Mastery
by ComedyofErrors
Angelus smiled. It was never a pleasant sight. It meant someone, or something, was suffering, usually by his hand, though he did delight in all misery.
It was his way. The frail blonde creature was curled in on itself, like a broken bird, with its arms splayed to either side, and its legs tucked to its chest. The hair was tangled, streaked with mud, and carrying not a few leaves. It belonged here, in the cemetery, as its heart no longer beat. It would be kind to leave it to the sun. But if he wanted to be kind, he would never have fed it his blood.
She'd been ill, he realized when he tasted her. The illness left him slightly dizzy when he drank from the savage cut on the side of her neck. It was so ragged it would scar, even in her new fast-healing existence. Not that she would have the existence for long, but it was necessary for her to know that she was marked. It was all a part of his artistry. He would have to abuse her for having been sick; circumstances beyond their control were wonderful reasons to torture a fledge. It broke the childe into such lovely pieces.
He'd made it a childe. He had debated with himself, but of course it couldn't be a minion. Minions rose with their skills in place, and were dependent only on their own hunting abilities. A childe depended on its master. It knew nothing. And it would have feelings and emotions a minion could not begin to be capable of. It could know true anguish, as only an intelligent being could.
Minions screamed. Childer wept. The latter was more to his taste.
He lifted her from the ground, and slung her over his shoulder. He could have injured her now, but there was no point. It was only pleasant if she was conscious. And conscious of what she now was. He would have preferred her to be a virgin, so that each time she would heal, and be hurt the next, but then if she were a virgin, he wouldn't be here, would he?
She was innocent though. Only once touched by a man, and so tenderly that she had no real conception of what he could do to her. He would degrade her slowly, adding each time a layer of filth to her, until she could see nothing but the dirt she was. He would give her no comfortable pattern, so that each time she would wonder at what trick he would perform. He would need to consider carefully when to let Drusilla have her fun. How wonderful to be a vampire, where incest was the way of unlife. The little slayer would no doubt be shocked to find her own sister abusing her.
He was approaching the mansion. He liked it so much better than the factory. Spike may have been content to live in a hovel, but a discerning vampire needed a suitably respectable lair. Oh, Spike. There could be another layer in the torment, for both his injured grandchilde and the new being on his shoulder. Oh yes.
He entered the mansion and went to his room. He tossed his new childe negligently on a sofa beside the bed. He stripped, then showered. He'd have to send a minion out for new bath soaps. With both Dru and himself using this bedroom and bathroom, the supplies ran out faster, especially considering how often he took her in the shower. She was well versed in its erotic uses, one of the few things Spike had educated her in over the years. Perhaps he should get the boy a thank you note for keeping her warmed up.
Slayer blood was as potent as Spike had boasted, so that even though he'd given her most of her blood back, he was not hungry. He felt like playing. He wondered when Dru would return. If Spike had any feeling below the waist he would just use him, but the insolent little bastard was wounded, and that made him useless for the kind of physical torture he had in mind.
Still, mental torture could satisfy for the moment.
*****
Spike lay on the bed, as always. He had to conserve his strength. His legs needed healing, and he couldn't spare the blood needed to roam about the mansion in the chair. It had started after Angelus returned from the mall, frustrated at the Judge's destruction. Dru or the minions had always brought him someone to eat when they returned at night. Sometimes Dru fed him herself.
But the fresh food stopped that night. He had tried ordering the minions to fulfill their duty by him. He was a Master of their Order, they should have no choice but to obey. Unless someone superior to him in the bloodline ordered them not to. That meant Dru or her sire. He could never believe that of Dru. He could only assume that Angelus liked him weak.
He was weak. But not as frail as he should have been on a starvation diet. He'd been a good Master to his minions before his injury. He'd never dusted them without cause. And now he was being paid for it. Four remained loyal. They hated Angelus, both for their own sake and for his.
One he had convinced to break into the library, and steal a book on the treatment of spinal injuries. They split the risk of bringing him pig or beef blood from the butcher while Angelus hunted. Then, a few nights ago, Jacob and Alexa had even managed to bring him an entire cooler of bagged human blood being disposed of by the hospital.
He was feeling the effects of it in his system. Never mind that it was old, and it was the first time he'd fed fully in weeks, as his emaciated form showed. His legs had begun to tingle. Sporadic nerve signals traveled to his brain, in response to imagined stimuli, if he understood the book correctly. Mostly, he felt pain. Sometimes a dull ache radiated from one limb to the next. Sometimes sharp spasms stole through him. But he didn't care. The sensations were heavenly as far as he was concerned. It gave him hope, something he had long since given up on.
It was still painful, though. He occasionally wished for a distraction, to keep the pain at bay until he had more use of the limbs. He was learning to walk again, slowly. But his atrophied muscles couldn't take much at any one time. Tonight, he'd filled his quota. His legs had buckled under him after struggling a few moments too long, and he'd had to crawl off the floor of his room and onto the bed. He was massaging them gently, through the jeans. His book had given the directions on how to ease the strain.
He heard and Angelus coming down the hallway. Was he skipping? That could not possibly be good for anyone. Spike slumped farther into bed, trying to look as though he'd been resting. At least he'd taken his boots off.
Angelus burst through the door. Spike was in bed as expected. He wondered vaguely who was feeding him. He hadn't expected the boy to give up and starve himself, wouldn't have allowed it in fact. Spike was far too much fun to torment. That sensitive poet half begged to be teased, and always would. No one else could reach inside and rip his heart out like Angelus. The abuser always had such power, he'd found.
"Well, well, my boy, lyin' about at this time o' night?" The Irish in his natural voice was diluted from travel, but he called it forth from time to time to annoy or entertain. Even if it was as fake as Spike's own Cockney.
"I was planning to go get some take out. Want to go along?" Spike knew better than to remain silent. Silence was an invitation to pain far greater than what he was feeling now. Angelus was not to be ignored. But he couldn't afford to be rebellious. Angelus believed heavily in punishment for those that spoke back to him. Spike could still feel sometimes the iron fireplace poker being alternately thrust into and smacked against his back. Preparation in the fireplace optional, though never for too long. Too hot, and the victim went into shock, and felt no pain.
And yet he loved the vampire before him. William who had been forced into a demon shell, and had made himself comfortable in it as Spike, had always placed a high regard on family. He'd loved his human family dearly. And then he was reliant on the vampire clan that had adopted him. Some of them had wanted to stake him, or worse, throw him out. Angelus had decreed he would remain. Partly out of his own love of family, partly out of a desire to see what he could make of the boy. Will the human had been weak, but proud, and wept and cried so prettily. Good raw material. Even at his most enraged, Angelus wanted Will alive, to learn.
Spike clung to unlife with a passion. And Angelus fed him, rewarded him, punished him. He was everything Will could ever have aspired to be as a demon, and Will was eager to please. He tried to believe he deserved all the beatings. He deluded himself that far for years, and after all he almost always did. And then he felt abandoned when his protector left, carting a soul along.
When they came to Sunnydale, Will now called Spike had hoped to be reunited with his beloved pseudo-sire. Drusilla he loved, but Angelus had remade him. Now they were together, but it was not as the younger vampire remembered. He'd been foolish enough to trust in Dru's loyalty, even though he knew her sodding Daddy ranked higher in her heart. As for Daddy. At his worst, the old Angelus was precise, and cold. He never attacked family without a reason. The bastard creature before him was more than a little mad. A careless, self-assured, petty egomaniac, who had followed Dru into insanity, even if he was touched in a different way. A hundred years with a soul could do anything to the demon parts.
Maybe there hadn't been unending love, but there had been some affection. Angelus wanted to see his family succeed. He grew attached to Will during their brief time together, and was set on making him a great beast some day, not unlike Penn. The soul intervened, and once it was gone, a stranger had replaced his boy. Someone who was cocky, and arrogant, and would not be dominated so easily. And it wasn't his doing. That was unacceptable to the now psychotic father figure.
Spike supposed further that he was to be broken down overtime by this new monster, until he could be remade again. The metal had cured wrong, so it was being softened to rework later. That was why there was hunger, that was why Dru was flaunted, and that was what had brought him here now.
Angelus smiled again. "I've fed already Boy, though I thank you for the invitation. I've come to invite you to partake, as it were. Come along now."
Spike lay where he was. He couldn't let Angelus know he could walk, however slightly, so he had to take the jibe for what it was, and remain still. He could smell blood on Angelus. It seemed familiar, as though he should know the scent.
Angelus's smile was becoming a constant feature. "I said get up and come with me, Boy." Two strides had him at the head of the bed. He grabbed the smaller man by his shirt front and a short quick slap graced the right side of his face. The return stroke smashed against the left. Angelus was back at his original position by the door in a moment, leaning against the frame.
Spike's head reeled from the intensity of the blow. He might well have a concussion. That didn't mean his mind was so clouded that he would disobey. He edged himself to the side of the bed with his arms, his legs limp as any dead weight. The chair was pulled close to the bed, locked so that he could climb in and out without its rolling. He grasped the armrests, and heaved himself up.
Angelus moved toward him at an even pace, circling around as though to offer him a hand. At the last moment he veered away, striking the right hand wheel lock with his steel tipped boot. The wheel, freed, rotated from the pressure on the armrests by the would-be occupant. The chair spun away from the bed, leaving Spike extended for an instant in the air. The next moment he tumbled to the ground, cracking his skull against the stone floor. He lay immobile, on his face, on the ground, breathing hard.
"Now, now, Will. Since when are you so clumsy? I assumed you'd outgrow that fledgling awkwardness at some point." Angelus grabbed him roughly by the neck and the thigh, righted him to a standing position briefly, then dumped him into the chair.
It was just this kind of childish, unreasonable attack that reminded Spike again that this was not his beloved sire. His head stopped spinning eventually, and he realized that Angelus was wheeling him to the other end of the mansion. Looking down at his throbbing legs, he saw them sticking at odd angles from beneath him. Not broken, just arranged very painfully. But he couldn't admit that. He reached down and casually straightened them, fitting his feet into the footrests.
They reached one of the rooms claimed by Angelus and Dru. It seemed to shift every week or so, depending on which bed they had yet to christen. The door was slightly ajar. Speeding up, Angelus forced the door fully open with Spike's legs as the battering ram. "Ooooh, good thing you're numb down that way Will. Else that might have hurt."
It did hurt, like the sodding devil. Fuck but it hurt. His eyes rolled back and his hands gripped the armrests as discreetly as possible. When he opened his eyes a moment later, he was at an angle, partially facing a small couch at the foot of the bed. Angelus was sitting on the bed, behind and to the right, but in full view. Still smiling, the fucker.
Now he knew why the blood smelled familiar. There she was on the couch. His slayer. The girl he was going to battle when he regained his mobility, and have a chance to win Dru back. Buffy. Dead.
Damned if he didn't pity her. Pity them both. Because now Angelus would have free reign in Sunnydale, and no one could save them from their plight by killing him. Her friends would try, but Angelus was too experienced to be killed by novices, how ever well meaning. The Watcher had a chance, if he bided his time. He wasn't a fool.
She looked so innocent. The poor girl was now the childe of the monster that had once been his grandsire. He had suffered as a fledgling, but the goal had been to teach him. Make him a strong member of the family or break him in the process. The breaking was all that was in store for this girl.
The worst part was that he knew, as did Angelus, that she would have her soul along for the ride. She was not the first slayer to be turned. She couldn't fight very hard against her sire, not while she was so young. The things he must have planned would be demeaning on all levels, physical, emotional, and spiritual.
Maybe Spike could kill her before it went too far. No one deserved this. Least of all his worthy opponent.
Angelus watched Spike watching the small form. "Pretty thing isn't she? Too bad you never got to taste her while she was alive. Really something. And now she's your elder in the blood line. Maybe you can ask her for a taste sometime, once she's a full member of the family. Maybe she'll let you lick her wrist. Did you ever wonder Spike, while you were fighting her, about what she'd be like in bed?" Spike cast him an unreadable glance. "She is good you know. Hot. Soft. Tight." He reached down and unzipped his pants, pulling out his mounting erection. He stroked it in time with his words. "She cried out when I broke her hymen. I could smell the blood from the tear. Intoxicating.
"And then tonight, I came up behind her and she didn't even sense me. Maybe she's been thinking so much about me she couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. What do you think about that, Boy?"
Spike sighed. "Maybe." He wasn't shocked that his grandsire would wank off in front of him. Horny bastard did what pleased him, and he liked to be watched. It wasn't anything Spike hadn't seen before, but it got to him now. Maybe because, as Angelus knew, he was too injured to have an erection himself. This was another trick to remind him of just how worthless he was at the moment. He couldn't even pleasure himself.
It angered him not so much that the wanker was jerking off over the slayer's death but over what he was going to do when she woke. Slayer blood's aphrodisiacal qualities were irresistible after all. But Spike had never enjoyed rape. He'd seen it done by Angelus in the old days, and it disgusted him.
Maybe it was the Victorian manners lingering in him that protested. Maybe it was his memory of his broken cousin Charlotte after 'that thing happened'. She'd killed herself later. Spike suspected though that it was more to do with stealing innocence. He felt no shame in killing. He was a vampire, that's what he did. But intimate as biting was, he knew that the humans found rape to be the greater violation.
He'd been an innocent little poet when Dru found him. His innocence was destroyed entirely in two days with the family. Sometimes, not that he would ever admit it, he missed the moments when he didn't know what monsters were. When he was safe with his mother, reading. When he didn't know what fate held for him. That he would be a monster. Pathetic virgin that he had been at 28, he'd at least been loved by one person.
Angelus sped up his strokes. He felt the tension building. "Boy, come here." Spike wheeled awkwardly closer, facing his panting sire. Angelus held his wrist out.
Spike slid into game face, fully aware of what was required of him. Blood play in sex was natural to vampires, and Angelus liked pain. His own blood was not worth the tasting. He took the wrist and bit hard. Angelus spasmed. He came with the first pull of blood. Spike continued to pull hard, stealing as much of the slayer residue as he could. As Angelus returned to awareness, he took a final draught, then backed away as quickly as he could in the wheel chair.
Angelus gave him a lascivious smile. He stood and walked behind Spike. He leaned down and licked the burned side of the younger vampire's face, making sure to cause more than a little pain to the unhealed skin. He spoke into his ear. "Just remember Will that I'm the better man here. I've won the slayer. I'll break her, and be better known for it, while you languish at my mercy. Never forget that that is where you are. No better than a minion. Beneath me and mine." He wiped his sticky hands on Spike's shirt. "Go."
Spike left. Poor Buffy. God help her. She was still one of His, after all.
****
Please Review!
|
