Santorielli: Cadere Per Sempre

Prologue

Rain painted the streets of Rome a shimmering gray; crystalline for the wane though warm light that leaked from the occasional open door, glimmering for how quickly those doors were shut again. For fear of the rain, the gale, and the superstitious suspicion that leaving it open for too long would invite a bit of the trouble that had always teemed under the veneer of rich civility and orpulence of Rome.

Those troubles had always been present, but linger not on the darkness that lurked in a place far removed from---or veritably clothed in it, in some cases,---the gold, pearls and brocade of the noble and the wealthy; no one willingly looks into it, anyway.

Like complacent sheep, desperately clinging to so many self-wrought illusions, people come and go, ignoring the homeless they meet eyes with through the half-curtained window of their carriages, even as their passage drenches the downtrodden further in muddy water.

The recent slew of murders had not been that much of a surprise; with the world's most powerful and most beautiful in this gilded city, how could there not be that destructive envy, greed and human lust? All of them had seemed unconnected, but strangely, the very quality of the murders felt oddly similar.

Stabbed, slashed, strangled; no matter the condition of the resultant corpse, the trauma it caused, there had always been that hint of desperation in the kills. There was just something about the lack of true brutality in the murders, as contradictory as that sounded. There had been just enough force applied to bring people who would otherwise be mired in Hell to the highest heavens where angels sang

Those seem to be dying down now, and true to form, not a week after the brutal mauling and mutilation---further mutilation, poor boys that had been brought to the knife,---a new breed of atrocities had overrun the city. As curious a soul as he was, he could not help but wonder at the abrupt end of the string of seemingly senseless murders that had spanned the last year and the current one. What tragic story lay behind it?

A romantic, that was what they all called him. The young lord, such a hopeless romantic. Or was there merely a quagmire of madness behind the eyes of such a killer, trying to consume him whole even as he tried to leave his message for the uncaring world to see? For yes, he believed that it was all committed by the same, desperate soul, crying out for help.

The carriage jolted as one of its wheels sank into a rut worn into the street from frequent use, jostling the lord with his golden hair. Heavy strands of it slipped free from the black ribbon that had held back his hair before, and the moon caressed it so that it was an ethereal silver, so close to that captivating shade of white gold sometimes reached.

Time trickled past as the young lord waited for the carriage to resume its journey, but there were no signs of such a thing beyond the restive snorting of the horses, and their clomping hooves. A bare inch forwards, and then backwards, and then forwards again; it seemed that the horses were stalling.

Breath passed his pursed lips in a long-suffering sigh. The lordling drew the curtains aside with the bare tip of his fingers, eyes scanning the relative darkness for some sign of the driver.

What he saw instead, was a still, black-shrouded figure.

A slight shift and the figure was illuminated in the scant bit of moonlight, and it ceased being merely a black-shrouded figure.

What had seemed to be black before was in actuality a deep wine red, stained brown and black in too many places for the lordling to tell if the tattered cloak had had patterns of black before. Moon-pale was the little skin exposed to the cool night air, outlining the broad yet thin shoulders and the lithe planes and soft curves of the figure's body. When it took a step forwards, leaving the shadows behind completely as if finally gaining faith and trust, there was the subtle tapering of its waist, and the long lines of its tightly-muscled legs. Over the white, streaks of something dark and crusty marred its seeming perfection, though the rich fall of black curls sought to obscure them. The rain sought to lent the figure a halo of radiance, even if its soft glow had to be stolen from what had already been reflected.

The lips felt as velvety as they looked; soft yet firm, held in a line. That was, until the lordling started and jumped back, wondering how long he had been out of his carriage, and how he had come so very close to the figure that was surely not of this world. The sudden smile was sweet but uncertain, a hint of innocence in a face that screamed sensuality. The eyes, though...

They were the fierce amber of an undeniable predator, and they held the gaze of the young lord even though the look the figure offered was veiled, piercing through the black lace of its eyelashes. It drew the young lord closer, and the coppery stench of blood both old and new wafted up to assault his senses, even as slender white fingers that were covered with rings both gaudy and expensive trailed along his jaw. The hand settled at the base of his neck, how had that happened?

The breath that fanned against the lordling's neck was cool, even in comparison to the night air. What is this?! A trembling seized the young lord's person as his breath sped up though the figure had not moved at all, merely letting its lips press lightly, just so, beneath his right earlobe. The thought of trying to break free of the deceptively gentle grasp never occurred to the lordling.

Angels sang when heat rushed down the side of the lordling's neck, even as he wondered at the silence.