Part Three

Spike came to, when a bucket of cold water was thrown over him. 'Oh - bloody hell!' he groaned, struggling to sit up. He'd had his leather coat thrown over him as a blanket - and now it was soaking, along with his face, though at least the coat had taken the brunt of it and he was dry underneath.

'Rise and shine, vampire.'

He peered through the darkness - it was the landlord of the seedy dive he was sleeping in who had woken him. 'What's that all about? I'm a creature of the night, you git. I could bloody well have slept for hours yet and you know it. There's nothing for me to do here.'

'Boat's come in,' the landlord told him. 'Sailing out to Europe tomorrow. Captain's over yonder,' he pointed at a man propping up the bar. 'Isn't that what you were looking for?'

'Yeah ... right,' Spike nodded, 'thanks.'

He pulled his wet leather coat off himself and then stuck his hand into the inside pocket - hoping. Sure enough his stack of bills was still inside, and thankfully dry. He'd spent the previous day - and most of the night - inside this grimy little dive, playing poker. Not for kittens this time - for cold, hard cash. Seeing as how the great tit, Mr. Corporate life; Mr. I'm so smart; I'm Angel - the giant poofter who could, wouldn't give him any money, he'd had to earn his own. Fortunately, his cheating skills hadn't gotten rusty whilst he was a ghostly way of being and he should now have enough to buy himself a ticket. To Europe. To home. To Buffy.

'Francis?'

'Uh - yeah - hi.'

'Hi Harri,' Cordelia said. Harri glanced across at her. 'Hi Cordelia.' Cordelia looked between the the other two people in the room, seeing the way a blush was creeping up Harri's face, staining her cheeks - and the way Doyle was practically squirming, shifting his feet from side to side. 'Well, this is awkward,' she said. 'Harri, how've you been?'

'Good - I'm good. And you two?' She raked Doyle over with her eyes. 'He's letting you take care of him,' she stated.

'Well, I have managed to get him to curb one or two of his more destructive habits. But he remains a work in progress.'

'Well - that's good. Good. I'm glad to hear it… what brings you here exactly?'

Doyle coughed, cleared his throat uncomfortably, rubbed the back of his neck and then coughed again. 'Um - this mornin' … I came across … well, it's kinda awkward … Harri, you know someone called Tobias Dupree?' He silently prayed that his ex wife wasn't about to tell him that she was dating, or married to, the dead body.

'Toby - yeah - he works here with me, for a couple of years now.'

'That's all?' Doyle checked - 'you're just work colleagues?'

'Yeah,' she chuckled nervously, 'Francis, what's going on?'

But Doyle had run out of things to say. He rubbed the back of his neck again and looked awkward. From the way his ears were burning he knew they must be bright red - though maybe it was too gloomy in here for Harri to see that? Eventually, Cordelia took pity on him. 'We have some bad news,' she told the other woman, 'you might wanna sit down.'

'Did something happen to Toby?' Harri's voice became sharp, 'was he killed?'

'Why would you assume he was killed?' Cordy asked her, 'I mean - yes, vampire attack, but why did you jump straight to 'killed'?'

'I knew something like this was gonna happen,' Harri sank down in a chair, shaking her head. 'I tried to warn him - but Toby - he wouldn't be careful. Wouldn't take precautions. I bet he was out last night - was he out last night?'

Doyle coughed again, and then nodded, 'yeah - he met a vampire in a bar - and, well, actually we know the vampire, she doesn't drink human blood, and she says she has no recollection of what happened. She blanked out. I think she was drugged. You think maybe Toby…?'

'No way,' Harri shook her head, vehemently this time. She gestured to the young couple to sit down opposite her. They did - and she began to explain. 'We're demon's rights activists,' she told them, 'we work with clans that are having problems, help them find a path through - try to end the bloodshed peacefully, where we can. Toby would never roofie a vampire girl. But if someone saw him out last night, realised this was their chance - they might have drugged your friend so she lost all her inhibitions, killed him and then blacked out. It's possible.'

'But why are you so sure that someone would want to kill him?' Cordelia asked, frowning.

Harri sighed. 'Toby has been acting as a liaison between two warring clans, brokering peace after five generations of fighting. And the two clans are … prickly, to say the least. There's a lot of mistrust - on both sides - the whole thing is a tinderbox just waiting to explode. It's been crazy round here, the past few months, trying to bring them both to the table. But that was meant to happen today. They're holding a peace summit today and Toby was supposed to be there to act as a gobetween. Now Toby's dead - the summit will fail and the violence will continue, maybe for another five generations. Either of the clans - and a lot of demons watching from the sidelines - could be behind this. This peace summit would have been historic, it would have brought about big change in parts of the underworld - if someone wanted to stop that, if they wanted to derail the summit, then killing Toby would be a surefire way of doing it. I told him to be careful. I just knew something like this would happen.'

'So these clans,' Doyle asked, 'they're meeting today - and they won't know Toby's dead yet? Do you know where they were meetin'?'

Harri nodded her head, 'of course. The summit was taking place in a big law firm, here in L.A - you might have heard of it - Wolfram and Hart?'

Doyle and Cordelia stared at each other.

Harmony cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder, so she could listen to the caterer and check off her to do list at the same time. She'd already reminded security about the summit. She still had to send transportation out to the warring clans - not like these hideous beasties could just hop on the subway - she needed to send them a car. Separate cars - else they'd have killed each other before they got here. But for now, she was working on the caterers - rearranging her order and trying to get the camel sent back. She listened to what the caterer had to say.

'I know,' she agreed, 'that's what I told him, but he said Chips and Dip … really? Wildebeest?' She was tempted for a moment, it was a good idea - if it would help the warring clans feel more comfortable, but then she thought better of it and shook her head. 'No - better stick with the Chips and Dip thing. Thanks.'

She hung up the phone - and looked around the lobby. All seemed quiet. No one seemed to suspect anything … 'OK, it's all peachy, just get through the day and I'm …' a woman walked past and Harmony found herself staring at her neck, able to see the pulse beating away beneath the skin and unable to look away. 'Ohhh…'

The phone began to ring and, glad of the distraction, she snatched it up. 'Hello, Angel's office.' The man on the other end of the line identified himself - and if she had had a heart beat it would have stopped right then. 'Just a moment, please,' she said - feeling almost woozy with the depth of her sinking feeling.

She pressed the buzzer of the intercom and spoke to Angel, in his office. 'There's a Detective Griffin on the phone for you.'

'Put him on.'

She pressed the button to connect Angel to the phone call - but didn't hang up at her end, instead staying on the line and listening in.

'This is Angel,' she heard the man himself say, and then she saw him - over in his office - pause and peer through the window at her. But she was more interested in what the cop was saying: a body had been found at the city dump that morning, looked like a vampire attack.

'Hold on,' Angel said into the phone. Then he yelled through the glass at his secretary. 'Harmony I got it.'

And now she couldn't listen in any more. 'Oh - right sorry.' She hung up her own phone, drat! That sounded like her dead body they'd found. Well not her dead body but … oh she knew what she meant! And now Mr. Grouchy Pants had stopped her listening in and she had no way of knowing how much the cops knew and … Doily had said they wouldn't trace this back to her. That the dump was far enough away that she'd be safe. This was his fault!

She peered over at Angel, watching him hang up the phone. 'Oh God.' Then he picked up his phone and dialled. 'Oh God.' She wondered who he was calling. She felt a panic attack coming over her and began to flap her hands around her face in attempt to calm herself down. 'Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god.'

She was interrupted in her panicking by Gunn and Wes coming out of their respective offices and meeting in front of the front desk. 'Do you know what this is about?' Gunn asked his friend. Harmony at least now had an idea who it was Angel had been calling.

'Perhaps one of the Vinjis set down a teacup improperly,' Wes joked - half joked.

'Worse.' Angel stepped out of his office and they walked over to him. At her desk, Harmony strained to listen in. 'Just got off the phone with the LAPD. They found a body.'

'Where?' she blurted out, 'did they say where?'

Angel gave her a strange look but answered her question, aiming his words at his friends. 'City dump, wrapped in a laundry bag.'

Oh crap - that was almost certainly her dead body. What were the chances there'd be another one on the same day?

'And the police called you because …?' Wesley asked.

'Apparently - we own them. Well - that and they found my card on the victim. He was the liaison between the feuding clans.'

'Toby Dupree?' Gunn sounded worried.

But nowhere near as worried as Harmony was feeling. Of double crap. What were the chances that this guy would turn out to be the guy that Angel was expecting to show up at the office at any moment? Doily had said Angel never need know - and now he knew less than an hour later! This was a disaster!

'We're gonna have to do some serious damage control,' Angel was saying. He could say that again! Oh boy oh boy. How was she gonna get out of this, and how much did the cop know - could they find out it was her? She could hear the men still talking - Wesley was pointing out the dangers of how the two clans would interpret this death, as they were so superstitious. Plus this could be a message of some sort - someone trying to derail the summit or ...

'Oh it must be that!' She jumped on the explanation that at least seemed to divert any suspicion from her. 'The derailing thing. That makes sense. Right?' The men gave her an irritated look - she barely even noticed - and then they went inside Angel's office to discuss things with more privacy. And Harmony scrabbled out of her seat and fled down the corridor to a deserted spot hoping to do some damage control of her own.

The three of them were already in the car, driving over to Wolfram and Hart, when Doyle's cell began to ring in his pocket. He glanced between the two women - his ex wife and his current fiancee - apologetically, and then pulled over so he could take it out to answer. 'Yello?

'Doily, thank God!' he heard Harmony's frightened voice down the line, her words rattling out at the speed of bullets. 'Angel knows. He doesn't know it's me yet. But he knows the guy is dead. And it gets worse! The guy was supposed to come here today and…'

'Harmony, Harmony calm down,' Doyle said to her, interrupting her flow of frightened consciousness. 'Listen, darlin' - me and Cordy have been to his place o' work. We know about the summit. We think this might have been a purposeful hit, someone tryin' to disrupt the summit.'

'That's what Wesley said,' Harmony told him.

'Right - so they're not gonna suspect you and you're just an innocent pawn in all this. OK? Don't freak. Now - me and Cordy have found you a new liaison. We're comin' over to Wolfram and Hart right now. You go tell Angel you've found someone else to take Dupree's role in the summit and just hold down the fort until we get there, OK? I promise we'll sort everythin' out for y'.'

'OK - I can do that.'

'Good girl - we'll see you in a few, yeah - don't panic.' He hung up the phone and pulled out again, into the traffic. 'By the sounds of it things are unravellin' pretty quick,' he told the two women, 'we need to get there fast.'

'You lousy git, 500!' Spike had gone over to the bar and was now sat up on one of the high stools negotiating the price of his boat ticket with the captain - who was trying to play hardball.

'750 - that's my final offer,' take it or leave it.'

'How about this - 500 -' Spike morphed into his vamp face, 'and I won't kill you.'

But the Captain looked supremely unimpressed. '750. Final offer.'

'Son of a bitch!' He reached inside his pocket and pulled the bills out. 'this is bloody daylight robbery is what this is. You ought to be ashamed of yourself - taking a bloke's hard won cash. It's a right shame. That's what. Robbing me blind. Has me over a bloody barrel and he knows it.' He slapped the money down on the bar. 'Don't know how you sleep at night.'

The captain scooped the money up, counted it slowly and then handed a ticket over to the vampire. 'Nice doing business with you,' he said, getting up to leave. 'Boat sails at 9 tonight. We won't wait around.'

'Bloody bet you won't.' He looked around - trying to find the bartender, 'and what the bloody hell does it take for a bloke to get a drink around here?' he yelled.

The three men had got the clans on the phone, when Harmony arrived back at Angel's office. Gunn was doing the talking - and Wes and Angel were looking completely bemused by the series of snarls, grunts and clicks that emanated from the other end of the line.

'The Vinji clan is deeply concerned by this turn of events,' Gunn told the others.

'Perhaps you should try saying something,' Wesley suggested to Angel - as CEO of Wolfram and Hart his words should carry some weight. But Angel point blank refused. The language was way too complicated and he wasn't ready. 'Look, just tell them the summit can proceed as planned,' he told Gunn.

Gunn conveyed this message to the demons on the phone - but the snaps and clicks suggested that it wasn't well received. 'They're looking for vengeance,' Gunn translated.

'Tell 'em we're on it.'

Gunn started clicking - assuring them they had their oath that the killer would be found. Angel grew impatient and tried some clicks of his own. 'Be disembowelled.'

The clicks became snarls and shrieks of outrage. 'Filthy manwhore. How dare you!'

Gunn worked to try and smooth over the disaster. 'He meant be patient! The whore man is a novice in your tongue, We laugh at him, yes?' He pressed the button to end the call. Angel sighed very deeply.

'What happened to not saying anything?' Wesley asked him.

'I guess I just got caught up.'

'Forgive and forget I always say,' Harmony said in her overly cheerful 'nothing's wrong' voice. 'That's the golden rule. Listen, boss - I may have found us a new liaison. To replace this Toby guy.'

The men all stared at her. 'You think you've found someone who can liaise between two feuding demon clans at a moment's notice?' Angel asked her blankly.

'Yuhuh.'

'Harmony - is this like the camel?'

She laughed a brittle laugh - too long and too loud. 'No! I swear - I didn't screw up this time - I have someone coming in…'

'Right - well - we'll deal with that disaster when it hits us. But for now - we need to find out who killed Dupree. I hope Fred will be able to tell us something soon. Dupree should be in the lab by now.'

'The lab? Our lab?' Harmony asked in horror - and then she turned and scuttled out of the office. This was all going to blow up in her face before Doily even got here...

She found Fred in the lab examining the dead body - yeah , it was her dead body alright. The scientist was leaning over him and recording her findings on her Dictaphone. 'Significant post-mortem battering, which suggests prior relationship with the victim. Time of death estimated at 1:30 am which…' she broke off when she saw the vampire enter the room, 'Harmony.'

'Hi, I thought I'd just pop by to see…'

'Angel sent you didn't he?' Fred did not sound impressed. 'He's all antsy about the demon summit so he sent you here to rush me. Only he doesn't wanna seem like he sent you here to rush me so he told you to act all… like that.'

'Oh - yeah. You know Angel,' she was grateful for the cover story Fred had so conveniently handed to her. She wouldn't have thought of it herself. 'So - what do you know. Do you know who did it?'

'I've only had the body twenty minutes!'

'Uhuh - and don't you think it's possible that whoever did it blacked out and doesn't even remember doing it so it's totally not even their fault?'

Fred looked confused and shrugged her shoulders, 'I guess,' and then went back to her examination, speaking into her recorder once more. 'Bite marks are 17 millimetres apart, 6 millimetres deep - on the right side of the neck.'

'Doesn't sound much to go on,' Harmony said. Fred ignored her and carried on speaking her findings. 'Which suggests a female vampire.'

'Or gay!'

'Um - it doesn't really work like that.' She bent down over the body and examined the neck wound more closely. Harmony watched her - her hold body tensed up, she felt ready to just about explode. 'Hey,' Fred said all of a sudden, 'Harmony is there something you wanna tell me?'

'Tell … what?'

'The guy at the bar.' She stood up straight again and giggled. 'I wanna hear all about it.'

'Oh. That.' She couldn't help but glance down at the body on the autopsy table - and then hoped Fred hadn't noticed. 'Uh - well - loser,' her voice became scornful. 'Big! Told me he was an astronaut!'

'Like anyone would believe that!'

'I know!' well I'd better…' she backed out of the lab, awkwardly and then turned and scuttled away.

...

She walked off down the corridors, thinking to herself. If Doily didn't get here soon - and she was done waiting for him - then she was just going to have to leave. Out of the building. Out of the country. Maybe Mexico - she liked Mexico. Or maybe Cancun. And she'd change her name. Harmonita - that was kinda pret…

A realisation suddenly hit her and she came to a stop. 'Bitten on the right!' her whole face lit up with her epiphany. 'He was bitten on the right!' She began to jump and down in delight. 'I didn't do it, I didn't do it.'

She bounced along the corridor and bumped straight into Rudy - she planted a kiss on his lips, 'I didn't do it!' she told him.

'You sound just like me six year old,' he said, grabbing her finger and pricking it for the blood test. 'He always says that.' His machine began to beep - and they both looked down at the screen. It read positive. They stared at each for a moment - and then Harmony giggled, shrugged - and knocked the blood technician out cold.

'So what now?' Cordelia asked, as Doyle pulled the Plymouth up outside Wolfram and Hart and turned the engine off. He glanced at her and then twisted in his seat so he could see Harri, sitting in the back. 'I think you two need to get up to Angel's office - pronto. The summit should be startin' soon - and Harri needs to be there.'

'What will you do?'

'I reckon Harmony's pretty majorly freaked right about now. I'll find her - tell her what we know, see if we can't start workin' somethin' out. That means Harmony's gonna have to be kept away from the summit, which means I need you to stand in for her, princess.'

'Me?'

'Sure - you were Angel's secretary for years, you know how to keep him calm. Just do any assistant sort o' stuff that he would normally get Harmony to do and that way - maybe he won't notice she's missing.'

Cordelia wrinkled her nose, 'why are we keeping Angel in the dark about all this?'

'He's got way too much on his plate to be dealing with this drama right now,' Doyle told her - and it was true. Angel had been struggling with his new role at Wolfram and Hart as it was, add in a summit between warring demon clans and the dark avenger was probably ready to snap, crackle and pop. If heads were not gonna roll - and the summit was going to be saved - then Angel was going to require delicate handling. 'Me and Harmony will solve the murder mystery, Harri will keep the summit spinning and you'll make sure Angel doesn't go off the deep end.' He looked around at both women, 'we clear?'

The women nodded. 'Good - Cordy, you take Harri on up to the lobby. I'll ring Harmony find out what she's up to.' They got out of the car and went their separate ways - ready to save the day.

Meanwhile, Harmony was stashing the unconscious Rudy in a janitor's closet. This was bad - the firm knew she'd drunk human blood, and she didn't know how that could be, because she now knew for a fact that she hadn't killed that guy. But that didn't matter, her cover was blown - the chopping could be imminent. Even if she ran - Angel would be right behind her. She needed to get those results and stop anyone finding out she'd tested positive.

Her phone began to ring and she snatched it out of her pocket. 'Hello?' Her voice trembled, terrified it might be Angel.

'Harmony, darlin' - It's Doyle. I'm at Wolfram and Hart, where are you?'

'Doily! Thank God. The dead guy's in the lab and my blood test came back positive and …'

She heard Lorne's voice getting louder, as he came round the corner. Like her, he too was talking on his cell phone - though his conversation seemed to be much lighter in tone and content than her own. She hastily shut off her call and began to scuttle in the opposite direction. But Lorne had seen her - and he called out to her. 'Harmonica! Hey! Have you seen Danny around - I need him to...'

She froze, and turned to face him - answering his question with a big, fake smile and a shake of her head. 'No.' But maybe she could get some info out of him: 'just out of curiosity, you know those random blood tests? Where do they go?'

'Well the results get transmitted automatically to the lab, I think. And then, uhm they…' he cut himself off as he heard a low, moaning sound - and frowned, glancing around the seemingly empty corridor. 'Did you just hear that?'

'Hear what?' She shrugged - and then knocked Lorne out cold, too.

...

After she'd stashed Lorne in the janitor's closet, next to Rudy, she closed the door, checked her hair and then scurried on down to the lab. She needed to find Doily - fast - but she also needed to find out what the lab technicians already knew. Maybe there was a chance she could still get her results back before anyone read them and found out ...

But it was not meant to be. Fred was reading a printout by the time Harmony got there - and she looked up in alarm when she saw the young, vampire woman. 'Harmony!' She began to back away - and Harmony knew she knew. 'I can explain!' she cried out in desperation.

But Fred was acting weird, nervous - she took off her glasses and tried to get past Harmony - though Harmony blocked her, not wanting to let her out of her sight now the scientist had seen the results. 'You don't have to have to explain anything …' Fred told her, in an unnaturally high voice - high even for Fred - 'I just have to get something out of my … I left my autoclave on.'

But Harmony wouldn't let her by. Even she could see through that lie. 'It's not what you think!'

This time, Fred tried to make her voice reassuring - though she still kept her distance. 'OK - so your test came back positive. You slipped, had some human blood - maybe it was consensual or…'

'There was nothing!' Harmony told her, 'I mean, I think there was something. I don't remember exactly. I think someone must have drugged me. I was at the bar and then I woke up and he was there.'

'Wait, he?'

Harmony gestured to the stiff on the autopsy table, Dupree. 'Him! The guy you made me talk to.'

'Oh God,' Fred looked down at the table, at the dead man lying there all pale and drained, 'he's him?'

'I didn't kill him,' the vampire insisted - and she knew at least she now had proof of this. 'I'm innocent! See - 'cause you said he was bitten on the right. I'm a right biter. Look.' She grabbed Fred by the shoulders and mimed leaning in for a bite, leaning to her own right hand side. Fred squealed and pulled herself away, backing up even further.

'See? Right biter.' She grabbed again, trying to prove her point once more.

'Harmony stop!'

She did, but she still wasn't done explaining. 'I lean right, which means I bite you on your…'

'Left. I get it. Left.'

'Right! I mean correct.' This was getting confusing. 'And since he was bitten on his right, he must've been bitten by a left biter - ergo not me!'

'And that's a very compelling argument, Harmony, except - your blood test came back positive.'

Yeah - she knew that. But she was still sure there was more to this than it seemed - and so was Doily. It couldn't be what it looked like - she was a right biter! The results must be a mistake, or she'd drunk some accidentally or … she suddenly remembered how good the blood in her thermos had tasted that morning, how she couldn't get enough of it. And afterwards - she had been noticing the pulses in human's necks… But it hadn't been a problem before she'd been to the staffroom. Definitely. Doily had cut his thumb - he'd been bleeding all over the parking lot and - nothing. She hadn't cared - until: 'somebody spiked my thermos!' she realised.

'Why would anyone…?'

'I don't know…' she thought about what Wes had said, and what Doily had told her he'd found out. 'The summit! Someone wants to ruin it or …'

But Fred was looking unconvinced - was reaching for the phone. 'I want to believe you, Harmony, I do,' she told her. 'I think if we just call and explain what happened to Angel, it…'

But Harmony reached out and pressed down on the phone, cutting off the line. 'No! Zero tolerance policy remember?'

'He can help!'

'He's not a helper, he's a chopper! He'll cut my head off before I can get two words out … I'm not a killer,' she cried in desperation, seeing that disbelieving look still on Fred's face. 'OK, so I am. But I've been clean for eight months. Except for today - but this is different, because it's not me!'

'Angel will listen, I promise,' Fred assured her. 'He'll want to hear what you have to say and he'll understand. Don't worry - everything will be fine, OK?'

Harmony sighed deeply, and rapped her long finger nails on the wall - considering her options - as she watched Fred begin to dial the phone.

'Hi Angel, guys,' Cordelia gave a brief wave to Wes and Gunn. They were in Angel's office - and the two feuding clans were being held in the other two men's offices for now, no one was sure how to proceed - and Angel looked like he was getting a headache. They all stared at her. 'Cordy, what are you doing here?' Angel asked her, 'not that I'm not pleased to see you - but today isn't - I mean - with everything going on...'

'Demon summit, I know right,' she nodded, 'Big day - and even bigger disaster. Well I'm here to save it - the day that is. Angel, do you remember Doyle's ex wife, Harri?'

The men all stared at Cordelia's companion, Harri gave them an awkward smile, 'hi,' she said.

'Harri works with the demon liaison you guys were expecting - the one that turned up dead this morning.'

'How do you know about that?' Angel asked, sounding surprised. Cordelia paused for a moment - they hadn't thought to come up with a cover story for how they came to be involved. 'Uh - we're detectives - duh!' she said, and then immediately glossed over the fact the whole team knew that they all sucked at detective work. 'Anyway - Harri knows all about this case, she speaks the language, she can totally stand in for Dupree.'

'I did a lot of the paperwork for Toby,' Harri explained, 'a lot of the research. I scouted their clans for part of my thesis. Toby was the one who reached out to them, but I know the case inside out - I can help get them round the table.'

'Sounds good to me,' Gunn said getting to his feet, 'I can go speak with the clan leaders - see if they'll accept a substitute - you - uh - got any proof you knew Dupree?' he asked Harri. She dug in her purse and took out a business card, 'we work for the same firm,' she told him, 'hopefully they'll understand that Toby had the backing of his organisation and that we're all on the level.'

Gunn took it from her, nodded his thanks, and left. Angel was still staring at Harri. 'Wait a minute,' he said - everyone turned to look at him. 'Are you the liaison that Harmony was talking about? The one she said she found?'

Cordy and Harri glanced at each other, and then both nodded. 'Huh,' said Angel sounding impressed. 'Where is Harmony anyway?'

'Harmony?' Cordelia looked around, through the large window out into the lobby - there was no sign of the vampire secretary - and Cordy wondered if she'd met up with Doyle yet. 'Uh - not sure - is there something I can get you?'

Harmony pushed Fred's unconscious body inside the same closet that still held Lorne and Rudy. The woman started to come too, and so she stuck a bit of duct tape over Fred's mouth, muffling her cries for help. Lorne and Rudy were likewise gagged - and their hands bound by yet more duct tape. She looked down at them, a little sadly. 'I'm totally sorry I had to do this, and you guys are being super understanding. It's just until I clear my name - I so owe you guys dinner.'

She was just closing the door one more time when she heard her name called out, 'Harmony!' She whirled round in terror - but then felt her whole body deflate with relief when she saw it was just Doily. 'Finally! I've been sweating through to my blouse all day - this thing is silk! It shows every stain.'

'Sorry, darlin' - I got here as soon as I could. Cordy's gone up to save the summit already and cover for you, so y' don't have to worry about that. We just need to solve this case…' he heard the muffled groans coming from behind the door. 'What's in the closet?' he asked.

'Well - things went from bad to worse - and I had to improvise.'

'What did you improvise?'

Reluctantly, Harmony opened the door up and showed him the pile of bodies inside. 'I'll let them go as soon as we solve this, but if I let them go now they'll tell Angel.'

Doyle looked down at them - Fred was fully awake now and glaring at him from behind the duct tape. He shook his head, sadly. 'She's right,' he said to the bound and gagged scientist. 'We don't have time - and Angel doesn't need to know anythin' that will derail the summit - he's got enough goin' on right now.'

'And he'll chop my head off.'

'And he might chop Harmony's head off. Look, we'll solve this real quick and get you out, I swear, I'll buy y' a drink…' and then as Fred began to yell at him, though her words were muffled by her gag, he swung the door closed.

Harmony was looking surprised. 'You sided with me,' she said.

'Well - you've got lot goin' on right now - and they just add an extra layer of complication. They'll be fine. So - what's happened round here?'

And Harmony explained about how her blood test had come back positive, so she had to knock Rudy out - and then Lorne had heard Rudy in the closet, so Lorne had had to go. And her test results had been sent to Fred - and Fred wouldn't listen. 'She was actually trying to call Angel and tell him all about it!'

'So - it looks like you did kill this guy, then, huh? Harri reckons a roofie would have knocked out your inhibitions enough to make you bite someone and then forget all about it. Pretty sweet cover for someone out there tryin' to derail the summit.'

'But I didn't do it!' Harmony exclaimed. 'I thought I must have - but Fred said he was bitten on the right. I'm a right biter so I bite…'

'On someone's left.'

'Yeah.'

'So … where did the human blood come from?'

'I think someone spiked my thermos - I was gonna go get it and see. Check for fingerprints.'

Doyle nodded, 'OK, then, let's do that.' They started down the corridor towards the staffroom. He glanced sidewards at her - she was still tense, her fingers laced together and her face clouded over. 'Hey, Harmony,' he said to her gently, 'you're doin' a great job, you know?'