Part 9:

"Me and the Slayer had this thing worked out," Spike began, leaning his broken body against the wall and looking at his captive audience. "I'd stab Peaches in the back, she'd let me and Dru get away. That was the deal. Didn't quite go down that way."

He sighed, obviously not relishing the memories he called up.

"Looked good at first. Angel didn't suspect a thing, the dim wit! I'm almost sorry I didn't get to see his face as I got out of the bloody wheelchair. But whatever, clocking him from behind made me feel pretty good, too."

"We know that part," Xander said, sounding tired. "What happened after I took the G-man out?"

Spike gave him an annoyed look, but seemed too tired to even comment on it. "Dru didn't take too kindly to me turning on Peaches," Spike continued. "She jumped me, tried to scratch out my eyes." He sighed deeply. "How can you not love a girl like that? Anyway, Slayer was still busy finishing off one of the boys, so Peaches took the coward's way out and pulled the sword thing out of Akathler. Didn't have the stones to take her down first."

Cordelia, trying to keep her wits together, listened to Spike's words with great interest. So far everything sounded exactly like Buffy and Angel had told it not too long ago. But something must have gone down differently for the world to end up like this. Something must have changed the past. She clung to that belief with every ounce of strength she had left, hoping she hadn't made it all up after all.

"They fought like hell," Spike continued. "Bollocks, I might as well admit that they impressed me a little. Poof seemed to be winning when I finally got Dru down and got out to head for higher ground. I'd barely made it to the car, though, when the building caved in and the bloody portal began to swallow everything up."

Damn it, Cordelia thought. Spike didn't know anything, either. He, too, had left before the battle between Angel and Buffy concluded.

There had to be some way to figure this out. Some way to make sense of it. She could feel the madness clinging at the edges of her mind, just waiting to swallow her up. She had to do something, anything, to keep it at bay.

"Do you know where we are, Spike?" she asked the first thing she could think of. "I mean, duh, we're in Hell, but where? Which circle?"

Spike gave her a funny look. "Circle? What do you know about the circles?"

Cordelia shrugged. "I know that Hell's layout roughly corresponds with what Dante wrote in his Divine Comedy." Throwing a side look at Xander, she added "don't act all surprised that I read some books now and then, okay?"

Truth to tell she had never read the book in question, but Buffy and especially Angel had told them a lot about Hell and how it corresponded and differed from Dante's work.

"Wouldn't have thought you had it in you, pet," Spike laughed brokenly. "Bint's right, boy. Hell is pretty much like Dante wrote. Not sure where the guy got his info from, but he got lots of it straight."

"So which circle is this?" Cordelia asked again.

Spike laughed. "Funny thing, really. Turns out that Hell wasn't exactly thrilled to get six billion new immigrants of the living variety. Oh, maybe they liked it in a general way, you know. Sending all humans to Hell's gotta appeal to any decent bloke. Still, it was pretty much chaos. Six billion people is a lot even if you got infinite space to work with, or so I was told.

"They made a new circle, that's where we are, pet. Number eleven, though I'm not certain why it isn't ten. Anyway, I haven't got the slightest where we are in relation to the other circles. Never did get the chance to get much sightseeing done."

Cordelia was thinking furiously, mostly to try and keep her sanity together.

"Is that why people are not dying? Because this circle was made specifically to keep the living prisoner here?"

Spike laughed at that, laughed so hard that his broken body shook.

"Oh, pet! You don't know how right you are. Yeah, they made this bloody circle to keep the living alive. Demons are demons, you know? The idea of actually torturing someone alive really got them going. So they took great pains to keep them living. There is no way out for anyone alive." He chuckled deep in his throat. "Except one, that is. Peaches didn't much like finding it, let me tell you."

"What?" Xander asked. "There is a way out?"

Spike gave him the finger. "Not one you're gonna like, boy. You did see your old kiddy friend earlier, didn't you?"

Xander obviously needed a moment to understand, but then horror dawned on his face.

"Willow," he whispered.

"Yeah, sweet little red," Spike nodded. "Bloody hell, Peaches is still regretting that one."

"What happened?" Cordelia asked.

Spike turned back to look at her. "What happened? Angel tried to be a fuckin' artist again. The great Picasso of Pain or whatever it is he calls himself these days. Turns out the little red tree tried to recurse him with his soul just before it all turned sour. He didn't like that one bit.

"Figured he'd be real smart, you know? A little insider info here, mates: Becoming a vampire hurts like hell. You swallow that cursed demon blood for the first time, it burns like fire in your veins and when death comes you welcome it with open arms. So Angel figured, what with people unable to die here..."

"He'd subject Willow to an eternity of that pain," Xander finished. "I'm gonna kill that bastard!"

"Yeah, good luck with that. Trouble is the poof didn't get what he wanted. Turns out being turned into a vampire is the one way to die around here. So sweet little Willow got vamped and... well, I guess her soul went wherever it is that souls go. So now the one he wanted to hurt the most got away from him and he's stuck with the vamp bitch from Hell, pun intended." He laughed. "Really screwed up his perfect little kingdom of pain here."

"Oh God," Cordelia whispered. This was getting worse and worse. She didn't know how much longer she'd be able to hold it together and no opportunity to make it right seemed to present itself. There had to be some way. Buffy'd be able to think of a way if she wasn't a door ornament now. Cordelia heard herself laughing bitterly at that thought and it didn't sound entirely sane.

Xander shook his head. "This is all my fault. I knew it was a mistake," he muttered.

"What?" Cordelia asked, barely listening anymore.

Xander looked up, rage and pain in his eyes. "Buffy should have killed that bastard," he spat. "And maybe she would have if I hadn't gone soft."

"Oh, there was a time you weren't soft?" Spike mocked. Cordelia and Xander both glared at him, which made him shrug. "Hey, I gotta find my fun where I can get it these days, okay?"

"Xander, what did you mean?" Cordelia asked.

"I messed up, Cordy, that's what," he yelled at her. "Buffy was all psyched up to kill Angel. I shoulda just let her. But no, I gotta be all noble and tell her that Willow was gonna resoul him. If I'd just..."

Cordelia didn't hear the rest of his words.

"That's it," she whispered, then started laughing. "Oh God, that's it! That's what went wrong. I should have known! I fucking saw it happen! Why didn't I get it before?"

Looking up, she saw both Spike and Xander looking at her. She guessed her laugh must have sounded even more crazy than before.

"That's it, don't you see?" she implored. "Xander told Buffy that Angel would get his soul back, so she hesitated. She woulda kicked his ass, but held back and that gave him the chance to finish his stuff and now the world's in Hell."

"That's what I just said," Xander told her. "Rub it in a little more, will you?"

"No, you don't understand," she pleaded with him. "It didn't happen that way the first time. You went there and instead of telling Buffy about the soul thing you told her to kick his ass. So she went and kicked and he got his soul back in the middle of the fight and she was forced to kill him to seal Akathler's portal back up, but it didn't happen that way because now you DID tell her about the soul thing and I guess that made her hesitate just enough for him to win and open the portal before Willow could finish her spell thing and..."

"Hold on a minute there, Cordy," Xander interrupted her. "You're not making any sense."

"What do you expect?" Spike asked. "Been wonderin' why the bint was so together again. I guess the pieces don't hold together anymore, do they?"

"No, this is all wrong," Cordy repeated. "I finally figured out what changed." She hesitated a moment. "Oh God, it was me. That stupid wish I made in front of that stupid demon girl and..."

"Hey, don't call me stupid, okay?" a new voice intruded.

All three conscious inhabitants of the cell turned to look at the new arrival, who stood near the door and looked back at them with a sheepish impression.

"Stop with the looks, okay?" she said, wringing her hands. "I know I messed up, but that isn't any reason to resort to name-calling."

"Anya," Cordelia spat.

"Well, it's Anyanka, actually. And I... well... I guess we need to fix some stuff, right?"

TO BE CONTINUED