Long dark shadows

Destrey was no stranger to Knockturn Alley. At fifteen, this tiny offshoot of the main shopping district alarmed her more now than it had when she was eleven. At least nobody took any notice of an eleven year old dared to run down the alley and back. Now, she got leers from toothless old warlocks who stank of turpentine.

There was an apothecary near the end of the alley. As well as all the ordinary things apothecaries sold, it dealt in some other items. Ones that were less popular with your regular, upstanding, law abiding witch or wizard. That was where Destrey was headed now.

She'd left Shylock back in Diagon. Shylock was really good at saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Destrey didn't doubt he did it on purpose, which was stupid because in the end he'd been quite good about killing the unicorn and really he should want to get as much profit from that as he could.

There had been no more reasonable an explanation for his actions than the simple truth that he had grown bored as he'd waltzed gracefully throughout Satan's, inhaling the nicotine-heavy air with a half-glass of wine. Despite his influence on those who frequented his nightclub, he'd found himself in need of something more to occupy himself than said power. However, the infrequent nature of such an experience as boredom - the thought of the word, too, was uttered by his subconscious with loathing - left Vito with little more planned as a counter than the task of making his monthly payment for his nightclub.

Granted, it was not entirely necessary that he do so, as he could very well have put an end to the insufferable old fool to whom he owed said money - but he had come to the conclusion that it would be a wise decision to avoid such a confrontation, due to the nature of the man's relationships with several other shop owners who would, in all likelihood, take notice of his absence. There was no fun in visits paid by aurors, and Vito had only just rid of the last bothersome group when they had been sent his way under the command of the Department of Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures. Vito made a mental note to speak with the Mrs. in regards to her poor job fending off the Ministry roaches.

As he stepped over the nightclub's threshold and into the alleyway, Vito produced from a pocket within the jacket of his suit a cigarette, which he then proceeded to pin between his lips. The only matter that had yet to be tended to before he took a relieving drag from his vise (one of many), was that of obtaining something with which to light it. Vito turned his frame towards the nearest being, whom he had yet to cast so much as a glance (and thus to identify as a teenage female), and looped his arm fluently through hers. "Your wand," he demanded, preoccupied by the task of running his fingers steadily through the slicked hair atop his head.

Destrey's body went rigid. Not so much from fear, though there was a little of that too because you never knew what sort of people you would meet in a place like this, so much as from anger. It wasn't even that she objected to being objectified. Destrey LIKED being objectified, so long as it was on her own terms. What made her fume was the assumption that anyone could just touch her without asking first.

She shook herself out of the man's clutches and stood a few paces away. Far enough that he couldn't easily grab her again, but not so far that she couldn't change her mind. He wasn't so bad looking, after all.

"Ask nicely and I might even think about it," she said.

Never was compliance to be expected of a stranger; 'twas a lesson that was best learnt early and forever kept in mind - and a truth which was often forgotten by Vito, due to the blinding glare of his narcissism. His subconscious never ceased to remind him of his belief that all whom he encountered were under his command, and yet such practical expectations as the possibility of resistance from someone with whom he was unfamiliar to fulfill his demands had become nothing more than a blurred smudge on the back of his skull.

Thus, Vito's previous expression, which had been void of all emotion, save the egotism that had begun to bleed through to the surface of his vessel, was replaced eagerly with one of disbelief towards the girl's stubborn retort. He paused, so to calm his ever-present temper, and from his lips he drew his cigarette, holding it loosely between his index and third finger. "That was my asking," Vito informed her, his voice as smooth and hushed as was typical of the poltergeist. He arched an eyebrow before uttering the threat that followed, "Would you like for me to insist? I assure you, the experience will be particularly unpleasant."

Ah, the naivety of children.

"It wasn't asking nicely," she observed. "Saying "Please Mistress," that would be nice."

Cocking her head to the side, so her hair tumbled over her shoulder in what she knew was a fetching manner, Destrey sidled closer. Many would have been running by now, but she'd never been one to follow the crowd.

"I'm sure you know exactly what I think is unpleasant, too?"

Curious, unusual child. Vito's eyes darkened remarkably as he regarded the woman before him - if she could, indeed be categorized as such. He spared a detached thought in regards to whether the female's actions had been made under the influence of stupidity, or with the intent of gaining something. The former, he assumed, was the most logical of the pair of assumptions.

"I take it then, that you enjoy the sensation of having your vital organs torn from your torso and strewn across the pavement? Or have you something else in mind?" He inquired, sounding quite unimpressed as he grew increasingly impatient. To what end was his attempt to avoid violent action? The blood would never come out of this suit, his subconscious chimed in.

He returned his cigarette to his parted lips instinctively, having found its absence to have had quite the opposite effect of that which he'd longed for when he'd withdrawn it from his pocket. He cast the girl an expectant stare, and flicked his tongue across the cancer stick, thus forcing it roll twice over in clear indication that he intended for her to light it. "You are trying my patients."

Destrey's eyes narrowed. Had he heard of her or something? She knew that she had a little reputation about Hogwarts, but surely she hadn't become notorious outside the school, though not from want of trying.

"You know, I would never threaten anyone," she stated. "It's not only unsophisticated, but it gives them time to think."

"Are you really so inept that you need me to do that for you?"

"Then it is rather fortunate that my words were not to be taken as a threat, but a preamble to all the fun that I have in store," Vito responded in a sarcastically sing-song manner.

In a single, fluent stride, he once more made physical contact with the child, and pinned her with ferocity against the near apothecary. He expelled from his very core a maddened, animalistic growl, and pressed himself firmly against the young child's small frame, dwarfing her in comparison. "I haven't a wand or a light on me," he responded, and his breath exploded in a cloud of frost as it met with the otherwise pleasantly balmy air. “I’d say it’d kill you to be inconvenient,” he added as an afterthought, taking a stab at dark humor.

OOC: A bit of godmodding there. But as I tell all those whom I RP with, if you disagree with anything I've said, simply ignore what you would rather I had left out.

Well, this was much more interesting. Pinned up against the wall, Destrey could barely move. Even getting the nail that was digging into the flesh of her back into a more comfortable position required a significant amount of squirming.

"Good boy," she breathed keeping her eyes locked with his.



((Is okay, I don't really consider that godmodding))

The suit, Vito. Do avoid getting any bodily fluids on the suit, won't you? He was reminded by his subconscious; an inaudible note-to-self upon which the fate of the adolescent who stood before him depended.

Her gleaming orbs were lacking in the emotions which generally drove Vito onward, and in their absence he was beginning to feel some improvisation was in order; to stray from his habitual responses for the sake of drawing forth a more significant result from the child. "Bad b!tch," Vito purred, and gave her shoulders a violent jerk against the brick building with the aim of throwing her head against the unforgiving surface.

Between his lips his cigarette did sit, nearly forgotten in the midst of Vito's most recent plaything.

No blood. You will wait; you do not need it now. It has been merely an hour since your last.

The thought alone was enticing. He flatted a chilled palm against her midsection, and his eyes lit with the prospect of tearing past the surface with his precisely trimmed fingernails. I said 'no'. The tip of Vito's tongue darted out from between his parted lips to slide across the end of his cigarette absentmindedly. The suit, Vito!