 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Welcome to Hell
Somewhere between London and Oxford, Oz shortened Anjelica’s name to Helli. It had been an easy work-in to
their conversation and seemed a fitting nickname to her, considering their current mission. But it was more
than that. The spontaneous abbreviation of her name made her feel like she was part of the gang for the first
time since she’d come to England three months ago.
Somewhere between Tewkesbury Abbey and the entrance to the Deeper Well, Oz and Anjelica struck up a
conversation over their mutual passion – music. Anjelica didn’t play and couldn’t sing, but she knew most of
everything about music from Charlie Parker to Motorhead and a lot of what was in between.
Oz seemed impressed by this, considering her age and presumed lack of experience. Anjelica fell into the
rhythm of the conversation, glad for the distraction because, honestly, she thought she might detonate from
the stress of traveling into Hell itself.
At first, when they entered the Well, the conversations waned to somber. The passageways were dark and
cramped, the close walls sheened with a film that glistened wetly in the pale light of Willow’s glowstones.
After several minutes of solemn trekking on the steady downward grade of the path, Willow said, “Well. Seen
one slimy cave…”
“You said it,” Faith said.
Connor walked ahead several yards, then returned to them. “Do we know that we’re going the right way?” he
asked.
“There seems only one way to go,” Nighna said, indicating the path ahead with a subtle nod of her head.
Connor eyed them, his features pinched and serious. “We can’t afford to back track,” he said bleakly. “If we
take the wrong path, everything’s for nothing.” Anjelica knew the grave look to his grey-green eyes. He was
ravening for revenge and that hunger burned like low embers in his eyes.
“Our maps only took us this far,” Willow told Connor, trying to reassure him. “We’re in here-there-be-monsters-
land now.”
“I say bring ’em on,” Faith said. The glowstone uplit her smile, deepening the shadows around her full lips,
transforming her mouth into a twisted clown’s grin. She squeezed past Connor in the narrow corridor and
stalked off into the darkness. With a half-shrug, Willow followed. Connor fell in step behind her.
Oz and Anjelica lingered, unconsciously letting Nighna have some lead. When she was beyond earshot, Oz
asked, “So. Helli. What’s your stand on The White Stripes?”
They began to walk again. Anjelica nervously kneaded the tension from her fingers, then forced a smile. She
knew he was using the conversation to crutch her along. But she didn’t mind.
“Um,” she said, clearing her throat. “Too much billy, not enough rock-a.”
Oz nodded. “And where do you think lies the blame for hip-hop?”
Anjelica giggled. “Squarely on the shoulders of Madonna,” she said.
Oz gave her what passed as a look of surprise. “I’m gonna have to get you to explain that one for me,” he said.
Before she had the chance, they arrived at the place where the cavern bottomed out.
Faith and Connor had already crested the escarpment and disappeared on the other side. By the time Oz and
Anjelica caught up, the others had fanned out around the cave mouth and looked in astonished silence upon the
Deeper Well. The walls, lined with rows and rows of sarcophaguses, helixed down into darkness miles beneath
them. Baleful fires gleamed in places along the Old One’s graves. Whether it was torchlight, or evidence of
grave robbing, Anjelica couldn’t be sure. One thing she knew for certain, Willow stood too close to the edge.
“It goes straight down,” Willow said, peering into the void. It was odd, how her voice didn’t echo in all that
vastness.
Straight. Down. All the way down. Anjelica felt her knees unhinge. She hugged closer to the stone wall. The urge
to hunker on hands and knees to keep her center closer to the earth was damn near unbearable.
“That’s something we’ve never seen,” Oz said.
“There’s a bridge,” Connor said, pointing. “Over there.”
Anjelica didn’t see it at first. And then, when she did see it, she thought that they would all be brainless to try
and cross it. The swinging bridge strung across the gaping abyss like the thread of a spider’s web, and
reminded them all of something from Indiana Jones.
“Now’s a fine time to point out my incredible aversion to heights,” Anjelica said.
“It’s okay,” Willow said, brightly. “We’re only crossing half of the bridge.”
“Half?” Anjelica choked. “And then what?”
Nighna was looking toward the bridge when she answered for Willow. “Then we see what’s through the Looking
Glass.”
“Don’t get why we’re still standing here,” Connor said. He left them and walked around to the entrance of the
bridge. Without even testing the strength of the boards or the tension of the ropes, Connor walked out onto it.
Anjelica’s eyes were bugging out. It had always been a problem with her. When she was scared, which was
often, her eyes showed too much of the whites and she wound up looking like a deer caught in a poacher’s
headlights. She hated it, and hated herself for it. She was a Slayer now and everything, but she couldn’t quell
the strangling terror of one very thin, very narrow bridge stretched over the world’s largest deep black pit.
“You coming?” Oz asked.
Anjelica glanced at him. Then at the bridge. Everyone else was already on it and waiting for them.
“Um,” she whispered. “Can you… push me?”
“Sure,” he said. He nudged her shoulder.
“Thanks.”
Anjelica took the bridge one step at a time.
“Don’t look down,” Willow said, then immediately wished she hadn’t. Anjelica gripped the ropes so tightly her
nails dug into her palms. Behind her, Oz gave her a gentle push.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Right behind you.”
She locked eyes with Willow and navigated the rest of the way by feeling forward, board by board, with her
toes.
When she finally joined them, everyone exhaled a breath they hadn’t realized they were holding. Everyone,
except Connor, who seemed to harden with impatience. Anjelica thought for the first time but not the last how
ridiculous it was for her to volunteer for this mission.
Connor didn’t waste much time with the glaring, however. As they gathered at the center of the bridge, he
unshouldered his pack and – very carefully – took out the Looking Glass. He cradled the clear crystal close to his
body.
“Okay, Red,” Faith said quietly. “Stage is yours.”
Willow brought her own pack around to her hip and dug into its front pocket.
“Right,” she said. “Here goes. Everyone. Stick close. When I read the spell, the portal will open up and we
should be able to hop right in.”
Willow took out a sheet of notebook paper upon which she, Maya and Dawn had written the three-stanza’d
incantation that would tap into the Looking Glass. She cleared her throat and began to read:
Curatis di Asisi take nos hinc
tribuo nos tutus obduco ut nos eo
Curatis di Asisi rector nos in abyssus
servo nos in nostrum iter itineris
Curatois di Asisi , vindico nos totus tutus
ut terra of silenti etc quod
permissum nos servo nostrum convoco votum vos
Willow finished reading. They waited. Nothing happened.
“That’s odd,” Oz said. “Usually stuff starts blowing around by now.”
“Yeah. That was terribly uneventful,” Willow said.
Connor stared down into the empty globe of the Looking Glass. He had seen it work at the Royal London Hotel
when they had rescued Buffy from his Dad. He knew that it was supposed to pulsate and glow like a creature of
living light when it worked. And it wasn’t.
“It’s broken,” he said.
“It’s not broken,” Willow told him. She took the crystal from his hands and shook it roughly like a snow globe.
“It can’t be…”
“No. The Well’s broken. There’s no magic left,” Connor said.
Willow scoffed. “It’s impossible. It’s still a portal…”
Frustrated, Nighna said, “Here. Let me see it.” She leaned far forward, reaching past Faith, her fingers
outstretched to touch the Glass.
“Wait!” Oz said suddenly. “Don’t!”
Too late. When Nighna’s fingertips brushed the glass, she and Willow vanished. Oz stepped forward…
…And into someplace that was else.
The switch from dark cave to blinding white fluorescence left him temporarily blind, like being up close to a
camera flash. His vision blurred. His ears popped. His tonsils kinda itched.
As the scene slowly cleared before him, he found himself staring across an endless labyrinth of white office
cubicles as far as his eyes could see.
“Huh,” he said. “Hell looks just like corporate America.”
His voice fell flat against the gray acoustically-dampening indoor-outdoor carpet. He looked to his left, then his
right. No one had traveled with him. He was alone.
“Willow?” he called. Again, no echo reported back. “Hello? Willow? Helli?” He paused. “Neo?”
Oz looked over his shoulder. The infinite cube farm spread out behind him as well. On either side, an unending
corridor stretched toward each horizon. After a moment’s consideration, he turned, pointing himself leftward.
He walked for a while, until he found another hallway, this one to his right. His werewolf senses weren’t tingling,
so he plunged in, not really knowing what to expect.
Every cubicle was exactly like the next. Plain desk, plain chair, Apple computer, 15-inch monitor, mouse pad,
empty In and Out boxes and an ordinary glass vase with a single daisy. Creepy. Oz continued along his way,
walking at first, then running, peeking into every cube he passed, looking for something – anything – that
differentiated it from the last.
After a lot of time passed, he found another corridor, which he entered at a dead run and collided with a girl
who was similarly sprinting. They bounced painfully off of each other, and then onto the not-so-padded carpet.
Anjelica sat up, cupping her nose in her hands.
“Oz!” she said, sounding both nasal and grateful.
He sat up. “So glad I ran into you,” he said.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“Hell,” he answered, getting to his feet. He offered a hand to help her up. She took it and got vertical.
“I expected something a little more Freddie Krueger,” she said.
“I was banking on Hell being more relative, too,” he said. “Although, gotta say, this would top my list of worst
nightmares realized.”
Anjelica laughed quietly. Then straightened. She said, “About earlier. At the bridge. I’m sorry I took so long.
How embarrassing…”
He arched his brows. “Yeah. A whole three seconds we’ll never get back,” he said.
Anjelica lowered her eyes. The red blotches on her cheeks stood out under the unforgiving fluorescent glare.
“Hey. Kidding,” he said. “It’s cool. I was scared too.”
“No you weren’t,” she said. Anjelica sighed and seemed to put herself back together. “So, where do you think
the others are?”
Oz caught her elbow and turned her bodily to walk with him. “My guess: water cooler. Probably chatting about
the latest episode of House.”
Oz and Anjelica returned to the path from which Oz had departed, hung left and they continued to navigate
between the rows of cubes. A few minutes of silence passed before Oz halted and twisted his head to one side.
“I smell… bird,” he said, pointing to the right, over their heads. “That way.”
A few more meters, they came to another intersection. They turned right, and there was Nighna.
Her killer exec suit and stylish accessories looked somehow right at home against the bleak corporate
backdrop. The only jarring inconsistency was the black bird napping on her shoulder.
“Spell went wrong,” she said calmly.
“Willow…” Oz said.
“…Should have known better. The spell was well-crafted, but you must pay the ferryman if you want to travel to
Hell,” Nighna said.
“Ferryman?” Anjelica said. “If you knew, why didn’t you say…”
“It must be written in blood,” Nighna said, chuckling softly. “The price is always blood. Her spell was written in
ballpoint pen.”
“Well,” Oz said. “Where are they? Maybe more importantly, where are we?”
“They are not here. We are in Hell. There are nine circles. We’re in the first. Limbo,” Nighna said.
“How do we get out? How do we find them?” Anjelica asked. “We have to find them.”
“Don’t worry,” Nighna said, stroking the smooth edge of Clarisse’s wing. “I have friends here.”
Somehow Oz didn’t find much comfort in that knowledge.
Faith collided with a dumpster. She really hated when that happened. She bounded to her feet, shook cooked
pasta from her hair and got a look at the down low.
“Oh. Dark alley,” she said with a shrug. She vaulted over the edge of the dumpster, landing firmly on her feet
beside Willow’s head.
“Hey!” Willow shouted, rolling quickly away.
“Sorry, Red,” Faith said. She reached down to help Willow up, but before she could they heard a growly noise
from the other end of the alley. Faith spun, fists up, as a vampire emerged from the shadows.
“That’s more like it!” Faith shouted. “A fight. Bring it on, baby. I’m just aching for some bloodshed.”
The vampire yelled back in a clipped, decidedly non-demon tongue, then sailed in like an anime wire-fighter.
Faith struck first. Willow rolled out from beneath Faith’s feet just before she could cause trippage. For a
second, Willow was speechless with watching the stunning shadowplay of Faith versus the vampire thrown
across the alley wall. And then, the word vampire sent up little red flags in her brain.
“Faith!” Willow called.
Faith didn’t break stride. She axe kicked the vampire to the face, slammed him against the wall, then punched
him so hard his head butted the bricks. She pulled her trusty stake from the inside pocket of her jacket and
slammed it home.
“God, that felt good!” she yelled to the sky. “Kickin’ vamp ass again, just like I was born to…”
Faith stammered to a halt. She found Willow amidst the muck. “Did I just slay a vampire?”
“Yeah. About that,” Willow said.
Connor stumbled in from the mouth of the alley, clutching his wounded shoulder. “There you are,” he said.
“Guys, I don’t think we’re in Hell anymore.”
“We have to be in Hell,” Willow said. “Faith just slew a vampire. I’m pretty sure we killed all those.”
A wave of confusion washed over his face. “Maybe we’re in a Japanese hell dimension then, because outside it
looks like Tokyo,” he said.
“That’s… that’s just impossible,” Willow sat. As she stood, the Looking Glass rolled from the folds of her skirt
and across the alley floor. Connor bent to scoop it up. He looked down into the empty crystal.
“Your spell went wrong,” he said. He closed his eyes. “We will never find them now.”
“Wait,” Willow said. “Look.”
Connor opened his eyes. The globe had flickered to life in his hands, filling the alley with spangles of light. Two
figures appeared in its icy depths. Red-haired girl leaning against the shoulder of a blond man. Both stared out
of an open window onto a wintry twilight.
“Just did,” Willow mused. She and Faith crowded in to huddle over the Glass.
“Yeah, but… where are they?” Faith asked.
In the Looking Glass, Thellian ran his hand over Morna’s auburn curls.
“Safe bet it’s not Hell,” Faith said.
“No,” Willow said. “He’s here. And looks like he may have already made some more of his evil spawn. We just
need to find out where here is.”
Somewhere between London and Oxford, Oz shortened Anjelica’s name to Helli. It had been an easy work-in to
their conversation and seemed a fitting nickname to her, considering their current mission. But it was more
than that. The spontaneous abbreviation of her name made her feel like she was part of the gang for the first
time since she’d come to England three months ago.
Somewhere between Tewkesbury Abbey and the entrance to the Deeper Well, Oz and Anjelica struck up a
conversation over their mutual passion – music. Anjelica didn’t play and couldn’t sing, but she knew most of
everything about music from Charlie Parker to Motorhead and a lot of what was in between.
Oz seemed impressed by this, considering her age and presumed lack of experience. Anjelica fell into the
rhythm of the conversation, glad for the distraction because, honestly, she thought she might detonate from
the stress of traveling into Hell itself.
At first, when they entered the Well, the conversations waned to somber. The passageways were dark and
cramped, the close walls sheened with a film that glistened wetly in the pale light of Willow’s glowstones.
After several minutes of solemn trekking on the steady downward grade of the path, Willow said, “Well. Seen
one slimy cave…”
“You said it,” Faith said.
Connor walked ahead several yards, then returned to them. “Do we know that we’re going the right way?” he
asked.
“There seems only one way to go,” Nighna said, indicating the path ahead with a subtle nod of her head.
Connor eyed them, his features pinched and serious. “We can’t afford to back track,” he said bleakly. “If we
take the wrong path, everything’s for nothing.” Anjelica knew the grave look to his grey-green eyes. He was
ravening for revenge and that hunger burned like low embers in his eyes.
“Our maps only took us this far,” Willow told Connor, trying to reassure him. “We’re in here-there-be-monsters-
land now.”
“I say bring ’em on,” Faith said. The glowstone uplit her smile, deepening the shadows around her full lips,
transforming her mouth into a twisted clown’s grin. She squeezed past Connor in the narrow corridor and
stalked off into the darkness. With a half-shrug, Willow followed. Connor fell in step behind her.
Oz and Anjelica lingered, unconsciously letting Nighna have some lead. When she was beyond earshot, Oz
asked, “So. Helli. What’s your stand on The White Stripes?”
They began to walk again. Anjelica nervously kneaded the tension from her fingers, then forced a smile. She
knew he was using the conversation to crutch her along. But she didn’t mind.
“Um,” she said, clearing her throat. “Too much billy, not enough rock-a.”
Oz nodded. “And where do you think lies the blame for hip-hop?”
Anjelica giggled. “Squarely on the shoulders of Madonna,” she said.
Oz gave her what passed as a look of surprise. “I’m gonna have to get you to explain that one for me,” he said.
Before she had the chance, they arrived at the place where the cavern bottomed out.
Faith and Connor had already crested the escarpment and disappeared on the other side. By the time Oz and
Anjelica caught up, the others had fanned out around the cave mouth and looked in astonished silence upon the
Deeper Well. The walls, lined with rows and rows of sarcophaguses, helixed down into darkness miles beneath
them. Baleful fires gleamed in places along the Old One’s graves. Whether it was torchlight, or evidence of
grave robbing, Anjelica couldn’t be sure. One thing she knew for certain, Willow stood too close to the edge.
“It goes straight down,” Willow said, peering into the void. It was odd, how her voice didn’t echo in all that
vastness.
Straight. Down. All the way down. Anjelica felt her knees unhinge. She hugged closer to the stone wall. The urge
to hunker on hands and knees to keep her center closer to the earth was damn near unbearable.
“That’s something we’ve never seen,” Oz said.
“There’s a bridge,” Connor said, pointing. “Over there.”
Anjelica didn’t see it at first. And then, when she did see it, she thought that they would all be brainless to try
and cross it. The swinging bridge strung across the gaping abyss like the thread of a spider’s web, and
reminded them all of something from Indiana Jones.
“Now’s a fine time to point out my incredible aversion to heights,” Anjelica said.
“It’s okay,” Willow said, brightly. “We’re only crossing half of the bridge.”
“Half?” Anjelica choked. “And then what?”
Nighna was looking toward the bridge when she answered for Willow. “Then we see what’s through the Looking
Glass.”
“Don’t get why we’re still standing here,” Connor said. He left them and walked around to the entrance of the
bridge. Without even testing the strength of the boards or the tension of the ropes, Connor walked out onto it.
Anjelica’s eyes were bugging out. It had always been a problem with her. When she was scared, which was
often, her eyes showed too much of the whites and she wound up looking like a deer caught in a poacher’s
headlights. She hated it, and hated herself for it. She was a Slayer now and everything, but she couldn’t quell
the strangling terror of one very thin, very narrow bridge stretched over the world’s largest deep black pit.
“You coming?” Oz asked.
Anjelica glanced at him. Then at the bridge. Everyone else was already on it and waiting for them.
“Um,” she whispered. “Can you… push me?”
“Sure,” he said. He nudged her shoulder.
“Thanks.”
Anjelica took the bridge one step at a time.
“Don’t look down,” Willow said, then immediately wished she hadn’t. Anjelica gripped the ropes so tightly her
nails dug into her palms. Behind her, Oz gave her a gentle push.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Right behind you.”
She locked eyes with Willow and navigated the rest of the way by feeling forward, board by board, with her
toes.
When she finally joined them, everyone exhaled a breath they hadn’t realized they were holding. Everyone,
except Connor, who seemed to harden with impatience. Anjelica thought for the first time but not the last how
ridiculous it was for her to volunteer for this mission.
Connor didn’t waste much time with the glaring, however. As they gathered at the center of the bridge, he
unshouldered his pack and – very carefully – took out the Looking Glass. He cradled the clear crystal close to his
body.
“Okay, Red,” Faith said quietly. “Stage is yours.”
Willow brought her own pack around to her hip and dug into its front pocket.
“Right,” she said. “Here goes. Everyone. Stick close. When I read the spell, the portal will open up and we
should be able to hop right in.”
Willow took out a sheet of notebook paper upon which she, Maya and Dawn had written the three-stanza’d
incantation that would tap into the Looking Glass. She cleared her throat and began to read:
Curatis di Asisi take nos hinc
tribuo nos tutus obduco ut nos eo
Curatis di Asisi rector nos in abyssus
servo nos in nostrum iter itineris
Curatois di Asisi , vindico nos totus tutus
ut terra of silenti etc quod
permissum nos servo nostrum convoco votum vos
Willow finished reading. They waited. Nothing happened.
“That’s odd,” Oz said. “Usually stuff starts blowing around by now.”
“Yeah. That was terribly uneventful,” Willow said.
Connor stared down into the empty globe of the Looking Glass. He had seen it work at the Royal London Hotel
when they had rescued Buffy from his Dad. He knew that it was supposed to pulsate and glow like a creature of
living light when it worked. And it wasn’t.
“It’s broken,” he said.
“It’s not broken,” Willow told him. She took the crystal from his hands and shook it roughly like a snow globe.
“It can’t be…”
“No. The Well’s broken. There’s no magic left,” Connor said.
Willow scoffed. “It’s impossible. It’s still a portal…”
Frustrated, Nighna said, “Here. Let me see it.” She leaned far forward, reaching past Faith, her fingers
outstretched to touch the Glass.
“Wait!” Oz said suddenly. “Don’t!”
Too late. When Nighna’s fingertips brushed the glass, she and Willow vanished. Oz stepped forward…
…And into someplace that was else.
The switch from dark cave to blinding white fluorescence left him temporarily blind, like being up close to a
camera flash. His vision blurred. His ears popped. His tonsils kinda itched.
As the scene slowly cleared before him, he found himself staring across an endless labyrinth of white office
cubicles as far as his eyes could see.
“Huh,” he said. “Hell looks just like corporate America.”
His voice fell flat against the gray acoustically-dampening indoor-outdoor carpet. He looked to his left, then his
right. No one had traveled with him. He was alone.
“Willow?” he called. Again, no echo reported back. “Hello? Willow? Helli?” He paused. “Neo?”
Oz looked over his shoulder. The infinite cube farm spread out behind him as well. On either side, an unending
corridor stretched toward each horizon. After a moment’s consideration, he turned, pointing himself leftward.
He walked for a while, until he found another hallway, this one to his right. His werewolf senses weren’t tingling,
so he plunged in, not really knowing what to expect.
Every cubicle was exactly like the next. Plain desk, plain chair, Apple computer, 15-inch monitor, mouse pad,
empty In and Out boxes and an ordinary glass vase with a single daisy. Creepy. Oz continued along his way,
walking at first, then running, peeking into every cube he passed, looking for something – anything – that
differentiated it from the last.
After a lot of time passed, he found another corridor, which he entered at a dead run and collided with a girl
who was similarly sprinting. They bounced painfully off of each other, and then onto the not-so-padded carpet.
Anjelica sat up, cupping her nose in her hands.
“Oz!” she said, sounding both nasal and grateful.
He sat up. “So glad I ran into you,” he said.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“Hell,” he answered, getting to his feet. He offered a hand to help her up. She took it and got vertical.
“I expected something a little more Freddie Krueger,” she said.
“I was banking on Hell being more relative, too,” he said. “Although, gotta say, this would top my list of worst
nightmares realized.”
Anjelica laughed quietly. Then straightened. She said, “About earlier. At the bridge. I’m sorry I took so long.
How embarrassing…”
He arched his brows. “Yeah. A whole three seconds we’ll never get back,” he said.
Anjelica lowered her eyes. The red blotches on her cheeks stood out under the unforgiving fluorescent glare.
“Hey. Kidding,” he said. “It’s cool. I was scared too.”
“No you weren’t,” she said. Anjelica sighed and seemed to put herself back together. “So, where do you think
the others are?”
Oz caught her elbow and turned her bodily to walk with him. “My guess: water cooler. Probably chatting about
the latest episode of House.”
Oz and Anjelica returned to the path from which Oz had departed, hung left and they continued to navigate
between the rows of cubes. A few minutes of silence passed before Oz halted and twisted his head to one side.
“I smell… bird,” he said, pointing to the right, over their heads. “That way.”
A few more meters, they came to another intersection. They turned right, and there was Nighna.
Her killer exec suit and stylish accessories looked somehow right at home against the bleak corporate
backdrop. The only jarring inconsistency was the black bird napping on her shoulder.
“Spell went wrong,” she said calmly.
“Willow…” Oz said.
“…Should have known better. The spell was well-crafted, but you must pay the ferryman if you want to travel to
Hell,” Nighna said.
“Ferryman?” Anjelica said. “If you knew, why didn’t you say…”
“It must be written in blood,” Nighna said, chuckling softly. “The price is always blood. Her spell was written in
ballpoint pen.”
“Well,” Oz said. “Where are they? Maybe more importantly, where are we?”
“They are not here. We are in Hell. There are nine circles. We’re in the first. Limbo,” Nighna said.
“How do we get out? How do we find them?” Anjelica asked. “We have to find them.”
“Don’t worry,” Nighna said, stroking the smooth edge of Clarisse’s wing. “I have friends here.”
Somehow Oz didn’t find much comfort in that knowledge.
Faith collided with a dumpster. She really hated when that happened. She bounded to her feet, shook cooked
pasta from her hair and got a look at the down low.
“Oh. Dark alley,” she said with a shrug. She vaulted over the edge of the dumpster, landing firmly on her feet
beside Willow’s head.
“Hey!” Willow shouted, rolling quickly away.
“Sorry, Red,” Faith said. She reached down to help Willow up, but before she could they heard a growly noise
from the other end of the alley. Faith spun, fists up, as a vampire emerged from the shadows.
“That’s more like it!” Faith shouted. “A fight. Bring it on, baby. I’m just aching for some bloodshed.”
The vampire yelled back in a clipped, decidedly non-demon tongue, then sailed in like an anime wire-fighter.
Faith struck first. Willow rolled out from beneath Faith’s feet just before she could cause trippage. For a
second, Willow was speechless with watching the stunning shadowplay of Faith versus the vampire thrown
across the alley wall. And then, the word vampire sent up little red flags in her brain.
“Faith!” Willow called.
Faith didn’t break stride. She axe kicked the vampire to the face, slammed him against the wall, then punched
him so hard his head butted the bricks. She pulled her trusty stake from the inside pocket of her jacket and
slammed it home.
“God, that felt good!” she yelled to the sky. “Kickin’ vamp ass again, just like I was born to…”
Faith stammered to a halt. She found Willow amidst the muck. “Did I just slay a vampire?”
“Yeah. About that,” Willow said.
Connor stumbled in from the mouth of the alley, clutching his wounded shoulder. “There you are,” he said.
“Guys, I don’t think we’re in Hell anymore.”
“We have to be in Hell,” Willow said. “Faith just slew a vampire. I’m pretty sure we killed all those.”
A wave of confusion washed over his face. “Maybe we’re in a Japanese hell dimension then, because outside it
looks like Tokyo,” he said.
“That’s… that’s just impossible,” Willow sat. As she stood, the Looking Glass rolled from the folds of her skirt
and across the alley floor. Connor bent to scoop it up. He looked down into the empty crystal.
“Your spell went wrong,” he said. He closed his eyes. “We will never find them now.”
“Wait,” Willow said. “Look.”
Connor opened his eyes. The globe had flickered to life in his hands, filling the alley with spangles of light. Two
figures appeared in its icy depths. Red-haired girl leaning against the shoulder of a blond man. Both stared out
of an open window onto a wintry twilight.
“Just did,” Willow mused. She and Faith crowded in to huddle over the Glass.
“Yeah, but… where are they?” Faith asked.
In the Looking Glass, Thellian ran his hand over Morna’s auburn curls.
“Safe bet it’s not Hell,” Faith said.
“No,” Willow said. “He’s here. And looks like he may have already made some more of his evil spawn. We just
need to find out where here is.”
.Chapter Index.
Anywhere Out
of This World
Blood, Pressure
The Drawing Board
All's Well
Anywhere Out of
This World
Mourning Sickness
Welcome to Hell
Relative
Matters of Time
& Fishes
International Calls
Empty as Houses
Lusty Wrong Feelings
Enthralled
Thanksgiving
Seduced
Innocents Lost
Burn
Flashback
Not A Chance In Hell
Empty Rooms
Two Roads Diverged
Starfall
Blindsided
Not Her Own
Outta Here
The Valley of the
Shadow of Death
Comes the Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
Drawn to You
Team Angel
By Fire Reborn
Salvage
Ashes to Ashes
Life Is...
With A Little Help
Appearances Deceiving
Familiarity
Sweetness
Not All Who Wander
That Old Black Magic
For Lorne
Drawn Together
Lost to Sand
Fall of Triumvirate
Parallel Lives
The Lovers
Avenger
Double Cross
Pursuit
Ripper's Girl
Pandemonium
Negative Space
Raveled Threads
Asunder
Human Hands
Singular
Fragmented
Symmetry
Plans
Rogue Squadron
Legends
Mea Culpa
Things Unsaid
Home Sweet Gone
Eleventh Hour
Last Call
Time Is Running Out
Primal
Anywhere Out
of This World
Blood, Pressure
The Drawing Board
All's Well
Anywhere Out of
This World
Mourning Sickness
Welcome to Hell
Relative
Matters of Time
& Fishes
International Calls
Empty as Houses
Lusty Wrong Feelings
Enthralled
Thanksgiving
Seduced
Innocents Lost
Burn
Flashback
Not A Chance In Hell
Empty Rooms
Two Roads Diverged
Starfall
Blindsided
Not Her Own
Outta Here
The Valley of the
Shadow of Death
Comes the Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
Drawn to You
Team Angel
By Fire Reborn
Salvage
Ashes to Ashes
Life Is...
With A Little Help
Appearances Deceiving
Familiarity
Sweetness
Not All Who Wander
That Old Black Magic
For Lorne
Drawn Together
Lost to Sand
Fall of Triumvirate
Parallel Lives
The Lovers
Avenger
Double Cross
Pursuit
Ripper's Girl
Pandemonium
Negative Space
Raveled Threads
Asunder
Human Hands
Singular
Fragmented
Symmetry
Plans
Rogue Squadron
Legends
Mea Culpa
Things Unsaid
Home Sweet Gone
Eleventh Hour
Last Call
Time Is Running Out
Primal