Walking Shadows
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
Xander kicked the wall in frustration. "Ow."
Anya scowled, irritably. "You're like some dumb hamster in an experiment. Kick, ow. Kick, ow. Face it Xander, you kick the wall, it hurts."
He rubbed his sore toe. "Well, I gotta do something. I don't cage well."
"Well, whoever is keeping us here is showing really poor hospitality, even for a demon. You'd think they'd at least try and eat us or something." Anya complained, crossing her arms. Being locked up was doing nothing for her mood. In the hours since they'd fallen into the cave her state of mind had gone from frustration to panic to irritated boredom.
Giles looked up, an equally bored look on his face. "Yes, because we'd of course prefer to be eaten rather than waiting for the cavalry to arrive."
She glared. "You're not helping!"
"I hate to be facetious," he replied, "But should I try whacking my foot against the wall instead?"
"Guys, are you there?" A voice floated in their minds, soft and barely audible, like a whisper at the end of a crackling phone line.
Xander jumped, looking around in panic. "Did you hear that?"
Intrigued, Giles stood up, glancing around the cave. "Yes, I did."
"Hear what?" Anya demanded. "I can't hear anything."
"Sssh!" Giles held a finger to his lips. "Wait!"
The voice came again. "Xander? Giles? Its Willow. Where are you?"
"Willow?" Xander replied out loud.
"Willow? Where?" Anya leapt up, tugging excitedly at his sleeve. "Where is she? I can't hear her!"
Giles stared them into silence. "Willow, we're in a cave or dungeon somewhere with no doors, we don't know where we are." He called out.
"You don't have to talk out loud. I can hear your thoughts." Willow replied, her voice becoming gradually clearer as she focussed in on Giles alone.
"Hey, I've lost her!" Xander complained.
"Can you locate us telepathically?" Giles thought back.
"I don't think so. It looks like I'm going to have to look around for the mistress of the house and ask her to let you out." She said.
"Mistress? House?" Giles asked.
"No time to explain."
Giles frowned with worry. Willow's voice sounded so strained, almost exhausted. He knew too well the kind of energy she must have expended to reach them, wherever they were. "Well, just be careful. We're all fine here, you don't need to take unnecessary risks."
She laughed softly. "It's OK, I've got Buffy-Bot here with me. Believe me, after the day we've had we're not looking for any trouble."
He felt a vague tingling sensation as her presence left his mind and realised that he'd closed his eyes to concentrate on her voice. When he opened them again Anya and Xander were staring at him.
"The cavalry has arrived." He explained, then added "They just don't know where we are."
Something rumbled below their feet, the ground lurching beneath them like a carnival fun ride. The stone shifted noisily, a slow, painful grind.
Anya caught hold of Xander to stop herself from falling. "What was that?"
Pieces of cracked stone began to fall from the ceiling, raining down on them.
"Great, now the place is falling apart," he snarled. "Doesn't anyone build good caves any more?"
Anya clung to his arm. "Xander, make it stop."
He looked around helplessly, watching more bits of the walls and ceiling crumble away. "Yes, and I've done such a bang-up job getting this situation under control so far."
"Just hang on. Willow's here." Giles soothed with a calm he didn't feel. "We've just got to give her some time."
"Who knows how much time we have left?" Xander replied, wiping dust from his eyes. "Whatever she does, I hope she does it fast."
••••
"Ok, so they're here, but they can't help us." Willow relayed the brief conversation she'd had with Giles to the Buffy-Bot. "Now we just need to try and get someone's attention."
They looked around at the room they'd arrived in.
OK, maybe room is an understatement?, Willow thought, her eyes feasting on their surroundings. They stood in the middle of an enormous hall, complete with woven tapestries, stone walls and giant wooden tables. The hall smelled musty and old, the air so still it felt as if no one had breathed in the room for centuries.
"Well, we've got Valhalla. Where are all the Vikings?" She whistled softly, her eyes taking it all in. "Anachronism much?"
Buffy-Bot looked around the room, her mechanical mind whirling. "Vikings. Scandinavian warriors who went into berserker rages to win battles at great odds."
"Well, I gotta hand it to him, Warren certainly did feed you well," Willow said. She looked around. "Now, which way should we go? Here's hoping the rest of it isn't quite so big." Absently she stretched out tired arms, wondering at the slight ache creeping into her bones. She shook her head, shaking off a desire to sit down and rest for a moment. No time for that!
"There." Buffy-Bot pointed. "That's a big door. Let's take that one."
"I don't think we want to just go wandering around." Willow said, walking in the direction Buffy-Bot pointed. "We could get lost…" She was cut off as something rumbled underneath their feet. The stone floor shifted roughly upwards with an ear-splitting grinding and popping sound, making them both stumble.
Willow grabbed a nearby table for balance, trying hard to ignore the dizziness in her head. "What the hell was that?"
"Willow look out!" Buffy-Bot dived on her and shoved her out of the way just as a huge piece of stone crumbled from the roof and crashed onto the floor where Willow had been standing, smashing into pieces.
They stared at the wreckage in shock.
"OK, this isn't funny any more." Willow said.
The Buffy-Bot looked confused. "It was funny?"
They heard a crack above their heads and watched in horror as one of the huge wooden beams slowly split down the middle.
"Willow, we have to go!" Buffy-Bot dragged Willow to her feet, pulling her along as she took off at breakneck speed.
"What if its like this everywhere?" Willow yelled, then screamed as stone smashed behind her. The huge doors ahead cracked open a little and swung in on their hinges, threatening to fall out of the door frame.
The cracking above their heads continued as the walls shook ominously.
Buffy-Bot used her body to shield Willow from more debris as it crashed to the floor. "Willow, what should we do?"
"What are you doing here? You're ruining everything!" A panicked male voice screamed from behind them.
Willow turned, coming face to face with the same short, scruffy man who had been in The Magic Box. "You! You did this. Where are our friends?"
He ignored her, pacing ahead, eyes blazing. "What are you doing here?" He repeated.
"Trying not to become flat." Willow responded, jumping out of the way of more falling debris. "What are you doing?"
"You don't understand!" The man took her by the arms and shook her. He glanced up at the crumbling ceiling. "We have to get you out of here before you bring the whole castle down around us!"
"Hey, hands off!" She threw his arms away. "You think I want to stick around in some creepy castle that obviously has structural problems?" Willow replied hotly. "Just let our friends go and we'll leave. Happily. With sing-songy gladness."
"The ones who came here with me? I can't let them out, only she can."
"Akasha, right?"
He nodded.
"Well, then you'd better take us to her." She stated firmly, drawing herself up beside the Buffy-Bot. "Or else we're all going to be buried alive in here."
She felt an ache in her neck, like she'd been leaning over a book too long and her neck no longer wanted to hold up her head. She stretched, the muscles giving a painful twinge. Both arms fell to her sides, strength suddenly drained from them.
Buffy-Bot looked at her curiously. "Willow? Are you injured? You look all white."
The man scuttled around them. "Humans can't be here in such numbers. Especially not you! The dimension can't handle it. You're polluting it! We had to lock them away for their own safety."
"Your own safety you mean." Willow spat.
He frowned. "Same thing."
"Oh, so what were you planning on doing with them if nobody came to get them? Just leave them there?"
His reply was cut off by another piece of the roof crashing down behind him. "Come on then. We don't have much time."
"They told me they were in some dungeon somewhere." Willow continued, picking her way along the now debris-strewn hall.
"Told you?" He panicked. "Mind-speak? You used magick in here?"
"Maybe." Willow replied, guarded.
An accusing finger pointed at her. "You're a witch! That's how you came here."
"And you're not. You're just human. That's why you needed the orb to come here, and dragged our friends with you." Willow replied.
He didn't reply, just turned and ran the length of the room towards the dais at the far end. Buffy-Bot sprinted off, keeping pace while Willow dragged herself painfully after them "Wait! Ow." Her leg cramped, dragging her body to the floor.
Buffy-Bot ran back, hauling Willow to her feet before another piece of falling ceiling threatened to crush her. She helped Willow limp towards an opening in the wall where the small man had disappeared.
A door swung inward, creaking on old hinges. More chunks of rock fell from the ceiling behind them. "Hurry! This way." A voice called from within.
Hesitant, Willow peered into the blackness beyond. "Do I have much choice?"
"Let me go first." Buffy-Bot pushed her way in front, checking out the entrance before stepping through. "It might be dangerous."
Willow half-smiled. "Sometimes its hard to believe how like her you really are."
"I wish Spike was here." Buffy-Bot replied wistfully. "He'd know what to do."
Willow stopped cold. "OK. Buffy would never say that."
"Are you coming? Or are you going to stand around chit-chatting all day?" The man called back through the gloom.
"Yeah, lead on Macduff." Willow flinched as the door frame to the main hall came crashing down behind them causing a giant boom to echo through the chamber. She couldn't even dig up the energy to be jumpy any more. Exhaustion seeped into her bones, making her whole body seem weighted down. Her footfalls got heavier.
"Could you go any slower?" The man doubled back, grabbing Willow roughly by the arm.
"Hey, I said hands off! I've spent all day undoing the mess that you created. It's taken a lot out of me."
He sneered. "The witch is fading."
"I've still got enough in the tank to make your life pretty damn miserable, so back off!" She snapped.
The man winced as something strong grabbed him from behind. Buffy-Bot grabbed his jacket and dangled him in the air, his head inches from bashing against the stone roof. "Willow? Should I hit him now?"
"Only if he keeps being obnoxious."
He waved his arms helplessly. "All right, all right, I get it, you're tough. Let's move on." He choked as the top button of his jacket threatened to crush his windpipe.
Buffy-Bot didn't move. She looked at Willow.
"Let him go." Willow nodded.
She obliged. He dropped to the ground, coughing.
The man staggered to his feet, clutching his throat with one hand and feeling around on the wall for something with the other. After a quick search he found a lever and pulled on it. A squeaky door opened and there was a sudden burst of light at the end of the tunnel. "Quiet!" He held a warning finger to his lips. "She's in there."
"Akasha?" Willow swallowed, suddenly nervous.
"Yes." He confirmed. "Please, don't hurt her."
The pleading in his voice stopped her short. "Hello, barely walking here," she whispered harshly. "She's a demon, how could we hurt her?" She reached out to steady herself against the wall and her back muscles screamed.
He paused, looking the two women up and down, face drawn with misery. "Because she's already dying."
••••
"Hey, it says here that Akasha's domain is like one big Medieval castle, only it doesn't end, it just has endless rooms and corridors that keep stretching off in all directions." Tara said, flipping through the pages of the Demonology encyclopedia. She'd been surprised to find a whole section devoted to Akasha that she'd never seen before. Not that I browse books on demonology for fun as a rule, she mused.
"Sounds like a great place to throw a weekender, you can just lose the guests you don't like." Spike quipped, taking a drag on his cigarette. "How bloody long does it take to travel there and pick up a couple of tourists anyway?"
He looked up at the clock. Hours had passed since Willow and the Buffy-Bot had just vanished from the middle of the room. The remains of the incantation still littered the floor of the Magic Box.
"I don't know. Maybe time passes differently over there… Oh God." Tara looked up from the book, her face ashen. "Dammit, when are we going to learn?"
"What now?" Spike asked.
She threw a hand in the air, anger radiating from her pale face. "You know, we should really learn to read the fine print when we cast hideously dangerous spells." She threw the book onto his lap in disgust.
He snorted. "How did we get from 'not so bad' to 'hideously dangerous' so quickly?"
"Read the last paragraph."
He scanned the words, mumbling them under his breath. "Interdimensional travel… higher planes… energy drains…eh?"
"Energy drains." She cursed under her breath.
"So?" He shrugged.
"So it's got a warning there about humans entering the demon's dimension, in big bright letters no less. Apparently humans hanging around in Akasha's domain sucks her energy, so she responds in kind." She stopped pacing around him long enough to point out another section of the text. "Especially witches. Here, read that."
Spike obliged. "Since the presence of humans in her domain causes immeasurable chaos, Akasha generally responds to an invasion of her dimension by draining the energy of human invaders. If the human invaders are practitioners who attempt to work spells within her dimension, conflicting powers can cause internal collapse. " He looked up. "You think Willow will try to work magick in Akasha's domain?"
"Is the Pope Catholic?" Bitterness oozed from her voice.
He shrugged. "I've often wondered."
She didn't smile. "The point is, ordinary humans do enough damage to Akasha's dimension and she generally gets pretty pissed off about it. If Willow doesn't find the others right away, the first thing she'll do when she gets there is try to contact them using magick." She took a breath. "From that moment on her powers will be fighting those of the demon."
"Which means the demon will be trying to hold her dimension together and Willow's powers will be ripping it to shreds," he finished.
"What happens when a demon dimension rips apart?" She asked.
Spike grunted. "Everything else rips apart right along with it." He closed the book with a loud thud. "The question is, what's happening to Willow and this demon while they play 'I've got a bigger stick'?"
Tara shook her head. "God I wish I knew."
••••
Willow looked him straight in the eyes, shock clearly visible on her face. "Dying?" Her eyes turned back to the room ahead.
"She was already sick when I came back here, a wasting disease demons sometimes get, eating her up from the inside." He explained, his voice cracking. "Then those other humans came so she had to isolate them from the rest of the house so they wouldn't drain her even more."
"But then I arrived." Willow said.
He scowled. "You're really strong. You worked magick. It attacked her."
"But I didn't know!" Willow hissed, indignant. "How could I? And while we're on the subject, what about what she's doing?"
He ignored her. "Certain types of magick are bad for her. You could kill her just by being here. If it doesn't kill you first."
Willow grabbed his sleeve. "You mean this exhaustion? What I'm feeling? She's doing that?"
The tunnel shook, small pieces of dust fell like grey snowflakes. He flashed another quick look at the bed before stepping back and allowing the Buffy-Bot access to the chamber. "Go ahead, we don't have much time."
"Wait, you didn't answer me," Willow insisted, but his eyes were fixed on the chamber entrance, rapt by what was inside.
Buffy-Bot moved with slow footsteps into the room, looking around her carefully for signs of inhabitants. She did a visual scan of everything in the chamber. Apart from the sleeping figure snoring softly on the bed, the room was empty. She waved Willow in, holding her hand up for caution.
"Don't worry, she won't hurt you," he said, entering the chamber last and walking over to the bed.
"Won't, or can't?" Willow asked.
"Does it matter?"
She shook her head, sharp pains stabbing into her neck and shoulders. "I guess not."
He sat down, careful to move the demon's arm out of the way. Willow watched as he reached over and stroked Akasha's face, his touch warm and loving.
She stirred. "Martin? Is that you?" Her voice was deep and echoed, like she was whispering through a long hollow tube.
"Yes, it's me." His voice was soothing, anxiety well hidden. "I have some people with me." He said the last part as a warning.
Her eyes bulged in panic. She struggled with the bedclothes, trying to sit up. Willow caught a flash of two extra limbs on her upper abdomen, otherwise the woman looked oddly human, for a demon. She wore a fine lace nightgown that seemed to fit in well with the décor of the room. "Humans? What do they want?"
"They are friends of the others who came with me. This one has power, she says has the means to send them back." He beckoned to Willow to come closer. "Though she weakens."
"I felt the extra strain on me today, I can't hold up the walls any longer." She hissed, a snake-like tongue smacking over her full lips. Her head turned, bloodshot eyes meeting Willow's for the first time. "I felt you here. I'm fighting against your power. You're strong. You're crumbling the walls."
"I'm not. I mean, I-I didn't mean to…" Willow struggled for breath, racking cramps moving up her legs and into her torso. She sobbed with agony. Buffy-Bot caught her in a firm grasp. "I'm not even trying to do it!"
The demon sighed painfully, taking a long, laboured breath. "Your power wars against mine of its own accord. It is its nature. You don't feel it?"
Willow ached everywhere. "Oh, I feel it," she wheezed.
"You're tearing down the walls of my home. Your kind of power cannot exist here! Go away!" She insisted.
Willow's face was stubborn through the pain. "Not without the people I came for."
"Did you think I would argue? The effort to keep them locked away drains hours from my life…"she gasped. "But they could not… be allowed to… contaminate this house. I did not have the strength to return them." She closed her eyes briefly and said a few words under her breath that Willow didn't quite catch.
She opened them again. "It's done. Soon they'll be free. Martin will show you," she rasped. Martin poured a glass of something green and viscous from a large pitcher at her bedside and handed it to her. She drank, racked with coughs. Specks of bright-red blood were coughed up onto her white sheets.
The demon leaned over and whispered something in his ear. He nodded.
"Come with me." Without looking back he moved to a door to the left and opened it, indicating that they should follow.
"Thank you." Willow said to the demon, not knowing what else to say. She willed her tired body to move.
Her face looked pained. "Leave, please. You're killing me."
"Willow, can you walk?" The Buffy-Bot inquired.
"I don't know," she said testing her strength. A piece of stone the size of her head dropped from the ceiling and smashed loudly to her right. At the same instant her body doubled over in pain.
Martin's mouth thinned angrily. "Don't you get it? We don't want any trouble with you. We just want to be left alone!"
Buffy-Bot grabbed Willow by the hand and pulled her towards the door. Willow tried to run, but her legs felt like concrete beneath her. "I'm hurrying, it's just that I'm so tired…" The world spun. She could feel her legs buckling but had no strength left to right herself. She instinctively braced her body for the impact with the ground.
She fell into strong arms. Buffy-Bot lifted her gently, following Martin obediently through the door. Willow felt the jolting movement of walking along as her muscles wrenched one last time, then the walls disappeared and everything went black.
••••
"Oh my God, Xander look!" Anya squealed in delight as the first full rays of light squeaked in from under the slowly opening portal. Stone ground painfully against stone as the door opened, like a hole was being ripped from the side of a stone cliff. They stared open-mouthed as the portal grew, eyes squinting against the bright torchlight beyond.
It seemed to take forever. As they watched the gap widened inch by inch, no more than a couple of inches every minute. The process of ripping a hole in that particular wall was obviously no easy matter.
As the gap eventually grew wide enough for a human, they watched as a small figure stepped into the opening. The silhouette placed her hands on her hips, long hair swinging. "Well, for a cave this isn't so bad. I don't know what you guys were complaining about. A window here, a little paint there, it could be cosy."
Xander swept the Buffy-Bot up into a huge hug. "I've never been so glad to see a robot in all my life!" Anya threw herself into the hug, nearly knocking the three of them over in the process.
Buffy-Bot hugged back enthusiastically. "I am glad to see you too. All of you. But we have to go. Willow is…"
"Willow!" Giles rushed over to the small pile of clothes that was Willow, slumped against the far wall. "What's wrong with her?"
"She's drained. Sick." Martin said softly, walking out of the shadows. "Her magick doesn't belong here."
"She must have used an amazing amount of energy to get here in the first place." Giles said. He pulled off his coat and wrapped it around the semi-conscious girl. "Who are you? And why have you brought us here?"
"No time for explanations, you have to leave." Martin said, his voice urgent.
"Listen pal, we'd like nothing better." Xander approached him, fists clenched. "But you're the one that got us into this mess. How do you propose to get us out?"
"The witch knows." He pointed to Willow. Her head lolled from side to side and she muttered incoherently. "She said so."
Giles scowled. "Now listen here, she's hardly in any state to…"
A slab of concrete fell from the wall behind them and shattered on the stone floor. They pressed themselves against the walls, eyes darting furtively upwards for signs of more instability in the roof. More cracks appeared.
"She's draining my lady's powers! You have to get her out of here!" Martin screamed. "She'll die. We'll all die!"
"We need the orb." Buffy-Bot put in, smiling helpfully. "Willow knows how."
"The orb?" Giles looked confused. "We don't have it."
"I do." Willow croaked. She opened exhausted eyes and looked around. "Hi."
"Willow, thank God!" Giles held her gently, propping her up against the wall.
"My pocket. The orb…" she whispered, tongue thick in her throat. Every part of her body felt like it was on fire.
Giles nodded and fumbled around, searching in all of Willow's jacket and pants pockets. finally he came up with the orb. He stared at it fiercely, inwardly cursing the benign object for causing so much damage, as if the orb could speak up and somehow defend itself.
Anya stared at the crystal as Giles held it up in the air. "How could you have mistaken this for a paperweight?" She accused. "Look, there's clearly something inside there."
"I don't see anything," he returned, staring harder into the harmless ball.
"The orb, give it to me…" Willow whispered.
Giles leant down, placing the small object in Willow's frail hand.
Buffy-Bot clapped her hands. "Ok, everyone gather round."
"Why?" Xander asked.
She smiled, the picture of an over-excited stewardess. "We need to be close enough to Willow to travel back with her."
"You mean we have to do that horrible shoulder-popping thing again?" Anya complained. A huge piece of ceiling crashed behind her and she yelped, jumping into Xander's arms.
He pointed at the crushed rock. "I give you your alternative."
She pouted, clutching him even tighter. "All right. Let's get on with it."
They looked expectantly down at Willow, who raised the hand holding the orb. Giles held her wrist, adding extra support as her hand shook violently.
She stared at it, calm in spite of her ravaged body. It was time to go home. One last ditch effort and they'd be home, safe, all of them. Her voice came out as a hoarse whisper, barely audible. "Take me… to Tara."