Between the History of Science and Magic -- PG-13 --- Adelle/Lilah
Title: Between the History of Science and Magic.
Author: Bkitty
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Adelle/Lilah
Words: ~3000
Spoilers:: No episode spoilers.
Between the History of Science and Magic
Adelle DeWitt stopped in the doorway and looked around. She wasn’t usually open to conducting meetings with clients in pubs -- it was hardly professional -- but she had agreed on this occasion only because she knew the client personally, after a fashion. At least the place was upmarket; the clientele wore suits and not football jerseys or something equally vulgar.
After a casual look around - although not so casual as it looked - she spotted the client sitting at the bar and strolled through the tables towards it. She stopped next to the woman but didn’t acknowledge her, ordering a drink instead.
“Right on time.”
“Well, you did say it was urgent. I assumed it would pay to be punctual.” Adelle accepted her drink from the bartender. “Now would you like to find a dark corner to conduct our business in?”
“If I wanted to draw attention to myself like that, I’d have had you come to my office.”
“Why didn’t you?” The client simply rolled her eyes. “Lilah, I’ve broken several rules of protocol to meet with you here, not to mention rearranged my entire day, so please don’t be coy.”
Lilah Morgan finally turned her head to grin at her. “You haven’t changed.”
“As the saying goes: ‘If something isn’t broken. . .’ Now, how can we help you?”
Lilah glanced subtly over both shoulders and Adelle tried to decide if the woman was drunk. She didn’t appear intoxicated but neither was she her usually calm and collected self. Something big was obviously bothering her and Adelle wondered again at how wise it had been to accept this meeting.
Apparently deciding it was safe to do so, Lilah stepped off of her bar stool, cocktail glass in hand, and said, “Let’s find a table.”
They did so, at the back behind a pillar, and Lilah sat so that she could see the whole room, especially the door, but in such a way that she would not be seen by anyone entering. While Adelle respected this strategy she was slightly rattled as to the cause.
“Do you think you are being watched?”
“I’m sure of it, but hopefully not right now. I have a problem.”
“And I’m sure we can help. What is it exactly?”
“I know what you do at that company of yours.”
“That sounds rather more like it could be our problem.”
Lilah smiled, “I’m not threatening to expose you, if that’s what you’re thinking. As much as I enjoy -- and I mean, really enjoy -- blackmail it wouldn’t benefit me right now.”
Adelle looked at her coldly, “You are not really endearing me to help you with this problem of yours.”
Lilah’s smile was just as cold. “Come on, ‘Delle, our relationship was never based on endearments.”
“Relationship?”
Lilah shrugged, “Slip of the tongue. I need one of your people, your. . . what do you call them? Dolls? Cute, by the way. I guess someone never had a Barbie when they were growing up.”
Adelle rolled her eyes, like she hadn’t heard that one before. “I had several actually. What do you need one of my Actives for?”
Lilah used her cocktail stick to stir the remains of her drink. “Do you believe in magic?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Magic! Spells, cauldrons, flying broomsticks, the whole abracadabra?”
“No, why would I? I’m not a child.”
“People used to believe in magic, intelligent people. They used it for everything: to make the crops grow, to cure sick people, to find true love,” Lilah added with a smirk.
“That wasn’t magic, it was science, people just didn’t know it then.”
“You’re missing the point.”
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware you’d made one yet.”
“I think my boss is planning to terminate my contract,” Lilah said, seemingly switching topics again. “And when my boss does that, let’s just say it’s permanent.” Getting a blank look she drew a finger across her neck to make it clear.
“Nice company you work for.”
“Like yours smells of roses. I have this colleague, we’re kind of in competition, and as much as it kills me to say it, he’s winning at the moment. He’s crapping gold and all I can crap is. . .”
“Shit?”
Lilah grinned again, bitterly. “Exactly.”
“So you wish for someone to bring him down a peg or two. A lawyer to outfox him in the courtroom perhaps? A client to slate him to your mutual boss? Or a hitman, possibly?” Adelle smiled. “They can all be arranged, but the last one will come very highly priced.”
Lilah shook her head, “I need something more, shall we say, intimate.”
“Ah, you wish for him to be seduced, earn himself a bad reputation?”
“Not him. If I try to make him look bad and your dolly fails, guess who looks bad instead? I just need to beat him. I need to win where he’s screwed up. And so I need someone else seduced.”
“Okay.” Adelle didn’t think that would be a problem, a lot of people wanted to be seduced. In fact many clients requested that their romantic engagements began that way. It was something of a stock commodity in the fantasy game. “We’ll need to know who of course, and their likes and dislikes. If you could come into the office. . .”
“I can’t do that. The person I want screwed,” she smirked again as she said that but didn’t her in on the joke, “with might be one of the people watching me. If he knows I’ve come to you he’ll realise it’s a trap.”
“I assure you we are very discreet.”
“Doesn’t matter. He’ll work it out. Plus he’s a private investigator; do you really want one of those sniffing your dirty laundry?”
“No. And that will also put up the price.”
“I can afford it. Besides, if it works I can put it on the company expenses.”
“Fine, then I suppose I can take the details here. It’s not how we usually do things, you understand, but for an old friend. . .”
“Thanks. His name. . .”
Their glasses were empty and unfortunately a waiter had spotted that fact. He came over to see if they wanted anything else. To avoid him lingering Lilah ordered another round.
“Angel,” she said when he’d gone.
Adelle almost blushed in a very school girl way, but she kept her tone neutral as she said, “You haven’t called me that in quite some time.”
Lilah grinned, “I wasn’t calling you it now. That’s his name: Angel.”
“Oh.” Adelle licked her lips, embarrassed in a way she couldn’t remember being for a long time, but soldiered on. “And what sort of woman does he prefer?”
“Short, blonde,” Lilah began firmly but then hesitated. “. . .and I suppose good, at the moment at least.”
“How do you mean, good?”
“Nice. Pure. A hero. You know the type.”
“Not really,” she said dryly. “But it can be arranged. Anything else?”
Their drinks arrived but even after the waiter had left, Lilah didn’t answer. Stirring her cocktail, she looked her dead in the eye.
Eventually she said, “Do you know why I asked you about magic?”
“I assure you I haven’t the foggiest.”
“Do you believe in vampires?”
“Of course not.”
“You should.”
“Humans couldn’t survive on a diet of blood,” she scoffed, “and even if they could, drinking the blood of other humans would make them insane in a matter of months. It’s unfeasible.”
“And yet it’s possible. And what makes it possible is that vampires aren’t human.”
“So we’re talking about bats then?”
Honestly, the only reason she wasn’t leaving right this minute was because of their history. She’d had feelings for this woman once upon a time, feelings that still apparently lingered and she could put that down to the loneliness someone in her high position of power had to endure or to the silk stockings that had caught her eye as Lilah had taken her seat. Whichever it was, if any other client had started spouting such utter nonsense she would have declared them a sanity risk and at the very most directed them to another Dollhouse, one she wasn’t responsible for.
“They’re demons.”
That was too far. Adelle pushed her glass to the middle of the table and started to stand. “It was nice to catch up; we should do it again in another ten years.”
Lilah reached across and urgently caught her wrist, making her sink back down rather than cause a scene. “I know what you’re thinking because I used to think it and now I know differently. Demons are real and they walk among us, yada yada,” Lilah said impatiently. “Most of my clients have a supernatural background. This particular man is a vampire. He eats pig’s blood and can’t go out in sunlight. I’m telling you this because your doll. . .”
“Active,” she corrected automatically.
“. . . will have to be tuned to his needs.”
“I’m not supplying you with someone to be eaten!” she said, not that she really believed any of this. Lilah had obviously suffered some kind of mental breakdown. Adelle felt sorry for her on a personal level but she wasn’t about to endanger the Dollhouse’s reputation pandering to her delusions.
“I think I already mentioned he eats pig’s blood. He’s a good vampire,” Lilah said sarcastically. “That’s kind of my problem. I need you to provide me with a girl who can make him bad again.”
“I’m afraid I’m really not following any of this.”
Lilah sighed and checked her watch. “Let’s go back to my place. I have some files that might help.”
Adelle simply watched her dubiously as she stood and finished her martini.
“Scared to be alone with me. . . angel?” Lilah winked as she coaxed the olive off of the cocktail stick with her tongue.
Scowling, Adelle finished own drink and followed her out of the pub. This was most unprecedented. She didn’t go with clients to their homes and she didn’t, as a rule, do favours for ex-lovers either. And yet she felt compelled to do both on this occasion.
She wasn’t a complete fool though and if Lilah wasn’t completely mad then it sounded as though she was mixed up in something more dangerous than she was comfortable with. As soon as they were outside she waited by the side of the building while Lilah hailed a cab and called the one person at work she felt she could trust with something so unorthodox.
“Topher, if I haven’t called you again in two hours, call me on my mobile.”
“Why?”
“Because if you haven’t heard from me by then there is a very good chance I’m being eaten by a vampire.”
“I’m sorry, a whatpire?”
“Just do it.”
She heard him ask, “So does this mean we’re not getting drug tested anymore, because. . .” but she hung up before he could finish, because really, what explanation could she give?
There was a cab waiting and once she was in she started to ask a question but Lilah shook her head. Adelle took the hint but also took careful notice of the address given to the cab driver.
Lilah’s flat was nice enough but not on the same scale as her own place and she wondered if the woman could really foot the bill for such a dangerous engagement as she was requesting. She thought about asking to see a bank statement or two but that seemed too rude with an old flame. If she decided this was a commitment she was prepared to make on behalf of the company then she had people below her to turn Lilah down if she could not meet the financial demands.
Lilah disappeared into another room after telling her to take a seat and came back with a briefcase and bottle of wine and set them both on the table.
“Open that,” she said before disappearing again.
“Which one?”
“Either; they’ll both help you get through this.”
Adelle opted to open the wine first, even though common sense suggested she kept a level head.
Lilah came back with two glasses, sat next to her on the sofa and put her hands on the briefcase. “Are you ready for this?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” she said, joking, “do you actually have a real live vampire in there?”
“That would be real dead vampire and yes.”
When the clasps were snapped up, Adelle, beyond all reason, quickly leaned back, half expecting a monster to burst out of the case. When nothing happened she felt a little embarrassed and a very annoyed about it. She was a woman of science; fairytales shouldn’t scare her.
When the lid was open all she saw at first were several glossy black and white photos of a man - a very handsome, dark haired man, but still just a man.
Lilah took the top one and handed it to her. “What do you see?”
“A picture, captured by a high-quality CCTV system, of a man standing in an office. I’m not sure what this is supposed to prove to me?”
Lilah rifled through the photos and handed her another one. “What about now?”
Adelle looked at it. It was the same office and the same man but. . . “What happened to his face?”
“The common phrase is ‘vamped out’. That’s his true face, his demon visage. Vampires look perfectly human until they’re about to feed or,” she smiled at the photo as if remembering the moment fondly, “get really angry.”
After studying both photos more closely, especially the one where the gorgeous man suddenly look horrifically disfigured, she handed them both back and poured herself a large glass of the wine.
“I think you need to start at the beginning, don’t you?”
*****
Lilah did start at the beginning and it wasn’t long before Adelle was mocking her history lesson.
“You expect me to believe that before humans walked the earth it was populated with demons? That’s even more preposterous than the Creationist’s bloody theory.”
“It’s still true.”
“Then show me the evidence.”
“It’s there, if you know how to read it. Cave drawings, fossils, dinosaurs.”
“So dinosaurs were demons,” she asked sceptically.
“Let’s just say some of your ancestral science nerds didn’t assemble the bones the right way.”
“This is absurd.”
“And yet, as I said, still true.”
*****
“They made a girl strong enough to fight these demons?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Demon magic.”
“There is no such thing as magic!”
“Then how do you suggest they did it?”
“I’m suggesting they didn’t.”
Lilah handed her another photo, this one in colour, of a blonde girl. “Tell her that and then see how far she kicks you across the room.”
“So this is the girl they supposedly performed demon magic on thousands of years ago? She doesn’t look more than twenty!”
“It passes down. When one slayer dies another girl gets a big promotion.”
“So there is just one girl in the whole world to fight these demons of yours?”
“Yes.”
“See, there’s the flaw in your truth. Human nature isn’t like that. Once these tribesmen saw that it worked, they would have created dozens of them, thousands even. They would have forged themselves an army to keep them safe.”
“The power can only be instilled in girls. Do you really think men would have created a legion of women stronger than them? They only made one so they could control her, keep her in line.”
*****
The bottle of wine was nearly gone now and they were still on the same point.
“I suppose if they injected her with demon serum it could change the girl’s physiology on a cellular level.”
“So you can believe in demons but not magic?”
“I can believe in higher or lower life forms whose evolutionary paths dried up until they became extinct and I can believe that humans referred to them as demons because they had no other way of explaining them.”
“So how do you explain the slayer linage? How can one be called each time another dies if not by magic?”
“Something in the bloodline keeps the traits alive and these men, what did you call them?”
“Watchers,” Lilah said with a condescending smirk.
“They know how to keep tabs on them. It’s really very simple, in a complicated way of course, like most simple things.”
Lilah grumbled something about her having a crucible in the place of her soul and left to get another bottle of wine from the fridge.
Adelle smiled; she missed this kind of real personal interaction. The only people she had to argue with nowadays were colleagues and most of those were subordinates who wouldn’t dare argue back and the rest. . . well, she couldn’t afford to let them have too much of an opinion in her presence because it nearly always proved bad for business.
This was how she and Lilah had met, she remembered, in a group of mutual acquaintances debating some topic or another that had seem highly relevant at the time. She and Lilah had continued arguing about it long after everyone else had grown bored of the subject and a few hours later they had wound up in bed together.
Lilah came back with a freshly opened bottle and sat down closer to her than before as she leaned over to pour her a new glass.
“So if your science dictates that all of the demons must have died out because they weren’t evolutionary enough, why do I have one currently threatening my career, not to mention pissing me off?”
Adelle admittedly didn’t have an answer for that right now, but she would think of one. After all, science had an answer for everything sooner or later, and then their argument would gain strength again.
She smiled at Lilah as she felt the wine warm her and bring back yet more distant memories, only the good ones because wine had a habit of doing that at times like these.
Lilah grinned back, possibly tasting the same tang of nostalgia, and Adelle couldn’t help wondering, hoping even perhaps, that history might repeat itself tonight.
The End