Recombination

Spike tried to look away from the First’s new form, he didn’t understand it and that enraged him just as much as seeing the First abusing it. He kept fixing his eyes on a point far away from the First as it taunted him, running ghost-like fingers over his body. Not touching because of its lack of a physical body, but taunting him nether the less. Spike stared into the brown eyes; the evil staring back at him was a cruel mockery of the usual warmth. He looked away as it bent down next to the toddler who was busy running her fingers over intricate patterns in the gold seal. He wasn’t at all surprised that in this form, Annemarie actually seemed to pay real attention to the First.

Spike swallowed hard as the First looked up and smiled the mischievous smile that he normally wore. Spike looked away ignoring the First’s disgusting remarks as the Bringers stepped closer. When he did look up again the First had switched to wearing Buffy’s body, which didn’t bother him as much. Spike ignored the cruel smirk, trying to appear cool and detached as it instructed its minions; he hated that it knew how to get to him. Trying not to clench his jaw shut as the sharp bite of the knife moved over his chest Spike let out a low moan clenching his eyes shut as he forced himself to give in. He had been prepared to bite down and ride out the pain. He had figured the tortures Angelus, Darla and even Dru had once inflicted on him had prepared him for what was to come; he was wrong.

Not only did the First know of those tortures, the pleasurable ones and the punishments, it also had a few ideas of its own, and they weren’t pleasant.

Spike had been torn between giving the First the satisfaction of hearing him scream and not scaring the small child he wanted to protect; the First had made the decision for him. The First had decided the most effective way to punish Spike and scare the child was to make it agonizing for Spike not to scream. So it did one of the worst things it could have possibly did; it calmly and with obvious relish had the Bringers snap each of Spikes sharp canines leaving only a cracked, broken, bleeding stump of tooth behind. Effectively the First had neutered Spike in a way his chip hadn’t even managed, by making it painful to even show his game face. Not only that but by breaking the teeth and not pulling them out, they couldn’t heal and caused immense pain. To heal, Spike would have to have the broken stumps pulled out allowing the teeth to grow back in a few days. The First was having too much fun seeing the agony Spike was going through to allow that to happen.

As the knife was set down Spike spat blood from the corner of his mouth and opened his eyes. The First stood there, smirking and admiring the handiwork of its minions. Spike had to admit as he looked at his chest, the symbols he recognized were artistically sliced on. There wasn’t a single flaw in the design; before the soul and had it not been happening to him he would have been impressed. Now he was in a great amount of pain and bleeding profusely as the Bringers quickly attached him to the metal post. Spike didn’t have the strength to fight back, not that he would have when he knew what was at risk. His eyes drifted down towards the ground in front of the First and he tried to smile reassuringly as the bringers began hoisting his bleeding body into the air.

His eyes locked with Annemarie’s as the child looked up, drawn away from tracing the design on the edge of the metal seal. He felt a chill run through him at the expression in her eyes or lack of expression there. There was no intelligence, no warmth, no fear, no nothing. He knew he should have been glad she wasn’t registering what was going on, that she was still blocking it out but in all honesty he wasn’t sure she was anymore. He was worried that it just didn’t bother her anymore. The First in all its wisdom had decided that Annemarie, being half vampire, would not need copious amounts of food. This meant the child got a sandwich a day if she was lucky. Instead the First decided blood was the better alternative and seeing as it was too busy torturing to order out she’d have to make do with blood on tap.

Aside from expired human blood, the only decent blood down there was Spike’s. The First seemed to find it extremely amusing that she was tying the child to Spike in the same intimate manner a master vampire would when siring a childe; protecting them and feeding them. Spike remembered the first time they’d tried to feed her. She’d come out of her little world as soon as she smelt the blood, recognizing where it came from and chanting ‘Spike!’ over and over again as she held out her hands to him and tried to twist out of the Bringer’s grip. They’d managed to force about a pint down her throat before they moved over to feed Spike blood they’d stolen from the hospital. They had to keep his blood stocked up to feed Annemarie, whether he was in good shape or not. Spike was glad for the blood. The bringers fed the child so much had he not been given it he’d probably been comatose by now, it wasn’t a pleasant situation but at least they were putting back what they took out even if it didn’t give his body the chance to heal from the tortures.

He tried smiling again at Annemarie but all she did in return was to jam the almost empty bottle of blood back into her mouth and suck vigorously on the nipple. Spike felt a nasty feeling settle in the pit of his stomach as he watched the child. She blinked at him and then went back to tracing the designs on the gold seal. Spike winced, not just because the Bringers were hauling his bleeding body above the seal, but because of the nothingness in her eyes. It wasn’t normal, she’d regressed to an infantile state; he’d noticed she tended to crawl rather then walk and she’d stopped talking all together. It was wrong to see a toddler crawling and drinking from a baby’s bottle, it was especially wrong to see a lack of anything in her eyes, even babies had an inquisitive innocence.

Spike clenched his fists as the bringers positioned him over the seal. His blood slowly dripped, droplet by droplet onto the golden seal as the First chanted. An obviously smart and not suicidal Bringer whisked Annemarie up and into his arms as he stepped back from the seal. Spike looked away as her small arms rose up pleadingly towards him. It hurt to see it. He knew she was either afraid and instinctively wanted to be safe with him or, and he shuddered at the thought, all she was recognizing was the scent of his blood which she craved.

Turning his head to look, Spike stared down at the seal; as the blood fell onto it the seal was slowly becoming a silvery gold colour and a strange similar coloured light was emanating from it. Despite everything he’d been through and everything he was sure was to come, Spike felt fear invade his mind and run down through his body, leaving an icy feeling in its wake. For the first time in a long time, Spike felt fear for absolutely no reason, before anything actually happened. As the seal slowly began to open he realized that something truly evil was being released, something no demon would ever want to face, something the First deeply cherished.

He saw the gnarly hand push out from under the seal as the Firsts chanting reached a crescendo, and then the seal opened fully allowing a creature to step out, one which would have made The Master look like a supermodel. As it growled in pleasure at being released Spike felt an icy shiver run through him as he realized that it was a true vampire, the first of his kind.

For the first time in his life, Spike needed a slayer.