Josie looked out the window on her side of the cabin. She smiled at the water lapping

around the hull of the quinjet. She would have named the airship the Enterprise, or

the Spirit of Adventure, or even the Dial. The quinjet was the generic Avengers jet

that didn’t have names.

She was surprised that Tony Stark hadn’t bothered with it. It seemed right up his

alley from the movies.

“You said that the battery is recharging,” said Josie. “How does it work?”

“I have no idea,” said Jack. He grinned at her expression. “Magik came up with it so

we didn’t have to have jet fuel.”

“All right,” said Josie. She heard dings and the list in her head changed. She groaned.

The Society had come through with the promised quests.

“Dragon in Elf land,” said Jack. “You want that?”

“If you take the Lich Queen,” said Josie. “Why is there a Lich Queen?”

“Lich Queen?,” asked Laura. “Is that dangerous?”

“Depends on if she has an army of zombies at her back,” said Jack. “Usually you set

them on fire and step to watch the flames roll out.”

“I think we can stop the murderer easily enough,” said Josie. “We have become all

right detectives in all this.”

“It seems out of place against a dragon and a Lich Queen,” said Jack. “Maybe the

targets is what makes him dangerous.”

“They don’t tell us why they want us to fix things, but I suppose that there is

something hidden that we don’t know about yet,” said Josie. “Like Lorelei.”

“Saving a princess is always cool,” said Jack. “Ask Lancelot.”

“Who’s Lancelot?,” asked Matilda. She smoothed down her hair with her hand.

“He was the second best knight who caused his kingdom to be doomed,” said Josie.

“But he did save a few princesses when he wasn’t cheating on his best friend, the

king.”

“Ohhhhhh,” said the girls in the back.

“So not one to emulate,” said Matilda.

“Other knights were objectively better, but his legend has been polished as the

doomed lover of the queen, and the destroyer of the kingdom he vowed to protect,”

said Josie. “So when people from my land hear King Arthur, they don’t think of

Percival who found the Holy Grail, Gawain who was the bravest of the brave and got

stronger as the sun climbed, the undefeated Galahad or the doomed lovers Tristan and

Isolde. It’s always Arthur and Lancelot fighting over Guinevere.”

“Of course,” said Matilda. “There is a built-in conflict for the lazy storyteller with the

king, the right hand, and the queen. It’s like the story of Gowan Hand, and his

Hundred. Gowan’s stories all revolve around the fact he failed his last quest.”

“Are you a critic, Matty?,” asked Jack.

“I don’t think so,” said Matilda. “I have read most everything written about Gowan.

There are different stories for his men, but most accounts include his doom.”

“All right,” said Jack. “There is the first hero from this side of the tracks we have

heard about.”

“A King Arthur, or a Finn MacCool, at that,” said Josie. She smiled. “I wonder if they

have a Hercules buried somewhere we have to go.”

“We do have one question we need answered,” said Jack. He put on his grin.

“What’s that?,” asked Josie. She knew she was going to hate the question by the look

on his face.

“Where are we going to store the quinjet when we get back to the city?,” said Jack.

“You didn’t think about that?,” asked Josie.

“We should store it at the apartment,” said Melanie.

“There’s no room,” said Beatrice.

“Shooting gallery,” said Alicia.

“Couldn’t we store it at the Duke’s former place?,” said Matilda. “It’s not like he’s

going to be using it.”

“It should be underground,” said Angelica. “We don’t want someone to steal it while

we’re doing other things.”

“Good point,” said Jack. “Any opinions, Elaine?”

“If we could buy out some of the houses around the Hole in the Wall,” said Elaine.

“We could put together a stable for this craft.”

“And get a shooting gallery to practice in,” said Jack. “I like it, but would people sell

out to us just because we wanted their houses?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Elaine. “Some of them might like to take money to avoid

getting involved in a war with the tax collectors.”

“We can see if they want to move out,” said Josie. Jack hadn’t thought about a

hangar, and she hadn’t thought about the people on the street that had seen her burn

those men to cinders.

“I have some ideas about things that we could do with some more hocus focus,” said

Jack. “Maybe some Stargate stuff from my butt.”

“Stargate stuff from your butt?,” said Matilda. “How does that work?”

“He is talking about magic shortcuts,” said Melanie.

“Oh,” said Matilda.

“And I think that I have a sort of solution, depending on if anything was left at the

Duke’s land,” said Jack. “It will take some Stargate stuff, if it works like I think it

will.”

“What do we work on first?,” said Josie. “I think I can take the dragon and find the

murderer, if you can stop the Lich Queen from rising.”

“I might need another aircraft depending on the distance involved,” said Jack. “Are

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

the shows still running, Elaine?”

“They run to midnight, Milord,” said Beatrice.

“Thank you, Elaine,” said Jack. “Your voice is a lot squeakier than normal. You

might be getting a cold.”

“Not squeaky,” said Beatrice.

“It looks like the battery is charged up,” said Jack. “I’m going to start the engines and

Jo will fly us home. I’ll work on a hangar while you girls dig up what you can about

the Lich Queen.”

“Wait,” said Josie. She shifted in her seat and pulled paper out of her pack. She wrote

a quick note and sent it on its way. She nodded after it was gone.

“Lorelei and Bob will know what we are looking for and can probably find it faster

than we can,” said Josie. “That’s the best I can do right now.”

“All right,” said Jack. “If you can fly this, you can head down to Cairn with Fass’s

group without a problem. If you can’t, I’ll have to fly you down and help find this girl

so we can extract her. Then we start trying to finish the big quests.”

“I’m good to go,” said Josie.

“Remember, if a bird hits the hull, it’s not that bad,” said Jack. “If it hits a window,

you just drop down to a couple thousand feet and it’s survivable. If you are flying low

enough that you take a bird in the engine and it blows out, you have only seconds to

fix whatever the problem is, or land before you crash. Got that?”

“What happens to the bird?,” asked Matilda.

“It gets chopped up as it turns the engine into a broken piece of scrap,” said Jack.

“Poor bird,” said Matilda.

“Poor us is more like it,” said Melanie.

“Powering up the system,” said Jack. “Loading navigation with a request for the

Duke’s residence. Starting the belly jets to lift us out of the water. Do you have the

controls, Jo?”

“I think I am ready,” said Josie. She glared over her shoulder at the complaints her

comment made. “All right, I’m ready.”

“We’re at the top of the lift from the belly jets,” said Jack. “Pull the latch. Pull up on

the control to go up, slide the throttle forward to build speed. If the engine stalls, just

push the start button to kick the engines back on.”

Josie tried to enjoy the casual speed the quinjet had. She climbed until she was at the

marked operational ceiling. She made a slow u-turn and headed south toward Hawk

Ridge.

“The city is beautiful from up here,” said Laura after a few minutes of flight.

“It’s so different from what it is on the ground,” said Beatrice.

“All right,” said Jack. “We should have marked a landing zone for the quinjet. We’re

a little too high for us to hover.”

He looked at the navigation console, which was giving him a picture of the

destination. He pulled the lever on the side to shift the view around. He spotted the

area he was looking for away from the city.

“There is a compass next to the altitude meter,” said Jack. “Do you see it?”

“I see it,” said Josie.

“Turn it so that zero and one eighty five line up and take us down to the operational

limit of the hover jets,” said Jack. “Be careful about the trees. They can wreck us.”

“Throttle back,” said Jack when he was sure they were on the right course. “We don’t

want to overshoot and have to turn around.”

“There’s a clearing off the road,” said Elaine. “I think that’s where we need to go.”

“Throttle back to drop us to slow driving speed,” said Jack. “Then push the latch for

the belly jets. We want to hover in place before we drop down to the ground.”

“There is a hole in the ground,” said Elaine. “It is to our left.”

“Can you put us right over the hole, Josie?,” asked Jack. “I think we have a hiding

place for the quinjet if you can bring us down in the center of things.”

Josie took a moment to wipe her face with the sleeve of her jacket. She had not been

that nervous on the way back even with talk of a bird attack. This was where she

could kill them off with one fumble.

“Extend the landing gear,” said Jack. “That’s the red lever next to the jet lever.”

Josie pulled the lever. A series of thumps told her the legs had descended under the

airship. She slowly brought the aircraft down, watching as the meter told her how

many feet she had left. She felt a thump as the meter reached zero.

“We’re alive,” said Melanie. “We’re alive.”

“Let me see if I can lower the gangway,” said Jack. “We might not have the room

for it. If we don’t, I’ll have to do a small gate to get you guys out of the jet before I

fix the room problem.”

Jack pushed another button on his side of the console. A door opened under them

somewhere. He smiled for a second. He made sure the jets were off so they didn’t

spray loose dirt everywhere, the power to the aircraft was off so it couldn’t

take off without the warmup, and that he could see solid ground outside his window

before he unbuckled the harness and started down to the entrance.

“There was a space underneath the mansion,” said Josie. She undid her own harness

and went to help the others with theirs. “When Jack took the house, he must have

exposed it to view.”

“I don’t think I like flying as much as the idea of flying,” said Melanie.

“A horse is never as good as a unicorn,” said Josie. She helped them to their feet.

“Let’s see if Jack can conceal his baby from the Duke and anybody who wants to find

it bad enough.”

“What do we do about the tax collectors?,” asked Elaine.

“If they are still on our door when we get home, I will try to reason with them,”

said Josie. “I expect Jack will want to terrorize their boss.”

Alicia led the way down the ladder to the bottom of the airship. She looked down the

corridors and turned toward the faint breeze and burning smell she detected. The

others followed at a leisurely pace. They walked down a set of steps folded out of the

front of the craft. Walls of dirt and stone surrounded them.

“Josie, if you could give the girls a lift home,” said Jack from the top of the pit. “I will

conceal our new secret launchpad from view. I might even have enough material to

do some extra work. My spell kept making parts even after we left.”

“Are you sure, Jack?,” asked Josie. She looked around at the pit.

“Trust me,” said Jack. “I’ll even put in beacons so we can see where we’re landing

in the future.”

“Be home before the last show starts,” said Josie. “I would like to see if you can

survive one date in the city without setting something on fire.”

“How hard can it be?,” said Jack. “Go ahead. The faster I get this done, the faster I

can take Elaine out. I’ll talk to Guin about this murderer. Maybe he can find

something out through the Guard.”

“All right,” said Josie. “Huddle up, girls. I’m taking us home.”

“More flying,” said Laura. “I love this stuff. I could fly all day long.”

“You’re the only one,” said Melanie.

“It’s pretty good,” said Angelica. “I wish my stomach didn’t try to empty everything

out when I did.”

“You probably get motion sickness,” said Josie. “Some people can’t take fast motion

from outside forces. Everyone ready?”

She ignored the sound of whistling behind her as she dialed in Northwind and lifted

off with her sisters in tow. They flew over the city’s wall and dropped down on the

street leading to the Hole in the Wall. She pushed out with her wind and didn’t feel

any resistance. Maybe the tax collectors had taken the hint.

“We’re going to go slow to our place,” said Josie, letting Northwind go. “I don’t see

any loose bodies around, but they could be using the buildings to hide while they

come up to ambush us. Scatter and call Jack if there is trouble. I don’t want any of

you caught in the crossfire.”

“Don’t do something to bring more attention, Mistress,” said Beatrice. “Having more

men disappear will just shine a light on us.”

“Your concern is noted,” said Josie. “I am just going to walk up to the door and see

what happens. Hopefully, they won’t be waiting inside for me.”

She walked up to the door, taking on Zatanna for a moment. She threw a scry bird

inside the apartments as she moved forward. She frowned as the bird told her people

were in her place. She should have known someone would be able to pick the locks.

It would be so easy to kill them in the apartment and hang them from the wall. It

would be a warning to anyone who got in her way. She liked it. She decided that

she would save that for when she needed it.

She picked out a hero she hadn’t used yet. She didn’t know how he would take, or

what his powers would be. But maybe it would give her something overwhelming

and non-lethal at the same time.

She changed forms and thought that it was a match for Jack’s Doctor Strange. She

knocked on the door with her knobby fist at the end of a stick arm. She had three, or

four, more sticking out her green body in random places.

The people inside froze at the knock. Then one of them adopted the power of his

position and came to the door to tell the visitor to clear away. He paused when he

yanked the door open and saw Josie standing there with too much bulk and eyes and

teeth. He tried to close the door in the face of the monster standing there. A big fist

knocked him out of the way.

“I’m here to talk to Josie Fox,” said the Martian Manhunter. “Have you goons seen

her?”

A lot of screaming answered her.