Then of course, there was the matter of Sarai. Who in her right mind would choose the younger brother? The one without inheritance. The one who hadn't been sent to the expensive American university. The one who was just as capable, but whom no one noticed.
Selling one's soul was dangerous and difficult to arrange, but it was not impossible. You needed Some Thing to make a deal with, preferably something powerful, yet not too nasty. He had met a charming Ecthros demon a few weeks ago who had been open for negotiation. Now, all he needed was a catalyst, something to draw his soul out of him.
The spell he was about to work should help him find that something. His head turned sharply, following the sound of a breaking twig. He really did not want to be interrupted. Some things about this ritual would be a challenge to explain. His eyes scanned the surrounding foliage, and he silently cursed his ancestral jungle home. He didn't see anything.
He lit the last candle, and poured the herbs into a bowl. Taking a knife, he slit his hand and drained a few drops of blood into there. Using a pestle, he turned the mixture into a nasty-looking, worse-smelling paste. Holding the bowl in both hands, he began to chant in an ancient, dark tongue.
The candles about him flared, and a breeze swept through the clearing. The blood and herbs began to glow, and the glow swelled out to encompass first the bowl, then him, and eventually filled the circle of candles. The light grew brighter and brighter, until the candles spontaneously extinguished themselves and the jungle plunged again into darkness.
His eyes flew open. He knew where to look.
{Knife sliding across hand. Flare of light. Eyes flying open. LA skyline.}
"There's just too much," Lorne said helplessly. "You're a big, bright, beautiful blur, and when I try and focus on it, I tend to lose consciousness."
"There's got to be something," said Fred. "Some potion or a spell."
"I don't want to give Hannah too many compounds," Wesley said. "The drug we've concocted is complex and highly reactive."
"We need to know, Wesley," Hannah insisted. "I need to know."
"I've asked Giles." Wes admitted. "He was very intrigued, and he's working on a few ideas."
"Will he bring The Council into it?" Angel asked.
"Only as a last resort, and he'll warn me first," Wesley said wryly. "We agreed that they might be a little too intrigued."
Hannah shifted uncomfortably. Lorne put a hand on her shoulder.
"Wesley?" Cordelia called from the office. "Phone."
{Sun setting over the ocean. Lorne's hand on Hannah's shoulder. Wesley holding incense.}
"Deep, even breaths," instructed Wesley in a slow, calm voice. "Peel back the layers as you find them, seeing through them. Dig as deeply as you can, until you find the centre."
Hannah sat cross-legged in the approximate centre of Wesley's darkened office, eyes closed, following his instructions. Wesley circled her slowly, anti-clockwise, holding a piece of incense. He was careful not to breathe too deeply and inhale the smoke; they only needed one trance tonight. Hannah slumped forward slightly, indicating that she had found the centre.
It hadn't been easy. She'd had a thousand other lives to sort through before finding the centre of her own. Many had been just similar enough to hers that she was tricked into concentrating on them. It had taken almost a week's worth of trying, but this time, she was pretty sure that the soul she was examining was actually hers.
"Concentrate on how it works." Wesley intoned. "Find out how they interact, where they come from. Discover how you can control it."
Insight began to come to her in flashes. She absently felt sorry for Buddhist monks who spent their entire lives trying to achieve something that had taken her a week's worth of practice and a few sacred chants. She squashed that thought, restoring her mind to clarity as the information continued to come to her.
It was getting to be too much for her to handle, he could see it. Her face tightened as she clenched her teeth, trying to hold on. Her breath came faster, but she battled to maintain control. She began to shake, and Wesley decided enough was enough.
"Hannah!" he said sharply to snap her out of it.
Her eyes flew open. She knew what it meant.
{Wesley on the phone with Giles. Hannah slumping forward. LA traffic.}
"So Giles' idea worked then," Angel said.
"Yes, finally," said Hannah. "But most of the lag was my fault. I've never been much for concentration. Consciously anyway."
"Hey," said Gunn rapping her lightly on the head with his knuckles. "It's not like you're the only one in there."
"What can you tell us?" Wesley asked. "I mean, can you put it into words?"
"I have a finite capacity," offered Hannah. "I can only have so many souls inside me, and the number is constant. I must have gotten them all during the accident, and nothing changed in the five years afterwards."
"What does that mean, exactly?" Cordelia asked.
"Newton, really," Hannah explained. "That's what worries me. It's action and reaction. If someone takes a soul, I'll latch on to the closest, least attached one."
"Which would be me," Angel said.
"But we could take it back, couldn't we?" Cordelia asked.
"You'd get a soul, I can't guarantee it would be his."
"But it would be a soul," Fred said. "A soul's a soul, right?"
"Just because something has a soul doesn't make it good. Hitler kept his right to the end, and he had dozens of offers for it."
"How do you know that?" asked Wesley.
"I, uh, do," Hannah stammered
"Are you saying that evil is inherent, soul or no?" Angel asked, looking slightly ill.
"No," Hannah reassured him. "All things without souls are evil, not all things with souls are good."
"Even with souls, the Wolfram and Hart people are pretty damned," Cordelia pointed out. "And human Darla was no saint either."
"What if someone tries to give you a soul?" Gunn asked.
"I either send one out, or explode."
"Let's not experiment with that," Lorne suggested.
"What happens if you lose your balance?" Fred asked quietly.
Hannah bit her lip and looked and Wesley.
"We don't know," Wes said. "And I really don't think we want to find out.