heathervamped

Black Martyr 

Chapter 1 
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5

After handing the last freshly-washed dinner plate to Dawn to dry and put away, Willow drained the sink and wiped the bracelets of suds off her wrists with a nearby kitchen towel.  In the living room, piles of well fed and over-exhausted potential slayers had already collapsed across the blanketed floor, some snoring gently.  Depositing the plate in the cupboard, Dawn's face split in a wide yawn, accompanied by a full-body stretch that sent her up on her toes, arms towards the ceiling.  Willow smiled at her, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and quietly gestured toward the stairs, urging the girl to go join her four new roommates and get some sleep.  She didn't need much persuasion, and Willow soon found herself the sole conscious occupant of the house. 

It hurt her heart to look at the clumps of sleeping girls, barely illuminated by a nightlight in the corner of the room that kept them from stepping on each other during inevitable late night trips to the bathroom or raids of the fridge.  She knew that many of them would die before they ever got to sleep in a real bed again, and that knowledge weighed on her, and on everyone else too, though they all seemed to hide it better.  Maybe keeping busy until the last possible moment of each day helped them to not think about it, but for Willow, the frantic pace at which they all lived only served to highlight the probable shortness of their life spans.  For instance, having supper after midnight hardly qualified as Willow's idea of an acceptable schedule, but such were the hours of those trying to stop an apocalypse. 

Though she yearned to succumb to a few hours rest, the thought of climbing into an already occupied bed made her hesitate, for reasons she couldn't fully explain.  Kennedy was a nice enough girl, but her insistence on sharing Willow's bed every night as though they were a fully committed couple made it feel like things were moving way too fast for comfort. 

Of course she had been grateful to Kennedy for breaking that horrid spell that tried to turn her into Warren.  And she was relieved when Kennedy forgave her for almost killing her while drawing the power necessary to open the portal to bring Buffy back from that weird dimension with the shadow men, but there was something to be said for having a little space this early in a relationship.  Sharing a house with dozens of other girls made space hard to come by, granted, but if Kennedy had her way, she'd be attached to Willow's lips nonstop.  In many ways, she was the polar opposite of Tara, making Willow wonder if she could ever have anything serious with her.  Tara had been everything she loved, and Kennedy had no more in common with Tara than a nice set of breasts.

Even if Kennedy was asleep at the moment, as soon as Willow came to bed it would be sure to wake her up, and Willow just wasn't in the mood for another night of furtive groping under the sheet, trying not to wake the other girls in the room.  So instead, she eyed the back door, knowing she shouldn't, but doing it anyway.

The moment the cool air hit her skin, her fatigue vanished, and she exhilarated in this tiny bit of rule breaking.  Ever the militant leader, Buffy had forbid them all from putting one toe across the threshold alone at night.  Willow stood against the porch railing, gazing out at the back yard, which had so recently hosted intense combat training for the hordes of young girls ensconced in the house behind her, and now held only a hazy mist, faintly glowing in the light of the setting moon. She could hardly imagine that too many demons would be so bold as to just stroll up to the slayer's residence and pick a fight.

Willow's contemplations ended at the sound of a distinct rustling off to her left.  Instantly alert, she stared into the darkness, trying to make the most of the scant light, not knowing what to expect, but ready to flee back into the house, should it be necessary. 

If a three headed golden dragon had come around the corner of the house, she would not have been more surprised than she was to see a familiar face emerge out of the darkness, managing to look anxious and sheepish at the same time.

"Angel!" She whispered her exclamation in consideration for the sleeping household.  "What are you doing here?  Did Buffy call you?"

Angel shook his head and came closer, hands in his pockets, his gaze cast down to his shoes.  "No, Buffy doesn't know I'm here.  Willow, something terrible has happened.  I need your help."

Willow took a step down off the back stoop, putting one hand to her chest, and said, "Me?  But Buffy, she's the helpful one.  Let me just get her and..."

"No!" Angel said, the sharpness in his voice stopping Willow in her tracks.  When she turned back to him, he no longer had that awkward boyish look of a man who's admitting that he needs a girl's help. "I don't want to worry her with this; there's already too much going on here.  That's why it has to be you.  Buffy can't afford any distractions right now."

She took another step towards the vampire.  "But, what can I do?  I mean, of course I want to help, it's just, I don't know if you know this but, I'm not really magic girl anymore."

Angel took the last step to close the gap between them, and before Willow registered that he'd moved, he spun her around, holding her wrists pinned behind her back with one hand, the other clamped over her mouth.  He whispered in her ear, "When I'm done with you, you'll be whatever kind of girl I tell you to be."

Willow struggled, thrashing in his arms, and tried to scream through his hand, until he said, "If you keep that up, I'll snap your neck and leave you right here for all your little friends to find in the morning."

Out of options, Willow stilled and let herself be dragged away up the street towards a waiting, and clearly stolen, Porsche, wondering all the while how she could possibly have been so stupid as to forget what happened the last time Angel appeared out of the darkness and lured her towards him. 

Opening the glove compartment, Angel, or make that Angelus, plucked out a roll of duct tape and secured her with ample amounts around her wrists and ankles before strolling around to the other side of the car and sliding into the driver's seat. 

Tightly bound, Willow's mind raced along faster than the sports car as she contemplated the best way out of her predicament.  No one would notice her absence for hours, so she couldn't count on a rescue from Buffy and the gang.  Not that they would have any reason to suspect a soulless Angel as the culprit even when they did notice.  If she wanted to get out of this in one piece, she was definitely on her own.

They pulled up in front of Angel's old mansion and he carried Willow inside, leaving her legs taped together.  She stared up at him in quiet horror, but did not try to scream for help, even though he hadn't bothered gagging her.  She had no doubt that he would kill her if she didn't go along with his demands, at least for now.

Taking his burden to the large area in front of the fireplace, he chained her to the ceiling, finding that just one shackle fit around both of her slender wrists, making it unnecessary to remove the tape from them.  He let her legs dangle and turned away to build them a nice roaring fire.

Willow could do little but watch as he stood in front of the fire for a time, holding his hands out to enjoy the warmth it provided in the damp room.  As though he'd completely forgotten about his hostage, Angelus moved away from the fire and settled down on the couch, lighting himself a cigarette.  When he finished it, he shifted around and regarded Willow, who still hung off to his right.  "You're still here?" he asked, feigning surprise.  "Come on now, a powerful witch like you, I'm sure you know a dozen different spells that would release those chains and dissolve the tape.  You could at least *try* to run away.  It's more fun that way."

"What happened to your soul?" she asked, ignoring his question.  The last thing she wanted to discuss with the evil undead was her magic. Of course he was right.  She could very easily let herself down, but once she was out of the chains, she would still be in the mansion and by the time she gathered up enough power to do any serious damage to the vampire, he'd tear her throat out.  He had to know about her brush with evil.  Bringing up her magical abilities could only mean that he was interested in them, and if he wanted to see her do some magic, then nothing could be a worse idea than actually giving him a demonstration of what she could do.

Angelus chuckled.  "That's just eating you up, isn't it?  Bet you're wondering who I fucked?"  Willow looked at him expectantly. Her toes flexed and relaxed every few seconds, needing to repeatedly convince herself that she could not touch the floor.  Her arms already ached, the pain radiated up from her shoulders to her wrists.  She couldn't feel her fingers.  Angelus just shook his head and laughed in that self-satisfied, evil snicker he used when the joke was firmly on someone else.  "You wouldn't believe me if I told you.  I didn't even get laid this time; my stupid friends, well, Angel's stupid friends, actually hired this guy to come take the soul out of me.  See, there was this really ugly ass demon who'd blotted out the sun, and..."  He broke off and waved his hand dismissively.  "Well, you don't care about all that."

Willow nodded eagerly.  "No, really.  I do!  I want to know."

Angelus rolled his eyes.  "Right, like I don't know that one.  Keep the bad guy talking until someone comes to the rescue.  Please, that was invented for me." 

Willow hung her head, silently admitting that he had named her game. 

Angelus got up and walked over to her.  He grabbed her chin in one hand and forced her to look him in the eye.  "This is simple.  I want you to do a spell for me.  A hard one.  Do it right, and I'll let you live."

Somehow, Willow seriously doubted that last part.  Even if he wrote his promise in blood and got it stamped by some sort of demon notary, she wasn't about to do some potentially dangerous spell for anyone, least of all her best friend's arch nemesis. 

As soon as she had come back to herself after her showdown with Xander at the temple, she had made a promise that she took more seriously than any other.  She had promised Tara that she would only use magic to help people in serious need, and only if there was no non-magical way to help them.  That Tara wasn't around to either hear or enforce her promise didn't matter at all.  Willow's days of lying to her were long over.  She held that promise in the front of her mind, letting it give her the strength to oppose her powerful captor.

She stared at him, took a deep breath, willing her voice not to tremble, and declared,  "I won't do any spells for you, so you might as well kill me now."

Angelus shook his head and crossed his arms, giving her a severe look.  "No, I don't think you get how it works.  I said that if you did the spell, you could live.  I didn't say that I'd kill you if you didn't."  He paused long enough for a hesitant look of relief to settle over her face.  "If you don't, I'll just make you."

Willow tossed her head, causing her body to sway slightly in the air.  "You can't make me do anything.  So just let me down or kill me."

Angelus sighed and wandered over to the wall to unhook her chain, allowing it to slide through the ring embedded in the ceiling, lowering his captive till her feet touched the floor.  The suddenly diminished strain on her shoulders hit her in waves of painful relief, and she couldn't help the hope in her eyes as she felt the solid ground beneath her and had a momentary delusion that maybe he really would let her go and find someone else to do his spell.

Hearing the vampire winding the extra length of chain on its hook, Willow twisted to look at him.  "What are you doing?" she asked, a hint of panic creeping into her voice

Angelus glanced over at her, clearly enjoying the rising fear that stole over her features.  "Just making you more comfortable," he answered.  "Seeing how you'll be here awhile, no sense in causing unnecessary pain."  He finished winding the chain and approached her slowly, his lips curling in a mocking smile.  "All the pain I cause you will be completely necessary."  Willow swallowed hard, but managed to suppress the little whimpering noises that kept threatening to escape from her throat.

He stood uncomfortably close to her, rubbing his chin and squinting at her like she was some sort of exotic specimen under a microscope.  "Now, tell me honestly, witch, because I'm having a hard time actually believing this.  There's nothing at all that I could do that would make you agree to do the spell?" 

"Nothing.  No magic," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

The vampire just smirked at her.  "Really?  You know what?  I still don't believe you.  I mean, come on, not even if I hit you?"  To emphasize the questions, he smacked her across the face with the back of his hand, knocking her head backwards.  The only thing that kept her from falling was the chain that bound her wrists.  She hopped a couple of times with her taped feet to get her balance back.

Once she steadied herself, she looked up at him, blood running from her nose, but determined not to cry or show that she was afraid.  "No," she said.

"You don't even know what it's for," he said, sounding on the verge of a whine. 

"I don't care, I'm not doing it."

Angelus glared at her.  "I don't give a shit if you care or not.  But you will care, and soon.  Now listen to me so you can start figuring out how to perform the spell once I change your mind."

Willow rolled her eyes, but kept them on the demon, giving him the attention he asked for.  "Good," he said.  "I thought you'd want to hear this."

He went over to a table on the far side of the couch and picked up a slip of ancient looking parchment.  "According to the guy I bought this from, in order to work it has to be cast correctly by a pretty powerful witch - and who's more powerful than you, sweetheart?"  He grinned at her, but she just stared at him, intrigued in spite of herself, to see what sort of spell it was.  "So, if done right, the subject of the spell, that'd be me, will be rendered fully immortal for three days.  Neat, huh?"

Willow cleared her throat, trying to cough up some of the drying blood from her nose that had trickled back there.  "Um, aren't you already immortal?" she couldn't help asking.

The annoyed look that darkened his face made her instantly regret the question.  "No, you fucking idiot.  I'm undead, not immortal.  You know damn well that there's plenty of ways to kill me.  This little spell is talking about Gem of Amara-type immortal.  Unkillable.  Stakeproof.  Sunproof.  Holy-object-proof.  All that good shit.  Now shut up and listen to the instructions and the chant.  You can read it again later, but I don't want you screwing it up and claiming you didn't understand it."

She remained quiet while he rattled off the spell.  He hadn't been kidding about needing a powerful spell caster.  Even with all of her magical connections, she couldn't think of anyone besides herself that would be able to pull it off.  Gathering a protective power as effective as the Gem of Amara around a single individual, without even having a gem to store it in, was no parlor trick.  If Angelus had truly collected the ingredients as he claimed, she could probably work the spell, but he was certifiably insane if he thought she was going to give him that kind of advantage in a fight against her and her friends.  In three days, he could wipe out the whole town, and probably take half the state of California with it.

He finished reading the spell and looked expectantly at her.  "So, what do you think?  Ready to get casting?"

Willow shook her head, not liking it that she could still feel it where he'd hit her.  "Not happening."

Angelus studied her for a moment.  "Huh.  Interesting.  I guess I should have expected that you'd still care about all those so-called friends of yours, even though they don't even trust you with anything more important than dirty dishes."

Willow knew on some level that she should be freaked out by the implication that Angelus had been watching her for some time before he approached in the backyard, but any distress that might have caused was quickly replaced by a new fear as he went over to the fireplace and picked up the iron poker.  He thrust it into the center of the flames and held it there for several minutes. Willow stared at him, refusing to comprehend what was coming.  Her breath came in congested snorts as she tried to breathe through her blood clotted nose, and she struggled with her sense of self-preservation, which insisted that she blast the chains to hell and run for it.  Her logical mind knew that she'd never make it anywhere near the door, and would also reveal her power in the process.

Leather pants creaked as the vampire rose from his crouch beside the fire.  The tip of the poker glowed a molten red.  Without ceremony, he thrust it against Willow's side, angling the point between her ribs.  The thin fabric of her tee shirt burned away in milliseconds.  Logic and determination drowned in the searing hot pain that spread through her skin, and she screamed a beautiful wail of misery as the hot metal scorched her flesh.

Part Two

Willow woke up in a sudden shock of freezing consciousness.  The first thing she saw was Angelus, standing in front of her, frowning, with an empty glass in his hand that had recently held the cold water that now dripped from her face and shirt.  Almost as soon as she remembered where she was and why, she also remembered the burning pain in her side and it flared to life the instant she thought of it.  She moaned softly, almost wishing she could go back to the blessed blackness from which she had just returned.  She didn't even mind that it would leave her completely helpless in the presence of a mass murderer.  She was already completely helpless.

Seeing that she was awake, Angelus made a derisive noise and turned away to dispose of the glass, muttering about how many hot pokers he'd had driven through him without passing out.  To Willow's horror, she saw that he was again heating the poker in the roaring fire.  She twisted her feet and legs, hoping to loosen the tape, knowing that it wouldn't do much good to have her legs free with her arms still shackled, and yet unable to do nothing in the face of another visit from the poker.

The twisting brought her shirt in contact with the burn, which hurt as much as if the metal still rested against her skin, and brought her attention back to the pain.  It took so much effort not to focus on the pain, that it was nearly impossible to focus on getting free.  After a few moments, Willow was reduced to holding perfectly still and willing herself to think of anything but how much her side hurt.

Before she could even begin to formulate a useful plan of action, Angelus was back, holding the poker out in front of him, aimed directly at her right breast.  She stared at him, holding her breath, waiting for the inevitable agony.  Tears, both from the pain she was already in, and from the anticipation of future pain, poured from her eyes, blurring her view of the demon wearing the face of her friend.  To her further horror, Angelus reached up with his free hand and brushed them away.

"There now," he said softly.  "Wouldn't want you to miss this."  With her vision cleared, she could see his malicious grin as he twirled the poker in front of her face.  When her eyes widened, letting him know she saw exactly what he was doing, he stopped the twirling and drew a line on her shirt with the tip of the poker, just above her breast, not pressing hard enough to scorch the way he had before, but enough to singe the fabric and raise white hot blisters on her skin.  Her wet shirt hissed and steamed slightly from the heat and the odor of burnt cotton quickly filled the air once more. 

Willow moaned, but tried not to let more tears fall, revolted that Angelus might feel moved to touch her face again.  He lowered the poker and watched her for a moment, his eyes moving from the black line on her white shirt to her face.  She tried to glare back at him, but quickly faltered and gasped when she realized what he was doing.  He was testing her, seeing how much he could hurt her without making her pass out, which had interrupted his plans.

She could only watch him as he walked back to the fire, chuckling softly as though he knew the meaning behind her gasp.  "You know," he said as he crouched down to heat the poker, "it can take a human a long time to die from massive burns.  I could hurt you pretty badly with this thing without risking your life.  Well, you might die of shock, but only if I let you.  I'm learning your limits.  They're not great, but for a weak little human girl, you've got more endurance than I thought."  He eyed her up and down.  "Yeah, I bet I could burn a nice, big picture in your flesh and keep you awake for the whole thing.  Pyrography is a beautiful art form.  This might be my best opportunity to try it, get away from all those boring drawings on plain ol' paper for awhile." 

He stood up and blew a bit of soot off the tip of the poker so that the full red glow of its heat could show through.  "You know what would be easier though?" he asked.

Willow just watched him approach, not answering, doing nothing but repeatedly swallowing the scream in the back of her throat.  When Angelus stood before her and she still hadn't responded, he threw the poker to one side and grabbed her head in both hands, one on the top of her head, and one on her jaw.  He forced her mouth open and put his eye right up to her face to look inside.  Pushing her away, he bent to retrieve the poker, letting her figure out how to get her balance back on her own.  When he stood he faced her again.  "See, I knew you hadn't bit your tongue off yet.  So you've got no excuse for not answering my questions.  I expect an answer from now on.  There's not much point in making threats about what'll happen if you don't, so just do it.  Got it?"

Willow slowly opened her mouth, ensuring that her jaw wasn't broken.  "Yes," she said quietly, in no mood for defiance or argument for so small a request.  She was still busy conjuring up ideas about what Angelus might consider to be a worthy scene to sear into her body.

"Good," Angelus said.  "That's good.  I think this will work out just fine.  Now, I'll bet you're in pain, aren't you?"

He paused, and Willow realized that it wasn't a rhetorical question.  "Yes."

"Do you know what stops the pain, Willow?"

Her mind raced.  Ice?  Aspirin?  Whiskey?  No, none of those were what he was looking for.  "Magic?" she ventured.

He rewarded her with a smile and a twirl of the cooling poker that came nowhere near her.  "That's right.  You agree to do this spell for me, and the pain stops.  I'll even let you do a healing spell on yourself.  Doesn't that sound nice?"

"No," she said.  Alone in the sanctuary of her own room, she would certainly have attempted a simple healing spell.  With Angelus watching, she resisted the urge. She'd rather let him kill her than let him force her to do any magic, no matter how basic and harmless.
 
The spell Angelus really wanted would mean death for all of her friends, but with all the powerful forces involved, it was also just the kind of spell that might resurrect Evil Willow.  If there was anyone left in Sunnydale when Invincible Angelus got through with it, she would be sure to wipe out the rest.  There would be no forgiveness this time, no one left to forgive her.  Whatever Angelus did to her, she would not give in, she would not break her promise to Tara.

Willow tensed, bracing herself for the inevitable onslaught of punishment for her defiance.  Angelus stood there, staring at her, holding the poker down at his side, a sly smile spreading over his face.  His failure to hurt her immediately, only made her worry more.  "Well, well, never would have guessed it about you.  Little girl likes a little pain, is that it?  Are you getting off on this, Willow?"  He leaned in close to her as he spoke, until he was whispering in her ear, even as she tried her best to shy away from him.

"No," she said again, not forgetting that his every question required an answer. 

The poker clattered to the floor and Angelus grasped Willow's hips, pulling her against him and grinding his crotch into her stomach.  "That's too bad," he said in a way that made it clear that it wasn't bad to him at all.  "Because I am."  He let her go suddenly, and she stumbled a little, her weight pulling against the shackles on her wrists, which in turn stretched her sides, sending fresh shots of pain through her burns. 

Turning away, Angelus left the room for a moment, just long enough to allow Willow the crazy idea that he'd gone out somewhere to get laid.  When he returned, far too soon for Willow's liking, he carried with him a long, wicked looking knife.  The handle was black and sleek, carved with a design she couldn't quite make out around the hand that held it.  Not that she paid all that much attention to the handle.  The bound witch was much more concerned with the big shiny blade, with its gleaming edge that she had no doubt could reduce her to ribbons faster than she could open her mouth to scream.

She held her breath as he walked up to her and pointed the tip of the knife at her throat.  Then without warning he slashed down the length of her torso, brought it back up and made two lightning quick sideways cuts.  He was done before Willow realized that she felt no pain.  She looked around and realized that her shirt now lay on the floor behind her.  Looking back at the vampire, she frowned, but didn't venture a comment.  He looked right back at her, though not at her face, but at the wounds he'd inflicted earlier.  "What good is it to waste time hurting someone if you can't even get a look at the results," he said by way of explanation.  Then, with slightly slower motions, he slit her bra straps and the bit of material where the cups connected in the front and let that fall to the ground as well.  "Besides, you have nice tits."  He reached out and squeezed one briefly with his free hand, enforcing his point. 

Willow sucked in air in equal parts revulsion, fear, and pain, but managed to stay mostly silent.  She had the awful feeling that she knew what Angelus planned for his next attempt to persuade her to come around to his way of thinking.  Her suspicions grew as he aimed the knife at the edge of her skirt and she felt it fall away to join the rest of her outfit on the floor.  Her white satin underwear quickly followed. Then he stepped back and looked her up and down.  Nodding to himself, he set the knife on a small table by the fire and sprawled out on his couch, one leg on the floor, one flung up on the back of the couch, facing his captive. 

"You look so pathetic, hanging there, wounded, naked, just waiting for someone to save you so you don't have to destroy yourself trying.  Completely at my mercy.  Do you have any idea what that does to me?"

Willow had already felt what that did to him when he rubbed it against her, and with his legs spread like that, she could see it.  "Yes," she said, thinking that the only thing she had going for her was that he seemed to believe that she was off magic altogether.

He traced the bulge at his crotch through his pants with one finger, keeping his eyes on her the whole time.  He chuckled slightly at her obedient response.  "And what is that?"

She swallowed, not wanting to answer, then took a breath and said, "It makes you hard."

"Damn right it does.  Do you have any idea how difficult it is to just sit here looking at you with all that undamaged flesh, your fear filling my senses, the scent of the blood pounding in your veins making my hunger rise?  Do you know how difficult it is to not just drag you down and fuck you while I drain the life from your body?"

As much as she tried to stop it, Willow felt her heart speed and her skin prickle with sweaty fear at his words.  Being terrified would only entice him, but she couldn't help it.  She was terrified; who wouldn't be?  But he had asked her a question, so she would answer.  "Um, no."

"It's very hard, Willow."  Then to demonstrate an entirely different point, he unzipped his pants and released his erection, stroking it gently.  "I don't want you to die, but damn it, I want you to break.  You smell broken, even if you don't act it, and it makes the demon in me demand to move in for the fuck and kill.  Do you want this to be the last thing you feel before you die?" he asked, looking down at the cock he held to draw her attention to it.

"No," she said, with some force.  The situation in general made her feel uncertain about a lot of things, but that wasn't one of them. 

He smiled.  "I was hoping you'd say that."  He stood up and pulled off his shirt.  Boots and leather pants came next, making a pile on the floor in front of the couch.  Willow tried not to stare at the naked, aroused vampire walking her way.  Somehow, he seemed larger with his clothes off, and more dangerous.  "See, if I'm not going to kill you, I still need something to relieve the tension I've built up working on you.  That's where you come in.  Sure, I could sit over there and get off just looking at you, but what fun is having a naked chick chained to your ceiling if you've got to do everything for yourself?"  Willow opened her mouth, but Angelus held up his hand.  "No need to answer that one, but you can leave that pretty mouth open.  It'll be in that position for awhile."  He winked at her and moved to the metal hook in the wall that held her chains taught.

Angelus let the chain out a couple of feet and then secured it again, giving it a tug for good measure.  Willow watched him and then lowered her arms so that her bound wrists hung just in front of her face.  The simple movement sent her muscles screaming, but also relieved some of the tension in her back, though the relief was temporary.  Without warning, Angelus was in front of her again, shoving her to her knees, his fingers biting into her thin shoulders with brutal force.

"Now here's a question I want you to answer.  Would you do the spell to keep my cock out of your mouth?  Would you risk your friends, and the world, to avoid having to admit that you sucked off the evil undead?  Are you that selfish, witch?"

There could be only one answer.  She knew it, and she knew that Angelus knew it.  Which could only mean that he wanted to do this to her before she was completely broken.  He was having fun and didn't want it to end just yet, so he'd remind her of what happened when the game was over to keep her playing as long as possible.  Since he seemed to make up the rules as he went along, all she could do was try not to let him win until another player showed up to take over.  "No," she said, her voice barely more than a hoarse whisper.

"Well, aren't you the little heroine?  Open wide, sweetheart."  With her arms straight up above her head again, kneeling naked on a vampire's living room floor, staring at the biggest cock she'd ever seen, though that wasn't saying much with her limited male experience, Willow had little choice but to do exactly as he said. 

He gave her no time to start slowly or work up to his full length.  He buried himself in her face and let her deal with the problem of not gagging to death.  She did her best, both afraid of throwing up on him, and afraid of making him mad if he mistook her choking for disgust at having him in her mouth at all, not that it would be inaccurate.  His cock was cool, the flesh unyielding and completely inhuman.  She didn't know how she had sunk so low in the few short hours since she had foolishly ventured off the back porch of Buffy's house after dark. 

"You're so good to do this for your fellow man; I bet you get straight into heaven for not giving in to me.  I'm sure this cancels out all the bad stuff you did, back when you were strong and powerful.  Yeah, you're right up there with the saints, Willow, using all your skills to stop my evil plans.  They should name a city after you.  Who else would be so self-sacrificing?  You think anyone else would wrap their lips around my cock just for the sake of a few innocent lives?  No, you're one of a kind, doing the right thing, no matter what.  I bet you'll even swallow, just to keep me happy."

Willow, of course, could not respond.  She didn't think it was possible to hate someone as much as she hated Angelus at that moment.  His mocking praise of her resolve to not use magic grated on her nerves, as he no doubt intended.  He made her sound naive for caring what would happen to other people if she cast the spell.

She thought about biting him, hard.  The satisfaction would be fleeting, knowing she caused him pain.  It would last just for the moment until he tore her head off in retaliation, though provoking him to kill her would at least end the torment and have the added benefit of ensuring that she was no longer a danger to the world around her.   No, she couldn't risk it.  Taking herself out of the picture didn't solve the problem of the danger that Angelus posed to her friends and the rest of humanity.  She was the only one in Sunnydale who knew that he had lost his soul.  She was the only one who could stop him. 

Concentrating on finding a way out of her situation that would allow her to take some action against her tormentor, and blocking out his words as much as she was able, Willow managed to make it through the punishment her throat was taking at the receiving end of the vampire's thrusting cock.  When he finally climaxed and withdrew, she had a bad moment where she feared she might actually throw up from the taste he left in her mouth, but playing the role of martyr that he had sarcastically assigned to her, she swallowed quietly and held her gag reflex in check. 

"Thanks darling, that was great," Angelus said, patting her head before hauling her to her feet by the arm.  He dragged her into his embrace and gave her a passionate kiss.  It caught her off guard and she opened her mouth to gasp in surprise, unwittingly admitting his tongue for a quick sweep of her tonsils.  She tried not to shudder when he pulled back, wondering for a brief moment how Buffy could ever have borne the touch of such cold and obviously dead lips on her own. 

He held her around the waist, keeping their bare bodies pressed together, one arm carelessly in contact with the burn on her ribs.  "I'm always kinda thirsty after a good blowjob," he said.  Something about the way he looked at her neck when he said it made Willow suspect what was coming next, though that was probably his intention.  "I think you owe me some liquids."  He licked a trail across a vein and then slashed his fangs through her flesh, making her scream in spite of her resolve to remain as stoic as possible throughout the ordeal.

In their own way, the fangs were as painful as the hot poker, tearing her skin instead of searing it, spilling blood instead of cooking the flesh on her bones.  Through the pain she could feel a trickle of blood run down her back from the wound, even as Angelus did his best to lap up the rest of the flow.  When the initial welling of blood slowed, he fastened his lips on her neck and sucked, pulling reluctant fluid from her veins until she felt her head get fuzzy and black edges surrounded her field of vision.

Just short of making her lose consciousness, Angelus withdrew his fangs and left her to stand there with tears running down her face and blood running down her body, while he pulled his clothes back on. 

When he was dressed he turned back to her, watching as she tried to get herself under control.  "I can make this last a long time, Willow. Hurting you, getting off on it, feeding from you.  I'll use every part of your body as my own personal fucking playground.  Would you like that?"

"No."

"Are you going to the spell for me to stop it?"

"No."

The lazy smile came over his face again.  "I was hoping you'd say that."

Part Three


Willow's situation continued to worsen. When blood loss and pain had finally got the better of her and blessed her with another bout of unconsciousness, she had been moved. On waking, she found herself laying on the floor, chained by her wrists to the wall next to Angelus's bed, though not as uncomfortably as she had been in the living room. The duct tape was gone from her wrists and ankles, replaced by angry red marks on her skin where it had been torn away.

The vampire was nowhere to be seen, and Willow could scarcely believe her good fortune, praising herself for her ruse of absolute magical abstinence. Quickly closing her eyes, gathering energy, and focusing on the locking mechanism of her cuffs, she yelled, "Compingo!"

Instead of the metallic pop that she'd hoped for, she opened her eyes just in time to see the electric blue flash as her magic rebounded from the cuffs straight back through her wrists, jolting her to the very bone. She screamed, both in pain and surprise.

As Willow caught her breath, she understood the situation. Angelus was not the least bit careless or gullible. Her cuffs were magic-proof. She was trapped. To make matters worse, when he finally returned to the room to check on her, he smelled the magical discharge and instantly knew what had happened and went around looking especially smug for the rest of the day, certain she was near the breaking point.

Three days later, Willow had learned to hate the magical cuffs even more.

The apparent freedom of motion that her bedroom chains granted her over the living room chains, it soon turned out, was not in the least for her benefit. Angelus simply liked variety in his torment. Sometimes when he used her body, he preferred her to be facing him, ordering her to meet his gaze and acknowledge who was inside her, destroying any chance for her mind to cloak itself in denial and pretend that she gave herself willingly to a lover. Other times, he commanded her to her hands and knees like a dog, or made her stand up and slammed her face into the wall, bloodying her nose on one occasion. Most recently, claiming the floor was too hard, he tossed her facedown on the mattress and covered her with his body, crushing the breath out of her as he forced her legs apart to accept him.

He gave her food and drink, the one time she had asked for it. She hated her dependence on him, and yet, hunger leaves little room for pride, so at the end of the second day she had finally managed to ask if he intended her to starve. He assured her that he wanted no such thing and, to her surprise, when he returned from his evening's hunt, he brought her a combo meal from the Doublemeat Palace. Even as she devoured it, he described in excruciating detail the things he had done to the young girl unfortunate enough to be working the late shift at the drive-through window.

Her revulsion was almost enough to keep her from finishing the meal, but she made herself continue eating, knowing she needed the food. Angelus assured her that she had nothing to feel guilty about. What was one girl's life compared to all those she was saving by sitting in his room and not giving into him or her magic?

She resolved that she would rather die than give him a reason to kill anyone else and so subtly blame it on her. That had been nearly 24 hours ago, and though her stomach flopped around desperately for something to digest, she had so far upheld her promise to herself.

Before leaving her on that third evening, he had demanded that she drink the bottle of water he shoved at her, declaring that if she thought he would let her die from something so common as dehydration, she better come up with a new plan. Willow silently cursed his recollection of human needs, but drank the water anyway. It probably meant he planned to feed from her again soon, which carried the happy possibility of dying from an infection in her multiple wounds.

Though he did not seem to want her to die, Angelus liked her to suffer as much as possible. He'd made no effort to clean or dress her injuries, preferring to let the dried blood accumulate on her bare skin. Nowhere was it worse than on her thighs. Willow's virginity was long gone, and yet the vampire had no trouble making her bleed each time he abused her. He boasted that he could fuck a professional whore till she bled when he had the inclination, making it clear that he preferred the company of less used merchandise for most occasions.

Laying there by a vampire's bed, naked, dirty, bloody, and sore, Willow wondered if tonight would be the night she prayed for so desperately. She wondered if tonight her friends would discover that Angelus was in town, or better yet, find her and take her away from him. She could not give up hope that she would be rescued because it was the only hope she had.

It weighed on her, knowing he was out there, killing, hunting, terrorizing her neighborhood. The power to stop him, to kill him, simmered inside her, begging for release, yet she contained it. The same power that could destroy him could also destroy her soul and she knew that if there was a bigger threat to humanity than Angelus, it was herself.

The outer door of the mansion creaked open and Willow heard Angelus enter, humming to himself. So her prayers had not been answered that day either. Once again he returned from the hunt, unhindered by a town full of slayers and potentials. If he stuck to his routine of the previous nights, he would soon come in and ask her to do his infernal spell in exchange for being spared further pain and humiliation. After her inevitable denial, he would offer her a choice of torments. If, once again, she refused to express a preference for where he put his cock, he would simply visit all the possibilities in no particular order. Then he would beat her with his thick leather belt for failing to answer a question to his satisfaction.

The vampire did not immediately appear in the room, and instead, Willow heard the rattle of the chains out in the living room. She shrank back closer to the wall, petrified that Angelus might finally have decided on a design to burn into her skin. Yet, when he finally swaggered through the doorway, he did not give the outer room a single glance. She watched him carefully, peering through the limp strands of hair that she had let fall over her eyes to conceal her expression from him. She had a jolt of disgust with herself when she realized that she was relieved to see him unbuttoning his shirt in preparation for his usual attempt to break her, instead of dragging her off for some other torture. Shouldn't she prefer to have her skin fried off her bones than to have Angelus put his hands on her body? Perhaps there was something wrong with her that being used for a vampire's sexual pleasure was preferable to being burnt alive, but as much as Angelus tried to cause her pain during his repeated violation of her, that hot poker had still hurt a hell of a lot more.

When he slid off his pants and stood in front of her, as naked as she was, Willow struggled to sit up and look at him. She found this less unpleasant than allowing him to haul her up by the hair, which had happened the first time he presented himself to her and she had remained lying on the floor. Angelus sniffed the air and twisted his face in displeasure. "You're really starting to stink up the joint," he told her. "I'd throw you in the bath, but we're not going to play this game much longer. You'll give in tonight."

Willow did not bother to contradict him. She was in no hurry for him to try and prove his point by whatever new trick he had concocted. "Come on, what do you say? Going to do the spell for me and spare yourself another day riding my cock? Or are you kinda starting to like it? I see the way you watch me when I undress. Bet you were hoping I'd keep you here forever, maybe even turn you just so I'd have eternity to fuck you? You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

He stopped talking long enough for her to answer. "No."

"No? No what? I know you've got a mouth that can form more than one word at a time."

"No, I don't want to be here forever, or even for one more second," Willow spat, and then held her breath, afraid she had said too much.

Angelus just laughed and kneeled in front of her, grabbing her arms to pull her closer to him. "You didn't answer my other question. Are you ready to do some magic for me?"

"No, and I never will." She could see him harden at her words.

"Against the wall," he commanded.

Part Four

Four hours later, Willow lay sobbing quietly in her usual spot on the floor with her jaw aching, ass burning, and fresh blood drying on her thighs, when to her dismay, Angelus came back into the room. She had expected a longer recovery period before dealing with him again, but now it seemed even that small comfort would be denied to her.

He looked freshly showered and was dressed in just his usual leather pants with no shirt or shoes. Willow felt a wave of nausea when he began to unlock her chain from the wall, fearing that she had not been mistaken of his intention to take her to the living room to burn some fresh marks on her.

"Come, on. Stop your whining and get up. I've got a surprise for you." He yanked on the chain that attached to the shorter one that joined her wrists and she had no choice but to stand up. When he tied a blindfold around her head, it only served to reinforce her conviction that there would be no cake or balloons involved in Angelus's idea of a surprise.

He led her out of the room and they did indeed seem to be headed for the living room. She tried to assure herself that he wouldn't blindfold her just to repeat a torture she had already been through, which wasn't very reassuring because it probably meant he had thought of something worse.

After not very many steps they stopped walking, and to her very great astonishment, she felt the metal cuffs being removed from her wrists. She heard them drop to the floor a few feet away, yet she stood perfectly still, unwilling to risk playing into any of the vampire's sick games by attempting to run or remove the blindfold. Waiting for something to happen was agony and she felt her vulnerability as keenly as she felt the draft in the cavernous room as it slipped past her bare skin.

Only a handful of heartbeats after he left her side, Willow heard Angelus speak to her from a short distance away. "Take off the blindfold."

Multitudes of terrible possibilities flashed through her thoughts of what atrocity Angelus had committed in the name of surprising her, yet none came close to the utter simplicity of the truth. When she saw it, she could scarcely believe she had not known all along what she would find, since, once she knew, it was impossible to think that it ever could have been anything else.

In the center of the room, Dawn Summers stood with her arms chained above her head in the very shackles Willow had worn on her first night in the mansion. Her feet were unbound, and she was naked, gagged with what could only be her own underwear. Angelus stood beside her with one arm wrapped around her waist possessively. "Don't we make a cute couple?" he asked Willow. "We better, since she'll probably be my mate by the end of the night if you don't cooperate. Well, you know, assuming she lives through everything else."

Though she had not been asked a question, Willow suddenly found herself unable to remain silent. "Let her go," she demanded, putting every ounce of her remaining strength into her voice.

Angelus put on a look of false distress. "Let her go? Oh no, I wasn't expecting that. What do I do now? All of my brilliant plans are ruined!" Rolling his eyes, he continued in a serious tone, "I'll let her go if you make with the big time magics. So, I'm going to ask you one last time, will you do the spell I asked for? Will you give in to save her life, if not your own?"

Her standard answer was on the tip of her tongue, though she knew she could not utter it in the face of the current situation. Despair and futility settled over her like a shroud as she considered her lack of options. It had all been for nothing, exactly as Angelus had planned, no doubt. Every word of defiance uttered to him, every twinge of pain, and every thrust of his cock had only delayed the inevitable. He had lied to her. Her sacrifices had saved no one. He had known this would be her undoing, had planned it all along, intending for her to feel exactly as she felt at this moment. Even as he forced her to submit to him only an hour ago, he already had this scene in place. The rattling of chains she had heard had never been for her.

He could have brought Dawn to the mansion immediately and had her at his mercy days earlier, but that was not his way. The torments he had subjected her to only served to magnify the enormity of the hold he now had on her as they paled in importance next to her desperation to save the girl she loved as her own sister from suffering even an ounce of what she had already borne.

He watched her expectantly, trailing one hand over the front of Dawn's body, deliberately avoiding her more sensitive parts, while making it clear he could change his mind about that at any time. When she took a breath to answer him he interrupted her.

"Before you go spouting the heroic stuff again, let me make sure you understand in perfect detail what will happen to this pretty little girl if you refuse me." He let go of his captive and moved to pick up the knife he had used to remove Willow's clothes from where it still sat on his small end table by the couch. "First, I think I'll cut off her nipples, they're too big for my taste." He slid the knife lightly across her breast, not cutting her, but making Dawn's eyes widen and her breathing still. "I'll drink the blood that pours from the wounds until she tears her throat from screaming. Ah, that reminds me." He set down the knife and removed her gag. She immediately began to hyperventilate in fear, but Angelus ignored her, turning back to Willow.

"I'll take her innocence while you stand there and watch. I haven't had a virgin in decades. They're always so tight that it almost hurts, but in a good way. Well, for me. You know so well what it feels like to be in my bed, or, well, on my floor, so you know exactly how much she'll enjoy it, only I probably won't be so gentle with her." He paused and from the way he glanced at Dawn, Willow understood he'd thrown that in just to scare the girl by letting her know what had already happened to her friend, in case she couldn't figure it out from the fact that she stood there naked.

"By the time I'm done with her, she'll be begging me to let her die, which I will. I'll turn her, and together, we'll kill you, and then Buffy. Having a vampire that looks like her precious little sister on my side isn't quite as good as being unkillable, but I'm running out of patience, so I'll take what I can get. And right now, what I can take is every shred of modesty and virtue in this lovely young body. It's all up to you."

He turned his back on Willow and wrapped his arms around Dawn, reaching down to squeeze her bare ass. He leaned in to try and kiss her, but she turned her head away with a desperate whimper and pulled on her chains to no avail, eliciting a cruel laugh from the vampire.

Nothing but magic would get the two of them out of there alive. Willow thought about trying to run for help, but she was pretty sure the vampire was fast enough to snap Dawn's neck and still catch her before she even got to the door. He wouldn't stop tormenting Dawn until she did his spell, which would not only make Angelus more deadly than ever, but would likely push her over to the dark side as well. Once that happened she'd be all black hair and veins and not so much with the caring if Dawn lived or died anyway. Either way, Angelus won.

Willow looked at the monster who had tortured her, then at the girl who would be his next victim. She made a decision. He was going to die if she had to take down the rest of the world with him. She only hoped that, given the situation, Tara would forgive her, wherever she was.

But first, she was going to save Dawn. Throwing filthy hair back over her shoulders, she straightened her posture and gathered her power. Angelus wanted to see a witch do a spell, so that's exactly what he would see.

The magic building in her gut hurt for the first time that she could remember. It took considerable personal strength to cast a spell of the magnitude she needed, and after days of being starved as a vampire's sex toy, strength was something Willow didn't have. To compensate, she let her very aura flow into the building magic, giving her life force to provide the necessary power.

Through the light that began to swirl about her, she could see Angelus watching her, looking displeased. "I don't know what you think you're doing, witch, but if you throw some pansy assed fireball at me, I'm going to make you help me ruin this kid. Let her have a taste from both teams. It'll be good practice for life as a vamp."

For once, the demon's taunts didn't reach her. It didn't matter what he wanted to do to Dawn, or to her. It wasn't going to happen. Taking one last moment to focus the spell, Willow threw her hands out towards Dawn, sending the light shooting towards her. In an instant it surrounded her, throwing Angelus away from her and across the room. Then she was gone.

Willow had just enough time to see the empty chains swinging from the ceiling, before the floor rose up to meet her, and her world became nothingness.

Part Five


The white light seemed to confirm her theory that she was dead. Then the narcotic-dulled pain set in and she remembered that being dead isn't supposed to hurt, even a little. She opened her eyes and groaned at the harsh brightness that filled the hospital room. Excited murmurs surrounded her and when she could focus on the source, she realized that she was not alone. Not even close. Her bed was surrounded by people, though the first one she recognized was Dawn, hovering by her head on the right hand side. When they made eye contact, the girl grinned at her.

"Hey, they said you were about to wake up. I knew you would."

Willow tried to open her mouth, but nothing much seemed to happen, so she contented herself to just look at Dawn and be satisfied that she was real and in one piece, and that the teleportation spell hadn't done anything horrible like rearrange her limbs, or simply transport her from Angelus's living room to his bedroom.

Another voice spoke. "She showed up right in the middle of the kitchen." Willow managed to shift her eyes and concentrate on the person next to Dawn, whom she eventually identified as Buffy. The slayer seemed to have read the question off her face.

"Naked," Dawn added, reluctantly.

"Well, that was our first clue something was wrong," Buffy countered, trying to keep the mood light.

A bitter voice came from Willow's left, but thankfully she did not have to turn her head to identify it as Xander. "I still can't believe you didn't kill him."

Willow managed to widen her eyes slightly. Up until that moment, she had simply assumed that if she was alive, Angelus must be dead. Although she couldn't remember killing him herself. She fixed her gaze on Buffy, silently demanding to know what she'd missed.

The slayer tried to avoid her eyes, but eventually caved. "As soon as Dawn told us what happened, we went to the mansion. You were still unconscious, obviously, and uh, Angelus was trying to, um, wake you up."

"He was raping your almost dead body," Xander corrected. The acid in his voice made Willow wince more than the image the words conjured.

"Xander!" Anya's voice cut him off. "I think we all understood what Buffy implied with her statement. It's insensitive to be so direct in a situation like this."

"Right," Buffy agreed, and then hurried on to cover the awkwardness. "So, we had him totally outnumbered and managed to subdue him. Then we called LA, and sure enough, they knew he was soulless and missing. We drove him back up there and they put him in a cage."

Willow waited to hear that he had his soul back and wanted to come and bring her diamonds and furs and be her personal servant for life by way of begging forgiveness. Xander quickly dashed that hope.

"They seem to have 'misplaced' his soul. They're waiting for you to get better so you can help them find it and put it back. The unspeakable moron who took it out is dead."

Willow coughed her first word, "Kidding?"

Buffy gave her a strained smile. "No, we're not kidding. I know what he did to you Willow, some of it anyway... but you're the only one who can save him."

Save him? Her last memory had been of deciding to kill him. Unfortunately, she had run out of juice after transporting Dawn home, and was lucky to be alive. Sort of. The longer she was awake, the more the memories of the last few days threatened to overwhelm her, and the more she remembered what had happened, the better a nice dish of cold revenge sounded. Even knowing it to be wrong, she wanted it. Maybe Angelus had broken her after all.

Buffy saw her hesitation and continued on with a nervous giggle. "Well, no one's expecting you to spring up and go tomorrow or anything. You just get better and then you can think about it." She turned to the rest of the assembled visitors. "Come on, she looks tired. Let's give her some peace."

They shuffled out, but Dawn stayed behind for a moment and leaned down to give Willow a kiss on the forehead. While she was bent over, she whispered, "I know what you're thinking. I'm sure she'd forgive you, eventually. You can't let him live after what he did."

When she pulled away, she gazed down at her friend for a moment, and her smile hid a little shudder because she knew, if Willow had the strength, the eyes that looked back at her would be black.

~End~


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