The chains would break easily, Angelus could sense it when he flexed his arms,
but that didn’t prevent his deep sense of unease as they entered the Master’s
lair. Immediately a minion approached them, swaggering and stinking of whisky
and sex.
“I’ll take it from here,” he said, arrogance and challenge seeping from every pore.
Joshua didn’t bother breaking step. The stake slid into the minion’s chest and he exploded into dust as they walked past.
“In my experience,” Joshua said, “my sire would do well to have fewer minions and be more selective over how he chooses them.”
Angelus couldn’t agree more. He preferred not to have them at all, considering them a bother the vast majority of the time. It was easier and infinitely more fun to stay on the move than establish a court.
Behind them, Spike sneezed and Angelus glared at him, not yet ready to forgive the younger vampire’s trespass. A shrug was the only reply, and they continued on in silence.
Their next encounter couldn’t have been more different. A female minion stepped out from the shadows, bobbing a curtsey first to Joshua and then Angelus in obvious recognition.
“Everything is ready, my lord,” she said.
“Excellent. My thanks, Suzette.” Turning to Spike, Joshua said, “Go with her. She is one of mine and will take you via a different route to the dungeons.” Angelus opened his mouth to protest but Joshua over spoke him adding by way of clarification, “This way, if either of us is waylaid, there is still an excellent chance of the ladies being released.”
It was impossible to argue with reasoning like that, so Angelus nodded, allowing Spike to follow the skinny minion down a side passage and leaving himself and Joshua to continue along the main tunnel.
They got no more than fifty paces before they reached a door that Angelus didn’t remember. He hesitated as Joshua reached for the lock, only to hear his uncle say, “This is a short cut,” as he swung it open.
Blinding light flooded out and, in that moment of vulnerability, Angelus felt the magic clamp around the metal at his wrists and ankles. He howled, throwing himself at Joshua and rebounding as yet more magic checked him and drove him to his knees.
“Traitor!” he roared, thrashing to the fullest extent of his shackles. “I’ll rip ya apart for the madadh y’are and devour ya like a Kilkenny cat.”
Unperturbed, Joshua knelt in front of him and waited until Angelus subsided into shuddering rage before he leaned forward and whispered, “I can save young Will for you, possibly even your own ungrateful life, but you must do as I tell you and show the proper respect for your Master.”
Angelus raised his head, glaring gold and baleful under tatters of hair, and spat ripely in Joshua’s face. Joshua wiped it away with a long suffering sigh and stood up. “Have it as you will, then,” he said and gestured to the minions now pouring from the chamber.
They manhandled Angelus, lifting him bodily from the ground and carrying him as you would a side of beef. He tried to struggle, still not quite able to believe the insult that had been done to him, but each movement pulled the net of magic tighter until all he could do was lie lifeless across their shoulders and quiver with fury.
All too soon he was in the throne room, back where he’d been three weeks previously; on the floor at the old goat’s feet. And by moving his head the minute amount he was still able, Angelus saw the tips of a pair of very familiar boots.
**
“Are you sure this is the way to the dungeons?” Spike asked after what seemed like a lifetime threading their way through narrow passageways and down steep ill-lit steps.
Suzette barely glanced back at him. “In a way,” she whispered. “We are to meet my lord in the chamber reserved for the storage of food for the prisoners.”
“Then what? Sneak past the guards and break out the girls, yeah?”
“It may be necessary to fight our way through from there.”
That idea didn’t appeal to Spike in the slightest. It wasn’t the fight so much as the necessity of fighting at all. He had thought from Joshua’s plan that they were hoping to get in and out without a confrontation.
But rather than voice his concerns, he tried chatting up his guide. “Your English is really good. Where are you from?”
“Heidelberg, sir.”
A quick rummage through his memories and, yes! “That’s in Germany, isn’t it?” he asked, speeding up so he was walking alongside the minion. She nodded and so he continued, “Angelus wanted me to learn German. Wish I had, as well. It would have made the journey down here much easier.”
Suddenly realising he was talking to himself, Spike stopped and spun around. Suzette had halted several paces back and was now glaring at him.
“What?” he accused. “I was only being chatty.”
“Sir,” she said softly. “These tunnels are specifically designed to channel sound towards listening posts. Every word you speak has the potential to be overheard. I think it would be advisable if you kept your voice down and your opinions to yourself.”
“Oh, right you are then.”
They made the rest of the trip in silence, Spike keeping a few feet behind Suzette and thanking all the deities he could think of that he was no longer capable of blushing. But, by the time they finally reached the small room, he’d recovered his composure and happily pushed his way between the chained humans near the door. Suzette followed, shoving him straight towards the left and the staging that ran around the walls. The expression on her face spoke eloquently about the need for total silence, so he kept his own counsel and obeyed, settling down and giving a passing thought to grabbing a wink of sleep. There hadn’t been any time for that after Joshua, they’d been too busy feeding up and getting out of St. Stephen’s.
Spike screwed his eyes shut as shame swept over him. Despite his fears, Angelus hadn’t ended up having to carry him, but it had been close. Instead he’d been sandwiched between Angelus and Joshua with sacking over his head as they frog-marched him past all the paraphernalia. And Spike just knew that he’d made some really stupid sounds that they couldn’t have failed to hear.
So, sleep, in preparation for the fight or running or hiding or whatever the hell they ended up doing was undoubtedly a good idea. Maybe he’d have forgotten the abject humiliation by the time he woke.
Five minutes later and he was no closer to Morpheus and it took him a few moments to work out why. Just on the edge of his hearing, scratchy and as irritating as nails on a blackboard, were voices.
Spike peered around sleepily and then made the mistake of breathing in. Fuck! Someone really needed to clean the guttering out and scrub everything down; the place stank of shit and piss and unwashed human.
He cursed and lashed out at the nearest mangy creature with his boot, setting the body swinging. It rotated slowly towards him and, as he was about to snarl at it to keep bloody quiet and let its betters get a bit of shuteye, its face came into view. Despite himself, Spike shuddered. As a rule, he enjoyed playing with his food, after all that was part of the fun, but he had no patience for the sort of skill it took to damage a human so much and still have it live. That was more Angelus’ forte than his own. And live it did, with the strongest heartbeat Spike had heard in a while. But its mouth was an empty cavern, frozen in a soundless scream, and its eyes, or what was left of them, stared at him, as sightless as crushed plums. All in all, not a nice prospect.
The scratchy voices started up again and, since they obviously weren’t coming from the bloke swinging in the wind, Spike decided to investigate. It wasn’t as though he was going to get any sleep.
Suzette was perched at the very back of the room, watching something through a small aperture in the rock and, as he drew closer, Spike realised that this was where the sounds were coming from. He shoved her aside, curling his lip when she snarled at him, and took her place. For a second he couldn’t fathom what he was seeing and then, like a magic lantern, the image clicked into focus and Spike’s fist smashed into the wall.
**
“Angelus, my darling boy. You have led us a pretty chase.”
The smug purr, like the boots, was unmistakable, and Angelus damned himself for a fool. He should have known Darla would be involved; she was a fickle bitch who’d sell out her own family for the sake of her skin and she’d done it to him enough times whilst Holtz was on their tail that he should have remembered and not been gulled.
“Darla, my sweet death. I see you’ve fucked your way back into the old goat’s good books.”
She hunkered down next to him, allowing Angelus to see her face, gaunt and half-starved but still as beautiful as a hemlock bloom.
“Not as yet, though I shall. Tell me darling,” her finger skated down his face and came away coated with thick crimson blood, “if I tell them to release the spell, do you promise not to try and escape?”
Poised on the cusp of cursing her out, Angelus paused. There was something in her eyes that told him to go against his every instinct and trust her. Again. Damning himself for a fool, again, he nodded, and immediately the magic sheathing him relaxed enough to allow him to struggle up onto his arse.
Excepting a scrofulous looking minion holding a large book – presumably the magic worker – he and Darla were alone in the throne room, a situation that suited Angelus handsomely. Slowly, so as not to prompt another round of squeeze the vamp, he reached for her hand and delicately drew the finger into his mouth, cleaning every scrap of the cold dead fluid away. Darla’s gaze locked with his and for a second the rest of the world dropped away. Surely there would punishments to give and receive, but, for now, as they breathed together and passion rose, they were back in synchronicity and nothing else truly mattered.
“Where is Spike?” Darla whispered.
Angelus blinked at her, his desire addled brain taking a few moments to process the question. “Why?” he answered eventually. “You want him to join us?”
“Idiot!” she snapped, rising to her feet and breaking the spell she’d woven by simply being close to him. “The boy is what will free us. My sire has decided he will have his revenge and better it lands of William’s head than our own.”
“Sounds like a good idea but, honestly, I have no idea where he is. You’d do better asking your treacherous brother.”
Darla spun round, her face contorted in anger. “Joshua is here?” she shrilled.
Angelus winced; there were occasions when Darla sounded a little too much like a shrewish wife for comfort. He was about to answer and explain the traitorous trick that had dragged him back here, when the Master strode into the room, followed closely by Joshua and Luke. That was a surprise. The last Angelus had heard, Luke was busy driving the Tyrans out of Poland.
Their appearance was obviously a surprise to Darla as well, unless there was another reason for her sharp intake of breath and the way she skittered away from the dais as her sire approached. Angelus contented himself with glaring at the old goat and muttering imprecations too quiet for even a vampire to hear.
As the room filled up it soon became apparent that this was infinitely more than a customary meeting of vampires who bore allegiance to the Master. Although some were young with only a decade or two under their belts, around others Angelus could sense the centuries hanging like shrouds. This was a conclave, or worse yet, a trial.
**
Spike’s head whirled and his hand throbbed from where the barely healed bones had impacted the wall. He’d known he hated this plan and there, chained on the ground, was the reason why; Angelus had been caught. And, by the looks of Darla, she was behind it. The bitch!
Next to him, Suzette jockeyed for position and Spike let her take it, content for the moment to take his frustrations out on human shaped punch bags. As the blood and tissue flew, he tried to focus his anger on something more productive. There had to be a way of getting Angelus and Dru out of there. There had to be. And he had to find it, ‘cos he damn well wasn’t going to give up.
**
Darla stumbled backwards and turned to run. Despite her assurance to Angelus, she knew that being kept out of the loop when this conclave was being organised boded ill for herself and her family. She was caught by the door, Luke’s strong arms sweeping her up and throwing her over his shoulder. For a few seconds she screamed at him to put her down and whaled on his back, each punch sending judders through his giant’s frame, only to stop and lay quiescent, though far from resigned, when she realised how stupid she looked.
The chains, refastened around her ankles and wrists, still chafed, but at least she could think, and attempt to pick her way through the plots and subplots that abounded in the Master’s court.
Firstly, she needed to identify the visitors. Some were familiar, like Ahren, his expression smug and covetous as he stared at her. Others she thought she recognised, though more from description than from ever having met. The one in the far corner, for example, was undoubtedly the self-styled master of Paris, La Mort Déchaînée; no other could manage to appear so debonair and ugly at the same time. Still more were complete strangers, such as the mysterious vampire standing just to the right of the Master’s throne. Wrapped in a dark cloak, he stood silent and unmoving while the others broke around him in waves.
Last to enter was Drusilla, her bare feet scraping across the floor as two minions towed her after them over to the dais. Angelus snarled and Darla reached out to touch his arm; this was neither the time nor the place for more of her childe’s ridiculous possessiveness. Drusilla would survive the rough treatment, or would dust, there was nothing they could do either way.
Silence fell, and all eyes turned to the throne where the Master sat awaiting his moment.
“We appear to have one missing,” he said after a judicious pause. “Where is the one they call William the Bloody?” When no one volunteered an answer, the Master continued, “Well, isn’t this interesting. I sense a divided room.” Still nothing. The Master sighed and turned to the stranger on his right, “So be it. My apologies, Vladimir, but it seems you won’t be getting your treat after all.”
Faster than any of them could follow, the Master had Drusilla by the hair and his hands poised around her neck ready for the killing twist. “Last chance,” he said staring straight at Angelus.
Angelus swallowed heavily. He was being asked to choose. Joshua, standing behind the throne, stared at him, waiting for the nod that would seal Will’s fate, but could he give it? The existence of both childer lay in Angelus’ lap, yet the death of neither would guarantee his own safety. There was no way to decide. Both had their uses, both had potential, both would be missed. Adrift in an ocean of unfamiliar confusion, Angelus havered.
**
“The Master has arrived and… Mein Gott! There are so many!”
Spike pushed her aside and pressed his face to the stone, eager to see as much as possible. Suzette was right. There had to be at least a hundred vampires in the great hall below, milling around and posturing. Only those closest to the Master were exempt from the perennial game – a huge ugly giant of a vamp who chased and finally chained Darla, Joshua, sticking close to the dais, and one other, wrapped in darkness and seeming more shadow than reality from this far away.
There was no sign of Dru.
Clenching his jaw against the pain, Spike worked a hand into the hole and pried away a scant handful of loose rubble. She had to be in there somewhere. The alternative was more than he could bear.
And there she was; his beautiful princess. Gaunt, thin, chained and… Spike snarled, his eyes flashing as he realised what he was seeing. Drusilla was terrified, frozen in fear as she became under Angelus’ hands when the bastard pressed his attentions, and in his head Spike pledged to destroy those who had done this to her.
“Where is the one they call William the Bloody?”
Spike waited for Angelus to answer, for Joshua to answer, hell, for anyone to answer. And why they didn’t was entirely beyond him.
Then Dru was in the Master’s hands and she was going to die, and still they weren’t answering. Silence reigned, growing louder by the passing unfilled moment, roaring in his ears until Spike could contain his horror and frustration no longer.
“You want me? Come and get me, you bastard! Just leave her alone!”
**
Chaos erupted in the throne room with minions scattering to each exit, each determined to be the first to bring down the traitor and so earn the greatest reward. Forgotten in maelstrom, Drusilla found herself discarded at the feet of the stranger the Master had named Vladimir, the one who had come for her.
“Childe?”
Drusilla curled into herself. She would not listen, could not hear. If she heard him then all this would be real and if that was real then she had done the terrible things inside her head. And good girls didn’t do bad things or Daddy spanked them with a whip until they bled and she didn’t want to bleed. Hadn’t she bled enough?
A hand caressed her hair. It felt gentle, like her Sweet Willie, but he was gone or soon would be, underground with blood and fire and pain. Maybe this one would take his place when she was all alone; when Daddy and Grandma/Daughter were dust and she was all alone in a world full of monsters who growled and hit her.
Tentatively, terrified of what she might see, Drusilla raised her head and fell into dark mesmerist’s eyes. Words cascaded through her, gentling and calming, showing her castles in the air and blood older than Daddy’s, full of power and persuasion.
“Come to me,” the words said, but the air did not move with them. Spoken, yet unspoken, a world beyond her ken that demanded she listen.
And then the command. “Be with me.” Crimson velvet and jagged tooth rocks, swarthy faces and midnight stallions.
“Will I be allowed a bouquet of lilies and a new frock?” she asked.
Drusilla’s question, after weeks of silence, had came from nowhere and when the stranger nodded, Joshua had decided anything was preferable to staying a moment longer in this vampire’s presence. Shaking Drusilla’s arm, he snapped, “Come,” and, when that failed to have the desired effect, he abandoned her to whatever machinations the stranger had in store. Frankly, Joshua had more important things to worry about.
It seemed his attempt to protect Spike had failed and, though Suzette had served him well, Joshua was under no illusions as to whom she served in the end. The moment the minion discovered the true identity of the vampire she was protecting, the Master would be informed and Joshua could see all his dreams crumbling to ashes. He wasn’t fool enough to believe he would escape his sire’s clutches a second time and it mattered not one jot that the treachery was inadvertent.
The best place to observe the returning minions was close to the pillar where Angelus and Darla were chained and, as they trickled back into the hall, he searched their faces for Suzette’s, hoping to dust her before she could betray him.
**
Christ, what had he done? It was pure luck that had placed him by the hole when the Master announced his intentions and Spike couldn’t stand by while his Drusilla was turned to dust. Her life was worth more than his entire pitiable existence. Spike watched as minions flooded towards the exit, led by the ugly brute and the Master himself.
Beside him, Suzette drew back with a growl and released her demon. “You are he,” she snarled, “The one they have been searching for, the one who killed Marie.”
“Nice looking bird? Dark hair, big tits? Friend of yours was she?”
Suzette flew at him, claws out to scratch at his eyes and Spike, hoping for that reaction after goading her, sidestepped at the last moment letting her run face first into the wall. Grabbing a handful of hair, he twisted and yanked hard, howling in glee as bone splintered and flesh tore and the minion crumbled to dust in his hands. That had proved remarkably easy. Now he only had the other fifty or so to deal with.
He met them with chains whirling like fly wheels from each fist.
**
The roars of fury and pain from above abated surprisingly quickly, and it seemed like mere moments before the Master re-entered the chamber accompanied by the final influx of minions carrying their prisoner slung between them. Spike actually looked in one piece which, considering the difficulties Joshua remembered having restraining the boy, was really quite impressive. The magic worker following them answered the ‘how,’ as did the furious frustration on Spike’s face when he was tossed to the ground; the Master had used the same spell that Joshua used on Angelus.
The Master mounted the dais and took his seat and, upon a cry of “Tacet! Tacet!” the rest of the room subsided into attentive silence waiting for the trial to begin.
“My beloved children,” the Master began expansively, “How can I ever thank you for attending me during this time of calamity. As you all know, I rarely call a conclave of the order - I prefer quicker, more painful punishments for those who offend me - but there are occasions when the transgression is so grievous that all must witness vengeance duly done.”
He stood, warming to his subject as he surveyed the room. “We have before us four members of our ancient and venerable order, members whom, for the most part, have served me well over the years. However, and without drawing the subject out interminably as I am sure you would all like to get to the more entertaining part of proceedings, my much loved daughter, Darla, together with her itinerant offspring, Angelus, conspired to steal the child of prophecy and conceal its very existence from us.”
A gasp ran around the room, and Joshua ducked his head to conceal his smile. There was not a vampire in the place who was not acquainted with the facts, but still they showed surprise. The Master loved an audience and this audience knew him well enough to play along.
The Master rubbed his hands at the reaction and continued, his voice lowering to a whisper as he shared the less well known facts.
“If this were not bad enough, the lunatic seer, Drusilla,” he gestured to the girl still knelt at the stranger’s feet, “charged this scurvy by-blow,” the lazy hand indicated Spike, “to obtain an infant. Rather than report this request to his grandsire and thus receive permission and guidance, the deficient fledgling stole the nearest human brat and proceeded to lose it in a succession of incidents even the most gullible fool would struggle to fall foul of.”
“T’was only a human bantling, my lord,” someone called from the crowd. “I see not the concern unless he nursed it at his own tit.”
That raised roars of laughter and the Master smiled, waiting for the jocularity to end before he said, “No, my dears, it was not any human bastard he stole and lost so carelessly. The infant was none other than the true child of prophecy.”
Joshua’s head shot up in surprise. No hint of that truth had reached the rumour mills; surely the child of prophecy was still safely ensconced in the dungeons where the master had decreed it would live out its life. The aghast howls and screeches of horror from the assembled throng testified that Joshua was not the only one shocked by the news, including Spike, now lying quiescent near the dais, his expression as stunned as any other in the room. Was it possible, Joshua wondered, that the boy did not know what he’d done?
“Tacet! Tacet!” the cry went up again, and though it took some minutes, the noise finally quieted so the Master could continue with his judgement.
“Darla, childe,” he said. “You have acted foolishly but without malice towards myself or the order. Still your disobedience must be punished and so you will spend a year and a day in Paris servicing La Mort Déchaînée in the way you do best.” The Master caressed Darla’s cheek and she bent her head submissively accepting his terms. It was lenient when compared to what she’d feared.
“And now the stallion.” The sneer in the Master’s voice was palpable, but Angelus held his head high, staring his grandsire in the eye. “You, my boy, will return to Hamburg. Ahren maintains he has uses for you and so he will have use of you.” Ahren’s celebrations came close to drowning out the Master’s final words but Angelus heard them and they offered a sliver of hope. “Once Darla is released from her bondage, she may reassert her claim over you if that is her desire.”
“The girl.” The Master turned his attentions to Drusilla who immediately dropped to her knees and began to shake. Spike snarled and struggled against the magic, desperate to go to her and keep her safe. He couldn’t. The magic was stronger by far and eventually he had no choice but to lie still and listen as the Master passed judgement on his princess.
“She is a seer and is infinitely too valuable to dispose of out of hand. Despite her perfidy, I grant clemency and, as head of the Order of Aurelius, award her to my dearest cousin, Dracula. He has undertaken to train the girl and increase her usefulness to us all, and for that we offer our deepest gratitude.” The two elders embraced and the Master formally placed Drusilla’s hand in his cousin’s. Spike squeezed his eyes shut against the tears, telling himself that at least his love was safe even though she would lie in the arms of another.
“Finally the traitor himself.” A sharp kick to the ribs brought tears of another kind threatening and Spike squirmed trying to protect his softer parts, only to find himself dragged up to his knees and his head wrenched back. As he stared up at the Master he thought, this is the end, and all he could hope for was a little mercy in the way he died.
Above, the Master continued to speak. “There is only one sentence for those of the blood who betray the Order, a sentence that has not been carried out for over half a millennium as none were foolish enough to be caught alive.” The Master turned to the vampire who had been calling for silence and said, “Francesco? I tire. Please read the sentence formally before the court.” He sank onto his throne and covered his face with his hand, the very picture of a leader betrayed.
Francesco took the floor, unwinding an ancient scroll and scanning through the writing before blanching slightly and starting to read.
“As decreed by Aurelius himself, the following sentence shall be suffered by any of the blood who betray the Order and only the ancient trials may supersede this judgement. Though severe, it is considered appropriate for those who bring peril to the Old Ones against whose final return we hold guardianship of the earth..
“Any found guilty of such treachery will have every fragment of skin flayed from their person. Their hands and feet shall be severed and their intestines drawn from their bodies to be replaced by maggots, their eyes and mouths stopped with wax and they shall be buried under six feet of stone to live or die on the Old One’s whim. None shall gainsay this, for it is my word and thus, the law.”