Undertow : Part 2

   "Sleeping beauty..." someone said into his ear.  "It's only been a few hours.  It's not nice to ignore your guests."

   "Couldn't be helped," another voice said.  "He is half human.  I am a little surprised he's still alive, actually."

   A cold wet tongue that tasted of rancid flesh was pressed into his mouth, the length of it explored the roof of his mouth first then slunk in deeper until it found its way down his throat.  Dante's eyes snapped open, his fingers instantly found the neck of the creature that laid on top of his and gouged it hard enough to make it fall backwards.  A snake-like demon with long thick tongue hanging from the corner of its mouth rubbed at his short neck.  Dante had torn two of its layered scales loose, exposing its pinkish flesh beneath.

   "It attacked me!"

   Dante drew in deep breaths, a panic had started to come over him again as his mind recalled the pain and anxieties, but nothing else.  He tried to sit up but he could not make himself rise past his elbows.  He suddenly became confused, not understanding why he was weak or where he was.  Demons and demons in human form swarmed toward him, excited by his sudden consciousness.  One clawed hand wrapped around his ankle and pulled him toward the waiting crowd.  Dante kicked at the demon who had held him.  His foot didn't connect. Instead, it was caught by another creature who pulled him in a different direction.  Dante screamed, feeling the strength of both demons grow in their grip.

    Just as Dante was certain one or both of his legs would be torn off, the pressure eased and finally stopped.  Dante breathed in small gasps, not even caring that his body was half on and half off the bed he was lying on.  Someone was speaking, but it was not in a language he understood.  Strong hands pulled him back onto the bed that was damp with blood.  

    "It would seem that someone under estimated your resilience to the drug," a voice said into his ear.  Dante turned slightly and stared into the face of a dark-haired man with a peculiar smile.

    "Remus," an olive-skinned man said nervously behind him.  "I think we should just get rid of him now.  His power might come back to him soon and then -- "

    The dark-haired man's eyebrows dipped down toward the center of his forehead and his smile started to fade.  

    "I'm not done yet," he said softly, his fingers traced Dante's upper lip, following it around to the lower lip.

    "He will fucking kill us when he comes to.  Shit, he will fucking kill all of us.  Let's get rid of him now."

    Dante watched the men argue with little comprehension.  His head hurt.  His entire body burned -- as if someone had held him under boiling water.  His eyes fluttered closed, a dark corner of his mind had finally caught him and lured him there.  He was drifting off to sleep when his memory returned to him.  He knew who the arguing men were. He knew where he was and he remembered what they were doing to him.  It was pure fright more than anything else that startled Dante awake.  He woke to see Remus stare down at him with his usual smile.

    "Don't...touch...me..." His voice came out in a dry whisper as Remus' hand slipped down between his thighs and wormed its way up to his backside.  The fingers caressed the cleft of his ass, stroking it gently before two fingers were pressed between them and into him.

    "Nearly half of boys here haven't had their turn," Remus said.  "Felt like you healed.  How about continuing on with the party?"

    Dante shook his head, desperately trying to close his legs and inch backward away from Remus.  He was strengthless to do anything but clawed at Remus' arm, but not even hard enough to scratch.

    "If you don't want the cocks in your ass, would you take them into your mouth?" Remus purred.  He leaned in and bit playfully at Dante's lower lip.  "If it's too big to fit into your mouth, at least you have your tongue.  I would hate to see your jaw being torn from its hinge and ruin your pretty face."

    "Fuck you..."  Dante growled.  "I will kill you.  I swear I'll fucking kill all of you..."

    Remus giggled and pulled out the knife he had plunged into the mattress.

    "Oh, I think you are just being antagonistic from not enough cocks.  We can take care of that.  You can have as many as you like.  How about if we try for three at once?"

    Remus nodded for his partner to hold Dante down.  Hector shook his head.

    "No.  He will kill us.  He's moved on his own and it's only been a five hours.  He was suppose to be immobilized for at least twenty.  What if he recovers all of his powers in another hour? What if -- "

    Hector never finished his sentence.  Remus slashed out with the dagger and took off Hector's head with a single stroke.  There was a silence in the ballroom as the head struck the carpeted floor with a thud.  The head-less body stood for a few more seconds before it toppled over backwards.  

    Remus wiped the stained blade on the bed sheet and sighed.

    "Sorry that you had to see that," Remus said.  "He was spoiling the mood."

    Dante pulled himself up to the elbows again, his body quivering from the exertion as he did so.

    "He was right," Dante said.  "I will fucking kill each and every one of you."

    Remus gestured for the snake-like demon Dante had ripped scales from.  It shifted forward from the corner by its coiled tail.  Remus spoke to the creature in dark language,  hisses that sounded like laughter answered him.  Scaled hands with hook-like nails closed around his wrists and pulled him back onto the bed.  The tail of the snake wrapped around Dante's throat -- tight enough to make his adam's apple ache, but still loosened enough so he could still breathe.

   "You are quite adorable when you are belligerent," Remus said and sat down on the bed beside Dante.  "Must have gotten that from daddy."

    "Who is the "Company"?"

    Remus raised an eyebrow.  "Did you expect me to tell you?"

    A bewildering half-smile appeared over the thin lips.  It made the snake-like creature cringe, nearly loosening its grip on Dante.  Remus tensed for a moment but when Dante did nothing, he shifted forward and traced the slight grin with the tip of his knife.

    "This is quite exciting," Remus said.  "Almost like the human game where the man rides an untamed animal and struggles to remain mounted for as long as he could."

    Remus slid his body over his.

    "So how long can I ride you before you buck me off and trample me to death?"

    Dante tensed involuntarily.  A change had started to come over Remus.  His eyes had lost its human shape, with its pupils thinning into slits.

    "Fuck..." Dante whispered and gathered what strength he could collect and tried to pull himself out between Remus' knees.  "Get the fuck off me..."

    Remus' body trembled as the human skin began to split, shedding them in pieces.  The bed moaned with the increased new weight as Remus's limbs grew thicker and longer, its bulky muscles padded along the arms.  Dante drew in a deep breath and held it.  He need to keep himself from going into another panic, although it was difficult not to.  Remus had grown five times his human size and was slowly taking on a form of a creature he had only seen drawn in the Dark Book that archived the demon races.  A creature that he had thought been extinct centuries before he was born.

    "Our kind was nearly made extinct four centuries ago by your father," Remus' voice had changed into a low boom.  "But do not worry, I won't hold it against you."

    Remus' hand -- rough with callous and coarse hair, held his chin by its thumb and fore finger.  The yellowed nails with chipped tips rubbed against his skin, leaving light scrapes in its wake.

    "Mere casualties of war.  There were other races that were made extinct in that terrible time.  We were fortunate enough to have enough survivors to repopulate."

    Abyss Goats. 

    The name came into Dante's mind.  The elite class of the Goat Clan.  They were fire and magic manipulators and had been used extensively in the aerial raids in the Dark War nearly 400 years ago.

    "I do wish so that you could bear children," Remus said and leaned forward.  His breath hot and thick.  "The wonderfully wicked little creatures we could create.  It would be powerful with the demon blood diluting the weak human blood in you now."

    Dante pulled his chin away, earning a deep cut on his lower lip from Remus' broken nail.

    "Do you know what we do to halflings like you in Netherworld?  To the seedlings that were made from demons who had taken up with a lesser creature like the humans?"

    Remus caught Dante by his jaw and turned his face back to look at him.

    "They would be imprisoned in a special little corner of the hell made just for them.  Their limbs would be torn from their joints first, then they would be hung by their neck -- but not so tightly so they would suffocate.  Their flesh would be fed on by insects for days until they would become a pile of quivering flesh covered bones, but still kept alive by their demon blood.  That room would be sealed so these misfit creatures would be alone in their pain and misery forever, with no hope of death.  I think even that fate would be too good for you.  You have done worse."

    Remus pressed on the hinges of Dante's jaw until it opened--the pressure nearly shattering it.  

    "You hunt your own kind.  You should be taken back to Netherworld to be judged and punished by the laws there.  There is nothing we can do to you here that would come close to what you fully deserved."

    Remus' mouth opened and a long, thick tongue unfurled from it.  The pointed tip slid in between Dante's opened mouth and pressed in, until it touched the back of his throat.  The tongue filled Dante's mouth and suffocated him as it twisted, lodging itself deeper and deeper down his throat.  At the moment when Dante felt consciousness being snatched away from him, he could suddenly breathe again.  He panted, as Remus' wet tongue lapped at his mouth.

    "Get...the fuck...off...me..."

    Remus laughed softly and stroked Dante's cheek with an uncharacteristic affection.  Although he tried to be gentle, his nails still made cuts into the skin.

    "I am quite capable of giving you pleasure, if you ask nicely." 

    Dante said nothing.  Not even uttering the foul words that had been the expected response.  The clear blue eyes stared into the glass sky light in the ceiling, focused on something unseen in the starless night sky.

    Remus lifted himself away from Dante and slid downwards until he was kneeling at the foot of the bed, with Dante's ankles held wide apart in his hands.  The long tongue took a slow lick along the cleft, gathering the blood and cum that had collected there.  Dante gasped, his breathing ceased for a moment as the tongue writhed inside -- stretching the rings of muscle that had not fully healed.  The thickness that invaded him split open the flesh, renewing the pain that made him scream again as he thrashed in the grips that held his limbs.  

    Dante had freed himself from the snake-creature, nearly breaking his wrists in the process.  He could barely make his hands work as he curled himself upwards to hit Remus.  His fist only glanced off one of the arched horns before his body being lifted off his bed as Remus stood, his tongue still embedded inside him. For a moment, Dante felt ridiculous, dangling upside down as he was raped by a goat-demon's mouth.  

    Then he started to scream again but it wasn't from pain.  Far from it.  A sensation that made him dizzy and warm, spreading from between his legs up into his belly until he could feel it in the tips of his fingers.  The strong tongue had found a sensitive spot inside, caressing it until the pleasure that rippled from the spot and drowned out the pain that had claimed him not too long ago.  He shook his head and kicked hard, trying to pull his ankles out from Remus' grip.  A sound that might have been a laughter resonated from the bottom of Remus' throat.  It infuriated Dante to hear it, although he was angrier at himself.

    "Let...go...Goddamn it...let go..."

    Dante's words were cut off again and replaced with a breathless moan.  The tip of the tongue pounded against that spot, lashing hard against it -- milking pain and pleasure that were jolts of electricity sent through him.  He felt his own arousal gathering from it, his own cock twitched and ached.  

    "No...no....God...no..."

    Dante squeezed his eyes shut and cursed at his own need.  His weak, human need.  Dante bit down on his own tongue, grinding it between his teeth cruelly to flush out the heat that was consuming his body and mind.  Remus paused long enough to give Dante a hard slap across his face, cutting the cheek with his knuckle.  Remus released his ankles, letting him drop back down on the bed like a boneless doll.

    "If you would rather have my cock instead, I would be more than happy to oblige," Remus said.  "I was trying to be nice to you, you little ungrateful fuck."

    Dante sat up and shifted backwards away from Remus.  He folded his legs under him, ready to spring forward and lunge out at the first opportunity.

    "But given how small you are, I will have to rip you open a bit wider first -- " Remus said.  Beneath the thick locks of fur, a fat red tip with a long slit along the center emerged. The shaft that followed its head was covered with clear gel-like fluid, green and blue veins ran along its near transparent skin.  At its full length, it was longer and wider than his arm.  

    Being raped by that thing would not only hurt him, Dante thought.  It'll kill him.     

    A glint of silver in the corner of his eyes caught his attention but he dare not look directly at it to cue Remus he had seen it.  Remus' knife that had been left staked into the mattress.   

    "If you can make me cum with your tongue, I won't put it in that little hole."

    "I can make you cum even without my tongue..." 

    "Really? Well --" 

    Dante dove to the side, his hand snatched up the knife as he rolled off the bed and landed on his feet in a crouching position.  

    "You little shit -- you think you can fight your way out of this place with that little knife?"

    A slight smile answered the goat-devil.  Remus took a few steps back, realizing a blue haze had started to cloud Dante's body.  Remus roared instructions to the stunned demons that stood around the platform, uncertain what was happening.

    "Kill him now! He's about to Devil Trigger! "

     Dante channeled electricity from his body and made it rain down on the ballroom full of demons that were trampling over each other to get out.  Sensing his Trigger had drained nearly down to a quarter percent, he flew toward the glass skyline.  Although he had wanted to hunt down Remus, his instincts told him to get out before he returned to his human form and become trapped in the ballroom.  In the few minutes, he had killed many demons but there were also many that were still alive.

    He crashed through the glass and flew as far as his powers allowed him.  Behind him, he knew Remus had followed.  Dante folded his wing and let himself glide into a shadow between two buildings.  The Trigger had drained completely by then, and gave him back his human body.  He stumbled through the trash strewn alley, not caring about the broken shards of glass that bit into his heels.  He didn't know where he was or where he was going.  He didn't care.  He knew if he stopped walking, he would collapse.  If he kept moving, then he would remain conscious and at least have a chance to defend himself against Remus.  

    Dante froze, his eyes fixed on the shadow of the goat-devil that flew over the alley.  The Abyss Goat circled the area several times, almost taunting Dante in its slow flight.  On one of its passes, Remus flew low enough to send a fireball down the dark corridor and lit it.  Dante dove between two wooden crates and crouched there until the fire dimmed and burnt out.  Remus knew he was there, Dante could sense it.

    "Shit..." Dante cursed under his breath as he crept out of his hiding place.  He listened for the sound of the traffic and moved away from it.  He could not lead the goat demon toward the human population.  If only he had just one of his guns or his sword...

    Dante skidded to a stop, although the shadow had hidden him well, he could still make out the distinct lines of the demon in the dark.  

    "Bad, bad boy..." Remus said.  "You spoiled a party that took us years to plan.   How should I punish you?"

    A flash of light blinded Dante then something struck him so hard that the impact threw him several feet back.  He was still dazed as he was picked up by his neck and battered against the wall like a small toy, then thrown further down the alleyway.  Dante landed hard on the pavement and felt the distinct snap of the bone in his right arm.  The pain would have been severe and made him scream if he weren't so close to unconsciousness.

    Then there was silence.  Dante could not even bring himself to look up as he heard light taps of footsteps coming toward him.  His arm was twisted in an odd angle beside him, refusing to move.  Blood from his forehead had trickled into his eyes and forced them close.

    "Fuck...just kill me..." Dante groaned.  He felt like laughing.  Son of a legend had met his end in a dark alley by the hands of a  demon who had also raped him.  Wouldn't father be proud.  

    The giggle that nearly bubbled out of his throat faded, when he felt a hand stroke his hair gently.  A human hand.  Dante opened his eyes.  A baffling vision indeed, he thought.  

    "Father..." Dante whispered.  

    "You'll be fine.  Close your eyes and go to sleep."

    "I fucked up, father," Dante said as he leaned into the gentle hand and allowed himself to be lulled to sleep by his exhausted demon blood.  "I'm going to die."

    "You won't die."    

    "No, I suppose not," Dante said.  "I don't have that kind of luck."

    Dante laid awake, mesmerized by the slow spin of the fan blades in the ceiling fan in his bedroom.  It was an odd feeling, to feel nothing at all.  No pain.  No thoughts.  Nothing.  The phone downstairs in his office rang again.  This time, the caller was more insistent and let the phone ring even longer.  Dante counted ten rings before the caller gave up, and the apartment was left in silence again.

    Dante groaned and pressed his forearm over his eyes.  Something inside him made him restless and apprehensive.  Something that teetered on the edge of his memory that he knew he didn't want to spill over into his consciousness.  He kicked away the bed sheet that had twined up around one of his bare legs and wounded itself around his waist.  He wanted a shower, although he didn't want to leave the bed.  It took him a few more minutes to coax himself to sit up and slide out of the bed.

    The shower helped to clear some of the fog out of his mind but then, the mist had lifted to reveal horrendous pieces of memories that made little sense to him.  The water was hot, scalding hot that it made his skin turn red.  Dante stood under the steady stream of hot water, watching the images of demons in a place he didn't recognize in his mind until the water turned cold.  

    I hear that the human body becomes even more sensitive in a slightly cold environment...is it?  A voice, as clear and close as it would sound if the person had been standing next to him said it.

    The sentence made little sense to him yet it made him anxious.  He waited, ignoring the cold water that was making him shiver.  Nothing.  No one walked through the steamy mist in the small bathroom to look at him through the glass shower door.  Dante shut off the water and stepped out carefully, snatching the towel off the rack as he did so.  He kicked open the ajar bathroom door that connected to his bedroom.  The sight of Alastor at his bedside made him feel better instantly.  His prized guns were on top of the dresser, neatly centered on the crimson leather jacket he had thrown there.  

    "Shit..." Dante whispered and toweled himself off as he picked through his clothing.  

    The phone rang again.  Probably the same one who had called four times since Dante woke.  He pulled on a pair of black denim and snatched Ebony off the dresser as he padded downstairs.  The phone was still ringing but Dante's attention had moved to the front door.  A small unkempt pile of letters had collected there, the mail carelessly deposited through the small slot in the office door.  His grip tightened on Ebony as he walked toward the mail, looking through the postmarks with a darkening realization that he had lost nearly ten days.  Ten days that he could not recall, only that he had been awake in his own bed only hours before.

    His hands were shaking, Dante stared at them as if they were not his own.  He stood up and went to his desk to call his network.  Perhaps they would know where he had been.  He picked up the receiver but he did not dial.  His eyes were fixed on a pad of paper he had kept next to the phone.  On it was an address of a bar in his own handwriting.  The bar where he had been set up and snatched from.  The restlessness that had been sealed inside him started to uncoil itself in his belly and slowly worked its way upwards.  He nearly vomited, although there would be nothing for him to heave up, when he remembered Remus.  

    "What the fuck...." 

    His head hurt and suddenly he wanted to a drink.  Anything to numb the nausea that was becoming harsher by the moment.  All of that ceased and his mind cleared when the distinct sound of the door to the back entrance of the apartment open and close.  Someone with thick-heeled boots walked through the kitchen and up the stairs toward his bedroom.  Dante pushed himself away from his desk slowly and took care that the wheels to his leather chair made little sound on the wooden floor.  Quietly, he dashed through the kitchen and followed the stranger up the stairs.  He would need to be quick to surprise the intruder, before he was discovered gone.

    Dante was mystified to see a tall figure in long black coat bending to pick up the wet towel he had dropped at the foot of the bed.  Hands in white gloves folded the towel then placed it over the headboard.  

    "Who the fuck are you?" Dante whispered as he raised his gun up.    

    The stranger paused, then turned to look at Dante over his shoulder.  Hair, silver like his.  Eyes, blue like his.  Face...like his.

    "What the hell -- ?"

    "Put the gun down.  You don't need to make any more mess in this room."

    Dante's eyebrows knitted together.  His gun remained locked at the stranger's eye level, with the pad of his finger resting on the trigger.

    "Who are you? What the fuck are you?"

    "You were not quite right in your first guess," he said.  "I'm not father, but I don't expect you to recognize me.  We were only children when we were separated."

    Dante drew in a breath and held it.  He shook his head.

    "This is a trick," he finally said.  "The same goddamn trick that -- "

    Dante couldn't finish the sentence.  

    "If it was a trick, then you would have been left to die in that alley, dear brother."

    "Vergil is dead."

    "Is he?"

    "Get the hell out of my house.  I don't take too kindly to the people who fucks with my head."

    "I took care of you while you went into...I guess a hibernation of sort.  Trouble with our blood.  The human blood need so much longer time to repair -- "

    "Shut up! Just get out of my house! I don't need to be taken care of!"

    The pale-haired stranger took a step forward, the sound of his heel against the hardwood floor was thunder in the small room.  Dante's hand tightened on his gun, his finger nearly pulled back the trigger.

    "Didn't you want me to leave?"

    Dante said nothing but stepped to the side of the door frame.

    "So you were planning to forget what had happened to you? Business as usual, is it?" Vergil said as he closed the distance between them, until Dante's gun was nudging at his ribs.  "I don't think a band-aid will take care of the hurt you have now." 

    "Shut up! What the hell do you know?!"

    "The fact that you haven't shot me yet, you suspect that you could be right? That I am who you think I am?"

    With his free hand, Dante curled it into a fist and struck out at Vergil.  The fist was easily caught and pushed down.  Dante hissed and and followed his fist with the butt of his gun.  Vergil leaned back but not far enough, the corner of the gun caught Vergil across his lower lip.  A splash of blood trickled down the chin.  

    "Don't fucking touch me..." 

    Dante shoved Vergil away from him as he backed into the room, toward Alastor.  Vergil dabbed at the blood on his chin with his glove.

    "You won't be able to fight him off, when he does come," Vergil said as he walked toward Dante in small, measure steps.  "He's hollowed you out.  You are afraid of him."

    "Don't fucking push your luck.  I've not killed you yet because you have my father's face."

    "You were five when you lost mother...and what you believed you lost me as well.  Could you trust the memory of a child that had witnessed his mother murdered in front of him?"

    Dante closed his hand around Alastor's carved hilt, the demon imprisoned inside sang a comforting tune as he raised it and held it straight in front of him.  Vergil stopped short of walking into the broad blade.

    "Time for you to leave, whoever you are.  I don't need you then. I certainly don't need you now."

    Dante's voice had dropped into a soft, emotionless tone.

    "So you do acknowledge that I might be your brother."

    "I acknowledge nothing," Dante said.  "I have no brother.  I have no mother and I have no father.  They all died when I was a child."

    "And even by a remote chance that you could be wrong, you would be willing to lose your brother again?"

    "I can't lose something I have already lost."

    "I was the one who gave you the pendant on Mallet Island.  I was the one who left it for you."

    Dante raised Alastor until the tip of the blade was under Vergil's chin.

    "Then I thank you for leaving me pendant.  I still don't care who you are."

    "Remus will come back," Vergil said evenly.  "You will be defenseless against him because you fear him."

    "Shut up!" 

    Dante slashed out, intending to take Vergil's head off with the wide sweep of the sword.  Vergil caught the blade, the sharp edge bit through the glove into the hand.  Soon, the palm of the white glove had dyed red.

    "I want to be here for you," Vergil said, his hand tightened on the blade until he was bleeding steadily.

    "I don't want you here," Dante growled.  He pulled Alastor back, half of the sword was stained crimson.  "I mean it.  I don't care if you are or you aren't my brother.  I don't want you here."

    Dante drove Alastor through the hardwood and staked it into the floor.  Suddenly, he's tired.  All he wanted to do was creep back into the bed and draw the sheets over him.  His head hurt badly.  

    "Do you hate me because you had to grow up alone?" Vergil said as he stripped the bloodied gloves from his hands and let them drop on the floor.

    A corner of Dante's mouth turned up into a smile. 

    "Good God, I am not a fucking child.  I don't want you here because I want to be left alone.  Get that through your thick skull.  I'm not that complicated."

    Vergil took a step forward and gathered Dante into his arms.  Dante stared down at his hand that held Ebony.  His hand had clung onto the gun but it had refused to do anything else.  Not even when Dante wanted to shove Vergil away, disgusted by the intimacy that made him weak.  He couldn't make himself move--his own body was no longer his.

    "I think you are lying, little brother," Vergil whispered.

    He lost the grip on his gun and heard it clatter noisily on the floor.  He didn't care.  He didn't care about anything anymore.     

   "Vergil is dead," he said, even as he leaned into the warmth and scent that was distinctly his mother and father's.  How wonderfully they smelled when he and Vergil would creep into their bed in the morning when they were children.  "Vergil is dead...father is dead...mother is dead..."

    Vergil kissed him on his forehead and cupped Dante's face in his hands.

    "Father...might still be alive.  I am still alive.  We could be a family again."

    Vergil pressed Dante back until they were lying on the bed.  Dante stared up at the spinning ceiling fan, his mind whirling slowly like those fan blades but churning out no coherent thoughts.

    "I am here...and I will always be here.  I will never leave you again."

    "That's...nice..."

    Dante curled up in Vergil's arms, pressing his face against the broad chest until he could hear the light thumping of the heartbeat.  The same way Dante had slept in his father's arms long ago.  

    "Nothing will ever hurt you again," Vergil said as his fingers threaded through the damp hair, combing the wet strands with his fingers.  "Will you trust me?"

    For a long time, he could not make his voice work.  He wanted to sleep.  He wanted to crawl back into the comfortable cocoon he had formed in depth of his battered soul and sleep and dream of the days when his father's arms kept him warm and safe.  The time when the soft rhythm of his father's heartbeat lulled him to sleep.  Times that he had long forgotten and never knew how much he longed for them...until now.  

    "I don't know," Dante finally said as he drifted off into unconsciousness.  "I don't know anything anymore."

End Part 2

Go to Part 3