for whatmenfear

[dominus]

A few contacts in Florence had got in touch with Ezio earlier in the week, warm invitations to stay, to tell them all about the lucky lady in his life. "When will we get to meet her?" Paola had asked with a smile and a wink, tipping her wine glass at him, not an ounce of age having diminished the madam's beauty.

"Soon," he assured her, assured everyone who put the question to him. Soon Sofia would be back in Italy to stay, soon they would start the next chapter of their lives together. What would happen then, he wasn't sure. It made him giddy with anticipation.

The nights were long, as they always were when he visited old friends, time spent catching up, reminiscing, making idle plans. One conversation, however, took a darker turn, made him set down his glass and take Paola's hands in his.

Someone was stalking her and her girls.

That was what had him out that night, chasing along avenues and alleyways, after the thing that had made Paola's shoulders shake with untold dread. It was a flash of streaming gold hair in the dark, a pulsing, red aura full of bile and malevolence, quick as lightning amid the grey drizzle. He should have called Vlad and his people in, shouldn't have gone alone, but Florence was his city, and the giggling creature whose steps he dogged had come after his people.

He cornered her in a garden, someone's prize roses snagging in their wet clothes when the chase became a snarling, vicious fight as she turned and came at him. It was over in seconds, when it seemed as though she'd up and vanished into the very air and Ezio, bewildered, backed into the side of a house to catch his breath, to regroup.

She pulled him over the roof as if he were a rag doll, cooed a name to him in a tender voice like mouldering silk, and sank her teeth into his throat.

Snapshots of his life came to the fore, blinding, unbidden, as if his nameless attacker were drawing them out of her own accord. Cristina smiling cheekily at him, haloed by the summer sun. His father and brothers, slain in the square not a stone's throw away. Mario, ever patient and shouting encouragement as he ran his nephew through training again and again. The look on Vieri di Pazzi's face when he found his schemes undone and a blade in his belly; the look of every man he'd cut down in revenge. The golden glow of the Apple, the frightening rush of power flooding his veins. Claudia, pleased with herself and her new business venture. Florence and Forli, Venice and Rome. Madrid, Istanbul. The faces of his apprentices; Vlad's warm laugh over countless glasses of wine; the first time he laid eyes on Sofia in the terminal and felt that incomprehensible draw toward her.

The thought that crossed his mind, wrapped in the memory of Sofia's smile, of her body fitting so warm and perfect in his arms, of her fingers laced with his, was 'I don't want to die.'

Not now. Please, not now.

The thing that had him, cradling his limp form to her like a mother coddling her baby, accepted.

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[whatmenfear]

A dull, insistent trill dragged Vlad from his sleep. It was one of those rare days that found him at home, burrowed beneath a metric ton of blankets, rather than snoring into whatever manuscript happened to be passing through his office that weak.

Reaching out, he groped blindly at the nightstand in search of his cellphone. 'This had better be good', he thought, his fingers closing around the slim plastic shape as he lifted the phone to his ear.

Whatever sharp retort he had at the ready -- 5:00 am was not a civilized hour by any stretch of the imagination, vampire or no -- died swiftly as soon as he heard Claudia's voice on the other end of the line.

"Ezio's missing," she explained, because while they knew one another they were hardly the sort to engage in casual conversations however much her brother was convinced that they conspired together in secret, and Vlad could hear how she was gnawing on the bottom of her full lower lip, worry creeping in at the edges of her otherwise calm exterior. This was the day she had been dreading since the day her brother had begun his quest for revenge.

Except.

Except that Ezio wasn't that angry, reckless boy anymore. He'd grown up, had learnt the hard lessons one learnt as you left your childhood behind, and things were... things were finally looking up.

Peeling back the covers, Vlad swung his legs over the side of the mattress, what heat he'd managed to gather during the few hours of sleep melting away like morning mist. It didn't matter, he had other things on his mind. "Tell me what you know."

[dominus]

"I do not regret those years, but it is time to live for myself, and let them go. To let go of all of this," Ezio said quietly, his tone making each statement into a confession of sorts, words he was never quite ready to breathe to another soul until now.

Sofia lifted a hand to his face, drew her fingers back through his messy hair and cupped his cheek, considering him in the comfortable silence. "Then let go," she said simply, evenly, with a kind of gentleness he hadn't known in so very long. "You will not fall far."

Ezio came to gradually, almost unwillingly, the veil of sleep caught on aching limbs, on a clouded head. He was sitting up, resting awkwardly against a wall in some unknown place, a position that became more and more uncomfortable as his awareness rose to take hold.

Stiff from sleep, disoriented beyond reason, Ezio grimaced when he moved to rise and felt his muscles protest, felt his joints throb. They were sensations that came and went, coupled with a peculiar sort of cramped roiling in his belly, hunger or nausea chewing deep as he steadied himself. He felt...sweaty, uncomfortably hot as if fever-struck, while he squinted into the dimness around him. A room took shape, dust layering the floor, sheets thrown over furniture, wallpaper peeling in petal-like curls away from the crown molding.

He was...home? No, no, the place hadn't been home for twenty some odd years, even as he recognized it as what it used to be. The Auditore family home in Florence, closed up tight since he fled with his mother and sister so many years ago. Why would he be there?

Running a hand back through his hair, he tried to remember, tried to piece together the scattered fragments of his memory after that thing in the darkness had torn through all of them like a thief searching for hidden gold. There was no phone in his pocket, actually he had no coat on at all, just the thin layer of undershirt against the heat, and the distinct taste of copper in his mouth.

[whatmenfear]

The journey from Rome to Florence was the longest ninety minutes of his life. Much of the time was spent in conference with Claudia -- growing progressively more concerned -- and his own people.

If this was a vampire -- and they'd yet to receive a confirmation, a small hope blossoming in his chest that this was all somehow just a terrible misunderstanding -- then there were protocols in place. Protocols he, himself, had established.

If this was a vampire then it really wasn't about Ezio anymore.

Head pounding, Vlad navigated his way through the crush of Firenze SMN. It was always difficult being out during daylight hours, the memory of flesh peeling away from bone fighting to push to the forefront of his mind, but being out surrounded by people was enough to make even the most restrained of vampires acutely aware of their surroundings.

He had to pause more than once to gather his composure.

Claudia met him at the door, and he managed to muster a smile for her that almost, but not quite, reached his eyes, dropping a kiss to her cheek. There was no word yet, though Vlad's people moved quickly. Several high-risk locations had already been eliminated.

"So, where to next Signorina?"

"Well, I might have an idea."

[dominus]

Florence carried on its own affairs outside, alarmingly loud, the sounds of passing cars and people, conversations distinct as if they were right beside him. Ezio drew a hand up, touching his ear as he turned a slow circle, bewildered.

Just as he noticed it, it felt as though the world turned the volume down again, and things were once more mercifully quiet. Dust motes danced in the air, lit by the sun's glow as it peeked between closed shutters and found itself muted by the heavy drapes. His second sight felt as if it had been knocked haywire, he could see each minute particle as it cut a whirling dervish path through the small anteroom. The house itself was as old as Vlad, possibly even older as many things were in Florence, kept in the family and updated through the passing years, a new layer of history for each generation to add.

It was the keen awareness of just how dry his throat felt that pulled him from his strange reverie. Water, he needed water --must be dehydrated, how long was he out for-- and needed to get to a phone. Paola would be ready to box his ears for not coming back, no matter his age. Sofia, too, he felt a sudden, desperate urge to see her that gripped him stem to sternum, white-hot like the brand of animal fear and throwing him off balance. Where did that come from?

His head felt heavy and hot once more, the rush of nausea, of muscles cramping in the back of his throat down into his guts driving him right to the bare floor again, touching his burning temple to the dusty wood with a low, guttural groan.

[whatmenfear]

The Palazzo Auditore was situated in the San Giovanni district of Florence, a formidable stone building that had been commissioned sometime during that late fifteenth century by one of Ezio's ancestors.

Vlad had heard the stories, of course. Of Uberto Alberti's betrayal and how a teenaged Ezio had had to sneak his mother and sister out of a city that had turned against them, unable to save his father and brothers.

It wasn't the sort of thing one forgot.

And it made a certain amount of sense, he supposed. The palazzo might not have been home in the way that Rome was now home but it would still be more familiar to him -- especially if he were wounded -- then any of the surrounding buildings.

"Stay close," Vlad said, glancing over at Claudia as he shut the car door behind him. Claudia's indignant huff, dark eyes rolling back, told him precisely what she thought of that.

The corners of his lips twitched despite himself. Even in the midst of all this insanity, some things never changed.

[dominus]

Someone was outside. Immediately outside; he heard the engine cut off, the snick of closing doors. Footsteps over the paving stones in the central courtyard, the jangle of keys and the soft swear beneath Claudia's breath when she realized the door was already open.

Another sound joined that of the movement downstairs, a steady, distant drumbeat in Ezio's ears. The want for something liquid, to cool his fever and quench his thirst sharpened, the twist of a knife in his belly. Gesù Cristo, that made his teeth ache..

"Ezio?" Claudia called cautiously, hope woven through her voice. The dust in the foyer was disturbed, footsteps clear in the sunlight from the open door.

Biting back the urge to be sick at the clutching pain, Ezio pushed himself up, pressed the heels of his palms into his knees and didn't bother hiding the extent of how he felt when he hoarsely called back, "Claudia?"

Her footfalls were loud after that, hurried, yet didn't for a second smother that ceaseless pulsing. If anything it was faster now, growing in volume as she raced upstairs. He could smell her before he saw her, the familiar floral notes of her favorite perfume, the soap beneath that. Something deeper, something heady and grotesquely alluring, something he wanted, needed with an impure, wanton intensity that had him recoiling in disgust, just as his sister came upon him.

She recoiled too at the sight of her brother, dusty, pale, glassy-eyed, with dried blood crusting his chin and throat. Ezio's gaze dropped a fraction, to the thunderclap roar of her beating heart, and felt something die inside him.

[whatmenfear]

The interior of the palazzo was mercifully dark, the air thick with the scent of dust and the barest hint of mildew.

'Surprisingly well-maintained for a house that had been abandoned for the better part of twenty years', he thought, peeling off his glasses to get a better look around. Turning just in time to catch a flash of golden hair, a soft, lilting laugh hanging in the air.

"Claudia," he called, a note of alarm creeping into his voice. 'Damn it!'

[dominus]

He heard Vlad but didn't really hear him, because all he could hear was Claudia's racing heart, while cold horror was creeping up Ezio's spine, digging in with both sets of claws.

She said something that was very Claudia that cut through some of the noise -- anger and care and relief and comfort -- because even though she was in her late thirties she was still his baby sister. Her hands were on his shoulders; she was on the floor beside him while he stared open-mouthed at her, while her fingers crept along his brow.

"You're burning up. What did that thing do to you? Ezio, what happened?"

Her throat was in easy reach, the pulse of her lifeblood standing out so sharp in his new vision, and it called to him, sang to him as he shook beneath her touch.

[whatmenfear]

If there was one thing Vlad disliked, it was being toyed with.

The creature – female, pretty in a way one might almost consider angelic but for the madness that edged her laughter, red eyes gleaming in the gloom – seemed determined to lead him a merry chase. And, most frustrating of all, she appeared to be holding her own, though he was gaining on her gradually.

He caught her finally, in one of the bedrooms, arm hooking around her waist and slamming her bodily into the nearest wall. She screeched, indignant at having been caught, lashing out with clawlike nails that managed to catch him across the cheek. He snarled, momentarily caught off-guard, and then she was gone again.

This time there was no laughter to follow.

[dominus]

It was the thud of a body making contact with the wall that finally tore his attention from Claudia. Ezio shoved himself back from her, his nails beginning to leave scratches in the wood floor. How could he explain something he was only just coming to realize himself?

"Claudia, per l'amor di Dio, don't come any closer. Please!" He waved at her to stop when she came after him, ready with an argument.

"Ezio, what kind of a thing to say is that!" And so it began.

[whatmenfear]

“I don't know why you came here,” Vlad called, turning this way and then that as he listened for even the slightest hint of motion. His senses were sharp, his focus honed over the years, but the background hum of the city was still an insistent presence.

The pounding in his head intensified, fingers flexing.

Frankly he didn't care why she had come, could only concern himself with the here and the now, and hope – 'Please God, let them be all right.' – that Claudia had found her brother and had gotten him out.

“But you must know that I cannot let you leave, not after all that you have done.” That even if she did escape that he would hunt her down himself, had to, because this was his family. “So let us end this peaceably.”

[dominus]

"Fuck you, cocksucking pig!" Came the rejoinder, hissing, sharp, fingernails splintering as they dragged across slate. Domenica's eyes flashed in the dark, green like the lens of a wolf. She might have been a beautiful woman once, and gave the impression that in life she might have had a fuller figure to better suit her heart-shaped face, since turned lean and hard, alabaster pale and unforgiving in her mien. There was the stink of death about her, a creature who lived as vampires of ancient folklore always did, with grave dust clinging to her out of date clothes.

"You believe you can take what is rightfully mine? Again?" There was a low noise that punctuated that, the sort of noise no human woman could ever make. It rattled in her chest and bubbled up into her throat, harsh, feral anger. This Romanian prick had a lot of fucking nerve.

[whatmenfear]

Vlad made a soft noise in the back of his throat, part incredulity and part disgust. Time had not be kind, eroding away her looks even as it took her sanity, and while he might once have been moved to pity -- 'What must you have been through to have fallen so far?' -- he hardened his heart, tracking her movement with the wary eye of a predator.

"People are not dolls. Not property. They do not exist for our amusement."

[dominus]

"You took my companion," she spat, pacing back and forth. Domenica took her wild, golden curls in her hands, pulling at them in agitation. "It is only fair that I recoup my loss in kind. There, you have it?"

She spun to face him, eyes wide. "I have been more than reasonable, messere. Leave him and go." Her lips drew back from her teeth, fangs bared.

[whatmenfear]

“If I took him it was because he was foolish and weak.” Mouth curling, a smile that was less of a smile and more of a bearing of teeth.

Some might consider it arrogance, and perhaps they would be right, but Vlad rested sure in the knowledge of, if not his own superiority then the fact that he could take her down with him.

[dominus]

Her mouth twisted into a snarl of outrage. That was what did it then, that snapped the last of her tenuous hold on her own control. No one would speak so ill of her darling Matteo, her rock, her husband, her companion, her brother in the last five hundred years of darkness. If he was gone, then she would make him anew.

She came at her enemy like a spitting cat, sharp nails and teeth bared.

[whatmenfear]

Vlad sidestepped her attempt to rush, letting her momentum carry her past.

Laughing, a low and bitter sort of sound, fingers flexing (claws sharpening) as he readied himself for the next attack. Hoping to enrage her further, to draw her attention, keeping her from circling back for the others. "You're going to have to do better than that, madonna."

[dominus]

She did.

Turning on a dime, her filthy skirt flaring with the motion, her hair a banner of dusty gold, she was suddenly there and then she's not, dispersed into a fine mist like morning fog. It moved with its own mind, spilling onto the floor, over Vlad's shoes and around his legs, and then she was there again with clutching hands and raking claws to take him to the ground.

A shout came from upstairs, as did the shattering of glass and splintering of wood, and something heavy and inanimate landed in the courtyard outside. Claudia wailed, a long, mournful note, and Domenica flashed a smile of triumph at her enemy.

(( I'm always happy to help! ))

[whatmenfear]

Cursing, Vlad flung his head back hard, listening for the crunch of cartilage meeting bone, even as he brought his heel to bear on her instep.

It was dirty fighting of the worst sort, perhaps, but then there was little time for niceties when one was fighting for their lives.

'If we live through this, I'm going to really have to take Ezio up on his offer.' He thought, striking at her ribs with his elbow.

[dominus]

She let loose a vituperative swear when her nose broke, the delicate bones in her foot shattering at the strike. Grunting at the impact of his elbow in her side, she released him, staggering away with a low, animalistic whine of pain.

It's clear she wasn't a fighter, not one that could go toe to toe with another vampire at the very least-- Ezio's Achille's had been his lack of an answer for her speed and strength. She could teach him though. She would, she would. She'd tear away anything and everything that tied him to humanity still, until he had no where else to turn but straight into her welcoming arms.

"You can't take him from me! I'll find him, I will roam the whole of the earth to take back what is mine, I swear it!"

[whatmenfear]

He didn't doubt it. Vampires were, by their very nature, possessive creatures and she had clearly fixated on Ezio.

Trust him to make a lasting impression even when he was at work. Though, given the trail of broken hearts the Italian had managed to leave in his wake he could not say he was particularly surprised.

Even so there was no way that she would be allowed to have him. Not while there was any sort of chance -- especially if there were any sort of chance.

He rolled his shoulder, wincing at the sharp stab of pain. "We shall see about that."

[dominus]

She came at him again and again with snarls of rage, clawing or biting or evanescing into fog once more to try and choke him, easily turned aside the moment she becomes corporeal again.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill all of you!" Domenica shrieked from the hold Vlad's put her in, foaming blood at the mouth and thrashing ineffectually, all her energy taken in from Ezio very nearly spent. She couldn't win, she knew it, but still fought, all her hatred and possessive fury spilling out.

"It's through the heart, isn't it?" Claudia interrupted from the doorway, a low, stern counterpoint to the vampire's pitched screams. She gripped a shattered bit of chair leg, a casualty of Vlad and Domenica's battle, her chin raised, her face tear-streaked.

[whatmenfear]

"Hard as you can."

The movies tended to make this part look easy, as if one solid prod would make the vampire deflate like a punctured balloon, when more often than not it was trauma to the heart that would bring about death. It was a process that could take up to several minutes to occur and even weakened most vampires were capable of unleashing considerable damage upon their adversary -- more than a few hunters had met their end in such a way.

Thankfully, she was restrained and for all she fought like an animal cornered she could not match Vlad for sheer force of will. "Quickly now."

[dominus]

Domenica struggled all the more when her gaze landed on the improvised weapon, gargling hideous curses. Claudia was no stranger to blood, to violence, and yet she found herself hesitating, wanting more. Nothing would give succor to her fury, to her grief; she doubted this thing in the guise of a woman would understand any question she put to her.

At Vlad's urging, Claudia turned the stake in hand for an overhand grip, and came for the vampire. She seized her by the front of her filthy, ancient dress, snagging in her golden hair, and drove the point of the wooden stake into Domenica's chest with a grunt of effort.

[whatmenfear]

Vlad knew what would happen next, could recall it in vivid detail even if the image hadn't been one that had haunted him for half a millennia. Domenica's body tensed suddenly, eyes wide and mouth open, the sound pulled from her throat too low to even be considered animal. Her last lingering moments would be no doubt spent trying to make sense of what was happening, how she could have come so far only to have failed.

Then would come the veins, thick and inky-black, spiralling across her body until it covered every inch of skin; whatever magic that held her body unravelling, gathering speed until, quite suddenly, it would give way. Collapsing in on itself, dust and grit spilling out across the floor, leaving only the lingering scent of grave-dirt hanging in the air.

It was always like this with the old ones, he reflected, dragging a hand across his mouth slowly as he inspected the remains. He wasn't alone, Claudia's eyes drawn to the pathetic pile of ash, the familiar look of disbelief settling across her features.

“Claudia,” he said finally, causing her gaze to snap toward him. There would be time enough to make sense of what had happened later, possibly over a glass or two of brandy. Right now, the most immediate threat removed, they needed to move before things became complicated. “Where is your brother?”