Jack had Aviras on his shoulder as he strode toward the building with the steeples.

His scythe clunked along the grass as he glided along. He needed to kill as many

combatants as he could as the adventurers tried to reach the church without getting

involved.

They needed to cover for Josie and whatever she had found more than he needed the

help. His watch was enough for the moment unless he ran into someone with

something that stopped Death in his tracks.

He doubted it, but they were trying to make living weapons as far as he could tell.

There was no telling what they had to resist his interference.

“There is a small group spreading out to stop us ahead,” said Aviras. “I can see them

from here.”

“Do you think you can help Jo?,” said Jack. “I don’t want you hurt in the fighting

that’s about to start.”

“I think I would be more help to Fass,” said Aviras. “I would be glad to get him to the

temple.”

“All right,” said Jack. “That’s what we’ll do. We’ll meet up at the building next to the

temple in case we have to get by Josie. She might be tearing these bums a new one,

and we don’t want to step in front of that.”

“I’m glad we’re in agreement,” said the dragon. He took to the air, vanishing in the

treeline.

“I don’t see what he’s worried about,” said Jack to himself. “He’s a smaller target.”

He checked his watch as he headed for the spreading net of men. They had seen and

heard the ship, but they were still coming. That said they weren’t afraid of something

seen in the sky.

Would they be afraid of him?

He reached the edge of the line. Men dropped dead as he concentrated on them. Some

took cover to get away from his sight. Some fired bows at him, and he was glad he

had sent Aviras away.

The little guy was tough, but he didn’t want to stop in the middle of a firefight to

work on patching the dragon up if he was hit. He wanted to cut the crowd in two and

wipe most of their numbers down before they could regroup to think of some new

tactic.

And he wanted to make sure he got the brains of this operation so they didn’t have

to come back to fix things.

Jack reached out with his power and dropped some of the men in their tracks of old

age. He expected some of them to have wounds, but these might have lived to be

grandpas before he came along. He paused behind a tree as some of the soldiers

rushed forward with axes and swords in their hands. They had decided to join

someone shipping women to their site for whatever they were doing to them. They

weren’t getting a lot of mercy if they wanted to stand in his way.

He swept his gaze over the mass of troopers. They dropped one by one. He paused to

check for strays before moving toward the temple. He had to meet up with Fass and

keep things going.

There was no telling what Josie had found, or what she had done to anyone in her

way.

A loud scream echoed over the town. That sounded like something Josie would cause.

He looked for anyone not running toward the scream. Those people would know what

it meant and realize their work was over.

A scream like that wasn’t from someone like Josie. It was a sound something larger

than a human would make if they were mortally wounded.

The soldiers fell back to join their leader at the temple. Jack watched as red and gold

broke some of them when they ran towards the front doors. He smiled.

Josie was still on the job.

He dropped Death long enough to check his spotter. A lot of the combatants were

down at Josie’s position. Thunder rolled and he took a chance to peek at the cause.

Josie had turned herself into lightning with red light making up parts of her body.

He didn’t know what that was, but it looked like a flying brick. He was glad that she

finally had something to protect her other than a gunslinger. He decided to put on

Makkarri to get across the street to talk with his partner. Then they could get the

fighters together and finish their raid.

Someone with a ray gun started shooting at him as he changed. He decided to deal

with that before doing anything else. Five hundred punches against a red aura of light

was enough to send his victim staggering down the street, but he was still up and

holding a book in his hand to power his protection.

Jack should have turned to Majik to clear this out before he tried to meet with Josie.

He frowned as he considered his next move at the super speed he now possessed. The

necromancer was starting to turn around to blast at him with the heat beam power he

had. He had to knock down that protective aura and then the man himself.

Josie crashed against the guy with all of her new found might. He flew into the air

like a baseball heading for the fence. There was no telling if he would survive his

landing.

And Jack was okay with that if he was out of the fight while they tried to clean things

up and get out of town.

“What’s this?,” Jack asked. He waved his hand at the new body.

“Shazam,” said Josie. Lightning crashed and thunder rolled across a dark sky. “They

were doing things to the women that were here. I did some work, but they aren’t in

the best shape.”

“Let’s get everybody together and on the roof,” said Jack. “The quinjet is protected

from these guys. All we have to do is figure out our next move, and then do that.”

“They turned the building into a charger,” said Josie. She returned to normal. She

switched to Zatanna. “Let me send out some birds.”

Fire birds reached for Fass’s Fighters. When they hit the roof of the building, the

adventurers teleported into position. Some of them had been in the act of putting

down their enemies and had to stop their movements before they did something like

stabbing their comrades.

Josie pulled Jack to the roof with her. She looked around. Everyone seemed unhurt.

Aviras rode on Emily’s head. She didn’t seem to like it. Jack noted that she was the

tallest of the fighters, but said nothing.

Matilda was the smallest of the girls and he liked riding around on her.

“We exchanged blows, but nothing like what you were doing,” said Fass. “What is

wrong with these women?”

“The Shemmarians placed something in them and was trying to build something

downstairs out of blood and magic,” said Josie. She switched to Doctor Occult. “I

burned it up in its cradle, but these women still have something in them. I’m afraid

that if I move them, they will start the process we’re trying to prevent.”

“And we don’t want a bunch of necromancers bringing back the dead to be their

servants to attack the living,” said Jack. “What you got, Jo?”

“My scan says there are seeds inside these women,” said Josie. “I think if we take

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

them out, that’s the end of the problem other than making sure these women get taken

care of by Jane and back on their feet.”

“All right,” said Jack. “Is there any way for those mooks to get up here without us

knowing?”

“There are exits from the steeples,” said Josie. “I can seal them up as Zatanna and

switch back. Those book users can blast down walls. The first one I dealt with cut

through the barrier I put up to keep them out.”

“Do that,” said Jack. “I’ll call Strange and see if he can help fix this. We can’t take

them away if we think they will be monsters before we leave the building.”

“Is there anything we can do?,” asked Fass.

“Watch the edges in case they decide they can shoot at us from the other rooftop over

there,” said Jack. “We won’t be able to shoot back while we’re trying to fix this.”

“All right,” said Fass. “Some cover might be nice.”

Jack swept out a ring to create a wall around the roof operating theater. That should

be enough to cover the group while they worked.

He felt the wave of wish magic closing up the doors in the steeples to the roof. He

nodded. That should cause enough of a delay for them to do what they needed to do

and then head back to the quinjet.

He let Majik go, and dialed up Doctor Strange. He created the scanner screens he

needed to check each woman before he did anything. His face contorted at what he

saw. He needed a better solution that ripping the seed out. That would just kill the

women before he could fix anything.

Josie had probably seen the same thing when she used her own persona to scan for

problems.

He let the persona go to let his watch charge, and so he could think. This was going

to be a little tougher than knocking someone over the horizon.

“What do you think?,” asked Josie.

“I think we could kill all of these women by accident if we make a wrong move,” said

Jack. He wished he knew more about what the seeds were supposed to do. “Were they

like this when you found them?”

“They were being exsanguinated by some machine,” said Josie. “I unhooked them,

and sealed their wounds. Then I blew the tank up that was taking their blood. It

screamed when I did that.”

“The machine could have been replacing their blood with whatever the seeds need to

grow,” said Jack. “I don’t know enough to safely make a decision. What does Doctor

Occult tell you?”

“We have to get the seeds out if we want to get these women back where they

belong,” said Josie. “I don’t think we want to fool around and find out what will

happen if we don’t.”

“Extraction is going to be tough,” said Jack. He started grinning. “I just had a crazy

idea we can use.”

“How crazy?,” asked Josie. She looked around the rooftop. The adventurers were

keeping watch and listening to them at the same time. She supposed it was a good

thing they weren’t trying to keep anything secret.

“So crazy, it has to be Montgomery Scott certified,” said Jack. He grinned at her

expression. “I’m going to need a minute to get ready. As soon as I’m done, you can

send all these women to Jane to be looked after. Tell her that they’ll need beds and

liquid food to build up their strength until we get back home and can send them where

they actually belong.”

“Let me write her a letter,” said Josie. “Do you know what you are doing?”

“Maybe,” said Jack. “The problem is getting the hippos to dance instead of chewing

on their tutus.”

“I will give you a black eye to take home to Elaine,” warned Josie. “Do you

understand the threat?”

“I would be more scared if you were taller,” said Jack. He lifted his hand how high

he meant.

“Don’t test my resolve,” said Josie. She didn’t quite glare, but her eyes gleamed in the

sunlight like a giant cat’s.

“Moving along,” said Jack. He waved at Fass to approach. “I need two guys to help

me out here. I would do it with Gravity, but I am going to need to do some of the

lifting. Josie is going to need to check each woman before we send them back to

Hawk Ridge.”

“Emily, Thad,” said Fass. “You’re up. What is the plan?”

“We’re going to take the seeds out of the women with some Stargate stuff out of my

butt,” said Jack. “Then we’re going to check them out, and then send them to Jane.

Once we’re clear, we ask Elaine to give us a vector. If we have the job done, we go

home. If we don’t, we have to look around and finish the job before something

happens and we wind up fighting a bunch of dead people.”

“I think I like explanations without so many ifs,” said Fass.

“It’s all I got right now,” said Jack. “The other options are throwing these women off

the roof and hoping for the best, or just ripping the seeds out without knowing what

happens if they activate while we’re working.”

“Let’s see what kind of Stargate stuff you can pull out of your butt,” said Fass. He

made a face at the sentence.

“All right,” said Jack. “We need a place to put the women after we’re done so they

can be checked out before we get them out of here.”

“Here, Jack,” said Emily. She stood next to the wall. She bent down and tried to make

a mark in the stone. Aviras shot a small flame out and scored the top of the roof.

“So we need a place to put up the entrance ring,” said Jack. He lined himself up with

the spot that Emily and Aviras had picked out. “So I’m going to put these rings down.

All the women get moved over to my side of the roof. When they appear on that side,

they have to be moved out of the ring and checked out. Once we have them processed

and checked out, Josie can work her magic.”

“Let me send a letter to Jane and Hilda,” said Josie. “They will love this.”

“The Hole in the Wall won’t have the room for them,” said Jack. “The kids might be

able to act as nurses, but Jane knows how to deal with things almost as well as Elaine.

And her Amazons are almost a small army in their own right.”

“Don’t worry,” said Josie. “They’ll know that this is important.”

She wrote out the situation and sent it with Zatanna. They received a reply a few

minutes later. Jane said they had a place marked to make transport to guest quarters

reasonable.

“That part is ready to go,” said Josie, turning the persona loose for later.

“There might be a small danger when I take the seeds out,” said Jack. “Whatever you

do, don’t touch them. We don’t know how they will act, and they might try to get into

the nearest body and eat the victim up from the inside before we can do anything to

stop it.”

“That’s a good warning,” said Fass. He indicated his people who weren’t helping

should move out of the way.

“Also while we’re doing this, we won’t be able to keep the Shemmarians from trying

to break through the walls Josie put up,” said Jack.

“Lou?,” asked Fass. He turned slightly to look at the ranger.

“They are regrouping on the other side of that barracks we saw on our way in,” said

Lou. “They are between us and the flying machine, but I think the dragon can punch

a hole for us if we need it.”

Aviras lifted his head in pride.

“Finally someone appreciates my value,” said the tiny dragon.

“Don’t get a big head now,” said Jack. “All right, let’s get started.”

Jack took on his Majik form and created three rings in the roof. Two were the size of

people, one the size of a small dog. He waved for Emily and her brother to start

moving the sleeping women into the ring next to him. They vanished and reappeared

in the other person-sized ring. Small needles appeared in the smaller ring.

Josie went over each arriving woman with her Doctor Occult medical scan. Two more

of the Fighters moved the women out of the rings so they could do the job in a hurry

instead of waiting for Budd and Emily.

“We got all of them,” reported Josie. She looked at the seeds with her scan. “Those

are nastier than I thought.”

“I got it,” said Jack. He directed his attention at the small ring. The seeds vanished

in a sparkle of light. “Now we have to get everyone out of here and look at what we

have to do for our next step.”

“What did you do?,” asked Fass.

“I reduced the seeds to their components so they could never be used to hurt anyone,”

said Jack.

“You can do that with a person?,” asked Fass.

“Remember how we were talking about moving people across long distances without

wagons,” said Jack. “That’s part of the operations.”

“I’m glad that we agreed that we wouldn’t spread the secret around,” said Fass. “What

you just did is more dangerous than moving people.”

“You couldn’t do anything with what I have here,” said Jack. “You would need a ray

to direct fire like a phaser.”

“You are not making things better,” said Fass.

“I suppose you’re right,” said Jack.

“It’s going to take me a couple of minutes to move all of these women out of here,”

said Josie. “Do we hit the barracks on the way out to show we can?”

“I don’t like we didn’t get a ding,” said Jack. “The Lich Queen still has to be a threat

somehow.”

“So we move these women to Hawk Ridge,” said Josie. “If the circle moves, then we

know the women, or one of them, are the threat. If it doesn’t, then there could be

other factories just like this one.”

“We should set fire to the barracks to give us a distraction for when we move back

to the flying machine,” said Eric.

“We need to check out the rest of the town to make sure our target isn’t here,” said

Jack. “Then we need to clear out and let the rest get back to their lives without

monsters dropping and setting things on fire with lightning.”

“Shazam was the best for the job,” said Josie. She stood as Zatanna and hooked fire

birds to the victims. They flew off to their destination. “I would like to know who

came up with this and talk to them. This operation has been going on forever.

Someone must know what the next move is once they had a Queen ready to start

animating skeletons.”

“Some kind of war against the King’s Army,” said Jack. He let Majik go so he could

recharge. “How much could a normal force take when faced with dead people with

weapons?”

“Most normal armies would break against such a foe until there was a way found to

stop any rampage of corpses,” said Fass. “Even adventurers would think twice about

protecting a place from such a force.”

“So we need to make sure such a weapon can’t be put on the field,” said Jack.