Chapter 2
After two hours of intense arguing, swearing, and almost running over three pedestrians, Nico and Nero agreed to wait until the following day to begin their investigation. On the bright side, this meant spending the night with Kyrie.
He woke up to an empty bed, his girlfriend would always wake up early to prepare breakfast on days where he already had some job or mission planned, the devil hunter loved her commitment to it, but would miss waking up to a curled up girl by his chest. Nero yawned and got on his feet, using the bathroom and getting himself dressed as quickly as he could. The faster he left, the faster he could get back home.
Nero went to the kitchen just in time to watch Kyrie cooking the last pancake, the wonderful smell in the air would always give him an appetite even on the worst of the days.
"Morning, honey." She said, gleefully, as he approached her from behind and placed a kiss on her cheek.
"Morning."
They sat down and were about to peacefully have their breakfast, until all the possibilites of peace were gone as Nico had arrived. Whenever there was an opportunity of snatching some of Kyrie's cooking, there she was.
"Pancakes! Thanks, Kyrie, you're the best!"
"Why don't you have your meals at your place?!" Nero questioned.
"Cause then I'd have to cook it myself, duh." She answered as she grabbed a serving and ate as fast as she could, making a mess.
"At least pretend to have manners!"
"You said you wanted to get this whole thing done as fast as possible!"
And there was Kyrie again, laughing at their argument until they were finally ready to leave.
Nero sat on the passenger's seat with a pout on his face, annoyed that the gunsmith had eaten the last pancake. She, on the other hand, gleefully hummed along with the song playing in the jukebox.
"Soooo... Did you tell Kyrie?"
"Tell her what?"
"That you wanna drag yo ass all the way to the underworld after uncle and father dearest."
"You crazy? If I tell her that, she's gonna kill me!"
Nico grabbed a cigarrete and lit it up, causing Nero to get even closer to his window. "What if you get stuck down there, what am I supposed to say? That you left her for a stripper?"
"OF COURSE NOT!"
"For a doctor?"
"I don't even know any doctors."
"Wait, so you know some strippers?"
The devil hunter's face turned red, so red that for a second Nico thought she was looking at a tomato. "That's not... I don't... JUST DON'T SAY ANYTHING, OKAY?!"
The gunsmith burst into laughter as Nero tried to hide his face.
"... Holy motherfucking shit." She said under her breath as she suddenly hit the brakes, scaring the boy.
"What?"
She pointed at the problem: right at the middle of the city there was a thing that looked like a building, except that, instead of ordinary walls, it was a bunch of demons hugging each other to create a one floor structure. There were already more demons arriving to climb the others and position themselves to create an even taller building.
"Have you ever seen this before?"
"No..." Nero stood up and left the RV to climb to its top and get a better view. "They seem to be migrating..." There were some lines of demons coming from different directions, as if they were ants returning to the anthill.
"Soo... Do we run them over?"
"We could kill the demons that are already here, but... I think more will come and replace them." He jumped to the ground. "There's something attracting them here, I'll try to find out what it is."
"Try to bring something interesting for a new weapon!" She yelled with half of her body outside of the window, but all the answer she had was a middle finger. "Well, fuck you too."
Nero calmly approached the structure, trying to find out any kind of opening. He noticed the demons still moved after becoming part of the most disgusting building he had ever seen in his life.
"I didn't know demons could become architects!" The devil hunter heard some groaning in response, even though the creatures didn't seem interested in attacking yet. "But devil school must really suck, because you guys forgot the door."
He took Red Queen in his hand and forced its tip against the ground, twisting its grip until the sword was aflame. Then, Nero charged against the building, ready to slash some demons in order to create an opening. However, as the sword was about to hit a demon, the demons in the structure all moved at the same time, dodging the attack.
"What the..." He gave many more slashes, even though the demons kept dodging. "Look, I've never expected much from you lesser demons, but this is a bit too much!"
Suddenly, the creatures made the building move in a different way, as if it was trying to swallow Nero.
"Oh, no, I'm not tasty at all!" He slashed and shot a few demons, but it wasn't enough to stop their movement. The devil hunter was about to be swallowed when, in a blink of his eyes, he was back in the RV.
"That's it, I'm gonna start charging people to get in here!" Nico protested as she pointed to the woman in front of her: Tara.
"Calm down. I just saved sweetie here, because it looks like he has a death wish."
She crossed her arms and stared into his eyes. Nero hated that. It felt like she could figure out all of his secrets and read his souls only with her enigmatic violet eyes.
"I didn't ask for help!" He groaned. "Everything was under control!"
"Of course, sweetie."
"Stop calling me sweetie!"
Tara placed a hand on his chin, slowly bringing her head dangerously close to his. "Oh, but you're so cute that makes me want to taste you."
Now that he was being forced to look at her, the boy realized for the first time that she and Phoebe looked like sisters. They had practically the same face and both looked like in their 30's.
When he realized what she had just said, his face turned red for the second time that morning, and he slapped Tara's hand away from him.
"What do you want?"
"First of all, this is your payment from yesterday." She made a gesture and an envelope appeared in Nero's hand. "Second, I knew you'd try to get yourself killed."
"Do you know what that thing is?"
"Not exactly, but demons are naturally attracted by power. Something really powerful must be luring them here."
"And how do we stop it?"
An enigmatic smile appeared on her face. "I don't know. That's why we need Dante."
"Your daughter already said she can't do it. Why don't you do it yourself?"
"Because she created the spell herself with a mix of ordinary and demonic magic... And I can't use demonic magic."
Hundreds of miles away from Nero, a red headed sorceress meditated in astral form as her body rested. That was the way she found out to avoid sleeping and with it, the nightmares. What she couldn't avoid was the pain in her chest that accompanied her for four months now, that she felt even on her soul.
Phoebe realized it was already morning and returned to her body, slowly opening her eyes and getting up. She brewed some chamomile tea and drank it as she looked down the street from the apartment's balcony. It seemed it was going to be a stress free day, until she recognized the man slowly approaching her building, she knew that hat from miles away.
"You gotta be kidding me." She said under her breath. The sorceress used a quick spell to change her clothes and opened the door for Morrison. "How did you find me?"
"If you don't wanna be found, don't use your real name to rent an apartment."
"Funny how I've been living here for twelve years but only now you people are interested in where I am."
The middleman sighed. "We were giving you space... But you never reached back."
"I had my reasons." Phoebe heard the doorbell ring and rolled her eyes as she placed the mug on the coffee table. "Let me guess... Lady and Trish." She said as she walked to the door and opened it.
"Well, if the sorceress won't come to us, we will come to the sorceress." Lady happily announced as she walked in.
"What a great day to be alive!" The red head muttered sarcastically as she slammed the door shut. Or maybe she should leave it open just in case the whole town decided to show up. "I need more tea for this conversation. Do you guys want something to eat?"
"Yeah." They all said in unison. Phoebe gestured and an exaggerated amount of food appeared on the coffee table in front of them: pancakes, eggs, bacon, bread, all sorts of things.
"Wow." Trish exclaimed. "There's just one little thing I don't get... How is it that you make a lot of food but need to brew your own tea?"
"I don't make food from scratch, I conjure it. Right now there's some very rich family wondering where did all their breakfast go."
They just shrugged and kept eating. When the tea was finally ready, Phoebe filled her mug and sat on the couch with the others.
"So... which one of you is gonna try to convince me first?"
"Actually we're here to hear you talk." Lady answered, surprising her.
"Talk about what...?"
"The arguing."
The red head blinked a few times, confused. "What arguing?" Silence filled the room as the other three exchanged a few confused looks as well. Phoebe's mouth was agape as she realized what was going on. "Oh, right, because I'd leave someone to rot in the underworld over a stupid fight."
"I mean... it looks like it." Trish said nonchalantly.
"And you've done a few bad things for less." The human shrugged.
An image quickly flashed into her mind: the pool of blood under his guts hanging on the wall, the red liquid still dripping slowly. Phoebe closed her eyes and hid her face in her palms, this conversation was beginning to stress her out.
"I think you should leave." It wasn't her intention to sound as harsh as she did.
"You're not being fair..." Lady started.
"If I could, I would've opened that portal on day one. I could do it back when I created the spell, but I can't anymore!"
"Why?" The human asked calmly, but in the red head's mind it sounded much more hostile.
Phoebe saw a longer flash in the back of her mind: the boy's face frozen forever in terror, his head hanging from the ceiling and blood dripping from where it was cut off from the rest of the body. She burst into tears as her whole body began to tremble.
Morrison and Lady were shocked and Trish decided to slowly approach her and place a hand on her shoulder. The touch, however, had an unexpected effect: it did stop her from crying, however, she raised her head and looked at the demoness as if she were a stranger.
The blonde tilted her head to the side, but was sent flying through the window thanks to Phoebe's telekinetic powers.
