Title: The Thorny Path (the Righteous shall walk), an Angel story
Author: Brenda Antrim
Email: bren@bantrim.net
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
Author's Note: This story refers to my previous stories Forfeit, His Place in the World, and Plan, taking place directly after the Plan A ending, but it's written so that it can stand alone.

It had been a very good day. The drive down from Sunnydale had been pleasant, once the suicidal drivers on the 405 were taken into account. The Botanical Gardens had been lovely, the tea in the Rose Garden Room was quite decent and the manuscripts he'd needed to study had been all his for several hours.

There had been several fascinating entries that had a direct bearing on the situation Buffy had described regarding Angel, as well as some intriguing scenarios for dealing with the remnants of the Hellmouth. He'd had to tear himself away when it was closing time, thankful he had the next day clear to come back and do further research.

Not that he had a very full schedule, since the high school had burnt to the ground, he was unemployed, the Council had no use for him, and his Slayer was busy with other things.

Giles refused to give in to self pity and took a deep breath of the scented air, enjoying the beauty of San Marino spread out around him. Pulling into the hotel parking garage, he locked the door and went round to the boot to pull out his suitcase. He didn't feel the sting of the dart as it impacted his lower right back. His hand went numb, the keys fell to the concrete floor, and the world went black.

When the lights came up again, he rather wished they hadn't. A harmless-appearing gentleman in a gray pinstriped suit smiled benignly down at him. Giles sensed immediately that he was in the presence of great evil.

The straps binding him at ankle and wrist, his nudity, and the heavy sense of dark magick in the air all around him merely confirmed his initial instinctive reaction. The air fairly reeked power, corruption, and demon-dwelling. Not the friendly type of demon, either, by any stretch of the imagination. He refused to give his kidnapper the satisfaction of seeing him squirm. He opted instead to lay quietly, weigh his options, and wait for the man to speak. The light eyes staring down at him beamed approval.

"Welcome, Mr. Giles. I apologize for your discomfort, but it's necessary."

"To whom?" Giles bit his tongue. Damnedable curiosity.

"It's best not to know too much," the man clucked at him. Giles scowled. "Your part in our little drama is a passive one."

"I'm bait," Giles guessed. "This is a trap." The beam grew into a positive sparkle.

"Very clever," the man applauded him. "Now, lie still, and try to relax. This is going to hurt."

He didn't lie. There was no artistry to the torture, merely brute strength carefully applied to cause the most painful damage without sliding into lethality. The third time the nettle whip began its journey down his legs he gave up any attempt at keeping silent, and screamed, once, the power of it clawing at his throat. He clamped down on the rest of the screams threatening to burst out. His scream appeared to be a signal of some kind. The man stepped from the side of the room over to a marble desk and picked up a telephone.

"Carry on," he said cheerfully as he dialed a number. The Tasker demon doing the beating did so. With gusto. It turned Giles on the table, paying no attention to the unnatural strain on his shoulders and legs from the twisted bindings, and began whipping him again. It started at his shoulders and worked its way down to the soles of his feet. As it was lashing the backs of his knees, he started to scream again. This time, he couldn't stop.

Angel was roaming the streets with Gunn, hunting up information sources. Wesley was off with Kate, soft-soaping her into using the LAPD resources to try to find the missing Watcher. Lindsey was at the apartment, scanning through the files, trying to puzzle his way through the latest twist from his former employers. The ringing telephone distracted him.

"Angel Investigations," he started to say, but the sound of screaming in the background halted his greeting. He switched the recorder on. Angel would want to know about this.

"Hello, Lindsey." Holland's warm voice flowed over his ear like honey. Poisoned honey.

"Let me guess," Lindsey answered, mind racing. Too bad this wasn't the movies -- he'd be able to trace the call. "You're havin' a party and you wanted to invite me."

"Of course, son," Holland said agreeably. "You're listening to the guest of honor even as we speak." The screams in the background hit a crescendo, then broke. Lindsey could hear the swish of a whip in the sudden silence. There was a whimper.

"What do you want, Holland?" His voice was hard.

"You know what I want, Lindsey," his ex-mentor responded in a reasonable tone. "You, and Angel."

"In return?" No fucking way. If they agreed, they'd all be dead.

"The Watcher goes home. Think about it, Lindsey."

Before he could say another word, the line disconnected. He quickly closed the line, then punched in Angel's cellular number. It was answered on the first ring.

"Angel."

"They called. They've got him."

"I'll be right there." Another dial tone. He was getting used to this. He punched the button again, then dialed the police department.

"Lockley."

"This is Lindsey. I need Wesley." To her credit, she didn't argue, just handed the telephone to Wesley.

"Wesley here." He sounded harried.

"Hate to interrupt," Lindsey grinned into the 'phone, "but Holland called. The Firm definitely have him. I could hear him screaming in the background."

There was a shocked intake of breath on the other end of the line. "We'll be right there."

We? Lindsey stared at the telephone, once more singing a dial tone at him. Hanging the handset up slowly, he took a deep breath.

He had a suspicion it was going to be a very long night.

"Did he find the missing man?"

Kate's voice broke into his distraction. All his mental eye could see was Giles, alone, tied up, being tortured by demons. Maybe even dead by now. "Yes," he said absently.

"Was he okay?"

Wesley turned slowly to face her. "No. He's not okay. He may well be dead if we don't act quickly." She stared up at him, her face a mask. He licked his lips and tried, once more, to explain why he did what he did, with the people he cared for. Why Angel was not merely the lesser of two evils, but a force for good in his own right.

"A good man will die if Angel can't free him. I must help him." She opened her mouth to speak, her hand reaching for her badge. He raised a hand, palm out, and she stilled. "You know very well this is not a normal threat. The police cannot help. One must set a hunter to catch a hunter, and we are blessed that this particular hunter is on our side." He took a deep breath. "Are you on our side, Kate? Will you be on my side?"

She looked at him for a long moment, then stood, grabbing her jacket and slinging it over her shoulder, stuffing her sidearm in her holster. "Get a move on, Wes. Time's wasting."

He smiled at her as she walked past him at a fast pace toward the door. She didn't smile back, but her frown was thoughtful, not mulish. He fell silent as he climbed into the passenger seat. They sped off across town, and he stayed quiet, giving her room to think.

It took a little time to put all the pieces together, and Angel was well aware, after listening to the tape, just how little time they had.

"I told 'em I'd think about a trade-"

"No." Angel didn't even want to think about it. Lindsey gave him an old-fashioned look.

"-but not being a total idiot, it was just a stall." Lindsey sent him a hard smile.

He grinned wryly back. "Yeah." He left it at that, but he did brush his fingers through the soft hair at the back of Lindsey's head as he walked by. An indrawn breath from the doorway spun him on his heel. Kate was standing there, Wesley at her side. She looked pole-axed, staring back and forth between himself and Lindsey. Angel glanced down and saw Lindsey glaring back at her. He sighed. They didn't have time for this.

"We don't have time for this," he reiterated the thought aloud. They had a rescue to plan. "Come on up, Gunn." He'd heard the footstep in the corridor outside.

Lindsey sat forward, hands hanging loosely between his knees, looking deceptively relaxed. Wesley ushered Kate the rest of the way in the room, and Gunn stalked through the door, arms akimbo, ready for action. There was a whistling sound in the air, an interrogatory noise wound together with a frustrated whine. Angel nodded.

"I wish you could come along to help, too, Cordy, Dennis, but you can't. You're in charge of holding down the fort here. We need someplace safe to bring him back to."

"Cordy? Dennis?" Kate asked Wesley.

He chewed his lip for a second before saying, under his breath, "Resident ghosts." Her eyes rounded, but she didn't say a word. She learned quickly.

"Okay, Lindsey, what do you have?"

The ex-Wolfram and Hart insider grinned, resembling a particularly hungry wolf. "The sound bounced. I recognized the echo. It's a room I've been in before. Not a nice place."

Before anyone could interrupt and ask where at the Firm could be considered a nice place, Angel placed a pad of paper and a pen in front of Lindsey. "Ingress and egress?"

The planning was on.

The next hour was intense, as ideas, plans and counter-plans flew. At one point, Lindsey and Kate locked horns, and the impasse was only broken when the paper on the table flipped up in the air and snapped between them. They looked at one another in astonishment, and Lindsey muttered, "Sorry, Cordelia."

Kate nearly jumped out of her skin when writing appeared on the mirror above the sofa. "it's okay, born-again boy just get your butt in gear"

"Born-again boy?" she muttered. Wesley smothered a laugh and turned it into a not particularly convincing cough. Angel glared at everyone impartially and they got back to work.

Gunn had been quiet throughout most of the planning session. When they had a rough attack plan blocked out, he leaned forward and put a finger to the lower right corner of the floor plan Lindsey had sketched.

"Right there," he said. Everyone looked at him, except Angel, who stared at the sketch.

"Yeah," he agreed. The one weakness in the perimeter. The vampire-sniffing shaman was still a problem, but Wesley, Gunn and Lindsey could go in first, while Gunn's fighters caused a distraction. Once in, they would take out the shaman and the head of security. Getting in, though, that would be the problem.

"No problem," Kate announced. Angel cocked his head at her. She smiled at Gunn.

"If you can spare some of your people, I'll bring the flashing lights and sirens." She smiled down at the sketch. "That nice big picture window in the front should make a nice big mess with a couple tons of cars crashing through it, don't you think?"

Lindsey grinned. "Destruction of government property, Detective?"

She gave him an innocent look. "Just another high speed chase that got a little out of hand."

"We can do that," Gunn grinned at them both.

"While you're redecorating the lobby," Angel added, "we'll take out C and C."

"I can get us in the door from the parking garage. It'll get sticky from there," Lindsey warned.

"What was that you said, the first time we mounted a rescue operation?" Wesley asked. "The righteous shall walk a thorny path."

"Let's go play in the rose garden," Angel said quietly.

It went down like clockwork.

Wolfram and Hart might have been expecting a full frontal assault, but not as an 'innocent bystander,' not against their front lobby, and not by the police. A hopped up SUV with oversized tires went skidding sideways directly into the plate glass windows along the front of the lobby, jumping the curb and scattering pedestrians like pigeons. Hot on its tail, a beaten-up Gran Torino with a flashing light on the dashboard fishtailed dangerously, then skidded past the SUV, shattering the guard station and sending armed security men rolling like ninepins.

Lockley burst from the car, gun waving, screaming warning. Three Black youths rolled from the truck, shooting wildly, managing miraculously to miss all the people in the lobby and hit every piece of art on the walls, most of them at least twice. Every security guard in the building headed for the foyer.

Except the head of security. He was clunked over the head with a finely wielded shillelagh before he could call for help, and the shaman in the corner was whacked as well, long before he could raise the alarm.

As the teenagers were escaping out the front, with carefully placed covering fire masquerading as warning shots from the police detective, Angel and Wesley came in through the executive entrance. Lindsey had waylaid Lilah in the parking garage and relieved her of her identification card, gently tying her up and stashing her in the back seat of a nearby Lexus. With it, he'd stormed security. Now that the three were together, they headed swiftly for the inner room where Lindsey had heard Giles being tortured.

Angel felt his skin itch as they neared it. "Perimeter spell!" he barked out.

Lindsey said, "I'm on it!" and starting chanting in Aramaic.

Wesley gave him a startled look, then broke out bottles of various colored powders. The itching eased, and Angel shifted swiftly into vampiric form, using his augmented strength to rip the wooden door with the steel core from its hinges.

Tasker, Xeagui and Coril demons boiled out of the room. Wesley yelled, "Blue! Orange!" and flipped open bottle tops, scattering the deadly, to the demons, powders in the air. Angel followed his order, shattering the requisite colors in his own arsenal and hurling them into the air. The results were impressive, if a little nauseating. The Xeagui demons began to melt, skin bursting open and internal organs dissolving almost immediately. The Coril demons literally exploded, which took out some of the Taskers.

Angel took care of the rest. Snarls, growls and howls filled the air as he threw himself into the fight. Beside him, Lindsey's voice rose to a crescendo, Aramaic giving way to archaic Greek, and Wesley counter-chanted in Latin. Angel could almost see the threads of magick in the air, fraying under their combined spell-casting.

They forced their way through the rapidly thinning crowd of demons and took down the last few guards. There were two human guards as well, and Angel stumbled.

Wesley didn't. He brought his crossbow up and took the first one out. A heavy weight plowed into Angel, knocking him out of the way, and Lindsey rolled over him, coming to one knee in front of him. His left arm extended and the Glock in his hand barked twice. The guard fell.

"So long, Phil," Lindsey muttered. Angel glanced at him. "Later," he shrugged.

The room in which they found themselves was horrific. Faces seemed to be trapped in the walls, mouths opened in silent screams, eyes weeping tears of blood. The stench of dark magick was stifling. Lindsey threw himself to his feet and placed his hands out in front of him as if he was pushing against a wall. He began a sing-song chant of archaic Greek, strongly, anger and desperation in his voice, struggle outlined in every tensed muscle in his body. Wesley came and stood behind him, continuing his counter-rhythmic Latin chant. Angel pulled himself to his feet and moved forward.

Giles was strapped to a table, nude, blood running from welts all along his body. For a moment, Angel was afraid they were too late. Then Giles opened his mouth and started chanting the third part of the spell, in Aramaic. His voice was raspy from screaming, but it was steady and calm. Next to the table a man stood, frozen in place, like a fly in amber. His hand, holding a wicked curved blade, was extended toward Giles, but his eyes were locked on Lindsey. His mouth worked slowly, as if he were trying to talk, but no sound escaped the stasis spell that held him trapped.

Angel stepped past the ensorcelled man and grabbed the knife from him, using it to cut away the straps holding Giles down. Then he quickly lifted the Watcher and carried him out, carefully not interrupting his spell-casting. In the corridor, all three men stopped chanting at the same moment, and Lindsey howled something out in Greek. The doors slammed shut, and the casing melted all around the edges, soldering it closed. Lindsey looked over at Angel.

"Run," he gasped out. No one needed to be told twice.

As they were wheeling out of the underground garage, Kate Lockley was arranging for impound of the stolen SUV on her cell phone as she watched her car being towed away. Angel looked over at her as they drove around the corner.

She was smiling.

Lindsey handed their rescued Watcher a cup of tea and settled down at the other end of the couch. The man smiled slightly at him and sipped the hot liquid, swallowing with evident relief.

"How's the throat?" Angel asked, coming into the room and dropping down on the edge of the arm of the couch, behind Lindsey's back. Lindsey leaned unobtrusively against him. He was still in a little bit of shock that they'd managed to pull it off. And survived.

"Better, thanks." His accent was a little deeper than Wesley's. "How did Buffy take it?"

Angel's hand closed automatically on the back of Lindsey's neck, working on the knotted muscles there. It was all he could do not to dissolve into a puddle, and he barely heard Angel explain how he'd talked the Slayer into letting them bring Giles home the next evening, and not take her mother's car to drive down to L.A. in the middle of the night. Giles' next question floored him.

"How did you come to fall in love with a wizard, Angel?" His tone was so mild he might have been asking how the weather had been that day.

"Wizard?" Lindsey asked.

"Love?" Angel said, more loudly.

Giles looked at them quietly. Lindsey couldn't have looked at Angel to save his life, even if Angel hadn't been sitting directly behind him. Angel's hand clamped around the back of his neck. He flinched, and the touch was immediately withdrawn. He sighed. Damnit, that hadn't been quite what he'd expected.

"I get visions," he volunteered into the growing silence.

"He's a Seer," Wesley added, settling himself in the armchair with his own cup of tea. Lindsey glanced over at him.

"Not my choice, but the Powers that Be needed a conduit, and I was there." Love? he thought. He doesn't love me.

"How can I love him?" Angel asked. Lindsey winced at that. Giles gave him a considering look. Angel went on, and Lindsey relaxed a fraction. "If I love him, then I'd be in that bliss place, and then I'd lose my soul, and then Angelus would get off on torturing him for the rest of his natural life."

"Ye gods," Wesley interjected. Lindsey couldn't help but agree.

"That's simple enough," Giles said quietly. "You have the keeping of Lindsey's soul."

At that, Lindsey sat bolt upright, nearly jostling Angel off the side of the couch. "What's that s'posed to mean?" Had the Watcher just called him some sort of soulless ... something?

"I've been doing some research. It's one of the reasons I went to the Huntington. There are certain prophecies there, copied as epic poems, of all things, by monks, from the original scrolls. The Powers that Be, as you call them, require both a Warrior and a Seer. You lost your soul when you gave your heart to your Seer, but he shared his soul with you when you redeemed it for him."

The room went quiet as they all thought about what Giles had said. Lindsey finally spoke up. "Huh?" he asked intelligently.

Giles sighed and drank the rest of his rapidly cooling tea. Gently clearing his throat, wincing at the residual soreness, he explained. "You sold your soul to Wolfram and Hart, Lindsey. When you chose to regain it, you went to Angel for help. He helped you redeem your soul. The price for that redemption was his own soul, as he fell in love with you in the process. The Greater Powers are a pragmatic lot. They weren't about to lose their Warrior in the process of gaining a Seer, especially since they'd already lost two Seers."

Angel flinched at that, and Wesley looked away. Lindsey reached down and ran his hand soothingly along Angel's lower leg, up and down from knee to ankle, until the muscles began to relax again.

"How'd you know about that?" he asked Giles.

"It was all ordained," the man replied, astonishing his entire audience. "It was in the scrolls. The first Seer was to be redeemed, and sacrifice his life as payment. The second Seer was to find true happiness, and sacrifice all in the finding. The third Seer was to come from the Dark to the Light, and share all that he was with the Warrior." He placed the cup carefully on the table. "Now, I don't mean to be impolite, but I'm afraid I'm very nearly asleep where I sit."

Wesley jumped up and helped Giles into the back room. Along the way, Lindsey saw him exchange a long look with Angel. There was a tangle of emotion in the exchange, but one thing he was certain he saw.

Forgiveness.

Angel sighed behind him, a habit left over from life, since he didn't actually have to breathe. "You ready for bed?"

"More than," Lindsey replied absently.

He pushed himself up from the couch and followed Angel into the bedroom. Neither said a word as they undressed and climbed into opposite sides of the bed. Lying in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, Lindsey finally couldn't stand it any longer.

"So, was he just talkin' through his hat or was he tellin' the truth, with all that prophecy stuff?" His accent was thick as molasses. He had more invested in the answer to that question than he wanted to admit even to himself.

"Giles is a brilliant man," Angel replied softly.

Lindsey waited for more. When several minutes of silence had passed, he took a deep breath. Thought for a moment. Let it back out without saying a word. Then he turned on his side with his back to Angel, and closed his eyes.

More minutes passed, then Angel stirred. Lindsey felt the bed dip as the heavy body moved behind him. The silence continued for a moment longer, then Angel broke it.

"I can hear your heart beat."

Lindsey kept his mouth shut.

"I can hear the blood washing through your veins."

He swallowed, but he didn't say anything, listening to the hushed voice reverberate through his body. Angel was pressed close against him now, so close every movement of his diaphragm shivered against Lindsey's back.

"I can smell you. Your blood, your scent, your skin, your hair. I can feel you, your warmth, from across the room." Soft lips brushed across his shoulder, and he quivered.

"The last time I fell in love, I went to Hell. I put everyone I cared about through it before I went there myself. You've been there before. You barely escaped. I don't want you to go back."

He raised his hand and laid it over Angel's, twining their fingers together, holding it in a fierce grip. "I'm not goin' anywhere."

"I don't want to turn into Angelus again." The words were nearly silent, whispered against his skin.

"You won't."

"How can you know?"

"It hasn't happened yet," he reasoned. Angel didn't buy it.

"I haven't said I love you."

"I know," Lindsey said very quietly.

"I can't," Angel admitted.

"I know." Needing to stop the flow of words before they cut him even more deeply, Lindsey turned in Angel's arms and kissed him. Then he moved until he was draped over Angel, aligning their bodies until he was cradled in Angel's arms, lying between his legs.

He began to rock, and Angel joined him, moving slowly, as their bodies caught up with their minds. It was a long, slow ride, rubbing against one another until first Lindsey, then Angel, came, shuddering in unison. The only sounds in the room were Lindsey's harsh pants and the slick slide of skin against skin.

Just before he fell asleep, Lindsey wound one arm around Angel's neck and pulled him close. "I know," he whispered in one ear, then kissed the side of Angel's jaw and closed his eyes to finally fall asleep.




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