Chapter 8

Siren returned to Devil May Cry late in the night and drunk. She practically fell into Dante's arms. She looked up at him and smiled drunkenly. She hit him playfully and giggled.

'Oooh…you're so strong,' she slurred. Dante shook his head in open disgust and gently placed her on the couch.

'Get some sleep.' Siren propped herself up on her elbows and waved one hand dismissively.

'I'm fine…I don't need rest…How about a drink or two before I go to sleep, huh?'

'I think you've had enough.' Siren's eyes suddenly blazed.

'Don't tell me what to do! No one can tell me what to do!' Dante rolled his eyes with a look of long suffering and shook his head in exasperation.

'Just sleep.'

'Maybe I don't want to!' Siren struggled to her feet and stumbled towards him, eyes hot and angry. Dante reeled back from the smell of alcohol but said nothing. Siren's eyes suddenly half closed and she staggered to the ground, still muttering to herself.

'You're not my father. No one can rule me. I'm wild, free and you can't rule me…' She lapsed into silence and closed her eyes, the alcohol getting the better of her.

At least she kept her drink down. Dante roughly picked her up and placed her on the couch again. It was obvious that like Arson, Siren too had her demons of the past. The only one who didn't seem to have a problem of sorts was Val. He heard a sudden noise and looked up to see Arson standing at the foot of the stairs. He became aware that his fists had raised up automatically in order to deal out punishment. He slowly lowered them, feeling no guilt at all. In his kind of job, you always had to be wary. Arson came towards him, his walk steady and somewhat majestic.

'You must not blame her. Like me, she didn't have the best childhood. Perhaps if she did, she'd be different.' Arson said nothing else on the matter. He strode towards the window, and stared out of it vacantly. Dante said nothing but sat at his desk and did some paperwork. Owning a business was never all action. He looked up sharply as Arson spoke once again. 'You can feel it too, can't you?'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'You do…There's a strange presence building. It's Razzia, trying to gain his power. We must hurry and destroy the source of his power before he gets any stronger.'

'How do we do that?'

'We travel. To England.' Arson slowly drew out some tickets and passed them to Dante. 'We leave the day after tomorrow. Pack only what's necessary.' Arson turned and stared out of the window vacantly. 'We should have moved sooner. Now there are two. The powerful one, that almost killed me that night and now this one, that had come for Trish.' Dante frowned.

'Two? But how? And how did he know your name?'

'The future Razzia travelled to the past after us, to try and stop us from undoing the future that is. He succeeded. We were too late in coming. Your present Razzia has been born. We have to get rid of both. We can get rid of this new one by travelling to England and trying to destroy the source.' Arson paused. 'I think the future Razzia found him first. He must have told him about us. About what we intend to do. This will make it all the more harder.'

'What is the source?' Arson didn't reply. Dante noted the way he was standing. His shoulders drooped and his head was hanging slightly. Arson was punishing himself in order to try and warn Dante. 'You should get some rest.' Arson nodded slowly and turned to go upstairs.

'I'm being serious. We have to go to England.'

'How will we find our way around? I've never been before.'

'Don't worry. I was born in England.' Arson smiled as he remembered this. 'You might want to bring a lot of warm clothes with you. It will be snowing.' Arson's serious brown eyes roved gently around the room, coming to settle on Siren. He sighed as he saw her asleep.

'Warm clothes…' echoed Dante, incredulously. Arson nodded once before going upstairs, his brown eyes dull and lifeless. As soon as he was sure that Arson was out of earshot, Dante moaned softly to himself. It looked as though he was going to have to go shopping. But two Razzias? The thought scared him. And the one from the future was even more powerful than the one he had fought in the kitchen. He blanched slightly as he remembered the fight.

Glass had been everywhere. Blood had splattered the floor where Val and Arson had both fallen. Siren could only gape on, her eyes wide and frightened. Trish had still been trying to fight, though she was beginning to tire from her efforts. When Dante had stepped in to fight, Razzia had seemed almost pleased to have a new opponent. Again, he had left because he had wanted to and again, Dante had let him live. The thought bothered him. He never let an enemy live to come back again…but this time, he had not been able to finish it.

---

When Arson woke up, Siren was sleeping beside him. The smell of alcohol was now only faint. His eyes slid towards the alarm clock that lay on the bedside table. It was two o' clock in the afternoon. He felt disgusted with himself for sleeping in for so long. Siren could be excused…she was going to have one hell of a headache when she woke up. He tensed up slightly as Siren moved closer to him in her sleep, snuggling against him, her warm hands sliding across his bare chest. He wondered how she ended up beside him. Dante might have put her here because she was taking up all the space on the sofa. He shifted slightly to try and get Siren away from him but it only succeeded in making her press up against him even more. He sighed with resignation but then relaxed and wrapped his arms around her.

Siren's eyes slowly opened and she raised her head and smiled at Arson before frowning and nursing her head.

'It hurts…' she whimpered.

'I know. It will do. But what drove you to drink so much?' Siren looked at him in bewilderment but then her eyes cleared as she began to make sense of his words.

'I guess I just wanted some fun.'

'With who? I'm sure you didn't drink by yourself.' Siren didn't reply but shifted her position, her hands moving down his chest. Arson tightened his grip on her but said nothing more on the subject. Siren couldn't help but be glad of this. She was about to speak when Arson kissed her lightly and then pulled away, rolling out of bed.

'Have you got all your stuff packed?'

'Yes…why?'

'We have to go to England tomorrow. I hope you've got some warm clothes.'

'Not really. I have to go shopping.' Siren's eyes brightened up. Arson noted the expression on her face and groaned. 'Don't be a baby Arson. You've got to get some clothes too. Let's face it; we don't fit in because we dress differently.' Arson pulled on his scarlet top and noticed the holes in his clothing, due to his battle with Razzia. Siren raised her eyebrows in that acidic way she seemed to resort to at all times. Arson sighed in frustration.

'Fine!' he limped out of the room and made his way slowly down the stairs to see Val sitting on the couch listening to Dante playing his drum kit. She smiled at Arson as he came in and sat beside her. Dante scowled and stopped playing.

'You're disturbing me,' he said sourly. Arson smiled at his sister.

'You'd better start packing.' Val nodded silently and went upstairs. Dante watched her go and then put the sticks away, sighing as he saw that he would get no practise.

'You're lucky you woke up when you did. You missed breakfast. At least you won't miss lunch.' Arson nodded silently, not sure how to respond to this statement. Dante smiled thinly to himself. 'It's your turn to cook.' Arson's head snapped up and he stared at him in shock.

'What?!'

'It's your turn to cook.'

'But…I…' Words tumbled from Arson's mouth, making no sense whatsoever. He stopped, cleared his throat and smiled at him winningly. 'Why don't we order a pizza instead? I'll pay!'

'Trish hates pizza.'

'How about a Chinese?'

'At ten past two in the afternoon?' Arson hung his head.

'There isn't any way out of this, is there?' Dante smiled and shook his head.

'Nope.' Arson sighed regretfully and with some trepidation walked into the kitchen. Dante looked up as Siren came downstairs. She smiled at him, unable to recall the incident the night before. Dante slammed down a glass of water and two tablets onto his desk.

'Take it,' he said gruffly. Siren obeyed wordlessly. She had the feeling that Dante was in no mood to be messed about. She kept her eyes lowered and then turned to watch some TV. At that moment, Trish came downstairs.

'All packed?' Trish looked towards Dante and shook her head. 'Why not?'

'I need some clothes. I'm going shopping.' Dante narrowed his eyes. 'And you're coming with me!'

'What?'

'That trench coat isn't warm enough.' Dante grinned.

'I think it is. There's no way I'm going shopping. Malls are the work of the devil.' Val came running downstairs, looking excited at the prospect of going into a department store.

'Come on! Let's go!' Siren slowly got up from her place on the couch.

'I may as well join the fun. Where's Arson?'

---

Arson looked at the stove, perplexed. They were completely different from the ones he was used to. He had tried lighting a match and holding it near but nothing had seemed to work. There were a couple of knobs on the front of the stove but he wasn't entirely sure which one to turn. The stove was so old that the writing had faded away. He sighed, wondering what to do. He was about to turn around and ask how to switch it on when it suddenly occurred to him what he was.

'Why didn't I think of this before?' He chuckled as he reached for the stove, his hand glowing red.

Siren stared at Dante incredulously.

'He's where?' Val slapped her head with one hand.

'Dante, don't you think? His name is Arson for crying out loud!' At that precise moment, there came an earth shuddering crash.

'Shit!' Dante ran towards the kitchen only to collide with Arson, who was looking completely shaken. Smoke billowed out from the kitchen door.

'I think you need a new stove!' Val tried to hide a smile, found she couldn't and turned so then Dante wouldn't see her face. Trish stood in the same place, one eyebrow raised. Siren sighed and shook her head with exasperation as Dante regained his footing.

'Jeez…no wonder why you're called Arson.' Arson could only smile apologetically but his face turned red with shame as Val started talking.

'So…an oven, a washing machine, a dishwasher, a microwave and now a stove…not to mention the many dinners you've somehow ruined.'

'So I'm not a good cook…'

'Arson, they were frozen dinners! You just bung 'em in the oven and come back to them after twenty minutes or so!' Arson looked around at the disbelieving group of friends before grinning.

'So…who's for pizza?'

---

'How the hell did I manage to get dragged into this?' groaned Dante. Both he and Arson were taking the rear, looking bored out of their minds.

'I don't understand…what's so hard about finding a sweater? We've been to ten different stores now,' Arson complained. He moaned as he saw that the girls were walking into yet another clothes shop. 'Forget this! I'm going to a music store. I'll be damned if I'm going to stand about waiting for them!' Dante watched him go, thinking that he should have thought of that idea first.

'Yeah that's a good idea! Get yourself lost why don't you? Jeez!' He isn't even from here! Dumbass. Dante decided at the end that wondering about looking at his own interests was better than having smiling assistants come up to you asking you whether you needed another size. And everyone stared at him all the time. So he had silver hair? So what? So he wore red clothes all the time? Who gave a damn? Apparently little old women did. He smiled to himself thinly. He wondered idly what would happen if he suddenly pulled out his guns. Most probably he'd be arrested.

He suddenly stopped in his tracks, his eyes narrowing. A stray lock of hair covered his eye. He pushed this back and looked around anxiously. He flinched. There it was again. But this wasn't Razzia. He felt for his guns and hissed with frustration as he remembered that he had stupidly left them at Devil May Cry.

---

Arson looked up from the rows of CDs and made his way out of the shop, ignoring the glances that several women were giving him. His eyes were shining with a faint sense of confusion and fear. He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the red figure of Dante and made his way across to him. The signal was stronger now and oddly familiar. Dante gave him a quick sideways look.

'So…you feel it too.' Arson nodded silently.

'We should get out of here. I've got a bad feeling about this.'

'Get the girls and go. I'll take care of this.' Arson made no move. His hands clenched into fists. Every sense was trained to pick up the signal, to pick up the scent. As the two stood there, motionless, all time seemed to stop.

Dante and Arson both jumped with shock as a scream cut through the air. Dante forced himself into action.

'Trish!' he roared. Arson overtook him, running at full tilt through the crowds, not caring who he bumped into.

'Not Trish! Val!' Arson bulled his way through the masses of people, coming to a halt as he crashed into the store. Dante skidded to a halt as he followed Arson, his pale blue eyes wide.

'Shit!'