The rain trickled ever onward as the trio made their way towards the southern section of the city. Between the overhangs from business and their outdoor seating and Quinn's masterful directions they were able to avoid the majority of the rain. Their cloaks were only slightly damp when they made it to the outside of the tavern.

No sign named it. The only welcome provided was the smell of bread and beer and the cheers of drunken frivolity from inside. Firelight shined through the windows illuminating the gray street outside.

"I love this place," Quinn said with a smile as he walked toward the doors. Anjelica noticed that he had a slight limp in his step as he moved.

Following him inside, they found a boisterous, if controlled, tavern. There were certainly a fair number of people at the bar getting absolutely red-faced but the tables throughout the rest of the room seemed to have a much calmer atmosphere. A young man ran around the room with a practiced fervor taking drink orders and providing glasses and food to the more subdued patrons. Their entrance was quickly noticed as both the bartender and server looked over and gave smiling nods at Quinn. Returning their greeting with a slight wave, Quinn led the trio over to a dark corner next to a window and sat down. As he relaxed in the chair, his professional demeanor quickly lifted.

"Oi Quinn!" the young man said as they finished sitting down, "Not often one fer company are ya?"

"Today is an exception Oli," Quinn said with a smirk, "Unfortunately this is a business engagement. I will just have my usual and then whatever these fine people want!"

"Two beers as large as you can make them," Hound cut in without a moment's hesitation.

"Wine please," Anjelica added, "With two fingers of whatever your best brown liquor is."

With a smile and a nod, Oli dutifully rushed over to the bar and began to relay their order.

"You seem to be quite popular around here, Quinn," Anjelica observed.

Quinn chuckled.

"Oli and Juste are good people. I have spent a lot of time here the past couple of years. Being here helps me to keep an eye on things and take notes."

"Notes on the bottles behind the bar?" Hound quipped.

"No. Notes about the comings and goings out of the South Gate," Quinn replied, pointing towards the window behind them

They both turned and were a bit astounded to see that the slight hill they were on gave them a perfect vantage point showing the interior of the South Gate through the window.

"Well, well. I did not expect this to be a strategic meeting," Anjelica said sarcastically.

"It is not. This is still my favorite place to drink even if it has some value to my work," Quinn said as he turned and smiled at the returning Oli.

Oli quickly started distributing the drinks. He set the two huge, frothing steins in front of Hound before very carefully placing down a glass of red wine and a smaller glass of an amber colored liquor in front of Anjelica. Quinn received a glass of some kind of spiced brandy with a stick of some dark, coiled substance sticking out of the top of it.

"Cheers?" Quinn asked while raising his glass. Seeing the others respond favorably, he continued, "To new partnerships and the end of this fuckery."

Clinking the glasses together, they all took a drink before placing their glasses back down onto the table. Without missing a beat, Quinn swiftly pulled a hand rolled cigarette from his jacket pocket and lit it with the table's candle.

"You have any more of those?" Anjelica asked slyly.

Quinn nodded while inhaling. Reaching into his pocket he extracted another cigarette and passed it to Anjelica. Hound quickly grabbed the candle and brought it over to Anjelica to light her cigarette for her.

Exhaling a big cloud into the air, Anjelica leaned back. Looking up at the flickering light of the ceiling, she realized that it had been quite a while since she had allowed herself to relax.

"Your daughter is quite outspoken. Do you involve her in your work much?" Anjelica asked.

"It is more like she involves herself. She has been pouring over my notes since she was ten as if it were her job. Just found her looking through my files one day after I came home and she never stopped after. I suppose she deserves to be outspoken because she manages the money. I think we would have lost our home by now if she was not around," Quinn responded.

"Money is tight?" Hound questioned.

"It turns out that not many people are willing to pay you to expose the corruption in the systems that keep them fed and housed. Strange right? I do some contract sleuthing around the city but it is never enough to be comfortable and refusing to work with the Church leaves me with few options," Quinn lamented before taking another sip from his glass. He inhaled through his teeth as the liquor hit his throat. "Laena has been a blessing since the day she was born. Younger people just see everything differently. They have more hope. I am sure that you understand that, being the companions of your own impassioned youth."

"Well that is for certain," Anjelica said sardonically. "Sera has taken everything that we have given her and soaked it up like a sponge. Strategy, politics, survival...she just gobbles it all up. I have perfect reactions and sometimes she sends me reeling at a loss for how to approach her."

"Teenagers," Quinn sympathized under his breath.

"She has done amazing things though," Hound added. "Saved our lives more than once. Faced down demons. I think that she proved that she is her whole own person more so than our ward."

"It is always wonderful when a Fledge finally catches the air under their wings eh?" Quinn asked. His expression turned confused as the pair across from him shared wary glances.

"Sera...is not exactly a Fledge. She is a bit old for the academy but she needed training sooooo...," Anjelica began with a waver.

"So now she is our companion. I think that we needed her as much as she needed us. Sometimes it feels like there is a gulf between us but I hope that she knows that we would both take a bullet for her," Hound said with a grim confidence.

"Hey, some people are worth taking a bullet for," Quinn said with a smile.

"Is anyone hungry?" Hound asked with eyes devouring the sight of the bar food on the tables around them.

"I could eat," Anjelica stated.

Quinn simply shook his head.

Draining the tankard in front him in one large chug, Hound slammed the vessel back down as he stood. With a child-like smile, he made his way towards the bar.

"How long have you two known each other?" Quinn asked curiously.

"We met at the academy when I was nine. Age does not matter much at the academy though. You get separated into cohorts based on ability and Hound and I were in the same one. We have been inseparable ever since!" Anjelica said with a flourish of her cigarette.

"Laena's mom and I met when we were about your age," Quinn reminisced.

"Did she pass away?" Anjelica asked tentatively.

"Yes. When Laena was very small. We worked together on this case and the minute that we started to grab onto anything more than a loose thread, Gabriel came after us. I could never prove it but I know it in my bones that he sent those killers after us. I made it with a few holes in me. Tresha did not," Quinn said grimly.

"I am very sorry for your loss," Anjelica consoled.

"It has been almost fourteen years. Fourteen years of chasing a fox's tail through the dark forest. Maybe I am doing it for Tresha, maybe I am doing it because I feel guilty, but no matter what I just could not let this go. Not after she died. I think that if I was going to heal from the grief then I would have already. She was precious to me just like Hound seems to be precious to you," Quinn explained.

Anjelica chuckled. She stole a look over towards Hound with a smile. Leaning against the bar, his attention had been grabbed by a beautiful blonde woman. They chatted back and forth as he waited for the food, inching closer to each other as they did so. She reached out and touched his arm.

Anjelica turned her gaze back to the table as her smile dimmed a bit.

"He is the most important thing to me," She said.

Quinn's eyes narrowed as he looked between the interaction at the bar and Anjelica's slowly fading expression.

"If you want, I could go and talk to him. Even if he is not meaning to, there is no reason that he should make you feel bad," Quinn stated coldly.

"You are going to do no such thing!" Anjelica countered with some force. "He is not doing anything wrong. We are relaxing after all."

"Hm," Quinn grumbled. "He does not seem very relaxed. He seems quite engaged actually."

"As he should be! She is a beautiful woman!" Anjelica interjected once more but sighed indignantly at Quinn's confused look. "Hound and I have been together for a long time, Quinn. Before we even entertained the idea of a partnership we had to talk about...our...needs. He has certain appetites that I frankly do not share and honestly feel a bit disgusted by. It is neither of our faults but it would be unfair to leave him unsatisfied for the rest of our lives. He gets to keep what is between his legs and I get to have his heart, his mind, his soul, and his skills. Those are the things that matter to me and they always return to me before dawn."

Quinn's look became even more puzzled.

"But...you are members of the Church right? Last I heard, God had a problem with adultery. How does any of that align with the teachings?" Quinn asked worriedly.

"It does not. None of it does. Fortunately for us, death is a hunter's constant companion. The danger offers a certain degree of freedom from oversight on the Church's part. Besides, it is not like we are going around and reporting about what we do off the hunt. It works for us. I LIKE us. So this is the way that things are going to be," Anjelica said with as much confidence as she could muster.

She quickly reached over and downed the brown liquid in the glass.

"I am glad that you have figured things out but it does not seem like you..." Quinn started but was interrupted by Hound's return.

Carrying several plates, Hound began to set them across the table.

"Fried red eels, some potato crisps, and some skewers. Please eat!" Hound announced as he took his seat once more. "Now what were we talking about?"

"Just about us, darling. How long we have been together, how we met, the usual," Anjelica said.

"Oh I see!" Hound exclaimed, "Well I am happy to tell stories! There are so many good ones to tell!"

"I do have a story that I would like you to tell me," Quinn began. "How exactly did you end up on this path? What put you onto Gabriel's trail? I could not imagine that the Church sent their dogs after him so I am curious"

"One of the mothers if you can believe it," Hound said while shoving fried fish into his mouth.

"We were passing through a town and one of the mothers came up and begged us to please look into things. Seeing a Gavel in the smaller towns is usually noteworthy so she sought us out. She said that she had reported the kidnapping to the local constabulary office but when we went to check there was no record of her testimony. We had to dig through the actual day to day reporting logs to see that she was telling the truth. Every town that we went to, strange things were in the log books and no one had done anything about it. Not a single Gavel commissioned to investigate, no official response to try to placate the people, and so many cases that those previous facts seemed impossible. I started taking notes and the reports eventually led us upriver and onto your doorstep," Anjelica explained.

"Well lucky for all of us that you noticed. I had almost given up," Quinn admitted. "WIth Laena growing up and myself growing old I was really considering hanging things up. The problem is just too big. I am more likely to get myself killed than anything if I tried to be a hero and I would not want Laena to fight my wars. I do not want her to spend her life chasing ghosts like I have."

"Some ghosts are worth chasing," Hound growled. "When monsters kill people, we hunt them down. This is not really all that different. Demons hunt and kill out of hunger. They may enjoy the hunt but so do we. These kidnappings, these experiments...neither of them are a need. There is no good instinctual or natural reason for them to be happening. That puts Gabriel and his friends below even the spirits if you ask me."

Quinn raised his glass.

"Amen to that. Nature is horrible but people...people are cruel. Lest we forget it."

"You said that there is somewhere you want to take us?" Anjelica inquired.

"Most certainly! Zoned for public use by the Church, the building was never actually used for anything that I could find on record. Though I did find some employment records for people who had worked in designing our bloodstone systems. A rather odd thing to send to an abandoned building right?" Quinn asked excitedly.

"You think there were experiments happening there?" Hound asked, appalled.

"I could almost guarantee it. The building suddenly got abandoned about six years ago when a new community clinic opened up in the Barrows. I think whatever research they were doing got moved there but there might be a trove of information in the building. Nobody has the confidence to dare break in. Not even looters," Quinn continued.

"I dare," Anjelica said smugly.

"Good, because it is almost dark!" Quinn stated happily.

Hound and Anjelica gave him a surprised look.

"What? You think that I brought you here just to daydrink?" Quinn asked, appalled.

"Frankly yes, Quinn," Anjelica admonished.

"Well....touche I suppose," Quinn said and finished what was left in his glass. "You ready to go and commit some crimes?"

"Always," Anjelica replied as the group began to get up to leave.