Things had been slow in L.A., but Buffy, recently back from the dead, was not making it in Sunnydale's increasing struggles against the Hellmouth. To appease Angel's concerns for Buffy, the A.I. team had packed up and settled for the job of house sitting for one of Cordelia's friends, Justine (unrelated to Holtz's Justine). The group worked and lived out of the house in Sunnydale and lent a hand wherever they could for the Scoobies.

Holtz had not in Sunnydale had the time to gather a team, but pursued Angelus nonetheless. First contact with the group was made via Wesley. The two Englishmen had an unfortunate run-in with one and other in the sewers. Holtz had watched enough to know that Wesley was working for the vampire in question, but little more. The encounter quickly degraded and Wesley attempted to walk away, at which point Holtz shot him in the leg with a crossbow bolt.

As far as Wesley could tell, Holtz had then disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. Unbeknownst to the former Watcher, Holtz was simply using him to lead him back to the vampire's lair. Wesley arrived back at the house where the others immediately launched a simultaneous barrage of questioning and first aid. Angel and the rest left Wesley momentarily alone so that they could discuss what they ought to be doing next. They heard a noise in the living room and by the time they made it back, the couch they had left Wesley on laid empty.

By the time Wesley had arrived at the house, he had been in shock. He had barely been able to tell the others what he knew, and that hadn't been much. Now with Wesley missing and no clue to his whereabouts, the Angel Investigation team set out on an investigation for their lost comrade, but endless days of searching turned up nothing.

Devastated by the loss, but not willing to give up, the group left Buffy and the others and headed back for Los Angeles with the hopes that their established contacts there may know something.

Meanwhile, Holtz held Wesley in his custody. He tried talking to Angelus's follower, but frequently their 'talks' infuriated Holtz, causing him to react in ways that Holtz frequently regretted afterwards. Wesley's condition continued to degrade and Holtz came to fear more and more that he would neither be able to through peaceful means show Wesley the light of what Angelus was nor through continued force learn anything further. Before Holtz had to decide what to do with the fading man, Wesley was taken out of his hands by a demon with other interests in Angel.

By this point Holtz was in Los Angeles and he soon met Justine as well as recruiting others with a like cause. This went on for a while before Holtz would again come into contact with anyone from Angel's ranks. Much to his surprise, Wesley had survived, if not quite worse for the wear (he still walks with a cane from a combination of the incidents that took place around that time).

Holtz invited Wesley to meet him for a drink. Against his better judgment and under the pretense that it would serve the safety of the others, Wesley agreed to meet in a public pub with the man who had tortured him. Unlike previous encounters, Holtz expressed his apologies for the means that he had previously used and the two did simply talk, if not with the clear undertone that full cooperation would be the only thing to not result in harm being laid onto Fred (who Wesley was involved with at the time) and Gunn. The topic of discussion was still seeing Angelus dead.

The meeting ended in a stalemate, as did those that came after. During all of this, no one else at Angel Investigations even knew who Holtz was, let alone what he wanted. They didn't even know that he was still a concern.

While Holtz was meeting with Wesley, he was also approached by a woman who claimed to have a similar goal to Holtz, though for very different reasons. Holtz and Lilah met on several occasions. Through Lilah's direction, Wolfram & Hart provided the full funding for Holtz's group as well as all the information they had on Angel and his team. Lilah in exchange requested any new information that Holtz gathered. The agreement was broken upon Holtz learning more about what Wolfram & Hart was and upon the realization that Lilah was concealing a great deal from him. Though Holtz has yet to discover this, one of those concealments was the fact that Angel has a son.

Here Wolfram & Hart was a bit behind in the game. By the time they figured out about the boy, he was gone. Connor was born to Darla in the Hyperion lobby with the whole of Angel Investigations present. Darla survived the birth, which resulted in her soul being returned to her.

It would have been a night of celebration except for the fact that Darla and Connor disappeared later that evening. They ended up in a hell-like dimension where Darla raised Connor. They arrived back in Sunnydale only a couple days prior to this game time. The return is not yet known to Wolfram & Hart nor has anyone in the A.I. team aside from Angel yet met the now 18 year old boy.

Holtz's involvement with Angel Investigations last ended with an attempt by Holtz and his group to use Wesley as bait to bring Angelus to them. Holtz sent three of his people to Wesley's flat, two henchmen and Justine. Wesley, however, was not alone when they arrived. Fred was with him and while Wesley was not in any physical condition to fight, he was by this point due to a string of attacks, carrying a handgun.

The gun was easily taken from him but Fred ignored his pleas for her to stay out of the way and let the men take him. Certain that this time would kill Wesley, Fred shot one the men holding Wesley. The bullet passed through the man's arm and struck Justine in the chest. Justine died on the scene and the men took both Fred and Wesley.

Angel came, as Holtz had predicted. This was the first encounter between the hunter and vampire and it quite nearly resulted in Holtz's death. By this point Angel was beginning to put the pieces together of what Holtz had done. Infuriated, he would have likely killed Holtz if not for Wesley's insistence that Angel let the man go so as to not allow him to become the martyr and because by this point, Wesley was well seeing Holtz's side of thing.

Everyone was rescued, Holtz found out about Justine's murder and more or less faded into the background, although with Connor and Angelus both back, it's unlikely that he'll be staying there for long.

<--Back