Vergil was still fuming about Marcus' escape from a mansion full of demons when one of the human maids came to the lounge room with a phone in hand. Her petite form shook in fear and her eyes were nailed to the Persian rug resting a few centimeters away from her feet.

"There's a call for you, sir," the maid mumbled in Italian, offering him the phone with trembling fingers.

He sighed, annoyed at the humans' sensibility to his moods, and took the telephone from the frightened woman. The moment he put the instrument against his ear, a raspy voice with a heavy Japanese accent sounded at the other end of the connection.

"Nine months ago you took my brother from me, now I'm taking a loved one from you," the caller said while a female could be heard in the background angrily ordering her captors to let go of her baby. The Japanese chuckled at her outburst, the sound resembling oxidated gears instead of human laugher. "Better yet. I got three of your loved ones for the price of one."

"You hurt any of them and I'll be your personal torturer in Hell, Akito," the demon prince said between clenched teeth as his whole body stiffened.

More laughter answered him. "I'd like to see you try. Come to the Yamaguchi's mansion with that buffoon of your second-in-command and I'll let your wife and children go."

The asshole hung up after that, denying Vergil the pleasure to threaten him again.

"Are you okay, sir?"

The maid's words fell on deaf ears as the phone was crushed to pieces in his hands and his eyes turned orange-red. Thick, gray clouds covered the mansion, blocking the sunlight. Lightning flashed out the tall windows while the very air around him was charged with electricity.

The scent of human terror filled Vergil's nostrils but there was no way to calm himself, no way to stop the transformation. The demon inside him raged for the loss of his consort.

In a matter of seconds his nails grew to gray claws, his skin darkened to charcoal black, his white hair grew until it reached his waist, and oryx-like black horns sprouted from his temples. Finally, the Armani suit he wore dissolved in thin air to be replaced by his Greek battle armor.

A shrill scream and the sound of porcelain shattering to pieces brought his attention back to the human maid. The poor thing had stumbled into a side table and broken an old vase from the Ming Dynasty.

Confusion overpowered the anger for a few seconds inside the prince's mind. She could see him? Why was the veil not working? The natural veil over every High demon lord made them invisible to human eyes, except for the All Seeing Eye. But an Eye wouldn't be terrified at seeing a demon, not after a lifetime of watching the supernaturals walk among mortals.

He narrowed his orange-red eyes over her and the woman screamed again, attracting the attention of nearby servants.

As expected, more shrieks ensue and chaos began to take hold in the mansion as the humans ran to the nearest exit. His mother's voice, enhanced by magic to be carried throughout the house, ordered the demonic staff to capture the humans and erase their memories.

The only explanation Vergil could find for the malfunctioning of his veil was his fury. He had always transformed at will before, but this time his demon half had overpowered his godly half and forced the beast out.

The demon prince's eyes went to the petite maid once again. The woman was paralyzed by fear. Shrieks her only outlet from the terror of seeing his true appearance.

"Shut up," the prince growled as his eyes narrowed to slits, fury wanting to lash out and destroy.

The screams continued.

Losing the bit of patience left in him, Vergil breached the short distance separating them, and his clawed hand wrapped around the maid's neck with enough strength to bruise. "Silence!" he ordered, orange-red eyes glowing even brighter.

The woman's chocolate irises widened as another shriek began but the pressure over her neck increased, cutting off the sound as the demon's claws pierced her skin, painting it red. He squeezed harder once again and a crack filled his pointy ears at the same time that the maid's eyes rolled up her skull. Her windpipe had broken, leaving the lounge room in blissful silence.

"What in Lucifer's name happened here?" Lilith asked in an outraged tone as she stood in the room's entryway.

"Mina was captured by the Yakuzas," Vergil growled once more, releasing the corpse and straightening to his full height.

His mother's honey eyes went wide a moment before she yelled for her bodyguards. Red-haired twins appeared from thin air kneeling in front of her in the traditional black suits of human security. "Nockrish," Lilith called, looking at the more athletic one of the pair, "go with Vergil and check what happened to the Vespertilio prince guarding Mina. The Southern Governor will want answers if his son is dead." She paused, acknowledging she hadn't told him the problem. "The princess is in danger and maybe your son as well."

Both twins stiffened but didn't dare move until they were told so. Luckily for Nockrish, his wait wasn't much for he was called to his sire's side an instant later.

"And son," the Scarlet Queen paused long enough for Vergil's red gaze to fall upon her, "make sure to veil yourself before you leave. We don't want to alert humans of our existence."

He nodded begrudgingly before closing his eyes and breathing in, attempting to calm a bit of the turmoil inside him. In theory, he could return to his human appearance but he was too angry and anxious to maintain his disguise. So the veil was his only option. Visualizing an invisible cloth covering him whole, the demon prince let the magic sink in. Within seconds, he felt his skin sizzling with energy and chains wrapping around his essence in a snake-like vice.

Now, it had worked correctly.

Now, it was time to get the answers he and Nockrish desperately needed.

***

The demons teleported in the hallway of Mina's apartment floor as a precaution for any traps left by the enemy. While Nockrish kept an eye for nearby mortals, Vergil opened his senses for any trace of magic that could betray unwanted gifts left by the Yakuzas.

He couldn't find any bobby traps but he did sensed the faint pulse of magic coming from inside the apartment. And not just any magic. Angelic magic.

Opening the door with his thoughts, the prince entered the apartment followed by the bodyguard. They had barely passed the threshold when their eyes found the source of the angelic magic.

"What the fuck is that?" Nockrish asked as he transformed into his demon self, his spiked tail wrapping around him like a shield.

Hovering a few feet from the floor in the middle of the living room was the most horrendous cage Vergil had seen in all his twenty-five hundred years. He didn't even know if the thing was alive or not. The only thing he knew was that just looking at it sent a shiver down his spine.

"I have never seen something like it but it's powered by angelic magic. Can you feel it?"

The bodyguard nodded, uncoiled his tail from around his body, and gave a step forward before it was stopped by his boss.

"You stay back," the demon prince said, extending an arm in front of the male's chest. "If something happens to me, I leave Mina and my unborn daughter in your care. Rescue them from the Yakuzas."

"But the queen will have my head if I fail to protect you, sire."

"You'll stay back, Nockrish," Vergil growled, his voice taking the gruffness of a hellish beast. "That's an order from the 1,201st high prince of Hell."

Clamping his mouth, the bodyguard lowered his head in defeat and did as he was told.

Vergil's attention went to the monstrous cage once more. The center of the beast consisted of a golden energy sphere holding his wife's bodyguard inside. The seemingly unconscious male was held spread-eagle by translucent tentacles that emerged from the sphere itself. Two rings filled by eyes the size of baseball balls rotated in pretzel style around the sphere. Lastly, gigantic golden-tipped white feathers came out of the top, sides and bottom, in a poor imitation of a humanoid figure.

What the fuck were the angels thinking when they created such horrendous thing? Even the more grotesque of demons was gorgeous beside that monstrous cage. And all those eyes... it made the thing appear alive.

"Prince Zafan," Vergil called with a look of disgust in his face. Sadly, he got no reaction from the trapped demon. "Hey, vampire, do you hear me?"

Calling a Nocte Vespertilio by the name humans gave to the race was the gravest of insults, so getting no reaction from Zafan meant the demon was truly unconscious. Not all Vespertili hated being called vampires but the royals did. They had been known to kill for it. And Zafan was the fourth son of Gaap, Governor of Southern Hell and King of all air demons.

"Do you think that thing is draining his energy, my liege?"

"I'm not sure. I can't sense anything beside that energy sphere," the prince answered, summoning his broadsword to his hand. "But if we let Prince Zafan die, we'll be facing a political conflict with one of Hell's most powerful demons." The sword was enveloped in flames the next second and Vergil swung it, making a fire arc that sped toward the feathered cage.

There was no explosion upon contact, though. The flames only ran over the energy sphere, enveloping it, and then vanished in thin air, leaving the expectators in stunned silence. The only obvious change took place in the rotating rings. More eyes began opening and locking over Vergil, sending more chills down his back.

"I have a bad feeling about this, sire!" Nockrish called from behind.

His master smiled, making a show of his fangs, and leaped towards the monstruous cage, raising his flaming serrated broadsword in the air before crashing it over the energy sphere. The angelic monster shook and a wave expanded outwards, knocking everything to the ground, including the demons.

In the midst of all the chaos caused by the shockwave, Vergil heard a throaty groan by the kitchen island as his eyes opened. Instead of searching for his companion, his red irises landed over the angelic cage in time to see laser-like golden beams emerging from every motherfucking-creepy-eye trained on his direction. Feeling the dented wood behind his back, the prince rolled away from the apartment's front door a second before it was riddled with holes. He looked at the other end of the kitchen island where he had seek refuge and met Nockrish's wide, molten gold irises. Both knew they were in for more than what they could chew.

Not a second later, another laser splitted the island in half, narrowingly missing Vergil's shoulder.

That was it.

Lilith's favorite son had been defeated by a heavenly artifact that could be alive.

Unless...

There was a way to beat it but they would need the princess. Mina's Guardian Angel could know how to deactivate that thing or at the very least freed the Vespertilio prince.

Meanwhile, they needed to retreat and regroup.

The demons irises met one more time before they came out of their hiding place, showed the finger to the angelic cage and teleported out of the destroyed apartment.