Cloaked in Shadows

A/N: I'm sorry that it has taken so long to update this story. I went through a hiatus when it came to writing, and I'm just getting back into it. I do plan to continue and finish this WIP. Thank you to all who are reading and responding. I really appreciate it, and I hope that you enjoy this chapter and the rest of the story. Also, I do put up when I'm updating my WIPs on my livejournal. My livejournal can be found under the name: cassie_snape.


Chapter Two

Buffy stood in front of an apartment building. It was in fairly good condition in a safer side of the city. She looked down at the small piece of paper. This was indeed the place. She opened the door and entered the building. Catherine’s apartment was on the third floor. Willow had told her that this was where Melitta was staying while she was in L.A. She briskly jogged up the three flights of stairs and went to apartment number 313. She knocked on the door and waited. Nothing. She knocked yet again and paused to listen. A muffled crash came from the other side of the door. “Hello? Catherine? Are you there? I’m a friend of Melitta’s.” There were a few other sounds before the door creaked open. Buffy was surprised at the appearance of the woman standing there. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. Her face was deathly pale. Her hair was matted in places and looked like it hadn’t been brushed in a couple of days. “Are you Catherine?” she asked softly.

Catherine nodded and slowly moved back to her corner where she slid down and sat. “Melitta’s gone. It ate Zara,” she said in a frightened tone as she began to tremble. She was still wearing her same clothes that she had worn that night at the Bloodsucker.

Buffy was stunned at how Catherine was acting. She didn’t recognize Zara’s name. She slowly shut the door, noticing how Catherine jumped at the sound of it. She then steadily walked toward her and knelt down beside of her. “Catherine, I know that you saw something very horrible, but I need you to tell me what happened.”

Catherine trembled. “Horrors. So many horrors. Litta left us. She ran. The shadow. The shadow swallowed Zara up. Zara’s gone. She’s dead.” She then burst into tears as she sobbed.

Buffy slowly wrapped her arms around the other woman, trying to soothe her. From what Catherine had managed to tell her, it seemed like a shadow had swallowed this girl Zara up. She had heard nothing like this before, but it fitted together with what Willow said that Melitta had said that night. It left so many unanswered questions. What was this shadow? How could it swallow its victims up? Were its victims truly dead? She just didn’t know, and she had to wait for Giles, Willow, and Dawn to come. They were supposed to arrive tomorrow evening via plane. She hoped that they had come up with something. Her focus then returned to Catherine. “Catherine, I’m Buffy Summers. I don’t know if Melitta ever said anything about me before. You have seen something very traumatic, and I think that you should go to a friend’s place for a few days to calm down. Do you have a place to go to?”

Catherine’s sobs slowly subsided as she nodded. “My sister’s,” she said softly.

Buffy gave her a gentle smile. “Good. Think you could get some clothes together and tell me where she is? I will take you there.”

Catherine managed to nod. With Buffy’s help, she stood up and gathered some things. Then, she went to her sister’s to stay for a while.

Buffy was driving back to Angel’s as she mulled over what she had found out. They had talked a bit more in the car, and she got a better description of the shadow. She had never heard of anything like it before, and she couldn’t even figure out if it was even a demon or not. She was going to take Spike and Angel with her that night to the Bloodsucker and figure things out. There was a part of her that hoped that this monster would be out tonight, but she also wasn’t any more prepared for it than Melitta had been. They still had to try though. This creature had to be destroyed at all costs.

* * * * *

Around midnight, Buffy, Angel, and Spike pulled up at the Bloodsucker. Spike was dressed in black and had his normal black duster on. Angel was dressed in jeans and a black shirt. Buffy had on thigh high black boots, a black mini-skirt, and a black tank top. Her make-up was a bit darker than normal as well. She did want to fit in. The three of them entered the small club, noticing that there were only a few people around. “This place seems almost dead tonight,” she commented softly.

“Want your usual, Spike?” rang a clear voice from behind the counter as he had seen the three enter.

Both Angel and Buffy looked directly at Spike. “Haven’t been here before, hmmm?” Buffy inquired.

Spike gave a slight shrug. “Must look like someone else, love,” he said lamely, knowing that he was busted. “Not today,” he told the bartender.

Buffy looked at the place. It was small and dark. On closer inspection, she could also tell that there were real vampires here. The only two that were mortals beside herself were the bartender and a bouncer. She stepped closer to Angel. “There are vamps here,” she said softly. She didn’t think that this place was normally filled with the undead sort. It was definitely suspicious. She then noticed that Spike had gone up to the bar, and she left Angel’s side and went to his, where she sat down on the barstool.

“Want anything to drink?” the bartender asked Buffy.

“No, thanks.” She never had been one of the best people to hold down her liquor, and it was just easier not to drink.

Spike looked at the bartender. “What happened to Johnny?” Johnny had been the other bouncer that he was used to being here.

The bartender visibly paused before cleaning out a glass with a wash towel. “Johnny had to move on. We have Barney now.” He gave a slight head movement to the tall black man who was guarding the door.

“When did Johnny leave?”

“A couple nights ago.”

Buffy and Spike quickly exchanged glances. It seemed quite a coincidence that Johnny had left on the same night that the shadow was around. Buffy then looked at the bartender. “A friend of mine came here a couple of nights ago. Did you see her? She is about so high. Mediterranean looking with blue-green eyes. She was here with a couple of other girls.”

The bartender gave quite a suspicious look toward Buffy. “I think she was here. She left in a hurry…didn’t even wait around for her friends.”

Spike took this as his lead. “She was a friend of mine as well. Do you know what happened to her?” He had never met Melitta, but he would try out what he could to get the information.

“Oh,” the bartender said as if that made all the difference. “Well, she was asking some questions about some disappearances. I can’t say more about that, but I asked her to leave, and she started a fight and then ran out. I didn’t see her after that. Her two friends were still in the bathroom when she left.”

“Do you remember anything else?” Buffy asked. “She has turned up missing, and we just would like to know what happened to her.” He shook his head. She sighed. “Thanks for your time.” Well, that had gotten them practically no where, she thought to herself. She then glanced over and Angel was motioning for them to come on and leave. “Let’s go, Spike,” she said as she got off the stool and followed Angel out of the building as Spike followed her. “Did you find out anything, Angel?”

“I talked with a few of the vampires. They said that they have noticed the disappearances, but they couldn’t say what caused it. One of them did say something about the bloodsucker getting them, but I don’t know if he meant a vampire or something else. He laughed after that.” Angel finished explaining what information they had gotten.

Buffy sighed with frustration. “We are no closer to knowing what the creature is than we were before!” She then kicked a rock across the alleyway. Strangely, she heard a slight sound like a beep or something. She walked slowly over, wanting to be careful if anyone was there. She then saw a cell phone lying on the ground. “This is Melitta’s,” she said as she saw the name on the screen. She put the phone into her pocket. “Let’s look around here,” she said as she took out a flashlight and began to study what was in the alleyway. She thought about what Willow had told her. It was likely that Melitta was running away from where she dropped her phone. She then began to follow what had been Melitta’s path. After passing a couple of places, she noticed the church. She headed towards it and then stopped when she noticed a dried spot on the street. It didn’t look like normal pavement. “What do you think this is?” she asked Angel and Spike.

Spike knelt down and slightly sniffed the spot. “It’s dried blood.”

“It could be Melitta’s,” Angel stated. It was unlikely it was, but at the same time, it was possible.

Buffy nodded. “I suggest that we go back to headquarters and figure things out. Angel and Spike both agreed as they got into the car and traveled back to Angel’s penthouse. She was very quiet during most of the trip back. She had no clue what this thing was. She couldn’t even tell if it was a demon. The whole place had just given off a very strange vibe. She also thought that the bartender knew more than he was letting on. Perhaps they should find a way to examine things without people there. It could wait until tomorrow though. It was possible that Giles, Willow, and Dawn could have already come up with the answers they desperately needed. She didn’t know how she was going to fight this thing without answers. A stake wouldn’t work. There just had to be another way.

Spike leaned forward. “What are you thinking about, love?” he asked. She had been rather silent.

Buffy looked back at him. “I’m just wondering what could have gotten one of the slayers and destroyed others. I don’t remember ever coming across anything like this before.” An idea then came to her. “Are you certain that you defeated all the baddies from the Apocalypse that you had here?”

Angel nodded. “We’re fairly certain.”

“But are you positive?”

Spike shrugged. “There were a lot of them. We thought we got them all.”

She sighed. Perhaps this thing could have gotten out during the Apocalypse. She just didn’t know. She would have to run the idea by Giles and Willow. The more she thought about the idea, then the more plausible it had become. She knew that these disappearances hadn’t started until after the Apocalypse. She closed her eyes tightly for a brief moment. There was just too much to think about, and it was making her head hurt. There wasn’t much that could be done tonight anyways. She figured that she would just get some rest and wait to see what the others knew. She just hoped that there wouldn’t be any more disappearances until they could figure out a way to stop this monster.


A/N: Please review! I really appreciate it!