Spoilers: Set during the first half of Angel season one so pretty much spoiler-free. (Unless you don't know who Angel is, of course, in which case why are you here? ;) )
Content Rating: PG
Type: Drama
Characters: Angel, Cordy and Doyle, but only as bit-part players
Summary: A London barrister is invited to a party thrown by Wolfram and Hart on behalf of a sinister client... Re-posted from BuffyUK after seeing Morph's thread about fic with canon characters playing only minor roles. Re-dedicated to Velvet Glove, who may remember prompting its writing. Or may not.

So she went to the Wolfram and Hart party after all, even though she knew she was going to regret it, and of course she did in the end, but surely anything was better than sitting alone in a battered old Holiday Inn in LA on a Saturday night counting your way down through the minibar miniatures and watching re-runs of Oprah on a snow-filled cable screen? And, okay, the last time she’d come to a party in the Land of the Free, when she’d done a semester at UC Sunnydale as part of a Durham University student exchange course all too many years ago, she’d had to take an empty Miller Lite and crack the skull of some coked-up law student with a me-me-me complex to stop him from raping her. But now she was the big shot lawyer, running recon in LA for the delegation coming over from stuffy old Frobisher, Frobisher, Pym and Crawshaw in Lincoln’s Inn, where she’d just become a QC, specialising in prosecuting abusers and rapists and putting them right behind bars where they belonged and nobody say anything about working off old scores through vicarious revenge scenarios please. And so she’d met all the big shots from Wolfram and Hart, set up all the meetings for when everyone else came out on Monday, and now she was kicking her heels waiting for Pym himself to arrive (both Frobishers were long dead and Crawshaw was in rehab) with a delegation of pink, scrubbed law graduates trailing behind him. If she had to sit through another night as brain-dead as Friday at the hotel (the Girl from Ipenema playing in the cocktail lounge all night) then she really was going to flatline, so she’d looked again at the creamy piece of card that requested the pleasure of her company, and even though she didn’t trust the bigshot guest of honour that W&H were throwing the do for, it looked a better bet than grim insanity which was all that was on offer otherwise. So she went.

And at first it wasn’t too bad. Huge expensive house. An army of Philippino maids who hovered at the edge of your vision to empty the ashtrays. Creepy Gothic theme – dark drapes and candles – but not overdone, sort of Gothic-lite as if by Californian designers who’d seen Hammer Horror and thought it too, too realistic and in need of toning down. Hunky waiters who were illegal immigrants from Kazakhstan with serious steroid habits and bottle tans, who kept your glass permanently topped up. Lots of attention from LA Law-type wannabe-heart-throbs who just lurrrrved your English accent. Discrete drug-taking which you could ignore if you wanted to (she did) and plenty of private side-rooms to withdraw to if you fancied getting horizontal with some guy or girl (she didn’t). Sticky moment at the beginning when mine host, some senior partner or other at Wolfram and Hart, introduced her to the freaky-looking special guest, who was determined to ask her everything about herself and made her feel on edge even as she grinned politely and said, yes, she loved LA, and no she didn’t have anyone over here with her yet and no, there was no husband or children back home (and why did he want to know that, eh, with his creepy eyes boring into hers all the time?). And every so often as she mingled, discussing tort reform and English law on mutual buggery and per-hour billing versus no-win no-fee, and all the other things lawyers of a certain type discuss at parties, she’d seen him staring across the room at her, and always with those eyes that knocked her out of her stride so she’d pull her attention back to whoever she was talking to and realise it was her turn to speak, but with no idea what the conversation was about, and she’d feel vulnerable again and want to find the reassuring shape of a Miller Lite bottle in her purse.

The next time she dragged her eyes back into focus it was to see some Californian ditz with long dark hair who must surely have gatecrashed, because no-one would ever have invited her, looking at her with concern and calling her by her name – Maria – and saying “are you okay” with an accent that she recognised as pure Sunnydale mall-junkie. And she wouldn’t take “I’m fine” for an answer, either. The ditz was convinced that she really wasn’t okay at all, and even though Maria thought she might have a point, she dug her heels in hard and declared that she was fine, fine, fine and would she please just go away and infect someone else’s personal space? Which was how she came to spin on her heel and run straight into some little Irish guy who said he was Doyle and told her the party was over for her one way or another, and she’d probably enjoy leaving with him and Cordelia – who was the ditz – more than the alternative, although he had to admit the alternative had to be pretty damn frightening for him to be the better bet, but there you were, that’s life, or death rather, and did she need to get her coat? And then the Kazakhstanis were hustling the ditz and the strange Irishman away, and they were protesting loudly, and everyone was watching and laughing, and the guest of honour – his hand planted firmly in the small of her back – was propelling her politely but firmly into a side room and murmuring apologies for the intrusion but it really was time for a quick bite to eat, and after that things happened too quickly for her to entirely know what was happening.

It seemed like the man’s face changed, brows thickening and features warping into an animal snarl, although maybe that was the effect of the cocktails, but surely someone must have heard the growl as he seized her by one shoulder, other hand matting in her hair to pull her head sharply to one side, and there was no way his teeth could have looked like that in childhood without his parents spending a fortune on orthodontic corrective surgery, thought Maria vaguely, as she groped for a candlestick and swung it up at the side of his skull. He blocked the blow with truly frightening speed and as Maria twisted to escape she was flung to the ground, and she felt him loom over her and panic grew as he was bending to grab her again and then the window caved in. There was a shatter and a crash of glass and then a shape burst through from the moonlit gardens, long coat flaring out and candlelight glinting in the depths of eyes as dark and tortured as those of a fallen angel in mourning for what it had lost.

She buried her face in the carpet, fingers scrabbling into its pile, eyes picking out every thread as she felt, rather than saw, her attacker turn from her to confront the new threat. She heard his voice, incredulous, rasp the single word “uninvited” and then she heard nothing but the sound of a fight, blows landing and being blocked, bodies hustling, colliding, falling, until finally the dull thud of a blow and a desperate, twisted scream that faded gradually into nothing. She lay still, sobbing quietly, until gentle hands picked her up and the concerned eyes of the ditz and the Irishman – Doyle? Cordelia? – assessed her carefully for injuries and pronounced her sound. She looked up, to see the man with the eyes of the angel. He crouched over a pile of soft, grey dust that lay on the carpet and placed a card in it, one identical to the invitation she knew was still in her bag. As Doyle and Cordelia carefully led her through the wreckage of the window and to a waiting car she heard him say, in a voice that carried the faintest of Irish burrs, “Your lawyers invited me. Said we needed to talk. Guess they forgot to tell you, huh? Still, I’m glad we had this chat”.

Not until she was on the flight back to London did she realise that, as he had laid the invitation in the dust, he had cast no reflection in the mirror behind him.