1Chapter Three
"I think you have enough flowers, William," Angelus grumbled as the younger vampire heaped more blossoms all around the little wooden plaque that would stand in for this Drusilla until the stone masons could make her headstone.
William scowled at him. "You didn't let me get her ready for her birth," he scolded then went back to arranging flowers.
"When did he become such a traditionalist?" Angelus whined to Darla.
"Leave him be, Angelus," Darla said tiredly.
"It's no fun digging up from the grave. Dirt gets into you, nasty little worms. She should have seen only the moon above her," William pouted.
"You do have a point there," Angelus conceded. "But the digging gives you spine, right Darla?"
"That was what I was taught," she said.
"I hear her." William leapt up and started to dance around the headstones. "She's waking up." He leapt up onto a pedestal where a mournful angel kept watch over a grave. He kissed the stone face. "My angel is coming for me. We'll have such fun together, the feeding, the playing, the loving," William cried, doing something very rude to the angel.
"Ouch." Angelus winced. "Darla remind me of this the next time I even think about turning an insane person."
"I'm reminding you now that you encouraged dear William to make a fledgling. You know he's in no condition to teach anyone. You'll be filling the role of sire."
"She was beautiful. I don't think that'll be a problem." Angelus leered.
Darla slapped his face. "Leave William his woman, at least for a while. He deserves her."
"Very well," Angleus conceded but he had no plans of obeying for long, just long enough for Darla to stop keeping a close eye on him.
Darla pulled him away from the grave so they could watch from a discreet distance and let William be the first to greet his fledgling. Angelus expected the younger vampire to come out of his own skin as he fidgeted waiting for the new vampire to dig herself free. He could hear the sounds of digging and remembered his own time under the earth. William had a point. It was cruel. Angelus shook trying to loosen the memories from him like a dog wiggling off water droplets.
Finally a hand poked up through the dirt and flowers and William was there to capture it and help her free. The girl sat up still half under the ground, that dazed, frightened look on her face. Angelus noticed that the expensive jewelry he had seen on the body when William had proudly shown her off was missing. Greedy family, he surmised.
She looked at William who beamed at her like a deranged angel. The mad vampire brushed the loose clumps of sod from the girl's hair as she glanced around with large eyes as she tried to make sense of things. Angelus remembered that unsettling feeling, too. "What happened?"
"You've been reborn and now, I'll show you what you can really become." William wrapped his arms around her, dragging her out of the grave, like a doctor delivering a baby.
"I don't understand," she said, wiping dirt from his eyes.
"And William's not really the one to explain it," Angelus said, sauntering over. William gave him an irritated look.
"William?" She caressed William's cheek. "That's a good, strong name."
"I'm Angelus and she's Darla," Angelus gestured to his lover, irked at her ignoring him.
"They're your new family," William said. "But I bet you're hungry." He bolted behind a crypt and came back with a trussed up young boy. "I've brought you something good to eat," he sing-songed.
The woman started to protest but the demon finally got its bearings. She smiled full fanged and went over to William.
Angelus kissed Darla's cheek. "Just a guess but I think William found a good one."
Drusilla found her resistence didn't last very long. The first night Angelus had suggested she kill her family she rebelled. Two nights later she went after Honora and Michael. She didn't tell her new family about Elspeth, who had never done anything to Dru. Honora, even before she had tried to inflict the marriage on them all, had always been critical of Drusilla, especially about her pursuits of women's equality, the right to vote and dreams of medical school. She had really enjoyed killing Honora.
Michael was even more fun. She and William left him alive for a long time, pissing and shitting himself as they tortured him and Honora. She made love to William on Michael's bed as her sister and her fiancee watched, crying and moaning like frightened children. Angelus had been so right about how much fun this was. He'd be mad that she left him out of it but this was something she wanted to share only with her dear, sweet, almost gentle William. He read Michael poetry while she killed Honora. Her William had such a wonderful voice. Angelus might have the smoldering brow but his voice was slick as fish oil and his mind as rank as a fishmonger's cart.
William leaned in close over Michael's cooling body and licked a trickle of blood from her lips. "You are so beautiful, my dark rose."
She brushed the curls back off his face. "Come, lover. We're done here." Dru took his cool hand and pulled him outside. She wondered for just a moment what Elspeth would do now. Dru shrugged it off. Elspeth was better off.
Fat snow flakes fell from the sky in an unseasonably early storm. Dru canted her face up, feeling them hitting her eyelashes and cheeks. They glittered like diamonds in the light of the gas lamps; white against the indigo sky. Everything seemed so dark blue now that she was confined to the night. Drusilla wanted a dress the color of the night. Darla probably had one. The matriarch of the family was a clotheshorse but in spite of her acerbic tongue, Dru liked her. Darla had owned her own business, so what if it was a brothel? She knew how to survive in a man's world and Drusilla respected that.
It was her poor William who couldn't quite survive on his own. She would gut whoever had done this to him. Still, maybe he would surprise her one day. William might be cannier than anyone gave him credit for. It didn't matter, she loved him anyway. When he was acting innocent, like he was now, dancing about trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue, she loved him the mo st. He flung his arms around her, swinging her up, making her skirts swirl.
"It's so beautiful out," he said. "Like you, like your beautiful mind that called to me, a mind that glows and bathes me with light."
"This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary," Drusilla said. "Precise and logical and filled with shadows and love. Serene. And it's all for you." She kissed him softly.
William trailed his fingers over her forehead. "There are trees in your head where you spent so much time hiding behind because you were different. The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue."
"Blue," Drusilla murmured. "I was just thinking about blue. Your gift has stained my world with indigo. I love it."
"Our color," he said. "I will write you poems and they will be all the shades of blue."
"And I will love them all," she said, slipping her hand back into his. "The night is young. Let's spill the light of our minds over this time."
"And stain things crimson." He laughed.
"Another pretty color." She kissed him.
There was still something subtly wrong about hitting a woman but Drusilla deserved it. She sprawled on the floor of their London home, looking up at him stunned but he thought it had less to do about him hitting her than it did with William bouncing around Darla babbling about a fight. He egged Dru on to hit Angelus back. To the older vampire's surprise, Drusilla swarmed up off the floor and punched him right back.
"What was that for?" she snarled, dancing back into a fighter's stance, a trickle of blood running from her split lip.
It always looked so damn silly in long dresses. No matter how many times he had seen Darla do it - though she was loathed to get physical - Angelus always had a tough time not laughing at women fighters. He wondered how silly a Slayer would look in skirts and corsets. Maybe she would dress like a man. He didn't care to know. "Because of you we have to get out of town," he rumbled. "I've warned you against showy kills and what do you do? You slaughtered an entire men's club!"
"Did you see the article they wrote in the paper laughing at the Women's Social and Political Union? They laughed at my life's work. They're not laughing now," Drusilla shot back. "It was fun."
"What do you care? You can't vote now anyhow. You're dead," Angelus jeered. "All you've done is alerted everyone to our presence."
Drusilla crossed her arms, tossing her hair back. "They're meat. Who cares?"
"Oh, our children are going to fight," William said to Darla. "The King of Cups expects a picnic! But this is not his birthday."
"You truly are daft, William," Darla said. "Tell her why we don't bring mobs down on our heads, Angelus."
"The Slayer and her Watchers. There's an enclave of them here," Angelus replied, disgusted.
"Ooo, the Slayer. I'd forgotten," William said.
"Yes, I suppose you were having too much fun with that railroad spike," Darla said as tart as unripe persimmons. She glared at Drusilla. "What were you thinking, teaching him how to torture like that?"
"It's time William becomes more than your eyes to the future. He needs to stand up for himself. I'm teaching him that," Drusilla replied, sharply. "And I think he needs a new name." She crossed over to William and ran a hand along his cheek. "I think I'll call him Spike." William turned his face, licking her hand.
"We'll call you both dust if you do something like this again," Angelus griped.
"We'd better start packing before the Watchers send for a Slayer. I think the new one is in Russia," Darla said, casting another furious look at Drusilla.
"What is this Slayer you keep bleating on about?" Drusilla said, seeing that her elders were worried and was smart enough to realize she needed to know why.
Angelus laughed mirthlessly. "She's a real strike for your women's rights, Drusilla. The Slayer is the one girl in all the world that monsters fear. Her only purpose is to kill us. I should let her have you."
Drusilla laughed. "I can't believe you're actually afraid of one little girl."
"If you've met one, you'd know why. It's possible to have a nice long life, Drusilla, but not if you get the attention of the Slayer," Angelus said, heading for the stairs. "Pack or stay. I don't care which."
As Darla followed him upstairs, Drusilla wrapped an arm around Spike. She tapped his chest. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Spike? I think we need to find us a Slayer."
Spike grinned wickedly at the idea.
Epilogue
A DeSoto rocketed past the 'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign and eventually scraped along with sidewalk down town. Drusilla got out from behind the wheel and leaned against her car, surveying the town. She pulled her cigarettes of her leather pants and lit it with her death's head Zippo. Taking a deep drag, she let smoke trickle past her painted lips.
"Doesn't look like much," she said.
"Dru, I'm cold," Spike said, getting out of the chair.
"Spike, you need to rest," Drusilla fretted. She took off her leather coat, revealing the leather and chainmail halter she had taken off a biker chick. If Spike had been healthy, she would have taken the Harley Softtail, too, but he didn't have the strength to sit in the bitch seat without falling off. She wrapped her coat around him and Spike rested his head on her shoulder.
"Why are we here? I don't like this place. It's full of sick power. I should love that but it makes me feel like ants are having a party on me," Spike said.
Drusilla rubbed his back. "That's the Hellmouth, my prince. This is where Angelus is supposed to be."
"And when we find him then I'll be all better." Spike looked up at the moon.
"And go back to Prague and make that mob regret ever seeing us." She smoothed a hand over his hair. "The spell would work even better if we had Darla but I heard Angelus dusted her for a Slayer. Can you imagine it? Angelus as the Slayer's lap dog?"
"The Slayer is here," Spike said mournfully.
Drusilla hated to hear the fear in her weakened lover's voice. Not so long ago he would have been as excited to throw down with another Slayer as she was. "She's just gravy," she promised him, looking at his pale skin lit by blue neon of a nearby bar sign. She thought back to her first nights cloaked in indigo shadows as she learned to hunt. She owed Spike so much. She couldn't imagine her live without him. As soon as she found Angelus and healed him, she wouldn't have to. "Let's go find out who's in charge here and let him know he's answering to us now." She laughed.
"That's my beautiful indigo rose." Spike managed a smile for her.
Hope in her unbeating heart, Drusilla looked at Sunnydale. It was just a matter of time before it was theirs. Maybe the spell would leave Angelus alive. She could use a lap dog of her own. She couldn't wait to find out.