As soon as Fred hears Angelus’s voice, she’s back there. It has that menacing smear all over it. Charming, but threatening. Sweet, but lethal. It sent a shiver up her spine in the Hyperion basement all those years ago and it does it again now. But she keeps her body still. She won’t show how scared she really is.

“I love it when they expect someone to save them. It’s almost sweet, in a way.” He clicks the door shut behind him. “I mean, imagine expecting some righteous saviour,” then his face twists, his fangs sprout, sharp and gleaming. “…and getting me instead.”

His yellow eyes stare straight into Fred’s. Darla, however, is getting impatient for her prize. “Hurry up and dispatch the girl.”

Angelus turns to her, smiling. “You wouldn’t rather do the honours? I thought whoever discovered a stowaway got to eat them.”

But Darla shakes her head and, to Fred, looks nervous. “You do it, Angelus, and be quick. There’s something about her that makes me uneasy.”

Angelus grabs Fred by her ill-fitting clothes. “You mean besides her lack of propriety? What are you wearing, girl?”

Fred opens her mouth and expects sound. It doesn’t happen straight away, but she manages a sentence or two. She knows she sounds as timid as she feels. She can’t stop shaking. “This really isn’t a good idea, you know. If you kill me now there will be serious repercussions.”

Angelus smiles and his eyes glint. He bends his mouth down, closer towards Fred. He whispers in her ear. “Oh? Such as?”

“I think she means me.”

Angel stands against the doorframe, having entered the room. All eyes turn to him.

“Two stowaways?” Darla questions. “And I thought we’d booked on a well-run ship. I’ve a mind to ask for our money back.”

“At least these seem more sporting than the deckhands,” says Angelus, not losing his grip on his prisoner.

Angel is wearing a bandana over his face to disguise his features, and bounds into the room. He heads straight for Angelus, who pushes Fred aside. She stumbles backwards but manages to grab the box. Angel tells her to run.

As she makes a break for it, Darla stops Angelus before he strikes Angel. She raises her voice slightly.

“Careful. Something’s not right here.” She eyes Angel, her eyes genuinely curious. She knows this man from somewhere. “Who are you?”

Angelus doesn’t care. He punches the stranger in the face, exposing him when the bandana drops. Darla gasps in surprise.

“Angelus! He has your face!”

Angelus orders her after Fred.

Still below deck, Fred is trying to make it to the top deck, out in the open. She’ll think about the rest when she gets there. She runs past crewmen who look at her, startled, as she runs past — and then Darla tramples through them in pursuit.

“Stupid beast! How dare you get in my way!” She takes advantage of the situation and bites her fangs into one’s neck. A second later, however, she’s spitting the blood out, pushing the human away as if he were poison. He tastes awful. As Angel goes sprinting past her, Angelus finds her on the floor, still confused about the taste.

He screams at her in disgust. “What is wrong with you? She knows about us and you let her go!”

Elsewhere, Angel has found the darkest corridor down below, in storage. Crates of wine, beer and other luxuries are all around them, cargo from distant lands. He whispers Fred’s name as he walks around, knowing that Fred instinctively finds the safest spot in the dark to hide. It’s second nature to her since Pylea.

“Looks like I found us another cave,” she says, waving her arm out from behind some heavy shipping crates.

Angel smiles. “As talents go, I’ve seen worse. You still have that bug?”

Fred shows him the box and nods.

Angel raises his hand to his head for a moment and looks queasy. Fred asks if he’s okay and sits him up against the crates.

“It’s just that I can feel my memories changing. It’s like I have two sets now, side by side. Weird sensation. But I’m okay, really.” He offers her a smile.

“If you say so. What is all of this down here?” She looks around the room, wishing she had a flashlight. “Do you remember if there’s anything here to help us?”

Angel shakes his head. As far as he knows it’s just whiskey and tea. Alcohol or caffeine. But that isn’t what he’s wondering. They have the bug, but what do they do now?

“I was thinking we could take a look at that odd flower. See if it’s different. If it is, we must be on the right track. Then, somehow, we figure out what’s special about this beetle.”

“Maybe we squish it? Then again, maybe we’re supposed to feed it. Or take it somewhere? You think the aunts have some advice?”

Angel pulls the scrying bowl from his inside pocket, where amazingly it’s stayed in one piece. He wants to check on the red flower they found in the present — see what it looks like now. He taps a keg of alcohol and brown ale pours out. Fred asks if that’s okay to use instead of water.

“I guarantee it’s purer than any of the water onboard,” grimaces Angel.

Fred peers into the alcohol-filled bowl and then gasps. “Well, that can’t be good. Not at all.”

The flower has grown. It’s bloomed, still in the concrete. And it has teeth.

Removing the liquid from the bowl, Angel wipes it with a cloth nearby and places it back inside his coat. Fred guesses that they’re not on the right track if the flower is growing.

Before they can decide anything else, the deckhand whom they first encountered on deck comes down into storage. He’s whispering to himself, but as soon as he sees Fred and the box, he knows why he’s there.

“It called me. Where is it?”

Angel looks at the man. There’s something in the way he smells. The way he walks. Even the way his eyes are dulling over. Not like possession, but like there’s nothing behind them. “I think I’ve underestimated you.”

The deckhand roars louder and lunges. “Give it to me!”

Fred manages to get away from him and turns to Angel, concerned. “He doesn’t look right.”

“I know. He doesn’t smell right either. Kind of chitinous.”

The deckhand yells again and moves for Fred. This time she drops the box to the deck and the catch on it springs open. The beetle skips out of the box, unseen.

Another crewman, having heard the noise, comes down to check on the commotion. He doesn’t recognise Angel or Fred and declares them stowaways. The deckhand stops him from signalling anyone. He tells the other crewman that ‘it’ is missing. The crewman has no clue what he’s talking about.

Then the beetle comes out of nowhere. It flies in a straight line and lands on the forehead of the crewman. It makes a tiny popping noise and moves off. The crewman swipes the beetle off his head and holds his hand to his forehead, checking where the bug landed.

“That was interesting,” Fred whispers to Angel.

The crewman looks shaken and turns to the deckhand to arrest the intruders, but the deckhand just stands there and asks him how he feels.

The poor man tries to talk. He tries to ask for help. He tries to say something, at any rate. He falls to his knees, clutching both sides of his head, and screams.

Another beetle emerges from his forehead and the man drops to the ground dead.

“Did you see that? And I’m the one who let it loose. Good work, Fred.” The scientist in her automatically kicks herself. Angel turns to her and shakes his head.

“Not your fault. But I think we have a better idea now why the beetle was locked in a box.”

More crewmen start to come below deck now, after hearing the screams. Then another one. Fred and Angel warn them to stay back, but before they can explain the dead body of their fellow shipmate, they start towards them.

Then the ship rocks violently. Fred asks what’s happened. Angel says they have to get topside. As they move, more beetles emerge from the dead man’s forehead and repeat the procedure on the other two crewmen, the men dropping dead as more beetles emerge from their heads. There are at least four already.

By the time Angel and Fred have ascended the ladder, the bugs now number two dozen. One goes straight past Angel and attacks Fred. Angel reaches out and grabs it in one motion, squishing it dead in his hands.

Fred looks at him, confused. “It went right by you to get to me? I’d be flattered, but I think I’m just grossed out.”

“I’m already dead. It can’t zombify me. Climb faster, Fred, but be careful when we get on deck.”

Fred looks at him, confused, and then asks why. When she sticks her head above deck a minute later, however, she tuts and answers her own question.

“Oh, that’s why.”

On the deck the captain stands, cutlass in hand as pirates board the ship, climbing up over the side — swords and eye patches, the whole look. They also have guns, which Fred learns as a musket fires and leaves a hole in the cabin three inches from her head.

As the captain fights off a pirate, he barks orders. He notices fires starting and urges his crew to put them out.

Hiding, crouched behind more crates, Fred and Angel whisper, although they wouldn’t be heard.

“Are they after the beetle too?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. But there are a lot of pirates in these waters. They could be after the whiskey.”

Fred looks above the crate. The fire is spreading. The three crewmen that run towards them go straight past, pirates awaiting them. “What do we do? What did you do last time?”

Angel thinks. “Darla and I took the opportunity to board the other ship while everyone else was occupied. This one sank while we dined on the pirates’ cook.”

Fred sighs. “Well, that’s a terrible plan. We’ll try something else. You say it sank last time?”

Angel nods. “Yes. Pretty quickly too. I think some of that whiskey in the hold caught fire and—”

Fred snaps to attention, interrupting him. “We’ve got to get everyone to abandon ship!”

Angel stops a moment, as if figuring out her reasoning. “Right, because this isn’t just the past. It matters now. I have to stop using my memories as a guide and start treating it more like…”

He wisely shuts up, realising he’s been talking aloud, and then yells to the rest of the crew. “Abandon ship! Everyone, abandon ship!”

As Angel tells a crewman to prep lifeboats, the fire begins to spread from port to stern. The captain runs up to Angel, recognising him. He urges his men to stay at their posts. Angel stops the captain as he thunders past.

“Captain, you know me, right? I paid a lot for this passage. You’ve got to get the lifeboats in the water.”

The captain turns to Angel disapprovingly, believing him to be his younger self. “You’re the untrustworthy lout that’s brought me nothing but bad luck since you stepped aboard. How about I put you overboard without a lifeboat?”

As he speaks, another crewman comes up from below. A beetle hatches from his forehead. By the time it flies towards Angel, another six have come from below. Then one of the ropes holding the sail snaps.

While the captain attends the sail, Angel gathers Fred in his arms as the bugs swarm past him. He cradles her underneath his coat, close, until the bugs have passed him, uninterested in the vampire.

“You’re pretty good at this,” Fred tells him, safe and comfortable inside his coat. “Thanks for making sure I don’t become a zombie again.”

He unfolds his arms from around her, takes off his bandana which had been around his neck, and wraps it around Fred’s head like a headscarf.

“There are too many of them now. You’re not safe here. Any chance you can call up Illyria? They might not be able to infect her.”

Fred shakes her head. She’s in there, but she’s not paying attention. Fred can’t feel her presence. Angel insists on putting her into a lifeboat. Fred agrees, but is worried about him. She reminds him — not that he needs it — that vampires get crispy pretty fast when flame is applied.

He chuckles at her tone, so familiar and warm. “I’ll be right behind you. But I’ve got to try to help get some of these—”

And then, that sweet, sickly voice, like silk being stretched to breaking point. Darla. And beside her, Angelus.

“Isn’t it extraordinary?” Darla asks, turning to Angelus. “He’s your perfect double.”

Angelus sneers in Angel’s direction, displeased with the look of fascination on Darla’s face. “Perhaps. But he will not be once I have finished with him.”

“Interesting choice of words,” Angel snarls, twisting into his game face. Darla remains delighted, staring at the resemblance.

Angelus turns to her, annoyed. “Truly? Do you mock me, Darla? Have you ever seen me with such a worried look on my face?”

Angel stares back at him, Fred behind him now. “This comparison isn’t exactly making me feel better about myself either.” He turns to look at her. “Fred. Get in the lifeboat.”

“Perhaps we both should,” Darla purrs. She pounces for the third time that evening in Fred’s direction. “How about it? Share a little space with me?” They fall into the life boat, hanging off the side of the ship.

Angel growls at her in warning. “Leave her alone! It’s me you want to tangle with!”

Then, without any warning, Darla’s unconscious form is thrown back onto the deck. Both Angel and Angelus stop in surprise.

“Or… I guess you can take care of yourself.”

Illyria kicks Darla’s form as she passes. “Yes, I can.“

Without another word she picks up Angelus, who’s staring at her, stunned at the transformation. He doesn’t even shout as she tosses him over the shoulder, into the lifeboat. Darla is soon with him. Before he can move, Illyria picks up the boat in her arms and throws it out to sea, Angelus and Darla desperately clinging to it before they get swept away in the waves.

“What am I supposed to do now?” Angel asks her as she admires her handiwork, the flames still burning brightly on the ship’s deck.

“Whatever you want,” she answers, without feeling. “Your enemies are far away.“

“That’s not what I meant,” Angel says, his voice worried. “You just put my past self into an open-air boat.”

Illyria turns to him without a care. She sees no problem.

Angel shakes his head in disbelief and then points after the boat, now being rowed by Angelus and Darla in the distance.

“Two hours before sunrise!”