Standing on the Edge of Tomorrow III: Inferno
Notes: Thanks for your reviews and your patience!
Previously:
"Osiris cannot help you," the voice explained indifferently.
"But," Willow started, only to be interrupted.
"You have no right with Osiris," the voice replied.
"Please bring her back!" Willow begged, dropping to her knees in front of the form in the light.
"She is lost," the voice said softly. "She is lost. Osiris cannot find her. It is done."
Chapter Nine: Wake up Little Girl:
Tara slept restlessly for several hours before she awoke and found herself staring up at the black ceiling of a cave. Through the tangled webs of her tired mind, memories of what had happened in the high school basement came to her and she remembered why she was lying on a hard, rocky floor. However, her slumber wasn't entirely uncomfortable. She was leaning against a soft, warm body. Instinctively, she thought that the person was Willow, but then she remembered falling asleep against Kara, fatigued and emotionally drained from their harrowing escape from the hellhounds. That thought brought Tara's consciousness fully aware and she sat up straight.
"You okay, love?" Spike asked, noticing her sudden movement. He was sitting cross legged against the opposite wall. The dim, red light shining in through cracks in the cave roof played odd shadows on his face. His eyes gleamed. Tara thought something looked off about his expression, but it suddenly faded from his face, and she saw the familiar, warm hearted Spike she knew staring at her again.
"I'm fine," she said softly. She glanced over at Kara, who was still sleeping. "I just remembered where we are."
"Ah," Spike smiled and nodded. "Scared you, did it?" He asked and again Tara saw something sinister lurking in his eyes, as though he was excited that she was frightened.
"A little," she admitted uncomfortably. "Spike…," she began, "Are you okay?"
Spike sighed and the look vanished. "I can't say I like it down here," he grumbled. "Just being here makes my skin crawl. Like something's moving underneath of it."
"I know what you mean," Tara whispered, rubbing the goose pimpled flesh of her forearms absently. "How long has she been sleeping?" Tara asked. She knew that Kara had been having trouble sleeping back in Sunnydale. She was surprised to see the Slayer sound asleep here – wherever they were.
"Not very long," Spike shrugged. "She was watching over you for a while."
"And you?" Tara asked, looking at him again. "Did you sleep?"
"I woke up just before you," Spike nodded. "Had some awful dreams though," he said distantly, his eyes glazing slightly.
"About what?" Tara asked, but he didn't seem to hear her. "Spike?" She said louder. The blonde vampire turned his gaze to her. "What did you dream about?"
"I can't remember," he said quickly, but Tara thought that she saw a look of shame cross his face as he averted his eyes. Before she could pursue it, Kara stirred next to her. Her eyes fluttered open and, for a moment, Tara saw the same confused expression on the black haired girl's face that she knew had been on her own just seconds before.
"Hey," she said softly, so as not to startle the Slayer.
Kara shifted her eyes over to the witch and smiled. She glanced around the cave quickly and seemed to sigh with relief. "I see we're all still here."
"That's right," Spike said, clapping his hands together. "No hellhounds found us napping."
Kara moved away from Tara and stretched the muscles of her arms and back. The last cobwebs of sleep were dissipating from her mind when she stated, "I guess we should talk about this."
"Yeah," Tara agreed.
"Where to start?" Spike wondered aloud.
"First thing's first," Kara decided. "We need to agree on where we are exactly."
"Well," Tara said thoughtfully, "we got sucked into the Hellmouth."
"I think it's safe to say that we're in Hell," Spike said grimly.
"Okay," Kara nodded. "I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page in that regard. We're in Hell. So that begs a bigger question."
"Which is?" Spike prompted.
"Are we dead?" Tara stated, anticipating Kara's line of reasoning.
"That's right," Kara nodded. "Are we dead?"
"I don't think so," Spike shook his head.
"You don't count," Tara smiled. "You're already dead."
Spike rolled his eyes. "Thank you, Caption Obvious," he replied.
"Spike's right," Kara said, ignoring their playful banter. "I don't think we're dead either. I don't feel dead at least. I'm breathing anyway."
"Can't say the same," Spike joked.
"I'm breathing too," Tara replied, taking a deep breath as example. "So we've determined that we're not dead. But we are in Hell."
"Does that mean that we have a chance to get out?" Kara asked.
"What do you mean?" Tara inquired.
"Well, we don't belong here," Kara explained. "Only the dead belong in Hell."
"The dead and demons," Spike reminded them.
"Fair enough," Kara acquiesced, "but even so, you're not a typical demon."
"You have a soul," Tara acknowledged.
"So you don't belong here either," Kara thought aloud. "There has to be some kind of hierarchy here, right?"
"I see where you're going with this and I can't say that I like it," Spike interrupted.
"Why not?" Kara asked.
"You're proposing that we just waltz up to Lucifer and ask him for a bus ticket home because we accidentally fell into his world," Spike anticipated. "I hate to remind you, but Lucifer isn't exactly best buds with us right now. We beat his sorry ass."
"Besides," Tara said, taking Spike's side, "I don't think he would work with us anyway. He'd probably double cross us in the end."
Kara sighed heavily. "You're probably right. But how else are we going to get out of here?"
"We could wait to see if our friends try to open another portal," Spike suggested. "We can see the entire plain from the mouth of the cave. If they opened a portal, we'd see it."
"We don't know if we'd be able to reach it in time," Kara replied. "It could close before we reached it."
"If they even can open a portal," Tara interjected. "They may not be able to. Or, they might be able to, but won't because they're afraid that opening the Hellmouth again would do more harm than good."
"Weighing the good against the bad," Kara nodded. "The bad would win in that scenario."
"I agree," Spike nodded. "Buffy and Faith love you, but Giles would convince them that opening the portal again would cause infinitely more harm."
"I don't know," Tara shrugged her shoulders. "The love of a mother may be stronger than the call of the Slayer."
"I think we've determined that we can't rely on them," Kara decided. "If we do, we could be waiting forever."
"What about you?" Spike asked, turning his blue eyes to Tara. "Can you open a portal?"
"Like I said before," she said, her voice troubled, "I don't know. It would be risky."
"Run through the risks again," Kara instructed.
"Firstly," Tara admitted, "I may not be strong enough. Willow is a powerful witch. With her, I could do anything, mostly because she can do anything. Without her," Tara shook her head, "I'm not so sure."
"Let's assume for the sake of argument that you are powerful enough to open a portal. What would the next problem be?" Spike asked.
"I'm not very knowledgeable about portals," Tara stated. "I could open one," she said thoughtfully, "but I don't know that it would take us where we want to go."
"What do you mean?" Spike asked.
"There are many worlds," Kara said darkly. "I know, I came from one of them."
"I could take us there inadvertently," Tara said.
"That's not a place you want to go," Kara shook her head.
"No," Tara smiled sadly. "It's not. I could accidentally take us there or someplace worse."
"Or you could take us home," Spike said.
"I could," Tara said slowly. "Possibly."
"Are there anymore risks?" Kara asked.
"Yes," Tara nodded. "The most important problem of all is the fact that we're here at all. We're in Hell. Everything here is evil. Even if I tried to use magic to achieve some noble end, the fact that this place is so evil could distort that end and cause chaos back in our world. This place could bend my actions to its will and use the portal to release more evil into the world."
"And that would not be good," Spike said, but when Tara looked at him again, she saw that unfamiliar gleam in his eyes.
"No, it wouldn't," Kara said thoughtfully. "Still, I don't see any other way."
"We have to get out of here," Spike said, shivering absently.
"Yes, we do," Tara nodded. "I'm just not sure this is the way."
"Do you have any other ideas?" Spike asked.
"Actually, I do," Tara said. "For now, we don't we look around? See if we can't find something to help us here?"
"You think there's anything here that could help us?" Spike asked. "You just said that this place was evil through and through."
"It is," Tara smiled wryly. "But I have a feeling that we might find something that could help us. I don't know why," she added softly. "It's just a feeling."
"You women and your intuition," Spike chuckled. "What do you think Kara?" He asked.
The dark haired Slayer was gazing intently at Tara. "I think if she believes that we should check this place out, we should."
"Okay," Spike nodded. "I'm with you then." Rising to his feet, he stretched. "Let's not wander far though," he suggested. "There's water in this cave. I don't think we want to waste that resource."
"You're right," Kara nodded. She rose to her feet as well and Tara followed suit. Spike began to walk to the front of the cave and when Kara moved to follow him, the blonde haired witch laid a stopping hand on her arm.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?" Tara asked quietly.
"What is it?" Kara asked concernedly.
"It's about Spike. I think there's something a bit off about him," Tara replied.
"Off?" Kara asked.
"Yeah," Tara nodded. "The way he looks at both of us sometimes. Some of the things he says. He has this strange gleam in his eye."
"What're you trying to say?" Kara inquired.
"I think this place is getting to him," Tara suggested. "He mentioned something about a dream, but when I asked him about it, he lied to me. He looked ashamed. I don't know, Kara. I just think something's wrong."
Kara didn't reply for several long moments. She remembered falling asleep with Tara leaning against her. She had seen a flash of Tara dead and some part of her had enjoyed the vision. Whatever was affecting Spike was affecting her as well. But she didn't want to tell Tara that. "I'll keep an eye on him," she said finally.
Tara nodded, as if satisfied. "Okay," she said.
Kara smiled tightly. "Let's go have a look around."