Chapter One

Chapter One

Walking through the streets of Sunnydale, Angel ignored them. The homeless winos, the children; right through to the family men, the teenagers, and the demons that took them. He heard them all. Some screamed, bellowed slurred obscenities, while some tried to run and the cowards tried to strike a bargain – their deaths simply hastened.

They all died. One way or another, they died.

His anger would do little to change things except perhaps get killed. Angel kept himself to himself, eyes straight ahead so as not to see the bodies. He just needed to rest, to get back home.

He stopped at a worn old building sandwiched between two more dilapidated twins - assuming that was actually possible. The place was hardly anything to write home about, well under a hundred apartments, a few smack heads; plenty of single mothers and a couple of immigrant families, but it suited.

He unlocked a door and headed straight down a stairway. The majority of the apartments were upstairs, near the light of the sun. His home was the basement, albeit converted into accommodation, obviously in case some nice serial killer wanted somewhere out of the way to get on with his or her grisly business and could afford the fraudulent rent. Or at least he saw it that way.

The apartment was nice enough once he'd cleaned it up a bit, small, though he was hardly going to be inviting guests. He'd managed to pick up some good quality reproduction sculptures and paintings cheaply to make the place a bit more comfortable on the aesthetics front. All in all it was pretty much okay from his point of view.

He took off his jacket and shirt, draping them over a chair and walked into the bathroom.

Bathroom. He'd come to think that the term was a little less than appropriate in his case, 'bath-closet' summed it up better. He ran the cold tap and splashed the water onto his face, and then he grabbed a towel. Quite why he always followed through with the next part of the routine, he didn't know, as he looked hard at the mirror. The demon that was inhibited by his soul continued to obscure his humanity, thus his mind contained no thoughts and his body cast no reflection. He saw nothing because he was nothing. He glanced away from the mirror.

You can walk like a man… but in the end you'll always be dead. Angel thought wearily.

Coming out of the cramped space, Angel was aware that his privacy was being invaded. Taking time to go into the bedroom and button up another shirt, he said, "Show yourself. I don't have time for games."

"Angel," A familiar voice purred. "You look good."

Angel kept his back to the visitor. "Darla," he said icily. "It's been…."

"Forever," Darla replied.

"Ninety-six years too short of it," Angel corrected her. "What are you doing here Darla?"

"Visiting you."

Angel chuckled softly. "I'm flattered."

"Really?" Darla sounded encouraged. "What's with the change of heart?"

"Last time I checked it was Gypsies," Angel said. "Back to my question. What are you doing here?"

"I think you know," Darla said smugly.

Angel said nothing. She was right; he'd guessed her reason for being in town from the moment that he'd first heard her voice. Darla was major trouble in her own right but now she was confirming his worst fears by her very presence…

"Nest," he whispered. "I heard the story…so you're gonna help with the break-out?"

"That's why I came to see you," Darla said. "I miss you Angel, join us! WE can rule at the Master's side, we could have everything we ever wanted in the world."

"No…" Angel said bluntly, turning around.

"Why are you killing your own Angel? The humans don't deserve saving," Darla said disdainfully. "We're better than them, they're ours to feed on… why are you doing this?"

"Because I want to," Angel replied, looking the female vampire in the eye. "And because you're wrong."

Darla looked back with concern. "Wrong? You know what its like Angel - you've tasted it. You know the feeling…" She moved closer to Angel. "You can't forget about it forever, sooner or later you'll want it again just as I do…."

"I'm not like you…."

"Your soul?" Darla cut him off. "It's a curse Angel, it's holding you back. Just accept what you are, be free."

"I won't take a life!" Angel said in defiance. "I won't!"

He knew that she could taste his indecision as the memory of mortal blood screamed from within the darkest recesses of his mind. He had come to his decision to aid Buffy Summers so easily, but Darla had a different hold over him. To Darla he owed his immortality for her choosing to sire him and to Darla he had given his passion as her lover. Once, she had been his whole world.

Try as he might, he still couldn't forget his feelings for the vampire, however reviled he was at the thought of her crimes. Looking into her human eyes he saw the beauty, the mystery that had led him to her that fateful night in Galway. He saw a beautiful young woman with the softest blonde hair.

He saw a woman not unlike the Slayer to whom he had pledged his loyalty.

He could never forget what Darla had been to him.

Never…

And so she tempted him. Tempted him more than his heart could stand…

"I'm not…." Angel continued.

"You actually think that you're like them don't you?" his sire laughed cruelly. "But we both know what you are don't we Angel? And Drusilla will always know…."

Speechless, Angel pushed Darla up against a wall and held her by the shoulders.

Darla groaned with excitement. "You're hurting me, that's good. Go ahead - kill me."

Angel loosened his grip and backed off. "Go," he said. "Leave me alone."

The older vampire's face contorted into a brief demonic scowl as she smiled. "You know where I'll be if you change your mind, Angelus."

Reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket, Angel's hand found a wooden stake.

"Goodnight…."

Moving sharply, he threw the stake at his door, missing Darla as she walked out.

Angel slumped down into his armchair. The stories were true… The Master…

Luke felt his impatience swell. He'd sent Darla to bring Peter to him more than two hours ago and still she had not returned. She was arrogant, her ego inflated by their master's appreciation of her. Luke smiled. He was still her elder. The Master would understand his chastisement of her upon his reawakening.

The Master's reawakening, what a holy day that would be. What glorious compensation for having to travel to this most sickening of places.

The Hellmouth notwithstanding, he hated Sunnydale with a passion matched only by his hatred of Slayers. The humans were so witless, so obviously moronic. Hunting lost all sense of sport.

But soon his master would awaken from his hibernation and would rise to the power he so truly deserved, while he sat at his right hand. The mortal heretics would burn in the fires of The Old One's righteousness.

Hell would be the Earth once more and the animal that was man would suffer for its pretentiousness in the final holocaust that it would ever hold in memory.

Soon…

Though first he would have Darla's hide.

Licking her lips in anticipation, Darla willed her human visage to be restored. She was late. Luke would be baying for her blood. A human face would push him over the edge.

Pig headed fool that he was, The Master's lieutenant considered it to be a blasphemy should any vampire not show their true face when in the presence of other demons. However fair it might be for him, Darla knew that she could bring men to their knees with her face, regardless of it being a fabrication, and she used it.

As she had used it to reel in Angel…

She had to compose herself quickly. She was past thinking of him before tonight…

She would have to be again.

Rumania, 1899

By the autumn of 1899 Darla had begun to grieve for her Angelus. Vampires considered themselves to be immortal but she knew that, inherently, it was scarcely more than a lie. As long as there was the sun and the Slayer, they could all die – Angelus included.

Her precious, precious bloodchild.

She cursed the very air. There were Gypsies near the Master's camp. Romany understood her kind – Mulo. No, Angelus still lived through his death. He had to live.

She searched the woods alone, cold, tired, her body trembling with hunger. She had not fed upon the blood of a living creature for weeks since his disappearance; her face was now forever in its demonic state. She tensed at every sound that whispered through the trees. She was weaker than she had ever been and yet the part of her that was still a mortal girl refused to care. At a wolf's primal call, Darla shed her demon's tears. Death echoed through the darkness and soon she would offer herself to it.

The wolf's growl was low and threatening, it smelt her weakness, her vulnerability. She raised her head and hissed, yet the predator would not run from her.

With a snarl, the animal jumped on her.

Darla smiled frailly as the creature punctured her throat with its fangs. Drifting into the shadows of unconsciousness, she laughed softly. The second growl was more ferocious – the rest of the pack wanted her flesh…

***

Darla opened her eyes slowly. Her head ached, as did the rest of her, but somehow she felt stronger than before. Stronger than when the wolves had attacked her.

Where was she? Why hadn't she burned in the light of day as she had so dearly wished?

Why?

"Oh God!" Someone mourned. "Oh God…Oh God…"

Picking herself up Darla focused on the voice. It was low and riddled with pain, never had she heard such misery in a man – even from the many that she had slaughtered as a vampire. The agony set her heart alight with its purity. A mortal, she decided.

She surveyed her surroundings.

A cave – she grinned, baring her fangs as she did so. Her mysterious saviour had brought her to a cave, a bleak, dank, rock formation far from the murderous rays of the sun. Some crazy old hermit…She hypothesised.

Perhaps she'd take a little bite…after all; it was in all likelihood a sign. The hermit had saved her from a pack of wolves, her, a vampire. Touching her face to ensure that it was human, Darla sighed gently as it came back to her – the joy of eternal life.

Preying on the defenceless ones…

Moving tentatively, she followed the hermit's sobbing. Her curiosity was piqued by a decrease in the number of torches on the cave floor; the closer she got to her prey, the fewer there were.

Until finally, there were none at all.

"What have I done?" the hermit whispered in Rumanian. "What have I done? The girl, her friends, theirs? What? Why?"

Catching sight of his form, Darla approached her intended victim. Brushing her hair away from her brow, she started her charade.

She said sweetly, "You can come out now. I know someone's here and I know that they're sad. Come out there's no need…"

"To be afraid?"

As the handsome young man stepped out from the darkness, Darla felt herself choke.

She should have known.

His hair was ruffled, his face soiled and his clothing torn but he remained handsome to her eyes.

He remained her darling. He remained the boy that she had once sired in Galway, the confidant, charming rogue with whom she had infiltrated society and fed upon the extravagant blood of the privileged. He remained the gambling man who took not only your money, but also your life, as his winnings. He remained the man who'd she'd watched feed on the hearts of his family - mother, father, and sister - before doing the same to those families they had called acquaintances if not friends.

For one fleeting, happy moment, the gypsies had not defiled him with their accursed soul. For a moment his heart was pure.

He remained her beautiful Angelus.

"No," Angelus continued, frantic. "I've every reason to be afraid of you Darla. Every reason in the world, you tried to kill me remember?"

"Angelus," Darla returned with concern. "Can't you see that you're letting them win? Why are you doing this to yourself. Why are you crying my boy?"

"Why?" The younger vampire said fiercely. "Why am I crying? You ask me this after all you have done, after all I've done? The people, all the people we…we…we murdered? And you ask me why I'm crying?"

"Murdered?" Darla exclaimed.

Angelus persisted in his weeping, if he truly was Angelus. They had both killed so joyfully yet now her child grieved for the pathetic mortals – how could one as remorseless as he was, hate himself for his own deeds?

But Darla could already answer her question.

The soul…

She reached out at him. "Angelus."

He grabbed her hand and forced her back. "Get away from me monster!"

Darla felt her features re-shape. "Monster?" she said, laughing. "No more than you my love. Of course we're monsters. Its what we were meant to be…"

"I know," Angelus rasped. "I chose to drink you, but I don't have to like it and I don't have to love you either…."

I don't have to love you. Darla brushed away her tears, and replacing them with her widest grin, she skipped out of the sewer tunnel and into the ruined old church.

"Did you miss me?" she said mischievously.

Luke walked towards her, saying nothing.

"I've got good news" she told him, a touch nervous.

He glowered at her. "You are late. Explain."

"Peter refused to come quietly, so did his bitch," Darla said slyly. "He won't be trouble anymore…."

"Very well," Luke replied. "Then where have you been since their deaths?"

"Seeing an old friend," She said.

"Who?" Luke asked suspiciously.

"Angelus."

Luke looked thoughtful. "Angelus…the cursed one…."

Darla nodded.

She knew that Luke had never trusted the younger vampire – why should he have done? The Master had been ready to let him serve at his right hand in Luke's place - they were rivals. He had no reason to trust Angelus.

She also knew that she needed to be cautious in her choice of words. Angelus was a dangerous creature yet there was something about him since he answered to his new name of 'Angel' that only intensified the air of danger. She was loath to admit it, but he was different now, almost as if he was another person. A person she had never known. He was a hunter of vampires, a murderer of his own people…

Upon entering town she and Luke had heard stories of a mysterious mortal who somehow managed to best vampires, protecting humans from those who had gone before them to prepare. She could never have imagined the stranger's true identity.

Yes, she needed to be cautious, leave out the part of how "Angel" had slain Peter (she would take that credit herself) and simply relate to him their conversation…

And her plans to bring him back to the fold…

***

Vampires were generally solitary creatures leading shadowy and lonely existences. While some mixed their blood with that of mortals to make more of their brood, few ever took it upon themselves to nurture their children of the night and to involve themselves with them. To be one's sire in the truest sense was a rare thing even in his hay day. He and Darla were proud of their respective offspring – although he now considered Spike and Drusilla; his own 'family' to be worthy only of his contempt, regardless of the regret he experienced about Dru – the most any other vampires cared about was the hunt.

But to sire a human was to create an extension of one's malevolence, to remould a being of conscience into a remorseless murderer such as oneself. It was the ultimate power.

Yet still, it was an ability that was untapped. That had been the reason for the intrigue upon meeting Darla's own sire… Heinrich Joseph Nest…

The one whom they called "The Master." The size of his court… the vampires…

He can't be allowed to rise… he can't…

For the first time in over two hundred and forty years, Angel worried.

Sunnydale was about to burn, and unless he prevented Darla and the hundreds of others who made up the demonic family of a most ancient and powerful vampire from freeing him…

Unless he prevented the opening of the Hellmouth itself…

The rest of the world would quickly join the little town in the fires of Apocalypse.

But he was alone, the Slayer, she could prevent it, but he was no Slayer…he hadn't the strength nor the courage to face them all.

The Slayer…

It was a long shot, to involve a human…

Still, desperate times…