Chapter 2

9:57 PM
There are some hard truths in the world. You don't have to live a long life or fight monsters for a living to know that unpleasant things that live in the world. Willow had seen some frightening things in her admittedly brief time on this earth -- she had once even been the cause of it -- but she had thought that she had gotten past the point when she could be appalled by something.
Then Xander had come back to the office with Leonard and the others looking unnerved. In itself this was troubling. She knew Xander better than anybody here, and she knew that it took a lot to get beneath his cheerful exterior. While Gunn and Robin were getting some of the high command of Angel-Slayer Incorporated, she had taken Xander aside and asked him to explain. He gave her a recital of what had happened, but the normally talkative boy had a great deal of trouble explaining why he was unnerved.
"You sure it couldn't have been some kind of vision from the Powers?" she had asked.
. "It's possible, but...it-it didn't feel like it was a vision that Leonard was having." said Xander
"What did it feel like?"
Xander thought for a moment. "It felt like...like a possession."
"Possessed? By who?
"I wish I knew."

After the others had been assembled, Leonard had looked over them--- especially in Dawn's direction. "I....I don't think that I can talk if...if they're in the room," he finally said with some reluctance.
For a few seconds no one knew who he was referring to. Then he pointed to two of the new Slayers who had come -- neither of whom was over eighteen -- and Dawn..
All three girls were understandably insulted. Dawn especially. "Hello, we've fought the First Evil. You don't think we can handle this?" Everyone else was about to speak in their defense when Leonard stopped them.
"I know... what you've been through. I know you're strong. But there are some things... that can be worse than vampires and demons. Some things that you think you can deal with, but..."

Several of the teens were becoming concerned. But Angel, who perhaps knew better than any of them the kinds of evil that there are, came to his rescue. "How horrible are the deaths?" Everyone seemed a little shocked that Angel had figured it out...except for Leonard. again, bring this para up to the previous statement. actions should go with speech.
"Very bad." And then, realizing what he had confirmed, he started to talk. "Two months ago, somewhere in Oregon--- I don't know where exactly--- a woman named Laura Hodges was brutally murdered. Among other things she was strangled, stabbed at least a dozen times, sexually assaulted and she had her hair almost scalped from her head." He stopped as if the nature of the crime had shocked him, which it probably had. "Her body was found floating in a lake near the border, wrapped in plastic."
Softly, in a tone that disturbed Willow even more that Leonard's message, Buffy spoke up "How old was she?
"Nineteen." He let this news sink in. "Two weeks later in Lewiston-- "When some people looked confused, he said: "It's in the northern part of the state. A girl named Donna Northrup was found floating in Shasta Lake in a similar condition. Ten days later near Sacramento another girl was found in Folsom Lake. This girl was unidentified because her fingers and face had been...."
Wesley held up his hand. "How many girls have been killed?"

"Five."
"Why haven't we heard anything about this on the news?" Willow asked.
"None of the victims had anything in common aside from being young girls. Local law enforcement has no idea who could have killed them and they don't want to start a panic. But mostly its because the FBI have been keeping details about the murders suppressed. Officially they are doing so because they want to protect the families."
"And unofficially?" asked Faith.
Leonard gave her a half-smile. "Well there are two reasons: They believe that the identity of the suspect could cause considerable damage to the Bureau."
The penny dropped. "Are you saying that the man that killed these women is connected with the FBI?" said Xander."
"It's not just one man. There are three individuals responsible for the trail of murders that has been heading South."
"And they are all former FBI?" Giles asked.
"Two of them are. In fact they used to be partners in the Bureau. The older one is Windom Earle. He was eccentric but considered one of its most brilliant minds -- before he snapped. Before he began this murder spree, he was responsible for several deaths while an FBI agent. He was institutionalized, but broke out and began another rash of killings before disappearing again. You'll have to check the FBI database to get all the details."
"And his partner?" Buffy asked.
"Dale Cooper. He helped track down Earle in both his earlier extravaganzas. He was considered pretty sharp as well. I'm not entirely sure what happened to him the second time, but I do know that his last official action in the Bureau was rescuing a young girl whom Earle had abducted. Shortly afterward, he was institutionalized."

"All of this came to you in the vision?" said Wesley. Leonard nodded. "They're not usually this detailed, are they?"
"No, and I'm not entirely sure that this one came from the same place as the others." Leonard seemed as baffled by this as they were. "The others, it all came in flashes—random images, someone speaking. This is so detailed like I'm reading about it in a newspaper. Its makes me think— I don't know, maybe its coming from somewhere else."
Giles seemed like he wanted to follow up on this, but Angel put his hand on his shoulder. "This may be important but right now these murders are more important than whatever's sending these visions." He said
"He's right." said Buffy. "Which one of the G-men is committing the murders?"

Leonard smiled humorlessly. "In once sense both of them are committing the murders. In another sense neither is." "smiled humorlessly" as an alt-phrase?
The group looked around at each other, and Leonard, completely nonplussed. Buffy raised her hand. "I don't think you want to get all cryptic on us now."
"Yeah, this isn't an ancient prophecy so give it to us straight." Xander added.
Willow did not get angry. A very nasty idea had just occurred to her. She looked around and saw that Angel and Giles got it to a degree. "What aren't you telling us?" she asked.
"For one thing Windom Earle was missing and presumed dead for over a year. They searched the forest where he was last seen from end to end and found absolutely no trace that he had even been there," said Leonard.

"So? What does that have to do with anything?" said Dawn.
"People can vanish off the face of the earth." He looked at Fred. "You've seen it happen. The question is what do you have to do to pull it off?"
"He opened a portal. Is that what you're saying?" Fred had been getting more and more unnerved by the discussion and Willow thought she was near the breaking point. She wasn't the only one. Willow was starting to fee a bit wound up herself. again with the odd Willow
"Sometimes you don't have to open them. Sometimes all you need is to know where to look," said Leonard
"You're getting off the point," said Angel.
"Wait a minute." Wesley had gotten it too."Maybe he isn't
"Would you mind sharing with the rest of the class?" Faith said, exasperated. t
Giles spoke up: "Leonard said three individuals were responsible for the deaths. He only gave us two names."
"Two men, but three killers," said Wesley. "Who's the third?"
"More than a year ago, Windom Earle took an innocent to a place that was so twisted and evil it couldn't be found in this dimension. Dale Cooper followed him there. When he emerged he had a part of it inside him. Somehow he kept it in check for a year before Earle found and released them. This entity is out now. It has a blood lust that is beyond belief. "Leonard looked at them. "And two days ago, the three of them drove into Los Angeles."

1:56 AM
Doing research turned out to be more troublesome than they had thought. Giles had insisted that they do some studying on the demon, but since Leonard could tell them little about it -- except that it bore the innocuous name of Bob -- they had come up with nothing. It was up to Willow and Fred, who had the bright idea to hack into the FBI archives and find out everything that they could about Windom Earle, Dale Cooper and the case that had nearly destroyed both of them.
"All right, here is what we know about the last case Special Agent Cooper worked on," Willow said as they all sat in the boardroom. The mood was grimmer than the usual boardroom meeting. Willow knew why. A vampire or a demon killing someone was bad, but the idea that the force they were dealing with was mainly human -- one would have to be made of stone not to be sickened.

"Last February, in the town of Twin Peaks -- that's a small town in the northwest corner of Washington -- a girl named Laura Palmer was found dead, wrapped in plastic floating in a nearby lake. She was seventeen." Fred waited for a reaction but there was none. "She had been battered, tortured, raped and finally killed. The same day that her body was found, another girl Ronette Pulaski -- she went to school with Laura, as it turned out -- walked out over the state line just clinging to life. Immediately after she was found, she lapsed into a coma." Fred was being pretty linear for her which was sign number 867 that something disturbing was going on.
"And Cooper was called in to investigate these...." Giles said. For some reason, he was having trouble finding an appropriate word. "... attacks?"
"Yes, but not just for that reason. A year earlier, in a different part of the state, girl named Teresa Banks was murdered under similar circumstances."

"This was a serial killer?" Buffy asked in disbelief. Perhaps it was because of the ages of the girls, but she seemed to be having a little difficulty processing this. Some people might have been bemused that this strong woman could be brought down by this, except that Willow was feeling the same way. "That is what Agent Cooper believed. But, as the case developed, he began to think that there was more to it," said Fred.
"Such as?" Angel asked.
"Laura and Ronette were apparently tortured and killed in an abandoned train car outside of town. They found a message written in blood that no one understood." Willow paused. "It read: 'FIRE, WALK WITH ME.'"
There was no obvious reaction except that Leonard, already pale, turned a little whiter.
"Laura Palmer was sort of like Cordy." No one reacted to that, not even Angel. "She was a high school princess. Homecoming queen, jock boyfriend, did charity work on the weekends -- the kind of girl everybody hates a little because their lives seem so perfect." Fred gave a half smile that disappeared quickly. "But it turned out that she had been leading a double life. She had a secret boyfriend, she worked for the local drug dealer and she occasionally worked as a prostitute at a nearby casino. More than that she had recently, according to her diary, been having dreams about a strange man named Bob."
That got everyone's attention.
"Cooper knew about Bob?" Giles asked.
"Eventually, because of a series of dreams that he had, along with experiences that he described as supernatural, he came to believe that whatever killed Laura and the other girls was some kind of evil spirit. While less dangerous in its natural form, it was capable of occupying a corporeal body for extended periods of time. In this case he had been in the host for decades." Willow paused. She knew what the next question was, and she really didn't want to answer it. She had thought that she was past the point where she could be shocked by anything, but this...this was something worse.
Eventually, Gunn spoke: "Whose body did Bob occupy?" He spoke in the way someone does who doesn't want an answer to the question he has asked.
"Bob's host -- the tool that he used to kill those other girls -- was Laura Palmer's father."

For a few moments there was silence as they all took this in. Then Dawn got to her feet, ran to the sink and vomited. Buffy rose as well to check on her sister. A couple of the others got up too. They didn't look ill but they seemed sick in another sense of the word.. Willow didn't blame them; she felt like taking a shower. changed "They didn't look ill but they seemed to be demonstrating that they were sick in another sense of the word." to "They didn't look ill but they seemed obviously sickened."
Eventually Dawn and Buffy came back to the table. "Should I... Should I keep going?" Willow asked timidly, almost hoping someone would say no.

"It's.... it's okay." said Dawn weakly. "I just...you know. It got to me."

"You don't have to hear the rest of this" Angel told Dawn. "I don't think it's going to get much prettier."

"I'm not sure that I want to hear the rest of this."
Everyone had looked at the source of the comment, somewhat surprised. After some convincing by both Faith and Fred, Andrew had been allowed to attend board meetings . Over the past two weeks he had been watching, mostly unsure how much he could participate. This had caused him to forget his fears but he had not been that vocal until now.
"I know that I'm in no position to be revolted by killing, but this...this is a perversion even by the standards of murder. That something, anything, could make a father do this to his own child... It's..." Andrew groped for words. "Even for something inhuman, it is disgusting."
"How sure was Cooper that Bob was committing the crimes?" asked Wesley.
"Cooper was pretty sure that during the killings, Bob was in control of ... the host, and that he was completely unaware of what he was doing," Fred answered. "He appeared in his true form to Palmer's wife, Laura's cousin, and Ronette Pulaski. It was as if he showed himself to people whose minds were in agony somehow. Like he tapped into the subconscious of the girls he..." She couldn't finish.

"How did Cooper stop Bob?" asked Angel
"He didn't." Everyone looked at Willow in surprise. "He figured out that Bob had used Mr. Palmer to kill these women, but when he arrested...them, Bob fled his body. The shock of his departure and the realization of the destruction that he had helped cause killed Leland Palmer almost instantly."

"And Bob disappeared into thin air," Xander said bitterly. "Isn't that just like an evil spirit?"
"Wherever he disappeared to, it couldn't have been that far away otherwise Cooper could never have found him,"Wesley pointed out.
"Yeah, how did Cooper find him?" asked Angel The vampire was beginning to seem a little on edge himself. He was twisting a paper clip into a straight line, something that he never did.
"And how does this Windom Earle fit in?" added Gunn.
This, at least, they could answer. "Around the same time of the murders in Twin Peaks, Windom Earle escaped from the institution he was being held in." said Fred.

"What did he do to get thrown into one of those places?" asked Buffy.

"Well several years earlier Earle and Cooper were partners. Earle's wife witnessed a crime and Cooper was assigned to protect her. They... had an affair."
"And Earle found out about it," surmised Giles.
"Supposedly, he brutally attacked Cooper and murdered his own wife" Willow confirmed. She didn't much like this part either. "In order to avoid prison, Earle supposedly faked his insanity. Cooper believed that after enough time Earle truly did lose his mind. "
"But he still held a grudge against Cooper," Faith stated curiously.
"When he escaped he began playing mind games with Cooper," Fred said. "I think I'd better add that Leonard was right: Earle was a genius. The fact that he might have lost his mind didn't change that. Apparently he hid in Twin Peaks for several days with no one noticing him, even though several townspeople had seen him. He also managed to murder three people without leaving a trace except what he wanted to be found."
"All of this would have been bad enough on its own..." Willow sighed. It was going to get tricky from here on. "...but Earle had a very interesting set of beliefs. He thought that there were places where the layers of reality were worn thin. Places where evil ruled."
"Other dimensions?" asked Angel.
"Sort of. He called one of these places the 'black lodge'." Again the only reaction came from Leonard as he notably flinched. Willow waited a second before going on. "Earle believed that these places could be accessed if you knew where to look and when to do it"

"And Earle figured out how," Buffy said. "Did Cooper believe this?"
"I'm not sure, but according to his notes he came to think that there was something evil in those woods surrounding Twin Peaks. Something that wasn't right," Fred answered. "During the course of his investigation, Cooper and some of the local law enforcement came across a series of cave paintings that he believed were connected to this 'black lodge.'"
"Eventually Earle finally struck against Cooper," said Willow. "At a public event he abducted a young woman named Annie Blackburne. Cooper had become friends with her and in Earle's eyes that was enough reason to take her."
"Did he kill her too?" asked Giles. Like most of the others he was hearing this for the first time..

"No but he almost did something worse. He used his knowledge of the black lodge to take Annie there. Cooper had no choice to follow. He found it and managed to get Annie out." Fred stopped. "And that's all we know. Cooper never wrote another report after Annie was abducted. Two weeks later he committed himself indefinitely to Spring Grove in Portland."

"An insane asylum." said Angel.

"You don't say 'insane', you say 'mentally unstable'." said Fred. "And you don't say 'asylum', you say 'diagnostic health center.' "

They all considered this.

"They sent him to the loony bin.' Buffy said.

"You got it." said Fred. "Earle was never seen again and was presumed dead. According to the FBI, that's still true. Earle's name doesn't come up in any Bureau reports even when he supposedly broke Cooper out of the institution."
"Well we can guess the rest about Cooper in any case." Wesley said with a shrug. "If this 'black lodge' really was an evil dimension its likely that Bob lived there. In a place that was a confluence of evil, it would have been difficult for any man to resist."
"But Cooper was aware of that. Otherwise why institutionalize yourself?" Xander pointed out.
"And what about Earle? What happened to him?" asked Faith.
There was a moment's pause. Then Andrew spoke. "Maybe he made a major miscalculation." When everyone looked at him, he reddened but went on: "A person can be bad at heart, maybe even by his nature, but that doesn't make it true evil. Maybe he realized that what he had found was something that was beyond even his darkest fantasies."
They all thought about this for a while. "So you're saying that the darkness found him unworthy, and punished him." said Willow.
"I'd say that's as good an explanation as any," said Andrew.
"Andrew speaking reasonably about darkness? The world has gone mad." Everyone turned towards Xander. "I'm sorry, I thought the mood could use a little lightening."
The group did what they normally did when Xander delivered a bon mot and moved on with the conversation. "But if that's the case why would it release him after all this time?" Wesley asked.
There was another thoughtful pause. Then Leonard, who had been silent through all this, spoke. "Because something or someone thought that he could play a vital role after all."
"You mean breaking Cooper out of Spring Grove?" said Faith.
"That... and maybe to make sure that Bob is handled correctly. The thing that took me over was very sly but it was also very scattered. Maybe Earle's job is to make sure that Bob aims his weapon in the right direction."
"That's going to make our job a lot tougher." Everyone looked towards Buffy.
"Excuse me?" said Gunn.
"Tracking down and stopping Bob."
Though Buffy was no longer in charge, everyone still looked to her as a voice of authority. Even the LA crew, who normally deferred to Angel, had begun to treat her words with the same wisdom they did Angel or Wes. No one would out and out say she was wrong...except for the one person who hadn't known her that long.

"Are you serious?" said Leonard. Buffy looked at him with genuine surprise in her face.
"Wait a minute. You're telling me that after all this, we're not supposed to do anything?" said Buffy, a little exasperated now.
"What was the point of the vision if not to do this?" said Xander.
"This wasn't a vision." said Leonard. "It was a warning. It didn't tell me about these killings and these people because we're supposed to stop them."
"Then why..." started Robin. Leonard didn't let him finish..

"It was telling us to stay out of the way. I don't think the Powers sent me this. I think it was Bob. He was saying: 'Fuck with me and I'll do to them what I did to you.'"

Everyone seemed to think about this for a moment -- except for Buffy."So what? This thing may be evil but we've faced worse."
"Buffy this isn't a vampire or a demon or even some monster threatening to swallow the world," said Angel. "This is a man."
"You really think that this thing is human?" said Xander with disgust.
"No but the person that's hosting it is," said Giles. "You heard the reports: in order to kill it we may have to kill this man Cooper. Are you prepared to do that?"
It was a very serious question. Willow knew very well that while some of her friends and colleagues -- including herself -- were capable of killing another human being, Buffy might not be one of them. She had been brought to the brink of doing so several times, but she hadn't crossed that bridge yet.
Buffy thought about it for some time. She was about to respond when Leonard spoke: "Maybe she can, maybe she can't. Doesn't matter one way or the other."
Everyone looked at him as if he had grown an extra head. "What are you saying?" asked Wesley.
"I'm saying that this thing likes violence. All forms. Cooper's death would just be a part of this. Bob would be pissed at losing his host, but that would only last until he found a new one."
"And L.A. gives him fifteen million people to choose from," finished Angel. "We have to find another way."
"There is no other way." Leonard spoke as if the subject were closed.
"You don't know that," Fred said.
It was the wrong thing to say. Leonard walked toward her. "Yes I do. We're not going to stop that thing. Chasing after this it only guarantees that we will add to the body count it's racking up."
"Leonard, I know you're scared, but we've been doing this for a lot longer than you have." Willow tried to express her concern gently. We've faced unbeatable foes before; we've dealt with apocalypses on a weekly basis. Give us time..."
Leonard cut her off."And you'll get killed." His tone broached no argument.
Unfortunately, these were people who loved to argue.
"Look man, we know--"
"NO! YOU DON'T KNOW!" Everybody stepped back as Leonard began to shout. "That thing--- that aberration was inside me! It was in me for less then two minutes, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to sleep or eat again! This isn't some evil creature, this is pure evil!" By now, Leonard was shaking and tears were rolling down his cheeks; none of them thought that he was aware of either of them.
For a moment everyone was unsure of how to deal with his hysteria. Willow didn't think in all her years of saving people she'd seen a man become so hysterical. Finally Dawn walked over to him and tried to hold him. The sight of this teenage girl trying to comfort a much older, and bigger, man would have appeared amusing; most of them were encouraged by it.
"You know what Buffy and the others have been fighting this last year?" Dawn asked.
Leonard didn't speak but he nodded.
"You know what Angel and his friends were dealing with ?"
He nodded again.
"We were facing impossible odds against something that could not be defeated. I won't lie and tell you that it was easy. But we did prevail." Dawn looked Leonard in the eyes. "I won't pretend to understand what happened to you, or that I am not disgusted at what its done. But everything has some weakness. Even this.

Leonard made an immense effort to collect himself and finally he seemed better. Dawn walked back towards the others who had all backed away after Leonard's outburst. Buffy looked at her with a mixture of pride and astonishment. "Where the hell did you pick that up?"

Dawn gave her a smile that seemed sad somehow. "Like Andrew said, on the Hellmouth you grow up fast."
"Yeah, you do."
There was another pause. Wesley broke it: "I think how to handle Bob is a secondary issue right now. Our first step should be locating Cooper and Earle."
"Good luck," said Fred. "Like we said, these guys are good at hiding in small towns. Among fifteen million other people--"

"Yeah. It'll be tough," Gunn said. "It's too bad that we don't have a vast organization filled with people who are good at finding things. Oh wait," he said snapping his fingers, "we do."
"Not to bring you down, but where do you suggest we have them start looking?" asked Faith. "I mean it's not like we can account for every single person in L.A."
There was an awkward pause: "Well--" Fred began.
"Get out of here! We really have that kind of outfit?" said Faith.
"We do. But even working at maximum capacity it would take a couple of weeks before they were done," Giles pointed out.
"And we have to assume that they will kill before then," said Angel. "We need a place to start looking." He looked towards Fred and Willow. "Do we have any clue as to where they might stay?"
Willow thought about it. "When he was in Twin Peaks, Cooper believed that Earle was hiding in the woods around the town. Maybe he found some kind of cabin."
"Well he wouldn't hide in a forest but he and Cooper will need some kind of base of operations," Fred reasoned.
"Start with motels. Places near the edge of the city," said Angel as he got to his feet.
"Assume that it happened in the last three days." said Gunn as he got ready to go the computer
Slowly the 'board' of Angel-Slayer Inc. began to work on locating the two rogue agents -- and whatever thing possessed one of them. Most of them were hoping that the routine of working would help them forget the nature of the monster they were facing.
They didn't succeed.

It was hard adjusting to traveling with an insane mass murderer, but Windom Earle had become an expert at changing his plans.
It was even harder to put murders on a timetable, but those who had freed them had insisted on this as well.
Earle couldn't think what kind of law firm would back the systematic string of murders that they had begun or why they had insisted on committing them near California. The truth was, he didn't care much. The whole idea of being free after so long in captivity -- being able to eat and drink and kill -- was wonderful.
He didn't ask Bob what he felt about it, but he could imagine that he felt the same exuberance.
So when they found what seemed to Earle the most ordinary motel on the outskirts of L.A., neither was surprised when they found a brown manila envelope instructing them what to do next.
Especially when they saw the photographs that the envelope contained.
"Look at all the pretty faces. All the beautiful girls." Bob hadn't spoken much since they had opened the envelope, but this had roused him in a way that very little had. Earle wasn't surprised. He knew that Bob had a taste for young meat.
"Yes. All the lovely ladies. But not just ordinary girls. These girls are fighters. Warriors if you believe the intelligence that we've been given."
"I like rambunctious girls," said Bob. "They taste better when they finally go."
Earle didn't think that Bob was being literal and didn't care. Catching them was his job. What happened next... That was up to Bob.
"Yes. Pretty, strong women. But they say..." He took out the photograph that had been marked 'Handle Carefully.' "....they say that She's the strongest."
Bob looked at the photo with delight as Earle knew he would. He knew Bob had a thing for blondes.
"Break her and the rest will soon follow," Earle told him.
"She's stronger then she looks," Bob said.
"Yes. Yes she is." Earle smiled. "But that will make her defeat all the sweeter." He looked at the photo. "But you've got to wonder about her parents. Giving their child a name like this. Let's call her by her middle name. I know that appeals to you."
For a moment it seemed that Cooper was trying to break through, but the moment quickly passed. Again Bob smiled.
"Turn off the lights, Anne. Bob is coming for you."

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