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Always A Bridesmaid	By : redrumtigger Category: +A through F > Devil May Cry Views: 2103 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Devil May Cry or Batman, and I am not making any money or profit from this work.

Chapter List
- 1-Always A Bridesmaid
- 1
“I’m getting married, Dante.”

The demon heads mounted on the dingy wooden walls of the
shop called Devil May Cry glared down at Mary Arkham, better known as “Lady,”
where she sat on Dante Sparda’s massive wooden desk, nibbling at a slice of
pizza. Dante’s feet propped on the desk
beside her hip were all that kept him from falling off his chair. A sauce-coated piece of pepperoni slipped
from his slice, tumbled down the black shirt he wore beneath his red leather coat
and landed smack on the fly of his red leather pants.

Too caught up in her announcement, Lady paid no attention to
him. She tugged unselfconsciously at
the white leather jumpsuit she wore, giving Dante an even better view of her
way fine cleavage. He almost fell off
the chair again. The brightness in
Lady’s mismatched eyes was eclipsed only by the pure joy in her smile. Dante forced himself to smile back, even
though a blade as sharp as his brother’s sword Yamato stabbed his heart.

Suck it up, Sparda, he
told himself. This is what you wanted. What
you fought for, bled for. What you cut
your twin brother in half for. For the
chance to see Lady smile.

“That’s wonderful,” he lied.

She pinned him with her gaze, and her face went solemn. “You’re not happy about this occurrence, are
you?”

He reached out, grazed her cheekbone with gentle
fingers. “We both know what I am,
babe. We both know Hell will never stop
hunting me. That kind of stuff doesn’t
make for home and family life. Besides,
you’ve been through enough bad things, what with your mom and all. I wouldn’t want you to go through raising a
son of Sparda, too.”

This time her smile held a tinge of sadness. “I would have done it, you know. You didn’t ask. You always did sell me short.”

He swung his feet to the floor, leaned forward and took her
hand. “No, I didn’t do that. Never that.” He lowered his voice to his best imitation Marlon Brando
growl. “I made you an offer you
couldn’t refuse. Just make me a
godfadda, and evathin’ will be fine.”

She gave him a playful smack, and they both laughed. “You probably won’t have to wait too long
for that to happen, Don Corleone.”

“What?” He
frowned. “Are you in the family way?”

“No-o-o-o.” Her
voice held a world of reproach.

“All right.” He
pulled out Ebony and twirled it. “I
might have to talk with this guy otherwise.”

Lady threw her arms around his neck and hugged him
tight. “Only you would say that. No one else cares about me the way you do.”

Dante fought down the urge to throw her to the floor and do
unspeakable things to her body. She
released him, and he breathed out in relief.

“You’re my best friend.
I want you to be my bridesmaid.”

He choked, snorted and broke into uproarious laughter. “Babe, I know you’ve hit your head a lot of
times while we were devil hunting, but I didn’t think you were so messed up you
didn’t remember I’m a guy.”

“I’m getting married, you idiot; I’m not dead.”

Dante raised his eyebrows in question.

“A woman would have to be dead to not notice you’re a
guy.” Lady became serious. “Please, Dante, I don’t have any family, and
I haven’t had a close girlfriend for a long time. I want someone to be with me when I make all the decisions about
flowers and cakes and dresses. Someone
to stand beside me at the altar.”

“Someone to give you away.”
He tried to keep it out, but a hint of bitterness crept into his voice.

She drew a long, deep breath. “That, too. Won’t you do
it for me? Please?”

He thought once more of all the other things he’d done for her. “Okay, but I’m gonna look pretty damn stupid
in a dress.”

The merry, infectious sound of her laughter eased his aching
heart a little.

“I—promise—you—don’t—have—to—wear—a—dress,” she said between
gasps.

“Good.” A silence
fell over the room. Dante broke it by
saying, “I hope he’s worth it, Lady.”

“Oh, he is.” Her
face softened and took on a quiet, dreamy look. She smiled a little half smile, and Dante wanted to beat his
forehead on the desk to shut out his pain.

Instead he said, “So, do I get to meet this paragon of
virtue?”

She nodded. “At
dinner tomorrow night. After you and I
spend the day with the wedding planner and shopping.”

Dante hoped his smile didn’t reflect how sick he felt. “Let’s rock, baby.”

Lady rousted him out of bed at the ungodly hour of ten AM
the next morning. Even a shower and
shave did nothing to improve either his looks or his disposition. The bleary gaze staring back at him from the
bathroom mirror could have caused Caesar to cower. He hated to think of the effect it might have on women and small
children.

At least a quick, breezy trip uptown on the back of his hog
cleared his head a little. Not nearly
enough for the meeting with the wedding planner, however. One look at her trendy little shop set his
teeth on edge. The woman herself was an
even better pain in the ass. Tall and
thin, with a bouffant shock of red hair, gray-green eyes the color of newly
minted dollar bills and a face that would never see thirty again no matter how
many times she lifted it, she came out from behind her desk and gave Lady an
effusive greeting.

“Oh, yes, Miss Arkham.
I spoke on the phone with you yesterday.” She looked Dante up and down, eyes goggling at his red and black
leathers, Ebony and Ivory and the grinning skull of Rebellion leering over his
back. “And this must be the groom?”

Dante bared his teeth in an ersatz smile. “Nope.
I’m the bridesmaid.”

The woman blinked.
“Oh.”

Lady blushed. “He’s
my best friend. I want him to be my
attendant.”

Dante clenched his fist to keep from busting the woman’s
cat-in-the-cream smile off her face.

“Of course you do, dear,” the nasty old bat simpered. “This is the twenty-first century after
all. Non-traditional is the norm.”

Dante privately thought that in this woman’s case, anything
you wanted was the norm. As long as you
were willing to pay for it.

“Will this be a church wedding?” the planner asked.

Dante had a vision of what a fiasco that circumstance would
be. His emphatic, “No!” rang out in
chorus at the same time as Lady’s.

Lady hastily explained, “I’d like an outdoor ceremony. I want to use the Poet’s Courtyard in the
Metropolis Botanical Garden.”

“Lovely, dear. Just
lovely. You wanted seating for two
hundred, right?”

“Two hundred?!” Dante choked. “Chri—Cra—Crud, Lady! You
know that many people?”

Lady grinned.
“Joshua has a large family.
They’re coming in from all over the state. He has lots of friends at the university, too. Then there’s Enzo and the other people we
know from the business. Yeah, I’d say
two hundred about covers it.”

Abashed, Dante subsided.
He soon discovered the only effort required from him was to glance at
whatever Lady put in front of him and make suitable encouraging noises. Just when he thought he would expire from
boredom at color choices (Lady wanted peach and light green), invitations (Lady
nixed the Gothic typeface), napkins (Lady chose the ones with the little silver
bells beneath her and Bozo’s name), flowers (roses, of course), and caterers
(Dante would have bet the bullets for his guns there wouldn’t be any pizza),
the subject of music came up.

“Will you have the standard wedding music, dear?” the old
bat asked.

Dante spoke up. “You
don’t want the Wagner and the Mendelssohn, Lady. Everybody does them. You
want this to be a day to remember. Use
Paul Stookey’s ‘The Wedding Song’ for before the ceremony. Walk in to Pachelbel’s ‘Canon in D
Major.’ Walk out to the Finale from
Handel’s ‘Water Music.’ And for the
song get a boy to solo Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria.’”

Her eyes wide with surprise Lady said, “I thought you only
listened to rock and roll.”

Dante smiled a canny smile.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.
Trust me on this Lady. You won’t
regret it.”

She laughed. “All
right. But if you’ve shafted me, I’ll
come after you with Kalina Ann.”

“I’ll give you an unblocked shot.”

After that the wedding planner sent them off to a dress
designer/tailor she knew to look at wedding attire. They spent about twenty minutes looking at dress pictures. Dante vetoed gown after gown until both Lady
and the round, grandmotherly woman who ran the place began to glare at him.

He gave grandma his best, most charming boyish smile. “Would you excuse us for a moment? We need to have a little talk.”

Dazzled the woman nodded and smiled. “Of course.”

He took the baffled Lady by the arm, pulled her out to the
street and confronted her.

“Have you thought about what weapons you’ll be carrying?”

Lady gave him a sulky look.
“No.”

Dante bit back the urge to yell. He put all the sarcasm he could muster into his voice
instead. “No? Have your brains leaked out?
You can’t go to this ceremony unarmed.
Hell loves weddings, Lady.
They’re sacred rites, dedicated to life and light. Devils like nothing better than to sully
things like that if they can.”

“All right. I’ll
carry my guns.”

He snorted. “Not
likely. There’s no way you can hide
those .45s. I’ve got a pair of
snub-nosed .38s I can lend you. They
can be your something borrowed. And
I’ve got a long silver knife you can wear down your back. I’ll have a scabbard made for it. But you’re going to have to look at a
different style of dress. No sheaths.”

She cocked head. “I
suppose you have something in mind?”

He winced a little at the faint venom in her voice and
sighed. “As a matter of fact, I
do. Come on.”

They reentered the shop.
Dante wasn’t sure if the proprietor looked pleased or dismayed by their
return.

“Do you have a computer I can use?” he asked her. The designer nodded. Dante seated himself before the machine,
typed in a few quick keystrokes and called up an image.

“Can you copy this little rag?” He gestured at the screen.

The gown had been made for a petite woman. It had a bell-shaped skirt of white satin,
covered by an overskirt of transparent silk vertically striped with more white
satin. A bodice of white satin had
v-shaped point that plunged into the front of the skirt. An open short jacket with puffy cap sleeves
made of the same see-through silk and satin stripe material went over the
bodice. The ends of the sleeve were
finished in a wide band of delicate lace dotted with tiny crosses and finished
with a leaf, stem and flower pattern. A
narrower strip of the lace rimmed a pleated ribbon of white satin which curved
around the jacket’s edge and cascaded down the skirt at the back and hips. The same ribbon and lace concoction trimmed
the sleeves at the shoulder.

Both Lady and the designer drew breath in admiration of the
charming dress.

“Rag!” the older woman said. “Boy, you ought to be shot for sacrilege!”

“Don’t waste your time,” Lady muttered dryly. “It’s beautiful, Dante. I had no idea you could operate a computer.”

He shot her a long-suffering look. “I have a library card, Lady, and I know how to use it. The only reason I don’t have one of the
things in the office is it wouldn’t last two minutes, if you know what I mean.”

“True.”

“How did you find this dress, boy?” The designer asked.

“It’s in the Metropolis museum. I saw it once a long time ago.”
For a moment he became lost in the memory. Then he jerked himself back to the present saying, “It will need
a few modifications. Big enough splits
in the material of the skirts and petticoats for Lady to slip her hands
through. Here and here.” He indicated the arcs along the area of the
hips. “I’ll get a holster constructed
that will swivel upward. It’d be a slow
draw, but if worst comes to worst you can always shoot through the dress.”

“Shoot?” The old
lady blinked.

Dante smiled what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “We’re sort of like special police.”

The woman grinned at him.
She waved a dismissing hand at the guns and sword. “Hell, boy, I thought you were just a couple
of crazy Goth kids.”

“Don’t I wish,” Lady said.

“So, boy, what are we going to do with you?” The designer grinned an anticipatory grin.

Dante grimaced. “Oh,
I’m wearing a tux. In peach. All I need is extra room in the jacket for
the guns.” He felt his face grow red as
the old lady laughed and laughed.

She took their measurements, and they left the shop with
little cards for appointments to fit the gown and the tux. They traipsed from dress shop to shoe shop
to dress shop until Dante thought he would lose his mind. Lady wouldn’t even stop to eat. They wolfed disgusting hot dogs from a
vendor’s cart as they walked.

Lady purchased a sedate shirt-waist in hunter green with a
faux alligator belt for her going away dress.
She crowed in happiness when she found a pair of shoes that matched it.

Dante’s only understandable comment in hours had been to
growl, “No damned high heels, Lady.
Flats. You can’t run in heels.”

Lady had stuck out her tongue at him and reluctantly
returned the three-inch spikes to the shoe rack.

She bought underwear (Dante had to make a fast trip to the
men’s room), two more pairs of shoes, a mammoth box of Godiva chocolates, a
gigantic teddy bear (for Stephanie, Joshua’s niece, who would be the flower
girl), a huge toy fire truck (for Logan, Joshua’s nephew, who would be the ring
bearer), and a rust-colored bikini swimsuit (for the honeymoon in Jamaica, what
else). Dante was laden down like a pack
mule by the time they staggered back through the streets to where they had
parked the bikes. They couldn’t even
spare the minutes to drop the stuff off before they had to meet Joshua for dinner,
so Dante lugged it all into the restaurant and left it with the coat check
girl, much to the chagrin of the maitre’d.
The pompous ass also had the nerve to object to Rebellion and demanded
to see Dante’s license. Dante quelled
the man with a look and flipped out his box tops. By the time they had walked to the table the entire restaurant
had fallen silent.

Joshua was a fairly tall, slender man with red-brown hair
and brown eyes. He rose as they
approached the table. Dante had to
admit to himself that the man didn’t rattle.
Joshua’s eyes only widened slightly when confronted with leathers, the
guns, the sword, the whole compelling package that was Dante Sparda, devil
hunter.

He held out his hand.
“Joshua Wayne.”

Dante took it. Lady
was watching so he refrained from doing something juvenile like squeezing
fingers really hard. “Dante Sparda.”

He was rewarded with a smile. Joshua, on the other hand, got a kiss.

“Sparda,” Joshua said.
“As in the Legendary Dark….”

“Yeah.” Dante cut
him off, then countered with a question of his own. “Any relation to Bruce?”

“Kissing cousin.”
Joshua gave him an eager smile.
“You know Bruce?”

“I run across him every now and again. We’re sort of in the same line of business.”

Joshua looked a little puzzled. Lady intervened. “Why
don’t we sit down and order.”

They managed that feat by dint of propping Rebellion against
the table. Dante whispered to it, “Go
to sleep.”

Rebellion just ignored him and left its mouth wide and
gaping. He was tempted to rap the skull
with his knuckles but decided the effort wasn’t worth it. Dante opted for a wilted spinach salad,
filet mignon--blood rare, potatoes Lyonnaise, green beans Amandine, a large
piece of strawberry cheesecake, and a full carafe of Merlot. After all, Bozo was paying.

He learned a hard lesson that night about how difficult it
was to sit across a table and make polite conversation with a man you were
insanely jealous of. It was even more
difficult when the fellow turned out to be a pretty decent guy who gave you no
real cause to dislike him. They
finished the meal and lingered over coffee and cognac.

Joshua smiled. “Lady
talks about you all the time.”

Dante smiled back, but he was afraid it didn’t reach his
eyes. “That’s funny. She never mentioned you until
yesterday.”

He flinched a little when Lady’s warning kick caught him in
the knee. She leaned forward and looked
him in the eye. “I’m going to the
ladies room to freshen up. I’m sure you
two have a lot to say to each other.
Play nice, now, boys.”

As they watched her walk away, Dante was sure the look of
pride and longing on his face matched the one on Joshua’s.

“You know what she does for a living,” he said. Joshua nodded, his expression grave.

“You gonna ask her to quit?”

“No. I want to marry
her, not run her life. If I love her, I
have to accept her the way she is.”

“Good.” Dante
slouched in his chair. He picked up the
snifter and swirled the amber liquid in the glass. “If she ever comes to me hurt and cryin’ cause of you, I’ll send
you to Hell so fast your shadow won’t be able to keep up.”

Joshua set clenched fists on the white linen tabletop. “Okay.
As long as you realize that Lady loves you, too. If you hurt her, I may not be able to kill
you, but it won’t be for lack of trying.”

Dante downed the liquor in one long swallow and said, “Least
we understand each other.”

When Lady returned, he excused himself and left. Any fool could see they wanted to be alone
together, and Dante Sparda was no fool.
Still, the shop seemed somehow dull when he got back to it.

“I don’t know,” he told Rebellion as he hung the sword on
the hooks driven into the stupendous bosoms of the girlie poster he had pinned
to the wall, “Maybe if I’d taken Lady to someplace classy like that restaurant
instead of the Bull’s-eye, she’d be comin’ here with me.”

Rebellion, as usual, had nothing to say. Dante gathered up a fifth of Jack Daniel’s®
Black Label and a fifth of Beefeater’s® gin.
Then he picked up Nevan, sat in his chair and propped his feet up on the
desk. Chasing the whiskey with the gin,
he played blues on the guitar until around dawn when he fell asleep and dreamed
of Vergil falling from the top of Temen-ni-gru, his blue coat fluttering around
him like the wild, wounded wings of a bird.

Weeks passed all too quickly. Lady continued to work with him, but she didn’t hang around for
pizza and beer after a job like she used to.
Dante really missed that simple closeness. He bought a pair of shiny black dress shoes and went for the
fitting for his tuxedo.

“Take it easy, grandma,” he told the designer after she
stuck him for about the fiftieth time. “That’s real flesh and blood, ya know.”

“Sorry, boy,” she said around a mouthful of pins. “I’m a little flustered. The gentlemen I usually I get are too fat,
too thin or exploding with acne. I
don’t often come across a magnificent specimen of manhood like you.”

Scandalized, Dante said, “Shame on you, thinking about
things like that at your age.”

“I’m old, boy. I’m
not dead.” She straightened. Turning him toward the mirror she asked,
“What do you think?”

Dante stared at himself in the glass. “I look like an anemic carrot.”

The old lady laughed.
“Don’t worry, son. They won’t be
looking at you; they’ll be looking at the bride. Even if you are prettier.”

“That’s not much consolation.”

Dante did find that it wasn’t so bad being the only man at
an otherwise all girl lingerie shower.
One of Joshua’s female co-workers at the Metropolis City University
found out Lady had no family and insisted on throwing the bash. The women flocked around him and cooed over
him, plying him with plate after plate of cake and punch. They played stupid word games and laughed at
his indignation that he had to give Lady his prizes when he won. Everything was fine until Lady began to open
her gifts.

Dante’s hormones went on overload, and his mind supplied
picture after erotic picture as the packages spilled forth tantalizing
creations of satin, lace, silk, and sheer, filmy nylon in a rainbow of colors,
patterns and styles: Red, black, white, turquoise blue, light cream with pink
roses, and a even a frothy concoction of pale, sea green. Each new piece sent a fantasy reeling
through him that would have garnered triple X ratings from the Motion Picture
Association of America. In his wildest
dreams he had never imagined sleep wear could be such consummate torment.

He sat on a couch, a purloined pillow clutched across his
lap. Shiver after shiver racked him as
sweet feminine merriment pealed around him like joyous bells. The vision of Lady, her face flushed with
pleasure, mismatched eyes aglow, danced before him like a candle flame. His body burned like Hell’s own fire, and he
feared he might just go berserk and devil trigger if this damned party didn’t
end soon.

Lady saved his gift for last. The swanky box wrapped in matte silver paper and wide red ribbons
of real satin intrigued her. She
rattled the package, and the smile she sent his way lanced through him.

“Dante,” she said, “this is incredible.”

She fell on the box like a wild thing, ignoring the other
women’s injunctions not to rip the ribbons and paper. Wrenching the lid from the box, she tossed it aside. She opened the folds of tissue paper, and
her face fell. Puzzlement crossed her
features as she began to lift the garment from the carton.

The baggy robe, made from dull gray sweatshirt material, had
a high turtleneck and wrist length sleeves ending in tight jersey cuffs. Yards of fabric fell in a straight line that
would clearly puddle onto the floor below Lady’s feet. The outfit ended in a drawstring pulled
tightly closed. The loops of the string
were linked together by a heavy-duty padlock.

Dante spun a dual set of keys on a brass key ring around his
forefinger. “Wouldn’t want you to make
it too easy for him.”

The room dissolved in mad hilarity. When Lady could catch her breath, she
sputtered, “You—you devil, you.”

Dante’s smile held a hint of sad. “That’s me, babe. Through
and through.” He tossed her the
keys. As she caught them, he said, “Look
in the paper. There’s another box.”

Lady pulled out a second box decorated in the same
high-toned wrappings. She tore it open,
and the buzzing room fell silent when she drew forth the contents. A regal spaghetti strapped sheath gown in
iridescent silk of the rich, imperial purple color Lady favored flowed over her
hands. A soft sleep bra and bikini cut
panties in the same material and color nestled in the package as well.

“Dante.” He trembled
when she breathed his name. “It’s
exquisite.”

“So are you, babe.
So are you.”

He survived the rest of the festivities, fleeing to the
seedy sanctuary of Devil May Cry as soon afterwards as possible. Visions of Lady in varying lingerie cycled
through his head over and over during his ride home. He almost wrecked the bike twice.

“Hellhole, sweet hellhole,” he muttered as he parked his
hog. He ensconced himself behind his
desk again and downed glass after glass of Stolichnaya® vodka until he could no
longer see. Once more he dreamed of
Vergil.

Cackling imps surrounded his brother’s writhing naked
body. When Vergil’s face turned toward
him, it was streaked with sweat and blood and tears. His white hair, matted and dank, tumbled over his forehead in
disarray. As the imps rent him with
teeth and claws, Vergil cried out in agony at the torture. Dante echoed his twin’s scream with a cry of
his own, a cry of rage, and infinite, unbearable pain.

He bolted awake and fell off his chair. When he staggered to his feet, he went
through the entire office and dumped every bottle of vodka he found in the back
alley trash.

Things started going wrong after the shower. A mistake occurred in the print on the
invitations, and they had to be sent back.
The caterer lost her liquor license and couldn’t supply a bar. The violinist in the musicians broke his arm
and couldn’t play. The eleven-year-old
boy who was to sing the solo’s voice broke.
Joshua’s parents found out their frequent flyer miles didn’t include
trips to Metropolis.

Lady’s face went perpetually pale, and her eyes had a
hunted, haunted look Dante hadn’t seen in them since he met her in
Temen-ni-gru.

“I know you like purple, babe, but it really isn’t
flattering worn under your eyes.”
He had his feet propped on the desk in his usual position, and he toyed
with a little dagger he’d taken off a demon earlier that night by flipping it
over and over in his hand.

“Don’t you start on me.”

“I know how to fix all this crap, babe.”

“Sure you do.”

“Seriously.” He
caught the dagger by its tip and spun it hard so it landed with a solid thunk
in the far wall. “I’ll give you a
thousand dollars if you and Bo-ah-Joshua will just pack a bag and elope.”

Lady worried her lower lip.
She gave him a reproachful look.
“I can’t, Dante. It’s a family
thing.”

“Yeah, well don’t give me that bullshit that I don’t
understand about family, Lady. It won’t
wash anymore.”

The bad luck turned around. The
invitations got fixed by the printer, the wedding planner found a new caterer
and new musicians. The routes for the
frequent flyer miles got suddenly and mysteriously changed. Dante only rolled his eyes and shrugged when
Lady demanded to know how that event had happened.

He received an invitation to Bozo’s bachelor party which he
sagaciously refused. He did recommend
they have the party at Love Planet and paid out a major chunk of cold, hard
cash for the girls to be extra nice to Bozo and the boys that night. He supposed it was petty to hope that Bozo
might be indiscreet and turn up with a heavy-duty case of the clap so Lady
would ditch him without a backward glance.
Dante didn’t think he could get that lucky. Bozo didn’t strike him as stupid.

Dante was late to the rehearsal.   He got a call for a job he couldn’t refuse, and it took longer
than he thought it would to dispatch the damned Arachne queen and her
bitches. Plus they were rehearsing in a
rented hall instead of the garden because it had been pouring rain in a steady
stream for the last two days. Soaked to
the skin, he strode into the hall from the darkness, shaking water and other
less savory things off himself and swearing under his breath.

He was met by a little girl. About four or five years old with bright copper-colored curls she
pinned him with an avid blue stare taking in his clothes and weapons without so
much as a flinch.

“You’re late,” she said in imperious tones.

“Yeah, well I couldn’t help it.”

“I have a new dress, but I don’t get to wear it ‘til
tomorrow.”

“That’s nice. What’s
your name, Princess?”

“Stephanie. I’m not
a princess.” Her tone changed to
suspicious. “Grown ups only say things
like that when they want something from you.”

Dante laughed. “To
me all little girls are princesses, precious and fine. Can you tell me where Lady is?”

The girl grinned.
“She’s in the women’s bathroom, cryin’.”

He frowned.
“Crying?”

“Yeah. Grandma Wayne
started complainin’ cause you weren’t here on time, and Lady yelled at her to
shut up cause what you did is dangerous and if you were late you might be
dead. She used cuss words!” Awe and admiration filled the girl’s
voice. “I wanna be just like her when I
grow up.” She frowned, peering at
Dante’s leathers. “Ooooh, what’s that nasty
black stuff all over you?”

“Sure you want to know, Princess?” he asked. She nodded, so in a loud stage whisper he
replied, “Demon blood.”

Her eyes grew huge.
“Really?”

“Really,” he said.

“Way cool,” she breathed.
Then she bellowed at the top of her lungs. “Logan, c’mere quick!
There’s this neat weird guy in the lobby, and he’s covered in spider
webby gunk and demon blood!”

After that the hoards descended: Joshua, the two guys who were his groomsmen, a little boy with
black hair and sharp green eyes that had to be Logan, a woman who, by her
similar coloration, could only be Logan’s mother balancing a baby on her
hip. Lady appeared, laughing and crying
at the same time. She flung her arms
around him before he could stop her.

“You shouldn’t a done that, babe. I’m all messed up.”

“Oh, I don’t care.
You’re here and you’re okay.
That’s all that matters. None of
this is yours, I hope?”

“Only a little.”

“Oh, Dante.
Arachnes?”

“Yep.”

“Next time I can’t be there, take Kalina Ann.”

“Like I really need that much more dead weight. I’m sorry I’m late, Lady.”

She punched him in the shoulder. Of a sudden the babble in the room fell silent, and the Wayne
family parted like the Red Sea. A tall,
Junoesque woman with dark auburn hair and deep brown eyes walked slowly toward
him. She swept him with a condescending
stare that at once both weighed him and dismissed him as below her notice.

“The dangerous Mr. Sparda, I presume?” she murmured.

Infernal old dragon, Dante
thought. He released Lady and performed
the perfunctory formal bow his mother had taught him in childhood. Aloud he said, “I apologize for my tardiness
and my attire, Mrs. Wayne. It was a
matter of life and death, I assure you.”

She looked frigidly amused.
“Yours?”

“Someone else’s.”

“How sad.” She
turned away from him and began walking back toward the interior saying, “I
suppose the damage is already done. We
might as well proceed from here.”

Lady’s mismatched eyes went wild with fury. She opened her mouth. Dante clapped a gloved hand over it.

“Let it go, babe.
Old wyverns like her always breathe fire. We’ve got more important things to do than pull her tail.”

He turned her loose and her shoulders slumped. “It’s just that everything’s ruined. It’s supposed to rain like this tomorrow.”

He caught her chin with his fingers, tipping her face up so
she had to look him in the eyes. “Cheer
up, babe. It will be all right.”

Since he’d coughed up a bundle of bread for three weather
witches to guarantee favorable weather on Lady’s wedding day, it had better be
all right. They were probably getting
so much rain right now to balance out the magical scales.

“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one getting married.”

“Yeah, I know.”

He let her go and faced Joshua. “You want to keep hold of her hands when she’s mad. Lady sometimes forgets not all of her
opponents are demons.”

Joshua grinned. “I
will.”

“Shut up, Sparda!”
Lady flung the words over her shoulder.
“And get your butt in here so we can start this rehearsal.”

“She’s always telling me to shut up.” He gave Joshua an inquiring look. “Does she talk to you like that?”

“Yep, I’m afraid so.”

“Figures.”

The rehearsal went off without a hitch even if Ebony, Ivory
and Rebellion made the preacher mortally uncomfortable. Dante wondered what kind of holy man he was
if just the idea of somebody facing the afterlife made him that nervous. The guy danced around like a water drop on a
hot griddle every time he had to stand close to Dante.

Dante wanted to bow out of the rehearsal dinner, considering
his costume and all, but Lady wasn’t having it. She said if she had to go, so did he. He did insist on going by his place to shower and change
clothes. It amused the Hell out of him
to watch Lady’s jaw drop when he showed up at the restaurant in a black sport
coat, a red silk shirt, black slacks, and his shiny new dress shoes. He even slicked his hair back like Vergil’s
just to boost her shock factor.

Dante almost enjoyed himself talking to Joshua, Joshua’s
brother, Tom, and their best friend, Charlie.
But the dragon couldn’t quit chipping her teeth at Lady, until even
Joshua’s dad, who seemed like a thoughtful, laid-back kind of guy, rebuked her
in Lady’s defense. Dante thought about
telling her to take herself and her family, including her Bozo son, back to the
hinterlands of upstate and leave him and his Lady alone. He didn’t because he knew Lady wouldn’t
appreciate him interfering in her family matters. She liked to kill her dragons all by herself.

During his bike ride home Dante thought about his
mother. He wondered what she would have
thought of Lady. He wasn’t sure if his
mom would have liked Lady or not, but he knew one thing for certain. Even if she hadn’t liked her, Eva would
never have been fool enough to run Lady down in front of him.

The next day dawned fair and temperate. The sun shone warm, not hot, and a light breeze
sent white, fluffy clouds drifting slowly across the cerulean sky. Dante decided vindication was a fine
thing. At least he’d gotten his money’s
worth from the witches. At precisely
two in the afternoon he nodded to the three devil hunters he saw standing guard
at the entrance to the gardens as he rode his cycle inside. He’d hired a couple dozen hunters to set up
wards and patrol the grounds during the ceremony. Just to keep off uninvited demonic guests. The wedding would start at three.

Everything looked good.
The pre-nuptial details were proceeding without a hitch. Dante was standing in the men’s tent, jacket
off, threading a pale green carnation boutonniere through his buttonhole and
wishing he was wearing a plain black tux like the other guys. Then the preacher entered, carrying his
vestments. The little man’s eyes
goggled at the sight of Ebony and Ivory tucked into shoulder holsters hanging
at Dante’s sides.

“You’re wearing guns,” he gasped.

“So?” Dante said.

“But-but this is a wedding!”

Dante looked at Joshua who shrugged his shoulders. “So?” Dante repeated. “I got a license, and they won’t show during
the rite. Take it easy, man.”

Dante and the other men could barely suppress their laughter
as the holy man minced and flounced around the tent trying to avoid him and his
unholy firearms. Until the fellow
slipped and fell. It still would have
been all right, but guy caught the side of his head against a folding chair on
his way down.

“Damn,” Dante swore as he knelt beside the preacher and
checked his pulse. He swore some
more. “Ah, violate me with a blackened
pitchfork! Call 911 on your cell phone,
Joshua. The dumb s.o.b.’s gone and
bashed his head in.” He stood up. “I’d better go tell Lady.”

She took it well.
The dragon, however, breathed a lot of fire, and everybody and his dog
managed to get in the way of the EMT’s and the ambulance. The park staff began to make noises about
moving them out to make way for the scheduled presentation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth that was to have followed the
wedding.

However, a phone call from Bruce to the chairman of the
board of trustees for the Botanical Gardens, and the promise of a sizable
donation from the Wayne Foundation to both them and the acting company
convinced them to cancel the performance and smoothed that entire hullabaloo
over. Bruce also contacted another
preacher who was more than willing to officiate on short notice for a small
stipend in his pocket and a large currency drop in his congregation’s
collection plate. Though it burned
Dante’s ass to have the day rescued by the “other” Legendary Dark Knight, he
kept his teeth in his mouth and made sure to have his jacket on before the next
devil dodger arrived.

The pandemonium ceased.
The musicians filled the soft late spring air with the dulcet strains of
“The Wedding Song.” The sweet scents of
lilacs, roses and cherry blossoms graced the gentle breeze. The garden bloomed in a riot of color. Snowballs nodded heavy white heads. Peonies rivaled them in size and overran
them in hue, ranging from ice white through every shade of pink imaginable to
deep red. Multiple colors of tiny
crocuses, spiky hyacinths and smooth-bowled tulips, along with brilliant yellow
jonquils and swaying poppies in scarlet and orange lingered unusually late,
nestling amid stately irises who displayed a rainbow of hues themselves. Roses, the flower beloved by every bride,
had been coaxed to bloom early, spilling themselves among the other plants in
symmetrical crimson arcs.

Dante gazed at the arbor of the Poet’s Courtyard and felt a
deep satisfaction. He’d taken a lot of
ribbing from the guys at Aztec and Pizza One about his orders which had
quadrupled since he’d been bribing the pixies to take special care of the
garden. Who’d have ever thought the little
buggers could eat so much? Spotting a
tri-cornered pixie face peering at him from between the leaves, he pointed a
warning finger at it. It stuck its
tongue out at him but wisely chose to vanish.

“What’s going on?” Lady’s voice rang low in his ear.

He turned to face her, and his breath wedged in his
throat. The snowy gown encased her in
pristine glory. An alabaster satin tea
hat with a huge rose and loops of infinitesimal seed pearls rested atop her
inky hair. It was patterned after the
hats Victorian women had worn with their riding habits, and its jaunty air
suited Lady to a tee. Elegant veils,
edged in the same lace that appeared on her gown, shrouded her face in mystery,
tumbling in a pale sheer fall that ended at her elbows. One hand clutched a cascading bouquet of
white and peach-colored roses entwined with delicate baby’s breath.

“Nothing,” he said.
“Just saw a buddy of mine.”

“Dante, this is me.
You don’t have buddies.”

“I only listen to rock and roll and don’t know how to use a
computer either.”

Fortunately, he was saved from Lady’s reply by the
appearance of Logan and Stephanie being herded toward them by Logan’s harried
mother. At least the baby she still
trailed from one arm was of a sunny disposition and only gurgled instead of
wailing like most little ones. Dante
held out his hands to the children who hurtled themselves on him, calling his
name.

“Look, Dante. I’m
wearing my new dress.”   Stephanie
released his hand and twirled, belling out the skirts on her pale green dress
and setting the verdant ribbons twined in her copper curls to dancing.

“Very pretty,” Dante said.
“And you told me you weren’t a princess.”

“I look like one today, don’t I?” The happiness in her blue eyes made Dante’s heart give a little
twist.

“Yep.” Dante took in
Logan’s sulky lower lip and the storm that was brewing in the boy’s green eyes.

“You gotta problem, buddy?” he asked. The boy snorted.

“I look really dumb in this stupid orange suit,” Logan
snapped. “So do you. How come you can’t wear your sword and
stuff? You looked lots neater then.”

“Logan!” his mother chided, “Apologize to Mr. Sparda.”

Dante grinned at Logan’s mom. “It’s okay. I agree with
him. Why don’t you go on and sit
down. Don’t worry about Stephanie and
Logan. Lady and I will handle them.”

“Are you sure?
They’re a menace.”

Stephanie and Logan were now struggling over the possession
of Logan’s ring bearer pillow. Dante
thought of all the demons he and Lady had faced together. Surely small children couldn’t hold a candle
to supernatural warfare. “Yeah.”

“Thanks.” The woman
beat a hasty retreat up the aisle.

“My, you’re confident.”
Lady’s voice, muffled by her veil, held cool amusement.

“Just watch the master at work.” He snapped his fingers, garnering Stephanie and Logan’s
attention. “You two knock that off and
come over here.”

They stopped fighting and came to stand before him. Dante had removed a paper napkin from his
pocket. He held it out and pointed at
the mouths before him.

He said, “Open.”
They did. “Deposit.” Two large wads of bubblegum went into his
napkin. “Good. Logan, retie those rings on that
pillow. Don’t you dare lose them. If you lose them, I might have to shoot
ya.” The boy’s eyes went wide. Stephanie sniggered. Dante turned his attention to her. “You, Princess, you keep your hands to
yourself. You got a basket; you don’t
need a pillow, too. If you don’t behave,
I might have to let Logan deck you one.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” she huffed.

Lady could barely contain her laughter. “Oh yes, he would. He’s the one who taught me that little girls who want to do it
all themselves had better be prepared to take their lumps.”

Dante stole two chairs from the last row of seats. “Park yourselves. It won’t be long now.
This party’s getting’ started.”

“You’re pretty good with them.” Admiration filled Lady’s voice.
“I wouldn’t have thought of the gum.”

“What’d ya expect? I
was a kid once, ya know.”

“Sometimes it seems like you still are one.”

“Oh, now, Lady, that’s cold.” Dante’s head went up as the notes of the music slowed and
dropped. The minister, Joshua and the
groomsmen had appeared beneath the spreading branches of the two cherry trees
that formed the perfect frame for the ceremony. “Showtime.”

He chivvied Logan and Stephanie off the chairs. As the calm, dignified melody of the
Pachelbel canon unwound, he sent Logan down the aisle with the hissed command,
“Remember what I said about those rings.”

The boy shot him a scathing look. “I can handle it. Besides
you won’t shoot me. My mom won’t let
you.”

Dante muttered, “Don’t count on it.” He waited until Logan was halfway down then
turned to the little girl. “Okay,
Princess. Time to shine.” As she minced off, he softly admonished,
“Stephanie, scatter.”

Relief filled him as the rose petals from her basket
fluttered down around her. With a
grave, unsmiling look he held out his arm to Lady. She threaded hers through it, linking their elbows and resting
her small hand on his forearm.

“What no instructions for me, mother hen?” she teased.

He swallowed the hard lump in his throat. He wanted to beg her to change her mind, to
come away with him and leave all this wedding craziness behind. Instead he just said, “No.”

Stephanie had reached the halfway mark. Dante drew a deep breath and stepped into
the aisle with Lady. The guests rose
and they began their walk. Bright
sunshine caught Lady’s veils and they began to shimmer, bathing her in an ethereal
radiance. She looked so beautiful Dante
almost wished he could close his eyes.

Little Stephanie reached the front. She stopped and looked back over her
shoulder at the wedding crowd. Then she
bent forward, placed her hands on the ground and flipped up the back of her
skirts.

“See, everybody!” she crowed jubilantly. “My panties match!”

Dante shook with suppressed laughter. Beside him Lady shivered as well.

“Oh, god, Lady,” he whispered through clenched teeth, “Don’t
laugh. If you laugh, I will, and we’ll
never make it up this aisle.”

A shell-shocked Joshua stepped forward and pulled Stephanie
to his side, and the perilous moment passed.
The rest of their walk moved with dreamlike clarity and languor. At last they reached the end.

The preacher asked, “Who gives this woman to be married to
this man?”

“I do.” Dante’s ears
roared, but his voice rang out strong and clear as in one wrenching moment he
handed his heart to the smiling young man with the dark eager eyes.

He forced himself to watch them, knowing he could never face
himself if he looked away. Forced
himself to listen to the clean, angelic voice of the soloist as he sang the
praises of another Mary. The service
seemed to drag on with interminable slowness until it came time to exchange the
rings. Tom, the best man, held his hand
out for the pillow, but Logan refused to give it up.

“I have to hold on to the rings,” the boy protested. He waved the pillow in Dante’s
direction. “He said he’d shoot me if I
lose them.”

A long, deadly silence filled the air. Dante bared his teeth in what he hoped most
of them took for a smile and leaned forward.
“Logan,” he said, “give Tom the pillow, or I’ll do worse than shoot
you. I’ll turn you over to your
grandma.”

Logan knew a threat display when he saw one. He relinquished the jewelry without another
word. The vows proceeded. When Joshua lifted the blusher veil and
kissed the radiant Lady, Dante wished with all his aching soul he had followed
Vergil off the top of Temen-ni-gru and left this world and this woman behind
him.

The violins rang out in the triumphant notes of the “Finale”
from “Water Music.” The bride and groom
swept back down the walkway, the children following them as meek and malleable
as lambs. Tom offered his arm to Dante
with a grin on his dark, saturnine face.
Dante grinned back and accepted.

“Don’t let this give you ideas,” he murmured as they strode
through the crowd.

Tom raised his eyebrows in mock indignation. “I’ll have you know, I’m a married man.”

Dante laughed, past caring if it offended anyone or
not. “The good ones always are.”

At the large hall Joshua and Lady had hired for the
reception Dante endured more wedding festivities. The photo shoot, the toast, the cutesy atrocity of the bride and
groom feeding each other wedding cake.
He skipped the throwing of the bouquet, but when it came time he
snatched the blue garter out of the air with preternatural speed, determined
that no man but him or Joshua was going to touch something that had graced the
region of Lady’s inner thigh. Wrapping
it in a napkin, he carefully stowed it in the pocket of his jacket, right next
to the one filled with gum.

He was grateful as all Hell that someone else had already
opened all the wedding gifts and placed them on display for the guests to
ogle. Dante had already had his wedding
gift delivered to Joshua’s upscale brownstone apartment a week ago. He’d bought them a bed big enough to double
as a football field built from massive solid pieces of carved golden oak. He figured as quick as Lady’s temper was and
as fast as she could move, it ought to wear a man out chasing her around a bed
like that. After all, there was no
point making things easy for the Bozo.

At least they could all get on to the only enjoyable part of
this whole shebang: The food, the booze
and the dancing. Dante ditched his
stupid orange bow tie, filled a plate with goodies from the cold buffet,
grabbed an icy beer, and sat down to talk shop with Bruce for a while.

“You look like Hell.”
Bruce never did mince words.

“I’m all right.”
Dante took a pull on his beer.

Bruce snorted. “Sure.”

“It’s nothing that a brew,” Dante took another pull on the
bottle, “or a round of bullets won’t cure.”

“You gunning for the boy?” Bruce asked.

It was Dante’s turn to snort. “Hell, no. She wanted
him. I didn’t try to change her mind.”

Bruce sipped his champagne.
“You’ve got more brains than I gave you credit for, Sparda.”

“And you’ve got more money than God, Bruce. We all gotta work with what we’re given.”

The hired disc jockey began spouting patter and spinning
platters. Lady’s father-in-law took a
straight pin from a bowl sitting on the table next to the bubbling champagne
fountain, pinned a large denomination bill to Lady’s wedding gown and lead her
onto the floor for the first dance.
Dante watched as man after man tacked money to her dress for the
privilege of whirling Lady around the floor.
Even Enzo took a turn, parting with a pair of fifties, his chubby face
shining with happy tears brought on by the Italian love of sentiment and his
personal love of too much booze.

Females of all ages and states of attachment circled Dante
like voracious sharks, trying to entice him to tango. He ignored or refused them all, remaining seated his eyes
following Lady as she moved. The only
exception Dante made was for little Stephanie, who planted herself before him
and in her typical imperious fashion demanded a dance. She was so short, and he was so tall that
Dante resorted to the age-old device of standing her atop his shoes and
strolling them around the room. She
rewarded him with a smile that made every awkward minute of their promenade
worth it.

Dante waited, patient and predatory, until the DJ announced
a slow song. Faster than the human eye
could follow, Dante materialized at Lady’s side. He stuck the pin through a stack of five C notes (the last of his
savings) and attached it to the sleeve of Lady’s jacket. As they took their place on the dance floor,
Lady smiled up at him.

“Took you long enough to get here,” she said.

“Lady, for once in your life, don’t spoil things. Be quiet.”

He gathered her to him, close and tight, tucking her short,
soft curves against the hard, rangy length of his body. They swayed together in a world created by
the mellow sound of Nat King Cole’s voice crooning about someone who was
unforgettable. Dante knew this was the
last time he could ever hold her this close, the last time he could circle her
in the safety of his arms. The music
drew to an end, and Dante had to compel himself to stop when it did.

For a long moment they stood there, then Dante tipped Lady’s
face upward, his fingertips gentle beneath her chin. He gazed down into her eyes, so unique, so vivid with their
contrasting brown and blue.

“Dante,” she whispered, and he shivered.

“Mary,” he breathed her name, her true name, the one she
allowed no one living to call her, like a plea or a prayer, “please just be
happy.”

He brushed his lips lightly over hers, taking the first
kiss, the only kiss, he would ever get from his Lady. With an almost savage abruptness he released her and fled to the
solace of the bar.

He killed several drinks in quick succession then returned
to the dance floor with a vengeance.
Whirling, cavorting, careening Dante strutted his stuff to the delight
of every female in the room. The party
grew rowdy as the night wore on. One of
his mad turns around the floor spun him into a knot of people. They parted to reveal Lady, Joshua and the
groomsmen. Lady sat on Joshua’s lap,
laughing. In one hand Joshua held a
magnum of champagne. In the other he
clutched one of Lady’s flat, white wedding slippers.

As Dante watched, Joshua filled the shoe with the wine and
drank from it. Dante shook his head in
amusement. He turned to leave, but
Joshua’s gaze fixed on him, and the tipsy groom called out his name.

“Dante! Where you been,
man?” Joshua refilled the shoe and held
it out. “Have a drink. Gotta drink from the shoe, so me an’ Lady
have good luck. No hard feelings,
right?”

Dante stared for a moment, took the shoe and downed its
contents in one relentless gulp. With a
quick, vicious flip he flung it back at Joshua, striking him square in the
chest.

“The Hell there isn’t,” he said.

The night degenerated from there. Dante got roaring drunk.
He refused the offer of a hotel room for the night but discovered the
keys to his bike had vanished from his person.

“Damn you, Lady,” he muttered.

Snagging a bottle of booze from a passing waiter, he
staggered out the door, reeling through the grimy Metropolis streets with
unerring demonic accuracy. After
several pathetic tries he managed the steps to his shop. Lacking his keys, he kicked in the door with
a sense of intense satisfaction.

He stumbled to his desk.
Ditching the long-empty booze bottle, he jerked open the top desk
drawer. He lifted the black fingerless
glove with the long slice down the palm from the drawer’s interior. With much fumbling he removed the blue
garter from his jacket pocket and threaded the glove through it. He stared at the pair for a moment.

“Why the Hell do I always have to lose?” he demanded
of them.

Receiving no answer, he chucked them into the drawer and
slammed it shut. He lurched the few
feet to the battered red leather couch and managed to fall across it before he
passed out.

Dante dreamed he sat on the stoop of Devil May Cry in the
bright morning sunlight. He clutched
Lady’s empty wedding dress in his arms and wept. As the tears streamed down his face, a shadow fell over him. He looked up.

Vergil stood before him, dressed as he had been when Dante
last saw him, his hand resting on Yamato’s hilt and his face a study in icy
disdain. “Foolishness, Dante. Foolishness,” his brother said. “Why do you waste your tears on her? She could never have been what you wanted.”

“Go away, Vergil,” he choked. “Go back to Hell. Go
haunt someone else for a change.”

His brother mounted the steps, came to him and reached
out. Dante flinched back, but the hand
Vergil laid upon his shoulder was surprisingly gentle.

“Do not be too hard on me, brother,” he said, “nor on
yourself. I doubt that by now, even a
female of our own kind could satisfy you.”

In a burst of misery, longing and loneliness, Dante
discarded the gown and threw himself at Vergil’s knees, flinging his arms
around them. Still gentle, Vergil freed
himself. Kneeling, he gathered the weeping
Dante to him and cradled him in his own arms.
With a broken sigh, Dante rested his head against the broad strength of
Vergil’s chest and sobbed in bitter pain.

For a while Vergil said nothing, only caressing Dante’s hair
and shoulders and back with soft, comforting strokes. Dante’s hurt ebbed away, leaving behind it a sense rightness and
peace. Vergil began to whisper then, a
flow of silken, seductive sound that held none of his usual chill.

“Dante, my brother, my own.
Can’t you see? We were meant to
be as one. Two halves meant to join
together as one whole. We should never
have been parted.”

A drowsy warmth crept over Dante. He pressed his cheek tighter against the heavy ribs of Vergil’s
black shirt. “I’m so empty,
Vergil. So tired.”

“Let me fill you, brother, touch you. Let me show you how it was meant to be.”

The adamant press of Vergil’s mouth against his stoked a
fire in Dante’s belly as nothing ever had before. Vergil’s lips and hands stripped away all his protests and
resistance, even as they stripped away his clothes. Dante writhed into that touch, craving it as a starving man
craves food. He wanted it all,
everything Vergil did to him. The
kisses, the biting, the intimate manipulation that set his body burning and
sent his mind and soul raving.

Dante tore at the barriers between him and his brother,
filled his hands with cool, hard- muscled masculine flesh. He gave kiss for kiss, bite for bite,
delighting in wringing passion filled cries from his strong, steel cold
sibling. He gloried in Vergil’s
strength, testing himself, pitting himself against it. They wrestled and bit and fought until Dante
thought sure he would die from sufficiency.

In the end Vergil prevailed, forcing Dante onto his
back. He fisted his hand in Dante’s
hair, jerking his head back and exposing his throat. The cement of the steps, pitted and graveled, bit into the skin
of Dante’s back and buttocks as Vergil used his other hand and his thighs to
butterfly Dante’s legs against the rough surface. Vergil sank his fangs deep into Dante’s throat the same instant
that he drove himself to the hilt inside his brother. Dante arched upward, wailing in pain and pleasure.

He bucked against Vergil’s strokes, building the friction
between them higher and higher. Vergil
threw his head back. His ice blue eyes
closed, and he cried out ecstasy.
Dante’s own release seared through him a heartbeat later, spilling his
fluids over his and Vergil’s taut abdomens and ripping harsh screams from his
throat. They collapsed in a tangle of
limbs, the hollow shell of Lady’s dress crushed beneath them.

Time had ceased to have meaning, so Dante had no idea how
long they lay there, panting and shivering.
He only knew that Vergil drew away from him, reaching to gather torn and
scattered clothing. Dante’s heart
shrieked in protest at the betrayal.

“Damn you, Vergil.
You’re always leaving.”

“This encounter is but a dream. Sweet, but insubstantial.”

Bitterness laced Dante’s reply. “You’re probably dead, then.”

In a flash, Vergil’s mouth ground once more against his
until Dante moaned in delight.
Releasing Dante’s lips, Vergil’s voice was thick with passion as he
said, “I am alive, brother. Imprisoned,
but alive. Seek me. Free me.
And I will give you everything your heart desires.”

With those words Vergil stood, and his body dissipated,
vanishing into the blinding sunlight.

Dante awoke with a raging headache, a bite mark on his
throat, a ruined pair of suit pants, and a stone cold determination in his
soul. He would find Vergil and free
him. Even if it meant he had to walk
every road in Hell to do it.

Fin.
- 1
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Always A Bridesmaid