Charles was tired, everything he had said and done to get to this point was weighing on his conscience. Many people assumed life was clear cut, good and evil, black and white but things rarely ended up neatly in set categories. Grey, now that was what his life had been for the last eleven years a murky grey. Sometimes he wondered what would Angel think of his actions? Would she rain hell down on him or would she understand?
He refilled his glass with the expensive scotch Ethan gifted him and continued down the road of morbid curiosity. What most people don't realise is almost anyone is capable of evil, pushed far enough even a saint can fall from his pedestal. However one thing even the truly blessed knew, Charles Meade was not a saint. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
Tonight had been difficult for the warlock, Ethan Conant had come to visit. Ironically it was the recovering alcoholic who gifted him with the booze. A time was when the younger man came to visit he would be happy of the distraction. Today all that they could achieve was a high level of awkwardness. Before the labour of more stilted conversation could begin there was desperate knocking at the door. Both men looked at each other surprised. It was well known how unpopular the older man was.
Wearily Charles lifted himself up from the recliner, his body strained under the pressures of the last year. As he approached the door he never realised that within moments everything would be good again. He grabbed the handle and pulled it back. Before him stood his whole world.
Ethan fell from his seat with a loud thump, the weather was dry as a bone outside but a storm was raging in his mind. The previous few days had consisted of a marathon drinking session, vodka, tequila, scotch, whatever was convenient he drank. This time of year always brought up bad memories. Walking into the deathly quite house, finding Angel dead and then Diana screaming for her mother. Nothing was ever the same after that day.
When Charles had called him Ethan had been truly shocked, the once regular ritual of supporting each other through there grief had ended after Dawn had dug her claws into his once close friend, overnight the darkness had claimed him. It was the weakest he'd ever felt. Amelia and Angel had supported him through everything, even pulling him out of the dark abyss that his drinking had caused, yet he had failed his friends miserably.
As he watched his old friend approach the door a sense of calm washed over me, the bottle of scotch not holding the same sway it had moments earlier. Charles let a heavy hand fall on the door handle and twisted. My view was unclear so I got up and approached my friends frozen form, I try to roust him but Charles seemed to be in shock. I turned to see the source of the problem when I too became entranced.
"Hello Ethan miss me?" Angel spoke with her familiar teasing tone. Before me stood my supposedly dead twenty one year old friend, as young and beautiful as the day I discovered her corpse.
"How?"