The Woodward Academy, Year 6

Chapter 3: August

"All please rise. Callamandian Royal Criminal Court is now in session. Your Honorable Harold T. Stone, presiding."

The magistrate settled into his seat behind his desk. "Thank you, Shannon," he said to the leggy female court guard. "You may all be seated." As everyone sat down, the magistrate turned to the clerk. "What have we got today, Robin?"

The clerk opened a file and placed it in front of the magistrate. She said, "The crown versus Elmore Thadeus Faust. The charge is theft of royal property."

"Yowch. All right, then. Miss Young, Mr. Fielding, how are you today?"

"Just fine, Your Honor," Miss Young replied.

"Peachy," Fielding said.

"Has any plea agreement been reached?"

"No, Your Honor," Miss Young said.

"Okay, then, guess we've got to do it the long way. Call your first witness, Miss Young."

"Call David Stroud to the stand, please."

As David rose from his seat to walk to the witness chair, the magistrate said, "Welcome back, Mr. Stroud. You're becoming a regular fixture here. Nice uniform."

"Thank you, Your Honor," David replied as he took the stand The other court guard came over to him.

"Raise your right hand. Do you, soberly and with due gravity, swear to the king that the testimony you are about to give is wholly and completely true, with no omissions, prevarications, or twisted truths?"

"Yes."

The guard nodded at him and returned to his post at the side of the room. Miss Young approached David.

"Mr. Stroud, just for the record, could you tell the court what your job is?"

"I have two, actually. I am a Rimohr intern, and I am also the chief of security for the Woodward Academy of Magical Arts."

"And what was your involvement with the investigation before us today?"

"Officially, I was Agent Garibaldi's principal assistant. In actuality, in keeping with the training nature of my internship, I was essentially the lead investigator." David had asked Joe how he should answer this question, because he knew it would come up.

"I see. So you did most of the actual investigative work?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Very good. Now, I want you to explain for the court exactly how this case progressed. I may interrupt you from time to time for clarification."

David nodded. "On July 7th of this year, we were called to the Bolmont branch of the Royal Archive. A valuable scroll, a portion of the Journal of Aleutia, had gone missing."

"You mean it was stolen?" Miss Young asked.

"That was our original assumption. This later turned out not to be the case. The scroll had not yet been taken out of the archive."

"Please continue," she said.

"Well, we interviewed everyone known to have been within the archive the previous day. We looked into their backgrounds, tried to find someone who had a good reason for stealing the scroll. Nothing immediately leapt out at us.

"At one point, it was discovered that the display cabinet in which the scroll had been housed had been built in such a way as to allow the removal of the scroll."

At this point, the magistrate interrupted. "How was that done?"

David turned to him. "One of the archival assistants had built the cabinet so that its bottom flange would separate and rise up. The protective field followed this contour, and thus created an unprotected window through which he simply stuck his hand and removed the scroll. This was possible because he had intentionally misaligned the cabinet with the security talisman in the floor, leaving the flange ever so slightly outside the protective field."

The magistrate nodded. "Go on."

"Anyway, once we understood that the protections had not been broken, but instead circumvented, we figured that the scroll hadn't yet been taken out of the archive, because doing so would set off an alarm, unless they could figure out a way around that alarm, as they had the first one."

"I object, Your Honor," Mr. Faust said. "This is all supposition on his part, and anyway, I've never even set foot in the royal archive of any nation!"

"He has a point, Miss Young," the magistrate said. "Is this going somewhere?"

"Yes, Your Honor. We just wanted you to understand how Mr. Faust obtained the opportunity to steal the scroll. We are not accusing him of removing it from its case in the archive."

"Very well. Proceed, Officer Stroud, but make it brief, if you would."

"Yes, Your Honor. That's pretty much it, actually. When we realized the scroll was probably still in the archive, we went looking for it. Once we found it, we decided to lay a trap to see if we could catch the would-be thief. We had the archive curator's permission to do so, of course.

"Several items from the archive were embarking on a world tour. Along with those items were pieces of display equipment, one of which contained the so-called missing scroll. The scroll was hidden in a hollow post used to hold up one of the ropes that keeps people back from the displays."

"So the scroll was not actually part of the exhibit," Miss Young clarified.

"Not at all. It was never in plain sight. In fact, unless you took the top off the post and looked down in, you'd never see it at all."

"Go on," she encouraged.

"We accompanied the items on their tour. In Gorumshead and Ramius, nothing happened. In Everglin, however, the scroll was removed from the post, and then taken out of the exhibition hall. We followed the person who took it, stopped him once he was about half a block away from the exhibition hall, detained him, searched him, and found the scroll in his possession. At that point, he was arrested. That man was Mr. Faust."

"Very good. Can you tell me how you were able to keep such a close eye on the scroll while not tipping off the suspected thief?"

"I own a device called the Dalmajak Cynosure. It allows me to know the direction to any specific nearby object. I focused the cynosure on the scroll. This allowed us to sit in an office and simply watch the cynosure. When it showed movement, we just went where it pointed. It pointed to Mr. Faust."

"Thank you. I have no further questions at this time, Your Honor."

"Mr. Faust? Any questions for the witness?"

"Absolutely, Your Honor. Mr. Stroud, you say that you're a Rimohr cadet-"

"No, I did not say that," David interrupted. "I said I was a Rimohr intern. There is a significant difference between the two."

"Indeed? Perhaps you'd care to enlighten us," Faust said.

"A cadet has no authority at all. Though they do eventually go into the field for training, they cannot do anything more than assist their training officer. An intern, on the other hand, has full Rimohr authority, as long as they are in the company of a full-fledged officer. The only power an intern does not possess is the ability to effect an actual arrest. That must be handled by someone with official authority, which neither an intern nor a cadet possess. In short, the difference is that a cadet is in school, and an intern is on the job."

Faust looked a bit flustered. He'd not expected so authoritative an answer. "So, how long have you been an intern, then?" he asked, trying to get back on track.

"Since mid-June of this year."

"Less than two months, then?"

"Yes. This was my first major case."

"So, in your inexperience, you jumped to the conclusion that I was a thief..."

"First off, Mr. Faust, I didn't jump to any conclusion. The scroll was found in your possession. I made no guess as to it being there, the cynosure said it was. Second, while I have only been a Rimohr intern for two months, I have been doing investigative work of one type or another for over two years now. I worked as head of the Discipline Response Team at Woodward Academy this last academic year, and I assisted the security department on the investigation of several thefts the year before that."

Mr. Faust looked pale. He hadn't done his homework. He took a minute to try to compose himself. "You said a minute ago that you are not allowed to arrest anyone. Yet it was you who arrested me on the street that day."

"No, sir, I did not. I detained you. At that time, you were not officially in custody. Later, after we had found the scroll in your possession, Officer Columbo arrested you."

At this point, Mr. Fielding called Mr. Faust back for a brief conference. David sat and watched the magistrate fiddle with an energy ball while they waited. Finally, Mr. Faust returned.

"Mr. Stroud, you said you used a device to find me. What was it called again?"

"The Dalmajak Cynosure. It's a bit like a compass."

"And it can locate anything?"

"Within reason."

"And... how does it do that?"

"High-level Divination magic," David replied simply.

"Mr. Stroud, you are aware that divination is not allowed in criminal investigations, are you not?" Mr. Faust said smugly. "Your arrest was therefore illegitimate, and this whole case must be thrown out!" he proclaimed with glee.

David hated to burst his bubble... almost. "Actually, Mr. Faust, Divination is only precluded from being used in an evidentiary fashion during a criminal investigation. It may be used as a tool to choose a direction in which to look. In this case, it merely prevented us from inconveniencing a whole bunch of innocent people by searching everyone who walked out of the exhibition hall. Your legal aide apparently needs to do his research more thoroughly. There is ample precedent for using certain kinds of divinatory magic within investigations. The trace, for example. A trace was placed on me in my fourth year at the academy to clear me from any suspicion during a set of thefts. This was completely legal and proper. The cynosure is little more than such a trace. In fact, there was a trace placed on the scroll, which was another way we determined it to be the original scroll, and not a copy."

"So why did you need to use the cynosure at all?" the magistrate asked.

"Efficiency, Your Honor," David said. "The cynosure is updated in real time. The trace would have to be manually updated repeatedly."

Faust's face fell as he realized that even this last gambit wasn't going to unnerve the witness. David had talked all of this over with Joe, Vivian, Agent Wilson, and Miss Young long before the trial began. He wasn't surprised by any of these questions. He knew that Faust had to try something; they'd found the scroll in his cloak pocket, after all.

"You claim that I stole the scroll from the archive... but, in fact, it was the archival assistant who stole the scroll, wasn't it, Mr. Stroud? Come now, he's the one who took it out of the display case."

"Which he had the authority to do, as an archival assistant. His actions were odd, but not illegal. Don't worry, he'll be tried in due course for conspiracy." That case was actually scheduled for the next afternoon.

Faust looked murderously at David, who simply sat quietly. The trial, as far as David was concerned, was a formality. He saw no way in which this guy could get off. Finally, Faust said, "No more questions for this... witness, Your Honor."

"You can step down, Officer. Thank you for your service."

"Thank you, sir."

The case took another three hours, because Faust called every witness he could think of to try to break the king's case against him. In the end, however, there was simply no way for him to counter the fact that the scroll had been found in his possession, having been followed from the scene of the crime.

"Elmore Thadeus Faust, you are hereby found guilty of the crime of theft of royal property. This crime is punishable by a minimum sentence of thirty years in Barnard Hill. I am sentencing you to the same. After your term of imprisonment is done, you will be sent to a retraining facility, where you will learn how to live in Earth. Once your time there is complete, you will be exiled, never to return to Dugerra a free man. Do you understand this sentence?"

"Yes, Your Honor," Faust said shakily. He looked as if he were about to throw up.

"Very well. Shannon, Russell, will you take the prisoner into custody? This court is adjourned."

David, Joe and Vivian walked out of the courthouse together.

"So, is that, that?" David asked Vivian.

She smiled at him. "Yes. That is that. He could file an appeal, I suppose, but that would have to go before the king, and I very much doubt the king is going to be interested in rehearing the case."

"So, no curve balls this time," David said. "That's good."

"It helps when the criminal is dumb," Joe said.

"Weird, though, that the guy behind it was so stupid, when his chosen partner was so smart about the... well, not theft, but..."

"Yeah," Joe agreed. "Faust still claims he wanted the scroll to rule the world."

David snorted. "The man couldn't rule a Denny's."

"What's a Denny's?" Joe asked, confused.

Vivian giggled.

David was making breakfast for the girls when Flo came bouncing into the kitchen. He turned just as she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a great big kiss. He happily returned her affection, though he was a bit surprised, as she wasn't usually this aggressive in the morning.

When she finally broke away from him, she said, "Thank you for the bracelet, it's beautiful!"

David looked to see her wrist was surrounded by what looked like a vine with a dozen small flowers on it. He took her wrist and turned it over. The bracelet seemed to hug her skin, staying in place no matter how much she moved. It almost looked like it was part of her. He let go of her wrist and looked at her with a perplexed frown.

"Sorry to admit it, but I didn't do it."

Flo's smile faded slightly. "You didn't? Well, then who did?"

David shrugged. "Maybe Olissa was practicing some kind of spell or something. Or maybe you have an admirer out there. Did you see anyone yesterday?"

"I saw dozens of someones. I went shopping!" she said with a smile, remembering the experience.

"Well, then maybe one of them is trying to court you. But it wasn't me, sorry."

"Oh. Oh, well, that's okay. What's for breakfast?"

"Bacon and eggs."

"Ooh, yummy!"

David smirked as she left the kitchen. His mind lingered over the bracelet. He wondered who had created it. He wondered if they were seriously pursuing Flo. The thought disturbed him. Even though she hardly belonged to him, and didn't want a relationship with him or anyone else, the idea of her taking on another companion...

David shook off the thought. It wasn't productive, and it might cause him to burn breakfast. Instead, he focused on what he was doing. That, at least, he could control.

"Morning, David."

"Morning, Nancy. How are you today?"

"Can't complain. Got a little package here for you," she said.

David recognized it as she set it on his desk. "Little package" was a joke on Nancy's part. While it was quite small at the moment, after she tapped it and uttered a spell, it grew to be a foot and a half wide by two feet tall. David sighed.

"Time for a new batch, huh?" he asked.

"You know it. Enjoy!" she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she walked away.

David looked at the stack. It was always left to the most junior officer to look through the nearby Earth newspapers for any suspicious activity that might be going on that would require Rimohr attention. As David wasn't even a full-fledged officer yet, this duty fell squarely to him. He had already done this twice before; it would take him a couple days to sort through all of them, during which time he wasn't getting any "real" work done. But, of course, this was real work, it just wasn't interesting work.

Sighing again, David took the first paper off the top, then levitated the remaining papers onto the floor next to his desk. He opened up the paper, and started reading. It was going to be a long day.

"What's this?" Vivian asked, stopping by David's desk near the end of the day.

"Something I want to keep an eye on," he replied.

"Oh? What is it?" she asked, sitting down across from him.

"A serial killer."

"Oh. Well... that's nasty, but what's it got to do with us?"

'Maybe nothing. But the police aren't finding the bodies, anywhere."

"So how do they know they've been murdered?"

"They don't. They are referring to them as 'a string of disappearances'."

"So how do you know they've been murdered?"

"Because four girls who all look about the same don't go missing from one medium-sized city within a six month period all on their own. And guys don't kidnap college-aged girls to do anything pleasant to them. They are either being murdered or sold into slavery. I would expect the FBI to have information about a white slavery operation in the area, and since the paper mentions no such thing, I'm going with the murdered option."

Vivian frowned, but nodded. "I can't dispute that logic. Still, it's not our problem, is it?"

"No, not yet. But it might be."

"How so?"

"What's the best way to beat a murder charge?" David asked.

"Never to be charged with it," Vivian said with a smile.

David smiled back. "Right. And what's the best way to avoid being charged with murder?"

"Don't let the police know there's been a murder."

"And the easiest way to pull that off?"

"Don't let them find... ah, I think I see where you're going. You're thinking perhaps it's a wizard, and he's hiding the bodies in Dugerra."

"Yes. I have nothing here that indicates that, but, then, I wouldn't. It's just a hunch. Maybe I'm wrong, but maybe he is a wizard. Either way, I want to keep my eye on this story."

Vivian nodded again. "Good idea. It's good that you're taking this duty seriously. I know it's dull as hell. I hated doing it myself. Lots of officers just kind of stare at the pages, pretending to read them."

"That's kind of dumb. If you're stuck spending the two days at your desk, might as well actually do something constructive."

"Not everyone sees the world that way," she replied. "Keep at it."

David nodded, and went back to the papers.

"Wow, Flo. Your admirer must be really serious," Olissa said the next morning at breakfast.

Flo blushed. Her vine bracelet had grown, now containing two dozen small flowers, and was almost twice as wide as it had been. The vines that composed it were somewhat thicker, as well.

"I wish I knew who it was," Flo admitted.

As she turned her head back to her plate, David saw something coming out of her ear. He got up to move closer.

"What are you-" Flo started to say, but David took her chin in his hand and gently, but firmly, turned her head away from him. What he saw caused him to worry.

"How well can you hear out of this ear, Flo?" he asked quietly.

"It's a little stuffed up," she replied. "Your voice is muffled. I'm sure it's just a cold."

"No, it's not," he replied, finally letting go of her chin. "I don't mean to alarm you, but you have a vine growing out of your ear."

"I what?" she cried. She grabbed for her mirror, and then twisted her head to try to look at her ear. After a second, she tapped her mirror with her finger and snapped, "Magnify!" The image in the mirror was now larger, and she could see that there was, in fact, a green tendril growing out of her ear, a small yellow flower, just like the ones on her "bracelet", blooming just outside her ear canal.

"What's going on?" she asked, a bit of panic in her voice. "What's happening to me?"

"I don't know," David said. "We need to call the healer and find out if they know anything. I'll call Joe and let him know I can't come in today. We'll try to figure this out." He put his hand on Flo's shoulder, to try to comfort her. She had gratitude in her eyes, but her mouth held a distinct frown.

"I'm sorry, David. I don't know off-hand, and, of course, I don't have my reference books to check through. Have you tried calling one of the healers there in Bolmont?" Healer Hall asked.

"Not yet. I figured I'd start with the best and work my way down," he said.

"Flatterer," Annie said with a grin. "I'm sorry I can't be more use. Do keep me informed, would you? If this is a new illness, I need to know about it."

"I will. Thanks anyway. Sorry to have interrupted your vacation time."

"Oh, that's all right. I'm just watching Coach Hall try to ride a Sky Rider. It's very amusing."

David chuckled. "Well, okay. Tell him I said hi. I'll let you get back to your amusement."

"Thank you. Good luck."

"Thanks."

David fogged off with Healer Hall, and frowned. He had hoped she would at least be able to tell him what was wrong, but as it happened, she and Coach Hall were on vacation somewhere in southern Callamandia, and so she had no resources. His next option was to call Healer Cutner, the lady who had delivered Zyla's baby. He was sure there were other healers in Bolmont, but she was the only one he knew. He dialed on his mirror.

"Healer Denise Cutner," he said.

It took only a moment for her to respond. David worried, as she looked rather harried. "Yes, can I help you?" she asked.

"Healer Cutner, I don't know if you remember me. My name is David Stroud. I was there when you delivered Zyla Garibaldi's baby girl."

After a moment, the light of recognition appeared on her face. "Oh, yes, David. I do remember you. What can I do for you?"

"Well, I have a friend here with a very unusual ailment. She seems to be growing roots."

"Excuse me?" Healer Cutner asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Well, not roots, really. She has what appear to be vine tendrils growing out of one arm, and one out of her left ear. The vines have flowers on them. I can show you, if you like."

Healer Cutner scrunched up her face. "There'd be little point," she said. "I've never heard of such a thing in my life."

"Is there any chance it might be in one of your healing books?" he asked.

"Anything is possible. Unfortunately, I don't have time to look. There have been a rash of strange illnesses lately. I and all the other healers in the area are all swamped."

"Are any of them like this?" David asked hopefully.

"Not that I've seen. They all seem to be different. It's very odd. It's keeping us up nights. Frankly, I'm thankful for your call. It's the longest I've been able to sit down all day."

David frowned. If they were that busy, they didn't have time for yet another patient with weird symptoms. Flo needed more focused help. "Where would be the nearest available healer, then?"

"I honestly don't know. We've pulled in everyone we could get to come here."

David's frown deepened. He had to do something. "Then, is there some kind of library I could go to that would have books about magical ailments?"

"You're welcome to come down and look through ours. The office I work in has three other healers, and we share a central reference library. If you want to try to look up her condition, no one would mind. Once we know what it is, we've got a better chance of helping her."

David nodded. "Okay. Where is your office?"

Healer Cutner told him, and he said he'd be down shortly. With that, he fogged off with her. Then he turned to Flo.

"No help?" she said, worried.

"Apparently you're not the only weird illness going on. I'm going to go down and look through their library, and see if I can't find something. Obviously, I need to work quickly."

"What do you mean?" Flo asked.

"I mean that the vine in your ear has already gotten longer since breakfast, and that was only a half hour ago."

Flo frowned. David went over and gave her a hug. She clung to him for a moment, drawing support from his embrace, then let him go.

"Please find something," she entreated him.

"I'll do my best. Give me a holler on the mirror if you need anything."

Flo nodded. David kissed her, then he went and filled Olissa in on what was happening. He kissed her good-bye, and then went to start his research.

It had taken David three days to find anything related to Flo's malady. Joe had given him official leave to deal with the problem, since the Rimohrs were officially looking into the odd rash of illnesses. Joe was calling David's absence part of the investigation.

David had made it through nearly half the reference library before he'd come across a description of an illness that sounded like what Flo had. Taking the book home with him, he matched it up, symptom for symptom.

"So, what's wrong with me?" Flo asked. It was getting hard for her to talk, and he had to speak into her right ear. The left side of her face was stiffened by a thickening of the skin. It was also developing nooks and crannies, and was resembling bark, though it was still skin-colored. The vine growing out of her ear was so thick now that it was completely blocking her hearing.

The vines on her wrist had thickened and moved downward. Her hand was now engulfed, and her fingers were sprouting leaves. Her feet were putting out shoots that looked suspiciously like roots, and David had cast a levitation charm on her to keep her from touching the ground, just in case her body tried to integrate itself into the floor.

"It would appear that you've been invaded by a dentrophilis worm."

"I've got worms? Ewwwww!" Flo said.

Even sick, that had come out cute. David tried not to grin at her.

"Not worms. Just one. It's a very tiny creature. It's a parasite. People usually get it by eating nuts, or sometimes berries, that have one within it. They are very, very tiny. Have you gone out in the woods lately?"

"Just out back," she said. "But I haven't eaten anything from out there. You have plenty to eat in the house."

David nodded. "And everything that is sold as food is magically checked for contaminants, so it couldn't come from those. I'm not sure how you got it, then."

"I don't care how I got it. How do I get rid of it?" she asked.

David frowned. "I don't know."

"What?" she cried.

"The book describes the illness, and its effects, but it doesn't list a treatment. I don't know if there currently is one."

"Well, what's this thing going to do to me?"

"Flo... you're..." David hesitated. It was awful news to tell someone. He knew he'd never make a good healer. "You're turning into a tree."

"What?" she cried out, almost panicked. David took her right hand - the one that was not encased in vines - and squeezed. "The dentrophilis worm can only reproduce inside a host. The host has to have a mix of animal and plant features in order to be a suitable support system for the... uh... baby worms. As such, the dentrophilis worm has cursed you, and you're turning into a tree. If we don't administer a cure quickly, you will have worms. Billions of them."

At that, Flo started to cry. David wrapped his arms around her and held on until she let him go, still sniffling.

"Well, get to work," she said, trying to smile. "I don't want my only friends to be tree-huggers and squirrels."

Pickles and Peanut both chittered at her for that. David chuckled, smiled at Flo, and said, "Let me get started. I'll let you know what I find out."

When Joe visited the house three days later, he found David studying furiously in his workroom. Books were strewn on every surface, and three of them were even on the floor.

"I think you need a bigger workroom," Joe said lightly.

David looked up at him, not having heard him come in. There was a tired look in David's eyes. "Hey, Joe," he said.

"You look like hell," Joe said. "Have you been sleeping?"

"Some."

"Well, you need to take a break. I need you back at the office."

"Ain't gonna happen," David said flatly.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm trying to find a cure for Flo. None of the local healers have time to look into it."

"Well, you can work on it in your off-hours," Joe said.

David glared at him. "She's got maybe three days," David said heatedly. "Four at the best, and you want me to 'work on it in my off-hours?' If I don't figure this out, she is dead!" he hissed. There was no chance of her hearing him, as she was sleeping in her room upstairs, but he didn't like saying the thought out loud. "So, reprimand me, suspend me... fire me, if you want, but no, I'm not coming into the office until this is resolved!"

Joe pressed his lips together, and didn't say anything for a long moment. "Okay. I'll explain it to Wilson. What's wrong with Flo, anyway?"

"She has a dentrophilis worm."

"How the hell did she get one of those? They're not even native to this area."

"Believe me, I know. We don't know how she got it. She only ate purchased food, which I'm told has exactly zero chance of containing the worm, so I've got no clue how she came across it."

"Just like a lot of the other illnesses," Joe said with a frown. Setting that aside for a moment, he asked, "Is there a cure?"

"Yes and no," David replied.

"What's that mean?"

"I've concocted a potion which can reverse the effects of the worm's curse, and return her to her human form. However, the potion will not work while the curse is still active. I have found the countercurse to deactivate the worm's curse. However, I can't use that while the worm is still inside her, as it will simply recast the curse. What I'm still trying to find is a way to pull the worm out of her body, or kill it within her."

"A retrieval spell won't work?"

"No. It has blocks in place. This is an evil little bug. I don't know how or why such things came about, but this little fucker has enough magic to get its fucking wizard license."

Joe tried not to chuckle. The situation was serious, but the image of a little worm walking around with its license card was amusing to him. He coughed, and then returned to the situation at hand. "Have you asked the healers if they know a way to remove the worm?"

"I have, and they don't. Even Healer Hall didn't know how this thing could be removed. No one has ever survived this damned thing."

"Can you slow down the progression of the curse?"

"I already have, as much as I can. I'm keeping Flo very cold. The curse is plant-based, and plants don't like the cold very much."

"Hey, what about Gelert Potion? You know, that stuff your friend got poisoned with a few years ago? Wasn't that supposed to give you time to find a cure for things like this?"

David shook his head. "It won't work. Gelert Potion will stop the internal workings of the body. If what was changing her was using her own systems to make the change, it would work. But it's not. The curse is entirely external. Even if she dies, she will still turn into a tree. In fact, she will die before the transformation is complete. In order to completely become a tree, she has to lose her heart and lungs, and... well, that's pretty much that."

Joe frowned. "Four days?"

"Four days."

"Okay. I'll explain things to the boss. I think he'll understand."

"Thanks, Joe."

"You need anything?" Joe asked.

"A miracle," David replied.

"Sorry, that's your department," Joe said. David looked at him funny. "You're a walking-around dead guy. If that's not miraculous, what is?"

David smirked at him. "Go away," he said good-naturedly. "I have work to do."

"Good luck, David."

"Thanks."

It took another two days, three calls to Prof. Phillips, and two calls to Prof. Thropp, before David finally had enough information to try to help Flo. The worst part for David was that all he could guarantee was an attempt. He had no idea if this was actually going to work, or if he was going to fail utterly. It was unlikely he was going to get a second try at this.

David rode the lift up to the second floor and made his way into Flo's room. She was lying above her bed. They couldn't allow her to touch anything, as the tendrils from her body were already seeking out surfaces to integrate with and draw nutrients from. They had started with her body just a few inches off the bed. Now she was a foot and a half above her mattress.

Flo still had a face, but she could no longer speak. Her mouth had been frozen by the thickening skin of her head. She was still breathing, still had a strong heartbeat. If only he could get rid of the goddamned worm.

"Do you have it?" Olissa asked. Olissa had been tending to Flo while David had been working to find a cure.

"I honestly don't know," David said. He turned to Flo. Her right ear was still uncovered, so she could hear him, but he had to speak up, as the tendrils were encroaching.

"Flo," he said, raising his voice, "I'm going to try to pull the worm from your body. I'll warn you now, this will hurt. I wish there was something I could do about that, but I'm afraid to work any other spells, for fear they'll mess with the extraction. Blink twice if you understand."

Slowly, Flo blinked twice. David could see the fear in her eyes.

"Okay. Blink twice again when you're ready for me to proceed."

It took a long moment, but finally, Flo blinked twice. David nodded, and then looked over at Olissa. She nodded in encouragement. David turned his head the other way, to see Pickles and Peanut sitting together on a chair, watching. They stared back at him.

Taking a deep breath, David pulled out his wand and a vial with a clear liquid in it.

"What's that?" Olissa asked.

"Rubbing alcohol. It's to kill the worm."

"Wait. It can do all this, but it can't handle rubbing alcohol?"

"Everything has its weakness," David said quietly. "Could you call Healer Cutner for me, and have her come over, just in case?"

Olissa nodded.

David turned to Flo, raised his wand, and began.

"Tapmahk dyemek siksaris kurd," David intoned quietly. His wand moved in a diamond shape, one point for each word of the spell. He didn't say the spell just once, but kept repeating it. A green light engulfed Flo as David kept up his repetition. He didn't speed up or change the tone of his voice, he merely kept a steady rhythm.

The green light began to tighten. It no longer engulfed all of Flo. It was contracting around a point, which seemed to be somewhere in her lower abdomen. Once the light had contracted to a tight ball, it began to pierce Flo's body. She jerked in obvious pain. Olissa took her hand and squeezed. David had to ignore the discomfort he was causing her. The ball of light would burrow into Flo's body, right to the worm, but that was going to hurt like hell, he was sure.

Continuing his chant, David kept his concentration. This was taking much longer than he'd expected, but he could sense the spell was making progress, so he kept up what he was doing. He didn't notice when the door chime rang, nor did he see Olissa leave and bring back Healer Cutner, who knew better than to interrupt what he was doing.

Flo was writhing in pain at this point, as the ball of green light dug further and further into her. Finally, it pierced her liver, where the worm had taken up residence. The worm wasn't about to go quietly. It tried to enact a protective field around itself, but it wasn't prepared when David merely excised a small portion of Flo's liver, and extracted the worm with its field fully intact.

David's spell, having captured the worm, now moved quickly out of Flo's body. David stopped moving his wand in the diamond pattern as the ball of light came to the tip of his wand. He directed it down into the vial of alcohol.

"Peractus," David said. The ball of light extinguished. The worm, almost too small to see, dropped into the alcohol. David put a stopper on the vial and then shook it vigorously, to make sure the worm was fully coated with the liquid. They could see it struggling, trying to free itself from the poison, but that was a losing battle. There was simply nowhere for it to go. In less than a minute, it stopped moving.

"Apokolyptivivos," David said, pointing his wand at the vial. The vial was surrounded by a dim black cloud. Nothing was living inside the vial.

"Step one, complete," David said, setting the vial on a nearby table. Seeing Healer Cutner there, he brightened slightly. "Oh, good. Can you make sure she's going to survive what I just had to do? I've damaged some internal organ or other in order to get that damned worm out of her." The blood was oozing from her wound already.

Healer Cutner moved closer to her, and began chanting some healing spells. Between spells, she asked, "Are you sure this won't interfere with that spell you were casting?"

"That spell is over," David said. "That was just to get the worm out of her body."

"But she's still a tree," Olissa said. "Well, half a tree..."

"Because the curse is still there. If we left her this way, she would still turn into a tree, even without the worm. But I couldn't try to break the curse while the worm was there, or it would just cast the curse again."

In a minute, Healer Cutner had finished her work. "She'll be okay, as far as the wound goes. Do you know how to break the curse?"

"I think so," David said, a little less confidently than he'd like.

"You're not sure?" she asked.

"I've never done it before. It's a counter-enchantment. Enchantments are not my best thing."

"Mine, either," she said. "But as long as you say the words clearly, it should be okay."

"Uh-huh. Here are the words," David said, showing her the parchment he'd written them on.

"Ouch," Healer Cutner said. The words were not in English, nor any language she recognized. "What is that?"

"Demon fairy language," David said. "That little worm is basically a demon. Just a very weak one."

"You call this weak?" Olissa asked.

"It can't even move itself from place to place," David said. "It has to rely on others to carry it. This curse is nasty, yes... but bigger demons are much, much stronger than this. Consider all a fae can do. Demons have that same level of power."

"Oh."

"You mind if I stay and watch?" Healer Cutner asked. "This is a new bit of healing to me."

"I'd prefer if you did," David replied. "Just in case I screw it up."

David turned to Flo. He put his wand away, and placed one hand on her abdomen. Then he began the spell, speaking very slowly and clearly, reading directly from the page.

"Sifarey eshty beredu tezhbehet. Ingakafashni uzi nendu hetten dalet. Hikmalakimet ingaki, prajo munday kandido yed hehop."

As David finished the spell, a red light spread from his hand, moving across Flo's body. It was a very weak light, however. David, seeing this, cast the spell again, speaking slightly more quickly now, and with more confidence. When he finished this time, a bigger wave of light joined the first. It was still not strong enough to fully engulf Flo's body, however, and so he cast it again, and then a fourth time, until finally a uniform, bright glow of red surrounded her entirely. The tendrils, which had been almost visibly growing across her body, stopped and withered, but did not die. Seeing that the spell had apparently worked, David lifted his hand. With that, the red light faded.

"She's still a tree," Healer Cutner said. "Or, well, you know," she said, motioning to Olissa, who grinned.

"Right," David said. "The countercurse stops the curse, which was causing the plant part to grow, but the countercurse can't kill the plant that's already grown."

"Geez, how complex is this illness?" Healer Cutner asked.

"Why do you think no one's ever survived it before?" David asked in response. "From what I read, everyone tried to go at it from the wrong end."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"They tried to get rid of the tree parts before getting rid of the worm. But you can't get rid of the tree parts without getting rid of the worm, because the worm is causing them to grow."

"Why didn't they figure that out?" Olissa asked.

"Well, in fairness, there are only four or five known cases of this ever happening. I'm sure it's happened more times, to people who never made it out of the woods and just 'disappeared', but only four or five times that the healers have ever had a chance to deal with it. And in those four or five times, they didn't have nearly as much time to work with it as I did. We caught it on its second day. In all of the recorded cases, the healers saw it... well, on a day like today. They simply didn't have the time to figure things out."

"So, how do we fix this?" Healer Cutner asked. "I mean, she's still... excuse me, Miss... deformed."

David walked over to a table and picked up a flask. He took out a pipette and withdrew as much of the liquid as possible. He brought it up to Flo's mouth, slipped the pipette between her frozen lips, and dropped the liquid in. Flo gurgled in disgust, but he heard her swallow it.

"Apparently, it doesn't taste very good," David said to the others, who grinned.

David administered the potion three more times before he started to see the vines on Flo's body start to die off and disintegrate. Her skin lost the look of bark, and was clearly becoming more supple. He administered three more doses before he was fairly certain she'd had enough. They watched, though, to make sure that all signs of her former vegetable self were gone. She was naked, as all of her clothes had been destroyed by the vines. Flo wasn't embarrassed, and everyone else was used to it.

Flo sat up slowly, with David's help, and then she wrapped her arms around him and tried to squash him in a bear hug. She whispered her thanks to him over and over again in his ear.

Finally, when Flo allowed him to step back, he raised his hand and slowly withdrew the levitation enchantment. Flo eased back down onto her mattress. "Am I fully cured now?" she asked, a bit of worry in her voice.

"I think so. I want Healer Cutner to look you over real good, to be sure, though."

"You don't trust yourself?" Healer Cutner asked.

"Not where my friends' lives are concerned, no."

Healer Cutner smiled, and then she began a thorough magical examination of Flo. It took a half hour.

"You are now a perfectly healthy young woman," she pronounced when she was finished. "No trace of the worm, the curse, or any ill effects."

"Well..." Flo said.

"What?" David asked worriedly.

"I do have this strange desire to squish my bare feet in some dirt..." She grinned at him, and he realized she was teasing him. The others chuckled.

"Well, I still have a ward full of sick people to tend to, so I'd better get back," Healer Cutner said.

"Is it getting any better?" David asked.

"We're not getting any new cases. We're just having to care for the ones that have already appeared. It's weird. They just popped up, and then they stopped."

"Did anyone die?"

"Unfortunately. We've lost five."

"Dammit," David said.

"Why do you take it so personally?" she asked.

"Too involved. It could have easily been six," he said, glancing at Flo.

"But it wasn't, thanks to you. If you don't mind, I want to register your cure with my guild. Giving you full credit, of course."

"I can't release the reversal potion. I need it for my advancement petition with my own guild."

"Oh, I understand. I wouldn't have put it in the registration, anyway. Do you have a name for it?"

"Dendrapharesi Potion."

"Excuse me?" she asked.

David chuckled, and wrote it down for her.

"O...kay," she said. "The spells, are they also private?"

"I don't know. They don't, strictly speaking, belong to me. You'll have to contact Prof. Phillips and Prof. Thropp, up at the Woodward Academy. Prof. Phillips helped me write the worm-removal charm, and Prof. Thropp and he both worked out the countercurse. I only gave some minor input to that one."

"Okay, I'll contact them, then. How did you figure all of this out, anyway?"

"Once I knew the cause, and had read how they had tried to fight it in the past, I realized they were working it backward."

"But you developed the potion first," Olissa objected. "Weren't you working backward, too?"

"Not really. I did what I knew I could figure out on my own. Besides, I knew I had to have that ready whenever I was able to do the other part. If I couldn't create the potion, then there was little point in proceeding further. I also had Professors Phillips and Thropp working on the other stuff while I was building the potion."

"But you put all the pieces together," Healer Cutner said.

"Yeah, well... everyone else was busy," David said with a shrug.

"You saved a life today," Healer Cutner said. "And you'll save a few more in the future with this cure."

"Always a good thing," David said.

Healer Cutner shook his hand, then took her leave. David turned back to Flo, but she was clearly drowsy.

"Why don't we let tree girl get some rest," David said to Olissa. "I really sense that she'd like us to leaf... er, I mean leave."

Olissa groaned at his bad pun, and Flo had just enough strength to throw a tissue box at him. She missed, but her point got across.

"Okay, okay," David said. "No reason to... bark... at me..."

Flo was searching for something else to throw at him when he came over to her.

Leaning down, he said, "I'm very glad you're okay."

She pulled him the rest of the way, and they kissed softly. After that, she lay back and closed her eyes. David then joined Olissa and they left her to sleep.

"Well, if it isn't the prodigal intern," Agent Wilson said when David arrived at the office the next morning. More seriously, he asked, "How's your friend doing?"

"Recovering, thanks. Did we ever figure out what that rash of illnesses was about?"

Agent Wilson shrugged. "A statistical anomaly, as far as we can figure. The diseases weren't the same, we could find no connection between the people, and no prominent dark wizard was known to be in the area."

"Prominent dark wizard? Some of these bastards are famous?"

"The word is infamous, and yes."

"And there are non-prominent dark wizards around?"

"There are always dark wizards around," Agent Wilson told him.

"Why aren't we arresting them, then?"

"First, you have to prove they did something wrong. That tends to be more difficult than you might think."

"Hmph."

"Not with your current case, however. If you can figure this one out, I'm pretty sure you'll be able to prove who did it."

"What have we got?" David asked, his voice businesslike. He looked up to see Garibaldi just coming in the room.

Wilson handed over the folder. "A spate of coach robberies. Four in the last three months."

"And we're just now hearing about it?" Garibaldi asked.

"They were trying to handle it in-house. If word gets out that the coaches aren't safe to use, it'll harm their business."

"Right," Garibaldi said sarcastically. "'Cause having people robbed is so much better for public relations."

"They can keep that quiet with a little bit of money," Wilson pointed out.

While Garibaldi and Wilson were doing their back and forth, David was reading the file. He went over to the writing board assigned to him, and began putting up the pertinent facts. The file was thin on useful information, and it didn't take him long to distill it down to the essentials. When he was done, he stood back to look at it. He realized that the other two had stopped talking and were watching him.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing, just watching you do your thing," Wilson said. "I'll leave you two to it."

Wilson walked away as Garibaldi looked over the file and compared it to David's notes on the board. He saw that David hadn't missed anything relevant.

"So, what's your first step?" Joe asked him.

David continued to stare at the board. "Go to the coach company. We need a list of who was on each coach, what they were carrying, what was stolen... and a timetable for all of the company's runs."

"For?"

"To find a pattern. They're not hitting every coach. Hell, they're not even hitting a coach a week. That means they're picking and choosing. How are they picking and choosing? We need to figure that out, so we can catch them."

"Good. Let's go."

"So, you finding anything?" Joe asked. Joe was doing some paperwork while David looked over the case information they'd gathered.

"I'm getting an inkling of an idea, but it's not there yet. I can say there's no obvious pattern in which day, time of day, or number of people on the coach. Also, they have attacked at a different spot on the route each time. They are, however, only hitting one route."

"Why doesn't the company just put a guard on the coach?"

"They tried that. Somehow the robbers knew, and the guard ended up in the local infirmary. Sounds to me like there's a mole in the company."

"There'd almost have to be, if they are, as you think, picking which coaches to hit. How else would they know what was on the coach?"

"Right," David agreed. "And I am, I think, narrowing in on what it is that's triggering their attacks. I still have to compare my thoughts to the other coaches, though."

"Other coaches?"

"The ones that weren't attacked. It's not really a pattern unless it doesn't exist in the coaches that weren't involved."

"Of course," Joe said. "You know, David... if you ever repeat this, I'll deny it... but you're already better at this than I was when I joined. You don't need this internship. You could apply for and become a full Rimohr on any day. Hell, at this point, I don't think they'd even bother sending you to the Academy."

"Thanks. It's not the investigative part that worries me, though I still think I have a lot to learn in that regard."

"You learn that mostly through practice. What is it that concerns you?"

"I'm worried about how I'm going to react when we lose one."

"That is always hard to take."

"I know. But I don't yet know how hard. And I need to find that out before I commit to doing this job full-time."

"You want to lose a case?" Joe asked incredulously.

"No. I'd absolutely love to have a career with only successes in it. But do you really see that happening?"

"No. Sometimes the information you need just isn't there. Not every criminal makes mistakes that we can profit from. Even if you do everything right, and gather all the information it's possible to get... what you need just isn't available."

"Right. I need to know what that's going to feel like."

"I get you. You have other careers in mind, just in case?"

"Prof. Blackstone is trying to wrangle me into becoming a teacher..." he replied.

Joe grinned. "Well, there's an option."

David grunted. "Let me get back to this."

"What in the world is all this?" Flo asked. She was still in her bathrobe, as she had been resting all day.

"Case work," David said. He had brought home all of the information he'd gathered on the current case, to see if he could think better in his private space.

"No, not that," Flo said. "I recognize those folders. I meant what's all this?" she said, pointing to books and scrolls and loose pieces of parchment that were stacked on his other work table.

"Huh?" he said, looking up and seeing what she was pointing to. "Oh, that. That's the stuff I gathered to try to find your cure. I really need to get some of that back to Healer Cutner, come to think of it."

"Just how hard did you work on this?" she asked, fingering one of the scrolls.

"Only as hard as I had to," David replied.

"Which was..." Flo prompted.

"Twenty-two hours a day the entire time you were sick," he finally said.

Flo came over to him and slid down into his lap, forcing him to push away from his desk. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with meaning, but not much fervor. She was still weak from her ordeal.

"I still don't want you as a boyfriend," she said with a grin, showing she was teasing him.

David smiled. "I know. But I have few enough friends as it is. I wasn't about to lose one if I could help it."

"Oh, I'd have hung around here, anyway. You know, as a ghost."

David smiled. "You're not supposed to do that, you know."

Flo shrugged. "Who's gonna stop me, you?" Flo giggled.

"Well I could, but no," he replied.

"Can you take a break from all of this?" she asked, motioning to what was behind her on his desk.

"Sure. Why?"

"I want to take a bath," she said, "and I need you to wash my front."

"Um... can't you wash your own front?" he asked with a grin.

"Yes, but it doesn't feel nearly as good as when you do it."

David kissed her, and then the two left the office to have some personal time upstairs. They kept it gentle, due to Flo's condition, but that didn't mean they didn't enjoy themselves thoroughly.

"What kind of attack do you expect?" Joe whispered to David. They were currently riding in a coach that had departed Bolmont. It was heading west, on the same route that had been attacked four times already.

"What do you mean, what kind?" David asked. "It's an ambush."

"How aggressive, though?"

"Expect violence. A fair bit of it."

"Why? They've only injured one person so far..."

"And all that person did was to tell them to leave. Their aggression has been increasing on each attack. In the last attack, sure only one was injured, but every one of them was manhandled. It's only a matter of time before these guys do something truly nasty."

Garibaldi nodded. "How many of them are there?"

David shook his head. "We don't really know. We've had conflicting counts, even between people at the same crime. I think it's safe to say at least three, because no one said less than that. It could be as high as eight, however."

"Eight?" Garibaldi repeated in dismay.

"Yeah. Which brings me to my question."

"What question?"

"What rules are we operating under?"

"What do you mean?"

"How violent can we get?"

"In order to protect the people in this coach, we are authorized to use deadly force, if necessary. But try not to. The paperwork's a bitch."

"I can think of better reasons not to," David said.

Garibaldi just nodded.

David was staring disinterestedly out at the countryside, when suddenly the coach jolted to a stop. He could hear the horses out front neighing in fright and dismay.

David looked over at Garibaldi. "Time to go to work," he said.

Garibaldi nodded. Turning to the other passengers, he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we are Rimohrs. Please remain in your seats. No matter what happens, do not leave this coach. We'll handle this."

David, who had been looking out of his window, said to Garibaldi, "I count four here."

Garibaldi looked out of his window. "At least two here."

"So, at least six."

"Shit," Joe opined. David did not disagree.

Outside, the leader of the gang gestured to the coach driver. "Get your ass down and open that coach!"

"No," the man said simply. He knew nothing of the Rimohrs on board, nor would he have cared. It was his job to see these people safely to their destination. His dedication would be very bad for him.

The gang leader said, "Look, old man, you can open the coach, or we can beat you to a bloody pulp."

"You'll do what you're going to do. I have my job."

The gang leader looked at him in anger. No one had defied him in this way so far. No one was ever going to do it again, either, if he had anything to say about it. He snarled a spell.

Grey light shot from the tip of his wand, impacting the man in the chest. The light engulfed him, and the man's body was then thrown clear over the coach, landing on the ground behind it.

Inside, Joe muttered, "Stupid fool."

David said nothing. He watched the men outside. They were moving in on the coach.

"Four on one odds ain't great," David said.

"Hell, two on one ain't great," Joe replied. "Any thoughts?"

"Only that I'd rather be home right now," David said. "I'll take the four."

"You sure?" Joe asked.

"I can't die. You can. Zyla'd never speak to me again if you got killed while training me."

Joe grunted in dark amusement at that.

"Am I allowed to fade under these circumstances?" David asked.

"To save life and property, you can do whatever you have to," Joe confirmed. "You simply cannot testify about anything you see while you're invisible."

"Right," David replied, and immediately faded to insubstantiality. He stayed that way for a second, watching the men outside, but then he became completely invisible, and he stepped through the side of the carriage.

The four men on David's side of the coach were just getting ready to start blasting at the coach door, when David suddenly appeared in front of them.

"Rimohrs! Drop your wands! NOW!" he barked, hoping to at least startle them into inaction. He had his wand in his hand, but he wasn't sure what spell to cast against these four. Odrazit might hurt the people in the coach, as it was omnidirectional. Pichac, perhaps?

The gang leader gave him no further time to consider it. He shouted another spell, and a blast of light shot from his wand. David had raised a protective shield around himself just in time, and the spell impacted that. The problem was that, as long as David was casting the shield spell, he couldn't easily cast anything else.

Just then, David remembered Kalagasakalayo, the armband given to him by the dragon clan. He held up his arm and intoned, "Ogon shechit!"

Immediately, a fire spiraled up out of the armband, forming a fiery shield. David held it in position to block the gang leader's ongoing spell, and then dropped his overall shield spell. He cast bara, and the gang leader went spilling to the ground. Two others of the gang, however, cast spells at David. He was able to block the first, but the second connected, throwing him sideways toward the back of the coach.

As David got to his hands and knees, he saw the coachman, lying on the ground. David didn't know if the man was dead or not, and he couldn't worry about it just yet. He also looked under the coach, to see that Joe was pinned back against the coach, trying to fend off the two on his side.

We've got to wrap this up fast.

Avoiding the gang members for a second, David crawled over to the coachman. Feeling for a pulse was not necessary, as there was clearly a deep hole where the man's heart had been. Rolling him over, David saw the hole went all the way through the man's body.

David rolled the man back so he was face up, and then he rose to his feet. He put his wand away, and then reformed his buckler. Reaching into a pocket in his coat, he pulled his sword. He could damage faster with this than with his wand.

As he returned to the coach, he saw that the four men were now blasting at the door.

"Drop your wands, you are under arrest!" David shouted. This was to get their attention, so they could see he was now armed.

The nearest gang member blasted at him, but David batted that away with his buckler. This caused the four to turn from the door and face David.

Well, at least I've kept them away from the passengers for a while...

All four opened up on David, but they were standing close enough that his shield blocked all four spells. His arm gave a little bit at the strength of the hit, but nothing more than that happened.

"This is your last warning!" David told them. "If you don't surrender now, I will be forced to attack!" This was protocol; if he was to use his sword legally, he had to make it known that he was willing to do more than just wave it in their face. This wouldn't be necessary if any of them came at him in an attack, but they weren't; they were all keeping their distance.

Their response to his comment was to up their spells. David's arm gave even further, nearly pressed against his chest now. David twisted his arm just slightly, and the spells bounced harmlessly upward. There was still enough impact, however, to make it hard for him to move.

David took a breath, and then he faded to insubstantiality. His buckler immediately disappeared, but it didn't matter. The spells were now going right through him. He waited for the second it took for all four of them to end their spells, and then he charged, becoming solid as he moved.

The four men started to cast spells, but David was too close now. He smacked the first man in the head with the side of his blade, sending him to his knees, shaking his head in pain and confusion. He drove the pommel of his sword into another man's solar plexus, dropping him like a stone. The third was trying to get off a spell at him, and so David was required to use his sword to gash the back of his hand, forcing him to drop his wand.

David turned to the gang leader, who, knowing it was now one-on-one, immediately dropped his wand and raised his hands.

"On your knees, hands behind your back," David said. He jabbed his sword into the ground and extinguished his buckler. He engaged the handcuff hex on each of his prisoners, and laid them down on the ground, also shackling their feet, to keep them from moving. That done, he took up his sword and moved around the back of the carriage.

Joe was still holding the two men off, but the men had split apart. They had alternated back and forth, each taking a rest while the other fought the Rimohr. As David came around the coach, however, he saw that, while Joe was focused on the one toward the front of the coach, the one nearest David, that Joe wasn't paying attention to, was getting ready to cast a hex. David heard the first part of it, and that was all he needed to hear.

"Joe, DROP!"

Joe, knowing David wouldn't say that without meaning it, immediately rolled into a ball under the carriage. David didn't see that, however. He was lunging at Joe's attacker. He meant to cut the man's hand off, but at the last second, the man lunged, trying to follow Joe's movements. David did not have time to adjust, and his slash ran right across the man's neck. David had pulled back the strength from his attack as soon as he knew he would miss his target, but it didn't matter. His sword was magically sharpened, and it held a razor's edge. The man's neck was opened up, and blood spewed everywhere.

The man, now mortally wounded, collapsed to the ground, his blood pooling at David's feet. David, for the moment not caring about the condition of that attacker, turned on the last one.

"Drop your wand!" he shouted. The anger rolled off David almost like a visible force. The man he was facing suddenly felt an urgent need to urinate. He dropped his wand and raised his hands. The fight was over.

Joe, who had been watching from beneath the coach for the few seconds that the end of the fight had taken, now stood up and took the remaining gang member into custody. As he was doing that, David put his sword away, and then looked down at the man whose blood was now staining David's shoes.

Pointlessly, David reached down and felt for a pulse. The man was already dead. Had he been alive, David could have saved him. He carried Bloodbank Potion with him all the time. But he couldn't fix the dead. David took in the look of the man. It was the first time David had been forced to kill. He hadn't meant to do it. He sure as hell hadn't wanted to do it.

As Joe came over to talk with David, David moved off. He walked twenty feet into the trees, and vomited. It took a long moment before he was able to stand up and walk back to the coach.

"You okay?" Joe asked seriously. "I would have thought, after that battle a few months ago, the sight of blood wouldn't bother you."

"It's not the blood," David said. "I didn't kill anybody in that battle, Joe. I saw people die, but not at my hand."

Joe nodded soberly. He, luckily, had never been forced to take a life. He didn't understand exactly what David was going through, and he knew that.

"Come on," he said gently. "Let's get the work done, so we can go home."

"Right," David said, taking one last, long look at his victim.

"As per protocol, you're on administrative leave until the board of inquiry convenes," Agent Wilson told David. Joe was with him, as he was his training officer.

"What, exactly, does that mean?" David asked.

"It means you get paid time off until we figure out what happened."

"We know what happened," Joe objected. "He saved my ass."

"Yes, but did he do so in an appropriate fashion? Was deadly force necessary?"

"I wasn't trying to kill him," David said.

"Oh?" Agent Wilson replied.

"I was aiming for his wrist. He moved at the last second, and I didn't have time to shift."

Agent Wilson wrote that down, but didn't make a comment about it. "In any case," he said, "You've got a few days off. Chances are that the board will convene around the middle of this week. The chiefs will have to come up from Senesty."

"You're calling in the chiefs for this?" Joe asked incredulously.

"I'm not doing anything, Garibaldi. That's how this works. The board of inquiry is always composed of three district chiefs, all of whom live in Senesty."

Getting sidetracked, David asked, "How can they all live in Senesty, if they control different districts?"

Wilson grinned. "Because they're lazy asses who don't actually do any work."

"Great. And my future's in their hands?"

"Oh, don't worry. If they find you acted inappropriately, it makes them look bad by extension, so they're not going to unless you obviously acted way out of line."

David grunted at that. After a second, he asked, "Do I need to stay in town for the investigation?"

"Planning on running from the law, are you?" Wilson asked in amusement.

"No, but I have things I need to do up in Gorumshead, for my other job."

"You can go do that. Chances are the chiefs won't even speak to you until the day of the hearing. They'll get everyone else's version first, and get yours at the hearing, then make their decision."

"Great," David said, meaning it wasn't great at all.

Wilson nodded. "That's it. Go do what you've got to do. We'll contact you if you're needed back here."

"Yes, sir."

As David and Joe left the room, Joe was upset. "This is bullshit. You save a fellow Rimohr's life, and you're the one on trial?"

"It's not a trial, Joe, just a hearing. And it's a step in the right direction, if they want to clean up the Rimohrs' image."

"How do you figure?"

"Whenever a group like the Rimohrs operates, there's always a question that gets asked. That question is, 'Who watches the watchers?' In other words, who makes sure that the people who are making sure others don't break the law, don't break the law themselves?"

"But there's no way you broke a law. Hell, even if you'd been intending to kill him, you would still have been acting in defense of another."

"The rules for us have to be stricter. Was it legal? Yes. So I have no fear of jail time. Was it within Rimohr policy? That's the question the chiefs will answer. And aren't you supposed to be giving me this speech, and me be the angry one? I think we have this backwards."

Joe laughed. "Well, I've never looked into the internal procedures, because I haven't known anyone, before now, who got into this level of trouble. Usually people back off when the Rimohrs show up. And I really think you should be more peeved than you are."

David shook his head. "I watched way too many cop shows when I was a kid. In Earth, when a cop shoots someone, no matter the circumstances, they get investigated. It's even called 'administrative leave', funnily enough. I'm not upset because I expected it."

"Well, it should be over in a few days," Joe said.

"Yeah... I hope the nightmare goes away that soon, too," David said, mostly to himself. "Anyway, I'm going to head out. I've got to go pick a new security team and get prepared for the coming school year."

"Good luck," Joe said. David nodded and headed out.

To Vivian, who was sitting at her desk, Joe said, "This administrative crap sucks."

Vivian nodded, but didn't say anything. She looked up to see David leave the office, but then returned to her paperwork.

David flipped through the resume on his desk, to remind him of who, exactly, was in front of him, and then he examined the folder that had been delivered by the Rimohrs. He knew that the woman sitting there was probably nervous, but that couldn't be helped. He hadn't had time to look the folder over before meeting with her, and so he simply had to do it in her presence. Finally, he set the paperwork off to the side.

"Okay, Miss Sahar. Tell me why I should hire you."

"Sir? You have my resume..."

"Yes, and I have the resumes of thirty other people, as well. Some just as impressive as yours. Hell, some are more so. Why should I hire you, instead of them?"

"Well, sir, firstly, I am good with people. I can develop a rapport with most types of people easily."

"And which types can't you?" David asked.

"Criminal types, mostly."

David grunted. "Go on."

"I am a team player, and I am loyal to my teammates. I was injured on my last job backing up my partner when..."

"Yes, I have the report here," David said, cutting her off. "So, you're good with people and you're loyal. Is that it?"

"I'm honestly not sure what you're asking me for, sir. I've been trained to perform as a security officer. I'm qualified to be a member of your team. Admittedly, I wasn't able to attend Woodward Academy, but my license score is still quite high. You should hire me because I'm right for the job."

David stared at her for a long moment, before he finally said, "What's your worst personality trait?"

"I have trouble accepting negative truths about my friends," she said.

David grunted at that. He could sympathize.

"What's your family life like?" David asked.

"Uh... my parents live in Gorumshead."

"You don't have a husband, children?"

"No, sir..."

David nodded.

"Is that important?"

"Not really," David said.

Then why did you ask? she wondered.

"Which of your weapons do you feel the most comfortable with?"

"The mace," she replied.

David made another note. Then he looked up at her.

Reaching over, David picked up a stack of folders and handed them to the woman.

"What's this?" she asked.

"Your subordinates' files. You should familiarize yourself with them. Welcome to the team."

"Subordinates? I thought I was applying to be a security officer. Why do I have subordinates?"

David looked at her. "The positions for security officer were all filled yesterday."

"So... what is my job, then?" she asked.

"Deputy Chief of Security," David said. "Your office is right over there," he said, pointing to a door that led out of his office. "You'll want to read up on the team, get to know as much as you can about them."

Miss Sahar sat there, stunned. "Sir, I didn't even apply..."

"I know you didn't. No one did, because I didn't let them. I didn't want someone who arrogantly thinks that a regular officer's position is beneath them. I wanted someone who deserved the position not because they'd done it before, but because they might actually be good at it. And just so you know, I lied. There wasn't a resume better than yours. Some were just as good, but I didn't like their attitudes."

"Thank you, sir," she said. What else could she say? "I, uh... guess I'll get busy reading these. Where... well, actually, what is our uniform here?"

"That is still being worked on. We'll have it figured out before school starts. I didn't like the old way of doing it. For now, what you're wearing is fine."

"Yes, sir."

"One last thing," he said as she got up. She turned to face him.

"If you call me 'sir' in this office again, I'll demote you. My name is David."

She finally smiled at him. "Okay. Call me Tanya."

David nodded. "Welcome aboard."

"This board of inquiry is now under way. Would Officer Intern Stroud please step forward?"

David stepped up to the podium that was facing the board. He felt like he was back at his licensing exam, he was so nervous.

"Now, we've already covered the background information, how the case began, how you determined this was the coach most likely to be attacked. We take no issue with any of that. Our discussion here is to determine whether your actions that led to the death of one..." the man looked down at a sheet of parchment before him, "...Devlin Duchovny... was within policy, and, if not, what the punishment should be. Do you wish to make a statement to us before we begin questions?"

"Sirs, the only comment I'd like to make sure is on the record is that it was not my intent to kill the man. I was attacking him, yes, but to harm, not to kill."

The lead interrogator nodded. "Agent Wilson said you had made that statement. Let's start more toward the beginning of the event, however. You chose to take on four men at once. Alone. Why?"

"We either had to split up, or leave some number of them completely unopposed. I didn't think the second option was a good idea. Given my nature, I am less likely to get seriously injured than Agent Garibaldi is, so I offered to take on the larger group."

"You had no motive of looking the hero?" one of the other chiefs asked.

"No, sir. My concern was for the safety of my partner."

"But he's not your partner. He's your training officer."

"Neither his wife nor his little girl would have appreciated the distinction when I had to tell them he was dead, sir."

"So, you chose the larger group. It is our understanding that you faded during this fight. Is this correct?"

"Yes, sir. First, I faded to get out of the coach without opening the door. Second, I faded during combat to avoid an attack."

"Why did you leave the coach in this manner?"

"To protect the people inside. With four attackers on my side, there was a good chance that, had they chosen to attack while I was exiting, a passenger could have been hit by a shot coming through the open doorway."

"Was this not also a problem for Agent Garibaldi?"

"I imagine it was, sir, but he didn't have any other option. I did, so I took it."

"I see. At what point did you decide that your wand was not a sufficient tool to effect an arrest?"

"When trying to fight four people at once using my wand got me tossed about fifteen feet, sir," David replied, keeping his voice even.

"And you just happened to have your sword with you that day... with no thought of using it," the third chief said, his voice indicating what he thought.

"I always carry my sword with me, sir. Including right now."

"I see no sign of it," the lead interrogator said.

David opened his coat, to show them the spot where the crossbar rested against the top of a pocket. "I enchanted this pocket to act as an expandable storage bag. It contains my sword without the bulk of having it in a scabbard at my side."

The chiefs all nodded at that.

"Okay, so it was your considered opinion that you needed to use your sword to incapacitate the attackers. In the case of the first four, you did so without serious harm. A nasty cut to one wrist, but nothing more than bruises on the others.

"You then tell us that, for this fifth perpetrator, you felt the need to actually do serious harm. Why the change?"

"Nobody had been in mortal danger from the other assailants," David replied simply.

"Excuse me? Mortal danger?"

"I heard the first word of the hex being cast by the assailant. That word was 'anyolum'. I only know of one spell that starts with that word, and it is a vaporization hex. As such, I assumed that he was attempting to kill my training officer."

The three were making notes together now. The lead interrogator said, "Okay, so you felt Agent Garibaldi's life was in imminent danger. You say you weren't trying to kill the man. What were you trying to do?"

"Cut off his hand."

"Gashing his wrist, as you did with the other, was not sufficient?" one of the others asked.

"I couldn't chance missing," David replied. "When I did it the first time, I had more time to consider. However, it should also be noted that it wouldn't have made any difference if that had been my intent. I tried to pull back my sword as far as I could when the man moved. It simply wasn't sufficient."

"You're suggesting that, even had you been aiming to simply cut him bad enough to force him to drop his wand, you would still have ended up killing him?"

"Yes, sir. If I could demonstrate?"

"Oh, by all means," the lead interrogator said.

David cast a spell, creating an image before them all. It was half-size, to fit in the room more easily.

"The blue one is me. The red one is the gang member. This image is, of course, based on my memory of the incident, but that's what I was acting on, so..."

"Yes, of course. Go on."

"You can see our positions. Here is my line of travel." A flashing line appeared on the screen, showing a line that angled from the man's front, toward him.

"I was aiming for this point right here," David said. A flashing dot appeared on top of the man's wrist.

"The man didn't start moving until I had reached this point," David said, moving the figure of himself until it was very close to the gang member. "At which point, he lunged forward. Now, please pay attention to the flashing dot."

As the gang member lunged forward to finish his hex at Garibaldi, the dot, which had been at his wrist, now fell directly inside his body, right below his head.

"I did see him move, and I pulled back as much as I could, but I was already in the midst of my stroke at this point, and I simply didn't have a chance to stop. The tip of my blade nicked his jugular vein, and that caused his death."

"And his partner says you stood and watched him die. Is that true?"

"No, sir. I looked down at him in shock for a couple seconds. After that, I remembered there was still one gang member left, and I turned to deal with him."

"Could you have saved the man's life?" one interrogator asked.

"I could have kept him alive until we got him to a healer," David confirmed.

"How?"

"I carry Bloodbank Potion with me at all times. It would have kept his body full of blood for hours."

"And... why didn't you?" another asked.

"I didn't have a chance. By the time we'd dealt with the last of the attackers, the man was already dead."

"I see. Ultimately, knowing how things turned out, do you wish you'd done something differently?" the lead interrogator asked.

"I would have liked not to have killed the man, sir, but, even on fiftieth run-through in my head, I cannot think of what I could have done differently that would still have saved Agent Garibaldi. I didn't have time to draw my wand and cast a hex. I didn't have time to switch to a different weapon. In short, sir, I would like for it to have turned out differently, but I cannot say that there is anything I did that I would like to have changed."

"You carry another weapon?" one of the interrogators asked, seizing on this point.

"Yes. I carry a staff with me."

"And why did you not choose this weapon to deal with the attack in the first place? I would assume a staff is less lethal than a sword..."

"Not entirely true, sir, but it is somewhat easier to not kill with a staff. I chose the sword because I needed my shield in order to block their spells, and you cannot effectively use a staff one-handed."

The interrogator nodded and made a note.

The lead interrogator looked to the other two, saw they had no further questions, and then he turned back to David. "This hearing is adjourned for three hours. We will reconvene at that time to give you our decision."

"Enjoy your vacation?" Vivian asked David.

"Not particularly," he replied.

"Well, it's behind you now," she told him. "With the board of inquiry approving your actions, no more will be said about it."

"That's nice. When do the nightmares stop?" he asked her quietly, so no one else would hear him.

Vivian frowned. "I don't know. I've never been through what you're going through."

"Has no one in this office ever had to kill someone?"

"Not that I'm aware of, no. It's not a common thing to have happen. As I'm sure someone told you, people don't usually challenge us. The truth is that you have advanced that reputation for all of us. People will know that someone stood up against the Rimohrs, and died for doing so."

David frowned deeply. "That was not my intent."

"I know. But the law of unintended consequences works just as well here as in Earth. And, if it's important to you, you've just developed your service reputation," she said, nodding to Joe, who had just arrived.

"What, as the fuck-up who couldn't find a better way to handle the situation?" David asked sourly.

"Hardly," Joe said. "More like the one guy you want to have watching your back. I know you're struggling with this, David. I can only imagine what it feels like. But to the rest of us... well, I'm sure you've been told it's not common for a Rimohr to need to use deadly force..."

"Vivian mentioned it," David said morosely.

"What you may not have been told is that a lot of them would probably balk at doing so in defense of a partner. It would take a threat to their own life to make them cross that line."

"But I didn't mean to kill the bastard!" David objected strongly.

"No, but you acted, in the knowledge it could happen. Besides, if you'd had no other choice, would you have killed him?"

David hesitated. "I can't arrange the scenario in my head where I'd not have had the option to wound rather than kill."

"But, if it were the case. Let's say you were behind him, instead of in front of him. You wouldn't have had a clear view of his wrist to target. Would you have killed him?"

David put himself in that position in his head, and thought for a long moment. Finally, he said, "Yeah, I probably would have. And then I'd have really had to puke."

"A lot of Rimohrs would have stood there and watched me get fried," Joe said. "Then they'd have arrested the bastard."

"But... Vivian told me that the Rimohr reputation is that, if you hurt a Rimohr, you'll be hunted down and 'taken care of'."

Joe nodded. "And that reputation comes from a very few people, like you, who can do what's necessary, when it's necessary. The real trick is knowing when it's necessary."

David nodded.

"You did good, kid," Joe said finally, bopping him on the shoulder. "Now let's get back to work. We have a new case."

"Oh?" David asked, as Vivian returned to her desk and her own work.

Joe handed him the file. David opened it and looked through it briefly. He closed it and sighed.

"Unicorn Horn."

"You've heard of it?" Joe asked, surprised.

"Yeah. And if someone's selling it in Gorumshead, I know who we need to talk to. Do we take the coach, or my glidecar?"

"Your glidecar is faster. No point in wasting time if we don't have to."

"Right."

David and Joe stepped into the shop, ringing the little bell on the door. The proprietor, who had his back to them working on something, said, "Be with you in a minute."

Joe was going to speak, but David waved him into silence. He crossed his arms and simply stood there, waiting. Finally, the proprietor finished up what he was doing and turned to face them.

"Officers, what can I... David?" Ben Marland said incredulously. "Uh... what's going on?"

"Hello, Ben. Someone's been selling Unicorn Horn on the streets here in Gorumshead, and when I considered the list of people with access to the substance and no integrity whatsoever, your name just bubbled right to the top of my mind."

Ben blanched at that. "Hey, Cat did just fine..."

'No thanks to you," David spat. "But I'll let her new boyfriend have at you, if he's so inclined."

Ben looked at him. "Uh... who's her new boyfriend?"

"Professor Charles Phillips, Charms Master at the Academy."

Ben swallowed hard. David enjoyed the look on his face for a moment. "Now, about the Unicorn Horn. I know you have some."

"What makes you think I still have some?" Ben asked. "That was a long time ago."

"Yes, and the jar of it you had was enough to do thirty statues this size. Since you could not have carved thirty statues between then and now, you must still have some left. Let's see the jar." David's voice was hard and unyielding, and Ben knew that this was not quite the same young man he'd dealt with last time he saw him.

"It's in the back room," he said.

"And is it going to walk itself out here for us?" David asked snarkily.

Ben blanched again, then walked to the back of his shop. He was gone for only a few seconds. He set the jar on the counter and stepped away from it.

David opened the jar and looked into it. It was still three-quarters full.

"I don't do drugs, and I sure as hell don't sell them," Ben said, trying to regain some dignity.

"No, you just abandon people in their moments of need," David said, stepping all over Ben's attempt at self-esteem and squishing it. "Where do you get this stuff from?"

"Art suppliers. There are three... no, now only two... places where I can order this from. The price varies, so I try to find the cheapest stuff I can."

"Why only two now?"

"One of them left the art supply business to move to Earth, for some stupid reason."

David grunted. "Give me the contact information for the two you use."

As Ben was writing that information down, Joe asked, "What do you want that for?"

"It's a controlled substance. They will have to keep records of everyone they sell it to. They have to keep records of how much they made, and account for every drop of it. It'll be really hard to hide it if they've been making it with the intent to sell as a drug."

Joe nodded.

Once Ben gave them the information, David said, "Keep your nose clean, Mr. Marland. You wouldn't want us coming around again."

David enjoyed watching Ben blanch one last time. The man is such a spineless little worm. He can't even tell when a threat is completely pointless.

Once they were back in the car, Joe asked, "What's with you and him?"

"You remember Catherine Arpilla?" David asked.

"Probably not as well as you do, but yes," Joe replied with a grin.

"He used to be her boyfriend. He abandoned her in the middle of her troubles with her husband, at a time when she was very vulnerable, emotionally."

"Oh. Well, I'm sure you stepped in to fill that need," Joe said, needling him.

David looked over at Joe. "I shouldn't have had to." With that, he put the glidecar into motion.

"Where are we going?" Joe asked.

"To the school."

"Why?"

"Because we need to research these people and perhaps contact them, and we can do all of that just as easily from my office as from Rimohr HQ... and it doesn't waste forty minutes of travel time, since we'll probably have to ask questions of more people here in Gorumshead."

"Good point."

It only took a few minutes for them to walk into Fensterman Hall, on campus. As they entered the outer office, David saw Seth and Tanya talking.

"Hey, you guys," David said.

"Morning, Chief," Seth said. David glowered at him.

"Morning, David," Tanya said. He gave her a friendlier expression in return.

"Tanya, this is my training officer, Agent Joe Garibaldi. Joe, this is the new Deputy Chief of Security, Tanya Sahar."

The two exchanged greetings politely.

"Anything going on?" he asked Tanya.

"No, I'm still getting caught up on how things work around here."

David nodded. To Seth, he asked, "Did you fill her in on The Clan and all of last year's troubles?"

"Yeah, we just finished going through it. Including the battle." David caught Seth's shudder, though it was almost imperceptible.

"Okay. Anything I need to deal with?"

Seth snorted. "There's nothing you'll need to deal with until school starts. That's what I'm for. Kind of wish they'd had my position when I was in your position."

David chuckled. "In that case," he said, "Joe and I have some work to do. We'll be in my office if anything comes up."

"No problem."

David led Joe into the office. Joe looked around. "This... doesn't really seem like your office."

"I haven't had a chance to redecorate," David said. "It still looks like it did when it was Seth's office."

"Yes, it does look like his office," Joe confirmed. "How are you adjusting to being in charge?"

"Ask me in six months," David said.

Joe chuckled.

"Let's get to work," David said, to change the subject.

"Where is he?" David asked Bridget quietly. She was the barmaid at the Mystic Wolf Pub, and she had called in - as David had requested - to let him know that a certain patron had returned to the pub. They'd had to talk to a couple dozen people to figure out who was selling the drug, but finally a name had been given. He had been out of town the last time they'd tried to contact him, however. Apparently, he was back now.

Bridget motioned with her chin, rather than pointing. It was clear who she meant, anyway. David saw him in the mirror behind Bridget.

David nodded. "Thanks,"

"Anytime, handsome," she told him, and moved down the bar.

David and Joe moved over to the table where their suspect was sitting, leaning his chair on two legs, while his two buddies sat drinking.

"Jelazar Maniskiu?" David asked needlessly. It was just the easiest way to start the conversation.

"Last person who called me that wound up in serious pain, my friend," the man said.

"So you are Jelazar Maniskiu," David persisted.

The man leaned forward, bringing all four legs of his chair on the floor. "My name is UC Master. My friends call me UC. You can call me Master."

Jelazar leaned back with a grin as his friends laughed heartily at his joke.

"Jelazar Maniskiu," Joe intoned, "you are under arrest for the illegal distribution of Unicorn Horn. Stand up and hold out your hands."

Jelazar's look darkened briefly. "You two are thick." Then his look brightened. "You need some more educatin', I think. Ty, Barry, why don't you educate the gentlemen?"

Ty and Barry both rose from their spots at the table, but before either could do anything, David slipped his foot behind Barry's leg, put his arm across the man's chest, and pushed. Barry fell to the floor with a satisfying thump, and didn't seem terribly interested in moving.

David looked at Ty. "Get out of my face before you wind up in the infirmary."

Ty took one look at David, looked over the table to see Barry lying on the floor, woozy, and backed away.

"Now then, Jelazar Maniskiu," David said, intentionally irritating the man, "get your sorry ass out of the chair."

"Why don't you make me, slimeball?" Jelazar sneered.

David looked to Joe.

Joe shrugged. "He made the request," he said to David.

David nodded. He then stepped over and kicked the leg of Jelazar's chair. The chair tipped backward and slid, and Jelazar went tumbling to the floor, rolling out of the chair.

"Okay, I got you out of the chair," David said. "Now, on your feet."

Jelazar came up, but came up swinging. David saw it coming and slammed his fist - hard - into Jelazar's solar plexus before the punch could connect.

Jelazar dropped back to the floor, wheezing and gasping for breath.

"Oh, don't be such a wimp. It was only a light tap," David told him.

Joe chuckled. "You might have cracked his sternum. You did hit him a bit hard."

"He was swinging on me," David replied. "I thought you said people don't challenge us."

Joe waved this off. "This isn't a challenge. This is just a guy being stupid. He didn't even reach for his wand."

"Ah," David said. He then reached down and hauled Jelazar to his feet.

"C'mon, 'UC'. Let's take a look through your apartment upstairs. I'm willing to bet we'll find a nice stash of Unicorn Horn. And that's illegal, 'UC'?" David said.

Joe groaned at the pun, but followed as David shoved the man toward the stairs.

With the school year about to start, David would no longer spend his days at the Rimohr office in Bolmont. He would, instead, work at the school. When cases that Joe thought were important enough came up, he'd call David in to work on them and further his training.

At the moment, he was in the briefing room in Fensterman Hall. He looked over the assembled team. He had eighteen security officers under his command, not counting Tanya. The new DIRT was also present. He didn't know any of them personally, but he'd had a hand in picking all of them.

"Okay, if everyone would just take a seat," David said. His security team settled in and grew quiet. The DIRT stood along the side wall, as there wasn't enough room for them to sit.

"The students will begin arriving in about an hour. Now, we don't really know what to expect this year. After last year's battle, it might be back to business as usual. On the other hand, The Clan might try to retaliate in some large- or small-scale fashion. We need to be ready for that, but we don't want to come off as an occupying force, which is why I did not request a larger team than this.

"There are twenty of us. There are nearly two thousand students at the school. Believe it or not, these are better odds than most police forces in Earth get, so count your blessings.

"What we're going to do is to form up into three-person patrols. You will... wander. Don't fall into a pattern. Don't be predictable. Wander the grounds, and the buildings. I know I don't need to say this, but... I will. Don't disturb any classes unless you have to. Some of the teachers get cranky when you do that, and might hex you as a warning."

The group chuckled at that.

"For two hours of your shift, you will be in training. That means both physical and magical. Last year, we had second-years taking out supposedly trained security officers. That's not going to happen to us again. You will be evaluated on your skills at least twice a year. If you don't pass those evaluations, you will be given a couple weeks to improve. If you fail the second time, you'll be asked to resign.

"Now, we're not quite alone in our job. The people off to your left are this year's DIRT. For those not aware, DIRT is short for Discipline Response Team. They will augment your patrols with patrols of their own. They will deal with minor issues directly. For anything that they can't handle, they will call us in. They will not patrol with you, unless there is some special reason for them to do so. Due to class schedules, DIRT patrols generally happen in the evening."

A hand went up, and David stopped. "Yes?"

"I understand that DIRT was in force last year... but with the new organization of the security team, why are they still needed? Isn't it a duplication of effort?"

"Well, first off, there are only eighteen of you, with only six on active duty at any time. There are twelve of them, with six of them on active duty at any time... it basically doubles our strength out there. Besides, with them patrolling in the evening, it is possible for the security teams to use that time to get in some training. Please note that there should always be at least one security team ready to immediately respond to a crisis, so you can't train at the same time."

"What can and can't DIRT do?"

"DIRT will handle immediate problems they encounter. Fights, vandalism, hazing, that kind of thing. What they will not do is investigative work. That is exclusively your job. On the other hand, they have an ability we don't. DIRT can sentence students for minor infractions to a couple days in detention. Everyone you detain must go before the dean. I know this seems a little disjointed, but they feel that it's better to let the students police themselves in this fashion, rather than having outsiders impose sentence."

"I have a question," one of the students said.

David turned to him. The student asked, "How, exactly, do you relate to DIRT? I realize you're our academy supervisor, but..."

"If you're asking whether or not I can also hand out detention, no, I can't. I gave up that ability when I became security chief. I am, where DIRT is concerned, strictly an administrator. Oh, and while I'm thinking about it, I wanted to thank all of you for coming in early. I know the carriage is a lot more comfortable than the ways you probably got here, but we need to have DIRT ready when everyone gets here, rather than taking a couple weeks to form up, like last year."

The DIRT members nodded in acknowledgment.

David turned back to his team. "Any questions?"

There were none.

"Okay. You'll all be expected to be at the feast tonight. After that, follow the rotation that's posted on the bulletin board outside. We're working 24-hour shifts, in a 1-on, 2-off system. So for every day you work, you'll have two days off to recover. There should always be at least one team awake in case of emergency. You don't have to be out patrolling for the entire 24 hours, don't worry."

The team chuckled at that.

"Also, when I say 'patrol', what I mean is be visible. Even if you're resting on a bench, you're being seen, and you're seeing what's going on. Just don't sit there too long, okay?"

More chuckles.

"All right. Let's get ready for the students. Good luck, and let's be safe out there."

David returned to his office and motioned Tanya to join him.

"Any problems?" he asked her.

"No. Everything looks to be ready."

"Good. How are you feeling?"

"A bit nervous."

"Good," David replied with a smile.

"Good?"

"If you weren't nervous, it would mean you're overconfident, and we can't afford that," he told her as he examined his uniform in a mirror. He was wearing the standard gray pants and white shirt of the school, with shiny black boots. On his left breast was his Chief of Security badge.

Reaching over, he grabbed his new coat. It was navy blue, instead of the school's brighter, royal blue. On it was a duplicate of his chief's badge. He put it on and then shifted, to get the coat comfortable on his shoulders. He looked at himself in the mirror again, picking off a couple pieces of lint. Finally, he reached over and picked up a visored cap. It was also navy blue, with a black visor. On it was the emblem of the security department.

"You expect people to wear the hat?" Tanya asked.

"It's optional. Since we're going to be ceremonial tonight, I'd like them all to wear it to the feast. After that, as they choose. I like it, so I'll probably wear it."

"You want me to?" she asked.

"Up to you. Now, let's go meet some new students."

"You got it."

"Well, don't you look handsome," Anne said. The two had arranged to meet after the feast, since David had so much stuff to do. They were standing in front of the cafeteria.

David wrapped his arms around Anne and kissed her for a long moment. She held him tightly, but finally they separated. Anne pulled back, and then looked up at him.

"We need to talk."

"Uh-oh," David said.

"What?" Anne asked.

"No one says, 'we need to talk' when it's something good. It's never, 'We need to talk. I just wanted to tell you that I've just won a million granas.'"

Anne smirked, but she nodded.

"So, what's wrong?"

"Us," she said.

"Oh?"

"You're planning on going all eight years here, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"And then you'll be a Rimohr?"

"Probably."

"They tend to go out of town a lot."

"So I've noticed," he said with a nod.

"David... I don't plan on continuing after this year. I'll have my citizenship. I can find a nice job, relax and live my life."

"Okay..."

"This summer, while we were apart, I was missing you like crazy. I didn't hear anything from you at all."

"I'm sorry. I felt it best, considering your mother's mood."

"Oh, I know. I understand why... but I realized that I couldn't do that all the time. I couldn't have you gone like that. It would drive me completely around the bend."

"So... what do you want me to do?" David asked.

Anne shook her head. "Nothing. You have to do what's right. You're really good at the stuff you do, and I don't want you to stop doing it. But... I can't be there with you while you do it. I couldn't handle it." She was weeping silently, and David took her hand gently.

"Maybe it would get easier with time?" he asked.

Anne shook her head. "I was as miserable yesterday as I was the day after I left school. I thought about staying with you through this year, even if I couldn't stay after that... but I'm afraid that I'd feel so much for you at that point that I would really go insane."

David squeezed her hand gently. "Please don't hate me for asking this question. I have to. Does this have anything to do with your mother and me?"

Anne shook her head negatively. "No. I mean, yeah, it'd be hard on me, having a boyfriend that Mom is mad at, but we'd probably live in Bolmont, so that wouldn't be a big problem. And no, I don't really care that you've slept with her. This is all about me, David. You're the first guy I've ever been in love with... and now I have to worry whether I was cut out to love someone or not." Anne's weeping increased, and it was becoming audible. David pulled her tightly to himself, holding onto her and rocking. He knew that the pain for him would come soon enough, but strangely, at the moment, he felt nothing at all.

"Trust me, Anne, you were meant to love someone. No one with a heart as good as yours was meant to be alone," David told her. Her crying turned to sobs and she held on even more tightly. David rubbed her back and let her cry it out for several minutes.

Finally, when the emotions had subdued, she let go of him and stepped back.

"I'm sorry. I'm very sorry," she told him.

David ran his hand along her face. "I know you are. It's okay, Anne. Please don't take this the wrong way, but the truth is, I'm getting used to it."

Anne cocked her head in a mixture of sympathy and sorrow. "I never meant to hurt you..." she said.

"I know that, too. Hey, I'm the one that asked you out, remember? And it's been wonderful having you as a girlfriend. I can't say that I really understand what you're going through, but at least you had the courage to tell me instead of making something up."

Anne stepped in and held him tightly once again. For a long time, they merely stood there, saying nothing, and holding each other. Finally, though, Anne had to let him go.

"Obviously," she started, "I won't be sitting with you at meals anymore. I really couldn't deal with that. Especially now that Gwen's back at school. I hope we can at least still be... well... distant friends."

David smiled at her turn of phrase. "Of course we can. If you ever need something, Anne, don't hesitate to ask."

"Thank you," she said. Stepping closer, she continued, "for a lot of things."

"I will miss you," David said softly. "But I hope you find what you need."

She kissed him softly, and then stepped back. "Bye."

"Yeah," David said quietly. He watched Anne until she was lost in the gathering gloom. At that point, the darkness closed in on his soul, and David stood, looking up at the stars. Jailla, who had watched from a nearby tree, glided down onto David's shoulder to bring as much comfort to his wizard as he could. The two stood there for a long moment before David said anything.

"Strike Two," he finally said.

"Excuse me?" Jailla asked.

"It's a baseball reference," David said. "Three strikes, and you're out. You can't try to hit the ball anymore. This is the second relationship I've had that at least headed into serious territory, and the second one that failed miserably, because of who I am or what I do."

"And you believe you only get three chances at it?" Jailla asked.

"There comes a point where you have to wonder if continuing to try is actually worth it," David said.

"I see. That is perhaps not a decision you should be making just now."

David snorted. "Yeah, I know. C'mon, let's go home."

David headed down the third-floor hallway in Griffin Dorm. He was about to institute a program that he had discussed with Dean Lengel. In selecting participants, he had requested whoever was staying in his old room. David stopped at C42. Squaring his shoulders, he rapped firmly on the door.

It didn't take too long before the door opened, and the guy in front of him paled.

"Uh... did we do something, Officer? Were we being too loud? We weren't really doing anything but laughing..."

David hadn't said a word yet, but stepped forward. The guy stepped back, letting David enter the room.

David turned and closed the door, then removed his cap before turning back to the three, who were looking at him with a mixture of fear and concern. He finally decided to let them off the hook.

"Okay, you can relax, nobody's in trouble."

All three of them visibly loosened up.

"So... why the visit?" one of the boys asked.

"You three have been selected as part of a pilot program here at the Academy."

"What kind of program?" the second wanted to know.

"What do you know about The Clan, and what happened here last year?"

"There were stories... some kind of gang war, or something," the third - the one who'd opened the door - said.

"They said people got pretty banged up," the first added.

"People died," David said flatly.

"Holy crap," the first one said. "No one said that!"

"Yeah, well... it's not something we're advertising."

"What's that got to do with us, and this new program?"

"We're calling it the Big Brother program. Several sixth-year students were selected to... 'look after' a roomful of first-year students, in an effort to prevent you from joining groups like The Clan."

"Like you're our dad, or something?" the second guy asked distastefully.

"No, nothing like that. I'm not going to tell you what to do or anything. I'm more like... that uncle you go to for advice. Adjusting to this school can be tough. You're away from home probably for the first time, maybe you don't know too many people, and the workload is going to be a bitch."

"Is it really that bad?" the third guy asked.

"Trust me. Get your sleep now. You're not going to be doing much of it in December."

"So... if this program is being run by students, how come you're our Big Brother?"

"I am also a sixth-year student here at the Academy."

"But you're the head of security," he objected.

"Yes. I'm also an intern with the Rimohrs."

"Are you gonna have time to give us advice?" the second one asked.

David laughed. "Trust me, I'll make time. If you've got a problem, just mirror me, and we'll either talk then, or meet somewhere to discuss it."

"Well, I guess that's cool and all, but... uh... so, what do we do?" the first one asked.

David sat down on one of the beds. "Tell me about yourselves," he said.