➥ BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE SHANGHAI | drabble

[nestingdevil]

The cold-static hum of a retinal scanner gave her away. It trilled through the mask of a brick wall, immediately alerting the attentions of not one, but two. It had been hours since she left for her investigation and as Vergil idly checked his watch, his throat bobbed in muted surprise.

4:15am. She had been gone almost twelve hours.

"Kat, where have you been?" The question sputtered out of the two in unison with Dante taking the usual lead. Kat tucked idly at her hood, her eyes wild and wide. A few bruises and scrapes painted her knuckles like watercolors; the palette brightening with the backdrop of constantly-running monitors. Blue stole at her skin, then whispered away. As her feet fidgeted below her in antsy anticipation.

"Kat? Hey - " Dante's fingers brushed the side of her shoulder, effectively snatching her back from the glazed-over stupor. She shook her head once, tossing a wary look between the two very different, yet undeniably related, pair. "I went to look into that source I was talking about," she started in. As she moved frantically around the room, snagging pens, paper - anything. She drew up a few sheets on a clutter-piled desk, the two brothers following her every step. "We already know Mundus uses Little Shanghai for his more illegal activities - drug smuggling, prostitution, underground cage matches. I tracked it down to there."

The pen in her fingers dropped from her jittery hold. She picked it up quickly, fanning out three sheets of blank paper out on the table.

"Whoa, whoa - ! Why the fuck did you go there, Kat? That place is crawling with demons. Never mind the human scumbags that're practically playing into his pocket." Interjection was Dante's forte, but even so - Kat wasn't listening. Like a madman with an equation to spell, she began marking the paperwork. X(s), dots, lines. Vergil stood with a still curiosity as she went to work. Similar to a statue contemplating the meaning of it all. "Hold on Dante," he said and one hand came rising up to choke off any further remarks that might come vomiting up his brother's throat in verbal-bile.

At least, for the time being. "Go ahead - what did you find?"

A semi-circle spread with a quick jerk of her hand. "You're right - it was crawling with demons, but that's not what I felt. That isn't what I saw. The Ang Soon Tong runs a brothel and nightclub near the center of town. Mundus pays them to do anything from assassinations to human trafficking. But most of them were human." Kat pulled her lower lip inward, biting it thoughtfully. She could still smell gun residue, the acrid tinge of copper and powder. She shook her head and continued to sketch out lines that were slowly started to take some sort of shape. "They were hiding something there. I had a run in with them."

From behind her, Dante exchanged a scoffing look and his face twisted into an ugly snarl. The thick soles of his boots thudded with a pace, like a big-cat forced behind iron bars for someone else's amusement. "You think you could have been a little more fucking careful? Shit, Kat."

"But you weren't harmed," Vergil slipped in, his tone hitched again in interest. The Ang Soon Tong weren't known for their pleasantries. Nor were they known for their mercy when it came to unwanted intruders. Something was off. Kat shouldn't have made it back, least not in one piece. Yet, she didn't have more than a scratch to her name - her ordeal written only in soft bruises that bumped and ran the dips of her knuckles.

It didn't settle right.

"No, I wasn't. I was wrong, so wrong. I thought the feeling I was having was another demon - it was strong like one. Almost suffocating." Kat wasn't watching Dante or Vergil as she spoke. Instead, her eyes staggered and glued fast to the papers in front of her. Another stroke here, a line there. "I've never felt something like that before. But I know one thing - it didn't belong here."

"What do you mean, it didn't belong here? Kat, hey - " Dante was suddenly at her back, swooping her side like a flash-caught magpie. He could finally see what she had been so diligently scribbling. And all of a sudden, Dante felt winded. A lump formed solid in his throat; like an enlarged blood clot waiting to take his breath away. If he didn't remember to just breath, it might as well have done so.

"Wh-where the fuck did you see that." Too late. His words came without a second of hesitation. Typical. "Kat - where the fuck did you see this symbol?"

Dante was close; hovering over the image with his pointer shoved into the center. A clamming sweat prickled at the backside of his neck. It was panic checking it and all of its bags were packed, ready for the long haul.

He could never forget that symbol. He could never forget what it meant, who it belonged to. It was practically branded into his skull, a searing reminder.

The ouroboros - always on the cusp of swallowing its own tail.

"Dante - calm down. Just what the hell has gotten into you two?" Vergil was suddenly less interested and more perturbed. His brow furrowed in a silver expression and the line of his lips pulled tight.

"It's an ouroboros - I've seen it before." Dante breathed, his thumb tracing the familiar design. Not a design - a tattoo. The tip of his nail skipped across the paper and panic quickly subsided to excitement. Excitement to anger. Anger to - what.

He didn't know. "Show me. Take me there." It wasn't a question nor was it a suggestion. Dante was already throwing his hands through the sleeves of his jacket, the ruffling from his coattails whispering with his brother's protest.

"Wait a second, Dante. Those guys are working for Mundus - "

"Like I give a shit. Take me there."