Four men made their way to the Austin cabin, stumbling in at sunset. They were cold, wet and tired, coated in grime and filth. An elusive, frightening smell hung about them, daring to be identified.

They obviously did not expect to find anyone there. Mathilde and Tanya had been sent to the church, Ben and Ned instructed to follow. It was Lamar who received the first hard shock, upon opening the door to find those very four seated civilly at the table for the evening meal. He stopped dead, prompting the friar behind him to raise his voice exhaustedly. "Let us in, Lamar. It's damn cold out here."

Helplessly, the strangely-clad Jerusalemite moved to the side. Mathilde was staring, and Tanya was sipping her soup, large eyes peeking over the rim of the bowl at the newcomers.

"I – um," Lamar began.

"What – why have you brought us here," hissed the mayor. Mathilde was finally able to see him, and frowned as she took in his appearance. Despite the cold, he was wearing very thin black clothes, loose and flowing – a complete departure from his usual style. Always impeccably groomed, his hands and face were smudged with ash, and he stank of sweat and something much more unwholesome.

Mathilde flew to her feet, wringing her hands as the final figure moved through the door and closed it behind him. Gabriel's clothes were similar to the mayor's, and it was easy to tell that they had been white once. Now, the garments were dusted with gray ash and smeared with charcoal.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say the four of you had been playing in someone's hearth," she told them lightly, covering her surprise.

They glanced at one another, almost guiltily.

Lamar's jaw sagged.

"Um, well, you see -" Carl stuttered.

"Actually," Derek Hastings began determinedly.

"Not quite," Gabriel deadpanned smoothly, cutting the mayor off midstream.

Mathilde's brows rose at the sight of him. "Will I need to be lending Tony's clothes out again?" she asked with a touch of humor.

"No, thank you," he replied. "I have my own." He shifted a dark bundle of cloth that was securely tucked under one arm. Mathilde had wondered at it before. "But I believe the mayor would be in your debt if you did." The hunter's voice was remarkably cooler as he turned his attention to Derek Hastings.

For the first time, the men shifted enough that Mathilde could see Hastings' arms, bound securely in front of him. "Ben, take Ned and Tanya and go into the other room, please." Her voice was surprisingly steady.

"Mama?" Tanya asked quietly.

"Sweetheart," Mathilde responded firmly, turning to pick her daughter up. "The adults need to have a grown-up conversation. Read to Ben and Ned, please, until I call you back to finish your supper."

The small girl nodded solemnly as her mother passed her off the Ben. Gabriel met the towheaded youth's eyes and nodded, promising an explanation. The door closed softly behind them. Only then did the four men spread out fully – and Mathilde could see bloodstains on some of their clothes. Lamar's shirt was spotted lightly with the substance, and there were dark stains on Hastings' black clothing that could not be explained. One cuff on the sleeve of Gabriel's shirt was liberally dipped in the gruesome stuff, and the way he kept the other hand firmly hidden within his bundle of clothes made Mathilde certain that it was also stained with blood. Of them all, it seemed only Carl had escaped mostly unscathed. Even he had a thin line of red scoring across one arm. But around the four men hung a smell of rank decay and death – something Mathilde belatedly recognized with less shock than she ought to have felt, she thought.

"I will get the clothes for you," she told them sternly. "But I would like an explanation in return." She took the silence that greeted her as agreement, and none of the men gainsaid her deal as she moved briskly to her room. When she returned, the hunter had disappeared, and Lamar had removed his shirt and was using the clean sections to wash himself, discreetly facing the wall as he used an empty basin for the task. Carl had seated himself across from Derek Hastings, who was clearly uncomfortable with where he had been placed. Someone had moved the weighty table close to the wall, and the mayor was sandwiched between the heavy logs of the wall and table, unable to escape and barely able to move. His bound hands rested in clear sight on the top of the table, next to Tanya's supper.

Mathilde pretended not to notice the longing glances he cast at the soup. She approached Lamar without embarrassment, having tended the man during his illness. He smiled and thanked her politely for the shirt, and resumed his wash. Only then did Mathilde turn to Derek, laying the pants and shirt on the table. She stared at the bindings on his wrist for a long moment, before raising her eyes to meet his.

"Alicia and I were the best of friends once," she began slowly. "We grew up together. After my brother died, she was like a sister to me."

"I know," Hastings replied softly. His confidence had been drained from him, and the man she saw now bore little resemblance to the cocky, charismatic leader who had evoked such devotion in the town.

"Do you know why we stopped speaking to each other?" Mathilde inquired gently of him, smoothing the cloth absently as her eyes flickered to the fire, and back.

"She never told me," Hastings demurred, a note of cautious curiosity in his voice.

"It was because of you," Mathilde told him bluntly. He flinched back against the wall at the steel in her tone. "I never truly thought you were good enough for my sister. I thought there was something you weren't telling her, something you weren't telling anybody. But she thought she saw something in you that I didn't." Her voice turned thoughtful. "I wonder what it was." Mathilde shook her head at the fanciful notion. "I hope that whatever it is you've done, you left her out of it."

Carl was surprised at her automatic deferral to their assessment of the situation. It was very different from her initial attitude towards Ancell's actions. Frankly, he hadn't expected even such an estranged local as Mathilde to take their word over the mayor's. It gave him hope that talking with the people of Boxborough, which Gabriel seemed bound and determined to do, would not be completely fruitless.

"She has always been a much better person than me," Hastings admitted lowly.

But Mathilde's dislike of him was not so easily mollified. "At least you have the sense to see that," she retorted sharply. "Keep the clothes – I would not want them back after you had worn them."

A terse silence filled the room, broken when Gabriel returned from the lean-to. The hunter was freshly dressed in his own clothes, with water dripping from his hair. Carl winced. He was familiar with the hunter's propensity for washing in the snow when there was aught else to use. Personally, the friar would sooner go without bathing than strip off in the freezing weather and roll in the snow. He shivered at the thought.

Mathilde's sharp eyes caught the motion, and she brought him a bowl of soup. The widow sniffed haughtily at the mayor's hopeful look, but was not mean-spirited enough to deny him. Carl thanked her as Gabriel helped himself to the food on the stove. Lamar finished washing and moved over to sit next to Carl.

"Hastings will be brought with us to Rome, to be tried for his crimes." It was the friar who spoke up, surprisingly firm on this point.

"Crimes?" Mathilde asked pointedly. She slid a bowl of soup over to Lamar, muttering lowly into the silence about being glad she had cooked extra tonight.

Carl opened his mouth to answer, and then hesitated. Finding nothing to say, he quickly tipped a spoonful of soup into his mouth, sitting up straight as he burned his tongue. His face drew up in pain, but he swallowed quickly, wincing as the burning liquid went down.

Mathilde glanced at all the men around her, but none seemed about to give her a response – in fact, all were looking, with varying emotions, in the same direction. Following their gazes, Mathilde saw Gabriel crouched on the floor, feeding the last of his soup to Ned as he murmured to the dog. A long-fingered hand rubbed the black head, and the dog panted happily, resting his chin on the hunter's knee once he was done licking the bowl clean.

"His crimes," Gabriel affirmed, his attention seemingly given over to Ned. He recited the list as if by rote. "Sorcery, black magicks. Perjury and conspiracy against the Order. Accomplice to murder, attempted murder." Mathilde was wringing her hands fiercely, and took two steps toward the hunter when the man seemed loathe to continue.

Gabriel stood then, turning to look at her for the first time that evening. A hand rested on Ned's head, but it was unclear just who was deriving more comfort from the simple touch. "And murder," the hunter whispered. Sorrowful eyes met hers, and held. "I'm sorry."

Mathilde wavered on her feet, and Carl was the first one to reach her. He guided the woman to the nearest seat. Unhappily, it was almost directly across from the man who had killed her husband.

The story had fully come out in the woods, as the flames licking over the corpses had dwindled to nothing. The bodies had crumbled to ash at their touch, and Gabriel had demanded to know just what the hell they had thought they were doing. Derek Hastings, physically and emotionally spent, had crumbled. The story that had poured from him was horribly tragic, and completely senseless.

"Why?" Mathilde demanded raggedly. She grasped his bound hands, forcing him to look at her. "Why!"

Hastings lifted his eyes to hers helplessly. "He was in the way," he whispered. "He defied us."

Anthony Austin had been shot in the back, cravenly killed for protecting his wife and daughter, and the boy and dog that they had taken in. "You will not put that guilt on her," Gabriel had ordered the mayor upon learning the truth. "No one needs to live with that knowledge." Something in his voice had promised retribution, should the mayor disobey; but Derek Hastings was too cowed to oppose him. The events of the day were burned into his memory – he had not been protected when the full force of Gabriel's true nature had been unleashed. He would not forget without interference.

Mathilde buried her face in her hands, her shoulders heaving in silent sobs. Lamar patted her gently on the back, and she turned her face into his shoulder, tears streaming down her cheeks. Concerned and vaguely terrified by the force of her emotion, the Jerusalemite was left almost helplessly holding her, rubbing her back gently and trying to soothe the distraught woman.

Gabriel surveyed the scene with wise eyes, and turned once more, whispering softly to Ned. The dog tilted its head and looked at him, before nodding once. No one saw this quiet conversation; the men at the table were absorbed in Mathilde's misery. Away from his father's spell, Derek Hastings looked wretched and unhappy – but remorse for his actions meant nothing now.

Mathilde spent her grief, and quietly collected herself. She moved silently around the room, cleaning the table and taking refuge in mindless chores. She passed the hunter and paused. "Get him out of here soon," she begged, too low for the others to hear. "Please."

The hunter nodded. It was not yet full dark outside. He had not intended to stay here long, initially – just to give them a chance to rest after the day's tiring work.

After Schoen had died, Hastings had been tied and woken, and their labors had begun. Clearing away the bodies and the remnants of the dark magic being worked around the town had been hard and filthy work. The hunter had expended his energy in dismantling the pentacle around the town, erasing the dark cloud hovering over Boxborough while they waited for the pyre to burn out. Then, he had helped Lamar, Carl and Hastings collect the bodies from the fire. Flesh had crunched underfoot and dissolved at their touch. It had taken time for all the remains to be transferred to the hidden cave in the south end of the ravine. Derek Hastings had told them of its existence as a secure location for the burial. It was where his father had lived for the last year, where all his workings and plans had begun in secret. Once the bodies had been moved, and all traces of ash and blood smothered into the dirt, Carl had devised a way to collapse the roof of the cave. All evidence was now securely buried under several tons of dirt and stone. The proper words had been said over the makeshift grave that contained the bodies of Anthony Austin, Warren Gray, and three men from the nearby town of Acton – Henry Zimmerman, Paul Havelock and Finn Jones, as well as Schoen and Ancell. It had finally been done.

In the moments following the widow's plea, Gabriel gathered the others and told them just where they were headed. Taking Carl aside, he spoke privately with the friar.

"When we get to the church, I want you to speak to the townspeople," Gabriel informed him.

Carl gulped, eyes wide. "Me?"

"You," Gabriel affirmed, a small smile playing over his lips. "How's the arm?"

Carl shrugged, patting it gently. Mathilde had bandaged it for him while he ate. "Good as new. Better."

Gabriel grew serious once more. "The townspeople look up to you, for your skills and position. They will listen, if you explain to them. The last thing we need is a mob, baying for blood. You can keep them rational. They would never listen to Lamar."

"What about you?" Carl challenged playfully.

Gabriel snorted. "I'm no good at it. You can make them listen, make them see reason. Just remember – no one needs to know the details."

Carl suddenly thought of something. "What about the Pardoes?"

Gabriel's face went blank. "Don't worry. I'll take care of them."

Carl looked at him searchingly. Gabriel noticed his gaze, and his expression softened. "What?" he asked, a little defensively.

"When you say you'll take care of them, you don't mean -"

"Carl," the hunter groaned in exasperation.

Less than half an hour later, the four men had made their way through the growing darkness to the town. The few people on the streets saw them immediately, and followed them to the church. Most of the rest of the congregation of Boxborough was there, waiting for the evening mass.

Voices broke into the silence, growing louder and louder as Derek Hastings' position became clear. Gabriel urged Carl into the pulpit, and the friar grasped the wood in front of him uncertainly. He had to shout several times to get everyone's attention, but the people of Boxborough quieted as soon as they realized what was going on.

Carl began to speak, outlining what had been taking place in the town, under their very noses, for the past year. As he told them of the atrocities that had taken place, Gabriel moved carefully down the side of the church, using the time to search out his quarry. Kevin and Louisa Pardoe were sitting together near the back, luckily. The hunter nodded as he heard Carl emphasize how laws of the Order had been violated, stressing as most important the ones which governed acceptable personal conduct. The friar had missed a calling; he easily commanded the attention of at least two hundred, and there was no fear of the people getting out of hand now.

With a look, he had them scurrying from him, and he herded them out the door before they realized that there was nowhere left to go.

"What do you want?" Pardoe snapped, head high and bluffing for all he was worth.

"Tell me," Gabriel murmured. "Did you ever find out why those drugs didn't work on me?"

Louisa gaped, and Kevin glared at her. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he replied superciliously, valiantly ignoring his wife's guilty expression.

"Joseph Hastings is dead," Gabriel snapped, and had the satisfaction of seeing Pardoe pale before he recovered.

"For about a year now," he managed, but his voice was not as even as he would have liked, judging from his expression.

"So are Robert Ancell and Jason Schoen, but their deaths occurred much more recently. It was discovered that they were involved in something truly . . . unholy."

Pardoe shivered at the dark tone, and it was a moment before he could stutter, "That's truly unfortunate. I believe your friend Carl is giving us the full explanation inside. It's regretful that we're going to miss it, as we seem to be detained out here."

Gabriel had to give him credit for sheer courage, if not tact or subtlety. "Pity," he muttered.

Kevin Pardoe gave him a look of affected confusion, which all too easily slid into distaste.

"I wanted to let you know I'll be by after the meeting tonight to collect my belongings," Gabriel changed the subject for the final time, catching them off-guard once more. He pretended not to notice the way Louisa struggled for her composure, and Kevin's fixed expression of bare civility. "I've found alternate accommodations."

Kevin growled out a, "Pleasant evening," to which Gabriel quirked a brow and nodded, hiding a smile. Pardoe grabbed his wife's arm, and stalked down the street, half-dragging her along behind. He only got a few steps before she swiped him upside the head, hard. He let go, and the two nearly raced back to their home, the air around them thick with their plotting.

Gabriel wasn't surprised to go to their home later and find it abandoned, swiftly stripped of everything of use or value. They had cut and run, before judgment could descend on them as well. It didn't matter to the hunter. Rome had agents everywhere. He had utmost confidence that they wouldn't get far. While they had waited for the fire to burn down that morning and afternoon, Gabriel had sent Carl and Lamar to Acton, to cable a message to Rome. He had used those four hours they had been gone wisely, finding out everything he could from Derek Hastings without fear of how the knowledge would impact his friend.

The Vatican was on the alert to watch out for several individuals, among them the Pardoes. In all likelihood, they would head to the nearest city, hoping to get lost among the masses or to gain quick transportation elsewhere. In either case, the Vatican was easily prepared to deal with the iniquitous couple.

The meeting had gone well. Telling the people of the crimes and impending justice without rousing them to fury had been all too easy for Carl. Despite the fact that the friar broke into a sweat at the thought of speaking in front of so many people, he was blessed with a gift for commanding attention, and had the wit to keep it.

It appeared that only Schoen, the Pardoes, and Ancell had been party to Derek and Joseph Hastings' plots. It was inconceivable that everyone should be so good at pretending shock and dismay at some of the more awful news revealed, and Gabriel had returned in time to gauge the reactions of the townspeople. The secret had been kept well and close. Luke Rosenthal approached him later to apologize for the attack. Aghast at his actions, he explained that the assault on the hunter had been explained away as a realistic training exercise. He'd been led to believe that the scene at Mathilde's house was also an exercise, in detecting and removing a witch without undue notice or injury to innocents. He had acted in the firm belief that Gabriel, Carl and Lamar were likewise acting, and that his every move was being tested and measured. Once outside, he'd been immediately dismissed to the smithy – a story which Lamar was able to confirm.

That so few people had been involved didn't surprise the hunter. They were the ones in power, pulling the strings that made others dance, controlling the information to keep anyone from figuring out what they were actually doing. The best-kept secret was the one known by the fewest people.

It was this knowledge which so clearly distressed the people. None were more betrayed, however, than Hastings' family. His wife was much improved, surprisingly, and when Gabriel approached her he sensed something different about her. Likewise, she smiled when she saw him. He was admittedly taken aback by the warm welcome; it was wholly unusual and rare, in his experience. But his suspicions were confirmed when she gave him a measuring look, and then seemed to understand something. The few words she whispered to him clarified everything. Alicia was one of those rare people who could truly empathize with others. More sensitive to their surroundings than most, such intangible things as emotion and mood affected people like Alicia more than most, as they were attuned to the feelings washing through the air around them. The cloud smothering the town had been the ultimate source of her illness. Healing came for her when it was dispelled.

The confrontation Derek Hastings had with his family took place after the meeting had dissolved, the people returning to their homes feeling shocked and deceived by those in which they had placed their trust. In the relative privacy of his own kitchen, Derek admitted to his wife and sons his role in the debauched blasphemy taking place in the woods. Alicia was composed but pale, and it was the reactions of Tyler and Eric which concerned the hunter the most. The boys were quiet, and gave no indication of their feelings. Whether they cleaved to their previous image of their father, or accepted the man with his failings, was ultimately unclear, as the teenagers excused themselves on account of the late hour.

That night, Gabriel guarded Hastings in shifts with Carl, and the fully recovered Lamar. When he slept, his rest was the first since reaching America that was not plagued by nightmares of past evil and worries of what might come.

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The previous chapter may be the climax, but we're nowhere near done – I'm projecting that we won't see the end before #25 – and that's if I make like Speedy Gonzalez. So don't panic! There's more, for all my faithful reviewers out there!