winter | Public announcement

Yup. Especially since she remembers how destructive the Key thing can be. She might even be thinking that this unleashing will work through turning her back into the formless energy being again.

Bunny me? I'm flailing here.

That's pretty much it - she's sure that even if he does save her, she won't be anything he could work with or recognise anymore. She'll be glowy stuff and he'll be alone and she's lying there, dying and thinking "This sucks. I just got him housebroken"

Holding her gaze, one of her hands clasped in his, his other palm pressed to her brow, then he allowed himself to touch her mind. The pain was dazzling in its sheer intensity and he was amazed that she was yet conscious.

Probing deeper, sifting through her consciousness, seeking out the fragments where memories joined one another, he sought the point where construction and reality met, where she had become.

Beneath his palm, he felt her slipping back into unconsciousness, her body going limp upon the couch. Her skin was almost as cool as his own, though chilly with perspiration and drying blood.

On the edge of his senses, he could feel her heartbeat, slow, so slow, he wished he could turn her and have done, because feeling her slip through his fingers like sand was making his focus falter.

Then, there it was.

So jarring and sharp, he wondered how he could have missed it.

With mental touches, he slipped between the edges of the boundary.

Energy struck him from all sides, like lightning strikes, vicious, raw, untamed, but with the ungraspable fluidity of the racing rivers, more powerful than anything he had imagined possible.

And as he felt the slow, rhythmless throb of Dawn’s heart, he wondered if perhaps, he should have listened to Herbert.

:D

So he's not even sure if she'll wake up human?

(Now, torture scene?)

Now, he's not even sure he'll get out undead ;)

It's very interesting to see him out of his depth like this - still holding on to his self-assurance, but acknowledging the possibility of failure...

When people say "I'm not real. I'm mystical energy" you don't think it could all be contained witin one tough little human and only now is he starting to realise that "oh, wait, it can be" :D

High time for him to be just a little bewildered ;) How's the torture scene coming along?

I'm hopping between it and the Spike/Faith thing in the present chapter.

Will be waiting.

BTW, any idea why everyone's requesting smut from me? I don't know how to write it!

Regarding smut? Because they like to torment you :D But I didn't offer smut *angelic* Just underwear :D

Oh and Illyria's in charge of the torture brigade. Spike's wanting to kill and can't think around it, so he's letting her pick the methods:

“Six against two? And not one of them can even tell she wasn’t a vampire.”

In the basement, the prisoners had been stripped of their weapons with embarrassing ease, not one of them thinking to carry an irremovable cross anywhere on their person or even managing to hide any tools anywhere imaginative.

Prowling around the huddled knot of five men and one woman, Illyria was tilting her head from side to side, making the bones crackle slowly. “Such fools have no use for the brains they possess,” she murmured. “The Graf will plaster the walls with them.”

“Come now,” Herbert was leaning against the wall of the room, arms folded loosely over his chest, his hair spilling around his face. “You know father better than that, Illyria. He would hardly wish to ruin the decor with such mundane things.”

“S’true, that,” Spike said, examining a deadly-looking axe. “Think this thing would break a leg?”

“Probably messily,” Herbert murmured. His eyes were fixed, cold and hard, on the huddle of mortals. “I suspect these charming people are locals, William. If you wish to threaten them, I would suggest their own language.”

Spike made a face. “I hate sodding Romanian,” he grumbled. “Always trip up on the vowels. Got to be an easier way...”

He looked around the room, then wandered over to the body of the man Illyria had killed. His head pointing in the wrong direction, which had apparently scared at least one of the survivors into piddling all over the floor.

“Really want to do one of them in,” he muttered, giving the body a kick.

“Take one and break every bone in their body,” Illyria was standing ominously close to the prisoners, her hands flexing by her sides as if she wanted nothing more than to reach out and snap them like twigs. “One bone at a time, until there is nothing but powder within their flesh.”

Spike looked at Herbert. “Well, they wouldn’t be dead...”

Herbert gazed at him for a moment, then nodded. “Make it hurt.”

“No question of that,” Spike replied with a vicious grin. “Blue, want to start? I’d say we go with the girl.”

The demon reached into the middle of the huddle. The single female was shielded by the larger bodies of the men, but Illyria plucked her out, shrieking and struggling, as if unaware of the blows landed by the men.

I really like Herbert in this scene. Vicious, remote and in control at the same time, effortlessly, even as his mind is elsewhere.

He's not going to do anything but stand there and be ice-hard. Illyria has grown accustomed to Dawn and dislikes the people so she's doing the hands on torturing, while Spike grins a lot and makes threatening noises.

I assume Spike also gives some suggestions? :D

(And as long as we're talking suggestions, threatening the hunters with turning them should go over nicely with their greatest fears...)

“I wish to begin,” she said, staring coldly at the woman’s pale face. One blue-tinted hand closed around the woman’s and there was a dull, wet popping sound punctuated by an agonised scream.

Spike’s eyebrows rose. “Impressive for just the tip of a pinkie,” he said, one side of his mouth curling up. “Go on, Blue, do it again.”

Illyria’s solid eyes turned to him. “Too soon and the fresh pain will be dulled by the first,” she said flatly. She looked back at the woman’s wide, terrified eyes. “This one has no tolerance for pain. It shall not take long.”

A second crackling pop echoed off the walls.

Again, the woman screamed.

One of the men cursed and tried to rush at the demon, but was cut off. His right calf and foot falling sideways, he dropped forward onto his face, howling in pain and pulling his maimed and bleeding stump of a leg towards him.

“Huh,” Spike looked at the blade, surprised. “Sharp, innit? Didn’t think it would go all the way through.” Tossing it aside with a clatter, he squatted down beside the man with a pleasant grin. “See,” he said in Romanian. “If you just stayed still, you would still have two legs and be able to run away when the Graf comes after you.”

*bops Spike on the nose* Oi. No fair making the meat bleed out and die before Johannes can get his claws on them :>

*throws popcorn*

Oh, he's gs leet nurse skills to fall back on ;) He's had enough people trying to bleed themselves to death before munching to know how to use a torniquet ;)

And a bit of a snack while he's at it? :> Can't blame a guy for wanting to keep his hands clean...

The man, sobbing in pain, and cursing tried to crawl away, but Spike reached out and caught his bloody stump of a knee by the shattered end of the bone. With a casual tug the made the man shudder and go limp, he pulled him closer.

“Kill him!” One of the other men cried out. “He is bleeding anyway! Kill him!”

Blue eyes rose and regarded the vampire hunters and Spike slowly, lifted his hand to his lips and licked the blood from his fingers. “Think I’ll keep him alive,” he said, eyes gleaming gold. “Patch him up and make myself a new pet.”

Terrified eyes stared at him as he loosened his belt and wrapped it around the bleeding limb, pulling it tight. He straightened up then, licking blood from his fingertips as if it was a rare delicacy.

“Herbie, you got any kind of nice, hot fire or pokers or something that burns?”

Grey eyes slanted towards him. “There is always a fire in the drawing room,” he said quietly. “A metal bucket stands beside the grate. There should be a variety of pokers of interesting shapes.”

“Good stuff,” Spike grinned unpleasantly.

Too bad mortals can't take that poker-through-the-chest thing Spike did to Angel, really.

BTW, Viktor and Draculea is now 400 words and counting. Bloody vampires.

Spike's going to entertain himself by cauterising. And cutting. And cauterising. And cutting. And cauterising. He likes to burn stuff *nodnod*

(allow me a bwhaahahah! :D)

Pyromaniacs unite :D

(Will possibly wrap up within 600 words. Draculea's far less subtle about the pwning than VK, really.)

And ooh look! Bone fragment! Wait til he regains a bit of consciousness then pull :D

Spike's really the cutest thing, isn't he? :D

(BTW, how will they know that VK's thing is done and over with? Herbert getting a magical nudge?)

Despite being all soul-full, Dawn is his among other things and anyone who hurts her deserves everything they get and then some. Plus, he doesn't like idiots ;)

(Methinks VK will short out for a time and the whole lot of them will feel it, because he's put everything into pulling her back. It'll be like someone switched off all the lights and Herbie'll flip and run for the room)

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