Notes:

Everything that happened on both shows is valid and canon. The events in the comics are not (because who would want that?). Some concepts and people from the comics have been rescued and interwoven into this story though. In addition there are lots of elements that have been inspired by other works of popculture or are willful references to mythology (because who wouldn't want that?).

The story is finished and will end up at around 100K words (about 38 chapters). The different chapters are currently going through various stages of editing. I'm planning to post one new chapter per week.

Chapter 1: Endless Is The Night

To be saved is here, local and mortal. — A. R. Ammons

Los Angeles, March 14th 2007

Sebassis was dead. Helen Brucker was dead. Cyvus Vail was dead. The leader of the Sahrvin Clan dead. Izzy the Devil dead. The Grand Potentate of the Fell Brethren dead. They were all dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

And yet nothing was different.

The world had changed, and it had stayed exactly the same.

Angel sat hunched on a rooftop and stared into the rubble-filled alleys of L.A. He watched the fog billow through the streets, how it crept over buildings, cars and traffic lights like a thick layer of spilled molasses, suffocating everything underneath. Apartment windows and neon signs sent scattered rays of light into their surroundings. They reflected in the puddles on the pavement, leaving the streets in colored streams of yellow and red. From up here the city almost looked like it used to, but the smells of everyday life had vanished and instead been replaced by the unyielding stench of burned debris and rot.

Angel strained to hear whether some movement on the ground required his attention. The sirens of police cars and army vehicles cut through the night somewhere off in the distance. There was talk that the state of emergency for greater L.A. would be lifted soon, but then again those kinds of rumors had been floating around for the better part of the last two years. So far nothing had gone back to normal. Angel had never expected the assassination of Sebassis and his like to derail the order of things, to create lasting change. He was old enough to know better. What he hadn't been prepared for was the tidal wave of violence and ravage that they'd unleashed unto the city because of their attack. It had drowned everything. Man and demon, rich and poor, the good and the bad. Los Angeles had turned from a city with occasional demon fights into a warzone with occasional remnants of city life. But as the death toll rose higher and the fighting continued, people quickly forgot how and when it had ever started. And nobody asked who was to blame.

A few streets down the block something toppled over, wood crashed, a car alarm went off. The sound of hasty footsteps clapping on pavement. The dull thud of a body hitting the ground.

Angel would welcome any altercation tonight. It didn't have to be a demon overlord on the hunt for a new dominion or a supernatural street gang on the prowl for human sacrifice. He would be content with a lowly pickpocketing incident. That wasn't unreasonable. Common crime never let up. Not even in times like these. Especially not in times like these. He wasn't picky. Anything would do as a distraction.

A scream shrilled through the night.

Without looking down, Angel stepped over the ledge of the building. He landed on the top tier of a fire escape stairwell, jumped over the railing, caught a second platform with both hands and swung to the ground where he came to rest in a crouch. Then he dashed off towards the origin of the sounds.

The woman was still struggling with her attackers when Angel reached the alley. The coppery scent of her blood hung above them, but judging from her angry screams and kicks this fight was anything but over.

He'd expected to find vampires or maybe Grappler demons, but the creatures that were attacking the woman were completely unknown to him. About three feet tall the demons looked like skinny newts without tails. Their eyes were huge. Shimmery wings protruded from their backs.

The demons paused their assault as Angel approached, staring at him wide-eyed and confused, unsure whether he was on their side or here to steal their prey.

He didn't give them the chance to decide. Before the demons made another move, he jumped at the creature closest to him and ripped it away from the demon screeched like a bird and tried to bite into Angel's arm. He grabbed its neck with both hands and snapped it. That had been easy enough. Then he lunged at the second creature.

The two demons closest to the woman let go of their prey and started flitting around angrily. They hissed and chirped. Angel pinned the second demon on the ground, pulled out a stake from his coat pocket and plunged it through the creature's chest. They might not have been vampires, but there were few things in his world that survived being impaled.

A high pitched scream ripped through the air, the tone so shrill Angel was sure his eardrums would rupture. He jerked up his hands to cover his ears. The sound spliced through his head and for a split second he lost all orientation. Up was down. Down was up. He felt nauseous. Tears welled up in his eyes.

Then the sound changed and a soft melody began to weave into the screech. An antidote to the poisonous noise. A soft touch after getting hurt. It turned into a song he'd almost forgotten he knew. Old and far away. The sense of homesickness spread in his chest.

The sound got ever softer, like a sweet voice it called to him.

The woman still cowered on the ground. She was younger than he'd initially thought. Her skin and hair shimmered with a golden hue, the color of flax and wheat fields in the midday sun. She breathed heavily from the strain of the fight. There was something familiar about her posture and her motions. It couldn't be. Angel took a step closer and reached out his hand, but the woman scooted backwards to get away from him. Her head snapped up, her features distorted in a scowl of disgust.

"What have you done?" she hissed. "After all I did to save the world, this is how you help me?" Her green eyes were drawn together and appeared almost black. The shadows of the alley cut through her face and made her soft features look angular and harsh.

Angel recoiled in shock. He'd never seen Buffy so angry before. "I'm...I'm sorry," he stuttered. "I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't. You never do." She shifted her position, tension taking hold of her body, like a predator ready to attack. Then she darted forward and slapped him in the face. Hard.

"Look out!" an unfamiliar voice yelled.

Angel felt a cold slimy grip on his neck, a weight on his back, wet breath against his skin. He whipped around and grabbed the demon that had snuck up on him. He ripped its body off his back and smashed it into the ground where it remained unmoving. Angel sank down onto his knees and then into a seated position, propping his body up with his hands so that he wouldn't topple over.

"Oh god, I'm so sorry!" the same voice as before said.

He couldn't see anything but shadows. He blinked. Someone grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him softly.

"Are you okay?"

He blinked once more. The alley was slowly taking shape again and with it the woman he'd come here for. She was definitely in her thirties. Her russet curls were tied up in a bun on top of her head. Loose strands stood out in every direction. Her face was scratched, there was a cut on her arm and her clothes were dirty, but judging from the look on her face, she was more concerned for him than for her own well-being. All vestiges of Buffy were gone.

An icy grip clutched Angel's insides and the mellow sense of homesickness turned into something cold and hard. The feeling of complete loss and despair. The bitterness of failure and shame. He hadn't made the world better. He'd made everything worse.

"Are you okay?" the woman asked again. "The...whatever the hell they were...the rest of them took off. They got pretty scared when you showed up. You seem to have gotten hit with a serious whammy though."

He shook the thoughts from his head, got up and reached his hand out to the woman for a second time. "Do you need someone to take you home?"

"This is me." The woman pointed to a small yellow house. Although many homes in Long Beach had been deserted, this one still appeared welcoming and well taken care of. The lawn was freshly cut and potted plants stood in a straight row along the drive.

"I'll wait until you're inside. I think you had enough excitement for one night," Angel said.

She smiled at him as her hand wandered to the black and blue lump that had begun to swell on her forehead. "Thank you again," she said. "I don't know what would've happened if you hadn't come by."

Behind them the front door opened and a man rushed out of the house. "Jesus! Rachel, are you okay? Where were you? I've been worried sick." Confusion and fear washed over his features in equal measure as he tried to make sense of the scene in front of him, Rachel's dirty clothes, the makeshift bandage on her arm, the stranger. He looked at Angel, then back at Rachel. "Who? Rach what happened?"

Rachel started to shake and let herself fall into the man's arms. The stress of the previous hour was getting to her now. "Anwar...I got...I was attacked. It was horrible. This is Angel. He saved me."

Angel could still hear the fragments of the introduction, but before the woman and the man could tie him down in a longer conversation or offer their gratitude, he silently moved away and disappeared into the dark. He didn't deserve any of that.