Josie sat a moment and thought about her recent decisions. There was two things it

fell on her to do until she heard from Jack. She wanted to call him, but felt he would

call her if he had news.

The first thing she had to do was talk to Darry Harp, and arrange for him to talk to

Jane about training the Corle Posse. They definitely needed to know how to stab

people now after what she had done.

The second thing was tracking down Gall’s wife and telling her he would be away for

a while. She didn’t relish that at all.

It would be like telling Jack’s Mom he wasn’t coming home any more.

She decided to do the unpleasant duty first. She had promised Gall to offer the

support. It hadn’t lifted to quest status, but she might as well keep her word. Then she

could talk to Harp and Jack.

The numbers on her quest against the Montrose had plunged down in four spikes.

Two of them had to be when she hit the tax collectors, one had to be Jack hitting the

Exchange building. Jack must have hit somewhere else to drive the number down that

far, that fast.

He had probably hit personnel working for the Exchange. She could wait to see what

he had done in the morning. If it was important enough, he would call and tell her

what he had done.

Josie hoped she had done the right thing sending the surviving guards to the elves.

Lorelei would do something to put them to work for her duchy.

She should have asked Gall where he lived to make her job easier.

She decided the best thing was fly back to the Exchange building and use that as her

center of search. Once she found the wife, she could do the same for Harp. Then all

she needed to do was fly over and talk with them.

She definitely couldn’t tell the wife her husband had been asked to police the most

monster ridden part of Alfheim. She couldn’t see that going over well.

She checked her watch. It had slowly recharged as she had stood at her makeshift jail

and thought about things. It was time to get back to work.

She hated breaking bad news. She thought about the maxim Mel agreed with. It was

better to get it over with and do it as fast as possible.

That boy was still a lazy kid detective.

Josie called on Northwind and blasted over the wall. She headed for the Exchange

building and landed on the roof. She waited for the watch to recharge before she went

ahead with her search.

She used Zatanna and her search birds to range out from the building over the city.

She nodded when they came to a stop and landed on small houses in different

directions from the center of the city. She let go of the persona and let the watch

recharge.

When she was ready, she changed back into Northwind and jumped off the Exchange

roof. She soared over the city to where the Galls lived. She landed outside of the door

and let the persona go. She straightened her poncho and firmed up her resolve before

she knocked on the door.

She knocked again when no one answered the first knock.

A disheveled woman appeared in the doorway. She glared at Josie. She pulled her

robe around her as she looked up and down the street.

“Mrs. Gall?,” asked Josie. She didn’t want to break bad news to the wrong woman.

“What do you want?,” asked Mrs. Gall. “Is this about our rent? Quiton is working on

the payment for you.”

“I came by to tell you your husband was sent outside the city with the rest of his

squad,” said Josie. “He was called away suddenly and this was the only way he could

tell you.”

“What do you mean sent outside the city?,” said Mrs. Gall. “He’s been paying extra

not to have to do anything like that.”

“Apparently they were seconded to another post,” said Josie. “He said to send you to

Jane’s House for help with things until he gets back.”

“Jane’s House?,” said Mrs. Gall. “What’s that?”

“It’s a small charity helping people with problems,” said Josie. “Get your bills

together and ask Jane for help and she will get things in order for you until your

husband comes home.”

“When will that be?,” said Mrs. Gall.

“When he is released from his duty,” Josie said. “He has to make his new commander

happy before he can be sent home.”

“I don’t like this at all,” said Mrs. Gall. “What about his old commander?”

“Which one?,” asked Josie.

“Aile,” said the housewife.

“Dead as a doornail as far as I know,” said Josie. “I don’t even know where the body

wound up.”

“This is about the sudden bill, isn’t it?,” said Mrs. Gall. “Quiton said there wasn’t

something right about the way it had been called up, and then Aile and his second

showing up to drag Quiton with them.”

“I imagine the second is dead too,” said Josie. “Your husband and part of his squad

are fine. They will be returned to the city and they will be sent away somewhere else.

It’s just how things are right now. If anything changes, I will come by and let you

know.”

“Aile screwed something up, didn’t he?,” asked Mrs. Gall. “He screwed up and

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

dragged Quiton in with him.”

“Yes,” said Josie. “He made a mistake. I don’t want you to worry. Your husband will

be home soon, and Jane will help you if you go by and talk to her.”

“All right,” said Mrs. Gall. A baby started crying behind her. “I have to go.”

“Good night,” said Josie. She walked away from the house, dialing up the Northwind

so she could change as soon as she was out of sight.

She pushed the button and lifted off. She gained the top of the roofs and looked

around. She saw the other bird in the distance. She drifted across the city and landed

gently at her destination.

She knocked on the door. She counted silently as she waited for someone to come to

the door. It opened to reveal an older woman in neat dress and long gray braid.

“What can I do for you?,” asked the lady. One hand remained behind her body.

Maybe it had a weapon ready to go.

“Is Sir Harp here?,” asked Josie. “I would like to talk to him for a minute.”

“Madam Fox?,” said Harp from inside the house. He approached the door. “Is

something wrong?”

“Jane would like to hire you to train her Amazons to use swords,” said Josie. “The

Exchange sent some guards down to raid the grounds. I had to intervene, but the

upshot is the women want to be able to fight on equal grounds with the Guards.”

“What is the commission?,” asked Harp. He smoothed back his hair with his one

hand.

“I have no idea at this point,” said Josie. “I’m financing things, but Jane is handling

the money. I don’t know how much you will have to haggle with her if you want the

job.”

“Will she want to come to the Adventurers’ Hall?,” said Harp.

“I have no idea,” said Josie. “I just came by with the offer. I have to catch up with

Jack. I think most of this could be worked out with Jane if you want to do that.”

“Is this dangerous?,” asked Mrs. Harp.

“Maybe,” said Josie. “I don’t know. A lot depends on what Jack did. The Guard might

be more worried about that than what happened at Jane’s.”

“I think it’s time you told us something other than you are a witch,” said Harp. “I

think we need some tea. And we’ll discuss this a bit.”

Mrs. Harp placed her club in a basket next to the door. They stepped out of the way

and allowed Josie to follow them to the kitchen. Mrs. Harp put a kettle on to boil

while her husband put three cups on the table. He sorted out marked packets of tea.

He placed three of the same kind on the table and put the rest back in their jar.

“What do you want to know?,” asked Josie. She took a seat at a point in a triangle

with the Harps taking the other two points at the round table.

“The word around the hall is that you are a witch, and you have done things since you

first came by with your sisters,” said Harp. “How much of that is true?”

“I am not a witch,” said Josie. “I just have a force multiplier that I can use to do

things. It was given to me to sort things out, but I might have done something stupid

and overstepped what I was ready to handle.”

“Overstepped how?,” asked Mrs. Harp. Josie could see she had the same type moves

as her husband. The dialer wouldn’t be surprised if she could handle a sword just as

good as her husband.

“I declared a war on an army of human traffickers in a fit of anger,” said Josie. “And

since I have started, we have linked them to the nobility and authority here in the city,

as well as the Exchange that secures valuables and handles monies.”

“Jack is aware of this?,” said Harp.

“Yes, and I am afraid that he did something rash,” said Josie. “The counter for the

quest showed a large number of them dying.”

“Is this Jane, or your sisters involved?,” asked Harp.

“I rescued the girls, and Jack came home with Jane’s gang,” said Josie. “Donald Corle

was taking them up north to wake up the Dark Rider. I assumed he had planned to

sacrifice them to get what he wanted.”

“You’re involved with Warner,” stated Mrs. Harp.

Josie couldn’t hide her reaction. She looked at the two of them, and judged their ages

by Oliver Warner’s.

“We have had dealings with Warner in the past,” said Harp. “You could say he was

the reason why we got married. How is he?”

“Old, and running his shop,” said Josie. “You’ve known about the Society and its

business all this time?”

“Not a Society, but Warner always appeared to track down some threat and then

vanish,” said Harp. “He dealt with a number of things over the years, and we had a

hand in some of it too.”

“It’s how Darry lost his arm and gained a knighthood,” said Mrs. Harp.

“If I had known, I would have said something sooner than this,” said Josie. “I didn’t

think about anyone knowing Mr. Warner here. He never said anything about this, and

we kind of found out a lot from things said by his former bosses.”

“This Society?,” said Mrs. Harp.

“That’s what we call them,” said Josie. “Jack is the only one to talk to them.”

“Have you done anything about the original problem that brought you to Hawk

Ridge?,” asked Harp.

“We had four quests originally, and we handled them,” said Josie. “The rest is what

we picked up while doing the original quests.”

The kettle whistled. Mrs. Harp pulled it off the hook and poured the water for them.

The trio opened the packets of tea and dumped them in the water to steep.

“How big is this problem?,” asked Mrs. Harp. “Is Jane involved?”

“She is only involved as a bystander,” said Josie. “I don’t know if anyone other than

Guin knows that she is someone saved by Jack from the Montrose. We gave her

group Corle’s house since he wasn’t going to need it anymore. That might have been

one of the reasons the Montrose tried to levy a tax bill against her and her group.”

“This type of corruption was not something Warner usually dealt with when he

appeared,” said Harp. “He usually had bigger problems to handle.”

“Jack and I think the Society doesn’t really want their people to live here,” said Josie.

“The problem is I took this quest and I don’t know if I will be pulled away before I

can get things done.”

“How do you want our help?,” said Harp.

“I just need you to look at Jane, and see what you can do,” said Josie. “And I need the

Ducklings to come up to snuff. I think we’re going to wait for a few days to see what

the fallout is.”

“Do you think Jack will be able to build an arm for Darry?,” asked Mrs. Harp.

“If he can’t, no one can,” said Josie. “I think he got a quest for it, so I know he will

work on it. I don’t know how good it will be so I don’t want to get your hopes up.”

“I will try not to,” said Harp. “You haven’t done a lot of real fighting, have you?”

“I have done some fighting,” said Josie. “But this is murder. I have killed more than

a few of these people and some of them deserved it more than others.”

“You said the city tried to collect taxes on Jane’s people at this property,” said Mrs.

Harp. “Was it after sunset?”

“It was early night,” said Josie.

“Collections are done in the day time at a center of works,” said Mrs. Harp. “They

rarely come to someone’s house and demand money.”

“And they rarely make arrests,” said Harp.

“So fighting them off was the right move,” said Josie.

“It will still make you a target for anyone in the government who wants to assert that

you should have bowed to the authority no matter how wrong it was,” said Harp.

“All I can say is they committed suicide when they saw me coming,” said Josie. “I

have to get back to the Hole in the Wall. I left Elaine and the kids there after I broke

out. I need to go home and make sure they are okay.”

“I will talk to this Jane and see if she will take some instruction from me,” said Harp.

“I will do it in the morning.”

“I’ll have the girls ready to go,” said Josie. “Hopefully there will be some quiet days

while the city adjusts to whatever holes were suddenly opened in the infrastructure.

I hadn’t really thought Jack would bomb the place out.”

“It won’t be the first time something like this has happened,” said Harp. “Warner did

some things he should have thought more about before he did them.”

“I am not surprised,” said Josie. “I will see you in the morning.”

Josie walked to the front door and let herself out. She glanced over her shoulder at the

older couple. She walked into the darkness.