The Gift

AUTHOR: Little Mouse (elf_night@hotmail.com)

DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Joss'. Lucky man.

WARNINGS: Language (duh, it's a Spike fic!) Violence (see former 'duh') explicit M/M slashy stuff! Whee!

ARCHIVE: Please ask first.

PAIRING(S): Angel/Spike; with mentions of Angel/Buffy, Spike/Drusilla, Angelus/Drusilla

SUMMARY: Drusilla gives her Daddy a present.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 She slid into the house, doing her best to be quiet even though she was sure there was no one here. She’d waited outside, watching, until everyone left.

She headed for the stairs, clutching a plastic grocery bag tightly to her chest as if she expected it to try and escape from her.

She hesitated in the dim upstairs hall - she had never made it up here before, so she wasn’t sure which room was the one she was looking for. Fortunately, all the doors were open, so she was able to peek inside and take a quick look at the various clothes and personal items that had been left lying about.

Finally recognizing a shirt draped across the back of a chair, she slid into a room and over to the lovely antique wardrobe. Opening her bag, she took out a freshly-laundered blue Egyptian cotton dress shirt and put it on a hanger near several similar ones, trying to arrange it exactly like they were.

Satisfied, she turned and looked around the room , then darted into the bathroom and, oddly enough, began to rootle around in the clothes hamper.

Selecting a dark red silk shirt and two pairs of boxer-briefs, she stuffed them into her bag and then left the room, stopping to listen carefully at the top of the stairs to try and tell if anyone had come back while she’d been distracted.

Hearing only the not-quite-silence of an empty house, she smiled a pleased little and slipped down the stairs and out the front door, grinning all the while.

*

Wesley, coming up the street, was surprised when he saw a blond girl run out of the mansion door and away in the opposite direction.

He frowned. Was that Buffy or Tara? Or some stranger?

Either way - what had they been doing in there?

*

Waking up wasn’t fun.

He was lying curled up, half on his side and half on his stomach, the side of his face pressed against cold, unforgiving concrete. The blinder was still in place - and closed - pressed uncomfortable and sharp against his cheek and forehead.

His arms were folded and fastened securely behind his back, and weight on his ankles told him his legs were probably restrained, too.

It didn’t matter - he wouldn’t have moved if he could.

His head felt like it had been poured full of concrete; the base of his skull, were the scalpel, drill and bone saws had carved into him, was a burning knot of agony.

At first, his ears were filled with a solid, steady roar, but as he woke and took stock of himself, it began to fade into more distinct sounds, and finally became words.

Sire’s words, in that chilling, dead metal voice.

"Wake up - I know you’re awake. Childe, awake and attend me. Now, Childe! Wake up, sit up. I know you can hear me. Do as I say."

For the first time since his second rebirth, Spike couldn’t obey his Sire. His body felt paralyzed, disconnected from the frantic signals of his brain. He tried to obey, tried to move - but he couldn’t.

He couldn’t speak, either - when he tried, he found that his throat felt cold - like he’d gulped ice water until his vocal cords had frozen.

His nose seemed to be working, though - his Sire’s scent was growing stronger, coming closer. His whole being yearned to move closer still, but his muscles continued to rebel.

"What’s wrong? It should be fully awake and alert by now!" a voice protested, and Spike recognized the woman from earlier.

"This was a completely untested experiment," another voice grumbled, "All your ‘should be’s are just theoretical. I told you, you should have tried it on some other subjects before you started fucking up your prize specimen."

"Don’t you dare talk to me that way - you’re here on sufferance only!"

"That’s not what the higher-ups said" the second voice said smugly.

"Order it awake again," the woman snapped. Apparently she was snapping at his Sire, because that glorious scent moved ever closer and the metallic voice spoke again.

"Childe! Wake up." A hand touched his hair, patting his head almost awkwardly. How odd - were Sire’s hands bound in some way? A faint stir of his own fingers - all he had managed so far - told him his own hands were encased in those weird metal mittens again.

Maybe they had put those on his Sire, too?

He used the only sense readily available to him right now - scent - and sniffed deeply, trying to get any extra information he could... he scented a woman’s expensive perfume, the lingering traces of blood and fear on his own skin, the heavy metallic smells of his blinder and bonds, and... and Riley Finn’s scent, mingling strongly with his Sire’s.

He growled.

His Sire jerked his hands back, startled - why would Sire be startled? - then said sharply, "Childe! What are you doing?!"

Fury melted the ice holding his vocal cords captive. "Did he hurt you?!"

"Hurt me?" the flat voice managed sound surprised. "Did who hurt me?"

"I smell him on ya," Spike growled, still unable to move but shaking with rage. "He said he wouldn’t hurt ya! I did what he told me to do!"

"Who do you smell?!"

"Finn... all over you, Sire..." Spike was so mad he was nearly sobbing.

"Shit - uh, he was only - questioning me, Childe. He didn’t hurt me."

"No?"

"No. Sit up, now, Childe."

"Can’t, Sire," Spike said apologetically, his arms and legs twitching a little as he tried to move, but no more. "Can’t move."

"Here - bite." Something plastic was held against his lips, and he shifted his features carefully, relaxing when he could do it and the blinder proved to be loose enough to allow it. He bit down obediently, and lukewarm, nearly-fresh human blood filled his mouth. He gulped it down greedily, though it puzzled him that his Sire wasn’t feeding him his own blood.

The soldiers must not be letting him do that.

Still, the human blood was powerful and it helped, easing the stiff unresponsive muscles. Someone unfastened his arms, and he was able to move his hands until he could hold the bag awkwardly.

"Amazing, how that improves them," the second, unidentified voice mused. "I wonder if there’s any way to measure the effects?"

"We’ve done a few studies on the effect; on how well their wounds heal with and without blood; or with different types of blood," the woman said haughtily, "I would have thought you’d read them already."

"I have," the man answered, "I meant long term-effects on how it keeps their cells regenerating. I’ve been told that they don’t physically age - do we know if that’s true?"

"We’ve seen no registered effects of aging on any that we’ve kept alive - but that’s very few, and we’ve only been studying this type of hostile for about three years."

"Why don’t you ask him how old he is, then?"

"How would we know if what it told us was the truth?" she sounded patronizing.

"Why don’t you have his Sire ask?" the second voice did patronizing better.

"Because the Sire would already know," Angel’s metallic voice said. Spike couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or just informing them - but why would he tell them something they didn’t know? Angel - nor Angelus - had never been one to volunteer information to an enemy.

"Humor me," the second voice sounded amused.

Angel sighed. "Childe, tell us how old you are."

Spike frowned, letting the empty blood-bag drop to the floor as he though. "M’not sure, Sire. Lost count."

"Aren’t you proud of your age, Childe?" Angel demanded.

Spike frowned harder, growing more and more confused. "But Sire - ya always said t’wasn’t age that mattered, but power...?"

"Oh? And how powerful are you?" Angel sounded eager, now - Spike was finding it easier to pick up the faint nuances that made their way through the voice distorter.

"I was a Master, Sire," he replied proudly, though his eyes were blinking behind the blinder. "Ya know that... I thought ya knew that..."

"What does that mean?" The woman’s voice demanded, "what does ‘Master’ mean?"

Spike waited for Angel to explain, but the room was silent.

"Well?" the man’s voice asked.

"You tell them, Childe," Angel ordered.

Spike struggled upright, until he was sitting with his arms folded in his lap. "Sire?"

"Explain to them what being a Master means."

"Means..." Spike fought with his patchy memory. "Means I was old enough ta face the trials, an’ I passed ‘em."

"What trials?" the woman demanded.

"How old would that be?" the man asked at the same time.

"What trials?" his Sire prompted him, for some reason choosing the woman’s question.

"The Master trials."

"Which are...?"

"The trials ya gotta pass to be a Master," Spike replied readily, and fought back a smile when the woman, the man, and his Sire all groaned.

"What does it mean to be a Master?" his Sire tried again.

"Means ya passed the trials," Spike was beginning to enjoy himself. He didn’t know why his Sire was sharing this information, but it couldn’t possibly be by choice. He must be threatened with some sort of punishment; no vampire ever told humans these secrets of their race. Not even the Watchers knew. So as long as he could play dumb, he would.

"So you don’t know who it was?" Angel asked Wesley, frowning.

"No - if it was one of the Scoobies, then it was Buffy or Tara. Or it could have been a complete stranger."

"No - I didn’t smell a stranger’s scent in the house," Angel told him. "It had to be one of those girls."

"Shall I ask?"

"I’m not sure," Angel said thoughtfully. "If they’re up to something, I’d rather not let them know that we know. Can you put up some surveillance equipment, or work some spells?"

"Of course; I’ll take care of it right away," Wesley nodded.

"Good. I’m going to change, then I’m going out looking for Finn," Angel told him. "He wasn’t at his so-called apartment. In fact, there was no one in the building at all. It didn’t even looked lived-in."

"That doesn’t surprise me."

"Nor I," Angel agreed. "I’ll be back down in a few minutes."

"All right."

Angel went slowly up the stairs, trying to plot out his next course of attack. He was determined to find Riley Finn - he knew the man knew where his Childe was, and he was going to get Spike back if he had to kill every soldier in that little army. He reached the upstairs hall, and started down it - then stopped.

And sniffed.

"Wesley?" he called.

"Yes?" the ex-Watcher trotted up the stairs.

"Has Buffy been upstairs at all while I wasn’t here?"

"Not that I know of," was the puzzled reply.

"I can smell her."

"Then it was her I saw?"

"Maybe. Unless she’s slipped up here without us noticing."

"I suppose that’s a possibility, but I doubt it. She’s always very much the center of attention."

"That’s true," Angel smirked, then followed the familiar scent down the hall, Wesley tagging along behind him.

The trace of distinctive perfume and teen-aged Slayer led straight to his room - and over to his wardrobe. He opened it, frowning as he looked over the clothes. Everything looked alright...

Wait.

"Wesley - I thought Cordelia said she couldn’t find my blue shirt."

"She did say so. She was going to blast the dry cleaners about losing it," Wesley said.

"But it’s right here," Angel flicked out the sleeve.

"Odd - Cordelia doesn’t usually make mistakes about clothes."

"I don’t think she did this time, either," Angel growled, turning away from the wardrobe and sniffing the air again, following the scent across the room to the bathroom.

And over to the clothes hamper, which was open.

Angel never left his clothes hamper open.

He immediately dumped the contents out on the floor and stared.

"Angel?"

"My red shirt is gone. A few pairs of underwear, too."

Wesley blinked. "That’s suspicious - because I don’t think Miss Buffy has a fetish."

"No," Angel growled, "no, I don’t think so. There’s only one reason that I can think of for stealing my clothes - I believe I know what she’s up to, now."

"And it doesn’t make you happy," Wesley sighed, since Angel was in full game-face.

"No, it doesn’t. I hope I’m not right, but if I am - I may kill her."