No, no - I meant, I expect that there's going to be a purely erika-based anima getting your words out at some point in the not too distant future.

And that the evolution is intensely interesting.

That's a great compliment.

Huh. I was just stating what seems to me to be clear fact.

One sure compliment would be to the character of Munch, for being interesting enough to carry that voice-weight for you for as long as he has. The erika-voice thing is not for lightweights.

Yeah, well, Kay got half...heh, Munch gets to be with two women sometimes...I'm sure he'd love that.

Yes, we're writing. Damn, sometimes it's like pulling teeth, even when I know exactly what's going on. More Nessuno, Alexander, Guglielmo and Giancarlo headed up to the Vatican for a meeting with Cesare Borgia

The walk back to the Palace was a different thing than the walk down. Alexander was used to being anonymous. One more novice in the streets of Roma drew no attention. A novice in the company of mercenaries, on the other hand, caught eyes and caused whispers. He disliked being noticed. It led to things like Inquisitors knowing his name and swordsmen giving him orders.

A woman yanked her young son back out of the way with a frightened look. Alexander looked at the mercenaries flanking him. Giancarlo seemed to be ignoring everything, making no effort to appear intimidating. Which meant . . .

He turned to his other side. "Stop it."

Guglielmo raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Whatever you're doing that's making everyone look at us like this. Stop it."

"I'm not doing anything, Brother Sandro. I'm just walking along the way I normally do."

"Well, stop it."

Guglielmo laughed as Giancarlo stared at Alexander. "You do know who that is, don't you?" the quiet man said.

Alexander nodded. "Guglielmo il Sanguinante, mercenary, solder, killer, etc., etc. My life was so much quieter before I ran into him."

Giancarlo looked at Guglielmo, who was still snickering. The laughter faded as half a dozen men with drawn swords stepped out of a narrow alley ahead.

"What interesting timing," Guglielmo said with a hard smile.

Around them, the crowd in the street faded away. Alexander looked around, confused. "What's happening?"

Guglielmo backed up to Alexander's side and put an apparently companionable arm around his shoulders. His left hand rested on the hilt of his sword.

"What we have here, young brother Sandro, is an ambush." He looked behind to make sure no one was sneaking up. "How convenient that just as you're leading us up to the palace, these bravos should appear."

Alexander gaped in surprise. He tried to pull away, but Guglielmo held on easily. "Let go."

"I don't think so."

The men from the alley stepped forward. Guglielmo and Giancarlo drew their swords. Alexander tried one more time to pull free, but Guglielmo pulled him in front into a familiar position.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, anxiously dividing his attention between the mercenary behind him and the approaching swordsmen.

"About to find out if whomever told them to wait for you to lead me into an ambush left any instructions about sparing you."

"I didn't!"

Guglielmo spared a moment to glance at Alexander. "I'll leave the option open that you're the Judas goat and not Judas himself. Now hold still and don't get in my way."

The men charged Guglielmo. Giancarlo intercepted from the side, distracting one pair and leaving four for Guglielmo. Alexander would have shrieked if he could have gotten breath. Swearing, Guglielmo shoved him towards a wall, freeing himself to move.

"It doesn't look like they have orders to spare you," Guglielmo called to Alexander as he skewered the first man in the throat. He pulled the dagger from inside his left sleeve and used it to parry another incoming blade.

Alexander pressed himself back against the chipped plaster wall and stared in horror at the carnage. He wanted to cross himself when the first man fell to the street, choking on his own blood, but his hand wouldn't move. Giancarlo disposed of one of his opponents with a neat heart thrust. The other man who was attacking Giancarlo suddenly turned and ran. The mercenary immediately went to help Guglielmo. With a bloodthirsty grin, Guglielmo made room for his comrade, but he kept most of the fighting for himself.

"So that's why they call him Il Sanguinante," Alexander whispered to himself. When pressed, Guglielmo was a quick, efficient fighter. Given the chance, though, he went for crippling, messy wounds. He laughed as he fought, even when the blow was against him. A sword point snagged one of his black sleeves. With an intricately blasphemous oath, he gutted the man who had torn the cloth.

"Do you know how much I'm going to have to beg Isabetta to fix that?" he yelled. He turned and sliced the elbow tendons in the sword arm of his last opponent. "And then I'm going to have to make sure she doesn't embroider love knots and roses on the damned thing as well!" He slammed the sole of his boot into the face of the last man, knocking him back and letting Giancarlo finish him.

Alexander finally felt his breath flow normally again. He crossed himself, whispering prayers for the dead and dying. He stepped forward, then saw movement from the corner of his eye. The attacker who had run from Giancarlo was sneaking towards him, a dagger in his hand.

"Guglielmo!"

Il Sanguinante looked up from his inspection of his sleeve and flung the dagger his right hand into the attacker's throat. Blood sputtered from the wound, and the man dropped, gurgling. Alexander, both hands shoved against his mouth, stared into the man's eyes until they froze and gazed at nothing.

Guglielmo appeared at Alexander's shoulder, shaking him and pulling him back. "None of your concern anymore, little priest. Well, except the obvious." Alexander was shaking too hard to make any movement towards a blessing.

Giancarlo came up and stared at the body. "He came back?"

"Apparently so." Guglielmo studied Alexander for several moments, then shook his shoulder again but more gently. "Brother Sandro, we're expected."

"What?" Alexander said, blinking.

"At the Palace. We're supposed to be at a meeting."

"But--you're still going?" He looked around at the bodies. "After this?"

Guglielmo raised an eyebrow at Giancarlo, who only sighed and shook his head. "Of course, I'm still going. Is there a reason I shouldn't?"

"I--but--they just tried to kill you!"

Guglielmo's smile suddenly changed from mocking to amused. "People try to do that all the time, Sandro. That's my job." He reached down and pulled his dagger from his victim's throat.

Alexander watched him clean the dagger. "You're left-handed."

"So?" Guglielmo dug some blood out from a crevice between the blade and the cross guard, then slid the dagger back into its sheath.

"My grandmother said left-handed people were the spawn of the devil."

The mocking smile came back. "We are."

Alexander crossed himself again, then saw his hands were shaking. Giancarlo frowned and took Alexander's arm to drag him down the street away from the bodies.

"Some people may be used to being up to their ankles in blood," Giancarlo told Guglielmo, "but most of the people in the world are nice folks who don't deal with bodies every day. Let's get the boy away from this."

Guglielmo checked his boots for blood, then followed, looking just a little chagrined.

Connie, this is shaping up very nicely. Mise en scene is very visual indeed.

I am cross, though. This week's Open on Sunday drabble challenge theme? The 80's. WTF? I am uninspired - worse, I'm flat-out stumped.

But I found out that I got nominated for something - a Bedtime Story award. It was for that eight-line poem I wrote, Angel POV, for the David Bowie challenge.

So, that's kinda cool. Doubt I'll win, though.

This week's Open on Sunday theme is "vacations." Mine's a little grim.

Faith

The cell is seven by ten. It's got all the standard conveniences: a porcelein toilet, soap, a single-width cot, a thin blanket that's actually softer than some of the covers she's had in cheap motels.

It's also missing some standard conveniences: anything sharp, for instance. And no shoelaces.

They feed her, usually as part of a group. Sometimes, though, she can't take the other inmates, and for those nights, she starts a fight and gets fed in here.

No one screws with her. She has only to survive. And compared to life as a free slayer, prison is a vacation.

Deb, I like that a LOT.

Another one. Total shmoop; you can't say I didn't warn you.

Buffy

It's possible she's dreaming.

The sun's sinking over North Africa, maybe. Buffy's on the beach at Nice, the rough pebbles that take the place of sand here oddly tactile, rubbing the soles of her feet. She might be asleep, or not. She's waiting for nightfall.

Everyone else down here wants sunshine. People sunbathe nude, wanting to be seen, wanting to be warm.

She's waiting for nightfall.

And suddenly, here it is, and she's nearly alone but not completely, because he's there, just like all those years in Sunnydale, covering her back.

"Buffy?"

"Hello, Angel."

It's possible she's dreaming. Hopefully, not.