She leaned heavily on her staff, which looked too thin to actually support her weight. One hand was over her nose and mouth, gripping her face, a position that suggested that she was trying not to retch and vomit. Her eyelids fluttered rapidly, and the vacancy of the gaze beneath them did not register the pavement beneath her. Her chest heaved as she breathed deeply, and she looked up through a curtain of midnight black hair when she heard the telltale click of a hammer being cocked. She stared up the barrel of his pistol with a desperately sick gaze, hardly seeming to see him.

"Too many devils around to practice with," he said casually, smirking smugly. He tossed his head, throwing silvered locks out of his pale blue eyes. "Your kind isn't exactly welcome here either."

"I'm not stopping here," she answered, her dark green eyes glazed over, "I'm moving on anyway." She pulled herself up with the aid of her staff, both hands settling on it to keep her balanced. A man's silver ring glinted on the middle finger of her right hand. There was no stone, not even a design, just a plain, heavy band of metal.

"Sure, and you weren't going to hunt either, I suppose," the half-devil said, twirling his other pistol around the fingers of his free hand.

"No," she answered softly, and he raised an eyebrow without removing his gun from between her eyes. He seemed to contemplate her for a moment, regarding her with some suspicion.

"So how did you get that? Seduce and then kill the poor guy?" Dante taunted, and regret flashed across her face.

"No," she said, looking away. Her eyes glittered with fresh blood tears, but they never fell. She offered no more details, but her grief was so plain that Dante almost felt sorry for her.

"Hey, babe, look, don't cry, okay?" he said, looking away uncomfortably, and lowering Ivory.

"I'm not," she answered bitterly. "I stopped crying a long time ago." Dante looked back at her with an odd expression, and then shrugged and let it go.

"Whatever you say," he said, turning his back on her, but she stopped him.

"Wait," she said, and he paused, looking over his shoulder. "Here," she said, pulling the ring free from her finger, and offered to him on her open palm. He stared at the ring, and then at her. She simply waited, smiling gently even though her fangs showed between her parted lips. He took it with some trepidation and studied it.

"So what's going to happen if I put this on? I'll be your slave? Is that it, vampire girl?" he asked, but looking up, he found that she had vanished without a trace. All that was left was a few grains of ashes it looked like, and some faint essence of her presence. Dante shook his head, not understanding, but not caring either, and tossing the ring over his shoulder, he left it behind. If he had looked back, he would have seen the ring itself fade into non-existence, and vanish.