Angel was born in Galway, Ireland sometime in the mid-1700's. The ne'er-do-well son of a wealthy landowner, the young Angel spent his days drinking and womanising and generally looked like being a nothing in life until the fateful evening he saw a mysterious young woman disappearing down a dark alleyway.

Following her, he struck up a conversation and she told him that she would show him the world - if he closed his eyes. He did so and the mysterious young woman revealed her true, vampiric, face as she bit into his neck and drank from him. She then cut herself with a fingernail and made him drink from the cut.

Angelus, the most feared and hated vampire of modern times was sired.

Angelus spent the next 150 years or so, travelling across Europe, spreading fear, terror and havoc (as well as siring a few vampires on the way.

The most noticable of these was a young woman named Drusilla. While masquerading as a priest, Drusilla confessed that she had visions and Angelus was instantly taken by her. Deciding to have his fun, he started killing off her family one by one, slowing sending her insane. Drusilla escaped to a convent, but she was not safe from Angelus there; and the night before she was to take her vows he sired her.

However, this was all to change in 1898 when he fed from a beautiful gypsy girl. Her clan (the Kalderash), cursed him, and gave him back his soul so that he would go through the rest of his immortal life fully aware of the horrors he had caused and feel the guilt for them.

Damned to walk the Earth, knowing exactly what a monster he was, the tormented Angel came to America, settling in New York, shunning vampires and people and living off whatever rats he could catch.

In 1996, his life was changed forever. Befriended by the demon Whistler, and dragged by him across the country to Los Angeles, Angel was shown a path of hope in the form of a certain beautiful Vampire Slayer.

Convinced that he could begin to redeem himself, Angel moved to a quiet Californian town called Sunnydale. An unremarkable place, apart from the fact it was on the Hellmouth and a magnet to all that is evil.

Joining forces with Buffy, Giles and the Slayerettes, Angel fought evil for almost two years, dusting his own sire, Darla, in the process. As time passed he grew closer to Buffy and they started to date (if you can call patrolling a cemetery going on a date!)

Unfortunately, it was his relationship with Buffy that proved his undoing. A night of passion and a moment of true happiness, broke the gypsy curse. Angel's soul was banished and Angelus was back, with a vengence. Setting his sights on Buffy, he decided to torment her: leaving drawings on her pillow, killing Willow's fish and escalating into the murder of Jenny Calendar, who he killed after she translated the curse to restore his soul.

Joining up with Drusilla and Spike, Angel decided to set his sights higher than the average vampire and bring Hell down on earth by awaking the demon Acathla. Buffy tried to stop him, but it was too late. They fought each other, but Acathla was beginning to stir. Unbeknown to both Buffy and Angel, Willow was attempting to perform the Spell of Restoration and successfully gave Angel his soul back.

It was too late to close Acathla. The only way to stop him was to kill the person that had awoke him in the first place. Buffy, given the awful task, told Angel to close his eyes as she drove her sword through him and sent him to Hell.

Angel spent 400 hundred years trapped in the demon dimension, even though on earth only a few months had passed. The powers that be decided to give him a reprive and sent him back to earth, although the Angel that returned was much changed to the Angel that had left.

Nothing more than an animal when Buffy found him, she nursed him back to health (in secret), trying not to fall in love with him again. Angel also tried to keep his distance, but they both realised that there would never be a future between them. Angel wanted her to have a normal life, and she would never have that 'in this freak show'.

He told her that once the Mayor's Ascension had been stopped that he would leave and she would never see him again. No goodbyes...

The Ascension was stopped and the last Buffy saw of Angel was him disappearing into the smoke and darkness...

Now Angel is living in Los Angeles, fighting the evil that abounds there while trying to discover the reason for his return from Hell. While he tries to work this out he has work to do saving the souls in need who cry out in the night. Doyle's visions help him to find those people and then Angel goes in try and make things right.

But his past does have a habit of coming back to him, this was illustrated when Buffy came to LA (under the pretext of visiting her father) to tell Angel off for coming back to Sunnydale and not speaking to her. Their ensuing argument was interupted by the arrival of a demon which Angel managed to hurt but not kill. Him and Buffy went into the sewers to track it down and finsih it off before it could regenerate. After they split up, Angel found the demon and killed it, but in doing so got infected with some of the demons blood. Its regenerative properties changed Angel and made him human.

But it was not the cause for joy that Angel had hoped for. On the plus side it meant that he could fall in love with Buffy without fear of hurting her by breaking the curse, but the downside was that he had none of his supernatural powers. He went to the Oracles ofr advice and they told him that if he stayed human (his greatest wish of all) Buffy would die and the world would be lost. So he decided to forsake his happiness and asked to be changed back. The oracles told him that they would turn back the clock and it would be like nothing had happened, no one would remember the events of that day apart from him.

Buffy was not happy to hear this and promised him that she would never forget what had happened during the day that he was human, but it was not to be and when the clock reached the appointed time everything reverted back to how it was when the demon first burst into the office and Angel dispatched it with consumate ease.

His romatic life never got any better though. While trying to track down a shape-changing demon, Angel met Kate, a local police detective and they struck up a working relationship, (although it is thought that Kate wanted more). She had no idea about what he really was until Angel's protege, Penn, returned to look up his old teacher.

The first time Angel knew that Penn had returned was when he started having very vivid dreams of murders and these murders came tue, although he had no recollection of actually doing them. Angel decided to track Penn down and stop him before any more people got killed. It was an esy thing to do as Penn was following the same pattern as the one he used when he killed his family. Kate also was hunted Penn and cornered him in a deserted building. Penn revealed to her what he really was, which shocked her, although not as much Angel's revelation that he too was a vampire.

It was this secret that became the undoing of their friendship. Kate couldn't trust a monster and when her father was killed by vampires that Angel was powerless to stop she vowed to rid the streets of his kind.

Kate wasn't the only one on a vampire cleansing binge either, a group of street kids were tryign to keep their neighbourhood free of vampires and saw Angel as a threat to them, it was only when the gang leaders little sister was turned that they reluctantly joined forces with Angel. Angel has now formed a truce with their leader Gunn, and he helps out Angel when he can.

Angel is always supportive of his staff and showed this by attending (with Wesley) a play that Cordelia was in, and even though she was terrible in it he spared her feelings. While walking back from the play Angel saved the life of a famous actress who was about to be run over. Her name was Rebecca. She was being stalked by a madman who wrote her threatening letters in blood. She came to Angel for help and he did look out for her, saving her again when she was attacked by the stalker in her own home. However, Angel made the mistake of standing in front of a mirror and Rebecca noticed that Angel had no reflection and started putting two and two together.

She befriended Angel (who was attracted to her) and also Cordelia who she used to get a lot of information about Angel's life. She organised a date with Angel and brought around very expensive champagne to which she added a drug that created a feeling of bliss for the user.

The bliss gave Angel a chemically-induced happiness which allowed Angelus to break free of the curse. Now Angelus isn't half as tactful as Angel and he told Cordelia exactly how terrible she is as an actress and how wimpish Wesley was, before Wesley pushed him down the lift chaft knocking him out and giving Angelthe chance to sleep off the effects of the drug.

The shadowy Wolfram and Hart became more entangled in Angel's life when they hired Faith to kill him. However she couldn't duist him straight out (although she did try) and to force him to play by her rules she kidnapped Wesley and beat up Cordelia. The ensuing fight when Angel found her was quite spectacular, but ending in an unexpected fashion when Faith begged Angel to kill her. He decided that she was in just need of her help and took her home to give her the chance to change her ways. This was met by stiff opposition form not only Cordelia and Wesley, but Buffy as well (who cam to LA to make sure Angel was okay) When Buffy walked in on a half dressed Angel embracing Faith she jumped to the wrong conclusion (well it was partly right) and got into a huge argument with Angel and punched him. He punched her back (the first time Angel has lifted a hand in anger to her)

In the end though Angel did manage to save Faith when she voluntarily handed herself in to the police and confessed for the murder of Deputy Alan. He and Buffy had another argument before she left LA, but he confessed to Wesley that he wanted nothing more than to go after her.

Which he did, returning to Sunnydale a week later and getting into a fight with Riley (which Riley came out of worse). He told Buffy that he came to make things better and before he left added that he didn't like Riley very much. It repaired their relationship a little.

Wolfram and Hart interfered with Angel's life again when they represented a blind woman who murdered a man in front of Angel. Lindsey McDonald (the lwyer who was in charge of her case) was less than happy to hear that her next job was to murder three innocent children and when to Angel for help. No love is lost between the lawyers and Angel and Angel wasn't about to being trusting him. Lindsey wanted out and he told Angel that he could get him into the vaults and get all the information he needed to be able to fight Wolfram and Hart's supernatural employees.

Angel grudgingly decided to take Lindsey up on his offer, and with the help of Gunn (who caused a distraction) he broke into the Wolfram stronghold and stole all the computer disks that he needed. On his way out though he was pulled towards a scroll case and stole that too. He explained to Wesley later that it called for him, but didn't know why.

Welsey deciphered some of the text and discovered that it mentioned Angel, not by name but as the vampire with a soul and the more shocking news that it fortold Angel's shanshu - his death.

Wolfram and hart were not pleased that Angel had managed to get away with the scroll, because it was important to their plans. They needed it to perform a Rising ritual. A demon, Voach was sent to get the srcoll back, which he did as well as spilt Angel up from those who could help him by murdering the Oracles, opening Cordy's mind to the visions and blowing up Angel's apartment with Wesley inside.

Angel didn't like the fact that Wolfram and Hart were messing with his 'family' and followed them to the site of the ritual. He destroyed the demon Voach, but not before Lindsey finished the ritual and brought back an old friend of Angel's from beyond the grave. With the ritual finished, Lindsey faced up to Angel and threatened to destroy the scroll, but before he got the chance Angel chopped his hand off.

With the scroll and some help form Wesley, Angel brought Cordelia out of the visions.

And with his apartment in ruins he is staying with Cordelia. As Welsey deciphered more of the scroll he realised that he had got the meaning of the word 'shanshu' wrong, it didn't mean death, it meant mortal death - Angel would die a mortal death, and to do so he would have to be human. Once he had completed the tasks set out for him and atoned for his past sins, the Powers that Be would return him to mortal life.

Angel, the only person in LA who is looking forward to growing old.

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