Josie glanced at the pad created by Jack as she reached for her watch. She frowned

at the red dots vanishing from the screen. What was he doing down there? She had

her own part to play. It was time to do that.

The ring he created glowed as segments lit up. One person appeared. She looked

around, probably wondering what had happened.

“You’re getting rescued,” said Josie, wearing her Zatanna persona. “Do you have

somewhere to go?”

“I’m from Gold Valley,” said the woman.

“All right,” said Josie. She hooked up a bird to the woman and sent it off. “I want you

to wait over there by the young lady with the sword. I don’t know how long this will

take but I’m sending you home as fast as I can.”

“Thank you,” said the woman. “Getting me away from those fiends was good

enough.”

The next few minutes were a variation of that interaction. A woman clothed in rags

with various marks of her ill treatment appeared. Josie would ask them if they had

some place to go. She would attach them to a bird if they did, and send them to wait

with Emily. If they didn’t, she told them to wait with Budd, and she would send them

to a shelter that would help them get back on their feet.

As each woman appeared, a section of light would disappear from the ring.

“Some of them are fleeing this way,” she heard Fass say. “Ready bows.”

Josie looked around. The closest ones that were riding the birds had already left. She

still had a remainder waiting on her to ship them to Jane’s, and some as far away as

Hawk Ridge waiting on the birds to reach their destination.

The ring was regular iron after what she had done. So all she had to do was defend

her group from anyone trying to come through the woods from Jack’s devastating

attack. She didn’t know what he had done, but she had no doubt it had been horrible.

“Budd, Emily,” said Josie. “It will be a few minutes maybe for the birds to yank

everyone who had some place to go out of here, but the group I plan to send to Jane

doesn’t have anything yet. I’m going to help the others while you look after them.

Can do?”

“We can guard them from flankers,” said Budd. He looked at his sister. She nodded.

“Jack’s magic eyeball should help make that easier.”

“Ladies,” said Josie. She looked at the bedraggled mob. A cold fury welled up inside.

“Budd and Emily are going to protect you. Listen to them, and things will be all right.

As soon as I am done, I will send the ones without homes to Jane to be helped. All

right?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. She walked to the front of the crowd as Fass and the

rest of his group fired their arrows at the group desperately trying to flee from the

specter in their midst.

She reverted to normal as she took in the situation.

“What did you do, Jack?,” she asked as she looked at the devastation down below the

small hill they commanded.

“Killed most of them, thank the gods,” said Fass. He held his sword at the ready as

he watched his men field arrows at their charging enemy.

“Anyone else trying to take this hill from us?,” asked Josie.

“No,” said Fass. “Unless the rest circle around outside of the range of this device,

these few are all we have to worry about at the moment.”

“I still have some time,” said Josie. “I’m going down to deal with this. Budd and

Emily are watching out for the women who haven’t been transported yet. When I get

back, I will finish sending them home.”

“All right,” said Fass. “We will hold our position.”

“Thanks for the help, Eric,” said Josie. She reached for her watch. She called on

Bulletgirl. “We couldn’t have saved these women without you.”

She strode down the hill. She pointed at anyone she could see. Slugs leaped from her

body with the flat crack of the sound barrier breaking. She heard the ding of her quest

going down with every kill. If she missed, she kept shooting with her power until she

got the next ding and could move on.

Her effort broke the middle of the charge as her bullets sliced across the wooded area.

She supposed she was helping any of the wildlife that needed places to live and could

live in the holes she was punching in the trees with her misses.

She paused when she reached the end of the treeline. She frowned at the clearing that

used to house a group of human traffickers. Jack had cleared it as easily as he had

cleared the Duke’s house for the quinjet.

She looked around. Anyone who had survived the assault was running. What would

they tell their comrades? A demon had shown up and destroyed everything was

something most wouldn’t believe even here.

“Jack?,” she called. She reverted to normal in the face of relative safety. She needed

to power up the watch to finish her end of things.

“We’re here, Josie,” called back Jack. He waved his arm, the sleeve of his robe

revealing the skeleton beneath. “Aviras was a big help.”

“I did not set any of these people on fire,” said the dragon. He rested on Jack’s

shoulder.

“I think the ones that got set on fire are men you would have run into in the future,”

said Jack. “And obviously, they crossed you then. That’s why they died like this now.

We actually changed the future a little.”

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“I will hold on your explanation until I see something that explains what happened

better,” said Aviras. “They probably came after Mathilda, and thus the violent

response.”

“Favorite human?,” asked Jack.

“I like her a lot better than you,” said Aviras.

“Who doesn’t?,” said Jack. It was hard to tell, but Aviras thought he was grinning

under his skull mask.

Josie rubbed her face. She couldn’t decide which of the Abbot and Costello team in

front of her she should punch first. She finally turned her glare on the two and said

through clenched teeth, “Are you done?”

“I think so,” said Jack. He reverted to normal and held up the pad that appeared in his

normal hand. “We still have one guy close by.”

Josie turned and looked around. She didn’t see anyone moving around. All she saw

were dead bodies with different lethal wounds. She called Zatanna and threw out a

fire bird to locate their lone survivor.

The man jumped up and started running away from the trio. Josie flung another bird

that grabbed the man and brought him back to stand in front of them. He looked at

them with wide eyes, sweat running down his marked face.

“Do you want to live?,” asked Josie. Her altered face frowned at their captive. She

was willing to trade at the moment. They had killed a humongous number of cannon

fodder for this operation, and they still had to cross the border to finish the job.

She could make an exception for one man if he was smart enough to change his mind.

“I would like that,” said the trafficker.

“I want you to go south,” said Josie. “I want you to never harm anyone else for as

long as you live. I want you to realize that any moment I can find you and snuff you

out on a whim. And most of all when someone talks to you, I want you to tell them

your punishment, and what you did to deserve it.”

She imposed her will on his mind. Magic snapped together a lock on him. He started

talking about what he had done to the three of them. He clamped his hands over his

mouth to stop his babbling.

“I think you should go south,” said Josie.

The man ran off, hands still over his face. He looked at Josie with fear and anger in

his eyes. Mostly it was fear. He didn’t try to grab anything that might help him once

he reached the trees.

He was too afraid of a worse punishment.

Josie stared at him as he ran off. She made a face as she reverted to normal. She

looked at her partner and his blue dragon. He frowned back at her. The dragon tried

to hide behind his neck.

“I prefer the cancer,” whispered Aviras.

“As curses go, you just created the ancient mariner,” said Jack. “How do you feel

about that?”

“I wanted him to know how I felt,” said Josie. And she had felt a fury at this one lone

survivor.

“Angry and violent?,” said Jack.

“Yes,” said Josie. “I have to deal with the rest of these women. I will send Eric down

to raid the bodies if he wants after what you did. I think he is afraid of you.”

“When you give great power to someone with few limitations, things are bound to

happen,” said Jack. “Do you need a hug?”

“Why would I need a hug?,” asked Josie.

“Women stuff,” said Jack.

Josie frowned at her friend. He held out both arms. He didn’t have his smile on. She

blinked at him, as she got her temper back under her control.

“I’m good,” said Josie. She made a face at them. She turned and headed up the hill.

She kept her hands under her poncho so no one could see them clenched into fists.

She still had a job to do. After that, they had to cross the border and look around for

their hidden enemy. Then more sparks would fly.

She shouldn’t have left her pad with Budd, but as long as the Montrose had fled

around the hill, that shouldn’t be a problem. They had engaged the enemy, and things

had turned out better than what she had thought would happen.

She saw Fass directing his troops into getting their arrows back from where they had

shot up the panicked line of men before she had taken a hand in things. She waved

at him as she walked to the back of the group.

The group of women had shrank since she had left. She nodded. The birds had

delivered their anchors and the women with places to go had went there. She hoped

they were right about being able to go home.

She couldn’t do anything about that. She had to move the rest to Jane’s. Then they

could regroup and do the other raid.

“All right,” said Josie. She looked over the group in front of her. “My name is Josie

Fox. I don’t have the time to look after you personally. I am going to send you all

to my friend, Jane. The house is in Hawk Ridge. If you don’t want to stay there, let

Jane know and she will work out some way to send you where you want to go. Jane

will be able to call me if there is some other problem I have to address as you try to

rebuild. Is everything clear?”

“What happened to the other women that were here?,” asked one of the group. She

waved at the space next to Emily.

“They had places to go,” said Josie. “So I sent them back to where they said they

lived. If you don’t want to go to Hawk Ridge, I can send you to some other town right

now, but I won’t be able to help you after you touch down.”

“Can we go?,” said another woman. “I don’t want to stand out here.”

“Are there any objections?,” asked Josie.

Various forms of nos answered her question. She felt that some of the women would

need some kind of assistance. They had been on the road for a long time with

minimum care.

Josie took out her note paper and wrote a message for Jane. She sent it ahead of the

group. She sent out the birds one after the other.

“Whatever they tell you, I did not rip off anyone’s ear,” said Josie. “I would never

do anything like that unless I was really mad.”

The birds yanked them across the world in a scattering of popping bubbles.

“I’m glad that is over with,” said Budd.

“There was one lone dot,” said Emily. “Did you let him go?”

“Yes,” said Josie. She reverted back to her normal appearance.

“Why?,” asked Emily.

“I didn’t feel merciful or kind,” said Josie. She said the words in a flat tone. Emily

stared at her for seconds as she processed what was said.

Josie took a breath. She looked around. The world didn’t seem that much brighter.

“I think Fass will want you to help search the bodies now that you don’t have to herd

some scared women around,” said Josie. “I am heading back to the quinjet.”

“All right,” said Budd. “Be careful. Some of them might have flanked around us and

found your magic bird.”

Josie found her pad. She picked it up. The only dots on the surface were marked

friendly.

“I’ll be fine,” said Josie. “I have to think for a bit.”

She walked away, scanning the pad every few seconds. One shot and she would be

down for the count. She could feel the watch charging as she walked to where their

mobile base stood.

At least she knew what Jack had used at the party. That had been something as the

dots on the pad just vanished. He had done a number on the camp. It was a miracle

the one survivor she had cursed had survived what he was doing.

She supposed he didn’t feel that lucky now as he made his way south.

She worked her way up to the co-pilot’s seat. She could see Warner quitting if he had

a series of small actions that were violent and didn’t look as if they were changing

anything.

Was she and Jack changing anything? Maybe. She didn’t know.

Aviras settled on her lap. He curled himself into a loop, wings folded closed.

“What do you want?,” asked Josie.

“Jack said to sit with you since you were down,” said Aviras. “I don’t know what that

means but I agreed to do that while they are trying to figure out what they want

to do here.”

“Do you want to keep going with us?,” asked Josie. She reached down and stroked

his back. “We can’t protect you all the time. And we’re monsters of our own kind.”

“You saved those women,” said Aviras. “How do you feel about that?”

“I don’t know,” said Josie. “Does that outweigh all the hurt we inflicted?”

“I think you are doing what you have said you would do,” said Aviras. “You are

saving what you can and helping others to do the same.”

“Thank you,” said Josie.