DRU'S PET






I. Guess who lives in the forest

She wasn't easy to travel with. Not at all. Her madness had no limits at the moment. She scared even him... floating away... faster and faster. Her moments in the reality they shared were few and rare. She almost never recognized him any more. To her, he was everything from her prince to her keeper. In her eyes he saw confusion. Not darkness, not love.
So he should have left her by now, even staked her out of mercy, but he couldn't. He tried to keep her happy, hoping that she would recover, like she had done before... but this time it had gone to far, he could feel it. He knew that their time together was about to end.
'This is it' he thought 'This is what happens when a vampire falls in love. It's unnatural. It's not in our manual. Love, mercy... You're a bloody freak! You didn't expect it to last, did you? You're almost as crazy as she...' His own mind tortured him almost constantly... Told him to leave, to stay, to bury her here and move on... She couldn't hunt, she refused to feed. She preferred milk and cookies now. A huge contrast to the wild, sensual, exotic creature he fell so desperately in love with. Now she was crap, for a vampire.
**********************
The song on the radio stopped, and with a closer listen; so did the engine. Probably why it suddenly slowed down...Great! In the middle of nowhere. Millions of trees and bushes and big animals and dark, dark night, as far as her eyes could see. Shadows flirting with each other, painting shadows on the ground. Shades of dark blue and blacker than black. And the full moon rising above, completed the picture of a classic horror scene.
'The only thing missing is the owls' she thought. An owl screeched. 'And the bats.' Three bats appeared so close that she could hear their leather wings through the open car window as they flew by.
"I am still alive?" She took a few breaths, stretched her legs and got out of the car. She walked over to the engine, nervous on her too high heels on the slippery ground. It had been raining for ten miles, as soon as the night came, it had stopped, and the terrible moon had shown its face... No, she didn't like it. Couldn't see the romance in the silver moon tonight...
If she'd just got in the car a bit earlier, or got her car in for service as she had planned for weeks... But she had to say goodbye to Jonah, and it always took longer than expected. And her finances were not as they should be at the moment, so that was why she was stuck in this woods. Far from people, alone, scared and probably looking like a mess.
"It's no use" She could hardly see the engine in the dark, and if she had, she wouldn't have been able to do anything anyway. "I'm an idiot," she mumbled to herself, "a stupid one." This once-in-a-year visit to her father's wasn't something she exactly looked forward to, and this mess didn't make her any happier about the trip. "Something to brag about when I come home -if I ever do- and here I am! Stuck the whole night." The lack of enthusiasm didn't give the phrase the humoristic touch she was hoping for. Just made her feel sad.
Back in the car she lay down in the backseat, holding herself, and tried to sleep. Her eyes wouldn't close, they looked up at the sky, this disturbing sky above. She had never seen anything like it. It was like being inside of a black crystal trying to look out. She was so cold... And the dark night embracing her, made her feel like the loneliest creature in the whole, wide world. She felt like crying, hoping that the morning would come quick, and make this misery go away, and maybe send an angel her way, in the form of an solid farmer, or even better a mechanic...
***********
The heavy rain at the top of the car woke her up. The wind was howling through the car doors and made the treetops bend. "Shit!" She could hear the thunder already. The clouds moved fast in the wind, flew by as a curly carpet over the stormy sky, all blue and gray, then yellow, as a lightning bolt struck the ground, a little to close to the car. The car was shaking, and she could hear a tree hit the ground.
Panic knocked inside her head, demanding to get its hold on her consciousness. She fought it, for a while, then she forced the door open, grabbed her purse and got out in the poring rain. When the lightning struck again, not far behind her, she started to run as fast as she could on her (oh, so hopeless) shoes. The rain ran down her cheeks and made her clothing (very expensive suit- that's why she had to drop the service on her car) soaking wet. And heavy! She had to slow down. Her heart pumped faster, she gasped, both legs were shaking and refused to take another step. "And this is why I pay for private trainer?" She asked herself. "Waste of time and money!" And a voice in the back of her head, sounding like her psychotherapist, said "This is good! Get angry! Don't accept being a victim. Let yourself act out your pain!" She started to walk, one shoe in each hand, on the wet, stormy road.
A light! It was a light! Without hesitation, she jumped in to the bushes and started to fight her way through the wilderness. She was so relieved she couldn't stop a smile from appearing on her lips. She didn't look up again until her eyes, nailed to the muddy ground, met grass instead of brown leaves. A big, white house was right in front of her, double front doors and an ornamented gate. And there, on the third floor, a single window at the left….With her light!
It looked like a candle, dancing in the wind. Just a little yellow flame, but Oh, so bright in the dark night. She ran up the stairs and hammered the door, desperately, afraid they wouldn't hear her through the storm. One, two, three times...and no answer. "Probably an elder woman with a hearing problem." She tried the door, it was open.
"Hello!?"
No response.
She entered the dark room carefully. It smelled like… the zoo. Like animals.. big animals. 'But the rabbits and deer of this forest hardly used candles.' she reflected. 'Maybe an homeless person or maybe a criminal?' She decided to take her chances, right now anything was better than the rain and cold outside.
When the door closed behind her she slowly began to explore the room in front of her. She could hardly see anything, except when the lightning outside made it possible to get a quick look. She managed to spot the stairs and moved carefully towards them. She stumbled and almost fell over something soft and heavy. 'A carpet', she decided. 'Just a carpet, rolled up for some reason'.
I didn't take her long to find out that the stairs were rotten. The old wood bent under her weight. Some steps were missing, some of them were so soft that she didn't even try to step on them. Something, (mice?) scratched inside the wall. "Partying on my behalf?" And the voices in the back of her head: 'You should have stayed in the car...You should have...' And: 'How are you planning to get out ? What if there's a serial killer up there?' And even worse: 'Why did you spend all your money on silly clothes!? Just to impress your dad, huh? Still daddies girl, are you? Guess he would be more proud of a reasonable daughter who spent her money on her car...SO SHE WOULDN'T GET STUCK IN THE WILDERNESS!' The madness in what she was doing suddenly struck her. "This is far to similar to far to many horror pictures to be true! I don't believe this! It doesn't happen!"
Upstairs... a long hallway, doors on both sides. "Classic!" She could feel the fear rise and snap in her chest. This was turning in to something beyond a nightmare. Her hands were shaking and something moved in her belly. Something moved at the end of the hall and she stopped moving. Stopped breathing! A tall, pale silhouette appeared in front of her. "Oh, God", she whispered, "This can't be true!"
The woman in front of her held the candle high up in the air. Her long, dark hair fell around her shoulders in curly waves. She was wearing a long, white dress, and a heavy piece of jewelry sparkled around her neck. She was beautiful. And pale. Too pale. "Spike!" The apparition said, "Mr. Spike! The castle has a visitor!"
*****

II. Playing with Dru

"We eat people Dru, we don't entertain them." His voice dripped with sarcasm. "Would you like some more tea, luv?"
The woman he called Dru looked at her with caring eyes. She didn't offer him a glance but answered him with ice in her voice. "I'm a princess!"
He smiled behind her back. "Oh yes, yes that's what you are. Always a princess." He sounded tired.
Dru looked at her guest. "He wanted to kill you, you know, but then I told him it was rude of him and not hospitable at all. And just think of how unpleasant it would have been for you, being dead and all." She spoke with a childish voice, her hands were on the table, arranging, and then rearranging the tea pot, the plates and the cookies. The emeralds in her necklace glowed and sparkled in the light from all the candles that filled the room.
The cookie tasted like sand in her mouth, it felt like sand too. 'In this house it might even be sand', she reflected. And tea would have been nice, for her cold, stiff body, if there only had been any tea in the cups. She noticed that the pale, blonde male named Spike was staring at her, his eyes expressionless. They were like black stones or glass. He was standing behind Dru's chair, leaning against the wall, arms folded over his chest. He was dressed, basically in black, but she could see something red, perhaps a shirt under his black duster coat.
He gave her the creeps. There was something terribly wrong with him. Then, he attacked her. He walked straight towards her, didn't say a word. Just violently grabbed her head and forced it backwards. Then Dru started to scream. She hit her head with her fists and screamed in short, loud sequence. It sounded almost like a sick animal. But it made him stop. She was grateful for that. She didn't know what she could have expected, but it was hardly anything pleasant.
"I want to keep her!" Dru said.
"You must be kidding!"
"I want to keep her!"
"Keep her! Like a pet."
"Dru! She's human."
"I want to keep her!"
He looked at her, silently a few seconds, than he grabbed the mortals head again... "Stop!" A sweet expression on her face. "Please Luv, I promise I'll be good. Just let me have her...please…"
Spike turned his head and looked at Dru. "Dru...do you know who I am?" "Yes... You are my Spike. My sweet... My love!"
He laughed silently. "My God Dru, you haven't known me for weeks! Seems like this one's got an effect on you...let's keep her a while..."
He let go of the mortal and quickly turned around. "So, guess we have an houseguest then."
By the time they reached the basement, where the tea-party took place, Dru had changed. She was a princess again.
And Spike was no longer in a generous mood. "You don't say much." He glared at the human. "If I were you, I would have told funny stories or something. Might keep you alive...for now."
"I...I...Don't know what to say!"
"You should come up with something. The only reason you're still with us is to keep Dru happy. Maybe you should try a bit harder."
She swallowed. Just the sound of his voice sent cold shivers down her spine... Dark and cold, like a winter night without snow on the ground. It made her feel weak and frightened her more than anything before. There were no feelings in this man. No human emotions. Tears kept dripping from her eyes as she leaned over the table, filling the bottom of her empty cup with salty fear. She couldn't stop the tears from falling. She looked at her hand and saw that it was shaking beyond control. Her fingers where white from the grip she had on the cookie.
Obviously they both belonged in a mental institution. She assumed that they actually did. They had to be on the run from a very secured place, and her only hope now was that the police were looking for them. And that they would find them, in time. A feeling inside told her that to scream and run towards the door would not be a good idea at the moment. Her body hurt and would probably not cooperate, and this Spike seemed to be in a very good shape. Strange, assuming that he probably had spent a whole lot of time behind locked doors. There had to be some kind of training facility connected to the hospital, after all it was the 90's, it wasn't like they kept lunatics strapped to the bed any more. Maybe they should? She decided to write an article about it if she ever managed to get out alive. Dru seemed kind of nice though, rather harmless...
Dru was busy placing porcelain dolls around the table. There were five empty chairs, soon they were all filled with little ladies dressed in lace and silk. Their glass eyes looked empty at their mistress, and all their cute little mouths were smiling eternally at her. Dru smiled back.
"Hello Miss Edith, Miss Sarah... Jane... I'd like you to welcome our guest. This is..." She got a sad expression in her face. "Spike…" She wailed. "She doesn't have any name. What should I call her?"
"I don't know luv, maybe something tasty. You know you gotta eat..." "Yes, but what should I call her?"
"Meal, for example, that would suit her."
"No. She should have a real name. Something sweet. Like Victoria. Like the queen! Can I? Can I call her that?"
"Sure kitten, just don't get to attached to her." He smiled wickedly. "You're not very good with pets, remember? They always die."
"Like when I put daisies in the ground."
"Just like when you plant daisies, sweetie."
"Victoria it is then!" She smiled and took a few dance steps on the floor. Suddenly her expression changed again. serious now. "Can I have a cage for her?"
"She's a human, we don't keep them in cages At least not very often...."
"But I want to keep her safe."
"We can tie her up if you like, I think that will do."
It seemed like the conversation amused him, he was half-smiling, and his eyes were sparkling, now the mortal could see that they were blue, not black as they'd seemed before.
"Please Spike?"
"All right then. Boys! You heard the lady!" He clapped his hands and she became aware of some movement in a dark corner of the large room. Two big, hairy men dressed in leather slowly moved in to the light. "Who are they?" the newly named Victoria whispered.
Spike answered her. "Oh, we call them...Jack...and Jack. They're the Jacks." He looked at the Jacks. "The lady wants a cage. Get her a cage!"
"But where?" One of the Jacks answered in a low voice, his eyes were focused on the floor in front of Spike and she caught herself wondering if he was able to raise them. "I said get a cage! It's as simple as that. And, bring a bucket of you-know-what." He gave Dru a side look. "And by the way, where ARE our buckets of you know…" Jack pointed at the door with a quick move. Still studying the floor.
"All right then, off you go!" Spike turned his back on the Jacks and went back to his position behind Dru's chair.
Dru was busy filling the cups with air. She had set the table with something that looked like expensive china, she seemed to have a box full of them. Now the dolls got their cups, and everybody was happy, according to Dru.
"We need more tea! Where is the maid?" She turned to Spike. "I said, we need more tea!"
"Bloody hell! What do you... I turned those bloody bikers to do the household work, I'm not a damn... All right then!" He grabbed the tea pot from the table and walked out the door.
"I don't have any hats here. In Paris I had lots of them. There was this big one with a red feather...I loved it...It was pearly gray I think. With oranges and apples and dark blue ribbons around the pull. Do you like hats Victoria?" She reached out a hand and touched Victoria's hair over the table. "It's so soft, and blonde. You should have green ones, green hats with cherries, here, on the side."
Spike came back, he poured some kind of dark fluid in their cups. "What do you think Anna? Wouldn't Victoria look pretty in something green?"
"Anna now, huh!" Spike just shook his head.
"She likes hats, just like I do! You should have seen my crown. I'm a princess. I have a big crown, with lots of jewels in all colors. There's a pink opal called Drusilla." She took a sip from her cup. "And another one called Spike! It's a giant ruby, you should have seen it. And then there are all the little children, small diamonds all over, like stars in the sky. And they sing to me, and tell me secrets. And there is Darla, I remember Darla, she's an emerald, green, like in evil. She took my daddy away from me. And then there is you! My Victoria... Let's see...Where should I make you? You're a pearl! A tiny, tiny, little pearl, placed between me and Spike! You're our pet, remember? Our little pearl Victoria! And now, here's the prettiest jewel of them of them all. At the top of my crown." She took another sip. "There's a giant sapphire. It's blue, like my Angel. He's the most beautiful stone you can imagine. And he is the one who gave me this crown, and..."
They both jumped in their chairs as the door slammed. Spike was gone.
"Anna left again! Servants are so unpredictable now a days. Back in Paris..."
Victoria didn't listen any more. She stared at the fluid in her cup. It couldn't be? Oh, yes it could. Without thinking she dipped her fingertips in the darkness between the white china walls. Thick and red. And when she tried to rub it off with her blouse, all of it didn't come off. She smelled it. Everything but sugar, everything but tea. They were serving her blood. Panic raised its head and hammered against the inside of her forehead, screaming to get out. She sang to it 'Hush..hush...hush...Sleep little you...sleep!' Dark stars exploded in front of her eyes, creating black holes. 'I wish I could swallow me and hide me.' She got more and more dizzy. 'I'm getting as crazy as she is.' She swallowed, and swallowed again.
'Stay calm, take it as a challenge!' The voice in her head was back. Only this time it didn't comfort her. Not at all. The air in the room was disturbing. This creatures made it spin. Every time she took a breath she felt more and more separated from herself. Herself as a being. The connection to her everyday life. Her family and friends slipped away. She couldn't reach her everyday state of consciousness. It was gone! 'You're in a shock,' the voice tried. But she knew it was more to it than that. The air in this room smelled death!
"You must drink before it gets cold." Dru insisted.
Spike leaned over Victoria. He had entered the room so silently that she hadn't even noticed that he was there. Now he whispered in her ear. "Drink! Or I promise I'll lick your heart clean before breakfast."
Scared to the limit of existence, she lifted the cup to her lips, closed her eyes and drank. The thick blood filled her mouth with the taste of liquid iron. She swallowed it down, and then she swallowed again, and again, to make sure it didn't come up. "Good girl!" he whispered.
"Anna! I think this tea is cold. Would you make us a fresh pot?"
"I'm sorry luv, that's the only tea we got."
Dru sniffed at her cup. Touched it... sniffed it again... Suddenly, she grabbed it and threw it against the wall.
"Damn!" Spike used his hand to remove the blood stains from his cheek. "You could have warned me, luv."
Dru snarled at him furiously. "You evil knight! How do you think you can fool a princess to drink your poison? Don't you think I know what's going to happen with my pure and innocent maiden heart if your dragon hearts blood floats in to my veins?! It will be broken! And you know it you evil one! I wont be your lady under any circumstances! Not if you fed me with newborn children! You won't get my heart no matter what you do! I'm strong, and I have God beside me! Your potions won't work on me at all!"
"Drusilla, you are a vampire. What do you want me to do? Bake blood cookies for you? Sorry, but I'm a very bad chef. You're weak, and you're ill, and you don't eat properly! You need blood! Red, fresh and nourishing blood! Why don't you eat her?"
He pointed at Victoria.
'Oh God', she thought, 'and I thought that he was the dangerous one and that she was the one who suffered from delusions. But now it seemed the opposite. He actually believes that they are vampires.' She had to resist the urge to shake her head. Who were these people?
"Who is she? Is she a witch?" Dru asked.
"Yeah, that right. Go a head, kill her."
"No, she would put a spell on me."
"Hardly! Try her. Drink of her, maybe you'll get her powers or something."
Drusilla's eyes changed and the anger was back. "You tried to make me drink blood!" She made a loud sound deep in her throat. Suddenly she attacked him, screaming, her nails scratching his face. And then, she changed. For real! Right before her eyes Drusilla seemed to change! Her face turned in to a mask of…. she didn't know what. Even her eyes seemed to have changed color. They looked yellow, with a golden nuance. And there was something wrong with her eyebrows, and the teeth...Victoria looked at Spike to see how he would react.
"Holy hell!" She whispered. His face had changed as well. The same golden eyes, the long sharp teeth… And now she realized what they looked like. They looked like vampires. They were actual vampires! God, Stephen King couldn't have done it better. So surreal, so...beyond terrifying!
She noticed that the couple had suddenly stopped fighting each other and were now staring at her. She could hear herself laugh, loud and out of control. She felt like crying again, maybe she would.
The Jacks stumbled through the double door, carrying a big cage with a warning sign and the picture of a bulls head in front. Dru and Spike removed their attention from her and she felt so relived she could faint.
Dru started to spin around on the floor, with her hands over her head. Faster and faster while she hummed.
"Oh no, not that again Dru." Spike sighed.
Dru stopped, her face back to normal, and looked at her guest. "Hello Miss, what's your name?"
Victoria met Spikes now blue eyes, he nodded to her. "Victoria is my name, my lady."
"Oh that's nice. A pretty name..." She looked at Spike. "Daddy I'm so weak, would you help me to bed?"
"Sure, pretty. You shouldn't be walking around like this. You're not strong, baby." He lifted her in his arms and looked at her with a worried expression. "To bed then, luv!" There had been hours with silence. 'Victoria' had slept like dead for a few hours, then woken up, screaming. But she was calm now. She just had to stay focused on the situation. Not think of her job, her friends and her loved ones... then she was all right. No tears, no fear, no feelings. She had to let the new reality eat her. make her a part of its body... then she could survive. For a while. If entertaining mad vampire Drusilla during endless tea parties and have conversations with dolls was what it took to stay alive, then it, sure as hell, was exactly what she was going to do!
The newly renamed Victoria ran her fingers over the bars surrounding her, and felt the primal instinct of survival fill her body and make her strong.
*****



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