Chapter 2

Children Of The Moon

"Oz." Angel said. "Its been a long time."

Oz walked down the steps towards the group. "Angel." he said. "You do know Faith and Spike are here? Crazy Slayer and Psycho Vamp?"

"Its a long story.." Angel began.

"I'm not crazy anymore." Faith shouted over.

"I got a soul. And died. Then I got better." Spike said.

"Apparently, not that long.." muttered Angel.

"Oh," said Oz. "Cool."

"Still not big with the long sentences I see." laughed Faith.

"Do you know something about this monster attack?" interrupted Laura.

Oz turned and looked at the young slayer. "You're new."

"Sorry, I'm Laura, a slayer."

"There are more slayers? Did Buffy die again?"

"You didn't hear?" Faith said. "Willow did some major mojo, and turned all the potential slayers in the world into actual slayers. Thats when blondie over there died. He used some magic trinket, and collapsed the Hellmouth. Along with the rest of Sunnydale. Where have you been?"

Oz paused at the mention of his former girlfriend Willow. The only person who ever affected him more than the moon ever could.

"Tibet, training to control my wolf powers. The leader of my pack sent me here to check out the attack that you are looking at."

"So, what is it then?" Laura said.

"I think the attacker was one of the Moonkin."

"The what?" Angel said.

"Moonkin. The first werewolves. Purebloods." Oz said. "There isn't many of their kind left these days. The leader of my pack is a Moonkin called The White Wolf. But there is a cult of Moonkin led by a really nasty guy called Lupus. They don't like humans at all. But they really don't like halfbreed werewolves."

"So what do we do now then?" Laura asked.

Angel looked at Oz. "Standard hunt and kill mission?"

"That's the plan."

"Right." Angel said. "Everybody get some rest. We'll start tracking them in the morning."

"Roger that boss." Laura said.

"Oz, you're welcome to stay here." Angel said.

An hour or so later, Angel was in his room reading, when the door knocked.

"Come in."

Nina walked through the door.

"Nina.. hi..."

"Angel," she said. "Whats going on? You tell me you are going off to fight a really dangerous enemy, something you probably won't come back from, then a few weeks later i find you in your old office, like nothing happened."

"Nina, I'm sorry. After the battle with the Senior Partners, I thought if I just faded away, let you think I was dead, it would be better for the both of us."

"Better how exactly?"

"Nina, the life I lead is dangerous, you have to see that. Theres pretty much always someone trying to kill me, destroy the world or something like that. Not to mention my curse. If I let myself fall in love with you, we could never take the relationship further. It's unfair on..."

Nina leaned in and kissed Angel. As she kissed him she began to unbutton his shirt.

Angel's mind flashed back to that day at Wolfram and Hart, when Wes had explained to him the rarity of finding someone to share a moment of true happiness with.

"Well," Nina said, pushing Angel down onto the bed, "I always thought love was overrated anyway..."