Of Angles and Devils

Part 4

Dante tossed yet another Styrofoam cup into the trash bin. This was his fifth cup of coffee. He didn't know why, but the stuff never seemed to wake him up. That was probably why he usually didn't touch the stuff.

It was odd how no one stopped them from coming into the hospital, what with he, Lady and Vergil all leaden with weapons. But, in a city full of demons, he supposed that people walking around with their own armory weren't on their top list of concerns.

Not to far away, Spike and Eluria sat on a bench, several seats in between the two of them. They were such a contrast sitting beside each other, but they both looked out of place. Dante knew that Eluria was some kind of demon the same way she knew that he and Vergil were demons, but he wasn't quite sure what Spike was. Then it all clicked; out after dark, pale look, chronic smoker but none of the symptoms of one. All were classic telling signs of a vampire.

Dante had taken out a few vamps in his career. Nevan for one, but she didn't really count. Still, there had been a few vampires that had gotten in the way of his sword, and he wasn't too shy about saying the he killed each and every one of them. But what was Spike's deal? Vamps were usually rabid, so why wasn't he bouncing off the walls, in a hospital of all places?

Then Dante remembered another thing, a story that had been floating around the demon hunting underworld for awhile. Supposedly, out in L.A. there were two vampires, each, oddly enough, with souls. No one knew why, but both of them matched some sort of description in a legend. Something about the vampire with a soul wining his humanity back or something. That must have been Spike and Angel. It all made sense now…in a confusing way, it made sense.

Vergil was over on another couch in the waiting room, occupied with a magazine. He was probably reading up on the news. After all, he'd been gone awhile. Despite how much they shared in common, Dante could never figure his brother out. Aside from the attempts of fratricide, there were a lot of other things that Vergil did that didn't make any sense. Like how he claimed to dislike the human world so much and yet want to study and learn every bit about it. Had it been Dante in that situation, he wouldn't have bothered. He had thrown the whole, know the enemy, know thyself philosophy out of the window once he figured out how to shoot, so what was the point in getting information? It didn't help any if you could blast through demons likedy-split.

Angel finally put in another appearance. Everyone in the room looked up once he came into view.

"He's lost a lot of blood, but the doctors say he'll be alright. They guessed that it'd be a week or two before he'll recover." Angel turned to Dante. "I gotta hand it to you, that green orb of yours really seemed to do something."

The white haired half-breed shrugged it off. "Hey, no prob! So…anything else we can help you with?"

Angel ran his hand through his hair before he said anything. "Well, actually, there is something. Back when we were at the Wolf, Ram, and Heart office something really strange came up. There was some sort of threat that the Senior Partners were really concerned about. Trouble is we were so busy with taking care of the Black Thorn that we forgot about it. Gun was the only person I know who knew anything about it, but he's still out."

"So you would want us to go back to the office and look up some information?" Vergil piped in, causing everyone to turn around on the spot. Vergil hadn't said anything since they came in.

"That would be what we would do, accept that the office kinda collapsed a little while ago," Angel continued. "We would go to the rubble ourselves and try to find something, but the Senior Partners might still be looking for us. It's doubtful, though."

Vergil closed his magazine and got up, leaving the room before anyone could stop him.

"I will search the remains. It won't be too hard to find the file if it is where I think it is…"


"If it's where I think it is?" Dante said to Lady on their ride back. Both he and Lady had "borrowed" Vergil's minivan to get back to there motorcycles. Naturally, Dante had taken the wheel. "Ya think he was scooping these guys out before we ran into them or something? Jeeze, it's like he knows everything!"

"You aren't the only one unhappy that he's come back." Lady answered, keeping her eyes on the road. She seemed more focused on Dante's driving than he was. "I know he didn't really turn my father, and he never really was my problem, but still…he's not the kind of guy I'd like to hang around…"

"Not the kind of guy anyone would like to hang around." Dante added, taking his eyes off the road for a second to look in Lady's direction. It was amazing at how much she looked the same from the few years ago they had met at Temen-ni-gru.

"You think those five will be alright?" Lady was referring to Angel and his gang. After all, it was natural to be concerned for them seeing as how some hierarchy of demons was after them.

Doing what came naturally, Dante shrugged. "Who knows? I've seen stronger go down against much less than what went after them, but I've seen weaker last a lot longer, I can tell you that. No telling whether vamp-man and his bud's'll make it through this in one piece, but we'll try to help 'em."

It was strangely silent until Lady spoke again. "And what about the Spike guy," a big smile broke across her face, "remind you of someone?"

"Don't get me started!" he groaned, running a hand through his snowy hair. "Man, with that long coat and everything, chills ran up my spine. It was like starin' into a mirror or something. Let me tell ya, Lady, it's getting to be that a man can't keep his own style without some poser stealing it from him."

"I'd worry less about your dress style and more about your fighting; do you remember how you fought back in that alley?" she playfully jeered. "You're getting rusty, Dante. The demon hunter I knew would've finished off that dragon a lot faster than you did."

"Oh-ho, and what about you, mistress of the shaky trigger finger?" he retorted. "You looked like you'd had one to many espressos back there. I seem to recall about an entire clip of those bullets missing their marks."

This went on and on until they arrived back at their bikes. Dante was almost sad to go his separate way. Being with Lady back in the van had been just like old times, where the two of them had fought alongside each other for months on end. Then, one day, Lady had packed up and left, saying that she needed to get further out there to finish her mission. "To eliminate every last demon". It was her goal and she never hesitated to remind Dante of it.


Eddy was waiting for Dante in his office when he pulled up. His friend was just getting comfortable in Dante's armchair when he burst through the doors, startling him so much that he fell over himself.

"Jesus, Dante, you gotta stop doin' that! That's the second time tonight you nearly gave me a heart attack."

He shrugged for the umpteenth time that night. "What can I say? It's what I do."

Eddy nodded as he reached into his bag and pulled out a thick file in a manila envelope. "Anyway, somebody dropped this off for you. I wouldn't trust it, though, the guy looked suspicious. Funny thing is, though," he added as he handed the file over, "the dude looked just like you, only he had a different haircut."

"That would be Vergil." Dante answered more than guessed.

Eddy's eyes got wide. "Vergil? You mean the twin that nearly tried to kill you five times Vergil? I had that wacko in my shop for five minutes?"

"Relax! He says he's reformed and even though I think its bull, Vergil wouldn't try anything stupid like attacking you, not when he knew he had me to deal with." Dante had lied, of course. If Vergil really was still evil, he wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone or anything in his way, even if that meant having to deal with his somewhat superior brother. But he didn't want Eddy wetting himself, so he went through with the lie.

"Ok, man, I'll catch ya latter. Keep cool!"

Dante turned over the envelope in his hands as Eddy left. After establishing that it had no title on the outside, he plopped down in his usual chair and dumped the contents out in to his desk. Sorting through the messy pile of papers, he came upon what he thought was the first one in the stack, reading aloud the title.

"Silent Hill, huh? Well, the name doesn't exactly scream ghosts 'n goblins, but it's worth a shot."

He kept reading. Dante knew he had said that he didn't like the whole research thing, but it wouldn't hurt to look stuff up. After all, what if this Silent Hill place wasn't what he thought?