AUNTIE DRU
by Fojiao2 (Kevin A. Poston)
A tale about Connor from the Babyverse
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters used here belong to me; most of them belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy; Baby, The Pride, Jean Claude, René, and Claudia belong to Ebony Silvers. I profit from none of this.
RATING: R
SPOILERS: "Highway to Hell," "Slept So Long Without You," "Bed of Roses."
DEDICATION: For Ebony, who encouraged me in the writing of this.
FIRST NIGHT HOME
He spoke with her before he learned to talk. It was true, though he never told anyone. And of course, she already knew.
When Connor was born he knew the language all infants know: the colors he had seen in the womb. Thus he knew the blooms of pink and white, the striations of blood-red and vanilla, and the solidity of his own fingers floating in front of his face. And like every child, his mind cried out with these images, for they were the only communication he knew. The screaming and crying that he accomplished were accidental, just the expelling of emotion through this new medium of air. His true language was the swirl of color within his memory, cast out by his mind.
And she heard him. She came to his crib and looked down, brilliant eyes flashing from a milk-pale face, framed by dark brown tresses. He broadcast a blossoming off-white question toward her, and amazingly, she returned it with a red-pale-stripe-black answer, a complex cipher that he couldn't quite place. Still, it intrigued him enough that he spent time considering it, not even knowing how advanced it was for his brain to be considering anything. But he knew the feel of her mind touching his now. And it stopped him from crying. Soon enough, a broadcast of imagery from his mind could be answered by her from another room, from several floors below, and even from elsewhere in the city. After more months of development, he found that the original message she had sent him had been her name. And when he connected this to the complex interworking of his tongue and lips and breath, he made a word of it.
Thus, to Angel's burning jealous regret, Connor's first word was: "Dru."
AGE THREE
Connor was playing alone in his room and he loved it. He was so rarely left alone in this crowded household that it was restful being free of the caring, concerned, pressuring gazes of his extended family. The only eyes that didn't bother him were those of his Auntie Dru, because she never seemed to look at him so much as through him. She could be in the same room with him and never look in his direction, but he knew that she was paying careful attention to everything he did. Unlike his father, who looked for a new reason to worry every time Connor stood up, Auntie Dru seemed to trust his movements and only interfered when he might hurt himself. Funnily enough, she was always there just in time to rescue him, as if she knew what would happen before it did.
Which was why he paid attention when she ran into his room. A cut ran from the edge of her mouth to her hairline but it was already healing. She was wide-eyed and moving faster than he'd ever seen, reeling around the room in which he was the center. "Where is it, where is it?" she said to herself, a fist beating against her hip as she strode in circles in her long skirt. Connor suddenly made a connection in his head: Auntie Dru was THE only woman he knew who wore skirts. He wondered why.
He wasn't worried about her behavior. He often saw her mumbling to herself and wandering the halls of the hotel. But she was usually followed by . . . Connor spun his head to the doorway and saw what he expected: Wesley, leaning against the frame of the door, watching his wife with concern. He never called the man "Uncle Wes"—Da tended to get angry when he did so. Now the boy grew apprehensive for the first time, because Wesley didn't look good. He was bleeding from cuts on his face and neck, but because he was human they were running freely. Plus, there were black smudges on his face, and his leather coat was still smoking slightly. Obviously there was a fight going on somewhere in the hotel or nearby—another fact of life about growing up in the Hyperion—and Connor was happy that Dru and Wes were here to watch him instead of Auntie Fred, like usual. Fred was nice, but she never left him alone.
"Love," Wesley said, "what are you looking for? The crisis is over; Angel's led it away from the hotel."
Drusilla spun around, still wild-eyed. She drifted forward and picked up Connor with one hand, then tossed him into Wesley's surprised arms. Wesley took the boy and held him uncomfortably, not used to holding children at all. Especially this one. It had been three years since Wesley's attempted theft of the child, and though everyone in the family understood that he'd been doing it for the good of all, and that mistakes had been made on both sides regarding the incident . . . some things could never be forgotten or completely forgiven. Thus while Wesley was not forbidden to see Connor, he was never asked to watch the boy, he had not yet been invited to one of the elaborate birthday parties Angel Investigations threw for the toddler, and by consequence almost never got to hold Angel's child. At this moment they were closer to each other than they'd been in a year.
For his part, Connor was happy. He'd gotten to fly just a bit—something he got to do only when his Da was out of the room and an adult was willing to throw him into the air. Then he'd landed in the warm, smoky arms of Wesley. There were some interesting smells to discover here, and the boy buried his face in the leather jacket to gather this essence of smoke and adventure that the adults had just left. He wrapped his thin arms around Wesley's left bicep, and only then did Wes realize that he had to make the boy a seat with his forearms. He brought them up to his chest, hands clasped together, and the little boy in his arms got comfortable. Connor looked up at Wesley and smiled, snuggling into his chest. Wesley looked down at the boy and stared, as if an alien had latched itself onto his torso—and he was surprised to find how comfortable it was.
"Ah-ha!" Dru said, and dove into the playroom's closet. She came out with a small wooden marionette and rushed back to the door. "We have to go," she told Wesley brusquely, shoving him away from the door and pushing him down the hallway.
Wes found his attention caught between the two, wanting to keep eye contact with Connor but also wanting to protest to Dru. "Wait, wait!" he squawked. "What's the rush, princess?" He kept trying to look over his shoulder to catch her eye, but she doggedly pushed him forward with her superior strength and herded him toward the open part of the floor looking down into the lobby. When there she stopped them all abruptly.
He stared down at the floor more than two stories below, already knowing what was coming though she'd told him nothing. "Darling, we can't even take the stairs?" he asked.
"No time," Dru answered, picking him up like a child and making sure that the child was secure in his place on Wesley's chest. She looked into Connor's wide and wondering eyes and said, "Hold on tight."
Connor gripped Wesley tightly and squeezed his eyes shut. Thus he felt, rather than saw, Drusilla climb up onto the railing and leap. They were in freefall for what felt like minutes, then the slam of Drusilla's boots hitting the lobby's stone floor was simultaneous with each one receiving all of their weight back in less than a second. But Connor had held on, as had Wesley, and both males opened their eyes to see the welcoming brightness of Dru's smile. She was already walking them across the lobby to the office. "We're safe now," she said, setting Wesley onto his own feet when they were behind the check-in counter.
"Safe from what?" Wesley asked.
And that was the cue. Both adult heads spun around at the sound of the great beast's passage through the air, then the explosion of its impact. The dragon was a hundred feet long from nose to tail-end, and Wes and Dru had helped combat it less than an hour earlier. But then Angel had been successful in luring it away from the hotel and gotten it drunk enough on soma weed that the thing had been helpless. The couple had stayed behind to keep an eye on Connor—and Dru had been doing just that from downstairs, keeping her mind open to the boy, when she had suddenly bolted upstairs and Wes had followed her.
Now he knew why. Somehow the dragon had returned and been killed, and its fatal trajectory had put it directly over the northern wing of the Hyperion. Its corpse destroyed a large section of three floors, and its smoking, stinking head now lay upside-down in the hotel's lobby, dead eyes staring at the front door. Wes looked up the long, long armored neck of the beast and saw where the center of its body lay: directly where Connor's play-room had been.
The three-year-old Connor climbed onto a chair and made his way to the countertop to see what all the noise had been about. He was impressed by the dragon's size more than its existence: he'd known his father's game-face from the day of his birth, after all. His eyes also drifted up the length of the dragon's neck and came to the same conclusion Wesley had. But gratitude wasn't his first feeling.
"My toys!" the boy gasped. "All my toys were there! And they're gone! They're gone!" Tears started to slip down his face.
"Which is why," Drusilla said, "I got your favorite for you." She leaned next to the boy and brought the little wooden marionette up to his face.
Connor stared and his face broke into a huge smile. "Willy!" he said, and clutched the toy to him.
Wesley tore his eyes from the dragon to witness the tiny scene. He stepped forward and brought his wife into a tight embrace, silently thanking her for saving his life as well as Connor's. He had, after all, been seated in the lobby exactly where the dragon's steaming head now lay. He'd been her consort for two years and she his wife for just over a year, and every day he discovered new and wonderful depths to her. "An unfortunate choice of names for that toy," he observed, speaking into her ear.
She giggled back at him. "He won't find out for some time, and then he'll be too old to care."
Wesley's eyebrows raised and he drew back to look at her. "You mean—?"
Dru nodded seriously. "I'm afraid our worst fears will be realized."
Wes looked with caring and a trace of pity at the little boy playing on the countertop with his wooden man. "So he'll grow up as an American." He sighed deeply and scooped up the boy, who giggled and wriggled but let himself be held by Wes. They were growing increasingly comfortable with each other.
Then Angel burst through the doors of the lobby, leaping the steps and landing within a foot of the dragon's head. He didn't cast a glance toward the check-in counter, where Wes, Connor, and Dru watched him with curiosity. Angel's gaze went directly toward the second-floor location of his son's play-room, and saw that the dragon's chest was where the room used to be. He staggered and fell to his knees, his hand covering his gaping mouth, seemingly keeping his scream within him. The strength of his face collapsed, as did his shoulders, and he started to fall into himself.
"Angel," said a voice to his left, and he looked up to see Wesley approaching with Connor in his arms. "Your son's fine," the ex-Watcher said.
Angel was instantly up and pulling Connor into his embrace, holding him tightly to his chest despite the young boy's protests and wriggling. He never did like it when his father was so openly affectionate, but Angel barely heard him. He was just so grateful to see his boy alive. "Thank you, Wes," he said, pulling the human forward, gripping him by the back of the neck and letting his tears and expressive eyes say more than he ever could. "Thank you."
In the office, Drusilla leaned across the counter and looked at the scene with satisfaction. It was just as she had seen, and she knew that from this day forward her husband would be more accepted, more welcome in affairs having to do with Connor, and thus closer to the rest of the family. And the boy would need Wesley as well, and not just for the ex-Watcher's expertise with a knife. She smiled to herself as she considered it all: she had taken a day of tragedy and turned it into one of bonding and joy. For decade upon decade she had turned days of simple joy into blood-drenched nightmares, painting the world in red and stilling it like a demon's photograph. Because the world needed stilling. But Dru found that creating happiness was much more challenging and didn't last as long, and she loved a challenge. Why, there were all sorts of deaths she could avert if she could just bring herself to care. She'd have to discuss the matter later with Wesley.
AGE FIVE
Connor stood straight, his hands clasped behind him. "Am I evil?" he asked.
Angel spun around, looking down at the boy in horror. "Of course not!" he cried. "You're just a boy. But it's still no excuse. You have to stop this . . . lying, Connor. It's not evil, but it's not good, either."
"I didn't hurt anybody," Connor said.
"That doesn't matter!" Angel replied. "You can't tell us you'll be in your room when you're actually playing outside. We have to know where you are—life is too dangerous here for you to pull those stunts, son. Remember the—"
"The dragon," Connor finished, rolling his eyes. "How could I ever forget?"
Angel crossed his arms and scowled down at the boy. "Levity. Nice. It's no secret that you're smart, and more developed than most boys your age. And because of that, we thought you were big enough to be trusted. But maybe we were premature. Maybe you have to be watched twenty-four hours a day. Maybe I'll talk to Dawn about taking time off from her classes and spending the afternoons with you." This was his trump card, he knew. Dawn was an evil genius as a babysitter, knowing every dirty trick in the book and always five steps ahead of the worst mischief Connor could think up. She was the boy's arch-enemy, and gloated over that fact.
Connor looked outraged, then his face scrunched up, and he tried to keep the whine out of his voice as he said, "But I don't get it! You've told me to lie!"
"What?!"
The little boy began to pace, in a move everyone recognized as stolen from Uncle Spike. "I have to say you're human! I can't tell anyone you're 250! I can't mention vampires or witches or demons or anything! I can't say Dru is cra—" Connor slapped his hands over his mouth and looked with wide-eyed fear at his father.
The problem with having a vampire as a father was that his face never went red or pale with fury—one had to watch his eyes at all times. And what Connor now saw was a furious call to destruction, a craziness that the boy never thought to see in his overprotective father's eyes. Maybe he'd finally done it, taken that one step too far and brought out The Boogeyman: Angelus.
"Can't say Dru is what?" came a smooth female voice from the doorway. "Crazy?"
Angel spun around, giving a warning growl, clearly wanting to be alone with his son. Drusilla walked forward chuckling, waving a dismissive hand at Angel's threatening posture. "Really, Sire—has that EVER worked on me?" She swept past him and stopped by Connor, kneeling beside him so she could look him directly in the eye.
In great contrast to his father, Auntie Dru's eyes were full of humor and caring. "I am crazy, you know," she told Connor. "I'm better than I was, but still—my fire burns on the plains but has not yet reached the forest."
Behind her, Angel shook his head, not knowing what the hell she was talking about. Still, her interruption had fizzled out his anger, and he was ready to see how she would handle her little "brother."
"But you have a much bigger question in your head," Dru continued. "You want to know: 'What is truth?'"
Connor stared back at her. "I— I guess I do."
Her eyes flashed and Connor felt the familiar touch of her mind linked to his. Her hand was stretched forward, two fingers drifting across his forehead, so that even Angel knew she was digging into Connor's brain. When she next spoke, her mouth wasn't moving. "The truth is that it's all true."
"Huh?" Connor's question was also in the realm of his own mind.
"See what I see," she ordered him. "Be in me." Drusilla waved a hand and time stopped in the room for everyone but them, Angel frozen as he rubbed his chin with suspicion, Cordelia stopped in her typing in the office outside. Everything was silent and still, except for him and the wide-eyed vampire smiling at him.
"Take this second," she said. "Just this one second. And see what I see."
Connor did that, looking around the room, noting that there were additions to what had been the office's bland décor, color and symbols and even words stamped on the background of what he considered reality. There were even other people standing frozen in the office, some in shadow and some transparent.
"What is all this?" he asked.
"It is what is always here," Dru answered, "but which no one else sees or hears. There are ghosts, too, but I won't show you those. I can see as many as sixteen levels of reality—and even I know that there are many that slip from my hands."
A lot of letters were splayed across the window, keeping him from looking out. "What does that say?" he asked.
Drusilla looked at the sentence—"She just stood there watching," Fred continued. "She just stood there and laughed."—and shook her head. "I won't tell you. Look around, find what you can read and understand."
Connor followed orders and looked around him in wonder. "Footprints," he said, squatting next to them on the floor. When he touched them he got a sudden jolt of identification, a feeling of coldness wrapped in leather and filled with cigarette smoke. "Spike," he said, and then touched the high-heeled bootprint next it. This feeling knocked him to his knees, a heavy wave of love and anger and tenderness and bloodlust and much more, like watching 150 TV channels at once. "Baby," he breathed out, not understanding even a tenth of what he saw.
Drusilla nodded. "They are strong," she said. "They haven't been in this room for years, but their touches stay here long after."
"There are drawings on them," Connor said, pointing.
Dru squatted next to him, looking at the prints with interest. "The symbol layer. I don't look at these as often," she said. "The world is sickly full of them. If I spent time on them I'd do nothing else." She pointed to Spike's bootprint. "Oh, how happy for my Spike. He's been to Hell, and now he'll see Heaven. He carries the mark of redemption and spreads it." She traced a finger over a complicated mark that ran the length of the print. "Poor boy. He should grab what happiness he can while he has it."
"There's a skull on Baby's print," Connor observed.
Dru smiled lazily as she looked it over. "I know," she said. "She'll die here. Upstairs, I should think. Then she'll become my sister. But it won't be what she dreamed—she should remember the Chinese man on the frontier."
What Chinese man? Connor thought. Then he found something much more interesting: "Look. It's Da's footprint." As he reached for it, Dru caught his shoulder and pulled him back.
"You shouldn't look there," Dru said. "You shouldn't know that. Come, I have other things for you to see." She stood the boy up and, taking his hand, drew him to another part of the office. By the desk a violent young man slouched against a wall. He wore denim from head to toe, ripped at the elbows and knees, and boots with steel tips. His arms were crossed, but it was clear that his hands were covered in blood. His hair was wild and he smirked as if he thought himself the only real person in the room. He wore warpaint. His gray eyes were cold and hard, their emptiness a sharp contrast to the fullness of Angel's eyes. With that note of how he recognized the man, Connor stumbled backward and stared at the ruffian.
"That's me," he said. "Is that how I'll look when I'm grown?"
Drusilla shook her head. "No, he's the other you. The one who would have been here already if you had been taken to Quartoth. His presence is strong through the hotel. The world screams at me that he should have been here, that things are too happy and quiet here since you were rescued." She chuckled. "But I met my Wesley because you were rescued. So I tell the voices to go hang themselves."
Connor looked at the denim-clad warrior with fascination. He was so self-satisfied. He was so strong and independent. He was in so much pain. "What did I have to suffer to become him?" he said aloud.
"More than you will here," Dru answered, "and isn't that enough?" She turned around and came face-to-face with the transparent figures who'd been standing there the whole time. She hissed and spit at their feet.
Connor stepped around her and looked at the ghost of his father. Or not his father, specifically, but the transparent figure of his father. One who wore leather all over, and who had shaved his head and sported a goatee. Even behind his thin, expensive shades Connor recognized the smirk on the large man. He had a tattooed arm around another vampire's shoulders, a young and handsome man who was also smiling evilly. The younger man's teal eyes sparkled with mischief and murder, and it was clear that he was the larger vampire's plaything from the way their hips knocked together and how he had a hand tucked into the waist of the Irish vamp's pants. "Is this Angelus?"
Dru nodded. "Bad, bad Daddy," she said. "Worse than most. It's a reality far from this one, where Angelus killed Spike and took his childer after driving them mad. This one, René, is his favorite, driven insane after Angelus killed Baby in front of him. I think she was pregnant at the time. It's a bad place and far from us, which is why it's fading." She stopped and glared at the frozen image. "But it's not gone yet."
Connor spun away from these figures, feeling more disturbed the longer he watched them. Then he saw the person in the far corner, draped in shadow, like a black-light spotlight that hid them from the room's brightness. He stepped toward it and Drusilla was immediately behind him, a protective hand on his shoulder. "Who is that?" When Auntie Dru wouldn't answer, he continued forward with her still behind him. Connor recognized the person when he was one foot away from it.
"Drusilla," he gasped, looking up at the carbon copy of his Auntie standing patiently in a well of shadow. He became truly unnerved when this figure moved, her eyes swiveling down to look at him. He retreated into his Auntie's skirt. "Is that you? Or another you, from another reality?"
"Yes," Drusilla said, "but she is more here than anything else. She is who I could be, just a decision away."
"Is she evil?"
"No more than me," Dru said, and the twin in shadow smiled and nodded. "But she is alone." The shadow-twin lost her smile then.
"Why are you showing me this?" Connor pleaded, holding onto Dru's skirt like a security blanket and wrapping himself in it. She drew him over to the office's couch and sat him down, finding a seat next to him. She pulled him onto her lap and held him in a comforting way that she almost never did. He had the bad feeling that maybe his real Auntie was now trapped in shadow and the one holding him was a new Drusilla.
"I told you," Drusilla said. "The truth is that it's all true. Do you remember?"
"Of course. You said that just before . . . this."
"Well, it IS all true, Connor. Before you were born, I saw him," Dru said, pointing to the violent young man in denim. "And he was much more real to me than you were. I saw him in the lobby, and hallways, and the elevator. He was the Connor who was supposed to be here." She paused, waiting to see if there would be a reaction. "But then I saw you. A tiny boy in a play-room. A five-year-old sneaking out of a window. A ten-year-old making his own fireworks. A fifteen-year-old hiding with me and Cordelia in the vault downstairs. After you were born, that older-you started to fade. The boy who's seated with me became more real. And now here you are—the Connor who is supposed to be here."
Connor stared up with wide eyes. "What does it all mean?"
"It means that that older-you is as real as you are. Somewhere else, he exists. To you he's just a dream. To him, you're just a wisp of thought. He doesn't have a loving mommy and daddy—you do. But you're not more real than him. None of us are. I have to watch all of this, Connor, and I decide what's better or worse. But I don't decide what's more real."
Drusilla was then silent for a long time, while Connor absorbed what he'd seen. Finally he broke the silence: "Is this what you wanted to teach me?"
"It's what I hope you've learned," she answered. "Your world is what you make it. If you want it filled with lies and distrust, that's what you'll find. If you want it filled with courage and love, that's what you'll find." She brushed the hair away from his eyes and looked at him seriously. "Some lies you tell to help yourself, and some lies you tell to protect your family. I don't need to tell you which are good and which are bad, do I?"
Staring into her eyes, Connor blinked. He'd actually heard her say that—for the first time in minutes her voice had actually crossed the air. And he found himself standing where he'd been before, Drusilla kneeling in front of him, two fingers touching his forehead. She drew away and stood, looking triumphantly at Angel, who was still watching both of them distrustfully. "I think I'm done here," she said.
"That's it?" Angel said. "You look into his mind for one second and it's all settled?"
"It depends," Dru answered, "on the right second." She started to leave, then cast a bright smile on her sire. She reached out and brushed a hand through his moussed locks. "I'm so glad you still have hair," she said, and left the office.
Angel rolled his eyes and looked at his son. "Is it me, or is she getting crazier?"
"Da!" Connor said. "Weren't you going to tell me that it's rude to call Auntie Dru crazy? Right before she came in?"
"Um . . . " Angel frowned. "Yes. I was."
"And I am sorry," Connor said, eyes downcast. "I'm sorry for lying to you and Ma also. I didn't want to scare you. Really."
Angel sighed. "That's what you said the last time. How do I know you mean it?"
Connor shrugged. "If you want trust you have to give trust."
The vampire squinted at his son. "Wha?! Is that something Dru just told you? While you were doing that mind-meld thing?" Connor silently nodded. "Hmm. Maybe she's not such a bad influence on you after all."
AGE TEN
"There's no such thing as vampires," Connor said.
Robbie De Beers rolled his eyes. "Well of course not!" he said, exasperated. "But can't you imagine? I mean, here we are, all alone. No bodyguards, no chauffers, no nannies. Just us under this light and all that blackness out there. And what could come out of that night air? Ghouls? Vampires? Don't you feel the least bit helpless?"
Li Peng shook his head. "That's foolishness," he stated. "There's nothing there at night that isn't also there in the day."
"Not necessarily," Arnie Lansky said, "and I'm not talking screech owls. My parents had a séance at their last dinner party, and I watched from the stairs. I actually saw a silver candlestick float through the air. It was the freakiest thing. I'm telling you, there's a whole hidden world of the occult that we never see."
Now Connor rolled his own eyes. The occult—these spoiled rich boys had no idea what they were talking about. The Palmerston Academy was the finest private school in L.A., attracting the sons of ambassadors, billionaires, presidents, and sheiks, but the boys who attended had little to no idea what the real world was like. Connor's classmates were so insulated by wealth and privilege that they only knew what they read in books. They were all two years older than him—he'd tested to get into their grade—but sometimes he felt twice as mature as these morons.
"I'd be prepared, that's all I'm saying," Robbie De Beers continued. "I've been studying this stuff. If a vampire came at us I'd know what to do: a stake through the heart or cut off its head."
"Yeah, like you carry around stakes," Arnie Lansky said. He removed from his pocket a silver lighter, THE lighter he'd boasted to everyone he'd stolen off his chauffer. He produced a small flame and said, "Fire is a much more sure way to deal with vampires. Or so I'm told."
"Oh, like you know anything," Connor sneered, then regretted that he'd let it slip out.
The three boys looked at him strangely. Baiting each other was their favorite game, and Connor almost never rose to the challenge, seeing as he was the baby of the group. But now they seemed to have found something that would tweak him. Getting a handle on a little genius was always useful. "And what do you know?" Li Peng asked, his calm eyes hiding a nature that was more dangerous than his two louder companions.
Every instinct told Connor to back down, to admit ignorance and give them the field. Common sense told him to stay quiet and to stop seeing these boys so much, no matter how popular they were around the school. But the natural boasting nature that he took from his hero, Uncle Spike, won out. "Fire is a stupid way to fight vampires," he said clearly. "They start to flail and run around when they're lit up. It's all too likely that they'll catch you on fire, as well as the room you're in if you're attacking them inside. As for cutting off the head—if you can't even lift an axe, Robbie, you don't have any hope of doing that. A stake is good, but that kind of close-up work is too dangerous for most people. Best to try a long stick with sharp ends, like a javelin. It gives you distance, and it's easier to aim for the heart." He suddenly looked down and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Or so I'm told," he offered.
The three schoolboys stood blinking at him. They had never heard the innocent little Connor say anything like that before. "And how the hell would you know?" Robbie asked.
"Well, I— I was thinking about it. I mean, you guys talk about vampires and occult stuff all the time. So I modeled the idea of killing a vampire," Connor said.
"Modeled," Arnie repeated, more than a hint of disgust in his voice. The three older boys hated that particular educational technique, the modeling of an idea via the latest in computer logic programs, mainly because none of them had an aptitude for it. And it was no secret that Connor was the school genius when it came to computer modeling. They also knew that he'd somehow arranged to have the Hacker Goddess (West Coast), Willow Rosenberg, give a lecture on computer security for all programming students. He was a rising star in the community of the rich and famous, and if he had the brains to realize it he'd have dumped these three losers who were obviously using him and started his own clique within the school. But they had their hooks in him deep enough to make sure he thought himself lucky that they gave him their attention. They'd keep him off-balance and useful until they graduated or got arrested, whichever came first.
They'd rather discuss anything than computer modeling. And Connor patted himself on the back for adroitly changing the subject. (And yes, he was the kind of boy who used the word 'adroitly.')
"Why the hell are we out here, anyway?" Robbie groused. "So Connor's aunt can drive us to the airport? Y'know, my father could have sent a limo. For each of us, even."
Peng dug an elbow into Robbie's side. "Dude. Have you SEEN Auntie Dru?"
"Uh, no."
Peng and Arnie shared a knowing smile. "It'll be worth it."
Connor looked down and scuffed his shoe on the pavement on which they stood. Talk that even approached sex tended to embarrass him; talk that involved sex and his relatives gave him major wiggins. God, if these guys only knew! Some of the things he'd seen Spike and Baby do on the hotel stairs, of all places! Sometimes the Hyperion could be a dangerous place to walk for reasons having nothing to do with demons. And speaking of that—
"Hey," Robbie said. "Did you see Mrs. Roxton when she came to get Connor back in August?"
Arnie leaned forward. "No, I missed it. But I've heard stories."
"Hey, I was in that class, man!" Robbie boasted. "Jefferson was going on and on about binominals—"
"Binomials," Connor supplied.
"Whatever," Robbie growled. "Anyway, it's one really boring lecture. I'm just about to fall asleep when there's this knock on the door. Before Jefferson can answer it this woman walks in. She's older, y'know, you can tell, like as old as my dad's first wife—but MAN! There wasn't a thing dropping on her, y'know? Bazooms out to here! And she's in this silver low-cut top and this short-short black skirt that just barely covers her ass, with these black nylons—and hey, get this—" He held out his hands for dramatic effect, but he obviously had Arnie enthralled— "You . . . could . . . see . . . the garter straps!"
"Oh!" Arnie cried, hand over heart, falling back in a mock-swoon, grinning.
Wearing the same feral grin, Peng asked, "Hey Connor, Dru's not as old as Mrs. Roxton, is she?"
How to answer that? 'Nah, guys, Dru's got a hundred years on Baby, 'course she's been dead that whole time, so it's kinda cheating.' "Uh, no. Baby married into the family, while Dru's my real aunt."
"Baby?!"
Connor blinked. Should he not have said that? "Yeah. Mrs. Roxton. Everybody in the family calls her Baby."
Peng laughed into the night air. "Oh my God! I have got to hear that story. What was she, some hooker your Uncle Will wound up marrying?"
Well, it was an evening for firsts! The guys had found out that Connor knew more about the occult than they thought. And they also found out that if you insulted Connor's Aunt Baby, he'd leap forward, grab you by the collar, and shove you against a utility door with a surprising bit of strength from a 10-year-old.
"Take that back," Connor growled, slamming Peng against the door one more time to show that he meant business.
The older boy looked down at Connor, bewildered, then regained his composure. "Y'know, the great thing about knowing Aikido," he said, "is that you can turn your opponent's strength against him." So saying, Peng latched onto the edge of the hand gripping him by the throat and tried to turn it . . . but it wouldn't budge. In fact, the pressure increased on him.
"Y'know, the great thing about knowing just which vertebra I could break to leave you paralyzed from the chest down," Connor said, "is that I so rarely get a living specimen."
There was a bark of laughter from the night. All four boys turned to look in the same direction. Striding into the pool of light around the dormitory's utility door was an amazingly beautiful young woman with a milk-pale face, hypnotic eyes, and black hair that swept down to the red-and-black gown she was wearing. She stepped up to the boys, smiling and shaking a finger at Connor. "You stole that line from my Spike," she said. "I heard him using it in a sparring session."
Connor set Peng down and stepped toward her, smiling ruefully. "Yeah, you're right. Sorry, Auntie Dru." He wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged her.
Drusilla patted his head. "Oh, but it was quite cute. Spike is an excellent role model for you."
Peng stepped forward. "Uh, sorry ma'am. We were just disagreeing about—"
Dru put a quieting finger to his lips. "You were calling Baby a whore," she said. "Try not to do it again and Connor won't need to get violent."
The three older boys were blushing now—they were threatening to a kid like Connor but around Dru merely a group of loud-mouthed 12-year-olds. Drusilla wouldn't allow any hurt feelings to fester, though. She quickly herded them toward the minivan she'd borrowed from Angel Investigations and soon they were onto the highway to LAX. Connor rode shotgun, and the other three boys took the seat directly behind him and Dru. Drusilla was perfectly content to remain silent as they drove, and Connor was not in a mood to start conversation, so an oppressive silence filled the car until they arrived at LAX.
Things had definitely not turned out as the older boys had wished. They were used to taking advantage of adults' views of them, but this mysterious woman had caught them in a rare unguarded moment. Add to that the fact that they didn't know just how long she'd been waiting in the darkness and how much she'd heard. So they hadn't ventured their usual wise remarks toward her, and it had left them with nearly nothing to say. Robbie, at least, saw what his friends were talking about: this Auntie Dru was quite the dark beauty, with a penchant for antique fashions that really made her stand out. But she was so cold, so restrained, that he was more wigged by her than attracted.
When the minivan pulled to a curb near one of the airlines' entrances, all three boys boiled out of the back seat and ran for the doors, not even bothering to say goodbye.
"Nice boys," Dru observed as they sped off into the night.
"They're monsters," Connor replied.
"But aren't they your friends?"
Connor turned weary eyes to her. "We're co-workers," he said. "Our job is school. That's about all we have in common."
"Tsk. Too young to be so cynical."
Connor just rolled his eyes in response. Dru drove for another few minutes in silence, then said, "Those boys shouldn't enter your mind at all. They're hardly monsters."
Connor sighed. "I know. I've seen worse walking through the lobby at the hotel. They're just screwed-up boys." He shoved his hand against his mouth, jammed his elbow against the door where it met the window, and propped his head up. "I'm the monster," he mumbled to himself.
And he had obviously forgotten that vampires could hear as well as he could. Drusilla hit the brakes with a horrendous squeal, and the car edged to the left. It spun completely around twice before sliding sideways for forty yards, tires shrieking, the occupants' world reduced to sound and adrenalin while cocooned in darkness. When they finally stopped, the car was perpendicular to oncoming traffic, blocking two lanes. Cars from behind them had slid to the sides, knocking together and piling up like escorts. They pointed to the left, Dru's own window looking at the crashed and stopped cars that had been behind them. There was less than a minute of silence following their stop, then angry drivers began honking. The highway across the median witnessed an abrupt slowdown of its traffic, as drivers there started to slow on the off-chance of witnessing some blood.
Connor whipped his head around and started with, "What are you—" before Dru grabbed him.
Dru held him by the shoulders and stared at him furiously. "Listen to me, my boy. You are NOT a monster. And I won't have you believe you are."
The boy was stunned. He had never seen Auntie Dru angry at him in his entire life. "Wha?"
She shook him. Roughly. The lights bouncing back through the windshield mixed with the lights of the dash to outline her in white and blue, the intensity of her huge eyes and snarling mouth striking Connor's eyes like neon. "Be clear on this. You're just a boy; you're a good boy. I've seen the light of goodness in you, and I won't watch it fade away!"
There was a knock on the glass of the driver's side door—not someone looking to help the driver, but an angry motorist wanting them to get moving. Drusilla was in her game-face in the blink of an eye, spinning her head to roar at the unlucky human who interrupted her. The man outside screamed and ran, and Dru turned back to Connor with her game-face intact, yellow eyes flashing and fangs fully extended. She continued where she'd left off: "I am a monster; I know a good boy when I see one."
Connor went from shocked to angry while the man outside had distracted them both. He struggled in Dru's hands but could not free himself. "I'm not afraid of you," he growled into her fanged, leonine face.
Drusilla slipped back into her human features, but kept a serious expression. "That's the most foolish thing you've yet said," she told him. She released him and fell back into her seat, staring blankly at the windshield. Connor also stared forward, depleted. The honking outside was growing louder, but neither of them noticed.
"Is it not enough for you that you're—"
"Gifted?" Connor finished for her. "Do you know how much I hate that word? It's been on every report card I've ever had. Every time someone says it they're pointing some finger of responsibility at me. Even in the family—with all that Slayer talk."
Drusilla winced. "And Wesley says—"
"Yeah! Every chance Uncle Wes gets he tells me how lucky I am, how I'm practically a male version of the Slayer, how I have this great destiny awaiting me, how I'll lead the Scourge one day. From what Dawn used to tell me about how Slayers live, I'd rather skip the whole thing." He sighed. "'Gifted.' No one ever says that without wanting something from me. But I don't want that, not any of it. Being a monster is easier."
Drusilla gave a short, sharp laugh, completely unlike the laugh that had broken up the fight earlier. "Oh, it is, Connor. It's so much easier. Which is why it would be a crime for you to become one."
He turned in her direction, his eyes questioning. Drusilla rolled her head back, eyes closed, and moaned, "Oohhh, how to explain this to you? How can you know how human you really are?"
Then she was suddenly staring at him, a hand pressed to his forehead. "Perhaps it's better if you see it for yourself." Usually she slid gently into his head, her power like a needle slipping into flesh. Now it was a spear, jabbed into his consciousness, brushing aside protests and defenses and stuffing itself into his mind. It was by far the most violent thing that had ever happened to him, despite his sparring sessions with Uncle Spike. He would remember it years later as the moment he was first treated like an adult, as someone who no longer needed to be treated with kid gloves. It was his real introduction into what it meant to be a fighter.
Connor was rocked back in his seat by the experience. "I give you one day," Drusilla crooned. "One day, and you'll see, you'll know." His little 10-year-old back hit the seat, but he felt as if he had continued to tumble backward, as if he were falling into a gulf where there were no handholds, and what he was falling into was another person. He was beneath the surface before he knew it, unable to breathe, stretched thin and yet amazingly strong, he was . . . he was . . .
I am Drusilla. There are three or four other names knocking about in my head, but I don't stop on them often. Except for Spike. I quite fancy him, though I've only known him 60 years or so. I trust him. Which is why I've spent the morning chasing him. Above us, hundreds of feet above, the killer sun batters the entire world, quite unfair for a Winter's day. But we are down in the Channel's deep, in the frozen darkness where boat propellers do not touch, and even the fish do not move quickly. That's how I know the quick flash of white before me must be Spike's feet, and I thrust myself after him. He shoots forward as well, laughing in his deep voice at me, it being the only sound we can make here—our lungs are full of water, but we don't care. We are sharks here, bored with the prey we could snatch from the liquid world around us and chasing each other.
We do this for hours, swirling around each other, tiny victories piling up. Twice I wrap myself around him and rocket toward the surface, daring to toss him up into the sunlight. Each time I force him to hurt me to free himself, and it's delicious when he does, because my Spike never hurts me on purpose. When he captures me he doesn't once threaten me with the same punishment. Ah well. He's good to me in other ways, he is, but it will never be love until he can push me past that point of danger. He thinks me fragile because he's so fragile himself inside. I need a man who can push me to new places, new depths. Ah, if only Daddy were here. Spike slides his hands over me when we're close, running his fingers to interesting places, but I am cold and closed—in every sense.
Finally it is dark above and we propel ourselves up, breaking the surface like porpoises, screaming into the night. I go up for a moment, but all too quickly fall back to the water. I feel cheated that I cannot fly; the darkness of our Channel depths beckoned us down and down until even our strong bodies were in danger; and now I see that the night stretches up into the sky and I want to join it. Back in the water, I swirl and dive and drive myself up again until I leap into the air, shooting a fountain of brine from my lungs, arms swept back to greet the black dawn with yellow eyes and fangs unsheathed. But I crash to the sea again, and now I just drift, no longer caring what awaits in the night's grazing field of victims.
My Spike glides up to me, long hair slick and tangled at his neck. He dips back down so that only his blue eyes skim above the water, then the rest of his face rises and he tries to kiss me. I turn away, just wanting to drift and sink and let the darkness take me in its arms. I've lived too long and I always expect too much. Why must I always know disappointment? Why must—
"Fire, luv," Spike says.
I turn my head to see his pleading eyes. "Where?"
He wraps an arm around my shoulders to turn my eyes back to shore. England crouches there in the sea, and on the corner where her great capital lays there is—
"Fire," I say, watching gouts of flame erupt from the towers and buildings. Ooh, I can smell the pain and fear from here, almost hear the screams of loss and outrage. I taste the despair of mothers losing children, husbands losing wives, sons losing parents. And everywhere is fire, blood, chaos, and more fire. The evils of the old are burned off to prepare for new evils, to bring new sins to idle hands. It's all so . . . mesmerizing.
Planes are buzzing above the holocaust and I see the ghost of one before it dies, see it approaching us. Oh goodie, we're to have our meal delivered.
I still Spike, who's once again knocking at a shut door. "Hsst! We're about to have a playmate, Spike, and he's bringing din-din."
His eyes light up and he grins broadly. "U-boat?" he asks.
"Icarus. He'll join us in the drink nearby."
My clever Spike reads the subtext. "Large crew?"
"Fighter. But the nice boy inside will be alive after impact. A confection for us, wrapped in glass and burning metal."
"Where?"
I point. "Let's start that way—he'll arrive soon enough." We both launch ourselves forward, swimming strongly for ten minutes before we're near the target zone. And just on time, a diagonal streak of fire stretches from the black skies to the water in front of us. Spike and I grin at each other in the sudden illumination, then let the smoke from the wrecked plane wash over us as we close upon it. We have to move fast, before it sinks—but we're the essence of fast, sharks risen up to feast on our bounty.
Spike breaks through the glass canopy and pulls our nice boy out, our chubby little pilot. The lad's half-conscious because of the impact, but the chilly water and our hands on his suit soon have him wild-eyed and shouting. It's lovely, his fear carrying across the wide waters. The plane sinks but we've captured its blood cargo. He flails like a tuna in a net, crying out for his god, and I have to laugh. I toss him to Spike, who falls back in the water as he catches the man. He then launches the prey up and over my head, and I have to swim fast to reach him before he hits the water. Oh, this is brilliant. We growl joyfully at each other as we begin our game of catch, widening the distance between ourselves with each throw, the man screaming pitifully the whole time and making us laugh all the more. Oh, such a pretty, pretty night.
Finally, after eight or ten passes, the distance is too great for even our strength, especially as we have no footing in the drink. I have to toss him into the space between us, and we come together on his struggling form, this human who has less than a minute to live. We dig into him from either side of his neck, finally stilling his attempts to swim away. Ooh, the blood is peppered with fear, swirling with adrenaline; it's like fire slipping down my throat and warming my belly. And other parts.
When the flesh is empty we toss it aside and hungrily join, sensing each others' arousal and giving in to it completely. Rolling tongues are cut by our fangs and this pain only heightens the sensation. We share blood, faces locked together, hands reaching for the good bits, and I am— I am—
Connor slid back into himself with no grace or even a warning. One moment he was an 80-year-old vampiress childe of Angelus feeding in the English Channel in 1940; the next he was the 10-year-old child of Angelus living in post-millennium L.A. He naturally had to shake his head to orient himself once he got over the impression that he was staring at himself in the driver's seat. No, that wasn't himself—it was Auntie Dru. He was Connor. He had a lifetime of memories to prove it. The boy shook his head again and became more fully in control.
Outside, a crowd had formed from people getting out of cars. While Connor had been immersed in his day as Drusilla another foolhardy human had rushed up to the minivan, tearing at the door to see who was inside. He was greeted by Dru in full game-face, who then pushed him back from the vehicle so that he flew ten yards. Since then no one had approached, but the group of worried onlookers had greatly increased.
"Have you recovered?" Drusilla asked stiffly.
"Yeah," Connor said. "What the hell was that?"
"I'm not telling," Dru answered. "You tell me—what have you learned?"
"Huh?"
"I'm not leading you through. You must tell me if that taught you anything about the subject of monsters."
"Well, yeah! I mean, it was— there was so much—"
"Yes?"
"You enjoyed pain. And hurting other people," Connor said firmly.
Dru nodded. "So does another one of your aunts. And she doesn't have the excuse of being a vampire. What else?"
"Um. You drank blood."
"So do a few African human tribes. What else?"
"You didn't have a conscience? You didn't care about the guy you killed?"
Dru nodded. "And what else?" When Connor merely shrugged, she growled deeply, shaking every window in the minivan. "So far you haven't touched on a point not shared by Faith when she was bad. She was monstrous, but not a monster. Come on, boy! You've been into the mind of a monster; tell me what a monster's like!"
Connor stared at her—it was usually her husband who was the harsh teacher who pushed his thinking. Ah well, a first time for everything. He took a deep breath and said, "Uh, monsters are . . . animals." Dru gave him a raised eyebrow. "I mean, they're a part of the natural world. Law of the jungle and all that. 'Nature red in tooth and claw.' You and Spike were living just for the moment, not thinking about the past or planning for the future."
"Like most demons do," Dru said. "And how is that different from humans?"
"Are you kidding? Humans are always full of plans, building stuff up and tearing it down."
"So what would you have to do to be a monster?"
"Me? I guess if I just fed and slept and didn't think about anything else. If I was like some beast, but with a language. If I . . . If I did that over and over, every day." A thought was slowly creeping into his head as he considered the question. "If I didn't care. If I just took what I wanted and didn't think about consequences. I wouldn't even see a better way." The epiphany washed over him like a blanket being pulled away from his eyes. "Wait a minute. Demons don't like to change anything, do they?" Dru only shook her head. "If it was up to them, they'd live in, like, caves or wherever." Dru nodded. His eyes were wide as he said, "They don't . . . create."
Dru nodded sadly once more. "No demon born ever had an original idea," she said. "They just kill and eat—it's all they know. Humans are the ones who make new things, who shape the world. And demons copy them, with temples and rituals and even magic. Humans are the only ones who make the world better. If it were up to demons the planet wouldn't have changed in 40,000 years."
Confusion crossed Connor's brow. "But vampires—"
"Are not the same thing, and you should know that. They are a mixture of demon and human, with the advantages of both. It's why we can create like humans . . . but we're still monsters at heart." Drusilla reached out and affectionately rubbed Connor's head, looking wistfully at him. "Do you see what you'd be giving up? What that human heritage of yours really means?"
"I think so," Connor said, then looked down. "And I'm sorry for suggesting that I could throw it away."
"It's all right. You still have plenty of years to learn."
"ATTENTION, OCCUPANTS OF THE MINIVAN!" a loudspeaker roared. "STEP OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!"
Only now did they notice the flashing lights from the police cars. Drusilla turned her head slowly to give every human who wasn't seated next to her a menacing glare. Policemen stood just a few yards away with guns drawn. Connor leaned forward so he could look out her window. "These guys are in so much trouble," he observed.
"Indeed," Dru said. Her mind reached out and grabbed the policemen mercilessly; they jerked to attention, in complete thrall to their mistress, guns pointed at the ground. The two cops still in their cars got out and also stood at attention. The one on the loudspeaker turned to the crowd and calmly stated, "THE EMERGENCY IS OVER. PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR VEHICLES. TRAFFIC WILL BE FREE TO MOVE FORWARD IN TEN MINUTES."
Dru started the minivan, ready to leave at that moment. Connor put a hand on her arm. "Wait. Can you do the joke? Please?"
The vampiress sighed heavily. "I've been doing that joke for you since you were four. Over and over and over. Don't you ever get tired of it?"
"It's classic, though. You've got to do it!"
Drusilla put her hand on the gear shift. "No, I think not."
"Wait!" Connor cried. "Y'know, even though you're controlling them now, they probably already have our plate number in their computer. And everybody out there can see 'Angel Investigations' on the side of the van."
"Your point?"
"When we get home you'll need somebody to hack into the police computers and erase that info. Somebody who's spent his childhood learning to do just that, and learned tricks from Willow that no one else is supposed to know about."
"Which is why Winifred will—" Then she stopped. Connor must have known, like she did, that Fred and Charles were vacationing in the Bahamas. It was spring break, after all, which was why Connor was coming home. "You little monster," she mumbled.
"Yeah, that's me," Connor said. "So, will you do it?"
She looked down at him with harsh, accusing eyes, but was met with the pleading, puppy-dog expression taught to the boy by Dawn Summers. He'd been told that it had a magical effect on Order of Aurelius vampires, and he watched Drusilla's fury melt before his eyes. He really was on the verge of fake tears.
"I'm getting as soft as Spike when it comes to you," she said aloud.
"Nah. Uncle Spike gives me money," he said through a familiar smirk.
"Alright. Keep your eyes on the policemen," she said, her power flowing back along the connection to the uniformed humans outside. Connor stood in his seat to get the best view. Dru turned her head and looked out the window, her eyes showing a faint yellow glow.
"These aren't the droids you're looking for," she said.
The policeman on the loudspeaker eagerly picked up the receiver. "THESE AREN'T THE DROIDS WE'RE LOOKING FOR. MOVE ALONG, MOVE ALONG."
Connor was doubled over in his seat, gripping his stomach, laughing so hard that he was red-faced and in pain. Drusilla looked down at him in wonder. For this moment, this brief lapse in the day, he was just a normal 10-year-old with no worries or great destiny hanging over him, a boy who didn't have Web sites written in demonic script offering treasures for his body dead or alive, a boy in a safer, better world. It was a very good day when she could do that for him. Drusilla shifted the van into drive, turned to the right, and moved them back into the highway's darkness.
TO BE CONTINUED in Age Fourteen and Age Fifteen