"Been spending a lot of time out here, haven't you."
Christina didn't answer.
"Spike notice yet?"
"What do you want, Angel?"
"You insist on calling by that name."
"You rather I call you Liam?"
The dark vampire chuckled. "Anyone else have a sense of deja vu all over again? Anyway," he went on when he saw that she wasn't as amused as he, "isn't it a little bright out there?"
"No."
"Well then, isn't the kid a little . . .alive?"
"You never had a problem with Druscilla playing with her food."
"Dru, my dear, was quite insane. While you are many things insane has never been one of them. Glorious, bloody, evil, inventive, cruel and worshipped like a goddess, but not insane.
"Insults will get you no where," and with that Christina rose from the archway she had been sitting against taking the small, sleeping, child with her.
Angel quirked a surprised eyebrow. "Funny, I thought they were compliments myself."
"You going to stare at her all night, mate," Spike whispered, the sound loud in the empty great hall, "or are you going to bring her to bed?"
Barefoot and -chested, Angelus picked Christina up, cradling the vampiress in his arms. Her head lolled onto his chest.
"How many times does that make this week?"
"Every day."
"Where's that git, Lukas? Thought he followed her around like a puppy dog."
"She put him off on Grace."
Spike sighed, drawing a hand down his face. "And now she's falling asleep in a chair in the bloody foyer like some geriatric." Turning on his heel he left the room without making sure Angel followed. "You know last night she played bows and arrows with the food -- and some of the minions. Lost Ajax."
"Think that's bad, she's got a pet kid. A boy of about three."
Spike turned at that. "Really? Where's she keep him?" Angel shrugged. "Oh well, maybe someone will kill him and she'll fly into a murderous rage." He sighed wistfully, a smile playing on his lips, "She has such lovely rages. Not sure she's been eating properly either."
"I thought she stopped skimming off the minions after the burning."
"You tell me, Angelus, does her color seem right to you? Or her moods?" Spike stopped completely and looked at her.
His childe and sire's silence was answer enough.
They moved down the hall once more, side by side. "Don't suppose you know what's wrong." From his back pocket he withdrew a pack of cigarettes. Finding no lighter or matches, he still knocked fag into his hand and let it dangle from his lips. "I don't have any ideas how to make her better. Torture doesn't work for her like it did Dru. You got a thought in that thick head of yours, Angelus?"
"What'd you do last time?"
"Last time?!" Spike stopped as his laughter rang from the high archways of the hall behind them. "Last time I gave her Grace! There isn't anything left to give her, mate."
The few short feet to her bedroom were crossed in silence. They walked single-file through her stacks and stacks of books. Spike held back the sheer mosquito netting surrounding her bed. "Do you know what she's been studying, Angelus?"
"Prophecy."
"Know what kind of prophecy?" He sat at the head of the bed stroking her nearly black hair like the child she appeared to be.
"Do you?" the dark vampire shot back, docile far too long.
"Old Slayer prophecies. I know, they're all old, but stuff that's come and gone already. History."
Angel's smile was faint. "She should have been a Watcher."
"Yes," Spike agreed, gazing around her summery pastel green cotton bedsheets, so very unlike the vampiress most of the house knew, "she should."
"The middle of the day and the Mistress doesn't have supplicants," Angel said aloud to himself in the empty hallways. The minions were more restless than usual, fights igniting for no better reason than one bumping into another. While Angel liked a good fight as much as the next, this was becoming ridiculous. Besides, no one was listening to him. The very thought made the small hairs on his back rise in anger and disgust. He who had been a master vampire brought so low, and by his childe no less. It was unthinkable.
But here he was.
And so, to relieve himself of the . . .burden of his existence, Angelus decided to wander. Five years in the house that Christina designed and commissioned and he still didn't know its every secret. In truth he only cared about five rooms: his, hers, Spike's (although he could have done without that knowledge), the kitchen and the infamous basement. He loved the basement. Christina had stocked it with everything he could ever need to -- he smiled to himself -- entertain.
"It doesn't matter what I want!"
"Well that explained why no one was in the West Wing," Angelus murmured to himself, smirking, "the Mistress is going off on another one of her rants."
"You think I like this? You think I wanted this?! I didn't know! No. One. Told. Me!"
He listened as Christina's tread became heavier across the floor. As far as he knew no one was in the room with her. "Told you what, my dear?" he breathed, openly eavesdropping now.
"What do you want?! I can't be but what I am! I can't be anything else! I've tried. Damn them all to Hell, I've tried!"
Angel jumped as a large heavy object crashed into the door. The sound of tearing and other objects crashing followed. While the idea of the precious library Spike had bought, stole and bartered for his firstborn being destroyed by her appealed to him, Angel happened to like and own some of those books.
Waiting for a lull in the destruction, he carefully opened the door. "Christina?" A porcelain figurine flew past Angelus' head.
"You make me sick! I want you and I hate it!"
Well, it seemed whatever voices she had been talking to still had her in a rage. But that doll had been well aimed. If he hadn't ducked he would be bleeding at that very moment. Yes, her eyes were boring fire into his skin. So, angry but not insane. Angelus would keep that in mind.
"You don't want me! No one wants me but I crave it. Crave it like I'm a child searching for her mother. I can't give it away," and the 'its' seemed to have changed. "I can't be anything other than what I am. Don't you understand? Don't any of you understand? I want it and I hate it!" She flew at him in a rage.
Angel readied himself for attack. A book struck him instead. Midway to her destination she'd changed her mind, preferring to use weapons rather than attack herself. Expensive, heavy pens followed. A crystal inkwell. A creaking old leather-bound volume that exploded when it hit the doorframe. Her next few launches were badly aimed and Angelus wondered why he didn't just leave.
In Angel's momentary inattention, he missed Christina picking up a heavy, smooth, paperweight and taking aim. He did see the white hand that suddenly appeared before his face.
"Should have let this break open your face, Angelus. What the bloody hell did you say to her?!"
They ducked another well aimed missile. "Her name!"
"Always had a way with the women, didn't you, mate?" Spike tossed the paperweight back.
Christina caught it easily, the globe exploding in her hand. The sound filled the room and the resulting silence. Suddenly she seemed to come to herself, turning slowly to her still-clenched hand. Opening it they watched the blood well up and flow freely down her palm.
And the wounds close before their eyes. With an anguished cry, Christina covered her mouth and ran through the disaster that was her room. Spike and Angel were far too stunned to stop her.
Regaining his wits, Spike turned to follow her, "Christina! Bloody hell, where is she going?"
Angelus pushed past him. "Outside."
"She has the bloody cuff!"
Angel held up a piece of glittering blue and silver, "No she doesn't!"
"Jesus," Spike swore. "God, catch her Angelus!"
Like some wraith sent to haunt him, Christina slipped in and out of Angel's vision. Now he saw her, now she just in his grasp and all the while they drew inexorably closer to the deadly sunlight.
She stopped just long enough to open the door. It was enough. "Oh no you don't!" Angel snatched her away, squealing. "You want the sunlight? Fine!" Viciously he forced the lapis and silver cuff onto her wrist and thrust her outside, panting uselessly. "Fine." His eyes met Spikes. "Fine."
None could rouse her. None could persuade her to drink. Lukas abandoned Grace, miserable, while Katie and Derek, both, kept watch distance away. Her faithful servants. Spike came by, stared for a bit, took a drag of his cigarette and went on to feed. The minions were too scared -- of her or her guardians it didn't much matter -- to do more than gaze from open second story windows.
Grace lay her head on her mother's stomach, too confused to do more than just be there, on the ground, with her as she stared at the night sky in the garden outside her beloved arched walk.
Waking, Spike sensed another presence in the bed with him instantly. It took another moment and turning over to make "Gemini" spill from his lips. Curse and prayer. She moved into his space when he left the bed. Just like his sister so many years ago. A shake of his head and the thoughts scattered like so many mortals.
Quick glance at her, dead asleep. Could he pull his jeans on standing up? Screw it. He sat on the very edge of the bed and dressed in the bare minimum. Stood. Couldn't resist looking at her again. Kissing her forehead.
She had tracked mud into the house. Faint at his door, they were heavy and dark further away. A trail of them led to her room. He couldn't resist and followed.
"Spike."
"Yes, Honey," he answered without turning. She had fixed it. Sometime during the day his Gemini had come back inside and repaired every book she had lain waste to. He stared at the room in frank wonder.
"How did this all happen, you making Mom. I mean," he heard her come further into the room, "I know you two fought and you won and then she asked you to turn her so I wouldn't die but . . .there's something she didn't tell me, isn't there."
Spike finally took a quick glance at her. It was enough. Yes, she had her mother's nearly black eyes, button nose and small full mouth but her features were squarer, more definite than Gem's. Angelus' stamp, assuredly. And of course she was that beautiful cafe au lait color that death could not steal. "Not much more to tell, Pet. Nothing you can't ask Peaches about," and strode past the girl, his granddaughter in mortal terms.
"I should have given you a son, Angelus," she whispered to herself. "Maybe I wouldn't have loved him." She smiled to herself, "If I was lucky." The singing wind took her words, took her smile and left him with a thing of flowing white-tipped hair whose eyes were ever to the sky.
Angel followed her gaze as it rose to the stars dancing, fleeing, above. He looked from the cold stars to the ones reflected so well in her dark eyes to her midnight hair. "Just one more night, God. Give me just one more night," he prayed for the first time in centuries.
"You have to choose."
Christina narrowed her eyes at her sire. "Whatever for? I thought I belonged to you," she sneered.
Spike slapped her. "Don't forget I made you," he said lowly.
"He made me too. This has never been about me," she accused, "I've always been a pawn between you two. You kill me to spite him, he steals my child to spite you, and you want me to choose?" Her laughter echoed harshly in the largely unfurnished third floor -- bouncing off the walls, empty indoor planters, and the photosensative skylight.
Snarling, Spike crossed the room too fast for even her eyes to follow. She struggled against his stone fingers under her chin. Despite it all, he bared her neck to his sharp teeth. "Choose."
"If you don't know who I've picked," she gasped for the air to speak, "then you aren't nearly as clever as the Council thinks you are."
Christina looked up at Spike from the floor, gently probing her chin, her eyes locked on his.
The sight of every vampire turning as one, as if pulled by marionette strings, to the second floor balcony would have been amusing had Angelus not been one of them. The rich, powerful, darkly dangerous aroma of Slayer filled the large foyer -- running down the double-staircase like a stream and over the balcony like a waterfall the scent rested writhing waves, rising higher and higher, around their calves -- long before Christina was visible. They watched her clutch the banister with one hand and her neck with the other. They watched her nearly stumble down the grand staircase. None moved to her help her; all were transfixed.
Angel rose, stepping blindly over vampires, and went to her. Only a moment passed between staring into her dazed and his true face coming to the fore. Growling, he pulled her hand from her neck suckled on the still-wet blood on her fingers. He cleaned her palm, turned over her hand and licked the blood that had seeped through her fingers; took his time working his way down her arm suckling on the precious liquid of a slayer and vampire, until his mouth came to the bend of her elbow. Her blood had pooled there, in the crook of her arm -- his pulling it out to suck loosed the sluggish flow. Angelus caught the drips in his palm, sucking, wide mouthed, on her pulse point, pulling at blood underneath unbroken skin.
He growled when there was no more light/dark blood to drink. It was no wonder Spike guarded her veins so vehemently. But her scent still lingered. Blood still pooled, lukewarm and nearly dead, at her collar. Angelus crushed her to him and ravaged her neck.
He threw her away.
"When did Spike claim you?" Angel snarled.
"Minutes . . .ago."
He watched her swim toward unconsciousness. "When did you last eat?"
She stared at him blankly.
"Why have you been starving yourself?"
She reached the dark shore.
Derek knew he was taking his unlife in his hands by entering his mistress' rooms without permission. "Lady?"
Her near black eyes shone out of the darkness at him. "Yes, Derek. Come," she beckoned him to her bed. "I haven't seen you and Katie lately. How're you getting along? How is my Lukas?"
"We're good," he answered softly, matching her tone, "we're all good. But we're worried about you?" He sat on the edge of the bed.
Her eyebrows rose into her hairline. "Oh?"
"Yes. Lukas and Grace feel abandoned. Katie and I are okay, but we miss hunting with you. Even the minions have noticed something is different."
She snorted lightly, "They miss my bacchanals."
Derek's smile was faint. "Yes, that too."
Very gently, she brought a hand to his face. "And what do you think is wrong?" He rubbed his cheek into her palm, answering, "They torment you."
Again, Christina's eyebrows rose. "Oh? And who is they?"
His eyes met hers. "Angelus. Spike. They pull you between them like rope."
"Were you always a poet?" Her eyes laughed. "Maybe they do and maybe they don't. I'll work it out, don't worry. I always do. I'm sleepy. We'll go hunting tonight, hmm?"
"Yes, Lady."
Their mouths met in a chaste kiss. Pulling away, Christina bit her lip, the blood welling to the surface of the slight wound. Derek's eyes were hopelessly drawn to them; he had not drunk of his sire since he was made. Rubbing her lips together, she spread the heady stuff across her full lips. "Sip," she ordered.
Tenderly, Derek ran his tongue over her lips. "Thank you," he said in awe.
She shrugged.
End [Game]
thank you for reading my story. if, by some move of God, you have read all three sections of this melodrama, then...then i don't know! you are the most amazing person i have never met if that's true. and if it's not...if you've only read this, then you still rank pretty high on my book. thank you again, and again, and again.~vashti