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Lev grinned at Rue, leaning closer. Her knife pressed against his neck, his slow movement producing a trickle of blood from his throat. He searched her eyes for any sign of fear for him. He stared in silence. The heat from air mixing with his open blood was extremely noticeable to him. It made him hungry. He leaned closer, pressing the knife against him even more.

"Ruebella. A sharpened stone will not rid you of me. You may employ this body, but I own it. You terminate that contract, and I have no reason not to terminate you. The "Whore" as she's called could do with one less child. And don't think I don't eat children. They're quite tender. You're older than what I usually devour, but you would do. Your skin, so succulent. Blood ripe. Your tendons. So tender, your tendons..."

He drifted off for a moment, beginning to salivate at the concept of eating Rue. She was powerful. Such power like that could satisfy his hunger for a while. He contemplated it while the blade continued to dig against him. After a moment he stepped away, laughing to himself.

"Oh, but think of those I will devour if we don't part ways! The prospect of eating you is enticing, but holding off means so much more! You win, Ruebella!"

He turned, hearing the motorcycle of the Meat he had eaten not too long ago. He eyed it as it came closer, judging the distance. He calmly produced the battered old revolver Lev had once impaled upon his hand. Removing the stake from his pocket as well, he grinned back to Rue as he spoke to her.

"I have done what I needed to do. I have bled the history from his mind. He does not remember-"

He stopped as the motorcycle screeched to a halt just three feet away. He eyed the blind one with a bored demeanor, as if he had just pulled some childish prank.

"Meat. Ohhh, Meat. I see you have delivered yourself to me. So close. I can smell your blood. How does it feel? How does it feel to know that I have eaten you? A part of who you are? That it has been broken down, consumed entirely? That it now fuels me, that it mixes with this body I possess? Does it scare you?"

He forgot Rue, stepping closer to the blind one. He ran the pointed end of the stake down his front, lightly trailing it across his chest.

"Maybe people should be crucified with a stake through their chest, instead of their hands. But it would ruin the meat...but I have stayed too long. Remember Meat, don't spill your own blood. Or I'll be there to devour the rest."

With a grin, he plunged the stake back through his left hand. For a moment he looked pained. Then, expressionless as his unconscious form fell to the ground.

Dismounting from the motorcycle, Shealtiel wanders over to the comatose form of Lev, scrutinizing him. Speaking to Ruebella without glancing up, he says, "So, it flees before me. Do you think it fears contact with me? I admit, I do not know which of us would prevail if it came to that, but why must it? Surely this entity knows all manner of... insights. I would very much like the opportunity to meet it formally. Perhaps next time."

He finally glances over to the Babylonian psychic . "What have you gleaned from it so far? Are its thoughts even decipherable? I can't imagine such a creature thinks in patterns easily recognizable to humans."

Rue listened to the man speak with a bored expression, clearly not impressed by his continued theatrics. When he stepped away, she looked at the end of her sword with a frown - so new, and he had already dirtied it. She wiped the blood away with her new white cape, leaving a red stain on the cloth.

The assassin's arrival warranted the same bored expression, with an exasperated sigh for good measure. "Speaking of clumsy murderers..." she muttered. She did not miss the usual flash of murderous intent in the man, and she allowed the demon to go on prostrating before he inevitably fell in a heap. She looked up at the blind man and the old theurge.

"Thank the Son that is over with. I forgot how annoying lesser demons could become when their novelty wears off." She shook her head and wiped her blade again for good measure. She couldn't remove too much of the man's filth from it.

At the old man's question she said, "It is a dominant psychic presence inside of him, a separate entity that has claimed dominion over the body and hides behind a fading human presence. Its thoughts are incoherent to me, perhaps because I am human and do not know its tongue, but as with all things I can sense its intentions and emotions." She had decided on a whim that she could confide that much information to the man. He seemed a neutral party in everything, and there had been no slip in his thoughts to indicate otherwise. Rue nudged Lev's prone form with the tip of her boot. "I wash myself of him. He is useless to me."

The grin was wiped from Dante's face as quickly as it had come up. Slightly paler than normal, he reached for his handgun. It would be easy...A full round. Headshot. But then he's only destroy the body, and what if the demon decided to make his new home in him?

"If I ever spill my own blood...it won't be for you," Dante muttered, resisting the urge to kick Lev's prone form.

"Well, I don't. He's useful for drawing fire, if nothing else. And I mean to get some answers from the demon, regardless of how long I have to wait." Shealtiel glances back at Dante.

"Do you have anything to restrain him with?"

Sliding his gaze over to Rue, he tells her, "I reiterate, if you're planning to leave the city, it would be in your best interest to accompany us. Don't let your ego get you killed. You're not a goddess, and even if you were, there are nastier things out there. This area seems to becoming quite perilous of late."

"To restrain the man, or to restrain the demon?" He jabbed a thumb towards the length of chain wrapped around his left arm. "I might be using that for other things, though."

"The man. I do believe I can keep the demon quiescent if it rouses itself again. And the binding would only be temporary. If the others did as I asked, I'm sure the vehicle they acquired will have something on-board we can use to keep him restrained. Just sling him over the back of your bike, if you will."

Rue crossed her arms and scoffed. "You two have fun with that. I would rather not stick around with this liability, but feel free to take it as far from me as possible. Better it eat you than me." She eyed the assassin, keeping a close watch on his intentions, and her next words were directed to the old man. "I am far from invincible, but I have gotten by quite well on my own, and this detour has lasted far too long already." She grinned, "Besides, you should probably ask the weak psychic and the religious prude if my company is welcome before extending the invitation."

Shealtiel chuckles, the hint of something malevolent creeping into his tone. "If the theurge can stomach my presence, I can't imagine she would do any less for you. Regardless..." he takes a step toward her, "I'm curious about you, as well. What are you doing so far from home? What are you seeking? And why are you so quick to turn away an offer of assistance? I shudder to imagine how you've managed to make it this far with that attitude. But, if you're so dead set on refusing aid, so be it. Don't expect me to mourn over your likely very unfortunate end. I've absolved my thin moral duty in offering you my assistance. Do with it what you will."

Turning away, thoroughly disinterested in whether she comes to her senses or not, he gestures to Dante. "All right, let's go. We should get out of the city while there's still daylight. I've had quite enough of this place."

With a slight growl of annoyance, Dante lay Lev across the seat and turned his head to follow the old man towards Feenai's aura.

Michael sat in on the entire conversation, from Lev's demon to Ruebella wiping her hands of Lev to finally seeing the servant of sheol give up on her. But I still need her. "Then take this, good friend." He handed Altiel a slip of paper with a coding adress on it. "It's my inbox on the amorpha. We'll meet up at the seven churches or somewhere else eventually." He then approached Ruebella, extending a different kind of invitation. "Do you mind if I accompany you? I can tell you that I recently added slaying an entire Dybukk hoard to my resume." He then looked at her directly in the eye and said a more serious tone "I still want that information."

Rue was opening her mouth to tell the man to get lost when she paused, considering. Of the group, the artificer seemed as though he might be of the most use to her. Though she doubted she could keep the man under her thumb - with payment, or with more physical means - she suspected that she might at least be able to use her higher psychic ability to manipulate him if he proved to be difficult.

"I... yes, I suppose I could use your... help," she made a face, "If you came along."

Up close, the face that Ruebella made actually looked a little cute to Michael. It was almost as though she were reluctant to face the fact that her best help came from the artificer she rejected the day before, but he'd never say that aloud. That would ruin the mood that had been created from the moment. He turned to the captain and asked for permission to take another car. Being directed to the garage, he was interested at the fact that there were not only military vehicles, but more casual cars as well, like motercycles and even an old covertable from before the eschaton.
"Well then, Madam Red. I hope you enjoy, the night's accomedations." Michael emphasize her name as though it was a joke to even call her that anymore, now that her real name had been said.
He motioned his arms to a car that he noted to be a masterpiece as soon as he saw it, the Bugatti Veyron, a two seater with a W16 engine-16 cylinders in 4 banks of 4 cylinders fed by four turbochargers. He knew before he opened the hood that the engine had already been adjusted for solar energy. Going from zero to sixty in two and a half seconds, he was pretty sure that most demons could be avoided if neccesary.

'Madam Red' smiled - it seemed that chivalry might still be alive after all. It had been gracious of him to find such a vehicle for them. She couldn't speak for how it operated, as her journey so far had been by foot and by sea, and before then she'd been kept well away from any kind of car. Its aesthetics, however, were enough to satisfy her of its quality.

"Shall we?" She slipped into the passenger seat as though she'd done it a million times before, making herself comfortable as she waited for him to take them away.

As Michael got into the car, he found the keys inside of the ignition already. "How convenient." The actual workings of cars were generally easy to recognize, since he would be expected to be able to repair this sort of thing as an artificer.
"We shall," he said, giving his most charming grin to the woman. After seating himself and buckling in, he started the car and rolled down the window.
"Captain, your service will not be forgotten by me. One day I'll pay your back; I swear it," he said shifting into first gear. He started out going slowly inside of the city. Letting the common survivors move out of the way he navigated to the edge of the city. He assumed it was away from the rest of the group because the large armored car was no where in sight. He stopped the car.
"So where to?" he said to Ruebella. In the back of his mind he wanted to get a lot of his immediate questions out of the way such as 'what would you like to be called' and 'what is your long term goal, anyhow' and he wanted to get his information. However to a person like her, Michael wanted to worked better than the last contractor and be cautious with his words, never saying more than what is polite and/or absolutely neccesary to say.

By noon the group leaves Corinth in the APC, the five of them who remain riding within. Jeanne drives, heading north out of the city. The lumbering vehicle crunches the massed bodies of the Dybbuk beneath its myriad of wheels with little effort. She follows the trail of corpses to out into the wastes, looking for where the Saint did battle with the Rephaim the day before, in hopes to recover the holy Wrath Swords wielded by Saint Typasius in his final battle. Lev remains chained, lying in the back near Dante's motorcycle. Shealtiel sits watching him, waiting for him to awake.