<b>Hellion<br/>Lower Manhattan</b><br/>Hellion studies the young man's face by the glaring, unreliable light of the subway.  "You'll need some stitches, I think," she says softly.  Without her mask, the features of her own face are almost Hellenic in their even proportion and subtle gestures of emotion.  "I'm going to have to get you cleaned up a bit first."<br/><br/>Looking up from her seat, she fixes her gaze on the rhythmic swing of the hand-holds from the ribbed aluminum roof.  The electric train is saturnine with the vagrants now gone, except for the constant, muffled cry of the wheels as the electric engine drives them onward.  "You know," she says, and somehow in her posture, the phrasing, the way she holds her head at a slight, curious little angle, Medea knows that Hellion's addressing her, not Aesir.  And somehow, Hellion knows Medea will understand this.  "That's not necessarily a<i>bad</i>thing... our targets will always connect at<i>some</i>point... even some of the must simplistic thugs have connections higher up.  Whether its the money-launderer for whom they perform violent services, or it's the priest who molested them as a young child and made them into a rapist, or the gilded-throned demagogues who wring an unemployed man's blood from his pores until he's so desperate that robbery becomes a viable option."<br/><br/>She stands as the train slows, exits so quickly that the doors barely have time to open, then leads the two up the shadowy throat of a street-exit that lands them one block from her club, past the autumn-drying sycamores and slumbering electric cars, past the search-lit towers and the billboards for Nostalgia cologne, the newest lithium fuel-celled motorbike, the high-end gala of Portian Dynamics' Masquerade Ball.  "It might be that my passing you a snitch might do us both some good."<br/><br/>Her footfalls-- long strides punctuated only by the leathery flapping sounds of her long, light coat-- suddenly ring with the hollow metal tone of a sidewalk lift.  "Step on."  She crouches, opens the access hatch, inserts a key and turns it.  The lift decends, and they're swallowed by darkness.  There's the quiet for a moment, the musty redolence of the basement as the metal doors overhead grind into place... not quiet, for certain, but more subtle than one might think, and as the overhead doors close, the night stars and gray-light city sky becoming a narrower and narrower band, she says one more thing.  "I'll get the light momentarily."<br/><br/>In that moment... seven, eight seconds at best, Medea feels the warmth of skin, smells the hint of clove on Hellion's breath, and feels the tingle of caught breath as a warm woman's face brushes gently at her cheek.  No voice, not even a whisper, but lips at her ear touch almost soudlessly.  "I like the dark."<br/><br/>A tiny click as she lights the cheap plastic flashlight... a tarp-covered heap the size of a street motorcycle sits next to the now-quiet platform, and a tight staircase of worn cement leads up and around to one of Hellion's 'safe' rooms... Club Mercy is closed, so the four-storied brick edifice is silent and stoic.<br/><br/>The decor is remarkably classy... Hellion flicks a couple of switches as she speaks to them both, gestures to an art-deco style couch in the dark, massive chamber of the remodeled upper-floor.  The open stairwell opens to the abyss of the dark club below like a cliff at the edge of the universe.  "Get comfortable, please," she says softly as she makes her way across the open-floored foyer.  "There's a bathroom, peroxide's in the medicine cabinet.  Please clean it as best you can."  A few more steps and she's at her desk, opening it to find what she needs.  An EMT-bag, modified to suit the needs of someone used to being hurt in unusual ways.  Sutures in individual plastic-and-paper pouches.  Liquid stiches, if the young man's cut isn't too deep, with some butterfly bandages.  She brings the bag and drops it onto a slate-topped coffee table between a few carefully arranged armchairs.  "Care for a drink?  I've got a minibar over there.  And a not so mini-bar down there."<br/><br/>She works at the fastening of a gauntlet as she leans against the side of the chair.  And despite the seeming air of casual professionalism, her eyes are speaking in a language without lies or pretense as she stares down Medea, raking those blue-crystal eyes over her as she speaks.  Her voice is husky, accentless.  "You can call me Victoria, if you like."