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Put your pale arms around my neck.
Let me hold your heart like a flower
lest it bloom and collapse.
Give me your skin,
as sheer as a cobweb,
let me open it up
and listen in and scoop it out of the dark.
Give me your nether lips
all puffy with their art
and I will give you angel fire in return.
Lilah thinks that it is blood that she is coated in. It could be something else (Drusilla has a fondness for licking her, for some reason), but chances are, its blood. Most of it hers, but at least some is Lindsey's.
She's also pretty sure that Lindsey is still alive. Everyone else was killed hours ago, and Lilah can still feel her ears ringing from the screams. She couldn't do anything about it-not escape, its a fucking wine cellar for chrissake, and not stake them, because the first one who'd tried that had his eyeballs eaten.
Apparently they are sweet, like candy. According to Drusilla, anyway, but Darla had licked the stickiness off the other woman's fingers, and concurred. Which just makes Lilah wonder if Darla is crazy too, or just going along with Dru, like one would humor a child.
It also makes Lilah wonder about her own sanity, if this is all she can think about. Her left ankle is broken, and she is naked, covered in something wet and warm, but rapidly cooling. A female vampire is licking along her spine and forcing her to stay on her knees, as if in prayer. Another female vampire is lounging on the arm of an easy chair, watching hungrily.
But then, she doesn't think anyone could be sane after what she had just seen. What she is still seeing, actually. There are bodies all over, and the walls are smeared with red. It smells like cold sweat and salty blood and shit, and if tears had a smell there would be a stench of them too. And overall, it smells like fear, human fear. Big, stinky fear, Darla had called it, right before she ate Holland. Coming from all of them in waves.
Except Lindsey. Well, he was scared now. And yes, alive, because he meets Lilah's eyes with a frightened, ironic smile as Darla strokes his chest, half-heartedly drawing her nails down it. He mouths, "I'm sorry" and Lilah just grimaces, trying to give him a reassuring look and failing.
He is lying in the easy chair, where Darla is sitting, and she falls onto his lap with a girlish squeal as she notices their eye contact, forcing a pained groan out of Lindsey. She straddles him, licking his ear, mouthing it, chewing on it gently with fanged teeth. "Did you love me, Lindsey?"
He coughs, and Lilah smiles a little bit as he says something too quietly for her to hear. Well. Looks like he still has a tongue.
She feels Drusilla bite her again, on the shoulder. "Shh! Bad girl, you're supposed to be crying. Your tears are sweet, like flowers." She pulls Lilah's pubic hair, making her cry out. "There. That's better. Can I eat 'er now, Grandmum?"
"Quiet, Dru." Darla's voice is harsh but disinterested. She turns away from Lindsey to look at the other two women. "If you kill her, Dru, no cakes for a month. And I'll break all your dolls." Her words are those of an indulgent mother, but her tone is much darker. If Lilah is killed, Dru's punishment will be much, much worse, and they all know it.
Drusilla straightens up, still on her knees next to Lilah. Her eyes are like two small, contained fires, and she is pouting. She turns to Lilah, grabbing her chin in her hand. "Grandmama says I can't eat you. Well, I won't be a naughty girl like you, but I still know where all your veins are." She snarls and curls her fingers, batting them at Lilah's neck as if to prove this point.
Lilah doesn't need proof. They've cut into her enough times, causing heavy blood flow without total blood loss, that she'd wondered if they studied an anatomy book before they came here.
Then she realized, no. This kind of knowledge came from years and years of practice. And that was when she had started to scream.
They had stopped that quickly. Darla had kissed her, forcing her tongue into Lilah's mouth. "Shh, little mouse. Who knew that you would be the cowardly one?"
That had shut her up, "I'm not a coward," she had whispered. "Its just self-preservation."
Not that it did anything. She was still here, in the wine cellar, and the only ones who still have a pulse are her and Lindsey. And even Lindsey seems to be lagging a bit.
Which gives her something like a victorious feeling. She's better than him even at this.
Not that it matters. They're both going to die, but at least she'll be able to see Lindsey go. She's always wanted that little fuck to fail, and now he has. But there's something sad in it. They've always competed with each other, with neither gaining a steady edge, and now he's dying. She wants to hug him, but Drusilla won't let her get up off the floor.
But now Darla is saying something, and she's missed it. "What?" she asks hazily.
Darla turns to glare at her, but then changes her mind, giving her a sweet look, even through her distorted face. "Lindsey was asking why I kept you alive. And I told him."
Oh, really? How interesting. "And why is that?" she asks, managing to throw in a little old-fashioned contempt.
Drusilla slaps her and hisses. "Be grateful, little mouse."
Darla's face is a little blurred now, but Lilah can still see it. She has shifted back into her human face, and she looks wistful, and even a little sad. "You're alive because I wanted you to see all this. I wanted you to see what I would do for you."
She is standing up now, and she comes closer, to stroke Lilah's face. "You never saw, did you? The way that I looked at you when you would come into my room. You were the first person I saw when I came back, the first person who spoke to me." She gets on her knees, til Lilah can't help but look her in the eye. "You gave me human food for the first time. You gave me ice cream and flavored coffee, and helped me put on my clothes. You did my makeup for me, and started wearing pink lipstick when I told you that the red made me covetous." Darla's hands are almost worshipful as they frame Lilah's face. She leans in to whisper in Lilah's ear. "What I never told you is, I'm covetous of everything that touches your lips."
Lilah can hear Drusilla growl behind her, jealous or just hungry, and Darla looks up with clear eyes, then lets Lilah go with a gentle smile. She stands up, turning to smile at Lindsey, who looks shattered.
"What's the matter, dear? Are you shocked, betrayed?" She leans over, putting one hand on Lindsey's chest to support herself as she looks him in the eye. "I never loved you. It was always her. Always." She laughs mockingly as Lindsey's eyes go unfocused with pain.
Then, she reaches over and snaps his neck. Lilah jumps, gasping a little, and she hears Drusilla laugh behind her, a sound of pure childlike delight. Darla turns back to face the other women, her face once again contorted in her natural form.
"Do you see what I would do for you? Do you see why you shouldn't have ignored me? why you shouldn't have let Wolfram and Hart play with me. That," she points to Lindsey, "is what happens to people who try to use me." She touches his chest, gathering a bit of blood on her finger and licking it off. "He didn't really want me. He wanted Angel."
Lilah tries to open her mouth, but Dru is already speaking. "Daddy! He's come back, hasn't he?" She's like an overactive child, Lilah thinks with annoyance. A perverted child, from the way that she is stroking Lilah's breasts.
Darla shrugs, seeming much less interested in the prospect of Angelus than she usually does. She narrows her eyes, gazing at the two women before her. "Drusilla, get the sharpest knife we have."
Drusilla gives Lilah's nipple a final, harsh twist, then skips off to find a knife. They apparently left it embedded in the neck of one of the junior partner's, a man who, in Lilah's opinion, deserved exactly that. Though, if she had been the one doing the killing, it would have been far less merciful. A nail file, maybe.
It comes out of his neck with a spurt of blood and a disgusting squelching noise, and Drusilla wrinkles her nose prettily before handing it to Darla. She motions for Dru to stand behind Lilah again, and soon enough Lilah is on her feet, still nude, with Drusilla holding her hands by her sides. She is dimly aware of her ankle, but she is far too overcome with terror to think about the pain.
Darla strokes her face softly, then pulls one of Lilah's arms from Drusilla's grip, holding it straight from Lilah's body. "Now, we're going to play a little game. I'm going to ask you a question, and every time you make me angry I'm going to cut you. The more you make me mad, the closer I get to your wrist, and the closer you get to death. Do you understand?"
Lilah nods, still terrified, and she hears Drusilla purr behind her. She is giggling. "Grandmama almost never plays games with me. This is going to be deliciously fun."
Darla smiles at Drusilla, nodding her head. "Yes. Now, question number one: how much did you have to do with my coming back?"
She doesn't even have to think about this one. "Nothing!" She's seen what Darla had done to Holland. She certainly wasn't going to take responsibility for this botched experiment.
The knife slices into the soft, pale skin of her inner arm. "Wrong," Darla says. Lilah feels tears come to her eyes, but Darla is already asking her another question. "Why did you help me? When I first came out of that box, why did you speak to me? Why did you help me?"
Lilah sniffs, trying not to cry. "Because I felt sorry for you. You were dead, and we dragged you out of nothing, and I was sorry."
She flinches, trying to prepare herself for another cut, but it doesn't come. Darla is looking at her, incredulous. "You're not lying this time."
A whisper. "No."
Darla looks as if she is pondering that, nodding to herself, but quickly her eyes focus and she grabs onto Lilah's arm even harder. There will be bruises, if they actually let her live. "Last question. Do you love me?"
Oh, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Lilah can tell, whatever she says, this is going to hurt. Finally she goes with what seems to be the less painful choice. "Yes."
The knife is even more brutal this time, more of a gouge than an actual cut. The blood is pouring down her arm, and as Darla leans down to lick it up, Lilah starts to panic. She's crying now, shaking in Drusilla's arms. "You said if I made you mad, not if I lied!"
"Lying makes me angry."
Lilah sniffs, then looks up at Darla, who has the knife to Lilah's wrist, ready to cut into the vein. "Wait!" Darla looks up at her, and she takes in a shuddering breath. "I lied, and I'm sorry. I don't love you-" Darla puts the knife to her skin. "-but I could. If I had enough time."
Darla looks up again, as if considering. Then she makes the cut, severing the vein in Lilah's wrist.
Lilah is crying now, no longer bothering to check her tears. Drusilla is giggling, practically bouncing on her toes. And Darla... Darla is sucking on Lilah's wrist, taking in the blood in huge amounts, making Lilah dizzy. She's already lost so much blood, and when everything starts to go black, it doesn't surprise her in the least.
It does, however, surprise her when she feels herself pulled to another body. Her mouth is already filled with a liquid that is hot and salty, and indescribably sweet.
She opens her eyes to find herself cradled in Darla's arms, her mouth pressed to the vampire's chest. Darla smiles at her, strokes her face. "Right answer," she says gently, then leans down to kiss her new childe on the forehead.
Lilah doesn't say anything. She just keeps drinking.
A woman
who loves a woman
is forever young.
