7.7

Episode 7.7

"Dark"

written by: A. Jean Clayton, a.k.a. silver

December 25th, 2001

Previously, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

Buffy and Grant watched as Captain Penderghast was killed by demons. Giles returned from England for a visit, and to help with the current case of the men in cloaks. Some of the said men in cloaks were revealed to be working with Ethan Rayne. Ethan summoned a hypnotized group of vampires, but Buffy and the gang took them out. Ethan was attacked.

* * *

We open with Xander and Anya lying in bed together. They�re talking about how Giles is going to be leaving again in a couple days, and Xander comments that Buffy will be down about it. Anya says it�s not like he�ll be gone forever; he�ll still visit and stuff, like he always has. Xander agrees, but says that doesn�t make anyone less sad when he leaves. Anya says it doesn�t make her sad; it means she gets to be fully in charge of the shop again. Xander smiles tolerantly. Anya asks, if Buffy�s gonna be so sad about it, why she�s not spending all her time with Giles right now, and Xander reminds her that she�s got a real job going on now; with real human criminals, and she can�t take time off from the real world to do what she would rather be doing.

Cut to Buffy in the park, fighting three vampires. As they fight, she complains that she doesn�t have time to be a slayer right now; she�s supposed to be doing the cop thing, and meeting up with Grant. The vampires obviously don�t care, and rush her. She manages to dust all three of them, and then wanders off to go find Grant. Parting some bushes, she steps through onto the path and finds him kneeling over the body of a dead woman, his hand on her neck. He looks up at Buffy, expressionless. �She�s dead.�

Opening Credits.

At the Magic Box, Buffy finishes telling Willow and Tara about the body Grant found. Willow�s trying to find a Missing Person�s report, or some other kind of information on who the woman might have been, using her laptop. Buffy ask Tara where Giles is, and she says she tried calling his hotel, but there was no answer. Tara remembers the hypnotized vampire army and wonders if they were responsible for the woman�s death. Buffy says no; there were no bite marks. She was beaten to death. Suddenly Willow finds something�turns out the woman was a cop. Buffy wonders why Grant didn�t mention that to her. Having been in Sunnydale for awhile, now, he almost had to have known her.

Just then Grant comes in looking for Buffy. He chastises her for leaving, and for including her friends in police business again. Buffy reminds him that sometimes her friends turn up information more quickly than the police do. Grant acknowledges that, but says as a rookie, she shouldn�t be investigating a murder yet, anyway. Buffy is surprised, and asks him if it�s already been determined that it was murder. Grant seems a little off balance at the question, but covers quickly by saying it was obvious just from looking at her.

Cut to the Police Department, where the Chief leads another man into the office of the recently deceased Captain Penderghast. The other man carries himself with authority, and talks about the questionable circumstances of the Penderghast�s death. The Chief calls the other man Commissioner, and says they don�t know yet why the Captain was on the docks in the middle of the night, and that they still don�t have any substantial leads on the people who killed him. The Commissioner notes that the police department seems to have a lot of that going on recently�not knowing what�s happened to their own. The Chief defends the precinct by saying there has been an increase in crime in the past year.

The Commissioner looks at him, almost amused, and asks him if that�s really all he thinks it is. The Chief thinks for a moment, and responds that he�s been in Sunnydale far too long for him to still believe that everything�s normal. He says �too many of my boys have come back with strange stories�too many of them haven�t come back at all.� He knows that things aren�t what they seem in Sunnydale, but he says that doesn�t mean they have any less of a job to do. The Commissioner again seems almost amused, and then announces that he�ll be taking over Captain Penderghast�s position indefinitely, so he can keep a closer eye on the Sunnydale precinct himself.

Commercials

Buffy and Grant are still out on patrol, and they share some tense silence in the car before Dispatch calls them with a possible break-in reported by a passerby on a cell phone. Grant flicks the lights on and they head off.

They arrive at a pawn shop and go inside to find the owner and an associate cleaning up the mess of broken glass. Buffy is surprised to see it�s Fence. Grant starts to question him about the break-in, but Fence is pretty abrupt with him, clearly having no patience with his line of questioning, and all he�ll tell him is that he didn�t see or hear anything. Grant�s radio crackles, and he steps outside to take the call. Fence is suddenly much more open, and remarks to Buffy that it will be dark soon. Buffy looks out the window, then back at Fence like he�s crazy. �It�s already dark,� she says. He tells her that if she �doesn�t stop them�, it�ll be dark forever. Buffy asks who he�s talking about, and he says the ones who did this. Buffy says she thought he didn�t see or hear anything; that�s what he told Grant. Fence replies that he doesn�t trust Grant; besides, would Grant have believed him if he�d told him about the four Nacht demons that had busted in and stolen a dangerous artifact?

Buffy asks about what the demons took, and Fence tells her it doesn�t look like much. It�s just a cylinder, but he implies that it�s very powerful, and very dangerous. Buffy asks to use his phone, and calls the Magic Box. Giles still isn�t there, and Willow says she hasn�t seen him all day. Buffy wonders where he is, and then asks Willow to dig up any information she can on the artifact, and on Nacht demons.

Outside, she finds Grant angrily replacing the radio mike. She asks him what�s wrong, but he just says they�ve got another call. They drive in silence for a minute before Buffy, trying to lighten the mood, reads laughingly from Grant�s report that Fence�s real name is Alouisious Fentz. This reminds her that she still doesn�t know Grant�s first name, and asks him. �Makale,� he replies. Buffy�s confused. �Kale? Isn�t that like�.kelp?� Grant looks at her, deadpan. �No, kelp is a form of seaweed. Kale is a green leafy vegetable. Makale is a family name.� Buffy, chastened, says only �Oh.�

Commercials

Buffy and Grant pull up in a parking lot to find that there are a couple of other cop cars there already. They get out and go talk to another officer, passing his partner talking to the guy who phoned in the murder. Grant questions him, and the officer tells them the body is a dead English guy, this time. Grant wants to know how they knew he was English, if he�s dead. The cop says they found a green card on him. Buffy freaks out, thinking it�s Giles, and wants to know the name of the victim. The cop doesn�t know, and says it was a brown-haired guy; that�s all he remembers. Buffy pushes past Grant and the other officer, and runs over to where the paramedics are loading the gurney with the body on it into the ambulance. She rips back the sheet covering the body and finds that it�s Ethan.

Later, after sunrise, Buffy and Giles are at her house and she�s told him about Ethan�s death. He says that he and Ethan hadn�t been friends in a long time, but he still can�t believe he�s dead. Buffy says she understands; friend or not, he was a part of Giles� life for a long time, and it�s hard to lose someone you were once close to. Giles realizes she�s still kind of freaked from when she thought it might have been him dead, and apologizes for making her worry. He then asks how Ethan died, and she tells him he was beaten to death; the same MO as the dead woman cop found in the park. Giles almost smiles at her terminology, and comments that she�s really all grown up now, and he doesn�t have anything left to teach her.

Buffy says she knows he�ll be going home soon; she knows he�s got his other life to get back to there�but she�ll always need him. Giles is touched, and they have a father / daughter type moment. Giles gets back on track, asking what Grant thinks is going on? Buffy replies that it seems like Grant is keeping secrets from her. She cites his not telling her that the first victim was a cop, and the suspicious way in which she found him with the body. Giles wonders if she suspects him of something, and Buffy says she�s not sure yet; but one thing is for sure. He�s not being honest with her.

Cut to Grant, breaking into an apartment. He goes inside and we can see pictures on the walls and on end tables showing that this is the home of the dead cop. Grant searches through her stuff, collecting notebooks and miscellaneous items, and placing them all in a box he�s brought. After one more quick cursory glance, he leaves.

Back at the Summers house, Giles is saying that whatever killed Ethan, then, is the same thing that killed the cop. He wonders if it might be these Nacht demons Buffy�s after, but Buffy doesn�t think so. She points out that Ethan was essentially a bad guy. He worshipped chaos, and was a pretty dark guy. But something darker, something more evil than he was, got to him and killed him.

Just then Willow calls with the info on the Nacht demons. Apparently, their species has a strong aversion to any kind of light; the stronger the demon, the more that light hurts it. The item they stole has the power to bring permanent darkness to the face of the earth, if they can perform the spell correctly, and she speculates that their goal is to bring more of their kind to this realm. Buffy and Giles realize that this is very very bad, for a number of reasons, but figure that they�ve got at least until nightfall before the Nacht demons will be able to do anything else because of the daylight.

Commercials

At Grant�s apartment, Makale rifles through the stuff he took from the dead cop�s place. He finds a couple notebooks toward the bottom, and we can see sketchings of talismans on the front cover of one. He darts around his apartment, looking for a place to hide the notebooks, and finally shoves them underneath a couch cushion. He dumps the rest of the papers from the box into a metal trash can, and lights the contents on fire. He looks grim.

Toward dusk, Buffy and the gang have a Scooby meeting in the Magic Box, discussing the Nacht demons. Giles has researched the breed and discovered that they were banished from this dimension thousands of years ago, and have been trying to return ever since, and bring darkness to the earth. Xander wants to know why they�re able to come back now, and Giles says the translation is a bit fuzzy there; it has something to do with the �forces of darkness� coming into alignment. But he can�t narrow it down. Buffy really just wants to know where they�ll be, and how she can kill them. Giles reads from his book that the forces they�re trying to summon can be vanquished by destroying the cylinder, but she has to do it before they fully materialize in this realm. Otherwise, they�ll have a horde of angry Nacht demons on their hands, and the world will be plunged into darkness. And they�ll have to perform the ritual outside somewhere, in a wide open space that can accommodate an army.

Cut to the station. Grant grabs some stuff out of his locker, and checks his ammunition before holstering his gun. He closes the locker door and leaves the room, traveling down a hallway past the offices. Trying to look casual, he glances in the Captain�s office and sees the Commissioner, who is sitting at the desk talking on the phone. �I�m fully aware of the situation,� he says. �Everything is under control. Under direct control.� Suddenly he seems to sense that he�s being watched and looks up to see Grant. He smiles. Grant looks shaken, and leaves.

�Wide open spaces,� Buffy is saying to Willow and Xander. �Where else can you find a wide open space in Sunnydale?� The camera pans back to reveal that they�re standing in the middle of the university�s football field. Night is newly fallen, and Buffy and the gang look around anxiously. Buffy�s just wondering aloud if they maybe should have split up to check other areas, when they see four large, sleek and scary looking Nacht demons venture out onto the field from within the trees at the edge. Each of the demons is pure white, and their lack of eyes is obvious. Willow says of course, living in constant darkness they would eventually lose the pigmentation from their skin, and would have no use for eyes. She notes that they probably have other senses that make up for the lack of sight. Almost on cue, one of the Nacht demons turns its head toward the gang and hisses. �Perhaps a keen sense of hearing?� Willow chokes.

Driving around in the car, Grant calls Dispatch using his radio. He asks if Officer Summers is working that night, and Dispatch says no; it�s her night off. Grant looks relieved, and then pulls into a parking lot to turn around, looking as if he just made up his mind about something. As he starts to put the car in reverse, however, a body comes flying out of nowhere and lands on his hood. Grant yelps in surprise, and throws the car in park, jumping out. On the hood is Xander, looking a little worse for the wear, but basically undamaged. �Hey man, how�s it going?� he asks Grant nonchalantly. A beat, and then he jumps up off the hood and runs back into the fray. Grant, pulling his gun, follows.

They both run out onto the field, where Buffy is fighting the Nacht demons. It�s dark, and Grant is confused as he aims his gun first at the human targets, then the strange figures in white; unsure of what�s going on. Suddenly he realizes one of the people fighting is his partner. �Buffy?� he asks incredulously. Buffy gets distracted at hearing her name, and when she turns to look in Grant�s direction the demon she was fighting knocks her down. Buffy flips back to her feet as the demon charges Grant, who aims and fires at the demon. It goes down and seems to shrivel and burn up, leaving only a greasy ash behind. Grant looks stunned and incredulous. Willow stops another demon from crushing Xander�s skull by levitating it up high, and then letting it fall. It crashes to the ground, dies, and also smolders into ash. Buffy does a flying kick at the two remaining demons, knocking one into the other, and sending the cylinder flying. The first demon dies and burns up, and Xander scampers over and picks up the cylinder, running when the remaining demon starts to slither after him. �Will!� he cries out, and tosses the cylinder toward the witch. Willow uses her powers to catch the cylinder in mid-air and floats it out of the creature's reach as Buffy tackles the last demon as it�s about to run into Grant. They all three go down in a heap. She pummels the demon, and it collapses into a greasy ash under her fists.

Buffy stands up, trying futilely to brush the smeared ash off of her pants. She expresses surprise at how easy the demons were to kill, after the big workup about how evil they were. She suddenly realizes that Grant is still lying on the ground with his gun drawn, looking completely befuddled. She, Xander and Willow look at each other, each uncertain of what to say.

Commercials.

Later, Buffy and Grant are parked outside the Magic Box, Grant having driven her back. He quietly asks her what the hell is going on. Buffy appraises him, and says �You remember when you told me things in Sunnydale seemed a bit...�off�?� Grant nods, and Buffy says only �You�re not wrong.�

She starts to open the car door and get out, but Grant says he needs to know more. With hesitation, Buffy sits back and says that she can�t trust him yet, because he�s obviously keeping secrets from her. He tries to deny it, but she points out the fact that he didn�t tell her the first victim was a cop he knew, and she knows something bigger is going on here. Grant has nothing to say to that, and Buffy gets out. She walks into the shop as Grant drives away, and Giles greets her from inside. He asks what happened, and Buffy relays that they stopped the demons, no problem. Willow has the cylinder. But Grant�s still an unknown in the equation. Giles says maybe there was a reason behind him not telling her he knew the first victim, but Buffy says that�s not the thing that bothers her the most. She reveals that he saw the demons that killed Captain Penderghast. And tonight, he saw the Nacht demons. But not once did he comment on their being demons...almost like he already knew.

End Credits

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