Drusilla

"It was over the moment I saw her. She was my opposite in every way. Dutiful daughter. Devout Christian. Innocent and unspoiled. I took one look at her and I knew. She'd be my masterpiece."

- Angel about Drusilla

Drusilla was a vampire with psychic powers. She was tortured to insanity and sired by Angelus, who had murdered her entire family before her eyes in order to turn her into his "masterpiece." Drusilla later sired a young London poet called William, who took the name "Spike," and became her longtime lover.

Human Life and Siring
Before her siring, Drusilla Keeble lived with her family in the East End of London. One night in 1860, whilst walking the streets with her sisters, she was recognized by the vampire Darla for her prophetic gifts; she was not only pure, sweet and chaste, but possessed the uncanny ability to foresee the future. Darla presented Drusilla to her lover, the ruthless Angelus, who became instantly obsessed with the young woman. He wished not only to destroy her physically, but to poison her mind, as he and Darla were both able to sense that she had the potential for sainthood.

As she'd aged, Drusilla had grown to despise and fear her prophetic abilities. Her mother had told her that they were an afront to the Lord, which had caused her to regard them as a curse rather than a blessing. As a young adult, after having a vision a mine crash that resulted in the deaths of two men, Drusilla desperately sought the guidance of a priest; however, she didn't realize that the man inside the confessional she visited was Angelus, who had murdered the real priest in order to manipulate her. Drusilla tearfully told him about the vision and her growing fears, which caused the bemused Angelus to taunt her by calling her a "spawn of satan." This proved to be the first of countless tortuous acts Angelus condemned Drusilla to experience through the course of creating his "masterpiece." Her already fragile psyche was slowly shattered.

After stalking her for a prolonged period of time, Angelus butchered her entire family in their home in London. The flamboyantly cruel vampire forced her to witness the slaughter, and then allowed her to flee her house. With her sanity nearly destroyed by both her constant visions and the loss of her family, she sought refuge at the convent of the Sisters of Mercy, unaware of Angelus' particular taste for nuns.

The Sisters of Mercy welcomed Drusilla, completely oblivious to Angelus' obsession with her. The night Drusilla was called to take her vows to the Order, Angelus appeared and massacred the sisters before her very eyes; whatever hold on reality Drusilla had managed to retain was severed, and she was left an utter wreck. As she lay babbling on the convent floor, Darla arrived to survey the fruition of Angelus' work. When Angelus admitted his desire to sire Drusilla, Darla was at objected, as she didn't want a lunatic vampire traveling alongside them. Angel, however, insisted that death would merely realease Drusilla from her suffering, while eternal life would ensure that his "masterpiece" would live on as a relic of his cruelty. He and Darla had sex on top of Drusilla, and then he turned her into a vampire.

For the next twenty years, Drusilla traveled with Angelus and Darla's, and terrorized Europe under the banner of the Whirlwind. The pure, shy girl who had once feared her visions was replaced by a twisted predator who enjoyed victimizing the weak and innocent, particularly children; she reveled in her psychic powers and her unique views of reality. Still, her insanity caused her to retain childlike qualities: she kept a collection of china dolls, her favorite being Miss Edith. However, after two decades alone with her sire and "grandmother", Drusilla began to desire a playmate and companion of her own.

The Poet
"- I could pick the wisest and bravest knight in all the land and make him mine forever with a kiss. - Bloody... watch where you're going! - Or you could just take the first drooling idiot that comes along."

- Drusilla, William and Darla

In 1880, Drusilla bumped into the young poet William after he had poured his heart out in poem to Cecily, a young noblewoman, who then rejected him. Seeing his potential she approached him in his distress and sired him. As William eventually became Spike, the two became a highly affectionate couple, in their own sick, soulless way, though their relationship was marred early on by Angelus having sex with Drusilla in order to play with Spike's head. Shortly after Angelus was cursed with a soul, Spike and Drusilla (unaware of the ensoulment) split off from Darla and Angelus to go their own way.

Prague


At some point before their arrival in Sunnydale, in mid-1997, Spike was nearly dusted by an angry mob and Drusilla was kidnapped and tortured by a human inquisitor, leaving her in a weakened and frail condition. Spike, infuriated and full of wrath, killed the inquisitor and saved Drusilla. Spike cared for her, and the couple decided to travel to the Hellmouth in Sunnydale, California in hopes that its energy would help to restore Drusilla's strength and health.

Sunnydale
They arrived in Sunnydale and Spike quickly began plotting the downfall of the current Slayer, Buffy Summers, partly at Drusilla's request. They took over an abandoned factory, previously inhabited by the Order of Aurelius after Spike killed their leader, the Anointed One. Drusilla mostly kept herself within a makeshift bedroom, consisting of a queens bed with her china dolls alongside it as wells as her victims.



When preying on a lonely child, Drusilla discovered Angel's presence who had currently been romantically involved with Buffy. She later made Spike hear out a plan by Billy Fordham to help get Buffy in a tight spot, although she only succeeded in putting her unlife on the line to Buffy who threatened to kill Drusilla if Spike didn't allow herself and a group of vampire-wannabes escape from him and his minions clutches.

When he discovered that Drusilla could be cured by the blood of her sire, Spike captured Angel and allowed Drusilla to torture him until it was time to perform the ritual. Although Buffy and her friends saved Angel, the ritual was a success. Drusilla, fully restored, now began to care for Spike, who had been badly burnt and temporarily paralyzed by Buffy's attack.

Despite Spike's condition, he still worked hard to prepare for Drusilla's birthday as her insanity did put her to high standards. She had a party where their vampire lackey's wore neo-gothic clothing and decorations consisted of roses that were aligned specifically. Her present came in the form of the Judge, a powerful demon that needed to be assembled together to be summoned, making Spike set out to collect them. Once it was done, Angel reverted back to Angelus, and re-joined the couple. He assisted Drusilla in an attempt at massacring the patrons at the Sunnydale Mall, but was stopped when Buffy arrived and killed the Judge. Drusilla had Angelus' ongoing sexual attention since Spike himself could not fufill her needs and was very disturbed by it.



When Sunnydale archaeologists unearthed the remains of the demon Acathla, Drusilla discovered this on the morning paper and imformed Angelus after feeding on an old man during her walk.

Angel got Drusilla and their lackeys to obtain Acathla, bring it to the mansion where they recently moved in, hoping to activate him so he would suck the world into a hellish demon dimension, Drusilla was delighted by Angelus' determination. During an attack against Buffy's friends, Drusilla soon killed Kendra Young, another Slayer, by hypnotizing her and slicing her throat. Kendra was the only Slayer killed by Drusilla. This allowed her to take Buffy's Watcher Rupert Giles to gather information on how to summon the demon. Though Giles refused to talk despite being tortured, Drusilla managed to trick him into it via hypnosis.

However, Spike was tired of Angelus, wanting Drusilla for himself again and did not particularly want the world to end. Spike decided to help Buffy save the world in exchange for his and Drusilla's safe passage from Sunnydale. Drusilla resisted Spike's betrayal of Angelus, and he attacked her, ultimately subduing her and carrying her unconscious body from the fray.

Break-up with Spike
Drusilla and Spike fled to South America, where Drusilla became disillusioned with Spike. Spike's alliance with the Slayer, combined with Dru's skills of foresight and perception, proved to her that Spike was now tainted and not "demon enough" for her as she foresaw his obsession with Buffy. Drusilla broke up with Spike and started a relationship with a Chaos Demon, and he rejected her offer to remain friends.

Los Angeles
After Wolfram & Hart had brought Darla back as a human to torture Angel and hopefully make him evil, the law office learned she was dying. Rather then let her die, Drusilla was called in to sire Darla which she did forcibly (Charles Gunn commenting that the idea of the 'granddaughter' remaking the 'grandmother' freaked him out almost more than the traditional blood-sucking did).

Drusilla placed Darla in a flower nursery under a star filled sky, seeing it not as a death, but as a birth and that she would then be a mother. When Angel arrived to stake Darla before she rose, Drusilla battled him, giving Darla enough time to rise and escape.



The newly sired Darla attacked Drusilla briefly in the middle of the busy city. Drusilla claimed that she had sired Darla because she thought Darla was in pain and felt lonely herself. Darla comforted her, coming to the conclusion that she was better off as a vampire. They then went "shopping" by murdering everyone in a clothing store before going to a Wolfram & Hart party with the intent to slaughter everyone there. Angel locked the two vampires inside, allowing it to happen and preventing the humans' escape; only Lindsey McDonald and Lilah Morgan were spared, so that they could provide Darla and Drusilla with inside information later.

Shortly afterward, Drusilla and Darla began recruiting demons who enjoyed carnage, wanting to turn LA into a demon playground. After they began recruiting demons to assist in their plans, Angel--currently in a darker phase due to his inability to 'save' Darla--set Drusilla and Darla on fire, badly, if temporarily, disfiguring them.

Return to Sunnydale


Drusilla returned to Sunnydale to persuade Spike to join Darla and herself in reforming their "family" unit. She temporarily succeeded in allowing him to return to his dark side, rejecting his current lover Harmony Kendall. But instead, Spike seized the opportunity to try to prove his love for Buffy by offering to stake Drusilla. Heartbroken by the actions of her former lover, Drusilla departed Sunnydale and remained at large.

Two years after, the First Evil impersonated Drusilla on two separate occasions in an unsuccessful attempt to break Spike's spirit.

Asylum
Some time after leaving Sunnydale, Dru was admitted into an asylum, having apparently been discovered after a recent feeding in the streets and brought in for treatment. Unfortunately, the doctors proved woefully inadequate to deal with her mental state, Dru having fallen into depression with Darla's death and Angel and Spike's redemption. She spent her time making drawings of recent events in Angel and Spike's lives that the doctors assumed to be symbolic rather than literal, such as Angel's dragon representing her fury at them for abandoning her. After she attacked and killed several doctors in the asylum, she apparently suffered a complete mental breakdown as LA was sent to Hell, awakening in what appeared to be a hallucination of her old life, where she was still human and living with her parents.



Las Vegas
Later, in Las Vegas, Drusilla was recruited by Wolfram & Hart as part of a plan to assist a sociopathic murderer named John in stealing Spike's soul. John held a grudge against Spike, whose re-ensoulment he blamed for the loss of his own soul. Although she was sleeping with John, after her initial encounter with Spike, she later joined him in his journey with his team consisting of firestarter Beck, telepathic fish Betta George, a possessed Jeremy Johns, and Willow Rosenberg. Willow was highly skeptical of Drusilla's accompanying them, but Spike convinced her that like both she and him, even Drusilla deserved a chance at redemption. When John succeeded in extracting Spike's soul, Spike discovered that even without it he was still capable of moral action and human emotion, much as he had loved Drusilla when soulless. In the meantime, Drusilla attacked Jeremy after seeing Beck kissing Spike. Willow informed Spike that the target of the soul-extracting circle was able to choose another person to receive his soul, and he chose Drusilla. However, the presence of a soul only served to make Drusilla more crazy. John then revealed that Drusilla had become sane for a time when L.A. went to hell and had only became mentally unstable again because Wolfram & Hart had put her on medication. John had planned to fix her, but being re-ensouled might destroy her. Drusilla killed John and Spike then put her in the circle to extract the soul, Drusilla choosing Spike to be the one to receive it.

Drusilla was then committed to the Mosaic Wellness Centre by Willow perhaps in hopes that she would become sane again and to get her off human blood.

Mother Superior


Drusilla made her way to London, where she gained control of a Lorophage Demon who had once been known as the "Highgate Vampire," and gathered a following of both lesser vampires and human groupies, becoming known as "Mother Superior." Thanks to her control over the Lorophage Demon, Drusilla had regained her sanity. The Lorophage siphoned out all of the trauma and pain that Angelus inflicted on her before she was sired. She remembered everything that had taken place, but according to her, she no longer cared; all of the confusion, fear, and torment was gone. With her new lease on undeath, Drusilla decided to emulate Angel and "help the helpless." Using the Lorophage Demon, she took it upon herself to rid citizens of London of their trauma, resulting in a number of them going mad and some joining her cult.

When Angel confronted her, Drusilla attempted to persuade him to allow the Lorophage to rid him of his trauma, though to no avail, Angel regarding it as little more than a lobotomy when forced on someone as they need their emotions. Drusilla, however, refused to give up on him and told him that she will not force the treatment on him but will wait until he willingly came to her. Although Faith Lehane accepted Drusilla's 'gift' after a traumatic encounter with her long-lost father, Angel convinced her to reject Drusilla's attempt to take away her pain as the loss of her pain had now deprived her of the strength that she had gained since she tried to force him to kill her. To restore the emotions of Drusilla's cult, Angel forced the Lorophage demon to feed on itself, expelling the trauma that it had absorbed and returning it to its victims. With her insanity restored, Drusilla fled, leaving Angel and Faith with warnings of a dark future.

Powers and Abilities
"Look at me, Dearie. Be in my eyes. Be in me."

- Drusilla hypnotizes Kendra Young

Drusilla had the standard powers and vulnerabilities of a vampire. She was immortal, regenerated damage, drained human blood to survive, and was stronger than most humans. Drusilla's technique in combat, although awkward-looking, allowed her to hold her own in a fight against Angel, Spike, and Kendra.

It was also in this fight with Kendra that Drusilla showed that her fingernails are sharper than one would normally expect, as she uses them to slit Kendra's throat. Darla had demonstrated a similar technique when she sired Angel.

Drusilla was also a seer with minor psychic abilities. She received vivid visions that contained possible glimpses of the future, and could see into people's minds and project false imagery into them (e.g., when she convinced Giles that she was really Jenny Calendar ). Drusilla had these powers since before being made a vampire. She was also capable of hypnotizing people, mesmerizing her prey and rendering them helpless, which she achieves by catching their gazes, pointing her fingers towards her victim's eyes and whispering to them. Drusilla used this technique to murder Kendra and taunted and threatened Spike's academic minion, Dalton, with her talents. The Master used a similar skill to paralyze Buffy.

Drusilla seemed to have a power of empathy which she subjected her prey to, particularly when she sucked the lifeblood out of Spike. She could also feel the story of the places which she visited. With Darla, she readied to kill Holland Manners and her guests, understanding that the wine cellar was a ancient nuclear fallout shelter by feeling the fear of those who had taken refuge with it in war time.

Unlike most vampires, Drusilla rarely showed her vampiric form. Usually, only when she was about to kill someone did her face change.

Personality
Drusilla's disposition has been described differently throughout the series. She is widely considered "insane", and her grandsire Darla described her as "a lunatic." Spike lovingly commented that she "never stopped surprising him", and that she "still had a bit of a child in her", in contractiction to very belittling statements about her lunacy by her sire Angelus.

Drusilla is unusually affectionate for vampires, and viewed her fellow members of the Whirlwind as her family. She was particularly attached to Spike, her longtime lover and companion, whom she turned in the late 1900's in London. Years after she had Spike had gone their seprate ways, she was shown to still be very much in love with him, as she told John that her heart rested with him. She was also very fond of Darla, who acted as a surrogate guardian to her; Drusilla called her "grandmother" on several occasions. While still traveling with the Whirlwind, she kept up a sexual relationship with Angelus even while she was with Spike, although this could have been simply submissive behavior, as Angelus was the dominant male of the family. It is also possible that she had chosen to go along with Angelus's desire to harden Spike's romantic nature; Angelus wanted to teach Spike what it meant to be a vampire, and used Drusilla to achieve this end. After Angelus's departure from the group, Spike continued to take care of her.

Despite her unstable state of mind, she was quite capable of carrying on normal conversations with Spike, though generally only when they were alone together. With others, she speaks in riddles and babbles illogically. Her insanity makes her a source of great fear for both vampires and demons. Many believe her to be unpredictable, though Spike thought she was rather simple.

Drusilla has shown a strong attachment to nature and has a particular appreciation for animals, though she has proved incapable of caring for them on several occasons; her pet bird died of starvation, something she did not process until Spike irritatedly brought it to light when she was trying to get it to sing. She seems to like dogs, as well as plants, particularly flowers like jasmine and lilac. She hates red roses, possibly because they are the symbol of her home-country, England, and remind her of her lost family or purity. She has a love for her "family", the Whirlwind, and helped to organize the resurrection of Darla as a vampire. At the time, she was excited that she was going to be a "mummy". She seems to connect the act of siring to parenthood.

As a human, Drusilla was chaste and moral, and had the potential for sainthood. Her purity was what originally brought her into Angelus's radar; he saw her as something virtuous that he could corrupt and destroy. She was also very self-conscious of her visions, as she believed them a direct affront to God, and a curse. Though she seemed to keep her fears about them between herself and God, Angelus was quick to take advantage of her anxiety by confirming what she already worried. Still, she seemed to love the members of her family very much; when Angelus observed that could forsee what he would do to her, she protectively urged her sisters to leave the streets with her. Her love for them followed her into her life as a vampire, and she continued to miss them long after their deaths at Angelus's hands. She even tortured Angel to remind him what he had done to them.

One of Drusilla's most prominent traits is her ability to foresee the future. Although her insanity makes her visions somewhat difficult to understand for both herself and others, her abilities have often served as foreshadowing to future events. Before she followed William into the alley where she turned him, she commented to Darla and Angelus that she would "pick the wisest and bravest knight in all the land" for her future "playmate." Although Spike first became one of the most notorious and violent vampires in history, after falling in love with Buffy Summers and sacrificing his life, he truly did become the "brave knight" she had imagined. Furthermore, she was able to foresee Spike's sacrifice several years before it occurred; this was made evident when she told him that he "tasted like ashes" to her. She later had visions about Angel and Rupert Giles, during which she was able to determine that Angel had taken fragments of Giles's soul into his own body.

Drusilla exhibits many other quirks. While some are quite normal for vampires, others are quite unusual. For example, like most of her kind, she seems delight in suffering, torture and death, and was rather amused during the death of the vampire Dalton by The Judge; also, both she and Darla were excited to see Spike and Angel fight in the Whirlwind's more powerful years. As a result of Angelus's psychological torture, she displays behavior that suggests infantilism. She owns and plays with a collection of china dolls that she keeps gagged, one of which she has named Miss Edith. Spike himself has observed that Drusilla is quite childlike in her speech and behavior, but unlike Angelus, he thought it endeering.

After regaining her sanity, Drusilla attempted to return to her roots and do good by removing painful emotional and pycho-physcal traumatic memories from others. Her methods, while seemingly sound, had the unfortunate side effect of making her subjects insane.

Behind the Scenes

 * Drusilla was portrayed by Juliet Landau.
 * Drusilla was the last of the four members of The Whirlwind to be ensouled (in 2010), after Angel/Angelus (in 1898), Darla (in 2000) and Spike (in 2002).


 * Juliet Landau later guest-starred with Nicholas Brendon (Alexander Harris), Luke Perry (Oliver Pike), Mercedes McNab (Harmony Kendall), Clayne Crawford (Rodney Munson), Jennifer Hetrick (Ms. Moran), Edward Edwards (Travis), Jeff Kober (Zachary Kralik/Rack), Michael Cudlitz (Big Bob), Lindsay Crouse (Maggie Walsh), Leonard Roberts (Forrest Gates), Bailey Chase (Graham Miller), Maury Sterling (Barney) Conor O'Farrell (McNamara), Sam Anderson (Holland Manners), Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn Summers), Steve Rankin (Mr. Maclay), Randy Thompson (Aaron Kriegel), Nick Chinlund (Ellis), Abraham Benrubi (Olaf), Wade Andrew Williams (Gregor), Keith Szarabajka (Daniel Holtz), John Rubinstein (Linwood Murrow), Angela Sarafyan (Lori), Gina Torres (Jasmine) and Jon Billingsley (Evan Royce) on Criminal Minds.

Appearances

 * Drusilla has appeared in 24 episodes: 17 on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 7 on Angel.

Gallery

 * See Drusilla/Gallery