Chapter 6 – Take Me To Your Heaven.

Nico made her way over to Cavaliere eagerly. She looked up at the night sky and saw that Giuseppe had indeed been right; there was a full moon tonight, its brilliant light bathing the streets and surrounding hillsides with a spellbinding luminescence that gave the whole place a magical feel and helped dispel any anxiety she may have had about being out in this unfamiliar part of the city at such a late hour.

Nico felt her heart racing with excitement as she walked up to the magnificent demon bike parked next to the curb. Not only was she looking forward to taking a ride on this remarkable Devil Arm again, but now that Dante had sated his hunger with that "Divine Purgatory" he'd been going on about all evening (which she had to admit, had been pretty tasty as far as pizza is concerned.) She now assumed that her diabolically handsome date intended to take her back to his place next, a prospect she'd been fantasizing about since the beginning of the evening…

Nico was just about to climb onto Cavaliere's seat, when she heard a teasing voice behind her say, "Whoa! Hold your horses, young lady! Where do you think you're going?"

The mechanic turned around to face Dante with a confused expression. "Aren't we going to head on over to your place now?" She sucked in a deep breath and tried to look confident as Dante approached her with a softly teasing glint in his eyes, the corner of his mouth turned up in a small smirk. Nico folded her arms over her chest and glared back at him defiantly. "Come on, Dante! This is supposed to be the part of the evening where you ask me if I'd like to come over to your place for coffee or a night cap..."

"To which I reply 'I'd love to!'" She hinted sarcastically.

"I'm hoping that by 'coffee,' you understand that I mean something else entirely, you gorgeous but hopelessly dumb demi-demon!" Nico thought to herself with a snort of amusement, her gaze searching Dante's face carefully for the slightest signs of comprehension on his part.

Dante gave her an apologetic look and shook his head dismissively. "I don't think that's such a good idea, Sweetcake…" He saw the disappointed look on Nico's face and added half-jokingly, "Trust me, you wouldn't like my place very much. It looks like a tsunami swept through there!"

Dante reached out and touched Nico's forearm gently. She looked up at him hesitantly and despite herself, couldn't help smiling as he chuckled and exclaimed, "What can I say? House keeping hasn't been around this week. Or month actually. Or year…" He squeezed her arm reassuringly and whispered softly, "You know what? I have a much nicer place to show you, if you're interested."

"Are you kidding? Of course, I'm interested! What are we waiting for?" Nico blurted out a little overeagerly. She felt a telltale blush creeping across her cheeks and looked away from Dante's face self-consciously. However, if Dante was amused by her enthusiasm, he didn't let it show. Instead, he offered her his hand and tried to sound convincing in an attempt to put her mind at ease. "Do you trust me, Sweetcake?"

"Well, not really…" Nico told herself apprehensively. Suddenly, a sly grin appeared on her lips as another thought came to her mind and she accepted his hand with a sense of renewed excitement. "Oh, what the heck?! If it's a chance to grab your hand (or any other part of you for that matter) I'm more than happy to go along with it!"

"Let's go then!" Nico said, her eyes watching Dante curiously as he let go of her hand and began carefully removing one of the dirty, white bandages that he wore around his wrists. Dante grinned at her mysteriously as he held up the dirty strip of cloth in front of Nico's face proudly, then slipped it over her eyes and tied it behind her head like a blindfold.

"Hey! What are you doing that for…" Nico started to protest uncertainly, before uttering a yelp of surprise as she felt Dante's strong arms grabbing her around the waist. The devil hunter effortlessly hoisted his baffled date over his shoulder like a prehistoric caveman claiming his prize. For a few moments, Nico was too stunned to say anything. She definitely was not expecting that! What did he think she was anyway? Lady's beloved Kalina-Ann rocket launcher?! As she lay draped over his shoulder with his other arm wrapped around her legs for support pondering the thought, she felt him start walking off in an unknown direction, her vision limited to a small slit due to the disgusting blindfold he'd placed over her eyes.

After a few seconds, she heard his voice saying confidently, "Are you comfortable up there, babe?"

"I- uh guess so…" Nico tried to figure out where the devil hunter was taking her based on what little she could see through the slit in her blindfold. But all she managed to make out in her narrow field of view was the bottom part of Dante's long red coat flapping around in the wind as he walked, as well as patches of gravel that suggested he was hiking along a dusty trail instead of through the street for some odd reason…

After a while, Nico began to feel sleepy from a combination of too much wine and the lulling rocking motion of Dante's stride as he carried her further and further into unknown territory. She found herself beginning to doze off, her lids growing heavy with weariness as she allowed herself to slip in and out of consciousness. Finally, Dante came to an abrupt halt some time later and she heard him announce happily, "Here we are, Sweetcake."

Before Nico could ask him where "here" was exactly, she felt him shifting her weight off his shoulder. Then without warning, he dumped her unceremoniously onto the ground like a sack of potatoes before removing the blindfold from her eyes and sweeping his arm around their surroundings theatrically. "Well? What do you think, babe? Pretty breathtaking isn't it?"

Nico blinked up at the beaming devil hunter in disbelief, a flood of thoughts rushing through her mind as she struggled to comprehend what she was seeing. She was still sprawled out on the grass where Dante had (for lack of a better word,) "deposited" her. She didn't need to stand up to get a better view of her surroundings because even from this vantage point, she could see more than enough to figure out where they were. Nico felt a chill roll down her spine as she realized they were on a hill overlooking the city, which ordinarily would have been a pretty impressive view except for the fact that this particular hill was dotted with old, rundown gravestones! And as if that wasn't creepy enough, the spot Dante had chosen was surrounded by at least a dozen or so graves that were far closer to Nico's proximity than she would have liked in broad daylight, much less the middle of the fricking night!

"Are you for real, Dante?!" The mechanic uttered in a small voice, her gaze coming to rest on his grinning face in astonishment. The devil hunter laughed delightedly, his silver hair reflecting the moonlight and giving him an eerie, ghostly appearance that unnerved Nico even more.

"I knew you'd like it! We've got a magnificent view of Redgrave from up here…" He gestured at the city lights spread out below them, then waved at the graves on either side of them admirably. "Look at all those candles flickering beside the gravestones like fireflies. And then there's the stars high above us! Giuseppe was right. The moon does look spectacular tonight!" Dante paused and looked at his date expectantly, his blue eyes shining brilliantly in the moonlight. "Don't you agree that this place feels like heaven?"

Nico swallowed nervously. "Well that depends on how you look at it." She glanced at the graves all around her and commented half-jokingly, "For some people, this place was literally the final stop before heaven."

"Or hell…" She thought to herself humorlessly.

Nico felt her unease growing and she looked around fearfully. "There could be ghosts or evil spirits around here! In mean, come on Dante! We're surrounded by stiffs…" She dropped her voice to a low whisper and said more to herself than to the devil hunter patiently watching her nearby, "Those are definitely not the kind of stiffs I had in mind!"

"Ah, don't worry about a thing, babe." Dante said, puffing out his chest defiantly and doing his best to look imposing to any potential ghosts or demons that might be watching them from the shadows right now. "Did you forget who you're with tonight? If anything decides to crawl out of the Underworld and give us a nasty little surprise, it's going to have to go through me before it can get anywhere near you."

This announcement seemed to satisfy Nico and she exhaled slowly. She could already feel some of the nervous tension leaving her body and she allowed herself to relax ever so slightly. "Okay. You're right, Dante."

Nico closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the breeze blowing through the trees at the edge of the clearing. Crickets chirped somewhere in the distance and she could make out the occasional hoot of an owl carried along on the night wind. After a few seconds, Nico opened her eyes again, smiling in admiration as she gazed at the moon and stars shining brightly overhead. "I do have to admit, it is really peaceful out here. I can't remember the last time I spent a night away from a garage and all the hustle and bustle of the city…"

Dante sat down beside her and the two of them fell into silence as they basked in the serenity of their surroundings and each other's company. After a little while, Dante casually draped his arm around Nico's shoulders (much to the mechanic's pleasure) and she leaned her head against his chest gratefully. She could faintly hear Dante's steady heartbeat in her ear and before long, she found herself on the brink of dozing off again. In fact, had it not been for Dante running his fingers through her hair, she might have drifted off to sleep completely.

"You have such beautiful hair…"

It was an innocent comment on Dante's behalf. He meant it as a simple compliment and never intended to offend Nico in any way. But as soon as he said it, Dante felt the mechanic tense up beneath his touch, her breath catching in her throat in an audible gasp of shock. Her eyes were wide open now and she pulled away from him as though she'd been physically stung, her expression full of alarm and something else… disgust? Dante thought as he stared back at her in bewilderment.

"What's wrong, Nico? What did I do?"

Nico was silent for several seconds. When she finally did answer, her voice was tinted with resentment and she refused to make eye-contact with Dante, keeping her gaze fixed to the ground in front of her as she explained tartly, "That was something my daddy used to say to me when I was little. He liked boasting to people about how I inherited his 'beautiful' hair…"

Now it was Dante's turn to looked shocked. Of course! How could he have been so stupid?! The devil hunter turned his face away from Nico, shaking his head as the guilt hit him like a dagger to the heart. Everything about this date with Nico suddenly felt so wrong to him. He was the one who had killed her father all those years ago on Fortuna and even though his actions had been justified at the time, how could he not expect Nico to despise him for it? As corrupt and cruel as Agnus had been, he was still her father. What if this whole date was actually some sort of twisted act of revenge on her part…?

Dante stood up; his expression grim as he addressed the mechanic without meeting her eyes. "Let's go, Nico. I'll take you back to your van now." Nico remained seated and regarded him with hesitation. She had no idea what had come over the normally charming, wisecracking devil hunter all of a sudden. But she thought she detected something that sounded like shame in his voice and it made her feel uneasy.

Dante still refused to look her in the eye as he let out a sigh of regret and said, "You're a great girl and you deserve someone better than me. I completely understand if you hate me because of what I did…"

Nico reach up and took hold of Dante's hand, cutting him off awkwardly as she pulled him back down beside her gently. "Why should I hate you, Dante? For killing my asshole daddy?" The mechanic shook her head and sighed, her hand squeezing Dante's fingers in reassurance as she went on in a level tone. "That's not something I just realized now; you know. I came here with you tonight because I wanted to! The fact that you killed my father doesn't change the way I feel about you one bit!"

Nico paused and Dante glanced at her face uncertainly. Her eyes had teared up slightly and when she continued speaking, there was a mixture of anger and sadness in her voice as though she were reliving some painful memory from somewhere deep in her past. "My daddy was a bastard of the worst possible kind! He abandoned my mother and me when we needed him the most and made it very clear that we meant nothing to him! He completely fucked up our lives!"

Nico brushed the tears out of her eyes with the back of her hand and looked at Dante with a sad smile. "If you didn't stop him, who knows how many innocent people would have gotten hurt or killed because of his unethical 'research!' So no, Dante. I don't hate you. I think you're a fuckin' hero!"

Dante looked at his date thoughtfully. "Are you sure about all this then? Us being here together, I mean…"

Nico laughed and smiled at the handsome devil hunter fondly. "I am 100… no make that 1000% certain!" She took both his hands in hers and leaned in to give him a kiss. Finally! This is the moment she'd been waiting for all night!

Just as Nico's lips were about to touch his, she detected a slight movement in her peripheral vision and her head veered to the left as her gaze instinctively focused on the blur of motion. All of a sudden, her eyes widened in horror and she let out a shriek of alarm, leaving Dante understandably dumbfounded as she pushed him away from her as though she'd just seen a ghost…

A/N: Just one more chapter to go before we wrap up this crazy date! Thank you again to all the wonderful readers around the world for tuning into this story so far and an extra special thanks to J. vanGreven and Tripledent for your inspirational feedback! You guys motivate me to keep writing and to never give up :)