| Hearts blood is red as the deepest hued ruby. It flows like the River Styx, slowly and steadily drifting forward towards the inevitable end for all things living. It's actually quite interesting to watch. The arterial blood debuts, spurting from the veins in a scarlet torrent of sustenance and verve, the oil in the machine of mortality and most precious of nectars. It pulses from the vessel with alacrity, alarming in it's speed and exquisite in scent and tone and taste. It is surely the most erotic sight I've ever seen, splashes of warm, silken scarlet that glow on the skin like precious gems on ivory velvet. A glistening tide of crimson that slides across the palate, sweetens the tongue and warms it's way from throat to belly leaving a burgundy film on teeth and lips that just begs to licked clean. Ahhh and the scent! Heady, full of strength and power and magic; the keeper of many secrets is the blood and all revealed in it's scent. You can hide behind your mask of flesh and smile and preen and weave intrigue, but for me - for a vampire - the truth and the way and the life lies in the blood. Blood never lies. But all too soon the cascade subsides to a trickle, the last drops of blood reluctantly bidding adieu to the heart. It's at this point that you need to suck hard to coax it from the arteries, and because it is hearts blood, because it is the last, it is darker in hue, thicker in it's liquidity and more pungent in flavour. It is the tip of the artichoke you might say or the Beluga Caviar of the body. As I lie here silently in awe, my lover pales and grows cold. I've drained him to the point of death and now all that remains is to give him my gift, my dark bequest granted to one whom I love and cherish - life eternal, black embrace. To be mine forever. Again. He was mine forever once before. Over one hundred years ago I lay by his side, ears straining for the last gasp of breath, the last thud of his heart; anticipation of lifetimes together tightening my groin and making impatience itch like a million tics under my skin. He was as beautiful then as now; plush sable hair glistening like a kerchief of finest silk where it encircles his throat and teases his shoulders, sensual lips slightly parted and just a glimpse of cerulean peeking from beneath his eyelids. The moonlight glances off his pale skin making it glow ethereally and I know I have only seconds. Seconds before Death snatches him from my grasp and takes him from me forever. But this time there is a difference. I'm not the demon I once was nor is he the man. Over a century has shaped and pummelled us both, and neither of us is on the same path we started on. For myself, I have been both monster and angel, have suffered the torments of Hell in both guises and he? He has been innocent and broken, damned then redeemed and I'm not certain if I want him to walk that road again without giving him the choice, even to satisfy my own intentions. First time around I *took* him. There was no choice. As Angelus I lusted after this blue-eyed cherub, the taste of spoiled innocence and subjugation already coating his tongue long before the feeding. Such exquisite malevolence there was in the act of breaking this boy, raping this boy, *mastering* this boy. Such wicked delight in his agonies until there was nothing of the boy left, and a hell-spawned spectre of carnage and pain took his place. He was the crowning achievement in an existence of chaos and fear and ugly death for Angelus who loved him, obsessed on him, and broke him. Granted, again this time there is no choice. He lies in Death's steely grip unable to make the choice for himself and so it is up to me. It is up to me whether or not to restore the demon or let the soul fly free and the body rot in the ground, never again to be the vessel of Satan. You're confused now, huh? How can this be? If he was immortal once before, then why must this choice of death or immortality lie once more at my door? Simple. Fate. Blind, impulsive, reckless fate. Reckless. A phrase used by many in the same breath as my boy Spike's name. Rude, impetuous, rash and occasionally foolish beyond comprehension. Spike's lifelong problem was always one of the heart. He let his heart rule his head. Not that his heart was big; there was no room for mercy or empathy in that cold, lifeless organ but when Spike fell in love it swamped his very being. Demon love is the magnification of every aspect of passion and desire. Overwhelming lust, a jealous possessiveness and obsession bordering on insanity. Control never had much of a grip on my boy; he laughed in its face and flouted irresponsibility at every opportunity. When he fell for Willow's little blonde-haired lover, this rashness was no exception. I still don't see what he saw in her. She's a timid girl, a tiny wee mouse of a thing. Pretty enough but not startling. My boy's taste always leaned towards the unusual - striking looks, a face that stood out from the crowd. But Tara? Tara makes the shadows her friends. I'm guessing it was her power that drew him to her, coupled with a vulnerability that I just know Spike would find irresistible and impossible to ignore. For whatever reason, Spike was infatuated. He managed to keep it hidden at first, but that rashness got the better of him as it always does. To his credit he was honest about it. Straight after he'd bedded the little witch he went straight to Willow and confessed. He fucked Tara, I hear you cry? Yeah, incredulity slapped my face too. As far as anyone knew little Tara didn't drive stick. Huh! Shows you how little they know about my boy. When it comes to sparking desire Spike is an artist; somehow he always senses the erogenous zones and plays them like the sweetest aria. That peroxided little slut always knows which buttons to push. Hell, I spent decades teaching him all he knows, but he was skilled from the beginning and so I shouldn't be surprised that yet again he has squeezed blood from a stone and caused the worm to turn. But here was his downfall - he underestimated the rage of Willow scorned. Now as anyone who knows her will testify she is the sweetest of plums, gentle natured and far too trusting for her own good. She always held a soft spot for my boy; maybe he brought out her mothering instincts or perhaps secretly she longed for him but either way she had in the past defended him when others would have staked him on the spot. Willow always struggled to find something good in Spike. She seemed determined that inside that brash, 'I'm fuckin' evil' exterior there still clung some tenuous fibres of humanity. In a way she was right. But look at it this way; humanity and frailty go in the same sentence. Humans are constantly tormented by petty jealousies, forbidden lusts, unattainable goals. Why would she think that those stubborn shreds of humanity would actually make Spike any better of a person? In the end it all boiled down to this: my boy fucked the love of little Willow's life, she lost the plot and cursed him. Like father, like son. You gotta love the irony. But this was different. Maybe because she was empowered by rage and grief, who knows? But this time she didn't just return Spike's soul. Willow made him human. Afterwards when the deed was done and he lay confused and mortal in the Watcher's spare bedroom they telephoned me. I was all he had in the world... all that wouldn't immediately feed on him. I can't imagine Harmony not taking great joy in making him a minion or Dru not desiring the return of her 'little Spike'. Buffy had no idea what to do with him; staking him was definitely no longer an option, and she had no desire to hand-rear a hundred plus years old 'used-to-be' vampire. Like all of Spikes damn sins, this followed me home and required the attention only I as his Sire could give. I had failed him when he was violated by the Initiative and I made a promise to myself that this time I wouldn't fail him again. It broke my heart in a million shards to see him. Not only the fact that he was helpless confused and frightened but also because I saw beneath the rapidly fading peroxide hair, shades of the boy I had become obsessed with all those years ago. In the beginning his bewilderment was nearly amusing, but as I myself can recall only too well, the memories came flooding steadily back and the horror of the atrocities he had committed as William the Bloody were almost too heinous for him to bear. In life William had been a gentle creature, and as always the demon that inhabited him had twisted everything that he had been as a human into a funhouse mirror-image of twisted emotions and desires leaving him, the demon, a sadistic bloodthirsty monster. He recognised me immediately, fear flooding his features and his eyes bright and glistening like an animal in a trap. He clung to young Xander in terror as I approached the bed, the dark-haired boy gently explaining that I was here to help him, not hurt him. But William's first memory of me was also the last he had had all those years ago when I turned him - abject fear and loathing. It took much coaxing from Xander before he could even bear me in the same room. It was two days before he would sit with me alone. Even then the trepidation fairly dripped from his pores and his hands twitched nervously in his lap whenever I so much as moved. His memory of those long years as a vampire was being renewed on an hourly basis, and there was little he didn't now recall. As his memory grew, so did his guilt. I think that Buffy's friends found it amusing at first. Spike, or William as he had now reverted to, had been for so long their adversary and general thorn in their sides that it was difficult to believe this pale, trembling young man was once the Big Bad who had aspersions of killing his third Slayer. But gradually the barriers came down and they treated him with care and concern and joined me in fretting for his future. One thing was for sure; he would need constant care for a while. He was unhinged with grief and remorse for his decades of carnage, much the same as I had been myself when my soul was returned by the Gypsies. At least he had us, though. I had no one until Whistler plucked me from the pit of despair I'd dug myself and made me see that there was hope and redemption even for the Scourge of Europe. After a week in which we talked for hours of the Past, Present and Future, Will realised that we were kindred spirits; understood that no one else could help him in the way I could and he finally allowed me into his new world. But for me that week had been agonising. Once again I was faced with the results of my evil as Angelus, once again I felt that I was further away than ever from ever cleansing myself of the scent of innocent blood. Of course as Rupert pointed out there was now an opportunity to further atone by helping Will rebuild his life as best as he could as a mortal. But surely atonement from that act could only come from my helping the boy unselfishly, and that was now impossible because I found myself as much in love with him now as I had been all those years ago. Nevertheless Will returned to L.A with me, much to the horror of Cordelia and Wesley. That horror turned to pity when they saw what he was reduced to, and Cordelia quickly set herself up as Mother Hen clucking and fussing around Will at every opportunity, much to the amusement of Wesley and Gunn. If any of them doubted my motives or questioned the sanity of my keeping Will in my life they never voiced their fears. But I noticed the odd glances and the 'too long' stares whenever Will and I would talk into the wee hours or whenever I would take his arm lightly to help him from his chair. Okay, he wasn't weak and frail anymore, but I couldn't stop myself from touching him. Or wanting him. It was a few months later when I noticed the signs. I would catch him looking at me when he thought I didn't notice, and he would casually touch my arm or hand when we talked. I knew though. I could smell his desire and it was growing day by day. After a while I thought I would go insane with his nearness, his scent and his hungry eyes. When I finally broke, when I finally cut him off in mid-sentence one evening and dragged him to me plundering his lips with mine, he returned my kiss with a ferocity and an appetite that matched my own. We barely made it to my bedroom; in fact I very nearly fucked him on the stairs. His need was as great as mine, his passion fiery and filled with memories of ferocious, feral coupling that his body still craved. Because no matter what, it was in his blood. And so I gave it to him, because I craved it too. In a kaleidoscope of memories and desire and something ancient and ageless that called to us both, I lost myself in his warm, familiar body. I loved him, I sucked him, I fucked him, I made him scream and gasp and plead with me for more and at the climax of it all I did what he begged me for the most, what his blood screamed for. I fed from him. It had been *so long*. So long since I had heard the siren song of the blood as it sang through the veins. So long since the scent of it had filled my head and my senses and spun me around in a haze of hunger and primeval lust. I was drowned in a rage of pure, ferocious passion and I couldn't find my way back. Truth is I no longer wanted to try. You know what finally sent me over the edge? As I pounded into him, as my fangs pierced his neck and he came, spraying me with his hot seed, his nails digging bloody furrows in my back, he screamed for me. Not for Angel. He screamed for me. Angelus. Blood. Never. Lies. I have plans. Work to finish, people to torture, Slayers to mutilate. I have only seconds. Seconds to decide if I want Will to be a part of those plans. I look at him and I remember what he was before, what I made him. He was a chaotic plague of destruction. He was a vicious, bloodthirsty harbinger of death, a portent of doom. He was a disobedient, reckless, impudent bastard. And you know what? I can't fucking imagine unlife without him. THE END |