Jack didn’t like Josie had run off on her own. He didn’t like he had an out of town

royal trying to tell him what to do. He didn’t like that he was going to have to blow

up Boim Russ’s sister.

He should have nuked Shemmaria until it glowed in the dark.

“Do you have this, Your Grace?,” asked Jack.

“Princess Caroline will be as safe as houses with me,” said Hent. He had heard things

at the dinner that were the stuff of nightmares. And he believed them. “I will

personally see that she is looked after.”

“Why are you listening to this commoner?,” asked Brant.

“Because he is a mad sorcerer who has no compunction about turning people into

babies,” said Hent. “And I like my years of experience to remain right where they are.

One day you will understand that rank is meaningless against someone who can

destroy everything you created with a wave of his hand.”

“The elves love me,” said Jack. “I have to go. Shemmaria might be trying to destroy

the world again and I have to look after that. Your Grace, talk to Jane about whatever

taxes we have to pay for the building we are renting. I think Josie wanted to buy it

outright but couldn’t.”

“The owner is looking through his accounts,” said Elaine. “He agreed to rent the

place to us over what Jack and Josie did for him.”

“Taxes are due from the actual owner,” said Hent. “I will work out whatever I need

when this crisis is done and the city is not housing a member of the Royal Family.”

The ding in Jack’s head told him that they had saved Caroline from trouble. He

wanted to hand her over to her dad, but he had to take care of his quest while she

healed from her treatment.

“I have to go,” said Jack. He wrapped Elaine in a hug, settling for a kiss on the cheek.

“Don’t forget the house, Your Grace.”

“Dragon boat?,” June asked Mister Warner. He nodded in reply.

Jack called the Enterprise. The machine acknowledged the call. He smiled.

“I’ll see you guys on the other side of things,” said Jack. “Enterprise, one to beam

up.”

He vanished in a cloud of blue sparks.

“There is too many disappearances here,” said Brant.

“It is what it is,” said Hent. He helped Caroline to the door. Captain Griff took the

other side unasked. “They have defended the city and helped clean up some bad

things that needed to be cleaned up. We’re going to make sure the girl is looked after

and then we will send a messenger to the King. I am sure Mistress Fox will be talking

to him in person, but we have to make sure that we are looking after his daughter to

the best of our ability.”

“Come look at my nifty new ride, Boim,” said June. “I think it’s great for a first try.”

“Does it know how to get to Tern from here?,” asked Mister Warner.

Elaine watched them all leave. She shook her head. She closed the door and sat down

at the dining room table. She had her own cup of tea, and sipped from it. She hoped

Jack knew what he was doing.

Jack made it to the Bridge and hoped he knew what he was doing. He took the

command chair, waving at Josie’s bird.

“Enterprise, we need to be over Shemmaria’s capitol, all sensors up,” said Jack.

“We’re looking for any kind of energy transmission that doesn’t belong here on this

low tech world.”

“Affirmative,” said the machine.

The silver ship took up a position high above the capitol of Shemmaria. It opened up

every detector it had, starting in the center of the city and working outwards. It

located a source of energy to the east. It pointed this discrepancy out to its captain.

“Put it on the main screen,” said Jack. He liked the wider view, and didn’t like fooling

around with the tiny screens at the stations.

Ruins buried by years of trees appeared on the screen. A transparent marking showed

where the energy source would be from above. Life signs marked Shemmarian

soldiers standing in a ring around the central crypt. Visual information on screen

marked them with black fog.

“Are you adding that black fog?,” asked Jack.

“Negative,” said the machine. “It appears to be the same energy from the central

source.”

“We need an exorcist,” said Jack. “Do you know where we can get one?”

“Negative,” said the machine.

“All right,” said Jack. “It looks like I am going to have to do something. I have no

idea. I’m glad this is away from a bunch of people. That would have made things

harder for us.”

The Enterprise remained silent.

“I think I am going to try to exorcize these things and put them back in their box,”

said Jack. “I think I am going to fly down and hope for the best. Any thoughts?”

“There are several smaller populations nearby,” said the Enterprise. “This might be

important depending on how the fog marks humans.”

“So we have to keep them in this area, and unable to run at anybody else,” said Jack.

“We don’t know how this is spreading. Touch might be one way that it’s being done.”

“Affirmative,” said the machine.

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“Let’s see what we can do,” said Jack. “Stun anybody you think is fleeing from me.

We can’t let them spread whatever that is beyond this point.”

“Affirmative,” said the machine. “Phasers coming online.”

Jack left the bridge. He didn’t have a ghost form like Mister Warner as far as he

knew. Ghost Rider might be usable, but it was just as likely to give him a ghost

calling thing that he couldn’t use in this situation.

He took the lift down to the cargo bay entrance and opened the doors. He jumped out

of the back of the ship and fell, copying his first jump to this world from Mister

Warner’s shop. When he was close enough to the ground, he called on Gravity and

slowed his descent to a soft landing outside the ring of guards.

He let the persona go and waited for his watch to recharge to full power. He had a

small idea of what he could do to slow the surface assault before he went down and

tried to close everything back up.

He might even be able to do a group exorcism and return all these people to normal.

The first step of what he laughingly called a plan meant getting to the center of the

ruins and laying out his wall. He had to do that without getting infected, or tripping

over any traplines. If that succeeded, then he could try to move everything back to

where it belonged and see what he could do about the possessed people.

He hoped the book demon gave up after the mass exorcism he planned. He didn’t

want to fight an infection based enemy up close and personal. This was something he

would have gladly nuked until it glowed if he thought Josie would let him get away

with the resulting explosive spread of cancerous material.

He changed into Makkari and ripped through the group of sentinels. He let the

persona go and dialed Magik. He turned the ruins into a ring of iron that spread out

and sealed the local area from the rest of the world. They were trapped inside the ring

with him.

He cast the invocation built into the ring. Josie had her birds, and he had this. He

wondered if he should think of something mobile he could use.

The spell ripped the black energy out of the Shemmarians. They collapsed from the

sudden loss of motive power. That was fine as long as they were still alive, and not

carrying any of that black energy.

The black energy floated in the air, trying to find other bodies to possess. When it hit

the inner edge of the ring, it was forced back.

The force turned and reached for Jack in his alternate body. He held up a hand. A box

with a handle appeared in his hand. The top of the box opened and the black force

was sucked inside in a blast of white light.

“Who you going to call?,” Jack said. He dropped the box to the ground. He had to

reverse the book trap now that he had covered the surface trouble.

He would find a better place to hide the escapees than some old mess of stones in the

middle of nowhere.

He had already picked out a place in his mind when he was done with the major parts

of the problem.

Jack’s spell had ripped the ruins apart in the making of his ring. That revealed a

tunnel leading into the ground. He knew that had to be the home of the black energy.

He wondered if there were more guards that needed to be taken out of the picture.

He conjured up a bevy of ghost traps and entered the tunnel. He didn’t have a lot of

time left on his watch. He had to finish this job, and get back to the Enterprise.

He spotted a black flame ahead after a few minutes of walking. The tunnel had been

cleared out and maintained from the looks of things. He supposed the Shemmarians

had done that for ease of navigating the thing to the one room they wanted.

Jack walked to the edge of the room. Soldiers stood around a ring in the ground.

Words and diagrams filled the ring up. Twelve books were placed around the outside

of the ring.

Black energy marked a failure of his exorcism spell to work in the ground. He would

have to retry it to knock these soldiers out of the fight. They hadn’t taken notice of

him, and were chanting in low voices.

He had to put a stop to the show.

Jack knelt and put his hand on the floor. He issued a simple command. The floor took

on a shiny sheen and became one piece of metal. He commanded it to repel the spirit

forces. The soldiers collapsed as the black energy was ripped from them. He threw

the ghost traps out and pushed the foot buttons as fast as he could. That cleared the

room well enough for him to get to the second part of his plan.

He needed to close the trap up and reset it so it couldn’t be opened again. How did

he do that?

He didn’t know how the original trap worked. If he did, that would make things easier

on him. He needed a version of Josie’s book of knowledge. He didn’t have an idea

on how to make one of those either.

If he had waited for Josie to get done, the problem would have been out of control by

the time they arrived on the scene. He had at least stopped them opening the gate

wider for the demon legion to come through and start taking over the world.

How did he put things back the way they were?

He decided that he needed to close the portal and seal everything. Then he could use

the Enterprise to try to find any escapees. He could exorcize them, and do something

with the demon energy.

Maybe he could make a man servant to bully and be his general gofer. He shook his

head. He had June for that now.

He checked his watch. He had time for some kind of temporary measure. He had to

get rid of the sleeping soldiers so they wouldn’t be in the way. Then he could do the

real job.

He waved his hand and floating rings appeared out of the walls of the tunnel and

carried the men out of the manmade cave. He created a scanner out of a rock. He

realized then he could have the Enterprise detect magic with a tweak of its sensors.

It would be a good tool if he needed it in the future.

And he knew he would need it with all the buried magic laying around for someone

to find and use it.

He did a scan. He frowned at the numbers and information kicked back to him. He

could fix the problem. All he needed was a different rune structure. He hoped he

wasn’t causing problems for the next guy with his job. That would be awkward.

He let the scanner disassociate back into a rock. He knelt down on the changed floor.

The original trapper had locked things and put them in the books left laying around.

The books were there in case the demon legion was ever needed to be released as a

weapon against a bigger menace.

Jack didn’t see a menace bigger than Josie in his future.

He reached out and changed the books and floor with his magic. The small flame of

black energy winked out. He nodded at the sealing saying it was good in his mind.

That just left him with the ghost traps. What did he do with them?

He had time. He gathered the traps up and stepped outside the tunnel. He switched

bodies to Gravity and collapsed the whole thing on his working. He wasn’t going to

need a key, or to find the place again since he had put in a permanent seal over the

dimensional hole.

If someone with magic like him wanted to rip that seal off, he knew he would get a

quest to stop them before they got going.

He used his ring of entrapment to smooth everything over and erase any sign there

had been a ruins at that location. Then he let the ring become grass around the area.

He flew up to meet the Enterprise.

He reverted to normal in the cargo bay and dropped the ghost traps by the door. He

knew what he wanted to do with them.

“Enterprise, take us to the closest moon,” said Jack. “I have something I have to

dispose of before I do anything else.”

“Affirmative,” said the machine.

Jack waited for the report they were in orbit over the targeted geography. He didn’t

want the ghost traps to be left where they could be allowed to run free and he had to

perform more exorcisms to clear things up.

He wanted a smooth job where no one would be in danger after he was done with it.

“We are in orbit over Alexis,” said the Enterprise.

“All right,” said Jack. “I am going to have to step out and do some things. I will be

back as soon as I can.”

“Affirmative,” said the machine.

Jack wondered if he had any spaceworthy heroes in his toolkit. He thought maybe he

had Star-Lord as a possible hero to use in this situation. He tried on the persona and

found that he could sense information based on the outlay of the stars.

He needed to switch to Magik, and build himself a suit to wear.