TITLE: "Normal again" (9/9) part I
(Because of length, cut in three parts.)
AUTHOR: Richard Bachman
EMAIL: bachman_rchard@hotmail.com
SITE: nope
FEEDBACK: Give it to me luv, you know you want more of this.
DISTRIBUTION: Do whatever you like poodle. As long as Richard is mentioned I'm fine.
SUMMARY: Based on the episode Normal Again. Instead of Buffy, Spike was poisoned by the demon and his consciousness was transported into an alternative reality where he found himself incarcerated in an asylum.
THANK YOU: For your patience, your support and your comments on the story.
ACT 9; And so it ends. (part I)
SCENE 1
I stood there, with the rain beating down on me. The tall Victorian mansion still looked the same as it did when I left it almost a full year ago. Red bricked walls, crumbly porch, blinded windows to keep out daylight. Thorny branches of roses crept up and down the stones, barren due to the time of year. Or Angelus did a really lousy job in keeping them in shape. I raised my arm, my hand bald into a tight fist, and knocked on the door.
No-one answered.
I knocked again, harder this time.
It took a while, but then noise came out of the hallway, and through the colourful glass panel in the woodwork, I could see someone scuffling toward me. Someone dressed in white and tall of posture. Strangely, there was no rattling of keys before the front door cracked open just an inch.
"William, you're out of bed!"
I blinked my eyes and smiled sheepishly, not quite remembering him as a member of the household staff, but the man seemed to know me, so there was no need for further introduction. Behind my back, I hid the rusty railroad spike that Luce had given me. The iron was burning on my cold skin.
"May I come in?" I asked, remembering myself to be polite.
The man looked at me as if he was expecting me dusted, or at least beaten into a bloody pulp, certainly not able to stand there in front of him with all my limps still attached. Can't blame the human. It's a vamp eats vamp world out there. Very ugly things could happen to an inexperienced runaway fledgling in a full year time.
"Are you feeling all right?"
I nodded, a bit surprised by his concern. Since when did the poof hire staff that actually cared about the bloodthirsty family's well being? Most of them just wished us dead so they could move on to a safer employer. The door opened and closed again, letting the man out, but keeping me outside. My hand holding on to the railroad spike itched. This wasn't exactly what I had in mind. The wanker had to invite me in or I would never be able to get to my old Sire.
"Let me take a good look at you."
I flinched when he reached out his hand and pulled both my eyelids up, shining into me with a flashlight till I could see the tiny capillaries at the back of my sodden eyeballs. I wanted to shove him away, perhaps break a couple of ribs while I'm at it, but somewhere in the dark void of my mind, Luce warned me not to lose my temper.
- Keep quiet my boy. Remember how we got ourselves out of the gaols? Trust me. It's easier this way. -
I kept myself very still, like a corpse. Didn't even blink when my eyes started to water.
"Your reflexes are back." The strange servant muttered, slipping the light back into the front pocket of his immaculately white shirt. "Do you know where you are Will?"
-That's a trick question. - Hissed Luce inside my head. - Better be cautious. -
"I'm - I'm not sure - I'm - home again?" I tried. Bloody well had to say something, the bloke was looking at me like he was constipated, brows all knit in caveman style. He perked up a bit in response to my reply, his lips pulling into a friendly grin.
"You're still in the institute, Will. But I guess it's as near to home as it can get for you for the time being."
"Right." I nodded, although the words home and institute didn't really compute into something that made any sense to me. I swallowed. My mouth felt suddenly dry.
"God! We thought we lost you! Dr Summers would be so pleased to see you up and running again! Here, sit down and let me get -"
He gently pushed me further away from the door, but I had enough of his eccentric vamp juggling and talking gibberish, and slapped his hands off me.
"Will, calm down! Listen! Listen, I'm not going to hurt you! Just sit down on your bed for a while and let me get Dr Sum -"
"Let me in!"
"Let you in - You mean let you out of your room? Is that what you want?"
"Yeah." I nodded, seriously considering if the wanker had not been cadging off my old Sire's medicine cabinet. If he had, he wasn't going to be in his good service for very long. "I want to get inside. So if you would be so kind to give me an invitation? I need to speak to your master."
He stared at me with the blank facial expression of a grazing cow.
"Look, I don't have much time here. A friend is waiting for me. I just want to drop a message to my ol' Sire and be off again. I'm familiar with what your master tells you about receiving other vampires, don't let them in or it's the spilling of guts and torn off limps for you, right? But believe me, I'm a bit of a special case. He is expecting me. He won't hold it against you when you let me in. Trust me."
Actually, with what I had in mind for the Glorious Angelus, the servant's family was going to be bloody lucky to find a single bone left of the guy. My grand Sire was absolutely going to chop him into smithereens, provided the grand pillock survived his revengeful childe's visit that was.
I gave the bloke a broad - ain't we the best of pales - smile. Humans were not easy to deceive, but it wasn't particularly hard work either. Just had to know where to push the right buttons. However, incredibly charming as I was, the bloke's solemnity didn't part from him. Must be contagious.
"Will." He stated most cautiously, as if he was afraid that he might break something here. "Why don't you come with me to the recreation room. Sit down and calm your nerves. And I go get someone to take a good look at you."
He pushed open the door without turning his back on me, and stepped aside to let me through. I glanced up at him and rolled my eyes, greatly irritated by how daft he was and having less patience left in me than a six year old.
"Invitation? Or did the poofter keep my passage rights just to make his tedious existence a bit more interesting?"
The thought of Angelus NOT closing his lair on me after I left hadn't even passed my mind. My Sire was a complete wanker, but you could hardly accuse him of being naïve.The funny servant gave me an uncomfortable look. Then he scrapped his throat.
"All right. I guess you can - em." He had to think for a moment, the poor simpleton. " em - come in."
I stepped over the threshold. There was no barrier that slammed against me body like an invisible wall, and the stiffness of the outdoors cold parted from my flesh as domestic warmth cuddled me in comfort. I fell silent and blinked my eyes in disbelief. The poof had done some serious redecorating while I was gone. I couldn't recognize the place at all. Fear, unreasonable and primal, took control over the steering wheel. Something was awfully wrong here.
The interior didn't fit. It didn't fit at all.
The walls and the floor in the long corridor that stretched out before my eyes were sickly green, like a stormy October sea. The ceiling was bright white, and high, and I could not look up at it for too long or the strips of harsh lights beating down from it would blind my eyes with too many colours. Doors. An endless row of doors, both at my right and at my left. They were all closed, except for mine. The corridor ended in a grim blind wall, and only the sounds of fractured conversation coming from around the corner reminded me that the world didn't end just there.
"Come on then. Let's go."
I flinched as the servant grabbed hold of my arm, expecting something unpleasant. Something that I remembered from this place, that brought back a sense of sheer panic and dread. My left hand, which had clutched onto Luce's gift with the growing despair of a drowning man holding on to a floating raft, struck out with intentions to kill or hurt. I saw it all happen before my eyes; the metal, black as the darkness inside, entering the body of the man, right in his soft belly. The red that overflow his immaculate white outfit. The gasp of air that escaped the mutilated body as I pulled the spike up towards the chest and the spilling of guts that plop right out of the wide horrific wound, splashing on the tiles like bags filled with jelly, making them all slippery.
However, I was pretty shocked to find that the railroad spike had disappeared.
My hands were empty. I stared down at both of them in disbelief, holding them in front of me, my fingers bending and unbending, over and over, as if trying to touch something, catch some semi-solidity in the air that could be made fully solid again. But it was gone.
I closed my eyes in dread, a sound of a human heartbeat vibrated through my blood and into my ears. I panicked and I tried not to breath; it caused an unpleasant straining on my lungs that grew rapidly into desperation. I sucked in a lung full of air. My mind rattled and my emotions had a jolly good time messing me up.
"What is this place?" My voice trembled. I didn't want it to tremble. I promised Luce I would be in control of myself. Be strong. But instead I found myself turning on my heels in panic to get out of the soddin house.
"Will! William? Calm down!"
He grabbed me by my waist and pulled me away from the door. I trashed with my arms and kicked with me legs, the air forced out of me as his grip intensified. The small front garden with the wet porch and the bad English weather outside was still there. I could smell the wet earth and feel the cold draught entering this dreadful place. I could still go back there, run away from this nightmare and forget all about Angelus and taking revenge.
- What are you doing!?- Luce voice was filled with bile, anger punctuating her every word. - You imbecile! Have you forgotten what I've taught you? About power? About control? Do you want to be controlled by him for the rest of your existence? -
I let go of a soft whimper, and tried to relax my shaking body. It felt to me like a coiled up spring that was being forced into a tiny box. The servant noticed my attempt to submit, and he relaxed his hold on me.
"It's all right. No-one going to hurt you." He said gently.
I breathed in deeply and let the air slip out again in tattered breaths.
"You're awake now. You're back in the real world."
Back in the real world? Awake? Is that what I was? I was William August Byron, bloody well deceased. How long had I been dead? How long had Luce been waiting for me to come out of Angelus' liar? Days, weeks? Years, decades? I flung my gaze at the door and saw that it was still twilight and raining outside. It couldn't have been that long. But then the servant (Mike - the bloke's name was Mike and he was some kind of a male nurse. I knew him.) closed it with a push of his elbow. I was trapped.
The heavy front door of the Aurelius' mansion with the elaborately decorated stained glass panels now looked as plain and depressing as the other doors in the corridors. There was nothing left in here that could remind me of the Victorian world that I had left behind, from which I came to be, except for Luce's quiet chanting inside my head.
Be strong. Be invulnerable. Take control.
It calmed me. Covered the terrible confusion and fear with a thin layer of indifference that acted like frost. Underneath my dreamlike state, chaos ruled, but I barely noticed. So much more pleasant was her sedation. To be sedated by her was to forget all about pain and doubts.
"Take me to see Angelus." I said. My voice sounded strange, like it wasn't mine at all.
He merely nodded, and gently took me by my arm. Then he urged me to walk with him. The tiles were cold to touch, and I noticed that I was barefooted. My clothes were almost a size too large and hung from my shoulders like a heavy sack made out of rough bleached fabric. Wearing them made me feel small and vulnerable, and I loathed myself for that. Quickly, I shut down my train of thoughts, any observation that could clear the pleasant fog in my mind, and turned my attention fully to Luce. Her words were of great importance and comfort, because they told me exactly what to do.
SCENE 2
"Please. Take a seat."
Buffy pulled her own chair from underneath her desk and sat down, folded her hands over her knees and observed Liam Byron in what she hoped a stern and calm manner. She had never been a good actress. In every school play that she had been forced to participate, she always ended up with small parts that couldn't be screwed up too easily, like playing one of the crowd or else a silent part of the décor, like a rock or a tree. However, for this occasion, she had practiced her lines in front of the mirror in the ladies' room, till she had every twitch, every furrow of her facial expression in control. The conversation that was bound to take place between William's brother and her, was vital, bearing such importance for Will and Liam's future that she couldn't allow herself to screw it up.
She had only one chance to save them both.
He sat down. Even seated the man seemed impossibly tall. Once, she had considered his height to be attractive, but after what she had learned about him, she could only regard his stature to be imposing, perhaps even threatening. What if he wasn't the respectable but strayed man she though he was? What if she was wrong and all the regret and penance she had seen in him were just cunningly acted?
"You need to talk to me about William?"
He sounded forcefully casual. He didn't want to really be in here, talking to her. His eyes darted from his hands that he had folded in his lap to the door and back, without looking up at her.
"Yes." Her heart fluttered, but from the surface, she appeared calm. They were like two actors now, standing on stage, wearing masks and reciting lines, trying to keep up pretence but both knowing that the curtains were about to fall.
"About the incident last Thursday, when you were visiting."
"I don't know what happened in there. He just freaked out on me."
"Liam, Will had been suffering from a terrible breakdown because of that incident. We had to put him in isolation and strap him down in order to calm him. We had to give him some very heavy medication, and all of this almost brought him back into a catatonic state."
There was a sudden change in his cold, defensive posture as she informed him on his brother's grave condition.
"You didn't tell me that over the phone! Is he all right? How is he?"
"Still under observation. But he's recovering." She lied. She had to. Upsetting Liam at this point wouldn't benefit his emotional state when she came to the real grim part.
Liam let go a sigh of relief. "Thank Goodness! Oh God, I wouldn't know what to do if he - if he would get back to that zombie-like condition."
His kind words were comforting her. Calmed her doubts about her decision.
"That would be just too damn awful. He would be better off dead than to be like that again."
She gazed at him, anger awakened by this inconsiderate remark.
"Wouldn't it be better then? I mean he had been no better off than a plant or an animal for the past five years! He couldn't move, he couldn't speak, couldn't even wash or clothe himself. The orderlies used to wheel him around in that rusty old wheelchair till even they didn't bother any longer and just kept him chained to the bed day and night. That's not living!" He shook his head, violently. "It's dying, day by day, in a most slow and horrible way imaginable. I watched him die for these last five years and I don't want to go through that again."
There was a silence, uncomfortable and burdened, and she watched as Liam covered his face with his hands, rubbing his eyes as if he was tired, not only of speaking, but also of his responsibilities. He, the older, sane brother who had to take care of his ill little sibling. Perhaps it had all finally become too much for him to bear.
"That's just horrible." She muttered.
He looked up, somewhat startled.
"Look, I don't exactly know what you're going through. My kid sister is sane and healthy, and although I have to take care of her, my own situation probably cannot be compared with yours, since William is suffering from severe mental illness. But I do know one thing. I would never wish Dawn dead because she has become a burden to me!" Her voice rose in anger, the actress was no longer keeping to her lines. These words had to be said. "He is your brother Liam! He's family! We don't wish them any harm!"
"You don't understand - " His face flushed red, his eyes were wide and white rimmed. "You don't know how it's like to see him like this! In here, this so-called health institution! It's a fucking prison! That's what it is! He had done nothing wrong and still the doctors forced me to lock him up! He doesn't belong in this madhouse. It wasn't his fault, not any of it. If only he had listened to me. If he - if he had just let me deal with him. I could have got rid of him on my own."
He paused, and when she caught a glimpse of his eyes she saw that they were sunken into his face, which itself had turned into a grey mask of grief.
"Deal with who?" She asked, carefully.
He stared at her for a moment, confused, as if puzzled that she was interested in what exactly was shaping HIS nightmares instead of his little brother's. Then he waved his hand and laughed, finding the notion to tell her about his inner demon too preposterous to even consider. He knew about her kind. Doctors were all the same. They were good in seduction with their kind smiles and kind words, pretending to be willing to listen, and made you believe that they were there to offer help. But once you were deceived and rely fully on their trust, once you had opened the doors and had bared your entire soul to them, they would betray you, labelling you as a dangerous madman and condemning you to a place that was worse than death.
His hand slipped into the deep pocket of his coat, and the feel of smooth metal against the flesh of his thumb calmed his nerves that were now growing tense like strings on a violin.
"It doesn't matter. The problem doesn't exist anymore."
"I want to know." Somehow, his reference to this other person caught her attention and sent up big flashy warning signs.
"I'm not here to talk about MY mental health. I'm here to talk about Will's."
"Liam -"
"Why did you need to see me for?"
"You need to tell me what's going on here! Who is this guy? Is he a relative? Did he - did he have something to do with William's illness?"
"Look! If you don't want to get to the damn point, fine. I will. I didn't come here just because you had obviously a certain issue with me for triggering Will's relapse. I had something to say to you as well. I've decided it was best for Will to be transferred from your ward to the care of Dr Walsh, starting from the beginning of next month."
She froze. This was really unexpected.
"You - you've decided to do what?"
"I've been speaking to Dr Walsh. She promised me to give more attention to Will than he currently receives from your therapy group, in which the doctor's time has to be divided among the other patients. He will be watched and tended for 24 hours a day, and she also informed me about the possibilities of other kind of treatments that might quicken his recovery."
"You can't do this to him."
"I'm his brother Dr Summers. I'm his only family left. Believe me, I have the right to take these kind of decisions."
"Don't take him away from my care! He's already in a bad enough state as he is!"
"I only want what's best for him. Besides, Dr Walsh told me that she would allow me to see him more often. I want to come here on Friday from now on and spend the weekends with him. She told me that it would do him good."
There was queasiness and a sickening taste of something vile under the tongue. The thought of what this man had done to Will, and what would become of her poor patient if he would be subjected to Dr Walsh inhuman practices, filled her with revulsion for Liam Byron, the kind that could no longer be restrained by carefully planned strategies and well-learned lines. Her head spun of emotions and violent words were burning on her tongue.
"You won't take him away from me! I won't let you! Not after what you've done to him!"
"It's not for you to decide Dr Summers! My request has already been approved by the board. And why do you keep thinking that I've done something to Will?! I've done nothing to him! I didn't hurt him or anything! He was delusional and he attacked me, something that could have been prevented if he wasn't allowed to dwindle in his made up fairytale land for such a long time. I should have hand over his care to Dr Walsh months ago. Maybe he would have been able to come home for Christmas by now!"
"You've done something to him. I know it. He was bleeding."
Liam's eyes turned down to the ground as if staring her right into the face had suddenly become impossible.
"I didn't hit him. Couldn't even defend myself after he hit me at the back of my head with that chair. It must have been one of the orderlies -"
"He has been raped." She said it calmly, but her voice carried grief and contempt.
Liam fell silent, his mouth opened as if to say something to contradict her, but then his guilt finally caught up with his stubbornness and started to dig through his hazed memories for the truth, for what had happened to his brother. The horrific incidents came back to him like a procession of frames, and he remembered the thing that hurt him the most; the painful silence William was in every time he abused him. Not a scream. Not a cry for help. He took his perversions like a broken whore. The same with the beating, the endless stream of violence, both physical and psychological. He never said a word about it afterwards. Right until the very end.
"You raped him." She said, her voice nothing more but a hoarse whisper. "I don't know how long this has been going on. I don't know how much damage you've already done to him. But I beg you to stop. He can't take much more of your abuse. Please Liam. Let him get better."
Liam closed his eyes. There were tears fighting their way to the surface. There was sorrow and regret so deep that it would drown him and sent him into a bottomless abyss. There was a howl, caught in his throat, a cry of outrage for causing such pain to someone for whom he cared so much. But there was also something else surfacing, something that prospered in his shame and inner turmoil, and its' power was rising with his fear.
"Don't hand him over to Dr Walsh. He won't survive it. Please. Let him stay here. Right now, he needs me more than anything else in this world."
"Dr Summers - Buffy, I didn't mean to hurt him! I really didn't."
She fell silent, and watched how the tall man buried his face behind his trembling hands and shrunk into a small heap of misery before her.
"God, my own little brother! How can live with myself! I let him do these things to him! All these horrible things! And all this time, he didn't say anything, didn't even scream. I let him break him and didn't do a thing to stop that monster!"
Buffy tilted her head, her eyes studying the grieving man with growing suspicion.
"You let HIM do these things to William? What do you mean by HIM?"
"Him, it, the - the monster inside. Will knew about it. He tried to warn me. Told me to go see a doctor for my problems but I refused. I thought or hoped that it was something that could go away on it's own, like it was just a bad case of flu or a cold. But it's nothing like that. The monster inside is not just an illness. It's something stronger, much stronger than I was. And Will knew that. He knew it the whole time."
An icy feeling stabbed her in her heart. Suddenly, her anger was paralysed by a sense of dread, and she had to force herself to carry on with the conversation.
She took in a deep breath, then asked; "You mean, you didn't want to do all these horrible things, but you were forced to? You lost control over your own actions?"
"I lost control over everything. Even my own mind." He still had his face hidden in his hands, breathing loudly into the small hollow of his folded palms. His voice was muffled. " I used to have these long blackouts, especially at nights. And it's getting worse. I can hardly remember what I've done the last couple of months. The visits to Will, I can only remember them for the first half hour, after that, everything becomes a blur. That incident of last Thursday, I was just talking to Will about our childhood holidays at lake Michigan when suddenly, the lights go out and the next thing I know, I wake up with a splitting headache, and Will's is huddled on the floor, hold back by orderlies while staring at me with horror in his eyes. I was so confused. So afraid of what happened in there. I couldn't remember a thing."
He shook his head, hands brushing away the wetness on his cheeks in swift, angry movements.
"But I do remember now."
He finally dared to look up and gaze right into her eyes.
"Thanks to you. I remember. Every detail. Everything part of it that hurts. And it's going to haunt me now forever."
"You're Schizophrenic." Buffy concluded in a low voice, as if hardly able to believe it herself. "You're suffering from multiple personality disorder. You're the one who's ill." It all made sense. It finally did. William's anxiousness towards Liam, his claims of being tormented by the malevolent Angelus, his desperate pleads not to hold his brother responsible for what he had done to him. She finally understood her patient's suffering. Will's tormentor was real. Angelus existed. The monster had only taken refuge inside his brother's mind and body. William had not been afflicted by delusions; she had been suffering from temporarily blindness for her not to see the monster hidden beneath the calm and amiable surface of Liam Byron. Buffy could have slapped herself for being this stupid. Only now, after she had invited the mentally unstable brother into her office to confront him fully with the heinous deeds of his alter ego did she find out about the horrific truth.
It would turn out to be too late.
Liam burst into that kind of laughter that was too loud and too indifferent to sound sane under these circumstances. It made her skin rise.
"I told you I wasn't here for my own mental health! It's fucking ironic, isn't it? My own illness has driven my sane brother to the edge of insanity, and he ended up having to be locked up in here, while I - "
He was caught in another laughing fit, staring at the young doctor with mockery in his grim eyes.
"I was the one who was insane! Still am actually! Will was fine before that rather unfortunate accident with his dodgy old car, but before you get the chance; you can't blame me for that. I didn't have anything to do with him loosing control behind the wheel."
"Wait a minute."
He knit his brows as if confused by his own confession.
"I did have something to do with that."
His lips curled into a cold, malevolent grin.
He pulled out the Colt firearm, spun it around his finger and held it up casually, the end of the barrel pointed toward the ceiling. Buffy's face turned white. Her mouth dropped and her blue eyes grew wide in horror.
"Yes, I do remember now. I followed him after he left my apartment. Caught up with the little wuss before he had the chance to get on the highway. There was this part of the road that ran right through a forest. It was totally deserted except for Will's rusty old barrel and my Sedan. I stepped on the gas, drove so close up to his car that I almost hit the bumper, rolled down the window, and -"
He aimed the gun at her, and her heart skipped a beat. She looked into the dark circle of the barrel, and for a moment, she knew for certain that she was going to die.
Liam thumbed back the hammer, his finger tightening around the trigger.
"Pang!"
Her body curled up in fear and she shut her eyes. When the pain didn't come en she still could hear the rattling sounds of her own respiration, she realized that the gun had not been fired.
Yet.
"I didn't want to kill him of course. Not directly. That would have been too suspicious. A bullet of Liam's registered gun right through his thick skull would send the feds right after us within a day. As I used to say to my dear boy, killing is an art that needs a certain amount of fineness, subtlety. One shot at the tires was enough to sent him reeling off the road in murderous speed."
Buffy finally dared to open her eyes again, and as she did she stared right into his broadly smirking face. He had left his seat and stood behind to her now. The cruel glitch in his eyes was not unnoticed.
"Safety was still on. But don't you worry, you'll get your brains blown up against the walls by the end of our little private session. Promised."
"Angelus." She whispered.
His smirk pulled wider into a grin, and he lifted his dark brows as if thrilled.
"Please to finally meet you, Dr Summers. Although I'm sure that the pleasure is all mine."
TBC
I'm sorry for the lack of updates, but I've been busy like hell. However, the Holidays are finally here and I've some time between making up with my girlfriend for neglecting her the last couple of months and visiting my parents to actually do some writing. So the next update will be here before the end of the week! Till then, merry Xmas everybody!!!
Cheers Richard
AUTHOR: Richard Bachman
EMAIL: bachman_rchard@hotmail.com
SITE: nope
FEEDBACK: Give it to me luv, you know you want more of this.
DISTRIBUTION: Do whatever you like poodle. As long as Richard is mentioned I'm fine.
SUMMARY: Based on the episode Normal Again. Instead of Buffy, Spike was poisoned by the demon and his consciousness was transported into an alternative reality where he found himself incarcerated in an asylum.
THANK YOU: For your patience, your support and your comments on the story.
ACT 9; And so it ends. (part I)
SCENE 1
I stood there, with the rain beating down on me. The tall Victorian mansion still looked the same as it did when I left it almost a full year ago. Red bricked walls, crumbly porch, blinded windows to keep out daylight. Thorny branches of roses crept up and down the stones, barren due to the time of year. Or Angelus did a really lousy job in keeping them in shape. I raised my arm, my hand bald into a tight fist, and knocked on the door.
No-one answered.
I knocked again, harder this time.
It took a while, but then noise came out of the hallway, and through the colourful glass panel in the woodwork, I could see someone scuffling toward me. Someone dressed in white and tall of posture. Strangely, there was no rattling of keys before the front door cracked open just an inch.
"William, you're out of bed!"
I blinked my eyes and smiled sheepishly, not quite remembering him as a member of the household staff, but the man seemed to know me, so there was no need for further introduction. Behind my back, I hid the rusty railroad spike that Luce had given me. The iron was burning on my cold skin.
"May I come in?" I asked, remembering myself to be polite.
The man looked at me as if he was expecting me dusted, or at least beaten into a bloody pulp, certainly not able to stand there in front of him with all my limps still attached. Can't blame the human. It's a vamp eats vamp world out there. Very ugly things could happen to an inexperienced runaway fledgling in a full year time.
"Are you feeling all right?"
I nodded, a bit surprised by his concern. Since when did the poof hire staff that actually cared about the bloodthirsty family's well being? Most of them just wished us dead so they could move on to a safer employer. The door opened and closed again, letting the man out, but keeping me outside. My hand holding on to the railroad spike itched. This wasn't exactly what I had in mind. The wanker had to invite me in or I would never be able to get to my old Sire.
"Let me take a good look at you."
I flinched when he reached out his hand and pulled both my eyelids up, shining into me with a flashlight till I could see the tiny capillaries at the back of my sodden eyeballs. I wanted to shove him away, perhaps break a couple of ribs while I'm at it, but somewhere in the dark void of my mind, Luce warned me not to lose my temper.
- Keep quiet my boy. Remember how we got ourselves out of the gaols? Trust me. It's easier this way. -
I kept myself very still, like a corpse. Didn't even blink when my eyes started to water.
"Your reflexes are back." The strange servant muttered, slipping the light back into the front pocket of his immaculately white shirt. "Do you know where you are Will?"
-That's a trick question. - Hissed Luce inside my head. - Better be cautious. -
"I'm - I'm not sure - I'm - home again?" I tried. Bloody well had to say something, the bloke was looking at me like he was constipated, brows all knit in caveman style. He perked up a bit in response to my reply, his lips pulling into a friendly grin.
"You're still in the institute, Will. But I guess it's as near to home as it can get for you for the time being."
"Right." I nodded, although the words home and institute didn't really compute into something that made any sense to me. I swallowed. My mouth felt suddenly dry.
"God! We thought we lost you! Dr Summers would be so pleased to see you up and running again! Here, sit down and let me get -"
He gently pushed me further away from the door, but I had enough of his eccentric vamp juggling and talking gibberish, and slapped his hands off me.
"Will, calm down! Listen! Listen, I'm not going to hurt you! Just sit down on your bed for a while and let me get Dr Sum -"
"Let me in!"
"Let you in - You mean let you out of your room? Is that what you want?"
"Yeah." I nodded, seriously considering if the wanker had not been cadging off my old Sire's medicine cabinet. If he had, he wasn't going to be in his good service for very long. "I want to get inside. So if you would be so kind to give me an invitation? I need to speak to your master."
He stared at me with the blank facial expression of a grazing cow.
"Look, I don't have much time here. A friend is waiting for me. I just want to drop a message to my ol' Sire and be off again. I'm familiar with what your master tells you about receiving other vampires, don't let them in or it's the spilling of guts and torn off limps for you, right? But believe me, I'm a bit of a special case. He is expecting me. He won't hold it against you when you let me in. Trust me."
Actually, with what I had in mind for the Glorious Angelus, the servant's family was going to be bloody lucky to find a single bone left of the guy. My grand Sire was absolutely going to chop him into smithereens, provided the grand pillock survived his revengeful childe's visit that was.
I gave the bloke a broad - ain't we the best of pales - smile. Humans were not easy to deceive, but it wasn't particularly hard work either. Just had to know where to push the right buttons. However, incredibly charming as I was, the bloke's solemnity didn't part from him. Must be contagious.
"Will." He stated most cautiously, as if he was afraid that he might break something here. "Why don't you come with me to the recreation room. Sit down and calm your nerves. And I go get someone to take a good look at you."
He pushed open the door without turning his back on me, and stepped aside to let me through. I glanced up at him and rolled my eyes, greatly irritated by how daft he was and having less patience left in me than a six year old.
"Invitation? Or did the poofter keep my passage rights just to make his tedious existence a bit more interesting?"
The thought of Angelus NOT closing his lair on me after I left hadn't even passed my mind. My Sire was a complete wanker, but you could hardly accuse him of being naïve.The funny servant gave me an uncomfortable look. Then he scrapped his throat.
"All right. I guess you can - em." He had to think for a moment, the poor simpleton. " em - come in."
I stepped over the threshold. There was no barrier that slammed against me body like an invisible wall, and the stiffness of the outdoors cold parted from my flesh as domestic warmth cuddled me in comfort. I fell silent and blinked my eyes in disbelief. The poof had done some serious redecorating while I was gone. I couldn't recognize the place at all. Fear, unreasonable and primal, took control over the steering wheel. Something was awfully wrong here.
The interior didn't fit. It didn't fit at all.
The walls and the floor in the long corridor that stretched out before my eyes were sickly green, like a stormy October sea. The ceiling was bright white, and high, and I could not look up at it for too long or the strips of harsh lights beating down from it would blind my eyes with too many colours. Doors. An endless row of doors, both at my right and at my left. They were all closed, except for mine. The corridor ended in a grim blind wall, and only the sounds of fractured conversation coming from around the corner reminded me that the world didn't end just there.
"Come on then. Let's go."
I flinched as the servant grabbed hold of my arm, expecting something unpleasant. Something that I remembered from this place, that brought back a sense of sheer panic and dread. My left hand, which had clutched onto Luce's gift with the growing despair of a drowning man holding on to a floating raft, struck out with intentions to kill or hurt. I saw it all happen before my eyes; the metal, black as the darkness inside, entering the body of the man, right in his soft belly. The red that overflow his immaculate white outfit. The gasp of air that escaped the mutilated body as I pulled the spike up towards the chest and the spilling of guts that plop right out of the wide horrific wound, splashing on the tiles like bags filled with jelly, making them all slippery.
However, I was pretty shocked to find that the railroad spike had disappeared.
My hands were empty. I stared down at both of them in disbelief, holding them in front of me, my fingers bending and unbending, over and over, as if trying to touch something, catch some semi-solidity in the air that could be made fully solid again. But it was gone.
I closed my eyes in dread, a sound of a human heartbeat vibrated through my blood and into my ears. I panicked and I tried not to breath; it caused an unpleasant straining on my lungs that grew rapidly into desperation. I sucked in a lung full of air. My mind rattled and my emotions had a jolly good time messing me up.
"What is this place?" My voice trembled. I didn't want it to tremble. I promised Luce I would be in control of myself. Be strong. But instead I found myself turning on my heels in panic to get out of the soddin house.
"Will! William? Calm down!"
He grabbed me by my waist and pulled me away from the door. I trashed with my arms and kicked with me legs, the air forced out of me as his grip intensified. The small front garden with the wet porch and the bad English weather outside was still there. I could smell the wet earth and feel the cold draught entering this dreadful place. I could still go back there, run away from this nightmare and forget all about Angelus and taking revenge.
- What are you doing!?- Luce voice was filled with bile, anger punctuating her every word. - You imbecile! Have you forgotten what I've taught you? About power? About control? Do you want to be controlled by him for the rest of your existence? -
I let go of a soft whimper, and tried to relax my shaking body. It felt to me like a coiled up spring that was being forced into a tiny box. The servant noticed my attempt to submit, and he relaxed his hold on me.
"It's all right. No-one going to hurt you." He said gently.
I breathed in deeply and let the air slip out again in tattered breaths.
"You're awake now. You're back in the real world."
Back in the real world? Awake? Is that what I was? I was William August Byron, bloody well deceased. How long had I been dead? How long had Luce been waiting for me to come out of Angelus' liar? Days, weeks? Years, decades? I flung my gaze at the door and saw that it was still twilight and raining outside. It couldn't have been that long. But then the servant (Mike - the bloke's name was Mike and he was some kind of a male nurse. I knew him.) closed it with a push of his elbow. I was trapped.
The heavy front door of the Aurelius' mansion with the elaborately decorated stained glass panels now looked as plain and depressing as the other doors in the corridors. There was nothing left in here that could remind me of the Victorian world that I had left behind, from which I came to be, except for Luce's quiet chanting inside my head.
Be strong. Be invulnerable. Take control.
It calmed me. Covered the terrible confusion and fear with a thin layer of indifference that acted like frost. Underneath my dreamlike state, chaos ruled, but I barely noticed. So much more pleasant was her sedation. To be sedated by her was to forget all about pain and doubts.
"Take me to see Angelus." I said. My voice sounded strange, like it wasn't mine at all.
He merely nodded, and gently took me by my arm. Then he urged me to walk with him. The tiles were cold to touch, and I noticed that I was barefooted. My clothes were almost a size too large and hung from my shoulders like a heavy sack made out of rough bleached fabric. Wearing them made me feel small and vulnerable, and I loathed myself for that. Quickly, I shut down my train of thoughts, any observation that could clear the pleasant fog in my mind, and turned my attention fully to Luce. Her words were of great importance and comfort, because they told me exactly what to do.
SCENE 2
"Please. Take a seat."
Buffy pulled her own chair from underneath her desk and sat down, folded her hands over her knees and observed Liam Byron in what she hoped a stern and calm manner. She had never been a good actress. In every school play that she had been forced to participate, she always ended up with small parts that couldn't be screwed up too easily, like playing one of the crowd or else a silent part of the décor, like a rock or a tree. However, for this occasion, she had practiced her lines in front of the mirror in the ladies' room, till she had every twitch, every furrow of her facial expression in control. The conversation that was bound to take place between William's brother and her, was vital, bearing such importance for Will and Liam's future that she couldn't allow herself to screw it up.
She had only one chance to save them both.
He sat down. Even seated the man seemed impossibly tall. Once, she had considered his height to be attractive, but after what she had learned about him, she could only regard his stature to be imposing, perhaps even threatening. What if he wasn't the respectable but strayed man she though he was? What if she was wrong and all the regret and penance she had seen in him were just cunningly acted?
"You need to talk to me about William?"
He sounded forcefully casual. He didn't want to really be in here, talking to her. His eyes darted from his hands that he had folded in his lap to the door and back, without looking up at her.
"Yes." Her heart fluttered, but from the surface, she appeared calm. They were like two actors now, standing on stage, wearing masks and reciting lines, trying to keep up pretence but both knowing that the curtains were about to fall.
"About the incident last Thursday, when you were visiting."
"I don't know what happened in there. He just freaked out on me."
"Liam, Will had been suffering from a terrible breakdown because of that incident. We had to put him in isolation and strap him down in order to calm him. We had to give him some very heavy medication, and all of this almost brought him back into a catatonic state."
There was a sudden change in his cold, defensive posture as she informed him on his brother's grave condition.
"You didn't tell me that over the phone! Is he all right? How is he?"
"Still under observation. But he's recovering." She lied. She had to. Upsetting Liam at this point wouldn't benefit his emotional state when she came to the real grim part.
Liam let go a sigh of relief. "Thank Goodness! Oh God, I wouldn't know what to do if he - if he would get back to that zombie-like condition."
His kind words were comforting her. Calmed her doubts about her decision.
"That would be just too damn awful. He would be better off dead than to be like that again."
She gazed at him, anger awakened by this inconsiderate remark.
"Wouldn't it be better then? I mean he had been no better off than a plant or an animal for the past five years! He couldn't move, he couldn't speak, couldn't even wash or clothe himself. The orderlies used to wheel him around in that rusty old wheelchair till even they didn't bother any longer and just kept him chained to the bed day and night. That's not living!" He shook his head, violently. "It's dying, day by day, in a most slow and horrible way imaginable. I watched him die for these last five years and I don't want to go through that again."
There was a silence, uncomfortable and burdened, and she watched as Liam covered his face with his hands, rubbing his eyes as if he was tired, not only of speaking, but also of his responsibilities. He, the older, sane brother who had to take care of his ill little sibling. Perhaps it had all finally become too much for him to bear.
"That's just horrible." She muttered.
He looked up, somewhat startled.
"Look, I don't exactly know what you're going through. My kid sister is sane and healthy, and although I have to take care of her, my own situation probably cannot be compared with yours, since William is suffering from severe mental illness. But I do know one thing. I would never wish Dawn dead because she has become a burden to me!" Her voice rose in anger, the actress was no longer keeping to her lines. These words had to be said. "He is your brother Liam! He's family! We don't wish them any harm!"
"You don't understand - " His face flushed red, his eyes were wide and white rimmed. "You don't know how it's like to see him like this! In here, this so-called health institution! It's a fucking prison! That's what it is! He had done nothing wrong and still the doctors forced me to lock him up! He doesn't belong in this madhouse. It wasn't his fault, not any of it. If only he had listened to me. If he - if he had just let me deal with him. I could have got rid of him on my own."
He paused, and when she caught a glimpse of his eyes she saw that they were sunken into his face, which itself had turned into a grey mask of grief.
"Deal with who?" She asked, carefully.
He stared at her for a moment, confused, as if puzzled that she was interested in what exactly was shaping HIS nightmares instead of his little brother's. Then he waved his hand and laughed, finding the notion to tell her about his inner demon too preposterous to even consider. He knew about her kind. Doctors were all the same. They were good in seduction with their kind smiles and kind words, pretending to be willing to listen, and made you believe that they were there to offer help. But once you were deceived and rely fully on their trust, once you had opened the doors and had bared your entire soul to them, they would betray you, labelling you as a dangerous madman and condemning you to a place that was worse than death.
His hand slipped into the deep pocket of his coat, and the feel of smooth metal against the flesh of his thumb calmed his nerves that were now growing tense like strings on a violin.
"It doesn't matter. The problem doesn't exist anymore."
"I want to know." Somehow, his reference to this other person caught her attention and sent up big flashy warning signs.
"I'm not here to talk about MY mental health. I'm here to talk about Will's."
"Liam -"
"Why did you need to see me for?"
"You need to tell me what's going on here! Who is this guy? Is he a relative? Did he - did he have something to do with William's illness?"
"Look! If you don't want to get to the damn point, fine. I will. I didn't come here just because you had obviously a certain issue with me for triggering Will's relapse. I had something to say to you as well. I've decided it was best for Will to be transferred from your ward to the care of Dr Walsh, starting from the beginning of next month."
She froze. This was really unexpected.
"You - you've decided to do what?"
"I've been speaking to Dr Walsh. She promised me to give more attention to Will than he currently receives from your therapy group, in which the doctor's time has to be divided among the other patients. He will be watched and tended for 24 hours a day, and she also informed me about the possibilities of other kind of treatments that might quicken his recovery."
"You can't do this to him."
"I'm his brother Dr Summers. I'm his only family left. Believe me, I have the right to take these kind of decisions."
"Don't take him away from my care! He's already in a bad enough state as he is!"
"I only want what's best for him. Besides, Dr Walsh told me that she would allow me to see him more often. I want to come here on Friday from now on and spend the weekends with him. She told me that it would do him good."
There was queasiness and a sickening taste of something vile under the tongue. The thought of what this man had done to Will, and what would become of her poor patient if he would be subjected to Dr Walsh inhuman practices, filled her with revulsion for Liam Byron, the kind that could no longer be restrained by carefully planned strategies and well-learned lines. Her head spun of emotions and violent words were burning on her tongue.
"You won't take him away from me! I won't let you! Not after what you've done to him!"
"It's not for you to decide Dr Summers! My request has already been approved by the board. And why do you keep thinking that I've done something to Will?! I've done nothing to him! I didn't hurt him or anything! He was delusional and he attacked me, something that could have been prevented if he wasn't allowed to dwindle in his made up fairytale land for such a long time. I should have hand over his care to Dr Walsh months ago. Maybe he would have been able to come home for Christmas by now!"
"You've done something to him. I know it. He was bleeding."
Liam's eyes turned down to the ground as if staring her right into the face had suddenly become impossible.
"I didn't hit him. Couldn't even defend myself after he hit me at the back of my head with that chair. It must have been one of the orderlies -"
"He has been raped." She said it calmly, but her voice carried grief and contempt.
Liam fell silent, his mouth opened as if to say something to contradict her, but then his guilt finally caught up with his stubbornness and started to dig through his hazed memories for the truth, for what had happened to his brother. The horrific incidents came back to him like a procession of frames, and he remembered the thing that hurt him the most; the painful silence William was in every time he abused him. Not a scream. Not a cry for help. He took his perversions like a broken whore. The same with the beating, the endless stream of violence, both physical and psychological. He never said a word about it afterwards. Right until the very end.
"You raped him." She said, her voice nothing more but a hoarse whisper. "I don't know how long this has been going on. I don't know how much damage you've already done to him. But I beg you to stop. He can't take much more of your abuse. Please Liam. Let him get better."
Liam closed his eyes. There were tears fighting their way to the surface. There was sorrow and regret so deep that it would drown him and sent him into a bottomless abyss. There was a howl, caught in his throat, a cry of outrage for causing such pain to someone for whom he cared so much. But there was also something else surfacing, something that prospered in his shame and inner turmoil, and its' power was rising with his fear.
"Don't hand him over to Dr Walsh. He won't survive it. Please. Let him stay here. Right now, he needs me more than anything else in this world."
"Dr Summers - Buffy, I didn't mean to hurt him! I really didn't."
She fell silent, and watched how the tall man buried his face behind his trembling hands and shrunk into a small heap of misery before her.
"God, my own little brother! How can live with myself! I let him do these things to him! All these horrible things! And all this time, he didn't say anything, didn't even scream. I let him break him and didn't do a thing to stop that monster!"
Buffy tilted her head, her eyes studying the grieving man with growing suspicion.
"You let HIM do these things to William? What do you mean by HIM?"
"Him, it, the - the monster inside. Will knew about it. He tried to warn me. Told me to go see a doctor for my problems but I refused. I thought or hoped that it was something that could go away on it's own, like it was just a bad case of flu or a cold. But it's nothing like that. The monster inside is not just an illness. It's something stronger, much stronger than I was. And Will knew that. He knew it the whole time."
An icy feeling stabbed her in her heart. Suddenly, her anger was paralysed by a sense of dread, and she had to force herself to carry on with the conversation.
She took in a deep breath, then asked; "You mean, you didn't want to do all these horrible things, but you were forced to? You lost control over your own actions?"
"I lost control over everything. Even my own mind." He still had his face hidden in his hands, breathing loudly into the small hollow of his folded palms. His voice was muffled. " I used to have these long blackouts, especially at nights. And it's getting worse. I can hardly remember what I've done the last couple of months. The visits to Will, I can only remember them for the first half hour, after that, everything becomes a blur. That incident of last Thursday, I was just talking to Will about our childhood holidays at lake Michigan when suddenly, the lights go out and the next thing I know, I wake up with a splitting headache, and Will's is huddled on the floor, hold back by orderlies while staring at me with horror in his eyes. I was so confused. So afraid of what happened in there. I couldn't remember a thing."
He shook his head, hands brushing away the wetness on his cheeks in swift, angry movements.
"But I do remember now."
He finally dared to look up and gaze right into her eyes.
"Thanks to you. I remember. Every detail. Everything part of it that hurts. And it's going to haunt me now forever."
"You're Schizophrenic." Buffy concluded in a low voice, as if hardly able to believe it herself. "You're suffering from multiple personality disorder. You're the one who's ill." It all made sense. It finally did. William's anxiousness towards Liam, his claims of being tormented by the malevolent Angelus, his desperate pleads not to hold his brother responsible for what he had done to him. She finally understood her patient's suffering. Will's tormentor was real. Angelus existed. The monster had only taken refuge inside his brother's mind and body. William had not been afflicted by delusions; she had been suffering from temporarily blindness for her not to see the monster hidden beneath the calm and amiable surface of Liam Byron. Buffy could have slapped herself for being this stupid. Only now, after she had invited the mentally unstable brother into her office to confront him fully with the heinous deeds of his alter ego did she find out about the horrific truth.
It would turn out to be too late.
Liam burst into that kind of laughter that was too loud and too indifferent to sound sane under these circumstances. It made her skin rise.
"I told you I wasn't here for my own mental health! It's fucking ironic, isn't it? My own illness has driven my sane brother to the edge of insanity, and he ended up having to be locked up in here, while I - "
He was caught in another laughing fit, staring at the young doctor with mockery in his grim eyes.
"I was the one who was insane! Still am actually! Will was fine before that rather unfortunate accident with his dodgy old car, but before you get the chance; you can't blame me for that. I didn't have anything to do with him loosing control behind the wheel."
"Wait a minute."
He knit his brows as if confused by his own confession.
"I did have something to do with that."
His lips curled into a cold, malevolent grin.
He pulled out the Colt firearm, spun it around his finger and held it up casually, the end of the barrel pointed toward the ceiling. Buffy's face turned white. Her mouth dropped and her blue eyes grew wide in horror.
"Yes, I do remember now. I followed him after he left my apartment. Caught up with the little wuss before he had the chance to get on the highway. There was this part of the road that ran right through a forest. It was totally deserted except for Will's rusty old barrel and my Sedan. I stepped on the gas, drove so close up to his car that I almost hit the bumper, rolled down the window, and -"
He aimed the gun at her, and her heart skipped a beat. She looked into the dark circle of the barrel, and for a moment, she knew for certain that she was going to die.
Liam thumbed back the hammer, his finger tightening around the trigger.
"Pang!"
Her body curled up in fear and she shut her eyes. When the pain didn't come en she still could hear the rattling sounds of her own respiration, she realized that the gun had not been fired.
Yet.
"I didn't want to kill him of course. Not directly. That would have been too suspicious. A bullet of Liam's registered gun right through his thick skull would send the feds right after us within a day. As I used to say to my dear boy, killing is an art that needs a certain amount of fineness, subtlety. One shot at the tires was enough to sent him reeling off the road in murderous speed."
Buffy finally dared to open her eyes again, and as she did she stared right into his broadly smirking face. He had left his seat and stood behind to her now. The cruel glitch in his eyes was not unnoticed.
"Safety was still on. But don't you worry, you'll get your brains blown up against the walls by the end of our little private session. Promised."
"Angelus." She whispered.
His smirk pulled wider into a grin, and he lifted his dark brows as if thrilled.
"Please to finally meet you, Dr Summers. Although I'm sure that the pleasure is all mine."
TBC
I'm sorry for the lack of updates, but I've been busy like hell. However, the Holidays are finally here and I've some time between making up with my girlfriend for neglecting her the last couple of months and visiting my parents to actually do some writing. So the next update will be here before the end of the week! Till then, merry Xmas everybody!!!
Cheers Richard
