Vengeance is always wanted.

The Bronze. Usual Saturday night crowd, dancing, happy. Ella sat near the bar and concentrated on getting very drunk. To wipe out, to forget what she had just found out. Her boyfriend, a person you think you’d be able to trust, had roofied her drink a few nights back. Resolutely she disregarded that chain of thought and downed her tequila. Tasted bad, but it was strong. A person sat next to her in the booth and she ignored them, hoping they would go away.

“You don’t look so good. Everything all right?” A sincere sounding voice said. Ella turned to look and saw a woman sitting next to her. The woman looked nice, dressed up for a night on the town, but nice in an approachable way.

Ella started to pour out her troubles to the stranger. “I just found out my boyfriend had done all this stuff. It’s very bad. I don’t know if I can talk about it.”

“I won’t tell anyone. Promise. What are you drinking?”

“Tequila, but basically anything with alcohol in it. I just want to forget. It’s just so extremely bad, not that I can remember it anyway, but. . .I want to forget him telling me what they did and being so proud of himself because I couldn’t do anything about it.” The woman ordered more drinks. Ella drank hers quickly.

“Is there anything you wish you could do to him?” The woman prompted gently.

“I wish I could die, ‘cause I feel vile inside. I wish I could torture him myself, but eventually, I’d feel guilt. I don’t want to feel that. I want to maim him, kill him slowly and painfully, with no feelings except pleasure at causing him and his friends pain. Friends, oh yeah let’s take sharing to a new level. Knock your girlfriend out and share her around. Cause, you know, she won’t remember it in the morning.”

“I can do that for you.” The woman smiled happily. “Wish granted.” Ella looked up as the woman left and turned back to getting drunk.

~*~*~*~

Spike was walking around in a cemetery, looking for demons to beat up when the woman materialized in front of him. He took a step back in shock. “Ok, vengeance demon right? I don’t think I’ve done anything worthy of vengeance lately.” He started looking for a place to run to, futile as he knew it was.

“You haven’t done anything. This is about an exchange of favors.” The woman sat down daintily on a tombstone. Spike got out a cigarette and lit it.

“So what do you want?”

“You are aware of the trade vengeance demons practice?” Spike nodded. “There is a client who, unusually, wants to practice her own vengeance. She wishes to die, but to perform her vengeance herself and not suffer remorse. So I naturally thought of turning her into a vampire, only to find out I can’t do that myself.”

“And you came to me why?”

“I want you to turn her, make her your Childe. And then help her exact her vengeance. Gossip is that you’re quite a master at the torture trade.”

“And what do I get? Money I have, violence I can perform, sex is no problem. And I couldn’t bite her anyway.” Spike said sullenly and dragged violently on his cigarette.

“I will remove that chip in your head.” Spike looked up in amazement. “Of course, if you renege, the chip will be back with the delightful side effect of randomly short-circuiting several times a day.”

“You’re on.” Spike stuck his hand out for it to be shaken. The vengeance demon shook it, smiling slightly.

“Nice and tidy, isn’t it?” She said happily. “I’ll just lead you to her, and you will find the chip removed and quite able to bite her.”

~*~*~*~

Ella stumbled out of the Bronze’s back entrance and gave way to the tears that had been pressing at her eyes all night. “Oh god.” Why oh why did she let him get to her? Yesterday, shows her the lovely tape he whipped up with her and no don’t think about it and the soundtrack cause he had taped the other times with just him and oh god, tonight! Tonight, a new bitch on his chain, on his leash and flaunts it, sees her and flaunts it. And then mouths you know what’ll happen, don’t you? , a nod and he turns back to the girl who’s so happy, so happy because Blake was handsome and nice. . .most of the time. Ella curled up into a little ball and wept, huddled against the side of the building.

“So that’s her?” Spike asked, nodding at Ella. “Nice piece, or she would be if she wasn’t crying so hard. Very bitable” He let his eyes run over her, looked a bit like Dru, only alive. Shorter, didn’t have those high cheekbones, same coloring, pretty. Not beautiful, just pretty. Girl next-door type really, which made the whole torture thing more peculiar. Ella collapsed next to the wall, and he dropped his cigarette and ground it out.

“Yes, that is my client. Do you wish to know the details?”

“Might as well,” he said neutrally as he watched the girl.

“After a few thousand years, you think you hear it all, and then a bad case comes up. Most calls for vengeance are more lover scorned then anything else.” The vengeance demon paused, then continued as Spike quirked an eyebrow at her. “Her former boyfriend and lover betrayed her in a rather horrible fashion. He doped her drink so she collapsed, then raped her. Then he let several of his friends do her. He videotaped it, then spliced a soundtrack onto it from previous illicit tapes of her so if she went to the authorities, she’d have no case. He. . .showed her the tape.” Spike grimaced as he listened to the vengeance demon. Even he wasn’t that cruel. “Whatever she does, make sure it hurts. I’ll be watching.” The demon gave him a nod and vanished.

Spike sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. Well, better get on with his half of the bargain. “Here, luv, you alright?” He asked gently as he shook her shoulder. She hiccupped and pushed him away.

“Oh please, just leave me alone.” She rose shakily to her feet and started to leave. “I have no money on me, I have no jewelry and I have no pride.” She shrieked as he grabbed her coat and lifted her up against the wall, fists clenched in the front of her jacket. “Oh god, no. Not again,” she moaned as her feet left the ground.

“No, not that pet. Now, this is gonna hurt.” He vamped out and she stopped screaming and just gaped at his ridged visage. He leant in for her throat; fangs out and paused as he heard her whisper something.

“Thank you, God.”

“Maybe I need to clarify,” he said as he let her down. She gasped for breath and listened. “Yes, you are going to die, which is what I think that prayer was for. No doubt about that. The thing is, I’m gonna bring you back. So I drink, you taste, you die but then you wake up.” Why did he feel this need to explain? She nodded. “Then we go get that bastard boyfriend of yours.” She smiled at that, stood, and offered her neck to him. He grinned and completed his bite. Oh god, so long, gotta stop gotta turn her can’t do it if she’s dead! He slowed in his feeding and listened for that skipping noise in her heart that meant it was time. He ripped open his wrist and held it to her mouth. She drank, one mouthful, two, then her eyelids fluttered and she collapsed. He healed the wound on his wrist, then draped her arm around his shoulders as he picked her up. “C’mon, luv. I’ll take you back to my place. Better to wake up there. . .” He thought about when he had been turned. Scraping his way through the coffin, digging up through the dirt. Not for this one. And Slutty would stake her before she took two steps. He headed back to his crypt, for all the world looking like a considerate boyfriend taking his girl home after a long night.