Chapter 7
It was a miracle the water still worked – even if it was cold, and the old pipes howled with tortured groans, and the spout was liable to splutter some greasy brown gunge in protest every so often. A shower, however poor quality, was exactly what Dante needed that morning. His night had been mostly sleepless; if the cold hard stone and coarse blankets, which had been a substitute for a bed, weren't enough of an excuse then the waking nightmares and constant fear of being murdered in the night were surely the cause. When finally his eyes had closed (previously they had been trained on his brother's back) his dreams were a fractured mess of barren tortured landscapes and Lady's screams. He felt her close to him and then ripped away, a thought slipping through his grasp, like a wet fish in bare hands – he had no way of keeping hold of her even in the arms of dreams. And when those nightmares woke him in a cold sweat and gasping for air he would turn to see his brother's silver eyes pinned on him in the darkness. Perhaps Vergil was just as on guard as he, at least that was what Dante told himself. It didn't do much to shake the anxiety that wracked his body and followed him between nightmares.
Dante groaned, stretched and shook his head spraying a light mist of silver across the cracked bathroom tiles. It wouldn't help to dwell on it now. Vergil would be done mending the portal soon. He had awoken earlier than Dante and with every new discovery was rapidly gaining momentum their only words had been to speculate that the gateway should be ready for a final ritual sometime that afternoon. The idea of a ritual – whatever the form – sent a chill down Dante's aching spine.
His body was a wreck, he hadn't really understood how much of one it was until he had looked in the cracked bathroom mirror, peeled off clothes matted with blood and dirt, and felt the bite of the tepid water in healing wounds. His torso was no longer a pale ivory, but a dappled mixture of purples, blues and greens. Another patch of purpley-brown was creeping down from his hairline across his left eye, his lip was split and filled with a deep red mortar and his limbs were adorned with further cuts and bruises. Dante was loathe to admit that he had found his reflection unnerving. He knew he had lost gallons of blood in his lifetime, that bruises had flowered in the heat of battle – but they had never remained long enough for him to check his reflection.
Finally satisfied that his body was clean (at least that was something) he shut off the water and stepped gingerly out of the cracked porcelain tub. He was afraid of it breaking as much as he was afraid of his own body falling apart. He felt better now, somehow more solid, but still only human and reminded with every step – as he groped for his black t-shirt to dry off his hair – that he was pathetically weak.
Dante sat a long time on the edge of the tub allowing himself to dry in the morning sunlight, which streamed in through the half-shattered bathroom window and dappled his skin with golden beams. He had scrounged an old blanket with which to dry himself, but there was something calming in feeling the prickle of his skin as it relinquished itself to the sun's raise. No matter what he did he couldn't shake the thoughts about Lady. That every second he sat here – every second they waited might seem like ten years for her in whatever part of hell she had found herself. He would never forgive himself if anything happened to her, but he knew somewhere that she couldn't possibly escape unscathed.
When finally he had dressed and made his way across the decaying mansion, moving slowly, dreamlike, mingling with the dust particles which now called the place home, and descended back into the dank and grim excuse for a library (no matter how atmospheric Dante did not share his father's taste for the gothic) Vergil was sitting propped against one of the towering bookshelves binding a wound on his forearm.
"Well I was beginning to think you had retained your abilities and this was all some elaborate ploy to fool me," Dante smirked – Vergil had fewer visible wounds, but apparently there were still some there under his stuffy ensemble. "But I don't think even you would stoop so low as to work with snake-eyes."
"You flatter yourself if you think I would need to go so far to fool you," Vergil shot back concentrating on finishing his bindings before straightening up.
"Touché," the younger twin let the insult slide – he couldn't be bothered with arguing any longer. "So," Dante stepped forward to the edge of the elaborate carvings in the center of the room "you figured this shit out yet?"
Vergil grimaced at his twin's foul language, but said nothing. The restless night had taken some fight out of them both (though he took some pride in knowing that he was in the better shape of the two). Vergil had risen early and taken the time to treat most of his wounds already then set about finishing off his preparations whilst Dante tossed and turned on the hard stone floor. It seemed that sleep had only found his brother some time that morning. They had awoken many times in the night to stare at one another, but Vergil had always felt profoundly safer around his twin knowing that Dante still held some sentimental human notions of family and love deep in his gut. Vergil had committed the ultimate betrayal in raising temin-ni-gru, in fully intending to sacrifice his brother to reach his potential – that was what had broken Dante's trust so completely. Still the idea that Dante thought he would stoop so low as to murder his twin in his sleep was laughable. Despite everything Vergil had always had his honor.
"Yes actually I have," Vergil finally allowed himself to stand – and immediately regretted it. His head swam and he stumbled, catching himself mid fall and steadying before straightening up. Dante had turned alarmed and almost moved to his twin's aid, but something had stopped him at the last second so instead he just eyed Vergil warily.
"What was that about?" Dante asked a touch of concern in his voice. He convinced himself he was only concerned because he needed Vergil to get into Hell – to save Lady.
It took his brother a moment as he attempted to form words and when his tongue tripped he simply jerked his head to the opposite end of the bookcase by way of explanation. Dante's eyes followed the movement to several innocuous glass jars that sat upon the lower shelf. Or they would have been innocuous had they not been filled with a viscid dark liquid that Dante understood immediately to be blood. Now that wound on his twin's arm made sense.
"What the fuck-"
"The ritual requires blood…" Vergil's voice was still weak; he took a step back to use the bookcase for support.
"Of-fucking-course when does the ritual not require blood?" Dante asked sarcastically turning back to the curving design carved into the ground, imagining the blood running through each tributary. How much bloody had Vergil allowed himself to lose? Stupid…
"Good thing we're human now because this ritual also required human sacrifice…" Vergil continued on with his dazed explanation, his voice light.
"Damn it Verg why the fuck didn't you wait for me?" Dante sighed. He never understood his twin's behavior – was this that dreaded pride cropping up again?
"It's barely two pints," Vergil replied, voice firmer. He took a breath and pushed himself upright, there wasn't time to allow any further weaknesses. "Make yourself useful," Vergil gestured to the jars, "they need to be in the centre…"
Dante obeyed understanding that for whatever reason his twin's decision to leave him out of this had been with good intentions. Maybe it was a peace offering? He grimaced at the thought as he picked up the dirty jars and walked to the centre of the carving – careful not to trip over the raised breaks in the ground. His father had sealed this entranceway for good reason and now they – his own sons – were going to tear it back open? Something about this didn't sit right with Dante, especially not whilst he held in either hand a glass jar filled with his brother's blood.
"I hope you practiced good hygiene," Dante muttered as he finally reached the hollowed out ring in the middle of the room from where all the branches flowed snake-like and reaching to the book-case wall that surrounded them. In another time the design, the library itself, would have been somewhat awe-inspiring. Now it was dark and broken and decaying.
Dante upturned both glasses slowly, but only enough so as not to get any of his brother's blood on himself. It fell unceremoniously to the dark stone and slithered between the cracks flowing with a surprising pace towards the outer-reaches of the circular carvings. As Dante watched the bright red liquid trace the hollowed lines of the ancient patterns he felt a sudden queasiness gnawing at his gut. The air seemed to grow thick around him, his vision blurred, flashed with a distant memory of a glowing pale blue light, the metallic thrum of blade against blade, Lady's shout…
"Dante," Vergil's voice cut through the fog and drew Dante's gaze to his brother. "You need to leave the platform now."
"Right," Dante nodded and strode to his twin's side anxious not to give away any of the anxiety which had shot through him. If this was another bout of humanity he was not enjoying it. Or maybe finally the events of the past few days had caught up with him mentally as well as physically. "So what do we do now? Say the magic word?"
"I need your amulet," Vergil stated matter-of-factly, holding his palm out flat before Dante. Vergil could sense his twin's hesitation without even turning his head. "Now is not the time for this Dante, your amulet."
Dante's hand grasped the heavy chain at his neck, his eyes narrowed and his mouth twitched, but he couldn't form the words. Besides what would another biting retort do? It wouldn't help Lady and that was all that was important right now. He hated it; how much he had to rely on Vergil, how much he had to trust him…
"Dante." His twin was growing impatient, obviously expecting him to throw a fit about the idea.
"Okay," Dante said and tugged the chain at his neck harshly so that the catch unclasped, then dropped the heavy silver chain into his twin's open palm. The nausea in his gut grew even more intense.
In his other hand Vergil had propped open their father's old journal between his thumb and forefinger. His eyes never even glancing at Dante's amulet he read the old demonic words, which sounded poisonous to Dante's ears. Vergil's voice cracked and broke as it attempted to keep up with the sounds which at points seemed to tear themselves from his lips – another affect of humanity's weakness in the wake of demonic speech. Vergil just hadn't showed how much it hurt to speak that language before, but he could no longer conceal it after losing so much blood.
Finally he took a step forward and reaching the now glowing (but still broken) ring in the center dropped first Dante's then, with a tug, his own amulet. They splashed blood onto Vergil's boots – his voice didn't waver even though Dante could now see how pale his twin's face was, the blood, which sprayed from his lips with every other word.
This was so wrong, every fiber of his being knew that opening this portal would only bring evil into the world, that it was selfish of him to need his powers back and to risk harm to others just for the life of one woman.
Vergil's voice rose suddenly, there was a crack, a boom beneath them, above them, in the air around them as though something tremendous and invisible had just broken. A beam of hollow blue light shot from the ring in the floor and grew in intensity at Vergil's feet. Then the room shook and the ground heaved as the seals began to pull themselves back into place, the broken ground knitting itself into one with spurts of energetic blue light. They both stumbled under the force, but Vergil's voice continued, even as blood stained his teeth, drowned out by the groaning of the ancient stone beneath them.
Disorientated, Dante didn't realize that Vergil had turned to him until it was too late to consider blocking him. The ancient spellbook had dropped to his feet, a slight jerk of Vergil's wrist released an arcane, serpentine blade that had been concealed within his sleeve and in a flash Vergil had raised it, snatched Dante's open hand with his own free one and sliced open the flesh of his palm. Dante's first instinct was to jerk backwards, but Vergil's grip was vice-like as he kept a firm hold of his twin's wrist.
The wound stung and as Dante watched the rivulets of crimson bloom and slither across his palm, down his fingertips, he was reminded eerily of that same spot in his flesh where Yamato had rent its own bloody wound. If he allowed himself to be a little more paranoid he might even think that Vergil had carved into that memory on purpose. The world around them was still howling in agony and Dante let out his own grunt of pain as Vergil manipulated his palm, wringing more blood from his flesh and watching the viscid liquid drip from Dante's fingertips.
"Asshole," Dante hissed though his words were drowned out by the thundering sound of stone grinding against stone and some other sinister screaming wind that had taken residence up in the center of the library. Vergil merely smirked at his twin's look of displeasure and watched as the blood dripped onto the stones at their feet and lit the ground. The knot-work shone with a flaming red, which shot like fire towards the blue one in the middle of the room.
With one final blast the red and blue merged, then glowed with a demonic purple light that grew in intensity until they were both blinded and deafened by the final harsh boom of the ground at their feet being restored. The blast knocked Dante off balance and released him from Vergil's grasp. When finally the spots cleared from his eyes he could see a swirling purple mist that crackled with demonic energy as it rose before them to scrape the high ceiling.
A portal into hell.
Lady's eyes fluttered, she blinked and then her obsidian lashes spread themselves against her pale cheeks as her senses returned. She lay spread-eagled, uncouth, upon a bed of fluffy white sheets, her legs twisted one way and her torso awkwardly in the other. She felt like a child waking up from a nightmare. Perhaps because she was…
Whatever semblance of false peace was torn away from her with the chilling notion that she was naked. Not completely – not in some insidious way, but her gun belt was gone, the comforting weight of Kalina Ann was no more and all that did prevent her from being totally exposed was a white silken nightdress which cut off just above her knees.
Alarmed she sat bolt upright her mind still clawing at the semblances of a far-too-deep sleep to take in the situation as quickly as she would have liked. A quick survey of her surroundings left her with the harrowing knowledge that she was not in unfamiliar territory. In fact she knew this place with a perfect clarity that mocked her with illusions of comfort when she understood that all she would find was the remains of unimaginable pain. The pain which had awoken in her, at the tender age of thirteen, a bloodthirsty need for revenge against the man who had single-handedly destroyed her very existence. Mary, who had owned this room, slept in this bed, had transformed long ago into the woman who had been thrust back into this mockery of her former life.
The room was that of your average, rebellious, teenage girl. There were the semblances of childhood left over – a pink stuffed unicorn, dog-eared picture books – and also the beginnings of young adolescence: the poster for a rock band hung on the wall, a small collection of make-up strewn across the desk… Lady cast around for a weapon and settled on her 5th grade field hockey trophy. Hopping off the bed she crossed the room to it and felt a little more certain with the cool weight of it in her palm.
The question now was what to do next. The bedroom door was closed, she wasn't certain if she would prefer if it were locked or open. If it was locked then she would be trapped her in what could only be described as a nightmare, but if it was open… did she really want to venture out? To see what lay beyond…? Even in her disorientated state she was certain that this was not a dream.
She crossed the room steadily, her feet burying themselves in the thick carpet, and tested the handle. It turned with a creak and a chink of metal on metal, and with a quick intake of breath she yanked the door open. Beyond the hallway was equally unordinary. Except for that she knew it and that she knew it shouldn't be there – or that she should be here rather – it looked entirely mundane. Still the sight of her old house was getting to Lady, some tension was rising in her chest, the blood thrumming harsher within her veins, at the back of her eyes. Nothing good could come of this.
Leaving the threshold of her bedroom Lady forced herself to put one foot in front of the other as she traversed the narrow hall which would lead to the main stairwell. Her white-knuckled grip never loosened on the solid weight of her trophy as she let it hang at her side, concealed behind her as she walked. If only she had thought to change into something a little more practical than this hideous night-dress. These virginal robes merely felt like a practical joke.
Nearing the main hall, with the front door only a flight of stairs below Lady almost allowed herself the thought that she might escape – escape to where she did not know, but that wasn't important right now – when she was paralyzed by the gut-wrenching sound of a blood-curdling scream. To be more precise her mother's blood-curdling scream…
"No," Lady gasped and the word was almost a prayer to some unknown god that this could not happen again. But even as she understood what the sound meant she couldn't avoid it. She was running, flying towards the stairs, feeling awkward and ungainly in the delicate night-dress. On her way down she nearly tripped as her knees locked, her legs felt rubbery and she had to use the hand-rail for support in her half-fall half-run to the bottom. The screams continued, begging, pleading, echoing louder and harsher and she slid on the polished oak floor at the corner as she turned into the dining room…
Blood, the scent filled her nostrils, choked her and a sweat broke out across her brow. She had known what to expect, but it didn't lessen the shock which made her stagger at the door-way, grasp onto the chair at the head of the table for support.
"Father-!"
Arkham stood at the other end of the room, bi-coloured eyes wild, psychotic, his mouth crooked and an ancient sword raised, glistening with blood, in his hand. He turned to Lady, but it seemed to her, as it had seemed to her before, that he wasn't really seeing her, that those widened eyes with blazing irises and dead pupils could no longer comprehend the land of the living.
"Mary no!" Her mother's strangled, drowned scream. "Run!"
"Mary is right where she needs to be," Arkham had turned from his dying wife, finding her no longer worthy of the killing blow as he moved towards his daughter hand outstretched, dripping with blood. "Come darling, this is a necessary evil for the birth of the new world."
"No," Lady spoke vehemently, but her words seemed useless; she didn't know what she was protesting – her father's words or the repetition of this wretched memory for her torment (and probably someone else's enjoyment). She felt trapped somehow, forced to retrace the same steps, to mimic her past self, even though she knew how this all ended.
"Mary don't you see?" Arkham asked raising his hands as if to suggest that clarity hung in the air around them. "You will be my princess and I… I will rule with the power of Sparda… I will keep you safe forever and all it required was sacrifice."
"She's your wife!" Lady screamed, edging round the table as she had done when she was a child. She still didn't know if she had been trying to get away from her father or closer to her mother. Probably both.
"Greater men have done worse deeds," Arkham spoke his eyes widening further. "Did Abraham not sacrifice his son in the name of God?"
"Arkham!" The cry was that of her mother's – weak but strong. Her mother had always been beautiful, always fierce. She was drowning in her own blood and still she managed to sound defiant. "Get away from her!"
Arkham either didn't hear his wife's cries or ignored her. Lady knew now he was too far gone, that the story would play out as it had done before and a million times since in her mind. Still when she finally could she left the protection of the dining chairs to race to her mother's side, dropping the trophy to slip in the blood, attempt to haul her up before her father could reach them.
"Mary go," her mother insisted, shoving her away with a bloodied hand. Her night-dress was soaked in the stuff, and the pale skin of her legs. She felt too as though she were drowning in it. She didn't know if she could stand any longer. Still she attempted to hook an arm beneath her mothers, to pull her up.
"Mom-"
Her father had reached them. The sword fell like the dagger of Damocles, from above and behind Lady and straight through her mother's chest until it splintered into the wood floor below. Her mother let out a harsh strangled cry which stung Lady's ears. Blood spattered her face, stung her eyes and Lady was still though it felt to her as though she must have been screaming too. Arkham's hand tangled in her hair, pulled her back and up and Lady felt herself barely able to move as she stared at her mother's corpse pinned like a bug in a collection.
"No!" Whatever semblance of coherence worked on breaking herself free. She felt her hair tear from her skull, her flailing arms caught uselessly at the air… "No this is not happening! You bastard, I will kill you, I will kill you!"
A deep rumbling laugh caught her off guard. The sound wasn't her father's voice. With the moment of clarity the room around her started to turn black, the vision of her mother's corpse and the dining room blotted out by darkness. The grip in her hair was no more, she fell to her knees, and when finally she looked up a pair of yellow eyes glittered in the darkness. She thought, if she strained her ears, she could hear the bastard clapping.
Then the world materialized into something else: a cavern of dark red stone and something else, something which seemed fleshy and human, the ground was viscid. She fell onto her behind, attempted to crawl backwards and merely hit a wall of the stuff. It made her skin crawl.
She blinked as though waking up from a dream, which wasn't far from the truth. "Where…?"
"Well where did you think my dear Lady?" he drew out the word, savoring it, and at the same time raised his arms in a grand gesture at the cavern around them. "Hell of course!" He grinned. "Not what you were expecting?"
Lady chose to ignore him, looked from side to side attempting to ascertain where the exit might be. She had only just begun to notice how warm it was, the air was close and suffocating, carrying a metallic taste, which stuck in the back of her throat. With alarm she realized that she couldn't focus properly, that the world rippled and strange lights danced across her vision without warning. She raised a hand to her head, covering her face and feeling nauseous.
"What's the matter? Suffering from a little jet-lag?" The demon giggled now impossibly close to her.
"What's wrong with me?" Lady groaned, the world was spinning, she wanted to get up, to run – her every instinct told her to – she didn't think that she could.
"You think that hell would be so bad if your kind could just wander around down here willy-nilly?"
"D-Dante…"
"Oh yes the wonder-twins," the demon was speaking too fast for her, his high-pitched drawl was insufferable, she couldn't keep up. "I imagine they're having a fun time looking for you. Being human must be such a drag."
He leaned down and, with a firm grip beneath her chin, raised Lady's head so that their eyes met. She saw the malice there, the sick enjoyment. "They're going to walk right into my trap looking for you, this couldn't have worked out more perfectly. Pathetic isn't it? That their emotions get in the way so easily. I could have probably even let them keep their powers, it's not as if those half-bloods ever stood a chance-"
"Shut up," Lady slurred and with a great defiant effort spat in the demon's face.
He loosed his grip on her chin roughly, as though she had bitten him, and wiped away the saliva with a grimace of disgust.
"Oh dear Lady you're going to have to learn to treat me a little better than that if you want to survive down here," the demon chided. "After all we can have plenty of fun with your tortured little soul until the sons of Sparda make their grand entrance."
A/N: A fucking update? After over a year? Yeah I'm just as surprised as you are. I have kinda made this vow to myself - and yes I know I've made it a million times before - that I will finish every fic I have ever posted. That includes the ones on here and AFFN. This one is by far the most unfinished, but it is also the one I think I would have the most fun writing if I kept my mind to it.
But you know how it is right? Life gets in the way on a regular basis, and if it's not life it's my insecurities when it comes to writing - because really the most I write these days is essays - and you bare so much of your soul when you do write. I'm not sure I can be the sadist I once was in my teenage years. I also know that I have become a lot worse at everything to do with writing than I used to be, but as I finished off this chapter I found myself really powering through and getting into it again so fingers crossed right?
If you want some updates on my writing or what I'm doing with it please go check out my tumblr where I blog and write about writing now and again.
Thanks for sticking with me if you have, and thanks for reading if you're new. I WILL update and reviews only strengthen that resolve!
-Luce
