The police and several paranormal investigators arrived on the scene just as Wick and her brother vanished from sight down the street. Nick walked over to the twitching men and knelt down next to them. He didn't really care about their state of mind, in truth he'd have had them destroyed sooner, but it was lower on his list of things to destroy than other things were.
The police surrounded the area, ignoring the doctor-seeming man who was, from their point of view, trying to help the felled committee heads.
Nick looked at the empty, soulless eyes of Jack Sinclair, one of the department of justice heads in the city. He was alive, but there was nothing behind his eyes, as though he were staring and focusing on something invisible. A fascinating state of being, dead without leaving a corpse. The man groaned in pain as Nick shifted him then fell silent again as the ambulances began pulling up to cart the men away.
Nick dusted his hands off, backing away as the medics began their jobs of cleaning the mess up. He'd have to look further into this later. Now what was that girl's name? Victoria.. no -Wic-toria. Dante... That name seemed much more familiar.
Nick walked casually away, the police, doctors and medics were too busy with the lifeless bodies of the men on the ground to notice his absence and would later  write in their reports an anonymous doctor was on scene.

Wicktoria flew the broom and its two passengers to the base of a looming building. The doorman merely gazed at the odd girl and her passenger without so much as a twitch. He swept the gilt door wide for her and closed it securely behind her with only a quiet mummer into a mic in his sleeve.
High above in the penthouse level of the dark a just as looming and dark shape stood before a large fireplace. The broad-shouldered  figure merely stared out at the spires and streets of the city below.
As he stared out at the city through the wall of glass a tiny sound alerted him to the presence of another entering the room. Two others, actually.
Wicktoria held the hand of her now conscious brother in her own hand. Her wings had vanished by now, as had all of the other oddities that made her stand out.
She stood there, looking now like a girl who belonged in the goth and cyberpunk section of town. Her hair was pulled into a pair of fluffy cyber falls in black, red and silver. They fell into the same look as her clothing, somehow melding the leg warmers and skirt into looking very proper. Her deathly pale hand gripped tightly against the pink healthy glow of her brother's hand. The pair looked to the broad man as he stared out at the city in silence.
The man spoke in a low voice after a few moments. "Welcome home." As he spoke he turned, a warm and inviting smile touching his features. "I am so glad you're safe. I was worried when I heard the reports."
Wick took only a moment, then ran across the room to the man, who's wide hands wrapped around her shoulders and back in a loving embrace.
The boy stood in the doorway, staring blankly and emptily at the wide man.
"Edward my boy, come. Come." He smiled toward the boy who didn't move a breath until Wicktoria held her arms out to him. Then, zombie-like he ambled to the pair and accepted the embraces.
It lasted a moment before the large man released his children. Wick led her child-like brother to the plush velvet settie and sat primly on the cushions, tugging the boy next to her as their father took a casual seat behind a dark wooden desk.
"Tell me all about it." His warm voice belayed the worry as he let his gaze over the two children.
"She had him locked away in a basement." Wicktoria began, her eyes flaring a deep dark red. "Locked away like a -monster-..." Her voice rose a hint and before she began shouting Wicktoria closed her eyes, concentrating a moment.
"Elsbeth, calm yourself and start from the beginning." Her father said softly
"Yes, Father." She took a slow, relaxing breath and wrapped her slender arms around the shoulders of the thin boy.
"I traveled to Pleasant, I had said I would bring him back, no matter what..." She started, then recounted her tale.

Dante... why did that name ring a bell in Nick's mind? He pondered as he made his way back to the base. By the time he was back in his computer room, the question was burning his curiosity. The name seemed so insignificant and yet continued burning at his brain. He should know this one. The name wasn't that common after all.
"A1." He finally broke his frustrated silence. The android peered into Nick's lab with a small 'bip'. "Do a search for Dante, locals."
"Bip.. Of course." A1 responded before going about doing exactly that.
Nick began writing his observations of the odd girl and her supposed brother in a new log book while A1 began sifting through information.
"There are one hundred entries of Dante in the local census." A1 finally responded, holding the printed sheets out to him.
"More common than I thought." He took the papers, sifting through them.
"What's more common than you thought?"
Around the corner peered the pale black-framed face of Bella as her voice lilted through the doorway.
Nick rolled his eyes. "Dante."
"The book?" Bella looked confused.
"No, the name. The locals." Now Nick was going to have to find out everything he could about the pair.
"Oh.." Bella looked thoughtful a moment. "Like the record company?"
Nick spun his eyes to her. "How do you know that?"
"No.. reason." Bella tried to look innocent before slinking out of the lab with her mp3 player in hand.
Nick watched her leave, then looked to A1, who dutifully handed him the paperwork on a record company and law firms, both bearing the name Dante.
"Fallen Angel Records, owned by Cal Dante..." The image of a large man, handsome in the face and dark of eye with a thatch of blonde-brown hair. He seemed so jovial, hard to even imagine the man as being related to the demon-winged witch or the angelic little lost boy. He set the papers aside, looking at the law firm paperwork next.
"Calcifer Dante, owner of Laviathan Law Offices." the same man centered in the image of this packet as well.
Now Nick was very interested. He began searching the database to find out even more information on this mogul. He bent over the computer screen, eyes narrowed as he concentrated on the text rolling across the screen.

Wicktoria continued her story, keeping her voice level as she retold the events leading to the siren and light-filled afternoon.
"I don't understand how humans can live like that, Father. So buried in their own filth." Wick shuddered. "When I got to the town it was so shiny and clean, and I wanted to rip my heart out the moment I crossed the city limit. All of that hatred, that.. sin.. the evil in that town. And yet they smiled at me, while their hearts felt such fear and hatred. How do they live like that?"
"I have often wondered the same thing my darling." Calcifer answered quietly, listening intently to his daughter's story, sensing the stress in her voice and relieving it as best he could by simply being understanding.
"I began searching for -her-.  Her heart was the worst I had seen. So blackened and hideous." Wick shuddered again at the memory. "She denounced ever having a daughter, even claimed she had no son..."

Pleasant, Nebraska had never before seen such a sight within it's pristine streets when the strange dark-haired girl walked into the main street carrying an old wooden broom on her shoulder.
The welcoming committee, led by Magdalene Simmons, was quick to respond from the local church to the odd young woman, offering to help her quickly. Their minds swirling with frets and fears of her corrupting the local youth's pristine souls with her obvious dark ways.
Wicktoria said few words, asking only about a woman named Constance Mynard,  her manners were so polite and curt the committee was all-too-happy to get the oddity to the too-white home of Madame Constance, a local teacher.
The house stood picturesque behind an iron and stone fence surrounding a manicured lawn and garden. A tall tree spread like an umbrella over a swing on the pillared front porch. Had it not been real, Wick would have sword the house was a set.
She knew better.
Wicktoria's head ached, throbbing from the scent of sin and dispicable horrors hidden behind the facade of Pleasant. She could sense the weakening mind of her maddened brother, it was time to free him from this hell-hole.
Holding her shoulders high, and her broomstick tightly, she strode up to the door. As natural as it looked, she had managed to make the look of sweater vest, skirt, mary janes and french-twisted hair look positively goth. She politely rapped on the door, then rang the doorbell.
Westminster chimes rang through the air.
A woman, easily in her mid-fourties answered the door, gazing at the well-dressed girl before her. It was not one of her students, in fact the girl looked nothing like one of the residents.
"May I help you young lady?" Her voice was stained with years of public speaking, and Wicktoria flinched slightly.
"Yes, are you Madame Constance Mynard?" She was polite, gritting her teeth and curling her toes in the innocent-appearing shoes.
"I am. Who are you, young lady?" The woman looked down her hookish nose at the girl.
"My name is Elsbeth Wicktoria Dante. I am your daughter, abandoned at birth. I have come to collect my brother Edward Adam." Wicktoria saw no reason to pussyfoot around the issue with the despicable woman.
Constance's face drew tightly over her features. "I'm afraid you have the wrong house. I have no daughter, and there is no one by the name Edward Adam here. Please leave swiftly and do not return." The woman nodded curtly, too politely, and quickly shut the door in Wicktoria's face.
Wick, not one to be lied to, popped her neck to the side, leveling her eyes on the door. She then turned on her toes and very stiffly stepped down the walkway to the wrought-iron gate stood ajar.
Miss Simmons greeted Wick sharply. "Did you get the information you desired, Miss?"
"No." Wick was short with her answers. The breath of the woman reeked of flesh and moral degradation. The longer she stayed there, the more she began to understand why she felt such pain from her brother's mind.
Her eyes told scores as she glared at the too polite face of Magdalene Simmons. Who very swiftly excused herself from Wicktoria's side and shuffled down the street toward the church, crossing her chest as soon as her back was to the girl.
Wicktoria made her way to the nearly nostalgic diner on the main street. She would wait then, no matter how long it took.
The inside of the diner was chrome and plastic, gaudy in it's attempt to recapture a bygone age. Like  a trashed prom queen ten years later trying to recapture the glory days of high school. The diner smelled of guilt to Wick. But it was preferable to what it smelled like in the rest of the town.
A man wearing a short jacket and jeans, no more than twenty eight approached the groomed girl. "Mind if I sit?" His voice was soft, and unlike the locals carried an accent of somewhere far away, like New York or Vermont.
Wicktoria looked up at the man, nodding silently from behind her Root Beer float. "If you wish."
"You've arrived in the dust bowl of fun. Why are you here?" He set a folder down on the red Formica booth table.
"I'm here to get my brother and take him somewhere safe." She answered. "What about you? You're obviously not a local." His aura tasted clean and he smelled of something akin to blue and black roses. It was confusing to Wick until she looked up and noticed a glint from the lapel of his jacket. "Never mind."
The man looked confused a moment, then smiled as he sat down. "I'm investigating a series of murders." He looked to her. "Have you been here long?"
"I'm not a suspect. You're just trying to placate the sheep." Wick wasn't in the mood for a federal agent to use her.
He laughed sheepishly. "Something like that. It's only because I'm getting nowhere fast. I'm hoping a few people will give me the truth. Who's your brother?" the questions rolled off of his tongue with a practiced ease.
Wicktoria sat in silence, sipping the soda. The man merely watched her, waiting for a response.
"You're rude." Wick's eyes closed briefly, then opened and looked at the man evenly.
He blinked, taken aback by the comment. "Wha-.. how am I rude?" He  hadn't expected that.
"You didn't introduce yourself, nor did you ask my name." She stated matter-of-factly.
"Oh? Oh! My most humble apologies. My name is Jake Smith." He stood, giving a respectful bow to the black haired girl. Wick rose to her feet, brushing her skirt off carefully and returned the bow with an elegant curtsy.
"Elsbeth Wicktoria Dante." She took her seat once again primly.
"Elizabeth. That's a nice name." He mulled the name in his mind, trying to remember if the name had any meaning to the case.
"Elsbeth.  Not Elizabeth. Everyone thinks that's what I say." She shook her head slightly, then looked back at Jake. "And you're a Federal Agent."
He seemed taken aback again, looking shocked at her statement. "Ye.. yes I am. How did you know?"
"You smell like it. What murders?" Wicktoria was sure she knew already, but at least he was pleasant conversation.
"I shouldn't be discussing an open case." Jake suddenly seemed very defensive. "And now you're being rude."
Wicktoria canted her head. "Oh, you're right of course. My apologies." Her voice was soft. "Edward Adam Dante is my brother."
Jake furrowed his brow at the name. "There's no Edward Adam Dante here. There's no one with the last name of Dante here at all. I doubt they would last very long in this town. It's got its nose so close to the cross, the people here are sniffing splinters. The only Edward Adam I know of here is a Mynard. and I've been reading census for a week."
"His name is Dante, not Mynard." Wicktoria said curtly, as though she were absolutely assured of the fact. Jake couldn't help but narrow his eyes.
"Edward Adam is one of the suspects in my case anyway. it's awfully convenient for you to come here and claim to be a sister to a murder suspect."
"Edward didn't kill anyone." Wicktoria leveled her blood-red eyes on the man across from her. For a brief moment he could have sworn her teeth were pointed.
"How do you know that?"
"Because if he had killed anyone, he'd be dead. And he's not dead. Plus, Edward hasn't even thought of hurting anyone here."
"You can't know that after being here less than five hours." Jake looked at the girl, she was so convinced. "How do you have any idea of what he's guilty or innocent of?"
"Because this pathetic, sin-ridden down is still standing." She said, standing abruptly a five dollar bill left on the table.
Jake stood up quickly. "And you don't think it would be?"
Wicktoria ignored the comment, picking the heavy wooden broom up from the floor beside the booth as she made her way to the door.
"For what it's worth, I believe that as well." Jake said quickly, following her.
Wick stopped. "Why?"
"Because I've spoken with the town. So Maynard's disowned the boy for years recently, the town became convinced several years ago that he was evil incarnate. I've seen him before, he's harmless. While the school children threw rocks at him, he just stood there. Not exactly a murder's personality. Unfortunately there have been three murders in the past week, and he has supposedly been present at all of them. People swear they saw him kill those people." Jake spilled the information quickly to the girl.
"And you have the good sense to not believe them." Wicktoria looked at the fed. "You're a smart man. But you can't prove his innocence, or their guilt, can you?"
Jake smiled at the brief compliment, then shook his head. "Unfortunately not. If you're his sister, you may want to protect him."
"Protect him?" Wick narrowed her eyes. "Why?"
"I'm not from here, I'm not in on the town's internal workings, but there's been outcries from the victim's families. If they find him, they'll likely kill him." Jake looked at the girl, he could see the resemblance between her and the boy he had spoken at before if he looked just right.
Wick smirked, then smiled. Then she began laughing, a long almost maniacal laugh that filled the streets.
People began to stop, staring at the laughing youth. After a few moments Wick stopped, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand as she leveled her eyes on the man before her. "If they do, it will be -their- undoing."
Wick turned away from him then, walking solemnly down the sidewalk, ignoring the odd looks given by the high-and-mighty townspeople. Jake, intrigued, followed quickly.
Wicktoria could feel a change in Ed's mind. Something was wrong, he was getting provoked. Her steps sped up until she was nearly running. It felt as though he were close. Wicktoria closed her eyes, following her heart toward her brother. Her feet led her straight back to the pristine lawn of Constance Mynard.
Wick glared at the door. "Ed..." She pursed her lips and stalked her way, once more, up the path. Lifting the broom in one hand she banged heavily on the door. Polite was thrown out the window as a sharp stabbing pain ripped through her chest and side. Ed was close enough for her to feel his pain, and he had just been struck by something sharp.

The door exploded inward, showering the white runner carpet with ugly brown splinters. A scream rose from the very bowels of hell, resounding through the house and echoing through the halls of the two story house.
Wicktoria wasted no time. She felt something horrible, and the house was absolutely permeated with the reek of pain, hatred and self-loathing. It made Wick's head reel. She stumbled only a few steps into the white and lace entry hall and fell against the broad chest of Jake.
"Are you alright?" He looked concerned for her health. She'd nearly collapsed into his arms and she looked positively ill.
"Be glad you don't feel what I do." Was the only answer he received. She recovered her footing and stormed through the house, pictures, books and nick-knacks flew off of the shelves in her wake as she made her way through the house, seeking the basement entrance.
She found the door ajar and as her fingers touched the knob, another shriek of anger and pain ripped through the air. She felt another pain rip through her chest, in her heart, and sent the broom through the door, shattering it with much more force than should have been exerted by the swing of the broom.

There, in the white walls of the basement stood Constance Mynard, standing victoriously over the mangled body of an emaciated boy. The boy's body was twisted in fear, his hands held over his ears as though hearing something horrible. Held triumphantly in Mynard's hand was the bloodied, broken end of a baseball bat. A sulfurous stench rose from the mangled body of the boy on the floor.
Jake began to race toward the form. The remains of the bat were swung threateningly in his direction by the maddened shape of Mynard.
"No! I have to destroy the monster! He's not an angel. He isn't human! He's like.. like her!" The bat was pointed accusingly at Wicktoria. More yellow-green smoke rose from the broken and limp form of Edward. A TV sat in the corner of the dull basement, a female televangelist spouting her lecture on the demons of souls poisoning the mind. "Stay back! You don't know them. They're hideous monsters."
The bat flew through the air, Wick's attention on the form of Edward she didn't have time to react and the bat struck her just above the eye.
The room filled with brilliant light then, the smell of sulfur, incense and charcoal filling the air with it's bitterness.
Mynard flew across the room as a voice boomed out in an unintelligible language. Her body slumped against the wall, hitting the floor where she curled into a fetal position. The light was blindingly brilliant as the figure of an angel filled the middle of the room.
It was twisted, darkness ebbed from his fingertips, wreathing his head in the blood red and eerie gold of anger. The angelic figure burst through the house, leaving wreckage in his wake as he escaped the prison of the basement.
Jake rushed to Wicktoria's side first. She waved him away from her, then looked at the mind-shattered form of Mynard. "It serves you right, Justice served on you, you old hag!" She shouted, then picked herself up, the innocent form dissolved into the winged form of a demon-like creature.
She retrieved her broom from the floor, looking to Jake only briefly before sweeping the broom's handle under him, saving him from the collapse of the house as she took to the skies, side saddle.
Wicktoria's wings fluttered in the wind as she took off after her brother, Agent jake clutched tightly to the thick wooden shaft of the broom.
Below them, the town was burning in dark hellish fire. Gold, black, red and blue filled the streets. Cleansing the filthy gutters as people throughout the town began to burn in the fires lit by the angelic creature's fingers.
"You have to stop him!" Jake yelled at the demon-girl whom he seemed captured by, hovering a decent hundred feet off the ground with.
"No. I don't. His mind has snapped, this is divine justice. This is their fate for all of the wrongs they have done. This is their cleansing. Besides..." She looked toward the man. "How do you suggest I stop him? These people have wronged him his whole life. They have treated him as a monster. They deserve this." She explained, sharp canines flashing in the sunlight.
"You're evil." Jake responded, gauging his likelihood of survival if he were to jump now.
"No. I'm not. -They- are evil. -They- are the murderers, thieves, connivers, adulterers and liars. No. I am not evil." Her eyes narrowed on the burning forms of people writhing in their own hells. "And he won't stop until his mirror cracks."
"Mirror?" Jake looked confused now. Curiosity getting the better of him.
"His mind is broken, that's the only reason he hasn't cleansed this town before now. When he sees clearly, he knows what has to be done. Right now, he's doing what's right and needed. When he's done, his vision will be clouded, his mirror will break. He's my twin. I've known his mind since I was small. I know how it works. Just trust me."
As she spoke, Jake could do little but cling to her shoulders. The angelic form of Edward began to falter, nearly off of the town lay in ruins, fires burning in homes while the people lay as still as corpses in the streets where he passed.
"I don't understand." Jake said.
"You're not meant to." The broom descended to the ground before the largest church, which now resembled a ruined cathedral. the stone structure stood, but only just, while it was gutted perfectly, a clean slate to rebuilt around. It was here that Edward's angelic form began to fall away leaving the weakened form of Edward in his wake.
Jake got only the briefest look into the eyes of Edward, broken and gone but the lightest shade of blue he had ever seen. The tussled hair fell over his eyes as he turned to look at wick. The briefest of smiles touched his lips before the boy fell unconscious on the steps of the church.
"Is he alive." Jake now looked with concern at the boy.
"He'll... he'll live. Come on Ed. Let's get you home." Tears, dark as blood ran down Wick's face as she clutched her brother's head to her chest tightly.
Even Jake had to admit, the town seemed... better, even with the damages. He had the evidence now to convict Mynard for the murders. If she was still alive.

Wick finished telling the story. Calcifer simply crossed his hands over the desk. He sat up straight, the intimidating form of his shoulders silhouetted against the wide open window behind him. "I had wondered about the rumors of Pleasant being bombed. Now I know the truth." He looked to Wick, who's voice had managed to stay so even, really she was much more mature than he had thought. "I am more glad that you are both alive and well, despite the trials of your getting here." He looked at his children with a soft gaze. "And you are home now." His eyes were worriedly on the gaunt form of Edward.
Ed, for his part, merely looked at Calcifer with an absent look. "Home..." The word rose from his lips slowly. "Home? With Wicky?" He looked to his sister curiously, a look of fear crossing the dark blue orbs in their deep sockets.
"Yes.. home with Wicky." Wick responded, hugging him tightly.
Calcifer smiled gently. "When your mothe..." He stopped himself at the glare from Wick. "When she took Edward away I didn't think she would be capable of such heinous acts. I'm sorry for ever allowing it, Edward. Please forgive me."
Edward merely looked at the man. "I forgive." He said plainly, then leaned against Wick's shoulders once more.
"No mother should ever reject her children." She hugged Edward once more, smoothing his hair gently.
"Take him up to his room, you've both had a harrowing day. I'll come up to check on you shortly.
"Yes Father." Wick helped Ed up, smiling pleasantly as she led him through the wide doors toward the penthouse and his new, comfortable, home.

Nick remained buried in papers and internet stories. He was still there when Bella and A1 came into the lab.
"What is so special about this? It's been hours you know." Bella said, looking at the paperwork.
"It isn't, and at the same time I've never seen anything like this. How it slipped past my notice before is the real question. Calcifer Lucas Dante, owner of Fallen Angel Records as well as Leviathan Law Offices has some of the most influence in the city, state and country I've ever seen. He's been quashing  small uprisings of lobbyists for years, even going so far as to control part of the markets and either cause minor crashes or lifts with his decisions. This man is closer to controlling this part of the world than I've been at destroying it!" Nick pulled at his hair in frustration.
"What's so bad about that? Seems like he could just be useful if you really wanted him to be."
"He's been doing it right under my nose! And I never noticed!"