Chapter 6
Giles heard Willow and Tara moving off the sofa, headed for the relative safety of the sarcophagi where Xander was standing. He kept his eyes focused on Drusilla, hoping that the three young people would not attempt anything rash. Drusilla might be insane, but she was still a master vampire. One with powerful thrall.
Giles lowered his flashlight as Drusilla stepped out of the shadows. Apparently she’d come up through a trap door in the floor. He tossed the light onto the sofa so that he could better aim his crossbow. As much as he wanted to fire a bolt at Spike’s sire, he couldn’t take the chance of missing her heart and inciting an attack. Buffy was between himself and Drusilla; she’d be the first victim. Giles edged closer to the chair holding his slayer.
Drusilla smiled at him. She closed the remaining distance between herself and her childe. She put a hand on Spike’s forehead, as though checking him for fever. She petted his head lightly. “Poor boy. Needs his mummy. Not her!” She finished with a hiss, pointing at Buffy. Her head whipped around to stare at Willow and Tara. “Taste like the garden, they do. Put her in my sweet William’s head. Nasty weed.” She tilted her head back, looking at Giles again. “They can take her out.”
Giles shook his head. “No, that decision is Buffy’s. She’ll come out when Spike is ready to come with her. She’s helping him.”
Drusilla stamped her foot angrily and put her hands on Spike’s shoulders. “No! No, no, no. She’s not the cure. Pricked by a nasty, he was. Pushed deep inside, poisoning him against me when I come to take him back to his family.”
Giles frowned. “You know what happened to Spike? Was he attacked by something?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Ugly. Plunged in deep, put ideas in his head.” One of her thin hands ghosted down to stroke a spot on Spike’s chest.
Giles risked a look to Xander. He nodded for the boy to come over. Drusilla watched Xander approach with curiosity. Giles handed Xander the crossbow. He stared Drusilla full in the eye. “May I see?” She regarded him suspiciously, but moved back from Spike.
Giles leaned forward and pulled down the collar of the vampire’s tee-shirt. A thin, relatively fresh cut was visible. Spike had been cut by something. Poisoned? Giles schooled himself to speak in as slow and clear a manner as possible. In essence, he was talking to a violent, two-hundred year old child. “Drusilla, we want to help Spike. We want him to come back here, and to get Buffy out of his mind. Now to do that, we need to know what did this. Can you tell us what demon hurt him? You said it gave him ideas.”
She nodded sagely. “Pale and tall and big. Gentlemanly. Doesn’t eat you when first you meet. Makes new worlds with every sting.”
“New worlds?” Giles queried.
Drusilla laughed gleefully. “Oh, yes, the magician. Rabbits and ducks. Pulls ‘em out of your head!”
Giles tried to sort through the clues he’d been given. It would all be so much simpler if she could speak in plain English. He pulled his glasses off, polishing them nervously on his jacket. “A demon that stings its prey. The venom has a debilitating effect, allowing the demon to feed at its leisure. New worlds. The prey hallucinates…” He turned to Drusilla. “Glarghk Guhl Kashma'nik? Was that the demon?”
She nodded. “Such a funny name.”
“Um, Giles? What’s going on?” Willow asked hesitantly.
“Spike has been stung by a glarghk guhl kashma'nik demon. They inject their victims with a hallucinogenic chemical. If not treated, the victim loses touch with reality over time. He or she enters a hyper-real delusion stemming from his or her state of mind at the time of the attack.” They needn’t have sent Buffy inside Spike’s mind after all.
Willow nodded. “Okay. So…what do we do?”
Giles thought for a moment. “The cure should be listed in one of the books we use for demon identification at the Magic Box. Willow, you and Tara go there and find the recipe. Bring it and the ingredients required back here.” He cast a glance at Spike and Buffy, then turned his attention back to Drusilla. He sincerely hoped that Buffy returned to them soon.
________________________________________________________________________
*****Flash*****
She and William were standing in a swank hallway. He was still wearing the clothes he’d been buried in, so it couldn’t have been long after his mother’s death. It was the first time Buffy had seen him genuinely angry since she’d come to know him in Spike’s memories. It was an expression she’d seen a hundred times on Spike in the present, right before something got pummeled. She turned to see what had made him so furious.
Drusilla was lying on a bed with her skirts hiked up. What else was new? A man was standing between her legs, his long hair disheveled from bedroom aerobics. Eww. Dru’s friend was in serious need of some conditioner. He tilted his head back – it was Angelus. He smiled at William’s shocked face, then leaned over onto the bed. Drusilla smiled happily. “The little children didn’t come out to play. Did you miss me, pretty William?”
William’s mouth opened and closed quickly. A muscle ticked in his jaw. He might have been at a loss for words, but Angelus wasn’t. With a sarcasm Buffy recognized all too well, he replied, “I'm sure he did, Dru. After all... you are his destiny.”
Dru’s face softened. “Oh. That's so sweet.”
Angelus began laughing as William continued to stare in outrage. Dru started laughing too. Buffy shook her head. No wonder modern Spike didn’t like to be mocked. “Don't touch her!”
William’s grandsire continued to smile. “Little late for that, Willy.” He stood, walked over to William, and grabbed him by the arm. “And I really don’t like it when you raise your voice to me.”
Dru smiled, completely oblivious to how much it was hurting William that she’d betrayed him so soon after making him. “William, don't play such a sad tune. Give us a kiss, then.”
William looked back to Angelus. “Why did you...? You knew. You knew she was mine.”
Angelus’s brow lifted. “Did I?”
That was too much for William. “You knew bloody well!” He pulled loose from Angelus, punched him, and tried to push him over. “Unh-aaaugh!”
The fight spilled out into the living room, but didn’t last long. Angelus wasn’t concerned; he knew as well as Buffy that a fledgling had no chance against a master vampire. William lay on the ground, winded, after only a couple punches. “Just don't get it now, do you?”
He pulled William up by his vest and pushed him onto a couch, next to a couple of dead people. He pushed the bodies off onto the floor, then sat down next to William. “Well, you're new... and a little dim. So let me explain to you how things are now. There's no belonging or deserving anymore. You can take what you want, have what you want... but nothing is yours.” Drusilla walked out of the bedroom, her skirts still out of order. “Not even her.”
William shook his head violently. Buffy sighed. William was too romantic to see the truth; she’d known he would be. “You're wrong. We're forever, Drusilla and me.”
Drusilla gasped. She’d obviously thought no such thing, but the idea amused her. “Are we?”
Angelus thought it was funny, too. “Ah, still the poet now, aren't we, Willy?”
“William.” He spat.
Angelus smiled condescendingly. “Right. William. You know, you really should find a new name for yourself. It just doesn't strike the right note of terror.” He stood and walked over to Drusilla. He stood behind her. “Tell you what... William. If you want her...” he put his arms around Dru possessively. “come and take her.”
Drusilla held out her hands dreamily. William didn’t even think about it. He rushed forward off the sofa to rescue his damsel in distress. Buffy supposed that was how he rationalized it at first. That he made himself believe Dru was just obeying her sire, she really wanted to be with William. Buffy could see that it was the only explanation he could understand. He thought that because he loved her, she had to love him in the same way. It was that way with his mother, when she was turned.
Angelus threw Dru off to one side as William charged. He grabbed William’s shoulders and twisted him violently off his feet and onto his back. The wind was knocked out of William, and he lay stunned for a moment too long. Then Angelus was on top of him. He’d grabbed the fireplace poker while William was down and began hitting him. On the stomach, across his ribs. Again. And again.
Buffy willed Angelus to stop. But he didn’t. William rolled over onto his battered chest and tried to crawl toward Dru, who was just watching. She didn’t even try to interfere. Buffy figured Angelus had taken a poker to her more than once. Her suspicions were confirmed when Angelus addressed the fledgling on the ground. “She’ll not save you, Will my boy. She knows better than to go against my wishes.”
William was bleeding out onto the floor, but Angelus didn’t care. He smashed the boy’s back and head, until finally William stopped moving. Then Angelus straddled his back, grabbed William’s head and wrenched him up so that he was facing Dru. “You’ve called her sire up ta now. You’ll give me that title from this moment on, ‘cause you’ll learn nothing from her outside a bedroom, and then only when I permit you. She is mine. You are mine. If you live it’s because I will it so. You will call me sire.” He boxed William’s ears. “Say it.”
“No,” William croaked.
Angelus’s arms encircled William’s battered torso. They squeezed hard, ripping a horrible cry of pain from William. “Say it, boy.”
William was on the verge of tears. Buffy couldn’t tell if it was from pain or from having to admit defeat. From having to lose Dru. “Sire…”
Angelus smiled. “That’s a start.” He dropped William without a thought and headed back to Dru. He pulled her out of the room. She spared one look for William, bleeding on the floor. She gave him a little wave and a smile. A few moments later Buffy heard them in the next room. Having sex. It disgusted her.
William lay where he’d fallen, half unconscious, and crying.
Buffy backed away. She’d thought William’s human memories were depressing, but this was just horrific. No wonder he’d used a fireplace poker on Angelus during their deal over Acathla. He’d wanted revenge for what William had suffered back then. So it was Angelus that taught William how to be vicious and cruel. How to be Spike.
William. It pained her to see him hurt this way and to see Angelus doing it. She’d known that she’d be seeing memories involving Angelus; she’d been prepared for this. And yet, she had a sinking feeling that after she got out of Spike’s mind, she’d never be able to look at Angel the same way again.
*****
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