Author:   Ellen
Rating:   R
Summary:   Cordelia decides to use sex magick to bring back Doyle.

Author's Notes:   This story owes its basic inspiration to the concept of the triumvirate in the Anita Blake:  Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton, although I am taking it in a somewhat different direction.

This is only one of several possible scenarios for The Power of Three.  If you have a different approach to this idea, let me know.





Prologue

ANGEL


Cordelia swung into the office as though she hadn't stopped moving once since I saw her last.

"Got something," she announced, her voice cool and businesslike.

I tried not to snap at her.  It was hard.  Once Cordelia gets an idea into her head, it's impossible to change her mind about anything.

Well, almost impossible.  You can do it, if you die trying.

"What is it this time?  You've been haunting every occult shop in L.A.  for months.  Why do you think this is going to be any different?"

She looked levelly at me.  "You."

"What?"

"I've been doing my homework," she announced, sitting down unceremoniously next to me.  "I think I know what we need."

"All right, I'll listen, but that's all."

"Here it is.  You tried the oracles, no luck, I tried seventeen thousand spells, no luck, so on and so forth.  But both of us have some magic now, which means that this kind of binding could work."

I looked over her shoulder as she spread the book open on her lap.  "Wait a minute, how can you be sure that this brings the person back alive, and not as some kind of zombie?"

"That's the part that's different.  That's what we haven't tried before."  Her finger traced the description of the ritual in the book.  "We need one vampire and one living human with a connection to the powers, so, we have that.  Thanks to him and to the friendly makers of Excedrin."

"But – "  I pointed.

"Yeah, that's the problem.  They talk about the two great forces here, Eros and Thanatos.  The old 'sex is as strong as death' thing.  Y'know, I never did get into Freud.  Such a bore."

"I can't do sex magick, Cordelia.  You know perfectly well why."

"Perfect happiness," she quoted back to me.  "Yeah, I know the drill.  All you have to do, I guess, is stay miserable."

"Funny."

"Hey, how hard can it be?  You're awfully good at it."

"Suppose we bring him back, and the next thing I do is tear out both your throats?  I don't think so, Cordelia."

"What, you don't think you can manage not to be happy?"

I gave her a long look.  "If we bring back Doyle, alive?  You want me not to be happy.  Try again."

"Well, there is that," she allowed.  "All we have to do is figure out a way to keep you miserable, even if we get him back.  Shouldn't be too difficult, at least for me."

She pointed out the next passage in the book.  "According to this, if this works, the three of us are bound together forever.  We even get to read each other's minds.  You don't think we can find a way to keep you from getting too happy?"

She smiled, slowly, the most wicked smile I'd seen on her face.  "With a little creative thinking, I bet we can handle it."

I started reading.






Chapter 1

CORDELIA


There had been a time when I actually was hot after Angel, before I found out that he was of the undead persuasion.  By the time Doyle died, that had been over for a long, long time.

It wasn't hard to want him though, especially when it was all mixed up together with wanting Doyle.  Perfect happiness?  Not much chance of that.  Keeping him unhappy would actually be the easiest part.

Knowing that he would be reading my thoughts, and Doyle's, if we did get him back... that he would be inside our heads, whenever or whatever we were doing, and we would be in his... that would be tougher.  It would be handy sometimes, but there would be times that it would be... anything but.

Well, it would be worth it.

I shivered as we sat on the floor, wearing only light robes.  A few of Doyle's possessions and an old photograph of him were on the floor between us.  What I was feeling mostly was scared, and it didn't take any great mind-reading to figure that one out.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Angel asked me.  "You know the risk."

I nodded.  "My mission in life from this point on is to keep you as miserable as possible.  Hey, I've been practicing for this job for a long time."

"I'll focus as much as possible on the mechanics of the ritual itself," he said matter-of-factly, "While you are focusing on him.  You will have to supply most of the energy, while I keep my mind on what we're trying to accomplish."

"I know.  As the token human here, I'll try not to take that too personally," I snapped back nervously.

"I'm serious.  Expect to be ignored, no matter what it is you're doing.  I can't afford to break my concentration."

"Yeah, whatever.  Just tell me when to start."

We created the circle, lighting the candles and giving the proper welcome to the directions, and then sat quietly for a moment in the flickering light.

Angel chanted softly.  The only part of it that was understandable was Doyle's name.  As we had discussed, I kept my eyes closed and mind focused on Doyle, which wasn't difficult.  I hadn't thought of much else lately.

As I slipped off my robe, keeping my eyes shut, I kept the image of his face in mind.  When I touched Angel's cool flesh, I imagined that it was Doyle's warm skin instead.

There was a fantasy I'd had since he died, that I had replayed in my mind so many times that it had become part of me.  I ran through that fantasy very slowly in my thoughts, as I felt the chill body under my fingers trembling slightly.  I had dreamed of the texture of another's skin until I could smell and taste it.  With each touch, I drew on that thought of Doyle.

I felt my own body responding to the fantasy, as my lips moved over a body that lacked the warmth I craved.  When he stirred and moved in response, I kept my eyes closed, and even as I wrapped myself around his body, I kept the image before me.

The chanting voice hesitated for a moment, then picked up again, rising in urgency, determined to continue.  As I felt heat rise within me, I poured it forth toward our goal.

The voice stumbled again on a brief gasp as my movements became stronger and more demanding, but the chanting hardly faltered.  It was a stammer, nothing more, and I could feel all his energy being redirected into his voice.  He barely moved, except to support me gently while I built up my own rhythm.

It was another body I was calling to me, with my every move.  It was another voice, not the one chanting, that I imagined in my ear, and other hands that I imagined on my back.  Eyes still shut hard, I threw the need in me outward, toward the one we both missed, the one we both wanted, as I fed the rising flame inside me and stretched it higher, reaching out.

Suddenly the fire within me and the flame of the candles which surrounded us seemed to merge into a blazing sheet of light.  Without conscious thought, with my legs still wrapped around Angel's body, my arms went up and out, pulling desperately, at empty air...

And then, at air which was no longer empty.

Still chanting, Angel reached out together with me, and on my sobbing breath, with all our strength, we pulled.

He was warm.  I cried out at the first touch of his flesh, drawing him in.

O God, he was warm, he wasn't dead.

My body was still entangled with Angel's as he and I both cradled the unconscious form between us, and I finally opened my eyes, as my lips moved over the warm cheek resting against mine.  We were rocking, and he was there, he was there, and I was crying, and Angel's face was buried in his back, but I could feel that it was all right, I knew it was all right, I could feel that he was only sharing my tears.

I could feel Angel's mind, as I was feeling his body.  I was right there, and I could feel that he was inside my mind, as well as my body.

I could feel his soul entangled with mine as was his body, anchored securely inside me, a soul bound in place and there to stay.

It was the strangest and most wonderful sensation I had ever known.

As we rocked together with Doyle between us, the fire inside us both peaked and we cried out together.  Then, all at once, the candles went out.

And suddenly, there was a third mind inside both of ours.

As I disengaged my body from Angel's, we could both hear Doyle's awakening thought.

"What the hell is going on?"






Chapter 2

DOYLE


The first thing I knew was that I wasn't alone any more.

There had been light, and pain, and then it seemed as though I was torn loose from everything, cut off, alone.  I was drifting in a silent universe, all by myself.  And then, I wasn't.

I recognized the feel of what was pulling on me, long before I could form words.  It felt like sex, and it felt like Cordelia, and that was a combination that, dead or alive, I could not resist.

I followed after that feeling, without quite understanding how.

The next thing I knew, I was pressed between two bodies, one warm and one cool, surrounded by the smell of candles and sweat and arousal, and there were two other people in my head.

I knew the touch of each body, and each mind, and the most frightening thing was that I had no idea how it was that I knew what I knew.

Cordelia and Angel were in my head at the same time that I was wrapped in their arms.  They didn't have to tell me what they had been doing, or why.

I knew, and it shocked the hell out of me, and they knew that, too.  We weren't three separate people any more, with our own separate thoughts.

Even as I spoke, I knew the answer, and I heard my thought echoing in their heads as well as mine:

"What the hell have you done?"

I felt violated, and I felt them feeling that, inside me, and the two of them responded as one, flooding me with so much loving reassurance that I almost couldn't stand it.  I felt them feel that, too, and pull back slightly.

"What are we going to do now?"

I knew the answer to that one, too, even as I formed the thought.






Chapter 3

ANGEL


"Who knew?"

We didn't have to say much any more.  It was more habit than anything else that caused us to use words with each other, now that we really didn't need them any more.

"A hundred years," Cordelia grinned, indicating the book, "and our answer was always there."

Doyle snorted a laugh at that.  "Wouldn't have been us."

"True.  Glad I waited," I said.

We were all grinning like fools at each other.  If I had known before that a three-way bond like this would anchor my soul, who would I have found to do it?  It took all three, not just two, and it was permanent.

If Doyle hadn't died, there was no way it would ever have happened.  I felt them agree.

Doyle muttered something in my head, and Cordelia's, about "make love, not war."  I chuckled softly, hearing it echo in their minds:  "Who says we have to choose?"

Cordelia's mind was repeating to Doyle's what she had read in the book about the effects of the bond, "so each of us has all the powers of any one of us."

"Only one question," said Doyle, and Cordelia and I laughed together as we heard it before the words were spoken.

"Which one gets the headaches?"



The End