If I should die before I wake - Novel version: Shadows
by Gaius Petronius
"If I should die before I wake" - Part 9/?
by Gaius Petronius

DISCLAIMER:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all the characters that appear on the show are the exclusive property of Joss Whedon, the WB, Fox and Mutant Enemy, Inc. I only borrow them, mess with their heads, make them cry and, every once in a while, torture them. I do lay claim to the character of Johannes Martel since he is the central character in an original novel I've been working on now for too many years.

Spoilers: BtVS season two. Originally written in script format during the spring of 1998, "If I should die before I wake" is the sequel to my first Buffy novel, "Carpe Diem."

Rating: PG-13 for violence, language and some naughty thoughts by Spike.

A note on the text:
The original script version of "If I should die before I wake" was written mid season two before the backgrounds of Drusilla, Spike and Angelus were fully developed on the show. Drusilla, in particular, rather than a mad woman I made the infinitely evil Crown Princess of the Holy Roman Empire. She's still the Dru we all know and love in this story, just a little nastier with some attitude.

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"But in the grey of the morning,
My mind becomes confused
Between the dead and the sleeping
And the road that I must choose."

The Moody Blues, "Question," 1970

* * * * * * * *

"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take."

Anonymous child's prayer

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Chapter 9 - Shadows

The two white coated orderlies slammed full force against the brightly lit hallway wall in the Sunnydale Municipal Hospital. Without resistance, both slid to the floor. Drusilla grinned as she waved her fingers at one of the now motionless bodies. The neck twisted sharply in a fashion it was never intended. That movement was accompanied by a muffled liquid crack. Spike marveled at how Drusilla never once laid a physical hand on them.

Spike in his wheelchair, followed by Drusilla, Angelus and a half dozen vampires rolled up to the locked room where the refrigerated blood supplies were stored. His face morphed as he relished the thought of what lay just beyond the metal barrier. Several nurses ran screaming around the bend in the corridor.

Drusilla casually approached the locked door to the blood bank. She glared at the door handle for a moment, then clenched her fist as if she were grasping it with her mind. Slowly she turned her fingers. At the same time, the handle began to bend accompanied by the sound of wrenching metal. In an instant, the interior locking mechanism crumbled and the door handle fell apart as the door swung wide open. Drusilla and the other vampires marched into the room.

"Impressive, Luv," Spike said softly in admiration.

"Wow! Drinks on the house!" Angelus shouted with excitement as he swept several bags of the red liquid up in his arms." He stopped and scowled. "Crap! It's all cold! That's the one thing I can't stand in this country. They drink it cold! Yech!"

"Dru, darling, let's not lose sight of our original plan," Spike reminded Drusilla as he wheeled up by her side, "There is a Hellmouth waiting. And after that, well, we won't have to waste time with any of this flat bottled stuff again."

"Of course, Spike," she replied as if she were descending into one of her dream states. As she did she turned to the group of vampires who were fondling bags of blood along with Angelus.

"Fetch me the Watcher and one of his companions for the sacrifice!" she proclaimed. Spike immediately recognized the Power of Command in her voice. "Bring them to the Master's Chamber. Angelus, would you be so kind as to escort my loving fiance to the Hellmouth!"

"Angelus . . . remember . . . no breakage!" Spike quickly interjected.

"I have my white gloves on!" Angelus grinned as he raised his hands in mock innocence. He and the other vampires moved quickly back out into the hallway. The Power of the Command suppressed any complaint Angelus may have had at being designated the errand boy again. In a moment more, Drusilla and Spike were left alone in the blood bank.

This was how Spike liked it. He was alone with his Dru. And she was doubly hot now because she wielded the incredible powers of the miserable Martel telekinetic. Spike could feel himself getting turned on as he stared at the curves of her body beside him and imagined the telekinetic force pulsing through her flesh. Wheelchair be damned, he'd have her on the floor in a second.

"Just imagine," Drusilla spoke with a strange clarity Spike had never heard from her, "By tomorrow, we will walk in the blood of the world. And my fiance, Johannes, and I will be Emperor and Empress of all the Dead."

"Perhaps," Spike answered hesitantly as a realization suddenly struck him like the force of a stake driven straight to his heart. What if the telekinetic powers she was drawing from Johannes Martel were changing her, clearing her thoughts? He quickly studied her face, searching for any faint hints of sanity. What he saw glaring back chilled him. It was Drusilla but not the deranged, erratic, randomly evil vampire who had sired him to bring home to her "Daddy." The copper eyes that stared back at him from beyond the morphed face were sharp like topaz crystals, unmoving, infinitely evil and cold as the deepest waters from the ocean that crashed against the rocks of the Hebrides.

"You're always so negative, Spike," Drusilla answered, her voice laced with a razor logic that Spike found far more disturbing and exciting than any of the old Dru's flights of wicked fancy. "You question even when it's all handed to you."

"That's what I'm worried about. It's too easy," he replied nervously as he rolled his wheelchair away from her now towering figure.

"I'm offering you the world . . ." she said, her voice rediscovering the ancient authority from her days as Crown Princess of the Holy Roman Empire.

"Dru, darling, it's the small things," Spike began with caution as he sized up the nature of this totally new creature that loomed beside him, "That which we do not see, even you. . . . they are the downfall of empires."

The heavy distorted brows on Drusilla's morphed forehead rose in a question.

"For lack of the nail, the shoe was lost," Spike recited from memory casting his fears to the wind.
"For lack of the shoe, the horse was lost.
For lack of the horse, the cannon was lost.
For lack of the . . . ."

"I hate poetry, Spike," Drusilla interrupted with a casual but deadly criticism. "Sometimes you sound too much like the wizard."

"We would do well to beware the wizard's powers," he answered just as seriously, now realizing he was speaking with an equal. "And remember from Whom it is bestowed that we fear the greatest."

Drusilla stared at Spike, her glowing yellow eyes devoid of feeling. The frivolous lunacy of the Drusilla he had known for over a hundred years was nowhere to be seen. Spike glared back, drinking in the intoxicating evil pouring out from the creature beside him. Drusilla turned away, her golden eyes seeming to pierce the walls and reach to the Beyond into unknown vistas of time and space. Spike knew she was searching the realms of Chaos, using the telekinetic power to seek out the random paths of future events.

"Gads! She's hot!" he thought. "Right now! On the floor!"

* * * * *

Jonathan Martel sat staring blankly ahead at the long conference room table between the two burning candles. A thin shaft of light from stars in the night sky passed through a small window near the ceiling and fell in a corner of the room. The stillness almost seemed peaceful until Angelus burst into the room with the other vampires.

"Each of you get one of the candles," he ordered, "Don't let them go out. I'll handle Mr. Wizard, here."

Angelus roughly boosted Jonathan out of his seat and to his feet, then stepped away from the young telekinetic. Jonathan stood unswaying but was still unresponsive.

"Hang on a second," Angelus said to the lackey vampires as he examined the unseeing, unfeeling body standing before him. "Put the candles down and step outside. I got something private to discuss with Wiz."

The vampires set the candles back on the table and left. Angelus walked around eying Jonathan up and down. The vampire suddenly stopped and glared at the figure before him.

"Funny," Angelus said sarcastically as he rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger, "You don't look anything like me."

He started to turn away from Jonathan, but then unexpectedly spun on his heals and landed a punch right to Jonathan's face. Although he swayed with the blow, the body of the young telekinetic didn't fall or show any indication that he felt the blow. Angelus glared closely at the spot on Jonathan's face where a purple welt was already rising.

"Hhmm . . . no difference," the vampire said out loud, "You still don't look like me . . . I can't figure out what Buffy sees in you. I mean, look at you, you're like a dummy. While with me, well, I'm dashing, handsome, older than you. I know she digs older men."

Jonathan, the bruise on his eye now growing into a bulge, stared blankly ahead.

"Maybe it's all those fireworks you know how to use," Angelus continued as he stalked around Jonathan as if he were prey. "That was quite a show you put on for her with the Ancient One. But anybody can learn that stuff. Look at Dru, now. And she's a real nimwit."

The candles on the table cast wavering shadows of Angelus and Jonathan against the wall of the conference room.

"I'll admit you had me running scared there two centuries ago. You were a butt buster back then. But times have changed, Wiz boy. I've two hundred years experience on you, and I got it all planned out. When we get this Hellmouth thing squared away . . . I'm gonna harvest you . . . and the Slayer!"

Ever so slowly, Angelus' shadow grew taller as the candle nearest him burned lower. The candle directly beside Jonathan was slightly taller as it burned more slowly. The effect cast his shadow on the wall as if he were stooping down under the weight of what he now heard from Angelus.

"She'll be all mine of course," the vampire grinned evilly as he studied his fingernails, "And you'll be veggie man like you are now. Can you imagine it, . . . the Hellmouth open, and me controlling you . . . and Buffy! And I couldn't do it without you . . . I really don't know how to thank you . . . Maybe LIKE THIS!"

Angelus punched Jonathan in the stomach, then kicked his feet out from underneath him. Jonathan fell unresisting to the floor. Angelus kicked him again and again. He finally stopped, bored that the body of Jonathan Martel wasn't fighting back.

"Say, 'You're welcome.'" Angelus grimaced. There was no response. Jonathan lay still on the floor.

"You're no damn fun!" Angelus snarled as he stormed over to the door and yelled out in the hallway to the waiting vampires.

"All right you turkeys, let's get this show on the road!"

The lackey vampires scurried into the room, two of them retrieving the candles. Angelus bent down and yanked Jonathan to his feet.

"Come on! Get up Sleeping Beauty! You got a date! . . . in the Master's Chamber! And you better not keep her waiting!"

The vampires swept out of the conference room into the hallway followed by Jonathan who staggered as he was pushed by Angelus. The basement room was now totally dark except for the faint shaft of light through the window from the stars outside.

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