“Raven, we have a problem in Detroit,” the computer’s voice woke her instantly.

“Where is my beloved?”  It was her first thought.

“He is currently involved in a hostage situation in Irkutsk,” the computer replied.

“Where is Ear koot ska?”

“Russian Federation, central Siberia.  It involves a number of school children.”

“What is the problem in Detroit?”  She rolled out of bed, nude, and began to gather her fighting gear.

“There is a house fire,” Spock replied.

Raven stopped moving, the lower half of her costume just pulled up over her hips.

“How are we concerned? Does Detroit not have a fire brigade?”

“The Detroit Police have the the house in question surrounded, SWAT teams are on site.  They believe the fire was started by a mutant.”

“What would my beloved ask?”

“The house is the home of a man who fosters children.  His current foster is a 16 year old girl authories believe is the cause of the fire.”

Raven absently pulled up the top portion of her costume, arranging it so as to protect silly human sensabilities about nudity. Stepping into her calf high boots, she stamped each foot as her Aaron had done so many times.  Straightening, she flex her small hands.  The gleaming black dragon gloves appeared and adjusted to the proper size.  In her right hand the black bladed dagger appeared.  Bending slightly at the waist, she tucked the blade into the sheath that was sewn to the right boot.

“How close can you place me?” She asked the computer.

“Four miles,” it replied.

Gathering her hair in one hand she pulled it free of any entanglement donning her costume may have caused.  The dragon tattoo on her left hip slithered up to take its place just below the cut of her very abreviated costume, the spines along its neck not quite reaching the line of the leather.  Its tail wrapped her leg only as far as her boot’s top.  The tattoo on the left side of her body slipped beneath the portion of her costume that covered her side from just at the top of her hip to just below the line of her breasts.  Its head found its resting spot along the left side of her neck while its body coiled down her left arm.

Vakoli, unbidden, pushed open the French doors the led to the bedroom’s balconey and darted to her shoulder.  The minature dragon a comfortable and familiar weight there.  She looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Feel like travelling, my friend?”  The mini dragon hissed.  “I take that is a yes … Spock, you may enter jeyez.”

Detroit may have been in the throes of urban blight but downtown was still quite active, even for eight o’clock in the evening.  Archer had always made a point to arrange the teleport sites to be placed in some out-of-the-way area and this one proved to be the top of the tallest building in the city.  From that vantage point she would have an unrestricted panoramic view of most of the city.

“Which direction, Spock?” she asked the computer.

“Southeast,” came the response.  Valoki point with his nose.  North and south and those other directions did not come easy for Raven even after years in the Cold and Green.  That thought made her regret not collecting Archer’s great cloak from the couch.  It had been a warm night in the Valley but this Detroit place was cold.  The Gift of Tsasaidor, her costume presented to her by the Great One, in fact kept her comfortably warm but it did not stop her from shivering as a blast of cold air blew across the rooftop.  She would have to work very quickly.

The dragon launched himself from her shoulder and moved out to scouting range freeing up her magic.   Without hesitation, she followed the tiny drake and leaped off the building.  Instantly she was lifted by her magic and pushed after Valoki.  The pair matched speed as the dragon homed in on their target.  He spotted the smoke moments before her and together they settled to the ground beside a very large truck thing.  On the side huge letters in white proclaimed SWAT.

A hand came down hard on her shoulder and spun her around.  Valoki reacted instantly and sank his claws into the offending hand resulting in a sharp cry of pain.  The wounded man’s uninjured hand dropped to the butt of a weapon and Raven touched his mind.

‘I am the Seeker of the Wild Hunt, I am here to aid you,’ she said into his mind.

“What?”  The man was a police officer with three inverted white vees on his shoulder.  “That thing bit me!”

“No, he did not,” Raven said aloud.  “He was defending me from your attack.  If he had bitten you, he would still be attached and gnawing away flesh.”

Slowly the gun came up until it was centered on Vakoli who was resting in her shoulder, his tail coiled around her neck, as if nothing had happened.

“You got a license for that thing?”  The man demanded.

Raven blinked, then remembered.  “Oh, yes, I do.”  She pulled the costume away from her left breast and found the small pocket concealed within.  She pulled out a thin leather folder and opened it for the man.  It took a moment for him to notice as his eyes were fixed on Raven’s now covered breast.  Inside the folder was Raven’s US Marshal’s ID. 

The man sputtered.

“I meant a pet license for that monster!”  The gun was still pointed at Vakoli, who decided at that moment to notice.  Raven had a split second to grab the mini dragon’s tail before it would have sunk the poisonous stinger into the man’s hand.  As she did this, she sent a quick command to the man.

‘Freeze.’  She spoke directly to his mind. 

He had no choice but his finger had already depressed the trigger enough to draw the hammer back on his weapon.  It did not fall.  Raven stepped to the side and out of his line of fire.

‘Put away your weapon’ she commanded.  When he had complied she smiled.  “Shall we discuss this mutant you are planning to kill?”  She spoke aloud.

The man stepped back, his hand going back to his weapon.

“Do not make me put you to sleep,” she warned.  “I will find and remove your mutant.  You will have no need to kill her.”

She suspected something about the man and stepped into his mind.  It was the usual jumble of chaos with his fear foremost, fear of not just Valoki but of her and the mutant inside.  He was actually planning to have his team kill the girl.

“No, I don’t think so.”

‘Go sit in your truck until I am gone.’  She commanded.  The man looked bewildered but stepped over to the truck and climbed inside.

A second man approached her, hands down and open.

“You are the Seeker?” he asked.  This one had two silver bars on his collar.  She recalled this was his badge of rank, a captain.  Humans were so stupid with their ranks.  Was two silver bars better than three white stripes?  Probably not.

“Yes, I am the Seeker,” she replied to the man.  “I will take the mutant from here if you will keep out of my way.”

“Okay … the building is burning though, how will you get her out?  We think she is holding her foster father hostage.”

Raven smiled at the thought of the nice warmth she would find inside the building.

“Do not worry, I am fire proof.”  She started for the house.

The building was not fully aflame and it seemed the majority was merely smoke.  Very thick smoke.  She would not be able to find the girl through that.  Close enough to feel the beginnings of the heat from the fire she stopped.  It was plain there was a mind inside, a single mind.

She called back to the police man.  “There is but one person inside, I sense no other.”

The flame had begun to eat away the building front porch area now.  She would have to be quick so was not to fall through charred flooring.  Three steps brought her to the door.  The knob glowed faintly in her ‘fire’ sight but would not present a danger thanks to Tsar’s Gift. 

As she turned the knob and started to push the door open someone behind her yelled, “Backdraft!”

It was as if the building chose that moment to take a great gasping breath.  The instincts of a life in the Fireoak Forest kicked in.  With the indraft she stepped forward two paces, drawing her dagger as she did so.  The blade slammed into the stout wood of the door’s jam just as the outward blast of flame enveloped her.  The dagger kept her from being tossed out of the building like fireoak fuzz.  Behind her there was panic and conflicting orders flew.  One in particular annoyed her, the one about the hose.

Jerking her blade free she stepped to the side out of the doorway just before tha blast of water hit the flames.  When the stream seemed to be safely away from her she peeked around the doorjam and waved at the people watching.

“I am uninjured,” she called, noting that the white stripe man was out of the truck once more.  She had told him to remain there until she was gone.  She really had to be more careful of her phrasing with those of the Cold and Green.  They could be so literal.  The hose stopped and she was enveloped in steam as the fire struggled against the water.  The girl was in the room just down that hallway and she began picking her way through the growing wreckage of the house.

There was a body.

Raven stepped over it and into the room.  The girl, about 16, sat in the middle of a shabby mattress on a heavy metal bed frame, staring at the flames and making no effort to escape.  There was no way she was going to get anything intelligible out of that girl.  She was obviously in the state of shock.  Raven stepped into her mind.

‘I am Raven Fireoak, the Seeker, and I am here to save you.’

Immediately the flood began, the abuse, the starvation, the beatings and finally the attempted rape.  Raven saw it all replayed.  The girl was strong, far stronger than the man but he had known that and brought with him a baseball bat.  Before she could react, he had bashed her twice, the first one stunning her and the second knocking her out. 

When she had awakened, she was bound ankles and wrists to the bed, her clothes ripped from her body.   The man stood over her, his fingers working the button of his jeans.  He never saw it coming.

Smoke lit with embers of flame erupted from the girl’s mouth and covered him.  Clothing burst into flame and the screaming began.  He backed away, bouncing off the curtains that covered the only window, setting them alight.  From there physics took over.  The man died before the fire really caught hold of the building and the girl could have escaped but she had gone into shock.  She had killed a man.

‘You defended your life,’ Raven said into her mind.  ‘He was trying to kill you with that bat and if you had not been a mutant, he most likely would have suceeded.  What is done, is done, and you are not to blame.  Please, come with me.  You will be safe with me.’

The girl’s stare shifted to Raven.

“Are you in my mind?” she said over the growing roar of the fire.

‘Yes, forgive me, but your story must be known and I am a US Marshal.  It is in my power to make a decision as to if you will be charged.  I will not be charging you,’ Raven said to her mentally.

“But the fire …”

“Spock, two please.”

The burning building vanished to be replaced by the med lab of the Wild Hunt.

Raven toed open the auto-doc.

“If you will remove your clothes so that you may be examined,” she said aloud.

The girl looked doubtfully at the white pod.

“What is this thing?”

“This is an automatic computer controlled regeneration pod.  An auto-doc,” Spock said.

The girl cowered, looking around the room for the source of the voice.

“That is Spock, he is our computer,” Raven explained.

“He?”

“It is merely a choice of pronoun and has nothing to do with gender,” the computer explained.  “Gender means nothing to me other than its particular requirements for medical reasons.”

“He doesn’t care if you are a girl.”

“HE going to record all this?”

“Yes, for review by Ghost Archer, should it be necessary.”

“Who is …wait … Ghost Archer?  Like in California?”

“He is my mate,” Raven said proudly.

The door slid open.  Raven threw herself into the arms of the man that entered.  He towered over her but bent to meet her lips in a long, passionate kiss.

“You were successful?” Raven asked.

“Three dead, all terrorists.  No children injured.”  He replied then looked over at the smoke begrimed girl.  “Hello, I am Ghost Archer, call me Archer.  Are you injured?”

She shook her head.  “I don’t think so.”

“Okay, I’ll stay over here, Raven’s relayed everything that happened and even if you think you are okay, please let the auto-doc check you over.  We can both leave if you would be more comfortable.  Just undress and lay down in the pod.  The lid will close and a drape will cover you to the throat.”

Both could see that might be the preferred choice so they stepped out.

“He tried to rape her, beloved,” Raven said, tears welling up in her beautiful green eyes.  “How can a man who is entrusted with a child do such a thing?”

“The Cold and Green is far more evil then your forests,” he replied.

“The pod is closed,” announced the computer.

“You go in, ask if she minds my coming in,” Archer suggested to Raven

She stepped back into the med lab and as soon as she did Archer spoke to the computer.

“Spock, send in that report, let DPD know we have things in hand.  I’ll have Raven submit her deposition in the morning.”

There would be a legal battle between DPD and the US Marshal’s Service but judges tended to side with Ghost Archer.  Besides, the Valley wasn’t in anyone’s jurisdiction.

‘Beloved.’ 

The call came through their shared mind link and he entered the med lab.  He stepped to the display and scrolled through it without looking over at the patient.

“Smoke enhalation, second degree burns over 20% of your body.  Abrasions on wrists and ankles.  Severe concussion.  Cracked skull.  Blunt force thrama.  Split scalp,” Finally he looked over at her and met her eyes.  “I think you need to get some sleep.  Let the auto-doc do its job.”

He could see she was drifting, probably from the concussion.  With a touch of the screen the auto-doc put her to sleep.

“How long?” Raven asked, worry making her voice tight.

“Three days,” he replied.  He looked down at her then leaned in and sniffed her neck.  Gooseflesh erupted all over her body.  She loved it when he did that.  “You might want to climb in to the ‘doc too.  If she sucked in smoke, you did too so a little O2 might be called for.”

“Do I have to take off my clothes?”  She asked hopefully.

He grinned and lifted her dagger from its sheath.