In the end, getting the journals had been very easy. Sarah's sister had expected someone to be picking them up and just handed them over.
Spike was headed back to Sunnydale from L.A., the box of journals in the back seat of a car he had liberated earlier. He was glad it was a short trip so that it could be made in one night.. The police just got too suspicious when the windows of a car were taped up. And getting out and mucking about in the sun was never good for his skin. Besides which it bloody well hurt.
The trip proved uneventful. The hardest part was getting the journals into his underground tunnel. After bashing his hand on a protruding rock for the third time in his last trip down, he regretted that he hadn't just liberated a laptop for Sarah earlier. It would have been so much easier to carry than the large boxes. It took the rest of the fading night to put the journals in order. "Right," he said to himself, "looks like I have a bit of reading to do."
His show "Passions" would not be on for a while so he picked one of the volumes at random and made his way back upstairs to settle himself to read.
"July 4th, 1977
My dancer sought me out tonight. He has fed. I can always tell when he has fed well. His color was almost that of a living person and his touch, though brief against my hand, still carried the warmth of humanity. I know it should disgust me but it doesn't.
He was agitated and pacing and a little angry that he couldn't find Dru. It's just his way lately to act and dress like the punk bands that have come into being. The energy suits him. But Dru is still an old-fashioned type gal, if that can be said about a vampire, and thought she still seems to have a lot of affection for Midnight she spends more time away from him than she did in the past.
It is good that Dru is not with him tonight. It is easier when she is not here. I feel as if I am in a constant battle of wills with her and I am uncomfortable around her. She is much more the killer than my midnight, takes much more delight in the torture of small and helpless things. I think she would have killed me years ago except for the fact that I simulate horror at the deeds she tells and put up with the crazy things she says. I am surprised that she hasn't noticed that I am not really horrified anymore.
When midnight finally sat he said it was time for me to learn how a vampire is made, or at least how he was made. It is a story I have asked him to tell before but for his own reasons he picks his own time to tell me his past.
I will tell the tale here as best I can from what he told me, as I have always done, and as usual I will add remarks and observations as the story progresses. My midnight is always truthful about the killings but sometimes not so truthful about what he is feeling. It is well that he wears his thoughts on his face and that he will usually admit truth when questioned. I don't know why this should be so but it is.
It was 1880 and he had been to a party for Cecily Adams. All the talk that night was about the gristly discovery of some bodies that afternoon. His interest lay in a more celestial area, that of the lovely Cecily Adams. He said he composed a poem for her. He quoted it to me but I have forgotten the exact words. Except for the word "effulgent". It was read aloud at the party and not received very well.
He said he sat later with the lovely Cecily and declared his love. It must have been a very humiliating moment for him, as she not only turned him down she told him that he was " beneath her."
"Too bloody right, that bitch" muttered Spike and settled down further in the chair. Another half hour until "Passions".
"After that scene he left the party to return to his mothers' home. He said he didn't pay attention to where he was and finally sat down to think. That was when his life changed. He was approached by a woman, the woman I know as Dru. She asked him, though not in so many words, if he wanted a life change and he accepted. She made him a vampire that night. Midnight went into great detail about how wonderful and how awful it had felt. Dying, he said is very overrated by religion. Being reborn, however, is a whole different thing. He told of the extraordinary strength he felt, and of the acuity of he other senses. Just his hearing, he said, fascinated him. He could hear people moving in their houses, could hear their blood flow through their veins. And how he hungered. (He was pacing at this point.)
He told me about his first victim, just a man passing in the night. Dru had to help him hold the man as he was not yet adept at the movements needed. He said he thought that drinking the blood might be sickening but found that it wasn't. It was exciting and exhilarating but it was the fear that added to the satisfaction, to the experience of life and death.. And so it has been ever since for him.
Dru, never one not to hold a grudge, believed a wrong had been committed against her new creation. She told him that it was time for revenge. With his new found sense of power and, of course, the loss of his soul he agreed. William said that he wanted to track down the men from the party and make then pay but Dru insisted that he make his first target Cecily. She insisted that they go straight from his first kill.
The ease of movement, the race through the city, all were new and exciting. He said Dru made it a game. Dashing past people who were not aware of them, spooking horses into flight. When the two reached Cecily's house, Dru told him he must go to the door and get someone to invite them in.
Despite the late hour the servant did admit them and asked them to wait in the library while he fetched Cecily. When he returned Dru took him aside and killed him-she wanted no interruptions for the nights business.
Cecily did come down after a while and was angry that he had come to her door. And this is where my Midnight began to have trouble with the story. He said that Dru did something then although he wasn't sure what. He said he only had partial memories of the things that happened here. He seems very uncomfortable at this point. I asked him what was wrong but he shook his head, lit another cigarette and continued with the narrative.
He said "I think I had sex with the bitch (Cecily), and I think I killed her."
I just want to elaborate here myself. He said it just like that. But I do believe he was troubled about this. From his
earlier statement it seems that as a human he was probably a sensitive young gentleman of low means. As I have
observed in the past, the change from human to a vampire is very profound but each can only grow with what they were
given to begin with. Going from this it is hard to believe he was a totally willing participant in what would have been a
rape. It was not something he practiced in his former life and is not something that would have occurred to him when
being a newly made vampire was an experience in and of itself. I did question this later and will relay the information
further on.
He was introduced to Dru's other two companions. Over the next two nights he visited the houses of the men who had ridiculed his poetry. He extracted his revenge by first drinking much of their blood weakening them and then pounding a railroad spike through the top of their heads while they were awake. Actually, it was a railroad spike through a book of Shakespeare and then into the head. He detailed the begging and screams for me here. I believe that he enjoyed himself immensely.
He said the authorities were making it rough for anyone out at night. It appears that one of the party crowd remembered the incident with his poetry, noted his disappearance and put two and two together. The four tried to hide out in a section of town where he wasn't known, but a broadsheet was put out and it became too dangerous for them to be out at night and too hard to find a place to be safe in the day.
I don't know if the authorities could have caught them. I don't know if they would have recognized them as vampires or not, but the four decided to take no chances and booked passage out of England.
And that, he said, is the long and short of it.
It was here that I started to question him about Cecily."
Spike closed his eyes and groaned. 'Crazy bitch' he thought, 'sounds like a psychiatrist.' The second thought following that was 'Buffy can never read these.' He had told Crazy Sarah a lot of the things he had done in his time. Some of the things were known to the Watchers but other things, some of the more questionable things in his life were known to no one except Sarah and Dru. And some things not even known by Dru.
"Well, Dru never did read much. Relied on her psychic abilities too much. Too bad Sarah never knew that Dru was afraid of her. Couldn't get a read on her."
Spike scanned down the page and began to read again.
"He seemed very evasive about the whole Cecily thing so I just wanted to know what exactly he was hiding. I have never seen him so uncomfortable about anything he'd done. His fights and indeed, some of his tortures have been very straightforward if excessively gruesome. Him against the world is more his style.
He said that he only has partial memories of what happened. Kind of like still pictures of Cecily under him and Dru laughing. He said the room was spinning and the next thing he remembers is awakening the next night.
I asked if he thought Dru had anything to do with what happened. He didn't answer."
"Well, of course she did, at least that's what she said later. Gave her hell for it too." He thought that it had almost made up for the way the rape had made him feel. Almost.
He stopped reading after that and just sat for a while. It was time for "Passions". He marked the place and put the book to the side of the chair.
The show had just started when there was a small knock at the door. Spike got up to go answer it, after all you never knew who would come to call. Looking over his shoulder to keep his eyes on the tv he stood behind the door to open it and glanced over as the person entered.
"Oh, it you. Don't you have school or something?" he said to Dawn as he shut the door.
Dawn came into the room. "No," she said in the voice that let any adult know they were the idiot of the conversation, "we have a teachers conference today."
Spike looked at her with a small frown on his face. "Look, you don't have to be here and I don't need to put up with your attitude. That's what your sister's for." He began to gently herd her toward the door.
Dawn skipped around him and went further into the room. "Sorry. It's just that Buffy is always sending me here and there and not letting me go to my friends. I mean, you're a friend but your not my girl friend." She hesitated again thinking of Tara and Willow, "I mean, you know, my friends who happens to be a girls. Anyway she said that I needed to come here, you know, so you can protect me."
Spike sighed. "Yes, I know what you mean. If you are going to be here, sit. My show is on now. And don't touch anything."
He went back to his chair as Dawn wandered around the crypt. She pulled out a couple books and looking at the titles quickly slid them back. Shakespeare, who reads Shakespeare for fun? She picked at his blanket. It was worn and holey. ' Well,' she thought, ' I at least know what to get him for Christmas' and 'do vampires really get cold if they are supposed to be all dead and stuff?'
It didn't take long to make the circuit of the room. She went back and sat on the floor next to Spikes chair. The book was just peeking out from under the chair so she pulled it out and opened it to the marked spot and began to read.
When the commercial came on Spike got up and went to the refrigerator. He grabbed a carton of blood, opened it and began to drink.
"How could you?" Dawn was staring at Spike with an angry expression on her face.
Spike, confused, looked at the carton of blood, back at Dawn and said. "Well, it's not as if anyone else is going to drink this. Or did you want some?" He thrust the carton in her direction.
"No," she hissed. "You know what I mean." She held the book up for his inspection.
He walked over and snatched the journal from her hands. "Didn't I tell you to leave things alone? Do I come over to your house and read your diary?"
"Yes." said Dawn, still unrepentant.
"Well, that was a long time ago. I don't do that now, and that's not the point. I told you to leave things alone. You don't know what you'll find here and if it's the wrong thing your sister will... Well, she'll do something we both won't like."
"You didn't answer the question." Some of the anger left her face as a new thought occurred to her, "You wouldn't do that to Buffy would you?" Her eyes widened and she backed up a step, "You wouldn't do that to...me...would you?"
Spike looked at Dawn and knew his days of telling his tales to her was over. The stories had just become true, not some Hollywood script or ghost story to hear around the campfire. He felt a vague sense of disappointment. The monks had done their job too well, he thought, I'm supposed to be evil and here I am feeling sorry for this kid.
Spike held out his hand toward Dawn. He knew he had to be patient. If he moved now she would be out the door. "Come on, we'll go have a sit and you can ask me any question you would like."
Tentatively, Dawn reached out and took Spikes' hand. He started to lead her to the mattress on the floor but when she
pulled back he changed directions and led her to the stone vault in the center of the room. He sat on top cross-legged
and patted the spot across from him indicating she should sit there.
When she was seated he began.
"Well, Bits, what do you want to know." He kept his voice neutral.
Dawn was slightly reassured by the matter of fact way Spike spoke to her, just like normal.
"You know, how could you rape her. Didn't you like her? I mean, I'm not good at history but didn't people, you know, not have sex back then? I mean, until after they were married. And it sounds like you liked her."
Spike thought a moment before answering. Just how much did she need to know?
"It would be easy to say that it was Dru's fault. After all, I really don't remember all that much about it myself. But the truth is, I'm evil and I enjoyed it. It really wasn't about sex. It was about scaring her, about doing the worst thing I could think of to do to her."
Dawn searched his face. "I don't believe you."
Spike sat a moment more in silence. "OK, then how about...." He sighed and rubbed his neck. "I don't remember much about what happened. The first few hours for a vampire are for learning how to be one. Dru made me, she is into messing with minds and she messed about with mine. She tried to show me how to be like her."
"Buffy said she is crazy."
"Yeah, well, there is that. But I love her...loved her, that bitch."
Both sat in silence for a while.
"So," said Dawn, "did you watch her grow up?"
Spike cocked his head. "Watch who grow up?"
"You know, your...daughter. Did you, like, lurk around in the shadows and stuff?"
"What daughter? What are you talking about? Didn't you read the part where I killed Cecily?"
"Didn't you read the part about how Cecily survived the attack and how she had a baby?" retorted Dawn, a little nervous about Spike's reaction to her question.
Spike jumped off the slab and grabbed the journal and opened it to the page where he had stopped reading before.
"...I think that Dru must have had some part in William determining that rape was the best punishment. Certainly he couldn't have know the total devastation that one act would bring to her life and the generations that followed. I do believe that he had left her for dead.
But we know that she didn't die. She was pregnant as a result of that one act and was sent into exile in America with the baby. It was the scandal of the day.
Our family has suffered all the generations since that time. All the women have been institutionalized as crazies. They hear other people's thoughts and it eventually becomes too much. So far, I have escaped that fate although I have wandered often through thoughts that don't seem to be my own...a very scary thing when Dru is around. And all the boy children die in their youth from various diseases, the most notable one being an allergy to sunlight. As my beautiful boy did.
ince I have followed my Midnight, I have read lots of articles in the libraries and I have drawn my own conclusions.
Vampires cannot have children because their tissue is dead. Their bodies go through a profound cellular change to
sustain the dead tissue. My speculation is that the sperm would not be include in this change as sperm exchange is not
how vampires reproduce. The cells, I think, would remain viable for a short time after the change as long as the body
temperature didn't drop below a certain norm. Viable but not undamaged.
I think this is what happened to William and Cecily.
I don't have any proof of this and as I think I am the last in our family, although with all the crazies in the past one can never be sure, I suppose that it really isn't all that important or anything that can be checked on. I will never have another child and my sister is adopted so the tainted blood will die with me. It is only worth noting here as it may someday happen again."
Spike closed the book and stood in stunned silence for a few minutes.
"So, bits, I may have a family."
