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| The Dark Age | What’s My Line?, Part II |
Willow arrives at the school and picks up her aptitude test for the Sunnydale High Career Fair. She joins Xander and Buffy at a table in the student lounge, where they are already working on filling out theirs. Xander isn’t happy with his test. He thinks it’s ridiculous that someone thinks they can figure out what he should do with his life from one multiple choice questionnaire. Willow is curious to find out what her results will be.
“What, and suck all the spontaneity out of being young and stupid?” asks Xander. “I’d rather live in the dark.”
“You’re not going to be young forever,” says Willow.
“Yes, but I’ll always be stupid.” Xander waits for one of the girls to say something, but neither of them does. “Okay, let’s not all rush to disagree.”
“You’re not stupid,” says Buffy, a little too late.
Cordelia walks by, filling in her questionnaire with a couple of Cordettes following after her. She checks the box that says she aspires to help her fellow man. “As long as he’s not smelly, dirty or something gross.”
Xander looks up at her. “Cordelia Chase. Always ready to give a helping hand to the rich and the pretty.”
Cordy looks down at Xander. “Which, lucky me, excludes you. Twice.” She leaves with her Cordettes following along behind.
“Is murder always a crime?” Xander asks Buffy and Willow. They ignore the question, and keep working on their questionnaires.
“Do I like shrubs?” asks Buffy.
“That’s between you and your God,” says Xander.
Buffy checks to see how Willow answered that question. Willow came down on the side of shrubs. “Go with shrubs! Okay!” She checks the box. She doesn’t really think there is any point to her doing this. She knows what her career is.
“Yup,” says Xander. “High risk, sub-minimum wage…”
Buffy holds up her pencil. “Pointy wooden things.”
Willow asks why Buffy’s even bothering.
“It’s Principal Snyder’s hoop of the week,” says Buffy. “He’s not happy unless I’m jumping. Believe me, I would not be here otherwise.”
Willow wonders if she isn’t even a little bit curious about what she could do if she wasn’t the Slayer.
“Do the words ‘sealed in fate’ ring any bells for you, Will?” asks Buffy. “Why go there?”
“Y’know, with that kind of attitude you could’ve had a bright future as an employee at the DMV,” says Xander.
“I’m sorry,” says Buffy. “It’s just…unless Hell freezes over and every vamp in Sunnydale puts in for early retirement, I’d say my future is pretty much a non-issue.”
Drusilla consults a deck of Tarot cards in their factory lair. At the other end of the table Spike has one of his minions—Dalton—trying to decipher the book that they stole from Giles a couple of weeks ago.
Dalton isn’t having much luck. “Well, I’m not sure. It could be, uh… ‘deprimere … ille … bubula … linter.’”
Spike flips through a Latin dictionary. “‘Debase … the beef … canoe.’” He punches Dalton. “Why does that strike me as not right?”
Drusilla holds out her hand to Spike. She wants to dance. Spike isn’t in the mood and he snaps at her. Dru cringes away from him with a whimper.
Spike instantly regrets his harshness and goes to Drusilla. “Oh, I’m sorry, kitten. It’s just this manuscript. Supposed to hold your cure, but it reads like gibberish. Even Dalton here, the big brain, he can’t make heads or tails of it.”
Drusilla puts her hands to her head and starts to walk away from the table. She has to go change Miss Edith. After a couple of steps she nearly collapses and Spike rushes to catch her. He helps her back to her chair in front of the Tarot deck.
Spike doesn’t like to see Dru this way, and they’re running out of time. “It’s that bloody Slayer! Whenever I turn around she’s mucking up the works.”
“You’ll make it right,” says Dru. “I know.”
Spike gives Dru a kiss and turns his attention back to Dalton. He wants the translation of what’s in that book. Dalton doesn’t think he can do it. What’s written in the book looks like Latin, but it isn’t. Dalton isn’t even sure it’s a language.
“Then make it a language!” Isn’t that what a transcriber does?” Spike grabs Dalton by the shirt and lifts him out of his chair. He want’s the cure.
Drusilla holds up her hand. “Don’t.”
“Why not?” Spike punches Dalton in the stomach. “Some people find pain very inspirational.”
Drusilla has been consulting her Tarot deck. “He can’t help you. Not without the key.” She points to one of her cards.
“The key? You mean this book is in some kind of code?” Spike drops Dalton and goes to see what Drusilla has found. She turns up another card with a picture of a mausoleum on it. That’s where they can find the key.
Spike smiles. “I’ll send the boys, pronto!”
“Now will you dance?” asks Drusilla.
Spike takes Dru’s hands and lifts her to her feet. “I’ll dance with you, pet.” He sweeps her up in his arms, and twirls her around. “On the Slayer’s grave!”
Buffy hears a noise coming from one of the crypts in the cemetery on her nightly patrol. She cautiously looks in the door and sees Dalton making a hole in the wall with a hammer and chisel. She backs away from the door, and waits.
Buffy doesn’t have to wait long. Dalton appears carrying an object wrapped in cloth. “Does ‘rest in peace’ have no sanctity to you people?” she asks. “Oh, I forgot. You’re not a people.”
A second vampire tries to sneak up behind Buffy, but it doesn’t succeed. She knows it’s there. She spins around and kicks it. She gives it a quick series of kicks and punches, and then stakes it. “One down…” Buffy turns back toward where she left Dalton, but he’s vanished. “…one gone.”
Angel is alone in Buffy’s room, waiting for her return. While he waits he checks out some of the stuff on her shelves.
Buffy arrives at her window and looks in. Angel’s back is to the window and he hasn’t heard her yet. Buffy smiles and tosses her bag of weapons into her room.
Angel spins around, clutching her stuffed pig. He’s relieved when he sees it’s Buffy. She startled him.
“Now you know what it feels like, stealth guy.” Buffy climbs in the window. “Just stopping by for some quality time with Mr. Gordo?” Angel doesn’t understand. “The pig,” she tells him. She asks him what’s up.
“Nothing.” Angel says quietly, and tosses Mr. Gordo into Buffy’s chair.
Buffy doesn’t think Angel has a “nothing” expression on his face, something is bothering him. She also tells him that he doesn’t have to whisper. Her mother is away until Thursday.
“Then why’d you come in through the window?”
Buffy is a little puzzled by that too. “Habit.”
Angel tells Buffy that he just came by to see how she was. He has a bad feeling.
Buffy snorts. “There’s a surprise. Angel comes with bad news.” He turns away from her. Buffy apologizes. “I’ve been Cranky Miss all day. It’s not you.”
Angel asks Buffy what’s bothering her.
At first Buffy tries to tell Angel it’s nothing, but he isn’t buying that. She tells him its about the thing they are having at school.
“Career week?” asks Angel.
“How did you know?”
“I lurk.”
“Right,” says Buffy. “Then you know it’s a whole week of What’s My Line, only I don’t get to play.” She goes and sits on her bed. “Sometimes I just want…”
Angel sits down beside her. “You want what?”
Buffy looks across the room at herself in her mirror. It looks like she’s alone on the bed. She looks back at Angel. “It’s okay,” he tells her.
“The Cliff Notes version?” asks Buffy. “I want a normal life. Like I had before.”
“Before me.”
“No, Angel. It’s not you. You’re the one freaky thing in my freaky world that still makes sense to me. I just get messed sometimes. I wish we could be regular kids.”
“Yeah. I’ll never be a kid.” Angel gets up off the bed.
“Okay, then a regular kid and her cradle robbing, creature of the night boyfriend.” That elicits a bit of a laugh from Angel.
Angel picks up a picture off Buffy’s desk. It’s a picture of her from when she was about six years old, ice skating. “Was this part of your normal life?”
“Oh, my god,” laughs Buffy. “My Dorothy Hamill phase. My room in L.A. was pretty much a shrine. Dorothy dolls, Dorothy posters, I even got the Dorothy haircut. Thereby securing a place for myself in the geek hall of fame.”
“You wanted to be like her?” asks Angel.
“I wanted to be her,” says Buffy. “My parents were fighting all the time, and skating was an escape. I felt safe.”
“When was the last time you put on your skates?” asks Angel.
“About a couple of hundred demons ago.”
“There’s a rink out past Route 17,” says Angel. “It’s closed on Tuesdays.”
“Tomorrow’s Tuesday,” says Buffy.
“I know,” says Angel.
Xander and Cordelia check out the results of their aptitude tests, which have been posted on a bulletin board in the school courtyard. Cordy is happy with her career recommendations: personal shopper, or motivational speaker.
“Motivational speaker?” asks Xander. “On what? Ten ways to a more annoying you?”
“Oh, what about you?” Cordelia flips a couple of pages ahead to the H - K page to check on Xander’s results. She starts to laugh. “You’re…” She just giggles some more as she walks away.
“What?” Xander starts to flip the pages himself. “What?”
Buffy and Willow come out of the school. Buffy is telling Willow about her upcoming skating date with Angel, unless some unforeseen evil crops up, but Buffy is in total “See no evil” mode.
They’re joined by a dejected Xander. “When you look at me, do you think ‘prison guard?’”
Buffy and Willow giggle. “Crossing guard maybe,” says Buffy, “but prison guard?” She shakes her head.
Xander tells them about the results being posted. It looks like he can look forward to a career in the growing field of corrections.
“Well, at least you’ll be on the right side of the bars,” laughs Buffy.
“Laugh now, Missy,” says Xander. “They assigned you to the booth for Law Enforcement Professionals.”
“As in police?” asks Buffy.
“As in polyester, doughnuts and brutality,” says Xander. Buffy does not like the sound of that.
Willow tries to look on the bright side. “But, doughnuts!”
The police thing is something Buffy will have to deal with later. She sees Giles walking across the courtyard carrying a large stack of books. “First I have to deal with Giles. He’s on this Tony Robbins hyper-efficiency kick. Expects me to check in every day after homeroom.” She starts to follow after him. “Police?” she asks herself.
Willow asks Xander if he looked to see which seminar she had been assigned to. He’d looked, and she wasn’t assigned to any of them.
“But I handed in my test!” says Willow. “I used a number two pencil!”
“Then I guess you must’ve passed,” says Xander.
“It’s not the kind of test you pass or fail.”
“Your name wasn’t up there, Will.”
Buffy catches up with Giles in the library. He sets his stack of books down on the table, and she catches it for him before it topples over. He thanks her.
Buffy takes a seat at the table, which is covered with other stacks of books. Giles has been indexing the Watcher diaries. “You would be amazed at how numbingly pompous and long-winded some of these Watchers were,” says Giles.
“Colour me stunned,” says Buffy.
Giles ignores that and asks how the patrol went last night. Buffy tells him about getting one of a pair of vamps who were stealing something out of a mausoleum in the cemetery.
“They were stealing?” asks Giles.
“Yeah! They had tools, flashlights, whole nine yards.”
Giles puts down the book in his hands and starts pace.
“What does that mean anyway?” asks Buffy. “‘Whole nine yards?’1 Nine yards of what? Now it’s gonna bug me all day.” She notices what Giles is doing. “Giles, you’re in pace mode. What gives?”
Giles wants to know what it was the vampires were stealing, but Buffy has no idea. Giles is not pleased to hear that. He thinks she should have made a greater effort to discover what the vampires were after. Buffy just figures it was your everyday vamp hijinks.
“Well, what if it wasn’t?” asks Giles. “This could be very serious! I mean, if you’d made an effort to be more thorough in your observations—”
“You know, if you don’t like the way I’m doing my job, why don’t you find somebody else?” asks Buffy. “Oh, that’s right, there can only be one. As long as I’m alive, there is no one else. Well, there you go! I don’t have to be the Slayer. I could be dead.”
“That wasn’t terribly funny,” says Giles. “You notice I don’t laugh.”
“Wouldn’t be much of a change.” Buffy checks out her finger nails. “Either way I’m bored, constricted, I never get to shop, and my hair and fingernails still continue to grow. So, really, when you think about it, what’s the diff?”
“Do we have to be introspective now?” asks Giles. “Our only concern is to discover what was stolen from that mausoleum last night.”
Spike shows Drusilla the cross which Dalton stole from the crypt the night before. He holds it on a red satin cloth, careful not to touch it.
Drusilla runs her hand a few inches over it. “It hums. I can hear it.”
“Once you’re well again,” says Spike, “we’ll have a Coronation down Main Street, and invite everyone, and drink for seven days and seven nights.”
“What about the Slayer?” asks Dalton. “She almost blew the whole thing for us. She’s trouble.”
Spike thinks that Dalton has just made a colossal understatement. He gets up and starts to pace, and kick at the furniture. “We got to do something. We’ll never complete your cure with that bitch breathing down our necks.” He suddenly gets an idea. “I need to bring in the big guns. They’ll take care of her once and for all!”
“Big guns?” asks Dalton.
“The Order of Taraka,” says Spike.
“The bounty hunters?” asks Dalton.
Drusilla starts to deal out a fresh set of Tarot cards. “They’re coming to my party. Three of them.” The three cards she has laid out show a cyclops, centipede, and a jungle cat.
“Yes, but…the Order of Taraka, I mean, isn’t that overkill?” asks Dalton.
“No, I think it’s just enough kill,” says Spike.
Xander meets with Willow at the Career Fair. He wonders what she is doing there. “Fly! Be free, little bird! You defy category!”
Willow is looking for Buffy. Xander tells her she went off with Giles about an hour ago. Willow thinks she better get back soon. “Snyder’s really…” She spots Principal Snyder coming down the stairs. “…done a great job with the fair this year, hasn’t he, Xander?”
Snyder walks past a police woman talking with some students and comes toward them.
“Principal Snyder!” says Xander. “Great Career Fair, sir! Really! In fact, I’m so inspired by your leadership, I’m thinking Principal School. I want to walk in your shoes. Not your actual shoes, of course, because you’re a tiny person. Not tiny in the small sense, of course. Okay, I’m done now.”
Snyder isn’t interested in Xander’s babbling. He just wants to know where Buffy is, and he doesn’t want to hear any of their “I just saw her a minute ago, she’s around here somewhere” stories.
“But I did…just see her…a minute ago,” says Willow. “And she is…around here…somewhere!”
“For what it’s worth—”
“It’s worth nothing, Harris,” says Snyder. “Whatever comes out of your mouth is a meaningless waste of breath. An airborne toxic event.”
“Well, I’m glad you feel comfortable enough to be so honest with me,” says Xander. “And I can only hope that one day I’m in a position to be that honest with you.”
“Fascinating,” says Snyder. He turns away from them, and leaves.
Xander has to go too. “I got an appointment with the warden on standard riot procedure. Ciao.” He leaves Willow alone.
Willow continues to look around the Career Fair. A couple of men in dark suits approach her. They ask her to come with them. They lead her toward a section of the student lounge which has been curtained off. Inside, a waiter in a white jacket offers Willow a tray of hors d’oeuvres.
“Try the canapé, it’s excellent,” says the man who seems to be in charge of the pair.
Willow shakes her head, and the waiter leaves. Willow wants to know what they want with her.
“You’ve been selected to meet with Mr. McCarthy, head recruiter for the world’s leading software concern. The jet was delayed by fog at Sea-Tac, but he should be here any minute.2 Please, make yourself comfortable.” He gestures toward the sofa.
“But I didn’t even get my test back,” says Willow.
“The test was irrelevant. We’ve been tracking you for some time.”
“Is that a good thing?” asks Willow.
“I would think so. We’re extremely selective. In fact, only one other Sunnydale student met our criteria.”
The two men leave through the curtain, but Willow isn’t alone. When she turns around she notices that there’s another student sitting on the sofa. It’s Oz. He’s holding a tray of hors d’oeuvres, and examining it carefully. Willow sits down beside him. Oz looks up and notices her for the first time since she entered the lounge. His eyes go wide when he recognizes her. The girl he has been trying to identify for weeks (Inca Mummy Girl, Halloween) is sitting beside him. He holds the tray out to her. “Canapé?”
Buffy enters the cemetery through the gates. She’s in a hurry, Giles is having trouble keeping up with her. Her speed is a tactic to get away from him. Giles thinks she’s behaving immaturely. He was only offering some constructive criticism.
“No, you were harsh!” says Buffy. “God, you act like I picked this gig. But remember, I’m the picked!”
“What you have is more than a gig,” says Giles. “It’s a sacred duty. Which shouldn’t prevent you from eventually procuring some more gainful form of employment, such as I did.”
“Giles, it’s one thing to be a Watcher and a librarian. They go together like chicken and…another chicken, or two chickens, or…something, you know what I’m saying! The point is, no one blinks an eye if you want to spend all your days with books. What am I supposed to do? Carve stakes for a nursery?”
“Um, point taken,” says Giles. “I must admit, I’ve never really— Well, now there’s a thought, have you ever considered law enforcement?”
Buffy stops and glares at Giles. She points toward the crypt they have stopped in front of with the flashlight she’s carrying. They have arrived at their destination.
Giles takes the flashlight from Buffy when they enter the crypt, and uses it to examine the hole in the wall. “It’s a reliquary,” he tells her. “Used to house items of religious significance. Most commonly a finger, or some other body part from a saint.”
“Note to self,” says Buffy. “Religion: freaky.”
Giles shines the light around the rest of the crypt. It comes to a stop on the name over the door. “‘Du Lac.’ Oh dear, oh dear.”
“I hate when you say that,” says Buffy.
“Josephus du Lac was buried here,” says Giles. “He belonged to a religious sect that was excommunicated by the Vatican at the turn of the century.”
“Excommunicated and sent to Sunnydale,” says Buffy. “There’s a guy big with the sinning.”
Du Lac was the author of the book that was stolen from the library a couple of weeks ago. Giles had forgotten about that after everything else that happened. As they leave the crypt Giles tells Buffy that the book was supposed to contain rituals and spells that could wreak unspeakable evil. It was written in an archaic form of Latin that only the sect members could read.
“So, everything’s cool then,” says Buffy.
“It’s not,” says Giles. “First the book was taken from the library, and now the vampires have stolen something from du Lac’s tomb.”
“You think they figured out how to read the book?”
“Something’s coming, Buffy, and whatever it is, I can guarantee, it’s not good.”
The bus from Los Angeles pulls into the Sunnydale bus depot. A large, nasty looking guy with one eye gets off it.
A cosmetics salesman pauses in front of the Summers house, and then proceeds on to the neighbour’s. Mrs. Kalish answers the door when he knocks, and he introduces himself as Norman Pfister, of Blush Beautiful Skin Care. He holds up his sample case. “I’m not selling anything, so I’m not asking you to buy, just to accept a few free samples.”
“Free?” asks Mrs. Kalish.
“Absolutely,” says Norman.
Mrs. Kalish looks him over, and invites Norman inside. After the door closes, she screams.
A flight arrives at Sunnydale airport. A baggage handler notices that there’s something moving in the plane’s cargo hold. “Hey, you’re not supposed to be in here!” he calls out, and goes looking for whoever has stowed away on the airplane.
He gets kicked in the head, followed quickly by a kick to the stomach, and another kick to the head. He falls to the floor unconscious. A young black girl—about sixteen years old—moves cautiously to the plane’s cargo door and looks out. There’s no one else around. She gets off the plane.
Buffy and Giles return to the library, where they are joined by Willow and Xander. Giles starts researching Josephus du Lac, trying to discover what may have been stolen from the crypt. It doesn’t take him long to discover what it was. He finds an article in an old National Geographic Magazine describing an invention of his called “The du Lac Cross.”
Giles hands the magazine to Willow and Buffy, open to a full page picture of the cross. “The cross was more than a mere symbol,” he tells them. “It was used to understand certain mystical texts, to decipher hidden meanings and so forth.”
“So you’re saying these vampires went to all this hassle for your basic decoder ring?” asks Buffy.
“Actually, yes, I suppose I am,” says Giles.
Willow has been reading the article. According to it, du Lac destroyed every copy of the cross, except for the one buried with him. He was afraid the cross could fall into the wrong hands.
“A fear we’ll soon get to experience for ourselves up close and personal,” says Xander.
Giles agrees. He thinks they have to learn just what Spike’s plan for the cross is. He predicts they have a long night ahead of them.
“Goodie!” says Willow. “Research party!”
“Will, you need a life in the worst way,” says Xander.
All of this sounds really interesting to Buffy, but she has somewhere else to be tonight. Giles is a little put out by her wanting to bail. He thinks that this is a matter of some urgency.
“I realize that,” says Buffy. “Well, you have to admit, I kind of lack in the book area. I mean, you guys are the brains, I’d only be here for moral support anyway.”
“That’s untrue Buffy,” says Xander. “You totally contribute. You go for snacks!”
Buffy looks to Willow for some support. Willow knows what Buffy’s plans are. “She should go. You know, gather her strength.”
Giles reluctantly agrees, but Xander still wants her to stay. “Ho-Hos are a vital part of my cognitive process!”
“Sorry, Xand. Someplace I have to be.” Buffy heads out of the library, while Xander and Giles give each other a puzzled look.
Buffy arrives at the rink before Angel, and skates around alone on the ice, trying out some cautious manoeuvres she hasn’t done for years. The one eyed man watches her from the shadows.
Buffy flubs a manoeuvre, falls on her butt, and slides across the ice and into the boards. The one eyed man reaches down and grabs her around the neck. He lifts her up on top of the boards and chokes her.
Angel charges at them, and tackles the man. Buffy falls onto the ice and lands hard on her knee. Angel and One Eye fight, Angel is in full vamp mode as they exchange punches on the ice. One Eye grabs Angel by the neck and pushes him up against the boards. Buffy gets to her feet and skates toward them. She takes out One Eye with a slashing kick with her skate blade across his throat.
Drusilla turns the cyclops card face down. Spike isn’t worried. They almost have the manuscript translated. They only need a little more time.
“Time is ours,” says Drusilla. “It brings the Slayer closer to them.” The centipede and the jungle cat cards are still face up.
Buffy rubs her knee while Angel kneels by the body. “The Hellmouth presents: Dead Guys On Ice,” she says. “Not exactly the evening we were aiming for.”
Angel is not amused. He recognizes the ring the dead guy is wearing. He thinks Buffy should go home until he can learn more.
Buffy doesn’t want to go home. She skates over to Angel, and has a closer look at a cut he got on his forehead during his fight with One Eye. Angel doesn’t want her to spend time worrying about that. They have to get her someplace safe.
“You mean hide?” asks Buffy. She has no intention of doing that. She reaches up to Angel’s face and tries to turn his head so she can get a closer look at his cut. He flinches away from her. “Hey! Don’t be a baby. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“It’s not that,” says Angel. “I…”
“What?” asks Buffy.
“You shouldn’t have to touch me when I’m like this.” Angel is still wearing his vampire face.
“Oh.” Buffy takes the glove off her hand, and runs her fingers across Angel’s forehead and cheek. “I didn’t even notice.” She leans closer and gives him a kiss. The kiss goes on for a long time.
The girl who got off the airplane is on the other side of the rink. She watches Buffy and Angel kiss.
Buffy returns to the library, and tells Giles what happened. She shows him the ring, and tells him how Angel reacted to it.
Giles recognizes the ring too, and agrees with Angel. “This ring is worn only by members of the Order of Taraka. It’s a society of deadly assassins dating back to King Solomon.”
“And didn’t they beat the Elks this year in the Sunnydale adult bowling league championships?” asks Xander.
Giles ignores him. “Their credo is to sow discord and kill the unwary.”
“Bowling is a vicious game,” says Xander.
“That’s enough, Xander!” snaps Giles. Everyone looks around uncomfortably at this rather uncharacteristic outburst. “Sorry. It’s just not the time for jokes. I need to think.”
Buffy wonders why these assassins are after her right now. She hasn’t been that much of a scourge to the underworld lately. Giles doesn’t know. He thinks it would be best for them to find a secure location for her, someplace out of the way until they figure out what is going on.
“Okay, now you and Angel have both said to head for the hills,” says Buffy. “Are you saying I can’t handle this, that I’m not strong enough to fight these people?”
“They’re a breed apart, Buffy,” says Giles. “Unlike vampires they have no earthly desires…but to collect their bounty. They find a target, and they eliminate it. You can kill as many of them as you like, it won’t make any difference. Where there’s one, there will be another, and another. They won’t stop coming until the job is done.
“Each one of them works alone. His own way. Some are human, some…are not. You won’t know who they are until they strike.”
Norman Pfister watches the Summers house through binoculars from the Kalish living room. A trail of worms leads from Mrs. Kalish’s body to his foot. His arm ends in a stub of writhing worms. They reassemble into an arm and hand, He picks up a cup of tea and sips from it.
Buffy walks through the school corridor. She is nervous and jumping at shadows. Everyone looks like a threat to her. Oz walks up behind her. Buffy whirls around, grabs him by the throat and slams him into the wall. “Try it!”
“Try what?” asks Oz.
Buffy realizes she has made a mistake. She apologizes, and lets go of him.
“Still not clear what I’m supposed to try,” says Oz.
“Nothing, god I’m sorry.” Buffy apologizes again, and leaves.
Oz watches Buffy go. “That is a tense person.”
Buffy walks home. She’s still limping from the knee she bashed on the ice. She pauses on the sidewalk in front of her house, but decides not to go in.
Giles and Willow continue to research in the library, trying to find out what was in the stolen book. They’re also worried about Buffy. She just left, without telling them where she was going.
Xander returns and tells them that he got no answer when he tried phoning Buffy at home. Giles thinks that maybe what he told her about the Order of Taraka was a little too alarming. Willow just wishes she knew where Buffy was.
Buffy has gone to Angel’s. He doesn’t answer his door when she knocks, or calls out for him so she breaks the lock, and goes inside. She looks around a bit.
The walls of Angel’s apartment are covered with paintings. Buffy pauses briefly to look at a statue in a class case. She goes over to Angel’s bed and sits down. After a bit, she lies down, and curls up on it.
Willy is sweeping up in a sleazy, run down bar. He looks up and sees the silhouette of someone standing in the doorway. “We’re closed! Can’t you read the sign?”
Angel steps out into the light. Willy gets very nervous, and starts to back away. “Hey, Angel. I didn’t recognize you in the dark there.”
Willy asks what Angel is there for. Angel is looking for information.
“Man, that’s too bad,” says Willy, “’cause I’m staying away from that whole scene. I’m living right, Angel.”
Angel slowly walks toward Willy, who keeps backing away. “Sure you are, Willy. And I’m taking up sunbathing.”
“C’mon, man. Don’t be that way! I treat you vamps good! I don’t hassle you, you don’t hassle me. We all enjoy the patronage of this establishment. Everybody’s happy, right?”
Angel isn’t happy right now. He wants Willy to tell him who hired the Order of Taraka. Willy tries to tell him that he has no idea what Angel is talking about, but Angel doesn’t believe a word of it. “Was it Spike?”
Willy has run out of room for backing up. “Look, Angel, I got some good pig’s blood in, good stuff, my friend said—”
Angel grabs Willy by the throat, and smashes his head down onto the bar. He keeps pressing it down as Willy cries out in pain. “You know, I’m a little rusty when it comes to killing humans. It could take a while.”
“Ow!” yells Willy. “Spike will draw and quarter me, man!”
Angel doesn’t think that Willy is worrying about the right vampire at the moment.
“You know he ordered those guys!” says Willy. “Spike’s sick of your girl getting in his way!”
“Where can I find him?” asks Angel.
“I tell you that, I’m going to need relocating expenses! It’ll cost you!”
Angel presses harder. “It’ll cost who?”
“Okay! Okay! He and that freaky chick of his are—” Willy stops when someone kicks Angel in the head. Angel falls to the floor.
Angel looks up and sees the girl from the airplane breaking Willy’s mop handle to make herself a stake. She plunges it toward his chest.
Angel rolls aside in the nick of time, avoiding the plunging stake. He rolls to his feet, and defends himself. While he and the girl fight, Willy makes his escape.
This girl is good. She stabs at Angel’s chest with her stake again, and he deflects it. She punches and kicks him, knocking Angel through the door into Willy’s storeroom.
When Angel picks himself up off the floor he’s in his game face. She attacks again, with a two handed plunge of her stake toward his heart. Angel manages to grab her arms, and disarm her. He throws her against the wall. He tries to kick her legs out from under her, but she to keeps to her feet, and comes back with a kick to his head, knocking him to the floor. Angel sweeps her feet out from under her.
They continue to fight as they get back to their feet. The girl hits Angel with a quick series of punches, and kicks him through the door into a caged off area of the storeroom. Angel lands on a pile of empty water bottles.
Angel looks up at her. “Who are you? If you tell me what I need to know I won’t hurt you.” The girl doesn’t answer his question, she just laughs. “You think this is funny?”
The girl grins. She slams the cage door closed, and bolts it. “I think it is funny now.” She speaks with some sort of Caribbean accent.
Angel scrambles to his feet and flings himself against the door.
“That girl,” she asks. “The one I saw you with before?”
“You stay away from her,” warns Angel.
“I’m afraid you are not in a position to threaten.”
“When I get out of here, I’ll do more than threaten!”
The girl looks toward the window. “Then I suggest you move quickly. Eastern exposure. The sun will be coming in a few hours. More than enough time for me to find your girlfriend.” She padlocks the cage, and leaves.
Giles phones Xander at home from his office. He still hasn’t heard from Buffy, and he’s worried. He wants Xander to go to her house to check on her. Xander seems to have a transportation problem, so Giles suggests that he call Cordelia for a lift.
Giles goes out into the library. He finds Willow asleep at the computer with her face on the keyboard. He gently shakes her shoulder, and she starts awake. “Don’t warn the tadpoles!”
“Are you all right?” asks Giles.
Willow looks at him. “Giles, what are you doing here.”
“It’s the library, Willow. You fell asleep.” Willow looks around and figures out where she is. “‘Don’t warn the tadpoles’?”
“I…I have frog fear,” says Willow.
Willow apologizes for conking out, but Giles isn’t concerned about that. Willow has already gone quite beyond the call of duty. He does want to tell her what he has learned, though. He has found out what was in the stolen book that would attract Spike’s attention. “It’s a ritual, Willow. Now, I haven’t managed to decipher the exact details, but I believe the purpose is to restore a weak and sick vampire back to full health.”
“A vampire like Drusilla?” asks Willow.
“Exactly.”
Dalton closes the du Lac book, and hands a couple of hand written pages to Spike.
Spike gives the pages a quick scan. “By George, I think he’s got it!” He walks over to where Drusilla is lying in their bed. “The key to your cure, ducks. The missing bloody link, it was—”
“Right in front of us, the whole time.” Dru turns over another Tarot card, and lays it on the bed. It shows a falling angel.
Xander and Cordelia arrive at Buffy’s house. Cordy is upset that she is being used as Xander’s taxi service. “What am I, mass transportation?”
“That’s what a lot of the guys say, but it’s just locker room talk,” says Xander. “I wouldn’t pay it any mind.”
Xander knocks on the door but gets no answer. He tries to open it but it’s locked. He goes to check the windows. “C’mon, Cordelia. You want to be a member of the Scooby Gang you got to be willing to be inconvenienced every now and then.”
“Oh, right, ’cause I lie awake at night hoping you tweakos will be my best friends,” says Cordy. “And that my first husband will be a balding, demented homeless man.”
Xander finds an unlocked window, and climbs in through it. He doesn’t think much of Cordelia’s complaints. Buffy might be in trouble.
“And what if she is exactly?” asks Cordelia. “What are you going to do about it? In case you haven’t noticed, you’re the lameness and she’s the super chick, or whatever.”
Xander opens the front door. “Well, at least I’m the lameness who cares. Which is more than I can say about you.”
Xander heads upstairs to see if Buffy’s there, while Cordy looks around downstairs. There’s a knock on the door. Cordelia opens it, and sees Norman Pfister, with his Blush Beautiful sample case. He asks if Cordelia is interested in any free samples.
“Free?” asks Cordy, and invites him in.
Sunlight is starting to come in through the storeroom window. Angel struggles to break out of the cage before it’s too late.
Buffy is awakened by a noise. She rolls out of the way just in time to avoid a blow from an axe which would have taken her head off. The axe is held by the girl from the plane. She swings again as Buffy rolls out of the bed.
Buffy does a handspring off the girl’s back out into the room where she will have some room to manoeuvre. “You must be Number Two!” Buffy ducks under another swing of the axe. She grabs the curtain separating Angel’s bed from the rest of his apartment, pulls it down over the girl, and gives her a kick in the head. “Thanks for the wake up, but I’ll stick with my clock radio.”
The girl scrambles out from under the curtain and attacks Buffy again. Buffy catches the axe. The girl swings Buffy around into the wall, and then flips her down onto the floor. Neither of them lets go of the axe. They continue to struggle as Buffy lies on her back on the floor.
“Come on, don’t make me do the chick fight thing,” says Buffy.
“Chick fight?”
“You know.” Buffy sinks her finger nails into the girl’s hand. She reaches up and grabs the girl by the hair and pulls her off her.
They both spring to their feet, but the girl has kept her grip on the axe. Buffy kicks it out of her hand. The girl kicks at Buffy a couple of times, but Buffy blocks her, and then ducks under a punch. Buffy comes up swinging, but the girl catches her arm and flips her over onto Angel’s coffee table, smashing it. Buffy gives the girl a two footed kick to the head, knocks her down and springs back to her feet.
The girl springs back to her feet, and she and Buffy stand on guard, looking at each other for a moment. “Who are you?” asks the girl.
“Who am I?” asks Buffy. “You attacked me! Who the hell are you?”
“I am Kendra!” says the girl, “The Vampire Slayer!”
Buffy’s eyebrows go up.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| A vampire | Outside the du Lac crypt in the cemetery | Staked by Buffy |
| Mrs. Kalish | In her home, next door to Buffy’s | Killed by Norman Pfister |
| One Eye | Skating rink | Throat slashed by Buffy’s skate |