"How can my children learn if I do everything for them?"
"But you must let me take care of the Slayer."
"Oh! You're giving me orders now!"
"Okay, then, we'll just do nothing while she takes us out one by one."
"Do I sense a plan, Darla? Share..."
"Spike kills her and comes back to the fold."
The Master considered this, "It is true the boy bears our blood. Do you think he can be brought back? And yet why would he kill her if he feels for her?"
"To keep her from killing him. His desire to live is strong. We tied him to the ground and left him for the sun when the gypsies cursed him with that foul soul, and still he lived. He killed the Slayer in China for Drusilla. He'll kill this one for himself."
The Master turned to the boy vampire that sat at his feet, "Hmm. You see how we all work together for the common good? That's how a family is supposed to function!"
In the midst of all the chaos no one paid any attention to the pale Englishmen who rushed through the crowd searching for someone.
He was so close he could feel her. His dark princess, his love, his salvation. He knew that if he could just find her, get her away from the others, she could help him. He had seen her lure others into sure death with her eyes and her voice. Seen her make them believe she was their loved ones. He would look into her eyes, and she would make him better. Make all the pain go away.
He was sure of it. It was the only thought he'd held in his mind for the last two years. Ever since the gypsies who had cursed him, had freed him from where the others had tied him down and left him for the sun. Ever since he had crawled into the Romanian woods, still weak from the beating given him by Darla, and the torture visited upon him by Angelus, all for stealing his gift.
He heard a woman scream. A scream was nothing special on this night, but he knew that scream, knew it was her.
He took off at a run. Using every bit of speed he had as a vampire. In moments he found her. For a few seconds all he could do was watch. There she was, as beautiful as ever, with her golden eyes flashing in the moonlight. She cradled her left arm which had been cut, and snarled at her attacker.
Spike never wondered who she might be. This Chinese girl who calmly stood and faced a vampire, sword in hand. If he had thought about it at all, he would have assumed that she was one of the Boxers. But he didn't, all he knew was that he had found Drusilla at last, and this woman was threatening her.
He leapt snarling at the Chinese girl, grabbing for her sword. At the last moment she turned it, raising it against him. It was too late for him to change his momentum, so instead he forced himself onto the blade, feeling it bite deep into his side. Pain ripped through him, but he had become used to worse over the last two years. He twisted his body before she could pull the sword back out and disarmed her.
Startled the girl spun in the air, kicking him in the face, and throwing him to the ground. But he didn't care. 'Now she's safe,' he thought, 'she can't hurt Dru now.' Indeed, in the back ground he was aware of Dru calling to him in her sing-song voice, "Is it him? Is it my knight. Has my sweet William come back to me?"
But the girl didn't run. She didn't leave; instead she pulled a wooden stake from her belt and raised it toward him. For a moment, his thoughts connected into one word, Slayer, but then she was advancing on him, about to end his existence before killing his love. He fell backward away from the blow, kicking his feet out to trip her up.
She fell and he scrambled on top of her, ignoring the pain as the sword was driven deeper into his gut, the demon driven closer to the surface. He struggled to hold her down as she tried desperately to get back up. Somewhere behind him Dru was chanting, "Kill her my William. Kill her for me. Kill her for princess."
Then she saw her stake out of the corner of her eye, desperately reached for it, and in that moment he had her. His fangs sank into her neck.
It was like nothing he'd ever tasted. Her blood flowed hot down his throat and he thought that his heart might start beating from the force of it. Power and strength flowed into him. Her heart beat thumped in his ears, loud and strong, then weaker and weaker.
And suddenly he knew, knew he was killing her. From somewhere deep down inside he screamed, pulling away in horror from his victim. This poor young girl he had killed. "No, no, no, no," he began to cry as he pulled away from the body.
But she wasn't dead yet. Her lips moved and a few silent words in Chinese fell from them like her blood in the dust.
"I'm so, so sorry. I don't speak Chinese." If only he knew what she had said. Somehow he could make it right then, but he had no idea what the words meant.
Then from above him he heard a scream of rage. "NO! It's not my William. Horrid thing, you took my William and gave him to the rats." Drusilla was standing over him, her eyes burning with fury. She grabbed the handle of the sword that was still sheathed inside of him, and pulled hard, drawing it out.
She held it in front of her, as if she were afraid of him. She swiped at his head, two blows in quick succession. He pulled back, but the tip of the sword still cut him above the eye in two quick strokes. The cross shaped wound burned him. And that was when he knew. Knew that whatever else he was, he could never be what he used to be. She would never take him back.