Prometheus' Other Great Gift to Mortal Man

(ll. 507-543) Now Iapetus took to wife the neat-ankled mad Clymene, daughter of Ocean, and went up with her into one bed. And she bare him a stout-hearted son, Atlas: also she bare very glorious Menoetius and clever Prometheus, full of various wiles, and scatter-brained Epimetheus who from the first was a mischief to men who eat bread; for it was he who first took of Zeus the woman, the maiden whom he had formed. But Menoetius was outrageous, and far-seeing Zeus struck him with a lurid thunderbolt and sent him down to Erebus because of his mad presumption and exceeding pride. And Atlas through hard constraint upholds the wide heaven with unwearying head and arms, standing at the borders of the earth before the clear-voiced Hesperides; for this lot wise Zeus assigned to him. And ready- witted Prometheus he bound with inextricable bonds, cruel chains, and drove a shaft through his middle, and set on him a long- winged eagle, which used to eat his immortal liver; but by night the liver grew as much again everyway as the long-winged bird devoured in the whole day. That bird Heracles, the valiant son of shapely-ankled Alcmene, slew; and delivered the son of Iapetus from the cruel plague, and released him from his affliction -- not without the will of Olympian Zeus who reigns on high, that the glory of Heracles the Theban-born might be yet greater than it was before over the plenteous earth. This, then, he regarded, and honoured his famous son; though he was angry, he ceased from the wrath which he had before because Prometheus matched himself in wit with the almighty son of Cronos. For when the gods and mortal men had a dispute at Mecone, even then Prometheus was forward to cut up a great ox and set portions before them, trying to befool the mind of Zeus. Before the rest he set flesh and inner parts thick with fat upon the hide, covering them with an ox paunch; but for Zeus he put the white bones dressed up with cunning art and covered with shining fat. Then the father of men and of gods said to him:

(ll. 543-544) `Son of Iapetus, most glorious of all lords, good sir, how unfairly you have divided the portions!'

(ll. 545-547) So said Zeus whose wisdom is everlasting, rebuking him. But wily Prometheus answered him, smiling softly and not forgetting his cunning trick:

(ll. 548-558) `Zeus, most glorious and greatest of the eternal gods, take which ever of these portions your heart within you bids.' So he said, thinking trickery. But Zeus, whose wisdom is everlasting, saw and failed not to perceive the trick, and in his heart he thought mischief against mortal men which also was to be fulfilled. With both hands he took up the white fat and was angry at heart, and wrath came to his spirit when he saw the white ox-bones craftily tricked out: and because of this the tribes of men upon earth burn white bones to the deathless gods upon fragrant altars. But Zeus who drives the clouds was greatly vexed and said to him:

(ll. 559-560) `Son of Iapetus, clever above all! So, sir, you have not yet forgotten your cunning arts!'

(ll. 561-584) So spake Zeus in anger, whose wisdom is everlasting; and from that time he was always mindful of the trick, and would not give the power of unwearying fire to the Melian (21) race of mortal men who live on the earth. But the noble son of Iapetus outwitted him and stole the far-seen gleam of unwearying fire in a hollow fennel stalk. And Zeus who thunders on high was stung in spirit, and his dear heart was angered when he saw amongst men the far-seen ray of fire. Forthwith he made an evil thing for men as the price of fire; for the very famous Limping God formed of earth the likeness of a shy maiden as the son of Cronos willed. And the goddess bright-eyed Athene girded and clothed her with silvery raiment, and down from her head she spread with her hands a broidered veil, a wonder to see; and she, Pallas Athene, put about her head lovely garlands, flowers of new-grown herbs. Also she put upon her head a crown of gold which the very famous Limping God made himself and worked with his own hands as a favour to Zeus his father. On it was much curious work, wonderful to see; for of the many creatures which the land and sea rear up, he put most upon it, wonderful things, like living beings with voices: and great beauty shone out from it.

(ll. 585-589) But when he had made the beautiful evil to be the price for the blessing, he brought her out, delighting in the finery which the bright-eyed daughter of a mighty father had given her, to the place where the other gods and men were. And wonder took hold of the deathless gods and mortal men when they saw that which was sheer guile, not to be withstood by men.

(ll. 590-612) For from her is the race of women and female kind: of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who live amongst mortal men to their great trouble, no helpmeets in hateful poverty, but only in wealth. And as in thatched hives bees feed the drones whose nature is to do mischief -- by day and throughout the day until the sun goes down the bees are busy and lay the white combs, while the drones stay at home in the covered skeps and reap the toil of others into their own bellies -- even so Zeus who thunders on high made women to be an evil to mortal men, with a nature to do evil. And he gave them a second evil to be the price for the good they had: whoever avoids marriage and the sorrows that women cause, and will not wed, reaches deadly old age without anyone to tend his years, and though he at least has no lack of livelihood while he lives, yet, when he is dead, his kinsfolk divide his possessions amongst them. And as for the man who chooses the lot of marriage and takes a good wife suited to his mind, evil continually contends with good; for whoever happens to have mischievous children, lives always with unceasing grief in his spirit and heart within him; and this evil cannot be healed.

(ll. 613-616) So it is not possible to deceive or go beyond the will of Zeus; for not even the son of Iapetus, kindly Prometheus, escaped his heavy anger, but of necessity strong bands confined him, although he knew many a wile.

Sol Invictus - Happy Saturnalia

Kazran Sardick: 
On every world, wherever people are, in the deepest part of the winter, at the exact midpoint, everybody stops, and turns, and hugs, as if to say 

"Well done. Well done, everyone! 
We're halfway out of the dark."

Back on Earth, we called this Christmas, or the Winter Solstice. 

On this world, the first settlers called it the Crystal Feast. 


You know what I call it? I call it expecting something for nothing!




The Man Who Forgets: 
There's a portrait on the wall behind me. 
Looks like you, but it's too old, so it's your father. 
All the chairs are angled away from it. 
Daddy's been dead for 20 years but you still can't get comfortable where he can see you. 
There's a Christmas tree in the painting but none in this house on Christmas Eve. 
You're scared of him and you're scared of being like him 
and good for you, you're not like him, not really. 

Do you know why?

Kazran Sardick: 
Why?

The Man Who Forgets: 
Because you didn't hit the boy. Merry Christmas, Mr Sardick.

Kazran Sardick: 
I despise Christmas!

The Man Who Forgets: 
You shouldn't. It's very you.

Kazran Sardick: 
It's what? What do you mean?



The Man Who Forgets: 
Halfway out of The Dark.

Dawn's First Gleaming

INT. SUMMERS HOME - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT

The room is lit with candles now.

We HEAR the ANIMALISTIC BREATHING AGAIN.

Dawn sits on the ground, calmly crushing something in a mortar and pestle.

DAWN

(to the breathing)

I hear you, filth. I know you're 

there.

(casually)

Demon filth. I will cast you out.

My mother needs to talk to me.

And she reaches into the potion and flings it off her fingers like a priest scattering holy water-

AN ANIMAL SCREAMS.

And I haven't even started to chant 

yet. I learned magicks from a kick-

ass witch.

Something unseen KNOCKS DAWN back against a wall. She recovers fast. Starts chanting:

I cast you from this place. It is 

your poison and your bane...

Dawn FLINGS more of the potion.

THE ANIMAL SCREAM SOUNDS AGAIN. A LASH, AS IF FROM A WHIP, SLASHES ACROSS DAWN'S FACE -- the flesh splits wide.

It is your nettles and your scouring 

heat. It is the blade that cuts the 

skin from your flesh...

A LOUD WIND begins, whipping Dawn's hair. The wind SCREAMS.

ALL THE PICTURES AND DECORATIONS FALL OFF THE WALLS.

ALL THE WINDOWS BLOW OUT.

Dawn is huddled in a corner. Her clothes are torn, her face and body are bloodied -- more LASH MARKS ALL OVER HER.

The wind is howling and whipping everything around the room.

She has been chanting over this noise for a long time.

DAWN

(shouting hoarsely)

I cast you out with every prayer from 

every god that walks the earth or 

crawls beneath.

She flings more potion.

ANOTHER SCREAM, MORE ANGUISHED.

Something unseen GRABS DAWN'S HEAD AND SLAMS IT BACK INTO WALL, OVER AND OVER, as she continues:

I cast you out with the strength of 

those who love me. I cast you out 

with the strength I have inside me--

DAWN SPITS BLOOD FROM HER MOUTH...

The WIND BLOWS LOUDER!

And I cast you out into the void!

And she THROWS the entire container of potion.

WE HEAR HORRIBLE DEATH NOISES.

That's right! Die, you bastard!

THE WALLS ARE SUDDENLY SPLASHED, EXLODED-ONTO WITH BLOOD, THICK CLOTS OF IT UP TO HEAD-HIGH. THEN IT VANISHES, SUCKED AWAY, AS THE DEATH-SCREAMS RATTLE AWAY TO NOTHING.

And it is QUIET. The wind has stopped. Everything stops blowing around.

Dawn, realizing she's won, collapses to the ground.

The LIGHT CHANGES... suddenly there's a golden glow. Dawn looks up, blinking into the light. We see that Dawn's wounds have healed, but her hair is tangled, her face is wet with tears and streaked with blood.

DAWN'S POV: IT'S JOYCE...

She's ethereal, glowing from the inside, translucent even. She's wearing something flowy and white.

Dawn starts to cry and shake with the relief of everything.

DAWN (cont'd)

(a whisper)

Mom.

JOYCE

Things are coming, Dawn. Listen. 

Things are on their way. I love you. 

And I love Buffy. But she will not 

be there for you.

DAWN

What? What are you--

JOYCE

There will be choosing to be done. 

And when it is very bad, Buffy will 

not choose you. She will be against 

you.

Joyce is FADING AWAY, leaving Dawn in darkness.

DAWN

No! Don't go! God! Don't go!

But Joyce is gone.

BIG WIDE SHOT OF DAWN on the ground, rumpled and tangle-haired, tear-and-blood-streaked, in the dark and devastated room - broken TV, smashed CD player, broken lamp, broken windows, and a big heap of disturbing advice.

Flying Monkeys

The Man Who Isn't Quite There

Ethros Demon: 

I am Ethros. 

I corrupted the spirits of men before 

they had speech to name me. 

The child was but the last 

among tens of thousands. 

One more pure heart to corrupt, 

one more soul to suck dry.

Wesley Wyndam-Pryce: 

Well chalk up one exciting failure. 

You didn't get that boy's soul.

Ethros Demon: 

Hmph. What soul? 

Do you know what the most 

frightening thing 

in The World is? 

Nothing. 

That's what I found in the boy. 

No conscience, no fear, no humanity. 

Just a black void. 

I couldn't control him. 

I couldn't get out. 

I never even manifested until 

you brought me forth. 

I just sat there and watched as he 

destroyed everything around him, 

not for a belief in evil, 

not for any reason at all. 

That boy's mind was 

the blackest hell 

I've ever known.

Angel: 

The marbles. That was you.

Ethros Demon: 

When he slept, I could whisper in him. 

I tried to get him to end his life, even if 

it meant ending mine.

Angel: 

You sleepwalked him 

in front of the car.

Ethros Demon: 

I had given up... Hope. 

I know you bring Death, 

I do not fear it. 

The only thing I've ever feared —

is in that house.

“On my 40th Birthday, rather than merely bore my friends by having anything as mundane as a midlife crisis, I decided it might be more interesting to terrify them, by going completely mad, and declaring myself as a magician. This had been something that had been coming for a while. 

It seemed to be a logical end step in my career as a writer, and the problem is that with magic, being in many respects a science of language, you have to be very careful of what you say. 

Because if you suddenly declare yourself to be A Magician, without any knowledge of what that entails, then one day you are likely to wake up and to discover that is exactly what you are.

There is some confusion as to what magic actually is. I think this can be cleared up if you just look at the very earliest descriptions of magic. Magic in its earliest form is often referred to as “the art”. I believe this is completely literal. I believe that magic IS art, and that art, whether it be writing, music, sculpture, or any other form, IS literally magic. Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words, or images, to achieve changes in consciousness. 

The very language of magic seems to be talking as much about writing or art, as it about supernatural events. A “Grimoire” for example, “the book of spells”, is simply a fancy way of saying “grammar”. Indeed, to cast a spell, is simply “to spell”, to manipulate words, to change people’s consciousness. And I believe that this is why an artist or a writer is the closest thing, in the contemporary world, you are likely to see to a shaman.
I believe that all culture must have arisen from cult. Originally, all of the facets of our culture, whether they be in the arts or the sciences, were the providence of the shaman. The fact that in present times, this magical power has degenerated to the level of cheap entertainment and manipulation is, I think, a tragedy. At the moment, the people who are using shamanism and magic to shape our culture are advertisers. Rather than trying to wake people up, THEIR shamanism is used as an opiate, to tranquilize people, to make people more manipulable Their “magic box” of television, and by their “magic words”, their jingles, can cause everybody in the country to be thinking the same words, and have the same banal thoughts, all at exactly the same moment…

In all of magic, there is an incredibly large linguistic component. The “Bardic” tradition of magic would place a Bard as being much higher and more fearsome than a magician. A magician might curse you, That might make your hands lay funny, or you might have a child born with a clubbed food. If a bard were to place, not a curse upon you, but a satire, that could destroy you. If it was a clever satire, it might not just destroy you in the eyes of your associates, it would destroy you in the eyes of your family. It would destroy you in your own eyes. And if it was a (extremely) finely worded and clever satire, that might survive and be remembered for decades, even centuries, then years after you were dead, people still might be reading it, and laughing… at you, your wretchedness, and absurdity. 

Writers, and people who had command of words were respected and feared, (just) as people who manipulated magic.
In latter times, I think the artists and writers have allowed themselves to be ‘sold down the river’ :-They have ACCEPTED the prevailing belief that art, that writing, are merely forms of entertainment. 

They’re not seen 

as transformative forces… 

that can change a human being, 

that can change A Society. 

They are seen as simple entertainment Things with which we can fill 20 minutes, half an hour, while we’re waiting to die…

It is not the job of The Artist 

to give The Audience 

what The Audience WANTS.

If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. 

They would be The artist.

It is the job of artists to give the audience what they NEED.
My career as a magician continues to evolve. Since I, to a certain degree, believe art and magic to be interchangeable, it has seemed only natural that art should be the means by which I express magical ideas. 

 This has found its way into my prose writing, in works such as “Voice of the Fire”, and probably most visibly has found its way into the performance pieces that i’ve done in various locations over the past 8 years. Beautiful little psychedelic artifacts in their own right, which actually capture the kind of narrative journey that we’ve tried to take the readers on as part of these performances; to overwhelm the sensibilities of the audience; to tip them over into a kind of psychedelic state where we can hopefully actually change their consciousness and direct it to different places, different levels, hopefully into new and magical spaces.

When we are doing the will of our True Self, we are inevitably doing the Will of the Universe. 

In Magick these are seen as indistinguishable; that Every human soul is in fact One human soul. 

It is the soul of the Universe itself, and as long as you are doing the Will of the Universe, then it is impossible to do anything wrong.

The one place in which Gods and Demons inarguably exist is in the human mind, where they are real in all their grandeur and monstrosity. 

Much of magick, as I understand it in the Western occult tradition, is a search for the Self, with a capital ‘S’. This is understood as being The ‘Great Work’, as being the Gold the Alchemists sought, as being the Will, the Soul, the thing that we have inside us that is behind the intellect, the body, the dreams. The “inner dynamo of us” if you like.

Now this is the Single. Most. Important. Thing. that we can ever attain, the knowledge of our own Self. And yet, there are a frightening amount of people who seem to have the urge to, not just IGNORE the self, but actually seem to have the urge to OBLITERATE themselves. This is horrific… but you can almost understand the desire to simply “wipe out” that awareness, because it’s too much of a responsibility to actually POSSESS such a thing as a “soul”. Such a precious thing. ‘What if you break it? What if you lose it?’ Mightn’t it be best to anaesthetize it, to deaden it, to destroy it, to not have to live with the pain of struggling towards it and trying to keep it pure. I think that the way that people immerse themselves in alcohol, in drugs, in television, in any of the addictions that our culture throws up, can be seen as a deliberate attempt to destroy any connection between themselves and the responsibility of accepting and owning a higher Self, and then having to maintain it.


I’ve been looking at the history of magical thinking, and where it starts to go wrong. And, for my money, where it starts to go wrong is “monotheism”. I mean, if you look at the history of magic, you’ve got its origins in the caves, you’ve got its origins in shamanism, in animism, in a belief that everything around you (every tree, every rock, every animal) was inhabited by some sort of ‘essence’, some sort of spirit, that could perhaps be communicated with. You would have had some central shaman or visionary who would have been responsible for channeling ideas that were useful for survival. By the time you have reached the classical civilizations, you can see that this has formalized to a degree. 

The shaman was acting purely as an intermediary 

 between the spirits and the people. 

He was, in his position in the village or community, 

I should imagine very much like 

a spiritual plumber. 

The people in the group would have had their own roles.. The person who was best at hunting would’ve been a hunter. The person who was best at talking to the spirits, perhaps because he or she was a bit crazy, a bit detached from our normal, material World, then they would have been The Shaman. 

They would not have been the masters of a ‘sacred craft’. 

They would have simply been dispensing their information 

 throughout the community because it was believed 

to be helpful to the community.

When you get the actual classical cultures emerging, this has been formalized so that you’ve now got pantheons of gods, and each of those gods have a priest caste, that will act (to a certain degree) as intermediaries, who will instruct you in the worship of that god. So the relationship between ‘humans and their gods’, which could be seen a relationship between ‘humans & their highest Selves’, that was still a very direct one… When Christianity & monotheism comes in, then all of a sudden you’ve got a priest caste moving between the worshipper and the object of worship. You’ve got a priest caste becoming a kind of ‘spiritual middle management’ between humanity and the divine within itself that it is seeking. You no longer have a direct relationship with the godhead. The Priests don’t really necessarily have a direct relationship with the godhead. 

They’ve just got a book that tells you about some people who lived a long time ago who DID have a direct relationship with the godhead… and that’s alright.  

“You don’t need to have miraculous visions. You don’t need to have gods talking to you. In fact if you do have any of that stuff, you’re probably insane.” 

 In the modern world, that stuff doesn’t happen. 

The only people who are allowed to talk to gods, and in a very kind of one-sided way, are priests…
Monotheism, to me, is a great simplification. I mean, the Kabbalah has a great mulitiplicity of gods, but at the very top of the Kabbalistic diagram —the tree of life—who have this one sphere that is absolute God. The Monad. Something that is indivisible, you know? And all of the other gods, and indeed everything else in the Universe, is a kind of emanation of that God. Now that’s fine, but it’s when you suggest that there is ‘only that one God’, at this kind of unreachable height above humanity, and there is nothing in between, you’re limiting and simplifying the thing… I mean I tend to think of Paganism as a kind of alphabet, as a language. It’s like all of the Gods are letters in this alphabet. They express nuances, shades of meaning, or certain subtleties of ideas. Whereas monotheism tends to be just one vowel, and it’s just something like “ooooh”. It’s like this monkey sound. 

You can almost imagine the Gods becoming frustrated, contemptuous.. that with all this richness of spiritual concepts that are available, why reduce it to one plaintive single note that the utterer does not even understand?


The alchemists had two components to their philosophy. These were the principles of “solve” and “coagula”.
 
Solve was basically the equivalent of ‘analysis’. It was taking things apart to see how they worked. [Breaking].  

Coagula was basically ‘synthesis’. It was trying to put the disassembled pieces back together so that they worked more efficiently.

These are two very important principles which can be applied to almost anything in culture. Recently in literature, for example, there has been a wave of post-modernism, deconstructionism. This is Solve. Perhaps it’s time, in the arts, for a little more Coagula. Having deconstructed everything, perhaps we really should be starting to think about putting everything back together.
Spiritualism was the natural state of human thinking up until the Renaissance and the subsequent age of reason that grew out of it. Our original way of seeing the world, was as a place entirely inhabited by spirits, where everything had its indwelling essence, where everything was, in some sense, sacred, including ourselves. The age of reason changed all that. While it’s inarguable that Reason brought many great benefits, and was a necessary stage of our development, unfortunately this lead to materialism, where the physical material world was seen as the be-all and end-all of existence, where inevitably, we are seen as creatures that have no spiritual dimensions, that have no souls, in a soulless Universe of dead matter…”

Never Ever, Ever, Ever ENGAGE the Flying Monkey's!

Malignant Narcissism

"Let's get this straight - Tyler Durden is some kind of infectious mental virus?

Then how can you resolve him?"

"Okay, now you're self-isolating AND you're babelling."

Barton's Been Compromised

That moment where you just look, think back and recollect over the whole of the Joss Whedon cannon and suddenly realise that it's all about Malignant Narcissism and Narcissistic Abuse.

All  of it. 
Including the Shakes-Spear.

 Because that's what not having a soul means, in the Neoplatonic sense of the word.

A total lack of personal empathy or concern for the welfare of others beyond the standard restrictions of social norms.

He and his writers even describe, directlty, the experience of someone with a normal, healthy empathic sense coming into contact with (or falling under the influence or control of) a pathological malignant narcissist ;

AND those moments when you are told by someone that the person who first opened your eyes, trusted in you and liberated you from the grip of Malignant Narcissim has fallen from Grace, gone off The Wagon, become lost and is in trouble :

Barton's been Compromised

Angelus is Back

Step Away From The Glass

 "Nothing but showy gypsy stuff... 

But you're not gonna catch him napping in a crypt. 

No, The Count has to have his luxury estate and his bug-eaters and his special dirt, don't he? "

Ethros Demon: 
I am Ethros. 

I corrupted the spirits of men before they had speech to name me. 

The child was but the last among tens of thousands. 
One more pure heart to corrupt, one more soul to suck dry.

Wesley Wyndam-Pryce: 

Well chalk up one exciting failure. 
You didn't get that boy's soul.

Ethros Demon: 

Hmph. What soul? 

Do you know what the most frightening thing in The World is? 

Nothing. 

That's what I found in the boy. 

No conscience, no fear, no humanity. 

Just a black void. 

I couldn't control him. 

I couldn't get out. 

I never even manifested until you brought me forth. 

I just sat there and watched as he destroyed everything around him, not for a belief in evil, not for any reason at all. 

That boy's mind was the blackest hell I've ever known.

Angel: 

The marbles. That was you.

Ethros Demon: 

When he slept, I could whisper in him. 

I tried to get him to end his life, even if it meant ending mine.

Angel: 

You sleepwalked him in front of the car.

Ethros Demon: 

I had given up... hope. 

I know you bring death, I do not fear it. 

The only thing I've ever feared is... in that house.

Cut to Xander rounding a corner on the dark street. 

He jumps in shock when he sees Dracula waiting for him.

XANDER: (sighing) 

Great. Perfect. 

(suddenly deciding he's not scared) 

You know what? You're not so big. 

(Looks Dracula up and down) 

One round of old-fashioned fisticuffs, you'd fold like a bitty baby.

Dracula scowls.

XANDER: (rolls up sleeves) 

Okay, let's do it. And no poofing. 

Come on, puffy shirt. 

Pucker on up, cause you can kiss your pale ass-

DRACULA: 

Silence. 

XANDER: 

Yes, Master. 

(Shakes head) 

No, that's not-

DRACULA: (lifts a hand) 

You will be my emissary, my eyes and ears in daylight. 

XANDER: 

Your emissary? 

DRACULA: 

Serve me well. You will be rewarded. 

I will make you an immortal. 

A child of darkness that feeds on life itself... on blood.

XANDER: (in Dracula's accent) 

"Blood"? (speaking very quickly) 

Yes! Yes! I will serve you, your excellent spookiness.

Dracula frowns.

XANDER: (still speaking too quickly)

Or Master. I'll just stick with Master. 

DRACULA: 

You are strange and off-putting. 

Go now.

Xander nods, turns to go, turns back.

XANDER: 

But Master, how can I find- 

(Sees Dracula is gone) 

Brilliant. What an exit! Guy's a genius! 

(Giggles crazily and walks off)

*****

XANDER: 

Got it! Got it. Mine, mine. 

(Note: throughout this scene Xander speaks each line very quickly and moves around a lot.)

WILLOW: 

Well, I think we have Dracula factoids. 

XANDER: 

(sitting on a stool eating the donut) 

Like any of that's enough to fight the Dark Master.

Everyone gives him a strange look.

...bator. 

WILLOW: 

A lot of it we already knew. (Riley walks to another chair opposite the couch) 

Turnoffs: 

wood, 

fire, 

crosses, 

garlic. 

Turnons: 

nice duds, 

minions, 

(wistful) long slow bites that last for days... 

RILEY: 

Yeah, I did a little research too. (Shot of Buffy looking distracted) Dracula likes to live in style. Which means we can rule out the usual dumps vampires haunt. 

XANDER: 

Ah! But he's smart enough to figure that we probably already know that. I'm guessing he's lying low. 

(Licks his donut. Giles comes out from the kitchen) 

WILLOW: 

Actually, my research backs Riley up. Drac isn't the lay-low type. 

GILES: 

(gives Riley a glass of milk) 

So we can, uh, check out the nicer places. Don't you think, Buffy?

GILES: 

Buffy?

Buffy blinks, tunes back in.

BUFFY: 

Yeah. We'll check all the swanky places first. 

What else did you guys get? 

GILES: 

Well, Willow has most of it, actually. 

WILLOW: (sits up) 

Only because you gave me super pointers! I never would have... 

GILES: 

(puts up hand to stop her) 

Just go ahead, Willow. 

WILLOW: 

OK. Dracula's modus operandi is different from other vampires. 

He will kill just to feed, but he'd rather have a connection with his victims. 

And he has all of these mental powers to draw them in.

Buffy looks thoughtful.

WILLOW: 

He, he can read and control minds... appear in dreams... 

BUFFY: (distracted) 

Uh huh. 

WILLOW: 

Makes sense. 

That stare ... he just kinda ... looked right through you. 

Didn't you feel it, Buffy?

Riley looks at Buffy.

BUFFY: (pause) No. (gets up) No, I didn't.

XANDER: 

See! Buffy didn't feel it. 

I think you're drawing a low of crazy conclusions about the unholy prince.

Everyone gives him a strange look.

XANDER: 

...bator. 

GILES: 

The point is, though he goes through the motions of an intimate seduction, the end result is the same. 

He turns them into a vampire.

XANDER: 

Well. That is intimate. 

Dracula's gifting these ladies with his own blood. 

And blood -- 

(He notices a spider on the desk next to him, glances around to see if anyone's looking) 

Blood is Life.

Everyone looks confused.

According to Them. 

(Slams his hand down on the spider) 

GILES:

 Um ... Just be aware that he, he tends to form a relationship with his prey. 

(When no one's looking, Xander scoops the spider into his mouth and chews) 

It's not enough for him to take her. She must want to be taken. She must ... burn for him. 

(Buffy looks uncomfortable, fiddling with her scarf.)