Michael "Micheletto" Corella

Michael hadn't exactly meant to be so taken up with work, but he hadn't fought it off either. But as the date of Kersen's trial loomed nearer and nearer, he did his best to wrap everything up in time. He managed, only just, and found himself finally available, one or two hours after the sunset, the last evening before the trial.

He could have gone back home and rested, but instead he leaned under a porch in the street and typed out a quick, simple text to Kersen. Where are you?

Michael had given Cesare Borgia everything he needed to convince Alcuin Delaunay to help out. The MP was a swing vote, and a complete waste of a human being. It wasn't that he regularly turned to prostitutes, but that he abused them more often than not. He'd beaten his wife and got away with it. And he'd turned his back on his daughter when she had come out. All in all, Michael would have been glad to find himself alone with the man in a dark alley.

Being seated at the hotel bar, waiting for Alcuin Delaunay in order to make sure that the man would see them when Cesare meant for him to, would have to suffice.

Following this

"Offices are being renovated," Robin said as he pulled him into a hallway. "This is the best I can do."

Michael didn't know whether that was true or not, and cared very little. If Robin wanted to do this in the hallway, he had no objection. Instead of saying so with words, he pushed Robin up against the wall and kissed him hard.

Michael was on his way home when he noticed that he was being trailed. He was on his way back home from a quick stop at Kersen's bar, which made it very unlikely that it was a professional trail. It was, however, very likely a vampiric one, and that was, in a lot of ways, more dangerous. It was too late to lose anyone on the Tube, so he made sure to remain in populated areas until he could hail a cab.

He got off in another crowded street, and climbed into another. Three rides later, he was confident he'd lost his trail, but just in case, he found a bar to have a drink in. Or so it seemed. When he went to the back on the pretext of using the loo, he slipped out the back door and meant to head off.

He'd underestimated the vampires on his trail, however. He hated underestimating people. He barely had time to wound one with his silver knife that he was thrown back against the wall of the alley with such force and speed that he barely had time to react. His head hit the wall, and then there was only black.

Until there was pain, throbbing at his temples, and a numb feeling in his hands, and his right arm. He kept his breathing as even as he could and focused on what he could feel and hear. His hands were tied behind his back, tight enough to make blood flow difficult, but with rope instead of zip ties. A rookie mistake. He was lying on his side, curled up. He wasn't alone, but there was no use letting them know he was awake already.

"You realise we can hear your heartbeat, bloodbag?" a male voice pointed out, Estuary accent strong.

"Let him play dead if he wants," another male voice cut in, sounding more cultured. "I'll ring his boyfriend. Go check on 'Chelle."

Two talking, but there had been at least three cornering him in that alley. 'Chelle was probably the one he'd injured, but things had gone too fast, and his memories were fuzzy at best. Footsteps came closer, and then a boot connected with his stomach, hard enough that he found himself curled up on his side, coughing and trying not to throw up. Probably concussed.

"She oughta do the honours on him," the first voice stated, before the footsteps receded.

Michael blinked his eyes open just in time to see the back of the first vampire as he walked out of the room. Tall and wide enough that even as a human, he might have given Michael a run for his money. The room looked like a cellar, mostly empty, lit by a single light bulb.

The second vampire crouched down in front of him. Dressed in a suit, Black, and looking at Michael as if he were a butterfly he intended to pin into his collection as he brought the mobile he'd lifted off of Michael to his ear.

"Anything I should pass on to your boyfriend?" he inquired.

Michael's only answer was to spit some blood on the floor.

Michael adjusted his jacket as he walked out of the club, feeling restless and frustrated. No one of interest here, and he cut through a dark side street towards a club on the edges of Soho, hoping that he would be luckier there. You did not do what he did without developing a keen sixth sense, however, and he could tell someone was watching him about twenty metres into the street.

No one was there, and then suddenly two figures stood a few metres from him. He could only just make them out in the half-light, a man in his thirties, tall and built like someone who could be a threat, his arm around a younger-looking blonde woman, who looked nothing like a threat. "He's all yours, babe," he told her in a foreign accent.

The girl smiled, a predatory smile, and before Michael had a chance to react, he'd been shoved into a wall, all breath pushed from his lungs. The woman stood above him as he struggled to get up, and she smiled again, looked over at her companion. "He's got spirit."

And then she'd moved with that same remarkable speed, that speed Michael was powerless against, and crouched over him, holding one of his arms in a surprisingly strong grip, and his hair in her other hand, pulling his head to the side to give herself clear access to his neck.

The pain was just like that of being stabbed, sharpness followed by dull, throbbing pain beating at his neck, but before the side effect of the bite had time to kick in, the silver knife Michael never went anywhere without anymore slid between her ribs and straight into her heart. She made a surprised sound and fell away from him, blood dripping from her mouth.

Michael wasn't a very material person, or a very sentimental person. Belongings meant things to people, but they mostly meant anything to him in terms of their utility, rather than emotional attachment.

Being sent to bring his employer's sister a ring while Cesare Borgia was seeing to his elder brother's latest potential scandal rankled quite a bit. Now, if he had had nothing better to do, why not, but his employer might have need of him, and he would be on this errand instead.

He got to Lucrezia Borgia and Allan Aragon's residence quickly enough, eager to be done with it and return to Cesare as soon as possible.

The music was loud, discouraging any sort of prolonged conversation, which was just the way Michael preferred his gay bars. The lights were dim, the small dance floor full, and men were regularly coming in and out of the darker backroom. He was settled at the counter, nursing a scotch, and watching the crowd. Part of him was on his guard, as it always was; you never knew. But mostly, he was just looking for someone who would do the trick tonight.

The tattoos caught his eye when the younger man leaned against the counter to ask the bartender, presumably, for a drink. His arms were bare, ink clear on tanned skin. Or not tanned but naturally darker, he reassessed when he looked up at the face. The features were narrow, angular, and clearly exotic (rendered even more so by the kohl around his eyes), although Michael couldn't have pinpointed the man's origin. The face was less interesting than the tattoos, however, and he dropped his gaze back to them, trying to make out their design from a distance.