Prologue

Prologue

Sunnydale was a quaint town with quiet law abiding people. From an outsider's point of a view, it was a curiosity with its small airport and university - a mini-city without proper status. Everyone basked in beautiful sunshine and life could be very, very good there.

But if you happened to dig a little deeper, you eventually saw things from a more frightening perspective. People went missing as people often have a tendency to do in most towns, though in Sunnydale most of them got found within in a few days. And found dead.

If you went further you could kiss goodbye to your sanity. Richard Wilkins the First had christened his town 'Sunnydale'. Spanish settlers however, had a rather different name for the place: Boca del Infierno – the mouth of Hell. The town had been built directly on top of a gateway. A gateway between the Earth - and in preacher's terms - hellfire, brimstone, and little demons with nasty sharp pitchforks.

To make things worse, the Hellmouth radiated mystical energies that caused certain things to gravitate towards Sunnydale. Witches & warlocks, incubi, succubi and of course vampires. The monsters man rationalised as myth were all too real in the town; killing, destroying life after life, family after family, night after night, after night.

Tonight would be the same as the last and the one before that. Another Marcie Ross would disappear without a trace. No matter how many vampires he managed to stop on his hunt, more would always be taken.

And nobody cares, Angel thought darkly.

The docks were always deathly quiet compared to the rest of the town come night, constituting as they did its "bad part." The Fish Tank on the other hand, was a different story. Drunken brawlers sprawled out of its doors to beat the living daylights out of each other if only for the sake of recreation.

Angel smiled wryly. He really had no business in the area if he was to be honest with himself. Vampires fed on the young and whilst some enjoyed a perfectly good scrap, they generally just wanted to drink blood rather than dirty their hands with dried droplets of it.

Still, it paid to be cautious in his experience.

He studied all of them carefully on his patrol. Couples crossing the road, loners… the retiring, the confident… there was no telling who was what. Technically he knew that his kind were not in any way human, they were demons who assimilated a person's identity, but they still behaved as human predators. They could be anyone.

"Hi."

Turning around, Angel's first thought was how remarkably attractive the girl was. With her short leather skirt, dyed blonde hair and frankly see-through white top, she was obviously a hooker. But the purity of her dark hazel eyes… She couldn't be much more than twenty… curiously for women of her profession, her age actually showed nicely.

"Hi," He replied, deadpan.

"Nice night, huh?" She continued invitingly.

Angel looked up at the crescent moon. "Nice night."

The woman smiled. "You know it's funny. You don't seem like the type…"

"Type?"

"To hang out at the Tank. Too handsome," She nodded directly at the bar a few yards away.

"I… I'm just taking a walk," Angel said awkwardly. "Not really my scene."

The woman's smile broadened, she was going to make her sales pitch any minute now. "You look like you could use a little company," she said. "I happen to make good company…."

"Thanks," Angel shook his head. "I mean you're attractive and all but… I'm not and I'm not looking for a good time right now either."

The woman looked him up and down. "Shame."

Angel started to walk off. "'Night."

Clinging to the shadows as he moved, Angel waited until he could hear the young prostitute speak again. He smiled as he watched her talk with a greasy, obese docker. She was giving him the same lines.

One more time with feeling.

Briefly he tried to imagine the woman's life, why she was selling herself, how she managed to keep going and what she would have to do to earn tonight's crust. Maybe tonight would be her last night. He'd seen it happen often enough: a call girl, a pissed off client. She walked a dangerous tightrope. Sooner or later she'd fall off.

Life was like that.

You could live in a city, you could live in poverty, you could have wealth, and you could go to church on Sunday and call yourself a saint. But at the end of the day you had to take a beating from life and you had to get on with it or else commit suicide.

Life would always be unfair.

Life was a bitch.

The beer in his hands was probably warm by now. Angel didn't care. Most of the kids around him didn't have the right ID to drink the stuff. He wasn't going to look out of place.

He had work to do.

He sat at the bar oblivious to the din the band were making, and focused instead on those who somehow managed to dance to it. The place was like a buffet for those of his kind. If he lost track of the humans here then there was little point in bothering to hunt.

The Bronze lay on the border between the good and bad parts of Sunnydale. The small club seemed like the only place to be if you were a teen living on the Hellmouth. As long as you were fifteen you could get in and enjoy the frequent live music acts or just hang out with your friends. Sadly, it was also one of the easiest places to die. Loveless adolescents were always good targets if you happened to need a little human blood to tide you over.

Of course no one realised the truth of what was happening right under their noses. The barman had just served Angelus, former scourge of Europe, a vampire once feared for his sadism and brutality. Though why should he have done? Aside from being a little pale, he looked a living, breathing human being.

Why should the barman have known that the young man who sat at his bar was an outcast - the only vampire in history to have been cursed with his human soul? Why should he care that his customer was fighting for him and all the teenagers in the joint?

Angel sighed.

"I can see you," he muttered. "Don't be shy now…."

The vampire on the dance floor stood out like a sore thumb. Though flares and spaz dance moves did not necessarily a demon make, the girl he was hitting on was too much of a give-away. Whoever the vampire's body had once belonged to he was clearly the sort of guy who should be able to have anybody he wanted, his dance partner on the other hand was just plain average, not to mention a little plump. A 'looker' she was not. Yet he was leading her out of the club…

Placing his bottle back on the bar, he got up and started towards them.

"Well hi," said a meek voice.

The girl who stood in front of him seemed a little familiar, long red hair, slightly pale…pretty, in a take her home to mother sort of way. She had a male friend. He remembered saving them both in his first week in town…

"Hi," Angel knew he was being a touch abrupt but he didn't have time for a chat.

"Batman," the boy friend said as he approached. "Beaten up any freaks lately?

"Yeah. Excuse me," Angel gritted his teeth as he brushed past him.

"Ooookay" Xander murmured. "Lone ranger's not much of a talker, Will?"

Willow blinked. "Talker… huh? Uh huh."

Something was wrong and it wasn't just the fact that a vampire was going to feed on an innocent young girl either. Most of the time, victims were taken into a back alley. This guy seemed to be walking forever.

Thankfully, for all its heightened senses the demon hadn't caught onto the fact that he was being stalked and wasn't simply leading him into a trap.

Or at least Angel hoped that this was the case.

Finally the vampire had reached his destination - Sunnydale High School.

As the two figures crept around the back of the building, Angel noted an open window. The vampire and 'guest' climbed on through it. Angel waited about a minute or so before he did the same. If the girl was going to live he was going to have to be careful.

Walking down the corridor he felt uneasy. The vampire had a reason for coming here and he didn't know what it was….

The girl's scream was shrill. Swearing, Angel ran in its direction.

"Oh Pete!" Look at them!" Marcie said with motherly pride.

"They're very hungry," Peter said. "Sorry about the screaming."

Marcie smiled with pleasure at the newborns that she had sired. Once the initial bloodlust subsided they would bring her Cordelia and all her slutty good-for-nothing friends. And then she would hurt them. The very thought of it thrilled her to the bone.

"Please!" the girl pleaded.

The newborns were in frenzy, drawing blood from wherever they could. It almost made her pity the mortal child. Almost.

"That's it," Marcie encouraged.

Very suddenly, the classroom door came crashing down.

***

For all he had done in his life as a vampire, Angel still felt sick at the sight he beheld as he walked into the classroom. Three new vampires feeding off one human. It didn't matter now if the girl was dead or not. He would still kill them, if only to vent his anger.

The vampire he'd followed and his female companion simply stared at him with their human faces.

"Party's over kids," Angel said coldly.

The female smiled. "For you maybe," Her face morphed into that of a fanged, yellow-eyed demon as did the face of her companion.

The dancing spaz rushed at him first, forcing him up against the wall. Angel threw his head forward, breaking the vampire's nose before sending an elbow into its stomach.

Next came the girl, roaring with tears. Angel spun into a kick and knocked her onto her back.

"Marcie!" the dancing spaz growled, smashing a chair into his head. The vampire punched him hard in the jaw and threw him onto a desk.

"I'll kill you!" he continued, leaning over the interloper. "I'll kill you!"

Angel gave no answer as he too vamped-out and kicked his opponent back with both feet. Following in quickly, he punched him in the gut and forced his head straight through a window; finally pulling his head back and staking him in the chest.

The vampire exploded into ash.

One of the newborns sprang at him, clearly frightened, but Angel managed to catch him in mid air and toss him into the chalkboard, knocking him unconscious.

Marcie got back to her feet. "Pete? You? No!" She screamed.

Angel staked the other two newborns as they blindly continued to feed.

"You bastard!" the Marcie continued angrily.

Angel turned slowly. "Marcie? Marcie Ross?" He kept his voice a low growl.

The vampire's eyes widened with confused fear at the sight of his vampiric face. "Who are you?" She demanded.

"Angel."

Marcie charged. Angel grabbed one of her wildly swinging arms and broke it. The vampire howled in anguish as he followed through with his stake.

You can rest in peace now Marcie. Wherever you are, Angel said silently.

Moving forward a few paces Angel crouched down and ran the third newborn through. He stared sadly at the body of the human girl. He was meant to have saved her.

Yet he'd failed.

Walking over to her torn body, he closed her petrified eyes before leaving the room. He'd seen far too many people die at the hand of a vampire.

Far too many…

Angel felt his face morph back into its human form as the cold air caressed him. Tomorrow would bring another day of hoping that the Slayer would come…And with it another night of fighting for her cause…

For his cause…

For humanity…

Observing Angelus from afar, she grinned. Though he was blissfully unaware of it, he'd done her something of a favour in killing Peter and his young wretch of a girl. The newborns were something of a pity, still, for some inexplicable reason she failed to care due to… pride?

Angelus had clearly begun to turn on his own brethren and yet her heart persisted in feeling proud of him. He was strong, possibly stronger than he had ever been in their time together. Her Angel, her beautiful child of depravity, was now a warrior. If only she could convince him of his true role in the world, he could become one of her master's most favoured children as he had so clearly promised to be.

If only her Angel could be freed from the human heart in which he was so cruelly incarcerated….

If she could have him in her arms again…perhaps she could help him.

Help him to become the man that she'd 'turned'

The vampire that she'd sired…

Angelus, The One With The Angelic Face.