- “Defilers! I'll...cut you into nothing! I'll feast on your brains. I'll swim in lakes of your own blood!”
- ―Matthias Pavayne[src]
Matthias Pavayne was an 18th century European aristocrat. He was a doctor that was nicknamed the Reaper for performing unnecessary, often fatal, surgeries on his patients.
When word spread of his unorthodox practices, he escaped to California. His arrival coincided with a rash of brutal, ritualistic murders; pieces of the victims placed in such a manner that suggested an intimate knowledge of the dark arts. The murders continued for nearly twenty years until 1791 when 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 ground. Pavayne's blood suited the needs of the situation and Pavayne was killed by Wolfram & Hart.
From that point on, Pavayne's ghost haunted the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram & Hart. He stole the souls of any employee that died in service of the company, tortured their souls until he had his fill, then sacrificed them through a portal to Hell that he opened, in order to circumvent having to go himself.
In October, 2003, he turned his attention toward sending Spike, trapped in a ghost-like state after his battle with the First, to Hell in his place. He tortured him with ghosts as the team raced against time to attempt an experiment that would make Spike corporeal. However, just as he was about to send Spike to Hell, Spike learned how to manipulate his environment so that he could fight back against Pavayne. He managed to keep the doctor occupied until the machine was complete. Although Pavayne threatened to kill Winifred Burkle before Spike could use the machine, Spike instead sacrificed his chance to become corporeal by throwing Pavayne into the machine, restoring him to a solid form. With Pavayne now in an apparently immortal, but otherwise physically human body, Angel defeated him and arranged for him to be kept in a special Wolfram & Hart containment unit. The unit was a small oubliette which left Pavayne in suspended animation with just enough room to stand. He was unable to move, speak, or affect the world around him, his only reprieve from the torment being a window of the corridor outside his cell.
After the fall of Los Angeles, the Wolfram & Hart building that contained him disappeared.
Powers & Abilities
Possessing unspecified but detailed knowledge of the dark arts even while alive, Pavayne's knowledge allowed him to "sustain" himself even after his physical death. His skill in the dark arts allowed him to project the "illusion" that he was not actually present in the Wolfram & Hart offices even when trained mediums were searching for him. He could generate illusions of his past victims to torment his present ones and send other victims to Hell in his place while he remained on Earth, although he could only send the deserving to Hell. He could also manipulate his victims' perceptions of reality so that, for example, Spike believed that he had been genuinely injured and was temporarily deprived of his clothing despite the fact, as a ghost, he couldn't get injured.
He could also enhance his physical strength so that he could overpower a vampire of Spike's age in combat, although his actual combat skills were relatively limited.
When he was reverted to human form, he was deprived of these abilities, being quickly defeated by Angel in a fight and subsequently kept on a cocktail of drugs to keep him contained.
Behind the Scenes
- He was portrayed by Simon Templeman.
Appearances
- "Hell Bound"
- "Lineage" (Only mentioned)
- "Harm's Way" (Only mentioned)
- "The Girl in Question" (Only mentioned)