The Ghost's Curse
Chapter Fourteen
The night was cool—or what passed for cool in southern California, at least. Which, come to think of it, was bloody warm. Good thing vampires weren't really bothered by the temperature. Spike put out his cigarette on one of the gravestones. Drusilla had asked him to come here; he didn't know why. She was sitting on the crumbling wall of the decaying churchyard.
Samara had stayed back at the hotel with Angel. Spike wasn't sure why Drusilla hadn't wanted her to come with them—they'd barely left each others side since Samara had been resurrected. They'd had to go shopping earlier, having had no food. Something Drusilla had forgotten again. Spike chuckled slightly at the thought of Angel trying to take care of Samara. He was still scared of her. And Angel barely even knew what there was to be afraid of, not like Spike did. If anyone was afraid, it should be him.
"You gonna tell me why we came out here?" Spike asked. They'd been standing out here for almost half an hour, and Drusilla had barely spoken. She was just looking out into the distance, as if there was something she could see that was nothing but air to Spike.
"Can you see the stars?" she asked, still not clarifying.
"'Course I can, love. Sky's clear as anything out here, in the middle of nowhere. No pollution, or whatever," Spike said.
"They sing to me…" she whispered.
"I can't hear them."
Spike walked over to her and sat beside her. He placed his hand over hers, savouring the silken feel of her cold skin. A long time ago, he would have done a lot more than just touched her hand, but it had been a long time since they'd been together. He felt strangely cautious.
They sat there in silence, watching the sky. Spike might not be able to hear the stars like Drusilla said she could, but he could see them. Tiny specks, light-years away, far more visible than they ever would be within the glowing city.
There was so much more they still needed to talk about. They had changed so much. Spike had even got a soul. They could never go back to how they had been. Before... before any of this had happened. Everything was too different. But he wanted to. He wanted to turn back time, for everything to be the way it had been before they'd ever even gone to Sunnydale.
But he couldn't do that. He had to be realistic. Sure, they seemed to be getting along fine so far. They hadn't had any big rows at least. But that didn't mean anything. Things were too different. They were too different. Not just compared to how they'd been before, but compared to each other now. They used to be so similar as to be the same. But now they were separate, they were different. Spike fought demons. Drusilla was one of them. They couldn't just go back.
"What did we come out here for, pet?" Spike asked again.
Drusilla answered him this time, not avoiding the question with more talk about the stars. "I wanted to get out. Out of that nasty hotel. I don't like it there. Angel's always there."
"Well, he does live there," Spike said. "Much as we might wish he didn't."
"And I wanted to be with you."
"That so?" He frowned, caught of guard. Why did she want to see him? He thought she'd only gone to him so he could help Samara, but maybe there was something else. Maybe she really did want to see him again. Be a family again, like she'd said that last time they'd seen each other back in Sunnydale. Could that work? He wanted it to. More than anything, he wanted it to. But he wasn't sure of it at all.
"Do you still think about her?" Drusilla asked, looking up at him.
"Who's that?" Spike asked, but he didn't have to. He knew who she meant. Buffy Summers, the Slayer. The girl who had haunted his dreams every day back in Sunnydale. The woman who had fought by his side. The one he had died for.
It wasn't like they could forget about her. She wasn't someone Spike could just forget about—she meant too much to him.
"Yeah," he said, after a silence that was too long. "Yeah, of course I think about her. She meant a lot to me. I can't forget her. Like I could never forget you, either, when I was with her. You're not the same. The way I feel about each of you—it's not the same. But it's just as strong."
"You loved her."
"Yeah."
"How long did it take you to notice?" Drusilla asked.
Spike blinked. "Er... I guess it was..." He tried hard to think. It was hard to remember the exact moment, but something came to him. "It was a little while after I'd got back to Sunnydale again, after... I went to the Initiative with Harmony, to try and get my chip out. And that night... I had a dream. It made me realise. Can't believe it was the first thing that did. Like you said once—you knew before I did. "
"That's right," Dru said.
She went quiet again. Spike didn't dare speak. He didn't know what to say. A hundred years together, and now he couldn't even think what to say to her. It was fucking irritating. A disgrace, that's what it was. He should be able to say exactly what he needed to say to her. But he couldn't think of a single word she'd actually want to hear.
He reached for her. She didn't move away, and let him put his arms around her. For a moment, he could almost pretend things were how they had used to be. Before any of this. But it was only pretending. They were still nearly as far apart as they had been since Drusilla had left him after he'd helped Buffy.
Samara glared down at the food on the plate in front of her. She poked at it with her fork. None of it was trying to attack her. But it didn't taste edible either.
"What is this?" she asked the vampire, Angel.
"It's food, I guess," he said.
"Yeah, but what food?"
"Um... I think the green stuff is spinach. And there's rice. And little bits of chicken."
"Is the green stuff edible?"
"It should be..."
"It tastes poisonous. Does that mean I don't have to eat it?"
"I'm pretty sure spinach is edible. It's supposed to be good for you. Did you never eat spinach back at home?"
"Sometimes... But that was a long time ago."
Angel frowned. Samara wondered what he was thinking. Spike and Drusilla hadn't told him who she was yet. He thought she was just a normal girl. He couldn't work out why she kept acting so strange. She ate another forkful of the horrible-tasting green stuff, then ate a bit of the chicken and rice. They tasted much better.
The door opened and Samara turned around. Spike and Drusilla walked in together.
"Where'd you go?" Angel asked them as they walked over.
"Out," Spike said, sitting down beside Angel. Drusilla sat beside Samara.
"I got you a present!" Drusilla said. Samara looked up.
"What is it?" she asked.
Drusilla shook her head. "Can't give it to you yet. You have to finish your dinner first."
Samara shovelled another lot of the green stuff down her throat, followed by more chicken. She hadn't realised how hungry she'd been. It was a long time since she'd needed food. Ghost's didn't need to eat. They definitely didn't have to eat soggy green spinach. She finished eating, finishing off the last of the rice and chicken.
"Now you can have your present!" Drusilla said, clapping her hands. "Where did I put it?"
"It's in my coat pocket, love. You gave it to me for safekeeping, remember?" Spike reached into his pocket and took out a small, rectangular object, which he pushed along the table to Samara.
She picked it up. It wasn't anything that special, but it was something Samara hadn't had in a long time. A chocolate bar. She hadn't been given treats like this often back at home, and when she was a ghost... well, no one gave a ghost chocolate, did they?
She opened it up and bit into it, relishing the taste. It was a lot better than the other food she had eaten. Especially the yucky green stuff. She didn't eat all of it—she was going to save the rest for later. It wouldn't be good to waste it all in one go.
"Where did you go?" Samara asked.
Spike answered, "Just a few miles outside of town, to this old abandoned church."
"You were gone a while," Samara said.
"Yeah. We had a lot to talk about." there was something in his expression that confused Samara a bit. She wasn't very good at reading emotions except fear, but he almost seemed... guilty, maybe? Or just upset. Samara couldn't tell. But there was something. Something he was trying to keep to himself. An emotion he didn't want Drusilla or Angel to know. What was it?
The girl was afraid already, constantly looking over her shoulder. Who could blame her? A dark, quiet night like this. Not time for someone so young to be all alone. And with nowhere else to go... She stopped at the road, looking both ways to make sure there were no cars coming, before walking on across.
Damien almost laughed, but held himself back. That would alert her to his presence. How funny that she could worry about a car hitting her when her doom was far closer. He followed after her, once he was certain he was out of sight. He'd been tailing her for a while. He could just rush straight towards her whenever he wanted, but this was so much more fun sometimes. The anticipation of something was sometimes just as good as the thing itself.
She turned, taking a shortcut through an alley. Damien shook his head. How stupid could she be? He followed, silent as a cat stalking a mouse. He was getting closer to her. He could almost touch her. He let his features morph and bared his fangs as he prepared to attack.
The girl stopped walking. She turned around and crossed her arms, suddenly seeming more angry than afraid. She looked younger up close like this—maybe fourteen or fifteen. There was fire in her wide, brown eyes, but the slight tremble of her lip gave her away. "What are you doing here, Damien?"
Damien widened his eyes. She knew his name. He'd never even seen her before and she knew his name. "Who are you?"
"I'm Annie," she said.
"No, I don't mean you're name. I mean who are you, how do you know my name?"
"I know Rider. From the coven."
"Coven? You're a witch?"
Annie shrugged. "No. More of a pretty dabbler, really. I can levitate a pencil. And that is the total sum of my magical prowess."
Now that she had spoken a bit more, Damien could tell that she was English, like Spike. He trusted her even less with that information. "You're a long way from home, aren't you? What are you doing out here?"
"None of your business," she snapped. She was trying to seem powerful, in control, but her voice cracked at the end of the phrase, betraying her fear. She tried to walk away, but Damien grabbed her wrist, breaking it. She cried out in pain, tears coming to her eyes. Damien pushed her to the ground and she fell to her knees like a ragdoll, cradling her broken wrist. Damien kneeled down to her level, holding her close to him. She tensed up, frozen.
"Did you really think you could just walk away?" Damien whispered into her ear. She recoiled, trying to get away, but Damien was too strong. A perfectly human teenager could never be a match for him.
"No. But it's worth trying, right?" Annie said, her words almost buried beneath her sobs.
"Not really. If the result is just going to be the same, why bother fighting? Why not just give up?" He looked into her tear-filled eyes. They were red and swollen. Her face was a mess. He brushed her hair behind her ear and she grimaced.
Damien leaned in, ready to bite her. He felt the soft skin of her neck, her hair tickling at his face, soft as silk. He bit down, tearing her flesh apart, and sucking the blood out greedily. She screamed in pain, her voice quickly growing hoarse. Soon, her screams turned to whimpers as her life was drawn out of her. Damien could still feel her trying to fight as she grew silent.
He looked down at her, lying there on the ground beneath him, still holding onto life, gasping out breath that couldn't save her. He hadn't drained her completely, so she was still bleeding. The blood ran from her neck and over her collar, quickly soaking her clothes. Damien leaned in close to her face, so close he could feel her weakening breath. It seemed a waste to kill this one.
Barely knowing what he was doing, Damien lifted his own wrist to his mouth and ripped into it, opening the vein so the blood flowed out. Slower than a human's, but enough. He put his wrist to Annie's lips for her to drink. She hardly did, at first, like she didn't want to. Hopes of not becoming a monster like him, he supposed. But she gave in soon. Her will to live was too great. She sucked the blood greedily, like she was drowning and Damien was offering his hand to her. And then, she closed her eyes.
Damien spent a moment looking at her, then picked her up and started to carry her back. He put his coat over her, trying to hide the blood at her neck, all over her. Couldn't do much about his own blood on her mouth, but her hair was in her face. He was sure passers-by would just assume he was helping his drunk girlfriend get home. They wouldn't notice that neither of them were breathing.