Chapter 5 - Mystery Solving

The room started coming into view, blurring together. Regan didn't feel any pain, instead, she just felt a slight euphoria, but that euphoria didn't last when she'd tried to move. She grimaced slightly and took a deep, slow breath. A voice from somewhere near her said, "Uh huh, you got a nasty bump on your head, you need to just stay put."

The sound of the doctors voice, or Jack's father to be more specific, made Regan part her lids once again over her mint green eyes, turn her head slightly. The older, somewhat broad man was sitting in a chair near the bed, and Regan cringed slightly before she asked, "How long was I out, Doc?"

Everyone referred to Jack as Doc considering he and his son shared the same name and it was the best way for them to differentiate between the two. Doc just smirked, "Most of the evening. Lucas seemed to throw ya pretty good, you've got a bad bruise on your back, but it should go away in a few days or so. I didn't have to stitch your head up either, thankfully, but I want you to keep those butterflies on it for at least the next week, I'll be coming by to change them when you need them to be. But for tonight, I just want you to rest."

Regan yawned, guessing that wasn't going to be too big of a problem considering how she felt, and she just shrugged her shoulders very slightly. Then her mind went back to the events of before, the reasons she was in this situation, and what she'd seen in the forest earlier that day. She opened her eyes again, looking at Doc as he'd stood up. "Doc, wait. Where's Dante and the little girl?"

"She's right next to you actually."

As soon as he mentioned it, Regan felt the warmth on her left side radiating through her, turning her head to look and see Evelyn curled up against her. She looked completely serene and peaceful, and Regan took a slow breath, glad that was one question answered. "I want," she stopped herself, "no, I need to see Dante. Could you find him for me?"

"I can try. Just relax though, Regan, I don't want you doing too much." He told her that as he moved toward the door. "I'll be right back if I can't find him, okay?"

"Okay," she whispered back to the doctor, sighing softly as she looked at Evelyn again. Regan was innately confused now. Ever since Dante had shown up, some awfully strange things had been going on, both with himself and with everything surrounding them as well. She could only wonder what the scenes she'd witnessed earlier had been about, and in the time it took Dante to get to her room, she'd managed to get herself slightly worked up into a bit of a worry.

Dante opened the door, the doctors advice to him about not giving Regan a reason to become agitated playing through his head as he wondered how the fuck he was supposed to pull that off. After all, Regan knew something was up with him now, and she knew something else was going on that didn't exactly concern him, and the answers were going to be pretty stressful for her more than likely. But she'd said she needed to see him, and Dante knew why that was. So he'd gone to find out, as if he didn't know, what she'd wanted, and he moved into the room quietly, pulling the chair back with his foot and sitting in it, watching her.

Regan had opened her eyes when she heard the chair moving, and she glanced at the white haired man sitting across from her. When she did, Dante nodded slowly, "Hi, feeling okay?"

"I'm drugged up, so I'm alright, I guess," she whispered softly. "What about you?"

"I'm completely fine," he replied, glancing at the little girl for a moment. She was dead to the world next to Regan, and she looked as if she weren't going to wake up anytime soon for anything. Dante, once he'd had that thought, glanced his icy hues back at Regan who seemed to be staring at him questioningly. He wondered what she could be thinking in that moment. As it turned out, he didn't have to wait too long to get his answer.

"What were those things in the forest? What's going on, Dante? Why do I feel like you have all the answers?"

She hadn't sounded accusing as he'd thought she might, but only pleading for some kind of information, as if she just needed to know why she was laid up in a bed right now with a strange little girl clinging to her side so tightly. He couldn't blame her for wanting to know either. Dante sighed, "I don't have all of the answers, but I do have a few. So to start off, those things were demons."

Regan couldn't help herself but to give him a stare for a few moments that shimmered her deep thought over and over again in her minty eyes. Finally, she shook her head, "Demons? You mean, like from hell?"

"Yep," he replied flatly. "Same thing."

"And what about you," she returned without skipping a beat. "I know you're not human either. You can't be."

With a sigh, Dante turned his head, his eyes rolling slightly, "I am, just not completely. I'm half demon."

Silence ensued his reply. No matter what events Regan had seen earlier, something inside of her told her not to believe him, told her she didn't want to believe him, and that he was completely full of it. How could he be telling the truth? She shook her head slowly at the thought. How could he be lying? Her eyes closed when she had that question run through her head, and she whispered back out, "Tell me the truth about everything then, about why you're here, and who you really are. A drifter? Honestly?"

Dante wasn't completely sure he wanted to answer all of that. He just knew that he'd apparently found what he'd been looking for finally, the demon activity Nathan Morrison, who still remained a mystery, had reported to him and Lady, and everything else was still in the dark. His clues had only been complicated as well. Where it used to be a group of demonic cultists causing problems, now there were people dying and a little girl was orphaned apparently. Who was to say what was going down where?

"Dante, please answer me," Regan spoke a little more loudly, her voice a bit more stern. "At least tell me if I'm in danger, if my ranch is in danger."

Dante shrugged, looking at her again, "I don't know that, Regan. I was sent here by someone to stop a demon infestation though, I'm a devil hunter, I can tell you that much. The rest of it doesn't matter though, for now," he added when he saw the look on her face that said she really wanted to know. "The honest truth is that I'm confused myself. I haven't been able to contact the guy who hired me, and I have no idea where he is. He said this place was where I needed to go, but this place is completely fucking normal, so I don't know what the hell he was smoking. I have no idea who the kid is, I have no clue what those monsters wanted from her, I just know that I'm not going to be leaving any time soon until I can find out what the fuck is going on."

Despite his somewhat gruff way of saying that, and despite what Regan had just found out about him, she somehow felt comforted by his words, somehow felt that he was probably the only one who could set things straight around here. And in that moment, she also felt completely fucking helpless, in the dark. That was a feeling she didn't like one damned bit, and she let him know it too. "I hate not knowing anything, Dante."

"So do I, princess," Dante muttered, "we're in the same boat."

"Yeah," Regan sighed, "and it's up shit creek without a paddle."

Snorting in amusement, Dante smiled with a shake of his head, "I doubt that. Besides, the little girl seemed to know what was going on and she's not worried too much, she's passed out asleep."

"Huh?" Regan asked, "Evelyn?"

"Is that her name?"

"Yeah, well, that's what I heard the man she was with yelling at her before he was killed."

Dante thought about that for a moment. He knew a man had been killed, saw his body in the river before he'd started fighting with the first demon whose horse had turned all Pegasus on him, and he could only wonder if perhaps Nathan...

With a sigh, Dante's shook his head, not wanting that to have been his only contact on this mission, it would've meant he was far more in the dark than he cared to admit. But his thoughts on the matter were suddenly interrupted when he saw Evelyn lifting her head up slowly and staring at the two of them. She started rubbing her eyes and then yawned loudly. Dante gave the kid a smile and told her, "Look who's up."

Evelyn shoved her thumb into her mouth as she sat on her bottom next Regan and blinked at Dante quietly. Then she looked at Regan, who smiled back at her, asking, "Are you okay?"

Evelyn nodded a few times and Dante watched her, wondering if maybe she knew a lot more than they'd hoped. He finally decided to ask, "You wouldn't know someone named Nate or Nathan, wouldya, kid?"

Evelyn looked at Dante and she stared blankly, making the devil hunter wonder if she even understood him. But then her blue eyes glanced down and she hiccuped, pulling her thumb from her mouth for a moment. "Daddy," she whispered quietly, the first word either of the two of them had ever heard her say yet.

Dante, though he felt badly for the kid having lost her parent like that, knowing from personal experience how it felt, couldn't help but ask her a moment after she spoke the word, "Morrison? Is that your last name?"

Evelyn looked up at Dante in that moment. Suddenly her head nodded, and her brown curls bounced back and forth. Well, Dante thought, that answered one question, and raised a shitload of other ones. First of all, Dante wondered if Nathan had been killed because he'd called Dante into this, or if maybe something else completely unknown was happening. There were simply too many problems at this point and not enough solutions. Dante hated these kinds of missions, where he knew for a fact, had seen with his own two eyes, that there were shitty demons about strong enough to wreak havoc on a small town if they wanted to, but at the beginning were so hard to figure out that by the time he'd really gotten anywhere, things had complicated themselves immensely.

Regan asked Evelyn one of the questions Dante had forgotten about by that point, interrupting his thoughts, and he was suddenly glad she'd thought of it. "Do you know why they're after you, sweety?"

Evelyn shook her head no. She continued to suck her thumb, and Regan just brushed her hair back gently, giving her a reassuring smile. Dante caught her attention though because he'd moved and stood up. She looked at him, watched him walking over to the side of the bed, and he sat down near Evelyn as he tilted his head. "Did you guys have a house, kid?"

Evelyn nodded again, cutely bouncing because she was doing it so vigorously.

"Okay, any idea where it was?"

Evelyn got a look of thought onto her face. Dante waited. Then she grabbed Dante's hand with her opposite thumb still in her mouth and she stood up, jumping from the bed in her little nightgown which Doc had given to her, and started trying to pull on him. Dante stood up and went with her. Regan watched them both go and she asked him, "Wait, are you sure she'll have any idea?"

"No," Dante replied as he went with the kid, "but I don't have any idea anyway, so it's better than nothing."

Regan groaned softly as the door opened and Evelyn pulled him out of the room. The blind leading the blind and cocky. This didn't seem like it'd end up any good. But she hoped to god Dante could either actually find something, or would know what he was doing if he didn't. If not, she had the feeling she was going to be sleeping with her gun under her pillow for a while now.

Evelyn pulled Dante down to the lobby of the lodge where no one was at due to the late hour and she ran to a chair, pushing it across the floor behind the front desk, then she climbed up on it. Earlier, when she'd been in the lobby with Doc and Jack, who'd been trying to decide on what to do with her, she'd noticed a book of maps below the counter which she'd pulled out and began to look at.

The page was left open on the ring bound book on the same page that she'd been looking at it on when Jack had told her where the ranch was. So lifting the book onto the counter top, she pressed her index finger down the page and looked for the spot again. That's when Dante told her, "Yeah, that's where we are, Black Wing Creek," he pointed to it.

Dante was a bit surprised the kid remembered the book and where Jack had pointed out the area to her, because he'd seen her doing it while he'd stood idly by just listening to everyone chatting and trying to explain what had happened. While he'd told a complete lie, that Regan had just been thrown off of her horse, and that he had no idea where the kid had come from, he knew that it would suffice for now, and that things would be taken care of soon enough.

When Dante pointed it out again, Evelyn nodded and traced her finger along the line next to it, causing Dante to say, "Yeah, the river, where Regan found you, right?"

Again, she nodded. Then she circled her finger around the area on the other side of the river and stared up at him. She then whispered, "Rosecrest road."

"Rosecrest, huh?" Dante asked. "Well, you gave me an area and a street name, guess I can find my way from there, huh?" He reached out and patted her head. "You gonna be good and take care of the place while I'm gone?"

Evelyn started nodding her head as Dante began walking away, grabbing the map for himself so he'd have something to refer to. Once he was at the door, she suddenly jumped up from the chair and moved toward him in a sprint. Dante blinked when she grabbed his hand and tugged on it, looking up at him. Returning her glance, he heard her whispering, "Please come back."

The line caused an arrogant smirk to form on Dante's lips, looking the kid over as she stared at him so cute and pleadingly. Patting the girls head again and ruffling her hair, he told her, "I won't be gone for long," then he opened the front door and walked outside. Looking back in, he added, "You know how to get back to Regan's room, right?"

Once more, Evelyn nodded her head yes, not very talkative due to the trauma she'd witnessed earlier. Dante watched her turning to run back to the steps, and he tilted his head in her direction as she made her way up them quickly and then disappeared out of sight, the sound of a door opening and shutting with a slight slam sounding a few moments later. Shaking his head, he shut the front door and walked out into the cold, glad for his trench coat in that moment.

It was what Dante referred to as a shitty cold night. Clouds had gathered in the sky again, and while Dante didn't know what the forecast for the weather was, he knew what the smell of snow was like, and it seemed to be all around him now. Guessing they might see some more of the white stuff falling before morning time, he decided to get going before he ended up stuck somewhere and froze his ass off.

--

Rosecrest Rd. The sign that read those letters was carved out of wood, so far out into the countryside that it didn't even have a normal street sign. The thought had made Dante roll his eyes, knowing now he was in the middle of bum fuck egypt, and as he turned Cherry onto the road, his heater on full blast, he looked at all of the trees and drove at a moderate pace of twenty miles an hour through the area so as to not miss anything, though he doubt he'd miss a damned thing among the mass of trees surrounding him. Anything was sure to stick out like a sore thumb among the monotony.

Or at least, he hoped it would.

The further down the road he got, the more the trees seemed to clear, and a few flurries had started falling from the sky. Once the trees seemed to open up much more for him, Dante came across a pale blue house that looked warm and cozy, except for the fact that some of the windows had been broken out of it, leaving the drapes on the inside to blow out into the cold breeze of the night. It was the first house he'd come across, and in a tree in the side yard was a tire swing hanging from one of the high up branches. Dante guessed it was as good of a choice as any, and he stopped the car, then turned the engine off. Opening his door, he got out, turned, and then reached into the backseat, pulling Rebellion from the floorboards. He'd felt somewhat safer keeping the large sword there than having just brought it into the ranch, knowing everyone might've given him real shit about it, wondering why the hell he would have been carrying it. Besides, he didn't need a sword, not with the twins he was packing.

Putting the sword onto his back where he usually kept it, he shut the door finally and then walked around his car and toward the house, the white flakes of snow camouflaging themselves in his hair as he made his way along. On the walkway, Dante saw a teddy bear, and he leaned down to pick it up. Maybe it belonged to Evelyn. From there, he looked up and continued on, carrying the bear with him and setting it on the front porch steps. Walking up them, he could see that the front door was actually jarred open, and pulling his weapons free, he lifted his head to the side with a narrowed brow, using his shoulder to push the door open. It creaked slightly before swinging to, and he stepped inside, his stance casual, but his movements quiet, and being able to see somewhat better than a regular human in the dark, he decided to leave the lights out, saying they worked anyway.

The inside of the house was in complete ruin. Things were torn apart, marks were in the walls that looked at if swords had been swung, and gunshots were here and there marking the walls and other such objects. On the floor lay a childs suitcase containing girls clothing that had fallen out of it in a mess, and Dante kept that in mind for later. After all, they'd had hell earlier trying to find something for the little girl to sleep in, which had eventually been one of Jack's niece's gowns. The clothing would more than likely come in handy.

Dante didn't try to pick it up for now though. The place seemed pretty dead, so he felt a little safer about looking through everything around for the moment before he collected what he felt would be useful and took it back to the ranch. Dante holstered his guns, and then started searching through the house.

It seemed as if nothing was where it should have been except for maybe a few pieces of larger furniture that weren't so easily moved. Turning his head to the side, Dante saw a picture of two people hanging on the wall, and he lifted his hand up and pulled it down. Evelyn was in the photo, it was fairly recent it looked like, and she was standing next to a man with blood red hair.

It looked like the same color as Regans. The realization made Dante lift a brow, but a sound caught his attention. Looking around slowly, he noticed a book on a nicely crafted secretary in the living room that was open, the wind coming in through the broken windows blowing through the pages, flipping them back and forth. Moving toward the book, Dante picked it up and opened two random pages to see what they said.

It appeared to be a journal, and the signature said 'Nathan Morrison', so Dante knew he was in the right place finally. With the book still clutched between his fingers, Dante heard a voice coming from behind him, almost singing quietly as he turned around to face who the voice was coming from, "Farewell and adieu to our dear Nathan Morrison. Farewell and adieu to our dear little Nate. For your bid to bring Dante to the fray was so fitting, but sadly he'd found you a little too late."

Dante sighed. Not another one, he thought to himself. Rolling his eyes, he pocketed the book he was holding and pulled out his guns, taking several shots at the pale, dark clothed demon before him, watching as his bullets seemed to ricochet through smoke when they hit him. But even still, the demon acted as if he were hurt, and he yelled, "Okay! Geeze, you have no idea how much that fucking stings, asshole."

Grumbling, Dante stopped pulling the triggers, but continue to hold the demon at gunpoint. "Good, you know my name, so who the fuck are you?" He asked.

Arias snorted, looking his robes over as if there would be a hole somewhere in them, and he told Dante as he inspected them, "Just a pawn apparently. But my name would be Arias, though," he stopped as he looked over at Dante, his brow narrowed, "however, I think your real question is more something along the lines of perhaps," he cleared his throat, then spoke in Dante's voice, "what the fuck is going on, man?"

"Cute," Dante muttered blandly, then he harnessed his guns, not wanting to waste anymore time on this guy than he had to. After all, demons were so full of themselves that if Arias had something to say, he was going to say it regardless of whether or not Dante wanted to hear it, so Dante decided to just turn away and look for more shit around the house, guessing he might get a few clues from this guy as he went along.

"Damn it," Arias drew his fist up to his forehead in irritation when Dante turned and started walking away from him. "I hate it when they do that."

"Do what," Dante asked him from the hallway, "walk away from you? Cause I get the feeling people do that to you a lot."

"Yeah, yeah," Arias stared down at the floor blankly, nodding his head a bit as if it were completely true, "you might be right. But!," he held up his finger and started walking into the hallway, "what if they didn't, what if they actually wanted to speak to me. Hmm, oh what would I have to say?" Arias asked him. "Would it be anything you're interested in, or would I just be stringing you along, quite like I am now," he added in a more frustrated tone of voice, "just because you think I'd only annoy you and nothing more."

Dante, who'd walked halfway up the steps, looked back at Arias with a lifted brow. "Look dude, you're annoying just to look at, so I think I'll just take my chances." With a slight scoff, Dante then turned to go back up the steps, and looking up, he couldn't help his sudden start because of the person he saw standing before him.

Vergil.

Dante's brows narrowed, and he turned to look back at Arias only to find the demon gone. Vergil, or what Dante had figured was Vergil's illusion at the hands of Arias, stepped down the steps toward him. Dante knew he was right when he heard the voice that wasn't his brothers, yet the demon he'd just faced, "Somehow, Dante, I think I have much more that I could tell you than you could ever realize."

As he stepped forward, his form shimmered in black smoke and returned to the pale demon he really was, and he added, "I know that pisses you off, me, imitating your brother, but I only did so to prove a point. That point being I'm not merely here for some game of tag. I do have things to tell you, and you'd do well to listen. I'm not interested in wasting both of our times."

Dante felt his anger washing through his body in those few moments, wanting to know why he'd chosen Vergil to get his attention, why he'd said he knew more than Dante thought if it wasn't something about his brother, but before he went off on an ass whipping spree, he decided to give the demon a chance to speak. Finally, he waved his hand and then crossed his arms over his chest, "Alright, I'm listening for a few minutes."

"Good," Arias replied, stopping on the landing of the steps, rising to the same height as Dante, and he started out, "Yes, Nathan lived here, and so did his daughter, Evelyn. Yes, Nathan got you out here before he became a treacherous bastard, all so that he could lure you into my daddy's," he spoke sarcastically, "web of vengeance, and no, I won't show you what Regan looks like naked, you'll have to find that out on your own."

The last line made Dante's eyebrow lift. "You can do that?"

Arias grinned and looked around, then he leaned in, "It's great to be a demon sometimes. She has this little mole on her–," Arias stopped suddenly when Ebony was lifted to his forehead, "leg."

Dante smirked, then he pulled the gun back a bit, though still aimed it at Arias, "Is that all you have to tell me? Your daddy's web of vengeance?"

"Oh yeah," Arias spoke as if he'd just remembered. "Sorry, talk of moles and such, got me sidetracked. Anyway, I know Nathan said something to that partner of yours about Democrities and all that cult shit going on," he rounded Dante as if he were thinking while he spoke, and Dante continued to face him, watching him moving. "Probably told you that Black Wing Creek was where it originated. Ha ha ha," he drew out his sarcastic laughter slowly. "He was actually the leader of that cult of Democrites, and well, he betrayed them. No, it had nothing to do with you, I know you were wondering that, so I'll be a good little demon and tell the truth for once." He looked at Dante coming to a stop. "What do you think of the term Ariacrites? I've been thinking of organizing my own religion." He suddenly snapped his fingers as if he'd just come up with a really god idea. "We can have a Dantanian sub sect."

Dante scoffed, and ignoring his little idea, he asked Arias, "If Democrities is your father, then why are you referring to the Democrites as they? Aren't you one of their happy little numbers?"

The look on Arias's face was stoic, very flat. A cricket chirped and Dante could only wonder if Arias had done that for dramatic effect. Suddenly though, Arias held up his hand and pointed, "Haha, you're joking right? Me? Worship that pile of maggot shit? HAHA!" He suddenly started laughing in earnest. Holding his stomach, he snickered as he shook his head, "That's the best one I've heard in a long time, buddy. You should get into comedy. But no," he sobered up from his amusement, standing straight again, "I hate, no wait, loathe that bastard. You know he slept with his own mother?" Arias shivered.

Even Dante wrinkled his nose. "Okay, I don't think I wanna hear anymore."

"Yeah, and you know what came out of it don't you? Me!," Arias yelled slightly. "It's emotionally scarred me for years and years." He sighed. But he could sense that Dante was getting to the limit of his patience and so Arias just shrugged his shoulders, "Sorry, anyway, to be bluntly honest, Democrities doesn't seem to fathom the concept that his little quest for vengeance is just going to fuck up his plans. I mean honestly, dragging you into his little schemes? I saw what you did to our pet horse. By the way, how are you liking the weapon?"

"It's a damned good one, never had a boomerang before," Dante replied, somehow finding that talk with this guy seemed to be a bit grating on his nerves, but at the same time interesting. So he'd allowed it to continue for as long as he had. After all, if Arias actually hated his father, perhaps he'd be useful.

Arias nodded with Dante, "I know," he lifted his finger, "Democrities has a ton of good shit. It's really sad. And for all of his little toys, he knows jack about how to use them, right? So here I am, watching things for him, trying to hold shit together when he's throwing his little Quietuses at me just for pissing him off, and in the meantime, while he's wanting to do his own son in, he's letting you, the guy he really wants to kill, just wander around freely. Tell me something Dante Sparda, honestly, is that not the most moronic thing you've ever heard? Well, saying you believe me that is."

Dante snorted, "Yeah, if you're telling the truth, it's pretty damned idiotic. No way I can trust you though." He had to admit however, he found it a little odd that Arias would say something like that to lie about it. Honestly, Dante could really think of no gain the demon would get in doing so, as he didn't seem to be trying to buddy up with the devil hunter at all, and only making an honest observation. It was probably the first time Dante had ever spoken with what was a 'bad guy' of the mission and actually agreed with him over an observation. But pushing those thoughts from his head he just asked Arias, "And what's a Quietus?"

Arias shivered, "Oh, you don't want to know my half blooded friend. Let's just say they're what did poor Nate in. But as for you, I wanted to give you this warning. You were brought into this because Sparda killed Democrities father, and now Democrities wants to kill you, he thinks it will be a fitting symbol of his new power in this world when he gains it. Thus," Arias turned, becoming much less animated, walking to the door, "you've become, as I, a pawn in this farce of a play, the act coming to a close, our curtain drawing down." He moved to the front door, Dante narrowing his brows in the demons wake.

Arias stopped in the doorframe, then he finished, "As for your brother Vergil, his final act is about to take place. I thought perhaps to tell you that he's been holding his own in the Underworld for quite some time now, giving us lowly demons the advantage we need, and so for that, we thank him. But if you want to know more, then our little scene must die for the moment, before my father witnesses that I'm not actually here to kill you. That being told, fall lightly to thine feet, with the soft grace of the falling snow, for ye know not when the master shows himself."

Dante wanted to stop Arias now, hearing his words of Vergil's final act, wondering what he'd meant, but before he could get anywhere close to the door as Arias disappeared from it, he heard the familiar sound of vortexes opening, temporary portals from hell from which demons were being summoned to attack him. Looking up at the swirling pools of light, Dante saw the Quietuses emerging from them, landing on the floor and coming toward him as soon as they did so, their lumbering bodies not the best thing he'd seen for a good long while by far.

"Great, another unoriginal plot device by an overly dramatic demon," he muttered, turning his guns on them quickly.

The first one was close enough that automatically shrieked as its arms reached out quickly in a rubber like way, grabbing for the devil hunter who started shooting at the thing and moved to the side, stepping up onto the wall and running across it quickly. His aim never faltered, and pushing himself away from the wall, he slowly sank down through the air as he shot. Pulling Rebellion from his back as soon as he'd gotten over the demon head, Dante brought the blade down quickly with a skillful arc. Cleaving the creature in two, he had no time to waste when he heard that shriek again, the shriek they emitted before they tried to grab someone.

The creature he'd just cut in half fell apart before him when the sound was made, and Dante bent at the knees to duck and he rolled back, managing to stay on his feet in a show of great agility as his body moved to the side along the floor in order to dodge the arms that had just been stretched out for him, swinging over his ducking body now. As he moved with his feet stationary, the floor just beneath his back, he drew Rebellion around and cut off the monsters feet, causing it to fall over with a loud scream of pain. From there, Dante swung back up to stand straight, and he turned, facing a third Quietus before him, grunting to hold onto his sword when the thing grabbed the blade.

Turning his body, Dante mustered his strength a bit and quickly pulled the Quietus toward himself via means of its hands around his blade. As the creature was pulled from the floor, holding onto Rebellion still, the momentum Dante had created caused him to move toward Dante quickly. Dante balled up his fist as the creature came toward him and then swung it at its face, knocking it backward across the room just as quickly as it'd flew toward him to begin with, its fingers sliced off on Rebellion before it's body broke into the wall and fell to the floor.

Dante turned around and noticed the Quietus he'd cut the feet off of had grown them back, and it was standing up once more. "Damn," he muttered, "you know, if you guys are this ugly, I can't wait to see what your master looks like," sarcastically. He pulled out his guns and started shooting at the thing as he worked his way over to it, making sure to keep its hands at bay if it tried to reach for him by aiming at them whenever it lifted them. Managing to get into close proximity, he drew out Rebellion again and then jabbed it forward into the Quietuses torso, then pulled it up, cutting it in half through the shoulder. It's blood flew everywhere, the black globs spattering over the walls and onto Dante before he turned around to take down the rest of them.

One of them managed to grab Dante as he turned around without much of a warning, and it pulled him in. It wrapped its arms around Dante as if it had no bones in them, winding like an anaconda and just as tightly as well. The sudden jerk as it pulled on Dante made him let go of his sword, and he started trying to pry his fingers into the arms that held him to get free, a low growl sounding from the back of his throat at the effort. Another one was lumbering closer to its partner who held Dante, and the two surrounded him, then opened their mouths. Long black tongues slithered out and headed toward Dante's direction, ready to impale him with the sharp tipped appendages.

"Fuck if I kiss on the first date, bitches," he growled through clenched teeth, managing to get Ebony from his coat, Ivory clutched against him too tightly to reach, and he took a shot even as the tongue of the one holding him wrapped its way around his throat to shut off his air supply. He ignored that one for the moment and shot at the other creatures tongue several times, hitting the base near the mouth and eventually cut it off of the creature, giving Dante a moment to grip the tongue wrapped around his throat.

Hearing the creature he'd just deprived of his tongue screaming in pain, he got the feeling that these things were the most sensitive in that appendage and as he gripped his fingers into the tongue that was now tightly wound around his neck, he tried to get Ebony behind and between his head and the monsters that held him captive in order to place the gun against its chin and blow its fucking head off. But he was just too close to the thing to do it. So, with a roll of his icy blue eyes, Dante pulled Ebony back around and turned the gun up beneath his own chin, including beneath the tongue that was keeping him from breathing, strangling his neck so tightly.

Dante pulled the trigger and the bullet moved through the two layers of tongue, and then into Dante's own mouth, up through his skull, and out of the top side of his head. The creature immediately released him, and Dante immediately fell forward, landing on his hands and knees as a stream of his own blood rolled down the front of his throat and the top of his forehead, staining his white hair. Shaking his head as if to regain himself and his bearings, he grabbed the hilt of his sword which lay in front of him now and glanced back, completely pissed off.

"Maybe you didn't notice," he grumbled as he stood back up, placing the tip of Rebellion into the floor to do so, "but I'd rather kill myself than play around with you." He grunted as he pushed himself forward, and with several hard, powerful blows of his sword, he took both of the creatures out. The showing was an angry one to be sure, destroyed several items of furniture and doors in its wake, and once completed, Dante turned to the side and allowed the last one to fall to the ground, literally in pieces, swinging Rebellion around to his back and flinging the blood off of his blade in the process.

"If that makes you fall apart," he shrugged, "then I'm sorry, but I have been known to break hearts before."

Looking away as the demonic bodies disintegrated, Dante scoffed with a slight shake of his head. Then he turned and started heading back to the landing of the steps and then went up the stairs. He was determined to make sure there was absolutely nothing else worth any value in the house to this case he was on before he left, and when he realized that anything significant had already been taken due to the condition of the upstairs which for all intents and purposes matched the downstairs, he decided to just leave. Moving back to the downstairs hallway where the little girls suitcase was, he began filling it up with her clothes again, then pushed it shut, uncaring how messy things were inside of it, as long as they were there for Evelyn to have once again. With that task complete, he stood up and grabbed the handle of it, then he headed to the front door, not forgetting the teddy bear on the way back to his car. A straggling Quietus was following behind him, but for the moment, Dante was ignoring it.

Once he'd slammed the door shut on Cherry's drivers side, he took a long, slow, deep breath and leaned his head back against the cushion of the drivers seat. Looking to the side, he muttered out the words, "Fucking demons." Then he reached out and punched his fingers into the radio, turning it on. He didn't yet have a working CD player in his car, and so he had to settle for that for now. But he'd wait to see what was on before he'd decided to keep it there.

The snow had started falling heavily, and as he flipped through the stations, coming to one of his favorites, he heard the words, "Now it's time for a nonstop block of rock for the next thirty minutes, you're listening to WGRM 97.7," and then "The Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin started playing.

"Hell yeah," Dante smirked as he started bobbing his head to the music, and putting his car into drive, he punched his foot into the gas pedal hard. The tires spewed up snow and mud in their wake, and as he pulled the car away from the area it'd been parked in, he managed to turn a 180 on the road, ramming the rear end of Cherry into the single straggling Quietus as it mindlessly tried to make its way toward him, killing it finally.

Hopefully, the journal he'd decided to pick up would have some pertinent information in it.