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Rainfall patters along streets and balconies, collecting in foul pools smelling heavily of sewage. The telltale odors of the deep sewers come to the surface here, percolating in sickly bubbles that pop in rotten egg profusions. Geysers erupt from the clogged storm-drains, leaving bubbling fouled water to gather in fountain pools that only the most bored, despairing children from the depths of this modern day ghetto bother to watch or splash about. Feral cats and thin dogs, usually so common in Hell’s Kitchen, are nowhere to be seen despite the darkened skies signalling another overcast night under torrential showers and that grimmest of wet blankets thrown over general fanfare: mizzle.
One night out from All Hallows Eve and the children of the city have little reason to believe they can go assault their neighbours with cries for candy or threats of violence. Though few would ever bother here; not for them, trick-or-treating or costumes. They would be lucky to see three meals a day, let alone square ones studded by candy corn and red shellacked apples.
Trash and broken promises a century old, that’s what Hell’s Kitchen offers. A fight in the streets to solve much younger scores about looking at a girl wrong in a bar, a body concealed in the dumpsters under heavy, leaking plastic bags, that’s just par for the course.
The three Puerto Rican men eyeing one another up for their dirty deeds slink off into the dark like polecats, leaving behind a groaning Irish fellow about 26, unconscious from the stomping to his vital organs. His breathing is, at best, uneven thanks to a cracked rib piercing his left lung. Not good odds by any standards.
His mother might pray to Mother Mary for her boy if she knew, but she doesn’t, bless her soul in Pennsylvania. The other man’s gone to be judged by Saint Peter and probably found wanting for the sin of poverty. The scent of blood leaking from his wounds is buried, but not completely.
And then… well, there’s that other balance to the equation, the girl they fought over, kicking her way out of a metal locker of sorts where she ended up. Not one of those inexplicable things, on the front of it. She would, in the old country, be called someone with the Sight or a bit too knowledgeable in the old things.
Her frantic kicks and cries are the sort of thing to be ignored, though not by the darkly dressed female about her age, give or take a year. A knife in her hand pries at the lock holding together the makeshift holding cell. Three men are coming back. Three vs two, the odds aren’t bad.
May they ever be in Wanda Maximoff’s favour.
*
If Pietro Maximoff had had the choice of 'hunting grounds' — since his transformation into a vampire — Hell's Kitchen would not have made the list. The blood of his victims thus far (a few people, who barely remember what happened to them, thanks to Maximoff's budding psychic abilities) has tasted vile. Dirty.
Still, the prey in Hell's Kitchen is far too easy to come by.
And who is going to miss a few thugs here and there?
A cloud of mist, moving of its own accord, wends its way down alleys and in and out of dilapidated buildings, seeking its next meal. Sustenance, however, is not the only thing on Pietro's mind.
He comes to a halt atop a building, squatting down on his haunches like a gargoyle (rather than a man), and he watches three ruffians converge on something… or someone deeper in the alley. He can count five heat signatures nearby, but little else. How easy it would be to zip down there, take control — resolve the situation — in a heartbeat or three…
But where is the fun in that, when he can play with his food for a while. Dispersing himself into mist once more, the Maximoff twin descends to the ground below, gathering around the ankles of one of the thugs…
This should be fun.
*
Three men worshipping their own bravado and youth hasten out of the alleyway where an Irish fellow bleeds out slowly, tipped towards merciful unconsciousness. They speak in Spanish, all but elbowing one another as a goad against regret, fear or the unfortunate need to turn back and check. Pride spikes and rises as they swagger down the trash-strewn back roads of their territory, small and ill-defined as it is.
One catches the other high on the bruised shoulder. He runs into the brick wall, cursing. “What the fuck’s wrong with you, eh? You want a piece? Think you’re the chief, that it? That it?”
Spanish seethes with little attempt to suppress the noise that might filter up to the rooftops where a blind man listens for trouble.
“Cool your heels,” snaps the biggest of them, grabbing the scratched and bruised male before punches can be thrown. “This ain’t respect. Carlos, take your hit and that settles it. I’m clear, Rodrigo?”
Glares shot past him turn into sullen nods. Rodrigo, the instigator of the trip, gets grabbed by the collar and hurled back into the boxes, and Carlos huffs, blood still hot.
Hot and thick with iron.
“Good,” the leader says, and jerks his head towards the fallen man. “Help him up. All settled.” Carlos grabs Rodrigo’s wrists, hauling him to his feet so they can carry on their circuit of triumph after settling a score. There’s a girl, after all.
In fact, there are two which they see silhouetted at the edge of the long passageway past tenement buildings. By this point, the frantic kicking and muffled screaming inside the locker grows louder as the object of this whole affair realizes someone is coming. She pleads and begs in muffled English, offering everything short of her firstborn to a faerie godmother who cares for none of it.
The metallic tattoo echoes dully. It’s a curse to any kind of subtlety. Wanda embodies the silent purpose in the face of chaos, and she twists the blade back and forth until the tumblers in the heavy old lock give way. Less magic the better under the circumstances.
Rodrigo and Carlos may be quicker on the upswing, muttering. They have no reason to look for anyone else, much less Pietro lurking in the dark. Carlos cracks his knuckles, muttering, “Someone comin’ to steal from the Red Dogs? Now ain’t that swell.”
Wanda’s fingers fly against the tumblers and she jerks away the lock, hurling aside. The door to the locker, dented and scraped, kicks open a crack as the trapped woman’s cries grow louder now she can see daylight.
*
Pietro the Vampire gathers around the feet of the three ruffians — criminals who seem to deal in human trafficking (children, no less). It strikes a chord in the newly-turned, Chthonic vampire, and the air in the alley seems to drop in temperature — noticeably.
As for his sister, Pietro hasn't recognised her yet. All he can think of right now… is punishing these three fools, and enjoying his next meal. To that end, the mist rises up and coalesces into Pietro's familiar form —
— right behind one of the three Puerto Ricans.
"Excuse me," says he in his light, Transian accent, his tone deceptively nonchalant and roguish. "Is this way to San Jose?" And with that, Pietro wraps his arms around the criminal as batlike wings sprout from his back — and he rockets straight upward.
The thug in question — Pietro's next meal — barely has time to scream, but his body makes a loud, sickening wet thud when it hits the ground a few feet from the other two.
Pietro laughs.
It echoes.
Wanda knows that laugh.
*
Poor Carlos. Maybe it was really a better idea to visit Mama this afternoon and listen to her carry on about her soaps. Rodrigo might be reconsidering whether he should have thought about that construction job over on 94th, even though everyone said the building site is haunted. They can hear the tapping under the foundations, and no one wants anything to do with it.
Hector, the leader of the trio, is quick to spin when a foreigner addresses them in the heart of Red Dog territory. His breath becomes a harsh laugh, and the response in Spanish unfriendly. “I don’t think you looking for a bus to San Jose here—”
The rest will never be said. Batwings bursting out has him pulling a knife, striking at thin air ineffectively. He misses a leathery wing, while Rodrigo shouts in alarm, throwing the nearest thing he has at hand — a broken bottle — at Pietro. Maybe it hits. Too late, at any rate, for their brother.
Not a little down the alley clogged in darkness, the terrified office girl emerging from the locker shrieks in abject fear. She stumbles back against the the door, cracking her head against it and falling to the ground. The crooked edge tears into her arm, leaving a ragged cut that immediately weeps dark blood. A scent that lies thick upon the air, temptation incarnate. She weeps, too stunned to move.
Wanda has a knife at the ready, a spell on the pull, when she hears that laugh. Her radiant gaze snaps to the greater airborne threat, gauging it worse than whatever lies upon the ground. Standing ahead of the fallen woman gives a measure of defense, but limits options. Limits are dangerous.
“Run,” she hisses to the thugs. They deserve what comes, in a way. She won’t live with herself if her screaming instincts are true.
A rhapsody of carmine light bleeds from her fingertips, convulsing into a ribbon of energy.
*
Without even realising his sister is so close, the now blood-drunk Pietro acts in concert with her… as if their minds are in synch, whether they know it or not. As energy cackles at the Scarlet Witch's fingertips, Pietro drops out of the sky behind the thug furthest away.
"Hello," says he with a toothy smile to the poor meal — that is, man. "One burger and fries and a long drink…" Pietro's arms latch about the man as his teeth prepare to sink into the guy's throat. "Rare, yes? I like it bloody…"
And he bites.
The man screams.
But Pietro does not kill him.
A few moments after the screams, the thug wanders back down the alley in a daze… heading straight for Wanda and the girl. His neck is bleeding, but his eyes are glazed over as though in a trance. "Kill me…" he implores Wanda in a rasp. "Kill me please…"
As he draws nearer, Pietro's form can now be seen more clearly by the Scarlet Witch, with his back to her. He is grinning broadly, his eyes focused upon a space in front of him while he exerts his will over his most recent victim. His fingers flex and splay, flex and splay, showing long, wickedly-sharp nails, and his bat-like wings fold about him like a cloak.
He laughs.
And a moment later, vanishes in a puff of mist.
*
Wanda’s eyes turn into sanguine stars, their brilliance overtaking her native tiger gold-brown shade. All signs of humanity drain away when the convulsive grasp on power tightens.
Blood tears run down her face, brimming over the narrowed rim, and the droplets of light coalesce into rose petals once the beads fall from her jaw.
Rarely, if ever, does her aura come into sight for any mortal without the Sight to detect. Potent forces bend and warp the world like plunging a straw into a glass of water, distorting the angle where the two realities don’t quite line up.
A shrill, shaking note runs along the blind windows high overhead, their convulsive rattling responding to the vibrations of her build up as the thug overwhelmed by a bite staggers towards her.
Towards a bleeding, crying girl behind her, one whose only crime was to be attractive to two gangs.
The bolt forms a long, sharp needle in simmering scarlet light that runs almost up to her elbow. Rapidly spinning with bubbles of unsettled power, she releases it with a harsh word: “Kęja.”
When the point slides over the thug’s shoulder, he might lament. He could laugh. He won’t when the beam detonates into myriad points, angling up and down, creating a three-sided barrier that leaves the ground bare.
That might well entrap her own brother within. Certainly her will bubbles and rages, assuring nothing guaranteed, but force radiates outwards, invisible unless struck.
Whirling on her foot, she half staggers, half runs, back to the stunned woman rescued from the locker. No kindness is present in the way she grabs the woman’s arm and practically drags her away to the nearest doorway of some derelict excuse for a kitchen. Two demanding kicks bash it open far enough for the two to get through, and the protesting shouts in broken English chase them all the way.
Neither protest nor a thrown washcloth slow the brunette down, pulling along her quarry to the street. That barrier won’t hold long without its mistress, but it must be long enough to get her to the main road.
To the nearest bus, and squeezing into the back where the driver won’t notice just another girl staring out the window.
No one questions her, beauty in the breakdown.