Levis paused her disgruntled staring at Charlene’s admonishment, affecting an almost surprised blink despite the snarl of her thoughts.<span style="font-style: italic">Rude? I’m saving your bloody soul you – </span>the angel quickly curtailed the thought, lest it slip into language that was less than worthy of her (more than it already had). Even to herself, there was no need to descend to such a level. She supposed the pink diamond the size of her fist that hovered above the mortal’s head might have something to do with her frustration.<br/><br/>The wolf in sexy sheep’s clothing seized on the woman’s question, clearly pleased that she hadn’t written him off enough to not be curious. “Right,” he said quickly, lowering his face but keeping his eyes level, “just talk. If your…” he gestured to Levis with a few fingers from the hand on the door frame, not breaking eye contact, still exhaling demonic aphrodisiac camouflaged as cologne, “friend… wouldn’t mind waiting here, that is. I would prefer a<span style="font-style: italic">private</span>conversation.” It wasn’t a lot –at least two out of the three people in the room would prefer to keep the Reapers out of this- but prolonged contact with that energy would be enough. Levis was hard-pressed to identify if it was already having an effect, or if Charlene was merely being her accommodating, agreeable self by encouraging him with the question. It had seemed like she was ready to send him packing after he stopped her from closing the door, too. Blessing and curse, apparently, at least for someone trying to keep her cordoned off from certain presences.<br/><br/>Still, she would no doubt want to make herself presentable. As presentable as such a mortal<span style="font-style: italic">could</span>, anyway. The angel hoped his base, crude hunger wouldn’t prevent him from allowing her to leave… If it came down to it, she would call the demon out for what he was and<span style="font-style: italic">hope</span>that it mattered to the mortal. If he returned the favor, Levis wasn’t sure how Charlene would take it… mortals tended to have a wide spectrum of reactions when faced with immortals, sometimes fairly negative, particularly if it was sprung on them after two years of interaction. Well, she assumed it would be negative, anyway. There would be a fairly large network of lies revealed, and a decent amount of disintegrated trust she’d rather not lose.<br/><br/>“If you like, we can head upstairs. My flat is empty,” ‘Stewart’ added, his tone and smile matching in an innocence that his eyes did not share.<br/><br/><br/>-----------------------<br/><br/><br/>When the kind demon with the pale eyes reassured him, the vast majority of Oliver’s apprehension faded. People might be coming to get him –he still wasn’t entirely clear on why or whom or any other details- but he was really quite lucky to have run into two individuals who were as heroic as this. He allowed himself to be almost steered back outside, glancing upwards with the mention of rain.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">“I don’t have a coat with me.”</span><br/><br/><span style="color: #008040"><span style="font-weight: bold">“Oh,”</span></span>came the barely-vocalized breath, and Oliver’s soft eyes widened,<span style="color: #008040"><span style="font-weight: bold">“You can take my – hm?”</span></span>his one free hand went to grab the zipper-side of his jacket, where it closed on open air and prompted the young man to stare down in mild surprise.<span style="color: #008040"><span style="font-weight: bold">“Right, I should get my jacket and - ”</span></span><br/><br/>His words faded as Vivienne slipped her thin arm beneath his. He felt almost like he could feel the flawless silk of her shirt even past the rough polyester of his own. His faintly surprised look slipped into another modest grin, but he opened his mouth to protest again anyway; he did need his case, after all, unless he wanted to wear the instrument for the rest of the night, not to mention the damaging rain. Her girlish little exclamation, however, complete with miniature shrug of excitement, shoved it from his mind. Oliver’s grin widened and he even laughed softly, loathe to break the enjoyment of his new friends for something as silly as his jacket and guitar case.<br/><br/><br/>-----------------------<br/><br/><br/>The black-cloaked figure just past the door allowed Vivienne and Oliver to walk past him without more than a cursory stare (involving the black of his hood moving in their direction for a second) before fixing again on the Prince that lingered in the doorway. Though the door should have swung closed as the duo passed, it remained wide open.<br/><br/>“Miss me, Laz?”<br/><br/>A Cheshire grin was the first bit of substance to materialize in the depths of the hood, followed quickly by the rest of a face as the hood settled around the figure’s shoulders, pulled by black-nailed hands that had appeared from the shadows of the sleeves. He appeared to be in his late thirties, with a thin but expressive mouth and high cheekbones. The most notable feature for this figure, by a wide margin, were his eyes; they were each a solid, flat black. No white, no color, not even a hint of a shine from the light of the environment. The flickering lamp above the door occasionally lit the dreary alleyway in electric brightness, but even that seemed swallowed up by his eyes, making them stand out painfully against the rest of the world. Still, his grin was quite lively, and his voice had a jovial (if mocking) buoyancy to it.<br/><br/><br/>-----------------------<br/><br/><br/>The man took a series of convoluted turns, to the point where he had probably run in a circle twice over. The hot pursuit from the two officers ended in the most predictable fashion; they caught up to renegade masturbator and his quickly-deflating boomerang, penned against three sides of insurmountable brick walls. Both policemen trained their firearms on him. “Freeze!”<br/><br/>Unfortunately, decision-making wasn’t the forte for this wandering voyeur and he made a dash for the mouth of the alley, clearly intending to break past the two-man line and continue his mad dash. One gunshot rang out, and the fugitive fell backwards, his death-boner pointing to the left as though telling onlookers to avert their eyes.<br/><br/>One officer pulled the collar of his uniform to his mouth and started muttering “Shots fired, we have police shots fired in the second alleyway off of Main and -”<br/><br/>The second man approached the corpse, sighing deeply and shaking his head in an exasperated fashion. He knelt beside the body (staring rather forcefully at the cadaver’s face), and pressed two fingers to the side of his neck. The man wore a long coat, unbuttoned from the waist down for obvious reasons but still closed from belly to neck. A spot of blood colored the coat from the center of the chest, expected, but more spots of blood were appearing along the dead man’s chest- a lot more spots, none of them bleeding very heavily. The officer’s brow furrowed and he glanced back at his partner, who was still busy on the radio. Slowly, he unbuttoned the man’s coat and pulled it back, fanning it around the now-naked body.<br/><br/>From the center of the man’s ribcage down to just past his navel, blood rose gently from neatly-severed arteries. The handwriting was elegant and precise, with a frightening amount of clarity considering the canvas.<br/><br/><span style="color: #800000"><span style="font-weight: bold">You’ll have to do better than this</span></span><br/><br/>Surrounding the bullet in a very symmetrical display was one more word, though the script was much smaller and different; it was harsher, clearer, darker even in its simplicity. A single, three-letter word, the bullet hole punctuating the middle letter in the center of the second prong.<br/><br/><span style="color: #800000"><span style="font-weight: bold">TEN</span></span><br/><br/>The officer stared in bewildered curiosity at the lettering, face paling and confused panic overcoming him. Still, he managed to keep his dinner in his gut until he looked at the deceased wanker’s face.<br/><br/>The nose had been sliced clean off.