***

"He promised he wouldn't let it destroy me..."

Angel listened as the Red Witch struggled for her last breath. The words were whispered in agony and he bowed his head in shame.  He could smell the salty tear as it welled up in her eye and watched its silent fall, spilling from the corner and trickling down her temple into the fiery locks as the death rattle sounded.

It was the first time the Witch had shed any tears in his presence since that night, so many years ago, when he'd dragged her away from the LAPD, screaming and kicking. They'd left alone, he'd refused to help her lover, told her it was best for all concerned...believed it was best for all concerned.  He'd taken her back to his apartment, waiting for the sun to do its work, ignoring her tears and pleas, literally picking her up and holding her down when she'd tried to run.  During those long hours, Angel could see the pain and hatred building, bore the brunt of it as her bawled fists hit him and she screamed, crying and hysterical.  It was when she stopped striking out, when she inverted the pain and fell silent, when it was too late and the tears stilled, that Angel knew what he'd done was wrong.  For hours, until the sunset, there was nothing but silence, and the small apartment had been completely still until she stood and walked to the stairs.  He'd called to her then, Willow, the name he'd always called her, the girl he thought he knew and she'd stopped, but didn't face him.

"I'll see you in hell."

It wasn't Willow who'd answered him, but the Red Witch, the corpse that now lay cooling on his bed.  On that day, with those words, a course of events had been set in motion that he would always regret. He had no idea that Hell was a living, breathing girl who would haunt him through out his plane of existence.

That was then, nearly five years to the day, and now his rooms were too silent, too still, leaving the way clear for unwanted memories of the past year to surge forward.  For four years guilt had been Angel's constant companion when he thought of the redhead. The moment she'd left his apartment she'd disappeared, never returning to Sunnydale and although he'd spent years trying to track her down, no one heard or saw her again...until a year ago, when she'd casually strolled back into his life with long red hair and that damnable leather duster that he should have ripped off her and burnt.  The duster that was now soaked with her blood and cradled her dead body.

Standing, Angel stumbled and turned, leaving the body as it was with her dead green eyes wide open.  There again was the silence, all encompassing and daunting. Desperate to find a distraction, he fumbled with the television remote, eventually the set blared into life.

"Today on Jerry Springer, our guests share the ways they found their belief..."

Angel shook his head and aimed the remote, sinking down into an overstuffed lounge chair, however the channel didn't change and the mindless chatter continued.  It was noise, a distraction, but it didn't help.  The guests rambled, their manic chanting of love of some higher being meant nothing to the dark haired vampire, his thoughts focused on another voice, one he'd learnt to fear...

"We use to play games..."

That's how it had started, one night so long ago, a voice that held no emotions and was barely more than a whisper.

"Who's there?" he'd been sleeping when he'd first heard her, hidden in the darkness of his bedroom, she always seemed to be in the darkness, it surrounded her.  Even when she'd stepped out of the shadows, the darkness followed.

"Friend or foe?" came the reply, she didn't apply a name to herself, and it seemed an almost childish response accompanied by the hint of a smile.  "Tell me, Angel.  You seem to know."

With trepidation, he'd watched her move, slowly, gracefully, perching herself on the end of his bed.  Stunned, he couldn't call her by the name she once carried; she was no longer that girl.  The creature before him was something much more, she was dark and full of power, fueled by pain and loneliness.  Angel was struck dumb as he stared at the Witch, sitting on the end of his bed waiting for an answer that he could not give, and he'd felt, in some perverse way, he'd created her. Silence was their companion that day and he'd woken hours later, disorientated, certain she'd been a dream.

A dream that soon became a nightmare.

The visits, always when Angel was truly alone, were sporadic at first.  He'd wake to find her watching him, silent and still, her steady heartbeat the only sound.  When he'd ask questions she'd remain silent, bringing a single finger to his lips to stop the words.  They were playing the game by her rules and Angel wasn't privy to them.  One day he'd woken, bound to the bed, and he discovered that her silence was preferable to the words she spoke.

"Who are you?"

He'd been confused by her question, by the cuffs that held him down.  Even now, he could feel the weight of those cuffs and he rubbed at his wrists, the Witch's blood coating his own hands.

"Really, my sweet Angel, who are you?  A god perhaps?  Some superior being who is infallible?  You must be, considering you know what's right or wrong, what's good or bad..."

Angel stared at the television, memories of her words mixing with the words of worship that were peppered with beeps by Jerry's guests.  The words, the sounds did nothing to soothe him or drown out the soft sound of the blood that was dripping from the Witch's corpse onto his bedroom floor, or the stench of death that seemed to envelop him.  Pushing himself from the chair, he wandered over to the small bar, he needed a drink, whiskey and ice, in a tall, lone glass.  The ice fell, clinking against the cool glass.

"No, you're just a demon who wears the face of a man, who hides from what he is."

Angel picked up the bottle and took it back to the chair with him, attempting once more to change channels, this time with his booted foot.  It only set the television rocking, the believers were still singing their praises to all who would listen.  His eyes fell on the ice in the glass, cooling the whiskey.  As the weeks wore on and her visits became more regular, the words, in her quiet unemotional voice, were nothing compared to what was to come.

"Who are you to say with one brief glance at a person, whether they are good or bad?  You don't know them, you'll never really know them..." she'd tied him down again, heavy cuffs he wouldn't be able to break, only this time she sat astride him, her fingers exploring his naked chest.  "Just as I don't know you and you don't know me."

Angel took a deep swig of his whiskey.  He'd never told anyone of the Witch, of her visits, her words, her actions.  Maybe because what she said was true, too many times he'd tried to make things black and white, bad and good, he'd forgotten that most things were gray, tinged with both and never pure.  She told him the things he'd tried to deny. She became his soul, his guilt, his pain...

"I like pain, do you?  I never use to but it seems that pain has become an old friend of mine.  Tell me, my sweet Angel..." she'd pressed her open palm down against his chest, the pain exploding under the pressure of the crucifix cradled in her small hand and she'd tilted her head, raising an eyebrow. "Does it hurt?"

Angel rolled his head back against the chair, the pain, so old and long forgotten, spilling forth.  He bit down on his inner cheek to stop from screaming, just as he had so many nights ago when she'd sat astride him, holding down the cross.

"Don't hold back on my account. I've told you, pain's an old friend.  Seems strange that me, all of 23 years, could say something like that to a creature that's roamed the earth for over two centuries.  I guess it's all relevant, though.  Death is coming, sooner or later, I'm betting that sooner will be the case, and if you rationalize the years we've spent then we'd be pretty much on par," she'd paused, her cold eyes looking down at her hand that still firmly held the gold cross to his chest, sinking into the burning flesh, the stench filling the air.  "Different types of pain, of course.  I couldn't begin to imagine what it's like to take a human life, and you've taken so many, destroyed even more than you've out rightly killed...even now, under the pretence of working for some sort of redemption, you damage people."

Redemption, there was no way he could redeem himself to the corpse on his bed, the girl...the Witch...he'd failed. She was dead and her dying words had been for those of a demon lover she'd lost so long ago.  Angel refilled his empty glass, making the ice swirl about, and kicked at the television set again.  Still the garble continued...people talking of visions of saints and bizarre happenings.

"Oh look," she'd pulled back the cross, her fingernails digging it from the melted flesh, and leant over the mark, frowning.  "Such a nasty burn.  We should put some ice on it.  The thing I've never understood is why a vampire reacts so badly to holy items.  Take, for instance, holy water. It's no different to normal water, tapped or bottled, except some old man who smells of mothballs and holy sacraments has said one or two words and waved his hand over it.  The water doesn't change, it is still water with the same chemical properties, it can be frozen," she'd picked up a block of ice, warmed it in her hands, water saturating her fingers. "But the effect is the same on vampires...it still burns."

Angel stared blindly at the television, they weren't making sense, none of it made sense.  He drained his glass and refilled it.

"What do you think would happen if the blesser had lost his faith?  Would the water still be holy or just masquerading as a gift from god?  I don't believe in God, do you?  Silly question really, you must if holy items can cause you so much pain," he'd been screaming by then, pulling at his restraints, his hips bucking under her as he'd tried to get away from the holy water that dribbled down through his wound.  "I believe in pain as you know.  Sometimes, it becomes unbearable, close to what you're feeling now, and I just want it to stop," she'd pressed the melting ice down harder, the warmth of his wound and her hands increasing the rate it melted.  "But it doesn't.  No matter what I do, it's a constant companion.  And then...there are times when I long for it, when I need more..."

The ice in his glass was gone and Angel watched as the condensation started to drip down the tumbler.  It was nearly empty and soon he'd have to fill it again. He never really understood her words, until it was too late.

"I've got a secret..." she'd whispered to him once, when the heavy shackles had been replaced by flimsy silken cords.  He'd known he wouldn't break the bonds, he deserved every piece of torture she could bestow on him...or so he thought.  "Souls are nothing, they don't make someone right or virtuous.  Liars, thieves, murderers, rapists, child molesters, all the evil that is mankind has a soul...doesn't mean a thing, neither does conscience.  Yet because you have this human aspect you deem it enough..." she'd leant back, in her favorite position, sitting atop his groin, and fixed her gaze on his brown eyes.  "I wonder what you'd do if it was taken from you?"

And with those few words he'd felt his guilt, his only restraint, sinking and being devoured by his true nature until it was obscured.  The demon had screamed at her, the air filling with threats of death and torture, and broke free of the bonds that held him.  Fury, indignation and blinding rage all focused on the fragile mortal body of the Witch.  When she was badly hurt, her life threatened, almost extinguished, the magic retreated. The soul swelled and caged the demon once more. He'd drop down to his knees, cradled his head in bloodied hands and cried.

"My sweet Angel," she'd laughed at his weeping form, a sound of amusement, filled with pain, and containing more than a little of the maniacal sounds of a lunatic.  "You're hiding again..."

Angel threw his glass at the television and missed.

It was too late, after that night, to help her.  All the words, generally whispered to him during bouts of pain, made sense, fell into place.  She was romancing death, trying to find it and Angel had taken to fighting when she wouldn't, protecting her from the very thing she sought.  And he would bear the brunt of her fury with every act of protection, but still he followed her, fought for her.  Death was a constant threat for the Witch, her prowess was renowned, feared and hated, resulting in a contract for her life.  It was a life that could easily be taken, for she was still a mortal, she still bled, she still breathed.  Until tonight, when a demons sword, coated in otherworldly poison, slashed her, cutting deep and leaving a festering wound that would claim her life.

Angel closed his eyes, willing away the sight of one of Jerry's guests displaying his gift from god.  Instead scenes from the fight assaulted him, he could hear every grunt, every groan, the sickening zing of the blade slashing the air and slicing through her flesh.  The childlike cry that had left her lips as her eyes grew wide with shock and fear.  Clutching at her gaping wound, she'd stumbled and fallen and he'd fought on, making quick work of the demons.  She'd been crawling away when he'd picked her up, her hand clutching at the gaping wound, not stilling the flow of her rich blood, and she'd struggled against him, her words for him nothing more than curses and hatred.  Carrying her through the dark tunnels he'd listened and words failed him.

Just as they failed him now, for there on Jerry Springer was some guy, the stereotypical all-American bad boy, talking of how he found his faith...in the holding cells of the LAPD as the sun rose some five years back...

"I swear man, this guy, he was *beep*ing going insane.  He was cursing and *beep*ing destroying the cell and I swear, and I was *beep*ing clean at the time, this guy, he got struck down by god.  Started to *beep*ing burn, *beep* he was *beep*ing roaring and then the *beep*er just turned to *beep*ing ashes right in front of us and I *beep*ing thought that there was no *beep*ing way in hell that I was *beep*ing well going out like that.  Put the *beep*ing fear of god into me...I swear on my mothers *beep*ing grave man..."

Angel stared blindly at the television, it was the last thing that he wanted to hear.  With a feral roar of rage and agony, he twisted about, picking up the chair as he stood, and threw it at the television.  The set fizzed and popped as it shattered, but Angel didn't hear it. The momentum of his movement coupled with the consumption of a bottle of whiskey, sent him crashing into the wooden coffee table, making it splinter and collapse under the weight of the fall.  As he sought to right himself, he glanced down, rolling his eyes at the shard of wood that he was impaled on.

"Oh fuc..."