Run and catch, run and catch.
Drusilla's song is running through my mind. Only makes sense. Only proper. She taught me all the craft I'm exercising now, and Angelus taught it to her, and he learnt it from Darla who knelt at the feet of the Master of Aurellius, back and back we go, to the time of the Old Ones, world without end, amen.
The lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
I've caught myself a little lamb, yes indeed, with black curly wool, and as there aren't blackberries growing wild in Sunnydale I've caught him up with the next best thing in iron. Barbed wire.
Poor little lamb, he does cry so.
Adam...Adam the beast...I don't worship at his feet like the other demons do, he's no messiah of mine, but he was put together from Initiative parts and he does have a bit of a knack for them. He dug down into my brain to their little chip and tinkered about and now things are different.
"Spike, old boy...to kill this girl, you've got to love her."
Angelus told me that, and I sneered at the time, but how right he was. How right indeed.
"I don't love her," I tell my little lamb, licking away the blood from where the barbs break his skin. I've tied him nice and tight, so he can't run away, and the wire bites at him, poor thing. I grab his chin and tilt his face up to me and kiss him hard and deep, kiss it and make it better, thrust my tongue down his throat until he chokes and pulls away. Bad lamb. "But you do," I say, turning back to my little workbench and my project, the bit of wood I'm carving as Angelus carved for Drusilla and my princess carved for me (did the Master carve for Darla? yes yes long and long ago). "So I'll kill her through you- you'll kill her for me- everything I do to you will dig into her- see, see?"
He stares at me, dark lamb eyes bewildered and pained. "What happened to you?" he gasps.
I smile and busy my fingers with carving. "Adam did a bit of digging round in my brain, you see. Set things right. Now I can fight, can bite, can even properly hurt...just can't 'strike with intent to kill,' is what he said." I lovingly shave the last bit of wood off and hold the work up to the light. Perfect. Now for the twine and it's ready.
"I think he might've scrambled stuff up in there while he was digging," he says, panting and glaring at me. "What'd he use, a plastic spoon? You're crazy-"
Little lamb teeth. No more of that. I got the twine out of a horse barn- used for binding bales of hay. Terribly rough and prickly. "Quiet now," I say amiably, walking over to his chair and straddling his lap, a knee alongside either hip. Pinning him there. Ooh, the lamb doesn't like me so close. "Run and catch," I sing to him. "You ran, I caught you, now you've got to do what I say." I lean in and nuzzle his cheek gently, then kiss his temple. Pretty little lamb. "But you mustn't bleat so." Carefully, I slip the wooden gag into his mouth as if bitting a horse- put a finger in to tickle his tongue until the jaw drops, then put it in place and do up the straps tight and proper. Knot the twine behind his head good and tight. He stares at me wild-eyed and scared, and I check the fit; good good Princess and Angelus would be so proud. Just a smidgen too narrow, so it pinches just so; rough in just the right places so it chafes the edge of the lips and the tongue; arched so if he doesn't hold his head just right and proper it digs into the roof of his mouth. Must hold the head like a proper carriage pony, Dru always said. Pony and lamb, it does get dreadfully mixed up. But perhaps later I'll take my dark little beastie for a ride.
I wiggle up closer to him in the chair and smile at him, letting my face shift and watching the fear in his eyes drown in tears. "Don't intend t'kill ya," I tell him, tongue clumsy around my fangs. "Jus' a taste, like-" and I sink my teeth into his throat.
He shrieks and struggles and when I pull back to look, his wrists are bleeding anew and the edges of the gag bit are stained. "Now, now, pet, don't make a fuss," I say, sliding down off his lap and kneeling between his bound legs, nuzzling the zipper of his jeans and then plunging my fangs into his inner thigh, driving my teeth through the denim and sucking down hot sweet arterial blood. When I look up now he's crying, blood and tears running down his face in a ghastly mask, and right now I love him, just a little bit, for how he's hurting the Slayer for me.
He loves her loves her loves her, and so every cut into him wounds her, cuts away a part of her strength. Angelus said so, and when it comes to hurting, oh, who knows better than he?
Oh, yes, and he said the finest art was to blend pleasure and pain, and didn't he and the Princess both prove it, so I tug the lamb's zipper down with my teeth and then reach in and bring his penis free.
He's struggling again, driving the barbs deeper into wrists and ankles, making guttural moaning sounds around the gag. I feel hot spatters of blood fall from his mouth into my hair and laugh as I lower my mouth and slash a cut across the top of his cock. I lick at the shallow wound, coaxing the edges wider, digging my tongue into sensitive tissue, until it's bleeding freely and I take the length of it into my mouth, teasing until despite himself it stiffens. His blody arches in pleasure and agony as I drink his blood and suck him off at once. He comes and I swallow and I lunge up to catch his face in my bloody hands and kiss him, darting my tongue around the bit and wondering at how slippery his tears make his skin. I pull away and bound across the room to sprawl on the bed.
"Now y'see," I explain to him as he huddles and shakes and chokes himself on the bit, "Slayer's a girl. 'S the number one thing. An' since I'm hurtin' her through you, what I just did, she'll feel it in her womb. Source 'a her power, like." I'm proud of it, it's a clever plan, the kind Dru's pixies might've whispered to her in the dark.
I can't quite remember if Adam wanted me to wound the Slayer or isolate her or tear her apart. I'll play with my pony-lamb a bit longer and see if it comes clear. If not, when I break him I'll give him to Adam to make whole with other bits and pieces, and I'll go out hunting again. Maybe the little red one, or the old man, or the blond army boy the Slayer rides now that Angel's gone away. She loves all of them. They can kill her.
They'll run all through Sunnydale and I'll chase along behind 'til they stumble into the blackberry thorns and are caught. I'll slide my knives into them and bleed the Slayer out with pinpricks.
Got to finish with this one first, though. Still dozens of games Dru and her daddy learned and taught.
"Ran and caught, ran and caught," I sing to him, playing with the verses as I reach for the pen knife I left on the bench. "The lamb kills the Slayer just as he ought..."