Josie watched the young lovers break away and head off where they could have their

own space. She sat in her chair, hoping she was doing the right thing. She should

have used the book of knowledge to take everything she wanted from Todd Fain to

make sure his story was true.

“You’re gonna have to move your lazy bones to the lazy bones couch,” said Jack. “I

have to take the ring apart and move the table back inside where it belongs.”

“I have done a lot of work today,” said Josie. “Killed a lot of people. I can be a little

relaxed right now if you don’t mind.”

“You’re gonna have to be relaxed somewhere else so I can shut everything down so

the watches recharge like normal,” said Jack. “These spells interfere with the recharge

function on our Omnis.”

“All right,” said Josie. She watched the street. Some of the neighbors waved at her.

She waved back. She wondered why they were waving. She couldn’t remember ever

talking to them.

Josie stood and stepped out of the ring. She went to the wall of their place and

watched as Jack transformed just long enough to pull the ring surrounding the table

up from its place in the ground. He raised it high enough so it wouldn’t touch the

table before he shrank it down. He walked inside it to store it.

“What do you think the Shemmarians gain from buying women from here to take

back across the border?,” she asked.

“What do mail order brides get?,” asked Jack.

“I don’t see the connection,” said Josie.

“Foreign women ask for Americans to marry them,” said Jack. “Once they have their

green card, they leave the husband.”

“Except the women can leave in this case,” said Josie.

“Same principal,” said Jack. “Someone over there wants more women for some

reason. Let’s say he wants to be like Genghis Khan and spread his seed everywhere.

He doesn’t have enough homegrown women. He needs women from somewhere else.

He turns to an organization that sells women. Both sides know that they can’t be

caught so they have to keep things as secret as they can. Boom, here you are kicking

over the chemistry shelf.”

“All right,” said Josie. “I like that as a theory. The nobles must be getting paid a ton

of loot to risk the King dropping the axe.”

“They also don’t just sell women,” said Jack. “They have diversified into other things.

The women trade is just something they do on top of everything else.”

“A shadow government opposed to the real government could be a thing,” said Josie.

“And again it was bad luck they grabbed you on our first day here,” said Jack. “And

while the Society was giving me flack, I don’t think they care other than this is

something we are doing when we could be doing their business faster.”

Jack moved the table into the dining room with a flick of his hand. He stepped inside

and made sure it was lined up the way it should be.

“So Rick said there was trouble in Lorelei’s duchy?,” asked Josie. “I should go over

and see what they need. How bad could a dragon be?”

“I already told him that I was going to look at it,” said Jack. “And I will. I know some

things about dragons.”

“You know some things,” said Josie. Her tone was unconvinced.

“Yes,” said Jack. “I know some things. The problem is always going to be can we

negotiate, or do we fight. I can do either, but hopefully I can just swoop in, bargain

with big crusty, and swoop out with no one being hurt by the massive collateral

damage that we could inflict in a major fight.”

“I don’t think it is going to want to be called big crusty,” said Josie.

“Use your big brain to find the Lich Queen, and Sawtooth,” said Jack. “I know you

can do it. I am going to make sure the icebox won’t explode, and then I am going to

sit and think for a bit.”

“If you talk to the Society, see if you can find out why the Shemmarians need the

women,” said Josie. “Their answer might help us stop the slave trade across the

border.”

“I’ll ask,” said Jack. “I don’t think they’ll lie about it, but they might not give me the

answer we need to the problem. They seem big on us figuring out how to solve things

on our own.”

Josie made a shrug. She had dealt with plenty of people like that. She found that

straight answers prevented more problems. Telling someone to figure it out

themselves was just passing the buck in her opinion.

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“I think I am going to move into Elaine’s room, or maybe shift things around,” said

Jack. “I don’t know what I am going to do right now.”

“We all noticed the Deadpool shirt you gave her,” said Josie. She smiled as Jack

waved at her. “The kids asked me for their own.”

“He’s okay for a Rob Liefeld creation,” said Jack. “Probably better than Wolverine.”

“Are you and Elaine planning to get a separate place of your own?,” asked Josie. She

had been around Jack off and on for years. She could see the gears moving in his head

as he considered what the next step should be.

“Elaine and I will have to talk about it,” said Jack. “It’s obvious that you will set the

girls on fire if we aren’t here.”

“You set one guy on fire, and it follows you around until you die,” said Josie. “I

didn’t give them to the elves, just because I have dealt with Lorelei and Bob for a

while.”

“Don’t say that like it’s a cookie earning thing,” said Jack. “The next thing will be

staying out of jail.”

“I’m going up to the office and sit in my chair and think,” said Josie. “The dinner was

fine.”

“It was better than that,” said Jack. “Would you like some hot chocolate?”

“No,” said Josie. “I’ll go over and look at this dragon with you.”

“One of us has to go,” said Jack. “The other should work on the other quests. I think

your model building is better for that than what I do.”

“We’ll see,” said Josie. “Don’t fall asleep down here.”

“Sleeping is the last thing I intend to do,” said Jack. “Elaine is great for me.”

“I don’t think I need to know anything about that,” said Josie. “I am going to my chair

and I am going to think really hard.”

“Okay,” said Jack. “I am going over to the duchy and look around the land of the

elves for a bit. Maybe I can deal with this dragon, maybe I can’t.”

“You better call me if you need help,” said Josie. “I’m not going to be happy if you

get killed.”

“I’ll think about it,” said Jack. “See if you can make a model of the country. No, do

the continent. That way we can show these screwheads what airdropping a nuke looks

like.”

“We are not dropping a nuke anywhere,” said Josie. “That is way too much overkill.”

“There is no such thing,” said Jack. He dialed up his main magic user and stepped

across the veil to the land of the elves with a wave of his abstract hand.

Josie went up to the office. She looked at the model of the city as she sat down in the

chair. The model of Cairn was still in the quinjet. She probably wouldn’t have another

use for it, but maybe she could adapt it to a second map if she wanted to redesign the

thing.

She studied the model and wondered how many people were being hurt inside the

walls with no one to help them.

She couldn’t help everyone, but she could do things if she wanted. She had that

ability with Zatanna and her scry birds. Did she want to make things so easy for

people they resented her when she couldn’t help them at all?

What would Captain Marvel do?

She decided that she needed to keep her mission narrow. She could do things, and

help people, solve crimes, set people on fire. She could do those things, but she

needed to concentrate on finding the objects of her quests and dealing with any

Montrose elements in the city.

The more she took on, the more she would lose when she failed. No one batted a

hundred all the time. And she wanted to be ready to help her new family out if they

needed her. She couldn’t do that if she was trying to help the whole city at the same

time. The day doing quests for the Adventurers had shown her that much now that she

sat in her chair and considered the problem.

She changed into Zatanna and fiddled with the model so it would change like a

Google Map. The more zoomed in it was, the more detail would be rendered. She

smiled at the result. Pulling the view back added in the continent in sparse detail.

“Show me the remaining Montrose members,” said Josie. Red sparks lit up all over

the continent from Hawk Ridge to the oceans surrounding the coastlines.

She pulled back on the map and saw more sparks on the oceans. Did the Montrose

reach other continents? Would she have to chase them overseas when she was done

with this side of the planet?

She dialed back down to Hawk Ridge. There was a rough circle around the city. She

might be able to swoop down and set a bunch of them on fire before they knew what

happened to them.

How many had women they were getting ready to move out of the city to somewhere

else to force them to do things they wouldn’t have agreed to do?

She asked for Montrose victims who needed her help in the city. She saw a spot on

the other side of the city from the Hole in the Wall. It looked like another major

building operation. She marked the place with a bird. She could look it over before

the girls came back and talked to her about Beatrice’s beau.

Josie wrote a note for the girls and left it on the dining room table so they wouldn’t

worry. She locked the place up and turned into a hawk to fly across town. She glided

to a landing next to her red scry bird sitting on a roof of a cube a street over from the

West Gate.

She thought about what she wanted to do. She wanted them to open the door for her

without them knowing it was her. She had a few people on her watch that could get

her in. She decided on the Mist. He was an old Starman foe that had been brought

back to modern times through the League/Society team-ups, and then Robinson’s

Starman. That should be enough to get her inside the building and let her have a

lookaround at the security before she started doing things.

She could probably get everyone out with Zatanna and her new trick of teleporting

with her birds. Then she could set the rest on fire.

Then she could head home and think about if her model could find the targets of her

quests without any problems.

She still needed to get inside to mark the women for her teleportation. She considered

some of the things that might go wrong. Most of them could be countered if she acted

fast enough.

She decided she would feel better if she had people to help her, but everyone else was

taking care of their own businesses. She would have to do the best she could and hope

that she didn’t get killed in the attempt.

She waited on the roof for her watch to charge up to full power. She nodded when it

dinged at her. She could just turn into Zatanna and walk through the walls, but the

Mist could get in and be invisible for however long the watch’s charge lasted.

Then she could change into someone more capable of using deadly force.

Bulletgirl would do what she needed as long as Josie didn’t have to punch through

someone to get things done.

Josie crept under the door and flowed around in her foggy body, taking in the scene.

She decided that she needed cover to change into her deadlier persona. Then she had

to go to work.