Chapter Fifteen

William was looking out the window of the coach, fingers drumming restlessly on the battered armrest of the seat they shared. Lucius faced them inside the coach. There wasn't enough light for her to see well, but in the dark his eyes seemed luminous. Hungry. Minions and fledglings always looked hungry and inhuman, a little too blank when they were maintaining their human features, like the effort cost them too much.

The small Brougham and the larger coach that were kept were extravagances in the city. Between the streetcars and the availability of coaches for hire, the expense of keeping the vehicles and horses was, at least in Willow's mind, unwarranted. The streetcar had the saving grace of novelty. The hired coach's only saving grace was that it was reasonably clean, which wasn't always a sure thing.

The interior of the coach had been cleaned recently. It had that smell Willow had learned to recognize. Like wet wool, like the undercoat of a dog let out in the rain, the smell of things that were damp and dirty beneath the faint reek of harsh soap. If she could smell it, then it had to worse for them. She had an impulse to touch him, to thread her hand through his arm and rest her head on his shoulder. She knew it would be welcomed. The fingers restlessly drumming on the armrest would rest lightly on her face. She held herself still, resenting the effort it took not to touch him. What would it hurt? What would it cost? It might preserve the beguiling mood he had been in for another hour and another day. Ultimately, it was her hurt, and her cost.

It was exactly what he wanted. He had said as much. What did it mean?

They returned to the house without incident. It was still early. She half expected to be told to go to her room, but William's hand on her back directed her to the salon where Angelus was holding court, reading aloud to Darla. Lucius had disappeared. He was probably somewhere close. He always managed to be within earshot.

Angelus was reading Persuasion, Jane Austin's last novel, and Willow's favorite. He finished the chapter before he closed the book around a thin sliver of a silver bookmark. His gaze settled on Willow and he smiled at her. “Home early, are you?” he asked. “I thought you'd be out half the night, and we would be denied the pleasure of your company.”

“No reason to think otherwise,” William interjected. “Even if we are home early.”

Darla seemed to find that amusing. “No one is happy tonight,” she observed. Dru was pouting in her room. After William and Willow left with Lucius, she had noticed that she was left behind. No hunting tonight. No plays or parties or parlor games. No one to entertain Princess. If she told William, he would fix it, because that was what he did, but Darla didn't feel like telling him.

“Were you followed?” she asked instead.

Willow was a little surprised to find that Darla was looking at her like she expected an answer from that quarter. She looked at William, puzzled by the question. William's hand slid down her back. “Fix me a drink, pet,” he drawled, going over to the settee. He flopped down on it, crossing his legs at the ankle, his booted feet precariously close to the seat cushion.

Willow went to the sideboard and poured him a drink. “No. We weren't followed,” he answered the question while she poured. Whiskey, neat, the way he usually took it. She brought it to him, wondering at his animosity towards Darla tonight.

He brought her hand to his lips for a moment, his fingers stroking her palm. “Or, if we were, they kept their distance.”

Dressed as she was, Willow felt out of place in the salon. That was it. There wasn't a stomach-churning undercurrent of tension in the room, or the sense that things were happening that might go badly and were beyond her control. She wondered where Dru was.

William moved enough to make room for her to sit, and when she did, he settled back down, resting his head in her lap, a tumbler of whiskey resting on his abdomen, his feet now propped on the end of the settee. He took Willow's hand, threading his fingers through hers. “It was a quiet evening out. I bought a chaise for Willow's room. It will be delivered tomorrow,” he said. “And no one took the least interest in us,” he added.

“Not that you were paying any attention,” Darla concluded.

“Not that I was,” William agreed. He looked up at Willow, moving their joined hands to rest over her heart. “Give me a kiss, and go upstairs, pet,” he ordered. “Be in my room when I come up.”

She kissed his hand, because it was less awkward, and started to slide out from under him when he let her up. Angelus stopped her with a gesture. “Stay a moment, Willow. What didn't you want her to hear?” he asked William

“Lucius was gone for thirty minutes,” William said. “He's not that stupid,” he pointed out. “You might want to let Dru crawl around inside his skull and see what he's gotten himself into.”

“Why don't you want Willow to know that?” Angelus asked.

“Don't give a toss if she knows,” William refuted before finishing his drink. “I just don't feel like sharing tonight,” he said pointedly. “Or posing for sketches, or playing sodding parlor games. Now,” he rose, and extended his hand to Willow, pulling her to her feet. “I'm going to see about getting her furniture moved to suit her, and then I'm going to . . . get myself suited,” he announced, his eyes on Willow.

Darla ran her fingers through the fringe on one of the pillows with a small smile on her lips. “What happened yesterday?” she asked, in a tone that was at once light and amused and insistent.

William paused, pretending to think. “Well, I was standing at the window to close it, and I saw something out of the corner of my eye, moving too fast to be anything human,” he recounted. “Had a look around—“

“In the kitchen,” Darla corrected. “What happened yesterday in the kitchen?”

William shrugged, his fingers tightening on Willow's hand, just enough to keep her attention on him. “We had a quarrel,” he smiled. “She's gotten independent playing lady of the house. We are still working out which parts of that are amusing and which aren't.”

Angelus snorted back a laugh. “I'll just bet you are,” he said.

Darla said nothing. She knew he was lying, but she didn't know what he was lying about. “Lucius is your responsibility,” she said. “You made him.”

William cocked his head to one side. “Bloody hell,” he sighed. “Fine. I'll deal with him. Annoying prat walked off and left me cooling my heals. So . . . I'll go stake the little bastard. He has wasted enough of my time tonight.”

Willow was startled. The night they arrived, William had been with her. When had he found time to kill Lucius? Why had he made time for it? Why did it bother her now that he had? Did she really think that he had avoided participating in the slaughter of the people that she had brought into the house to spare her feelings? The answer to that question was obvious. She had, on some level, thought that was exactly what he had done. Instead, he had killed the one person who had, more than anyone else, been kind to her.

Angelus watched the ripple of emotion across Willow's face. This was better than a play, he decided. She hadn't known about Lucius, and it bothered her, he marveled. It really bothered her that William had killed him. That was interesting. William was watching her as well, and coming to the same conclusions. You could almost see it, except that he was much better at covering than Willow was.

“What do you think should be done?” he asked Willow.

Darla and William both looked at him, nonplussed by the question, directed to Willow.

Lucius was dead, she reminded herself. The thing left behind was not the young man who had once made her feel a little less alone. She would not look at William. Angelus was waiting for an answer. Not for the first time she felt a stab of resentment. If she answered wrong, he would make her listen to a monologue on vampire politics or the management of minions or strategy. If she answered right, he would bask in the idea that he had put every idea she ever had into her head.

The image of a chessboard flashed in Willow's mind. All her moves were those of the knight, forward or backward and cornering sideways. “The simplest explanation is the most likely one,” she said. “I would ask him where he was.”

“How would I know if he is lying?” Angelus asked.

She considered that for a moment. Before she could answer, William's hands came to rest on her waist, lightly squeezing. “Go upstairs, Willow,” he maneuvered her away from Angelus and Darla, through the open double door to the hall. “It may be a while before I come to bed,” he said, giving her a little push.

He watched her go up the stairs, turning his head just enough to see Lucius standing in the hallway. He laced his fingers together, cracking his knuckles. “Have a bone to pick with you,” he said softly, taunting the younger vampire.

Lucius looked wary. William was still speaking in English and he didn't understand what he was saying, but the icy stare directed at him was a little unnerving.



Willow brushed her teeth while the bathtub filled. The chalky toothpaste she was using was made by Colgate in a collapsible tube that looked enough like what she had grown up with to be familiar and unfamiliar all at once. Not unlike the toothbrush itself, which was not plastic and nylon, but ivory with serrated boar bristles. She rinsed her mouth. When William sent her upstairs, she walked down the hall, past her own room to the back stairs that went up to the third floor and down to the kitchen. In the kitchen, she filled a small pitcher with water from the pump before going back upstairs.

She undressed and added her discarded clothing to the same hamper that usually received used towels. Normally, she did not dispose of her clothing this way. The fabrics her clothes were made from usually required careful cleaning and labor intensive ironing to maintain, making her careful to hang them up, even when they were soiled and in need of attention. These clothes weren't hers and she didn't plan to make them hers. She hesitated a moment before adding the red jacket to the pile, fingering the band of velvet that had been hand stitched to the waist.

She made herself push the jacket down into the hamper, dropping the lid. The bathtub was half full. She got in, grimacing a little at the heat of the water and the cold of the porcelain. She didn't plan to make a production out of bathing tonight. If she was alone in the house, she might have brought a book into the bathroom with her to read while she had a long, luxurious soak in the tub. She left her hair up to keep it from getting wet and concentrated on washing.

Dru came in from her bedroom and Willow gave an inward sigh. It was too much to hope that she might be left alone. Dru sank to the floor beside the bathtub, facing her, her dark eyes resting on Willow with a hint of expectation. Her hand trailed over the surface of the water, flicking water playfully at Willow's face. She had picked up the necklace Willow had removed and left on the lip of the sink, holding it up to spin and glitter in the light, reminding Willow of the translucent blue candy Dru had brought home from the opera last night.

Catching the trailing end of the necklace's toggle clasp, Dru brought the necklace to her forehead. With it draped against her white skin, dark hair and dark eyes, she looked exotic and mysterious.

Willow responded with a small smile. She would have preferred to have been left alone, but Dru was sometimes good company. She didn't ask awkward questions or make demands that made her feel bruised inside. Dru didn't care how she felt or what she wanted, and she didn't pretend that they were in any way equal. When she was bored with playing with the necklace, she put it around Willow's throat, slipping the silver bar through the circle, her fingers sliding under the necklace, laying it bead by bead against Willow's skin.

Her fingertips trailed over the soap clouded water. Expecting to get more water flicked in her face, Willow drew her knees up to her chest and Dru sighed. She was wearing a buttery yellow dress with blonde lace that fell from the three-quarter sleeve, contracting into a sodden mess in the water. Willow's gaze moved from the lace to Dru's face. She could be very particular about her clothing.

As swift as a striking snake, Dru's hand was against her throat, the glass beads of the necklace pressed into her skin as Dru's hand drove her back against the porcelain, a low, purring growl vibrating in her throat. Willow knew that with the slightest pressure, Dru's wickedly sharp fingernails would slide into her throat. She could feel the slight tremor in her fingers against her throat.

Dru's gaze shifted abruptly to the door, her expression growing mischievous. “I knew you were there,” she said, eyes shining.

“Did you, my love?” William sounded amused. “I need you, darling,” he said, walking over to look down at Willow in the tub. He rested his hands on the sides of the tub, looming over her, his eyes lingering on her breasts, under water. He leaned down to kiss her forehead, but he was looking at Dru when he did it. “Let go of her?” he suggested.

Dru pouted. “She didn't even scream this time,” she pointed out, sounding like a child with a defective toy.

William laid his hand over Willow's heart, breathing her in. She smelled of toothpaste and milled soap and fear and her heart was beating fast and hard. “Beg to differ, Princess,” he said with a smile for her.

Dru's hand slid up her throat and she pinched Willow's chin. “Everyone left me alone tonight,” she complained.

A muscle twitched in William's cheek. It was a reproach to him, and he accepted it. Dru's need for attention was, in part, the reason he existed. He turned his wrist and caught hers in a hard grip, yanking her hand away from Willow's face. “I'm here now,” he pointed out.

Willow scooted back away from them in the tub. Dru's eyes were on William, a strange, pleased smile curving her lips as she resisted his pull on her arm that became incrementally brutal as he forced her up away from the tub, bending her back over the closed hamper. Dru threw her head back and laughed softly. “There's my darling boy,” she crooned. “So impulsive and greedy,” it was praise as she said it.

She lifted her free hand to his face, threading her fingers into his hair, pulling it out of the queue at the nape of his neck. Angelus wore his hair longer than was fashionable for men, shoulder length, but loose. William's hair was nearly as long, but he tended to pull the length back from his face and neck. It was a hairstyle that had been out of vogue for nearly a century, long before William had been born, before Drusilla had been born.

“Nothing between us,” she whispered. “Not even flesh made wet with blood.” She pulled him down to her, licking his throat, nipping at it with sharp teeth.

“Not even that,” he agreed, pleasure at the caress tightening the muscles in his face. It wasn't just minions that could look that hungry.

She pursed her lips, rubbing her cheek against his. “We'll make something bleed tonight?” she guessed, her eyes finding Willow.

“It might come to that,” he allowed, relaxing his grip on her, stepping back to draw her to her feet. “There's a game I need you for,” he told her.

She pressed her fingers to his lips, her eyes studying his. Her smile became knowing. “You don't need me,” she said, amused. “You just like to share.”

He grinned. “True,” he allowed, he looked over his shoulder at Willow who was watching them with an expression that was tense and wary.

Dru slipped around him, her hand flying across the water to flick water into Willow's face. She laughed at Willow's startled expression and skipped out of the bathroom into her connecting bedroom.

William watched her leave before his attention returned to Willow. She had managed not to say anything, but she gave so much away without words. She flinched when he leaned over the side of the tub, his hands coming to bracket her face. Her eyes shut as his thumbs wiped away the water spattered over her face. He waited patiently for her to open her eyes and almost smiled at the resentment that had kindled in her gaze.

“Do you have everything you need for the night?” he asked.

She blinked, trying to process the meaning behind the question. “Yes,” she said slowly.

He drew her to him, wet and slippery, and less pliant than he would have liked. He lowered his head, kissing her mouth. She tasted strongly of toothpaste, nearly overwhelming the more familiar warm, wet taste of her mouth. He rested his forehead against hers, his eyes on her lips. “I won't be coming to bed before dawn,” he told her. “Sleep in my room tonight, and don't go wandering around the house. If you need something, use the bell pull.”

“What's going on?” she asked, unable to help herself.

She could tell at once that he had no intention of answering her. He kissed her again. “I'll leave you alone to finish your bath,” he said, sounding like he was tempted to stay.



Lucius found himself hanging by his wrists. The heavy silk curtain tie backs he had once been restrained with would have been easy for him to break now. The manacles that were digging into his wrists were iron. They had been used before. The coachman who had destroyed the small gray hack had been kept chained up for days, not permitted to feed, reinforcing the notion for anyone who cared to consider it that destroying the Master's property was not a good idea.

In his case, he wasn't sure this was meant for punishment. It might simply be a form of entertainment. It might even be an enjoyable form of entertainment. If Darla decided to start cutting his clothing off again, he was not going to put up a show of resentment or be encumbered with moral qualms about being used to satisfy her. Angelus had done the chaining, drawing him up on his toes while Lucius pretended to strain to maintain his footing and balance. When he relaxed a little, Angelus gave the chain a final adjustment, nearly wrenching Lucius arms from the socket and drawing a chuckle out of him.

“Back where we started,” Angelus observed, walking around him.

They were in the seldom used dining room. Seldom used because the household had no need to eat at a table and because the one member of the household that did eat dinner would probably lack for appetite in the room. The blood stained rug had been burned, and the floors had been cleaned, but the blood that had congealed on the floor and walls in a colorful spray had left stains in the wood and plaster, which would require more than a simple cleaning to erase. The room was usually kept closed, which meant that the scent of blood, and fear and death that had permeated the room lingered, mixing with the scent of pine cones and cinnamon from a silver bowl on the fireplace mantel.

Lucius tried to relax as much as he could. He was chained to the chandelier. Every movement of his body made the crystals hanging thickly chime. The chandelier had never been converted to gaslight and Paulus was standing on a ladder lighting the white candles that filled the tulip shaped holders. It didn't bother him in the least that Angelus had chained him. It bothered him greatly that Paulus was a witness to it.

When he was done lighting the candles, Darla told him to get out. Angelus retrieved a chair and set it in front of him. The dining room furniture was old. The table was eight feet long without the leaves that extended it to twelve feet. The end chairs were large, heavy armed chairs with high backs covered in damasked silk the color of burnt sienna. The color was repeated in the curtain swags, and it was close enough to the color of dried blood that stained the plaster that it almost seemed to be something other than an accident.

Had she thought, when she chose it from the fabric swatches, that this was a color that went well with dried blood?

He had watched her deal with them, and there was more of a lesson in it than anything Angelus, Darla or William had taught him. She did what was demanded of her, and did it well, but she did not allow herself to be distracted or defined by it. She did not beg or plead or break, nor would he. Had they chained her to a chandelier, he was sure that she would have stood still and waited for what would come.

She.

Even in the privacy of his own mind she was a nameless presence.

The dining room pocket doors rolled open and Drusilla spilled through them, her hair drawn up on the sides in fat ringlets that swayed independent of her body. He remembered again, seeing her in the dining room, seemingly full of life, looking like she was on the verge of dancing. He recognized the exhilaration now, he knew what it signaled. William crossed the threshold behind her, clapping his hands together, the sound deliberately explosive.

“Well, now,” he began. “Let's start with a lesson in good manners,” he said, shutting the pocket doors behind him. The irony of the statement was not lost on him.




Her journal was hidden under a seat cushion in the library. Willow had not thought of it when William asked if she had everything that she needed for the evening, and she knew that she was thinking of it now because it was out of reach. Not unlike her own bedroom. From the sound of it her furniture was being moved. She was stuck in William's seldom used room, for reasons that were unknown to her. It probably wasn't anything she wanted to know.

Their rooms were very similar. The bed was a four poster with a solid canopy. Inside the canopy there were hidden rails for drapes that where usually pulled back, but could be released to turn the bed into its own self contained room within the room. She had considered keeping this room for herself when she saw the bed, but the colors were more masculine, and the proximity of the bathroom to the other bedroom was more logical for her than William.

Aside from the bed and the bedside tables, there was a wardrobe and a dresser in his room. He had a writing desk rather than a dressing table and a pair of arm chairs rather than the armchair and settee in her room. Their bedrooms were towards the front of the house, though his was set back slightly due to the footprint of the house that had the foyer and salon set back into an L shaped lee of the house.

She made herself get into bed, moving to the middle of the bed, and propping herself up in a half sitting position by stacking the pillows. It made her feel like she was sinking into a nest. She hugged one of the pillows to her, propping her chin on the top of it, waiting for sleep to remove the burden of not thinking.



“Where did you disappear to?” William asked.

He was taller than William by at least four inches, and standing precariously on his toes, so he was that much taller. That was interesting. Feeling his height while chained to a chandelier, the object of interest and amusement for the older three vampires. His identification of William as the youngest of the family was never more acute.

He did not pretend that he didn't understand the question. He knew as soon as he rejoined William under the Charles that he was annoyed about being kept waiting.

“I was feeding,” he said.

With a slight curl to his upper lip, William removed his frock coat, tossing it to Drusilla, who caught it and dropped it on the dusty surface of the table. “Right,” he nodded to himself. “We are vampires. We do that, don't we?”

He eyed Lucius for a moment. The younger vampire was still fully dressed. Probably anxious to be otherwise. This part of the evening wasn't going badly for him. Yet. William rocked back on his heals, studying him. His attention was still mostly on Angelus, sitting behind him on his little throne with Darla at his side. William turned his head to look at her. She had a remote look on her face. It was similar to a look that Willow sometimes got under extreme stress, only on Darla it was full of creamy satisfaction.

His hand shot out, stabbing with nothing but his fingers through cloth and flesh and bone, separating ribs before Lucius lost his balance. He was saved from serious injury by the fact that he was hanging from his wrists, swinging freely with the force of the blow. William stepped back to allow him to get his feet back under him. He looked down at himself like he expected to see one of his separated ribs punching through his shirt front.

“Where were you?” he asked again.

There was a tiny glimmer of uncertainty in his eyes. “Behind the tavern, in the alley,” he said.

William grinned. “See how easy this is?” he mocked. “Eventually, I'll get around to asking what you were doing.” He looked at Dru, extending his hand to her.



She found herself in a familiar place. It started with her looking down a long hallway at a series of unrelated rooms. The first room was reached through a doorway. She paused there, looking down. It was a tricky threshold, the kind that was found in houses that had been added on to. There were two steps down into the room, flanked on either side by cabinets with deep drawers and fancy draw pulls that fit neatly into recessed wells in the face of each drawer. She had gone through the drawers before in her dreams. They were full of things that no one would look for or miss if she took them. Things wrapped in tissue paper that no one would use every day, like the crystal swan salt cellars with their tiny silver spoons that were lined up neatly in a box covered in burgundy velvet.

She had taken them out before to hold up in the light, and she had considered slipping one into her pocket to keep, with a stab of guilt at the larcenous thought, unease at her covetousness, and bewilderment at the attraction of a crystal swan made to hold salt. Even in her dream, these were not her things to look at and touch.

She walked through the room. It was empty, with sunlight slanting across the honey colored hardwood floor, dust motes swirling in the air, sparkling in the light. It reminded her of Nana Zalazny's house in Milwaukee. After she died, and the house had been emptied, there were rooms like this, full of dust and sleek wood floors, and her cousin Richard from St. Louis had taken off his shoes to slide across the floor in stocking feet. She had tried it too and slid into a glass fronted cabinet head first, cracking the glass, making Richard's mother, Cousin Carol, scream when she saw the blood sheeting down her face.

Her mother had pressed some wadded up Kleenex to the cut on her forehead, sitting on the stairs with her between her knees as her father took care of the business with the cousins from St. Louis. Her mother told her about visiting Nana Zalazny when she was a little girl and how she locked herself in the bathroom. After the bleeding had stopped, she took her up to the bathroom and showed her the glass door knob that she had been playing with when she locked the door, and Willow felt better about her accident.

The next room was dark. She knew what she would find here. There was a bank of Laundromat dryers against the wall to her right. No washing machine. She smiled a little at the odd omission. There was never a washing machine, just the three dryers, a refrigerator, a stove, and a workbench with tools on a pegboard against a wall. A broken toaster lay on its side.

The appliances had the clumsy charm of the 1950s. They were a little too big. Sweetly clutsy and almost cartoonish compared to her memory of sleek modern appliances. This was almost her favorite room. The details changed, except for the Laundromat dryers that were always there sans washing machine. Sometimes there was an enormous dishwasher, the kind that you would find in a restaurant where the workbench was. Sometimes there was a shower.

She had a feeling of relief to find the room waiting for her. She knew what came next.

It was the basement of Xander's house from their childhood. Not the hang-out, retreat of their teen years. It was full of boxes of discarded things. His mother's wedding dress hung inside a clear plastic bag from a hook buried in one of the exposed beams in the ceiling. There were plastic laundry baskets full of toys that they had outgrown, including her headless Barbie.

A mattress and box spring leaned against the wall. There was a large stain on it in the shape of South America, if you turned your head just right and squinted at it. There was, at the bottom, a gap between the wall and the box springs, just wide enough to squeeze into if you were playing hide and seek. Or building a fort. Or looking for a magic kingdom. She made herself slip through the space, even though it had to be too small for her now.

The door was still there. The narrow door hidden behind the mattress. She twisted the knob, turning sideways to slip through the narrow opening.

This part of her dream was not always the same, but there were places that she recognized that the door delivered her to. Never bad places or scary places, but places where she felt reasonably safe. She tried not to feel bad about not finding her old bedroom here, or the library in the high school, or the kitchen of the Summers' house. Sometimes she found herself in a room with a peaked ceiling and a glass wall with rain sheeting against it. Sometimes she found herself outside on the hill above the old elementary school looking down on the playground.

She was in the Charlotte Street house. That was a little different. She was standing beneath the false landing on the first floor. The staircase was behind her. The pocket doors to the front parlor were pulled almost closed. The door on the left had a tendency to stick. She could hear Mrs. Crump talking to the long haired marmalade cat she had rescued from the alley and named Napoleon. He was the companion cat to the snow white and stone deaf Wellington.

Mrs. Crump was the housekeeper. She was a distant cousin of William's, and her residence in the house was uninterrupted, even when it was rented. She was, like most of William's family, a bit odd. When they were in London, staying in the Charlotte Street house, Mrs. Crump always made sure that she had hot chocolate for breakfast and she looked at William like she was strongly tempted to box his ears if she found him in her room in the morning.

Rather than take offence, he seemed amused by this behavior.

She couldn't remember any time when she had this dream where there had been other people in it. She remembered the wandering from place to place, never stopping anywhere very long. Mrs. Crump was coming closer, and Willow felt a strong urge to . . . hide. She turned to the staircase, finding the small brass knob to the closet nestled under the stairs and opened it, stepping in and pulling the door shut behind her with a soft snick.

She waited in the dark, listening, and it came to her slowly, that she was no longer in the closet. She laid her hand on the surface in front of her and realized that it was cold. She took a step backwards, wondering where she was, and heard a sound—actually a series of sounds. Snick, whoosh, snap. After a short pause, it repeated. She turned towards the sound. Snick, whoosh—a flare of light out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she turned toward it.

Snick, whoosh—caught in the brief flare of light was a quick impression. White blond hair, sharp cheekbones, and blue eyes that could eat light. The snap of the Zippo shutting made her jump.

“Red? What the bloody hell are you doing here?”



Blood ran down his arm. Every time he lost his balance, the manacles punished him, digging into his wrists and the meaty part of his hand. His fingers were wrapped around the chain. The bruised muscles in his back where protesting the effort of holding himself up, but it was better than having his shoulder dislocated, and it gave Lucius something to concentrate on.

The prospect for this becoming an interesting evening had faded. William wasn't torturing him. Darla and Drusilla weren't tormenting him. Angelus hadn't moved from his chair. William was just beating him and he wasn't even trying hard or consistently. He seemed bored.

He told him everything, and Lucius was getting angry. William seemed to be more bored. You would have thought that you chained up a vampire to force them to endure something otherwise intolerable, not to have a punching bag. Lucius grunted as he landed a punch near his kidney.

“You aren't very good at this, are you?” Lucius observed.

William circled around. Actually, he was pretty bored. He was sure that he knew what was behind Lucius' petty rebellion. He thought that he was in on the big secret, and that that made him something more like a peer. Which, William was willing to concede, might actually be the case. It wasn't knowing something that he didn't necessarily want Darla or Angelus to know that gave Lucius power. It was what he did with that knowledge.

“You have something to share that is worth more effort?” William countered. He looked over at Dru, who smiled sweetly at him, and glided across the room to wrap her arms around his waist, her chin coming to rest on his shoulder.

“You've crawled around inside of his noggin, haven't you darling?” he crooned to her.

The hair on the back of Lucius' neck prickled. He remembered a bit of that experience, and it made him uneasy.

Dru reached out to lay her fingers on Lucius' cheek. The tips of her fingernails drew blood. She smeared it across her fingertips and licked it off, eyes narrowing.

Darla straightened at the smell of blood, nostrils flaring. He had fed, recently, on something. Not something human, but something. She looked at Angelus to see if he had picked up on it. His fingers were steepled, resting lightly against his lips.

“You are an idiot,” William told him. “You fed? Next time make sure what you are feeding on is human.”

Confused, Lucius stared at him. “It was the serving girl. You saw her.”

“Was it?” William sounded skeptical. “Dru? Think you can shatter his illusions?”



“Spike . . .”

In a way it made sense. William asking her to call him Spike, and he had started smoking cigarettes in the last two days, which reminded her of Spike, and they had talked about going to London, so the Charlotte Street house . . . she sighed.

“What are you doing here?” he asked again.

“Hiding from Mrs. Crump," she admitted.

He used the lighter to light a candle, and she looked around. She expected to find that they were in a crypt, but in the spare light from the candle she made out the cold, cavernous interior of the Crawford Street mansion with a sense of disbelief at the choice. She was in serious need of psychotherapy. This wasn't even remotely a safe place.

“Why here? Why you?” she asked. There was furniture here, and beyond that, the boarded up, broken space that led to the garden. She headed towards that. It was a kind of door, and in this dream, walking through a door was the thing that usually took her somewhere else. Anywhere else was fine by her.

She walked into the garden, and it stayed the garden. He followed her. “Mrs. Crump?” he repeated.

She looked at him over her shoulder. “I was at the house on Charlotte Street,” she told him. “Mrs. Crump? Your second cousin twice removed—or whatever. Widowed? Any of this ring a bell?”

“Right,” he said. “That Mrs. Crump,” he peered at her. “How the hell do you know about Charlotte Street or my dearly departed relatives?”

Massive amounts of psychotherapy. Dream Spike was not with the program. “Because I cast a spell that was supposed to find the curse and re-soul Angel before anything really terrible happened, but it went wonky and I ended up in the 1890s living with you. So, I know Mrs. Crump, and your crazy Aunt Lucy with—“

“The shrunken head?” he started laughing. “That's hilarious.”

She stared at him. This was too weird. “Um . . . yeah. Hilarious. Question? How is it that any of your family is alive? Isn't that the first thing you do? Kill your family?”

“If you are Angelus,” he sneered a little. “There was a bloody great lot of them, and what was to be done with Aunt Lucy's shrunken head? You know that is how she got it. She killed her husband. The damn thing talks. It's creepy. And, shouldn't you know this since we ‘live together'” he air quoted.

“I try to avoid discussing killing people with William,” she retorted.

She saw him mouth his own name with a grimace. “God. You're serious? I'm shacked up with you? I'm William, shacked up with you?” he sounded horrified. “What did you do? Give me a soul and then bollocks up any possibility of perfect happiness?”

“That's exactly it,” she said spitefully. “You have a soul, and you . . . made your family invest all of your money in an orphanage, and you read improving literature to the children every night. They call you Uncle William,” she improvised. “Oh, and did I mention? You write children's books.”

“Oh, yeah. No doubt now about the perfect happiness with you shrilling at me like a harpy,” he glowered at her, eyes narrowing. “What kind of children's books? The kinds with lots of nasty beasties eating bad children, eh?” He swaggered away from the wall. “Scary, nasty children's books,” he ducked his head to look her in the eyes. “No?”

She backed away from him. “N-no,” she stammered.

He looked amused. “Not just no, but no fucking way, pet. Aunt Lucy's shrunken head would have told them to stake me before giving up the money. Getting between a Morduant and money is a bad idea.”

“It doesn't talk,” Willow told him, returning to the topic of the talking head. This was more for her benefit than his. She had a feeling the shrunken head would be making an appearance in a dream soon, so it was best to head this off.

“Fat lot you know about it,” he snorted. “William didn't tell you about the shrunken head. Good for him.”

He walked over to her. “I guess that explains the big assed pentacle on the floor of the living room? So, now you are back? Is that how this works, Red? The Scoobies have been looking for you for a couple of days. I'm surprised the Slayer didn't bring the Poof back to help look for you.”

She stared at him for a moment, the hair on her arms lifting.

“This isn't real,” she reminded herself.

He grinned wolfishly. “Let's test that theory.”



Lucius was slumped on the floor with a dazed expression while Dru crawled over him, opening his skin with her sharp fingernails and lapping at the blood that welled up. From the description of the demon that Dru had managed to give before she went into a frenzy over the blood that she was lapping up, Lucius had had an encounter with some variety of fey, which was reclassified from point of concern to a minor curiosity.

Except to Dru, who might end up bleeding him dry before the night was out. Or maybe to Angelus, who looked almost envious. It had to be the Irish in him. Magical creatures had an almost childlike appeal for him. William shared a glance with Darla as Angelus left his chair to go over to where Dru was straddling Lucius. If it wasn't a threat or something useful, Darla wasn't interested, a sentiment William didn't always share, but he had better things to do tonight than watch Dru and Angelus play with Lucius.

He nodded towards the door while he had Darla's eye to let her know that he was retiring for the evening. She followed him while he wondered if she had misinterpreted the gesture.

“What really happened in the kitchen?” she asked when they were in the hall. “And don't lie to me this time.”

“Not lying,” he said. “We're sorting out what is amusing, and what isn't,” he insisted, his eyes drifting up the stairs. His chin lifted. “That notion of hers, of going to London? It will keep her busy for a while. We'll go in the fall. If you don't want to spend the winter in England, we'll join you. Before . . . Christmas,” he said.

Darla's eyebrows lifted. She wondered if he understood that he was acting like he had something that he did not want to share, and decided that it was more than possible that he did not. “Angelus and I will discuss it. Maybe we will spend the winter in England.”

He left her in the foyer and went up the stairs, pausing in front of his bedroom door. He crossed the hall to Willow's room to see that his instructions had been carried out. The bed and other furnishings were rearranged exactly as he had specified. He spotted the book Willow had been reading and imagined for a moment how annoyed she must have been to have found that she had forgotten it while stuck in his room. He picked the book up and left her room, shutting the door behind him.

Entering his room, he found that she was asleep. He wasn't as late as he anticipated, but he wasn't surprised to find that she was asleep either. He set the book on the bedside table where she had left a pitcher of water and a glass and started undressing, dropping his discarded clothing on one of the two armchairs near the fireplace. She was sleeping in the center of the bed curled up around a pillow.

As he was getting in bed, two things occurred to him. First, he wasn't particularly tired or sleepy. There wasn't any reason for him to be coming to bed unless he was planning to wake her up. The second thought was that he didn't want to wake her up. He might have changed his mind about that if she was wearing a nightgown, but when he slipped under the covers and found her naked, that was enough for him, just to lie there with her, listening to her heartbeat. It had nothing to do with what had happened in the kitchen, or having been deprived of her for two months.

He curled his arm behind his neck looking up at the carved wood above his head. There had been a bed in a place they had stayed in Nice that had a mirror inset in a similar bed. He had found making love under it fascinating, but she had hated it. She refused to look at it, and he thought it was because she couldn't stand what he was, but he had seen her flinch away from mirrors since then, and he knew it was more than that.

He shifted around to see her better. She had not bothered to wash her hair tonight and it still had a bit of a wave in it from the way it had been wound and twisted up in the back. One fat lock was nestled in against her throat. She was sleeping on her side, and beneath the blanket covering her, he explored the hold she had on the pillow. The arm on the bottom was bent at the elbow, her hand fisted in the pillow. The other arm was just laying across it. Her knees were pulled up, the bottom of the pillow resting on the top of her thighs.

Using his knee, he nudged her legs apart, enough to slip his knee in, smiling a little when her legs tightened on his, one foot flattening on his calve like she was hugging that too. He found the bottom of the pillow, two inches of eiderdown, warm from her body, squashed down against her. He pressed with his hand, pushing it between her thighs, barely able to discern the shape of her even as he moved his hand in a slow up and down movement. The leg trapped under his moved, just enough for her to push her foot into the back of his knee as she canted her hips forward with a small sound.

He scooted closer to her, easing one of the pillows under her head out from under her to rest his head on, taking the place of the arm he slid between her shoulder and neck. She tried to find a comfortable place for her head, moving until her cheek was resting on his upper arm before she settled down again. He curled his hand around the back of her head to finger comb her hair, baring her neck. His fingers massaged her through the pillow. He was rewarded with a sleepy sigh as she rubbed her cheek against his arm.

She used her foot to lever herself against the pressure between her legs. He was a little surprised that she hadn't woken up. His mind started supplying images of how he might wake her up. If he had been behind her, he would have rolled her over on her stomach, fucking her awake, slow and hard. Nothing sweeter than feeling her wake as he was filling her body with his cock. If she was on her back, he might have eased her legs apart and taken her warm, wet flesh into his mouth, working her clitoris with the flat of his tongue, savoring the warm, clean taste of her, waiting for her to open her eyes long after she had actually woken.

He was facing her, her body fitting around his like a puzzle piece as she unwittingly bared her neck to him, the scent, trapped by her hair, all the more rich and tempting. He hadn't fed in the last day, but it wasn't simple hunger that tantalized him as his eyes fastened on her neck. He didn't feed on her to simply satisfy his appetite. If he was truly hungry, he would have stopped and left her to hunt. It was so much more. His eyes lingered on the pale blue vein that was throbbing attractively under her skin. He could have started with the tips of her fingers, her toes, the back of her knee, any sweetly familiar mouthful of her would have given him momentary relief.

His fingers found her neck, stroking his thumb over her pulse, feeling it quicken for him. He felt her mouth open on his arm and he hung there for a moment, poised over her, wanting the sensation of her lips opening for him, on him. He kissed her shoulder, looking down into the shadowy vale of her breasts where the pillow she was hugging was pressed. He felt her jerk as she woke up, like someone or something had frightened her, in a convulsive, uncoordinated start from deep sleep to full awareness.

She stared at him blindly, and what he saw in her eyes was terror and rejection. She let go of the pillow to use her arms to push at his chest. He adjusted his hold on her, cradling her head, even as he felt her straining to get away from him, rubbing her back with his other hand as he made shushing noises.

“You were dreaming, love,” he soothed, kissing the top of her head. “It was just a dream.”

She heart was racing. Even as he was stroking her back he could feel it, and it was wonderful. The shudder and quake of her heartbeat, the slight tremble in her limbs. Nicer if it was from shagging, but still nice enough. He wrestled the pillow away from her, keeping it in contact with her skin by sliding it under her. He paused for a moment to admire the effect. She had twisted her upper body sideways and the pillow under her forced her back into a graceful arch. The warmth of her body had been trapped by the pillow, and into the cooler air against her bare skin she was giving off heat, her skin contracting with the change in temperature, pebbling with gooseflesh.

He wanted to lick every inch of her, taste the salt and sweetness of her skin. He cupped her cheek with one hand, trying to get her to focus on him. “It was just a dream,” he reminded her. “Look at me, Willow. You are awake now.”

She heard him. It wasn't a particularly reassuring notion. She was awake now. Oh God, she was awake. It had been a dream, nothing more than that. Exceptionally vivid. She closed her eyes. It was so close that she felt herself slipping back into the lingering impressions, half wanting to hang onto them, half hating herself for wanting to hang on to them. She saw Spike lunging towards her in a moment of perfect irony. The thought had occurred to her that she had made it home in time to be killed by the century older version of the vampire that she knew intimately, unencumbered by any of her memories of him.

But he didn't bite her. Suddenly they were in the kitchen, in a dizzying change of the background from the devastated garden that she barely remembered to the odd kitchen of her dreamscape. On the stove there was a large copper clad pot full of water, at a rolling boil, with swollen bags of blood bobbing in the water. She kept one eye on it, afraid that it would boil over. Spike was there . . . she winced at the memory. She was sitting on a counter that she couldn't remember ever seeing before with her legs wrapped around him, over his bare hips, under the cover of his ubiquitous leather coat as she felt him enter her.

“No, no, no,” William crooned to her. “Wake up, sweet. It's too soon to go back to sleep,” he said.

Because she might slip back into the dream of being almost home. If she ever got there, if she ever figured out a way to go home, Spike would be there.

She opened her eyes, and William tilted his head to one side. “Big scary, nasty dream, was it?” he asked.

She couldn't speak. She just nodded. He ducked his head, pressing his lips to her chest, over her heart. “Your heart is racing,” he observed, taking a deep breath, his tongue stealing out to taste the skin he was kissing. His hand moved up to rest under her breast, his thumb and index finger making a bracket for the underside of her breast as his head turned with the stroke of his tongue and soft lip biting kisses. She watched as he reached her nipple. His tongue curled around it. “You have the prettiest tits,” he said. “The prettiest, sweetest nipples,” his lips closed around her nipple, tugging as his tongue worked back and forth over the surface of her nipple.

They were all tangled up. His legs and hers. There was an ache in the small of her back from the pressure of her trapped lower body and the twisting extension of her upper body. It was almost enough to distract her from the tight feeling in her chest and the growing realization that she was wet.

She could feel the equally wet head of his cock brushing against her, and she was a little shocked at how much she wanted it. Wanted him inside her, now. She must have made a sound or moved in some way that suggested as much to him. He lifted his head, reluctantly surrendering her nipple and shifted his hips to rub against her more deliberately.

Then he lifted himself off of her, untangling their legs, holding hers apart as he looked down at her. “So beautiful,” he said with a hint of a smile in his voice. He was too far away from her, and she couldn't see him clearly in the dark. With her head still full of her dream, it was too easy to make him Spike as well as William.

“Don't leave me.” She was startled, maybe even more than he was by the raw sound of her voice.

He didn't even think about it. “What's this?” he teased. “I'd never leave you,” he said. It was a ridiculous idea. She was the one who was always leaving or trying to leave, not that he held it against her. Not really. It was more or less expected, and he thought he had almost given up getting angry with her over it.

Leaving one hand to lie flat, fingers splayed over her upper left thigh, William slid his arm under her right knee, turning his face to the side to kiss the crease of her knee, working his way backward to her foot. He kissed the inside of her ankle. Her feet were very ticklish, and she had on more than one occasion accidentally kicked him while he was playing with her feet. That was half the fun of it.

“Gently, love,” he cautioned, stroking the back of her leg, exposed to him, as much as he could while still supporting her leg. If he had been Angelus, this would have been all about testing her restraint, and if she had kicked the older vampire, that would have gone badly for her. William was willing to let it be anything that it could be. Less a test than an exploration, with distraction. He massaged the thigh laying open and neglected under his hand.

His tongue etched a cool, damp line, following the arch of her foot, feeling it contract sharply as her toes curled up. She made a sound, mostly protesting. More distraction was required, he concluded, using nothing more than the tip of his thumb to part the lips of her cunt, not quite reaching her clitoris with the caress as he sucked on the ball of her foot, his upper lip brushing the pad of her great toe.

“Will,” it was a moan and a plea.

“Ssssh,” he soothed. “Such pretty feet you have,” he murmured. “I love feeling them pushing into the back of my knees when I'm inside of you.”

She closed her eyes, in another searing flash, she imagined not his cool skin under the soles of her feet, but wear softened denim. She shook her head, rejecting the weird train of thought that her dream had fueled. Was she doomed to never think about sex with anyone normal again? Why dream about Spike, and not Oz? Why dream of being home again only to find Spike?

Taking no chance that she would kick him, William held her ankle before he took her great toe into the cool recesses of his mouth, feeling her react almost violently as her leg jerked. He laughed a little, curling his tongue into the crease under her toes where she was most ticklish.

She squirmed. “Will, please, no,” she begged.

The angle was slightly awkward, but he moved his hand from her thigh to her abdomen. The tip of one finger dipped into her navel while his thumb found her clitoris, stroking it in a slow, teasing back and forth motion. He let her toe slide out of his mouth, nibbling on the tip of it. “You are so wet,” he breathed. “Feel that?” His thumb rotated over her clit. “Feel how wet you are? All spread open for me, my sweet, sleepy, girl. Are you waking up, yet?” his tongue stroked the underside of her toes.

The sensation was suddenly connected to the feeling between her legs and her hips rose. His thumb left her clitoris, slipping inside of her, thicker than his fingers, but more shallow. He took her great toe back into his mouth and her head fell back, her foot unselfconsciously pushing against his head as her hips moved with his thumb, slowly fucking her.

“So beautiful, so perfect,” he crooned. “Touch your lips. I can't reach them, but God, I wish I could. I'd cover your lips with my hand, feel you moaning against them, while I covered your lips with this,” his fingers slid over her labia, dredging up the fluids that made her feel like she was melting. “I'd want so much to lick the taste of you off your lips.”

She lifted one hand to her lips, licking them before her fingertips touched them. “That's it,” he encouraged. “Get your fingers wet for me,” his thumb slid out of her, wet from her, to press against the tight sphincter of her asshole while two of his fingers slid inside of her and his mouth engulfed three toes, making her cry out at the confusing mix of sensations.

She was sucking on two of her fingers. “That's it, baby,” he encouraged. “Your nipples are so hard, aren't they? Touch them for me.”

Her hands moved to her breasts, cupping them, finding her nipples and using her fingers to pinch and tug on them as his fingers fucked her and his thumb pressed deeper, filling her ass while he laved her smallest toe. Overwhelmed by sensation, her back arched like a bowstring, the leg he was supporting trembling violently as she mewed in frustrated pleasure. One hand left her breast to find her abandoned clitoris, needing the contact to bring herself over the peak he had brought her to.

She half expected him to push her hand away, but he just made a soft sound, deep in his throat that she wanted to press the soul of her foot against and feel vibrating against her. She no longer needed to see him. He was no one to her but Will, and the relief of that recognition was so profound that it brought tears to her eyes as she came.

She was still feeling the aftershocks of her orgasm when his fingers slipped out of her and she felt the head of his cock butting against her. With an odd burst of tenderness, she realized that he wanted to be inside of her while she was still feeling the effects of her orgasm and she shifted to accommodate him, sighing as his cock filled her. His fingers, still wet from being inside of her, touched her lips and she shuddered as his mouth followed his fingers, his tongue licking her lips.

She wrapped her arms and legs around him, hearing him moan as the movement brought him deeper inside of her, or maybe it was just being held as they kissed that pleased him. With the dream banished, her head was full of the things he had hinted at under the bridge.

“Does it feel good?” he asked between kisses. “Is this what you need? Tell me you need me inside of you,” his voice held a teasing note that almost disguised the plea.

She let her hand rest on his cheek, panting a little from the kissing and the exertion. She hadn't quite caught her breath from her orgasm. “It feels good,” she assured him.

He turned his head to kiss her wrist, one arm under her hips to lift her higher against him. Each thrust and twist of his hips sent him into her deep, rubbing against her clit. “I love fucking you,” he said, resting on his elbows, his hands gathering up her hair. “I love the way you feel. So warm. I feel so much when I'm inside you. Can you feel it? Can you feel me fucking you with how good you feel to me? Can you feel it when I'm fucking you hard, so hard, can't get deep enough, can't make it hard enough, want you so much that I can't ever have enough of you?”

Coherency eluded her. Her mind just sort of went blank, and nothing could have escaped the tightness in her throat, except the sounds that punctuated the movement of their bodies. His hands delicately bracketed her jaw, holding her head back so he could get at her throat. His head twisted as he opened his mouth over her throat, not biting, just absorbing her sounds against his lips and tongue.

“I'll never leave you. I'll never give you up,” he said, driving into her harder and faster.

She felt him turning her head to expose the side of her neck, and panicked a little, bringing her hands up to push against his shoulders. It was no use. He didn't even seem to notice that what she was doing. So close to her ear, his change from the benign human form to vampire was a thing that could be heard. A shift in muscle and bone that sounded violent, even painful. She had never asked him if it was. Did it hurt to have your face change like that?

Her deepest fear was that someday she would be able to answer that question for herself. Dimly, she recognized that he was trying not to hurt her. She could feel the tension his shoulders. She could hear the rumbling, purring growl in his throat that was probably meant to be soothing. Tears spilled over her cheeks as his fangs broke her skin, and she heard him groan at the effort of not drawing on her, sparing her the pain of feeling veins contract. He was shaking with the effort of just letting her blood flow into his mouth, his lower body jerking in rough spasms as his orgasm reached him. The tight grip on her head never eased, which was probably to her benefit. She didn't think she could have held still, and the sharp fangs buried in her throat would have caused more damage if she had jerked away from him.

A sob escaped her when she felt his fangs retract. He was breathing hard into her neck, licking the bite mark, moaning a little, his cock still buried in her as he rocked against her. His hold on her head gentled, and he stroked her hair, making soft sounds against her throat. Without leaving her body, he sat up with her, arranging her so that she was straddling him, his hands moving up and down her back. When he was satisfied that she was no longer bleeding, his lips moved to her tear dampened face and he stilled.

What could he possibly say? That he hadn't meant to hurt her? That had been preordained. That she tasted like nothing on earth? That the experience of filling his mouth with her blood was an unholy communion? That even now he needed more of her. He needed to kiss away her tears and that he was aching to bury his tongue inside her and taste them all mixed together. The pressure of useless words, of ideas that were too alien even now for her to understand made his chest feel tight.

She tried to rest her head against his shoulder, not because she wanted to be held, but to avoid his eyes. He held her head in his hands, forcing her to look at him. Until the day she died in his arms, he was faced with this. The vast hurt and sorrow that was the only thing she could give him now. The notion that a vampire's bite was erotic was a load of crap. It bloody well hurt to have a mouthful of sharp teeth digging into your throat. It was nothing short of terrifying to be held by someone infinitely stronger who could easily, even accidentally end your life in a matter of seconds. For him it was nothing short of a religious experience, replete with fear and sex.

He gave her the only thing he had left, knowing that it fell far short. Knowing that it was the cruelest truth. “I love you,” he said.

Her eyelids squeezed shut. He could feel her chest heaving and let her have the peace of laying her head on his shoulder while he absorbed the throbbing beat of her heart and the feeling of her shaking with pent up emotion. He cradled her against his chest, rocking her like she was a child.

She didn't answer him, and he knew, deep down, she never would.