Chapter 35 ~ All Things Nocturnal
He made up his mind, although he disliked his former companion. Of the many daemon fellows he'd known, this one was but the worst. For whatever mutual respect they held for one another, it was often undercut by the tensions of knowing, feeling that any moment the other could stab him in the back and rob from them their power, for all that was even worth. If he wished to understand what had begun to occur in this city, pride would have to come second. He walked out of his bedroom and paced downstairs. A good think was all he needed. The silence was his great companion during such times.
He laid himself down on the couch and drifted elsewhere in his mind. He gazed around the office, and it was the first time he felt he realized how sick he'd become of feeling so cramped in these humble quarters. It was brutally small for a fast-growing family as he had. Seemed to be he couldn't rid himself of the hangers-on, and now he viewed them to be ones he loved or at least liked in passing. Maybe it was time to acquire his own residence elsewhere. Somewhere nice would suit him well, he thought; a home of grandeur that would fulfill his tastes in a way Dante's old office prevented him from reaching. He believed this place was too sacred to sell completely, however. It was an ingrained habit, a shelter of comfort which he could often find himself taking for granted, not that it was a travesty that he sought some form of break with the past, his own past . . .
Perhaps then it would be a place for the others, somewhere exquisite, out of harm's way.
He thought of all the rooms he might have, ones unable to be held within a doggedly small hovel such as this. Perhaps a grand library, his own personal study. Wouldn't it be nice if he fancied himself a professor? Perhaps students might study under him linguistics or mythologies, he was uniquely proficient in either subject. Wouldn't it be magnificent, perhaps, if Lady could be a gymnast? A prolific trainer for the newbies, welcome, whoever may come. Wouldn't it be splendid if Patty could be studying somewhere, honing her proficiencies in art? A great master of creation, she might be.
Wouldn't it be grand if he could have a life he'd always wished for? No one would ever believe it of him. The fearsome Vergil, the lone son of Sparda to remain, a mighty warrior for all time.
And he would seek an asylum of wholesomeness in a mere coastal town, quiet and secluded. That happiness drifted away. No time for rest or argument. Another storm came and so he would face it.
He stood and straightened his clothes, correcting himself of the wait, and he prepared swiftly to leave.
"Hey," Lady called out behind him.
He stopped and turned back towards her, hand on the door. "Yes?"
"Be careful," she said.
He stayed silent for a time.
"Keep an eye on them," Vergil finally said to her. "I shall return with him."
Lady heaved a long sigh as she tugged at her necklace. Of all duties to be burdened with, babysitting the freak-show was not the grandest idea, even if it were the most logical. At the end of the day, she was still only human. He didn't need any liability out there, even seldom her grand moments of skilled assistance. He needed strength through communication, and above all else, honor. Of herself, she absolutely despised those shortcomings.
He heard her sigh as he turned and he stopped.
The man looked back at the woman . . .
"You know," he began, and he came to hold her waist in his hands, faces coming close. "It isn't a weakness to admit a fault or flaw. Believe me, I know, it is not a sin to tell one another when they're afraid. Everyone's got to know their limitations. And . . . if anyone I care for should do so, I would desperately plead that it be you."
Her hard stare softened. She let out a knowing sigh and her arms crossed behind his back, holding him close. Quietly, they stood together, Vergil holding her head, as though cradling her ever so briefly. And he said no more as he turned and left her there alone. He stood out front for a moment to take his breath. There he felt it again, the aching in his heart choking him, corroding him. A time ago, he once felt so differently for her.
"Everything alright?" Tony left his corner, staying deathly silent as he saw them, and he noted the slight distress in her eyes.
Lady dropped her shoulders and shrugged, "Yeah, I'm fine."
He felt it uncertain of what he saw whether or not the two were on the best of terms. Tony wasn't one to understand the war of the sexes, he'd almost never been too intelligent to understand or take heed of it across his adult life, but of his employer, he knew him well enough these days to know the dangers of a woman scorned left behind. The day's weren't going by any faster, and the longer it might take to reconcile the two, the longer it would be to understand for them, that the relations between them were terribly powerful things that couldn't be taken lightly.
He thought of what he might say, but the second his lips parted were the moment the present came calling again.
"Uh, hey lady," Ernest called from the other room. "The TV's busted, doesn't seem to show anything but static, we gonna go get a new one?"
"We?" she scoffed aloud to herself. It seemed the man felt comfortable enough already.
She sat on the couch and merely ignored him.
Patty answered for her, "I know!" and she heard the pitter patter of tiny footsteps. "I tried to tell them to fix it so I can watch my show but they won't listen." The girl placed her hands on her hips and went to fix herself food as she continued yelling to him across the place, "I think I'll go back to live at the orphanage one of these days. They don't care! They just don't care about television, I say."
Ernest rolled his eyes in the other room. What could be the final days of his life was going to be spent here with these stranger, bored and alone.
Lady grabbed the child from the counter and pulled her up in the air and then down to her lap as she sat down at the couch again. "Hey! We don't really get much chance to talk to each other."
Patty's cheeks slightly turned crimson, bemused. "Uh— well . . . what's there to talk about?"
The tall woman smiled, "Oh there's plenty. For instance, why did you wanna go down to that orphanage by yourself the other day?"
"Oh god!" She exclaimed. "I'm more than capable of taking care of myself!" She whispered, looking like an angry little bunny.
Lady pinched her cheek, "Hey now, we got the place today, with some added company. Vergil's not gonna be back, so us girls gotta make the best of a bad situation . . . you can tell me what's on your mind, if you like." Lady smiled at the girl and Patty felt compelled to smile as well. When she desired it, that happiness could become infectious. "So, what do you think we should play together, hmmm?"
But as they made mirth amongst themselves, the slayer had sought another being from that old and crooked world
Vergil decided to miss out on the club's afternoon special: a strip-dance, an open buffet, and the advent of an enflamed psychosis from sitting through mind-numbing acts that amounted to the same boorish things. He was alone in that, he knew. These other pigs would lap it up, foolishly taking whatever was brought to them, volumes of beer and other substances, the girls getting dollar bills as they walked on by for whatever skimpiest clothes they could wear - the skimpier the better - and the booming beat of music he dared not question the name of, which made for him his work impossible.
Altogether, he despised clubs, this one insofar the worst possible offender of the tropes he sought to eradicate.
"You're not on the list!" The big man before him spoke with such complacent tone. "No one gets back there without being on the list."
Vergil glared at him and his eyes glowed red. The man felt beholden to the Devil's power and soon began to sweat in that comically tight suit of his.
"I think you'll find I need no list, little man," the slayer spoke deeply. It was a deathly growl, one that made the man strongly fearful.
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah! Y-Yeah . . . I'm sorry, go right ahead."
Vergil took a step past the young bouncer and muttered as he went, "I weep for the future."
He left the entrance and walked further inside the complex, itself a testament to smut and excess. Leather couches, sticky floors, women of many colors and sizes dressed in virtually nothing, grooving on men of power and wealth, left in crisis or insecurity by the fall of Mundus that so beleaguered the city's populace, stiff drinks and sex flowing through their systems hazing out the bad, bad, bad times. He reflected upon the darkening of human consciousness, the demons of a habitual kind that gripped these pitiful humans and left them unbound to the natural limits every good mortal understood. So sad were these specimens, held to their worst instincts by the grip of impulsivity and sexual worry.
He admitted to Lady of the beast's enraging qualities, he did not desire so to see him again, and of risk and pleasure, one could not afford incurring debt to a being such as he. Of his beguiling qualities, an affable demeanor was all it took to fool those around him and Vergil himself was no different than he, the beast a clockwork of indelibly dark nature.
However, sometimes, the road to victory had to be built on the failures of the self, and this night was no different than any other.
"You seem to be a fine gentleman," a voice called to him and he saw it to be a large man in a black suit, a deck of cards in his hands. "I think worthy of a few rounds."
He recalled the unpleasantness of King and the final poker hand he felt beholden to play.
"No thanks," he replied and went on his way.
He trudged further in, finding the club's music to grow more and more insufferable. The light within seemed shining like aurora borealis, distilled and detached from a fixture, swirling around as northern lights do in the sky. He pushed through doors into a desolate hallway, dark and cozy, littered with couples half naked producing deeds most foul. How many twisted children would be born tonight?
It beat the previous room, where in the dark corners the men and women performed acts of the most perverse grotesqueries he had no use for.
He pushed past these ghoulish lovers and opened the doors down at the end of the hall. He emerged within a tremendous bastion of a room, a stench-ridden masterpiece of flesh and drugs, the aurora flying high above, twisting and turning in naturally convoluted steps. It was a giant thing, beholding in the center a brazen discotheque of sweat and mating, a mass array of bodies dancing within it like dolls of voodoo in crowded rows, grinding one another, rolling hips to the beat of the music that had grown so loud as to numb his senses altogether. Stacks of marshal speakers sat around and blared.
He grew angry and walked swift without mercy.
He'd emerged into this place two flights of stars up on a balcony, and descended the crowded staircase emanating rage. He stepped foot on the new ground and found it sullen and drenched in dried substances he wouldn't dare try to identify. Women danced on poles in broad cages held around the manor, rolling their thick thighs and showing off their greatest impressions of acrobats, dressed skimpy.
This place was growing worse by the second, the living embodiment of decadence.
Seemed to be that the nightlife here never slept, even in the darkest of dead hours.
Several drunken eyes followed his every step as he went.
"Come dance with me, stranger."
"Play with us, sexy."
"I love you. Come love me."
He grit his teeth and pushed past them, making his way further inside, there to a door he saw, and he began to march without caution for others, pushing drunk whorish women out of his way, batting off disgusting men that propositioned either him or others, and he tore through crowds of coke-induced strip teases, green bills flying. He reached the doors and bashed a guardsman's head in with a single chop of his hand.
He walked on with a heavy heart, bashing away at other security guards. They knew not why he was there, nor why they had no chance.
The hallways were a drab green, covered in the stylings of an old hotel. It seemed to be the place had been remodeled out of something, though what in particular, he was unsure.
Then, there came a dead end to him, the halls seeming to close off without a clear sense of where the building's offices truly laid.
The walls lacked shadow and he grit his teeth. He found himself drawn to the ending partition, and standing there, he drew Yamato. Vergil relaxed himself, the music a distance memory now, and holding the blade out in both his hands, he inhaled calmly and then sliced the air vertically. The blade struck the wall and split reality open, an expanse of cosmic blue tearing away at the wall and opening to him the true reality of the dingy place.
He stepped through and found himself standing in a briny deep where every sounds shifted and swirled into nothingness, and lights move about slowly around him, as if living beings all their own.
"Welcome stranger . . ." A voice called out to him.
The dimension reformed, lights flowing forward ahead of him and growing to become tunnel-like in its construction. Vergil gazed forward to see a woman as gnarled as the bark on the woodland trees he walked by daily, and her hair contained bugs of a kind, so many insects crawling about through her. Her lips were large and leathery, nose a bumpy collection of warts, and those eyes narrowed to a squint so close that it was impossible to tell if she even had them.
An embrace of cliche seemed to be this Demon's true calling, as though ripped from the pages of a novella he'd recently read and given form by a cruel entity.
He shook his head and banished Yamato from his side.
"So, you must be his gatekeeper," he said. "You needn't frighten me with any ridiculousness. I cannot be frightened."
It tremor'd and cracked along its spindly limbs, looking to him with hideous sympathy, and its dry-split mouth tore apart into a smile with teeth too large for her head. In the blink of an eye, a shaft of light tore through her body and ripped her apart. The man had little patience for games. It found pain a thing too beholden to bear in this place and held itself together as a distilled image.
And it spoke to him, "You know that I cannot let you pass to see him. He is beyond you."
"And I am beyond you both," he said, eyes cold and emotionless. "I lack the patience to deal with a pitiful thing like you. Let me pass, or you cease to exist."
She screamed at him foul things and his fists burned righteous flames as he charged forward Ifrit's dragon claws through her eyes, and in fury, tore the skull to shreds before him. He ripped on till he heard her shrieks no longer and the world around him turned red and orange, bright like flames of vengeance and glory, the demon's body disintegrating to dust as he kept true to his words and she ceased breathing.
"Some ghosts are so quiet you would hardly know they were there," he said to himself and trekked on forth down the path.
The farther he walked the brighter it became, a brilliant bright light tainted crimson washing over him, growing bright in the distance as he walked further forward inside of it and he passed through it to another realm, another place in time, a chamber of a distant, distant world he found to be different of his feeling. The air around him felt still and untroubled, still and calm, and the walls around him were of stone and olden craft, appearing to be the inside of a castle's great walls.
"Can this be?" a sardonic voice called out. "The slayer-boy is here in my chamber. Hell must have frozen over."
That attitude came again after so long, he forgot how much it needled him, clawing under his skin. The brown desk beside him sat opposite a fireplace that burned green flames. There was a triptych metal wall sculpture above the round-rimmed door and stained windows hung high above around the ground just below the old vaulted ceiling, and dragon wall lamps flickered warm light over the dim place. The paintings of varied cultures and form filled out some sections of sparce wall beneath an old tapestry depicting the crucifixion of Christ from the Devil's point of view.
Right beside him, surrounding the fireplace itself was a massive bookshelf littered with texts he'd both read and never seen before ever, some seeming not even to be written in a language of Earth.
Sitting at that arched mahogany desk was the old Daemon himself, a figure he'd not seen since Mundus had reared his ugly head, the Devil of his own realm, Manah.
He was a big as ever, wearing a dark coat above a well-tailored suit crafted out of materials he was sure didn't come from humankind's realm, styled in a way that harkened back to the politicians of a long gone era. His mane of hair remained ever present, those broadly smiling teeth sharp as nails, and his posture relaxed at his desk as he leaned backwards in his old chair, regal and fine.
"Pleasure seeing your business, Goatface," Vergil said.
The beast laughed and smiled. "It's good to see you again as well, Vergil."
Manah chuckled and motioned to the chair for him to sit.
Vergil took a slow breath. He felt strangely tired now, as though he'd walked twenty miles through blistering cold.
"You come to my abode wandering the trackless sea of existence, that takes mighty courage, I must say, maybe even a dash of persistence. I've often forgotten those of Sparda's ilk are tough as nails."
"What can I say?" said Vergil lowly. "I won't stop till I obtain what I set out to achieve. I always have, I always will."
"Yes." Manah adjusted his horn-rimmed spectacles in amusement. "Yes of course. Come, sit. Relax."
The slayer rubbed his temples and came to sit within the chair politely. He was certainly able to admire the beast's sense of style. He'd forgotten that he wasn't merely some brute, but a refined creature, an oddly human-styled being that wandered existence making deals and plays to live comfortably among the annals of creation. Vergil himself felt a type of familiarity in his presence that bred comfort.
"I hear you've been rather quiet lately?" Manah said. "You haven't seemed so interested in continuing your brother's work these days."
The slayer sighed. "Things have been slow, you understand. It isn't for a lack of trying, it's simply quiet around town. Well . . . only until recently."
The beast rose his brow. "Oh? What pray-tell is occurring these days that would prompt you to seek me out? I don't assume this was a social visit."
"Correct," the man replied, crossing his arms. "I had the greatest time getting by your little distraction."
"Ah yes, Molosk. Forgive her, she serves me well as a defense, but she lacks any kind of social couth for my more esteemed guests," he remarked casually, and Manah then waved his hand. "A simple resurrection will be in order, assuming you did to her what I believe you did."
Vergil smirked at the man. "Yes, of course."
The beast chuckled and grasped a scotch glass from his desk, filled with a liquid he could not at once recognize. It certainly seemed to go down well.
"Aaaah . . . so," Manah said, motioning carelessly with his hand. "Tell me what troubles you."
Vergil huffed breath out of his nostrils. "There appears to be something that has begun to stalk and kill humans. Other times, they'll disappear without a trace."
"Oh? Sounds like a problem for your earthly police."
Vergil rolled his eyes. "You know there are more factors at play here."
And the demon chuckled. "You never were much one for humor, were you?"
"Yes, well . . . I don't have the time to dilly dally, unfortunately. I require knowledge outside myself. This isn't exactly a creature I've ever come across."
"I see," the beast said. "I've heard of some old ones getting loose from time to time, thought to be long extinct. Perhaps that's what you've got brewing."
"Perhaps . . ." the man replied, but he still felt troubled. "Have you heard of a devil that can kill whatever it wants without actually existing?" He asked.
Manah raised his left eyebrow, silent as he watched the halfling, waiting for him to go on.
"It doesn't exist?" The beast asked him. "My boy, all things 'exist' within the material world."
"No," the man began. "Not so for the devil I could not see. I only saw a man point at something that was not there. I never felt a thing, I could see no being, not even the outline of a form, the warmth it gave off, the coldness it might create, the sound of its footsteps, no breathing; neither I nor the others could perceive its existence whatsoever. It passed through me and my blade and took the man's heart for its own gain. He died right before my eyes without a single feeling. He screamed at nothing. There was a second victim as well. I came to his room and found nothing this time. I felt a presence there, some kind of evil stain almost, the same as what had come for the old man, though I knew not what it truly was. I could not comprehend the thing. No one but the victims themselves can see what it is, and by then, they're stalked day and night endlessly, hounded till they are consumed by madness."
Manah's face seemed to drain itself of all color, almost deadening as the words hit him.
"Surely you jest? Surely, it could just be that the mighty Vergil is merely recounting to me a vivid dream of his deepest slumber?"
"No."
Silence perturbed the devil.
"Surely it could be only a trick of the light and dulling of the senses? That you may have merely been drunk on yourself, drunk on the alcohol served to you that blinded your senses to the camouflage."
"No."
Manah seemed adrift as to explanation to the man's statement, his smirk falling abruptly. "Tell me boy, have you seen things lately? Apparitions of an angelic kind?"
"Yes," Vergil replied. "It was a fallen angel, broken wings and frozen as a statue, blinded with a gag 'round its eyes."
Manah felt fear weaken his resolve.
The devil grew untethered and frazzled. "Listen to me . . . I know what this is. There is only one devil capable of what you speak of, and it is not a being I thought still lived."
Vergil glared at him. "What are you saying?"
"Whatever it is that's killing and stalking people through the city, it is either directly, or indirectly, a manifestation of the Demon Argosax."
"Who's that?" the slayer asked.
"He is the one who once ruled Avernus, long, long before the days of Mundus, long before Sparda, long before me. He is a dead god, our god, that perished in the fires of Hell a million years ago."
"Hmph," Vergil grumbled and looked off to the wall. "'Ar-go-sax' . . . I've never heard of him. In all the daemoniac texts I've read, I've not once seen that name."
Manah scoffed. "You stupid child . . . you understand nothing. If you ever wanted to frighten Mundus, the king of devils himself, speak to him the name Argosax."
The beast left his chair and began pacing back and forth as though he were a troubled animal run afoul of brutal hunters. For him, the devil was a loose concept, not limited to merely one entity that embodied the phrase, and even still, most humans, if they saw his true face, would think Manah himself to be the Christian Lucifer. He supposed he was, in a way. The cross looked mighty tall that day. But now, in these cities with these people, there came a being of greater power, perhaps not the entity in all its true power yet, but it was coming. The manifestation was only the beginning.
The slayer cursed under his breath.
"Someone has mingled with powerful forces and unbalanced the waking world," Manah told the slayer. "I don't know who."
Vergil felt disconcerted, and he said, "Then all that matters is Argosax himself, no?"
Manah came by him and leaned over his desk. "This . . . is not a simple case of killing the 'bad guy,' and riding off into the sunset. We are in the midst of a catastrophe that could render all life on earth dust in the wind. Even I, here in this place, this other world, will not be safe forever. I cannot afford to lose more than I already have, the world is still fragile since last time it was threatened. Mundus seems to have broken more than just the natural order of the realms. He may have unwittingly summoned back to our world an evil like none other, and you know as well as I do that I can't have that."
"Yes, of course," the slayer replied. "Then, seeing as you know so much about this 'Argosax,' then you will aid me in returning him to whence he came?"
"There isn't any other option," the beast said. "Mundus is one thing, Argosax is a separate nightmare altogether. I would not wish his return on my worst enemy. To wish him back into this world is to beg for the end of all life and freedom as we know it. All things nocturnal are his children and they will hold rule of the roost, as it were. Chaos will become unbound and all love and life will be lost into a lake of freezing torture, just as it once had been so long ago . . ."
So many questions, so little answers, and no time in which to ask them.
Vergil grimaced to himself, "To think, the world had somehow been saved, once upon a time."
And at that, Manah chuckled aloud, "Hahaha- there's always some evil out there boy. It will never truly fade, it will simply move on and reform itself into something else."
"How very reassuring of you."
"I'm a realist by trade," Manah said flatly. "Even I have something you might call 'humanity.' I don't wish for this world to change its course."
"Yes, I remember. You never let me forget that," Vergil replied.
"Of course," the beast told him. "I think one must know the motives in order to trust in their allies."
"What will we do?" Vergil said, pulling his old rival back to the topic at hand. "I cannot think of anything to counter such a devious trick as intangibility."
"He will come for whoever he has been set upon, the question becomes how simply do you outrun him? Never can you stay still, and never can you be soft with your footsteps. If he does come for you, you'll know it. It's not a thing you can rationally explain, but rather it is something that you cannot altogether be rid of, a nagging in your mind that something around you is wrong, akin to anytime you might look in the mirror and just barely catch a glimpse of something you were not supposed to see."
". . ." Vergil began to think more intensively and a sudden thought occurred to him. "Could the being Argosax become beholden then to a cult?"
"A cult?" Manah repeated in disbelief. "A cult . . . yes. A cult can be raised for anything, even myself, but only if somehow mortals knew of him in some way."
"Then, maybe, somehow he has bled himself back into the world through belief and worship. Reclaiming power through the word and suffering of sacrifices, if somehow he made his presence known to a mortal being, and if perhaps he was merely sleeping and not dead."
"You raise an interesting theory, boy," the beast replied and he steepled his hands together. "We must return to Earth once more and seek the one who is afflicted with its hunt. I have a feeling I know why some 'disappear' while others merely die."
"They are with my people in a safehouse, locked down and hidden away from the public."
". . . What?"
"He's safely tucked away from the outside world."
"What?" The beast asked again.
Vergil raised an eyebrow. "I'll repeat myself for you one more time. He's under my guard."
"You have the man alone with them?" Manah said, "If that human is marked, then that evil you felt does not merely cause disappearances. It will take hold of them and use them."
Worry broke across the slayer's pale face. He knew Manah's theory was not implausible, in fact it solved many a gaping hole in his own theories. He stood right away and the two ran from the room.
Dusk fell upon them at Devil May Cry
Lady and Patty sat beside one another, having spent the day lounging around the office like furloughed soldiers. The child showed her drawings she made in the interim hours, painting away, sketching and drawing. Lady taught the girl exercise routines and worked her out till her breath was rabid and coarse, though it soon returned to normal, thankfully. Tony drew himself a glass of scotch on the rocks and sat by sipping away as he put bets on stocks and flipped his finances into sorts.
From afar sat Ernest, silent and staring at the television.
"Hey Lady," Patty spoke up. "You wanna play Billiards?"
"You even know how to play that game?" Lady said with a chuckle.
"Teach me!" the girl replied.
"Alright, alright, go grab the cues and I'll be along in a second."
Patty did as she asked and went along looking for the cues. As she did, Lady walked over towards Ernest and she called to him, "How we feelin'?"
She got no answer.
The man had shifted his hands over his eyes when she hadn't been looking.
"Uh, you alright? You hungry or anything?" She asked him, and again came no reply.
Maybe he'd fallen asleep like that, although his hands seemed to go against this. He kept them held at his eyes with question.
So, she called again, "Um . . . well, lemme know if you want anything. I'm gonna be in the other room—"
As she spoke, he sat up straight, hands away from his eyes. What she saw sickened her, as his lids had become stitched shut and bloodied, though he showed no pain, and calmly from his pocket he retrieved an object, and when drawn, the light reflect on the metal of a knife.
The knife was hungry.
It fancied blood, perhaps the little girl's first.
To Be Continued
Thank you for reading everyone. Hope you liked this. Isn't nice to have a touch of horror? :)
Avernus is the name of the demon world.
Until next update.