The Woodward Academy, Year 7

Chapter 2: July

"Oh, dear god, what happened to him?" Annie moaned as three ghosts carried David into the infirmary.  She had been contacted by Penny, but all she had said was that David was coming to the infirmary.  As she surveyed him now, he was unconscious and obviously broken in several places.

"He was training," a ghost named Jeffrey Watkins said.

"Training to what?  Skydive without a parachute?"

"He has begun training with the gargoyles.  I daresay you're likely to be seeing a lot of him."

Annie frowned in deep concern.  She thanked the ghosts for bringing him, then she set to work trying to make him comfortable.  She couldn't give him Naproxen Ghostium until he was awake long enough to take it.  Chances were, that was going to be awhile.

David groaned as he became conscious.  Olissa was immediately by his side.

"Master?  Are you okay?" she whispered.

"Anyone get the number of the truck?" he asked with a moan of discomfort.

"I believe it was a vanity plate, sir.  It said G-L-1, 4-T-H."

David chuckled despite the pain it caused.  "Yeah, that sounds about right."

"What happened?"

"I zigged when I should have zagged.  Goliath hits hard, by the way."

"As if anyone needed to learn that first hand," Annie sniffed, coming over to his bed.  "I have NG ready for you to take."

"Oh, good.  My head feels like someone's playing dakaball in there."

David swallowed his medicine, and felt the relief wash through him.  The pain remained, but at a much reduced level that was a lot easier for him to deal with.

"So, what were you doing?" Annie asked.

"Training."

"With a creature three times your size and ten times your strength?" Annie demanded.

"He was pulling his punches," David offered.

"He'd have to have been.  I can still recognize where your bones go.  What do you think you're doing?"

"Learning to protect my home," David said.

"Well, learn to protect your spirit's home a little better, would you?"

"Those are one and the same task," David replied, lying back and looking up at the ceiling.

Annie harumphed and walked away.

"So what happened?" Olissa asked.

"Me being stupid.  I was supposed to duck to the left then come around with a kick to the shin.  I got it backwards, and ducked to the right, instead.  At which point I got a shin to the face and a kick to the body."

"Does he have to be so harsh?"

"This is how gargoyles train.  There's a reason they're the fiercest fighters around."

"And you want to be like them?"

"I want to know everything I can on how to stop the Vrudenans from coming and destroying my home.  I want any werewolf who survives a battle that I'm in to know for certain that he's in for hell if he comes back."

"Is this really that important?"

"I've told you almost everything I know.  You have to understand what's coming for us."

"I do," Olissa conceded.  "I just don't want to admit it."

"You have that luxury.  I won't let you fight.  But if the werewolves come here, I'm going to be here to stop them.  And I'm not, right now, ready to fight that battle.  But I sure as hell will be."

"Yes, sir," Olissa said.  She then picked up a cloth from a bowl of water that sat beside the bed, wrung it out, and wiped his forehead with it.  David closed his eyes.  The darkness imposed by his eyelids helped reduce the pounding in his head.

David was reviewing some material that Lord Woodward had given him to study when Emile came over to his infirmary bed.  She looked him over with a scowl that showed her concern for his condition.

"There's training, and then there's suicide," Emile said to David.

"I can't commit suicide, remember?" David replied with a grin.

"Perhaps not, but you're also tying up my healer."

"I'm giving her practice during the summer break, so she doesn't get rusty," David offered.

Emile frowned.  Finally, she said, "You're also reducing the number of active Rimohrs by one for the length of your stay here."

David finally didn't have an answer for that.  After a while, he simply said, "What I'm doing is necessary."

"I know you believe that.  But you need to be more careful."

"You think I'm being reckless?"

"I think you're pushing yourself harder than you need to."

"We don't know how long we've got," David said.

"Have your visions shown you anything new?"

"Nothing I'm supposed to talk about," David replied.  "Enough to make me worried."

"Just tell me this: are we attacked during the upcoming school year?"

"You know I can't answer that.  I would never put that much faith in my own visions to give you a guarantee."

"What do your visions tell you, though?"

"Things will be tense this year, but I don't yet see any actual attack on the school.  But I could be wrong," David emphasized strongly.

"Have you ever been wrong before?"

David remained mute.

"That's what I thought.  So you have a year, at least."

"Once school starts, I'm going to be busy not just with Rimohr work, but schoolwork as well.  And my Rimohr activities will pick up because the students will be back, and I'll be involved in some of that, I'm sure.  Plus the Riding Guild members are pushing for the opening of the Senesty Guild Hall...  No, I don't have a year.  I have two months of relative free time where I can really focus on this."

Emile frowned.  "I'll get a plaque with your name on it for the bed, then," she groused.

David grunted, but said nothing further.  Emile turned and walked to the window, looking out over the land.  For a long time, she said nothing.  Finally, she turned back.  "The students are my prime concern.  Buildings can be rebuilt.  Plants can be replanted.  Even the animals can be repopulated.  We can't regrow the students.  I want you to promise me that you will tell me if you think the school is in imminent danger."

"With Professors Zoroaster and Dartson here, I highly doubt you're going to need my warning," David replied.

"Both Casey and Amus have admitted that you will get any warning several weeks before they will.  Now promise me."

"I will tell you what I can, Emile, and as soon as I can.  Some things, I'm not allowed to tell anyone."

Emile frowned.  "Part of me says she doesn't care about your oaths.  The better part of me is proud of you.  Please try to be careful with your training, would you?  I like to see Annie in the lunch hall, or the conference room.  I never did much care for Belleci Hall."

"Really?  It's just about a second home to me..."

Emile frowned sharply.  "Yes, I know."

David smirked, and Emile shook her head.  "I've got to get back to work.  How long will you be here?"

"That depends on whether I survive tonight's training unscathed.  Annie says I'll be healed from this shortly after sundown."

"Good.  And good luck."

"Thanks."

David had survived his last few rounds of training without serious injury.  Goliath and the other gargoyles were only reducing the strength of their attacks enough so that he would not be seriously injured.  Bone breaks and concussions, however, were his incentive to not get hit.

He'd had visits from Sam, Cat, Prof. Phillips, Prof. Blackstone, and even Prof. Thropp, to ask him if he was sure he needed to be doing what he was doing.  He had told all of them the same thing: if the werewolves came to Woodward, he was going to make them regret it.

Emile had even taken the radical step of calling Joe and telling him what David was doing, in the hopes that his injury-induced absences could force them to restrict David's training.  Joe was of no help to her at all in the matter, however, because Rimohr policy encouraged physical training, though most officers did not take it to such extremes.

David appreciated the concern, but he had to admit he was glad when Joe had called with a new case for them to look into.  Joe had joined him in Gorumshead, and they'd traveled to Earth.  They got in his truck, which he immediately revealed the Rimohr insignias on, and they headed out.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Someplace called Nyu?" Joe said, showing him the paper with the information on it.

David chuckled.  "Not 'Nyu', N-Y-U.  New York University.  It's a school."  David typed the information into his phone, and they were on their way.  As he turned onto the highway, he asked, "What are we investigating?"

"Party drugs.  What the hell are party drugs, anyway?"

"Um... drugs you use at a party?"

"They have parties just to use drugs?"

"No... Well, yes, I'm sure some people do, but that's not what a 'party drug' is for...  usually the party is a lot of really loud music, manic dancing, and a lot of really stupid people who ought to know better.  The drugs are supposed to enhance the party experience.  How is this our problem, though?"

"Whoever filed the report thinks the drugs may not be drugs, but potions."

David frowned mightily.  "If someone from my guild is selling to the technos, I will personally see them flayed in the guild hall."

"We have no proof, yet.  Besides, they might not be in your guild.  There are other potions guilds."

"Then I'll see him flayed by his own guild."

"You think you've got that kind of sway?"

David said, "Well, I just made Master Level 1 in my own guild at the youngest age of any of the living Level 1's, so... probably a little sway..."

Joe chuckled.  "Yeah, maybe.  Being a Paladin wouldn't hurt, either."

David smirked.  "I'm not sure if the king knew what kind of card he was dealing me when he gave me that title."

"Trust me, he knew."

"Uh-huh.  Let me know when you get hungry, by the way.  I'll stop and we can eat.  Otherwise, you'll be waiting until we get there."

"No problem."

David and Joe walked into the sixth precinct, and were escorted back to the detective area.

"This is Det. Wainwright," the officer escorting them said.  "Sir, these guys are here about the NYU case."

"Officer David Stroud, Agent Joe Garibaldi.  Rimohrs," David said.

"Who the hell called you people?"

"I did, Ed," another detective said.  "Hey, guys.  I'm glad you could come."

"Dammit, Jesse, we don't need this shit..."

"You are..." David asked the second detective.

"Jesse Fletcher.  I'm pretty sure this is your department, not ours."

"What makes you think that?" Joe asked.

"Three things.  First, the drug is a liquid that is intended to be taken orally, and there aren't many of those kinds of drugs.  Second, the lab examined the drugs in question, and found them completely inert, chemically.  There's nothing in them that should have had any effect at all.  Third, I can sense something about them."

Det. Wainwright said, "You and your idiotic hunches and gut feelings."

David said to Fletcher, "Can I see your license?"

The man nodded and pulled out a separate wallet.  He pulled his wizard license from inside and handed it to David.  David looked it over, then handed it to Joe.  "Looks legit to me."

Joe just grunted and handed it back to Fletcher.  David asked, "Do you have a sample of the 'drugs'?"

"Down in the evidence room."

"We'll need to see them."

"Now wait just a minute," Wainwright objected.  "This is our case."

David stared him down.  "If your partner is wrong, then yes, it is your case, and we'll be on our way.  If your partner is right, then it's our case, and you should be glad we're here.  Do you have any idea what some of the potions we're capable of making could do to the unsuspecting public?"  Turning to Fletcher, he said, "Let's see the evidence."

The four all walked down to the evidence room.  Fletcher signed for the box, and they opened it up to find a dozen vials.  David popped the lid off one.

"Hey!" Wainwright shouted.

David ignored him and sniffed the substance.  He winced at the acrid odor.

"Ugh.  Smells like Farvela Juice... only worse."

"Farvela Juice?" Wainwright asked.  "What the fuck is that?"

"You don't want to know," David said.  "If they were going for Farvela Juice, they screwed it up.  How did you find out about this?"

"Hospital report," Fletcher replied.  "A bunch of people came in from the same party, hallucinating and puking their guts out."

David nodded.  He set the vial on the table, then pulled out another vial of his own.  "Well, let's just see what we're dealing with."

"Hey!  You can't tamper with evidence!"

"Your lab did," David replied.  "I'm not tampering, I'm investigating."

David dumped the suspect potion into the vial he was holding.  The liquid rapidly changed through a series of colors, then started to turn black.  Emerging from the black liquid was a stick.  The stick had colored bands along its length.  Finally the stick stopped growing out of the liquid, after it was a full eighteen inches long.

"What the fuck?" Wainwright muttered.

"Damn, you're good.  I sucked at Potions."

Joe just said, "You're talking to a Level 1 Royal Potions Master."

"Whoa," Fletcher said in awe.

David just grunted.  He conjured a book out of his Conjuring Room, and opened it to a specific section.  The others watched for the next twenty minutes as he decoded the colored bands on the stick to reveal the ingredients of the potion.

Finally, David stood back up.  "It's Farvela Juice, all right.  But it looks like they added way too much dragon weed, and not enough dandelion.  There might have been a problem in the form of hornthistle they used, as well.  And if they didn't cook it long enough... no, this is royally screwed up."

"But it worked.  They had the hallucination," Wainwright objected.

"Farvela Juice isn't supposed to cause hallucinations.  It's supposed to make you insane."

"What?  Why the hell would you develop a potion that does that?" Wainwright demanded.

"Why does the US Government breed ebola and hantavirus?"

"That's done to find a cure!"

"That's exactly right.  Farvela Juice is a very old potion.  It was designed to make someone temporarily crazy so that a cure could be found for the illness."

"But, since that isn't a natural insanity, wouldn't the cure be... well, would it work?"

"It did.  We have dozens of cures for various mental illnesses because of potions like Farvela Juice.  The point is, the effects are supposed to last for a week.  Are your victims still hallucinating?"

"No. Most of them are sober now.  They're still in the hospital due to dehydration from the vomiting and diarrhea, though."

"The potion was a screw-up.  Chances are, they tried it on someone, realized what it actually did, and decided to make money on their mistake.  The problem is, because it was a mistake, their ability to recreate it is in doubt... and their next fuck-up could be deadly."

"What do you want to do now?" Joe asked David.

"We need to talk to the victims."

"Sure.  They're in Bellevue."

"Let's go."

"Hey, Doc.  This is David Stroud and Joe Garibaldi.  They're, uh..." Fletcher hesitated, not sure what to say.

"We're special investigators with the government, looking into this new drug.  What can you tell us about it?" David carried on for Fletcher, who looked immensely relieved at not having to come up with a convincing lie.

"Very little, I'm afraid.  Our lab's tox screens showed nothing at all unusual.  The effects of the drug wore off after about three hours, give or take twenty minutes.  The patients are due to be released in about a half-hour, now that we're sure the effects are gone permanently, and they're rehydrated again."

"We need to speak with them," Joe said.

"Sure.  Here's a list of their names and room numbers."

David took the paper and read down the list, stopping about halfway.  No one else understood why a scowl suddenly crossed his face.

"Thank you, Doctor," David said, then turned and started to walk down the hall.  He turned to go into a room, and the other three followed him.

Lying in the bed was a blonde woman about David's age.  Her skin looked sallow and her eyes were deep in their sockets.

"Hello, Miss Bishop," David said, looking down at her.  He tried to keep his voice professional.

"Who are you?" she asked.  Her voice sounded dull and lifeless.

David stared straight at her.  "Really?  You have to ask that?"

The woman's eyes narrowed.  "You look like someone I used to know in high school."

"You mean the guy your brother and his friends killed?" David asked sharply.

Jenny Bishop's eyes went wide.  "David?"

"That's right."

"It... you can't be... you don't look like you've aged a day."

"Undead people don't do that," David replied.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

In response, David just faded to ghost form right in front of her.  He said, "Your brother killed me.  But thanks to some fortuitous circumstances, I didn't quite die... all the way."

Jenny was shaking in the bed.  "None of us ever meant to hurt you, David..."

"No, you just wanted to humiliate me.  Really, at this point, I should thank all four of you.  And hey, we had fun in the shower, didn't we?"

"That was you?" she cried.

"Yes, that was me.  Getting even."

"Then... all the other stuff... Paul's accident, Sam's arrest, Larry's face... all of that was you?"

"Yes, all of that was me."

"Why did you do that to them?"

"Why did they leave me to die in an abandoned house without calling for help?" David replied calmly.

"We were just kids!"

"So was I," David replied.  "I had my own life ahead of me.  One they chose to destroy.  Thankfully, I got a new life."

"Sam is a registered sex offender, thanks to you."

"Oh well," David replied.

"My brother killed himself."

"He also killed me," David replied, "so I think that's pretty much justice happening."

"You're cruel," Jenny said.

"Am I?  I did what I did because at the time, I felt as though you had taken from me my entire life, my whole future, everything that I had any chance of doing as an adult.  I'm not the one who planned a prank on someone who had never once caused any of you a problem.  None of you had reason to hate me or want to screw with me.  I was a quiet student.  I never narc'ed on any of you, I never even talked about any of you to anyone.  And you waited until after graduation.  Even if I had somehow offended one or more of you, you were never going to see me again!  You four did what you did for no reason other than to get your kicks by fucking with an innocent person.

"Exactly which one of us is cruel, Miss Bishop?" David snapped.

Jenny wilted before his harsh, unrelenting gaze.  "We were sorry you got hurt," she offered.

"No you weren't.  You were worried you might get in trouble, you weren't sorry you'd caused the injury.  Luckily for me, the universe had better things in mind for me than outright death."  David faded back to solidity and straightened himself.

"Now, obviously, from the look of you, you've been doing drugs for a lot longer than just one night, but the only drug we're concerned about is the one you took at the party.  Where'd you get it?"

"At the party.  There was a whole table full of the stuff."

"Where was the party?"

"At this guy's house."

"What guy?" David pushed.

"I can't tell you."

"You can, and you will."

"I want a lawyer," Jenny tried.

"Okay, we'll-" Wainwright started.  David cut him off.

"I'm not a police officer, and you have no Constitutional protections from me.  Now, who's house were you at?  Be aware that I can force the information out of you, if you really want me to go that route."

"We don't torture people here," Wainwright said, grabbing David by the arm.  Before David could do more than turn and glare, Fletcher pulled Wainwright back.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, Jesse?"

"Saving your ass," Fletcher said.  "Ed, that guy could vaporize you in less time than it would take you to draw your gun.  And that's one of the least nasty things he can do to you.  You don't screw with wizards, it's why the Rimohrs take over cases like this one!"

"How the fuck would you know?" Wainwright demanded.

"Because I'm a wizard myself," Fletcher said.  "Just not at his level.  Which school did you go to, anyway?  And how long?" he asked David.

"The Woodward Academy.  And I'm still attending."

"Shit, Ed... Woodward's the best wizarding school in existence.  I wish I could have gone there.  And this guy's a demighost.  There is literally nothing you can do to him that would matter."

"A bullet to the head would probably be fairly effective," Wainwright offered.

"Actually no," David said.  "I was shot with a sniper rifle earlier this year.  Blew half my head off.  As you can see, I'm still here."

Wainwright paled.  He heard Jenny retch behind him.

David stared at Wainwright.  "I'd advise you to take your partner's advice.  Don't touch me again, or you might lose the hand."

Without waiting for a response, David turned back to Jenny, and pulled a vial out of his coat.  "I'm not allowed to use truth potion on you to get answers.  This, however, is not truth potion.  This is a potion that will make you so violently ill that it will make last night's vomiting seem like a mild case of indigestion.  I do have an antidote with me.

"So... you can either tell me whose house you were at, or I can make you drink this potion.  And the only way you'll get the antidote is to tell me what I want to know.  Oh, and I will know if you're lying."

"He'll cut me up if I tell you."

"You're assuming he's going to find out who told.  Or that he's going to survive his encounter with me," David replied.

"You can't go around killing suspects," Wainwright demanded.

"You do your job your way," David told him, "and don't tell me how to do mine."  He continued to stare at Jenny.  "Which is it going to be?"

After a long moment looking into his cold, menacing gaze, Jenny told him.

David put away the vial and straightened up.  "Thank you."

With that, he turned and left the room.

"You're not a police officer, you're a menace," Wainwright snarled.  "Torture isn't even an effective interrogation method!"

"Two things, Detective," David said.

"Yeah?"

"First, no, I am not a police officer.  I am a Rimohr.  The rules we operate under are completely different from the ones you operate under.

"And second," David said, pulling out the vial, "this vial contains a potion to keep people from bleeding to death."

"You... lied to her?" Fletcher asked in shock.

"Torture is, indeed, not an effective tool for gaining the truth.  Intimidation, however, is usually quite effective, as I'm sure you're well aware of.  You threaten people with jail time.  I don't have that option; she's not a wizard, and I can't arrest her.  What I can threaten her with is a very unpleasant experience.  It's the same tactic you use, Detective, the very same, so don't try to get all high and mighty on me."

"And what makes you think she told you the truth?"

"Because I'm a wizard," David said, "and there are things we can do that you can't.  Like telling when someone is lying to us.  Besides that, I intend to verify it with the other victims.  Perhaps they will lie, too... but it is highly unlikely they'd all tell the same lie."

David turned and walked down the hallway, while Joe and the two detectives remained in place.  Joe said, "His technique may seem a little unusual to you, but he has the highest conviction percentage in our division."

Once David had finished interrogating all of the potion victims, he returned to Jenny's room.

"What do you want?" she demanded, but her tone was more scared than angry.

"Why are you still here in New York?  Do you work here now?"

"I'm getting my Master's Degree at NYU in Library Science."

"And what's your drug of choice?"

"What's it to you?"

David shrugged.  "Curiosity."

"I prefer coke, but I'll do whatever I can get my hands on."

"Why?"

"Because life in New York sucks."

"And leaving was somehow not an option?"

"Where was I going to go?  Back to Eureka?"

David sighed heavily.  "Miss Bishop... you were a fuck-up in high school... and you're still a fuck-up.  At least in high school you were hot, but your drug use has completely taken that from you."

"My god you're mean," she said.

"I'm just telling you the truth.  I'm not sure anyone else is doing that for you.  What would it take for you to get off the drugs?"

"Probably rehab."

"Are you at that point yet?"

"What point?"

"The point where rehab might actually work."

She looked at him, and tears started to roll down her face.  "I've got nothing left.  I'm about to be kicked out of school for academic failure.  I was fired from my job last week.  My family has disowned me.  I do the drugs mostly to get away from all of that shit."

"But it's the drugs that caused that shit."

"Don't you think I know that?" she screamed.  "I just don't know what to do.  I can't afford a real rehab.  All I'd get is the city's rehab clinic, and that ain't worth shit."

David nodded.  He walked to the door and motioned for a nurse.  He spoke to her briefly, and then she walked to the nurse's station to page a doctor.

David and Jenny stared at each other in silence until the doctor arrived.

"Something I can do for you, Mr... I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name."

"Stroud.  David Stroud.  I'd like to have Miss Bishop here admitted to your drug rehab program."

"Her insurance doesn't cover that, doctor," the nurse, who had come in with the doctor, told him.

"I will cover that," David told them.

"Which program did you want to put her in?"

"Whichever one your staff thinks is best to help her get clean.  I'm not gonna try to tell you how to do your job."

"Unless you're a relative, we'll need her permission."

David looked to Jenny.  "I'm only gonna make this offer once.  If you want to go, I'll pay for it.  Screw up in there, or turn me down now, and we go our separate ways completely."

"Why are you doing this?" she asked, stalling.

"Because I can.  Because you seem like you're ready.  Because I remember that your parents are decent folks who don't deserve to have to live with what their daughter's become.  And because you were lots of fun in the shower," he said with a grin.

Jenny blushed strawberry.

"So what's it gonna be?  Rehab, or the streets?"

"Rehab."

David nodded.  "Good choice."

"You seem to have forgotten to get a warrant," Wainwright said.

"I don't need a warrant," David replied.  They'd been sitting outside the small home all night, and only now did it seem as if all three of the residents were home.  The last of them had just arrived back from the store.

"Come on," David replied.

"We should really have an entry team to do this," Wainwright fretted.

"Ed, just chill.  These two don't need our help."

David pulled his wand as he walked up to the front door.  He lightly tapped the knob, then the deadbolt, silently casting a charm on both of them.  He then put away his wand, grabbed the doorknob, and walked into the home.

"What the fuck!" the nearest man shouted.  "Get the fuck outta my house, motherfucker!"

The man charged David, who slugged him hard in the stomach, causing him to collapse to the ground, groaning in pain.  David moved past him, and Fletcher stayed with the man while Joe and Wainwright kept moving with David.

David next checked the kitchen, where he found no one.  He moved down the hall, looking in one bedroom, which was empty.  His next stop was the bathroom, where a woman had a large jar of liquid, and was about to dump it into the toilet.

David shouted, "Sem!" and the jar was ripped forcibly from her hand and floated over to him.  He handed the jar back to Joe, who took it out to the living room.

"Walk," David replied, motioning the woman out.  "Take her out with the others," he told Wainwright.

As Wainwright escorted the girl, David moved back to the master bedroom.  As he was about to open the door, a shot was fired.  It missed him by two feet, but it also pissed him off.

David formed an energy ball and lobbed it into the room.  He didn't need to hit the suspect.  When the energy ball hit the floor, it exploded, acting like a concussion grenade.  The boom was deafening, and when David walked into the room, the suspect was sprawled on the bed, his hands over his ears.  The gun was lying on the floor where he'd dropped it.

Pocketing the gun, David yanked the suspect to his feet and marched him out of the room.  He shoved him down the hallway and into the living room, then dumped him onto the sofa next to the girl.

David let the suspects stew while he and Joe went through the house, looking for any more potions.  They found only remnants from the party.  Satisfied, they went back out to the living room.

Opening the jar, David dipped a vial into it and pulled out a small quantity of the liquid.  He closed the jar, and then dumped the contents of another vial into the first one.  The liquid went from light green to a vivid purple, then slowly faded to a dull blood red.

"That isn't what happened last time," Wainwright objected.

"Last time I didn't know what potion I was looking for."  Turning to the suspects, David asked, "Who gave you this crap?"

"Ain't nobody give nobody nothin', asshole," the one man said.

"Fine.  Who were you stupid enough to buy this from?"

"I ain't gotta tell you shit," he replied.

"True, you don't.  But I don't have to let you leave here in one piece, either."

"You touch me, motherfucker, and it's police brutality!"

"It would be... if you were talking to a cop," David replied coldly.  "I'm not here to arrest you.  I'm here to get information.  You can give me that information, or you can face the consequences.  I... don't think you'll like the consequences."

"Take your best shot, motherfucker," the guy said.

David got very close to him, his eyes boring in on him in that way that made people's insides squirm.  His voice was low, and menacing, and everyone heard him.

"I am a trained fighter.  If I took my best shot against you, it would kill you outright.  I spend more time in combat than you spend playing with yourself."

The man's face grew red at the insult, but he also had a sense that perhaps David wasn't bullshitting him.

"Blake, just tell him where you get the shit!" the girl whined.

"He ain't gonna believe me!" Blake shouted, turning to her.

"Try me," David said.

Blake turned back.  "I don't have any clue who he is.  I've never even seen him.  I talk to him on the phone when I want more."

"Someone has to come get the money for the product," David objected.

Blake shook his head.  "You ain't gonna believe this shit," he said.  "When I'm talkin' to him on the phone, he tells me to put the money on the table.  After I do that, the money just... poof! vanishes, right in front of my fuckin' eyes!  And then, a couple seconds later, another poof! and the jar is sitting where the money was!"

"I think this guy's been using too much of his own product," Wainwright said.  He didn't understand why all three of the others looked concerned.

David stood up and looked to Joe.  "He's conjuring everything to keep his identity secure.  Fuck, could this guy taunt me any harder?"

Fletcher asked, "What do you mean?"

Joe said, "Along with being a Level 1 Potions Master, David's a level 4 conjurer."

"What the fuck is a conjurer?" Wainwright asked.

David picked up a magazine from the coffee table.  "Hold out your left hand," he told Wainwright.  Wainwright did.  David held the magazine out as far away from Wainwright's hand as he could.  "Keep your eye on the magazine."

Closing his eyes, David cast a quick charm.  The magazine popped from his hand to Wainwright's, but only for a second, because Wainwright dropped it like it was on fire.

"Holy shit, how did you do that?"

"That is conjuring."  David looked at Joe.  "How do we catch this asshole?"

"He's gotta be close, right?"

"A block or two.  No further away than that unless he is really good.  He's not using mirrors, because they'd have seen him then.  That means he's conjuring without visual aid.  Even a block may be pushing it."

"So all we have to do is have this dickhead call him again, and track him down."

David shook his head.  "Won't work.  Their phone calls probably last less than a minute.  We could look in one apartment in that amount of time.  No, we're going to have to think of something else."

"Like what?"

"If I knew what, I wouldn't have to think of it!" David snapped angrily.

"Right," Joe said, unfazed by David's outburst.  "What do we do with these assholes?"

"Is there anything we can do with them legally?"

"They can be detained for Incognizance Potion administration..."

"Works for me.  We can't let them contact our potion maker."

"All right."  Joe turned and motioned to the suspects.  "Up, you three."

"Where are you taking us?" the girl asked.

"To Hell," David replied.

David was walking through his back yard, contemplating matters, when Jailla glided down onto his shoulder.

"You look troubled," Jailla said to him.

David cocked his head slightly, then said, "Trying to figure out how to finger this guy, but... yeah, that's not really what's bugging me.  I guess I am a bit troubled."

"What's happened?"

"I ran into an old school mate the other day."

"A friend?"

"Did you hear me say friend?" David asked with a grin.

Jailla chirped.  "So, an enemy, then."

"Well... not really that, either.  It was Jenny Bishop."

Jailla fluttered his wings.  "You didn't harm her, did you?"

David snorted.  "She didn't need any help hurting herself.  She's a wreck.  Doing drugs, failing school... she's completely fucked herself over."

"How did you meet her again?"

David explained about the case.

"So she knows what really happened to you now."

"Yeah."

"What has you troubled about the encounter?"

"I don't know.  That's part of what troubles me.  I haven't forgiven any of them for what they did, but I don't harbor any ill will towards them anymore."

"One of them is apparently dead, and needs no further ill will on your part," Jailla pointed out.

"True... and that doesn't bother me in the least.  None of what happened to any of them really bothers me."

"So what does?"

"Why I felt the need to put Jenny Bishop into rehab."

Jailla cocked his head.  "Did she accept?"

"Yeah.  She's already been admitted to the program.  I can't figure out why I give a damn if she gets clean.  I told her it was because of her parents, but that was just an excuse, really.  It can't be because of what I did to her in the shower, or I'd feel bad that her brother is dead."

"Perhaps you just don't like seeing damsels in distress."

David snorted again.  "That answer's about as sane as all the other ones I've considered."

"I thought you were gonna wipe our memories or something," Blake said.  Two days sitting in the Bolmont City Jail had removed most of the fight from him.

"We will, when we're done with you," David said.  David pulled out his mirror, dialed on it, and said, "Joe Garibaldi."

Joe was holding a mirror that was not his usual one.  Since he was holding it, however, it connected.  With that done, Joe carefully laid it, face up, on the table where Blake had told them he normally put the money.

David next pulled out Blake's phone, which had been taken from him when they'd taken him into custody.  David used it to dial his own cellphone, and answered it when it rang.  He then handed Blake's phone back to him.

"You're going to conference call to your supplier.  You will not tell him I'm on the phone with you.  If you give him any signals at all that something is out of the ordinary... well, you won't like what happens, let's just say that."

Blake nodded nervously.  "What do I tell him?"

"Tell him you need more stuff.  Whatever you're calling this crap."

"I haven't got a thousand bucks, though."

"Don't tell him that part.  He's going to conjure the mirror."

"What good does that do?" Blake asked.

"You don't need to worry about that," David said.  "Just make the call.  And remember, I'll be listening."

Blake dialed the number he had been ordered never to write down.  He also always deleted it from his call log.

David stared at Blake as the phone on the other end rang.  He held his phone in one hand, and his mirror in the other.  The mirror currently showed him a shot of the ceiling and upper wall, because it was sitting at an angle.

It took three rings, but the phone was finally answered.

"What?" the voice said.

"Hey, man.  I need some more Happy Juice."

"How much?" the voice asked.

"Same as last time," Blake said.  "Got a party comin' up."

"You got the cash?"

"Yeah.  It's in the usual place," Blake said, his voice quivering ever so slightly.  David would have glared at him, but didn't dare to take his eyes off his mirror.

In just a second, the mirror on the table disappeared in a poof.  David pulled his mirror back slightly and turned his phone so he could use it to record the image in his mirror.  He knew the glimpse would be brief; he needed the video recording to make sure they could identify the culprit.

Sure enough, when the mirror materialized in the wizard's apartment, David got a look at their target.  It took a full three seconds before the mirror was smashed.

"What the fuck you playin' at, motherfucker?" Blake heard from the other end of the phone.  He cringed from the voice.

David took his phone off mute.  "We're not playing, asshole."

"Who the fuck are you?" the voice demanded.

"Officer David Stroud.  Rimohrs, Bolmont Division.  We know what you look like now, and we're coming for you.  I'd suggest you either turn yourself in, or you run like hell.  Either way, though, your ass is mine."

The connection on the other end broke, and David then hung up his own phone.  He stepped to the front door and looked out.  Joe, who had moved outside right before the call, shook his head in response to David's silent query.  No one had yet left an apartment in a hurry.

"Now what?" Blake asked when David stepped back in.

"Now you go into hiding until we catch this guy.  After that, and your testimony, you'll forget all about all of this."

"To tell you the truth, I think I'd like that," Blake admitted.  "This shit's too weird for me."

David snorted.  "You don't even know the half of it."

David, Joe, and Blake returned to the Bolmont Division.  Unfortunately, no one had come dashing out of their apartments trying to flee the area.  Either the wizard was smart enough to stay put, or he'd already scouted an escape route that would keep him out of their sight.

"So now what do you do?" Blake asked.

"Now we take the image we have of him and start running it through our files to find out who he is."  To Joe, he asked, "You think we should contact the FBI and see if they've got anything?"

"Not yet.  Let's see if we can nail him here first.  No reason to get them involved if we don't have to."

David nodded.  To Blake, he said, "Once we know who he is, finding him will be a lot easier.  Especially if he's been exiled."

"Exiled?"

Joe said, "Forced to live in Earth rather than Dugerra.  All exiles are magically tracked, to make sure they don't somehow make it back into Dugerra past the hellhounds."

"The what?" Blake asked nervously.

"Don't worry about it," David said.  "You've already passed by them twice without noticing."

"Uh-huh," Blake said, not reassured in the least.  "So what do I do?" he asked.

"You're going to a criminal management facility," David said.

"You mean prison."

"Well... you're gonna call it that.  You wouldn't, if you'd ever been to Barnard Hill.  If it makes you feel any better, I've spent plenty of time there myself."

"And they still let you be a cop?"

Joe said, "Those sent to criminal management facilities aren't serious offenders."

"Oh.  How can you imprison me?  I thought you had no authority over non-magic-types."

"We're not imprisoning you.  We're detaining you for your own safety.  You'll be in long-term housing at the facility.  You won't have contact with the other inmates.  That is also for your protection; we don't know what connections your supplier has."

"Great."

"Cheer up.  It's better than what using your 'Happy Juice' would have done to you."

"What're you talking about?  All it did was make people see shit."

"And vomit uncontrollably.  But that was the last batch.  The batch I took away from your girlfriend would have killed anyone who used it.  It would have liquified your internal organs and caused them to leak out your ass."

Blake looked as though he was going to vomit.

"See, your supplier didn't come up with some cool party drug.  He simply sucks at making potions.  What he created was a mistake.  It should have been incinerated, but he decided to sell it to the unsuspecting technos and make a bundle.  But because he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing, he couldn't recreate the same error he made the first time.  The batch he gave you that you couldn't use was highly dangerous.  To survive its effects would require you to be in the presence of a Level 1 Healer at the time you took the potion.  And even then, you would need a lot of luck to make it through."

"Shit," Blake offered.

"Yeah, that about sums it up.  I want this fucker," David said.  "And I intend to get him."

"Good luck," Blake said.  What else, really, could he say?

"What the hell is taking so long?" David demanded.  "It's been three days already."

Joe replied, "Well, there are several million records to go through..."

"What, you mean they have to be looked at manually?"

"For a final comparison, yeah.  Oh, we can narrow it down.  I mean, the guy's a... guy, so we don't look at women.  He's blonde, so that narrows that down... and like that, but still, you're talking at least several hundred thousand records to go through.  I'd expect it to take another week."

"And nobody's come up with a spell to match this instantly?  Why the hell not?"

"Perhaps you've noticed by now," Joe said, lowering his voice slightly, as he was in the squad room at Division HQ, "that the best and brightest generally do not become Rimohrs."

David, who was sitting in his office at Woodward, sighed heavily.  "And no one thought to ask a professional spellcaster?"

"Those sorts of folks charge a lot of money to craft spells."

David rolled his eyes.  "So we consider it a better use of money to spend a week's pay every time we need to match a face to a file.  Bureaucratic thinking.  I'd like to meet the guy who came up with bureaucracies.  I'd feed him through a paper shredder."

Joe chuckled.  "In any case, be patient."

"You be patient.  I'm going to do something about the problem.  I'll talk to you later."

Joe just raised an eyebrow, then nodded and fogged off.

David growled in frustration, then got up from his desk.  He stepped into the back room.

"Olissa?"

"Yes, Master?" she asked, looking up from the book she was reading.

"Any luck?"

"Some.  I'm still working on something."

"Okay.  I need to go somewhere.  I'll be back in a little while."

"Okay."

David headed out of his office and over to Beckett Hall.  He walked down the main hall and faded through a door that looked like a supply closet.  Inside was a stairwell.  He took the stairs down and came out in faculty housing.  He wasn't sure where to find who he was looking for.  He didn't even know where her apartment was within the mountain, so he just started to wander.

After looking down three separate hallways, he lucked out and found her sitting in a lounge talking with Professors Phillips, Arpilla and Blackstone.

"Hey, David," Cat said upon seeing him in the doorway.  "How are you doing?  Come on in."

"Hey, Cat.  Prof. Phillips, Prof. Blackstone."

"I told you to call me Charlie," Prof. Phillips objected.

"And one of these days, I will," David said with a grin.  "In any case, I needed to speak to Prof. Thropp.  Do you have a moment?"

"Only if you call me Endora," she said with a grin.

"Fine," David said, feigning aggravation.  "Endora, then."

Prof. Thropp smiled and then asked, "Is it personal?"

"No, it's actually business.  I need to hire you."

"I'm kind of already employed..." she said with a chuckle.

David smiled.  "I need a spell crafted.  It could be complicated and difficult, so I'm not willing to ask you to volunteer."

"Sounds serious.  What is it you need?"

"I need a spell that will match two images of a person.  Apparently, right now the Rimohrs have to look through their files manually to identify a face.  It seems ridiculous to me that this can't be done magically."

"So, you want to take an image that you've taken of a person, and then magically find the file that corresponds to that person."

"Yes.  But the images will likely be different.  I mean, they won't be the same image, so you'll have to take into account different angles, different ages, that kind of thing.  I'm sure all of that makes it much harder."

"Somewhat, but not really, because it's not really the image I'd be trying to match, as much as the identity.  What I would have to do is to magically pull the identity of the person from the image itself.  Everyone's identity is magically accessible, if you know how."

"You mean, I could cast a spell and know exactly who the person in front of me is?"

"Yes... but you probably wouldn't be able to interpret more than a name.  The rest of the information would be coded in a way that humans just can't grasp.  The magical field, however, can decode that information to help us create the spell.

"I'd be willing to work on it.  It sounds like a fun puzzle, frankly.  What's our budgetary limit?"

"Uh... I have no idea what spellcasters normally charge for their work."

"A lot," Cat said with a grin.

Prof. Thropp just scowled in a good-natured way.  "It's not our fault if it's a highly specialized field."  To David, she said, "I usually charge two hundred granas each working day for however long it takes to achieve the desired result.  I offer a fifty percent refund if I fail to achieve the requested spell."

"Okay, I can live with that."

"So, again, what's our budgetary limit?"

"I'll let you know when I run out of money," David said with a grin.

"You're paying for this yourself?" Prof. Phillips asked.

"If I try to go through the Rimohrs to do this, I might get them to okay the expenditure in a couple years.  And there would be a strict limit on how much I could pay.  Now, just for my information... once the spell is crafted, who owns it?"

"You do.  But I must tell you that the royalties for putting spells into spellbooks is pretty small."

"I couldn't care less about that.  I just wanted to know who controlled distribution of the spell."

"That would be you.  Since you are commissioning the spell... it's like if I was a sculptor - sorry, Cat - and making you a statue.  The statue would belong to you once you paid for it.  The same thing here.  Once I've finished with it, and you've paid for it, it belongs to you.  You can do with it whatever you like."

"Good.  If you can get the spell done before they figure out who the guy is the old-fashioned way, I'll give you a thousand-grana bonus."

"I always like a challenge... and incentives," she said.  "If you'll excuse me, I've just been handed a puzzle," she said to the other professors.  She headed out of the room to go to her workroom.

"Who are you looking for, David?" Cat asked.

"An incompetent potion maker who's doing his level best to kill people accidentally."

Prof. Phillips snorted in amusement.  "An interesting description for a criminal."

"Yeah, well... he's putting techno lives at risk by selling them improperly crafted potions and calling them party drugs."

Prof. Blackstone said, "Perhaps you could use your divination to figure out who he is?"

"I've already tried that.  I can't get anything usable."

"Well, good luck with it," Prof. Blackstone said.

"Yeah, thanks."

David headed back to his office in the Caldwell Student Center.  When he arrived, he found Olissa anxiously pacing, obviously waiting for him to return.

"What's got you so excited, Little One?" David asked, using the pet name he'd decided on for her.

She stopped pacing abruptly and then smiled at him.  It was the first time she'd heard the name.  After a moment, she shook herself out of her warm place and pointed to the notebook she'd been writing in.

"I think this will work to allow you to zap Madame Abernathy safely."

 David looked over her notes, examining the work she'd done.  It was, as he had expected, very thorough and well-researched.

"Can you do this?" he asked.

She shook her head.  "I'm not a good enough elemander.  Especially not with electromandy; it was my worst semester."

David nodded.  "And Annie never even took TEM."

"It looks like it's up to you, Master," she said.

"Not quite yet.  I'm going to call Dixie, first."

"Dixie?"

"The healer in town."

"Oh."

A brief call to Dixie proved unhelpful.  Though she had taken a couple semesters of TEM, she had never actually managed to manipulate anything, and had given up on it.

Giving in to the notion that he was going to have to attempt this procedure himself, he and Olissa went to the infirmary.  Annie was waiting, having received a call from Olissa to let her know they were coming.

"So what are you going to do, exactly?" Annie asked David.

"Well, you know what happens during a seizure, right?  I mean, medically?"

"No, not really.  I know it's a lot of jerking motions and the mind is disrupted."

"Okay, well, what's happening, in medical terms, is that the brain is misfiring, causing it to... well, to reset.

"Ellen's mind is caught in a loop.  What we need to do is to break the loop.  I'm going to try to cause her brain to misfire, as if she were having a seizure."

"By zapping her?"

"The brain works on electrical signals.  Applying electricity to it can disrupt it.  If I hit the right spot, it should work.  But this is going to be very tricky.  I'm gonna need you to keep a close eye on her while I'm trying this."

"Is this going to take long?" Annie asked.

"A few minutes.  Most of that time will be me getting myself psyched up to do it.  The actual treatment shouldn't be more than a couple seconds."

"Okay."

"Everybody ready?" David asked.  The others nodded to him.  "Wish I was," he muttered, then leaned down over Ellen's face.  He was standing at the head of her bed, with his hands on either side of her head, not quite touching her skull.

Closing his eyes, David concentrated.  He then nodded to Olissa, who started up the electricity generator that they had borrowed from Prof. Rutherford's classroom.  As the generator spun up, David could feel the charge accumulating along his fingers.  Slowly, he brought the fingers and thumb on each of his hands together, creating a single point of contact, then brought his hands closer together, until they were touching Ellen's skull.  The electricity could be seen now tracing along the sides of Ellen's head.  It wasn't yet penetrating, and David was keeping it from doing any damage.

David breathed deeply, centering his thoughts and focusing on the very small spot within her skull where the energy needed to cross.  The possibility of causing damage to the brain was real, but that could most likely be fixed through normal magical healing.

Finally, with no more excuses for waiting, David took one last breath, and as he exhaled, he shot the electricity from his fingers deep into Ellen's skull.  Ellen's body jerked violently, but David pressed his fingers in place so that they would keep contact.  He blasted her for a count of five, and then he relaxed, moving his hands away from her head.

Ellen's body continued to jerk for a few more seconds, and then she settled.  Annie moved over and began to scan her, careful not to jostle David.  She didn't know whether he was hurt or not, but she knew that he'd want her to check on the patient first.

David was able to straighten up about the time Annie finished her scan.

"Well?" David asked a bit wearily.

"She's... sleeping."

"Sleeping?" Olissa asked.

"Yes.  The loop her mind was in is broken.  Now she's just unconscious.  She'll probably need some hours to recover from having her brain electrocuted.  It looks like you do, too," she said to David.

David shook his head.  "I'm fine, really.  It's just the amount of concentration to do that right...  It's pretty intense."

"I bet.  I assume you're not about to go lie down and rest, are you?" she asked, not in the form of a question.

"Sure I will.  Just as soon as Ellen wakes up."

"Uh-huh.  Keep an eye on him," she told Olissa.

"Of course," Olissa replied.

David was on his feet seconds after Ellen groaned.

"Where am I?" she asked no one in particular, lifting her hand to her forehead.  "Oh, god, do I have a headache."

David moved next to her.  "Hey.  How're you feeling?"

"Awful.  Where am I?"

"In the infirmary."

"What happened?"

"You were hexed."

"Huh?  By who?"

"I don't know," David replied, frowning sharply.  "Do you remember seeing anyone?"

"I... don't really remember anything.  The last thing I remember was leaving my office to go out to the paddock.  After that, everything's dark.  I remember... running through my citizenship exam, over and over again.  That was fun," she said, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

David smiled.  "That was the hex.  I don't know if they targeted a specific memory or not, but it forced you to keep having the same thoughts over and over."

"Nice of them," she said.

David chuckled.

"Think you could do me a favor and go feed the pegs?  I didn't get a chance to, and I don't think I'm gonna be on my feet before the day's out..."

David frowned.  Ellen saw it.

"Uh-oh.  Just how long have I been out?"

"It's mid-July."

"Holy crap!" Ellen cried.  "I've been out for six weeks?"

"About that.  It took us this long to figure out how to bring you out of it."

"By 'us', he means him and Olissa," Annie said, walking up.  She'd heard Ellen's cry of alarm.  "Dixie and I were mere spectators."

"Thank you," she said to David.  "And to you," she told Olissa, who was sitting over in the corner still.

"Since I think it was my fault, I had to help," David said.

"How would this be your fault?" Annie asked.

David explained about all his friends getting hurt.  Annie's look darkened.

"You need to find out who's doing this before someone gets really hurt."

"Yeah, I know."

"Michael Morley," David said, thumping the file folder down on Joe's desk.  "Two-time loser, about to go for three."

Joe lifted the file.  "When I asked them this morning, they said it'd be two or three more days."

"Yeah, well, that's because they didn't ask Endora Thropp."

"You got Prof. Thropp involved?"

"If you want a spell crafted, you don't piddle around with half-wits," David said.  "I'd have asked Prof. Phillips, but he's busy planning for his wedding."

"Uh... right, okay.  So who is this guy?"

"Six years at the Barrendal School of Wizardry.  Only managed citizenship in those four years.  Has been in and out of CMFs, and spent one two-month stint at Barnard Hill for trying to forge an entrepreneurial endorsement on his license."

"Only two months for that?"

"The attempt was so mediocre that it wouldn't have fooled anyone," David said.  "The magistrate was too amused to be stern."

Joe chuckled.

"He did make a note, however, that Morley's next serious offense would be exileable, no matter what it was."

"So if we can prove he did this..."

"Then he's done."

"Got an address?"

"Yeah, and I asked Vivian to go keep an eye on it until we get there."

"Since when do you give orders around here?" Joe asked, a bit miffed.

"I didn't order her, I asked her if she would do it.  Geez, what bug got up your butt?"

Joe shook his head.  "Troubles at home."

"Oh?" David said.

"Nothing big or important.  Just the two of us being stressed out."

"Need to relax a bit more, then."

"Yeah, well... this job's been eating into my free time."

"I'll do it for you," David offered with a grin.  "Hell, how hard can it be?  They've got you doing it!"

Joe rolled his eyes at David, because he knew he was kidding.  "Thanks, but Keef isn't quite that loose with the rules."

"Party pooper.  Anyway, you want to get going?  We're going to need help, by the way."

Joe nodded.  "Okay, let's talk to the boss, then we can get going."

"Two of us, just to enact a dampening field?" one of the Rimohrs asked derisively.  "Can't handle him yourself?"

David looked at him.  "The only thing this guy seems to be any good at is conjuring.  He's a level 3 master.  No, I can't keep him in check while doing other stuff.  You couldn't do it by yourself at all, so I don't really think you should be mouthing off," David replied.  "This guy's identity cost me over two thousand granas.  You let him dispose of the evidence, and I'm taking it out of your ass."

"You didn't have to spend the money, you know," Joe pointed out.  "You could have just waited another few days."

"Right.  During which time this guy could kill dozens of people.  His last attempt was a lethal mixture.  If it had hit the street, everyone who took it would be dead."

That calmed everyone down a bit.

"How do you want to take this guy down?" Agent Keef asked.  As this was David's first big arrest under his supervision, Keef wanted to see how he handled it first-hand.

"Tommy and Dickless... er, I mean Dikko... will enact the conjuring prevention field, to keep him from getting rid of the evidence when we go in.  Vivian will take Peter and Lendoly and cover the fire escape.  The three of us will go in the door."

"Where do you expect him to be?" Keef asked.

"I have no idea.  He's probably built a workroom in there for himself, but nothing on the blueprint suggested where it would be.  It could be the living room, or it could be a bedroom... hell, he could have converted a closet."

Keef nodded.  "Anything else to add?"

"Yeah.  This guy's working with potions.  He could have a pot of boiling mixture in there.  Keep your guard up in case he decides to throw it at you."

"Good advice.  Okay.  When you're ready."

"Vivian, let us know when you get to the fire escape."

"You got it."

Vivian led her subunit off, and David moved the rest of the team halfway down the corridor toward the apartment.  He didn't want to get any closer for fear of giving them away somehow.

In short order, David's mirror buzzed, letting him know that Vivian was ready.  Silently, he motioned the others to follow him.

When they got there, Tommy and Dixon stood on either side of the door.  David motioned to them and mouthed the word, "Now!"

The two raised their hands and muttered a quiet hex.  The spell field engulfed the room.

"Ready?" David asked unnecessarily.  He pulled his wand and said, "One... two... three... arieti!"

A blast of light surged out of David's wand and blew the door off its hinges.  As it dropped to the floor, all three of the Rimohrs rushed in.  David stayed at center.  Joe moved to the left, and Agent Keef moved to the right.  There was no one present in the living room.

From the bedroom area, they heard Vivian's voice.  "Got him!  Got him on the fire escape!"

"Understood!" David called out.  Before the other two could relax or say anything, David said, "We don't know that he was alone."

"Right," Joe said.  "We need to check the place thoroughly."

A couple minutes of looking proved there was no one else present.  The potion-making operation turned out to be in the bathroom tub.

Vivian hauled the suspect back into the apartment and down the hall to the bathroom.

"You can't prove shit!" the guy screamed.  "I didn't do anything!"

David looked at him.  "Do you have any idea how many violations you're committing just by having this workroom here?  You're dumping magical potions down a drain with no filtration or neutralization.  You haven't enacted any magical protections against damage.  You haven't provided a lock to prevent technos from discovering your work.  I don't need to prove you were also stupid enough to sell dangerously flawed potions to non-magical individuals.

"But I will, don't worry.  Get this slimeball out of here," he said to Vivian, who nodded and prodded the suspect down the hall toward the entrance.

"Are you sure you can hold him on those other charges?" Agent Keef asked.  "He could say that our fields have disrupted his protections."

"The only field we enacted was to dampen conjuring.  It would have no effect on protective charms, so long as it was cast correctly, which it was.  There are no protective charms present.  There are no physical barriers, either.  But the truth is that those are piddly little charges.  Unless we can prove he was providing the 'drugs' to Blake, we haven't got much to charge him with.  A couple weeks in the CMF, that's it."

"So what do you do now?" Keef asked.

"We start taking this place apart one piece at a time to see if there's any evidence," David said.

Keef nodded.  "Good show.  I'll let you all get to it.  Who do you need with you?"

"Just Joe, and Vivian if you can spare her.  The three of us should be able to dismantle this place in a couple hours."

"Right.  Good job, Stroud.  Keep up the good work."

"Yes, sir."

After Keef left, David said to Joe, "Nice to work for a professional for a change."

Joe just smirked, and then turned.  "I'll start with the bedroom."

"Right."

"You've got nothing on me," Morley said arrogantly, holding his chin high.

"Actually, Mr. Morley, we do," David said.  He set down a clear bag on the table.  Inside were several pieces of what appeared to be mirrored glass.

"So?  I broke a mirror."

"Yes, you did.  The problem, Mr. Morley, is that you broke my mirror."  David turned the bag over carefully,  "Do you see the marks, here and here?  They form the Woodward Academy logo.  This mark down here is the Rimohr crest, and this is the symbol of the Peg Riding Guild."

"So?  Anyone could have that mirror.  Hell, I did.  It's my mirror."

"No, sir, not anyone.  I had this mirror made for this case.  While it's true, you could have had a mirror with the Woodward logo on it, using the Rimohr crest without permission is a serious crime.  Using a guild logo without membership in the guild is also a crime.

"Hey, I'm a Peg Rider..."

David sighed, "Mr. Morley, Ellen Abernathy and I founded the Peg Riders Guild.  I would certainly know if you were a member.

"Now, do you wish to recant your statement of ownership of the mirror?  Let me remind you that, if you claim to own this mirror, the sentence is about twenty years."

"Um... someone else must have left that mirror, then.  It sure as hell isn't yours."

"Mr. Morley," David said condescendingly, "I am the only Rimohr in the Peg Riders Guild.  The only person that mirror could legally belong to is me."

Morley looked at David, his mouth hanging open.

David said, "Why do you think I chose those particular symbols?  Now, you want to talk about your potions?"

Morley looked at him, then at the mirror.  He sat back.

"Theoretically speaking, if I did it, what kind of time am I looking at?"

"Illegal proliferation of dangerous magical items carries with it a fifty-year sentence.  For that, you're lucky.  Had we not stopped your last batch, it would have killed someone, and that sentence would have gone up by a factor of ten."

"But I could get off.  You haven't got any REAL proof that I made that potion or distributed it."

"Except, of course, that we have your image in the mirror, and your phone is the one that Blake called to get more of the potion.  Unless you can point us to another incompetent potion maker who gave the crap to you..."

Morley thought briefly about latching on to that slim opening David had given him... but realized it was a trap.  Any potion maker that Morley accused would probably end up doing something very bad to him.

Morley sat for a solid two minutes, but he saw no way out.  Finally, with a huge sigh, he said, "Okay, what do you want to know?"

"You think it'll stick?" David asked Joe after they were finished with Morley's confession.

"Oh, hell yes.  We didn't coerce him, threaten him, or anything else.  All we did is explain to him what we had on him.  This one's a slam dunk."

"Good.  You mind if I have a couple days off?  I have to prepare something for Olissa."

"Birthday surprise?"

"It's not her birthday, but it'll certainly be a surprise."

"Oh.  Well, okay, sure.  No problem.  I hope she likes her surprise."

"Trust me, she won't."

"Where are we going?" Olissa asked nervously.

"Now, Little One," David said in good-natured condescension, "if I wanted you to know that, I wouldn't have put the blindfold on you."

David led Olissa up a long set of stairs, then across an open field.  More stairs followed, and they were inside some kind of building.  After that, there were even more stairs before once again emerging into the sun and climbing up a final short set of steps.  David maneuvered Olissa into a very specific position, then he stepped in front of her, facing her.

"Don't move," he said.  "Do not shift your weight or change position.  I need you to remain absolutely still."

Olissa nodded very slightly.  David stepped back from her, and then leaned forward, so his face was close to hers, and would fill her field of view when the blindfold came off.

"Carefully and slowly, reach up and remove the blindfold.  Again, keep your feet still."

Olissa's hands shook as she untied the knot on the fabric of the blindfold.  She dropped it as it came loose.  All she could see before her was David's face.

"Prepare yourself for what you're going to see when I let you.  You need to keep yourself still.  Once I move back from you, take a look around."

Olissa once again gave a very slight nod in understanding.  David slid back, and Olissa could see that he was standing on a floating wooden platform that moved some ten feet away from her, out over the edge of a sheer drop.

Taking a deep breath, Olissa let her eyes move left and right.  She realized that she was on top of Mount Woodward, which meant she was on top of the castle.  She allowed herself to relax slightly and look around, but she tensed right back up when she realized that she was standing on top of one of the parapets that ringed the lip of the North Tower.  She inched back away from the edge.

"You'll see that there is a platform behind you," David said.

Olissa turned to see that there was a long wooden deck that extended perhaps fifteen feet from where she stood.  She turned back to David, who was now at least twenty feet away.  Suddenly, three other platforms floated up from the ground below.  They were positioned so the first was much closer to her, but was off to one side of the platform David was floating on.

"I recall from our trip to the Temple of the Air that you're not a big fan of heights," David said.  "That is an important part of this punishment.  How do you feel right now?"

"Scared," she admitted.

David nodded.  "Are you ready to learn your task?"

Olissa could feel her heart pounding in her chest, but she took a deep breath and nodded.

"Your task is to join me on this platform.  You've been given a good long runway to jump from.  Let me assure you, and this is important, Olissa, that the safest way for you to get to me is directly."

Olissa nodded, not believing him for a second.  She could see that to reach him directly would require at least a twenty foot jump.  The nearest platform was no more than seven or eight feet.

"Whenever you're ready," David told her.

Olissa stepped back along the platform, to give herself the best running start she could.  She was hardly athletic, and even a seven-foot jump would be a stretch for her abilities.

Taking another deep breath, Olissa ran as fast as she could.  She leapt at the very edge of the parapet.  She felt elated as she soared; she could see that she would land on the platform.

As her feet touched down on the platform, however, it tilted sharply, dumping her off, and she fell.

Olissa screamed for only a fraction of a second, as she was caught by a magical field only ten feet below the platform.  The magical field pushed her back up and deposited her back onto the parapet.

"I warned you," David told her.  He motioned with his hand, and the platforms realigned.  They were now even closer to her.  "I will tell you again, the safest way for you to reach me is directly."

Olissa's heart was racing.  She stared across the abyss.

"Oh, and the magical field that stopped you is quite a bit lower now," David said.

Olissa's heart just about stopped at that pronouncement.  She looked down, but could not discern the field.  She looked over at David, and knew without a doubt that she could not make that leap.  Hell, she couldn't even safely make a seven-foot jump.  How was she supposed to jump twenty feet?  The platforms, in their new positions, were about five feet away now.  She could make that and land in the center, which should prevent it from tipping, she hoped.

Once again, Olissa walked to the back end of the platform, and took a running jump.  She sailed across the distance, and her feet landed squarely in the middle of the platform...

...which then vaporized beneath her.  Olissa screamed in bloody terror as she fell thirty feet before the magical field grabbed her and slowly brought her to a stop a mere five feet above the ground.  Once again, it lifted her back up to the parapet and left her there.

"I told you that wasn't the safest route," David said coldly.  "I told you that the safest way for you to get to me was directly.  For your next attempt, the field will not stop you before you get hurt.  It will keep you from dying, but not from being injured."

Olissa was shaking.  She looked down at the ground, sixty feet below her.  She looked at the platforms, realizing they were false safety.  She looked over at David, and knew that there was no chance of her ever making that jump.

"Get on with it," David ordered.

"I can't!" she screamed at him.

"You can, and you will," David demanded.  "Have I ever lied to you?"

Olissa shook her head, her heart racing, her breath coming rapidly.

"Then why can't you trust me?" David snapped.  "If you jump toward me, you will be safe!"

Olissa stepped back to the end of the platform.  She was sweating profusely, terrified of the fall she knew she was about to take.  She could feel her heart thumping in her chest, trying to tear its way out.  Her breathing was ragged, her pulse was through the roof.  She could barely make out the edge of the parapet through her tears.

I have to trust him.  I have to trust him.  I have to trust him.

Olissa continued to repeat this mantra to herself as she started her run.  The voice in her head spoke faster and more anxiously as the edge approached.  As her foot landed on the very edge of the parapet, right before her leap, the voice reached its crescendo.

I have to trust hiiiiiiiiiiii-

Olissa knew almost instantly that there was no chance of her making the distance.  She could see herself already dropping below any hope of reaching the platform he was on.

-iiiiiiiiii- the voice in her head continued, until-

"OOF!"

The air rushed out of Olissa's body as she impacted something very hard.  Whatever it was, however, she couldn't see it.  Instead, she was staring straight down at a sixty-foot drop.

"Don't move," David told her.  She found that particular order very easy to follow.  She was too terrified to move.

"Once you've gotten your wind back, stand up."

How am I supposed to stand up in mid-air?

Olissa did not question David out loud.  She lay still for a couple minutes, but then, slowly, she slid her hands under her and pushed.  Whatever had stopped her was quite solid, and she was able to first kneel, and then slowly, shakily, rise to her feet.  She was very uncomfortable, standing in the middle of empty space.

"Now, walk to me," David said.

Olissa looked down, and then back up to him.  Her knees were shaking as she took a step.

David, seeing just how scared she was, said, "Peractus."

Instantly, the empty space beneath Olissa was filled with a solid wooden platform that was several feet wide.  Olissa was now able to walk quickly across and step up onto the platform David was waiting on.  David hugged her gently.

"I failed again," Olissa said.

"Yes, you did," David replied matter-of-factly.  "And I expected you would.  There are two things I want you to take away from this experience, Olissa."

"What's that?" she asked tearfully.

"First, you have certain natural reactions that you are going to have to get under control if you're going to unwaveringly follow my orders.  I can't do that for you; you're going to have to figure out how to get them under control yourself."

"And the other thing?" she asked.

"The next time you're stuck in this kind of situation, your life may truly be hanging on your choice.  You need to trust me when I tell you to do something.  If I tell you something is safe, it's because I have personally checked that it is.  If I tell you that one direction is better than another, it's because I have some knowledge that's the truth.  And if I tell you to jump off a cliff, you have to believe that doing so is better than not jumping off the cliff.  I love you.  I don't want anything bad to happen to you.  If I tell you to do something that's going to get you hurt, it's because I'm trying to prevent you from getting hurt worse... or killed."

"Yes, Master," Olissa said, crying quietly.

"Let's go home.  I think you've been through enough for one day."

"I'm sorry I failed you, Master," Olissa said.

"You didn't fail me, Little One," David said.  "You failed yourself.  Ultimately you did what I told you to.  Why it took you three tries to do so... that's something you're going to have to work out on your own."

"Yes, sir."

David put his arm around her as they stepped down off the platform.  David waved his hand at it, and the platform began to fold upon itself, packing itself into a smaller and smaller space until finally it was nothing but a large cube of wood.  David whisked it away into his Conjuring Room, and then the two headed down off the castle tower.

"Our next order of business," the chairwoman said, "is the suggestion made by several members regarding a revision of the bylaws governing our mastery level system.

"Master Hinckney, if you would explain the issue, please?" the chairwoman asked one of the guild members who was responsible for the request.  Hinckney rose from his chair and walked slowly to the podium, which was off to one side of the room, so that he could turn and face either the council, or the assembled body.

"Thank you, ma'am.  Ladies and gentlemen of the association, we have a problem.  By our estimation, in less than one hundred years, there will be no Level 5 Masters in this guild any longer."

A stir went through the audience, and the chairwoman gaveled it to silence.  "Carry on, Master Hinckney."

"Yes, ma'am.  Now, the cause of this is not as troublesome as most of you are probably thinking.  The problem is not that no one of Level 5 strength will exist.  The problem is that no one will be able to grant them that rank.  Let me explain.

"Two hundred years ago, we enacted rules stating that no one could bestow upon a guild member a rank higher than the one they possess themselves.  Therefore, no Level 3 can make someone a Level 4, no Level 4 could make someone a Level 5, and so on.  We did this to prevent those in the testing league from promoting themselves, and to guarantee that when people were given a rank, it was by someone who was certain that their abilities warranted that rank.

"Well, an unforseen consequence of that bylaw has come home to roost.  The last Level 6 Master passed away twenty-three years ago.  And, as of right now, there isn't a single Level 5 Master in the testing league.  What that means, my friends, is that no one, no matter how skilled, can be ranked as anything higher than a Level 4.

"As of right now, there are six people sitting in this gathering who, according to the opinions of their testers, should be ranked at least Level 5.  One of them should be a Level 6, according to two of his testers.  All of them are, of course, ranked Level 4, in accordance with the bylaws.

"If we continue on this course, soon the Level 5 Masters will all be gone, and there will be no chance to gain any more of them, without doing what we are recommending today.  That is, a reworking of the bylaws.

"What we are suggesting is, instead of allowing the testing league to use solely their discretion when applying a level to a new applicant or a petitioner for advancement, that we create a list of discrete tests that must be passed for any particular level.  In the document that each of you were given this morning is our recommended list of skills for each mastery level.

"What this will allow the association to do is to once again recognize those among us with truly exceptional skill, by conferring upon them the rank they so rightly deserve.

"I must stress that this alteration, or one like it, must take place, or the guild will lose the ability to recognize excellence among its membership.  Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Chairwoman, for your time."

Master Hinckney stepped back from the podium.

"Any questions?" the chairwoman asked the audience.

A man stood up and asked, "Why can't we just put some of the Level 5's into the testing league?  That fixes the problem without going through all this rigamarole."

Hinckney stepped forward.  "The simplest answer to that is, the current Level 5 Masters do not want to be in the testing league.  They have other jobs to do, and don't want to take time away from their careers to bother with testing new applicants.

"More importantly, however, is the fact that, though theoretically we could do this with the Level 5 Masters... there are no Level 6 or above Masters left for us to put in the league."

"Does that really matter?" the questioner asked.  "There hasn't been a new level 6 or 7 Master in over a century..."

"Of course there hasn't.  There can't have been, according to the rules," Hinckney replied.  "But more to the point, do we want to recognize them when they come along, or don't we?  It seems very demoralizing to those who have worked so hard on their skills to be denied any acclaim for having achieved such strong conjuring ability."

The questioner didn't have a response to that, and so sat down.  Another questioner stood up and asked, "You want to pass these changes today?  We've had no time to look this information over."

Hinckney said, "The basic concept is exceedingly simple.  Do we continue as we have been, or do we adopt a concrete set of standards to make the process more straightforward?  The amendment we've proposed allows for adjustment of the actual requirements for each level by a simple majority of the association members, so though accepting our amendment would enact the level requirements we have outlined, changing them would be quite simple, and could be achieved before this gathering concludes tomorrow, if people really felt an alteration was necessary."

The chairwoman said, "Given the nature of this amendment, and how important it is to the future of the guild, I am calling a one-hour recess for everyone to thoroughly examine both the amendment itself, and the level requirements as outlined by the petitioners.  We will resume this meeting after lunch, at one-thirty."

 "What's this?" Agent Keef asked as David handed over some paperwork.

"Updating my credentials," David said.  "In the last month, my standing in both the Royal Potions Guild and the Royal Conjuring Association has increased."

"Oh?  I thought there was some kind of issue with the RCA.  Garibaldi said something about a problem with the rules..."

"Been talking about me behind my back, eh?" David said with a grin.

"I've got to know my troops," Keef replied with a corresponding smile.

"Uh-huh.  In any case, the RCA's bylaws were changed at our annual meeting this past weekend.  Me and five other people had our levels increased from four to five."

 "Nice.  All right, I'll get this sent off to the academy.  Meanwhile, Vivian has your next case."

David nodded and left the office, heading over to Vivian's desk.

"Agent Keef said you had something for us?" he asked.

"Yep.  Counterfeit magic items.  C'mon, I'll tell you about it on the way."

In order not to spook the person selling the counterfeit items, David and Vivian stopped the coach several blocks away, and walked the remaining distance.  They chatted amiably as they walked, trying to make it look as if they weren't on duty.

As they came close to the small street-vending table where the suspicious activity was supposedly taking place, David suddenly grabbed Vivian's arm and pulled her into a dark doorway.  He had her pressed against the side of the entryway as if they were trying not to be seen necking.

"Um... not that this isn't fun, but what are you doing?" she asked quietly.  She wasn't panicked because the look on his face wasn't one that conveyed fear, only concern.

David motioned with his chin.  "Those guys look familiar to you?"

Vivian leaned her head out and looked down the street.  Near the street vendor were three men who they had both had the misfortune of dealing with before.

"The Clan," she sighed in annoyance.

"Yeah.  If we go walking up there, even if we take our coats off, they're going to recognize us in an instant and bolt."

"So what do you want to do?"

"We need a clean buyer," David said.  "Any Rimohr could be identified by these guys."

"Any ideas?"

David thought for a long moment.  Finally, he pulled out his mirror and called Olissa to come meet them.

"She should be here in just a few minutes.  I only live on the edge of town."

"Mm-hmm.  You should make it look like you're kissing me, if we're going to stand here in this doorway like this."

"And... exactly how do I do that?"

Vivian shrugged.  "The easiest way is to just kiss me."

"O...kay..."

David pressed his lips to Vivian's, and he rested his hands on her hips.  She put her arms around his neck, and the two kissed for long moments, occasionally taking a break to check on their target suspect.

They were once more in the middle of a kiss when Olissa showed up.

"Am I interrupting, sir?" she asked.

David kept his mouth close to Vivian's as he answered her.  "We're trying to be inconspicuous," he said.

"By making out in public?" she asked dubiously.

"Yes.  It's called hiding in plain sight.  Anyway, that's not your problem.  Do you see the vendor at the table down the street?"

"Tall guy, looks Mediterranean?"

"Yeah.  We think he's selling counterfeit goods.  We need you to go buy something and bring it to us."

"What should I buy?" she asked.

"Whatever catches your interest.  Make it look like you're actually shopping."

"Okay.  I'll be back in a minute."

"Think she'll be okay?" Vivian asked.

"Should be.  No reason for them to suspect her."

After that, they started kissing again, to keep up their act.

It was a solid five minutes before Olissa returned, and she had to cough to get their attention.

"What have you got?" David asked, holding out his hand.  Vivian straightened her hair and looked at what Olissa gave to David.

"He said it was a talisman to turn flour directly into bread."

"Uh-huh.  The spell?"

"He said it didn't need one.  Just tap the flour with the talisman.  The amount of flour, he says, determines the size of the loaf of bread."

"What rubbish," Vivian snapped.

David performed a magic revelation charm on the supposed talisman.  The results were obvious to all three of them.

"Complete crap," David said.

"But can't he just say that this one was faulty?" Olissa asked.

"He could, but the thing is it gives us the right to arrest him and examine all of his goods.  One faulty item is an accident.  All of them faulty is a crime.  You wait here."

Olissa nodded, and settled back against the door, making herself hard to see.

Vivian had removed her coat, draping it over her arm.  David had morphed his coat back into his Woodward uniform.  The two walked down the street chatting, as if they were completely ignoring their surroundings.  They could see that the three Clan members had not yet been alerted to danger.

As they reached the vendor's table, David turned.  Vivian kept her hand under her coat, holding her wand unseen.

"If you twitch," David said lowly, "you'll be spending a lot of time in a lot of pain."

"You trying to hussle me?  You see those three dudes?" the guy said, jerking his thumb behind him.

"I'm not here to hussle anyone.  You're being detained.  Officer Stroud, Rimohr."

"Benny, get rid of this guy," the vendor said immediately and with urgency.

Benny was a large man, over six feet tall.  He was leaning against the wall when the vendor spoke, but pushed himself upright.

David saw the motion.  "Rimohr Officers.  Hands where we can see them."

"David..." Vivian said in warning.

David looked back over his shoulder.  The three Clan members they'd been facing had suddenly turned into seven.  He grunted in acknowledgment.

"You gonna try to take my man in?" Benny rumbled, then laughed.  "Man, where's your backup?"

"They only sent the necessary number of officers," David replied.

"Two of you?  Against all of us?" Benny chuckled.

"Oh, no, you misunderstand," David said.  Vivian looked at him out of the corner of her eye, wondering what kind of bluff he was going to try.

David finished, "She's just here as an observer."

"You gonna take all of us on yourself?  You're brave.  Stupid, but brave."

"I don't need to take out all of you.  I only need to take out you," David said, leveling his wand at Benny.  "You tell your boys to get on their knees now, or five seconds from now, you'll permanently lose the ability to walk."

"You're bluffing."

"Four," David said.

"This is shit," Benny offered.

"Three."

"David..." Vivian warned.

Three blasts bounced off the protective shield David had silently erected.

Benny chuckled.  "Chump."

"Who's the chump?  I'm still standing."

David blasted Benny with a horrendous amount of energy, throwing him back against the wall.  Benny's bones were shattered in multiple places, and he fell to the ground, unconscious and unmoving.

David whipped around and leveled his wand at the apparent leader of the others.  "You want to be next?  Drop your wands, on your knees, cross your ankles, and hands on your head, or you'll be in even worse shape than he is!  NOW!"

The six people before them wavered.  One of them dropped his wand, and it was like a wave.  The rest followed suit, kneeling on the ground as directed.

"Get their wands," David said.  To the Clan members, he said, "You so much as twitch and I'll blast a twelve-inch hole right through you."

Vivian collected their wands, then called for a coach to come get their suspects.  A separate coach had to collect Benny, who would need an extended stay in the infirmary.

Once the suspects were packed away, David walked back over to Olissa.

"Thank you.  You did a great job."

"Will I have to testify?"

"Maybe.  You'll need to be there, just in case."

Olissa nodded.

David gave her a kiss, then sent her home.  Vivian joined him as they walked back to the Rimohr coach.

"Could have told me about the protective field," she complained.

"Could have told me you wanted to make out," David replied with a grin.

"That was business!" she insisted.

"Uh-huh," he said.  "You must enjoy your work more than you let on."

Vivian smacked him - hard - on the shoulder, but that didn't fade the grin on his face.

David had just returned from the trial of the counterfeit items vendor, and was joking with Vivian.  The trial had been straightforward, and the outcome was predictable.  The Clan members were sentenced to the usual hard time in Barnard Hill.  The vendor had been sentenced to eight months in a criminal management facility, and had been ordered to pay restitution to his victims, plus twenty-five percent.

The officers signed in and entered the squad room.

"David," Agent Keef called out, and motioned him over.

Vivian sat down at her desk, but looked on curiously.

"Something up, boss?" David asked.

"Got a little job for you," Keef said with a grin.

"Why don't I like the look of that smirk?" David asked warily.

"Oh, it'll be a breeze," Keef said, waving his hand.  "I need you to go up to Woodward Academy."

"Okay, why?"

"The king's daughter wants a tour of the campus.  She goes nowhere without security these days, and they figured you'd be killing two birds with one stone: bodyguard and tour guide."

"Um... okay.  When will she be arriving?"

"In two hours.  You'd best get going."

"Oh, hell, I've got time.  It's only a twenty-minute drive.  But I still don't understand the smirk."

"You'll see," Keef told him.

"Uh-huh."  David was about to walk away, then turned back, "Say... what am I supposed to call her, anyway?  Your Highness?  Princess?"

"She's not a princess.  We don't have princes and princesses, because the monarchy isn't hereditary.  Her name is Christa."

"I knew the monarchy wasn't hereditary, but she doesn't get any kind of title at all?  Kind of sucks..."

"Well, she turned eighteen last month, so technically she is now Lady Aberlin, but I don't think anyone's calling her that."

"Might be time someone started," David said.

Keef shrugged.  "Anyway, she's your charge.  Show her the school and make sure she gets back on the carriage safely bound for home."

"On my way."

David had decided to wear his dress uniform to greet the lady, and he made sure his clothing was immaculate.

The coach glided down out of the sky, the pegs bringing it to a smooth landing right next to David.  The driver was about to get down when David reached for the door.  He opened it to let the young lady out.

The girl who exited the coach was only 5' 1" tall, but otherwise resembled her parents.  She was wearing a summer dress in dark green that had a plunging neckline and barely reached her knees.

David stared for a moment before finally finding his voice.  "Welcome to Woodward Academy, Lady Aberlin."

The girl snorted.  "I'm no lady.  Call me Christa.  You're David?"

"Yes, ma'am.  And this is my familiar, Jailla."

Christa ignored Jailla.  "Dad talks about you.  Seems to think you're a big deal," she said to David.

"I'm sure your father has..." David faltered; he couldn't call the king a liar, or disparage him, so how to say what he wanted to say?  "...perhaps complimented me a bit more than he should."

Christa grinned widely.  "Nicely phrased.  He's not big on praising people who haven't earned it, though.  We'll see.  So, this is Woodward?  All I see is a cliff."

"This," David said, gesturing, "is Mt. Woodward.  The school sits on the mountain.  If you'll come this way, we can go up on the lift."

As the two were riding up to the terrace level, David asked, "So why are you touring Woodward?"

"I'm coming here in the fall.  Dad said it was the best school in the kingdom.  Was he right?"

"I think so, but then I'm somewhat biased."

"Uh-huh," Christa said with a knowing look.  "You do much partying?"

"Not here," David said.  "Personally, I don't party anyway, but you won't have time for parties if you're serious about your studies."

Christa sighed.  "Dad says I have to pass with distinction or he'll make me do it again."

"Woodward will fully prepare you for your licensure, and your citizenship exam.  We have the highest first-time-passing rate of any school."

"Maybe your test is just easier," Christa offered.

"The test is administered by the Ministry of Education.  All schools' tests are the same."

"Oh."

When they emerged onto the terrace, David took a deep breath and began the tour he still remembered from his orientation experience.  He covered each building thoroughly, and it took them over an hour to finish the entire thing.

"Hungry?" David asked, as they were standing next to Byron Hall.

"No.  What about my dorm room?"

David nodded, and pulled out his mirror.

"Housing, this is Sylvia," the face on the other side said.  "Oh, hello, David.  What can I do for you?  Your dorm assignment this year is Firebird Dorm, room 42."

"Thanks, but I was calling for the room assignment of someone else."

"Oh?  Who's that?"

"Christa Aberlin."

Sylvia kept her face impassive; if she recognized the name, it didn't show.  After a moment, she said, "Also Firebird Dorm, room 43."

"I sense a plot," David muttered to himself.  To Sylvia, he said, "Okay, thank you."  As he fogged off with her, he turned to Christa and said, "Good to be the daughter of the king."

"What do you mean?"

"Firebird is the dorm for the seventh- and eighth-year students.  Normally you'd be in Griffin Dorm.  Let me show you the difference."

David led her over to a rock lift, and they rode it down to the Griffin Dorm entrance.  David walked her to a room and opened the door.

"Three people will live in this space for the duration of their first year here.  If you were a normal student, this is what you'd be stuck with."

"And Firebird?"

"I'll show you that now."

David called over an awk, and the two rode it to the dorm right next door.  Firebird Dorm was more elaborate and ornate than the other dorms, and floors three and four were, for some crazy and now-unknown reason, mixed.  Each of the dorms on these two floors actually occupied both floors: half of the apartment was on the third floor, and the other half on the fourth.  The two halves were joined by a staircase.  No one remembered, anymore, why this had been done, and the bottom two floors, as well as the top floor, were normal; each dorm apartment occupied only one floor.

They got off the awk and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor.  Much like Thunderbird Dorm, each dorm apartment had its own patio area, and a public walkway ran in front of that.  As they passed it, David said, "This will be my room.  Something tells me I was put next to you for security reasons.  This is 43, your dorm room."

David waved his hand at the door and it opened.  The two walked in, to see the living room, which was nicely furnished.  The kitchen/dining area was off to the right through a doorway, and a half-bath was tucked in next to the stairway, which led downward.

After taking a quick peek at the kitchen, they headed down the stairs.  They entered a study, lined with empty bookshelves.  Through a door was the bedroom suite, complete with its own complete bath.

"This is one hell of a dorm room," Christa said.

"Yeah, well, normally you have to suffer through six years of school to get one of these."

Christa bounced on the bed.  "Springy."

"If you don't like it, Housing has other types."

"No, it's fine.  So... you like it here, huh?"

"Very much.  I consider Woodward my home."

"I thought you lived in Bolmont."

"I have a house in Bolmont, yes.  That doesn't necessarily make it my home."

"I guess.  I was born in the palace.  I've never lived anywhere else.  It'll be nice to be out from under the watchful eyes everywhere, you know?"

"I can imagine that gets tiresome," David acknowledged.

"So what do you do for fun?"

"I showed you the arcade... there's stuff down in town..."

"No, I meant what do you do for fun?"

"I... don't really have time for fun these days.  I have school, my internship, potions work, three guild memberships, one of which I'm co-founder of... plus the other stuff I'm doing for... well... I don't know what your father's told you about the future."

"You mean the weres?  I know about it.  You're helping with that?"

"Somewhat.  I'm more preparing myself for it."

"Oh.  Sounds like you need to let loose and have some fun once in a while."

David shrugged.

Christa got up off the bed and came over to him.  "We could have some fun now," she told him.

"What, exactly, did you have in mind?"

"Oh, I think you know," she said, putting her hands on his chest.  "I saw you checking out my tits earlier."

"I was trying to make sure they weren't falling out of that dress," David said.  "Your parents let you dress like that?"

"Hell no.  I changed on the coach.  At home, I have to be all uptight and proper.  I have no intention of spending the rest of my life that way."  She slipped her arms around his neck.  "C'mon, I know you think I'm hot.  I should at least pay you back for saving Dad's ass."

David tried to respond to that, but she pulled him down so she could kiss him.  While their lips were engaged, her hand ran over the hardening bulge in his pants.

After a long moment of lip lock, she said, "See?  Part of you wants to play.  Let's see."

Christa dropped to her knees and deftly unfastened David's pants, pulling them down his legs.  He reached to stop her, but she had his briefs down faster than he could react.  His hard dick popped out and was pointing directly at her face.

"Ooh, nice one."

Christa reached up and took it in her small hand, jacking it a few times to make sure it was fully hard.  Then, without further ado, she plunged her mouth down onto his cock.  David groaned in a bit of surprise and a lot of pleasure.

Christa didn't start slow, but was immediately working her mouth back and forth on his dick like a pro.  Her tongue slid this way and that as her lips sucked on him.  David was clenching his fists, trying to hold off his climax, but he knew it wasn't going to work.

In just a minute, he grunted a warning, and then blasted his load into Christa's mouth.  She started swallowing immediately, and the way her mouth gripped him caused even more spasms.  Finally his orgasm tapered off, and she slowly allowed his dick to slip from between her lips.

David managed to get his mind back in gear just in time to see Christa start to unbutton her blouse.

"Whoa!" he said.  "We can't do this."

"Why the hell not?" she demanded.

"You're the king's daughter, for crying out loud!  And, from the looks of things, I'm supposed to be your bodyguard while you're here!  If your father found out that I'd slept with you, he... well... he might find a deep dark hole to throw me in.  Or worse!"

"Hmph," she said, and turned away, stomping over to the bed.

David reached down and grabbed his pants and underwear, pulling them back up as she dropped onto the bed, bouncing.  "I'm not going to spend my life being pigeon-holed into the 'daughter of the king' role!  I plan on having a lot of fun while I'm here, parties or no parties.  And if you're going to be guarding me, I'm gonna have lots of time to convince you otherwise," she told him with an evil grin.

David sighed silently to himself.  "I think that's all there is to see of the school.  Unless you have more questions, why don't we head back to the carriage?"

"You got a girlfriend?" she asked.

"Several," David replied bluntly.  "But I meant questions about the school."

"It was a question about the school," she told him.  "I'm checking on the available-boy-to-me ratio.  If you already have several girlfriends, it's no trouble if you end up with another sort-of-one for a little while, now is it?"

David's sigh wasn't silent this time.

The two made their way back down to the entrance, where the carriage awaited its VIP.

"See you in a few weeks," Christa told him.  she leaned up and gave him a kiss on the cheek, only because there was a guard watching.  While she was there, she whispered in his ear, "I like a challenge."

As Christa got into the carriage, David looked on in a bit of dismay.

Aw, hell.