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'I can't actually turn them into lizards but it's one of the only ways I can get them to behave.'

Sighing, Madame Archelle sits back in her chair. 'How much of the legend have you heard?'

"Whatever works, I'm sure people resort to more sinister devices all the time" she laughs, leaning back in her chair once again."Next to nothing, I only what Mira has told me and that is that she cannot be harmed and if i had changed neither could I, she was very vague about everything and if i've heard of her kind before than the thought has surely slipped my mind for I cannot recall".

'Mira Marlowe is dead,' Madame Archelle states flatly. 'What you encountered was all that is left and that, Mistress Damora, is only the beginning.

'The stories tend to get more elaborate over time but I know the truth. Almost ten years ago, Mira Marlowe was the private tutor of the Weston family, whose property is right next door to the Abbey Park Cemetery and, as it happens, the sanitarium as well. However, she is entirely incidental to this tale, a hapless victim along with so many others. The true villain is her mistress, of course.'

She nods knowingly at Alysa. 'And we know all about her.'

"Oh yes, she mentioned the Weston girl once or twice" Alysa replies, still caught in the woman's tale, hoping for more answers than questions for once. "But to hear Mira tell it she was more than just the girl's tutor, it seems there was a relationship there, but she never elaborated past that, so by all means proceed I have a feeling it will behoove me to be up to speed before the captain returns".

The woman shrugs. 'It wouldn't surprise me. There's lots of, eh, exotic tastes that noble folk develop. It's boredom, you see. They can do all kinds of things that the more common folk can only dream about and once they've done those, they get bored and boredom can lead people down some strange avenues.'

She grins and winks at Alysa. 'In my case, I developed a passion for the occult. From a young age, I had these curious spells, as my parents would call them.'

As if to demonstrate, Madame Archelle waves her hand over her deck of cards and the individual cards fan out in a pattern across the table in front of her.

'It's funny how our society recognizes that magic exists but nobody wants it in their family. They say it's a sign of fey blood. Personally, I'd love to think I descended from faeries. That would be more admirable than just being the daughter of some minor nobleman.'

She shakes her head. 'So that was my secret avocation that got me committed. I don't know if it was the actual talents I displayed or that I was using them to entertain guests. In any case, Mistress Damora, rich people who have enough money to avoid the daily struggles can develop peculiar hobbies, though I'm not suggesting a relationship between two women is necessarily bizarre. Unorthodox but not taboo.'

Flipping a card up into her hand without touching it, the woman smirks. 'However, if young Madame Weston was carrying on with her tutor, then she wouldn't be terribly interested in marrying some fine young nobleman and being used as a bargaining chip in a business arrangement. That would have been her transgression. Being an aristocrat is as much liberating as it is confining. You're permitted to do as you please so long as it pleases everyone else.'

Tapping her fingers on the tabletop, Madame Archelle watches as the cards once more form a single stack and she lays the single card between her fingers on the top of it.

'So you spoke with Mira Marlowe,' she comments. 'You'll be the first living person to do so and tell the tale in almost ten years. Everyone who has encountered her during that time has died in one way or another and that includes all her husbands.'

Alysa blushes a little when Archelle mentions Mira's husbands. "Quite unfortunate for them although i can see how easy it is to get caught up in her charms. Perhaps it was the fact that she wanted me for her own that saved my life. That and some impeccable timing".She's watching intently as the woman manipulates the cards in front of her, amazed that such things are possible.

'You just so happen to sitting across from someone who has made a hobby out of studying these otherwise useless subjects,' Madame Archelle replies with a wry smile.

'Vampirs are human remains. That which dwells within them only thinks it is the remnants of the person it had once been but it's not. In its place is a horrid being that can only sustain the dead flesh it inhabits by feeding it blood. And that blood must be fresh. They don't love, they don't know loyalty and the only true feelings they have are those of hunger. Everything else are just echoes of the memories of the soul that once inhabited that body.

'They occasionally try to recapture some of these memories by duplicating circumstances or finding surrogates to fill the roles of those they knew in life. However, from what our mutual acquaintance from those he knows, the creature you encountered has multiple husbands as a means of acquiring wealth and position. Not for her own sake but for that of her mistress.'

"I see. And i can clearly infer then that once i had rid her of her most recent one i was in some sense going to become a replacement for the Weston girl until she grew bored. Seems to me this tale grows more twisted with every telling and yet i cannot help but wish to learn everything i can about this creature and hopefully destroy it in time", those deep blue eyes suddenly take on the appearace of solid ice. Cold and methodical and destructive. It seems Alysa is a force to be reckoned with when she sets her mind to a purpose and right now there is only one thing on her mind.

'Or,' Madame Archelle counters, 'if you were a replacement, then maybe she wouldn't have gotten bored so much as angry with you for not being whomever she wanted you to be. Obsession can be such a tricky thing.'

She blinks her heavily painted eyelids. 'Destroy it? Mistress Damora, have you any notions as to how difficult that can be? These things are already dead, so you can't kill them and there are only a few certain methods for ensuring their destruction.

'Fire, of course, if you can hold them still long enough to burn them. Some can't tolerate sunlight and it burns them but it's said the older ones don't mind it as much. Silver is an expensive weakness of theirs as well.'

Once again, Tawni enters, this time with the tall, freckled redhead with the disagreeable face. Both women give Alysa a wide berth as they make their way around the table and set down a pair of trays before Madame Archelle. There is a bottle of wine wrapped in cloth, a battered tin teapot with steam drifting out of the spout and a loaf of bread that smells fairly fresh.

'Rollo doesn't have any more bacon rolls,' Tawni explains apologetically, glancing quickly at Alysa before looking back at Madame Archelle. The red haired barmaid simply stares at an interesting point on the wall. 'He had Chase run to the baker's and purchase some fresh bread for you.'

'That is fine service of him,' Madame Archelle says. Tawni places two cups on the table and pours a small amount of tea into each. The redhead sets one in front of Madame Archelle while Tawni, smiling tightly, serves Alysa. Then she slices into the loaf of bread and butters two slices, once more delivering one to Alysa herself as the redhead appears loathe to even acknowledge Alysa.

'Perhaps I won't turn him into a serpent after all,' Madame Archelle smirks.

Alysa finds herself joining her strange companion in a smirk, knowing the truth about the empty threats, the edge is gone from her voice when she speaks finally and her blue eyes have softened from their murderous glare. "So they do have a weakness then?" She asks curiously, tapping her fingertips together and leaning back. "Something that i could perhaps use to accomplish my goal should i ever find the opportunity presenting itself".

The woman nods in response, waiting while Tawni and the redhead pour herself and Alysa a glass of wine as well and serve each of them a small plate of sweet biscuits. Only after all this is done does Tawni look expectantly at Madame Archelle.

'My thanks to both of you for this,' the medium says as she spreads her arms to indicate the delicacies on the table. 'You may both take your leave.'

The redhead rolls her eyes, places a single hand on her hip and stalks out through the door followed by Tawni, who smiles and nods at Alysa as if to make up for her earlier behavior.

'Yes,' Madame Archelle answers after taking a bite from her buttered bread and chewing slowly. 'They do. SIlver, fire and sunlight. Sorcery has its uses against them as well but it requires powerful incantations. The servants of the Law also have their methods. It has to been done quickly and mercilessly or they soon recover. They are already dead so methods used in swiftly dispatching mortal enemies are not as effective when employed against them.'

She sips her tea and swallows, licking her lips. 'The older they are, the more powerful they become. There are those so old that they have become legends unto themselves.'

"So it seems my goal of simply plunging a sword through the creature's heart is rather oversimplifying the matter then?" Alysa asks as she takes a sip of her tea, thinking what a horror show it would have been if she had simply followed her instincts and stabbed Mira. Her blue eyes have once again changed and grown inquisitive as she heard the woman speak of the creature's subtle vulnerabilities.

"Perhaps I have much to learn before I go charging into battle" she chuckled, reaching for one of the biscuits on her plate. She was slowly beginning to see the implication of Brawne's plan, if indeed he had one at all. However, it was worth coming here just for the information Archelle was sharing with her.

'Their heart is vulnerable,' Madame Archelle nods gravely. 'A stake of wood or silver thrust through their heart shall paralyze them but that alone shall not kill them. That is, if the tales are true. I only saw one of them slain and fire was necessary to finish the creature.'

Now she decides to taste the wine, which is a rather cheap vintage. She wrinkles her nose and swallows.

'Our mutual acquaintance was involved.'

And with that statement Archelle has unknowingly ensnared Alysa. She now knows she must find a way to gain Brawne's trust, if it is true and he has killed one of these creatures he may be the key to the whole affair of her vengeance.

"Somehow I do not find that surprising, even I can tell the man has a hatred for such creatures and I have only been conscious during one of our encounters and unfortunately my hosts at the time were rather eager to keep our conversation brief" she replies.

'Oh, don't get the wrong idea!' Madame Archelle laughs. 'Just myself and the rest of us who survived the fire that night, our mutual acquaintance barely got out alive. He really should tell you the story but, as he's not here, allow me.

'I told you that myself and Magda were guests at Abbey Park. There were many others. In all, the hospital had over four hundred beds and all of them were full. Some would come and go but most stayed and it was fairly consistently busy there. We were not allowed to leave the grounds or go outside the walls but there was an arboriteum in the courtyard and a respectable library where someone could read if they could find a peaceful moment.

'You see, the doctors there were not terribly concerned with curing anyone. Most of us weren't dangerously insane. Magda, for example, is a very simple creature who spent her whole life in the wilds so naturally she didn't enjoy being forced to live in the city, let alone being confined to a single building. She kept trying to get out and somehow that made them consider her all the more crazy.'

She chuckles deeply and drains her wine glass. 'I mostly stayed in my room or the library when it was calm. They left you alone if you didn't cause any trouble and I knew that, one day, if I so wished, I could use my talents to leave. For the moment, though, I didn't mind it. It was actually better than living at home.

'Not all of the guests were of nobility but, of those that were, most of them simply had minor problems, if that. Why, there was a lad in there, a nervous, quiet boy named Belby who had been committed because he was from a family of prominent merchants who still operate a very profitable business trading goods by airships.'

"By all means, the more I know, the better prepared I will be when he returns for I doubt he will wish to spend much time on the past" the blonde picks up another of the sweet biscuits and takes a small bite as Archelle relates her tale, content to listen until she has a question. "I'm afraid I must agree with her, I am not one to be confined unless it is by my own will, I cannot imagine how awful she must have felt."

'Belby, unfortunately,' Madame Archelle continues as if Alysa had expressed an interest in the young man, 'had no head for heights and rather than reveal that his son had this disadvantage, his father had him committed.

'Then we had those like Magda who were more or less harmless but not sufficiently familiar with the law to be forced into reeducation. Not to mention she has a taste for rather odd fare. Living in the wilderness, I suppose she had to learn to scavenge or make the most of what she could find. As it happens, one of the doctors at the hospital thought it would be soothing to patients to have a fish pond in the arboriteum, which was all well and good until Magda arrived.'

She smiles slowly. 'All considerations aside, Magda is an excellent cook and she did, in fact, share with the other guests.

Alysa smiles back as she sets her now empty cup back on the table, attempting to work up the courage to pick up the wine. The memories of Redclyffe are never far from her mind and so it seems for Archelle that Abbey Park is the same.

She finally manages to work up the courage to at least lift the wineglass to her lips and take a small sip. She knows she is going to have to get over this aversion eventually and there is no time like the present to start.

'So it was as it was for a time,' Madame Archelle sighs. 'Then Darek arrived. You've not met Darek but he's very charming, very clever and entirely without any scruples. Unlike other members of his family, Darek likely stole something out of his mother's womb on the way out. He simply cannot help himself. So, when facing the third tier of judgment which, as you know, will usually find a person doing hard labor while under the complete and utter control of the Lawgivers, Darek decided to play mad. Given his charm and cleverness, he was able to convince his solicitor and the justice herself that he was, in truth, entirely barmy.'

She returns to her tea and tastes it but then sets it aside. 'Already cold,' Madame Archelle laments. 'Now, where was I?

'Oh, yes, Darek. So into our midst comes Darek Brawne. And before you ask, yes, and he is younger. The Brawne brothers were simply local entertainers but, as we all found out, they had other, more secretive professions they would follow. Now, Robur, being the oldest, is a bit more cautious. He knows when and where and how to conduct himself to avoid suspicion but Darek, on the other hand, likes to be audacious and that is how he ended up with myself and Magda and the others in Abbey Park.

'He did make things interesting but it was also he that started questioning certain practices. Especially the bloodletting. To me, it was just another inconvenience of being stuck there but, once Darek started to mention how strange it was, I too thought it was odd. Why was it necessary to take a small quantity of blood from every patient every day? I presumed it was some kind of alchemical process intending on determining the nature of our madness. As it happens, it wasn't.'

Madame Archelle pours herself another glass of wine.

'We only learned later about the events in the abandoned abbey, how they had affected the Weston family and their staff and, most relevant to us, a certain doctor at the sanitarium. Dr. Wardsea, you see, had been one of the suitors of the Weston girl and, when she died, had been involved in some unpleasantness in the cemetery. He had watched the Weston girl from his office since his early days there and developed quite a passion for her. He was devastated by her death but it was what killed her that led to misfortune that engulfed the hospital and its guest and led to us meeting the Captain.'

Alysa leans forward once again, something about the woman's words has begun to interest her. She remembered the crimson liquid that both Dakrom and Mira drank exclusively and she wondered if there may be a similar process at work in both Redclyffe and Abbey Park and if so were there other such places in Angalon? She remains silent, picking up her piece of bread and taking a small bite, the cheap wine forgotten for the moment. Her blue eyes are wide and her whole posture has changed, as though she is literally hanging on the woman's every word.

"It was a food source" she breathes, the words barely audible in the small space between the two women though twinged with the horror of the realization that such things occurred and that by extension the lawgivers, by places people into the care of such places, if in fact they were all of this nature, were complacent at best and accomplices at worst, "They were vampirs or in the employ of one anyway".

'Dr. Wardsea,' Madame Archelle continues, obviously enjoying having an audience, 'had apparently contracted a condition as a result of the series of unfortunate events that had beset the Weston estate. I only know what I've heard or been told. So much rumor and speculation. However, it became very painfully clear that we, as guests at the establishment, had to make plans to escape.'

She sighs again and traces along her own cheek and jawline with a single finger. 'Alas, certain acquaintances of ours became of the mind that it was our responsibility to put a stop to the horror. We couldn't escape and then go to the lawgivers and beg for their help. They wouldn't believe us and would likely assume we were making us stories. Besides, we didn't even know what we consider it. Bloodletting for no apparent reason is odd, yes, but hardly something so entirely outside the ordinary practices of a doctor that it would seem unseemly or even unusual.'

Alysa nods again, "they are very set in the belief that their way is the only way even when presented with evidence to the contrary, they would not have helped you". She has spent long enough both living with and working for the lawgivers to know that her words are true, though she cannot imagine coming to that realization in a situation where they may be your only hope of rescue.

'Inflexibility is one of their less admirable qualities,' Madame Archelle responds slyly. 'They are remarkably honest and dependable in some regards but once they decide upon something, it is quite the ordeal to convince them to change their minds. Oh, and obviously attempts to bribe them just make things worse.

'Now, where was I? Oh, yes, so while myself and Darek were all for making an escape, others wanted to play hero. Do you know what happens to heroes? Heroes eventually die. You cannot save the world forever. Eventually your luck shall run out."

'So some of us escaped. It wasn't so difficult and, as it turned out, much easier as a smaller party. We made our way through the cemetery and left it all behind. What we didn't know, and only found out later, is that someone had a plan underway to rescue his younger brother and, while we were in hiding, broke into the hospital in a bid to set Darek free.'

She scratches her chin with her polished nails. 'A well coordinated scheme if ever there was one. It's almost miraculous anyone survived. Maybe there is some kind of benevolent force watching after us all, after all. Or maybe luck is more about counting the little things that turn out in your favor instead of waiting for the big win.

'As I said, I was there, in a manner of speaking. To be honest, once we heard that the sanitarium was on fire, curiosity demanded that we investigate. We had been hiding out in the Underbelly, which isn't difficult if you know what you're doing. Avoid the gangs and pay a bit of tribute when you're in someone's territory and you'll be just fine if nobody gets it in their heads to cause problems. Rumors spread fast down there and we made it in time to watch the hospital burn and help save a few former guests.

'Robur found us with Krystyna's help. She has gifts of her own, you see, and they proved very useful. He had managed to escape with her and some other guests after some kind of confrontation in the hospital. The Captain told us all about what happened but he could probably tell you even more.'

"He seems to be a man who plays his cards close to his chest, I doubt he will reveal more about that night than he has to to procure whatever information it is he desires from me" the blonde woman says as she once more seems to lean back in her chair, her fingers twitching as she tries to restrain them from knotting in her hair. "But what matters is that you escaped and you're all relatively safe now no?"

She cannot resist the urge to pick up the last biscuit from her plate and begin to nibble it. Although the food had been plentiful among the lawgivers, they preferred the less extravagant things and small sweets like this were a rarity if she had found any at all. The information flowing between the two is a welcome respite from the staunch silence of her former guards and the cryptic half answers of the vampirs.

'Oh, he told us all,' the woman proceeds. 'He had decided to break into the hospital at night when most of the staff and the guests would be resting. He didn't intend to cause any commotion as he can be very stealthy, especially when he's by himself. Unfortunately, he also decided that it would be best if he had a guide so he went directly to the only office where there was a candle burning.'

She continues to sip at her wine, which is rather bland and nothing at all like the rich, flavorful vintage served to Alysa at Redclyffe. If anything, that might be the reason that the blonde finds it difficult to swallow.

'Care to guess which of the doctors that happened to be?'

"I will wager a guess that it was Wardsea but that would ruin the plot now wouldn't it?" the blonde stated, still trying to take small sips of the wine in her own glass which has found its way back into her hand once again. It is more the psychological aspect of things that is preventing her from managing it. But in the interests of putting yet another of the horrors of Redclyffe behind her she continues her valiant try. "After all there is no fun in me ruining your story for you since you seem to take such joy in telling it, therefore by all means proceed and I shall attempt to follow along".

Alyssa has already determined what the 'conditon' was that the doctor had come down with and she was more than familiar with its symptoms, having experienced may of them herself during her descent into Mira's influence. She can only imagine the horrors that Brawne found that night and how close he could have come to suffering the same fate he managed to save her from.

'You would be correct,' Madame Archelle acknowledges Alysa, raising her glass at the other woman and crossing her legs, smoothing her dress over her thighs.

'And dear Dr. Wardsea had become one of them and was not at all in a mood to entertain unexpected guests. Once the Captain realized that Dr. Wardsea wasn't going to respond appropriately to pistol fire, he tried to make a run for it but, as you might know, they move very swiftly. He would have likely been lost if all the noise hadn't alerted some of the guests and they had decided to use that opportunity to make their stand against the staff.

'The next thing the Captain knew, people were gathering in the hallways and some of them had made torches. Rather than flee from them, Dr. Wardsea became angry, or at least that's what the Captain believes happened. He rushed at the mob and began to kill them, one by one. The Captain isn't the most moral of men but, as I said, he's at least got a compass, even if it doesn't always point in the righteous direction. He couldn't just stand there and watch this monster kill all these people so he joined in. He's a really good shot and he claims he put a few rounds into the good doctor but he just kept killing people. Then, someone managed to stab him with something through one of the bullet holes that hadn't quite healed and it went right through his heart. He fell right down to the floor and laid there.

'By then, there was a fire spreading through the hospital and the guests and staff were doing their best to escape. Nobody is sure how many died because of the fire but the Oathkeepers declared that the bodies they recovered and buried had all been casualties and that included Dr. Wardsea.'

There is a deep silence that fills the room while sounds from the outside including the murmur of the city and loud singing from the taproom can be vaguely heard.

'The Captain told us that Dr. Wardsea had changed before him,' Madame Archelle breathes softly. 'Changed into something inhuman. They pulled more than thirty bodies out of the building once they had put out the fire. The Captain says it was the most brutal and horrible thing he had ever seen.'

Alysa shakes her head sadly, she couldn't imagine anything like that, despite wanting to do the same to Mira not so long ago though it would have ended much differently for she was only one person. She set her glass down "I have seen hints of that change with Mira once or twice when she was angry, it almost looked like a shark's jaws from a book, her mouth grew wide and she had these terrible claws on her hands". The rogue shuddered at the memory of the rage Mira flew into before snapping her wrist, she could only imagine what a male would be capable of in such a rage. "In one such rage she actually managed to crush the bones in my wrist" she admits.

"He seems to be a man who plays his cards close to his chest, I doubt he will reveal more about that night than he has to to procure whatever information it is he desires from me" the blonde woman says as she once more seems to lean back in her chair, her fingers twitching as she tries to restrain them from knotting in her hair. "But what matters is that you escaped and you're all relatively safe now no?"

She cannot resist the urge to pick up the last biscuit from her plate and begin to nibble it. Although the food had been plentiful among the lawgivers, they preferred the less extravagant things and small sweets like this were a rarity if she had found any at all. The information flowing between the two is a welcome respite from the staunch silence of her former guards and the cryptic half answers of the vampirs.

'Oh, he told us all,' the woman proceeds. 'He had decided to break into the hospital at night when most of the staff and the guests would be resting. He didn't intend to cause any commotion as he can be very stealthy, especially when he's by himself. Unfortunately, he also decided that it would be best if he had a guide so he went directly to the only office where there was a candle burning.'

She continues to sip at her wine, which is rather bland and nothing at all like the rich, flavorful vintage served to Alysa at Redclyffe. If anything, that might be the reason that the blonde finds it difficult to swallow.

'Care to guess which of the doctors that happened to be?'

"I will wager a guess that it was Wardsea but that would ruin the plot now wouldn't it?" the blonde stated, still trying to take small sips of the wine in her own glass which has found its way back into her hand once again. It is more the psychological aspect of things that is preventing her from managing it. But in the interests of putting yet another of the horrors of Redclyffe behind her she continues her valiant try. "After all there is no fun in me ruining your story for you since you seem to take such joy in telling it, therefore by all means proceed and I shall attempt to follow along".

Alyssa has already determined what the 'conditon' was that the doctor had come down with and she was more than familiar with its symptoms, having experienced may of them herself during her descent into Mira's influence. She can only imagine the horrors that Brawne found that night and how close he could have come to suffering the same fate he managed to save her from.

'You would be correct,' Madame Archelle acknowledges Alysa, raising her glass at the other woman and crossing her legs, smoothing her dress over her thighs.

'And dear Dr. Wardsea had become one of them and was not at all in a mood to entertain unexpected guests. Once the Captain realized that Dr. Wardsea wasn't going to respond appropriately to pistol fire, he tried to make a run for it but, as you might know, they move very swiftly. He would have likely been lost if all the noise hadn't alerted some of the guests and they had decided to use that opportunity to make their stand against the staff.

'The next thing the Captain knew, people were gathering in the hallways and some of them had made torches. Rather than flee from them, Dr. Wardsea became angry, or at least that's what the Captain believes happened. He rushed at the mob and began to kill them, one by one. The Captain isn't the most moral of men but, as I said, he's at least got a compass, even if it doesn't always point in the righteous direction. He couldn't just stand there and watch this monster kill all these people so he joined in. He's a really good shot and he claims he put a few rounds into the good doctor but he just kept killing people. Then, someone managed to stab him with something through one of the bullet holes that hadn't quite healed and it went right through his heart. He fell right down to the floor and laid there.

'By then, there was a fire spreading through the hospital and the guests and staff were doing their best to escape. Nobody is sure how many died because of the fire but the Oathkeepers declared that the bodies they recovered and buried had all been casualties and that included Dr. Wardsea.'

There is a deep silence that fills the room while sounds from the outside including the murmur of the city and loud singing from the taproom can be vaguely heard.

'The Captain told us that Dr. Wardsea had changed before him,' Madame Archelle breathes softly. 'Changed into something inhuman. They pulled more than thirty bodies out of the building once they had put out the fire. The Captain says it was the most brutal and horrible thing he had ever seen.'

Alysa shakes her head sadly, she couldn't imagine anything like that, despite wanting to do the same to Mira not so long ago though it would have ended much differently for she was only one person. She set her glass down "I have seen hints of that change with Mira once or twice when she was angry, it almost looked like a shark's jaws from a book, her mouth grew wide and she had these terrible claws on her hands". The rogue shuddered at the memory of the rage Mira flew into before snapping her wrist, she could only imagine what a male would be capable of in such a rage. "In one such rage she actually managed to crush the bones in my wrist" she admits.

'They are said to be exceptionally strong,' Madame Archelle mentions softly, swirling the wine in her glass around with her hand. 'Strong, fast and very hard to keep dead. If you're still considering hunting down one of these things, you are going to need lots of help.'

She leans back in her large chair. 'You might think the Captain intends to hunt them but he doesn't. It is they who are hunting him and his associates.'