Chain

By Irfikos

Part I: Blood

1.2: Wake

I don't think I am what I was before
I never watched anyone die before
I dream in slow motion and I wake up screaming

– Wake Up Screaming
Subhumans, 1995

She is there with him when he wakes up. He can sense her in the bed beside him. He smiles, eyes closed in the comfortable half-sleep of morning. He yawns, starts to stretch his arms over his head but… somehow he’s gotten all tangled up in the sheets. Can’t move his arms at all. He grunts in annoyance and tries to disentangle himself without waking her. Just seems to wrap himself tighter. Opening his eyes, he turns to look at her. She’s lying on her side, facing away from him. Her hair cascades over her naked shoulder; pools on the pillow around her head, thick and dark and lovely.

“Hey baby, could you help me out here? I’m all tangled up.”

She doesn’t wake up. He thrashes in the sheets until he can pull an arm free. Reaches for her shoulder to wake her. She’s cold. He’s hogged all the covers again. Great. She always bitches at him when he hogs the covers. He shakes her.

“Trina, wake –”

Her body flops toward him and he can see her face. Her eyes are open, unblinking, staring up at the water-stained ceiling. Her head is tilted at an odd angle.

“Trina? Baby, wake up!” Panic in his voice.

He caresses her hair but it’s wet, sticky. Holds his hand up over his face. Blood on his fingers. The dark pool on the pillow isn’t hair.

He jerks awake and and flings himself from the bed. The sheet is still wrapped around him and he trips, stumbling against the wall. Bangs his elbow. Steadies himself. Reaches down and wrenches the sheet from his legs. He stands there, back against the wall, panting, staring at the empty bed.

Just a dream. Just a dream. Just a dream.

After a minute or two he is able to collect himself. He licks his lips and takes a nice deep breath. No time for sleep anyway. Work to do.

---

Has to admit, he hadn't seen this coming. Shameful really. Witness the great William the Bloody, curled up all bloody (literally) on the floor of the Playroom of the Eternal Virgins. How the mighty have fallen.

And he’s bored as hell. Been playing dead for hours and has had his fill of it. If this is what staying dead is like he’s glad he’d skipped it. Hmm… perimeter check. Let's see…

He identifies the littlest nerd’s heartbeat at the far end of the room. Lying still but not sleeping. The squirrely blond one’s nearby. Quiet. Awake. Not sure what that one is up to. The big one is… not in the room. Spike listens. There. Next room over. Fingers tapping a keyboard. All accounted for then.

He feels a bit stronger. Head's a bit clearer. Not healing as fast as he should be, unfortunately. He can feel the minute twinges and tugs of bones knitting together, flesh sealing. Not fast enough, dammit. Lost too much blood. Needs blood. His stomach clenches in agreement. Right. Time to be getting on then. He opens his eyes.

---

Andrew hates keeping watch. Well, this is actually the first time he’s kept it so he can’t really say for sure that he hates it all the time or anything. Right now, he’s hating it. It’s creepy. He peers cautiously over the top of his comic book at the prisoner lying in a rumpled heap of black leather several feet away. He – it – still hasn’t moved. So creepy. But Warren says it’s cool. So it’s gotta be cool. It’s asleep and dead things don’t move when they’re asleep, right? So it shouldn’t be creepy that it’s all chalky and covered with blood and not moving or breathing. Still, Andrew tries not to blink. About an hour ago, it occurred to him that maybe the vampire was moving when he wasn’t looking. Like, every time he looks down at his Catwoman #15 or… or blinks, or anything, it opens its eyes and stares at him.

He hadn’t even seen a dead body before the other night. He’d always wanted to. In high school, he’d told everybody he’d seen one (a really hot chick in some bushes) just to fit in. By junior year, everybody in his class had seen at least one dead body. Tucker had always bragged that he’d seen over a dozen. Andrew knew he’d only seen about half that, though. Stupid Tucker always lied about stuff like that. After awhile, Andrew had started to think he’d never get to see one. Seemed like he’d always be walking past the alley just as the coroner had zipped up the bag. Or he’d be sick at home the day there was some big massacre at the school. Just his luck.

Now he’s seen two. He’s going to count this one. Warren says it doesn’t count because it isn’t dead. Not technically. Andrew knows he’s right, you know… technically. It’s a vampire. Creature of the night and stuff. Undead. But right now it just looks dead. For real dead. Like the first dead body he saw. The girl. Another reason he doesn’t like to close his eyes. Sometime he sees her – it. Only it isn’t like the vampire. He knows it isn’t watching him. When he sees it, the eyes are open and very definitely, totally dead. The body is slumped awkwardly below him like it was on the stairs. He knows it won’t be getting up again. And beneath it, looking up at him from the foot of the stairs, eyes glittering – Warren.

Warren.

That night, in the van, while Jonathan was working his mojo on the Slayer, Andrew had looked down and realized that he still had some of the girl’s blood on his hand. He had stared at it and then just started shaking. Crying all over again. Such a baby. He had hated the look Warren gave him. Like he was a little wussy-man. Like he had disappointed him. But then Warren had turned and put his hands on Andrew’s shoulders. Had looked right into him. Like Superman with his X-Ray Vision. Seeing him. Seeing Andrew. Bones and guts and everything. The warmth from those hands on his shoulders had seemed to spread through his whole body… kinda like the Force or something. Midi-chlorian rushing through his bloodstream. Making him brave. Making him strong. Making him… well… kinda tingly.

“Stay cool, Andrew,” Warren had said, leaning in. Their faces had been very close. “Trust me. It’s gonna be fine. You just need to chill, okay?” And suddenly Andrew was a Jedi. A warrior. He knew that he was safe. Warren was in control and Warren would make everything okay. As long as he trusted in Warren, he would be fine.

His eyes start to burn and he squeezes them shut. When he opens them again the vampire is looking at him.

"Yeeaugh!" The comic book flies from Andrew's hands. The vampire pulls itself to a sitting position, brushing a hand across its face where it had been stuck to the cement with coagulated blood. It takes a breath, just one, and stares at him, its swollen, russet-stained face expressionless and unblinking.

"Gah– uh… uhm…" Andrew's mouth shuts with a snap. He can’t move. Yeesh. It’s creepy. Like, *The Sixth Sense* creepy. Or like that time when Scully looked up and her dad’s ghost was sitting there talking to her but not making any sounds. He realizes all the little hairs on the back of his neck are standing up. The vampire isn't moving at all. Just staring. Okay… way, way, way, way creepy.

Finally, the vampire blinks and looks away. It tilts its head and narrows its eyes (well, one’s already narrow because it’s swollen shut so maybe that doesn’t count really) looking all around, studying its surroundings.

Andrew realizes he’s been holding his breath. He takes a few quick gulps of air. The vampire's eyes flit back to him at the sound and its mouth twists into a dark little smirk. Uh-oh. This is bad. If the spell doesn’t work– He opens his mouth again to scream for the others. No sound comes out.

Supporting itself with its hands – a bit unsteadily at least, Andrew notices – it slowly pushes itself to its feet. The smirk becomes a grin, and without a sound, the vampire lunges.

---

A jolt. He hisses and recoils, falling on his ass with a complete lack of grace and more than a little pain. What the hell–

He looks up in utter shock at the trembling nerd before him. "What the hell?"

That certainly hadn't gone as planned. Let's see… jump up; grab nerd; threaten; posture; get the hell out; go home; drink blood; watch telly; figure a way to kill nerds without getting a bloody headache. It was a good plan! What just happened here?

The nerds are on alert now. The little constipated one has leapt to his feet and is standing off to the side a bit looking all scared and stupid. The big one comes rushing from the next room, freezing momentarily to take in the scene before sauntering over to sneer down at him. By the looks of it, the blond one has pissed in his trousers. Wonderful. These are his brilliant captors? Where’s a sodding stake when you need one?

"Morning, sleepyhead!" The big one’s so excited he’s bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet and grinning like an imbecile. Spike slides up into a crouch and glares. Can’t quite get back to the standing upright part yet.

"It’s a spell," the imbecile explains. "Kinda like how you can't come into a house unless you're invited, you know? Only instead of coming in, it's getting out. And instead of a house, its this little 5 by 5 square of the room, see? Pretty cool huh? Short-round here did it."

Short-round shrinks back against the far wall.

Despite his weakened state, Spike manages to keep his voice low and steady. "Listen. You let me out of this now and I don't tie the three of you together at the neck with your entrails like a bloody geek bouquet? How 'bout that for ‘pretty cool?’"

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Count Shockula." A grin. "I know what your little chip does."

Oh hell. Spike clenches his teeth, eliciting little protests of pain throughout his damaged face. “Do you, now?” he growls, knowing he has a terrible poker face. The only way he ever wins the bloody game is by cheating. Hopefully the tossers before him are too stupid to see that his hand is utter crap right now. “What, you plan to enter me in the science fair then?”

To emphasize his nonchalance, he starts going through pockets to find his smokes. Nothing, nothing… oh, the bastards! They’d emptied his pockets while he was out. That’s just bloody impolite. And now he’s left with his hands fluttering about with nothing to do. He opts for running a hand through his hair but it gets caught up in a matted tangle of dried blood. Oh. Fantastic. Way to intimidate. He extricates his hand as casually as possible. None of them seem to notice. Good.

“Oh, it’s way better than that.” Warren squats in front of him and leans in close to the barrier that divides them. “We totally own you now.”

“Yeah,” the blond guy pipes up as he edges out of the room holding his hands before him in a failed attempt at hiding the wetness at the front of his pants. “You like, have to do our bidding and stuff.”

There’s a beat or two of silence as the nerds pause to let this revelation of their fiendish plot sink in. The effect is totally ruined of course as Spike bursts out laughing. He just can’t help it. Even as he feels the shattered rib grating against itself. Even as the throbbing in his head comes back with a vengeance. Even as Warren’s face twists all up and goes dark with fury. It’s just so… funny.

“Shut up!” Warren shouts, jumping to his feet. “Shut up! Stop laughing!”

But Spike doesn’t stop. In a rage, Warren grabs the chair the blond guy had been sitting in before and hurls it at the laughing vampire. There’s not enough room to dodge it properly but Spike is able to drop onto his side and deflect it with his shoulder at least. It ricochets off him and flies off at an angle, clattering to the floor several feet away. Too far away. It’s landed outside the barrier. Pity. He could have used it somehow, a weapon maybe, had it landed within his reach. He’s still laughing but then it turns into a cough so he quits breathing altogether for a bit. The drop to the floor managed to knock his ribs around some more. Great. At least the nerd seems satisfied enough to end his little temper tantrum. Spike pulls himself back into a crouch. This nonsense better not take long. His head is pounding now. He really needs to get back to his crypt and lie down.

“You laugh now, but just wait. You think you can push us around because you’re some big bad vampire? You can’t even hurt us! You’re a– you’re a wimp! You’re not even a real vampire anymore.”

Spike takes a breath to respond but there must be blood in his lungs now because all that comes out is a choking cough. He grimaces in irritation. Definitely not having the best of days here.

Warren paces a couple of times in front of the cage. “We’re sick of being scared of guys like you. And you know what?” He stops pacing and looks down at Spike. “I’m not scared of you at all. I mean, you might be all undead and strong and tuned into the Dark Force or whatever… but I’m smarter than you. I’m the one with the power, now. And I've got big plans."

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