O.D. 1.26.2000 [12:47 p.m.]

(...yet another Vittorio and Mercedes. For some reason I never c&ped these scenes to hard drive. On the other hand, 99% of my scenes with Liz are on the hard drive...

One of my greatest regrets about these scenes? That I didn't write down the f'ing English translation of whatever the fuck they're saying. Heh.)

The Pit, St. Louis

January 2000

Italians...Gods gift to the children of Seth. Raised in a culture of whispers, of politeness� or revenge. Where passions flame as easily as tempers, only to ignite the world around them.

The pair [Mercy and Hope] enter The Pit--den of inequity (to the 5th power), without batting an eye. Or more aptly drawing them. She stands behind him (peeking over his shoulder), eyes an almost perfect black intruded on by specks of gold--too luminous (alluring) to be safe.

Poised.

Such a poised couple, they are. Poised at the edge of the dance floor on graceful, regal feet, somehow seeming a world above the others in the Pit. Poised at the fringe of the crowd, confident and secure in their elegance, their status, their...deadliness. Such a poised, lovely pair.... Poised to allure. Poised to dominate. Poised to kill.

The man casts his gaze about, dusting the cuffs of his sleeves with practiced, absent ease. His attire may be casual, but nonetheless he had a certain dignity to him, a certain bearing of command that could not be ignored. "Is this your kind of place now, Mercedes?" He draws an old, old pipe from his pocket and taps it against the palm of his hand to stir its contents as his dark eyes take in the rough-edged, mad hedonism about him. "How the mighty have fallen. From the salons of Paris, to...this."

An edge of her mouth quirks upward while (amused?) she speaks, her voice so near musical as she whispers softly. Even as she does this she nudges Victor with an elbow. "Get with the century...Or are you permanently stuck in Milan with a gun and six bullets.." Taunting..? -how did she KNOW that- or perhaps she was simply testing him. Things were never -as they seem- especially, with shadow-twisters, and the twisted.

A gun and six bullets was already a luxury. If anything, his mind might have harked back to the nights spent with nothing more than a candle and a Bible (and ironic, is it indeed, that Vittorio--cruel, Godless Vittorio--had learned to read from such a holy book). Nevertheless, her words strike close enough for the silence to drag a beat too long before he replies, his tone as cool as his smile, "You can never run too far from your past." Ah, but no matter how fast--no matter how far--the past is always two steps behind, is it not? He reaches for her hand and deliberately laces his fingers with hers, ignoring the cruelly gleaming finger-knives, and tendrils of darkest black entwine with silver and platinum. "Come on. We might as well...indulge."

She swallows, this touch anathema to her. Vittorio feels her instinctive movement, to flinch from his touch, from his ever seeking hand. Instead she grips his hand and tightens the hold. Serrated blade slicing through flesh cruelly, as red droplets drip from her over-sized sleeve. Pulling him along a near cheery smile etches her features.

If he didn't know her so damn well, he might think she didn't care about his touch --that she was carefree.. But underneath she recoiled--inside she seethed, and he knew it.

All the same she's jovially pulling him along through the crowd.. Like Gretal with her Hansel leaving a small trail of blood behind them.

"Manco il vostro tocco, Mercedes." He murmurs, making her gait pace for graceful, loping pace. His hand tightens around hers as metal digs into flesh as cold as ice, and skin slides in slow indulgence over...bare...skin, lubricated by blood. "Mi ricordo delle vostre mani sulla mia pelle sotto il tramonto mediterraneo ritardato." He is no more than an inch behind her, his shirt-front brushing her back, his breath curling against her ear. Cold. Amused. Coldly, darkly amused. "Perch� non lo toccherete pi�?"

Taunting, he could well give as he took. Her grip tightens as the pair stops in the middle of the crowd. Her eyes eerily piecing--oddly loving, slides to his, as her body moves in slow smooth-motioned rhythm. Deeper, deeper the blades pierces into flesh to bone. She will not release...Wider and wider she smiles into "adoring" face..:: "non importa Vittorio mio"

"No, Mercedes." A whisper, and a laugh in one, as rhythm as bone-deep, blood-deep as the caress of shadow ripples through his body, and hers...and his...and hers... "� molto importante me." Pressed together, skin to cloth to cloth to skin, they are courting vipers, entwined and wicked. And yet the only true point of contact is their hands, blood-slicked, clasped. "Umore me, hmm?" Challenge, and silk-smooth invitation in his voice; challenge, and sharp-edged devastation, in the quick, brutal twist of his hand upon hers--straining bone, straining tendon. "Toccarlo. Tesoro."

At what does the �Avant Garde� fashion maven wear today? Her long overcoat of raw gray colored silk hangs from her nigh sculpted figure. The sleeves are longer than usual in this far from usual garment, (in fact they open at the cuffs in pseudo-Victorian style. But the lines are more sleek clean and entirely deliberate [think Vera Wang]) hanging from a body too delicious, from arms and hands so dangerous. They [the sleeves] ripple and dapple softly with red while dangerous hands clasp tighter. "Truly, Vittorio mio?" She pauses stepping closer her lips a breath from his, their cold heat affording them a limited berth as their dance continues. �Sto aspettando quello DA QUANDO in primo luogo abbiamo venuto a contatto di a Madrid."

He swivels her to face him in an inhumanly liquid turn. Clasped close, the tension that hums between their eyes is an iron blade sheathed in velvet. Velvet and iron, this tango in hell's ballroom; velvet and iron, as he catches her hand and presses it, clawed and deadly, to the base of his neck. Velvet and iron, the trace of his lip over the tip of the index-finger blade, and the twist of sinister smile, and the crawl of shadow over steel. "Well, then...non attendere affatto pi� lungamente."

(damn it I lost ANOTHER post-yadda yadda yadda she slices his face bit and pulls at his shirt asking if he wanted more [Piu] )

"Piu?" he echoes, bemusement laced with scorn. "Piu?" The scorn threads thicker, even as he leans back against the bar and drags her along his form, lifting her until her feet barely brush the ground, until his teeth brush along her throat, bared in a vicious grin. "Pathetic."

Perhaps OTHER women allow that kind of handling, perhaps OTHER women enjoy it, or find it acceptable. Mercy so sensual--too sensual, does not.

In one smooth motion both hands find his neck, a thumb and forefinger-blade at his throat, Her eyes narrowing, and worse yet lightening. The gold flex shinning brighter in the midst of dark brown mists. "Abbastanza!" A command.

He stops, his eyes dropping briefly to her hands, those graceful dealers of death. Slowly--so very slowly--he smiles. Inch. By agonizing. Inch. "Continua, tesoro," he murmurs, as his hands trace along her lean form and then lift in mock surrender. "Kill me."

She does not flinch nor does she smile--some things are not games. And ever do those finger creep closer, tighter...

Golden eyes inflamed by specks of brown " La Pieta" continues, staring into him past him�narrowing.

Oh, how they dance. How they dance the razor's edge; how they dance at Death's door; how they dance in the subtlest traceries of fingertips and blades, the slightest movements of eyes, lips. "What's the matter, Mercedes?" He is taunting her, goading her, flirting with merciless death. His arm tightens another notch, brings him ever closer to the sluggish, cold river of blood beneath her skin. "...afraid?"

She grimaces now her lips narrowing, as hands trail lower viciously ripping his shirt away from his chest. Blood spotting the once elegant pair, now hidden in the shadows of �The Pit�. "La morte non viene dal dio di eccoti..young " �and slowly do those fingers dance so lightly so lovingly over towards his heart, piercing skin where blades talon-like and sharp may find their gory home.

~The chill touch of wind upon neck~

~The unconscious shiver, as primitive senses barely detect the unseen~

~The subtle swaying of a crowd that parts ever-so-slightly without realizing it~

~Oh yes... something wicked this way comes~

"No..." he murmurs in dark agreement, as his fingers close around hers, bring her wrist to his mouth, "...morte viene da qui..." his lips part--and yet it is the bare brush of exhale brush, the catch of lower teeth, that stirs the hypersensitive nerves. Blood is not spilled, and death is eluded once more-- "...ma li amo troppo." His grip loosens, and with a last press of his lips to her wrist, he lowers her back to the floor.

They stare into each other eyes as she pulls her hands away from him leaving them at her sides. Others carried guns, explosives, pieces of wood sharpened to perfection. Mercy used her hands.

It is the stalemate that would haunt them for centuries to come�The brick wall neither can tear down. Mercedes was no mosaic. Vittorio was no dream. She pulls in one last time, and for a moment it IS the Mediterranean...it IS the sun blaring down (instead of the dim lights of the pit) it IS her hands on him--or possibly her lips as she leans in for the softest of kisses. "Io anche" �and then the swift thrust of her knee to his stomach smooth motioned, powerful and without hesitation. "Io anche.."