Angel was awake. Still groggy, he stretched his limbs, but found them more leaden than usual. He was more concerned, however, with the images that were fresh in his mind from the long night he had left only hours before. Had it been just a dream? Or reality. He scanned the mansion which had so recently become his dwelling place with tired eyes. Even in the breaking light of dawn, and Angel's vampiric enhanced vision, he could not maked a dark figure that leaned upright in the corner against the wall.

"Hello?" Angel asked. His voice was tired and strained, but he made sure he was clear enough to be understood. "Buffy? Is that you?"

"You did it, Angel," came the indistinguishable voice from the shadows. "You finally came to your senses."

Oh God, were such as Angel's thoughts, Oh God, what have I done? What have I done?

"You're afraid," the figure began to sway with these words. "It smells sweet. I could never have imagined. All the vampires we have encountered together, and you never told me how good it felt. To take the smell of emotions into your nostrils, to taste fresh blood on your pallette. To have sex like an animal."

Angel flinched. He looked down on his bare body. The cuts and bruises were testemony to what had occured the night before. One in paticular, was bitterly painful to the touch. It went straight across his chest, and he could not escape thinking that the markings that surrounded it were those of ... teeth.

"You remember?" Angel looked away, as the strangers tauntings upset him. "Well, let me remind you." The stranger slowly stepped forward from the shadows. At first the figure was unrecognisable. It was definitely the body of a woman. Or at least, the remains of one. She had a pale, grey, sullen exterior. She held her head upright, and then swung it low, so that her whitish locks fell over her face. In a second her hair was whisked away from her face, and the stranger started to prance around the room.

"Oh, my Angel, my Angel!" she sung merrily.

"Shut up!" Angel growled. "Don't call me that."

"You didn't mind last night. In fact, last night it was pretty much 'anything goes'."

"You're so ugly," he frowned.

"And whose fault is that?" questioned the young vampiress. "This time yesterday, I was a fit healthy young girl, with all her future ahead of me. Sickening, in its own way. And you changed me. You turned me. You ... drank me." She pushed their naked bodies together and leaned forward to whisper in his ear: "In more ways than one."

"Who are YOU?" he snarled, pushing her away.

It took her a moment to regain her balance, still quite uncoordinated. "Don't you recognise me, lover?" she smirked. "I'm Buffy. And you killed me."

"You're not Buffy!" Angel cried. "Buffy was nothing like you."

"Fine, believe what you want ...", Buffy lowered herself onto the ground gradually. Eventually, she seperated her legs.

Angel turned away in disgust. When he turned back, she was gone.

* * *

"Hey, Angel!" Willow called, quite out of breath.

Angel turned to face her. It was obvious she had run quite a distance after him.

"I was just wondering if you had seen Buffy"

"What do you mean," Angel snapped. "Why would I have seen Buffy?"

"It's just, no one's seen her. Her mom's really worried. We've been searching for her since the end of school. We thought she might have come to you."

Angel frowned. After a long pause, he answered. "No, I haven't seen Buffy. Now will you get off my back?"

"Okay, fine," she turned and started to walk away. "Geez, talk about attitude," she murmured to herself.

Angel watched her dissapear into the night. He wanted to call after her. He wanted to say sorry. He wanted to drink her blood. NO! He musn't think like that. He must fight the urges. Though he had to admit that the previous night, when he had drained Buffy's blood, it was the most beautiful thing he had ever tasted. After nearly a century of abstenance when it came to human killing, he had finally broken his fast. And what a way to breakfast. The slick, colorful blood of a Slayer, spiced with teenage impulses of love, lust, hate and fear. It was an orgasmic cocktail, and it had settled wonderfully in his stomach.

Would anyone miss Willow? Would it matter if he tucked into her neck? Would anyone know? He pondered this for a second. Then he decided that the best thing he could do would be to continue to search for Buffy. Or what once was Buffy.

Angel knelt and sniffed the air around him. She had passed that way. He looked around for a direction she might have gone in. He has known her as a mortal, and as a vampire, he had shared with her something he had kept from everyone. However, he still had his soul. He was lucky that time.

He tracked Buffy's scent to a sewer tunnel. Peering down, he considered his options. It could have been trap. She had the advantage. She knew he would be searching for her and she would be ready. He hesitated. But something in him had been awakened the previous night. He had tasted what it was like to walk on the wild side. He remembred why it was that he had been Angelus in the first place.

In his days as a mortal in Ireland he had not cared for anyone or anything. So what had changed? Darla's promise of a life like no other was like honeysuckle and a the smell of sweaty flesh. He had not been hesitant in accepting. Why was he so different now? He hated to admit it, but blood tasted good. In fact, he did not hate to admit it. Why should he? Trying to make others feel better wasted too much time?

Why should he be so afraid of a confrontation with Buffy? Why should he be afraid of bloodshed? It was what he was. A walking corpse. Death was all around him; In him. What was the point in trying to hide it?

On that note, Angel lowered his body down the ladder. His leather boots splashed as they arrived at the unclean water. He fumbled in the dark for something to focus on. For something to adjust to. He found no relief. This told him that a vampire was near.

He made his way through the tunnel, and managed to catch onto a familiar scent. It was faint, and he could not quite make it out, but it could have been Buffy. As he continued, it became slightly more pungeont. That cofirmed without a shadow of a doubt that it was Buffy.

He geared up to strike as he passed through the next tunnel. Instead of a fight, he found the shredded remains of Buffy's white sweater. He could do nothing but laugh at such an obvious trick. That a vampire as old as him allowed himself to fall for the oldest trick in the book. Angel made his way up the nearest man hole.

Angel found himself in a surburban neighbourhood. It was Willow's street. The temptation was almost too much for him. His mouth was watering as he imagined her tender white flesh being torn from her frightened naked body. He found himself overcome, and decided to pay Willow a little visit.

He could just barely remember were it was that she lived. Upon arrival, Angel discovered that things could not have been more perfect. Willow was home alone. He had already entered the house on two previous occasions, so he had no trouble in slipping through the unlocked back door.

He made his way up the stairway like a predator staliking his prey. As he came upon the landing, he saw that she had only just exitted her en suite shower-room. Her towel was wrapped tightly around her fresh white flesh. Beholding this sight, Angel felt himself lose himself. He was lost to the vampire. After this there was no going back.

The door creaked open without hardly needing to be touched. Willow spun around, surprised.

"Angel! How did you get in here? What are you doing here?" she asked, exasperatedly.

"I just wanted to say sorry," Angel responded blankly, making no attempt to acknowledge his prey's blatant fear.

"F-f-for what, um, Angel?"

He leaned in towards her. "You know, for being so short with you earlier."

"That's okay," sharped Willow, moving away. "You-you-you can go now!"

"Hey,Willow, why so shaky?" asked Angel comfortingly. He placed his hands on her shoulders. "It's just me. Angel. There's nothing to be afraid of."

She went to answer, but he caught her eye. They looked deep into eachother. She was captivated. She was his. There was no going back.

"Don't be afraid," Angel told her. "Just lie back on the bed and relax."

"But, Angel ...?" she went to ask.

"Lie back on the bed, Willow."

"N-n-no," she responded, her bottom lip shaking like wildfire.

"Do as I say, Bitch!" he screamed, transforming his face into its vampire form, and striking her straight across the face.

Whimpering, she bent over the bed, whilst Angel started to unbuckle his belt.

"Big mistake," came a voice from the doorway. Angel pivoted to see who was there. "Hey, Angel. New you wouldn't be able to stay goody-goody forever," said Buffy. She smiled intensely, revealing her fully-vampiric fangs and crevassed face.

"Buffy," Angel grinned back. "How nice of you to come and see the show."

"Oh, Angel, Angel, Angel," Willow uttered. Angel turned to face her, only to discover that she too had transformed into something darker. "Haven't you figured it out yet?"

The three vampires stood in eerie silence. The recognition of his mistake had already shown across Angel's face. The two girls began to circle him, hungrily. This time, Angel did not feel paticularly like laughing. The trick that he had let himself fall for was bigger than he first anticipated. Now two hungry vampiresses were his predators. He may have been able to fend off one vampire, and probably two, but when one is a Slayer, and the other a witch, he did not think he paticularly stood much chance.

"There's no point running," Buffy told him. "You couldn't, even if you wanted to. I made one of the Kamikaze minions consecrate the surrounding ground.

Angel made a clear decision. Willow could not use her magic if she was unconcious, which would just leave Buffy. She was at twice her mortal strength, but she had more weak spots. He moved to strike for Willow, but she dodged out the way.

"Oh, Angel," Willow rasped. "You are having a THICK day aren't you? We don't want to fight. We want you to come with us - to be LIKE US."

"What are you talking about? I am like you?"

"Not completely," Buffy answered. With glee, she lifted her tanktop to reveal a satanic symbol emblazened across her naval. It was a symbol Angel knew only too well. Among other things, it had haunted his dreams for decades. The idea of not only being evil, but to be fundamentally evil. To be evil and nothing else. To be THE evil. It was a choice he had to make; a choice between being a beacon of hope and goodness, or to be a messenger of The First.

It all clicked into place. Buffy and Willow never had been vampires. The entire day had not even passed yet. It was an illusinon - a test from The First, or TPTB, or both, to see how he would react in that situation. To see if he would fall to darkness. To see if he could give up on himself. And Angel had failed the test. He had fallen to darkness, and had given up on himself, and had done so by his own free will.

The previous morning, Angel awoke. Buffy and Willow were still mortal. And life went on as normal. But Angel had to live with the guilt of what he had done for the rest of his life. It was a set-back. One big spanner in the works of Angel's path to Redemption.