THE QUESTERS, PART I

It began with a sign. But then again, it always begins with a sign.

We were on the north-western shore of Mahatan island when I spotted a sea-eagle flying over the Huds river. The eagle skimmed the river and then came up with a fish in its claws. With some difficulty, the eagle carried its catch to the Jerse side of the river and dropped it onto a beach. Then the eagle landed, finished off its struggling prey, and began to feed.

Rose and Faye aren't Blood and don't have my eyesight, but they knew I was looking at something on the far side of the river.

"Let's go," I told Rose as I gestured across the river with my staff. She raised an eyebrow at me, but then nodded. Both of my friends have more-or-less become used to my odd requests.

Rose opened her arms wide and summoned the strange force that she commands - the thing scholars call 'magnetism'. I felt the metal braces we'd sewn into my jacket tug upwards. Then the three of us took to the air, hovering a good twenty feet above the ground. After that, Rose carried us across the river.

It was getting towards evening and the sun was low. Fishermen were trickling back to shore. We landed on an old stone dock that was lined with boats. The fishermen crowding the dock stared at us, but didn't say anything. I supposed living next to Nyack makes you used to odd sights.

An older Blood, probably the eldest of the fisherman, approached us. He knew who we were.

"Greetings, Seeker," he said with a polite nod of his head. "It's an honor to have you with us."

I'm still not used to that sort of thing.

We talked with the fisherman for a while. He told us that there had been fighting in the region over the last few months - the Hand was being a problem again. The local temple had been attacked several times.

Also, there was a strange and more recent story about a many-armed creature haunting the night. The creature could talk and was supposedly fighting evil-doers and eating babies. That sounded a little confused, but we'd heard variations of it on the other side of the river.

"What's the name of this place?" I asked.

"Weehawk," he told me.

I thanked the fisherman and we said our goodbyes.

Down on the beach, the eagle - his beak covered with blood - looked up from his meal and gave us a long and frozen look. Faye sent a piercing whistle its way. With an angry cry, the eagle shook its body and warned us away from its kill.

The end of the dock opened onto a cobblestone track that was flanked by the simple stone-and-driftwood homes of the fishermen and their families. At the end of the street was an open area occupied by an ancient temple to the three goddesses. There was a faded carving of a sea-eagle on the temple's facade.

"Even I can see this sign," Faye told me with a grin.

Rose also had a smile on her face as she examined the fishermen, their catches, and their boats.

I looked at her and smiled. I knew what she was thinking.

"It reminds me of when I was a little girl," Rose told me. "Back in the day when it was just Dad and me. We fished further up the river, but the place where we lived was a lot like this. Our neighbors were good people."

I nodded. Then I told the others, "Let's pay the temple a visit."

At the foot of the dock was a pretty Folk girl with a dirty face. She was cooking over a fire, probably tending the family business while her parents were elsewhere. She pressed food into our hands - a simple token of spiced fish and toasted bread. She blushed and didn't meet our eyes when we thanked her.

We ate as we walked towards the temple.

A guard noticed our approach. He ducked his head inside the temple's heavy main door and yelled out a warning.

We weren't far from the entrance when a priestess came out to greet us. She had a broadsword by her side but hadn't drawn it. A pair of tough-looking temple guardsmen were right behind her. They were all obviously ready for trouble.

The priestess served the Lady of Blades, and she was looking at us carefully. She was short, wiry, and crowned with a crop of bright blue hair that had been given a simple bowl-cut. Her eyes were dark, with red pupils. For some reason, those are called "thieves' eyes", although I've never noticed that those who have them are any more or less honest than other people.

I bowed politely, crossing my forearms over my breasts as I did. The priestess was owed courtesy. And I needed her cooperation.

"I'm Kathryn," she told me. "I'm the high priestess here."

She didn't return my bow. We were in her place and we were the ones who should show civility.

Kathryn was young. Older than me, of course, but still young for someone with her responsibilities. If I had to guess, she was only a few years removed from her days as an acolyte. The small brass sword-pendant hanging from a chain around her neck confirmed her junior rank.

The Lady of Blades - the three-part spirit of Laura, Elektra, and Elizabeth - dominates the temples of Jerse. There's good reason for that. The Lady of Blades is the most warlike of the Three Goddesses and those temples are fighting a deadly battle with an ancient enemy. And when the senior priestess of a temple is not yet out of her twenties, that's a sure sign that the war wasn't going too well.

"My name is..." I began.

"I know who you are," Kathryn interrupted.

"Greetings, Rahne the Seeker," she finished.

It wasn't too surprising that Kathryn knew who I was. I was wearing the traditional buckskin clothing and tooth-and-claw necklace, and I had a long staff in my hand. Those mark me as a Seeker, and there's only one female Seeker.

I get recognized a lot.

And I wasn't surprised that Kathryn seemed wary of me. I suppose priestesses will always be skeptical of Seekers. What we do is both too similar and too different.

Glancing away from Kathryn for a moment, I looked around me. That's the habit of a Seeker. I was looking for a sign.

We were standing on the cobbled yard before the temple. There were stone walls to either side of us that would focus anyone who approached towards the front of the temple. Perhaps there had once been a third, enclosing, wall and a gate of some sort, forming a front courtyard. However, the temple was quite old and I imagined that over the years it had seen much in the way of damage, repairs, and then yet more damage.

I heard a faint whisper. Words that I couldn't quite make out seemed to softly echo through the air. Nobody else seemed to hear it, but then again it really wasn't sound.

It also wasn't quite a sign. It was ghosts. They were watching us, but I couldn't tell anything more than that.

I waved to Faye and Rose. They were standing slightly behind me - one on my left and the other to my right.

"This is..." I began.

"Faye and the Rose," Kathryn completed with what a thoughtful nod.

"Do you ever let anyone actually finish a sentence?" Faye growled. Actually she seemed more amused than irritated.

Kathryn tried to hide a smile. "Sorry, I suppose that's a bad habit. I'm just a bit surprised to see the three of you here. Shouldn't you be in the middle of some catastrophe? Isn't there a misbehaving Blood lord to cast down? A suspicious death to investigate? Or perhaps a were-creature ravaging a Folk village?"

"We followed a sign here," I told Kathryn. Maybe I was getting short with her.

"It's about that vision-quester, isn't it?" Kathryn said thoughtfully. It wasn't really a question.

I gave Kathryn a long look. Behind me, Faye and Rose stirred slightly.

"What vision-quester?" I asked.

He was in the temple's back courtyard - which was almost a park considering the number of trees it contained. It wasn't exactly neglected, but it also wasn't exactly tended. The temple probably didn't have enough people to take care of it.

The vision-quester was sitting cross-legged in the open center of the garden, with his hands dangling negligently in his lap. There were seven small stones stacked neatly in front of him. He was a Blood male, with light brown skin and a scatter of dark freckles across his face. His dull and distant eyes, focused on something we couldn't see, were also light brown in color. His hair was long, black, and tangled. He was dressed in the worn buckskin of an outdoorsman, but his jerkin and pants were torn, ripped, and stained with old blood.

His face was gaunt with hunger and his lips were cracked and parched.

I noticed a pair of feathers hanging from a leather band on the vision-quester's upper-right arm. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised to see that they were sea-eagle feathers.

Oh, and he stank. It had been a long time since he'd been for a swim.

"How long has he been here?" Rose asked quietly.

Kathryn shrugged. "Over a week. He just appeared here one morning."

"A week without food - or, better yet, water?" Faye asked slowly. That sort of self-denial is part of the search for a vision. It can take a lot of self-harm to get a Blood to the state where he's standing within sight of the spirit world.

Kathryn nodded her head.

"He's dying," I heard myself say. That wasn't too long without food - but it was far too long without water. The Blood have great endurance, but it isn't infinite. Visionists have been known to die before successfully tracking down their spiritual prey.

This Blood was obviously close to his end.

"Has he said anything?" Faye asked.

"No," Kathryn replied. "I've tried talking to him. He doesn't respond. We offered him food and water, but he ignored it. In the beginning, he left this spot once or twice to use the jakes, but he always returned. Now he's well beyond the need for that."

I could sense Kathryn looking at me. I glanced at her.

"My senior guard wanted to throw him out at first, but I didn't think that would be a good idea," she told me.

Nodding my head, I said, "He might have gone berserk. You'd have lost guardsmen for no reason."

I looked at the blood-stains and cuts in the vision-quester's clothes. "He was in a fight before he came here," I noted.

Kathryn nodded. "A bad one. He was a mess when he got here - covered in blood and badly wounded. He healed as he sat here."

"Do you know what happened?"

Kathryn turned her head. "Demetrios!" she bellowed. "The lady-seeker wants to talk to you!"

For someone who was sworn to the Lady of Blades, Kathryn tended to favor the blunt approach.

Demetrios was too young to be a temple guard captain, but he was apparently filling that role. There was a flash of red cloth on the shoulders of his armor, so he was dedicated to the Fire Lady. That meant he might have some minimal mental powers.

Demetrios and Kathryn had the scent of each other on their bodies, but it was faded. They had once been lovers. If I had to make a guess, they'd both risen in rank within the last month or so - probably when those senior to them had abruptly died.

They didn't think they could be together now. Kathryn was running a besieged temple in the name of her goddess. Demetrios was her best fighter and the commander of her guards. They thought they had to be severe, responsible, and adult. They were sure that they had no time for each other.

What a pair of Thor-damned fools.

"You investigated this man?" Rose asked as she gestured towards the vision-quester.

"Yes, ma'am," Demetrios said. Then he glanced at the Kathryn.

Kathryn nodded.

"His name's Paul," Demetrios reported. "A wandering ronin hunter, originally from Ginia, who ventured into this region about a year back. He made a good living in furs and hides. By all accounts, he's an honest and neighborly Blood - although maybe he had too much of a taste for ale and women-for-hire. We back-tracked him and found out what happened. About a half-day, before he came here, he stumbled across a half-Creed family who were hiding in the woods north of here."

Faye and Kathryn didn't react. Rose's face twisted into something midway between anger and disgust.

I felt a tightness closing up inside of me. I knew where this was going.

Oh, Thor. Oh, Old One. I didn't want to hear the words that were coming. But I was there for a reason and I'd have to hear it all.

"He killed them," Demetrios continued flatly. His face had no expression. I suppose he thought that was how he should be. Kathryn's face was also frozen, although her eyes gave away more.

"Two parents. Three children," Demetrios finished. "We buried the bodies."

Kathryn remembered her manners and fed us. Dinner was hard bread, soft cheese, and grilled fish. The acolyte of the Lady of Storms who brought us our food - young woman with curly black hair, dark eyes, narrow facial features, and a distinct limp - didn't seem inclined to talk.

"When's the last time the Hand raided this place?" I asked her.

"A month ago," the acolyte said as she poured wine for us. Then she added, "They surprised us."

"Was that when the old high-priestess died?" Rose asked.

The acolyte hesitated and then shook her head. "Yes. Her name was Cinder. We'd lost other high-priestesses before her."

"Did you lose the previous guard captain in the same fight?" Rose persisted.

"Yes," the acolyte almost whispered. "Demetrios's uncle. A brave man."

"And Kathryn and Demetrios have been running things ever since?" I added.

"Yes," the acolyte said yet again as she put the wine-jar in the center of the table. Then she left.

Rose pursed her lips as she watched the acolyte limp away. Then she looked at me.

"Maybe we should stick around for a little while?"

"Damn right," I answered.

Faye gave me a long look. "Are we staying just in case the Hand shows up? Or because of the creep outback who's currently killing himself?"

"Yes to both," I told her.

Rose got to her feet, "I'll let Priestess Kathryn know that we're staying."

Faye smiled. "She might tell you to go to hell. She looks the type."

"We're here for a reason," Rose said. Then she looked at me. "This is about signs, right?"

I shrugged. "I think there are people here who need our help."

Not sure what else to say, I let it go at that.

Rose waited until she was sure I was done. Then she followed the acolyte back inside the temple.

Kathryn was surprised when we chose to bunk behind the temple. There was an overhang that would provide shelter from any rain, we had bedrolls, and were used to sleeping outside.

We could see the vision-quester from where we put our camp, and I had a feeling that we had to keep an eye on him. Paul hadn't moved from his place between the trees, but that was no surprise. I was sure he would die there.

"If he's looking for a vision. What kind of vision does he want?" Faye asked me as she studied Paul.

"I'm not sure," I replied as I shook out my bedroll. Some dry leaves from the last place we'd camped fell out.

"What's the difference between a sign and a vision?"

"None, really," I told her. "Except a seeker sees signs constantly and naturally. A vision is something a man or woman might see only once in their life. And it's a harsh thing. Seeing a vision can kill some people."

"I think he wants the Old One to tell him that he was right to kill those half-Creed," Rose declared suddenly. She'd taken advantage of the Temple's bath and was running a brush through her wet hair.

"If that's what he's looking for, he might not get it," I said to Rose.

Faye and Rose both looked surprised. "What do you mean?" Faye asked.

"I've read the words of the Old One," I answered. "They tell us to kill the Creed. They say nothing about the half-Creed."

Faye frowned thoughtfully. "That's splitting hairs, isn't it? And you Blood really don't do that."

"No. No, we don't," I admitted quietly. "And that's why we've been killing half-Creed for as long as anyone can remember."

Faye dropped her backpack and glared over her shoulder at Paul. "So he's sorry, huh? He's sorry that he killed those kids? Maybe they screamed too much while he was cutting them to pieces?"

"Faye..." Rose began soothingly. I thought it was a good idea to keep my mouth shut.

"It never ends with those assholes!" Faye yelled. "You know how many of my family have died because of guys like him? Too many!"

Then she turned her head and glared at Paul. "Is it forgiveness you want? Reassurance? Well, fuck you, Paul! JUST FUCK YOU!"

Faye was angry and that was having an effect on her. She was beginning to change. Her frame was expanding and the loose dress she usually wore was stretching and filling out. Her skin was steadily shifting to a green shade. She automatically kicked off her sandals and tore loose the bandanna she wore to hide her green hair.

I'd been waiting for this. The world is dominated by the Blood and they had little time for the Green. Faye and her family had known their own share of abuse at the hands and claws of my people.

For pity's sake, I'd killed her brother. Under Blood law, Faye had every right to demand a duel to the death from me.

But at that moment, Faye was more worried about her changing form. Cursing in a voice that was steadily becoming more guttural, she yanked her dress over her head and discarded it off to the side. That left her in a rough breechclout and nothing else.

So Faye was quite scantily clad when two guardsmen walked into the courtyard.

Both guardsmen had the hard-bitten look of those who'd seen more violence than most. But suddenly coming upon an almost nude Faye left them both obviously surprised.

Faye didn't even try to conceal herself. In fact, she put her fists on her hips and defiantly glared at the guards. In her green form, she's not particularly modest.

"Whatsamatter?" she growled at the two guards. "Never seen a pair of titties before?"

"I've... never seen a pair quite that large," one of the guardsmen said slowly as he forced himself to look into Faye's eyes. The other guard was just staring.

Faye grinned - she'd completely forgotten her moment of rage. "Play your cards right and you just might get more than a free show."

Faye becomes simpler when she takes on her green form.

The guardsman who could still talk put a hand on his friend's shoulder. The other guard snapped out of his rapt appreciation of Faye and they carefully walked around us to take up positions near the back of the garden, where they could keep an eye on the walls. The sun was almost gone and they were obviously part of the night watch.

They both avoided looking at us... and Faye in particular.

"Hello, Paul," the more talkative guard said to the vision-quester. "After Slim and I get off duty, how about we head down to the tavern? The ale's passable and Old Man Fogg always keeps a pot of stew on the fire."

"And some of the serving girls are pretty," the other guard interjected. I think Faye was still on his mind.

Thanks to darkness and distance, it was hard to tell, but for just a second I thought I saw something flicker in Paul's empty eyes. I half-expected the vision-quester to speak.

But it didn't happen.

The guards weren't mocking Paul. In fact, they were - in their own rough way - trying to help. They wanted Paul to come back from wherever he was. Like me, they suspected that Paul was lost. But perhaps, just perhaps, he could be found once again.

Still bare from the waist up, Faye sat down with a solid thump.

"One of these days, someone is going to take you up on it when you act like that," Rose scolded Faye.

"Hasn't happened yet," Faye grumbled. That wasn't really a surprise. When Faye is in her full green form, she's pretty scary.

I scooped up my bedroll and handed it to Faye. She nodded in thanks and wrapped it around her shoulders and torso.

"No privacy around here," Faye complained mournfully. "I miss Benjamin and I can't even touch myself."

Rose and I were trying not to smile. When she's green, whatever is on Faye's mind is likely to come right out of her mouth. And she spends a lot of time talking about her husband. It was like travelling with a huge, slightly drunk, and horny teenager.

"You just spent a week with him," Rose pointed out.

That was true. Benjamin had got himself into some kind of trouble, left my adopted father's service, and returned to his hometown of Nyack - where he apparently got into yet more trouble and had to leave town. Faye left us for a while and tracked him down. She'd rejoined us just a few days ago.

A broad and dreamy smile came over Faye's face. "That man rode me like I was a pony."

Faye was making me think of my own husband. David was a river-boatman. If his boat was keeping to its usual schedule, he should be somewhere south of the Point. With a little luck, he'd be in Nyack in a week or so.

Oh, the things I planned on doing to him when we were back together...

Faye and I had the same problem. Yes, we could easily find some man to keep us company, but we each had one man in particular who we really preferred.

"It's a good thing I'm unmarried," Rose mused. "Maybe I should make the acquaintance of those two guardsmen. They seem to be decent sorts, and they're both good-looking."

Faye rolled her eyes. I just shook my head. Rose likes to tease us when Faye and I are missing our men.

Rose began to speculate about the guards - about one part in particular, as a matter of fact. She became rather descriptive in terms of possible length and girth.

"Stop it or I'm telling daddy," I told her.

I was kidding, but that still shut Rose up. Rose and I share an adopted father - I will never forget the strange and surprising day when we both realized that, thanks to James, we were sisters.

Faye reached out with one foot and snagged her dress with her toes. Then she dragged it close, took the dress in hand, and slipped it back over her body. She was turning back into her usual form, so it fit once again.

She was smiling at Rose and I.

"The next time we see James, I'm going to inform on both of you," Faye warned us as she handed me back my bedroll. "I hope there's a spanking."

My eyes opened and I looked up at the stars. I judged it to be about four hours before dawn. It was a crisp and cool night - we didn't really need our bedrolls.

I could hear the flutter and high-pitched squeaking of bats. They were the smaller brown bats that you find almost everywhere.

But suddenly, there was the heavy beating sound and louder squeals of bigger intruders. The smaller bats fled, so the larger ones must have been predators. I wasn't able to identify the species of the new bats. Perhaps they were unique to that part of the coast.

Faye was on her back next to me, snoring softly. She was using her pack as a pillow and had one of her legs draped over mine. She started doing that after I once had a dream visitation so powerful that I walked in my sleep.

"You don't go anywhere without me knowing about it," she told me at the time. She was kind of grumpy about the whole thing.

Rose was laying on her side, her head on her forearms, dozing silently.

The vision-quester was still sitting in his place. He hadn't moved so much as a muscle. The two guards were slowly walking back and forth along the length of the garden wall, trying to keep awake.

Not moving, I frowned up at the stars and reached out with my senses.

Something was wrong.

I rolled into a half-crouch, staring at the back wall. That, of course, woke Faye. She reached out and touched Rose in the small of her back. Rose didn't react, but I knew that she was now awake.

Picking up a small fragment of old flagstone, I flicked it across the garden. It hit one of the guards on the shoulder, and he gave me a surprised look. I pointed to the back wall. The guard hesitated for a moment, and then deliberately scraped his boot on the ground to catch his fellow's attention. After that, he began backing away. The two guards were scanning the length of the wall as they retreated, looking for trouble. Without making a sound, they drew their swords.

There was the usual flare of bright pain as my claws flicked open. Faye trembled as her body shifted and changed. Without moving, Rose used her mind to pluck a half-dozen foot-long blades from their sheaths on the sides of her backpack. They seemed eager - like hunting dogs - as they hovered in a halo just above her.

Then the ninja of the Hand began swarming over the wall.

If I hadn't smelled the Hand coming, we would have been wiped out. But trying to sneak up on a Blood is a fool's game.

The Hand originally came from a land across the far western ocean, but they long ago settled on this continent. There are some who say that the ancient lands of Chin and Pan no longer exist - that they were destroyed in the Burning, when the Star-Folk attacked our world. If that's true, then the Hand has long outlasted the land that birthed them.

But then again, it's hard to kill what's already dead. That's the power of the Hand. They long-ago courted death and made it into their ally. Members of the Hand who die in the service of their clan are brought back, stronger than before, as a form of undead.

The two guards had little choice. They began yelling an alarm as they fell back. I dashed towards them.

Rose's blades, silvered by moonlight, flickered past me. They each found a target with a series of meaty 'thunks'. Faye took a moment to tear loose a flagstone and whip it at the approaching mass. It tore through the center of the Hand formation.

I joined the two guards, slashing down a ninja who was working his way around them. Faye rumbled up behind me, but we were still vastly outnumbered.

Arrows began sleeting down on the ninja. Demetrios had archers up on the roof, and they were contributing. It was a canny move on the young guard captain's part.

An alarm bell began ringing in the temple. That was good, but if they didn't react quickly, the warning they'd received would be for nothing.

We fought and fell back. I saw a ninja who'd made the mistake of getting too close to Faye cartwheel into the garden wall and splatter messily. Rose was yanking swords out of the hands of the ninja and whirling them in wild, spinning, arcs through the courtyard. They tore through black-clad bodies, releasing sprays of both living and undead blood.

The two guards and I continued to fight in a more traditional way. One of the Temple guards went down - it was the quieter of the two and his throat had been slashed open. The other one was injured, but still doing his best. We went back-to-back.

Faye had a half-dozen of the Hand attacking her from all directions. Every now and then she would kill one, but another would simply appear in its place. Rose was flinging ninja about, but they were getting closer and closer to her.

Bowmen on the roof were firing quickly, but the arrows didn't seem to disable the Hand ninjas who were undead. The arrows just protruded from their bodies.

We were losing.

That was when the vision-quester - ignored by the Hand until then - rose to his feet.

In a fight, my adopted father is death. The only creatures I've seen that can match him are things of legend. But that night, the vision-quester might have been able to beat my father. He did that by throwing all he had into the battle, not caring if he lived or died. At first, his bone-white claws gleamed in the darkness, but they quickly became obscured by red and black blood.

I am called a Seeker because I search for the signs of the Old One. I use those signs to try and bring the Old One's wisdom and fury to our people. That should be enough for any Seeker, but for an amazed moment, as I watched ninja fall under the vision-quester's claws, I wondered if I'd actually found the Old One himself.

Blades jutting from his body. the vision-quester tore through the ninja ranks. The other peoples say that we Blood are reckless fighters, depending on our healing abilities to see us through battles, but this was far beyond even that. The temple guard and I supported him, keeping his back and flanks clear. All the while we hoped we wouldn't become the target of his berserk rage.

Behind us, the Temple's rear gate flew open. With a shout that called upon the Lady of Blades, Kathryn and Demetrios lead the Temple's fighters into battle. Demetrios waved his hand and a knot of ninja were thrown backwards. A lightning bolt sizzled past me and the garden was illuminated by a now-burning member of the Hand. That was the Storm acolyte we'd met before. I hoped she would hang back. She had problems moving and that left her in no condition to get too close to a pack of swordsmen.

The ninja of the Hand recoiled from the counter-attack. Then the Storm acolyte reached up as though to claw at the sky and howled words from an almost dead language. Lightning began to fall in the rear of the ninja formation - killing some ninja, while trapping the rest within the courtyard.

At Rose' command, several loose katana spun through the air, slicing through flesh. Meanwhile, Faye moved along the ninja front rank, meticulously killing ninja if any of the temple defenders looked like they were in trouble.

Then a pack of fishermen militia appeared through the back gate, lending their claws to the fight.

The battle was turning decisively in our favor.

They say that the Hand doesn't retreat - it just dies. That seems to be true. The back courtyard of the Temple looked like a slaughterhouse. All of the fallen Hand were in the process of being beheaded by Temple guards and fishermen militia.

Several healers - from both the Temple and the village - were doing their best. Meanwhile, Kathryn and Demetrios moved through the courtyard, counting their dead. For a brief moment, I saw them take each other by the hand. Then they quickly let go and pretended it hadn't happened.

As I'd said earlier: they were Thor-damned fools.

Faye, Rose, and I sat together, with our backs to the Temple wall. Paul the vision-quester was laying next to me, his head in my lap, with his blood staining my clothes. He was dying - injured far beyond even what a Blood could survive. Every now and then he would mumble something that was only partially coherent. As near as I could tell, his spirit was visiting a long-ago time, hunting along the banks of the Shen river with his father, mother, and siblings.

Sometimes, there is a moment of clarity just before death. That happened. Paul's eyes cleared and he looked up at me.

"I was wrong," he gasped out to me. "Tell everyone. I was wrong. We have to stop."

Then he died.