Many thanks to The lunatic who cares and to BehrBeMine, who were gracious enough to beta for me. All mistakes are, of course, my own, and shame on me for not listening to good advice.

Disclaimer: Does anybody really think these are my characters? I mean, yeah, I wish. Joss Whedon: genius. Me: just playing with his characters.

Warning: Violence. Torture. Mind Games. Death.

Lily Out of Water 2: Where Candles are Lit, Blossoms Fall

After killing the Slayer, we fled across the country. Fled. Us. Willow was practically catatonic and Angel didn’t like the change. I would have enjoyed the show myself but Angel, most likely afraid he lose her, decided to treat Willow with kid gloves, which meant he took his rage out on me. To be honest, I didn’t like seeing her so withdrawn anymore than Angel did but I figured she needed time, time Angel wouldn’t give her. He kept at her, focusing her attention on himself, until she came out it, probably sooner than she should have. Being human, she didn’t react to death, especially the death of friends, the way we did but Angel, self-centered bastard that he was, needed proof that he’d severed those ties, that she was his and his alone.

Angel dragged us to New York, New York, which was supposed to be a helluva town but, in all honesty, was a place just like any other place. We took over an abandoned building – well, wasn’t completely abandoned but hunting the strays who’d been squatting there made for a good housewarming. New neighbors didn’t like us much, imagine that, but after we took out a few nests, the survivors left us alone. Nothing like painting the town red to make you feel right at home.

Dru had to have chairs made out of skeletons. I convinced her to settle for huge, wooden monstrosities that had skeletons carved into them, which was a mistake on my part because real skeletons would have been more comfortable. I’m speaking from experience here. Dru loved those carved cadavers until Willow’s couches came in. Angel had dictated black leather, big surprise there, but Willow didn’t mind ‘cause she only cared that they were comfortable. Because they were Willow’s, Dru wouldn’t touch the couches at first but circled around them like a stray waif offered a treat – of course, around us, waifs were right to be wary. Once Dru did finally sit on one of the couches, she’d have nothing to do with the chairs she originally wanted but we couldn’t get rid of the ugly things because she had to keep an eye them.

Willow kept setting up displays: candles and flowers. Can’t say I liked them much at first but they grew on me over the not-quite-a-year that we’d been there. Her latest display contained lilies, which she used a lot, and some sort of branch that she called twisted willow, although I never knew if that was a joke on her part or not. Willow had a subtle sense of humor sometimes. Dru hated the flowers. First time Willow set them up, she attacked, furiously ripping petals to shreds until Angel stepped in, disciplined her, and told her to leave the displays alone. While Angel’s dominance held her back, she still disliked the flowers and had been getting increasingly antsy around the arrangements, which became larger and more elaborate, until one day they finally became too much for her.

“Watching, watching, puppy dog eyes always watching!” she screamed as flowers flew everywhere. I was about to step in because Dru was never careful enough around flames and I could just see what a flying candle would do to the shoddy construction, but Willow was there before me. She grabbed Dru by the hair and dragged her off of the flowers.

I was racing across the room to pull Willow off of Dru when Angel grabbed me, jerked me off course, and dragged me away saying, “They need to work it out.”

“Work it out? They’ll kill each other,” I replied as I struggled to free myself.

Angel grabbed my other arm as well, forcing me to face him. “No, they won’t. Just give them a chance.” I glared and continued to struggle. “Spike, it’s been a year. We can’t watch them all the time.”

“They don’t need to be watched all the time,” I shouted, knowing he was right as he dragged me out to the front room, the one with Dru’s chairs. Hoping that the skeletons weren’t an omen, I shoved one out of my way and sat on the table.

“Want to go hunting?” Angel asked.

“Are you out of your mind? If one of them kills the other, I want to be right here.”

“Not like we can do anything,” he replied.

“That’s not the point,” I enunciated clearly and slowly. Angel shrugged, sat down, and put his feet up on the table.

We waited. Waited some more. I started pacing around the room. “Don’t interrupt them,” said Angel. How the hell did he know? I wondered until a loud crash came from the other room. I bolted for the door but Angel grabbed me from behind, almost wrenching my arm out of its socket. “Doesn’t change anything,” he commanded.

“Let. Me. Go.” I disobeyed.

“Childe,” he warned.

“You are not my Sire. You left. Dru may want you back but I don’t.”

“So leave,” Angel smirked. “Oh wait, you can’t. Dru wants to be here. With me.”

Dru and Willow, my treacherous mind replied but I wasn’t about to say that to Angel so I punched him, hard and low. Angel doubled over. When he raised his face, he’d vamped out. I returned the favor and rushed him. He threw me over the table and onto one of Dru’s chairs. Didn’t even dent the ugly thing.

“You really think you can take me, Childe?” he asked.

“I’m not him anymore Angel and yes, I can.”

One of Dru’s dolls had fallen by me. Its eyes were covered with a black cloth, probably so it wouldn’t look at Willow like the bloody flowers did. I jumped onto the table and threw the doll at Angel. When he raised his arm to block it, I leapt at him and dragged him down to the floor. He got in a punch to my jaw but I rolled with it and put some distance between us. Smiling, I spat blood out of my mouth. Time was when he would have had me by then, mostly because a Childe’s submissive instincts would only have let me take things so far. By the look on Angel’s face, he knew, and didn’t appreciate it.

“What’s the matter?” I taunted. “Not so superior now, are you Sire?”

“Back down, Spike. I killed the Slayer. I can kill you,” he replied.

“Killed a Slayer? Not saying much. I’ve killed two, myself. Hell, even Drusilla’s killed a Slayer. Oh yeah, and you needed help, a little assistance from the witch, didn’t you?” He rushed me like a bull rushes red. I stepped to the side and let him trip over the chair he’d been sitting in earlier and got in a few good kicks. As I had my leg pulled back for an especially vicious kick, he threw himself at me. I stumbled over him and fell to the floor. As he rolled me onto my back, he pinned my legs with his own, grabbed my hands, and settled over me.

“This is done,” he snarled, his eyes shifting to gold. At my defiant glare, he bit into my neck. Dominance. How vampires signal control. But I was no longer his Childe. Finished making his point, he licked my wounds clean and even gave me a hand up off the floor. I punched him in the jaw.

“You keep your mouth to yourself!” I snarled at him. Just as I was poised to give him a beauty of a shiner, screams erupted into the air. Two voices. We stopped, glanced at each other, and then each bolted for the back room. Being smaller and faster has some advantages; I got there first but the room was empty. I tracked their scent to Dru’s bedroom where they both lay, naked, on the bed. Sex scented the air. It looked like a small tornado had hit the room. I briefly wondered if the patterns, made by the blood runes scattered across the floor, would mean anything to Dru. She’d kept my pocket watch, from when she’d turned me, and it lay smashed, finally broken beyond repair. Shattered bits of dolls were strewn across the room.

“What the?” Angel asked as he came up behind me. At the sound, Drusilla raised herself up for a moment and smiled contentedly at us before crashing back down onto the bed. She was covered with tiny cuts, from the pieces of shattered dolls probably, but Willow was somehow untouched. Angel looked like he’d swallowed a toad. It was almost worth missing this to see the shock on his face.

I leaned against the doorway and smirked at him. “Missed out on the fun, did we?” Angel looked like I’d hit him again. I gave him a broader smile. He glared around the room, turned, and stormed away, muttering about grabbing something to eat. My laughter followed him into the night.

Once he was out of sight, I turned back towards the bedroom and stared at Willow. I stood there, lost in thought, for a very long time.

---

I terrorized the city streets all night, at first merely killing viciously but, as the evening progressed, I added more refined torture to my kills. Barely beating the sun home, I stalked my Childer to find Spike trying to clean yesterday’s debris, kneeling in flower petals, broken vases, and candle wax. I’ve never understood why he sometimes picks up after Dru and Willow – we have minions for that. Willow towered above him, her eyes shading towards black, witching up a wind that whipped through her hair. “Will, it’s a mess,” he told her.

“Leave it,” she yelled as the wind picked up, scattering debris even further around the room. I stayed back. I wasn’t sure the witch could, or would, kill one of us but didn’t want to find out the hard way. She definitely needed to be disciplined but not now, not while she was in this mood.

Spike stood and backed away slowly, saying, “Not touching a thing.” Willow didn’t even acknowledge me as she stormed past, heading for the door. Demons I’d hired would track her during the day, when she went where I couldn’t follow. I could discipline her later. Spike would do for now.

Spike knew what was coming and tried to distract me saying over my growls, “Angel. I think she just needs some space. I’m sure she doesn’t expect us to follow her out into the sunlight.”

“Bring Drusilla to my room.” Didn’t have to wait long since Spike knew any delay would just make his punishment worse. I held my hand out to Dru, brought it to my lips, and kissed my way up her arm. “Kneel, Childe,” I commanded. As Spike knelt before us, I added, “Acknowledge your Sire.”

Spike took Dru’s hand, kissed it slowly, gazed into her eyes, and said, “My dark lady, my Sire.”

I put my fangs to Dru’s throat, not really planning to feed from her, as it would have been too easy a punishment. I just wanted to watch Spike squirm and he obliged oh so nicely. “Strip,” I commanded Dru as I gestured towards the bed. Drusilla may have been mad but she wasn’t insane, not in any way that could have gotten her seriously hurt. She knew this wasn’t about her. So while she was excited, she stripped fairly quietly, then positioned herself at the edge of the bed, grabbing onto the bedposts. I picked up a cat o’ nine tails I’d found in Trinidad: designed to lacerate the skin of a human, it worked well for disciplining Childer. It was one of Dru’s favorite toys but Spike had never used it on her because he hated to see her in that much pain. I don’t know how they ever got along without me.

Never taking my eyes off of Spike, I lashed Dru more gently than she liked while she moansobbed her displeasure. Spike had closed his eyes. I thought about commanding him to watch but, with his eyes shut, his imagination would make it all that much worse. At the sound of each lash, Spike twitched. Lash twitch. Lash twitch. As I increased the intensity of the lashes, Dru’s displeasure turned to moans of pleasure and then shifted into groans of pain. Spike was trembling now. Then the whispered word I’d been waiting for. “Sire.”

“Childe,” I acknowledged.

“Sire. Not Dru. Please, punish me.”

“Come here.” I brushed my thumb across his cheek, licked his tears off my thumb and then I took his hand, put the whip handle in it, and closed his fingers around.

“No,” he whispered, staring at the whip. I turned him to face Dru.

“Childe. Look at all that blood, the pretty patterns it makes on her back.”

“No,” he whispered again.

I took his free hand, grazed it across Dru’s back until it was blood covered and brought it up to his mouth. “Lick,” I commanded. Never removing his gaze from Dru’s back, Spike licked his fingers clean.

“Childe,” a demon whispered temptation into Spike’s ear.

“No,” he replied.

I swiped my own fingers through Dru’s blood and brought them up to his mouth. “Lick.” Pleasure rippled through me as he sucked the blood off my fingers. His eyes glazed over. “Childe,” I whispered, “do it properly or I’ll strip her skin to shreds. Think of it. All. That. Blood.”

I stepped away. He raised the whip, looked at it like he didn’t know quite what it was, and then brought it down on Dru’s back. She gasped in agony and Spike groaned in response: her pain causing his pain. Slash gasp groan. Slash gasp groan. Slash gasp. Moan: her pain causing his pleasure. He slashed her harder. This was the real reason Spike wouldn’t torture Dru; he hated that he enjoyed her anguish. Harder and harder. Rage torrented out of Spike, through the whip, and onto Dru. Angerpainpleasure, the boy glowed with it. Harder. And again, harder. Dru screamed and collapsed onto the bed. Three last raging slashes: Harder... Harder... Harder. Spike stared at Dru, transfixed. His hand loosened on the whip and it fell to the floor. Spike collapsed, keening and curling up around his guilt. I pulled Spike into my lap and held him there until he’d stopped crying.

“Childe,” I commanded. He offered me his neck. I made it hurt. I drank. He screamed and struggled to free himself. I drank. His struggles became weaker, less directed. I drank. He collapsed against me. I drank until I’d nearly drained him. I dropped him to the floor, weak and bleeding. The wounds would heal, eventually. I’d have to bring prey to him that evening: he’d be in no shape to hunt and taking food from my hand would reinforce his submission.

---

In my fury, I finally understood something I’d been trying to wrap my head around – why Spike would storm out to pick a half-dozen fights or, less often, pick a fight with Angel himself. I felt like I could go a dozen rounds with… well, I didn’t know the names of any good fighters but I was itching for a fight. Not with Angel though, I wasn’t that foolhardy and I certainly wasn’t about to pick a fight with Spike. Not only because nobody else cared about my human needs, although that was reason enough. So I left before I broke something beyond repair. I walked into the dawning day knowing, for the first time in months, that I was alone, at least until I returned or until night fell. I called up the winds to smash dumpsters into brick buildings as I stormed past. After my rage had cooled I stopped tossing debris around but kept walking. I was in no mood to confront whatever punishment Angel would devise to make me regret leaving when he couldn’t follow.

I walked out of the neighborhoods I knew and into unfamiliar territory. I thought about wrapping a cloaking spell around myself to hide from human eyes but, while I wasn’t as angry as I’d been earlier, I still would have welcomed a fight. I didn’t find one though, just early risers too busy with their own business to pay me much mind until, up ahead, I saw two Hispanics, too young to be men but too old to be called boys, at an intersection. One, wearing a jean jacket against the cold, stood above the other who was digging in the dirt of a vacant lot. They carefully ignored me as I got closer to them. I looked over to see the digger placing a mirror face down into the hole. Jean jacket stepped forward with his back towards me, blocking my view of his friend. No stupid punk was going to treat me that way. I stepped around him and asked the other, who was now filling in the hole, what he was doing.

“None of your business, gringa,” jean jacket replied.

I pulled out the stone I wore around my neck, the one I’d anchored my binding spell into, blew on it, and spoke the incantation. Jean jacket wouldn’t be able to move enough to attack me but still could speak.

“Tell me,” I shouted.

He didn’t respond to me but instead a torrent of Spanish was addressed towards the digger who slowly stood, facing me, with his hands up in a conciliatory manner.

“Please lady, forgive my cousin. He didn’t mean to be rude. What we're doing is… personal.” I continued to glare at him. He glanced at his cousin and then added, “What do you want?”

“Who are you?” I asked.

This started another spate of Spanish between the two of them until I cleared my throat. “Diego Calderon and this is my cousin, Juan, but you have us at a disadvantage.” Juan made a sound somewhere between a choke and a laugh at that. “We don’t know your name.”

“Willow,” I replied. “What were you doing?”

“It’s personal,” he answered, obviously reluctant to say more. I waited. “This is part of a healing,” he eventually told me.

A healing? I was immediately interested. It was obviously some type of magical spell, folk magic most likely. I didn’t know how effective it would be but I was always on the lookout for healing magic. Angel sometimes forgot I didn’t have vampire stamina.

“How does it work?” I asked. Again Diego glanced at Juan, who was still frozen. “Sorry,” I added as I released him from the spell. This set off another spate of Spanish, with Juan obviously trying to drag Diego away. I started conspicuously fiddling with the stone I’d used to freeze Juan. He noticed, stopped speaking, and just stared at me as if I’d bound him again. Then Diego looked over and also stopped talking. “How does it work?” I asked again, nodding towards the loosened dirt.

“The curandera took an egg and swept it across my body. At my head, each shoulder, heart, and feet, she make the Sign of the Cross,” he crossed himself as he said this, “and repeated the Apostle’s Creed three times. For three nights she did this and I slept with the egg under my bed. After the third night, this morning, I was told to bury the egg, at a crossroads, below a mirror.” As he explained the spell, Diego became more open and confident while his cousin just stood there looking nervous.

“But what was wrong with you?” Diego lowered his eyes, as if embarrassed, but also smiled, as if he was secretly pleased with himself. “Mi abuelita Magdalena, my grandmother, she’s a curandera. She says I’m too proud.”

“A curandera? A healer?” I asked.

“Si, she has a yerberai up in…”

“Mexico,” Juan interrupted.

Diego glanced at his cousin before agreeing, “Yes, in Mexico, up in a mountain village.”

She was too far away for me to talk to then. “How does the mirror fit in?”

“The pride gets pulled into the egg during the healing but after the egg is buried the pride rises up to go back where it came from. The mirror reflects the pride back down into the egg.”

“Pride?” I asked. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“It’s one of the seven deadly sins,” Juan replied.

The spell didn’t sound very effective and I started wondering if I should bother asking any more questions. These two probably didn’t know anything useful. I must have let the silence drag on too long because Diego started speaking again. “Mi... the curandera said that pride comes from an imbalance, from the heat of too much blood. She's only let me eat cold foods, fruit and cool vegetables, like cucumbers, for the past three days.” He continued as if he were making a joke but sounded tentative as he finished speaking, as if the joke had fallen flat. “I'm looking forward to sinking my teeth into some real food.”

For a moment I thought he was nervous but quickly dismissed the idea. Mousy little Willow never made anyone nervous. Well, the minions were cautious around me but that was because of how Angel had overreacted to that one minion who hadn't even really been threatening me. Anyway, something else Diego said had caught my attention: blood and heat sounded familiar to me but I couldn’t place it. “Are many diseases associated with temperature?”

Diego looked as if he was wondering why I wanted to know but answered with, “Si, susto, fright, is cold. Part of its treatment is warm chicken soup. Bilis, suppressed anger, is hot from too much yellow bile…”

“Of course,” I interrupted. “Hippocratic medicine and the four humors: blood, phlegm, and black and yellow bile. Tell me; are there diseases also associated with being either too wet or dry?”

He looked confused, as if my question didn’t make sense. “I’ve seen susto cured with cold water,” he said uncertainly.

“No,” Juan replied. “Not in the way you mean.” He looked around nervously, as if he’d used up his courage with that one short sentence but at Diego’s curious look he explained. “It’s from ancient Greece. We got it through the Spaniards. Blood isn’t just hot, it’s also wet while yellow bile is both hot and dry.”

Maybe there was something to this folk magic. I’d successfully used humors in spells. In fact, the spell I’d used on Juan used the properties of blood: heat and moisture. Angel had found me a witch, powerful but untrained. He’d granted her an easy death but she still had struggled against him as her blood poured out, more blood than I’d thought could fit into the stone, until it hummed with power. Like calls to like. The heat of blood drains heat, literally life energy, out of a person, leaving him feeling cold and sluggish, while blood’s moisture drains his emotions, his willingness to fight or even to move.

I decided to see what else Diego and Juan knew. They were reluctant at first, especially Juan, and I’d thought at the time that my enthusiasm had convinced them. I was excited to go to South Ferry and walk along the river, which I never got to do during the day. Juan crossed himself at that statement, he really was the weaker of the two, but Diego agreed to go with me. I thought that Juan would make an excuse or ditch us in the subway be he stayed with us.

By early afternoon, Diego had dredged up every remedy he could think of that related to the four humors, specifically to heat or cold. While some components of the remedies could be of use to me, much of what he told me seemed to be religious mumbo-jumbo that had been added on to act as a placebo. He started listing herbs and their properties; stuff like stinging nettle does this, mullein can be used for that, and garlic cures such and such.

I got bored and realized I was hungry. While I doubted they had anything else useful to tell me, Diego at least had been very accommodating so I suggested we get lunch. Juan seemed much calmer than he had earlier, perhaps he was just shy, and didn’t seem to care either way. Diego was reluctant but I overruled his objections. They deserved to be rewarded.

I picked a place called the South Street Deli that faced the water. Diego ordered a cheese steak and told the waiter to pile on the jalapenos. I guess he’d had enough cold food for a while. When Juan ordered a salad, Diego looked at him like he was crazy and then they started off in Spanish again. I cleared my throat to get their attention and it worked for a moment but then they set off on another round of Spanish with exaggerated gestures on Diego’s part until Juan took his hand, held it, and just stared at Diego.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“My cousin has decided to become a vegetarian,” Diego replied.

Juan turned towards me with an expression that was both calm, or perhaps composed would be a better description, and intense. “It’s part of becoming a fidencista.”

Diego glared at Juan, which aroused my curiosity. “A fidencista?”

As Juan started to explain, Diego crossed himself and started muttering in Spanish. I was so astonished, for Diego had not seemed overly religious before then, that I barely paid attention to Juan’s explanation, which was something about a saint called El Nino, which, even I knew, meant a child, until something in Juan’s expression caught my attention. There was passion there and also certainty so I started listening, “… a curandera who lives so simple and holy a life that he becomes pure enough for El Nino to perform healings through him.” Juan’s intensity unnerved me. When the waiter brought our food I was glad for the distraction and started babbling on about nothing around bites of my meal. Juan and Diego were silent.

When the waiter brought our bill, I thought of Men in Black and modified his mind, with a flashy show of bright light, to make him think I’d paid the bill. I looked at Juan, to see if my power had impressed him, but he was serene, as if nothing I did would touch him but I caught Diego crossing himself.

I suddenly saw the day in a new light. I’d thought we were getting along. Sure Juan had been nervous but I just figured he was weak. Diego had been charming all day but it had been a lie. They were afraid of me. They, Diego especially, had been placating me. What kind of a monster did they think I was? Then I thought back to how I’d bound Juan, to how I’d threatened them both with the same spell when they hadn’t immediately answered me. They thought I was a bruja, a demon, and they were right to think so. I felt like crying. No need to make them suffer any more than they already had. I told them goodbye and didn’t look back.

I took a direct route home but dawdled on the way. I went to the wrong track on the subway line and missed my train. I sat on a toilet and stared into space until somebody started complaining that I’d been in there too long and other people needed to pee too. My feet faltered and my steps slowed but I didn’t stop and eventually I was there. On the way home I’d realized that I’d been using Diego and Juan as an excuse, a way to avoid Angelus. Whatever punishment Angelus had come up with for me, I deserved it.

As I walked towards the back room, I could hear Drusilla singing. The tune sounded like a nursery rhyme but the chorus was about spiders spinning webs in human skulls. I found Angelus on one of the black leather couches, smoking a cigarette. Steeling myself, I tried to look confident and casual. He flashed into vamp face and grabbed me by the arm before I could even blink. He’d dragged me to the doorway of his room before I could even think of putting up a fight. Spike lay at the foot of Angelus’ bed, looking like a corpse.

“Don’t interfere,” Angelus growled before shoving me to the ground. I felt a pain at the back of my neck but was more worried about what Angelus would do to me. I looked up and saw that he had my necklace, the rock that held my binding spell. He threw it against the wall where it shattered into thousands of bloody splinters that dripped down the wall and pooled onto the floor. The blood stank as if it had been decaying the entire year it had been in the rock. I saw things in it, terrible things. Things I didn’t want to see or hear or know so I picked myself up and scrambled towards my room, mumbling something about reading up on magic. I did pick up a book but didn’t look at it. The blood, it still held my mind captive, showing me what I’d become, how much I’d changed, exactly how my old self would have felt about who I was now. I tore my thoughts away from my what I'd allowed myself to become and grabbed onto Spike like a lifeline. Spike, looking like a corpse, but he wouldn’t. If Angelus had killed him, Spike would be dust. So Spike was still undead, for now at least.

---

Angel walked out into the twilight, without me. Feeling sad and lonely, I went to give Miss Edith a good talking to but she was being naughty, hiding where I couldn’t find her. I found my sister instead, reading. She was always reading except today. Today she’d left us and had smelled of humans when she returned. Daddy didn’t like it and he’d already been full of red riot rage.

“Sister, Miss Edith has run away and after you took all that trouble to find her for me. Please, help me find her again. She’s lost out there, in the big bad world all by herself.”

“Umm, Drusilla? Miss Edith’s gone. For a very long time,” Sister said. “She took a long, long voyage but she’s going to bring presents when she comes back.”

“Of course Miss Edith went on a journey. I should have known she wouldn’t run away. Spike is the naughty one tonight but she’s back and we have to go fetch her. Come with me, please. I’m afraid to go by myself.”

Sister looked unhappy but of course she would, a journey is a tricky thing. You never know whom you’ll be when you come home again. You could become almost anybody. But then Sister said, “I should check on Spike first,” and I realized she wasn’t worried about the journey at all. She wanted to stay here, which was even more dangerous. She could become nobody if she stayed here.

She looked towards the door. Are you afraid that Daddy might come home, my sweet sister? I am. She squared her shoulders and walked right into his room: brave sister, foolish sister. More afraid to be alone, I followed her in. Spike had been as naughty as he’d ever been. Daddy had never punished him this hard before, lucky Spike. Sister was wary, as if Daddy would punish us if he found us here. Then perhaps we’d be as lucky as Spike.

As I joined Sister by Spike’s side, I saw that his wounds hadn’t been cleaned so I scrapped his neck with my blunt teeth to get at the dried blood. “Drusilla,” Sister hissed as she pulled me away. I flashed my fangs at her. “Sister,” she said. “Spike is hurt. We should...”

“Go,” Spike’s voice rasped barely above a whisper.

“Spike, you could die here,” Sister said, a tear rolling down her cheek.

“Won’t. Angel will bring food. Willow, don’t interfere.”

I petted my Spike. “We’re going to find Miss Edith. Can I get you anything?”

“Bring me back a star, my love,” he rasped. “Go, both of you.” And then, boom, he fell back down, all the way to the ground.

”Will he be OK?” Sister asked. “Has Angel done this before?”

“Spike’s never been this naughty before.” I stood and held my hand out, commanding her, with a gesture, to join me.

My sober sister remained seated and looked up at me. “Angel will feed him, right? Angel won’t just let him die?”

“If my Sire wanted Spike dead, he’d already be dead. That’s how it is between Sire and Childe.”

Ignoring my hand, Sister raised herself up and said, “We should wait.”

“No,” I whispered, the truth on my tongue, “we shouldn’t.” Sister turned away, stormed to the door, and stood there, undecided. “He told us to go. He knows. Spike always knows. Don’t cry,” I added, wiping tears from her face, and pulling her away from the door: away from danger, away from red swirling rage.

We walked the dark streets with the stars shining around us. I led us from lonely darkness, through thorn-ridden marshes, to a sparkling city, paved with gold. “Where are we going?” my sister finally wondered.

“This is our quest, silly, to find Miss Edith. That’s the whole reason for this journey.” Dark cords, black and gray and gold, whispering, whispering, whispering in her mind, tempting Sister back to where it wasn’t safe to go so I took her arm in mine to keep her safe. She was shiny and new and hadn’t known Angel long so it was up to me to teach her the rules. They were dark, puzzling, and they twisted round and round, but I’d learned to slip my way through them and so would she. “Here we are,” I said, “The heart of apple land.”

“J. F. Sebastian’s Fine Toys,” Sister read, “yes, we might find Miss Edith here.” She always and only ever saw what was on the surface but I loved her still.

“Fairy land,” I said as we walked in because the store was alive with laughter and trumpets and elephants talking and cars racing and dolls singing. “This way,” I said, hearing Miss Edith singing with the dolls. “She’s this way. There you are, you naughty, naughty girl, running away like that. I shall have to punish you,” I said as I took Miss Edith away from her playmates. “Oh Sister, she says she missed me and she brought all these playmates for me.” I shook Miss Edith roughly as I admonished her, “You shall still have to be punished. You know I can’t do without you.”

I started picking up Miss Edith’s playmates but there were too many and when they fell to the floor, I fell with them and started to cry. Sister sat by me; her lips moved but I couldn’t hear what she said over the cries of all the falling babies. A dog started barking. If I didn’t stop him, he’d have hunted down all the falling sisters and put them into dark, lonely boxes so I sank my teeth into his neck. A man fell to my feet.

All around me screams and terror filled the air. It was delicious. Miss Edith warned me they were getting away but I couldn’t catch all of them in time until, at my clever sister’s command, the doors swung shut and the lights flashed out. Little green lights followed me around as I hunted and hurt and fed. Sister stood close, watching as the blood drip, drip, dripped off my lips, trembling, wanting what I had tasted. I kissed her and her tongue licked the blood off of mine. “They’re all dead here, let’s go home,” Sister whispered.

Miss Edith cried behind me, not wanting to be left behind. “Miss Edith, and all my playmates. I can’t carry them all; ashes, ashes, they all fell down.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Sister said as she started putting them in bags. “Drusilla,” she whispered as I followed a voice, a single heartbeat, one last left. A young pretty, pretty, so golden she almost glowed in the darkness, whimpered and tried to pull away and then I saw them. Bears. Bears dressed up like I had when I was just a girl and bears dressed up like Spike when I first met him. I grabbed as many as I could and brought them to Sister.

“They want to come with us too,” I told her.

“So you can go waltzing with bears?” Sister asked. I smiled since she was obviously starting to understand. We all climbed into a van out back, clever Sister found the keys for us, and we drove Miss Edith home in style.

---

Thinking I couldn’t track her, Willow had gone out for the day but, because she’d already been testing my authority, I’d hired demons to keep tabs on her when she went out alone. I could smell humans on her when she returned. Not that she’d fucked them but she’d used them as an escape, to leave us, to leave me, even if only for a short while. I had the demons deliver them to me in the park. When the street rats that Willow had abandoned me for saw me approaching, one of them started yelling for help.

Lovely. They thought I was going to protect them from the demons.

As I got closer, the demons slipped into the shadows, leaving my prey out in the open, waiting for me. One of the humans glanced at the demons and then stared straight at me with a wary look in his eyes as if he were sizing me up. The other never even glanced at the demons but stood calmly, with an expression that was almost sad, as if he knew I was his death, but also resolute, as if he didn’t want to die but at the same time was ready for death. He wasn’t afraid of me. I decided to kill him first; the other was terrified and frightened rabbits were more fun to hunt. I strolled towards them as inevitable as night, as inevitable as pain, as inevitable as death. The first boy, the frightened one, crouched down into a protective stance. The second didn’t move. I grabbed him by the throat, raised him off the ground, and started choking him, slowly. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to talk to strangers?” I asked. I heard the snickt of a blade snapping open and thought, Oh Willow, what kind of company have you been keeping? I dropped my prey and crushed his head under my foot. I grabbed the knife from the frightened rabbit and squeezed until it crumbled in my grip.

“Run,” I whispered to my remaining prey. He ran. Heading him off, I stepped out from the shadows ahead of him. “Fleeter be they than dappled dreams,” I quoted. He bolted off in another direction. Must not have been a poetry aficionado. Again I intercepted him, quoting, “The swift sweet deer.” The next time, I continued with, “The red rare deer.”

He muttered something derogatory about el diablo as he bolted again.

I stepped. “Softer be they than slippered sleep.” Out. “The lean lithe deer.” Of. “The fleet flown deer.” The shadows. “Paler be they than daunting death,” I whispered as I stepped, behind him this time, and knocked him out. Spike liked a struggle but was too weak to fight with his food that evening. Also made it easier to carry my prey home.

“Childe.” Spike was unable to open his eyes so I put the prey’s neck to his mouth and instinct kicked in.

When he was done feeding, Spike whispered, still too weak to make a stronger sound, “Sire.”

I sat down on a chair across the room and commanded, “Come here. Kneel.” Spike crawled to me, his strength increasing as the blood took effect, and knelt before me. I pushed him down, closer to the ground, with the sole of my shoe while I thought about how I was going to handle Willow.

---

I watched Angel and Dru depart for the evening, leaving me behind, with anger etched on every muscle of my body. As soon as they were out of sight, I relaxed. Thought they’d never leave. I’d invented some occasion to pamper Dru, something Angel wouldn’t admit to not knowing and predictably enough he’d taken her out for the night. Liked to spoil my fun, Angel did. I headed down the street to pick up my gift for Willow. I’d thought of getting her one that looked like Angel but knew he’d be a right royal bastard if he found his corpse, or one near enough to be his twin, lying about the place.

Angel had been in a rage since we’d found Dru and Willow together. Knowing him, he thought it meant he’d lost control of his Childer, certainly that’s the way he was acting. He’d put each of us in our place. Not that Dru needed it since she always thought of herself as his: his lover, his obedient Childe. Mine was the harshest but I didn’t mind since it took a lot to make me feel like his Childe again. Wouldn’t last though. I’d been independent, taking care of Dru and myself, for far too long to fit back into the role of Childe for any length of time.

Willow had been twitchy ever since Angel had finished with her. Her punishment had started with the guy he’d fed me, who turned out to be some bloke she’d been hanging out with. Apparently she’d been daft enough to play with humans while Angel was in a rage. He’d made us leave but she hadn’t been too bruised so her punishment must have been more mental than physical. I’m guessing he threatened her parents, probably not explicitly, but Willow got the message. For the first few days, she became nervous every time he left and only relaxed when he returned. She’d calmed down since then but it was there still, underneath her fear, that recklessness and I was afraid it would break out again; I was afraid that Angel would forget she was human, forget she didn’t have our stamina, when it did. Luckily I’d seen it before he did.

“What’s this?” asked Willow as I dropped my gift at her feet. While he didn’t look like Angel, I had gone for dark hair. All of Willow’s issues revolved around dark-haired lads.

“Prezzie for you,” I replied.

“You got me, a man? What am I supposed to do with him?”

“Anything you like,” I answered. “Take him like you took Dru, kill him, hurt him, let him go.” The man was screaming through the gag, squirming, and trying to undo the bonds. Willow circled him, slowly. I smiled. Struggling prey is so enticing. There was no way Willow was going to let this one go.

As the tenor of his screams changed to extreme pain, he fell over onto his side, body shaking. I couldn’t see what Willow was doing to cause it but I’d heard that sound too many times not to recognize it, even through a gag. I went to remove the gag, looking back to Willow and she smiled her permission, her eyes already shading to black. His screams resonated throughout the room as agonized as anything I’d ever heard. Willow’s eyes grew darker and wind whipped around the room.

“How are you doing that?” I asked.

“Stimulating his neurons directly but it’s not enough Spike. Why isn’t it enough?”

“Blood and guts, you need to see blood and guts, pet,” I replied.

Strips of skin, the size of fingernails, started flaying off his body. I stepped back, stunned. Willow wasn’t using spells or incantations: in her rage she’d discovered what only the most powerful witches could do, work magic by will alone. Oh my love, I thought as his screams became even more frantic. In over a hundred years I’d never heard the like. I’m never letting you go.

Was over three hours before Willow let him die. She stood there, trembling, eyes completely black. I struggled to get to her but the wind forced me back.

“Willow,” I shouted through the storm. “Let me through.”

“Why?” she asked. “What do I need you for?”

“You can’t fix this on your own. You need my fangs in your neck, the pain.”

Silence.

Willow and I were at the center of a storm whose wind raged around us but did not touch us. I’d never felt such an enormous stillness. I walked to Willow, slowly, as if I were in a trance. I bit into her neck and drank, fed, feasted. She screamed and the stillness expanded outwards, slamming the force of the wind into the walls, stopping the swirling storm. Willow’s going to need a new, well a new everything, I thought, looking at the damage to the room. I picked Willow up and licked her wounds closed as I carried her out to one of the couches and sat her on my lap.

“Got it out of your system yet?” I asked.

“Spike?” Willow asked languidly. “What do you mean?”

“A week ago with Dru. Pulverized your room tonight. Think you got the rage out of your system?”

Wind started picking up around us so I put a finger over Willow’s lips. “Shh. That’s not it. Is it... It’s because this is the day they died, Buffy and Giles. This is the day we killed them.”

Willow slumped into me and buried her head in my shoulder. When she came back up, she had tears in her eyes.

“Xander,” she whispered.

“What about him?” I asked. She turned her head away, cutting herself off from me. “Pet, we let him go.”

Her head whipped back around. “No, you didn’t,” she snarled. I grew very still. “I know you killed him,” she cried.

“Oh, my love,” I said, devastated by the despair I saw on her face. Even if I could have given Willow her friends, her life, her innocence back, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t lose her now. Instead I did what I could do; I pulled her gently to me and started petting her as she sobbed onto my shoulder.