It takes a little time for me to say goodbye to my brother. I am always reluctant to let him go when we clasp. It takes me less time to leave his palace (unseen, as usual), and no time at all to move through shadows from there to here. And then? How long will it take me to find you? Already anticipation is making a mess of my composure, inside, where noone can see. Noone but you, maybe.
I go to Tours, first; first, to your apartment. Will you be there? I will be disconsolate if you are not - but no, this time of night, you will not. The night is young, but not so young that you will have only just woken from sleeping. Where will you be? I must find you.
Moving from one layer to the next, his clothing has changed. From princely raiments (even if dark raiments), they become casual; jeans. Workboots. A sweater. Quietly expensive, if one pays close enough attention to labels, but not as expensive as some. And not flamboyant.
He is a thief, still - but apparently, a successful thief. Gwilym rakes a hand over his hair as he slips from shadow to shadow, streetlamp to streetlamp. He is looking for you.
Where might you be? I will look for you until I find you, even if it means that there will be those who might mean me harm. I would begin with the pub - the little taverna, with the thieves who so resent me. Maybe I will find you there.
"Iovis!"
Come betters, come bookies, come suckers and all...
He is in the taverna as it would happen -- the night is young, but it's the right time (it's the night time) for collecting from futbol bets placed earlier in the day. He's sitting in the back, laughing as a fellow tosses euros on the table and gestures at him wildly. But though the animation of the fellow's arms could be said to be aggressive, they are not arguing (as such).
Vous faites des affaires avec le diable pour slectionner comme le faites vous, Macarelli! Je dois aller double avaler pour payer mon loyer, vous batard cruel!
Je fais des affaires sans des diables. J'ai un ange qui chuchote dans mon oreille. En outre, vous avez seulement vous-meme pour blmer. Qui selectionne Lyon cette saison?
Several others around snort in that very French way. No, this year is not Lyon's year. Besides, what right thinking son of Touraine bets on the Lyonnesse?
Tapping the bills on the tabletop to straighten them, Iovis grins in a crooked, ribald way, pocketing the money a moment later. "Arnaud!" He calls out to the bartender. "Tout ceci qui se rassemble me rend altere. Un espresso, oui?" And that is when he hears his name called. At first, his eyebrows drew together in a narrowing Who's calling? expression and then that ribald grin sparks as it grows. "Ca ne fait rien. Appels d'affaires. C'est une nuit occupee," he boasts, gesticulating to those around him as he heads past the bar and to the one shouting.
"Amice," his lips curl in a smirk fit for a fallen angel. "It is good timing. This bar... I am afraid... is tapped out," Iovis pivots toward the room to the cat-calls and waves of disgruntled and sore losers, "...you have something for me?" He gestures for you to follow him outside, to the sanctuary of shadows and alleys.
The doors open, and in he goes, ignoring or seeming to ignore all the people who might still nurse resentments for being shown up the last time. He looks around; his grin spreads, slowly at first, by increasing degrees as his gaze lands on you. Found you.
"Un verre d'eau-de-vie fine, s'i-vous-plait. Quelque chose que je peux me permettre et d'autres ne peuvent pas." Gwilym grins, eyes sparkling; it borders on picking a fight with every other man in the room, but doesn't quite reach there. And he makes his way to you; his eyes see you, and you only, for a moment. "Outside? Well... alright."
But I haven't even had a drink! But still. If you wish shadows, I am not one to deny you. I wonder if you know how odd that is, to me. I had my heart set on torment. And now, all I can think is how I would follow you anywhere.
He waves a hand to cancel the brandy before it can be poured, and he turns. "Sorry, boys," Gwilym says easily, cheekily to the room at large. "La maitre, il est appeler."
"Ha! Le Maitre!" He laughs at that, a hand coming to your back, a slap against the sweater. Though he is no longer hobbling, there is still a detectable limp. "It is better out here," he says, the air crisp and holding the exhalation used for his words, though his breath is not as warm as your own. He is not alive as you are. "Besides," he grins to you, leaning in as you and he leave the tavern and he leads you down the narrow, cobble alley (once a main street), "... the brandy is piss. Hold a moment, amice, si?"
Iovis nods, tipping his chin up toward a shadow. A youngish looking (you can never really tell) man comes out and Iovis gives him a cut of money. "Payez les journalistes ce soir," he murmurs to the other. "Faites-moi savoir ce qu'ils disent demain. Je vais obtenir mon diner."
The other figure is taller than Iovis, thinner. His face is paler. And he glances to you. "Qui est ce?" he asks Iovis with a nod in your direction.
Iovis looks him up and down as if he's sprouted a second head: ".... Est-ce que je ressemble a une gazette? Allez, cessez perdre mon temps..." He makes a wave and the other figure leaves. Iovis waits a few moments and then turns to you. He looks you up and down as well, but it's a completely different sort of look.
"Are you as hungry as I am, amice?" There is hunger, and then there is Hunger. So many degrees, but you would be the answer to them all.
He follows you, willingly enough though you might be leading to his damnation, fetching up against a wall as you ask him to hold. Money changes hands, and Gwilym watches with interest, though without interrupting.
The look he gets amuses him. Who am I? Who am I indeed. I am too tempted; I cannot resist. I must answer.
"I am the Prince of Shadows," Gwilym drawls out, cracking the words with a smirk. "Satan's a redhead, didn't you know that? And look - see?" His fingers poke through his hair, tugging a handful. "You can tell anyone who asks that Iovis Macarelli consorts with devils. But would you really be telling them anything new?"
He turns to you, grinning as the corners of his eyes crease in lazy acknowledgment. "I am hungry," Gwilym murmurs. "Want to go somewhere for an appetizer, or you looking for the full meal?" His head tilts to one side - conversations within conversations. Layers upon layers.
"Pah!" It is an outburst of laughter, one that does not give a damn who overhears. "I told you I was going to hell!" he calls out after his associated, and then he turns to you, gleeful in his own damnation as he shakes his head slightly. "The devil is a red-head," he both echoes in amusement and agrees upon principle.
"You have to ask?" Iovis quirks, his head snapping back and his mouth cutting a grin as sharp as one of his many knives. "A banquet," he says, his voice lowering as he comes at you.
And then he is on you. You are shoved into the shadows and wrapped in invisible arms. Pressed to the brick, you cannot see but you can feel a thigh parting your legs and his cool breath at your ear. "A feast, si?" He chuckles in your ear and pulls away, becoming visible again as he backs into the dim light of the alley. The tavern's light gives him a halo more like the eclipse of the sun than any corona of light.
He places a finger to his lips, and behind the press of that flesh, he grins like an imp. He is gone in an instant, a blur of motion, for all intents and purposes disappearing. Where is he going? Where has he gone?
He gives you a hint. He lands a food heavily upon the iron of a fire escape, and as he swings himself up on top of a building, he lets his landing sound. He is on the roof of the building, and heading rooftop to rooftop to his flat.
Your voices lowers, and he lowers his head to hear you the better - and then you are pressing up against him, and he exhales. His hands move to your shoulders, one sliding down to grasp at your hip. "Duw," Gwilym hisses. "You make me crazy."
It is true - with you, my usual cautions are overridden. My fears, my desires, they mingle - in you, made one, it seems. Whether you are here, up against me, or the voice in my ear even when you are not present. I sound like I need therapy. But all I need is you.
You are there, and then you are gone, leaving him floundering; not physically, but inside, where it is not seen. And you are on the move, leaving him to catch up. With a grin and a knowing look, Gwilym swings into motion. He is cheating. You go on foot, and he lopes behind you, moving in and out of shadows to catch up.
He lets you have the lead, but make no doubt - he is behind you...
Though still somewhat compromised by his injuries, he still moves four times faster than the average human. He jumps easily, scales the sides of buildings before moving to another, hopping like a spider amid a web of iron fire escapes. He lands finally on his own, his hands springing a trap he left at his own portal, disarming it. He opens the window, slipping from one darkness to another.
He does not even turn on a light in consideration...
He knows you would follow him. And he fully expects that you, with your abilities, will find him, if not catch him. The other traps that were laid, as usual, upon leaving tonight are tripped in the darkness he knows like his own skin.
Still, there is no light lit in consideration...
He moves from living room, to hall, to bedroom, easing along the inky air as easily as blind fish in the depths of the ocean. He knows his space. You will have to learn it...
You are faster than the wind (though do not let Hwyll and his brothers hear me say or think it). You move like the lightning your namesake hurls. Even I cannot keep up, not without anticipating in which direction you might go. I dart into pools of shadow and move from one shadow to the next, letting my magic pull me along. Without it, you would not only have the advantage; you would lose me, easily.
I follow, and I am lost - not in thought. My mind scarcely wants to work right now. I follow you, and I think instead how ironic it is that I call myself the devil, when it is you who tempts me in this way. I follow...
He catches up with you again as you scale the top of your fire escape, himself at the bottom - watches you head in through the now opened window, then moves to follow you inside. He has half a caution for the inevitable traps, but only half, so alert and acutely focused upon you as he is. The world can go to hell, lord, before he loses sight of you.
He slides in through the window into darkness that is almost familiar. Gwilym smiles a little. What game is this? What move do you want me to make? Where are you? He follows the path he thinks you will have taken, easing through darkness as silently as any cat - which means you can hear him just fine, though those with lesser ears would not.
Where are you, thief? Another thief comes to find you. I know you are here...
"I nostri occhi li denunciano cos spesso," his voice sounds quietly to your left, somewhere in the direction of where you might remember his couch to be. And then, at your ear, "...Quando eliminiamo la distrazione di luce, ci sono tali cose che possiamo trovare, amico." Before his feet could sound to your senses, he has already moved. Down the hallway? "...Tali cose da scoprire. Abbiamo bisogno della nerezza pi di ventiliamo."
There, his soft laughter sounds. There, the thudding of his leather coat, heavy with phone. "Come anima, hmm? Pompa in noi, questa nerezza. Li riempie di bisogno ed e la nostra soltanto comodita." And then there is silence. There is not a lamp lit, not a foot fall, not one breath that thuds upon the air, no heartbeat. Only silence. Complete and total. It is freedom. It is danger. It is all things even as it symbolizes No Thing.
"No eyes tonight, amico, no eyes, no light. What good is it practicing picking locks if one cannot do so in the dark?" He lets a step sound in the hallway. "Siamo liberi nella nerezza fare che cosa la luce del giorno non potrebbe sopportare..."
He turns; towards where you were, where he thinks you might be, one way and then the other. You can hear him moving in the darkness, slowly now, careful to try to remember where things are - where things were. "And there you are," Gwilym says quietly, standing for a moment still as a statue. "With your knives. With your danger, oes. You are very dangerous to me."
He moves slowly towards the bedroom, one hand extended outwards, fingers towards the wall. Like a cat with its whiskers, feeling his way in the dark. "What am I looking for? What are you looking for, that darkness is the only way we will find it?"
It makes my heart beat faster. Not the darkness alone. Not your fangs, nor your penchant for my blood. But the thought that you might unveil me more than I am ready for, that you might open me up like a book and read all my secrets written in me. I do not know if I fear it or want it more. But here I am, oes? Running towards, not away. And it would be so easy for me to run away. Why can't I run away, Iovis? My brother would know. My brother would laugh at me.
"Should I offer you a threat, then, and see how it is that you react?" Gwilym quips it, corners of his mouth twitching as he shrugs out of his coat. You hear it fall behind him. "Or should I back away now, run from you?" But he is moving forward. Onwards, into the bedroom, with no way of knowing if you are in front of him - or behind him.
He has been on all sides of you. In front of you, leading you. He would make the air curdle for you if it were in his power, to pull you in to him. And then, alongside you, behind you. As you feel your way, he remains just a breath out of reach...
And then your fingers land upon him, upon bare skin. "What incentive is there, amico, for me to kill you now? What use a dead mouse to a cat, a dead hare to a fox? You are so much more interesting alive. But should you run? Maybe you could, weeks ago. Now? You are in the center of the puzzle. You would lose as much going back to the beginning as you may lose in the future. But there is so much that could be gained, si? That is why you are here...why you are still here... when it would have been wise to run..."
Iovis slides out of your grasp again. You feel him behind you, feel him before you hear him. You feel your sweater lifted up, off, away. You feel the sharp point of a stiletto at your ear, lightly tracing your flesh. Any more pressure, and it would cut you. "You felt my skin," Iovis whispers from behind you. "Do you wonder if that is all I wear. Just my skin. Have I bared so much?" You feel the coolness of metal again, the rounded pommel of the knife trailing down your spine. Cool, deadly, the dull end capable of as much pain as the edge.
"I can hear your heart, it does not lie, amice," the tip of his tongue circles at the nape of your neck. "I can hear the rivers of your blood moving, wild rivers crashing against your nerves, your skin. I can taste you without touching you. I can understand you without hearing a word. I can hear what you want, I can feel it like you feel the wind." The pommel of the stiletto slips beneath the waistband of your pants, sliding past your lumbar. "You want the wild chase," Iovis murmurs. "You need it ... you need a bacchanal. You want to lose yourself and find yourself in that same moment of total, unrestrained freedom."
The coolness of the metal teases just above the rounds of your rear. And then you hear the ripping of fabric as the edge is brought within millimeters of your skin, cutting your jeans away. Iovis makes a sound that has no known translation but whose meaning is clear no matter the language. "Sanguinerete stasera per me. Griderete il mio nome nella liberta completa. Nell'anonimato di nerezza, farete desiderare tutto voi."
You hear the air being sliced, you hear the sharp hiss and thud of a stiletto embedding its blade in a wall. His hand lands on your shoulder and he moves you forward to land on the bed.
The pressure of the air is thickening, as much as rising tension in his own veins. As much as parts of him external to his blood; he turns towards where he feels you, and you are gone. Figment. Illusion. How can you be real?
How can you be real, and I still want you so much?
"There are things to be feared here which are worse than death." Gwilym lets the words out onto the air, speaking them neither loudly nor softly. His head turns - one way, then the other, and he looks for you. Moves towards where you might be, sniffing the air like a wolf. And stopping again, halting. Eyes closed, he does not resist his sweater being drawn off; he holds still, inhaling deeply.
"I wonder many things," he whispers. "Why else would I run, if not to keep myself from wondering too much? You bare many things, Iovis...."
He falls quiet, concentrated essence of attention upon the trailing edge of cold metal where it touches his skin. Your mouth against him makes him exhale again. Such tension. His teeth sink into his lower lip, a counterpoint of self-inflicted pain to steady him, keep him from jerking like some unsteady beast as you speak. As you tell too many things.
He swallows; and you can tell you've unnerved him, to a degree at least. You cut into and through his jeans, and there is no automatic retort, laughing protest - 'Do you have any idea how much these cost' or 'Now I've got to find another shop mannequin to rob'; instead, he holds still as you speak, not moving until you urge him forward.
I feel half-hypnotized. If I'd had brandy, I'd wonder what it was laced with. But no; this is you. It is all you. I wonder which I am more afraid of - you uncovering all my secrets, or you not bothering to?
He lands on the bed, twisting as he does so, rolling to protect his back, staring up into the darkness. "Nessuno puo avere tutto che desiderino. Ed apparentemente, minimi di tutti i vostri vicinoi. Ma li desidero. Il dio lo aiuta, ma faccio."
You cannot see him, no, but you can feel him. His skin is lukewarm, not as warm as yours but it will be. When he drinks from you it will be. When he moves on you, he will steal your warmth as much as he steals everything else. Teeth and tongue bruise your mouth in a savage kiss. He comes in like a snake strike, But your flesh, though gnawed is not pierced. He chuckles as you speak of a fate worse than death.
Yes, there are such fates as that...
Those teeth, curved and edged as scimitars, trail downward, scratching, leaving marks that afterwards heal, dragging against you just short of drawing blood -- from the middle of your throat to the center of your chest, down the center of your body to your navel. "Dimentichi stasera i vostri timori, amico. Diasi sopra alla possibilit di tutto."
He lifts his weight from you, he tugs off your shoes, pulls off the torn remainders of your trousers.
I hear it in you, amice. I hear the drums of a ritual. The bacchanal, orgies beyond human comprehension. They twist in your gut. You want to lose yourself, you want to find yourself, you are afraid of who you will find there in the dark, are you not? Not me, no. But you.
Iovis chuckles at your thighs, his mouth brushing over what lies between them. "Il Dio non puo aiutarlo qui, io sono impaurito. Cio e puramente il lavoro del diavolo." The flat of his tongue smoothes against your flesh. He calls your blood to the surface. You cannot see, and that simply heightens the effect of what you feel.
Posted by rowan at November 22, 2006 10:06 PM
