Dial H for Heroics

Josie put on Doctor Occult and scanned Karney. She frowned at the flu that she

picked up and the sea urchin poison drowning his lungs. She could do something

about both of those.

“Does Karney have any enemies?,” asked Josie. She began pulling the poison out

through his skin. His sweat redoubled, soaking the bed. “You are going to have to

burn the sheets when I am done.”

“He goes into town once a week to talk at the end of the day with the other old

fishermen,” said Six Russ. “I don’t know if they consider him disposable, or not.”

“We’ll come back to that in a minute,” said Josie. “The first thing is he has the flu

which I am burning up with the cure for his second ailment. The other thing I detected

is he’s been poisoned. Did you do that?”

“No!,” said Six. She looked at her sister and Josie in shock. “I wouldn’t do that.

Master Karney has been kind to me since I came here. Killing him means I would

have to move on. I like it here.”

“So someone poisoned him with a low dose at this usual talk at the local inn, or

they put it in the food here in the house,” said Josie. “They might have thought

they could poison both of you.”

“We’re immune,” said Seven. “I think we’re immune. I have been poisoned a few

times and have never succumbed.”

“So if the poison is here, the poisoner didn’t know about Six’s immunity,” said Josie.

“We have had several visits from messengers from other places,” said Six. “They only

stayed long enough for tea, and to wait on a reply before leaving.”

“We’ll get into that when we are sure Karney will live,” said Josie. She set the

process to work by itself until the poison was cleared out, and released Doctor Occult.

She would need other personas to find the answers she wanted. “What do you want

to do about this?”

“What do you mean?,” asked Six.

“Do you want me to find out who tried to kill him, or do you want to let it go?,” asked

Josie. “I don’t think my method is going to be accepted by any local court.”

“I would like to at least know,” said Six. “I can handle any reprisal on the party

responsible.”

“I’ll handle that part,” said Josie. She frowned at the old man. It didn’t matter how

many enemies the old man had, she could find the right one with her magic. Her birds

were good for that.

“So you can find whomever is responsible?,” asked Six.

“Yes,” said Josie. “I wished that I had brought Jack. He just built healing elixirs.

We could have used one of those to speed up Karney’s recovery.”

“He’s your husband?,” asked Six.

“He’s taken,” said Josie. “And I wouldn’t want him to be my husband. But I have

known him forever, and his sister too. I count on him to do things that need some

puzzling out.”

“June and I are going to set up our adventuring in Rais, in Solsa,” said Seven. “We

won’t be able to help as fast from there, but with a little planning we might be able

to arrange some sort of rescue. You will have to buy time for us to get here.”

“Are you sure about this?,” said Six. “You will be adventuring like Three.”

“We won’t be adventuring that much,” said Seven. “We will be helping people

in need. June will need some practice with it, but I am sure she is good

enough to solve things.”

“Jack and I will lend a hand when we can,” said Josie. “Despite what Zu said, Jack

is never going to just throw you to the wolves, and I won’t either. You guys will just

need to come up with your own methodology. Jack and I have a ton of stories we can

use for inspiration floating around in our heads. June was always the sports girl,

playing baseball and soccer, learning to fight, weightlifting. She didn’t have much

time for books and movies.”

“That hurts her how?,” asked Seven.

“This job requires a certain patience and expression of imagination,” said Josie. “I’m

worried that June is just looking at the parts where she can hit something, and not the

parts where she actually has to help people. You might have your work cut out for

you being her assistant.”

“I understand,” said Seven. “She would have helped Six’s master, but only after some

prodding and might not have considered he was poisoned.”

“It depends on what her new face does,” said Josie. “Sakura is a grab bag, and the

other two are physical fighters only. They couldn’t detect for anything out of the

ordinary, and I don’t think June knows enough to recognize when someone has been

poisoned.”

“I understand,” said Seven. “She is bluff and straightforward like Hurley, and not as

worldly wise as Gowan Hand.”

“And I don’t think she is as ruthless as she sometimes will need to be here,” said

Josie.

“The sheets are soaked through,” said Six.

“Let me do a check,” said Josie. “Then we will have move him off the bed, burn

everything and put him back on the bed. If the poison soaked through to the mattress,

we might have to get rid of it.”

“Burn everything?,” asked Six.

“There is a chance this poison will still be in the sheets and blankets after they are

cleaned,” said Josie. “I’m not an expert on that. I know you are immune, but what

happens if he touches the sheet again and it puts him back where he is now. The next

time, we might not be here to help you.”

“I understand,” said Six. “All right. I can get him fresh sheets from the closet after we

are done.”

“All right,” said Josie. “Let me check. Then I will put him on the floor. It’s made out

of wood so we can scrub it when we are done to prevent any accidents. You guys pull

the bedclothes and throw them in the fireplace to be burned, or burn them outside to

keep the fumes from coming back in the room. Then we put everything back together,

and see if we can find who did it.”

“It sounds easy enough,” said Six. “We do have a firepit for trash. We use that when

it is full. Do you think we might have to get rid of the mattress too?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Josie. She pulled on Doctor Occult again and did her

check. The poison had almost fled Karney’s body. The flu had burned up in the first

few seconds of the treatment. She made sure she could speed up the rest without

killing the old man by accident, and then she pulled the last of the poison out of his

system. She put a timer in him to speed up his recovery, when he was back to normal,

it would stop and his body would take up its normal healing ability. “Does he have

another nightshirt? Wait, do you guys have a tub?”

“We do have one,” said Six. “It’s outside.”

“We’re going to have to bathe him to make sure we cleared his skin of the poison,”

said Josie. She frowned. “I should have thought of that before we started.”

“Don’t worry,” said Six. “I can handle that part well enough.”

“All right,” said Josie. “Go ahead and fill the tub and start the firepit fire. As soon

as that’s done, I will move him downstairs.”

“Come on, Seven,” said Six. “We will have to draw water from the well.”

The twins left the room. Josie powered down as she thought about the situation. Who

wanted to kill this guy?

She knew she could find the source of the poison. She knew she could find the

culprit. What did she do after that?

She needed some kind of public confession to get Six in the clear. Otherwise, the

town would think she did the deed. And just because one attempt failed, didn’t mean

the killer would stop. He would just try again when the maid couldn’t call for help.

Seven and her arrival on the scene couldn’t have been foreseen. How did you plan for

the Enterprise when a horse drawn wagon was the biggest means of transportation

around?

She considered the problem while she waited. Six probably wouldn’t want to leave

her boss to be a moving target. She definitely didn’t want him to be hurt.

Six returned after a few minutes.

“Seven has the fire going, and we have the tub full of water,” said Six. She pulled

on gloves. “We are ready for the rest of it.”

“Go back down and make sure he doesn’t drown,” said Josie. “He’s going to need to

be dunked. I’ll get rid of the water afterwards.”

“All right,” said Six. She hurried from the room.

Josie did one last check with Doctor Occult. She switched to Zatanna. She hooked

Karney to a firebird and sent him down to his bath. His nightshirt and bedclothes

collapsed in an instant. She folded the bedclothes up, the nightshirt in the middle of

the bundle, and hooked them to another firebird to send them down to the firepit to

be burned up.

She might have been able to separate the poison out from the cloth, but what if she

missed some of it. This way it was neutralized without problems.

The stuffed mattress was soaked through, and a shade of burgundy. She compressed

it, hooked it to a firebird, and sent it to the pit. Karney would have to replace his

bedding, but she felt that was a small price to pay for not dying.

She walked out of the room. She headed downstairs. She wondered if Karney had

retired with some money. He was living in the middle of nowhere. How much did he

pay in upkeep of the house? How much was he paying Six?

Maybe this was his summer home, and he flew back and forth to the south like a

migrating bird.

Josie decided that some of this wasn’t her business. She didn’t need to pry into Six’s

privacy any more than necessary.

The Russes had the victim in the large tub, and was working on him with scrub pads.

The water was purple. Josie needed another place to put him when they were done.

“Do you have another bed?,” Josie asked. She had turned off Zatanna to let her watch

recharge. “He’s going to have to sleep the rest of this off.”

“We can put him in my bed,” said Six. “It doesn’t have as good a mattress, but it’s

safe.”

“All right,” said Josie. “Take him out and dry him off, and I will move him to your

room. Then I will get rid of this poison water, and start looking for the source of the

problem.”

“All right,” said Six. “We can lay him out on a towel, and make sure that we did all

right.”

“We’ll have to burn the towels too,” said Josie.

“I understand,” said Six. She placed a towel down on the grass. “Master Karney isn’t

going to like all of the expense of replacing everything.”

“It’s better than being dead,” said Josie. “Get him out, and I will hook him up.”

“Right,” said Six. “Seven?”

“I’m ready,” said the other Russ. She flexed her gloved hands. They were stained too.

The twins laid Karney out on the towel. They covered him with more towels and

rubbed him down. Six took the top towels and threw them in the firepit when she was

sure she had dried him off.

“All right,” said Josie. “I’m putting him to bed.”

Zatanna waved a firebird into existence. It flew into the house. Karney vanished

in a second.

“He will be so embarrassed when I tell him about this,” said Six. She smiled.

“Go in and make sure he is laying down on his side in case he throws up,” said Josie.

“You don’t want him to choke on his own vomit.”

Six rushed off at that.

“Six speaks highly of Master Karney,” said Seven. She gathered everything together

and threw it in the fire, her gloves last.

“Let me get rid of this poison water and we can move on to finding our attempted

murderer unless sea urchin poisoning is a naturally occurring thing here,” said Josie.

She concentrated and two extra tubs appeared. She called up two more firebirds and

one drew all the water into one tub. The other drew all the poison and waste in the

other. She moved the clear water out to the nearby ocean. She moved the poison into

the fire and watched it go up in a small funnel of smoke.

She became Northwind, and blew the smoke out over the water and away from the

house and villages.

She returned to Zatanna and made sure nothing remained in the firepit, and the tub

was cleaned out before she let the persona go. It had been an easy fix so far.

Hopefully, the rest would come just as easy.

“Why did Zu warn Six about this?,” asked Seven. She followed as Josie walked

toward the house.

“Got me,” said Josie. “I can take a guess. The only way to know for sure is to ask him

at the next meeting.”

“A guess would be okay,” said Seven. She waved her hand for Josie to go on.

“The Society seems big on keeping the peace and helping people,” said Josie. “This

is probably the first time they have had four guys working for them in a while. Mister

Warner used to work alone, or with allies, but not with other people who were armed

up like him. I’m thinking they saw that your sisters had individual problems that

could be solved, but didn’t want to issue quests for it. So when they coopted your

dream talking for their meeting, they decided to handle things in a way that your

sisters could be helped but it doesn’t look like they are buying your help for June.”

“Why not issue quests?,” asked Seven.

“My thought is they consider you important enough to ask as an auxiliary, but your

sisters are not,” said Josie. She searched the house until she found the kitchen. “Their

problems, except for Number Four, don’t seem big enough to shake the world.”

“And they have already acted against her in an oblique way,” said Seven.

“Not against her specifically,” said Josie. “But an army of monsters with no controls

would have been a major disaster at the source, much less if it had spread to other

countries before it could be held down.”

She examined the kitchen and thought Six put a lot of work into maintaining it with

just her and Karney living in the house.

“Do you think these new quests will have something to do with her?,” asked Seven.

“I don’t know,” said Josie. “Maybe the warning will be enough to get her to change

her mind.”

“I don’t think so,” said Seven. “She has always been the most stubborn one of us.”

“Let’s see if the old man was poisoned here, or if he took it somewhere else,” said

Josie. “Then we can figure out how to expose this menace before he tries it again.”

She called on Zatanna and sent a firebird to look for any signs of the poison in the

house. She nodded when it went right away to the tea jar on the counter next to the

sink. She popped open the lid and looked at the bags in the jar. They looked like tea,

but that didn’t mean anything.

She sent the tea bags away. There would be some dead fish in the ocean, but the

poison would separate in that much water and not be a threat to anyone else.

“So someone put poison tea in the jar,” said Josie. “Let’s go ask him why.”

She sent out another firebird. It fled the house and headed for the fishing village

below. She followed it with her eyes. She was in no hurry to stumble on her murderer

and give him a chance to take her by surprise.

“Let’s walk down and see where it landed,” said Josie.

She let Zatanna go and they started from the house on the cliff.