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The Wings of Eros
by Kismet
Rating: NC-17 for violence
Category: Darla/Angelus?
Summary: In Dublin in a shadowed room in the middle of a game of pain and pleasure, Angelus needs to hear the proof of Darla's love. He asks, then a question which brings to her a memory ofher past.
Disclaimer: Joss owns characters ecxept for Marcus. I own story.
Feedback: Yes please. If you're really, really nice, I'll dedicate the next one to you ! *Yes, its a bribe*
To all those who enjoyed Tell me a Tale, to all those who have made my transition into the Darkfic list so easy, to all those who've given me feedback. This is for you.
Thanks especially to Eterniata, Evil Willow and Kita, whose Komodo stories I absolutely love, and which made me cry.

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They'd found her at the Dublin Markets. Dublin the Grey city on an Emerald Isle, throwing off her dreary gown for one day every week. On a Sabbath day work was slowed and people came out in theirbest to the markets where everything was displayed for sale, from livestock to food to shawls and pipes. The Lacemaker had set up her stall amongst the piles of skirts, stockings and books,displaying the airy painstaking work of her own fingers and the fingers of others like Arachne herself. And like the work of Arachne the Spider under Minerva's curse, each fine strand of theintricate cobwebs spun to adorn other women had been washed in tears from strained eyes and blood from cracked, pricked fingers.

That was why they had taken her. That and the fact that she was young and beautiful still. Too old for marriage at 20, but with fine creamy skin nourished by a lifetime of Ireland's air, whichflushed easily into the deepest rose right up to the line where lustrous mahogany hair grew back luxuriantly.

The Lady had bought an altarpiece of lace, the price of which would have nourished a peasant family for two months. It was an insignificant amount to pay for a life, she thought with a secret smileunder the midnight blue folds of her hood, watching her childe charm the Lacemaker effortlessly.

Ah, how she loved him ! With the face of an Archangel from Heaven and a heart as black as the Devil's himself.

She told him that in the luxurious confines of the room.

"Why ?" Angelus asked with a grin as he played with a lock of the Lacemaker's hair. "Just because you like what your eyes see ?"

A log crashed down into the ashes of the fire, and the girl whimpered.

"Because in you I saw a great potential," Darla replied quietly. "I saw the seeds of one who might one day make others marvel at the chaos he would cause. The potential for Evil alone isn't enough,my darling boy. Beauty is the ultimate weapon. It can cause untold pain if rightly used."

"Truly ?" Angelus turned around, his white shirt flapping open for a moment to reveal the crusted darkness of drying blood on the planes of his pale chest. Suddenly, casually, he shifted to gameface, the sound of the demon's snarl rising as lazily as a lion's yawn. With a sweeping movement of his arm he stepped back, motioning exaggeratedly to the Lacemaker. "Is it Beauty that's causing hersuch pain, you think ?"

Darla looked anew with appreciative blue eyes. What a sight it was. They had taken their time with this one, she mused as she tucked the folds of her sheer negligee in around her, sipping the girl'sblood from her glass.

Sweat glistened on the girl's bare skin in the dancing light of the fire. She had long realised that to struggle against the manacles that chained her to the bed was to uselessly expend energy, andnow she lay quite like an animal in a trap except for her laboured breathing. Instinct decreed that survival must be fought for.

How foolish. How wonderfully, naove. And how pretty the weals and cuts that marred the smooth flesh of her thighs and belly. How beautifully red the blood on her breasts and the purple -bluebruisings the colour of ripe plums. And Christ bled on the cross as people gathered around to catch his Holy Blood to keep as talismans, for his suffering would save them all.

"Such beauty. Such loveliness." Angelus' voice was like a purring caress as he grasped the girl's chin, lifting her as-yet-unmarred face. "Such pretty, clever fingers. But is this enough to inspirelove ? Would you take her, make her as you did me ? Should 'I' make her ?"

The flash of his eyes was vicious as he turned to her, but she sat secure in her superiority. No, not superiority. Never that. Her control, as it were. Her Angelus was always agitated when questionshe could not answer came to him in the darkness before morning when the embers of the fire had burned low. He had a tendency to slip into dark moods and brooding.

When she gave no answer, he turned with an uncontrollable shudder, roaring as he seized the large vase on a stand by the foot of the bed and flung it to smash against the wall. The next moment hefound himself backed up against that very wall, both of his Dam's deceptively delicate hands around his neck. Her eyes blazed at him with all the command that a Dam could summon, which would havewithered a minion or and ordinary Childe.

"Is you love that frail ?" he whispered to her. "That you love me for this face alone ?"

The fingers trembled and fluttered against the skin of his throat. Slowly she withdrew, the long hem of her sheer gown floating over his bare toes and sending a frisson through him. Her face wasperfect porcelain again and eerily pretty in its stillness as she slowly lowered herself onto the sofa and beckoned to him.

For a moment he stood, defiant in his anger and uncertain in his confusion, but her small, outstretched hand exuded a power so strong he could not have resisted even if he had been bound to.

"My darling," she said in a sibilant whisper as he settled beside her like a child, stretching his long length out with one knee drawn up to his chest and his head on her lap. "How can I explain theways of the Heart ? I was in your place once too, and nothing and no one could give me and answer; I had to find it on my own."

He turned his head on her lap and kissed the smooth coolness of her long thigh through the gauzy silk. "Tell me."

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"They never buried me, my darling.

"I was a dead whore when I fell into that death-like sleep that takes us after the first hour. They would have thrown my body into a pauper's grave like they did with my mother if he had not claimedme. Nothing but a dead whore.

"They put me in a coffin on his orders, a pretty shade of grey blue it was and filled with lilies. The irony cannot have escaped him. Corruption laid to rest on the tender petals of Purity.

"No one read me the Last Rites. I was God's child no longer.

"I smelt the flowers when I woke, the perfume of crushed sweetness in that box of Death. It was their white purity I smelled as I broke my way out desperately as a new born, not into the darkness ofthe ground but into the glow-light of candles in a crypt where my Sire was playing Solitaire as he awaited me.

"'Welcome, my Childe,' he said to me. Then he picked up his cards, those beautiful hand-painted cards only the rich could afford, and burned them one by one. 'My games of Solitaire are over now, mybeauty.' So he told me.

"His was a large clan of more than twenty-five, and as you know it has grown in both size and repute since then. And above all of these both old and young I was placed as favourite.

"My sweet Angelus, how can I tell you what the Master meant to me, then ? You will never learn the extent of it, not even as my Childe; no, do not shake your head. That is your way, your inhumannature. It is why you will be a Childe of Darkness to rival all of them, given time.

"But back to the tale. We would not want the Lacemaker to have too long a rest lest she should grow bored, would we ?

"The Lair then was a series of catacombs and I shall always remember how it was to be led through them blindfolded and naked with the memory of my mortal life and my mother still in my mind. I amshamed to confess that the demon in me was still too weak to stop me from weeping then. He let me indulge in that repulsive weakness for a time as he led me down the winding ways. My feet stumbledwith human clumsiness on dusty steps and the light of the torch was nothing but a sense of a red glow to me through the black bindings around my eyes. And I sobbed and wept and hiccupped like anidiot.

"'Stop that,' he said at length to me. Of course I could not. Then he stopped walking and took me aside with a touch so gentle that the demon in me was instantly alert even though my brain could notgrasp what instinct warned against.

"'Listen well to me, Darla,' he whispered softly in my ear as he pressed me backwards so my back touched the cold dust of the wall. 'I am your Sire now. I own you in ways you cannot begin tocomprehend and you will obey me in every way. If not, though it will score my dead heart I shall tear yours from your chest. Not stop this weeping and let no trace of weakness show.'

"It sounds harsh, my darling boy, but it was good advice he was giving me, for as soon as the shock and dry air did their work, I heard the sound of voices and felt, for the first time, a sense ofOTHERS of our kind in numbers. I heard not only the laughter of vampire women and the deeper voices of the men, but also crying. Ugly, strong weeping that was repulsive, yet beautiful at the sametime. The sound of prey weeping. I felt contemptuous enjoyment rise in me and since then I have never cried, never let anyone feel that enjoyment of my grief.

"He led me naked into some place lighted and large, for I could feel a draft; right into the middle of the voices. Once or twice I passed another so close that had I moved I would have brushed coldskin. And worst, most terrible of all was my rising thirst. I could smell blood. I could sense beings somewhere here who were still hotly alive, and that maddening, tantalising crying kept going onand on. It was a child's voice, several children, I was sure of it. You know the lust, my darling, the hunger that made me turn to that sound and that faint scent, but the Master had left me and Ifelt two others come near. I felt their cold hands grasp my arms to hold me still.

"You know what comes next, my Angel. You've seen it happen to others. The spoken ritual, acceptance into the pack. The washing of feet and hands in a basin of blood and the genuflection to thosehigher than you. In my case, my darling, I crouched only to the Master, and only he drew blood from my proffered wrist. Of course this made the others love me very much, as you can imagine. And theywere not fools, these ones, not with the crudity of those in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Even minions had the rituals, the covenants. They did not fight like animals; they fought with all thesavage cunning of the King's court, backed with tooth and claw. I regret only that you never had the opportunity to play with those of my Sire's court, my sweet boy. You would have them at your feetlike children; but I ?

"Let me tell you one thing, my love. There are such things as signs and omens.

"The sound of the binding being ripped from my eyes was like the sound of hide tearing, and the glow of the candles and torches was a blood-red haze to my eyes. As the cloth fell from my face I feltthe strangest falling, spiralling sensation. Then sight returned and the first thing I saw, my darling boy, was the face of a stranger. A beautiful young demon he was, with hair as golden as mine andslanted green eyes.

"'La Belle Dame Sans Merci,' he said to me as he took my hand and bowed over it, but I saw the look in his cat's eyes. This was no ordinary one, this was Marcus, Childe of the Master and now-formerfavourite. I saw and knew, and the moment he release my fingers I stepped back convulsively to bump into a stand heavy with fragrant candles and the hot wax spilled down my back. The burning of thewax paled beside the flare of anger in his eyes as the soft titters of laughter rose. In the background the Master was smiling, his dark beautifully shocking when juxtaposed against this goldenbeauty.

"'Is it hunger making you weak ?' Marcus asked me as I stared at the harsh, exotic lines of hi cat's face. With a smile that had very little humour in it he raised a hand to beckon, and the minionsdragged forward the Feast. Such pretty little children, my angelus, orphans, cherubs dragged in dust and spiced with tears. The watchers stirred with the hunger that was screaming in me, knowing theywould each partake of the blood of the innocent. Yet for me there was something more.

"I heard the sound of his shouting before they even brought him in. That, and the smell of him like hot musk and flesh. They dragged him to the centre of the circle, this handsome struggling youngman clad in the remnants of his torn coat and shirt. He cursed, he called on God and crossed himself, the reverant fool. And when at last his wild furious gaze fell on me, what surprise ! I knew him,my Angelus. He had been one of my best customers. A young lordling who had been on the brink of keeping me as his 'fancy girl', who had professed to love me to distraction. How the tables had turned!

"He called me by name, the poor, tender young fool. He stared at my bare form and I saw the anger pass across his face that they had insulted me so. His shock was hilarious when he saw the sharppoints of my teeth between my lips.

"'Yours no longer,' the Master's voice came from the background. 'You loved her for her beauty, now see what lies below.'

"They were all watching around us. How I made this kill would tell them what kind of creature I was. Would I hesitate ? Would I drink but with regret, distaste ? Would I tear him limb from limb,heeding nothing but my hunger like an animal ?

"I felt Marcus' eyes at my back like a cold breeze. I held this lordling's enraged, pleading gaze. And all around me was the love and expectation of my sire. Love; you doubt me ? Love is dark, mysweet boy. Love can be ugly and delectably agonising.

"I let my true face through, and I stepped up to him and took him like a struggling child in my arms. It was quick, the death, but I did not let him fall. In defiance of custom which decreed that Imust be clad after in a black robe of their provision, I took the clothes from this young man who loved me and whose name I have long since forgotten. I took his breeches, his stockings, his lovelylinen shirt, his waistcoat and his coat. Then I broke open his chest and squeezed his heart for the last drops.

"My rule was set in a foundation of unshakeable stone after that. Like you, my darling, I was quick at the Game. Long before I had any strength to speak of I knew how to play the Game among thesepredators whom I ruled according to whim and mood, set below only two others, one of these being my Sire. And it was my Sire who brought me out amongst the people, who taught me to enjoy the games ofthe mind and the struggle for power as well as the thrill of hunt and kill. Always wherever we went I saw both women and men look at him with yearning, and we would play the way I play with you now,my darling. Countless hapless Lords, Ladies, merchants and common thieves died in bliss or agony in their beds with the two killers they had kissed and caressed between the sheets.

"And it might have been easy enough to breed complacency in my mind, except for one thing. Marcus.

"Never again have I ever seen a man more beautiful, more perfectly made like a stalking, liquid-limbed cat. Not even you, my Angelus, could compare to his beauty. He was a splendid creature, Marcus,and every time our eyes met the hostility seemed to leap like a spark from a fire. And of course the Master sat back to enjoy watching the struggle for dominance. I evaded, I retreated. In short, myAngel, I did all I could to avoid him till I could find a weapon to use against him, a time when I would be the one to plunge the stake into his black heart. But he was my elder and stood higher thanme by blood, no matter who the Master loved most. The night came when he saw the time fit to assert his dominance, and there was nothing I could do but obey when he beckoned me from the hall.

"He made me go first down the steps to his crypt, so every fibre of this dead body felt him behind me and every muscle tensed for the blow of the stake that never came. And with his greater age andhis man's boots he was utterly silent whereas I could not stop the sound of my heels on the worn steps.

"Silent he came behind me. Silent he reached around me to push open the door that only a vampire's crypt would have. I stepped in and only had time to build an impression of carpets and tapestries inwine reds and gold against the stone, the fire behind a grate and the great four-poster bed like a crouching spider waiting for victims.

"He closed the door. 'Take off your clothes, Darla.' What I would have given to tear his eyes out, but these fingers undid laces and hooks, peeled away the shell of the bodice and protection of theouter skirt before shedding what lay beneath like white secrets till I stood bare in the center of that fine room for the Dead, staring into the fire and remembering all those nights with all thosemen when I had done the same, willing them to get it over with swiftly.

"I see your smile, you wicked boy. Yes, you're right. It was not like that; I have to give Marcus his due. He had perfected the skill into an art and could balance on a knife-edge between torture andpleasure. With him there was no flight into some mental dream or other thoughts. He was there, unmistakeable, impossible to ignore, and the pleasure he gave was as enslaving as the pain.

"He used only his hands that night, beating me to within an inch of my unnatural life, then bringing me to humiliating pleasure and release on that bed as if to tell me what I was and what I wouldbe. His gratification came the next night, when my screams echoed off the rock walls.

"Oh, I defied him, of course, just as I defied the Master at times. Yet my Sire loved me perversely for that defiance which in another would have brought death. With Marcus there was fighting, bitingand clawing, a struggled to do as much damage as possible without bringing the Master's wrath upon both our heads. And always it culminated in plain rape, the oldest form of control. And always hewon till I believe I came to hate him as much as my eye grew to know his beauty and my fingers his skin.

"Count your few blessings, my darling, that I am trapped in this body of a woman and that you are not among male Elders in court, though well you know I have other ways of teaching you...ways whichyou seem to both loathe and enjoy. True ? I thought so.

"And so matters went for some time. How long ? Years, my darling boy. Years and years, decades, perhaps. Time for us flows like water beneath a bridge. You know the strength of our bloodline, myAngelus. You know your strength. Like was I, my strength not in accordance with my youth. Like, too, was Marcus. If you ask today, many are those who can recount to you the splendour of our courtthen, with the Master and his two golden Children by his side.

"But things change, as they always do. The Master changed, became brooding, withdrawn as those of a certain age sometimes do. Now he would strike if disturbed, even Marcus and I, and increasingly heleft the ruling of the Pack in our hands. Once he came within an inch of staking me, and after Marcus had a vial of holy water thrown in his face we left our Sire alone among the books of hislibrary.

"We both felt agitation, confusion perhaps. Bereft of the one who had made us and who had made himself the lynchpin of our lives. And perhaps we hated him too for our very need of him, yet the needwas there. Neither Marcus nor I was at the stage where our own discontent would drive us to leave, and the Master had taken care to bind us to him as securely as possible.

"I began leaving the lair more and more often, at times not returning even when the sun rose into the sky. Finally it came to the point where I decided to leave, not for always, my darling. That timewas not to come yet.

"I can barely remember the voyage across the sea to Ireland. What I do remember, my dearest, is the cloak of the mist falling around me as I stepped off at the docks, a lady with her hood pulled lownot against the chill but to hide the remnants of a sailor's blood staining her mouth. I remember the heat of the blood pumping fresh in me, as if it was indeed still being driven by a living heartwhen in actuality there was nothing alive about it.s new vessel. Nothing but the discontent.

"I stayed perhaps two nights in Dublin, and then I made the mistake of going out into the country. You see, with human sentimentality I wanted to walk in the fields under the stars, knowing thatthere was no one around me for uncounted miles. I wanted to discover sweetness, purity again.

"The truth is that there is no purity, my Angelus. You can search for it through the ages and think you've found it several times, but then the illusion will turn to dust in your hands and you willbe left bereft. I almost felt sorrow to discover that I could not see the green of the grass, the green of Ireland. Everything was shaded in the charcoal palette of the night, as everything willalways be. The only colour to be had was the red of blood and the sparking explosions of screams in the night.

"That was why they were wise to me in that nameless little hamlet by the loch. These were people who remembered finely their hallowed Celtic heritage, who lived amongst the faery and the unseen. Ihad barely killed two before they realised what I was, who I was.

"The coach was there to take me away again in the night, of course. Always during the night, but they had expected it, my love. They were waiting for us around a bend in the road further on from thevillage. You smile, my sweet boy. Yes, mortals are weak, they're soft, and they're food for our hunger, but in numbers they can be deadly. Never get caught by a mob, my darling. Not you, the Princeof Darkness, never to end in such a way.

"The only reason I did not die that night was because I smelt the smoke from the torches, and had the carriage stop beforehand.

"The colours washed across us all like the dancing flames of hell. Sickly orange and red, the flare of maddened eyes and the smell of rage. The waving of pitchforks in the air, not caring that thiswas an English noblewoman they were pursuing to all other eyes. They knew what hid beneath the ruffles and lace; they knew of this dead flesh and this cold blood.

"I screamed my rage at them and maybe my eyes picked up the gold of the torches. Then I was running through all that grass and the cool of the night, against the wind. From behind I heard the screamsof the coachman, which did not bother me at all, then the shrieks of the horses. That was pain, my darling Angelus. My beautiful horses, screaming out as their throats were cut. Why the horses ? Why- because the world is ugliness.

"Dawn was coming. I had perhaps an hour and I could almost smell the sun on the air. Everything around me of the night was whispering warnings to me, the dark calling to the dark to seek rest fromthe destroying rays of the sun. A hot, smoking, searing smell. The call of a night-bird like a lament, and perhaps in the distance the long keening howl of a dog or wolf. Run to ground, run toground, the trees whispered as I fled past. How the mighty are fallen.

"I stopped for a moment to look around with the eyes of the demon, the instinct of the demon knowing that this was Desperation, that this would mean the end. And behind me, spread out like a net camethose who had been prey the way I had been prey as a young girl, who had now become predator as I had become predator. And the rhythmn of the world mocked me. I could just see the faintest tinge ofpink in the dark sky up ahead, the first herald of death that no mortal could ever have hoped to see.

"There was a copse of trees on higher ground to my left, and like a hunted animal indeed I instinctively made my way there. The fallen leaves crackled under my feet and the smell of moldering wrappedaround me as I scrambled into the cloak of shadows, skirts ripped and mud-splattered, hair fallen loose for all the world like some tender young maiden fleeing from highwaymen. But this young girlwore the eyes of the demon, and the demon for the first time was feeling the girl's fear. Fear which clouded the senses and masked the approach of the other who was creeping up from behind the prey,Death stalking Death in a macabre and unnatural dance.

" I whirled with teeth and claws bared, hissing, but before I could scream out the extent of my fury the blow crashed across my cheekbone and would have thrown me to the ground if an arm had notcaught me about the waist, the hand now clapping over my mouth. The body subsided immediately even before the demon did, my darling, for the body knew that hand, that blow.

"'Marcus."

".His face was very pale in the dark, his eyes a glittering flash of green.'You've led us a merry chase, young Darla; been a very naughty girl to leave without asking leave.' His white smile was thesmile of the tiger, and I wondered why his sharp, distinct scent was a comfort to me and his presence was a feeling of security even though I knew the time had come. He would drive the stake homenow, and the mortals would receive all the blame.

"Yet I let my cheek rest on the fine cloth of his coat, my fingers feeling the smooth luxury of his satin waistcoat as I waited for the shock of the death-blow. 'Yes,' I think I murmured,half-incoherent, all senses smelling the smoke and hearing now so faintly the sounds of the pursuers. 'You can kill me now, my beautiful one. There can only be One, for now and always.' And he wasbeautiful to me, had never before seemed this incandescant, this inhumanly indestructible. His Beauty was like a flame, and I found that I was listening in vain for a heartbeat through his chest, myhair falling to curtain us both as we stood in the dark of the copse that was like a private chapel for a wedding of demons.

"What I did hear was the rumble of mocking laughter. 'Silly little fool,' he said, but it sounded more like a caress, a stroke of a tiger's velvet paw. Then the world spun dizzily as he picked me upin his arms, my Angelus. My mortal enemy, who picked me up in his arms and sped up the incline out of the copse, down a dell and into thicker cover where I picked up the scent of the horses that werewaiting to carry us away from there with the speed of the wind.

"And you wonder why I love horses, my sweet boy ?

"Then he was not carrying me any longer, but we were riding hard side by side, his thigh now brushing mine as the horses flew over the fields as if their hooves had been fixed with Mercury's wings.And I was laughing, we were screaming our laughter like the two perfect fiends we were, intoxicated with the danger and beauty of this dying night and screaming too, our defiance to the rising sun.

"Our resting place for the day was, of all things, an abandoned chapel. I remember shivering with the discomfort of entering, and I felt some dread at spending the day in such a place. That isanother skill I shall have to teach you, my Angelus. The discomfort can be put aside, if you need to, and a chapel is one of the places where no human mob will think to look for a demon. Fools.

"'Sleep,' he whispered with his lips against my eyelids as he brought us both down into the space beneath the front pew, right before the altar where the giant cross still hung. 'Sleep and know thatwe're incurring the disapproval of God with every second we remain here; that should suffice for pleasant dreams.'

"And yes, my darling boy, I slept a sweet sleep in those few hours with his hated arms around me.

"Which was why at first I could not understand why on waking all I felt was the natural cold of the stone floor, and why I smelled not only dust and old wood, but also the smell of blood. Not hotmortal blood, but the crystalline pungency of OUR blood. And the foremost question in my mind then was WHY I had woken, for I knew the sun was high in the sky with the first fierceness of morning andmy rest had only been for a few scant hours.

"I smelled the scents and sensed the disaster before I raised myself on one elbow and saw what there was to see. And screamed, my darling. Screamed like an angel pushed from the gates of Heaven tofall wingless into the Abyss below. I saw the Abyss, my boy, saw the spiral of darkness and shadows that rose like the maw of some giant worm, like the vortex of madness.

"It was my Sire who stood there, my Sire and yet not my Sire. Gone was the dark, sleek beauty of black hair and black eyes with lashes as thick and soft as a woman's. Gone was the splendid strengthand grace of his man's form. No, this was a shuffling thing clothed in blood-red robes, bald and ugly with a permanently disfigured face like a true demon. Yet the smell of my Sire lanced from himand his Power was like a scarlet cloak flapped out at a bull. And in this beloved monster's grip was Marcus, hands clawing at the powerful vise around his throat, his boots kicking a full foot abovethe floor.

"Remember, my dear boy, I hated Marcus with all my being. If I had woken first I would have gone to search for a sharp piece of wood to push between his shoulder blades. And I loved the Master. Istill loved him now even though his ugliness was made even more hideous when seen next to Marcus' flaring golden beauty in the center of that ruined church. I cannot explain, then why I screamed andwhy that scream was full of pain and pleading.

"Who knows the Reasons of the Heart.

"The Master was shaking his head slowly, almost regretfully. His strength was palpable now, the strength of one who has gone through the Ritual. And his voice when he spoke was so loving, like afather scolding an errant son indulgently. 'Ah, Marcus. You have never learned, have you ? Never known where to draw the line between what is mine and what I give you. Always drawn to beauty like amagpie drawn to glittering objects that sparkle in the sun. Objects as beautiful as you, perhaps.'

"Fortunately for Marcus he did not need to breathe. 'Never,' he choked out. 'I am your most Beautiful, Sire. You tell me that yourself.' And indeed he was glorious, making the pain snake around myheart and bare its white teeth at me as if it was guarding the Apples of the Garden of Eden.

"The Master turned to look at me, and with some difficulty Marcus did likewise. 'Look at her,' my Sire said, and I could hear the human blood thick in his rasping voice. 'Like a porcelain Madonna Istole from the Church. My Galatea dragged through dust, my beautiful, indestructible, vicious little bitch. My beloved. Look at her beauty, Marcus. Yes, it hurts, doesn't it ? She is the only one inthe world to be your equal, and you know it. That was why you thought to steal her from me, didn't you, my lad ? Your route would never have led back to the Lair, no. You would have taken her toDublin, taken that passage on the ship you had booked to run to France, and from there to places unknown, perhaps even the far reaches of Russia.'

"I felt the blood rise in my throat as if it was to spill from my mouth like a red veil in place of the words that would not come. I stared into Marcus' green eyes and everything slowed. I saw inpictures, my Angelus. Clear, single moments. The glow of sunlight in speckled patterns on the floor at the end of the chapel, the dust-obscured detailing of the cross with Christ's body writhing ineternal agony on it. The red of the Master's robes, the gleam of the buckles of Marcus' boots.

"'But there is time yet,' the Master was saying pleasantly. 'Ask my forgiveness, my boy.'

"I knew before the words were out of his mouth that there would be no forgiveness, but with a cat's instincts Marcus knew it at once too. The flash of his eyes was anger and pride, and they changedfrom green to gold as the demon came forth to snarl his defiance, sealing his fate irrevocably.

"But as the way is with Fate, it was already sealed.

"'You will never have the pleasure of hearing me beg,' Marcus snarled at his Maker triumphantly. 'Never. I've won; she knows all now. See if she ever looks at you the same way again.'

"The Master shook his head like a disappointed priest with one who would not confess. The movement was so quick that I didn't realise what had happened for a few moments after it was all over, mydarling. The smell of blood hit me and Marcus roared, then was silent as the vertebrae of his neck were twisted the wrong way around and his vocal cords were torn. There was a grinding sound as mySire mangled the flesh of his Childe, then Marcus' fighting body was thrown to the floor and I saw the Master's foot rise and come down onto the tiger's chest. Ribs cracked and crunched beneath thepressure, then the foot lifted. And lowered again, a little further this time, and lifted again, and repeated. The tiger screamed and clawed, but the sword hidden in the folds of the robe came down.Once, twice. And the Claws were broken and bent.

"The blood spread out across the floor like a living web, and his screams reverbrated in my ears, filling the church like the sound of wedding bells.

"'My lovely Darla, my beloved,' my Sire's voice was calling me. 'My Angel of Death, only you can end this for him, end his pain. For if you do not then it will go on and on and on, and he will healonly to die again like the Dying God of the Grain, only his winters of pain will be long and neverending and his summers like the spark of a flame. Tell me, my Childe,' the rasping voice lowered to awhisper. 'Do you hate him?'

"The doll that was me moved, wax cracking and features melting never to reform.

"'Yes.'

"And the Bride moved as if in the dream across that dusty floor to her Bridegroom where he lay in his festive clothes of red. The Bride's hair was long and loose and pale gold down her back. Sheneeded no flowers, needed no veil, only the remnants of her white dress and the pain around her heart. She knelt down by him as he looked up at her in his pain. The Dying god pleading to be rejoinedto the Great Goddess, for only she could take him Unto herself and reform him, rebirth him. Tenderly, she picked up the limbs that had been taken for him and replaced them. Tenderly, she cut herwrists and let the Blood rain down in a gush into the wounds so flesh and bone knit once more. Gently she bent over him so her hair and his trailed in the red of the living blood, and gently shepressed her lips to his.

"And by the vows of Hate are the twain Wed, and shall they remain together in eternal damnation for all the remainder of Time.

"Then she picked up the sword and pushed it through his heart, as she had done in the dreams so many times before. Only this time the dust that came did not reform, and there on her cheek a tear laylike a diamond shard, the last she would ever shed.

"'Ah,' breathed my Sire behind me as he got down on his knees to put his hands on my shoulders. I felt his roughened, scarred lips on my nape. 'My beautiful Darla, my Goddess.'

"And I knew it was no longer my Master, my lover whose lips touched me. The fiend whom I had loved with all my being had fled with the beautiful man who was no more. I still loved this one, thisscarred strong one, but the love of old was gone and would never come again.

"So I knelt on the floor of that chapel, my sweet boy, resting both my hands on the hilt of that sword with my head bowed, mourning the Great Love and the Great Hate of my life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"But which was which?" Angelus wanted to know, looking up into his Dam's eyes from where he lay lazily with his head pillowed on her lap. "Whom did you love and whom did you hate ? And what is thelesson here; that Love dies with Beauty?"

She laughed, tinkling, lovely. Terrifying to the mortal girl who lay on the bed, breathing in shallow pants, her ears refusing to believe what they had just heard.

"You silly boy, haven't you been listening ? The Master was the Love, of course. Haven't I said it often enough ? And Marcus was the Hate. That has come clear to me over time. And the lesson ? Thereis no lesson here, my darling. I find fables with a moral so terminally boring."

Angelus leaned up to kiss her, laughing into her laugh as the sound of their lips caressing each other rose faintly with the crackle of the fire. "Then shall we continue our game, then?" He cocked aneyebrow towards the bed. "I'll take suggestions as to the method of play."

Darla considered as the girl began to whimper. Then her smile crept across her face like the smile of a girl with a secret to share. "Let's play the way the Master played. Shall we turn her, youthink, and see whether her Claws can be reattached as easily as my old Hate all that time ago?"

"Do you think her mind can accept that?"

"The Mind, my dear one, is a flexible thing. It can make you believe what you want to believe, and overlook what has been there all the while."