Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"What I want, you've got
And it might be hard to handle"
- Hall & Oates, You Make My Dreams

It started at the end of a night gone wrong.

“I already told you! I don’t know anything about no—OWWWW!”

If ‘wrong’ meant you were the demon on the business end of Rebellion, of course. 

Sid, a regular informer for Dante (through no volition of his own), was a veteran in that department.  He was bleeding profusely on the ground near Dante’s feet presently, clutching at a bleeding stump and eyeing his severed hand lying just a few centimeters away. 

"Did you really need to do that?" he asked.

“It’ll grow back,” Dante said. He’d seen it happen and had been wholly un-surprised the first time: Sid’s true form bore great resemblance to a cockroach, after all.  He dangled Vergil’s amulet by its chain in front of Sid’s face again.  “Start talking or I keep cutting.”

A few months earlier Kat and Dante had dispatched a nest of harpies in a boarding school, smooth sailing.  Upon spotting Vergil’s amulet around their client’s neck however, Dante had been forced to accept the damn trinket as payment instead of cash.  The client’s purchase of said amulet was traced back to Sid’s Pawn Shop, and Sid himself—following a lengthy chase across town—was traced back to this dark alleyway.

It was Kat’s idea to track down Sid—and in effect Vergil—naturally, because Dante still couldn’t go one day without wanting to kick that wannabe overlord in the balls.  

It was his memento of your mother, there’s no way he’d ever give that up, she’d said.  Something’s up. I’m worried.  Even if she didn’t say ‘about him’ Dante heard it anyway and wanted to shake her.  After everything that asshole had done—had tried to do—she still felt compassion towards him. 

And no, six years was definitely not long enough to start thinking about forgiveness, Dante thought, irked.

“I have rights you know,” Sid crooked a finger at him. “I’m a citizen of Limbo City, same as you.  You can’t keep bullying—”

“You’re right.  I could actually just stop bullying and kill you instead.” An electric current began to run through Rebellion’s blade, white-purple tendrils licking at the air around it.  “Matter of fact, I’m getting kinda bored—”

“Now, now, let’s not be rash.  You kill me and you don’t get the information you want—” Sid’s eyes widened as he caught himself— “ahh shit.”

“Oh, so you do know something.” 

Sid quickly tried to backtrack, for whatever good he thought it would do for him.   “I’m under duress, and most of my essence has leaked out so—” Rebellion drifted closer to Sid’s throat and the demon winced as electrical particles stung his cheek. 

“Just tell me what you know and I’ll let you go,” Dante said.

“I don’t know anything—I swear!” Dante, sighing, raised Rebellion above his head— “W-wait!” Sid protested, waving his good hand frantically. “I meant I don’t know anything about what Vergil’s up to!”

Dante paused.  “That’s basically the same thing dumbass.” Rebellion sliced through the air in a deadly downward arc, intent on Sid’s head—

“A woman!” Sid screamed desperately, curling into a ball. “There’s a woman!  I don’t know what Vergil’s up to, but she might!”

Dante sheathed Rebellion, frustration ebbing away in favour of curiosity.  He prodded Sid with his boot. “Go on.”

“She sold the amulet to me.  Quite cheap, too,” Sid added thoughtfully, scratching his chin. “Course, if I’d known the amulet’s true owner I would have sold it for a lot more—”

“She leave a name?”

“Fake name.  Real tits, though.” Sid smiled lecherously.  Dante prompted him with his boot again.  “Um. . . red hair, definitely foreign—had this accent.  Rolled her 'R's, dropped her 'H's."

“Was she a demon?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“You guys can't tell each other apart?”

“Oh fuck you,” Sid spat.  Dante snickered, dodging Sid's severed hand when it sailed in the air towards him.  “I suppose with the meat suit she was strolling around in she had to be.  They’re vain like that, females.  Uglier than their male counterparts, so they gotta work twice as hard to blend in.”

“How do you know she’s working for him?”

“I didn’t say she was, I said she might know something.  She got a phone call while I was counting the cash—I didn’t understand half of what she was saying but she did drop your brother’s name.”

Dante considered it, then dragged Sid to his feet and shoved him forward, back to the main road. “March.”

“You said—”

“We're going to your pawn shop, dumbass,” Dante shoved him to keep him moving.  “I need to see the security tapes.  You know, just to make sure you’re not lying.”

“You know Dante, one of these days—”

“Right hand or right testicle, Sid,” Dante reminded, and that shut him up.

~

Fortunately for Dante (and Sid’s remaining limbs), Sid had been telling the truth.  The redhead existed.  Unfortunately for Dante, the footage was grainy so he couldn’t get a read of her face and replaying it over and over was not going to net him any ideas on what the hell she was saying.  He made the trip to the next block over to Kat’s place to see if she’d have better luck. 

He also went because her fridge was better stocked than his—actually, even that was generous of him to say; it would have implied that his fridge was actually stocked, which was never the case.  Demon-hunting was a costly business to the demon hunter, and very rarely did they ever get jobs where they managed to break even or even collect a tidy profit.  As a result, Kat held down a side job waitressing for a restaurant in the upscale part of Limbo.  The hours she put in there were ridiculous, Dante thought, but that was her choice.  And besides, she always took the restaurant’s leftovers home with her, so unless he wanted to starve, he was going to keep his mouth shut.

When she finally got home Dante, who had taken over her laptop in the living room pushed it toward her and began helping himself to the plastic trays of food she'd brought. 

“Any luck?” He asked, after she pushed the laptop away in favour of eating.

Kat paused in the middle of gnawing at a spare rib. Nodded, then went back to eating.  Knowing better than to come between her and her food Dante pulled the laptop over to his side of the coffee table and replayed the clip.  He was on his twentieth replay when she finally set down her fork, and was wiping her hands clean with a napkin. 

“It’s a demonic language,” Kat said. 

“Those things have languages?” Dante laughed. 

“Um you’re part-demon too,” Kat pointed out.  Dante rolled his eyes.  “But yeah, they do. I mean obviously most demons speak English but that’s because most humans speak English—demons teach it to themselves to make their magic and influence more effective on us.  But they’ve also got a language of their own—kind of a common tongue or main dialect which branches into different dialects in different areas.”

“Any chance of you uh understanding what she’s saying?”

Kat shook her head.  “Too risky because I’m human.  If I learn their language it makes me more susceptible to their influence.”

“Guess that means we need a translator,” Dante said, drumming his fingers on the table top.  “And a reliable one at that.”

“You could try your friend Phineas,” Kat suggested.

Phineas, duh.  “What would I do without you?” Dante wondered aloud. Kat gave him a sideways glance in response, opening a plastic tray full of deserts.  Over the years Dante had learnt exactly what that look meant:

Not much, obviously.

Chapter Text

In the aftermath of the Mundus convergence event, Limbo City’s Public Archives had also experienced an unprecedented population boost, with thousands of demonic tomes and grimoires now interspersed amongst their innocuous man-made counterparts.  Luckily for Dante and Kat who had been preoccupied with stopping Vergil, this was where Phineas had landed, and thanks to his all-seeing eye, most of these tomes didn’t find themselves in the hands of gullible humans.  The ones that did, the demon tracked down and sent Kat and Dante to collect so as to avert disaster. 

Six years on, (as many of his human predecessors had up and quit from being haunted by horrifying illusions), Phineas was had gone from reluctant volunteer to Head Archivist and spent much of his time personally patrolling the Restricted section.  He hated his office and found very little use for it, aside from it serving as a secondary storage space for the more ‘lively’ and unscrupulous demonic texts.  Dante spent his first five minutes upon arrival in the Restricted section, wondering if Phineas had finally gotten bored enough to quit when the latter's astral projection materialized and pointed Dante to the office his master rarely spent time in. 

Phineas was at his computer completely livid, swearing under his breath and close to mashing his keyboard into a pulp when Dante poked his head through the doorway.  Kat, if she were present, would have worried about seeing him so worked up.  Dante just laughed and made himself comfortable in the seat across, resting his boots on the table top.

“Didn’t think you’d ever get sucked into that game, Phineas.”

“It’s safer from playing poker with harpies—less at stake,” Phineas answered, all-seeing eye still focused on his computer monitor.  “On the flip-side there are too many buttons to memorize, it gets a little—shit!”

Dante snorted.  “You know, Kat’s got a spare controller back at her place.”

“Controller?”

“It’ll make killing zombies easier, trust me,” Dante said, too lazy to really delve into an explanation.  The sooner he solved the mystery of Vergil’s amulet the sooner he could get Kat off his case about finding him. 

“What’s the catch?”

"Just need your help with this." Finding the copy of the security footage stored on his phone, Dante slid it over. He listened as Phineas watched the video, relieved to see recognition in his face when the phone was handed back to him. 

“You sure it hasn’t been tampered with?”

“Sid knows better than to lie to me.”

Phineas scratched his chin. “That language belonged—or rather belongs, to the Vie del Marli, a clan Mundus had tasked Sparda with hunting to extinction after they refused to swear allegiance him a couple of millenia ago.”

“So he wasn’t thorough.”

“Or maybe he never hunted them down in the first place,” Phineas mused.  “Whatever the reason, they seem to be very much alive and active.  Which could spell trouble for you, Dante.”

“Why’s that?”

“Back in the day they specialized in hunting down Nephilim.”

“Awesome,” Dante said, after a pause.  Phineas stood and reached across his desk to squeeze his shoulder. 

“And now for the good news.”

Dante looked at him cynically. “There’s good news?”

“Sure there is,” Phineas pulled him to his feet and led him over to the window where he created a gap between the blinds and pointed, down to the couches and beanbag chairs. Sitting alone with her back to them in the window-filtered sunlight, was the woman from Sid’s Pawn Shop.  “She’s here most afternoons,” Phineas explained.  “Always did have a strange aura about her, but I never would have assumed she’d be Vie del Marli.” 

Before Dante could move however, Phineas’ grip clamped down hard over his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.  Dante groaned and glanced over at him.  “What.”

“I know it’s not your policy, but just this once, you think perhaps you could ask questions first and then shoot later?”

“Why?” Dante demanded, tone flat.

“You’re a messy fighter.”

“War is messy,” Dante retorted.  Phineas grip tightened to the point of bruising.  Dante rolled his eyes and shrugged him off.  “Fine, I’ll try to keep it PG-13.”

~

Short of tossing Vergil’s amulet at her Dante wasn’t certain how he was going to get her attention, but he quickly found he didn’t have to.  As soon as he took the beanbag chair opposite she closed the book she’d been reading and glanced up at him, green eyes flickering briefly to Vergil’s amulet dangling from his hand.

“I did not come here to fight you,” she said, without any preamble.  Man, Sid wasn’t kidding about the accent. If not for Phineas’ explanation a few minutes earlier, he would have been tempted to think she was faking it.  

“So what have you done with him?” 

“Nothing.  He owed me a favour as thanks for assisting him in a personal matter.  I had no way of tracking you, so he gave me the amulet.  He said it would get your attention.”

Well it definitely fulfilled that purpose.  “So what do you want?”

“Due to changing circumstances, Vergil is unable to repay the favour he owes me.  He told me I should enlist your help instead.  Assuming you are able to help, I am willing to pay you for your time.”

“And my brother. He goes free when it’s all done?  You guys got him locked up in some cell or something?”

She laughed suddenly, as if he’d just told her pigs could fly.  A light, musical sound that reminded him of wind chimes.  “Your brother is not being held against his will,” she replied.  “It is simply a matter of risk and inconvenience to him that he’s unable to take on this assignment.

“So he doesn’t think he can handle it.”

“I never said that.”

“So why won’t he take it then?”

“Collateral damage.”

“There’s always collateral damage,” Dante said. 

“So you are declining?”

“I just wanna know exactly why he won’t take it.  And why your clan can’t do this job yourselves.”

“This job has nothing to do with my clan.  It’s—” she was poised to say something else but relented, shaking her head.  She rose out of her seat.  “This has been a waste of time, I apologize.  After much thought I do not think you are the man for the job. Good-bye, son of Sparda—” Dante jumped to his feet and caught her by the elbow to stop her. 

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t take it,” Dante said.  She tugged her arm back and he let go, hands raised in surrender.  Sidenote, now that she was standing this close to him: she smelled really, really good.  Fresh pomegranate and cranberry.  Probably a spell to lure in unsuspecting humans, Dante thought, now on guard.  Was she a succubus?  No, couldn’t be.  If she was, then the angel blood running in his veins would have made it impossible for him to feel weirdly light-headed like he was now.  It has to be a spell.  “What are you?” he blurted, suddenly.  One corner of her mouth twitched upward.

“Do you value human life?” she asked instead.  Dante snorted.  “I said: do you value human life or not?”

“’Course I do.”  He wouldn’t have worked so hard with Kat to bring down not only Mundus, but his own flesh blood if it weren’t the case. 

“I see,” she said, softly. 

“See what?”

“That you really are--not the man for the job.”  She stepped around him and began to walk.  “Enjoy the rest of your afternoon, son of Sparda.”

“It’s Dante!” Dante called after her, before wanting to punch himself in the head. God, some habits just refused to die.

“Farewell, Dante.” 

“Who are you, anyway?”

“I am leaving."  As she pushed through the doors she laughed again, and Dante had to plant his feet firmly in the ground, having felt an inexplicable urge to run after her.  

~

Kat was lying with her feet resting in Dante’s lap on one end of her couch, sipping at a cup of hot chocolate while Dante surfed mindlessly through the channels. He’d told her about today’s weird encounter with the redhead and was waiting for the verdict. 

“I think we should investigate her,” she said finally.  When he didn’t immediately answer she took the remote from him and poked his side with her foot.  “Hey.”

Dante grunted and then glanced over. “What.”

“Even if Vergil’s not in trouble, her clan did hunt down Nephilim.  We should do our due diligence—just to make sure Limbo City’s not going to be in any danger.  I can track her down, but I’d need something of hers—or something she’d touched recently.”

“Done,” said Dante and she sat up on the couch and stared, drawing her knees in toward her chest. 

“Seriously?”

Dante retrieved the trashy novel the redhead had been reading from his coat pocket, the one he’d borrowed, not stole, because Phineas’ made him sit through the entire sign-up process, which included a mandatory ‘tour’ of the entire building. 

“Wow.” Kat laughed as she turned the book over in her hands.  “I remember Vergil lending this to me years ago.  It’s pretty good—plot wise I mean.  The scenes are a bit—”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Dante said.  He took the remote from her and switched off the television, nodding at the book.  “Magic time, let’s go.”

Chapter Text

Six years on the job with Kat, and Dante still had no idea how her powers worked.  To her credit, Kat—hell, even Vergil before he turned into an evil prick— tried to explain, but her patience had reached its end by the end of their second year working together when it became clear Dante was never going to retain the information. 

“I’ll just be grateful that you know what you’re doing,” Dante remembered saying, and the reason he was remembering that now, was because the moment he’d stepped onto Kat’s pentagram things went south:

The novel Kat had clasped between the palms of her hands had exploded into purple flame (but remained otherwise intact)—

—followed by the pentagram beneath Dante’s feet, rising to Kat’s ceiling to encase him in a fiery purple prison (but leaving Dante otherwise unharmed)—

Kat, who only swore in the most dire of situations—which is to say she never swore at all—had yelled out, “Oh shit!”—

—and then invisible ropes were coiling all over Dante’s body—constricting only tight enough to restrict movement—and lassoing him right through the walls to an unknown destination.  As his body zoomed through concrete, brick and steel, Dante had an epiphany that, had the mobility been available to him, he would be slapping himself right in the forehead. 

Years of struggling to get his head around how Kat’s magic worked and in the span of seconds he had learnt precisely how they were not supposed to. 

~

When the world finally slowed down, Dante had dropped onto a couch in someone’s living room; Ebony and Ivory whipped out and brandished at an old woman in the middle of setting a plate of cookies down on the coffee table between  them.  Also on the table was a tray of two small plates, two teacups in saucers, a tiny pot for cream, another  for sugar cubes, two teaspoons, and a teapot in a hand-knitted tea cosy.  She sat on the couch beside Dante and calmly picked up the teapot. 

“Peace, son of Sparda.  I only need a few minutes of your time,” she said.

“You know who I am,” Dante said.

“I used to work with your father, long before you were born.  I must say, the resemblance is uncanny.  Though from what we’ve seen, you certainly take after your mother.”

“You knew my mother.”

She nodded at the cookies.  "White chocolate and cranberry, fresh from the oven,” she said instead.  “Help yourself.”

Dante shrugged and holstered The Girls before receiving a cup of coffee from her.  “Who are you?”

“I am Matier.  I have a longer title thanks to my past exploits as leader of the Vie del Marli but I am, as the humans would say, ‘retired’. Earlier today you met my daughter.”

Dante was now chewing on a cookie, eyes scanning the room and landing on a picture of a younger Matier giving a piggyback ride to a little girl with red hair. The girl’s smile was gap-toothed. Cute.

“Your daughter ‘retired’ too?” 

Matier laughed. “Lucia poses no danger to you.  It would not make sense for us to hunt down the only beings in the world that stand a chance of killing Mundus, now would it?”

Speaking of Mundus. . .  “What are you, exactly?  I mean are you guys demon or human—”

“Difficult to say,” said Matier.  “Physically we are a clan of humans with the Vile Blood running through our veins.”

“Vile?”

“Have you ever met any of your mother’s kin?”

"Can’t say that I have,” Dante smiled, thinking of the ‘angels’ from Devil’s Dalliance.  

“Angels never stay out of Heaven for too long as the human world is rife with temptation,” Matier said.  “Succumbing to it is the first step to losing one’s place with God. After that comes banishment.  Over time the angel’s spirit will corrode until it is almost indistinguishable from a demon.  We, the Vie del Marli are the offspring of these fallen angels and humans.  An abhorred existence by Heaven’s standards.  Vile Blood.”

Dante took a long sip to digest that.  Matier hummed and nibbled delicately at a cookie.  “Your daughter had a job for me,” he said, and Matier went quiet. He finished off three more cookies in the silence.

“Had,” Matier corrected.  “Even if Lucia had a change of heart you still would not be suited for it. You value human life.”

Dante scoffed. “And that’s a bad thing?” 

“Some of the people you have saved have been of less than savoury character.  Some have even gone on to cause more harm to humans than their demonic oppressors.

Yeah, 'some'. The majority had been sufficiently shit-scared enough to decide to spend the rest of their lives trying to make up for all their past misdeeds. 

“Hey dude,” Dante shrugged.  “I just show up, kill the bad guys, go home.  I’m executioner, not judge.” Playing judge was too close to putting Vergil's philosophies in practice. 

Matier studied him for the longest time before she spoke. “In the years following Mundus, a man took leadership of Limbo City, rebuilding it from the ashes.”

“The mayor?” Dante frowned.  “I mean he’s alright—as far as piece of shit politicians go.  Superstitious nut, if the rumours are true.”

“The rumours are true.”

“So what’s the problem—he praying too hard?”

“Aha not your job; not your problem.”  Dante didn’t know what to say to that.  “Incidentally, our time is up.” Matier pointed downward and Dante finally noticed the purple glowing pentagram beneath his feet. His limbs went into lock-mode once again. Matier pulled a torn piece of paper from her pocket in the meantime and tucked it into Dante’s coat.  "Your friend will know what to do with it," she explained.

“You reckon I could get a cookie for the road, granny?”

“Of course.” Matier smiled, taking two. She wrapped one in tissue paper to put in his coat and shoved the other in Dante’s mouth.   Then she pinched his cheek, expression fond.  “Till next time, son of Sparda.” 

“It’s Dant—”

(Damn it.)

~

Kat was reading the trashy novel, television on mute when Dante landed on her couch, cookie still in his mouth. 

“Yeah I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Dante said, chewing noisily in vengeance.  “What the hell happened?”

Kat opened the novel to show him the last page—or at least, the torn edges of what would have been the last page.  “I figured you’d be fine, wherever you landed. I mean, it’s not like you were in Limbo or anything,” she added, shrugging.  “So who sent you back?”

“Her mom.” Kat’s eyes widened. “Yeah she made us coffee and cookies, told me she liked my ass but her husband was coming back in ten minutes—” Kat swatted him with a cushion and he snickered.  “The cookie and coffee part really did happen though.  You would’ve liked her.”

“Get any intel?”

Dante remembered the other cookie in his pocket and savoured it in small bites as he told her. 

“So the mayor could be in trouble,” Kat concluded.  “Please, please tell me you found the missing page.”

“You mean this missing page?” Dante asked casually, holding it up between his middle and index fingers.  Kat took it, wedging it between the pages before drawing a new pentagram in chalk on the floor.  Then she stood, clasping the book between her hands and kicked Dante pointedly in the shins when he didn’t get up. 

“Can't I be allowed to digest first?”

“Dante someone's life is at stake.”

Dante dragged himself to his feet and shuffled over. He stepped into the pentagram with a yawn, watching it begin to glow white. “I guess I could digest on my way there,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Hop to it. . . ‘son of Sparda’.” Kat added with a snicker.

Dante’s eyes flashed red. “You did not just—”

There really should be a Pause option for these things, Dante thought, as his body was jerked violently forward. 

~

The up side, when Dante landed on the roof of Limbo City's Sky Tower, was that Lucia wasn't pissed when it happened.  The downside was that her friend was.  How could Dante tell?  Oh, because of the pure look of disdain on her face, and the fact that she had a fucking rocket launcher pointed right at him. 

"Friend of yours Lucy?" 

Chapter Text

It didn’t happen often, but every once in a while Dante did pause to consider what he knew so far of his healing abilities and the limits of said healing abilities. 

Rocket launcher.  He’d never been hit at point blank range by one of those before—that could be fun.  He’d survived explosions going off within a five foot radius of himself, so maybe it was the same thing.

. . . maybe.

“Ten seconds to get lost, punk,” called the woman toting said rocket launcher.  There was a black body bag lying beside her feet, and a sniper rifle set up on the ledge behind her.

“So I had coffee and cookies with your mom earlier,” Dante said conversationally to Lucia instead.  “She’s nice.”

Lucia’s eyes widened, slightly, looking horrified by the revelation.   He heard a string of agitated gibberish before she spoke English again.  “Matier?  What—when did you—”

“Friend or foe, Lucy,” the hostile friend interrupted, still keeping her eyes on Dante, finger resting pointedly on the safety. 

Dante hoped the deep frown on Lucia’s face was her being conflicted about his situation.  Eventually, she turned to the other woman, one hand forcing her to lower it. 

“Fine, but if he gets in the way I’m shooting him in the face.”  She slung the weapon behind her shoulder, and turned her back on the two of them, scowling at the streets below.   Lucia, meanwhile had crossed the distance between her and Dante.  He jumped a little when her gloved hand closed over his elbow.

“A word?”

Dante doubted he would have been able to object—she was already tugging him along anyway. Not that he would have if he could: that scent of hers had a strange, pacifying effect on him.

 “You’ll have to forgive Lady, she is. . . on edge,” Lucia explained, once they were a safe distance from her.

“Her name’s Lady?” Dante scoffed. ‘Lady’ flipped him the bird over her shoulder in response.  “What’s her problem?”

“Her ‘problem’ is that you have encroached on a lot of her jobs.”

Encroaching on what now?

“I’ve never seen her before in my life.” Dante said.

(Not a sentence he was unfamiliar with using, though the truthful, humorous context was.)

“The two of us are subtle, in how we operate.  You on the other hand—while your methods do garner results, you unfortunately create quite a—” Lucia broke off, looking at him oddly.  

“Something in my teeth?”

“No, I…why are you trying to sniff me?  You keep leaning in…?”

Fuck.  Time to redirect.  He scowled down at her.  “I hope you didn’t drag me all the way here just to tell me that.”

“No, of course not, but—”

“You smell.” Dante shrugged.  Lucia immediately stepped away, looking embarrassed. She sniffed at her sleeve, then under her jacket lapel.

“I do?”

No way in hell Dante was gonna tell her he’d meant it in a good way—the last thing he needed was her using that knowledge as leverage over him.

“Yeah, totally.  You smell. Should probably get that checked out or something.”

Lucia looked so baffled by the notion, he would have given in to the temptation to feel bad—if the sight wasn’t so amusing.  “But I—”

“You don’t smell, Lucy, and it's not like he's a paragon for personal hygiene, anyway,” Lady called over her shoulder, now peering through a pair of binoculars. The black bag was squirming, panicked, muffled sounds coming out of it. Lady kicked it once and whoever was inside went still. “Forget that idiot nephilim and get over here.”

“Right,” Lucia muttered, but she continued to linger.  “We might need an extra pair of hands, if you’re interested?”

“He’s not getting any of my cut,” Lady called. 

“He won’t,” Lucia promised. She glanced back at Dante. “If Matier took an interest in you, then perhaps…”

“Gonna cost ya,” Dante said, eyeing her brazenly from top to bottom. 

Testing the waters.

“Oh. Yes.  Of course,” Lucia said, nodding earnestly, the attempt at flirtation on Dante’s part completely flying over her head.  Not that Dante hadn’t been expecting it, though. 

“How much are we talking?”

“Five grand.”

Dante couldn’t tell if it was innocence or willful obliviousness or even if it was an ‘angel’ thing or exclusively a Lucia-thing.  She was the first angel—angel-blooded(?) being—he’d met so it wasn’t as if he had any past experiences he could dredge up for comparison. 

Lucia presently had her head tilted at him. “Dante?”

Yeah. This was going to be fun.   

“No takebacks,” Dante told her.  He unholstered Ebony and Ivory with a grin, following her over to where Lady was. Lucia took hold of the sniper rifle, squinting through its optical sight. Dante vaguely heard her muttering something about wind speed and humidity under her breath.  

In the street below, a limousine had pulled up in front of the hotel they had been staking out, one of the valets scurrying over to hold the door open.  A middle aged man in a suit stepped out, shaking hands with another who had been waiting at the doors.

“Can’t be that easy,” Dante muttered.  Beside him Lady snorted.  She had the rocket launcher aimed and ready.  “What’s so funny?”

“You’ve never hunted angels before, have you?”

“Angels?”

Lucia pulled the trigger.