Part 8
“You never know until you’ve been tested. I get that now.”
“Don’t know what you expect of me, cheerleader,” he whispered in her ear, grinding out his cigarette on the soft flesh of her thigh, delighting in her shriek of pain, “I’m evil, remember?”
She looked up at him, eyes sparking with pain and Spike knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if she’d got hold of him at that moment she’d have driven a stake through his heart. “You gonna tell me what you know?”
Her mouth opened and Spike leaned closer still, hearing her bated breath. She was hurting, that was obvious, she’d gone five rounds at least without giving up whatever the hell she’d been holding and he was growing bored.
“Quicker you tell me, quicker I can kill you and get this over with.” He sneered, sitting back on his haunches and looking balefully at the last of his cigarettes he’d wasted on her flesh. Bugger.
She was losing conciousness as well, Spike noticed as her eyes drifted shut, a movement fraught with pain. Who could blame the chit, wanting to shut this world out and go somewhere else? Somewhere where–
“Angel…”
His gaze darkened as his grandsire’s name slipped from her lips and Spike grabbed a fistful of hair, yanking her awake again, “Now that’s no good, pet,” he snarled, “Can’t have you nodding off on the job. I wanna know what cards you’re holding in that pretty hand of yours…”
To emphasise his point he grabbed her left hand, bending her fingers back. Nothing. He watched her face crease into sheer determination not to scream and bent them further. Cordelia did scream this time and when he leant closer, her agony had dulled into little whimpering cries.
“I can make it stop if you want,” he told her, “Only one prolongin’ the agony is you.”
It took her a full minute to speak. She sucked in a breath, probably trying to find some excuse to fob him off, when the words – so carefully spoken – hit him like a fist.
***
“Don’t understand what’s got you so upset,” Drusilla murmured, looking longingly at the room that held the girl, “Should’ve thought you’d like listening to pretty eyes scream more…”
That was the trouble, Spike realised, it’d been nothing but fun until she’d muttered all that crap about loving the slayer. Him. In love with the Slayer. Like that big poof, only not… Because he had nothing making him do it like a pesky sodding soul.
Spike shuddered. “Leave it, Dru.” It had been his idea to stop her ‘playing’ earlier. She’d barely got into playing on Cordelia’s insecurities, dragging up some Irish Mick and then Angel, only to have Spike suggest that maybe this was a can of worms they didn’t want opened.
Needing to keep up the charade for Dru’s benefit, Spike had gone back in that room, stubbed out good cigs on her skin, snapped her fingers and made marks on her body that’d probably take years to fade… But what she’d said had freaked him beyond belief.
Loving a slayer – when did that crap start? And helping the helpless… Did it look like he’d fallen off the last sodding banana boat?
“Why don’t we go eat?” He asked, hoping that would appease her, “Find ourselves some young couple to feed off? You’ll like that, right pet?”
Drusilla’s eyes narrowed, “You know something, Spike. The girl, she said something…”
Spike’s patience, already stretched to snapping point, broke clean in half. “For christ’s sake, Dru, will you just give it a rest?” He was contrite the minute he saw the look on her face.
Thankfully, his little outburst and the tenderness he’d shown afterwards had been enough to stop her questions… For now. Spike didn’t know what was coming later – Cordelia had warned that knowing the future was bad enough without knowing your own in the process.
He was starting to think she was right.
***
“So what we know so far is that Cordelia left the library last night but didn’t make it home,” said Giles, pinching his nose between his thumb and forefinger, “And she’s been seen nowhere since?”
He was met with a collective nod from the small group in the library, his concern for the girl evident. She’d left here in such a state last night, he’d almost considered going after her until he realised that Buffy’s moods often swung in the same direction. Give her some space, he’d told himself, she’ll come round.
Come round? Just now he’d been met with the fact that Cordelia hadn’t come back at all and that wasn’t like her, or at least not like the– The new, improved version. “We should have been looking since this morning.” He murmured, angry at himself more than anyone, “Cordelia’s shown nothing but dedication to her training this past week and the one morning I think she’s shirking her responsibilities she’s–”
“Blaming yourself isn’t going to do any good, Giles,” said Jenny calmly, placing a hand on his arm, the voice of reason at his side, “We need to focus on finding Cordelia.”
Giles sighed, defeated. “We don’t have much to go on.”
“We have Willy.” Buffy offered, so very much in the mood to pound something into the floor right then, “I could go hit him a few times, see what I get?”
“You think that will work?” Giles asked, glancing at the clock again, “I don’t want to push you but–”
“Time is of the essence, I know, Giles,” she nodded, jumping down off the counter, “I think that’s all we’ve got.”
“What about the security systems at Cordelia’s place?” Willow offered, having listened to all of this with a somewhat heavy heart. It was true, there was no love lost between her and Cordelia – and she so didn’t mind the brunette being screaming bait girl 98 percent of the time but… She didn’t want anything to happen to her, especially nothing bad.
“I’m pretty sure I could hack–” she paused, going off Giles’ look, “–find a back door that’s so very not illegal somehow? Check out the cameras?”
“I’ll overlook that hacking thing this once,” said Giles, offering the girls a tired smile, “Is there a way we can get in contact with Angel, Buffy?”
“You know Angel,” she shook her head, “Only shows up when–”
“I’m here.”
She almost leapt three feet in the air when he appeared behind her, her heart doing that triple jump thing it always did when he was around. “Y’know, I’mway too young for a heart attack.” She murmured, disgruntled, “Everything okay?”
Angel shook his head, giving the tiniest of nods to Giles and the others, “There’s something going down Buffy…”
“Let me guess,” she sighed, “Something big, apocalyptey and demanding my attention?” Angel nodded. “Great. And on top of that, everything with Cordelia…”
She didn’t finish the rest of the sentence. Angel jumped on it with both feet, forgetting all about his apocalypse. “Cordelia? Is she all right?”
Taken off guard by the suddenly fierce look in his eyes, Buffy shook her head, “I… Well, no. We can’t find her. I mean, she didn’t turn up for training this morning and I found her keys outside–”
“She’s missing?” The temperature in the room dropped, Angel’s eyes narrowing even further. “Cordelia’s missing?
“That’s what I was trying to say.” Buffy frowned. She couldn’t explain the sudden rush of irritation, the feeling of rejection that had sparked off at Angel’s reaction. Out of nowhere came a thought, one that seemed petty and cruel, given the situation. He used to look like that over me.
“Any leads?”
Wondering fleetingly if she was making mountains out of molehills, Buffy shook her head, “Not a one. I went to her house this afternoon and the maid was– Well, rude much? She said Cordelia hadn’t been home last night.”
“What about her parents?” He pressed, “Other friends?”
Buffy shook her head. Ever since Cordelia had come back from her future she’d pretty much ditched Harmony and the Cordette’s and her parents, from what she’d heard, were more absentish than they were… Parentish.
There were no leads anywhere and standing round talking about it was doing them no favours time-wise. “We’ll find her. I’ll go hit Willy and you–”
“I’m with you,” Angel nodded.
He turned round and stalked out of the library, black coat billowing out behind him. Dodging the puzzled glances she was being shot from both Willow and Giles,
Buffy pointed to Angel’s retreating back, “I guess that’s my call…”
***
She’d been watching a bug for the past half hour. Out the corner of her eye she could see it, travelling this way and that across the dirty rotten floor.
It spoke to her.
It didn’t take a genius to figure that she was pretty out of it.
Her head hurt, her body was sore and three of the fingers on her left hand were hurting so badly that Cordelia was almost glad she was out of it enough to not remember how it happened.
It had started with Spike, that much she knew.
At one point he’d hit her so hard she thought her head was going to roll off her shoulders… And yet she still remained straight faced when he asked her what she knew, why she’d ‘spoiled Dru’s party’.
When finally she’d broken down, she’d said only one thing to Spike. One thing and it had made him turn around and leave.
Score one for Cordelia, she’d thought triumphantly, her brief change in temper dying with the swoosh of the curtain behind her.
“Such a lot of things in that pretty head,” came the voice, soft and gentle. She felt Dru kneel behind her, hand palming the hair that stuck to her neck. “Seen all sorts of awfulness, haven’t you princess?”
Cordelia’s body tensed. Neck, vampire, who could blame her for being a little apprehensive? But Drusilla just smoothed the skin there, making tiny little murmuring sounds as her fingers danced lightly.
“Just like you, once upon a time.” Drusilla murmured, unaware that if Cordelia hadn’t been out of it she’d have laughed her loudest at that. “Saw lots of things before they happened. They thought I was a witch. Cursed, they said. Tried to burn me at the stake…”
Only in Sunnydale could you find yourself shunted back to the past, tortured, beaten and bloody and then identifying with a homicidal vampire. It was a curse, wasn’t it? The visions, they always had been. They’d killed Doyle, brought her here, made her give up everything she’d known, everything she’d loved.
“What do you want?” She asked tiredly, not sure how to react around Drusilla. She seemed softer than Spike, almost gentle in her approach, but Cordelia remembered Kendra– Despite the fact that it hadn’t happened yet.
Soft hands slid under her arms, pulling her up. Her body protested but went anyway until she was sitting against the wall, faced with Dru and her human visage, a glass of water that was pressed to her lips. Cordelia took a sip, still waiting for Dru to turn, and stared at her for a long moment, “I suppose letting me go is out of the question?”
Drusilla smiled faintly, “Soon, pretty eyes,” she whispered, “Soon.” She lifted a hand and Cordelia noticed black nails, tipped with white. She didn’t realise Drusilla was whispering until a moment after when the room around her had faded somewhat and the vampire was gone, replaced with another.
“Angel?” She gasped, the relief almost choking her. She was too out of it to realise that it wasn’t Angel at all.