"Oh," Rachel smiled self-consciously as she got in the back seat. "Basically everything I have. I don't plan on ever looking back."

The cab driver chuckled and looked at his passenger through the mirror, a pretty brunette of about eighteen or nineteen with some of the most piercing blue eyes he had ever seen. *If I wasn't married and about twenty years younger, * the cab driver thought briefly. "You'd be amazed by how often I actually hear that," he replied. "So, where to?"

"Um, UCLA dorms." Rachel was preoccupied with going through her purse. She hoped she would have enough money to pay for the ride. *Gonna have to start looking for a part time job. * "I'm enrolled in the second semester."

"College girl, huh? My oldest is going there." The driver looked at her through the mirror. "But the dorms won't open up again for another week."

Rachel gaped at him. "But that's impossible," she said at last. "I'm sure the letter said the dorms were opening today."

"Must've got your dates mixed up, sweetheart."

"Damn it," Rachel whispered fiercely, making a fist of her hand and punching the seat. She sighed and leaned back for a moment, closing her eyes. *Now what? *

"There's a hotel I can drive you to, just a few blocks from here. It ain't Buckingham Palace, but it won't cost you a mint."

Rachel offered up a grateful smile. She didn't know if she could afford even that for a week, but genuinely nice people were so few and far between that she didn't want this act of kindness to go unappreciated.

"Here we are," the cabbie said, pulling to a halt in front of a small hotel that must have been something special in its better days. As it were, if the building had been a person it would have been gasping for its last breath. "Don't let your eyes tell you wrong. The interior's not half bad and it's run by some of the nicest people you'll ever meet in LA."

"Thanks." Rachel reached into her purse. "How much do I owe you?"

The driver waved her money away. "You can be my good deed for the day."

Rachel froze. "I dont' need charity from you or anyone else," she snapped. "I can pay my way, thank you very much."

"All right, all right," the cabbie soothed her. "If you want it that way, all right." He took the money without looking at it and got out to help Rachel with her bags. "I didn't mean to upset you, darlin'."

"You don't want to upset me? Don't call me 'darlin'" It came out harsher than she intended. "Sorry. You were only trying to help."

"Forget it happened."

Rachel watched the cab drive away, then turned to look up at the hotel. She'd stayed in far worse. Still, a week was liable to to burn through her money like wildfire. Looked like she was going to have to start looking for that job sooner than she anticipated. Rachel McDonald sighed, pushed open the door, and went inside. 

The clerk at the front desk had taken one look at Rachel's battered jeans and tank top and it was all over. Rachel could always see it in their eyes, the exact moment when they wrote her off. "Well," Rachel said, entering the bathroom to clean herself up a bit, "you'll just have to prove them wrong, won't you? You're smart. You know you are." She laughed and looked at her reflection in the mirror. "Then again, talking to yourself, maybe not the greatest of the great ideas." Rachel splashed some cool water across her face. It erased some of the travel fatigue but did nothing to soothe her mind. She knew without counting her money that she was going to be hard pressed to pay for her room for the entire week.

Rachel walked out of the bathroom and hurled herself onto the bed with an audible grunt. The matress was lumpy, but she wasn't complaining. Resting was pointless while her mind was so busy, and after several minutes Rachel gave up, reaching for her duffel bag and rummaging around in it until she found the information packet from the college. Rachel swore softly. Damned if the cab driver hadn't been right. She was a week early. That led her back the ever burning question: Now what?

She wouldn't allow herself to fail. If she couldn't hack it in LA, if she had to crawl back to the old Hell hole of an apartment with her tail between her legs, it would serve to prove what others thought of her and her family. That they were white trash. That they were nothing.

"Not going to happen," Rachel mumbled to herself. Lindsey had managed to make it out. So would she.

Lindsey...Rachel sat up. Reaching for the duffel bag once more, she pulled out a battered envelope and ran her thumb lightly over the return address, an action she had repeated so often by now that the ink was barely legible. Every month a check would arrive at the apartment where she grew up in an envelope identical to the one Rachel now held in her hand and stared at intently. When the checks had first started arriving they had been accompanied by long letters detailing to Lindsey's siblings everything that was going on in his life. Gradually the letters had grown shorter, almost brusque. Then they had disapeared altogether until it was only the checks.

Rachel groaned and dropped her head into her hands. Now that she was alone she could admit it, if only to herself: for all her supposed dreams and plans, Rachel was in over her head. Raising her head very slightly, Rachel stared at the battered envelope. The quick brain that had gotten her this far started cracklign with the birth of an idea. Rachel looked towards the cieling. "Just so you know, I don't think I've done anything in my life to deserve this. I didn't leave any bodies or babies back home, so what gives?"

She looked back down at the envelope. A slight curl touched her lip, but other than that her face was expressionless. Inside, however, nothing was at peace.

'He doesn't give a damn about us anymore!' Rachel could hear Sarah, her junior by two years, saying. It was the first and only time that Rachel ever heard her younger sister swear. 'Why should we give a damn about him?'

"Oh," Rachel muttered to herself, "so *this* is what the rock and the hard place feel like." She left the hotel room. Blood was thicker than water, but was time? 

A woman was sitting in the hallway, back braced up against the door to Lindsey's apartment. Her head was bowed forward as if in sleep and long brown hair fell down and obscured her face from view. Lindsey halted and looked at her curiously for a few seconds before speaking. "Ma'am? Are you all right?" She was probably asleep, he thought, and didn't hear a word he said.

But she jumped at the sound of his voice and scrambled quickly up to her feet, pushing a few wayward strands of hair nervously behind her ears as she did so. Blue eyes met Lindsey's and the girl's mouth turned up in a brief, jerky smile. "Sorry," she said. "Um ... sorry. I guess I just dozed off. God, I never thought you'd come home."

Lindsey stared at her, feeling very much out of the loop. "I tend to work long hours," he said cautiously. The girl was incredibly familiar, and the fact that his memory had apparently decided to hang up its hat for the day only served to irritate him more. Lindsey opened his mouth to ask her what she was doing there.

The girl beat him to it. "Look, I'll just be blunt, all right? I screwed up. Somehow I got the dates on my college admissions all turned around and showed up a week early. I know that you and I have been the farthest possible thing from close for a long time, but..." The girl looked down for a moment, the sentence she had to say obviously killing her. "I need help."

Lindsey blinked for a few seconds and let his brain absorb the information. College admissions ... so she was somewhere around eighteen. "Rachel?" No wonder he'd had trouble placing her. She had been eight when he left for college, a skinny kid with knobby knees and worshipful eyes. Visits back had been few and far between, eventually turning nonexistent.

"What, didn't you recognize me?" Rachel started to laugh, then caught the look on her brother's face.

"I'm sorry. It's... it's just been a long time." Lindsey had winced at the flash of hurt on Rachel's face.

"Yeah, it has," Rachel said quietly, beginning to shift her weight a little. She hoisted her duffel bag up to her shoulder. "This whole thing was stupid. Sorry to bother you." Her voice was calm, but her eyes betrayed her hurt.

Lindsey looked briefly towards the ceiling. "Rachel, wait."

She paused for a moment to turn and face him again. "Look, don't, all right? You have your perfect little designer life now. You obviously don't need a visit from sis, reminding you of what it used to be like." Rachel struggled to regain control of several years worth of anger and hurt. After several breaths she succeeded in this and turned to go again.

"Rachel, I'm sorry. It's just...you look different," Lindsey said lamely.

His sister sighed and tried to smile. "Yeah, well, so do you." She thought about but didn't mention the dark circles under Lindsey's eyes and the tired, haggard look of his face. Rachel also frowned at a pink scar on the side of her brother's neck-it looked new-but decided in the end to just keep her mouth shut. It was what wound up getting her in trouble most of the time, after all.

The silence in the hallway stretched out for so long that Rachel was on the verge of blurting out any old thing that came into her head, regardless of the consequences, when Lindsey finally smiled. It was weak, but better than nothing. "I've got a spare bedroom you can stay in," he said. "It's good to see you again, Rach. Really. You've changed a lot from the knobby kneed little shadow I remember."

"Determined to follow you everywhere," Rachel recalled ruefully. "Thanks for letting me stay here. I would have called, except return addresses don't generally include phone numbers." Rachel bit down on the accusing note in her voice and hoped Lindsey hadn't noticed it. 'He's your brother, and he doesn't have to let you stay here. Be nice.'

The checks. Of course, that was how she had gotten the address. Lindsey sighed to himself. A part of him was glad to see his sister again, but another warring part just wanted to get her gone she found out any more about him than he could help. It was simpler that way.

Lindsey opened the door with his left hand, confusing Rachel because as far as she could remember her brother had always been right-handed. A closer look explained why and Rachel could have absolutely hit herself for not noticing it sooner.

"Oh, my God, Lindsey!" Rachel cried, letting her duffel bag fall forgotten off her shoulder. She grabbed at Lindsey's prosthetic hand and ignored her brother's slight backward tug, then the stronger one that followed. "What happened?!"

Raw and undiluted concern filled Rachel's voice and expression and it made Lindsey uncomfortable. He pulled back a third time, now so hard that Rachel had no choice but to let go. "It's nothing."

Rachel was quick to point out the understatement. "You're missing a *body part*. I'd say that's a bit more than nothing."

"Car accident," Lindsey said brusquely. "I don't want to discuss it. Let's go inside." He held the door open for Rachel to enter ahead of him and she did, meekly, wondering if she had inadvertantly stepped across a land mine.

Lindsey closed the door softly behind him and stared at his sister's back. Sighing, he raised a hand and rubbed at his eyes. His headache jumped up a notch. 

Darla smiled at him with perfect red lips. "You made me whole again," she said, twining the fingers of her hand through his hair and drawing his head down to meet hers in a kiss. Lindsey savored the kiss until he realized that he could taste the blood of the people who had already fallen on her mouth. Startled and a little disgusted, Lindsey tried to pull away, but Darla continued the kiss, not releasing him until the lawyer's struggles began to border on panic. Darla nipped at his lip hard enough to draw blood, laughing a little as she smelled the first tinge of fear from the human so infatuated with her. "I owe you for that."

Lindsey took a small step backwards and a slender pair of arms wrapped around him from behind. Drusilla hugged him to her with her incredible preternatural strength, leaning up to run her tongue teasingly just beneath his ear. "He wants you to drink, Grandmummy," Drusilla cooed. "Drink so deep, make it all go away." And she laughed.

Darla smirked and glanced towards the other humans in the room. They huddled in the corner and watched with frightened, enormous eyes. Drusilla had swiftly killed those who screamed for help, mimicking their cries happily, so now the survivors were silent. "Do you, Lindsey?" she asked of him sweetly, finally returning her full attention to the lawyer. "And then maybe wake up again and stay with me forever?" Lindsey nodded silently. Their two pairs of blue eyes met and held. "Well, maybe you will." Moving lightning fast, Darla tore Lindsey from Drusilla's grasp. She wrenched his head down, no tenderness this time, and bit deeply into his neck.

Lindsey awoke, gasping and drenched with sweat. The scars on his wrist and neck throbbed in perfect sync with each other. Lindsey winced. His head wasn't in a much better mood than it had been the night before, either.

A glance at the clock on his bedside table said it was nearly six, close enough to time for him to rise. Lindsey got up and showered swiftly. He turned the water up as hot as he could endure and leaned his head breifly against the shower wall. Why did Rachel have to show up now? It wasn't as if he could have turned her away, she was his sister after all, and one of the few good things he could remember from growing up. But having her there complicated things. It raised the danger that she would find out what Big Bro was really doing with his life and that thought disturbed Lindsey, though it had no right to. It was his life and he was sick of making explanations about it. To anyone.

After showering Lindsey stared at himself in the mirror, lightly touching the new pink scar on the side of his neck. He had been so vitally sure that Darla would carry through on her promise. Waking up several hours later, freezing cold and weak from blood loss, hardly able to breathe under the weight up of the bodies, had been one of the hardest blows of all.

Lindsey glanced into the spare bedroom before leaving the apartment. Rachel was laying on her stomach with one hand dangling over the side of the bed. As the light from the hallway fell across her face Rachel grunted and rolled over. Not wanting to wake her, Lindsey quickly shut the door and left.

Lilah was waiting in Lindsey's office when he arrived. Her left arm was still in a cast, courtesy of Drusilla's growing cross with her when she didn't beg for her life, and there was a scar identical to Lindsey's on the side of her neck.

"What do you want, Lilah?" Lindsey asked irritably.

The other lawyer rose from her seat and gave Lindsey a deliberately false smile. "Damn, and here I had my heart set on a cheerful 'Good morning'."

"Do you just want to make good and sure I have a headache for the rest of the day, or is there actually a reason for your being here?" Lindsey snapped. 'Just what I need,' he thought. 'My daily dose of bitch.'

"Both, actually." Lilah unfolded her arms and handed Lindsey a file. "Look this over. Mr. Hart wants the two of us to handle it personally."

"New client?" Lindsey inquired, taking the folder to his desk and flipping it open. 'Must carry some major weight if they have one of the Senior Partners interested.'

"Hmm-hmm." Lilah headed towards the door, even though Lindsey was technically her superior and had yet to dismiss her.

Lindsey only dimly registered her departure. He was occupied with the new bomb that had jsut been dropped on him. Even though Lindsey prided himself on being impossible to shock anymore, his eyes widened and a low whistle escaped from between his teeth. 

Virtually every piece of furniture in the once beautiful lobby had been broken against a wall or by a pair of powerful vampire hands. The red couch that Cordelia had been so proud of upon its arrival was currently resting on one end against the reception counter. Its stuffing was scattered around it on the floor.

Angel finally paused, breathing heavily even though he no use for the oxygen. He looked around at the havoc that he had wrought out of elegant human establishment, a little stunned by the fact that he had been able to do so much damage so quickly. Now that the explosion of irrational rage had passed he couldn't even recall what had brought him to it. Hell, he could barely remember *doing* it. Losses of control like that disturbed him and brought Wesley's words back to mind like a ghost that one cannot quite rid one's self of. 'Right now we are the only things standing between you and real darkness.' Well, was he right? Angel growled to himself and the face of Angelus slipped out for the briefest of moments. Wesley was wrong. He was in perfect control. And he had a pair of vampires that he needed to ready himself to stop. The red light on the answering maching continued blinking at him as it had for hours like a relentless, screaming accusation. Cordelia had called a grand total of six times during the past three hours, first to tell of a vision, then again a few minutes later when the machine cut her off, and so it went. The final two close to and hour ago and consisted of Cordelia calling Angel a long string of names that would have brought Angelus' eyebrows up and telling him that the man in her vision was fine now, no thanks to him, though all the rest of them were half dead, and did he know he was an incredible asshole?

Towards the end of the final message Cordelia had paused, presumably to breathe, and said in a gentler tone of voice, "Angel, please, pick up the phone. I'm saying this as a friend, and I'm not the only one. Gunn and Wes are upset, too, only they have the whole machismo thing going on. C'mon, Angel. Just let me know you haven't staked yourself or something. We're worried about you..." 

"Show her in." Lindsey stood up from his desk to greet the client that had even the Senior Partners exhibiting an interest. It was unusual to be meeting a non-vampire client so late, but Mrs. Miller had specifically requested the time slot for their meeting and Lindsey hadn't been about to argue.

The jury-winning smile on his face slipped a bit when Lilah strode in with Mrs. Miller. "Lilah," he gritted.

Lilah flashed Lindsey a smile that didn't come close to thawing out her eyes. "I met up with Mrs. Miller in the hallway and thought that since we were going to be working on this project together I'd make sure she found your office without any trouble."

Mrs. Miller interjected, "It was quite considerate of her."

"Ms. Morgan's like that," Lindsey murmured. He glared at Lilah slightly and got only a confident smile in return. Lilah's tone had been friendly, but her eyes were pure ice. They told Lindsey that there was no way in Hell he was taking this away from her.

Breaking off their little staredown, Lindsey turned his attention onto the client that was causing such a stir in the upper offices. Mrs. Miller was a slightly plump woman of around fifty, a touch on the short side, with a generous, friendly face. She easily could have been someone's grandmother or the trusted neighbor that you could always count on. In truth, she was closer to being Hannibal Lecter's sister. Some vampires didn't have the kill count of the unassuming matron that stood before Lindsey.

"Mrs. Miller," Lindsey said warmly, once again putting on the charming smile. "It's so nice to meet you. Welcome to Wolfram and Hart."

"I'm honored to meet you as well, Mr. McDonald," Mrs. Miller returned, extending her hand for a handshake. Lindsey hesitated, but Mrs. Miller noticed his prosthetic and switched to her left hand without a trace of embarassment. Her skin was cool but her grip was surprisingly strong. "I understand that you and Ms. Morgan handle the cases that are just a bit too...delicate...for the outside world?"

"Wolfram and Hart caters to clients from every walk of life," Lilah said smoothly. "Even those with more unique needs."

"Provided that they can pay, of course." Miller arched an eyebrow.

"Well...yes."

Miller nodded once, turning all business in the blink of an eye. "I thought so. Let's quit with the pleasantries and get right into the heart of the matter, shall we? I need Wolfram and Hart's services in order to keep the law away from me. In return I am willing to offer some of my own."

Lindsey's brow furrowed. Miller hardly fit the typical profile for an assasin, yet that seemed to be exactly what she was offering. "Services?"

"I understand you have been having problems over the past year and a half with a certain vampire named Angel."

Mention of the vampire's name caused Lindsey to stiffen in a sudden surge of hatred. He caught Lilah's warning glance and struggled to regain control while his coworker took the lead from him. Lindsey closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He would not lose control in front of a client. He could deny Angel that victory.

Miller watched the lawyer shrewdly, a trace of a smile playing at her lips. The smug brunette was doing her best to distract her, but Miller saw she had struck a nerve nonetheless. She filed the tidbit busily away in a mind carefully trained to keep details that could be used to maim and hurt, just in case it should ever become useful to her. The eerie little smile still twitching her mouth, Miller turned back to Lilah and held up a hand to stop the lawyer's empty words. "My dear, I am well aware of this firm's merits. That's why I came to you. Now," She eyed Lindsey carefully, but his self control had slipped neatly back into place again. "The issue of Angel. I believe I can help you."

"Really." Lindsey allowed the smallest amount of suspicion to crawl back into his bland professional tone. "At the risk of offending you," Miller merely shook her head and motioned for him to go on, "Angel is very, very powerful. He has stopped every assassin we've attempted to send after him and taking recent events into consideration," Lindsey shrugged, allowing himself the luxury of a sardonic smile, "he wouldn't hesitate to kill you." Miller gave him such a long, intense look that Lindsey almost felt an urge to squirm. The file on her had her listed as a sociopath that would put some of the firm's demonic clients to shame, yet she reminded Lindsey of a teacher he had had in grade school. It was more than a little unnerving.

"I have no doubt," Miller said, her eyes going as flat and dead as that of any demon, "that he will try."

Lilah quickly pushed ahead with the conversation. "You said that you would help us to deal with Angel. What did you have in mind?" The lawyer didn't trust the dangerous tautness of Lindsey's expression.

"It's in the firm's interests that Angel be brought over to your side." Miller spoke with a clipped, precise, professional tone that contrasted jarringly with her appearance. Again a feeling of unease stole over Lindsey. "I can help you with that."

Feeling the need to defend Darla, Lindsey said, "We all ready have a plan in place to to bring Angel over to the firm's way of thinking."

Miller's gaze flicked over Lindsey like a lash. Here, in a place that held evil to match her own, she was letting the motherly facade slip a bit. "Yes, and your pet vampiresses have done a beautiful job, haven't they?" Lilah bit back a smile.

Lindsey held Miller's gaze without flinching or blinking. "Give them time."

"Why?" Miller challenged him. "I can mold Angel into what Wolfram and Hart wants -needs- now."

"And all you want in return is for us to cover up some of your messier hobbies?" That teasing feeling of missing something important refused to go away. If anything, it only came back fiercer as Lindsey tried to push it from his mind.

Lilah edged further between Miller and Lindsey, as if physically placing herself between them could put a halt to the tension that multiplying on itself. "Consider yourself hired," she said.

Miller dipped her head in acknowledgment. "You will be pleased with my results, I assure you." She gave them a smile that sent runners of warning up both of the lawyer's spines. "I have my own stakes in this to ensure I don't fail." 

Rachel lay curled up on the couch, flipping idly through the channels on Lindsey's big screen. Finding nothing that caught her attention she finally tossed down the remote and got up from the couch. She caught her eyes moving involuntarily towards the clock and swore softly under her breath. She was being ridiculous, freaking out because Lindsey was working late. It wasn't like her. Hell, hadn't Lindsey *told* her he worked long hours? She had inserted herself back into his life without any warning at all, expecting him to rearrange his entire schedule around that fact was out of the question and stupid and arrogant on her part.

A slow smile spread across Rachel's face. She wasn't about to spend her first week in LA pouting and feeling sorry for herself. Uh-huh. She didn't think so.

Two hours later Rachel stepped inside Rush, a young club developing a reputation throughout Los Angeles as a place where anything could be expected to happen. Techno blared from the loudspeaker system and alcohol flowed freely, the bartender only giving IDs the most cursory of glances. Rachel fidgeted a bit at the edge of the dancefloor and hated the insecurity in herself. The outfit she had been so proud of herself for putting together on short notice and limited supplies now seemed pathetic and out of place when compared to the sleek fashion sense of LA's youth.

"Hey," a voice said from behind Rachel, being forced to yell even though the owner was less than a foot away. Rachel jumped and turned.

A man in his very early twenties stood in front of her. Rachel gave him a quick once-over, knowing he was doing the same to her. Black hair and equally black eyes topping off a tall, slightly lean frame.

"Hey back," Rachel said, recovering herself a bit. "I'm Rachel."

"Max." The guy smiled and gestured around at the club in general. "I'm a bit of a regular here, but I don't think I've ever seen you before. First time?"

Rachel shrugged a bit self-consciously. "I'm new to LA. This is the first club I've been to."

"How do you like it so far?"

"Hmm...the jury's still out on that one. It's loud, and confusing as Hell."

"The club or Los Angeles?"

"Both, actually," Rachel replied, earning a grin and a short laugh from Max. She found herself relaxing a bit more. 'This town isn't so big and bad after all,' she found herself thinking. 'I can do this.' "I'm actually enrolled at UCLA for the second semester. You?"

Max shrugged vaguely. "I'm not really doing the whole college thing," he said in the tone of a subject that is better off dismissed. Rachel squirmed a bit in the awkward atmosphere that was suddenly created. "Would you like to dance?" Max asked suddenly, breaking up Rachel's thoughts before she could begin to question just what the Hell she was doing there.

"Love to." Rachel allowed herself to be led out onto the dance floor. There the music was loud and raucous enough to discourage further conversation. Rachel let her body move to the music without conscious thought and found herself relaxing more and more with each moment that passed. Max took her hand and made a show of twirling her grandly, despite the decidedly techno beat.

"Sorry," Rachel apologized to another couple that the move caused her to bump into, but she was laughing all the while. The young woman cast Max a mock-angry glare. "See what you made me do?"

Max tried to look repentant and failed miserably. "So sorry." He grinned.

"Somehow not convinced here." Rachel pushed away a few strands of hair that was clinging to the sweat on her forehead. Packing so many people onto the dance floor made it stiflingly hot.

Noticing her discomfort, Max asked, "I could use a drink. You?"

"Sure." Rachel gratefully followed him to the bar, where Max ordered a rum and coke and then looked expectantly towards Rachel. The young woman paused a moment, considering. Alcohol and the loss of control, however slight, that would follow was not something she found appealing. "Just a coke, please," she finally said. The soda was icily cold and she downed it in three quick gulps, earning herself a headache. "Hmmm, much better," Rachel said as she sat the glass down. She danced with Max a few more times, then moved on to a dark haired guy who didn't give his name. By the end of the night Rachel was pleasantly fatigues, having danced off a good portion of her nervousness over whether she would succeed in LA.

The mildly chill air slipped up against Rachel's skin as she stepped out of the club. She shivered pleasurably, enjoying the sensation of the breeze against her slightly sweaty skin. A cab came by and Rachel raised her hand to hail it, cursing softly when it didn't even so much as tap the brakes. Looked like she was going to be footing it until another one came by.

A few more minutes went by with no sign of another cab and Rachel began to grow slightly worried. She briefly considered finding a pay phone and calling Lindsey to pick her up, then cast the idea aside with a tightening of her lips. And let him know that once again she needed help? He may be her brother but no thank you, huh-uh. She would be fine. The old apartment was in a neighborhood that had defined crappy and she had been just fine growing up there. Except that in the old neighborhood she generally didn't walk alone at night. She had gotten herself so tense and high strung that when the voice came she nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Excuse me, miss?"

Rachel spun around in fright and barely managed to stop her hand from fluttering up to her throat. Her heart skipped alarmingly before settling back into a regular rhythm, if faster than normal.

A dark haired, dark eyed man in his twenties looked back at her calmly. Though he must have noticed her start, he tactfully didn't mention it. "Having trouble finding a cab?"

"I'm sure one will be along any minute." Rachel cast her eyes up and down the street which was, in accordance with Murphy's Law, deserted. The young woman groaned inwardly and her heart sped up a bit more. A strange guy had snuck up behind her at night and the street was completely empty. Perfect, just freaking perfect.

The guy smiled and some of his intensity dissolved. "Easy there. I know what you're thinking, but I'm not some psycho or anything. I just wanted to know if you needed any help."

Rachel ordered herself sternly not to take a step back. "I'm fine," she answered calmly. "Just peachy." She turned to be on her way again.

"Not for long, sweetheart." She only dimly had time to register the words and didn't hear the footsteps at all. Fingers tightened cruelly in her long hair, pulling so hard and so suddenly that she nearly fell to the sidewalk. The man's other arm snaked about her waist and drew her up against him. Rachel uttered one short, terror-filled scream before sharp pain blossomed from the side of her neck. She brought her hand up and encountered hair, not her own. 'He's biting me,' she thought with the clarity that only comes on the verge of panic. 'He's biting me, he's sucking my blood.' Directly on the heels of that, 'I'm going to die.' 

Cordelia chewed briefly at her thumbnail. Her mind still reeled with the images shown to her in the vision. A vampire had been feeding off a girl of Cordelia's own age, not so odd as far as visions were concerned, but the vampire had looked so very much like Angel. She had only been able to see him from behind, but it was still enough to send a tremor of worry through the young Seer.

"Here we are," Gunn grunted, stopping the truck fast enough to make the brakes squeal. Cordelia looked through her windshield and saw the girl from her vision, all ready beginning to slump in the vampire's embrace.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It was becoming too difficult to form coherent thoughts but Rachel struggled along sluggishly anyway. The pain in her neck had faded away to a distant, unimportant hum. 'Vampire,' Rachel's mind managed. 'But...they're not supposed to be real...they're not...'

Abruptly, the arm around her waist and the vicious, chewing fangs at her neck vanished. They didn't retreat, they just ceased to be. Dazed and weak, Rachel fell to the sidewalk, coughing as dust entered her nose. She groaned and brought a badly shaking hand up to her neck.

Cordelia knelt by the girl while Gunn quickly put the stake he had used to dust the vampire out of sight. It hadn't been Angel, Cordelia's heart was delighted to note, and now that it was over she was a bit ashamed of herself for even thinking so. Whatever pain and difficulty Angel was going through because of Darla's return and Wolfram and Hart's determination to drive him out of his mind, he wouldn't regress so far as to begin feeding off humans again. He just wouldn't. Cordelia didn't like the way she sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

"Hey," she said to the young woman, who was beginning to look more alert. "It's okay, you're going to be fine. The guy who attacked you-" She shared a look with Gunn. "-ran away when we pulled up. Guess he was brave enough to stab you in the neck, but not to face us."

The girl slowly took her hand away from her neck and fixed Cordelia with a direct, piercing stare. "He didn't stab me at all," she said in the tone of someone who is trying to convince themselves as much as the person they are talking to. "He bit me, didn't he?" Almost to herself Rachel added, "I haven't believed in vampires since I was a kid."

Gunn winced. She didn't look like much more than a kid now. "Why don't we just get you to a hospital," he suggested. "Everything can be sorted out there."

The result was immediate. "No!" the girl exclaimed, whipping her head around to look at Gunn. Her intensely blue eyes took on a determined, flinty look that made them seem vaguely familiar to Cordelia, though she couldn't name why. "No hospitals. I'm fine. Really." The girl tried to stand and sat back down abruptly as the blood went rushing oh-so-very far from her head.

Cordelia snorted. "Oh, yeah. You can't stand, but you're doing just great." Another glare from the girl, which Cordelia ignored. "Look, we're trying to help you here."

"I'm not going to a hospital," Rachel said flatly. She hadn't been in a hospital since she was five years old. The year when two of her siblings had died of a flu that barely touched healthier children, those with warm clothing and well heated homes in which to retreat from the cold. The first to go had been Rachel's fraternal twin, Billy, her closest friend at the time. His death had devastated her but not come as a total shock to the rest of the family. Billy had always been sickly, minor colds and viruses that most children shook off with a few day's confinement and bedrest bringing him to his knees. Then on the heels of that Annie, barely a year old, had fallen sick. Overnight she had gone from being a healthy, cooing baby to one almost too sick to cry. Rachel had stood in the hospital corridor with Lindsey's arm protectively about her shoulders, staring at the doctor who had come out to tell them it had been too late. "Bullshit," Lindsey had cut the doctor off icily. The doctor had stared at him, shocked by the outburst. "You didn't try hard enough." His previously gentle grip on Rachel had tightened until it was nearly painful. "You didn't fucking *try*." Rachel hadn't set foot in a hospital since that day.

Feeling a years' old lump in her throat from the vividness of the memory, young as she had been, Rachel said once more, "I'm not going." The steeliness was back.

"Kid-" Gunn started.

"I don't need to go to a freaking hospital, all right? I'm conscious, I know my name, and I've stopped bleeding. That should be evidence enough that I'm not going to keel over."

Another look was passed between Cordelia and Gunn, neither quite knowing how to deal with the young woman's vehement refusal. "All right, then," Gunn said finally, "at least let us give you a ride home. There's no way we're just leavin' you here."

Rachel nodded faintly and leaned heavily on Gunn as he helped her to her feet. The young woman was just allowing herself to be led over to his battered pickup truck when a small object lying on the ground attracted her attention. "Wait." She leaned down, getting a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach that she couldn't name, one that had nothing to do with her feeling of lightheadedness. A shaky hand picked up the card and brought it close enough to her face to be read clearly. The ominous feelings settled into a chunk of ice in the pit of her stomach as her eyes moved over the words.

Cordelia glanced over at the business card and scowled. "Figures," she said in response to the crisp Wolfram and Hart logo. "Must have fallen before he was dusted. We took out a pretty big roller, apparently."

The words registered in Cordelia's mind as speech, but she paid no attention. Her hand had stopped shaking, she noted, and kept staring down at the card. Why would a vampire-Rachel knew that was what had attacked her, had to be, though she would have a difficult time with that knowledge later on-have a card from the place where her brother worked? *Why?*

The young woman was beginning to look distinctly not there, as if she were on the verge of passing out. "Are you sure you don't want to go to a hospital?" Cordelia asked.

Rachel reactivated and looked at her. "I'm fine," she said, sounding anything but. She gestured to the card she was gripping so tightly. "Do...do you know these people?"

"Sad to say," Cordelia retorted. "They're not exactly the nicest people on the planet. Basically every bad lawyer joke you've ever heard rolled into one and then some." She gave Rachel a closer look. "Do you want to sit back down? You look really, really bad."

"I'm all right," Rachel answered automatically, knowing that they didn't believe her for a minute and not really caring. Her eyes kept refusing to stray away from the card. "It...would be best if I just went home, I think," she said slowly. "There's someone I need to talk to very, very badly." 

In a car idling quietly across the street from the Hyperion, Miller prepared.

The quarters were cramped but they would have to do. Cooing softly under her breath in anticipation, Miller lit a series of lumpy, foul-smelling candles on the dashboard. Their flames leapt upward alarmingly and threatened to singe the ceiling before retreating into harmless flickers of light. Miller crinkled her nose and cracked the window open to allow some of the stench to escape. She normally wasn't one who relished ceremony and this situation was no different, but protocol had to be paid attention to. Breaking the soft, self-pleased cooing long enough to chant a few words in a language never named and safer forgotten, Miller removed a flask of deep red blood from her purse, smiling a bit as she remembered how she had come by it.

The flames hungrily reached for the blood as it was sprinkled lightly over them. When they came back down they stayed just a bit bigger than before. Miller smirked a bit as she watched the fire darken in color. Doubtless the Senior Partners and those two children who worked for them would be displeased if they knew how truly simple the ritual was, but that was only the beginning of it. The true power of a spell always came from the will of the caster.

* * * * * * * * *

Angel was standing quietly in the garden, shirt off and sword in hand. Sweat beaded on his arms and shoulders from an earlier furious burst of activity. Now he simply rested and let his muscles recover before he left to begin his nightly hunt of Darla and Drusilla. The vampire's lips twitched up in a smile completely devoid of humor. And maybe if he was lucky he would run into a few of Wolfram and Hart's little chess pieces. The frightening smile broadened. He could think of two necks in particular he wouldn't mind snapping.

A wave of dizziness crashed down on Angel with incredible speed. His vision blurred and he fought to avoid being driven down to his knees. The blackness persisted for three seconds....four... and then abruptly lifted.

Angel blinked, slowly shook his head. Gone as quickly as it had come. The only remnant of whatever it had been that hit him was a faint ache behind the eyes. Feeling a little shaken but not entirely alarmed yet, Angel shifted the sword.... and froze. It was stained a vibrant green color. For that matter, so was he. Okay, *now* he was getting a bad feeling. Angel slowly looked around. The bad feeling multiplied on itself.

Every single plant in the garden had been hacked to pieces.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Satisfied that everything was progressing according to her wishes, Miller started up the car and drove away.

Despite the fact that it was warm inside the hotel and as a vampire he shouldn't have been affected by it anyway, Angel felt cold. What the Hell had happened? What kind of rage had come over him that led him to mindlessly destroy every plant in the garden and leave him with no memory of the act? Worse, he had no way of knowing if his violence was confined to massacring plants. When he had come back inside, bewildered and with a steady knot of dread beginning to tighten in his gut, he had been struck with the realization that more than an hour was neatly missing from his memory. It took Angelus but a second to snap a neck, a minute to drain a corpse dry. Whole tortures could be accomplished in under an hour. Angel shuddered and resumed his pacing. The more he puzzled over his problem the more potentially dangerous it seemed.

Coming softly down into the lobby, Angel's attention was drawn to the answering machine. The red light hadn't begun to blink again after he erased the last multitude of messages. The vampire's lips curved up in what some people may have classified as the beginnings of a smile, but it was completely devoid of emotion. So Cordelia had finally given up? Good. The sooner she got it through her dense skull that he was sick of playing with the team, worn out from fighting every single day for good and watching evil strengthen its foothold a little more, the better it would be for him. The safer for them, as well, if he couldn't discover what had caused the disquieting blackout.

A slow growl rumbled out of Angel's chest as he stared at the bright sunlight that was imprisoning him inside the hotel. The more he thought about it, the more candidates who could have cast such a spell began to coalesce in Angel's mind. Two of them. Apparently Wolfram and Hart had decided to stop playing games. Well, that was just fine. So had he.

Angel smiled again, and this time he seemed positively animal. 

"That's good," Lindsey had said, not entirely sure of how to handle himself under her direct, blatantly malevolent gaze. It felt uncomfortably as if she was seeing directly into his soul, what was left of it. Not at all a pleasant feeling. "The Senior Partners will be pleased."

"Will they?" Miller inquired. She arched her eyebrow and gave a shrug that belonged to a woman many years younger. "Good for you, I suppose." Before Lindsey could comment on that somewhat puzzling statement Miller pushed on. "I'm going to be quite busy between now and sunrise. You might want to start working on my alibi."

Those words ran themselves through Lindsey's head as he inserted the key into the apartment door and turned it. Miller was going to kill tonight if she hadn't already and he was going to walk calmly into the office the next day and cover it all up. Lindsey felt his stomach turn over slowly, a sensation he thought he had trained himself to stop feeling a long time ago. She was taking Angel down. Finally that bastard was going to pay. The rolling sensation didn't go away. So the ends justified the means, then? 'Yes,' Lindsey told himself savagely, 'they do.'

Rachel was sitting on the couch when her brother walked through the door. She'd exchanged her club outfit for a comfortable pair of jeans and a turtleneck. The fabric rubbed against the wound on her neck painfully even through the careful bandaging she had done, but it was better than seeing the marks every time she happened to pass my a mirror. For chrissakes, the vampire had nearly killed her tonight. A *vampire*. They were real. And somehow her brother was mixed up in working for them.

When he first walked through the door Lindsey didn't immediately notice anything was wrong. He instead shoved back the lingering, confusing feelings he had experienced in the hallway and forced a smile. "Hey, kid. Up kinda late, aren't you?"

"Could say the same," Rachel replied tonelessly. She closely studied Lindsey's face, searching for some sign that what he did disturbed him. If there was one to be found he hid it well. Lindsey looked tired, but no more than one could expect to see on someone who had been stuck at the office until the wee hours of the morning.

"I told you, I work long hours," Lindsey said, shrugging out of his jacket. "Just the price you have to pay." Rachel couldn't help but bark out a short laugh and her brother looked at her curiously. "Rach, what's wrong?" His sister had dark circles under her eyes, Lindsey noticed now. Her skin was nearly as pale as milk and she leaned back against the couch cushions as if she were completely and utterly exhausted.

"You really don't know what's wrong." Rachel looked off for a moment, pursing her lips as she thought. Turning back to him suddenly, Rachel pulled the neckline of her turtleneck down. She winced a bit and pulled off the bandage. The wound on her neck stood out angrily in contrast to the paleness of the surrounding skin. "Do you know what this is?" she asked him angrily.

The rolling in Lindsey's stomach began again. "Looks like you were attacked by a dog or something," he said carefully. He started to step towards Rachel, but the sudden fierce look on her face made him pause. "What happened?"

Rachel dug something out of her pocket and threw it at him. It bounced off his chest and fell to the floor. Retrieving it, Lindsey saw that it was a business card. Though smudged with dirt and blood the Wolfram and Hart logo stared up at him unrelentingly.

"Where did you get this?" Lindsey asked.

His sister barked out a laugh. "That's the thing. The *vampire*," she nearly spit the word out, "the monster that bit me and would have killed me if help had not come along was carrying it with him. Now why would that be?" Her voice had gotten sharper and sharper.

Lindsey bristled under her words. "You seem to be making a pretty weighty accusation here, Rachel."

"No shit." Lindsey started to speak again and Rachel cut him off. "And don't try to tell me that vampires aren't real, either." Rachel gestured to the side of her neck. "More than convinced here." Her anger crumbled abruptly and Rachel looked like a little girl. "What are you doing to yourself? You're not the kind of person who turns a blind eye. I know you better than that."

Growing angry, Lindsey snapped back, "You do, huh? Before you showed up on my doorstep unannounced you hadn't seen me for nearly ten years. Just what the Hell makes you think you know me so well?" His sister was silent. "No, I want you to answer me on this one. What makes you think you know me at all?" Lindsey realized that in addition to making no attempt to deny what Rachel was saying, he had also never asked where she had gotten her information on Wolfram and Hart. Somehow he had a good idea.

Tears threatened to well up in Rachel's eyes and she fought them back angrily. She didn't cry. Ever. Tears didn't do anything but put your weaknesses on display for all the world to see. Ironically, she had learned that from Lindsey. "The brother I knew-know," she amended quickly, "wouldn't sell his soul like that."

'You sold your soul for a corner office and a company car.' Damnit, not the time to be remembering the one attempt he had made to get away. Lindsey felt positively ill, but more than that he felt angry. He was sick to death of defending his life to anybody. It was *his*, for chrissakes, his choices and his consequences, no one else's. "Sorry, Hon," Lindsey said cruelly, hardly even believing the words were emerging from his mouth until they were out and it was too late to take them back. "Sure looks like I did, doesn't it? Guess that blows your little knowing the real me theory to smithereens."

Rachel jerked as if she had been slapped. For a long moment she stared at her brother wordlessly, again having to fight the advance of tears. Finally she stood from the couch and shoved past Lindsey, the effect somewhat dampened by the fact that she was still swaying slightly from her earlier blood loss. Lindsey didn't follow.

Upon reaching her bedroom Rachel immediately began gathering her things and cramming them back into her bags. She didn't stop to fold or organize. Speed was what mattered, not neatness. In truth, Rachel's mind was hardly on what she was doing at all. It was too busy reeling with what she had just learned. Lindsey.... her brother.... her protector growing up.... defending demons? Cordelia had further filled in the blanks about Wolfram and Hart on the drive to the apartment, answering Rachel's tentative questions with enough details to make Rachel mildly ill herself. Rachel threw the last item into her duffel bag, zipped it shut, and slung it onto her shoulder. Another wave of dizziness snuck up on her and she had to grab the edge of the dresser to avoid falling.

Lindsey was still standing in front of the couch when Rachel emerged from the bedroom. His face was unreadable and his eyes barely flicked over Rachel.

"You wanna know the funny thing?" his sister queried softly. "I wanted so badly to believe that you were innocent that if you had denied it I would have believed you on the spot, card or no card." Rachel gave another of her humorless laughs. "Hell, I probably would if you denied it now." She shrugged a little. "Maybe you're right and I don't know you anymore, but you're still my brother. I can't stay in your home and watch you destroy yourself at the same time." Rachel left the apartment and began digging in her pocket, searching for the card that Cordelia had given her along with the information that if she was ever in trouble they would be glad to help her out-for a modest fee, of course. Gunn had rolled his eyes towards the truck's ceiling and told her to ignore Cordy, just to come if she ever needed help. The card had an address scribbled on the back of it.

For a long time after Rachel left Lindsey remained standing in the middle of the living room. He almost had trouble believing he had said those things, though the memory was still stark in his mind. Lindsey's lips twisted. He didn't ask for any of this to be dropped in his lap, so why was it bothering him? It shouldn't-no, Lindsey corrected quickly, it wasn't. Suddenly he needed a drink very, very badly, but the idea of staying in the eerie stillness of the apartment any longer than he had to was more than he could take. Lindsey wanted noise. He wanted life, and all the booze he could find to distract him from his own. Not bothering to gather his jacket, Lindsey hurriedly left the apartment. He almost forgot to lock the door behind him. 'Hell,' Lindsey thought bitterly, 'it's not as if there's anything I would miss.'

The ghost pulled back the comforter Cordelia was snuggled under and she felt icy hands began to shake her awake. Cordelia yelped and sat up quickly, shaking off Dennis' frigid touch. "Okay, yeah, I'm awake." The brunette squinted at her bedside clock and groaned. "It's not even eight yet, Dennis. I don't exactly have a job to get up early *for* anymore, remember?" She started to flop back onto the pillows when the pounding began at the door again. Grumbling and mentally promising a slow death to whoever it was making her get up unless it was damn important, Cordelia dragged herself out of the nice comfy bed and onto the cold, decidedly non-comfy floor. 'No,' Cordelia amended, 'I'm going to kill them *very* slowly.' "All right, I'm coming!" she finally yelled. "Chill out." Cordelia swung the door open and saw the same girl that she and Gunn had saved the night before standing on the doorstep. "Rachel?"

Rachel pushed back the fatigue from a night without sleep and said seriously, "You told me last night that you help people."

"Yeah, we do." Cordelia opened the door wider and gestured Rachel in, out of habit avoiding a verbal invitation. The fact that she had been woken up at an ungodly hour was forgotten. "Why? Are you in any kind of trouble?"

"No, but someone I care about a lot is." Rachel took a deep breath. "I only told you my first name last night. I'm Rachel McDonald. I think you might know my brother."

For a few moments Cordelia was only able to gape as the connections were made. "Lindsey McDonald is your brother?" she finally managed.

"Yeah." Rachel's voice was small.

"So what is this, then, some kind of twisted little game?" Cordelia exclaimed, folding her arms over her chest and taking a defensive step back.

Rachel's eyes widened and she was quick to say, "No! Look, I know that my brother has done some really bad things, but I'm not him. In fact, that's basically the reason I'm here. I wanted to know if you could help him."

Cordelia rubbed her eyes, beginning to regret her outburst but still having trouble believing this was really happening. "Look, I don't think we can. Your brother, he's.... Lindsey's not a good person. He had the chance to leave Wolfram and Hart before and he more or less spit on it."

Feeling desperate, Rachel pleaded, "He's not like that, not really." Remembering how coldly he had acted the night before, she added softly, "At least he wasn't when I knew him. He's my brother, my family. I can't just say, 'Oh, well, I guess I'll turn my back because you pissed me off'."

Despite the fact that she had no siblings of her own, Cordelia felt sympathy for the young woman. She *did* know what it was like to watch someone you cared about deeply spiral downward and be unable to do anything to halt the slide. "I'm sorry," she said, "but you can't help someone who doesn't want to be-" Cordelia cried out suddenly and fell to her knees.

"Cordelia? Are you all right?" Stupid question, Rachel reflected, since Cordelia so obviously wasn't. Eyes wide as she watched the brunette writhe and clutch at her head, Rachel darted towards the phone to call an ambulance.
It looked like Cordelia was having a seizure. Just before her fingers made contact with the receiver an unseen hand gently but firmly pushed her back. Rachel yelped and spun around, looking for who had touched her. No one in sight other than Cordy. Rachel tried to pick up the phone again and met the same result. "What the Hell?!" Rachel cried, her eyes widening in fear.

*Angel's eyes glowed as if there were a light bulb inside him that was just too great to be contained by flesh. A matronly woman stood a short ways off, watching the vampire avidly. Her smile reminded Cordelia of a shark. Helpless, unable to do anything but watch in horror until the vision ran itself out, Cordelia watched as the Angel-thing walked over to the woman and gently brought her hand up to its lips. Suddenly the creature's head whipped around and seemed to be looking straight through her. Even though she knew it was impossible for the creature to see her, Cordelia gasped. The horrible silver glow faded from the thing's eyes until they were Angel's rich brown. He looked beaten, completely beyond hope-*

Cordelia was jolted out of the vision harshly. She gasped and fought the urge to throw up. "Give me the phone," she managed.

"But-"

Cordelia's voice was a whip-cracking command. "NOW."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Wesley looked as worried as Cordelia felt. He'd arrived within half an hour of receiving Cordelia's phone call, sleep still blearing his eyes. The muddled look faded quickly, replaced by fear and concern as Cordelia quickly explained what she had seen in the vision. It had shaken her too deeply for her to go into it over the phone.

"Oh, dear," was all Wesley said at first.

"No kidding." Cordelia raked a hand through her hair, still tousled from sleep. "Angel has his head unbelievably far up his ass right now, but he's still our friend. We have to warn him."

"Yes, but of what? Glowing eyes doesn't narrow it down terribly much, I'm afraid." Wesley sighed. "And Angel isn't much inclined to listen to us at the moment."

"We have to try," Cordelia insisted. She shrugged and paced a bit. "Pissed at Angel as we might be right now, if we don't at least warn him about the vision and something happens.... I don't think either one of us wants to live with that." Cordelia looked suddenly near panic. "The look in Angel's eyes.... it was bad, Wes. Really, really bad."

Wesley nodded. "You're right, I suppose. We can't allow ourselves to descend to Angel's current level. It's far too easy to let this become personal." He glanced towards Rachel, sitting wide-eyed on Cordelia's couch, noticing her for the first time. She had been so quiet and subdued, the young woman was not difficult to miss. "I'm terribly sorry we can't help you more right at the moment, perhaps if you were to come back in a few hours-"

"You can crash on my couch until we get back," Cordelia interrupted shortly as she got her jacket.

"Or maybe it would be better if you just stayed here," Wesley finished. He cast Cordelia a curious glance.

"Explain later," Cordelia said shortly. She realized how harsh her voice was and winced, brushing her new bangs out of her eyes. "Sorry. Tense. Ignore me."

Wesley placed his arm around the young woman's shoulders in a brotherly gesture as they left the apartment. "We're all tense and rather snappish as of late, I'm afraid. I'm almost surprised that we haven't killed each other yet."

Cordy laughed in spite of herself. "We'll leave that to the baddies." The joking was only masking a deeper worry that neither of them was willing to address. If they couldn't get Angel to listen, what then? Angel was walking the edge of darkness as it was. Another nudge may very well lose him to it forever.