TERMINATION

I used to have one hell of a view.

One hell of an office, really. High-backed chair. Desk made out of mahogany. A coffee table with only a few marks from the time Faith used it to bash Lee Mercer's head in. They offered me a new table, but I said no. You want to remember the good times.

But the view -- that was the beauty part, the part that made it all real. Firm like Wolfram & Hart, they can afford all the fancy desks and leather chairs in the world. They had nice stuff down in the mailroom, even. The downside of working there was substantial enough that the bosses understood the importance of perks. Still, even with all the money in this world and all the demons in the next going for you, you can only afford so much window space, and they gave a big slice of the sky to me.

Whenever it got to be too much, whenever I stopped for a moment and thought -- whenever the names in the files in front of me started to feel like actual human beings -- I could swivel that high-backed chair around and look at the city lights. I was above it all, controlling the world the city knew and the world it ignored. I felt powerful then. Like I was using, instead of being used.

Darla loved the view too. She said the city was splayed out under us like a whore, and I guess she'd know. But I'm glad I don't have to hear what she'd have to say about the office I've got now.

HIV Legal Action is in an industrial park. Two doors down, there's this insurance company that's fixed up nice enough; I get a look at it when I walk down there to buy myself a soda, 55 cents, and don't think I'm not counting even that much, these days. The insurance company proves you can make the offices here look okay if you've got the money. However, if you're a nonprofit, you don't have the money. I have an office about the size of my coat closet at Wolfram & Hart. No windows. Guess I could knock a hole in the wall, get a panoramic vista of the telemarketing company next door, and there are days when I think about doing it with my fists. Or my head. Today is one of those days.

"Bryan is going to be upset that I gave the sofa to Tandy," Mr. Graham says. He's been worrying about this for a while; this is the fourth revision I've done on his will. You'd think the sofa was Louis XIV, not some piece of shit from Ethan Allen that was worth $400 ten years ago.

I don't say that, though. I just say, "You felt like Tandy needed it more."

"She does, she does." Mr. Graham nods, reminding himself of this. He's a timid, uncertain man by nature; I know this in the way he stands, the way he holds his hands, the slump of his spine. You learned to read stuff like that, at Wolfram & Hart. He's also got AIDS-related dementia coming on fast. I try to remember that second vulnerability, try to ignore my instincts to pounce on the first. "But Bryan will be hurt. Tandy wouldn't be hurt if I gave it to Bryan."

When I took this job, I thought I'd be fighting the good fight: facing off against hospitals who wouldn't treat the sick, landlords who wouldn't rent to people in need, insurance agencies who wouldn't pay for treatment to help the dying. You know what I do here? Wills. The clients are all poor, and they're all dying, and they want to make out their will, to dispose of every last bit of their junk. Instead of vanquishing evil, I spend my days deciding who gets the Crockpot, the beanbag chair, the particleboard bookshelf. There are multibillionaires who divide up estates on four continents with less time and trouble than a charity case spends on a will that takes care of two rooms' worth of crap.

I pull out the file folder with the previous version of the will in it. "We can still leave it to Tandy. It's up to you. But -- we just gotta decide this thing."

Mr. Graham isn't getting any healthier. He knows it, but from the way his face falls when I say it, he'd managed to push it away today, until now. I ought to feel worse about that than I do. I open my mouth to apologize, but then the phone rings, and I scoop up the receiver, grateful for the escape. "McDonald."

"Lindsey?" The voice is whispery, pitched low on purpose and forced out through ragged breaths. It takes me a good thirty seconds to realize it's Lilah.

Lilah Morgan. I try to make it make sense -- try to hear her voice, as round and rich and cultured as Noritake pearls, in this shabby little room with industrial-grade carpet laid on concrete and white-painted paneling on the walls. These things don't go together. It's as surreal and jarring as the first time I saw a vampire. More, maybe.

"Lilah," I say evenly. "Thought we had this worked out --"

"I'm not calling on behalf of the firm," Lilah says. "There IS no firm, not anymore."

It's like she's not even speaking English. I stare at the receiver, stupidly, like that's going to make this make sense. "What?"

"Have you not been paying any attention to the news? The fact that Los Angeles is going up in flames?"

"Yeah, I saw it," I say. "Looked like your work."

"Thanks for the compliment, but no. Not mine, not the firm's. Wolfram & Hart is over. Done with. Dead and buried -- well, not buried. Lying around rotting, waiting for burial or cremation or the rats, whatever comes first." Lilah's voice is cracked, but she doesn't sound insane. "Dead, though, definitely."

"The Senior Partners," I say, not caring that Mr. Graham is in the room, looking at me strangely. If he repeats any of this, he'll just have his dementia diagnosis moved up a few weeks.

Lilah laughs a little. I hear a soft thump on the other line - her head, up against the wall or door of wherever she is. "Nope," she says. "Something else, Lindsey. Something worse."

"What could possibly be WORSE?"

"Good question," Lilah replies. "The only answers I have for you are that it's big, it's got horns, and it's fond of gouging out your intestines while you're still alive. And guess what's best of all, Lindsey? It's coming after you."

"Why me? You give him my name, Lilah? For old times' sake?"

She laughs, deep and throaty this time, more like herself. "I would've if I'd had the chance. But the Beast -- that's his name, catchy, huh? -- he doesn't need the help. He wiped out the offices first; I'm the only one who got out alive, I think. But since then -- Lindsey, he's hunting down everyone. The temps. The guys who were on vacation that day. The nighttime cleaning service. The fucking Xerox repairman. And don't think the Beast stops at the Orange County line. I've heard reports from Bucharest, Sunnydale, Aberdeen, you name it. All of us, Lindsey. He's not going to stop until he's killed us all."

Mr. Graham is looking down at the latest version of his will. He's gonna die very soon -- within a year. This is the first time I've looked at him and figured he was likely to outlive me.

I say, "We can stop this thing."

"What a vote of confidence," she says. "I'm moved by your faith."

"Very funny. You wouldn't bother calling me unless there was something I could do for you. Ergo, you think there's something we can do."

"What? You don't think I'd give you a chance to make your peace with God?" Lilah snaps. "I need your help. It's in your interest to give it to me. I don't know if it's going to do any damn good, but I figure it beats waiting to die. Are you in or out, Lindsey?"

"I'm in," I say. Like there's any other answer I could give.

Yeah, I'm still an employee of Wolfram & Hart.

I walked out of their offices that day with a stolen hand and a new attitude, and I never have walked back. I haven't gotten another paycheck, haven't contributed to the 401K, haven't sacrificed anything at the vernal equinox or any other time. The firm hasn't -- hadn't -- told me what to do in a really long time. Any other job, you'd say I quit almost two years ago.

But Wolfram & Hart's hooks sink a little deeper into the flesh. You don't walk away that easily; they don't let you.

They put it to me nicely, with the piano wire still a good four inches from my neck. I'd now be an independent contractor for the firm. My job description would involve staying away from any champions of good (one in particular) and keeping my damn mouth shut. My payment would be my continued pulse. Sounded good to me.

We could have made the same deal without my being an employee, you'd think; there are plenty of people the firm pays -- paid -- hush money to without employing. But being an employee of Wolfram & Hart means something substantial, something that matters to them on levels that go a lot deeper. I count as one of their minions in a tally I don't care to imagine. I told myself it didn't matter, as long as my soul was my own again.

Guess it does matter after all. That, or my soul was never mine to begin with. Probably both.

I told Carole I needed a couple weeks off. Personal reasons. Her face crumpled in like kneaded dough, all flour and sympathy. She didn't pry -- Carole's into respecting privacy -- but she gave me a big, patchouli-scented hug and told me she'd water my plants. I only have plants because she gave them to me. She thinks I need nurturing, and ever since I fucked up and let on that I play guitar, she thinks I'm artistic. For months, she's been trying to get me to read The Tao of Pooh. As bosses go, she's better than Satan, but not by much.

Next up I took myself off to Chicago to get the book Lilah thought might help us. You couldn't buy it in Chicago, of course; it's not exactly the kind of thing you find across from the croissants at Barnes & Noble. But one of the few shamans who can reach through dimensions to get it lives there, and we worked something out. I spent my own money, almost everything I'd managed to save up; I figure I can get half out of Lilah later.

One of the other shamans who could've done the job lives in L.A., which you'd think would've been the quicker solution. The obvious way to go. But from what I see in the papers, and what I read between the lines, L.A. is not a good place to be these days. If there was anything in this book that might help stand between me and the Beast or whatever the hell it was that wanted my hide, I wasn't going there without it.

Besides that -- well, I could've gone back to Los Angeles any time in the past two years, and I didn't. One of the things my continued employment with Wolfram & Hart required was that I not come into contact with any duly designated champions of good, and I'm pretty sure there's no way I'm gonna make it very long in Los Angeles before I go straight to the first one they warned me about.

I'm not under the pathetically mistaken belief that Angel's missed me. I bet I haven't crossed his mind twice. When I drove out of town, jackass sign on my truck, Angel wrote my name down on the List of the Saved I know he keeps in his head. Then he turned the page, closed the book. As far as he's concerned, our story's over.

As far as I'm concerned, it never began.

I'm driving toward Los Angeles now; I-10 is packed on the eastbound lanes, headlights shining on bumpers, over and over, mile after mile. My truck's the only one headed west. Would've been faster to take a plane, but the airlines don't fly into LAX anymore. "Unstable atmospheric conditions," they say. No shit. So I drove all the way to Chicago, and I'm driving all the way to Los Angeles. Lilah was expecting me days ago, but I figure she can take care of herself.

In the passenger seat is a duffel bag with some extra T-shirts and boxer shorts; it's been a few years since I needed my power suits, and I damn sure won't need them here. Instead I've got a crossbow, a .45, a few stakes and the book that cost so much, the one that's supposed to save our necks. That's pretty much all the protection I've got against the Beast, the demons and the vampires.

The evil vampires, I mean. Nothing's going to protect me against Angel, or my own stupidity when I see him again.

Sometimes I wonder if he knew I wanted him. Everyone else seemed to know -- Holland's offhand comments about keeping a clear head; Lilah's sly, sideways smile every time I said Angel's name; Darla's outright contempt. ("It's not me you want to screw," she said in my ear, her crotch against mine, and when I told her she was right, she smiled and kissed me again, hard, the way a man kisses.)

I didn't understand it myself then, not really. I knew how he looked, and I knew that I liked it, but I was just young and arrogant enough to think that was all there was to the story. I thought the reason I wanted to beat him was because he'd beaten me once. I thought the reason I was jealous of Angel and Darla's connection was Darla. I circled him for a year and a half, and I told myself I was a shark smelling blood, not a moth drawn to flame. I lied to myself a hell of a lot better than I ever lied to anyone else, and that's pretty damn well. Everybody else saw through me, so maybe Angel did too. And vampires -- they know that kind of thing. They can sense it, taste it, smell it on you. No matter how hard you try to play it cool, they know.

But there's vampires, and then there's Angel. He talks himself out of every good idea he has, doesn't trust what he sees right in front of his eyes. Given his fucked-up history (files and files of it, late-night reading for twisted insomniacs such as myself), can't say as I blame him. I could strip myself naked, hold out some lube and kneel at his feet -- a daydream that's come into sharper focus over the last couple of years -- and Angel would convince himself it wasn't about sex at all. I can't imagine what the hell he'd decide it WAS about, though I wouldn't mind watching him try to explain it away.

I don't even let myself wonder what it would be like if the man finally, for once in his unlife, accepted the obvious. And acted on it.

When I saw the news, saw the shaky video-camera images of fire raining down on L.A., I figured the firm was responsible. After that, I didn't think about the firm at all. I only thought about Angel, looking up at that fiery sky. I knew all hell was breaking loose, literally, and I knew Angel was fighting it. I didn't want him to win. I didn't want him to fail. I just wanted him -- muscles working beneath black leather, the way he swings a sword like it's a part of him, the darkness in his eyes just before he strikes. That's all I imagined, all I wanted to see.

A gas station up ahead has one of those signs with an arrow made of lights, crooked black letters that spell out LAST CHANCE GASOLINE BEFORE L.A. I try to decide what's worse: that sign or the fact that it's pitch-black at 2 p.m. I decide the worst part of all is that, if I were driving in the other direction, I might not care.

Lilah told me I should meet her at this one abandoned subway toilet the firm used to use for the occasional payoff, the even more occasional electroshock persuasion. I'd been there often enough to know it was the place slime goes when it dies, if it's led a bad life. I expected Lilah to be standing in the middle of it, her lips pursed, counting off the seconds she had to put up with this gunk on the soles of her shoes.

Instead, I walk in and find her sleeping on the floor.

On the floor. On THIS floor, which was probably last washed during the Johnson administration. I mean Andrew. There's puddles of stagnant water every place the tiles have fallen out, which is a lot of places, and you can see mouse tracks and droppings on the floor. The urinals on the walls were cleaner when they were being used more often. I don't even want to look at the toilets. You wouldn't expect to see a wino sleeping here; even winos have standards. But there's Lilah Morgan in a sleeping bag.

Then I wonder if she's sleeping, or if she's -- "Lilah?"

She's out of the bag in an instant, crouched on the floor like an alley cat about to pounce. Her eyes rake over me, razor-bright; as she recognizes me, her face changes. She doesn't know whether to be more relieved or ashamed. "Took you long enough," she says, straightening up slowly. "I figured the Beast found you on the way."

"Not unless the Beast is a highway patrolman in New Mexico who's way too literal about the speed limit," I say.

"Long time no see. How's that evil hand working out for you?"

"So far, so good." I hear something move in the corner and flinch -- but it's something small. Rodent-sized. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Staying alive."

"Doesn't look like you're doing a real good job of it." Lilah has shadows on her face that could be dirt or bruises. Probably both. Her hair is lank and stringy; she's washed in the last week, but not the last couple of days. Her shirt has lines of dried blood in the middle of her abdomen, and I remember what she said about gouging with an answering cramp in my own gut. And her fingernails are dirty. Lilah used to get manicures every Tuesday; I know, because I made it my business to know everything she did, every place she went. Somehow the fact that her nails are grimy and cracked makes this more real than anything else.

"I'm doing a better job of it than anyone else who used to work for Wolfram & Hart," Lilah says. "Plenty of them would give a whole lot to be in this luxury suite, instead of where they are."

"Six feet under," I say.

"Assuming anybody was left to bury them," she says. Lilah tosses her hair, and I can tell she's over her initial shame. At first, she was embarrassed that I saw her like this, and to me it seems like she ought to be. But she's proud. She thinks she gets the gold star just for being alive. I don't like the idea that she might be right. "Wow, it's been fun catching up on old times, Linz. I hate to bring business into our lovely chat, but give me my fucking book."

I raise an eyebrow. "Your book? Seems like I'm the one who paid in the high four figures to get this thing shipped in from whatever dimension it was."

"Excuse me. Give me YOUR fucking book." She smiles her smile that looked so dangerous and hot, back when the lips were painted scarlet instead of chapped and pale. "I know you've got it, Lindsey. You wouldn't have dared come back to California without it."

"There's one thing you've got to do for me first."

"What? Pay you back?" Lilah goes to one of the sinks, the one that's least moldy. She pulls out a battered bag that might once have been made by Coach, fishes around in it and throws a handful of cards at me. "Master Card. Visa. American Express. Diners Club? You like to eat out? Oooh, hey, Neiman Marcus. Save that for the holidays. Take them ALL, Lindsey. Max 'em out. I don't care. Just give me the book."

The cards all fall at my feet, and I don't bend down to pick them up. Yet. She does owe me for half of the book, but we'll get to that later. "Your desperation's showing."

Lilah grimaces as her composure falters, for just a moment. Then she says, slowly, "It can show a lot worse than this."

That's the girl I remember. I laugh a little. "Chill out, Lilah. I'm gonna give you the book. I didn't drive halfway across the country to play mind games. But I told you, you've got to do something for me first."

"And what's that?"

"Fire me."