He was never sure he liked this house. Only when he and Angelus fought or when looking the git in the face made him want to vomit did he appreciate his childe's vision. It was amazing what an army of architects could do with two nearly adjoining abandoned warehouses and a basic sketch. They had more than enough room to avoid each other with the three stories; a spacious basement allowed them to play with their food if they so chose. Making the interior a completely open space with a balcony running around the second floor turned out to be a good idea too, he thought, remembering the party they'd thrown for themselves inviting scores of college-aged humans. A good time had by all. It was also nice for spying on the minions and his growing family. And for making an example of some nonce or other. Another good thing about converting a factory: keep all the hooks and such on the ceiling.
He knew she liked the connecting hall best. She'd seen it in some movie or something. Target practice out the archways was fun to watch. It was a little too gentrified for his taste but she liked simpler aspects of vampire life too. Ah, she was quite the sight at a massacre. Bloody marvelous.
Walking through the Great Hall, as he heard her call it, was like going through a bloody maze. Seemed more and more vamps joined them every night. They had quite the growing reputation. Unconsciously he looked up at the ceiling and it's newest . . .addition. He smiled. Really, she did good work.
But when he was trying to find someone, as it seemed he often was, it was a bloody nuisance. He should have awakened a minion or two and sent them searching. Rot it all, he was up now and it wasn't like he didn't know where she probably was. If she wasn't with him and she wasn't in her own bed there weren't too many possibilities left.
Smirking he stood in Angelus' doorway. It would figure the git's bed would be the largest piece of furniture in the entire room. And closest to the door too. Angelus and Grace, called Honey, were tangled in each other and the blue-white satin sheets sleeping . . .like the dead. Quite conviently, she lay on her stomach, a little apart from them as if she had merely watched the festivities and not participated -- much. He crouched beside her naked torso. Riding low as the sheet was, he had to assume the rest of her was equally nude.
Lightly, very lightly he ran the pads of his fingers up and down her sensative back, tempted by the globes of her breasts rounded and pushed out by her weight. He created the simplest pattern but done so gently, so gently and softly on her so sensative back. Her back that when merely rubbed she purred.
Awareness was slow in coming. She opened her eyes and blinked owlishly at him. She turned to her childe and Angelus then back to her sire.
"Come with me."
She nodded sleepily and slid noiselessly out of the bed and away from it inhabitents. Unashamed of her nakedness as she never would have been in life she followed him over sleeping vampires and listened with a deaf ear to mortals in agony. "Do you like your prezzie?" she asked looking up at her masterpiece hanging from the ceiling.
"Course, I do, Kitten."
"She's coming down tonight. You can have her back. She didn't enjoy it with me the way she does with you." She lapsed into silence.
She made the long walk down her beloved hall to his wing -- hers too -- of the mansion answering his whispered questions on the way, marveling at how cool it was even during the day.
"If the two of you fight like banshees why do I constantly have to retrieve you from the nonce's room?"
"Grace wants me to come."
"And do you like to play with the kiddies?"
"I like to watch."
Yes, and with the intense stare she had, a way of looking that made you believe that she was hyperaware of all you said and did, most liked to have her watch. "Then you don't play."
"Not usually."
"Not even with Angelus?"
"Not anymore."
"Since when?"
She shrugged liquidly. "A long while. We fight a lot."
"Doesn't stop most."
"I have you."
"Not like you're my mate. Never expected you to be faithful or some rot like that. What about Derek?"
"He's different. He's mine," she said without the heat of a mated claim.
"And you're mine." He turned to see her nod. "If I told you I wanted to see you and Angelus together . . .?"
"Why would you?"
"Don't bloody well ask questions. Who cares why, what if?"
"I would. I guess."
"Bet you'd enjoy it too," he said snidely, thinking of past grievances.
"Probably. Angelus' pride wouldn't have it any other way."
Inside his rooms now he threw a long loose nightgown at her -- he enjoyed the way her body was both painfully obvious and deceptively covered -- comfortable in just his jeans himself. Slipping it over her head she crawled between the covers -- black and scarlet and cotton -- into bed. He pulled her into his lap. "It's probably too late to start treating you like a proper childe isn't it?"
She nodded against his chest, making herself comfortable.
"Would a week chained to the foot of my bed break you, you think?"
She yawned. "Did that my first year."
"We bloody well see where that got us," remembering the way she lashed out at him when he finally released her. Their fights were red with scars so much deeper than the ones ever inflicted on each other. "Put a collar on you?"
"Wearing one."
"Right. Bloody well forgot. It's far too pretty. How long have you had it?"
There was no answer for a long time. "Six years."
"Ah well, it doesn't matter. You're only a bad girl when you go loopy and I'm always there to watch the massacres and make sure the locals don't burn you at the stake or something equally tacky."
"I'm sorry. I'll be badder."
He chuckled, the sound reverberating through them both. "No worries, Kitten. You just go to sleep," and he meant it. He had just wanted her to know she slept with him, in his arms, and not Angel's. There was something comforting about watching her rest, silent and still in his arms.
"Spike?"
His lips whispered against the skin of her forehead, "Yes, Kitten," his voice low and rumbling between them.
When she didn't answer he knew she had fallen asleep again and thought, Well it mustn't've mattered. If it had she would have stayed awake, wouldn't she, or she would--
"Love . . ." he stopped stroking her long white hair, "it burns."
Confused he whispered, "What burns? What love? A person? What is it, Kitten?" But she was asleep.
*
Spike was gone when she awoke that night. It was late. She should have been up hours ago. And something . . .happened last night. She couldn't remember what.
She'd think about it in the shower.
"Almonds," she said to herself picking out one of the many shower gels she kept in her sometimes-lover's bathroom and smelling it. She took it and a sponge, turned the water on hot, stepped inside the glass shower and heard no more.
*
Every body in the mansion stopped mid-action whatever they were doing, every head turned, as a primal scream of intense agony echoed throughout the complex. Vampires and prey looked at each other for once unaware or concerned about their status as hunters and hunted.
- What was that?
- I don't know.
- Don't you know?
- How should I know?
By the time Derek and Katie arrived Grace had maneuvered her mother from the floor halfway to the bed. Between the three of them they had made her as comfortable as possible when Spike and Angelus came bursting into the room, together.
"What happened?" Angelus demanded. "Who was here first?" Spike asked at the same time.
The lovers looked to Grace. "I was here first and . . .and I don't know. It looked like she'd been burned."
The figure on the bed writhed silently, her face a mask of pain. Hair plastered to her head, the dark brown roots exposed, bed sheets clinging to her body she rocked from side to side tears streaming down her ridged face. Spike was instantly at her side pushing the water-darkened white hair from her forehead. "It's all right, Kitten. We'll fix it, Christina."
Angelus pulled Grace to one side. "Tell me everything you know, now."
"I heard the scream and, I don't know, I just knew I had to find it. I passed a bunch of other stunned minions and, and Vera ran past me and then I was in here and . . . Mom was on the floor screaming," her eyes looked into the distance. "And some of her skin was on her hands," she said quietly, beginning to shake and shiver now that the moment was over. "Then Katie and Derek were here and they helped me, I think, and then you and Spike were here and . . ." She trailed off shaking violently now. Angelus passed her to the Brazilian couple.
"What she say, Angelus?" Spike asked. His hands pressed gently into Christina's abdomen until her agony seemed to subside.
Angelus walked over and looked down at the moaning vampiress. Second-degree burns ravaged her lower abdomen while her upper abs and left breast had less intense first-degree burns. The skin was gray and dead looking but the rest of her body . . .flushed with fever. "Grace was the first one here. She said something about se--" he paused mid-sentence. "Derek, you and Katie seal off the entire house. I want trusted minions at every exit including the archways. Make them wear blankets if they have to," he barked.
The couple looked to Spike. He nodded. Swiftly, they left the room. "Got a fix on who did this, Angel?"
"Grace said Vera ran past her on the way here."
"You think she did it?"
"She seemed to think you liked her. I'm sure she didn't enjoy becoming part of Christi's living artwork, hanging for all to see."
The lines around Spike's mouth were grim. "Funny, I enjoyed it," he said darkly. Beneath his hands Christina began to writhe. "Bloody hell," he mumbled. "Angelus, bring your cold hands over here. She's burning up."
Angel quickly took Spike's place on the vampiress' abused body. As quickly as it had started, she calmed but he could see what Spike meant. Touching her was like dipping his hands in hot wax. This was a temporary solution at best. "We need--"
Derek burst into the room a bag in hand..
"What are you doing here? I sent you to make sure the house was secure."
He ignored Angel and ran into the bathroom. The sound of rushing water filled the room. Angel scowled wanting to go after the insolent vampire but unwilling to leave Christina. Spike did it for him. Stomping off into the bathroom, he pulled Derek back from the edge of the sauna deep tub by the scruff of his neck. "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing? You were given an order," he ground out.
"She's hot. I felt it when we helped put her on the bed. I was burned bad once. It was like I was still on fire. The water's cold, with ice in it. It should help."
"You couldn't send a minion? If her attacker gets loose I'll save their punishment for--"
"The house is secure. I wouldn't let her attacker get away."
Spike dropped him to the ground.
*
The sun had risen hours ago. Vampires stood guard within and without, slathered with sunscreen that was hardly effectual, covered with blankets and dark shades over their eyes. Spike, Angelus, Derek and Katie took turns doing quick patrols of the house, at least one of them in the bathroom, ready to cool the water as need be. Still, somehow, a time-stopping wail of agony managed to leave her. For long, long seconds no one moved held in its powerful call of pain. Then, as one, they shivered, some more strongly than others, and returned to their work.
Grace crouched in a corner.
"She's not healing well," Katie mentioned in one of the rare moments they were all in the large bathroom together.
Angel looked Christina over critically. "It's true. She doesn't look any worse but not any better either. Katie go see what we have in the kitchen. Grace, go with her."
They brought back young teenager and a twenty-something. "It's the best we have."
"There's a cup in my--"
Spike interrupted him. "Let her drink them straight." Katie tossed him the teen. Holding the girl down with one hand, he ripped open her wrist then held it to his childe. He made sure she drained the girl and repeated the process with twenty-something. "She look better to any of you."
"Take her out of the water," Angel suggested. Spike met his eyes. They all remembered what happened last time they attempted to pull her from the icy water.
Stooping low, Spike reached beneath Christina and lifted. And waited. It had been instant the last time; as soon as the skin of her belly touched air her mouth opened into a blood freezing scream. This time, though, nothing. Everything seemed--
Christina whimpered. "Spike?" she whispered, "Angel?" not seeing either, "it burns. It--" Her mouth opened wide
and shut as Spike quickly replaced her in the water. "More blood then?"
"Something more powerful."
"Slayer's blood," someone added.
Spike whirled around, spraying water. "Who said that?!" A minion standing in the door raised his hand. "She is a bloody Slayer you bloody whimpering twit! Now get out!" But he didn't kneel beside the tub again. "Follow this, Angelus, would you? Christina is a Slayer, right." It was rhetorical but Angel nodded anyway. "She was sired by a master and she's been undead a quarter of a century."
"She should be healing better than this."
"Precisely."
"What they hel--"
"She hasn't been eating!"
Everyone in the room turned to Grace. "What do you mean she hasn't been eating?"
"She made me promise."
Spike stalked the already cringing girl. Pulling her up by the front of her shirt he shook her. "Tell me."
"She-she eats when someone brings her something, you know, like Derek or if you or Angelus bring home something but otherwise . . ."
"I would notice--"
"She sips from us. From me and from Derek and from Katie." The couple nodded. "And not just us but everyone. She chooses different ones different nights. They love her. They would do anything for her and she only takes a little bit. They-they feel honored."
Spike had already set her back on her feet. "Why?"
"I don't know. I just know she does. I think that's why she hasn't been ending the fights with Angelus sooner. She's not as strong."
Derek did it first. In the silence that followed Grace's shaky rush he strode to his lady's side tearing his own wrist. "Drink." Rousing herself, Christina protested. He persisted until she did and persisted still when she refused to do more than skim. Grace stepped forward next, legs and hands steady for the first time since finding her mother. "Mommy, drink please." And this time Christina didn't protest as hard. And her protest was almost gone altogether when Katie, then Angelus offered her their blood. As each finished they left looking to restore themselves.
Christina gazed up at Spike with clear eyes for the first time in nearly twenty-four hours. "Scared us, Kitten."
"I thought that was a good thing," she said weakly, her wry smile back.
"Let's get you out of this water."
Neither mentioned that Spike hadn't offered her his wrist.
*
Two more days of feedings and the skin had grown back over the worst of her burn while the ugly gray flesh above had become a thin, itchy, but brown, scab. And Vera was chained to a wall down in the basement awaiting judgement. Tomorrow, he and Angelus had decided, would be best. Tomorrow Christina could watch her would-be killer . . .
Spike let the thought go as he curled his body around his childe's. She looked like a child when she slept. The white hair with its dark roots only made her appear more ethereal. Looking at her, he wondered what his fascination for the defective was.
*
"Look what we have here," Christina purred.
Spike's pet, covered from head to toe with delicate swirling, dipping and spiraling scabs, save her neck, struggled between Katie and Derek, both in game face. Twisting futily in their gasp, she opened scabs all along her body. Christina took a long snuffling breath. "Mmm, she's ripe with fear."
All around the main room vampires, in various states of demonic guise, nodded waiting to see the little human punished.
Spike lounged like a spoiled prince across an armchair, Angelus and Grace on either side. The short, two-step landing that led to the main dual staircase had been converted into a dais for the little family. Christina sat sprawled across the steps. None but she and Katie knew that her pants rode extra low on her hips and that her empire-waist shirt was to keep as much cloth from her newly healed and still pealing skin as possible. No, the minions only saw their Mistress, ruddy from gorging on two youths in less than an hour.
Leaning back on her elbows she half turned to Spike. "Can I eat her now?" He nodded. "You'll understand -- Vera is it? -- if I'm not the neatest eater." She smiled, humanity bleeding away, "Just had a little accident you know." The girl's screams only made thegathered vampires laugh.
*
Cradling his favorite child to his chest Spike felt, for the first time in over two decades, the piercing bite of another vampire on his neck.