Title: Heart's Desire, a Lindsey story in the Angel universe
Author: Brenda Antrim
Email: bren@bantrim.net
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
Spoilers: Possible spoilers for all episodes concerning Wolfram & Hart, definite spoilers for To Shansu in LA.

Lindsey McDonald was adept at appearing to look at things without ever allowing the details to go further than his corneas. In cases like this, it helped.

His slight, frail, big-eyed defendant looked like a strong puff of wind would blow her away. She certainly didn't look like the type of monster capable of eviscerating four men, tying a fifth one in their small intestines and strangling him with the knotted length of their colons. It was almost artistic, the way the corpses had been arranged, if one discounted the sheer gruesome facts of blood and ripped skin, discarded internal organs and gaping body cavities. The murderer, with a true eye for detail, had arranged the four gutted corpses in a three-dimensional box around the fifth, almost an altar to the picture of terror on the fifth corpse's blue-tinged face. The bulging blue eyes looked almost surprised.

They certainly didn't look peaceful.

So Lindsey did what he did best. He danced around the evidence; cast shadows of doubt on time, place, and memory; shone a spotlight on the obvious absurdity of his client being in any way, shape or form connected to such horrible happenings.

As had become the norm since he'd returned to the fold, with a great deal of apparently effortless damned hard work on his part, the jury bought it. Hook, line and sinker. He sometimes wondered if his soaring success rate in court work was some sort of strange karmic compensation for losing his hand to that bastard Angel on the night of the Raising.

Not that that had done a hell of a lot of good. Two weeks after finally coaxing Angel's sire out of her crate, after nearly four months of talking her into a fine little revenge scenario, the stupid bitch managed to get herself staked. By Wesley. It was disgusting.

Happily, he hadn't had any part in that particular fiasco. Lila was still in deep shit for it. He himself had been called away, luckily, to help bolster the case against one of Wolfram and Hart's most useful tools. He smiled down at that tool. Big dark eyes smiled back at him. While he managed to keep the smile plastered on his face, he couldn't do a damned thing about the shiver that ran down his spine.

God. Not another one. Not another murderess with the hots for him. Vanessa Brewer had been bad enough, but freak that she'd been, she'd at least been human. Using a loose definition of the word. This one, while she looked like a dead ringer for a living Ophelia, was pure one hundred per cent demon.

He extended his hand to assist her from her chair, the picture of the gentleman lawyer assisting his vindicated but still greatly maligned delicate flower of a client. Her fingers curled around his hand and he bit back a gasp. Her skin burned his. She continued to hold his fingers clasped between her palms as they walked from the courtroom. He lowered his shoulder, angling his body in front of hers and successfully blocking everyone from getting a good clear photograph of her.

It was always better to keep as clean a record as possible. All sorts of records. All sorts of clean.

He tried to disengage her grip at the curb, but she pulled him into the back of the Lexus with her. He felt his smile slip. "Fresla? Uhm, it's okay now, you can let go." He put as much reassurance as he could into his voice.

She laughed. Softly. His skin crawled an inch closer to his body. Even his hair tried to pull away from her, curl in on itself. The smile disappeared completely.

"They would have given me the death penalty," she told him, as if he didn't know. Her voice was low and husky, and he was grateful all over again that she hadn't had to say anything in court. No way in hell would anybody believe a mouse could have a voice like that. And if they didn't believe she was a mouse ... yeah, they would have put her down.

"You're free and clear," he tried again. He tugged his hand. Her fingers tightened, and this time he did gasp.

She turned his hand between hers and brought it up to her mouth, placing a kiss in the center of his palm. His toes curled, and sweat started to trickle down his back. It felt like she'd branded him.

"You know what I do."

Kill people, he thought but didn't say.

"I make a gift of your heart's desire," she continued. He nodded. That had been why they'd been in the courtroom for the past week. A client of Wolfram and Hart had made a wish. She'd carried that wish out. Thoroughly.

"I know, Fresla, but-"

"What is your heart's desire, Lindsey?" she asked, breaking into his latest verbal attempt to get her to back off. He froze.

"Huh?" he asked. He knew his expression must have matched the half-witted grunt that fell out of his mouth, but he couldn't think of anything else to say. This wasn't exactly a bonus he'd expected.

"I will give you your heart's desire." It was a command. No room for negotiation.

Half afraid to piss her off, half afraid of the ramifications if he accepted, Lindsey swallowed his reservations and named the one thing he'd wanted since he lost it. He'd almost resigned himself to being without it. Almost. But not quite. "I want my hand back."

She smiled. "Know your heart."

He didn't know what to say to her. There were a lot of things he wanted : to never be afraid, to end up the winner, to hold the reins of power and not get tossed on his ass. There were other things, darker things, with the taste and the smell and the feel of revenge and satiation. None of them were concrete. All of them were too much to ask for. He didn't look any deeper.

"My hand," he said decisively. Her smile deepened, until it looked feral. He swallowed, steeling his nerves for whatever her next move might be.

Her left hand uncurled from his, and cradled the stump of his wrist in her palm. Then she leaned forward and kissed him again, this time on the lips. The heat invaded him, branding his mouth, drying his throat. His head swam, vision blurring as a strange, numbing tingle ran from his right wrist to his chest, to his left hand, then back to his chest before moving from the general area of his heart up his throat and into his mouth. He found himself kissing her back, wild in that heat, panting harshly as the feeling returned to his hands, his chest, his face.

"A-hem."

The sound of a throat clearing finally penetrated his haze, and he opened his eyes to discover that they were back at the Firm. The car door was open, and Holland was standing there, peering down into the back seat, trying not to laugh. Lindsey looked away, and realized that he had a lap full of demon. Who was smiling back up at him.

Her eyes weren't dark any longer. They were green. He blinked. The color swirled, and once again they were dark, as they should be. At the same time, the darkness in his own vision cleared. He shook his head.

Then she was gracefully hoisting herself out of his lap and onto the sidewalk, and he was staggering like a drunk, pulling himself out of the car and hanging on to the door for balance.

With both hands.

He stared at his right hand for a very long time. Then a large, male hand came down and touched him lightly across the knuckles. He looked up to meet Holland's gaze. It was penetrating, with that unsettling hint of laughter still there.

"She likes you," he told Lindsey. Lindsey stared up at him.

"Yeah," he answered. His voice was rusty. "I guess."

"I know," Holland corrected him. "Now come inside and let's wrap this up. There's been enough of a floor show already."

Lindsey nodded, blinked several times, and peeled his hands away from the door frame, following Holland upstairs to the conference room. The rest of the debriefing-cum-celebration passed in a daze for him. He kept getting distracted, staring at his hands. Two healthy, human hands. The only sign he could find that one was a new addition was a thin blurred scar stretching the circumference of his right wrist.

He looked up as she was leaving. She smiled back at him. His mouth burned. So did his fingertips.

Then she was gone. It would be awhile before the Firm used her again. The case had been much too high profile to risk exposing her any time soon. He was relieved. Much as he appreciated getting his hand back, she was a little too creepy to have around.

He flexed his hand. Flexed both hands. Curled them into fists. Visualized his new fist impacting with Angel's jaw, for lopping the fucking thing off to begin with. Then unclenched his fingers, shook hands with the senior partners, and headed back up to his office.

Enough distraction. He had work to do. Clients to defend. Strategies to plan. A vampire to put away. For good.

The first time it happened he was at his desk.

The world went a little dark around the edges, and the scar on his right wrist began to itch. It was nine days after he'd successfully concluded the case of Fresla Brandeis vs. the State of California. The clock had just ticked silently past eleven o'clock in the morning.

The next thing he knew, sunlight was washing over his desk in the waning edges of dusk. His wrist was itching again, not as badly, and fading away even as he reached to scratch it. The marble and onyx clock next to his pen stand read seven fifty three.

In the evening.

None of the papers on his desk had moved. But his tie was loose, hanging around his neck, and there was a slight pain in the small of his back. His right knee hurt, just a little, and his right shoulder felt bruised. His hair was falling in his eyes.

Lindsey stared at the clock and wondered where the hell the day had gone and why he felt like he'd gone ten rounds with a heavyweight. He tore his eyes away from the clock and looked down at his hands, lying against the pristine cream of company stationery.

There was blood under his nails.

He swallowed, then got up slowly and carefully. He walked with military precision to the executive restroom and washed his hands. Brushed at his nails until the skin was shiny pink and the nail beds were completely clean. Dried his hands, walked to a stall, locked it behind himself. Knelt mechanically and vomited. Wiped his mouth with toilet tissue then very carefully stood again. He flushed the toilet, his movements jerky, uncoordinated, then forced himself back under control. He left the stall, fumbling slightly with the lock before slamming it back out of the way. Returning to the sink, he rinsed out his mouth, washed his face, and stared at himself in the mirror, hanging on to the sides of the sink for dear life.

He had no fucking clue what the hell was going on.

With no better idea of what to do, he returned to his office and tried to think. Dawn was breaking before he gave it up as a bad deal and went home to bed.

After staring at the ceiling for three hours, he gave that up as a bad deal as well. He showered, shaved, and went back to the office.

The place was buzzing like a wasp nest after it had been hit with a broom handle.

Lila cornered him before he even got to his office.

"Can you believe it?"

He gave her a half-hearted glare. "Gimme a break, Lila, I haven't even smelled my coffee yet."

She shook her head at him. "Rough night?" Sweeping on before he had the chance to so much as shrug, she filled him in on the news. "Somebody hit the Stronghold last night."

Lindsey felt his stomach drop. "How bad?" Files, plans, relics and artifacts were stored in the Stronghold. If a rogue group of demons got hold of some of them, or even worse, Angel, Wolfram and Hard would be in very deep shit.

"The worst." She shuddered, and he couldn't help but agree. "They didn't break in, they hit it." She stared at him expectantly. He blinked back, confused.

"With what?" he ground out when no further information was forthcoming. God, he hated it when she got smug.

"A tactical nuclear bomb, from the look of it. But probably just gel, from the lack of mushroom cloud or heavy radiation." She was serious.

"Holy shit," he breathed. She nodded, her eyes impossibly wide. He had the feeling he looked as stupefied as she did.

"There's nothing there but a big black pit, full of Guardian demon bones and melted metal and scorched concrete."

"Who?" It was all he could do to force it out. This was a crippling blow to Wolfram and Hart.

She shrugged, a tense little ripple through her shoulders. "Nobody's saying for certain, but they have their suspicions."

"Angel?" he asked. It was a stab in the dark, but the soulled vampire was the best bet for a strike like this. She nodded. "But how the hell'd he find out where it was? Only the senior partners knew, and not even all of them, I don't think."

That tense little shrug again, and she took a deep breath. "Rumors are flying all over the place. That the server's been hacked into, files stolen, even one of the mind-readers bribed off."

He shook his head. "Nope, too scared for their lives." He didn't believe the last one.

"Who knows? All I know is, all hell's breaking loose, and I'm going to keep my head down and my tail covered." She patted his shoulder quickly, then headed off down the hall. "I suggest you do the same."

"No doubt about it," he tossed after her, then walked slowly toward his office, thinking hard.

It didn't make any sense. None of it made any sense.

Two days later the security forces at the Firm were no closer to the truth. Lindsey and the rest of the junior partners were called in to a full division meeting. To no one's surprise, the mind-readers were in attendance as well.

Black eyes like bottomless wells stared into him. Through him. Wandered over to the next poor bastard, then swung back to him like pit vipers striking. Unlike the last time this happened, he didn't know he was gonna die. Didn't know betrayal lived in his heart and lies coated his thoughts. All he had was a big goddamned hole in his memory. From the faintly perplexed look on the senior mind reader's face, she wasn't quite sure what to make of it, either.

At least this time Phil didn't come stand behind him. If Lindsey was going to take a bullet in the brain, he wanted to know why. If he didn't know better, he'd swear he was in an X Files episode. His left hand slipped up unconsciously to feel the back of his neck. He dropped it and blushed when the younger mind reader suddenly grinned. The expression disappeared as quickly as it had shown, but he'd seen it.

Whatever they'd found, it hadn't indicated treachery. Not from him, at least. And not from anyone else, because they all walked back out the door when the unnerving experience was finally over. This time, Holland didn't call him back.

He glanced over his shoulder as he was leaving. Holland was looking at him, but he wasn't saying anything. And he didn't look upset. But the familiar twinkle was absent from his eyes. Lindsey checked, of his own volition this time, and turned to face his mentor.

"Uhm, Holland," he asked hesitantly, "are you okay?"

A warm, absolutely false smile wreathed the older man's face. "Just what I was going to ask you, Lindsey."

He shrugged, uncomfortable and not quite sure why. "I'm okay," he offered. Holland's smile warmed a degree.

"Are you sure?" His voice invited a confidence Lindsey wasn't able to give. He couldn't explain what he didn't, himself, understand.

"I think so," he answered. Holland gestured him out of the room with a shooing motion. Lindsey went. It was enough, for the moment.

A silent shadow moved across the LA streets. It was too early for the sun to have baked the pavement yet, and the air was surprisingly sweet-scented. With the rising heat would come the smog and the traffic and the bustle of the city. Early in the day, there was only the occasional bird song, the hush-hush of a few early morning commuters, and the promise of the day to come.

The door to Angel Investigations was locked. Strong fingers probed with a slender metal tool, and it was opened. The figure moved through the deserted office, making no noise to alert the vampire who'd fallen asleep less than an hour before. Three files and a computer disk were placed in the center of the desk, for Cordelia Chase to find when she came in to work a few hours later.

The figure walked back to the door, flicked the handle to the locked position, and closed it silently, before disappearing down the sidewalk.

A week after the security meeting and group mind-read, on a Sunday evening, Lindsey settled into his Jacuzzi and tried to relax. It was as close to a ritual as he got, these quiet evenings before the beginning of a difficult work week. He was finishing three separate briefs, cleaning up the details of a nasty settlement on a racketeering charge, and meeting with the senior partners at the end of the week. It was going to be a full slate.

At nine o'clock Monday morning he found himself sitting at his desk, an open file folder in front of him, left hand wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee, with absolutely no memory of the previous fourteen hours.

His hand started to shake, and coffee slopped over the side of the cup. Pulling the files out of the way of the spill, he stared down at the marble desk top. His reflection stared back. His tie was loosened. There was sweat standing out along his forehead and top lip. His face was flushed.

His eyes were black.

As he watched, the color faded until they were his usual light green. Eventually, the shaking stopped, and he was able to breathe freely again. He pulled tissue from his desk drawer and blotted up the spilled coffee. Breathed deeply. Pulled out another tissue and used it to wipe his face. Buttoned his collar and straightened his tie. Breathed again, a little more easily. Tried it once more, to make sure he wasn't going to faint, then licked dry lips and headed out to face the day.

Lawrence met him in the corridor. He had much the same pie-eyed look Lila'd had days before. Right after the Stronghold had been hit. Only his complexion was tinged with a funny green color. Lindsey scratched his wrist, only then becoming aware that it itched.

"What's up, Larry?" Usually, Lawrence hated being called Larry. Today, the man didn't even wince.

"Bad time in the old town tonight, Lindsey," he intoned, looking as if he actually meant it.

"How so?" Lindsey feigned indifference. The itch was fading, but the shaking was back.

"Records was torched last night."

Lindsey gulped.

"So was Stalweig's penthouse."

The room started to gray out.

"And somebody slaughtered the Advance Guard. Shrapnel bombs. An alert was called, and when they gathered at the armory, the bombs went off. Killed the whole damned lot of them."

Lindsey reached out to steady himself against the wall. "No fucking way," he managed to croak.

"The senior partners are scrambling," Lawrence finished up the roll call of disasters. Lindsey blinked at him, willing the world to come back into focus. Eventually, it did. By then Lawrence, disappointed at not getting a more spectacular response to his litany of blows to the Firm, had wandered off in search of a more easily impressed audience.

Little did Larry know, Lindsey grimaced, just how damned impressed he'd been. Without the Guard, the senior partners had no close-in protection. Without records, they had no way of tracing who might be targeting them like this. As for Stalweig ... the Houdler demon had been one of the oldest, most powerful telepathic demons alive, and one of the founding partners of Wolfram and Hart.

Whoever the hell was trying to take down the Firm was getting a damned good start at it.

He made it through the day, but he couldn't for the life of him say how. Late that night he stripped off and slumped on the edge of the bed. His wrist twitched and he scratched it reflectively.

Something wasn't right. But he didn't know what it was, or if he had anything to do with it, or if the weird periods of missing time were involved. The timing of the black-outs was suspicious, but not suspicious enough for him to turn himself over to the mind-shredders. He'd have to bide his time, wait and watch, try to find out for himself what the hell was going on, and turn it to his advantage. He was very good at that.

The ringing of the telephone breaking the silence in his apartment made him jump. He grabbed the receiver up and barked into it. "McDonald!"

There was silence for a moment, then, as he was about to hang up, a soft voice spoke in his ear.

"Why'd you do it, Lindsey?"

"Angel?" he asked incredulously.

"Why'd you bring them over?"

He pulled the handset away from his head, looked at it for an instant as if he expected it to explain what Angel was talking about, then brought it back to his ear. The vampire was still waiting for an answer.

"I don't have the faintest fucking idea what you're talking about." And I don't want to know, he left unsaid but echoing over the line.

There was another long silence. Then Angel said, very softly, "Right." A click came through directly after the word, then the dial tone.

Lindsey slowly lowered the receiver to the base and stared at it for a long time. "What the hell was that?" he finally asked the air. His empty apartment refused to enlighten him.

Giving up on any sort of logic, giving up, in fact, on the whole damned day, he flopped over on his back and stared at the ceiling. He wasn't conscious of closing his eyes, but sleep snuck up on him and ambushed him.

So did his id.

He was in his bed, but he wasn't alone. He was burning hot, but the other body, the one covering his, holding him down, was welcome ice to his fire. Arms surrounded and pinned him, legs longer than his own trapped him. A mouth followed as he tried to escape, hunted him down and held him and drank from his lips. Hands were in his hair, at his wrists, calming that damned itch he hadn't even realized was still bugging him. Then they were at his waist, sweeping over his legs, cradling between his thighs, running the length of him and egging him on.

His mouth opened in a cry, and another mouth covered it, soothing his fever, quenching his thirst. He hadn't known he was dying of thirst until he was nearly dead from it, and now he was alive again. His own hands followed the hands moving over his skin, and his knees bent, curling over the coolness, fanning the flame. His arms moved and his spine arched, his head dipped then fell back against the pillows.

He woke with semen spilling across his belly and his mouth wide open, eyes squeezed shut, hands bunching the sheets.

Damn Angel. If he hadn't already been.

He straightened his legs, swiped the mess from his stomach with the edge of the sheet, and stared back up at the ceiling. Eventually, he stopped thinking. Eventually, he went back to sleep.

The second time, he didn't dream.




Next Chapter