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Coming Full
Circle
Chapter 10
by Tami
The girl was forced to stop when she reached the end of the alley and discovered that it was a cul-de-sac. There was chain link fence blocking her way. She looked over her shoulder and saw three shadows running towards her. She started climbing the fence, wincing in pain from the throbbing wound in her leg. But, anything was better than being vampire food. She struggled to climb the fence, despite her present setback. She was nearly to the top when Angel grabbed the back of her jacket and her jeans and yanked her off the fence.
The girl came off the fence, waving her arms and kicking wildly. She was able to kick Angel in the shins, but her five-foot frame was small and so lightweight that her feet didn’t bother him. Instead, he threw her over his hip into a pile of wooden crates where she landed and broke them, ending up in a precarious reclining position.
She struggled to get loose from the pile when Angel and Spike cornered her between them. They both advanced on either side of her. She held out a wooden cross in a shaky hand to ward them off while still struggling to get free. Spike knocked it out of her hand. Seeley could smell his singed flesh from a few feet away. Angel, being closer, reached under her thigh and dug his fingers into the bullet wound until she cried out in pain.
“Now that we have your attention, where is Drusilla?” Angel said in a deadly calm voice.
The girl cursed at Angel in Romany that Spike never understood. Just because he killed the Gypsies in the camp nearly two centuries before, didn’t mean he spoke the language. Seeley was equally lost.
“What did she say?” Spike asked.
“She said, ‘you are the devil! May my tongue be ripped out if I speak to you’ and ‘you and yours shall die’,” Angel translated and shrugged dismissively. “I’ve been called worse.”
“You’re in America, sweetheart. If you want to remain in this country, speak English or get deported,” Seeley threatened.
She glared at all three of them and asked in a heavy accent, “Which one of you fools shot me?”
“Oh, you can speak English, bloody lovely,” Spike said, rolling his eyes heavenward.
“That would be me,” Seeley said. “And, unless you tell us – in English – where Dru is, I’ll most likely shoot you in the other thigh.”
“Now, let’s try this again, shall we?” Angel said as he dug his fingers harder into the wound. “You will tell me where Drusilla is now, or I will leave you to die in agony.”
“I don’t know any Drusilla,” the girl said contemptuously.
Angel hit her in the face and punched his fingers into the wound. He was mildly appeased when he heard her tortured scream. “Again, where is Drusilla?”
“I told you --” the girl started to say.
Spike grabbed the girl by the hair and pulled back until she looked up at him. Her face was etched in pain. “I don’t think you understand, being that you aren’t from around here. Drusilla: she’s yay tall,” Spike indicated her height. “Long dark hair, lovely white skin, occasionally has a set of fangs and a penchant for dining on the very young. Have you seen her?”
When she didn’t reply right away, Angel growled, “Answer him or I’ll break both legs.”
Seeley was about to intervene and tell the vampires that she didn’t know anything. He was going to suggest that they lay off her for a while when she cried out an incoherent answer.
“What was that?” Seeley asked moving closer.
“I said yes, beng!” she gasped in pain.
“What’s that mean?” Seeley asked confused.
“Beng, it means devil,” Angel replied and then returned to gaining the answers he needed. “Yes, you’ve seen her? You know where she is?”
“Yes! Yes! I know where she is! Or was, for all I know she could be dead right now,” the girl said and then cried out when Angel jabbed her in the wound again.
“For your sake, she better not be dead,” the dark vampire growled. He pulled her up out of the crate. “Come on, you’re going to show us where she is.”
“The hell I will, you filthy beast. I shall cut out your heart and feed it to the buzzards,” the girl threatened.
When she gained her footing, she squirmed away from Angel, grabbed a stake from under her jacket and rushed to attack him. Angel deflected the blow from the stake and snatched the wrist. He twisted her arm behind her back and squeezed her wrist until she dropped the weapon. She tried to knock her head back into his face, but Angel moved a split second before she connected and she nearly got whiplash in the process.
With her hands bound behind her back, she used her feet to launch herself off the crate and push him back and tried to knock him backwards. Spike moved in front of her and punched her in the face repeatedly. She tried to use momentum to gain leverage on the fight, kicking out at Spike like a wildcat. One of her kicks connected with Spike’s chest and he flew back into the pile of broken crates.
Seeley thought he was going to be smart about it, and waited for her to wear herself out with all the squirming before he stepped up and gave her one hard punch in the jaw, knocking her out for the moment. Angel looked over the girl’s shoulder at her face and then back at Seeley.
“What did you do that for?” Angel asked.
“She was being uncooperative,” Seeley said casually as he shook the pain out of his hand.
“I know that! But, I needed her awake to show us where Dru was,” Angel said, irritated at the turn of events.
“Well, we’ll just go back where we started, the factory,” Seeley said.
Angel grunted an acknowledgment as he hauled the girl over his shoulder. Seeley helped Spike to his feet. The blonde vampire staggered a bit as he shook his head to clear it. They walked back to the factory and the converted boiler room. The untouched screens still showed Drusilla completely out of it. She talked to herself and shifted restlessly in her restraints. Angel tossed his burden into a chair and tied her to it with rope that he found in the room’s closet.
Spike had disappeared somewhere and came back lugging a bucket of cold water. Angel and Seeley watched him with curiosity as he carried the bucket across the room and pitched its contents at the girl. She woke up on a gasp from the shock of the cold water.
“Damn, Spike, couldn’t you be a little more subtle?” Seeley asked as he watched the girl sputter.
“Bloody bitch nearly killed me when she kicked me into that pile of broken crates. Pointy wood is a hazard to my health,” Spike said.
“What’s your name?” Angel asked the girl.
“Like I’d tell you, filthy demon,” the girl sneered.
Spike punched her in the mouth. “Answer him, slayer.”
“Magda,” the girl spat out the blood from her split lip.
“Bloody hell,” Spike cursed.
“What?” Angel asked as he watched recognition play across his childe’s face.
“The bloody bint is one of Buffy’s activated slayers,” Spike said.
“We knew that. Why are you so worried about it?” Angel asked.
“She’s a Gypsy that Dracula was attached to. I should have recognized her right off. She’s intelligent, but unstable. Not only did Red’s spell activate her as a Slayer, but she inherited magic abilities from her ancestors in a Romany clan,” Spike explained.
“I don’t know what that means,” Booth said, confused as hell.
“My soul was a curse from the Romany clan of Kalderash back in 1898. Magda here is possibly an ancestor. Spike’s had run-ins with Dracula before and Dracula marked her, attaching himself to her like I did with you. The Slayer line had one Slayer in every generation, when one died another one was called,” Angel explained.
“Until a couple of years ago when Willow did some wicked mojo and turned all of the potential slayers into activated slayers. Now there are thousands, including her,” Spike finished.
“Dracula’s real?” Seeley asked. As far as he knew Dracula was a myth, perpetuated by the way Vlad the Impaler killed his detractors.
“Yeah, mate, but he’s not as old as you think,” Spike replied.
“And she’s an activated slayer as well as witch?” Seeley said, gesturing towards Magda.
“Yeah, mate,” Spike confirmed.
“Why haven’t you used magic on us yet?” Angel asked her.
“I do not need magic for something I can easily kill with a stake,” Magda said.
“Fair enough, I can’t worry about that right now anyway. You’re going to tell me where Drusilla is or I’ll create my own bit of magic and make you disappear,” Angel said angrily.
Magda looked at Angel defiantly and snapped, “She’s in a room down the hall.”
Spike and Seeley raced out of the room. They opened every door on either side of the hall until there was only one left. Spike and Seeley barged into it with their shoulders until the door gave way. What they found on the other side sickened them.
The dark, ten-by-twelve room smelled musty. There were old sewing machines and boxes around the room. Every surface was covered in dust and grime. In the far corner was a twin-size bed. There were cameras in the four corners of the room pointed at one central area. As Seeley and Spike got closer, they saw that the bed was stripped down to the baseboard. In the center lay Drusilla. She was shackled to the bed. Her dress – which was white at some point – was ripped and graying now.
Spike swallowed the bile in his throat and went over to bed. He clenched his teeth and broke the manacles off her wrists and ankles. He could only stare down at her in horror. She was so thin, more so than she was after Prague. Her flesh was nearly translucent against her bones. The veins under the chapped skin were nearly deep blue and were visible to even Seeley’s eyes. Booth stepped up next to Spike and put his hand on the vampire’s shoulder.
“Go see if you can find a blanket,” Seeley whispered.
Spike swallowed hard, refusing to take his eyes off his sister’s still form. “No.”
“We have to cover her with something, she can’t go out there in a torn dress,” Seeley said.
Spike shrugged out of his duster and carefully laid it over her body. He kissed her forehead and brushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead before straightening to his full height.
“Go tell Angel we found her,” Seeley said. When Spike didn’t move, he pushed the vampire towards the door. “I’ll take care of her, Spike. Just tell Angel we found her.”
Spike nodded and reluctantly left the room. Seeley tried to keep from retching when he turned back to the sick vampiress. When he worked his arms under her body, he nearly dropped her. He didn’t expect her to be so light. She may as well have been a bird as heavy as she was. He looked down at her just as her eyes opened to mere slits.
“Daddy, you came,” Drusilla croaked, her voice raw from disuse.
“Yes, sweetheart, I’m taking you out of here,” Seeley said. He didn’t feel the need to correct her assumption that he was Angel.
Her body fell limp as he carried her out of the room.
**************************
After leaving Seeley, Spike ran down the hall and skidded to stop at the room where Angel was – for lack of a better term – guarding the slayer. He purposefully walked into the room and punched the girl in the face again.
“I saw that you found her from watching the screens,” Angel said.
“We found her near . . . it’s bad, Angel. She looks worse than she was after Prague. Prague only left her weak. This . . . what that slayer-bitch did to her,” Spike said.
“I didn’t do anything to her,” Magda snapped.
Spike punched her in the face again. “No one was talking to you. I’ve killed two slayers in my time and you’re going to be my third, bitch.”
Angel was silent, digesting what Spike told him. Then, he walked out of the room. Spike glared at the slayer then followed his Sire. Angel had stopped outside the room and watched Seeley carry his other childe down the hall. She looked so small and frail in the agent’s arms, covered by Spike’s duster. Her body dangled as Seeley walked carefully with her.
When he was close enough, Angel stepped up and looked her over. He felt sick at the sight of her. His fingertips caressed her face and over her brow. She was paler than she should be, almost gray. He’d been where she was at one time. Only he was trapped at the bottom of the ocean for three months. His baby girl was kidnapped and deprived of blood for nearly five months. A blood tear fell down his cheek as he looked reverently at his damaged childe.
“Take her out to the car,” Angel instructed, his voice strained. “Spike, go with him. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Angel moved to the side and let them pass. He stood there in the hall until he heard them leave the building. Then, he went back into the room and looked at the slayer, his eyes hard and uncompromising. Without warning, he punched his fist down on her wounded leg. The bullet may not have gone through the top of her thigh, but it didn’t stop her from letting out a blood-curdling scream at the pain that radiated from beneath it.
Angel untied the slayer from the chair and threw her over his shoulder again. She beat on his back, scratching him with her nails as he carried her out of the building. When he got outside, Seeley was leaned against the car and Spike was in the backseat with Drusilla’s head in his lap. He was worrying over her, whispering incoherent babble to her.
“Pop the trunk,” Angel said as he carried the protesting girl to the car.
Seeley leaned over the driver’s side door and pressed the button under the dashboard to open the trunk. Angel put the girl down on the lip of the trunk and grabbed her small wrists in one big hand. Then, he reached inside, grabbed a coil of rope. He worked around her struggles to tie her hands and feet together.
Her incessant prattle was giving him a headache. To rectify that, he punched her in the face, knocking her backwards into the trunk. After making sure she was nice and comfortable, he slammed the trunk closed only to hear her beat on the hood. He walked around to the passenger side and got in the front seat while Seeley got behind the wheel and drove away from the factory district.
“How is she doing back there?” Angel called out.
“Still the same,” Spike replied.
It got quiet for a few minutes. Spike was in demon face in the backseat licking Drusilla’s wrist. When he had cleaned a spot, he experimentally bit into her and let her blood touch his tongue, then licked the wound closed. He rolled the taste around his mouth and then spit it out with a disgusted sound.
“What are you doing back there?” Angel demanded.
“She has drugs in her system,” Spike said.
“What the fucking hell possessed you to bite into her?” Angel yelled as he sat up and turned around to face his childe.
“She’s sick, Sire! I just wanted to know what was making her so sick!” Spike argued.
“I know she’s sick, damn it. I don’t need to taste her blood to find that out. Do you have a death wish, Spike? You foolish boy! Tasting her the way you did could make you just as sick as she is. Do you want to die?” Angel chastised.
“No! But, we have to find out what they drugged her with. Did you have a better way of discovering that?” Spike challenged.
“Find a hotel, fast,” Angel told Seeley. “After I figure out how to save Dru, I may kill Spike.”
“I can feed her here, Sire,” Spike said, sounding like William.
“After what you just did, I may have to feed you both to get it out of your systems,” Angel growled. “She hasn’t had blood in months, Spike. What the hell were you thinking to bite her?”
“So, you don’t want to know what’s in her system,” Spike countered.
“Fine, Spike, fine! If you think you took enough of her blood to tell then speak up,” Angel said, angry that his boy was so thoughtless.
“Methadone is one that I recognized,” Spike said.
Angel rolled his eyes heavenward. “I don’t even want to know how you know what that tastes like. Anything else?”
“A counteracting drug, OxyContin, I think,” Spike said.
“How the hell do you know what that tastes like?” Angel asked irritated.
“Oh please, these drugs have been around forever in one form or another,” Spike said defensively. “I was only using common names for this day and age.”
“Spike, when this is over, you’re going to be punished severely for your behavior,” Angel admonished.
“Guys! Do you want to save the argument over how many lashes of the belt for later? Now that we know what’s in her body, how do we detox her?” Seeley cut in.
“Blood,” Angel replied. “Sire’s blood is the most potent, then maybe human blood.”
“But, Sire, I can --” Spike started to say.
“You tasted her, who knows if that shit is in your system now,” Angel said.
“I spit it out! It’s not in my system,” Spike said defensively.
Seeley pulled into the next motel he saw. He went to get the key while Angel helped Spike get Drusilla out of the car. While Spike carried Drusilla to the door, Angel went to the trunk and opened it up. The girl had woken up during the drive and was protesting incessantly. Angel threw her over his shoulder again, slammed the lid down and walked to the motel room.
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