Dru grabbed his arm and dug her nails in deeply enough to draw blood. "Where are you going?"

"Out!" Spike shouted. "It's none of your business what I do with my time now, is it? Bloody woman, always whining about things that are none of your concern." He flung her hand off and slammed out the door, shrugging into his suit jacket as he left. He realized, when he got outside, that he really didn't have anywhere to go, so he stopped and leaned against the wall, pulling out a thin cigar for a little smoke and relaxation. He realized, soon enough, that the wall he was leaning against was right beside Lulu's office window.

"You're making a lot more than this, Lulu." The man's voice sounded lazily indulgent.

Lulu's voice came next. "You know how high expenses are, Tom. I'm doing my best, really. I just can't afford to give you any more than that."

The man, Tom, snorted. "Have you forgotten who you're dealing with? I run Storyville. I know pretty much to the penny what you bring in. I don't get your new draw, but I know you have one. It better not be another little girl, neither, or we'll have the law down on us. Still, doesn't matter what it is as long as I don't need to know about it and I get my cut. I can bring in some boys at the drop of my hat and you won't have a place, the girls won't be worth trying to work, and no one will see a thing. I am the A. B. C. class around here, Lulu. Considering all that, I think you should take a look at your profits a little more close like."

Spike started moving, throwing his cigar into the night with an oath, as he heard Lulu start her quavering whine again, this time about bad investments. He was at her office door before she reached her conclusion and opened it, breaking the lock with an extra little stress to the twist on the doorknob.

"Lulu!" Spike smiled expansively. "Is this the Tom you've been telling me about?" Spike cringed inwardly while he reached out and shook the man's hand. Keep channeling William, the spineless wonder, he thought, as he pumped and smiled. He turned, finally, to Lulu. "So, have you told him about our surprise?"

Lulu and Tom both looked at him and echoed. "Surprise?"

Tom turned to her. "You don't know about this either?"

"Of course I do, silly man." She smiled at Spike and Tom in turn. "Spike, dear, since it was your idea, why don't you tell him?"

"Of course Miss Lulu." He winced. That was a little over the top. Right then. "We've planned a night of celebration for you and your boys, just a little special we've cooked up. A few of the girls have complained of being tired, and you know Lulu, she's so good to her girls." Spike smiled fondly at Lulu and she gave him a sickly stretch of the lips back. He turned back to Tom. "So, anyway, while she has those few of the girls checked over by the medical profession, she thought the rest might enjoy a little playtime, and so might your boys as well. So." He stopped and beamed at them.

"Okay, I know I always say a guy has to carry a little hot air, but," Tom's beefy fist waved in Spike's direction, "is this guy for real? He don't sound like no wise guy to me."

Lulu's face seemed frozen with that same sickly grin. "Why, yes, of course." She looked to Spike for help.

"Lulu will have her payment on her investments then, of course, and she'll pay you right up what she owes you." He patted Tom on the back and looked over at Lulu. "It's Wednesday next, isn't it Lu?"

"Huh?"

"The medics're coming Wednesday next, right?"

"Oh, yes, Wednesday. Please, bring the boys Tom." She stood up after a moment of silence and reached across her desk, shaking his unresisting hand. "I'll have the rest of the money for you then." She gave Spike a painful glance and sailed out of the room.

"You're not shittin' me then?" Tom shook his head, looking after Lulu. "If that don't beat all. I wonder what happened to her." He looked back at Spike. "You think she got religion?" Spike shrugged as Tom gathered his hat and headed for the door. "I been thinkin' about religion," he muttered to himself as he left.

Spike assured Lulu that he had a plan and she, worried about her life and her money, left him to it. She had no other options and she didn't want to know.

"Dru love?"

"Yes my pretty Spike what pretends to be so smooth and friendly."

"You been listening again, then?"

She laughed. "Silly, I hear you all the time, even when I can't. Don't I Miss Edith?" She made the doll's head nod. "We like your plan to make the bloody horses run."

Spike thought about that a moment. "Can we do it ourselves, then, or will we need help, do you think?"

"What do you think, Miss Edith? Can we scare away the silly men all on our lonesome?" Dru's face screwed up and she put the doll near one ear. "I think so too," she whispered.

Wednesday night, the doorman, George, put up a closed sign on the door and then, after they arrived, locked it behind Tom and his men. He stayed on the outside.

The band was playing, some group led by a barber, Buddy, and the girls were milling around the viewing room, nervous as ponies. Dru watched from the landing, her hands covering her mouth to keep from breaking out into peels of laughter. Instead of the usual chandeliers, the room was lit by a few candles here and there scattered on tables. The music set Dru's teeth on edge and she fancied she smelled blood already. "Oh, Miss Edith, we're going to have fun."

The men, somewhere around 30 of them, stood in a clump in the doorway as Lulu came forward and greeted Tom Anderson, the king of Storyville. She chatted, asking about business and whether or not this was really all his boys; it wasn't, some were working and couldn't come, but he'd brought the lion's share. She moved around the room with them, introducing them to the girls. Slowly, getting some of her alcohol into them, a little marijuana burning in the hookah, seemed to help them all calm down and get down to the business of good, clean fun.

It wasn't long before the band had them all dancing, and Spike, trailing Dru, had pulled several of the boys through the invisible doors in the receiving room walls and ripped out their throats. Even Dru, by this time, was covered in blood and Spike was laughing. He hadn't had this much fun since well, since the Boxer Rebellion.

It was the music stopping that brought them out of the stupor that too much blood and too many easy marks had dropped them into.

"Finally," Dru breathed soulfully. "That nasty, nasty sound has gone away. I hope it stays away forever." She flashed Spike a smile. "Shall we see what made the little man with the shiny horn be quiet?"

Spike smiled back almost gaily, his brow ridges dripping blood. "I'd say we should, Pet." In a parody of their arrival, he offered her his arm, and then triggered the door to swing open and stepped out.

Tom was standing, gun to the head of Buddy the cornet player, shouting, when they walked in. "Where are my boys? What have you done with them, you lewd old hag?"

"I haven't done anything with them, Tom. I give you my word." Lulu's mouth worked tremulously.

"Where are my boys!?" He was shouting even louder now, now, red-faced, spittle-flying. He shifted his grip on the pistol. "Don't move, boy. I don't want to shoot you. You make pretty good music." The words made no impact on Buddy, though. He'd caught sight of Dru and Spike and fainted.

When Tom caught sight of them, he let go of Buddy and stood, open-mouthed. "What, what are you?"

Lulu took a look, another, and then fainted dead away as well. The girls scattered, screaming as she hit the floor hard enough to bounce. A yellow puddle spread out from her skirts and Dru finally started laughing, so hard she couldn't stand upright.

There were about a dozen of "the boys" left. A few of them tried to run, a few tried to shoot them. One was unlucky enough to graze Dru's face. She transformed immediately into a creature out of nightmare, bounding toward him so quickly he hadn't time to shoot her again. She caught him up and ripped his face off with one hand, catching the fountaining blood and then spewing it on the floor. "This one doesn't taste right," she whined.

"That's all right, Pet," Spike smiled absentminded, his eyes on Tom. "You just catch you another, right?"

She squealed like a girl and began running after them as they scattered. "Oh, this is like blindman bluff, but I'm not blind!"

Tom stood on the musician's dais and waited for Spike who sauntered up slowly, catching the blood on his tongue as it dripped from his eye ridges. Spike stopped at the bottom, one foot on the bottom step as he leaned over and braced himself, forearm on his thigh. "Nice night we're havin."

Tom began to splutter. "I don't know what you are, but I'll take you out. You won't have a chance in this town when I'm through with you. I own this town!"

Spike laughed. "You don't own shit, friend." He sniffed the air. "Though, I'm thinkin' your britches are a might soiled at the moment." He sobered. "I give you 30 seconds to run." Tom took off down the platform and ran, Spike hallooing after him.

It was all over in less than an hour. Tom had gotten away. The right bloody bastard had taken to wearing a crucifix about his neck which had startled Spike as it swung out of his shirt collar just as Tom had been cornered in the attics near a window. He'd taken advantage of Spike's moment of confusion and jumped. It was a long way down, but there was a lot of rubbish in the streets. Spike was pretty sure he'd gotten away relatively well. He'd be healing for awhile, though. Bloody religion.

Dru had a great lot of fun with the other men, and once the girls realized they were in no danger, they'd helped lure them into dead ends for Dru to finish them off. Amazing bunch of girls. Spike shook his head. He'd hate to be on the receiving end of a right mad bunch of girls after seeing this lot work.

When they went back to the receiving room to check on Lulu, they found only the puddle. Lulu and the band were gone. It was almost dawn. They went back to their room and snuggled up for sleep. Dru had just started to snore when Spike looked over at her regretfully and squeezed her tight. She awoke instantly, staring at him, her great brown eyes shining in the dark. "I think we'd best be moving on, don't you Pet?"

"Oh yes, lovey." Dru winked at him and laughed, licking blood off her chin with her incredibly long tongue. "I think we need to find some more parties like this to crash. This one's gotten all boring."

The next night the house was utterly silent when they got up. Confused, they thought Lulu would be doing a brisk business, they left their room and wandered the corridors. All the girls were gone. Lulu was nowhere in sight. Whatever was going on made them uneasy.

Suddenly, they heard a pounding at the door. Spike gave Dru a push and she raced back to their room, scooping the pouch of gold out of the hole in the floorboards. He met her as she came out and they raced for the attics, coming out on the roof just as the men at the door broke it down. Spike looked, confusion clear in his eyes, at Dru. She narrowed her eyes and hissed, curling her fingers into claws and striking down as if she'd rip out someone's heart, someone down on the street. Spike looked back down, eyes narrowed in disgust. Lulu stood there, well to the back of the men, bewailing the murders and the demons who had done good men to death in her perfectly law abiding establishment.

"Oh, well, that's really torn it then, hasn't it?"

Dru nodded, a small smile on her face.

"Dru, pet? What's that look for?"

She looked over at him and licked his chin, this time. He felt dried blood flake away with the licking. "She'll get hers, dying all alone and frothy, far away on the sea and never able to drink a bit of it. She's very frightened and she's getting everything she's frightened of." Dru pulled Miss Edith out of her pocket and hugged her, twisting back and forth. "That makes me really quite happy."

They headed for the river then, determined to cross and find a place to hide away from the sun by morning. At one intersection they ran across a parade just as Buddy Bolden and his band swung through, horns blaring. Dru, in a fit of pique at the music, roared into game-face and clawed at him. Only he, darting glances in every direction, saw her face. It was enough. She laughed as she scampered after Spike, enjoying the musical, anguished cries of one Mr. Bolden, jazzman, who began screaming about demons on the streets of New Orleans.

~~~~

She drew herself up, all affronted dignity. "Some of those people carry guns to blow one another to bits. I don't like seeing that, I don't, all the bloody bits and I didn't make them."

Loverly. I love your Dru. The horses, the girls, the blood. Lovely.

But, now, but I have to question this...

All flouncing about with her breasts out and her butt covered in a big pillow."

Because Dru's a proper lady, she is. Brought up with the old Queen. She'd say, if she had to mention the unmentionable at all, bosom and bottom, would she not?

She might at that. I have a hard time hearing Drusilla in my head. Okay, fixed on the original. I like that better.

Deena, I liked this, a lot.

Btw, I'll be rereading it in the morning, if you want more comments.

Of course! Comments are always welcome.

"Silly, I hear you all the time, even when I can't.

Oooh, wonderful.

and once the girls realized they were in no danger, they'd helped lure them into dead ends for Dru to finish them off. Amazing bunch of girls.

Perfect.

Dru watched from the landing, her hands covering her mouth to keep from breaking out into peels of laughter.

Peals, isn't it?

Deena, like I said, I really liked it, but being drunk now, I will be re-reading it. You know, content and all that.