Angel (Cordy!verse)

Angel was one of the most famous vampires of all time in vampire history, legendary for both his savage villainy and his great heroism. Born Liam in 1727 in Galway, Ireland, he was sired by Darla in 1753 and changed his name to Angelus and was dubbed The Scourge of Europe, earning notoriety for being one of the most sadistic and brutal demons in history, and the most evil vampire ever recorded. Both The Master and the First Evil recognized how purely evil Angelus was. He was also known as The Demon with the Face of an Angel or The One with the Angelic Face because of his physical beauty. However, in 1898, Angelus was cursed by the members of Clan Kalderash as vengeance for killing a member of their clan. They returned his soul, forcing him to live eternally in guilt over the countless crimes he had committed.

In the late 20th century, Angel, as he began calling himself, became an ally and lover of the current Slayer, Buffy Summers. After the two were forced to realize their limitations as a couple, Angel left Buffy and moved to Los Angeles, where he became a Champion of the Powers That Be and dedicated himself to "helping the helpless" in the hope of achieving atonement.

Liam


Angel was born a human named Liam in Galway, Ireland in 1727 to a linen and silk merchant and his unknown wife. At the age of eighteen, Liam had a relationship with an aristocrat named Sarah Gilfried. As a result, he became disillusioned with the women of his era, and showed distaste for noblewomen in particular, describing them as "dull, simpering morons." Above all, he sought to meet someone "exciting" and "interesting." By his twenties, Liam had become a drunken, whoring layabout, whose only real ambition in life lay in someday seeing the world. Liam's father displayed near-constant disappointment in him, and was not reluctant to call him out on his shortcomings. Despite his strained relationship with his parents, he and his little sister, Kathy, had mutual affection for each other.

At the age of twenty-six, after a habitual night of drunken debauchery and failed attempts to seduce the family's only maidservant, Liam and his father got into a heated argument; enraged by his son's chronic reckless behavior, the older man declared that Liam was wasting his life, and slapped him in the face. Liam argued that he had only acted how his father wanted, and voiced his decision to leave home. Though his father reminded him that he would likely end up homeless and alone, Liam stormed out. He went to a tavern, where, drunk once more, he caught the eye of a seemingly affluent woman. After being kicked out of the bar for fighting, he followed the woman—the vampire, Darla—into an alleyway, where she promised to show him a whole new world, and then sired him. Darla visited his grave afterward, where everything seemed clear to him right before he had his first taste of blood when a grounds keeper caught them an accused them of being grave robbers.

Liam quickly became one of the most powerful and twisted vampires to ever exist. The price of such competence: Liam's soul and capability to feel remorse for his actions. As a demon, Angelus acted on Liam's darkest impulses, and gave in to his every sinful whim.

Angelus
"Angel. He was the most vicious creature I ever met... I miss him."

- The Master

Liam's body was buried; at some point during the night, he rose again, and in response to Darla's assertion, set about slaughtering his entire village. First, he brutally massacred his own family, whose blood he later described as the "sweetest of all." Believing her brother had returned to her as an angel, Liam's little sister, Kathy, ignorantly invited him inside the family home. He killed her first, and then murdered his mother. As he killed his father, Liam boasted that despite his paternal disapproval, he had managed to make something of himself. Whilst gloating over his father's corpse, Darla cruelly deflated Liam, claiming that in the end, his father had claimed the victory because his condemnation would haunt Liam for the remainder of his existence, while his father's suffering had been painful, but very brief. Liam, as Angelus, would later employ this same logic in regards to Drusilla Keeble.



"You told me I wasn't a man. You told me I was nothing. And I believed you. You said I'd never amount to anything. Well, you were wrong. You see, father? I have made something of myself after all."

- Liam to his father.

Liam took the name "Angelus", prusumably inspired by his siter's mistaken belief that he was an angel. He was later described in historical volumes as the "one with the angelic face", and the "demon with the face of an angel." After leaving Ireland behind, Angelus and Darla cut a bloody swath through Wales and Northern England before reaching London in 1760. During Angelus' first meeting with Darla's sire, the Master, he openly mocked the older vampire, and showed no fear despite his greater age, power and authority. Afterward, he confronted Darla about her decision to remain underground; won over by Angelus' fearlessness, Darla chose to leave with Angelus, and temporarily abandoned her Master.

May, 1764: Angelus and Darla killed the wife and infant son of vampire hunter Daniel Holtz, and turned his young daughter into a vampire, forcing him to destroy her. Holtz then devoted himself to capturing Angelus and Darla, and chased them across Europe. He managed to kill almost four-hundred other vampires in the process.

1765: Angelus and Darla had a near miss with Holtz in Arles after making too much noise by ordering room service and then eating the waiters. Darla fled to Vienna, knocking out and abandoning Angelus in a burning barn and riding off on their only horse. After meeting again in Vienna and eating a troubadour in Madrid, Angelus and Darla became acquainted with the vampires James and Elisabeth.

1767: Holtz tracked them down in Marseilles and managed to put numerous arrows in Angelus. " After voyaging to Morocco, Holtz briefly lost them in northern Africa.

1771: Holtz tracked Angelus to Rome and captured him. With the assistance of Monsignor Rivalli, Holtz tortured Angelus while trying to figure out how to get Angelus to help him to capture Darla. But instead, Darla came to the rescue with a horde of vampires. Darla declined to kill Holtz, telling Angelus that she was having too much fun tormenting him and he was now "like family." With this, Holtz abandoned his hunt and retired to York until 1773 when a demon named Sahjhan offered to take him to the future in exchange for his promise to kill the Angel and Darla of that time.

1786: Angelus sired a Puritan by the name of Penn, who mimicked Angelus by wreaking havoc on his father and killing his family. Over time, he began copying Angelus' "signature" of the time, carving a cross-shaped mark on the face of his victims in order to spite God.

1789: A lone Angelus encountered The Beast in Prussia, standing in a field of bodies. The Beast sought Angelus' aid in killing the Svear Priestesses, a group who wished to banish the Beast who could not kill them himself. When Angelus declined to assist the Beast, he was violently attacked, but a group of Svear priestesses banished the Beast while Angelus was passing out.

December 25, 1838: Angelus won a card game and took his winnings by killing his opponent, a man named Daniel, in Dublin, Ireland, who was to be married the next day.

1860: a young woman named Drusilla from London caught the attention of Darla, who then presented her to Angelus, as a gift. Drusilla was "cursed" with the "sight"; the ability of foresight, something her mother saw as "an affront to the Lord." Drusilla and her sisters were all noted to be virgins, and Drusilla was described as being "sweet, pure and chaste." While posing as her priest in order to torment her, Angelus killed her family in front of her, which caused Drusilla to flee to a convent. On the day she was to take her holy orders, Angelus massacred the convent. After having sex with Darla on top of Drusilla, Angelus finally pushed her over the edge into complete insanity. It was at that point that he turned her into a vampire. Drusilla was Angelus' "masterpiece", an everlasting testament of his finest cruelty, as her immortality meant that her torment would never end.

1880: Desiring a companion of her own, Drusilla sired the mild-mannered and lovesick poet, William, to whom Angelus served as a mentor and role model for a while. William went so far as to consider the elder vampire his sire and "Yoda." Angelus taught William about the art of mass slaughter, including an incident during a wedding party where Angelus beat the groom to death with his own arm. When he realized how much William cared for Drusilla, Angelus had sex with her just to hurt him, an action William would never forgive. He abandoned Angelus' mentorship, and took on a reckless, rebellious persona that brought constant danger to Angelus' group, but remained a romantic at heart.

1883: Angelus killed a female servant named Margaret during a luxurious Christmas party in London. The woman had a young son.

1888: William got himself, Angelus, Darla and Drusilla chased out of London and into an abandoned mine shaft in Yorkshire by an angry mob. Angelus and Darla outwardly wondered why they hadn't yet killed William, who had taken the alias "Spike", for his dangeroulsy rebellious behavior. Angelus made an attempt to threaten him with mention of the Slayer, but Spike, who had never heard of the Slayer before, became instantly intrigued, and went on to develop an long-lasting obsession with; he murdered two Slayers, and became a particularly renowned vampire as a result.

1890: Angelus attended a production of Giselle by the Blinnikov, a Russian ballet troupe run by Count Kurskov. Despite being evil, he was moved to tears during the performance. The same year, Angelus and Spike used a trick that involved them holding hands and beheading their enemies with a length of wire in St. Petersburg, Russia.

1894: Angelus and Spike were captured in Rome, Italy by henchmen of The Immortal, a mysterious and seductive being with whom they both had a fierce rivalry. The two male vampires were tortured while The Immortal had a threesome with Darla and Drusilla, something that, incidentally, the female vampires never allowed Angelus and/or Spike to do. Angelus and Spike attempted to take revenge on the Immortal, but failed miserably.

The Kalderash Curse
"You don't remember. Everything you've done. For a hundred years. In a moment, you will. The face of everyone you have killed — our daughter's face — they will haunt you and you will know what true suffering is."

- Kalderash Elder to Angelus

1898: Angelus' unlife took a pivotal turn when he raped and murdered the favorite daughter of a tribe of gypsies, the Kalderash clan in Borşa, Romania, who had been kidnapped and given to him by Darla as a " birthday present." To avenge her death, the Kalderash cursed him by restoring his human soul, thus afflicting him with a conscience and condemning him to an eternity of remorse for the crimes he had committed as the soulless Angelus. Bedraggled and dirty, looking like a beggar, he attacked and tried to feed on a woman, but was unable to.

June, 1900 (Boxer Rebellion): In China, Angelus tried to resume his life with Darla, but found himself able to kill only animals, murderers, and rapists while protecting innocents from Darla. Darla noticed this, angry at his deception and inability to kill innocent humans while Spike had recently killed a Slayer. She confronted him about it gave him the chance to prove himself by feeding on a baby whose parents Darla killed. He refused and instead rescued the child by jumping out of a window.

1902: Angelus fled and lived in self-imposed isolation, controlling the temptation to feed by avoiding humans altogether. He traveled to the United States, and arrived in New York City via Ellis Island.

World War I: Angelus found himself in the trenches, and was nearly killed by Watcher Geoffrey Wyndam-Pryce before he escaped into a river. Discovering that the powerful vampire Kakistos was working with the Germans, Angelus and Geoffrey were forced into an uncertain alliance to destroy Kakistos's cult, Kakistos being apparently killed in a subsequent plane crash after a battle with Angelus. Although he never learned that Angelus was anything more than another vampire, Geoffrey allowed him to leave after the cult was destroyed in recognition of his assistance.

1920's: Angelus spent some time in Chicago, where he saved a little lap dog from being run over by a car; however, he was tempted to feed on the dog's owner, a young woman who tried to seduce Angel, only to be harshly rejected. In Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, Angel had a disagreement with a demon named Boone over a señorita, for which Boone called him out. Angel fought Boone for three-and-a-half hours until the sun came up and Boone honorably let him go. Angel then spent time in Missoula, Montana during the Great Depression.

World War II: Angel was coerced into undertaking a secret mission by the Demon Research Initiative. They sank him to the bottom of the ocean to rescue an American submarine crew from three vampires the Nazis had captured as part of their paranormal research activities: Spike, Nostroyev, and The Prince of Lies. After the American crew had captured the German submarine, the vampires had escaped their bonds and murdered most of the crew; the few survivors sought refuge behind a locked hatch. After the submarine suffered damage from a depth charge, Angel was forced to sire a mortally wounded Ensign Sam Lawson, as he was the only person who was able to repair the damage, and while Angel didn't care about the mission, he needed to have it succeed to get the US government to leave him alone, and he needed the submarine so he would not get trapped on the ocean floor. Proceeding these events, Angel went underground until the war was over.

1952: Angel was a resident of the Hyperion Hotel in Los Angeles. During this time, Angel attempted to stay to himself, avoiding interaction with other residents and patrons. Despite the numerous strange incidents, murders and suicides running rampant throughout the hotel (caused by a demon), he looked the other way when his help would have made a difference. After finding a young woman named Judy Kovacs hiding in his room, Angel tried to preserve his isolation, first by disarming and removing the man chasing her, then by ejecting Judy. However, her repeated attempts to interact with him allowed the two to form a budding friendship, which was very surprising and rare for Angel at that time in his life. Meanwhile, hotel staff and residents, including Judy, continued to become warped and Angel decided to help. He discovered the presence of a Thesulac Demon, a paranoia demon affecting the humans in the hotel, but by the time Angel learned how to defeat it and obtained the items required, the entire hotel was overcome with pathological paranoia. Mad with demon-induced hysteria, the hotel residents and staff turned on Judy after their suspicions were raised by a private detective. To save herself, Angel's new friend pointed the mob in his direction, saying he had been found with blood. With rabid fury, they ambushed Angel, beat him, and then hanged him. Embittered by the consequences of becoming close to a human, Angel abandoned Judy and everyone else. Instead of destroying the Thesulac as it was in his power to do, even when the demon gave him the opportunity, he personally gave the vicious demon free reign to prey upon and ravage them unhindered.

Late 1970's: In New York, Angel witnessed a robbery at a doughnut shop. After the robber shot the employee and fled, Angel stayed with the man as he died. Unable to resist the sight and smell of the clerk's still-warm blood, Angel succumbed to his urges and fed on the body. Deeply disgusted by his own weakness, Angel fled the shop, and then exiled himself to a life of homelessness, living in alleyways and feeding on rats.

"I wanna help her. I wanna become somebody."

- Angel is motivated to become a force for good.

1996: The reclusive and emotionally tortured Angel was sought out by a demon named Whistler, who persuaded him to join the fight against the evil that had corrupted him and to help the newly-activated Slayer, Buffy Summers. Angel traveled to Hemery High School in Los Angeles, where he witnessed Buffy being called as the Slayer and her initial training under her Watcher, Merrick, as well as her emotional suffering over her new duties and her parents' deteriorating marriage. Filled with a new purpose in life, Angel resolved to help the Slayer, with whom he had fallen in love, and moved to Sunnydale, California, where Buffy was predestined to move the following year.

Sunnydale
"A vampire in love with a Slayer. It's rather poetic... in a maudlin sort of way."

- Rupert Giles

Angel had fallen in love with Buffy the moment he'd laid eyes on her in Los Angeles. Soon afterward, he moved into his own apartment in Sunnydale, where he put himself on a strict diet of pig's blood. He didn't show himself until after Buffy had relocated to Sunnydale with her mother; he met her in an alley, at which time he warned her about The Harvest and gave her a silver cross for protection. Though they had mutual attraction to each other, Buffy was not aware of Angel's vampiric nature until several weeks after their first meeting. They kissed in Buffy's bedroom, which caused Angel to unintentionally revealed his vampire face. Though he fled, Buffy was privy to his secret, and sought to kill him after she mistakenly believed he had attacked her mother. In reality, Angel's sire, Darla, had tricked Joyce Summers into inviting her inside and then bitten her. Angel battled with Darla, and managed to kill her when Buffy involved herself in the fight. Afterward, he revealed that he was unique among his kind for possessing soul, which was cursed upon him as a punishment for brutally murdering the favored daughter of an ancient Gypsy clan. In the following days and weeks, Buffy came to realize that she had fallen in love with Angel. Though they both tried to deny their feelings, they simply could not resist their growing passion, and eventually began dating.

Spike and Drusilla's arrival in Sunnydale during Buffy's sophomore year created tension in her relationship with Angel. When she witnessed him talking to Drusilla in a park, he was forced to give Buffy and the Scoobies insight into his particularly bloody history. He was subsequently kidnapped by Spike's minions in order to restore Drusilla to health. Though Buffy managed to rescue him in time to save his life, Drusilla still recovered. She and her lover then sought to reawaken a demon called the Judge to bring an end to the human race. Angel was tasked with traveling abraud to hide one of the pieces of the Judge. Before leaving, he gave her a Claddagh ring for her seventeenth birthday, as was a traditional courting gift in Ireland. Before he could depart, he was apprehended by Spike and his followers, who planned to have him watch Buffy die at the hands of the newly arisen demon.

They escaped Spike's minions and fled to Angel's apartment, where they consummated their relationship. Because Angel experienced a moment of pure happiness, his curse was activated once more and caused the removal of his soul. He reverted to the sadistic Angelus, and swiftly returned to his old ways. Furious and disgusted that Buffy had caused him to feel love, he vowed to destroy her life.

Angelus allied himself once again with Spike and Drusilla and took residence in their factory. Resenting the humiliation he felt because Buffy had made Angel feel like a human being, Angelus took immense pleasure in tormenting the Slayer and her friends. First, he helped Spike and Dru deploy the Judge to incinerate the human race. After Buffy destroyed the Judge, Angelus embarked on a guerrilla campaign, lurking in the shadows, preying on Buffy's classmates, sending her gruesome messages, drawing pictures of her as she slept and leaving them in her bedroom. He even revealed the fact Buffy had sex with him to her mother Joyce, pretending to be an obsessed, unstable, love-struck boyfriend.

Angelus' reign of terror culminated in his murder of Jenny Calendar, which served him in two ways. First, he eliminated an enemy (Jenny was born Janna of the Kalderash gypsy clan) and destroyed her work just as she had managed to successfully decipher the lost Gypsy curse which could be used to restore Angel's soul. Second, Angelus used Jenny's death to viciously torment Rupert Giles, Jenny's paramour and the person whom Buffy depended most, being her Watcher. Enraged, Giles went out and tried to kill Angelus, though only succeeded in burning down the factory he lived in.

Along with Spike and Drusilla, Angelus then moved to an abandoned mansion. After Angelus orchestrated this masterpiece of terror, Drusilla drew his attention to a new opportunity for destruction and chaos. Angelus widened his focus and began a scheme to awaken the demon Acathla and bring about the end of the world. Buffy was determined to stop him. Not knowing how to preform the ritual, Angelus kidnapped Giles and tortured him, wanting to know how to do it, though also doing it for the sake of his own enjoyment.

In their final fight, Angelus defeated Buffy, but continued to torment her rather than kill her, allowing her to stage one last counterattack. In her anger, the Slayer was able to overcome Angelus during a full-blown sword fight, but just as Acathla opened the vortex into his hell dimension, Buffy's best friend, Willow Rosenberg, used the ritual Jenny had rediscovered and preserved to restore Angel's soul. Since Acathla could only be stopped by the blood of the individual who activated him, Buffy was forced to impale her beloved Angel to save the world. Impaled on the Slayer's enchanted sword, Angel could only stand there as he was sucked into the closing vortex.

A few months later, Angel was unexpectedly released from Acathla's hell, reappearing in his mansion in a feral state. Because time can run differently between dimensions, he had experienced a century of brutal torment and was little more than a rabid animal in behavior. Buffy aided him in secret, fostering his rehabilitation. Angel remained feral and she had to chain him up, but he eventually broke out and came to Buffy's rescue when one of her classmates turned into a monster and attacked her. Angel killed him and finally recognized Buffy afterward, and regained his sanity.

When they discovered that Angel had returned and Buffy had not told them, Buffy's friends were disgusted and furious, though Angel managed to win back some good faith and acceptance in the gang after he saved Willow from being killed by the corrupt former Watcher Gwendolyn Post. Angel began to suspect that his return from Hell was not accidental, that he must be meant to serve some unknown purpose. That fear -- that this purpose was not for the cause of good -- grew in Angel's mind at Christmastime as he began to experience what he believed to be hallucinations. However, he was actually being haunted by the First Evil, who claimed to be the one that freed him from Acathla's world (a claim that remains unconfirmed). The First, able to adopt the appearances of Angelus' victims, drove Angel ever closer to the brink of madness by lashing him with guilt and, ultimately, tempting him to end it all by losing his soul once again and killing Buffy in the throes of passion. In despair, Angel chose to kill himself by waiting outside for the sun to rise, rather than risk the life of his beloved Slayer. To Angel's shock and consternation, an apparent miracle occurred and it snowed so heavily that Christmas morning that the sun was blotted out all day. From that moment, he began to entertain the hope that his return might have some purpose for good after all.

When the latest Slayer, Faith Lehane, began to go rogue after accidentally killing the Deputy Mayor, Angel attempted to rehabilitate her and nearly succeeded, but his chances at redeeming her were ruined by the interference of Buffy's new Watcher, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, and a special ops team sent by the Watchers Council, who only succeeded in driving Faith even farther down the path of darkness. Later, when Faith began working for the evil Mayor, Richard Wilkins, as a double agent, the duo attempted to force Angel to revert to Angelus once again and appeared to succeed; fortunately, this was in fact revealed to be an elaborate ruse masterminded by Buffy and Angel, with some help from Giles, to expose Faith's new loyalties.

After that miraculous snowy day in southern California, Angel and Buffy tried to build an actual relationship, taking in the occasional movie, getting away on more scenic patrols, and enjoying moonlit picnics in the cemetery. But it was not to be. Even before their one and only night together, Angel had worried about Buffy's future with him, his inability to give her a family, or even a remotely normal human life. Upon hearing his own concerns reflected back to him from such disparate sources as Mayor Wilkins and Joyce, Angel at last made the difficult decision to leave Sunnydale and Buffy, hoping to give her some semblance of a normal life. Angel broke up with Buffy in the sewer right before her prom night, but went to the dance to let Buffy have her perfect high school moment.

Before the Mayor's Ascension, Faith infected Angel with the "Killer of the Dead," a poison specifically designed to kill vampires that could only be cured by the blood of a Slayer, in order to distract Buffy. Having failed to bring a dead Faith to Angel to cure him, Buffy forced Angel to feed from her. Even Angel resisted at first, he was enraged when Buffy hit him enough that he indulged himself on Buffy's blood, almost killing her but stopping before he could drain her completely. Having quickly recovered from his poison, Angel rushed Buffy to the hospital where he stopped the grieving Mayor from smothering Buffy.

Angel promised Buffy that he would stay until Sunnydale High's Graduation Day, to help avert the Mayor's Ascension. He also warned her that, if they survived the ordeal, he would leave without saying goodbye, as it would be too painful to not do so. They survived with Angel commanding a small number of fighters to surround the Mayor's vampire henchmen. After the destruction of Sunnydale High, Angel, with a last, long look at the Slayer, kept his final promise and departed for Los Angeles.

Angel Investigations
In Los Angeles, Angel spent a few months alone, patrolling dives and dark alleys, battling vampires who hunt there and fighting the blood lust that had been reawakened when he fed from Buffy by not getting close to the humans he was trying to help. Soon enough, he received support in his attempts to redeem himself in the service of others. First, Doyle, a half-Brachen Demon and fellow Irishman with precognitive abilities was sent by The Powers That Be to be Angel's guide. Investigating Tina's case, Angel was present at the same party that Cordelia Chase, a former classmate of Buffy's who had moved to Los Angeles to find wealth and fame. However, they don't meet. Angel and Doyle The trio formed Angel Investigations, a private detective agency whose mission statement was to "help the helpless. Eventually, Doyle, Angel's trusted friend and sole connection to the Powers That Be, sacrificed himself to save others, giving to the vampire his power of vision. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, who had briefly served as Watcher to both Buffy and Faith Lehane in Sunnydale, arrived in Los Angeles around that time, claiming to be a "rogue demon hunter," a "lone wolf sort" who only worked solo becoming his new associate. A few months later, they were joined by lifelong demon fighter Charles Gunn. Progressly, Angel become haunted by the visions and has become a recluse who communicates with Gunn and Wesley only to tell them what he has seen in his visions. Two years later, the famous TV actress Cordelia Chase (cautious of the reality) enters Angel's room where she finds him babbling and incoherent. She assumes that "everything will be OK" and kisses him. The reality returned into mainstream.

Appearances

 * "Birthday"