*****

``Don`t believe everything you`re foretold.``

Wasn`t that what I said to him? Taunting him; while he lay moaning, clutching at his severed wrist, bleeding all over the floor, all over himself, all over my broadsword. Grabbing at the mass of tissue and bone where his hand... used to be. Staring at me, incomprehension and incredulity swimming in those tear-filled, cobalt eyes.

I could hear him. Over the rush of the spilling blood, over the unsteady, furious thumping of his heart, over his gasping breaths, I caught the mantra resounding inside his shock-addled brain. ((``I can`t believe he did that, I can`t believe he did that.`` ))

You can`t? After everything you did to me?

All I have, gone. All I cherish, dust. All I love, wounded and maybe even.....

Be grateful that is all I did to you. And worry about more than your goddamn hand if *they* don`t live.

And didn`t I smile at him then, the two-hundred year old smile, the one which only uses my face but comes from somewhere completely different? And then, didn`t I hear it...the small, insistent buzzing which fills my brain and my blood and my conscience and even my *soul* at moments like these?

And then, didn`t I reach out... yes....just before he lost conciousness, so that he would see me, so that he, trapped in the spotlight of my gaze and my malice would watch me do it...and didn`t I lick his blood off the steel blade of my sword?

And wasn`t it, dear merciful gods, wasn`t it the sweetest thing I had tasted in a long, long time....

***

I`m watching Cordelia`s blood form a perfect arc above her naked back. It hovers in mid-air, suspended with her scream, and when it lands, it shatters the stillness of her once taintless form.

A crimson proclaimation, a warning, an omen.

The smell of roses and fear.

``She needed the roses.`` I state aloud, to noone in particular. There isn`t anyone else here, in this barren room which was once my office, but is now dust and cobwebs, kindling and memories. Scarred by the brutal kiss of flames and destruction.

``She needed them.`` I repeat, and the dead around me are silent. They watch, blind eyes upon me; those I have taken, then stacked up in the corner like so much firewood. Doyle, and Wesley, Faith and...so many others, I cannot recall. They know me, though. They know me and they watch. Their limbs tangle together like fallen trees and soon the overwhelming stench of them will become alarming to the neighbors..I should move them.

But I`m busy. I`m watching Cordelia bleed.

It`s funny how I can watch her and watch myself at the same time. I`m making her bleed. I`m raising the bouquet of roses over her smooth, pale shoulders, and bringing their thorns down across her bare skin again and again. The petals have long since fallen away, but the stems are tough. Much tougher than her skin, which has never known such harsh treatment.

No, she`s a gentle one, for all her evil-bitch facade, and she deserved roses. So I gave them to her; I wrapped her in them, tucked their vines around her torn forehead, stuffed their long, fleshy limbs in her mouth...``Now be careful my dear, you don`t want to close your lips around those...`` Ah, too late. It`s difficult not to scream when so many blows can fall at one time. The blood drips from her tongue and her screams are muffled by sobs of agony. Humans don`t last very long. I think I`d forgotten.

It`s been a long time.

``Too bloody long, mate,`` he says, and I realize he has been standing there all evening. In his black overcoat and nail polish, idly wiping his hands clean on what was once my dishtowel, but is now a soot-covered rag. Quickly covered too in scarlet as he continues to rub his fingers over the torn and tattered cloth. I wonder where he found it in here?

``There`s lots of stuff you didn`t know you lost in here, mate.`` he tells me. And I nod.

He`s probably right. He usually is about things like that.

I wonder if he knows about the dragon.

I turn my attention back to Cordelia, but she isn`t very entertaining. She is barely moving, actually, and I`m fairly sure she is going to die soon. Her breathing has that shallow, rapid quality to it, and the amount of blood underneath the remnants of the table I have her chained to is staggering. I don`t remember humans bleeding that much....

``You gonna turn her then? That what all this rot`s about?``

I turn again to look at him. His hands are clean now, but there is a stack of stained towels at his feet. And still the blood is seeping from them.

``No, no, I don`t think so.`` I tell him. ``It`s about something else. I ...I don`t know what.``

As I answer, I drag the long sword over Cordelia`s back, severing her spine. She doesn`t even whimper. I think he`s dissapointed. I think I am too.

``You know *exactly* what. Stop being an idiot.`` He flicks his tongue out over his teeth, and in the dirty lights, it is yellow, and forked. He grins at me, and looks back, toward the shadows.

``Anyway, we`ll be `round.`` he tells me, motioning to the dragon in the corner.

Guess he does know.

**

I wake up with a scream, the sweat and the cum sticking her perfect sheets between my legs.

**

I walk through Cordelia`s darkened apartment on silent feet. In two days she and Wesley will be released from the hospital. In two days, things will be normal again.

Denis flicks a switch in the kitchen, and the rooms are flooded with blue-white light and false cheer. I breathe.

It was a dream. I am safe. I am safe. It was just a dream.

One of those childhood incantations to ward off the unspeakable monsters under the bed, rhe legion of boogeymen in the closet, the faceless ghosts who lay in wait to swallow you whole....

((It`s only thunder it can`t hurt me ))

((I don`t want anymore blood))

((If I die before I wake ))

((I don`t need anymore blood))

((It was just a dream ))

(( I will not spill anymore blood))

Laughter.

And then the vibration in my ears that will not cease. It is the murmuring of a thousand bees, the thrumming of a thousand tiny wings, the writhing of a thousand worms.

He is here. //Always.//

He is hungry. //Always.//

And I have every right to be afraid.

//Always.//

I crawl back into bed.

**

My knees are sore. The wooden floorboards leave angry marks along my shins, and my thighs throb under the weight of my heavy frame forced into this position. Trails of crimson flow down my raised arms. I`m squirming too much, and my wrists are being shredded by their bonds. I never did do supplication well.

I forgot that immortal bones could ache this way. But her talent is as limitless as her patience, apparantly. I smell the blood and the roses. The night is young.

``Are you comfortable, darling boy?`` she whsipers. All I can see are her legs as she circles me. Long, and pale, and bare. I can imagine her golden hair, and her fathomless gaze. But my line of vision is confined to this floor, and there is no world above her perfect calves.

``Yes, m`lady.``

I wonder for a moment that I know what is to come next. Then I cannot wonder, because the pain is crashing through me in torrents as the skin of my chest skin is split by her crop and my blood spills onto the floor. It gathers in thick, scarlet pools between the cracks in the wood, the patterns hypnotic, intricate, meaningful....

...a divination...roll the bones...

``What does it mean?`` I ask, suddenly apart from this place of agonizing pain. Instead, somehow, I am watching it, and watching him watching it...

``*That* doesn`t mean anything...don`t you remember? This is not another dream, Angelus.``

I look at him; he is sitting in a chair, hands lightly bound together in front of him. Protocol, really, he could easily get out if he wished to. But he sits, silent and still, watching the scene unfold before him with a hooded and dark gaze. The scent of arousal hovers, an aura of sapphire and vermillion around him; he is shaking almost imperceptably. His long, auburn hair shimmers in the candlelight with each slight tremor of the lean shoulders.

He brought the roses. An offering. To her. To be allowed to watch. Always to watch. She loves roses. How did he find yellow roses in London at the height of autumn?

A stinging blow across my cheek, and I cry out, unable to help myself. I hate to be hit in the face, it`s demeaning, and I would not tolerate it from anyone but her. Of course, noone but her would dare try it.

``Pay attention, Childe!`` she admonishes, the tiniest tingle of laughter in her otherwise sonorant voice.

``Darla....`` I whisper...and his head turns to look at me....the me in the shadows, the one dressed and not covered in welts and blood.

``You were expecting someone else, mate?`` he asks derisively, and rises from the chair, wrists unbound, hair restored to platinum, swirling black cashmere and leather. He rests his hands on my lapel, and rubs the material gently between his forefingers and thumbs.

``You *need* to remember.`` he tells me, before grabbing the collar of my coat, and shoving me backward. I fly off my feet, the air rushing past my ears with a furious snarl, as if nature and time itself are incensed by my ignorance.

I catch a glimpse of the dragon.

When I land, I am kneeling, and I am naked, and I am bound. And I am in pain.

***

I wake up then, perversely grateful that I hadn`t bothered to change the sheets.

I hold my head in my hands and I play a game of make believe. I make believe that Cordelia`s sheets don`t smell like spent arousal and rose perfume. I make believe I don`t hear the soft, whispered song inside my veins, growing louder with each moment I sleep, each moment I wake.

And most of all, I make believe that I am not wondering when Lindsay MacDonald will be discharged from the hospital.

**

The puddle of blood underneath me is cool, and slippery. And mine. I`m not sure I have much skin left on my back, or my chest. But she is good at this. She allows just enough time to heal, to catch my unneeded breath. This is not punishment. He would not have been allowed to watch that. There aren`t enough roses on this continent to breach that etiquette. This is just ...foreplay. Sport. A lesson. If I learn it well, perhaps we won`t have to go through it again.

The crop finds my left shoulder and a raw patch of skin. I howl. Perhaps we *will* have to repeat this lesson. I`ve completely forgotten the meaning. All I want is for her to allow me release. I know better than to do it without permission. And I know better than to ask for permission. Those lessons were learned early. And well.

So I kneel in a pool of my own blood, aroused, and in pain and in waiting.

She kneels in front of me, her small, cool, tight fist around the base of my hard cock. ``Did you need something, dear boy?``

I shake my head. I really don`t do supplication well. As the thwap of her other hand across my cheekbone attests. I grin.

``Sorry, M'Lady, no.``

She smirks back. ``You are just so fortunate that you are pretty,`` she tells me as if she is saying it for the first time, instead of the hundredth, and still, my chest tightens to hear it spoken.

Bound, and bound to her, and in pain and in love, and it`s really all the same, isn`t it? What is the difference between love and pain when the same hands bring both?

Oh yes. That was the lesson. Lucky me.

And her hand releasing its furious grip on my cock, and instead stroking along its length now, sliding over my skin in a primal rythym, the rythym of rocking, of singing, of ...fucking...and her words, whispered against my bruised and bloodied cheek.

And when I gasp, the only semblance of a request I can manage, she knows, and she answers me...

``Yes, darling boy, finish now. Finish what we`ve started.``

**

I open my eyes to the red blink of the digital clock and the phone reciever in my hand. I have no recollection of actually dialing. But Mercy Hospital is answering.

``Good Evening. I`m wondering about the condition of my...brother. Lindsay Macdonald.``..........

``I know, no, he probably wouldn`t have mentioned me. I don`t live in California, we have been out of touch for some time... I heard he was severely injured and I--``..........

``He did? When was that? Against medical advice? Meaning ...all right, yes, I see. No, that will do. Thank you.``

I return the phone to its cradle and the thrumming inside me is so loud, I cannot hear anything else. Not the whir of the ceiling fan, not the whoosh of the air conditioner, not Denis angrily rattling the pots in the kitchen.

And you know, I pity the mortal who first heard this sound. Who first *felt* this sound. Who first knew Him so well that he was able to choose His Name for Him. Beelzebub...My Lord of the Flies...My Lord Who Hums.

**

I get up and sit in the darkness of the kitchen again. This time, Denis doesn`t turn the lights on for me.

In the last few years I have spent living among mortals, I have developed rituals for this. Not majik, maybe...but...majical for me. I know the gods don`t care about the trappings, they just want to hear your voice. But I am so inadequate at supplication, and my fetishes, my totems, they give me focus. They help restore order.

I don`t tell anyone this, certainly not the humans who know me. I don`t tell them how every act of spilling blood, no matter whose..or..whats`, calls forth my demon, and makes him just a wee bit stronger. I don`t tell them that it takes tremendous focus and energy to force him back into submission. I don`t tell them that the job I have been returned to Earth to do is a more than a means to an end.

It is a test, every day. Of my will. Of my strength. Of my humanity. Of my soul.

The call of chaos is infinitely seductive. Darkness is a beguiling mistress, and she has long been mine. She does not give up her consorts without a battle.

Cordelia says I`m obsessive-compulsive. How can I explain to her that the only way to bring order to my existance is to keep order in my environment? How can I explain to her the old adage of `As above, so below?` She would never understand.

Noone can.

So I have never shown anyone the small shoebox under my bed, filled with momentos of civilization; hair ribbons and movie tickets, a silver ring and a letter covered in perfume.

Reminders from every case I have worked on since coming to LA.

Sage, sweetgrass and rose petals.

And photos I don`t appear in.

I never said I wasn`t pathetic. But I am....organized.

And to quell the humming, the burgeoning call of death, I sort through this box, and I burn some sage, and I think of her. And of myself when I was a man.

Now all my trappings are gone, burned into ash by foolish and arrogant mortals who sought to separate me from the Powers, but instead, succeeded only in separating me from the tenuous hold I have on my humanity.

There are no friends here to assure me that I am not *him*, there are no smiling photographs of old loves, there is no altar and there is no physical connection to hope.

And I am so bad at this meta-language, I cannot invoke peace with just my voice, I never could.

Balance cannot be restored here, not by me, not by mere words.

((As I will it, so mote it be))

((So let it be written, so let it be done))

``Make it so, Number One`` says a sarcastic British voice, and I turn to look at him.

``You`ve come to quote obscure pop culture references at me?`` I ask him wearily.

``No, I`ve come to tell you how to restore your precious balance.``

I laugh harshly. ``You`ve come to help *me*? Why do I find that hard to believe?``

``Well, you`ll find it easier to believe when I assure you that the kind of help I`m offerin` won`t be the kind you`ll actually *like.*``

I just stare at him, willing him away. But you know, without the trappings...my will is pretty fucking useless.

``You`re much more of an action kinda guy, mate.`` he agrees, although I hadn`t spoken the last. ``And it`s only action that`ll fix this for you. It`s rather biblical though; you and your pet soul are bound to like that... Think of it as a blood sacrifice. An eye for an eye.``

((a tooth for a tooth...and if thy right hand offends thee, cut it off))

``I won`t do it.`` I tell him, with as much authority as I can muster. I watch him toss back one beer after another in the dim lights of Cordelia`s kitchen. After his earlier tantrum, Denis is strangely silent now. I don`t think he likes him being here.

He just shrugs his black clad shoulders at me, and lights a cigarette. His pale face alights from the bottom, the orange glow creating a peculiar halo effect around his golden locks.

I`m not sure why this makes me nervous.

``Whatever, mate. He`s not too particular.`` He gestures again to the hulking animal in the corner, curled upon the plaid kitchen rug, in a puddle of its own drool. Its tongue flicks out over yellow teeth, scenting the air.

``Leave,`` I tell him. ``Leave, and take *it* with you.``

He just laughs at that , ((where can he possibly go?)) the embers of his cigarette shooting like small stars across the table.

I walk away but he follows me. Relentless. Like I taught him.

``Do you know how they hunt?`` he asks me.

We are in the bathroom. Why are we in the bathroom? The tile is cold beneath my bare feet, and the lizard creature is perched on the tub, eyeing me expectantly. I shiver.

``I -- I`m not sure. What`s the difference?``

He smirks, and turns me forcefully, so that I face the floor to ceiling high mirror. Cordy would have one this large. Not that it makes a difference to me. All I can see in it is the blue and white bathroom. He shuts the door; another mirror, its reflections merge with the first, so that now there are an infinite array of blue and white bathrooms, and in them all, a dragon stares at me from atop the claw foot tub. He and I, however, don`t appear in any of them.

``Don`t you get it, Angelus? Christ, how stupid are you?``

**

I am dressed now and in my car. The feeling of leather under my legs and the steering wheel, solid between my hands, assures me that this is real. I have no idea where I am going. Only that I have to get away.

((where can I possibly go?))

I glance in the rearview mirror. I don`t see him, so of course, he is there.

He is finishing his earlier line of questioning. ``Do you know how they hunt?``

I sigh. ``No. I suppose you`re gonna tell me?``

A genuine smile. So rare. The flick of a match. Red and yellow and blue flame.

``They don`t take their prey down in one hit. They ain`t large enough to take down a cow, say, in one fell swoop. Actually, it`s not even the bite itself that kills the victim, `` he tells me. I pull onto the highway and struggle to listen to him.

It`s difficult. I`m hungry.

``They usually bite their victims on an extremity, a hand, a leg. Then, it`s the poison in the bite that kills the prey. And it`s not typical poison, either. It`s not like a snake, or a spider where you get bit, then you just bloody well die in a couple hours or so. It`s the 40 or more kinds of bacteria in their saliva that do the trick. There is no cure. There is no anti-venom, no anti-biotic. There is nothing but death.``

``Why do I have to --``

But he cuts me off with a wave of one hand. ``But it`s a slow death. So they follow the prey around, tracking the stench of the wound, and their own bacteria festering in it, and they watch as it sucumbs to agony. Sometimes it`ll take days, even up to a week. They follow it, until it is too sick to stand. Then they take it. Alive. They eat their prey alive.``

I turn to look at him, he is sitting next to me now, in the passenger seat, staring at me intently.

``They don`t care how big something is, `cause nothing is immune to their poison. Nothing. Not even other dragons. If there is nothing else around, they`ll just eat their own kind.``

((their own kind?))

((she needed the roses))

((``they`re not too particular`` ))

((Cordelia. Wesley. I can`t lose anything else. I have nothing left to lose. I won`t lose them too.))

((``finish what we`ve started`` ))

//will you make this deal?//

I don`t know.

``Determined little bastards, aren`t they.`` I mumble, stopping for a red light.

A small bounce on the seat. He reaches over, eyes alight, and grabs my face in his hands. ``By George, you`ve *finally* gotten it.`` His kiss is cold, hard, an insistent tongue flicking between my teeth. I don`t pull away.

*****