Sanguine chuckled. “I like you, boy. You got optimism in those bones. I like you so much that I ain’t gonna tell you what I did to poor old Jethro, the first Jethro, may he rest in peace, may they someday find his head. I’m gonna let you hold on to that little sliver of hope you got burning inside you, that I let him go, that he lived out the rest of his life in happiness and harmony.”

“Th-thank you...”

“He’d have to live it out without his head though, which wouldn’t be the easiest thing to do, but I’m gonna leave that little story open-ended for you. Because I like you. Because I want you to think you might survive this, as laughable as that seems. This your first time out, is it?”

“Sorry?”

“Out in the field, boy. You don’t seem like the battle-hardened type to me.”

“No,” Jethro said, “I’m not. I... I usually sit behind a desk all day.”

“Been passed over for promotion a few times, that it? Finally figured you ought to be climbing that corporate ladder, taking on a position of authority in the Sanctuary − would I be about right?”

“Yes. Yes, you would.”

“So you requested this assignment, did you? Figured with that many agents and Cleavers around, you’d never even have to get close to the action. Right?”

“Right,” he said, and sobbed.

“You figured hey, it’s only two people. Only two fugitives we have to apprehend, and you wouldn’t have to actually do anything, but it’d still be down on your record, yeah? You’d still be part of it. You’d still share in the glory.”

“Please don’t kill me, Mr Sanguine.”

“Don’t ruin the ending,” Sanguine snarled, and threw Jethro against the wall. Jethro covered up, expecting an attack. Instead, Sanguine just stood there.

“What do you do in the Sanctuary?” he asked.

“Different things,” Jethro answered, keeping his eyes down. “Administrative work. Nothing glamorous or... dangerous.”

“You know what I heard? I heard all you guys were planning on declaring war on the Irish Sanctuary, that’s what I heard. I heard the English Council and the German Council and the Americans and the French and most everyone else was planning on going in there and taking over.”

“I wouldn’t... I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“No? Pity. It’d have been something to talk about to delay the inevitable.”

Jethro swallowed thickly. “Inevitable?”

Sanguine nudged his sunglasses further up on the bridge of his nose. “Seems to be an awful lot of activity around here lately, and not just cos of us. Wanna tell me what’s going on?”

“I... I don’t know.”

“Just to inform you, lying right now would not be the best move you could possibly make.”

Jethro hesitated. “There’s a... It’s...”