Glaeken’s intense blue eyes bored into him. “And should you find him, then what?”

“He goes down.”

“Don’t be so sure. At the risk of being a bore, I must remind you once again that he will not ‘go down,’ as you put it, easily. As the One, he has been gifted with extraordinary recuperative powers. As once was I.”

Glaeken had become kind of a broken record on that.

“How extraordinary?” Bill said.

“Wounds heal much more quickly than you’d imagine.” He pointed to Jack’s arm. “A scratch like that would heal almost immediately.”

“Scratch?” Bill said. “This is no scratch.”

Glaeken shrugged but said nothing.

Jack checked out the scars on the backs of the old guy’s gnarled hands. “But the wounds still left scars?”

He nodded. “Oh, yes.”

“What about penetrating wounds?”

“They take a little longer; they take a toll, but they heal.”

“Even the heart?”

“Even the heart. My body spat out a dozen or so bullets shortly before the Ally cut me loose to join you mortals.”

“Spat them out?”

Glaeken nodded. “More of a slow extrusion, I would say, but I hope you’re getting the picture.”

He was, and not liking it.

“How about amputations?”

“The bleeding will stop quickly, the stump will scar over, but what’s gone is gone.”

“No regeneration?”

“He remains human, and humans do not regenerate limbs.”

Bill was shaking his head. “How did I get myself into this?”

“You know very well how,” Glaeken said. “Your virtue nearly killed the One.”

Jack looked at the gentle, ponytailed, hippie-type guy patching up his arm. Almost killed Rasalom?