I own and claim no rights to Angel, the series. Only characters unfamiliar to Ats, are original, and mine. (The spell/ritual in here is totally made up, there is no such thing, just for your information).

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O Father, My Father

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Angela turned her back from Angel and returned to her altar. Angel stared at her in shock and confusion. "What did you just say?" Angel demanded.

"You heard what I said...father." Angela replied. She continued with her ritual. She added several herbs. She reached for a blue looking powder and sprinkled it into the bowl. The surface of the bowl exploded in a flash of blue light.

"No," Angel told her in fierce denial. "There is no way I could be you father."

Angela turned back to look at him.

"Are you so sure?"

Angel paused for a minute, then nodded his head vehemently. "Yes. Look, I don't know what the hell your mother has been telling you, but I am not your father. It is impossible. You were born fifty years after I last saw your mother..."

"When you tried to kill me," Liza supplied dryly.

Angel frowned. "Well I didn't have a soul then."

"It doesn't matter, ok? The fact is, you came after me. How wonderful I must have felt," Liza muttered.

Angel turned to Angela at the altar. She stood beside the bowl, her shoulders hunched, seeming to look a lot like a lost young woman, instead of a millennia year old vampire/demon. "This is beside the point. It is impossible that I am your father. Impossible. What ever your mother has told you has been a lie."

Angela clutched the altar table so hard, her knuckles turned white. "My mother didn't tell me anything. She didn't even know who my father was until she was told. She didn't even believe it until I was born."

"Who told her I was your dad?" Angel asked, surprise on his face.

Angela looked at the bowl filled with the crimson liquid. "A seer. A demon by the name of Terrick. One of the best seers in the hell dimensions. But I already knew you were my father. I have always known, even before Liza told me."

"I don't understand," Angel told her. "How can I be your father? It is impossible."

Angela smiled grimly. "Yes, it is. But here I am. The truth is, I was conceived when you both were human, back in that tavern in Ireland. When my mother was changed, I should have died. Should have, but didn't. Instead, I slept. Within her body I lied dormant, where I should have remained until my mother's demise. But she met Lysos, scourge of the Hell Dimensions, and he granted her something she should never had been given. The ability to give life. And in that moment I woke, alive, and they both provided me with added power that they had not intended. Within my mother's womb I saw and understood everything there was to know. I could feel and see what was going on all around us." Angela laughed bitterly. "And we were in a hell dimension. What I saw and felt was no picnic. The images within me are born of hell, as am I. I should have died along with my mother's soul that day when the vampire took her blood. Yet I live, and each day I feel the pain and suffering of all those before me, and those in the here and now. I ache with it. For over a thousand years I have lived, an abomination in all worlds who was meant to die, but walks with the curse of power flowing through her veins. I lived. That is my shame. My ultimate shame."

Liza laughed from her corner. "Shut up. You disgust me. What is it with you, huh? Did I raise an idiot or something? I mean come on. With the gifts you were born with you could rule it all. Very few demons can defeat you, you have the power, the control. But you sit around moaning about how life wasn't fair." Liza leaned forward in her chains, all smiles gone from her face. "Well get over it. You were born, much as I hate it, and there is nothing you can do about it."

Angel smiled nervously. "What do you mean 'there is nothing you can do about it'?"

Liza looked over at him in annoyance. "Her torturer Fkroko had tried everything: burning, slicing, suffocating, poisoning, impaling, drowning. Nothing seems to work. She dies then rises again, whole. It was quite amusing to watch though."

Angela straightened and sighed. "You always did love to make me feel terrible mother."

Liza waved her hands. "It's a gift. So what is this spell suppose to do exactly?"

Angela started. Suddenly she remembered exactly what she had been doing. Ignoring her mother, she took the vial filled with Meyrith's blood. Quietly she whispered, "Blood of one who has seen through my eyes." The collective blood in the bowl shimmered and brightened. Soon the light became to bright for even Angel to look at. He turned away, and once the light left he looked back. Angela was removing her cloak and stirring the blood in the bowl together with the knife.

Angel looked from the circle of blood drying on the floor, to the one beside it looking peaceful and serene.

"What is all this Angela?" Angel asked nervously.

Angela smiled. "You will see soon enough."

Turning, the woman walked over to the sleeping Connor and caressed his forehead and hair. Angel watched in fear, then confusion, as Connor's head began to glow with a brilliant blue light. Then it was gone. Angela walked away and took a match from the altar and dropped it into the bowl of blood.

Angel looked from his son, to...his daughter?...and seemed very confused. "What did you just do to my son?"

Angela looked over at the boy and smiled. "Healed him. Soon he will wake up, normal, but with a slight headache, nothing more. Your friends will be here soon. I think I left them enough clues to get them here. When this is all over our deal will be done. I have kept my end of the bargain. You will have my mother, and the human," she said, motioning toward Connor, "Will be released, unharmed. This was the deal, and I have finished it. The keys to your chains are here, on the altar."

Angel and Liza watched as Angela took the match from the bowl and it lit within Angela's hands. The fire touched the bloody circle and the outline burst into flames. Angela squeezed the match in her hand and smiled when it snuffed out.

"Angela, I understand what you are doing," Angel told her.

The girl turned to him and frowned. "You do?"

"Yes. You are ashamed of your vampire half. It is okay to feel that way. To need blood to survive, to be feared, hell I am ashamed of it. There is nothing wrong with trying to destroy your vampire half!" Angel exclaimed.

Angela laughed. "Is that what you think? That I am trying to use a spell to get rid of my vampire half?"

Angel nodded, uncertain.

"If only it were that simple. No father, that is not what I intend. For freedom of my torment, only one thing will satisfy me. Death," she told them, her voice rising.

Liza laughed. "Are you crazy? You can't do it."

"I couldn't have done it before, but I can now. I found a witch with a spell that would eliminate me from this world, and very existence. Powerful enough to kill a god, but difficult to do. It takes over three hundred years of preparation. Then you have a specific time frame in which to complete the spell. My time would have been up in less than a decade. I was only missing one ingredient. The boy. My brother. The person had to be somewhat of my blood, born through similar impossible circumstances such as I was. I thought it was an impossibility, but I took the three hundred years with the urging of the witch. Now I am finally going to be free. Like Meyrith."

"What do you mean 'like Meyrith'?" Angel demanded.

"Dravin and Brax freed him from the torture he has suffered through my hands. He no longer has to live with the images of hatred and hell. Soon I will join him, and forget the destiny I should have fulfilled. To die without being born." She took the bowl and threw it into the circle. The whole area within the circle burst into a brilliant blue fire, blazing in what seemed hotter than any sun. "There was once a time I believed in heaven. I hope it is real...and that they find it in them to let me in. Goodbye father. Take care of my little brother, okay?"

Without another word she jumped into the blue flames. The flames swallowed her in its light, while Angel watched hopelessly chained up to the wall. His cry of "NO!" was mingled with the painful screams of his daughter. Angel turned away, as her screams continuing in the night.

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A/N: Ok, I took a LONG time to update. I am soooooo sorry! I was busy with school and a play and all that. But, anyway, here it is, and the next chapter will be up as soon as I have time. Please tell me what you think of this chapter ok? R/R.