Author's Note: I'm terribly sorry for this delay. Rounding up college, a short vacation and a bout of stomach illness got me putting off finishing and posting another chapter.
As is becoming frustratingly usual with these, an issue to address: I'd appreciate it if people would rather comment openly than sending me PMs—especially abusive ones. I'm quite tired of your drama and even more so the terribly constructed arguments. If the idea that his ordeals have made Vergil behave differently, or the notion that Dante can actually be surprised by some things are so abominable, by all means, say it out loud; nothing to be ashamed of. Get it out of your system and then bugger off about it. You don't need to prattle on like old maids.
And no, I do not write one-shots or ficlets by demand, I'm sorry. I find it very hard to compress my writing into someone else's fantasy—especially when that fantasy puts me off like rotten milk. I gladly accept suggestions and ideas…but I refuse to be bullied into writing rubbish.
Chapter XI
Revenant
"Alright, considering what you've told me about Vergil's past machinations, I can definitely see why he chose this place," Roy panted as he and Dante ascended a steep road of the town, heading back to the coven's manor. "This town's got a long history and besides the wiccans and the Rosengard coven, demons are no strangers here."
Dante scoffed. "Yeah, I thought they looked too comfortable," he muttered, listening to Roy's deductions, but unable to pay proper attention because he couldn't stop contemplating the fact that Vergil was still alive. Not to mention that he would have the gall to implicate someone else. He thought Vergil was beyond that, bringing a third party into their brotherly feud—especially after what happened with that Arkham guy. But the most infuriating thing was the fact that of all people, Vergil had to go and manipulate someone that Dante considered dear to him.
"Vergil's gone too far this time…" he thought angrily. "I'm really going to give him a piece of my mind."
He tried to put that aside and concentrate on the present. "But what does it mean, old man?"
Roy let a sarcastic, knowing scoff. "Hell Gates. Dozens of small portals dotted around the city, all connected like a network; been here as long as the city has, maybe even expanded with it. It's been lying dormant for centuries with only one or two of the small ones opening at any time, by random people. But from the look of things, someone put a bunch of them back in business all at once. So many demons can't have come from one portal alone. Could be your brother's doing, although I'm not sure what he'd gain from this. Those portals are too small and too underpowered to allow any really threatening powers to come through."
Dante raised an eyebrow. "So what do you think they're really for?"
Roy shook his head. "Not sure, but I think the network of small ones is some kinda conduit, but to what purpose, I don't know yet. One theory I've got is about a larger Gate somewhere in this city, but I have no idea where. I was close to figuring it all out when those coven morons turned me to stone."
Dante rolled his eyes. "Great…"
"No, listen to me, I really was close to cracking this," Roy protested. "If I'm right, the principal Gate needs a lot of power to open; power drawn straight from the Underworld."
Dante was catching on to Roy's conjectures. "You're saying the portal network is channeling power to the Gate?"
"I think so. Would make sense that your brother would seek it out, wouldn't it? He could go back and forth between here and the Underworld if he wanted. Not to mention draw from it as much power as he wants. It'd be the perfect site for that goddamn ritual. We find the Gate, we find him," Roy said decisively.
"Guess you're right about that, old man," Dante agreed and his fist tightened as he kept thinking about what part Tess would play in Vergil's plot. "How do you think he's controlling Tess, anyway?"
Roy grunted, annoyed. "I'm not sure. I know there are ways for demons to control a wiccan like a puppet but…I've never actually seen 'em. Certainly not like this."
That not so favorable reply made Dante scowl. "I don't care what it takes Roy, I'm getting her out of this mess."
An affirmative nod and a "Hmm," was Roy's only reply, but as he looked away, a hint of a knowing smirk spread on his face.
Finally at the top of the incline road, they made a turn into a street Dante had passed before, when he was chasing the impostor demon in Tess' form. The manor would be at the very end of that road, at a T-junction, behind a grove of trees growing a long an isle that separated the boulevard.
"Ah," Roy muttered suddenly. "Did you feel that?" he added. "Something is here…"
A smirk finally crossed Dante's lips and he nodded. "Looks like someone planned some fun, at last."
His reaction elicited an eye-roll and a smirk from Roy. "Ever the big kid," he scoffed, allowing the demon slayer the lead and followed him at a faster pace as they approached.
As they got past the row of trees and came before the manor, an eerie silence and stillness marked the place. It was as Dante had left it when he and Tess made their escape from the wiccans before their own face-off, but it was now surrounded by an otherworldly sheet of energy.
"Hmph, demon seals," Roy muttered as he stared at the wall of translucent red, filled with darker and lighter ripples, which stretched upward and vanished high into the sky. "Whoever put this up really wanted this place sealed in and it ain't the wiccans."
"Seals, eh? Gonna have to do something about that, then," he said confidently and walked towards the edge of the wall.
Roy scoffed a little. "Well then, let me see you open this one, kid," he said a bit sarcastically.
Dante raised an eyebrow at his attitude and took his sword in hand. "Watch and learn old man," he said, gripping the hilt tight as he swung down at the wall with all the force he could muster.
To his amazement, the wall crackled at the point of impact, sending a reverberation out and just bounced the sword back so hard it nearly went flying out of his hands.
"…The fuck?" he blurted without meaning to.
Roy suppressed a chuckle. "Still jumping the gun," he said with his hand over his chin, index finger trying to hide the smirk. "I have no doubt you can break this wall down but it would take time, and time we don't have," he added, folding his sleeves and stepping forward. "Let me do it this time, I have enough stamina for this."
As much as it annoyed him, Dante had to admit that Roy was right. He might have the superior power between them at the moment, but he would always have to acknowledge that Roy's greater experience and wisdom would outdo brute force more often than not.
He brushed past Dante and reached out to the wall with his hand. It fizzled on contact with the demonic wall but other than a small twitch Roy ignored it. He let his hand spread on the surface and gripped his wrist with the other hand.
Dante eyed him with a slightly perplexed expression. "Okay, what the hell are you doing, old man?"
Roy's face contorted to a frown of concentration as ripples from the wall surrounded his hand, as if they were trying to eat away at it and his wrist shook.
"I'm going to tear this down—at least, a part of it. We haven't got the time to waste, working the whole thing down. It doesn't matter," he replied through his teeth.
He then proceeded to push his hand more firmly against the seal's outter wall, gritting his teeth. The surface between his hand and the wall crackled with energy and rippled violently as if a strong reaction was taking place. His hand started to slowly slip in the seal as if he were dissolving the part under his hand. It was obvious he was exerting a considerable power judging from the yellow, gritty aura that surrounded his hand and started to expand, pushing back the demonic energy. Roy grunted a little and his face contorted further as he pushed more firmly and the yellow expanded abruptly into the red, tearing it apart with a loud fizzling sound and more cracklings of energy. Dante's eyebrows bowed up a little and he couldn't help that old feeling he had when he was a teenager; he couldn't help but admire Roy's strength and power, even when it manifested in this humble manner. Dante always knew the djinn was a force to be reckoned with—and now he knew that still a fact even if he had spent several years trapped in a shell of stone.
He just chuckled a bit, watching him. "Huh, always with a surprise, old man."
Roy removed his hand from the hole in the wall that kept dissolving into a larger one, holding his wrist as his hand looked red, raw and covered with some blisters as smoke rose from it.
"Hrmph!" he responded with a smirk. "If you keep calling me old, I'm going to really hit you," he said dryly, shaking his hand and dissipating the smoke.
Dante couldn't help but smirk at the djinn, whom he'd seen as a mentor at least once in his life. "Tell you what furball, when this is done you and I can have another spar," he said cheerfully, remembering his first spar with Roy. "Now come on and let's go."
Roy put on a similar smirk and followed him, rubbing his aching hand. "I'll look forward to that, twerp," he scoffed. "But there's still something here."
No sooner had he spoken, that the side of the building they were facing, 'exploded' outwards with an ear-piercing rumble and pieces of stone and debris flew in every direction. A loud grunting sound and screams followed the chaos as the dust settled. They stopped and watched a gigantic bull-shaped creature, at least ten to twelve feet tall, trudge out of the blown side of the building, its three pairs of horns arranged on its head in two curved rows, like an infernal crown. It's robust and stocky body rippled with muscle under the deep red hide with black marks of swirls and jagged stripes. It had a black mane sticking up along its neck from its head to its shoulders and a similar tuft of spiky black hair tipped the reptilian-like tail.
Heavy feet tipped with two massive claws instead of hooves stomped the ground as it crushed a human onto the ground with its head, snorting aggressively as it smothered and ground the life out of its victim until the screaming and squirming human lay still. Other wiccans fled through the debris, with panicked screams and terrified cries. The bull demon raised its massive head, abandoning its squashed quarry, to stare at the fleeing humans with blood-red eyes. It jerked its head with a loud roar and a crackling noise preceded the formation of black energy between the forward pair of horns, before shooting out like lightning and striking some of the fleeing wiccans. They were killed instantly.
Roy eyed up the beast and sighed with exasperation. "Zagam," he stated, as though he were talking about a familiar dog that he disliked. "I'll be damned. You'd think that old bastard would quit going after witches since they banished him to the bottoms of the Styx. I imagine you want to handle this," he stated, looking over at Dante meaningfully. "I'll try to wrangle and then evacuate these pathetic idiots," he added, nodding towards some fleeing wiccans and started heading their way.
Dante knew Roy was more than annoyed he had to step down and leave the fight to him. He could tell the old cat was raring for a fight and scoffed. "Sure thing, old man. Finally, a bit of fun!" he observed and walked up to the raging bull demon in a carefree manner.
"So…Zagam eh?" he said and scoffed. "I've heard dumber names. Care to dance big guy?"
He propped his sword over his shoulder like always and waiting for the demon to make its first move. Zagam had ignored him and turned its attention to some fleeing wiccans and Roy as he began to usher them away through the opening of the demonic seal, helping them escape. It lowered its head and another sphere of black energy crackled between its horns as it took a step towards them about to attack them.
Dante interrupted that attack by merely drawing Ebony from its holster and without even as much as glancing at his target, shot Zagam in side of the face three times to get its attention. He waved his gun as he smirked, "Ah-ah-ah, I've booked you for this one, big guy, so leave the old man alone, will ya?"
Zagam, startled from the attacks, abruptly reared its head up and to the side with a deafening roar. It shook its head and the energy charging on its horns erupted upwards as it swung its head, dissolving harmlessly into the sky. It shook its head again, the flaps of muscle in its neck swishing gently with the motions and then raised its head and looked over at Dante. It stood still, eyeing him carefully. Its massive nostrils flared and it snorted, exhaling gray smoke from them and its eyes narrowing to slits.
"Looks like I finally got your attention! Now come on and show me that you're not just bullshit," Dante scoffed, putting his gun away and stuck the tip of his sword into the ground. Cheekily he held up a flap of his red coat to his side and shook it in a teasing manner. "Or do I have to rope you in?"
The bull-shaped demon began reacting to the challenge. It scratched the ground with its claw and snorted angrily. The inevitable charge came shortly afterward as Zagam lowered its head again and charged Dante at a surprising full speed with all three pairs of horns pointed right at him, grunting loudly as it stampeded towards Dante.
Dante watched its advance with a certain smirk of glee and then easily dodged the charge with a side step and a relaxed twirl, like a real matador, and grabbed his sword from the ground and jumped up, swinging to the side. As he passed he turned a bit and was able to cut a large slice along the creature's flank as it passed, making it turn and skid around, grunting with blood flying from its flank. He smirked and twirled his sword in one hand as soon as he had landed, just to wave the flap of his coat with the other again.
"How lame, I thought you were in the big leagues. What is this, a rodeo?"
Zagam glared at him, snorting angrily and scratching the ground with its clawed front foot. Then, surprisingly fast for its size it suddenly reared up on its hind legs. It proceeded to slam its front legs onto the ground, sending a mighty shockwave towards Dante that had enough force to completely demolish the normal wall that surrounded the manor's courtyard, sending debris flying and proceeded to partially collapse a nearby building that stood in its path.
Dante coolly took his sword and charged his energy into the blade and swung down sending a vertical slice of energy that cut through the middle of Zagam's blast wave. Being cut in half, Zagam's blast wave blew past him harmlessly to the sides, obliterating ground and walls as it passed.
"That all you got? Too bad."
Zagam let a loud grunt as it observed his reaction. He lowered his head again and more crackling black energy charged between the beast's horns before it shot off like lightning at Dante again. He reacted by moving to counter it again, drawing Ebony up while Zagam was charging his blast and charged his own demonic energy to the gun. He shot directly into the center of the black lightning orb to dissolve it. To his surprise the charged bullet had little to no effect on the black lightning. It kept charging on and hit him in the chest, knocking him off his feet. He managed to turn over in midair and landed on his feet, with a small wisp of smoke rising slowly from his chest where he'd been hit.
He chuckled, beating the smoke off his clothes a little. "Now that's more like it! Come on, give me your best shot—or is that all?"
Then he glanced over his shoulder as Roy was shouting at him.
"Dante! Don't dally around with him, we haven't got all day!" Roy barked. "We only have so much time before Vergil goes through with that damn ritual!"
Dante winced a bit and faced Zagam again. "The old man's right. I'm gonna have to forfeit my fun this time, I gotta save the Twig first."
"Looks like we're gonna have to keep this short, pal," he said with a sigh, twirling his gun lazily.
He smirked as Zagam didn't disappoint him, because the demon charged him again with its head lowered and its horns pointed straight at him. It barreled down towards him like a train going down a slope with no breaks, grunting and growling lowly while its feet thudded against the ground, causing tremors.
Dante eyed the demon and sighed. "That again? Don't you have anything better than that?"
As Zagam approached him, Dante dropped into a stance and the moment the demon was about to run him through with its horns, he jumped up. He flipped in midair as Zagam's horns passed under him. He landed his foot on its head in an axe kick with all his strength, jumping off it. The strike was so powerful that it caused Zagam to stumble, hitting the ground jaw-first and its momentum made it drag along the ground for a few feet before friction stopped it.
Dante laughed as he landed softly and drew his guns. Zagam was just pulling itself up when Dante fired a volley of bullets at its head, directly hitting one of its eyes. Zagam shivered wildly and jerked itself up, shaking its head, dazed and bellowing loudly. It swept its muscular tail along the ground to hit him, but Dante dodged with an easy jump backwards, drawing his sword and bringing it down as Zagam swung the tail again, neatly chopping off the tip and making the demon roar in pain and throw its head back, thrashing.
Zagam whipped around and measured Dante up while blood spurted out from its severed tail. It then jerked itself backwards and stomped one foot onto the ground, causing a tremor. A circle of demonic runes glowed red from the point impact and Dante felt something coming up under his feet. He dodged suddenly as a series of large spikes of red energy erupted out of the ground under his feet. He skidded sideways a couple of times as the spikes seemed to follow his motions as if they were homing in on him. To make matters worse, Zagam was firing spheres of black lightning at him again.
Dante dodged as fast as he could bother, but eventually the spikes caught up with him and some stabbed right through his legs, pinning him, while more sprouted out of the ground, some stretching as high as to pierce his chest and others grew out around him to hold him in place like bars. He was stopped in his tracks and he huffed in a bit of an annoyance. The spikes stung a lot but they were far from lethal, at least for him. But his expression changed as he watched Zagam charge at him again, snorting and grunting like an angry bull.
"I can see where this is going…" he muttered, aware that he had wasted enough time as it was.
He freed his arms, wrenching them out of the hold of the spikes, not afraid to rip his arms off them and braced himself. Zagam closed in and was about to run Dante through when its large body was jolted and its acceleration abruptly slowed before being stopped completely. Dante chuckled through grit teeth. Zagam snarled, trying to push against him. Dante had released his demonic powers and was now a tall and red, fierce demon holding off Zagam with his arms almost wrapped around front-most horns and his clawed feet dragging along the ground until friction stopped them.
Zagam tried to force forward with a loud snort and the muscles of its neck trembled in effort while its front legs' claws dug into the ground trying to gain grip to push forward but Dante's strength was unwavering. The demon beast then tried to yank its head backwards again without success and only managed a weak-looking tug with a surprised grunt.
"Heh-heh-heh," Dante chuckled evily. "Looks like I…really gotcha now!"
He then heaved hard as Zagam made another futile attempt to push him over and forced the beast to stumble sideways. Zagam let a startled grunt and when Dante finally released its horns suddenly, the beast fell heavily to the side, crashing into a structure and taking down the front wall in a crashing tumble of rubbles. Dante's demonic form faded and he approached the downed demon as it was getting up, pieces of rubble falling off it. His maneuver had not been wasted as Zagam seemed dazed while standing. He jumped over the swung tail, still bleeding, and jumping off the severed appendage drew his sword from his back and swung it overhead. Zagam roared and jerked its head towards him with massive jaws gapping open as though it was going to swallow him whole.
Dante brought down the sword on Zagam's head so hard that the top-heavy beast fell face-first onto the ground with a painful roar, leaving a small crater in its wake where the head hit the ground and a fountain of blood sprayed upwards from the massive, cracked skull. Dante jumped off the demon and sheathed his sword again. It didn't move but when he was about to turn and leave it moved suddenly, raising its head with rivers of blood streaming from it and attempted to seize him in its jaws, just to take two charged shots in the face and collapse sideways heavily for the last time.
He surveyed the now dead demon one last time as it started to dissolve suddenly and then he turned away to head back to Roy who was waiting for him near the now wrecked door of the manor that had been blown outwards from some powerful force. The few remaining wiccans were already fleeing in a right panic. The door was still smoking and the wiccans were getting away from Roy as well, so Dante just put two and two together that Roy was the cause of the door's state.
"Breaking and entering, old man?" he chuckled, raising his hands a bit.
Roy smirked. "You took too long. Come on, we've got to find Regina's chambers. The wiccans told me she had a secret document with the location of this Hell Gate. Bloody bitch knew all about it already."
Dante just shrugged and followed him. He recognized that unless they made this necessary detour they'd never find the Hell Gate in this city. It was so flooded by ever-increasing demonic essence that even his senses were starting to get a little confused. The interior of the manor was in a similar state of disarray as the outside. Bodies littered the lobby and hallway that Dante had passed through once before in the start of this messed up day. The victims of what were certainly demons that had followed Zagam were lying on the floor, ripped apart, cut in pieces and crushed in pools of blood with horrified expressions on the few that were intact enough to have faces. Impact dents, holes and burn marks on walls and discarded weapons indicated a battle between the demons and wiccans.
"Hmph, certainly not done, are they?" Roy muttered when they turned into another, wider corridor perpendicular to the one they were following.
Several small-time demons were populating the corridor, phasing in through walls and approaching them as the two men hurried down the hallway. Dante recognized the Abyss demons from the last time he'd seen Vergil. He drew his guns and started shooting out the demons that started to attack them. One of them came from above, swinging its scythe at him and before he could draw his sword to block it or dodge it, a blow came out of nowhere and knocked it down on the floor. Dante stared in mild surprise as a mass of sand squished the demon's head like a ripe fruit.
"I told you, don't waste time," Roy said briskly, as the mass of sand reeled back like a serpent and he directed it to another demon with his gaze while particles of sand still linked back to his body like thin ribbons. The mass of sand swung like a scythe itself, sweeping another Abyss demon and smashing it against a window, throwing it out of the building.
Dante smirked. "Haha, is that what you've been hiding all this time, old man?" he laughed, shooting down another Abyss and then cutting its head off with a clean swing. "Never saw you use that in the past!"
The djinn was laconic. "Wasn't the time. Hurry up, this way."
Dante finished off another Abyss and following Roy ducked into a grand stairway leading up to one of the tower-like structures of the manor. Some more demons attempted to stop their ascent but they were all dealt with in the same way as the earlier ones, cut down in a matter of seconds; the constrained space didn't allow for much maneuverability, but it was enough for Dante to make a mental note that sand could hurt a living thing in more ways than he had ever imagined.
"This should be it," Roy said, stopping at a large landing halfway up the tower, in front of a pair of two impressive-looking doors with very detailed carving. Someone had placed a seal of red wax on the two doors, then pressed a complicated signet of a magic circle on it.
"Hmph, wiccan seals—like that'll stop me," Roy growled quietly, and Dante just barely had time to cover his mouth and nose when a large quantity of sand trickled off Roy's right arm and leg, filled the space like a contained sandstorm and then concentrated into a solid mass and slammed onto the doors, blowing them inward with a crashing sound.
Dante had to laugh; he always remembered Roy as being a master of subtlety, and now he was honestly enjoying the djinn's forwardness. "And I thought I'd seen you pissed off when you caught me and Tess fightin' Chernobog that first time…" he chuckled.
"You wish," Roy replied dryly as he strode in.
The room beyond the smashed doors was quite the aristocratic and grand abode that was spacious and elegantly decorated with two tapestries on the walls, a couple more paintings and furniture that Dante was certain would fit better in a high-end auction than here—except for the two doors having crashed in. One of the doors had smashed into a king-sized canopied bed made of wood and brass with light red curtains and silk covers, now covered in splinters, broken bits of wood and sand. The other had rammed through a grand window beside the bed, smashed the glass and leaning perilously onto the windowsill, waiting to fall off and out the tower and having torn a heavy red curtain down as it passed, the curtain rail hanging pitifully over the side of the window.
Roy cringed hard at the room. Dante thought he was probably put off by the hypocrisy of Regina's choice to have a highly luxurious room that looked out of place against the rest of the manor's humbler setting. Then they both looked at each other and they almost read each other's thoughts: What on earth was that smell?
"Burned flesh," Roy said as-a-matter-of-factly, eying a form laid on a table to the side of the room, covered with a sheet. The form looked eerily human. Another sheet covered what appeared to be a large, full body mirror on the other side, next to a wardrobe. "Yes, that'd be Regina's corpse," he said, knowing Dante's question. "Rites of the dead, covering the mirrors and closing the windows. Like she deserves any peace," he said coldly and strode over to a desk nearby the covered mirror, then carefully ran his finger along a series of bound booklets lined on one of the shelves.
Dante somewhat despaired over the number of them. "That'll take forever, Roy!" he protested. "You're the one who said we don't have time!"
"Quiet," he countered. "I know exactly what I'm looking for, these are dated and organized. Witchcraft may be erratic at times but chaotic and disorganized it is not—besides, Regina was obsessed with power and getting things her way, what makes you think she'd toss her research around without order?"
He pulled out one of them and leafed through it quickly, his eye zipping back and forth rapidly as he mumbled to himself while he read. His eyebrows bowed up and his expression seemed satisfied. Dante was distracted; the smell of the burnt body was very strong and as he eyed the small size of the remains he couldn't help but wonder exactly how much damage Tess had done to the High Priestess. He glanced at Roy briefly and then slowly lifted the sheet.
He pulled back in disgust; Regina had burned while very much alive if the expression on her charred face was any indication: Jaws agape in a shriek, neck twisted in convulsions and her limbs frozen over her chest in a spasm, as were her legs, sprawled and tensed. He remembered first seeing her and estimated that she had shrunk to about half her total mass, maybe more and his eyebrows bowed up a little. Tess had burned her to a crisp. He recalled her expression when she ran into him: She looked terrified and now he realized it wasn't because she was being pursued. She had been horrified at what she'd done.
"I've got it!" Roy said triumphantly. "And it makes perfect sense, that place has been a downright freakshow for ages now!"
"Where is it?" Dante asked, wheeling around with a relieved anxiousness in his tone.
Before Roy would answer he just stared at Dante, or rather at his general direction with a frozen look on his face, his eye wide and peering over his glasses with a stunned look. Then a boney, gritty hand—or what felt like one—grabbed Dante's arm. Before he could turn, the other arm, covered in charred, putrid flesh wrapped over his shoulder and nearly gave him a sleeper hold. The rattling and creaking of bones let him know that the charred body that had been lying on the bed was actually getting up and then spoke in a dry, gritty voice that sounded like it came from the depths of a well.
"She was right…" It sounded like a woman but it was so cracked and disrupted that it was hard to tell. "She warned me…"
"Dante, don't move. Listen to it!" Roy ordered him sharply, holding up his hand in a very imperative gesture to emphasize his command as Dante made a motion to tear himself away from it.
Dante cringed, but did as told. The putrid smell of the charred body was burning his nostrils and the deathgrip on him was getting uncomfortable; for a corpse it sure held on hard.
The voice coming from it continued and Dante didn't dare to glance over and see if the jaws were actually moving, creaking like rusted machines or the voice was just coming out of the body without motion. He didn't feel like facing sockets filled with burned flesh and nothing but an empty, eternal gaze.
"She is at the Gate, reaching closer…She warned me...Now the Gate will be thrown open and the ones that were sealed away will walk through… The book is in the hands of others…the book will bring doom."
Then the corpse started to laugh hysterically and its laughter was shrieking and hollow, suited for the dead. For all his time dealing with the most fearful of sights with a cool head, Dante felt his hair stand on end. There were some times when demons just didn't hold a candle up to other, more terrifying things—the dead being one of them.
"That's quite enough now," Roy said hastily, recovering his composure and boldly grasping Dante's arm, calmly tugging him away from the corpse.
The laugh faded as if the person laughing was moving away down a corridor and the corpse slumped down on the table again, dissolving partially into a pile of charred bones and crisped flesh.
"What the hell was that?" Dante blurted, turning around to look at the debilitated corpse. "I thought you said she was dead."
"She is dead," Roy said emphatically. "That was a revenant; just her powers and her bitterness lingering on and animating what little is left of her. She must've died very angry—at Tess more than likely and at herself for not realizing what was going on sooner. Poor wretch, I almost feel sorry for her."
Dante scoffed. "Huh. I guess that's one more reason to save the Twig's ass, I wouldn't want her haunting me or anything," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "What did she mean, talking about a Gate and all that? Was she saying that Tess is at the location of the same Gate you were talking about?"
"Most probably and it's a good thing we know where it is now. If Tess is going there now, or is already there, we might be wasting time, come on."
Roy started out of the room with Dante following him closely, drawing Ebony to shoot down a few more Abyss demons trying to creep up on them from the staircase as the followed it down this time. Roy took care of a few with some more strikes from his sand.
"The Gate is either inside, or under a small fortress, or castle at the edge of the old city. It's a few centuries old but the spot has always been associated with witchcraft, or devil worshiping," he explained while they ran down the hall. "It's so obvious that I completely overlooked it! It must be where Tess is heading now—if she's not there already!"
"For fuck's sake," Dante growled. "Why's it always a castle of some kind? Normal houses not good enough for them?"
As soon as they were out of the manor again, Roy stooped at the top of the stairs, looked up and inhaled through the nose slowly. "That's strange…there were plenty of demons here but now they're all gone."
Dante stopped a few steps below and shrugged. "We got all of them or scared them off, come on old man, quit being a worrywart."
Roy trudged down the steps. "You ever see any demon get 'scared' off? These things bailed off like something called."
"You think it's got to do with the Gate?"
"We'll know when we get there—eh, who's that?" Roy quipped, raising an eyebrow and looking over Dante's shoulder.
Dante turned over and then grinned. "Trish! Finally babe, what took you so long?"
Trish came up to them at a quick but calm pace from the ruins of the front gate. "I've got news for you, Dante and you're not gonna like it," she said.
Dante groaned while he and Roy went to meet her. "Bad news is all I've been getting today. How worse can it get?"
"Remember the demon I said snatched the Amulet? Guess what, it was Ricardo the whole time," she said dryly.
Roy's eyebrows bowed up. "Ricardo! So he is really here? He's supposed to be dead!"
Trish shrugged briefly. "That's what I heard, but instead he'd somehow managed to turn himself into some kinda demon."
"Been there, done that, why does everyone want to be a demon?" Dante said sarcastically.
Roy rubbed his chin a bit. "Well, I can see how he did it and I can't say I'm awfully surprised. For all his loose screws, Ricardo was a genius alchemist. It's usual practice to extract essence of life from humans or other life forms and use as a treatment to prolong one's life. He must've done the same with demons."
"He sure did a good job with it too, bastard nearly had us back there," Trish said, folding her arms. "I saw that redhead of yours there for some reason. Looked pretty banged up when I crashed his party."
Dante gulped. "You saw Tess?"
"Was she alright?" Roy cut in.
"She looked fine. That Ricardo guy was treating her before he went demon-pants on us, with a bad case of possessiveness. I haven't seen a guy take rejection so badly in years."
Then she eyed Dante. "He kept saying you did that to her," she said and raised an eyebrow.
Dante glanced away, angry at himself. "Not the time, Trish," he said.
"Did you speak with her?" Roy asked her.
Trish shrugged. "Not much, but Ricardo told me some pretty interesting things before he croaked it."
"Make it quick, we don't have a lot of time," Roy blurted.
"He told me Tess is being controlled by Vergil and she sure looked the part. She had a look like a scared cat and then ran off like she was being chased."
Roy and Dante looked at each other. "Just like you said it old man, she is being controlled," Dante said, then looked at Trish. "Did he say how?"
"Not really, he just said something about a witch seal and Tess kept grabbing her neck oddly—"
"The Witch's Seal!" Roy exclaimed, bringing his hand to his forehead and his eye widened. "Damn it, it makes perfect sense, why didn't I think of it earlier!"
Trish nodded. "Yeah, that's what he called it. He said that it wasn't letting her tell about it."
Roy grimaced. "Of course! The first thing he'd order her was to keep silent about being a slave even if her life depended on it!"
Dante cocked an eyebrow. "What the heck's that?"
"The Witch's Seal is a wiccan way of controlling other witches! That's why it didn't occur to me, I was expecting demonic ways of control. Normally the Witch's Seal is used to punish criminal and arrogant wiccans who are humbled by being forced to serve others. But it's been abused in the past by witch-hunters who found its secret and used it against witches. Vergil must have some wiccan accomplice who did the rite for him!" Roy went on, looking more upset by the minute.
"Yeah? You'd think Vergil'd stop working with others ever since Arkham tried to one up him…" Dante sneered.
"Now that you mention it, Ricardo did mention somebody else," Trish said, glancing sideways and touching her chin. "Sasha, I think…"
"Hmm, that certainly rings a bell," Roy said. "If she's really involved, I can see why Tess was dragged in. But I'll tell you on the way, come on, we've got to get to the castle before that ritual begins!"
"What ritual is this? Ricardo said it was some cleansing rite and that only Tess could pull it off—what's it all about?" Trish asked as Roy and Dante walked right past her and she followed right in their lead.
"I'll tell you on the way, babe. We got a witch to save," Dante said.
Returning felt like coming home, as disturbing as that thought was. She was back to where her master bade her but her stomach was upset with revulsion to herself. And yet, after everything that had happened, she didn't have the stamina to keep resisting. She almost wanted to just go through with Vergil's will just to get it over with, even though she knew that her chances of surviving were nil.
"But do I have another choice? No. Dante can't help me now, it's far too late—and I don't want him to become involved anyway. I'd prefer he thinks I'm dead. I wish he leaves, just for once I wish he gets fed up and leaves… I don't want him caught in this. I actually wish he'd killed me back there. I can't do this, but I can't help it!"
Tess felt her head ache like it never had before as she went up the steps of the castle and she felt unnaturally out of breath.
"It's demonic power. It's so overwhelming...Just what has Vergil unleashed?" she thought, then gripped her neck again because the choker was strangling her.
"Welcome back," Vergil's icy voice bade her from the end of the staircase and his look was just as cold as he stared down at her. "There is work for you to finish. Follow me, now."
"Yes, Master."
Tess gulped and followed him, but she felt like it was just her body following the orders and she was watching from outside her body. The choker kept strangling her and only doing as told relieved the torture, making sure she obeyed just to stop the pain.
She followed him without talking to the great hall and through the already opened doors she could see that it was completely empty now and bare of any furnishing of decorations it had in the past. The only things present were a book stand with a book laying on it. She knew precisely which book was on it and had a vague idea of what Vergil wanted from her. All the way there she was being bombarded with disjointed and random images, thoughts and short visions invading her second sight. They were too fragmented for her to have a clear idea but piecing together what she knew about the Tome of Rites, Vergil and the history of the castle, she had a rough idea.
"And then…there's that feeling I have every time I come here. Someone or something is watching me. Something…angry and hungering…" she thought.
Vergil forced her to walk over to the book and then he grasped her arm tightly and made her face him. "This book contains a ritual that releases all bonds, known as the Rite of Greater Release. Find it and perform it."
Tess gulped and gazed down at the book. She hesitantly opened it and felt a chill run down her spine. The book seemed to be emanating an even more menacing aura than before. She flicked through pages quickly, wondering how on earth she would manage to execute the Rite of Greater Release. She only knew that ritual as a kind of myth among wiccans and what was told of it was far from reassuring. It called upon powers so dangerous that they were virtually impossible to control and demanded great extent of power—power she was pretty sure she didn't really have. She kept going through pages, reading titles for rituals and spells that she didn't want to know about. Every single piece of witchcraft in that book was forbidden, for good reason.
"This book was written by demons and corrupted wiccans. It's full of powerful witchcraft that just turns it's user into a power-hungry puppet. That's what happened to Regina," she thought.
"Vergil," she said suddenly, making him glance at her piercingly. "I have to warn you, about this ritual."
Vergil resisted the urge to raise his eyebrow at her. "Her? Warn me?" he thought. "I hardly expect gratitude from her, but…" He narrowed his eyes. "Her senses so far have outdone even Sasha's and I trust a complete slave more than that a corrupted witch."
"Then out with it," he said sharply.
"You ought to watch your back. I know there is some other wiccan involved in this; you were given knowledge only a wiccan would know. Don't trust wiccans."
He got angry at her insolence. "Is she warning me against Sasha?" he thought.
"Is that including yourself?" he asked slowly, resisting the urge to reach for his blade and cut her in two.
She just stared back, with an unafraid, calm gaze that nearly unsettled Vergil. "As long as I am your slave, I can't outright betray you. Besides, as much as you might hate it, you put me in your shoes. Which is why I have to tell you: This ritual you're asking me to do is dangerous. It can't be controlled like demonic rituals can. I can't guarantee whether it'll work or whether it'll fail, in which case we will both be obliterated."
"Then make sure it doesn't fail," he said sharply, staring at her with an angry look.
She returned the gaze, calmly and then looked down at the page of the ritual with a kind of quiet resignation. "I must create ritual circles. This could take some time so please, be patient."
