Angel didn't know how long he'd sat there, nourishing Xander with his own lifeblood. He didn't want it to end, but he was starting to get dizzy, so, with a twinge of regret, he eased his wrist out of Xander's mouth. Xander blinked at him sleepily, then rolled into a ball and fell asleep. That was good, he would heal faster this way. Absentmindedly Angel started to stroke the silky soft hair; that had grown so long since he last had seen him.

A warm hand touched his shoulder. He looked up. The girl was standing in front of him, handing him a plastic cup, filled to the brim with blood. Grateful he accepted the cup. The blood still held the kind of warmth that only a living body could produce. He drank and barely suppressed a shudder. Rat blood! It was almost alive, but still... rat blood was really nasty, one of the worst things around. Still he emptied the cup, needing the blood to replace what he had lost. He grimaced at the vile aftertaste.

"I'm sorry, but that is all we have." The girl murmured. "It's OK," he muttered, but it wasn't. Rat blood, his childe was feeding on rat blood. That was not, absolutely not acceptable! He turned to the girl. "Is that all he eats?" "When he remembers to eat, then yes. Sometimes we have to force him."

That was worse than he had expected. There was no way his childe could develop properly while surviving only on the meager means of rat blood. He needed real blood, human blood. Come to think about it, he realized that he himself needed to change his diet. It was unthinkable to stay on the unhealthy diet of animal blood... yet he had no desire to start hunting humans again. He was startled when he realized that he thought of humans as equal lifeforms, even felt protective about some of them. Well, there were other ways to supply themselves with human blood, that wouldn't harm humans in any way. He had to talk with Nwal Edesch...

Angel was abruptly ripped out of his thoughts, when his cell phone started to ring. With a sigh he answered the damned thing and was a bit surprised when a worried Cordelia started to bombard him with questions. He started to understand her worry when he looked at his watch and realized that he had been gone for more than 14 hours. Patiently he listened to Cordelia's rambling while he was trying to find the best way to persuade Xander to come with him.

"Angel?" Cordelia sounded annoyed and he had learned the hard way that there was no greater force on earth than a annoyed Cordelia. "Angel, are you listening to me?" "Cordelia...? I'm sorry, I was... distracted." He could hear her mental gears starting to kick up at that answer, but at least she would stop sending deathglares at the phone... he was convinced that her glares were extremely unhealthy... at least for him.

"Distracted? By what? Where are you, anyway? You simply vanished into thin air, never saying where you were going and all I know is that you tried to meet that 'voice' person..." She stopped as a new thought hit her, "Angel, did you find the Voice?" "Yes," he answered softly, looking tenderly at the figure rolled into a tight ball on the floor, his face relaxed in sleep had started to heal. He had found the Voice and so much more. His childe, his mate, his heart and unity. "And? Come on, Angel. Did he do it? Details, I want details." "It's a long story... a very long story and this is not the right time. I'll tell you when I'm back at the office, OK?" "OK. Bye." He could hear her pouting at the phone as she disconnected and couldn't suppress a grin at her childish tone. Cordelia was really one of a kind.

The girl was looking at him intensely and for the first time he noticed that he didn't know anything about her, not even her name. She seemed to be a big part of his childe's life and he wanted to know more about her. His eyes drifted back to his childe. "You want to take him with you, don't you?" Her gentle question took him by surprise, yet he was able to answer with a nod. He wanted to have him with him all the time, was addicted to his smile, needed to see him, touch him, be with him.

"Then come, I want to show you something." Curious he followed her. She stopped in front of several children, sleeping children. Many of them shared their simple mattresses and blankets with others. "This," she pointed at a small blond boy, "is Mario, this is Jenna, he is Sharim and this is Tracy." Her finger pointed to each child as she recited their names. "Jeremy, Mike, Joey, Laura, Anne, Wei-Ling, Toby, Julia, Peter, Sharon. I am Feli and we all are Ghost's children and when you take him with you, we will follow."

Angel looked at the children, stunned. Fifteen, Xander was taking care of fifteen street children. True, he had seen them on the way inside, but then he had been so focused on the possible meeting with Heaven's voice. Now was the first time he looked, really looked at them.

Small, they were so small, was his first thought. And some of them looked really thin. But they were sleeping peacefully, without the fear of being kicked out of their sleeping place, without the fear of being abused by gangs or older street people. He looked at the children and realized that here were fifteen children that wouldn't prostitute themselves out of hunger or need. Fifteen souls Xander had saved. These children were his childe's adopted family and it would be the worst mistake he could make, if he tried to separate them.

He was going to need a bigger home.

"Do you think they will come with me? Do they know what he is, what I am?" He voiced his next worries.

"We all know that Ghost isn't human, yes. He insists on warning them about the supernatural dangers on the streets as soon as they come to us. They don't know about you yet, but I'm sure that will change soon enough. And will we come with you? Of course we will. Ghost trusts you and I can feel that you don't want to harm us. So why wouldn't we follow you and Ghost? And before you ask, yes, Ghost will come with you. He needs you and even when he was afraid of you, he longed for you."

Angel lowered his head, ashamed. "I didn't wanted him to be afraid of me. I just wanted to love him, but every time I came close to him he lashed out at me. When I lost my soul I decided the easiest way to win his heart was by turning him, making him mine... I wanted him to become my mate... you should know, when vampires mate, they mate for life. Unmated we are not monogamous, but mated we stay eternally faithful to our chosen partners...." He wanted to say something more, but Feli interrupted him with a squeak. "Ghost! You promised not to do that anymore!" He turned around and there stood Xander. His face was paler than normal, but his features were healed and there was that look on his face. That look of longing, need, love and insecurity.

He stood and strode towards him. "You listened?" Xander nodded, his hands starting to sign. "Do you really mean it?" Feli translated. Tenderly Angel stroked his check. "Yes, I mean it. Every single word and more." He pulled him into a hug, continuing to stroke his face. "You are my one, the one that completes me, the one both demon and soul wanted to be with, the one *I* need to be with." The body in his arms started to tremble as he murmured into his ear. Xander's hands were shaking when he gestured. 'I want to come with you, there is so much I need to know and I too, want to be with you, but the children...' "We will take them with us, Xander, we won't leave them behind. It might get a bit crowded, but I think I can find us a bigger home. A home for us and your adopted humans and my adopted humans. A place were we can be happy." He felt the last bit of tension drain out of Xander's body and knew he had just taken his last worry away. And he would come with him. He and his children. Now there was only one fear left. What was he going to tell Cordelia?

***

Ghost looked around Angel's home. He was impressed. It was a bit dark and sparsely decorated, but it was spacious and very much Angel. He smiled at Angel, who had just helped Sharim, the smallest of the children, out of the sewers. Mentally he shook his head. They hadn't needed to go through the sewers, even with the sun high in the sky. Angel had been a bit surprised when he had been told that he wouldn't burn in the sunlight anymore, with him being undying and all. But Angel had thought that it would draw too much attention if they went through the city, he, Ghost and fifteen children. And Ghost had known that Angel was right. If only the sewers didn't smell so bad! Especially to his enhanced senses.

Ghost shook himself out of the fleeting thoughts, watching as the children started to explore their new home. He couldn't suppress a smile as Angel barely rescued his ax out of the curious hands of Wei-Ling. He should have warned him that the young girl loved all types of hand-weapons, but it looked like Angel had learned that already... the hard way.

Joey and Laura were chasing Mario around the kitchen table, while Jeremy and Toby had started to pull books out of the shelves and were now leafing through 'Monstra Noctis' and 'Dalek's Encyclopedia Demonica', trying to impress each other with the pictures of demons they were finding. Time to help Angel a little and get them settled. He put two fingers into his mouth and released the loudest, sharpest whistle ever heard outside New York. The children stopped what they were doing, looking at him expectantly. With Felis' help and a few comments from Angel, they finally started to settle down.

He had just finished telling Toby that, no, he couldn't color all the nice monsters he had found in Angels copy of 'Monstra Noctis', when he heard a squeal behind him. A voice he had thought he would never hear again. He turned around and the young woman, who had just been shocked by the appearance of a bunch of children in Angel's home, was turning chalky white.

"Oh my God. Xander."

He moved just in time to catch Cordelia when she fainted.

***

Cordelia had seen a lot of strange things in her life. She had almost been turned into a Frankenstein-like monster, had staked numerous vampires, had seen a major-demon get toasted and several other odd things but this took the cake. Her old boyfriend, whom she had believed dead for more than two years, was hovering over her, looking at her with worried eyes. This had to be a dream! Xander was dead. Dead at Angelus' hands. And dead people couldn't sit on the edge of the couch, gently wetting her face with a washcloth, right?

"Xander?" She murmured and the Xanderghost nodded at her, still wetting her face with that damn cloth. "But you're dead." She protested weakly. He shook his head and then her heart nearly stopped. Xander changed. His face took on the ridged features she had seen way too often in her young life. He took her hand in his too cold ones and pressed it against his face. Slowly she let her hand wander over his brow-ridges, down to the cheekbone. He closed his golden eyes, breathed a soft sigh. "How?" She needed to know. "I did it." Angel answered her question in a soft voice. "When I was Angelus, almost two and a half years ago. Xander, he woke up a vampire and still had his soul. He couldn't take it and ran into the sunlight. I believed him dead." Cordelia watched a single red tear trailing down Xander's face. She wiped the tear away. Xander had a soul, he *was* still Xander. He was different but he was still here.

"That is not all, Cordy." Angel's voice interrupted her musings. "I think you should settle down, cause this could take a while." She raised an eyebrow, but snuggled down in Angel's comfy chair. "I'm comfy. Start explaining." Angel smiled a half-smile at her commanding tone and launched in the story.

*****
Part 5:

"So let me get this straight," Cordelia looked from Angel to Xander and back, "You," she pointed at Angel, "turned Xander because you were in love with him. He," she turned around to Xander, barely noticing Angels answering nod. "He ran away because he was afraid you would use him." Xander looked down, not meeting her eyes. "Then it turns out that he is 'Heavens singer', but he is mute and the adoptive father of fifteen, my god, fifteen children! Is there anything I forgot?" She let herself slump down into the chair with a dramatic sigh.

"Well," Angel tried not to meet here unbelieving stare, "there is something else. You know I searched for 'Heavens voice', because I hoped he would anchor my soul to me... ." "And, did he do it? Anchor your soul, I mean. No more freaky Angelus appearances in the future?" "Not exactly," Angel rubbed his temples, he could feel the beginnings of a serious headache... a true sign that he had been around Cordelia too long. "Xander made sure that I could never lose my soul again..." Cordelia squealed in delight. "...because he merged my soul with my demon," he continued. The squealing stopped. He started to count. One, two, three... "WHAT?!"

Angel had expected this. He had known she would be furious, yet the knowledge didn't made it any better. Cordelia had turned to Xander, "Are you fucking nuts?" She screamed, looking around for the closest stake. "Merging his soul with insano guy! Dammit, there's a reason, tons of reasons, that Angelus shouldn't be around and you made him come to the fore again!" Cordy had found a stake and was getting closer to Xander, who looked at her with wide eyes, seemingly paralyzed with fear. And she was still advancing.

Angel growled when she got too close to his childe and shifted features. With a startled yelp he fell to his knees. It hurt! His growl changed, becoming a whimper when the unexpected pain pulsed through him. It felt like the time when he had digged himself out of his grave, when he had just been turned. The pain of rebirth. His head hurt, his spine, back, hell he hurt everywhere! Dimly he could hear Cordelias worried voice, yet he couldn't concentrate.

As sudden as the pain had started it stopped again. Angel became aware that the room was silent, except for his harsh, unneeded panting. He looked up, seventeen pair of eyes stared at him, some in wonder, some with joy and shock. What had happened? He felt strange, yet somehow better, like something that had been terribly wrong for a long time had been finally righted.

Slowly he pushed himself up to his feet, his tail automatically outbalancing... wait! Tail?! He looked down and yes.. there was a long, brown furred tail, moving restlessly around his legs. Numbly he stared at the new limb, a small part of him wondering how this thing could have grown out of his spine without destroying his pants... until he noticed that the tip of the tail was furless and as sharp as a blade. That explained it, but not his other, more urgent question. Why did he have a tail?

Then it hit him. Angelus, he had had a tail, when they had been outside their body and he had taken over the tail when they had merged. But that would mean... one hand shoot to his back, the other to his face. No ridges, he couldn't feel the ridges and he knew they should be there... yet they weren't. His other hand encountered feathers, soft, smooth feathers. He turned his head and there they were, as large and as gleaming white as he remembered. Wings, and he bet the horns were there as well.

"Angel?" Cordelia asked softly, not believing what she had just seen with her own eyes. "Angel, is that you?" He nodded, not feeling like he should disturb this moment by speaking. "This is, oh my God, that is so.... I don't believe it!" She reached out with one hand, carefully, like the image before her was fragile and would break and disappear. Barely touching she trailed the outline of one of the feathers. "OK, I believe it, but how... why?" "I don't know, but I feel good... whole"

He shifted his position, concentrated an could feel the wings fanning out. "And you don't feel the need to sent the world to hell or run around, sucking people dry, do you?" She asked worriedly. "No," he shook his head, "but..." "Yes?" Angel sighed and ran a hand through his hair, feeling, for the first time, the two slightly curved horns growing out of his head. This wouldn't be very easy. "I'll go back drinking human blood again and Xander," he locked eyes with his childe, "you will drink it, too" Xander shook his head emphatically and Cordelia opened her mouth to protest loudly.

"Stop, Cordelia! You can complain about it later, but now you *will* listen, understood?" For a short moment his eyes switched color, becoming crimson red instead of the normal vampiric gold. Cordelias mouth snapped shut and she nodded mutely. Angel turned to Xander. "Listen to me, Xander. Your body needs the human blood, the nutrients only provided by human blood. But I'm not saying that you should go out and start hunting humans. That would be wrong. But you don't have to. I know of a tribe of Liutiki demons here in the city. They need human flesh to survive, but they are not able to hunt humans... they are too small. So they have founded a firm that deals with the disposal of biohazard and made a deal with the hospitals in the city. They get what they need and get paid for the disposal of 'human waste'."

He stopped, looked at Xander. Even without knowing sign-language or being a mindreader he could see the big question marks in his eyes. "A short time ago I helped one of them and he asked me if I wanted to tap into their deal with the bloodbanks. See, the bloodbanks uses them for their wastedisposal too and while the Liutiki eat human flesh and bone, they can't consume the blood. Part of it they sell to several demon bars, but partly they have to dispose it as waste. So I'm going to set us up for a steady supply of blood that humans donated freely and that otherwise would be thrown away as waste. Is that such a bad thing?"

Slowly Xander shook his head, smiling. No that, that wasn't really bad, it was actually a good thing to do.

Cordelia cleared her throat. "Uh Angel, when you have known about this possibility for some time, why didn't you do it anytime sooner?" He ducked his head. "Because I thought I should be punished and there are few punishments worse than the denial of human blood." "Oh," Cordelia muttered and there really wasn't anything she could say.

Angel tried to sit down, but his wings and the tail didn't made it easy to get comfortable. There had to be a way... he concentrated at switching back and found it as easy as his normal change of features. Well, it was a weird feeling when the wings shrunk back to become a part of his back again, but finally he was able to sit. He looked at Cordelia, who had been awful quiet, too quiet for her standards. "Cordy, are you OK with this?" He needed to know. She was one of his few real friends and her opinion mattered to him, even if he would never admit it out loud when she was around. True, she hadn't tried to stake him yet or thrown him her patented deathglare, but he needed her to say it.

Cordy rubbed her eyes sighing. "Yeah, I think. Well I think... I mean that's a lot to think about and I think I should go home now, eat a lot of ice-cream and have a long, futile talk with Dennis. So I'm going now.... Oh by the way, Wes called. He's coming around tomorrow. You know, he had found some other *really* exciting dusty boring scroll. He hopes you can translate it. You do speak Xigrest, do you? Bye Xan, bye kids." And she vanished via the door.

***

Ghost stared after her. Cordy-speak, almost as effective and as confusing as Wollow-babble. He hadn't heard it for a long time, but it hadn't changed a iota. Next to him Angel was groaning. He turned his head and saw the patent pained Angel-face. Ghost couldn't help it, really he tried not to, but it was too strong for him. For the first time since he had lost his old life he was able to forget, forget everything and be drawn into the moment. And he dissolved into bouts of helpless silent laughter.

***

Angel groaned. Wesley, he totally had forgotten him. The threat of a furious Cordelia had been too overwhelming, he had forgotten about the ex-watcher. True, he was almost sure that Wes wouldn't react as violent as Cordy, but he might try to poke and prod him, until he *wished* he was dead, when he found out about his new appearance. The fact that Cordelia had gone into overbouncing mood wasn't helping either, for he *knew* that she would come to the office tomorrow, complaining to him that he had let her eat so much of the figure-killing ice-cream, despite the fact that he couldn't have stopped her from raiding the fridge, even if he had been with her.

Xanders shoulders were shaking. At first Angel thought that he was crying, but when he saw his face, he realized that Xander was laughing. Almost violent bouts of laughter shook through him. It was scary in a way, because it was completely, almost eerily, silent, but the mimic was truly Xander. His childe was laughing, probably at him, but he was laughing. And suddenly all his worries and sorrows vanished into the background, not mattering anymore. All that mattered was that Xander was happy. Angel could feel his own lips twitch upwards and there was something ... bubbling inside him. It felt unusual, but he decided to go with it. He threw back his head and laughed.

***

Angel woke up the following evening, because he felt strangely heavy. He raised his head and found that one of the boys had curled himself on his chest and was sleeping deeply, drooling a bit onto his stomach. Another child was hugging his legs, she too was deep asleep. He looked around. There were few children sleeping around, lying on the most comfortable surfaces of his apartment. Obviously he himself did also count as a comfy surface. That left him with a small problem. How could he get up from the couch without waking the kids? He was hungry and he needed a shower. His head fell back to the couch as he thought about that problem.

Footsteps... and a wellknown heartbeat. It looked like the answer to his question was just walking down the stairs to his apartment. He raised his head just in time to see Wesley coming walking into his field of view. The look on his face was priceless.

"Angel???" "Shhh, Wes. Or you'll wake them up" And that would be a bad thing, because he didn't have control over the kids like Xander or Feli did. He shuddered inwardly at the thought of brightly colored woodcuts in his priceless collection of demon-books.

"Could you?" He eyed the sleeping boy and then looked back to Wesley. Wes blinked at him owlishly, but then he seemed to understand. Careful he lifted the boy from his comfy sleeping place. Angel did the same with the little leghugger, stood up and rearranged them on the couch. He turned to Wesley, who was obviously bursting with questions. "Could we talk about this upstairs? I don't want to wake them and, trust me, this will get loud." To his great relief Wesley decided not to ask any question and just walked to the office. Angel made a beeline to the fridge. The shower could wait a while, breakfast couldn't. He shuddered involuntary as he chugged down the pig blood. Tomorrow, he promised himself, tomorrow he would drink the real stuff as breakfast, he just had to set up the supply line tonight.

He wiped his mouth and went upstairs, there was no use in letting Wes wait.

*****
Part 6:

Ghost woke up rather abruptly, when someone kicked him into his side. He looked around. Someone had put him into Angel's bed and the children had followed him. Nine of the children were draped on and around him in an almost impossible jumble of limbs. Sharim mewled and kicked out again. Obviously he had another of his nightmares. Slowly he worked one of his hands free, reaching out to the badly dreaming boy. When he touched the boy, Sharim tensed for a moment, until he seemingly recognized the cold hand and snuggled back into Ghosts side, his nightmares gone with the lightest touch of a loving hand. Ghost smiled for a moment. He wished all the problems could be solved so easily.

Unconsciously his chest started to vibrate with silent purrs, for even while his purrs were completely soundless, the gentle vibrating of his body helped to ease the children into a more peaceful sleep. The side effect of his purring was that he normally didn't slept alone, there was always one of the kids that couldn't sleep. He looked around counting heads.

Jeremy was missing... he normally was one of the first to come to him with sleeping problems. Either he had fallen asleep without the help of his purrs or - and he couldn't hide a small grin at that thought - or he had found a perfect replacement. Since vampires generally tended to purr while sleeping, he could assume that some of his children had deemed Angel as a perfect comfortable sleeping place.

With a smile on his face he let himself drifting back into the comfortable haze of half-sleep. The lulling sound of the children's beating hearts, the warmth of their mortal bodies, it all drew him deeper into the realm of sleep.

***

"So you are telling me that your childe Xander, who is also Heavens Voice, didn't anchor your soul, but merged it with your demon, with Angelus?" Angel nodded, quite thankful for the fact that Wesley took the news relatively calm.

Relatively, for he could see and smell his emotions. Wesley was uncomfortable with him, he suppressed his fear, but that didn't mean that he wasn't afraid of him, for he was afraid... a lot. "Then a part of you consist of Angelus emotions and needs, right?" He nodded again. "So how does this being merged affect you, there are lots of contradictional behavior-patterns between your soul and your demon, how did you worked around them?"

Angel frowned. "I don't know. It just happened. There was no great inner conflict, no final battle. One moment we were two, the next I am one. Whole. Do you have any idea how it felt to be finally healed from that separation in my mind? There were two, fighting, for a hundred years, for dominance of my mind and body. The soul normally had the upper hand because of the curse, but that didn't meant that Angelus was silent. He wasn't. He was loud, shouting, begging, cursing, doing anything to gain my attention. And there was no way to escape from that voice, it was inside me. The only way to silence him would have been death, but I couldn't do that."

He paused, debated how far he could go with Wesley, how much he could tell him. "I *am* different now, Wesley and I don't know how that will affect us all or how long it will take to relearn myself. But that is not the only thing that you should know.... during the merging my soul and my demon were outside my body. We saw each others as we really were... and it looks like my physical appearance as a vampire has changed to the merged appearance of the spiritual body of my demon and my soul. There is no other explanation for what has happened."

Wesley looked at him, fascinated. "Show me." His voice was tinged with excitement. Angel closed his eyes, concentrated and felt the change wash over him. He opened his eyes to gauge Wesley's reaction. The ex-watcher was staring at him with wonderment in his eyes. Wonderful...," he whispered, "that's... I thought ..." He stopped and simply stood there, watching the vision in front of him.

***

Ghost was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming, he had had this dream many times before... He stood in a cave, water was dripping somewhere in the darkness and he could hear the echoing screams of a tortured creature. His feet carried him closer to the middle of the cave, closer to the screams. Bizarre stone pillars emerged out of the shadows, only to reemerge with the darkness as he passed by. The painful whimpers and screams became louder as he came closer to his goal. He already knew what he would find, yet he couldn't stop himself.

In the middle of the cave, there was a cage. Its bars were emitting a pale green light and they were as sharp as razorblades. The floor of the cage was consisting of sharpened knife-edges. Inside this cage was the creature, chained to the floor with heavy chains. Everytime the creature moved the sharp edges were cutting him and his blood flowed to be swallowed by the hungry floor. The creature whimpered in pain and he reached out for it, only to discover that his hands were slick with blood... the creatures blood.

Ghost's mind reeled. Normally he would have woken up now, his mouth locked into a silent scream, but he was still here. Slowly he stepped closer to the cage. The creature looked up, looked at him with pleading eyes. "...help..me..." It was barely the shadow of a whisper. Ghost stared at the creature. It was him, yet not. It was his demon, but he was suffering so much. "...please.. ??" The demon begged. Ghosts heart arched as he heard the almost hopeless voice. He needed to help, he simply had to help. But how? "How can I help you? Who looked you in?" "You... did... hurts... don't hate... me..." Ghost was perplexed. How could he have locked his demon into such a cage? He touched the cagebars, images flooded him and then he understood.

The cage was made out of hate. Each time his demon cut himself he was swamped with the hateful feelings and memories Ghost was having for vampires. And there were a lot of them. Jesse being turned into a vamp by some nameless, faceless vampire, only to die when he fell on the stake he had been holding, turning to dust in front of his stunned friend. Buffy's lifeless body, drowned by the Master, random minions attacking, killing or turning his classmates, forcing him to stake people he had known before.... The chains binding the demon were formed out of his fear. Fear of what he could become, memories of fangs and pain and helplessness.

So the only way to free his demon was to stop hating and fearing him. He looked at his demon, who was so different from what he had imagined his demon to be. It was his own face, that was looking back at him, his own voice that pleaded with him to stop the pain. There were differences, but not of the type he had expected. The physical differences he had expected, for while he had sung he had been able to see the merging of Angel's soul and demon. So he had known how Angel's demon had looked like, had drawn his conclusions, but the other aspect he hadn't been able to foresee: his demon was afraid of him. He could see the fear clearly in his golden eyes. His demon, he looked so young. It looked like he was watching himself, cowering before an unknown danger.

"What is your name?" Ghost didn't know why he had asked, but he felt like he needed to know. "I don't have a name. No one gave me one." The demon looked down sadly. "You didn't gave me a name." Something melted in Ghost's heart as he watched the nameless demon, so clearly upset by the fact that he hadn't had a name. He couldn't hate him, he simply couldn't. And when he realized this fact, the bars of the cage dissolved into nothingness and the floor became a smooth surface.

The demon looked around and, for the first time, his field of view wasn't blocked by the wicked bars. He touched the floor and it didn't cut him. Ghost could see the joy in his eyes, the relief of being freed from the pain. True, the demon was still chained, Ghost still feared what he could become if he let him roam free. And the demon was still nameless, but at least this Ghost could change.

"Hey," he called softly, waiting until his demon looked at him. "I'm sorry, I didn't know how my feelings were affecting you. And I have no idea how long it will take until the chains will go, but at least I can give you a name." Ghost paused for a little while, then he continued. "You know, you remind me a lot of myself, well, before... and since I don't use my old name anymore, maybe you would like to have it.... Alexander." The smile on the newly dubbed Alexander's face told him all he needed to know.

***

"I have found something." Wesley sounded excited. Angel looked up. After the ex-watcher had overcome the phase where he had simply looked at him, he had quickly slipped into research mode, trying to find information about creatures with his appearance. Without successes.. until now. "Are you familiar with the story of the thousand tribes of Ur and the prophecy of it's rebirth?" Angel shook his head. Wesley took a deep breath and then he began.

"In the beginning God created humans. But when he created the first woman, God became a bit overenthusiastic and the woman became too different from the man. When Lillith found out that she and Adam were incompatible, she ran away, finding meager solace in the arms of devils.

Lillith got pregnant and her children were the first demons... they gave into their demonic urges and Lillith couldn't love them. She got pregnant again and again, trying to bare children she could love, that would allow her to be a mother to them, but every time the children were tainted with the devils essence and rejected her. Finally she turned away from the devils, wandering into the desert, to find forgetfulness in the ocean of nothingness.

God hadn't forgotten about Lillith, he had watched her and when she turned away from the devils, he sent her an angel to help her. Raphael, the gentle healer angel. They stayed together for a long time and they fell in love with each other. Lillith finally asked God to allow them to have children. God blessed them and Lillith bared twins, a boy and a girl and finally Lillith was able to be a mother.

Her children grew up, being taught by her and Raphael. And they went and gathered Lillith other children around them, as well as several trusting human families and together they build Ur, the city of the thousand tribes. The twins were the first of the Elutarym, they were balancing out the differences between the tribes and helped Lillith's other children to overcome their violent demonic tendencies. Together with their children, Raphael and Lillith ruled the city and Ur grew to become a heaven for all type of creatures."

Wesley stopped, showing Angel a careful colored drawing he had found in the old volume. A man with wings, a woman with horns, tail, fangs and claws, Raphael and Lillith. Two others, a man and a woman, who looked like a combination of their parents, who looked like him. Iofiel and Kochab, Lillith's children, the first Elutarym. "They look like me, but how is that possible?"

"Well," Wesley had read a little further, "It is written here that the Elutarym procreated through a ritual of bloodexchange with humans. Over a period of three mooncircles the Elutary that wanted to become a parent and a willing human had to exchange blood. The human would be slowly changed into a Elutary. And while the Elutarym ate normal food, they also needed human blood to live and the people of the city gave it freely to them. In exchange the Elutarym protected and teached them, a true symbiotic relationship."

"Sounds a little like domestic vampires to me." Angel commented. "But how do I fit into this story?"

"There were people, who were envious of the peaceful city. They called themselves the Descendants of Cain, but the author writes that they weren't related with the first murderer, just using the name to strike fear in the hearts of other people. These people had very bloodthirsty habits, they were said to be cannibals and ruthless warriors. They had heard of the Elutarym and wanted their power for themselves. Their mages weakened the spiritual defenses of the city and they stormed Ur. The Elutarym fought with everything they had, but the tribe of the Cain followers was to big and one after one the Elutarym fell. When Lillith saw the last of the Elutary fell, she cursed the intruders to become creatures of darkness, godless and ruled by their baser needs, vile and to be hated by everyone. The Descendants of Cain became the Chajalahat Uoluuht, the Eater of the dead."

Again Wesley showed him a picture. The artist had done everything to make the Chajalaht appear as vile as he could. Beings, half human, half worms, with stick-like arms, fingers that were mostly claws and round mouths that were filled with rows of fangs.

"Raphael had been wounded in the battle and Lillith had to watch him return to heaven, not knowing when he would come back. She had lost her children and her husband and God saw her wounded heart, allowed her to fall asleep, until her children returned to earth and Elutarym again roamed the earth." Wesley closed the book. "That's a sad story Wesley, but how do I fit in?" "Think about it Angel, the Descendants of Cain had many disgusting habits, one of them was to drink the blood of the fallen warriors." "The Elutarym," Angel realized, "they drank the blood of the dead Elutarym." Wesley nodded. "It appears that way, for not all of the intruders changed into Chajalahat when Lillith cursed them. Some stayed humanlike and disappeared into the darkness and nobody ever found out what had happened to them."

"Vampires," Angel muttered, "they were the first vampires." "Yes. And while their appearance was still human, Lilliths curse affected them as well." Wesley started to polish his glasses. "It looks like you broke Lilliths curse when your soul and Angelus merged." Angel sat down heavily. "I'm not a vampire anymore?" "No, but as far as we know, you'll still need blood to live." Angel rubbed his temples, this all was happening too fast. He needed time to think and he wanted to check on Xander and the kids.

"Angel?"

"I need some time, Wesley. It is so much...." He stopped midsentence and stared to rub his temples again. Wesley understood. "I'll come back later." He said and left, leaving Angel to ponder all the meanings and consequences of their discovery.

*****