Disclaimer: Characters of Druscilla, Angelus and Spike belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and 'Grr Arg', not me. No profit being made.
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You wear guilt
Like shackles on your feet
Like a halo in reverse...
And in your head it's worse
There's a pain
A famine in your heart
An aching to be free
-D.Gahan
* * *
I hunt. These streets crunch beneath my feet, and I can hear all the small things, running, scampering out of my path. The moon sings in the back of my head, as always; its private symphony, just for me. I let it guide me- a softer refrain of the sunlights shriek, like an echo, bittersweet. I've left my Spike behind. I must be the strong one now, I told him; as my Angel laughed, tugging me after him out the door. My Spike didn't understand though. His eyes burned with hot darkness on me- I could read his unspoken words in the air, and they were all red, white-laced and hurtful; as he turned away from me.
And so I hunt by myself this night. My daddy is with me, but further away; blacker, blacker, blackest in the sky, reflecting from the streets. My Angel. Both of them think me crazy, but my *knowing* is so strong that in my head the colours mix, and everything turns to white. Not all the time, though. Miss Edith will talk to me, tell me things; things about how it used to be. But clarity hurts, like now, when all the words and thoughts in my head are so clear. I can read them perfectly, branded burning knowledge. I want it to go away, want Miss Edith to come back- please? Come back and make it all fade to black, block out the hurtful light.
I've left Miss Edith behind, left her cold eyes to watch over my Spike, so I have no choice but to listen to the voices. I try ignoring them, concentrating on my hunger. My tummy is all grumbly, and I can hear a new note in the night-song. I see them now, up ahead of me, my lights are strong enough to pick them out through the dark. Theirs are only human eyes though- they cannot see me yet. I'll give them a lovely suprise.
They've come out of a house to my left, nestled in the night. The woman has metal in her hand, and they head for their machine, illuminated by the single streetlamp. I dismiss the older one, she holds no interest for me. The little one though, the girl... she is exquisite. The words in my head blare louder for an instant, filling my skull with white noise. I shake it away, smiling, perhaps she will be my new playmate; just as that little boy was last night, and the puppy the night before that.
I watch them for a moment more, recognising the sharp, almost fearful gaze of the old one, as she moves to open the car door for the girl. Then, I change, becoming the other that lives within me, and it colours my mind with blood and fire; as I sweep towards the woman; so swiftly that there is only room for a split-second of horrified wonder in her eyes before I rip into her flesh. And now I am her, as every one of the thousand thoughts she had in her life flutter through me, wonder and agony and...
With a growl I drop her, crimson staining my pretty dress; her own blood staining her pretty hair, sightless eyes rolled upwards. I know I delivered her to something. Peace perhaps? As that single part of me that remembers holiness justifies itself in that truth, the other part, the one that excells at pain and death and darkness; with the simple cruelty of a child dismisses it; knowing I enjoy their screams. My Angel taught me well, it tells me; I will never be weak again. The other part, the secret part, knows I am already weak. I must always strive for absolute light, or absolute dark- I turned from my Spike, he loved me too much, and I will always go towards hate. Even when my black Angel holds me, that traitor part speaks, telling me I go to him as penance for my crimes, for guilt I do not feel.
I laugh at that notion, 'Pater Nosters' and 'Hail Mary's' flitting briefly though me, half remembered. The little one is huddled back, shaking and frozen, against the car. I smile at her, crouching down, running my fingers through her silky hair, her soft skin. Like a doll. Her eyes are huge, dark holes in the porcelain of her face. I read the poetry in the lines of her cheekbones, round and childish, with a rosebud mouth. She reminds me of another girls face, from where, I do not recall. All that dark hair and eyes, the pale skin, eyes full of pleading hope and horror. (Was it me that looked down on that girl like this? Or was I seeing myself reflected in an Angels dark eyes?)
"What's your name?"
I chant it, singing to her, feeling her lose herself in the black-light of my gaze. Still she resists though, doesn't answer. Shaking stilled, she simply watches me, so unnervingly calm that I wonder if she truly realises what is happening, or if this is another vision, sent by Miss Edith to remind me of the things lurking in the dark of my memory.
"Mamma?"
Whether it is recognition, or more likely, a question; I couldn't tell. But something in her words tells me a secret, a secret of another time, and her features waver and change as I am taken back...
* * *
Europe, 1942
"Mamma?"
That was what had started it. I remember now, almost. Her chiming voice from within the naked bony housing of what was left of her body. I glory in my evil, acknowledge it, as only one who spent most of their life trying to be truly good, can. Those liquid dark eyes look into mine. I shouldn't see anything there, the child is sick, dying, weak and feverish. I crouch down next to her, where she was propped, leaning against the wall, freezing concrete against her skeletal fragility, peppered with frostbite. Time slowed then, seemed to stop; I could hear my Spike still, feeding somewhere. No screams. No one here has the strength.
"Mamma?"
Perhaps she truly believes it. But behind her gaze, I believe I see true recognition, a longing: she calls for the one who had given her life; and asks me to deliver her into death. Mother. So much of my old life is gone now, I remember little, abstract concepts of my Angels deeds. But as I looked at her I knew. For that moment I was alive again, desiring to show her mercy, the pinpoint of light in my dark thoughts, a palpable, burning thing.
"I'm here." I sing to her softly, gathering her in my arms. I don't even drink from her, but kiss her goodnight, her neck breaking under my hand as if the bones were hollow and fragile as a birds.
And then it is too late, that sliver, a thread of my humanity, of sanity, has been awoken on the edges of my mind. Always now, it would never be simple again. Always that small part would scream at me, even as I did what I had aways done.
My Spike never knew why I insisted on feeding on the young ones, on decimating the orphanages, schools, convents, the camps... he admired my wickedness, and so did I. Even as I also search, still looking for the part of myself I'd glimpsed in the girls eyes. Looking for it, to kill it, destroy it utterly.
And so, we are the angels of death, my Spike and I. This is a land saturated with the dying. Most do not even realise it yet- the young men in the trenches, desperate people crammed like cattle into trains, heading towards oblivion. We are evil personified, yes. We pride ourselves on that fact, as we drift through these lands like a plague. Things are grey now, though. We kill indiscriminately, to continue our existence. All fall before us, young, old, gypsy, jew, gentile- does this make us more, or less monstrous than mortals?
Spike has no appreciation of poetry, of the beauty of death. Not like I do. I am an angel now, just as mamma wanted, all those years ago. I give the little ones surcease from pain, deliver them into the dark, away from the bright, loud, desperate hurt of their lives. I give them dignity and quiet, even as I rip out their throats.
Every time, I hold them in my arms, feel their small rapid heartbeats falter, see their essences depart; always I hear her in my head. *mamma?* the hesitant, silvery voice. I made them all my children, killed instead of birthed them, trying to obliterate the voice, that single moment of mercy.
*mamma?*
Because if I make her stop, I am somehow free from the memory of what I used to be.
* * *
I blink, those old songs fading away. The childs visage blurs before me once more, and I see the differences, this one is well-fed, her hair lush, dark and curling. I stroke her head idly, reassuring myself. Music screams through the night at me, thin and high, wiry. I know their voices now. All the little ones I claimed, all of them gazing out the moon, singing to me. Such a lot of death... .
Miss Edith is too far away from me. I need to feed, I need to descend back into the absolute madness, the comfortable nothing space my Angel takes me to. The girl is still staring at me, lights in her eyes strange and strong. Abruptly I draw my hand away from her, stepping back. She is still, a statue, so delicately wrought. I say nothing, just step back again, her mothers blood a coppery tang in my throat. She takes a shaking step away from the car, brave girl, then starts to run down the street.
I close my eyes for a second, watching her go. The street's telling me a story of another girl, so long ago, running from her demons. Her beautiful demon, who had caught her in the end. The light from the streetlamp buzzes, the girls words echoing around my head more urgently. Then the darkness spoke too...
"Angel... "
There he is in front of me, struggling girlchild suspended in one hand. He grins crookedly, mind colored purple-black, words like bruises:
"Looks like you missed one, Dru."
I watch as he bites into her neck, draining her dry. It takes barely a second, and he tosses her away, a dried husk. Looking up, he smiles again, crimson dripping down his chin. All his words, every action shining with darkness, with a rainbow of all the colours of hurt. He extends a hand to me, and I take it, smiling helplessly. I will never be strong enough, and I will never be free. My Angel owns me, in every way, and he will always be the death of me. After all, I love him, with bruising intensity. With the intensity of every bruise, every cut and every wound he has ever visited on me, in life and in death. I smile happily and let the songs consume me, warm drowning blanket of madness washing over me once more, and leave that other part of me dying on the street corner.
Still, a single bloodtear runs down my cheek.
* * *
My love is a fever, longing still
for that which longer nurseth the disease,
feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
the uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
hath left me, and I desperate now approve
desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
and frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
my thoughts and my discourse as madmen´s are,
at random from the truth vainly express´d;
for I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
-W. Shakespeare
finis
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