Hey Guys - once more unto ....
Part 27 is below... no W/T in that one. Yup I have left you hanging with them for now... Part 28 will clear that right up. But as they say the show must go on and this is definitely part of the show.
BTW watch out for the tongue in this... I am not sure why but people seem to say it creeps them out.
Drakkenfyre - I thought I told you not to apologise for being ill *S* So stop it... no don't apologise again... Be well and you didn't say anything that I hadn't suggested - which is not to say I wasn't teasing...
Sass Ego? Nah... Next time though havea sensible title that people can pay tribute to.*S*
And your notes on reading... I do the same thing. But did I touch a nerve there? Sorry*S* And we all know why Ruth gets read so closely... no because it's good. What did you think I meant? Smut? Nah...
Laurel - Welcome hun... when can we expect your name up on this board?*S* And yeah I liked the Tara making a pretty thing for Willow...
Okay then Part 27.
Katharyn
--------------
Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – The Darker Side of the Law (Part 27)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome.
katharynrosser@hotmail.comSpoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe though reference is made to events that occur in both realities.
Summary: There are other things, other powers moving in Willow and Tara’s world. Taking an interest.
Disclaimer: I still don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc, etc. I am making zilch from this series of stories.
Rating: 15
Couples: None.
Notes: Leaving our girls alone for a moment… I can already hear the groans. This is a short piece that needs to fall somewhere. Might as well be here – but it features a late addition too… just so that later you can look back and go “oh yeah…” If you even care*S*
Thanks To: Kerry, Jo, Louise and lets have a word for Stephanie Romanov who certainly perked up “Angel” (the show) for me*S*
The Sidestep Chronicle
The Darker Side of the Law
By
Katharyn Rosser
“Ah Lilah, come in, come in.”
Lilah smiled at Holland, nodded pleasantly and made her way into his office from the doorway. Already sat in another chair was someone she didn’t know. “Oh, sorry. Am I interrupting? I can come back later…sir.” The cut of the suit, and the price tag that went with it, suggested this woman was someone pretty important, After all, in his position Holland Manners didn’t deal with either unimportant clients or unimportant executives.
This woman had to be a Player of some description. Maybe from another office… maybe from the
Home Office. There were no obvious horns or huge sharp teeth. Not that such things were essential, of course.
Holland pulled a puzzled face. “Interrupting, what would you possibly be interrupting Lilah? Please sit down.” He made no attempt to introduce her to his visitor – who Lilah noticed wore no pass either. Which meant that she probably hadn’t come through security – that she was someone
capable of bypassing security. Lilah was right back with her being a Player of some sort.
But if Holland Manners, her boss, was pretending that the visitor wasn’t here – and the woman herself wasn't doing anything aside from watching the new arrival… Well then Lilah would just have to carry on in the same vein.
Lilah knew that she had slipped and pulled a little face then, wondering what was going on. But that was all… now she would just get on with it and leave the mysterious Ms X to her watching brief. She didn’t like being under observation – she wasn't some junior associate anymore. She was supposed to be doing the observing. The look of fear that she got from her own juniors… oh she was certain she had never looked
that afraid.
Lilah waited though, it was he who had called her to see him. He had to set the agenda here.
Holland flipped open a file that lay atop his desk and Lilah caught the words Two Roses. She had the duplicate of the file in her hand. All the better to refer to. Well things were coming along nicely. Maclay was in Sunnydale now – they both were, since the firm had organised Willow’s unexpected return. It shouldn’t have been necessary but sometimes fate needed a helping hand. Besides the role of Wolfram and Hart might have been crucial to the prophecy. Things should start to progress nicely... after all it
was fated. They just had to sit and wait for things to happen.
Or not.
“We want you in Sunnydale Lilah,” Holland announced right out of the blue, without a word of warning.
“Sir?” Sunnydale? Back end of beyond and a poor excuse even for a mystical convergence. All that there was there was Maclay, Rosenberg and one fairly minor client.
“You’ll be heading up our Sunnydale operation for a while. You know Dick Wilkins, the Mayor there?”
“I represented him last year. Sir… I have cases already, and since when are we referring to Sunnydale as an ‘operation,’ sir?” she asked him. Sunnydale. If she were out of the office for any length of time… things would start to happen that she couldn’t control or affect. She glanced at the silent Ms X. Maybe it was she that was going to make those things happen. The mystery woman was still staring at her. Lilah gave her a little polite smile, not meaning it at all but it couldn’t hurt. What she actually meant was ‘stay the hell out of my head’ but in a nice way. She turned back to Holland when she got no response from the visitor.
She had the strangest feeling that the woman was looking into her soul. Rummaging through it – and she didn’t like it. There were security measures in place in the firm – that she was contractually obligated to submit to. This wasn’t one of them. But what was she going to do? File a grievance. Besides the visitor was a Player. They got to do what they wanted.
That was the whole point.
Holland just gave her a patient smile regarding the Sunnydale reference – he knew her well enough by now to know what she was concerned about. “I know you’re busy, Lilah. Which is why I’m moving Gavin over from Real Estate to help you out with some of those cases. He needs to get out of buildings and into the real world – or at least one of them - and you will need the help,” Holland gave her a pleasant smile as he revealed that little nugget of information.
Gavin Park? From Real Estate? Ambitious little toad caught in the wrong department for any real advancement. “Sir… I really think that the clients... and the projects deserve my personal attention. But thank you.” It was hard to sound grateful for an opportunity to be exiled.
And to Sunnydale of all places.
“And you will still head them up. Every case will still be yours; Gavin is just going to take over some of the grunt work for you. It’s about time we gave you someone to help you with your workload Lilah. You will still be based here – we just want you in Sunnydale from time to time – to give Mayor Wilkins the benefit of your personal attention – and whilst you are there we would like you to look in on one of our Two Roses.” This time his voice made it quite clear it was an instruction and that there was to be no further discussion on that matter.
Bearing his manner in mind, and the fact that she had so rarely seen him act like that, there seemed little option but to say, “Yes sir.”
“Take the next week to bring Gavin up to speed, we want you in Sunnydale by a week on Thursday – Mayor Wilkins is expecting you, and he’s very excited I can tell you,” Holland told her.
Gavin… She sighed in spite of herself. But orders were orders – and a few days a week out of the rat race might be… well it was going to be bloody terrible – but if anyone was going to suffer it was going to be Gavin. Certainly not her. She would make sure that he did the maximum amount of work and got the minimum amount of credit. If there was any blame he was welcome to that, it was only fair. And he would know not to interfere with her efforts… she would make damn certain of that too before she left.
“Yes sir.” She sat and waited for more, from Holland or from Ms X.
Holland went back to looking at the file, Ms X still watching her intently. Lilah looked around. “I’ll be going then?” she asked, standing up.
“Oh yes,” Holland said. “Sorry. I know you’ll make the best of this opportunity Lilah.” He watched as she started for the door. “Oh and Lilah… we’ll speak again – but in case I forget make sure you follow Dick Wilkin’s lead on the Two Roses thing.”
“Yes Sir,” she certainly would. Especially when he had ordered it.
‘Opportunity?’ she wondered as she went to the door. There was opportunity here? Holland was not one to let a thing slip unless he meant to. There was something bigger happening, something to do with Two Roses – which was her project damn it! But an opportunity… that was not something to be passed up in this company. And he had given it over to her. That was the coded phrase for something that would get you noticed. And you had to be noticed to avoid getting stepped on.
You had to get noticed to be the one that was doing the stepping. She allowed herself a brief mental image of shoving her heel through Gavin’s hand. No, better yet his skull. Suddenly Sunnydale didn’t seem quite so bad.
Sunnydale – and the project… she had to admit, after all these years that she was curious to see what was so special about this Tara Maclay. The reports were always so dry and bland. She could wait to see the vampire… too risky. But Maclay – that would be interesting and evidently there would be that ‘opportunity.’ “Nice to meet you,” she said to the still seated woman in the expensive suit.
There was no reply. Holland just smiled and she rolled her eyes. His smile stretched bigger before she left. Even though she had left her file behind.
--------------
“So?” Holland asked his visitor.
“She will do it,” the woman replied, speaking her native tongue.
“Will she succeed?” he asked. He could understand her, but there was little chance of him getting the words of her language out of his mouth. His tongue was about a foot too short for one thing.
“That is ultimately up to her… but really it makes little difference either way does it? Both serve your purpose,” she told him in a series of clacks.
“I suppose so.” Holland wasn't so sure though – some things were just better a certain way round. He just hoped that Lilah could grasp what was needed and apply the correct tactics to the situation. She was always so adept at that – but this was different. And he couldn’t tell her why.
Not when there was a potential seer involved like Miss Maclay. If Lilah knew the whole truth then Miss Maclay might see it immediately and invalidate the entire exercise. And that wouldn’t do at all.
His visitor stood to leave and Holland immediately came to his feet, out of respect for her abilities and her position; not to mention the rather uncomfortable bile that her species were known to expel when they were upset. It would be nothing personal but this was a new suit – and she deserved that respect. “You have to go?” he asked, somewhat unnecessarily. The more literal translation was ‘Your exit from this existence is forced by circumstances that you cannot influence or control.’ It always amazed him what you could say with a few simple clacks and clicks.
“I recall our last dinner,” she told him.
Yes, his wife Catherine had passed out as his visitor had sat at their dinner table and disembowelled a live wombat, extolling the virtues as she ate it in sections, of the mammals of this existence. “We could get take away,” he offered.
“You can get the wombat?” she cocked her head. Her mannerisms and single minded focus spoke volumes about the predatory heritage of her species, and he was reminded of his own status – another mammal of this existence.
Or perhaps the predatory nature was all her own? It was tough to tell. The Kjerian existed outside of time and ordinary space. It might have been that she had developed her taste for wombat when the dinosaurs were still a force to be reckoned with. Or to her, she might never had one before – even though she remembered it already. Non-linear beings. Very tricky to figure out – but immensely valuable when you could track one down who was willing to be a Player in the great game. She might have been ordinary in her own reality… but in this one… invaluable when it came to dealing with the ancient prophecies.
He smiled. “We can get you anything desire,” and he was quite sure that they could. Given time, which was something she, at least, had plenty of.
“I think not,” she clacked. “Another time Holland Manners.” She flicked her tongue at him and it lightly grazed his forehead – a gesture of respect that he could not return for obvious physiological reasons. Still she didn’t expect him to. Aeons of dealing with races other than her own had gifted her with an almost unique ability, for her race, of accepting the shortcomings of others.
Which was what made her the Player that she was… None of the other Kjerian would consider what she did – mainly because she had killed every last one of them. Or so rumour had it. It was something that might have occurred millennia ago… or she might be planning it for next weeks entertainment.
Their fate though was sealed – for a non-linear being, Holland’s theorists told him, death was not an inevitability. It did not mark the end of a process called life. Instead it should be seen as utter destruction and erasure from time itself. It had either happened or it would.
Like a few other things.
He kept the smile on his face as a temporal fold simply shifted her out of phase with this time and this reality, then picked up the file that Lilah had forgotten to take with her. Opening it, he compared it to his own copy.
On the surface they were the same files, updated by the invisible army of ever willing assistants employed by the firm to deal with such mundane tasks. And not so mundane sometimes. But here in his file there were some little differences.
Most obvious was an assessment of the handling of the Project. Lilah would expect that – after all it was going to provide part of her appraisal as it always had. Holland knew exactly what was in that section as he written every word. He was very pleased and this meeting had given him the chance to tick off another item on his ‘To Do’ list that topped the section. ‘Send Lilah to Sunnydale.’ Big tick.
Holland liked check marks and ticks – they were an indication that all was going smoothly and well. Which was just what the senior partners wanted. Always best to have the ticks. Especially with The Review being next year. But he had no personal fears – Lilah was doing well and Gavin looked as if he would be an asset for the future. There was some demon-run karaoke bar to be shut down by the real estate expert then he would be over here with the ‘big guns.’ Lilah would soon show him the ropes… or hang him from them.
She had just the right attitude and if she had accepted his presence, his taking over of her cases and projects, with absolute good grace then she wouldn’t have been the asset that Holland believed her to be.
That a great many individuals believed her to be. Relied on her to be in fact. Knew that she was… or would be.
And then there was the prophecy. Lilah had seen it of course, but she had no language skills to speak of beyond French, Russian and Chinese. She was going to have to expand her range if she planned to keep moving upwards. Something in the non-human field would be ideal for her. Holland made a note to bring that up at her next appraisal, then scratched it out again. If she was going to be spending time in Sunnydale then that would be an ideal opportunity for her – and with all the different species of demon there was a real chance that she might get to try some languages out.
Holland liked it when things dovetailed so nicely.
Like page one and page two of the prophecy in this folder.
Page one was fully translated, relatively common knowledge around the junior partners and most of Special Projects. The researcher who had translated page two… however incompletely, was long since dead. As Holland would be just for having sight of it… if he ever chose to leave. Which was something he could honestly say that he had never considered.
The translation was dead though. It lacked a certain something… Even the photograph of page two was something special… Laid alongside… or rather underneath the first page you could tell that they should go together.
The Prophecies of Aberjian, no one knew whether Aberjian was a person or a place, were written in over a dozen different languages… not a one of them featured a single punctuation mark – even if they should. Thus when the first page ended… “and the fated ones will remain in
poguri” no one batted an eyelid that it appeared to be complete. The translation of that last word was confidently thought to mean ‘devotion and love.’ Either that or ‘dog’s drinking water.’ Holland went with the former, as had six of the seven translators he had hired.
The important thing was that the prophecy appeared to be complete. The section on the second page gave lie to that. There were implications there for the first part… implications that could only be utilised by sending Lilah Morgan to Sunnydale. And now she was going.
Dovetailing.
**********
You hear that baby? I am going nowhere.
by Katharyn » Sat Apr 27, 2002 1:41 pm 
as many other readers have put it, this just keeps sucking me in; you've got a really wonderful way of writing the darkness and cynicism of this world.
at: 4/29/02 12:27:04 am