First Evil.

Must be.

Where is Illyria in this?

First Evil.

Hmmm. You think?

Where is Illyria in this?

Oh, she's around. According to Doc and Ethan, she, Angel, Spike and Gunn are trapped in a self-perpetuating time loop, fighting the same battle over and over.

Any more than that I'm not saying.

Part Twenty-Three: Hide in plain sight

Marcie had a Blackberry, and a private e-mail address, the only messages on which she received were instructions. Of course, those were the only e-mails she got, period. She had a cell phone number which no one called. Her supervisors preferred to communicate by e-mail. She rarely ever spoke.

So perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised her that Riley didn’t recognize her voice. He’d known she was there, of course. He and Oz—she was their “secret weapon,” the one who would take out Justine or Amy or Ethan if they fell out of line. The one who’d not hesitate to put a bullet in the back of their heads.

It was a living.

The funny thing was, she’d kind of liked them, kind of felt like she was part of the team. She’d gone to high school with Oz and Amy after all, even if she didn’t really know them. And Oz was kind. He couldn’t let on that he knew she was there, but sometimes he’d sit quietly with her, while he read in the break room or listened to music. He always knew where she was, of course. It was his job to kill her if she fell out of line. She didn’t think he saw that as a living. She was pretty sure he was hoping to avoid that decision. That didn’t bug her.

But that scene behind her? That had been messed up.

Riley told her not to rendezvous at the headquarters, which was good because, far. She was supposed to meet up with a field team at an abandoned hotel called the Hyperion. Evidently, Ethan had been able to pinpoint the exact location Angel and the others had disappeared. She remembered Angel from Sunnydale. He was handsome.

She walked past the soldiers securing the location. They never knew she was there. No one ever did. Riley was talking to Ethan by what must have been the old check-in desk. There was a thin man talking to them. Glasses, dark hair. A neatly pressed shirt and slacks. No tie. “Not a company man then,” she thought.

She leaned into Riley’s ear, and whispered, “Special Agent Marcie Ross, reporting for duty sir.” Riley jumped but, to his credit, didn’t scream. She giggled, and that seemed to disturb him more. No one seemed to like her laugh.

“Marcie, I’m glad you could join us,” said the thin man. She stood silently. He didn’t seem shocked that she was there and, well, invisible.

“Who the bloody hell are you talking to?” said Ethan, who looked very, very tired.

“I guess the cat’s out of the bag,” said Riley, hesitantly. “Ethan Rayne, meet Marcie Ross. Marcie’s a government-trained invisible assassin, who’s been assigned to your team since the start.”

“Charmed,” said Ethan, incredulously. “Really.”

“Ms. Ross, you’ll not be surprised to find, attended Sunnydale High School, before her unique condition set in,” said the thin man who, like Ethan, had an English accent.

“Well that figures,” said Ethan. “Is there anyone in that town you didn’t hire?”

“Marcie,” said Riley, “this is our mysterious superior, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.”

“Hee,” giggled Marcie. “I’ve read your file. You’re supposed to be a dead man.”

“I’m afraid I am,” said Wesley. “Stabbed in the gut by an old demon sorcerer. But then, I had a feeling something like that might happen, so I made … arrangements.”

“What sort of arrangements?” asked Marcie.

“A truly staggering web of legal red-tape and bureaucracy,” said the voice of a woman whom Marcie hadn’t notice before. The soldiers evidently hadn’t noticed her either, as they were startled and drawing beads.

“Stand down, men,” said Wesley. “Lilah. How good to see you, again.”

“Wesley,” said Lilah, “Do you have any idea how upset the senior partners are with you. The abuse of company resources alone…”

“Was all on the up and up, Lilah. I cashed in every debt owed to me—including, you’ll check the fine print on the contracts I signed—my company stock options and any claim to an afterlife—to see to it that the government had no choice but to carry through a reclamation effort.”

Wesley softened somewhat, as the two of them locked stares.

“It’s (continued...)

( continues...) basically the same deal you signed, accept that I’m not bound to servitude.”

“And what happens to you when you’re done here, Wesley? Are you going to be just another ghost, haunting the world?”

“Lilah, that’s all I ever was when I was alive.”

The sadness between the two of them was palpable, thought Marcie—two dead souls, locked into roles they’d long cast themselves into. And she could certainly relate to haunting the world. That’s all she’d ever done, after all, and she was very much alive.

“So what, exactly, are we doing here?” asked Marcie, eager to get back to work.

“Yes, I rather wonder about that myself,” said Ethan.

“Yes,” said Wesley, as Lilah glared at him. “You see, it all started when the old one Illyria—you’ll remember her from your briefing—was released from the Deeper Well, and consumed the form of Winifred Burkle, not only killing her, but rending her soul into pieces.”

“Right,” said Ethan. “I remember that bit from the files. Even the same magic that binds Angelus’s soul to his vampyric body can’t be used to put Humpty Dumpty together again.”

Wesley shot him a cool look, and then rubbed his forehead.

“More or less,” said Wesley, but something happened that … complicated matters. Shortly after Fred’s death, we used a device to shed some of Illyria’s extra power. It allowed her to walk this world more or less safely, preventing her from destroying her current form and, consequently, a goodly portion of the western seaboard.”

Wesley laughed a little bit at that, and Marcie suddenly understood why people found her laugh unsettling.

“Illyria’s powers center strongly on the manipulation of time and space. What we didn’t know is that, as her essence was bound to Fred’s form, her excess power acted as a magnet to Fred’s soul, drawing the disparate pieces back together again.”

“So her soul can be saved?” asked Riley.

“Well,” said Wesley, “it’s hard to say. What happened, then, was that it became a sort of null point in space and time—an endless loop containing nothing save a vague sentience and near-limitless power. Quite possibly, it would have simply recycled itself throughout creation forever.”

“Until Illyria died,” said Ethan, catching on.

“Yes,” said Wesley, his voice so cold now that Marcie truly believed he was dead. “But Illyria is, for all intents and purposes, a god, and gods don’t die easily. The four of them, and the armies of the Wolf, Ram and hart, were sucked into the null point at the moment of her death, where they would relive that battle endlessly, if something weren’t siphoning some of Illyria’s power.”

“Xander and Willow,” said Marcie. “They looked younger—like back when we were in school.”

“Yes,” said Wesley. “Someone is stealing bits of Illyria’s power, and seems to be using it to manipulate the slayer's friends. And that someone is a client of Wolfram & Hart.”

All eyes turned toward Lilah.

“Any deals with said client have to remain confidential,” said Lilah, obviously annoyed, “and were made before we knew the extent of his plans. And yours. That being said, we’d be willing to withdraw our support.”

“But at a price,” said Wesley.

“Yes,” said Lilah. “There’s always a price.”

She handed Wesley a file, which he read intently. Wordlessly, he pulled a pen from his pocket, and signed the document.

“These terms are acceptable to me,” he said, handing the file back to her.

“Good,” said Lilah, turning toward the door.

“Make this one count, Wes,” she said, the sadness in her voice reverberating. “You’ve no idea what you’ve unleashed here.”

Without another word, she left. Wesley stared at the door several moments after she’d disappeared.

“I rather think I do,” he said.

Wesley!!! Lilah!!! The eternal star-crossed lovers, sigh. Fred was make-do.

Ooh, how tasty.

Wesley!!! Lilah!!! The eternal star-crossed lovers, sigh. Fred was make-do.

Heh. Well, as you were the one to call it earlier that it was Wes in Ethan's room--and isn't THAT the stuff of slash?--I'm glad you're enjoying his reveal.

Ooh, how tasty.

Thank ya. More to come.

Wesley the intriguingly unstable! Wesley of the scary laugh!

Oh, how I miss him. Such a lucious character development over six years. From utter dork to seriously scary.

Oh, how I miss him. Such a lucious character development over six years. From utter dork to seriously scary.

Scary enough to unnerve Marcie--now that's scary.

ETA: Plus, he has big plans. Heh.