Summary: The vampire foursome take a trip to Africa and decide to visit the rain forest, but when they enter a native village it's not long before William aka Spike starts trouble.
Rain Forest, Nigeria
1893
The heat was overwhelming, surrounding them, seeming to want to choke their escape, four stealthy figures running into the wildness, through the glorious rain forest. They stopped at some point, even their immortal bodies had a limit. The youngest of them looked back through the trees, trying to see if anything, anyone could have kept up with them, but he couldn't even spot the shape of a flower in the darkness, the shadows of the majestic trees covering any tracks that maybe, only maybe might have been visible during the daytime. So they could rely only on their hearing, that's the only way they could know if enemies were nearing and it wasn't easy, trying to ignore all the sounds of the nature that bloomed around them and singling out the sound of human steps that could easily be mistaken for those of animals.
"They can't be behind us anymore," Darla said tired. Her body was calling out for blood, her clothes, even if they were manly and light, stuck to her body like glued, the sweat lingering everywhere making her feel uncomfortable. What was she doing here? She was suppose to be in a big city feasting on mortals now, not soaking wet in a damn rain forest.
"I can still hear their voices, like wolves howling at the moon. Auuuu" Dru howled happily. She didn't care that the wolf howling was actually the chant of the tribe. Also, she didn't seem to mind that her pretty dress - she had absolutely refused to dress like a man - was now dirty with mud, green from the leafs and sweat from her own dead body.
"Yes, Dru, I especially liked it when they wanted to torch us for the glory of their night god," Darla snapped at her. She wasn't in the mood for her gibberish.
"It's not her fault," William looked over at her. "You're the one who said, oh, let's go to Cairo and see the bloody pyramids!"
"Yeah, but who wanted to go see the pretty jungle?" Darla asked and the tree vampires looked over at Drusilla who had now started to dance to the sounds of the forest.
"I don't even know why we listen to her, she's insane," Angelus said wiping away the sweat from his face.
"We all know whose fault it really is," Darla said and Angelus looked over at William that was now trying to focus on hearing
or smelling something, probably just to escape the torment of another fight with Angelus in that blasted heat. After a few moments he gave up.
"I can't hear anything but monkeys laughing, snakes slithering and insects crawling. And I can't smell a bloody thing. All this water in the air clogs my nose," William said pissed.
"Join me for a dance, my William?" Drusilla asked stopping gracefully in front of him. She was the only one who seemed to enjoy this particular adventure.
"At least someone is still having fun," Darla said exasperated, while William indulged in a little dance with Dru. "I couldn't even stand a body touching mine in such a heat!" for the first time she seemed to be on the verge of either having a nervous break down or going insane. "And I'm so hungry…" her voice trailed off as she saw a snake moving next to her feet. She picked it up with one hand, holding it from the back of its head. "Well you'll have to do," she told the snake as she looked in its hypnotizing yellow eyes that strangely seemed to match hers.
"Aren't snakes suppose to have cold blood?" William asked while he spun Dru around one last time.
"Oh, shut up! We all know you ate," Darla gave him a mean look. William looked away from her, he knew how mad she was.
"Let me," Angelus took the snake from her hands. Darla wanted to protest, but after a moment realized what he wanted to do and let him have the snake. Angelus let the snake slither on his hand and entangle its tail around his wrist. He bit into it and his tail held on even stronger before it gave out, dying.
"May I have its poison, my Angel?" Drusilla's eyes focused on the dead snake with an unhealthy glare. Angelus looked down at the dead animal and shrugged before letting it fall on the ground. Drusilla strolled over picking up the corpse. "Tsk, tsk…my pretty little snake, all worn out. Daddy tires out everyone," she looked lusciously over at Angelus who was watching her intensely. William didn't like the glances they shared. Even though he knew he couldn't stop Dru from sometimes wondering into Angelus's bedroom he didn't like it. He had tried to persuade Darla into letting him share her bed, at least out of jealousy towards what happened between Dru and Angelus, but she wouldn't have it. The only time she had actually let him touch her was when Angelus left her unsatisfied - he had abandoned her because she wouldn't stop teasing him about a certain slayer he couldn't bring himself to kill yet - and then she didn't allow him to get off in any way. She had just pressed his head down between her thighs and awaited for him to do his job. She didn't care that it left him wanting! But god knew what she would've done if he had refused her. Angelus of course didn't know.
Unconsciously his eyes had stopped on Darla.
"What? Do I have dirt on my face? I wouldn't be surprised," Darla said exasperated.
"Look at my pretty snake," Drusilla came over to him, giddy, showing him the little corpse. "His eyes are yellow. Yellow like the light…" Dru chanted. "But it's dead!" it suddenly hit her and she dropped it on the ground. "Ugly dead things!" she wiped her hands on her dress.
"The poison, Dru. You wanted the poison," Angelus reminded her and Drusilla let out a gasp.
"The poison, the poison," she remembered happily picking up the dead snake again. Darla rolled her eyes. She wasn't in the mood for Dru's fits.
"Feed me," Darla looked into Angelus's eyes. The vampire ripped away the collar of his shirt and taking Darla by the head he pressed her into his neck. Darla was more then happy to bite down and drain blood from his veins. Angelus growled in satisfaction. All vampires liked to be bitten, especially by their sires. It was erotic. He pressed her body closer to his. Even though she hadn't abandoned her snaked, Drusilla's gaze was focused on them. She wanted nothing more then to join them, but she knew grandmother would be upset if she tried to drink from her now. She was weak from the lack of blood and if someone drained from her she would be even weaker. And that would surely upset her. She let out an unnecessary sigh before returning to her snaked. By now Angelus and Darla were doing far more then just sharing blood.
"What happened to 'I can't stand to touch another body'?" William grumbled ungluing his eyes from the now mating couple. His own lust was beginning to rise and he didn't want to do anything in that blasted forest, in the choking heat. Drusilla, ignoring the panting and moaning of her sires proceeded to extract the poison from the fangs of the snake. She had seen it done in the village they had escaped and found the process fascinating. The poison dripped in her palm and she cheered enthusiastically, throwing away the dead snake.
"Look! I've done it, my William, I've done it!" she cheered snapping William out of his concentration on the two vampires. He had got caught in their wild rhythm and their growling and screaming, especially now that Darla, with her back smashed into a tree was turned towards him with her mouth covered in blood, moaning as her back arched towards Angelus's body, rubbing her now bare chest on his and her hips spread in a strange position that mortals were probably not capable of. She was louder then he had imagined. The walls were usually thick in their lairs and that time he had comforted her she had bitten down on the sheets so Dru wouldn't hear them and later mention to her 'daddy' what her William and grandmother had been up to. Angelus was just looking for a reason to kill him and truth be told Darla didn't really feel like sharing Angelus full time with Dru again.
"And what would you like to do with it?" William turned his attention on Dru. "Go and poison children back in the village and blame it on their big bad god?" Dru shook her head.
"I want to drink it," she stated fidgeting in front of him. "Want a taste?" she asked and William gave her a kind smile.
"Of course, my love. We'll be like Romeo and Juliet. We'll drink poison from our lips," he said embracing her. Even if he was a vampire without a soul and Drusilla was insane, he couldn't help but love her. She was his dark goddess, the fallen angel of his dreams that had risen him from the grim future that awaited him as a mortal. Now he was above them, not beneath.
Drusilla moistened her fingers in the poison and gently with one finger, dripping with venom, traced the line down from his forehead to his lips and then started licking away the poison with kisses, eventually stopping down on his lips.
Suddenly there was noise. Darla immediately stopped her panting, her legs, straddled around Angelus's waist held on even tighter. Angelus's head rose from her neck and his eyes darted into the darkness. There were footsteps, people running their way. Drusilla let out a surprised sound.
"The wolves are here!" she was actually happy about it. The chants of the tribe reminded her of the songs in her head. She left William's arms to await, very giddy, the arrival of her wolves.
"Let's go! Now!" Angelus ordered angrily after he and Darla had straightened up. William pulled an unwilling Drusilla by the hand. As they began to run again, Darla muttered under her breath:
"How the hell did they catch up so fast?"
"Wolves," Angelus almost growled. He was so mad! He had been so sure they had left the villagers far behind, but they seemed to move with unearthly speed, but he knew they were humans. He had tasted their blood. Maybe there was something about that god of theirs after all. He thought back to their encounter with the villagers. Dru had heard the drums and chanting from far away and there was no way of stopping her. She wanted to see them. She kept blabbering on about how they knew her songs. The songs that the birdies sang inside her head. They had no choice. They couldn't let her leave alone even if it was likely that she could have taken care of herself and hid from the morning sun by digging herself a grave in the earth, but they didn't want to risk it. Besides William found the escape in the wilderness boring and the sound of the drums seemed to finally bring some interest to the trip.
"Finally, some bloody action," he had mumbled before following Dru towards the village. Darla had been amused and persuaded Angelus to join the two vampires in this native village.
Angelus wondered what kind of impression had the villagers had of them in the beginning? Four ghostly white creatures invading the sacred grounds of the tribe. They had been superstitious of course. He couldn't tell if they had ever seen another white man before. They had traveled deep into the jungle, maybe too foolishly deep. Then again there were no dangers for them, the animals weren't slayers pointing their stakes at their hearts, there was neither fire, only the sun reserved some kind of threat that could've easily been avoided in caves or simply in the earth, where Dru sometimes preferred to sleep. At first the music had stopped and the villagers had stared at them, then a woman screamed and yelled something pointing at them. An old man had risen from his place among the elders and approached them. He said something in his strange language. Somehow Dru seemed to understand him. She had laughed.
"They think we're spirits from the nether world, sent by their god," Dru had told them. "We speak the language of the gods," she had added cheerfully.
It hadn't been too bad. They had danced for them fed them food - they had barely touched it, just enough not to insult them - offered men and women to satisfy them. He had been offered a young girl, a virgin, a rare beauty with chocolate skin. He had been hungry. So hungry.
He had lead her in a hut and tide her eyes so she wouldn't see his demon face or what he was doing. She didn't protest even if he had felt her fear. He couldn't kill her because the villagers would immediately react violently. He had seen too many pointy spears to act so foolishly. So he had drunk from her, biting the skin right under her thick necklace so the wound wouldn't show. She hadn't screamed, only gasped at one point, her hands grasping the back of his shirt. She was strong for a woman, at least for a mortal one. When he had slipped his teeth out of her skin, she had collapsed in his arms with a heavy sigh. He couldn't leave the hut by himself, the rest of the women would surely enter and panic at the sight of the passed out girl. He removed the blindfold from her eyes and gently shook her awake. She was dizzy from the lack of blood but he brought her out, sustained on his body and let her sit next to him while the villagers continued their chants and Drusilla seemed at some point to have joined them. They made a strange gathering.
When he had turned his face towards Darla, she had given him a worried look. At first he had thought she was worried that he had killed the girl, but only then noticed who was missing.
"William," he had let out. If the vampire had indeed taken one of the village women to a hut it was pointless to even consider he would have actually thought about what he was doing and let the woman live. He hadn't even had time to think of an escape plan when the scream of a woman was heard. William had left the hut and the dead woman inside. He wanted to kill him right then, but he was becoming aware of the growing agitation of the villagers. The music stopped and Drusilla had returned to them. She was somehow scared.
"Fire. Fire. It's coming towards us! Red flames eating the flesh…" Dru panted while William finally managed to join them through the growing mob of the villagers.
"You did it again, didn't you?" Angelus barked at him.
"Calm down, mate. What can a bunch of undressed villagers do to us?" William asked even though by now they were surrounded. Angelus rose him up by the collar of his shirt, shaking him.
"Angelus…" Darla touched his hand. "Now is not the time. We have to get out of here."
Villagers had started a different chant this time, a darker one that reminded Angelus of old Irish burial songs. And they were carrying something. Torches, he had noted in his mind. They didn't have to know they were vampires, they purified anything evil by flame.
"You asked what they could do to us. Look at those pretty flames, don't you just want to throw yourself at them," Angelus had shaken William again, before letting him go. The old man that had spoken before, had said something.
"They don't like us anymore," Dru had pouted. "They say they want to send us back to Valashka."
"Bloody idiots! Like they don't sacrifice children to their damn Valashka," William had said angrily.
"Actually, they don't," Darla had said beginning to feel uneasy in the middle of the mob. "Didn't you see the altars? They burn the mightiest animals or fruit, nothing human. And whatever Valashka is, it's not their god. They call him Teekeia."
"Sorry, I was too busy eating lunch," William had said and Angelus had smacked him over the head. "So are we going to get the hell out of here or are we going to wait for the natives to torch us alive?"
They had barely made it out alive through the crowd. Not even William seemed to consider the whole adventure fun anymore. Drusilla's dress had caught fire and Angelus had trouble calming her down in the midst of the battle they were fighting for their freedom. They had run through the jungle, but the chants seemed to still follow them closely, until leaving behind any kind of humanity they had left, they sank themselves in an inhuman chase, their feet barely touching the ground as they fled. After hours, when they had stopped, tired, they had thought the villagers were far behind them, but now they proved them wrong. The chant still followed them, haunting the animal cries of the jungle with their eerie notes. What demon did they serve? Angelus asked himself as he started running again. Darla was by his side, feeling better after drinking his blood, while Dru and William were behind them, making efforts to hold the pace with them. They were younger and the snake's poison, even if it didn't kill them, it had made them a bit dizzy.
At some point, Angelus couldn't tell when, William tripped and Dru stayed behind to help him up. By the time they were ready to run again Darla and Angelus were no where in sight. They were already far away and they were alone in the forest, like two lost children.
"William…" Dru said in a frightened tone.
"We can make it without them, love, don't you worry," the vampire assured her, though he wasn't sure himself. His eyes were still blurry from the poison and the chant seemed to near them with every second they spared to talk. Then suddenly, a spear flew towards them from the thick darkness, cutting with its sharp edge a lock of Drusilla's black hair. They could see the torches approaching.
"The fire, the fire…" Dru started panting. William took Dru's hand and was about to run when a storm of fire seemed to launch itself over them out of the dark. Strangely, the fire in the arrows burnt out instantly before it could touch the trees, only the ones that might hit them still had flames. Ironically, while ducking from a flaming arrow, one that was turned out hit William straight in the shoulder. The tip of the arrow was still warm when it hit his bone.
He winced in pain.
"Run, love, run," he told Dru, but she wouldn't have it. She pulled the arrow from his shoulder, taking time - she didn't care the villagers were dangerously near - to lick away the blood from its metal tip. Then she lifted him up as if he were nothing and then ran. She didn't care were Darla and Angelus were heading. She had to take her William to safety. She wanted to stay and kill off the villagers and their jungle magic by herself. But she knew she would burn if she stayed and her William would perish along with her. She quivered. If there was one thing she didn't want was to die by flames. After running for a while she felt something they had all ignored in their run…the sun. It was close to sunrise. Too close. They couldn't make it out of the forest in time to get to a city. She smiled. She had actually hoped that would happen. She wanted to see how it felt to sleep in jungle soil with all the insects crawling over you, eating away at your skin. William would surely hate it, but he had no other choice.
"We must sleep, my William. The sun is near," she told him, but he could barely hear her. There must have been more then just flames on that arrow. Poison, probably. He just wanted to sleep and recover. By morning the wound would surely become nothing more but a scratch and all the dizziness and weakness would disappear with the coming of a new night.
"Sleep," he mumbled the only word he had heard. Drusilla gladly dug a whole with her bare hands in the earth that was soft and moist. When she thought it was deep enough she rolled William inside and then she got in herself, pulling the earth - that was barely standing on the side of the grave anyway - over them. Before falling asleep, her hands holding William protectively to her chest, she heard footsteps above them. The villagers searched for their prey in the morning sun. How could they know they didn't have one anymore? That with the coming of the day the creatures they hunted disappeared into the shadows? Drusilla and William hiding in the earth underneath them and Darla and Angelus somewhere far away - they had made it out of the forest and into a small colony, where, they now slept undisturbed in a cellar. The hunt of the hunters was over.
End
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