Please Read

Hi. This is probably the weirdest DMC fanfic I've ever written and I've written some strange ones. I mean… I'm having Dante deal with fairies, essentially. Fairies. And I'm making an effort to write them with a straight face and make them intimidating and imposing.

I must be out of my mind.

And I'm not very sorry about this, either.

This fic is part of my active headcanon and that includes my witch, Tess. For information on her, please refer to my original fanfics "Frail Equilibrium" and "Crossfire". To make a long story short, she's a witch that Dante is on good terms with. They get into a lot of shenanigans together, not all of them good. She likes fire; a lot.

Well anyway, just wanted to add that I have knowingly used wrong terminology in this fic because I messed up my research and didn't realize it till I was deep into the fic. To clarify:

Sídhe is the proper name of the dwellings of fairies/elves/fey, which are known as Aos Sí or Aes Sí and in some texts even as daoine sídhe.Initially, I had it backwards and I kept writing it as such until I went back to my notes and realized my blunder. But I didn't want to bog you down with complicated terminology so I decided to stick with it and use the simpler term of Sídhe as a catch-all. I used the Realm as a general way to reference the otherworld this story takes place in because there are a lot of different names in folklore and they all mean roughly the same thing so I settled on that as a colloquialism.

Thank you for reading and please enjoy the madness.

Prologue

Brrrrring… Brrrrrrring…

Dante's eyelids parted slowly and a frown creased his forehead. He briefly wondered how long he'd been sleeping in his chair with his legs propped on the desk. It felt like only minutes but from the change of light in his office, it was more likely a couple of hours. He sniffed lazily and shifting his position a bit, banged the heel of his foot on the desk.

The receiver of his hopelessly antiquated phone bounced up with a strangled ring and by the time it came down, he'd sat up and so it landed in his expectant hand. He yawned briefly before bringing it to his ear.

"Devil May Cry," he said flatly.

"It's me."

Dante opened his eyes fully. It was Tess. She never called for idle chit-chat. "What's going on, Twig?" he asked, sitting up and getting his feet off the desk.

He heard a small tired sigh from her end. "Could you please swing by my place? I have a client for you. He's… not cozy with the idea of hiring you but I'll explain when you get here. Could you hurry? We're kind of short on time."

Dante frowned. It wasn't the first time that Tess had a job for him but she always referred the prospective client to him and usually left him to his own devices. As far as he knew, she loathed bringing her work home.

"Yeah, I'm coming," was all he said and they both hung up.

He got up and got properly dressed, tucked his guns away in the holsters behind his back, pulled his coat on and picked up his sword. She had sounded troubled on the phone. He knew Tess well enough and the witch rarely referred a job to him that she couldn't do herself. He'd long learned that if she needed him to do something, it was usually with good reason. So there was no point to fuss or sass her about it. He left his office with a glum September midday sun sending anemic rays through clouds.

Barely twenty minutes later, he was ascending the metal staircase on the side of Tess' building and knocking on the door of her loft. She opened it almost immediately and looked relieved to see him. The witch's red hair was a bit ruffled, her clothes bore signs of a fight and she had a somewhat agitated expression.

"Thank the stars. He's just about to crawl out of his skin," she huffed. "Before anything else, you need to know he's not human."

Dante just stared at her. Tess usually dumped facts on him like that but this one was not the usual kind. "Not human?" he quipped.

"He's…" she started and then groaned. "Look, just come in."

She grabbed him by the lapel and pulled him inside. Her small loft was a bit more untidy than usual – he knew that her familiar, Roy, was away on a personal errand and Tess looked so distracted that Dante felt he could safely bet that she had been too busy to care. But more to the point, Dante glanced around and saw nobody else there. He could feel the presence of something but it was completely foreign to him. It couldn't be a ghost; he could see those (just not as well as Tess) and he knew when he sensed those.

"Where is he?" he blurted.

Tess hissed a small curse and looked up. "Tanglewood, do stop pacing around my ceiling. Get down; he's not going to eat you."

Dante looked up and quirked an eyebrow. There was a small… person standing on her ceiling in the far side of the room, as naturally as if it had been the floor. Gravity appeared to have no effect, neither on his person, nor his clothes. He just paced back and forth between two beams nervously. Dante had seen something of the kind, years before, when he was stuck in Temen Ni Gru. Jester had been up to similar antics and being reminded of that immediately made him feel a bit edgy.

"Are you certain he can be trusted, Miss Templar?" the creature said with a slight tremble.

"Yes I am," Tess countered impatiently. "Now get down, or the deal is off and you're on your own."

Dante only took his eye off the being for a moment but it was enough, because the weird thing was simply gone from the ceiling. It was now standing on the floor, still as far away from them as it could. Dante finally got a good look at him.

He was humanoid, about the size of a small teenager but in all proportions a full-grown adult. He was lanky and appeared almost deceptively delicate but by the nervous way he was wringing his hands Dante could interpret a kind of wiry strength in his limbs. His skin was dark and ashy, with a texture almost as though it ought to be wood but then again not. He had a narrow, bony face with a pinched expression, large gray eyes and a pointed nose that stuck upwards a little. There was a wide line of black around his head, almost like a mask – Dante wasn't sure if that was painted or was a natural coloration of his skin. His hair was frizzy, ash blond and shoulder-length, pulled back and bunched together in an awkward short ponytail with clumps of loose hair sticking out in every direction. He was dressed in what looked like tattered gray jeans, a dirty cream shirt of some material that looked almost like thick cobweb and an equally tattered charcoal vest that must've been made by abnormally large, grey leaves sewn together somehow. He wore a very long, faded purple sash with gold trim around his waist, the edges trailing on the floor haphazardly and thick brown boots with black spats.

Dante couldn't even really think of a clever line to drop. He'd never really seen anything like this creature.

"What the hell is he?" was the only thing that he could think of asking.

"I'm a Puck," the strange thing spat. "My name is Tanglewood, squire to… well, that doesn't matter anymore. I'm in service of the Queen," he added with barbed self-confidence.

As if Dante was expected to know what the short-round was going on about.

"Remember when I explained to you what my father was?" Tess said calmly.

Dante quirked an eyebrow at her. "Yeah, a… changeling, right?"

She nodded. "Which means he was a Sídhe that was left in place of a human baby. And that's what Tanglewood here is. He's a Sídhe."

Dante couldn't help it now. He laughed. "Are you telling me he's a fairy?"

Tanglewood suddenly grew livid. "Oh, sure! Same way you're a pitchfork-wielding imp devil!" he spat.

Tess sighed patiently. "Tangle, please shut up," she said, looking at him pointedly.

The Sídhe turned silent, but glared at them with a surly expression. Dante, still smirking at the absurdity of it all, looked at her in demand of an explanation.

"Calling the Sídhe 'fairies' is really wishful thinking," she said. "I mentioned this to you ages ago. Sídhe have more in common with demons—"

"I resent that statement!" Tanglewood protested hotly.

"—than they do with picture-book fairies. They live in a separated plane of existence, like demons. Many of them are just as dangerous and spiteful of humans as demons. Their society is run through deals, contracts, favors and other such complications. Except they're actually bound to act that way. But that's beside the point. The job he needs you for is more up your usual alley."

Dante looked at Tanglewood dubiously. "Sídhe have demon problems?"

"Trust me, they don't appreciate demons any more than humans do," Tess said and shrugged. "They hate them a lot more. That's why he's being so difficult."

Tanglewood glared daggers at Dante. "Miss Templar spoke to me about you. You're half-demon," he said and wrinkled his nose.

"Yeah, yeah. He doesn't bite, Tangle. Stop acting like a child," Tess snapped at him. "Honestly, at this point you haven't got much room to complain, for all the shit you're in. You'll be lucky if the Court doesn't flay you and hang your skin to dry."

"Hold it, hold it…" Dante said and snickered. "What's he even doing in your house, Tess? How does a fairy—"

"I'm not a bloody fairy!" Tangle snapped.

"—end up working with you?"

Tess shook her head. "I'll tell you later, we kind of need to hurry with this."

Tanglewood sulked under her cold stare and huffed, then shuffled closer, with a look as if gathering his courage. He stared up at Dante with an almost ridiculously serious look. "Miss Templar has assured me that you are more than capable of handling my predicament so… I suppose I can assume you are trustworthy. Therefore—"

Dante rolled his eyes and turned to Tess, who was biting back a laugh. "What does he want?"

Tangle groaned in embarrassment.

"He needs you to kill a corrupted Bargest," she explained in simpler terms. "It's a dog-like, beast Sídhe. It's been tainted by demonic miasma and it's grown into a goddamn monster."

"Yes and it killed my master, Sir Guyon, when we were sent to dispatch it after it devoured the moron responsible for its creation," Tangle bristled. "Bally idiotic Sídhe, cavorting around with demons, as if that's any way to do things! Opening ripples to the Underworld and letting miasma through! And then the bloody thing just had to escape to the human lands."

"Your master?" Dante asked, tilting his head.

"He was a Sídhe knight's squire, don't get him started," Tess interjected, just as Tanglewood appeared ready to into another tirade. "Tangle, you mentioned that there's been quite a lot of demonic presence in the Realm, didn't you?"

"Yes!" the puck snarled. "Left, right and center – ripples open up and out comes a cart-load of miasma and demons! It's like someone keeps poking holes in reality. We don't know what in Oberon's name is going on."

Dante grinned. Well, now he was interested. Demons bothering fairies. Sure, why the hell not? "What's that Realm thing you mentioned?"

"That's how the Sídhe call their world," Tess shrugged. "You know, like the demons call theirs the Underworld…"

Dante quirked an eyebrow. "Right."

"So… will you render me your services?" Tanglewood asked him bluntly, his ranting mood waning.

Dante scoffed. "Sure, why the hell not? I don't get to see fairies every day."

"Gah! Enough with that nonsense! Dumb humans and their fanciful ideas!" Tangle snapped. "I don't care if the nobility pansies care to be called 'The Fair Folk'" he said with a disdainful grimace, "but I'm a bloody common Puck and a squire to the Queen and that's it!"

Dante couldn't help laughing. The little guy was a veritable firecracker. "Whatever you say. You got yourself a hunter."

Tanglewood appeared a little mollified and just uttered an appreciative grunt as he folded his arms and sulked.

"Well now that we're all on the same page, let's get this over with. I've had enough of Sídhe for this week," Tess sighed.

"That why you call me? You couldn't oblige him?" Dante asked her as she gently ushered him out her door.

"Yep," she admitted. "That damn thing is nasty. I didn't try a very heavy-handed approach because it's both Sídhe and demonic; for all I know its dual nature might mess with more forceful spells. The usual seals I employ to fight demons don't work right and fire… well, you'll see for yourself. The damn thing eats it."

"We did manage to track it and isolate it," Tangle grumbled. "Miss Templar bound it to a deserted building nearby. It will still be there, licking its wounds. Bargests do not like the light of day, no matter where they are. It must be put down post-haste, lest it run rampant in the human world and claim lives in the night."

"That bad?" Dante smirked.

"Oh I can't wait for it to bite your ass and wipe that smirk off your face," Tess huffed, striding purposefully towards her car. "Tangle, go on ahead and keep tabs on it. I don't need a goddamn demonic Sídhe barreling through the city."

Tanglewood, who had remained surly throughout that, nodded sharply and started walking forward, just to vanish into thin air. Dante suppressed his curiosity and just got in Tess' Plymouth Roadrunner for the ride to the location.

"So how do you know this Puck thing?" Dante asked, getting into the passenger's seat.

Tess started the engine and sped right off. "Tangle and I go back. When I still lived with the coven, I found him caught by a warlock who was going to use his bones to build some kind of artifact. I saved his butt. He owes me, so we have an arrangement: If I need anything from the Sídhe, he gets it for me. And because I'm nice… I agreed to help him with his problem."

Dante smiled wryly. "Quid pro quo, eh?"

"Something like that. It's dangerous to have too many dealings with Sídhe, but Tangle's got neither the power, nor the attitude for serious damage," she sighed. "I'd almost say he's nice but you saw how difficult he can be."

By the time she pulled up outside a dilapidated building in the industrial district, the sun was hanging quite low in the sky and Tess pursed her lips in annoyance. She got out of the car and didn't even look around to make sure Dante followed. Tangle appeared out of nowhere near the door.

"It's still inside miss, but the circle is almost depleted!" he reported. "We're only just in time."

Dante blinked at him. Since leaving them and meeting them here, he'd gotten hold of a fairly large (for his size, anyway) and sturdy bow made of gnarled wood, and a quiver stuffed with arrows. A big (again, for his size) knife with a curved edge was wedged in his sash.

"You heard him Dante, that thing's straining at the leash. We have to kill it before it gets out."

Dante just shrugged, smiled and drew his sword. "Fine. Let's go kill a fairy monster," he joked.

An hour later, he wasn't entirely sure if he still thought it was so funny. The Bargest was a real beast, about the size of a large rhino and built like a small tank. It was as if a bear had been crossed with a rabid wolf and given steroids. It reeked of demonic stench, mingled with the peculiar energy of the Sídhe. It wasn't fully corporeal, flickering like static sometimes and much faster than its size and bulk belied.

Its huge head sported teeth, tusks and horns that would made demons jealous. It had actually managed to get its jaws around his arm and Dante had struggled a bit to break free of its bite. Its paws were so big that its claws alone were about the length of a child's arm. In one swipe it had demolished a wall as if it were made of paper. It had the blackest fur Dante had ever seen, almost as if it absorbed all light and only gave off a sickly green flame of its own. On top of that, Dante got a funny feeling of 'wrong' from it, as if this thing shouldn't exist.

Tess had been correct in her assessment. Any fire she conjured to use against it was immediately absorbed, literally devoured by the Bargest; it would open its jaws and suck in every flame, just to spew it back as demon fire. All she could really do was continually keep it from escaping with multiple seals at a time. It didn't seem to even register pain and gunfire only slowed it down. It responded better to getting cleaved but even then it took quite a lot of heavy hits and in the meantime, it seemed to be in a berserk state. Fortunately, it seemed to have locked in on him the moment he got in its face.

In all that mess, Tanglewood had been bouncing around the rafters above, firing his bow at it, for all the good it would do. Dante bit back a snide remark when two arrows, one after the other, found their mark squarely in the Bargest's left eye, distracting it long enough for him to gain an additional advantage. He wasn't sure if they were simple arrows anyway, because on contact the Bargest's peculiar flesh would sizzle and burn as if it were hit with acid.

When it finally fell, Dante laughed a bit wryly as it toppled over on him, Rebellion deeply embedded in its massive chest. He often complained he didn't get enough of a challenge from fighting with demons anymore but he'd actually worked up a bit of a sweat fighting this damn thing. He wasn't even inclined to make any more fairy jokes. He heaved the Bargest's dead body off him slowly and the massive beast fell with a dull thud on its side. He stood straight and started to dust himself down.

"That was interesting," he chuckled.

Tess uttered a deep sigh and walked towards him, wiping her brow. "I hope I never have to do that again," she huffed. "This is why Sídhe getting corrupted by demonic powers sucks. What works on demons doesn't always work on Sídhe and vice versa so fighting something that's both is like trying to mix water and oil. Ugh."

Dante pulled his sword out of the carcass and prodded the thing cautiously. He had to admit, it was almost fascinating to see how demonic miasma had influenced what he assumed to be an already fearsome creature. Tanglewood jumped down from the rafters, his quiver now nearly empty from all the arrows he'd fired. He glared at the dead thing and without any ceremony pulled out his knife and went to work on its head. He stabbed straight through its throat and wiggled the knife in the wound with almost comical rage, spilling vile-smelling, dark blood.

"Now I'm sure," he growled and then started to saw away at one of the Bargest's horns.

Dante raised an eyebrow.

"He took losing his master pretty badly," Tess said to him quietly. "He must feel awful not being able to avenge him without help."

After he managed to break off one horn and then another, Tangle walked away from the corpse and stormed up to them. He held out one of the horns to Dante with a glower. It was a big, impressive thing, almost like the antler of a stag with a jagged edge. The fresh stump dripped blood.

"The spoils of the hunt are rightfully yours, Dante," the Puck said begrudgingly. "I have to keep one to take to the Queen as proof that I avenged my master. But you may keep the bigger one."

Dante stared down at him with confusion for a moment, then wordlessly took the gory trophy. It wouldn't even be the strangest thing he'd take as a trophy. Tanglewood stuck the other one in his sash along with his knife.

"I also wish to reward you for your assistance," he added and thrust into Dante's hand a thick, coarse linen purse tied with string. It jingled heavily when it moved. "Silver has no worth for Sídhe. We loathe it. But Miss Templar has told me it is of some worth to humans. You can have it."

"Huh. Thanks," Dante said and accepted it. "Nice doing business with you, I guess."

Tanglewood sniffed disdainfully at him and then looked at Tess. "Thank you for your help, Miss Templar. I am again in your debt," he muttered and bowed briefly. "I'll take my leave of you now. Fair fortunes to you."

He spun around on his heel and vanished.

"How does he do that?" Dante asked.

"He's a Puck. They go wherever they want. That's their thing," Tess sighed. "Thanks for helping me sort that out. I didn't want to say it in front of him but I felt sorry for the little guy. He was very upset when he came looking for me. He thinks it was somehow his fault that the Bargest escaped from the Realm."

"Upset? He looked like was pissed at everything," Dante joked and turned the Bargest horn over while they walked out of the now wrecked building.

Tess chuckled. "Yeah but he still gave you first pick of the trophies – and paid you. That's a big thing for Sídhe. He's either scared shitless of you or respects you, hehe."

"If all fairies are like him, they're more fucked up than demons," he muttered and flicked the horn aside, trying to get most of the blood off it.

"You have no idea," Tess sighed and got in her car.

Dante thought he probably was never going to mess with Sídhe ever again. That it had been a one-off, freak little accident of happenstance, a Sídhe slipping into the human world while carrying demonic corruption. It wasn't as if this was going to be a common recurrence.

But the next time he'd see Sídhe, he'd be playing ball in their home field, by their rules and with his neck and someone's life on the line and a whole world on the cusp of war.