Jeffrey opens the door and he, too, can feel the angel. "Well, at least you aren't trying to hide from me. Loose the invisibility if you wish to enter." His tone is neither welcoming or warning. He waits for the angel to show himself before moving from the door. "I've sent the humans to their quarters. Alana is awake but unable to see until you leave. If you wish entry, you will make yourself visible. If you don't, then leave."

With those words the angel makes himself visible, "You always were stubborn, Jeffrey." The angel says and steps forward as Jeffrey moves out of the way.

"I hope that you will have some answers for Miss Matthews as well as myself?" Jeffrey says as he leads the way to his room. The angel follows behind him closely. At least he knows this angel and somewhat trusts him. Somewhat, as much as he trusts any of them any ways.

"It's been a while hasn't it?" The angel says ignoring Jeffrey's words.

"Not long enough," Jeffrey says through clenched teeth. The memory is still fresh even after all these years. "Did you send her to me for protection?" Jeffrey demands as they enter his room.

"I'll answer what I can after I look her over. Was she in bad shape when you found her?" The angel asks even as he moves closer to Alana to look her over.

"Yeah. Her feet were cut to ribbons. Took awhile to scrub them clean. It was a good thing the demon tainted had knocked her out. Likely with a rock from the injury on her head. Made killing the tainted much easier and more entertaining."

Alana doesn't like being talked about as if she wasn't there. "Is that why my feet are still tender and my head aches?"

"Yes, why didn't you mention your head still hurting?" Jeffrey replies a bit worried that her head was still hurting after having his blood.

"Ignored it, it doesn't pain too much." Only then does she notice the bandage on her head. She tries to take it off when she feels someone stopping her. She starts breathing hard.

"Shh, Alana, it's alright. I'm just going to do that for you. The angel will want to look at it any way." Jeffrey whispers and Alana relaxes and allows Jeffrey to take off the bandage.

"Must have been nasty if it's like this after you gave her blood." The angel says after looking at the wound. "The feet?"

"No longer bandaged, but they are likely going to need another few days before walking on them unless she takes more of my blood." Jeffrey says and the angel is satisfied without looking over the feet.

"Why did the demon want me?" Alana demands of the angel.

"Why are the angels interfering?" Jeffrey demands after Alana.

"The demon prince wants Alana to be his wife, through her his children will be able to take over the Earth and we would have no right to step in. The humans would have no way of fighting them and would fall. Those that aren't outright killed would be held in slavery. The supernaturals would either be killed or also enslaved. We couldn't allow that to happen."

"Demon prince?" Jeffrey says and there is a wicked little smile that comes onto his face.

"Why did you send Miss Matthews to me?" Jeffrey asks with more than a little interest. No, he won't be giving the demon prince the key back.

"We can't protect her here, not sufficiently and you know the rules about taking humans to heaven."

"Yeah, they have to be dead."

"We'd rather not have her dead. There is no need for that."

"Umm, I'm missing something here. Why would I be necessary for this prince to have children and why can't the angels protect me?" Alana asks more than a little lost.

The still unnamed angel sighs, "He is too strong for us. Even Michael is unsure if he can take down the prince. But then he's unsure if he can take you down too, Jeffrey. You've become very powerful since we last visited."

"You know this angel, Mr. Masters?" Alana asks still more than a little confused.

"Call me Jeffrey, Miss Matthews. Yeah. I guess you could say that I know him and a few of the other angels. I am old, older than recorded history at least."

"Jeffrey was born before the Sumerians." The angel says and lets that drop into a profound silence.

Alana just sits there and blinks.

Jeffrey sighs. "I told you that the ancient vampires were what the tainted become. I know because I was bitten by one of the ancient vampires, that's how I became a vampire."

"We had been hunting down and killing the vampires. We lost track of the vampire, the last of them, as it was heading towards a group of tribes. It could have gone after any one of a number of tribes in the area.

"It wasn't until it slaughtered nearly all of Jeffrey's tribe that we were able to kill it once and for all. No more vampires. We thought. Jeffrey was wounded, it wasn't until we tended to his wounds that we found that he had actually been bitten. Up to then, no one had ever survived being bitten by one of them."

"I didn't. I was helpless as my wife and children were slaughtered by the vampire. I lay dying as my people were screaming and dying. I could do nothing, I could barely breathe and struggled to do just that. The pain was excruciating. Add that to the pain of seeing my wife and child torn apart in front of me and hearing my people being destroyed, I wanted to die."

"We buried the others and cared for Jeffrey. Once it became apparent that he would be one of the walking dead we fed him of our blood until he got his blood lust under control. We gave him rules to live by. We warned him that we would be watching and if he broke those rules we would kill him."

"I wished more times in the first century that they would have killed me. I watched civilizations rise and fall. I've seen more and experienced more than I ever would wish on an enemy and yet, here I am. Still alive and the angels are still interfering with my life."

"Only because we need your help, she needs your help. If the prince  obtains her once more, he likely won't wait to marry her and force her to have his children. Then even your children will suffer." The angel tries to get him to see the need to help Alana.

"You don't need to spell it out. I am well aware, more than most, how this will affect me and mine." Jeffrey says more than a little angry at the angel.

The angel backs down. "You and yours have followed the rules we set down for the most part. We are well aware of that. We are aware that you yourself have killed some of your own children that have broken the rules. That some of your children have killed some of their children as well. 

"We also know that you have suffered because we weren't able to stop the vampire in time." The angel stops and looks at Jeffrey. "Michael is here. He would like permission to enter."

"As long as he is visible he may enter at this time." Jeffrey says with narrowed eyes. He and Michael never really got along. Michael was in charge of the vampire hunt. It was his fault that the vampire was able to kill his family and turn him into the monster. That damned him for eternity.

He still has anger issues about that.

He hears the angel come in the door. "Michael."

"Jeffrey, thank you for taking care of Miss Matthews."

"You knew I would."

"No, we hoped you would. We hoped your hatred of the demons would out weigh everything else, but we didn't know for sure if it did or not."

"Why are you here, Michael?" Jeffrey asks suddenly tired of it all. He starts to feel the weight of all the years he's lived.

"We need you to protect Miss Matthews for us."

Jeffrey shakes his head in disbelief. "You want me to do your job for you?"

"We already owe you deeply, we are aware of that Jeffrey. In fact, you've proven yourself many times over the centuries. I've been authorized to give you a gift." Michael says and Jeffrey feels something change inside as Michael touches him.

Alana gasps. "What did you do?"

"What is it, Alana?" Jeffrey wants to know what she felt.

"You feel more alive. Green, like a living creature, no longer one of the living dead."

Jeffrey sniffs, "Oh, I'm still a vampire."

"Yes, but you will no longer suffer under the sun. You will, in fact be able to use the sunlight to help you heal and to somewhat gain sustenance from it. Won't replace feeding from humans, but it will allow you to survive without blood and heal wounds in sunlight."

"Why? Why did you give me such a gift?" Jeffrey demands suspiciously. 

"If the demon prince finds out that Miss Matthews is here, he will attack you. He still has the need of shadows and dark to walk the Earth. You would be fairly evenly matched, with this gift you no longer have the weakness to light that he will have. It won't help you in direct combat, but it will allow you to have time to heal faster and more fully during the day."

Michael pulls out a sword and hands it to Jeffrey very carefully. "This is forged from metal from demon weapons past, thank you for giving us so many to collect, and metal forged by us. It will kill the demon prince, and angels as well, so take very good care of it."

"Um, sir, Michael? Why would you give Mr. Masters, I mean Jeffrey, a sword that could kill you as well?"

"Yes, a very good question, well, Michael?" Jeffrey demands once he's looked over the sword. He's well pleased by the balance and weight of it. It fits his hand like it was made for him.

"The prince is part fallen angel and part devil. No other weapon will be enough to kill him."

"His father won't be pleased if I kill him. I have no desire to have a devil on my ass for eternity."

"His father is the one that told us what his son is planning. He doesn't like the thought of hell and heaven being so close together and his son ruling Earth even less. He understands the rules and has no desire to break them, at least not in this way."

"Then why don't the angels take him out?"

"Because, Miss Matthews I'm not sure we can." Michael's words have Jeffrey turning to Michael fast enough to give himself whiplash.

"What?"

"I am not the best fighter, I doubt I could take you now. I'm not sure our best fighter could take you, but I have him preparing the hosts of heaven to fight. But we can only do defensive fighting to save the humans. In order to win the fight, we will need someone to fight the prince."

"You believe that Jeffrey can win against him?" Alana asks in interest.

"Yes, I believe that he can."

Jeffrey stares at the angel he has blamed for so long for the state he is in. "You believe that I can take down someone that you can't?"

"I think you are the only that will be able to take him down, Jeffrey. You are the only hope of your people and the other supernaturals as well as the humans have."

The other angel snorts, "You know you want to, Jeffrey. The idea of going against the demon prince thrills you like nothing has since your birth as a vampire."

"Why does he need to protect me? Why can't I just leave? I don't want to put Jeffrey in danger, he's been very kind to me and I don't wish to make things difficult for him. I can leave and go somewhere else." Alana says in the heavy silence of the angels words.

"As long as you remain pure and innocent, it would be easy for the prince to find you. Should you leave your protection you will become the prince's enslaved wife. Although, it's doubtful that you would survive past the first child, you would happily serve him and give him that child. If you survived it's birth you would willingly give him another."

"No, his very presence makes me ill."

"If you were enslaved in the marriage, you won't care." Michael states matter of factly to the female.

"I don't understand." Alana finally says and leans back into the pillows.