Angel de la Guardia

**Angel de la Guardia** is the secondary antagonist of Cronos. He is played by Ron Perlman.

## Biography

Angel was the nephew of Dieter de la Guardia. Dieter, a rich yet old and abusive businessman, was using Angel as a way to help him track down the Cronos device so he could live forever. Angel suffered his uncle's abuse on a daily basis, but only so that he could eventually obtain an inheritance.

In 1996, an elderly antique dealer, Jesús Gris, notices that the base of an archangel statue is hollow. He opens it and finds the 450-year-old mechanism. After he winds the ornate, scarab-shaped device, it unfurls spider-like legs which grip him tightly and inserts a needle into his skin, injecting him with an unidentified solution. An insect — entombed within the device and meshed with the internal clockwork — produces the solution. Gris eventually discovers his health and vigor are returning, as is his youth. His skin loses its wrinkles, his hair thickens and his sexual appetite increases. He also develops a thirst for blood. This initially disgusts him, but he eventually succumbs to the temptation. He uses the device later that night but says his nightly prayer as he does. His granddaughter Aurora notices this and begins to worry about Gris. Meanwhile, Dieter, who has been amassing information about the mechanism for many years, has been searching for the statue with the device. He sends Angel to purchase the statue at the antique shop.

During a New Year's Eve party, Gris sees a man bleeding from the nose and follows him into the men's room in order to take his blood off of the sink countertop. Another man comes out of one of the stalls, sees the blood and cleans it up. Gris notices blood on the floor and decides to lick it up, until Angel walks up and kicks him in the face, knocking him unconscious. Angel gives him some alcohol and tries to beat him into giving up the mechanism. When Gris faints, Angel places his body inside a car and pushes it off a cliff. Gris briefly awakens and prays for survival, but seemingly dies. He later revives in an undertaker's establishment and escapes before he can be cremated. He returns home, and Aurora lets him in. Dieter beats Angel for not ensuring Gris's heart was destroyed and sends him to check on the body. Gris works on a letter to his wife in which he comments on the changes to his body and tells her that after completing some 'unfinished business' he will return to her. He notices that his skin burns in the presence of sunlight and sleeps in a box to avoid it.

Eventually, Gris and Aurora bring the mechanism to Dieter's headquarters, where the businessman offers him a "way out" in exchange for the device. Gris comments on his damaged skin and the businessman tells him to peel it off because he has new skin underneath, which is marble-white like the dead alchemist. Gris threatens to destroy the mechanism but is told that he will die should that happen. Gris agrees to hand it over in exchange for knowing the "way out", whereupon Dieter stabs him. Before being able to strike the killing blow to the chest, Dieter is incapacitated by Aurora and Gris feeds on Dieter. Angel finds the dying Dieter and crushes his throat with his foot, tired of his abuse and waiting for his inheritance.

## Death

Angel confronts Gris on the rooftop of the building and beats him severely. Gris throws them both off the roof and through a skylight, killing Angel.