They spent most of the day sorting the data and setting up possible paths to pursue. They hadn't come to any particular conclusions by the time the kids got home from school, but they had been able to eliminate some methods that obviously wouldn't work. Never forget that. If it isn't blatantly obvious that you should proceed in a particular manner, it never hurts to eliminate the paths that won't work. In so doing, you'll become more thoroughly acquainted with your data set, and that, in and of itself, should sharpen your vision.

  Speaking of sorting things out, there was something from this morning that she hadn't finished dealing with yet. What was it again? Couldn't be dementia, she was only 30.

  While she was standing there trying to remember what had happened that morning, the mud room door banged open and the usual whirlwind came in. Kimiko kicked off her shoes and bounced her way down the hall, just as she did every school day.

  She was followed by Kumiko who was, naturally, moving much more sedately. However she did seem to be in a hurry. She didn't even say hello, just motored her way down the hall and into her room.

  Finally Ian. He was ambling along with a half smile on his face. He looked entirely too self-satisfied.

  "Self-satisfied"? That was it!

  Karla grabbed his arm and dragged him down to the dojo. As they entered, she turned and locked the door then turned back to Ian. Then in a very smooth motion, she picked him up and tossed him onto a mat that was about 20 feet away.

  As he was staggering to his feet, she kicked them out from under him and then stood with one foot in the center of his chest.

  "Listen up you idiot! We're a family. This is not your personal amusement park. You will stop playing games with Kumiko or what you've just experienced won't be even 1% of what going to happen to you. Capiche?"

  Ian was practicing looking like a pole-axed steer again. Seems that he was getting quite good at it.

  "How... How... But I.... You couldn't..... But....."

  "Ian. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"

  "Absolutely. Yes indeed. You're perfectly clear. No more. Ah, I won't do it again, not now, not ever. Yes. Perfectly clear."

  "Good. Remember or else." Karla sneered at him. She'd not had formal training, but she'd been a practicing actress far longer than Jane. Then she stalked out of the dojo and down the hall to the house.

  Ian just laid there on the mat for the next few minutes trying to figure out how she'd outed him. Finally it came to him. Of course. He'd been trying to avoid Jane's attention. It had never entered his mind that Karla might be watching.

  Given what had just happened, he decided that self-preservation was much more important than what he now realized was rather childish humor. He was acting like a moon-struck 10 year old, not a mature young man of 14. What an idiot he'd been!

  He resolved to figure out some other way to approach Kumiko. He pulled himself back to his feet and shuffled down to his room. There must be some way to handle it properly. Surely someone had dealt with a similar situation at some time in the past. He'd do an Internet search and see what he could find.

  In the meantime Karla was patting herself on the back. It never ceased to amaze her at how effective a bluff can be when backed up by a knowing look. She still hadn't figured out what Ian had done that morning to trigger her "something's wrong" antenna. Now she didn't need to.

  Ian was feeling guilty enough that he'd stop whatever it was. Or he would until he figured that she'd forgotten about it. Then he might try again. That was unlikely though. He wasn't stupid, just an idiot when it came to girls. Exactly like most other 14 year old boys.

  Hopefully he'd grow out of it before Kumiko decided to take care of it herself. If she got irritated enough by Ian's silliness, she'd take him down a peg or three. That would be both embarrassing and also very painful for Ian.

  ------------------

  Grgur let its head hang and it shook it as if it were severely disappointed with the entire class.

  "Idiots! Karla would never hurt a child. She's made that perfectly clear before this. You really ought to pay attention. Not once did she say that she'd hurt Ian. What she said was that what he'd just experienced wasn't 1% of what he'd go through later if he didn't straighten up.

  "That's right. She was referring to what Kumiko would do to him. Pay closer attention in the future, will you?

  "Kumiko had already tossed Ian out of her room and into the wall across the hall when he barged in without knocking. I have a strong suspicion that he'll eventually remember that. If he doesn't do it sooner, he'll remember it later -- probably when he's flying through the air again."

  ------------------------

  Karla decided to just let the Ian/Kumiko situation lie for now. She was going to need all her wit and concentration to help Jane sort out this latest group of criminals. Argh! No. Enough! They'd just spent all day going around in circles. If she didn't do something to relax her head might explode. So, what to do?

  Ah! That should do it. Karla decided that it was way past time for her to practice her archery. It had been almost a month since she'd worked with her bow. On the rare occasions where she was brutally honest with herself, she had to admit that the reason why she didn't practice as often as she should was because the bow made her feel small.

  A very idiotic reason, but there you have it. The bows for the type of archery she practiced, a Japanese art called Kyudo, range from just under seven feet to over eight feet long. They made her feel like a dwarf, which was totally ridiculous because everyone used a bow taller than they were.

  Unfortunately reason doesn't work very well when your guts argue against it. Although that is true of itself, any true martial artist knows that one of the goals of practicing the art is to improve oneself, and Kyudo is a martial art.

  Hitting the target is secondary. It's a hard thing for a westerner to wrap their mind around, but there it is. Perhaps the most well known precept of Kyudo is this: "Shooting with technique improves the shooting. Shooting with the spirit improves the person."

  It is commonly believed that, as one's sprit becomes more focused, the arrow will find the target by itself. Having seen a master of the art at a demonstration, Karla was certain that this was true. She'd never seen anyone so focused and yet so relaxed. He seemed not to even look at the target, but every arrow flew home. Like Master Oh or Master Ahn, he'd had an aura of calm that surrounded him.

  So, she practiced Kyudo as an alternative means of relaxation and contemplation. She wasn't very good at it yet, but she'd spent enough years mastering Hapkido to realize that mastery of a second art would also take years. She also knew that it would be time well spent.

  She opened the sliding door at the rear of the dojo and went out to set up her target. Normally the distance for practice was 28 meters, or just about 93 feet, thus shooting inside was out of the question. As long as it wasn't raining, shooting outside wasn't a problem, though, in mid-winter, it was much too cold to practice.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  It was possible to practice proper grip and release indoors, but for that one uses a makiwara, which is basically a circular bale of straw that is set up only about seven feet away from the tip of the arrow. Students often are not allowed to practice on a regular target till after they've shot hundreds of arrows into the makiwara.

  Yes, patience is everything with Kyudo, which was why she needed to practice more regularly. Even Karla knew that her lack of patience tended to cause problems, at least in the social arena. She concentrated on feeling the bow, the string, the glove, and the arrow. No attention devoted to the target. All her effort was focused on just being. At some point she had released the arrow. She looked up and saw that it had impacted about four feet away from the target.

  It looked as if a great deal more "shooting with the spirit" was going to be needed. Well, that was the entire reason that she was here, so she continued with her practice for about another hour. By then she was tired and feeling more calm. She was still missing the target by three or four feet most of the time, but two arrows had impacted within a few inches.

  Dusk had almost fallen, so she put everything away and went to take a shower.

  ---------------

  The Observer was on his way to a meeting when he noticed Grgur peering at one of the large displays. He looked at his watch and saw that he had a few minutes, so wandered over, oh-so-casually and asked Grgur how the project was going.

  "How's the project going Grgur? Are you about finished?"

  Grgur jumped, as it was expected to. One of the Observers smaller faults was that he was fond of low-level practical jokes.

  "Finished Boss? Do you have any idea at all of how many buildings there are inside Kali's area of protection? I'll tell you, since you assigned me to examine them for 'voids' that the enemy could port into. There are over 40,000 of them, that's how many. So, no, I'm not finished yet. I've barely covered 5% of them so far.

  "But, I can tell you what is and is not being affected by Kali's energy field. There are a total of four buildings that are absolutely impervious to penetration by the enemy."

  It ticked them off on its claws. "The Knight's home, the girl's school, Ian's school, and...well...I don't understand why, but I did double check. The fourth building that's totally protected is the square block downtown where the shopping area that they call 'Salem Center' is."

  "Let me see what's there Grgur, maybe that will give us a clue."

  "Sure Boss, but there's nothing there but a bunch of stores."

  Grgur pulled up the interior view of the building and panned through it. When he was finished he turned to The Observer with a puzzled expression. It became even more puzzled when he realized that The Observer was smiling.

  "Oh, it makes perfect sense Grgur. Two of the stores there are a Nordstrom's and a Baskin Robbins. Kali adores ice cream, and she's a major shopaholic.

  "That tells us a couple of different things. First of all, she's going to be checking in on things now and then, and she'll probably try not to let us notice her. Secondly, and by far the most important thing to her..."

  The Observer paused a moment. He was savoring the moment as Grgur prepared itself for the earth shattering revelation that it obviously was expecting.

  When he judged that the tension was at its peak, he continued: "...she doesn't want to be interrupted by the enemy when she's doing something serious like trying on shoes or slurping down a milkshake."

  Grgur literally fell out of its chair and looked at The Observer with an accusatory expression. "Boss that was a rotten joke! I though you were going to say something important!"

  The Observer sighed to himself. He had said something important. Very important. Grgur was obviously still too green to figure it out itself. Normally he'd leave it to do so on its own, but they probably didn't have time right now, so he relented and explained.

  "Grgur. There are times when you can be as dense as a lump of basalt. I did tell you something important. I'm way too busy right now to be making jokes.

  "What you should have realized from what I told you is that Kali is frivolous. In some ways she's very much like a small child. You must know that when you're dealing with her or the aftermath of what she has done. She lives by whim as much as by reason. If you had even a tiny modicum of sense, you'd have figured that out. You have a very long way to go grasshopper."

  The Observer checked its watch and turned to go. "I have a meeting in four minutes, so I'll talk to you later Grgur. For now I want you to continue the survey. I want to know if the restriction on the enemy manifesting in a building is related to size or some other factor, or a combination of factors.

  "I'll expect a preliminary analysis within 3 hours." Then it hustled away to the meeting. Another stupidly boring meeting talking about the same stupid topics that they always did and always had -- for the past 300 years. You'd think that at least some of the managers would have found something worthwhile to do in that period of time.

  Oh well. He could get a good nap while he was there. His was one of the very few species that could sleep with its eyes open. Fortunately none of the others had figured that out yet. That thought somewhat cheered him up, and he strode more briskly toward the conference room. He wanted a seat in the rear where it was unlikely that a creature as small as him would be noticed while he was sleeping.

  After his nap he went back to the main office to check on Grgur's progress. "Well, what do you have for me?"

  "Oh, hi Boss. I didn't expect you back quite so soon. Usually your meetings last four or five hours."

  "Ah, right, well, uh...it seems that the manager from District 7 was making a special presentation today. At about two hours in, it realized that everyone in the room had fallen asleep. From what I hear it had an incredible hissy fit and stormed out of the building screaming that it would never come back again.

  "Apparently that statement was met by thunderous applause, which made it even more angry. There were scorch marks on the ceiling by the door, or so I'm told. I didn't wake up until about 15 minutes after everyone else had left, and I used the door at the rear. It seems that nobody noticed me. From what I heard later, they were too busy laughing and complimenting each other on the 'wonderful new technique' that they'd discovered for getting rid of boring upper management."

  Grgur smiled and, wisely, said nothing. It had realized that any comment at all might be taken poorly, so it turned back to the display and began its presentation.

  "What I've found is quite interesting Boss. The field strength isn't completely uniform. The interior of buildings in areas that are in narrow valleys are much less affected. For instance, your average strip mall store out in a flat area would barely allow a single enemy to materialize, whereas the same shop in an area with hills on two or more sides would allow two or three.

  "The grocery store where Kumiko destroyed one of them is one of those that could accomodate three at the same time rather than one, as we had initially thought. It would seem, from what data we have so far, that the particular episode there was something of a trial run."

  The Observer did the universal "why me" gesture and sighed. "Wonderful. Just wonderful. Well, there's nothing we can do about it but keep an eye open and cross our fingers. Kumiko managed that one fairly quickly, if just barely, but it was her first time. Hopefully she'll get better...rapidly. If she doesn't, we're in deep kimchi.

  "From what you've recorded about them, none of the others have the ability to see them, much less destroy them. Is that correct Grgur?"

  "I'm afraid so Boss. She's our first and last line of defense against the extra-planar beings, at least for now. Humanoids though, any of them could deal with, although only Karla, Jane, and Kumiko could handle more than two at a time. And, of course, we absolutely don't want Kimiko fighting any more of them. That could be a disaster."

  Grgur noticed the "starting to get irritated" look in The Observer's eye and finished with: "But of course that's been obvious to you from the beginning. So what do we do now?"

  The Observer bonked Grgur on the head for that stupid question, though it had to flutter up on a nearby desk first so he could reach it. "What do you think, you idiot? We watch and record and help with the little things we're allowed, and that's all that we do. If we break the rules, the other side is going to win this one, and I think that a lot of beings in multiple planes and 'verses will be just as unhappy as the humans if that happens."

  Grgur shuddered and bowed to his superior. "I'm profoundly sorry that my stupidity had caused you distress Sir. I shall endeavor to improve myself. I beseech your forgiveness and patience."

  The Observer was impressed with Grgur's sincerity. It was the first time that it had admitted to having any faults at all. It looked like it might be able to handle the work after all - given another 50 or 60 years to grow into the job. In the meantime The Observer would continue to guide Grgur as best he could. His student was incredibly stubborn and inflexible at times, but at least it was learning. He carefully chose not to remember the disasters he'd almost caused the first 30 years or so that he was on the job.

  "OK. Back to work Grgur. Let me know if you're able to refine your data at all."

  "Will do Boss. I should have enough of a sample analyzed by tomorrow at mid-day to be able to give you a more solid estimate."

  "That will do. I'll see you about an hour before lunch tomorrow then."

  As its boss walked back to his office, Grgur chewed on its cheek. It wasn't very satisfying, but it wouldn't do to destroy another chair. If maintenance found an entire room full of damaged furniture, they'd get suspicious, and it'd be the primary suspect. Unfortunately its temper was quite well known.