Nina stands on a hill overlooking the gleaming lights of Las Vegas. She smiles and begins to walk toward the casinos. "You're wouldn't be trying to stand me up?," Buffy asks. Nina turns and sees her.
"You know how much I hate it when you dress like my target." The First assumes the form of Glory.
"How you like me now?" Nina looks her over and walks towards Glory. "You have no idea how good if feels to lose this useless, meat sack of a body. Hunger, weakness, pain – life for them isn't living. It's one, long, slow agonizing death."
"We just met, and already you're getting on my nerves. You're trying for edgy, but they got you stuck on annoying."
"Right. I'm the bitch in this conversation. Who's the one who just ripped a girl's heart out and laughed about it in front of her friends?"
"They were arrogant. Especially the blonde and the redhead. I have to put them in their place. If they're smart, it won't take them long to realize the girls die only to punish them."
"Killing their friends and loved ones in front of them, that's a good strategy. Don't kidnap one of the girls and then wait a long time before you try to off her in public. Trust me, that'll just backfire."
"You mean a ritual killing?," Nina asks with a chuckle. "A sacrifice? Do I look like some brainless God-worshipping maggot?" Glory gives her one of her wicked smiles.
"You really have no idea who I am."
"We haven't met."
"Oh yes we have. I looked a little different back then." Nina thinks for a few seconds. She noticed how Glory got mad when she disparaged gods. She decides to work that angle.
"But you know who's even stupider than a priest? The god he worships! They're like senile people with divine powers. That's why all the dimensions are so screwed up. The gods really are crazy. Or are they just dolts? Cause crazy people can also sometimes be brilliant. But I have NEVER heard of a brilliant god. Or even a smart god. If gods were people, they would have to be waited on like invalids. Drooling, babbling babies who have to be told how great they are every five minutes. Like incontinent, illiterate, ignorant infants. Any one dumb enough to worship something that pathetic doesn't deserve to live in ANY dimension. Wouldn't you agree?" Nina can see that Glory is about to blow her top.
"Have you forgotten why I'm the master and you're the slave?"
"Is that really you? The attitude's familiar. But the look. It's less than I would have imagined. Granted, not being hotter than me is to be expected. Who is? But you, you have got to be disappointed. You're not even as pretty as that blonde Slayer. Talk about an insult to your dignity."
"You're just saying that because you hate me. Buffy, hotter than ME? Please!"
"It's definitely a toss-up. Which is an absolute disgrace. Ya think they coulda done better for the likes of you."
"You smartass little peon! You think I'll let you get away with saying things like that to ME? I own you. You exist only to serve me. So get that through your thick, misshapen skull and that ugly die-job hair that covers it."
"I can't work under these conditions. You know what I like. Stop testing my patience."
"Is this what you like?," the First asks Nina after it takes the form of Darla. She's wearing her Catholic schoolgirl outfit. Nina walks around Darla and sizes her up.
"Not bad. Nice smile. Powerful yet playful. Good sense of humor. I can see all of that in your cute, scheming little face. This is someone I can hang with. But you need some work." Darla looks insulted. "Don't pout. Nothing's wrong with you. Just your packaging. These leggings have to go." Nina waves her right hand, and Darla's legs are bare. "That's better. Now lose this," Nina commands as she unbuttons and removes Darla's sweater. "More like it. More like the real you. Just a few more things." Nina unbuttons the top three buttons on Darla's white shirt. "And, finally, we give your hair a little life." She teases it out a bit so it's more natural-looking. Then Nina steps back. "I think I've found the real you." Darla walks over to Nina.
"There's a reason you're the only one who gets to touch me." Nina puts her right hand to Darla's left cheek for a few seconds. "These hands can do such wonderful things to my enemies."
"You liked my performance?," Nina asks hopefully. Darla looks a little disappointed.
"The moves were, well, good. But you did them to the wrong people. Why waste those wonderful hands on a powerless girl? That should have been Buffy's heart you held."
"Buffy. The blonde one?"
"Did anyone else there look like a Buffy?"
"But she's the audience. You don't kill the audience. Certainly not during the first act."
"Buffy is not a spectator. She's the star. Next to you, of course."
"But she's not the essential variable. She's not the one I need."
"Buffy is the only one who can stop you. That's what she always is. As long as she is alive, you are in danger."
"I'm confused. If she's as strong as you say she is, how could I kill her as easily as you want me to? That makes no sense."
"Because she gets better. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to kill her."
"And the more fun she'll be to fight. Right now, she's not much tougher than a rag doll. I would love it if she'd make me work, make me try. Oh, that would be fun."
"This isn't a game," Darla reminds Nina.
"Of course it is. And I never lose. See ya round. I'll think we'll have some good times together. Wish you were real. We could really set a town like this on fire. Drive all the men crazy."
Darla smiles. "You have no idea."
A police car cruises down an avenue in east Los Angeles. Out of nowhere, a man leaps in their path. The driver slams on the brakes, but it's too late. The car hits the man, and he rolls over the windshield and hood, landing behind the car. The two officers are understandably alarmed and worried. The one in the front passenger's seat gets out of the car. He looks behind the vehicle and finds nothing.
"Nice to know you really do care," Mal announces as he grabs the cop from behind and bites his neck. The man gasps and tries to yell, but the blood loss is too quick. Sitting in the driver's seat, his partner watches what transpires through the passenger's side rear-view mirror. He doesn't understand why his partner collapsed all alone. The cop gets out and begins to rush behind the vehicle. But Mal blocks his path. Having never seen a vampire before, he is extremely alarmed. Then again, Mal's appearance is alarming to people who have. "For the record, it ain't a racial thing," Mal tells him before sinking his teeth in. When he's finished, Mal takes the cop's car keys, gets it, shuts off the police radio and drives off with the siren blaring.
Taking Gunn's truck would have meant that two of them would have to ride in the flatbed, which would look suspicious, even if they weren't carrying weapons. So they take Cordy's suv. Gunn drives, with Wes sitting next to him and Fred and Cordy in back. Wesley spots some suspicious activity in an alley too their right. Gunn makes a quick turn and races down the cul-de-sac with his high beams on. Five vampires turn tail and run. Fred sticks her head out of the sun roof and fires, hitting a quickly moving vampire in the back two inches away from his heart. Two vampires scale the emergency exits on the apartment to the left, and two others do the same on the apartment to the right. Wesley pulls down his window and fires at one of the vamps to the right, but he's climbing so fast that he only hits the lower back. The vampire Fred hit is straight ahead. Gunn gets tries to run him down. The vampire manages to scale the wall of the building at the back of the alley. Gunn slams on the brakes. The four of them get out. But the vampires are gone.
"Damn!," Gunn exclaims. "That's the third time tonight."
"And every time there's five of them," Wes points out.
"Either we're a lot tougher than we think, or the vampires around here have gone chicken," Cordelia proposes.
"Or they got new marching orders," Gunn concludes.
"Mal's told 'em to run?," Fred asks.
"Or he told them not to engage," Wesley offers.
"Same thing," Cordelia responds. "They'd rather save their own skin than sink their teeth into ours. That's so frustrating." The four of them get back into the car. Gunn puts it in reverse and backs out of the alley.
"So where's Mal?," Winifred wonders.
Mal knew that his siren would make other cars get out of the way. And he quickly learned that the lights automatically went green for him. These were the sorts of things he expected. But as Mal raced around town, he discovered something quite wonderful. If, instead of passing someone, he merely drove right behind them, they would pull over to the shoulder and wait patiently for him to walk up to them. Naturally, when they saw that he was wearing blue jeans and a brown turtleneck instead of a uniform, they would get alarmed. But by that point they only had seconds more to live. Instant meals on demand – it was almost too good to be true. Mal pulled over three cars, all of them with multiple occupants. No point stopping for a single victim. Of course, he couldn't keep this up for long without getting noticed. But Mal was hoping for this. He wanted to get in a chase with four or five cop cars - the more the merrier. But he was first tailed by a single car. When Mal failed to answer their radio messages, they gave chase. Mal pulls off the 101 and travels down an empty street near the port. The officers open fire, shattering the rear window and puncturing both rear tires. Mal slows down and pulls over to the side. He shuts off the car and calmy waits for the cops, like a guy pulled over for speeding.
The cops draw their weapons and stand on either side of Mal, yelling for him to put his hands up and step out of the car. Mal pushes his feet against the floor and spins his body so that his back smashes through the front windshield. He rolls off the hood and stands up, holding his hands over his head and smiling. The officers tell him to get down on the ground. Mal goes bumpy. This buys him a second or two while the cops are too stunned to fire. Mal leaps over the cop to his left, does a mid-air forward flip and grabs the man's head while he's upside-down and above the cop. He snaps the fellow's neck and lands on his feet while the man's dead body is falling to the pavement. The other officer fires and runs to Mal. The vampire jumps over the hood and lands on the opposite side of the car. Then Mal hops onto the roof so he's standing above the cop. He points his gun, but Mal kicks it out of his hands and jumps down to the street. The officer bends down to grab the backup weapon he has above his right ankle. Before he can do that, Mal leaps on top of him and feeds. When he's done, Mal strolls away.
"This town won't be quite so boring once I'm done with it."
An hour-and-half after leaving, the gang heads home empty-handed. A few blocks from the hotel, they spot a vampire on the street and give chase. Wes and Cordy point crossbows at the vampire, who screams "Get down! Get down!" before leaping to his left and hiding behind a dumpster. Gunn sees four vampires in front of him snacking on two humans. They drop the people and run to the end of the block, where they turn right and jump down into a manhole one-by-one. Wesley steps out to give chase but can't catch them. He looks over the scene for a few seconds before returning to the car.
"They must have removed that manhole cover in advance," he concludes. Gunn drives back. The fifth vampires appears to have disappeared. Fred and Cordy get out and help the man and woman who have been bitten. The man appears to have lost the most blood, though both of them are too weak to walk away. Cordy calls an ambulance. When it's arrived, the gang returns to the hotel. Lorne is in the lobby.
"Where were you tonight while we were running in circles?," Cordelia pointedly asks.
"Chatting up the demon bars. Ironically, they think Mal's working for Angel. Even worse, they say they fear Mal a lot more than they ever feared Angel. If there's one thing worse than losing your boss and best friend, it's listening to his enemies say I wish it was Angel trying to kill us.'"
"They're just lying to hurt your feelings," Cordelia responds.
"When's Mal findin' the time to kill demons?," Fred asks.
"He doesn't stalk. He ain't got no friends. Guy's probably got loads of time to kill," Gunn surmises.
"What sort of demons is he going after?," Wesley asks Lorne.
"He seems to be starting with the biggest, then working his way down."
"That figures," Wesley concludes.
"So if Mal's spendin' all his time here, what's he got Angel doin'?, Fred wonders.
Angel stood in the arena, his sword in his right hand. He had finally killed all ten of the demons. It was far from easy, and it didn't come without a price, but they were dead. And Mal was nowhere in sight. Angel slowly walks to the wall. He wants to run, but is too exhausted and injured. Angel scales the wall and jumps ten feet down to the ground outside. It's a spare landscape dotted by scrawny, angular trees. In the distance is an enormous castle, 500 feet wide and eighty feet high, with four towers extending 160 feet into the air. After a half-hour of walking, Angel has arrived and can get a good look at the edifice. He also gets a good look at the gorge which encircles the castle. It is forty feet across and sixty feet deep from Angel's side. The ground on the castle side of the moat is twenty feet above where Angel stands. Angel jumps to the bottom of the gorge, puts the sword on his belt, and begins to climb up the jagged rock. When he gets sixty feet up, Angel realizes that the top twenty feet have been polished smooth. He moves side-to-side, but the polishing appears to be all the way around. It's too uniform to be natural. But the amount of work needed to polish and grind down a quarter mile-long, twenty foot high strip of rock from inside a gorge would have been enormous. Then again, building the damn castle entailed an enormous amount of labor in and of itself. Angel takes his sword in his right hand and uses the point to cut footholes and handholes in the rock, then climbs up a few feet to continue the process. It's slow work, but after twenty minutes Angel has made it to the top. His shoulders are burning, and it feels like his arms and feet are about to fall off. Now would be a very bad time for a demon attack.
Fortunately, none is in the offing. After a few minutes of rest, Angel gets up and approaches the castle. It is four stories high. The architecture looks to Angel to be a mix of Egyptian and Babylonian monumental. The walls are made of large blocks of cut stone. The whole thing wreaks of prestige. Clearly it's Mal's way of advertising his power and importance to any demons who might walk by. Angel approaches a large wooden door. After driving his shoulder into it three times, the six-inch-thick door opens a crack. Angel pushes it the rest of the way open and enters an entrance hall that is 100 feet long, fifty feet wide and thirty feet high. He's rather stunned by the grand hall, which has mosaics on the floor and giant carved fireplaces along both sides, as well as giant murals on the walls at either end. He's impressed by the urns flanking the fireplaces and the vases on stone-topped hardwood tables. Coming from all corners of the globe, and probably a few from other globes, the only things they have in common are that they are priceless and extremely ancient. Angel had assumed that as a status symbol, the house was meant to be viewed with awe from the outside. He didn't expect the inside to be so well-appointed. Angel found himself oddly impressed, even envious. The art, the decorations, the grand spaces – these were the things Angel appreciated most in a house. It was unsettling to discover that the seemingly invincible vampire who was torturing you and attacking the people you love also had aesthetic tastes at least as refined as your own.
Angel walks through a few more grandly appointed rooms before finding a staircase. He was looking either for secret passageways or for books which Mal used to figure out how to teleport into various dimensions. The staircase only led downwards, so that's where Angel went. He passes by dungeons filled with vicious demons imprisoned by stone walls and thick iron bars. They reach out and try to grab Angel. He stays near the middle of the pathway, out of their range. Then Angel walks by lighter, less imposing cages which hold cattle, elephants, water buffalo and a few mammal-like creatures that didn't appear to be from earth. They must be Mal's blood reserve. Angel is still full from the blood Mal fed him, so he doesn't feel the need to reach inside one of the cages and grab a quick meal. After passing through several storerooms, Angel ends up in something he didn't expect to see in an otherworldly palace – a movie theater. Strewn on the floor in front of the twenty five foot-wide screen are couches, futons, chairs and cushions. In back, above the entrance and just in front of the projection room, is a balcony. Stacked along the wall to Angel's left is a film library that appears to contain at least one thousand movies. The reels are stored behind a wall of glass. Angel walks toward the exit door underneath the screen. Unfortunately, the door happens to be a portal. When Angel opens it, he gets sucked into an entirely new dimension. One that is teeming with demons.
It took a while, but Connor finally scrubbed off all the tar. He'll worry about all the dirty towels and the clogged shower drain sometime later. For now he goes into his room, gets dressed and dials up Dawny. She's alone in her room. Buffy and company have yet to return from their disastrous encounter with Nina. She picks up her cell phone. "Hello?"
"It's good to hear your voice," Connor tells her.
"Thanks. Same for you. Is something wrong?"
"Why would you say that?"
"You sound depressed. Rough night?"
"Yeah. You know, that happens. How was your day? How was school?" Connor obviously wanted to get his mind off of Mal.
"Crazy. Hellmouth acted up. Me and Kit left early. She sort of figured out what was up pretty quick."
"Were there demons?"
"No. Just people trying to hurt each other. And some pigs. But, mostly people acting like they were possessed by evil spirits."
"Everyone's okay, right?"
"Not Vice-Principal Mooney. But Eli and Carlos and everyone else you know got out okay."
"That's good. Sometimes I miss Sunnydale. Mostly cause you're there, and I miss you. But, you know, there are your friends, and it was fun hanging out with them. I mean, basically, things just seemed simpler there."
"Yeah," Dawn responds, a little confused by Connor's Hellmouth nostalgia. "Simple in the sense that you can pretty much expect to fight something big and powerful and evil just about every night. It's consistent all right. Consistently perilous."
"But it's small. So the bad guys are easy to find. You fight them, read about them, kill them, then it's over."
"What's wrong, Connor? Tell me what's bothering you."
"I miss you, Dawn."
"It's more than that."
"I dunno. Things here are complicated. You don't always know if you're doing the right thing. And it's like I got all these responsibilities, with the business and my dad's friends and, everything."
"So you're confused. You have doubts. Big deal. Everyone has doubts. You think Buffy never second-guesses anything?"
"I'd like to turn out better than her. No offense but, you know, I wanna be happy."
"Okay, maybe she's the wrong example for you," Dawn concedes, knowing that Connor does not hold Buffy in the highest esteem. "I know there's something you're not telling me. Maybe you're facing a tough new demon who's got everyone feeling scared and helpless."
"I'm okay. Really," Connor fibs.
"Connor, you can't fool me."
"I would never try to lie to you."
"It's not a lying. You're just holding back. Which is, understandable. You don't want me to worry about you. I'm the same way. I don't want you worrying about me. You have enough to deal with on your own."
"Should I worry?," Connor asks. "Because if you're in any danger - "
"I'm not. You know how it is round here. Bad guys don't even bother to look my way."
"Because they're scared of you."
"Thanks, Connor. But what about not lying?," Dawn asks with a laugh.
"No lie. You're tough."
"Oh. So you're just deluding yourself. But in a sweet way. My point was, whatever's got you down, I know you'll take care of it. You'll win. You're too strong and too brave and too smart not to."
"Smart? What happened to not lying?," Connor asks with a smirk.
"Come on. You know you're not a dummy."
"Sure. But I'm not as smart as you."
"So? I'm nowhere near as tough as you."
"If you say so. "Glad I called."
"Me too. Whatever it is Connor, don't worry. You and your dad will defeat it."
"If we get the chance," Connor ruefully adds, honestly unsure if Angel will return in time, or at all. They hang up. Dawn's more worried than she was letting on. However, once Buffy comes back, she'll have something far closer to home to worry about. Connor heads downstairs in gray sweatpants and a black tank top. The gang returned a few minutes earlier, so Connor is unaware of their uneventful patrol. He's bruised and limping.
"Nice to see you all cleaned up," Cordy points out. She walks up to him and looks at his injuries. Getting severely pounded two nights in a row is taxing Connor's healing abilities. But Cordelia won't bring that up until the next time he vows to protect the Angel-less City of Angels from Mal. She does notice something else. "You still got some gunk behind your ears. And a little on your neck." Connor feels like he's getting the little kid treatment, which he greatly resents.
"Wanna check if I missed any other places?," Connor responds with an petulant smirk, zinging Cordy for her past attempts to be both mother and lover to him. Cordelia is sorely tempted to slap the obnoxious little bastard, but decides he's been hit enough. She just walks away. The others can tell that Connor is in a very bad mood, meaning they should tread even lighter than usual.
"Don't let old Mal get you down," Fred says with a smile. Connor senses the condescension, though he can tell she's at least trying to be nice. "There aren't many people who could say they faced him down twice and walked away in one piece." The "one piece" remark reminds Gunn and Wes of the bodies Mal ripped apart with his teeth.
"Are we sure he's a vampire?," Connor asks, stunning everybody.
"Certainly, Mal is more powerful than just about any other vampire around," Wesley begins. "But he drinks blood, doesn't age and avoids sun light like any other vampire."
"Do other vampires wear crosses?"
"He did what?," a flabbergasted Gunn asks back. The other three are also wide-eyed and curious.
"He took my cross and hung it around his neck. It was against his chest. His sweater, at least. But he, he touched it with his hands. And nothing happened. Just like nothing happened when I threw holy water on him."
Wesley tries to concoct an explanation. "Reactions to religious symbols are thought to be at least partly psycho-somatic. The vampire is injured by the crucifix because he fears what it represents. Perhaps Mal willed himself past that fear through hypnosis or meditation."
"He said Ex post facto.' He said that's why he could do it. Is that a spell?"
"After the fact," Fred translates, trying to figure out its meaning. Wesley beats her to the answer by a second or two.
"Mal was a vampire long before the time of Jesus. Perhaps if the symbols didn't exist when the vampire was sired, they can't hurt him. We've just never realized that because we've never encountered a vampire more than 2,000 years old."
"So he grandfather's his way out of the one way we could hurt him?," Gunn notes with resignation. "That mean we gotta find some symbols from way, way back in the day?"
"I'm not sure what the Egyptians or the Sumerians used to ward off vampires," Wesley answers.
"Who cares?," Cordy interjects. "We can't kill him with any of these god-fearing tchochkes. What worried me was when my crossbow arrow bounced off his chest."
"He bones are extra hard," Connor notes. He has the bruised knuckles to prove it. "And you fired from a distance. Stake. Sword. Fire. Up close. That's the only way we dust him."
"Long as he can't ex post facto his way outta those, I ain't worried," Gunn comments. "This guy ain't invincible. He's just stronger and smarter than the average vamp."
"A LOT stronger and smarter," Fred clarifies.
"But not stronger or smarter than all of us put together," Charles responds.
"You mean us with Angel," Cordelia amends.
"No," Gunn objects. "I mean, yes. With Angel. But also without him. We have to step up and be the leaders. If Mal can get the vamps working for him, why can't we team up with other demon fighters? Damn straight I'd rather have Angel than twenty other demon fighters any day of the week. But havin' them is better than nothing. Let's face it. We need an army, and we need one fast."
Fred and Cordy aren't enthusiastic, in part because they believe Angel's indispensable, and in part because they don't know many other demon fighters. Connor naturally hates the idea. But Wesley is sympathetic. He understands the instinct to prove you can get the job done on your own, without Angel. However, he does have reservations.
"Mal has confronted armies before."
"Normal armies. The kinds that are trained to kill humans. Not armies of demon fighters."
"Point taken. What tactics would you use against an adversary like Mal? A simple envelopment, or would you feign retreat with part of your forces to lure him into a trap?
"Mal's too fast for that. Unless you mean real traps: nets, bear traps, land mines." That last one peaked Wesley's interest.
"I know someone who could get us those on very short notice. Or, we could make them ourselves. The problem would be concealing the bombs from Mal."
"How bout disguising them to look like junk you'd normally find on a street?"
"Would you use remote detonation?"
"Hadn't thoughta that. But it's worth considering." Gunn and Wes walk off, eagerly brainstorming and analyzing. Fred and Cordy don't quite know what to make of this.
"At least they're gettin' along," Fred points out with a shrug.
"They won't think of anything Mal hasn't seen before," Connor begins disparagingly. He knows something about being both predator and prey in a hostile world. "If they're too strong, he'll run away and hide. When they split up, he'll attack. We have to give him something he's never faced before. He's beaten Slayers. He's killed demon fighters. He's killed vampires. But he came here to fight something new."
"You?," Cordy asks, worrying that Connor's suffering from delusions of grandeur.
"And Angel," Connor responds. "The two of us. We're the only thing that could kill him. Without both of us, this town's screwed." Connor heads back upstairs.
"At least he misses his dad," Cordy points out. "Though he is going a bit overboard with this Chosen One stuff. The last thing we need around here is a Slayer in drag."
Mal wants a big score. Something that will get the attention of all the right people. A car with two men in it stops at a red light on an empty street. Mal shatters the glass and pulls out the driver. The man in the passenger's seat gets out and points a nine millimeter at Mal, who shields himself with the body of the terrified driver. He goes bumpy and sinks his fangs into the unfortunate man's neck, sucking out his blood while his friend watches. The friend turns and runs. When Mal has finished draining his victim, he gives chase. The chase doesn't take long. The fleeing guy fires three shots, not of which strike Mal. He tackles the poor fellow before he even sees Mal. The vampire then tosses the guy into a wall and puts his right hand around his neck.
"Where is your boss?"
"My what? Man, you trippin." Mal drives his left fist into the young man's right shoulder, separating it. He cries out in pain. Mal worries that he's too in shock to provide any useful information. So he steps back for a minute and allows the guy to catch his breath. He also goes back to his human face.
"I apologize. It was not my intention to hurt you. But you would not cooperate. It also not my intention to kill you. However, if you fail to tell me what I need to know, then I may have no choice. Which would be very bad. For both of us. Let's work together. Tell me where I can find the man who runs your organization. Your gang leader."
"Then I'm still a dead man."
"But you'll have a fighting chance. Something you don't have with me. Tell me what I need to know."
"You came after the wrong guy. I don't know nothin'." Mal goes bumpy again and leans in to bite the man. "Wait, wait. Hold on. I mean he moves around."
"So do I." Mal breaks his left arm. The man groans and yelps in pain. "Give me one. If he is not there, I will break another bone, and you will give me another location. You have about two hundred more bones could break." Mal picks the guy up and carries him back to the car, which Mal will drive to his headquarters. "We'll talk on the way."
The theater is more crowded and buzzing with more energy than before. Mal checks the new names on the roster and looks over the vampires. Then he grabs Lou and prepares to head out. But first, he leaves them with instructions. "Nobody touches the hostage. I will kill anyone who tries to bite him. If we succeed, Lou calls, and you take him straight to the hospital. If I find out that anyone has disobeyed these orders, I will see to it that every one of you dies. If you do not think that you can follow orders, please leave right now. I don't ask for much. Only that."
Mal heads out with Lou. The vampires don't quite understand why they have to help the hostage even when he's no longer needed. But they're willing to abide by his methods as long as he keeps killing their enemies. However, they can't yet grasp why he's going after criminal gangs who've never done a thing to vampires. But that will become apparent soon enough.
Lou drives Mal over to the strip club that the gang leader usually works out of on Monday nights. Mal takes a walk through the place, giving the strippers large amounts of the cash that he's taken from his victims. He hasn't yet figured out what things cost in Los Angeles, and doesn't know that it's unheard of for a man to give a stripper one hundred dollars without even asking for so much as a lap dance. But Mal's more interested in checking out the audience. He sees a man with a cell phone flanked by two other men who are talking to him. Sitting "inconspicuously around the club are six large men who look like bodyguards. Mal thinks he's found his target. He gives the bartender a twenty without even ordering a drink and slips forty to the bouncer before walking outside. Then he goes to work.
Mal overturns three Escalades and two Humvees parked outside the establishment. The people inside hear the racket, and the six bodyguards go outside to investigate. They're shocked and baffled by what the see. Lou, who's perched on the roof of a grocery store across the street, presses play on a boombox. The sound of rapid gunfire pours out of the speakers. The six men hit the deck, pull out their guns and look for the shooters. Inside, the people can hear the gunfire. The music stops. The dancers panic. The leader stands up and asks one of his assistants to check on what's going on.
After Lou pressed play, Mal took advantage of the bodyguards' distraction to climb onto the roof of the club. He rips open an emergency fire exit and ducks down into the club, just as Buffy did at the Bronze during the Harvest. Except Mal's carrying much bigger weapons. Before walking into the club, Mal had stored his bow and two arrows by the trap door. He grabbed them just before going down into the club. Mal hangs upside-down from the rafters and fires. The arrow pierces the man's chest and drives him back down, pinning him to the couch he was sitting on a few seconds earlier. The man to the leader's right fires up in the air. Mal swings up so he's parallel to the floor, reloads, swings back upside-down and fires his second arrow at his not-quite-dead-yet target. This shot goes straight through the leader's left eye, out the back of his head and lodges itself halfway into the front wall forty feet behind the man. Mal tosses his bow up through the trap door, then swings down and lands on stage amidst the pandemonium he has created. The spotlight catches him in all his vampiric glory, causing even more screaming and panic. The leader's right hand man fires two shots from twenty five feet away. Mal leaps up, does a flip and lands behind the guy. When the perplexed and now terrified man turns around, Mal kicks the gun out of his hand. When he reaches for another, Mal grabs hold of him and leaps up to the balcony. By now, the bodyguards have heard the mayhem and rushed back inside, only to find their boss shot with – of all things – an arrow.
They can't find the "shooter," since he's on the floor of the balcony, drinking the leader's crony dry and giving him a thorough mauling. Mal takes hold of the spotlight and shines it on the bodyguards and the one remaining crony on the floor. Then he tosses what's left of his victim down to them. His throat has been ripped out, and his chest has been ripped open. They all fire into the balcony. By now, Mal has eluded the hail of bullets and is climbing along the rafters. He heads up through the trap door, closes it, grabs his bow and jumps down to the street just in time to stop Lou from feasting on the fleeing patrons.
"No overkill," Mal explains. "We don't want them to think we are playing favorites." Lou, who does know why Mal is going after the gangs, understands. They drive off. "Now let's go find you another massacre," Mal suggests to Lou's delight.
NEXT: Nina sits down to have a chat with Buffy. Angel fights his way through one of Mal's demon colonies. Connor goes dark. And Wes and Gunn go solo.