Brave New World

Chapter 9

It was two o'clock in the afternoon.

Spike was leaning back in the chair, smoking a cigarette and watching the girl sleep. He had instructed her to get some rest, picked up the evidence of his earlier spell casting, returned the box to his jacket and had kicked back in the chair with his feet on the table in order to 'Have a Think'. 'Having a think' was something he had excelled at these last few months. He had already reviewed the events of the party the night before and was now contemplating what he had learned about the little blonde vampiress.

She had been full of surprises. She still was, he'd wager. He knew she did not think of him as a friend yes, but for now, her thinking of him as an ally would be sufficient.

Her claiming to still have a soul didn't bother him. She was a vampire who had been a Slayer. She would be very powerful, and her having a conscience would keep a rein on her. Stop her from committing the foolish excesses other Slayer-Vamps had indulged in. Excesses which had eventually resulted in their destruction.

Her request for him to kill her afterwards bothered him. It had immediately upset something inside of him and he did not know 'Why?'. He had considered suicide, himself, after Dru had died. However, he'd been unable to do it himself, and hehad had no intention of asking anyone. He'd instead gone into battle after battle LA with a vague hope that each might be his last, and he would come up against someone 'better' than him. Not someone who was stronger, for there were plenty of 'Muscle Vamps' about. Spike, however, could not shake his pride enough to lose a fight to some rube who could probably be outwitted by one of the 'Three Stooges'. No he wanted someone, who would be able to beat him in a fight because they'd been able to out-smart him. So would he make them work for it, by being as ruthless and cunning as he could be. In the end though, when the final battle was over and done, it was Spike who remained as the 'Last Vampire Standing'. In the end, it was for the 'Memory' of Drusilla that he had decided not to 'end it all'. He had once seen some movie where some bloke had died. Everyone had been all weepy and upset. Then some blighter had started preaching about how as long as people remembered, then somehow the dead bloke would still 'live on'. At the time, Spike had thought it was the biggest load of rubbish he'd ever heard. But when Dru was gone, the thought that had made him want to keep on going, if he left as well, there would be nobody left who would *care* to remember her, and, just so he could 'keep her alive' in his memory. He did not understand 'Why' he felt he *had* to do this.

Memorials were something that humans kept, not demons. But, all the same, he still did it. Wishing, all the while, for an end to the ache he felt so keenly inside.

Then Whistler had appeared and had given him a reason for living that he *could* understand as a demon.

Revenge.

From the looks of things, the girl could understand revenge quite well.

When Buffy had said she had been tortured by Willow he had put it down as simply whippings and beatings. However, when Buffy had removed her dress in preparation for going to sleep, Spike had been stunned by what he saw had been done to her. Hanging from her back, were row after row of small steel rings. Several lines of rings also extended down the back of each of her arms and legs. The rings were so numerous, that for a minute he had thought that she was wearing some kind of metal mesh undershirt. Upon closer examination, he saw that each ring was attached to another metal loop poking out from underneath her skin. Willow, he learned, had taken to placing the rings in Buffy with the idea of being able to literally 'hang' her up. She had drilled a few large rings into strategic positions along Buffy's rib cage to carry the majority of her weight. Then Willow had imbedded hundreds of other rings deep beneath Buffy's skin. Weak as she was, Buffy's combined vampire/slayer healing abilities rapidly sealed the rings within her body, with only a small loop protruding, to which, the outside rings were then attached.

He was of two minds about the rings: on the on hand, as a demon, he found them to be incredibly erotic, arousing him with thoughts of torture, pain and blood...and they were beautiful in a twisted sort of fashion. On the other hand, they enraged something inside of him that looked on them as a defilement...a mutilation of an incredibly gorgeous vampire, simply to torture her. It was like a senseless vandalism of a beautiful work of art and, at the same time, it was a horribly beautiful and twisted work of art, in and of itself.

He stubbed out the butt of his cigarette, rose and stripped. He had been up for almost twenty hours now and he needed to get some rest. The Master would no doubt be wishing to meet with him in the evening, an had had no desire to make a mistake due to a stupid thing like being over tired.

He carefully slipped into the empty side of the king-sized bed, not wanting to wake the girl. He had just been about to nod off when 'She' showed up. She hadn't been to see him in almost two months. After last night, he had been expecting her to show up sometime soon, but not now...not here.

He watched as she slowly danced about the room, holding her arms up in the air as she spun around, long dark hair fanning out behind her.

"'ello, my lovely, lovely Spike. Mummy heard that you had found someone special last night. Is that her?"

"Dru..."

A smile flickered across Drusilla's face as she drifted to the side of the bed where the girl slept.

"Shshsh...don't want to wake her." Leaning over her, Drusilla brought her hands near Buffy's head and closed her eyes to concentrate. Suddenly she let out a gasp of pleasure and pulled back grinning like a Cheshire cat, "Oooooooooooooo."

She was excited.

"She's got power..."

Dru always had had a thing for power vamps... "...and so much pain, it's delicious. And she's clever. She knows secrets. Lots of secrets..."

Turning back to Spike, the left side of her lip curled up in a knowing smirk.

"...and now she has another."

She backed away from Buffy, her smirk turning into a smile.

"But my Spikey-Dear is clever too. And now you know some of her secrets."

He knew better that to get up and go to her. She would come to him when she was ready. She returned to dancing about the room.

"Do you remember ing ing with me under the stars, luv?"

She stopped and starred at the doll 'Mary' sitting on the table. Finally she turned back to Spike. "Mary says that 'She' wants to dance with the Devil," Dru said nodding towards Buffy.

She returned to the bed. Spike reached out to pull her to him. She resisted slightly, but did not try to struggle against him. She had always preferred to be forced, it gave her the sense that he was dominating her. But it was she who had always ruled him. He gently but insistently moved her to his side, turning slightly so that he could wrap one arm about her body as she lay with her head on his shoulder. (He vaguely remembered to move slowly and carefully so as to ato awaken the other occupant in the bed.)

He pulled Dru tightly against him whi whispered, "I miss you, Luv." As if the words had finally released the hold he had been keeping on his emotions, a few tears leaked out from his eyes.

Then he felt her gently kiss him, whisper, "Hush," and tell him to rest.

Holding her in his arms, he slowly drifted off to sleep.

*****

Buffy stared at the face of the strange blonde vampire as he slept. She had awoken the instant she had felt him climb into the bed with her, and had expected him to wake her up for a qufuckfuck before he went to sleep. Instead, he had rapidly passed into a deep slumber and was now apparently dreaming. She had heard him murmur Drusilla's name.

She was about to try to get back to sleep when she felt his hand on her. **Here we go,** she had thought with resignation. But he had only pulled her to his side and wrapped his arms protectively about her. She realized that he was still dreaming.

Hearing his whisper the words, "I miss you, Luv," she had ed hed her head and gazed upon his face. The bloody tears that had slipped out from the sides of his closed eyelids were too much for her. She'd had nothing but hatred and contempt for every vampire that she had ever known. Including herself.
But this vampire was so very different from any one she had ever met. He had obviously loved this 'Drusilla' with a passion and tenderness that she had never known. She had never even been abl dat date.

Never had wanted to, after her parents had been murdered, all her spare time went into training with Merrick. It was drilled into her that slaying was a full time gig with terminal consequences for being distracted. So she had never gotten the chance to have a boyfriend let, alone a lover.

Hesitantly, Buffy leaned forward to kiss him gently on his lips.

"Hush now. You need to rest," she said softly in his ear.

When she saw a faint smile cross his mouth, she rested her head back on his shoulder.
Joining him in sleep.

*****

Buffy was having a nightmare. Not that that was unusual. She'd often had them, even before she'd been turned. She would watch herself move through events as if she was watching a movie.

The first part of her nightmare was one that had been haunting her for years. It was nighttime. She and her mom had just gotten home from shopping. Her mom had gone into the house first while Buffy was getting the rest of the pack fro from the car. She had just stepped into the living room when she saw her dad lying on the floor, his neck torn open. Standing near his body, her mother was weakly struggling in the grasp of a vampire who was biting at her neck. She saw her mother reaching out towards her, gasping...pleading for help. Buffy screamed in a sudden rage and, dropping the packages, charged at the vampire and leapt on him. But even if he had been a human, she would have had no chance against him. She was only a thirteen-year-old girl. She had not the physical strength or skill to fight this creature, but she had to get him away from her mother. So she bit his arm.

The vampire had let out a yell of pain and had flung Buffy across the room into a glass curio cabinet. A piece of the shattered glass front sliced into her face. It would leave a terrible scar across her mouth, a visible reminder of this night, and why she was fighting, for the rest of her life.

Then the nightmare got weird.

Buffy felt her perspective change from being an observer to being a participant in her dream. As she got up from the floor, she found herself in a cemetery. Merrick was there and he shoved a stake in her hand and pushed her forward. She stood in front of her parents' graves, and the ground was moving. Hands emerged from the ground as the vampires clawed their way up from their graves. Buffy froze again as the two vampires turned towards her and she saw instead of her mother and father, the Master and Willow standing there.

She wanted to fight but felt as if she were paralyzed.

"Merrick," she cried out, "Please help me."

"Now, now Childe," said the Master. "He's dead, you killed him." Buffy spun about and saw Merrick's body slumped on the floor in the prison cell.

"Bored now," Willow said to the Master, "Can I play with the Pup-'pet'?" At the Master's nod, Willow snapped her fingers and suddenly dozens of wires snaked out and attached themselves to the rings in Buffy's arms, legs and back. Willow raised her hands and Buffy could see she held a couple of sticks with wires extending off of them. As she move the sticks, Buffy was suddenly moving forward her arms and legs jerking and twitching to the sudden jerks Willow gave the pair of sticks. Buffy looked up to see Spike standing in front of her. He was holding two glowing white orbs, one in each hand, and he seemed to be trying to make some sort of decision a the them.

"What are they?" she asked.

"The future," he replied not looking up.

"Why are there two of them?"

"Only one is mine to keep."

"Whose is the other?"

"I don't know. I'm supposed to give it to someone. Do you want one?"

"Maybe. I...I don't know."

"Who does, if you don't?"

"I...I'm afraid."

"Of what?"

"I'm afraid of what I'll do. Who I'll hurt. Who will hurt me."

"Who you'll help. Who you'll save. Who will love you."

"I don't know if I can do it."

"You'll have to take a chance in order to find out," he said finally looking up. As Buffy gazed into eyes, she suddenly felt that maybe there was something worth fighting for besides revenge. The clear blue orbs of his eyes filled her with hope for the future and a promise of love.

However, as Buffy started to reach forward, Willow began to tug on her wires, again. Buffy watched in horror as her right arm slowly rose up with a stake in its hand. Frantically, she fought against the wires while Willow attempted to direct her to stab at Spike. Abruptly, a ring in her left shoulder tore out from the skin. Gasping in pain she lunged forward to grab one of the orbs with her left hand. The orb she touched flared brightly, blinding her for a moment, and in relief she felt the wires detach themselves from her body.

Her joy at being free of Willow's control was short-lived as her sight returned and she saw Spike standing in front of her with her stake protruding from his heart. She barely had time to gasp, before he exploded into dust.

"NO!" she cried out, as Willows evil laughter echoed around her.

She looked down at her hand and saw that the blood from the wound in her shoulder had dripped down her arm and was covering the orb that she had taken from Spike. In dismay, she watched as the light from the orb slowly dimmed until it was dark, cold and dead.

"Did you really think you had a chance against me?" she heard the Master say from behind her. Unexpectedly, she felt an impact on her back, and, looking down, she saw a stake protruding from her chest.

She watched as the orb slipped from her fingers, fall to the ground and shatter into a thousand tiny shards of glass.

Then she woke up.