•••

"Holy shit."

Spike drew Xander ever closer to him, silently echoing the boy's sentiment. Plutus was... impressive. Tall, gigantic in fact, covered with riches and jewels of every kind. The god glittered and shimmered with impossible light, sparkles shooting off the odd bit of finery that fluttered down to the ground. Each molted item disappeared as it struck the earth, fading into nothingness.

"Don't be afraid of him," Doyle murmured, coming around to stand on the other side of Spike. "He does the growling thing to intimidate the locals. He's really not so bad when he's not down here."

"So you've met him somewhere else?" Xander inquired shakily.

Doyle shrugged. "The gods aren't really stuck in any one place; you see them everywhere. But Plutus has a regular gig down here, you see."

Spike shuddered. "Who stays in this place?" He asked quietly. The shades here were moving in circles, pushing huge stones either clockwise or counterclockwise. They strained and groaned, shouting incomprehensible things at each other as they passed.

"The ones goin' left are the Avaricious, and the ones goin' right are the Prodigal," Doyle said softly. "They push the weight of their wrongs in front of them, and when they meet someone going the other way, they shout out their wrongdoings, and those of the others too."

"Then I'll see lots of people I know down here," Xander muttered, already thinking of how many deceased family members and other Sunnydale locals that belonged here. Greed was most of the Harris family's middle name, and that vice had killed many a young person on the Hellmouth.

Doyle pushed them along, darting in between the slowly moving sufferers. "It's not likely, Xander. Take a look at these people; the weight of their punishment mars them; all that mud and muck covers their faces."

"We wouldn't recognize ourselves in that, much less anybody else," Spike murmured. Xander shrugged and moved on with the others, forcibly not thinking about how good it felt to be held by Spike as they continued. Even though the ghosts' bodies were rendered unidentifiable by the foulness of their punishment, Xander could make out clerical collars and monk's robes amongst the greedy. If only his relatives had worn distinctive outfits...

"Just be glad Fortuna's smiling on you," Doyle remarked as they plowed through the mess.

"Fortuna?" Xander echoed.

"The goddess of luck and fortune," Doyle explained.

"There's a goddess of that?" Xander exclaimed. "No wonder I'm always getting the short end of the stick!"

Doyle grinned and helped Xander over a fallen sufferer. "Eh, it's not exactly like that. She doles out the fortune, yeah, but it's pretty well equal. What you make of what you get is more important," He said. "But she's a good sort, you know? Doesn't really pick on anyone too often. People just like to blame her for everything that goes wrong."

Soon they reached the banks of a swampy river, water inky and muddy. Xander felt Spike press against him and he returned the vampire's earlier favor, holding Spike close. Hordes of people were immersed in the waters, some just sort of sunk in it, others fully submerged.

Xander peered closer, realizing that what he'd thought were barren trees were really people, partially stuck in the river's shallows. The ones closer to the shore were flailing madly, arms and legs stuck and released and stuck again in the glue-like mud. They thrashed at each other, clawed hands and teeth ripping flesh off in bloody hunks. The others, the ones fully submerged, were trying to talk, but all that came up was great, heaving bubbles. The end result was a writhing, bubbling font of violence. "Er..."

"The wrathful and the sullen," Doyle whispered. "Tearing at each other, or having their woes drowned in foul water, as the case may be." The sight was gruesome enough to drive Doyle closer to the two huddling men. Spike looked a bit shaken, as though he pictured himself in this ring of Tartarus, suffering for his anger.

Xander and Spike followed Doyle around the edge of the brackish river, always avoiding that poisonous water. Eventually they came to the blunt stone base of a huge tower.