Author: Karen
Title: Lockdown
Timeline: Directly after Angel fires the Batpack in Season 2.
Disclaimer: Sadly not mine but willing to submit a reasonable offer for
the use of Lindsey and the boys at the Hypernion.
Feedback: Much appreciated as it's my first fic to be submitted for
general consumption and I'm nervous!
Dedication: To Chrissy for being so nice and helping out a complete
stranger and to Sunny(?) for her encouraging comments and giving me my
first ever feedback.
Rating: Have no idea as I am new to this but around a film 12/15 at the mo
and progressing to an 18 later. (God and Cordy and Lindsey willing)
Archive: If you want it all you have to do is ask!
Written in response to a challenge on the fan page to have Lindsey and one of the white hats trapped in Wolfram and Hart for the night.
Chapter 2.
Ten minutes later and Lindsey was ready to scream. They had crept down two floors without seeing a single soul and he was seriously considering the possibility that Cordelia had put on the performance of a lifetime as part of a devious plot to lull him into a false sense of security and weasel information out of him. The girl stalked ahead of him, her battle axe gripped in her hand scanning around every bend with a look of fierce concentration on her face and her body held in a rigid posture. Every sense and muscle of her body seemed to be tuned to pick up the presence of a threat and, unless he was much mistaken, she seemed almost eager for a fight.
"So do you do this a lot?" His voice echoed unnaturally loud in the deserted corridor and he was rewarded with a furious look over her shoulder "Gee Lindsey why don't you just jump up and down and yell 'come and get us' that way the bad guys will find us so much quicker!" Her voice was lowered to the slightest whisper but was laced with venom as she froze in place as the wall came to an end and she leaned slowly around the corner to check all was silent before proceeding.
He opened his mouth to deliver a scathing retort and frowned as her hand clamped across his face and she shook her head frantically, he had reached up to push her wrist down when he heard the voices float down the corridor towards them. They were too far away to pick out distinct words but there were definitely more than two and one in particular caused an outbreak of goose bumps to spring all over his body. The tone was low and slow but with an intensity of pitch that bypassed the thin veneer of genetically inherited civility of two thousand or more years and went straight to the vestiges of primal instinct that lurked in every human soul. The message was clear, stay and die or flee and hide. Cordelia met his eyes with perfect understanding and jerked her head to indicate retreat was the only way to go, he nodded and they began to silently edge back down the passageway hardly daring to breath for fear of alerting the other beings to their presence.
A few minutes later they stood on the stairwell and trying to come up with a plan, Cordy was all for finding the most direct route out of the building and getting the hell out of Dodge but Lindsey on the other hand. "Look we just find some security guards and have them escort them out, that's what they get paid for after all!" Cordelia groaned and slapped a hand to her forehead and winced as her headache popped up to say hello again "Lindsey we don't know if we can trust the guards! They could be hunting round the building as we speak desperate to get their hands on your high priced ass." She tried for a reasonable tone "My vision is an indication of what might happen if we can't prevent it not a preview to what we can expect to see in a couple of hours. If we act sensibly we can probably avoid a lot of trouble and keep ourselves alive till sunup which, I don't have to tell you, is a damn good plan!" She reached out and laid a hand on his arm and squeezed gently "I've been here before, many times, and as much fun as it is being chased around deserted buildings at night by the big bad of the moment after the sixth or twentieth time it gets really old. I've stayed alive this long because I know when to lay low and beat a strategic if undignified retreat. Please, if you want to live listen to me."
Lindsey stared down at the ridiculously earnest face lifted to his and saw underneath the veneer of capability a very real fear, his ego rather than his brain made him say with a sneer " I thought you could take care of yourself. You remember, hell mouth survivor and all. Not so brave without your demon boss and muscle boys when it comes down to it are you?" Cordy reared back as though she had been slapped and then hauled off and slapped Lindsey "How dare you?" She took an unsteady breath and said in a low, furious voice "How dare you judge me? I live like this every night of my life. You.you sit on your rich, pampered ass day after day and never give a thought to the creatures you unleash on thousands of innocents and now you dare to judge me because I'm trying to get us out of here without getting either one of us killed? You sicken me." She slammed her hand flat against his shoulder and slammed him against the wall "This is how it's gonna go. You are going to do exactly as I say or I will leave you where you stand and you can take your chances on your own and I hope when the end comes your last thought is of me and the deaths you have caused over the years and maybe you might feel a tenth of the fear and horror they felt as they died by your order." She stepped back and wiped her hand unconsciously on her pants leg as though it had something unclean on it "If you want to live follow me if not say hi to your lawyer buddies in hell."
She turned without another word and headed down the stairs to the next level, Lindsey's mouth opened and closed soundlessly for a moment as he tried to assimilate the almost forgotten emotion that had stolen his voice and then it came to him in a flash of clarity. Shame, his entire body was writhing within its skin as shame flooded every cell of his being. The girl had looked at him as though he had crawled out of a pit and had crapped on her shoes. She had no time for his power or his position the only thing she saw was a weak man who had made him self anew by using and destroying the lives of others. He shook his head and followed her down the stairs his gaze slightly unfocused with the unpleasant thought that when it came to it that was all there was to him, no real substance just a puppet master being operated by the strings of others.
They proceeded in silence for a few minutes, Cordelia still clearly vibrating with repressed fury until they came to level twelve and behind the doors leading to the floor came the sound of singing. Cordy held up a hand in silence and Lindsey ground to halt still reeling from the ticking off he had just received, they listened for a few minutes as a very loud and slurred voice sang the same two lines over again.
"Uptown girl, she's bin livin' in her up town world, Bet she neva had a back street guy, bet her mama neva told her why, I'm gonna try for an uptown girl."
Cordy winced "I changed my mind, start yelling for the bad guys."
Lindsey gave an involuntary smile at her pained whisper and then frowned as she eased the heavy door open a notch and a balding overweight security guard came into view slumped in a chair waving a bottle of whisky in the air several beats out on the song. Cordelia exchanged confused looks with Lindsey and stared at the man as he kicked up the volume on his song a notch and his voice cracked with the effort, Lindsey had just reached out to push past Cordelia and find out what the hell was going on when a glistening silver spike erupted from the man's chest and pieces of heart and bone flew across the floor. The two in the doorway sucked in shocked breaths as the spike disappeared as abruptly as it had appeared and a figure stepped forward to catch the bottle of whiskey as it fell from the dead fingers
"I hate to waste good single-malt."
He shoved carelessly at the man in the chair and as the body fell forward onto it's face and dropped gracefully onto the seat in his place. Tall, at least as tall as Gunn, the man's face was handsome with a slight sheen to it as though he had been dipped in a vat of olive oil. He looked vaguely Latino but his accent was pure California and he dressed in casual, lightweight clothes that Cordelia, veteran of a hundred battles, recognised as ideal battle attire. Particularly when you seemed capable of carrying your weaponry inside your body, which is where, unless she was very much mistaken, that lethal spike had disappeared to. She thought furiously for a moment unsure whether to ease back into the stairwell and hope they could pass unnoticed or attack and hope to take at least one threat out while he was unprepared. The decision was taken out of her hands for the moment when another figure stepped into view and glanced down at the body on the floor with disdain, she felt Lindsey stiffen beside her and then hiss
"Lilah."
Cordelia frowned in confusion for a moment and then realised where she knew the name from, the woman that normally joined in with Lindsey on the whole 'tormenting Angel till he snapped' gig. Wait a minute. . .
"Isn't she meant to be dead?"
Lindsey rolled his eyes and grimaced as Lilah stepped over the man on the floor and walked to a bank of security screens on the wall before and scanned them briefly before snapping,
"This is stupid! I need to be able to see the inside of the building to pinpoint his location, for all we know he left hours ago and is at home right now mooning over that vapid blonde corpse."
She whipped around and stabbed a blood red talon at the man on the chair
"Stop sitting there and do what I'm paying you to do and find him."
The man on the chair appeared unmoved by the harsh tone of voice and instead chugged some more whiskey before saying casually
"You know I have people on every floor of the building. We have three telepaths here and our own guards at every exit. He's still here. We looped the security camera's because you wanted no evidence of our presence so although that works in our favour for a clean getaway it also means we can't use them to locate the prey."
He stood and stretched casually
"To add to that we also have to avoid the Wolfram and Hart guards you weren't able to buy off so that limits us slightly but Lindsey McDonald will be dead by morning." Lilah glared at him for a moment and then turned to stare at the useless screens again, she turned again as a phone went off in the pocket of the man and put it gracefully to his ear
"Yes?"
He listened in silence and then terminated the call without speaking again
"He's not alone."
Lilah's eyes widened with shock
"What?"
The man shrugged and took another slug of his whiskey before putting the bottle carefully onto the desk behind him
"He's not alone. There is someone in this building with him."
His eyes crinkled as he smirked
"From the sounds of it there was quite a party in your friend's office, blood everywhere, vomit, signs of sharp blades being used and a small piece of flesh was found that looked like an earlobe."
His mouth stretched to a full-blown grin
"I would have it brought to you to see if you could maybe identify it as his but my tracker lost hold of himself temporarily at the smell of the blood and ate it."
Lilah stared in disbelief and then gave an exultant laugh
"So it looks like someone did the job for me?"
She clapped her hands together in childish exuberance
"What are the chances?"
The man stared at her for a moment and then grinned again
"My guy said the room stank of the Powers."
Lilah frowned in confusion and he heaved an exasperated sigh
"The Powers That Be? Whoever was in that room with your guy works for the light."
Lilah continued to frown in confusion for a moment and then blanched in horror
"Angel! It's got to be Angel."
The man opposite her shook his head slowly as he thought,
"No, I don't think so. From what you told me its uncertain who's side the guy is on these days, if it were him I don't think that they would have picked up the scent of light so strongly."
Lilah shook her head
"But he has worked for The Powers for a long time there would still be some trace of them on him."
She glanced around her panic-stricken
"I have to get out of here. If it is him then he won't stop at Lindsey if he finds out I'm in the building. He's trying to finish what he started in Holland's cellar."
She snatched up a sleek leather bag from the floor and hurried out of Cordy's line of sight
"You have take me downstairs and out of the building, you can call me when you find Lindsey's body."
The man stood still for a moment and then reached out and snagged the bottle of whisky again and strolled out after Lilah.
Cordy sagged with relief and then stepped out cautiously into the hall holding the door open for Lindsey as she did so. She turned to face him and saw the look of pure rage on his face
"Lindsey are you alright?"
She was alarmed to see his fists opening and closing at his sides and his eyes glazed with fury
"Hey it's ok. We're safe for a moment and I promise you I'll get you out of here alive."
She smiled reassuringly at him but that faded when he spat "But not in one piece, right Cordelia?"
Her face fell in confusion and then she suddenly realised what he was mad about
"Oh. Oh. Lindsey I'm so sorry. It was an accident I swear!"
She backed away as he advanced on her trembling with hate and fury and yelped as she fell over the body on the floor and landed on her butt
"You cut off my ear!"
"Not all of it! Just the bottom of the lobe, you can hardly see it."
Lindsey stood frozen by the sheer audacity of the girl, she really thought that made it so much better that it was only a piece of him rather than the whole?
"Somebody ate my ear!"
Cordy scrambled to her feet and placed her hands on her hips
"Yeah, well somebody ate half my graduating class. Life sucks, deal with it."
She scowled and stepped back over the body to get up in his face
"Buddy, after the scams you've pulled in recent years and all the cosmic retribution you've got coming you think you'd be a little more forgiving when you get trespassed against. I said I was sorry and it truly was an accident and if you'll let me I'll give it my all to stop that skanky not- dead girl killing you to make it up."
She broke off her speech to flash a blinding grin
"What do you say? One nearly whole body in exchange for one measly earlobe deals like that don't come along everyday you know."
Despite himself Lindsey felt his lips twitch as she smiled up at him
"You really think that will make alright what you did to me?"
Cordy looked troubled for a moment and Lindsey caught a glimpse of genuine regret flash across her face
"Not even close but if you think I 'm gonna let you cut bits off me when we make it out of here to even up the score you're even loopier than Druscilla."
Lindsey laughed out loud then and Cordelia caught another glimpse of the man he might have been if he hadn't gotten caught up with Wolfram and Hart, he smiled into her eyes and said
"I think you owe me for more than an earlobe Cordelia." She frowned until he lifted his hand in front of her eyes and then watched the light glint off the plastic.
"You blame me for that?"
Her voice was husky with the remembered pain of being trapped screaming in her own head with the forgotten, troubled souls of the city. Lindsey opened his mouth and then paused for a moment
"Are the visions always like that?"
Cordy met his eyes and very slowly dropped her habitual cloaking so her eyes and soul lay as naked to his gaze as a newborn child
"Every time."
Lindsey swallowed at the pain, fear and weariness that lay before him and that hung heavily on every syllable of the two words she spoke. He shook his head and spoke through a suddenly dry mouth
"We never thought what it would do to you."
He half expected to have his uncertain words flung back in his face but she nodded and said simply
"Thank you."
They held each other's gaze for a second longer and then broke apart and uncomfortable silence coming between them. Cordy swallowed and looked down at the body on the floor and then knelt and pressed a gentle hand to the pulse point on the neck, Lindsey frowned and said
"Cordelia he's dead there's nothing you can do for him."
She stared up at him for a moment suddenly looking a lot younger than her years and then spoke
"I know I just had to check."
She came to her feet in one graceful move and looked down for another brief moment
"I stood there and watched him die and did nothing. If there was any chance he survived then I owe to him to do what I could."
She shrugged and turned away
"As it turns out he's just another human shish-kabob."
Lindsey stared at her in genuine bafflement
"If you'd have tried to do something you'd be dead."
It was his turn to stare at the body on the floor
"You can't save them all."
Cordelia gave a bitter smile
"Congratulations Lindsey you just summed up in one sentence the glaring differences between us."
She looked at him with deep disgust
"I don't want to save the world I just have to save the person in front of me. Even if that means that one day I die trying."
She shook her head and turned away
"Come on we need to get moving."
Lindsey followed her without a word and nearly crashed into her back as she froze in place staring ahead of her, he looked past her and saw two vampires, one in a long coat and Stetson, staring back at them with wide grins.
"Slayer."
Cordelia frowned for a moment and then exclaimed in surprised recognition
"Lyle Gorch!"
She made sure she was squarely in front of Lindsey and raised one eyebrow
"What rock did you crawl out from under?"
She pointedly hefted the axe over her shoulder and said calmly
"Didn't I cream your ass enough for you last time?"
The vampire looked momentarily discomfited and then gave a shrug and stabbed a finger at her
"Last time you had help. I only see one Slayer tonight and two of us. The human doesn't look like good back-up to me."
Cordelia risked a quick glance over her shoulder and took in Lindsey's pale face covered in a light sheen of nervous sweat
"We both know I don't need help to take you Gorch."
She gave a confident grin "Just so you know Buffy's two floors up dusting up a storm as we speak. I wouldn't want you thinking I don't play fair after all."
She took a measured step towards the two vampires and said in a hard tone
"Now introduce me to your friend so I know who's ashes I gonna be washing out of my hair come morning and we'll get this show on the road."
The vampire with Gorch flinched back and then was shoved forward, Cordelia had time to get the impression of a young guy who couldn't have been more than twenty when he died then she took a step back for balance swung her axe and neatly took his head off. Lindsey had taken a deep breath to shout a warning and unfortunately got a mouthful of vampire dust and promptly choked leaving Cordelia to face Gorch again with an eyebrow raised in query, the vamp blinked in disbelief suddenly looking worried
"You have two choices John Wayne get the hell out of my way or be prepared to spend the rest of the night being trodden into the carpet."
Cordelia's voice was harsh with fear and anger and the demon before her visibly flinched before saying
"If you give me the human you can get out of here Slayer nobody needs to get hurt."
Despite herself Cordelia took a small amount of genuine pleasure in the tremor of fear in his voice
"I think you mean you don't need to get dead honey, but just so we're clear the man is under our protection and when have you ever known a Slayer back down from a fight?"
The demon stared for a second and then turned tail and ran hell for leather back down the corridor, Cordy yelled after him
"You'd better run Gorch! I'll tell Buffy to keep an eye out for you!"
She turned to Lindsey and shoved him in the opposite direction
"Move!"
Lindsey obediently began to run alongside her managing to pant out
"Slayer?"
Cordelia shot him a smile as they pelted down a seemingly endless corridor
" Really dumb vamp. Met him in high school, long story explain later."
She stopped abruptly and gave a small whoop of delight at the discreet sign by a large oak panelled door she opened it and shoved him inside and locked the door behind them. It took a few moments to locate the lights but eventually she found them and then Lindsey found himself standing in the Partner's private lounge, Cordy hurried to the bar that ran the length of the room and began examining bottles and selecting ones to stand on the bar in front of her. Lindsey crossed to her and said curiously
"What are you doing?"
Cordelia glanced up and waved a twenty-year-old bottle of scotch under his nose
"Weapons."
She gave an exclamation of delight and threw a pile of cotton napkins beside her bottles, Lindsey looked more confused
"You're going to bartend them to death?"
Cordelia stopped for a moment and stared at him with amused pity
"And you call yourself a demon lover."
She held up the whisky and poured it over the pile of napkins and then cracked another bottle when that ran out and repeated the procedure
"You soak the cloth with alcohol and if you need an edge before a fight you light it and throw, the cloth sticks to the vamp if it hits skin and hey presto! Vampire fondue."
She gave him another blinding smile and continued throwing piles of napkins on the counter and saturating them with three hundred dollar a pop bottles of scotch.
"Where did you learn all this?"
Lindsey asked in fascinated horror, Cordy grinned again
"Oh please like you don't know everything there is to know about me down to my bra size."
She ducked down under the counter to search for a bag or container to put the ruined cloths in
"I went to school on a hell mouth with a vampire slayer you pick these things up as you go along. I once killed a demon with superglue and the heel of my foot."
She saw the revolted look that crossed his face and laughed
"He had transformed into thousands of maggoty things at the time and it was all we could think of. It got the job done."
She stared down at the top of the bar for a moment and then said quietly
"And it helped save Buffy and Angel's life." Lindsey watched as she carelessly began to stuff the saturated cotton in a tote bag that she first emptied of soiled bar aprons, "Do you do that a lot?" She flicked him a puzzled look "Save Angel's life I mean." She worked her way down the bar examining under the counter for anything that could be used as a weapon "Sometimes. We failed horribly once and he went to hell and Buffy died when she fought the Master but other than that we pretty much made it unscathed through high school." She gave a short laugh as she remembered a few highlights of her chequered school career "Sure made for a hell of an education I know that much." Lindsey frowned as he saw an almost wistful expression cross her face "You look like you almost miss it." Cordy shook her head and opened her mouth and then paused for a moment "Sometimes I do. Not just because I had a whole life and money and everything but I was a part of something." She grinned at Lindsey "I telling you, you want to be glad you never came up against the Sunnydale crew we would have cleaned your clocks."
Lindsey snorted "Hardly likely Cordelia, a bunch of school kids who fought a few vampires on the side? I don't think we were in the same league." He gestured with his good hand to the door "And if that's an indication of the level of evil you were facing I'd hardly say you were challenged with or without a Slayer." Far from looking angry or hurt at his casual dismissal of the dangers Cordelia and her friends had faced on the hell mouth she looked amused "Gorch? I agree totally a total embarrassment to vampires the world over. Nah, an average week for us was dust a few vamps, kill a couple of demons, usually snakes for some bizarre reason, and then stop the apocalypse in time for Saturday night down at the local club." She pushed her hair back from her face and fixed him with a level look "And just for the record Lindsey a Slayer, a Watcher, a witch, a werewolf, a vampire with a soul and two humans does not a bunch of school kids make."
She came out from behind the bar with the bag lung across her torso "And that was just the core. Over the years we've had another two Slayers, another witch, a techno-pagan gypsy, occasional demon allies, the Council and now I understand they run with a thousand year old demon and have yet another powerful witch and another vamp. By anyone's standards that's not a force to dismiss." She eyed him up and down "You might want to lose the jacket and tie suit boy. The less you give 'em to grab hold of the better your chances of getting out of here alive."
Lindsey eyed her right back "That explains your outfit then." Cordelia's mouth dropped open and she glanced down at herself. Low heeled black boots, black trousers and a green sweater she positively screamed taste and class "What's that supposed to mean?" Lindsey grinned and swept a dismissive hand up and down her body "What did you do spray your clothes on this morning?" Cordelia gasped in outrage "Excuse me? This happens to be a one of a kind sweater buddy and pants by this designer don't exactly come cheap you know. . . " "Oh right, you couldn't afford clothes in the right size? I know how it is trying to stretch a budget." "I do not have a budget!" "Look Cordelia it's nothing to be ashamed of." "I am not ashamed!" Cordy yelled almost stamping her foot in rage. The goddamn son of a bitch, who the hell did he think he was? Through the red haze floating in front of her eyes she saw Lindsey giving her what could only be described as a smug grin "Now, now no need to lose your temper." Her teeth snapped together with a painful sounding click and she glared at him furiously "I'll bow to your superior judgement on this and shed all unnecessary clothing." He waited a beat and then sniggered "Just the jacket and tie or should I lose the shirt and pants as well?" Cordy snorted "I thought we agreed I'd be saving your sagging ass this evening not getting up and personal with it." "Touché." Cordelia stared at him for a moment and then her lips twitched in an involuntary smile "Hurry up we need to keep moving." She crossed to the door and pressed her ear to it to listen for approaching footsteps. Lindsey shook his head and began to shrug out of his jacket 'Are you always so serious?' Cordy turned her head in amazement "Me? Serious?" Lindsey pulled on his tie and nodded "Yeah, you seem so focused all the time. So.intense." "Hello paging denial boy. You have noticed that we seem to have half the demons in LA hunting us down like dogs? One of us needs to know what to do in this situation wouldn't you say?" Lindsey nodded and crossed to stand behind her as she eased the door open and peered into the hallway and stepped out "Absolutely but do you need to be quite so Xena all the time?" Cordelia glanced back and then reached down and took his hand in hers to keep him close as they moved cautiously to the next flight of stairs "Ok Gabrielle follow me and I promise I'll try to remember to whistle while I work." Lindsey grinned again and wisely kept his mouth shut as he enjoyed the first gentle touch from another human in a longer than he could remember.
Written in response to a challenge on the fan page to have Lindsey and one of the white hats trapped in Wolfram and Hart for the night.
Chapter 2.
Ten minutes later and Lindsey was ready to scream. They had crept down two floors without seeing a single soul and he was seriously considering the possibility that Cordelia had put on the performance of a lifetime as part of a devious plot to lull him into a false sense of security and weasel information out of him. The girl stalked ahead of him, her battle axe gripped in her hand scanning around every bend with a look of fierce concentration on her face and her body held in a rigid posture. Every sense and muscle of her body seemed to be tuned to pick up the presence of a threat and, unless he was much mistaken, she seemed almost eager for a fight.
"So do you do this a lot?" His voice echoed unnaturally loud in the deserted corridor and he was rewarded with a furious look over her shoulder "Gee Lindsey why don't you just jump up and down and yell 'come and get us' that way the bad guys will find us so much quicker!" Her voice was lowered to the slightest whisper but was laced with venom as she froze in place as the wall came to an end and she leaned slowly around the corner to check all was silent before proceeding.
He opened his mouth to deliver a scathing retort and frowned as her hand clamped across his face and she shook her head frantically, he had reached up to push her wrist down when he heard the voices float down the corridor towards them. They were too far away to pick out distinct words but there were definitely more than two and one in particular caused an outbreak of goose bumps to spring all over his body. The tone was low and slow but with an intensity of pitch that bypassed the thin veneer of genetically inherited civility of two thousand or more years and went straight to the vestiges of primal instinct that lurked in every human soul. The message was clear, stay and die or flee and hide. Cordelia met his eyes with perfect understanding and jerked her head to indicate retreat was the only way to go, he nodded and they began to silently edge back down the passageway hardly daring to breath for fear of alerting the other beings to their presence.
A few minutes later they stood on the stairwell and trying to come up with a plan, Cordy was all for finding the most direct route out of the building and getting the hell out of Dodge but Lindsey on the other hand. "Look we just find some security guards and have them escort them out, that's what they get paid for after all!" Cordelia groaned and slapped a hand to her forehead and winced as her headache popped up to say hello again "Lindsey we don't know if we can trust the guards! They could be hunting round the building as we speak desperate to get their hands on your high priced ass." She tried for a reasonable tone "My vision is an indication of what might happen if we can't prevent it not a preview to what we can expect to see in a couple of hours. If we act sensibly we can probably avoid a lot of trouble and keep ourselves alive till sunup which, I don't have to tell you, is a damn good plan!" She reached out and laid a hand on his arm and squeezed gently "I've been here before, many times, and as much fun as it is being chased around deserted buildings at night by the big bad of the moment after the sixth or twentieth time it gets really old. I've stayed alive this long because I know when to lay low and beat a strategic if undignified retreat. Please, if you want to live listen to me."
Lindsey stared down at the ridiculously earnest face lifted to his and saw underneath the veneer of capability a very real fear, his ego rather than his brain made him say with a sneer " I thought you could take care of yourself. You remember, hell mouth survivor and all. Not so brave without your demon boss and muscle boys when it comes down to it are you?" Cordy reared back as though she had been slapped and then hauled off and slapped Lindsey "How dare you?" She took an unsteady breath and said in a low, furious voice "How dare you judge me? I live like this every night of my life. You.you sit on your rich, pampered ass day after day and never give a thought to the creatures you unleash on thousands of innocents and now you dare to judge me because I'm trying to get us out of here without getting either one of us killed? You sicken me." She slammed her hand flat against his shoulder and slammed him against the wall "This is how it's gonna go. You are going to do exactly as I say or I will leave you where you stand and you can take your chances on your own and I hope when the end comes your last thought is of me and the deaths you have caused over the years and maybe you might feel a tenth of the fear and horror they felt as they died by your order." She stepped back and wiped her hand unconsciously on her pants leg as though it had something unclean on it "If you want to live follow me if not say hi to your lawyer buddies in hell."
She turned without another word and headed down the stairs to the next level, Lindsey's mouth opened and closed soundlessly for a moment as he tried to assimilate the almost forgotten emotion that had stolen his voice and then it came to him in a flash of clarity. Shame, his entire body was writhing within its skin as shame flooded every cell of his being. The girl had looked at him as though he had crawled out of a pit and had crapped on her shoes. She had no time for his power or his position the only thing she saw was a weak man who had made him self anew by using and destroying the lives of others. He shook his head and followed her down the stairs his gaze slightly unfocused with the unpleasant thought that when it came to it that was all there was to him, no real substance just a puppet master being operated by the strings of others.
They proceeded in silence for a few minutes, Cordelia still clearly vibrating with repressed fury until they came to level twelve and behind the doors leading to the floor came the sound of singing. Cordy held up a hand in silence and Lindsey ground to halt still reeling from the ticking off he had just received, they listened for a few minutes as a very loud and slurred voice sang the same two lines over again.
"Uptown girl, she's bin livin' in her up town world, Bet she neva had a back street guy, bet her mama neva told her why, I'm gonna try for an uptown girl."
Cordy winced "I changed my mind, start yelling for the bad guys."
Lindsey gave an involuntary smile at her pained whisper and then frowned as she eased the heavy door open a notch and a balding overweight security guard came into view slumped in a chair waving a bottle of whisky in the air several beats out on the song. Cordelia exchanged confused looks with Lindsey and stared at the man as he kicked up the volume on his song a notch and his voice cracked with the effort, Lindsey had just reached out to push past Cordelia and find out what the hell was going on when a glistening silver spike erupted from the man's chest and pieces of heart and bone flew across the floor. The two in the doorway sucked in shocked breaths as the spike disappeared as abruptly as it had appeared and a figure stepped forward to catch the bottle of whiskey as it fell from the dead fingers
"I hate to waste good single-malt."
He shoved carelessly at the man in the chair and as the body fell forward onto it's face and dropped gracefully onto the seat in his place. Tall, at least as tall as Gunn, the man's face was handsome with a slight sheen to it as though he had been dipped in a vat of olive oil. He looked vaguely Latino but his accent was pure California and he dressed in casual, lightweight clothes that Cordelia, veteran of a hundred battles, recognised as ideal battle attire. Particularly when you seemed capable of carrying your weaponry inside your body, which is where, unless she was very much mistaken, that lethal spike had disappeared to. She thought furiously for a moment unsure whether to ease back into the stairwell and hope they could pass unnoticed or attack and hope to take at least one threat out while he was unprepared. The decision was taken out of her hands for the moment when another figure stepped into view and glanced down at the body on the floor with disdain, she felt Lindsey stiffen beside her and then hiss
"Lilah."
Cordelia frowned in confusion for a moment and then realised where she knew the name from, the woman that normally joined in with Lindsey on the whole 'tormenting Angel till he snapped' gig. Wait a minute. . .
"Isn't she meant to be dead?"
Lindsey rolled his eyes and grimaced as Lilah stepped over the man on the floor and walked to a bank of security screens on the wall before and scanned them briefly before snapping,
"This is stupid! I need to be able to see the inside of the building to pinpoint his location, for all we know he left hours ago and is at home right now mooning over that vapid blonde corpse."
She whipped around and stabbed a blood red talon at the man on the chair
"Stop sitting there and do what I'm paying you to do and find him."
The man on the chair appeared unmoved by the harsh tone of voice and instead chugged some more whiskey before saying casually
"You know I have people on every floor of the building. We have three telepaths here and our own guards at every exit. He's still here. We looped the security camera's because you wanted no evidence of our presence so although that works in our favour for a clean getaway it also means we can't use them to locate the prey."
He stood and stretched casually
"To add to that we also have to avoid the Wolfram and Hart guards you weren't able to buy off so that limits us slightly but Lindsey McDonald will be dead by morning." Lilah glared at him for a moment and then turned to stare at the useless screens again, she turned again as a phone went off in the pocket of the man and put it gracefully to his ear
"Yes?"
He listened in silence and then terminated the call without speaking again
"He's not alone."
Lilah's eyes widened with shock
"What?"
The man shrugged and took another slug of his whiskey before putting the bottle carefully onto the desk behind him
"He's not alone. There is someone in this building with him."
His eyes crinkled as he smirked
"From the sounds of it there was quite a party in your friend's office, blood everywhere, vomit, signs of sharp blades being used and a small piece of flesh was found that looked like an earlobe."
His mouth stretched to a full-blown grin
"I would have it brought to you to see if you could maybe identify it as his but my tracker lost hold of himself temporarily at the smell of the blood and ate it."
Lilah stared in disbelief and then gave an exultant laugh
"So it looks like someone did the job for me?"
She clapped her hands together in childish exuberance
"What are the chances?"
The man stared at her for a moment and then grinned again
"My guy said the room stank of the Powers."
Lilah frowned in confusion and he heaved an exasperated sigh
"The Powers That Be? Whoever was in that room with your guy works for the light."
Lilah continued to frown in confusion for a moment and then blanched in horror
"Angel! It's got to be Angel."
The man opposite her shook his head slowly as he thought,
"No, I don't think so. From what you told me its uncertain who's side the guy is on these days, if it were him I don't think that they would have picked up the scent of light so strongly."
Lilah shook her head
"But he has worked for The Powers for a long time there would still be some trace of them on him."
She glanced around her panic-stricken
"I have to get out of here. If it is him then he won't stop at Lindsey if he finds out I'm in the building. He's trying to finish what he started in Holland's cellar."
She snatched up a sleek leather bag from the floor and hurried out of Cordy's line of sight
"You have take me downstairs and out of the building, you can call me when you find Lindsey's body."
The man stood still for a moment and then reached out and snagged the bottle of whisky again and strolled out after Lilah.
Cordy sagged with relief and then stepped out cautiously into the hall holding the door open for Lindsey as she did so. She turned to face him and saw the look of pure rage on his face
"Lindsey are you alright?"
She was alarmed to see his fists opening and closing at his sides and his eyes glazed with fury
"Hey it's ok. We're safe for a moment and I promise you I'll get you out of here alive."
She smiled reassuringly at him but that faded when he spat "But not in one piece, right Cordelia?"
Her face fell in confusion and then she suddenly realised what he was mad about
"Oh. Oh. Lindsey I'm so sorry. It was an accident I swear!"
She backed away as he advanced on her trembling with hate and fury and yelped as she fell over the body on the floor and landed on her butt
"You cut off my ear!"
"Not all of it! Just the bottom of the lobe, you can hardly see it."
Lindsey stood frozen by the sheer audacity of the girl, she really thought that made it so much better that it was only a piece of him rather than the whole?
"Somebody ate my ear!"
Cordy scrambled to her feet and placed her hands on her hips
"Yeah, well somebody ate half my graduating class. Life sucks, deal with it."
She scowled and stepped back over the body to get up in his face
"Buddy, after the scams you've pulled in recent years and all the cosmic retribution you've got coming you think you'd be a little more forgiving when you get trespassed against. I said I was sorry and it truly was an accident and if you'll let me I'll give it my all to stop that skanky not- dead girl killing you to make it up."
She broke off her speech to flash a blinding grin
"What do you say? One nearly whole body in exchange for one measly earlobe deals like that don't come along everyday you know."
Despite himself Lindsey felt his lips twitch as she smiled up at him
"You really think that will make alright what you did to me?"
Cordy looked troubled for a moment and Lindsey caught a glimpse of genuine regret flash across her face
"Not even close but if you think I 'm gonna let you cut bits off me when we make it out of here to even up the score you're even loopier than Druscilla."
Lindsey laughed out loud then and Cordelia caught another glimpse of the man he might have been if he hadn't gotten caught up with Wolfram and Hart, he smiled into her eyes and said
"I think you owe me for more than an earlobe Cordelia." She frowned until he lifted his hand in front of her eyes and then watched the light glint off the plastic.
"You blame me for that?"
Her voice was husky with the remembered pain of being trapped screaming in her own head with the forgotten, troubled souls of the city. Lindsey opened his mouth and then paused for a moment
"Are the visions always like that?"
Cordy met his eyes and very slowly dropped her habitual cloaking so her eyes and soul lay as naked to his gaze as a newborn child
"Every time."
Lindsey swallowed at the pain, fear and weariness that lay before him and that hung heavily on every syllable of the two words she spoke. He shook his head and spoke through a suddenly dry mouth
"We never thought what it would do to you."
He half expected to have his uncertain words flung back in his face but she nodded and said simply
"Thank you."
They held each other's gaze for a second longer and then broke apart and uncomfortable silence coming between them. Cordy swallowed and looked down at the body on the floor and then knelt and pressed a gentle hand to the pulse point on the neck, Lindsey frowned and said
"Cordelia he's dead there's nothing you can do for him."
She stared up at him for a moment suddenly looking a lot younger than her years and then spoke
"I know I just had to check."
She came to her feet in one graceful move and looked down for another brief moment
"I stood there and watched him die and did nothing. If there was any chance he survived then I owe to him to do what I could."
She shrugged and turned away
"As it turns out he's just another human shish-kabob."
Lindsey stared at her in genuine bafflement
"If you'd have tried to do something you'd be dead."
It was his turn to stare at the body on the floor
"You can't save them all."
Cordelia gave a bitter smile
"Congratulations Lindsey you just summed up in one sentence the glaring differences between us."
She looked at him with deep disgust
"I don't want to save the world I just have to save the person in front of me. Even if that means that one day I die trying."
She shook her head and turned away
"Come on we need to get moving."
Lindsey followed her without a word and nearly crashed into her back as she froze in place staring ahead of her, he looked past her and saw two vampires, one in a long coat and Stetson, staring back at them with wide grins.
"Slayer."
Cordelia frowned for a moment and then exclaimed in surprised recognition
"Lyle Gorch!"
She made sure she was squarely in front of Lindsey and raised one eyebrow
"What rock did you crawl out from under?"
She pointedly hefted the axe over her shoulder and said calmly
"Didn't I cream your ass enough for you last time?"
The vampire looked momentarily discomfited and then gave a shrug and stabbed a finger at her
"Last time you had help. I only see one Slayer tonight and two of us. The human doesn't look like good back-up to me."
Cordelia risked a quick glance over her shoulder and took in Lindsey's pale face covered in a light sheen of nervous sweat
"We both know I don't need help to take you Gorch."
She gave a confident grin "Just so you know Buffy's two floors up dusting up a storm as we speak. I wouldn't want you thinking I don't play fair after all."
She took a measured step towards the two vampires and said in a hard tone
"Now introduce me to your friend so I know who's ashes I gonna be washing out of my hair come morning and we'll get this show on the road."
The vampire with Gorch flinched back and then was shoved forward, Cordelia had time to get the impression of a young guy who couldn't have been more than twenty when he died then she took a step back for balance swung her axe and neatly took his head off. Lindsey had taken a deep breath to shout a warning and unfortunately got a mouthful of vampire dust and promptly choked leaving Cordelia to face Gorch again with an eyebrow raised in query, the vamp blinked in disbelief suddenly looking worried
"You have two choices John Wayne get the hell out of my way or be prepared to spend the rest of the night being trodden into the carpet."
Cordelia's voice was harsh with fear and anger and the demon before her visibly flinched before saying
"If you give me the human you can get out of here Slayer nobody needs to get hurt."
Despite herself Cordelia took a small amount of genuine pleasure in the tremor of fear in his voice
"I think you mean you don't need to get dead honey, but just so we're clear the man is under our protection and when have you ever known a Slayer back down from a fight?"
The demon stared for a second and then turned tail and ran hell for leather back down the corridor, Cordy yelled after him
"You'd better run Gorch! I'll tell Buffy to keep an eye out for you!"
She turned to Lindsey and shoved him in the opposite direction
"Move!"
Lindsey obediently began to run alongside her managing to pant out
"Slayer?"
Cordelia shot him a smile as they pelted down a seemingly endless corridor
" Really dumb vamp. Met him in high school, long story explain later."
She stopped abruptly and gave a small whoop of delight at the discreet sign by a large oak panelled door she opened it and shoved him inside and locked the door behind them. It took a few moments to locate the lights but eventually she found them and then Lindsey found himself standing in the Partner's private lounge, Cordy hurried to the bar that ran the length of the room and began examining bottles and selecting ones to stand on the bar in front of her. Lindsey crossed to her and said curiously
"What are you doing?"
Cordelia glanced up and waved a twenty-year-old bottle of scotch under his nose
"Weapons."
She gave an exclamation of delight and threw a pile of cotton napkins beside her bottles, Lindsey looked more confused
"You're going to bartend them to death?"
Cordelia stopped for a moment and stared at him with amused pity
"And you call yourself a demon lover."
She held up the whisky and poured it over the pile of napkins and then cracked another bottle when that ran out and repeated the procedure
"You soak the cloth with alcohol and if you need an edge before a fight you light it and throw, the cloth sticks to the vamp if it hits skin and hey presto! Vampire fondue."
She gave him another blinding smile and continued throwing piles of napkins on the counter and saturating them with three hundred dollar a pop bottles of scotch.
"Where did you learn all this?"
Lindsey asked in fascinated horror, Cordy grinned again
"Oh please like you don't know everything there is to know about me down to my bra size."
She ducked down under the counter to search for a bag or container to put the ruined cloths in
"I went to school on a hell mouth with a vampire slayer you pick these things up as you go along. I once killed a demon with superglue and the heel of my foot."
She saw the revolted look that crossed his face and laughed
"He had transformed into thousands of maggoty things at the time and it was all we could think of. It got the job done."
She stared down at the top of the bar for a moment and then said quietly
"And it helped save Buffy and Angel's life." Lindsey watched as she carelessly began to stuff the saturated cotton in a tote bag that she first emptied of soiled bar aprons, "Do you do that a lot?" She flicked him a puzzled look "Save Angel's life I mean." She worked her way down the bar examining under the counter for anything that could be used as a weapon "Sometimes. We failed horribly once and he went to hell and Buffy died when she fought the Master but other than that we pretty much made it unscathed through high school." She gave a short laugh as she remembered a few highlights of her chequered school career "Sure made for a hell of an education I know that much." Lindsey frowned as he saw an almost wistful expression cross her face "You look like you almost miss it." Cordy shook her head and opened her mouth and then paused for a moment "Sometimes I do. Not just because I had a whole life and money and everything but I was a part of something." She grinned at Lindsey "I telling you, you want to be glad you never came up against the Sunnydale crew we would have cleaned your clocks."
Lindsey snorted "Hardly likely Cordelia, a bunch of school kids who fought a few vampires on the side? I don't think we were in the same league." He gestured with his good hand to the door "And if that's an indication of the level of evil you were facing I'd hardly say you were challenged with or without a Slayer." Far from looking angry or hurt at his casual dismissal of the dangers Cordelia and her friends had faced on the hell mouth she looked amused "Gorch? I agree totally a total embarrassment to vampires the world over. Nah, an average week for us was dust a few vamps, kill a couple of demons, usually snakes for some bizarre reason, and then stop the apocalypse in time for Saturday night down at the local club." She pushed her hair back from her face and fixed him with a level look "And just for the record Lindsey a Slayer, a Watcher, a witch, a werewolf, a vampire with a soul and two humans does not a bunch of school kids make."
She came out from behind the bar with the bag lung across her torso "And that was just the core. Over the years we've had another two Slayers, another witch, a techno-pagan gypsy, occasional demon allies, the Council and now I understand they run with a thousand year old demon and have yet another powerful witch and another vamp. By anyone's standards that's not a force to dismiss." She eyed him up and down "You might want to lose the jacket and tie suit boy. The less you give 'em to grab hold of the better your chances of getting out of here alive."
Lindsey eyed her right back "That explains your outfit then." Cordelia's mouth dropped open and she glanced down at herself. Low heeled black boots, black trousers and a green sweater she positively screamed taste and class "What's that supposed to mean?" Lindsey grinned and swept a dismissive hand up and down her body "What did you do spray your clothes on this morning?" Cordelia gasped in outrage "Excuse me? This happens to be a one of a kind sweater buddy and pants by this designer don't exactly come cheap you know. . . " "Oh right, you couldn't afford clothes in the right size? I know how it is trying to stretch a budget." "I do not have a budget!" "Look Cordelia it's nothing to be ashamed of." "I am not ashamed!" Cordy yelled almost stamping her foot in rage. The goddamn son of a bitch, who the hell did he think he was? Through the red haze floating in front of her eyes she saw Lindsey giving her what could only be described as a smug grin "Now, now no need to lose your temper." Her teeth snapped together with a painful sounding click and she glared at him furiously "I'll bow to your superior judgement on this and shed all unnecessary clothing." He waited a beat and then sniggered "Just the jacket and tie or should I lose the shirt and pants as well?" Cordy snorted "I thought we agreed I'd be saving your sagging ass this evening not getting up and personal with it." "Touché." Cordelia stared at him for a moment and then her lips twitched in an involuntary smile "Hurry up we need to keep moving." She crossed to the door and pressed her ear to it to listen for approaching footsteps. Lindsey shook his head and began to shrug out of his jacket 'Are you always so serious?' Cordy turned her head in amazement "Me? Serious?" Lindsey pulled on his tie and nodded "Yeah, you seem so focused all the time. So.intense." "Hello paging denial boy. You have noticed that we seem to have half the demons in LA hunting us down like dogs? One of us needs to know what to do in this situation wouldn't you say?" Lindsey nodded and crossed to stand behind her as she eased the door open and peered into the hallway and stepped out "Absolutely but do you need to be quite so Xena all the time?" Cordelia glanced back and then reached down and took his hand in hers to keep him close as they moved cautiously to the next flight of stairs "Ok Gabrielle follow me and I promise I'll try to remember to whistle while I work." Lindsey grinned again and wisely kept his mouth shut as he enjoyed the first gentle touch from another human in a longer than he could remember.