All the characters appearing in Gargoyles and Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles are copyright Buena Vista Television/The Walt Disney Company. All the characters appearing in Monk are copyright USA Network. All the characters appearing in Buffy the Vampire Slayer are owned by Joss Whedon. No infringement of these copyrights is intended, and is not authorized by the copyright holder. All original characters are the property of Zzilly14.
Discoveries
Goliath looked at the hand and eventually shook it. "I am Goliath, and this is... my wife, Elisa."
The raven-haired woman walked over to them and sighed with a mix of relief and excitement. "I killed a vampire. Wow." She turned to Angel. "So, how is it that you're a good guy?"
"I have a soul," he replied. "At the end of the 19th century I killed the daughter of a gypsy, and as a punishment her family gave me my soul back – so I had to live with the guilt of all the pain I caused."
"Then what were you doing with that other vampire?" the gargoyle wondered.
"Getting information from him. Buffy was visiting me in L.A. when we heard about the murder on the news. She was just going to come up by herself, but the thing is, there usually there aren't many vamps up here in San Fran. I think something big is up so I came up with her to find out what's going on.
"Anyway, that vamp was following me and when I faced him, I pretended I was just like a regular vampire. So when I saw you two coming down the alley-"
"You had to play the part," Elisa finished. "I know about undercover work. So, what did you find out?"
"Unfortunately not a lot. He was working for somebody, but I don't know who. Could be a vamp. Or a demon."
"Or a gargoyle," Goliath added.
Angel nodded. "Sadly, yes. It's possible your renegade friend may be behind this. Anyway, apparently the victim had something that this vamp's boss wants. The scumbag didn't tell me what it was, but he definitely didn't have it."
"Someone else took it before the vampire could," Elisa thought aloud.
Suddenly her cell phone started ringing. She excused herself and picked up. "Maza... Yeah, we're actually with him now... He didn't find that out... Okay, we'll meet you back at the station in a little while. Bye."
"Buffy?" Angel asked.
"Yeah. She went to your motel room and discovered you went missing. She was worried."
"She tends to do that," he remarked. "Especially if I'm involved."
Elisa laughed. "Sounds exactly like my Big Guy," she smiled as she hugged her husband. "He tends to worry about me a lot."
Angel cleared his throat. "If you think Buffy and I are... you know... we're not. Not for a long time."
"We should probably go back," said Goliath. "I'm sure Sharona and Monk would have returned by now."
Elisa nodded. "Yeah, we should regroup and figure out what to do next."
...
Back at the police station, Sharona and Monk were waiting.
"Where could they have gone?" Sharona wondered. "We leave for what, a half hour? And they're gone. All of them, disappeared."
"They probably got bored," answered Monk. "People tend to do that, when they have to wait. Like right now."
Buffy returned to the office and smiled at the two of them. "Hey guys. When did you get back?"
"A half hour ago," replied an irritated Sharona. "Where'd you go?"
"I had some business to take care of. Goliath and Elisa are on their way back, with a friend of mine."
"Is your friend going to help us with this murder mystery too?" asked the blonde-haired assistant.
The Slayer nodded. "Yeah, he tried getting some information on the streets, but didn't get a whole lot. At least not yet."
...
Demona glided to the abandoned warehouse she was staying at, cradling the green blanket in her arms. She landed and walked inside, making sure no one was following her.
As the days in San Francisco turned into weeks, she had tried to fix the place up a bit. There were newspaper articles concerning the murder all over the walls, an old rug she picked up on the side of the road, and a mattress that she bought at a yard sale during the hours while she was human.
Sleeping on the mattress was eleven-year-old Benjy, who had begun to fall asleep after Demona took him from his apartment. When she arrived at her home, she had carefully placed him on the bed, trying not to wake him.
Although it was summer, the air conditioner made the place extremely cold. Demona noticed Benjy shivering, so she had left the boy briefly to find him a blanket. Luckily a sleeping homeless person a few blocks away wasn't using his, so she quietly took it and hurried away before the man even noticed.
The gargoyle silently crept to the boy and delicately put the blanket over him, smiling sadly at him as he continued to sleep.
"I'm sorry you have to be in this mess," she whispered softly.
...
Angel, Goliath, and Elisa were heading back to the police station, talking about various things.
"...and then people became the costumes they were wearing. Xander was this serious military leader type. And Willow was a ghost – she could walk through walls and all that. And Buffy... you should've seen her, she was dressed up as this 18th century 'proper lady'... she was the opposite of Slayer, that's for sure."
"That's very... interesting," Goliath replied. "One time Puck changed my Elisa into a gargoyle, and she thought she had always been one."
"And then he turned you and your clan into humans," she reminded him. "As the gargoyles like to say – it's sorcery!"
"So," the souled-vampire wondered, "what brings you to the West Coast? Aren't you guys from New York?"
"We've been doing a cross-country trip for our honeymoon," Elisa replied, smiling.
"Congrats on getting married. That's wonderful."
The three continued walking until Angel stopped, smelling the air. "I smell a gargoyle," he said. "And it's not you, Goliath."
"Demona," the lavender gargoyle growled. "Lead us to her."
While the gang headed for Demona, Elisa whipped out her cell phone and got a hold of Sharona, filling her in on the details.
"Hey guys, wait," Elisa said, still on the line with Sharona. "We've got a problem."
"What is it?" Goliath asked.
"Sharona called her apartment to check up on her son, but there was no answer. I think we're near her apartment, so we should go over there and make sure he's okay."
Angel looked at his two new friends. "You guys do that. I'll check out where Demona's hiding out, and then meet you back at the station."
Elisa got on Goliath's back and he scaled the wall of one of the buildings before taking to the air.
"It's over there," said Elisa, pointing at a window where the lights were still on.
They landed as the gargoyle growled. "The window's open," he noticed.
"Demona." The woman shook her head sadly – the apartment was empty.
...
Ten minutes later the couple returned to the office to see a distraught Sharona.
"He wouldn't run away!" she explained. "He's wouldn't..."
Buffy patted her shoulder. "Ms. Fleming, we'll find Benjy. Even if I have to go through every nook and cranny in this town."
"Sharona," Goliath said, "I think Demona took him – the window in your apartment was open."
Captain Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Disher had already left with some other cops to search for Benjy, while the rest of the gang waited for Angel.
Monk was pacing back and forth, trying to keep his mind busy by giving into his OCD tendencies. Buffy was also pacing back and forth, but twirling her stake. Goliath and Elisa held each other, and Sharona tried to keep from crying. Suddenly the office phone rang, and Sharona picked it up.
"Benjy?" she immediately cried.
"No," replied a female's voice with a slight accent. "But don't worry, he's safe."
Sharona became angry, putting on the speaker phone. "Why did you take my son... Demona?"
The other side was deathly quiet for a few moments. "I see that Goliath has it all figured out, or at least he thinks he does. Look, no harm will come to the boy. He's fine."
Goliath growled. "Demona, return him to us. I don't know why you're doing all of this, but-"
"I... I can't tell you right now," she said. "But it'll all make sense soon. Goliath, I know you can't trust me, but on our daughter's life I swear to you that Benjy will not get hurt."
The lavender gargoyle sighed while Sharona yelled into the speaker phone. "Just tell me where my son is!"
"I can't," they heard her say in an upset voice. "Not yet... not yet..." Then the other side hung up.
...
While Demona was still on the phone, Angel had managed to find the old warehouse. He looked through the window and saw the blue-skinned gargoyle using a cell phone, pacing back and forth. From the angle he was at, he didn't see Benjy.
He waited, and saw Demona beginning to cry, saying "Not yet, not yet." Then she hung up and threw the phone down, putting her face in her hands.
Angel heard a kid's voice begin to speak. It was then he saw the boy walking over to the crying gargoyle, patting her arm. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"
The vampire listened carefully as Demona finally admitted what was going on. He was shocked as much as Benjy was – but before he could inform his friends of the situation, someone knocked him out with a crowbar.
TO BE CONCLUDED...