Stained-Glass Saints

by The Star that Lied

Drusilla's tale, from a child cursed with the visions she had, to the day she was sired. Full Warnings inside. Very dark. When she started having the visions, she thought the Lord had cursed her. She had borrowed some paper to draw on from mummy and she assumed the Lord was punishing her for her simple, innocuous theft." High M.

So, Hi. If you're reading this, you're a brave fucking soul. I presume you're wondering why I wrote it, and I don't have a reason that doesn't make me sound in dire need of… well, survey says: mental help. This was what I needed. Dru, yeah, she will never be the same, some may say she'll never be okay, but she'll never give up. And I thought if I understood that, it would make my shit easier. So, William, you are my idol for being able to edit this. Good luck making it through.

I've taken a few scenes from what is canon to her backstory, chronologically: the day Angelus and Darla first found Drusilla, the Confession scene and the scene before he sires her. Those quotes and whatever's left of my soul after this, both belong to Joss Whedon. Additionally: I know it's been asked why I call Angelus a demon, and that's simply because young, human Drusilla doesn't know specifically that he's a vampire. It's how I figured she'd think of him, just to try to explain that…

Warnings for: Character death (some graphic), Suicidal thoughts (it's an ongoing theme, not just a throwaway mention), it's kind of anti-religious, rape (if that bothers you, I will include three stars before and after the scene, for the option of skipping it), psychological trauma, strong violence (Angelus…), no happy ending in sight, loads of murder, and generally, Angelus warning. Await a sappy epilogue with Spike in it…-

Stained-Glass Saints

Drusilla: My mother ate lemons. Raw. She said she loved the way they made her mouth tingle— Little Anne – her favourite was custard… Brandied pears… And pomegranates. They used to make her face and fingers all red. Remember little fingers? Little hands? Do you?

Angel: If I could— I—

Drusilla: Bite your tongue… They used to eat cake. And eggs. And honey. Until you came and ripped their throats out—

-What's My Line, Part 2

January of eighteen seventy-one was a simpler time. A simpler time before everything went straight to Hell, back when Drusilla Keeble was not a feared vampire, but a young girl, youngest of three. Actually, she was the perfect daughter when she was a child, devout in her beliefs, sweet and kind. All of the other families silently envied the Keeble family for having such a daughter. She really was perfect, and she could have had it all. The neighbours whispered about other families, prodigious families already taking an interest. This was rare for someone from a poor family, and it stirred jealousy. Little did jealous neighbours know what would become of her in a decade. As a sweet young girl prayed for her friend Katherine Dupuis who had a terrible illness, she remained blissfully unaware of what was to come.

When she started having the visions, she thought the Lord had cursed her. She had borrowed some paper to draw on from mummy and she assumed the Lord was punishing her for her simple, innocuous theft. The ten year-old had been in church when it had struck her, first nausea, like her insides were rioting against her. She was able to stay silent, save a soft moan in pain, until the burning hit. It was a burning sensation that spread from her toes up to every hair on her head, as she flailed, thinking someone had coated her in hot ash. The townspeople watched, stunned as she flailed and sobbed, from something they couldn't see. Finally, the pain subsided as her vision faded to black. Was this what dying felt like? She prayed that she wasn't dead. If she was dead, she wouldn't be able to help Cecelia, her oldest sister prepare for her wedding. A wedding which would ultimately be the beginning of the end for the young, naïve Drusilla.

She wasn't dead, not by a long shot. But she could see Cecelia wearing mummy's favourite shoes beneath her dress, ascending the stairs to the chapel. Drusilla shook her head; mummy had always warned Cecelia that those shoes were dangerous! They didn't even fit her small feet. She stumbled a bit, trying to regain her footing. Drusilla cried out "No!" wanting to run to the girl and catch her. She couldn't. She wasn't here; she couldn't stop the older girl as she windmilled her arms, trying to right herself. Cecelia fell to the hard stairs, her head connecting with the sharp edge of the marble stairs to this very church, tumbling to the bottom of the stairs and letting out a low moan in agony, a blot of crimson staining the white steps.

Drusilla watched in horror as her sister cried for help and nothing happened, no one came. Then, a bad man, with hair as dark as his soul walked by, his face hidden from Drusilla by the shadows of night. He smirked down at her sister, taking a long sniff of the air, breathing out a deep sigh as Cecelia pleaded with him to help her. A slow, wicked smile spread across his face. "Oh, I can certainly help you," he said, the soft hints of an Irish accent twisting and playing with his words. "Question is, what am I going to get from it?" he asked, his tone darkening as he eyed the girl beneath him, sobbing in agony. Drusilla felt sick. How could he just leave someone lying there, in such obvious pain? He stepped into the moonlight, his face being revealed to her.

He had the features of an angel, long, thick dark hair and deep, mysterious eyes. But evil lurked in those depths, in the smirk that his perfect lips twisted into. That expression had to be a sin. The flicker in his eyes and the smirk his lips made the angel look like a demon. A demon who was standing above her nearly-incapacitated sister, who still sobbed, "a-anything you want," she sobbed reaching a hand up to him, "please, it's my wedding day!" she added. His smirk grew as he let his eyes travel down her body, in a way that the priest had always said was a sin in itself. And the thoughts even the barely ten-year old Drusilla knew went with it were equally vile.

"So I see," he said softly, pulling her roughly to her feet, but not releasing his grip on her arm. She thanked him, smiling brightly and trying to compose herself. She didn't see the evil brewing in his eyes as, with the other hand, she straightened her dress. He still didn't release her, so she asked him if he intended to walk her up the steps, calling the demon a gentleman. He smirked, "I do recall you promising anything to the man who helped you up," he prompted, roughly jerking her after him, her weak ankle gave and she screamed in pain. "Don't scream yet, lover. The pain hasn't even begun," he taunted, clasping a hand over her mouth and carrying her out of Drusilla's sight. That was when the burning sensation returned to her and the images faded, as she screamed for her sister.

Burning faded into numbness as her vision returned, blurred from the tears, and she found herself on the chapel floor. Numbness became nausea, as she looked around her, seeing all the shocked faces, her parents mortified, Cecelia white as a sheet. Her parents had carried her home, though she'd begged to stay and pray, she'd begged Cecelia not to wear mummy's shoes to her wedding, but some things weren't meant to be changed. Anne just sighed at her younger sister's antics, and encouraged the eldest to wear the shoes, telling her that she deserved to be beautiful on her wedding day. George would so love the way she would look in those shoes. Drusilla thought bitterly that George would never see Cecelia in the shoes. She would be abducted by the demon, doubtlessly tortured by the demon. Would he kill her, she wondered.

Her thoughts took a darker turn as she wondered if that wouldn't be merciful. Her parents couldn't afford medicine, so they just sent her to bed, telling her that if she could calm down and try to act rationally, they would take her to the wedding tomorrow. Cecelia was still going to borrow mummy's shoes, and she had walked in them many times, they assured her. She would be fine. Drusilla couldn't eat supper that night, nor breakfast the next morning. She felt sick, knowing her sister would likely die and she would be unable to stop it. She watched as Cecelia carefully braided back two sections of her long, dark hair, preparing herself, humming cheerfully. Drusilla couldn't bear it. She would be gone in hours, taken from them by a demon with the face of an angel.

She prayed for the hours that separated them and the wedding, and prayed and prayed. As she would later learn though, her God was not a genie. He didn't grant wishes, least of all wishes to young girls who taught the world could be full of light. A young girl who believed everyone was basically good on the inside, who didn't think that anyone would be capable of anything like the atrocities Angelus was soon to commit. She was naïve, and soon to pay the ultimate price, but for now she just prayed she could save her sister. She never gave up. That would prove to be her undoing. Her determination would be the death of her, but death wouldn't even be the worst of it.

Drusilla waited that entire wedding by the back doors, and when she heard the scream, ran to mummy and insisted mummy go find out want happened. Mummy wouldn't go, but George did. George was a good man, the kind of man Drusilla wanted to marry her sister; she knew George would save her sister. She'd never stopped to think that sometimes good people lose. The fairy tales daddy used to read to her from the old books always had happy endings, where the prince killed the bad guy and married the princess. Cecelia came stumbling in, hysterical, a series of deep scratches on her arm, bleeding deeply. George didn't follow her. Drusilla decided that the bad demon was being vanquished by her sister's heroic fiancé. And maybe the king himself would reward George for his bravery, and they would all move into the palace! Drusilla had always wanted to be a princess. She forgot however, something important: men didn't fight demons in real-life and win.

George didn't return. Drusilla ran to the stained glass window and fell silent. The demon smirked at her, licking blood off his lips and disappearing into the night. George still didn't return, so daddy went to go find him, despite Drusilla trying to stop him, trying to warn him that there was a demon out there. Daddy went, but daddy returned, pale as a sheet. "George. He was mauled by a wild animal, or something," he said softly, taking his sobbing eldest daughter into his arms. Cecelia cried and cried, as Drusilla sat there in shock. George, Cecelia's prince has died saving her from the demon. Drusilla had sent him to save her, and she'd sacrificed him. Cecelia cried for the rest of the night, telling daddy about the demon, the man who had tried to take her away. Daddy thought that it was a coping mechanism, imagining a fit of heroics as his last actions. Daddy was wrong, very wrong.

Drusilla knew it was the demon. She'd seen the demon in church, and she told Cecelia what she'd seen, trusted her seventeen year only sister with more burden that a ten year old and a seventeen year old should ever share. Cecelia wasn't like Drusilla though, Cecelia was almost a widow, she'd lost her fiancé, and she was consumed by the grief. When she learned that it was a choice between her life and her fiancé's. That Drusilla had known there was a demon out there and had sent George alone, she did what the upset do all too readily. She tried to blame someone, find herself a scapegoat. She blamed Drusilla for her fiancé's death, told her young sister that if she'd sent more men with George, he could still be with her right now. Cecelia was wrong. More men would have meant more death, more tragedy.

Cecelia, in her grief was what started it. She was hurt and upset and not thinking and she started it when she looked at her sister and told her, "You killed him, Dru. You let my love die. I hope the Lord curses you for it," she added bitterly. She was grieving, she hadn't meant it. She should have thanked her sister for saving her from a death that would have been far worse, far more dragged out than George's was. But she was disgusted with herself for being happy she was still alive, and grieving the loss of someone she loved, and she lashed out. She took the best of them, the girl who had saved her life, and convinced her that she was cursed, that she could never redeem herself for killing George. Long before Angelus ever touched her, he had already started to hurt Drusilla. See, Cecelia would forget her words with the years, but Drusilla never could. She never forgave herself for this first imagined crime.

She was barely ten, but felt so much older in the face of her own imaginary guilt. She couldn't play with the other children, they didn't understand. They saw everyone as either a prince or a princess, battling the imaginary evils that they could easily defeat. She turned to prayer, the idea of redemption still something she could strive for. She could never give Cecelia George back, but she could pray to the Lord to understand. She had never wanted George to die. She had only wanted to save her sister. The vision hadn't told her she would kill George in by doing it. So while other little girls saw themselves as princesses, beautiful and perfect and destined to adorn the arm of a smart, kind handsome prince, she saw herself as a witch, cursed with her visions a power that had only ever lead her astray.

But she never wanted to go astray, so she spent most of her time in church, praying and confessing and wishing with all her heart and soul for forgiveness. There was nothing for her to be forgiven of, but she rested there, under the stained-glass saints who looked down on her condescendingly, her imagined slights making her inferior in their painted-on eyes. She was pure, sweet, innocent enough to be among them, but she saw herself as a witch. See, the real saints are never the ones that exalt themselves as such, but the one who sit softly in the background, always seeing one more thing they never did, one more reason they were never good enough. It's not just, but what in this world is? The real saints are never rewarded, nor noticed, the real saints aren't the condescending ones in the church, but the ones being condemned by them.

Meanwhile, a certain demon—vampire actually, as there was a difference, wondered how that man had known to come out. He'd seen the signs proclaiming he wedding and the woman who he would have dragged home for Darla was out there for not even five minutes when her fiancé came out. It could have been anything, perhaps he had second thoughts and was leaving, or was over protective or any such explanation, but then there had been the little girl at the window. The way she had looked at him. There had been something in her eyes that had known what he was, and not just because he was in his true face at the time. Perhaps the child was mental, but there was a chance she was a seer. And if she was, this game had just become a lot more interesting.

That young seer had some nerve stealing a meal from Angelus and Darla. She was a pretty meal too. Angelus would have had fun making that one beg him to stop, seeing how easily her will gave… If there was a seer there, he would kill her… or, perhaps he wouldn't. Someone with those abilities might be of use to him. Of course, he would have to teach her not to cross him. He should just kill her right then for it, but he wouldn't. He would break her first, and then see if she would be a little more compliant. And if not… well, if not, then those were the most fun to kill anyways. He liked the ones who fought him to the end, eyes burning, clawing at him until they realized that he was only going to hurt them more for it. And he hoped the seer was the child who'd stared out at him. Angelus could have a lot of fun with that. "Darla!" he called, "How do you feel about staying here for a while?"

Drusilla continued to have the visions, no matter how many times she sat beneath the Stained-glass saints, crying and praying that God would lift this terrible curse. She did what she could to stop the terrible things she was shown, but she didn't see it as it was, as an act of selflessness. She was endangering herself time and time again to prevent the things she saw, seeing the demon popping up every now and again. He would always take his victims, regardless of how Drusilla tried to change fate, and she could never be around for it, lest he see her. No, Drusilla saw the deaths she prevented, eight times out of ten as not even close to the penance for the two or three out of ten she couldn't save. She was not God; she was never intended to be the one to save the lives of all these people. She was a saint in her own right, an unsung saint saving people silently in the background.

But that wasn't good enough for the stained-glass saints. They would never let her be good enough, she could save everyone she ever had a vision of and they would condemn her for disobeying her parents in sneaking out to save them. She could never be good enough to the stained-glass saints and it was killing her, trying. The harder she tried, the more insane people thought her to be, always out doing strange things with no evident reason. Anne eventually married a man named Christian, who had short, brown hair and was the kindest man, but also one of the blandest Drusilla had ever met. They still came to visit often. Anne was a mere three years older than Drusilla, so her parents started to wonder when suitors would come along for their youngest.

Cecelia never married. She was now into her twenties and unmarried. She refused to marry anyone but George, twisting the knife that she'd unknowingly thrust into her sister a little deeper. She'd never forgiven herself for allowing George to die. Now, every night when Cecelia would hide in her room and cry, the sound carrying through the thin walls, Drusilla blamed herself. Every time she turned a suitor down and mummy tried to reason with her, Drusilla blamed herself. See, the blame for her had become a pattern. It was her fault because of what she did see, or what she didn't see, but because she saw she was at fault. And those seven or eight people who would live on because of her, she barely even thought of those. Drusilla was always thinking of the two or three out of ten she couldn't save, though. And it was always either because the demon was involved or she knew saving them would kill someone else and sometimes she simply couldn't talk them out of whatever would accidentally kill them.

She never thought that maybe Mr. Erickson who was climbing that ladder in the dark, outside and missed one rain-slickened rung and fell maybe should have thought and waited for day. No, in her mind, it was not the man's own stupidity that caused him to fall; it was her inability to talk him out of climbing. This meant she spent nine years of her life already blaming herself every time something happened, every time she couldn't save someone from fate, or the demon, or their won stupidity. Nine years of condescending stained-glass saints who would never admit to her that she was doing things they never could have. She was a saint among them, or she should have been, but she saw herself as almost past redemption. All because those cursed saints—the famous kind of saints, who adorned the windows of her church condemned her.

It was when Drusilla was nineteen that it all went to Hell, or more so than it already had. You see, the demon, he had never left town, and was getting tired of waiting. See, he'd expected a child to be the seer; he'd wanted it to be a child. Children were more obedient, and easier to break. By now, she wouldn't be a child. It was by utter coincidence that he and Darla found her that night. Darla had killed Lord Nichols, a lesser royal, after catching him arguing with a streetwalker about her prices. Then she killed the streetwalker as she'd felt like it. They had been in that very alleyway, when they saw the nearby sisters. At first, Angelus didn't recognise her; he thought Darla had merely found him a meal, or three, three young virgins, walking home in the dark. Then, he squinted, looked a little closer. He could see something about the youngest one; it was as though the space where his soul used to be recognised her.

"The one in the middle has something delicate and unique… Did you find me a Saint?" he asked, eyes widening as Darla told him the girl had the sight. Well, he'd be damned. It was the girl who'd thwarted him, a decade ago, the reason they'd stayed in town. With that, she turned around, sensing eyes on her, boring into her. Drusilla tried not to panic as she turned to see the demon, a blonde woman on his arm. He was here, and she realized that she was out in the open. She'd thought nothing of she and Cecelia going for a walk at this late hour to go visit Anne and Christian. Yet, here was the demon. Was he going to kill them tonight? Was this how it would end?

Angelus told Darla softly what he knew to be true about this one, about the visions, his eyes canvassing her body. "She is pure innocence, yet she sees what's coming, she knows what I'm going to do to her. I'll really have to come up to snuff for this one." Oh, he could already imagine the wicked things he would do to her. He could practically hear her screams in his ears. He didn't realize his legs were propelling him forwards until Darla stopped him, placing a hand on his chest, telling him that this one was not yet ripe. That wouldn't stop him from learning exactly how best to destroy her in the meantime, he decided, as he followed the leaving two sisters.

Drusilla thought she'd kept an eye on him as she and Cecelia hurriedly walked home, feeling tainted just by his eyes. She'd been so foolish. The way he'd approached her, she should have known he was going to kill her. She'd never given any thought that he would be out here; that she would be in danger. She'd seen it in his eyes. He would have killed them both then and there had the woman with him not stopped him. Was she an angel, to have such power over a demon? No, not from the look in her eyes. She was another demon, had to be, the way she'd whispered to him, seemed even affectionate. And without a thought, Drusilla had nearly gotten her sisters as well as herself killed.

She also never gave any thought to the fact that they went straight home, and that he could have followed her. For whatever reason Drusilla, Anne and Cecelia had been spared by fate and a blonde demon, so for once in her life, she felt good. She felt like maybe the Lord was extending a gesture of faith to her, giving her a chance. She didn't know that Angelus had followed them, stuck to the shadows, that he'd seen her, and realized that she was the child; she was the seer who seemed to take pleasure from thwarting him. And he'd sat outside her window in the night and let himself form a plan. Oh, he would enjoy making this one regret crossing him. Darla probably thought he was insane for following her, for deciding to watch her and learn just how to destroy the young seer.

Drusilla could barely sleep that night. Some part of her, however small knew there was something out there, she tossed and turned and saw eyes burning into hers, as the demon smirked, his dark eyes burning with things she didn't understand. He left after she woke, waving to her mockingly and even going so far as to blow her a kiss. The gesture both unnerved her and saddened her. The only man to show any sort of affection for her was a demon. She'd never had even one suitor at the door. All the families thought she was crazy, for all the times she would have a vision in public, or warn the neighbours about the dangers of letting their children up in the apple tree. She would often be out at hours not fitting for a young lady, saying strange things. Everyone could agree that there was something wrong with that girl. The only one who understood her was the fluffy black kitten she'd named Miss Edith.

The only gesture of affection she'd ever received from a man was from a demon, almost possessively. It was like he was trying to send her a message, tell her who she belonged to. She wouldn't be his. She would sooner… she wasn't sure. How far would she go to escape whatever evil things the demon intended to do to her? Would she die to avoid a more painful death at his hands? It was a question that plagued her through the day, as she sat at the window and watched, not knowing that the demon couldn't come back in the day. The visions could though, and this one was horrible, there was an accident, one she couldn't prevent without help. A couple of miners were to die in an explosion.

Finally, the nineteen year old girl did what she'd always wished she could, she talked to mummy, told her what she'd seen and begged for help. But she didn't stop there, she told mummy about all of it, George and the neighbours and the man who fell from the ladder and the child they'd saved from the demon with the face of an angel. Her mother could have made it all better, could have told her that she was perfect for saving the ones that she had saved. She could have given her daughter strength for the coming ordeals, but Mrs. Keeble wasn't like that, she was terrified, viewing her daughter's gift as blasphemy. She believed in stained-glass saints, not the real life kind that had some to her sobbing, begging for help. She told her daughter that she was a witch, that her gift was an affront to the Lord and all that was good.

The miners died. Quite simply, Drusilla couldn't be there to save them, couldn't do a thing. She sat down, sobbing hard, as though she'd been struck. You see, she'd always looked up to her mummy, and rather than seeing this as what it was, product of superstition and an immediate reaction, nor a reasonable one, she internalized it. It wasn't mummy's fault for blaming someone who'd saved countless lives; it was her fault for being cursed. She never thought to wonder what she was cursed, never questioned the rulings of the stained-glass saints everyone heard, the ones who were always so quick to look down on her in the chapel they travelled to.

She'd gone to confession, as she always did after one died, hoping that the priest could help her. Unfortunately for Drusilla, that was what Angelus wanted. He wanted her to believe that for her, there could be no redemption, wanted her to believe that she couldn't be saved. So he donned the priest's robes after swiftly killing the priest, and he waited for her to come to him. Her voice had been so soft as she'd greeted him, saying "Father, forgive me, for I have sinned." The strife, the pain the thought of sinning caused her amused him. Oh, she was a moral creature, how fun it would be to break her. Then, she told him it had been two days since her last confession. He liked that even more, seeing the toll all of this took on her and playing along.

"I had," she took a deep breath, trying to make the words come, trying to stifle her tears, the guilt, and the anguish. "I've been seeing again, Father. Yesterday, the men were going to work in the mine. I had..." she shuddered, thinking about how terrible that vision had been, "a terrible fright. My stomach all tied up, and I saw this horrible... crash. My mummy said to keep my peace, it didn't mean nothing. But this morning... they had a cave-in. Two men died," she admitted, a few stray tears escaping her eyes as he told her to go on, drinking in such sweet pain, such sweet sorrow, regret. She continued as she was told, a tad shaky, but glad that God hadn't forsaken her, that her heavenly father never gave up on her. "My mum says... I'm cursed," she confessed, looking down sadly, "My seeing things is an affront to the Lord, that only he's supposed to see anything before it happens." That's when she began to sob, she'd been good, she'd used her powers to save people and that the demon following her would surely harm her if the Lord didn't help her. Was that what she deserved? "But I don't mean to, Father, I swear! I swear! I try to be pure in his sight. I don't want to be an evil thing." She was pleading with him for her very salvation, and Angelus, unfortunately, knew what it meant to her.

That's why she would never have it. "Oh, hush child! The Lord has a plan for all creatures. Even a devil child like you," he said, loving how well he could break her without even having to touch her. She would become a saint if he didn't taint her just a little first. She should have been a saint, but that big, bad demon might have to intervene. Would he let her know how he saw her, how moral she was, how saintly? Absolutely not. Half the fun was letting his victims torture themselves. She seemed shocked as she repeated his words in a voice filled with tears. He decided to keep going with it, "Yes! You're a spawn of Satan. All the Hail Mary's in the world aren't going to help. The Lord will use you and smite you down. He's like that." Drusilla wouldn't believe it. The Lord would never use her and smite her, he would save her, she'd always been able to repent before, and why not now, what had she failed to do?

She begged him for something, for some way that she could redeem herself. She sobbed a little, praying that the priest would come up with something she could do. Anything to save her already blackened soul. He smirked; she was devout in her faith, truly a saint. He wondered if she was too saint-like to fight him when he finally did lay hands on her. That would be disappointing, but seeing the way she begged him for redemption let him know she wouldn't go so easy. Perhaps she'd really make his night and even fight back… "Fulfill his plan, child. Be evil. Just give in," he said, enjoying the verbal torture almost as much as he would later enjoy the rest of it. Perhaps, she'd even seek him out if she thought this was God's plan for her.

She continued to plead, growing more and more desperate, telling him that she had only wanted to be good, and he smirked. Every tear she shed, every little hint of self-loathing inherent in her voice was beautiful. She was already a masterpiece, after so little work, but he was far from done. By the end of this, she would be his seer, his any way he chose, in fact. Eventually he made something up that she could do, and she thanked him, the tears still not gone, as though she didn't quite believe him that she could be redeemed. He told her ominously as she left that God was watching her. She just nodded, assuming he had tried to comfort her. Drusilla just felt disgusted, knowing that the priest had only given her a way to atone so she would leave the house of God. The stained-glass saints told her, rather certainly that all the holy water in the church couldn't wash her soul clean.

She ran from the church a sobbing mess. So much of a mess that she didn't recognise the accent on the priest's voice as belonging to the demon. She ran immediately to her room, not able to take any more from her family, from mummy or daddy or Cecelia. There was a look Cecelia would make sometimes, like she had been winded. Whenever someone mentioned George, even now that she was twenty seven and ten years had passed, she still made that face, like the air had been taken away from her lungs and she was forced to learn to breathe again. That was Drusilla's fault. She sobbed bitterly into her pillow that night, her kitten curling up in the crook of her neck, splattered in tears. She didn't even seeing the demon resting on her windowsill, watching her cry with a wicked smirk on his face. He'd barely said anything before she ran and she was already breaking. Angelus could practically taste the tears.

He watched her as she finally got to a fitful sleep, tossing and turning. Drusilla finally found sleep, but the peace it normally brought eluded her. All she could see were faces of people she hadn't saved, the way they looked at her pleadingly, some even spitefully, asking her why she'd let them die, condemning her for it as yet more voices whispered cryptic warnings to her about fallen angels and princess losing her crown. They whispered horrible things about how death would surround her, how the demon would come. She looked around her surroundings, seeing the stained-glass saints on the windows of her church mocking her. She begged them to help her, but they only laughed and added more horrible things to the cacophony of voices, telling her she'd never be like them, she'd never even be good again. All the holy water in the church couldn't wash her soul clean.

But maybe if she did it right, it could, she thought. She dove into the fountain of holy water, feeling it burning her. That must be the evil in her soul. It must only burn the evil. She screamed as it burned her away into nothing, into ashes, but it was what she deserved. Angelus could hear muffled little cries ripping free of her lips, begging, if he wasn't mistaken, for her immortal soul to be saved, for this curse to be lifted. He would have to bring Darla here and show her this, she'd love it. The problem was they'd have trouble being quiet enough to let her sleep if he brought Darla along. Finally, he saw the sky beginning to lighten and sighed, knowing he would have to go back or risk burning. And he was coming to so enjoy her screaming and pleading. Perhaps, soon there would be more of it.

Drusilla awoke seeing something running off, this time, not bothering with theatrics, with blowing her a kiss. Could it be true? Had the demon come here to torment her, or had he come because he'd seen the darkness within her soul? Perhaps this demon was her destiny, she wasn't meant for a human life. She'd never be good enough to show her face in the church that had once been her home. Maybe the demon had come because of her, had killed George because Cecelia was her sister, had killed all those other people to see if he could make her reveal herself. Perhaps she did belong to the demon, and that was why he blew her a kiss. Maybe the visions were things her darkness had caused. Perhaps the evil in her had made all these supposed 'accidents' happen and then shown her, excitedly. Her mummy was right, she wasn't good. She was an affront to the Lord.

That dream had been the first time she'd thought of a sacrifice as deliberate, as someone who couldn't be saved trying to stop the danger for all the others. She wanted to save them, but what if she was the one causing this? What if she wasn't good like she'd always tried to believe? What if Drusilla was evil and tainting the others by letting them care for her? Did that mean she could redeem herself by saving them, by preventing her blackened soul from killing anyone else? She knew that it was a sin, to want to die, but to want to save… if her death could save anyone. A part of her wouldn't believe that it was her and her inherent darkness causing this, a part of her stood up to the stained-glass saints enough to stop her from trying. It was a small enough part of her that it couldn't make her feel any better, but big enough that she kept trying, kept stopping the things she saw.

She could never again look into a mirror, because she would hate what she saw in it, someone who should have died long before all of her accidental victims. She hated this, fate, her curse, herself, but she never let herself give up. She saved the ones she could, more and more recklessly, putting her own life on the line for theirs. A part of her always hoped that she would finally do something so bold, so reckless and put her life on the line so to speak; that this would be the last person she saved. It never came to that, so every night, she came back home to Miss Edith. She would sob the night away into the comforting kitten, the only one who didn't think she was evil, including herself. Miss Edith would just curl up with her and meow affectionately, licking Drusilla consolingly. Miss Edith it seemed to Drusilla was the only one who loved her. Maybe her family thought they did, except for Cecelia and mummy, but they didn't know her.

She knew she didn't deserve the love she got from Miss Edith, but she could never push the kitten away. Once, she did, and the hurt in the kitten's eyes made her feel more wicked, more evil than even the priest's words had. She always let Miss Edith stay with her after that, the little kitten making her feel a love she didn't deserve, letting her feel a little less evil than she knew herself to be, a little more human. Miss Edith was there for her until the bitter end, until the fateful night. It was dreadfully selfish of her to be glad that she was. The fateful night had cost Drusilla's family everything, had cost Miss Edith everything. But as every dark night does, it had all started with an uneventful morning.

Drusilla had tried to force some food down, realizing she hadn't been eating since her revelation, and she was becoming thin, waif-like. She hadn't thought she deserved to eat, or to waste anything that belonged to her family. The food deserved to go to someone who wouldn't be dooming others with every breath she took. She only ate because mummy had made cookies, and if she ate the cookie, she could give Miss Edith the frosting from it. Miss Edith so loved the frosting, but no one else was willing to feed it to her. Hearing the kitten's mewls of pleasure, Drusilla felt a little better, knowing that she could at least make Miss Edith happy. Maybe she was cursed, or evil or the spawn of Satan, but Miss Edith wasn't hurt by her presence. Miss Edith could still believe in her, even if she couldn't. Even if she couldn't love herself any longer, Miss Edith loved her. The kitten was all she had left, the only one who understood her. That day, Miss Edith was the only living thing that she knew could believe that she had some grain of goodness.

Cecelia entered the room, noticing the pale, wan looking sister of hers sitting there, eyes focused on the fluffy kitten before her. Cecelia had even forgotten the things she'd said in her grief, so she just sat down and helped herself to a cookie, "it is good to see you eating," she said softly, looking at her sister. She was much too thin, Cecelia decided. Then she wondered if Drusilla had ever had a suitor. She hoped her sister had, because she was much too young to seem so dark all the time. Cecelia hoped her sister would snap out of it soon. She had always wondered why Drusilla acted so oddly, and now mother was blithering about affronts to the Lord. It was rather strange. It was a good thing uncle Robert was coming to visit. Perhaps their mother would calm down then.

Drusilla looked up at her eldest sister, "is it?" she asked softly, "I didn't think-" she started. What didn't she think, that her family would notice, that her family would care. She didn't think anyone would be terribly upset of she stopped eating, started to fade, least of all Cecelia, who she'd cost so much. She'd taken the love of Cecelia's life, attracted a demon to her. Drusilla didn't understand why the older girl would care. Miss Edith flicked her tail onto Cecelia's arm, still licking at vestiges of icing on Drusilla's finger. The kitten had been the one to fix what was broken between sisters. She trusted Cecelia; she wanted Drusilla to trust the older girl. And Drusilla did, she was just tired of hurting the older girl. Actually, she was tired of hurting everyone, and wondered for a moment why she was too weak to just end it.

If she ended it, no one would remember to feed Miss Edith. The poor kitten might go for days without food, between her always working daddy, her mummy who might not trust anything that had been so close to Drusilla and Cecelia, who seemed to be the only sane one here. Even she had her moments though, whole days where she wouldn't get out of bed. Drusilla had to stay around for Miss Edith. "That we cared?" Cecelia asked, rather bluntly, "Excuse my forwardness. Dru, but we do care about you. Mother is ill, and she's not thinking clearly. It's a bit of madness, whatever she said-" Cecelia started.

"Whatever she said was true," Drusilla said softly, "Whatever she said was echoed by the priest, Cecelia. And it's not your concern. It's mine." Drusilla got up, knowing she didn't deserve the consolation that her sister offered her. She gave her sister a hug and let a couple tears slide out, trying to stifle them. "I'm so sorry," she let herself say, feeling an ache from her conscience and guilt. This guilt was killing her. She knew she'd cost her sister everything, and her sister trying to comfort her hurt even more. She wanted Cecelia to call her horrible things, to hate her for what she'd done, but Cecelia couldn't understand. It was Drusilla's fault, but she wouldn't understand. And how was Drusilla to explain to her sister that she was the cause of all this pain and death? That all the holy water in that church, burning like in her dream or otherwise couldn't wash clean her tainted soul.

Cecelia got up in shock, but at the same moment, Anne and her husband crossed the threshold, Anne bounding in to hug her older sister. Her husband, Christian smiled, carrying their young daughter whose name Drusilla never learned. He greeted Cecelia cordially, asking where their parents were. Anne carried her daughter over to meet her Auntie Drusilla. Drusilla wouldn't go near the child. She looked so sweet; a head of short, light brown hair like her father's and dark eyes like her mother's but her smile was so innocent. Drusilla knew she was evil, because a part of her wanted to hug the little child despite knowing that she was cursed, that the darkness inside her attracted tragedies, and this girl would likely suffer for meeting her. Drusilla panicked, running to her room and past her mummy, before mummy could say anything or do anything but clutch at a cross. Good thinking mummy. Protect yourself.

Drusilla spent hours in her room, praying and trying to muster the courage to go downstairs Finally, Uncle Robert came and she was forced to slip downstairs. She hadn't seen her uncle Robert in years. She ignored the whispers in her head, which had only started this very month, with the nightmares. They told her to do things, some told her to run and some told her to hide. One of them recommended that she just die. It would spare her a lot of pain, would spare her family. But the worst was the constant shrieking, the one voice screaming that she, her loved ones and a bunch of other names she didn't recognise would die. Drusilla new that, this was selfish of her, but maybe, maybe if she gave herself this happy day, gave them all a good day to remember her, maybe then… So she ignored the cries of the banshee-star, as she'd come to know it as. This was probably the thing she would come to regret most.

But she did ignore the cries, because of Uncle Robert. Uncle Robert just had that effect. He made people happy. And so that day, she ate, and she drank a bit of the juice they'd made from the apples in the apple tree, and for once in the past decade, Drusilla felt like a normal girl, she felt happy. For one day, she allowed herself to forget the demon that followed her, the tainted, blackened soul she thought she had, and the redemption that would never be hers. She let herself forget that for a while, and for that, she was soon to pay the ultimate price. She relished every moment of her time with her family, thinking she would run away, deep into the woods that night, so as not to curse anyone further. Maybe she'd take Miss Edith. But she was able to like herself the slightest bit that day, and it felt good. It felt good having a tiny grain within her that liked who she was.

Unfortunately, if there was one thing that held true in Drusilla's life, it was physics. It was gravity, really, what went up would always fall, screaming back to the ground from whence it came. It was like an egg, anyone could toss it into the air and let it pretend to be a birdie, but soon it would come smashing to the pavement, and these pieces would never be a birdie. Drusilla could never be happy, she should have learned it. Angelus waited until night fell and rang the bell. Uncle Robert went to get it, and saw what he assumed was a charming young man Drusilla's age, perhaps older. "Robert Keeble," he introduced himself, "to what do I owe the pleasure?" Drusilla could only hear her uncle at the door, and she wondered if it was another man coming to the door to ask about Cecelia. Poor Cecelia would always be lonely.

Angelus tried to hold in the evil smirk, "My name is Angelus, and I was hoping to speak to the man of the house, the father of Drusilla, about formally courting her," he said, barely supressing his accent. Drusilla, had she been thinking clearly, would have recognised the voice of the demon. She got caught up by his name, Angelus. Was he sent by the Lord, perhaps a literal angel because he had seen that she repented, that she didn't want her soul to be one of darkness? She heard his voice say her name, as she pictured him. She could see the man who would save her having the soul of a poet, and golden hair that would be such a contrast to her midnight hair. Golden hair, and blue eyes, so open, so full of wonder and love, like windows to whatever he felt. He would be the sun to her moon, the day to her night. He would save her. She knew, instantly, that that was the man who would save her. Unfortunately, that was not the man at the door awaiting her invite, so this would all be on her conscience.

She called to him, "oh, do come in! This is perfect timing," perhaps he was a sign that everything was going to get better, that everything would be fine. Perhaps, he would be her salvation. She bounded around the corner, so she could see if she'd been right about the way he looked. She wasn't; not by a long shot. The man smirked, brushing back his long dark hair, that wicked smirk finally forming on his lips. His eyes burned into hers, full of ill intentions, of a certain look that made her feel all sorts of violated. She'd known the man at the door brought with him a change. She hadn't thought that it could be one that bad, like inviting a demon into her home. She was certain of two things, she was going to die, and when she did, she deserved to go to Hell. She deserved to burn for letting the demon in, for letting him hurt her family.

Angelus smirked, taking a step towards her, "thanks for inviting me in, lover," he pulled her close to him, her gasp of protest making this even better for him. She closed her eyes and started muttering prayers fervently, feeling things she had never wanted to, something pressing into her that she really hoped wasn't… She tried to stammer a response to Angelus, tried to tell him that she wasn't his lover. Uncle Robert just stood there; utterly flabbergasted as Angelus added wickedly, "Is it too early to ask about meeting the family?" he added cruelly, making the innocuous words sound menacing. Oh, no. Drusilla knew she deserved whatever drawn out, painful death he had planned for her, but not her family. The banshee star shrieked at her their names though, burning her mind with her loud voice.

Drusilla trembled, a muffled sob ripping through her as she realized what he was going to do to her family. She tried to beg him, take her, do whatever he wanted to her, fine, but he couldn't kill her family. They'd been innocent in all this. They'd done absolutely nothing wrong. This was her fault. For one day, she'd let herself forget what she was and for one day she'd suffered for it. She had been so wrong to think that she could have a day like that, that a demon like her deserved one. She'd been wrong, fatally wrong. And now he was going to take it out on her family. Uncle Robert ran to go help her, "My niece is not your lover," he insisted, "I think I'm going to have to ask you to leave now." Uncle Robert tried to pry Angelus's hands from his niece, but the vampire only grabbed tighter, smirking when Drusilla gasped. She was doubtlessly going to be bruised from his hands on her.

He dropped Drusilla, rounding on her uncle, "I do hate it when they don't approve," he smirked, letting his face become that of the demon that Drusilla knew was inside him. Uncle Robert only faltered a moment before he insisted that the demon—Angelus, the irony there was terrible, almost cruel—leave. Angelus just kicked Drusilla to the side, her side screaming from the impact, smirking at her uncle wickedly, "and if it choose not to?" he asked, shoving uncle Robert into the wall, preparing to do… something, she wasn't sure what. Then, a little black shape skittered in front of him, knocking him off balance a little, he stared down at the object, picking up a furry black kitten who yowled and clawed at him. Miss Edith! Drusilla made a choked noise like a scream, trying to get up to save her kitten.

Angelus stroked the kitten gently, despite that she yowled and clawed at him, he looked into Drusilla's eyes one last time, his hand finding the head of the now panicking kitten. He gripped her roughly and snapped the kitten's neck, smirking as he let her body fall. Drusilla sobbed as she crawled to the body, hoping that the cracking had been her collar, praying that her kitten could be alive. "Miss Edith," she whimpered, cradling the kitten's dead body in her arms, sobbing one last time into the kitten's fur. "You're a monster!" she told him bitterly, cradling the only friend she ever had in her arms, the only one who understood her. That kitten was everything to her, and he'd just killed her like she was nothing. "Miss Edith," she sobbed again, holding the kitten close to her, stroking her fur, damp with tears and blood. She would have given Miss Edith all the frosting she'd had, spent her last dollar on frosting if she'd known that Angelus was going to kill the kitten. She would have sent Miss Edith into the forest, or hid her in the church. Anything. She would have preferred Angelus kill her than the sweet little kitten who'd been her only friend.

Angelus looked down at her, obviously finding her pain amusing, "for you, Drusilla, there is no redemption. Don't you see it now?" he whispered cruelly, "there is nothing…except for blood, and pain and death." She shook her head, still clutching her kitten. There had to be something left. There had to be a way to save her family. There had to be, so she prayed, just took out her rosary and prayed to God and all the sodding stained glass saints, to deliver them from evil, as they were always promised in church. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil… But no savior ever came, as Angelus smirked and broke Uncle Robert's arm when Uncle Robert tried to wipe that expression off his face. "Sorry, still here," he remarked. "And if you close your eyes, then everyone here is going to learn what real pain is like," he said, a dangerous tone creeping into his voice, daring Drusilla to try it.

So Drusilla held her eyes open, and clutched Miss Edith into her chest, sobbing deeply she screamed to her family to try to run as Angelus brutalized her uncle. She could hear screaming and snapping of bones, but couldn't see much though the tears. She sobbed into her kitten, saying sorry every time her uncle screamed, or someone else panicked—there was only one door in the small house. And then daddy was back, with one of the good heavy bowls, reaching to crack it over Angelus's head. Drusilla screamed, knowing that the breaking bowl wouldn't stop a demon. But it would anger him greatly. He turned to look at Drusilla's father, shards of bowl tumbling down his face. "So this is the father?" he asked mockingly, sweeping the shards out of his hair as Anne hid her child in a bin full of knitting, begging her not to cry.

Angelus looked over at Drusilla, who was cringing; her eyes barely open a crack. "Open your eyes, beautiful, or daddy here might never stop screaming," he told her, raking his sharp, demonic nails down Drusilla's father warningly. Little rivulets of blood began to spill from him. Drusilla forced her eyes open making them stay on her father's. She apologised to him over and over as Angelus did what he did best, Quite literally tearing the man apart, until he screamed and pleaded with the demon, and finally, Angelus let him die. Drusilla was violently ill, from watching, and crying hysterically, so Angelus made her uncle's death quick, wanting to move on to the rest of the family. It wouldn't be long before she would break.

"Take me," Drusilla volunteered. "Spare my family, take me," she said, voice weak and trembling, but containing strength the others knew not. Angelus considered it but dismissed the idea quickly. If he killed her now, she was a martyr. He wanted her broken. He wanted her to want to die because she was selfish and couldn't take her own pain, not because she couldn't bear to watch the pain of others. This was just fun for him, killing these people before her. Then, he spotted someone he hadn't expected to see, Cecelia, frying pan in hand. Cecelia had recognised him from the instant his face was illuminated. He was the demon who had killed her fiancé, had tried to kill her. All the hollowness that she'd feeling the past ten years was filled with rage. They said Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but a woman broken was worse. A woman broken, who wanted to see justice done, well, those would have fury enough, Drusilla hoped, to slay demons.

Cecelia hit Angelus hard enough to draw blood. "That was for my father!" she cried out, hitting him again, hard, "and for my uncle!" she finally slammed him hard enough with the pan that the handle snapped off, "and that was for George!" Angelus got up, his face bleeding from her abuse to it, but the smirk still not wiped from it. He brushed back his dark hair challenging her to do better, and she did, she hit him and kicked him and threw every word she knew at him at least once. She managed to break his nose, but also at least one bone in both of her hands. She was sobbing by the end of it, when finally she collapsed to the ground, her fists and feet broken and bruised, her foe still standing tall, though cut in a few places, and certainly bruised.

Angelus picked her up, carrying her up the stairs, "you certainly are a spitfire," he told her, "but behavior like that isn't becoming for a lady." Then, as an afterthought, "Drusilla!" he bellowed, and she followed him timidly up the stairs. Cecelia's room was just a pleasant place normally, the small window giving a nice view of the forests behind their yard. Drusilla couldn't see from where she sat, deliberately choosing to sit in the doorway, where she could remain naïve, but the screams that she heard, the…other, muffled noises the demon made. She knew what he was doing, and if she had any lunch left, she would have lost it. Angelus finally got up, covered in blood, looking down at the sobbing sister, his signature smirk at his lips. "Was it good for you too?" he asked.

Cecelia's last words were ones Drusilla couldn't repeat, as he snapped her neck, "A spitfire until the end," he said wistfully, wondering if he could have broken her if he'd done that a different way. Oh, well. It was never about that girl; it was about Drusilla, the seer who'd prevented him from doing that… wow, it would be a decade ago now. Clever girl. And soon, she would just be a broken, clever seer. She would be there to stammer out what she saw, maybe do whatever else he decided she was useful for, and that was about it. He would decide what she was still useful for once he was done with Drusilla, but in order to break her, he would first have to kill those close to her. Drusilla sobbed into her knees. Today, Cecelia had been so kind to her, after she'd already cost her her husband, now she'd cost her sister her life. Everyone close to Drusilla suffered and died. There had to be darkness in her soul.

Drusilla knew in that moment that she had to be evil. She drew pain and suffering to her like moths to a flame, and she should have run away, maybe she should have even died, like that little voice had told her. If she had, Miss Edith, and daddy, and Uncle Robert and Cecelia would all still be alive. But she'd been selfish; she'd wanted to live, even at the cost of everyone else. She got it now, her own death would have saved those she loved, and she knew she couldn't let Angelus kill another of them. She stood up, "don't. I understand it. Their blood is on my hands, for me there is no redemption," she let the tears keep streaming down her cheeks, "so kill me. So let my death be the last of them."

He shook his head, she didn't get it. If she died a martyr, she would be useless to him, except for how much he'd enjoyed breaking her. If she still wanted that martyr-like death, he wasn't done breaking her. Wanting to die was only the start of it. He wanted her to want it because she couldn't bear it, not because it would save her family, not for anyone else. And then he would kill her, but he'd bring her back a vampire. Soon enough she would only be able to obey him, or fear that he'd do this again. Not that she'd have a family for him to hurt, but she'd be harder to kill, which would mean if she crossed him, he could do whatever he wanted and she wouldn't get out of it by dying, like humans could. "You can be of use to me, they can't. So why should I kill you?" he asked her, wondering what she'd say as he started down the stairs.

She ran after him, "because they're good, and I'm not. I'm why you're here, I'm full of darkness, so take me with you, do what you want to me, but this is my fault, and I won't let you hurt them," she added boldly, crossing her arms. He laughed and picked her up, slamming her hard against the wall, seeing if the determination in her eyes would break. When it didn't he decided he really wasn't trying hard enough. There was fear in her eyes, but the girl really was a saint, she would sooner let him kill and torture her out of some sense of moral obligation. That, he didn't understand. Why save the others when you could save yourself? He'd wanted her to cower in fear and beg him not to hurt her, instead she was begging for the opposite, begging him to hurt her, so long as he didn't do anything to the others. Maybe he wasn't torturing them long enough?

"You're full of Darkness?" he asked, letting his wicked hands roam up her body, enjoying the little squeak she made, the fear that showed in her eyes as he let them rest on her chest. Perhaps there was an advantage to waiting until the seer was older, too young, and they don't know why this is wrong, "then perhaps, I'll save you for last, have my fun with you. Your sister seemed to like it just fine," he added cruelly, feeling her heartbeat increase as he let his hands press into her, smirking at the terrified whimper she produced. That was more like what he wanted, and now he knew exactly how to break this girl. "But for now, I want you to stay there, and keep your eyes open!" He smirked as her turned away from her. So perhaps his little martyr could still be vulnerable, could still learn to fear him.

Drusilla didn't know what came over her, but she didn't feel brave anymore, not with her hands on her like this, reminding her of the one thing she hadn't thought he would take from her. Drusilla had a lot left to lose, a lot more than she'd ever thought. She cursed her own weakness as she whimpered, able to feel her heart racing, his wicked hands manipulating her into giving in. She was weak, because it worked. She was so weak, because he could manipulate her like that, and she wouldn't fight him, she would cower, utterly terrified. It was one thing, knowing she was going to die, imagining some tiny grain of goodness in him would make it fast, since she was being noble and sacrificing herself. It was another thing entirely, knowing that he would take great pleasure in defiling her first, in violence of every nature, before finally giving her the mercy of death. When he finally released her, she sank to the ground, defeated.

He turned on the family, not yet noticing that Christian and the unnamed daughter were slipping outside, and Drusilla hoped he didn't notice. But when had fate ever had mercy on Drusilla? The lock gave with a clatter and Angelus looked at the door, Anne screamed at Christian to run, and Christian ran. He was fast, but the demon was faster. He didn't bother with dragging them back in, but Drusilla could hear screaming and sobbing and the occasional plea from outside, and Angelus walked back in, dark clothes and pale skin dripping with blood. . He smirked, walking into the room, where Anne was openly sobbing and mummy was praying, a large crucifix in her hands. Drusilla wasn't going to move. She knew that the more she fought, the more pain he would inflict on the last two members of her family, eventually on herself. Instead, she just sobbed harder, still muttering apologies as she heard each scream, wishing she had Miss Edith here, now, but knowing that she didn't deserve the comfort.

Angelus carried Anne to Drusilla, told her to hold her sister's hand, and she did, the pair sobbing as Anne begged Angelus to stop and the tears obscured Drusilla's vision enough that she didn't see anything but a blurry black shape, and blue of Anne's dress, and lots of red. There was always a lot of red, of blood. Angelus could tell, so what Drusilla lacked in sight, he made up for in cruelty, making Anne scream in pain, making Anne sob and beg, and at one point tell Drusilla what he was doing. He'd smirked as the older girl had sobbed and he'd raked a nail down her already marred back until she complied, telling Drusilla everything. Anne died screaming something unintelligible, and Drusilla finally closed her eyes, opening them to find Anne's hand still entwined with hers, but not the rest of Anne. Angelus smirked, "I did warn you what would happen if you closed your eyes, lover."

Drusilla sobbed her way through the rest of the bloodshed, her hands finding the cold, furry body of Miss Edith, sobbing brokenly into the cat, as one final set of screams rang out, and Angelus stood up, lips darkened with blood, eyes darkened with something different… lust, she figured, though it could be just the darkness inside him. She winced as he walked towards her, looking and feeling confused as he walked away, blowing her another kiss, his bloody lips leaving a mocking lip print on his palm, one that faded into all the rest of the blood. Drusilla spent a while just crying, before she realized that she was crying on Miss Edith, whose green eyes still looked into hers sadly, like she understood this as much as she had understood Drusilla in life. Drusilla took the cat's collar off, really just a blue ribbon they'd tied to her, with her name scrawled on it messily, by Drusilla herself, after Daddy had shown her how to write it. There were also the words, "so you can always come home," in the same scrawled writing.

She sobbed even harder as she tied the ribbon to her wrist, taking off her necklace and putting it on her cat, "so Miss Edith can always come home," she said softly, tears flowing freely. Miss Edith could always come home to her. She went to the cookie jar and pulled out the last few cookies, scraping the icing off and leaving it in a dish, sobbing as she did. "Please come home, Miss Edith! Please!" she begged, clutching the kitten to her, sobbing again as she felt the only living thing to understand her growing cold, leaving the living behind, and then, she turned and saw Anne and mummy, lying deathly still, in their own blood, Anne scattered about the room, Mummy with her eyes closed, almost like she was sleeping. Drusilla knew where she could get some glue. Maybe she could fix Anne and get Anne to help her wake mummy. She ran to the kitchen, and found the glue, but she wasn't even sure where to begin with Anne. She collapsed near most of her sister, more tears flowing. "And all the little pieces falling shatter. Why can't I put you back together?"

She tried to wake mummy to tell her that Anne was broken and Miss Edith was lost, but Mummy wouldn't wake, and there was a big, red splatter of blood across her chest. Drusilla just curled up beside her mummy, pressing her face into the crook of mummy's neck like she used to when she was little. She would just lay here and wait to wake up with mummy. But mummy was so cold, and Miss Edith hadn't touched her icing. Drusilla lay there for hours, just crying into her dead mother's hair, the ribbon from Miss Edith wrapped around her wrist, tears falling from her eyes until they were red and raw and she could cry no more. She lay there until dawn greeted them and she knew she had to leave. She stopped to arrange the pieces of Anne as closely as she could into a girl, and straighten Miss Edith's broken neck, and cover Mummy in a blanket because she looked cold.

She walked up the stairs, covering Cecelia's bloodied form in a blanket and leaving a picture of George beside her, because she knew they were in the same place. She closed Cecelia's eyes, so it looked like she was sleeping, so George wouldn't worry, but she was awake where he was, that's why she was sleeping here. Drusilla continued down the stairs and found daddy, who was also covered in blood, but daddy was strong, so it wouldn't hurt him. She dragged daddy to the couch and sat him on the floor, linking his hand with mummy's. They never got any time together anymore: daddy had work, and mummy was starting to get ill, so she wanted them to wake up together, to be together now, while she was so alone. She walked outside and found Christian and their daughter. Angelus thought it was rude of them to leave the party early. But they would stay now, because Anne needed them there.

She laid Christian beside Anne, zipping up his coat to hide the wounds. Christian was a daddy, he would wake up, and then he would put Anne back together, and turn their daughter's head back so it was the right way, and they'd all be a happy family. Drusilla laid their daughter in her Daddy's arms, so he could be strong for her and make her head turn the right way again so she could spin and twirl like their little princess. And then uncle. She went to go find uncle, and hugged him. Uncle didn't have an auntie. The plague stole auntie from him a while ago, but he was sleeping here, so he was awake where auntie was, the stars told her so. Every voice was a star, and she could never make the stars into constellations, the stars didn't like to play together, or take turns. She dragged her uncle to Miss Edith, sobbing as she did, and sat the kitten in his arms, ignoring that one arm was bent at an angle arms were not supposed to bend at.

"Take care of Miss Edith," she told him softly, "she gets so lonely when no one is there. But you'll be there uncle, I know you will," she said sweetly, stroking Miss Edith softly. "I'll be out a while, and I can't wake up yet, but when I do, I hope you keep her safe and warm, and happy," her voice broke on the last word, "and I hope you tell her Drusilla loves her, and once Drusilla makes that bad demon sleep, she'll wake up with you all, and give her plenty of frosting, because Drusilla will always come home."

She started to sob anew on her uncle, "and I wanted to thank you for protecting me from that demon, and for making me smile. And Daddy for working so hard to protect us and feed us. And Anne and Christian for never forgetting us, even though they could be awake here if they had and their daughter for making them so happy. And I wanted to thank mummy for making me who I was, and for loving us all, and brushing my hair and making my dresses." She left the room, stopping to find Cecelia one last time, in her room, "and I wanted to thank Cecelia for forgiving me and George for saving her." she collapsed to the floor, "and I'm sorry I made everyone sleep. I'm not good like you are, but I'll find God again, and he'll send you all back, let you wake up and make the demon sleep. He promised, he said Jesus would save us." It was all she had left to hope for, but hoping for it gave her something, made her less alone.

It was with that that Drusilla left, calling out good bye, and not taking anything but the ribbon and a doll that Miss Edith had always played with her with. The doll's hair was fluffy like Miss Edith's so stroking it gave her a measure of comfort as she walked, bare foot and broken, bruised and bedraggled, tearstained and covered in the blood of the people who'd once been her family. But there was no family, and her stars kept telling her to run, to die, decided to tell her that the Lord couldn't return them to her. She sobbed and yelled at that star that blasphemy was not alright, and it mocked her, telling her that soon, she would do things a lot worse than blasphemy. People in the roads used their hushed voices and stared, because the stars were making a scene. She shook her head. They couldn't see. Of course, no one saw, the stars were sound. Perhaps they heard the stars too and pitied her for being stuck with such bad stars.

She arrived at the convent, feet bleeding from walking across the rocks, tired and hungry and incoherent, telling them that she wanted one of them to help her put Anne back together because the demon couldn't do it. He'd taken Anne apart and now he wouldn't fix her! The nuns just prayed, granted her asylum. She told them finally that she wanted to become one of them. Then, the Lord would forgive her soul. If she became a nun, and kept saying her prayers, her family would wake, and Miss Edith would find her, because Miss Edith always came home, and Jesus saved all the boys and girls. Daddy had told her, and daddy never lied. She'd slept the night away on a lumpy bed, not so much sleeping as closing her eyes, reliving the horrors, and waking up screaming. The other nuns agreed that something had to be done, so they gave her a cup of something that tasted sweet, and made the stars fall asleep, and made her black out.

Angelus had a hell of a time finding her when night came. He checked her house, to see if his newest victim would be delirious yet, would beg him to make her suffer like she deserved, maybe even to kill her. But her family members were laid out all nicely, most of their injuries covered, her parents even holding hands. It angered him. He hated that she had left them all looking fine, that she'd left at all and wasn't here to beg yet. Oh, he really was going to have to pull out all the stops on this one… He would never have found her, except that someone had come to pay his respects and stumbled upon Angelus, "evening, sir," he said cordially, "it's tragic, innit? Just tragic. And the poor girl…" he trailed off, his eyes closing as he wheezed out a breath of tobacco-scented air. The man thought to himself that if he'd maybe been home that night, rather than with his wife and son at her sister's… no, that was preposterous. One man could not have prevented this tragedy.

Angelus hated having to feign humanity, but it might get him the answers he wanted, "Aye," he agreed, letting his accent show though, "it is truly the work of a demon, what happened here. I'm a friend of Drusilla's came all the way from Ireland. Came here a decade ago, nearly, and there was always something different about her," Angelus never lied, except to call himself a friend. But they would soon be something infinitely better than friends—she would be his seer, possibly good for a shag every now and again. "Do you know where she is?" he asked, trying to appear grief-stricken, concealing his face with his long hair. If the man didn't tell him, he was going to torture him until either his fragile, human heart could bear no more and collapsed, or he told him. Looking at the man, not seeing that determination that he loved to break, he decided it would likely be the latter.

It didn't come to that. The neighbour assumed that this Irishman was to be trusted. He would help Drusilla, a sweet girl like her, but a tad mad could use a man like that. If he didn't speak soon, she would never be married, do anything with her life that wasn't her babble about that damned apple tree in their joined yards. "I reckon she needs you now," he said softly, "she's been taken in by the Sisters of Mercy. The convent at the city limits, where the good masses are. I reckon she wanted something, some hope," he looked at Angelus, "I understand her. It's a funny thing, innit. She was always warning us about that tree, and then one day Emily fell… It was dreadful. But it can't even hold a candle to this-" the man had more to say, but Angelus had tired of hearing it. He snapped the man's neck and turned to leave.

He reached the convent swiftly, telling the driver of the nearest carriage the same lie—that he had come to visit Drusilla, and that it was an emergency. He was there in five minutes, and the man and the harlot he was travelling with were dead in another ten. Their screams were not heard by the sisters, who had assumed it was just Drusilla again. He didn't enter—though the convent being open to the public meant he could. There would be a time for that, but for now, he just wanted to see if she was as destroyed by what he did as he had hoped. He merely scaled the side of the building, finding a sleeping Drusilla in the room at the back corner, on the side that faced the rising sun, if it was to rise soon.

He didn't like what he saw. Drusilla was sleeping peacefully, too peacefully. She didn't even stir. Through the thick glass, he couldn't smell the medicine that made her sleep; he only saw that she was sleeping peacefully, looking neither happy nor sad but an amorphous emotion lost between the two. Apathy, he decided. He didn't want her to be apathetic; he wanted her to be broken, to sob herself to sleep and wake screaming. He wanted the time between sobbing and screaming to be filled with nightmares, and thrashing. He knew she would at least react if he broke the glass and ran a nail up her back, in a parody of a lover's gentle touch, leaving a line of red blood, weeping from her skin. Who said murder, torment couldn't be a tad artistic? This destruction of her would be a masterpiece.

But for now, as the sky began to lighten, he decided that would be best saved for a less flammable time of day. Reluctantly, Angelus left his sleeping victim. When Drusilla awoke, it was with screaming, as the medicine wore off and the nightmares came back with a vengeance. All she could see were the dark, evil filled eyes of Angelus, staring into her, and she could feel his wicked hands, slashing at her clothes. She heard his voice in her ear, telling her who she belonged to, before she was shoved to the floor, and she looked up. From all around her came the voices of the stained-glass saints, condemning her, telling her that she deserved this, that after this, all the holy water in the fountain couldn't wash her soul clean. She screamed for help, but he laughed, covering her mouth and telling her, "Who's going to hear you? They're all dead," he reminded her, as she closed her eyes and sobbed, "actually, feel free to scream, I like it when you scream."

She jolted awake, trying not to scream any more. Was that a nightmare or a vision? She tried to think of any implications she'd gotten of time, but she couldn't find anything except that it was at night. The demon always struck at night. And they were in a church, but not one she'd been into before. That would be proof enough there. If the church existed, then she would know that was a vision and run. Where could she, when a demon was following her? She wondered if he would find her here. Oh, she could feel it. She could feel his tainting, damning hands all over her. She could feel it and she hated it. She felt unclean, just by the way his hands had ripped away at her dress and roughly explored—stop! She commanded her thoughts to stop. She couldn't think about that, what she knew he would do to her if he found her. She was going to be sick, and she hadn't even eaten since about a day ago. A mere twenty four hours that felt like a century ago. She could still feel tainted from her dream, so she would see if there was anything she could use to clean herself, perhaps finally get the blood off of her.

When Drusilla came tentatively, hesitantly down the stairs, Sister Margaret, the nun in charge came to get her, asking her if she was hungry. Drusilla shook her head, still feeling sick. How could she ever eat again? Had no one told her what Drusilla had seen? No, no one knew what Drusilla had seen. She wouldn't wish such knowledge on any one, even though she wished someone understood, but she was used to no one understanding. Sister Margaret nodded understandingly, seeing the blood on the younger girl, the pain in her eyes. "Perhaps a bath would do you well?" she suggested, thinking that it would be good to get the blood off the girl, perhaps it might make her feel a little safer. Drusilla nodded, knowing she would need plenty of hot water to wash her clean, to try to get rid of Angelus's taint. Sister Margaret smiled, leading Drusilla first to a room where they kept spare clothes, and picked her out a dress, something black, as was the colour of mourning.

It became a reality with a little help, a few buckets of heated water, and a small bar of soap, Drusilla could finally try to forget. At first, it was beautiful. She was warm, and with enough soap, she didn't feel him anymore, and then the blood that had been caked on her skin started to tint the water red. She simply closed her eyes and tried to forget, tried to make it go away. As she dried herself off though, she saw the bruises he'd left on her: from kicking her at the start, a large, purplish one on her side, and then one on her back that she could feel, from being pressed against the wall. Then, there were two lighter ones from his hands pressing on her. Those reminded her all again of the dream, the pain, the way his hands—no! She didn't realize she'd shrieked it until there was a knock at the door and one of the nuns asked her if she was alright. Was she? The stars were screaming at her about how she would belong to the demon, telling her either to accept it, or to run, some still insisting that she would be happier dead. It was not a cheerful thought, but it was right.

She turned and looked at the bathtub, water tainted reddish from the blood that had been on her body, caked on. And she would never be fine, not the way they wanted to see her be. She slipped into the dress, covering herself in it so no one would see her, "No," she said softly, "no, I'm not. Nothing's ever going to be alright!" she curled up into a ball and sobbed, "a-a demon, with the face of an angel. He killed them, and now everybody's sleeping and I'm stuck awake." She wrapped her arms around her legs, wrapping Miss Edith's ribbon back around her wrist, where it belonged, "nothing will ever be alright." She knew it never could be right again. Nothing was ever meant to be fine, not in her life.

The nuns left her there until Sister Margaret came to get her, since no one knew what to do. Had this girl indeed lost her family to a demon? Was she insane or the victim of something more terrible than they could fathom? And, if the demon was indeed something she'd imagined, the most terrifying thing to consider became who did kill her family? One nun went as far as to think that the demon was a metaphor for her own guilt. See, people liked to blame Drusilla. No one knew why, but she was just good at being the scapegoat. She never fought the blame; she just accepted it, thinking she deserved it. If they didn't want to believe in a demon that might be headed their way to find her, they could write it off as a serial killer, or her father perhaps lot his mind, or even blame Drusilla. It was a lot less frightening when the villain was human. It's a shame that meant everyone was less prepared, as scarcely a quarter of them actually believed in the demon Drusilla feared.

Drusilla was given nine days, they told her, pray the novena, and then we'll all have a great mass and welcome you as one of us. Sister Margaret normally didn't let anyone into the convent this quickly, but she could already see how damaged Drusilla was. She knew the girl needed something, and right now she had nothing. So Drusilla said her prayers, in her room every day, let the tears flow as she did, because this was just like who she was, and the girl she had been had suffered so much, it hurt to remember. It hurt to pretend she was the same, but she did, in the blind hopes that if she could redeem herself, she could have her family back, Miss Edith, anyone. She just had to pray that God would protect her. She knew he would. She knew he would. Right? The demon couldn't possibly have more power than God.

But blind hopes couldn't stop the dreams. Every night, she fell asleep, and had the same dream, of the demon's wicked, damning hands, and the church, the same church, complete with stained-glass saints condemning her. They condemned her for inviting a demon into their midst, for giving herself to the demon—as if he wasn't just forcibly taking what he pleased, whispering even more damning things into one ear. The stained-glass saints reminded her that she could never be anything in this society after what he was doing, as she pleaded with them to help her, do something, they just kept telling her, all the Holy water in the church couldn't wash her soul clean. Clean of what, of this? This wasn't her fault. This was happening with or without—preferably without her wanting any of it. This wasn't her fault. Wasn't but the stars laughed and the saints condemned and Angelus said wicked things until she would wake screaming, and start her prayers, heart racing from sheer terror.

And Angelus would always come by at night, seeing her pleading and begging, smirking at the way she plead, the way, sometimes she would cry a little in her dreams, the tears barely slipping past her closed eyelids. He liked it when she cried; watching the tears fall as she said a lot of the same words, no, stop, please. Those were words Angelus liked to hear. Once, she actually heard her say his name, followed by "please, I'll do whatever you want, just stop." That pleased him. He was going to enjoy breaking her greatly, if this was just what she said in her dreams. He could be far more evil than her dreams could even try to be. And it would happen, he realized on the eighth night, tomorrow night. Nine days he'd waited, her bruises hadn't even healed yet, let alone the mental damage. He went back early that night, to ensure Darla knew where they were going the next night. He would break this seer.

The ninth morning was deceptively peaceful. Drusilla should have known by the deceptively pleasant feeling, and be the shrieking the banshee star had never stopped making, that today would be full of bloodshed. It was just like the morning before her family had died, she woke feeling better than she had in any of the past eight days, and spent the morning in prayer, before going down to actually eat the soup they provided her for lunch, finding that she'd finally regained her appetite. Either that or, after eight days of eating a couple sips of soup and nothing more before feeling ill, her body had decided that it wanted food. And the soup was good, so for once she actually finished a bowl of it, and then sat outside, sketching a little. Predictably, her sketching took a morbid turn as she drew the church she'd seen in every nightmare she'd had since her family had died. She looked down at the drawing in shame, seeing in the eyes of the stained-glass saints that same condemnation she'd grown up with form the stained-glass saints back at home.

That's when she learned just how much danger she was in. One of the other nuns, Sister Camille, who was among the youngest, merely a year older than Drusilla sat down, looking at the drawing. "So, you have seen our church. Beautiful, isn't it?" Our church. Our church? The place of her nightmares was their church. Those hadn't been nightmares, she couldn't feel nightmares, and nightmares didn't happen in places that existed that she'd never before seen. Those where visions, she realized, her stomach giving a sick turn. Those were visions, and in that moment, her decision became between trying for salvation, with a chance of destruction, or living with the darkness in her soul, letting her family stay asleep. Had it only been about her soul, she wouldn't have done it, but this was about her family, about getting them back. How could she not risk it?

How could she not risk it? She could save her family, but she wasn't going into it naively any more. She knew, this time that this was all or nothing, she'd either get everything that had been taken from her back, or lose it all. All she could do was focus on the former, the happier side of things. Mummy would be so proud of her, for risking so much to save them, and maybe Cecelia could bring George back with her, so they could finally be married. Then, Anne and Christian and their daughter could be together still and Uncle Robert could bring his wife back, and Miss Edith would come home. She had a bowl of icing waiting for her. And maybe then, the man she'd thought would save her, the one with golden hair, the sun to her moon would come around and she too could be happy, walking off into the sunset with him and his words. And while, one day, she would find a poet, there would be no sunset for them, and certainly no family. As Drusilla dressed herself in her new habit, she never even gave a thought to what would happen if the demon was there, if her visions came true. She did take one precaution, asking Sister Margaret to bring a cloak, for in case the demon was there and she would have to leave to protect the rest of them.

So Drusilla went to the ceremonial mass, not able to look up the entire time, seeing those same saints on the walls, judging and condemning her. The mass went on without interruption of the demonic kind, and just as Drusilla was about to leave, now a nun, wondering how soon God would return her family to her, she heard a door slam and the first nun to leave scream loudly, ending in a cut-off, gurgling noise. A figure from her nightmares walked in, smirking wickedly, blood coating his lips. "Am I too late for the part where we make objections?" he asked, closing the door dramatically behind him. Drusilla screamed, looking around her at the other sisters of mercy, who looked confused. "Oh, right. That's weddings," he reminded himself.

Drusilla cowered, whispering to Sister Camille that she'd had a vision, and this was the demon. Sister Camille was one of the few who'd believed her, but she shook her head, "Sister Drusilla, surely not. This man looks more like the angels there," she pointed to the stained glass in the skylight, which depicted angels in flight, around a saviour. Sister Camille may have been a year older than Drusilla, but she felt younger, she acted like someone of her age, where Drusilla had the air of someone a lot older than she was. Camille was naïve, and Angelus preyed on the naïve. Angelus smirked, walking up the rows of pews, seeing if he could spot her as Drusilla tried to cram herself into the pew, hide in the little hollow region beneath it.

Angelus decides to questioning Camille first, forcibly lifting the girl from her spot on the end of the pew. "Have you seen Drusilla anywhere? I wanted to celebrate with her." maybe Camille missed his lascivious grin, but Drusilla didn't. She couldn't miss the double entendre to his words, or the predatory glint in his eyes, and one of the older nuns, Sister Martha walked down to him, suggesting calmly that he put Camille down this instant, because this was a house of God, and such things were not tolerated here. He snapped her neck, quickly, matter of factly. "Well, Drusilla, how many more of them do I have to kill before you'll come and face me? How many more people are going to die for you before you finally come out?" he demanded.

Drusilla stood up shakily, from the bench. "Let them go, Angelus. It's me you wanted, not them, so let them go." She said the words sadly, resignedly. Angelus smirked, dropping Camille and pulling Drusilla close to him, no one moved, including Drusilla herself, trapped in a parody of a lover's embrace with the demon who destroyed her family. He set her down on the pew, picking Camille up, again. Drusilla closed her eyes and Angelus grabbed her face, clutching it and turning it hard, trying to force her eyes open. This was going to be like a bigger version of the bloodshed that had happened at her home, to her family, except that, if her visions were anything to go by, he'd spare her nothing. That was what she deserved. She had come here. The nuns had taken her in, shown her kindness. In return she'd only doomed them all.

Angelus smirked down at Drusilla, "no, that's not how this works. You don't get to be a sacrifice, or a martyr. You did this. You doomed them all by coming here," he sank his fangs into Camille, letting his face shift as he did. Camille made a light "oh" like sound, her eyes widening as he drank, until eventually, they fell closed, and he dropped her body. Then, chaos rang out as the second body fell, and Drusilla ran up to the front of the church, hoping to buy the rest of the nuns some time. She did, as Angelus caught her at the front and three nuns tried to escape. They were young, had lives ahead of them. One tripped in the carpet, but two of them escaped. Two out of seventy or eighty, but they were two not killed by this demon. Angelus found the third, one who had almost escaped, and slashed at her, catching her ankle as she got up. He lashed out, seizing her and practically throwing her down. Her screams made it more full for him, as he tortured this one a little more before killing her brutally.

This time, Drusilla did close her eyes through the screams that rang out around her, as Angelus killed everyone left in there, some quickly, the ones who sobbed and begged him not to hurt him. Anyone who tried to stop him though or anyone who fought back, they suffered. The screaming didn't stop. Drusilla curled up into a ball, crying brokenly, wanting the screaming to stop. She just wanted it to stop, whether or not that meant dying. She was fine with dying, so long as the screaming would go away. What did she have to live for? Anyone even helping her, displaying a hint of human kindness would be killed by the demon, and she knew what he would soon do to her. The last scream was cut off by a sick tearing sound, and there was silence as Drusilla took a slight peek around her, seeing if it was yet safe to open her eyes. She wished she hadn't. She sat at the very front of the church, pressed against the stained glass window.

The rest of the church looked like a horror story, like a demon had ravaged it. Pews had been thrown, and lay thrown, broken, the light wood stained red, the green carpet also stained with blood. There was blood everywhere, even tracked up the stone walls, splattered into the tapestries, bodies everywhere. Angelus smirked, wiping a bit of blood off his hands onto the stone, leaving handprints. "Remember when I told you if you closed your eyes, everyone in here would suffer?" he asked, something wicked flashing in his eyes as Drusilla backed against the wall, fear in her eyes. "Don't you think you deserve to suffer by now, causing all these deaths? All the holy water in this church wouldn't be enough to wash your soul clean," he reminded her, mockingly, gesturing to the fountain, which was full of blood, and had Sister Amelia sticking out of it.

Drusilla caved and collapsed against the wall, tears streaming from her eyes. "I deserve this," she said softly. She started to sob, thinking about all the lives that would have been saved if she'd just taken her own. If she'd died, seventy or eighty nuns and nine family members could be all still alive. She deserved what the demon would do to her, deserved it for letting them all die. She wasn't good. She had darkness in her soul, and she needed that out, but it wouldn't come out. Perhaps, the only way was to die, to stop letting others die. She looked up at him in fear, knowing that he was going to break her, destroy her first, seeing the condemnation already in the eyes of the stained-glass saints. She'd caused all this death, and she deserved what he would do to her.

That was when his sire had to arrive. Drusilla just perceived a blonde woman entering the room, Angelus greeting her as she screamed about the black sky, like the black rage in his eyes. She was terrified of what she'd felt in her visions, what she knew was coming. The other woman in here, the blonde might just be the only way out, but Drusilla realized with a pang that she couldn't be. She was kissing him, like she would kiss someone she loved. Love, no, that was what he called her when she got here, "love". Drusilla started to sob, seeing her only chance at escape kissing the demon. Oh, she was tainted, just as tainted as the stained-glass saints would have her believe as she tried to hide in the corner. "No!" she gasped, seeing something burning in Angelus's eyes "No make it stop!" she cried out as the stars started to tell her about the centuries she'd spend with them. It doesn't stop. Centuries. Centuries. It wouldn't stop, the woman demanded to know why Drusilla was there, and Drusilla wanted to know that as well. She wondered why Angelus couldn't just kill her, couldn't make it stop. It had to stop.

Whatever Angelus's next words were, they were lost through the scream that shot through Drusilla's head as he pulled the woman close and pushed the pair of them to the ground, that look burning in his eyes, Drusilla scooted back until she was pressed against the stained-glass window, it's respective saint condemning her still. "eyes like arrows," she described the way he looked, the malice in his eyes almost hysterically, "like—like needles," she shuddered, screams, probably her own still shooting around in her head as she tried to get as far from him as she could. She pitied that woman beneath him. He would hurt her, and then Drusilla, just like the visions, because he all he did was hurt, because Angelus liked to destroy them. He liked pain. He kissed her again. Drusilla knew that the woman couldn't be human. She was kissing the demon. Perhaps she sold her soul. Maybe that's why she could love someone who killed like he did.

She shook as the demon couple continued their fun, kissing and trying to tune her out so they could celebrate their success. "Snake in the woodshed," she said quietly as they continued, not even breaking apart to notice. She repeated it again, thinking that she should warn the other woman, in case she didn't know what Angelus was going to do, how much it would hurt. She knew it would hurt. The visions had never gotten that far, but she knew it would. It was supposed to hurt because it was wrong. The snake was never supposed to slip into the woodshed, but when the snake was a demon, no one could tell it where to go. She repeated it two more times, trying to protect the other woman who rolled them over, still kissing him, only interrupted by the final, loudest time that Drusilla tried hysterically to warn her.

The woman took a deep breath, trying to steady herself, asking Angelus if they were going to kill 'her' during or after. Drusilla didn't understand. She knew she was going to die, and hopefully if this one did it and not Angelus, she wouldn't suffer as much. But how could she want him, want the demon like she seemed to? Drusilla didn't like it, but she knew what was coming for her. It wasn't going to be like this. She would fight and scream and hate him the whole time, because he would have to do it against her will. The other woman, the stars liked to call her Darla, gasped dramatically, when Angelus sat up, as though his movement had… no. No, it couldn't be. "Neither. We turn her into one of us—Killing is so merciful at the end, isn't it? The pain has ended." He looked over at the sobbing Drusilla. She would be a masterpiece; he'd still barely touched her and he'd already broken her quite well. What was the point to such beautiful torture though, if they were just going to kill her in the end? No, something like this deserved to be immortalised, so he could always remember what he'd done, fondly. Not to mention, as a seer, she'd be of use. No, death was merciful for her, so the only death she'd get would be the one that would make her live forever.

Darla sighed, "But to make her one of us? She's a lunatic." She really didn't understand why they needed anyone else to join them. They feared nothing, what would they even need a seer for? Assuming this one could even tell them what she saw, which seemed unlikely, given that she was barely able to speak now, and Angelus had barely started. "Eternal torment," he said softly, almost reverently, like it was something he should be proud of. Then, he flipped himself and Darla, wanting to be back on top of his sire. She may have made him, but it was obvious who was in charge here... "Am I learning?" he asked Darla, making a light noise in his throat, when he felt his sire. But first, he had something to do. He looked up at the girl in the room, realizing he and Darla were practically in her lap. Darla just sighed, getting up and deciding to leave Angelus to it, knowing that he was having a lot of fun with his little game.

Angelus smirked, looking at Drusilla, arrows and needles still cutting her with his gaze. He tore at her habit, his sharp nails also slicing into her flesh, causing her little surges of pain as he tore it methodically away from her, revealing her to him. She felt sick, and vulnerable, and parts of her stung from his nails cutting into her. She sobbed, knowing this was what she deserved. She deserved to suffer and then die. She deserved everything he would do. Anyone who could allow this many people to die deserved to be violently destroyed. He bit her neck, hard, but not with his fangs, drawing a bit of blood. He smirked at her taste. Oh, she tasted great… Pure and sweet and innocent. Her blood was like fine wine was to humans, except for the destructive impulses it raised in him. By the end of this, her blood would taste different, darker. Angelus stood up, flicking open the button that held his pants on. He shoved her brutally to the ground, letting her see the stained-glass saints, looking down at her disgustedly, accusing her of giving herself to a demon. She wasn't giving him anything. Everything Angelus had taken from her, would take from her, would be against her will, but still they blamed her.

Angelus smirked, tossing the habit away, not that it had been fully torn from her body. "Modest never suited you, lover," he remarked, letting a nail slice up, across the top of her breast, biting the already bruised flesh as he drank her blood. She screamed in pain, trying to push him off of her, begging him to stop as his damning hands roughly explored her body, and she stained-glass saints all agreed she was impure. They accused her of letting a demon touch her, taste her blood. But she wasn't letting him, she was sobbing, trying desperately to let him off of her, her nails raked at him, tearing his shirt on occasion, trying to get him to stop. Maybe if she could hurt him he would stop. She raked her long nails down a small rip at the back of his shirt. He cursed loudly, retaliating by raking his nails down her prone body, smirking when she screamed.

***"You can scream all you like," he said darkly, "no one's going to hear." Then, she felt him, suddenly inside her, in a way that felt like he was going to tear her apart, and he just smirked down at her, hearing her screaming in pain, sobbing as he violated her. She felt sickened and defiled and it hurt like she would imagine being torn to pieces would feel like. He wiped away one tear, licking it off his finger, savouring the salty taste of her agony. God, were they always this tight at first, he wondered. And were they always this loud? Her screaming was incredible. She plead for mercy, looking up at him through the tears that streamed down her face, "Please, stop. Please!' her voice broke as she begged him not to hurt her any more than he already had. She just wanted the torment to end, but she couldn't make it stop.

Angelus smirked, making a bit of a growling sound that implied how much he was enjoying this. His eyes shut as he forced his way darker, and she tried valiantly to push him off, sobbing as she did. He just opened his eyes, angry that she'd ruined the moment, and shoved her down forcefully, digging his nails into her shoulders as he brutally kept going, growling when words deserted him. Angelus always liked it best when they struggled weakly, not enough so that it interrupted him, but not quite just resigned to their fate. Drusilla just sobbed, clawing at him, trying to make the pain stop as she screamed for help, for mercy, for something. The stained-glass saints just told her that she was filthy, impure. They were quick to tell her that she was wrong, that she wasn't good any more. She didn't understand, but it was the only response she got. Here she was, being destroyed by a demon who was an angel in name and face, condemned by stained-glass saints. She called for the saviour she'd always prayed to, getting no help. He didn't even get off his cross at the front of the room, didn't spare her a glance. Then she begged the real kind of angels, though none would get their wings dirty saving her.

When that didn't work, Drusilla called for the Lord, but no help was given to her. She was never saved. No one ever came for her. She whimpered when she felt his wicked hands beginning to explore her vulnerable body. She tried begging for anyone, looking to human kindness to save her, and no one came. She screamed until her throat burned and it was just a little more pain on top of what Angelus inflicted, who'd arched and caused the pain to shoot through her. She sobbed harder, whimpering as it hit her that no one would save her. No one would even try. Finally, she begged him for mercy, knowing Angelus was in control. They would stop if Angelus decided to stop, but no one else could stop them. She begged him to stop, that she'd do whatever he wanted, just stop. He rewarded her with a vivid, twisted description of what he'd have her do, and she balked. If felt like he was slowly tearing her insides apart, but what he'd described sounded worse.

He cried out loudly, and she cringed, feeling utterly disgusting as she felt… she wasn't going to think about what she just felt. The saints were all over it already, telling her that she wasn't a good little virgin like all the other nuns, telling her she was going to end up having his demon spawn, as she deserved. How did she deserve any of this? How? The saints were condemning her. How had she ever thought that they'd ever stop, that any of this could stop? The world wasn't made to stop, it was made to go. But she was meant to stop. She broke down and begged him to kill her. She couldn't take any more, not the brutal torture he was causing her, nor the stained-glass saints condemning her, nor the stars laughing and babbling. She needed an ending. Angelus stood up, Drusilla's eyes fluttering shut when the pain diminished considerably. He looked down at her, a small smirk forming. ***

Drusilla crawled to the altar, feeling a surge of pain as she forced herself into a standing position, telling herself to be strong. There was a large knife in there, used for… well, she was never certain, it was probably ceremonial only, but it was about to be used. Drusilla took the knife and, instead of going to stab Angelus, as he'd expected, she trembled as she pressed the blade to her own neck, drawing a thin line of blood. Drusilla had always been told that the lord always forbid a person to take their own life, but this wasn't living, this was being alive, and at the cost of everything, everyone who'd been close to her, herself. This was going to cost her everything. So, suicide was a sin, but the stars whispered to her, some agreeing that letting the demon win would be a greater one.

Angelus seized the knife from Drusilla's quivering hand. This one was brave, and still wouldn't dare cross him, wouldn't dare take that same knife and try to stick it inside him. He let his face shift and sank his fangs hard into her neck, relishing the little shriek she made, one that faded into a whimper. She didn't fight him as he drained her, and then cut his own wrist and forced his neck to her mouth, forcing some of his blood down her throat as the world went dark on the edges and she closed her eyes and finally let herself sleep. And finally gave up the fight and accepted death… The pain was stopping, and she could already feel herself stilling, as she saw something white and shiny soar through the air. Was that her soul? It looked like a little birdie, a pretty little dove. So she hadn't been evil after all?

And it was quiet, and dark. Was forever like home, sitting all alone? It was better than the pain of living. And then it faded, and she could feel something, a new strength. She got up, looking at herself, feeling the scars on her body, sticky with blood and shrouded barely by her torn off habit. She looked around, seeing that she was still in the convent. She sat back down, dejectedly, "is this Hell?" she asked softly, feeling two round punctures on her neck, the mark of a demon and an angel. She walked to the fountain, seeing that most of the blood had been cleansed from the holy water within. "Father, forgive me, for I have sinned," she said softly. The stained-glass saints jeered, daring her to do it, telling her it would make no difference. She ignored a burning sensation on her collarbone for a moment, to gingerly dip a toe into the Holy water, hissing as she saw steam, wincing as she jolted back to discover that she still hurt from Angelus's torture. She would never forget, soul or no soul, who she was, what he did. He destroyed her.

The stained-glass saints just reminded her that it was what she deserved. Drusilla took a look at all the windows, all the saints who would always condemn her, as they called her a demon, told her she wasn't worthy to stand here in their church. She hissed softly, they didn't understand. They didn't understand how she'd changed, how she'd had to, to survive, how she'd never asked for any of this. She lashed out, kicking at one of them, feeling an unfamiliar strength rip through her as she connected with the glass, hearing a satisfying crunch as it shattered. "I'm not. You never understood!" she punched a hand through another window, "you could have saved me from all of this!" she accosted the next window, punching straight through it, her hand bled from the glass cutting her, but that pain was nothing after what she'd been through.

Drusilla realized after looking down that her habit was doing absolutely nothing to cover her, so she stole a cloak that sister Margaret had left there, her one precaution, tying Miss Edith's ribbon around her to hold it on. Then, looking like the bringer of death, the grim reaper, she faced the next saints, decimating all she could reach from where she stood, shattering glass and condemnation, expectations. Drusilla wasn't who she'd thought, maybe she wasn't good now, but she had been then, she'd watched her own lily-white soul float away like a birdie. Now, she was what this bad world made her. And oh, would she bring it to its knees, break their wold as it had broken her. She would break this world like she broke the stained-glass saints. She threw a piece of a pew up at the final panel of stained-glass in the ceiling, smirking as it shattered. The only angels in such a godless world were angels in name alone.

Satisfied with her deliverance from who she was form the tyranny of the stained-glass saints, Drusilla turned to leave, still feeling that burn at her collarbone. She probed it experimentally and found her cross, the one she'd worn as a human. She tore it off, smirking, tossing it back into the church as she went to go collect her doll, Miss Edith, as she decided she would name her, leaving behind that bloody, painful night, that painful life. But she never entirely would. A part of her would always resent the demon named for the angels, and his mate Darla. A part of her could never forget what he did to her, who she could have been. She'd shattered the stained-glass saints, but it was a long twenty years before anyone pulled that part of her from the wreckage… a long, dark twenty years, full of letting herself burn to dull the memories when they rose. But soon, she would meet her poet. Soon, it would all fade away, and she wouldn't feel it anymore.