GUNN: (RE: book) Got it. The dark soul.

ANGEL: What's it say?

GUNN: A lot. There are over 3,200 different references. 4 of them are about you.

ANGEL: What? Give me that.

WESLEY: This is getting us nowhere.

ANGEL: Let me see this. Well, that's not fair! I didn't even have a soul when I did that.

WESLEY: There has to be a way to narrow down the search.

FRED: (arriving) Reaper. Cross reference with the word reaper.

GUNN: Where'd you pull that?

FRED: It came to me in the shower.

ANGEL: Here it is. Matthias Pavayne, dark soul number 182.

WESLEY: Pavayne...

ANGEL: Well, there's not much here. European aristocrat, 18th century. He was a doctor, nicknamed The Reaper for performing unnecessary surgery on his patients.

FRED: Well, what kind of surgery?

WESLEY: (Re: computer research) The kind you don't recover from. There's a file on him in internal archives, classified histories.

GUNN: He worked for Wolfram & Hart?

WESLEY: Not exactly. Word spread of his unorthodox practices... fled to California, still under Spanish rule at the time. His arrival coincided with a rash of brutal, ritualistic murders. Pieces of the victims placed in a manner suggesting an intimate knowledge of the dark arts.

FRED: Pieces?

WESLEY: The slaughter continued for the better part of 20 years. The perpetrator was never caught. At least... not by the authorities.

ANGEL: What, you're saying Wolfram & Hart took this guy out?

FRED: Why would they do that?

GUNN: Sounds like their idea of employee of the month.

WESLEY: Because they needed his blood. Representatives from Wolfram & Hart were looking to build a new branch in what would eventually become Los Angeles. Unfortunately a Spanish mission was already resting on the site their seers recommended. They needed an appropriate sacrifice to deconsecrate the grounds.

FRED: So this place is built on the blood of a mass-murdering psychopath?

WESLEY: It would appear so.

GUNN: But if Pavayne's half as bad as he sounds, he should've been roasting his chestnuts in hell centuries ago.

ANGEL: You said something about the dark arts, right? Maybe he knew enough to figure out a way to stick around.

FRED: That might explain why the mystics can't get a bead on him, too.

ANGEL: What I still don't get are all the ghosts at Wolfram & Hart.

WESLEY: But there aren't any.

ANGEL: That's what I mean. High-risk employment. People die here all the time. This place should be full of spooks. So what happened to them?

GUNN: Maybe this Pavayne character's munching on them.

FRED: Whatever he's doing to them, we need to get Spike back... before he's next.

• Wolfram & Hart

written by: Steven S. DeKnight; Original transcript by CariCranberry. Edited & formatted by me.. Full transcript at:
http://www.buffyworld.com/angel/season5/transcripts/5x04_tran.php