Spike whines, complains, reminisces, slogs through the sewers, and does what needs to be done to save his Sire.

I jump the curb when I pull up outside the address Cordelia gave us. Buffy's out of the car and halfway up the steps before I even cut the engine, but I can still smell the blood in the air from where she bit right through her lip to keep from crying.

I couldn't possibly give one less fuck about her pain. Far as I'm concerned, it's right that she feel like shit. Hell if I know how this is all her fault, but it's got to be. She's the damned Slayer, she's my Sire's damn mate, she's the one who got him all fucked up in the head to begin with, so, yeah, I'll blame her.

Easier, better, and far more satisfying than blaming myself. Not that I would.

I take my time climbing out of the car, taking a quick look in the back seat to see if there's any bottles with a drop of hooch left in 'em. Naturally, there's not, and that's why I've got a headache like the damn robot soul's going off in my skull.

Got nothing to do with Angelus, though, because I don't care about what's going on. In fact, I chant it to myself like a mantra as I follow Buffy. Ignore her standing on the top step, glaring at me with her arms crossed.

Guess we're not gonna go steady, eh, Buff?

I don't care. She was just a hobby to pass some time, and He's got a soul and a pack of humans to take care of him. Why should I care?

"Don't have to wait for me, pet. Fairly sure you can work the doorbell all by yourself, you bein' the Slayer and all," I tell her.

She waits until I'm beside her. "I don't need you getting staked tonight, okay? Cordy and Wesley don't know about the chip," she says. 'And that I fucked you out in the green grass of beautiful Sunny Rest,' she doesn't say.

And then I realize... huh. She thinks they don't know about me? Must be old Giles never told her about Angel's bi-weekly "Checking Up On the Hellmouth" -- ha ha, yeah right -- phone calls.

"Yeah, sure. Whatever. Let's just get me a drink, then."

I don't care. None of this has anything to do with me, really. Wank's not my Sire anymore, and I'm pretty sure that I got over my little Slayer thing when I finally shot my wad in her. (so why the hell are you here?)

Buffy waits for me to pass and marches up behind me like she knows I'm about two seconds from turning around and going right back the way we just came. No reason for me to be here. They don't need me. She sure as Hell doesn't need me, and I know damn well my Sire'd rather be a Dustbuster-sized mess than have my help.

Bastard.

God, my head hurts. Somebody just stake me already. I have absolutely no interest in this wild goose chase, slogging around in the sewers and prowling the streets looking for the bloody Dark Avenger. One less White Hat -- okay by me.

I don't care. I don't care. I don't care.

I stand behind her like her damn party date as she rings the doorbell. This place is just gawd awful -- fake stucco and imitation Spanish clay roof tiles? Hard to believe Angelus -- "I've got to have the finest of everything, my boy, and so should you" Angelus-- actually spent time here on purpose, without his damn hoity toity head exploding.

Oh, wait. Not Angelus... fuckin' Angel. I don't give a rat's ass about that poncy fucker, and I bet he doesn't give a rat's ass about the authenticity of his digs, either. Doesn't matter, because I don't care.

Why do I have to keep telling myself that?

The bell doesn't even finish ringing before the door flies open and Cordelia flies out, straight into Buffy's arms, and starts ranting and raving something fierce. Which, I tell you, does nothing to help my headache. She stinks like Angel, too. Looks good, like she's gained some weight, and...

"What the Hell happened to your HAIR?" I yelp. Don't really mean to, it just sort of slips out. All that thick, beautiful chestnut hair... gone. Shame.

Her shorn head snaps up, and I have to take a step back. Cordelia Chase, worried, not sleeping, frantic, probably crying for a few days straight, is by far the scariest sight I've ever seen.

"W-w-why is h-h-he h-heeeeeeeeere?" she wails. Bint cant even keep it together long enough to get a simple question out before her and Buffy are bawling all over each other again.

Women.

I give the brunette a little shove. "Hey, there. This is all very touching, but do you think you could invite me in already so I can get a drink? I'm thirsty."

And I'll be damned if a can of Bud doesn't come flying right out the door at me!

"WHAT THE HELL?!" I shout above the blubbering, then crack it open and drain it in a couple of gulps.

In another second, my joy just multiplies, because here comes Scout Master Wesley, twice as pasty, and looking like he needs an enema ten times worse than usual.

"Spike..." he acknowledges me politely, "Thank you for coming so quickly."

I shrug. Still waiting for that invitation, here...

The Watcher gently leans down and speaks to Cordelia. "Delia, perhaps you should invite Spike in. We'd like to get back out, soon, and there's a great deal to discuss with Buffy and he before we do."

Buffy and Cordelia pull out of each other's arms (which would be incredibly interesting, under normal circumstances) and wipe one another's eyes like we're in a damn soap opera.

My Sire is bloody DYING, you IDIOTS! Can we cut the hysterics and get to WORK?

"Oh, bugger this," I snap, turn and stalk off, leaving them all staring after me. I'm going to find the ponce myself. Don't need a one of these wankers. Let them go play "Charlie's Angels" and have their little expositional meeting. I'm getting out on the streets and doing something.

I won't let my nancyboy Sire buy it, no matter how much I hate him.

Damn, my head hurts.

"Where the Hell do you think you're going?"

Buffy's got a death grip on my arm right as I'm about to take the first step. She fucking touches me, and there it all is again -- the memories, the pain, all that gut-wrenching fucking angst I spent the past two hours drowning. And me with no booze to re-drown them.

What the Hell did screwing this bitch DO to me?

I yank my arm away, and feel my demon-face slip on as I growl at her. "Keep your damn hands off me, Slayer!" I spit, and get back to leaving.

"Will... please don't. We need you. He needs you," she says, sweet and soft as you please, her voice all choked up from the crying.

That fucking bitch! I go completely cold at the sound of it. I can name at least a dozen times that I really, sincerely wanted to kill her over the years -- at least a couple of them tonight, in fact -- but never more than right in this split second. Where does she get off thinking she knows anything about me, or my Sire, and what all of this means?

I get in her face. "You little cunt!" Gotta give the fluff some points for not flinching. I'm so close, I can feel my voice bouncing off her skin. "Who the Hell do you think you are? Don't you dare use the Sire card on me, do you hear? I'm not your precious fucking knight in shining armor Angel -- guilt isn't going to work with me! Don't pretend that just because you fucked him once, and he drank you once, puts you in any damn position to be acting like my damn MOTHER, all right? And if you call me by that name again, I'll suck your liver out with a straw, chip or no! Are we clear?"

God damn it, I'm CRYING again! Like a damn weepy woman! Buffy reaches up and wipes away the tears with her tiny fingertips and gives me a sad little smile that would turn Satan's black heart to mush.

"Okay, Spike," she says, "I'm sorry. Okay. Just... please stay with me. I need your help."

I shake her off and head back toward the apartment, where it looks like we've attracted a crowd. All those humans... lot of whom I don't know... all staring down at us, mortal and scared and bloody miserable. Three years ago, I would've been thinking, "Soup's on!" Now all I can think is that every single person up on that balcony smells like Angel.

"Let's just get this over with, all right?" I concede.

She takes my hand as we climb the steps, and gives it a squeeze. I let her, because, frankly, I just don't have the energy to argue.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don't care. I don't care. I don't give one shit about that souled bastard. I hope he's a big pile of dust somewhere, and I hope that bloody Slayer dies of the heartbreak. I hope every one of those weak, slobbering humans back in that cheezy apartment building all cry so hard that their brains explode.

I hate them. Him worst of all. Him that's all that remains of my Sire.

I don't care. Let 'em all rot.

I keep telling myself that as I plod through the sewers under downtown bloody Los Angeles.

What the hell am I doing here? My boots soaked through and my coat smelling like human shit, and my headache's grown to the point where it's gonna crack my skull open and dribble my miserable grey matter all over the filthy ground.

I hate them. I hate the Slayer and her goddamn haunted green eyes, and I hate Cordelia, with bags under hers big enough to pack for a cruise around the world in. I hate that tosser Giles Jr., with his stiff upper lip and trembling shoulders like he's gonna burst into tears any minute. I hate that tall black kid who paced the apartment, itching to go just like I was, asking every ten bloody seconds, "When are we gonna quit yakkin' and do something?" I hate the little geek with the fucking cape, of all things, who just sat there looking numb as he called every bloody private detective in his little black book. I hate the damn ghost who did nothing for that whole fucking endless time we were sitting there but chuck one cheap can of beer after another at me.

Not that I didn't drink every one, mind you.

I hate all of this. And for the unlife of me, I can't figure out just what the Hell I'm doing here.

These damn sewers are twice as filthy as the ones in Sunnydale. Possibly the worst I've seen since Rome a century ago.

Rome. Oh, good... here come the memories again. The ancient aqueducts under Rome, where the shit is piled two feet high all over, and Darla made Him carry her so she wouldn't sully her precious goddamn kid leather shoes. Dru just sang her little songs and skipped along like we were off for a picnic, and said the tunnels smelt like her mummy's garden. Were we going to see mummy's garden? She had such pretty flowers, do you remember Daddy? I remember, love, He said. Then he goes back to grumbling about how he was going to tan me raw for getting us driven out of yet another city with my idiot antics, and I just smirked at the back of his head and drank my stolen port as we walked along.

Damn sewers. Like the bloody veins of my existence. Walked a million miles of septic in my life, I have. Getting from here to there in daylight, running from mobs and hunters and Slayers. Half the time, He was running right beside me, cursing me, and detailing just how He was going to beat me when we got away, because it was usually my fault we were running. Sometimes, I was running from Him. When I was in trouble, and His voice got all quiet, and he got that little half-smirk on His face that never reached His eyes, I knew I was really in for it. I wasn't just going to get a dry-fucking or a simple lashing. Too many times when He got like that, I ended up chained to the ceiling in His bedroom, Him skinning me with a boning knife, or poking little holes in my balls with sewing needles, smiling at me while I screamed. Then sometimes, when He was done, He'd beat me for dirtying his carpet. After a while, I saw that look, and I'd run. He'd always get over it before I came home.

I hate sewers.

I remember my first trip to SunnyHole, when I bought His sorry ass from that weasely snitch Willy, to save my Dru. Dragging his beautiful, bulky body through the muck, him stinking like misery and remorse and fear for the goddamn Slayer. I wanted to just rip his pretty head off and sprinkle the dust over my skin like baby powder. I kept thinking, how dare this thing walk around in my Sire's body, calling himself Angel, and then have the balls to play pet demon for that rotten little bitch, thumbing his perfect Roman nose at every goddamn thing he spent a good 50 years beating and fucking into me?

I can't describe the pure joy of chaining him up in my bedroom, and listening to him scream and plead while my princess tortured him. After a while, I just couldn't stop myself. I sent Dru off to play with her dolls and stood there looking down at him, all bloody and ragged, spitting blood -- our blood -- out on the floor like it meant nothing.

I never loved or hated that bastard more than I did at that moment. Never fucked him harder, either. Oh, Hell, who am I trying to kid? Angelus never let me within ten feet of his perfect Master ass. He was the Sire, I was the whelp, and no matter how much I begged, it just wasn't done.

But you better believe I fucked that miserable tyrant, soul and all, with all my considerable might while we waited for the moon to rise. I gave him back every damn ounce of pain he'd ever given me and then some, all the while thinking that the sweetest part would be watching him die after.

Shoulda been one of the finer nights of my life, don't you think? Giving it to the demon that made me, raised me, loved me, beat me senseless, then left me without a word with his sadistic bitch Sire and my poor, loopy Dru. Finally... FINALLY knowing what it felt like (damn luscious, it was) to bury my cock between those rock hard cheeks... tearing into his thick, corded, forbidden throat, stealing Sireblood as I came.

Should've been beautiful. Should've been right up there with slaughtering and drinking two Slayers, and the first time I made love to Dru, and the night the most beautiful, evil Irishman I'd ever seen drank me dry and then held me tenderly as I nursed from his wrist.

It wasn't. And do you want to know why? He didn't scream the way I used to scream when he fucked me. He didn't weep like a girl when I jerked him off and made him cum the way I used to weep when he did the same. When I was done, and I pulled my bloody, sticky cock out of him, licked his sweet blood from my lips, and looked at him, do you know what he did?

Nothing. Not a god damn thing. I asked him, "So, what do you think about that, *Sire*? *Master*, hm? Did you like that? Who's the goddamn Alpha now, Fluffy?"

And he looked up at me with those big, watery, goddamn soulful puppy brown eyes and said, with a blood-choked sigh, "I'm sorry, Will."

Sorry! I just goddamn RAPED him, DOMINATED him, DRANK HIS BLOOD WITHOUT PERMISSION, and violated every goddamn rule in the goddamn vampire bloody BIBLE, and *HE* was *SORRY*!

I kicked that insulting, condescending, lying, cheating piece of shit in the head until he collapsed and couldn't look at me with those eyes anymore. Then I locked myself in the sub basement and sobbed like a soddin' motherless twit for an hour.

And now, here I am, hunting the god awful sewers under the ugliest city on the planet, trying to save his sorry ass.

I keep asking myself why. Why should I care so damn much for that jammy git? Darla's his Sire, and it's her prerogative if she wants to drive him out of his holier-than-thou tree, isn't it? What the Hell am I doing, interfering? This is the Slayer's business. Her and the friggin' Superfriends, not mine. I just don't know.

No... truth be told, I know perfectly well. Too damn well. And I hate that more than anything.

For He is the Blood and the Life Forever and Ever, A-fucking-men.

Telling myself I don't care isn't going to change that, any more than raping the fucker, or banging His woman did. I can pretend till I'm blue in the face that the soul makes a difference, and that the only reason we're standing on the same damn side of the good/evil fence again is because I got brain-fucked by the US Government. I can tell myself I hate Him, and I can loudly and publicly announce to all His grieving friends that I hope He's dead, because the last thing this fucking planet needs is another tragic hero...

But my Blood can't lie.

Funny, isn't it? I think I said that very thing to the poufter and His mate one time. Can't remember what I said, exactly, but I'm fairly sure it was a damn good speech. The Slayer glared at me, thinking I was talking about her pathetic star-crossed lurrrrve story, or about me and Dru... But Him... He knew. He knew exactly what I was talking about. I saw it in His eyes when they flicked up at me from where He was doubled over in pain.

Angel remembers. Maybe He clings to all that Catholic bullshit that was drilled into His soul by His rotten fucker of a human father... Maybe He lets all those stupid notions of sin and damnation keep Him out of my bed. But He knows... Even now that His whole eternal bloody purpose is busting His ass to help the very creatures that used to be nothing more than cattle to Him, He knows...

We're Blood. He'll always be my Master, soul or no, and I'll always be His Most Favoured Childe, and all the cursing and pretending and fucking Slayers in the universe won't change that single, simple fact. He and I are one and the same, under it all. In the only way that counts when you're a vampire.

So that's why I'm trudging through endless miles of shit, kicking rats out of my path, cursing him and his bitch Sire, and the fucking Slayer, and my Drusilla, and the Dead Lawyers all, as I go.

He's what's at the core of me, and I'll be damned if I'm leaving His pathetic unlife in the hands of a bunch of stupid humans.

You better believe Blood is thicker than water. It's a damn sight thicker than sewage, too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everything I know about being a predator, I learned from the baddest predator of them all. His specialties tended toward finer things -- the psychology of His prey, the myriad of ways to draw out the game of agony for hours... days... Hell, it took Him a good year to kill Dru. He said being a hunter was an art form, and as the reigning hunters on the planet, it was a vampire's honor and responsibility to raise that art into something fit for the walls of the Louvre.

Bullocks, I used to tell Him. The hunt was about a quick, easy chase and the gushing hot, terror-spiced blood, pure and simple. Bugger that art shit.

Angelus sometimes laughed and said when I was older and been around a bit, I'd better understand. Other times, He'd string me up and prove to me just how subtle and drawn out the kill could be. He'd take hours... days... to bleed me, just a pinprick, a paper cut at a time. He'd make me scream and cry and bleed until I admitted that we were finer creatures than the lower animals -- the wolves, the birds of prey, the big cats. When I'd break and tell Him He was right, He'd take me down and lay me in His soft featherbed, licking my wounds, feeding me from His own veins, then screw me with such agonizing care, I'd pass right out from the pain and tenderness of it all.

Point is... whether He insisted we were artistes of Death or not, He taught me all those other, baser points that every good hunter needs to know. How to find the weak, sick or stupid in any crowd. How to avoid the diseased. How to track by sight, sound, and smell, any creature, anywhere, anytime.

Including, apparently, direly wounded Sires in the deepest underbelly of the City of Angels.

I'd lost track of how long I'd been walking, thinking and remembering and just generally hating everyone and everything. I was soggy and hungry and miserable, tired and scared, and truth be told, more than a little hungover, when I first caught the scent.

Nothing in the world smells quite as sweet as pain. Unless it's a vampire's pain. Immortals in agony give off a stench worse than any sewer or dump you could possibly imagine. It's like sulfur, decay, low-tide, holy water-blistered skin and a thousand pounds of pig shit all dumped together, set on fire, and sprinkled with a generous helping of fried liver, just for good measure.

Now, the reason it smells so bad is that it's eternal. If a vampire is in enough pain to stink like this, and yet not be a big pile of dust (because the dust doesn't smell like anything but... well, dust), then this demon's in a world of hurt. Means it's been zapped with magick, or cursed, or poisoned, somehow, and it can't feed or heal. And unlike the mouthwatering aroma of finite human suffering--because, let's face it, sooner or later, the human's gonna die--the stink of vampire agony is enough to make even the most twisted, sadistic fucker fall to his knees and vomit.

So when I turn that last corner of God knows what part of the underground, and that putrid fetor hits me like I just ran into a brick wall, that's exactly what I do. It's not just the vampire rot that knocks me over and brings up all that whiskey and beer again, either. It's worse than that. It's the malodor of illness, hopelessness, tears and blood and cum and shit... and Sire. My Sire. Not dead, but might as well be, and not far off, from the pure power of that stench.

I'm up off my knees and running before I even wipe the puke off my mouth, dodging refuse and slipping around corners, sprinting full out like I'm on fire, sobbing. My whole life as a vampire rolls like some fucking teen angst TV drama before my eyes, and voices... His voice, my voice, Buffy's, Dru's... all screaming and crying and laughing and sobbing, and above it all, Him whispering:

"My Will... my boy... how I do adore ye..."

I'm crying so hard I can't see, and the only thing that convinces me I won't just find His precious bloody coat and a big heap of ancient ash is that that disgusting reek. Not such a good hunter, me, because I'm running too fast and slipping and screaming His name right out loud, and I'm not paying attention to anything but that SMELL. I trip over something and fly right through the air -- BANG into the wall, then flat on my face.

I don't pass out, but the birdies are tweeting pretty damn hard around my already aching head. When I manage to wipe away the scum and the shit, and... oh... my... holy mother of Christ... the blood... blood everywhere... if my heart could stop, it would.

I'm lying on the sewer floor in three inches of mire, and I'm looking at what I tripped over. A huge pile of dead thing like something from a Lovecraft novel. For a second, I think maybe I was wrong, and I've stumbled on the last resting place of some giant bum who's been dead a good, long time, because this... this is... fucking nightmare horrifying, is what it is. Nothing but ripped flesh that's not healing, matted hair, shreds of clothes, shards of glass and bits of garbage and so filthy with half dried blood and shit, it's brown all over...

"OH GOD!" The wail rips out of my chest, "SIRE!"

I crawl those last inches between us and haul the thing up into my lap, and Jesus H. He smells so bad. I scream and puke and clutch what's left of my lover, my father, to my chest, and just sob for I don't know how long.

I wipe some of the blood and shit out of his beautiful face... there's vomit and spit and cum crusted all around his full lips, blood around his eyes, gashes over his broad cheekbones...

I kiss him anyway, full and long. He doesn't respond. His eyes are wide open, staring at nothing, but I kiss Him anyway just to be sure he's real. Because no matter how bad He looks or smells, if He's solid in my arms, under my lips, that means I can still save Him.

I'm suddenly just nuts with the horror of it. "Angelus... Master... please, talk to me. Don't leave me again... come back... please..."

Looking at Him like this hurts like nothing's ever hurt before... skin and bones and blood and nothing else. No arrogant smirk, no loony swagger, not even a defeated, remorseful scowl.

I yank off my coat and wrap it around Him... can't stand the indignity of Him lying there like that, His clothes destroyed to the point that He's mostly naked. He's so proud, my Sire. He would rather be dead than anybody see Him like this. I'm so gone in it, I'm scooping the shitty water off the floor and trying to clean Him with it while I beg Him to wake up... wake up...

It takes a while, but I do manage to get the worst of it off Him. Oh, God, He stinks like sex and gore, heroin and booze and rats, and the whole damn time I'm washing Him, like He's the child and I'm the parent, I bawl.

It's almost worse when He's cleaner. There's tracks on His arms and inside one smooth thigh, and long, deep, half-closed gouges all over Him like some bastard took a piece of broken glass to His skin. He's covered with bruises and bite marks like rats took a taste of Him and then left Him there, because not even vermin will eat vampire flesh.

I pick the glass out of His skin and hold Him in my arms, then slice open my wrist and hold it over His slack mouth. I rub His throat like I'm giving a dog a pill, trying to force Him to swallow the blood -- our blood-- but most of it just dribbles down His jaw.

"You have to live, damn you!" I shout at Him, "You have to wake up! Sire... I love you... please!"

I can't look at Him anymore. I can't stand what this is doing to me. I can't think about all the nasty things I've done and said to Him in the past few years. I clutch Him to me... my formidable, indestructible Master... He's so thin, and weak, and I bury my face in His filthy neck and just... cry.

I used to make fun of Him for His habit of breathing. Angelus liked breathing, He said. It reminded Him of what we were vs. what they were, and how, if He wanted to, He could always just stop. It reminded Him that He was immortal... better than them, always. Plus, it was really good camouflage when hunting in a crowd.

I used to laugh and tell Him it was just another one of His bullshit, waste of time human trappings that He collected like they collected stamps or antiques or notches in their bedposts.

Angelus would cuff me upside the head and tell me to mind my tongue or He'd rip out my lungs and see how much I appreciated breathing then.

Now, holding His bloody, lifeless carcass in my arms, I swear to everything unholy that I'd rip out my own lungs, if only He'd take just one stupid, unneeded breath.

I finally get it together enough to realize that we're sitting in a damn sewer, and if I'm going to really help Him, I have to get Him home, and cleaned and fed, and put to bed. The Slayer and the others are probably having a breakdown... or rather, a worse one, by now.

I sit up and wipe my face with my free hand, and take one last look down at Him. His eyes are still staring, still dead, still not there, but now they're fixed on me. Seeing it gives me this feeling much like the one I got when Captain Dullboy ran me through with that plastic stake... only worse, because this pain I can feel through every inch of my being... bones and muscles and blood and dead heart.

I can't stand it! I slide my hand over His eyes like Hhe's a dead human, and the lids slide shut beneath my fingers. I scoop Him up like a giant baby (god, he weighs nothing...) and set to hauling ass back the way I came.

Being the protege of the finest hunter in history teaches you a good sense of direction. I know exactly which way to go to get to the hotel where we're all supposed to have met up at dawn, and by the faint light through the grates along the way, I figure I'm a least an hour or two late. But when they see what kept me, I'll more than likely be excused.

Blood dribbles out of the corner of my Sire's mouth. I hold Him closer, and kiss it away.

"You'll be all right, ya bloody fairy," I whisper to Him, "You always are."

God, I hope I'm right. Just this once.

*****
Part 5:

The scary, scary place that is currently Angel's head.

(no one, not even the rain, has such small hands.)

Wee hands... so little. It doesn't seem right that she is a human being, she's so like a doll. So delicate.

I remember clear the night she was born. I was fifteen summers, then. Not boy enough to sit by the hearth, clutching my nurse's skirts, listening to my mother's delivering wails from the room above, and not yet man enough to be down at the pub with my father, drinking to the arrival of what would hopefully be another (and better) son.

Sitting outside, instead, like the dogs at my feet, I watched the moon crawl across the ink sky, full and pregnant like my mother would no longer be, after this night, and thought for certain that it would be a girl. The Moon, Our Lady, was too broad and bright to bring a boy.

I had no feelings at all for gaining a sister. A brother, perhaps, might divert my father's attention -- give him the strong, dutiful son he so often complained that I wasn't. But a girlchild? No... that would surely only make matters worse, for then, his disappointment would be multiplied times two -- not only an idiot, weakling, lazy, smart-mouthed troublemaker for a son, but now a useless, sniveling daughter to support, as well. Certainly I'd take the brunt of his anger for that injustice, as I had so many others.

So that night, I didn't much ponder on what it would mean, should my mother bring forth a sister for me. Not, that is, until I first lay eyes on her.

Even at such a tender age, I'd had my share of females... felt their soft beauty wrapped around me, heard their words of love and longing. But it was not until that clear autumn night that I truly fell in love for the first time.

A little angel, she was, quiet as a mouse, smiling up at me from her cradle. They say that newborns canna see when they first come, but I knew in an instant that was rubbish, because wee Mary Catherine was looking straight up at me, into my eyes, and reaching with those tiny hands. She loved me, too, from her first breath, I think.

So I look at her now, a decade and two years later, and still all I see is the babe who has been the only owner of my heart since that very night. Now those hands are occupied with learning women's work -- a small weaving loom in her lap -- even as we rest up in the grassy hills above my father's farm. She'll be of marrying age in a few short years, and I can already see the ghost of the beautiful woman she will become, in her soft face. She's gentle and kind, thoughtful and smart, hardworking and faithful -- all things that I'll never be, and my heart nearly breaks with the love of her.

I look away, out over the hills to the Bay, and wonder what lies beyond -- the great cities of Europe, the ancient, mysterious Orient, wildest Africa, the Colonies... Will my beloved and I always be trapped here this way, in this small land?

And yet... there is a peace to this, lying here in the grass beside the only person in the universe who doesn't believe me a wastrel. I feel a weariness in me -- don't know from where it comes, as my activities of late have been no more or less boisterous than usual-- but suddenly I am glad to be exactly where I am. I have a feeling like this... this is home, and home is good, even if it's not always pleasant. I find myself thinking, 'Yes. Perhaps Father is right, in a way. Perhaps it is time for a change. Work. A family. Time, maybe, to become a man.'

Foreign thoughts, like warm water in my veins.

But not today. Today, I'll just lie here and look up at the rare, cloudless blue sky, and simply breathe the brine air and the scent of lavender and innocence from Cathy's dress.

Why do I feel as though I've been gone... so long, too long, from here, when I have never been farther than Dublin for a single day? I feel as though I've returned from some sorrowfully endless journey, and how I've missed... this. Her.

Cathy sighs and sets down her weaving, looking down over the valley spread below us. It pains me to see her little frown, and those tiny hands now clasped together in worry.

"Liam?" she says in that soft way she has that makes me want to weep. No one else, in all my days, has ever said my name that way. As if the word has weight... worth.

"Yes, love?"

She turns her eyes to me... eyes deep brown like fine chocolate, eyes like mine, but filled with... what is it, I see haunting, there? Sorrow? Confusion? Pity? What right does a girl of barely twelve have to have such woefully ancient eyes?

"Do ye think that ye'll go t' Hell when ye die?"

The question shocks me, as though she's dropped a stone on my head. My lazy ease is gone in an instant, and I sit up to frown at her.

"What makes ye ask such a question, Mary Catherine? Ye sound like Father."

My words are harsher than I meant, and I find I'm angrier than I ought to be. Again, I'm at a loss to explain why her words should effect me so.

Cathy casts her sweet eyes down. "Aye. 'Tis something he would say. Father Brian, too. I hear them talking, and they say your soul is tainted... poisoned by your sins. That ye'r unshriven, unrepentant, and all the good deeds in the world'll not save ye from burnin'." She looks up at me again, and my heart near collapses to see her eyes overflowing with tears. "It's nae true, is it, Liam? Ye can be forgivin', can't ye? Canna God excuse any transgression?"

My brow tightens with the pondering of it. I try always to answer my sister's most childish questions honestly, whether I have the answer or no.

My Soul. Is my Soul so black as my Father and the goodly priest say? Too much drink, too many women, too little work and respect for others. Yes, perhaps I've broken most of the commandments, committed most of the cardinal sins (all of them. every one. unforgivable. unsavable. you've burned before and you'll burn again.), but really, what does it mean? Why should God care? Most of the time I think He's a figment of twisted men's imaginations, a tool to keep the unruly masses in line, and what's a fair amount of sinning (ripping your father's throat out, mocking him all the while) in a universe with no God?

But my Cathy is devout, for whatever reason, and though I think it all nonsense, I'll not crush her precious faith.

"A course he can, lass. He's a merciful Lord." (*Please, sir! Have mercy! My children!*) I blink at the strange echoes of sound in my head, but they don't come again, so I plunge on. "Isna that why we go tae church every week, then? If God wasna forgivin', we wouldna bother, now, would we?"

Her quizzical look turns hard. "Ye never go tae church anymore, Liam. Not for as long as I ken..."

I freeze at the accusation in her voice. Suddenly, I'm not only tense... I'm frightened. Is she right?

"I... My soul is my business! Tha's between me and Them!"

Cathy cocks her head to one side. "Them? There's only One, Angelus. One True and Vengeful God."

Angelus... The name is strange. Ugly. And yet... utterly familiar. To hear her speak it so fills me with dread.

Which dread grows by leaps as bounds as she reaches those tiny hands up and captures my face between them. Her fingers are cold, and the sky turns black, the air filled suddenly with weeping and screaming and cries of pain and for mercy... SHOW MERCY!

"My beautiful Liam. My poor, damned Angel. I was the first, but not the last of the hearts ye broke. Ye dinnae belong here in the Summerland. Ye'r not forgiven. Not ever."

I don't understand. This is my home! And in a heartbeat, her skin turns ashen grey, her eyes milky and dead, her limbs hard and stiff, her fingers... tiny doll fingers... smooth and frigid like spikes of frozen glass against my cheeks.

The weeping grows louder. Two voices, one male, one female, rising clear and loud as thunder among all the rest. The hills are on fire. The sky rains fire. And all around is the screaming.

I try to pull away from her, but she holds me fast. How can she be so strong? The terror and panic force tears to my eyes, and I'm so thirsty... so cold, even in the fire...

"Cathy? I don't..."

"Do ya hear them, Liam? The Golden Ones, how they cry? I am the first, but they are the worst, because I am dead, and they must live with your poison and your Hell inside them," her voice is jagged, like broken glass, inhuman, and I can't move..."You poisoned them and left them to rot! All the others, even I and Mother and Father, are only ghosts. And you, so selfish! Damned as you have damned and drank and lied and fornicated and murdered and blasphemed!"

She's screaming, now, and she's not my sister anymore, but a rotting corpse raining hatred down on me. I scream in return and God -- now I remember! I tear at her hands, my skin ripping from my face as the fingers shatter, and I get up and run. Run! The sobbing chases me like a hunting beast, the shouting and sobbing louder... the begging... (*Please, Sire...wake up. Don't leave me again...*)

"WHO IS THAT?" I wail. The Cathy Thing is beside me once more, and we are trapped in a ring of fire that grows smaller by the moment.

"Why, Liam, don't you know your own flesh and putrid blood? His tears are the salt of you."

William. Son. Blood. I don't know, yet I remember. And God -- the pain, the Blood! I'm sorry I didn't confess my sins, Father! And I'm sorry I went to the pub that night, and I'm sorry I wasted it all and I killed her... I killed them all...

"I'M SORRY!" I scream at her, "I'M SORRY!"

"Yes... you are," she whispers.

I wake with a jolt.

Damn it... now I've gone and drunk too much again... my brain's all addled. Ruins my sleep and gives me terrible bags under my eyes. Like bloody Will, and me always telling him to watch his liquor.

He whimpers from beside me, and kicks off the blankets. Only demon I've ever met who has nightmares, the poor fool. I think perhaps something went wrong with his Turning -- he's far too human for one of my line. He weeps all the time like a girl, and pouts after my Dru like a lovesick puppy, and just generally makes a fool of himself, and subsequently, me.

Darla insists I'm too soft on the boy. That I should spend more time beating some manners into him. Tear the humanity out of him, whatever it takes.

But... isn't that part of what makes him such a delightful Childe? His infinite capacity for woe, affection and pain? My Sire still thinks me a drunken fool, even after these decades past. She thinks I chose him on a whim, for his silky, honeyed hair and his finely carved jawline... his eyes of azure and slender, marbled young frame. She thinks him a simple dalliance, of which I should certainly already be bored.

There is his form, of course. William is exceedingly, exquisitely beautiful. My first and finest work of art. But he is, despite his inner softness, still a creature of amazing cruelty, ferocity, and wit. Still a lover of brawls and pubs, flesh and pain, so much like myself as a human. He is insolent and disagreeable, and best of all, mindlessly devoted and worshipful to me.

What more could a Master ask in a Most Favoured Childe?

No... I don't think I'll be staking my boy anytime soon, whatever my lovely, intolerant Sire might think about the matter.

I chose him on purpose, you see. His beauty, in combination with his willfulness and affectability, make him an endless source of delicious amusement, to me. Whether he be fettered to the ceiling, screaming and bleeding from every orifice, or nuzzled tenderly into my throat, purring and whimpering of his desperate love, he is mine. All mine, and only mine, eternally.

I watch his restless sleeping, now... the way his night terrors pull his lithe body taut as though he means to flee his own mind, thrashing and writhing in the linens... The blood of this night's hunt rushes, fast and furious, to my loins.

Of all the things I crave -- the venery, the blood, the soft, hot flesh of the living, the whimpering cries of the dying -- of all these things, it is him that I want most, always.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever, they say. And as I trace the silken path of his spine with a fingertip--from nape of tender neck, between rolling shoulders, over curve and cut of adamantine midsection, down through the valley betwixt round, firm buttocks, over the puckering rose of his anus, the satin of his perineum, the velvet of his sac, and he moans even as he has yet to waken--I know the old adage is true. This boy's beauty is awe-inspiring, and that is why I've made it eternal.

Lashes, soft and thick like butterfly wings, flutter open, revealing eyes of stormy sky... His nightmare is forgotten as he gazes up at me, unmoving but for his generous cock twitching against my seeking fingertips. His lips slacken, and my Title slips forth from him like a whispered prayer, carried on needless breath:

"Sire..."

Yes. My own manhood jerks in response to the reverent gasp. This beauty, this supplication is mine, all mine, Forever and Forever. These moans... these sighs as I climb his body, nestle myself between his legs... mine. Caressing his rump with my hardness, his slim, pale fingers (such small hands) clutching fiercely at the bedsheets, his eyes sliding shut and he bids me come... "Yes, Sire. Yes..."

I fashioned this creature. I painted this whimpering, writhing stripling with brushstrokes of lust and pain, blood and want. Fashioned him exactly thus, with my Dark Gift of Life in Death, so that he might plaint just so for my cock sliding against his... so he might shiver exactly like that as I nip the corded tendons of his neck. Ah, yes... I know why I created him.

He aches for the illusion of tenderness and love. I have preserved this in him, and that is why the lotion stands always within arm's reach on the table beside my bed, so any time, any moment, I can make myself slick to take him.

Pain is not always the best way.

William is beautiful, his every muscle hard beneath me, his cry magnificent as his body gives way to my entrance. His hips rise of their own accord from the mattress to meet my first incisive thrust... Ambrosial, his arching spine... his inner muscles clamping down around me. Mine, this flesh... I drive into it with the ease of familiarity, of certainty that oh... yes... it was right to give him rebirth. I appreciate this thing of beauty, slow and deep... Adore this clutching, gliding, milking union... this Childe of Blood and blood and muscle and bone all around me.

He knows. He rises fully to hands and knees, flexing his fine back, throwing back his shining, golden head with a shout, impaling himself on me with a might that forces a grunt from my breast... He knows his beauty. His quintessence. He knows that I am enraptured by this... this ferocious worship of him, my prime and flawless work. I unite with it, with him, striking profoundly until I can smell his blood...

This... this finest act of felicitation... I reach beneath to stroke him in thanks. And always, he praises me. He begs. He weeps as I caress him and ram him.

"Master... please... may I... come..." A yell, a desperate cry for release.

I clutch his cock hard at the root. "No. You may not."

It is too splendid to end so soon. I hold him tighter. His shout of frustration a rebellion, a pained cry of WHY? PLEASE! He skewers himself on me in rage and ecstasy. I stroke him once more, harder, now, and blanket his beauty with my own, mouth seeking that fount that binds us together. Fangs rip into flesh, concentrated liquid of connection a gush of remembrance in my mouth, cold and sweet.

My Will. Oh... how he screams. Anyone who hears and doesn't know better might think it a sound of terror, of agony... a death cry. But the only agony is the release... the knowledge that he is mine... and knowing how I will punish him later, because he gushes his bliss into my hand without leave. I let him have it... rub it into him as he jerks and trembles in my arms.

William is finer than the finest art. He is my mate, my son, my pride, my lovely beast. I clamp hard onto his throat and hammer into him with all the power that fills my veins from this -- the taking-back of the mucilaginous gift I have given him. He whimpers, growing weaker as I drain him, his body shivering on the edge of collapse. I pull out of his ass, his jugular, slide up to the headboard, and drag his fair head down to my lap. He sucks me with a ferocious hunger... an artist in his own right... a virtuoso of mouth on cock. I fuck his beautiful face until at last I am taken by my own zenith, and slam it into the back of his throat with a howl of supreme self-congratulations.

He licks me clean and looks up with a boy's eyes -- Have I pleased you, Master? I think yes. And tonight he will escape my wrath... for tonight he is my finest possession, and there is more pride in me for him than anything. I gather his slim form into my arms and marvel once again at my wisdom in taking him as he burrows into my chest.

But why now does he weep, his tears cold against the skin above my unbeating heart? Tonight, there is no need for his lamentation.

"What ails ye, Will?" I ask softly. I realize... have I ever once asked after his thoughts before? Have I ever bothered to question the melancholy that occupies so much of his time in my presence?

He looks up at me with those turbulent eyes, and says:

"Flinging from his arms, I laughed
To think his passion such
He fancied that I gave a soul
Did but our bodies touch,
And laughed upon his breast to think
Beast gave beast as much."

What?! I push him off of me with a sudden fury. He swings his legs over the edge of the bed with a nasty smirk, and lights a cigar from the box on the nightstand. How did those get there?

"What nonsense is this?! Put that filthy thing out!" I shout at him, and now I find my voice sounds... empty of authority... impotent. Which only serves to make me angrier. "I SAID PUT THAT OUT! YOU'LL NOT SMOKE UNDER MY ROOF, BOY!" I cuff him upside his impertinent skull. He laughs, rising calmly, standing nude beside our bed, daring to defy me by looking directly into my eyes.

"YOU DARE!" I spit at him.

Again, he laughs. "You, mate, are the sorriest excuse for a demon I've ever had the extreme misfortune to lay eyes on. Hell -- you're a pathetic example of every damn thing you've ever been! A shitty man, a fucking lousy Master, a damn waste of space as a friend and a lover and a hero! I bloody well'd rather have PENN as my Sire!"

I'm shocked beyond speech, even beyond wrath. I can't move -- at first, from the sheer outrage at his behavior, and then...

Then I am chained to the bed. But it's no longer my bed... it's his. It stinks of Dru and sex and Slayer. He's had her. She's all around him like a halo and I want to vomit from the horror of it.

He is no longer Will, but Spike. Long, honey locks shorn and bleached, his nudity covered in black... black shirt, black jeans, black duster. In one small, pale hand a bottle -- I can smell the blood -- and in the other dangles a silver chain with a large cross at the end. Buffy...

"You failed. As Master. As Sire. As Man. As Lover. As brother. As son. As friend. As Warrior, you failed, you miserable, useless son of a bitch."

I can't move. I can't. Move. Darla's eyes roll back in her head as her skin pales, and Buffy wails like her soul is collapsing, and Spike just stands there and stares at me.

"I hate you," he says, and throws the bottle at me. I can't move, and it explodes... Oceans of blood, and I'm starving and it's his blood and my blood, Buffy's blood and Darla's blood, my sister's blood and Drusilla's blood and all the blood in the cosmos. Virgin blood and infant blood... innocent blood and Womanblood and Lifeblood and Death blood and cold pig's blood in plastic bags.

I scream. It tears from my chest. I can't taste it, even as I drink it all, glutting, bloating, overflowing with it, and Spike only laughs as I explode.

"Angel..."

Far. She's so far. Why? Why did I leave her when she is the only reason I rise with the setting of each sun? Why couldn't I be strong and try... move mountains to find a way to remain beside her?

She smells so good... so sweet... vanilla and honeysuckle and pulsing life.

I open my eyes, and the purest feeling of rapture, of completion washes through me to look down at her, bare and young, perfect, trusting and vulnerable beneath me.

"Don't be scared," I reassure her, kiss her gently. Kiss away the single tear that spills from her eye. "I promise I won't hurt you. I'll never hurt you."

(born to hurt her)

"I know," she whispers. Reaches her tiny hand (not even the rain...) up to caress my face. Such tenderness... unselfish caring. "I'm not afraid." (you should be)

Oh, God, I love her. She is the most precious of gifts... the only balm my soul has known in a hundred years. The rain murmurs of peace outside the warmth of this flawless moment, her softness yielding to my hardness as I ease past that final barrier between us. Sheath myself in her freely offered blessing, her unconditional acceptance. And oh... the pain is forgotten. The horror, the fear, the rage, the hunger, the unending loneliness, all gone inside of her. That tiny flinch... that little moment of blood, and she takes me where I have never even dared to dream I could go...

Heaven. Her strong legs wrap around me, and the gates are wide open before my eyes, gleaming and pure in her sighs. Her arms a circle of forgiveness, each brush of tiny fingers, redemption.

All for her. It's all been for her. I've lived, and died, and lived again, all for her.

"Angel... I love you..."

Yes. Love. It makes the world go 'round. It's a many-splendored thing. It makes you do the wacky. It heals broken souls and hearts and minds and bodies. Even if there is no God, no Paradise in the Hereafter, there is always this. Always Her.

I love you.

The night whispers. (dreadful things) Something's coming. (something has gone) It's all gone, isn't it? Hands around her fine throat, squeezing... no hope... heartbeat racing, blood pounding. Hurt her.

Choking. "ANGEL!"

Born to hurt her. Born to hurt them all.

Tiny hands clutching, lungs gasping for precious breath, fucking harder and harder and she's crying tears of The Blood...

"You can be forgiven, can't you, Liam? What will happen to your Soul when you die?"

(*Watch your tongue, boy, or you'll get the strap!*)

(*FUCK ME, ANGELUS!*)

Worthless. Failure. Wastrel. Hurt her. Drill her raw and drink her dry. Fangs in jugular, magick pumping, drinking, sucking, fucking, binding, blinding, it's all about The Blood.

Oceans of blood. Universes of blood. Endless infinity eternity of Blood, and it's all about the Blood. The screaming and the sobbing, the laughter, the sighs, the orgasm, the feeding, the release, and Death... it's all about the Blood. There's no forgiveness, and Liam's Soul will go to Hell again, because that's where it was born, and that's where He and all his demon issue were made, and I am the Blood and the Life Forever and Ever A-fucking-men.

Hell is where I am, and where I belong, and where She is eternally denied me, always taunting me, dancing golden and naked just out of my reach, and the Childe takes the lash and begs for more and smiles and smokes and their hands are so small... Beast gave Beast as much. She sings songs about the lambs and the stars and Daddy's Home and Master, please don't leave me, and I felt your heart beat and There is Always Hope... She understands, now, so many things... it's enough.

"Angel... please don't leave us. We need you. I love you, please..."

Please.

Silence.

Si iratus fueris contra me, quem adiutorem quaeram? Qus miserebitun iniqui tatibus meis?

.//If Thy Anger has turned against me, whom shall I seek to help me? Who will have mercy on my iniquities?//

Tiny hands. There is no rain, no tiny hands, in Hell. No small, loving, soothing, warm hands. Hell never smells like home, like clean sheets and like fire crackling in the hearth, like Slayer-sweet and smoky-liquor-Childe.

Miserere, quia peccavimus tibi.

.//Have mercy, for we have sinned against Thee.//

"Angel... can you hear me?"

I hear you always, my love. Even here, where I no longer understand your words or feel your touch, even now you are with me. Super omnes speciosa, vale ovalde decora.

.//Loveliest whom in Heaven they see, fairest there where all are fair...//

Yes... the echoes of your light touch my soul even in Hell.

"He can't bloody hear you, Slayer, so save your breath."

And him? Him, too. I'm sorry, William. Laborairi in gemitu meo, lavabam per singulas noctes lectum meum; lacrimis meis stratum meum rigabam.

.//I have suffered and wept, every night I have washed my bed and drenched my blanket with tears.//

I'm so sorry.

"Can I... do anything?"

"Yeah, um... could you just... put more wood on the fire? Thanks, Cor..."

"No problem... Is he..."

"The same, Pet."

"I'll get some more water."

Echoes of home. Of family. Where is the pain gone?

"Angelus... wake up, damnit."

"I thought you said he couldn't hear us?"

Breath of my Soul. Blood of my Blood. I hear you.

"Oh, Hell, will you just shut your gob and hold his damn head up?"

"It's too hot."

"Excuse me, your bloody highness, but I think I know a bit better than you how hot it should be."

"I'm just saying."

"Well, don't."

Bickering angels. The clouds are all black, but the sky is so clear... the blood is hot, but not too hot, now... and then they are gone again.

And if I hadn't already been here for a thousand eternities, I would weep for the loss of them.

If I cried me a river of all my confessions, would I drown in my shallow regret?

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

not even the rain has such small hands.

*****