As I'm sure everyone knows, Angel and I are no longer welcome in the Wolfram and Hart building. Of course, this suits me just fine although I'm not entirely sure how Angel feels about being forcefully removed from his position at that dreadful lawfirm. I could care less how feels about his duty to them, they're no help to anyone and especially not to us. I'd burn that building to the ground if I thought it would do any good at all. It almost makes me long for the wine cellar days of old...

There is one problem in this scenario, and that would be that with Angel's subsequent absence and Fred's new position at the firm she's somehow managed to drag my son down to her level. I have no idea what the relationship is between the two of them and frankly, I couldn't care less if I tried. The road to hell is always paved with the best of intentions, I don't care how good her intentions might be and mostly because I have the feeling that her intentions are less than good. Either way? I'm going to put a stop to this madness once and for all. I will not let Connor get dragged into the mess you've made, Fred. Do you understand?

//locked//

Which isn't to say that I don't understand that I am the true creator of this mess. Not only for creating Angelus in the first place, but for also letting him loose into the city for the simple reason of wanting him to kill Buffy. My plans have backfired and now my son is paying the price.

//unlocked//

In the meantime, Angel and I are staying with Buffy at her apartment. It doesn't have quite the view that the penthouse had but there's certainly more space. At least now I don't have to trip over a brooding slayer everytime I move from one room to the next. I dare say that Buffy and I are actually getting along quite well. I know, even the strangest of things seem possible these days. She has been more than helpful when it comes to understanding my new gifts as a slayer. I used to be one of the most destructive vampires this world has ever seen for centuries and now I'm the abomination that I've grown to hate over the years. I don't think it's an abomination anymore, I'm not sure what to think of it but I understand the importance in it.

//locked to Angel//

We need to talk, and soon before all of this gets even more out of hand than it already is.

//unlocked//

//locked//

Los Angeles has been abuzz with the rumors of Angel's untimely death. I've been strangely silent in my dealings the last few days past, but I know the truth. What they can't see behind their red-rimmed shining eyes. What happened to Angel wasn't death. Death is sweet, a slow bitter dance that you eventually succumb to or a violent mercy. This was neither sweet or merciful, it was sudden and graceless. No fading memory, just solid flesh and then dust. I've turned to dust so many times in my existance and I've never seen it played out like that before.

The worst part of all is knowing better, it always has been in my dealings with Angelus or Angel. Keeping your enemies closer is a romantic fantasy played up in movies and sitcoms, rarely does it ever pan out well in reality. There's still a pile of dust on the floor to prove that a vampire slayer makes a very unwise companion to a vampire.

No. I suppose the worst part of all is knowing that I've somehow contributed to this emotional yet ostensibly cathartic series of events. If only I had taken my own best intentions and put them to good use. They say the road to hell is paved by them and I suppose Angel is a perfect example for that but I still don't believe in it. I think the worst intentions were what drove him right into hell, my own. I set an animal loose into the city hoping Angelus would eventually tire of Faith and move onto Buffy. I set him out, knowing exactly what he was capable of. I suppose the simple fact that I'm still standing here is proof that hell does exist. It's here, and I'll never leave it.

The one truth I have left, the thing that keeps me weighted is sitting in a cage right now, determined to prove that he's something he's not. I've seen monsters and I don't care what Connor felt he had to do to avenge his father's death, he isn't one. This universe is a ceaseless cycle, forcing my son to redeem the sins of his parents. It's hardly fair. To think of the life and the death I've lived and here I remain with a third or fourth chance. Connor is innocent and his first chance was stolen right out from beneath him by someone that Angel trusted. I'm beginning to see a pattern emerge. If I had half the determination I'd once had I'd make that watcher pay for what he's done to my son. As it is, it seems as if enough revenge has been enacted lately. Someone has to stop the cycle, and now Angel has seen fit that I have the power to. I wonder vaguelly if he had some sense of that wherever he is now.

//unlocked//

As I'm sure you are all aware, I am now the acting CEO of Wolfram and Hart. Things should carry on they have been, although I will be making a few changes in the coming days.


Lindsey? I need to speak with you. Immediately.

I've discovered a secret downstairs.

Sometimes I honestly don't understand Angel. He comes home looking beaten nearly to death and refuses to tell me what's wrong. Only enough information for me to gather that Faith was the one who'd beaten him so soundly and that she'd left town for some length of time. I didn't press for details and Angel wasn't exactly forthcoming so I left it that. You'd think my boy would know me better than that, as if that weren't very nearly enough to pique my curiousity. Very nearly being the operative words.

I didn't have to dig too far to find an entry in which Fred describes the monster being held behind bars downstairs. To think that Angel thought to keep that information from me. Surely he understands that I must know now. I do I've just yet to determine exactly what to do with this information. Of course I understand that if Angelus is to stay in this building he simply must be contained. He's vicious and uncontrollable. Two of the traits I've always found particularly appealing about him. It's a confusing state I find myself in. Some old part of me wanting to go downstairs and perhaps taunt him from behind the bars, merely enough to make him ever-aware that he may loathe not being in control I'm always in control of him.

Then I thought I might let him out.

The reasons are obvious why I shouldn't and quite frankly that urge is the only deterant in my visiting him. I'm still holding on desperately to that one meeting Angel had arranged last week. Meeting my son. Although we've technically met there was something different about the circumstances we find ourselves in now. Connor is my one greatest regret, because I desperately wanted to give him the sort of life that I knew was impossible even from the beginning.

It's been impossibly tiresome. This hiding. Originally I thought that it might be better to hide from Angelus, seeking shelter from Angel against the monster I created. Against the thing that wished to restore me to my former soullessness. Honestly, if circumstances were different I would be heading straight towards Angelus. There are some bonds that cannot be broken no matter how hard one tries. However, there is one variable in this entire drama and that is my son. Once I staked myself for him, because I desperately needed to bring him into the world. I cried, terrified that I'd no longer be able to love him less the soul. No longer can I exist in the mold I once conveniantly folded into. Things are so very different now.

I've been staying with Angel, in his coiffed penthouse with his pet slayer. Honestly, I have no idea how he suffers them although in the long wrong Faith is much easier to tolerate than Buffy ever has been. For a time I tried to be the dirty little secret, stay hidden in the depths of shadows in the building so that Buffy wouldn't be aware of my presence until Angel was ready for it. It was the least I could do considering the circumstances I find myself in. Considering my complete and total romantic uninterest in Angel. Just as some bonds are impossible to break others run deeper still. Much deeper than any sense of mortal romance.

Of course, secrets have a way of getting out into the world. Frankly, I was surprised that Faith managed to keep her mouth shut when it came to telling Buffy just who was staying in her apartment. Then again, it doesn't take a psychiatrist to feel the strain of that relationship. The slayers can't even get along with eachother. It would be disheartening to say the least if I could manage to care.

Still, if something bad can happen to Angel it usually somehow does. And one early evening when I'd crawled into bed beside him for a few hours of sleep the prodigal slayer happened to drop by for a visit. And no, not the one that I find actually tolerable. The blonder much more distasteful one. Angel woke up right away to soothe her anger but I being...well, me only could provoke her more. What can I say? It's easy. Of course I only met Angel's stern voice upon said provocation. As if he has any room at all to undermine me, as if it was something I would allow him to do under any other circumstances.

This mortal life is confusing, lonely.....I find myself longing for times past. But then I remember Connor's face, I remember my fingertips across his features and I realize how I can never go back.

I'm only writing in this dreadful thing to inform you that I will no longer be needing a place to stay. I suppose now you can return to your apartment since I am no longer occupying it. I'd known you were abandoning it because you didn't care to see me. Now you have your wish, darling.

If you need to get in touch with me I'll be staying for the time with Angel. I know you're unhappy about that but believe me, it's for the best.

I suppose you already know that Angelus is on the loose, a seperate being from Angel. Eventually I'm sure he'll find his way to you and your apartment attempting to seek me out.

Be careful.

//Locked against everyone who doesn't know I exist...again//

If it weren't for a constant stream of consciousness I might expire of utter boredom in Lindsey's apartment. This human obsession with television grows tiring after a scant few hours, long before then actually. So I just let the dark settle in as I calmly sip expensive whiskey near the window as I've often seen Lindsey do.

Boredom has never sat well with me for the most obvious of reasons. So instead I find myself going through Lindsey's personal belongings. Sorry darling, but what did you expect when you leave me here by myself for days on end? It's not to worry of course, I'm only searching for the things I feel I need to know. Of course, I could just ask you them if you were here. Which you're not. Oh well, enough about that. The point being I happened upon a memo instructing all employees of Wolfram and Hart to be sent to therapy. Not only are the poor slobs to be sent to a therapist to ease them of their inner struggles, but they're also given writing assignments (Yes Lindsey, I read yours). A combination of boredom and the thought that if I'd read Lindsey's private writing assignement fair was only fair- I've decided to contribute and who knows. Perhaps I'll look up this therapist. Honestly, I doubt that he's anything more than bored with the lot of you.

What does the word trust mean to me?

Don't you trust me?

It's a line I've heard a thousand times, all uttered with that same sense of foreboding terror beneath it. Don't you trust me? He'd whisper it into the ears of maids and aristocrats alike. They'd swoon and nod and swear that they trust him until he had them tied upside down naked and sent halfway to hell. Blood dripping to the floor in heavy thick sheets and as I would sit idly by and admire as I buffed my nails Angelus would ask them again.

What's the matter? Don't you trust me?

The response evoked would be quite different then. There was the trembling and the screaming. Always the same word over and over again. No. No. No. Nono. Nononononononononononononono. Sometimes when I sleep that's all I hear. Usually it wasn't until they'd screamed so much their throats were raw that Angelus and I would finally show some form of mercy and end their suffering. After which we would merely move onto the next one.

Than there was that one fatal mistake. The present I'd practically gift wrapped myself and delivered into his waiting hands. The gypsy girl.

You did this to me. I trusted you.

I'm still not sure that I ever trusted Angelus. He certainly shouldn't have trusted me. After all, I was the one who rode off with our only horse one evening when Holtz was about to attack us. I left him for dead essentially, I'm still amazed that he managed to escape Holtz's army in one piece. Than again, there was never much about my boy that didn't amaze me. Until that one day that I fed him the wrong gypsy girl. After that I barely even recognized him. I only understood that he was an anomoly. Something disgusting. Neither human nor vampire and therefore something that any reasonable vampire should shun. I could see why it was that he blamed me, but at that juncture it was merely unimportant who was to blame.

I should have dusted him that very first day. It would have been a kindness.

No. I don't think I ever trusted Angelus. Trust isn't a common word between vampires unless you're staring through the rose colored jaded eyes of a man on the edge. William was never the most brilliant of vampires however, so it's hardly surprising that he could trust so easily when the rest of us hardly ever gave any parts of ourselves away.

I suppose I did however place some small measure of trust in the idea that I had created him. Therefore the last thing I had ever expected was to be staked for that service. I guess that's what happens when boys find news toys. Especially when those new toys came wrapped in the package of a petite cheerleading vampire slayer. I could go on for hours about that ordeal but I'll save that for another time.

When I came back I was surrounded by things and people who begged me to trust them. Lindsey in the company of Wolfram and Hart and later Lindsey on his own. They wanted to destroy Angel but they wanted to win over my trust in order to do such a thing. I'm sure there was some bit of trust between Lindsey and I, torn apart only when Drusilla restored me to what I had previously been. If matters couldn't have gotten more complicated I began to feel that tug, that pull back to Angel. I should have known from the very beginning that he was the only one who could help me with the sudden burden of a soul. It was daunting. The need to destroy him was nearly as strong as my urge to run back to him.

You just have to trust me, Darla.

In the end none of them proved to be worthy of much, especially my trust. This is hardly surprising when you considering the human race. There isn't much to trust.

So what does the word trust mean to me? Hardly anything.

//Unlock//

//Locked to all//

Now that I've officially stayed in nearly every disgusting motel this city has to offer I've finally moved in with Lindsey. Moved in. Not exactly the expression for it, I suppose considering this is merely temporary. Lindsey has been telling me a great deal about this woman he has met in my absence. This Tara girl. I've no feelings about her other than the slight twinge of irritation that I was forgotten so quickly. Maybe not forgotten I suppose, but I guess men are by their very nature, fickle beasts. Angelus and his slayer, Lindsey and his witch. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but I bear it because there's not much else to be said or done about it. I'm going to permit Lindsey this sugar coated happiness unless it behooves me to change things. Currently I feel no urge to maneuver my way between the two of them. There are far grander things at stake. Such as my son. Eventually I plan to go to him, I'm just not sure if I'm ready for it yet. Will I ever be? And more importantly, will he be ready to see his mother?

It would seem that Angel now runs Wolfram and Hart. How curious considering his past with the lawfirm. I can't say that it doesn't disturb me on every level possible. We had once mistakenly thought we were the most wicked of all things created. Then I met the lawyers at Wolfram and Hart. Angel now works for them? No. Not works. He is commander of their legion. How very....interesting.

//Unlock//

//Locked against all but Lindsey//

It seems ridiculous and yet I know it must be true. Like waking up from a sleep that only the most vivid of dreams could touch and suddenly you feel the icicles beneath your feet. Figurative of course, because the weather in Los Angeles is more apt to resemble hell than any sort of glacial arctic. It seems familiar and when I close my eyes I can see the barest of reminders. Who I used to be. What I used to be. There's nothing but the reflection of pale conflicted eyes and I'm still begging him to stop. Pleading with him not to repeat the sins of his parents. He never listens, merely bows to the whims of a possessed witch, a cheerleader with delusions of grandeur and a propensity for being overtaken by higher beings with more power than she could ever hope to possess.

Then I wake up, only for the haggard cycle to repeat itself with tenfold the intensity.

When I found myself in that alleyway at first I though it a dream. This one however had no end nor had it ever had a beginning. At least not one that I could remember. It all begins with a sick girl dying in her bed, and the creature that delivered her from the hell that was waiting. From then on there was no hell, unless of course I was the one who was creating it. Millenia after millenia and still I existed in the darkest shades of black. Now there were only shades of grey with which to walk in. Choices to make that I wasn't quite ready for. I can still recall the sound of what I can only imagine to be some power working towards the greater good (that in itself should be more irony than I can stand).

You stand at a crossroads, Darla. Your life. It has never been your own and such as it has always been it always shall be. Return now and be the deciding pawn in the balance between good and evil.

Is there a true purpose in all of this? It seems my only true purpose has been in existing. You can die but you never get to rest and just as I assume my hell is as real as could possibly be created I learn that the slayer is in town. Buffy Summers. I had only hoped something had killed her by now.

I stayed beneath the radar, only observing, never interacting. There was so much to learn and yet I find that I already know what has become of this world while I've been away. Connor. The burn still swaddles this heart and where once grew love now festers rage. I will have my confrontation with his father, I will demand to know a long ago promise on a rooftop became nothing but fiction. The time for that talk is not now, now I wait. For what? I haven't quite decided. Perhaps it's to adjust to this fragile human form for the second time. The third time if I could even remember what it had been like being human the first time. So I returned to the only person I knew I could truly count on to keep my return a secret. Lindsey.

Now I wait....

//Unlock//

I wasn't a fool, I knew exactly what was going on. What had been going on since the minute Wesley had set foot back into the hotel. Of all the nerve, I could hardly believe how quick he was to sell me out. Yet at the same time it made him more intruiging by a hundredfold. I had done him a favor, had risked my own life to help him escape the hotel when he first became aware of what Jasmine truly was. Now it seemed to me that he had returned only to force me into his own situation, alerting Jasmine and her simpering followers that I knew the truth. That I couldn't be trusted. In any other time I would have agreed with their sentiments, but now I was the only one they could trust. They just didn't understand the thrall holding them in place. Now I had lost my place in the inner circle, and all because Wesley had decided to make every suspicious of my motives.

I knew it wouldn't be long until Jasmine had begun to figure things out. That she hadn't been the one to summon me forth in some futile attempts to reunite a family that didn't exist. I had come forth of my volition and now that Jasmine knew this I was no longer in any position of power over my son or anyone else. I had only hoped that this would not be revealed until I had discovered a weakness of some sort. However, Wesley completely destroyed any chances of that and soon I felt myself completely isolated. On a constant watch between my son, Angel and Gunn. They tried to pretend as if they were concerned about me, as if they wanted to keep me company but I had spent far too long watching. And I knew exactly why they were keeping a close eye on me. Because I was now a liability and Jasmine was all too aware of it.

There was much to fear. Angel had once killed me to save his lover, a high school cheerleader. His feelings for Buffy, how real they were was still up to debate but they were real enough to shove a stake through my heart. His love for Jasmine grew by leaps and bounds and far surpassed his love for Buffy. He would kill for her and I'd seen him do as much, if I was next on the list I had no doubts that he would be the one to do it. And now I wasn't a vampire and could afford only manipulation in fighting back against my own death. And Connor? As much as it pained me to think about it, he had in essence already killed me once. The staking of myself aside because he hadn't killed me, I'd killed myself out of love for him. When he dragged that petite blonde into the warehouse he shared with Cordelia. I took her form as he raised the axe and he hesitated for only a split second before killing the girl. The girl who was wearing my face. Jasmine knew the greatest manipulation of all and I was convinced that if need be she could have either of my boys end me at any time.

It wasn't fear for myself that caused me to be afraid, however. It was fear for my son. And for Angel, although I knew he could take care of himself when need be. He'd spent a few centuries now and had enough practice to be left to his own idiotic devices. But Connor? He was merely a boy with so much to learn about the world. I had once hoped to teach him but even as he grew inside of me, shared his soul with me I knew it was too much to hope for. You couldn't love without a soul, you could only be consumed. That same love that infected our hearts still reigned, even if they no longer beat. Now my heart beat all too loudly in my ears as Connor entered my room.

"Connor..."

"Mom, I have to take you to Jasmine." Connor said stiffly, his eyes darting around the room nervously. He knew what was about to happen and yet was doing nothing to stop it. I had known from the minute the lock had snapped on the outside of my door several hours ago. Trapped.

"Connor, please don't do this." I walked towards him and rested one warm hand against the side of his face, meeting his pale eyes with my own. He was so much like me, and I was grateful to have learned as much in my short time here.

"She just wants to help you. I have to take you to her. I know Wesley confused you, but she'll make it better for you again. I promise." His words were sincere as he looked down at me and I knew that he meant them. He really hoped for me to be helped when all along I was trying to help him.

"She's going to kill me." I whispered as I pulled my hand away from his face.

"Don't be ridiculous. She just wants to help you. I want you to get help, Mom. Please?" His voice, his eyes- so pleading I couldn't help but feel my will buckle beneath me. It hardly mattered as I knew there was no talking to Connor and I had one of two choices. To follow willingly or be dragged forcibly. My pride wouldn't allow for the second if I could help it and if I wanted to stave off my own execution I would have to follow, I would have to manipulate. My own son.

I nodded and he smiled as he took my arm lightly in his and led me away from my room. My eyes scanned the perimeter as he tugged me insistantly towards Jasmine's room. Right before we approached I saw my opening and I took it. Flinging myself away from my son I knocked straight into Gunn catching him by surprise. Grabbing the gun he carried away from him I stepped away from both of them and trained it on Gunn. I couldn't seem to move targets to my son even if I had no true intention of harming him.

"Mom, please! Let us help you!" I could hear Connor pleading as I backed away from the both of them, the gun trembling in my hands.

"You can't help me, Connor. I can only help you now." I said quietly as I slipped out the lobby door, the onlookers staring at me in surprise. By now Jasmine had most of the city under her control and they all gathered in the hotel lobby now, watching me make my escape.

As soon as the night air hit my skin I ran as fast as I possibly could, weaving through alleyway after alleyway with no notion of where to turn to next. No notion until I bumped straight into the thing that had caused this grief for me. Wesley.

Out of breath and shaking I held the gun up and pointed it at him. I was a vampire and I'd killed my share of people. Hurting another would hardly stain my soul any worse than it already was.

"You did this to me!" I hissed out at him.

Once we had arrived I became more perplexed if such a thing were even possible. So much history shared between the four of us. So much blood, so much pain and despite our new roles designated by the powers we all seemed to fall into our customary habits. Angel unyielding, refusing to share his authority or command. Spike with his constant sarcasm, a pathetic yet potent approach to getting on Angel's last nerve. Drusilla, forever the child. I wondered idly how her presence effected William and Angel. No longer proud of his work, did Dru's lunacy weigh down Angel's soul? He often carried pain around like a visible scarlet letter and still I sensed nothing. Did having a soul effect Spike's love? The undying passion he once showed with such vehement fervor that it often made me ill. There were so many things to ponder, every one of them taking me a step closer to the real issue at hand. Until then I would allow myself these petty distractions. I would become lost in them.

Upon our arrival Angel the ever present detective rushed off to search for clues on the entity creating havoc for the city. I supposed I could have accompanied but the entire situation couldn't interest me less. Like a small child Spike rushed off to do the same, still determined to outdo those who had come before him. I was nearly positive that Drusilla had gone with him. Clutching to mother's apron strings it was the way William had lived and the way he had died too if memory served me correctly. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

For my own part I was unsure what the next step was. I could surround myself by books, words unlocking mysteries to absolutely nothing. I had always enjoyed the practical as opposed to the theoretical. There was art, of course. Everything was art becasue art was merely beauty. I'd always longed for the view but my obsession with art never stopped there. It had always been wrapped up on death, torment, pain. It was the kind of artistry Angelus had revelled in. When he examined those corpses did he feel some sharp sting? The carelessness, the lack of finesse. Not even my apt curiousity could force me to accompany him, to witness his reaction, to dissect it. Research and reconnaissance sounded a dreadful bore. How was I to contribute to this cause I cared next to nothing for? Angel's earlier pep talk had done little to sway me in either direction.

I walked the city aimlessly as I had done some time in the past. There was no necessary objective and I felt that any help I could offer would be both needless and unwanted. It was no surprise that in no way was I looking forward to my reintroduction to Buffy Summers. She smelled of death and the idea of even occupying the same space as her turned my stomach. I was fairly certain that if things were different I could find quite a few similarities between the Slayer and myself. The fact was, things weren't different and four hundred years of resentment rested upon her along with a million other things to a million other beings. Yes, I believed I would be putting that off for as long as I possibly could. Perhaps forever. I had agreed to this one trip but as for my alliance with the slayers? My alliance with Angel, Spike and Dru? Everything was yet to be determined. I still had so much to learn about this supposed purpose. I found myself pushing the thoughts away again. Perhaps another time.

As I walked the cobbled back alleys I remembered the marks. Every single bit of human emotion, the stink of it clung to walls, made marks in time and places. I could almost hear the whispered screams of ghosts and memories that didn't even belong to me. I walked among them, a true anomoly. A sickening shade of grey where everything should be either black or white. I immersed myself in the invisible filth wondering if some secret might burst forth and seep into my skin, revealing its true nature. I was no slayer, no detective, no watcher, not even a vampire bent on a path of pointless redemption. It was as if I ceased to exist at all. The one thing that mattered didn't even have any memory of me. Forcefed a plastic life on a silver platter and there seemed nothing I could do. I had already done enough.

The answer of what next didn't come to me until I walked by a busy dance club. People standing in line in expensive clothing hoping against hope that the bouncer would them entry. The air smelled of a mixture of cigarette smoke, alcohol, and desire. Hopelessness. That was what I smelled, what I sensed. It permeated my skin and hung on my clothing as I walked by. It wasn't until the muscle at the door called out to me that realization dawned on me. In my past, when I had wanted answers I had two courses of action to follow through with. One was of course to maim and torture until the truth begged at their lips, screaming to be set free. More often I preferred the power of persuasion, thrall, seduction. If the first was no longer an option than the second would haunt me until the end of days.

I was ushered into the club and my senses were immediately assaulted. My eyes scanned the dance floor expertly, sensing out just who exactly in the crowd was human and who was not. This club was not unlike the handful or so of bars I had infiltrated in the nost so distant past. However, I was certain that I wouldn't be leaving a trail of bodies behind me upon departure this time. I was still debating the next course of action when I felt a heavy hand on my arm.

"He wants to see you." A low voice in my ear and as I tilted my chin up to meet his eyes I immediately recognized him as a demon in disguise. Weren't we all?

"He?" I asked demurely. "Well then. I suppose we shouldn't keep him waiting."

The demon merely nodded before leading me up the steps and through a doorway. Whomever 'he' was apparently he was powerful enough to procure a private room at the expensive club. The minute the curtains parted I recognized why I had been ushered into the club. The display of powers made more than enough sense and so I sat, the casual charming smile staining my lips.

"Darla, it has been far too long." The familiar smooth voice wrapped around me like silk.

"Truly." I agreed as I placed my hand into his and felt his lips brush the skin.

"Since you share my sentiment you won't mind sharing a drink with an old friend."

A nod of agreement from me and a wave of his hand before drinks were poured. Who was I to deny The Immortal?

Irritation didn't even begin to describe the feeling coursing through my veins. More like righteous indignation or perhaps confusion. However, I felt infinitely more comfortable pretending to be angry than in acknowledging any personal deviance. At least I had the comfort of solitude for the time being. Was psychosis contagious? What on Earth could possess Angel to leave me alone in a room with Drusilla and Spike? It was as though he was asking to come back to a room full of ashes. Maybe that was why he had left, to retrieve the dustpan. It would certainly make more sense than his claim of going to see the Slayer. The Slayer? The same slayer who he'd killed me for? The definition of two hundred years of absolute bliss resting on her weary shoulders. It seemed as though the Purgatory I'd suffered was little more than a warm up for true hell. My darling boy and his affinity for Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. What kind of name was Buffy anyway? It was pathetic. That name was certainly striking fear into the hearts of no one. It merely drove a stake through my own heart.

I cast the more dower thoughts away and found myself perched on the sofa in one of the common rooms. Thankfully one room in this monstrosity of a building was empty, I wasn't sure that I could control myself if I had to listen to pathetic children mewling, their necks twisted and snapped as easily as a kitten's. Of course, by children I was referring to both the newly destined slayers and Drusilla and Spike.

It seemed strange to me, this new path. Would I ever cease to be? Would I keep meeting the pointy end of a wooden stake only to return and relive this hell over and over again? The first time I was brought back I could remember clearly the conversation I'd had with Angel over the phone. Can it be true? There's no hell? He had insisted otherwise as I suspected he might, but maybe he was right all along. I had just been blind to it all before, because this was hell. The four of us, reunited to work with Buffy of all possible morons. So much violence, death, destruction, so much blood on our hands only to have the four of us both returned and cursed. Made a family again, as Dru would put it. This word champion floating around the four of us as if the word itself weren't enough to make me ill. Champion? Of darkness perhaps. I just knew that Angelus and I were going to be babysitting Drusilla and William like errant children. It was the same story with a sick twist. Spike had already reverted to his annoying ways, I never did see what Dru saw in him. To be fair, she was fucking insane. Then again I looked after Angel and here he was running off like a sniveling schoolboy to tattle to the Vampire Slayer. One lesson was going to have to be imparted rather quickly. Don't mess with Mommy.

Connor. I breathed in an involuntarily and highly unnecessary hiss before burying my head in my hands. It had to be a mistake. That I'd been returned for as long as I had and not spared one single thought to my son. My boy. The reason for everything that had come to be and would come to pass where it concerned me. If it wasn't for the memory of Connor, the memory of dying in an alleyway so selflessly- I feared I wouldn't be able to stop myself from feeding. I wasn't like Angel, didn't believe in anything called redemption. We were all damned right from the start, but then...... One shining sliver of light in our darkness. Out of all that pain and destruction we bore something truly beautiful. Our son.

What of Connor? What had become of him? Was being restored to this plane of existing so highly disorienting that I'd completely forgotten to ask Angel. I suppose there was hardly the time considering at one moment I was being attacked by a slayer and the next in a confrontation with old friends. Why hadn't Angel said a thing about our boy? There were so many things I wanted to know, so many years missed. So much time to make up for. Was he safe? Well-cared for? Connor was the only thing that I had ever loved, the one thing that could elevate any feelings of self sacrifice out of me. Why would Angel leave him alone after his promise to me? He the one, the only thing binding me to humanity. Despite the unbearable pain of a soul I knew that I could and likely would attempt to having something more permanant done about it if left to my own devices. I wasn't cut out for this new role like Angel was. Idly I wondered if I could fuck the soul right out of my body as Angelus could. Wouldn't that be an ironic punishment? Denying the whore sex so that she might achieve some enlightened state of being in pain. Angel liked to refer to it as redemption.

Hours drew themselves out. It seemed like days for as much as my disoriented state and conception of time would allow. I wasn't entirely sure what I was waiting for if I was waiting for anything in particular at all. Despite the few attachments I made within the Order of Aurelius itself I had always been quite capable of taking care of myself. I could leave this place, search for something on my own. Search for my son. Oddly I found myself waiting for something I used to believe in to return. I never had believed in much. Outside the realm of violence I only remembered clearly twice when I'd believed in something. Neither experience I cared to relive.

Finally a familiar dark figure crept into the room. I'd felt him coming and perked up on the sofa again. There was a vaguelly haunted look behind his eyes but it didn't surprise me like it used to. I grew accustomed to it and now I found myself almost preferring it, drawing some kind of comfort from it.

"Where's Connor?" I asked him before he could get a word out.

It was a fluke. Truely. A case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because of the way I'd selflessly sacrificed myself so that my son may live I wasn't banished to the bottomless pits of hell after I'd returned to dust for the second time. All this time, centuries upon centuries of tormenting and torturing and murdering and every other brutal doing both acting alone and with Angelus by my side and this was our destiny. So much pain, so much aggression and in the end we were both created to in turn create something else. One small bit of beauty to spring from our eternal darkness. It seemed preposterous and yet I'd lived it. I'd seen the pale eyes of my son as that cheerleading witch manipulated him into killing an innocent girl. She jaded my son and for that? If she should ever choose to awaken I was sure to kill her myself regardless of whether this was her fault or not.

Because of my place, because of where I had chosen to spend out eternity watching my son grow into his role in the world, I happened to know about certain things happening to him. I happened to have a firm enough connection to the powers that be that I wasn't surprised when their desperation began to grow. After all, Jasmine's descent into the world was their fault. Their doing. They owed a favor to those below and I was what they chose to cash in. A lofty hope it was that I would be the one to undo what had been done. Especially when the powers refused to return me back to this plane a vampire. I begged and pleaded for them to reconsider, I was more than willing to bear the brunt of a soul within my vampiric form. A mother like his father. Yet the powers refused to return me as such, instead I had one oppurtunity to right this wrong and I had to do it behind the imprisonment of frail human skin.

I'd already failed the first mission. If I had only just managed to convince Connor to not kill the girl than Jasmine would never have been able to rise in the first place. Unfortunately, it was in vain as Connor ignored my heed and continued to follow the call of his loins. He really was his father's son. Then the demi Goddess appeared and everyone seemed to forget about my miraculous ressurrection. The goddess herself was far too wrapped up in her own power that she seemed to accept this as absolute truth. That somehow her powers extended to hell and had thus pulled me free from my torment to complete her false family. I was content to allow this deception to continue as I had no intention of letting anyone know why I had really returned. The maggots that coated her face haunted me, but no one else seemed to be aware of them. I wasn't sure why I had the sudden sight to see past this hypnosis when Connor and Angel seemed to be equally enchanted by her.

It wasn't long until nearly the entire city had fallen beneath her bewitching spell. I wasn't entirely sure what card she was playing, or what her gain might be. Returning eternal peace to a race instintually caught up in violence and destruction seemed impossible. Somehow she was accomplishing this by eliminating free will. I cared little for it. These humans were suddenly the most dreadful and boring group of animals I'd ever observed. It hadn't escaped my attention that I had become one of them. Being careful to stay hidden in the sidelines and yet never straying far from my son. I followed him as if a shadow and the nights when Jasmine had retired and the two of us were able to talk warmed my heart. I wanted to continue this state of limbo forever. Unfortunately, I refused to watch my boys fall prey to this witch.

One evening I was standing near Connor as he kept council with Jasmine. An incident in a local bowling alley had shaken the group of ragtag investigators up and the tiny Texan girl along with the Watcher had disappeared to clean up some soiled clothes. Connor and Jasmine were talking quietly as I stood near the wall when suddenly Wesley burst in with the soiled shirt in question dangling in his hand.

I slept on and off for some time but everytime I closed my eyes I could still see them. It seemed there would be no rest for me, not once Wolfram and Hart pulled me from the hell I couldn't remember. Just nothing. There was nothing and now there was hell. It seemed I was to spend eternity always trapped, weighed down by something. Angelus. The Master. Wolfram and Hart. This soul. It occured to me that I'd never quite seen it as a weight before I'd become human for the second time. Before I had the weight of memory resting on top of my soul, every sting, every step and I could feel it. That burning sensation running through my veins except it was far more powerful than blood. Regret was the most wicked weapon of all and I had a nuclear war raging within me. Part of me thought to say. Tangled in this embrace of anguish with the suffocation of everything we had ever done together and to eachother. Of course, it was this same restless misery that drove me away from him. Back to Wolfram and Hart? To torment my boy even more perhaps? It seemed like the lawyers were the worst miscreants of all and I had thought I'd been evil once upon a time.

I was conflicted, dubious. It seemed I had no one left to turn to save these two sides in a battle I'd never done anything to start. Lawyers interested me little, Angelus slightly more. Slightly more was hardly the phrase for the beautiful creature of destruction I had once known. No longer existing, trapped beneath the layers of a man I barely recognized. A vampire. Semantics. I wondered vaguelly if my own alter self was trapped beneath this frail foreign skin. Was I still Darla? The pain I wanted to cause, the death, the blood I wanted to see spilled, the torment. I was still Darla. I still wanted to hurt them all. Yet there was a part that grew that I knew nothing of. Pressing down on my heart, my mind, reminding me that I hurt all these people, inflicted so much damage. That hurting them hurt me in some form or another. Now I was the one who was damaged with no coping mechanisms, left bare and exposed. I wanted to be ill. For four hundred years I commanded authority, brazen and bold. Now I wasn't even sure I had the strength to get out of this bed.

What was I now? Was I just like him? Would I be forced to wear the selfless veneer that he carries around like a giant weight on his shoulders? Would I want to help now as much as I had ever hurt? The very thought was almost laughable. I wasn't like Angel. I hadn't forgotten who I was, who I had been. He assured me that he had never forgotten but I knew differently. He remembered but he was blind. Never able to see the entire truth despite the photographic memory. You could see it in his sketching, the perfect shadings and lines. It was all just surface and he could never look beyond that. In that moment I think it was that I decided I had to leave this room.

It was hard to tell whether Angelus was sleeping soundly next to me or simply laying there, keenly aware of every move I might make. What had I to lose? He would catch me and reign me back in or I would escape. Either way I had lost nothing. As quickly as I could I got out of bed and headed for the door, with nothing but a careless hand run between pale strands of hair. Just as I thought I might have actually escaped his hand closed down around my elbow. Glancing back up into his eyes for only a minute I slammed the door on him, forcing him to loosen his grip on my arm.

Quickly I ran down the stairs of the hotel and downstairs into the casino part of the building. I knew that Angel was right on my heels and I'd need some form of distraction. A security guard stepped up in front of me and I anxiously grabbed onto his arm, forcing him between myself and Angel. "Help me! He's trying to hurt me!" I screamed, catching everyone's attention as several security guards jumped on my boy. I knew it wouldn't hold him back for long so I began running again, shoving my way past patrons when I spotted those familiar suits. I knew exactly who was here looking for me. So soon they had found me. Wolfram and Hart.

I wasn't sure which was the lesser of two evils and so I darted off into the resteraunt and kitchen hoping to evade them both. Bursting through waitresses and showgirls and customers I headed for the back door as loud voices raised alarm. That would never do. I didn't want to alert them to where it was that I had escaped to. Instead I pushed myself forward not stopping until I found the door and escaped out into the warm sunlight. Of course, I knew the sun would only protect me from Angel and not from Wolfram and Hart, so I hadn't stopped running until I reached a parking lot.

A young girl was getting out of her car and I grabbed her by the arm fiercely, scrambling for her keys.

"Hey!" She yelled as I finally managed to retrieve the keys from her hand.

Getting into the driver's seat of her car I slammed the door shut quickly before turning the key in the ignition. The only sound that echoed behind me was the sound of squeeling tires as I darted into downtown Las Vegas traffic. I took a deep breath and let my fingers finally relax on the wheel when I realized no one had followed me. I hadn't an inkling of where I was going to run to next. Wherever I decided to go I was sure I'd be found and followed eventually. For now all I could do was drive.

"I'll kill myself if you find a way to give me that soul. I'll make sure you have to watch me and you'll know it was all your fault." I looked over my shoulder at her. She was still crying. Pathetic. "You stole the soul, you bitch, so you keep it. Feel everything that you did to me. Be a real mother and accept that it's yours to keep. I swear, Darla, I swear if you come after me, I'll find a way to destroy everything you have ever cared about, starting with me."

I stood perfectly still for a moment that dragged on much too long. The echoing of the door slamming shut had already filled the hotel and still I stared at the spot my son had just been standing in. The burn of tears stinging at the corners of my eyes because I knew with an intensity I'd never known anything else. I had done this to him. I had created this monster after I'd expected to create the best thing Angelus and I had ever done together. This wasn't Angel's fault, I knew that. It wasn't Connor's fault. When I'd carried him I thought the soul he shared with me a burden and then slowly a beautiful blessing. A gift he was allowing me to experience. I was so terrified when he was born that I would be stripped of the soul, that I would be once again unable to love anything. Unable to love him, and he'd been the only thing I'd ever loved.

After he was born we thought it a miracle, that somehow the soul had split and allowed me to retain my conscience, my soul, my ability to love my son the way he deserved to be loved. They said it had split. Angrily I reached out and quickly threw everything from Angel's desk to the floor in a violent rage.

"It wasn't split! It had never split!" I seethed my demon visage bursting to the forefront of my face as I continued to useless smash my fists into inanimate objects. Hoping perhaps to ease this ache inside my soul. Because it hadn't split.

I'd stolen it from him.

Tears flooded my eyes as I sank to the ground, curled up and crying. Connor would see this as a weakness. This ability to feel such guilt. Of course, I understood why he saw it that way. After all, for four hundred years I'd walked across the Earth sans my soul. If asked I would have thought the idea of having a soul both distasteful and preposterous. When you were a creature born to destroy you weren't meant to feel the weight and the guilt of taking human lives. Connor wasn't such a creature, he was a human being and I'd taken away the one thing he needed to be among his own kind. Biting my lower lip I tilted my chin down to stare at the floor as the tears came with greater ardor. How had I done this? Destroyed the only thing I'd ever love. My son. My beautiful baby boy.

He wanted me to promise him that I wouldn't attempt to put a soul back into him, that I would also stop Angel from doing so. There would be no stopping Angel in that regard, and I was positive that even I could not stop him. I didn't want to cause him to suffer, I just wanted more for him. I wanted more for him than what I'd had and I was a walking corpse. My son was perfect and alive and....

Soulless.

I didn't know what to do. Perhaps the only thing needed to return this soul to it's rightful owner is to go outside, perched on the roof perhaps-- and await the early morning sunrise. If I perish would the soul return to it's owner or would it simply float off into the ether? Maybe it would be dragged down into hell with me. There was no way to be sure and if I were to attempt such an endeavor would Connor follow through with his promise to me? That he would find a way to destroy everything around him before finally destroying himself? I could remember clearly what I'd become when I'd first had a soul returned to me. When I had been ressurrected as a human being. The violent destructive tendencies still lived in my blood but I hadn't the strength to carry them out. Connor would have that strength. The strength and the pain and....

Surely Angel would care for him, no? I made him promise on that rooftop. Made him promise that he would always keep Connor safe from his mother. That he would make sure that the one good thing we'd ever done together wouldn't end in pain and destruction and death. Because that was all we were.

Attempting to dry my eyes I stood up from my spot on the office floor and walked through the lobby. From there I began to climb the lobby steps. It wouldn't be long until I'd found the roof, and then it wouldn't be long at all until I was returned to hell.

To say I was angered by the news that I mostly had to overhear would be quite the understatement. From the bits and pieces I gathered from Angel's conversation on the phone with my son, it would seem that Faith the soiled slayer had for some reason reverted to her former ways. With my own past I wouldn't begrudge her a death here or there, despite the overwhelming feeling that it was not the appropriate way to behave. However, she made her fatal mistake when she put a knife into my son. I might be a newly born again vampire, I might have a cancerous and beautiful soul tainting my skin, I might be alot of things but what I wasn't? Something to be trifled with or underestimated. This soul could sting, but Faith had another thing coming to her if she honestly thought that the pain of a soul would stop me from reverting to my own former ways. The idea of anyone hurting Connor made me keenly aware of the bloodlust still very much awake, very much alive inside of myself. From what I'd been told by William all those years ago there was nothing comparable to slayer blood. Perhaps I would find out for myself if Angel didn't kill the girl before I could.

For now Angel seemed contented with the idea that he might go and find the slayer while I went to the hospital to see how my son was faring after being stabbed nearly to death. My boys were both strong and I knew they could handle a naughty little girl screaming for attention, but it didn't make my protective urges wane even in the slightest. Connor had already been through hell and back again and I'd be damned if I were to stand by and idly watch a slayer of all things make him suffer. His father had already suffered at the hands of enough slayers to last them both a few millenia. No more. I would kill Buffy and Faith both in their sleep if it came down to such a thing, and honestly the idea of killing Buffy had been a reoccuring thought as I'd been sharing living quarters with her for all too long. I might have changed a great deal, and I might not have the photographic memory that Angel possessed, but I still recalled the feeling of a sharp piece of wood plunged through my heart. And all for her. Those issues were best shelved for the time being, redusted off once I made sure that my boy was safe from harm and healing properly.

Cordelia, Buffy and the remaining inhabitants at the Hyperion had pitches quite the fit when they discovered Angel's plans to set free the once caged slayer. They begged him not to do it, pleaded with him that she would most assuredly kill again. I, for one had not been convinced to join either side at the time. It mattered little to me that the slayer had a past history of violence and going against her very nature. She could kill again for all I cared, as long as she stayed away from harming those that were clearly mine. If she hurt a hair on my son's head? She would surely pay for that dearly. I would see to it myself. They might have been correct all along and I knew that Angel would suffer himself for the loss. However, I would be the one to have revenge.

I arrived at the largest hospital Los Angeles had to offer and stopped at the desk of the emergency room to inquire about my son's health along with his location. The nurse pointed me in a direction and assured me that Connor would heal fine as long as he ingested all of his antibiotics and didn't pull any of the stitches. She also expressed a touch of awe at how quickly he was healing. That was my boy.

Standing in the doorway to his room, I watched him, studying the stitches just above his ribs. So many stitches, she must have stabbed him several times. Did she understand what she had done? What I was and what Connor had given me? He'd given me something so beautiful I'd never be able to describe it accurately. He was the only thing I'd ever loved. How could she understand what it was like to be a Mother or a centuries old vampire for that matter? She would understand by the time the sun rose, and I'd bear the brunt of a soul in pain to be sure that she understood no one would get away with harming my son.

"How are you feeling, Connor?" I finally asked quietly, walking away from the doorway and putting my hand on his chin, tilting it up so that I could see his eyes.

Angel's threat was empty and hardly effected me more then anything of the like would. Of course, what was not lost on me was the impact of the words. He threatened to stake me and though I knew for a fact that he lacked the conviction to do such a thing at that moment I could still remember a time when I'd pushed him that far. Idly I wondered if by pushing him I was more apt to watch him destroy himself, or to watch him destroy me. Either way it was of little concern to me, I'd already driven him as far as I could for the next few days at the very least. He would no doubt prepare to do something stupid after my departure. My boy, I knew him so well and I knew one thing better then most who knew him. He wasn't the smartest vampire that worked this earth, nor had he ever been. He would pointlessly try and rise up against me, only for me to hurt him all over again. Siring Lindsey, the stolen slayer and now the witch. Nothing would distract me from what I wanted most, and that was my Angelus to be returned to me.

The limo waited just beyond the shade of the courtyard and I quickly moved into the backseat only hearing the brief shrill sting of my skin burning before I'd disappeared into the backseat. The tinted windows of the limo protecting my immortal skin as we travelled in the direction of Lindsey's apartment. Hopefully I could expect good news from my newest prodigy. I honestly hated having to leave him with Dru once I'd made him into something new, but I hardly had the patience to wait for a fledling to awaken when there were other matters at hand. Such as Angel, such as my plans for him which included the witch I'd sent Lindsey after.

After a short ride I found myself taking the stairs to Lindsey's apartment. I knew this was where he would return despite my lack of instruction. These things were part of his mortal life. As soon as possible I needed him to relocate to where I might keep a better eye on him. After all, he was family now.

Opening the door to his apartment, I hardly needed an invite as I saw my lawyer standing near the window, staring blankly at the blinds as he sipped out of a glass of...whiskey by the smell of it. There was a heartbeat too, beating erratically accompanied only by a small whimper from the closet. Tara, excellant he'd done just what I'd asked him to do.

"Lindsey," I purred, stepping up behind him and wrapping my arms around his waist. In an instant he growled and spun around, tightening his own arms around me.

"Where have you been, Darla? I can smell him all over you. You left me in that wine cellar to go fuck Angel?" He demanded angrily, his eyes briefly flashing yellow down at me. Of course, he would be upset about Angel. He was virtually always upset about Angel. I wondered why the two of them didn't just fuck and get it over with already. They hated eachother far too much, obsessed over eachother far too much.

"I'm doing what you brought me back to do, Lover. Getting under Angel's skin....don't you remember?" I asked in a quiet voice, my cold hands rising steadily over his chest. "I can smell the witch. You brought her back here from Sunnydale." A smirk broke across my pale face thinking about the power that one small human had locked away inside of her. I could smell it. He was angry, hurt...so many emotions running across his face and I was more then certain that jealousy was among them. How fortunate. It would only work in my favor to gain what I wanted, to manipulate him. Sliding my hands against his chest and underneath his shirt I only had a minute to glance up at him when his mouth was pressed to mine hard.

Sometimes we can't escape who were are, despite the fact that Angel tries so desperately to escape his own nature. Over four hundred years and I would always be the whore.

I stood at the window, admiring the view of the ocean's waves crashing along the shore. It was routine, and for as much as I longed for the view throughout my entire existance this was something different. Nature's beauty remained the same over the ages. Never decaying, never fading, forever virile until the end of the world came crashing down upon it. The ocean, it was true immortality. My fingers pressed against the cool glass desperate to break off a piece of that beauty and make it my own. Reclaim it, as it were. I supposed it was never mine to have, and yet I'd had it anyway. The end of the world came when a sharp stake was plunged through my heart by my boy, my creation, my Angelus. That one look of betrayal flashing across my eyes before....nothing. Could it be that no hell existed? Angel seemed content to assure me otherwise. Certainly hell had to exist for hellions to exist, did it not?

Now I found myself pulled, pushed in the middle. A pawn of an on-going war that I had done nothing to create. Discounting of course the siring of one half of it. Wolfram and Hart had brought me back to this plane of existing, a frail heart beating beneath the flesh of my chest. Desperately trying to perpetuate the fall of Angel, hoping that I might succeed in distracting him enough so that he may lose focus on the things he held dear to him. Helping the hopeless. So much time had passed and yet I found myself still desperate to impart lessons upon him. Human beings were built to suffer, they were created to lack in hope. Perhaps that was why he could never find that happiness that would inevitably lead to his destruction. Because helping an entire species was both daunting and completely pointless. A race he'd never finish, a race he'd never win, a race I found myself thrust into. And for a time, it seemed as if the law firm's plans had worked. I began executing their wicked schemes, drawing my boy closer and closer like a moth to a flame. Stuck halfway between a dim hope that all the pain would finally kill him, and that he might eventually break down and give me what I longed to own again. Immortality. In short, he refused which left me in quite a percarious situation.

I could continue to allow myself to be used by Holland Manners and his team of lawyers, I could keep torturing myself. Trying so hard to be the wicked thing I once was, or I could run to Angel. Either way I knew I would continually be forced in the middle of this struggle between the two. Eventually things began shifting, breaking down, I felt myself begin to collapse inwardly. The white hot sting of a soul burning itself inside of me, marring me until I had no idea what or who I was or had ever been. It kept bringing me back to my boy, he would be the only one who would understand. He could help me. I might hurt, I might bleed, I might break in half but I certainly had never been stupid. I was still Darla to my boy, he would use me in his pathetic attempts to achieve revenge on Wolfram and Hart until there was nothing left to use. I had nothing, and where I had once been strong enough to stand on my own I now felt a sickening form of helplessness take hold. It was becoming ceaselessly obvious that I would have to pick a side, because abandoning the entire war was never an option. If I should choose that I knew that they would be burying my corpse within the week. How strange it was to still fear death, after I'd walked it for centuries and been nothing but ash for several years more.

Fortunately for me I still had one ally. Lindsey, and despite my attemps to manipulate him I soon discovered I didn't have to try very hard at all. Infatuation glowed in his eyes whenever he settled his gaze on my form. With one look I knew he would betray his precious law firm to help me. Perhaps I gave myself too much credit, and it was more about burning Angel than it was about helping me. Either way, I was going to require his assistance if I wanted to make it out of this alive. He agreed quite quickly that the law firm was not the place for me, and was even more vehement about me not turning to Angel. It seemed that there was hope for me after all. Hope. What a cruel word.

It didn't take him long to relocate me in the dead of night, away from the law firm's watchful eye. A condo on the beach with wide sprawling windows. He remembered how much I loved a view, how thoughtful of him. Of course, he couldn't stay however. I wasn't sure if it was because he had to get back to his daily grind at work, or if it was because he was terrified. After all, I had taken a chunk out of his neck one day in his office. My grip on reality slipping and fading away as I desperately grappled, coming to terms with what had been done to me. Coming to terms with what I had done to so many others. When he returned the next evening he seemed pre-occupied, it was so obvious that I couldn't help but enquire about it.

"You're going to need protection, Darla." He had said seriously to me, standing across the room. Never get to close, I was unpredictable at best. All of the history books could tell him that. "I can't do it myself, but eventually the firm and Angel are going to realize where you are. I'm hiring someone to stay with you."

One eyebrow arched up curiously as I watched him. "A bodyguard?" How crass.

"Something like that. There's a vampire slayer currently working off a twenty five to life at the State Penitentiary. She'd be able to protect you."

I balked instantly at the idea. "Is this your idea of a joke?" A vampire slayer? How quickly some forgot. I knew I would never be able to forget the feel of that stake being rammed through my heart. And why had he chosen to end me? Because of a vampire slayer, a cheerleader who he claimed to love.

"This isn't Buffy. You'll like this one, trust me." With that he dropped a folder full of reading material on the desk. Idly I had opened it up and looked at the picture of the scowling brunette laid atop her history. She looked beautiful and angry and my curiosity was more than piqued.

After he left, I sat on the couch and idly flipped through the folder. At first I skipped through prison psychiatric evalutations on her childhood, but eventually became enraptured. For hours upon hours I sat and read about Faith, the fallen vampire slayer. So full of pain and rage. I could relate. So much death, and visceral nothingness. Being the slayer meant so much and yet she had refused to conform to the constraints forced upon her. I had to admit that Lindsey was perhaps correct this time around. I did like her.

When I had finished reading, I placed the file in a drawer in the bedroom. Hiding it amidst books that I never would read, and magazines that I was more content to tear into pieces. After I had hidden the material I returned to the window and awaited her arrival.

I was still licking blood from my fingertips as I walked down the hallway of Wolfram and Hart. Occasionally a frightened looking secretary or lawyer would come out of an office only to take one look at me. I would smile widely at them and they would instantly disappear back into their dismal offices, the door slamming shut. Perhaps it was something I said? Either that or the fact that I was covered from head to toe in blood and gore. What could I say? I vehemently despised being used as a pawn by lawyers of all things. If nothing else the experience proved educational. It turned out that lawyers tasted like a very bitter poorly aged wine. Waste not, want not.

It would be interesting to see how the Senior Partners planned to rebuild the Special Projects division of L.A.'s branch of Wolfram and Hart. Because at that moment I was fairly certain I was wearing some of their innards pasted across my clothes and skin. Of course they were still here in the building. Parts of them over here, parts of them over there. It was lovely. I started at the top of course. Lawyers had so many things to learn about vampires as old and powerful as Angelus and I were. It wasn't until I split Holland Manners kneecaps in half that he seemed to grasp the concept. Pity he wouldn't live on to tell the tale. Oh well, it never hurt to keep up the aura of mystery. Any girl knew that.

Stopping outside the office I had been saving for last, I pressed the palm of my hand flat against the wooden door. Lindsey. He was an enigmatic human, always surprising me time after time. It had never escaped my notice that Lindsey wasn't merely another evil lawyer. He was wicked inside, constantly fighting the waging war in his soul.

Who am I? Am I Darla?

Opening the door I was unsurprised yet still pleasantly amused that Lindsey wasn't running and hiding as the rest of his cowardly colleagues seemed eager to do. Instead he was standing calmly in front of his desk, leaning slightly against it. Taking me in with impassive pale eyes as I gracefully walked into his office and shut the door again.

"You don't seem surprised to see me." A cruel smirk spread across my lips as I walked toward him.

"Why should I be surprised, Darla? I knew you'd be back." His voice was low and gravely, and yet his face wasn't betraying one single emotion to me. Even his body remained closed off, leaving me with nothing. No rapid heartbeat, no faint glistening sweat smell of fear. Nothing.

"Yet, you didn't run and hide with the rest of your lawyer friends. Aren't you scared?" I looked up at him with innocently deceiptful eyes as my hand began to straighten and smooth his tie out.

"No."

This is why I hadn't killed Lindsey straight away upon my arrival. Of course he wasn't at the top, at least he hadn't been until about ten minutes ago when I made Holland my appetizer. Now Lindsey was the very last remainder of the Special Project division. I wondered if he would be grateful for the promotion I had just practically handed him. I remembered the long afternoons I would spend in Lindsey's apartment, waiting for him to come home from work. The soul harsh and burning through my skin as I stared into the sun's rays. When he came home he stank of this building and so he would shower. Despite the smug exterior he felt things that no man who worked in this building should ever feel. Yes, he was fun for a human.

Sweet laughter erupted from my throat as I put both my hands on his the sides of his neck forcing him to look right in my eyes. I was leaving bloodied stains across his skin and yet he still wouldn't flinch. Would only look directly in my eyes. It only made me laugh a little longer.

"I despise being used. Do you understand that, Lindsey? I suppose you would actually." I said, still holding his rapt attention.

"I nev-"

"Ah." I cut him off, shaking my head at him. "I've already killed Holland, and the rest of your friends in Special Divisions." Lilah was especially fun, I wasn't sure that she would ever stop screaming. "Congratulations. It seems as though you've been promoted."

Buffy. What a simple name for such a simple girl, yet it mattered not. She had given to me what I desired most. Frankly I was still unsure why it was that I was longing for the scythe. The pathetic minions I had do my bidding informed me that the scythe was connected to the slayer and the power that she wields. How curious, the slayer had never quite interested me the way that she would William. He would seek her out over the centuries only to have her corpse as a trophy by the end of the fight. It used to burn Angel so, to see the thing of his doing destroying the one who was supposed to be champion of light. Honestly, I didn't understand why he cared so much. When the chosen one dies another is simply reborn. I supposed that was how this mistake came to be. Buffy. How did two slayers exist at one time? Did something happen to dear Faithy that forced the scales, the balance to tip in a way it never had. At least not in my four centuries of existance. Yes, it seems as though I had been doing more than my fair share of thinking about the slayer. Slayers. The power that they were chosen to bare, that thing that I would be stripping from them both in the coming days. Buffy had no idea, simple creature that she was, but she had just guaranteed her own demise.

It wasn't too long after I'd acquired the scythe that I finally had the answers I had been seeking. The pope himself had sent me here, and it made me quiver in anticipation. Why had the holy man been so concerned over the existance of slayers and their scythe? Perhaps the church knew more than they let on. It certainly wouldn't save them, I had already killed off their leader. He tasted like chicken. Of course the Vatican never went long without their messiah and I had no doubt a new Pope had already been sworn in. Perhaps when I was done creating chaos on the Hellmouth I would return to The Immortal. He would no doubt be very cross with me for ignoring his warnings about murdering the Pope. I had never feared The Immortal's wrath and it was doubtful that I would start anytime soon. However, it did pique my curiousity. He knew as well as I did the longer he told me not to do something, it would only drive the want, the need even further. I was truely wicked and he had thought as much outloud on several occasions. There was something he wasn't telling me. Playing a game with me? Perhaps. Now the scythe was in my possession and whatever game The Immortal was trying to play was of little consequence.

Once I had fed and my victim's blood ran hot and silky through my veins I decided it was long past time to venture back to my estate. The sun would be up soon, no doubt, it was Southern California after all. The cruel irony of placing a Hellmouth directly under the harsh Californian rays was not lost on me.

"How long?" I demanded as I walked into the front door and closed it shut behind me. My soldiers of darkness (or dim-witted slaves, whichever term you preferred) were gathered around books of darkest magicks. There were certain privelages that went along with being the Master's apostle. Power and influence were certainly a few of those things, and an endless supply of idiots at my beck and call. Death was a beautiful thing.

"We've been waiting for you." The smartest of all of them, stopped in front of me and gave me an anxious look. This was no doubt his greatest endeavor, bowing to my every whim. Cute.

"Have you?" A slow delicious smirk traveled across my lips as I looked up at him. What was his name again? Oh, it didn't matter.

"Yes. We've figured it out. The ritual has to be performed on the night of the full moon. As soon as it's complete the scythe should transfer the energy of the slayer to whoever is holding it."

My smile only grew wider as he spoke. His voice tended to grate, so it was good for his sake that he was telling me exactly what I wanted to hear. Soon there would be no more slayer, and nothing would be more powerful then me. Nothing would stop me, and Angelus along with the rest of the world would only be able to tremble in my wake.