I wasn't the only one shocked by the offer, and someone must have gasped because Aiden laughed mockingly at all of us. "Oh come on. It's not that complicated. If you idiots can't figure out why I want a quick death I really shouldn't bother telling you anything. No point sharing if you're too stupid to use the information I give you." His tone was way too relax and amused for someone who asked us to kill him, but then again he obviously wasn't playing with a full deck in the first place, so I shouldn't be surprised.

Callie, in her capacity as leader, answered with the obvious. "You're scared of the Black Sorrow Cult. You had one job, to run a sleeper cell here, and you got the whole organization uprooted. I can't imagine your bosses are going to be thrilled with you. But why be scared, aren't you cultists supposed to be happy to die for the cause? I'd think you would be grateful for the opportunity to pay for your mistakes with blood." Her voice was every bit as mockingly sarcastic as his, and I got the feeling he would be rolling his eyes if he still had them.

Still, he sounded relaxed even with the threats. "Not all of us are mouth foaming zealots. Oh sure, I talk the talk, but I mostly only observe the high holidays. Still, I'm good at playing my role and that's what they needed. It works best if you don't send screaming fanatics on undercover missions. People ranting about dedicating blood sacrifice to their dark goddess are conspicuous as hell. Sadly, you're not wrong. The Cult doesn't appreciate failure, and I can basically promise they'll do worse than kill me if they get me back, especially since I didn't...exactly report your presence here."

I just shot him a stupefied look. "What do you mean you didn't report it. I thought the whole heretic thing was because of my mom. Wouldn't it be standard procedure to kick that up the chain?" In retrospect it explained why they hadn't sent more people to get me. I'd assumed they were just worried about Zeke, but if they knew about me they could have flooded the place with waves of G rankers and just drowned us in bodies. Zeke wouldn't have been able to lay a hand on them. We might have been able to seek sanctuary from the Unity but it would have been a bad time either way.

He shrugged nochalantly. "I wanted the credit. The boost from single handedly bringing back the spawn of the youngest Saintess in the Church would have not only gotten me to F rank, the consistent reputation gain would have paved my way up to D or maybe even C rank. I'd have been a legend, and I could have finally gotten off this desolate backwater nothing of a planet. If I reported it some high ranking asshole would have stolen my thunder for a power boost and I'd have been a foot note if I was even mentioned. Seemed like an obvious choice."

I sighed, conflicted on whether to be happy he hadn't screwed us all or annoyed my entire fate was decided out of greed. Cark however, wasn't as content to let him prattle on. "That's very interesting, where the hell is my sister you sociopath. And in case you were wondering, I will ABSOLUTELY kill you after you tell us, so don't worry about that. I can't think of a better way to improve this world than taking your snaky ass out of it." He flicked a finger and a blue ball of flame flickered into existence over his hand.

Aiden laughed. "See, I heard that crackling and I can smell the burning air, but I feel like you forgot burning out my eyes, because that wasn't nearly as scary as you were probably hoping. Luckily for you it's not necessary. I believe you'll kill me, so go ahead big man, ask away. I'm an open book, all the secrets of the universe are yours to possess if only you ask the proper questions." The melodrama was somewhat ruined by the intermittent snickering, but the point came across fine.

Callie cut in with a sharp glare at Cark. "I'll be asking the questions, but my first one is the same as his. Where are the kids? Assuming you don't have them in your basement." We'd considered raiding the church he worked out of but we decided no way would he be that stupid. People were in and out of that place all the time, and it would the first place anyone would look for hostages if he got discovered.

That got a cackle. "Close, but no cigar. No, the basement would be too obvious. But they're close enough. I bought the small plot of land opposite the church on the street behind it and retrofitted the cellar. See, if anyone raided the building itself they would find nothing and then assume I kept them offsite somewhere far enough away to avoid suspicion. People so rarely bother to look right under their noses. I have a few guards posted there, but no one impressive. My skillset doesn't allow me to control anyone above my own level unless I get them early and build them up myself, but making F rankers draws attention. I decided to go for quantity over quality. And all my G rankers came along on this hunt."

That left us with a slight problem. We were stuck here for the next week or two, but we couldn't exactly leave the kids down there to rot while we played around here. Hunt or not, we needed to get someone over to free them. I motioned for Callie to have the others hold on. Cark looked agitated but backed down while I walked downstairs and spun up my scan ring to make a call. It took two rings before Zeke answered. "Hey kid, aren't you in the middle of some big trial? Do you have the time to waste on phone calls?"

I chuckled at that. "We have plenty actually, but that's not what I'm calling about. We found and captured the Heartripper handler. We've also captured about a hundred of his pawns, and identified where the kids are, but I can't get out there from where I am to take care of it. How free are you to act exactly? Given that this is a WCP problem since the kids are actually being held in our territory. Can you send some people out to pick up the captives and bring Cark over to see his sister?"

This was a bit of a grey area, but I was pretty sure in this situation he would be able to help at least a bit. Sure enough his face broke into a grin. "Since you've already taken care of the actual threat and there's legitimate involvement in WCP interests, technically I'm not directly helping you just doing some pickups and cleaning up a mess. I can send out an air shuttle to pick up the captives and your buddy, I'm assuming you're going to be offing the handler so he can't trigger any more of them?"

In retrospect I was glad Aiden had made the request that we kill him, because looking back we were going to have to so something about him before the wish suppressing his ability to explode their heads ran out. I nodded. "Once he's gone, do you think my ability can be used to strip the programming from the others? Assuming we can find anyone to make the wishes?" I wanted to save Cark's sister, hopefully before the actual hypnosis even took, but people like Skanda were pretty deep under. I was hoping a wish could fix that.

He shrugged. "Probably. It can do most things. I don't think it's ever been tried before, but mostly because the Heartrippers are a lower level organization, and most of the time they aren't sent after candidates..." He trailed off, looking uncomfortable. "I don't suppose you figured out their reasoning for coming after you specifically? I imagine you must have done something to piss them off." I could practically see him tiptoeing around his geas as he asked, trying to nudge me toward asking the question without screwing himself in the process."

My dad had really done a number on Zeke, and for the life of me I couldn't see a reason for it. I didn't understand why he'd done the things he'd done up to this point. I stared at my Uncle quietly for a minute. "My mom. She's a saintess of the Church of the Red Revenant. That's what you were trying to tell me without telling me last time we talked. I assumed it had to do with my candidacy, but you were hinting at my mom being involved. You triggered the geas on purpose so I would notice."

He chuckled. "Yeah, I can't talk about her much, and I can't tell you things you don't already know about her. Sasha is a Saintess. The Church system mostly uses placement in the clergy as rank titles, similar to the way the Empire uses noble titles. The Faerieland uses a sort of hybrid model, with Jobs that have modifiers like abilities. Anyway the names of the ranks change from rank up to rank up as opposed to using the modifier system. Saints and Saintesses are A rankers."

I noticed he said mostly, which I assumed was alluding to the warrior caste Sarah had mentioned, but now wasn't the time for that discussion. I had so much more I wanted to know, wanted to ask, but I couldn't. Zeke couldn't answer, and it would only hurt him to try. So I refocused. "We have just shy of a hundred captives, so make sure you send enough air shuttles for pickup. Can you have someone free the kids immediately. I'd rather not leave them down there too long, and I want to make sure they're recovered before I kill the handler."

The relief on his face that I didn't push made my heart clench, the pain must be immense for someone as powerful as Zeke to be so afraid of it. "Yeah, I can go get them myself. Like I said, since the handler is out of commission and he was hunting you this doesn't exactly involve you anymore. I can take care of the cleanup myself since it's WCP business. I'll call you back once we have them in custody and you can end things."

I thanked him and headed back up to get Cark and Callie. They followed me down, clearly curious as to what the hell happened. I turned to Cark. "Hey, I talked to Zeke. He's going to get your sister now. He's also sending over some shuttles to get the prisoners. He's going to have them pick you up and take you to see her. Is that ok with you? He's going to call back once he has her." I saw him tense at the idea of not rescuing her himself, but then he must have remembered that terrible pressure from Zeke because his shoulders slumped.

Still, he was obviously relieved. "Yeah, of course, man. Thank you for everything. Sorry I couldn't stay and help. When he does call and gives us the ok though...I want to be the one to finish it. To put him down. That work for you?" I could see in his face that it wasn't just blood thirst driving him. He didn't want us to have to carry that. He looked at us and saw kids. I didn't begrudge him that, hell I didn't want anyone on my team to have to live with it either. I turned to look at Callie though, it was her call.

My girlfriend nodded. "Yeah, yeah that's fine Tony. Go on back up there and watch him will you? I need to talk to Solomon for a bit." The bounty hunter gave a grateful nod and headed back up to the top floor. "I don't know what you said to Zeke since he isn't supposed to be able to help, but we can talk about that later. Same with the thing about your mom. But we haven't had a chance to be alone long enough for me to ask. Are you ok? With all of this? This would be a lot for anyone to handle. How are you feeling?" It was sweet of her to ask, but I wish she hadn't. I honestly didn't know the answer myself. I just reached out and pulled her into a hug. I kind of needed one right then.