Beneath The Shadows
Chapter 4
Sunlight spilled into Restaurant Fredi as Dante finished off his strawberry sundae. An anxious Patty sat across from him as he ignored her babbling, the usual nagging that sounded more and more like Lady and Trish every time.
"... So seriously, stop leaving beer cans all over your office."
"It's my office."
"It's disgusting!"
He huffed.
"Then come over and clean it. Maybe I'll give you a couple bucks."
"No thanks. Besides, you owe me enough money anyways."
"You got your card winnings in ice cream like you wanted."
"That was for the cards, but I'm talking about the money you owe me for the football game."
"That doesn't count. I was drunk."
"That makes no difference!"
Dante hasted in eating his sundae, knowing full well that Patty didn't even care about the money, or anything else she had been talking about for that matter. He knew that her chitchatting was eventually going to lead to her asking him, but he hoped that he'd be done and gone before she could.
"So, anyways..." She smirked.
"Damn it." He thought to himself.
"You and Lady living together now, huh?" She leaned forward on the table, getting irritably closer to his face.
"She just needs a place to stay."
"Yeah, but she picked you."
"Who else is she gonna' pick?"
"Exactly."
"Exactly what?"
"Ugh, you are so dense!"
"Patty, Lady would blow her brains out before she ever even entertained a thought of being with me." He laughed.
"What makes you say that?"
"Well, I saved her from falling hundreds of feet to her death, she shot me in the head. Then there was that time she threw a live grenade at me for taking her bike."
"What happened with the grenade?"
"I don't know, I think it blew up someone's Mazda. Look, the point is that Lady gets the impulse to kill me every time I stare at her for too long, so why the hell-"
"So you do stare at her?"
"No! I just... don't you ever go to school?"
"It's Sunday."
"... It is?"
Dante just wanted the conversation to end. That last thing he needed was for Patty to go blurting to Lady that he was attracted to her. It wasn't that she didn't know, but he didn't want her to be reminded of it just after moving in. He had never made any serious advances on her since after their fight in the Temin Ni Gur library, and never made her feel awkward about his feelings for her. He didn't want to start now.
"You can lie to me all you want, but she's living with you now, and it's eventually going to come out."
He got up and tossed his money on the table. "Take it easy, kid." He patted her on the head as he walked out.
Dante breathed in the cool air before entering his car, wondering about what Patty said. Lady living with him meant they would inevitably become closer in more ways than one.
Both could confirm that they'd caught each other eyeing one another, but he never pushed it past the occasional playful flirt, knowing her temper and respecting her boundaries. He also didn't want to alienate her as a partner, and as a friend. He understood her boundaries because his were similar. They were both reluctant to get close to anyone because they had both lost all those they loved.
But ever since meeting her, Dante felt that Lady was worth it. Everything about her fascinated him. Her face, her eyes, her body, her personality, her spirit, everything. He hadn't even thought about another girl since meeting her.
Though sometimes he felt like his demonic side had consumed him, these human feelings were saying otherwise. He only wished he knew what Lady's real feelings were. But like Patty said, it was all going to come out eventually.
He could have spent all day thinking about it, but Dante had more pressing things on his mind as he walked down the sunny yet still bitter cold street. He was going to Nasty Ricky's place, otherwise known as "The Shit Shack", to see what he personally knew.
Nasty Ricky was a former Navy SEAL who had served in the Gulf War. Aside from Lady, he was the most skilled human at hunting demons Dante had ever seen. Outstanding shot, decorated in martial arts, and like Dante and Lady, absolutely fearless.
Surprising as it was, the bounty hunters in the city got along quite well with each other. They had an agreement that certain groups would control and profit from certain areas of the city. Dante, Lady and Trish handled the center of the city, or the downtown area, Nasty Ricky and his crew controlled the north, and Kifer and the group he belonged to controlled the south. The west was rather quiet in terms of demonic activity, and the cops controlled the east.
There was plenty to go around for, but this new group of trappers was starting to fuck things up for all of them. It was time for that to be discussed.
And dealt with.
Dante knocked on the door of the Shit Shack, a massive garage that really just served as a one-giant-room hangout for Nasty Ricky and his crew. The heavy smell of blunt smoke hit him when the door opened, one of Ricky's men greeting him.
"Nasty Ricky in?"
The man nodded and opened the door for Dante. It was always the same at the Shit Shack. Guns being worked on, football on the TV, music playing, weed being rolled up and smoked. Nasty Ricky always said, "You preform your best when you're relaxed." And there was no better "chill spot" than the Shit Shack.
Dante approached the table where Ricky was sitting, deeply involved in a card game.
"All that practice and you still suck." Dante said.
Ricky looked up. "Shit head!"
He got up and shook Dante's hand. "How you doin'?"
"Good. How've you been?"
"Oh, you know, shootin' shit, gettin' paid. You wanna' drink?"
"No, thanks. I came to talk about this Amethyst character."
"Ah, those fucking trappers giving you problems too, huh?"
"Not much, but I do see them becoming a pain in the ass if we don't deal with them. Money's tight as it is, I'm not having these bastards take what little work there's left in the city."
"I hear ya'. They've already captured some around here. We did go a bit pyrotechnical on some of their cars a few days ago, though." He smiled.
"I think I'm gonna' send a little clearer of a message to them."
"Well, you picked the right day. I got a call from Kifer a few hours ago. He said that there was supposed to be a little get-together of demons in his hood."
"Why tell you?"
"He said those trappers were hangin' around all morning. I think he wants us to go down and take out all of these demons before they can bag any. Show these pricks who runs this town."
"Sounds like a plan to me. I still hate that asshole."
Ricky laughed. "Why?"
"Because he rambles the most insane and incoherent bullshit you'll ever hear."
"That's because he's spent the last twenty years of his life blowing coke and listening to Frank Zappa. You want a recipe for some fucked up thoughts, there ya' go."
"What time is this supposed to go down?"
"Not a clue. Demons don't follow set schedules."
"You goin' down there?"
"In a bit. We're gonna' make some final preparations first."
"I'm headin' down now."
"Alright. Let him know we'll be down eventually."
Dante nodded and headed for the door.
"Oh, and shave that stupid beard. Reindeer havin'-ass mother fucker, all dressed in red."
"I will, but only if you lose some weight, fat ass."
"Hey, Nasty," One of his men started. "Get your lazy ass over here and look at this."
"Hey, Brent, choke on a cock and die."
Dante laughed and closed the door. A few clouds were beginning to gather as he began his drive back down to the central part of town.
On the way down, he was noticing that the further south he went, the fewer amount of people in the streets there was.
"Guess Kifer was right." He thought to himself.
Kifer was sitting on the tailgate of his pickup truck, his legs dangling next to the bumper sticker that read, "Reality Is For People Who Can't Handle Drugs." He twitched and fidgeted repeatedly, his 10-Guage shotguns sitting in his lap as he waited for Nasty Ricky, the cloud accumulation now leaving a white sky above. He looked up when he heard tires going over travel, but saw Dante rolling up instead of Ricky. He hopped off the truck as Dante parked and got out.
"Dante?" He said, surprised. "Damn, it's been a minute. What are you doin' down my neck of the woods?" He fidgeted a few more times.
"Well, I'd like to say I'm here to commit you to a methadone clinic, but Ricky told me about what was happening."
"Yeah, that's who I'm waitin' for."
"The trappers around?"
"They were, but they peaced when I came out."
"They must have smelled you."
Kifer lifted up his arm and took a whiff.
"... Yeah, probably."
Dante rolled his eyes.
"They take any of your business yet?"
"No, and if they do, I'll be madder than a porcupine in a room full of balloons."
"... What?"
"...Huh? Oh, fuck, I don't know, too much coffee I guess."
"Yeah, coffee." He got his weapons out of the car. "Where the hell are these fucks?"
Just then, a screaming demon descended from a nearby roof. Kifer, always on edge, shot around and blew the demons head off before it even landed.
"Yeah, where's all that yellin' now, bitch?" He fired a few more shots into the downed demon.
Dante looked down the street to see a decent sized group of demons closing in.
"Here we go." He smiled.
"Nasty Ricky." Kifer motioned.
Dante looked back to see Ricky and his crew roll up in their van.
"Alright, who's ready to fuck shit up?" He said as he stepped out.
"You're right on time."
The seven men stood side-by-side, weapons in hand, as the rolling mass of demons got closer. The group was approaching with serious speed until a rocket seemingly from out of nowhere eradicated the front few. Dante looked backed to see Lady holding a smoking Kalinna-Ann.
"Well, don't you just show up in the damndest places." He smirked.
"You didn't think I was gonna' let you have all the fun, did you?"
"Never crossed my mind."
"Kifer, are you kidding me with that gun?" Ricky said.
"W-what?"
"You plan on standing next to every one you kill? Give him a gun."
One of his men tossed him an Uzi.
"This eerily feels like a bad idea." Dante said.
Kifer responded with a middle finger.
"Five seconds." Lady said.
They turned to see that the demons were very close, and they readied their guns.
"Make sure the safety's off, Kifer." Dante said.
"Fist yourself, Dante." Kifer gleefully responded.
Dante smiled, and fired the first shots of a bullet spray towards the demons. A few more went down before they separated and began to maneuver around. Dante and Lady stuck with the ones they were targeting perfectly, dropping them all over the street as they moved and maneuvered around themselves. Kifer moved in crazy gyrations, still only firing when one got close to him. Ricky and his men stood stoic, firing upon demons with their backs to each other.
The ease of this task surprised none of them, as they had all essentially become their profession.
One demon had managed to take down one of Ricky's men, and as Lady had tried to save him from it, her shots came a bit too late, and it distracted her from the demon she was about to kill. That demon blindsided her before she could turn back around, knocking her down and landing a deep gash in her leg as it's razor-edged limbs swung mindlessly. The demon rose up to pierce Lady completely, but on the down, Dante ran in front of her, letting the demon's strike go through his stomach. Although it did hurt him slightly, he smiled, and pulled Rebellion from his back and stuck it through the demons heart. He kicked it off of him and into a wall, and turned to Lady to help her up.
The others had just finished up the remaining demons.
"YEAH!" Ricky barked as he stood over the corpse a massive demon that he had just completely filled with led. "Anyone else have a..." He caught his breath. "... Fucking problem?"
They looked over the massive pile of demon corpses they had created in a ridiculously short amount of time.
"Haha! What fucking demons?" Kifer yelled.
"What the hell is that?" One of Ricky's men asked.
They looked over to see Amethyst directing his men, who were lugging a rather large demon that was somehow still alive up a ramp to a tractor trailer that his men had just drove up in.
"You've gotta' be shitting me." Kifer said.
"Fucking pussies." Ricky said.
"I don't think so." Dante said. He wasn't about to let that happen.
He always followed a simple rule for wounded demons.
Two shots; one to kill it, one to kill it twice.
He held Ebony straight while holding Ivory sideways, lining them up to create one sight for both guns. He moved the sight to the wounded demon, and as soon as the one on its left side moved out of the way just enough, Dante moved the sight to its head, and fired two perfectly placed shots right into the demons temple. It seized up, and collapsed into death.
Amethyst, who had just opened the doors of the trailer, looked to where the shots had come from, and upon seeing Dante, shot him a death stare.
"You mother fucker!"
Dante replied only with a wink and a wicked smile.
As much as she hated to admit it, Lady would always get turned on when Dante would execute a kill with that precision. His cockiness and arrogance about it did even more. Funny, being that it usually irritated the hell out of her.
Amethyst and his group split, Dante and the others standing there in victory, their point now clear.
"They are fucking pissed." Ricky laughed.
"Fuck 'em. Maybe this'll make it clear that hunters run this city, not trappers." Dante said.
"No doubt, but I think we'll be seeing them again. Why don't you just kill 'em?" Kifer asked.
"I can't kill humans. That's why I never use weapons against them."
"Why? What happens if you kill one?"
"It costs me my soul."
"Hmm, good reason not to kill anyone."
"How's your leg?" Dante asked Lady.
"It's fine."
He knew she was lying, but didn't expect her to let on that she was in any kind of pain. Too tough for that.
"Not to be a party pooper, but I think we'd better bounce. The pope-a-dope's gonna' be here any minute." Ricky said.
"Fuck the cops. All they know how to do is write people citations for going ten over the speed limit." Kifer said.
"I know, but they're just looking for a reason."
"I agree, we should get the hell out of here." Lady said.
Dante helped Lady into the car as Ricky and his crew took off in their van, and Kifer went back in his apartment.
Dante and Lady trampled through the mess of beer cans that Patty had been complaining about. It had been a week since Lady moved in, and they hadn't done the best job in maintaining the place.
"Let me take a look at your leg." Dante said.
Lady gave no argument. The wound was bugging the hell out of her. She opened the bed of the foldout couch and plopped herself down on it. Dante came over from retrieving a bottle from his desk.
"Here."
She grabbed the fifth of Jim Beam and took a mighty gulp. He smiled as he she handed it back to him.
She took off her dirty blouse and rolled over, her skirt slipping up slightly, which immediately caught Dante's eye. This would always happen to him with Lady. It would take one good look at her to get him going.
Looking over her body now, he noticed the yearly change, and nearly started drooling. The same thing happened to Lady every winter. She would get so thick, but only in all the right places; her thighs, her ass, her breasts, which would explain the mountainous pizza and everything else she had eaten in the past week. She was still tone, though, being that she worked out regularly. He at times found it hard to not grab her by the shoulders, throw her up against the wall, and ravish her like an animal.
He soaked a rag in the whiskey and rubbed it across her gash. Her leg jerked as she took a sharp breath through her clenched teeth. He patted the wound, pressing down lightly, causing another sharp breath.
"You alright?"
"Yeah."
He continued to rub and push the rag on the wound, Lady getting more used to it with each stroke. He couldn't keep his eyes off of her thigh as he rubbed up towards it. His hand seemed to grow a mind of its own as its grip loosened on the rag. In an upward stroke, it left the rag and placed itself upon her thick juicy thigh, and squeezed.
Any subtle movements Lady was making stopped, and she turned her head to face him.
"Mind doing some of that up top? My neck's killing me."
"Uh, sure."
For a second Dante thought he drifted off into an alternate universe. For one, he couldn't figure out how he mustered the balls to grope her leg, and secondly, why didn't she sock him in the face?
She rested her head back on her folded arms. He had to fight the urge to run his hands up her back to her shoulders and neck. As much as he would have loved to trace the smooth skin of her toned back, he had gotten away with enough in fondling her thigh.
He took the crooks of her neck in his strong grip and started squeezing and rubbing her. She moaned deeply as he continued kneading her sore muscles.
"Ughnnnnnn..." She took more sharp breaths. "Oh, keep going."
He smiled as he continued to grip her hard, his fingers doing wonders to her neck and shoulders. He loved making a woman feel good, even if it was through something as simple as a massage.
"Hold on," She made him stop. "Let me get this annoying fucking thing out of the way."
Her hands shot behind her to unhook her bra. Dante froze again as she successfully undid the strap and slid the bra off of her shoulders.
"There, now do it."
"Oh, you bitch." He thought to himself. He almost felt like a teenager again. He couldn't remember the last time a woman made him feel this way. In fact, he couldn't remember any woman ever making him feel this way. He hadn't realized until then how much he wanted her. She smirked, knowing this was making him terribly nervous and excited at the same time. But he continued to work his hands on her tense muscles, masking his feelings with focus.
"Ohhhh, damn can you give a back rub." She said.
Lady would never let Dante put his hands on her like this before. She started to think about it as well. Was she feeling closer to him, or were her womanly needs she had abstained from finally catching up to her? Or was it both? She couldn't deny what she was feeling as well. It felt good to be under the caring touch of not only a man, but a friend. She'd been so focused on eradicating the demons that she never afforded herself the pleasures in life. She'd been hurt by and lost anyone she loved she never thought she could feel close to anyone. But she felt something now.
She started to doze off as Dante continued to work her, and after a few more rubs, she fell asleep. He stopped once he realized her steady breathing, and stood up, looking over her body. Perfect was the only word that came to his mind. He knelt over to look closely at her face, so beautiful while she slept. He grabbed the blanket and gently placed it over her. Lost in her beauty, he stroked her hair over her ear, and looked her over one last time before he went up to get some much needed sleep of his own.
I know I told you all it would be updated soon, but that was 24 hours before I got a hold of this shit called Sweet Tooth. Oh. My. God. I've never eaten more crackers and cheese in my life. But anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and just so you know, critique is welcome. I'd appreciate hearing any constructive (keyword) criticism so I can see what I'm doing wrong and correct it. The next chapter is already under way and will be here soon. Oh, yeah, HAH BAHT 'EM STILLERS? Fifteenth AFC Championship game in franchise history. Yeah, they're pretty good.
"I woulda' fucked you in the ass Saturday. I'll fuck you in the ass next Wednesday instead. WOO! YOU GOT A DATE WEDNESDAY, BABY!"
PEACE!
