And so, time moved on. Many events occurred during the next five years, which help to strengthen the Arcana of North America. However, Alester decided that they should stay clear of the Jinn, if at all possible. A sentiment Helen did not favor, though had no intention of sharing her objections. Both her and Alester, would serve their role as mentors and aides to this next generation. While Alester would assist the older ones in monitoring, protecting, recruiting, and supporting WyldCards and their chapter houses, She would train Thomas and form similar bonds with Liza. The girl she believed could be the most powerful weapon the Arcana… no, humanity had ever had against the Jinn. She was certain that the two of them were an incarnation of the rarest of Arcana, one of which their had been no record of, though Helen was beginning to suspect its elusiveness might be because of the girl’s power.

Helen had been teaching Liza to both strengthen and focus her power. For if she could be taught to harness the full potential of her power with absolute precision, there would be nothing that could stand against her. Not only could the girl make things vanish from known means of perception, but if she truly desired it, she could make them vanish from existing itself. At first, she had her levy this ability against whole and easily definable objects, 3-dimensional forms, like vegetables she didn’t much care for. Then she taught her target more complex concepts, like removing the yolk from an egg or the pit from a plum. This progressed to removing the seeds from a cantaloupe, then a water melon, and finally a pomegranate… leaving only the fruit and pith, without a single broken bead of flesh. Helen was convinced that Liza could eliminate unwelcome micro organisms from a living host, with further training, making her able to cure anything from the common cold to cancer. It was possible she could purify all the blood in a persons body of any foreign element all at once… provided she didn’t remove the blood itself in the process. This was the reason she didn’t attempt to teach her such a thing, since she was certain that if Liza were to accidentally harm or even kill someone with such an attempt, that she would be too afraid to ever use her power again. Besides this was not the purpose for which Helen desired to prepare her. With training she could teach the girl to use her power to disable, kill, and perhaps even erase the monsters known as Jinn from existence.

In the mean time, she intended to use the information they were gathering to avoid the Jinn, in order to hunt them down, and use Thomas’s power… Solomon’s power, to bind them once more. She had taught Thomas much more than how to endure and command the book, she had taught him how to master his own power as well. Not only could Thomas change his own form at will, but that of others as well. Though this was much easier to do with objects, just as he had turned the book into a ring, which he was now able to wear on his hand. Though Thomas still heard the voices of the mad daemons within, he had subjugated them, just as Solomon had once done long ago… and with his power he could even give them form, if he so chose.

As of late they had been tracking down a low order Jinn, who had once been sealed into a coin… one which had first appeared in America sometime during the Civil War, and may have been brought over from Europe during the American Revolution. It would appear again during the era of the Wild West, and then the Great Depression. More importantly, it had recently been noted again, in the hands of a man who had been rapidly establishing a criminal empire. The Man’s name was Frances Navarro, a man once known as Five Finger Frank, cause he could steal the watch off your arm even with all five fingers spread out in front of you. Of course, that was probably a bit of an exaggeration. But Frank had been stealing something else lately… namely loyalty and territory. He was making big moves, a real power play, but not necessarily in the usual way. It was pretty clear that Frank not only had the coin, but he had used it. After all, the coin always seemed to attract the same kind of people.

Frank hadn’t made it to hard to track himself down, Jinn were arrogant after all, and Ace could practically predict where he was going to be. Of course, he never really questioned Ms Helen, and Alester never asked much after her interest in any of the member of the team. In part, because he had never really forgiven himself, and had no intention of confronting her on anything she did not chose to share with him. More to the point, she had given them no reason to question her judgement or intentions in the years since her return, and she was part of their family, having developed a relationship with each of them to some degree. So, with a location in hand, it would not be difficult for Thomas to get to him… especially not with her help.

Unlike Alester, Helen never really needed doors to travel… though she had learned to use them, she could travel to any where she could see… and she could see any place reflected in a mirrored surface, including a still pool of water, under the right lighting. Of course, she and Alester could travel anywhere at anytime, if they acted together, but this had not been the nature of their involvement as of late… as their passion for each other had died down, and been replaced with responsibility and purpose. Still Helen had always been the more gifted between them, at least when it came to real world application. Although, Alester could readily create larger and more elaborate folding spaces, which was what he called the pocket dimensions he constructed. For Helen it was possible to reconstruct or mirror an existing space, and even alter such constructs, but she seemed to lack whatever exotic point of view which allowed Alester to craft complex structures from nothing at all. For this mission, she would isolate the target, within such a copy… where Thomas would be waiting, in guise.