A Christmas present (if you celebrate it) or just a plain old present (if you don't) - this chapter is dedicated with pride to the simply marvellous reviewers of The Rahovart Saga and Flight (both now complete). You guys made it happen.
This is the sequel to The Rahovart Saga but as it's standalone, you don't have to have read one to understand the other. Although if you want to, don't let me stop you. Lucifer Saga is based on a request from a certain reviewer to write something with Vergil in. He's not one of my favourite characters but i found as i got writing i liked him more. He gets in here in about five chapters time.
Advertising and Oscar Speeches over, let's get on with it.
Enjoy the story, old friends and new faces alike, Skaye.
The setting sun struck the silver hair and sleeping face of Dante, son of Sparda, shining vivid red through his eyelids and reminding him that it was time to get up. He opened his eyes a crack and instantly regretted it when the full brightness poured in. Uttering something between a curse and a moan, he turned over and tried again. He saw only red and violet circles for a moment and then, as he sat blinking, the rest of his room faded back into view. Dark, cluttered and gloomy. Just like he left it. No major raids today then. He sat up and heard scuffling and clanking noises from the lower floor along with the musky smell of coffee. Lucia was already up. He smiled, pulled on some clothes; just a pair of black jeans and a red vest, and went down for breakfast just as the sun sank below the rooftops.
Lucia, braiding her red hair to one side, heard him marching down the creaking stairs and poured the coffee which was, as always, rich, black and probably corrosive. She took her place at the large sturdy table that also served as desk and flipped open their latest casefile to read. When Dante dropped into his leather chair, she leaned over the table and brushed his cheek with her lips in a slight kiss. He smiled at her and took up his coffee, sipping at it, watching Lucia read and letting his mind wander.
Six months with a partner and it was still strange to him towake up andsee someone there, to hear the phone ring and let someone else answer it. Sure, it got on his nerves sometimestrying to hide his bad moods to avoid annoying questions and having to wait hours for a bath to wash the blood off after a kill because the hot water was used up the instant they got through the door, but if he had to have a partner, he couldn't think of anyone better for the job than Lucia. She didn't ask too many questions and rarely flew off the handle at him these days besides which she made a great coffee and could throw knives with a rate of accuracy higher even than his own beloved guns.
She wasn't pretty in a conventional sense but with her hair down and a rare smile on, Dante considered her quite appealing and when she hunted, she was terrifying in a way unlike anyone he'd met. He knew he could rely on her which was the most important thing. And there was no-one more efficient and dedicated to the running of the Devil May Cry and the killing of demons which was, really, the point and purpose of his life.
Lucia finished reading the file and slid it over to him, picking up her coffee and taking a mouthful. She waited until Dante had finished reading and then spoke, French still thick in her voice even after almost two years in the States, all told;
"What do you think?"
Dante thought it over as he sipped at more coffee and looked over the major details once more. Malign possession of a young boy, violent fits during which his strength peaked to that of more than six grown men, religious authorities had had no luck, mediums called in – one of them had been killed horribly, the pay was more than worth the trip but, all in all, not enough to spark Dante's interest. He closed the file.
"Didn't we fix one just like this about two months back with a little girl who was apparently being taken over by the spirit of her dead twin?"
Lucia nodded.
"Annabel and Katalin Jessop."
Dante rolled his eyes, not really surprised that Lucia could remember it.
"Funny thing about that job was that the journey there took four hours by bike whereas the job itself took about half an hour of tedious ritual and a short bloody struggle before we had to drive four hours back home with only five hundred or so to show for it. Waste of time."
His partner obviously disagreed.
"The girl and her parents were very grateful and we may have saved her life."
Dante was incredulous.
"Oh, well let's just quit our jobs as serious demon hunters and become the paranormal social workers if we're going to trawl across the country doing mediocre chores like that. It's not 'us', Lucia."
Her frown deepened to a scowl.
"You mean it's not 'us' to do jobs we don't like for our money or it's not 'us' to help people for the sake of it?"
His answer was swift and sharp.
"Don't dare twist my words, Lucia, I mean it's not 'us' to run around wasting our time and ammo on little jobs that can be solved by the any religious type, medium or free-booter who actually has an idea what they're doing. We save lives by killing the big league hell spawn but to do that we need to be here, ready. We can't afford to be off on the other side of the country pumping ghosts out of ten year olds or blasting holes in Harpies when the portal to Hell is breached by giant man-eating Leviathan."
There was a tense silence for a few minutes during which Lucia thought over Dante's words and he silently regretted them. She spoke first, her voice brittle and scathing.
"I suppose you're right. We don't belong there. We belong here where we can be easily reached next time there's an Apocalyptic take-over bid by the legions of darkness."
Dante had known this was coming, he'd learned by now that, as well as efficiency, dedication and knife-throwing, no-one did cold silent anger like Lucia. He watched, trying to think up something to say that wouldn't just make the situation worse, as she stood up and walked very calmly and silently to the stairs leading to the basement firing range and closed the door softly behind her. Then he stood himself and, with a growl, kicked the two coffee cups flying from the table.
They landed on the floor with a crash that echoed very loud in the quiet room and made Dante feel even more foolish and furious.
As he proceeded to clean up the fragments of the cups, he thought over what had been said. Both he and Lucia were half-right, as often happened. Between them they were generally able to see both sides of the argument but stuck obstinately by their own views to the point, sometimes, of violence. The fights could be fun, at least Dante thought so. His sullenness and her coldness were thrown aside for a while and both of their volatile tempers got a hell of an airing. Shame this wasn't one of those fights. Dante felt he could take Lucia's nails and knives but this coldness was painful and infuriating.
There was only one way to end this one and that was lowering himself to one of those most hated of all things – a compromise. Agree to do this job while things were quiet and perhaps next time a truly dull case came around at a bad time, they could pass it up.
He was on the verge of going down to the basement when there was a subtle and polite knock on the door. Virtually unheard of for a business like this. Which made it even more suspicious.
Dante stalked carefully to the door, gun ready in his left hand, he reached for the handle with his right. The knock came again and he slowly opened the door.
A young man in a mail uniform stood nervously on the threshold with a large secure envelope in his hands probably wondering why the hell he was being stared at by a sharp-eyed silver-haired man who looked ready to spring on him at any moment. Dante, for his part, was wondering why the hell he was getting mail at almost 9pm. The delivery man managed to stutter out a sentence from under Dante's piercing glare.
"I, uh, I have a, um, letter for a Mr Dante Sparda at this address?" he inquired. "Instructions said it had to be delivered by hand and we got no response earlier."
Dante reached out and took the letter from him with his left hand which still held the gun. The man jumped back, arms flung up as if in surrender. Dante remembered after a moment about the gun and, grimacing, shoved it back in it's holster.
"Sorry." he said, "Can't be too careful around here."
The man nodded quickly and practically scampered up the road back to his van. Dante shrugged and closed the door. When he turned around, Lucia was behind him. She didn't appear to be angry for the moment, too curious about his letter.
"You never get mail." she said in a tone that made it sound like a question.
"I know that, Lucia. Besides which, it's foreign, hand-delivered and has something else in there."
He felt the envelope over with his hands before opening it and something small and jagged bit into his skin. Cautiously he opened it and pulled out a manila file full of neat type-written pages with a hand-written letter attached and then upended the envelope.
P.S. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year