Glass Ceiling

By Aadler

Part I

On Cordelia Chase’s twelfth birthday, something important happened, something of such deep and significant meaning to her that she never forgot it:

Nothing.

Her body was starting to change (not visibly, not yet, but she could feel the changes and understood the ramifications); her facial structure, too, had begun the shift to something different, firmer, so that people were no longer saying, “Well, isn’t she gorgeous!” and were now more likely to observe, “Good Lord, she’s going to be a heartbreaker.” She was growing up, and she was going to act grown-up.

So, in the months leading up to it, she hadn’t pestered, hadn’t handed over gift lists or dropped hints or engaged in any such childish practices. She had simply waited, with conscious maturity, to see what her parents would do for her: what kind of party she would have, who they would invite, which gifts they would shower upon her, which privileges she would suddenly possess. Anticipation was mounting agony, but she showed none of it; to parents, servants, friends and teachers she presented the same impenetrable mask of tranquil self-assurance.

The mask was stressed terribly when the day passed without event, but it held solid, though in the end it was maintained by rage. Privately, as the hours ticked by, she had checked and rechecked the calendar (and finally, secretly, confirmed the date by consulting her birth certificate); but externally she showed no flicker of awareness or caring.

They had forgotten. She was the center of their universe, and they had forgotten.

Nor did they ever remember. She went through the first days waiting for their guilty reaction when they realized their appalling oversight. By the time it became clear that the lapse would never occur to them, pride and wrath had forever sealed her against raising the subject.

It wasn’t that they were negligent, that they didn’t care; they doted on her, she had been their princess since birth. But in the aftermath of bitter disappointment, she understood with searing clarity that it was up to her to keep the spotlight centered where it belonged. She was special, yes, no question about that, but her job was to make certain that everyone remembered it.

She did not suddenly change. She formulated her course of action with ruthless meticulousness, and implemented it inexorably but gradually. She became more of certain things, and less of others. Pity she did not need; power, its acquisition and effective use, was a different matter. Everything was evaluated, and either discarded or honed for use, based on its utility in regard to a deeper purpose.

She would prefer to be loved, though she wouldn’t beg for it. She could live with being hated, as long as hate was layered on top of fear and respect. But she would never, ever again, be forgotten.

* * *

The thin, sallow-skinned woman didn’t hate Cordelia; but Cordelia hated her, and it had become her dearest goal in life to see her dead.

There was no time where they were, except as marked by periods of sleep, the space between meals, and how long bruises remained before healing; no sunrise or sunset, for they never saw the outdoors. There was only one training room or another, and no life beyond training; nor were names used between the two of them, so Cordelia simply thought of the other woman as Bitch.

Their first meeting had guaranteed that they would never be friendly. Cordelia had been confused, disoriented, her memories still jumbled and fragmentary. This had not prompted any sympathy from Bitch; she had given Cordelia a quick, scornful inspection, and said, “Jesus, this is what I have to work with?” She had brushed away Cordelia’s feeble protest: “Can it, Princess. Whatever it is doesn’t matter, and if it did I still wouldn’t care. I’m supposed to teach you how to fight. I can fight, but damned if I know how to teach. Not that He cares, so let’s just get to it.”

Then she hit Cordelia in the mouth.

Crying out with surprise and outrage, Cordelia stumbled back, and the other woman followed, speaking conversationally. “Straight punch. Strike with the first two knuckles. Don’t lock the elbow, power it with a twist of the hips. After I turn you loose, you’ll do a thousand of those, right and left, a hundred at a time. That’s the punch. The defense against it — one defense, anyhow — is this.” She slid one arm past the other, sweeping across her upper body. “Outside block. You’ll do a thousand of those, too. But for now, use it.”

And from that point on, she simply followed Cordelia around the room, striking her over and over, always the straight punch she had demonstrated, and instructing her disinterestedly: “Block. Block. No, idiot, block my left with your right, my right with your left.” Later, much later, she would show how one could use a right block against a right punch, if prepared to cover the opening it left; for that first session, she just struck at the opening, hammering Cordelia’s ribs whenever she blocked with the wrong arm.

In fairness to her (and Cordelia was always fair; when the day came that she tortured the other woman to death, she wanted every offense precisely measured so it could be precisely revenged), she didn’t pummel her student simply for the pleasure of it. If she had used her full strength, she would have beaten Cordelia to death within ten minutes. (For that matter, she would eventually have fractured her own knuckles if she had pounded them for so long against Cordelia’s facial bones.) No, she just made it hard enough to hurt, and kept it up until Cordelia was too battered to fight back any longer, or even to stand. Then, looking down at where the bleeding, weeping girl lay huddled on the floor, curled into a defensive ball, she said, “We’ll do the same thing tomorrow. Be ready.”

The quarters Cordelia had been given, though not so luxurious as those in her original home, were adequate for minimum needs. She lay aching in the bathtub for two hours, replenishing the hot water whenever it cooled, before staggering to her bed. Pain and fury kept her from falling asleep immediately; when at last her body began to relax, she was jerked to full wakefulness by the recollection of what awaited her on the morrow.

When Bitch said a thousand repetitions right and left, did that mean a thousand total, or a thousand of each? Cordelia settled the question by doing a thousand of each, slowly, focusing on the motion, feeling her balance and the movement of her muscles, visualizing her enemy. It had not been an especially complex lesson plan, but it had definitely communicated the essential point: she would be shown an attack, then the defense against it, then she would have the holy living hell beaten out of her until she could perform the defense well enough to prevent it.

She returned to the bed with a new set of hurts, from the near-endless repetitions of the blocking technique. An hour later she rose again, and did a thousand repetitions of the punch. With each arm. Because already she knew — knew, because she had sworn it — that someday, someday she would be the one doing the hitting.

* * *

The worst of it was that that wasn’t the worst of it.

She had been in bad shape when they, whoever “they” might be, had brought her here, wherever “here” might be, and her physical recovery had moved well in advance of the rest of her. Accordingly, she had been set first to physical tasks, i.e., martial arts training with Bitch. After several weeks (best estimate) of that, however, something else was added to the schedule.

Cordelia had learned quickly in that time. She was still taking a beating in every single session, but none like the first. Actually it was worse than the first, because she pushed herself pitilessly, and in the second session she had tried a few punches, and learned painfully that the outer block she had been shown could itself be used as a striking technique, against the inside of her arm. Before, the bruises had come from a nonexistent defense; now, they were an inescapable part of the training itself, avoidable — if at all — only at the cost of never learning how to properly strike back. Every night, after thousands of repetitions, she went to bed black and blue; but none of that carried the emotional impact of the first day, when she had been systematically hammered to the ground with no way of preventing it.

By the third week (if that was what it was), she was working six blocks and five different types of hand-strikes, and going toe-to-toe with Bitch four times a day. Then her routine changed, and the change was not to her liking.

It was the end of their second daily session, and as usual Cordelia hadn’t even come close to landing a blow on her teacher/ persecutor. (She had lately begun to scale back, however, going at it with just less than full speed and force, saving that for practice against the heavy bag that had been installed in her room. Why show Bitch everything in her repertoire? better to keep something in reserve, something that could serve as a surprise when the right moment came.) This time, however, rather than the usual brusque instruction to eat, rest, stretch and do repetitions until called on again, Bitch told Cordelia, “Come this way.”

Suspicious — harsh as her current regimen was, at least it was something she understood — Cordelia balked. “Why?”

Bitch could become unpleasant when resistance was offered, but on this occasion she only said, “Part of the program He’s laid out for you. What do you care, as long as it means we don’t have to look at each other as often?”

Good point, Cordelia thought but didn’t say, and followed the other woman through doors that had heretofore been sealed to her, along corridors that opened out into other rooms. It was Cordelia’s first sight of anything new in longer than she could remember, and she felt something within herself subtly realign at this reminder of a larger world.

It had taken her a frighteningly long time to begin wondering at her cicumstances, even to fully notice; it was as if her brain had been so fogged, it could focus only on a small area directly in front of her. She lived in one set of rooms, trained in another; food appeared rather than being brought to her, and in the same way dishes, wrappers and leftovers were taken away (or disintegrated, for all she knew) whenever she was elsewhere. Everything around her was smooth and bland and generic, like a modest motel or the school in a respectable but not wealthy suburb; but there were no windows, and all doors led to sections of the same interior. Housebound with a vengeance.

Her pleasure at this expansion of her environment, none of which she had allowed to show, ended when they reached their destination. It was an electronics workshop, not large but thoroughly furnished, and the woman at one of the tables stood to greet Cordelia with a smile. “Hello, I’m Mandy,” she said. “I hadn’t expected you so soon, but I’m glad He thinks you’re ready. How do you feel?”

“She’s ready,” Bitch said curtly. “She’s starting to try combinations I haven’t taught her, so it looks like she has most of her marbles back. Getting some use out of it, that’s up to you.”

Mandy looked to Bitch with sparkling eyes. “I’m sure she’ll do fine. Won’t you, Cordelia?”

Bitch made a faint, disgusted noise from the back of her throat and walked away, leaving Cordelia with this new phenomenon.

Even as she returned Mandy’s smile with one carefully noncommittal, Cordelia was cataloguing and calculating. Bitch was about the same height as she herself was: whippet-thin, though all of it firm muscle, with a rough, sallow complexion and eyes of a gray so pale as to almost look like silver contact lenses. Mandy … well, picture Sarah Jessica Parker’s bony body, with Amanda Peet’s coloring and facial structure: not as hot as she acted like she was, but definitely with enough wattage to get the job done. Her eyes were a vibrant, liquid blue beneath dark, arched brows, her lips full and moist. She wore a light midriff-baring spaghetti-strap top and a denim miniskirt — frayed hem and all — that just screamed Eighties. (The top was a mistake; you never wanted to show that much cleavage when you had so little to show.) “Why am I here?” she asked; not haughtily, she had already learned better, but not giving any ground before she had to.

“I’m supposed to teach you electronics,” Mandy told her, still holding the smile that said she was sure they’d be such good friends! (Cordelia had already decided to trust her somewhat less than a diamondback rattler.) “Fuses and detonators, mostly — timed, contact, pressure-switch, proximity, command-detonated — plus some alarms and probably electronic surveillance and detection. But we’ll be starting with fuses.”

Cordelia let a little tremble of hope creep into her own smile. She hadn’t yet fully returned to her old form (most of her marbles back, indeed!), but some memories were too stark ever to be lost. Beneath this woman’s ingratiating eagerness were faint currents of two other things she remembered all too well. The first was Natalie French’s smug, predatory amusement at the hormonal reactions of the creatures right below her in the food chain. The second was Xander, lazily tracking any passing female with what Cordelia thought of as his “radar vision”; not pursuing any of them, not yet, but maintaining constant awareness in readiness for the day when he decided one was worth moving to follow.

She had always known he would leave her eventually, but hadn’t been prepared for how badly it would hurt. She wasn’t about to let that happen again — she would kill or die first — but there might, somewhere down the line, be advantage to be drawn from letting someone think she might be so vulnerable …

“Fuses,” she said. “Okay, teach me fuses.”

* * *

Chicks dig scars, the axiom ran, and that might or might not be so; Cordelia had never given it much thought herself. She would, however, be the first to attest that any such favorable response absolutely did not apply to scars in her own flesh. On a bleak night in April of 1998 she had acquired a second navel, courtesy of some moronic run-of-the-mill demon that just happened to catch her off-guard, and the truth she had never admitted to anyone was that the impaling spike had hurt her less than the way Xander had so casually discarded her so he could follow new interests with Amy.

After the first surgery, the doctors had run an intestinal endoscopy to make sure they hadn’t missed anything, and then gone back in to do minor follow-up repair. Both events were complete blanks in Cordelia’s recollection. Not that she would have wanted it otherwise — hello, that’s what anesthesia is for! — but in each case it was an unsettling experience. Forget what you see in movies, a misty fade-out with a slow return to wakefulness; nope, both times she had been talking to the staff, following instructions, and then they were asking her if she could take deep breaths for them, and it was over. This wasn’t like sleep, or even normal unconsciousness (with which she had far too much experience, thank you!); there was no sense of time lost, she was conscious and alert one moment and equally aware the next moment, only the moments were a couple of hours apart and she had missed all of it. Later she had learned that one of the pre-op medications actually chemically prevented memory from being formed; you could be awake, coherent, understanding what you were told and asking intelligent questions, but none of it stuck to your brain. The cells just wouldn’t hold a charge until the drug wore off.

Her current state wasn’t really like that, but it reminded her of it. For a long time she hadn’t been able to make any of the normal connections, so that she had drifted though the days uncomprehending and unlearning. When she did begin to return to herself, it was gradually and sporadically, and still there were gaps. Her bloody introduction to Bitch was the first memory she had been able to retain since her rescue-slash-kidnapping-slash-enslavement. At that point she had still been too disoriented (and, shortly thereafter, too busy recovering from blunt trauma) to think of asking questions; by the time the possibility occurred to her, she would have been more likely to wear Bermuda shorts from Kmart than to demean herself by seeking information from that bitch, Bitch.

However, though that initial training day was her first memory, it wasn’t the earliest. There was another, one so deep-buried that she didn’t so much remember it as discover it; one evening in her room, while going through yet another set of repetitions (and after a vague period spent trying to think of some way she might get close enough to her instructor to perhaps drive an elbow through her sternum), Cordelia had idly wondered just what were the circumstances of her arrival in this where-that-was-nowhere. Part of the way through that train of thought, she had realized that she knew something. It didn’t even feel like memory, more the “oh, yeah, I knew that” of something she hadn’t really forgot, only forgot to remember.

There had been a room, and there had been a man. The room was furnished a great deal more lavishly than the areas Cordelia had seen since; definitely done by a male (and not one with interior designer genes), no imagination or central theme, and the feng shui violations were just horrendous; but everything was expensive, everything was good quality and good taste, a classic baroque along the lines of Captain Nemo’s drawing room. The man … he wore robes, honest-to-God robes, and he was medium-framed but very tall, at least six-four, with dark eyes and dark curly hair, and one of those crisp little facial beards that people called goatees even though they really weren’t. He might have been thirty, or fifty and not showing his age, his features regular and refined rather than strictly handsome. And, inexplicably (even dazed and barely rational, she had known that this was not in keeping with the natural order of things), he had been paying Cordelia no attention at all.

“I agree, not much to work with,” he had been saying, to someone outside either her field of vision or her zone of awareness. “It is a massive overdose, which she will eventually metabolize, but it also appears that her system may have had an atypical reaction to the Orpheus. You will feed her and clean her, and there are some purging rituals that may be of help, but it will be some time before she shall have recovered enough of her capabilities that we can evaluate them. Time, of course, is not a problem. I have learned patience; you would be well advised to do the same.”

There were words in the background, and he had looked back to Cordelia with one eyebrow lifting slightly. “Is she? I very much doubt it. But even if she is aware of us, there’s little likelihood she can understand any of it, or retain anything she might.” He took hold of Cordelia’s chin and tilted her face upward. “Listen to me, girl. We pulled you out of a vampire tenement in one of the more blighted sections of the Bronx. No one was looking for you, because no one cared. You were garbage, regarded as such and abandoned as such.

“Every moment of life henceforth is a gift from me, more than you would have had without me and far more than you were owed. It is yet to be seen if you can be of sufficient use to me to provide recompense for that gift. If ever you do, then I may grant you freedom. Until such time, you are property, and property of little value. Keep that in mind, and comport yourself accordingly.”

He looked past her. “You see? No reaction, no sign of comprehension. Take her away, wash some of the stink from her. Once we see evidence of sentience, we may begin to judge what can perhaps be made of such poor material.”

The memory was not sharp, but there was nothing about it to make her doubt its accuracy. She continued the repetitions, focusing force and body alignment, watching her form in the full-length mirror and satisfying herself that her face showed nothing. She had made note of Mandy’s comment about electronic surveillance, and a camera behind the mirror was such a Hollywood staple. Property, was she? She’d show them property. But it wouldn’t be done by attitude; attitude could put some extra muscle behind the swing of a battle-axe (die, demon cootie!), but couldn’t substitute for one. She needed a lot more mojo before she’d be able to accomplish anything.

Fortunately, it would seem that they intended to provide her with exactly that; not weapons, precisely, but skills and abilities that she could use as weapons. They would regret that. Whatever these people knew, they did not know her, and she meant to educate them in a way they would never forget.


Part II

Cordelia learned fuses, and found that in her own way Mandy was as great a devotee as Bitch to the principle of learning by doing. The major difference was that, impersonally brutal slave-driver though she might be, Bitch wasn’t particular about how something was accomplished, as long as it got done; Mandy, however, was a maniacal perfectionist, insisting that all tasks be performed exactly the same way (her way) every single time. She wasn’t unpleasant about it, but she was relentless.

Correction: the major difference between the two women was their attitude toward Cordelia. Bitch regarded her as an unwelcome chore, and never hid her displeasure at the imposition, but her actual interaction with Cordelia was utterly matter-of-fact; she pounded the crap out of her student several times daily, but as dispassionately as if she were working on an assembly line. Mandy always made it personal, or tried to. She habitually stood just a bit too close, touched just a bit too often and let the touch remain just a bit too long, kept direct unwavering eye contact whenever she could, and strove endlessly, by voice and body language and that not-quite-suggestive smile, to create an atmosphere of intimacy between them.

It could have been a source of awkwardness and discomfort … except that Cordelia didn’t believe for a moment that Mandy was serious. The other woman was testing her, constantly sending out little probes just to see what readings she got; and Cordelia, who had long since mastered the intricacies of implied-sex-as-power, made sure that the return readings were faintly promising but never explicit. She would draw away from the little touches when she could … but not a recoil, just a half-step back and continue with the business at hand. Sometimes she would smile a little herself, and sometimes she would simply put on a thoughtful look, as if she might be considering previously unexamined possibilities. It was the same game she had been playing since junior high, only here she could operate more subtly (with teenaged guys, anything more subtle than a brickbat or full frontal nudity was simply below their perception threshold), and the fact that it was directed toward another woman only meant that Cordelia could proceed with automatic and total objectivity, never worrying that she might become convinced by her own artifice. She was immune, for not just one but three distinct reasons.

First and most obviously, Cordelia was no lesbo. She knew exactly what got her hormones humming, and — PC or not — certain attachments were just not optional.

Second, if she ever were to consider crossing that particular street, even for a visit, it would be with someone worthy of herself. She was eighteen, and Mandy, for all her studied windblown Revlon wet-lip foxiness, would be pushing thirty and was starting to show the mileage. If that kind of attitude was superficial, then superficiality had its advantages. Charlize Theron, maybe. Mandy, nuh-uh.

Third, there was something about the other woman Cordelia couldn’t have hoped to quantify but didn’t question for an instant. She had seen it in Natalie French, she had seen it more and more in Amy toward the end (before Faith had settled the matter by sticking a knife in the girl’s belly), she had seen it in every lame retro minion-vamp strutting through the Bronze: Mandy was a killer. Not just someone who killed; Buffy had done plenty of that without losing control or humanity, and even Faith had been badly shaken by Amy’s death, though there really hadn’t been any other way to save Willow from the Mayor and his little witch-Friday. No, Mandy was someone who wasn’t bothered in the least by killing, and that would pour ice water on any potential fantasies even if Cordelia had had an inclination in that direction.

So she was free to work a carefully-balanced pretense, just in case Mandy might ever actually become truly interested. That would give her leverage, and Cordelia wasn’t about to turn down any potential leverage. (She’d never really sleep with the woman, though. She had learned that much from prime-time television, and then had the awareness honed in the gladiatorial arena of high school dating: Unresolved Sexual Tension kept its power only as long as it stayed unresolved.) She had been brought here naked, and it was up to her to construct an arsenal from whatever she could find …

She used a wire brush to clear the threads on the end of the smooth metal cylinder, then placed the cap and began to tighten it down, exactly an eighth of a turn at a time. Mandy could have watched from the side, but she had chosen to stand directly behind Cordelia, one hand resting on her shoulder and her breath caressing Cordelia’s neck and ear. Cordelia paused and let a little shiver run through her (she could have suppressed it, but dress it up right and you can make a case of the creeps look like the first stirring of passion), then continued, eighth-turn, eighth-turn. When she felt resistance, she picked up the short-handled torque wrench, ran the calibration down to zero and then back up to the prescribed setting, and matched the socket to the angles on the end of the cap. She applied pressure until she felt the wrench’s internal mechanism “break”, then withdrew the torque wrench and stepped back. “There,” she said, looking to her instructor. “How was that?”

“Perfect,” Mandy said, eyes and smile brilliant. “Except, put all the tools back in the case when you finish; keeping your kit is part of the job.”

“Right,” Cordelia said, and began returning various implements to their recessed slots in the carrying case. “I knew that.”

“I know you think I’m compulsive,” Mandy said. “But when you’re working explosives, you can’t be too compulsive. You’re actually doing very well. It’s a pleasure to teach you.”

She was too close again. Cordelia let it hold for a moment, then shifted away, slowly enough for it to appear reluctant, her expression crafted to look like it was supposed to be guarded while revealing guilt, confusion, and a tinge of interest. “What about locks?” she asked. “Will I ever do locks?”

Mandy tilted her head, appraising Cordelia with amused satisfaction. “I hadn’t thought of it,” she said. “It’s not on the schedule, but it might be a good idea. I’ll ask, and we’ll see what He says about it.”

Increments of advantage. That was what it was all about.

* * *

Three days later, Cordelia tagged Bitch on the cheek during one of their sessions. She was on the ground an instant later, mouth open in a huge silent A-a-aaa-hhh! as Bitch applied excruciating pressure to a wrist that was not designed to turn in that direction. The pale-eyed woman stared down at her for an eternity while Cordelia struggled not to wet herself from the pain; then she released the trapped wrist and brusquely ordered Cordelia, “Do that again.”

Cordelia pulled herself to her feet, shaking out the throbbing hand, then began to circle the other woman. Okay, how had she done that? She remembered the move, but not the sequence leading up to it, and you couldn’t just pull this stuff out of nowhere, it had to be carried off under the proper alignment of circumstances …

Yes, there! Long step to the side, hook toward the short-ribs as Bitch wheeled to face her (blocked), hook to the other side and flow around the intercepting block to flash in a backfist from the opposite arm —

She missed by a fraction, Bitch had twitched away from it but Cordelia was moving into the opening, closing to drive a knee at her instructor’s side, only Bitch turned the knee with a hard palm-heel thrust and reaped Cordelia’s other leg out from under her, following her down and finishing her with a head-butt to the face as they landed.

By the time Cordelia could see again, Bitch had moved ten feet away, and watched as Cordelia staggered upright, blowing blood. (This would be the third time she had broken Cordelia’s nose, but here in where-the-hell-ARE-we?, it always healed cleanly and without complication.) “Goddamn,” the other woman said. “God damn. I didn’t teach you knees.”

Cordelia huffed; what was she supposed to do, apologize? “It was what I had,” she said. Then, “You didn’t teach me a defense against head-butts, either.”

Bitch studied her with a curious expression, and Cordelia belatedly realized it was a smile, the first she had seen on the woman. “The defense is to head-butt your opponent first.” She gave herself a little shake. “Okay, that opening you snuck the backfist through? You’ll never see it again, I didn’t even know I was doing it … but that is exactly the kind of thing you should be looking for, so keep your eyes open.” She scowled (okay, back into familiar territory). “You should have chopped me in the throat.”

What? “What?” Cordelia said.

“You get a clear shot, make it count,” Bitch insisted. “Might be the only one you have. That kind of chance comes around again, you’d better put me on the ground or I’ll kick your ass from one wall to the other.”

What have you been doing?, Cordelia thought, but she was already sideslipping the attack, Bitch driving straight for her damaged nose. The other woman always went for the weakest point, and Cordelia had learned very quickly to know her vulnerabilities and guard them.

There was no time for satisfaction, she was too busy being Bitch-slapped to the point of collapse. But that night, as she lay in bed counting her aches and breathing through her mouth, she considered the day’s events and filed them under Definite Progress.

In their next two sessions, Cordelia could tell that Bitch was regarding her differently. For one thing, she actually looked at her. Normally she kept her gaze just below Cordelia’s bust-line, and Cordelia had learned the utility of the practice: eyes on center-mass, your peripheral vision will keep you posted on hand- or foot-movements. Now, however, she was studying Cordelia’s face, as if trying to see (though she had never shown any interest before) the person behind it.

She also taught Cordelia knees. To the belly, take your opponent’s breath. To the ribs, try and crack a few. To the back of the knee, break the balance. To the side of the knee, break the knee. To the groin —

“Hey!” Cordelia protested, drawing back out of striking distance. “Do I look like a guy here?”

Bitch snorted. “It’s not a good move against a guy. They’ll guard the spot automatically, and even if you land one, you can’t really count on it. One time I had a guy take me down after I snocked him solid … and then once he had me trussed up and tucked away, he blew his cookies and laid around for awhile holding himself and moaning.” She showed teeth in a grin that was more of a snarl. “A woman, now, a woman won’t guard that area in a fight; and a good hard shot in the crotch won’t drop her, but it hurts like a screaming bitch, and you can hit her with something else while she’s still getting acquainted with new worlds of hurt.”

This was a new world in itself — Bitch was generally given to demonstrating her lessons directly on Cordelia’s shrieking flesh — but after that lapse she returned to her prior practice, and in the next hour Cordelia narrowly avoided a dislocated jaw, three re-breakings of her barely healing nose, and having her crotch driven up next to her two belly-buttons. (Side-thought: what would that kind of thing do to someone who already sang soprano —?)

Toward the end of the second session, Bitch simply stopped, lowered her hands, and said, “You’re a natural at this.”

Cordelia watched warily; this could be a distraction, the lead-in for another attack. “Well, if anybody would know, it would be you,” she replied at last.

“No,” Bitch said. “I’m good at fighting, always have been, and I worked to get better at it. But you, you’re a natural at learning.” She gave Cordelia another of those odd slantways looks. “If you keep at it, get instruction from other people … you’ll be better than me.”

Cordelia thought about it. “Is that bad?” she asked.

“It’s what it is,” Bitch said, and Cordelia stopped a kick just short of her belly. “Like that. We haven’t been doing kicks, have we? But you dropped a little and used the block for a low punch.” She shook her head, and added, as if to herself, “This might actually work.”

“What might work?” Cordelia asked, and struck at the moment of possible inattention.

They were busy for the next thirty seconds or so; then, while Cordelia was pulling herself back to her feet and blinking away tears from the agonized throbbing in her nose (she’d deflected and evaded most of the impact, but it was still pretty bad), Bitch went on conversationally, “Our fearless leader has some kind of master plan He’s working. He’s basically full of crap, but He may not have been wrong about you. We’ll see.” She glanced at her watch. “We’re about done for now anyhow. Come on, there’s somebody I want you to meet.”

Somebody else? Until now, Cordelia had been given no hint of any presence beyond the four of them: herself, Bitch, Mandy, and the unseen male she probably wasn’t supposed to remember but to whom the others made occasional reference. Or maybe it was him that Bitch was taking her to see. “What about my other lessons?” she asked, following. “You know, with —?”

“Mandy? Screw her, she can wait.” Bitch glanced back at Cordelia. “Better yet, don’t screw her. You know what they say about the praying mantis?”

“I’ve heard stories,” Cordelia said tersely.

“Yeah? Well, where she’s concerned, believe ’em.”

Once again, they were moving through new areas, doors that wouldn’t have budged for Cordelia opening freely before the other woman. Cordelia greedily drank in the further expansion of her world, trying to memorize details; then they came to a door that didn’t yield. Muttering to herself, Bitch rapped on it sharply, twice, and the two of them waited.

The woman who opened it was taller than either of them, sturdily but proportionately built, and Cordelia felt something click! inside her head as she noted that this new person had long, dark hair. Well, well. Most Western women had dark or medium-brown hair, but a sizeable proportion of them chose not to stay that way. (There had been a joke running through Sunnydale High during Cordelia’s junior year, sufficiently offensive to move her to scorching verbal retaliation: What do you get when you turn three blondes upside-down? — Two brunettes and a redhead.) No phony blondes here, and she tucked the information back for further study and a later time: the so-called fearless leader seemed to prefer brunettes. She might be able to use that.

Meanwhile, the as-yet-nameless woman was regarding them without welcome. “It’s too soon,” she said. “I don’t have the ordnance I need, and I’m still drawing up a learning schedule.”

“Lighten up, will you? This isn’t about that.” Bitch hooked a thumb at Cordelia. “She’s coming along okay, actually showing a little talent. I thought a change of pace might do her some good.”

The taller woman looked wary. “Change of pace?”

“Different fighting styles,” Bitch clarified. “She’s learning, but mostly she’s learning how to go against me. Time to mix things up a little.”

Cordelia could see the other woman gathering herself to refuse; apparently so could Bitch, because she said, “Okay, never mind, I’ll just send her over for some more hands-on with Mandy.”

That one struck home. “Go away,” the woman said to Bitch; and to Cordelia, “Come in.”

She did so, noting at a glance that these were quarters all but indistinguishable from her own. As the door closed, she asked, “Is it like this everywhere?”

“What do you mean?” the other woman said.

Cordelia sniffed. “So far, nobody I’ve met here can stand each other. You’re supposed to be working together — color me clueless on what — but everywhere I look it’s hate, loathing, and total lack of sisterhood.”

Her new host laughed. “If that woman was my sister, I’d shoot her. And if Mandy was …”

The expression of distaste was so pronounced that Cordelia hazarded a guess. “You’d shoot yourself?” she ventured.

“No, I’d shoot her with a bigger gun. And then scrub my DNA with bleach.” The woman held out her hand. “I’m Sam.”

Cordelia took it. “Cordelia.”

Sam regarded her with a slight smile. “So, are we going to hate each other?”

“I don’t know,” Cordelia said. “Are you going to pick up something and hit me on the nose with it?”

It was supposed to be a quip, but it came out sounding like something else. Sam lost the smile, and Cordelia postponed wishing she’d said it a different way, and concentrated on assessing the other woman’s reaction. She looked … ashamed, and that was worth thinking about.

“No,” Sam said. “We’ll do sparring — not today, but after I’ve gotten a feel for where you stand right now — but I won’t hurt you just for the fun of it. I’m not like that.”

Cordelia was taking nothing on trust, but this seemed promising. Looking around, she asked, “So what’s your job supposed to be, if working with me hand-to-hand is an add-on?”

“When you’re ready, I’ll be teaching you weapons,” Sam said. “Only it’s driving me crazy, He doesn’t really know anything about that so I have to design a curriculum —”

“Weapons?” Cordelia said. “Samurai, ninja, medieval, what?”

The smile came back. “Military,” Sam told her. “I figured I’d introduce you to the basics: M-16/203 combo, M-9 pistol, MP-5 sub-gun. Maybe some familiarization with the AK models, that’s always good to know; fragmentation grenades, claymores, some close-quarters techniques with bayonet and entrenching tool …”

“Whoa, whoa, time out!” Cordelia made the ‘T’ with her hands. “This is the basic stuff? For what, the invasion of Shadaloo?”

“Right,” Sam said. “Sorry. But you know what they say about too thin and too rich? Well, you can also never be too well-armed.”

* * *

Working with Sam was a lot more of a problem than Cordelia had anticipated.

Her dealings with Bitch and Mandy were, at bottom, based on trust. She trusted Bitch to hurt her at every opportunity, probably without taking direct pleasure from it, but certainly without regretting or apologizing for it. She trusted Mandy to lie to her, manipulate her, play with her for gain or amusement (that was if Cordelia gave her the chance, which she never would), and betray her for a moment’s advantage or even on a whim. But she liked Sam, enjoyed the time they spent together, and wanted to trust her. That, she knew without having to think about it, posed a hideous danger.

In their first meeting, after getting the preliminary introductions out of the way, Sam had asked a few questions about Cordelia’s current training regimen, and then nodded understanding and satisfaction. “About what I thought,” she said. “She’s good, but I think I can show you a few things she doesn’t pay that much attention to.”

“Is she better than you?” Cordelia asked. That information could be useful, as could how Sam felt about the subject. “I mean, could you beat her?”

“Yes, she’s better than me,” Sam said. “As for whether I could beat her … I intend to, if it comes to it, but it wouldn’t be a sure thing. I’ve got reach and strength on her, and I’ll take a hit to give one; but she’s fast, and she’s tricky, and she’s mean as a snake. Meet her on her own terms and she’ll smear you, count on it.”

“She’s been doing that already,” Cordelia said. “But how do I put things on my terms? I don’t have any power here. You guys are the teachers; I’m the student body, and this body has been taking some serious abuse since Day One.”

“I can see that,” Sam replied. “Three and four full-contact workouts a day, with no recovery time? Even here, that’s a killer, it’s a wonder you can even walk.” She looked around. “Okay, sit down over there, facing the back of the chair. I’ll do some massage to get you loosened up.”

Cordelia regarded her with a carefully mild expression. “Loosened up for what?”

Sam’s mouth tightened briefly, then she sighed. “Right. It’d be a surprise if you weren’t suspicious. Look, the old Japanese bujutsu had something called kappo, restorative techniques to help a samurai recover from training injuries. I don’t know any of those, but I figure therapeutic massage can accomplish some of the same things. Sleep is basically the only rest you get, right? Well, you’ll rest better and heal better if your muscles aren’t all tightened up, fighting each other.”

Cordelia sat down; bottom line, these people could do whatever they wanted to her. She would change that — she would — but until such time, acquiescence and the appearance of friendship were the only tools available for her use. Sam started in on her shoulders with strong fingers, careful but not tentative, and talked as she worked. “All right, now. As far as I can tell, most of her style is Korean-based: hapkido, hwarang-do, maybe a little kuk sool. It suits her: quick and nasty, just like her. The thing is, people tend to focus on what they’re good at; which means if you look at what they’re not doing, it may give you a clue to a weakness.”

The steady kneading of her fingers through stiff, aching muscles was a delicious agony; if this was a come-on, it might be worth it. Cordelia concentrated on making her whole body limp so that Sam could work on her without resistance. Not exactly tender loving care — in its way, it was as hard on her as combat sessions with Bitch — but she suspected she would feel a lot better when it was over with.

Sam was still talking. “If I was your primary teacher, I’d probably be running you through a lot of the same things she is. But, the whole idea of bringing you to me was to expose you to something new, so we’ll work at it that way. First of all, you’ll get a good massage every time you’re here … because you need it, I could crack walnuts on your neck muscles. I’ll also show you some yoga routines you can use to relax and build flexibility. As for actual fighting moves …”

She switched to Cordelia’s right arm and began to work down it slowly, seeking out knots of tension and methodically pulverizing them. “She works mostly hand techniques,” Sam continued. “That’s good, hands are fast and precise. But she’s still thinking in terms of human combat. Some things … nerve strikes don’t work as well against a creature that’s plated like an armadillo, or has spines covering its vital areas. For that you need weapons, or power. Your legs are probI don’t trust you. I can’t afford to. You, or anybody else.ably four times as strong as your arms, so you and I will go through different types of kicks, find what works best for you.”

Other arm, the left one. This went faster, because Cordelia had found the rhythm and was able to flow with it, but Sam didn’t rush. “Mostly, though,” she was saying, “I think I’ll teach you close-in grappling. Kicks, chops, punches, those are dandy and I love ’em, but they don’t stack up when it comes to F-equals-mv-two.”

That roused Cordelia from the torpor of near-total relaxation. “Huh?” she said blurrily.

“Physics,” Sam clarified. “Force equals mass times velocity squared. Punch or kick somebody, it’s your strength, your body-mass, your speed. But if you throw ’em … well, once they’re in the air, gravity supplies the velocity, and it’s their body-mass that gets tossed into the equation, and basically you’re hitting them with the ground. Trust me, even if you’re used to that, it’s hard to shake off.”

That’s the problem, Cordelia thought as she surrendered herself to the other woman’s ministrations.

She was alone. But then, she always had been.

* * *

Difficult as Sam’s addition to her daily routine was on an emotional level, it provided immediate and invaluable benefits elsewhere. Her training sessions with Bitch were becoming almost bearable; the massage and yoga really did work, and all the time she spent practicing with Sam was time not being put through a meat-grinder, so that her body had more opportunity to recover. In addition to that, controlled falls on the mat (Sam had brought in something she called tatami, 20'×20', for their workouts) had the effect of loosening her up yet further. The greatest advantage, however, came in her dealings with Mandy.

Thoroughly as she disliked the woman (and just as thoroughly concealed it), Cordelia had to admit that Mandy’s method of instruction was well-suited to her student. Cordelia was good at physical learning — witness her ascent to head cheerleader, she could pick up a new routine the first time she saw it — and even so, Bitch had nearly killed her in those first weeks of hand-to-hand training. On the other hand, though she had a good brain, she didn’t normally do well in technical subjects; and yet Mandy’s methodical approach, breaking every step down into smaller digestible chunks and ceaselessly reviewing previous lessons, was producing results that Cordelia would otherwise have considered impossible.

Cordelia had not, however, gained any ground in the subtler campaign she was waging. She hadn’t lost any, to be sure — she had neither been swayed by any of Mandy’s overtures nor burned the bridges that would be necessary for any possible offensives of her own — but stalemate was not to her liking. She was still in control of herself, but so was her instructor, and she hadn’t been able to think of any way to break that deadlock.

Sam’s addition to the dynamic changed that. Her dislike for Mandy was so pronounced that Cordelia assumed it must be reciprocated; and so, during her next instruction block — she had progressed far enough that she was now working with basic alarm systems — she mentioned her new instructor to Mandy, speaking of Sam with a glowing enthusiasm that seemed to hint at hero worship, punctuated by occasional wistful silences that might have suggested more.

Mandy’s self-conscious vitality had never dimmed in any of their prior dealings, but Cordelia saw it falter now. It was, Cordelia thought to herself, as if one of the chess nerds had taken it on himself to introduce her to the intricacies of the game; carried her along, encouraged her, taken pride in the improvement she demonstrated … and suddenly had to listen and be a good sport while she went into rhapsodies about some AV club geek who was teaching her to operate a teleprompter. No matter how disinterested he might originally have been (the analogy got strained at this point, because of course no guy in school had been disinterested where Cordelia Chase was concerned), that had to be a personal blow; and jealousy of any type, once it appeared, could be used and perhaps redirected.

As further weeks passed, Mandy’s smile no longer came so automatically, and carried a different flavor when it manifested. Before, her attentions to Cordelia, however framed, had been about acquiring power over her. Now, for the first time, it seemed that there might be some genuine desire beginning to make itself known.

She was holding her own with Bitch now in their twice-daily contests. She never won (she still wasn’t on the other woman’s level, and she was still keeping about five per cent of her capabilities hidden for the day when it might serve as an ugly surprise), but the skill gap was shrinking, and now Bitch was putting more attention into teaching and less into unending smackdown. Cordelia was getting stronger, quicker, more sure in her motions, and — not to be minimized — there were days at a time now when she didn’t look like a domestic abuse victim.

Sam finally got the right gear, and began introducing Cordelia to military firepower. Bitch began teaching her joint-locks. Mandy, too, brought locks into her lessons, and Cordelia was working with pins, tumblers, barrels and bolts, as well as with multimeters and magnifiers and tiny screwdrivers and battery-powered soldering irons. Mandy touched her less often now, and with less assurance; and now, about one time in every ten, Cordelia would lightly and quickly return the touch.

She continued to talk worshipfully about Sam, though, outwardly oblivious to the way it gnawed at Mandy.

Power was beginning to shift, and the direction of the shift was just where Cordelia wanted it.


Part III

One day, in the middle of a workout, things changed again.

It was one of those days when everything was going well, when her timing was just on and she seemed to have grown an extra lung; she was in the flow, and rode it for all it was worth. She and Bitch were going at each other like Broadway dancers in the grip of meth frenzy: back and forth, an endless rhythm, bodies closing and separating in flashes of motion. Hits were taken and shaken off, blocked and returned; feints became direct attacks, attacks were abandoned to segue into entirely different techniques, counters were instant and automatic and merciless. A part of Cordelia knew that it wasn’t quite real; Bitch could have taken her down in a second (well, a minute), but she was letting Cordelia learn how it felt to be in the groove, to move with all her mind and muscle and wind in perfect concert with her will. Cordelia could recognize and even appreciate that without allowing it to reduce her dedicated hatred of Bitch by the smallest margin.

She was using kicks in an attempt to break her opponent’s rhythm. The ones she had learned from Sam were power techniques, and she had quickly found that these couldn’t be delivered quickly enough to be effective against her primary instructor; so she was sticking to low kicks, front snaps to the shin and downward-slanting side kicks directed at the knee, always ready to follow up or defend with fists and forearms and elbows. Again she had the sense that Bitch was cutting her just that least bit of slack, allowing her to test and develop an approach, and she pressed it as hard as she could, determined to get maximum mileage out of this unexpected and uncharacteristic lenience …

Bitch slipped her with a breaking spin that looked exactly like a basketball move, and before Cordelia could reorient, the other woman had dropped and taken Cordelia’s feet out from under her with a leg sweep moving about six inches above the surface of the floor. Unable to avoid the move, Cordelia went with it, throwing her body into the fall and turning it into a rolling tumble, and she came back up firing a waist-level thrust-kick to where Bitch might be coming at her in a follow-up.

No follow-up. No Bitch. The other woman was standing well away from her, keeping an automatic eye on Cordelia but with her attention clearly focused elsewhere. Cordelia backpedaled to put more distance between them — she wasn’t going to get caught in what could be a sucker-move — and then darted a glance in the direction her instructor was looking.

He was there, the man from that elusive memory, the man who had to be the He who was calling the shots here. Cordelia hadn’t heard him enter, but that was no surprise; she and Bitch had been going at each other so single-mindedly, it would have required a loud noise (or a glimpse of color and motion, that must be why the other woman had stopped) to catch their attention. Again He wore robes, though of a different pattern and cut, and He regarded the two of them with calm speculation and total confidence.

“You didn’t say you’d be coming here,” Bitch observed sharply. (Note to self: she didn’t just make snide comments when He wasn’t around, she would express her annoyance to his face. And yet, she had made it clear that He was the one in charge. File for future inspection.) “Could have picked a worse time, though. So, like what you see?”

His gaze moved unhurriedly over Cordelia, checking everything and considering what He saw. Not one to be hurried, which would tie in both with the whole master-of-all-He-surveyed theme and with his remembered statement that time was not a concern. At last He said, “Quite impressive, yes. This is your specialty, of course, but it appeared that she was fighting you to a standstill. Have you, then, reached the limits of what you can teach her?”

Bitch jerked her head in Cordelia’s direction. “Ask her.”

The man looked to Cordelia. “I’m told you have learned quickly, and from what I just saw, you clearly have done so. Well? Could you defeat her?”

In the moments since his appearance, Cordelia had been thinking very quickly, though her expression remained the placid mask she had perfected before puberty. She had to choose, right now, how to respond to this new element, and if her chosen course was the wrong one, she had to be prepared to follow it out. By the time He had spoken to her, she had made her decision. “Do we know each other?” she asked.

His eyes showed mild surprise, and perhaps amusement. “Surely it must be obvious that I am He who rules in this domain.”

“Well, yeah,” she said. And a pretty cheap-assed domain it is, she elected not to add. “But that still doesn’t mean we’ve met. I generally like to be introduced to a guy before he starts grilling me.”

“You are under my hand,” He pointed out without heat. “There is no law here other than my will. I could have you flogged simply for failing to show proper respect.”

“Okay,” she said. “So, is that a no on the introduction?”

He smiled. “I am Roxeim,” He said. (The ‘x’ was actually a soft hocking sound, like the German ‘ach’ but less guttural.) “You are alive now solely due to my intervention.”

“Cordelia Chase,” she returned. He almost certainly had the power to know that already, but might not have cared enough to find out. The main thing was that social pleasantries put them into a venue where she could operate with experience and authority. “And I prefer to think I’m alive because the universe can’t stand for this face to be lost.”

His smile held, but didn’t deepen, so maybe little “behold the glory that is me” comments weren’t the best approach. “Be that as may,” he said. “As to the question I first asked: which of you is now the superior in combat? you, or she?”

Cordelia truly wasn’t tempted, not even for a moment. “She is,” she said. “What you saw just now, that was her going light on me so I could stretch out and work something new. She could have decided to teach me something new instead, and pounded me through the floor till I got it right.”

Roxeim looked to the other woman. “This is so?” he asked.

Bitch nodded. “She’s coming along pretty well,” she said. “Better than I expected, and a hell of a lot faster. Right now she’s at a level where she might hang in long enough to take me with a lucky shot. It’s progress.”

Roxeim glanced from one of them to the other. Then he said, “Fight. Do your utmost, withhold nothing.” To Cordelia he said, “You will find it much to your benefit to win.” To Bitch: “You will not, I think, enjoy the consequences if you lose.”

Oh, joy.

Cordelia knew that what her instructor had said was true: she was good enough now that she might win, if she got a lucky break. It was also true that she was highly unlikely to receive any such opportunity. The problem was, Bitch knew she’d been picking up new techniques from Sam, and now was the time when Cordelia could be expected to try them. She would have to reveal at least some of what she had held back, or the other woman would realize that she was hiding a lot more.

Bitch was waiting, watching her with a thin smile. “This is your big chance, Princess,” she said. “Come on. Go crazy.”

Cordelia moved toward her, and they circled one another, assessing, looking (in Cordelia’s case, without much confidence) for openings. No-holds-barred meant they had to be more cautious at the outset, because commitment when made would be total and devastating. If Cordelia had any advantage at all, it was that she had in fact fought for her life before this; it required no mental adjustment for her to reach that frame of mind, she had already been there.

Strike-block-counter, that quickly and then they had withdrawn and resumed the slow stalk of one another. Cordelia had initiated the exchange, she realized: seen a possibility and gone for it, automatic as breathing, and — whoa! That one was from Bitch, lasted almost a full second longer, and Cordelia escaped it with a diving roll that brought her back to her feet in ready-guard position.

It was like dancing, two people who knew each other well moving in response to actions they could read before they were made. It was like fencing, initiating a motion to call forth a reaction, and probing that reaction for a hint of weakness. It was as if the world had contracted to contain only the two women, their awareness focused on one another to the exclusion of all else —

Yeah, right.

Cordelia whirled and dashed at Roxeim with a blood-freezing shriek … then stopped, spinning as if on a pivot, and her shin caught Bitch in the side as the pursuing woman ran straight into the kick. It was the first solid blow Cordelia had ever landed on her and it wasn’t enough but she was committed now, she drove in to close and they were attacking each other with everything they had, short full-power jabs and chops, blocks operating at a distance of inches, knee slamming into thigh, elbow strike deflected by rising shoulder, foreheads smashing together as they tried simultaneous head-butts. The impact stunned and blinded Cordelia but she grabbed for the other woman, caught an arm and a handful of hair and instantly spun in for a throw.

Her vision cleared just as she powered her enemy into the air, it was the sweeping hip technique and she had it perfect, a twist of her hands turned Bitch in a tight circle, slamming her onto the floor with an awesome crash. Now was the time to take a step back and start kicking to ribs or head … but Bitch, from flat on her back, powered a kick straight up into Cordelia’s crotch with enough force to raise her on her toes and oh dear God in heaven she wasn’t kidding about new worlds of hurt, but Cordelia let herself collapse forward, she was going to drop both knees into the other woman’s gut with all her body-weight behind it …

But she wasn’t going forward, she was going over, Bitch somehow had caught Cordelia’s wrist and shifted the kicking foot to brace at the crease between leg and abdomen, and she boosted Cordelia over her in a rising arc. Hitting the floor hurt a lot more than the same fall on tatami, but Cordelia had taken a lot of falls in the past weeks and was twisting even as she landed, ready to break away and drive in for ground-grappling, only Bitch still had hold of her arm, snugging it in tight and pulling Cordelia closer, and then her legs had somehow gone across Cordelia’s chest and she was leaning back, stretching and straightening and pulling back.

It was an elbow lock, and the rule for locks was that once she had you, you had half a second to surrender. It was the only mercy Bitch had ever shown her, and done strictly because breaking an arm or wrist would slow down the training schedule; but Roxeim had said no limits, and Cordelia didn’t know if that meant she was allowed to surrender, and before she could make up her mind, Bitch heaved and yanked and Cordelia screamed as she felt the elbow crack.

She was on her feet, though she couldn’t remember rising, and the pain in her arm was like nothing she had ever known; but she took a stance, left hand forward, and got ready to keep fighting in any way she could. Whatever that might be.

“Enough,” Roxeim said. “I am satisfied.” To Bitch he added, “You were correct, she is not yet your equal; and you were correct, she has shown remarkable progress.” We were both right, Cordelia thought dizzily. So why is my reward a broken arm? “Tend to her,” Roxeim was saying. “Notify me when she is fit again.” He started for the door, paused to look back. “She is determined to kill you if ever she can. You are aware of this?”

“Aware of it?” Bitch said. “I’ve made sure of it.” Then: “Come on, Princess. Let’s get that arm looked at.”

There were many responses Cordelia could have made: cutting put-down, disdainful sniff, icy silence. Under the circumstances, she decided that fainting was the way to go.

* * *

Sam was the one to inspect and set the arm; apparently, along with her firearms skills, she had received some kind of basic medical training at some point in her life. Cordelia’s injury she regarded with white-lipped fury; but when she heard how Cordelia had drawn Bitch out by a feint at Roxeim, her entire face drained of color. “Don’t ever do that again,” she whispered. “Don’t even pretend to do it. Don’t think of pretending to do it.”

“Okay, I got it, he’s the big cheese here.” Somehow, on learning the man’s name (assuming that he actually was a man), Cordelia had stopped thinking of him as He. She could still hear the capital letter in Sam’s voice, however. “He’s mighty and unstoppable, we’re puny slugs cowering under his power, blah blah ad-infinitum blah. It’s just, do you have to cower so hard?”

“You don’t understand,” Sam said. “The way things are here … it isn’t only the power He has over us, his power is all that keeps us alive.”

“Come again?” Cordelia said. Sam had given her a couple of Percocet and a couple of slugs of whiskey; bad combination, according to the AMA, but it hit fast and hard, and she was starting to feel deliciously fuzzy. “He what, how?”

“Where we are,” Sam said. “This place. It’s all from him. I mean, the doors and walls, the food and tools and weapons, He brought them in, the way He brought us in. But the here that He brought us to, He made that. And it’s no place at all, actually, it’s a state of mind. His mind. Where we are is like a bubble in the ocean … but the bubble is his will, and the ocean is … nothing. There’s nothing out there, nothing at all. We can never escape, because there’s nowhere to escape to. We can never defeat him, because all He has to do is relax his will and the bubble is gone. And we can never, never harm him or try to harm him in any way, because if He dies, so does everyone else here.”

Cordelia thought about that for a very long time, “Well, that bites,” she observed at last.

She slept for twenty hours, and then returned to her routine.

Sam welcomed her back with a smile and the field manual for the placement and firing of claymore mines.

Mandy expressed horror and outrage at Cordelia’s injury, and Cordelia got all teary and wound up lying on a small couch with her head in Mandy’s lap, letting the woman hold her and stroke her hair, comforting her while she blubbered. Thinking, Dope.

Bitch launched attacks at the broken arm, and Cordelia fought non-stop with one hand and both feet.

Life went on.

* * *

Given Roxeim’s departing instruction, Cordelia assumed she wouldn’t see him again until she had recovered from the damage to her elbow. The passage of time was hard to gauge, but she made a point of marking it off every time she went to bed for the “day”. The elbow healed in less than three weeks. She didn’t know if this was normal, but it seemed unusually rapid to her, and would tie in with things Sam had said and with how quickly she had recovered from broken noses and other things that should have incapacitated her for at least a while.

In the meantime, she had continued all her other studies. In fact, there had been an unexpected bonus: unable that first week to handle other weapons in her times with Sam, she had practiced left-handed with the M-9 Beretta pistol, and found that she was just as quick and measurably more accurate than she had been with her right. She was also, it quickly became apparent, better than Sam at quick, vicious close-in work with the bayonet and the folding shovel, so that Sam early declined to work directly with her on those, and assigned her solo practice. Not that much of a switch, really, from batons and pom-poms; the weights were different, the movements were different, but the necessary coordination of hand and eye were the same.

Bitch also had begun an introduction to the use of hand-weapons. Whether or not Sam had been right about the woman’s style being derived from Korean arts, her weapons of choice were Japanese: forklike things she called sai; staff (bo); shorter stick (jo); the familiar-from-movies double-stick flail called nunchaku; a police baton with a side-grip that Bitch told her was a modern adaptation of the tonfa; and, most perplexing, bamboo swords (shinai).

Cordelia had chosen not to hide her doubtfulness about the latter. “What good are these supposed to be?” she wanted to know.

“They’re training tools,” Bitch told her. “The bokken — wooden sword — is heavier and good for building strength in the wrists, but a shinai has basically the same weight and balance as a katana, and you work the same techniques. Get good at this, and the transition goes a lot smoother.”

This was intriguing. “Real swords?” Cordelia asked. “Samurai swords?”

Bitch answered that with a laugh. “The day I let you pick up a katana,” she said, “is the day I’ll be watching you from fifty feet away with a rifle. I’ll teach you the moves, but I’m not about to screw around with live blades, not when I’m working with somebody who hates my guts the way you do.”

Cordelia nodded. “Good thinking.” She studied the other woman speculatively. “You told him that you worked to make sure I hated you. For motivation?”

“Does it matter?” Bitch said. “It only works as motivation if it’s real. And maybe I just get a kick out of smacking around the prom queen.”

“Sour grapes much?” Cordelia retorted. “I can’t begin to imagine — ’cause first I’d have to care enough to try — what your prom was like.”

“I cleaned up,” Bitch assured her cheerily. “While the debs were prancing around inside the gym in their formals, I was out back peddling half a bale of rum-soaked pot. Very mellow high. Then some of the local hustlers tried to jump me for moving product in their territory.” She grinned at the memory. “Good times.”

She started with the sai, because — she said — they were hardest. Cordelia couldn’t see it, herself. The moment she picked them up, they became extensions of her hands. It just all made sense. With this weapon, strikes, blocks, traps and locks — any hand technique, basically — became ten times easier. Bitch showed her three moves, and then gave it up … because it was obvious to both women, within the first ten minutes, that here she had nothing to teach Cordelia.

They tested it out, moving against each other with increasing speed and intensity. All the focus that had been missing for Cordelia was there now, concentrated into two formed lengths of metal. She still had only partial use of her right arm, and Bitch still had the advantage of her in speed and in depth of technical skill; but, for the first time, they were contesting as equals with different strengths.

It was all sparring. They didn’t fight. The status of things had changed, and they were mutually aware of it. Any fight, now, would have a final ending. It was a matter of deciding whether they were ready for that.

At last they separated, drew back to regard one another with new eyes. After long, wordless perusal, Cordelia looked down at the twin sai she held. “I know these,” she said. “This guy I used to … this guy at my school, he was heavy into comic books, and one of the superheroes had a girlfriend who used these. She liked to stab with them, throw them.”

“You can do that,” Bitch acknowledged. “If you’re facing multiple opponents, now, throwing a sai means you just have one left. You want to go that route, it’s a good idea to carry a spare. Tucked into a sash, or belt, or boot. Then you can throw one, and still have one for each hand.”

Cordelia nodded understanding. “And stabbing?”

“Not the best use of the weapon, but you can do it.” Bitch gestured with one. “It’s all point, no edge. Okay for disabling — knee, shoulder, wrist — but if you want lethal, it’s strictly heart and brain.”

Again they studied one another, a long, silent assessment. At last the other woman said, “You’re still not at your best. You come at me right now, odds are about three to two in your favor. Another week, week and a half, I wouldn’t be able to stop you. — Well, maybe if I had the jo, but no guarantees even there. ’Course, you only have my word for that.” She nodded to Cordelia. “For all you know, this will be the best chance you ever get. Your call.”

Cordelia considered it. “Why the jo?”

“Because I’m good with the jo. I mean, really good.”

She thought about it some more. “If I beat you,” she said. “If we show him another match and I beat you … would he still have me training with you?”

“I don’t know,” the pale-eyed woman said. “Maybe, but I wouldn’t count on it. He’s got big plans for you, and even though He says time doesn’t matter, I think He’s been getting a little twitchy the last ten years or so.”

Okay, new questions, but they could wait. “If you think you could beat me with the jo,” Cordelia said, “then I want to learn the jo.”

“All right. We can do that.” And then, “Are you sure you don’t want to just kill me?”

Cordelia shrugged. “It really doesn’t seem that important any more.” She looked to the person who had been the bane of her existence for a time beyond her measure. “I don’t actually know your name.”

“Lynn,” the other woman said. “Lynn Gayer. And … wait, I remember, you told him and I remember: you’re Cordelia.”

Cordelia frowned. “You’ve been beating me half to death for months and you didn’t bother to learn my name?”

“I didn’t care,” Lynn said. “If I thought of it at all, I thought of you as Princess.”

“Right,” Cordelia said. “And I called you Bitch.”

“Ah.” Lynn gave her a twisted smile. “Then I’d say we were both right.”


Part IV

Some things changed, and some didn’t, and some underwent a very small shift that made a significant difference. In the absence of external factors, Cordelia had come to evaluate her situation in limited but sharply specific terms:

First, where she stood within herself. Skills, knowledge, mental strength.

Second, where she stood with the other women; not just what she was learning from them, but who had the advantage within the ebbs and flows of interpersonal dynamics. It was subtler and less direct than the infighting and social machinations utilized by the SHS “in”-crowd, but the base forms were the same. The major difference was in the nature and extent of the power for which all this maneuvering was being done.

Third, where she stood in relation to this world. Which, she had been told — and she would operate on that basis without allowing herself to assume it was true — was synonymous with where she stood in relation to Roxeim.

For herself, she had never been stronger, tougher, more centered, and she was still growing. No problems there, except perhaps the challenge of finding ways of adding to herself that the others didn’t know about. The best weapon was a secret weapon.

Where the fearless leader was concerned, she knew little, but felt reason for wary optimism. She had started off with nothing, totally under his control; the control was still there, but she had increased. At the very least, she was no worse off, and when the time came to deal with him more frequently … well, that’s when the game would get interesting.

It was in regard to the others that the situation became less sure, more fluid. With Bitch — Lynn — things had improved hugely. What had been several-times-daily beatings was now more like a mutual project, expanding and honing Cordelia’s martial arts repertoire. She was still prepared to kill Lynn if necessary, but it had ceased to be a cherished dream. She was vastly satisfied with the new state of things … but never entirely dismissed the possibility that she had allowed herself to be artfully outmaneuvered.

Almost as great was the change between her and Mandy. In fact, the two situations were markedly similar, but inverted. Cordelia had chosen to stay with Lynn, so she could continue to learn and practice; Mandy, on the other hand, had begun to scramble for new things to teach Cordelia, so that she could continue to stay. Both of them were aware of it, and Cordelia occasionally wondered if Mandy knew now that she was being indulged, kept in reserve, maintained as a possible but no longer preferred option. The change had first been set in motion by Cordelia’s use of Sam for leverage, but the alteration in Cordelia’s own status — though she had not spoken of it — seemed also to have factored into the process.

The biggest difference was in her dealings with Sam, paradoxically because there was no difference. Cordelia had become a completely new person, almost as dramatic as the change from human to vampire, and of much the same quality as (though of admittedly lesser degree than) a Slayer awakening. Lynn knew it, and Mandy felt it; but Sam appeared to be utterly unconscious of anything new, and that somehow put a gulf between them of greater moment than the internal barrier Cordelia had carefully constructed and carefully hid.

She had always been alone. It had become almost a mantra for her, and been her single greatest source of strength. But for the first time since being brought here — no, before that, since a great blank spot in her memory that she was still unable to bridge — she found herself feeling lonely.

It didn’t matter. She had delayed it as long as possible, wanting to be completely certain that she was back to full capacity; but eventually it was judged that the broken elbow had properly healed, and she was taken to see Roxeim.

* * *

“What do you remember?” he asked her. Though the living and study and training areas she had seen had been generic school/ office Western in style, this chamber was differently furnished: carpets, low tables, drapes and wall hangings, and mounds of cushions rather than chairs. Middle Eastern, Cordelia thought, or perhaps from an era or culture she had never heard of. Roxeim lounged back among the cushions; he had bidden Cordelia to be seated upon her entry, and she had settled into the cross-legged position Lynn called anza. Unlike her previous meeting, this time it was just the two of them.

“Remember from what?” Cordelia asked in return. (Well, it had been pretty vague.)

“Begin, I think, with your earliest memory here,” Roxeim said. “Then tell me what is your most recent memory before that.”

“Okay,” Cordelia said. “The first thing I remember here is when your ninja-girl played a taradiddle on my face with her knuckles. Have I ever thanked you for that? The last thing I remember from before …” She stopped, thinking. She had omitted mention of her first memory of him (the property-garbage comparisons had not inspired any urge to confide), but her hesitation now was no pretense. It really was hard to bring back anything from the time immediately preceding her arrival, though she had tried many times. “I … there’s something about a soup kitchen … I was, I think I was going there so I could put all my money into rent and keeping my portfolio in circulation … yes, that’s right, I’d change into my sloppiest clothes and stuff my hair up under this awful old boonie hat, so I wouldn’t look too out of place …” There was more, there had to be more, but she couldn’t pull the scattered threads together. “Sorry, zippola past that. I remember leaving Sunnydale, right after the big non-apocalypse that was graduation. Anything else, my brain cells might as well be styrofoam peanuts in a Jacuzzi.”

Roxeim nodded, smiling. “You had been drugged, comprehensively molested, and … not discarded, precisely, more tossed aside for anyone else who might care for a taste. You babbled quite a bit, when we brought you in; I did not attend you, nor am I knowledgeable in such matters, but it would seem that you went to New York City, alone, to attempt a modeling career. A risky venture, by all accounts, unless one had prostitution or waiting tables to fall back upon.”

The thought flashed through her mind unsummoned: With waitressing, there’s always a chance to scarf down some of a customer’s leftovers. Okay, there was a memory she would have been happy to keep repressed. “A waitress needs people skills,” Cordelia said without a flicker of expression. “As for being a hooker, yuck! I can’t even stand to use somebody else’s soap.”

“Ah,” he said. “I know a little, a very little, about your background, and I will confess that you have surprised me. You came from privilege, lost it all, and suffered indifference, humiliation and rejection when you attempted to regain it by your own efforts. You were cast upon the scrap-heap of your society, abandoned and forgotten —”

He had used that word, the wrong word. “I’m not so easy to forget,” Cordelia said sharply.

Roxeim regarded her with amused tolerance. “And yet, it was done all the same. Given your past, I would have expected you to be either completely useless — spoiled and arrogant and full of complaints — or bitterly resentful. You have demonstrated little of either. In point of fact, you approached your training program with a commitment and concentration that I had expected would have to be painfully imposed upon you.”

“There was plenty of pain,” Cordelia replied. “But I’m a quick learner.”

“Very much so,” he acknowledged. “And much to my delight. Almost as surprising, however, has been your lack of curiosity regarding your circumstances: how you came to be here, what is the purpose of the instruction devoted to you. Have you not wondered?”

Not at first, actually. Cordelia had been focused on immediate needs and goals, and her scattered mental state had left her without enough concerted attention to address any larger picture. By the time her awareness had consolidated sufficiently for her to form questions, the pattern of treatment here had been established, and her pride had not allowed her to pose direct questions. Not even to Sam.

Aloud she said, “I knew there had to be a reason for all this. I figured you’d get to it when you were ready.”

“I see. You guard yourself against any weakness, even the inconsequential weakness of desiring an answer when none is forthcoming.”

No, dumbass, I guard myself against showing any weakness I don’t have to. Cordelia held her eyes steady with his. “If you say so.”

“Your instructors report well of you, and I have seen that they do not exaggerate.”

She shrugged it away. “You can accomplish a lot when you don’t have the distractions of … oh, I don’t know … a life.”

If he heard the sudden spark of anger, he didn’t show it. “It would seem, then, that your rehabilitation is complete.”

“Absolutely,” Cordelia said. Then: “Rehabilitation from what?”

“From the drug saturating your system,” Roxeim said. “There was some concern that the effects might be permanent.”

“Great,” Cordelia said. “I get hit with the roofie from hell, and wake up in the Twilight Zone.”

“ ‘Twilight Zone’,” he repeated. “A clever turn of phrase, and an apt description. But the drug is called Orpheus, not Rufius. You have heard of it? no? Its nature is as much mystical as pharmaceutical, and it has an euphoric effect on vampires, when filtered through the bloodstream of a human intermediary. The humans, too, seem to enjoy the effects, so there has been no shortage of volunteers.”

“Of whom you can be sure I was not one,” Cordelia informed him flatly. “Grow up in Sunnydale, you learn one lesson fast: vampires and recreation do not make a cuddly mix. Besides, what kind of fun is something that scrambles your brains for weeks afterwards?”

“That is hardly the normal result,” Roxeim said. “I would imagine that your system reacted as it did because of your demon ancestry.”

There was a long silence while Cordelia considered that. “Demon,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

“It is quite true,” he assured her. “Enough demons have bred with humans over the ages — for some of them it is a hobby — that many people have a touch of demon blood without knowing of it. I performed a few basic tests when the Orpheus was so reluctant to release you from its grip, and confirmed that you carry at least two distinct strains. Many times diluted, of course, but the signs are unmistakable once one knows what to watch for.”

“I’m not a demon,” Cordelia said.

“And very fortunate for us all that you are not,” Roxeim said. “Ugly-tempered creatures, and notoriously inflexible in negotiation. Still, a whisper of it in the bloodline can open out some intriguing possibilities, and it is time we investigated those more thoroughly.”

Slowly and clearly Cordelia said again, “I. Am not. A demon. Not any part of me.”

“Denial does not alter fact,” Roxeim said. He picked something up from the low table in front of him, a small chest, and opened it. From within it he withdrew something; its appearance and nature indeterminate, as it was wrapped in several folds of scarlet silk. He held it out. “Take this,” he said.

Cordelia looked at it, didn’t move. Roxeim lay with his hand still outstretched. He waited, watching her without speaking.

She took it. There was no choice. She held it, glanced at him. He nodded, and she began to unfold the silk wrapper.

The thing revealed was slightly smaller than the saucer for a teacup; metal, of a dull greenish gray, edge broken by a regularly repeating pattern of small squares. The surface was so deeply etched that it was almost bas-relief, like a decorative frieze on a building, but the etching was of designs and abstract characters rather than any recognizable figure. Cordelia studied it, looked back to Roxeim. “So?”

“Inspect it closely,” he said. “Without the covering.”

Okay, there was no way this could be good … and no way (yet) that she could avoid it. She removed the covering, holding the cloth in one hand while she turned the whatsis in the other, checking both sides, peering at the characters. She gave Roxeim a lifted eyebrow. “So what am I supposed to be looking for?”

“Do you feel anything?” he asked her.

Cordelia glanced at the metal quasi-disk, back at her host. “It feels kind of greasy,” she said.

He frowned. “Wrap it again and return it to me.”

She did so, and sat waiting, face composed. When the thing had been placed back in the chest from which Roxeim had originally withdrawn it, he looked to her again, brows knit. “You felt nothing at all?”

“Nope, sorry.” Cordelia’s tone held a conspicuous absence of sorrow. “I take it I was supposed to?”

“The enhancement lattice imprinted into the structure of that artifact should have called out and magnified any supernatural potential you might have possessed,” Roxeim said. “You would hardly have been able to overlook the sensation, or mistake it for anything else. This is surprising, and disappointing.”

“Told you,” Cordelia said, letting the slightest glint of triumph show through. “Footloose and demon-free here, this body is one hundred percent authentic American beauty.”

“I made no mistake in my diagnosis,” he reproved her. “But if your heritage has been so washed out by humanity that it did not respond to the lattice, it is too feeble to be of any use to me. Pity, it might have facilitated certain approaches. As it is, we shall proceed with my first intent.”

Right. Cordelia waited. He’d tell her, whether she asked or not; guys like this had to brag about how smart they were.

“You will have noted that I took care to avoid touching the artifact I had you examine,” Roxeim said. “This was necessary caution on my part. I am human — doubtless you have wondered on that point — but humanity is not the only thing within me. This plane of existence was not my native home. I was brought here, as I brought you; the original occupant mingled his blood with mine, worked certain sorceries to bring my vital aura into synchronization with these surroundings, and then made his departure, leaving me in his stead.”

“And may I be the first to say, gross.” Cordelia gave him a tilted look. “Except, let me go out on a limb here: you’ve been shaping me to take your spot. The whole genie-in-a-bottle deal, you can only leave if you get somebody to replace you.”

“You grasp the essentials, but not the particulars,” Roxeim told her. “It is true, my escape from this realm can be accomplished only if a suitable vessel assumes my place. However, you are not that vessel.”

“So I’m here why?”

“To help me acquire it.” He smiled at her. “You are, in fact, uniquely suited to that purpose.”

Cordelia favored him with a tight smile of her own. “I’m unique, period.”

“More nearly so than many who claim the status,” he said. “In this case, however, your personal attributes are of less significance than is your relationship to someone who is important to me.” Roxeim looked to Cordelia, assessing. She knew the look; it was what you saw on someone about to drop what he considered a bombshell, and wanting to be sure he saw the full effect. “When I inquired as to your memories, it was from more than simple vulgar curiosity. I wanted to get some sense of how much she had stolen from you.”

“She?” Cordelia knew she was being played, but just now it didn’t seem important. “She who?”

“The creature for whose sake your disappearance was facilitated,” Roxeim said. “The one who has been moving about with your name, and your face, in the life you should have had.” He smiled again, with deep satisfaction. “And she … she … is a proper vessel.”

* * *

“They were Granok demons,” he explained, magnanimous now that he had at last prompted her to show interest. “Powerful, intelligent, lovers of combat. But other, more subtle forces found them to be too disruptive, and so their essence was shifted slightly outside the normal flow of time. That made them unable to physically affect — or be affected by — anything in the material world.

“Some of them became accustomed to their new mode of being; others sought means by which they might return to their former plane so that they could once again know the joy of battle. One such, my predecessor here, somehow created this place of existence to serve as a bridge by which he might make transit to the physical world. Another, called Sahjhan, set in motion a plot of centuries’ duration, designed to trick humans into recalling him to corporeal form. He, and his works, are what are of concern to us.

“You were part of that plot; you — more accurately, the being that those back in your world now know as Cordelia Chase — were put into place to serve as an agent within the group that Sahjhan needed most delicately to manipulate. It would have been possible, I suppose, to recruit you and motivate you by deception or treasure to act on his behalf; but Sahjhan apparently found it simpler to have you consigned to an Orpheus den, and a lesser demonling imbued with your form and your memories. Sahjhan failed, and has been indefinitely imprisoned; but his creature continued on, undetected, causing increasing mischief and misery … and, in the process, undergoing several further transformations of her nature.

“Among the parlance of your kind, your situation and mine is now ‘win-win’. You return to the world you knew, resume your place, and continue the life that was stolen from you. Those who care for you are freed from the hidden machinations of the thing masquerading as you. And I am gifted with an entity formed in part by the power and essence of a Granok demon, altered by travels to other realms of existence and possession by other powers, and thus rendered suitable for me to use as a substitute for myself, so that I may leave this place which has so long been my prison.”

Cordelia had let Roxeim deliver his spiel; better that he get it all out of his system at once. Now he seemed to have reached a stopping point, and she said, “Not to be questioning my good luck, or your generosity, but what do you need me for? You brought me here, you brought all of us here, so just grab my body double the same way.” She studied her host/ captor. “Not so easy, right?”

“No, it is not, and for several reasons.” He seemed annoyed by the question — or maybe it was just a sensitive subject — but he answered readily enough. “Within this sphere, my authority is absolute, but my reach is limited and of little power outside it. The same characteristics that make our imposter suitable for my uses make it insurmountably difficult for me to seize her by my own efforts. I require an agent in the outside world. I have prepared you to be that agent … or made a substantial beginning of it, at any rate.”

Thinking of the depth and intensity of the training she had undergone, Cordelia observed, “She must be some kind of red-hot demon mama, if you need to force-grow your own personal deadlier-than-the-male-Me to go after her. But then again, why me? I mean, you could have taken the women you put to teaching me, and sent them after her. Not Charlie’s Angels, exactly, but the three of them should have been able to take down and haul back one jazzed-up Cordy-wannabe.”

Roxeim frowned, but spoke evenly. “The circumstances being as they were, I thought it might be necessary for you to extract her from the midst of a group of formidable allies; for that reason, I attempted to prepare you for several eventualities, including stealth, individual combat, and all-out-assault. And yes, her own abilities have increased considerably; she is a demon, after all, and some of her inherent traits have been augmented. But as for dispatching the others to capture her, those I have assigned as your tutors, that I cannot. They are here by compulsion, they serve me because they have no choice. Were I to release them, I could not rely on their loyalty.”

“But you’re willing to take that chance on me,” Cordelia said.

“It is in your interests, and in accordance with your nature, for you to act in a way that benefits me,” Roxeim explained patiently. “In order to reclaim your identity, you must seek out and supplant the entity that now occupies your place. If I free you, you will naturally and necessarily do that which will free me. We have a mutual need, and this I trust.”

“All righty, then,” Cordelia said. “You’ve sold me, I’m your girl. Turn me loose and I’ll go bag your exit pass.”

Roxeim shook his head with a regret that carried every sign of being genuine. “Your preparation is yet incomplete, and there are other matters that also must be addressed. It is difficult, I know, but I must ask you to exercise patience. Remind yourself that it is now in my interests to free you, once you are capable of doing what you must.” He sighed. “We might perhaps have advanced the schedule if the lattice had detected any meaningful mystical potential within you. You can hardly be held accountable, but that was the first disappointment you have caused me since regaining minimal function.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Cordelia said. “I can see it would have really bumped things forward if I was suddenly able to fire exploding nose-hairs or something. Sorry. My bad.”

Roxeim ignored the burr of sarcasm. “This audience has not transpired entirely as I had hoped, but it has not been without profit.” He unfolded himself from the mound of cushions, and stood. “It is time, I think, for you to proceed to the next phase of your education. Wait here; I shall return shortly.”

He left the room. Cordelia did not move from her position; she sat relaxed, breathing quietly, listening.

‘Shortly,’ he had said. That implied at least a few minutes. It was a risk, but she wasn’t willing for this opportunity to escape. The small chest was where Roxeim had left it; decision made, she went quickly to it, removed and unwrapped the nameless object it contained, and held the artifact in both hands, supporting it on her open palms. Her eyes were open, but focused on nothing within the room; her face showed no expression whatsoever.

She stood so for an entire minute, then replaced the artifact and resumed her place. That was risk enough; she would not extend the time, or attempt to repeat the process just now. When Roxeim returned at last, some five minutes later, her position was precisely as it had been.


Part V

Cordelia had made note of the route to her “audience” with Roxeim, marking down and cataloguing what she saw on the way, and she did the same as she followed him now. She was making a map in her mind; by now, after months of work on various subjects, her concentration was more than adequate for the task. Everything new brought her a possibility previously unavailable, and she hoarded each increase in her store with a greed she allowed no one to see.

She was shown now into a garden, a riotous profusion of greenery and blooms. How it flourished indoors, with no nourishment from the sun, was a mystery she didn’t bother to consider; she simply breathed in the heavy, life-laden odors of nectar and humus and chlorophyll, felt the humidity begin to bead on her forehead, and looked around her with pleasure and wonder. All the same, her words were tart. “Let me guess,” she said. “You’ve brought in Sheena of the Jungle to teach me how to swing from a vine and commune with nature.”

“Your flippancy is unattractive and displeasing,” Roxeim said to her, irritation sharpening his tone. “It is also inaccurate. This is to be your newest place of instruction, yes, but this environment is not pertinent to what you will learn; it is merely the preference of its resident. She maintains that it helps her to achieve the proper spiritual balance.” He turned away. “When you are done here, return to your quarters. I will see you again when I choose.”

He left her, and Cordelia stood among the lush growth, waiting. So, Mister High-and-Mighty wasn’t immune to a bit of Cordy-patented snark. It was information to be remembered; not, perhaps, meaningful in itself, but part of what might become a pattern. Meanwhile, there was the matter of 1) where she was, 2) who she was to meet, 3) what she was to learn, and 4) what she might learn that wasn’t on the formal curriculum. Sheena or no Sheena, her world was once again about to get bigger.

Of course, that wasn’t happening while she just stood where she was.

She was about to set off in search of her new instructor, whoever that might be, when a voice came through the shaded greenery around her: “I am here.” She moved in that direction, and within moments came into sight of the speaker. It was a young woman (non-surprise Number One; can you spell “harem fantasies”?) with long, dark hair (non-surprise Number Two), flowing with loose soft curls and bound with a brightly-patterned scarf that had been folded into a three-inch width and tied in a band from the top of her head to a point behind her neck. She wore no makeup — Cordelia’s judgment there was unerring — but her eyelashes were kohl-dark and her lips just a hint more red than was the normal shade; her earrings were actual rings, gold but very small, barely enough circle to clear the lobes. She wore a short-sleeved peasant blouse, adjusted in a way that left her shoulders bare, and a long, wide skirt in the same pattern and material. No shoes.

“Welcome,” she said, her voice low and rich. “You come seeking enlightenment.” There was no trace of accent, but something told Cordelia that English had not been her first language.

“Are you gonna start calling me grasshopper?” Cordelia asked. “Because I’ve had some bad experiences with bug people; I don’t really feel like being compared to one.”

The woman smiled. “No,” she said. “You already have a name.”

“Uh-huh,” Cordelia said. “Do you?”

The woman stirred in the chair where she sat; it was unpainted bamboo wicker, one of a pair, and a small wicker table rested in front of it. “I no longer use my full name; it is … unpleasantly evocative of my enforced presence here. For our purposes, I am simply Kari.”

“Fine. All kinds of fluffy wonderful, in fact.” Cordelia sat, uninvited, in the second chair. “So is the Jungle Room here supposed to be some kind of spiritual backdrop for whatever you’ll be teaching me? Or is this just where you like to kick back and relax?”

“This garden functions as my living quarters,” Kari told her. “I sleep here, dine here, bathe here. I do not leave it unless I must.”

“Okay,” Cordelia said. She was not going to ask about the woman’s toilet arrangements. “What are you, some kind of Greenpeace pilgrim?”

“I am a prisoner,” Kari replied. “I fashioned this abode as a haven, so that I might keep my sanity.”

Cordelia nodded. “And how’s that working out for you?”

Instead of answering, the other woman studied Cordelia unhurriedly, dwelling on every feature, with particular attention to her hands and eyes. “Yes,” she said at length. “You are indeed ready.”

“And once again, I feel a big ‘ohm-m-m’ coming on,” Cordelia said.

“I will not attempt to guide you to spiritual insights,” Kari said. “There is too much turmoil in my own spirit. But I will teach you mental disciplines. How you use them is yours to choose.”

“What kind of disciplines?” Cordelia wanted to know. “And how can they be used?”

“Breathing,” Kari said. “Meditation. Some of the foundations already will be familiar to you, from the yoga practices Samantha has shown you. You will learn to find a pool of calm within yourself. When you can achieve that state at will … There is much that can perhaps be discerned by one whose mind is p