Trish leaned forward to peer over Nero's shoulder where he crouched on the ground. "Is this what you found before?"

"Sure looks like it." Nero brushed at the red-brown symbols painted across a span of concrete in the empty lot. They smeared beneath his fingers, still fresh, and the acrid scents of sulfur and vinegar burned his nostrils. More demon blood. "I don't know enough about summoning rituals to be sure this is the exact same setup, but those are the same." He pointed to a couple of coin-sized depressions in the dust surrounding the summoning circle. These marks were defined more clearly than the previous ones, filled with a distinct pattern of concentric rings.

She circled the array and knelt for a closer look. "Interesting. What are they?"

"No idea, but they keep showing up in the same places demons do. Lady thought they might be some kind of demon footprint."

"Not that I've ever seen. Some demons have claws or hooves, but I can't think of any that have… whatever that is. Unless it's some sort of unusual high heel," she added as an afterthought, rubbing a smudge from the toe of her own leather boot. "Some of us do wear shoes, after all."

Nero pushed himself to his feet and wrenched Red Queen's tip out of the gravel beside him. Trish had brought the sword, but not the harness he usually wore to carry it. "Well, whatever it was, it's long gone. We'd better get back to the shop and pick up Zaffiro."

Trish hung back. "Maybe I'd better not come along. He was scared of me last time we met."

"Yeah, but it's been over a week since then, and in their lives that's an eternity. He's gotta get used to you sooner or later." Nero led the way toward the shop, and Trish followed with obvious reluctance. "So did you pick up any good gigs while you were back home?"

She shrugged. "Enough to keep Morrison from serving us with an eviction notice for another month. He still doesn't know what's actually happened to Dante and Vergil, just that they're missing. Maybe he'd put our rent on hold if we explained the situation."

"Well, if everything falls into place tomorrow, Dante and Vergil can explain it to him themselves."

"I certainly hope tomorrow is the end of it. The commute is exhausting. It's a good thing I don't need to sleep; I had to leave the shop at one o'clock in the morning to make the ferry over."

"If it's too much effort to travel back and forth to see them, you're welcome to take them home with you and raise them yourself."

Trish shot Nero a look of disgust. "I'd rather lose another leg."

"I kinda figured." They reached the antique shop, and Nero opened the door carefully to avoid startling Zaffiro if he were still on edge. The bell he expected to announce his arrival did not ring, and with some chagrin he remembered what had happened to it. "Hello? Anybody home?"

The shopkeeper emerged from the back room, preceded by an ancient shotgun. He lowered it when he saw Nero. "Oh, it's you. Your boy thought it might be…" The man's eyes landed on Trish, who had neglected to don her concealing jacket, and widened. "Oh—er, he thought might be something else." He looked back at Nero and frowned. "Are you all right? You're bleeding."

Nero checked his torn sleeve and rubbed at the cut on his neck. A little blood clung to his fingertips, but the wounds' mild throbbing had vanished after he'd released his devil form. The same power that fully transformed his body, he'd discovered, also accelerating its healing—an ability he had thought he'd lost forever, along with his arm. "It's nothing. Just a scratch." Nero finally spotted Zaffiro lurking behind the shopkeeper. "Hey, kiddo, it's safe now. You can come out. It's just me and Trish."

Zaffiro emerged from behind the counter, but kept Nero between himself and Trish. "Are they all gone?"

"Yep. Every last one. We can go home now." He turned back to the proprietor. "Hey, thanks for looking after him."

"Oh, he was no trouble at all." The man smiled wistfully. "You're very fortunate to have such a fine son. Sons, I should say."

Nero didn't bother to correct his misapprehension. "Look, I'm really sorry about busting in here before—"

"I understand." He patted the stock of the shotgun. "It's not the first time we've had to lock down during a demon attack. The back room is set up as a shelter, just in case."

Relief that he wouldn't need to explain the situation washed over Nero, but he was also surprised. "You're more prepared than most. A lot of people around here seem to forget they're living on a volcano, so to speak."

"Literally and figuratively," the man replied with a wry smile. "Though thankfully Mt. Lamina has been dormant for a few thousand years. The same can't be said for all the demon activity, I'm afraid." He nodded toward the sword Nero was attempting to conceal behind his body. "That's an officer's blade, isn't it?"

Nero's surprise redoubled, but he nodded. "With some custom modifications, yeah."

"I thought so. I still have my son's." The shopkeeper's smile was brittle. "It didn't do him much good, in the end, but we were proud of him for earning it."

Nero's stomach clenched at the familiar weight of grief in the man's voice. "What was your son's name? I was in the Knights, myself; maybe I knew him."

"Fidel Velucci. Same as mine."

Nero felt a little shame that in all the weeks he'd been coming here, he'd never asked the proprietor's name. "Sounds familiar… Was he a captain?"

"Squad captain, yes."

"I think I only met him in passing, but I remember Credo mentioning a Captain Velucci from time to time."

"Credo?" Velucci blinked. "The Supreme General?"

Nero nodded. "Yeah, we… I'm his brother-in-law." That was easier than explaining the complex sibling/guardian/commander flux between them, even if Credo had died before Nero and Kyrie had formalized their relationship. "I lived with him, so I was always hearing random bits of Order business."

"I see. I never had the honor, but my son always had words of high praise for the Supreme General. It seems he was the last remnant of the nobler days of the Order."

"He certainly was that."

There was a moment of silence, a mutual acknowledgment of the past and its losses, before Velucci spoke again. "So is this what you do all the time, now? Protecting the city from demons?"

Nero's mind flashed unwillingly to Gianna's parents, whom he hadn't been able to protect. "I try. The Order left a big mess, and somebody's gotta clean it up."

"I'm glad you're making the effort. I wish more people would, to be honest. Everyone wants business to improve, but we'll never attract foreign investors or even tourists as long as there are demons running about. Some days I'm tempted to go out there and take a few shots at them myself."

Nero tried not to grimace. "Don't put yourself in any unnecessary danger. It's best to leave the demon hunting to the pros."

"Oh, I wouldn't do anything foolish. They'd have to come to me, anyway; I can't walk as far as I used to." Velucci reached behind the counter and lifted an elegant walking stick. "I had hip surgery a few months ago. Now I have to use this just to go between my house and this shop, and I'm afraid a cane is not much of a defensive tool." He chuckled. "Well, maybe if I had one with a sword in it, like the one I sold to that gentleman this morning…"

Nero stared at the cane. "Hey, can I see that for a second?"

Velucci shrugged and handed the stick over the counter, and Nero flipped it to examine the rubber tip at the bottom. It was worn down with use, but a pattern of concentric circles was still faintly visible. "Trish. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Trish, who had wandered off to examine a case of vintage jewelry, joined Nero and looked at the tip. "If what you're thinking is that the pattern looks exactly like those marks we saw earlier, then yes." Her eyes flicked to Velucci, and her stance shifted. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"If what you're thinking is that this is pretty good evidence that the person behind the summonings uses a cane, and that Gigi told us her mentor had a busted leg, then yeah."

"Oh." Trish relaxed her stance. "That wasn't exactly what I was thinking."

Nero followed her gaze to Velucci and rolled his eyes. "It's not him," he muttered. "He was here with us the whole time. There's no way he could have gotten to the lot and back ahead of us."

"You only asked what I was thinking, not to examine anyone's alibi." She shrugged and went back to peruse the wares.

Nero handed the cane back to Velucci. "Do all canes have that same kind of tip?"

"The ones I sell do." He pointed across the room to a barrel with several walking sticks poking out of it. "I like this style because the ridges provide better traction, but all canes have some kind of rubber tip."

"I guess most of them do." V's hadn't, Nero recalled, but then V had used his as much for skewering demons as for walking. "So there's no way to track down who might own a cane that left that sort of print?"

Velucci shrugged. "Anyone could order the tips from the same supplier I do; it's a well-known company. And I've sold a fair number of canes and walking sticks over the years. One just this morning, as I said."

"Damn. There goes our only lead." Nero noted Velucci's perplexed look and shook his head. "Sorry—someone's been causing a lot of trouble around town, and we're trying to figure out who it is so we can stop him. We don't have a lot to go on, except that he apparently uses a cane with this same kind of tip."

"Oh, dear. Well, I wish you luck in your search."

"Thanks. Speaking of which, we probably ought to be—" Nero glanced around and realized Zaffiro was nowhere to be seen. "Hey, didn't I leave a kid around here somewhere?"

"I saw him go that way." Velucci pointed to a U-shaped set of bookshelves squeezed into the far corner of the shop.

Nero rounded the shelves and found Zaffiro sitting cross-legged on the floor with a cloth-bound hardback open across his knees. "I should have known these would pull you in like a magnet. What'd you find?"

Zaffiro held up the volume. "It's by the author Julio likes."

"The Mysterious Island, huh? Pretty sure we already live there." Zaffiro just blinked at the joke, and Nero shook his head. "We'll have to ask Julio if he's read that one. Maybe we can come back for it." He took the book to replace on the shelf, and surreptitiously checked the price penciled inside the cover. It was a little more expensive than the books they usually bought, but perhaps they could save up for it. Julio would be turning thirteen in a few months, and becoming a teenager was a substantial enough landmark to merit a nice birthday gift. "Let's go home. It's way past lunchtime, and Kyrie's probably pacing a trench in the floor."

Zaffiro followed him toward the door, automatically putting his hand in Nero's and staying a little closer than usual—not surprising, since they'd nearly stumbled into a demon ambush the last time they'd left the shop. Nero saw Trish still leaning over the jewelry case. "Trish, you coming?"

"In a minute." Trish held up a tangle of chain and thread that she was attempting to pick apart. After a few seconds she succeeded, and held the item against her throat to admire in a nearby mirror. It was a choker of wide black lace, accented with a rhinestone-studded lightning bolt. "First, I need to make a purchase."


Kyrie, lying in wait in the living room, ambushed them promptly upon their return. She maintained her composure long enough to send Zaffiro down the hall to wash up for lunch, then seized Nero and began stripping him out of his shredded sweatshirt. "Let me see how bad it is."

"It's not—ow! Kyrie, I'm fine! Let go!" He squirmed uselessly in her grasp. "Seriously, I'm not even hurt!"

"There is blood all over your collar!" She brandished the tattered hood of the sweatshirt, which she'd managed to whip off both his arms despite his resistance. "And look at these rips! This is not fine!"

Her knuckles were white where they clenched the fabric, and Nero checked his annoyance. She really was scared. "It got the cloth, not me. I had two little scratches and they're already closed up. Look." He angled his head to show her the line on his neck where the goat demon's claw had grazed him. "Honestly, I'm okay. Everybody's okay. My hoodie is the only casualty."

Trish had stood glancing between them, and she used the pause in conversation to squeeze past them down the hallway. "I'll just wait in the kitchen then, shall I?"

When she had disappeared into the next room, Kyrie pitched forward to rest her head against Nero's shoulder. "You didn't call," she said in a shaky voice. "It's been almost two hours and I hadn't heard anything. Knowing you were out there all alone, without any weapons…"

Nero wrapped his arms around her. "I'm sorry. I was thinking about getting back to Zaffiro right away, and then I got sidetracked once we got back to the shop. I'm sorry for making you worry." He kissed the side of her head.

Kyrie leaned into him. "I don't mean to badger you. I just…" She shivered. "I'm so, so scared about tomorrow, Nero. I can't stop thinking about what could happen. Dante and Vergil barely survived, and if the Nilepoch even gets a lucky shot at you…"

Nero wanted to reassure her that everything was fine, that nothing was going to happen, but he knew such promises would be hollow. "I know it's dangerous," he said instead. "But we're going in forewarned. Lady and Nico are over there right now, triple-checking everything they've set up. We're going to have every advantage possible." He pulled back and tipped her chin up so he could meet her eyes. "And believe me, I'm not gonna take any stupid risks. What I want most is to come home to you at the end of the day, so I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that happens. And I sure as hell don't ever want you to have to change my diapers," he added in a lighter tone, "so I'm gonna be extra, extra careful tomorrow."

She laughed at that, and brushed a lingering tear away from her lashes. "All right. I'll try not to worry any more than usual."

Nero pulled her in for a tight hug. "You keep worrying at the usual rate, and your hair's gonna turn white by the time you're thirty."

She returned the embrace. "At least then we'll be a matched set."

"We're already a perfect match." Nero kissed the top of her head and nudged her toward the kitchen. "Come on, let's see if Trish has left any food in the house. I'm starving."


Lady and Nico returned just as they were finishing their meal. Nero dismissed Zaffiro to join his brother, who was sulking in the bedroom in a fit of preteen pique—Kyrie had been somewhat vague as to the inciting incident, and Nero thought it better not to ask—and cleared the dishes to make room for the new arrivals at the table.

"We've got a lot to talk about, but first things first." Nero began plating two more servings of pasta. "How's the setup looking for tomorrow?"

"As good as can be expected." Lady shrugged. "Our cover is as solid as we can make it with the materials we have on hand. Nico has expanded the sensor array, so we'll know when it's coming in. We've set some tripwires along the route, but I doubt any of the traps will inflict serious damage. Our best hope is that poison Nico synthesized from the Qliphoth roots. If it has any effect, it might slow the Nilepoch down enough to give us an advantage."

"I also set up a high-voltage wire," Nico put in, stretching across the table to take her plate from Nero. "Ooh, this looks yummy. Only enough battery charge for one hit, though."

"Battery? I thought you had the generators running?"

"I got one of 'em runnin', but it's just a backup unit, an' it's not puttin' out a lot o' power. I left it chargin' up the battery overnight. If the Nilepoch hits a direct line to the grid, it's liable to short out the power an' leave you all in the dark down there. But even one good battery hit'll tell us if th' bugger's weak to electricity."

"We can hope," Trish said. "If it is, I can serve up enough power to knock a Gorgeron out cold."

Nero nodded as he took his seat. "You sure did a number on that Sap Wraith today."

Lady's head snapped toward him. "What, another one?"

"I said we had a lot to talk about." Briefly, Nero recounted the events of the first half of the day, finishing with their discovery of the cane tips. "So I'd lay odds that il patrono is our guy—or Lord Sparda, or whatever the hell he's calling himself. I saw those marks at every summoning site."

"But even if it is Gianna's patrono, I still don't understand what he's trying to accomplish," Kyrie said. "Why would someone posing as Sparda summon demons at the orphanage? And it makes even less sense to summon them at that lot where you fought them today. There's nothing significant around that area. There are some houses, a couple of stores, but a lot of it is in decline. I could see summoning demons in a populous area if his goal were mass destruction, or in an isolated area if he wanted to practice killing them like Gianna said she did, but why summon them in an out-of-the-way residential neighborhood? It just doesn't make any sense."

Nico nodded. "There's a lot o'empty houses out that way, an' almost nobody walkin' around. I bet if Nero hadn't been passin' by, those demons might'a just wandered off without gettin' noticed at all."

"If Nero hadn't been… Huh." Lady's fingertips drummed on the table, then stopped suddenly. "Hold on. Hold on. I've just realized something."

"What?"

"I think we've been looking at this the wrong way." Lady's gaze swung from Kyrie to Nero. "We've been trying to figure out what this patrono guy stood to gain, but what if this isn't about gain at all?"

Kyrie frowned. "I don't follow you. He has to have some motivation for going to all this trouble, doesn't he?"

"Oh, he has motivation. But I don't think it's to benefit himself." Lady pushed her plate aside and tapped invisible bullet points on the table. "Let's list everything we know this guy has done: We all get called out for a gig that doesn't exist. While Nero's gone, il patrono breaks into your house and taps your phone line. He sets up a rival hunter and starts stealing Nero's business. When Nero goes looking for the hunter, he sets up a pretty advanced summoning trap to try to kill him. While Nero's dealing with that, his van tires get slashed. This guy also summons multiple waves of demons at the orphanage where Kyrie works, where Nero grew up, and where your kids spend time. Then he summons another batch of demons in an empty lot, in a neighborhood with no foot traffic, at the exact time Nero is due to pass through on his weekly trip to the antique shop."

Kyrie's eyes were wide. "You think they're targeting us?"

"Ho-lee shit," Nico breathed. She turned to stare at Nero. "Who'd you piss off?"

Nero shook his head. "I have no idea. I can't think of anyone who'd want to kill me so bad they'd attack the orphanage…" He trailed off. "Crap, you may be right. The first attack happened while I was there. The kids and I had gone to drop off the supplies Lady brought, remember?" He ran a hand through his hair. "This guy must have been watching us. Waiting for an opportunity."

Kyrie's hand flew to her mouth. "The children," she breathed. "They're walking home alone from school right now. Do you think they're in danger?"

Lady shook her head. "I think if he were going to target the children, he would have done it already. They've been to the park by themselves dozens of times. I think this is something personal against one of you."

"It's gotta be Nero," Nico declared. "Kyrie's too sweet for anyone to have a grudge against her."

Nero shot Nico a dark look, but acknowledged her point. "The only thing anyone could have against Kyrie is her involvement in the Order, but even if someone had that kind of vendetta, there are people who were more significant in the Order's hierarchy that they would target first. I can't imagine anyone going to this kind of trouble just to hurt someone who sang a few hymns."

"But I'm also the sister of the Supreme General," Kyrie pointed out. "Targeting me now can't hurt Credo, but if someone is this… misguided, willing to endanger innocent children over a personal grudge, they might lash out at anyone connected to the Order or the High Council without any logical reason."

"From the pattern of the attacks, it seems more like they're going after Nero," Lady said. "But I suppose they could be hoping to kill him to hurt you." She shrugged. "I guess we'll have to wait until we track down this Sparda impostor and get answers from him directly."

"And that's going to have to wait until Wednesday at the earliest," Nero said. "Tomorrow is Nilepoch day." From the hallway, they heard the front door open and the chatter of young voices. "Sounds like the kids made it home okay. Official ban on all demon talk for the rest of the day."

"Fine, but if you don't want the demons talking—" Trish reached across the table with her fork and stabbed a meatball on Lady's plate. "—you'd better be prepared to keep their mouths full, instead."