Jack let them in the hole in the wall. The kids were quiet. He hoped they were asleep. He headed upstairs. He walked into the office and looked at the work Elaine had put in.

He looked at the lines marked out for the Dark Rider. They seemed to converge in a range of mountains. He looked for landmarks he could use to start his search.

He didn’t like being away from the city now that he had things going on. Elaine and the kids would be in a bad situation without them.

The girls were in a bad situation because of them.

He found a marker for Kearnly. It was in the east. He couldn’t tell the distance. He didn’t want to split up, but they might have to do that to cover the distances involved. They needed some way to call each other. Their cell phones were useless here without some way to project a wave across the distance.

He pulled out his cell phone and stared at it. He put it on the desk as he sat down to think.

An idle thought crossed his mind about where Elaine had picked up a crossbow but he could let that go. She needed to be able to protect herself if they weren’t around. As long as she didn’t shoot one of the girls, he was okay with that.

He eased back in the chair. His obligations had two different directions. He had to go north, and he had to check on Guin’s rival. The rival would probably be an easier job to handle, but the Rider was more dangerous according to the Society.

He wondered if someone else was hunting the Montrose. He put that thought aside too. It wasn’t his job to protect them. If someone wanted to take advantage of the Makeover, more power to them.

As long as they didn’t take a shot at Josie, or him, he was okay with them getting some street justice.

He needed to ask Elaine about Guin. She wasn’t local, but had been in the city longer than he and Josie. She might know enough rumors to give him an idea if he needed to get a toe tag sack for the godfather.

He was willing to give the man a chance since he helped out with the captured women, but there was only so much he was willing to tolerate. As long as he wasn’t pushed, he could live and let live.

If Guin crossed him, that would be a bad mistake if Jack lived.

He didn’t want to think what would happen if Josie decided to take things in her own hands.

Josie appeared in the doorway. She had two cups in her hands. She sipped at one, and put the other down on the desk.

“What’s this?,” asked Jack. He sniffed at the cup and smiled at the steam coming up to his face.

“Hot chocolate,” said Josie. “Do you have a plan, or are you flailing around?”

“I have an idea on what we should do,” said Jack. He sipped at the cup. He smiled. “This is good. Where did you get it?”

“I magicked it up,” said Josie. “What’s your idea?”

“I need to look at Guin’s enemy and find out what’s going on with him,” said Jack. “Then I have a rough circle of area to search for the Dark Rider. Once I find the crypt, I can set up on it and wreck anyone trying to wake him.”

“How do I help with that?,” asked Josie.

“I don’t know,” said Jack. He sipped at his chocolate. “I wonder if I can use the Angel to search. Would I remember where I found the crypt if I did?”

“Let me use Grundy for a second,” said Josie. She put her cup down on the desk and pulled on the form of the pale woman. She looked at the map. She traced the mapped lines in her mind. She drew an x on the paper where the lines met. She discarded Grundy as she went back to her cup. “I think you should start there.”

“No town there,” said Jack, twisting in his chair. “You think that’s where he comes from when he starts.”

“Pretty close,” said Josie. “It’s still a big area to search.”

“At least you know where Kearnly is,” said Jack. “How are you going to handle that?”

“I am going to ask Elaine what she found on bog hounds, and come up with a

strategy,” said Josie. “I might not have to do anything but keep it away from the town. That just leaves us with the lost princess. How do we find her?”

“Got no idea,” said Jack. “Maybe we can ask Linus.”

“I’m sure he’ll like that,” said Josie. She smiled. “I think drafting him like we did was not something he wanted to deal with.”

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“His boss told him to live with it,” said Jack. “The hard part was getting him to the scene.”

“So we move in the morning and hope we’re doing the right thing,” said Josie.

“It’s the only thing we can do,” said Jack. “You better get some sleep while you can. You still have to meet the scrub of a teacher for the girls tomorrow.”

“Don’t remind me,” said Josie. She sipped her chocolate. “I hope he’s okay. I want the girls to be able to handle themselves here. We’re going to be leaving them in a mess if we get done and have enemies left alive to bother them.”

“I know,” said Jack. He picked up his phone. He juggled it in his hand. “We need to be able to call them, and have them call us if there’s an emergency.”

“That would be good,” said Josie. “How do you propose to do that?”

“I have no idea,” said Jack. “Building a tower to catch the signal and reroute could get us line of sight in the city, but anything out of the walls would be out of the question with normal physics. Maybe I could magic something up if I gave it some thought.”

“The next thing you’ll want to do is build cars, and airplanes, to take it easy with using Makkari all the time,” said Josie.

“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” said Jack. “Go to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Don’t sit here and brood all night,” said Josie. She picked up her cup. “It’s not good for you.”

“Batman does it all the time,” said Jack. He grinned.

“Batman is a little psychotic,” said Josie. “That’s why Superman will always be

better. I’ll wake you up before I get the girls together to go to the Hall.”

“This responsibility stuff is a lot harder than I thought it would be,” said Jack. He sipped at the remains of his chocolate.

“You would be a great dad,” said Josie. “Get some sleep like I said.”

“Okay,” said Jack. He saluted her with the cup. He looked at the maps around him. He wondered if he could fly North right then and find the Dark Rider’s crypt. How much distance could he cover as Makkari before the watch counted down?

Was there magic in the world beside the watches? Would he have to worry about a real magician trying to kill him before things were done? Having to dial a hero was a weakness against faster enemies.

Maybe he should arm himself with a gun if he could figure out how to make one. That would be a big surprise against most of the guys running around in this world.

He thought about his phone. Maybe he could make something like it work? An idea came to him. He wondered what heroes he needed to make it work. Then all he had to do was get enough for the girls and Josie.

He probably should get one for Guin in case of emergency. They might need his backing again to fix any bad situation they made worse trying to deal with it. And it would make him feel better that he could call them if something came up.

Jack put his phone on the desk. He decided to worry about the communications when he had a better idea of what he wanted to do. A simple voice exchange would still be better than what they had now.

He picked up one of the research books at random. He buried himself into the text, puzzling out the words as much as he could. He reached the end and had a fair idea that the city needed Lake Myra more than he had thought.

Jack picked up his phone again. He knew that he could set up something in the city. He had the ability with his heroes.

The room went black as he looked at it. He frowned. He had fallen asleep while sitting in his chair. It wasn’t the first time he had done that.

A door opened and the twelve members of the Appreciation Society came in. Their leader smiled a little this time. He must be pleased that one of his quests had been covered.

“How’s it going?,” asked Jack. He realized he was still holding his phone in his dream.

“You succeeded against Accordly,” said the centermost persona. “Congratulations. How goes the rest?”

“Okay, I guess,” said Jack. “We think we know the area the Rider is going to start from. I’m going up there to search for his crypt in a couple of days. We still don’t have a clue about the princess.”

“What about the other commitments?,” asked the woman with the owl.

“I think I can wrap up a look at Guin’s rival pretty fast,” said Jack. “We finally know where Kearnly is, so Josie plans to go out there. You wouldn’t happen to know if someone else is interested in Montrose?”

“Yes,” said another woman. She had a quiver with a bow tucked inside it.

“Yes, you know, or yes, someone else is interested,” said Jack.

“Both,” said the woman. “He is hunting them too.”

“He has declared a war,” said a man with a sword. “And he hopes to win it

eventually.”

“I wish him the best of luck with that,” said Jack. “Josie said there was over a

hundred thousand of them. Any kind of open warfare is going to go bad for him, unless...”

“Unless?,” said the man with the sword. He smiled.

“Unless he’s using the hex and Josie as cover,” said Jack. “He doesn’t have to be in the city. He could be anywhere. But now he has identifying marks to follow.”

“You’re fast,” said the man with the sword. “But how did he get on their system in the first place?”

“I don’t know,” said Jack.

“You’ll figure it out eventually,” said the woman with the owl. “You have the same means in your own hands.”

“But you still need to stop the Dark Rider, and find the Princess,” said the centermost stander.

“All right,” said Jack. “Maybe something will come to me about the Princess. I have no idea right now. She could be anywhere.”

“I’m sure you will do your best,” said the centermost. “You have shown some

surprises that we didn’t think of when we allowed you to take up the quests. Keep up the good job.”

The door opened. And the group started to march out. When they were gone, Jack cursed. He should have got them to help him with his phone idea.

“Milord, breakfast is ready,” said a soft voice.

“Come back in a day,” said Jack. “I’ll be ready then.”

“Milord, Lady Josie said for you to come now, or wear your food,” said the voice.

“Really?,” said Jack. He hadn’t opened his eyes yet.

“Yes,” said the voice.

“I can wear it,” said Jack. “It will go well with my black and red.”

“She said she has coffee,” said the voice.

“Coffee?,” said Jack.

“Better than Starbuck’s,” said the voice. “Whatever that is.”

“Let’s see what this coffee looks like,” said Jack. He opened his eyes. “What do you think of it?”

“It’s bitter without sugar,” said Melanie.

“Okay,” said Jack. “That’s the way I like it. Let’s get this coffee and see if it’s

everything you claim.”

“I’m just telling you what Lady Josie said,” said Melanie.

“My coffee better be as black and bitter as a murderer’s heart, or heads will roll,” declared Jack. “Roll, I say.”

“Okay,” said Melanie. “Come on. I want to eat before we have to see this teacher.”

“I’m sure it will be great,” said Jack. He put his phone away. He had an idea on how to use it. All he needed was a couple of antennae.

He wondered if Mister Fantastic could give him some kind of blueprint to his scheme.