Still Ensouled 13

Drusilla slid her hand into William’s and pulled him into the middle of the room. She twirled about as in a dream and William could not help but watch. His new keener eyesight let him see every flash of color that whirled from her petticoats; each glimmer of yellow that flashed in her eyes as she shot feral looks at him.

"Yes, this is my home, but don’t worry about getting too attached to it. We’ll ravage all of Europe soon enough. We‘ll show no mercy." He took her hand once again and helped her spinning. She finally stopped and fell onto the deep burgundy of the couch, petticoats ruffling.

"You’re quite insatiable aren’t you?" He purred as he joined her on the couch and pressed into her cool mouth. He slid his arms under hers and flipped her over, pinning her to the cushions with a fierce kiss. After a moment he broke the kiss to stare into her huge brown eyes. "Oh, Drusilla, we’ll lay waste to this town. As soon as the sun sets we’ll drink them all. The three of us will show no mercy."

"No, don’t be silly." He sat up a little straighter and gave her a pained look. "I wouldn’t ask you to be the one to do it. I know it’s difficult for you."

"It’s not difficult, I took you and made you a prince." She ran her fingers through his hair and twisted a lock around her index finger.

"Of course, of course." He said rubbing his forehead, trying to stimulate a memory. "I just meant, that you, well, you did have some help, as I recall."

"Yes, Angelus!" She said excitedly. "He’s the best daddy. He let me have you, isn’t that the best gift a girl ever had?"

"Angelus." William said the name to himself, all but ignoring the continuing coos that came from his companion. He closed his eyes and said the name again in a whisper. "Angelus."

"You couldn’t begin to understand, so don’t try." Spike said, hoping it would silence her, but knowing Faith was not in the habit of leaving well enough alone.

"William!" A woman’s voice, followed by a shuffling of fabric came from the hallway behind them. William’s mother passed through Spike as a specter.

"I’ve been so worried." She said in a terrified voice. "Where have you been, it’s been days, I’ve had everyone looking for you. Who is this woman? William?"

"Mother, I’m fine. This is Drusilla." He said, pulling her closer. "The agent of my salvation. She has pulled me from a life of obscurity and made me what I am." He walked closer to his mother in small steps.

"I have been made a creature of the night, mother." He released Drusilla’s hand and cupped both of his own over his mother’s thin fingers. "I have become a vampire, mother. An eternal child of night."

"She’s right, Spike." Angelus chimed in. "and, don’t think I’m not enjoying this more than Angel’s exploits, but why are we here?"

"It only hurts for a minute." They all turned back to the scene as William’s words hit their ears and he bit into his mother’s neck.

"I cured her." Spike said defensively. "She was dying and I gave her eternal life. I did it out of love." He turned away from the vision of his mother’s now limp body. William bit into his wrist and let the blood trickle over the woman’s lips for a moment before she latched on with her dying breath and swallowed greedily. Spike closed his eyes and walked out of the hallway and into a florescent lighted cafe.

"Does it really matter?" Angelus said through gritted teeth. Faith’s laughing was nearly enough to make him reach for a stake. She had spotted a pleather-clad Angel sitting at the diner’s bar. He stood up and went to the jukebox, dropping a couple of dimes in and making his selections. A few seconds later Barry Manilow crooned from the speakers and Angel shook his head in semi-rhythm to the music, his long hair swaying with the motion.

"This is too much." Spike concurred. "You couldn’t have been listening to some early punk, Led Zeppelin? I mean really Angelus, there were so many good forms of music out there."

"This isn’t even the worst part. The worst was the concerts. Thousands of people crammed together, their blood pumping, energy riding high. Chicks just begging for a bite, and he just listened to the music, ignoring the girls throwing themselves at his feet. We haven’t fed on a living human for decades and he just keeps on smiling."

"Well, princess, look at it this way, if this is the worst part of your little repentance trip, it can’t be all that bad." She took a seat on one of the blue vinyl booth seats and pulled a knee up to her chest.

"Fascinating." Faith said as she played with a sugar canister. "I’m just hoping your boys get that soul back in here quick, getting to be time for me to make a big exit."

"You think it’s that simple don’t you?" Angelus asked, leaning across the table. "You think they put the soul back in and I’m just gone? That’s not how it works. I’m always here, Faithy. Deep in, Angel’s will is just me with a little sugar on top."

"We’ll see." Angelus said, turning his attention to the man whom had entered a moment ago. As they watched he pulled a gun from his coat and pointed it at the young cashier. He yelled for him to open the till and the boy tried, but his fingers shook so badly that he couldn’t press the right buttons. Angel watched from his vantage point at the bar, unsure how to react. The man shouted again, this time waving the gun wildly, accidentally firing. The bullet caught the cashier in the middle of his chest and the assailant ran out of the diner.

Angel bolted out of his seat and went to the man lying on the floor. His shirtfront was covered in blood and his breath became more rapid each second. "It’s going to be okay." Angel said to him, trying to lift his head from the floor, but the young man jolted violently and his head went limp in Angel’s hand.

"Or did he choose to be a little slow on the draw?" Angelus asked. "Life’s all about choices, Faithy. You’re a murderer, you know that. The little choices we make that define who we are. I’m always here, deep in."

Angel stood up and went to the diner’s door, he slowly opened the door half way, then paused and looked back over his shoulder.

"Why, Angelus, my world is shattering, you mean you weren’t always a champion of good?" Spike said with a lilt of sarcasm.

Angel released the door handle and turned the lock. He then ran a hand over the blinds that covered the glass door, concealing what was about to happen from the outside world. With a twist of his head he let his demon rise to the surface and lifted the dead man from the floor. "I’m so sorry." He said before biting into the man’s neck deeply and hungrily devouring the still warm blood that poured from the wound. He took several deep drinks before letting the man fall back to the floor. Angel looked heavenward and screamed in agony as the fresh blood coursed through his veins.

Spike and Angelus watched in amusement as a look of disgust crossed the Slayer’s face. She was finally at a loss for words, but as she watched the two vampires sitting across from her the wounds on her neck began to bleed freely. She raised her hands to stop the flow but it wouldn’t stop.

"You see I’m always there, just below the surface. Come on," he said to the Slayer, "you remember how fabulous that blurry line tastes. It’s no different to him. The champion, the avenger, they’re all just names. Angel is a vampire, just like us, you’d do well to remember that."

William entered the parlor and found the couch, where his mother’s body had been lying when he left, empty. A faint song from the music box caught his ear and he followed it into his mother’s bedchamber. She was singing to herself in a voice that was slightly foreign to William. "How could you use a poor maiden so?" She sang, although it seemed to the young vampire that her voice lacked the sweetness he remembered.

"Oh yes." He said looking on her. She no longer used her cane to walk across the room. Her hair that had usually been tied back now hung loose about her shoulders and swayed with her every movement. "You look radiant. Truly."

"You’ve no need to thank me, mother. Seeing you this way is reward enough." He hurried to take her hand. "And how shall we spend your first night? Dancing, a party, a splendid dinner? The night is yours to do what you please. Tell me mother, what shall your pleasure be?"

"Well you don’t think I’m going to spend eternity listening to any more of your prattle do you? Or watching you and your trollop defile my home. No I will take my leave of you, as I should have done the day you were born. Had I known what an incredible bore you would become I would have dashed your brains out the day you slithered from my womb."

"Oh, William. I hate to be cruel." She paused again, a sinister smile crossing her lips. "No, no I don’t. I used to hate to be cruel, in life, but now I find it rather refreshing. Liberating even. You must understand."

"No, of course you don’t. You never understood anything unless a woman told you what you should feel, or think. You thought you could make me a slave to you. A slave you could carry around for all time. Your whole life I prayed some woman would come and take you away and release me from you, but you have spent your whole life trying to get back inside me. And now you’ve done it haven’t you?"

"It is true!" She yelled, placing a strong hand on his shoulder and turning him around. "When you sank your teeth into my neck you finally achieved in death what you could not in life. And now you want to finish the job, you want to take me. Don’t you William. Don’t you William!" She screamed at him.

"No, Mother, I loved you, but never like this. Not like this." He tried to escape her grasp but she held him firm, pinning him to a wall and trying to kiss him. He shoved her off but she kept coming. He pushed he back into a chair and tried to escape the room.

William turned back to her. "Mother, I loved you." She grabbed a cane that sat beside the chair and lunged at him, the cane in the air she beat him about the head, letting her demon come to the surface, her thin elongated fangs jutting from her mouth as she continued to curse him. She batted at him again breaking the cane in two when she missed his head and hit the bureau. William grabbed the splintered wood from her hand and tried to hold her at bay, but the woman continued to rush him.

"I’m sorry mother." He said as he thrust the shaft through her chest and into her heart. She turned to dust before him, the last look on her face one of peace.

Faith and Angelus watched Spike’s solemn reaction. Tears lined his cheeks as he watched the death of his mother for the second time. He then watched his younger self take the music box and wind it up. The song seemed louder in the aftermath of the screaming. William hummed along for a moment and then threw the box against the large mirror that hung from the wall, ending the song, and shattering the illusions that the mirror had shown.

Spike’s eyes fluttered open slowly. He could tell he was shackled but was unsure for a moment where he was. He then saw the thick bars that surrounded him and saw Gunn sitting outside of them, crossbow in hand.

"Not one of my all time favorites." Spike tried to sit up, but was unable to under the weight of the shackles. "Don’t suppose you’d consider undoing these chains so I could sit up?" He asked.

"Yeah, getting ready to find the mo-ping and put your boyfriend’s soul back in. Wonder what he’ll do to you then?" Gunn said with a grin.

"Don’t think that’ll be a problem." Spike said, laying his head against the concrete. "I think I’m all right now." He closed his eyes and hummed a little tune to himself.

"Oh, yuck." Faith said as she watched a rat scurry across the alley she now found herself in. "Where the heck is this?"

"When isn’t this?" Angelus asked, rising from a large mound of filth. This is everyday after that stupid diner. He just gave up, stopped being around humans, stopped feeding." They watched in horror as Angel emerged from a group of garbage cans and leapt for the large rat. He grabbed it up and took a huge bite out of its side. "For twenty years his hands never smelled of anything but rat."

"This is a really touching moment." Angelus chimed in. "But I think something’s going to happen." He backhanded Faith, and unlike his earlier attempts, this one connected. "I thought the rules might have changed.

"So Angel, did you arrange this little mindfuck, or do we have the powers to thank?" Faith asked crouching against a wall and letting her eyes close.

Angel rushed to her side and shook her. "Our time is never up Faith, you need to see that." He stood up and turned to Angelus.

"I’ve been waiting a long time for this." Both Angel and Angelus said in unison. Angel threw the first punch, but Angelus’s wasn’t far behind.

"Faith? Are you listening?" Angel yelled over his should while ducking another punch and jumping to avoid a leg sweep.

"You are not going to die here." Angel said firmly. He threw a combination of punches to Angelus’s midsection, then pivoted off the wall and landed a swift kick across his cheek. Angelus retaliated with a series of blows, knocking Angel to the ground for a moment before he could jump back up.

"Faith, they will find a way to put my soul back in, you have no excuses for giving up." He jumped once more and pushed his opponent back. "You didn’t fail me."

"Hello, anyone notice a fight with your alter ego going on here?" Angelus asked. He picked Angel up by the lapels and threw him over his head. "That’s for the Manilow concerts, you son of a bitch!" He yelled as Angel hit the brick wall next to Faith.

"Maybe, maybe not." He picked up a large pipe and brought it up against Angel’s head as he lunged at him. Angel took the blow hard and went back down to the ground.

In the lobby of the Hyperion Willow held the Orb of Thesula and chanted in Rumanian. Fred repeated the same Latin phrases over and over, while Wesley moved bunches of herbs around them, letting the smoke from their burning ends cloud over the orb.

Faith reached a hand back up to her neck, the blood had finally stopped flowing and she felt a strong rubbing sensation on the back of her other hand.

"It was nice to see you Angel." She said with a smile, closing her eyes on the battle that was still raging in the alley.

When she opened her eyes again she saw Lorne, stroking her hand and singing softly. She released his hand and threw the covers off the bed, running from the room and down the stairs.

Faith ran down the stairs, through the lobby where Willow was still chanting, and down into the basement. Her instincts had been right. Connor stood at the bottom of the stairs, stake in hand and Gunn was lying on the floor. She looked into the cage and saw Spike struggling to sit up and move away from the bars.

"Break me off a switch son, there’s gonna be a beating." She slammed Connor against the bars face first and held him there. While they watched Angelus’s eyes opened and filled with an orange glow. A deep gasp escaped his lips and pain filled every millimeter of his face. He closed his eyes again and the pain left his face.

Gunn slowly rose from the floor rubbing his jaw. He tossed the keys to the cage to Connor. "For that, you get to play guinea pig and let them out."

"I know." Connor said. He unlocked the cage and then the irons that held the vampires. Angel tried to give him a hug once he was free but Connor resisted. He was almost out of the cage when Spike lunged at him, slamming him to the floor.

"Well, you’re half right." The younger man agreed pulling Angel into a deep kiss. He stopped to rest his forehead against his sire’s. "Let’s make our goodbyes quick, okay?"

As agreed Angel and Spike had said their goodbyes quickly. Faith had decided to go back to Sunnydale with Willow to help Buffy and now the group sat in the lobby trying to process the events of the last few weeks.

"Sorry Angel, but if this is the part where you say let’s celebrate, might I offer a nicer place to hold the ball?" They all turned to see a clearly alive Lilah Morgan standing in the doorway.