SEQ CHAPTER h r 1CHAPTER TWO
The ringing phone dragged Lindsey out of a dead sleep. He put the wrong end to his ear first then fumbled it into place. "Yeah...Oh, Saeth, yeah you woke me but that's okay. Are you in the air?...to where? Why are you going to the Daintree Rainforest in Australia?...Work? But we...no, no, I know you're a Watcher. I know there's some big evil you have to stop...yes, of course...another time...I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. It's not often I get to spend time with someone as beautiful and special as you...I'll be looking forward to seeing you. Keep safe. Don't let that thing crawling out of the Dream Time get you."
Lindsey dropped the phone down, acutely disappointed. Lorne was right. Things were suddenly not going his way. It sucked. His engine was revving and he was stuck in neutral. He didn't know why a White Hat like Saeth wanted to be with someone like him. Of course, as a special Ops Watcher, she was more steel grey than white.
"Damn." Lindsey rolled out of bed and shrugged on his robe. It wasn't the missed weekend of sex, the hundreds of dollars worth of flowers or the toys that wouldn't get used. It was having someone outside of work, someone outside of the shark-filled ocean he swam in that he would miss being with. He wanted to forget the pressures, to forget the awful thing he was in danger of becoming. Angel was trying to force him out of the life. Saeth echoed that in her own way. He had been expecting to lose himself in Saeth, maybe go away with her. It was a fantasy he had toyed with.
Now the Powers were against him. Something that had come into his possession, if Lorne was right. It had to be something at work. Flowers were hardly a threat and he'd already decided to send them to the children's cancer wards at three local hospitals. He didn't see any inherent threat in sex toys other than they'd sit in the closet mocking him for their lack of use. Oh, he could probably make one-handed use out of the massage oil but what good was an amaretto-flavored penis if there was no one to enjoy it?
Lindsey stepped out on his balcony to enjoy his view of L.A.. He so rarely had time to just sit out on the balcony with a cup of coffee in the morning or a beer at night. He ought to go in and brew some coffee and just lounge around for a while, enjoying his view of the city or of the condo pool and its bikini-clad girls eleven stories down.
Something fluttering on the balcony next to his caught Lindsey's eyes. He turned to get a better look and saw his new neighbors had a large black and white flag flying from their balcony. Small decorative flags were allowed but not full-sized one like the new neighbors had. Even worse, it was a German eagle with a SS banner clutched in its beak. Lindsey couldn't squelch the revulsion the image stirred in him. He might be able to deal with the evil at Wolfram and Hart but evil on the Nazi scale gave him the cold shivers. That should tell him that really he ought to get out of Wolfram and Hart since they could be capable of such evil and worse. Their evil touched many dimensions.
He stormed back inside and called the office manager. "Sorry for calling so early Ms. Bratcher but you need to know my next door neighbors are flying a Gestapo flag off their balcony...yes, it is a flagrant violation of the rules...thank you for dealing with this."
Lindsey put the neighbors out of mind, made some coffee, skipped on his view and debated going into work since his holiday was ruined. He decided not to waste a perfectly good spring vacation. Lindsey put his swim trunks on and pulled on a T-shirt. He put a towel, cut offs and underwear in a grocery back along with a book, the latest mystery by Jean Hager dealing with a Cherokee detective. It was set back in his home territory and he liked the familiarity of it.
It sucked going to the beach by himself. A woman would have had the perfect bag for going, as sexist as that thought was. He looked like a hobo. He put a sandwich and a few sodas in a cooler. He wouldn't be at the beach long. He just wanted to get there early and let the sun kiss his skin. He spent too much time in the dark. Lindsey used to enjoy body boarding and swimming but had no confidence to do it minus one hand. Volleyball and fishing were out, too. He wasn't much for just lying on the beach but for a little while it would be okay, certainly better than going into the office.
The beach wasn't crowded yet. Lindsey put down his blanket and stretched out. He tried to get comfortable. His truncated arm felt like his heart had migrated into the stump, beating a mile a minute. As much as he didn't want to do it, he took off the prosthesis. He just hoped people wouldn't stop and stare in spite of themselves. He laid the prosthesis beside him and, with the pressure off, his arm felt better almost instantly. He started to read, losing himself in the book.
He was nearly asleep when something cold and wet inserted itself in his ear. Lindsey jerked awake to see a buff-colored husky with red 'eyeliner' fur. She appeared to be grinning at him, her pink tongue lolling out. She paced down to his feet, licked his soles. While he laughed involuntarily, she lunged and grabbed his prosthesis, wheeling away.
"Son of a bitch!" Lindsey scrambled to his feet. He didn't pause to pull on shoes. He felt awkward racing along the hot sand. He had never been much of a runner and now with half an arm gone he felt like the entire beach was staring at the ludicrous scene of him trying to get his hand back from a huge husky. Maybe he should call her a wolf since she was big enough. "Get back here, you mutt," he screamed and she veered into the surf as if on purpose. "Good doggie, don't drop that arm."
Lindsey had a vision of his arm getting sucked out to sea and he'd have to go to work with his jacket sleeve pinned up. Lilah would be amused. The dog looked back at him and he could have sworn she smiled around the arm clutched in her huge teeth. She cantered out of the surf and sprinted to where two Native Americans were walking down the beach. Lindsey figured them to be from the plains given the darkness of their skins, and the eagle-like grace of their features. He had known a lot of Cherokee growing up in Oklahoma and the duo bore a resemblance to some of his friends.
He had been such an outsider in school, short, smart, poor and having a 'girl's' name. He had three choices for friends since the 'cool' part of the student body wanted nothing to do with him; the burn-out druggies, the trailer trash with whom he shared an upbringing more or less, and the ethnic minority, the Cherokee. Somehow he ended up with them, maybe because of his own lack of a desire to be a burnout or trailer trash. He had had a lot of Cherokee friends, including the girl he gave his virginity to, Jessica Man Killer.
The dog made a beeline for the couple. The stunningly beautiful woman, her breasts barely concealed by the tiny lime green bikini top, held a leash. The man looked somehow amused by something. The dog dropped the arm at the man's feet. Lindsey stumbled to a stop, panting, his lungs on fire. He leaned over trying to catch his breath.
"I am so sorry. Sunka gets so feisty sometimes and slips the leash," the woman said, trying to re-leash the dog who growled.
The man took the leash and got down on his haunches. "Be a good dog, Sunka."
The dog eyed the man so sourly, so intelligently, that Lindsey had a sudden thought. It wasn't a wolf or a dog. It was a shape shifter. Maybe not the typical werewolf, since it was neither night nor a full moon but still there were dozens of shape shifter types. Lindsey had a very bad feeling about this. Lorne's warning came to mind. He was staring at a very beautiful dark-haired woman who put him in mind of Jessica Man Killer and in a very good way. Lorne's unusually solemn fiery eyes flared in Lindsey's mind's eye and he suddenly felt like running like hell in the opposite direction.
"Sorry about this." The woman handed Lindsey back his arm.
For his part, Lindsey shifted from foot to foot. Now on dry sand and shoeless, the hot sand was beginning to burn his soles. He examined his hand, which seemed no worse for wear other than a few pock marks. "No real harm done," he said, figuring he had nothing to gain by making an even bigger scene than he already had.
"Let us buy you some lunch to make up for it," the woman said.
"No, that's all right," Lindsey replied, dancing back to the wet sand. He sighed as the ocean lapped over his toes, cooling his frying soles.
"Are you sure? It's the least we could do." The man seemed a little irritated that Lindsey wasn't receptive to the idea of sitting down to a lunch with them.
"No, it wasn't your fault. You and your girlfriend don't have to do anything. I'll be fine." Lindsey just wished they'd leave him alone and quit calling attention to him.
The woman smiled. "James isn't my boyfriend. We're related."
"That's a very amusing joke," James said to the woman.
"What joke?" The woman cocked her head at her companion.
James seemed suddenly horrified. Sunka barked in what sounded like a laugh. Lindsey was even more convinced the dog was a shape shifter who understood every word being said. That meant his arm hadn't been taken on some doggy whim. Lindsey needed to figure out who they were and why they had targeted him.
"Come on, let us buy you lunch. I'm Dominique Crazy Fox and he's James Whirlwind Solider. You've met Sunka." Dominique smiled, wiggling just a bit as if she could lure him in with those magnificent breasts. It almost worked.
"Nice to meet you, but really it's fine and I have to get going. I have to get to the office. I only have the morning off." Lindsey took off up the beach before they could argue. He didn't want to go into the office but he was going to. It was clear now what Lorne meant. Yesterday he had received a Lakota medicine shield and today his luck had turned to shit. He knew it could be pure coincidence that he received a Lakota holy item and then met two Native Americas but Lindsey wasn't much of a believer in coincidence, especially not with Lorne's warning and the fact that Gwen had stolen the item. There was nothing to do but go on the offensive. Having lunch might have told him something but he didn't want to go anywhere with them until he knew more about the medicine shield. If they were after it, he knew he'd see them again.
After wiping dog drool off his arm and reattaching it, Lindsey packed all his beach stuff up and put it back in his truck. He fumbled with getting the old thing started and in gear. He hadn't wanted to take a cab to the beach, too much pride and not enough good sense. He went home to change. It might be a day off for him but he wasn't about to go into Wolfram and Hart in street clothes.
He showered the sun tan lotion off and dressed just like he did any other day. He put his Armani suit on like armor. He grabbed a bouquet of roses just to see if they'd sway Lilah into taking the medicine shield off his hands. He wasn't in his office five minutes before she came in. It spared him the effort of hunting her down.
"Stood you up, didn't she?" Lilah sat on the edge of his desk, looking immensely pleased at the idea.
"I wasn't stood up, Lilah," he replied sourly. "My days off had no agenda."
"Of course, that's why you're here on your vacation." She ticked a finger against his prosthetic hand. He pulled it out of reach. "Are those bite marks?"
"I'm here because Lorne was right." Lindsey dropped the medicine shield in her lap. "Know anything about this, Lilah?"
Lilah lifted an edge of it with a fingernail and let it slither off her lap onto his desk. "No, and if it's the cursed item Lorne told you to ditch, I don't want to know."
"Liar," Lindsey snarled. "I just looked. You were supposed to take this requisition. You changed it to my workload. Why? What does this thing do?"
"Not a clue. I put you in charge because it's funny to watch you do the hormone dance whenever Gwen of the leather pants brings us something." Lilah gave him that superior smirk of hers. "I was doing you a favor. Maybe you'd get somewhere with her then again probably not. I mean, you couldn't even get an ex-whore of a vampire to lay you."
"I've told you before, don't talk to me about Darla." Lindsey got up. "Tell me what you know about this shield."
"All I know is the Senior Partners wanted it. I have no idea why. I don't want to know. So, was it Gwen who stood you up?" Lilah picked up the bouquet of roses and took a deep whiff.
"My love life isn't any of your concern, Lilah. Besides, those roses are for you."
"Awww, did you really think roses would make me take that shield off your plastic hand?" Lilah swung off his desk. "How dumb do you think I am? It's your problem now, Lindsey. You deal with it. And you can keep your flowers."
Before he knew what she was doing, Lilah grabbed his waist band, pulling on it just enough to jam the bouquet down his pants. His breath caught and she sauntered off. "Thorns," he muttered, very carefully extricating the bouquet. He tossed them on his desk, threw the shield back in the wall safe and started poking around the computer files trying to see if he could figure out what it was and why someone would want it back. He knew he could complain to the Senior Partners about Lilah's dirty trick of sneaking it onto his work load but he would more likely receive a reprimand for allowing it to happen in the first place.
Other than generic information on the importance of medicine shields, Lindsey learned nothing. He could tell that the design on the one in his safe, a beaded spider's web, was unusual. He didn't know enough about the Lakota to tell what kind of power symbol that might be and he couldn't find anything on a search since it was mostly commercial designs that were uploaded to the net, wolves, foxes, that sort of thing. Any in-house information on the shield was restricted to the Senior Partners and within an hour Lindsey had gotten a call to firmly remind him he was on vacation and that things were restricted for a reason.
"Screw it," he muttered. "I need a drink."
Lindsey decided to go home, maybe grab something to eat and put this all behind him. Going for that drink was definitely on the agenda. He dropped the bouquet off on his secretary's desk on his way out as he thought about ways of paying Lilah back for this.