And Darkness Comes

Summary : Occurs after events in Reunion. Angel finds an eavesdropper after firing the members of Angel Investigations.

Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy own characters. This is a work of amateur fiction and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Ring around the rosy, a pocketful of posies," she was singing when they came in, in a child-like voice from rose-red lips. She had with her a toy carousel, one of those pretty ceramic creations with dainty little fairground horses going up and down on their poles as the music tinkled out. Some expensive and delicate toy one of the young paralegals had found for this expensive and delicate monster.

She was sitting in a pool of crimson skirts when they came in, right in the center of his carpeted floor, singing as those little steeds went up and down, up and down and round and round to that tune that marked remembrance of the time of the Black Death. How perfect it all was, Lindsey had thought, subtly sinister and so pretty. The perfect picture of a vampire stolen into a nursery.

Only when he stopped a scant foot from her did she look up, with huge dreamy brown eyes in they strangest, prettiest face. "Atishoo, atishoo and they all...Fell...Down." Her hand had knocked over the toy deliberately. He remembered that he had always disliked merry-go-round. All that suspiciously saccharin music and the horses pierced through the heart by their poles.

And she was the key. She had been to him the face of salvation, the cog in the works that would stop the ticking of Darla's merciless Clock.

He had bent down, squatted lightly on his toes beside her. She had fed very well; they had seen to it, and her skin was slightly flushed with the faintest touch of dusky rose.

And she had smiled a sly smile, a childlike smile of indescribable sweetness. "The stars are already singing, a chorus like the voices of archangels crying, crying, crying because they bleed. Tonight Drusilla is going to be a Mummy."

The blond woman was laughing as she walked up the street. Her face alight with mirth, she turned to face her tall escort, walking backwards as he caught her hands and lifted them to his lips with that sly rogue's smile that she loved.

"Ah, but did you see her face, her face !" Darla tossed her head, Aphrodite triumphant. "My darling, that was a

"I' faith, it was." Angelus pulled his lady into the crook of his arm, warm and exhilarated from the kill. "And that tender young lamb, she did be so full of guilt and trembling virginal modesty. It was all thoughts of her Father and her family and her good name; such a stickler for propriety she was, and her only a member of society's 'crass, vulgar, grasping' bourgeoisie !"

"But there was no doubt that you would succeed, my Angelus, my devil." She brought his head down to her level, kissed him ripely, whispering against his lips. "And when you brought her into the alcove....oh, such a scene !"

"A most excellent piece of villainy !" he quoted from Shakespeare, grinning. "That expanse of fine leg ye hooked around her panting fiance was a beautiful touch, Darla m'dear."

"And your pretended outrage on her behalf, when she thought she was to gift you with the same intimacies in that very corner all the while ! I could have drunk the very blush in her cheeks then !" Again her laughter chimed out as he caught her around the waist, lifting her off the step she had impulsively climbed on, and swung her around to set her feet on the pavement again. "A pity we had to kill them both so soon and not let them have time to enjoy their wretchedness."

"Forgive me, Darla, but tonight my appetite got the better of me...and here we are." Angelus stopped in front of the imposing brownstone they called home for the moment and looked up. The smile died on his face when he saw the balcony doors above thrown open and the room beyond lighted by flickering firelight, it seemed. The slight figure which had been leaning on the rail had now disappeared.

"He's at it again," her boy said grimly as he loped up the steps to the door. Darla could hear him calling even before he reached the stairs. "Drusilla !"

By the time Darla entered the upper floor's main parlor through the French doors Angelus was already pacing in front of the fire. "This is the last time ! The lad has to learn respect for his elders and 'tis time he was taught a lesson."

Darla began unpinning her hat. "Dear boy, do take off your wet boots and cloak; I dislike puddles on the furs if they're not of blood."

Drusilla looked up from wringing her hands where she stood at one end of the hearth. "My Spike was hungry, he was. He said he needed fresh blood, fresh cries. Miss Edith was here with me, she said he needed a hunt of his own."

Angelus hissed as he shrugged his coat off burly shoulders. "And William's idea of a hunt is a damned leap for glory ! He isn't content till news of his ill-chosen kills are being shouted by paper-boys in the streets of any city we're in ! One of these days we will be forced to flee because of him, if he doesn't learn restraint !"

"There are shafts," Drusilla said mournfully. "Cuts deep into the heart of the Earth, where the darkness is always and unbroken. Where those that want to be born wait like little bats, clinging on the edge."

Darla looked at her expressionlessly as she settled herself into an armchair. Drusilla was easily the most sensitive of all of them, and she hated it when the members of their little pack turned their anger on each other. A pity, actually, this girl. Contrary to what most would think Darla did not need to be the lone female. Drusilla could have been such a perfect companion, a perfect complement to....but what use was this ? Drusilla was mad, and that was the end of it.

"Come here, Angelus." She beckoned to him. He shook his head, his shoulder-length hair swirling for an instant, paced a little more, then came to her. His large hands easily spanning her waist, he lifted her and settled himself into the chair, placing her on his lap.

"Gently, gently," she purred into his ear, the softness of her hair brushing his chin. "My two wolves, you can tear each other later. For now, shall we look to softer pursuits ?"

He could not help but smile at her kisses, her coaxing. He had never known any like this woman, his Maker. And she was his, wholly and solely. They were all his, Angelus thought grimly. His pack, his children, these his women. None with the anonymity of minions, all perfect and fatal in their own ways. He would protect what was his, even from one of their own.

Resting her head on the breadth of Angelus' chest, Darla watched Drusilla through slitted eyes. Something on the child's face, in those dark eyes. Resentment, interest, disappointment ? She knew that the girl hated it when they were together and her white knight was gone. Darla smiled, murmured a laugh.

The girl's big red lower lip bloomed into a pout like a flower; her dark eyes gave one flash before subsiding into their usual dreaminess, tinged now with worry, perhaps. She withdrew, walking out onto the balcony.

Angelus knew the moment the prodigal returned. His eyes, half-closed as they drowsed before the fire, flicked open, heavy-lidded and alert. Outside, Drusilla stopped her lullabies to Miss Edith. In a silence punctuated by the sounds of the fire, they listened to him as he kicked off his boots halfway up the stairs, humming discordant snatches of songs as he made his way heavily up. Drunk, no doubt.

The young one gave a snort as he put the bottle to his lips, tilting his head back sharply. Then a crash as he let the bottle fall from his fingers to smash to the floor, red wine splattering rugs and polished boards in the ultimate gesture of contempt.

Curled up like a cat on Angelus' bulk, Darla watched. Then she slid off her boy's lap, moving to the fire, a lithe little figure with a tiny waist and slightly flared skirts, a beautiful woman dressed for the theatre, giving her tacit agreement to what was surely to come.

"It's Spike," the youngling slurred, the accents of London streets heavy on his tongue as he turned, grinning in game-face. "Hello, Dru," he said as he saw his lady who had slipped in and was watching the scene with wide eyes. He went over to her and kissed her with a blood-stained mouth, giving her the bouquet of wine and the tang of iron so she laughed, adoration in her eyes.

"Spike," Dru whispered, pain in her voice. Lying on the chaise lounge, Darla remembered the tone. She herself had used it with Angelus during his one and only interview with the Master, when she had thought he would surely have himself killed and break her unbeating heart.

It was as if Angelus had never moved. One moment he was ensconced in the chair, the next he was across the room ripping the young one away from Drusilla. William's face shifted at once, snarling, but he was young yet and too uncertain, and the thuds of blows on flesh were all dealt by Angelus.

Darla laughed in delight, clapping her hands. Dru hovered uncertainly between a frown and a smile. Silly girl, this was splendid entertainment, really !

Spike swore. The filthy traces of the gutter fell from that pretty mouth easily, until Angelus' boot caught him and it split with red.

"Who was it this time, boy ? Hmmm ?" The larger male lifted his head by the hair. "Some noble heir to a title ? An icy society bride ? Or mayhem before a public audience ? What street theatre did ye perform this time, jester ? William the Bloody ?"

Clicking his tongue, Angelus shook Spike's head from side to side, looking into those slitted blue eyes. "Only failures have to prove themselves like this, lad. Again and again and again. Who d'ye think to convince ? Everyone who ever spat on ye, laughed at ye, mocked ye and denied ye ? Well, m'boy, here's a bit of news: They don't care. If they ever knew ye, William, they've all but forgotten."

Oh, but he could make words into knives, each syllable of sound like a cut on top of a hundred others ! And this young one did not yet have enough hardness in him, was not yet truly Spike. His jaw clenched and his eyes squeezed closed, against the humiliation and the anguish that had not been fully exorcised. The day would come when he would know how to deflect Angelus' words with his own uncontrolled violence and taunting, but the day had not arrived yet.

Angelus drew him painfully into a kneeling position by the hair, curling his other hand in the stained collar of his fine cambric shirt. With one great rip he reduced the garment to shreds, baring a pale expanse of flesh. Spike jerked and snarled but the sound was lost in the pack leader's dominant growl. That same animalistic sound melted into a perfectly intonated request to Darla;

Darla looked around, but Drusilla had beaten her to it. The girl held the black crop in her hands tightly, biting her lip as she looked at the little tableau.

" 'Tis not the time for games, Drusilla. Hand me the whip." Angelus reached out his hand without taking his eyes from Spike.

And the Dreamer, the Seer came forward, her little slippered feet making no sound on the floorboards. "No, Daddy. I want to do it."

"Dru, I'm not rewarding him with a bedside game and ye'll no be doing any lashing tonight. The whip, Childe."

"You belong with Grandmother and he belongs with me. Spike is mine and I'll beat him and no other tonight."

Angelus whipped around, snarling, but quick as a flash Drusilla stepped up to him, slipping into game face and snapping back with a vicious growl of her own.

Darla watched the whole, her head slightly tilted to one side, one finger propping up her cheek like a lady reading a good book.

Keeping the rumble of the growl in her throat, Drusilla sidled around her Sire. Slowly, his fingers withdrew to be replaced by hers, and she made off for the bedroom with her prize.

"It seems our Children are growing up," Darla said softly to her best-loved. Then because she knew he did not want her company and because it would not do for her Childe to tell her to leave, she slipped off the recliner and moved away. He heard the slow click of her heels as the first faint sounds of the crop striking flesh came to his ears, making him grip the arms of the chair till his knuckles whitened and he heard just the faintest sound of wood groaning.

"But where has she gone !?" Lindsey had put his hands to his head, feeling as if he could reach through his temples to squeeze out his brain. The blood was pounding behind his eyes and under his skull. Wild, yes, wild. And she had awakened and she was made New and she was all he had ever dreamed she could be.....Darla ! A cry on his tongue, called to the empty space.

And Drusilla, the mother she had rejected in her confusion, licking the cut on the back of her hand that had come of the fight with her own Sire. "You are too loud, too loud, my rainmaker man. They tell me that she will come back, once the fog clears from her eyes and she sees a sky-full of stars, all pointing Northward, Northward..."

"Not from where she's standing. North, South, East, West, which shall fit the best ?" she murmured distractedly. But then there was a knocking on the door and it was Holland Manners. The party. Tonight. Would he be bringing a date ?

An effort to keep the pleasant expression on his face and not to scratch, strike, howl. A date ? He had seen her dead, thought for one horrible moment that it was the final death and she would never rise again, but she had, and what had Drusilla said ?

Graveyard dirt and siren song, the light of a voodoo candle in her eyes. And Drusilla cooing over her 'baby' in its crib. What could have driven her to this madness, to this longing ? A life ended before it could begin, a barren existence with an empty and fruitless womb ? An eternity of dolls, with life brought down to scaled-down size save for the splendor of the greatest and bloodiest tragedies ?


	The Adventures of Captain Peroxide and Deadboy The Angel/Spike Zone of the BtVS Writer's Guild Home Updates Stories Resources Extras News Music Forum Contact Guestbook Links Full Version Fiction by: Title Author Pairing Rating Title: And Darkness Comes Author: Kismet Rating: NC-17 (Slash !) Category: Drusilla, Darla, Angel/Spike Summary : Occurs after events in Reunion. Angel finds an eavesdropper after firing the members of Angel Investigations. Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy own characters. This is a work of amateur fiction and no copyright infringement is intended. ****************** (PREVIOUSLY) "Ring around the rosy, a pocketful of posies," she was singing when they came in, in a child-like voice from rose-red lips. She had with her a toy carousel, one of those pretty ceramic creations with dainty little fairground horses going up and down on their poles as the music tinkled out. Some expensive and delicate toy one of the young paralegals had found for this expensive and delicate monster. She was sitting in a pool of crimson skirts when they came in, right in the center of his carpeted floor, singing as those little steeds went up and down, up and down and round and round to that tune that marked remembrance of the time of the Black Death. How perfect it all was, Lindsey had thought, subtly sinister and so pretty. The perfect picture of a vampire stolen into a nursery. Only when he stopped a scant foot from her did she look up, with huge dreamy brown eyes in they strangest, prettiest face. "Atishoo, atishoo and they all...Fell...Down." Her hand had knocked over the toy deliberately. He remembered that he had always disliked merry-go-round. All that suspiciously saccharin music and the horses pierced through the heart by their poles. And she was the key. She had been to him the face of salvation, the cog in the works that would stop the ticking of Darla's merciless Clock. He had bent down, squatted lightly on his toes beside her. She had fed very well; they had seen to it, and her skin was slightly flushed with the faintest touch of dusky rose. "Are you ready ?" he had asked her gently. And she had smiled a sly smile, a childlike smile of indescribable sweetness. "The stars are already singing, a chorus like the voices of archangels crying, crying, crying because they bleed. Tonight Drusilla is going to be a Mummy." ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( (19TH CENTURY, LONDON) The blond woman was laughing as she walked up the street. Her face alight with mirth, she turned to face her tall escort, walking backwards as he caught her hands and lifted them to his lips with that sly rogue's smile that she loved. "Ah, but did you see her face, her face !" Darla tossed her head, Aphrodite triumphant. "My darling, that was a splendid game !" "I' faith, it was." Angelus pulled his lady into the crook of his arm, warm and exhilarated from the kill. "And that tender young lamb, she did be so full of guilt and trembling virginal modesty. It was all thoughts of her Father and her family and her good name; such a stickler for propriety she was, and her only a member of society's 'crass, vulgar, grasping' bourgeoisie !" "But there was no doubt that you would succeed, my Angelus, my devil." She brought his head down to her level, kissed him ripely, whispering against his lips. "And when you brought her into the alcove....oh, such a scene !" "A most excellent piece of villainy !" he quoted from Shakespeare, grinning. "That expanse of fine leg ye hooked around her panting fiance was a beautiful touch, Darla m'dear." "And your pretended outrage on her behalf, when she thought she was to gift you with the same intimacies in that very corner all the while ! I could have drunk the very blush in her cheeks then !" Again her laughter chimed out as he caught her around the waist, lifting her off the step she had impulsively climbed on, and swung her around to set her feet on the pavement again. "A pity we had to kill them both so soon and not let them have time to enjoy their wretchedness." "Forgive me, Darla, but tonight my appetite got the better of me...and here we are." Angelus stopped in front of the imposing brownstone they called home for the moment and looked up. The smile died on his face when he saw the balcony doors above thrown open and the room beyond lighted by flickering firelight, it seemed. The slight figure which had been leaning on the rail had now disappeared. Darla turned to follow his gaze. "He's at it again," her boy said grimly as he loped up the steps to the door. Darla could hear him calling even before he reached the stairs. "Drusilla !" By the time Darla entered the upper floor's main parlor through the French doors Angelus was already pacing in front of the fire. "This is the last time ! The lad has to learn respect for his elders and 'tis time he was taught a lesson." Darla began unpinning her hat. "Dear boy, do take off your wet boots and cloak; I dislike puddles on the furs if they're not of blood." Drusilla looked up from wringing her hands where she stood at one end of the hearth. "My Spike was hungry, he was. He said he needed fresh blood, fresh cries. Miss Edith was here with me, she said he needed a hunt of his own." Angelus hissed as he shrugged his coat off burly shoulders. "And William's idea of a hunt is a damned leap for glory ! He isn't content till news of his ill-chosen kills are being shouted by paper-boys in the streets of any city we're in ! One of these days we will be forced to flee because of him, if he doesn't learn restraint !" "There are shafts," Drusilla said mournfully. "Cuts deep into the heart of the Earth, where the darkness is always and unbroken. Where those that want to be born wait like little bats, clinging on the edge." Darla looked at her expressionlessly as she settled herself into an armchair. Drusilla was easily the most sensitive of all of them, and she hated it when the members of their little pack turned their anger on each other. A pity, actually, this girl. Contrary to what most would think Darla did not need to be the lone female. Drusilla could have been such a perfect companion, a perfect complement to....but what use was this ? Drusilla was mad, and that was the end of it. "Come here, Angelus." She beckoned to him. He shook his head, his shoulder-length hair swirling for an instant, paced a little more, then came to her. His large hands easily spanning her waist, he lifted her and settled himself into the chair, placing her on his lap. "Gently, gently," she purred into his ear, the softness of her hair brushing his chin. "My two wolves, you can tear each other later. For now, shall we look to softer pursuits ?" He could not help but smile at her kisses, her coaxing. He had never known any like this woman, his Maker. And she was his, wholly and solely. They were all his, Angelus thought grimly. His pack, his children, these his women. None with the anonymity of minions, all perfect and fatal in their own ways. He would protect what was his, even from one of their own. Resting her head on the breadth of Angelus' chest, Darla watched Drusilla through slitted eyes. Something on the child's face, in those dark eyes. Resentment, interest, disappointment ? She knew that the girl hated it when they were together and her white knight was gone. Darla smiled, murmured a laugh. "All you have to do is ask," she whispered to Drusilla, a scratch of sound through the room. The girl's big red lower lip bloomed into a pout like a flower; her dark eyes gave one flash before subsiding into their usual dreaminess, tinged now with worry, perhaps. She withdrew, walking out onto the balcony. They heard her singing. Angelus knew the moment the prodigal returned. His eyes, half-closed as they drowsed before the fire, flicked open, heavy-lidded and alert. Outside, Drusilla stopped her lullabies to Miss Edith. In a silence punctuated by the sounds of the fire, they listened to him as he kicked off his boots halfway up the stairs, humming discordant snatches of songs as he made his way heavily up. Drunk, no doubt. "Had a good hunt ?" Angelus asked deceptively mildly as William walked into the room. The young one gave a snort as he put the bottle to his lips, tilting his head back sharply. Then a crash as he let the bottle fall from his fingers to smash to the floor, red wine splattering rugs and polished boards in the ultimate gesture of contempt. Curled up like a cat on Angelus' bulk, Darla watched. Then she slid off her boy's lap, moving to the fire, a lithe little figure with a tiny waist and slightly flared skirts, a beautiful woman dressed for the theatre, giving her tacit agreement to what was surely to come. "Where were ye ?" The pack-leader's voice sharpened suddenly. "Answer me, boy." "It's Spike," the youngling slurred, the accents of London streets heavy on his tongue as he turned, grinning in game-face. "Hello, Dru," he said as he saw his lady who had slipped in and was watching the scene with wide eyes. He went over to her and kissed her with a blood-stained mouth, giving her the bouquet of wine and the tang of iron so she laughed, adoration in her eyes. "Ye will look at me when I'm speaking to ye," came Angelus' abrupt voice. William looked down into Drusilla's face. "And why's that ?" "Spike," Dru whispered, pain in her voice. Lying on the chaise lounge, Darla remembered the tone. She herself had used it with Angelus during his one and only interview with the Master, when she had thought he would surely have himself killed and break her unbeating heart. It was as if Angelus had never moved. One moment he was ensconced in the chair, the next he was across the room ripping the young one away from Drusilla. William's face shifted at once, snarling, but he was young yet and too uncertain, and the thuds of blows on flesh were all dealt by Angelus. Darla laughed in delight, clapping her hands. Dru hovered uncertainly between a frown and a smile. Silly girl, this was splendid entertainment, really ! Spike swore. The filthy traces of the gutter fell from that pretty mouth easily, until Angelus' boot caught him and it split with red. "Who was it this time, boy ? Hmmm ?" The larger male lifted his head by the hair. "Some noble heir to a title ? An icy society bride ? Or mayhem before a public audience ? What street theatre did ye perform this time, jester ? William the Bloody ?" The youngling spat out a spray of blood. "Go...Fuck...Yourself !" Clicking his tongue, Angelus shook Spike's head from side to side, looking into those slitted blue eyes. "Only failures have to prove themselves like this, lad. Again and again and again. Who d'ye think to convince ? Everyone who ever spat on ye, laughed at ye, mocked ye and denied ye ? Well, m'boy, here's a bit of news: They don't care. If they ever knew ye, William, they've all but forgotten." Oh, but he could make words into knives, each syllable of sound like a cut on top of a hundred others ! And this young one did not yet have enough hardness in him, was not yet truly Spike. His jaw clenched and his eyes squeezed closed, against the humiliation and the anguish that had not been fully exorcised. The day would come when he would know how to deflect Angelus' words with his own uncontrolled violence and taunting, but the day had not arrived yet. Angelus drew him painfully into a kneeling position by the hair, curling his other hand in the stained collar of his fine cambric shirt. With one great rip he reduced the garment to shreds, baring a pale expanse of flesh. Spike jerked and snarled but the sound was lost in the pack leader's dominant growl. That same animalistic sound melted into a perfectly intonated request to Darla; "Will ye hand me the whip, dearest ?" Darla looked around, but Drusilla had beaten her to it. The girl held the black crop in her hands tightly, biting her lip as she looked at the little tableau. "No." " 'Tis not the time for games, Drusilla. Hand me the whip." Angelus reached out his hand without taking his eyes from Spike. And the Dreamer, the Seer came forward, her little slippered feet making no sound on the floorboards. "No, Daddy. I want to do it." "Dru, I'm not rewarding him with a bedside game and ye'll no be doing any lashing tonight. The whip, Childe." "You belong with Grandmother and he belongs with me. Spike is mine and I'll beat him and no other tonight." Angelus whipped around, snarling, but quick as a flash Drusilla stepped up to him, slipping into game face and snapping back with a vicious growl of her own. Darla watched the whole, her head slightly tilted to one side, one finger propping up her cheek like a lady reading a good book. Keeping the rumble of the growl in her throat, Drusilla sidled around her Sire. Slowly, his fingers withdrew to be replaced by hers, and she made off for the bedroom with her prize. "It seems our Children are growing up," Darla said softly to her best-loved. Then because she knew he did not want her company and because it would not do for her Childe to tell her to leave, she slipped off the recliner and moved away. He heard the slow click of her heels as the first faint sounds of the crop striking flesh came to his ears, making him grip the arms of the chair till his knuckles whitened and he heard just the faintest sound of wood groaning. ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( (PREVIOUSLY) "But where has she gone !?" Lindsey had put his hands to his head, feeling as if he could reach through his temples to squeeze out his brain. The blood was pounding behind his eyes and under his skull. Wild, yes, wild. And she had awakened and she was made New and she was all he had ever dreamed she could be.....Darla ! A cry on his tongue, called to the empty space. And Drusilla, the mother she had rejected in her confusion, licking the cut on the back of her hand that had come of the fight with her own Sire. "You are too loud, too loud, my rainmaker man. They tell me that she will come back, once the fog clears from her eyes and she sees a sky-full of stars, all pointing Northward, Northward..." "We're to the East of the building !!" "Not from where she's standing. North, South, East, West, which shall fit the best ?" she murmured distractedly. But then there was a knocking on the door and it was Holland Manners. The party. Tonight. Would he be bringing a date ? An effort to keep the pleasant expression on his face and not to scratch, strike, howl. A date ? He had seen her dead, thought for one horrible moment that it was the final death and she would never rise again, but she had, and what had Drusilla said ? "Now everybody's home." Yes, home. But she had run, and before what had she said ? "Angel ?"** Graveyard dirt and siren song, the light of a voodoo candle in her eyes. And Drusilla cooing over her 'baby' in its crib. What could have driven her to this madness, to this longing ? A life ended before it could begin, a barren existence with an empty and fruitless womb ? An eternity of dolls, with life brought down to scaled-down size save for the splendor of the greatest and bloodiest tragedies ?