Recovering

Things are slowly getting fixed and cleaned up around here. The lawn is still a bit of an eyesore, unfortunately. Molotovs will do that.
We let Hypnos have his lackey back the day after he asked for the return. We would have let the obscenity-yelling and later dagger-glaring proxy go a lot sooner except...The Rake. I'm pretty sure our clawed friend is pissed off about all of the flashing and banging..He is always around, now. Stalking the wards, clawing trees, leaving deer parts everywhere. The day we intended to let the proxy go, the Rake never left the sight of the house. Not once, all day. None of us are that cruel, and we hoped Hypnos wouldn't be a pain about it. He must have seen the Rake too, because we didn't receive any threats. How very...considerate...of him. Strange, considering he just sent a small army after us.
The proxy actually calmed down a bit too, after Skan and Eternity dragged him to a window and pointed at the Rake. The conversation had been a little bit like this:

Proxy: YOU MOTHERFUCKERS LET ME OUT OF THIS DAMN CHAIR OR I WILL KILL ALL OF YOU WHILE YOU SLEEP. HYPNOS NEVER LEAVES A MAN BEHIND. HE WILL COME FOR ME. OBEY HIM OR ELSE.
Eternity: Your threats don't faze me. You're tied to a chair.
Proxy: *more screaming and obscenities*
Skan: You know what, fine. Come here and met me show you why filth is still in my house.


She actually cut the bonds (all but the arms and the blindfold, at first) on the guy and hauled him to his feet, dragged him to the closest window, ripped off the blindfold, and pointed. "See that? In case you're blind, that's the Rake. If you go out there now, you'll die. But by all means, walk out. We won't stop you."
The proxy stared at her in disbelief. And stopped glaring and yelling. Instead he stared out the window for a few minutes and simply said, "I'm hungry. Would you mind giving me something? We can talk, if you want. I'll answer anything I can. I don't know much. Hypnos doesn't say much, to be honest he tells his enemies more than he tells us."

So, we did something stupid. We took him back to the basement first, then untied him completely. We got him some food and then..started talking to him. He didn't seem like the enemy, talking like this. Eternity never got more than a foot away from me the entire time, though. It appears my girlfriend (yes, indeed) is a guard dog as well.

We never got around to talking about Hypnos' plans, because he either wasn't going to say or he really didn't know. I believe the latter, personally. Except one thing that he kept repeating..The words "Family is the reason for everything we do." I think...He was trying to say something important. I have no idea what it could mean, though. Just another puzzle, I guess. But I was admittedly sorry to see him go back to Hypnos when the Rake finally disappeared for a while.

Things are quiet again, but not ominously so. Minus the Rake, that is. We've got rue stashed everywhere just in case shit hits the fan in the Rake department.