The One with the Power (Powerless), a Lindsey story in the Angel universe by Glacis. Rated NC17. No copyright infringement intended. Spoilers for To Shansu in LA

How could a hand that wasn't even there any more itch so damned much? Lindsey had seen, heard, and defended a myriad of strange things during his tenure at Wolfram and Hart. This was too personal to simply accept and ignore. The doctor had warned him about phantom limb pain, but she hadn't told him it would be constant.

Constant, like the rage in his head. Like the mental vision of Angel looking down at him as he lay, screaming through clenched teeth, on the floor of the mausoleum.

Holland could say what he liked about the senior partners appreciating his sacrifice. But it was Lilah who was introducing Darla to her new life, her new mission. He was off doing scut work while she took the glory that was rightfully his. While she took the final steps to destroy Angel. Oh, they said it was because she was a woman, and Darla responded better to her. Who did they think they were kidding? This was Angel's Sire. She'd never responded to a woman in her entire life.

Or after her death, for that matter.

Maybe she didn't like cripples. He glared at the stump at the end of his right arm, and wished for the thousandth time that the damned thing would stop itching. It felt hot, the bandages uncomfortably tight, as if he was wearing a glove that was too small. Only, there was no hand, so the analogy didn't fit.

He growled, a low sound of frustration, and bent his head back to the case work on the table in front of him. He was concentrating fiercely on the petty details when his cell phone rang.

"McDonald," he barked. He made no attempt to hide his displeasure at the interruption. At the work he was doing. At the world in general, and Angel in particular.

"Lindsey," Holland's voice poured over the line like warm honey.

He sat up straight, case forgotten. The only time Holland sounded that sweet was when things were seriously going to hell. Often literally. "What's the matter, sir?" he asked much more respectfully.

"We have ... a situation. Please come down to the secure suite immediately."

"On my way." He was shutting the phone and gathering up the papers to lock them away before the line disconnected. This couldn't be good.

It wasn't.

Darla crouched in one corner, Lilah lay crumpled in the other. The vampire had a wild look in her eyes and blood smeared along her chin. Lilah wasn't breathing. Holland was standing by the door with two Mitrwas demons in full spiked-out body armor, wooden stakes at the ready. Hm. It didn't look like the bonding between the women was going well.

"Sir?" Lindsey asked politely. Darla's head raised and she peered up at him through a mat of tangled blonde hair.

"It would appear that the customary controls placed on a Risen One weren't, in this case, applied. Perhaps you missed a phrase in the spell?"

"It's a possibility," he said as calmly as he could, considering that Darla was now inching toward him. She looked hungry. He glanced over at the guard demons. Neither one left Holland's side. He looked back over at Darla. "Things were hurried, at the end. On the other hand it could be something simpler." Holland looked on with interest as Darla got within six feet of Lindsey. Lindsey didn't move. "Control is tied to the Voka demon. It was slaughtered prematurely." By Angel, went unsaid. "Stop!" he suddenly yelled as he wheeled and instinctively held out his maimed arm.

To his surprise, she actually did. She tensed, staring at his stump, sniffing the air like a dog scenting game.

"Return to the cage!" He put as much force as he could behind the command. She whined, but scuttled backward, and with an unhappy whine did exactly as he'd told her. He waited until she was inside then darted forward himself, slamming the door shut with a clang and shooting the lock home.

"Impressive," Holland nodded. He gestured toward Lilah's body. "Take her to the infirmary and see if there's any way we can revive her." He smiled benignly at Lindsey. "If nothing else, there's always the need for highly-trained zombies."

Lindsey smiled slightly, as was expected of him, then looked back at Darla, who was staring at him with a weird mixture of hatred, lust, and hunger.

"What about her, sir?" he asked patiently. Inside, anticipation was welling up. He was going to be in at the kill. He deserved this. Missing fingers clenched into an invisible fist. He'd earned this.

"Oh, I think it's time we put our little plan into action, don't you think?"

He'd think better if he knew what the plan was, but Lindsey nodded obediently. Whatever it might be, he'd be there when they put an end to Angel, and that was all that mattered.

It hit shortly after she got home that night, and nearly scared her to death. Cordelia wasn't used to visions happening outside office hours. True, once one had hit during an audition, but technically, that was office hours, she'd just been taking time off in an attempt to resuscitate her corpse-like career.

This was something different. Oh, the world exploded like it always did, and there was the usual scratch 'n' sniff aspect of sweat and blood and death, and she needed mega-doses of Excedrin to see again afterward. Same old same old.

What was different was the subject.

Usually, some poor victim was getting beaten, or chewed, or sucked, or otherwise harmed in various disgusting ways that she had to experience second hand in Technicolor and Dolby sound. This time, though, this time made her cry afterward. This time the victim was Angel.

That told her a couple things. One, she couldn't go to the boss with this one, or he'd rush in and get crunched by some dumb blonde with a grudge, bad hair and really sharp teeth. Two, she couldn't tell Wesley, because she didn't trust him not to go drag Angel into it and get him dusted. Third, there was no way on earth she could handle it alone.

So she did what Angel usually did. She followed the vision, and went to find Gunn.

She shivered as she drove into the derelict part of Los Angeles where Gunn and his friends lived. It made her nervous, as it would any ex-rich suburbanite princess, even in the daylight. But if she could find Gunn before she got mugged, or raped, or got her skirt dirty, it would all be okay. Part of her felt very brave for doing what she was doing. The majority of her felt very stupid and more than a little insane.

They appeared from out of nowhere, or so it seemed, weapons raised.

"What, do I smell like a vampire now?" She stopped the car before she hit anyone and hopped out, doing her best impression of a worldly woman completely at ease in her surroundings. She wasn't an actress for nothing!

"It's cool," a voice said from behind the mass of weapons and grim faces, and she let go of the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Whassup?"

She smiled nervously, blinking flirtatiously, unconsciously. His grin widened. "I need your help."

The grin disappeared. "Why?"

The guys, and girls, with the guns, stakes and assortment of jet-propelled anti-demon weaponry, melted back to wherever they'd come from, and he moved closer to her. She had to crane her neck to meet his eyes.

It was kind of sexy. He was kind of sexy. She blinked, and put the feeling away to look at when it wasn't quite so time critical that they save Angel's life.

"We have to save Angel's life," she blurted out. He stepped even closer. She shivered again. He was really sexy. She shook her head, more to clear her vision than anything else. "I saw a woman, a vampire, and she's really dangerous somehow, more dangerous than your standard issue vampire, not that those are anything to sneeze at, but she's especially dangerous, to Angel in particular, and if we don't take care of her before she gets her little fangs into him he's a dead man. Well, he's already dead, I know, but Angel will be dead, and Angelus will be back, and I really don't want that to happen, not least because if he's dead then they come after us next --"

His finger touched her lips briefly, cutting off her babbling. She looked up at him gratefully.

"Where?" he asked quietly.

"I have to show you." He started to protest, looking stern, and she rushed on, a little desperately. "I can't tell you! I don't know. I know what it looks like, what it feels like, but it's not like visions come with maps and landmarks! Just smells. Yuck."

The stern look transformed into a grin, and she lost her breath again. God, but he was cute.

"Take me," he told her, pushing her gently toward the car and raising his arm in a signal to his troops.

Any time, she thought, just give me a chance and a moment's privacy. Then the modified Hummer with the grenade-cum-stake-launcher mounted on the back moved into position behind her, and the mini-cavalcade of two vehicles went on a vampire hunt. Through downtown LA, in the middle of the day.

Nobody so much as blinked.

The itching had turned into agony, and Lindsey only realized how bad it had become when Darla reached over and took his stump in her hands, rubbing her mouth over the bandages. She'd been doing well, not attacking, listening to his plans for revenge against Angel, joining enthusiastically in Operation Restore Angelus. He'd felt secure enough to sit with her and one Mitrwas demon, mapping out every move she would make in their campaign, ignoring the ache and the itch, subconsciously using it to sharpen his determination to take out his enemy.

His resolve lasted until she started rubbing her fangs across it. Keening, hungrily. That's when he saw the blood seeping through the end of the bandages, and agony burst across his nerves like flash fire.

He was on the floor, screaming through clenched jaws, but he didn't know how he'd gotten there. The Mitrwas had cornered Darla against the wall, but she wasn't trying to hurt him, or at least he didn't think she was, with the tiny corner of his mind that wasn't crawling with agony. She had vamped out, and she was drooling. It was a little disgusting, but not nearly disgusting enough to distract him from the fact that he knew, just knew, that his arm was on fire.

It took four human guards using all their strength to immobilize him long enough to get him to the infirmary. By the time they arrived and the doctor administered a sedative strong enough to fell the Voka itself, the bandage had fallen away.

Lindsey stared through blurring eyes at the blood and flesh protruding from the end of his sleeve, and screamed again and again until he finally, mercifully, lost consciousness. The last thing he heard under the sound of his own screams was the doctor calling for an exorcist. The last thing he knew before he knew nothing more was that, whatever it was where his hand used to be, it was growing.

Cordelia could feel him sitting beside her as they drove toward the West Side. There was something so attractive about Gunn, and it wasn't just the fact that he had a great body and a cute smile and a nice little butt. It was more the way he moved, quiet but smooth, like a dancer. Or a killer.

Which was just as well, considering what they were on their way to do.

A building stood out like a beacon on the corner, and she turned automatically to the right, following her instincts, trusting whatever it was that the Powers that Be did to her when they took over her brain and turned it into fried mush.

"Close," she muttered, eyes wide open and staring straight ahead, driving on auto-pilot. Gunn twisted in his seat and waved his hand over his head, and the Hummer peeled off to the side. She didn't bother to look in the rear view mirror, she could hear it. His knee was pressed lightly into the side of her thigh. Her heartbeat was in overdrive and she didn't know if it was the threat to Angel, the imminent danger to herself, or the fact that right then she'd like nothing more than to pull into a nice quiet side street, tear his clothes off, and jump on his lap.

She gulped. "Real close." On so many levels.

Then they were there, and she didn't know how she'd found it, she just knew this was it. She pulled the convertible over into the alley between the two tall buildings and stared at the innocuous side door. There were no signs or bells, no indication whatsoever that it was important. So, of course, it was incredibly important. LA, she thought grimly, never show you the real thing even when you're staring it in the face. Shaking off the thought, she pointed at the door.

"They're in there. She's in there. We have to kill her. Now. Totally dead." Her mouth was running, but she wasn't paying any attention to it. Gunn would fix it. Gunn and his gang of vampire dusters. They'd take care of Blondie before she had the chance to do anything permanently bad to Angel. She didn't like the idea of permanently bad Angel. It brought back too many awful memories.

The Hummer rumbled into the alley behind them. Gunn hopped out of the convertible and gathered his troops behind him. She stared at the door a second longer, a fragment of the vision teasing at her memory. Carefully stepping out of the car, she picked her way through the trash until she was at Gunn's side, ignoring the looks the others gave her. She touched his arm, and he looked down at her.

"They don't know we're here. There's a diversion happening. But it's almost over. We have to do it now."

"You trustin' her?" one of the girls protested. Gunn raised his hand.

"We move now," he ordered, and they did. Cordelia stepped back out of the way, shying away from the dirty wall behind her.

"To the left," she called out, remembering her vision. Gunn took her at her word, surprising her yet again. He'd shown a startling amount of trust in her from the beginning. She didn't know why, but when this was over, if they all survived, she planned on asking him.

Over dinner.

At her place.

Somebody had an acetylene torch, and they cut through the door in what was in reality very little time but felt subjectively like a million years. An alarm began to wail and mean-looking demons appeared. The little group of demon hunters whooped with joy and started slaughtering. In moments, blood and goo was everywhere. Cordelia swallowed hard, determined not to throw up out in the open where everyone could see.

She took her skirt in both hands and, stepping high over the butchered remains of dead demons, made her way carefully into the hall. There was a big commotion just out of sight around the corner, and she instinctively reached down and took one of the wooden pikes from the severed hand of an unidentified demon guard.

It was a good thing she did.

Coming around the corner like a literal bat out of hell, the diminutive blonde she'd seen in her vision dodged around three of Gunn's troops and headed straight for the door. Cordelia glanced over her shoulder; the alley wasn't in direct sunlight. The blonde might escape if she made it to the door.

Setting her feet firmly in the goop on the floor and dropping her skirt, muttering a single "Damn!" to herself at the cost of dry-cleaning rayon and wishing for the hundredth time that demon-busting wasn't such a filthy job, Cordelia met the threat. Happily for her limited vampire-fighting skills, the blonde was too busy looking back over her shoulder at the pursuing demon hunters to pay any attention to the single mortal woman standing in front of her.

She ran full on, chest-first, into the stake. Startled blue eyes met equally startled brown ones before the blue eyes dried up and turned to dust, falling at, and on, Cordelia's feet.

"Disgusting," she spat, staring down at the vamp dust now mixing with the blood and slime on her feet and swearing to herself she was never, ever going to wear open toed shoes to work again.

"Good one!" Gunn called out, and she smiled at him. If it was a little wobbly, he didn't call her on it.

"At least now she won't be killing Angel."

"She the one you saw?"

She nodded, and he put two fingers in his mouth, cutting loose with a shrill whistle. The fighting stopped immediately and the hunters retreated back out into the alley. Gunn took her hand and pulled her away from the carnage, propping her in the passenger seat and plucking the keys from her purse. She sat there and let him. She was feeling a little drained.

Not to mention icky, wet with unimaginable fluids, and more than a little stinky. She leaned her head against the back of the seat and stared up into the blue LA sky.

Just another day in La La Land.

Someone had drenched the fire.

The air was humming. Power disturbed the room around him. Lindsey gingerly opened one eye and looked directly at Holland.

His mentor was pale, eyes wide, mouth clamped shut. Even from across the room, Lindsey clearly saw the calculation in his expression.

Words rolled around him, weaving over him like a blanket, pressing into his skin. He smelled incense, impacting his sinuses and making him want to sneeze. He stifled it. The examination table beneath him was hard, and there were straps in place around his arms and legs.

His fingers were clenched into fists. Ten fingers. Two fists.

He strained against the hands on his body, holding him down to the table. The chanting spiraled, layer upon layer of Latin and Aramaic, magick sweeping over and through him. The hands lightened and his head rose a few inches, just far enough to see past the heavy leather cuff around his forearm to the fist clenched at the end of what had been, until he passed out, a stump.

It didn't look like his fist. Didn't look like a part of his body at all. It wasn't the usual light tan, with golden hairs dusting the skin. It was silver, glimmering faintly, like body paint had been ground so deeply into the skin it would never wash away. Even the nails were silver, a darker hue than the surrounding flesh. Along the veins, where the knuckles should show white in the fist, were shadows of gold.

There were symbols there, too, archaic swirls of cobalt blue, alien to him. They appeared to be embedded in his hand, painted in the grain of his skin, as much a part of him as the hand itself.

It didn't itch any more. The fire was gone.

In its place, there was a bone-deep shaking, almost a humming along his nerves. Raw Power, at war with itself, his body as the battleground. He didn't know what was going on, and from the expressions on the faces of the men gathered around him, they weren't too sure either.

At least he wasn't dead. Given his job, that was a bonus.

Perhaps.

He concentrated on relaxing, and his fingers slowly unclenched, hovering a centimeter over the surface of the table before the pads of his fingers and the heels of his palms settled down uneasily against the crisp paper. The chanting paused, then swelled one final time.

As suddenly as if a seal had been broken, Power washed from the room, leaving it cold, leaving him empty. The shivering lessened. Whatever it was that was at war within him reacted to the withdrawal of the external challenge, coming to an uneasy truce that left him weak. He rested his head against the table and looked up again, squinting against the light.

Holland's face broke into his field of vision. "Welcome back, Lindsey."

"Where'd I go?" He tried to make his voice light, uncaring, calm. It came out a rusty squeak.

Holland rested a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Funnily enough, Lindsey wasn't reassured in the slightest. He never was when his mentor got that look on his face. A little too smooth, a little too controlled. It usually appeared right before Lindsey ended up being sent into hell. Sometimes literally.

"It would appear that Angel's connection to the Powers that Be is stronger than we expected. You've been, er, infected by Voka blood that was on the scythe he used to, well, dispatch your hand."

That was one way to put it. Lindsey nodded, keeping his eyes glued to Holland's face. There was more to it than that, he'd bet. He could be patient. Holland would spill eventually. Hopefully.

"And this Voka blood," he croaked. "It caused this ... hand to grow?" It wasn't the weirdest thing that had happened in his law career. Just the weirdest thing to happen to him, personally.

"So it would appear." Holland smiled genially.

Lindsey would have retreated if he could. He really didn't trust that smile. He forced himself to relax again, and attempted a half-smile of his own. It must not have been too convincing, being closer to a snarl than a smile, but it did cause Holland to back off a few inches. Lindsey breathed a little more easily.

"That's not all, however."

Now Holland put on his 'grave' look, and Lindsey bit back a curse. What now? he wondered.

"While you were ... incapacitated, there was a raid on the compound."

Lindsey winced. "Angel?" His voice broke, and he swallowed against the pain in his throat.

"His associates. The guards were distracted by your collapse, and Darla, I fear, attempted to escape."

"God damn it!" The words were almost silent, and Lindsey swallowed hard.

"Yes, quite. It's worse than that."

Lindsey closed his eyes. How much worse could it get? He almost didn't want to know. Only years of using information as his primary weapon allowed him to open his eyes again and quirk a questioning brow at Holland. His boss nodded. Shit.

"She's dead," Lindsey guessed. Correctly. Holland nodded. "Gunn?" He knew he should have done something about the troublesome gang leader, but the man had been useful. Once.

"Cordelia Chase," Holland informed him. Lindsey gaped at him.

"Chase?" he mouthed, his voice giving out completely.

Holland nodded again. Lindsey just stared at him.

"The tool really isn't all that important in the failure of our plan." Holland blithely dismissed the unexpected turn of the girl as vampire killer. "The Raising was doomed from the initial rite, when the Warrior of the Darkness failed to separate Angel from the Powers that Be. Then when the vampire recovered the Scrolls of Obearsain," Holland carefully didn't look at Lindsey's new hand, and Lindsey carefully didn't, either, "and his assistant translated the cure for Ms. Chase's psychosis, the connection was recreated, more strongly than before. So, do you know what we are going to do, as soon as you feel better, Lindsey?"

Unable to force a word out past his tortured throat, he shook his head helplessly. Holland smiled, sharp teeth behind false sweetness.

"We, or more specifically you, are going to remove Angel's connection with the Powers that Be. Permanently." Holland's grip tightened on his shoulder, then released him. "Get well soon, Lindsey."

He nodded. Swallowed. Watched his mentor exit the room, leaving behind two human guards who he didn't think were there solely for his protection. Then he lay back against the unforgiving surface of the table and waited for the doctors to come unstrap him.

His own problems could wait. He flexed his new hand, shivering slightly at the whisper of Power still running loose in his veins. First, he had to deal with Angel. Again. Find a way to shut down Cordelia Chase's connection to the Powers that Be, and do it in such a way that the situation could be turned to Wolfram and Hart's advantage. There had to be a way. He'd find it.

He'd had too many failures lately. Regardless of the cost, he had to find a way to turn this situation to his advantage. He'd saved himself from worse messes than this one, although at the moment he couldn't remember any. It was all Angel's fault.

Wasn't it always?

Wesley looked up with a start as Cordelia breezed into the office, Gunn at her heels. She looked as if she'd been through a fight with a vicious demon, and a viscous one as well, judging by the blood and slime smeared into her dress, along her legs, even a streak in her hair. There was a suspicious dusting of what appeared to be vampire remains on her right hand, along the front of her skirt and crusted in the gore-splashed sandals she wore.

It was a surprisingly good look for her.

Angel came out to stand at his shoulder, carefully in the shadows, looking on with interest. "Have a good time, kids?"

Wesley smirked despite himself. Ever since Cordelia had told Angel he needed to 'lighten up,' he'd been working on his verbal humor skills. This was one of his better attempts.

Gunn looked down at Cordelia. "You gonna tell him, or should I?"

Cordelia squared her shoulders. "There was a threat, Angel. I had a vision, and there was a threat, so I went and got Gunn and his gang and we took care of it!"

Wesley stared slowly between Gunn, who looked as if he was close to laughter, Cordelia, all proud defiance and glowing victory, and Angel, managing to appear both stoic and slightly confused. It was better than television. Well, better than most British television. Since he'd come to the States, he'd been a tad too busy fighting demons to catch much telly.

"And you didn't come get me because ... ?" Angel coaxed Cordelia into explaining further. It took little encouragement. She was fairly bursting with news.

"It was a threat to you! It was those nasty lawyers, and that raising thingy they did, they were going to hurt you, and we took 'em out before they could get to you!"

During her bubbling proclamation of triumph, Angel had gradually been straightening beside him. Wesley looked over in time to catch a thunderous expression on the normally calm features. Not a good sign, not at all.

"You went up against Wolfram and Hart on your own?" His raking glance took in both Gunn and Cordelia. "You let her?"

"Hey, man, we didn't do so bad. Got the baddy, took out the threat, what's your problem?"

Angel growled, a subvocalization so soft the others couldn't have heard it, but Wesley did. Quite distinctly. It made him shudder.

"My problem is that this could very easily have blown up in your faces. Who, or what, did you kill?" Angel asked Gunn, but Cordelia answered.

"Well, Gunn and his guys killed a bunch of icky demons. Do you have any idea how much it's going to cost to dry clean this dress? And I'm just going to have to throw the shoes away. This gunk is never going to come out. I've got vampire dust between my toes. It was a skinny little blonde woman with blue eyes and big boobs. She ran right on to my stake. I think she was trying to escape them, too!"

Angel had frozen beside him, and Wesley could feel his own spine straighten and freeze into position. Taking a deep breath, he asked the question he knew Angel couldn't. "Did she have a name?"

Cordelia looked at him as if he'd lost his mind, but Gunn answered. "Yeah, I heard one of the guards in the back room yelling about Darla gettin' loose. Why?"

Another sound from Angel, this one loud enough that everyone in the room heard it.

"No."

Just the single word, but the pain in it was enough for Wesley. He took another steadying breath, and turned to Angel. Who turned away before he could be touched, disappearing down the stairs into his rooms.

"What was that all about?" Cordelia asked. She sounded disappointed, and somewhat hurt, that her heroics in saving Angel hadn't been rewarded with high praise. Gunn looked confused as well.

"Who was the vamp?" he asked outright. Cordelia looked over her shoulder at him, then peered at Wesley.

"Yeah, why was this one vamp such a threat to Angel? Who was she?"

"His sire," Wesley answered quietly. Cordelia grimaced.

"Well, that sucks."

Wesley couldn't help but agree. Cordelia looked uncertainly at Gunn, then toward the stairwell.

"Think he could, uhm, use some company?"

"No," Wesley told her hastily. "Give him some time alone. He needs to make peace with this on his own."

"Brood, you mean." Cordelia nodded wisely. It sat ill upon her. Twirling in place, she looked up at Gunn, flirtation in every line of her slightly battle-worn person. "If you're not busy, and you can wait until I get the goo scraped off, would you like to have dinner? Together? My place? Tonight?"

Gunn appeared somewhat shell-shocked. Wesley looked on sympathetically. Eventually, Gunn nodded. "Uh, sure."

"Great!" she chirped. "See you at eight! Oh, would you like a ride home? It's a long walk." She was still chattering up at him as she dragged him out into the sunlight.

Wesley walked to the window and watched them drive away. Cordelia's mouth was still moving, and Gunn looked stunned. Not an unusual reaction to being the focus of Cordelia Chase's attentions. He glanced over at the stairwell down which Angel had disappeared. He considered his options carefully, but in the end decided against going downstairs.

Instead, he sat vigil at the desk, stared into space, and waited for Angel to surface from the depths of his grief. He wondered how long they would have the leisure to allow him to mourn, before the next phase of the ongoing battle with Wolfram and Hart would commence.

Again.

Lindsey healed surprisingly well, even better than he usually did. He had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with the Voka blood he'd absorbed. The skin tone on his new hand didn't alter, though, and the symbols didn't disappear.

Which was just as well, in a way. He'd given a lot of thought to exactly how to remove Cordelia Chase from the picture without causing a jihad from Angel that might be worse than the existing situation. Judging by his past record, Angel was very protective of those he considered family. Simply killing her, besides being unforgivably crude, would be stupid.

No, there had to be another way. Slipping off the thin leather glove that now shielded his unusual markings, he studied his hand closely. The light gleamed off the silver, glinted off the gold highlights, seemed to be caught and held by the cobalt symbols. He traced one particular mark, an arc that began between his thumb and first finger and wove along his palm to end in a hieroglyph's tail between his second and third fingers. It led directly to another splash, along his ring finger, across the back of his knuckle, curling up to the side of his palm before bleeding into his wrist. At the demarcation line where his hand had originally been sliced off, tendrils of silver, gold and blue crept up into the healthy flesh of his forearm. In an abstract way, it was quite beautiful.

In a concrete way, it scared the bejesus out of him.

His eyes focused suddenly on the most clearly defined symbol, spread across the back of his hand. It occurred to him that he recognized it, in the way a man might recognize his own face, distorted by a fun-house mirror. It was ancient Greek.

Tearing his eyes away from his hand and slipping the glove back on, he headed for the closed stacks down in the vault where the most ancient texts were kept. Ignoring the sideways look the guardian demon gave him, he punched in the code for access to the atmosphere controlled reading room and walked over to the Keeper of the Texts.

"I need to look at the Sibylline Books."

"Trojan, Pythian or Cumaean?" it asked, no signs of interest on its face. It had been the librarian in the vault for over three hundred years, and had learned not to ask, regardless of how unusual the request might be. Lawyers didn't like to explain themselves, and even if they did, it didn't want to know. Lindsey knew this, and appreciated the discretion.

"Cumaean, second volume."

Once he had the tube in his hands, he felt his heart rate increase. This had to be it. Carefully spreading the scrolls across the teak surface of the table, he began to read, slowly, looking for familiar symbols.

Three and a half hours later, he found it. "Thank you, Apollo," he murmured, grinning down at the text. Carrying the scrolls back to the Keeper, he requested specific copies.

He leaned against the circulation desk and tapped his finger against the railing thoughtfully, the small sound drowned out by the whirring of the copier. A few minutes later, he had what he needed. Nodding at the Keeper, he stuffed the pages into a manila folder and headed back to his office, hand reaching for his cell phone.

Holland picked up on the first ring.

"I've found a way to separate Angel from his conduit to the Powers that Be, sir. And there's something else, too." He glanced down at his now-gloved hand. "Something that could be quite useful."

"We'll be right there, my boy."

"We, sir?" He didn't need any witnesses. Just somebody to watch him in case the spell went wrong. Somebody to put out the fires.

Empty air answered him. He closed his cell and stuck it in his pocket, then stripped off his coat, loosening his tie and rolling up his sleeves. The old magick was some of the most difficult to work, and he wanted to be comfortable.

Holland rapped once on the door, then walked in. Lilah walked beside him. Lindsey cocked his head and looked her over.

"She didn't turn out too bad," he offered. Holland smiled widely.

"The new preservation spells are working much more efficiently. She's a little slow, but not too far off premium for a zombie."

She smiled vacantly at both of them. Lindsey couldn't see much difference from her living persona. Shrugging, he straightened and handed the folder to Holland.

"A full frontal assault on Angel Investigations failed. Even the Voka couldn't pull it off. Removing Ms. Chase directly would provoke a more aggressive response than would be prudent at this time. Therefore, I propose a secondary intervention. Removing the connection between Ms. Chase and the Powers that Be, while allowing Angel to keep his friend, who will no longer be a threat to us."

Holland rifled through the papers, the smile on his face sharpening. "This is an interesting plan, Lindsey. How did you come up with it?"

He stripped off his glove. Holland shot him a glance, a hint of discomfort appearing behind his smile. Lindsey flexed his fingers, looking down at his hand before smiling back up at his mentor.

"During the course of my investigations into this matter, I made another discovery. The symbols on my, er, new hand." Holland stopped looking through the papers and gave Lindsey his full attention. "They're Sibylline. A combination of archaic Greek, Latin and Etruscan. I reconstructed the activities of the Voka the night of the raising." He paused for effect. Holland was staring at him, unblinking. "The Voka went to the Hall of the Oracles."

"He got in?" It wasn't often he managed to surprise Holland. He enjoyed it, briefly, then continued with business.

"He not only got in, he killed Them." Holland went completely still. "There was more than Voka blood on the blade when Angel cut me. There was Oraclean blood there as well."

Holland's smile could have lit up the entire LA basin. "Oh, that is interesting news."

Lindsey's smile widened into a grin, a wolf's expression on a man's face. "I thought so."

With a small flourish, Holland handed him back the papers. "Work the spell, Lindsey. With the blood of the Voka to empower you and the blood of the Oracles to protect you, you should have no difficulty ridding Ms. Chase of her inconvenient visions."

He took the papers, staring down at the ancient text, and nodded grimly. This was his last chance. It had damned well better work.

Or he might be hiring Angel to protect his own ass, next.

Putting the thought aside, he laid the papers out in a neat semi-circle and prepared to begin the ritual. Punching a button on the telephone, he contacted security.

"Phil, this is Lindsey McDonald. I need you to turn off the fire alarms and sprinklers in my suite."

"All of 'em, sir?" the tinny voice answered.

"Yes. Now."

There was a rustling sound from the speaker, then the security chief told him, "All off, sir."

"Thanks. Have security on stand-by outside. They are not to breach the perimeter unless they're called. Understood?"

"Understood, sir."

Satisfied, he flicked off the 'phone and moved forward to light the incense. As the smoke rose to the ceiling, he jumped lightly onto the desk, folded himself up tailor-style, and lowered his head. As he recited the ancient words, Power gathered in the room, and the smoke traced symbols in the air. The matching markings on his hand began to glow. The wind picked up, and brushed his hair back from his eyes with a lover's touch. He smiled faintly.

His voice gained strength as the spell gathered Power, blending with the wind and the smoke, until it shook the room. His hand began to ache. Tears gathered in his eyes. His throat grew hoarse. Sweat trickled down the center of his back, causing his shirt to stick to his body.

The Power continued to rise.

Cordelia changed clothes nine times before seven thirty. At five minutes to eight, the doorbell rang. She opened the door and beamed at him.

"Hi, Gunn! Uhm, do you have another name? Something a little less, er, formal? Dennis!" she shrieked, as a cold can of soda floated out into the living room and hovered in front of her date. Gunn stared at it. Then he stared at her. She smiled weakly. "Did I mention Dennis? He's, ah, my ghost. But he's really nice. If he likes you. And I think he likes you, because he's trying to be a good host. For a ghost." She glared wildly around. "Dennis!" she hissed.

Gunn grinned at her. "One thing for sure, it's never gonna be dull around you folks." Then he took the can, nodded his head at his invisible host, and said, "Thanks, Den."

A sound like a whistling chuckle filled the room, then the air went still. Cordelia lost her scowl and got a bemused smile on her face. "Hm. He really does like you. A good sign! Usually when Dennis doesn't like somebody it's because they're working for a demon, or they are a demon, or they're a psychotic rogue vampire slayer out to kill us all, or something like that."

Gunn was looking at her strangely again. Her smile turned weak and she bounced in place a little nervously.

"I don't have the best of luck finding dates. It is LA, after all."

He shook his head. "My name's Charles," he said softly.

She stopped bouncing. "Charles," she said just as softly. "That's ... nice." And it was.

Dinner passed in a haze of chatter on her part and a few good questions on his. For two people with absolutely nothing in common, they had a lot to talk about, and very little of it had to do with demons. She piled the dishes in the sink and Dennis gently pushed her out into the living room, putting up invisible bars when she tried to help. She grinned and blushed, took the drinks he floated out to her, and joined Gunn on the sofa.

"So, what are your plans, if the acting thing don't pan out?"

She leaned forward and took the glass from his hand, setting it on the coffee table. "We've been talking about me all night. What about you?"

He shrugged. "You know all the important stuff."

She shook her head. "Oh, I don't know about that." He gave her a sideways look, and she flirted up at him with her eyelashes. He grinned. "Is this the part where you finally kiss me?"

"You want me to kiss you?" he asked, not all of his surprise a put-on. Her face softened.

"Yeah," she admitted. "A lot, actually."

He cupped her chin with one hand and leaned forward to meet her. The only places they touched were his hand on her jaw and their lips together. It was sweet, and soft, and escalated quickly into something much hotter. She followed him when he pulled back, shuffling along the edge of the sofa until she was almost sitting in his lap, curving over him. His hands slipped down and around her waist, and she slid her arms around his neck, angling her head to taste him more deeply. She was drowning in sweetness when the pain hit.

Wrenching away from him, she shrieked as the first spikes of the vision struck her like hammers to the skull. Out in the kitchen, a plate dropped as Dennis reacted to her pain. Dimly, through the colors flashing in her eyes, she could make out the shocked expression on Gunn's face.

"'S okay, Charles," she managed to whisper. "'S just a vision." Then with a sudden concussion, as if her thoughts had been sucked out of her mind, the vision was ripped from her head, sending her crashing down to the sofa. He caught her as she convulsed.

Her last coherent thought before she passed out was that she could really get used to this guy holding on to her.

The ringing of the telephone jolted Angel from his thoughts, although anyone watching him would never know it from his physical reaction. He heard Wesley's voice, light English accent dipping and falling as he spoke. A sharp note of urgency warped the tone, and he looked up as Wesley came down the stairs at a near run.

"That was Gunn. There's been an emergency with Cordelia."

His axe was in his hand and he was halfway up the stairs before Wesley finished speaking. They made it to the apartment in record time, Angel thankful that as usual, the LAPD were busy somewhere else and not giving out speeding tickets to demons in a hurry.

The door flew open as they pounded up the stairs, and he called out an absent, "Hey, Dennis," as he ran into the living room. Cordelia was draped across Gunn's lap on the sofa, and appeared to be just coming around.

"What's up?" Angel asked Gunn but kept his eyes on Cordelia. She wasn't bleeding anywhere, nothing strange seemed to be happening to her limbs, and her eyes were the right color. No outward signs of attack or possession. He relaxed a fraction.

"I dunno, we were kissin' and she just sort of curled up in a ball and grabbed her head."

Wesley interjected, weakly, "Kissing?" sounding much more jealous than he realized. Angel relaxed even further.

"Did she say anything?"

"A vision, she said."

Angel nodded. "Did she give you any details?" Now that he knew it was business, his manner was more brisk, less panicked. Not that he'd admit to panic. Ever. To anybody.

"There weren't any." Cordelia joined the party. Her voice was reedy, but she didn't look any the worse for the wear. Angel dropped down onto the closest chair.

"What do you mean? Was it too blurry to make out, or too short?"

"Neither," she said, waving one hand. She didn't look like she was in any hurry to leave Gunn's lap. Which was okay, since he didn't look like he was in any hurry to let go of her, either. "One minute it was there, the next, swoop! It was gone."

"Gone?" Wesley sounded a little more settled, too.

Angel glanced up at him and had a moment's revelation. It didn't look like Wes was jealous of Gunn. It looked like he was jealous of Cordy. Angel blinked. That would take some thought. Later. Shaking off the distraction, he turned back to Cordelia.

"So, how do you feel?"

She looked up into Gunn's face and smiled. There was a hint of the predator there along with a whole lot of sweetness. "Pretty good, actually. Not even any headache."

Rising from the chair, Angel gathered Wesley up on his way out the door. "Have a good night, kids. Call me if you need me." The door shut with a gentle bang behind them. He grinned at Wesley. Wesley looked confused.

"False alarm?" Wesley didn't look like he bought it. "I need to do some research."

"Do that," Angel told him. "I just wouldn't recommend bothering them with the results until tomorrow. At least."

He ignored Wesley's disgruntled expression and watched the night go by as they drove back home. He had a lot to think about. Darla. Cordelia. His city. His fate. His place in the universe.

His shopping. He turned back to Wesley. "Turn left at Sepulveda, would you? I'm almost out of blood."

Another exciting night in the city of Angels.

Power expanded in the room until the pressure was so high Lindsey was certain his ears would start to bleed. Lilah had crumpled, her newly-bound zombie strength not enough to stand against the force of the wind. Holland was clinging to the wall, eyes narrowed against the smoke, watching Lindsey intently.

With a crescendo that sounded like the wail of a banshee, the spell broke free. Symbols whirled crazily in the air like leaves in a storm, swirling around Lindsey and sliding along his body, wreathing his hair in smoke, caressing his face, sliding around his limbs like snakes. His eyes stung and his mouth fell open as the smoke stole his air. In the space of a heart beat, it dissipated. The wind died, the smoke cleared, and the pages that had held the written text were no more than ashes scattered across his desk.

He was shaking a little as he half-climbed, half-slid off the desk. Dusting off his slacks, he straightened his shirt and reached for his tie.

"That went well, I think," Holland offered as two large security men came in and dragged Lilah out of the room. She still hadn't regained consciousness. It would probably take another binding and preservation spell, or she'd start to lose parts. Once physical cohesion was lost, a zombie was pretty much fodder. Lindsey glanced from her feet, bouncing along the carpet between the two big humans, over to Holland's complacent expression.

"Yes, I think so," he said. Or tried to say. Before the words could get out, the world fell on top his head.

At least, that's what it felt like. His hands went up to clutch at his temples and he gave a strangled cry, a wail trapped behind clenched teeth like an animal in pain. He doubled over, falling to the floor at Holland's feet, completely unaware of it as he wrestled with the madness that had overtaken his brain.

Sounds were screeching in his ears, screams of pain and fright unlike any he'd ever heard. He was feeling the screaming in his skin, bones aching with the intensity of the fear in them. There was a god-awful stench rising up around him, making his gorge rise. Colors flashed in front of his eyes, pictures of people stretched out of frame until they became caricatures of human beings, bleeding and writhing in agony.

Pulsing through the colors and the sounds and the smells, he could see his hand in front of his eyes. The symbols were glowing, the intense deep blue found at the heart of a flame. They danced in front of him, leading him through the vision, through the madness.

As suddenly as it hit, it was over. He was curled up at Holland's feet, and the older man was holding his shoulders. He really, really wanted to throw up. He controlled the urge, with effort.

"What ... what the hell was that?" His voice was raspy again. He wondered, with some embarrassment, if he'd been screaming as loudly as it felt like he'd been screaming.

"I'm not sure, but I think it might have been a vision from the Powers that Be." Holland sounded obscenely cheerful. Lindsey flashed on choking his boss to death, not for the first time, but gave up the idea as a bad one. For now, at least.

"It's disgusting," he spat. "Intrusive. And it damned well hurts." To his horror, there was a whine in his voice. He made an effort to straighten up, then winced as a lance of pain split his skull. "God damn it!" More than a hint of a whine in that one.

Holland patted his head gently. "Can I get you anything?"

"Drugs would be good," he answered automatically, concentrating on dragging himself to his feet. He staggered over to his chair and fell more than sat in it. He dropped his face in his hands and waited for his stomach to settle.

A glass appeared on the desk in front of him, and Holland offered him two tablets. "Take this. It will help."

"Ibuprofen?" he asked.

"Percodan," Holland replied.

He swallowed as fast as he could. If that was a vision, it was a wonder Cordelia survived them. It didn't surprise him that Doyle had committed suicide. He stared dully at his hand, the symbols no longer glowing.

"This could be useful."

Lindsey dropped his head back into his hands. He had an awful feeling Holland was right, and he was more than half afraid he knew how it would be used.

"Perhaps we can use the information instead of Angel?" Then, he continued reasoning silently, since we don't actually go rescue anybody, eventually the damned things will stop, and I'll get my brain back. In one piece.

"Oh, no, of course not," Holland purred.

Lindsey swallowed. The urge to throw up was back. He just didn't want to know. His boss told him anyway.

"We've been looking into a way to get a man inside his organization."

Oh, hell, Lindsey mouthed.

"This is the perfect opportunity. After all, he knows you."

"He hates me."

"That's immaterial."

"It's going to be hard to convince him to trust me since I've already sold him out." Lindsey had a feeling he might as well be talking to his desk for all the good it was doing. Holland's response affirmed the feeling.

"He'll have no choice, because he'll believe you have no choice. After all, you didn't ask for the visions, they just came to you."

"That's the damned truth." But was it? After all, he did have the Oracles' blood in him now, and he had taken steps to steal the gift of Sight from the Chase girl. He groaned softly. Son of a bitch, he mentally cursed himself. Good going, Lindsey. Way to fuck up royally.

"So now, you have to go to him. Return here tomorrow, and make sure he follows you. Go now." That sounded like an order.

"Now?" he asked through his fingers.

"Now," Holland informed him.

He got up and headed for the door, staggering more than a little from the combination of headache and drugs.

"Oh, Lindsey," Holland called after him. "Take a taxi."

On expense, Lindsey decided. If he was going to go through with this fiasco, and it looked like he had no choice, he sure as hell wasn't going to pay for any of it.

The dark wasn't helping. Angel stared out into the room, seeing as clearly in the dark as a human did in the daylight, and wondered why Darla's death wasn't upsetting him more than it did. She'd loved him once, in her own twisted way, and he'd spent decades at her side. True, the memories of those decades drew more guilt than pleasure from him now, but he'd had fun at the time. More recent memories were even more painful.

Before he could sink further into depression, there was a disturbance at the door. He took the stairs two at a time, thinking along the way that he'd been spending too much time with Cordelia. A good brood just didn't do for him what it used to do.

The sight that met him at the top of the stairs stopped him in his tracks. Wesley stood at the threshold, a battle axe in his hand, aggression in every line of his body, muscles quivering. Lindsey McDonald, Born-Again Boy who hadn't been quite so born again, stood in the doorway, chin barely clearing the edge of the axe. He looked like hell.

"Keep partying like that and it's gonna kill you, Linds," he offered.

Bloodshot green eyes rolled at him like a spooked horse, then the strangest thing happened. The tough lawyer who specialized in evil whimpered like a little kid and grabbed his head with both hands, doubling over in pain. Wesley barely got the axe out of the way in time to keep from beheading him. Angel stood there in shock, recognizing but rejecting what he saw.

Two hands.

Holding what looked one hell of a lot like a head in the middle of a vision.

"Oh, shit," he breathed. Wesley gave him a shocked look, although he didn't know if it was from seeing Lindsey have a vision or hearing Angel curse. "Grab the Excedrin and a glass of water. And your note pad."

Wesley had the same horrified expression on his face that Angel was sure he had on his own. Please, please, he begged silently in the closest thing he'd come to a prayer since Doyle died, please don't let Lindsey McDonald be my Messenger.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow," Lindsey whined.

Angel reluctantly came forward and picked up the quivering man, dragging him forward and dropping him none too gently onto the small couch they kept in the lobby for clients. Lindsey curled up into the tightest fetal ball Angel had seen in a long time and continued to whimper quietly. Eventually, he started muttering.

Wesley slammed the glass of water and the headache pills on the desk and took out his notebook.

"Thirty four seventeen ow Maricopa. Kid. Ow. Teenager. Ow. Ow. Danger. Ouch. Fuck. Ow."

Angel leaned closer, lifting the hair out of Lindsey's eyes. They were screwed tightly shut, his entire face crumpled in a scowl of pain. "Can you tell us anything else, Lindsey?" he asked, resigned to his fate but not liking it one little bit.

"Ow!" Lindsey actually nuzzled his hand. Angel looked down at him with disbelief. "Pak'tau. Slime. Yuck! OW! Fuck, fuck, fuck."

"The demon or the headache?" Wesley asked reasonably.

Lindsey unscrewed one eye and glared ineffectually at Wesley. Wesley watched him expectantly, one hand poised over the pad, pencil at the ready, the perfect model of an attentive secretary. Lindsey whimpered.

Angel grinned. Okay, this could be fun, in a cruel sort of way. And he hadn't had any really vicious fun since he'd had sex with Buffy ... his brain shut off, the smile disappeared, and he gulped, hard. "So, it's a Pak'tau demon targeting a teenager on Maricopa street."

"Avenue. Ow," Lindsey corrected him.

"You coming?"

"Fuck you!"

Guessed not. "Get the car," he told Wesley, grabbing a pair of hand cuffs from the side drawer of Cordelia's desk and efficiently cuffing Lindsey to the back of the couch. "Don't go anywhere," he cautioned.

Lindsey just lay there and whimpered. It was really rather entertaining, and he wished he had more time to enjoy it. But he had a kid to save and a demon to slay. Work before pleasure, always. Angel sighed, grabbed his sword and his metal spike, and went out to join Wesley in the convertible.

"I don't like it," Wes said, halfway to the rescue site.

"I'm not wild about it, but we can't deal with it now. We've got work to do."

"And when we get back?"

"We beat the truth out of him."

Wesley looked quite happy with that idea.

Forty five minutes of gut-churning demon bashing later, covered in purple ichor and smelling worse than a hot day in the sewers, they headed back to the office.

"You know," Wesley mused, trying to breathe through his mouth so their stench didn't overpower him, "this is becoming almost routine. Perhaps the Powers that Be changed the Messenger because They feared we might be becoming complacent?"

"Maybe," Angel allowed. Maybe not. He had a gut feeling the Powers weren't behind this. Lindsey'd been meddling again, he'd bet on it. Lindsey was always meddling, and every time he did, something got screwed up. His thoughts led him back to Darla, and a moment's depression, then further on to Lindsey's suddenly reappearing hand, and some serious confusion. "What do you know about limb regeneration?"

Wesley looked at him from the corner of his eye. "Lizards can re-grow tails. It doesn't normally work as well with humans. You're thinking of his hand?"

"Hands." Angel slumped in the seat, shook off the headache from the stink of the goop all over his coat, and sighed deeply. "He had two."

"That is a conundrum," Wesley intoned. Angel glared at him.

"He should only have one."

Wes glanced sharply at him. "I hadn't forgotten."

Angel nodded, and let the silence drag out. By the time they got back home he was in a thoroughly foul mood. Perfect for dealing with Mr. McDonald.

Who was sound asleep on the couch, cuffed hand dangling in the air over his head, drooling slightly onto the cushion under his cheek. He looked like he was four years old. Angel grimaced. Wesley took up a defensive stance, axe once more against Lindsey's neck, gore dripping sloppily onto his two hundred dollar shirt. That lightened Angel's mood considerably.

"You might want to stand back a little, Wes," he suggested. "If he jumps, he could cut his own throat, then we'll never get any answers."

Wesley blushed a little and eased off a few inches. Angel leaned forward and rapped Lindsey sharply on the forehead with his knuckles.

Lindsey curled back up into a ball faster than a bug poked with a stick. He whimpered again. Angel looked over and saw the Excedrin, still sitting next to the water glass, just out of Lindsey's reach.

"Oops." He tapped less sharply atop Lindsey's head, and one eye peeked out over a shielding arm at him, through a fall of brown hair. "Want something for the headache?"

The eye blinked. Appeared to be considering it. Blinked again. The head nodded. Both eyes surfaced as Lindsey unwrapped his arm from around his head. Angel dropped the pills in Lindsey's free hand, watched him as he put them in his mouth, and held the glass while he drank. Lindsey fell back, tentatively, against the cushions.

"Thanks," he rasped.

"All part of the service. What are you doing here, when did the visions start, and where'd you get the new hand?"

Lines of stress and pain smoothed out on Lindsey's face as his eyes opened wide and he grinned up at Angel. "The cross examination begins."

Wesley lowered the axe. Lindsey stopped smiling. Moving very slowly, he raised his left hand to his right, still cuffed to the rail at the back of the couch. Carefully, he pulled the leather glove off his right hand, one finger at a time. Angel stared at it as it was uncovered. Wesley gasped. Lindsey flexed his fingers.

Angel blinked.

It looked familiar. Not the color, necessarily. It was a little too silver. But the flashes of gold, the iridescence, and most especially, the deep blue symbols scrolling across it.

"The Oracles," he whispered.

"Next time," Lindsey growled, "you might want to clean your weapons before you go chopping pieces off of people."

Wesley started to ask something, but the words came out garbled. Angel raised a hand, and Wes fell silent.

"What do you want?" There was no warmth whatsoever in Angel's voice. Lindsey's eyes closed again, and when they opened, they looked directly at Angel, holding a vulnerability he'd never have believed Lindsey capable of feeling.

"You gotta help me." He sounded desperate.

"Again?