“Take cover!,” Dax yelled, ducking to the side as a bolt of azure lightning tore through the open doorway next to him on its way to strike an apple cart across the street. The crack of a thunderclap roared through the air as the cart exploded in a plume of dust, splintered wood, and gobbets of pulped fruit.

“My cart!,” he heard someone squawk from the crowd that had gathered a half block away. A mixture of gasps and laughter accompanied the clatter of singed lumber and the plop of smoldering applesauce returning to earth.

“Serves you right, Hector! You’ve been stealing my business for years! Dalthan’s Rest was a pear city before you brought your dirty apples in and it’ll be a pear city after you’re gone!”

When the smell of scorched apples and charred oak settled over the street like a burnt pie, Dax couldn't resist a moment of quiet introspection. Why did it always have to be like this? Every day. Every damn day there was something that the Watch had to go out and fix before the elves got involved. Yesterday it was a fairy, hopped up on royal jelly, casting illusions of a nude, and very well endowed, King Oberon across every wall in the Pink District. The sprite had been apprehended easily enough, since she was no longer capable of flying straight. But that was cold comfort for Officer Rowan, who had spent all night dispelling the lewd images in the hope of avoiding an international scandal. Three days before that, he’d tracked down a local Nessie for capsizing a ferry. There were no serious injuries, but the boat now sat at the bottom of Lake Arnquet. After a brief interrogation, the fresh water dinosaur had admitted to scuttling the boat. The shy father didn’t appreciate one of the ferry's passengers sketching a portrait of it’s family while they swam nearby. Dax had no idea how much that moment of river rage was going to cost the Nessie, but he had a feeling that they’d be considerably more patient the next time someone wanted their picture.

The sound of someone noisily clearing their throat brought his attention back to the current crisis. Dax’s emerald eyes swam back into focus as he looked to the other side of the doorway where another one of the Watch agents hunkered down. He tried not to laugh at the sight of Munchkin’s massive frame pressed against a section of wall between the door and the storefront window that was barely large enough to keep him hidden. There was a bit of giant’s blood in his blonde haired friend’s family tree. There was also a tragic story involving his parent’s ironic naming conventions. Dax hadn’t appreciated how tragic that story was until he’d met Munch’s brother Genius and his sister Faithful.

“Let’s try to stay calm in there. People could get hurt,” Dax said, leaning closer to the open threshold. “I don’t think any of us want that.” He spoke slowly, his tenor voice pitched to be as non threatening as possible. Like a farmer trying to soothe a skittish animal, Dax continued to speak in a placid tone. “Why don’t you put the wand down and we’ll figure out how to get the two of you, and the goat, out of this cheese shoppe and on your way home.”

“You let my goat out of there right this second you damn delinquent kids!,” Ethel yelled. The wizened woman stood at the edge of the crowd, shaking a gnarled walking stick in the general direction of Mouldi's Cheese Shoppe. “Betsy doesn’t take well to stress!”

As if on cue, a plaintive bleat could be heard from somewhere inside the store.

“Shut up and get out of here Ethel!,” Dax called toward the old crone. The Sergeant of the Watch emphasized his words with a flap of his hand as if he could shoo her away like an irritating fly.

The toothless old bitty shot him a one finger salute. That turned out to be the least of his worries since the motion of his arm had drawn his hand across the window on his side of the door. He had just enough time to jerk his arm down before broken glass blasted outward onto the street. A jagged bolt of arcane lightning leapt across the lane once again, striking another abandoned fruit cart after obliterating the window at Dax’s side.

“That’s my cart!,” cried a horrified voice from the crowd. Unsurprisingly, the onlookers still seemed to be valuing entertainment over safety.

“Ha! The only good pear is a dead one!,” Hector crowed as flaming lumps of pulped fruit rained down upon the street for the second time in as many minutes.

Dax, who had spent a few precious seconds flexing the fingers of his right hand to reassure himself that they hadn’t been vaporized, lifted his emerald eyes from their study of his calloused digits to glance toward the crowd.

“Is he…?,” Dax asked quietly as his eyes drifted toward where Munch crouched against the wall.

“...an idiot?,” Munchkin helpfully replied. “Yes, Sergeant. Yes he is an idiot. Good pears, though. Remind me to give you the pear cobbler recipe Faithful used to land her fourth husband.”

That was the sort of support he needed from his team. If he had an entire barracks full of dutiful officers like Munch, he’d never need to worry about the elves climbing down from Sylvareth to cause problems. Problems like the ones they would cause over this debacle if he didn’t get things under control. They weren’t even his superiors, technically. Like the other four Watch Sergeants, he only answered to Captain Brasko. In theory, anyway. In practice, when the bulk of your city was built around the elves gargantuan World Tree, it sort of made them your defacto landlords.

“Hey! I said take it easy in there!,” Dax yelled through the now shattered window. “You’re making it awfully hard to negotiate. Let’s all take a deep breath and try again.”

The increasingly agitated bleats coming from inside the cheese shoppe seemed to suggest that the goat, at least, was on board with more talking and less zapping.

At length, a woman’s voice replied with a hint of embarrassment. “My finger slipped the second time. Okay?! Zif just said…”

“I told you not to use my real name, Margo!,” her accomplice screamed in outrage. A moment later there was a dull thump that seemed suspiciously like the sound of a grown man diving for cover. “Don’t point that thing at me!”

“You’re the one who said not to use our real names. Bitch.” Margo said, irritation sizzling in her voice like the flames flickering across the smoldering wreckage of the fruit carts across the street. “Anyway, this asshole Zif told me that the trigger shouldn’t be this sensitive. So the second one was the defective wand’s fault, not mine.”

“But! Only the second shot!,” Margo yelled in a rush. “I totally meant to shoot the first time! And I’ll totally zap your dick off if you come through that door!”

Dax wasn’t sure when his eye had started twitching. It probably started somewhere between the criminals giving away their identities and the mastermind threatening to electrically castrate him.

“Are they?...,” Dax asked, despite already knowing the answer.

“...idiots?,” Munch replied, ever the helping hand in Dax’s time of need. “Yes, Sergeant. Yes they are.”

“That’s it,” Dax sighed, an edge of exasperation marring his typically smooth tone . “I’m giving Olivia and Nyq two more minutes to move in. If they still haven’t found a way in through the back then we’re going in through the front door.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Officer Munchkin Wildsong replied in an oddly distracted tone.

Dax’s eyebrows narrowed at Munch’s alarming level of nonchalance. It was unusual for the consummate professional to let his focus lapse in the middle of an operation. A quick, confused glance showed that the mountainous man across from him was avidly studying the crowd down the street. That didn’t bode well. He tried to talk himself out of looking over his shoulder to see what was happening. He really did. But in the end, unlike so many of the citizens of Dalthan’s Rest, Dax was only human. At the mercy of his species' penchant for curiosity, Dax carefully turned to survey the spectacle at the end of the block.

It took a few moments for Dax to unravel the mystery of the crowd’s excitement. When he did, his lips parted in slack-jawed amazement. Some enterprising young man, dressed in little more than dirty cotton rags, was energetically writing names and numbers upon a blackboard beneath a chalk drawing of a stylized lightning bolt. Jilly’s Tomato Cart; 3:5. Paul’s Pastries; 4:5. Pepper’s Spice Stand; 1:4. While the street urchin worked his bookkeeping magic, members of the crowd were frantically waving bank notes toward a trio of shady looking hooligans stuffing the offered money into their hats.

As the crowd grew still more animated, he clearly heard old woman Ethel shout. “I want the 1:10 on Sergeant Dax. Betting on him to get zapped is easy money. That man is so unlucky that black cats are scared of crossing his path.”

“Oh come on!,” Dax groused as the street filled with guffaws from the nearby crowd. “It was one time! And I had just found the kid that tried to run away with that werewolf circus. I smelled like cotton candy spun in a dog kennel filled with elephant dung. Anything with a nose would have run from me.”

His protests fell on deaf ears. The ingrates had the audacity to lower his odds to 1:8 despite his very reasonable explanation. He clearly had a public image issue that was in dire need of rehabilitation. He could invest more manpower into community outreach programs to bolster public support.

Or he could just feed the assholes to the Nessies.

“Can you believe those people?,” Dax grumbled as he rotated to face Munch. “We’re over here putting our lives on the line and…” The Sergeant's voice trailed off as he watched the most dependable member of the Watch flash two twenty coin banknotes at the bookie down the block. The traitor and the urchin exchanged a thumbs-up before Munch noticed his boss’ scrutiny. Only then did the big man try to sheepishly stuff the wrinkled bills back into the pocket of his trousers.

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“Et tu?,” Dax whispered.

“Sorry, sir,” Munch replied as he turned his gaze down toward the ground in a show of contrition. “I haven’t had a chance to buy Genius a new set of crayons since he ate the last ones. A couple of twenties will get those and buy us a few beers while you’re recovering from getting zapped.”

“I’m not going to get zapped!,” Dax whined as he rose to his feet. In the blink of an eye he’d freed his wand from it’s holster against his thigh. In that moment, with his viridian eyes sparkling and his tall, toned frame taut with coiled strength, it was easy to see the remnants of the soldier Dax had been only a few short years ago.

“Cover me,” he hissed.

After a nod toward Munch as his friend prepared himself, Dax pivoted toward the door and surged through. He passed the threshold in a blur, eyes up and wand out to make sure he got the first, and most decisive, shot off in the engagement.

Unfortunately for Dax, stepping into the doorway put him in the path of a stampeding goat.

Dax could swear he saw a ruthless twinkle in the demonic creature’s black eyes. In that split second, Betsy the Goat’s lips pulled back to release a warcry of incandescent rage. “Baaah!,” Betsy bleated, her righteous charge refusing to be broken by friend or foe. Nothing and no one could prevent it from seizing the destiny that lay past the open doorway the Sergeant was standing in.

So the goat slammed its skull squarely into Dax’s nuts.

From somewhere high above, Dax looked down at the city he’d come to call home. Distantly, he heard the groan of the crowd down the street as he watched his body fold over Betsy’s head like a reed bending in a hurricane. He winced at the sight, wondering why he didn’t feel the pain of the brutal headbutt. Yet try as he might, he found himself unhurt and only dimly aware of his surroundings. Everything seemed hazy and indistinct except for the winged woman beside him strumming a beautiful melody on the lyre she held. She was…impressively…detailed.

“Am I dead?,” Dax asked, finally breaking the hypnotic spell of the mesmerizing music she played.

The angel’s gorgeous green eyes rolled dismissively. “You’re such a drama queen,” said the vision of ethereal beauty conjured by his imagination.

Then she slapped him.

Dax immediately became aware of the cobblestone against his cheek and the sight of the goat’s ass as it trotted primly toward a hobbling Ethel who was moving faster than she had at any other point in the past decade. Later he would feel a sense of pride and accomplishment for reuniting the pet and their owner. No matter how toxic and abrasive Ethel might be. For now though, Dax focused his efforts on trying not to cry.

Curled on the ground in a fetal position, he tried not to breathe lest the pressure in his nethers blossom into eye watering pain. He didn’t even want to think. Trying not to think led to doing exactly that, which led to wondering why he wasn’t being zapped while he lay on the street in front of the open doorway. Currently the danger of potential zappage was not worth the guarantee of more jaw clenching pain if he tried to move. That dynamic would shift radically, however, the first time he took a lightning bolt up the ass.

“Uh, Sarge,” Munch began after pointedly clearing his throat, “Olivia and Nyq got’em, sir. Their fight is what spooked the goat. The timing of you entering was…unlucky.”

Dax had to give him credit. Officer Munchkin delivered that line with deadpan professionalism despite the silent glare he directed toward his towering friend. His glare only intensified when he saw the raggedly dressed street rat who’d run the impromptu gambling den trot around Ethel and her goat on his approach toward Munch.

“Bad break for you, my friend,” he said in a voice that dripped with contrived sadness like ice cream leaking from a broken cone. “We paid out the folks who took the nut shot prop bet, but you put your whole stake on zap. Better luck next time.”

Officer Munchkin tried to use the intensity of his glare to weld the hoodlum’s lips shut while he crammed two twenty coin notes into the teenager’s outstretched hand. Oblivious to the increasingly desperate hints being tossed his way, the slender thief dropped into a crouch beside the Sergeant. After a beat he produced one of the twenty coin notes Munch had lost and placed it on the street.

“Hello, Watch Sergeant. The name is Grift. I work for The Lost and Found and you can find me around here, most days, looking after our interests.” There was something oily about the way the kid’s words slid together when he spoke, like a wet snake slithering across bare skin. “There’s a bar in the Harbor District. It’s name is ‘The Stinky Pinky.’ They use Rime Berries in some of their drinks. Tell the bartender I sent you and ask for a big bag of the things. Just lay’em right across your jewels. Ain’t nothin’ better to soothe your beans.”

There was a part of him that appreciated the kid’s concern. But a larger part of him wanted to get this whole debacle over with. Once he got these goat-napping idiots safely tucked away behind bars he’d feel much better about the events of the afternoon. Or so he hoped.

All that started with him getting back onto his feet. “Help me up,” Dax said, not bothering to hide the wince that flashed across his face as he straightened his legs and reached toward Munch. The big man nodded solemnly before he clasped the Sergeant’s forearm to hoist him up off the ground.

Once he’d been levered upright, Dax bent at the waist and planted his palms against his shaky knees. That’s when the cheering began. Hoots and hollers rang down the street from the previously subdued peanut gallery.

“You may be a trouble magnet,” Ethel said, tapping her twisted cane on the cobblestone to join the cacophony of applause, “but I knew when you got here that you’d get my Betsy back to me safe and sound. Next time you need some fresh milk, stop on by and we’ll fix you right up.” Not to be outdone, Betsy joined in with an appreciative bleat.

Dax tried not to gag at the thought of a warm glass of thick, creamy goat’s milk. He failed miserably, but managed to hide the response behind the quick retrieval of his wand from where it had fallen onto the cobblestone street. After holstering his service weapon, he finally felt stable enough to address the crowd.

“Alright, everyone. Show’s over. Anyone who’s property has been damaged needs to file a report at the Watch Barracks. As for the rest of you, I’ll be looking for volunteers to clean up this mess.”

Dax made a sweeping gesture toward the still smoldering carts and the small piles of pulverized fruit that lay scattered across the street. That proclamation did more to disperse the crowd than any set of threats ever would. Within moments the street was empty as a ghost town and silent as a tomb. Dax wondered if a tumbleweed would roll across the road if he waited long enough.

“So, Sarge,” Munch said with a nod toward the still open door, “Think its time to check in on Olivia and the prisoners?”

With a disappointed sigh, Dax gave up on his dream of sighting a mythical tumbleweed. One day he would catch one. But not this day. “I suppose so, Officer. Lead the way.”

The inside of the cheese shoppe was in remarkably good condition considering it was an active crime scene. Wheels of hard cheeses hung from hooks along the walls, surrounding the display tables where the softer cheeses were arranged for perusal. Dax might have taken a moment to admire the cheesemonger’s wares if there hadn’t been an interrogation taking place across the room. The voices drew his eyes toward the familiar redhead standing at attention, her partner lounging on top of the empty counter, and the two culprits sitting upon the floor.

“I already told you why we did it. I saw the old zombie leading that poor goat into this store and I just knew that she was leading the poor thing to slaughter. Why else would she be trotting a goat through the town? To eat it, that’s why. Filthy carnivores.”

The voice, a self assured soprano, came from a young woman sitting on the floor. Slumped bonelessly against the counter, she wore a set of snuggly fitting black trousers and an unnecessarily tight shirt of the same color. A black bandana, tied into a mask, obscured her face except for a slash of alabaster skin around a set of sapphire eyes. Those glittering eyes stared daggers at the approaching Sergeant from the depths of the hood she wore.

“We had to save the poor creature! How could you see such a majestic animal and not feel the same way? You’re probably nasty meat eaters too,” the woman spat, her mask doing nothing to muffle the disdain lacing every syllable she spoke.

“Officer Olivia. Officer Nyq. Report,” Dax replied calmly while he studied their two prisoners. The silent man was dressed exactly the same as the chatty woman. Right down to their masks and footwear. Both had blonde hair beginning to peak past the darkened confines of the heavy hoods they wore. Something about the scene set off warning bells in his mind, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on why he began to feel a sense of encroaching dread.

“Sir, yes sir,” answered the tall woman with a ponytail of fiery auburn hair after she gave him a crisp salute. Nyq only offered an airy wave while his nimble fingers deftly spun the tiny blowgun that he’d used to incapacitate the perpetrators. “After Sergeant Dax enlisted myself and Officer Nyq to perform a covert operation we proceeded with immediate reconnaissance…”

“We walked down the alley to the back door,” Nyq drawled casually.

“...Where our initial attempt at ingress was rebuffed,” Olivia continued in her matter-of-fact tone.

“The door was locked. So we broke a window,” Nyq cut in with a smile tugging at the corner of his lips that was as rakish as the wrinkled uniform he wore.

Olivia’s eyes narrowed dangerously and Dax expected the straight-laced ex-marine to explode. Instead, she took a moment to smooth out her pristine uniform before continuing. “Once inside, we found the perpetrators armed and with a hostage. We held position, waiting for a suitable distraction…”

“I darted them in the ass and they collapsed from the paralytic poison. The end.” Nyq finished smugly, only to yelp in fear when Olivia freed her service weapon and spun towards him with the dead-eye aim of a trained markswoman. The desperate man rolled himself off the counter, falling to the floor behind it with a painful sounding thud.

“Yeah! That’s right!,” Margo yelled, interjecting her grievances into the conversation as Olivia began stalking around the counter to line up a better shot on Nyq. “He shot me! In the ass! Is that even legal?”

“More legal than stealing a goat from a little old lady and holding it hostage,” Nyq said, creeping carefully around the opposite side of the counter to stay out of Olivia’s line of sight.

“We didn’t steal her,” Margo grumbled, flopping around bonelessly in a tantrum that sent more alarm bells ringing in Dax’s head. A cold sweat broke out across his brow when he finally realized why this situation seemed so horrifying. Oblivious to the Sergeant’s distress, Margo continued in a superior tone as if she were lecturing children. “You can’t steal a living thing. You can only kidnap them. But we didn’t kidnap her either. We liberated her! She deserves to roam free and be happy!”

“Alright. Why don’t we save the rest of the after action report until we’re all back at the barracks.” Dax had never been particularly religious, despite his penchant for envisioning angels in times of distress, but he found himself praying fervently that his bad luck had ended with a headbutt to the jimmies. “Nyq, why don’t you administer the antidote and get those hoods and masks out of the way so we can all make the trip across town as comfortably as possible.”

“Sir, yes sir!,” Nyq popped up from his hiding spot at full attention with the worst excuse for a salute that Dax had ever seen. “It would be my pleasure sir, Sergeant sir, to follow orders. I would hate it if anyone impeded my sworn duty as a member of the Watch.” By the end of his speech, Nyq had turned the side-eye he’d directed toward Olivia into an open stare.

With visible reluctance, the furious young woman slowly holstered her side arm.

“Uh…boss,” Munch began to say as Nyq walked to Margo and unfastened her mask.

“Don’t say it, Munch.” Dax said, watching the black cloth fall away from the young woman’s face to expose flawless alabaster skin and slender lips the color of a blooming pink rose. “You’ll jinx it.”

But in his heart, Dax knew it was already too late. A fact that was plain for everyone to see when Nyq tugged Margo’s hood back and exposed flowing locks of cornsilk hair that cascaded down past a set of long ears that tapered to a point.

“Shit.” Dax muttered, closing his emerald eyes and cursing the deities that never listened to his pleas. Never.

Because, if they did, there wouldn’t be a pair of elves sitting on the floor.