Author's Note : This next chapter, especially the end, will not be for the weak at heart. Remember that this story has an R rating and the last bit will be pushing the R, but I've refrained from getting too much into gory detail.

One remark about the whole Xander-thing: I've been catching some comments (and the occasional flame) from people about my rather negative portrayal of Xander in this series. The comments have been getting fewer since I've started Xander's 'redemption' a few episodes back, but I still occasionally get them. So let me just say that this episode will do a lot to redeem Xander in the eyes of his friends. Not completely, as he still did what he did for the completely wrong reasons, but a good deal.

I'm still not ever going to be a Xander-lover, but I do not, nor did I ever, intend for this series to be about Xander-bashing.

And now, on with the show!

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Part 7:

Most people who had met Cordelia would never have considered the notion, but the girl was actually quite smart. Growing up as the daughter of a very rich family had made her somewhat lazy when it came to actually applying her smarts, but running with the Vampire Slayers had gotten her back on her feet, mentally speaking.

She fully realized that Xander didn't believe her. She had told him how things had really gone down, that only Buffy and Angel had gone to Hell and eventually returned. He had just looked at her with that guilty impression. He believed that years of being tortured by demons had simply broken her, that she was imagining things. Come to think of it, Cordelia couldn't be a hundred percent that he was wrong about that. Still, she might as well assume that she was both sane and right, the alternative wasn't really worth considering.

Xander had agreed to go with her on a fact finding mission, mostly because he really didn't have anything left to lose and probably didn't want to let her go out alone. Especially seeing as she wanted to head towards the centre of this particular region of Hell, the ruling palace generally known only as "The Tower". She figured that the bad guy's HQ was as good a place as any to start looking for answers.

It was a long way there, but it left her with ample time to think. There were quite a few things on her mind. Not least of which was herself. Although she had no memory of it, she -or this body rather- had been tortured quite extensively. She was starting to feel the effects of that, both physically and mentally. She was brittle, no telling how long until she ran out of steam. So she had to hurry and fix this, whatever it was, before she was no longer able to.

Another thing that was on her mind was this place. Cordelia had never read Dante's Divine Comedy, but Buffy and Angel had told them quite a bit about their journey through Hell. So far this didn't look like any of the regions they had spoken about. Also, there was this thing with being unable to die here. The only way for Buffy to survive Hell's environment had been for Angel to give her his vampire blood. So how come all the normal humans here were just fine and pretty much immortal? It didn't make any sense. Was this really Hell? And if yes, what part of it? Which Circle?

Xander didn't know anything about it. Apparently at the very beginning of their exile here groups of people had tried to explore this place and find a way out. None had ever returned. He didn't know if they'd been captured or simply vanished. Cordelia knew that Buffy and Angel had found their way out by travelling through all nine Circles of the Inferno. Maybe some others had managed the same in this warped world? There was no way to know.

The Tower came into sight long before they actually reached it. It was humongous, much taller than any building had any business being, its top vanishing into the perpetually grey sky. The wind seemed to be getting worse the closer they came to this structure and Cordelia could feel a knot of fear growing in her belly. For some reason other than the obvious she was quite scared of this place. She soldiered on, though.

"No one has seen Buffy," Xander told her during one of their rest stops. "Deadboy probably killed her during their battle. If so I hope he did it before the world went to Hell. At least then she'd have been able to pass on."

Cordelia said nothing. She knew that Buffy had beaten Angel in combat. Or so it had happened in the world she remembered. Who knew what had happened here. She still figured that the bad guys' HQ was as good a place as any to find the Slayer.

"Not sure what happened to deadboy," Xander continued. "Then again, I could have walked right by him a thousand times and not recognized him. What with all the vampires shedding their human skins. If he's around he'll finally look like the monster he is."

They were getting closer to the Tower now and Cordelia tried to fight the rising tide of fear inside of her by thinking about the other people that should be here. Where was Giles? Or Oz? Or Willow? What had happened to them? Were they all in some camp being tortured endlessly? For a moment she even thought of Harmony. Was the airhead also a prisoner down here? She probably was.

There were no guards or anything. The doors of the Tower were wide open. Occasionally they saw long lines of prisoners moving in and out of the huge building, herded along by vampires and other assorted demons, but that was pretty much it. If not for the perpetual howling of the winds Cordelia might have said that it was too quiet.

"Cordy, let's go back," Xander urged her. "Believe me, there is nothing good to be found here."

"Were you ever in here?"

He hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Just once. Snuck in, hoping to figure out... I don't know. Maybe some way to reverse this. Or maybe just some way to get myself killed. That was before I knew that there was no way to die here. I almost got caught and ran for my life."

Cordelia shook her head. She had found Xander to be, at times, adorable, insufferable, courageous, a loser, a waste of space, and heart-warmingly open. Never had she imagined him to ever be so... defeated. This wasn't the boy she remembered. Of course not, she reminded herself. The boy died years ago. This was a man who had endured over a century of Hell.

"Well, I need to do this, Xander," she told him. "I know you don't believe me, but something screwed up this world but good. It isn't supposed to be this way and there must be some way to turn it back. And I'm not leaving until I've found it."

Without waiting for a reply she walked into the Tower, careful to stay in the shadows. She heard Xander uttering some kind of curse and follow her.

The inside of the Tower was a maze of corridors and doors and Cordelia quickly became convinced that the interior had absolutely no connection to the outside boundaries of the building. Of course not, would have been too easy. They managed to evade the few demons and vampires they saw. Once they had to hide out for over twenty minutes to let a line of prisoners and their guards past. The humans in that line looked even more miserable and beaten down than the ones outside.

"Do they have some kind of special torture sessions in here?" she asked Xander. "You know, the ultra-painful kind for the humans who were especially good in life or something?"

Xander winced, but said nothing. Cordelia didn't press him on it, the look of pain in his eyes enough to make her display tact for once. Instead they snuck on, evading guards, trying to navigate the maze that was the ground level of the Tower.

"Good thing we don't age," Cordelia joked as they stopped for a rest. "We might be in here for a while." The joke fell flat. She hadn't expected Xander to laugh, really.

"We might actually be getting somewhere," Xander eventually said. Cordelia followed his pointing finger, seeing a very ornate and big door a good distance down the corridor. There was something hanging off the door, but she couldn't quite recognize it from this distance.

Carefully they moved closer. With every step Cordelia tried to figure out what it was that hung off the door, but couldn't quite get it. It was as if their mind refused to recognize what her eyes saw. Xander seemed to be having the same problem.

It wasn't until they stood nearly in front of the door that they realized what it was they were seeing. The realization hit them with such force that they almost stumbled. Cordelia bent over and would have puked her guts out had there been anything in their stomach. Xander took a few steps back until his back hit the wall.

"No, no, no, no," he muttered, shaking his head.

Cordelia forced herself to look up, to see what she now recognized.

There was a body hanging from the door. Or at least what was left of one. Legs and arms were gone, no trace of them. The torso was a ruin, barely recognizable for what it used to be. It was actually sewn into the door, which seemed to be made from human skin.

The only thing still intact was the face. A face that was looking at them right now. The mouth was sewn shut, but the eyes were open and moving. The full awareness and impotent sanity shining in those eyes was maybe the most terrible thing about this entire grotesque display.

"Buffy," Cordy whispered. "Dear God, no!"

The other half of the door creaked open and a vampire stepped out. His human guise was gone, replaced by the twisted demonic features all vampires now carried. His voice was still the same, though, and Cordelia easily recognized it.

"Oh, Buffy, dearest," Angelus cackled. "Why didn't you tell me we have visitors?"

TO BE CONTINUED