There. In the place where the visions had come from.

:Doyle,: Cordelia sent, pausing so she could concentrate. :I hope I made you jump, you jerk, because you could have told me before you sucked the head-splitting vision things out of me. Listen, I don't think you can reach me back, and I have no idea how long this connection is going to last--maybe not beyond the next time you have a regular vision--so I'll talk to you as often as I can in the next few hours. I'm going in to Wolfram and Hart, and I'm going to find Willow myself, and then you are going to follow me with AI behind you. You're coming up with objections. Wait, I can't hear you! I'll talk again in a minute, but first I need to bully Lilah into escorting me right to Willow.:

That felt good.

Cordelia was more grateful than she would admit. Already her head felt better than it had in months, even without her dose of the strong painkillers that Angel didn't know she'd been taking. Did the visions take so much of a physical toll on Doyle? She'd have to ask him, later.

There would be a later. Despite its awesome cost, her plan had worked, and there would be a later. Even if that did make her the old selfish Cordelia who failed the test from Powers that Be. What did they know, anyway?

Lilah answered the twelfth ring in her pajamas. Score one already; she hadn't known that Cordelia knew exactly where her apartment was.

"Are you going to invite me in?" Cordelia said, brushing past Lilah. "Wait, I'm not a vampire."

"Please, come on in."

"Where are you holding Willow?"

"What makes you think I'd help you?"

"Your face, for starters," said Cordelia. "You're not into human torture."

"I knew the risks of my job, and I accepted them. There's a lot about Wolfram and Hart that you don't know, little girl."

"Then why were you crying five minutes ago?" Cordelia waved a hand in Lilah's direction. "You were supposed to be sleeping. Instead, you're awake, dressed, and supposedly ready for whatever project your boss has for you next, except there's not a thing about badly reapplied mascara I don't know."

"I am not Lindsay McDonald," Lilah said. "I don't switch sides whenever it gets tough. And since when is this your job? I thought Angel was the Dark Revenger."

That almost made Cordelia laugh, the way it brought her long-ago commercial idea so vividly into her mind, but she reminded herself to stay focused. There was a lot that Lilah didn't know about teamwork. "Angel is concerned because Willow used to be one of his best friends. I feel responsible because she came here because I asked her to." And because she and Willow got along, of course, but she firmly reminded herself that although she had set the events in motion, it was Lilah and her goons who had done the evil. "You, who are actually responsible for the way Willow is going through unspeakable torment at this very second, feel nothing at all, because you are a vicious bitch."

"So you know me."

"Please. I was you. With better shoes."

"These are Boracci."

"Fall collection?"

"Next spring."

"He's widened the heel."

"And rounded the toe."

"That won't work with pink."

"The pink is out this spring."

Cordelia rolled her eyes. How someone who could actually afford current fashions could choose to continue to be evil was beyond her. "You're going to leave my friend alone," she said.

"I'm really not. We have big plans for Willow."

"Plans that involve turning Angel into Mr. Killing Spree."

"I've seen his dark side."

"You really haven't."

Lilah looked a little nervous. "The Senior Partners can handle him."

"They really can't."

"You came here to try to scare me? You succeeded. Now get out of here. You don't know anything, so they won't punish me too badly for letting you go."

"I know what you were doing at your desk before I came in," Cordelia said, holding up a sheet of paper that was half translated prophecy and half asterisk-formatted checklist.

In a motion that seemed to take no time, there was a gun in Lilah's hand, pointed at Cordelia's neck. "I kill you, Angel loses his seer, one more connection to the Powers gone."

"You still don't get it."

"We don't need Angel soulless to have him evil. The less he cares, the closer the Beast approaches."

"You're torturing Willow just to torture Angel!"

Cordelia fought the sudden stab of fear. She had been counting on Wolfram and Hart to need Willow alive, so the thought of a Plan B was distinctly unnerving. Especially when said Plan B started with killing her. "The one receiving the visions from the Powers also sets up the apocalypse," she said. She was bluffing. She had no idea what was in all the prophecies Wesley spent so long studying every single day. "Without the visions, Angel can't even approach whatever thing you have planned."

Lilah sighed loudly and yanked Cordelia's arm. "You're going to make the little redheaded witch cooperate," she said, "and you have exactly until we figure out a way to suck those visions right out of your overstyled hair."

:Doyle! Do you think I spend too much time on my hair? Don't answer that, not that you can. I'm on my way to wherever they're holding Willow. Okay, I'm on my way ahead of Lilah, who has a gun to my head, but I can tell you everything I see along the path. I'll probably babble other stuff at you to make me feel better. This is scary, Doyle. Please, you and Angel--and Buffy, and all the other ass kickers--hurry.: