Disclaimer: Still no.

A/N: I am so sorry!! I had so much to do that I had no time to write this. So I hope writing a really long chapter helps. I have been writing a different part of this story, because the last chapter gave me nightmares. Anyway, finales are over so you should have a lot more chapters coming your way. Thanks to everyone again, especially Roxy (Angel-Buffy17), every one who hasn't, should read her renamed story also to Abby, who made it clear, that I need to update faster. To everyone else, I would totaly write all of your names up here, but I figured that getting the chapter out was more important.

Enjoy!!

Warning: Contains talk of suicide and dark matters.

Chapter 3 Like a Bat out of Hell

Buffy sat with her head resting against the window of the bus, staring at the moving scenery. Every mile away, the more light hearted she felt. The sun was shinning, birds were singing, and she was about to release hell on the world. Life was good. She had wondered if what she was doing was right. She had been having doubts. Was it okay to let out the Scourge of Europe? Then she thought of what would happen if she didn't. She shuddered. NO! She couldn't go back.

Now that she was so close, she wondered how she could get Angel in to a container that only she could release him from. She had thought it out. She couldn't just make him happy enough to lose his soul, they would just stick it back in. Most spells would back fire, or have a loophole a mile wide. Most containers for souls if broken the soul would go back to its body. No she needed something high grade, and in a place that no one would speak of what went on. Good thing she knew just the place.

She stepped into a dark lit room. She walked past, what looked like an abandon store. She walked to the door that read, "Staff Only" She knocked twice.

A slit opened in the door, appearing like the magic it was. An eye could be seen. It was slit, like a cat's or reptile's.

"Oh, it's you."

"Yeah, wanna let me in?"

"Are you going to break everything again?"

"NO."

"Good."

The slit closes and the door opens. As she walks in, she mutters, "Well not everything. I still need the jar thingy."

The human like demon who opened the door, just shook his head. As he moved to escort her to the main room, he was bathed in light. The demon looked a mix between cat, snake, and human. His head had light fur on it. He had two very feline ears. They swiveled back and forth; listen for any sound that would indicate a threat. He had a human shaped head. However his face begged to differ. His eyes could have been feline, or reptilian, no one really knew. His nose was more of a raised line that ended in two tiny holes. His mouth was human, except for a partially forked tounge and sharp felinesque canines. His neck was longer than that of any humans. His torso and hip were sinewy and had a cat-like grace about them. The skin you could see on his chest was golden fur that shimmered in the light. His skin was a mix of tough undercoat and belly scales of a python. His hands were clawed much like a cat's. They were even retractable. Unlike a cat's however, they were laced with a poisen that a single drop could knock out a werwolf, and drop a human in under 20 seconds. Strangly enough her had a ccats tail, but at the end it, the fur tapered off, and a rattle was left on the end. The tail could be used as an effective whip, or as a warning device, but if necessary it could be so silent you never even knew it was there.

He was employed as a bodygaurd, as many of his kind, the Caedes, were. Their name was Latin for, slaughter, killing, carnage. Ironically, the Caedes had a code of honor, which included only killing if in the absolute need. When they did kill it was quick and clean, and basically untracable. Their poison, once it ran its course, faded into the blood stream. No test could find it, only another Caedes could tell if their poison was used. Each Caedes had a different type of smell to their own personal poison.

Their poison was used for many things and had many myths surrounding it. It was also extremely rare that the poison was separated from the Caedes. No one, but the Caedes, knew all the uses for their poison. Even then, new things arose.

Buffy trusted Caedeses. She knew that they were a neutral, unless hired, even then they had standards. She had used their services before when she lived in L.A., to protect both of her parents. She liked them, because they would defend their clients to their last breath, and they had a weird sense of humor that she enjoyed.

She had been using them lately to knock out Riley. She would get Riley alone, then have him "accidently" hit his head and get knocked on concious. Then she would have the Caedes keep him asleep with a small does of their poison, so she could have some alone time. She couldn't do it that often because he would get suspicious. However the times she did use the Caedes to knock him out, and get a moment of alone time, she was close to killing him, or herself. Fortunantly or unfortunantly, depending on how you look at it, Roarick her Caedes demon would talk her out of both. Sometimes it got so bad that he had to drug her himself.

She had hired him after Angel left incase something like that happened. He had been nothing but loyal, even when she broke several of his ribs, and broke his nose. Under her contract she had to set up an empathy link with him, incase she did try to kill herself or anyone else for that matter. She knew that at one point or another she would do something like that, and she wanted to make sure that while she was still sane, she would be safe from herself.

She felt bad about how her emotions affected Roarick. Roarick was the only one who knew just how miserable she was. His exact words were, "I can't breathe. I feel like I being ripped into shreds and being burned alive. I feel like I need to break something, scream, get angry, cry, or colapse and die. How do you function like this?" He had asked in an almost clinical manner. She had laughed at him and said this was her on a good day. He then said in a under breathe manner, that few, including her, could hear, well no wonder you want an empathy link, misery just loves company. She had chuckled to herself and responded in a light manner, I can hear you. He had replied in the same tone, that's why I said it.

Now of course, the Caedes in front of her was not Roarick. Roarick was currently, where ever the hell he usually was when she was not emotionally on the side of sui or homi scidal. She had been very good with her emotions. Not too happy or too depressed of late. Roarick knew about the scene in the shower, how could he not? She had made his appearance before she left for L.A., making sure she was not thinking any too violent thoughts. She had fed him the same lies as Riley and the Scoobies, but adding that the real reason she was leaving was to get away from the people who "loved her" in her life. He had bought it due to the fact she was only feeling, relief, happiness, and a little guilt, besides the heart shredding normal pain. He had assumed that the guilt was for leaving the unmentionable people without protection for a while, not for lying to him. He was very wrong, but she had expected him to feel that guilt so she had laid the ground work for her excuse two days earlier.

She had been angry that they always objected to her leaving because not only would it leave the hell mouth unguarded, but they would have no one to pull their asses out of danger if some thing happened. She had said she was begging to get why slayers worked alone.

So the Caedes in front of her was not Roarick, but Rian. They had met when she first visited this shop. She had been tracking a demon trying to raise hell on earth or something, she couldn't remember. She did remember getting to the shop, breaking a ton of stuff killing him and getting covered in demon goo, and meeting Rian, after trying to kill the owner of the shop. Rian had told her that they did not sell to demons who wanted to bring hell on earth or cause aimless destruction, it always came back to them in a bad way, her being example A. The owner was kind, a little evil, if one could be that. He had a code of honor, which he took very seriously. He also had a Caedes demon working for him, so he couldn't be all bad.

They had talked for a while. She had apologized for destroying his shop, he told her he had insurance. She had thought it funny for a demon to have insurance, but she had seen strangers things. He had said that he owed her because it was usually a big hassle to get rid of unwanted customers. He had told her that if she needed anything she would help her out.

Before she left, Rian had told her that he knew about her situation from Roarick. He had told her he would let he know if there were anything causing havoc so she could escape for a while. After she thanked him she left to go back to Sunnyhell.

Rian was true to his word and she would go to L.A. for a while, and do some violence, have a night out with him and his friends, do some clubbing, and go home. It was a good system, and one she was grateful for. However he never let her forget about her clumsiness and tendency to break the most expensive thing near her, which occurred more than once after the scene in the store. She in return tried to break the most expensive thing just to annoy him. Now it was just playful banter between them, mostly.

He led her through the shop to a very tastefully decorated office in the back. As they entered, she saw some thing move out from the corner of her eye. Before she had time to look at it fully, the owner appeared at his deck, looking as of he had been there the whole time. Which she knew was not the case. She had no idea what the owner was. For all intents and purposes, he appeared and acted very much human. His clothing and office where modern and classy, so that was no help. He was considered handsome by any one with eyes, but he had the air of wisdom that only comes from many lives and many mistakes. However from what she could puzzle together, he was fast, strong, magically inclined, ageless, and clairvoyant. But that could be anything, she knew, she had tried to research him, but it had failed miserably.

He made a noise in his throat, distracting her from her thoughts.

"So Ms. Summers, finally decided on your favor." he stated, not questioned, stated. 'Clairvoyant, I knew it!'

"Yes, do you have anything that will hold a soul, can't be broken, can't be released by anyone but the taker, and unobtrusive?"

"What a specific favor."

"Well it is a specific task to accomplish, and I don't want anything or anyone to screw with it."

"I might have something along those lines."

"So how long will it take to get?"

"Five steps or so."

"…?!?"

"Yes, I was expecting this, I hope you know what your doing."

"I do." "Good. I have very little patience for some one who has no idea what their doing, it makes for bad business."

"Thanks?"

He took the five steps to a painting on the wall. Moving it a side, she expected to see a safe, there was just wall. She was beginning to suspect, that he was not all together there, that was until he pressed a hand to the wall, and it went, well, poof!

Behind the entire wall was a giant safe. He put his hand against the metal door. It beeped, and then it slid open. He then took a knife from thin air, cut his palm, let one drop of blood fall, whispering something. Black and purple sparks flashed before a blue light could be seen in vault.

He carefully lifted out a small black box. He waved his free hand, closing the vault. He replaced the picture, and walked over to her, the black box still in hand.


A/N Sorry people, I leave it here just to give you something. Also the more you review, the more guilt I feel and the faster I update.