Chapter 2

Angel was working on a large oil painting he had begun on during the last night. The woman on the picture was pictured by a window, looking out into the night, the moonlight turning her fiery hair into cupper. Strands of hair fell in her face, and the entire picture gave the viewer a feeling of dreams, something immortal and mysteries beyond human thoughts.

Only once had he seen the woman on the picture – the etheral vision of her, yet the memory of her lingered in his mind, and he felt that he needed to do something to remember her that way.

The sun stood high on the sky and shone in from the roof-window, though he didn't notice. He was so up to his work that he had completely lost all sense of time, though a sudden soft knock on the door made him look up as from a daze.

Wiping away paint from his brush he walked over to the door in the other part of the large room and opened, to find a well-dressed woman on his door-step. The mahogany coloured hair had been placed in a tight knot and her emerald green eyes held a certain sharpness that should have frightened anyone, well, anyone but him, as he was resistant to all that kinds of emotions from her.

"Nyx," he said in a surprised tone. "What brings you to my simple recidence?"

"Angelo McCullough, don't tell me that you've forgot that we were going to have lunch today?" She asked in an accusative tone, and his startled face-expression told her that he had.

"I'm so sorry. I must have forgot."

A warm smile played upon her lips, but it faded a little when she noticed something.

"Am I disturbing you?" She asked, throwing him a slightly hurt look, as he only wore a pair of creased jeans, but he just laughed and shook his head.

"Not at all, Nyx. I was just working. Come on in, have a seat, just give me five minutes to get ready."

Nodding she saw him turn around and walk towards the shower. The sight of a tattoo shaped as a black dragon all over his back caught her attention, and then he disappeared behind a wall where she knew the shower lay. It surprised her slightly that he would have a pattern etched into his skin like that, though she knew he probably had his reasons. His kin often acted in very strange ways, after all they weren't really of this world.

Instead of having a seat in the couch, she decided to have a look around in the place. She had never really seen the entire place, as it was an old two-storeyed ware-house that had been driven in bankruptcy a few years earlier. Angel had bought the building, renovated it, torn out walls and installed a bathroom and kitchen before he had moved in, and now he recided in the place, using the upper floor as his home.

She noticed that he didn't own much furniture, he preferred open areas which was why there was no partition walls, though where there was things, they were placed strategiously correct and in a tasteful way.

Walking past one of the round colonnas she saw the part that was his bedroom. Seeing that it was perfectly cleaned, she couldn't stop herself from wondering how much time he really spent on cleaning all this.

'This place must demand hourse of work,' she thought and drew a finger along with a delicately carved marble statue, and found that there wasn't even a stain of any dust on it. Though she couldn't possibly see Angel as someone who would enjoy cleaning, he was too much of someone distant to the world, he had never really belonged in it.

Keeping on looking around, she was amazed but yet confused, there was something that picked on her mind, telling her that there was two persons living in the building, yet there was nothing she could prove at the moment. Jealousy tainted her mind, even though she tried to push it away. She had no right to be jealous at anyone, just because she and Angel were born for one another didn't mean that he couldn't have other relationships. He knew that she certainly had a number of relationships, though they were almost all over, she distanced herself from them, preparing to give hers and Angel's life a try.

She had deliberately left the best to the last, and had a look at some of the art that he had made through the years. Paintings of both good and bad things pictured the things he had seen in life, though she knew this was just a small piece of the cruelty of life that he had watched happening in front of his eyes. When he came to the painting he was working of she gasped for air. The shock of seeing her like that, so alive and beautiful, brought tears to her eyes as she remembered all she had done for him, how much she had suffered for his sake. She had died for him.

"I'm sorry for everything, BonBon."

It was an inaudible whisper, she was barely aware of that she uttered the words, though they were there, and she remembered her last meeting with Bonnie McCullough and what it all had led to.

It was hers and Angel's birthday the day when their lives changed, though they did not know of the other ones birthday, and Angel had taken his demon form for the first and only time, and had killed hundreds of humans, when he had found her badly wounded in a glade, who had trying desperately to find him. Angel had broken down, and at this time, Nyx had stepped out of the shadows and told Angel to drink of her blood until she died, or the world would fall to pieces. When he did, nothing would ever be the same.

He had been a pale shadow who refused to do anything, and finally he left town, but she had hunted him down and brought him back to reality by telling him of her love for him, and then he had slowly begun to come back to his senses. Yet their problems wasn't over. Angel's father – Damon – had showed up in their new home and tormented them until Angel threatened to break his neck in a duel, and Damon had left. Not because he was afraid of dying, but because of that the vampire who lifted a hand against Angel would forever be in pain, never be able to find peace and die an utterly terrible death.

The wrath that had pulsated inside Angel at that time still frightened Nyx, she knew that only the fact of that he had promised Bonnie not to awake the prophecy stopped him from killing him.

A low hawking made her jump out of her skin, and she noticed that Angel had come out from the shower, wearing a white shirt and a pair of black jeans. He stood by the other side of the room, arms crossed over his chest in an unliking gesture, and Nyx quickly dried her tears and walked to his side. He also remembered Nyx's and Bonnie's last meeting, in fact – he remembered it much clearer than she did, and it had taken a long time until he could trust his relatives again. He knew that if he ever saw his father again he probably wouldn't be able to stop himself from killing him.

"Let's go and get something to eat," she said in a falsely cheerful voice.

She was fully aware of that Angel wouldn't eat a bite, his hunger was very… different. Though he nodded and they walked out of his apartment and out in the daylight.

"I met Petre yesterday," Angel said after Nyx had finished her food.

"Petre?" Nyx said with confusion, thinking of where she had heard the name before. "Isn't that one of the Santoi family?" She asked after a while, meaning one of the larger vampire families that went back half a millenium.

"That's him," Angel confirmed and nodded. "I got a job offer from him," he then added.

"Who?" She asked, well aware of what kind of job Angel thought of.

He leaned back in his seat, taking a sip of the black coffee that the waitress just had brought in.

"Someone we both know more than well."

Sarcasm filled his voice, and by proving his feelings for this, his eye-teeth grew longer for a moment, before he stopped it and turned them back in. Only Nyx saw it, he was too skilled to view his true identity so that others than those he meant for would see it.

Her head jerked up in a beat as she realized who he spoke of, and she stared at him for a long time, her dark green eyes filled with both fear and anger.

"You mean Damon."

"If only I had been offered that," Angel said with a sardonic smile. "My dear old father…"

"Then it must be…"

Nyx gasped for air as she understood, and a stunned expression took place on her face for a while, until she managed to think for a few minutes.

"Marishka Santoi."

"The one and only," Angel said.

"Why not take care of it themselves then? They're usually very loyal to one another."

The sarcasm in her voice would have shocked another person, but Angel was used to it. When it came to relatives, they were the same. None of them held very high thoughts of their relatives, they knew better than to trust them.

"At the moment, they can't do her a single thing, as her father is keeping an eye on them. The third Coven has plans for her, and they don't want anything to happen to her. So, the Santoi's – who belongs to the second Coven – have to take in someone in the family, but with enough distance in the blood line. And who could be better than the Nemesis, as her father can't do me a thing."

"Your kin sure have a special relation to one another."

"Indeed, yet I'm not one of their kin. Don't forget, I'm a halfbreed, not belonging to any kin of this world. Half vampire, half human witch. Combine and you get a demon who can control and destroy the entire world." His sardonic smile was obvious to anyone that looked at him, but then he got his mask up and looked bored. "But let's get back to the subject, the Santoi's. The reason why Petre wants her dead is because she rejected him, choosing a mortal woman instead of him. That must really hurt his pride," he commented.

Angel leaned back in the chair as he had placed his coffee on the table. Sitting with his arms crossed over his chest he studied her reactions to what he had spoken, and couldn't resist an urge to lightly shake his head and cough to hide a laugh. She was so predictable. Without any doubts she wondered if he'd do it, and in that case what she could make out of that.

Not that she was interested in money, she already had a large heritage from her parents since they both were dead, but because of her destiny. Even though they were soulmates she had another calling – to kill him, as she was a warrior and killer of the Moonal orden, a number of vampire killers with their head quarters in El Paso. She had been given the mission of Fell's Church and hadn't returned since. He knew she couldn't. She had to kill him first or else she wasn't allowed to come back. Sure, she had killed a couple of vampires in Fell's Church, but now that she had found him she had to kill him first. And they both knew that the battle of theirs wouldn't come.

If it ever did, they both would die. One from a fatal blow, the other from grief. Which one was which, only God knew.

"Will you take it?" she asked, driving him back to reality.

"I don't know yet."

Angel's left index-finger drew circles on the table, while he clenched the other one so hard that his knuckles whitened.

"How much will you get?"

"Enough to make me concider it."

"Viktor will kill you if he finds it out, you know that," Nyx warned.

"He can't do me any harm. You know that as well as I, you even know the prophecy better than I do."

He threw her an accusitative look and then returned to stare at the table, cracking his knuckles, which was a bad habbit he had since long ago. Nyx hated it, it gave her the creeps when he did so, but didn't say anything, she was to focused with the subject they were discussing.

"Angel, she's your niece, dammit! How can you even concider it?"

A faint smile played upon his lips, and then he grew serious.

"First of all, Viktor is my half brother which makes her even more distantly related to me. Secondly, you know what I am. I was created for this purpose. To kill.

Even though the prophecy has been destroyed, I can still feel the power within me. All I need to do is to stretch out my hand and grasp the power, and the world will be covered in a blood-red mist."

As if to give strength to his words, his right hand was stretched out in front of her, clenched. Only the two of them could see the dark-red flame that came out of his hand as he opened his palm, and a moment later it was gone as he withdrew his hand.

Nyx inhaled deeply, she hadn't been aware of that she had stopped breathing while he did that.

With a quick look at him, she saw that the same had happened to him, he looked as if he was fighting an impulse to throw up. He seemed ill, and she placed a hand on top of his in a questioning and supporting way.

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah, just give me a second to get back on my feet," he mumbled.

A little while later he looked just as normal, the black eyes sparkled with amusement. Removing a strand of raven hair that had fallen in his face, he thought about what had just happened to him, and how he almost had given in for the power. He was still weak from it, and knew that it'd take a while until he had fully regained himself from it.

"I don't think you should take the job," Nyx said curtly. "Even though she acted the way she did, she doesn't deserve to die like that."

Angel glared at her when she spoke those last words.

"So it's not ok for me to eat?" he snapped. "Do you want me to famish of hunger, live on an almost nothingness?"

She silenced for a second, his harsh words frightened her slightly, he had never acted like this before, being obsessed by power and eating, there was something that wasn't right here.

"You could live of animals, like your uncle does."

"Stefan…" Angel uttered the name with disgust. "A failing link."

"How can you say that about him? He's a part of your family!"

"So was Bonnie, and I killed her."

The simplicity in his voice made her retreat on her chair, he scared her. It was like he was someone else, someone she didn't know.

He then drew up money from his pocket and left more than enough for the food, then stood up and walked out from the place without even throwing her a last glance.