Chapter 24

Wolfram & Hart Law Offices, L.A., late morning (same day)…

Lindsey MacDonald stood in the center of the elevator headed down from his office to the ground floor when it stopped at another floor. The doors opened to reveal Lilah Morgan, co-worker and competition in moving up at the law offices they both worked at.

As handsome and well mannered as he was, Lindsey always felt like a country bumpkin around her. Tall, lithe, and oozing sexuality, Lilah was perfect as a corporate lawyer. Little did most people know she really was a Medusa in human clothing. She was nasty when she worked and she played to win.

“Lindsey,” Lilah said as she strode onto the elevator.

He nodded slightly as he moved over so they weren’t in each others personal space. “Lilah,” he replied.

The doors closed and the elevator moved downward. “Hollis thinks you’re doing well in our little neck of the woods,” she purred his way. He could tell she was checking him out. She did that with all the attractive men in the firm. “That’s what you call places when you’re from out in the country, isn’t it?”

And of course she never let him forget he wasn’t from a metropolis. He was from a small farming town. She always had to dig it in. Not that he was ashamed of it. But she made it sound like it was where the stupid people lived.

“That’s good to know,” Lindsey replied, not even looking her way. “I didn’t realize that Mr. Manners talked about me. I guess he’s thinking about giving me a few of your cases.”

He knew her eyes went flat at that. Rule one in the life of Lilah Morgan, she didn’t fail. If she did heads would roll and it would never be hers.

“Hardly,” she said in a firmer tone as the ‘ding’ of the elevator went off and the doors opened showing the beautiful expanse of the lobby at Wolfram and Hart. The carpets were expensive off white. The staircase leading to the second floor was stylish and sleek in marble and wood, just like many of the pillars around the area. The offices were paneled in glass and the lobby area was filled with comfortable chairs and sofas for waiting executive clients.

Lindsey let her go out first as he was taught by his mother, always a gentleman. Lilah turned in the doorway putting her hands out to hold the doors from closing as she looked down at him. “If he does offer one, you may want to rethink it carefully,” she warned him.

She turned and left making him hurry out of the elevator before the doors closed. He had riled her slightly which was an accomplishment in the firm. Gavin was best known for it, but that was because he knew her well. Lilah hated the man.

The two were halfway to the conference room when the massive sliding glass doors leading into the building chimed a little. Lilah turned at this and Lindsey looked with her. Being newer to the firm he wasn’t sure what it meant but if she was concerned then he should be too.

Violet little lights flared up on the glass and Lilah took in a breath. “What is it?” he asked wanting to know what it meant.

The inner door slid open. That meant whoever was there wasn’t locked in the corridor between the outside and inner doors, so they weren’t a major threat to the firm. But security guards moved out into the lobby. No one had a chance to duck as a large red ball looking thing was lobbed through the doorway. Something sprayed out from it and the pristine walls and carpets were spattered with green ichor.

The red ball bounced on the floor a few times then rolled to a stop in front of Lilah’s feet. It was a demon’s head, the left eye was gouged out.

“Damn,” Lilah muttered as Lindsey looked up to see a very young, short, but pretty blond come marching through the doorway.

A security guard who easily had over a hundred pounds on the blond came at her with a police baton. Lindsey’s eyes went wide when the girl blocked the baton with a forearm stopping right where her arm was, she didn’t give an inch on it as she countered with a sharp right hook knocking the guard back ten feet.

“Damn, damn, damn,” Lilah said as two more teenagers came through the front door. A redheaded girl and a dark headed boy. This time the lights flared up in grays.

“What?” Lindsey asked. He knew Lilah knew who they were and he wanted to know.

“Who the hell is the boss around here?” the blond demanded to know.

The guard came at her again this time with a knife. Lindsey watched as she beat the crap out of the massive guard. With a roundhouse kick that even Bruce Lee would be proud of the guard sailed up into the air and landed on his head and didn’t get up. The girl hadn’t even broken a sweat. She had a scratch on her arm from a lucky swing with the knife but she seemed to not even notice it.

“Buff,” the boy said and the blond looked his way. They both looked at the redhead who was looking at Lilah. “She’s the one.”

The blond came her way and Lilah stood her ground but Lindsey could see her shiver. That meant this girl was dangerous. Other than Hollis Manners, their boss, no one else scared Lilah… not until this girl.

“Are you the boss?” she asked Lilah.

“What is it you want?” Lilah asked looking at them. The boy and redhead were about six feet behind the blond and didn’t come any closer.

“What do I want?” the blond replied getting angry. “We’ve had vampire, cops, demons, you name it coming after us all so you can get Willow. It stops now.”

Lilah smirked a little. “What are you going to do Slayer?” The blonde’s eyes opened at that. “You didn’t think we knew who you were?” Lilah said condescendingly. “You and your boyfriend Angel patrolling around here last summer? Where is Angel at anyway?”

“Oh, that’s bad,” the boy whispered and the redhead nodded.

The Slayer’s eyes narrowed and she stiffened. Lindsey felt like wetting his pants at the danger that exuded off of this… teenager, and he knew how to stay up in a fight with men bigger than him.

“We don’t want you, we want Willow,” Lilah replied as guards came up behind the three teenagers.

“Wrong answer,” the Slayer said. She elbowed one guard in the stomach and with a hard left arm hit the other guard behind her with an arm to the throat. Lindsey could hear the hits they were so hard.

He saw the boy take out a crowbar from under his jacket and take on the guard behind him. The three headed for the redhead just stopped. They looked like they were stuck, the redhead had pointed at them and that was it.

“This really is for the best, Willow,” Lilah told her. “You would do well to come with us now before your friends got hurt.”

Lindsey figured that Willow was the redhead when the slip of a girl looked her way. “What do you want with me?” she asked. “What have I ever done to you?”

Lilah smiled and took a step forward only to have to step over the demon head with her expensive Italian high heels. “You have power, power that we want to harness into something fantastic. You’ll be the most powerful witch in the world.”

Willow blinked at this as six more guards came out from different places in the lobby. So far the boy and the Slayer were holding their own not taking much damage from the fighting. Lindsey had to respect that.

“I don’t want to be owned by you, you’re evil and I’m not,” Willow stated firmly.

“Really?” Lilah replied. “The hellmouth has changed that. Anyone here with magic abilities can feel your presence. You can use the dark magics of Hell to your will and with it, you will control so many things. Wolfram and Hart will make sure you get the best schooling, anything you desire, and no one will punish you for anything you do for the firm.”

Willow glanced back as Buffy went down sliding across the floor on her back from a strong hit. She had been hit a few times but there were four guard she had taken out already.

“Do you really want to see your friends suffer for this, Willow?” Lilah asked taking a step closer to the redhead. “You belong to us.” Willow looked up at her and Lilah shrugged. “We’re evil, we’re lawyers, and we always get what we want.”

Lindsey stepped back as the redhead’s hair began to turn black. Willow shook her head. “I’m not evil, I don’t belong to you, and you won’t hurt my friends,” she said.

Lilah smiled. “Are you sure about that?” she asked as Buffy went down under five men, none of them completely human.

Willow’s eyes turned black and dark mists began to float around her. Lindsey could feel the raw power radiate out of her now and he stepped back farther. As tough as he was his daddy taught him to not be a fool.

Willow’s hands went out to her sides and magic flew from her fingers in waves. Anyone who could ducked for cover as desks blew up, chunks of marble and concrete tore from the walls, stairs ripped up from the staircase, windows to the offices shattered.

Lindsey looked up from where he covered his face from flying debris to see the mists swirl around the girl. It wasn’t just dark, there was a gold mist mixing with it. The debris didn’t touch her, but if it did she probably wouldn’t notice.

“Don’t be stupid!” Lilah yelled at Willow from where she was huddled down on the floor.

The weave of the carpet on the floor shriveled, wood cracked and decayed, the head of the demon warped until it looked like dried out skull.

“Willow!” the boy screamed at her from somewhere in the lobby.

The magic stopped and Willow sank to her knees as her body shook. “You stupid witch!” Lilah said as she slowly stood heading for where the redhead was, the teenager looked ready to collapse.

The elevator doors opened and Hollis Manners, the head of the L.A. division of the firm stepped out. “What’s this then?” he asked as he came out. He looked to see who was there and the millions of dollars of damage done to about three levels of the building.

“Get the witch!” Lilah told any standing guard.

The boy grabbed up a long knife abandoned in the fighting somewhere and grabbed Mr. Manners holding the blade to his neck.

“Don’t touch her,” the boy warned them.

Willow was almost out of it, her eyes barely open as she looked to the boy. “Xander don’t,” she told him.

The pile of bodies where the slayer had gone down heaved up violently with a lurch. Lindsey watched as they were pushed up and out and the blond, the Slayer, as Lilah called her, got out. She had been safe from the debris, but the guards hadn’t, they were all out. She instantly took in what was going on. This young woman was a predator of the highest form.

“Xander, put it down,” the Slayer told him.

The boy, Xander shook his head. “You know we aren’t getting out of L.A.’s hellmouth if I do, Buffy,” Xander told the blond.

“Everyone back off,” Mr. Manners told everyone from where he watched. The knife to his neck didn’t seem to worry him all that much. “Let them leave.”

Buffy looked at him warily but she jumped over the debris easily and grabbed up Willow glaring at Lilah. She slung the redhead’s arm around her neck and walked her to the door. Willow was barely walking under her own power. Xander walked Mr. Manners over towards the doors, still threatening with the knife. Everyone stayed away from them.

Lindsey couldn’t make out what Mr. Manners said to the three as they got to the door but Buffy looked at him for a moment then nodded to Xander. The boy pushed Mr. Manners back into the building as Buffy picked Willow into her arms as if she weighed nothing and the two ran out through the doors.

“After them!” Lilah shouted at the three guards still standing.

Mr. Manners held up his hand watching the three teenagers leave. The guards stopped. “Chase them only, let them escape,” he told the guards.

The guards headed out after them as Lilah went his way looking furious. Lindsey stood up and came up next to them. “What are you doing sir?” Lilah hissed at her boss. “We had her right here!”

Mr. Manners looked her way and she backed off a little. “The senior partners want an eye kept on our young witch. For now, she’s free. She’ll be ours soon enough,” he told her.

The wards about the building chimed as five people magically appeared just outside the doorway. They were in robes and carried wands. Lilah had never seen the likes of them before. “Now what?” she muttered.

The people stepped through and looked around the building. “What happened here?” one asked.

Mr. Manners smiled pleasantly at them like nothing had happened. “Nothing to worry about Auror.” The man who asked looked his way and the smile grew a little bigger. “I was wondering why I would need this today,” Mr. Manners said as he pulled out a small old scroll. A scroll? Lindsey wondered. Mr. Manners handed it over and the man looked at it then at him. “I assure you,” Mr. Manners told him, “it is all current with your Ministry.”

The man scowled. “Damn that Hinklebottom,” he muttered and handed it back. He motioned and the five left in mists of magic.

“What was that?” Lindsey asked.

Mr. Manners looked his way as he tucked the scroll back into his jacket pocket. “It seems is if our Seers need to do some more digging on our young witch.”

Lindsey and Lilah watched him head for the conference room stepping over the bodies and damage there. “What Ministry?” Lilah asked.

Mr. Manners smiled. “The American Ministry of Magic. If it’s true then young Miss Rosenberg isn’t a Rosenberg at all.”

Lindsey saw that Lilah was just as confused as he was. They followed Mr. Manners into the conference room, the door was on its last hinge and as it creaked shut it shattered behind him.

oooooooooo

Somewhere around a mile or so away from Wolfram and Hart offices…

Buffy leaned out from a doorway in some alley, only God knew where, to look for their pursuers. She had killed two of them, there were three more looking for them. For the last four blocks she hadn’t seen anything of them. That didn’t mean they weren’t there.

Xander’s dark thatch of hair came around the corner above her and brown eyes looked with her. “Anything?” he whispered.

“Who’s holding Willow up?” she asked.

“My knee, I have many skills,” Xander replied. “Anything?”

Buffy shook her head as she came back into hiding and the two stood on either side of their friend who was half out of it. She leaned on the doorframe like she was drunk and it was Xander’s knee to her stomach that held her there. “Not even a spider tingle,” she told him.

They each took an arm and led Willow out of the recess and down the alley. A few more turns and they came to just a little nicer alley. Off to one side as they passed they saw a word on a small plaque, next to it were steps leading down into the basement of a building. “Caritas,” Xander said. “What’s that?”

“Spanish, like a place to eat I think,” Buffy guessed giving him a shrug.

“Mercy,” Willow whispered.

The two friends looked at her and saw that it was the only thing their redheaded friend was going to say or do at the moment.

“Spanish for mercy then,” Buffy said. They heard something behind them and Buffy moved them down the stairs. “Let’s hope Will’s right.”

Xander opened the door that led in and they found themselves in a classy looking bar. There were round tables scattered about, the lights were low and colorful. There was a bar to the side and a stage to the other side. Luckily it was still open, unluckily it was full with things that go bump in the night. Up on stage was a blue skinned demon singing a very bad rendition of ‘New York, New York’. There were colors, shapes, sizes, things that only they had seen in Giles’s books.

Buffy handed her half of Willow over to Xander as she slowly moved forward. They watched as all eyes looked to them and a green skinned demon with small horns on his head and red eyes came their way. Surprisingly it wasn’t to attack them. He was in a stylish yellow suit and a nice hairdo.

“All are welcome to Caritas,” he said with a smile. “Even those with magical abilities. You are a little young to be in here though.” He nodded to the demon who was still singing. “Maybe you can sing, ‘cause Ethel Merman, he isn’t.” He laughed and the two teenagers who were conscious looked at each other like this was a weird dream. When the two didn’t smile he looked a little more serious. “Lost?” he offered.

“You’re a demon,” Buffy said.

The demon waited a minute for her to continue, when she didn’t then he spoke. “It’s Caritas, all are welcome, sanctuary from violence, demons, human, you name it. Just no violence,” he supplied in response.

“Demons are evil,” Xander told him. “We know, we’re from Sunnydale.”

“Ah!” the demon replied at that. “Hellmouth, I don’t recommend going there.” He circled his finger around his ear. “The more violent ones go a little crazy with so much dark magic flowing there.”

Glaring Buffy stepped forward and he stepped back raising his hands. “No violence in Caritas!” he told her. “Please.”

“You are a demon,” she said poking him in his chest and he touched the spot wincing. “Demon and evil, what part of that didn’t get through?”

“I’m not evil, just different,” he said. “Name’s Lorne, I’m your Host for the evening.”

Buffy looked at the clientele. “And them?”

“Not here they aren’t,” Lorne told her. “Magic bound not to harm another while in my club.”

“Magics,” Willow got out. “Mercy… Wolf… Hart…” She sighed heavily as she looked up at Buffy and Lorne. “Green man,” she finished with a little giggle only to have her eyes roll back slumping into Xander’s body.

Lorne was going to help but Buffy pulled out a stake from her belt and he stepped back. “I just wanted to help,” he told her. “I have an apartment up above. Or better yet you can leave.”

Buffy looked to Xander who looked back as he picked Willow up in his arms. “I don’t think we got a choice,” he whispered to his friend. “They know where we were staying and the cops are still looking for us.”

Buffy looked to Willow who was very pale and her face was drawn. Buffy was tired and Xander didn’t look much better. Buffy looked back at Lorne. “Anything funny and every demon in here dies.”

Lorne sighed and motioned for her to follow him. They went through the club and to a locked doorway that said ‘Employee Entrance Only’ in about three languages, one neither of them could recognize. They went up some steps.

“I heard about the Slayer living in Sunnydale,” Lorne said as he opened up the door to a nice apartment suite. “Not the best place to live, even for them.” He motioned to a room and Buffy checked it out to see it was just a bedroom with a queen bed in it, nothing much else but spare furniture. She motioned to Xander who put Willow down. “Should I offer anything? Bath, drink, moist towelette?”

Buffy sat down heavily on the end of the bed. “I don’t trust you, but I don’t have a choice. Some stupid law firm is after our friend.”

Lorne looked curious. “The Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart?” he replied. The two looked his way and he nodded. “Stay far away from them, cupcakes. Evil as they come and I’m the black sheep where I come from, pacifist and everything.”

Xander sat by Buffy. “Could we talk for a minute?” he asked the demon.

Lorne nodded a little raising his hands up in a friendly gesture. “I’ll be working downstairs, I ask you don’t steal or break anything.”

They waited until he was gone. “She okay?” Buffy asked.

“Sleeping,” Xander said. “She’s cold and really pale, but the magics were vibin’ and I’m surprised we aren’t all dead.”

“That man was,” Buffy said tiredly. “What were you thinking?”

Xander rubbed his eyes as the anger built up. “That we were all gonna be toast, Buff!” he said hotly. “Damn it, what did you want me to do? Let that long legged bitch just take Will?”

“No!” Buffy retorted as she stood up and paced around looking at anything but the dark headed boy as she thought, then her blue eyes snapped his way. “But if he hadn’t of told them to let us go? Then what?”

“He did! What does it matter?” Xander countered folding his arms as he scowled at his friend.

“Because I don’t want you becoming a murderer for me, Xander!” she shot back at him angrily.

Xander stood up and they faced off at the end of the bed. He could see she was scared, not of him, but for him. “I won’t!” he yelled. “But I’m going to do what I have to, to protect my family! And how do you know he’s human?”

Buffy blinked a few times at this. “What?” she asked.

“You don’t know if he’s human,” Xander said still scowling.

“Before that part,” she told him.

Xander thought about what he’d said. He shrugged. “You and Will, you’re like my sisters… you’re my family.” He tried to make it seem like it was nothing.

“A sister with benefits?” Buffy asked and Xander scowled deeper. “I know you like me, like me. You said it a few days ago.”

“Did,” Xander said running his fingers through his hair he turned from her to walk around the small room a bit. “I said it mostly because I had been hoping…” He shrugged again looking resigned. “I knew I didn’t have a chance, and I didn’t want Cordelia to think she was all that. So a sister. You and Will, you’re all I got. And I know I’m not a Slayer or a Witch, just mere mortal, but I’m not a coward.”

Buffy leapt across the few feet between them and hugged him close. Xander was surprised but he hugged her back. “You aren’t a coward, Xander,” she whispered happily. “You’re the bravest mere mortal this slayer has ever known.” Xander hugged her tighter.

oooooooooo

To Be Continued…