Ethan and Hecate, Sir Malcolm and Kaetenay, and Rusk and the rangers all continue the trek across the western landscape. Frankenstein and Jekyll test their modified serum on their subject with miraculous results. Hecate encourages Ethan to embrace his dark side; they also reveal secrets to one another, bringing them closer. With Ethans agreement, she summons rattlesnakes to kill the rangers; Rusk and Ostow survive although Kaetenay is bitten. Ethan appears to accept his darkness more and more, and makes love to Hecate. In the desert, Ethans horse collapses, then later Hecates, forcing them to continue on foot. Hecate later collapses from the heat and is barely alive when Sir Malcolm arrives with Kaetenay, also barely alive. Sir Malcolm attempts to murder Hecate, but Ethan wont allow it. Riders summoned by Ethans father, Jared Talbot, arrive and take them to the household, leaving Kaetenay to die at the request of Ethan; Sir Malcolm is unhappy with this. Talbot requests Sir Malcolms assistance in dealing with Ethan. He shows Ethan the room where their family died at the hands of Native Americans, saying that he will pay for his hand in it, aiming his pistol at him, and demanding he repent then and there on pain of death and damnation.