"So," Nero said.

Julio stared back at him expectantly.

"Okay. I, uh…" Nero laughed, feeling awkward. "Man, I am not used to talking about this."

They were standing outside the back door, only a few paces from the gully that Nero had dragged the twins out of earlier that evening. It was enough distance that the children in the house, probably squabbling over space by the sink as they prepared for bed, wouldn't be able to hear Julio's reaction. If it were bad. Which Nero hoped it wouldn't be, because after all his assurances that they were a family, he was really starting to think of Julio as something more than a temporary foster kid. And that was terrifying enough without imagining what would happen to that relationship once Julio knew exactly what Nero was.

Nero had pulled Kyrie aside and told her of his conversation with Julio and his intention to tell him the truth about his heritage, almost hoping that she'd talk him out of it, but she'd merely said it was his decision and she would support him in whatever he chose. He really should have known what to expect on that front. Kyrie was a firm believer in letting people make their own choices—which was commendable as long as Nero made the right ones. Unfortunately, it meant that when he chose poorly and dug his own grave, he often found himself stumbling face-first into it.

Julio was starting to shiver in the cool evening air, and Nero hauled his mind back to the present. "Okay. So. I told you Rosso and Zaffiro were half-human, half-demon."

"Yeah." Julio wrapped his arms around himself. "However that works."

"Well, their father was kind of a special case."

"Was he the demon or the human?"

"The demon. Their mother was human." Nero unzipped his sweatshirt and handed it to Julio. "Here. You're making me cold just looking at you."

"Thanks." Julio shrugged the hoodie on over his pajamas. "Why was he special?"

"You remember the stories about Sparda? The demon who protected humanity?"

Julio nodded. "Was their dad like that?"

"Not like that," Nero said. "Their father was Sparda."

Julio's eyes widened. "You mean he… You said he was real, but I thought that was a long time ago!"

"It was. A couple thousand years, I think."

"But Rosso and Zaffiro aren't that old."

"Sparda lived a long time. And Rosso and Zaffiro are older than they look." Nero was beginning to feel the chill, too, and he shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "Sparda was still kicking around the planet, doing his whole protect-humanity thing, up until maybe half a century ago. Then he married a human woman and settled down in Red Grave City."

"No way!" Julio's eyes were saucers. "My friend Michael's dad is from Red Grave."

"Yeah? Small world."

"Maybe he knew them! Does Sparda still live there?"

Nero shook his head. "Not for the last few decades. His house is still there, though. Or at least it was, as of last summer."

"Were you there?"

"I saw it from a distance. Nice place, until the city got trashed."

"Yeah, we saw pictures of the sinkholes at school." Julio's enthusiasm dimmed for a moment, then returned in full force. "It's cool that you got to see where he lived, though! So what happened to him?"

"To Sparda? I'm not sure. But anyway, after he settled down, he and his wife had two kids. Twin boys."

"Zaffiro and Rosso?"

"Don't jump ahead," Nero said. "Some stuff happened, time passed, and the brothers went their separate ways. One of them became a famous demon hunter."

Julio frowned. "But if he's half-demon himself, why would he want to kill demons?"

"Because demons kill humans, and humans make pizza." Nero grinned, but Julio just stared at him. Nero sighed. "Trust me, it's funny if you know him. I guess he was just following in his father's footsteps and protecting humanity."

"What did the other brother do?"

Nero stopped himself before he could reply with knocked up some woman on Fortuna. "He… got into some trouble. Did some shady things." Like sacrificing thousands of people to crown himself the ruler of the underworld, for a start. "But eventually, the brothers met up again and started working together."

"Hunting demons? Like you do?"

"Exactly like I do. Only I make it look good." Nero winked. "So that brings us up to, what, six or seven weeks ago? Just before Nico brought Rosso and Zaffiro here. See, these two brothers and some associates of theirs got called out to hunt a demon, but it was a kind of demon they'd never fought before. It had this weird power that let it steal another demon's lifespan. So when it attacked them, instead of killing them, it shrank them back into babies."

"It… shrank them." Julio stared at him in frank disbelief. "How old were these guys?"

"Mid-forties, give or take."

"And it shrank them… into babies?" Julio's nose crinkled. "That's impossible."

"Yeah, I thought so too, until I realized who Rosso and Zaffiro were." Nero shrugged. "Anyway, that's why they're aging super fast, and that's why they have those lightning powers you saw. It's because they're actually the half-human sons of Sparda."

"That's crazy." Julio glanced back toward the house, still absorbing what he'd heard. "You sure you're not making this up?"

"Hell no," Nero said fervently. "Believe me, if I were gonna make this shit up, it would make a hell of a lot more sense and feature a lot more demon ass-kicking." Julio blinked at his language, and Nero cringed. "Don't tell Kyrie I said… any of that."

"Our secret." Julio cocked his head to one side. "But that doesn't seem so bad. I was expecting something a lot worse."

"Worse?"

"Well, what you said, about me being better off not knowing…"

"Oh. That." Nero swallowed. "No, that wasn't the secret. That was just backstory."

"Backstory?"

"So you can understand the secret."

"Oh. So there's more." Julio stared expectantly.

"Yeah." Nero drew a deep breath. "So, like I said, there are actually three human-demon hybrids out there. Vergil and Dante are two of them."

"Who?"

"Zaffiro and Rosso. Sparda's sons. Their real names are Vergil and Dante."

"Oh." Julio frowned. "Wait. Dante… Isn't that your uncle's name?"

"Yeah. It is." Nero waited for the penny to drop.

It didn't take long. "Is that the same Dante?"

"Yup." Nero tried to keep his posture relaxed, but he could scarcely breathe. There were so many ways this could go wrong, and he didn't know if he could take a rejection…

"So… that would make you…" Julio's eyes were wide. "If he's your uncle…"

"That would make Vergil my old man. Yeah." Nero smiled tightly. "I didn't know until last summer."

"So you're… you're Sparda's grandson?"

At least the boy wasn't recoiling in terror or anything. That was a good sign. "Yep."

"That's…" Julio's mouth was dangling open. "So you're, like, one-quarter demon?"

"Yeah. I—"

"Do you have any cool powers?" Julio interrupted. "Can you shoot lightning and things, too?"

"Uh… Yes, I do, and no, I can't." Nero hadn't expected quite this level of enthusiasm. "But now you know how I got my arm back."

Julio stared at Nero's hand, still tucked into his jeans pocket. "You mean you just… grew a new one? Like a lizard's tail?"

"Why does everyone always jump right to the lizard thing?" Nero rolled his eyes. "There was more to it than that, but yeah, more or less." An idea popped into his head, and he held out his right hand. "Here. Gimme five."

Julio eyed the hand suspiciously, but swung his palm down onto Nero's. Nero phased his arm out just at the right moment, and Julio jumped as his hand passed right through the ethereal blue shape of Nero's hand. "Holy shit!" the boy squeaked.

"Language," Nero chided.

Julio's eyes flicked from Nero's hand, now whole again, to his face. "Our secret," he countered, before prodding Nero's solid hand with a finger. "How did you do that?"

Nero repeated the trick. "I wasn't lying about getting my real arm ripped off. There's nothing here, really, but somehow my power concentrated into something that looks and acts like an arm—except when I don't want it to. To be honest, I don't really get it, either." He shrugged. "But it's a lot more convenient than the metal ones Nico made for me. A lot cheaper, too," he muttered.

"So all that stuff about Nico using demon parts to make arms with magic powers was just a cover?" Julio sulked. "Aw, I wanted that to be real."

"Oh, no, that's all legit. She got kinda mad once I had my arm back, because it meant she couldn't use me as a guinea pig for some of her crazy designs." Nero flexed his fingers. "But demon-powered weapons go back way before Nico. They're called Devil Arms. There's a whole underground industry built around them. Dante used to make most of his money selling off the ones he picked up on his hunts."

Julio's eyes widened again. "Holy crap. I just realized… I mean, I knew, but I hadn't… Rosso and Zaffiro are your dad and uncle!"

"Yeah." Nero smiled grimly. "And now you know why I'm the only one who could take them in."

"Which one's which?"

"Rosso is Dante. Zaffiro is Vergil."

"So Zaffiro is your dad? That's gotta be weird," Julio mused. "I mean, taking care of your dad as a baby?"

"Yeah, it was a little weird. It's better now that they're a bit older. I mean, at least we can have a conversation."

"I bet it's weirder for them, though. I'm not even a grown-up, and I can't imagine going back to being a baby." Nero didn't reply to that, and Julio added, "Or don't they remember being grown up?"

Nero shook his head. "As far as they know, they're just normal kids. They don't know who they really are."

"Do they know who you are?" Nero shook his head again, and a look of horror dawned on Julio's face. "Will they ever remember you?"

"I hope so. Could be real awkward, otherwise." Nero sighed. "I'm hoping I can figure out some way to reverse what was done to them, but nobody knows for sure. No hunter we know has ever dealt with this kind of demon before."

Julio looked pensive. "If it attacks you, will it shrink you, too?"

"I honestly don't know." Nero tucked his hands back into his pockets. "Everyone else it attacked has died. Dante and Vergil are the only ones who survived. If it landed a hit on me, there's a chance it could turn me into a baby, but there's just as good a chance it would kill me. I'm gonna do my best not to find out."

"You—" Julio began, but was cut off by the back door being flung open. They turned to see Nico standing in the doorway.

Nero was about to scold her for interrupting, but a glance at Nico's tense posture and stormy expression halted the reprimand. "What is it?"

"We got a situation," she said, jerking a thumb back over her shoulder. "I need you in the garage."

Nero nodded. "I'll be there in just a minute." Nico went back inside, and Nero turned to Julio. "Sounds like work stuff. I just want to make sure you're good with everything I've told you. I know it's a lot."

Julio nodded, thoughtful. "I'll probably have more questions later."

"You can ask me if you do." Nero clapped him on the shoulder. "Now, it's way past lights-out. Think you can get yourself into bed without waking the rest of the boys?"

"Sure. They can sleep through anything."

Nero followed Julio into the house and paused to lock the back door behind them. He was just passing the boys' bedroom when he heard his name hissed from within. Stepping inside, he saw Julio already perched atop his bunk, wriggling out of Nero's hooded sweatshirt in the light of his tiny reading lamp. "Your hoodie," Julio whispered.

"Right. Thanks." Nero knew he'd want the extra layer in the garage, if Nico's business took more than a few minutes. He was still feeling the chill from standing outdoors.

He was about to leave the room when his eye was caught by Rosso's bunk. The mussed covers and indented pillow showed where the boy had gone to sleep there just after supper, but the bed was empty. Nero ducked to check Zaffiro's bed, and couldn't suppress a laugh: The twins were tucked beneath the single blanket as usual, but this time they were sleeping with their backs pointedly turned to each other, each nearly hanging off his own side of the bed in order to maximize the space between them. Clearly, they were still too mad at each other after their fight to be in physical contact.

"Not mad enough to stay apart, though," Nero murmured, gently shifting Zaffiro's dangling arm back onto the mattress. "You two idiots really haven't changed in forty years."


Nico and Lady were waiting in the garage when Nero reached it. A toolbox lay open on the floor, and one of the shelving units had been pulled away from the wall. "So what's going on?" He wriggled into his sweatshirt and zipped it. "We got a demon alert or something?"

Nico shook her head. "I figured out how our lil' hunter girl has been sniping our gigs." She beckoned for Nero to follow her to the displaced shelf. "I was hookin' up the monitor so you could keep an eye on the ruins. Figured I'd run a line through the existing conduit to the receiver on the roof. That's when I found this."

Nero crouched to look at the bundle of cables Nico had pulled from the wall behind the shelf. One cord had been spliced—recently, judging by the dust-free edges of the electrical tape sealing the connection—and the spliced cable looped back through the conduit, presumably to something outside the garage. "This shouldn't be here."

"Damn right it shouldn't. That's the phone line, if you hadn't noticed."

"She cut into our phone?"

Lady nodded as she crouched beside Nero. "It's an old-fashioned wiretap. You know all that clicking and interference you've been getting on the line? Classic symptoms of a tapped land line."

Nero swore under his breath. "I should have realized. I thought the equipment was just getting worn out, like everything else on Fortuna." He fingered the splice. "This was done from inside the garage."

"Which means she's been listenin' in on all your calls at least since that first break-in Kyrie found, while we were both out of town." Nico scowled. "I'll bet she was doin' the same thing to mine, when my landlord spooked her. She must'a come back later to finish the job, since the Devil May Cry phone rings at my place."

"So every time someone called to hire us, she eavesdropped on the details, and got to the job site first." Nero shook his head. "It's neat, I'll give her that. She must have been watching us to see when we left town so she could set this up. She had to have been planning this for a while."

"Or she might have engineered an opportunity once she was ready," Lady said. "The job that got us all together that time turned out to be a wild goose chase, remember? Trish said they had the password, and they insisted that you two come in from Fortuna, so whoever was responsible had done their research. It was only by chance that Morrison called about the Nilepoch the next day."

"Right. The clown warehouse," Nero groaned. "Makes me wonder if that was some kind of deliberate message."

"She's been playin' us the whole time." Nico stalked over to her toolbox and returned with a wire cutter. "Well, we can put a stop to that—"

"Wait." Nero grabbed her wrist before she could snip the line. "I have a better idea. We want to get our hands on this girl, right?"

"Oh, yeah. I see where you're goin'." Nico rocked back on her haunches. "I call you with a fake job, say it's worth a lot o' money if we can clear it out real quick, an' we lure her out."

"And we'll be waiting for her. Three against one, there's no way she can slip through our fingers again." He glanced at Lady. "Assuming you're willing to help."

"Absolutely. Business ethics aside, if we don't intervene, that kid's going to get herself hurt or killed."

"So it sounds like all we need is a location." Nero frowned. "It needs to be some place we can all reach in a hurry, though. We have to stage the call and then get there before her, and we don't know what kind of transportation she has. We can't all fit on Lady's motorcycle."

"Or we could wait a couple more days," Nico said. "The shop said they got the new wheels delivered today, and the van could be ready as soon as tomorrow, or Monday at the latest. It'll work if we get Kyrie in on it. You an' Lady take her bike to the ambush site, I make the call from my place, Kyrie says she'll tell you, an' then I drive the van there. Even if she's watching the house, it'll just look like I came over here an' we drove there together."

"I like that plan." Nero smiled grimly. "And if we want to set up an ambush, I know just the place."