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Dark Pleasures
Part 5
by Tami
The Factory, Drusilla’s Room
Drusilla waved her hand over an intricately carved gold cross held out to her by Spike on a red velvet pillow.
“This is it then?” Spike inquired.
“It hums. I can hear it,” Drusilla replied.
Spike leaned closer with a smirk, “Once you’re well again, we’ll have a coronation down Main Street and invite everyone. We’ll drink for seven days and seven nights.”
Drusilla didn’t say anything. She kept silent about her nightly excursions to Angel’s apartment. Spike wasn’t easy to sneak around. She would wait until he went out on a hunt with a few of the minions he deemed suitable to accompany him. The remaining minions were so dense. It was easy to slip out.
“What about the Slayer?” Dalton, a minion, spoke up from behind them. They turned to glare at him as if he’d interrupted a private moment. “She almost blew the whole thing for us. She’s trouble.”
Spike glared at him. “You don’t say?” He stood up and put the cross and pillow aside. “Trouble!?” He spat, pacing the room. She’s the gnat in my ear! The gristle in my teeth! She’s the bloody thorn in my bloody side!” He yelled, kicking the table violently.
“Spike?” Drusilla watched him with concern. Sure, she’d seen him upset and mad before. She could sense the frustration coming from him in waves and he was clear across the room! She supposed she wasn’t making his job any easier, but she had plans of her own to see through if she was going to set everything right with her family again.
“We got to do something,” Spike said as he retraced his steps back to her. “We’ll never complete your cure with that bitch breathing down our necks.” He sighed heavily. “I need to bring in the big guns.” He nodded in agreement to himself. “They’ll take care of her once and for all.”
“Big guns?” Dalton stammered.
“The Order of Taraka,” Spike replied.
“The bounty hunters?!” Dalton gulped nervously.
Drusilla gracefully turned three of her tarot cards face up in her lap. One was of a Cyclops, the second was a centipede and the third was a panther.
“They are coming to my party,” she announced and looked up from her cards, “three of them.”
“Isn’t that overkill?” Dalton asked.
Spike looked down at the cards and reached out to wrap his fingers in the springy tendrils that escaped her hairstyle, tugging gently on them. “No, I think its just enough kill.”
**************************
Buffy was at the local ice skating rink, making the rounds alone. She performed a crouching maneuver to slow down, but failed and slid backwards against the side wall. As she started to get up a bounty hunter Drusilla saw in her cards reached down and lifted her up with an arm under her neck. He pulled back until she lay across the wall and started choking her. Buffy tried to pry his hands off her neck as she struggled to breath. All of a sudden, Angel raced across the ice in his demon face.
“Buffy!” he called out.
He leapt and tackled the bounty hunter, knocking him off of her. She fell from the wall onto the ice
and landed on her knees. Angel lifted the bounty hunter to his feet and punched him in the face. The demon hunter wasn’t fazed. He responded with a double-fisted punch to Angel’s stomach, sending him back into the wall. Angel sprang back into action and jabbed him in the face again, but the bounty hunter shrugged it off.
He punched Angel in the face and gut, causing him to stagger into the wall again. Then, he grabbed Angel by the throat and lifted him up. Buffy decided to jump into the fray, skating as fast as she could towards them. The bounty hunter turned to see her. She grabbed a net near the wall and swung up, kicking out with her foot and hit the guy in the throat with the blade of her skate. He let go of Angel and grabbed his own neck to stem the bleeding. He tried to breathe as he took a couple of steps forward before collapsing dead on the ice.
Buffy rubbed her sore knee as Angel crouched over the bounty hunter. He lifted the man’s hand to inspect the ring there.
“The Hellmouth Presents: Dead Guys on Ice,” Buffy quipped. “Not exactly the evening we were aiming for.”
Angel removed the ring and took a closer look at it. “You’re in danger. You know what the ring means?”
“I just killed a Super Bowl champ?” Buffy said, trying to ease the tension that settled over the room.
“I’m serious!” Angel sounded annoyed. “You should go home and wait until you hear from me.” He stood up, still in the face of his demon as Buffy skated over to him. “Are you okay?”
She put her gloved hand on his cheek and then noticed the cut above his eye. “What about you? That cut!”
Angel jerked away from her touch. “Forget about me. This is bad Buffy. We have to get you out of here.”
“What, you mean hide?” she scoffed.
“Let’s just get you someplace safe,” he insisted and made to turn away.
“No, your eye!” Buffy said, stopping him. She reached up to him, but he shook her off. “Hey! Don’t be a baby. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“It’s not that. I . . .” Angel started to explain.
“What?”
“You shouldn’t have to touch me when I’m like this.”
He closed his eyes as memories of Drusilla’s touch burned through him. A human shouldn’t want to touch something cold and dead. It was different for vampires, the ability to sense things like desire and arousal heightened the other senses like touch. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head to clear it.
“Oh,” she said, looking up at his demon features. She removed her glove and reached up to touch his brow and wound. “I didn’t even notice.”
She moved closer to kiss him. He responded, imagining last night with Drusilla. Her lips were soft and cool compared to Buffy. As the girl in his arms pulled him closer to deepen the kiss, Angel’s mind fed him images of Drusilla laid out underneath him, waiting for whatever pleasures he gave her. He pulled Buffy closer as he heard the ghostly echoes of Drusilla’s cries in his head.
On the other side of the rink, a Jamaican girl observed their kiss. She watched as the demon pulled the girl closer and the girl trying to get closer. After a few minutes, she retreated to the shadows and disappeared.
**************************
Sunnydale, Willy’s Bar
Willy was sweeping the bar floor, cleaning up after hours. Angel appeared as a shadow in the doorway.
“We’re closed!” Willy called out, “Can’t you read the sign?”
Angel stepped into the light, his cheekbones prominent in his shadowed face.
“Oh, uh . . . hey, Angel,” Willy stammered. “I didn’t recognize you in the dark there. What, uh . . . what can I do for you tonight?”
“I need some information,” Angel replied ominously as he stalked the bartender around the room.
“Yeah?” Willy said as he took a step back, keeping a wary eye on the vampire. “Man that’s too bad, ’cause . . . I’m stayin’ away from that whole scene. I’m livin’ right, Angel.”
He watched Angel advance on him with predatory grace. The dark vampire walked past the booths to the pinball machines and caressed his fingers over the silver edge.
Angel raised his hand and rubbed his fingers together, cringing at the dust. “Sure you are, Willy, and I’m taking up sunbathing.”
“Come on, man. Don’t be that way! I-I treat you vamps good! I-I-I-I don’t hassle you, you don’t hassle me,” Willy stuttered. “We all enjoy the patronage of this establishment. Everybody’s happy, right?”
“Who sent them?” Angel demanded.
“Who sent who?” Willy took another step back, gripping the broom handle until his knuckles turned white.
“The Order of Taraka,” Angel raised a brow.
“I-I . . . I tell ya, I haven’t been in the loop,” Willy said by way of excuse.
“Let’s try this again,” Angel pushed off the pinball machine and stalked towards Willy. “The Order of Taraka, they’re after the Slayer.”
“C’mon, man,” Willy whined.
“Was it Spike?” Angel growled.
“Look, Angel, I-I got some good pig’s blood in, good stuff, my fence said . . .” Willy tripped over his tongue talking so fast.
Before Willy could blink, Angel’s hands had a death grip on his neck and his face was pressed against the top of the bar. There was a vague sound of a half-empty pitcher of beer crashing to the floor.
“Damn it! Ah . . .” Willy moaned.
“You know, I’m a little rusty when it comes to killing humans,” Angel menaced. “It could take a while.”
“Spike will draw and quarter me, man!” Willy cried out.
“What do you think I’ll do to you if you don’t talk, hmm,” Angel said and then pondered the possibilities, “A person can do a lot of damage with a pair of pliers and a corkscrew. What do you think?”
“You know he ordered those guys! Spike’s sick of your girl getting in his way!” Willy said.
“Where can I find him?” Angel gritted out.
“If I tell you that, I’m going to need relocating expenses! It’ll cost you,” Willy choked.
Angel pressed him down on the bar harder. “It’ll cost who?”
“Okay! Okay! He and that freaky chick of his are . . .”
Willy’s confession was interrupted by someone kicking Angel in the face. The vampire fell back onto the floor, dazed and looked up to see a Jamaican girl. She grabbed Willy’s broom, broke the handle off and attacked Angel with the makeshift stake.
Angel rolled away from the girl and gained his footing. Willy took the opportunity to flee the bar. Angel ducked a swing from the girl. She tried a direct thrust, but Angel pushed it aside. She followed it up with a punch to the face with her other hand and used the momentum to spin around for a roundhouse kick, knocking him through the door into the back room. He crashed into several cases of beer.
Getting back to his feet, Angel’s features shifted to his demon. The girl immediately charged him with the stake above her head. He deflected her with his arms, forcing her to drop the stake and shoved her back into the lockers. He tried to knock her legs out from under her, but her footing was firm. She kicked him in the back, knocking him down instead.
Angel tried kicking her from his position on the floor, this time succeeding in knocking her feet out from under her. She grabbed his shirt, pulled him up and kicked him in the face.
Once they both scrambled to their feet, Angel swung at her and missed. He threw another punch, but she blocked it and punched him three times in the gut, followed by a right hook to his jaw. She shoved into the door of the storage cage. He bounced against it and she kicked him in the chest, causing him to stumble backward through the door and into a bunch of empty water bottles. Several cans fell onto him from a shelf above. She looked at him with cold eyes as he recovered from his fall.
“Who are you?” Angel asked, glaring up at her, “If you tell me what I need to know I won’t hurt you.” She laughed and took a step back. “You think this is funny?”
She swung the cage door closed and set the bolt. Angel scrambled to his feet and slammed himself against the door, trying to break it.
“I tink it is funny now,” the girl said in a thick Jamaican accent. “Dat girl. De one I saw you wit before?”
“You stay away from her,” Angel growled, thinking she meant Drusilla. Then, he remembered Buffy. Drusilla had him so turned around these days. His mind had been preoccupied with her even when he went about his normal routine. He still hadn’t figured out why she wanted anything to do with him even though he had a soul.
“I’m afraid you are not in a position to treaten,” she said smugly.
“When I get out of here I’ll do more than threaten,” Angel vowed.
“Den I suggest you move quickly,” she said with a glance at the windows on the eastern side of the room. “Eastern exposure. De sun will be comin’ in a few hours.” She padlocked the cage, “More dan enough time for me to find your girlfriend.”
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Sunnydale, the Factory
Dalton slammed the Du Lac manuscript closed and handed Spike his handwritten pages of translation. Spike glanced at it, read a bit and smiled.
“By George, I think he’s got it!” Spike exclaimed. He walked to Drusilla’s bed. “The key to your cure, ducks. This missing bloody link, it was . . .”
“Right, right in front of us . . . the whole time,” Drusilla said weakly. She took Spike’s hand and pulled it down to her tarot cards. The top card was an image of an angel.
**************************
Sunnydale, Willy’s Bar
Angel leaned against the back wall of the cage. He felt the dawn coming long before the ambient light crested over the window pane. It was now threatening to fry him as the sun climbed higher in the sky. There was absolutely no protection from the deadly UV rays here. He was as far away from the light as he could get and his safe zone was quickly growing thin.
He stared at the bartender when he came in. If he didn’t know better, Angel would have thought Willy seemed almost sorry for his predicament. He watched as the human opened the cage and walked in, using his body to block the direct sunlight from turning him into dust.
Willy dragged him out of the cage and into another storage room. He opened the hatch in the floor and dropped Angel down into the shallow waters of the sewer below. Angel grunted when he landed but otherwise didn’t move. Willy jumped down and grumbled about the sewer ruining his shoes. Then, Spike stepped out of the shadows.
“There you go, friend,” Willy said, gesturing to Angel who was still weak from the near combustion by sunrise.
Two of Spike’s minions grabbed Angel’s arms and start to drag him away, but Willy stopped them.
“Uh, hey, w-wait,” he said, “We had a deal, right?”
Spike pulled out a wad of cash and started shelling out the bills. “What’s the matter, Willy? Don’t you trust me?”
“Oh, yeah, like a brother,” Willy said sardonically.
That earned him a slap on the cheek from Spike who growled, “Talk and I’ll have your guts for garters.”
“Wild horses couldn’t drag it out of me,” Willy assured him.
Spike held up the last bill, crumpled it in his hand and dropped it in the water, “Oops, sorry, friend.”
Willy bent over to pick up the bill as the two minions grabbed Angel and dragged him off. Spike started to follow when Willy asked, “What are you going to do with him anyway?”
“I’m thinking maybe dinner and a movie. I don’t want to rush into anything. I’ve been hurt, you know?” With that, he followed his minions down the sewer leaving Willy to count his money.
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