Chapter 39: He’s Back
The space beside Dante was cold. Empty. His arm, flung out in sleep, met only rumpled crimson silk. He blinked, the lingering warmth of Dabi’s body against his chest still a phantom sensation. "Dabi?" His voice was rough with sleep. Silence answered him.
He sat up, the sheets pooling at his waist. "Bathroom, pretty boy?" No response. Just the distant crackle of the eternal fire in the hearth. A prickle, cold and sharp, traced his spine. He swung his legs out of bed, the cool stone floor biting his bare feet. The en suite bathroom was dark, empty. The walk-in closet revealed only Dante’s own sprawling wardrobe.
Panic, a sensation he hadn’t felt in millennia, began as a low buzz in his veins, rapidly escalating to a deafening roar. Kitchen. Library. Gardens. He moved through the mansion’s cavernous rooms with unnatural speed, a shadow flitting past gilded mirrors and ancient tapestries. Nothing. No sign. The grand ballroom, still echoing with the ghost of last night’s siren song, held only dust motes dancing in slivers of weak dawn light.
The silence became oppressive. Heavy. Wrong. Dabi wouldn’t just leave. Not after last night. Not after the raw vulnerability, the fierce claiming, the whispered confessions that had bound them tighter than any vow. The memory of Dabi holding his horns, riding him with desperate abandon, sent a fresh wave of possessive terror through him. Mine.
He stopped in the center of the main hall, closing his eyes. He focused past the panicked thudding of his own heart, past the ancient stones of the mansion, past the veil of the mortal world. He reached out with the part of him that was pure Hell-born instinct, the King’s sense seeking his stolen treasure. He sifted through the psychic noise – the fleeting sins of the city, the dull thrum of human despair, the distant cries of the newly damned.
Then he found it. A flicker. A familiar warmth, Dabi’s unique spark… submerged in a suffocating ocean of sulfur, ash, and ancient, icy malice. The signature was unmistakable, a brand Dante knew better than his own reflection.
Hell.
And only one being in that forsaken pit would dare touch what was his. The realization struck Dante like a physical blow, driving the air from his lungs. Lucifer.
Cold fury, sharper than any blade, instantly crystallized the panic. Panic was useless. Fury was fuel. He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t waste a second on clothes beyond pulling on the black jeans discarded last night. Barefoot, bare-chested, tattoos stark against skin flushed with rage and fear, he strode towards the grand fireplace in the main hall. The flames danced, eternal and unnatural.
He didn’t step into the fire. He stepped through it. Not into heat, but into absolute, consuming darkness. The gilded hall vanished. The air turned thick, cloying, tasting of burnt metal and despair. Gravity shifted, pulling him down, down, down through layers of screaming shadows and flickering landscapes of torment glimpsed only peripherally. The descent was a controlled plummet, fueled by righteous wrath and the terrifying certainty that every second counted.
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He landed on a plateau of cracked obsidian, heat radiating up through the soles of his feet. The air was an oven blast, thick with the stench of brimstone and rot. Before him loomed the Gates. Not iron, but living bone, woven together with sinew still glistening wetly, towering hundreds of feet high. The shrieks of the damned formed a constant, dissonant choir.
He didn't approach the Gates. He simply was before them. The massive bone structure groaned, twisting and parting like broken jaws. Beyond lay Pandemonium, the capital of Hell. Dante strode through, ignoring the cowering shades and the startled hisses of minor demons. His presence alone, the raw, unveiled power radiating from him in palpable waves, cleared a path. Eyes, glowing with malice and fear, tracked the bare-chested King as he moved with lethal purpose towards the obsidian spire piercing the blood-red sky: Lucifer's palace.
He bypassed grand entrances and winding stairs. He knew the back ways, the hidden passages known only to the most ancient denizens. He moved through shadows that clung like tar, past chambers echoing with unspeakable agonies, his senses fixed solely on the faint, terrified thrum of Dabi's life force emanating from the heart of the spire.
He emerged from a tapestry depicting eternal flaying into a vast, opulent chamber. The air was cooler here, drier, but no less heavy with malice. Black marble floors reflected the light of floating, soul-bound orbs. At the far end, on a throne carved from a single, massive obsidian shard, sat Lucifer.
Time had not touched the Morning Star. He was perfection sculpted from pride and ancient power. Flawless features, hair the colour of spun moonlight, eyes like chips of frozen diamond that held the depth of dead stars. He wore robes of deepest black that seemed to drink the light. He was examining his perfect nails, a picture of bored indifference.
At his feet, on the cold marble, knelt Dabi.
Dabi was shirtless, his lean torso bare and vulnerable. His wrists were bound behind his back with cords of shimmering darkness that seemed to writhe like snakes. Bruises darkened his jaw and one cheekbone. His blue eyes, wide with terror and defiance, were fixed on the floor.
Dabi flinched as heavy footsteps echoed on the obsidian floor, the sound reverberating through his bruised ribs. His bound hands clenched behind him, knuckles white against the writhing dark cords. Dante stood framed in the archway, barefoot and bare-chested, tattoos stark against skin flushed with fury and fear, his storm-grey eyes locked on Dabi. The sheer, raw power radiating from him made the soul-bound orbs flicker wildly.
Lucifer finally glanced up, a slow, languid movement. A smile, cold and sharp as shattered glass, touched his perfect lips. "Took you long enough." His voice was smooth velvet over jagged ice, echoing faintly in the cavernous space. Dabi shuddered, the unnatural chill of it slicing through the oppressive heat.
Dante didn’t move towards the throne. Didn’t summon his wings or horns. His voice, when it came, was a low, Detroit-rough rasp, stripped bare of everything but lethal intent. "What do you want?" Lucifer’s sculpted eyebrows arched in mock surprise, a diamond-hard glint in his frozen eyes. "I must admit, I’m shocked. Expected you to try ripping me apart the second you saw your little plaything trussed up." He gestured dismissively at Dabi. "Where’s the famous Morningstar temper?"
Dante’s jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath the stubble. His gaze flickered to Dabi’s bruised face, the terror in his wide blue eyes, then snapped back to Lucifer. The question came again, flat, devoid of anything but demand. "What. Do. You. Want." Each word was a hammer blow on an anvil.
Lucifer sighed, the sound like dry leaves skittering over stone. "Fine. Let’s dispense with the tedious posturing." He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on the obsidian arms of his throne, fingers steepled. "Make a little deal, and your little boyfriend here," he nudged Dabi’s shoulder with the toe of an immaculate black boot, making him flinch, "can go home. Unharmed. Mostly."
Dante’s eyes never left Lucifer’s face, but Dabi saw the minute tremor in his clenched fists. "What’s the deal?" The tension in the room thickened, coiling like a serpent ready to strike. Lucifer’s smile widened, revealing teeth too perfect, too white. "Simple," he purred. "You. For him."
Dante’s gaze snapped to Dabi. Dabi was already shaking his head frantically, mouthing a desperate, soundless ‘No, fuck no, don’t!’ His eyes screamed denial, pleading. Dante looked back at Lucifer, his expression unreadable granite. Only the faintest tremor in his voice betrayed the earthquake within. "Fine."
Lucifer clapped his hands once, the sharp sound cracking through the stillness. "Excellent! Efficient." His smile turned predatory. "But," he added, holding up a slender finger, "just to be absolutely sure your little bounty hunter here doesn’t get chatty about his little vacation downstairs…" He gestured vaguely. "He’s gonna stick around. Just for a little bit. Observation. Then I’ll let him toddle off home. Promise."
Dabi’s choked protest died in his throat. Dante’s eyes narrowed, confusion warring with renewed fury. "Why? What do you—?" The question was cut off mid-sentence. A figure, coalescing from the thick shadows directly behind Dante – a sleek, grey-skinned demon with needle-like fingers – moved with viper speed. Cold steel pricked the side of Dante’s neck.
Dante jerked, a harsh gasp escaping him. His storm-grey eyes locked onto Dabi’s for one fractured second – filled with shock, apology, and a terrifying vulnerability Dabi had never seen before. Then his knees buckled. He crashed onto the obsidian floor like a felled oak, limbs sprawling, eyes rolling back. Unconsciousness swallowed him whole before his head even hit the stone.