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

Drusilla (born c. 1840 in London) was a vampire with psychic powers. She was tortured to insanity and then sired by Angelus, who had murdered her entire family in the process of turning her into his "masterpiece." Drusilla, in turn, sired a young London poet called William, who took the name "Spike," and became her longtime lover.

Human Life and Angelus


Before being sired, Drusilla lived with her mother and two sisters - one of whom was apparently named Anne. One night, in 1860, while walking with her family, she was first seen by the vampire, Darla, who sensed what made Drusilla unique: she was not only pure, sweet and chaste, but she also had psychic powers, and was capable of occasionally foretelling the future, especially tragic situations. Darla showed Drusilla to her lover, Angelus, who became instantly obsessed with the notion of not just killing the pure young woman, but with destroying her both emotionally and psychologically, as she had the potential for sainthood.

At the time, Drusilla was fearful of her prophetic powers, which she regarded as a curse, as her mother had told her that they were an affront to the Lord. One day, after having the vision of a mine crash, in which two men died, she sought the help of a priest. She didn't realize that the man inside the confessional was Angelus, who had just killed the real priest. Drusilla told him about the vision and her fear of becoming evil, causing the bemused Angelus to taunt her by calling Drusilla a spawn of Satan and that she was fated to become evil. This was the first of the many tortures the sadistic Angelus visited upon Drusilla, slowly shattering her fragile psyche.

After his initial stalkings, Angelus then proceeded to murder her entire family: her mother, uncle and two sisters. The flamboyantly evil vampire made her witness the massacre and then let her flee to revel in her suffering. With her sanity nearly shattered both by her visions as well as the deaths of her family, Drusilla sought refuge at the convent of the Sisters of Mercy, not realizing that Angelus had a taste for nuns.

The Sisters of Mercy welcomed Drusilla, oblivious to the fact that Angelus was coming after her. The very same night Drusilla was supposed to take her vows in the Order, Angelus appeared and massacred the Sisters before Drusilla's eyes, finally destroying whatever hold of reality Drusilla had left after the deaths of her family. Then as she lay babbling and horrified on the floor after being forced to watch, Darla entered to survey Angelus' work. He explained to Darla that he believed death would merely release Drusilla of her suffering, and then tormented her a final time by having sex with Darla on top of her. Now considering her his masterpiece, Angelus sired her, despite Darla's objections of having a lunatic vampire alongside them.

For the next twenty years, Drusilla joined Angelus and Darla's Whirlwind. The pure, shy girl had been replaced by a highly sexual predator who enjoyed preying on the weak and innocent, such as children, and also reveled in her psychic powers and her unique view of reality. She did retain a childlike quality and kept a collection of china dolls. However, after 20 years with her sire and "grandmother," as Dru called Darla, Drusilla began to desire a playmate 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 sired the young poet William, who later adopted the name Spike, after he had poured his heart out in poem to Cecily, a young noblewoman, who then rejected him. 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 Angel 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. 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 successful. Drusilla, fully restored, now began to care for Spike, who had been badly burnt and temporarily paralyzed by Buffy's attack. When Angel reverted to Angelus, he re-joined the couple. Drusilla soon killed Kendra, another Slayer, by hypnotizing her and slicing her throat. Kendra was the only Slayer killed by Drusilla.



When Angel decided to reactivate the demon Acathla and suck the world into a hellish demon dimension, Drusilla was delighted by Angelus's determination, and she also encouraged his ongoing sexual attention. However, both dynamics strongly disturbed Spike, who wanted Drusilla to 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 (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. When Angel arrived to stake Darla before she rose, Drusilla battled him, giving Darla enough time to rise.



The newly sired Darla and Drusilla would fight briefly before Darla came to the conclusion that she was better off as a vampire. They then murdered 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, 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 remains at large. However, in season seven of Buffy, the First Evil impersonated Drusilla 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 blames 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 deserves 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 soulles. 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 Mosaaic 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 tells him that she will not force the treatment on him but will wait until he willingly comes to her. Although Faith accepts Drusilla's 'gift' after a traumatic encounter with her long-lost father, Angel convinces her to reject Drusilla's attempt to take away her pain as the loss of her pain has 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 uses 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 was described as many things. She was widely known as "insane" and Darla described her as "a lunatic". Spike commented that she "never stopped surprising him". Spike also said that she "still had a bit of child in her" in contradiction to Angelus's comment on her insanity. Drusilla was unusually affectionate for a vampire and viewed the other members of the Whirlwind as her family. She was particularly attached to Spike, her lover, and Darla, who acted as a sort of surrogate mother/older sister figure to her. Drusilla was still very much in love with Spike, as she told John that her heart still belonged to him, although she slept with Angelus a few times while with Spike, although this could be a submissive behavior as Angelus was the patriarch/Master of the family or to harden Spike as he did not have his infamous violent streak then which was more likely as Angelus wanted to teach Spike what being a vampire means. Despite her insane behavior, she was capable of carrying normal conversations with Spike, but usually only Spike alone. With others, she spoke in her usual insane babble. Her insanity was why most vampires and demons feared her as it made her unpredictable. Spike described her as, "always straightforward. Though never knowing a single buggering clue of what was going on in front of her, but she was straight about it!"

Strangely, she showed many attachments for nature and appreciated animals, although she was incapable of truly caring for them as she once had a pet bird that died of starvation, something she did not process until Spike irritatedly brought to light when she tried to get it to sing. She liked dogs and birds as well as plants, such as jasmine and lilacs. She organized the resurrection of Darla as a vampire, whom she viewed as family and was excited that she was "going to be a mummy." As a vampire, she viewed the Whirlwind as her family and she sometimes plotted to reunite with them.

As a human, she was chaste, moral and had the potential for sainthood. Being so pure was her downfall as the evil Angelus became obsessed with corrupting and destroying her. She hated her visions as she viewed them as an affront to God and believed she was cursed. She loved her family very much and as a vampire, she continued to miss them going so far as to torture Angel and remind him of what he did.

However, she seems to delight in sufferings and in the death imposed on her victims and not only that to quench her bloodthirstiness. For example, she was really amused during the death of the vampire Dalton by The Judge.

She also sometimes exhibited behavior that suggested infantilism, owning and playing with a collection of china dolls that see kept gagged, one of which she called Miss Edith. Spike himself said that it was like Drusilla has a bit of a child in her after Angelus made a comment about her.

After regaining her sanity, she attempted to do good by removing the painful emotional and psycho-physical trauma from others. Her methods, while seemingly sound, had the unfortunate side effect of making them insane.

Behind the Scenes

 * Drusilla was portrayed by Juliet Landau.

Appearances

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

Gallery

 * See Drusilla/Gallery