Lev swallowed a lump in his throat as the heart brushed gently against his foot. He stared for what seemed to him an eternity before he bent down, aching knees bringing him back up to stand with the heart clutched in the same hand that had once been impaled with both revolver and spike. He had seen many things in his life. Many hardships. But nothing terrified him more than what he couldn't see, the lurking beast that slept under his own skin. And yet he felt kinship in the being. A fellow spirit who had survived a bit longer than they were meant to, outlasting their welcome in the living world. Like two cockroaches huddling under the same rock. Inside his head, he could hear the demon's actual voice. A guttural sludge of rasping muck, a sound that he was unable to reproduce with Lev's vocal cords. It wanted him to eat the heart. It craved for it. The beast was hurt, starved for power, for flesh. This rotting organ meant so much to it.

Lev hung his head and sighed.

"Perhaps instead of taking backseat to my own destiny," he began, speaking with his eyes on the floor, "this has instead become my fate. A vessel, for this thing, this raving madman who claims to be son of god."

He looked up, staring at Kasdeja with hate. He his fingers clenched down on the heart as anger-filled adrenaline coursed through him, disguising his emotions as strength.

"But maybe this vessel can give madman a push in the right direction."

With that he raised the heart to his mouth and sunk teeth deeply into it, making one swift motion of the affair. The meat was disgusting. The smell was unbearable. Blood and dirt-filled chunks slid down his throat as he swallowed. He felt nauseous, sick, he felt himself spinning out of control...

And Na'lsa felt so very much alive.

Dara's stomach begins to twist as Lev takes a bite out of the battered heart. She forces down her gut reaction by recalling her parents' farm and their neighbours, in particular the annual meat slaughter. A beast's heart didn't have quite the same repuslion to it. Still..

She coughs to hide her initial reaction, and says quietly, "We could have found somewhere for you to clean that."

"Who cares if it's clean..." Dante muttered ashe tripped his way into the APC, sprawling through the entrance. Still prone, he rolled over a couple of times and curled up with his back to the meat-eating demon, tired. He didn't want to think, but the thoughts and images came unbidden. A myriad of auras became tangled in his imagination, like a child at play with paintbrushes. Michael's pent-up frustration that gave in to sporadic bursts of light. That blue...something. And the fact that, although he could estimate where Dara might be at, he still couldn't see much of an aura.

It annoyed him. Why couldn't he?

Trying to put his thoughts to rest, he groped around on the floor for his scarf, then hugged it and tried to take a quick catnap.

Lev stumbled as he swallowed the last bits of the heart, wiping blood from his lip with the back of his hand. He spoke in a unhinged way as he felt himself losing control to a suddenly refreshed Na'lsa.

"No point. Everything is touched. Tainted. From dust, to dust. No harm in eating dust."

Arms went across his stomach as he suddenly felt very sick. Dizziness swept over him, and suddenly his body lay crumpled on the floor of the APC. It was there for mere moments before it picked itself up, Na'lsa once again in the flesh as he brushed dirt from his shoulders. He spoke, his oil and sandpaper voice replacing Lev's gruff and haphazard tone.

"Said I was a madman. You are what you eat, I suppose."

He chuckled, seemingly light hearted. Then all at once his face fell to a grim snarl, locking eyes with the Nephilim.

"I am no one's lapdog. Remember it. I will bite the hand that feeds."

Na'lsa waved a hand through the air, the actual bone structure arriving at its resting point before the actual blood and skin did, causing a flurry of activity as it melded back together.

"I said I am no lap-dog. I said-!"

Na'lsa cut himself off. How did the Nephilim penetrate his mind? He felt raw power coursing through him, fresh from the heart he had devoured. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced. He felt as if he could strike down this twisted creature in front of him with a mere gesture. And yet...here he was. Speaking in his mind. This was a parlor trick Na'lsa did not know. And as enigmatic as Nephilim were to Na'lsa, for a moment he felt fear over what else Kesdeja might be capable of. He drew himself up, trying to make himself look fearless. After all, what could he do to Na'lsa, who controlled the very ebb and flow of flesh itself?

"Eventually. Eventually can be a long time, Kesdeja. But eventually, I will."

In the silence after he spoke, Na'lsa listened. It wasn't sound, but he could hear the very blood pumping through the bodies near him. The rise and fall of chests breathing. The very life coursing through them. However, one was weak. Breathing slow and raggedly. Turning his head, Na'lsa stared down at the old man's unconscious body. The very flesh seemed to reach out to him, to yearn for his meddling. He could feel the very heat of life radiating from his blemished skin, the blood pulsing in a joyous rhythm at the very thought of Na'lsa blessing him with his graces.

Na'lsa twisted his hand, and was inwardly surprised that he could feel a surge of adrenaline through the old body that had not been there a second ago. With immense satisfaction for his new discovery, he knocked his head back and crowed to the ceiling.

"Rise, Altiel! Your flesh need no longer take rest or respite!"

One of the old man's eyes cracks half-open, staring with startling coherence at Na'lsa, as though he had not been coldly unconscious mere seconds ago.

With ponderous, possibly-exaggerated movements, Shealtiel slowly sits himself up, obviously haggard, but fully alert.

He looks around the APC, taking note of the rest of the group.

"Are we all accounted for?" he asks. "I don't think we should remain here longer than necessary."

"Jean is gone," Feenai stated, almost sullenly. "I have a feeling she may not come back." Feenai heaved a mental sigh and tried very hard to not show it outwardly. Jean had been the first person she met after arriving in the city and had felt like a good friend, it was rather depressing to find her gone.

"I think we should attempt to find something more substantial than succor capsules, if we're going to continue our journey. Na'lsa has had plenty to eat aside from them, and I think we may need it too."

Shealtiel grunts at the mention of food -- it has been weeks now since he has last eaten. "Agreed," he says, climbing up to strap himself into the nearest seat. "We have a difficult trek ahead of us through largely uninhabited lands. We're driving right down the path of the Beast as it tore across Eurasia. And crossing the Infernal Sea won't be a simple endeavor, either. We should try to find somewhere we can resupply."

Giving Feenai a wry look, he adds, "Since my MID appears to no longer function, perhaps you or Michael or tap into the Network for us and try to find somewhere we could stop to rest. Preferably free of lunatic priests, if you please."

Dara spoke up from her corner seat. "I can usually find something, though it won't be much."

Michael trudged into the APC with Altiel on his back...well behind his back, but he still trudged into the APC instead of simply walking. A headache was growing on him. Walking quickly seemed neither helpful nor convenient for him, for letting Altiel stray too far from him would drop him. It almost happened once. Then Michael got a bit more frustrated, aggravated by the Nephilim and proceeded to trudging, hitting the ground harder with each step. Michael's morality was starting to deteriorate from the journey. He didn't like being under someone's thumb, and even now, after having time to adjust, he still didn't like it. Perhaps he would attempt to kill the thing just to shut it up forever. Then he'd be able to get back to saving the world, one mind at a time.

Feenai nodded at Shieltial's suggestion. She tapped into the Network and readily found their location, along with a nearby place that would work well. "The isle of Thasos is close enough. I can drive us in that direction, and we can stop for some real beds there." She paused, then added somewhat cynically, "Not sure if they will have enough extra food to sell to outsiders such as ourselves though."

"I suppose if we want to make it anywhere before dark, we'd better get moving," Dara says, looking out at the tall dwellings in the distance. "Assuming we know where we *are* going." Rifle slung over one shoulder and kit hanging behind her back, she walked a little ways around the beach, seeing what might be around in the sand, as much out of personal curiosity as to keep an eye out for something they could use.

Na'lsa takes in a deep breath, his mind picking through his host's...

"Lev has had an experience close to this. He suggests leaving the APC far out from whatever 'civilization' might be here. A piece of technology, as fine as it is, would lead to us being overwhelmed by the inferior trying to claim it for their own."

He laughed to himself, ravaging through Lev's more personal take from that experience. He kept to himself about how Lev had been the one to toss a phosphorous grenade in to such an APC, waiting for those inside to burn before taking it for himself. As an afterthought, he added to his advice.

"And lock the hatch. It's for the best."

Not wanting to move and yet not content to stay behind, Dante grabbed his belt, now carrying all three guns and hid his blade, and hastily buckled it as he made his way out of the APC. A third holster had proven too difficult to make, and he'd had to settle with a simple leather band. Hopefully his poor craftsmanship would hold together.

The inferior...? he wondered, nearly stumbling into the speaker. Over the past few days, Lev's brown blur had been slowly compromised with Na'lsa inky blackness, something of a problem for Dante.