When I got downstairs, Drusilla had disappeared and Darla was exactly where she had been. Angelus was waiting for me in his study. He looked exasperated when he saw me. "Not a clean shirt boy! You'll stain it!" He turned me round to look at my back and sighed. "Too late I see. Gone and ruined a perfectly good shirt now. Stupid boy." He clipped me round the head and turned away. I shuffled where I stood. "Stop fidgeting, it's very disturbing." I tried to stand still but my back was extremely uncomfortable and I was finding it hard to keep still.

Angelus handed me a book, the demon encyclopaedia, and told me to sit and read and learn. He left to go and sit with Darla, after giving me strict instructions to stay exactly where I was.

That lasted about a minute. I was trying to learn the exact proportions of a Fyarl when a little voice in my head told me to stuff it. Now I know I'm only two but I'm really not stupid. So why I listen to that voice I really don't know. It always tells me to do stupid things, and I do them.

Anyway, at the moment I was thinking how ridiculous it was that I had to learn out of a book. Anyone who's not a big, old, strong master vampire knows that you only learn through experience. Well, in most cases. Learning that a stake kills a vampire is a bad thing to learn through experience. But I bet Darla didn't make Angelus sit four hours on end reading boring copies of various demonic things. I bet he went out there and killed a load of things.

So, getting bored of that book I went to the shelf and took out a better one, one that described the most famous acts of torture ever carried out. I knew this book cover to cover, having been given it by Angelus once and having read it every time I was supposed to read something else. It was a good book and I liked it. I skipped the chapter on Angelus. I didn't really want to read about what a brilliant torture master he was. I knew it well enough first hand and didn't want a reminder.

I began to daydream about myself. One hundred years time and I would be recorded in plenty of books. The watcher's records would be filled with my famous antics and terrorism. I would be famous throughout all the master vampires. Who knew, maybe humans would have done great things by then. There could be a way to fly! That got me daydreaming some more and I imagined soaring over cities like a bird, wild, free...

"William!" Angelus' voice snapped me out of my daydream and I looked up guiltily, ensuring that the torture book was hidden by the age-old trick of one book inside another. He stood in the doorway, tall, big, powerful figure, his face glowering at me. "You are not studying, you are dreaming." He stated. Congratulations on the observations Angelus, I thought dryly, but didn't say it. Instead I held up my copy of the demon encyclopaedia with the torture book inside.

"I'm studying," I said in what I hoped was a normal voice.

Angelus' eyes narrowed, and he snatched the books off me. The torture book fell to the floor. He picked it up.

"'A guide to the best methods of torture ever devised' ," He read off the cover. "Will, I gave this to you months ago, and now I find you looking over it once more when you are not supposed to. Well, that'll teach me not to give you books you might enjoy. How big is a Fyarl's head?"

Huh? I shook my head to clear it slightly. A Fyarl's head, a Fyarl's head... oh come on Will, you know this... "Um, two feet wide?"

He growled a little. "Two feet is what you'll get in your face if you don't give me a proper answer."

Ah. So the two feet was a stupid answer. I thought about it and then realised it was more like one foot. "One foot," I answered firmly, as if I knew it was the answer.

He lunged at me and grabbed me by the collar, hoisting me up. "No!" He shook me hard and I felt like a doll. Then he dropped me to the floor and threw the book across the room. It hit the shelf and knocked of an inkpot and a box of cigars. The ink spilled over the curtain, the floor, the cover of the chair and half of the cigars now scattered over the floor and chair. Angelus either didn't notice, or didn't care. I saw his fists clench and unclench and swallowed hard. "What do I have to do to get through to you boy?" He said, exasperated. The air was thick with the smell of his rage. "I've tried everything and nothing works! You just don't listen!" He picked up Darla's vase on the side and hurled it at me. It smashed over my head. Darla was not going to be pleased. And, more likely that not, she would hold me to blame, since I was the one winding up her precious Childe.

As I predicted, her face soon appeared at the door. She took in the scene disapprovingly. Me, hunched on the floor by the desk, the ink spilt over one corner of the room, the bits of broken vase surrounding me.

"Angelus," she said sweetly. "May I have a word?"

He cast an angry glance at me. "Stay there boy." Then he followed Darla, shutting the door. I slumped brokenly against the wall. Was I in for it now. Both Darla and Angelus angry at me. As I waited for Angelus to come back, I was increasingly aware of how painful my back was. I just wanted to sleep until it healed, but with Angelus that was out of the question.

It wasn't long before he came back. Darla wasn't with him, which was good. He no longer had waves of fury pouring off him. Something else. The look on his face scared me. He was perfectly calm.

"Come here Will." I stood and walked across the room to him. He took my right arm and rolled up the sleeve of it. I didn't have a clue what he was doing. I didn't understand what he was playing at. I knew it showed on my face because he gave me a nasty little smile that I didn't like. He took hold of my hand and stroked the little finger almost thoughtfully. "Will?" He asked quietly.

I knew he was in no mood to be messed with. "Yes Sire."

That was when he let me know what this was about. He twisted and yanked on my finger, breaking it in about three places. Instinctively I pulled away as pain shot through my hand and arm, but Angelus had a firm hold of my finger, and pulling only pain the pain worse. I clenched my teeth together to stop the cry that nearly came out of my mouth. Then he moved on to the next finger, taking it in his large hands and once again stroking it.

"You know Will, when I say something to you, what do I expect you to do?"

"L-listen, Sire."

He broke that finger. My eyes were starting to water and I shut them so he wouldn't see.

Taking the next finger in his hands, he spoke again. "Very good. See, you know the answer, so why don't you do it?"

My lip was trembling. "I- I don't kn-know, Sire."

He completely pulled my middle finger so that it was totally out of place, and white-hot pain shot through my whole body. I let out a yelp that resulted in another small yank of the same finger. I clenched my other fist tightly and dug the nails into my palm.

"Wrong answer, boy. You deliberately don't listen because you can't be bothered. You are insolent, stupid and lazy. What are you?"

My whole body was trembling with pain now and my eyes were streaming. My knees were almost giving way. "Insolent... st-stupid and lazy... Sire."

"Correct." He broke my index finger and the nails of my left hand pierced the skin, drawing blood that trickled down my palm... "Now how will you stop this?"

"I- I'll listen, Sire, I swear I will," I babbled quickly, half blind from the pain. Little dots were making their way across my vision.

"Good," He said, and broke my thumb quickly and efficiently. When he let go of my hand, I crumpled to the floor and blacked out in a haze of agony.

When I came to my senses, it was because light was streaming through a crack in the curtains, which had been dislodged when Angelus hurled the book. My foot caught fire and I yelped, pushing myself to my feet and immediately regretting it. The fingers on my right hand were all at odd angles and still hurt. When I put even the littlest of pressure on them to move myself away from the light white lines of pain shot through my body. Rolling out of the way of the light, I studied my ruined hand.

The fingers would have to be repositioned. I couldn't let them heal like this or my hand would be permanently marred. I gripped my first finger and shifted it into place, gritting my teeth against the pain. I did the same with the other four until I was ready to pass out again, but I managed to shut the curtain first.

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