Disclaimer: I don't own Devil May Cry, just my OC's.

Recap: "Here!" I hear a high pitched feminine voice say. We turn to look and see two blonde woman standing behind us, each looking closer to my age than anything, I heard Dee growl lowly. One was tall and wore black leather pants and a black corset like vest with a red jacket over it with long blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. The shorter one looked about 14 and had a mass of curly blonde hair and wore a white and beige dress with a black head band. "Hi, I'm Patty." The short one said with big smile.

"And I'm Trish, pleasure to meet you." The taller one said with a warm open eyed smile.

Well… shit. Just what I needed, another demon and a questionable human, I am so going to kill someone by the end of today.

"Great, follow me please." The waitress said with a perky smile as she picks up two menu's and turns around to exit through a opening I knew went back into the dining car of the restaurant.

"Afta you sweetie." Bev said to Patty with a big smile.

"Thanks." Patty said with a similar smile, it was hard to tell if it was real or fake. Trish followed behind Patty and then it was me after Bev. When we reached a worn fake leather booth, the horn of the train sounded and a scratching noise range out, Trish and Patty looked around confused as they sat down, me and Bev shared a sly grin and sat down as well.

We ordered are drinks and started browsing through the food before Trish looked up and fixated on the campus identity sticker on my shirt and I spied the one on her jacket. Uh oh, a topic of conversation with a demon I didn't know… I wonder if I can make a chakram with Luna? "So your going to **** as well?" she asks with a look that told me she already knew my answer.

"Yeah, so are you as well apparently. I'm going in for Biochemistry, you?"

"Oh, I'm going back to complete my masters in English and finish up my teaching licenses." She says with a bored shrug.

"Oh, what made ya drop out?" Bev asks, she didn't exactly trust Trish, one thing Bev is, is observant.

"Daddy's business failed." Patty said with a down cast glance, she's lying. "So Trish had to come home and find a job and quit school." She's a terrible actress, would probably fit in with my drama class, though I can't say jack shit.

Huh, wonder of Dante and the others are just toying with me? "I see, Dante first once again." Dee says with a biting smug tone, though with lots of bight, including a growl. SHUT UP! "Well, to answer your question, yes they probably are if they suspect you. The only reasonable source of doubt would be from my meager diversion tactics." Oh, what happened to that smug ass tone of yours? "Do shut up, they are more experienced than you in every sense of ability and power. If we let our guard down, we will most likely end up dead or worse." Worse being Mundus's body and being trapped in it, great. Dee snickered slightly as he willed himself away, what the hell is funny about that?!

"Are you even payin attention?" Bev asks as she elbows me in the ribs, I startle and look around and see a waitress.

"Uh… sorry. I'll take the bacon cheeseburger." I say sheepishly at her, she nods and smirks as she writes down the orders and then leaves. "Uh, so what'd I miss in la la land?"

"Trish here is planning on taking the dorm room tour." Bev says while she sips her drink. "I was just tellin her that we were planning on to as well."

"You say it like we're not?" I ask skeptically. "Oh, just how dense are you?" Pretty dense… OOOOHHHHHH! Now I get it.

She flashed me her phone and I saw a message from Grandma on it. "The wicked witch sent her flying monkey to screw up those plans."

"Wicked witch?" Patty asks with a smirk as she takes a bite out of her… sundae? Damn, how long does it take us to talk in my head?

"You're just that dense." Dee snickers. SHUT UP! "It's Bev's nickname for my fathers mother, apt if you ask me."

"Is she that horrid?" Trish asks with a slightly cocked eyebrow.

I shrug and drink some more. "I can say yes since I've lived with her for so long and suffered under her wrath, I don't understand half of what she does when she keeps changing face on me. But she does have her good qualities, though unfortunately I can count them on my hand."

"Seems you have to deal with quite the handful." Trish remarks with a small smirk as I just shrug. She probably didn't care at all about what happens in my life, most likely she's just trying to gain my trust so I'll let my guard down and then stab me in the back, most likely in the major literal sense.

"Now don't be so quick to judge her." Bev said with an eye roll. "Believe it or not she used to be a nice and caring woman, still is if you pour her enough bottles of wine."

I snort at the wine part, so friggen true it's not even funny. "Yeah, but the thorns on that withering rose are overgrown." That got Trish and Bev to start laughing outright while Patty just giggled with her hand over her mouth. "So, how exactly did you know she used to be nice and caring?"

Bev's gaze hardened slightly and she cast a downward glance and then panned it towards the other two. "That's a more personal matter sweetie, sorry if you two find that offensive, but family matters are family matters." What? Wait, what does Bev know that would-

"That's quite alright, some matters aren't meant to be shared with others." Trish said with a closed eyed smile, I knew instantly that she was lying though her teeth. God, I'm usually not so observant, I blame the caffeine and Dee.

'Excuse me?' You heard me. I cast a glance at Bev and she matched mine and blinked. I looked back at Patty and Trish as the food arrived. We ate basically in awkward silence for a little bit, they looked around in annoyance as the horn kept on blowing a few times, Bev and I just kept smirking at each other as they got more and more annoyed.

"Okay, what is that noise?" Patty asks with a very serious glare at the wall behind Bev and I as another horn sound rang out.

"There's a rope outside that attaches to the horn." Bev said with a light hearted smirk as she shook her head.

"The scratching noise is the rope grinding against the train car, people pass by it at most can't resist tugging it." I say with a smirk, Trish rolls her eyes and Patty just continues to glare at the wall. We just continued to eat.

"So Joss," Bev finally says to break the awkward ice. "how is school going for you?"

I shrug and finish off my burger. "Eh, well my history teacher set my hair on fire."

"WHAT?!" Bev asks with a laughing undertone. She picked at one of the longer strands of my short hair and ruffles it, much to my dismay as I glower down at my drink. "Well… give me his name so I can send him a thank you basket, your last style wasn't all that great. So greasy."

"I don't give a damn if it's greasy, if I could actually grow a beard you'd know that I wouldn't give a damn how long it is till it got annoying." I growl at her as scratches the back of my head and smirks as I swat it away. I usually just let my hair grow out till either Grandma or I said it was too long, not one much for personal appearance on a normal day to day basis.

"Spoken like a guy." Patty said with a eye roll. "Really, why don't guys try to pay attention to what they look like more often? I mean, the world would be such a nicer looking place if they did."

I snorted and shook my head at that one. "Oh please, if you want the world to look nicer you need to start on the inside, not the out."

Bev nodded her head in agreement and Trish only sighed as Patty narrowed her eyes at me. Then the waitress came back and I finished up a mouthful of fries as she handed Bev and Trish the separate checks. OH THANK YOU DEAR LORD FOR HELPING ME GET THROUGH THIS HELL! 'He say's you're on your own.' Dee says with a biting laugh. SCREW YOU! 'If you think about it, you'd be screwing yourself.' WHEN THE HELL DID YOU BECOME ME?! 'I am you, just better.' I tried real hard not to let my annoyance and anger show on my face as we got up and headed for the door. Seriously, what the hell is up with Dee, he's acting like a friggen bi-polar asshole. 'Isn't it better to NOT insult the being that's HELPING YOU SURVIVE?!' He retorts with a venom filled hiss.

"Joss, are you okay?" Bev asks as she snaps her fingers. I look at her and realize that we're standing on the wooden platform outside of the diner… damn I do zone out when I'm talking to Dee. "Cause if you tell me that you've discovered a brain tumor I will personally give you the chemo an cut your hair."

"Now that one wasn't funny, and lay off my hair." I tell her with a semi-wry look as we head to the Cuda. "And what exactly did Gran-" Bev's phone decided to ring then and she handed over the keys while she fished it out of her purse.

She looked at the phone and rolled her eyes as I heard a wicked witch laugh. "I swear if that woman ever loosens up she'll shit a bucketful of diamonds." I stop and stare at her and then double over laughing as she answers the phone. "What is," I heard a garbled moaning sob, aw god damn it she's drunk! "Sweetie slow the hell down and talk." More articulated sobs and Bev nodded. "It's alright honey, don't worry, we're on the way home now." she motioned for me to start the car, I got in and did what she asked as she got in as well. "Look, just put the bottle and pills away-" PILLS?! "Yes I know what day it is… we've gone over this before," Bev's eyebrows arched as I pulled out of the lot and onto the street. "What do you mean you wanna see Joss?" More sobs and moans and Bev's face dropped to a glum one. "Do you… fine alright, we'll see ya in a few hours. And you better flush that dammed stuff down the toilet ya understand? Alright, see ya soon." She hung up with a sigh and looked at me with a head shake. "She said she has something to tell you that you've needed to know for a while."

I wasn't going to bother asking what it was, it was clearly obvious that she didn't know. "How often does Grandma call you?"

"Every damn time she drinks." That would be quite often. "Believe it or not, she and I used to be real good friends before everything went to shit." Bev looked out the window with longing and sighed. "Though she was always that… distant with her emotions type, can't really blame her though. But I wish she found better outlets for emotion besides those little gala events or that damned church." Bev didn't like the teachings the pelts handed out, she didn't take other peoples pills.

'If she knows this much, ask about Robert.' Might as well since he has a point. "Is she so distant because of Robert?" Bev whipped around to look at me with shock, take that as a yes.

"How do you know about him?" She demanded, not with anger but with surprise.

I turned onto the major highway and passed a glance at her. "You know that leather bound binder full of pictures for Grandma and Kerry's group representing the kids that go missing?"

Bev nodded and looked out the window again, in shame or something else I couldn't tell. "So you found the picture and the date of his birthday?" HIS BIRTHDAY?! What the hell did she know? "And you know that today is his birthday?"

I nearly stopped the car at that one. "No, I didn't know that!" I practically shouted at her. 'That confirms it, he IS your relative. Your uncle was taken by whoever is stealing these children.' "How do you know him? And wasn't his birthday July 8th?"

She sighed and tapped on the window. "She didn't always use to go to the church she's going to know, used to be that we all went to the same church, back when I was twelve and I lived only forty minutes or so from where you guys live now."

"I keep forgetting your about twenty years younger than Grandma." I remark to her annoyance. "What was she when she got pregnant, 16?" she nodded at that. "So you and Grandpa George grew up around Grandma and Grandpa Stephan?"

"That's right," she drew out with a head nod and a soft smile. "Stephan and your Grandmother, gosh now they were a great couple, and when Robert came around… well that was a test of faith. Did anyone ever tell you about their parents?"

"I've heard her curse their names a few times when Uncle Jack came around." 'You have an uncle Jack?' Yeah, he lives in a bottle and visits every now and then when Grandma's feeling especially pissy. 'Huh?' Jack Daniels, it's a whiskey most southerners prefer over Vodka or Tequila, or so I've heard.

"Yeah, well I would have to knowing them. Think of how she acts now and set it to the eighth power." Forgot that Bev works as a substitute math teacher every now and then.

Wait a minute. "People can get that bad?" I ask her in disbelief. "I mean, yeah I exaggerate Grandma's behavior, even though most of what I say is true, but STILL?"

She only nodded her head yes and sighed. "Just be glad that your Grandpa Stephan showed her some actual emotion that was more than contempt and disgust. Anyway, she and Stephan hit it off young, the couple thing, sex didn't come till she was sixteen and by then six years strong in the relationship. They sent her away to Minnesota till she gave birth and put the baby up for adoption, but Stephan insisted on raising their boy and marrying Miriam but they were against it all together."

"Why?" Dee and I ask simultaneously, though his was in my head. "I mean, besides the whole social ramifications of having an embarrassing shotgun wedding."

"Because Stephan's parents were dead and he was living with his uncle, who was on the verge of death, wasn't much one for social or monetary possessions." 'Meaning?' Grandma's parents were gold diggers and that's all that Grandma was to them, a tool to get into a comfortable life. "Anyway, they fought for Robert for months, four to be exact. That's why his birthday is listed as of being in July instead of March."

"I don't see how that explains things." She sighed in annoyance and swatted the back of my head. "HEY!"

"Robert was born in a boarding house for girls that were unwed and the children weren't brought into this world by a doctor but with a midwife and they weren't taken to a hospital or peditrican. They were usually within a few days taken to a wealthy or well to do family who wanted another child or couldn't conceive-"

"And everything was dealt with under the table." I said with a eye roll. "So when Grandma and Grandpa brought him to the doctor for Roberts first checkup he didn't have a birth certificate or actual date of birth."

"Exactly."

"But he was four fricken years old, how could the doctor not have seen that and just put his birthday down as that day?"

"Because doctors back in the day tended to help out people in need, good or bad, for the right price. That or hindered them if they didn't agree with that persons choices or religion." We both shared an eye roll at that one. "Anyway, back then there were two doctors in the county, one was like what I just described, the other wasn't but had a kind heart. The latter sympathized with them and made up a birth certificate, though he couldn't actually prove how old he was so, yeah, July 8th became his birthday. But Miriam's parents weren't exactly going to let go of what they perceived as an insult, so they sought out the other doctor and paid him to mark up documents that said she'd gotten an abortion and spread the word around that she was loose."

Holy shit… my god, have I hated Grandma for nothing this entire time? "So that means that she… those documents I… man… I've treated her like shit all this time." I said with a heavy pit in my stomach.

"Now I never said she doesn't deserve how you treat her." Bev said assured quickly. "You have every right to bitch over these last few years of treatment, though she has good intentions for it, some weird, skewed intentions." She pats me on the shoulder and gives me a guilty look. "Though, you may actually have me to blame for that as well." She said sheepishly.

"Huh?" Dee and I say together again, both hinted with annoyance and disbelief, I feel an eye twitch come along. "I thought Grandma challenged you for custody of me?"

Bev did an anime-ish like sheepish shrug. "Um, well, it was more like she asked to look after you since she thought you looked like Robert a little bit. And well, I…" she hung her head and banged her forehead on my shoulder. "Sorry, but I couldn't say no, and I figured you'd make her more… open hearted."

My mouth pulled back in a twitchy disbelieving sneer as my eye twitched a mile a minute. 'I think your cousin is the only one who hasn't wronged you.' Dee remarks solemnly with an exasperated sigh. "Bev, pull my ipod out of the glove box, I'm in the mood for Korn." I growl darkly as I speed up. 'Awkward silence then?' That's what Korn's for, to fill it in.

-Third Person P.O.V-

Trish and Patty were boredly sitting outside a coffee shop with steaming cups of tea and a small plate of cookies in front of them on the wrought iron table. "So, what'd you think of him?" Patty asks Trish boredly as she took a sip of her tea.

Trish hummed slightly as she looked at passing traffic through her sunglasses. "Spacey, somewhat whiney, suspicious of us right off the bat, though she felt the same, and not to mention the smell."

"Oh thank god, I thought I was the only one who noticed." Patty exclaimed as she pinched her nose.

Trish rolled her eyes and dipped the dry cookie in her tea and took a bite. "No, what I smelt was… strange. Something like yours or Lady's scent, something that isn't all that right for a human."

Patty pouted at her, sticking out her lower lip. "I don't smell!" she exclaimed with a glare. Trish sighed and took a sip of her tea. "Besides that, what are we going to tell Dante, Vergil and Nero?"

Trish stared off into the distance, seemingly focusing on something when their seemed to be nothing at all. "Simple, he's still a likely suspect, we can't confirm or deny anything." She was regretting not shaking his hand, though his necklace was interesting, there was something about the metal chain with the odd ornaments upon it.

Patty sighed heavily and looked down at her cup. "Do you think he's the one responsible for all that's happening here?"

Trish lazily gazed at her. "Like I said Patty, we can neither confirm or deny." She then pulled out her cellphone and dialed in a number, after a few minutes, the person on the other side picked up. "Yeah it's me, he left early cause of his Grandmother." A few exchanged words and she only nodded. "No, we couldn't tell much, but I understand your suspicions. Tell me, does the client know who our suspect is?" a sigh and an obvious no. "Well, she surely won't be happy if this hunch of your hunch pans out." A small chuckle is all that Patty heard as Trish said goodbye and hit end call.

"What'd Dante say?" Patty asks as she finishes off another cookie.

"That it's perfectly fine and he doesn't mind spending a few more days here." She says with a small smirk. "I think he's having a bit of fun."

"Well good." Patty said wryly. "He's been too damn moody since Vergil and Nero got together. About time he got back to being normal."

Trish only nodded and sipped her tea. "Yes, but we need to ask ourselves something?" Patty only cocked an eyebrow. "What is he going to be like if he kills the only thing that's brought him back to his old self." They didn't say anything and only continued to drink their tea.

-Joss's P.O.V-

Grandma was shit faced, or she scored some really good drugs from Frankie cause when we got home and walked into the door, she hugged Bev as if she was hanging onto her for dear life. And then, for some weird ass measure, she turned and hugged me. 'She's not a possessed corpse, and I surely don't sense any demons.' Yep, shit faced or high.

"Honey," Bev said putting a hand on Grandma's shoulder. "Are you alright?" She knew exactly what I was thinking and seemed just as worried. "How many bottles of wine have you had?"

Grandma nodded her head glumly and sniffed loudly. "I… I haven't had… had any today. Its… its ju…just that i… I found his… his…" And with that she looked at me and burst into tears and sobs. From there I only caught on to one word and that was hat. Bev tried to comfort her and take her to the couch, but she waved her away and attempted to wipe away left over tears and snot before I went to the bar and brought her the tissue box. After about ten minutes of her composing herself and me fetching her aspirin and a few a quick reheat of this mornings coffee, she told Bev that she was fine and that she needed to get going or else she'd be driving in heavy rain that was coming along. Bev didn't buy it till she finally said that what she needed to tell me was private information between the two of us.

Bev didn't need any more convincing than that for some reason, she hugged me goodbye and left without another word, and here we were, sitting in the living room. I was looking at her, waiting for her to speak, but she wouldn't look at me, instead she was looking at something on the hearth of the fireplace. I turned to look and saw what she was looking at, a bright blue ball cap with a red bill and a majorly cartoonish bumble bee on the front, kinda Walt Disney-ish in design. Obviously made for a child, a small child of no more than six, in Robert's picture he looked that old. "Did it belong to him?" I ask her softly, she blinked and looked at me and I motioned to the hat. "The hat, did it belong to Robert?"

She stopped and stared at me for the longest time until she finally nodded and blew her nose. "I… I bought it for him, as a gift for his sixth birthday." She blew her nose again as I nodded my head. "It… we… we were pregnant with Salvatore, we planned on… on telling him he'd be an older brother when we gave him the hat. But… but he… he was taken!" she said the final one not for dramatic effect, it was because she was building up her sob and it finally came out. She cried a little more before she attempted to compose herself, making her look almost regal and defined. She seemed more respectable than I'd ever seen her before. "He was so… so sweet, and Stephan, he adored him so much that he was destroyed when it happened."

All I could do was sit there and feel nothing, I wanted to feel something but all that was there was stunted from growing into anything at all. I always remember how Grandma cries during the scene in Fried Green Tomatoes when Mrs. Threadgoode would tell Evelyn about her son, about how he was never going to develop mentally past the age of five, now I see why. She had that eternal child, one who would never fully mature but brought happiness to her. That's when it hit me, that lonely and despairing feeling, and it made me sick to my stomach at the thought of being in Grandma's place and someone literally snuffing that light out of her life.

"Stephan wasn't the only one who was destroyed." She continued with a small sniff. "I… I just couldn't open up like before, when Salvatore and Benning," my father, "came along, it… it just wasn't the same." She blotted her eyes with a tissue and sniffed again. "But I still loved them… no matter what I always loved my children, even if…" she let the sentence hang and looked at me with a soulless and mourning full gaze. "I regret that I… I turned into such a cold woman, I thought that it would… protect me if… if it happened again. I kept them close, so close to home, I spoiled them to make sure that they would stay close to home. But Benning, your father, he always… he was the one that reminded me of Robert so much, just infecting everyone with a smile and wanting to branch out so much. Oh, and when he found your mother, Sharon was such a beautiful young woman and Bev… Beverly." At that she sniffed loudly and buried a fresh tissue into her eyes.

I attempted to swallow the large solid lump in my throat as I got up and retrieved the hat from the hearth and sat down next to her. 'Stop it.' Dee hissed. Stop what? I replied back snarkilly as I took the tissue from Grandma's hand and looked at her. 'Feeling sorry for HER! She's treated you like… like garbage for your entire life and one damn sob story and she's got you feeling… feeling…' Human, that's the word you're looking for. And for the fucking record, I am. Grandma picked up the hat gingerly and cradled it lovingly. "I don't know when I started treating everyone so... cruelly. I just wanted to protect my family and myself from someone hurting us again." she looked at me sadly and put a hand on my face and gently traced her fingers along my jaw. "You… when you were born, I nearly fainted right there in the maternity ward. You looked so much like him I just… I just couldn't hold back the tears, the pain. And the entire time you grew up, you acted so much like him, smiling and laughing at everything and going so deathly silent when startled. You never cried, not once even when you were hungry, just like Robert."

She finally stopped cupping my face and abruptly stood up and turned to me, a harsher look on her face. "Come with me Josslyn, I have something that your Grandfather would have wanted you to see years ago."

"Wha?" but she had already turned on her heel and was heading down the hall. I got up to my feet quickly and followed her. "Grandma, what are-" she abruptly stopped and looked at my room entrance.

She put her hand lightly on the door frame and stopped and sighed. "After it happened, after that drunken bastard ran over your parents… you just weren't the same. You didn't smile, you didn't laugh, you cried so little, but even that was too much. My heart seemed to break more and more." She turned to me and smiled slightly. "You were always running off somewhere before everything happened. Not very far, away from people, always away from people, but someplace only Stephan could find you. But, after it happened, you didn't want to go anywhere, you wanted to stay still or hide yourself under your bed." She looked at the room again and I nearly cried as she did.

I remember doing that, hiding under the bed. It was such a tight space, it felt like mom's hugs, and when I pulled down my blanket and pillow it felt as if they where there with me. Sitting in bed eating buttery popcorn as Small Soldiers and Braveheart would play on our hand me down 15 inch t.v. Grandpa would come into the room whenever I went there and would sit on the floor, leaning against the metal bed frame. He wouldn't say anything at all most of the times, just sat there and breathed heavily till I started crying. Then he'd pull me out from under the bed and take me to the living room where he'd show me pictures of some of his times in the military.

"I made you take it down so you'd know we were watching you." She said finally as she stared at the bed frame were Grandpa used to lean up against when he sat down on the floor. "Whenever your Grandfather was home from his trips, he'd lay in the bed or sit at his desk or the couch in the living room and just listen to see if you'd move. He'd always look out for you, every single time we saw each other, he always stuck close to you. He was always there when you were sick as well, which was often enough. I remember one time on our way back from Branson for Christmas, you got so sick that he took you in his car and left me in your parents car and drove all the way back to Branson in the middle of the snow to take you to the hospital." She laughed and shook her head, then she cast a dark glance at the ground. "But you weren't sick like we always thought, it wasn't until a few months before Stephan died that he told me what truly made you sick." She looked at me hollow like and turned around on her heel again and took a few more steps forward into her room and stopped again.

"Grandma, what are you talking about?" I demanded as I walked after her, and then stopped as she started pulling out a few boxes from her walk in closet directly left of the doorway and pushing them further into her bedroom. "What 'truly made me sick'? And what the hell are you doing?"

She stopped and turned to me. "Demons Josslyn, that is what I'm talking about. Demons that flocked to you and tried to infect you with their demonic energy, Stephan told me this the final time you were sick, a month before he died." She reached up to a shelf and pulled down a shoebox and pulled off the lid and showed it to me. It was full of blue glass vials and stars, a clear watery blue that seemed to pulse and glow. 'HOLY WATER!' Dee exclaimed in shock, fear and wonder. Grandma picked up a vial and held it to me. "This is what your Grandfather used when you were sick Josslyn, Holy Water to drive away the demons that had infected you." She shoved the box back on the shelf and turned and shoved a box into the corner of the closet and in a blink of an eye she was pulling back the carpet on the floor, wait, we don't have carpets in the house, only rugs.

Looking down I saw that it was a rug, no wait, it's a hide… but not a deer or a bear. It was leathery yet soft and furry, and from the way it spread out, it must have like four legs AND four arms. "Help me pull up the door." She said as I saw her pulling on a short dirty and aged rope.

'Do it.' Dee said softly. Why? 'Because I can feel it, smell it, blood, old blood and power. Open it, you need to open it.' I moved forward unconsciously and put my fingers in between the floorboard and trim of the wall, a gap big enough for only my fingers. I pulled and met some resistance, but it quickly gave way and pulled back, revealing a dark blackish red circle with writings written underneath it as black iron hinges kept it in place. Blood? 'Indeed, a blood seal to hide and protect.' I ran my finger around the edge of the circle as I let it fall the way back on the floor, a small pulse seem to come from it and up my finger, faint and whispery. 'It's old, far too old to protect, but still capable of hiding.'

"Your Grandfather showed me the door the day he told me about the demons, when he told me everything about why he left every few weeks for days at a time." she said quietly as she pulled a flashlight down from the upper shelf and turned it on, looking down with the shining beam I saw thick wooden stairs, the gap in between the hole and the slanted parallel steps was big enough to where you had to turn around and descend as if climbing a ladder downward or upward. "But he never showed me what was down there."

I gulped and turned around and stepped on the first ladder and looked up and Grandma as she nodded glumly and handed me the light. "Grandma… what did Grandpa do? How did he know about Demons?"

She looked at me for a second, and then realization hit her. "How do you know about Demons Josslyn?" she didn't give me a change to answer, instead she turned around and closed the closet door after turning off the lights on the outside. "Start going down Josslyn, we need to talk more." I was going to ask her more, but instead I started stepped downward into the hole. My head was level with the floor when I saw a faded blue box with a light switch hidden under the lip of the trap door between the two hinges.

"I found a light switch." I called up to her.

"See if it works, we have a few extra bulbs in the laundry room if we need to replace a few." She called said while kneeling.

"Okay, but don't touch the circle on the bottom of the trap door, it has importance." I told her, she adjusted her spot where she kneeled as I flipped the switch and looked down. A small hum started and then lights flickered on, hidden under the steps, small ones that illuminated the tunnel till it reached an end to where it opened up widely to a pale yellow illuminated hall. "Jesus, how far down does this go?" I whisper in amazement.

Grandma leaned over the lip and gasped. "Goodness," she chuckled lightly to herself and shook her head. "I always told Stephan I wanted a basement, guess I finally got one." I smirked up at her and started climbing down again, stopping every few steps to study the steps.

Six inches thick, spaced apart by another six inches with small bulbs sticking out in the middle. The cement and dirt backing was staggered with the stairs, same for the supporting walls and ceilings, I'm not sure if the structure was secure with this design or what, but I think Grandpa wanted to make sure to only take as much of the foundation out as was minimally required. I looked up and found Grandma getting in and looking down past me. "I blocked the closet door." She informed me as I slowly descended. "And Nero is off with his boyfriend." I stopped at that one and looked up at her in shock, she scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Oh please, I pegged that boy the minute he walked up to me, and just so you know, Bev isn't the only one who can know in a few minutes."

I blanched and looked at her in horror and shock, expecting her to kick me in the face and start cursing me to hell, but she only smirked smugly down at me. "We'll talk about it later Josslyn, especially the talk about the right kind of man you should look for." She sighed and looked off thoughtfully. "I always wanted a daughter to say that to, eh, a gay grandson will count I guess."

"HEY!" I protested as my ears burned. "Shut it ya old bitch!"

She laughed dourly at that one. "Sweetie, I've lived in a house where something like that was a way of saying I love you mommie dearest." She said it mockingly with scorn. "Now keep moving, I'm seventy years old and my ankles aren't what they used to be."

I snorted at that one and continued down. "Says the woman who still ice skates every Christmas Eve."

"What was that Josslyn? I was distracted by a black widow." She threw back as I finally reached the end of the ladder.

"Sixty Nine steps." I say softly. Looking all the way up I counted the rafters, Seventy Two. "King Solomon?" Grandma reached the bottom of the steps and looked at me. I pointed up and she turned. "There's Sixty Nine steps and Seventy Two rafters. I've heard about Solomon's Seventy Two Demons in passing, but I don't know about the Sixty Nine."

She snorted and shook her head. "You should, after all you're going to be-"

"ZZHHIT!" I said making a zipper noise. "I liked you better when you were crying." That one made her look away in a shameful and guilty look and I felt my heart tug slightly. "Sorry." I mumble grudgingly. 'Pseudomonarchia Daemonum.' Huh? 'Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, it's just another list of demons.' Huh, so what does this mean? 'That this hidey hole is older than your Grandfather, I can feel it.'

"Josslyn." Grandma says, snapping me out of my talk with Dee. "Your spacing out."

"Sorry." I told her instantly.

She patted me on the shoulder and took the flashlight out of my hand. "Don't be, you used to do it all the time when you were younger, even before you parents died. Your Grandfather used to say you had a friend living inside your head as a joke." My eyes flew open in surprise at her statement.

How old are you Dee? 'I…I don't know.' I thought you were created out of- 'I SAID I DON'T KNOW!' I winced and put my hands up to my head. So much rage, it hurt as if being smothered by something sickeningly sweet, it tasted good at the tip but the more you breathed in the more it filled your lungs until it choked you. Then it wouldn't go away, you kept breathing it in till you drowned in it, as soft as laying in a bed of feathers or furs until they poked you in the skin and wrapped around your throat and cut off your air. Instantly the rage was gone and instead was a feeling of remorse. 'I'm sorry Joss… I'm so sorry I-' Something pulled sharply at my insides, as if a wire wrapped around my heart tore through it.

"JOSSLYN!" Grandmother screamed at me. I jumped and whirled around, and standing there was Dee, a shocked look on his face.

"Dee? What are you doing out here?" I ask him dumbly without thinking.

He looked down at his hands as he brought them up and pressed them forward and a red like haze spread out from a crack in the walls and floor. Dee gasped back and jumped back as a hand seemed to extend out of the haze and grasped at him. Grandma screamed and backed away as Dee shouted, I reached up and was about to pull Samhain out but Dee yelled "STOP!" I did and Grandma stopped screaming. "I'm fine, it's just another seal. A much… okay, times ten times more effective than the one on the trapdoor."

"Who… WHO ARE YOU?" Grandma said in a shocked tone.

I turned to her and gulped down a baseball. "Um… remember how Grandpa used to say I had a friend living inside my head?" She didn't even nod, she was to buys gaping at Dee. "Well, here he is, Grandma, meet Dee."