The Clavian Triptych

by Schehrezade

Gone were the lazy hazy days of last summer.

When they had both set off on their tour of Europe , filled with excitement and blissfully happy in each other’s arms. With their fangs ready to tear a crimson path throughout France and the rest of the Continent. It had been an unparalleled experience; the two of them and assorted minions had travelled the length and breadth of the Continent.

Stopping in all the cities that called to them. Revisiting old friends and experiencing the delights of the European cities in all their modern appeal, bright lights and all. Drinking deep from the necks of whoever caught their fancy.

Madrid -- where they had broken in one breathless night into the Prado, his darling Dru insisting that the paintings were calling to her. She needed to see them in all their savage beauty. When she had dragged him into the room containing Bosch's triptych of The Garden of Earthly delights, he remembered laughing his head off. Of course she would want to see these paintings, the artist had created something that his darling would understand through her madness. She had spent hours staring, mesmerised by the images of Hell in one of the panels. A cruel smile was painted across her doll-like features as she scanned every inch of the masterpiece. Her long pale fingers hovering over the panels over images of twisted and contorted bodies of sinners her scarlet lips parted with childish glee at the sight of suffering.  

The famed El Grecos hadn't been his cuppa, but the Velasquez panels had been a bit of all right. A solitary guard -- who Dru had delighting in crucifying next to the Triptych and leaving him to be found by a group of young school children the following day-- had disturbed their idyll. Somehow he doubted that the little buggers would ever appreciate his girl's artistry and savagery in murder.

Paris and the bloodbath at the Moulin Rouge --now that had been fun!   

Seeing his Drusilla all kitted out in one of the dancers’ outfits, bejewelled and decked out in feathers, had turned him into a frenzy of lust and they had screwed each other cross-eyed on the famous stage of the dance hall. Slipping and slithering through the entrails and blood they had left in their wake as they had fed and dismembered the chorus of Cancan dancers. He really did enjoy the private party they had put on and the taste of the oversexed dancers had been intoxicating.

Venice and the unfortunate Scuola of monks that had offered them a place to sleep for the night. Their pious blood had given him indigestion, much too catholic for his tastes.  All that piety gave him gas. So he had snuck out, leaving Dru and the others to sleep off their excesses and chatted up a nice German girl who had been out and about in the middle of the night. He had offered to take her on a gondola ride and left her drained corpse curled up on the red cushion. Eating the gondolier before getting close to shore had been a bugger, as he had to swim back to the nearest Piazza. He’d had to burn his clothes and soak in disinfectant to get rid of the stink.

And so it had continued. They had travelled everywhere they wanted, leaving corpses in their wake.

Until one sultry June evening in Rome . Dru had turned to him with a sad smile as they explored the catacombs, whispering that it was nearly time before heading off down a dark tunnel. He should’ve known better than to come to Rome ; the place was cursed for him.  

First the mess with The Immortal, shagging Dru and Darla while he hung in chains next to the Irish bog-trotting nit, and then in the Fifties when the same bastard had him slung in jail for tax evasion, just so he could take Dru off for a nice orgy at the Forum. And here he was again, waiting for the next axe to drop.

Only reason they were here was because Dru had insisted, so he had given in with barely concealed anger and had spent the last five days trudging in the sewers and catacombs of the Vatican City .  

He'd heard tales of how Darla had rescued the nit from some order of pissed off Catholic monks and a demon hunter. So they had been searching for the exact place where Angelus had been tortured and maimed by the Inquestore. Dru was hoping there was some trace of his scent on the place and she was sniffing around like mad, eventually leading Spike through the sewers and into a series of rooms that had a few skeletons here and there and piles of vamp dust dotted around. She had turned her deceptively innocent eyes towards him and clapped her hands, chanting that her Daddy had been here for a party. Then her excitement had dampened and she had turned that sad little smile towards him and said it was time. The pixies and imps had told her they had to go to Prague . She added quietly that was meant to be would be.

They had begun with such high expectations of the tour, but had ended here in a blood bath of a very different nature.

********

Sire's blood was coating the air around him. Thick and cloying and calling to him -her distress sounded out through their bond of sire and childe. She needed him and he was too far away to get to her.

Calling to him as he ran as fast as he could.

Trying to get to her…to save her...his darling wicked Princess.

"Christ on a pogo stick, get out the bloody way," he roared. Elbowing his way frantically past bemused tourists as he ran towards his poor girl. She was weakening under the attack and he could sense her fear of dusting, as vividly as if it were his own panic. Which in a sense it was; if she died then so would he, seconds later by his own hand.

Behind him he could hear Dalton running as fast as he could to keep up with his Master. Dru's call to the bloodlines had resonated through them all. His earnest bespectacled face was a mass of concern and determination. Behind Dalton trailed a few other lesser minions that Spike and Dru had turned to help with their baggage and travel plans.

All of them were now running to save their dark deadly mistress. They had been resting in the flat they had liberated from its owner in the Old Town , some returning from their hunts and others just leaving. Spike had been sleeping, unaware that Dru had slipped out and gone off on her own to play.

She had been stalking and playing with a young man whose family were hoping would soon enter the priesthood. There had been an innocence to the man that had drawn his raven-haired vixen to him. Spike had indulgently left her to her own devices; he was not one for playing with his food, unlike the other members of his family. In the past few weeks since they had arrived in Prague , Dru had fixated on the dark haired man and had slowly begun to shadow him.

Spike prayed to whatever deity/demon looking out for vampires that Dru would survive until he got to her. When he found the animals that had done this to his plum, they would pay for it in kind.

********  

He was always up for a good fight and a nice juicy throat to drain, but this was more blood than he’d ever seen. If he hadn’t been frantic to get to Dru, then Spike would’ve smiled at the irony of his thoughts. One quarter of the Scourge of Europe sickened by the sight of blood. But this wasn’t some victim. This was his girl’s and they were all going to die for touching her.  

Biting and clawing his way through the mob of zealots that had hurt his Sire, Spike howled at the top of his lungs. He ripped heart after heart out of the mortals who dared to spill his Dru’s blood. Dimly he was aware of his minions fighting at his side, scattered loyally across the cobbled square. He tried to avoid looking at her tortured body, but failed, his eyes drawn to her almost cadaverous features.  She was almost drained dry.   

She was crucified upside down on a roughly assembled cross that stood in the centre of the square. Bales of straw were smouldering all around it, the rain smothering the fires set by the family of the murdered boy. Her blood was pouring from the slash across her throat, between her breasts, across her stomach and also from the slashes up her thin arms. Her call through the bloodline faltered and faded as she lost consciousness.  

“Master Spike, we can’t get to her,” was lisped around the fangs of one of the females he’d turned to help Dru with her hair and make-up. She gestured with a blood soaked hand at the bales of straw that were slowly beginning to catch fire. “It’s too hot,” she explained, fear building up in her voice.  

“Pansy,” Spike roared as he tossed her body onto the nearest bale, and then used it as a springboard to get to Dru. Turning to Dalton before his leap into almost certain dusting, Spike ordered him to find water and then sailed through the flames and landed in a crouch at his darling side.  

“Fuck me,” he whispered at the horrific sight of her face. Her lips were cracked and seeping blood. Drusilla’s usually fine porcelain skin was now riddled with patches of black flaking scabs and deep grooves as she had bled all her sustenance into the straw around her. Her throat was covered in livid bruises, where someone had foolishly tried to strangle her in an attempt to subdue the demented vampiress.  

Spike eyed the rusty nails that were driven into the tender palms and hammered through the delicate arches of her feet; there was no way he was getting her off without hurting her some more. Something died inside of him at the thought. His demon railed against the ironclad control Spike was exerting over it as he catalogued the damage to her slender body. Spike tried to ignore the smoke that was billowing from where her form made contact on the inverted cross, that was the least of his worries.  

She looked like an unwrapped mummy.  Her full lips-- the same ones he spent hours kissing and nibbling-- were now drawn back from her teeth and showing the worst of the damage. Her fangs were gone, yanked out and leaving gaping holes. The rest of her teeth were chipped and broken, by god knows what. Spike tried not to imagine the bastards strangling her and holding her down as they used pliers on her fangs and then smashing her in the mouth afterwards. Bile rose into the back of his throat and Spike retched.  

The master vampire whirled and threw up onto the straw.  Wiping the back of his hand shakily over his mouth, he composed himself. “Right then, lets get you down from there and home.” Spike’s hands shook as he reached for her beaten and blood soaked form. Shutting his eyes and whispering an apology, he braced himself and then yanked her off the instrument of her torture. He savagely kicked away several bales that were burning to closely, his booted feet covered in a shower of sparks as he roared angrily.  

“Master Spike, over this way,” Dalton called. Spike gently lifted his battered sire into his arms and turned in the direction of the minions’ voice. He sighed in relief; the minions had managed to kill the rest of their suffering sire’s tormentors and had used the bodied as a bridge.  

Hoisting her limp form again his shoulder Spike stepped onto the back of one of the clerics he’d spotted and clambered to safety. He sank to his knees and rocked Drucilla back and forth in his arms, vaguely catching the gasps of horror from his minions at the sight of their mistress. He crooned and whispered to her lovingly as he tried desperately to compose himself.  

“Sire, we need to get her home and then we can tend to her.” Dalton hesitantly stepped forward. “I’ve sent the others ahead to get everything ready-- blood and medical supplies. We need to get indoors soon…the sun—” He gestured to the pinkening sky worriedly. Spike ignored him as he stroked the back of his hand over her cracked and burned cheek, whispering promises of vengeance on any of her tormentors that had survived the massacre. 

”Oh luv…what have they done to your hair?” Spike stared in dismay at the mess of her crowning glory.  Her brunette curls were a haphazard mess, chunks at different lengths; shears had been used to hack her soft hair off. So absorbed in cataloguing the damage inflicted, he didn’t hear Dalton’s gasp of fear as the bespectacled vampire saw the mob that was beginning to pour into the square.  

“Sire, we need to go now, or we will die!” 

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