Author's Note: This story is Book Zero in an Anthology called "Bloodlines" being written currently by myself and Kazeninoru. It is a prequel to the entire series, taking place about a year or so after DMC3, and about ten years before Book One; The Harvest. All of that aside, this Fan Anthology doesn't own Devil May Cry or any of the characters from the series. However, we do claim to own our own OC's and with that said, give props to for creating Devil May Cry. !!

Synopsis: Getting news from Lady of a cult of Demon Worshipers being reported in what a city slicker like Dante might call the wild west, he decides to take on the case. But when he arrives, he realizes this case is really just a wild goose chase, though the longer he stays, the worse things seem to turn out, ultimately leading to The Sacrifice.

Regan Davison is a down to Earth horse rancher, her ranch of Black Wing Creek coming under fire when unknown activities begin to take place around it that seem to only really begin when a cocky devil hunter shows up that she really has no use for at first but whom eventually gains her trust and respect. Finding she really has no one else to trust to ensure the safety of everything she has, Regan learns that sacrificing things is sometimes a necessity to live, and to die.

Prologue - What Sleep May Come

Didn't anyone ever think of his needs?

Dante could only wonder that when he'd read the price for a particular job he'd gotten scribbled onto a note by a customer who'd wanted to hire him. While the price hadn't been the reason Dante had turned the job down, in the end, Dante Sparda had figured price wasn't always the ultimate decision maker when it came to what he would and wouldn't do, he still couldn't help but wonder how someone could expect him to spend that much time on something and then only pay him several hundred bucks that in the end wouldn't even make his shop insurance payment. It was all too apparent to Dante at that point; People were stingy and greedy at the same time. Kinda sucked when it came to him making money decently.

The note still laying on his desk, he grabbed it and wadded it up, then tossed it across the room and into the trash can without much effort. Following the movement he yawned loudly and reached up to scratch his chest where his shirt was unbuttoned, showing off a slight bit of skin, just idly sitting for the moment, taking a break. He was actually trying to figure out which magazine he'd wanted to read, he'd gotten two new ones in the mail, and they continued to lay untouched on the desk.

Looking between the two colorful books, ignoring the bills in the middle, he wished he didn't know which one he'd placed where, then he'd just close his eyes and pick up one at random. It really didn't matter to him which once he read first, he just didn't want one to be shitty while the other was interesting, and then read the shitty one first and bore himself. One magazine was about cars, the other was about rock music. Dante was about both. And in his spare hours, being as early as it was, he really needed something to do.

In fact, he suddenly wondered, why the hell was he even awake anyway?

Oddly enough though, he'd woken up at the wee hours of ten o'clock, wee when you were a night owl like him, and felt like he'd slept for ten years. Shaking his head, he just grabbed the rock music magazine and flipped open the first page. Hell, if it were boring, maybe it'd put him back to sleep until something interesting started going on around the shop. Damned Mondays, they were so fuckin' useless.

Looking up the articles and turning to a page on a band he liked in specific, he'd gotten through the first line of 'Their new album promises to be the best we've seen yet', making him curious about what the article would say about it, when the phone rang. Eleven on a Monday morning and the phone was ringing? Dante narrowed his brows. Damned if he knew there was life on this ungodly day at this ungodly time in the morning, otherwise he might've gotten up on a more regular basis to have seen what it was.

So he reached for the phone. Answering it, someone asked for a Michelle, and he rolled his eyes. "Sounds cute, but she doesn't live here," he replied and hung up the phone. Not thinking anything else about it, he picked his magazine back up and read that same first line again, hearing the phone ring a second time. Dante eyed the thing suspiciously. Then he picked up the receiver. Someone asked for Michelle once more.

"Like I said, wrong number. If you're trying to make a call back after a date, I don't think she likes you very much."

He hung up again. "Alright magazine, now," he grabbed the edges of the book once more and went to lift it slowly when the phone rang once more, resulting in him slamming it down and picking up the receiver a third time, "This is Michelle speaking, I'm actually a man, just thought you should know."

"Very funny, Michelle, it's Lady. Why are you up so early?"

Dante rolled his eyes, "Don't ask, and if you thought I was asleep, why are you calling me this early?"

"Just on a blind hope that you were so I could make sure I wouldn't waste a trip to your shop. Look, I'll be by shortly, I've picked up wind of a pretty big job."

"Sounds good, but we'll see," Dante replied skeptically. "I'll be here."

"See ya in a few," she told him, and then hung up.

Dante put his own phone back down and sighed, "Okay, now to find out about this," he stopped when the phone rang again. "Goddamn it," he lifted the phone to his ear, "Devil May Cry." His look got bland. "Okay, look dude, what do you not get? That this is a business from how I answer the phone, or that I've told you twice now that Michelle doesn't live here?" Then he listened to the man on the other end and finally, he rolled his eyes, "it's the wrong area code, same number."

He hung up again on the guy, and swore that if that phone rang again in the next fifteen seconds, he'd rip it out of the wall.

Nothing happened. Fifteen seconds passed, not one ring was made. "Good, now maybe I can read more than one line."

Dante had read most of the article, which had done its job in interesting him in the new album coming out, when Lady walked through the doors, a pair of red shades covering her eyes to block out the early morning sunlight and she looked at Dante as she headed toward his desk, reading his magazine. Stopping on the other side of the furniture he was sitting behind, she put one hand on the surface and leaned, trying to see what he was reading out of curiosity. Dante had just put his magazine down and he glanced up at her. She smirked, "I think I've got a keeper."

"We'll see, won't we?" He replied, turning in his chair and putting his boots up on his desk. "So, spit it out and tell me whatcha got."

Tilting her head as she turned away from him, she got started, "Well, last night I made a new contact. He's an Italian, goes by the name Enzo, and he seems to know a lot of people who need jobs done for them. He got me into contact with a guy named Nathan Morrison who seems to have an infestation on his hands." Lady looked back in Dante's direction and she added, "He seemed a little fanatical when I talked to him, but the more I listened, the more I realized he was onto something."

Dante didn't really give Lady a reply. He just took in what she said and followed it up with the words, "Go on, I'm listening."

"Well, about a week ago, he and his young daughter were attacked by some cultists who had apparently been led to him by a group of demons, all of them cloaked in black. They tried to kill him, he doesn't know why, or at least, that's what he claimed."

"Yeah, we're all guilty 'til proven innocent, right?" Dante crossed his fingers in his lap and then he suddenly yawned again without warning. The yawn made Lady raise her brows a bit. After all, it was kind of early, and Dante usually stayed up pretty late. She wondered if he was as awake as he'd thought he was.

"You sure you're gonna make it?" She asked him.

"Yeah," he shook his head off quickly, "I don't know why the fuck I woke up for, but I felt pretty good when I did. Guess I'll just go take a nap once you get your little story over with."

"Right," Lady nodded, walking over to his desk and taking a seat on it, opposite side on which he sat, watching him through her shades. "Then I'll make this quick. Essentially, he wants you to go check out a place called Black Wing Creek, it's a horse ranch and I looked them up before I came here, they're legit. He said he thinks the cultists are staying there."

"A horse ranch, huh? Cowboys, all that shit?"

"Exactly. It's owned and run by a woman named Regan Davison. Whether or not she has anything to do with it I don't know, but Nathan never mentioned her. The only thing I can tell you is that the demons who led this cult group to attack him referred to themselves as Democrites."

"Democrats, what?" Dante sounded confused. Why the hell would a cult group name themselves after a political party, well, aside the fact that politics was a cult.

"No," Lady pointed out, "Democrites, with an 'i-t-e', not an a. I looked it up, and it led me to information on a very old demon named Democrities which, to be honest, there wasn't much written about him, but that's where I knew this would be a big deal. As arrogant as Demons are, it seems like they don't like to leave a lot of information about themselves in the human world if they're important at all. But what I did find said that he was the son of an enemy of Sparda, and after Sparda destroyed his father, he took over the, well, family line I suppose you could say."

Dante scoffed, putting his hands up behind his head. "Sounds like your average clusterfuck to me. So, what are these Democrites after anyway?"

"Well, it's anyone's guess, but that's what we need to find out, isn't it?"

Lady stood up, apparently done telling her tale, and she watched Dante for a moment to see how he'd react to the information. After meeting him in Temen-Ni-Gru, and working with him on a few cases so far, she'd learned that Dante seemed to take cases more often if the stakes were higher, if the danger toward humans was greater, and that he rarely let money be an all encompassing determining factor. She appreciated that, no matter how difficult he could be when it came to getting his interests up in something she knew for a fact could be deadly and destructive whilst he sat idly by and cracked jokes about it.

Dante sighed, then he put his feet on the floor and stood up, shrugging his shoulders, "I'm not sure about that, Lady. You're the one who seems to like theology, why don't you go look into it?"

Lady sighed, having known he was going to bring up something like that "Because your father was involved with this apparently. And this is the first time I've seen a case that even relates in any way to Sparda."

She had him there. Dante cringed, "So what?" He turned around, holding his hands out by his sides as if to say it wasn't his problem, "My Dad had his own shit to take care of, I have mine. I didn't open this shop to cut off his lose ends."

Lady gave Dante a look that said she wasn't stupid and knew that. "I didn't say to cut off a lose end, Dante, I just said because your father was related to it. Besides, that, and the offered price is pretty good, enough to pay a few of these ignored bills and tweak Cherry up if you wanted to. Not to mention put that sign in the window you've been wanting to get."

Dante had to admit, he was fairly interested in the case anyway, no matter how he slacked off in seeming as if he was. So when Lady told him that, he finally decided to let a little of his interest show through. He'd been wanting to tweak Cherry, his car, up for a while now, turn her into a convertible, not to mention that, yeah, finally being able to get his sign and complete the things he'd been doing to his shop would drive in a lot more business, and he sighed, blowing some of his bangs out of his eyes without meaning to. "Horse ranch?" He asked her finally.

"Horse ranch," she nodded, smirking at him.

Dante was quiet, seemingly in thought. Lady wondered if she was going to have to do some more convincing, but he finally smirked and stood up straight and kicked his desk hard. The resulting thud was followed by Ebony and Ivory flying off of the desks surface and high up into the air while he turned around and grabbed Rebellion from the wall, placing the sword onto his back. As the two guns fell, he reached out and caught them, then spun them around on his fingers like a gunslinger and shoved them into his trademark red leather trench coat, followed by turning to Lady and saying, "Guess it's time to saddle up then, partner."

Grinning, Lady turned toward the door and she muttered at him, "Glad to hear ya say so. It shouldn't be too hard get up there, but," she looked his clothing over, "blending in may be a different story."

Walking toward the door, Dante replied with, "Who the hell needs to blend in? What is this, a hide –n- go seek operation?"

He walked out of the door. Following just behind him, Lady shook her head slowly. "Never is with you."

"Damn skippy."

"Just give me a call if you need me?" She pointed out, as if he might've forgotten that.

"Doubt I will, Lady," Dante grinned, then pulled his car door open, followed by yawning again. Once he did that, he shut the door without getting into his car. Then he began heading back to the door where she stood.

Lady smiled, asking as if she already knew, "Gonna go get a nap?"

Dante grumbled as he walked back to the door and past her. Going inside, he muttered, "I don't take naps. I'm gonna go crash for another ten hours, then I'll head up there."

Considering the circumstances, Lady knew they had time to wait, but ten hours? She looked back and called out, "If you're not up by three, I'm bringing Kalina Anne after you."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he grumbled out, walking up his stairs. Grinning behind him, Lady somehow knew this was going to be a pretty run of the mill day. She wasn't worried at all about the job ahead of him.