Oz blinked a few times, hoping his vision would clear. At the moment, his sight was limited to a single shade of dark, fuzzy gray. To his dismay, nothing changed after his attempts. Oh well. He sat up slowly, trying not to aggravate the vertigo threatening to send him straight back down. Since he'd decided that his vision was seriously impaired, he was surprised to see things when he was somewhat vertical.

Not much, though. As it turned out, the reason Oz couldn't see anything was because the lights were off and the windows were drawn. It was also the middle of the night, if the lack of light seeping through the windows was to be believed. Knowing that he had his sight was a relief for the werewolf, so he turned his attention elsewhere.

First off, he catalogued the aches and pains within his own body. They were surprisingly minimal, other than the extraordinary sore that was his head. He was pretty sure his brain was throbbing. Alcohol had never caused a hangover quite this.memorable. It was a good thing that a hostile demon had caused this, since if it had been anything Oz had formerly liked, it would have been on the 'avoid at all costs' lists from now on.

Because of the familiarity of it, Oz didn't notice Xander's presence right away. Once he recalled more of the events of the previous day, however, he realized that it was in fact significant that Xander was well enough to lay on the bed next to him. When he looked, he found that the Raphe was lying flat out on his back, looking for all the world like he'd passed out after a long night of partying. Too bad that wasn't the reason.

Oz leaned down slowly, listening to Xander's heartbeat. It was a comforting sound-steady and strong, telling Oz that nothing was physically wrong with Xander. The young man's mind worried Oz, though-after all, Xander was the empath of the group, and therefore the one most vulnerable to such an attack. What if the Eraen demons had permanently damaged his brain?

It didn't take long for the werewolf to decide that curling up next to Xander was preferable to actually moving, so he snuggled up close and closed his eyes, knowing that he could easily sleep for another few hours. It would probably be what any doctor told him to do anyway. After all, wasn't that what they always prescribed-bed rest? Well, that and clear fluids, but those could wait until later.

���...�...�...�...���

While Oz was falling asleep again, Fred was waiting for Wesley to wake up. She had held a bedside vigil ever since returning from Sunnydale, watching and waiting for the faun to arise. According to Lorne and the 'specialists' he'd consulted, it could be a long time before any of the victims awoke-although they were supposed to be healing. It had been almost three days now, and there was no sign of that happening, however. Wesley just lay there like a corpse. Fred was afraid that if he didn't wake up soon, they were going to have to put an IV and a catheter in, so that they could keep him alive until he made it through. Angel hadn't liked that idea any more than Fred had, but he agreed that it might be the only option.

It was almost midnight, though, and Fred was exhausted from sitting up all day. She drew her legs under her and curled up in the easy chair she'd dragged over by the bed to sit watch. A blanket snatched from Wesley's stored belongings completed her makeshift sleeping area. They had never bothered to really set up his place in the hotel; when he'd returned from his exile in the demon dimension he'd just moved in with Fred. For the past year, they had been simply getting things out of boxes as needed. Fred had grabbed a few blankets and things from there-ones she hadn't gotten when he'd disappeared, that is, because they were so comforting. It didn't seem right for her to sleep in bed with him when he was incapacitated, so she stayed in the chair, covered with afghans and quilts that smelled just like him.

Fred felt horrible about what had happened to Wesley. Like the others, she was wracked with 'what ifs'. What if she had been here-could she have helped him? Prevented the entire episode? She wasn't so egotistical that she thought that her presence would have simply made everything go away, but she couldn't help but think that it might have changed something, anything that might have kept Wesley from being in the state he was now.

It didn't help any that the situation in Sunnydale had actually been improving-it just made leaving there more painful. While she and Buffy would never be friends, they had finally come to some sort of agreement-Buffy stopped talking about Fred like she was a half-wit flunky and Fred stopped talking right over Buffy's head-which took much more effort on Fred's part than Buffy's, because the so-powerful Slayer's extensive knowledge of slaying didn't include a very big vocabulary.

Dawn was where Fred was most pleased. The teenager exhibited excellent raw talent for taking care of herself and others, an ability that with a bit of honing would make her a formidable enemy or protector. Although she could always be wrong, Fred foresaw Dawn becoming a better, if not more powerful, player in the good-and-evil fight than Buffy was. It was Fred's theory that the lack of slayerness in Dawn gave her an advantage. Like her sister, she was quick to find the evil in a situation and kick its ass. Unlike her sister, though, Dawn didn't walk into every incident assuming that the 'bad' person wasn't human, and that the people were the good guys. She was also willing to admit that sometimes there were no clear bad and good guys, and that sometimes a swift kick and a happy stake weren't the best ways to solve a problem. In many cases, such acceptance of the gray areas of slaying were a disadvantage; fighters spent too long in an ambiguous decision-making state and ended up dead. Fortunately for Dawn, she had a lightening quick mind and knew when to think and when to kill.

Of course, Willow was still both Fred and Gunn's niggling worry. As the weeks passed, the Witch became better at taking care of herself-she finally stopped drooling and freezing. Now she took decent care of herself, managing to bathe and dress daily. She still had to be reminded to eat, although she now fed herself if food was given to her. She was still silent, though, and completely nonresponsive to questions. Most of her day was spent staring at walls, waiting for someone to tell her to go somewhere or do something. Just before Wil's phone call, Fred and Gunn had decided to demand that Buffy let Willow be seen by a professional with experience treating such cases. There were doctors in L.A. who knew how to treat trauma and magickal burnout like what Willow was suffering. They hadn't come up with a way to do that before being recalled to L.A., however.

���...�...�...�...���

Gunn watched desperately as Cordelia's eyelids fluttered. It was the first movement he'd seen her make in the three days he'd been watching her. His heart almost broke when she stopped moving, only to find life again when her eyes suddenly popped open.

"Ow."

"Delia?" Gunn whispered, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Talk to me, baby."

"I hurt," She said in a whisper. "My eyes really hurt."

"Do you want the light off?" Gunn asked. He'd turned it on to clean up a few minutes ago, but could easily switch it off again.

"Please," Cordelia asked. Once the light was off, she relaxed a little. "Better, thanks."

"How do you feel?" Gunn asked, worry evident in his voice.

"Like hell," Cordelia shot back. "Those demons are really, really mean. I hope someone hurt them a lot."

"I think they all got away," Gunn said without thinking.

Cordelia growled. "Got away? What about all those kids?"

Gunn smiled, knowing that Cordelia's first questions would be about the other victims. "Most of them are ok-they stayed unconscious for a few days but the majority of them have already gone home."

"Good," Cordelia whispered.

"Of course, the police have come up with half a dozen explanations for what went on," Gunn continued. "First it was nerve gas, then it was food poisoning, and I think right now their favorite is mass electrocution."

Cordelia chuckled. "Right. I'd go with the nerve gas thing, myself."

"You would," Gunn shot back. "Do you need anything?"

"No, I'm just really tired," Cordelia answered. "Like I haven't slept in days."

Gunn shook his head. She lies there comatose for three days and wants a nap. "Sleep then. I'm gonna go tell the vamps that you're ok." He waited until she fell asleep again before leaving to go downstairs. What he would have really liked was to talk to her a little longer, but if she needed to sleep, so be it. They had time.

He found Wil and Angel in the library, scouring through several thick, dusty texts. The pair had devoted all their waking hours to research since the incident, trying to find out several things, such as what the Eraen demons were after, what Wolfram & Hart might be planning, and what they could do to help their friends. Gunn was no longer mad at them; he knew that what had happened wasn't their fault-and that had they been there, in all likelihood all six of them would be dead now. The attack had been so well planned that had Angel and Wil been with the others, they would have been taken down too.

Gunn could tell, though, that Wil wasn't reacting well to the situation. The blonde stayed up long after he should have gone to bed, reading and taking notes on just about everything. Angel was making a concerted effort to keep Wil on a somewhat even keel, and it was working to some extent. The only thing that was ever really going to help him, though, was seeing all of his friends awake and whole.

"Guys?" Gunn said, waiting for the vampires to acknowledge him.

Angel looked up. "Hmm?"

"Delia woke up."

Wil jumped out of his chair. "How is she? Did she say anything? Can we see her?"

"Fine, yes, and no. She went back to sleep," Gunn said. "She woke up, but was really tired and her head hurt. She thinks she's ok, though-she just needs sleep," Gunn elaborated.

Wil visibly relaxed. "Ah. You haven't heard from the others, have you?"

Gunn shook his head. "They're still down, as far as I know."

"But this is a very good sign," Angel said. "The others should be awake soon."

"I hope so," Gunn said. "Because this place is too quiet, even with Lorne downstairs."

"Xander certainly knew how to liven the place up," Angel remarked.

"Xander? Nah, it's that crazy boyfriend of his. Never shuts up," Gunn retorted. Wil laughed at his joke, the first time anyone had seen a positive emotion out of him for days.

"Actually, all of those wild orgies they throw with Fred and Wesley keep me up all night," Wil added facetiously. "Between them and you and Cordelia, I never get any sleep at all. Hormone crazed children."

Gunn choked on his laughter. "Us? Hormone-crazed? Um, you're the one that admitted to Delia that vampires have no recovery time. We always wondered how you two could go at it like that."

Angel blushed-a difficult thing for a vampire to do. "At least we're not as loud as Xander."

"True," Gunn said, smirking. "But I think I've got just the thing for that."

"What?" Wil asked curiously.

The smirk on Gunn's face widened. "Ball gag."

Angel nearly fell on the floor. "You didn't."

Gunn nodded enthusiastically. "Yup. Once everything's settled around here, I'm gonna give it to Oz."

"Why Oz?" Wil asked.

"Cause if I give it to him, it'll get used. If I hand it to Xander, it'll get thrown away," Gunn explained. "It's funny, but it's also serious. You two don't live as close to them as we do."

"Close enough," Angel muttered. "And we have better hearing."

"So what are we gonna do about Wolfram & Hart?" Gunn asked, abruptly changing the subject.

"Do?" Wil echoed.

"Yeah, *do,*" Gunn repeated. " As in, how are we going to pay them back for this little trick-and all the others?"

Angel slumped down in a chair. Wil followed him. "I'm not sure that we can do anything."

"Or that we should," Wil added.

Gunn stared at them in shock. "What?"

Angel sighed. "For one, they're a huge organization. Do you have any idea what we'd be going up against?"

"So we just keep getting beat up because they're bullies?" Gun snapped.

"It's not that," Wil said. "Actually, I think they want us to attack them."

"What?" Gunn and Angel said together.

"Here me out," Wil said, leaning forward on the table. "Think about it. Considering all the resources at their disposal, why haven't they killed the lot of us? Yeah, we're good, but we aren't perfect-how many times have we been surrounded by their flunkies and *not* died? Think back on all the times we've had run-ins with them. Each time somebody gets hurt but survives. What do Wolfram & Hart get out of it? Well, besides the sadistic pleasure of torturing the good guys? They get information. They knew I had a soul, they knew I had a chip. Yeah, we've solved those problems, but they can always find other weaknesses. They know now that we'll split up to protect the Hellmouth-something they're not even interested in. They also know just how far we'll go to protect our seers and brethren, even if it would be better for us to leave them behind." Wil paused for a moment. "But they never actually kill one of us. I think they're trying to provoke us."

"To do what?" Gunn asked shortly.

"Attack them. See, I've been thinking more and more about what they do. They're all about antagonism-making us want to hurt them-especially the humans that work there. What if they can't really hurt us until we hurt them?"

"What about Lindsey?" Angel reminded him. "I certainly hurt him. And I hurt all those lawyers by letting Darla and Dru have at them."

"True," Wil said, "but those attacks don't fit into what they want. This is a little more recent than that."

"What if they're trying to recruit us?" Gunn said. "Or something like that What if one of us has some big role to play in a huge cosmic battle of good and evil?"

Wil, Gunn and Angel looked at each other. "Nah," They said as one.

"But seriously, I think that they're trying to do something," Wil said.

"Distract us?" Angel suggested. "I mean, as long as we're dealing with their antics, we're not focused on other things." Lorne's admonition to not forget the community floated into his mind. "We get isolated from the city when we're immersed in whatever scheme the lawyers have going."

"So you think that something else might be going down and we're just not around to hear about it-because we're off playing with Lilah and Gavin?" Gunn summarized. "It works, and is worth a shot."

"It would only take a few days of tapping into sources to see if anything's going on," Wil said.

"We'll start tomorrow. For now, though, we need to check on the others. If Cordelia woke up, maybe the others will have as well," Angel said, leading the other two men upstairs.

*****
Part 41:

Oz fiddled with the sandwich Gunn had made for him, not sure if he was hungry or not. Compared to most people, the werewolf looked fairly calm and collected. For him, however, he was a bundle of nervous, twitching energy. The vampire hunter and Angel didn't notice the difference, but Wil did.

"He'll wake up," Wil said reassuringly, seeing how Oz was pretending to be interested in his food. When they'd gone up to check on the others, they had found Oz awake. Wesley and Xander, however, were still comatose.

"I know," Oz replied, looking down at the soft brown bread in his hands. His rational mind knew that Xander would wake up. The wolf, though, didn't have the same confidence. It was growling and pacing, impatient and not happy about not having its mate by its side. For his wolf half, it was bad enough to have a mate that was so closely related to what it considered to be prey. Having a mate that was hurt was far worse-especially when he couldn't do anything about it. Oz was nearly vibrating under the strain of keeping himself together. When he'd first woken up, he'd figured that Xander would follow him. Two days later, however, he still hadn't shown signs of life. Angel and Wil had called in a doctor to take care of them, so he didn't have to worry about that aspect of their recovery. That wasn't much comfort, though.

All that he, and the others, had in terms of entertainment was deciding what to do about Wolfram & Hart. He and Cordelia had agreed with Wil's idea-that Wolfram & Hart were distracting them from something bigger and that the law firm didn't want them gone, just rendered useless. Oz also thought that attacking the firm outright would be a very bad idea, one that would probably get them killed.

"If you're not going to eat that, can I have it?" Cordelia asked, eyeing Oz's sandwich. He glanced down at it before handing it over. She, like him, had recovered nicely after a long night's sleep. Now she was making up for lost time on the food front, trying to satisfy a ravenous appetite.

"Did you find out anything about W & H?" Oz asked Angel, hoping that the vampire had gotten useful information about the law firm.

Angel shrugged and scowled. "Yes and no. I mean, they're up to their usual antics, helping out people we'd rather they not, but I've not heard about anything big going on. "

"They're rarely into big," Wil reminded the group. "After all, what good would it do them to destroy the world, or cause widespread destruction?"

"But there has to be something they're doing that requires us to be elsewhere," Cordelia said around a bite of sandwich. "I mean I haven't had a vision in a while, but in general we've been running our asses off dealing with piddling little stuff, and they've got fingers in way too much of it."

"What do you mean?" Angel asked, frowning.

"She means that according to a snitch or two, Wolfram & Hart have been funding some of the activities that have required our attention lately," Gunn answered.

"Oh," Angel murmured.

"Which just makes me think that they're up to something," Wil surmised. "I wish I knew what it was."

"Yeah, don't we all," Gunn said. "I've got to run. The old neighborhood's not cleaning itself up on its own."

"Will you be back soon?" Cordelia inquired hopefully. She didn't like it when Gunn was away for days on end working with his old gang.

Gunn shrugged. "I'll call."

���...�...�...�...���

It was three days before Gunn showed back up at the hotel, exhausted and battered. When he got up to the office, he had just enough time to set down his axe and duffle bag before Cordelia pounced, fretting over all of his wounds. "You're in so much trouble, mister!"

"They're part of the job, Delia," Gunn replied tiredly. Now was not the time to start pestering him about war wounds.

"No, you're in trouble because you didn't turn your cell phone on! Wesley and Xander woke up!" Cordelia shot, pushing the hunter into a chair. He winced as she took out a bottle of antiseptic and a bag of cotton balls, and swore when she started cleaning his wounds.

"How are they?" Gunn asked, trying and failing to avoid the stinging cleaner.

"They're fine, now that they've both slept it off like Oz and I did," Cordelia answered. "Wil's still leery about letting us out on the town, though, so we're stuck here until he changes his mind."

"Good luck," Gunn said, knowing how likely it was that Wil would just decide everyone was fine. After a few minutes, Cordelia decided that she'd gotten the worst of his injuries cleaned and left him in the office, saying that she had better things to do than hang around a grimy little boy. They may have buried the hatchet and started liking each other, but they'd never promised to have a smooth relationship. At any given time at least one of them was a bit pissed at the other. Gunn wouldn't have it any other way.

It was a couple of hours before he saw anyone else enter the office, since it was still fairly early in the day. When Wil and Angel came in, he was going through the mail that had piled up in his apartment during the weeks he'd been away. There was way too much of it, considering that he had all the important stuff sent to the hotel.

"Oh, look. J.C. Penney's white sale!" Angel quipped, plucking a flyer out of the stack. "Have you told Cordelia about this?"

"Not funny, Soulboy," Cordelia said from the doorway. "Besides, that was a month ago."

"Never mind then," Angel replied, tossing the flyer into the garbage. "How was the neighborhood?"

"Fine," Gunn said absently. "Vamps mostly, and a few demons here and there. They're shaping up nicely under the new leadership." Gunn was very grateful that the traumatic events that had gone down in Caritas had served to teach his old gang a valuable lesson. After that they reorganized themselves into a much better, and more respectable, fighting unit. They still didn't like nonhumans, but they did stop indiscriminately killing everything that crossed their path.

"What's this?" Cordelia said, holding up a postcard.

Gunn squinted at it. "Some guy running for city council."

"Huh," Cordelia hummed. "Anthony Salis. I know him."

"Unlikely," Gunn shot back. "Not your neighborhood."

Cordelia shook her head and took the card to Angel. "No, really. I know this guy-from a party somewhere."

Angel smiled. "Cordy, you go to a lot of parties. If the guy's into politics, he's going to be at them."

The seer snorted and threw herself into a chair. She was stumped by the face-it was relevant somehow, if she could just figure it out. There was something about him.and she never had stuff like this come up if it wasn't relevant. Xander and Oz shuffled in a few minutes later and sat down to visit, since they were grounded from work. Neither of the seers had had any visions since waking up, so Angel, Wil and the other 'healthy' investigators were playing catch-up on their other cases.

���...�...�...�...���

"Mark Forrester!"

Wil, Angel and Wesley looked up from the book they were studying. Cordelia was sitting at her desk with a stunned expression on her face. "Excuse me?" Wesley asked the seer.

Cordelia jumped up and ran over to his desk. "I know where I've seen that face! It was at that party I went to hosted by Mark Forrester!"

The three men looked at each other. "Face?"

"You know, the one on the flyer-the guy running for City Council?" Cordelia explained.

"Yes, I remember that now. However, I do not see-" Wesley's brush-off was interrupted by the werewolf seer.

"Um.and I recall correctly, Mark Forrester was a movie producer funded by interests connected to Wolfram & Hart. Big players at that party, let me tell you!" Cordelia said, grimacing. "Actors, directors, you name it.and this guy."

Angel frowned. "What was he doing there?"

Cordelia shrugged. "I don't know-I didn't actually talk to him. Hey, I was just a pretty face!" Cordelia replied hotly.

"Interesting as this is, the connection is tenuous at best," Wesley continued once Cordelia had quieted. "And business has picked up considerably. I don't think we can spare any resources chasing far-fetched leads such as this."

"Uh huh," Cordelia muttered. "Of course, you'd be saying the same thing if *you* had seen the guy at a Wolfram & Hart-backed party, right?"

Wesley shot her an evil glare and turned back to his book. Wil shared a glance with Angel. They both agreed with Wesley that the lead was a bit unlikely, but it was worth investigating. After all, they hadn't gotten anything else. "Maybe we can ask around while we're out working on other cases," Angel offered. Wesley grimaced but nodded his head. He may have been the boss, but he couldn't really tell any of them to just not investigate something.

"Don't bother," Cordelia announced. "I'll do it myself. That way you won't be distracted by my nonsense." Before Wesley could respond, Cordelia stormed out of the office.

"She's certainly.friendly today," Wesley remarked as he delved deeper into his text.

���...�...�...�...���

"So tell me one more time why we're doing this?" Xander asked as Fred booted up her computer. He, Fred and Cordelia had been left behind while the others went out on a case. Cordelia had wasted no time in rounding up the other to and putting them to work. First off, Fred was to hack into Anthony Salis' bank accounts and poke around a little. Maybe they'd give the group a clue as to what was going on with the candidate.

"Look," Cordelia began, "I've got a feeling about this guy, and my feelings are usually right."

"Well, let's see what we can find out," Fred murmured as her fingers began to fly over the keyboard. Xander and Cordelia sat back to watch as the girl delved into the bank's secure server. "Hmm."

"What?" Cordelia asked excitedly.

"Not much," Fred admitted. "He gets paid on automatic deposit-directly from the city, pays his bills on time and doesn't have a dime out of place."

"Oh well," Xander huffed.

"Damn," Cordelia swore. "I wanted something on him."

Fred kept typing. "Let's see.He's one of the city's top prosecutors, and he. almost never goes up against Wolfram & Hart," She said, looking through the city's files. They were public information.if you knew where to look. "And when he does, he loses."

"Huh?" Xander said, waking from his daze. "Always?"

"Yup," Fred replied. "Ok, let's try this."

"What?" Cordelia asked.

"His degrees are on the up and up." Fred said after a few minutes. "But I've never heard of this scholarship before."

"What scholarship?" The werewolf asked.

"Full ride to Harvard Law," Fred replied. "The Wrathalfmor Memorial Award."

"Wrathalfmor?" Xander echoed. "That sounds like bad sci-fi stuff."

"It's also an anagram of Wolfram & Hart," Fred announced. "It's given out every fourth year."

Cordelia thought for a moment. "Can you pull up the names of other recipients of that award?"

"Sure," Fred replied, typing away. "Let's see, we've got Anthony Salis right there, and about ten others, dating back forty years. And, wouldn't you know.our buddy Gavin's right there on the list."

"What about Lilah?" Xander asked, getting excited.

"Not on here," Fred said. "But I can look up her history as well."

Cordelia and Xander waited impatiently while Fred slogged through public records. "Ah. She went to Yale, you know, on scholarship.the Marl F. Owarth Scholarship for Excellence."

"Another anagram?" Xander guessed. "Who else got that award?"

"It's a partial scholarship, given out every year to three lucky finalists," Fred replied, reading from a website. "Not as prestigious as the Wrathalfmor, but still quite nice. Angel's friend Lindsey is on here as well."

"I wonder how many other scholarships they have going on, funding lawyers like that," Cordelia muttered. "Can we find out?"

Fred scowled. "Maybe. I can set up a search to look-there are all sorts of databases of scholarships. Then we'll have to cross reference those awards with people in the area. Who knows how many people are connected to the firm in some way or another."

���...�...�...�...���

Wesley, Angel, Wil, Oz and Gunn stared down at the mountain of papers Cordelia had given them. "Care to explain?" Wesley asked shortly. "Or are you simply showing us how well you can denude forests?"

"Read it and weep, Hornboy," Cordelia shot back. "I told you there was a connection between that candidate and Wolfram & Hart." The guys' eyes goggled.

"That's the connection?" Angel asked, his jaw dropping.

"Actually, that stack is the connection between Wolfram & Hart and various city officials, including Anthony Salis," Fred explained. "This stack," She said, thumping down another two-foot tall pile of papers, "is the connection between Wolfram & Hart and ten law schools, fourteen scholarship funds, two junior colleges and nine professional sports franchises."

"What kind of connections are we talking about here?" Gunn asked as he peered cautiously at the paperwork. He did not want to have to read that stuff.

"Wolfram & Hart is providing some level of funding for the law schools-technology, books, endowing professorships, you name it. They're also shelling out big bucks to set up scholarship funds-which paid for Lilah, Gavin, Lindsey, and Anthony's law degrees. The junior colleges they own outright and they have at least 10% stakes in each of the sports franchises."

"How did you figure this out?" Angel asked after a moment.

"Fancy fingerwork on Fred's part," Cordelia explained. "It took a lot of digging. Most of this stuff is well-hidden-under dummy corporations or held by anonymous organizations overseas."

"But you all found it easily enough," Wil replied.

"Once we found a loose thread, well, it didn't take as much tugging as you might think. All it takes is one mistake, and they made two," Fred explained.

"And those two mistakes would be what?" Gunn asked.

"First off, the oh-so-wonderful prosecutor Anthony Salis avoids going up against Wolfram & Hart at all costs, and when he can't avoid them, he always loses. Always," Xander answered. "But the kicker was a scholarship he won. Its name is an anagram for Wolfram & Hart."

Wil slumped down on the desk. That was way too easy. "They named a scholarship after themselves?"

"No, they named fourteen scholarships after themselves," Cordelia said. "About half of them are anagrams of the entire name; others include parts of it-or are anagrams of one of the firms' subsidiaries. We cross-referenced the scholarships' recipients with employees of Wolfram & Hart, as well as public and private figures of note here in L.A., and the results are rather depressing."

"How so?" Wil inquired.

"That firm has its greedy little mitts in just about everything. They practically own this city," Fred replied. "From city hall to the sanitation department, they've got people with some sort of connection to them."

"Garbage men?" Gunn said skeptically.

"They paid for their kids' college educations," Xander explained. "The kind of thing that wins a lot of loyalty, you know."

"This isn't a short-term setup," Angel said finally. "They've been laying the groundwork for this for a long time."

Cordelia nodded. "Yeah, but mostly here in L.A.-until recently. If you look at this drawing Fred did," She handed over a sheet of paper, "Right now most of the connections we found do exist in L.A.-but they're starting to reach out to other cities, like New York and London."

"We think that maybe they used L.A. as a guinea pig-to see if they could set themselves up like they did. Since it worked so well, they're branching out," Xander said.

"But where to we fit into this?" Gunn asked. "Why even bother with us, why not just wipe us out?"

"That's what we're trying to find out," Cordelia said. "We're running numbers now."

*****