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Fated Series - The Meaning of Love -- by Kismet
Rating: PG-13
Description: Maya is gone, but the trouble is not over. Maybe she was never the issue at all. Someone unexpected returns, and when Angel and Spike disappear, the Scooby Gang is drawn to LA.
Disclaimer: This is a work of amateur fiction. All characters etc. are the property of their respective creators and no copyright infringement is intended. The author reserves rights over her work and storyline. Feel free to read and enjoy, though ! (Song lyrics by David Bowie for the movie soundtrack 'The Labyrinth')
The club was full for a week-night. People moved about in the dim light, congregating at the bar and around the little tables with the candles in their blown-glass pots, drinking and laughing and talking in a variety of languages. Mainly English, but there was a smattering of some liquid-sounding Italian and people speaking French very fast. Flat screens set into the walls and framed with dark red curtains like stages showed scenes from various Cirque de Soleil troupe performances. The sound was muted and the band was easing into the slow, late night numbers that coiled like the smoke from cigarettes.
Some regulars arrived and were greeted with the warmth that made 'The Passionflower' so popular. They asked after the health of Mme. de Bouvais, and were told that she was indisposed this night.
She was indeed indisposed.
At the back of the club there was a little door in the wall made of steel. Only six people held the keys, and only they had ever been down the winding stairs that led deep into the lair underground. Once this building had stood over two levels of basement apartments. Now they stood over the home of Elizabet de Bouvais' pack in which Lilian was the newest member.
She could have done worse, she thought as she looked around. Much worse.
The common-room, as she thought of it in her mind, was softly lit and comfortably furnished, painted in tans and sand shades. Richly coloured carpets covered the sand-coloured flags, vying for attention along with fake animal pelts. There was a very extensive entertainment system along one wall and scattered cushions, sofas and chairs throughout. Little touches like vases of flowers, the scent of heated perfumed oils and the Pre-Raphaelite paintings on the walls suggested that this was an abode of women. Too true.
Julietta was stretched out on a recliner closest to the door that blocked off the room which Elizabet had disappeared into along with her guest. Julietta seemed to be reading, but Lilian knew enough of her to know that she was worried and wanted to be close by in case anything happened. She agreed with this caution. The guest made her hackles rise. If only Elizabet did not have her heart so set on having what she wanted, then they could throw the woman out. She was strange, mad even.
Lilian did not know whether she loved Elizabet, but she knew she liked being a member of this pack. She had hated Elizabet for daring to fight for the right to gain her as a prize in the Claim Fight, but now she was in a way glad that things had turned out as they had. She had had no intention of being made a queen by a male pack leader who would keep her as a trophy, but she had been, she knew now, too young to be able to make a life on her own outside. Elizabet did not want her just to show her off, or in bed for that matter. There were no minions and no favourites in this pack. They were all independent and mistresses of their own lives, and this somehow seemed to negate the tension so common in most packs where all fought for supremacy or to keep from being cast down in pack hierarchy. This pack, Lilian knew, was the stepping stone to her future life if she wanted to survive.
Ayesha was sitting at the carved rosewood table with Deirdra, talking to her in a soft tone, laughing. Lilian liked Ayesha, with her graceful name, pronounced 'Assha'. She liked the vampiress' quiet insight and her want to melt into the background. Ayesha could never quite do that. She was too beautiful, with warm brown skin and a great mass of hair in beautiful black ringlets, her features a series of successive ovals in perfect symmetry set in a face that was yet another perfect oval.
Elizabet, Julietta, Marie-Jeannette, Ayesha, herself and Deirdra.
She had not met Deirdra before. Earlier the woman had allowed herself to be captured by some horrible covert organisation in order to gain inside information. They had thought then that she would only be in for a few days. Deirdra had volunteered, and Ayesha had told her that Deirdra was a strong, no-nonsense person who was the best fighter in the pack. She found that hard to believe, looking now at the thin, lanky frame curled up on the chair, hugging her knees to her chest, her brown hair falling around her as if she wanted to hide away from the world. Sometimes Deirdra shook all over for no reason. Sometimes she cried and screamed in her sleep. Lilian sensed in her a desperation, a fear a black as a gulf in the deep dark ocean.
Then the door opened and Julietta uncoiled like a cat whose tail has been stepped on. Elizabet stood in the doorway, holding the tape in her hand, but she had her back to them and was speaking to the strange guest.
"It was a risk I did not want to take needlessly."
That high, eerily child-like voice laughed. "I told you you were barking up the wrong tree, didn't I ?" She cooed something indistinctly, then, "He's wasted my time, this lover of mine. I want him to pay, to pay, to pay." The clear voice sang out, making all the women in the room stiffen. There was madness in that voice, Lilian thought fearfully. No order at all, only a form of chaotic coherence. "Get the little Slayer, Elizabet. Get her to lure her Angel in this city of his peers. Then you will have what you want, and I'll get to play."
"What of Maya?" Elizabet crossed her arms under her breasts.
"Catch the tiger by her tail, and if she bites, make her wail. She is not the key. It's tea-time, can I have my tea ? We want our tea."
Elizabet walked out of the doorway and closed it behind her, her face a white mask as she clutched the tape in her hands. For a moment she stood unmoving, the red waves of her hair the only live thing in the light.
"Elizabet?" Julietta put her hand on the stiff shoulder. "Are you alright, cherie?"
Elizabet blinked once, then smiled. "Get our guest a little someone to drink, will you ? Bleed them outside, I don't want bodies in here. She's given me the key." The smile turned triumphant, and something in Lilian turned uneasily.
Joyce Summers winced as the beat pounded through the ceiling to where she was in the kitchen. Having Buffy home for a weekend was something she enjoyed, but when her daughter left on Sundays, she also enjoyed the peace that came over the house. With a small smile she lifted the top of the waffle-pan and took out a fragrant golden cross-hatched piece. Waffles and butter with syrup or with strawberry jam.
Buffy closed her eyes as Delirium's 'Karma' poured out of the stereo, the haunting vocals of the lead singer soaring over the music. She had just scrubbed her skin pink with a loofah and a brush and was now soaking in the petal-strewn water of the tub, fragrant with essential oils and bath-balls. This was what she missed most at university, a bath-tub all to herself to start lazy Saturday mornings. No, that was wrong, it was not exactly what she missed most. What she missed most was a certain person....
No! She rolled over in the hot water, resting her cheek on her folded arms. It had already been nearly half a year and she was over it, over it....
The fact was that she would never be completely over it. Unlucky in love didn't even begin to describe her.
It was a Saturday. She was going to spend the whole day quietly with her mother, and they would go out for lunch and go shopping, then come home to watch old movies. Buffy decided that she would not give in to depression. Not today. The mourning would have to stop at some point or other, and it did not mean that she had forgotten. She would remember it forever, but she wanted the memories to be of the happy moments, the tender times, not the heartache.
Dripping water, she got up out of the tub onto the mat, drawing the towel around her. As she dried herself she looked in the mirror, seeing the curves and planes, the colour of the skin. All the intimate details of Herself. She tried a smile in the mirror and was surprised to see how natural she looked.
Going barefoot into her bedroom, she switched off the stereo just in time to hear her mother call her down for breakfast. Waffles, her favourite as a child.
And today, she resolved, was going to be like one of those golden, happy days of childhood.
The wind ruffled his hair as the motorbike purred under him, taking him through the streets of the dark city in the early hours of the morning. There were several types of loneliness, and this was one of the pleasant ones, sitting astride the sleek machine and letting it take him where it would.
These had been tense months, waiting for some trouble to erupt the way it always did when he was in the vicinity. There never was one with such a penchant for stirring up a hornet's nest the way that beautiful, incorrigible devil did all for the fun of it. Undead life seemed to be a joyride for him, unlimited time in which to pursue destruction.
Which was why he was so worried now that there was no trouble.
Maya's leaving must have hit him hard. Himself, he liked the new-born for her quiet strength and her glittering ferality, and wished her luck. She might be one of those who would survive well into the new millennium, one of the few female master vampires.
He also liked her because her leaving had been the ultimate sacrifice, born from a love whose power humbled him. Was he so much better off than the rest of them, soul or not ? If their kind had no souls, where did the emotion come from ? The love and the deep attachments, the grieving. For his Child was grieving, that was the truth of it. He did not like him, could not tolerate his views of life, but loved him all the same. And to know that he had shut himself up in that huge house alone worried the Sire. There was only so much one could take, and to lose Drucilla then Maya in quick succession....
Any sign of weakness would signal to the rest of the undead community that his claim was ripe for the plucking. He was strong, immensely so, but even so he was alone with no pack and no friends to guard him. Even as a vigilante outcast, Angel himself had friends whose loyalty to him could be relied on in the worst of times. And then there was the matter of the kidnapping to be taken into account. What had happened to his Child in behind those hostile, silent walls ? Had he been so fortunate as to escape without scars ?
He was in a quiet quarter of the city now, dark, empty roads littered with trash, tall forbidding buildings and the occasional street-light at wide spaced intervals. Silence, darkness.
That was why the figure that ran out across the road directly in front of him startled him so. Wrenching the bike around he tried to stop from running her down and the machine toppled onto its side, sparks leaping as it skidded screeching across the asphalt, making him shout with pain as his leg, trapped between the machine and the road, scraped.
The figure paused under a streetlamp, fear marked in every line of its body, and his eyes widened in shock as she whirled around for a split second, the light shining softly off her fitted jacket with it's collar pulled high. Small, delicate frame, yellow hair and a glimpse of face that tugged violently on memory.
"Buffy!!!!" His heart leapt into his throat even as she whirled and ran as if pursued by the Devil himself.
He barely even noticed the pain from his already-healing leg as he pushed the bike off him and pounded across the road after her. She was here, and she was in trouble...His game face came into being at the idea of someone wanting to hurt her, and he snarled, speed increasing as he dashed down the narrow alley into which she had disappeared.
"Wait, Buff....." His words cut off when something hard and heavy crashed down onto him, then there was nothing but darkness.
The man clutched helplessly at the leather of the long duster, his breath rattling in his throat as the monster held him in a crushing embrace, holding him up when his legs gave out under him. His eyes flickered and dulled, lids closing slowly as the monster shifted, sighing as the blood ran low.
Spike dropped the body, eyelids fluttering as he savoured the tang of blood in his mouth. It was not enough, he knew, and he could hear the voices of the flood of humanity that walked the sidewalks outside this dark alley.
He killed two, three a night now. The flow never lasted long enough to satisfy the craving for contact. Feeding pushed her out of his mind, and he drank till his veins were engorged and his skin flushed hotly from an excess of red, pounding life. Yet the moment he stopped she was always there. Sometimes Maya appeared in his mind too, and to a lesser extent, Drucilla. The pain was always the same. His Three Graces, all gone in one way or another.
He dropped the body against the wall in distaste. They got cold so quickly, all life leaving them as they became grey, stiff cadavers.
The corpse stared accusingly up at him through half-closed eyes.
"Life's not fair, mate, and Lady Luck is never there when you need her."
The area of the city he was in did nothing to improve his mood. It was a rough neighbourhood, with scantily-clad girls on the street-corners working their trade, the pimps standing by. Toughs in the 'homeboy' fashions of the day prowled in groups of three or four and junkies sat hunkered over in corridors, easy to pick out because of their hollowed cheeks, blank eyes and trembling fingers. They smelled of blood and sickness.
Eyes followed him, of course. They would have gladly killed him for his coat, his Doc Martens. He had killed for the coat himself, taking it off a still-warm victim. The street-girls who propositioned him did not get a response. If they did, it was a blue-eyed stare with such chill in it that they subsided, turning away. Here he was a cold killer in a sea of warm murderers.
He walked, his eyes on the ground in front of him, the stolen blood stinging his cheeks. He felt weary of the world and of walking, but there was nothing else to do so he walked. And would have continued walking if someone had not brushed against him.
It took a while to register, then he turned.
She was small, with dyed honey-streaked hair. Her jacket was dark brown leather fitted to her shoulders with it's collar turned up, and a flare of recognition rose in him. That was before she half-turned and looked over her shoulder directly at him, her eyes above her collar dark and full of some hidden question. Then she turned back and resumed walking.
"Buffy." He tasted the word in disbelief. She paused, turned and looked at him again before continuing on.
He began walking after her, dazedly at first, then faster. In the space of ten seconds he was running, pushing people out of his way, calling her name, but she already seemed impossibly far away.
"Buffy, stop!"
Her eyes, dark in the night under the fluorescent lights, brushed over him again before she turned into an alley between two buildings.
The two men he crashed into tried to stop him. He heard ugly words and saw the flicker of knives. With a rumbling snarl he lifted the both of them up, the flimsy collars of their cheap windbreakers ripping as their eyes widened in shock, moments before they were thrown through the window display of a booze store.
"Buffy!"
He skidded to a stop, breath coming harsh and fast as he looked around wildly. The alley was full of junk, empty of life, a high wire fence running along one side of it.
He spun around and there was a lance of white hot pain through his shoulder, and another through his thigh. His feet were kicked out from under him and he went down before something hard slammed into the back of his head. Struggling, he tried to rise. He was hit three more times before he finally blacked out.
"Blackout," said Buffy with a groan. She hissed as she burned her finger on the match. "Why now?"
"The electric company does this every once in a while to remind us how lucky we are to have their services," Joyce said wryly as she went around lighting candles.
"We were watching Gone with the Wind! Cheeky-much," Buffy groused as she dipped her finger into her cold orange juice. "Hey!" she said in protest as her mother ruffled her hair.
"I didn't know you girls liked Rhett Butler."
"Rhett Butler is...ugggh!" Buffy rolled her eyes. "It's the concept that matters. Rhett Butler's ears stick out, and did you know he had bad breath? The Mentos company would have been glad to have him as a spokesperson."
"Harsh for Vivien Leigh, then."
Buffy giggled. "You sound funny when you try to use slang, Mom."
"I try." Joyce turned from the fridge. "Well, in any case we have popcorn, peanut-butter, lattice biscuits and double chocolate ice-cream. What about a good CD in the player, a mid-night feast and a game of Scrabble?"
"What about we rent a limousine, book a table at an expensive restaurant and hire a couple of male escorts?" Buffy suggested with a straight face.
"Dreaming is something young people like to indulge in." Joyce turned with her arms full. "Peanut butter it is."
Two Days Later:
"Where is he?! He's driving me insane!" Cordelia paced the front of the office with her hands on her hips. "Can you see how many worry wrinkles I'm getting? He's going to pay for a lifetime supply of Elizabeth Arden face cream when he gets back." She flapped her arms in exasperation, looked around then went to the door of Angel's private office and kicked it hard. "There are three clients waiting!"
"Cordy, I didn't know you cared." Doyle said dryly from where he sat on the lounge.
He was surprised when she didn't answer, merely sinking down on the sofa next to him with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, dark brown hair falling like a cloud around her.
"I worry about the big vamp, you know?" she said at last. "What if he's gone and done something stupid like get caught in the sun?"
"He won't," Doyle assured her. "He's too smart for that." I hope. He always makes sure he's in the sewers when the sun comes up."
"Then where is he?" she looked up at him. "He never leaves without telling us first. I'm his secretary and receptionist, how could he leave without telling me?"
If I were him I certainly wouldn't, he thought, looking at her.
"It's more likely that he had trouble of another sort," he said quietly. "The vampire sort."
"Vamps have PMS?"
"I mean, he might have been attacked by a pack."
Cordelia chewed her thumbnail for a few moments. "Angel never loses a fight. He'll be back."
"I'm sure."
The doorbell rang and Cordelia groaned, getting up. "I'm coming!"
In a matter of moments she was back, a puzzled frown on her face.
"What is it, Cordy?" Doyle stood, wincing as his leg immediately went pins-and-needles on him.
She proffered the plain envelope to him silently. There was no postmark or address, only Doyle's name scrawled on the back.
His black eyebrows drawing together, he tore it open.
' I recall some time ago it was that I owed you a favour, little man. Might as well pay it off this way; not being Irish I don't like leaving debts standing. Anyway the Powers-That-Be won't give up warriors so easily, unless it is their decision to drop him. Eyewitnesses sighted a certain blond vampire in the lower districts some nights ago. Created a bit of a ruckus then ran off after someone called Buffy. Word is that William the Bloody hasn't been walking the boundaries of his claim, lately. Might have something to do with the disappearance of your boy.'
It was unsigned. His fingers shook as he folded the paper. "Call Sunnydale, Cordelia."
"What is it? Who was it from? Has it..."
"Call Sunnydale!"
They both jumped at the shout, but for once Cordelia did as he said. "Whom should I call?"
"The resident Watcher you've told me about." He ran his hands over his face and through his hair. "Holy Mother Mary, he has the Slayer."
"Who?" Cordelia punched in the numbers.
"Spike. He's got Buffy and Angel."
Doyle sat down on the sofa wearily. He needed a good stiff drink.
"Hello, Giles? We've got some awful news......" Pause. "Really? Things have been great? Jeez, I thought you could at least be grieving...... what do you mean, what?" Pause. "You men are all the same. She's been with you for umpteen years and saved your mouldy old leather more than once and you act like this? I mean, I know she's a loser in a major way and irritating besides but I do think she deserves more respect!" Pause. "You know what I'm talking about! Spike!" Pause. A very long pause.
Doyle turned around.
"Oh. My. God." Pause.
"That's not what I meant at all." Pause, she ignored Doyle's frantic hand-waving. "Give me all the dirt!"
Doyle snatched the receiver from her. "Hello, Giles?"
"Who is this?" said the confused voice.
"Someone who works with Angel, no time to explain. What is this about Spike?"
The man on the other end cleared his throat. "This is rather delicate....I wasn't planning on telling anyone, especially someone close to Angel..."
"Angel's disappeared, and if you don't tell me what you know that disappearance might be for good!" Doyle was sweating, remembering the last time Angel had fallen into Spike's hands.
"What?!"
Doyle swore. Very colourfully.
"But Spike....I thought he went to Los Angeles because he wanted to get away from Buffy."
"She couldn't wait to skewer him too ? Believe me, man, I know the feeling!"
"No, I'm afraid you have it quite wrong." The man cleared his throat again. "Buffy and Spike had a bit of a....lover's tiff, I'm afraid. Something to do with a relationship based on mutual differences, as she put it. Quite a few things have been happening in Sunnydale...
"Say that again, man?!"
"Buffy and Spike had a..a...a relationship," the voice said with obvious discomfort. "Don't tell Angel, will you? When you find him, that is."
Doyle closed his eyes against the beginnings of a very bad headache. "That's the motive, then. He's gone over the edge. He'll kill them both."
"Both?"
Doyle gritted his teeth, beginning to wonder how this guy ever became a Watcher. "Buffy and Angel. Haven't you wondered where she's disappeared to?"
"Disappeared? But Buffy's right here. I just met her this morning."
He woke to the sound of someone calling his name. When the bright light pierced his eyes, he immediately wished he had kept them closed. He had a horrible migraine.
"Spike!" His brains rattled around in his skull as the sound echoed and reverberated.
"Will you bloody stop yelling already? My eyes are going to soddin' pop out." He grated his teeth together, trying to force his eyelids open.
The lighting was harsh, fluorescent and blindingly white. He went to put his hand up to shield his eyes, then realised that they were chained to either side, stretching him out against the wall.
"Wake up, Spike. Don't you go to sleep on me again."
The voice was too familiar, and he groaned out loud. "Wanker, is that you?"
"I ought to wash your mouth out with soap, William!"
"You gave up your Sire's rights long ago, you stupid poof," he said almost gladly as he lifted his head, squinting.
They were in the basement of some building, with stairs leading upwards and those lights with their metal shades hanging down on long wires. There was a long table in the center of the room. On the other side of that table was Angel, similarly shackled. "What are you doing here, old man?"
"At the moment? Thanking my lucky stars that vampires don't get leg cramps." A corner of Angel's mouth twitched up. He couldn't remember how long it had been since he had seen his Sire show any mirth. Granted, the second last time he had seen him he had also been in chains, and he could hardly have been smiling seeing as there had been iron rods poked through him, a few put there by Spike himself. "We've been here two days."
"I've been out two days?"
"Drugs in the blood. I wouldn't let them feed me, but they kept at you while you were half-unconscious."
Spike laughed. "Explains why you look pale as a sheet. Who are these idiots who got us?"
Angel sobered immediately. "Remember the Claim Fight?"
Spike thought and immediately Maya's face popped into his mind. He growled at it to go away. "Of course I bloody remember. I'm not senile yet."
"Redhead. By the name of Elizabet de Bouvais."
Spike swore. "I should have torn her head off when I had the chance! I was stupid enough to think...."
"That she was too beautiful to kill?" Angel gave mirthless grin. "I know. I've met her. She was the first vampire in fifty years that I can remember actually liking." He let his head loll back against the wall, swallowing dryly. Spike could symphatise. He knew what the thirst felt like. He was probably feeling the cold right now...
"Where is my duster?" He looked down at himself. "Bloody hell, my coat!"
"You'll get another one." Angel himself was in shirtsleeves.
"There is no bloody other one! That coat has been with me for years! I love that coat," he seethed. "I'm going to tear her throat out for that, right after I find out why we're in here."
"You don't know, do you?" Angel shook his head. "Of course, she wouldn't have told you."
Spike hated things to be over his head. "Who? Told me what?"
"Maya. She left you because of Elizabet."
The disbelief that spread across Spike's face was comical. "She left me for that woman?"
"No." Angel shifted uncomfortably. Leg cramps or no leg cramps, it was boring, not to mention wearying on the nerves, to keep standing in the same position all the time. "Elizabet wanted Maya, and she was prepared to have you killed for her so she wouldn't have to risk another Claim Fight. That was on the night that we burst into your house. She thought you had been taken. Obviously, we were wrong. De Bouvais was biding her time."
Spike's head reeled with this new information. "That night, Maya thought I was dead?"
"She was very relieved to learn you weren't."
Relieved, yes. She had kissed him long and hard and deep, then trailed those kisses elsewhere...
"Then why did she leave?"
Angel looked down. Spike probably had no idea how young, how put out and how innocent he sounded at that moment with his tone of sulky, wondering confusion. Like the boy he had never been. He lifted his brown eyes to look at his Child.
"Because she loved you. Because she didn't want you to get hurt because of her." He understood what Maya had felt. He had felt the same and borne the burden himself.
Spike's chains clinked as he shifted. He felt a flash of happiness suddenly. A selfish happiness because he did not love Maya the way she loved him. It was a happiness born from the fact that he knew that he was worth loving and could be loved.
He lifted his face to the light. "Life is harsh, isn't it?"
"Harsher than most out there will ever know." Angel closed his eyes, but only for a moment. The sound that disturbed them was the sound of the door opening, and someone was singing a lullaby.
"How was the trip?" Doyle said rather lamely. He did not know what to say to the girl he had only seen once in his life, and about whom he now knew disproportionately much.
"Where's the note?" Buffy said without expression.
"With Cordelia, I..." She brushed past him without a word, leaving him with her bag in his hands.
"The trip was fine," the redhead took pity on him, flashing him a bright smile. "Hi, I'm Willow." She half-turned. "This is Xander." She indicated the boy struggling with armfuls of luggage. "And that, of course, is Giles."
"How do you do?" The tall man nattily dressed in a casual navy blazer, polo-neck and slacks leaned forward to shake hands awkwardly around his briefcase and a sack full of what must be Slayer tools.
"You're Giles?" Doyle caught the questioning looks and shrugged. "I just expected you to be wearing...tweed."
"Oh, hum..." The man adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "I changed my wardrobe."
"We've heard so much about you, Doyle," said Willow as they took their luggage into the office. They would be crashing for the time being in Angel's apartment underneath.
"Not as much as I've heard about you," he answered. "I feel like I already know you guys from Cordelia."
"And knowing Cordelia none of it was good," Xander set down his armload.
"I heard that." Xander jumped as Cordelia stalked past. She went right up to Doyle, took his arm in a familiar manner and flashed a brilliant smile at Xander. "I think there are a few more trunks in the van."
"Uh, Cordelia, I think Buffy's looking for you," Giles began, then broke off as Buffy came back up the steps from Angel's apartment. The silence was uncomfortable.
"I'd like to see the note that you received." Buffy was uncharacteristically quiet.
"Buffy, are you sure," Willow began.
"Yeah," Xander cut in. "The argument is getting old, fast."
"I'm not going to crucify him for things that happened in his past!" the blond Slayer burst out suddenly, making everyone jump. "He may have done things that he isn't too proud of, but so has Angel, and so have I!"
"Ummm....were you going to tell her or was I?" Cordelia asked Doyle. "You know, about the TV thing?"
"Oh, Buffy, there's something you should...."
"Someone's been selling stories to a TV producer about all of us and Buffy in particular, and my guess would be that the someone is Spike," Cordelia cut in eagerly.
Four pairs of eyes goggled at her as Doyle began massaging his temples.
"I mean, it's too much of a coincidence to be true, and you should see what some of those new episodes are like. There was one where Buffy nearly got married, and no prizes for guessing who was the future-groom...."
The chains jerked in their anchoring in the wall, puffs of cement dust coming up as Spike pulled and lunged against his tethers.
"You! All the time it was you!" Black fury painted his face, and Angel thought he could actually hear the brick squeak as the peroxide blond lunged again, fingers opening and closing in rage.
The girl laughed, shaking her head and making her perfect black curls tumble wildly around her pale oval face. "Look, Miss Edith, Spikey's not happy to see us, not at all." She rocked the doll playfully in her arms. "And the last time he was begging us to come back, isn't it true?"
Spike closed his eyes, breathing hard as he tried to get back under control, to reconcile the shock and the anger and the hurt. Angel watched against his will as the muscles in the younger vampire's face twitched with the effort, his every sense aware of the figure cloaked by shadows on the landing at the top of the wooden stairs.
When Spike spoke again, the strain was evident in his voice. "I loved you, Drucilla. I loved you with the whole of my blackened soul for more than a century. I protected you, I cared for you when no one else would give a damn and I would have laid down my life for you. Why? Just give me that bloody answer. Why, after this time, let the word get out that you were dead? Do you know what that did to me? HAVE YOU ANY CONCEPT OF WHAT THAT DID?!" he shouted, unable to control it any longer, his game face sliding over his human features with the violence of his emotions.
Angel felt his own face shift in sympathy, and drawn by irresistible instinct, he tried to take a step towards his Child.
The clinking of chains seemed to remind Drucilla of his presence. She turned from Spike and tilted her head prettily, considering him with large dark eyes and a red, red mouth that smiled too easily. Eyes that were no longer blank as he had known them but which were filled with a kind of mad cunning that was a thousand times worse. Not for the first time, as Angel or Angelus, he wondered what on earth had possessed him to make this creature. The answer was simple: it had been fun, and as a seer she had been a source of his power. He was still paying for the mistakes of his past.
"My Angelus." He smelled a whiff of her perfume as she sidled up to him, the floating layers of her pretty, delicate white gown brushing over the floor, against his legs as she pressed against him. He felt her breath on his chest and the gaze of his other child burning from across the room.
"Get away from me." With an effort he forced his human mask back on. "I am not Angelus, Drucilla."
"Yes," said Spike with barely hidden venom. "He's just a bloody wanker now, Dru love. Bit of a disappointment, isn't it, seeing as he was why you killed your last lover."
She giggled as, with her long nails, she began undoing the buttons of Angel's dark claret shirt. "Love. They all call it love, Miss Edith. Love like a turtledove; I crushed the little dove. And no souls flew up above." Like a cat, she rubbed the top of her head under Angel's chin, giggling again when the older vampire tried to turn his head away. "Have you forgotten me, Daddy dear ? You are my Daddy as well as Spike's, you know. You always liked him best, didn't you ? Yes, you did." She stroked Angel's jawline caressingly, trailing her nails lightly over the skin before she scratched, making Angel grit his teeth as thin trickles of red began oozing down his neck.
She licked the blood from her fingertips as she turned back to Spike, shivering from the taste of the blood of her Sire. Spike knew that taste, the powerful draw it had. Just smelling it as Angel's wounds closed over made the tickle rise in his throat.
"Poor Spike. He loved us, didn't he, Miss Edith? He loved us to distraction, he did. He loved to control us. He bought all our clothes, he told us what to do, when to eat, when to sleep. He told us where to go and how to act. I was his dress-up doll, Miss Edith, yes I was. Just a little china doll, under a clear glass dome. Just a little china doll, look and take me home. Then I'll bite you to the bone. Take me home, take me home." She took quick steps around the table, twirling on light tiptoe so that her dress swirled out around her as she neared Spike.
"Now you'll dance for me, Spike darling. Won't you? I want to play puppets, will you be my puppet? Under my control." She stroked her fingers through his hair and laughed. Then she did it again, pulling this time.
"Enough." The voice rolled clearly down to the trio below.
Drucilla pouted, then smiled as she twirled away, humming a little music-box tune. She nestled against Angel, playing with his shirt buttons and whispering to Miss Edith.
The steps coming down the stairs were light, purposeful, and the figure no less so. The gown was simple, black silk, with two braided black cords passed between the breasts and across the back, tying in a complex knot at the high waist and hanging down in two elegant tassels. The bell-like shape of the gown was enhanced by a rich purple cloak that softened its severe simplicity and whose soft, large hood framed a beautifully made pale face with large grey eyes and coral hair falling around it.
Angel began growling deep in his throat in warning as Elizabet de Bouvais neared Spike.
"Calm yourself." Her voice was soft, with a little of that husky edge her laugh possessed. "I mean no harm to your beautiful boy."
"This from a woman who tore out Jared's throat and burst Saleem's heart in the Rings. Move back from my Child," he said with the full authority of a Sire, in a tone that Spike hadn't heard for decades.
"What happened took place out of necessity. You have done worse in your illustrious career, Angelus." Elizabet darted him a grey-eyed smile from beneath her hood. "But you had a knack for making beautiful Children."
"Will you people stop talkin' abawt me as if I were nawt in the soddin' room?" Spike backed away as much as he could, which was not much.
"What a charming accent." De Bouvais turned her attention back on him. "William the Bloody, so we meet again, in happier circumstances this time. Where is your equally charming little queen?"
His lip curled at that. "You'll bloody never have her. She's freed now."
"Kill him," said Angel ominously. "And I'll hunt you down for the rest of my days and I won't rest till I have your dripping heart in my hand."
A wide-eyed look of startlement winged his way from Spike. That had sounded more Angelus than Angel by a wide margin.
Elizabet's musical laughter was like a clear cadence of scales played on a series of bells. Drucilla smiled and cooed as she pressed a kiss to Angel's chest.
"What makes you think," said Elizabet de Bouvais. "That I ever meant to harm him at all?" The glance she cast to Angel said it all.
Buffy had been sleeping on the office sofa for the past three days now. No one questioned her reluctance to use the apartments below. Every night she loosed herself on Los Angeles' night-time streets, seemingly intent on washing everything away with vampire blood. Or dust, depending on how one saw it.
Doyle worked his contacts and milked old favours mercilessly as Willow wore her eyes out on the computer screen and Cordelia and Giles leafed through piles of old books, and went through certain episodes of a certain television series. Xander tried his hand at a mixture of everything.
"Vampire grapevine is full of rumours," said Doyle wearily as he came home with the dawn. "Some so crazy they just might be true. Nothing conclusive, though when Spike gets back he'll have a little trouble like to get his claim clean of vermin again.
"He'll probably have a grand time," Buffy said absently, leafing through a dusty old tome. "He always liked a good fight."
Willow cast a warning glance at Doyle which also quelled Xander.
"You don't have to, Will," Buffy said without looking up. "One vampire on an entire claim regularly killing off those who intrude would be very helpful in keeping the population down."
"Th...that's one way of looking at it." Giles pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose as he flicked the off button on the remote. "Er, Buffy, could I ask you a question?"
"Fire away, G-man, there's not much I can do till sunset." With a snarl that would have done Spike proud, she jumped up and began pacing. "Will the sun set already? I have work to do!"
"Uh, Buffster?" Xander stopped polishing the blade. "The sun just rose."
"Buffy," began Giles. "Would you ever marry?"
"If I live to that age, why not?" Bursting with repressed energy and agitation, she began to count the tiles.
"Did you ever discuss marriage with anyone? S..s...Spike perhaps?"
She stopped dead in her tracks. "That was so not funny, Giles."
"Oh, come off it!" Xander threw his hands up in the air. "Just because you like lover boy doesn't mean you automatically KNOW he didn't do this! He could have just got into a fit of jealousy and nabbed Angel. They weren't on the best of terms even before you came along."
"We don't know he did it!" Buffy yelled.
"We don't know he didn't either," Cordelia pointed out. Buffy shot her a look that would have cracked paint. "Thank you so much for your two pence, Cordelia, but next time remember to hold something back; we wouldn't want your brain cavity to get emptier than it already is."
"Hey!" Cordelia and Doyle said together.
"That was harsh," Willow swallowed.
Buffy did not even acknowledge her as she strode up to Giles. "Any particular reason why you asked me that question?"
"W..w..well, there is an episode here where...you and Spike want to get married. The series is not particularly accurate, of course, but there is..."
Without a word, Buffy plucked the cassette out of his hand and stomped down the stairs to Angel's apartment.
"Is she normally this volatile?" Doyle said when the silence had stretched for too long.
"No, Buffy's usually nice," said Willow miserably. "She's all crabby now because, because she knows that we may be right."
He'd never imagined that what he'd written for the show would be mirrored in real life. Well, partway anyway. He was not sitting in a bath-tub and the woman feeding him was not Buffy. In all other respects it was quite the same.
"Not too fast, cherie." Elizabet took away the cup and picked up a cloth to wipe his mouth but he turned his head away, licking the blood off. The humiliation was acute. He hated being humiliated.
Amused grey eyes looked slant-wise at him when the straw was refused. "All done?"
"Don't mock me, pet. It could be dangerous."
"Ah, I see. Our pride rankles, does it not?" She placed the cup back on the table. "This is only temporary, I assure you. Once you accept the fact that your place is here...."
"Which it is not." He glared at her. "What part of no don't you understand?" It would have been funny if it hadn't been so outrageous, and if he hadn't been the person in question. "There is no way that you can hold a master vampire against his will; once the news goes out, you can be sure that all the packs in Los Angeles will be hunting you down. The challenge the other masters might be able to take, but this outright breach I don't bloody think so. Pet."
"Or," she purred. "They might not bother. After all, I am leaving the country, taking with me two serious thorns in their sides. The arrogant newcomer who had no right to a claim in the first place, and the murderer of his own kind." He heard the whisk of her skirts as she turned, stirring the contents of the mug with the straw.
"What have you done with Angel?" They'd separated them after that initial meeting, and he had to admit that on top of everything else he was worried about the wanker.
"Nothing." She settled into the chair with the grace of a woman who knows what she is. "Drucilla spends time with him, but I ensure that she does not harm him overmuch. She wants him, and the agreement was that she would have him." Her clear, grey-eyed gaze was disconcerting in its directness. "Why, does it bother you?"
"To tell you the truth, love, I don't feel a damn thing." Which was, surprisingly, true. He had loved Drucilla for nearly a century, perhaps more he couldn't remember. She had killed the last of that love here in this room, and he was still waiting to see whether regret or anger would rise to replace it. So far he felt nothing but a kind of relief. He barked a short laugh. "She'll never control Angel. He'll kill her if he has to."
"Which may well be true. It is no concern of mine." She stood. Indoors at least, she favoured simple, elegant gowns in the ancient fashion. By his estimation she was one of those who thought they should be like the Anne Rice books. She looked startlingly pretty in dark green as she moved towards him with that deliberate gait of hers. "You are my concern for the moment."
The woman was quite insane. "Maya was never the issue at all, was she?"
Her cool fingers stroked his cheek. "She was to be the bait, but in the end it seems I never needed her at all." She stroked her thumbs down his chest, over the fabric of the black shirt.
He controlled himself with an effort. "How did you know about Buffy?"
She smiled wryly. They both heard the unspoken warning: Don't you even think of hurting her.
"Fortunately for me, Lilian passes well as the Slayer, doesn't she?" She tilted her head up, face so close to his that their breath mingled. "You enjoy danger, don't you, William? Loving one who was born to kill your ilk, one who loved your Sire and consigned him to Hell for it. Does she love you in return, or does she see in you Angelus' reflection?"
"The name is Spike," he bit out. "Answer the question, De Bouvais. How did you find out about her?"
Her lips smiled as she turned around against him. "I know everything. About The Initiative. Tapes can be very informative, and inside information even more so." She rested her head on his shoulder, knowing and not caring that her neck was within his reach. "You will forget her soon enough. The match was not made to be."
Tense moments passed as he fought to control the raging demon inside him. He could just turn and sink his teeth into her neck, bite down hard enough to sever muscles and tendons and not let go till she was a dry husk the way she had killed Arren. And he knew that if he did, the repercussions would be serious. They might hurt her, or even Angel before he managed to get loose.
"You're mad," he said thickly. "Bloody insane."
Husky, smoky laughter bubbled out of her. "What is so insane about it? That I, a female, dare to emulate my so-called betters? I don't insist on keeping you in servitude, cherie. You will be as free as those others in my pack..."
"As long as I play lover to you, you mean." The distaste dripped from his tongue. "Sorry. I've spent too much of my life independent for that. It would be easier for you to make a Child you could control in that sick way of yours."
"The way Angelus controlled you?" she breathed into his ear. "The way you sought to control that mad woman named Drucilla? The way you sought to control Maya?"
"Don't bloody compare me to yourself!"
"Why? Is it not true, cherie? That is what Love is: control. In the strength of our passion we seek to control and absorb the object of our desires, to make him or her bend to our will and to shape that person into our ideal. I'll tell you a little secret, cherie. You and the Slayer parted ways because you would each insist on controlling the other. It would have been a disaster. You could never control her the way she could never control you fully, and it would have ended in grief." Her fingertips brushed lightly over his mouth.
"You and I are another matter. The essence of all vampires is to control. It is how we propagate and how we establish our little feudal kingdoms, as it were. Drucilla told me something of your early years, cherie. How Angelus found you as a lovely little cutthroat in the streets of London and turned you. How he kept you in submission as long as he could. And to tell the truth, you miss that, do you not? That security, that knowledge that you can leave everything in the hands of someone else and that feeling of being protected...... that is why you still have feelings for him after all these years, after all this feuding and injury."
Spike closed his eyes. "Get away from me."
"You need me, cherie, admit it. I can be your Angelus for you, your Buffy."
"You know something, Elizabet?" Her head came up at his use of her first name. "You could never even touch the feet of either of them. Do you want to know why? I'll tell you. I love the both of them. The basis of the relationship was love, and it is a standard you can never hope to achieve."
For a moment he thought he saw a flash of fury in her eyes. Then, as the moment passed, it passed. Her face was coolly shuttered again. She left him with the faint scent of her perfume, picking up the cup and turning only at the bottom of the stairs.
"We shall continue this tomorrow, when you're in a better mood."
Giles came down with a frown on his face. "There's someone upstairs who insists on seeing Angel. She kept on ringing the bell till I let her in."
"We've told all customers that he's out of town." Doyle rubbed his eyes wearily. He couldn't remember the last time he had kept regular hours. "Tell whoever it is that we'll contact them as soon as he gets back."
"Which could be some time." Xander took a few last slices at the stake he was sharpening and handed it over to Buffy. "All done."
"That's just it," said Giles. "Th...the rather cool young person upstairs says she is not a client, but a..a personal friend. She's not going to leave till she sees him."
Doyle and Cordelia exchanged looks, eyebrows rising. "She's not blond, is she?"
"Why? Has Deadboy been playing on the side?" Xander quipped, then yelped when Willow smacked him on the back of the head. The vial of holy water he had been picking up dropped to the floor and smashed, spattering Buffy's pant-legs. She glared daggers at him as they both bent to pick up shards
"No. Long black hair. Rather striking looking if I may say so."
"Well, then either she leaves or she's going to have a very long wait." Buffy straightened up shaking droplets from her damp hands. "I'm going up."
"Er, that might not be wise..."Doyle began.
"Maybe you shouldn't..."Cordelia broke in. They stopped and eyed each other again.
"Well, that's settled," Buffy said as she made her way up the stairs.
Giles' description had been inadequate, thought Buffy with extreme irritation. Striking was a very tame word indeed when used on this individual.
The girl pacing the room had the gait of a stalking leopard. She was tall and large-boned, with an air of some untamed savagery. The office seemed too small for her and her restlessness, for her shining leather and long wild hair. She turned at the sound of footsteps, revealing a face that was too strong for beauty and a pair of wild black eyes.
"Where the fuck is Angel?" Her voice was almost as low as a man's but clear. "Listen, you. I've had enough with secretaries and receptionists and what not. I just need to talk to Angel. Tell him my name's Maya and he'll come out, all right."
"And I'll tell you that a goth-girl with a bad attitude is the last thing that I need right now." In the blink of an eye Buffy caught the girl firmly by the arm meaning to propel her out the door.
With a whistle of breath between teeth the girl snatched at her hand, squeezing with a bone-crushing grip that took Buffy completely by surprise.
Then the girl dropped her hand with a cry of pain, waving her own hand in front of her as she backed away. Blisters were forming on the fine skin of her palm from the contact with Buffy's wet hand.
"Vampire!" Immediately the stake appeared in Buffy's grip.
"Slayer!" the girl hissed right on top of her, game-face appearing as she moved into defensive crouch, backing towards the door swiftly.
"Oh no you don't." Vaulting over the desk Buffy swung around and cut off her escape route. "You went through so much trouble to get here, you can't be leaving so soon."
The vampiress snarled, her eyes glowing yellow. Then, all of a sudden, she feinted, snatching at the hand that held the stake.
This was going to be too easy, Buffy thought as she twisted her wrist deftly at the last moment and brought the stake down towards the heart.
The stake cut harmlessly through empty air as the girl dropped to the floor, one long leg sweeping out to knock her feet out from under her. Buffy leapt just in time, kicking out, but the vampiress was already behind her. Instead of latching on to bite as most instinctively did, she balled up her fist and punched right into Buffy's lower back, connecting solidly with the spine and sending an arc of pain shooting up the Slayer's back as she crashed into the desk, smashing the lamp and sending papers and files flying.
The door to the apartment burst open as Doyle reached the office just in time to duck a flying vase.
Buffy's back-thrust shoved the girl away to slam into the filing cabinet. "A little soft, aren't we, cub ? Don't play games with your elders..." Her kick hit the vampiress squarely across the shoulder blades, sending her sprawling to the ground, "...or betters." In one swift motion, Buffy knelt on her fallen opponent, stake raised high.
"She's taken Spike!" the girl burst out. "I came to Angel for help, for the love of God!"
The stake froze midway.
"Vampires can say God?" Cordelia wanted to know.
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