Watching Over, an Angel story with Love Song
elements by Glacis. Rated NC17. No copyright
infringement intended to either.
It didn't take him long outside LA to figure
out why Angel'd been hugging his bumper. The second
cop to pull him over was laughing so hard it was a wonder he didn't pee his
too-tight pants.
Cost Lindsey a hundred and seventy bucks to
the county to get out of that one.
He ripped the sign proclaiming to the world
that cops sucked from his tailgate and threw it in the bed of the pickup.
Somewhere between
Lindsey didn't have a plan. He didn't know
where he wanted to be, just where he didn't want to be. LA, for starters. And
he sure as hell wasn't going back to
He may have left on his own terms, but he
was still running, and the little voice inside him refused to call himself anything but a loser. Even if by running, he'd managed to
retain what little was left of his sanity. His life.
Maybe even his soul, if he had one. If he hadn't lost it or
sold it or signed it over. He'd have to wait until he died to know that
for sure. If the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was
If he got really lucky, death would be the
end.
He headed south, not pushing it but not
dawdling either.
There were places on the Riverwalk
where a man could make a decent living with a guitar and a bit of creativity.
The second night he decided he liked it. A week later, his feet were itching
again.
He re-acquainted
Then his feet started to itch again. He had
no idea what was pulling him on, but as long as it did, he followed. He could
afford it. The time was good to him, bringing him slowly back to himself in a
way he thought he'd lost. Further stops to make music in
His feet stopped itching. The nape of his
neck started in.
Whatever it was he'd had to get to, it was
there, in
Not having the faintest fucking clue what he
was supposed to do next, Lindsey followed a tip he'd gotten from an
accomplished bluesman in
He wandered for awhile, soaking it in, then
took a left turn off
"Funky Butt. God, Amasa, what you get
me into." Shaking his head, he pushed through the door and into another
world. It wasn't very big, but it surrounded him and sucked him in completely.
A big black woman draped in bright yellow chiffon was attacking "Born Under a Bad Sign" with a wail that stopped him in his
tracks and made his toes curl. He was grinning like a madman before he made it
to the bar. "The things you get me into," he muttered again, sounding
much happier than he had out on the sidewalk. He sank onto a stool and leaned
an elbow on the bar.
"Who gettin' you in what, sugar?" The man sitting
beside him at the bar must have been eighty if he was a day, and from the look
of his hands, had been playing something with strings since he was born.
"Trouble, sir, nothin'
but trouble," he answered automatically. "Friend of mine name of Amasa sent me this way. Said I'd feel
right at home."
And he did. The mind-bending vocal artistry
behind him made him close his eyes and drift for a moment. When he opened them
up again, the old man was grinning at him as madly as he knew he must be
grinning back. Before he could get another word out, a man roughly the size of
a house grabbed him in a hug that lifted him clean off the stool and nearly
squeezed him in half.
"Billy-boy! What you done to your hair? Sheared you off like a
sheep!"
Lindsey found himself turned, deposited on
the stage, and pushed over next to the woman, who'd stopped making that
incredible noise. The man-bear growled happily, "Marva , baby, look who I brung ya!"
Reaching over to Lindsey with both hands,
she pulled him in for a kiss that stole what little air he had left after the
abuse to his ribcage and his quick dispatch to the stage.
"Billy, honey, why didn't you tell me
you'd be here tonight? And where's that woman o' yours?"
His mouth opened. Closed.
Woman? Hair? Billy? The truth
hit him like a rock between the eyes and he stood there, mouth
hanging slightly open, feeling like a complete moron. Of course, it
wasn't the first time he'd been mistaken for his twin. But since he hadn't laid
eyes on his brother in over ten years, this particular mix-up took him by
surprise. So much for hiding where nobody knew who he was. Before he could get
his wits together and protest that he wasn't who they thought he was, somebody
shoved a guitar in his hands, and the lady herself tugged him over to the
microphone.
She didn't bother introducing him.
Apparently, Billy was no stranger to their stage. Then the sax behind him gave
a riff, and the band eased into "What'd I Say," and Lindsey found
himself going with the flow. Ray Charles had always been more Billy's speed
than Lindsey's, but he knew his classics, and with Marva
carrying him along, they had a great time.
Not surprisingly, by the end of the song Marva was shooting him questioning looks. He hadn't sung
badly, so he knew it wasn't that. He smiled at her. Her eyes narrowed. She took
a minute step away, not enough to alarm the audience, and finished the song
note by note in harmony with him.
When they finished, he looked around for
somewhere to put the guitar, ducking his head a little at the audience hooting
and clapping, but paying more attention to the intent look Marva
was giving him. She turned to the crowd, gave them a twenty-four carat grin,
and called, "Back in ten, darlins!"
Once they were clear of the crowd, she
leaned in and gave him a concerned look. "Honey, what's wrong with you
tonight? You sound beautiful, but you don't sound like you." She
took the guitar from him and handed it to a member of the band who was passing
them on his way to the bar.
"I'm not exactly the man you think I
am, Marva," he said gently. Before he could give
her an explanation to wipe away the totally confused look on her face, all his
internal sensors went off at once.
Magic. Close. Perhaps demonic in origin.
Definitely focused on him.
Instinctively, he moved in front of Marva, taking a protective stance. In that instant, the
intensity lessened, and he actually felt the change from actively hostile to
guardedly neutral. But he didn't have time to worry about it.
A second presence was also on the scene, and
it wasn't the least bit ambivalent. Dark magic of the homicidal kind was loose
in the club, and it was coming toward Lindsey. He turned just as his brother
came up behind him.
"Hi, Billy," Lindsey tossed at him
absently, scanning behind him for the threat. With his attention elsewhere, he
never saw the punch coming. Marva barely got out of
the way before he ricocheted off the wall where she'd been standing seconds
before.
"What on God's green Earth -- " she stuttered. Billy stepped over to stand, fists
on hips, glowering down at Lindsey.
"What the hell are you doing
here?" he spat.
Lindsey didn't have time to tell him. Still
going on instinct, he reached up, grabbed hold of his twin's wrist, and yanked
him to the floor at the same time that he leapt to his feet. Putting his trust
in the protective wards he'd relied on to save his life for the past decade, he
planted his feet solidly and raised his left hand, palm outward. The silver
bracelet around his wrist glinted dully in the low light.
Something with power behind it hit him hard
enough to jar him despite his ready stance. The spell shattered, scattering in
a useless shower of invisible sparks around him, an instant before it would
have impacted his brother. Right in the middle of the back.
Lindsey knew from the bone-deep ache left over from the magic the bracelet had
absorbed that the shock of it would have been lethal.
He wasn't aware of the feral snarl on his
face as he searched for the attacker, but the few onlookers who did glance at
him looked away again quickly. Lindsey concentrated on the trail of malevolent
power, weakening now as the attacker disappeared. The first power he'd sensed
didn't disappear, though; it grew stronger until he looked into the
midnight-dark eyes of a petite woman in her sixties, standing bare inches from
him.
"You being Ayza,
now, boy?" she asked softly. He could see centuries in her eyes. Just what he didn't need in the middle of what was already shaping
up to be an unpleasant family reunion; the local Vodoun
priestess getting caught up in the mess.
"Nothing you need to be concerned
about, Mambo," he replied respectfully. She smiled at him, a whole lot of
wolf in the expression, but before she could call him on it, Billy got back up
off the floor and started to take up where he'd left off. Lindsey sighed and
turned to face his brother. Billy's hair was falling in his face, his eyes were
blazing, his fists were clenched. He looked ten years
younger than Lindsey, not the three minutes Lindsey knew him to be. Lindsey
couldn't help smiling.
Bad move.
Billy swung at him and Lindsey reacted
before he could check himself. Then Billy was on his knees on the floor, his
arm twisted behind his back, calling Lindsey names neither of them had even
thought in years. Lindsey started to snarl back when the holy woman shut them
both up.
"Boys." The single word carried all the weight of a gavel
slamming on a bench. Billy looked away from Lindsey and immediately stopped
struggling. Lindsey gave him some slack in return, loosening his hold on
Billy's arm.
"Mama Azula!
I'm sorry, I didn't know you were here."
Her eyes warmed along with her smile as she
reached over and patted Billy's cheek gently. Then her hand raised
slowly and approached Lindsey's face.
He let go of Billy abruptly and stepped back
two paces, out of her reach. "You don't want to go there, Mambo."
She recognized the warning for what it was,
but reached for him anyway. He couldn't step back any further. His back was
already against the wall.
"You got the left hand of Ayza on you, child, but your
heart's still got some light. This boy gonna need all
the light you got."
Her fingers felt like brands against his
skin. He started to shiver, unable to break away from her gaze. Her eyes were
sharp, judging him.
"You gonna
need it too. You got a battle ahead of you, child. Don't you get so lost in the
gray you can't find your way out when you need to." Then she touched his
forehead with her fingertips, and for an instant everything in the world was
clear. Where he was, why he was there, what he had to do. Who he was and how he
could make it back to himself. And why he had to try.
Then her hand was gone, and with it the
clarity of vision. She was nodding, and there was a bare edge of warmth in the
smile she gave him. Reserving judgment, then, not yet ready to condemn or
condone. He could live with that. At least she was giving him the benefit of
the doubt.
Most people didn't. Hell, even most dead
people didn't.
Shaking off thoughts of Angel, Lindsey
watched her give Billy a kiss on the cheek, pat Marva's
hand, and disappear into the crowd like smoke dissipating in the wind. Feeling
a little shaken, both from the encounter with the holy woman and the attack
from the unknown hostile, he wasn't ready when Marva
shook his shoulder and demanded, "Who are you?"
Billy answered for him. "He's
nobody." A world of pissed off in two short words. Lindsey gave him a
sardonic look.
"Nobody important," he agreed
softly. "Just Billy's big brother." Billy snorted, unimpressed. For a
moment, Lindsey missed the closeness of their childhood, when it had been
Lindsey and Billy against the world. Until Lindsey had run away, leaving Billy
to face the music, and cutting himself off from his twin with as much finality
as he had cut himself off from his past. He'd thought he had a reason, a
lifetime ago.
In retrospect, it wasn't much of one.
"Can I talk to you, Billy?" He
concentrated on his brother, closing out the world. Billy looked at him
distrustfully.
"We got nothing to say to one
another."
Lindsey opened his mouth to refute that
statement when Billy turned on his heel and started to stomp off. A few strides
away he whirled back. "Stay the hell away from me. I don't want anything
to do with you, and neither does anybody I care about. So just get out of here
and go back to hell where you came from!"
With another precise turn on his boot-heel,
Billy showed Lindsey his back and stomped all the way out of the club. Lindsey
looked around the now completely-silent club. Everyone was staring at him. No
one looked friendly.
"Not quite hell," he said calmly. "Just
By the time he made it to the street through
the crowd of deliberately obstructive, disapproving people, Billy was nowhere
to be seen. Lindsey let out his breath in a long, slow sigh. Something was
wrong in the Big Easy, and it was centered around his
brother. It might be Billy. Might have something to do with
the Vodoun priestess who was watching over his
brother. Might just be random demons with a distaste
for white country boys singing the blues.
He had a sinking feeling it had nothing to
do with any of these things, and everything to do with the past he'd left
behind. The second time, when he'd walked out of Hell and
Enough innocents had suffered because of
Lindsey McDonald. It was time for it to stop.
He expected nightmares, maybe even an
attack, that night. He took precautions, set out wards, wove spells. Laid down fully dressed except for his shoes, next to the bed.
Dagger and gun beneath his pillow, mace beside it. He
closed his eyes, waiting for the first warning bell to go off.
The birds calling outside his window the
next morning startled him so badly when they woke him he nearly fell out of
bed.
Not only had there been no attacks, he
hadn't had a dream, much less a portent of doom. No psychic attacks, no
physical attacks, not so much as an attack of indigestion. If it hadn't been
for the ache in his jaw where Billy'd slugged him, a
slight headache centered in his forehead and the residual ache in his left arm,
he'd've thought the previous night's activities had
been all in his mind.
Idly watching the sidewalk artists setting
up in
Ballsy bastard.
True, most people couldn't see past its
human guise, so it wasn't taking that big a risk. But Lindsey knew what he was
looking at. Reaching for the sharpened steel pike strapped along his calf, he
threw some bills on the table and took out as stealthily as possible after the Grolek. As it turned out, there were some similarities
between
Lindsey saw two shadows matching his pace
with his peripheral vision. They were all heading the same place, triangulating
in on the same target. He didn't know if it was the Grolek,
or what the Grolek was hunting. Either way, it didn't
matter. He'd deal with what he had to deal with when he had to deal with it.
His neck was itching again and he had a bad feeling in his belly. It wasn't the
beignets.
It was Billy.
His oblivious brother and a gorgeous black
woman a few years younger than he were wandering hand in hand down
"Billy!" he screamed. His mouth
didn't move. As had happened a few times before in his life,
his twin heard him without him having to make a sound. Responding to the
warning, Billy grabbed the woman and threw her to the sidewalk. Lindsey had to
smile at her indignant squawk even as the pike was flying from his own hand,
taking the Grolek between the shoulder blades, one of
the few unarmored parts of its body.
Grolek didn't have many vulnerabilities.
Fortunately it wasn't the first one Lindsey had killed, so he knew where to
aim.
The woman's squawk had softened to an angry,
confused grumble by the time Lindsey caught up to them. The Grolek
had dissolved at the impact of the steel, leaving nothing behind but a smear of
light amber fluid and a blunted pike lying on the ground. Lindsey smoothly
picked it up and shoved it down the back of his waistband, praying it wouldn't
slip. He really didn't need a foot-long pike drenched in demon goo sliding around in his underwear.
Billy ignored him completely and helped the
woman to her feet. Lindsey patiently waited for her to get situated, glancing
around for the others he'd glimpsed converging on the scene of the attack. They
seemed to have disappeared now that the threat was gone. That could either mean
that they were after the Grolek, too, and didn't need
to stick around now that it was dead ... or they were waiting for Billy to be
unprotected again.
Wasn't going to happen.
The woman peered at him, mouth agape, poking
Billy in the arm. "Who's he?"
Billy muttered something, probably obscene
although Lindsey couldn't hear it clearly, and tried to pull her gently away.
She set her heels and gave him a dirty look. Then she stuck her chin in the
air, gave Lindsey a challenging, heels-to-hairline glare, and asked directly,
"Who are you?"
"Nobody!" Billy forced out, almost overriding Lindsey's
softer, "Lindsey McDonald. Billy's brother."
"Great!" She didn't sound
impressed. Lindsey didn't know if it was with himself or Billy. Maybe both of them. "First a phantom dad, then a mom
who turns out to be a lot nicer than you gave her credit for, now a brother you
never bothered to tell me about?"
Oh. It was Billy she wasn't too happy with.
Lindsey grinned. Billy glared at him, then glanced at
her, abashed.
"He's not worth bothering about."
"He's your mirror image, Billy. A
brother you can forget about, if you try hard enough. An
identical twin? Seems to me that'd be a little harder
to forget!"
Billy looked directly at Lindsey, letting
all his scorn show. "Not if you try hard enough."
Lindsey winced. "Please, Billy. We need
to talk." He glanced at the woman. "I'm sorry,
I don't know who you are." If you can be trusted, he thought. She stepped
around Billy, brushing off his attempt to get between them, and held her hand
out. She had a firm grip.
"Camille Livingston Ryan, Mr. McDonald.
And how did Billy Ryan and Lindsey McDonald get to be twin brothers with
different daddies?"
Billy growled, "McDonald's momma's
maiden name." Giving up on corralling his wife, he stepped up beside her
and glared at Lindsey. "What do you want?"
"You're in danger," Lindsey told
him bluntly. "I've been in town less than a day and there have been two
attacks on you already."
His brother looked at him like he'd lost his mind. Camille didn't look any more
convinced. Apparently they hadn't seen the Grolek
before he'd killed it. Lindsey sighed.
"Did you know you have a Vodoun priestess keeping you under her protection?"
Camille looked at Billy. Billy looked at
Lindsey. "Mama Azula's a friend from way back.
Her being around doesn't have anything to do with any danger."
"Where'd you see Mama Azula?" Camille asked him. Billy looked down at his
boots.
"Funky Butt," he said almost under
his breath.
Camille's eyes widened. Lindsey watched the
by-play with interest. "What in the world was she doing in a place like
that?"
Billy looked over at her, defensiveness
written in every line of his posture. "It's a nice place!"
She didn't look like she was buying it. "For a blues joint, yeah. Not a place Mama Azula usually hangs out." Billy shrugged. Lindsey
broke in.
"That's what I'm trying to tell you.
There's a threat."
"Funny how it showed up the same time
you did," Billy accused him. Lindsey ground his teeth. The accusation rang
true. "Far as I can see, the only trouble I got is you, just like always,
and if you just fuck off, then I won't have to worry about it!" By the
time he finished, he was practically screaming the words in Lindsey's face.
Lindsey stood there and took it. Camille looked like she was in shock.
"Please," Lindsey said very
quietly, in the wake of the hurricane that was his brother's temper. "Be
careful."
"Go to hell!"
With that, Billy took Camille's hand and
pushed past Lindsey, dragging her gently behind him. She threw Lindsey a
wide-eyed look but didn't argue with her husband. Lindsey had the feeling she
was going to have a nice long talk with Billy later, but he also knew where her
loyalties were. If he couldn't get through to Billy, then he
couldn't count on Camilla, and he had two people to look after, not one.
Life kept getting more and more interesting.
The third attack nearly killed him. Billy
was heading into a little club on Dumaine when
Lindsey lost sight of him. For an instant, his attention was diverted from the
spell he was barely holding steady, and the surges of psychic energy he'd been
repelling from his brother broke through his shield.
It felt like snakes were feeding on his
brain.
Venom flowed down the inside of his skull.
His fingers curled, but he kept from clawing out his own eyes by the
exceptional application of sheer will. Beneath the agony he felt his nerves
twitch with sense memory. There was something intimately familiar about the
attack. He'd seen it before.
He'd used it before.
He barely kept back a scream, concentrating
fiercely on his chant, hoping all the time that he'd identified the source
correctly and it really was Egyptian hieroglyphs he'd seen tattooed on the
demon's hand. "Emshee!
Mat! Emshee min hena! Inshallah, emshee! Mat!"
Lindsey could feel his strength draining
away. Only desperation was keeping him on his feet. Then the venom from the
snakes darting at him through his eyes and mouth suddenly diluted. Weaving
around his chant was a second, minor key spell sung in a language he vaguely
recognized as Yoruba. The only words he could make out were "caplata," "Dambala,"
"Aida-wedo" and "Ayza."
In response to the infusion of strength his
chant steadied, and the attacks eased off until they were bearable again.
Gulping for breath between words, he turned his head and caught dark eyes
staring at him from the shadows of the building across the street. The holy
woman stared back at him, her mouth moving, her hands floating gently in front
of her body.
He looked away and actually saw, for the
first time, a protective barrier around the entryway and windows to the club.
It shimmered in blue, orange, gold and green, sealing the club, stopping the
attack dead at the threshold. His voice died in his throat. The last of the
stinging bites loosened in his mind, and his breath caught on a sob.
They'd won. He'd nearly lost.
He had the answer to his question.
Billy was the target of opportunity. Lindsey
was the ultimate target. Looked like once a man belonged to Wolfram and Hart,
he never left.
Ever.
The next two weeks he waged a losing battle.
He knew he was losing, could feel it every time one of the minions of his
ex-employers came close to killing his brother. Every time his personal
defenses slipped and the attack instantly switched targets, every time he went
back to his hotel room a little more drained, a little weaker. Mama Azula saved Billy's life, and on occasion saved Lindsey's,
but her powerful Loa were centered on Billy and Camille. Lindsey was still on
probation as far as the Vodoun priestess was
concerned, and he couldn't blame her.
After all, if it wasn't for Lindsey, Billy
wouldn't be in danger.
For a brief, insane moment he considered
leaving, but he knew it wouldn't do any good. Even before he'd realized why he
was heading to
They'd kill Billy first.
So Lindsey did what he could, where he
could, when he could, and tried not to think about the fact that he was losing
not only the battles, but the war.
"We're going where?" Wesley
sounded incredulous.
"
"Excuse me," Cordelia
broke in loudly. "Who's the Seer, here? Oh, that rhymes. Anyway, you can't
go without me. How would you know where to go?"
Before Angel could answer her, a vision --
the third in the past four days, all with the same gory subject matter --
smacked her between the eyes and knocked her off her feet.
Again.
Snakes everywhere, and God, but she hated
snakes. They were biting a man, who was naked and bleeding but still fighting,
waving his hands, flames flying from his fingertips. Each time she saw him the
flames got thinner and died faster.
Probably not a good sign.
The snakes were biting and they stung like
crazy. Her brain felt like it was melting and she really should know this guy
but he wouldn't look up, kept looking at the snakes, not that she could blame
him. She was doing a lot of looking at the snakes herself. She really, really
hated snakes. More than Indiana Jones did, she hated snakes.
There were other people there, but the were on the edge of the snake pit. Another man, bleeding
in places but not knowing it, hair falling in his face, his back turned to the
man in the pit. A woman, glowing so much Cordelia
couldn't tell what she looked like, just a white-blue-orangey light that made
her brain hurt, as if it didn't hurt enough with all the damned snakes. Another woman, a pretty black woman hiding behind the man with the
long hair. And music, eerie screamy
music, like somebody was playing Iggy Pop and Nine
Inch Nails backward with a lot of saxophones being tortured to death in the
background.
It was one of her weirder visions.
She could feel Angel's cool chest under her
cheek, and it felt good, because she felt like she was burning up, and he was a
nice cool wall to lie against so when she actually did catch on fire he could
put her out. The snakes were crawling up her arms and legs, and the bites were
sharp, and they hurt. Then she was in the pit, but for once she wasn't the man,
she was in front of him, and his face lifted to hers, and his mouth was open
and his eyes were closed. She leaned forward to kiss him and his mouth closed
and his eyes opened and they were bright blue and full of pain, then streaming
red, and he was dying from the inside out, and she knew him.
"Lindsey!" She didn't know she
screamed. She didn't know anything, because she'd passed out, and finally,
finally the damned snakes went away.
Angel climbed out of the trunk in a dark
alley a few blocks away from the French Quarter. Wesley smirked as he brushed
the wrinkles out of his clothes but maintained a dignified silence when Angel
raised a brow at him. Gunn sprawled at his ease in the back seat, nodding his
head in absent response to something Cordelia was
gushing about from the passenger seat.
"Food?" asked Angel in an aside to
Wes. Wesley shook his head.
"Shopping."
"Of course. What was I thinking?"
"Food's next, no doubt." Wes
sounded more than a little enthused about that prospect himself.
Angel walked over to lean on the side of the
car next to Gunn. Cordelia must have been going on
for awhile, making the trip seem longer than it actually was, and that was
plenty long enough. Gunn actually looked kind of happy to see him.
"So, we gonna
hit some spots first?" he asked Angel, cutting across Cordelia's
paean of praise for the jewelry stores in the French Quarter.
"Jewelry?" Angel asked Gunn. Then to Cordy,
"They sell jewelry? I thought they did touristy stuff."
Cordelia sniffed at him. "They do everything in
"Uhm, guys,
we do have a mission, you know. Might be a good idea to -- "
Cordelia let out a muffled shriek and curled
up in a ball, nearly conking herself on the dashboard in the process. " --
find out what's up with that," Angel finished, holding on to Cordelia's head as she thrashed about, blessing vampiric speed for getting to her before she managed to
really hurt herself.
"Music, ouch," she whimpered. An
address on
They made an odd little group as they rushed
through the crowded streets, but few people gave them a second look. A
frail-looking woman held up by one dark and two very pale men was not, apparently,
an uncommon sight in the French Quarter. Of course, the fact that Cordelia was dressed in very little and was draped
artistically in Gunn's arms no doubt helped. Anyone who wondered probably
thought she charged by the hour and gave a group discount.
Angel shook off the thought and the internal
snicker that accompanied it, concentrating on lurking threats. There was the
taste of strange magic in the air, hot and humid and heavy on his tongue,
unlike anything he'd ever tasted. It made his fangs itch in his gums, even
though it felt benevolent and didn't seem to be directed at him. It did,
however, get stronger the closer they got to the site of Cordelia's
vision.
From the outside the place didn't look like
much. A tiny bar in a row of other tiny bars, people wandering past with drinks
in their hands and smiles on their faces. Happy or pretending
damned hard to be. Angel went through the door first, then
stopped dead a few paces inside.
Lindsey was up on-stage, with a full band
backing him and a lovely black woman crooning along beside him. His hair looked
different, way too long, and he didn't have his bracelet on. He was wearing a
tank top and tight jeans, and sweat was dripping along his collarbone. For an
instant Angel was hit with hunger so strong his knees nearly buckled, and it
took him a moment to figure out that it wasn't bloodlust as much as it was the
pure need to run his tongue along that line of sweat all the way up and all the
way down.
Angel blinked.
There was no scar around Lindsey's right forearm.
And the woman was kissing him between
lyrics.
Now, Angel believed that Lindsey could find
a band, a woman, and a gig in the month or so he'd been gone. He might even get
a hair weave. But there was no way the scar would just disappear.
Ergo, his early education asserted, this
must not be Lindsey.
Angel swung around to see his various
friends all standing staring slack-jawed at the stage. Caught up in the
performance of the man they thought they recognized but didn't, because it
wasn't him, they completely missed the real Lindsey leaning against the wall
next to the front door.
Staring at the stage.
Scar and all.
Not only that, Lindsey's hands were moving,
and so was his mouth. He wasn't playing air guitar and he wasn't singing under
his breath. He was weaving spells. Protective enchantments
from the look of them, and every one of them was aimed at the boy who
looked just like him up on the stage.
Angel slipped around his friends, now acting
ridiculously like groupies, and walked over to Lindsey.
"I didn't know you were into
cloning," he said sweetly.
Lindsey jumped six inches in the air.
Interestingly, neither his chant nor his hands missed a beat. Angel took
advantage of his erstwhile enemy's distraction to stare closely at him.
He looked like hell.
There were lines at the corners of his eyes
and bracketing his mouth that hadn't been there when Angel had ushered him out
of LA. His eyes were bright, but it was a feverish brightness, not a healthy
light. He'd lost weight he couldn't afford to lose, and his clothes hung on
him, giving the impression that a stiff wind would knock him over. There were
hollows at his temples, under his cheekbones, and along his throat.
If the boy on the stage made Angel hungry,
Lindsey made him absolutely ravenous.
Stamping down the inappropriate reaction, at
least until they'd gotten to the bottom of Cordelia's
recently-acquired preoccupation with snakes, he leaned closer. From the sound
of it, and the slowing of the hand motions, Lindsey was winding down. Probably a good thing. His voice was starting to break. If
Angel was any judge, and after several decades of torturing people until their
voices gave out he was, Lindsey had been chanting for awhile.
"What the fuck do you want?"
Lindsey whispered at him. Angel leaned closer. The whisper was thready.
You, he almost answered, but caught himself
in time. "Cordy had a vision." He offered
another truth instead. "You were the star. Well, you and a bunch of
snakes." Lindsey started but controlled it well. Angel continued nastily,
"Personally I don't know how she could tell the difference, but she did
pick you out of the lineup, so here we are."
"Shit!" Lindsey hissed, much like
one of the snakes Cordy had reported seeing. Then he
shoved past Angel, heading for the stage. His movements weren't as graceful as
they usually were, and he stumbled. Angel caught him automatically.
He was trembling.
It wasn't only exhaustion, although he was
definitely at the end of his rope. He was also under attack. Angel could feel
the energy sliding over his own skin, seeking and finding entrance into
Lindsey. The power sizzling through the magic was dark, soul-sucking, and he
instinctively retreated from it. When he unwrapped his
hands from Lindsey's arms, Lindsey shot past him toward the stage.
Five feet from it, Lindsey collapsed. Up on
stage, so did the boy who looked like him. The woman
shouted and went to her knees beside him. He looked like he was having a
seizure.
Lindsey wasn't moving at all.
Dimly, Angel heard Wesley calling to Gunn
and Cordelia to take his hands. Then he started
chanting, words that sounded familiar to what Lindsey'd
been saying when Angel interrupted him. Angel didn't pay much attention.
He was too busy picking Lindsey up off the
floor and getting him away from whatever the hell it was that was going after
him.
Wesley's voice raised
above the confusion of the bar patrons, yelling at one another and the stage,
adding to the din. A stranger's voice blended with Wes', an equally strong,
liquid-accented melody weaving through Wesley's words. The boy on the stage
stopped convulsing, and the band gathered around until Angel lost sight of him.
Lindsey was lying still against his chest.
Deciding that the clone could look after
himself for awhile, he forced his way through the crowd to stand next to his
friends. Wesley looked pinched about the lips. Gunn and Cordelia
looked unexpectedly tired and more than a little confused. Angel could relate.
"Hey," he greeted them.
They looked down at Lindsey, back at the
stage, then back at Angel, heads moving together as if tied by marionette's
string. Then they all started to ask questions, voices overlapping. Angel shook
his head. There was no time. They had to get out of there.
"C'mon," he urged them. Wes took a
second look at Lindsey lying like a dead man in Angel's arms and started
muttering to himself. Gunn and Cordelia looked at one
another, then flanked Angel as they all turned and
headed for the street. Wesley trailed behind, chanting under his breath. Angel
could still feel the magic, but it was muted now, suffused. It made him feel
slimy.
Had to be Wolfram and
Hart. Nobody else he knew could
make him feel like he needed a bath just by being in the same vicinity. And he
didn't know of anyone else who would want to kill Lindsey.
Along with anyone who had the misfortune to
look like Lindsey.
They made it back to the convertible in good
time. It was a tight, uncomfortable fit. Wesley drove, with Gunn riding shotgun
and Cordelia and Angel in the back seat with Lindsey
curled up on Angel's lap. He was breathing, but he looked even worse than he
had when Angel first saw him, and he hadn't woken up yet.
"Hey, Wes," he called, staring
with some concern down at the top of Lindsey's head, all he could see from that
angle. "What kind of magic does this kind of damage?"
There was a long moment of silence. Gunn was
reaching over to prod him when Wesley threw him a slightly irritated look and
gave Angel an answer. A partial answer, anyway.
"I'm not completely sure. It's a blend,
I think, from what we saw. Attack from more than one quarter,
using more than one type of magic, at the same time. Also, we were
assisted by a mambo, a female Vodun priest -- "
Before he could complete his sentence, Cordelia squeaked. "Voodoo?
Like dolls with pins and zombies and shrunken heads and stuff?" She
sounded as fascinated as she did appalled. Wesley sighed heavily.
"Think
She grumbled back at him, but still sat with
her shoulders hunched up to her ears as if she expected zombies to come out of
the darkness and eat them. Given what she'd fought in
"This mambo strengthened the protective
spell I threw about the young man on the stage. I didn't see Lindsey, or I
would have attempted to assist him as well."
"I think he was doing the same thing
you were." Angel shifted the weight on his lap, ignoring the fact that he
was enjoying it more than he ought. "At least, what he was saying sounded
a lot like what you were saying when he was saying it ..." he trailed off.
Gunn looked at him like he'd lost his mind and Cordy
stared at him like she was the one who was lost. He cleared his throat
again. "Anyway, I think that's what he was doing when I interrupted
him."
"You what?" Cordelia's voice rose an octave on the last word. "All week I'm having
visions of snakes eating him and you come up and knock down the fence?"
"Fence?" Gunn asked. Now he looked lost.
"Metaphorically," Wesley
interjected. All three conscious passengers stared at him. It was his turn to
clear his throat. "Anyway, the important thing now is to get him to a safe
place and find out what's going on with him so that we can put an end to it. Right?"
"Right," slurred a new voice from
the general vicinity of Angel's right shoulder. Although Lindsey quickly
slumped again, he seemed to be breathing a little more easily.
"That's settled, then," Cordelia proclaimed.
"It is?" asked Gunn, glancing back
at Angel. Angel just shrugged and held on to Lindsey. He had a feeling he'd be
doing that a lot in the future.
Somehow, he didn't find the prospect as
daunting as he probably should.
Lindsey knew he'd lost when he woke up, then wondered how'd he'd managed to wake up if he'd lost. Because surely he'd be dead? He looked around for
Not
"Angel?" Incredulous, Lindsey
struggled to sit up. The blanket tucked in tightly around him pinned him to the
cushions and his own weakness betrayed him. Cursing the pounding in his head
and his watery muscles, he subsided back against the couch and glared with all
his might at Angel.
Angel didn't look too impressed. But then,
he never did.
Before Lindsey could ask him what the son of
a bitch was doing in
Slowly, the biting agony eased off as
whatever Wesley was doing wedged a shield between himself
and the attackers. It felt different than the spells the mambo had used, but
then, it wasn't rebounding to him after helping Billy. It was kind of nice to
be the first protected, for a change.
The thought hit him all over again that his
brother wouldn't need to be protected if it wasn't for the fact that the
bastards were after Lindsey, and he buried his face in the cushion and wished
that the world would just go away. It wasn't the first time he'd wished that.
Probably wouldn't be the last. And it wouldn't work.
Wishing never did.
Only hard work and determination ever got
anything done. Giving himself an internal pep talk liberally laced with cuss
words, Lindsey forced himself upright. Dropped his hands to his knees. Pried his eyes open. And
found himself leaning shoulder to shoulder with Cordelia, who looked as wiped out as he felt.
"Damn," he whispered. She opened
one bloodshot eye and stared wildly back at him.
"You can say that again," Gunn
groused. "Thought them damned visions would go away once we saved your
sorry butt. Looks like there's more to it than that."
"His sorry ... he isn't quite saved
yet," Wesley responded. He looked a little frayed around the edges.
Lindsey knew the feeling. Fighting off psychic attacks took a lot out of a man.
"Billy? The
vision?" Urgency prodded him. His twin was in trouble and they were
all sitting on their asses being useless. He tried to lever himself off the
couch and his knees gave before he was upright.
"He's right," Cordelia
proclaimed, jumping up with an ease that made Lindsey want to smack her.
"It was the other one in the vision. He needs help!"
"Him, too?" Gunn looked skeptical.
"Billy's an innocent in this,"
Lindsey growled at him. Wesley nodded, turned on his heel and headed for the
door. Gunn and Cordelia exchanged looks, shrugged and
turned to follow him. At the threshold, Gunn glanced over his shoulder.
"No handy tunnels 'round here. Got another hour or so 'til dark. You gonna
stay with the lawyer, or come with us and make like a torch?" He had a
wicked grin on his face as he teased Angel. The vampire responded exactly as
Lindsey expected.
"While I'd really prefer to
spontaneously combust, I guess I'll stay here and beat out of Lindsey exactly
what's going on."
"Have fun!" Gunn told him and
followed the other two out to take care of the threat to Billy.
Lindsey glared at Angel, who smirked back at
him.
"So, what's going on?" Angel asked
bluntly. Lindsey gritted his teeth and discarded one excessively verbose and
two smart-ass responses before settling on an answer.
"Wolfram and Hart are trying to destroy
me. Not just kill, destroy. They've targeted my twin brother, who I haven't had
any contact with in years, as bait. He's a total innocent in all this. I can
take care of myself," a statement that was becoming more blatantly untrue
with each attack, but he still clung to it, "but Billy needs to be
protected."
"You don't look like you can protect
anybody, much less yourself and your brother." Angel looked him over
critically. "You look like something the cat dragged in. And coughed up."
"Thank you for the complimen
-- " He choked on the words and his eyes rolled
up in his head as his hands clawed at his hair. The goddamned snakes were back,
and he hadn't caught his breath from the first one. Too soon!
The convulsions rocked him back against the
cushions, and this time Angel couldn't hold him still. Lindsey saw through
red-streaked vision as Angel climbed first onto the couch, then on top of him,
wrapping his arms and legs around him, trying to keep him from shaking to pieces.
While he appreciated the thought, it didn't do a hell of a lot of good against
the snakes that were chewing away at his brain.
Then a musical chant wove around him, and
one by one the snakes fell away. The same rainbow of protective energy that had
sealed entry to the club washed over his eyes, cleaning away the blood, leaving
behind peace. For the first time in days, Lindsey completely relaxed as all the
pain bled away.
"Oh, god," he sighed into Angel's
shoulder. "Thank you, Mama Azula."
"Whose mama?" Angel asked, oblivious to the presence behind him
until she answered. Lindsey felt Angel jump.
"That be me,
old one."
Faster than Lindsey's eye could follow,
though he wouldn't claim the same for Azula, Angel
turned, planted himself in front of the couch in a defensive position between
Lindsey and any possible threat, and readied himself for attack. Then he stared
down at the small black woman in the brightly colored dress who barely reached
mid-chest on him, and paused. Lindsey couldn't help grinning. Even Angel's back
looked confused. He could imagine what Angel's face looked like.
"The unholy guardin'
the unholy guardian. That takes some thinkin'
on." Her voice sounded whimsical, but Lindsey heard the steel beneath it.
Holding on to the arm of the couch, he
pulled himself around until he could see both Angel and Mama Azula. Addressing the priestess first, he said sincerely,
"Thank you."
She nodded at him, spared him a brief glance
that was warmer than he expected, and returned her regard to Angel. "You a
strange one, ain't you." It wasn't a question.
Angel shrugged one shoulder and gave her his
most charming smile, not a fang in sight. "I imagine you've seen
stranger." It sounded like a compliment. She cocked her head to one side
and looked him up and down.
"No," she told him abruptly. His
smile wavered. "Never seen one of the undead with the spirit of the living
still in him." Then she glanced over at Lindsey. "Seldom
seen one of the living with so little spirit left to him, neither, so you two
be makin' a good pair."
"We're not a pair," Lindsey
protested automatically at the same time Angel asked, "A pair of
what?"
She smiled, the
flash of teeth startling in her solemn face. "You two of
a kind, children. Only way you gonna make it
through this is side by side." The smile disappeared, and her eyes
darkened. Lindsey shivered. Angel instinctively edged closer to him, although
whether it was to protect him or hide behind him, Lindsey didn't know.
"You can't kill the beast by cutting off his hands. You got to go to the
heart. Cut it out, or you will never know peace, and the blood of innocents
will be on your hands."
Once again showing the worst timing, because
Lindsey really wanted to question Azula now that
she'd started talking to him, the door to the suite broke open and four Tasker demons rushed in. If he'd had any doubts, seeing the
Firm's favorite thugs out for blood would have dismissed them. Angel threw himself into the fray, and bodies started tumbling
everywhere. Behind the Taskers was a Muhlaw sorcerer, and Lindsey yelled, "Shit!" as
he hastily gathered what little magical strength he had left to counter the
attack he knew was coming.
A small, very strong hand on his right wrist
stopped him. It burned where the fingers brushed his scar. He looked down at
it, then over at Azula's face. She looked sympathetic
and revolted. He understood both reactions.
"You help your man," she
instructed him. "I take care of the serpent." Then she took her hand
off his arm and turned to face the Muhlaw.
Not stopping to think about Angel either
being his or needing his help, Lindsey left her to it. She was more than
capable. Grabbing a lamp from a nearby end table as a makeshift club, he waded
into the fight until he was at Angel's back. Over the sound of demons roaring,
furniture and bones breaking, and his own harsh panting, Lindsey heard the
reassuringly steady flow of the priestess calling on her Loa for help and
protection, offering them the blood of the hostile demons in return.
The thought struck Lindsey as he was ducking
out of the way for Angel to stab one of the Taskers
with another one's horn that he was glad it wasn't a full-on ritual. He'd hate
to have to sit down to the feast afterward. Tasker
tasted like crap. Or should, if the blood splashed across his
face was any indication.
With two down and two to go, Lindsey took up
a discarded hand ax and swung it over his head, distracting one of the
remaining Taskers. Avoiding the serrated scales along
its back, Lindsey grabbed its torso with both hands and swung it around, using
it as a shield between himself and the last one. Angel
snarled, game face coming out as he used all his strength to wrench his
opponent's armored head completely around on its neck. The dull snap echoed
through the room. The last demon turned on him, finally giving Lindsey access
to the only vulnerable spot on a Tasker -- the small
of the back where the heart beat. One hack with all his weight behind it and
the Tasker fell with a spray of purple blood at
Angel's feet.
Both turned to face the Muhlaw
sorcerer, caught in a web of his own spells turned against him by the Vodoun holy woman. Angel kicked out and the sorcerer's jaw
shattered. Before he could follow up, a vortex formed around him. Lindsey lunged sideways and caught Angel, pulling him back from the
swirl of magic. They landed in a heap together on the floor, barely out of
range as the Muhlaw was literally sucked away, back
to the dimension where he belonged. If the lack of light in his eyes was any
indication it wouldn't do him any good. He'd been dead before his return
journey began.
"Get off me," Angel grumbled.
Lindsey tore his eyes from the door and glanced around the trashed hotel room
looking for Mama Azula. She was nowhere in sight. He
didn't move. He was perfectly comfortable right where he was lying.
Inhumanly strong hands lifted him straight
up in the air, and Lindsey finally glanced down at Angel. "You like
lifting weights?" Angel sneered at him.
"You don't weigh anything. You're a
feather. What, Wolfram and Hart freeze your bank account
so you've been starving?"
Lindsey shrugged carelessly, not an easy
thing to do half-draped and half-suspended over another person, but he managed.
"Not hungry much lately."
"Too busy spreading your misfortune
around to bother with eating?" Angel asked him with another irritating
smirk. Lindsey didn't see any humor in the truth.
The truth could well get his brother killed.
Fighting Angel's hold, Lindsey growled,
"Get the fuck away from me! Let me go!"
The look on Angel's face was priceless.
"What?" he asked uncertainly. He didn't let go, however. Lindsey
could feel the bruises coming up already from where Angel's fingers were
clamped around his arms.
"Not that you give a shit, but I've
been doing everything I can to make damned sure my brother doesn't pay for my
sins -- again! -- and I'm losing the god-damned battle, hell, the whole fuckin' war -- " To Lindsey's horror, he started to
choke up, and he could feel tears coming to his eyes. There was no way in hell
he wanted anyone to see him this weak, especially Angel, and he lowered his
head, fighting as hard as he could, kicking and wriggling to get away.
"Lindsey." Angel's voice was more gentle than he'd ever heard it. Lindsey couldn't take
gentleness. Not now. Not without coming completely undone. He clenched his jaw
and struggled harder. "Stop it," Angel told him, still gently. Then
his arms moved, drawing him down against Angel's chest. "Stop it now,
Lindsey. It's okay. You can stop fighting now."
"Can't," Lindsey muttered. It was
muffled against the side of Angel's neck. "Can't ever
stop fighting. They'll win then and Billy'll
be dead and maybe Camille too and they didn't do anything to deserve this -- "
Long fingers caught him under the chin,
raising his face until he was looking at Angel as he babbled, unable to stop
himself now that he'd started. Angel stared first at his lips, then at his
eyes. Lindsey tried to bite his tongue, tried to stop showering Angel with
details the vampire had made clear didn't matter, when Angel leaned forward and
licked the trail of a tear from the underside of Lindsey's jaw to the corner of
his eye.
Lindsey's voice broke.
Angel didn't pull back, but repeated the
action on the other side of his face, cleaning away Lindsey's tears with his
tongue. Lindsey realized he was panting when it was all he could hear, and he
gulped air, trying to calm himself down. Angel drew back far enough to look in
his eyes again, then leaned down and kissed him, just as he was opening his
mouth to ask Angel what the devil he thought he was doing.
From the feel of it, Angel knew exactly what
he was doing. Lindsey didn't. Angel kissed like he fought, with everything he
had, using centuries of skill. His tongue invaded precisely, overcoming any
resistance Lindsey might have given before Lindsey could think to give it. His
hands followed suit, soothing where they had confined, supporting with
restrained strength. Lindsey found himself conquered before he knew he was in
danger of invasion.
His shirt had been torn in the fracas with
the Tasker demons, and Angel made the most of the
tears. Slipping two fingers under Lindsey's collar, he ripped the shirt from
neck to hem with one sharp tug. Lindsey grunted with surprise, the sound
swallowed by Angel's questing tongue. Then those cool, strong hands were
exploring his chest, gliding over muscles, thumb rubbing circles over a nipple,
fingers sliding along his ribs, firmly enough to caress and not tickle.
The stray thought struck him that this was
inevitable, that he and Angel had been shadow-boxing around this from the
moment they'd met, and that it was fitting that they should finally come
together on the floor in the midst of carnage from a battle with hostile demons
after fighting for their lives. Carpet rubbed against his skin and Lindsey
opened eyes he didn't remember closing to look up at Angel.
Three things came to him simultaneously.
Angel had turned them over and was now lying over Lindsey, stropping against
him like a huge cat. Somewhere along the line Angel'd
gotten Lindsey's pants and his own open, and the contrasting heat of Lindsey's
erection against the cool firmness of Angel's was quickly driving him insane.
And with the kind of luck he'd been having with timing lately, this would be
the perfect moment for Wesley, Cordelia and Gunn to
traipse in, probably with Billy, Camille and Mama Azula
along for the show.
Then Angel took hold of Lindsey's erection
and began to move his hand, and every thought Lindsey had imploded into a tiny
white light at the center of his brain. He was coming before he was ready, his
head falling back and Angel's mouth at his throat. No fangs,
and he didn't know whether to be thankful or regretful for that.
Angel held him through the shaking that
followed, moving against him, and Lindsey reached down, wrapping his fingers
around Angel and squeezing gently. Angel growled, a short, cut-off sound, and
Lindsey automatically squeezed harder until he was tugging almost brutally on
Angel's erection. If he'd thought about it he might have been appalled. As it
was, Angel hissed, "yes!" at him and jerked
against him, and it was finished.
Trying to breathe under a couple hundred
pounds of literal deadweight, Lindsey stared up at the ceiling and absently
licked the spill off his palm. It tasted odd, thin, coppery.
Not like his own, or the few men he'd gone down on. He kept licking. When his
hand was clean, he dropped it to Angel's shoulder and rubbed the bunched
muscles there soothingly. The silence asked for explanation. Since he had none to
give for the present, he gave one for the past. Not that Angel asked, or,
apparently, cared. But he had to get the words out, for himself if no one else.
"We were sharecropper's kids," he
told the ceiling softly. Angel didn't even twitch. "Momma had enough after
the baby died, and she took off with Emily and Kathleen. Billy and I were
older. We could take care of ourselves."
"How old were you?" Angel's voice was as quiet as
his own. It blended with his tale, a continuation, not an interruption.
"Eleven," he answered. Angel
shifted, wrapping his arms loosely around Lindsey. "We moved around a lot,
wherever there was work. Me and Billy against the world.
When Daddy couldn't get work in the fields he'd sing in whatever bar would let
him. Time I was sixteen, I knew I had to get out of
there. Billy said we should stay. First time we ever really fought." The
memory of that single, soul-destroying rift made his eyes sting, fifteen years
later.
"Didn't have any
money, so I stole some. Broke
into the safe at the farm we were working on. Didn't know they had a
surveillance camera. Took off that night." He had
to swallow before he could go on. Angel's arms tightened a fraction around him.
Lindsey's hand rubbed circles on Angel's shoulder.
"Three years later I got into law
school. Tried to find Billy to let him know I'd made it. He was serving
"Exchanged one hell for another,"
Angel suggested. Lindsey took a deep breath.
"By the time I was in solid with the
Firm Billy'd been paroled. I tracked down an address
for him, sent a draft for the entire amount of money I'd stolen plus twenty per
cent to him, no return address. It took him almost a year before he got
desperate enough to cash it." The breath came out in a rush. "He knew
blood money when he saw it. I had no more contact with him until I came to
"I bet it wasn't the easiest
reunion." Angel shifted against him until Lindsey had to meet his eye.
Lindsey chuckled, a bitter little sound.
"He knocked me flat on my ass."
Lindsey met Angel's wry grin with one of his own. "Then I had to toss him
on his in order to get him out of the way of a psychic attack. Since then, he's
refused to talk to him. And no," he tapped Angel hard on the shoulder to
stop the question he could see forming on Angel's lips, "I don't blame
him. I blame myself. I got us into this mess and I'll get us out of it."
Angel leaned forward and kissed him again.
When Lindsey caught his breath, he asked as indignantly as he could -- not
very, since he was winded -- "What was that for?"
"You got us into this mess but we'll
get us out." Angel looked pleased with himself.
Lindsey scowled at him.
"Look, just 'cause we fooled around a
little -- "
Angel moved against him again, more
urgently, catching him by surprise and taking away what little breath he had.
"This is more than fooling around a little, Lindsey," Angel informed
him. "This is something ..." he trailed off and Lindsey looked a
question at him. Angel shrugged the shoulder Lindsey wasn't rubbing.
"Well, I don't really know what this is, but it's more than a little, and
neither one of us is fooling."
Lindsey opened his mouth to challenge that
statement, but no words would come. Angel had a point. Lindsey didn't know what
it was, either, but it felt inevitable, which was more than a little
unsettling, given their history. Before he could put his misgivings into words,
Angel stiffened.
"Oh, boy," he muttered, then kissed Lindsey swiftly. "Get dressed. Company's
coming."
They got themselves untangled and scrabbled
for their clothing. Lindsey snorted when he saw what was left of his shirt.
Holding the rags up for Angel's inspection, he shook his head and grinned.
Angel rummaged in his duffel bag.
"Try this." He tossed a tee shirt
Lindsey's way and Lindsey shrugged into it.
They were decently covered if a little
rumpled by the time the gang tromped in the door. Lindsey, at least, was
flushed. Angel looked smug. If he'd been any moreso,
Lindsey thought sourly, he'd be purring. Might as well have a
flashing neon sign over his head saying 'just got laid.'
Happily, Angel's group had seen that look
before in conjunction with mayhem, not sex, so they gave no indication of
noticing anything untoward. Lindsey glanced at the small pile of Tasker corpses he'd completely forgotten while rolling
around on the floor with Angel.
Well, maybe sex wouldn't be the first thing
he'd think of either coming in on that scene. He looked over at Angel.
Then again, maybe it would.
Shaking off his newfound preoccupation, he
asked Wesley, "Is Billy okay?"
"For the moment," Wesley answered.
He sounded as tired as he looked, which was exhausted. Lindsey shot a look at
Gunn, then Cordelia. They looked punchy, and they'd
only been at this for a day. There was no way in hell they were going to win
this war fighting it on this battlefield.
"This isn't going to work," Angel
said, startling Lindsey by echoing his thoughts. Wesley started to look
indignant, and Gunn was ready to back him up on it, when Cordelia
made a noise like a mouse getting stepped on and reeled sideways. Angel was a
blur at Lindsey's side as he moved, and he caught her before she toppled over
onto a Tasker demon. Lindsey's hands and lips were
moving before Angel even got to her.
Just in time.
He didn't know if it was the great sex or
the presence of allies, but the attack was contained fairly quickly. That made
him nervous. He looked over at Wesley, who was looking back at him with a
concerned expression.
"Billy," they said in unison.
Cordelia refused to be left behind, so Gunn helped her to the
car. Night had fallen while they'd been fighting Taskers
and getting naked together, so Angel drove. Lindsey gave directions. Gunn and
Wesley propped Cordelia up between them in the back
seat. She was complaining bitterly, and loudly, about missed shopping
opportunities because of stupid snakes, when they pulled up to the building
where Billy and Camille lived.
They weren't the first on the scene. At each corner of the building stood a man, candles at his feet.
Wesley shivered so hard Lindsey could feel him through the frame of the car.
"The houngan
are on our side," Lindsey told him as they climbed out onto the sidewalk
and headed up the stairs. "Mama Azula is
watching over Billy."
"Whose mama? And what's a hogin?"
Gunn asked, unknowingly echoing Angel's earlier question.
"Not mama," Wesley corrected
absently, staring at the woman who stood waiting for them at the top of the
stairs. "Mama. She's the mambo, the Vodun priestess who assisted us earlier. The houngan are Vodun priests. In
this case, they're protecting Billy and his family. Aren't you, madam?" he
asked politely.
She gave him another one of her rare,
gleaming smiles. "Yeah, wizard, we watchin'
over the child and his wife. They be ours, and
we look after our own." She shot Lindsey a look, then
gave Angel a longer one. The smile grew a little wicked. "Like
you do."
Lindsey blushed. Angel looked at his shoes,
then over at the wall. Wesley and Cordelia looked
clueless. Gunn whistled. Lindsey cleared his throat.
"Is Billy okay?"
Azula looked over at him, losing her smile. "For now, child. But you got to do what you have to do,
and make an end to this."
He nodded. "First I have to see my
brother. Make sure he'll be all right while I do ... what has to be done."
"Which would be what, precisely?" Wesley cut in. Angel answered.
"Tell you all about it on the way back
to LA."
Cordelia started to whine about shopping. Lindsey stepped
away from the group and knocked on the door to Billy's loft. Camille answered.
She looked slightly appalled at the motley collection of strangers facing her.
The look intensified when most of them smiled at her. Lindsey couldn't really
blame her. He tried his best to look harmless.
"Let us in, honey," Mama Azula said before he could speak.
Camille leaned her head down for a peck on
the cheek then stepped back as first Azula, then
Lindsey, then Angel and the rest of the pack flowed in. They filled the room
but it was oddly silent. Billy looked up from his perch on a stool, guitar
balanced on his knee, his welcoming look hardening as he saw Lindsey.
"We need to talk, Billy," Lindsey
said quietly.
"We haven't got anything to say,"
Billy shot back. Lindsey clenched his hands into fists and stuffed them into
his pockets.
"Please."
"Go to hell." Billy wasn't
yielding an inch.
"I did," Lindsey answered
honestly. "When I left, it followed me." Billy watched him intently.
"Now it's after you, and if we're going to keep it away, you're going to
have to listen."
Billy set the guitar carefully aside and
slowly got up off the stool. Stalking over to stand toe to toe with his twin,
he glared at Lindsey. Lindsey let him stare his fill.
"I've taken enough because of
you," Billy finally said. His voice sounded like his throat was full of
gravel. "I don't have to do a damned thing you say, and I sure as hell
don't have to listen to any more of your lies."
"For Camille's sake if not your own,
you do." This time, Lindsey was prepared for Billy to swing at him. He
closed his eyes, relaxed his muscles, and let his brother hit him. Angel caught
him before he could hit the wall. He was growling, a soft sub-vocalization
Lindsey could only hear because his ear was against Angel's chest. "S'okay," he whispered through an aching jaw. "I
owed him that."
Shaking off the residual dizziness from
Billy's wallop, Lindsey stepped away from Angel's supporting hands and back
over to his brother. Billy looked like he wanted to hit him again. This time
when he swung, Lindsey caught the fist and held it. "No. We can't afford
to fight one another. I'm leaving."
Billy froze. "Not soon enough," he
spat.
"As soon as I know you're safe."
"Billy, listen to him," Camille
broke in. She was standing next to Mama Azula,
rubbing her arms as if she was cold. Lindsey had the feeling the priestess had
been telling her some home truths. "We need his help."
"I don't need anything from this motherf -- " Billy broke off,
grinding his teeth in a manner Lindsey instantly recognized. A moment later he
continued in a calmer voice, "We can't believe a word he says."
"You can believe me," Camille told
him, walking over to stand beside him and take his hand. "And I believe
Mama." Billy looked past her at Azula, who
stared right back at him. Then he looked back at Lindsey.
"What, then." He glared at
Lindsey, but at least he was listening. Lindsey took a deep breath.
"You're under attack. You can't see it
because Mama Azula and I, and now these others,"
he gestured at Angel's group, "have been protecting you. But I've got to
go back to LA -- "
"Good!" Billy interjected. Lindsey felt his own jaw start to tense
and deliberately relaxed it. Punching Billy in the nose wouldn't do anything
but get everybody riled up again. No matter how good it might feel at the time.
Pig-headed little bastard. Pulling himself back to his
explanation, Lindsey continued.
" -- in order to deal with the cause of the attack. Until
it's removed, you'll be at risk. We need to make sure you're safe while we go
to the source."
Billy opened his mouth but Camille beat him
to speech. "How are you going to do that?"
Mama Azula came
over from the sidelines, stopping at Lindsey's side. She raised a hand and
beckoned Wesley over. "We'll take care of it, child. You just need to sit
quiet and let us get on with what we got to do."
As smoothly as if it had been rehearsed,
Angel and Cordelia moved furniture out of the way.
Gunn took up a protective position at the door. Once the furniture was moved, Cordelia sat down in the corner and Angel went to join
Gunn. Wesley urged Billy and Camille to sit in the center of the room. Mama Azula took a small pouch from her belt and began to weave a
pattern in cornmeal, a veve, on the floor around
them, singing softly, calling to Ayza as she did so.
Wesley moved until he was directly opposite Lindsey on the other side of the
couple in the middle of the room.
When the veve was
finished, Azula stepped away until she made the third
point on a triangle with Lindsey and Wesley's positions. She raised her hands
and began to sing in Yoruba. Lindsey then raised his own hands and began to
chant one of the oldest, strongest spells he'd ever learned, in Aramaic. At the
same time Wesley's hands raised and he began to chant in Latin. The three
disparate spells wove together seamlessly, propelled by a common need to protect.
Lindsey let the words flow through him,
gathering and concentrating power as they went. His gaze settled on Billy, who
was staring back at him, wide-eyed, years of anger and pain being overborne,
for the moment, by the sheer strangeness of what was happening. The air between
them began to shimmer as a veil of power expanded around Billy and Camille.
Colors played in the air, the orange red of
fire, the verdure hue of earth, the azure hint of air, the deep royal blue of
the ocean. They wove together, stitched with pure white light, until they
formed a sphere around the couple. Then, on a single breath, Azula's song, Wesley and Lindsey's chants ended, and the
colors disappeared with an audible snap. The air was clearer than it had been
before the ritual, a crystal clarity that echoed in the silence following the
song.
After an eternity of stillness, Billy shook
his head. "What was that?" he asked weakly, one hand going to his ear
as if that final tone still rang through it.
"A shield," Wesley answered. Billy
glanced over at him, then back to Lindsey. His eyes demanded answers Lindsey
didn't have time to give.
"I'm sorry, Billy," he offered. It
was all he had. "I'll fix it."
Billy looked skeptical. Lindsey didn't blame
him. When nothing more was forthcoming, Lindsey stepped back from the circle
and turned to go. He'd drawn even with Gunn and Angel when Billy's voice
stopped him.
"Lindsey."
He looked over his shoulder. Billy was
glaring at him, as usual, but the hatred was missing for a change.
"Watch your ass."
Lindsey nodded, then turned back and headed
out the door. By the time he made it down the stairs to street level, the houngan were gone, the candles cold. It was an encouraging
sign. When attack came again, as he knew it would, there were three levels of protection
gathered around his brother. It would hold for long enough for Lindsey to get
the job done. A presence loomed over his shoulder.
Well, Lindsey, and Angel.
Footsteps clattered down the stairs.
Okay, Lindsey, Angel, and assorted friends.
Lindsey grinned to himself. Wolfram and Hart didn't know what was about to hit
them. He'd take advantage of that while he could. He stared at the convertible.
"We don't have time for this," he
told Angel. "It's over nineteen hundred miles back to LA. They'll have too
much time to prepare."
Angel looked at him. Looked
at Wesley. Then over to Cordelia,
to Gunn, and back to Wesley. Wes opened his mouth. Shut it again. Sighed.
"What do you suggest?" he asked
Lindsey.
"Cordelia and
Gunn drive the car back. You, Angel and I fly back. Hit the Firm as soon as we
get back."
"That easy?" Angel sounded skeptical.
"I've got a plan," Lindsey assured
him.
"Uh-oh," Wesley muttered. Angel
smothered a grin and Lindsey glared equally at both of them.
"Do we have to drive back right
away?" Everyone looked at Cordelia. She smiled
brightly. "I mean, if we're not going to be there in time to help anyway, then why not spend a day in
Lindsey nodded. He also caught the glance
that shot between Wesley, Angel and Gunn. Keep her out of it. He could read it
in their faces.
"Deal."
Gunn was still grumbling under his breath
about getting stuck with clean-up duty when he and Cordelia
dropped them off at the airport. He didn't dare mention baby-sitting duty. Cordy'd hurt him if he did.
The flight back to LAX went by quickly.
Lindsey's battle plan was simple. Sneak in, force Lilah
to help them get into the Firm, and take out Nathan Reed. If they needed to go
further up the chain of command, they'd take it as far as they had to go. It
was sketchy, but it was the best he could come up with, and time was against
them.
By the time they landed and rented a car to
get them around until Gunn brought Cordelia home, it
was almost sunrise. Lindsey was weaving and Wesley was nearly asleep on his
feet. Angel hustled them both into the lobby of the hotel and leaned against
the counter.
"If we try to go after them in this
condition we'll be slaughtered before we get in the door."
Lindsey stared at him. After talking most of
the flight home, making and discarding plans, his tongue felt like lead.
Thankfully, Wesley asked the question so Lindsey didn't have to.
"What do you suggest?" Even Wesley
was slurring. It had been a long night. And a long day before
that.
"Rest today," Angel ordered,
"then hit 'em tonight when the foot traffic
slows down. What time, Lindsey?"
"'bout ten," he answered
automatically. Angel nodded.
"Okay. Wes, there are plenty of rooms,
pick one and get some rest. Lindsey, come with me."
Lindsey made a point of not looking at
Wesley as he climbed the stairs in Angel's wake. There was no need. He could
feel Wesley staring at him all the way up. Putting off that explanation for
another day, hopefully one when he'd actually have an explanation to give,
Lindsey followed Angel into his room.
He wasn't quite sure what he was expecting,
but the businesslike way Angel stripped down wasn't it. He stood in the middle
of the room and watched as jet black silk and leather gave way to perfect
creamy skin, then swallowed, trying to get some
moisture back in his mouth. Angel was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen,
dead or alive. Preservation was a wonderful thing. Once fully naked, Angel
finally looked over at him.
Grinned.
Inclined his head toward
the bathroom.
"I'm taking a shower. You're welcome to
join me." He walked out of the bedroom and Lindsey heard the water start.
"Works better if you lose the clothes first," floated out to him.
He was stripped and standing with his hand
stretched out toward the shower curtain before he gave himself time to think
about it. Reality caught up with him outside the tub and he stopped to ask
himself what he was doing. Then the curtain twitched, Angel's hands shot out
and grabbed him, and he found himself lifted bodily and deposited between Angel
and the stream of water from the shower head.
It felt good.
Angel didn't waste any time. He seldom did.
He simply leaned down, tilted Lindsey's head back and kissed the living
daylights out of him. Lindsey closed his eyes against the water trickling down
over his scalp and tried not to drown in either the spray or the kiss.
It felt incredibly good.
Then Angel wasn't kissing him anymore, and
he blinked water out of his eyes as he was turned again and leaned against the
back wall of the shower. Before he could complain about being manhandled like a
life-sized blow-up doll, Angel slid down the front of Lindsey's body and
swallowed his cock.
So much for complaints.
The sounds coming out of his mouth couldn't
be termed coherent by even the broadest definition. His hands reached out of
their own accord and buried themselves in Angel's thick hair, combing convulsively
through the short strands. His knees threatened to give, but when they tried
they bumped into Angel's shoulders, so he stayed propped upright. The water
splashed against Angel's back, and Lindsey could see rainbows in the drops as
they splattered back against the sides of the tub.
Or maybe that was just his brain exploding
behind his eyelids. At least, that's what it felt like when he came. He
couldn't even give warning. Getting sucked by a man who didn't have to draw
breath had an amazing effect. He'd never gotten continuous pressure like that
before, and he had to pry one hand off Angel's head and cram his fist in his
mouth or he would have screamed loudly enough to bring Wesley in at a run.
Some things went better without an audience.
Getting his mind, and the rest of him, blown by Angel
in the shower was definitely one of them.
Then he was drained, and he was sliding
helplessly down the tiles, and Angel was catching him. Holding
him on his knees in the bottom of the tub, the water washing around their legs.
Kissing him, biting, hungry kisses on Lindsey's mouth
and neck and cheek. Angel started to rock against him and Lindsey summoned
enough strength for one word.
"Wait."
Angel stopped licking his throat and looked
at him like he'd lost his mind. Lindsey gave him a grin he had a feeling was
lopsided, then concentrated all his energy on turning around. The light went on
in Angel's expression and he let loose a low growl.
Then he reached down and helped.
Lindsey leaned his cheek against the steamy
tile and closed his eyes as Angel shifted forward, knees pushing Lindsey's far
apart. The cool hard length of Angel's thighs between his own felt good against
his heated skin. Then Angel touched him, fingers sliding into him, and Lindsey
groaned despite his best efforts to stay quiet.
This was a new one on Lindsey, and even with
his orgasm and his exhaustion, he was tight. Angel took his time, distracting
Lindsey from what the fingers were doing to his ass by moving his other hand
around and playing with Lindsey's chest. Nipping and kissing the side of his
throat. Slipping down and playing with his balls. By the time Angel decided
Lindsey was ready for him, Lindsey was more than ready for him. He was
hard again, a minor miracle, and he was moaning continuously into the arm he'd raised to brace himself against the tiles.
Angel shifted up, then in, lifting Lindsey
off his knees with the first thrust. Lindsey screamed, biting his arm to muffle
the noise. Most of the height Angel had on Lindsey was in his legs, and Lindsey
was feeling every inch of it now as Angel moved in him. Each thrust took him up
into the wall, pushing his erection into Angel's hand, throwing his weight back
against Angel and pushing Angel so far in him Lindsey thought he could feel the
pressure against his heart.
It was a hell of a first time.
As slowly as he'd taken time to prepare him,
Angel took the time when taking him. Lindsey hit the edge of climax only to be
brought back from it again and again, until he was banging his head against his
arm without being aware of it. Then Angel thrust the fingers of his free hand
through Lindsey's hair and pulled his head back. The new angle kept Lindsey
leaning back against Angel, completely off balance, with Angel buried in him to
the balls, Lindsey's legs splayed uselessly to either side of Angel's. Angel
pumped his hips, keeping everything else still.
This time when Lindsey teetered on the edge
of orgasm Angel pushed him over. Lindsey instinctively shoved his fist back in
his mouth as Angel bit into the muscle at the juncture of his shoulder and
neck. No fangs, but he didn't need them. The brush of pain was a perfect grace
note to the climax wracking Lindsey. He was barely aware of Angel moving in him
throughout.
When it was over, they were curled together
against the side of the tub. The water was getting cold, but since Angel was
covering Lindsey and taking the brunt of the spray he didn't really care. His
knees were getting sore, though. And his muscles had come unstrung. Far from
protesting when Angel practically carried him out of the shower, Lindsey let
him do whatever he wanted. The towel felt good. The sheets felt better.
He wasn't aware of falling asleep, but when
he woke up it was early evening. Angel lay behind him, the sheet wrapped around
them both, binding them together. Lindsey stared down at the muscular arm
trapping him to the mattress and thought about how strange it was to share a
bed with someone who didn't breathe. Or anyone at all, for
that matter. It had been awhile.
Then he spared a moment's thanks that it was
Los Angeles in July, so at least he wasn't freezing his ass off, because his
hair was still damp, the pillow was wet under his head, and Angel was siphoning
off all Lindsey's body heat.
Not to mention the fact that his butt was
sore.
There was movement behind him, then the hand that had been curled into a loose fist in
front of his chest uncurled. Stretched. Reached with unerring accuracy directly for Lindsey's groin.
Lindsey's eyes widened.
A rough sound like a purr started behind his
left ear. "Uhmmm ..." Angel breathed.
Oh, well. Lindsey grinned. They had a few
hours before the attack on Wolfram and Hart commenced. Might
as well put it to good use. Angel's hand moved, and Lindsey turned his
head to moan into the clammy pillow. If that was any indication, they would be
put to very good use.
So would he.
Cordelia was staring at the deep sapphire of the antique
glass beads on the necklace she was about to add to her collection when the
world spun. Happily, Gunn was right behind her and was able to save both her
and the necklace.
The snakes were back, but they were
confused. They were slithering all over the pit, looking for a target. Lindsey,
recognizable now even though she couldn't see his face, had a blazing circle of
fire all around him. Above him, in the shadows, she could hear a sound like a
wild dog growling. Or maybe a really big cat. A really big, really territorial cat. With
jealousy issues.
There were fewer snakes, but also fewer
targets. The other man was gone, and there was a glowing wall where he used to
be. Some of the snakes flung themselves at it and were wrapped in tubes of
light with pretty colors sparkling over them. Then the tubes would collapse and
the snakes would be squished.
Cordelia cheered. Silently, of course.
But every squished snake was one less snake to worry about. The rest of the
snakes didn't notice, just kept squirming around Lindsey, trying to get past
the ring of fire.
The cat growled. The snakes hissed. Cordelia sighed.
And opened her eyes to
find herself securely in Gunn's arms, staring into the concerned face of the
shop owner.
"She's okay," Gunn said over her
shoulder. "Gets fits sometimes. No problem."
"Fits?" she asked incredulously as
he led her out the door. "Hey! Wait a minute! I want to buy -- "
He dangled the necklace in front of her
face. "You see anything we gotta take care
of?"
"It's under control," she said
happily, taking the necklace from his hand and dropping it over her head. It
looked good against her shirt. "Thanks."
He grinned down at her. "My
pleasure. You sure we don't have to head off now?" He sounded
hopeful. She grinned sunnily up at him.
"Nope! Plenty of time left to shop."
She didn't bother waiting for his defeated
groan. She was on a mission. She set off. He followed, grumbling all the way.
Funny, she didn't see how this could be worse than fighting the minions of
hell. Surely he couldn't mean it. She looked back over her shoulder.
He looked like he did. Okay, maybe it was
time to head back to LA. Sighing wistfully, she turned back toward the car. He
grinned all the way home. She shook her head. Rather be fighting demons than
going shopping.
Men. Who could understand them?
Angel made some calls while Lindsey got
dressed and fine-tuned the plan in his head. He knew the Firm had changed all
their locks, combinations, and wards since he'd left. It didn't matter. He knew
where Lilah lived, and she hadn't moved. Angel made a
couple sarcastic comments about his breaking and entering talents, but he
ignored them. Since Angel couldn't cross the threshold, Wesley and Lindsey went
inside and Angel lurked in the hallway, out of sight around the corner. They
were waiting for her when she got home.
She opened the door, locked it behind her
and dropped her briefcase on the chair, kicking off her shoes with a relieved
groan. She set the outer alarm and walked into the kitchen. In the process of pouring
herself a glass of cranberry juice, Lindsey walked out of her bedroom. She
almost dropped the jug. Lindsey caught it before it could spill.
"Oops, that could've been nasty,"
he teased her. "All that bright red fluid on white
shag." He shook his head in mock reproach. "Didn't Lee teach
you anything? You never get a stain that color out of the carpet."
He waited for her to respond but she just
stared at him, wide-eyed, pale. He reached over and touched her hand gently.
She jumped.
"I'm not here to kill you, Lilah." She relaxed fractionally but still eyed him
like a wild animal about to bite her. "I'm here to stop you from killing
me."
At that, she relaxed further, but looked
completely confused. "What are you talking about, Lindsey?"
He grinned cheerfully at her. She shivered.
"Okay, truth time. Now, I'm not going to kill you." She tried
to draw her hand away and he pinned it to the counter. "Somebody at
Wolfram and Hart has been targeting me and my family. It's going to stop, or
it's going to backfire. Starting with you." His
tone made it perfectly clear that he would come back on the Firm with a
vengeance, and she would be the first one he took down. She swallowed, then licked her lips.
"It's not me, Lindsey. Hell, I owe you.
You saved my life and gave me exactly what I wanted by walking out when you
did. Why would I want you to come back? For any reason?"
He stared at her long enough to decide that
he believed her. She paled further, but didn't try to fight him. He'd break her
arm in an instant, and she knew it.
"Give me a name."
She was shaking her head before he finished
getting the words out. He pulled on her arm, dragging her partially across the
counter and putting his other hand, the one she still thought was evil, against
her throat.
"They'll kill me! Or
worse!" Her voice was choked. The whites of her eyes were showing.
"This isn't sanctioned. You know
that." The even tenor of his response calmed her somewhat. When he knew
she was listening he went on. "The senior partners aren't behind this or I
wouldn't have survived long enough to take it back to them." Behind him,
he heard Wesley's strangled gasp. Lilah jerked, but
Lindsey held her down and ignored Wesley. "This is personal. What's Nathan
been up to recently?"
Her chest rose and fell in a deep, steadying
breath. "Not much. I think ... when he misjudged you, he fell out of
favor."
Lindsey thought about it for a second. It fit with what he'd been thinking.
"So, by taking me out, he's trying to get back in their good graces? Makes sense." Too much sense.
"Lilah," he crooned softly, "how do
you feel about another promotion?"
She looked at him like he'd lost the last
ounce of sanity he possessed. He grinned at her. His hand at her throat
twitched. She gulped.
"Okay," she forced out.
"You get us in, then
you cover your ass." He knew she could do that.
"Us?" she asked. Wesley stepped
forward. Angel must have been listening, because he chose that particular
moment to kick the door in. It bounced against the jamb and Lilah
practically jumped out of her skin, nearly strangling herself on Lindsey's
hand.
Lindsey sighed. "Invitations are so
much easier on doors." Angel grinned at him.
"So, are we on or what?"
They were. Lilah's
identity card got them into the executive car park. She and Wesley, least
likely of the three men to be recognized, went up in the elevator while Lindsey
and Angel took the back stairs. The alarm shaman wailed about the presence of a
vampire on the premises and security rushed to secure the exits. All available
guards deployed around the perimeter, beginning a floor by floor search. Starting at the lobby.
Since their prey was already several floors
up, this wasn't a problem for the vampire in question.
By the time the guards got to the third
floor, Lindsey and Angel were at the fifteenth, and Wesley was slipping the
latch to let them in. A few seconds later, the favors Angel had called in hit
the lobby.
With an armored truck.
All the guards who'd been searching were
recalled to deal with the pandemonium breaking out in the lobby. They were
thorough, but they weren't very smart, and the trick Angel had pulled the first
time he snuck into the building worked just as well the second. Gunn's soldiers
loosed a couple of captured vampires on the grounds then stampeded them to add
to the confusion. These vampires were more canny than
the first one and led the guards on a merry chase all over the lower floors of
the building.
Slipping into the security office on the
executive floor, Lindsey grinned at the chaos playing on the screens. It was
better than the Cartoon Network. The guard monitoring the screens turned to
challenge him and Angel hit him. Just once. That's all
it took.
Stepping over the unconscious guard, Lindsey
disabled the security grid in the most direct way possible. He put a
sledgehammer through the middle of the control grid.
The old man sounded a little panicked.
Lindsey's grin hardened. Closing his eyes,
he reached out into the miasma of conflicting spells blocking their way into
the office. "Watch out, Wes," he murmured, then
concentrated hard.
The blockade exploded. Angel yanked Wesley
out of the way of the backlash and gave Lindsey a reproachful look. Wesley
looked a little fish-eyed. Lindsey shrugged apologetically.
"Sometimes it takes a lock-pick,
sometimes a battle ax," he explained, then gestured for Angel to kick the
door in.
Once inside, they were immediately under
attack. Reed had his own bodyguard, a mixed batch of second-tier guard demons,
not as fierce as the Taskers but still dangerous.
Lindsey and Wesley went back to back, fighting off a combination of magic and
physical attacks by whatever means necessary. Angel waded in on
his own and started ripping body parts off various demons and beating
other demons with them. Bloody, but effective.
Lindsey clutched his sledgehammer with both
hands, swinging non-stop, while chanting spells through clenched teeth. The
words were clear enough for the business at hand, if a little rough. Wesley was
doing a better job at the spell-casting but not as good with the hand-to-hand
combat. Lindsey grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him out of the way of an
incoming Grolek, crushing its chest it as it threw
itself at them. Wesley nodded thanks, never interrupting the flow of archaic
Greek he was chanting. Lindsey acknowledged the nod with a grin and kept on
fighting.
Angel made it through to Reed before Lindsey
and Wesley could fight their way clear of the pack. Once there, he took care of
the problem the way he usually did -- directly. He snapped Reed's neck and
ripped his head off.
Lindsey froze.
He shouldn't have been able to do that. If
he still had his soul, if he was still Angel, if they hadn't done anything
stupid and irrevocable with all the fooling around, if Angel wasn't Angelus ...
Angel glared over at Lindsey as if he could read his mind.
"Don't be an idiot,"
he yelled. "It wasn't human." Then he held up Nathan Reed's bony
head.
Too bony.
Lindsey ducked an incoming demon, jabbed up
with the business end of his sledgehammer and cracked its spine absently. There
were too many bones on Reed's head. There was, in fact, a ridge of them showing
through the smooth shiny pate. Lindsey blinked, barely feeling the rush of air
as Wesley plucked the last demon away and slammed it into the far wall.
"What kind of demon was he?"
Lindsey asked. The question seemed to echo. The room was eerily silent after
the mayhem of battle.
"Grivayet,"
Lilah answered. All three men jumped. None of them
knew she'd followed them in.
"Never heard of it," Wesley
admitted.
"I thought you were going to stay out
of this?" Angel asked her. She shrugged. Lindsey walked over to her, then
reached out and gently stroked her cheekbone with his finger.
"I hope it wasn't a relative."
Wesley choked. Angel started to laugh, but
he choked too when she admitted calmly, "My father."
"Shit." Lindsey made an abortive
reach for his weapon. Lilah smiled at him. There were
more teeth in that smile than there should have been.
"Don't worry," Lilah
assured Lindsey, patting his shoulder before picking her way through the
scattered assorted demon corpses to stand looking down at the dead, decapitated
one who had been her sire. "You saved me the trouble."
Angel hastily dropped the head he was still
holding, then looked abashed when Lilah
glanced over at him. "Sorry," he muttered.
"Quite all right," she told him
equably. She looked more tranquil than Lindsey could ever remember seeing her.
"Your own father was going to have you
killed?" He couldn't keep the incredulity out of his voice. Lilah grinned over at him.
"Until you stopped
him. I've been waiting for the ax
to fall ever since. Literally." She looked back
down at the corpse. "I didn't expect him to bring it on himself, though. Poor planning on his part." She walked around the desk,
then settled into the leather chair and looked around at them before settling
on Lindsey. She gave him a warm smile. He swallowed hard. Still
too many teeth in it. "Thank you for the promotion. As far as
Wolfram and Hart is concerned, our business is over, Lindsey. We won't bother
you if you don't bother us."
"Does that include him?" Lindsey
gestured at Angel. Even more teeth showed, something
he hadn't believed possible. She didn't bother saying anything, thus giving him
his answer. He looked over at Angel.
Angel heard what she didn't say, too.
Lindsey took a deep breath and moved to stand beside Angel, careful not to trip
on Reed's corpse. Or his head. "Taking on Angel
means taking on me," he warned her softly.
She nodded. "I had an idea that might
be the case. If and when it comes to that, we'll deal with it."
On that uneasy note of truce, Lindsey headed
for the door. Wesley beat him to it, and Angel followed him out. Lilah was reaching for the phone when he stuck his head
back around and caught her. She held it up and said, "Clean-up crew"
before he could ask. He grinned.
"Watch your ass," he told her. One
corner of her mouth tipped up.
"Always," she told him.
He believed her.
No one talked on the drive home. Angel dropped
Wesley off in front of his apartment building. Wes looked at Angel, then at
Lindsey, then bit his lip and climbed out without saying a word. They watched
him until the door closed behind him and the light came on in his window. As
they pulled away, Lindsey leaned back against the seat and looked over at
Angel.
"You're gonna
have to deal with it sometime."
Angel nodded once, then
glanced over at Lindsey and back away. "Later."
Lindsey let it rest. They'd pulled up in
front of the hotel before either of them said anything else. Angel parked the
car and turned off the ignition.
"Did you mean it?" he asked
abruptly. Lindsey stared over at him.
"It?"
"What you told her."
"To which part of what I told her are
you referring?" Very best lawyer-talk. Never give
an inch unless it could be turned to one's own advantage. Angel leaned across
the seat, cornered Lindsey against the door and kissed him soundly.
Lindsey was panting by the time Angel broke
it off. Angel just stared at him.
"Yeah," he finally admitted. Angel
looked skeptical. "Jesus, what do you want, Angel? Blood?"
It hit him that that was a stupid question to ask a vampire. Angel
actually looked like he was considering it.
"You offering?"
A shudder ripped through Lindsey, and it
shook him to the core to realize that he was. He had to swallow twice before he
could answer. From the wide dark eyes staring at him in shock, he had the
feeling Angel already knew. So he answered the first question, not the last.
"I'm here as long as you want me."
The wide eyes darkened further, and Lindsey
swallowed again. Angel tracked the movement of his throat for a moment then
slowly lowered his head until his mouth was resting directly over Lindsey's
carotid artery. Not believing he was doing it even as he did, Lindsey tipped his
head back, giving Angel access and permission.
There was a soft growl from directly below
his chin, then the pin-prick of a single fang through his skin. Lindsey moaned
involuntarily as a rough tongue lapped at the drop of blood that welled from
the tiny wound.
"Could be a long time," Angel
warned him. Lindsey raised his hand and pressed Angel's face back to his
throat.
"I know."
Angel drew back and looked at him. Lindsey
leaned forward, licking a trace of blood from Angel's upper lip. This time when
Angel growled, Lindsey growled back. Angel's game face melted into his familiar
human features as he stared, bemused, at Lindsey.
"Well, I guess somebody's got to watch
over you," Angel told him, sounding resigned to the task. "Might as
well be me."
He caught Lindsey's fist before it could
land. Then he used it to pull Lindsey into his lap and kiss him again. By the
time Lindsey got his breath back and started to argue, Angel had him up to
their room and half naked. Then Lindsey got distracted and never did make his
defense.
Angel had been doing that to one degree or
another since Lindsey'd met him. With everything else
that had changed, that was one thing that never would.
At least, Lindsey hoped not.
END