15: Her first portal
Cordelia left it until the next morning to mention anything about her vision to Erica. Erica didn't mention her little outing to the others either. Her red sweater and her jeans were in the wash, so she was wearing a light grey tracksuit over a little green tank top, with a different pair of sneakers.
Lawson escorted them both down to the office after breakfast, and then went to take on a different case. Angel was waiting in the foyer on a couch, with a newspaper in his hands.
"You've been really quiet this morning," Erica said to Cordelia, once Lawson had left.
"You're going to have to try something very difficult today," Cordelia said. "The Powers want you to learn how to bridge the realities."
"In English?"
"Create a portal to another dimension."
"Oh, okay, is that all?" Erica asked with one eyebrow raised.
"You can do it," Cordelia insisted. "You can bridge the gap between realities, create gateways."
"I don't think I'm ready for that," Erica said, shaking her head.
"You're never going to get ready unless you practice." Cordelia reasoned.
"I don't even know where I'm trying to go, or how I'm going to get there."
"You've got the blood of the ancients running through you," Cordelia assured her. "You can't be hurt in the attempt. And I sort of got the Cliff notes – in my vision – on how to do it. Besides, this first time, we're not going to try and go to another dimension or anything, just to a different place on this world. You could just go across the room, or maybe you could try going back to Australia."
"Trying to get rid of me already?" Erica asked with a smile.
"Uh, don't go back to Australia unless you can take us with you," Angel interrupted as he scanned the front page for the usual: murders, disappearances, and unexplained phenomena. He wasn't taking the reality-bridging thing very seriously. Cordelia had already given him a summary of her vision on the phone the night before.
"Look," Cordelia said, ignoring Angel, "you've already got this in you. If you don't learn to use it, then one day someone else might come along and figure out how to take it from you. Trust me, you don't want that to happen, so lets just learn how to do it now. It might be useful later on."
"Fine," Erica said reluctantly. "Will this have something to do with another key?"
"Yep," Cordelia said. "This one is water."
"How much?" Erica asked.
"Eventually, as you learn to draw on the magic inside you, only a drop will do it, but for now I think it will be easier with, like, a bucket full of it."
"What will I have to understand about it?" Erica asked.
"That in another realm, which is like the control centre for all of the other realms, all of the different realities are represented as pools of water. They can be connected, like rivers to lakes. The rivers are the bridges between realities, but you have to make them into portals so that you can travel through them."
"With the water?"
"Right."
"I visualise all of that, even though we're not leaving this reality this time?"
"Yeah. And for now, it's just you going through. It could be dangerous for anyone else until you can control it all properly. It's possible to send others to different realities at once, or to not fully bring them out of this one first, but that usually means they get split apart. Obviously, not good."
Erica raised her eyebrows. "Ugh," she said simply. "So I'm on my own."
"Just for the few seconds between portals, and then you'll be back with us." Cordelia assured her.
"All right." Erica said, shrugging her shoulders before getting up to head to the staff bathroom just off the kitchens. It wasn't far from the foyer. She came back wheeling a mop bucket full of water, being careful not to slosh it over the sides.
"I'm going to help you," Cordelia said, taking a few steps back. "Take it to the other end of the room." Erica did as she was told. "Focus on me," Cordelia instructed, standing at the opposite end of the room. "Concentrate on ending up next to me, and visualise which way you're going to be facing, how high off the floor you'll be; everything. Imagine you're seeing me in that water. Imagine that a little piece of the essence of Life is in there too, making it powerful."
"And then?" Erica asked.
"When you can actually see me, draw the water up into a portal, big enough to step through. Then you can step into it and go where you've made it go."
"Draw it up with what?"
"Your hands, but you have to concentrate with your mind as well. Imagine those pools of reality."
Erica took a deep breath and did her best to empty her mind of all distractions. She knelt over the bucket, glanced back at Cordy, and then looked into the water. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and then opened them, her forehead furrowed in concentration. She thought she saw something and kept focussing on the image as it became clearer, willing it to form into the place she wanted to go to. Without anything touching it the water rippled. Instinctively knowing that it was the right time, Erica dipped her fingers into the water and drew them out. A stream of water followed her hand as she drew a wide circle with her fingers.
Angel put down the paper and took notice.
Erica kept moving her hand in the circle as she made the water spiral inwards until there was a solid circle of … it wasn't water anymore. It was swirling rapidly inwards and away from her. She could see different coloured swirls and occasional streaks of light flowing through the spiral, as quickly as if a giant with a straw was sucking it into another place. The last of the water detached itself from her hand and swirled into the portal she had made. Her hand was dry now.
Erica still had her hand outstretched, and she got to her feet. She could feel a breeze going past her. She could hear nothing but the sucking sound of the portal's energy, although it wasn't that loud. She was simply so focussed on what she had done that everything else had been drowned out by her concentration. She took a breath and leaned forward.
"Aaagh," Cordelia bent over and covered her head, her brain pounding with a vision.
"Cordy?" Erica asked with concern, halfway through the portal. It shimmered and wavered as she was pulled the rest of the way through. The portal closed behind her, leaving nothing but empty air and a bucket on the ground. She did not re-emerge within the room.
Angel pulled Cordelia over to one of the couches and sat her down. His gaze kept switching from the Seer's face to searching around the room. Nothing he saw lessened his concern.
"Cordelia, what is it?" he asked.
"It's going to be bad, Angel," Cordelia said when she caught her breath.
"What is it?" Angel said as gently as he could while feeling uneasy. "Do you know where Erica went?"
"Oh, it's ok, the higher powers will help send her back as soon as they find her," Cordelia said, "but I saw how she will be tested."
"How?"
"You," Cordelia said, meeting his eyes with a serious stare. "Angelus. She won't have to kill you, but her three protectors will lose their souls and humanities and become her hunters, trapped with her in some otherworldly battleground. If she can survive the tests with everything she's learned, you can go back to how you were, but …"
"We might kill her," Angel finished.
"You can prepare her for fighting vampires, you can even let her learn what you were like before the curse, but you're not allowed to tell her that one day you'll turn on her."
"Then why did you get the vision?" Angel asked.
"They want you to give her the best chance possible to survive, but they want her to be able to figure things out on her own, and to be able to improvise if pressured. Being Protector of the Midrealm is not an easy gig; she's got to earn it. You won't be the only test. It'll be hard, but not impossible for her to win. They will give her chances to learn what to do, to get prepared, before they decide to test her. They want her to win but that doesn't mean they're allowed to make it easy for her."
"How long do we have?" Angel asked, sitting on the couch beside her.
"More than a year, less than ten," Cordy answered. "After the tests she can hang around in this realm for a while until she ascends. And after the tests, we're free of our promise to guide her."
"You promised too?" Angel asked. "I thought you were just sent here."
"No, I was given the choice too. But you got asked by future Erica, right?"
"Yeah,"
"Well, I was already in contact with the PTB, so they asked me directly."
"What happens to you when we're finished."
"I can choose to keep the visions if I want," Cordelia answered, "or not and stay mortal, or I can go back to wherever I was before they asked me. I figure I'll make that choice when I come to it."
"Can we tell Lawson and Spike about the tests?" Angel asked.
"Yeah, but if you try to tell Erica about it the PTB won't let her hear you, or anyone else who tries to tell her. She will start to get stronger before then, but once she passes the tests she'll be rewarded with full slayer abilities and greater control over her Protector-related power."
"When will she be back?" Angel asked.
"That depends on where she went," Cordelia answered, looking over to where the girl had disappeared.
AN: No Seers or Vessels of Power were harmed in the making of this chapter.
888
Erica wanted to throw up. Everything in her body told her that something had gone wrong. She knew she'd lost her concentration, and that was a bad thing. Cordy had told her that she couldn't be hurt in the attempt, but what about her nausea, and what about where she would end up? She had no illusions that once she was out of the portal she could be harmed by something within whatever reality she got to.
Her eyes were closed against the light, but she could still see the swirling blue patterns of the portal walls rushing past her; the energy within the waves skimming and dancing over her skin like static electricity. Her hair was pushed back as though she was caught in strong winds, and the air was thin, but breathable.
Cordy had said a few seconds, but it seemed to be taking forever. Judging from the portal walls, she felt like she was lying on her side with her feet pointed where she had come from, but it was impossible to be sure about which way she was oriented. The portal could have been going straight up as far as she knew. The energy in the waves seemed to be holding her up in the centre of the passageway, so she wasn't touching the walls as she travelled.
Looking ahead and back, she could only see more of the portal. She couldn't see past the portal walls, but her best guess was that she was travelling somewhere between worlds, like Cordy had said. Every few moments she felt a jolt in her body and in the portal walls around her. She had felt herself turn in reality a few times, as though the portal was trying to decide on a suitable destination, and each time it felt as though her organs had been shoved back against her spine with the momentum. Where was she going?
Suddenly the portal convulsed and spat her out. "Aah," Erica yelped as she was dumped to the floor on her hands and knees. There were pale blue tiles beneath her palms and she could smell antiseptic. She took deep, slow breaths with her eyes closed until the nausea passed. Out of the corner of her eyes she had seen the sheets of a hospital bed to her left and a light blue curtain to the right.
She pushed herself to her feet and gave her head a small shake. She was feeling more normal again. Well, not that there was anything normal about being sucked into a portal to another world. But where she was didn't seem so otherworldly, especially because she saw a familiar face.
"Cordelia?"
Erica reached out to touch the figure lying on the bed. Cordelia's hands and feet were restrained, and she stared blankly ahead of her. She looked half-dead. She moaned softly and Erica put a hand to her forehead. "Cordy? What's wrong?"
Cordelia didn't respond or react in any way, and Erica realised that she couldn't. Something terrible had happened to her. Erica checked the chart at the foot of the bed. She was being prescribed painkillers and tranquillisers. Whatever had happened to her was hurting her.
"Okay," Erica whispered. She put a hand in her pocket and pulled out the lighter that she always carried with her. "I don't know how I got here or why you're like this now, but I'm going to help you."
Erica always used the same words to invoke the healing power, and as she looked at the flame and ran the words through her mind she felt the tingling start more rapidly. Cordy had said that it would get easier with practice. Eventually she wouldn't need the flame; the power would stop returning to dormancy like it did while she was still learning to evoke it. Eventually she wouldn't need the kiss either; she would be able to channel it and control it with a thought.
Erica leaned forward to kiss Cordelia's cheek and was thrown back at the next moment by some unseen force. Something powerful was at work here; fighting her efforts to help. She had hit the floor and rolled to take the force out of her landing. She got to her feet and rubbed her right arm, which had taken most of the force of the fall.
She was feeling the queasy sensation that usually accompanied healing, so Erica was hopeful that she had at least been able to do some good. Cordelia was still out of it, but now her eyes were closed. Erica wanted to take it as a good sign, but she was painfully aware that she didn't know anything about what was going on. All she had was hope.
"Excuse me," someone had drawn the curtains aside and was looking at her suspiciously. It took her a moment to place the face, but she did know him from somewhere.
"Oh," she said suddenly, "you're Gunn, right?"
"Who's askin'?" he said with a frown.
"It's me, Erica," she answered. "Erica Winters. We met at Wesley's funeral."
"I ain't never met you," Gunn said with a suspicious scowl. "And Wesley's alive."
"What?" Erica asked, "He was buried about a week ago and I …" It suddenly occurred to her that maybe she wasn't in the LA that she knew. "I could be mistaken … how did Cordelia get here?" she asked. "What's wrong with her?"
"I'm going to have to ask you to leave," Gunn said coldly. "Visiting hours are over."
"I'm not going to hurt-" Erica started arguing.
"Leave." Gunn ordered.
Erica took a step back. "If you see Angel," she said, "tell him that I'm looking for him. If he doesn't know who I am, then just tell him that I need his help, and I don't know who else to turn to."
Gunn didn't say anything, so Erica went past him and out into the hallway. She followed the exit signs out of the hospital and stood out on the street. She felt so lost. She knew she couldn't just stand there, so she started walking.