The Bites of Lust
by Elegy
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Buffy, Faith and all other characters belong to Joss
Whedon, Warner, UPN, etc.
Spoilers: 3rd season before "Bad Girls" and Finch's death; a small
change from the original script of the season: Drusilla and Spike are
still together and Angel's come back is known and accepted by all.
Notes: **...** = Thoughts.
Big thanks to Steff (aka Rebelgirl), my beta-reader.
The door had been closed as gently as possible, but Faith nevertheless perceived the noise. She turned over in the bed and groped for the body which had shared her night. The spot was still warm. But it was empty.
Faith sighed and opened her eyes. She was gone.
**Or she had fled...**
She had almost expected it. The night had been so beautiful... Too beautiful, maybe... Illusory. Ephemeral.
She and Buffy had patrolled in the streets of Sunnydale. The beginning of the night had been restless and they had slain about ten vampires. Galvanized by their fights, they had gone to the Bronze where they had tried to dispel all their excitement while dancing and drinking more than usual. On the dance floor, their bodies were as much in unison as when they fought, and Faith remembered with a thrill the mad desire which had seized her at that moment, all this suppressed desire for the blonde Slayer she had believed to be shared in her green look.
Later, Buffy had accompanied Faith to her motel room. And there, everything had turned upside down. Faith remembered every second.
**I invited you to have a last drink. You wanted to see where I lived. I opened the door with difficulty. I was nervous... I went in and you followed me. You cast a glance inside and then you looked at me. I saw again the desire in your eyes... So I moved closer to you slowly... step by step, I filled the few inches still separating us... It seemed to me like a chasm, it seemed to me like an eternity... For all this endless time, you never stopped looking at me...
Overwhelmed by my lust, I couldn't resist.
I rushed at you, pinning you violently against the wall of the room. You banged your head, but you didn't cry.
I rushed at your lips, as I had always dreamt to do... You didn't push me back, as I had always imagined it. Your fingers slipped into my hair and you drew me to you, accentuating the passion of my eager body against yours, the passion of our mouths devouring each other.
My hand ventured under your leather jacket. You're so sexy in leather, B... I touched your breasts lightly, I caressed your belly, I woke up your body numbed by alcohol... You accentuated the pressure of your hand in my hair, arousing in me a delicious thrill of pain...
I couldn't stand it any longer. I unbuttoned your trousers and your body arched to meet my hand, tensed when my fingers slid into you... You let go of my hair and, gripping my shoulders, you followed my movements. It was so hot all of a sudden... I followed, fascinated, a drop of sweat trickling in slow motion down your forehead, on your closed eyelid, down your tense jaw, before picking it with the tip of my tongue...
You began to moan... It drove me crazy... I pressed myself against you, my leg between yours, and this simple contact nearly made me come... I rubbed against you, following the rhythm of my movements inside you, accompanying your sighs, the mixed smell of leather, sweat and sex intoxicating my senses...
And then, quickly, your breath sped up, your hands held my shoulders tighter, while my fingers were answering your sighs, still faster, still harder, while pleasure rose in me, my body pressed against yours, heavier and heavier, and I followed the pleasure under your closed eyelids, it seized me in my turn, and I drowned our two cries in a last kiss...
Your body relaxed and we stayed locked in an embrace for long minutes.**
Faith turned over in the bed and pulled up the sheet to her face. She still could smell the blonde Slayer's perfume; her fragrance seemed to be everywhere. A wave of desire rose inside her and reminded her of the end of the night.
Buffy had pushed her back violently and she had fallen onto the bed. Leaning on her elbows, her pupils dilated by lust, Faith had silently watched the other woman slowly stripping, a provocative smile on her lips. Layer after layer, Buffy had gotten rid of her clothes to finally approach the bed slowly and languorously lay her naked body against Faith's. She had remained that way for a moment, her look piercing into the dark Slayer's, who held her breath. Then delicately, she kissed her lips, overwhelming her suddenly with a new irrepressible and violent desire. Faith had grabbed Buffy by her waist and turned her on her back, switching their positions. In her turn, she had taken off her clothes and their bodies had joined again. They had made love until the first light of dawn, until they had fallen asleep, exhausted, in each other's arms.
Faith sighed and tossed in her bed. A terrible anxiety suddenly seized her. She leapt up and dressed quickly. She cast a last glance at the creased sheets filled with the memories of the night, then left the motel room slamming the door.
Sitting next to Buffy, Willow studied the blonde Slayer while the physics teacher asked the pupils to take their books and to do an exercise. She seemed tired and preoccupied, and had spent the class gazing at the window, her look blank and vacant. When Willow asked her questions, Buffy merely answered with a grunt, her mind visibly absorbed in something else.
"Buffy, take your book out, we have to do the exercise 2!"
"Mmm..."
Buffy was no longer in the classroom. She stood in a sordid motel room, pinned against a wall by the two powerful arms of another Slayer, panting with lust, scared too in some way, but unable to resist an irrepressible desire to let go under Faith's more and more insistent caresses...
"Buffy? The exercise!"
She could see herself naked against Faith's body, skin against skin, she could see herself making love with another woman... Another woman, she repeated for herself. Remorse and distaste overcame her suddenly. She could not have done that. She had cheated on Angel... and with a woman... With Faith... who never loved anyone... She was drunk, excited, Faith had dragged her... forced her...
"Buffy, I'm pregnant, I was raped by my father, and I'm about to die of cancer," Willow announced in a neutral voice.
"Uh?!"
The inappropriateness of the words had finally reached Buffy's mind, who abruptly turned to the witch.
"What?! What did you say?!"
"I've been talking to you for an hour and you haven't been listening to me... If you don't get your book out soon, you're gonna get an hour's detention."
Buffy hurriedly took her physics textbook out and began concentrating on the exercise. Ten minutes later, she turned again to Willow.
"Will, you're really pregnant?"
Willow rolled her eyes, but did not have the time to answer as the bell rang the end of the class. They put their school things away and made for the exit.
"Buffy, what's wrong?"
The Slayer looked at her guiltily, but remained silent.
"Look, I know you... When you're elsewhere like that, I know that something's bothering you."
"No... Well, I... No, I'm ok... I was just thinking about Angel..."
Willow did not insist, but she perfectly knew her friend was hiding something from her. They passed the high school door in silence when Buffy caught a glimpse of Faith. Sitting on a bench, the dark Slayer had been waiting for more than an hour, smoking cigarette after cigarette in order to try to forget the pangs of anxiety she felt.
Buffy nearly retreated, but she realized she could not avoid Faith without arousing Willow's suspicion. She headed for Faith nonchalantly, but the gleam of worry which had passed through her look had not escaped the witch. When the two students stopped near Faith, the dark Slayer stubbed her cigarette out on the bench and stood up.
"Hi," she said in an unconvincing voice.
"Hi," answered Willow, who wondered what was afoot between the two Slayers.
She noticed that Buffy looked particularly ill-at-ease.
"Er... Willow... I'm sorry but... Faith and I have to talk... I'll see you tomorrow, ok?"
The jealousy Willow had been feeling since Faith's arrival to Sunnydale suddenly reappeared. The two Slayers spent more and more time together, and Willow felt excluded, as if their long friendship no longer mattered to Buffy. She was hurt, but she could do nothing, so she left the two women in tête-à-tête with a sad smile.
"You wanted to see me?" Buffy struck up with a frosty tone.
"I just wanted to make sure I hadn't dreamt last night."
"Actually yes, you did dream!" hurled Buffy, who carefully avoided the younger Slayer's look.
She went on, her voice tainted with bitterness and guilt.
"I should have known! I was drunk, I missed Angel, and you took advantage of it! Girls, boys, nothing can stop you when you want to find someone to put in your bed!"
"But it's wrong, B, I didn't force you, you wanted it too!" pleaded Faith, disconcerted by her reaction.
"No!" Buffy nearly screamed.
A few heads turned to them, before returning to their occupations with indifference. She resumed, more quietly:
"No, I didn't want to. I never wanted you, Faith, not like that. I love Angel, you understand. You knew it and it didn't prevent you from pushing me to sleep with you. So forget it. And forget me. And if you ever say something about it, I'd deny everything, you get it?! Nothing has ever happened between us, nothing!"
Buffy abruptly turned away to hide the tears filling her eyes, and left Faith, petrified and mute, whose initial anxiety had changed into despair.
**But I'll never be able to forget, B... Never.**
"Spiiiike!" Drusilla called out with a drawling voice. "I'm bored to death!..."
Drusilla, her jet-black hair scattered negligently about a chaise longue in the French Empire style, gave a loud yawn to better emphasize her words.
Spike was fascinated by the sight. In this modern world she looked unreal, the only reminiscence of his original epoch when she had made him hers, a child of darkness, and had bound him forever, through the gift of blood. She had not changed; her mind had stopped forever in that time, refusing to wear today's practical clothes. As for him, entirely dressed in expensive and brand new leather, he was grateful to her for maintaining this fixed image of his past.
He approached her slowly and leaned over, turning the black curls of her hair with his fingers, plunging his look into the mad eyes of the woman of his life, studying her enigmatic and worrying smile.
"My love... For your birthday, I planned a big surprise! I promise you that you won't be bored any longer..."
"A surprise?! Oh, Spiiiike!... I adore you... You're gonna bring me two small babies, chubby and rosy, with their skin so tender?..."
Spike smiled seeing Drusilla close her eyes at the evocation of the anticipated pleasure, her hands clasped like a child discovering her gift with wonder.
"You'll see... If I tell you, it won't be a surprise any longer, Dru."
The blond vampire gave a kiss on her companion's cold lips, then straightened up before adding:
"In the meantime, I brought you an aperitif..."
He went away for a while in the background, then came back holding a terrorized young man by his neck and threw him at Drusilla's feet. He tried to rise, but Spike pressed down his boot on his back to keep him on the ground. Dru gazed at the boy as if he was extraordinary.
She sat up on the chaise longue and took his face between her hands tipped by such sharp nails than they looked like claws.
"He's so young... so frail..."
She caressed his cheek gently and put her face close to his, inhaling his smell while closing her eyes.
"I feel the fear... He's so scared..."
Spike was watching with delight the childish joy and the predatory strength that mixed in his lover's eyes. A carnivorous smile grew on his lips and he lit a cigarette to resist the pressing desire to tear off the young man's head, and then feed with Dru on his arterial spring before making love to her in the middle of this blood bath.
Drusilla looked crazily into the boy's wide open eyes once again, who began sobbing. The woman had just changed; he had in front of him a monster more frightening than in his worst child nightmares, with a face distorted by hatred, eyes almost yellow, sparkling and sharp fangs. He tried to free himself from the vampire's embrace, but her supernatural strength prevented all attempted movement. Drusilla began laughing dementedly and threw herself at the victim's neck, sinking her teeth deeply in the tender flesh, draining his blood in a few suctions. And when the young man died, his incredulous consciousness still refusing the reality, his mind was still resounding with her lethal and hysterical laughter.
**"I love Angel."
"I never wanted you, Faith."**
Such a throbbing pain, Buffy's words kept coming back to Faith's mind, sinking her even more into her despair. It was a lie, she thought while downing the last sip from the whisky bottle she kept in her room. A fucking lie. She had wanted her, but she would never be able to admit it. As long as her dark fop was there. He did not even need to suck her blood, she was already under his sway, completely subjugated by his dangerous charm. She was his forever. But the rest was a fucking lie.
Faith lifted the bottle to her lips, but she noticed bitterly the bottle was as desperately empty as her own life.
"A fucking lie!" she spat throwing the empty bottle and smashing it into the wall. "You don't have the right to chuck me like that, fuck... You don't have the right..."
She clenched her fists and her eyes filled with tears, as a fit of rage seized her. She had to go out. She had to let off steam. She had stayed alone all day locked in this room to get drunk. Vainly. Alcohol seemed to reinforce the suffering while weakening her resistances.
She rose staggering, slipped into her leather jacket and left the room. She headed for a cemetery, with the obvious will to expel her anger on the unfortunate vampires coming across her way. After a while, she felt she was being followed, but she did not care about it, lost in her thoughts, her senses numbed by alcohol. She walked between the graves, stumbling on some, then finally sat on a bench, nearly exhausted. She was hurt. She would have never thought that love could do so much harm. Now, she knew why she had protected herself all these years, why she had refused and fled all kinds of affection. But her armor had a flaw, into which a certain blonde had so easily dived. Just a look. There had been just a look and she let herself get caught, had dropped her guard and felt what love was. At last.
But it was an unshared love. She should have known, she should have expected it, as long as Angel would be here, there would never be room for anyone else. And especially not for her. There had never been room for her. Anywhere.
As she was turning over her sad thoughts in her mind, she heard a rustle behind her, a presence. But she did not have the time to react. She was pulled backwards by powerful arms and held firm. She felt her wrists were chained, chains that resisted her Slayer's strength. She ceased fighting and saw a blond vampire dressed in leather approaching her nonchalantly. He stopped at three feet from her. She nearly burst out laughing when she saw his bleached hair, but she contained it wisely, waiting for the next events to unfold.
"So, here is the new Slayer! Is Buffy on holiday that she needs a substitute?"
"Buffy needs no one, asshole!"
The fortuitous double meaning of the words she had just uttered suddenly struck Faith and reminded her cruelly of the rejection she had been the victim of.
"Yuck! But it's not forbidden in the Slayer manual to drink alcohol? I wanted to see what this new Slayer looked like, and I find myself in front of a boozer who didn't even try to give a slight gesture of defence! You nearly spoiled my pleasure, you could have made an effort..."
"Fuck you, Billy Idol..." Faith answered with a flat voice.
"And moreover she's rude... My God, Slayers are no longer what they once were... What's the world coming to?..."
Faith looked around her to estimate her chances to escape: about ten vampires, armed to the teeth, surrounded them both. She could attempt nothing at the moment, chained as she was.
"Well, we haven't done the introductions yet: I'm Spike, more known and feared in the past centuries by the name of William the Bloody... And you must be Faith, a redoubtable Slayer according to what I heard... except when she drank too much apparently..."
"Sorry, I've never heard of you... If you were so important, Buffy should have talked about you, shouldn't she?"
Spike moved closer to Faith, their faces a couple of inches apart, then, pressing his cold hands on her cheeks to prevent her from moving, he kissed her on the lips.
"I love it when my prey rebels, you can't even know how it turns me on..."
A broad satisfied smile came with Spike's words, then he waved to his henchmen who tied a blindfold around Faith's eyes and pushed her forward. Spike abruptly turned back.
"Ah, I was about to forget!"
He came closer to Faith, got a golden ribbon out of his pocket, and knotted it delicately around the Slayer's head, the loop above. He stepped back and observed his work with satisfaction.
"Dru should like you very much..."
"Dru?!" Spike called when they arrived in the old factory used as their lair.
Faith had been tied to a Saint Andrew cross, still blindfolded, and had tried nothing to free herself. Still under the influence of alcohol, she felt as if out of her body and watched the events as if they happened to someone else.
"Dru?!"
Spike finally found the vampire, combing her long black hair, staring vacantly at the mirror in front of her which reflected nothing but the room behind her. He lifted her from her chair and took her in his arms, giving her a kiss on her forehead.
"My love, do you know what the day is today?"
"Yes!" Drusilla answered chuckling, a demented smile on her pallid face, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "It's my birthday!"
"And I told you you'd have a big surprise! Come on!"
He took her hand and led her to her gift. Drusilla studied the tied young woman, but seemed disappointed.
"Oh, Spike! I'd have preferred children... You know how much I like their tender sweet flesh..."
"But what would you say about... a young and vigorous Slayer?"
A new smile lit up Drusilla's face. She turned to Spike, her look full of love and astonishment.
"A Slayer? Oh, my baby, you're so adoooorable!"
She flung her arms around Spike's neck and kissed him passionately. He loved seeing her that way, radiant with joy and expected pleasure.
"And I could play a little with her?" asked Drusilla shyly with a small mischievous smile.
"Of course, love, she's yours, you'll do whatever you want."
Drusilla let out a sigh of contentment, almost a purr, and dropped Spike's hand to come nearer Faith.
"Oh, Spike, it's so cute, you even thought about the little ribbon..."
She unfastened the ribbon, as if opening a present, and removed the blindfold. Hatred flashed in the gift's eyes.
"You should change your lipstick, it doesn't fit well with your complexion of corpse!" Faith shouted, humiliated to find herself in such a desperate situation, reduced to the state of an object.
"Mmm... She's pretty, Spike..." Drusilla simply said, ignoring the remark while gently caressing Faith's cheek, who turned her head away at the touch of the frozen hand.
A thought totally inappropriate in such a context came through the Slayer's mind.
**B, how can you bear the coldness of his hands on your body?**
Drusilla had come so close that Faith could feel her hair brushing her face. The vampire was sniffing her skin in an almost obscene way.
"It's funny, Spike... I don't feel fear in her... But she's sad... so sad... Her heart is so dark..."
"Don't worry, when you have dealt with her, she'll know what fear is..." Spike reassured while putting his fingers in Drusilla's hair.
"Fuck off, bastard!" Faith spat, her pride being trampled on.
"Ah yes, I forgot, Dru, this Slayer is particularly crude... Good manners are being lost..."
Drusilla gave a worrying smile and plunged again her mad look into Faith's. She undressed with her eyes the quartered woman, then ran a finger with a sharp claw down her tank top, slashing the fabric as if it was just a paper sheet. A thin red line formed on Faith's skin, who did not bat an eyelid. The smell of blood threw the vampire's senses into turmoil who collected the few scattered drops with the tip of her fingers and raised them to her lips. Her eyes closed, savoring the vital liquor.
"The Slayer's blood... Supreme elixir... Divine nectar of the night creatures... What rapture..."
Drusilla gripped Faith by her jaw, digging her claws into her cheeks, imprinting crimson marks in them, and forced her tongue in the dark Slayer's mouth. The pointed canines slightly tore her lips, making the blood trickle, immediately sucked by the vampire. Faith could not move her body nor her head, so she snapped her jaws shut on the intrusive tongue. Drusilla yelled and a stream of blood overran Faith's throat, making her choke and cough. The liquid she could not have spat out first burned her entrails, then a strange sensation seized her, an impression of suspended time, and in a split second, that of seeing farther, through the walls, through the time, through the minds, then everything closed, folded back, only leaving to the Slayer a vague fit of dizziness.
Her mouth was bloody, as the reflection of that of the vampire, who was gazing at her with fascination. Spike moved closer to hit Faith when Drusilla held his arm back.
"No! She's mine, Spike, I forbid you to touch her, you hear me?!" the vampire shouted peremptorily, her voice strangely not altered by the wound.
Spike stepped back, impressed by Drusilla's tone. For all his henchmen, he was the proud chief, invincible and legendary: but as for him, he knew too well who the master was. She was his sire, his creator, his lover, and the unpredictability of her madness only made her stronger and more dangerous. He loved and feared her for the same reasons: she had no pity, no conscience, no gratitude, no herd instinct. As a solitary and medium predator, she followed her own enigmatic way, the voice of her ill and demonic mind built with visions, and if Spike was still alive today, he only owed it to this strange love she had been feeling for him for several centuries.
So, when Drusilla took this sharp and implacable tone, and when he glimpsed a gleam of murderer dementia weaving its way through her lost look, he obeyed without arguing.
"She's mine, Spike. And I like her," she added with a sadistic smile.
One day went by.
Faith, still tied to her cross, almost could not feel her limbs any longer. She was feeble and resigned, but she was not scared. She would not offer them such a pleasure. She no longer thought Buffy would come and free her. Buffy was not thinking about her, she was probably doing her best to forget her, forget that night they spent together, that stain in her small life of normal girl. Faith smiled bitterly. A normal girl. Who slayed vampires every night and fucked one in secret. Actually, not exactly. Nobody was worrying about what could happen to her. She was all alone, as she had always been, in front of her despair, of her death. Now, all that she wanted was to die quickly without too much suffering. Unfortunately, she had already understood it was not in the plans of Drusilla, whose perceptible madness was visibly only equaled by her concealed cruelty.
"Good night, Faith."
Drusilla moved closer, with a rustle of her black dress from other times, so feline and so hazy that she seemed to glide on the floor. She put her hand on the wound made the previous day, which had already almost disappeared.
"You heal fast... Almost as fast as we do..."
Then, with a movement so quick that Faith did not have the time to see, Drusilla slashed again the skin, drawing five long and deep cuts that immediately started bleeding. The vampire quivered but refrained, diverting her attention to the wrists. Never leaving the prisoner's look, Drusilla ran her tongue down the arm, lingered in the hollow, to finally stop near the wrist, where an exposed vein allowed the soft beat of the living heart to be heard.
Faith was waiting patiently, as if nothing more could surprise or touch her, as if again she was not really here, as if it was not her blood that was running now from her sliced vein, greedily swallowed by a monstrous hyena, transfigured by the purity of this quasi- Christlike liquid, by its supernatural and unique power, as if she was not feeling the pain turning into an almost orgasmic pleasure, giving her the desire to surrender to the exquisite suction of this vile and insatiable mouth. That mouth which was pressing its way towards the five sanguinolent paths of her belly, lapping without respite the essence of her life; that mouth she was feeling now even lower after having torn the leather of her trousers, those hands sharp as razors, which were gashing her back in order to better attract her to the delicious bites of this sensual and leech mouth devouring her sex, bit the most sensitive part to draw the intoxicating liquid, until she finally lost consciousness, overwhelmed with pleasure and pain, and took refuge into oblivion.
Reluctantly, Drusilla tore herself away from the bruised source of her vampiric rapture and collapsed on her back. No mortal blood had ever brought her such sensations. She could feel the Slayer's supernatural strength running through her body and increasing her own power, her demonic capacities, and peaking in an indescribable pleasure that made her be shaking all over. She had thought she could not manage to refrain from draining her completely, but the prospect of renewing her feast one more night had finally convinced her. The wounds were bleeding on, she had to get up and dress them, she had to shake out of this lethargic and comfortable torpor in which her meal had left her, if she wanted to keep this extraordinary and curious prey. For not only her blood was exceptional, but her reactions were new: her mind seemed to yearn for death while her body enjoyed the blood sharing.
She rose staggering, then applied a magical ointment on Faith's wounds which closed immediately. She put her fingers on the young woman's throat and noticed with satisfaction that the pulse was still beating.
Dawn was about to break and Drusilla, exhausted, let Faith regain her strength while she rejoined Spike, already asleep, in their bedroom.
"Tomorrow, Faith..." she whispered slipping into the black sheets as cold as her own body, "Tomorrow, you'll be mine..."
Faith had strange and worrying dreams.
She saw herself surrounded by vampires, rendered helpless, yelling vainly the other Slayer's name, while the demons were mocking her and moving closer inexorably, their faces changed, contorted masks full of hatred. She saw a human shape in a big black silk dress gliding slowly on the floor, then stop before her and gaze at her while leaning slightly her head to the side. She saw a bloody grimace passing through Drusilla's face, then her demented laughter pierced through her ears. And, in the slightly open mouth, she observed, fascinated, the sharp and gleaming canines soaking in blood - her blood - and the cut tongue, vile snake which suddenly wormed its way between her lips, pouring its carmine venom in her throat. And she felt Buffy's presence, horrified and incredulous witness to her unnatural ecstasy whereas the fire was seizing her entrails and spasms of pleasure were shaking her whole body. Then everything became white and she heard her name.
"Faith..."
Faith opened her eyes, emerging from her nightmare. To face her torturer.
"Faith..." Drusilla repeated, gently caressing the Slayer's dark hair.
Something in the vampire's tone made Faith understand she would not see the next day. But what did her life matter now, abandoned by all, abandoned by the only person she had ever loved?
A stinging slap slashed her cheeks and the blood immediately trickled. She looked at Drusilla, majestic in her dark dresses, her vague look through which madness flashed, her black hair impeccably combed cascading around her naked shoulders, her alabaster face devoid of wrinkles, her lips too dark, and those small protuberances, almost imperceptible, under which could be made out the base of the canines. She had an aura of elegance and dignity that made her beautiful and fascinating. Faith did not know the tragic story of Drusilla's human life, she knew nothing about the origin of the madness she could perceive in her eyes, but it attracted her in spite of herself, while she had nothing more to lose.
Faith looked with a semblance of indifference Drusilla spread out a black leather whip and make the handle slide languidly between her exposed breasts, then down her belly to her sex where it stayed for an unbearable instant. Faith could not repress a thrill. What remained of her clothes were only blood-stained scraps and nothing protected the flesh anymore against the long and terrifying lash which began swirling in the air.
A first series of blows hit her chest, slashing the sensitive and fragile flesh, making the blood trickle in tiny rivulets down her legs. A human would have merely whipped, leaving simple scarlet marks. Drusilla, prompted by her vampiric strength, penetrated the skin and made the blood spurt out.
The following blows struck her arms and legs, reminding her ironically that the shackles had not completely numbed her sensations, and that she could still feel the incisive and burning pain.
Drusilla handled her whip with dexterity and precision: each slash was new, parallel to one another, never overlapping, and each time imprinting a new sharp suffering, an original and bloody scarification.
A shower of blows ended the lethal work, leaving an almost bloodless model, a dislocated puppet spattered with red, gazed with admiration by her murderous painter. Since the first salvo, Faith had not emitted the slightest cry. She was now beyond pain.
Drusilla dropped the whip on the floor and moved slowly towards her crucified prey. With a claw-like finger, she slashed Faith's face and ran her tongue down the cut, before coming down to drink from all the wounds inflicted on her body. The delicious torture lasted a long time before the vampire rose and plunged her iris dilated by pleasure in the Slayer's crazed ones.
"It's time, Faith..."
Drusilla freed the young woman from her shackles. Faith's body was so feeble and so numb that she fell over, unable to stand alone on her feet. The vampire took her in her arms and held her as if she weighed nothing.
"It's time..." Drusilla repeated softly, casting a last and almost maternal glance at the Slayer, before sticking her sharp fangs in the offered throat.
Faith was still on the verge of fainting, but the weird pleasure brought by the vampire suction kept her conscious. She could hear the disturbing noise of the sucking up, then that of the deglutition of her vital fluid with such acuity that she had the impression to be inside the woman who was feeding on her. She could also feel against her this dead body previously so cold gradually warming while appropriating her life. Progressively, the outlines of the room and of the objects became hazy, paler, and she felt herself going away, sinking, in an ethereal and fleecy substance, as she distantly perceived, the beatings of her heart slowing down at the rate of her agony.
Drusilla felt Faith's death was close and she had to force herself again to tear herself away from the divine spring of the Slayer. Still holding Faith by her waist, she pushed her back slightly, arching her back, freeing herself sufficiently to make a deep cut just above her own breast. Gently taking Faith's nape with one hand and holding her with the other, she guided her mouth to her breast and, penetrating her disarmed mind, she ordered her to drink. In limbo of her consciousness, Faith heard the sugary, enveloping, loving voice, she smelt the blood fragrance, attracting, intoxicating, and tried to resist.
**Drink...**
**No...**
**Drink...You've already tasted it... Remember...**
**No...**
**You touched the ultimate experience... Remember... You wanna know what there is afterwards... You wanna know how far you can go... Take it... I give it to you...**
The blood trickled on Faith's lips, entering her throat without her being able to react, and she yielded finally to the instinctive and primary call of survival. The metallic taste overran her mouth as she was kissing the cut, her hands woke up from their torpor to better embrace the vampire, draw her, to better fill with this blood which was partly hers. She suddenly retched, as a last burst of her outraged humanity, and threw her head back, her lips made up with blood, meeting the delirious look of Drusilla, who tenderly drew back her face against the cut.
**Drink... I'll make you my child... my child of darkness... You'll never be alone again... Drink...**
The last scruples disappeared, as an impression of infinite well- being seized her body and mind, a sensation of lucidity and awareness of supernatural things, an acuity and understanding of the world so strong that it was almost unbearable. Faith opened her mouth and sucked so violently that Drusilla could not repress a groan of pain.
The vampire's eyes rolled upwards by pleasure, a rictus stiffened on her ageless face and her hands held the Slayer tighter in her arms. She felt herself weakening in her turn, she had to take care of not going beyond the point of no return. She drew Faith's hair back to move her away from her breast.
**I'll make you my child, my sister, my lover...**
And she sealed her vow with a deep and long kiss, their tongues intermingling, rolling the blood between them as one tastes the savor of a wine, their bodies locked in an embrace that no one could have broken. Faith, lost in a mix of uninterrupted ecstasy and suffering, surrendered in the vampire's arms, and marvelled at the different degrees of consciousness she was reaching, at the multiplicity of the nuances taken by pleasure and pain. Each time she thought to have attained the limit of the bearable, she managed to climb a new grade on the ladder of the senses exploration.
At last, at the highest of her mystical rapture, she felt herself losing ground, toppled and fell inexorably in an abyssal chasm, she was choking, suffocating, she felt torn inside, her body was burning, struggling against the ineluctable, trying desperately to cling to the ultimate instants of its human life, to escape the pangs of death.
"It hurts... It hurts so much..." whispered Faith moaning.
"Don't be scared, my child... It's just your body dying... It's your soul fleeing... Soon it won't hurt any longer..." breathed Drusilla while tightening up her embrace around Faith's body which was becoming heavy.
And, as she reached the depths of the chasm, like an ultimate cruel farce, her mind showed her a last image, Buffy's image, her reproving look full of contempt for her degradation. At last, her broken heart ceased beating, and in a last shudder, Faith died.
**What did I become?**
Such was Faith's first thought when she woke up in her immortal body.
**What did I become?**
She was lying, naked, on the cold stony floor in an empty room, except for a chair on which were put leather clothes identical to those she usually wore. This similarity made her first believe she had had a nightmare. Then the memory of her agony came back to her mind, and it was so real, so close, so present in her head than she nearly yelled. She studied her body. Under the unhealthy whiteness of an almost translucent skin ran deep blue veins. So, trembling, she put a hand to her mouth and discovered with horror some canines too long and too sharp to be human.
**What did I become?**
Was it the human inside her who was denying the intolerable obvious? Or else did every new child of darkness ask themselves those existential questions before yielding to their murderous instincts?
The cruel irony of her exceptional situation struck her suddenly. A vampire Slayer being herself a vampire. Had there already been such a case in the Slayers history recorded in the Watchers' chronicles? And what about her duty? Should she continue to chase the night creatures, her fellows? Or should she reject her past definitely and release the monster inside her, this demon without a conscience, bloodthirsty, which she could not manage to identify herself with?
**Bloodthirsty.**
This thought made her realize she was hungry, her brand new body was claiming its due.
No, she would not drink, ever again, she preferred to die of starvation rather than kill an innocent. And then Faith felt a presence, well before she saw her.
"My child, I feel the doubt in you..."
Drusilla stood before her, magnificent, holding a scared young man, immobilized by only the power of her mind. Faith raised her eyes to her and an immense wave of mixed love and hatred overwhelmed her, the desire of holding her tight in her arms and of breaking her bones at the same time.
"Free yourself from the yoke of conscience... Give up the burden of your past humanity, it enslaves you..."
Faith was fascinated by the soft murmur of her quasi-hypnotic voice. She could feel the power her creator had over her, but she could also feel the questioning. And a hint of worry.
"Accept what you are." Drusilla said throwing the man at her feet.
He sheltered in a corner of the room, huddling, his body shaking with intense fear.
"Never!" shouted Faith, whose face had become human again.
"You're hungry, I know... Stop fighting..."
"Never..." moaned Faith, who could not take her eyes off the tempting vein throbbing in the man's throat.
She felt the terror inside him which was attracting her, turning her on, she could not hear anything but the noise of the blood throbbing in his arteries, resounding in her head, obscuring her mind. The hunger, implacable, was pricking her stomach, ordering her to be satisfied. The need was becoming urgent and painful, her whole body was demanding it. She could not bear it any longer; shivers were running through her, she could see nothing but blood.
Blood.
Blood.
Nothing else but blood.
Prompted by an ancestral instinct, she finally pounced on the young man, and, with a bestial roar, tore his throat open, spattering Drusilla with blood who hastened to make it disappear with a triumphant smile. She drank, sucked great gulps of thick blood to the point of choking. She drained him in a few seconds, and when she felt death take him, she pushed him back and collapsed sobbing next to him.
**What did I become?**
Faith realized her face had changed again, her canines were much longer, and she felt stronger thanks to the life she had just taken.
"What did you make me for?! Why?"
Drusilla gazed at her creation with a sudden and improbable pity.
"Immortality is boring sometimes, Faith. Going through the centuries made us more blasé, less curious. I'm so bored... So when I saw you, I felt in you something special, evil and despair. You're a unique and interesting experience: mixing the powers of vampires and Slayers, what is more exciting?"
"I'm just a distraction for you." Faith concluded bitterly.
"Not only... Your loneliness touched me... Your complexity as well..."
Faith did not answer. She was looking, through her tears, at the body of the young man who still lay beside her.
"Your beauty..." Drusilla added, casting a lustful glance at the Slayer's naked body.
Faith rose, caught the clothes on the chair, and dressed quickly. She could perceive the disappointment in Drusilla. Could she read minds?
"But you failed, Dru."
The latter looked at her without understanding.
"You turned me into a monster, who knows, maybe the mightiest vampire thanks to the Slayer's powers, but a torn monster, tortured by a conscience."
"I know."
"What?!"
"I had a vision of your creation. I knew you would keep your human soul..." Drusilla explained with a saddened voice.
"So why?! Why did you make me?! Why make me suffer such a torture?"
"Why not?" answered softly the vampire with a cruel smile.
Faith, astounded by this answer, felt rage seizing her. She rushed at Drusilla who did not have the time to follow her movement and found herself being pinned violently against the wall. She felt no fear, just admiration and pride.
"You're so strong and fast..." she whispered, looking deep into the Slayer's eyes that had been darkened by anger.
"I hate you..." spat Faith, who felt a murderous desire rising in her.
"Let hatred overcome you... Forget what you were..."
"No!" yelled the Slayer, who grabbed the vampire and threw her at the other end of the room with an ease which surprised them both.
So, Drusilla burst out laughing, a totally hysterical laughter in which filtered sheer madness, and Faith could not bear it. She fled, pushing away with no difficulty all the vampires on her way out, running to escape this cursed voice that had created her.
When she had gone out of the factory, Faith had run for hours in the Sunnydale streets, finally stopping in the cemetery where she had been captured. She would have never been able to run so long before.
She had a feeling that her strength was huge, and she discovered gradually her new capacities. She could see in the dark, she could hear the slightest rustle of leaves, she could move with grace and discretion, so fast that she appeared as a flashing shadow. And above all, she could smell blood. Human blood. Animal blood. She was just a predator now. A damned and perverted Slayer. She was useless.
**What am I going to become?**
She had collapsed weeping, discovering with horror some bloody tears in her frozen hands. And she was hungry, she was so hungry. But dawn was about to break and she had to find a place to hide. It was out of question to go back to her motel room. She looked around her. Graves, nothing else but graves. And crypts.
She headed for one of them and opened the door with disconcerting ease. It was dark inside, but she could see everything. It was cold and damp, but her body was insensitive to temperatures changes. She closed the door and sat in a corner decorated with spiders' webs. She did not want to lie down on the tombstone in the middle of the room, for she refused to adhere to the myth of the vampire sleeping in a casket. Even Angel possessed a comfortable bed in his mansion, even Spike and Drusilla rested in silky sheets.
**Dru...**
Strangely, she could not prevent herself from thinking about her. In some way, she missed her, and the feeling disgusted her. She felt dependent on her creator, dependent on her knowledge and magic blood.
Was there a link uniting vampires with those whom they shared blood with? Or was it simply hunger harming her and pushing her to surrender, to give up her last human defences and disown her conscience?
**"I'll make you my child... my child of darkness... You'll never be alone again..."**
Torn between two opposite worlds in which she had no room, she had never felt so alone. Thus it was tempting to believe Drusilla's words, to take refuge in her arms and to give free rein to her demonic urges, guided by the most cruel vampire. But Faith was too lucid to know an evil being could not be trusted, and the Slayer still remaining in her was too proud to surrender without fighting.
In the opposite corner of the crypt, a noise interrupted her contradictory and desperate thoughts. Two phosphorescent eyes stared at the vampire with interest. And Faith smelt the blood, the blood which was calling her and driving her crazy. How long could a vampire hold out without drinking? How long could she hold out in such an unbearable state of withdrawal? It had been just a few hours since she had drunk and she was already starving. She gazed at the rat, still immobile, and wondered if she could survive feeding with only animal blood. She knew the answer. Angel did it, but the true question was to know if she would have the strength to resist human blood.
She looked again at the rat lurking in the shade, frozen, as hypnotized by the strange creature which had invaded its lair. It only took a fraction of a second: the rat did not have the time to react, she had already seized it, and was sucking it noisily, not letting one blood drop get lost on the ground. The liquid was foul, and she repressed a sudden urge to vomit. She threw the bloodless carcass to the other end of the room, then huddled up on the floor, shaken by retches, and tried to get asleep to forget the hunger which, far from being appeased, had only intensified.
"Where is Faith?"
Spike cast an indifferent glance at the young man's corpse lying on the floor, then asked his question again to Drusilla, who seemed elsewhere and lost.
"Where is Faith?"
"She's gone... Children are so ungrateful... But she'll come back..." Drusilla answered, a weird smile on her lips.
"... Children?" Spike repeated without understanding.
Then he looked at the open shackles, not forced, the blood on the ground, and the boy again. Seized by a doubt, he rushed to Drusilla and opened the neckline of her dress, discovering with amazement the mark of a half-healed wound. In the same sensual way as she had done with him several centuries ago, Drusilla had offered her blood to her lover.
"No!!!" he yelled, seized by a fit of enraged jealousy. "How could you...?! You swore me!"
"She was so beautiful... her blood was so good... it was so good... so strong..." Drusilla simply answered, with a slow and calm voice, her head bent aside, her look vacant, as if she was remembering the unforgettable and ecstatic instants of this exceptional exchange of blood.
"It's sheer madness! Associating the Slayer's forces with vampires' ones! You created an invincible and out of control monster, and..."
Spike broke off. An idea had just taken shape in his mind.
"Hey! But she could get rid of this nasty stuck-up blonde and her Romeo stinking of humanity!"
Drusilla sighed and a shadow of sadness passed through her alabaster face.
"I don't think so, Spike..."
"Why?" he asked, a cruel smile on his thin lips.
For the first time, Drusilla sank her look in her lover's eyes.
"She's got a soul."
"Where is Faith?"
Buffy did not answer. Hand in hand with Angel, she was walking among the graves searching for possible vampires. Angel frowned. He had been sensing the embarrassment in the Slayer since she had fetched him to patrol. He stopped and forced her to look at him.
"Buffy. Where is Faith? Usually, you patrol with her, don't you?"
"Yes, I... I don't know... It's been five days since I've seen her, she may be tired..."
Buffy was avoiding looking in the vampire's eye, and was desperately trying to hide her guilt.
"Faith? Tired? You're kidding me?"
"No, I don't know... Why should I know what she's doing anyway?"
Angel felt Buffy was on the defensive.
"Listen. It's been days since you talked enthusiastically about her to me, since you spent all your time with her, and here, suddenly, nothing. Have you fallen out with her?"
"Yes... A little... Actually, I don't want to talk about it..."
They resumed their walk silently until Angel abruptly froze, a few instants later.
"What's up? A vamp?"
"Yes... I..."
Angel could feel the presence of a vampire, but above all he perceived the power emanating from this creature, a power he had only felt with the most ancient, Darla or the Master... That one was dead... Could it be Darla? Angel doubted it: he knew how to recognize his former lover, her smell, her vampiric aura. And this one was different, stronger. It was impossible: Darla and he were the oldest and strongest vampires still alive.
Lurking in darkness, Faith was observing the two lovers.
She had stayed three days in her crypt, feeding on the few rats which had ventured near her. Each time, she had felt the same nausea, then disgust, and hunger, terrible, painful, always imprinting her the image of the young man and his delicious blood, though incomparable with Drusilla's. She could not bear it any longer, so she had finally gone out and wandered in the cemetery's alleys in search of bigger prey, a cat or a dog, helped by her extraordinary abilities she only began to comprehend. She had felt blood, human blood, discovering, sitting on a bench, a couple of lovers who did not even see her. She had fled to the other end of the cemetery to resist the more and more consuming temptation.
Then she had felt another creature of the night, had recognized so easily its demonic mark cursed with a tortured soul.
**Angel.**
She gave a bitter smile in front of the fate's irony. Angel was now probably the closest person to her, the person with whom she had the most in common. Maybe would she have more chances with Buffy now that she had become in her turn a broody vamp with a soul? No, she had definitely lost her. She never could stand in front of her with this monstrous appearance, ultimate fall, ultimate failure of her life.
And then the image of the boy she had drained, such as a vile and uncontrollable beast, kept haunting her, reminding her she had yielded to her instinct, she had been unable to resist, she had killed a human being to appease her inhuman thirst. She was seeing again his terrorized, incredulous eyes, his torn throat. How could Angel survive every day knowing what he was, living eternally the sufferings of his innocent victims?
**What am I going to become?**
As, with this thought, a chasm was opening before her, she felt Angel's mind scanning the surroundings in search of the unknown vampire. She was too inexperienced to take the precaution of closing her mind - she did not even know she could do it - and she preferred to flee before he discovered her hideout.
"Angel?"
The vampire was on the lookout. This ancestral presence unsettled him deeply. Then suddenly, he no longer felt anything.
"It's gone," he said simply.
"It's not funny... Now they are on their guard..." Buffy commented, disappointed.
They went on patrolling for a few hours without finding one vampire, then came back home separately, Buffy having to prepare a test for the next day.
In his mansion, standing near a chimney fire, Angel was still trying to understand what he had felt in the cemetery. He had been mulling over the hypotheses in his head for more than one hour when he was abruptly overwhelmed again by the power of this unknown vampiric presence. It was everywhere, was filling the room, overcoming his mind. Curiously, through strength, Angel managed to perceive fear and despair. How could a creature that was emanating such power feel this kind of feelings? Whoever it was, it was not far.
Suddenly, he heard the knocker hitting the heavy entrance door. For the first time in years, Angel could not repress a shiver of dread. He slowly opened the door, ready to fight.
"Faith?!"
Angel was disconcerted by the sight he had before him. The Slayer, thinner and pallid, was huddled up on the ground, her arms folded across her chest, her look lost and scared.
"Please... it hurts... Help me..."
He wanted first to believe the creature had harmed Faith and that she had come back there. Then he sounded out the Slayer's mind and the truth imposed itself to him. Faith was the creature. Faith had become a vampire.
"Angel... Help me... Please..."
The vampire shook himself up and helped Faith to her feet again. He slipped his arm round her waist to hold her and make her enter, and put her delicately in a seat near the fire. Faith was trembling all over.
"You're hungry, aren't you?" asked Angel softly.
Faith, whose look had carefully avoided meeting the vampire's one since the beginning, gazed finally at Angel. He could read in her dark eyes an infinite distress, a distress so familiar to him; that of the human condemned to evil immortality, that of the vampire chained by a soul. That of the creature who will never have its place anywhere.
Angel went away for a while and came back with a glass filled with a dark liquid. The blood's heady smell aroused a delicious thrill in Faith's body, who caught herself salivating. With a shaking hand, Faith took the glass, hesitating, as if she was about to go beyond the point of no return again, to become uncontrollable, as if drinking this blood she knew though to be animal was going to soil her soul again.
"Drink."
**"Drink... I'll make you my child... my child of darkness... You'll never be alone again... Drink..."**
Drusilla's image and voice superimposed suddenly with Angel's ones. She saw herself in the vampire's arms, her lips marked with the blood of her offered breast, this exquisite and unforgettable blood, this blood with which she had signed her ruin, sealed her fate for ever.
And then she saw herself made up with this boy's blood, she saw the torn throat, the vital liquid gushing out of the gaping wound, she could hear his cries, his tears, his useless moans in front of the madness which had seized her, in front of this evil which guided her and split her into two.
"No!!!"
Faith threw the glass across the room, splashing the walls and carpets with blood. She wanted to rise, but Angel held her tight in his arms to try to calm her down, understanding at last her tragic path through the images he was reading in her mind.
"Faith, Faith! It's just me, Angel! Don't worry, it'll be ok... Calm down!"
He could feel this huge strength inside her trying to get free, but the hunger was so intense that it was weakening her, and Faith finally yielded to her pain, letting her crimson tears run freely and surrendering in the vampire's embrace, her body trembling with sobs.
They remained that way for long minutes, Angel caressing Faith's hair, waiting for her to calm down gradually.
"I will help you, Faith. You won't face this all alone, I'll help you. But you have to trust me..."
"What am I going to become? I'm a monster..."
"I know what you feel... I know this suffering... And there are thousands of victims yelling in my head, Faith..."
Angel put Faith in the seat and went away to look for another glass.
"But you've got to feed first, or else the hunger's gonna devour you and you'll be tempted to... kill..."
Faith looked at the glass with disgust and desire at the same time.
"It's just pig's blood... bought in the slaughter house."
She grabbed the glass from Angel's hand and downed it in one gulp.
"Again."
Angel smiled and brought her others she drank greedily.
"It's not... the same..." she said hesitantly when she was no longer thirsty.
Angel did not need to ask her for an explanation. Some things were obvious.
"No. It will never be the same as human blood, never as... good... But it's the only way to survive while going on looking oneself in the face."
Faith could not prevent herself from smiling.
"I remind you we can't look at ourselves in the mirror anymore, Angel... And it's you who has 200 years' experience?"
"But in 270 years, I've never met a Slayer vampire, I don't know what you're capable of..."
Faith became gloomy again. She thought about Drusilla's words again.
**"You're a unique and interesting experience: mixing the powers of vampires and Slayers, what's more exciting?"**
"Yes, it's true. What an exciting experience!" she said bitterly.
"I'm sorry, Faith. I didn't mean..."
"What I don't understand," she resumed interrupting him, "is why I've still got my soul."
"Maybe because you're the Chosen one. And 'cause Slayers have to stay pure."
Faith considered Angel's words for a while, then the chasm opened again in front of her.
"But what am I going to become, Angel? I'm useless! I'm a nonsense!"
"This is where you're wrong, Faith. Look at me. Our conditions are alike. I swore to spend eternity expiating my crimes fighting against evil. Our might is a good fortune. Yours seems to be phenomenal. Use it in that endless battle we're doing with the others. With Buffy. Buffy is not eternal. You are."
"Buffy..."
When she heard that simple name, a wave of despair overwhelmed the Slayer, who relived the events leading her to the fatal night. Desire. Rejection. Drunkenness. The humiliating capture. And her mind still open revealed her feelings for the blonde Slayer to a stunned vampire.
"You... You... You and Buffy, you had..."
Faith then understood a little too late that Angel could read in her thoughts, as she had done herself with Drusilla. He rushed at her, and, grabbing her by her jacket, he struck her in the face, hurling her back. She landed heavily to the ground.
"I... I'm sorry... Angel..."
"How dare you come here and ask me to help you after having slept with my girlfriend?!!"
He rushed at her again, pinning her to the ground, and he poured on her a hail of punches in her face as if to erase the too much real image of their two embraced Slayers' bodies, the image of their ecstasy, imprinted in his mind.
Pain and despair began overcoming Faith, arousing in her her aggressiveness growing at the rate of the blows.
"Angel... Stop it! Don't force me to..."
And when Faith felt the blood of her cut lip running in her mouth, an animal rage seized her and her face changed. Her features contorted and threatening canines emerged; she gave a roar which had nothing more human and got rid of Angel's body, who held her, as if it was just a child. He rolled aside, but she grabbed him by the collar of his coat and hurled him against a wall. He seemed so light. So feeble. Despite his game face he just changed into in his turn.
She pursued him and gave destructive kicks and punches which made him fly like a dislocated puppet. Then, when he ceased going back onto the offensive and he collapsed, she moved slowly closer to him, her human face returning, and fell to her knees, her tears running again.
"Don't let me down, Angel... Don't let me down... I couldn't resist alone..."
"Go... away..." he managed to mumble with difficulty, his face covered in blood.
"Please... Don't let me..."
"GO AWAY!!!"
So Faith rose and slowly backed out of the mansion, her imploring eyes plunged into Angel's. And when she finally crossed the threshold, the harrowing chasm of the unknown opened in front of her and swallowed her.
**What am I going to become?**
The following night, a few hours before dawn, Buffy in her turn announced her arrival with the knocker. She waited for one minute, but nobody came. After several unsuccessful attempts, she decided to enter. Instinctively she could feel Angel's presence, she knew he was here. Why did he not open the door?
The mansion was sunk into darkness. She waited for a while, standing still near the entrance, in order for her eyes to get used to obscurity. And then she saw him. Sitting in a seat, Angel seemed lost in thought, his look vague and despaired, even darker than she had ever seen him. It tugged at Buffy's heartstrings and she was overcome by a strange premonition.
"Angel?" she called into the darkness.
No answer. Buffy moved slowly closer to the vampire and kneeled level with him. So she could distinguish the bruised features of his face.
"Angel? What happened?"
She put her hand on his. He removed it sharply.
"Don't touch me!"
Buffy did not understand. And then, the vampire's look full of anger and disappointment pierced through her.
"You cheated on me," continued Angel with a strangely calm tone.
"No! I..."
"Shut up!" he cut in. "Shut up. Don't offend me by lying to me. Not to me."
Buffy felt a great cold overcoming her, seizing her heart, as she was seeing pain devouring his look.
"I'd like to be able to read in you as I read in her," he resumed. "I'd like to be able to read your thoughts and see that everything is a lie, that all this is not true, that you didn't take pleasure in what you did with her..."
A sob choked his voice.
"That you didn't like making love with her..."
"It's Faith... She's the one who told you all this... But I was drunk, I didn't know what I was doing, she pushed me! Please, you must believe me! Angel, you're the only one I love!"
Angel sighed and averted his eyes.
"You don't listen... Minds can't lie... And everything is so real... You were no longer drunk, Buffy..."
He rose abruptly and leaned on the mantelpiece. He went on.
"I know you love me. And I love you too. But I thought this over a long time... I'm immortal, and you'll die one day... I'm a vampire with human feelings, but we are prevented from loving each other... totally... You are human... cruelly human... and I'm mad with desire for you... But who am I to ask you to sacrifice your life, your feelings, for a frustrating relationship with no future?"
"Angel... Please..." pleaded Buffy whose tears had began running.
"No. Let me go on. It hurts, Buffy... It hurts, but I realize what happened with Faith would have happened one day or another... And I have no right to refuse it to you... even if it hurts badly..."
"But I can do without... I mean, it doesn't matter..."
"Yes, it does. It does matter to me, and it will to you, you know it. You desired Faith... And you've desired her for a long time... I didn't need to read her thoughts to know it... I could see it in your eyes when you were looking at her... when you were talking about her..."
"What are you trying to tell me, Angel?"
The vampire turned to her and showed her his bloodstained hand.
"It's over, Buffy... Look... I'm not made for you... And... she's no longer made for you either..."
"I... I don't understand..."
Buffy was lost in the confusion of her feelings, unsettled by the vampire's speech, and refused to hear the hidden meaning of his last words.
"Faith is like me now... by your fault... A cursed and desperate vampire..."
Buffy ran until she was out of breath in Sunnydale streets, beside herself with anger and pain, blinded by the tears which were blowing away around her. She had fled the mansion, her heart broken and seething with rage, pursued by the last words of the man she loved.
**"Faith is like me now... by your fault... A cursed and desperate vampire..."**
Everything was a jumble in her head and she still was not sure to understand.
**"It's over, Buffy..."**
Everything was over by Faith's fault, Faith who had seduced her, Faith who had attracted her and destroyed all her certainties in just one night...
**"... it's wrong, B, I didn't force you, you wanted it too..."**
**"You desired Faith... And you've desired her for a long time..."**
... Faith who had revealed her contradictions... her desires...
**"... by your fault... A cursed and desperate vampire..."**
... Faith she had rejected... because she had been scared, because she could not face the consequences...
**"Faith is like me now..."**
What happened? What happened during the five days following her last meeting with Faith?
**"Faith is like me now..."**
And suddenly, Buffy thought about the cemetery, about Angel's reaction when he had felt a vampire. She had read the intense confusion in his eyes.
**"... A cursed and desperate vampire..."**
**A vampire.**
So everything became clear. Stunned by this revelation, Buffy stopped running. And saw she was in front of the cemetery. A burst of rage seized her again and she took her stake out. She no longer controlled her emotions, she only saw one thing, someone had to pay for all this waste, Faith had to pay, and she had to do her duty, her Slayer duty. Faith had become a vampire. She had to slay her.
**"Vampire. Slayer. Dead vampire."**
Faith's words about Buffy's behaviour with Angel came back in her mind and she bitterly burst out laughing.
"How right you were, Faith!"
Buffy headed for the crypts, the stake clutched in her hand. She stopped, concentrated and let herself be guided almost hypnotically, trusting the strange link uniting them, this link which led her directly to the vampire's lair. She kicked the door open. But she remained petrified in front of the sight before her.
She had caught a vampire in mid-meal holding a still quivering rat in its hands, a vampire who was fixing her with its yellow eyes, its lips curled up on sharp canines dripping with fresh blood.
**"... A cursed and desperate vampire..."**
... a vampire in whom she could read something familiar but unutterable under the demonic mask, this mask which changed before her eyes, liquefied to turn into human features, in a dark and disturbing look, a voluptuous mouth which still carried a scarlet drop and which whispered:
"Buffy..."
The blonde Slayer rushed at her and hurled her against the wall. Faith banged her head hard and, seized by a dizzy spell, could not avoid the salvo of blows which followed. Buffy, driven by despair and rage, was striking continuously, striking with incredible violence what she thought to be the cause of her suffering. She was striking and weeping. To forget the loss of her impossible love with Angel. In order not to see the face of the woman who had once been human and she had desired. In order not to face her responsibility. To flee the reality of her collapsed beliefs.
However she had to put an end to it all. So she stopped and raised her stake. But her gesture stayed frozen in the air. Her eyes wide open, filled with some furious madness she did not know she could feel and met the resigned look of the dark Slayer.
"Go ahead, B. Kill me... Free me... please..."
A look so human...
**"Faith is like me now..."
"... A cursed and desperate vampire..."**
And when Buffy understood Angel's last words at last, she dropped the stake which rolled down the crypt's ground.
"You have a soul!..." she breathed, lost now.
"B... Kill me... now..." Faith begged, still immobile.
Buffy's smell, her skin, her blood, became unbearable to her. She could feel evil wrapping her, the desire overwhelming her. She had not much time left. She did not know if she could resist the imperious urge overcoming her gradually.
She grabbed Buffy by her shoulders and turned her round against the wall, holding her hands with hers, leaning her whole body against her in an inescapable embrace.
"I want you to know..." she whispered, capturing the scared and lost look of the blonde Slayer.
She gave a slight kiss on her lips, then plunged her head in the hollow of Buffy's shoulder in order not for her to see the change of her face. She wanted Buffy to remember only the image of another woman, the image of her human past, the image of the woman who had loved her one night.
Then, with a hoarse growl, Faith sank her canines deeply into the skin and sucked. Buffy flinched but did not cry. She could not move any more.
Faith was carried away in a whirl of intense and voluptuous sensations, unique and unutterable. The Slayer's blood, elixir of evil gods, demonic trophy, ultimate pleasure... was filling each vein of her dead body, was feeding each immortal cell, was warming her dull heart, and was mixing with hers, greatly increasing her strength, her perceptions, her pleasure. Her mind was nothing more but a hazy mist, her body an ecstatic entity, chained in an unshakeable embrace and even more intimate than sex. She could feel herself passing away as she felt Buffy passing away. So she opened the gates of her consciousness, violating the hypnotized mind of the petite blonde, making her share her vertiginous sensations, pain, pleasure, both paroxysmal, wrapping her in the mist of another carnal dimension.
**I want you to know... look...**
And Buffy looked. And felt. She felt Faith making love to her that night when everything had turned upside down, she was filled with Faith's feelings for her, with her desire, she felt her love for her, her immense pain when she had rejected her, her ravishment, the torture inflicted by Drusilla, the share of blood, strange mix of pain and pleasure, her agony, her transformation, the young man's death, the depths of her loneliness and the immeasurable suffering of her human consciousness immured in a monstrous body.
She felt and understood, as she was hearing the beating of her heart slowing down, the pangs of the only two beings who had loved her passionately. And she had lost irremediably.
Then she felt the bite of the kiss disappear, the arms embracing her relax, put her gently down to the ground. She opened her eyes and saw dawn had broken. And as the mist in her head was clearing, she stared at Faith and saw she was smiling to her. Buffy did not understand at first. Then the meaning of this peaceful and determined smile imposed herself with horror on her distressed mind.
Faith looked at the first rays of light which had crossed the threshold of the crypt. And she moved forward in the sun.