Asunder

9 p.m.
London

“Somebody should call FEMA,” Clem said, drying his hands on a greasy rag. “’Cause this kitchen’s a disaster.”

Clem had begun the evening as fry cook, but ended up frightened bystander as five of the Sulksquelawtna invaded the
kitchen to play with their food.

“I think FEMA’s an American institution,” Oz said. His eyes were still swollen, but his voice had gained strength. “Strictly
speaking.”

Behind them, a tower of silver chafing dishes crashed to the floor with a deafening clamor. A trio of wrestling Sulksquelawtna
demons rolled amongst the debris, their heavily-plated arms flailing wildly. Clem and Oz scrambled to the other side of the
kitchen and watched.

“Maybe there’s a… UK version of FEMA?” Oz wondered aloud.

“Doesn’t matter,” Clem said. “We checked the phones while you were still, y’know, recumbent. They are dead deadity
dead.”

To their left, the grill ignited in a belching tower of scorching yellow flames. Another demon tossed a frozen side of beef onto
the fire, sending spatters of searing grease across the floor. “Dude, where’s Lorne?” Clem asked.

Oz glanced over his right shoulder. Through the round porthole window in the kitchen’s swinging door, he saw Lorne in deep
debate with Sabnock, the leader of the Sulksquelawtna. He couldn’t hear a word of the conversation due to the WWDemon
match in the kitchen, but he knew that once Sabnock was bored with the present situation, he would add Lorne, Clem and
Oz to the top of the bill. From where Oz was standing, Sabnock looked pretty bored.

If Sabnock sought entertainment, Oz had an idea about how to find it.

“We should talk to him,” Oz said.

Clem looked uneasily from the writhing demons to the flank of burning cow-flesh to the little circle that framed Lorne and
Sabnock. “I think Lorne’s a little pre-
occupado at the momento…”

Oz opened the swinging door with a shove. “Not Lorne,” he said, pointing at Sabnock as he walked into the demolished lobby
of Triumvirate. “Him.”




Anya dusted the sands from her hands and put them on her hips.

“Dust to dust, eh Walter?” she asked.

He grunted.

“Shame about the girl,” Anya said. “I could tell she’d been a cutie. Y’know, before the infernal torture and...”

Anya trailed off and found herself staring absently at the sands that bordered the circle she and Walter had wrought for
their escapees. The outer edge had burned so hot the sand had turned to glass. After her sacrificial swan dive, the girl had
vanished, swallowed up by the desert. Since the portal closed, they’d seen not a smidge of movement.

“Ayuh,” Walter said. He stared into the middle-ground, eyes squinted against the shimmer of heat. “Way of Hell, I guess.”

Anya sighed. “You ready to go haggle over some tripe?”

Walter sniffed. “Hold tight a sec, ’kay.”

Anya rolled her eyes. “Sure, but you know unrefrigerated entrails equal less profit for you.”

Walter’s four legs straightened to maximum lift, his torso elongating to his full nine feet in height. He continued to stare off
into emptiness, but he said, “They’re yours, Anyanka. I’ve a score to settle.”

Anya folded her arms. “So, what? You’re just going to give me a travois full of guts? Here Anya, have some viscera. It’s on
me! Hey, and while you’re at it, why don’t you take my jawbone? I only use it part-time anyway. What is it you even see out
there, Walter? I don’t see a damned thing.”

But then she did see a damned thing. Two of them, actually: little black specks in the otherwise uninterrupted wasteland.

Using her hand to shield her eyes, she stared at the pair of figures. After a moment, she said, “Paolo?”

“Ayuh.”

“Son of a bunny!” Anya said. “Finally out of the forest!”

“And into the frying pan,” Walter finished. He reshaped his hat, ran his tongue over his teeth. “You want dibs on parts? ’
Cept for the heart, o’course. That’d be mine.”

“’Course,” Anya said. She smiled, relishing the idea. Everyone who ever passed through the Second Circle of Hell lost
something to Paolo. Some more than others. Anya had lost a series of dear and highly detailed memories, some of her most
favorite from 1,100 years of existence. She couldn’t get them back, but she could get revenge. A devious smile brightened
her eyes, and when she turned them up to Walter’s face, he understood in a flash what part of Paolo Anya desired most as a
souvenir.

He grinned in kind. “As you wish, m’dear,” he said, and he left her beside the circle.


9:03 p.m.
London

Walking through the once elegant main hall of Triumvirate felt like walking through a recently bombed battlefield. The marble
tiles had been ripped up in massive furrows. The light fixtures had been torn out, the glass scattered across upturned tables
and chairs. All twelve of the Sulksquelawtna demons under Sabnock’s command had carried out his orders to the fullest of
their capabilities, which was to “maketh this place a fit place for our kind to ruleth.”

It broke Lorne’s heart that centuries of care and protection under Nighna’s watch had been thoroughly undone in the span
of three hours.

Now Sabnock wanted to unleash the animals housed in the cellars – those raised for Triumvirate members to use in ritualistic
sacrifices and ceremonial feasts (lions, tigers, bears) – so that the Sulksquelawtna could have their sport with them. What
Lorne desperately hoped to conceal was that the instant he took control of Triumvirate, he remanded all of those animals
into the protective custody of zoos and wildlife preserves.

However, much as Lorne tried to deter Sabnock in this desire, the demon would not be distracted. He wanted to hunt lion.
Even if hunting meant releasing it into the shell that was once a night club and chasing it in circles until the wretched animal
was caught.

Just when Lorne thought he was going to have to confess the absence of such quarry, Oz appeared at his side, still dressed
in his flying alarm clock pajamas, but looking much less shell-shocked.

“Hey,” Oz said with a nod to Lorne, then turned his attention immediately to Sabnock. “Bored, big guy?” he asked.

Sabnock cocked his head. His expression showed a mixture of curiosity and hunger. Lorne laughed uneasily and made a
fluttering of nervous gestures. “He is, uh, out of his gourd, your… evilness.”

Sabnock sniffed. “Tiny human,” he said. “Thou hast interrupted my council with the Host. Dost thou possess an offering?”

Oz flicked a quick glance at Lorne. “Sorta,” Oz said.

Sabnock’s gray features betrayed momentary surprise, which morphed to malevolent humor.

“Givest it now, and I shall not rippest out thy spleen.”

Beside him, Lorne was shaking in head in the most discrete way he could manage. However, Oz continued.

“There are other forms of entertainment in this town,” Oz said. “The Tate. Big Ben. Parliament. Plenty of landmarks to
destroy and defile. Y’know. Tourism.”

Lorne uttered an involuntary squeak of astonishment.

Sabnock was listening. “Go on.”

“If it’s fighting you’re looking for,” Oz said. “There are Slayers in this town,”

Sabnock ran his thorny tongue over his lips, and a deep growl of pleasure escaped his meaty throat. “Slayers…”

Lorne, eyes so wide they bulged from their sockets, made a ‘that’s enough’ gesture with his hand across his throat.
Inwardly, he thought perhaps Hell had done a mental warp job on Oz, turned him evil, and then it occurred to Lorne that Oz
might be working for Luxe…

“A whole school of them,” Oz continued. “I can take you there.”

Lorne drew the line at that.

“What a darling little scamp he is!” Lorne said, stepping between Oz and Sabnock. “Your hideousness, I need a word with
our enterprising tour guide here. Give us a sec.”

Lorne hooked his arm in Oz’s and dragged him behind a shattered column. In barely contained frenzy, Lorne said, “What in
the name of St. Theresa’s underwear do you think you are doing?”

Oz glanced around the column at Sabnock, who surveyed the destruction of Triumvirate with Colonel Kurtz-like pride. The
three wrestling demons plowed through the kitchen doors – literally through them – and continued to pound each other
amidst the twisted shrapnel of the doors. Clem scampered around them to take cover behind a wasted dining booth, giving
Lorne a hasty thumbs-up before ducking beneath the shredded leather seat.

Oz met Lorne’s eyes and spoke low but clear. “It’s a ploy for time buyage. I gotta get to the Slayers. This guy needs his ass
kicked. Whole two-birds, one stone thing.”

Lorne stroke his chin, contemplating. He said, “It’s risky.”

“Everything’s risky,” Oz replied.

Lorne considered a moment more. In what used to be the bar, an entire cabinet of rare liquors came crashing down to the
great delight of the Sulksquelawtna, who began to play a spirited game of soccer with the shattered remains of Nighna’s
seventy-year-old Glenfiddich scotch. Lorne felt a deep stab of sorrow.

“You’re right,” Lorne said.

With a nod, Oz broke off and returned to Sabnock. Lorne joined him, resuming again his role of the Host.

“We have a deal?” Oz asked.

Sabnock pursed his lips in thought. Then he said, “Alas, tiny human, we cannot.”

“Cannot?” Lorne asked in genuine surprise.

“Appealing though this offer of… tourism… sounds,” Sabnock went on. “We awaitest the return of our master.”

A cold coil of fear twisted into Lorne’s stomach. He gave a weak smile, and said, “Hold up, Big Guy. You have a master?
Sabnock, Great and Powerful, of Infinite…uh… Appetite. You answer to someone?”

“Aye,” Sabnock answered. “Our Master hath set us free. We awaitest his command. Until he returneth, we shall linger here.
In Triumvirate. Therefore, Green One, showest us thy mighty beasts. We shall have sport during our respite.”

Lorne held up his hands in preparation to explain the lack of mighty beasts, when Sabnock stared at the bar with interest.

“But first,” Sabnock said. “Let us drinketh to the dawning of a new age! The Demon Age!”

This proclamation roused the other Sulksquelawtna, who took up the chant with thunderous enthusiasm. Sabnock looped his
giant tire-treaded arm around Lorne’s shoulder and lugged him in the direction of the bar, leaving Oz to ponder the
plausibility of another plan. He strongly suspected that the Master of whom Sabnock had spoken was Luxe, which meant that
the Kimaris had allies topside as well as in Hell.

Oz had seen Luxe’s army. He’d witnessed Luxe’s cruelty. He knew the guy didn’t need any help.

More than ever, Oz needed to get to Buffy.




Walter met Paolo unawares, and bested him with so little effort it hardly seemed fitting. Paolo had been out of his castle, a
hermit crab without a shell, and Walter had the upper hand.

He dispatched Paolo, but sent the Raggoth captain running home to his master.

Now Walter sat before a fire, chomping on a pipe made of human tibia, swirling a pan of Paolo’s entrails with a stick. He felt
content, moreso than he had in all of his time in Hell. He let the spirals of sweet-smelling smoke wind around him. He opened
his senses and stirred the bowels of his enemy.

In them, he beheld all of Paolo’s recent transgressions – his rape of the girl, his part in Nighna’s murder, the bargain he
struck for Luxe’s passage through the forest. He also caught glimpses into the future and saw, to his mixed satisfaction,
that the girl had not perished in flames and sand. She had altered, but remained, by definition, alive. Even now, she pursued
Luxe with murderous intent, which made Walter smile.

He poked through the entrails some more to see if he could divine more, but it seemed Paolo’s guts had gone from
prognostication to chitlins, which he ate from the pan while they were still steaming.

Afterward, Walter packed up his gear and built a new travois from Paolo’s bleached bones. He wrapped Paolo’s black heart
in a cloth for later use, and his… other part… in a silken cloth for Anya. As he worked, his thoughts lingered on the girl’s fate
and the spirit of vengeance she had become. One thing Walter knew – though their futures be clouded – Luxe and Helli’s
fates lay entwined.

And with this news, Walter strapped the travois to his hips and began his journey back to the City of Dis.
.home.
.acknowledgements.
.awards.
.links.
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.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
.next chapter.