Ezio Auditore da Firenze (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dominus) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
plot_mischief2015-04-20 03:55 pm
dominus) wrote in plot_mischief2015-04-20 03:55 pm
for whatmenfear
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.
"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.
no subject
"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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
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?”