Title: Watching Over
Author: Brenda Antrim
Email: bren@bantrim.net
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended to either
Author's Note: An Angel story with Love Song elements

It didn't take him long outside LA to figure out why Angel'd been hugging his bumper. The second cop to pull him over was laughing so hard it was a wonder he didn't pee his too-tight pants.

Cost Lindsey a hundred and seventy bucks to the county to get out of that one.

He ripped the sign proclaiming to the world that cops sucked from his tailgate and threw it in the bed of the pickup. Somewhere between Indio and Blythe heading down the Ten it blew out again. Nobody noticed. There was nobody to notice.

Lindsey didn't have a plan. He didn't know where he wanted to be, just where he didn't want to be. LA, for starters. And he sure as hell wasn't going back to Oklahoma. If he had to find a hole to crawl in and lick his wounds, it wouldn't be where there was even the off chance anyone who'd ever known him might be there to gloat.

He may have left on his own terms, but he was still running, and the little voice inside him refused to call himself anything but a loser. Even if by running, he'd managed to retain what little was left of his sanity. His life. Maybe even his soul, if he had one. If he hadn't lost it or sold it or signed it over. He'd have to wait until he died to know that for sure. If the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Holland, well, then he'd know.

If he got really lucky, death would be the end.

He headed south, not pushing it but not dawdling either. Yuma was as hot as he expected, and he spent an extra two days waiting for a radiator to be shipped in before he could go on. Las Cruces was as pretty as he remembered it, and El Paso as dirty. By the time he hit San Antonio his fingers were starting to itch and his ass was getting tired of the truck seat.

There were places on the Riverwalk where a man could make a decent living with a guitar and a bit of creativity. The second night he decided he liked it. A week later, his feet were itching again.

He re-acquainted Houston with country blues McDonald-style, and played ten nights at a series of holes in the wall where the scotch was free and the appreciation was freer. He could almost hear the cracks in his spirit slowly filling up with new life. He slept better than he had in years.

Then his feet started to itch again. He had no idea what was pulling him on, but as long as it did, he followed. He could afford it. The time was good to him, bringing him slowly back to himself in a way he thought he'd lost. Further stops to make music in Lake Charles, Lafayette and Baton Rouge, a little less time in each, until he finally landed in New Orleans.

His feet stopped itching. The nape of his neck started in.

Whatever it was he'd had to get to, it was there, in New Orleans. It was close. And it was nasty.

Not having the faintest fucking clue what he was supposed to do next, Lindsey followed a tip he'd gotten from an accomplished bluesman in Lafayette and headed for the French Quarter. Night was coming on and the streets were full of people, the smell of spicy food from the restaurants, the occasional horse-drawn carriage and, everywhere, music.

He wandered for awhile, soaking it in, then took a left turn off Bourbon Street up Orleans and strolled a few blocks to Rampart. Staring up at the maroon canvas flapping in the slight breeze, he grinned.

"Funky Butt. God, Amasa, what you get me into." Shaking his head, he pushed through the door and into another world. It wasn't very big, but it surrounded him and sucked him in completely. A big black woman draped in bright yellow chiffon was attacking "Born Under a Bad Sign" with a wail that stopped him in his tracks and made his toes curl. He was grinning like a madman before he made it to the bar. "The things you get me into," he muttered again, sounding much happier than he had out on the sidewalk. He sank onto a stool and leaned an elbow on the bar.

"Who gettin' you in what, sugar?" The man sitting beside him at the bar must have been eighty if he was a day, and from the look of his hands, had been playing something with strings since he was born.

"Trouble, sir, nothin' but trouble," he answered automatically. "Friend of mine name of Amasa sent me this way. Said I'd feel right at home."

And he did. The mind-bending vocal artistry behind him made him close his eyes and drift for a moment. When he opened them up again, the old man was grinning at him as madly as he knew he must be grinning back. Before he could get another word out, a man roughly the size of a house grabbed him in a hug that lifted him clean off the stool and nearly squeezed him in half.

"Billy-boy! What you done to your hair? Sheared you off like a sheep!"

Lindsey found himself turned, deposited on the stage, and pushed over next to the woman, who'd stopped making that incredible noise. The man-bear growled happily, "Marva , baby, look who I brung ya!"

Reaching over to Lindsey with both hands, she pulled him in for a kiss that stole what little air he had left after the abuse to his ribcage and his quick dispatch to the stage.

"Billy, honey, why didn't you tell me you'd be here tonight? And where's that woman o' yours?"

His mouth opened. Closed. Woman? Hair? Billy? The truth hit him like a rock between the eyes and he stood there, mouth hanging slightly open, feeling like a complete moron. Of course, it wasn't the first time he'd been mistaken for his twin. But since he hadn't laid eyes on his brother in over ten years, this particular mix-up took him by surprise. So much for hiding where nobody knew who he was. Before he could get his wits together and protest that he wasn't who they thought he was, somebody shoved a guitar in his hands, and the lady herself tugged him over to the microphone.

She didn't bother introducing him. Apparently, Billy was no stranger to their stage. Then the sax behind him gave a riff, and the band eased into "What'd I Say," and Lindsey found himself going with the flow. Ray Charles had always been more Billy's speed than Lindsey's, but he knew his classics, and with Marva carrying him along, they had a great time.

Not surprisingly, by the end of the song Marva was shooting him questioning looks. He hadn't sung badly, so he knew it wasn't that. He smiled at her. Her eyes narrowed. She took a minute step away, not enough to alarm the audience, and finished the song note by note in harmony with him.

When they finished, he looked around for somewhere to put the guitar, ducking his head a little at the audience hooting and clapping, but paying more attention to the intent look Marva was giving him. She turned to the crowd, gave them a twenty-four carat grin, and called, "Back in ten, darlins!"

Once they were clear of the crowd, she leaned in and gave him a concerned look. "Honey, what's wrong with you tonight? You sound beautiful, but you don't sound like you." She took the guitar from him and handed it to a member of the band who was passing them on his way to the bar.

"I'm not exactly the man you think I am, Marva," he said gently. Before he could give her an explanation to wipe away the totally confused look on her face, all his internal sensors went off at once.

Magic. Close. Perhaps demonic in origin. Definitely focused on him.

Instinctively, he moved in front of Marva, taking a protective stance. In that instant, the intensity lessened, and he actually felt the change from actively hostile to guardedly neutral. But he didn't have time to worry about it.

A second presence was also on the scene, and it wasn't the least bit ambivalent. Dark magic of the homicidal kind was loose in the club, and it was coming toward Lindsey. He turned just as his brother came up behind him.

"Hi, Billy," Lindsey tossed at him absently, scanning behind him for the threat. With his attention elsewhere, he never saw the punch coming. Marva barely got out of the way before he ricocheted off the wall where she'd been standing seconds before.

"What on God's green Earth -- " she stuttered. Billy stepped over to stand, fists on hips, glowering down at Lindsey.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he spat.

Lindsey didn't have time to tell him. Still going on instinct, he reached up, grabbed hold of his twin's wrist, and yanked him to the floor at the same time that he leapt to his feet. Putting his trust in the protective wards he'd relied on to save his life for the past decade, he planted his feet solidly and raised his left hand, palm outward. The silver bracelet around his wrist glinted dully in the low light.

Something with power behind it hit him hard enough to jar him despite his ready stance. The spell shattered, scattering in a useless shower of invisible sparks around him, an instant before it would have impacted his brother. Right in the middle of the back. Lindsey knew from the bone-deep ache left over from the magic the bracelet had absorbed that the shock of it would have been lethal.

He wasn't aware of the feral snarl on his face as he searched for the attacker, but the few onlookers who did glance at him looked away again quickly. Lindsey concentrated on the trail of malevolent power, weakening now as the attacker disappeared. The first power he'd sensed didn't disappear, though; it grew stronger until he looked into the midnight-dark eyes of a petite woman in her sixties, standing bare inches from him.

"You being Ayza, now, boy?" she asked softly. He could see centuries in her eyes. Just what he didn't need in the middle of what was already shaping up to be an unpleasant family reunion; the local Vodoun priestess getting caught up in the mess.

"Nothing you need to be concerned about, Mambo," he replied respectfully. She smiled at him, a whole lot of wolf in the expression, but before she could call him on it, Billy got back up off the floor and started to take up where he'd left off. Lindsey sighed and turned to face his brother. Billy's hair was falling in his face, his eyes were blazing, his fists were clenched. He looked ten years younger than Lindsey, not the three minutes Lindsey knew him to be. Lindsey couldn't help smiling.

Bad move.

Billy swung at him and Lindsey reacted before he could check himself. Then Billy was on his knees on the floor, his arm twisted behind his back, calling Lindsey names neither of them had even thought in years. Lindsey started to snarl back when the holy woman shut them both up.

"Boys." The single word carried all the weight of a gavel slamming on a bench. Billy looked away from Lindsey and immediately stopped struggling. Lindsey gave him some slack in return, loosening his hold on Billy's arm.

"Mama Azula! I'm sorry, I didn't know you were here."

Her eyes warmed along with her smile as she reached over and patted Billy's cheek gently. Then her hand raised slowly and approached Lindsey's face.

He let go of Billy abruptly and stepped back two paces, out of her reach. "You don't want to go there, Mambo."

She recognized the warning for what it was, but reached for him anyway. He couldn't step back any further. His back was already against the wall.

"You got the left hand of Ayza on you, child, but your heart's still got some light. This boy gonna need all the light you got."

Her fingers felt like brands against his skin. He started to shiver, unable to break away from her gaze. Her eyes were sharp, judging him.

"You gonna need it too. You got a battle ahead of you, child. Don't you get so lost in the gray you can't find your way out when you need to." Then she touched his forehead with her fingertips, and for an instant everything in the world was clear. Where he was, why he was there, what he had to do. Who he was and how he could make it back to himself. And why he had to try.

Then her hand was gone, and with it the clarity of vision. She was nodding, and there was a bare edge of warmth in the smile she gave him. Reserving judgment, then, not yet ready to condemn or condone. He could live with that. At least she was giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Most people didn't. Hell, even most dead people didn't.

Shaking off thoughts of Angel, Lindsey watched her give Billy a kiss on the cheek, pat Marva's hand, and disappear into the crowd like smoke dissipating in the wind. Feeling a little shaken, both from the encounter with the holy woman and the attack from the unknown hostile, he wasn't ready when Marva shook his shoulder and demanded, "Who are you?"

Billy answered for him. "He's nobody." A world of pissed off in two short words. Lindsey gave him a sardonic look.

"Nobody important," he agreed softly. "Just Billy's big brother." Billy snorted, unimpressed. For a moment, Lindsey missed the closeness of their childhood, when it had been Lindsey and Billy against the world. Until Lindsey had run away, leaving Billy to face the music, and cutting himself off from his twin with as much finality as he had cut himself off from his past. He'd thought he had a reason, a lifetime ago.

In retrospect, it wasn't much of one.

"Can I talk to you, Billy?" He concentrated on his brother, closing out the world. Billy looked at him distrustfully.

"We got nothing to say to one another."

Lindsey opened his mouth to refute that statement when Billy turned on his heel and started to stomp off. A few strides away he whirled back. "Stay the hell away from me. I don't want anything to do with you, and neither does anybody I care about. So just get out of here and go back to hell where you came from!"

With another precise turn on his boot-heel, Billy showed Lindsey his back and stomped all the way out of the club. Lindsey looked around the now completely-silent club. Everyone was staring at him. No one looked friendly.

"Not quite hell," he said calmly. "Just Los Angeles." He took a deep breath and followed his brother out the door.

By the time he made it to the street through the crowd of deliberately obstructive, disapproving people, Billy was nowhere to be seen. Lindsey let out his breath in a long, slow sigh. Something was wrong in the Big Easy, and it was centered around his brother. It might be Billy. Might have something to do with the Vodoun priestess who was watching over his brother. Might just be random demons with a distaste for white country boys singing the blues.

He had a sinking feeling it had nothing to do with any of these things, and everything to do with the past he'd left behind. The second time, when he'd walked out of Hell and Los Angeles both, leaving Wolfram and Hart. If that was the case, then he was in New Orleans for a reason. Whether Billy wanted his protection or not, Lindsey was going to make damned sure nothing hurt him. Human or inhuman.

Enough innocents had suffered because of Lindsey McDonald. It was time for it to stop.

He expected nightmares, maybe even an attack, that night. He took precautions, set out wards, wove spells. Laid down fully dressed except for his shoes, next to the bed. Dagger and gun beneath his pillow, mace beside it. He closed his eyes, waiting for the first warning bell to go off.

The birds calling outside his window the next morning startled him so badly when they woke him he nearly fell out of bed.

Not only had there been no attacks, he hadn't had a dream, much less a portent of doom. No psychic attacks, no physical attacks, not so much as an attack of indigestion. If it hadn't been for the ache in his jaw where Billy'd slugged him, a slight headache centered in his forehead and the residual ache in his left arm, he'd've thought the previous night's activities had been all in his mind.

Idly watching the sidewalk artists setting up in Jackson Square, Lindsey was eating aspirin along with his fresh squeezed orange juice and beignets at Cafe du Monde when he saw the Grolek demon.

Ballsy bastard.

True, most people couldn't see past its human guise, so it wasn't taking that big a risk. But Lindsey knew what he was looking at. Reaching for the sharpened steel pike strapped along his calf, he threw some bills on the table and took out as stealthily as possible after the Grolek. As it turned out, there were some similarities between New Orleans and Los Angeles. No one made any comment and nobody got in the way in either place. And a few of the onlookers knew exactly what was going down.

Lindsey saw two shadows matching his pace with his peripheral vision. They were all heading the same place, triangulating in on the same target. He didn't know if it was the Grolek, or what the Grolek was hunting. Either way, it didn't matter. He'd deal with what he had to deal with when he had to deal with it. His neck was itching again and he had a bad feeling in his belly. It wasn't the beignets.

It was Billy.

His oblivious brother and a gorgeous black woman a few years younger than he were wandering hand in hand down Chartres, utterly absorbed in one another. The Grolek was coming up to them fast. Lindsey saw the air around its hands blur and the guise faded as its native eight inch razor-edged claws extended.

"Billy!" he screamed. His mouth didn't move. As had happened a few times before in his life, his twin heard him without him having to make a sound. Responding to the warning, Billy grabbed the woman and threw her to the sidewalk. Lindsey had to smile at her indignant squawk even as the pike was flying from his own hand, taking the Grolek between the shoulder blades, one of the few unarmored parts of its body.

Grolek didn't have many vulnerabilities. Fortunately it wasn't the first one Lindsey had killed, so he knew where to aim.

The woman's squawk had softened to an angry, confused grumble by the time Lindsey caught up to them. The Grolek had dissolved at the impact of the steel, leaving nothing behind but a smear of light amber fluid and a blunted pike lying on the ground. Lindsey smoothly picked it up and shoved it down the back of his waistband, praying it wouldn't slip. He really didn't need a foot-long pike drenched in demon goo sliding around in his underwear.

Billy ignored him completely and helped the woman to her feet. Lindsey patiently waited for her to get situated, glancing around for the others he'd glimpsed converging on the scene of the attack. They seemed to have disappeared now that the threat was gone. That could either mean that they were after the Grolek, too, and didn't need to stick around now that it was dead ... or they were waiting for Billy to be unprotected again.

Wasn't going to happen.

The woman peered at him, mouth agape, poking Billy in the arm. "Who's he?"

Billy muttered something, probably obscene although Lindsey couldn't hear it clearly, and tried to pull her gently away. She set her heels and gave him a dirty look. Then she stuck her chin in the air, gave Lindsey a challenging, heels-to-hairline glare, and asked directly, "Who are you?"

"Nobody!" Billy forced out, almost overriding Lindsey's softer, "Lindsey McDonald. Billy's brother."

"Great!" She didn't sound impressed. Lindsey didn't know if it was with himself or Billy. Maybe both of them. "First a phantom dad, then a mom who turns out to be a lot nicer than you gave her credit for, now a brother you never bothered to tell me about?"

Oh. It was Billy she wasn't too happy with. Lindsey grinned. Billy glared at him, then glanced at her, abashed.

"He's not worth bothering about."

"He's your mirror image, Billy. A brother you can forget about, if you try hard enough. An identical twin? Seems to me that'd be a little harder to forget!"

Billy looked directly at Lindsey, letting all his scorn show. "Not if you try hard enough."

Lindsey winced. "Please, Billy. We need to talk." He glanced at the woman. "I'm sorry, I don't know who you are." If you can be trusted, he thought. She stepped around Billy, brushing off his attempt to get between them, and held her hand out. She had a firm grip.

"Camille Livingston Ryan, Mr. McDonald. And how did Billy Ryan and Lindsey McDonald get to be twin brothers with different daddies?"

Billy growled, "McDonald's momma's maiden name." Giving up on corralling his wife, he stepped up beside her and glared at Lindsey. "What do you want?"

"You're in danger," Lindsey told him bluntly. "I've been in town less than a day and there have been two attacks on you already."

His brother looked at him like he'd lost his mind. Camille didn't look any more convinced. Apparently they hadn't seen the Grolek before he'd killed it. Lindsey sighed.

"Did you know you have a Vodoun priestess keeping you under her protection?"

Camille looked at Billy. Billy looked at Lindsey. "Mama Azula's a friend from way back. Her being around doesn't have anything to do with any danger."

"Where'd you see Mama Azula?" Camille asked him. Billy looked down at his boots.

"Funky Butt," he said almost under his breath.

Camille's eyes widened. Lindsey watched the by-play with interest. "What in the world was she doing in a place like that?"

Billy looked over at her, defensiveness written in every line of his posture. "It's a nice place!"

She didn't look like she was buying it. "For a blues joint, yeah. Not a place Mama Azula usually hangs out." Billy shrugged. Lindsey broke in.

"That's what I'm trying to tell you. There's a threat."

"Funny how it showed up the same time you did," Billy accused him. Lindsey ground his teeth. The accusation rang true. "Far as I can see, the only trouble I got is you, just like always, and if you just fuck off, then I won't have to worry about it!" By the time he finished, he was practically screaming the words in Lindsey's face. Lindsey stood there and took it. Camille looked like she was in shock.

"Please," Lindsey said very quietly, in the wake of the hurricane that was his brother's temper. "Be careful."

"Go to hell!"

With that, Billy took Camille's hand and pushed past Lindsey, dragging her gently behind him. She threw Lindsey a wide-eyed look but didn't argue with her husband. Lindsey had the feeling she was going to have a nice long talk with Billy later, but he also knew where her loyalties were. If he couldn't get through to Billy, then he couldn't count on Camilla, and he had two people to look after, not one.

Life kept getting more and more interesting.

The third attack nearly killed him. Billy was heading into a little club on Dumaine when Lindsey lost sight of him. For an instant, his attention was diverted from the spell he was barely holding steady, and the surges of psychic energy he'd been repelling from his brother broke through his shield.

It felt like snakes were feeding on his brain.

Venom flowed down the inside of his skull. His fingers curled, but he kept from clawing out his own eyes by the exceptional application of sheer will. Beneath the agony he felt his nerves twitch with sense memory. There was something intimately familiar about the attack. He'd seen it before.

He'd used it before.

He barely kept back a scream, concentrating fiercely on his chant, hoping all the time that he'd identified the source correctly and it really was Egyptian hieroglyphs he'd seen tattooed on the demon's hand. "Emshee! Mat! Emshee min hena! Inshallah, emshee! Mat!"

Lindsey could feel his strength draining away. Only desperation was keeping him on his feet. Then the venom from the snakes darting at him through his eyes and mouth suddenly diluted. Weaving around his chant was a second, minor key spell sung in a language he vaguely recognized as Yoruba. The only words he could make out were "caplata," "Dambala," "Aida-wedo" and "Ayza."

In response to the infusion of strength his chant steadied, and the attacks eased off until they were bearable again. Gulping for breath between words, he turned his head and caught dark eyes staring at him from the shadows of the building across the street. The holy woman stared back at him, her mouth moving, her hands floating gently in front of her body.

He looked away and actually saw, for the first time, a protective barrier around the entryway and windows to the club. It shimmered in blue, orange, gold and green, sealing the club, stopping the attack dead at the threshold. His voice died in his throat. The last of the stinging bites loosened in his mind, and his breath caught on a sob.

They'd won. He'd nearly lost.

He had the answer to his question.

Billy was the target of opportunity. Lindsey was the ultimate target. Looked like once a man belonged to Wolfram and Hart, he never left.

Ever.




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