Good GIrl
"Spare us such displays of human frailty ..."

Doors, whether locked or not, were no barrier to the Corruptress' presence. Elfleda revealed as lounging across the lawyer's desk in relaxed, super-model pose. One leg drawn up, hand resting upon its knee.

An archetypal Lilith, in all but name. Certainly in attitude.

With a supreme lack of compassion, head turned towards Jill. Elfleda seeming to care nothing for the woman's emotional pain. "It really is a waste of good suffering."

"Easy for you to say," the lawyer managed to spit as she slowly regained her footing, "you're not the fucking human ..."

Once upright again, the lawyer gazed at Elfleda coldly, her eyes incapable of emotion now that tears had run their course. Hair was matted in places, frayed in others; mascara now ran along Jill's cheeks, her pale face momentarily scarred with the redness of hurt and emotion. Her breathing was steady, nonexistent, as she stood in that one spot, staring at the Corruptress posing on her desk like some Playboy whore.

If Hugh was into the pale crowd, anyway.

"Can I help you with something, or are you just here to gloat and waste my time?”

If there was any doubt in Jill’s identification of Elfleda as the one who tore through Kathleen’s office before the New Year, the scene awaiting the agent when she walked through her apartment confirmed it. A cold chill ran down Jill’s spine as she stood in the doorway to her bedroom, the burnt glass leaving a cryptic message over her mattress.

“Good girl.”

The Corruptress was toying with Jill, but she didn’t know why. Why trash all of Kathleen’s work, punish her for getting too close to something, only to mock Jill for hers, offering the agent fake praise?

There was no logic to it; the only thing Jill could figure was the fact that she had two run-ins with Elfleda when she was in Las Vegas, toiling around in that city’s Wolfram & Hart offices. The first came when Victoria, then the closest thing Jill had to a lover, was being held captive in Beowawe, tortured by a clan of demons for the sin of being a half-breed. The Corruptress, in her own convincing way, persuaded Jill to stop pursuing ways to free the vampiress.

The then-lawyer’s prize? All the blood she could ingest, a way to stave off the withdrawals brought on by the weakening of her bond with Victoria. Jill gave up the person she claimed to love back then for 30 pieces of silver.

Even as Jill stood in her bedroom, trying to think of who she should call, her mind drifted not to the first encounter, but the one that followed. Jill’s betrayal had left her on the outs with Victoria, and this was before she’d met Oliver. The brunette had been alone and scared in the immediate aftermath, blaming Elfleda for what happened to her.

Even now, there was blame. David Gregor manipulated Jill because her fragile psyche let him; Elfleda manipulated her because that was just what the Corruptress did. As far as the agent knew, no one was powerful enough to stop it.

The lawyer stood upright again, straightening her baby blue skirt before glaring the creature's way again, the anger returning to her eyes. "Course, it was a mistake I was forced into ..."

"None forced, save for yourself."

Elfleda's remark came without remorse of any kind. Pointing out harsh truth with a dagger of clarity. It was something she did both well and often, body language expressing in kind, with a carefully precise leaning forward.

"You accepted the terms. You did so with but a moment's hesitation. And you grew strong with the reward which was given." Elfleda never, even once, spoke in terms of what was merely preferable or of which options then existed. Her language had been plain, simple and immediate. "We offered - you accepted. You took the path of gratification and was my word not true? Did the vampire not survive? I suggested what merely what course of action would please Leviathan most and so it did. If you are to graduate, Miss Andersen, then you simply must master the art of self-sacrifice."

Rising from the desk, Elfleda stepped in perfectly synchronized fashion past the lawyer, not in the least intimidated by the anger displayed. She, after all, was safe and the consequences, ultimately, may yet shape the woman into something better.

It was to a piece of broken glass she stooped. Pale fingers encircling the shard, standing again with it then held close.

"Some serve a greater good, Miss Andersen," the Corruptress softly spoke, eyes lifting back to the mortal's direction. "Others, a greater evil. Do not expect it to be without pain."

A bead of sweat rolled down Jill’s forehead as she wandered back into the living room and let herself sink into the couch. Shaking fingers clutched her cell phone, the agent still struggling on who to call. Even the mystics at the FBI’s disposal were probably ill-equipped to deal with Leviathan’s Bride, and the fact that this creature could slither her way into Jill’s home was a sobering reality.

Jill’s bedroom was left untouched, aside from the message written in shards on her bed. The Bible and statue of the Virgin Mary on the nightstand stood undisturbed, though if the agent didn’t know any better, she could’ve sworn the expression on the statue’s face had soured – as if Elfleda could even rattle the one who miraculously brought Jesus Christ into the world.

Flipping open the phone and releasing a ragged breath, the agent punched two buttons and held the device to her ear. Eyes darted around the dark apartment, Jill using her free hand to brush long black locks out of her face.

The other end picked up after three rings.

“Jill,” a female voice greeted.

“Maureen,” the agent answered. “She’s onto me.”

Silence for three seconds. “What’s-her-name?”

“Yeah.” Jill sighed, glancing toward her bedroom again. “She got into my apartment, left me a message.”

Elfleda did not rely on words alone. She could feel the acceptance, passively overwhelming the living brunette, with an aperitif of guilt worming its way inside.

Regardless of what Jill said, Elfleda had good reason to give a darkly subtle smile.

"To pretend the darker path does not bring solitude is to deny the very foundation of that upon which you stand."

The Corruptress was not speaking literally and the lawyer, an acolyte of sorts, would know that. Even Wolfram & Hart itself was considered by some to be a cosmic upstart, no matter how many shrouded interests it might now have or represent. It was to beings like Elfleda which it pandered, not the other way around.

"To seek dominion over decay, over ruins the shadows have long since claimed, may bring you power, but release yourself from those whimsical preconceptions of fancy you entertain ... you wish to control, not to strive for your own betterment. To be set upon such a goal is to embrace all which it might give - or, indeed, take away."

Elfleda had once spoken of her role to Jillian as something of an advisor. Not as one who had any interest in judging. But if the woman truly sought to understand where she was heading, then she would do well to heed such advice, whether she liked it or not.

“I’m fine,” the agent added. “And so’s the apartment. She just left a bunch of burnt glass on my bed, telling me ‘Good Girl’.”

Maureen fell silent again – leaving Jill to wonder if the call had been disconnected. Before the agent could speak again, though, the Chicago FBI director returned to the conversation.

“I’ll get our mystics in D.C. on it,” she offered. “In the meantime – take a vacation, hmm? Some time to yourself … I think some distance between you and this Corruptress would do you some good.”

“Right.”

Jill hung up, tossing the phone onto the couch beside her and running both hands through her hair. She didn’t like the idea of taking time off, because it felt an awful lot like running away. Granted, she couldn’t actually do anything to Elfleda, and there was no telling the sorts of fun the Corruptress could have with an atoning former Wolfram & Hart attorney.

But still. The last thing Jill wanted to do was not work the case.

The agent stood again, returned to her bedroom. Dark eyes studied the message carefully laid out on her mattress, the dread that was building in her gut intensifying and spreading throughout her chest. Jill felt her chest tighten in response, shuddering once more and folding her arms over herself, as if trying to protect herself from the dark infestation Elfleda’s mere presence often caused.

Someone had to bring down Elfleda, somehow. Jill wouldn’t pretend to know who or how or when, but she knew it had to happen. There was a sense of fear with regards to the things the Corruptress was capable of, but Jill found herself more concerned with what Leviathan’s Bride could do to her.

All these months of atonement and redemption, down the drain – it was a plausible scenario with Elfleda. And that scared Jill to death.

Elfleda, for her part, moved past the woman, touching her upon the shoulder. Perhaps to show empathy. Perhaps to spiritually influence. Perhaps both.

"Take a ... vacation, hmm? Some time to yourself ... I'd like you to focus on what you most want. Then, Jillian, I may have a task for you. Have you met a certain Miss Purity Storms yet?"

The lawyer considered things for a moment before shaking her head and offering a slight smirk. "No," she said flatly, turning to walk to the door. "And just to be clear, I'm not doing shit for you. Listening to you is what put me in this situation in the first place."

"Oh, I do believe you will, Miss Andersen," came Elfleda's calm and measured response. "You see, an awful lot more than just your career depends on it ..."

Standing in such vehemently stated opposition so the Emissary of the Black Light was not an advisable position to take, when one worked for such an already corrupt organization. Elfleda, though, seemed to be in either a generous mood, certain of what she had just said. Not choosing to punish, but instead cause the lawyer to think upon those words, as she moved on, drifting out of reality and the room with a swallowing up of black portal to elsewhere.



[Flashback snippets taken from the Birthright scene Blame, Guilt ... All That Fun Stuff.]