Vagrant Angels: Eternelle

The fading light of early evening filtered in wan, dusty beams into the shabby offices of "Devil Never Cry", the guttering neon sign slowly sparking to life as Trish answered the phone, flicking a cobweb off an impaled demon skull stuck to the wall.

"Hello. I'm calling for Dante Sparda?" The man on the other end had a beautiful accent, faintly french, she thought, coloring the deep voice. It was gently raspy, and carried with it all the glorious imperfection of a human voice. Devils' voices were too perfect. Like her own.

"I'm his partner, Trish. How can I help you?" She leaned back in the old chair, looking over at Dante, softly snoring. His pale-silver hair almost covered his eyes, and his mouth hung open with a small rivulet of drool collecting in the corner. He looked innocent, human. She sighed, pleased with this sight, then suddenly realizing the man on the other end had apparently been waiting for her to start paying attention before he continued.

"I'm looking to hire him.. for his special touch." Trish perked up, lowering her feet from the desk. The man continued. "Mallet Island was what could be called a 'wellspring'... a gateway between this world and the Underworld. I understand the two of you left Mallet Island a dead zone instead. I'm looking for that assistance...elsewhere."

"You've got our undivided attention." Trish murmured, kicking Dante's chair until he woke up, flailing briefly.

"huwha?" Dante looked around, ice-shard eyes blinking wildly. He slept so rarely, that he was often disjointed when he first awoke. Trish pressed a finger to her lips, then pressed the speakerphone button.

"My name is Riot.... and I'd like to invite you both to come to a little place called... Lea Monde..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dante had flown infrequently in his pursuit of devils to slay, as America had more than it's fair share roaming about, but he had not expected the small private jet to be waiting for him at JFK.

Trish leaned her chin on the steering wheel as he unloaded the wooden cases containing Alastor and Ifrit, and then the metal box that cushioned Ebony and Ivory. "I wish you'd let me come along." She said blandly, readjusting her sunglasses to hide her concern.

"If you go too, and this turns out to be a trap... who's going to save my ass?" Dante retorted cheerfully. His "work clothes", the heavy red leathers he preferred to wear on the job, were neatly packed away in the suitcase he pulled out last, and in jeans and a sweater, he looked almost too human. It gave Trish's stomach a twist. Beyond human, he looked vulnerable. A word she would not normally associate with the Dark Knight's only son.

"Be careful. You summon me if there's any stink of trouble." She sat back, watching him load his weapons cases on the cart to the stunned look of the airport security guard. "I'll take care of the little jobs while you're gone."

"Trish, you look like my mom, but you're *not* my mom, remember?" He half-teased. "I'll be fine. I promise." He leaned into the car window and kissed her forehead. "Be good."

The devilarms protested loudly in his head to the intrusion of the x-rays and security searches as Dante dutifully filled out paperwork. There was no escaping tight security these days, anywhere, he thought, searching the crowds out of habit for demons that might be lurking in their midst.

He was busily trying to comfort the complaining weapons, when an older man in a staid, dark suit approached the private flight check-in counter. "Mr. Sparda?" he said softly, his words curling around his deep French accent. "I'm your pilot, Jacque. When you're done here, we'll transport your baggage to the jet. Mr. Riot will be joining you in Paris."

Dante blinked. Trish had gone all out in luring him to Mallet Island, but then, she’d initially been out to kill him. “I’m just about done here, anyways, let’s rock.” The man simply looked at him with a bored, bland expression, as if he’d seen enough of Dante’s kind to last him several lifetimes.

By the time he wheeled the cart away, Alastor’s complaints had been reduced to a mild, disappointed murmur.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tucked into the plush interior of the jet, Dante curled up in one of the oversized seats with a scotch in one hand, and the information he and Trish had been able to dig up on both Lea Monde and Ashley Riot in the short time between the call and the airport.

The entire package was barely half an inch thick. The scant photos of the ancient city’s remaining architecture brought memories of the island back in high detail. The same fantastical touch, the same inexplicable details, although at Mallet Island, they’d been refined and elaborated on over and over. Dante yawned, trying to focus on the writing. His hybrid blood had given him amazing abilities, and as his mother had complained repeatedly, an abbreviated attention span.

Vergil had always been the scholar…. Dante closed off that immediate line of thought, staring at the text with renewed effort.

Lea Monde had been a major port city for a kingdom called Valendia, which had been divided up between France and Spain in the latter portion of the 17^th century. The Riot family seemed to have had holdings in the area since before that, the documentation seemed to imply. The city itself, though, had been in ruins for almost two hundred years before that. The local Basques refused to have anything to do with the ruins, saying they were cursed beyond comprehension.

Dante blinked, realizing he’d read the same line about modern Basque, euskara, being an offshoot of pre-christian Kildean four times, and closed the folder with a groan. He could have sworn in the back of his head he heard Alastor snickering at him, or maybe it was just the hum of the air conditioning as he dozed off, overloaded from even the meager amount of information Trish had given him

~~~~~~~~~~

Dante Sparda was no stranger to bizarre dreams and psychic phenomenon. It had been natural, growing up in a household where problems with low-level demonic infestation were as common as twinkies in his lunchbox.

But this was slightly odder than most. He was acutely aware of the fact that he was dreaming, yet, at the same time, the sun baking his head on a dusty, barren street, and the gulls screeching overhead were unsettlingly real. The air was scented with old grapes and sea-salt, and Dante took a deep breath, savoring it.

Something prickled the back of his neck, as Alastor was prone to do when he was in danger, and Dante turned slowly, bootheels scraping on the limestone paving. There was nothing there, but the chilling sense of cold fingers traveling along his spine.

“Who’s there?” Dante challenged the empty street. “C’mon. I’ve had my dreams fucked with enough to know when it’s happening. Stop screwing around.”

“Zoroarekin eztabaidan hasten dena, bera zoro” The reply was light, amused, and so soft that Dante probably imagined it. Except he had no idea what it meant, and at the same time, he had the indignant sensation he’d just been insulted.

“Answer a fool with his folly”

Dante sat bolt upright, the scotch splattering, and the folder emptying its contents on the carpeted floor as he found himself staring into a stranger’s face. “What did you just say?”

“Bonjour, Monsieur Sparda. J'espère que vous avez eu un voyage plaisant?” The man looking down at Dante was about his own age, shoulders as broad as an ox, warm brown eyes bright in his handsome, tanned face.

“I’m sorry, I don’t…” Dante blinked again, for some reason, his thoughts completely out of order. He’d expected Ashley Riot to be some withered old recluse.. and this.. was..

“I’m sorry. Welcome, Mr. Sparda. Kaixo. I hope the flight wasn’t too bothersome? I’m Riot. We spoke on the phone?” One sun-browned hand reached for him, and Dante could feel the calluses, and the steel-cable strength running through it. He swallowed, hard, and Alastor shrilled in the base of his brain.

“Not at all.” Dante pulled himself up on the strength of that hand, and the arm attached to it. Riot was built like a brick house, but not the over-refined muscles of some showy body builder. The lines that the expensive dark suit clung to were ones bought through hard times, harder work. “I must’ve fallen asleep. Doing some research on your…assignment.”

Riot laughed, a soft rumble of sound. “Wonderful. Come on, then. Let’s get to work, shall we?” Dante looked out the window of the jet, expecting Charles De Gaulle International, instead of the verdant private airstrip that greeted him.

“This is all yours?” He asked, expecting the answer to be yes.

“Actually, no. The airstrip was built in World War I… I merely avail myself of it’s presence.” He picked up Dante’s suitcase. “I’m sure your weapons would prefer if you carried them.” He added, with amusement. Dante blinked. For a second, he could have sworn Riot’s eyes were blue.

They hauled the cases out to Riot’s waiting Land Cruiser, the sky turning a heavy plum color above them. “We’ll head out to Lea Monde in the morning.” Riot said, staring up at the sky. “It’s no place to be walking into when the sun sets.”

“Look, bud, that’s when the ghoulies like to come out and play. I’m not scared if that’s what you…” He started, cut off by the breeze caressing his hair.

“Mutil hori tentelapikoa da” There it was again. That voice. Soft as the wind.

“What was that?” Dante looked around, coming face to face with Riot again.

“I don’t think you’re scared of anything, Mr. Sparda, but humor me, no?” A smile pulled at his full lips and Dante felt that lump start in his throat again.

“Yeah. Look, I’m sorry. Jet lag, I guess. Hey, what does… Mutil hori tentelapikoa da … mean?” He sounded it out carefully, feeling affronted when Riot started to laugh.

“It’s euskara. It means ‘the boy’s an idiot.’ Where did you hear that?” The dark eyes were sharp with interest, and the smile broadened across Riot’s handsome face.

“Oh. Around.” Dante pushed the hair out of his face as he sunk, grouchy, into the passenger seat of Riot’s truck.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The night mellowed the brilliant green of the landscape into shadowed emeralds and black velvet, punctuated by the scattered soft lights of distant farms as they drove.

“I read in the info that this area’s traditionally called.. “La Gris Terra”? The Grey Land? That’s hard to understand…” Dante’s grouchy mood had softened with the fading light and a determination to find the poltergeist picking at the back of his neck.

“It was a franconization.. if that’s a word.. of the old name for the land.. the locals call it Uherlur.. really, the bitter earth. It became known as the Greylands after a long time…La Gris Terra… and that became the name of the Bardorba Duchy after a time. Before Valendia was completely disassembled.” Riot only seemed to half pay attention to driving, some polka-like local music from the radio competing with the rush of air as they turned down a winding little sheep-path.

“The name, bitter earth, doesn’t make too much sense at first either, really.” He added, slowing to let a sheperd drive his flock across their path. “This land has been noted for it’s glorious wine since before the Romans first came through.”

“Then….?” Dante found himself watching Riot’s profile in the twilight. He had a sense for power.. the ability to understand the abilities of those around him, part and parcel with his demonic heritage. But Riot confounded him. The man felt damnably normal. Too normal. So normal that he had to be hiding behind that.

Frankly, it made Dante’s head hurt.

He realized with a start that Riot was watching him, now, as well. “The land is filled with tears. Bitter with salt.” He finally said in the same roughened, soft voice that he always had, but yet… somehow, different. Distant.

“Mr. Riot…” Dante shifted in his seat, unnerved more by the strange emotion than any threat. “If you don’t mind me asking…”

“I do. Right now. I’ll tell you when we get settled.” The full mouth compressed into a hard line, and the scenery blurred under the rumble of the Toyota’s engine.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Riot’s house was also not what Dante had been expecting. He hated that. He’d been batting zero since taking this job, and that didn’t bode well.

It was small, stone and dark wood, and built strong enough to be a bunker, but out the back, the distant, shadowed shapes promised what must’ve been a magnificent view in the light, a small lake winking the light of the stars back at the black sky.

“Alright, you can ask now.” Riot’s soft, deep voice broke Dante’s momentary revire as the man knelt before the fireplace, stoking the embers.

“OK, then… what’s this gig all about, anyways?” Riot was direct, Dante could be just as direct. He welcomed it, as a matter of fact.

In answer, the man straightened, and began unbuttoning his shirt. Riot was shorter than him, but he still had a commanding presence. The demon in Dante’s blood thrilled with an unwanted anticipation as white fabric parted revealing tanned olive skin.

Dante Sparda had never been particularly selective with his partners. He was immune to every known human disease, and his desires were varied and strong enough to warrant a great deal of… flexibility in his choice of partners. Since Trish, though, he’d settled into a strange, almost-relationship. He loved her, for her strength, for her courage. But she looked like his mother. She’d been CREATED to look like his mother.

And Dante was having problems with that small fact.

Standing across the room from him, limned in the warm light of the fire, the white linen of Riot’s shirt was sliding down those impossibly broad shoulders, and down arms that Dante was certain could snap a normal person in half.

Suddenly the room was not just warm, it was unbearably hot.

The bright brown eyes caught Dante’s stare with amusement. “Relax, Mr. Sparda…” He said with a mild bit of humor. “I’m not trying to seduce you.”

(You don’t have to try) Dante thought irrationally.

(nire Aszli ez eder da?) The words caressed his ear as Riot draped his shirt over a nearby chair.

(Yes. Yes, he is beautiful.) Dante blinked, looking around before turning again, to see the elaborate tattoo that covered the dusky skin of his tapered back. “Wow. That’s some serious ink..”

“It’s not a tattoo, Mr. Sparda. It was burned into my skin a long, long time ago. This city. Lea Monde.. it tore me up, and spit me back out you might say. It gave me great power. It gave me…” He stopped, looking into the depths of the fire for a long minute, mouthing something, but no words came out. “It doesn’t matter to you… but in return, it took away… everything else from me.” He said it without as much rancor as Dante expected. “A long time ago. It’s been sleeping. And now, some idiot wants to awaken it.”

Dante felt a chill on his spine, like cold metal fingers resting on the back of his neck as Riot sat down, yanking the cork out of a bottle of wine. “If you thought Mundus was trouble, he’s small potatoes compared to the power that Lea Monde is sitting on.”

“You.. you said someone was trying to wake it up?” Dante sat down, unable to shake the chill on his neck, and took a glass from Riot, filled with the noxious green local wine.

“Archeologists. Digging up the past. I’ve tried to dissuade them through legal action… and quite frankly through out and out terrorism.” Riot sat back, the firelight playing gold across the planes of his chest and stomach. “The army is there now, and a workman shed blood… just a drop when he cut himself on a trowel… but it was enough to stir the forces beneath. They’re translating the carvings on the walls.. and if they start to realize.. the Wellspring is going to blow up right in their faces and open up the gates of destruction on this region, all of Europe, and possibly the world.”

Dante took a long swig of the wine and sat back. “Well, then. That’s no small job.”

Riot took a similar long drink, and looked at the wine. “If we come through this in one piece, I’ll include a bottle of the good stuff for you, not this sheep piss in a bottle.” He laughed, and Dante shook his head, joining him, watching as Riot stood, popping his back.

“I’m going to take a swim. I find it centers me before starting off on … unpleasant undertakings. The lake’s really quite nice. Volcanic.. always warm. Care to join me?” He was looking more through Dante, then he was at him, the dark eyes looking at something that Dante couldn’t see.

But the chill shivered worse down his spine. “..thanks for the offer, but I gotta go make sure all my stuff is ready, and I’m still jet-lagged. I think I need a solid night’s sleep, more than anything.” He added regretfully.

Riot made a strange little laugh. “I’ll see you in the morning then, Mr. Sparda. Gabon da.” He waved absently, sliding open the back doors and vanishing out into the dark.

Dante yawned, the chill dancing down his spine like Alastor’s soft moans in his brain.

Hire ni naiz du? Bai…

Ashley Riot was haunted, and his ghosts were starting to get to him as well, Dante thought, Setting Alastor and Ifrit out on the sideboard in the little guest room. “No, I’m not… whatever you want me to be.” He said to nothing in particular. “Scram.”

The chill subsided, and Dante flopped down on the hard bed, staring up at the canopy. He could see out the window from his vantage point, and he could see Riot slip with suprising grace for such a solidly built man into the moon-silvered water.

And he thought he was dreaming.

Everything had a soft haze to it, pleasant and warm as he sat up, looking at himself in the mirror. Ever since puberty had struck, and taken away Dante’s awkward childhood in the wake of the demon-born changes in his bloodstream, he liked looking at himself in the mirror.

But never quite like this moment. His hands traveled through his hair, and he seemed surprised at how soft it was, or how sensitive his fingers were.

“Ongi, ez…” The same strange language he heard in the rustling breezes here. His modern-world’s voice was unsuited to it. But he understood it, in the crazy way you understand nonsense in dreams.

“Good.. no?” He pulled off his black t-shirt, looking at the pale skin, the deceptively fragile appearance he had outside of the heavy leathers. The demon blood left him virtually indestructible. “Yes. Very good.”

He swept his hands over his chest, enjoying the sensation, as if it had been a thousand years since he’d touched anything, let alone skin. Dante smiled at himself in the mirror, wry and sharp, pulling off his jeans and heavy boots. Clothes were the last thing he wanted right now. And the first? The first was near at hand.

He was outside in moments, the warm night air ghosting against his skin and the grass damp under his feet as he made his way down to the lake. Riot was there, up to his waist in silver water, drops of moonlight trickling down his dark skin in lazy rivulets, beading like pearls.

“Like the Titans, born from the dark earth, and rising up to meet the moon.” The nonsense words were saying in his voice, Dante’s demon-blood stirring with heady want. Riot turned, surprised, and looking at him as if he were far, far away.

“You…” He said softly. “Hi naiz… Zintzne…” Riot turned in the water as Dante stepped down the rocks, the smooth-sharp texture beneath his feet almost as thrilling as the anticipation trembling through him.

“I’m here…Aszli… Ashley…ez?” Somewhere inside, Dante frowned. Riot’s haunting ghost.. (Zintzne..)

(Zintzne Otsoazora.. Sydney. I would be called Sydney Losstarot in your words. In my words.) Dante wanted to shake his head, but an immediate sensation called him back to what was happening outside.

Outside, his hands had cupped Riot’s strong, square jaw, and he was feeding off that beautiful, expressive mouth like a starving man. (Am I dreaming? God knows, I wanted to do this…) Riot’s hands were calloused, rough, hesitant on his back, but then firm, every bit as strong as Dante had imagined they would be.

Riot.. Aszli… Ashley.. he was asking him something, and Dante couldn’t understand him, it was lost in the roar of blood in his ears, and the soft, reassuring murmur of his own voice. (If this is a dream….)

“I have waited so many lifetimes to touch you… to truly touch you…” He was saying into the powerful curve of Riot’s throat, savoring the musky scent there, as if it was just as he’d always imagined it. “Watching you sleep, watching you fight.. so many times..” Dante lost track of his own words.. of the ghost’s words.. his dream’s words… He could grasp a fractured memory, looking up into Riot’s bloody, dirty face, those calloused hands holding.. him… gentle and wary of the raw wound on his back.

Dante shivered as his own hands traced the markings that covered Riot’s back. (The blood sin. The rood inverse. The mark of shame. Of Power. Of memory. Mine. His. Ours.) The water fell away, the two of them leaning back onto the mossy bank, Riot’s body slick and warm and hard beneath him. “Erde da.. erde da..”

(So beautiful.) (My god, he is…) Dante wasn’t sure of when it had happened, but he was inside of Riot, muscles like steel encased in warm flesh tightening around him. (Perfect. It’s as if I’ve been given permission to fuck a god.)

(Dante.)

(Trish’s hands, inhumanly beautiful, perfect, touching his face) Dante blinked, feeling a fractured moment of disconnect. He was lying in the musky earth, with his current employer, the two of them tangled like lovers.

And despite the fact that he’d witnessed the whole thing, Dante was entirely unsure of what had happened. But whatever had drawn him there, was gone.

And Riot knew it too.

“Dante. You should…go.” He said, tight control evident in his rough voice. “Please. Now.”

Dante pulled away from him, unable to say anything except turn and retreat. Behind him, in the growing shadows, he couldn’t tell if Riot was laughing.. or not.