Jack carefully moved everything off the desk. He sat on the top, then reclined until he was laying down. He closed his eyes.

“That takes a lot out of you,” he said. “I wonder how many people are going to start running.”

“If they look like this guy, probably all of them,” said Josie. She changed back as her watch dinged.

“What do you mean?” Jack sat up. He looked at their captive who seemed to be staring at his hands. He reclined again. “That is something that won’t come out.”

“You tattooed hundreds of names on what I can see,” said Josie. “Did you do that to his whole body?”

“I don’t know,” said Jack. “I’m really tired right now. I’d like to get a nap, and then raid a fridge somewhere. Then I have to go back up to Accordly and figure out what’s wrong with the place.”

“I think I am going to talk to the girls and figure out what they want to do,” said Josie. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Take the freak with you,” said Jack. “I won’t be able to guard him, and I don’t want to deal with him trying to get loose.”

“Come along, Snidely,” said Josie. “Maybe the victims downstairs will want to know what happened.”

She called on the Vampire again. She lifted the chair casually and left the room. She whispered in his ear about how she was going to enjoy the next few minutes.

Jack napped quietly on the desk. Using the Angel had put some oomph in his hex, but it had also wore him out. The watches probably took their energy from them somehow.

He found himself in a room with a lot of chairs. The chairs faced him in a semicircle. He looked around for his own chair, but didn’t see one. He supposed he was supposed to stand through whatever his dream had in mind.

Twelve people walked into the room and took their seats. They looked at him with steely eyes and grim expressions. He waited. Saying something at this moment could get him into more trouble than what he wanted.

“Jacob Ezekial Lee,” said the centermost sitter. “We were wondering why you

haven’t fulfilled your quests.”

“I just found Accordly today,” said Jack. “I’m going back up there tomorrow to try to figure out what’s wrong. Right now, I have no shot with the information I have.”

“And why is that?,” said one of the men. He sat on the end of the row, a staff leaning against his chair.

“All I have is a name of a place, some gossip that there are flying lights at night up there, and that’s it,” said Jack. “The town looks ordinary from what I could see when I looked it over.”

“What about your other two quests?,” asked one of the women. She had brought an owl into the room with her. It perched on her arm and glared at Jack.

“I know even less about them than I do Accordly,” said Jack. “I don’t even know where to get started.”

“But you took the time to curse a fraction of the population,” said another woman. “Why is that?”

“They got in my way and became a threat to my operation,” said Jack. “Such as the operation is.”

“I think my colleagues would like to know what you plan to do next,” said another man in the middle. He held a hat with wings on the sides. Maybe it was made out of wings. Jack couldn’t be sure of the detail.

“I plan to recover from using the watch,” said Jack. “Then I’ll probably need to take care of myself. Then I’m going back up to Accordly and see if I can narrow things down to something I can do something about. Then I’ll probably do that something to take Accordly off the quest list. Then I am going to look for the princess, or the Dark Rider. That’s the best I can say right now.”

“You don’t have a lot of time, Jacob,” said the centermost sitter. “You have to move forward as rapidly as possible.”

“I do have a question,” said Jack. “Why did you pick us? Why did you send the watches to Josie? You obviously counted on her giving the watches to other people.”

“That’s more than one question,” said the woman next to the centermost sitter. She was probably his second from the way she looked at Jack. “But we had hoped that Oliver Warner would take up the fight again, but he didn’t.”

“Old Man Warner is old,” said Jack. “There’s no way he would get involved in this.”

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“He would have when he was younger,” said the woman. She smiled slightly. “He was a hero through and through.”

“Okay,” said Jack. “I’m not going to dispute that.”

“Everyone has secrets,” said the centermost sitter. He stood. Jack realized how much taller he was when he did that. “We’re counting on the two of you to get the job done.”

“Can you give me something to help out?,” said Jack.

“The princess is in the north,” said the man with the hat. “That’s where you will have to hunt for her if you want to find her.”

“The Dark Rider has not been called yet, but his crypt is also in the north,” said the woman with the owl. “In any case, your actions might have caused more operational interference than what you thought when you set out to quell it.”

“It’ll be fine,” said Jack. “Josie and I will fix things for you.”

“You are very confident for someone who might be dead in the next few days,” said the second in command.

“The Army teaches it to you,” said Jack. “Some people like it better than others.”

“We’ll be checking in with you again,” said the centermost stander. He walked to a door that suddenly appeared in the room. His staff followed in some sort of staggered hierarchy.

“The princess and the Rider are both in the north,” said Jack. “It’s not like an

indicator with a map, but it’s something.”

He walked to the door and let himself out, watching scenes from old comic books come to life around him. He made his way deeper into his dream landscape to rest.

Soon enough, he would be back at work in the salt mines.

Jake woke with a slow opening of his eyes. He sat up slowly. Josie slept by the fireplace, taking up the visitor’s chair. He wondered what she had done with Mister Chuckles. He decided he could wait for her to tell him.

He thought about his dream and took a clean page from a ledger to make notes on with a piece of graphite. He needed to know things about the north, but he could figure that out when he was done with Accordly.

Maybe Josie could help him figure out what was going on by the lake.

He heard his stomach rumble and decided he needed something to eat. He wondered what time it was. Should he raid the Bell Tower for anything edible? Could he trust the food? It was obvious now that they had drugged Josie’s food so they could take her out of the room that much easier.

He didn’t want to wake Josie up. Maybe he should get out of the building and find a place to eat. Then he could come back fresh and ready for the day.

He scratched out a note for Josie. He made sure the door was locked. Then he headed up the fireplace as the Wasp. He became the Falcon at the top and glided over the city.

He wondered if any of the Montrose people were out. What would happen to them? He supposed they would avoid any legal action by saying they hadn’t done anything wrong and no one could prove anything different.

How many would be reduced to bones by the time Josie was done with them?

Should he have done something different? The Reed Appreciation Society acted like he had done something minor when they had bigger concerns. He wondered what was really going on, and why Mister Warner had given them the watches when he knew what was going on from the start.

On the other hand, he was taking care of things in a roundabout way. He should have kept a better eye on Josie, but there was nothing he could do for that now. He had to work on the future.

And the future meant raiding some place for food and drink. He also needed to get maps of the north to plan out a better expedition than what he was doing at the moment.

He decided to try the Bell Tower. Maybe he could find some food there that wasn’t poisoned, and he had promised to check on the woman in the upstairs room.

He landed on a nearby roof. The Bell Tower burned despite people forming a bucket brigade to put out the flames. He wondered what had happened there. He scanned the crowd and saw a familiar face watching the building burn.

He made his way to the ground and walked to where he stood beside the slave. She glanced at him and his strange clothes. Watching the fire seemed more important.

“What happened here?,” he asked.

“There was this voice out of the air and some of the customers changed,” said the ex-slave. “Some of the mercenaries drew weapons when they saw the tattoos on the customers. A fight broke out and a fire started from a knocked over lamp.”

“The guy I threw out the window?,” asked Jack.

“He didn’t live,” said the woman. “You freed me when you did whatever you did. I know it was you.”

“I used a counter on the drug sample I had,” said Jack. “What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” said the woman. “My life is in shambles. I don’t know where to start to get back on my feet.”

“I have to go north and I need information,” said Jack. “I’ll pay you to gather that information for me.”

“What will I do about a house in the meantime?,” said the woman. “Should I stay here in the street?”

“My friend and I took a place,” said Jack. “I guess you can stay with us if you want. You can write home if you want. Maybe try to find out what happened to your kin while you were gone.”

“Why would you do that?,” said the woman.

“Because we’re not going to be here when we get done with our jobs,” said Jack. “We can afford to give you some money until you have a job to take care of yourself.”

“So you want information?,” said the woman. “That’s all?”

“My drafters say we don’t have a lot of time to get things done,” said Jack. “So Josie and I will need all the help we can get until we leave.”

“So you have a place I can stay?,” asked the woman.

“Sure,” said Jack. “It’s a bit rough right now because it’s mostly a dungeon, but we’ll give you money to turn it into something else. Also I don’t know what Josie did with the girls that were locked away.”

“I don’t see why I should trust you,” said the woman.

“Because I threw a guy through a window for my friend,” said Jack. “I would do the same for someone I hired to work for me.”

“You would?,” said the woman.

“In a snap,” said Jack. “You can count on that.”

“Let’s see this dungeon,” said the woman.

“I’m looking for something to eat,” said Jack. “Anything open this time of night?”

“Only the gambling houses and some of the clubs,” said the woman. “Montrose will probably have people there to spot women.”

“The Market is closed, right?,” said Jack.

“The stalls will be closed too,” said the woman.

“Let’s go have a look,” said Jack. “What’s your name?”

“Elaine Numera,” said the woman.

“I’m Jack,” said Jack. He started off down the street.

“Why would you want to raid the Market?,” asked Elaine.

“Actually I’m looking for someone I know,” said Jack.