Dial H for Heroics

Josie sat in the office after the girls had gone to bed. She stared at the map of the North. Jack was out there looking for the Dark Rider. It was up to her to narrow down where the missing princess happened to be and see if they could get her back to her family.

She wished their sponsors had given more details about everything. That would have made everything easier in her opinion.

At the moment, all they knew was the name Lorelai had not been given to any of the nobility that Elaine knew about. It wasn’t listed in any of the official family trees they had been given. And she was somewhere in the north of their home base.

The mystery bothered her, but it could be that the Society wanted her and Jack to act as they saw fit to handle their quests. Or they weren’t supposed to be handing out watches and quests in the first place. That made sense.

How many broke the spirit of the law, and not the letter?

What would happen to them if they did go over some line? Had they already done that when she had invoked her quest to stop the Montrose? How many other quests could she pile on, and still have a hope of getting back home?

She decided she didn’t need to know what the maximum number of quests that could be added to her list of things to do. She had to work on getting the quests she was already doing done.

She wondered if Zatanna could get her a hint on finding the lost princess. The magic might be able to mark a place on the map that she could search for her lost girl.

The rest would be going up in person and getting the deed done. The watches would make that easy to do in her opinion. Then she could worry about the Montrose and the rest of their organization.

That could take years to clean up that mess.

Would Jack go home at the end of their three big quests? If he solved the Dark Rider problem, the princess was the only one he had left too. Solving that might leave her alone and stranded until she finished what she started.

She decided there wasn’t much she could do about that. She had to move on, and hope for the best. That was one of the few good things her mother had taught her how to do.

She checked her watch, already knowing she was at full power. Two spells should give her something. In the morning, she would check on Jack and then set out for the approximate place she thought the princess would be. Then she would wrap things up.

She changed into her magician and stood. She raised her hands and asked for spots to indicate where Jack and the princess were on the map of the north. She smiled when the markers appeared. She hadn’t really thought the spell would work. She should have thought of this before sending her friend out on his own to look around.

Josie placed her hand on the marker for the princess. She reached in and looked around the surrounding area, taking in landmarks. Maybe she could use the map to teleport, but she didn’t feel a spell that could do that. Clairvoyance seemed all right for now. It could break at any time.

She did have something that could mark the area for her on a clean piece of paper. She grabbed two of them out of the stack and concentrated on the area.

A picture of what she saw drew itself on the first sheet of paper. It looked exactly like her vision when it was done. She nodded in agreement.

The frog in one corner looked cute.

She didn’t see anyone around. Where was the princess in the picture? Was she the frog?

Josie put that aside to do the second drawing.

A detailed map slowly appeared under her hand. She placed directions so she could easily find the place where the princess was at the moment. Once there, she could track the woman down with a closer application of Zatanna.

She made a duplicate of the map for Jack. She knew he would chase after her once he found out she was in the north looking for the princess. She might as well leave him something to make the job easier.

And she might need his help if the job was too big for her to do on her own.

He had saved the day against the lake monster, and helped out with marking the Montrose. He would definitely want to make sure the job was done so they could leave as soon as possible.

He could probably leave before her if he didn’t have anything else to complete for the Society.

She decided that she would travel up north in the daytime. She could get a better look at the land so she could finish her search and figure out what to do before the sun went down.

And if she had to deal with some rogue, she wanted a chance to see him before he saw her. Then she could spellbolt him out of the way.

She hoped she could get the girls into a position where they could do anything they wanted. How long would it take her to get rid of the Montrose? That’s how long she had until she was forced to leave Hawk Ridge’s world.

Did she even have that? Once they were done with the original quests, would they be allowed to finish the ones they had picked up from their stay? Should she keep adding on to her list to keep staying in her new home?

What would the Society think about her trying to do that? Would they care? Did they have some kind of limit on how long they could have watchpeople in the world? Would she and Jack see other catspaws if they stayed long enough?

She wished she knew why they picked people from other places to do their jobs. She doubted she and Jack were that unique. Warner had been namedropped by the Society to Jack, if that was really a message from the great beyond, and not just a dream.

Why hadn’t Warner warned them? He obviously knew what the watches meant. A simple don’t put those on might have been good.

Unless they hadn’t given him a watch to change his shape. She thought about that. Maybe the watches were new for some reason.

She decided to put that aside. She needed to get some sleep, and carry out her plan for the next day. Once they had Lorelei and gave her back to her family, that might be the end of things.

She hoped she had a chance to leave the girls in a better situation before she left. Rescuing them meant nothing if they could be hurt again. It was better that they knew how to defend themselves and had the money to buy their way out of certain troubles.

This world was rougher than her own. She hoped that she wasn’t making the kids soft.

And she still needed to find an archer. She smiled at that. She doused the lights as she considered if she could just make an archer to teach her girl how to shoot.

She decided to give their sword teacher time to find someone. A real teacher would be better than anything she could make. And it helped the girls to build ties so they had someone to help them when they needed it.

She hoped that she wasn’t turning them into a gang of mercenaries. She shook her head. She had a few more important things to worry about over her girls robbing people for protection when she was no longer around.

She hoped they wouldn’t resort to robbing people when she was gone.

Josie went to her room and locked the door after lighting the lamp on the wall. She took off her clothes and folded them into a pile before laying down on her bed. She thought about her scrying trick as she closed her eyes.

Could she do the same thing to the members of the Montrose?

Sleep fled as she considered what she could do with her new spell. She might be able to track them all down in their homes and get rid of them before they figured out what she was doing. Then it would be her versus whatever they could field to stop her.

Unless magic was in force, she felt that she had a better than even chance of winning a war of attrition.

She would have to keep the kids out of it. Any villain worth his salt would know to take hostages to keep her wrath at bay.

A temporary cease fire would be the most she would put up with while looking for the girls. She was more worried that they would be killed out of revenge.

And she didn’t think she would be called back to avenge them. The Society didn’t seem to care about anything like that.

They only seemed to care about threats to the greater world. What did a group of kids matter to them?

Josie tried to put her thoughts aside. She still had the lost princess to deal with in the morning. She could figure out what she could do about the rest of her problems after that. They might not be problems if she was recalled after taking care of the Society’s business.

That would leave Elaine and the girls in a bad position if she left when they needed her the most.

She wondered what Jack was doing. He should have come home by now. Maybe she should check on him. He might have bought more trouble than he could handle.

She decided she could wait until the morning. Either he was in trouble and there was nothing she could do for him right away, or he was handling things and it had taken longer than he had thought it would. She was sure he would call for help if he needed it.

She closed her eyes and thought about the future, and what life would be like in Hawk Ridge for her.

She decided that she would help with indoor plumbing for the city before anything else.

She smiled at that before she drifted into a light slumber.