IMPORTANT NOTE IN RE POSTING SCHEDULE: This past week, my laptop decided to experience a power supply failure - fortunately a month *before* the warranty expired - so it's being shipped back to the manufacturer for repair. While all my files (including the remainder of this story) are safely backed up in the cloud, I tend to only pre-load one chapter at a time on AO3/FFN, so this is the last chapter I have uploaded and ready to post. A family member has offered to let me borrow an old laptop in the meantime, so in theory I *should* be able to continue posting as usual once I pick that up later this week. However, just in case something is incompatible, or I can't get my software installed on that machine, or some other unforeseen issue arises, I wanted to alert you all that there's a possibility I might not be able to post for a couple of weeks. So IF the story suddenly stops updating, don't panic - new chapters will resume as soon as my computer returns!

It most likely won't be an issue, but I figured if I didn't plan for it, that would just guarantee something going wrong. Hopefully Murphy's Law has been satisfied. :)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled chapter of CotFA.

Chapter 60

The interior of the Order headquarters building was much as Nero remembered it, though he was glad that the security system had long since been disabled. He'd expended enough energy vaulting over laser grids and dashing through deadly energy beams for a lifetime. The elevators were no longer in working order—little surprise there, given the damage the building had sustained—but Vergil led the group up flight after flight of stairs until their progress was blocked by a collapsed wall. Vergil hopped lightly up the bank of debris and ducked through a hole in the lath into an adjacent room. Trish followed, her feet scarcely touching the rubble.

Nero hesitated and glanced at Lady. "You want a hand up, or are you good?"

Lady lowered her sunglasses to give him a look. "That depends. Are you offering out of consideration for my age, or my sex?"

"I was offering out of consideration for the giant-ass rocket launcher you have strapped across your back," he shot back. "That thing probably doubles your weight and definitely screws with your center of gravity. And none of this footing looks very solid."

"Ooh, very good answer. You get to live." Lady winked and lifted Kalina Ann's strap over her head. "I was actually going to ask if you would throw this up to me. Normally I'd use the grapple and avoid the whole mess, but I have a feeling that entire wall would come down on us if I committed my body weight to it."

"Yeah, this whole building feels kind of like a time bomb. I keep thinking about that stiff breeze." Nero let out an oof as he took the weapon from her. "Geez, this thing weighs a ton. How do you not have permanent spine damage from carrying this around all the time?"

"I do a lot of yoga." Lady dug the toes of her boots into the scree of plaster and climbed to the top. "That, and a very expensive chiropractor. Toss." At the wall, she held out her arms, and Nero pitched the missile launcher up to her. As she caught it, the rubble at her feet sank under the increased pressure and shifted, and she rocked to regain her balance. "Careful coming up. This is very unstable."

"Check." Nero waited until Lady was through the hole in the lath before backing up a few paces. With a running start, he jumped high and angled his landing for a bit of intact masonry at the top of the pile. For an instant, it held his weight; then it broke free and began to slide down the loose plaster dust. Nero jumped again, grabbed the lath and swung through the hole before the entire ramp of debris collapsed into the stairwell. "Good thing going down is easier than coming up."

The room the others had entered was illuminated by a row of windows at one end. The center window was shattered, admitting a draft, and beams of daylight picked out the swirling clouds of dust and ash it stirred into the air. Nero knew it took a prodigious number of demons to produce that much floating detritus. Vergil had been busy.

Lady was crouched near the center of the room, examining a summoning array drawn on the floor in the now-familiar shades of dried blood and scorched wood. "I don't know enough about these things to tell you exactly how the trap part of this works. My guess would be some kind of proximity trigger, but it's just a guess."

Nero joined her. "The one Nico and I ran into before went off when she touched a sword. That circle was a lot simpler than this one, though."

"This is one of the most complex arrays I've ever seen." Lady stood and dusted off her hands. "Our man has certainly raised the stakes. You said this thing went off when you entered the room?" she asked Vergil.

He inclined his head in an affirmative. "I saw it activate when I was perhaps two paces inside. Both doors were immediately sealed with a magical barrier. Or rather—both means of egress. The door, and the opening through which we just entered."

Nero glanced across the room to the ornate double door that was meant to be the room's only entrance. "So there's zero chance this was something left over from the days of the Order. Lauda had to know someone would be coming through that hole in the wall."

"Right," Lady agreed. "Besides, this summoning thing has his fingerprints all over it. It's the same technique he's been using all along."

Trish had wandered over to the broken window and peered out to the platform below. "You knocked that demon out through this window, Vergil?"

"Yes."

"So clearly he didn't think about sealing the windows as well as the doors. That means he didn't expect that any of his pursuers might be able to fly."

Nero shrugged. "Why would he? He's been gunning for me, and I haven't exactly advertised my genetic makeup around here. After what the Order did, Fortuna's got more than a few hangups about people turning into demons. Somehow the Order higher-ups knew about my connection to Sparda—at least, Sanctus mentioned it one of the times when he was trying to kill me—but apparently Lauda missed that staff meeting."

Trish turned away from the window to rejoin them. "Or he just believed what he was told to. The Council actively tried to suppress rumors about the sons of Sparda. Sanctus feared that if the common people knew that Sparda had an heir, they might idolize and follow him instead of obeying the Order's commands." She frowned. "And of course they had their own plans for Dante. In any case, the Order's official position was that Sparda had no descendants."

A smirk hovered around Vergil's lips. "Lauda did seem rather convinced of that."

"We might be able to use that to our advantage, then," Lady said. "If he thinks we're all human, he may not have much in the way of metaphysical defense."

"I don't know about that. He did have that personal shield or whatever." Nero glanced around the room. "And obviously he's a big fan of summoning things to fight his battles for him."

"Well, give me a minute. I'm working on that angle, too." Lady retraced her steps to the hole through which they'd entered and examined the surrounding wall, then knelt and rolled back the edge of a rug that lay not far inside the door. "Ah, here we go."

They converged on her and bent to look at the rune seared into the hardwood floor. "Is that the trigger mechanism?"

"That would be my guess. It must have activated the trap when Vergil crossed over it. Keep an eye out for any more of these. There could be even more dangerous traps ahead." She stood. "I assume we're going to go on and look for whatever was causing the weird vibes you all felt?"

"I think we should." Nero glanced at Vergil. "Unless you already cleared the building?"

Vergil shook his head. "I proceeded only as far as this room. After disabling the trap, I discovered the demon outside and returned to inform you."

"The demon that had already been drained by the Nilepoch." Lady frowned. "Something about that still doesn't seem right. Its recovery was too fast."

"Did you sense it?" Nero asked Vergil. "You said you would be able to feel the Nilepoch when it got close."

Vergil paused to think. "No. At least, not at the intensity I would have expected. I sensed something outside, but it wasn't until I saw its victim that I realized the Nilepoch had been here."

"Perhaps that wound Nero inflicted had more effect on it than we realized." Lady moved to the double doors and began scanning the frame. "There's another rune here. Give me a second to disable it." She drew a combat knife from the back of her belt and scraped at the wood until the symbol had vanished. "Okay, that's the only one I see. Let's move on."

They eased out into a corridor that had once been richly decorated, but had long since fallen victim to the elements. Moisture-warped wainscoting buckled along the walls, and gold leaf peeled from the elegant ceiling medallions. The air of decay lent the space a haunted ambiance which was only enhanced by the ever-present threat of demon attack.

Lady examined the entrance to each room they passed, finally pausing by an ornate door at the end of the hall. "Well, well." She tapped a pair of runes marked on either side of the doorjamb. "I'm willing to bet that this is the direction Lauda meant to deter us from going."

Trish cocked her head as she surveyed the elaborate decorations over the door. "Wait—what floor are we on?"

Nero tried to recall how many flights of stairs they had climbed. "The sixth, I think?"

"In that case, I know exactly where we are. This is the chamber where the Order's High Council met."

"That's good to know." Lady drew one of her pistols. "What should we expect on the other side of the door, besides the possibility of ambush by demons?"

Trish shrugged. "A table, chairs, and some absurdly pretentious interior decorating. There's an enormous statue of Sparda on one wall. It was opposite my seat; I had to stare at it during every Council meeting."

"Any other exits?"

"Just the one that leads into the Ascension Ceremony chamber. And some windows, but it's a long drop."

A chill swept down Nero's spine. "I'd really like to think this location is a coincidence, but knowing Lauda, I'm betting it isn't."

"Well, we won't know for certain until we check it out." Lady stepped back from the door. "Who wants to do the honors?"

Vergil drew the Yamato and slashed it neatly through each runic symbol before pushing the door open. Nothing happened as they stepped into the room, but the sense of danger prickling at the back of Nero's neck didn't subside.

"Oh, this is lovely," Lady said dryly as her eyes swept the room. "Very seventeenth-century cultist chic."

Nero followed her gaze up the fluted columns. High windows admitted narrow beams of light that played over the vaulted ceiling, setting the gilded tracery alight. Ornamentation bloomed from every surface. "Man, they really went all out with the cathedral vibe on this one, didn't they?"

"I think they out-Baroqued the crowns of Europe." After finishing her scan, Lady holstered her pistol. "I hate to say it, but that statue is probably the least ostentatious thing in this room."

Nero shivered again as he stared at the statue of Sparda on the far wall. It wasn't just a decorative relief, he realized; it was a scale model of the Savior, complete with blue glass insets in its forehead, chest and arms that glowed from within with the light of what were probably cleverly-refracted skylights. Framed between the figure's legs was another elaborate doorway, this one covered in gilded plates with some kind of writing on them. "Okay, is this place giving anyone else the creeps, or is it just me?"

"It's not you." Nero whirled to face Vergil, at first shocked that he would admit that something had rattled him, until he saw that Vergil looked anything but distressed. He was staring at the ceiling. "Look up there."

Nero craned his neck and squinted at the high ceiling. As he watched, one of Vergil's spectral swords streaked upward and shattered just below the peak of one of the Gothic arches. A ripple of energy flared out from the point of impact, briefly illuminating the invisible web of demonic power that stretched across the contour of the ceiling. "That's weird. Why would there be a barrier all the way up there?"

"That's a very good question. Another one is, what's generating it? There are no demons loose in the area, as far as I can tell." Lady began searching the floor. "I don't even see any summoning circles in here. Those runes on the door must have been meant to activate something."

"Perhaps it has something to do with this?" Trish had wandered over to the door between Sparda's feet and was staring at the gold tiles. "It's not the same kind of array we've been seeing, but this device is definitely generating some kind of arcane power. And I never sensed this when I was here before, as part of the Council."

They joined her, and Nero squinted at the elaborate markings incised into the metal. The individual plates were set into recessed squares in the door, arranged in an interlocking pattern that described a complete magic circle when the door was closed. Surrounding the door was a wider frame featuring similar slots for tiles, though they were currently empty. The crenelated edges of cog wheels were barely visible in the gaps between plates. "Aw, crap. This looks like one of the Order's stupid tests."

"Tests?" Lady looked over at him. "What does that mean?"

"The Order leadership had a real thing for these weird games. They'd make novices 'prove' their worth to join the Order by making it through a gauntlet of them. I had to go through some when I joined the Knights, and the entrance to Agnus's main laboratory had this huge room that was laid out like a game board, and you had to roll a die and fight whatever enemies were on the space you landed on… It was a total waste of time, but it was just the sort of thing they did. This looks like the kind of pointless shit they'd come up with."

Lady was examining the plates. "Well, I don't know what this setup used to do, but it looks like someone has altered the markings. See here, where the lines aren't as deep? Someone has cut a new array into the metal."

"Lauda, most likely. So is this what's generating that barrier?"

"Let's find out." Lady lifted Kalina Ann's strap over her head and set the rocket launcher aside. "Lend me your shoulders, Nero."

He blinked. "My shoulders?"

She led him over near the wall, where one of the support arches curved down to the floor. "I'm betting you were never a cheerleader, were you."

"Uh, can't say that I was."

"It's fine. Just crouch down—there." Lady planted one boot on his knee, stepped lightly up onto his shoulders, and extended her arms to balance. "Okay, now try to stay as upright as possible when you straighten up." It was awkward for Nero to rise without toppling her, but Lady had the balance of a gymnast, and she was able to compensate for the slight wobbling as he got to his feet. He stepped forward and moved along the wall at her direction until she called down for him to stop. "Judging by these runes carved into the stone, I'd say the array on that door is definitely connected to the barrier up here. It's the same set of symbols that repeats around the edge."

Nero tried to squint up at the wall, but the angle was awkward. "Can you disable them?"

"I don't think that would be a good idea. Stand very still." Nero complied, and Lady executed a perfect dismount off his shoulders, landing soft-kneed on the floor behind him. She beckoned for the others to join them, then switched on her pocket flashlight and pointed it toward the junction of the wall and the ceiling. The light haloed faintly as it passed through the invisible barrier. "Take a look."

Trish shaded her eyes to see better. "Are those cracks?"

"They are. And from what I could see up there, they run all the way around the room." Lady switched off the light. "That barrier is probably the only thing keeping the ceiling in place. If we disturb those runes—or, I suspect, if we open that door and break the lines of the array—this whole place comes down on our heads."

"So this whole thing was a ruse to lure us in here so he could drop the roof on us?" Trish paced back toward the center of the room. "Seems a bit optimistic, even for one of the Order's fanatics. Besides, I can still feel something from the next room."

"Wait a second." Nero returned to the door. "This door leads to the Ascension Ceremony chamber, right? So originally, this must have been one of the Order's tests to determine if a supplicant was worthy of undergoing the ceremony. It wouldn't have had anything to do with the ceiling; there's no way the Council would have left this room in that condition. That means Lauda either sabotaged the roof himself, or found it damaged and made it worse. Either way, he must have modified whatever was on the door originally in order to put that barrier in place."

"Okay," Lady said, "but how does that help us?"

"It means that originally, there had to be a way to solve the puzzle." Nero pointed into a gap between plates. "Look here. These tiles can be moved, and I can see gears between them. I bet there's a way to move them to the slots in the outer frame so the door can be opened safely. Lauda probably moved the tiles to use the door, then reset it after he went through."

Lady joined him and peered at the cogs. "I see what you mean. If there's an internal mechanism, there ought to be a way to operate it. Do you see anything that would control the tiles?"

"To the left," Vergil said from behind them. "That wheel."

Nero ran his fingers over what he had assumed was a decorative motif and found that his fingers slid into depressions in the circle. He applied light pressure to it, and the top row of metal tiles shivered from side to side. "You're right. This must be what you turn to move them around."

Lady found the matching wheel on the right side of the door. When she touched it, a single column of the plates shifted. "Oh, I get it. One wheel controls the lateral movement, and the other controls the vertical. You can only select one piece to move at a time. It's sort of like those sliding tile puzzles where you have to put the numbers in order."

"I was always crap at those," Nero groaned. "I used to just pop all the numbers out of the frame and put them back in the way they were supposed to end up."

"Well, doing that with this one would probably kill us all," Lady said flatly. "The components need to be moved in a very specific order to avoid disrupting the array. If we move the wrong piece or put it in the wrong slot, the barrier will disappear, and we won't have time to get clear before the building comes down on us."

"Let's avoid that, then. You think you could work out what the right order is?"

"I think I could make a reasonable guess at how they're supposed to end up based on the way the tiles connect, but I'm not entirely confident that I could get them there without disrupting something in the process. This setup doesn't allow for any mistakes." She shot him a sideways glance. "I don't suppose you have any insight into the Order's tests that would be useful here?"

Nero shook his head. "I wasn't exactly a candidate for the Ascension Ceremony. The only time I ever got past the first floor of this building was when I forced my way in after Agnus took Kyrie hostage. And most of the tests I underwent were focused on combat, not arcane knowledge or summoning circles or anything."

"Fair enough. Anyone else want to give it a shot?" Lady turned to the other two.

"I usually favor the more direct approach," Trish said. "Couldn't Vergil just pop through to the next room with the Yamato?"

"No. I've never been beyond this door, either." Vergil fingered the hilt of his sword. "But I can cut through it. Once the barrier vanishes, it will still take the ceiling a second or two to fall all the way to the floor. We would have time to get through."

"That's only assuming that the trap doesn't extend into the next room, as well. And we have no idea what's awaiting us on the other side of that door." Lady shook her head. "I'd rather find a way to disarm the trap than gamble on whether or not we'll have a clear shot through, but this is one puzzle I just don't know if I can solve."

A few seconds of silence ticked past. "I know someone who could," Nero said slowly.

Vergil barely let him complete the sentence. "No."

Lady and Trish glanced between Nero and Vergil. "Well, I'm glad we made that decision," Trish drawled. "Anyone want to fill us in on what the question was?"

Nero sighed. "Look, I'm not real keen on bringing him into this either, but that kid has solved every puzzle he's ever seen, and usually in record time."

"Are you talking about Tony—I mean, Dante?" Lady asked. "Out of all of us, he probably would have the best chance of figuring this out with any reasonable speed."

Trish nodded. "I agree. I think time has to be a deciding factor in whatever strategy we consider. Whatever is going on here isn't likely to stop on its own, and Fortuna is too volatile a location to allow anything to continue making the veil between worlds unstable."

"And if we return to the house for Dante, that will mean another two hours' delay," Vergil countered. "Waiting isn't necessary. We don't need him for this."

Nero eyed the Yamato. "Not if you went back for him. You've been to the house, and you've been here. That means you can travel between them, doesn't it?"

"Opening a portal to the underworld with this much atmospheric disruption would be unwise. Under this kind of pressure, even a narrow path to the underworld could tear open and form an uncontrolled hellgate."

Lady frowned. "Then how did you get back home this morning?"

"I walked half a mile into the woods before returning to the house. More to the point, I have no intention of going back for Dante, because it isn't necessary to involve him."

Nero crossed his arms. "So if it's not safe to open a portal, it's not safe to cut through the door, and time is of the essence, how do you propose we get into that room?"

Vergil gripped the Yamato more tightly. "I will make a path. You three wait outside."

"You've seen the state of this building. If that ceiling collapses, there's a chance this entire tower could go down with it."

"Then I suggest you wait well outside." There was a hint of mockery behind Vergil's words.

Nero bristled. "You are not gonna chop through that door."

Vergil loomed a little taller before him. "Do you intend to stop me?"

"Time out." Lady held up her hands. "Look—I've already stated my opinion, but I don't feel strongly enough to get into a fight over it. I don't care who makes the final call, but at least let the civilians get clear before you two start swinging. Try not to kill each other or get anyone flattened into a pancake. I'll be downstairs, on the land side of the bridge. Trish, you coming?"

"Yes," she said dryly, "but only because I don't have any popcorn." She bounced an amused glance between Nero and Vergil before following Lady back out to the corridor.

Nero knew Vergil wouldn't back down in front of the others, so he waited until they were well out of earshot before speaking again. "Look, we both know that Dante is our best shot at getting this thing open safely."

"And I do not see any reason to bring him here," Vergil returned. "I am more than capable of destroying this door and passing through it before the ceiling collapses. I can move very quickly when I wish to."

"I'm aware." Nero had witnessed Vergil's superhuman speed for himself. Atop the Qliphoth, it had given Vergil a dangerous advantage over Nero in combat. "But speed won't save you from getting crushed to death if the ceiling in that room turns out to be as unstable as this one, or if the rest of the building decides to go down with you sandwiched in the middle. It's not a win if we get you killed."

"That wasn't my plan," Vergil scoffed. "I have survived far worse than a collapsing building."

"Yeah, well if the worst should happen, I don't want to be the one who has to explain to Dante that his brother got brained by a statue of his old man." Nero jerked his chin toward the monolithic rendering of the Savior that loomed over them.

At the mention of Dante, a tightness returned to Vergil's jaw. "Should that extremely unlikely scenario come to pass, Dante would doubtless enjoy a hearty laugh at my expense."

"And you'd still be dead."

"And Dante would move on."

"Dante would move on?" Nero stared at him. "Wow. Don't I feel like a valued member of the team right now. You do remember Dante's not your only living relative, right?"

Vergil's glare was baleful, though he quickly turned it on the door rather than continue looking at Nero. "You needn't strain yourself keeping up the pretense. Our audience has departed."

"And what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly as it sounds." Vergil's eyes narrowed. "I am well aware that you only tolerate my presence for Dante's sake. There is no need to feign otherwise—and especially not for my benefit."

Nero's jaw hung slack for a few seconds in the wake of this baffling statement. It wasn't until he recalled meeting Vergil outside the boys' bedroom after his talk with Scipio that a possible underlying cause occurred to him. "You know, it's not polite to eavesdrop."

Apparently he had guessed correctly; Vergil angled his body away from Nero, despite the fact that this position left him staring at an empty wall. "It wasn't intentional. Your house is very small. And in any case, I didn't learn anything I hadn't suspected from the beginning."

"Is that so?" Nero moved closer, inserting himself into Vergil's field of vision. "Well, let me tell you something you don't already know, genius, because you sure as hell didn't get the whole story. I told Scipio what he needed to hear so he'd make a decision and stop making his sisters' lives miserable. And yeah, there was a grain of truth to what I said then, because you don't make it easy, and there are days when I'm tempted to drop-kick your ass back into the underworld myself. But I meant every word I said on top of that damn tree last year. I am not losing anyone else, and I'm sure as hell not sacrificing anyone. As far as I'm concerned, this family stands or falls together." He leaned into Vergil's space until they were eye-to-eye. "And that includes you, asshole. So you can step off the Big Damn Hero train, come downstairs with me and get your ass in the van, and we'll go get your brother and do this in a way that means we all get to go home at the end of the day. Capisce?"

Vergil blinked once, his face studiously blank. After several seconds, he inclined his head in a minute nod. "Capisco."