Doyle was afraid. He was terrified. He looked down at the gathered vampires, they were young, the oldest had only been dead for only ten years. That didn't scare him, it was why they were gathering that scared him. He prayed that it was only a rumor.
One of the vampires said, "Did you hear about that body they fount on 22nd Street. It was ripped to shreds by one of us. Like a damn piece of meat or something. Like his head was bit off or something."
Doyle crept away before it was too late. If the vampires fount him, it wasn't gonna be pretty. They would slowly kill him because he helped Angel.
Doyle was in the Private Eye office within minutes. Cordelia Chase waved at him and said, "Angel's gone out for a few minutes. There was like a body fount or something."
Doyle cursed and turned to leave the office. Angel might be over his head this time.
Angel stood in the shadows, his natural habitat. He was waiting for the police to clear so he could look at the body. Then he remembered that he had every right to look at this body as they did. He was a private investigator, so he had certain rights. He walked out of the shadows and over to the body.
Some of the homicide detectives recognized him and nodded respectfully at him. Angel didn't know them but he nodded anyway, especially at the pretty, brunette officer. She blushed slightly before she bent back over her notebook.
The corner was scraping a Q-tip over the pavement, getting a slight bloody residue. He looked down at the body and grimaced.
The poor gangster had been ripped to shreds. There were fang marks on his neck, what was left of it, signaling that his attacker was a vampire. But this vampire had some fun. They had scratched bloody furrows in his chest and licked the wounds clean. Ripped the fine veins out of their wrist. This vampire had a party.
"Oh my god," came Doyle's voice behind him. Angel turned to see the demon turning green around the edges of his light trench coat. The sight didn't faze Angel. He had done things worse than this, not much, but some.
Angel turned to look back at the body. He knelt down to get a closer look. Doyle said, "Angel I know who did this."
Angel looked up a Doyle and asked, "Okay then, who did this?"
Doyle swallowed and answered, "Lilith."
Angel shook his head. Lilith was a myth and he told Doyle this.
Doyle shook his head and replied, "No, she's not. She's come to L.A. for some reason."
Angel stood up, towering over Doyle. He shoved his hands into his duster pockets and asked, "What do you mean?"
Doyle crossed his arms and tried to glare at him. Angel knew it was very hard to glare at someone who was a full head taller than they were. Doyle said, "I've heard things, Angel, something's going down."
Angel shrugged and said, "Maybe it's some other master vampire trying to lay his claim over the city. Like Lothos. And probably he'll end up dying like Lothos did."
Lothos was a powerful vampire made during the middle ages. He had come to Los Angeles when Buffy was called. Angel had watched her kill her first vampire, he had wanted to help, but he couldn't. Soon after that Whistler had taken him to Sunnydale and trained him to try to lead a better life in hopes that he might help the young girl.
But he wasn't supposed to fall in love with her, or at least, she fall in love with him. Angel knew, in the deepest corners of his soul that their story wasn't over yet, and that was part of the reason he hadn't said good bye. Good byes were final. Disappearing in the shadows and smoke wasn't. He knew he would see her again.
He also knew that if they did start seeing other people, which he hoped Buffy was, they would always love each other. It was a cruel joke on Fate's part. He was cursed in every way imaginable: love, life, and death.
As Doyle had told him when Angel wanted to hide from everything in L.A., "To save yourself, you must save them."
And Angel was. His way. If a person couldn't be saved, he broke their neck. He killed demons his own way. He didn't have to worry about some mortal being ashamed that he had torched a warehouse filled with vampires and their demon lord. Or about snapping some punk's neck instead of letting the "proper" authorities handle them.
"You're thinking about her again, aren't you?" Doyle asked.
Angel shrugged as if he was saying, "Yeah, so what?" Doyle shook his head.
Angel then asked, "What about Lilith?"
Doyle answered, "I know she's real, but the rumor is that's she's here."
"In the City of Demons," Angel added, using his nickname for the City of Angels.
Doyle nodded. Angel said, "Okay then, I'll go find her."
"You dinna know what she looks like," Doyle said crossly. Angel knew that sometimes his pissed Doyle off with his cryptic answers.
Angel shrugged and said, "She's the oldest vampire. I don't think that would be too hard to find." He remembered how hideously deformed that the Master was. Lilith would probably be worse. Then to anger Doyle even more, he disappeared into the shadows.
Doyle stood there angry at Angel. The brooding vampire sure knew how to push one's buttons. Sometimes Doyle thought that Angel ticked him off just because the vampire fount it amusing. Next time Doyle saw Whistler he was going to hit him.
Doyle frowned, he was too inexperienced for Angel. The vampire was too old, too smart and too stubborn. Angel might have lost his Irish accent along time ago but he still had the temper to go with it.
Angel parked his car and stepped out of it. He would get farther on foot if he was searching for Lilith, if she was indeed real. He didn't believe it. He walked down the street, all of his senses fully alert.
He heard a shrill scream coming from a near by ally. He ran into it when the screams suddenly stopped. He saw the body of a young homeless man sprawled on the filthy pavement. His eyes were frozen open in surprise.
Angel noticed the two large puncture wounds on his neck, still faintly trickling blood. He breathed the scent of a fresh kill, memories flooding his mind. Angel approached the body. He knelt by it and smelled the same scent that was on the mutilated body.
"Remarkable how fast they die, isn't it?" Angel looked up to see a tall, slender young woman standing before him.
She was beautiful, with long pale, blond hair that fell past her slender waist. Her face was perfectly formed. Her large eyes were a shade of greyish blue. Then, they changed to violet. She was wearing all black. S&M leather. A tight leather corset that hardly covered her pale chest, not leaveing much to the imagination.
She licked her blood stained hand and watched Angel, her now green eyes were slightly amused. She said, "A Palladian, a holy knight. Go ahead vampire hunter, try to take me out. It would be a shame to kill someone as good looking as you, though." Her voice was hypnotically seductive. Angel ignored it.
He stood to his full height and shoved his hands into his pockets. She had to be Lilith. He asked, "Lilith I presume?"
She tilted her head in answer and said, "Very good my boy."
Angel watched her, not sure of what she was going to do. It just seemed like she was trying to bluff him right now. She looked at him and asked, "Where is your sword?"
"What?" He wasn't sure he heard her right.
Lilith sighed and crossed her arms. Her eyes were the rich dark blue of the night sky. Angel was on full alert, he could sense the power rateateing off the first vampire. The girl who had feed off the blood of a demon, and continued to feed and mix her blood with others.
She replied, "You holy vampire hunter types ususaly wear huge silver crucifies and carry swords made of the same metal to kill me. I've seen and killed countless numbers of your type, child."
Angel couldn't help the smile that formed on his face. She didn't know that he was a vampire. The Dark Mother didn't know what he was. Lilith drifted closer to him, her heels clanking on the pavement.
She said, "Paladins, Templars, they are one and the same. They quote the Bible and curse me before I kill them. Some of them I have changed, they run with me now."
Angel tensed up, he could feel power building in Lilith. She snapped her fingers. Angel saw the wave of scarlet energy momentarily before it threw him into some garbage cans.
She threw another wave of power at him without even blinking. This time it seared his skin like fire. He snarled and stood up. He felt his face change as he looked up at the elder demoness.
Lilith blinked once in surprise and said, "You're a vampire."
Angel snarled at her. He saw the splinters of an old wooden fence. He could impale Lilith on one of them and it would be over. He charged at her, she moved easily moved out of the way.
She laughed and Angel felt magical manicals holding him in place. She made a slight motion with her hand and he was drug over to her. He struggled as her icy fingers traced his face. He didn't want this demon witch to touch him.
She grabbed his chin and yanked his face toward hers to make eye contact. Angel felt the flesh of his face return back to normal without his concentration. Lilith was doing it. He tilted his head up so Lilith couldn't look into his eyes.
He could feel her power like an inferno. It charged all around her and threw him right now. It frightened Angel. But he wasn't about to let the demoness see that.
She pulled his face toward hers. Angel squeezed his eyes shut, cursing his helplessness. She said in an awed wonder, "Why, I thought you were only a myth. A bad dream. The Cursed One." Angel flinched as she caressed his face.
"Angel, the souled one. He who killed the wrong girl and paid for it. Once the most feared vampire that had ever lived. Angelus. I had looked for you for a decade during the 1870's, but I never fount you. I wanted you to join my flock," she said.
Angel opened his eyes and sneered, "I would have never joined you." It was the truth. He was his own leader. He never followed, and that had won him the Master's respect, and for along time, a chance to rule at the Master's side before he was cursed.
A long silver finger nail scratched his cheek. He jerked his head back with the stinging pain as blood trickled out of the scratch. Lilith's face was almost touching his right then. She smiled, her beauty only making her seem more frighting.
She said, "You also aided a Slayer. You helped her kill one of my favorite children. You fell in love with her." She was starting to growl as she spoke. She went on, "You made love to her. You slept with our natural enemy."
Angel snarled at her, wanting to rip her throat out for the images she was bringing from his memories. She was reading his mind. Angel was furious at the invasion. She lightly stroked beside the half-healed scratch on his cheek.
She smiled and said, "Then the curse was broken."
Angel was reliving the moments now, and she was making him relive them. She was using some sort of mind control to make him see everything just as if it was happening now. He saw each kill he made, felt the blood running down his throat once more.
She was like the First in her power. Angel shut his eyes, not wanting to see any more. She whispered in his ear, "Come on beg for mercy. I might be willing to listen to your sad, pathetic pleas."
Angel's eyes snapped open. He looked her dead in her now scarlet eyes. His anger replaced his fear and anguish. He snarled, "You better do better than that bitch." Then he slammed his head into hers.
It broke her concentration, the magical chains disappeared. Angel could move freely again. He snarled, letting his face transform into it's more feral features. He grabbed her wrist and jerked her off the ground.
She looked up, and Angel felt her build up her power. When she released it, he braced himself. He tasted a metallic taste in his mouth as the power washed over him. When it was over the air smelled of ozone.
"This isn't over by a long shot Angel," she sneered. Then she turned into mist.
Angel blinked. She could shape shift, great. He felt his face return to normal when he heard someone join him in the ally.
It was Doyle. He asked, "What happened, you look like hell?"
Angel leaned up against one of the buildings and sighed. He told Doyle, "Hell looks a lot worse than I do right now, believe me."
Doyle said, "You met up with Lilith."
Angel nodded.
Doyle said, "And you tried to fight her hand to hand."
Angel nodded again.
"Stupid move. If I told you once, I've told you a thousand times. You canna fight everything physically. You canna beat every thing to a bloody pulp. Not every thing you fight has horns," Doyle repeated the familiar speech. Angel thought he was starting to sound like a parrot.
Angel stood up strait and said, "I'll fight her my own way."
Lilith looked at her minions, vampire and zombie alike. The zombies smelled foul, but they made great cannon fodder. They had made their home in an abandoned warehouse. The light of a thousand candles burned, giving the building an eerie appearance.
Her most trusted minion, a vampire named Damon, approached her. He was good looking with dark hair and hazel eyes. He bowed respectfully to her. Compared to Angel's defiance, all of her paramours looked pale and boring, including Damon.
He asked, "What happened my lady?" She walked over to the scarlet velvet chair that served as her throne. She sat on it and slung her legs over the arm of the chair. He knelt beside her and respectfully kissed her hand. If she wanted him to, he would bare his throat and let her drink from him.
Lilith sighed and answered, "I met this city's protector."
"And you killed him," Damon proclaimed proudly.
She shook her head and remembered how Angel had resisted her mind control. Resisted her. She said, "He was the Cursed One."
Damon shook his head in disbelief. He said, "He is only a legend my lady. He does not exist. A vampire with a human soul, it's not real."
She snarled at him and wrapped her hand and around his neck. She sneered, "He exists, and he will be mine."
Damon choked, "Yes, my Queen."
Lilith pushed him to the ground. She got an idea. Damon was an excellent warrior, and if Angel beat him, he would make an ideal addition to her thrall. She said, "You can redeem yourself by bringing him to me, alive."
He stood up and bowed. He said, "Yes, milady." Then he was off.
"We're being followed," Angel told Doyle. Doyle went to look behind him, but Angel put his hand on Doyle's shoulder to stop him. Angel said, "Never let someone know that you know that they're following you." Doyle nodded.
Angel heard the foot steps come closer. He said, "Doyle hide. I'll be back in a moment." Thankfully Doyle hid. Angel disappeared into the shadows.
He swerved so now he was following his pursuer. His follower was a vampire. He was average height and build. Angel caught up with him and tapped him on the shoulder. The vampire turned around to look at him. Angel grabbed him by his shirt collar and drug him into a nearby ally. That was a good thing about Los Angeles, it had a lot of allys.
Angel smiled as he slammed the vampire into the wall. He said, "Good evening and welcome to the City of Demons. What the hell are you doing hear, and who the hell are you?"
The vampire's face morphed as he snarled, "I am Damon, Lilith's most trusted companion."
Angel punched him with his free hand and said, "So, you're her flunky then."
Damon snarled and grabbed Angel's wrist. Angel slammed his head into the wall and said, "Don't do that."
Damon struggled and snarled, "She wants you, and she will have you."
Angel smiled as he punched Damon twice. It felt good to beat some of his frustration out of the other vampire. Angel knew that sometimes Doyle didn't approve of his methods, but Angel didn't care. Angel quipped, "Well it's good to know that I'm wanted."
Damon snarled and Angel dropped him. The vampire threw a punch and Angel easily blocked it and twisted the other vampire's arm behind his back. Angel smiled as he pushed the vampire into a broken wooden board.
Damon was impaled on the wood. He looked at Angel then back at the board. With a shrill scream, he exploded into yellowish grey ash. Angel shoved his hands into his pockets and said, "Well, Lilith, for someone who's all powerful, you sure have lousy help."
Lilith watched from her zombie's eyes, seeing everything that the creature saw. Angel had dispatched Damon like he wasn't even there. She crossed her arms and smiled. It had been along time since someone had been a challenge.
She shivered in delight. It would be easy enough to kill him, but Lilith didn't want that. It would be the ultimate thrill to enfold him into her thrall, to break him. She smiled. She suddenly had a new purpose.
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