an attempted murderer

She only said she needed to hide for an excuse to go with him. She is in love, obsessed actually, with Heath and felt he was in danger and wanted to go with him to help protect him. It was all part of The Sin Eaters plan. He was the one that originally made her go crazy and that allowed Heath and her to meet. If he can make her see Nighting Gales, among other things, it's a logical assumption that he inflicted the feelings in Shannon that made her worry for Heath's safety and therefore go to Rome with him. Although I would've liked her part to be fleshed out a little more, like maybe show their original meetings or have a bad dream about Heath causing her to break out of the asylum (which I bet Benno had a hand in as well), I felt that it could be easily overlooked because the rest of the story was pretty strong. One thing I thought was really neat was that Shannon's 'jelly fish' was small and didn't hurt Heath at all proving she didn't commit suicide to him, while the Cardinal-to-be's looked pretty nasty. And as far as the role his jolly friend played, besides the obvious side kick type role, he left the movie open for a sequel at least :P, he said something like, "Don't worry, I'll find a way, even if it means killing you" near the end. Although I doubt a sequel will come about. One thing that really made me love the movie was the dialogues between Benno and Heath, in the end they really were a lot alike. I loved how Benno actually turned out to be more of an anti-hero instead of having a cheesey good vs. evil showdown with Heath.