Spike watched the battle before him with an ever-growing grin on his face, the name of Dru’s challenger forgotten amidst the screams.

Now, Dru wasn’t your conventional vampire. She’d seen the moves and could emulate them just as well as any human behavior, true. But that wasn’t the heart of Drusilla’s power. Her mind had always been her greatest weapon. Mad, but immeasurably strong all at once. A will and a thrall that could snag sane minds all the more because its machinations were beyond them.

The male that had been foolish enough to challenge Dru was feeling the burden on his consciousness even now. His lashed and struck, but always found himself just short. Like his body was moving through thick molasses, because that was where his mind had been trapped.

They watch you and laugh, the stars do, Drusilla’s voice whispered to his mind and to all others who leaned in close enough to sense it. Only Spike and Buffy did so without fearing any repercussions. All around you, the world spins and spins, a top over a Ferris wheel. Round and round and…

A dizzy stagger brought the other vamp down to his knees. Drusilla hadn’t even struck him. His line was screaming for blood now, angry at the deception of a power so deep they could barely even comprehend it.

I foresaw your death last night. Dru giggled.

Her opponent snarled and struck out against her. Razor-sharp claws ripped through her sleeve, cutting deep into her arm.

She hissed in outrage, snapped back into a low crouch across from him. “Naughty, naughty boy…” she sing-songed. Her arms extended in a slow dance, weaving back and forth like a cobra about to strike. She was the charmer and the snake, and her prey was mesmerized.

Slowly, he began to rock with the same rhythm she did, lost in the dance and the music that only she could hear.

She sung it in her mind, a subliminal hum that throbbed and pulsed through the arena, and Buffy had to turn away rather than risk being drawn into his haunting rhythm herself.

“That’s my girl…” Spike whispered, and Buffy wasn’t sure which one of them he was talking to.

Drusilla smiled up at him then, a quirky, Cheshire smile that showed a hint of fang. She leaned into her opponent one last time, and this time he’d lost the will to fight back. Trapped within the spell of a demon far more powerful than he’d ever dreamed.

Her lips brushed his ear, and they could all see him shiver. And then she whispered one last word: “Fall.”

The other vampire collapsed then, as if all the life had been sucked out of him. Drusilla rose gracefully to her feet, brushing angrily at the sleeve of her dress where it had been torn. A cry erupted from her opponent’s line at her callousness, and they streamed onto the main floor, circling their sire.

She let them deal with him and strode toward her own family, her head proud and high, a dancing lilt to her movements even now. No vampire in the entire arena doubted in that moment that the deadly music still thrummed through her veins, ready to work its cruel will on them all.

Her opponent was carried offstage. Alger declared her the winner.

“Good boy. Have a biscuit,” she muttered under her breath at Alger’s apparent subservience.

Spike grinned at that and nuzzled her throat. “You were magnificent, my love,” he purred against her.

Buffy leaned her head on Dru’s shoulder, looking across the room at Thanos. “Someone’s still after your blood, though,” she sighed.

Drusilla looked across the stadium to see that, indeed, Thanos had dared to watch the entire proceedings. He’d watched her seduction of her prey, learned from her techniques. She bore into him with endless black eyes, and for one instant he dared to stare back.

Then, he was given his own final challenge, and he rose to his feet.

“Only three left now,” Drusilla commented casually, watching as Thanos faced another male. “Soon two…”

“You and Thanos are going to fight tomorrow,” Buffy commented. “You have to.”

Drusilla nodded. “Unless some last knot in the rope binds us,” she agreed, frowning.

Thanos’ battle was over quickly. A rather straightforward victory. Tomorrow it was, then. Tomorrow, it was…

Cassandra was the first to greet Drusilla as they entered the halls that night. Something of a celebration had sprung up that evening in anticipation of the morrow’s resolution, and vampires of all lines mingled for the first time, unconcerned with their challenges any longer.

“My Queen,” Cassandra danced to the beat of drums and wild stings playing in the background. Her rather impressive bulk landed at Drusilla’s feet in a low bow.

Spike’s scarred eyebrow quirked, and he gave Dru a pointed look.

She sighed. She hadn’t had occasion to encounter the other vampiress since her unfortunate and unwelcome proposition. She’d hoped to avoid the matter altogether. It appeared the stars would grant her no such leniency. “My fellow seer,” she greeted the pretender to the throne.

Cassandra practically bubbled over with excitement at the form of address. She rose and kissed the back of Dru’s hand, then leaned in to taste her lips.

Drusilla didn’t allow her to linger, however. Especially when she noticed how Buffy was clinging possessively to Spike. “The stars would have a word.” Dru crooked one finger, dragging the other vampiress off to the side.

Buffy watched them go and leaned in closer to Spike’s body, rubbing up against him erotically. Her arms latched around his neck, pulling him in closer, and he met her mouth eagerly. Her tongue plunged in forcefully and aggressively, so that he started with the force of her fervor. Mine. The word seemed to echo through the chamber to all that looked their way. Ours.

Drusilla ignored them, although she knew that Cassandra watched with rapt and angry fascination. “Little girls mustn’t play with others’ toys,” she commented off-handedly.

“Little girls must learn to share,” Cassandra snapped back. The menace in her voice was clear.

“Your blood pulses for my William,” Drusilla countered. “I can feel it, taste it on my teeth.”

“His body pleases me,” the other vampiress agreed.

“You wish to possess him.”

“I do. It is not unheard of to request such a prize.” Cassandra’s eyes darkened as she watched Buffy crawl all over the object of her lust. “I desire only simple pleasures, nothing more. It is little to ask in return for my loyalty.”

“You ask that which is not mine to give,” Dru countered neatly.

Cassandra practically shook with rage at that. “Not yours to give?” She laughed a cold, heartless laugh. “Are these the words of a queen? He is your childe, your creation. You have molded him to your will, and he should fall at your feet.”

“William never took much to molding.” Dru’s tone was wry, but a deep, angry burn lit up her eyes.

“You cannot even rule your own family,” Cassandra said with disdain.

“And where are your childer?” was the icy retort.

Cassandra puffed up with the insult. “You know perfectly well,” she insisted, biting back the dark pain at the core of her being.

“All gone, aren’t they?” Dru’s tone turned cruel. “All gone to dust… Defeated, beaten, staked.”

“You do not wish to cross me,” Cassandra warned.

“Nor you, me,” Drusilla snapped back, flashing fangs for an instant. Her expression immediately turned chastised, innocent, as if she hadn’t shown a demon’s face mere moments before. “Mustn’t give away my pretties,” she sang softly. “Not let you break them like you broke your own.”

Cassandra’s eyes narrowed, and Drusilla knew for the first time that she faced an opponent who saw through the madness and spotted the lucidity and calculation buried within. “I will have him,” she concluded, “or you will have a new enemy come sunset.”

“I have so many already…” Dru shrugged.

Cassandra walked off in a huff.

Buffy watched them, saw Cassandra’s departure, and removed her tongue from Spike’s throat.

“You and Dru plannin’ on pissing all over me while you’re at it?” he grumbled, glaring at one of Thanos’ childer, who was giving him a quizzical look.

“We drove her off, didn’t we?” Buffy retorted. “Be grateful.”

“That one won’t give up easily,” Spike said thoughtfully.

Drusilla approached. “My William is wise,” she agreed, taking his arm and leading him into an impromptu dance.

Buffy watched her sires dance together to their own rhythm beneath the pulsing beat of the hall. She watched the calculating glances being thrown the elder pair’s way. Watched Thanos’ slow smirk as he watched them together. Watched Cassandra sulk off to the side.

And then, almost as one, the two enemies turned their eyes on her. She gulped and took a step back, shaken by their intense observation…

“You all right?” Xander’s question interrupted her impulsive attempt at flight.

She smiled at him, grateful for the distraction. “Where’s Harmony?”

He shrugged. “Working.”

She nodded. “Care to dance?”

A wicked grin lit up his face. “Why, Miss Summers, I’ve been waiting over a millennium for you to ask me that.”

Buffy’s suspicious mind thought she detected a threat in that. His old desire to own her born again, perhaps? But his smile was genuine, and his manner almost courtly as he led her in the dance.

She quickly concluded that this place was making her crazy…

The music had picked up a feverish pace. The deep rhythms of times of old turned frantic by the demons that danced in the dim light deep beneath the earth. A sort of hell brought to life, chaos and anarchy as blows were exchanged, blood spilt, couples fornicating recklessly and wildly for all to see.

But the obvious wickedness was nothing compared to what lurked within the minds of the room’s inhabitants. It was too much to see almost, too dazzling the plans and counterplans, alliances and wars, changing with almost lightning speed. Few wills would stick true to their course faced with such a fickle mob. But the few who did were as sharp and honed and cruel as any beings to walk the earth.

Two eyes, dark pinpoints in the shadows, watched the festivities. In particular, they narrowed in on the forms of two vampires, much like any of the others, as they danced together in the center of the hall. But these two were different. So very different. Even now, a web of death and deception closed in around them, just waiting to close in.

The owner of those two eyes closed in first.

“May I cut in?”

Spike and Dru halted their dance in surprise, so caught up in their own world that they hadn’t even detected the other vampiress’ approach. Spike raised one eyebrow at her; Drusilla smiled.

“Of course, my dear.” She released Spike’s hand, and he took a step back.

Caleigh smiled and took Dru’s offered hand. “Excuse us, handsome,” she winked at Spike.

More curious at this development than irritated, he moved away, watching the two powerful vampiresses as they danced together.

“We have not spoken before this day,” Drusilla commented casually.

Caleigh nodded her assent. “A common bond binds us, however.”

“Thanos?”

“I want him dead!” Deep venom rose in Caleigh’s words, and her eyes burned with furious golden intensity.

Drusilla smiled, catching the other vampiress back up in the dance once more. “A common bond, indeed.”

Caleigh smiled a sweet, innocent smile. Almost girlish. Undoubtedly the smile that countless of her victims had seen just prior to their final breaths. “I offer my assistance if you will avenge my humiliation.”

Drusilla nodded. “Thanos will not sit on the golden throne,” she promised.

Caleigh seemed satisfied by that. “They conspire against you,” she warned. “They would turn your family to pawns, use them as your weakness.”

“You speak of Thanos and Alger.”

A small nod of approval that Drusilla knew of the Council leader’s involvement. “Others as well. Those you might once have called allies…”

“Gertrude?” Drusilla guessed.

Caleigh couldn’t help but grin at Cassandra’s real name. “You are not so unlike your childer, after all.”

A distant smile lit up Dru’s face. “No, I am not…” she agreed.

“A question you must ask yourself,” Caleigh was looking around furtively now, as if she sensed eyes that not even Dru could detect, “if Cassandra was set to betray you, what prize was she offered?”

Drusilla frowned slowly. Only one option there…

“And how did Thanos plan to acquire it to give her?”

“Alger sought my William’s presence. Moved the ends of the earth to win it…” She was exaggerating, and they both knew it, but it didn’t matter.

Caleigh seemed to sense this was merely her manner. “Your childe is strong, feared,” she added. “His compliance could not be guaranteed without the greatest of powers.”

“What do you know?” Drusilla demanded, suddenly anxious.

Caleigh gave her a graceful shrug, a seemingly frivolous gesture that held more seriousness than Dru could ever have imagined. “I tell you this because you were not here, you could not know,” she explained. “But even those of us who have kept careful watch over Thanos know only rumors.” Her expression darkened. “We need a strong leader, yes, but one who will abide by our ancient customs. One who is, perhaps, not too strong?”

Drusilla frowned at the other vampiress’ implications. “The devil you know…”

Caleigh nodded. “We know your line and trust it. You seek power through ancient rights, not through greed and hunger and vengeance.”

“You fear what Thanos may do.” Drusilla sighed inwardly. So disappointing, really. All this secrecy, and this new ally was like the others, so caught up in the past that she feared all change. An agent of the status quo, as it were. A pity she’d lost Thanos’ challenge. Her Spike, in his more cynical moments, would say that this was a quality which the Order prized in a leader above all else, and Drusilla was not entirely sure he was wrong…

Caleigh leaned in close and licked a trail up Dru’s cheek in order to be close enough to whisper so softly even the nearest dancers had no chance of hearing her. “Think of this, as well. What one threat could Thanos hold over you to make you yield to his rule?”

Soft, cool lips brushed hers, and then Caleigh had vanished back into the crowd.

Drusilla frowned. She didn’t like these thoughts. She didn’t like them at all…

“I’d better watch out,” Buffy commented casually, as she and Xander came to rest beside one of the old columns and watched the dancers and musicians.

“Oh?” he inquired curiously.

“Last time you had ulterior motives.”

Xander shook his head at that. “Last time, I had delusions of glory,” he corrected. A bitter taste entered his mouth as he thought of his dead sire. “No chance of getting what I want now. It’s all long gone…”

Buffy bit her lip, feeling sorry for him. She couldn’t manage trying to persevere throughout the centuries, knowing all along that Spike was gone. Xander’s pain must have been unbearable. Still, she wasn’t about to let pity make her blind to his motives once more.

“Cordy wasn’t the only thing you were after,” she retorted a bit bluntly.

His jaw tensed, and he looked pointedly away from her. “I was young,” he said, his voice tight.

“You swore rather bloody revenge, as I recall,” Buffy pressed. “Against Willow, yes, but also…” She trailed off, let him finish the thought.

A flash of gold entered his eyes at the mention of Willow’s name, but almost as quickly, it was gone. “Things change,” he answered simply.

“Do they?” she retorted.

He shrugged, looking off in the distance and frowning at first, as if he saw something he didn’t approve of. But then he shook his head, and his attention turned back to her. “I can show you,” he offered suddenly, his eyes dark and fathomless as they met hers. “You can’t imagine what’s happened to me this last century, just how much things have changed.”

There was an intensity to him that she found somewhat unnerving. And she didn’t know whether to feel threatened or elated by it. He wasn’t as strong as she was; Willow’s early treatment had guaranteed him a slow, laborious ascent into power. So she settled on the latter, but cautiously so.

“Let’s get out of this place,” he sighed at the festivities that surrounded them. “Someplace quiet.”

She let him lead her, through the corridors and out the door. The power of those around her prickled at the back of her neck, but not even she could imagine the treachery this night would bring…

“Hello, gorgeous.”

Spike raised an eyebrow at Xander’s paramour. Strange girl, a bit bubble-headed, and awfully persistent. “If you’re lookin’ for your sweetie, he’s off dancing…somewhere.” His eyes scanned the crowd, and he finally spotted Xander by the far wall, talking intently with Buffy. He frowned for a moment, but shook it off. His girl could take care of herself. She’d more than proven that.

“I wasn’t looking for him,” Harmony countered, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “I told him I had Order business.”

“Do I sense trouble in paradise?” Spike asked sarcastically, not really caring one way or another.

“Paradise. Right.” Harmony rolled her eyes. “He’s the one who runs off with our high school loser, and I’m the problem in this relationship?”

“Another denizen of the Hellmouth…” Spike murmured almost to himself. His eyes were back on Dru now, trying to puzzle over what the hell Caleigh could be going on so long about.

Harmony’s nose crinkled up in distaste. “You really are rude, you know. I mean, I’m trying to have a conversation here. Not that anyone ever listens to me,” she grumbled. “No, you’re just like all the others.”

He sighed wearily. “Look, Harm…” he began.

She leaned in close. “Wanna get away from this crowd?” She winked at him, brushing her body against his pointedly. “I’m sure we could find a nice, secluded spot, and…” She left the innuendo open.

Spike had meant to refuse. This place gave him the nerves more than he’d ever like to admit. But something about her offer… It wasn’t anything he could place his finger on. Almost like there was something else there, beyond the two of them, enticing him away from the crowds. She gave out a little squeal when he nodded his agreement, and they retreated to the nearest corridor. Best not to get stepped on by dancers while having their fun.

Her body was soft and curvaceous against his, and her lips were ever so sweet. But then, he couldn’t escape that tingle on the back of his neck. The one that told him something was terribly, horribly wrong…

Drusilla frowned for a moment after Caleigh’s departure, and then she searched the crowd, seeking desperately her two childer. The alarm grew within her when she could find neither. She closed her eyes, felt the threads of power that led her to her lovers. Felt them both separate, vulnerable, and…

She wouldn’t have felt it had she not been seeking them out, she was sure of it. But she felt the electric jolt arc through her childe, felt consciousness slip away, felt them try to take what was hers.

And, with a banshee’s shriek, she ran to her childe’s aid, throwing all others out of her way. Only moments to spare before it was too late…