Josie found a niche behind a stack of boxes to change back. She needed to get rid of

the foggy body of the Mist, and take on Bulletgirl so she could dispense some justice.

She realized that she could do things easier with her new trick. That would clear the

building for her to go to town, and get the women somewhere they could be helped.

She thought her plan over as she assembled her fog under cover and changed back to

normal.

The only flaw was she wasn’t going to be able to move fast as Zatanna, and she

needed to premake some birds first.

The rest would be able to take care of itself with her acting as a manager if she missed

something.

Jack and the Society would love her new soft approach to hammering nails. She could

feel that in her bones. Then she could check on the girls and make sure Jack wasn’t

doing something stupid.

She knew him, and she knew how he liked to do things despite his protestations of

innocence.

She checked her watch. She wrote a note to Jane. That would be the first thing to be

done when she started. She wasn’t sending any of these women back home until she

knew she wasn’t sending them back to the men who sold them.

She would apologize for her suspicions if she had to do that after the action was over.

Two teleports were just as easy as one if you were worried about what was on the

other end.

She became Zatanna and sent the note. Someone at Jane’s house would see the note

and know that Josie was doing something. It wouldn’t matter if they could read it or

not. They would know that she was doing something.

She created a bunch of the scry birds and sent them to Jane’s yard. The fiery avians

flew through the walls and headed across the city. She would know when they were

in place. All she had to do was hold on for a few moments. Some of the men trying

to force the women into cages paused when they saw the birds flying through the

warehouse to their destination.

Birds of fire were a troubling sign that something was about to go wrong according

to some of the talking she overheard. She might have to do something before the birds

were ready.

She frowned at the setup. This was just like the other building they had raided but

there were stacks of cages with ladders to the topmost, and no second floor.

Everything was in front of her. Her cover was a stack of dry food collected in boxes

on side of the building.

The birds called they were ready. She ordered them to complete their second task.

One by one, they popped on Jane’s yard. When they did, a captive woman fell out of

a cage, or a human grip, and dropped on the grass.

Jane would figure everything out from the short note and the sudden guests inside her

walls. She would call if she needed help, or clarification.

Josie did a scan and smiled when it came back empty of bystanders. She could treat

the traffickers the same way with a less friendly landing zone. There would be no

splattered bodies or even evidence she had interceded.

She created enough scry birds to match the milling guards. They were calling to each

other in panic. She nodded when she had enough, and the spell said it had one to one

matching with her targets.

She picked a spot for them to land after they appeared when the birds called them

from their end of the chains they now wore. The birds flew off to make things happen.

She waited for a while as the birds carried their ends to the designated area. She

nodded when she heard the dinging that they had reached where she had selected to

be the landing zone.

The birds were thousands of feet in the air, but since they weren’t alive, that didn’t

matter.

She told them to pop out of existence and drag the other ends of their chains to them.

The guards vanished one by one. Some rushed for the doors, vanishing in midstride.

They appeared over the camp she and Fass had raided that day. She wished them the

best of luck as they cascaded into the ground, camping gear, and dead bodies they had

left behind.

Some of the targets might have survived the impact. If they did, she wished them the

best of luck with any hungry beast that might come along.

She changed back and looked around at the empty place. She frowned at the stacks

of cages, chains, and what looked like braziers with brands in them. They couldn’t

rely on the alchemy anymore, so it looked like they were going back to a burned in

rose as a marker.

She wondered how they took their sudden deaths. She thought she should feel guilty

about things. Instead she had a sudden long bell sound followed by single dings that

told her she had done the right thing.

In the face of that, she was prepared to be a bit happier than what was normal for a

mass murder following a mass transportation of possible victims to help.

She needed to go to Jane’s and try to settle the women down and send them home if

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

they wanted to go home. After that, she had to get to her home, and check on the rest

of her adopted family.

She doubted Jane wanted people just popping up, but she felt that her mansion was

the right place to send people until they could be sorted out. Once that was done, Jane

could straighten things out and help others on her street.

She wondered how long the Amazons would stick around. There had been famous

charity places on Earth that folded after the founder had died. She didn’t want that to

happen to Jane’s house but what could she do if it did happen?

She didn’t have what it took to be helpful to people day in and day out.

She changed back into Zatanna and wished she was at Jane’s house. She appeared

outside of the gate. The former captives milled around, the Amazons trying to sort

things out and figure out what their new arrivals wanted.

Josie let Zatanna go. She waved at one of the gate women trying to figure out what

they were supposed to do. The woman smiled when she recognized the shorter

woman in a poncho.

“Your doing?,” asked the gate woman, opening the gate for Josie to come inside.

“I was testing out some new stuff,” said Josie. “I found these women in a warehouse

on the other side of the city and performed a rescue. I wanted to make sure they were

safe before I went to work.”

“They all seem confused about what happened,” said the gate woman. “We were

confused by why they were here. What’s the next step?”

“I send as many as I can home so they can go back to their lives,” said Josie. “If none

of them want to go home, I guess they stay here until they can get jobs and find places

of their own.”

“If you keep this up, you will have to build a bigger house,” said the Amazon. She

indicated the yard full of women.

“I can do it,” said Josie. “At a certain point, I might have to build one of these places

in every major city across the country.”

“The problem that big?,” asked the gate woman.

“There are tons of these guys everywhere,” said Josie. “Just because Jack and I are

snapping off the local branch, it doesn’t mean we’re chopping the tree down. We need

to get at the core of this and pull everything up so it doesn’t grow back. The object

lessons we’re handing out aren’t doing anything since no one but the locals know

what’s going on.”

“I know that feeling,” said the Amazon. “I think you will hit on an idea that will

work. You guys seem big on pulling out weird things to solve mundane problems.”

“We’ll see,” said Josie. “Let me talk to these women, and then we’ll see how many

Jane can do anything with to help out.”

Josie walked into the yard. She looked at the mass confusion. She smiled slightly that

most were happy not to be in chains and being sent somewhere strange because

someone else said so.

“Hey, everybody!,” she called. She clapped her hands to attract their attention. “Do

any of you live here in the city?”

Calls of I do ran through the crowd. Some of them waved their hands to get Josie to

look at them.

“Do you want to go home?,” said Josie. “If you have a place to go, step to the left by

Hilda.”

Hilda raised her hand to show them whom Josie meant. The crowd flocked to her.

Josie became Zatanna and sent out a horde of birds to where they needed to go. She

supposed she would be able to use one bird as a mobile station eventually, but this

concept was working for her and a little more casting time didn’t matter in this

situation. When the birds got to where they should be, they returned to the mana as

soon as that particular woman appeared on the doorstep.

“How many of the rest of you have homes you want to go back to?,” Josie asked the

remainder. Only half had been sent away. Where had these come from?

This crowd quickly joined Hilda without being told. Some of them had scars from

their manacles, and from whippings when their rags shifted just right. It made Josie

take a firmer expression.

Maybe dropping the Montrose out of the air was too merciful.

She sent out the birds and waited. The women started disappearing one by one. At

least one was from Kearnly from the talk Josie overheard. She was going to have to

go back out there and do something in her opinion.

She had already decided it would be something unpleasant, maybe bog beast related.

Three women remained. They seemed out of sorts, and maybe had suffered the most

out of all the women Josie had recovered.

She could put a curse down, but she didn’t quite know how to heal their minds from

the injuries they had taken. But they could stay with Jane, and maybe she could help

them.

Josie let Zatanna go. Her dark eyes glared at them. She hoped they knew they were

safe.

“No place to go?,” asked Hilda. She was Jane’s second, and a rough sort. She looked

at the three strangers with her hands on her hips. Someone had shaved one side of her

head and let the rest of her blond strands fall down the other side. “I’m Hilda. If you

have no place to go, you can stay here. We’ll put you up for a bit. You can sign up for

work, look for a place to move so you don’t have to live on the grounds. Meals are

at dawn, noon, and sunset. If you stay here, everyone works to keep the place up. It’s

best if you can find a job you are good at instead of trying some where you aren’t.

You can leave any time. If you have any questions, just ask. Jane runs the place so she

is trying to keep things running okay without eating us up. We have some cold food

in the kitchen if you want it, baths on side of the house, and fresh clothes. We will

need to add you to the books so you can get the pittance we call an allowance so you

can buy things at the market for your own use. Let’s go get this sorted out so you can

settle in and try to get a grip of things.”

“Who’s that woman?,” asked one of the rescuees. She pointed at Josie standing off

to one side.

“That is the right honorable Josie Fox,” said Hilda. “She is the meanest, angriest

witch that ever lived. Say yes, Mum, when you see her and keep walking. She is a

tower of hate crammed into a small bag of evil. She’ll rip your ears off if you’re not

careful. That’s what happened to Carol. Now let’s get you sorted out and on the

path.”

“Someone told her about the ear ripper thing,” said Josie. “Only Bob knows about

that. He must have told the Rick, and Rick must have told Harp. I can’t believe this.

You threaten to rip one guy’s ear off and it follows you around like a lonely puppy.”

“It is a specific threat,” said the gate woman. She hid her smile.

“And I didn’t rip Carol’s ear off,” said Josie. “I don’t even know Carol.”

“She’s the one missing one ear,” said the Amazon.

“If I had the time, there would be some more missing ears, I’ll tell you that,” said

Josie. She huffed. “All right. I have other things to do. I can’t just teach people

lessons because they are on my nerves. I have to get home.”

“I will tell Hilda not to tell the new girls you ripped Carol’s ear off,” said the gate

woman. “She’ll come up with something else to impress any more new girls we might

take in.”

“Let her keep it,” said Josie. “She better watch out if I get a big black hat and a bad

tempered black cat is all I am saying.”