Thus the Siren of Blood Was Born

Chapter Twelve

"Where have you been, Crystal?" Angel's voice was curious as he looked down into the soft blue eyes of the girl he'd turned into a vampire one-hundred-and-eleven years ago to this very night. Kandyl looked right back up into his eyes and met his gaze... Those same brown eyes that on this very night... they were the eyes of her murderer.

"Everywhere, Angelus. Everywhere. Searching for you." Her voice still sounded like that of an angels' to him...although she swore she was a demon. It saddened him to find out that all these years, she'd been searching for him and obviously to no avail until now.

"I've read about your...escapades, Crystal. The Siren of Blood," his voice was soft...it was much softer than she ever recalled hearing Angelus' voice in the past...except for when she found him in Sunnydale two years ago...with...her.

"I was lost without you. For a while I thought you were dead...and then I heard of your en-souling from Spike and Drucilla when I came across them in the.. I believe it was the twenties. Time has melted together so much now, Angelus. It has been so long but I can still recall the very last night we spent together." Kandyl's voice was quiet, but somewhat shaky.. she'd played how this would go in her head so many times. It has been all she's dreamed about since the night she found out he was still alive.

What would it be like...to be reunited with Angelus? And for the last two years it's been...what would it be like to be united with this...Angel? The new side of Angelus. It was still surprising to her, as she gazed up into his eyes, that he was being this...civil with her. Angelus would have never...

"And you. I believed you dead for many years, Crystal. It was two years ago I learned of your history as the Siren of Blood and I was certain since the trail went cold that you had been killed. But then I felt you... in the cemetery that night," with what little human blood was in Kandyl's system, her cheeks tinted pink from Angel's words.

"You have a soul, don't you?" Angel asked of Kandyl and she slowly nodded.

"I cursed myself with one in the fifties. I killed the granddaughter of my best friend. After I had drained her dry.. I looked up and saw a photograph of a girl who kind of reminded me of someone. I looked at the back of the photograph and it had the girls' Mother's name on it... Crystal, named after Grandma's best friend who died at sixteen. Blandford, England, 1888. I was sickened with myself, Angelus."

Angel, too, felt the remorse that she felt with the soul. To him, it was his fault that she ended up killing the granddaughter of her best friend. It was he that turned her into the monster that became the Siren of Blood. "I never meant---," but Kandyl didn't let him apologize.

To her, he truly had nothing to apologize for. Kandyl reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, laying her head on his shoulder. She spoke softly, "you've got nothing to apologize for Angelus. You may have made me a monster... but ultimately, knowing you could be cursed with a soul... I cursed myself with one. It saved me. Angelus, you gave me a wonderful life... I wouldn't be here today, celebrating my 127th birthday, without you. I'm still sixteen in body and looks. Forever young."

When Crystal put it that way, Angel thought that he had truly given her a gift. But with his soul...no matter how she wanted to word it...he truly could not forgive himself for ruining her the way that he did. He may not have broke her mind like he did Drucilla but he did things to Crystal that he never did Dru... and Dru could not fathom them in her wildest imaginations.

"The things I did to you, there are no words to speak how truly sorry I am. I cannot rewrite the past. But without the past, you're right... we wouldn't be here today." Angel said softly, his arms instinctively wrapping around her waist and holding her there to him in the middle of the dark, dank Los Angeles alleyway.

"So you...you knew I was there in that cemetery, two years ago?" Kandyl finally got up the nerve to ask as she slowly pulled back out of his embrace, again looking up into those dark brown eyes. Angel nodded.

"It's not just the sired that feels a bond with her sire. It's the sire who also feels a bond with his sired. When I felt you that night, Crystal... You don't know how relieved I was. I had already at that point drove a stake through Darla's heart. I do feel that bond with Drucilla but... I could feel your soul. I could almost smell it. I knew it was you." Angel explained, causing Kandyl to once more feel her cheeks heat up just a bit. She knew for certain now...that having a soul must really... make Angelus a different person.

"I've played how this conversation would go so many times in my head, Angel." At last, Kandyl used the name that he preferred to use now.. he smiled a little at her acknowledging the change in who he was. Although he stepped closer to her and once more wrapped his arms around her waist.

"You don't have to call me that if you don't wish to. No one from my past addresses me as Angel.. it's always Angelus." He explained and Kandyl pulled back enough to look up at him, smirking just a little.

"That's the point, though, Angel. I don't wish to just be someone from your past. I want to be in your present and future, too." It took all of Kandyl to admit something so.. so vulnerable of herself to Angel...to Angelus. She knew that in a heartbeat, which they both didn't have, that he could reverse it on her. Play her for the fool that she could be when it came to being desperately in love with him. He'd done it too many times in the past... why would it be any different now?

"I don't know how that could ever work, Kandyl." Angel addressed her by the name she used now, which made her smile somewhat. She curled back up into his chest as they stood in that dark alleyway, closing her eyes.

"We were always so destructive, Angel.. But we were...well together. Now, that we aren't...monsters anymore, maybe we could work together even better. I had forgotten how much I did like the name Crystal... until you started calling me it again. I've been Kandyl Myst for so long now..." her voice was quiet, and honest. Part of Kandyl wished she could just go back to being that sixteen year old English girl named Crystal Morgan.

But the other part of her wouldn't give up being Kandyl Myst for anything in the world. Part of Angel felt the same way. On certain days, he wished he could just be Angelus...not care about anything, everything hurt less that way. At the same time, however, Angel wouldn't give up having a soul for anything in the world. Reverting back to Angelus about a year and a half ago.. it changed him forever. Going to hell...and seeing real demons, also changed him forever.

Angel and Kandyl talked for hours as they walked the city of Angels. At around 5 AM, you could smell the sun was soon to come up. Since Angel didn't really have a place of residence yet and had been staying in the sewers; Kandyl took him to her place there in Los Angeles. It was a small, modest, one bedroom house in a more rundown area of Los Angeles but she wasn't afraid to live there. She was a vampire, after all.

As the sun came up, Angel stayed in the shadows of her bedroom as she gazed out the window, the sunlight not bothering her. As the sunlight hit her sun-kissed skin, Angel found himself with his mouth somewhat agape, gazing at her. He'd heard of the Ring of Amara...but he knew she didn't have no such thing. Her witch abilities still surprised him more and more every single day.

Hearing his faint gasp, Kandyl turned her attention to him, giving him a soft laugh at how his mouth was agape. She slowly closed the curtains and walked across the room and turning on a lamp. The two could see one another perfectly without it but... it was human to have a light on in the house. "You still amaze me, Cr..Kandyl." Angel really couldn't break himself out of the habit of calling her that.

"I do?" The petite blonde questioned and all he could do was nod as they took a seat on her living room sofa.

"You do. I turned you because I knew... there was something so unique about you that... could never be matched. Kandyl, you're the only vampire witch out there. And you are the only vampire...with red eyes. I have been to hell and I have met real demons...and although you are the most beautiful woman on the face of this planet and you had the most innocent tasting blood of anyone I have ever had the pleasure of having on my lips... you're a demon." Angel admitted... hearing it from his voice, well... it really put the evil that Kandyl was into perspective for her.

"I've told myself for years... that I'm a demon. I'm a spawn of Satan... Angelus, was my Satan." Angel couldn't help but chuckle at Kandyl's words... He could remember the first time he watched her feed and the young girl she fed off of... called her Satan.. and he joked, that he swore he heard her say his name. He couldn't believe he was chuckling at that memory...but again, a sick twisted part of him deep inside was still proud of the monster that he had turned Kandyl into.
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Word Count: 1,678