Oz has problems trusting Spike. Everyone but Spike has problems trusting Devlin. And, to make matters worse, he rips Spike for his incompetence when trying to kill Buffy. At the W&H lab, a doctor explains what happened to the werewolf, and what could happen to Nina in the not-so-distant future.
Oz hear several loud knocks at the door, and gets up to answer it. To his surprise, it's Spike. "Can I come in?"
Oz takes a while to respond. "Umm, negative?"
"I'm here to protect you."
"This would be the ironic phase of the game."
Spike sighs with frustration. "Can the laconics, Oswald. Way I heard it, someone's out to kill you. You can tell me to Piss Off' and take your chances, or you can be a good little doggie and let me do my job."
"So, either way, I'm taking my chances."
"Bloody hell! What did I ever do to you?"
"Besides call me Oswald? There was that time you kidnapped my girlfriend and tried to kill her."
"You're mixing events. I kidnapped her to make her perform a spell, meaning I had no plan to kill her that night. About a year later, when she wus at university, I did try to kill her – or sire her, I can't remember which. Probably sire. I wus looking for a new girlfriend, and she could look quite fetching in that fuzzy pink number."
"This isn't improving your chances of getting invited in."
"But I had that bloody chip in my brain, so I couldn't bite Red. She was sorta hurt. Thought it was her fault, on account of you leaving her. What a huge blow to her self-esteem. I'm not sure if she had considered going sappho yet. Probably not. She was very keen on hearing me say that I found her desirable."
"I'm going to check the fridge, see if there's any holy water. Just in case you can't take a hint."
"What do I need – a letter of bloody recommendation from Buffy?"
"Whatever you two had, I'd rather it not be put into print."
"If I were evil, what are the chances I'd waste my time killing you? No offense. But there's millions of other necks I'd rather bite in this town."
"Point taken. I'll give you this: your fashion sense is consistent. Shouldn't switching sides be an occasion for change of uniform?"
"I tried that. Bright colors. Earth tones. None of it worked. Anyway, Buffy seemed to prefer the Classic Spike Look."
"One request: don't mention Buffy and yourself in the same sentence. Or yourself and anyone else I know in the same sentence. That will make this a lot easier."
"Bloody hell," Spike sighs. "Now let me in."
"Fine. Enter." Spike steps forward but is stopped cold at the threshold. "What? Not enough feeling?"
"I don't get it. This is your place?"
"Not exactly. I'm staying with a friend. He's out right now. Which is good for him, if people actually are trying to kidnap or kill me."
"Come with me."
"Hide in plain sight. How clever, in a not so clever sort of way."
"Angel should be here to pick you up in a few."
"You'd really risk your sort-of-life to protect me?"
"I'd risk my life to stave of boredom."
Oz shrugs. "Wouldn't want to keep Angel waiting." He walks out into the hall and closes the door behind him. Spike grabs his right wrist and drags him down the stairs like a child. "The switching of sides: was that because you were tired of losing?"
"We're punting the problem to Angel," Devlin assumes.
"No Dev. He's helping us out."
"By taking this guy off our hands."
"And by finding whoever sicked him on me."
"He thinks this was a hit?"
"Angel's been investigating a man who's using werewolves as assassins."
"Oh. So he's not really helping us. We're solving his problem for him!"
"We're all on the same side."
"So's Buffy. You bout slay vampires. But look what happened last night. There's no sides, Deb. Just loyalties. Allies you're willing to give your life for, and everyone else."
"Is that all we are? Allies?"
"Yes." Debbie looks stunned. "At first. That's where we started from."
"We started with fear and suspicion."
"No, you started with fear and suspicion. I started with love."
"Liar."
"Cynic." Debbie walks up to Devlin and puts her arms around his shoulders.
"Would a cynic have invited you in? Let alone share her bed - " Dev pushes Deb back and stands in front to protect her as he hears a vehicle zooming towards them. A black van slams on the brakes and pulls into her driveway. Two men with a stretcher get out, along with a gun-toting commando clad in black.
"Is this the werewolf?"
"Yes," Debbie nervously responds. "W-w-we haven't moved him. Where's Angel?"
"He'll be here shortly."
"How do I know you're, umm, with him?" The commando and Devlin stare at each other. It's clear from the man's expression that he wants to bash the vampire's head in. Presumably because he saw the security tape of Devlin killing two W&H commandos and maiming several others in the firm's parking garage only four days earlier.
"I know," Dev assures her. "Let them have him." The former werewolf is placed on the stretcher and taken into the van. The security guard slowly backs away, keeping his eyes on Devlin. He steps in, the side door is pulled shut, and the vehicle races off. Debbie puts her right arm around her boyfriend's waist.
"Those guys give me the creeps."
"Survival makes for strange bedfellows."
Angel drives his convertible, with Nina riding shotgun, Spike behind Nina and Oz behind Angel. "What happened to the Viper?," Spike asks.
"This has better leg room."
Oz tries to make sense of the situation. "Your enemy hired you to be its boss. They're evil, but you're not, but Buffy may think you are. We're going to see a Slayer you thought was bad, but you now think is good, even though you still think her boyfriend's bad. And we're all trying to find the evil guy who's wants to capture me and tried to kill her."
"And the government and this new vampire both think Buffy's evil, which is why they're investigating her and he winged her Slayers," Nina adds.
"But if this new vampire's evil, and Buffy's his enemy, doesn't that mean he thinks Buffy's good?," Oz asks.
"Devlin doesn't think of himself as evil," Spike points out.
"Even though he is," Angel states.
"Then why didn't he kill all those Slayers?"
"But he is soulless," Nina notes. "We can all agree on that."
"And why is Buffy turning criminals into Watchers?," Oz asks.
"You mean Andrew," Spike responds.
"No. Tucker's brother."
"One and the same."
"Okay."
"He can't be an ex-con," Angel argues. "He hasn't been convicted of anything yet."
"But he was involved in this robbery."
"Yes," Spike replies.
"And he tried to kill Buffy."
"Yes."
"And he did kill Jonathan."
"Yes."
"After which Buffy decided to make him part of the team."
"Sort of."
"I've been away too long. Or, maybe I haven't been away long enough."
Twenty minutes later, Angel pulls into Debbie's driveway, nearly scraping Devlin's car with the passenger-side rear-view mirror. Dev goes bumpy. "Aren't you supposed to have a driver's test every two hundred and fifty years?"
"Grow up, pipsqueak," Angel replies as he opens the door and gets out. Dev, who's four inches shorter, stands in his way. Angel laughs.
"Just cause you're jealous of my car is no reason to try to take a swipe at it."
"Jealous? Sorry. Red's not my color," Angel says as he walks past the boy. Dev follows him.
"As if your car's any better."
"They only made two thousand of these. How many Mustangs are there – two million?"
"It's a Chrysler! Limited edition can mean a lot. If you're talking about a Ferrari or an Aston Martin. This boat is a Chrysler!"
"Are you sure that he's nineteen?," Oz asks Angel. "Seems younger." In other words, immature.
Dev returns to his human face and sniffs. "You must be the werewolf."
"You must be the mini-Spike." Devlin growls.
"Lucky for you, I won't be growling back." Debbie comes up from behind and puts her arms around Devlin.
"Play nice, honey. He's here to help." She reaches her right hand towards Oz. "I'm Debbie," she says with a smile.
"I'm trying to keep an open mind," Oz replies as he shakes her hand. He can't help but view Deb and Dev as some horribly debased version of Buffy and Angel.
"Has the collection team arrived?," Angel asks Debbie.
"You mean the men in the van? They took the werewolf a little while back. We tried to take care of him until they got here. The guy was pretty messed up."
"But he was human?," Oz asks.
"Eventually," Dev replies.
"How did that happen?"
"It was after I hit him with the second tranquilizer dart."
"What the bloody hell are you doing with tranquilizer darts?," Spike asks.
"And why didn't you use them last night?," Angel follows up. He believes what Devlin and the vampires did the Slayers was one-third about defending Debbie and two-thirds pure sadism.
"Didn't have it. That's the funny part. It's their gun! Their driver ditched the van, and I took all their weapons. The same gun that in the hands of a Watcher would have ruined Debbie's life ends up saving her. Tell Buffy thanks the next chance you get," Dev adds with a wink. Angel walks past him and gets a look at Debbie's bruised face. Spike notices Devlin's bruises.
"Did the werewolf do this?"
Devlin chuckles. "No," Debbie answers with a nervous smile. "I had these before. From training."
"Well, it started out as training," Dev adds mischievously. Spike knows the look. At he can see that Debbie's still glowing from the experience. "I'm sure you boys know what I'm talking about," he says, looking at Spike.
"You do kill vampires, right?," Oz asks Debbie, not quite sure how rogue she is. This Devlin guy strikes him as very, very shady.
"Whenever I can. Problem is, now that I'm beginning to get a reputation, the bloodsuckers are learning to stay away."
"Things had been quieting down," Devlin explains. "Until these last couple nights. All of a sudden, danger's round every corner."
"Explain to me what happened," Angel says to Debbie, trying his best to pretend her boyfriend doesn't exist. Which is tough, since she reaches her right hand back, takes hold of Dev's left hand, and pulls him towards her. She knows Angel would never hurt her, but she's unsure of how these people would treat Devlin. Keeping in contact with him is her way of extending security to him.
"We had just left the house, and were on our way to a party, when it attacked. I tried to run. Dev ran in to get the gun. And he saved me." Debbie leans against him and rests her head on his left shoulder. Angel looks away.
"I think it had been stalking us," Devlin points out. "I heard it behind that bush over there."
"It wus lying in wait?," Spike asks.
"I think so," Devlin responds to the leading question designed to make him look good. At least Spike seemed to be kind of on his side. "It went straight for Debbie, again and again. She jumped on the roof, it climbed up that tree to get on the roof. The wolf was determined."
"That fits the profile," Oz notes.
"What profile?," Debbie asks.
"There's a man who's catching guys like me and turning us into full-time killer wolves."
"And what's he got against me?"
"It's business. He loans the werewolves out to clients."
"Another downside of getting a reputation," Dev says to Deb. "You start acquiring powerful enemies."
"And powerful friends," she adds, smiling at Angel. Devlin stares at Nina, who feels lost, not having been a demon-fighter of any kind. Also, the boys are preening, trying to out-macho each other. She can practically smell the testosterone. Nina wonders if it's always like this when vampires get together. Meanwhile, Devlin can smell the Angel on Nina.
"Are you fucking this werewolf?" He laughs. "You're fucking a werewolf! Though I'm sure that's not what attracted you. Maybe Freud was onto something when he talked about men loving their mothers. By the way, where is Darla these days?" Angel's ready to beat the shit out of this little punk for implying a resemblance between Nina and Darla, and for inadvertently reminding him about Connor by asking about Darla's fate. Nina's concluded that Devlin's an asshole, and therefore nothing he says should be taken seriously.
"Wait a second," Deb interjects. "He can't. You can't. I thought you couldn't. Am I right?" She looks at Spike and Oz. Oz realizes she has a point, but has far too much tact to open his mouth. Time to use his usual reticence to ride out a controversy. "Ya know, Perfect Happiness?" Devlin gets a look of delight and whispers into Debbie's left ear. "Oh. Sorry," she concludes with genuine contrition. The look on her face says it all. As does the look on Nina's face. She feels humiliated. Angel wants to kill Devlin. He sucker punches him with a left hook, sending Devlin to the ground. Debbie immediately responds with a right hook to Angel's face. "Sorry. Instinct," she apologizes to Angel. Debbie looks at Dev, then at Angel. "You men are either going to have to get along, or I'm bringing my stake. Kapish?" Oz finds the take-charge, no-nonsense Slayer to be eerily familiar.
Dev gets up, grabs his jaw and walks over to Debbie from behind. "Sorry love." She nails him in the stomach with a left elbow. He winces. "Ow!"
"They're here to help us. So be nice."
"As you wish, darling."
"That's better." She grabs his left wrist with her right hand. "Now let's go." The two of them climb into Devlin's car. The other four get back into Angel's ride.
"With friends like him . . . " Oz comments.
Ten minutes later, Devlin zooms by Angel on the highway. "Very mature," Debbie says to him.
"He's going sixty. I couldn't take it anymore."
"Why do you have to so difficult?"
"Because they don't respect me. These people view me as some subhuman slug."
"Well maybe they'd be nicer if you weren't such a jerk."
"Sorry I can't get along with your new best friend Angel," Dev sarcastically spits out. Debbie shakes her head in frustration.
"You can be such a sweet, nice, sensitive guy when you want to. Why can't you show that side to people who are helping to save my life?"
"Fine. I'll show Angel respect. If he shows me respect."
"De-evv!," Debbie groans. "Why do you have to make everything so difficult?"
"Life's more fun that way." Debbie sighs in frustration and wraps her arms around Devlin's right arm, resting her head on his right shoulder.
"You know that if I didn't love you so much, I'd have killed you a long time ago."
"Right back at you, darling." He puts his right arm around her shoulders and pulls her close as he floors the gas pedal and passes a few more cars, missing two of them by very narrow margins.
"All the Slayers hate me. All the vampires hate you."
"We got no one to turn to but each other."
"Probably the secret of our success," she quips.
At the firm's offices, everyone follows Angel down a long winding series of hallways. "When was the last time you worked with Angel?," Devlin asks Oz.
"Just after the time Spike tried to steal some invincibility ring."
"A ring? You don't mean the Gem of Amara!?"
"You've heard of it?," Angel asks, assuming Devlin had also wanted to find the ring.
"What's the Gem of Amara?," Debbie asks her boyfriend.
"A great way to lose your hand. It makes vampires unkillable. Sun, stakes, crosses - nothing can hurt you. Unless someone lops off your limb, or merely rips the ring off your finger. That's what happened! Am I right, Spike? Buffy yanked, and that was that. You probably attacked her during the daytime, which means that once you lost the ring, you couldn't even continue the fight. Real smart thinking, William. But I guess anyone stupid enough to want the ring wouldn't be bright enough to know how to exploit it." Angel's getting a kick out of Devlin's slagging of his sire. "Then what happened? No, don't tell me. Buffy gives the ring to beloved Angel so that he can use it to fight evil and such. But Angel's smart enough to destroy the gem, bringing this comic opera to an anti-climactic end."
"Not quite," Spike objects.
"Then Angel would've missed out on a fine day of torture," Oz recalls, glaring at Spike.
"You tortured Angel?," Dev asks Spike. "Obviously you didn't do it right. He's not disfigured. You torture a vampire by cutting off parts that don't grow back: ears, eyes, nose, lips, fingers, toes, other appendages. Now be honest, Angel – wouldn't that have been more effective?"
Finally, Nina's had enough. "You date him?," she asks Debbie, trying to sound gentle, lest the Slayer respond with painful punches.
"What's wrong with torturing vampires? Other than Angel, and Devlin of course."
"Hey!," Spike objects, feeling left out. Since Debbie loves Devlin for what's left of his humanity, she can't help wishing he had never been bitten, and therefore blames Spike for turning young Herman into a killer.
"What's wrong with making the bloodsuckers suffer if I can get them to tell me information that'll kill other bloodsuckers and save more lives?"
"Brutality like that dehumanizes you after a while," Angel explains.
"I'm not the one doing it."
"How do you find the locations of vampire nests around town?," Dev asks Angel and Spike. "Or do you just wait for them to attack and hope you're nearby at the right time to stop them? Think of how empty our jails would be if cops only arrested the criminals they caught in the act." Now even Spike's turned against Dev. The six of them enter the lab, where Wesley and Fred are waiting. "Hey Fred," Devlin says with a smile. "You miss me?"
"Ummm, howdy Devlin," she nervously replies.
"So this is the vampire," a decidedly unimpressed Wesley comments.
"You must be Wesley Wyndham Price," Dev declares, shaking Wes's hand. "The onetime Watcher. Just think, a few different turns of fate, and we'd be enemies. Imagine that!"
"It isn't hard to do," Wes mutters. Devlin keeps playing excessively nice.
"A sense of humor. I love this guy!," he enthuses, patting Wesley's left shoulder with his right hand. He looks at Fred, whispering "He's a huge improvement over the last guy" as he walks by her. This indicates that he might have been stalking her at one time, sending chills down Fred's spine.
"How is he?," Debbie asks Fred regarding the werewolf.
"You'll have to ask Doctor Colliers. He's the one handling the treatment."
"But he's alive?"
"Yes."
"Is he talking?," Angel asks.
"Affirmative," genial-looking doctor about sixty years of age with a short fuzzy white beard says as he emerges from the examining room. "Whether it will do you any good is another matter entirely."
"Doctor Colliers," Angel begins.
"Please, call me Randy. I wasn't expecting such a crowd. Vampires, werewolves and, judging from your age, a Slayer? Oh my! I don't think I've ever been blessed with such a distinguished audience." Deb, Dev, Nina and Oz look at him suspiciously, wondering how he could deduce what they were so quickly. Nina and Oz he knew since they'd been in containment inside the building. Devlin was easy, since he didn't breathe. As for Debbie, he figured that, given the group, she had to have some sort of superpower. "Don't look so frightened. It's not like I plan to perform experiments on any of you," he jokes, though no one appreciates the humor. So Randolph decides to get down to business. "The human-to-wolf transformation is triggered by excessive activity in the limbic region of the lower brain, a so-called Limbic Storm.' Something, probably a drug of heretofore unknown composition, has triggered a permanent Limbic Storm in our patient. The heavy dose of sedatives slowed brain activity to the point where he reverted to human form. I've administered mild stimulants to make him lucid and conscious, but not enough to excite his brain even to normal levels of activity, since even that might trigger a relapse."
"How long was he a wolf?," Oz asks.
"From what I could tell from talking to him, between thirty and forty five days. Which means he's probably suffered significant permanent physical damage. The human body is a flimsy cage in which to house a giant wolf. The animal is too powerful, and too massive, for its frail human host. In addition, the canine and human skeletal systems are vastly different. The human pelvis was not designed for quadrupedal mobility. My guess is he'll suffer from moderate to severe arthritis, and his bones, ligaments, tendons and muscles will be fragile and highly susceptible to injury for many months to come."
"Does that sort of thing happen to ordinary werewolves?," Nina asks, concerned both by the doctor's message and the clinical way he presents it.
"The good news is that changing for only 6 to 18 hour intervals does not have the same crippling consequences. The bad news, in fact, the tragic news, is that the repeated rapid cell divisions occasioned by three dozen annual transformations wreaks havoc with the body's DNA, producing mutations and, inevitably, cancer. There's no record of a werewolf undergoing thrice monthly transformations and surviving for more than twenty years." Naturally, Nina goes pale and looks terrified. Oz is also afraid, though not as deathly afraid as Nina.
"How the hell did you learn that?," she asks. He leaves, heads into his office, returns and places a scientific periodical on the table. "There was an article in the Fall 2001 issue of the Journal of Abnormal Physiology." Nina grabs it and rifles through the magazine, looking for it.
"That reminds me," Fred says, trying to pierce the deathly silence. "I really should catch up on my back issues. There was an interesting piece from 2002 about some chipped vampires the military kept in custody." Then she remembers one of the findings and shuts up, regretting ever having mentioned this article. She also finds herself unable to look Spike in the eye.
"You mean on the vampire sex drive!," Randy recalls with the tactlessness of someone who's spent far too many decades in the lab. "I found that quite fascinating. It turns out physically preventing vampires from feeding alters their brain chemistry over the long term. The shutting off of the violence pleasure centers causes an overload of the erotic pleasure centers. Simply put, they turn from killers into nymphomaniacs." He chuckles. "The doctors brought in some female vampires, and the poor girls were nearly rodgered into oblivion." He looks at Spike, who's quite uncomfortable at the moment. "I'd imagine that acquiring a soul would radically affect neurochemistry, what with cruelty and predatory aggression no longer producing pleasure. Did it also reduce your sex drive? Have you noticed a difference in your libido?"
"Doctor. Spike is not a test subject," Fred gently reminds him.
"Not anymore. But I'd be willing to pay you $5,000 for a non-invasive brain scan. If Angel would volunteer, I'd be prepared to put up ten thousand for each of you."
"I don't think anyone's ever put such a high value on Spike's brain," Angel jokes.
"Would that be in cash?," Spike asks.
"That's my money!," Fred shouts. "My lab's money. This company's money."
"It would be cutting-edge research. The positive exposure in the scientific community would more than compensate the firm. They're always fretting about our ability to recruit the best and the brightest, and top-notch work is the best way to achieve that goal."
"Can we talk to the patient?," Angel asks.
"Yes. But be gentle. Please don't do anything to alarm or enrage him." Nina and Oz rush in, along with Angel. Debbie takes Devlin by the arm and pulls him away from the doctor, with whom Dev was beginning an animated discussion about vampire physiology. They go see the patient as well.
"Which issue was that?," Wes asks about the article on vampires.
"I think it was Summer."
"Good. Now I know which back issue to avoid." The patient sits up. He's made nervous by the sudden crowd, taking special notice of Debbie.
"All we want is to help you," Angel assures him. "And help the others. There are others?"
"Three. With me. And him. There were three more."
"Now let's take it slow. Tell us what you remember."
"My name is Stanley Pasquin. It was. Or, it is. But it wasn't. He called me Stan. Just, Stan. Dogs don't have last names. I'm a geologist. I lived in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I was bit eight years ago. I used to teach at the University of Missouri. But that was, too crowded. So I took a job with the U.S.G.S that allowed me to move where there was more space. On the full moon nights, I'd go out into the forest, miles and miles from the nearest road. That was safe. No one got hurt. Except me. When he caught me. Then, everything changed, cause I couldn't change back."
"Ezra Collins. He's the one who did this to you?," Oz asks.
"I don't know. He didn't tell us his name. Why would we need to know that? We were just animals. I can tell you what he looks like."
"Can you tell us where he is?," Angel wonders.
"I don't know, I don't know. A lake. A big lake. In the desert. Sometimes, at night, he'd let us out to hunt. There was a lot to hunt."
"The Salton Sea Wildlife Refuge!," Devlin shouts. "I've hunted a few vampires who were hiding out around there."
"You mean around the canals?," Debbie asks.
"Remember how when I rode them down, they jumped in, and we had to swim to catch them?" They both laugh over the amusing memory. Angel's upset he didn't come up with the hiding spot first. Large lake in the Southern California desert – he figures it would've occurred to him any second. "So we bum rush this guy, free the animals, I mean, the people, and save these two lovely werewolves from a similar fate."
"There's about ten towns surrounding that lake," Angel points out, pouring water on Devlin's triumphalism. "Howard, could you recognize Ezra's scent."
"In a heartbeat," he replies, ready to deliver harsh vengeance to this evil man.
"Excuse me," Doctor Collier says, inching his way into the already crowded room. "I couldn't help but overhear your intention to move my patient. This man is not going anywhere tonight."
"Other lives are at stake," Angel argues. "Howard doesn't return, Ezra notices, and he skips town. We have to move now."
"Howard can't move. Not without risking broken legs and a shattered pelvis."
"Then I'll carry him."
"Have you considered the dangers inherent in bringing this man back to the fellow who turned him into a permanent werewolf?"
"He'll be protected." Three extremely strong vampires, a Slayer, plus Wesley: this group's strong enough to stop an apocalypse, let alone a mere man.
"It's okay, Angel," Oz interjects. "Werewolves can smell one of their own. Sometimes from miles away. We'll find them for you."
"I suppose that should be enough," Angel reluctantly relents. He hates being undermined, especially twice in quick succession. "Wesley, you go with Fred. We'll need at least three tranq guns. Oz, Nina, you'll come with me. We'll be in the lead. Debbie, you can follow." Everyone leaves the room except for Oz and Nina, who have a few questions for the doctor.
"That study you read on werewolves," Oz begins. "Does it say anything about the ones who learn to stop changing?"
"Since the transformations are what leads to premature death, ceasing them should avert the risk. The sooner it's done, the less chance of permanent physical damage."
"In other words, they live longer?"
"Of course. There is a medication to prevent transformation, but it has very serious side effects, similar to Thorazine in its ability to shut down the mind and interfere with daily activities. But there are other, non-pharmacological ways of going about this."
"I know. I mean, I have." Doctor Colliers smiles.
"Well then. Very good for you!," he says with inadvertent condescension. "Since the root cause is, ultimately, in your head, it's possibly to naturally alter thought processes in a way that produces a sort of permanent tranquility."
"Yeah. But I had that even before I became a werewolf."