Part IX
Riley tried not to think about the stabbing pains in his arms, or about the fact that people who used to be his friends — Graham, Forrest — were the ones holding him so painfully. Above all, he tried not to think about what they were doing to Faith only a few steps away. He could hear her struggling, hear the swearing of the men trying to keep her down; even though Faith wasn’t trying her hardest, they couldn’t know that, and it sounded like Faith was putting on a good show.
“Finn.” He looked up to see Maggie Walsh standing at the top of the stairs, Adam at one side, Naiura on the other. Riley felt — everything at once, it seemed. Guilt, fear and most amazingly and strongly of all, relief.
They hadn’t started yet, he thought. We stalled them. They won’t go back to Acathla until they’re done with us.
“Where were they?” Walsh said crisply, directing her icy gaze at Forrest.
“Far perimeter,” Forrest answered. “North side. They were holed up in one of the abandoned college buildings, some kind of maintenance shed –“
“That you missed on your earlier patrol,” Walsh finished. Riley could feel Forrest’s tension — Riley knew, as Walsh did not, that the Initiative team had done its job properly before. Faith and Riley had sneaked into that shed only a few moments before their “capture,” just when Riley knew they’d come by on their second search. Weirdly, he still felt protective of the team; part of him wanted to defend them. But he kept his silence.
“Get your goddamn hands off me!” Faith swore, still struggling beside them. “What are you trying to do? Rape me? I fucked that one to pay him back for getting me out, but no way I’m fucking you for taking me back in.”
Riley felt his face flush as his stomach dropped in pure horror. Why had she told them that? Then he remembered the medical exams they always gave her and realized — she had to explain. They’d probably find the evidence, and she couldn’t afford to make it look like they’d hidden anything. When Walsh came down the stairs, staring at him, he forced himself to say, in what he hoped was a convincingly bitter voice, “She wanted it.”
“Good Lord, Finn,” Walsh said, folding her arms in front of her. She seemed both disappointed and amused. “If I’d known you were getting so desperate — well. Measures could have been taken.”
“We will not eliminate him, Mother,” Adam said. He lumbered up behind her, his small, dark eyes intelligent as they studied Riley and Faith. “He is my brother. He understands so much. We could never find another.”
“We could make one,” Walsh said. She was smiling, but Riley was horrified to realize that she wasn’t joking.
“This is foolishness,” said Naiura, who swept up to the others in a glittering of veils. “Why do we waste time here? Reprimand your men on your own time. We have a ritual to prepare for now.”
“What happens here matters to our future, if not to yours,” Walsh snapped. “We’re doing you a favor. Act like it.”
“A favor? You should have seen yourself before, if you want to talk of favors.” Naiura sneered. “No thought in your mind, your body shuffling about to do your demon-son’s bidding –“
“You’ve waited so long to go home,” Adam said. “Another hour cannot be of consequence.” Naiura huffed, the small white feathers atop her head fluttering. Adam looked down at Riley again, his expression more kind than Riley had ever seen it. “We have the Slayer again, and we will discover why my brother wanted to break free.”
“Whatever it is,” Walsh said, “we can fix it.”
Fix it? Riley thought of the various chips and cables he’d been required to endure through the years, the drugs he knew had been slipped into his food. He thought of the masklike face of a couple of new recruits who’d come out from experiment rooms as shadows of what they had been when they’d gone in. For the first time, he felt raw terror — Riley was willing to die, was willing to risk everything on a new reality, but to become one of Walsh’s drones —
“Motherfuckers!” Faith shrieked, throwing herself at Walsh. Her fist made contact, sending Walsh snapping back onto the floor. One of the soldiers hit Faith with the taser, and she jumped and twisted in the currents. Not the tasers, Riley thought. She hates them so much.
Adam knelt by Walsh’s side, cradled her head in his enormous hand. She was blinking, disoriented but clearly all right. “Take her back to her cell,” he said, nodding toward Faith. “And take my brother to room 812.”
Room 812 was an experiment room.
For the first time since their deliberate recapture, Riley let his eyes meet Faith’s. She was still stunned from the taser strike, but she met his gaze, her expression unlike any other he had seen on her face. He saw fear, compassion, the desperation to give him strength. For a moment, he thought he saw something else there as well —
“Come on,” Graham grunted, pulling Riley away from her and toward the experiment room. Riley looked upward, wondering about the world above, and praying that the others were coming. Soon.
***
Angel was sure he’d been in more uncomfortable situations. But at the moment — standing on the outskirts of the Initiative compound, preparing to end the only reality he knew, with the woman he loved at his right shoulder and the woman he’d spent the afternoon making love to at his left — he couldn’t think of one.
“Check your weapons,” Wesley said. Though Angel could see how deeply Wesley disliked what they were about to do, he was still preparing them fully for the task ahead. “Make sure you’ve got one in hand, one ready to be grabbed if you’re disarmed in combat.”
“Wow, never would have thought of that on my own,” Buffy said. But her voice was devoid of the bitterness Angel had, he realized, come to associate with her. She seemed curiously at ease; apparently her strike for independence had fulfilled something within her, though Angel wasn’t sure what. He only knew that she was smiling as she tied a flashlight to her belt, and that she hadn’t met his eyes the entire time they’d spent gearing up.
Angel had expected to feel guilty when he saw Buffy again, stood before her with the taste of another woman in his mouth, the faint traces of her scratches on his back. But he didn’t. What had happened with Cordelia seemed to have nothing at all to do with Buffy — as though it truly belonged to that other universe, the one that had been and would be. Something in Cordelia belonged to him, and he knew that, despite everything, something in him belonged to her, too.
Yet he still yearned for Buffy, for her to turn her face to him, to acknowledge something of the pain he felt, the gaping wound her departure had left. Angel knew her too well not to know that she felt it too. They had spent almost seven years together, inseparable, both for good and for ill. The brutal suddenness of their break, the finality of it, was crushing her too.
Yet she kept it within, kept this last emotion they would ever share — anguish — beneath the surface.
“Have you guys ever tried spring-loading these things?” Cordelia offered. She was holding a stake against her wrist experimentally as she crouched slightly behind a frost-crisp hedge. “You know, no swing, all stake?”
Angel had thought of that, once, but Buffy and Wesley hadn’t been interested, so he hadn’t followed through. “It’s a good idea,” he said. “But no time now.” Cordelia gave him an uncertain little smile, and he returned it. Once again he felt the urge to comfort her, protect her. Then again, what they were about to do was the best comfort and protection he could offer.
A better world is ahead of us, he thought. For all of us. Cordelia’s showing us the way. Nothing else matters, compared to that.
Gunn shook his head as he hefted his own sword. “I shoulda brought my truck,” he said. “We got a stake cannon mounted on that thing. Works great, let me tell you.”
“A stake cannon,” Jenny said. Her voice was just a little — distracted, Angel thought. As though she were with them far more in body than in spirit. “That’s not a bad idea. We should have tried that.”
“Guess I should get my game face on,” Doyle said, shaking his head as his visage shifted into that of his Brachen-demon father. “Now, that feels better.”
“Why don’t you wear that all the time?” Lorne said. He didn’t look as though he much knew what to do with any of the weapons, but he’d gamely armed himself with a stake and a wide-bladed knife. “Seriously, green is your color. And I know what I’m talking about here.”
“I’m not as smooth as you are with the excuses,” Doyle said. “If I weren’t shuffling off this mortal coil in about an hour, I’d ask you for a few.”
“You should switch back to human, just like Angel should keep from vamping out, if he can help it,” Buffy said. Angel noticed that he was only being spoken of in the third person. “The Initiative has a majorly schizophrenic attitude toward demons. Adam totally runs their lives, but they hate demons otherwise. They’ll fight differently against you if they think you’re human.”
“As in, be less likely to kill me?” Doyle said. “What’s that matter now? I’m stronger this way. Best I stick with it.”
Buffy shrugged. “Take your chances. I guess we all are.”
“Right then,” Wesley said. “Does everyone understand what we’re doing?” As he said this, he looked at Jenny very hard. She didn’t react.
“We’re ready,” Angel said. “This reality is still in place, so Faith and Riley must have stalled them. But I don’t think we have much time to lose.” As in, let’s get a move on, Wes.
“Very well,” Wesley said. He turned to Buffy, waiting, as ever, for her call to strike.
Buffy looked toward the small concrete shed that, according to Riley Finn, was their entrance to the compound; Angel felt his body tensing, preparing for her word. But then she turned toward him and, at last, looked into his eyes. She whispered, “Goodbye, Angel.”
His girl. Blond hair blowing in the icy wind. The end of the world. Angel felt his throat closing up, but he managed to say, “Goodbye, Buffy.”
She turned back toward the entrance, toward the battle. “Let’s go.”
***
They were deep into the tunnels before the first patrol spotted them, and fortunately, Cordelia spotted the patrol first.
“Get ready,” she whispered, motioning for the others to duck down. She saw the look of surprise on Buffy’s face, but the men — the ones who’d seen her fight — all immediately ducked. The patrol was within five feet before they realized what was going on.
“Stations!” the patrol leader yelled, but Cordelia leaped forward and spun-kicked her foot squarely into his solar plexus before he could say anything else. He retched and doubled over, and Cordelia whirled around, searching for another opportunity to strike.
The others seemed to have the situation handled. Buffy was smacking one Initiative guy around like he was a punching bag, Gunn had already floored another and Angel pounced at the last one. He tackled the guy and smashed his fist into his face — but too late. Apparently he’d given some sort of signal, because lights began to flash golden-yellow in the tunnel, and she could hear a faraway klaxon begin to blare. “We got trouble,” Cordelia said.
“And that starts with a T, which rhymes with G, which stands for Gee, ya think?” Lorne darted forward. “They’ve got a few people already headed this way. We better hustle.”
They split up in the teams they’d agreed on beforehand — Jenny, Lorne and Doyle with Buffy, and Cordelia, Angel and Gunn with Wesley. Cordelia saw Wesley’s reluctance to go; she’d thought Angel would be the one who couldn’t walk away, but he was doing so, resolutely. She grabbed Wesley’s hand and whispered, “Come on. We have to hurry.”
“Bye,” Jenny said — oh, God, that was the last thing she was ever going to hear Miss Calendar say —
And then they were running, just the four of them, together in the tunnels. Cordelia felt her memories — her true ones — flashing back to a dozen times or more when it had been like this: Gunn at her right, Wesley at her left, Angel charging ahead of them all. It was more like the world she remembered than at any other moment since Naiura’s spell, and against all odds, Cordelia felt a smile spreading across her face. This is the way it’s supposed to be, she thought. This is the way it’s going to be again. I’m gonna get Angel to forgive Wesley, and Wesley to forgive Angel, and it’s all going to be like it used to be, only better. It’s too important to throw away. I know that now. I’ll make them know it too.
Angel threw open a door that, according to Riley’s maps, would lead them to the service corridor for the elevator shafts. Apparently the elevators ran on voice-recognition; they’d have to shimmy down the cables. This had all sounded very practical when they’d discussed it back at the library, but as Cordelia looked down into the dark, cavernous shaft, she realized that reality was very different. “Okay, not liking this,” she said. “I can’t fly in this reality.”
Angel stared at her. “You can FLY in the other reality?”
“This story just gets stranger and stranger,” Gunn said.
“Not really fly,” Cordelia said. “It’s more hovering.”
Amazed, Angel shook his head and half-smiled at her, the first real expression of warmth he’d given her since they’d left her hotel room. The memory of what had happened in that room seared her skin and made her wish the moment were a little less desperate, so she could talk to him or just hold him. This Angel wasn’t exactly her Angel — but they were close enough for her to care about him deeply.
“I’ll go first,” he said. “That way you don’t have to be frightened. I’ll be right beneath you. I can catch you if you fall.”
She smiled at him and tried to mentally brace herself as Angel took hold of the cables and began to ease himself down. The drop’s not getting any shorter, she thought, as she reached out for the cables herself.
“Hold!” Cordelia whirled around to see two Initiative soldiers running into the room — carrying guns. Wesley was fast; he fired his crossbow immediately, catching a soldier in the shoulder and taking him down. But even he wasn’t fast enough for the second one, who swung his gun up, aiming it right at Cordelia —
She saw Gunn move the moment she heard the weapon’s fire. He threw himself in front of her, and her scream mingled with his own anguished cry as he fell to the ground.
Wesley fired his crossbow again, felling the other soldier. Cordelia stared down at Gunn in horror, seeing a pool of dark blood spreading across his torn abdomen. “Gunn? Gunn!?”
As she dropped to her knees, Gunn coughed once, then tried to focus on her. “Stranger — and stranger.”
“Oh, God, oh no, Gunn, no –” She put her hands on his belly; weren’t you supposed to apply pressure? But his grimace of pain made her pull away. Her hands were wet with his blood. “We need a doctor, or an ambulance, or something.”
Behind her, she heard Angel climb out of the elevator shaft and his sharp intake of breath as he saw Gunn’s injuries. “He can’t be moved.”
“Meaning I can’t go with y’all,” Gunn waved one hand weakly at the shaft. “Get going. Don’t matter none what happens to me.”
“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?” Cordelia cried. But even as she spoke, she knew what he meant. She was erasing this Gunn from existence in a few minutes — what happened to him here couldn’t affect the other reality. And yet looking down at him, horribly wounded, she could only see Charles Gunn, her friend and her partner, bleeding to death before her eyes.
“Cordelia.” Wesley’s voice was gentle, but firm. “We don’t have much time.”
She looked down into Gunn’s eyes; he smiled at her just a little. “You say I got a better life ahead of me,” he rasped. “Make it happen.”
“I promise,” she whispered. “I promise.” She pulled off her parka — didn’t need it anymore anyway — and balled it up under his head, giving him what little comfort she could.
“Goodbye,” he said, as she took hold of the cables to follow Angel down at last. She looked into his brown eyes for as long as she could before dropping into the darkness.
***
Buffy’s part of the plan was simple: Kick astonishing amounts of ass in the Initiative’s main area, thus creating a distraction to let Jenny do her work, and let Angel and Cordelia get to Acathla.
So far, she thought with grim satisfaction, so good.
One soldier — Graham, was that the name — came rushing at her, and she roundhouse-kicked him into the wall. Another half-dozen or so of his buddies were collapsed around her, and Doyle had taken out about three himself. Apparently his demon half meant serious business, even if the human half was kinda goofy. Even Lorne — all demon, all goofy — had managed to shriek a couple of the soldiers into unconsciousness.
Jenny knelt on the floor, her fingers working frantically on one of the computer keyboards. “I’m past the security lock!” she called. “Shutting down lights — NOW.”
Deep thumps echoed from the walls as the lights began to shut down, one row after the other. Buffy pulled her flashlight from her belt and ignited it; she knew Wesley had one for the other group as well —
— not that Angel would need it, Angel could see in the dark —
She shook her head, came back to the here and now. “That oughta throw them off,” she said. “Good job, Jenny.”
“Thanks,” Jenny said, peering into the faint green flow of the monitor, which seemed so much brighter in the faint light. “Huh.”
Lorne peered over her shoulder. “I am an expert on pitch and tone,” he said. “That ‘huh’ said volumes. What’s wrong?”
“Not that it matters,” Jenny said, “but apparently they’re planning on doing something nasty to Mr. Finn.”
“Nasty?” Buffy frowned. “Nasty how?”
“I can’t get the exact procedure; I didn’t hack deep enough into the security,” Jenny said. She pointed at one line of data. “But it says experimental, and we’ve seen a few of the Initiative’s failed experiments.”
Buffy had found their bodies after, sometimes. Or worse — twisted things, not demon and not human, unable to fight her or feed themselves, to do anything but suffer. Those were the only times that her slaying had felt like an act of mercy.
Not that it matters, Jenny had said. This Riley, experimented-on or not, wouldn’t exist in another half-hour, and neither would Buffy herself. And she’d spent enough time wishing ill to Riley Finn not to feel any particular horror on his behalf.
And yet. And still.
“Does it say where he is?” Buffy said.
It was Doyle, leaning over Jenny’s other shoulder, who answered. “Room 812. That mean something to you?”
“I can pull up a map,” Jenny offered. A few clicks of the keyboard, and the map appeared. The room wasn’t too far away.
“I’m getting him out,” Buffy said. “You guys should stay here, make sure they can’t get control of the power again.”
“You got it, She-Ra,” Doyle said. “We’ll leave the lights out for ya.” He grinned — a surprisingly warm smile, given the green spines still all over his face. Buffy found herself smiling back before she turned and ran.
She only ran into two soldiers on the way to room 812, both of which she easily dispatched. They should have more guys out, she thought. Either they’ve sent their troops to their holding pen for vamps and demons, or — or they’ve figured out what we’re really after. As much as she didn’t want this reality to end, she shuddered at the thought of Angel falling into the Initiative’s clutches.
Which was, of course, just where Riley was now —
Room 812’s door had a computerized lock; after a moment’s hesitation, Buffy smashed it in with her hand. The door made a static sound, but remained shut. She shoved her fingers between the slender crack and tugged with all her considerable might.
The door swung open, revealing Riley Finn, strapped to a chair with a gag in his mouth. At his side was Maggie Walsh.
Buffy had expected some reaction to her breaking and entering, but Walsh just raised an eyebrow. “So you’re what the alert is for,” she said.
“I like to keep you guys on your toes,” she said. “Speaking of which, I’d like to see Finn there on his feet. Now.”
“You’re here to rescue Riley?” Walsh looked genuinely surprised. As far as Buffy could tell from Riley’s expression, he was a bit startled himself. “How novel. I thought you were strictly a part of demon control.”
“I’m bad-guy control,” Buffy said. “You make other people demons on the outside, but inside? You’re the real thing.”
Walsh smiled thinly. “We have one Slayer to study,” she said. “We don’t need you.”
She moved fast — so fast that a human would have been hit — but Buffy managed to duck the hand with the taser just in time. Before Walsh could strike again, Buffy hit her across the jaw, hard. Walsh staggered back and fell against her tray table of instruments. “That’s for the Winter,” Buffy said. She slapped Walsh this time, hand open. “That’s for the vampires overrunning this town, including the one who killed Giles.” She slapped her again. “THAT’S for locking Faith up for years and making me think she was dead.” And again. “That’s for my Mom, which you didn’t have anything to do with, but it’s for her anyway. And THAT’S for Willow. And THAT’S for Xander. And THAT –“
Buffy balled up her fist and smashed Walsh hard, right in the nose. Walsh collapsed back onto the ground, unconscious. After staring down at her for a moment, she went to Riley’s side and pulled the gag from his mouth. He gasped in a deep breath, then said, “What was that for?”
“Why did I rescue you?” she said, already annoyed. “Boy, you’re great with the gratitude, aren’t you?”
“Thanks,” Riley said fervently as she went to work unfastening his restraints. “But what I meant was — that last time you hit Walsh — what was that for?”
“Oh,” Buffy said. “That was for giving me a C+ on my final paper in her psych class. It had footnotes and everything.”
“Would this be a bad time to mention that I graded that paper?” Riley said.
She stared at him, then started to laugh. He joined in; their laughter had a slightly hysterical edge to it, and Buffy knew it, but she didn’t care. It felt so good to laugh.
When they quieted, Riley said, “I’d like to find Faith now. I’d like to be with her.”
“I would too,” Buffy said, feeling the rightness of it even as she spoke. “Let’s hurry.”
***
Wesley aimed his flashlight ahead of them; the doorway had the right number. They were there at last. “Get ready,” he said. “We’ll only have our one chance to strike.”
Cordelia nodded quickly; Angel put one hand on his sword. Wesley took a deep breath. More than anything, he did not want to go through this door, to do the work they had to do there. To kill Jenny Calendar, or die in the attempt.
He hoped that Jenny’s wish came true, that he could remember this reality in the new one. If only he could remember her — remember loving her —
Angel tensed, no doubt hearing something lost to Wesley and Cordelia’s human ears. He put his hand on the door. “Now.”
With his vampiric strength, Angel tore the door from its hinges. Cordelia plunged through instantly, and Wesley followed her, blinking the darkness to make out what was happening —
The room was lit with a few candles that burned with a greenish, unnaturally steady flame. Standing in the far corner of the room was a large, misshapen creature, part man and part demon. For all his years of hunting Adam, Wesley had never actually seen him before. Yet he knew his enemy instantly; only Adam could be so powerful, so grotesque. A few feet away was one of the most beautiful beings Wesley had ever seen — a woman made of blue frost and feathers like snowflakes. In the room’s center was Acathla — a giant stone slab, from which the frozen form of a demon reached, its body forever captured in a snarl and a pounce.
No, Wesley thought. Not forever. Not even for long.
Adam stood there with his human hand outstretched, blood dripping from his lacerated palm. And even as Wesley watched, energy began to flow from Acathla, swirling around it.
“Naiura,” Cordelia said, her face set. “I’m calling off our little bargain. Now.”
“Foolish, forgetful girl,” Naiura said, raising an imperious, white-feathered eyebrow. “My arrangements are final. So is your fate.”
“Hate to argue with you,” Angel said. “But the negotiations are back on.”
In a flash, Angel threw his sword as hard as he could — and it speared Adam through the middle. Adam clutched at the weapon and staggered, clearly in pain.
“You will NOT!” The bolts flew from Naiura’s fingertips even as she spat the words from her mouth; Wesley felt the jolt hit him, mid-chest, knocking him back several feet. He collapsed to the floor beside Cordelia, who was gasping in the same pain he felt.
“You didn’t — mention — the lightning bolts,” Wesley choked.
“Didn’t — know.” Cordelia struggled to sit up, but Wesley saw her eyes open wide in fear as Naiura raised her hands again. But then Angel — apparently less affected by the power surge — tackled her from the side.
Naiura shrieked in rage, and Wesley saw her claw at Angel with hands that surged and crackled with power. Angel was still holding onto her — but his body shook, and his face registered the agony he was feeling as she poured energy into him.
Wesley staggered forward. The vortex near Acathla was getting larger and more powerful. An unearthly howling filled the room. “Cordelia!” he shouted. “You must close the portal! Now!”
“Angel –” she said, staring at his tortured form as he grappled with Naiura. But she somehow got to her feet and began making her way toward the vortex, fighting the powerful winds pouring from Acathla.
“Cordy!” Angel cried, and it seemed to be more than a nickname. Cordelia’s face changed as he said it, becoming more pained and yet more resolute.
Wesley forced his way closer to Naiura; so caught up was she in battling Angel that she didn’t even notice him. He didn’t know what kind of demon she was, or what might kill her — still, some moves were classics.
He plunged his stake into her back, right between her shoulder blades — right where the heart should be. Naiura screamed, a ghastly, unearthly sound that was too shrill for any human throat. Power crackled over her entire body, convulsing her limbs, making her eyelids flutter. Then she flopped to the floor and vanished in a thick puff of blue powder.
Angel was still shaking with pain, but he looked up at Wesley in wordless gratitude. My last act on this earth is saving the Scourge of Europe from pain, Wesley thought. And yet I think it was the right thing to do.
Cordelia’s shriek made them both whirl around — just in time to see her body flying toward them. She tumbled into Wesley, knocking them both onto the ground beside Angel.
Adam — hunched over and bleeding, but still alive — stood at the mouth of the vortex. He stared at them, his small dark eyes showing only something that looked strangely like compassion. “If you knew,” he rasped, “if you knew the future of the reality you would return to — you would thank me.”
“Oh, this is all for our own good?” Cordelia said. “Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
“Adam,” Angel said, calling to be heard over the wind, “you’re dying. You can’t get out of this alive.”
Wesley added, “Let us do what we’re trying to do here. It can’t make any difference to you.”
Adam smiled. “It is better to have died,” Adam said, “than never to have been.”
He turned to Acathla and pulled out Angel’s sword. Blood gushed from the wound, spiraling into the winds, sealing the vortex. Adam held his arms open wide, silhouetted against the power and energy of Acathla for one moment more — then was sucked into it, spiraling into eternity, out of their reality and into the hell he chose.
The vortex snapped shut. The light and wind was gone. The greenish candles instantly went dark. The only illumination in the room was Wesley’s own flashlight, casting a beam across the bloodstained floor.
“Wesley?” Cordelia’s voice shook. “What just happened?”
She already knew, Wesley realized. But he answered her anyway. “Adam’s blood closed the portal Acathla created. He sealed the breach in realities before you could.” He looked at her face — hers and Angel’s — and saw such pain that he hated to continue. But he had to.
“This reality — the reality of the Winter — is permanent. The reality you knew will never return.”