(Set in the Victorian-era London, around 1850s. But homosexuality is OKAY at this time eheh)
Santana didn't mind the sight of scarlet pooling around lifeless bodies. The bloodier, the better, as far as she was concerned. She didn't have the luxury of just willy-nilly traipsing through humanity to seek these things out; so when her work brought her to the most interesting bits, it was such a thrill.
Humanity was interesting. Colourful, ugly, dull, beautiful. Most of her colleagues were very much nothing in comparison. Boring was perhaps the most enthusiastic word she could summon for them. She had Quinn, of course. Someone who'd she'd spent many times together basking in the glory of crimson. Although, death usually gave her a front row seat to overjoyed fulfilment.
It was her job to be impartial, she'd never considered another's opinion. That would ruin the enchantment of the thing. The fleeting, hopeless nature of the murder was its beauty, even when the dying itself was slow.
So she surprised herself one day by falling in love. It was the lusting infatuation that could be easy to develop when one looked at something beautiful. Something to be considered an everlasting love, devotion perhaps.
The step of Santana's heel on the steeple above the alley alerted the woman. She was surrounded by a halo of silver, moonlit cobbled roads, and her eyes as she glanced up feverishly at the noise appeared to be red, redder than the blood Santana loved so much. And they were haunted.
"My, my!" Santana said as she leapt down from her high perch, landing daintily in between rivulets of human life dribbling between the bricks. "You've made me very busy, darling, what a show! What a hoot! Fabulous fabulous!"
She didn't add that it was devastatingly plain, she'd be dead sooner rather than later, herself, the way she was carrying on. She could tell at a glance that the woman cared little about a thing like her own death. My, but she did look so ravishing covered in blood, though - hair elegantly mussed, makeup near-immaculate, eyes staring up at her in bewildered wonder. It nearly made Santana shiver.
"But worry not, my dear," Santana continued, "I understand how you feel very well, I do. Those hideous slatterns deserved to die. Just like you, I've been held back from what I seek so desperately. I've taken to watching you, you know. I've seen your sorrow." She reached out to pull the woman - Brittany, her name was, what a fantastic name for such a hell-bound beauty - into a gentle embrace. "Let me help you," she murmured, petting Brittany's hair, mindless of the blood and grime. "We're alike as can be. Together we shall accomplish your goals even more easily, together."
The woman, a precious thing, seemed to snap out of the stupor she was in. "What do you want with me?" she asked, suspiciously. Santana tittered.
"I want to help you, silly woman, I already said that. I'm very good at facilitating death, you know." The word death rolled off of her tongue deliciously, as always, and she felt a roiling emotion flow up the woman's spine.
She made no move to extricate herself from Santana's embrace. "Why-ever would you do that?" she asked, faintly, hands tentatively snaking around Santana's waist.
Smile widening, the brunette replied, "Because, my dear, I'm weak to a beautiful woman covered in red."
**********
Each day with Brittany was its own peculiar adventure. The woman liked to live life, and Santana loved that about her. But often, the evenings were empty and lonely, and Brittany was prone to dark moods and trenchlike depressions proportional to those alpine joys of the daytime. Santana couldn't say she didn't like these moods. They lent themselves to a particular sort of victory. Santana liked to distract, to seduce, to thoroughly entrance, to win. Brittany - her heart - with her tendencies towards the melancholy and angry, was easily distracted by Santana.
