Buffy, Xander, and Willow sat in Cordelia's BMW. Buffy was picking stale french fries out of her hair. Xander and Willow were thumbing through a short stack each of twenty dollar bills.
"You guys are great help to me tonight," Buffy was griping. "Why did you sit on top of the garbage bin lid when I was yelling at you to get off?"
"Mr. Vitali told us to stay there for ten minutes," Willow said. "Look, he even paid us for sitting there, in addition to what he paid us for being extras in his movie."
"Mr. Vitali is a vampire," Buffy said. "Why are you taking orders from him?"
"Well, he was making sense," Willow said reasonably. "He still had a scene to shoot tonight, and you couldn't have taken them all on anyway, and at the time we thought that we'd still need to go rescue Giles and Cordelia, which we couldn't do if you were fighting vampires."
"So we sat," Xander said. He looked at Willow's stack. "Hey, how come you got paid more than I did?"
"It's the sunglasses," Willow said. "I told you, they're uber-cool at night. That and the little scream I did when the fire hydrant blew up."
"I screamed too. Just not as loud."
Buffy peeled an old piece of lettuce from her shoulder and flicked it out the window. "Great. You guys consort with the enemy and get paid. I do my sacred duty and end up with stale grease in my hair."
"Well, you shouldn't have tried to stake Mr. Vitali's film crew," Willow reasoned. "Maybe you could've been an extra then too."
"We'll make it up to you, Buffy." Xander finally tucked the bills into his pants pocket and turned on the ignition. "We'll treat you to dinner at Bucky's Fondue Hut."
Buffy scowled and started to make another suggestion. "Hey!" she said, before that ugly train of thought got started. "Go the other way!"
"But we're going home. Right?" Xander looked over at her anxiously.
"My boyfriend and my Watcher are heading off in a car with Cordelia. Spike's still wandering around in the area. There's something like a vampire convocation around this block. And you're not concerned?"
"But Giles said --"
"I want to be sure they got away. Go back to that theater and circle around the block. Giles said Angel was parked over on the other end. Com'on, Xander. Do what you're told. You'll follow the directions of some vamped out film director --"
"All right, all right." Xander made a U-turn and headed back towards the row of theaters. "But then we go home. Right?"
To his dismay, Buffy said nothing.
Angel poked around the engine of the Volkswagen, scowling. Cordelia was peering over Angel's shoulder, holding a flashlight over his head. Giles sat on the front bumper of the car, smoking his third cigarette of the evening.
"Do you mind not doing that?" Angel snapped at Cordelia.
"Doing what?" she said indignantly.
"You're breathing on my neck."
"I am not."
"Just hold the flashlight still, okay? And stop breathing."
"Admit it," Cordelia said. "You don't know a carburetor from a transmission."
"I do so," Angel said. After a pause, he added: "I just don't know what's wrong with this car."
"You and your cheap car. You know, you always get exactly what you pay for."
"If you'll stop channeling 'Poor Richard' for half a minute. . ." Angel stopped as a thought hit him. "Oh, no. Damn."
"Don't say it," said Giles, his eyes shut.
"This is a reliable car. Except I forgot that the fuel gauge --"
"The fuel gauge is broken," Giles said, his eyes still shut.
"Not as such. It just sometimes gets stuck."
Cordelia turned the flashlight off. "We're out of gas? Well, that's good then. We'll pull into a service station and charge some."
Giles rose from his perch. "We walk to the nearest service station."
"Walk?" Cordelia looked at the car. "Angel can call Triple-A on his cell phone." She looked at Angel. "No cell phone? I thought you were cool."
Angel reached into the car to retrieve the keys. "Why don't we use yours then, Cordelia?"
She scowled. "My father suspended my account, okay? You don't have to deal with unreasonable parents, so you don't have a good excuse." Despite her complaints, she had latched onto his arm again.
Angel seemed to have resigned himself to her attachment. "Giles, can I borrow a cigarette?"
Giles passed one over to Angel. The vampire shook Cordelia loose and leaned back into the VW to use the dashboard lighter. He sucked the smoke in deeply, then shut the door and proceeded to lock up.
"You're not actually worried that anybody is going to steal this car, are you?" Giles said.
Angel looked at the VW. "Maybe it's a work of art that's a little beyond you." He pocketed the keys, however, without bothering to lock the passenger side door.
"Give me a cigarette," Cordelia said.
"No," Giles and Angel said simultaneously.
"All right. Be that way, the two of you."
They started walking down the road in the direction from which they'd come.
"Why can't I have a cigarette?" Cordelia finally said.
"They're all ours," Angel said. "We're not sharing them."
"They belong to Giles."
"I refuse to contribute to the delinquency of a minor," said Giles.
"Since when?" she said. "Aren't you the original Teen Knife and Crossbow Club guy? Mr. 'Didn't See You, Wasn't Here, Couldn't Have Stopped You'? Not to mention That Kiss --"
"All right," said Giles. "I admit it. We're keeping all the cigarettes for ourselves, Cordelia."
"What kiss?" said Angel.
Giles sighed and gave Cordelia a cigarette. "I thought you were concerned about the smoke clashing with your perfume."
She pulled some matches from her camera bag and lit the cigarette with the casual ease of someone who'd done this more than once. "I'm thoroughly contaminated by now."
"What kiss?" said Angel.
"Owww, now I've got a rock in my shoe. This is what happens when you don't keep up with the basic modern necessities." Cordelia bent to pry the shoe off her foot and upended it. "How much further do we have to walk, anyway?"
"There's an all-night service station about four miles back," Angel said. He stopped and stared down the road, his head tilted to one side. "Someone's coming. A lot of someones."
The roar of engines became audible quickly after this pronouncement. They looked around them, but they were on an utterly flat area of countryside that offered nothing in the way of concealment.
"Should we at least duck down?" Giles wondered.
Angel shook his head. "If they're Spike's people, they'll spot us anyway. Keep walking."
Three or four big black motorcycles tore by, then two more. The riders, all in black leather and black helmets, might have been automatons. They streaked out over the night road at top speed. Angel peered after them. "Must be a gang. I don't recognize the colors, though. Probably not looking for you guys."
They continued their walk, the silence broken by Cordelia hopping along on one foot as she dislodged still another rock from her shoe. The muted roar of the motorcycles dimmed, then started to grow again.
"You're sure about that?" Giles said.
"Not really." They halted as the motorcycles flashed by again, turned on the road ahead, and circled back. Six of the vehicles came to a halt across the road in front of them.
"That your car back there?" one of the riders demanded in a raspy voice.
"It's mine," Angel said.
The rider flicked up his visor. "You need a ride? It's kind of late to be hiking this stretch."
"We're going to the 'Hog Wild'," another rider, a woman, said. "You can make a phone call from there."
Giles and Angel exchanged looks.
"Come on," the woman said, amusement in her voice. "It's not far up the road." She slapped the back of her seat. "Plenty of room for a passenger."
Angel ground his cigarette under foot and climbed on behind her. "It's this, or an hour hike, guys," he said.
Giles muttered a curse under his breath, but he took a seat behind one of the other riders. He found himself staring at an insignia consisting of a scarlet angel wielding an Uzi and the words 'Harley's Angels'.
"Better hang on tight, honey," the woman told him. "We like to travel all out."
"Are you walking, Cordelia?" Angel said.
She made a face, then dropped her cigarette and tentatively climbed up behind one of the larger motorcyclists. The moment she'd settled down on the seat, he throttled up the motorcycle. The pack made a series of wide pirouettes and sliced out into the night.
Spike circled the block yet again, muttering imprecations. His henchmen were huddled in the back seat playing a hand-held computer game. The yellow Lamborghini was still in its parking slot in front of The Last Reel Cinema, but by now his quarry had almost certainly bolted. It was aggravation enough to rip somebody's throat out for.
His eyes narrowed as he spotted one of Rory Vitali's production vans pulling out down the street. Rory's blood-red Testarossa pulled out shortly behind it, but it abruptly broke ranks again and double-parked beside one of the troop cars in front of the Cinema. The director and several of his film crew piled out and hustled into the theater next door.
"What's that wanker up to?" Spike was beginning to suspect that Rory had been yanking his chain earlier.
"Dalton." He grabbed the vampire by the ear and pulled him away from the game-playing huddle. "You and Sheila go into that theater and see what the hell Rory is up to."
"But I was up to my highest score!" Sheila whined.
Spike gave her a low glower.
"Okay, okay." Sheila followed Dalton out of the car, pouting furiously. She slammed the door after her.
"I'm not going to turn any more teenagers," Spike muttered. He leaned out the window to peer up the street, then reached into his glove compartment for the cell phone. "Kaylee," he growled into the phone. "There's a bloody red BMW driving towards your end of the street. Find out where they're going."
"We're being tailed again," Willow said. "Gee, I always thought it would be cool to say that, but it not so much fun when it's happening."
"Oh, I don't know." Buffy adjusted the rear view mirror so that she could examine their followers. "It could be loads of laughs. Why do all these vampires drive black cars? It gets a little obvious after a while."
"You want me to lose them?" Xander said eagerly.
"Now where's the fun in that?" Buffy said. "There's only three of them in there. Stop here."
Xander stepped on the brakes, sending them all lurching forward. The car behind them screeched and came to a halt inches from the BMW's rear bumper. Buffy threw her door open and started walking towards their tail.
Xander broke out in a sweat. "My life just flashed before my eyes."
"Buffy can handle 'em." Willow craned over the back of her seat to watch the proceedings.
"Them maybe, but could she protect me from Cordelia if I get her car trashed?" Xander turned to watch. The three vampires in the black Cadillac behind them were talking excitedly. Buffy had reached the car and was pulling at the door. "You think she needs help?"
"Uh-uh." Willow shook her head. "There's a Dead Head sticker on their bumper."
"Big City vampires. Gotta love 'em."
Buffy started kicking the Caddy's door, putting dents in the gleaming metal. This decided the vampires. They revved up the engine, zoomed back, and came curving around again. Buffy leaped up on the trunk of Cordelia's car.
"No! No!" Xander yelped, but the Cadillac swerved aside, barely missing them, and tore off in the direction from which they'd come.
"Okay," Buffy said, climbing back into the front seat. "That settles them."
"Home?" Xander said plaintively.
"Looks like the guys got away okay," she said with a nod. "Home."
The 'Hog Wild' was a small, windowless establishment, situated on the main highway, along with a seemingly endless stream of similar night haunts. The only things that distinguished this one were a sign with the picture of a tusked boar riding a motorcycle on top of the entrance and a herd of motorcycles that flocked about the place.
"You can let go now," the driver of the motorcycle told Giles. "Unless you've got other things in mind."
He realized that he had a death grip around her waist. He had to concentrate to pry himself loose. "Sorry --"
"Nothin' to apologize for, at all." She pulled her helmet off, shook out a long mass of grey curls, and held out her hand. "Name's Lucy, by the way. Figure we might as well introduce ourselves, since we've been hangin' pretty close and personal the last ten miles."
"Rupert," he responded faintly, and took her hand. She grasped it, then hopped down from her motorcycle, bringing him in tow.
"Hey, Delilah, your hog sounded like she was gettin' ready to pop a litter," she yelled at the motorcyclist Angel had ridden in with.
"Yeah, I know." The other woman pulled off her own helmet, revealing a close-cropped head of silver hair and the aristocratic features of an elder Katherine Hepburn. "Poor child's not feeling her oats tonight." She started poking about the Harley's engine. "Can one of you guys lend me a wrench?"
"Yeah, I got one here." The raspy-voiced driver turned towards Cordelia. "End of the line, sweetie."
"Oh." Cordelia slid off and watched as he took off his helmet. He seemed to be the youngest member of the group of now de-helmeted motorcyclists, but only in that he still had some color in his hair and beard.
"Here Delilah." He tossed the woman a wrench. "Need some help with that?"
"Naw." She set to work with a vengeance. "You guys go ahead and go in."
"Okay. Yell if you need anything."
Cordelia had drifted over to latch onto Angel's arm again. Angel gingerly pulled himself free to follow the motorcyclists to the door of the bar.
A grizzled man dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, reflective sunglasses, and a tie-dyed t-shirt was supervising the door.
"Oops, forgot," Lucy said. "It's Tattoo Night."
"Flash 'em if you've got 'em," the doorman agreed. "No 'too, no enter."
"Which body part do you want, Mack?" Lucy said with a grin.
"Any or all of you, Luce," he leered back. "Got anything new?"
She pulled off her jacket, hiked up her tank top and turned to show him a large green dragon on her lower back.
"Oooh, good work." Mack pulled off his sunglasses to run a finger down the dragon's spine. "Pluto down in Diego. Am I right?"
"You know your 'toos, Mack."
The rest of the gang dutifully lined up to display the requisite tattoo, exhibiting little modesty in deciding which tattoo to show.
Lucy turned to Giles, Angel, and Cordelia. "Sorry guys. Forgot tonight was Tattoo Night."
Angel rolled his eyes. "We can deal." He pulled off his coat then took off his shirt, sending a wary glance at Cordelia as he turned around. She goggled at him.
"Very nice," Mack said, peering intently at the winged creature on Angel's back. "Uh. . . Firefly up in 'Frisco?"
"Actually --" Angel quickly put his shirt back on, "-- the artist is long out of business."
"Figures," Mack said mournfully.
Angel turned to Giles. "You guys wait here. I'll call for a ride."
"No way you're leaving me out here," Cordelia said. "Not where anybody can see me."
"Sorry, miss," Mack said. "Gotta have a tattoo."
She stood, gritting her teeth, then glared at him. "Okay. But no staring." She pushed her dress and bra strap off one shoulder and pulled them down just far enough to expose a blue butterfly that had been tattooed near the side of her left breast.
"Oh, yes," Mack said, looking at it with the air of a connoisseur. "Very pretty. And the tattoo's not bad either."
Cordelia glared at him and shoved her dress back over her shoulder.
"Monaco. That one's very popular with the sorority gals these days."
"I beg your pardon," Cordelia said indignantly. "But this is an original design."
"Marie Thibault, right?" Mack grinned at her. "Well, I suppose it was original once."
"I paid good money for an original --"
Angel wandered off inside. "Hey, where are you going?" Cordelia hurried after him.
"Sorry, Rupert," Lucy said. "Would you like me to bring you a beer, or something?"
Giles looked back at the deserted highway. He didn't at all fancy being left alone out here. "That won't be necessary." He took off his jacket and coat and rolled up his shirt sleeve.
"Now I'm a guy who really appreciates the minimalist approach," Mack said. "Sometimes these things just leap out at you. What is this design, anyway?"
"Nothing really," Giles pulled his sleeve back down and redonned his jacket. "An old Etruscan symbol."
"Yeah, I can dig it. You know, there was this guy who came through last week, he had the exact same tattoo on his arm."
Giles was peering about, wondering where Angel and Cordelia had disappeared to. "I really don't think so," he replied distractedly.
"Good going, Rupert!" Lucy punched him on the arm. "All right then! Let's go on in."
"Whoa," Sheila said as she and Dalton wandered about the art exhibit in the theater lobby. "Awesome stuff."
Dalton stopped to look at the sculpture that had caught her attention. Perplexed, he read the sign affixed to the object. If he'd had any circulation to speak of, he would have blushed. "Spike sent us on a mission," he told the girl. "Stop wasting time."
"Spike, Spike," Sheila mocked, still dragging her feet. "How come he gets to order us around, anyways? He and that freaky Drusilla. I didn't have to follow this many orders before she fuckin' made me a vampire."
"There are not that many of us," Dalton tried to reason with her. "We need leaders we can rely on --" He yelped as a hairy arm darted out from behind the sculpture and snagged his coat.
"Well, well," Rory Vitali said, puffing his trademark cigarette smoke into Dalton's face. "What have we here? Abbott and Costello Go Undercover?"
"We - we were admiring the art exhibit," Dalton protested. He tried to squirm loose, but Rory gave his jacket a turn, wrapping it up around his throat.
Sheila laughed.
Rory grinned at her. "Is Spike losing his touch to the extent that he'd send you two off to spy on me? Or is he just being stretched really thin tonight."
Dalton shoved at Rory's arm, but didn't succeed in budging the film director an inch. "Spike knows he can count on me."
"Oh, Spike's a fuckin' whizzical judge of character," Rory mocked. He set Dalton down and brushed the wrinkles from his coat. "Did he lose track of his quarry?"
Dalton staunchly refused to answer.
"Yeah," Sheila said. "He's really got a bug up his butt about this guy. He's been calling in favors all night."
"Well, guess what," Rory said, putting a companionable arm about each of their shoulders. "So have I. I got my fuckin' heart set on adding this gentleman and his charming girlfriend to my latest film, but they've gone and broken contract on me." He paused to studiously readjust Dalton's cravat. "Now we can't have that. It sets a bad precedent. And when I get my heart set on something, I can't bear to be disappointed."
"No, Rory. Spike has plans for him that don't coincide with yours."
"Then Spike WILL FUCKIN' HAVE TO WAIT," Rory yelled, gathering a fistful of coat again.
"If we help, can I be in your movie?" Sheila said.
"Sorry, doll," Rory said, chewing furiously at his cigarette and glaring into Dalton's face. "I don't put vampires in front of the camera."
"Why not?"
"No soul, babe. Not the best of acting vehicles. Not to worry though. I've got plenty of staff openings for Useful Vampires. That's where most of the perks are, anyway."
"Okay," Sheila said.
"No," Dalton persisted. "Spike's counting on me."
"Dalton. . ." Rory drew him closer. "Dalton, Dalton, Dalton. These are the vampiric facts of life. I'd expect you to know them better than me, having spent more time at this vampire gig; but poor fucker, you've led a sheltered life. Nobody appreciates, much fuckin' less rewards a loyal vampire. Now me, I don't demand loyalty. I fuckin' well pay for it, and I pay for it fuckin' well. Don't be a fuckin' moron. I've got several scriptwriting openings."
"Write -- for the movies?" Dalton said, aghast.
"Filmwriting, you ignoramus. Join the Dark Side! Get your kicks and make money at it too. Slaughter and mayhem are great fun when you first get in the game, but sooner or later you're going to get burned out."
"I'm not going to abandon Spike to come write for you."
"I'm in," Sheila said.
"Good girl. For now you're working in my casting department." Rory let loose of Dalton to swoop an arm around Sheila. "First assignment: Run down my errant actors. Make sure they fuckin' well stay in place until I get a film crew down to them. If I get a successful shoot tonight, I'll fuckin' well make you my new casting director."
"Cool," Sheila said.
"Now off you two lovebirds go. Back to Spike. Tell him the prey has flown." He handed Sheila a cell phone. "Buzz me when you have some info. My number's on the back."
"I didn't say that I'd do this," Dalton protested.
"No," Rory said. And fixed him. With a Look. "But you're going to let Sheila do her job. Say it, Dalton. Say it or I'm going to fucking wrap you around this sculpture."
Dalton looked at the sculpture again and shuddered. "I'll let Sheila do her job," he repeated, reluctantly. "But I won't help."
"Fine by me," Sheila said. "You'd suck at snitching."
"Don't think of it as 'snitching', honey," Rory said as he escorted her to the door. "Think of it rather as 'Research and Development'. It's the first step to any successful career in behind-the-scenes film-making. Know where to get whatever you need for that shot. And be ready to kick in the balls of whoever gets in your way."
Sheila grinned. "You'll see. I'm gonna be really good at this."