The vortex spat him cruelly into the hell dimension from which he had saved humanity. He flew from the portal and crashed hard against a rocky outcrop. Around him the demons who had fought Sasha were pouring from the vent in the purple sky above, replaced once more into their rightful realm. And he with them. Demon. He belonged here. He looked back briefly and caught a glimpse of the white room beyond before the image closed and vanished. He had done it. It was over.

He was dying. He could feel it.

The apocalypse may have ended but the clean up process was far from established and the debris and wreckage was making for slow progress from the city. Sasha had switched off the van radio in an attempt to concentrate on steering the machine through the twisted rubble. It seemed so much harder to be doing it on her own. It should have been simpler, easier now it was daylight, now that she could be fairly certain that nothing was going to leap from the shadows and attack her, but the empty passenger seat to her right was pressing on her with guilty malignancy. She couldn't concentrate. The burst of defiant energy which had filled her just hours before as the battle ended had been replaced now with withering uncertainty and self blame.

If she had made her way to the mirror faster, if she had performed a more streamline attack and taken own those demons only in her path, if she had beaten Lorne to the centre and destroyed the thing before him… all these thoughts and more made it hard to focus on the road and the journey ahead. It could have been her; it should have been her instead. And over and over again the image of his human glamour melting in her arms while the real Lorne had been propelled with the darkness to another world. He might be dead already.

If only the guilt had been that simple. Sasha understood that the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. She was a slayer with a slayer's sense of heroism and Lorne had been a hero. If he had died, he had died saving the world, and a part of her wanted to look back at his actions and just be proud. He knew what lay ahead of him, he must have known better than her. She had sensed that he was keeping something back as they had travelled together to the white room. He was a psychic and must have read his own future and hers. So he knew, he entered that room willingly and accepted his fate. But the feeling wouldn't leave her.

No it wasn't his death alone that made her feel guilty. It was all that had come before. A tickertape of memories tainted by her stupidity. She had fallen for his spell, the spell that made him look human as they travelled and she had been too foolish to realise that she hurt him in the process. He was just a demon right? He didn't feel like people felt. She didn't have to tread carefully where he was concerned, he was lucky she was bothering to work with him at all.

'Idiot!' she chastised herself as she drove. When she thought of how she'd behaved, how her attitude would change when his glamour dissolved and he would submerge himself in the gloom of the back of their van to hide his miserable green truth from her disapproval. Or worse, her indifference. He had seen each time the way her eyes wandered over his attractive human face and he had felt each time she refused to look deeper into him. She hated herself right now; she hated herself and her late realisation of what he truly was. She gripped the steering wheel tight and tried to move on from the destructive power of these bitter and painful thoughts. She had realised in the end. Now she had to make it right. Lorne had lifted 

the blinkers from her eyes and the world shone clear in the newly risen sun; a thousand rainbows of colour, blue, purple, green and… red. Sasha thought of his eyes, of the wide smile and the colour of his lips.

Red.

She allowed her own lips to smile just a little at his memory. His eyes always told her that things would be OK.

Red.

Flashing. Flashing red on the dashboard.

'Shit,' almost out of gas. She scanned the streets for somewhere to fill up praying there was some left at a gas station after the mass exodus from the city. She was almost at city limits now and the debris was less, so she allowed the van to cruise and finally coast into the first fill up point she came across. Sasha automatically lifted a weapon and surveyed the courtyard as she stepped from the vehicle. Were the pumps still working? She'd have to activate them from inside.

Hand tight around the stake she made her way to the kiosk. God only knew what was sheltering inside against the daylight but whatever it was she'd make short work of it. She had to keep moving, get out of the city and back to civilisation. She had to find an airport or at the very least a phone that worked. She had to contact the council and ask for their help, step down from her high horse and concede that they had more knowledge and a good deal more power than her. She'd never liked they way they worked, but she had to admit they'd seen a good few more apocalypses than her.

Sasha kicked open the door and spun into the kiosk. It had been shuttered into darkness, the windows blacked out and obscured with old newspapers and magazines. She glanced at their headlines, announcing the end of the world, blurred photographs of people fleeing in the first days. She'd known it was bad when even the reporters left town and the stories stopped filtering back east from LA. Sasha stepped further into the room and peered at the nearest newspaper. Someone or something had drawn horns and fangs onto a face in a photograph. She looked by the till, a half empty whiskey bottle with the cap unscrewed and left to one side. Yes, something was lurking her alright, she could sense it. She scanned the gloom. A rustle and she was a aware of a soft movement out the back behind the counter.

'Whatever you are you'd better just come on out, 'cos you don't stand a damn chance against me. You know what I am buddy? Do ya? I'm a…'

Spark. Flame. Ember.

'…Bloody Slayer….' The voice said wryly, 'Well I'll be buggered, you girls get everywhere.'

-- --

There was something different.

From the outset hell had raged around him with relentless force. A torrent of wind and noise rained over what passed for a world on this side of the dimensional divide. It scooped up dust 

and flung it hard against his skin, it carved out new landscapes, destroying and reforming rock, shifting shape and form in the darkness. The air burned and the faintest of crimson light smouldered dimly on the jagged horizon. Creatures swooped and crowed on the billowing tide of the storm, content to witness the suffering of beings below, deriving pleasure from the force of the searing gales as they burned patterns into their own hardened skin as they flew. Healing and burning, healing again ready for the next beautiful onslaught. Their cries were high and piercing and the thud of their wings beat heavily above his ears.

But something was different now. How much time had passed? Lorne shifted against the rock against which he had been flung. He hadn't dared to move, hadn't the energy or motivation. The utter certainty of his death had frozen him and for all he knew he could have been there moments or weeks. The constant pain of the dimension rid him of all thought but now something had changed and thought had made its way back to him slowly. Perhaps he wasn't to die after all… perhaps…

It was quiet. That was the difference. And the wind was dropping. At first the cries of the flying beasts above could be heard more sharply against the dying backdrop of the storm and then they too faded. With the tailing off of the wind the heat it generated died too. Dust and grit fell to earth, no longer racing through the air in burning paths and tearing at his skin. The choking air seemed to clear enough for him to breathe more deeply and with a sudden clawing gasp he opened his eyes.

At first he could see nothing. He lay half behind half over the rock and starred blankly at the sky like a broken rag doll. Nothing circled above him, nothing moved. And then a slow creep of light. Not crimson as it had been before but cold and blue. Pale at first, beginning in the centre of the sky where the earth's moon might sit on a clear summer night. So faint at first he thought he might be imagining it but after a few more minutes he could feel it as well as see its edges. It was cold. But not cold like a winter's day or a frost bitten morning. It was cold like evil. It grew steadily and spread across the sky and with its growing light he began to make out the shapes of the demons that had followed him through the portal. The creatures who had helped to bring about the apocalypse on earth and who had been cast back to hell when the mirror had broken. They lined the dusty ground, entranced, unmoving as though paused in battle. Each looked up towards the developing light. Had it hypnotised them? Was it controlling them somehow?

The light grew stronger and with its iciness creeping forward Lorne finally moved, he drew himself up onto the rock and began to rub his limbs. So cold. His eyes roamed over the landscape and over the demons, a landscape he had only seen or imagined in books, a freeze frame of evil glittering under the encroaching path of a new type of hell. He looked down at the ground and saw it sparkle with frost. He touched the rock and found his fingers stuck to it momentarily with the bitter cold. Quickly he withdrew his hand and began to scrabble to his feet on the slippery surfaces. The demons weren't entranced, they were frozen. The sky above him pulsed once, twice… a growing steady rhythm, a contraction of evil.

As Lorne succeeded in gaining his feet the light ahead flashed suddenly brilliant and the powdery silence around him was momentarily shattered by a crackling resonance. A single gush of frozen air and the desert landscape around him turned on its head and formed white banks of ice. To his horror he saw a new form of demon descend in droves from the sky. Spindly creatures in pale blues and lilacs, wide translucent eyes roaming malevolently over the landscape. He began to back away from the winter vortex, uncertain where he would go 

but desperate to get way from these vile beings. Two dropped softly to the snowy ground just yards from him and edged forward to the remains of one frozen half dead demon. With a jagged movement they tore the limbs from the torso and nibbled with small pointed teeth. Lorne felt himself gag. A painful but much needed reminder that he was alive. The bile in his throat burned as the rest of his body grew colder. Every muscle began to shake with cold and fear. He had to move. He had to move now. He had to move as far away from that vortex as…

The sky cracked open with another sudden surge and the demons in front of him turned to watch. They chattered excitedly, a mixture of scattered words and the inarticulate clatter of insect-form communication.

'He comes…'

'… the old one…'

And the sky bore down.

-- --

Sasha instinctively raised the stake to shoulder height.

'Easy niblet,' Spike moved around the counter with a swish of leather coat and a distinctive swagger. 'I'm on your side now remember.' Her eyes adjusting to the dark shop she began to pick out his features, angular beneath his sharply coiffed bleached hair. He flashed a quick smile before slipping the cigarette between his lips and drawing so that the coal glowed orange in the gloom.

'And which side is that?' she asked. 'The last time you showed up at the council it was to tell us all that we were going about this apocalypse thing the wrong way, that Angel had the right idea…'

'Happens he did, didn't turn out great I admit but all this lying around in Italy waiting for 'developments'' he gestured the quotation marks mockingly before dismissing the whole idea with a grimace, 'wasn't for me love, too much sun for starters. Disappointing; the whole business,' he drew himself up and rocked on his heels, snorting out a jet of smoke, 'I know how it looked, what Angel did, but he wasn't taking it lightly, at the end of the day you had to trust the guy, even me… and Buffy… well she's not the Buffy I knew, oh no, she'd have helped him in a jiffy.. gone straight to the hellmouth and kicked its multiple asses.' He suddenly mimed a couple of jabs in Sasha's direction. She didn't flinch.

'So what are you doing here?' she asked instead.

Spike dropped his fists. 'Same as you love, heading for the big nasty, except it seems to have buggered off before I could get there…' he grabbed the chair from behind the counter and spun it so that when he slumped down on it he was leaning on its back. 'I fought for a good long while when it started, watched Wes and Gunn cop it and then thought I could do with a bit of back up. Headed to Italy…'

'Where you told us all where to go…'

'Where I told you all where to go…' he repeated, 'well her majesty queen Buffy wasn't very forthcoming with the whole army of slayers thing. Oh no… it's fine when it's her hellmouth that needs an army… OK when she needs a champion to where a big old dangly bit and burn up in hell… but when that champion comes back from the grave and tries to stop apocalypse number 2… needing a bit of backup you know… oh no couldn't possibly Spike… its not appropriate Spike... we don't know what we're up against yet…' he gesticulated in frustration, 'it's bloody evil innit! It's the same thing we're up against every time but I think this particular slayer's been in the job too long… getting a bit battle weary.' Spike stopped and starred at Sasha, raising one scarred eyebrow as he did.

'So what brings you here…' he asked, 'Not her orders anyway.'

'No.'

He looked at her in silence.

'Got us a rebel have we?'

'Not exactly, but I did get sick of waiting. There was a mission and that lot lost the way. I don't know if Angel got it right but I don't think Buffy did either. I don't care if I can't win the whole war or even one battle but I had to do something…My mother died here.'

'It's amazing what we would do for our mums…' Spike said. 'No really,' he said catching her incredulous look, 'I loved my mum, 'til I ate her anyway…'

'Right well…' Sasha resumed, 'I was making my way round the country here kicking some vampire ass on my way…' she glared at him.

'Yup, good on you,' he said with innocent enthusiasm, 'kicked many a vampire bum myself.'

'… when I got detoured. I didn't want to come to LA… well I did but I was scared.. I was working up to it you know, and then I met this guy and he made me realise I had something to offer, that I could make a difference and he made me come here.'

'Oh yeah? Some sort of guide was he?'

'It was Lorne.'

Spike's friendly manner suddenly became cold. He held her gaze hard. 'Lorne?' he said slowly, 'Lorne's alive?'

'Yes….at least… I think he might still be.'

Spike ignored her last quiet statement and leaning over the back of the chair he frowned. 'Lorne came back to LA? Doesn't make sense… he wanted well out of it.'

'He insisted, he said he'd had some sort of vision, he read me, said he could see where all this evil stemmed from and he knew how to stop it. I think it was the Powers that Be, they were channelling through him and I don't know why, it was crazy, he was a demon damn it but I 

trusted him and…'

'Yeah he has that effect,' Spike smiled faintly, 'he's alright is Lorne, bit colourful, drinks like a fish, but he's a good sort. You were right to trust him.'

'I didn't at first I was an idiot. But I should have. He got us there, and the whole thing was hurting him so badly... he could feel it all you know…?'

'Empath... rough gig..' Spike conceded…' I mean I could feel it all… tweaked my vamp senses all that big bad… he must have had it hard. Wait a minute!' Spike looked up at her with realisation, 'you were on your way in there to fight the fight you were on your way out? He got you there? To the centre?'

'Yes, there was this mirror in the law firm and…'

'You guys stopped it?!' Spike was off the chair and advancing on her, 'you and Lorne? You're the reason the sun's back?'

'Well…'

'Bloody hell! Wait 'til Angel hears this! That'll piss him right off… not that he doesn't deserve that; I mean I thought it was pretty low making Lorne do that thing… Lorne didn't have that sort of evil in him… but check it out…Lorne saved the world?!'

Sasha hesitated, 'Yeah he really did.'

'Where the hell is he?' Spike even went so far as to look round the room.

'He's… I don't know.'

Spike flashed a puzzled look, 'You don't know? Big guy, green, little red horns can't miss him?'

'There was a mirror in Wolfram and Hart, 'Sasha continued her story, 'and he smashed it and the darkness was sucked away back into another dimension…'

'Saving the world, right, yeah we got that niblet…'

'He went with it,' she said. 'He's on the other side of the mirror and that's why I was heading out of LA, I need to find a way to get him out,' her words started rushing forward riddled with guilt and unhappiness and anger, 'I've got to contact the council and I couldn't from inside the city so I was driving and driving trying to find a phone or something, we need to combine forces I'm out of my depth here, I don't know jack about dimensions and stuff and I figured someone would be able to help…'

In the middle of her outpouring she caught Spike's eye. He was staring at her unblinking, half perched on the counter, his shoulders braced and the muscles in his jaw twitching ominously. She fell silent.

'Lorne smashed the mirror,' he said in summary, a level cold voice 'he smashed it, not you 

with your slayer power, he did it.'

'Yes.'

'And then all the bad got sucked out of the world and went back to where it came from?'

'Yes.'

'And where do you reckon that was?'

'I… I'm not sure…'

'Well let me tell you shall I… 'cos I know a thing or two about dimensions, been to a couple over the centuries, and they're not nice places. Bad stuff generally… comes from bad places…'

'Is he dead? I'm so scared he died when he went through that mirror,' Sasha felt her eyes burn. She'd been OK on her own, she'd held it together but now she was talking, it was all being made real by saying the words out loud.

'Oh he's not dead. Doesn't work like that,' Spike said, 'if he was sucked through that mirror he's something worse than dead. You left him in hell niblet… 'cos that's what happens when a champion makes a sacrifice… happened to Angel… happened to me… didn't happen to Buffy but then she's not part demon is she…but the demon kind... we end up in hell. It's the way of things… so that's where he is… yeah… some hell dimension with all the beasties you sent back there.'

Sasha was staring aimlessly around the floor trying to comprehend what Spike was saying. To have it confirmed to her just made it too painful. She had guessed wherever Lorne was it wouldn't be good but to have it spelled out was too much. It was her fault. Spike was right it was all her fault. He was watching her she could feel it. He probably hated her… Lorne had been his friend right? And she had let him go to hell because she hadn't made it to the mirror first.

'What do we do?' she said absently, 'what do we do?'

He looked at her a moment longer. God she was young. Spike sighed. Slayers… he always had to get tangled up with slayers… silly girls with more power than sense but big hearts that meant well and a ton of guilt to boot. What the heck there was always a way around these things. It'd give him something to do now that the big bad had been defeated. Wasn't quite what he had been expecting but… He jumped from the counter and let his mood lift. A new challenge then.

'Well here's a plan… a mission if you want to use the word,' Spike said cheerily, 'I vote we try and get him out.'

Spike was moving round the room clearing space at the centre, shoving stands until recently filled with chips and candy to one side so that the hard floor was exposed. Sasha felt like she was on a go slow, all the adrenaline in her body was peaking and troughing, she was exhausted and scared at the same time, guilty, desperate and confused. She watched numbly 

while Spike extracted a small brown paper bag from his trenchcoat and gestured her to join him. Slowly he began to pour a circle of coloured sand around them. It was almost complete when Sasha woke up and protested.

'Wait what are you doing?!'

'Well as much as I don't like the new council I reckon you've got a point… they've got resources... seers and witches and stuff… they might have a handle on this business… so I figure… we go to Italy.'

'What?'

'Little trick I picked up…' he grinned and let the last of the sand fall to form a compete circle around their feet. She felt his hand tighten over hers, heard a rush of wind and saw the light shift and bend around her. 'Welcome to the Shadow Paths,' Spike called, 'We'll be in Italy in a …'

-- --

The world around him shuddered with the last of the brewing sky's great contractions. It had arrived at last. A dozen millennia in waiting and the chance had finally come. The Old One had reclaimed his icy dimension and from here he could reclaim them all. As he fell from the sky his demons dropped to their knees, faithful minions all and he watch in satisfaction as his sheath of frozen spread over hell and dampened all its fire. Just a beginning, time yet to gain a little strength before breaking through… to the next step.

Lorne stumbled, steadied himself and tried to carry on. With the last great roar from the skies he had felt evil flood the realm. It was as powerful as the pain he had encountered in Wolfram and Hart before he had finally smashed the mirror. He took a few deep breaths, leaning on all fours, his life leaving him in small white bursts, crystallising in the cold. He was scrambling up the icy embankment which until minutes ago had been hard bare rock. He was sure he could see a patch of darkness half way up that might offer him somewhere to hide. A cave or an outcrop under which he could shelter.

Behind him an army was mounting. More and more of those creatures had fallen from the sky and it had grown colder by the second. He tripped and fell hard. The ice scraping his skin and drawing rich blood, sharply red against the blanket of whites and chilly blues. His hands were battered and bleeding, what clothes that had survived his blast through the vortex were flimsy and ripped. The freezing conditions penetrated deeply until he was sure his bones were frozen to the core, brittle with ice, he might snap at any moment. What good would it do him? Even if he found a hiding place it would only be a matter of time before something found him or before he froze to death or faded away. But there was a powerful instinct within Lorne and he couldn't give up just yet. Maybe he was a hero after all?

A bitter short laugh left him.

Or maybe he just wasn't ready to die.

'… jiffy.'Spike finished. Sasha staggered against him and clutched at her head, it was spinning like a top and she felt nauseous. As fast as it had begun the whooshing and swirling had stopped. Now she was just dimly aware of a warm room, an open fire and the lingering smell of musty books. Oh, and a female voice chastising her travelling companion.

'Spike what the hell do you think you're doing! You know people of the un-undead variety get sick when to take them on the paths!'

Sasha tried to place the voice, it was coming from… was that a couch? A leather couch?

'Yeah sorry about that Red, bit of an emergency,'

Willow. She'd always got on with Willow. A total sceptic when it came to magic, Sasha could appreciate Willow's good nature and wide eyed innocence and respect her quiet strength. When they'd first met it had been hard to believe she'd gone all dark and evil and nearly destroyed the world. She just looked too cute. Kind of fluffy like a bunny. She turned towards her groggily and felt a hand close over her arm.

'An emergency, I bet,' Willow guided Sasha onto a nearby chair where her head continued to spin more gently. 'I've just heard from the seers, and there's trouble a brewing again... you know... just to be different.'

'Yeah well whatever your new trouble is I'm not interested 'cos I've got me a little project of my own. Little rescue mission and I need a bit of advice.' Spike flung himself over an armchair and kicked back nonchalantly. 'This one here,' he pointed at Sasha, 'has been busy saving the world over at hellmouth central, note without much or any help from you lot,'

'I know,' Willow smiled at her, big green eyes wide and proud. 'The seers told me that too, you did amazing, bigger than amazing, I mean that was your first apocalypse right? We should have a party or something? And cake? There has to be cake right?'

'Yeah well what you're missing red is the minor factor that she didn't do it alone. She did it without you or queen Buffy which is all the better in my opinion… but she didn't do it alone…'

'Oh,' Willow said, 'You trying to tell us you had a hand in it… well that's great Spike but when are you going to learn we're never going to be impressed, its good that you're less with the evil these days and big with the helping but you don't get a treat every time to lend a hand…' she saw Spike sigh at her, 'and you don't mean you do you?' she continued.

'No. Not me.'

'Oh.' Puzzled Willow. 'She had help? Seers didn't mention that.' She pouted.

'Yeah well you can't get the seers these days can you? Now if I could get to the point, her little helper was a certain green demon type, cute little red horns, sings a nice showtune...'



'Lorne?' Willow squeaked. Her eyebrows shot up and her smile threatened to engulf the room, 'Lorne helped save the world?'

'Lorne saved the world,' Sasha corrected from her chair.

'Yeah and as a result he's stuck on the other side of a bloody great portal in a nasty hell dimension… so I thought we could pool our resources, civilised like and…'

Willow's face had fallen. 'He's on the other side of the mirror?' she said softly. Something in her tone struck fear into Sasha.

'Yeah… how did you know that?' Spike queried. 'No don't tell me the seers…'

'The seers saw the mirror destroyed; they saw the portal shut…'

'Well then they can tell us how to open it up again and get him out, it's only fair.'

'It can't be reopened Spike,' Willow said seriously. 'That's what they were warning me about. We have to seal it forever. The big evil that's brewing? It's brewing on the other side and its going to find a way through. It's a weakness in the interdimensional divides and it knows it. We have to use our magics to close the mirrors channels forever, what Sasha… and Lorne… managed to do is only temporary. Very temporary in fact, we're working flat out to find a way to stop this before it breaks through.'

Sasha's head was clearing, a fog lifted by panic. 'No he destroyed it, its over!'

Willow looked at her sympathetically. 'I wish it was. But it's not. We've still work to do and I'm sorry but… we can't afford to mess with this… we need to act fast and seal the portal forever. There's something on the other side more powerful than anything we've dealt with before….'

Sasha had ceased to listen to the explanation, she could sense the only truth she needed from Willow… the council had one aim and Sasha had another. They would not go back for Lorne… the good of the many outweighed the good of the few.

'You're going to leave him there aren't you?' she said.

Willow paused. 'He made a sacrifice. He's given us the chance... the time... to discover how to end this once and for all, we owe him so much but…'

'You don't owe him his life,' Sasha retorted bitterly, 'Is that what you're saying.?'

'It's not that simple…He'd understand,'

'Would he? Knew him well did you?' she said, fire rising in her belly.

'No… I just... I know it's hard… but the seers…'

'Screw the seers… I won't let you leave him there! When are you closing this portal? How long have we got?'

'I…' and Willow hesitated. She looked at the girl in front of her and saw traces of the same passion she had seen so often in Buffy. It tugged at her memories. That fierce loyalty. Times had changed and the battles had grown bigger and more difficult but something in Sasha reminded her of what things had been like years ago back in Sunnydale. Buffy would always put her friends first… it was a Slayer thing.

'I can get Lorne and I can stop this thing from spreading, there must be time,' Sasha said.

'There are a few days before the final spells are cast.' Willow said.

'Fine,' Sasha said, swallowing hard, 'Then we find a way.'

Willow said nothing.

'I'll find way then,' Sasha corrected.

'I'm in,' Spike contributed from his armchair.

'You know how risky this is,' Willow said, 'these are huge primeval forces you're messing with, I can only advise you to…'

'If I don't try he'll die,' Sasha said.

'If you try and fail lots of people might die,' Willow replied calmly.

Sasha rose from the couch still unsteady. She braced herself against it for a second and looked hard into Willow's eyes. 'Then I won't fail,' she said.

There was a beat.

'Hear hear!' Spike chimed in.

It was dark and he was underground, somewhere deep where the sarcophagi piled high over each other. A tunnel that led to the centre of the earth and far beyond where the old ones lay waiting, frozen dormant in their coffins from a time long past. The air smelled of rich soil and moisture and as he leaned over the flimsy bridge he saw dust and dirt fall from between the planks he stood on and vanish into the pit below. This is where He began and where something precious rested.

With difficulty he tried to raise his eyes, but it was like a weight was strung around his neck and hauling his heavy head down to look into the emptiness of a graveyard of gods. But he had to look up. If he looked up then the rest of his body would follow and he could make his way out of here and warn the others. He saw his hands grip a railing. The perfect detail of the backs of his hands. He focused hard on them willing them to move, to make their way along the rail, to pull the rest of him with them. But they were so stiff, he couldn't unlatch his fingers. What was keeping him here in this darkness?

And then the voice came faintly. 'You are my sunshine… my only sunshine...'

Lorne looked around sharply trying to place it. His eyes ran up and down the towers of sarcophagi. He spun about, desperately hunting for the singer.

'…You make me happy when skies are blue…'

He spun again and found Fred directly in front of him, pale and beautiful. He had a second to stammer her name and then...

'Stop him. He's coming. Don't let him break through.'

Lorne woke in the cave to the sound of drums and the ache of his frozen limbs.

-- --

This time her legs went from under her as they landed. Not that Spike cared particularly he paused for exactly half a second to see her land on her ass and then popped behind the gas station counter to stock up on cigarettes and refill his lighter.

'Figured I'd grab a few freebies, might be a bit of a journey ahead.'

'Jeez spike,' Sasha stood and brushed down her pants. 'Why bring us here can't those shadow thingies pop us back to Wolfram and Hart… it took hours to get to this lousy gas station and its going to take hours to get back.'

'Relax… we'll get there, the boogedy boogedies will be hiding out, it's still light we'll just drive back through, park up at the lawyers' place and go and save your mate.'

'Flaw. In. Plan.' She said.

'What's that then?'

'Daylight? Won't you explode and burn?'

Spike looked at the chinks of light coming through the covered up windows. 'We'll vamp proof the van.'

'Vamp proof it?'

'Yeah… few more newspapers, bit of tape, sorted.' He lit a cigarette, 'you telling me you didn't demon proof the Lornemobile when you guys were travelling? Or did you just drive around with him in the front and claim he was in fancy dress every time you stopped for gas?'

Sasha flinched.

'Touchy.' Spike looked at her curiously.

'We didn't' do anything to the van he used magic to disguise himself.'

'Oh yeah? Never thought of that. Must be some magic I could use… if Angel hadn't gone all hero and smashed that ring I'd be sunbathing by now… what magic then? Anti green magic?' he chuckled.

'He made himself human.' Sasha gathered some newspapers slowly in her arms. 'So we could take turns driving and not be stopped. He hated it.'

'Human?' Spike guffawed, 'Bloody hell that must have been a sight!'

'He looked…' and she stopped. 'It doesn't matter how he looked it was just something he had to do OK. You ready?' Sasha snapped, 'Cos I'm going to go and tape up the van and then I suggest we get moving before neither of us sees Lorne again human or otherwise.'

Spike motioned compliance and loitered by the window to watch her make her way to their vehicle. She made fast work of the taping, covering the inside of the windshield and tearing a hole for a view. Spike inhaled his last drag and squashed the butt under one heavy booted heel, his eyes narrowed in concentration.

'Love's bitch…' he mumbled.

-- --

'Fred?' his voice was rough. Had he dreamt her? She had seemed so utterly solid. His vision was blurry and he felt as though his eyes had frozen shut. He'd probably only been out a few minutes but it was enough to slow his body down. Painfully he pushed himself forward, crawling to the opening of the cave and the sound of the drums which had woken him. As he looked down the mountainside in inhaled with horror. The pale blue demons spread before him in a massive circle, lines of them, like spokes in a wheel, equipped with drums, beating a primitive rhythm in the valley below. But it was what lay at the centre of the circle that shocked him most. A tall figure holding court, its features too far away to distinguish, but the object behind it was familiar enough and the creatures which scrabbled over its surface like insects were bent on repair.

The mirror. With magics they were healing the mirror and the portal would open again.

He could cry. The energy was sapping out of him while his mind cursed at him to do something to stop this. But what could he do? Alone and broken in this dimension, pitted against an army of demons and their leader. How was it they had described him. 'The Old One.' Lorne had heard the term before now and it had meant badness. And Fred. Fred in his dream. It could only mean one thing. Another ancient had escaped from its sarcophagus, another Illyria unleashed on the universe, perhaps worse than her. There was no way of telling. He bit into his lip, a deeper shade of purple in the cold. He tried to think but even with this new fear his body felt sluggish and his skin tingled with frost.

Sasha would find a way. Someone back home would know what to do. She'd tell someone what they did and something… he shook his head trying to clear the blur of thoughts. How would they know. If that thing reopened it would take the world by surprise and the whole hellish thing would begin again.

'I have to… do… something…' he struggled, but the waves of pain from the dimension around him were beating him back weakening him. If he could just work out what the demons were doing, if he could get some sort of a handle on what was happening.

As he watched the tall figure by the mirror called for silence and the drums died. Lorne pulled himself by his fingertips to lean across the precipice and look further into the valley. The figure wore a silver-blue robe which washed around his ankles as he turned towards the mirror, glinting blue in the eerie light. Its shattered surface sparkled malevolently and refracted the broken image of the hooded thing in front of it. A slow chant began among the demons and the clear high tones of their leader could be heard above them all, curiously resonant in the bleak winter wilderness he had created.

'In the name of The Old One, Novica God of the Winter Torment, reform…'

The demons echoed him.

'Seek out from our number the strength you need… reform…'

The demon's responding murmur rumbled across the valley.

'Seek thee thy bless'd one and take of his being…'

The demons feel to their knees again. Lorne glanced up and the sky and saw that the clouds had once again begun to swirl. The air seemed too thick to breathe and the magic lay heavy in each breath. He was drowning in the power which flooded from the mirror and its keeper. He felt his skin prick with sweat although his body was like ice. The valley rumbled again and he felt the vibrations pass upward through the mountain so that his flesh throbbed with its pulse.

Below him the master of ceremonies finished.

'Reform!'

With a sudden crack a bolt of shattered light flew from the mirror's surface. It spun towards the mountain in which Lorne was sheltering and like a knife drove hard through his chest, paralysing him at the precipice. He was helpless as he watched the crowd below turn to face him, a sea of blue demons parting as the beam of light seared through them. He could feel them getting closer and he struggled weakly in the strange bindings from the mirror. After a few moments he could hear them scrambling up the mountainside and he closed his eyes tight. He didn't want to see them or what they might do to him. He felt long fingers curl around his wrists, the touch freezing and dry, and he stifled a cry. With a jerk the mirror released him to their clutches and he was propelled down the mountainside, still hardly daring to look. He could hear the excited chatter grow around him and he sensed a growing sense of wonder and curiosity as he was dragged to the centre of the crowd. With a final push he was flung down before the mirror and the thing in front of it. Its robes swished smoothly towards him.

A demon to one side of him scuttered backward away from its master and Lorne tried to bury himself inside his mind, his memories. If he was going to die he wanted to die with a memory not in this brutal hell dimension.

'I am Novica,' the voice above him spoke, 'The Old King of the winter dimensions and soon to rule earth. And you are chosen.' Its voice was light and toyed with him pleasingly.

Lorne became aware of the taste of copper blood in his mouth, he had chewed hard on his lip until he bled, the cry of anguish and fear threatening to burgeon up and choke him.

'You will embrace your destiny and bind your energies to the mirror, empath,' it went on, 'and you will look at me,' the voice said mockingly, 'Because you created me…'

Lorne opened his eyes and stared hard at the ground before him. He heard Novica laugh softly. And then a hand reached down and cupped Lorne's chin, raising his face to look deep into the Old One's eyes. Lorne tried to scream but the sound was taken from him, a finger placed hard over his lips, becoming wet with his blood.

'I had so hoped it would be you,' Novica went on, 'I had hoped that you would be pulled through by the mirror, because none of these creatures can help me, they haven't got what it takes.' He cocked his head and looked deep into Lorne's eyes. 'You have. It's what makes you so unusual, even on earth, your kind are unclean and yet... you are different. I would have been trapped here forever even if all hell had been sucked through the portal to earth and the apocalypse had never been halted. But your interference, demon, has given me this opportunity. It bought you here… it brought to me the one thing I need to break this spell and leave this dimension… your soul.'

A slow tear trickled from Lorne's eyes and Novica caught it with his hand as it moved across his cheek.

'Yours is the only soul in this dimension. And the only thing which can heal the mirror.'

Novica looked up at his demon army and smiled broadly. 'I have so much to be grateful for,' he mused, 'You end wolfram and hart's apocalypse for me, leaving my army free to reign on earth… you bring me your soul to drain and feed the mirror you shattered and break my binding spell at last… and last but not least…' Novica looked down at him and winked cruelly, 'you bring me this nifty glamour.' He stretched out his arms and inspected them before flipping back the silver blue hood, 'You had taste when you picked a human face for yourself Lorne,' he said, 'I can't question that at all,' he inspected his nails nonchalantly, 'but I bet you never thought you'd watch yourself end the world as you know it… did you?' Lorne slumped forward unable to look at him any longer and felt the darkness engulf him as his smooth human voice commanded, 'Prepare him!'

-- --