<strong>Hellion<br/>Quincy's, Brooklyn<br/>12:34 AM</strong><br/><br/>The sound from Hellion's throat is something like a chuckle, something like a growl.  "Flattery's a good place to start, lovely."  The stranger's presence is far too soothing, and she's too dexterous with those globes... but it's more than that.  Something in the back of her mind grasps for connections, and she's vaguely reminded of a moment during the counter-interrogative she'd enjoyed in that quiet, cavernous concrete room some twenty or thirty feet under the tarmacs at Langley.  Something about trailing, vaporous lights, something lost to the sodiumpentathol and pulsing lights.  What they'd learned about her during that "training session", she may never know, but somehow they didn't find it necessary to kill her for it.  Though surely, if they'd dug deep enough, they'd have found a reason or two for her to encounter an unfortunate accident.<br/><br/>Panic should have knocked her off course into discipline mode, but it didn't.  The woman was alluring, and she found the idea of leaving her presence to be... well, unacceptable at the moment.  She listened, eying her with those cold blues and letting the skepticism melt away.  The drone of music washes low, as if sinking into the current of the blood thrumming in her ears.<br/><br/>"Medea."  She smiles very faintly... not exactly a name to inspire trust.  Vengeful, rebellious, infanticidal.<i>But, then again, I <b>like</b> vengeful...</i>"The call me a hellion, and I suppose you can as well."  Medea can watch her circling, inverted reflection inside the orb, a figure in black with livid eyes over that morbid smirk of bone, all of her an inky black specter coming full round to<br/>Medea's front again.<br/><br/>She folds her arms under her breasts, studying the woman's face now with the posture of an art critic, one foot gently lifted and placed atop the other, heel to ankle.  She doesn't waver, but seems to settle into that scarecrow pose as she shifts her weight and posture in a sinuous roll of shoulders and hips.  "Assuming I believe you, that makes you either a criminal, a crusader, or a little of both."  She idly traces one talon across each elbow where the hands rest.  "An opportunist at least, a vigilante at best."  Her eyes glimmer in the amber-wash of the streetlight, and Medea knows that, under the grisly mask, her lips must be pursing to a wry smile.<br/><br/>"And while I must admit, the notion of ruining that lovely dress is only the first, and most innocuous, step in the elaborate fantasy I'd like to play out on your body..." she's lifted one hand, easing it closer as if to touch, but not reaching the mesmerist... if she were one foot closer to that sinewy woman, then that taloned hand would be stroking the back of its fingers in a gentle crescent along her under-breast.  "...I'll settle for the formal introduction."<br/><br/>The sound of metal and masonry meeting violently accentuates the sudden spike in volume from within the club.  The side door-- a loading-bay door of later addition, partly sheltered by ruined canopy of a cabstand long forgotten-- has banged open.  Within, the red light and accompanying darkness makes the body of a naked, full-busted dancer into some pink serpent as she dips at the waist, stroking a brass pole between the two globes of her breasts, on a tiny stage within.  Another dancer emerges-- she's wearing a robe, red polyester and shiny, and a pair of thick, chunky heels.  In the red-lit club, she might be pretty, but in the sodium glare, she's old, desperate.  Used up.<br/><br/>The stripper's holding a cordless telephone, its silver antenna telescoped out from beside her face, and her free hand-- long, blood-red nails like fresh-used meathooks-- is pressed to the other ear.  Her voice is swept into the huge range of minor tones and verbal dynamics of the Vietnamese language fueled by high emotion.  "Speaking of introductions," Hellion hisses softly.  The Asian woman kicks a chunk of wood into the door-frame-- small enough, barely, to prevent the door catch from making it home, and starts screaming what MUST have been obscenities into the mouthpiece of the phone and stalking down the alleyway, fishing in her pocket for what might have been a Kool, or might have been a joint.<br/><br/>Hellion grins.  "You're welcome to make that introduction now."  She doesn't bother discussing it, weighing it, threatening or trying to pry out more information.  When the time comes, you take what you've got and you go.  And, well, maybe she and Medea had each other, for this stroke of fate's brush at least.  Maybe.<br/><br/>*<br/><strong>12:36 AM</strong><br/><br/>The music's different. (http://s3.archive-host.com/membres/playlist/1547443043/UB40-RedRedWine.mp3)  Better, Hellion thinks, to some degree, though not what she'd ever choose.  Trading that small respite for a more profound offense, the air inside was thick with ganja and cigar, spilled liquor and beer.  Sweating pores, cheap perfume.  The reek of human lust.<br/><br/>Regardless of whether Medea follows her or not, Hellion reaches for her mask when her back is toward the mesmerist, and as she rounds the doorframe into the red and black interior she tugs the mask from her mouth with one smooth, subtle pass of her hand.  She knew these places, the red light and smokey air and oppressive darkness would make a stranger hard to recognize in real light... psych 101, the brain loses the ability to make connections when the shape isn't defined the same.  It was risky, though, because when the brain<i>does</i>make that connection, it can't un-see what it's seeing.  Still... this atmosphere was made for anonymity, and a mask would draw eyes-- masks were for robbers, right?  But a dark-haired girl with a bow mouth and a slick black bodysuit?  Probably just the next act.<br/><br/>She had closed her eyes for a few moments prior to opening the wedged door, but it still took her a moment to pick out faces in the dark room.  Only red, some white at the bar, and black in between.  Probably to provide some obfuscation from the ghastly condition some of the drug-addled whores were in.  She turned right, putting the front door at her back, and skirted the side-stage's front-row of dollar-flipping toads and toadstools.<br/><br/>"The Angel" was hard to spot, at first, because she was looking for his face-- the face she'd seen in a mugshot or in the black-and-white sidebar in the Times.  It became immediately apparent, though, that her 'made man' lieutenant, Vincent d'Angelo, was face-down on a table full of white lines, and apparently trying to erase everything within the respective dimensions of his cranial cavity.  Once she made out the top of a head doing the familiar dance-- the insistent, trembling harvesting down the white stairs-- she knew, somehow, that she could probably not make Vinny's night any worse than it already was.<br/><br/>Walking the 'fuck me' walk, as she called it-- the ridiculous emphasis of crossing feet, swaying hips, and gently swinging shoulders that screamed 'sex' when she really meant 'kill'-- Hellion made her way to Vinny's table.  He was alone, more or less, since the blue-sequin-clad girl on his left was unconscious and limp on his shoulder.<br/><br/>"My god, he's like a dust-buster," she said-- and suddenly, she realized she wasn't entirely certain that Medea had come along as well.  She glanced subtly over her shoulder, just to see.