"Darling, what if I told you that you have a destiny upon you?" Nizoni asks her granddaughter from her hospital bed.
Mona looks up from her book and crosses her legs. "I'd say that you have finally lost your mind." Mona smiles and looks into her Gran's sweet eyes.
"I've told you time and time before that God had a destiny for you."
"I don't believe in God, Gran. You know that." Mona hates the religion talk. It's not because her Gran is pushy about it, but religion makes her uncomfortable. It always has, every since she was little. She supposes she doesn't like the idea of someone judging her for being human and making mistakes.
"Do you believe in the Devil?" Nizoni sits up a bit more and observes Mona.
"I guess not, no."
"You should, my stars. He believes in you."
~/~/~/~/~
Mona opens her eyes when the car doesn't make contact with her. It's stopped, a few inches from her bleeding body. A short sigh of relief mingles with the air around her. Remembering the woman, Mona snaps her head back to the club doors to find no one there. The air chills her hot skin and the blood running down her legs. With shaky appendages, Mona struggles to push herself up with her skinned hands.
"Whoa there, bambi," Dante's familiar voice wraps around her like a blanket. "What the fuck are you doing in the road?"
"Is she okay?" David asks as he comes running out of the building, eyes roaming over Mona's bleeding legs.
"She's fine. Go back to your party," Dante snaps at the man. He doesn't have time for curious bystanders.
Mona puts an arm around Dante's shoulders as he lifts her up. "I think someone drugged me," she mumbles out into his ear. Without warning, her legs give out and she drops almost completely before Dante is quick enough to scoop her up.
"I could take her to the hospital," David offers from his space in front of them. David keeps his eyes on Mona as Dante puts her into the backseat. Her body is limp with fatigue and drunken thoughts.
"I got it, thanks." Dante carries Mona around to the back seat of his car and sets her down in it. Blood runs steadily and heavily down her legs and her fingers. She is going to need a hospital though. Dante quickly walks around the side of the car and starts the engine.
"Wait!" Clara screams from the club doors. "I'm going." Unsteadily, she runs her way across the pavement and gets in the passenger seat. Her stomach drops when she looks back at Mona.
Dante doesn't bother to argue with the inebriated girl: she'll come regardless, and Dante needs to get Mona to a hospital. A quiet whimper from the backseat makes his foot push the gas pedal to the floor.
Mona wraps her arms around her stomach, shivering uncontrollably. Right now, she would give anything for this pain to stop. The voices whisper in her ears like static and the smell of blood in the air makes her want to vomit. Her head spins violently, trying to grasp at solid images and thoughts, but failing miserably. The scales on her body burn in an unbearable manner.
"Anything? You'll give anything for it to stop?"
"What?" Mona whispers into the air.
"Dante…" Clara looks over at the steel-faced man with fear in her eyes. How long has Mona been speaking to herself?
"What would you give? You know what we want, Mona. Just let us in."
"No. No, please stop. Please, just stop." Mona shakes her head weakly on the seat and cries.
"Shut up, Clara," Dante snaps when she starts to whimper his name again. He needs to think. And the fact that six different voices are coming out of Mona's mouth at a time, is freaking him the fuck out. He won't call Nero, that kid will only flip his lid and make the situation worse. He could call Doge at the hospital, find out what is happening and why. But in the back of his mind, he knows why it's happening. She's weakening. They're finally wearing her down until there's nothing left. Without noticing, Dante clenches his hands on the steering wheel. "It's alright, baby. I'm here, nothing's going to happen." Even as he says it, he isn't sure he means it.
~/~/~/~/~
Dante paces the emergency room floor as they wait for Mona's blood work. Clara cries quietly in the chair as they put stitches in Moan's bruised knees. She won't be able to dance for a few weeks. The skin needs time to heal, to stitch its self together again. Dante doesn't want to be the one to tell Mona when she wakes up. Right now, she's blissfully unaware of the things going on around her. He hopes she's at least dreaming peacefully, but the look on her face tells him she's not. How dare she just careen into his life and fuck up everything. Huffing, he walks back to the bed and puts a hand on her wrinkled forehead, trying to comfort her. "How long for the stitches to heal?"
"About four weeks? It just depends. Since it's the knee, I'm not quite sure. The longer she keeps off of them, the quicker they'll heal," the doctor explains as he finishes up his sutures. "She won't be dancing for a while, that's for sure."
At that Clara let out a shrill cry and buried her head in her hands. "She was supposed to be the lead."
Dante clenches his jaw at her crying: he wishes she would just stop crying. He can't think with women crying around him. Swiftly he sends a message to Nero, "Come and get Clara and take her home. I'm at the emergency room, I will explain when we get home." Hopefully Nero does as Dante asks rather quickly and doesn't try to pull his over-protective worrying shit.
"Dante?" Mona's voice is quiet in the room around him.
"I'm here, babe. Get some sleep." Dante didn't want her awake just yet, he wants her lucid before he talks to her.
"Cold," she mutters as she tries to draw her knees up to her chest, wincing when it pulls the skin. She mutters a thank you when Dante takes his coat off and drapes it gently over her. Her skin hurts and feels tight against her bones. She tries to ask where she is, but it only comes out as a pathetic whimper. She's tired. Tired of being tired, of being scared, of being tortured mentally. What would happen if she just gave up? If she just let them take her?
"You would know peace."
Mona curls further into herself and inhales Dante's smell. It's familiar, solid, comforting. It grounds her where she is: she can't give up yet. Matrem will kill Nero and Dante, and Mona loves them. They need her. She has to stay for them.
~/~/~/~
Dante sits at his desk with his feet propped on the edge: Mona is asleep upstairs in his bed: he got tired of keeping her up so he could talk to Nero and her at the same time. Nero must be having more trouble with Clara than Dante thought he would. Dante has to figure out how to save Mona. He's not one to just give up on someone, or let them fall. Trish has done weeks of research and digging to try and find out who Matrem is, but she's had no luck in it. Sitri was easy enough to find: the asshole gave them his name. And while Sitri is powerful, Dante is certain Matrem is more so. Sitri just seems to be a pawn. But what the hell does Matrem want with Mona? Why not find some other girl to inhabit? Why not Clara? What does Mona have that the rest of them don't? Why Mona? There has to be something he's missing. There has to be a reason for all of this.
"I have the answers!" Trish's voice echoes in the room and Dante sighs deeply. "No seriously." Trish knocks his feet off of his desk and sits on the edge. "I know why Matrem is only going after Mona. I ran into a "friend" today and he and I had a nice little chat that involved using some holy relics. Will you pay attention to me, this is important?" Trish knocks his hands away from his face. "Mona is the only one strong enough to hold Matrem. Any other body will decay with Matrem inside it. They can't hold her, she's too powerful. I called a friend of mine in Israel, and apparently there is a prophecy-"
"What is it with fucking prophecies?" Dante grumbles as he rifles through his desk for some alcohol, he knows he keeps some in here.
"I don't know. But this one talks about a girl born under Halley's Comet. Mona was born February 9, 1986."
"Trish, there has to be at least two million girls born on that day. It's not a strange day to be born." Dante snarls when his search for alcohol turns up empty handed. He bets that shitty kid drank it all.
"Will you just let me finish for once? Fuck, Dante. There's more than just a birth date. Besides, there are probably only 200 to 300,000 people were born then. And then you have to take out all of the boys, so we're probably looking at about half that number. But it gets more specific. The girl will have to be born to mock the holy trinity." Trish examines her nails as she speaks, waiting for Dante to ask his questions.
"Okay, so how would this girl mock the holy trinity? Do I need to go look for triple sixes on her scalp? Because I've seen her naked, they aren't anywhere else." Dante gets up from his desk and walks into the kitchen to find booze.
"No, no triple sixes. It's much simpler than that. See, most demons are obsessed with threes. Why? Hello, holy trinity. They use it to mock them. Fuck the sixes. Threes. The girl will have had to have been born at exactly 3:33 am. Not a second over. That narrows it down quite considerably. And when you take out those babies that have died that were born on that exact date and that exact time, you wind up with our very own Mona." Trish smiles at her cleverness and crosses her arms under her chest.
"But we still don't know who Matrem is?" Dante was getting even more pissed off than before. This shit tells him nothing.
"Well, we almost know who she is. The prophecy states that this girl, born to mock the holy trinity is the only one strong enough to house 'the death of man.' Why the death of man? Because then they have the fucking world, and they want out of hell. Do you blame them? My best guess is that Matrem is the person who is going to bring about this end of man. Mona, is the only one strong enough to hold her."
"So what you're telling me is that Mona got the short end of the stick." Dante tossed an empty bottle into the sink and didn't bother to flinch when it shattered. "Well that's just fucking perfect, isn't it? She's won the demonic lottery she didn't even buy a ticket for."
"That's one way of putting it, yes..." Trish grew quiet and looked down at her boots solemnly. There is more, but she has no desire to tell him. He's already in a foul mood and she will be damned if she makes it worse.
"Tell me. Whatever it is that you're keeping from me." Dante finally has success with a bottle of Jameson in the upper cabinet at the back. Thankfully liquor doesn't expire: God knows how long that's been up there. Dante doesn't even remember buying it.
"She will let Matrem possess her, Dante…"