Pavel frowned when he saw Arlo Pike leading an armed group of girls in colorful armor toward him. He almost reached for his axe, but stopped himself.

“What’s going on, Arlo?,” asked Jason.

“Introductions are in order, I suppose,” said Pike. “Ladies, this is Jason, Pavel

Konstantin, and Errant.”

He pointed to each man as he named them.

“Gentlemen, this is the Magical Girl Guild of Bern,” said Pike.

“Really?,” asked Pavel. He crossed his arms as he looked the group over. “We still have work to do, Master Pike.”

“The girls killed the Alvas,” said Pike. He brought his fist down. “Beat him with a hammer.”

The girls looked at the one member of their group who carried a two handed hammer over her shoulder.

“He deserved every whack,” said the girl.

“What are we going to do with the rest of you?,” asked Pavel. “There’s still the

witches to deal with, and your conditions.”

“Take them home, Pavel,” said Errant. “I doubt we can fight all eight witches tonight. We should rest and then think of a plan.”

“We can fight them,” said one of the older girls. “I mean we have to heal up first, but we’re ready to fight them all now if you know where they are. That’s always been the hardest part.”

“There’s a chance you could turn into a witch in the middle of the fight,” said Pavel.

“And Laverne’s group might want a piece of the action, once they know part of this is resolved,” said Jason. “I think we should regroup and rearm before we go out. Without the Alvas around, things should be smoother.”

“And I have to tell my wife that we’re expected to hunt monsters in the morning,” said Pavel. “She will be so happy with this development.”

“Sonya loves houseguests,” said Errant. “She treats them like family.”

“Now is not the time for joking,” said Pavel. He considered everything. “All right, we’ll retreat to my house and wait out the night. Tomorrow, we will have breakfast and start our campaign. Errant, you will have to stay on hand to make sure none of these girls turn into witches.”

“We’re not sealing them in?,” asked Errant.

“Witches can open a door anywhere they can reach,” said the spokeswoman of the Magical Girl Guild. “The more powerful ones have doors everywhere.”

“So even if we sealed it, a witch can still draw in victims,” said Jason. “And we

would be back where are now.”

“Except we would be back to looking for the doors instead of roughly knowing where they are,” said Errant. “And they will continue to feed to grow their power.”

“So we have to kill them,” said Jason. “I agree that we should regroup. The other girls should be asked if they want to be included in this.”

“Come along,” said Pavel. “I suppose we can put you up in the spare bedrooms. The grocery bill is going to be out of sight this month.”

“We’ll pay you out of city funds,” said Jason. “That’s the only right thing to do at this point.”

“All right,” said Pavel. “We’ll get some rest and worry about the rest of this

tomorrow.”

“How did you meet these children, Master Pike?,” asked Pavel. He kept his voice down to keep his thoughts between them.

“I found them after I opened one of the doors I found around campus,” said Pike. “There was another one near your house.”

“That’s how he got away,” said Jason. “Makes sense.”

“We should talk about this back at the house,” said Pavel. “The wife will not like all this.”

“I’m sure she will be fine,” said Errant. He smiled with confidence.

Pavel looked at him. The look said, “Who are you kidding, old man?” He covered his face with one hand.

“She loves children,” Errant said. “She would be a great mother to her kids.”

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“We have kids,” said Pavel. “They are with my mother until we can sort this out. Now they will be there longer. None of the family will be happy, least of all the wife. I think you should explain all this.”

“I can’t,” said Errant. “I have a few more things to do before I leave town.”

“I don’t think so,” said Pavel. “We still have to deal with these girls, and there is the matter of the witches.”

“Sonya can do everything I can do at this point,” said Errant. “My notes are still in your parlor. And Woody will be there to guarantee everything.”

“Twenty five years is a long time for you to disappear again,” said Pavel. “What is the real problem?”

“I don’t know,” said Errant. “I have been fixing things, and for every one thing I fix, something else breaks. I have a machinist investigating an Abyssal egg under the water off Riordiana. If he can kill it, that will be one more menace stopped. But another one will pop up to be dealt with. I suppose I am tired of fixing things.”

“What did you do the ten years you were away?,” asked Pavel.

“Pushed a lot of people into dying,” said Errant. “It was open war there for a bit. Peace was not negotiable until the enemy had been forced back to the core of their own territory.”

“But there was a peace?,” said Pavel.

“Oh, yeah,” said Errant. “It took a bit to get them to accept terms.”

“What are you leaving out?,” asked Pavel. He had a good idea what was being left out. He probably would have left those parts out himself.

“Nothing,” said Errant.

“You have saved my life, and Sonya’s,” said Pavel. “We’re your friends.”

“Thank you,” said Errant.

“Don’t think I won’t clout you in the face,” said Pavel.

“Okay,” said Errant. “Really?”

“Yes,” said Pavel. “You’re too old to worry about things you can no longer do

anything about. The past is the past. You can’t fix it.”

“Technically, you can,” said Errant, holding up one hand to indicate he was about to start a lecture on how you could fix past mistakes through time travel.

“In the face,” warned Pavel. “Hard as I can.”

“But you don’t need to know that,” said Errant. “It’s doable if you’re willing to

change everything else. And you would have to be really desperate for that to be going on.”

Pavel wondered what Errant had gone through to be what he was. He certainly wasn’t human. He had touched the gods and they had touched him back in a way that most mortals were glad had not been done to them.

He decided Errant wouldn’t want his pity on top of everything else going on at the moment.

“Do we have a plan?,” one of the girls asked. Pavel took her for the unofficial leader of the group gathered by Pike.

“Yes, we do,” said Errant, holding up one hand.

“We’re dumping everything on my wife and hoping for the best,” said Pavel.

“Luckily, I will be visiting my mother and retrieving my children while she sorts

everything out. This skinny scarecrow will be assisting her if he knows what’s

good for him.”

“I am competent,” said Errant.

“Untrustworthy is the word I am thinking best applies,” said Pavel. “I’m Pavel

Konstantin, this is Errant.”

“The Queen’s Knight,” said Errant, bowing as he walked.

“The queen of what?,” asked the girl.

“Everything,” said Errant. He smiled slightly. “Your name?”

“Victoria Valorius,” said the girl. “I lead the girls from Mirabelle. Velma Burnham leads the girls from Rabbiton.”

“Which one is she?,” asked Errant. He looked at the trailing line behind them.

“She’s the one with brown hair and orange surplice,” said Victoria. She indicated a crying girl walking by herself. “We think her sister already turned into a witch.”

Pavel frowned. Of course, some of the girls would have shared their change with their families. If the transformations caused the change, a hard pusher would have changed before their peers did. And the sibling would be the blame for the loss.

Pavel didn’t know what to say to make things better. He had delivered enough bad news in his time, but words had seemed unimportant in the face of grief.

Pike fell into step beside her and walked with her. Pavel nodded.

Maybe the finder could help her where the rest of them couldn’t.

“What do you know about it, Miss Valorus?,” asked Errant. He put his hands in his pockets so they wouldn’t wave around.

“Only what your friend told us,” said the magical girl. “As soon as Velma heard about what could happen, she pressed on Mimzy. When he didn’t give her a straight answer, I followed her lead. Can you help us?”

“Did you say Mimzy?,” said Errant. Pavel thought their expressions matched at the moment despite not looking alike.

“Yes,” said Victoria, surprised at their reaction.

“We have to make sure,” said Pavel, drawing his axe.

“I agree,” said Errant. He looked around. “Jason! Jason!”

The monster hunter frowned as the older men jogged toward him. His hand was on his sword reflexively.

“Get these girls to Sonya as fast as you can,” said Errant. “Tell Woody to do the cure. Tell him to do it as fast as he can. Do you understand?”

“No,” said Jason. “But we will speed things up. Problem?”

“Yes,” said Errant. “I don’t know how much time you have, so you have to hurry. Steal horses, whatever.”

Pavel ran back to the school. He should have known Mim was behind this. It was something he would have come up with in the old days if he could make it work.

Errant was at his side in a minute, looking around.

“Where do you think the door is?,” Pavel asked as they ran toward the center of the campus.

Errant grabbed some stones off the ground and worked them with his hands as they ran. He threw the rocks in front of them. The altered material became a ring spinning through the air like a tossed coin until it hit an invisible obstruction. It froze in place, hovering so that a circle was formed in the air. The center of the construct was a garden instead of Marsh Excellence.

“Do you think they killed him?,” asked Pavel. He loosened the grip on his axe for a moment so his hands wouldn’t seize up at the wrong moment.

“I have no idea,” said Errant. “I would say no. You should stay out here. I don’t want to explain things to Sonya.”

“Neither do I,” said Pavel. “Let’s go.”

They stepped through the circle and into the garden. Pavel looked around. Nothing moved. He expected some of the flowers to come to life and attack him.

“This way,” said Errant. “Let’s get this over with before he does something else.”

Pavel could only agree. If he triggered the working on the ten girls they had met while they were out in the street, it would be bad for the city. Letting monsters that could reshape reality loose would drive civilian deaths off the scale. Bern would cease to exist in the face of that kind of catastrophe.

He could not let that happen.