His nights were spent on the hunt. When he fed, it was on unsatisfying animal blood, and the occasional bag from the blood bank. He could feel his demon roaring inside of him, but there was no other choice.

Sometimes he awoke from the half-sleep during the day, the hunger roaring through his veins, barely recalled dreams of hunts still coursing through his hunger-fogged mind. Horror registered dimly as he went about the half-life that he lived, realizing that he'd been hunting had been humans.

It was a week after he'd gone into the club when his hunger overode common sense and he fed from one of the vampires that he hunted.

The blood was sweet, tinged with the power of the Master, like lightening compared to the cold, dead blood he fed off of when he could. Afterwards, he could feel the hunger inside of him, quelled but singing for the blood of his own kind, and more for the humans.

He took to stalking humans, not for food, but out of instinct. Sometimes it actually led him to vampires who were stalking the same prey. This led to the raging hunger controlling him, driving him to subsist more and more on the blood of his fellows.

Going into the Bronze became a trial of both patience and control. His eyes seemed drawn more to throats, to graceful blood-filled bodies, to the prey which packed into the small building. Sometimes he had to flee, leaving the vampiric prey behind so he wouldn't feed on the humans. He came close, so close to feeding off of anyone who got close.

The night he encountered Luke, he had resolved never to return to the Bronze again.

He was in the deep shadows, watching a group of college co-eds, hunger singing through his veins as he watched them, the demon whispering its desire for blood into his ears. Then a sharper sense of power penetrated the fog around his mind, and he looked around. His eyes narrowed as he recognized Luke leaving the club with a lovely brunette hanging on one arm, and a glaze-eyed blonde being dragged along by her friend. The blonde seemed familiar, but he was already intent on moving through the crowd, following Luke and the girls.

Luke got outside and away before Angel could confront him, but he could sense the elder vampire, and followed swiftly behind. The elder got as far as the graveyard before Angel overtook him.

He threw Luke to the ground, then descended on him, the hunger roaring through him like fire. Dimly, he heard one of the girls scream, and the other gasp loudly in shock. But he was too busy fighting Luke to care about either of them.

Presently, he came awake to the fact that he'd completely destroyed Luke. He stood up slowly, brushing the dust off of himself.

Then Darla spoke from behind him.

"Pathetic."

He turned and snarled at her. He hungered for the blood in her veins, the warm blood from a recent feeding. Powerful, ancient blood. But she was his Sire, his creator. To destroy her would be... His eyes drifted to her neck, but her cold voice jolted him to somewhere in the realm of sense.

"You've descended so low as to this. Destroying your own kind is sick, Angelus, but feeding off of them..." Darla's smile was sharp and bitter. "Not even the Master has done this. You've reached a new low."

"Leave me alone."

She tilted her head. "But that's not what you want, is it, Angelus? You want my blood, don't you?" She lifted a bare arm and cut open a slash in the palm of her hand, extending the hand towards him. "Come and get it."

The smell of blood seemed to surround him, and he lurched towards her. But he stopped, then turned around, back to her. "No." he said hoarsely. "Leave me alone."

"I'm trying to help you. Drink, and be free. Join us again, Angelus, join us in the hunt. Kill, destroy, hunt. Drink. You're hungry now, so hungry even though you're feeding off your own kind. It will consume you. Come to me now and I can help you."

"I can help myself." he snarled, fighting for control.

"No, you can't." He turned halfway around, and saw her vanish into the shadows.

He didn't follow. Instead, he walked in the opposite direction.

He forgot the girls.

Buffy stood up from where she'd hidden behind a gravestone, and hurried over to the unconcious brunette, mind still whirring. What was that? she wondered, both repulsed and intrigued. What were those... people? Things...