While Dorian took a shower to wash the dirt and grime off, Dante helped Vergil set up a round table in the center of his study, then found himself stacking books on top of it. He didn't care why they needed so many books—that had always been Vergil's way of dealing with things. But why they needed some of the popular fiction he'd been throwing on top of that table, he had no idea.

"Dante, there's something I need to tell you," Vergil began, somewhat uncertainly. It made Dante look up, because Vergil was very rarely uncertain about anything.

"I'm listening," he said at last. It had to be something concerning Nelo Angelo; that was the only subject Vergil seemed unwilling to discuss in front of his nephew. Since Vergil was so obstinate about it, the only help he could get in that department at all came from Dante.

"I think I remember what that phrase was. The one I was looking for." He hesitated, then sat down, keeping his eyes focused on Dante's boots. "You were right, I never forget the things I read, unless I've forgotten the entire circumstance. I think I read it in Hell—Mundus had this habit of carving things into walls, arches... sometimes skin... whatever surface he could find, really. He had a particular favorite that he required his soldiers to remember. He'd recite it, or have it written, in a dead demon language. That's how I read it, and that's why I can't remember reading it. Because I can't remember anything."

"Makes sense," was all Dante was able to say before Dorian knocked lightly on the door.

"You guys start without me?" Dorian teased, plopping down in the other chair.

There was a tense moment, where it was obvious that Vergil had no idea what to say. Dante grinned, reaching over to muss Dorian's freshly washed hair. "Just reviewing the case a little, kid. I'm sure you're so excited that you don't need a refresher. Your uncle Verg was just getting to this stupid phrase he's been researching."

Out of the corner of his eye, Dante watched his brother relax. "The possessed man continually repeats a phrase in a dead language, which—if my translation is correct-"

"-and there's no reason it shouldn't be, nerd," Dante teased.

Vergil rolled his eyes. "-if the translation is correct, what he's saying is 'we live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity.'"

The revelation didn't quite go over the way he expected. Dorian gave him a completely blank stare, and Dante just looked at him like he'd finally cracked.

Impatiently, he huffed. "Do neither of you pick up a book? Honestly."

"No, I get it," Dante said slowly. "Lovecraft, right?"

Now it was everyone's turn to stare at him.

"Assholes. I can read," Dante reminded them. "And unless my memory's really going, I think that Vergil and I had to read the same shit when we were kids. What doesn't make any sense is a stupid, low-level minion of Hell quoting something from a work of fiction."

"But it makes perfect sense," Vergil argued. "Mundus believes that humanity's ignorance of the Underworld is his greatest asset. How else does he corrupt so many souls so easily? The nonbelievers write off their possession symptoms as a mental illness and it goes untreated. They don't understand that a demon could attack them, and so they don't take any precautions. It's a quick and easy way to get his business done. That's why he liked that quotation in particular. Any demon with a tongue in Hell knows this quotation by heart, and lives by it. How could it be interpreted? 'We live on a placid island of ignorance...,'"

"How do you know what the emperor of Hell is up to, Uncle Vergil? You sound like you have personal experience."

"I've been in this business for a very long time," Vergil replied dryly. "And, as you will see, the beings that you will be dealing with, Dorian, are not always the smartest creatures in creation."

"And he reads some really weird shit. And he was dropped on his head as a baby. Several times," Dante added. He didn't know if he was joking or not. "Really, Vergil? Really? Mundus reads Lovecraft?"

"I don't know that he ever read it, but pride is a sin, remember? And the Cthuhlu Mythos is not entirely fiction. Most of it, most definitely—but Lovecraft had some of it right."

"So Cthuhlu really exists?" Dorian asked, a frown on his face. "That's gonna suck."

"No, that part was most definitely fictional. But Lovecraft makes a reference to a 'god' named Azathoth, a swirling mass who ruled the Other Gods. Does that sound familiar, Dante? You've seen Mundus."

Dorian was staring at him. "You met the emperor of Hell?" he asked, disbelief written on his face. "How cool."

"Just hope that's not a trend that needs to be repeated," Dante replied, still staring at Vergil. "That son of a bitch got himself mentioned in a book like this?"

"The second half of the problem is the class of demon we're dealing with. I know that I just said that any demon with a tongue could quote this phrase, but usually, the lower demons have demands. It makes them feel powerful to think that they can bend humans to their will. This demon has no demands—whenever these ignorant people tried to speak to it, he just quotes the phrase and then laughs."

"And giggling at Lovecraft makes him intelligent because...?"

"It doesn't. But what if Mundus is sending a message?"

"Wait a second," Dorian interrupted, leaning forward. "I know I'm kind of a newbie or whatever here, but didn't you say that only stupid demons usually possessed people? And I don't know if the king of the demon world counts as stupid."

Dante felt his chest swell with pride. "The kid's right."

"But it isn't Mundus directly possessing. If I'm right, it's the Messenger of Azathoth. Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos. And the only other demon Lovecraft happened to get right."

"If that's true, then who's the message meant for?" Dorian asked. "Nobody around here is an agent of Mundus."

Dante almost winced. Eventually, you're gonna have to tell him, Verg, he thought.

"But there are only three demons living in the nearby area," Vergil pointed out. "And this case is sure to get someone's attention, if they know what to look for. A fairly pious family, with two children under the age of ten, and the one to become the actual victim is the father? It doesn't make sense to the people who understand possession. Recitation of one phrase over and over—even to the point of obsession—doesn't warrant an exorcism in the church's eyes. The only choice that the family has is to turn to us."

They were silent, mulling this over. "So... what? We stroll in and say 'what's up, Nyarly, we hear you got a message for us'?" Dante asked sarcastically.

Vergil shook his head. "We handle it as we would any other exorcism. Drive the demon out, hopefully with little or no harm to the human party, and see if we can get it to speak with us. If it really did come to deliver a message, then that shouldn't be too difficult."

Lovecraft was pretty much cited in-text, but the quotation is from The Call of Cthulhu, and the whole thing goes like this: "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far." Clearly, Mundus takes his favorite quotes a little out of context. ;)