The Plot Thickens

"I'm a liability."

Regan wasn't saying those words to herself in some worked up state of emotional distress, but instead, she was saying them to remind herself of her role in this game. She really was a liability. She could snap and put Evelyn in danger, or herself, or anyone else around her. If she could remember that, then things would go by much more easily. Or so she hoped.

The sun was starting to get a bit lower in the sky, making the clouds glow somewhat orange, but she wasn't paying it much mind, just working to get her bearings. When Marvin dropped by, she'd have to let him know the truth about Evelyn. Hopefully, Marvin wouldn't be too upset because Regan knew he genuinely cared about the girl.

"Deep thoughts, Miss Davison?"

Regan's expression soured over the sound of the voice she suddenly heard interrupting her thoughts. In response, she said, "Yes, and it would be nice if you went the hell back where you came from so that I could return to them."

"Ouch. The hell where I came from, hmm? Well, if you wanted me to go home, you could have just said so."

With a sigh, Regan drew her arm up to lean her cheek against her palm, deciding to just ignore the pest for now. But apparently, Arias wasn't going to ignore her because he'd come up behind her, though standing a good bit away, with a few thoughts in mind.

"I bet I know exactly what you're thinking," he started, staring at the sunset and the colors painted across the sky. "That would be why the hell does the sky turn so orange in the evenings," Arias stopped, then narrowed a brow, "no wait, that's what I'm thinking. Who knows, Imp's the telepath."

Regan rolled her eyes. Was she really going to have to listen to this? Not if I leave. With that sentiment in mind, she turned around to walk back to the entrance at the ladder.

"Oh fine," Arias drew out as if he were hurt. "I deserve the cold shoulder, after all, I stabbed you and made you what you are, didn't I?" Regan continued on her path until she heard him adding, "I also set it up so that your brother would be murdered, blah blah, so many little details to be upset about."

Stopping in her tracks, her eyes going a bit wide, she heard herself asking more than she consciously willed herself to, "You did what?" Looking back toward the robed demon with a spark in her green eyes, she shook her head in his direction. "Tell me you didn't."

"Oh but I did, and," Arias drew out, lifting a single digit as he moved closer toward the woman as if completely undaunted by her angered tone, "I happened to stab him as well the night before, just so he'd have a tougher time trying to run from the Quietuses that you saw killing him."

Regan's facial expression was unquestionable. Seething anger was all over it, and she grabbed the hilt of the weapon she'd been using since the very night this demon had changed her. When she did, Arias sighed a breath and rolled his eyes, "Now, now my redheaded spitfire, do you really think it would be wise to kill me when that would leave your little niece lost and alone for a good, long while?"

Regan stilled her movements, letting out a slow groan that said she was definitely not happy with the situation. Though she still gripped her blade despite what he'd just said, she demanded, "Then why the hell are you trying to provoke me?"

"Is that how it came off?," Arias asked her, seeming legitimate in his curiosity, but who knew if he really was or not. "I'm sorry, provoking you wasn't exactly at the top of my list, Regan."

"Well what was!," she asked him on a raised voice that didn't quite reach a yell. "Please make a goddamned point and stop mincing words."

Arias seemed to scoff in amusement, informing her, "Trust me, if I were mincing words, you'd be much more confused right now. If you think I'm here to simply torment you, or provoke you into attacking me - which would both be pointless when there's a threat looming so close on the horizon now - then you're wrong."

Regan took in a slow breath for patience once he'd said that while he moved to her side, adding the words, "As for telling you what I did to your brother, I thought to simply tell you exactly how he died, because you have a right to know. He didn't die a coward, he died trying to do what was right, trying to love his daughter." Arias looked over at her, able to see the emotional response that evoked in her, before he continued on.

"Yes, I helped in the process, and as for you, once this is all over, you may hunt me down to the ends of the Earth if you wish, but for this moment, at this hour, we've a more pressing issue to discuss, you and I."

Regan could only imagine what that might be, and she wasn't even sure she wanted to. So she simply asked, "What's that?"

"Well, I'm certain you must have a question or two about the ritual you're suppose to be the star of, don't you?" He began to step around her, behind her, adding, "Such as the who, why, and how."

He was right about that, and since he knew, more than likely, all of the details about this ritual, shouldn't she take the opportunity? She wanted to, but something in her threw up a warning sign. Surely, this demon was throwing aside differences for the sake of getting revenge apparently, but that didn't mean he couldn't be up to something else entirely different.

"Then what, now you want me to ask so you can tell me how I'll die anyway, so I should probably go kill myself beforehand?"

Arias stopped, giving her a look that said she was out of her mind. "I believe you've mistaken me with my father. He would have said something similar were he in my shoes, but I work on a different level of intellectual brilliance than him, I'm sorry to say. A higher one."

Were all demons arrogant or was she just lucky enough to meet the few that were? Rolling her eyes, she slowly shook her head at him, "I don't need you to tell me anything, Dracula, I'll figure it out on my own."

Arias cringed when she called him that, responding through gritted teeth, "I'm not a vampire, they mirrored themselves after me." He then turned and followed her a bit more before she could make it to the dormer lining the roof, saying, "But I think you're wrong. While you have no reason to trust me, if you'll simply hear me out now, you may at least gain food for thought."

"Maybe," Regan grumbled, stopping once more even though she felt the need to simply flip him off and walk back inside. But she decided to humor him anyway. "So, what is it you're so willing to impart to me?"

"Well, I'm sure you know by now that you're meant to be a general of a demonic army fit to overwhelm every mortal in this world, don't you?"

"Yeah," Regan said as if it were a no brainer, "I kinda figured that one out."

"Good, I'd hoped you were as smart as you looked," he drew out blandly, then continued, "and you know that Evelyn needs to be sacrificed in order to draw forth the power this army will use. What you don't know, however, is that the person to be sacrificed has to be pure, as pure as you can have them."

Arias let that important fact settle in before he went to stand directly in front of Regan. When she was looking directly at him, he finished with the words, "Now, when I say pure, I don't simply mean virgin, or innocent thoughts. What I mean is a Priestess type of purity, one of those rare humans blessed with divine blood, many of which don't even know they're born that way."

He was right, Regan didn't know that. A priestess? Then Evelyn was one of those rare humans? But, what about Regan herself? Uncertain, she asked Arias, "It couldn't be my family, could it?"

"No, it wasn't," Arias replied, then pointed out, "Her mother."

Regan's green eyes flashed up to the tall demon when he mentioned the word, and she asked, "Is her mother alive?"

"It's possible, I've never looked into it. But for all intents and purposes, if she is, she has no clue that Evelyn is alive for the moment."

Regan's gaze drifted down a bit in thought. The thought that Evelyn had a mother who was still living hadn't even crossed her mind. She figured that, with Nathan having Evelyn sheerly for the matter of sacrificing her, the woman was likely dead, killed by the Cult that was trying to accomplish this ritual.

But now that she'd considered it, really thought about it, it could very well be true that Evelyn still had a mother somewhere, and if that were the case, Regan could find her, and reunite them.

So she asked Arias in an attempt to find out who this woman was, "Did you know her?"

"Oh, I'd seen her around." Arias shrugged a bit, looking off into the distance in thought. "The truth of the matter is that departed Nate had a one night stand with this woman, never to see her again. Demonic powers ensured he would," Arias waved a hand as if to pull the words from the air, "hit the target in one try. She was watched for nine months, at which point I instituted an illusion of her child dying during the birth, and stole Evelyn right from under her nose, if you'd like to know specifics. But whether she still lives is anyone's guess."

Regan found herself disgusted over the story, and it showed on her face when she told him, "You're despicable."

"Thank you, I try to at least live up to regular demon standard after all." Without care to what she'd called him, he turned and began heading toward the edge of the roof, wisps of smoke rising up in the breeze from the bottom of his black robes while the wind went blowing over them both. Regan watched him quietly, having to admit that despite the trickery this Demon was capable of, there did somehow seem to be another side to him that she doubted anyone knew about.

Or maybe that was just more trickery too.

But she still thought of him as a lowlife, and told him so. "I guess you should, being that you're unfeeling and could never know what it was like to have a broken heart."

Arias came to a stop near the edge of the rooftop, staring out at the skyline over the city, and Regan thought he might give her another indifferent rebuttal of those words. But he said nothing, at least, not at first. It took him several moments, and when he finally replied, Regan hadn't been right about the type of response he would give.

"Just how, Regan, do you think I'm able to manipulate illusions so well? You have to have an understanding of how something works before you can duplicate it."

That made a little too much sense for Regan's tastes, and she pursed her lips over the notion that he knew exactly what it was like for someone to feel, be caring, kind, and humane. So she asked him, "If you can feel, then how in the hell could you stomach stealing a mother's child from her?"

His answer seemed to be given easily enough. "Because the need for revenge I feel is so great, it consumes all other considerations. I don't care for that mother's heartbreak. I've waited five hundred years for this ritual to finally occur again, the only chance I will ever have to be done with my father, and nothing will stop it from happening. This is why I came here," he looked back at her. "You are the key to that. Whether under Democrities' orders or not, Regan, I would have stabbed you that evening, and changed you into what you are now. Democrities has to rise before he can fall. Dante knows this, otherwise it's a trip into hell for him, and I do mean the depths beyond even the plane where Dante has visited."

Dante had been to hell? Regan could only wonder when that was, but she stayed quiet while Arias spoke.

"He knows that Democrities needs to stick his decaying face into the spotlight before all can be said and done."

Regan got very confused by these words, glad she'd opted to stay now instead of simply going back downstairs. Walking toward Arias, she asked, "But if he rises, Evelyn has to die."

"Not necessarily. And herein lay that which you need to know specifically. So I've a question for you." Arias turned to face her completely. "What did you think you would end up doing once you arrived at the Black Moon Temple?"

Regan hadn't thought that far yet. So she shrugged, "I don't know."

"I, on the other hand, do. The seal Evelyn needs to be killed in order give power to Democrities' army. But the seal you're going to break once you arrive at that pedestal, is the seal that Sparda placed on Democrities himself ages ago, including the rest of his power."

He seemed to let that sink in before going on, "Unlike now, this power will shift you completely into a demonic force, and while you will retain some semblance of your humanity, you'll be in constant demonic form. Now, don't let this scare you," he told her with a smile on his face that was meant to be comforting, but somehow fell far short of that mark, "it doesn't mean you'll remain that way forever. Not if a certain Devil Hunter manages to hit the mark once Democrities pops in to say hello to everyone."

Dante, Regan thought. "So, you're saying then that I'll have to open the seal that's binding Democrities no matter what, and if Evelyn doesn't die, he'll never be able to raise his army."

"Why, I do believe you're catching my drift!"

"God, do you have to be so...dramatic all of the time?"

Lifting a singular brow, the illusionist replied flatly, "No, but for someone as colorless as I am, I figured flamboyance wouldn't be overdone."

Regan rolled her eyes, sighing out her breath. Looking to the side, she decided not to question him on the way he usually acted, and instead asked the last question she could think of. "Does Dante know anything about this?"

"Probably not," Arias informed her, "he's a thrill seeker after all. The higher the risk, the better the payout of adrenaline. Nothing gets the adrenaline flowing like a good surprise."

Why the hell did he have to sound so right when he said that? Either way, she supposed she would have to tell him herself. But then a thought hit her, and she looked up at Arias, "Wait. If I can get him to stick his head out, then why not just do it now? Get this the hell over with."

"I wish you could," he informed her sincerely. "But the seal can only be broken on the night of the New Moon once every five hundred years. The sacrifice, however, can be killed to give the army power at any time, though she has to be on that alter when she's killed, and the seal has to be broken before that army can rise into this world."

"Well, isn't that a convenient plot device."

Arias seemed to have nothing to say to Regan's comment, though he apparently agreed because he'd smirked in an annoyed fashion. But something had caught his attention, something down below in the streets just across from them. The sun had drawn lower, and Regan didn't spy anything, looking back up at the illusionist to see that his eyes had gone completely black, no sclera in them whatsoever.

Creepy.

"Speak of the devil," Arias said, "something rotting this way comes."

"The Vicar?"

"Unless black cloaks are a new fad."

"Goddamn it," Regan drew out, turning to go to the ladder. She had to let Dante know, even if it might ruin his surprise adrenaline rush, so they wouldn't fall under some type of ambush.

"He did already," Arias responded to her words, and she looked back to see that he was already gone.

With a groan while she continued to climb down the ladder, Regan muttered, "I hate him so fucking much."