Damage
Part One
Dr Rabinaw made his rounds, jangling his keys as he walked down the corridors. Night time on the psych ward - the chronic wing, it was always eerie; the halls were gloomy, the windows were barred and his footsteps echoed around him. But it was meds time - and at least the patients were quiet.
He unlocked one of the internal gates, stepped through to the other side and locked it securely again behind him. Walking through these halls was like running a submarine - only one door ever open at a time.
He arrived at the nurses station, where the sister was sat doing a crossword. 'We're running low on diazepam,' she told him, '...again.'
'Call Jacobsen over at County, see if they can spare any.' He pointed to her crossword. 'Give me one.'
'In a mellifluous manner - seven letters.'
He thought about it for a couple of seconds. 'Give me another one.'
'Dr Rabinaw!' Another nurse came running down one of the other hallways - sounding panicked. He hurried over to the internal gate she was behind and began to unlock it so he could get through to her. 'It's Philip,' she told him.
They hurried to Philip's room, where sure enough the young patient was lying collapsed on the floor, convulsing. Dr. Rabinaw crouched beside him and started to take his vitals. 'How much lithium did you give him?' he asked the nurse.
'Lith -' she looked confused and began to flick through the charts on her clipboard. 'No - no, he gets thorazine.'
'Thorazine? He's a manic depressive, he doesn't need a sedative.'
'I'm sorry - I must have got them mixed up.'
He got to his feet and grabbed her clipboard. 'Who didn't get their thorazine?' he demanded, hastily flipping through the charts. He felt his blood grow cold when he saw the answer. 'Oh god.'
And then - down another hallway - a mad banging started up; the violent, frenzied slamming of someone trying to beat down their reinforced door. He abandoned poor Philip and rushed back down the hall, past the nurses station and called out for an orderly as he went. 'Peterson!'
The banging continued, and he and Peterson approached the gate, unlocked it and then walked cautiously through into the hallway. They could see the door beginning to buckle under the onslaught of the banging. And then - all of a sudden - the banging stopped and a deathly silence reigned over the corridor. Dr. Rabinaw breathed a sigh of relief.
Too soon. A moment later there came a gigantic crash - and then the reinforced door was smashed right off its hinges. The room's inmate stood in the doorway - a young woman, far too slender to be capable of wreaking this kind of damage; her hospital gown and her hair were dishevelled and her expression was menacing and murderous. The patient began to walk down the hallway towards the doctor.
Dr. Rabinaw and the orderly began to back away slowly. 'It's alright, Dana,' the doctor said, keeping his voice soft. 'It's me, Dr. Rabinaw, remember? Just take it easy. I want you to listen to me, you're very sick…' he backed out of the gate and hastily shut it. 'And we just want to make you better, OK?'
Peterson locked the gate, trapping Dana on the other side. But she kept on coming - and the two men kept on backing up. Dana stopped at the gate and stared through at them, seeing the hypodermic needle in the doctor's hand - which he was readying to use ... on her. Yellow one makes you weak. Brown one makes you sleepy. Not weak anymore. She grabbed hold of the gate and ripped it off its hinges, throwing it away down the hall - and then she advanced on the men.
She moved quickly. Too quickly. Peterson tried to hit her with a club but she ducked under his arm and kicked out at him, knocking him to the ground. Another orderly came at her, grabbing her from behind - but she kicked the wall and used the force of it to smash him into the opposite wall. He fell and she landed, without losing her footing. Then she grabbed another orderly and smashed his head through a window.
She had taken them all out in seconds. Her eyes fell on a box of surgical instruments - and she picked up a bone saw, examining her new found weapon - looking at the serrated edge of its teeth. cut away - piece by piece - until there was nothing left. One of the orderlies regained his feet and snuck up behind her, koshing her over the back of her head with his club. It had no effect, but she turned around, irritated, and slashed out with the saw, cutting him right across his jugular.
Dr. Rabinaw looked at what she had done - and ran away. The man on the ground was making groaning, gurgling sounds as he bled out, and Dana knelt down beside him and sawed away at his throat until the sounds subsided. When she got back up, her face was daubed with the blood of her victim - a line running vertically beneath each eye, and one running down her nose and chin - like some travesty of tribal markings.
Doyle lay on the green sofa, his feet resting on the far arm, and filled out the crossword. 'In a mellifluous manner, seven letters,' he read - and then began to write s.w.e.e.t.l.y into the boxes.
Cordelia was sat at the computer, going over their finances and sorting out their savings, putting money aside for the wedding. 'Things are gonna be tight,' she told her boyfriend, 'but if we can manage to keep our outgoings down then we should just be able to cover the costs of a cake and some flowers, hire a smallish venue and a DJ and - most importantly - get me a dress.'
'Gotta get your priorities right,' Doyle agreed, absentmindedly, reading the next clue 'inclined to believe - eight letters.'
'You know, the whole thing is such a gyp!' Cordy told him, scanning her screen, looking at prices for the various things she had just listed. 'Flowers, dj hire - is all reasonably affordable - until you stick the word 'wedding' in the mix and then the whole price shoots up by a couple of zeros. The whole industry is one big scam,'
He leaned back, turning his head to look at her, 'well, you know we don't have to do things in line with the wedding industry, Princess. We can keep it all simple - I don't care if we get married in our jeans, in a justice of the peace's living room, with no one but his wife throwing rice at us, as long as we get married. The whole cake and dress and flowers stuff isn't necessary.' He moved onto his next clue, 'one attaching importance to social position, four letters.'
'I'm not getting married in my jeans in some guy's living room!' Cordelia protested. 'What would people say? We need to do this properly.'
'Snob,' Doyle muttered to himself.
'What?'
'Uh - no - it was the answer to my crossword clue. I didn't mean ... I'm listenin' - you want the big day. I get that. And if that's what y' want then that's what we'll have. Count on it.'
'It might mean we can't eat anything but ramen noodles until the big day,' she warned him. 'No more takeout for us. And we're gonna have to cut way back on how much wine and whisky we buy.'
'If that's what it takes,' he agreed, frowning down at his last clue.
'You sure?'
'I just want you to be happy. You're only gettin' this one wedding day - I hope.' They both laughed. 'It's gotta be what you want,' he finished up. 'Right - last clue: first, savage - 6 letters.' He stuck his tongue between his teeth as he wrote out the word 'primal' into the boxes. But just as he finished the L - he suddenly brought his hand up to his forehead and his head slammed back against the armrest.
Cordelia looked up in alarm, as she saw his entire body get taken over by the vision migraine. She sighed - so much for wedding planning their evening away - and went to get him water and aspirin. 'What did you see?' she asked, gently knocking his feet down from the sofa and sitting beside him, handing him over the water and painkillers. He took them gratefully. 'We got big trouble.'
Angel sat in his office, alone, in the dark - brooding. It had been a mistake, coming to Wolfram and Hart, he already knew that. But he had no choice in the matter - the mistake had been made back when he signed his life away to The Senior Partners, and though he was entirely at his own leisure to repent that decision, he still knew that - in the same circumstances - he would do the same thing again. Nothing mattered more than Connor. And that was why he stayed here - even though being here was a mistake.
But now, things had become even more complicated than they had been before - and with all the interminable shades of grey, balancing the scales that had gone on, they had been more than complicated enough. But now - now he believed that Lilah was playing her own game, separate from The Senior Partners - only nobody believed him.
Fair enough, Wesley not believing him. Wes had complicated feelings for Lilah - he didn't see straight where she was concerned, Angel understood that. He'd lost sight of the bigger picture, over women that were no good for him, enough times in his own life to not blame Wesley for having the wool pulled over his eyes. But the rest of them … he would have hoped they'd been with him long enough now to trust that he knew what he was talking about, when he said Lilah appearing in his dreams was different to the way the rest of them had appeared - had felt different. Had been real.
But then that's what it came down to - trust. A place like this, it turned your brain inside out, made everything screwy until you didn't know if you were coming or going. Even he didn't know what he trusted anymore. It was hardly a surprise that the rest of them felt the same.
But still - it hurt. He wanted to go and speak to Doyle and Cordy. Even if they didn't approve of his going to Wolfram and Hart, at least they would be happy to believe that Lilah was up to something shady. They would believe Angel's version of events. And that would be some comfort to him.
It was already dark - he could go over there right away - no one would miss him … but, as soon as he'd finished that thought and as if to prove him wrong, the door opened and Harmony walked in. 'Boss we just got a tip some looney's hatched from the bin.'
He wrinkled his brow, 'a who did a what?'
'A girl over in the nuthouse went all cuckoo's nest. Hacked up a couple of guards and went over the wall.'
'Really not our department, Harmony. Notify the authorities and let them deal with it.'
'Okay,' she looked doubtful. 'But they better bring a priest. Looks like she's gone all kinds of exorcist.'
'Wait a minute, she's possessed?'
'Duh! … did I not say that?'
He shook his head. 'OK - thanks Harmony, I'll deal with it.'
'You want me to get the swat team?'
But he shook his head again - he didn't want to go storming in there. Possession cases needed to be handled really carefully. They were a real finesse job.
The elevator bell dinged - and the doors to both elevators opened simultaneously. Angel and Spike stepped out - and then spotted each other, and looked annoyed.
'Well fancy this,' Spike chuckled, as Angel chose to ignore him and started to walk away down the hall. 'Bitty slug I saved you from scrambled your brains after all? Come to check yourself in?' He started to follow Angel, falling in step with him.
'What are you doing here, Spike?'
'Didn't you get the memo? Hero of the people, now.'
'Then go and annoy them,' he said, through gritted teeth. 'Look - shouldn't you be out in the streets, you know, protecting the city … from people like you?' They walked past the gate that Dana had destroyed.
'Go where I'm needed,' Spike said.
'Which isn't here!' They arrived at the nurse's station and Angel handed his business card over to the sister in charge, just as Dr. Rabinaw came out of the office. 'Can I help you?' the doctor asked.
'Other way around, mate,' Spike said, 'I'm…'
'Here to get your patient back,' Angel cut in, impatiently. 'Angel, Wolfram and Hart.'
Dr Rabinaw frowned, 'a lawyer? We already told the police everything we know.'
'Well, let's go over it again - just in case you left out any details.'
'What he said,' Spike agreed cheerfully, peering over Angel's shoulder, 'but with a bit more of a threat at the end.'
...
The doctor took them down to Dana's room - it was small and dark, but the walls were entirely covered in drawings. The drawings were simple - like a child had done them - and rendered in crayon, they were bright and vibrant - but deeply, deeply disturbing. Each one depicted a monster - a demon of some sort - and many of them included a girl, facing up to the snarling monster all alone.
'Dana was a special case,' Dr. Rabinaw explained to them. Her family had been murdered in their home when she was only ten. Dana, herself, had been abducted and held captive - tortured - for months. One day, several months later, she had been found walking the streets, naked and bleeding, and barely functional. She had been pretty much catatonic ever since.
'Seems like she snapped out of it,' Spike noted, taking all the drawings she had done recently.
'Several months ago her condition changed,' the doctor said, 'increasing levels of agitation accompanied by explosive outbursts of inhuman strength.'
'Right - demon possession.'
'That's ridiculous!'
Angel sighed, 'Spike, you're not helping …'
'No - I'm doing. You can hang out for the show and tell-me-nothing,' he ripped one of the drawings down from the wall, 'but I got me a demon that needs repossessing.' He stalked out of the room.
Angel looked at the doctor apologetically. 'Sorry, he's … is pathological idiot an actual condition?'
'May I suggest you stop your friend? If he finds Dana he's only going to wind up dead, like the others.'
But that only made Angel sigh. 'Yeah - but he'll just end up coming back.' The doctor left the room and Angel turned back to examine the drawings further. Then he sensed someone standing behind him, in the doorway. 'What isn't he telling me?' he asked. He turned round - it was the nurse standing there. 'Rabinaw videoed all his sessions with Dana,' she said.
'Show me.'
Dana had found her way to an all night grocery store. The fluorescent lights flickered a little over head, dimming their sickly glare for a moment - and bland music piped away in the background. She ignored all of it; standing in the middle of her aisle, still in her hospital gown, eating things right out of the boxes.
A stock boy walked past the end of the aisle and noticed her there - taking in her hospital gown - and approached her carefully. 'Uh - hey you gonna pay for that?' he asked her, his voice was friendly, he was smiling. 'You can't just eat them out of the boxes like that - you gotta take 'em up to the register and pay for them first,' he told her. She ignored him and opened up another packet. He frowned. 'Hey come on,' he reached out to grab her shoulder, 'knock it off will -'
Dana turned, grabbed the hand that was touching her and twisted it until she heard the bone snap. The stock boy screamed out in agony and fell to the floor. She grabbed her bone saw off the shelf and walked away, still ignoring him.
She went over to the clothes section, pulled a pair of jeans off the rack and put them on over her gown. Then she picked up a t-shirt - it was black, plain - and it made her freeze up.
...
The bad man in the black shirt walked past Dana, as she was chained to the pipes. She cried and cried - for her daddy, for the bad man to let her go - but he ignored her, and daddy was gone. The bad man picked up a saw from his workbench and walked over to Dana…
...
'When you're done with the whole Winona Ryder tribute crime spree, I hope you have the cash to pay for all that.' Dana snapped out of her reverie and looked up - there was a young woman, about the same age as Dana, standing in front of her. 'Dana, right? Or at least, that's who you were,' Cordelia said, 'we're here to help.' She indicated herself and the man standing nervously behind her. 'Not the clothes I would have picked out,' she said - eyeing the jeans and tee - 'but hey, my boyfriend's a demon too - I guess bad dress sense just runs in the species huh?...' She trailed off as she got a clear look at Dana's face - and saw the blood stains. 'Though I see you've already made some interesting sartorial choices…' She raised her fists. 'Doyle, stay back.' Behind her, Doyle took a few paces back, looking worried. 'Remember to go easy on her,' he said, 'whatever's in there - the body's just a girl.'
Dana saw the raised fists, and smiled to herself. Not just a girl anymore. 'Strong,' she said.
'I am,' the woman told her.
Dana hit herself on her chest with her fist, over her heart, 'stronger.'
Cordy got the first hit in, sending the blood daubed woman spinning backwards. But Dana regained her footing and launched herself through the air, she kicked Cordelia right in the chest and then landed and kept on kicking, Cordelia staggered backwards, before grabbing hold of the kicker's leg. She swung the other woman around - so hard she actually left the ground, and then let go. Dana crashed into the racks of clothes and brought them crashing to the ground. But she flipped herself back up and hit out once again.
Cordelia blocked the hit - and then smacked Dana with a southpaw. Dana grabbed hold of her by both shoulders and headbutted her as hard as she could. Cordy cried out in pain, and then dug her nails in Dana's arm - making the other woman release her from her grip. Then she brought her arm up sharply, striking Dana under the chin, making her head snap backwards and causing her to stagger back a step. But it only lasted a moment - and then Dana was back, she and Cordelia traded blow after blow - slamming each other around the aisle, crashing into the racks, destroying the store around them.
Cordy managed to flip Dana onto the ground, but the other woman rolled across the floor - and grabbed the bone saw that had fallen there. She jumped back to her feet and was about to launch herself, weapon raised, at Cordelia when a new voice shouted. 'Freeze!' She turned to look.
A security guard was standing there, pointing his gun at the armed woman. 'Yeah - you're good right about there - hands where I can see 'em.'
Dana began to smile again.
'No!' Doyle cried out, trying to shove the security guard out of the way. But Dana grabbed him one handed and threw him down to the aisle towards Cordy. He crashed into her and they both fell to the floor, knocking over an entire rack of clothes - which fell on top of them.
The security guard squeezed his trigger - but before he could finish the job, Dana had slashed out with her bone saw once more…
...
Now dressed in a tank top, plaid shirt and her new jeans, Dana walked away from the grocery store - her bone saw dripping with fresh blood.
Inside the video room, Angel watched the tape of Dana's therapy session. 'Therapy' was putting a generous spin on it. She was restrained in a straight jacket and she was yelling at the camera, thrashing around and speaking in a foreign language.
'And that's with the thorazine,' the nurse told him.
Angel looked at the stack of tapes on the shelf, 'those are all of Dana?' he asked. The nurse nodded. Dr. Rabinaw wanted to write a book on her - that's why he didn't want anyone knowing about the filmed sessions. 'Wait,' he frowned and rewound the tape - going back to a bit he'd already seen. Dana was yelling in a foreign tongue and breathing hard.
'They're pretty much all like that,' the nurse told him, 'bunch of monkey gibberish.' But Angel shook his head. 'It's Romanian,' he told her.
'You understand what she's saying?'
'I do.'
The police had arrived at the supermarket, their cruisers were parked up and the sirens flashing. The paramedics wheeled out the body of the security guard, a sheet draped over him. Witnesses were being held inside - so the police could take statements - but the whole parking lot was a scene of noise and confusion and barely concealed panic. Spike walked around, taking it all in. he dropped to the floor, dipping his fingers into some substance that was there. He smelled the substance - then stood up again, and walked away.
Wesley was sat at his desk, researching demon possessions as Angel had asked him to do before he had left the office. It was troubling, that a demon had lodged itself inside a young woman who was already struggling with reality. Who knew the effects such an experience would have on her psyche. Or on the psyche of the demon, for that matter - he remembered only too clearly the ethros who had got himself trapped inside a soulless little boy, how it had welcomed death after a year in that hollow abyss, watching the little boy's evil play out in front of its helpless eyes. The phone began to ring and he reached out and picked it up. 'Wyndam Pryce.'
'Wes, it's me,' Angel was driving, speaking on his car phone. 'Check with our police informants - get her last known sightings. I need a technical assault team on the ground in 5 minutes. Non lethal ordinance.'
Wesley frowned. 'Do you think that's wise?' he asked, 'I've been brushing up on demonic possession and -'
'That's not what's happening.' He told Wesley about the drawings he had seen, all the different demons - hundreds of them. 'Some had a little girl in them. I thought at first they were Dana, but they were all different. It's not her.'
'Are you sure? Multiple personality manifestations are often associated with cases of possession.'
'Look it's not just the drawings. I saw a tape of her. She was speaking a half a dozen languages. One of them was Romanian…'
Dana walked through the deserted warehouse, her bone saw still clutched in her hand. It was quiet here - abandoned. It smelled dusty and familiar, the air was dry - but it wasn't what she was looking for. And she was too high up. She stared out of the window - far too high up.
'Enjoying the view are we?' a voice said behind her. 'What say we have a nice, quiet chat about mistreating little girls…' Spike morphed into his vamp face. 'Demon to demon.'
Angel pressed down on the gas and sped down the street. 'She was yelling about being chosen,' he said into the phone. 'Wes - she isn't a demon. She's a vampire slayer.'
Inside the warehouse, Dana turned around, saw the vampire standing in front of her - and smiled.
