Buffy hmmed and stretched, a wave of warmth and contentment suffusing her body as she slowly swarm up through the layers of consciousness to greet the morning. As she neared the surface, she paused, the growing darkness and ominous chill ahead clouding her already baffled senses, and casting a shadow over the new day. Still loosely wrapped in Morpheus’ sweet embrace, Buffy hesitated. Sleep was good, warm, safe. And she’d suddenly been struck by the realization that awake was … not.
The trouble with realizations was that they tended to come hand in hand with consciousness, even if it was only the semi kind. And once you’re halfway there, no amount of scrabbling was going to sink you back into the blessed oblivion. There was little point fighting it. But she already knew that for some reason, the contrast between last night’s sweet dreams and this morning’s rise and shine was gonna bite like a bitch.
And it did. The cold, damp air nipped at her nose and brow, hunger plucked a familiar refrain in her belly, and fear, for herself, and for her child, played hopscotch up and down her spine. It was a rude awakening after the vivid sense memories of her time in Spike’s arms. To be surrounded by his adoration and protection, even if it was only the dream plane, had left her feeling so serene and so loved that waking up was a bit like stepping out of a hot bubble bath and into the chill of a dark winter’s night. The happiness that had seeped deep into her pores during her long soak in their shared joy was never going to be enough to stave off the reality of the harsh light of day.
Nevertheless, there was no putting it off. Her captor was grunting at her, “Kalkmak,” and prodding her. She wasn’t even sure what language it was, but after days of his simple phrases and physical back up, she’d sussed the odd word out. She struggled up, folding up the space blanket and stowing it in Devrim’s backpack before taking the packet of dry cereal that he handed her. It was a little weird that she was on a first name basis with her kidnapper, but she had to call him something other than Sneaky, and there was really no danger of her developing Stockholm Syndrome.
As she ate her breakfast and drank the mug of dark, bitter coffee that Devrim had thrust at her, Buffy took stock of herself. She was cold (although she knew she’d warm up once they started climbing), dirty (that was a given, she added layers beneath and on top, but otherwise she was still wearing the same clothes she’d put on however many weeks ago – ew!), hungry (even with the dry cereal half consumed) and a little achy (mostly legs, a bit of back pain, nothing to worry about). But otherwise she was feeling quite chipper this morning. She still had her strength, she could feel bubba wiggling around inside, obviously eager to hit the trail, and that little tingling thrill that zipped up and down her spine, the one that said ‘Hey pet’, was … there! Oh my God, she could, she could feel Spike’s presence.
She bit down on her tongue hard, trying to suppress a loud sob of relief. It wouldn’t do to get Devrim suspicious. But she couldn’t control her face muscles, couldn’t help the huge grin that broke out, or the quiver of excitement that rippled through her body. And she couldn’t stem the flood of pure joy that inundated her soul, or the tears of overwhelming emotion that painted silvery trails down her cheeks.
After weeks of being lost and alone in the dark, she could sense Spike. Which basically meant all kinds of good, like he was close at hand, he was coming for her, he’d never given up, and he’d kick this guy’s ass. But more than what it meant, was how it felt to Buffy. That warm bath feeling was back, enveloping her in love and belonging. The sense of connection that cascaded rightness through her body was back, back where it fit just so. It kicked her brain into another whole gear, lifting her head above the sea of depression she’d wallowed in for so long. Promise of rescue and escape was enough to make her take proper stock of her surroundings for the first time since they’d arrived late the previous evening.
The cavern they were in was huge, and the floor, for the most part, was rocky and dry. She could see a large pool on the far side of the chamber, and the wall behind it glistened in the light of their lanterns, the trickling water providing a constant background melody to their drama. But most of the room was hidden in the shadows; so vast was the space around them.
It felt like the Staples Center after the constantly cramped, steep, twisty tunnels Buffy had spent the last endless days and weeks scrabbling through. It had been cold, uncomfortable, and grueling, the endless, endless walking and crawling with no seeming end in site. Now and again they’d met a fork in the path, Devrim consulting a crumpled and almost indecipherable map before striding off in one direction or another.
Physically it was tough but manageable; even at six and a half months pregnant Buffy was fit and strong. But mentally, and emotionally, it was torture. She had no idea where they were going or why, apart from the ever present flashbacks of her baby loss nightmare. The similarities after all were undeniable; she was definitely living the nightmare.
She’d thought about killing Devrim, or even knocking him out, of course she had. But she had no confidence that she’d be able to find the way back, or the way forward, wherever that may be, and the thought of wandering endlessly round in circles, lost in a maze of tunnels miles beneath the surface of the earth was truly more terrifying than having to fight her way out of whatever situation awaited her at the end of their never ending journey.
Buffy knew they were a long way underground. When Devrim had marched her towards the edge of what had seemed like a bottomless pit, she’d thought her fate was to be pushed off the bridge and to fall endlessly to her death. She wished she could say that the thought had amused her in some way, prompted a mental ‘been there, done that’ quip or a request from the Powers for frequent fallers’ points. But it hadn’t. It had terrified her, striking such a huge chord of fear, so deep down in her soul that she’d frozen. Not quite to the level of inertia that she’d been in when Dawn was taken by Glory, but only one storey off. It had taken quite a lot of yelling and shaking from Devrim to get her responsive and moving again.
With plenty of time on her hands over the last however many days, and with little to do but walk and think, she’d reflected somewhat on her reaction, and how different it had been from being on top of Glory’s tower. She’d never suffered from vertigo before the tower jump, and she couldn’t strictly say that she did now. It wasn’t really the height that freaked her out. And it wasn’t necessarily the fall itself either. She’d had flashbacks of that long plummet quite frequently, the sensations, the emotions. But they weren’t of a nightmare quality; none of them set her heart to pounding or her stress levels through the roof.
Maybe that was because she still didn’t see the tower jump as a bad thing. She hadn’t been scared, she’d been finished, and if not happy to jump, at least she’d been reconciled to it. The jump itself wasn’t frightening, or even necessarily painful. If anything it was kind of surreal. Although the tower wasn’t freakishly high, the fall had seemed to last forever. Blinded by the eldritch light of the roiling, tearing inter dimensional rift, and buffeted by the howling winds of a thousand unlocked portals, she had plunged through space and time. The vast, colliding energies had screamed and roared all around her, dragging her this way and that, tugging at her hair and clothing and pulling at her very molecules. The enormous g-forces had pummeled her body, and driven her blood towards her feet, leaving her light headed and weak. The last thing she’e remembered before she’d blacked out was a sensation of weightlessness, of destiny, of fate fulfilled.
It had been a peaceful feeling; pride, in a job well done; relief, that Dawnie was safe, that the world was safe; and above all, acceptance, that it was her time, that she was ready to receive her gift. Death. She’d had no fear of it, no desire to stave it off, and she was ready to go gentle into that good night.
Which is undoubtedly what had her so fearflu on the bridge. The thought of dying now, of being taken from this world, was more terrifying to her than it had ever been in any of her previous incarnations. Her death, in this manner, would not only be senseless, it would also mean the death of her precious unborn child. Just the thought of that was so heartbreaking that she could barely breathe. And what would it do to Spike? It wasn’t hard to predict. He would barely survive her death, but to lose the baby too; she knew he’d as soon walk out into the dawn as live on without them, and that wasn’t even a viable option now that he’d been upgraded. But some way or another, he’d take himself out of this world.
And how would it affect her friends and family. Her previous death had been devastating for them, creating a whole raft of sadness and negativity that had spiraled out into a cocktail of control, addiction, desertion, abandonment and violence. It was a potent, but nasty little concoction, and it had taken a long time for everyone to recover from the hangover. Whether they would a second time was questionable.
As for the prophecy, the loss of the Light Warrior and the Child would lead to the failure of the Sagaria Prophecy. The baby Slayers, the Legion of the Light, would lose their newly activated powers, and without them the battle against the Scourge of Amroz would be futile. Even ignoring that outcome, taking the capital S Slayer, and one of the scions out of play, well who knew what impact that would have on the coming battles? No, going the George Bailey route didn’t even bear thinking about. So, bad for her, bad for Spike, bad for their child! Bad for the Scoobies and Amazon in general. And down the line, bad for the world! So basically badness all round!
Buffy didn’t want her death to mean so little, for it to create such unhappiness and ruin. But as much as she hated the thought of what it would do to the others, more than ever before, she hated the very idea of leaving the playing field herself. Above anything else, she wanted to live. This life she and Spike and the others had made for themselves was beyond her wildest expectations, far greater than the nebulous, picket-fenced future that her sixteen year old self had envisaged with Angel. She was happy; truly, deeply, joyously happy for the first time in her life. And damned if she was going to give that away.
So, she’d snapped herself out of her funk, determined to survive. She let Devrim guide her across the bridge, and over to a platform. In the far corner a pile of equipment was waiting for them, a length of rope, two climbing harnesses and two helmets, each with a mounted light. When her captor unlocked her cuffs, and indicated that she needed to suit up, she’d decided that compliance was preferable to a long, lethal plunge. Somehow she didn’t think that even her sigils would be able to protect her from the effects of a fall. So, she’d dutifully buckled herself into the harness and fastened the helmet’s chinstrap. Devrim had clipped one end of a length of rope to the back of her harness, out of her reach, and the other to himself. He’d sheathed his sword, shrugged on his backpack and they were ready to go. Impatiently he’d nudged her over to the edge of the platform.
Next to the wooden deck Buffy had spotted a set of metal rungs attached to the rock wall. They’d disappeared over the lip, and as she drew nearer, foot on the top step at her captor’s insistence, she’d looked down. The ladder had marched silently down the face of the shaft, its regiment of metal bars glinting dully in the eerie light that emanated from the abyss. Down and down it went, an endless millipede, its nether regions lost beyond sight.
Slowly, tentatively, and only at Devrim’s grunted impatience, she’d swung herself out and onto the ladder, and begun the start of what was to become an interminable journey. The rungs were spaced at 12 inch increments, a fair step for her short legs, and with her protruding baby bump necessitating a slight outward lean, even her level of strength and fitness was set to be tested. Still with Devrim above her, and the rope attaching one to the other, there’d been little she could do. She’d set off, determination propping up her cast-iron survival instinct.
Only seventy or eighty feet into their descent, they’d come to a thick band of swirling white light. Despite a lack of obvious light source, the glow had nevertheless filled the shaft completely for a distance of about twenty feet. Buffy had hesitated, and only her captor’s barked command and the prodding toe of his boot had started her going again.
As they’d passed into the light, the air had shimmered and eddied around them, and she’d felt a slight tugging sensation, not unlike the gentle wrench she felt whenever she stepped through Dawn’s doorways, or that time with the Shadowcaster’s portal. But that little fun fact had only really registered at a subliminal level. Because overwhelmingly, her mind, her heart, and her soul were screaming out in pain and anguish as the connection with Spike, with life, had just slipped away.
Later it had occurred to her that the light field was probably a portal of some kind, the gateway to another dimension, or more likely to some kind of pocket dimension within the planet’s normal space/time continuum. Or whatever. She kind of zoned out whenever Giles or Willow talked about that sort of stuff, so she wasn’t too sure of the technicalities, but it seemed right given the surroundings.
But at the time she’d been incapable of thinking about portals or dimensional anomalies. In fact she’d barely been able to breathe, let alone walk, talk or make her way down a ladder. The sudden disconnection of her link with Spike had hit Buffy like a freight train, knocking the stuffing out of her. Hit anew by the terror and abandonment of her baby loss nightmare, she’d faltered and frozen. As long as her connection to Spike had continued to hum away up and down her spine, she’d felt positive and hopeful, certain that he would find her, go to the ends of the earth to bring her and their baby home safe.
But now, now Buffy just felt small and scared, lost and alone in the dark. For the first time since she’d been brought back, she’d felt less. Less brave, less strong, less sure, less her. A thick black cloud of depression had descended over, wrapping her in its numbing embrace. Once again she’d been tempted to slip back into a catatonic state, where she didn’t have to acknowledge the pain of that huge gaping hole inside of her. And despite the realization she’d arrived at only minutes ago, for a moment, a tiny fraction of a moment, she’d considered just letting go, just giving into the despair and falling.
That little mental slip had shocked Buffy. Although the emptiness of lost connection echoed inside her soul, her reasons for fighting, for surviving, had not changed. She’d been on her own for years before she and Spike really connected; she knew could do this. And intuitively she understood that the link was down not because something bad had happened to Spike, but because of some sort of interference. The light field was probably blocking the inward signal.
For the first time she’d considered what it must be like on the other end of the bond. If the connection had blinked out at his end as well, Spike must be beside himself. With no idea where she was, it would be hard not to think the worst. But she knew that no matter how hopeless it seemed, he wouldn’t give up, he’d fight till the end of the world to get her and their baby back home safely. She owed it do him to fight just as hard to stay alive, even if she had to overcome the pain of debilitating loss to do it.
Finally, she’d been able to start moving again. Slowly, cautiously, she’d resumed her downward journey. Her limbs had felt numb and her fingers ached from clenching onto the rungs so tightly, but determination and downright stubbornness had flooded her muscles with a boost of energy. Down and down she’d climbed, more convinced than ever that this truly was a descent into hell. She wouldn’t have been surprised to have stumbled across Dante’s famous words etched onto a solemn sign: ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here’ for that is how it seemed to her. But she would cling onto whatever shred of hope remained, it was all she had left in that God forsaken place.
Once past the light field, the change in her surroundings had been startling enough to catch Buffy’s attention and distract her from her own plight. On either side of the ladder, balanced precariously against the walls of the shaft, stood two interminable stacks of crates. As with the rungs, the base of these towers lay beyond the field of vision, at a distance that was in all likelihood beyond reckoning. Hand after hand, rung after rung Buffy descended, into the pit. As she climbed she studied the huge chests. Up close they seemed to be of different sizes and configurations, constructed of varying materials and adorned in all manner of styles. Clay, wooden, marble, metallic, crystalline, decorated with carvings, gemstones, shells, patterns and arcane symbols marking out messages that no-one would ever now read.
At first she couldn’t begin to guess what they might contain, what they might be. But as she clambered past chest after chest, the air of death and decay that clung to their cracked, dusty surfaces spoke to her of an ancient malevolence, long since subjugated. Buffy shuddered as she finally realized exactly what these boxes purposed. They were coffins, hundreds, no thousands of them, piled haphazardly, one upon the other, like a colossal game of Jenga. They carried the remains perhaps, of some long forgotten army, or some extinct empire. She didn’t know who, or what, but she doubted there were any left to lament them, for the atmosphere that surrounded them was ripe with malice and a primordial foulness that sent fingernails skittering across the chalkboard of her soul.
There had been no way to escape the towering caskets. Above and below her, pressing in upon either side, the sarcophagi had hovered, a consortium of deadly departed. The pit was steeped in silence, and not even the air moved. Yet as Buffy continued her downward journey, she’d sensed the presence of evil. The towers’ tenants may have been silent, inert, but something told her that they weren’t gone, merely sleeping, waiting perhaps for some signal, some mystical alarm clock, to rouse them from their eternal slumber. To draw them forth, and grant them back the existence they had abandoned so long ago.
Passing through an atmosphere of such hostility was draining. Between the physical exertion of the endless climb, the emotional trauma of her lost link, and the psychological weight of wading through evil soup, Buffy was exhausted. Her muscles were yelling ‘Stop!’, her heart was curled up in the corner crying ‘Wah!’, while some instinctual part of her brain was screaming ‘Flee!’ but she fought it and continued her descent at a steady pace.
Eventually of course they did stop. Roughly every 1500 feet, a little platform, not unlike the one they’d started out from, was built out from the shaft wall, right next to the ladder. They’d passed the first one soon after travelling through the light field, then another about an hour later. The second one had been occupied, one of the freaky sarcophagi balanced precariously on its narrow surface. Buffy had shuddered as she’d realized what its presence meant. Someone, or something, was intending to remove the casket from the pit. For what purpose, she had no idea, but she doubted it was for the greater good.
The box was a huge, stone container, oddly shaped and tarnished with the patina of time’s passing. It squatted there, on the platform, a token of ageless evil and ceaseless menace. A visceral dread had chilled her bones as she’d passed the sarcophagus, and she’d hastened her steps in order to distance herself from the coffin and its contents. It wasn’t until the box was well out of sight that Buffy had begun to breathe more easily.
Finally, as she’d drawn level with the third platform, Devrim had called to her, indicating with his head that they pull over. She’d crawled onto the platform and crumpled, the muscles in her arms and legs spasming in near collapse. Almost immediately she’d fallen asleep, the physical and emotional exhaustion overriding her instinctual concerns about nodding off on the narrow aerie. She figured that Devrim had kept her alive for a reason; he wasn’t going to let her roll off of their little pit-stop at this stage.
And so the days had continued, as much as she’d been able to reckon them anyway. Devrim had provided food and water for the both of them, and a space blanket for Buffy to sleep under. But most of the time was given over to their never-ending downward journey, scrambling down the unceasing rungs one after the other. Several times she’d slipped, sheer exhaustion loosening her grip on the rungs and the normal surety of her tread. The first time it happened, her eyes had flashed wide in fear and an anguished cry was torn from her lips, as the possibility of her death loomed beneath her scrabbling feet. Luckily her fall had lasted only seconds, before the rope that connected her harness to Devrim’s pulled taut. Shocked, but unharmed, she’d dangled there, saved from an endless plunge into the interminable depths by a length of nylon rope.
She’d cried then, loud wailing sobs, overcome by the fear, relief and hopelessness that swirled round inside her. Whether moved to compassion, or merely responding to the situation on a pragmatic level, Devrim had reacted by anchoring himself to the ladder and gently lowering her to the next platform. She’d crawled across to the back wall and curled up in a ball, hands wrapped around her belly as she’d cried herself to sleep.
Over the days that followed, she’d accidently slipped another two times, each time the instinctive surge of fear kicking in just before the rope did. But she soon came to realize how safe and relaxing it was to complete the section descent by rope rather than ladder, her weary body cradled in the full harness, able to travel the distance in half the time with a fraction of the effort. So another few times she’d stopped and silently pleaded with Devrim to winch her down to the next platform. He’d frowned impatiently at her before nodding tersely and bracing himself for the task. She doubted she would have made the descent without those little breaks.
Even so, the climbing had seemed to go on forever. She had no idea how many days they spent clinging to that accursed rock face. At least four if the number of sleep breaks was any indication. And all the while, the glowering towers of coffins had loomed over her, silent denizens of the underworld.
Finally, at the 36th platform from the top of the shaft, over 55,000 feet below the surface of the earth according to her calculations, they’d stopped their descent. Both the ladder and the pit itself had continued, on into the endless depths, but set into the back wall had been the entrance to a tunnel. They were due to stop for the day, but Devrim had nodded her on, and into the passage she’d stumbled, her first horizontal steps in more than four days. The tunnel was pitch black, and without her helmet lamp, she’d have been unable to see anything. It travelled straight for a short way before sloping down into a broad flat cavern where they’d made camp for the night. Devrim had headed over to a corner where a fully laden backpack was propped up against the wall.
So after food, water, a change of clothes (well underwear at least, plus a set of thermal pants and long sleeved tee to put on under her trackpants and jumper) and a good night’s sleep, devoid of rolling out of bed nightmares, they’d set off. Devrim had led the way, confidently navigating the maze of tunnels that seemed little more than ragged fissures carved beneath the deeper layers of the Earth’s crust. He may have known where they were going, but to Buffy, the endless passages provided no indication of location, direction, or whether or not their destination was at hand.
The trek hadn’t been particularly arduous, well not in a physical sense at least. Okay, so it was hardly a walk in the park. The path meandered somewhat, travelling up or down at various times, but mostly with a gentle gradient. It was generally cramped, and at times narrowed to little more than a burrow, negotiable only at a crawl. But mainly it was dark, sometimes damp and very, very long. Endlessly so! It was often cold, but not excessively so. In fact the bedrock under her feet had seemed warmer, and somehow more alive than that which lay overhead.
The most arduous aspect had in fact been the emotional distress. Not knowing why she’d been taken, where they were going, how long it would take to get there or what would happen to her when she arrived had begun to sap her confidence, her spirit and even her strength. She had attempted to engage Devrim, by talking to him, behaving in a friendly, amenable way, in the remote chance that she could sway him into switching his allegiance and helping her to escape, or at the very least answering some of her questions. When that didn’t work she’d tried cajoling him, and then outright begging.
She’d even had a go at threats of violence and retribution, although obviously by this stage she was well below her scary best. The truth was, that at seven months pregnant, with only limited nourishment and such constant, high level demands on her physical reserves, Buffy had little or no energy to spare for thoughts of revenge, resistance or escape, let alone acts. Either way, her feeble efforts had amounted to nothing. Devrim was like an android, programmed to complete his task, delivering her to destination X, without benefit of communication or social interaction. Cracking his conditioning was beyond hopeless.
So she’d resigned herself to passive submission, meekly carrying out the inflexible daily routine that Devrim imposed, mainly walking and sleeping, with only brief stops for food and water as and when he’d scheduled them. But the capitulation had taken its toll on her state of mind. She was constantly scared, both for herself and her baby. The fear, the lack of any control, the absolute helplessness, and being cut off from Spike’s presence, both physically and psychologically, had left her emotionally bereft, and floundering in a pit of despair.
Many, many times, particularly over the last week, the depression had resulted in her feeling so sad, anxious and exhausted that Devrim had had to physically haul her to her feet to get her going. And he was no easy taskmaster. He’d kept them going at a cracking pace, expecting them to cover a significant number of miles each day. Buffy had no idea how many, but maybe 30 or 40. She just knew that the endless walking, the apparent futility of it, seemed more and more gruelling as the days and weeks ticked over. The mornings were the worst, getting dragged away from the peace and comfort of sleep. It was like the resurrection spell all over again, being snatched from blissful oblivion and shoved back into a nightmare world, but so much worse because, like Groundhog Day, it just kept repeating over and over and fucking over again.
Once she was up and going, the gentle wave of endorphins had usually been enough to stave of the worst of the bleak melancholia that dogged her. But not always! The day before they’d arrived at the cavern, she’d been ready to give up. Devrim had had to pick up her and half carry her for the first twenty minutes. Even then she’d managed little better than a slow unsteady stumble. As it had for the past week or two, the path climbed gently upwards, but as they rounded a narrow corner, Buffy clambering along on hands and knees, they’d reached the bottom of a steep shaft.
She’d blinked, her head tipped back as the walls of the pit stretched out above her. Stress and fatigue addled her brain so that she imagined they were back where they started, that the weeks of walking had lead them in some nightmarish circle, back to the hellpit she’d spent so many days descending. Hysterical laughter had bubbled up inside of her as she considered that maybe there’d been no point, no purpose to this torturous underworld marathon other than to drive her to the point of insanity. Perhaps her fate was to be trapped here for eternity, a tragic Persephone, abducted not by the King of Hades himself, but by one of his grim henchmen.
Her little moment of madness had passed quickly once she’d noted the missing pieces, namely the sarcophagi and the accursed ladder, and realized that this couldn’t possibly be the original shaft. Suddenly she’d been overcome with a flood of hope. They’d been climbing gradually over the previous two weeks anyway, and now here they were at the bottom of a massive shaft that was leading … up! My God, maybe, just maybe, the world was up there, her world, sunlight and flowers and air and Spike. Her world, Spike!
So, it was with renewed confidence and strength that she'd clipped herself back into the climbing harness she’d worn on the ladder. Devrim had headed up first, trailing a rope that was attached to a little locking device on Buffy’s harness. As he’d climbed up, he attached the rope to cams he loaded into various cracks and crevices. It was a long slow process, but eventually he’d reached a little rock shelf about 180 feet up the rock face. Once he’d secured himself, he’d winched her up to join him. Although she got to sit down on the job, she’d still had to work her way up the rock face, releasing the cams and clipping them onto her harness as she went.
Slowly but surely they’d inched their way up the length of the pit, 200 feet at a time. Sometimes there’d been a little shelf to rest on, but often as not Buffy had had to pay out the lead line as she’d dangled, mid-air in her harness. It was a long slow process, one they’d had to repeat up to a dozen times as they made their way up the steep rock face. It had been weird; after all the efforts she’d made to connect with Devrim, and get him to see her as more than just the contract he was carrying out, at such a late stage in their journey he’d been forced to rely on her cooperation and help in order for the both of them to reach the top of the shaft safely.
So they’d worked steadily, silent for the most part, but both focused on the same objective, making it out of the shaft. Throughout the day they’d toiled away, with little more than the odd drink and snack break to sustain them as they’d clung to the precipice. As they neared the top, they’d passed through another light field. It hadn’t been a surprise; the eerie glow of the portal had been visible from about half way up the shaft, a beckoning light at the mouth of the tunnel. But with fatigue pressing its heavy weight down upon her, body and soul, Buffy hadn’t paused to examine the impact. She’d just kept on, clinging to the rope with her stiff fingers and using her feet to ‘walk’ her seated self up the cliff.
Finally Devrim had hauled her up and over the lip of the pit. She’d been exhausted, weak and unable to stand. Her jailer had picked her up and carried her several feet away from the shaft, lain her down and covered her up. She’d been out immediately. So dead to the world, and then so immersed in the company of her dream lover, that she’d hadn’t stopped to consider exactly why that buzzy little jolt was back.
It was more than just the dream, awesome though that had been. It was probably passing back through the light field that removed the interference or whatever it was that had been blocking the signal. But whatever, it was an amazing way to greet the day. And as she submerged herself in the ecstasy of connection, she realized that there was a certain strength and urgency to the tingle that signalled not only Spike’s proximity, but also his fervour about her safe rescue. Oh yeah, he was coming for her all right. All she had to do was to stay safe, stay strong, stay alive.
Buffy thought that keeping that proviso shouldn’t be too difficult. As long as she kept her head down, followed the rules, and didn’t do anything to make Devrim suspicious, then Spike would come for her. And maybe, if they continued on with their upward journey, they’d meet up with him and his rescue crew sooner rather than later. It seemed reasonable. And possible. Even almost likely.
But what she didn’t count on was her kidnapper scouting out the area as if keen to set up for the interim. Neither did she figure on him re-shackling her into the on again, off again handcuffs. But the real surprise, the one that set alarm bells ringing and sent shards of ice pirouetting up and down her spine, was when he sat her down on a shelf of wet rocks set into a dark corner of the cavern. The light from the shaft was unable to penetrate the deep shadows of this isolated spot, and she knew that if not for the headlamps, she’d be plunged into utter darkness.
Buffy sat there in shock, disoriented by the sudden change of routine. Devrim’s demeanour was colder, more remote and harsh than ever before, and the contrast to the previous day’s teamwork was unsettling. Confused and off kilter, she was slow to react when he threw a set of chains around her middle, fettering her to the rock shelf. She struggled and kicked out at him, but he responded with a backhanded slap across her face and a murmur of incomprehensible words, unknown and yet somehow vaguely recognizable. Immediately a wave of sleepiness washed over her. As she began to drift towards unconsciousness, a disquieting thought bobbed on the surface, and her last waking thought was of the hard, uneven surface beneath her, and why it seemed so familiar.