"I'm sorry, but you're a what?!"
"He's a wizard," Oliver replied, answering Diggle's question.
Diggle shook his head, not at all believing what his friends seemed to be accepting with absolute conviction. "Prove it."
Harry sighed, respecting the fact that the last member of Oliver's team to find out about him would need valid proof, but still annoyed at the idea that he *needed* to deliver it. "All right," he sighed. Centering and focusing himself, Harry closed his eyes, whispered a few words that Diggle couldn't hear...
...and disappeared.
One member of the Arrow's team stared at the place where he had last seen Harry Dresden in awestruck amazement. The other member of Oliver's team, though, cursed Harry in a show of unrestrained annoyance. "Goddamn it, Harry," Felicity exclaimed as every monitor in front of her started to flicker, "next time, warn a girl, would you!"
Harry lifted the veil, showing that he was blushing slightly. "Sorry, Felicity," he apologized, "but he *told* me to prove it!"
Felicity blew out a frustrated sigh, before turning patiently back toward the wizard on the staircase. "Harry, these computers aren't shielded like the toughbook. The *room* itself is shielded. Which means that once you get into this room..."
"Your computers are vulnerable."
"Which is why I told you to sit quietly on the staircase," Felicity concluded. "So watch it next time, okay?"
The conversation between Harry and Felicity seemed to give Diggle just enough time to process what he had seen. "You really are a wizard," he exclaimed, stunned by the small demonstration of Harry's power.
"I really am," Harry agreed.
"And he knows...everything about what we do down here?" Diggle asked Oliver.
"For the most part," Oliver replied calmly.
The idea that 'Officer Lance' was now fully on the Arrow's support team seemed to be the first piece of information that evening that Diggle had been able to accept at face value. "All right, then," he declared.
Sara bounded down the stairs, barely swinging around where her father was sitting before noticing he was there. "Why are you relegated to the penalty box?" she asked her father.
"Potential for massive electrical interference," Harry replied.
"Fair enough," Sara agreed.
Oliver, having been the only one who knew why Sara had come to the hideout, decided to get right down to business. "Sara, would you please let your dad know what you told me earlier."
Sara hesitated, knowing how much her overprotective father was likely to react to the information that she had to tell the group. "Some of my contacts in the Glades gave me a lead that sounded a bit like your description of the Red Court vampires. I was following up on that lead tonight...when I was attacked."
"Attacked?" asked Harry, shock coloring the edges of his voice. "By who?"
"Three more members of the League."
Harry looked like he was about to blow his top. "The League? As in the League of Assassins?"
Sara nodded. "R'as Al-Ghoul has set up shop in the Glades."
Diggle's expression was starting to match Harry's. "R'as Al-Ghoul is in Starling City?"
"Who's R'as Al-Ghoul?" asked Felicity.
"The head of the League," Sara replied. "And if he's here for me, that means he's not leaving until I'm dead."
Harry's expression had progressed from pure shock to a growing protective rage. "Where is he?"
"Dad," Sara warned, "you can't just go charging in against R'as Al-Ghoul. I don't care how powerful you are. Last time you and I went up against three members of the League we both almost died. And tonight *I* almost died. If it hadn't been for..."
"For what?" asked Felicity.
Sara shook her head. "Not what. Who. When I got ambushed tonight, I was rescued."
Oliver's eyes flew wide at the idea that the best fighter he had ever seen even needed to *be* rescued. "By who?"
Sara shrugged. "Some girl. No mask, or anything to shield her identity. She just came in, pulled a sword out of some holster in her back and took out three members of the League practically on her own."
Harry's eyes went wide as his daughter's explanation rang some very familiar bells. "A sword? What kind of a sword?"
Diggle was confused. "That's your take-away from this, Officer...Harry? Your family is under siege from the League of Assassins and you want to know what kind of sword..."
Harry ignored Diggle's comments and focused entirely on his daughter. "Sara, this is important. I can't tell you how important it is. What kind of a sword was this girl packing?"
"A-a broadsword," Sara replied, confused by her father's desperation about the issue. "An old English broadsword."
"And it was like she just showed up out of nowhere?" asked Harry. When Sara nodded, Harry pushed harder. "Did she say anything before she started fighting, by any chance?"
Sara stared at her father in disbelief. "Yeah, she told these guys that God would forgive them if they turned around and walked away from the fight. But how could you possibly know that?"
"A Knight of the Cross," Harry exclaimed, drawing in a sharp breath. "She has to be."
"What's a Knight of the Cross?" asked Sara.
"God's muscle," Harry replied with a chuckle. He then explained, "the Knights of the Cross are three warriors who show up to fight the toughest of enemies that evil can throw at them. That sword of hers? It has one of the nails from the crucifixion in the hilt."
Sara frowned, confused by her father's explanation. "But a sword is only as good as the person who wields it. Maggie..."
Harry suddenly found himself on unsteady legs, and collapsed on the staircase, clearly shocked. "Did you say her name was *Maggie*?"
Sara nodded. "Maggie Carpenter." Sara was growing more and more concerned by the minute as she watched her father's face drain of color. "Dad?"
"Is...is she tall? Dark hair? Dark eyes?"
Sara backed away from her father, unnerved by how spooky his answers were getting. "Yeah, how'd you know? Dad...who is she?" Harry got up and grabbed his daughter's hands with his own, his expression growing wistful and a little sad. Sara couldn't help but notice how her father's hands were shaking. "Dad? After everything that's happened the past couple of days, what haven't you told me?"
Harry caressed his daughter's cheek with his hand as he fought to get enough control of his spiraling emotional state. "Sara," he finally admitted, his voice heavy with the weight of his past, "when I left Chicago, I...left someone there. With the way my life was at the time, I...I couldn't protect her. I couldn't give her a normal life the way I wanted to. The normal life she *deserved* to have. So I left her with my friends Michael and Charity Carpenter to be raised alongside their six children. Honey...Michael was a Knight of the Cross. His sword was Amoracchius. An old English broadsword."
Sara backed further away from Harry. Her face was starting to drain of color and match her father's shocked pallor. "Dad? Dad, what aren't you telling me?"
Harry collapsed back onto the staircase, finally unloading his greatest burden with a weary sigh. "Sara, baby...I'm Maggie's father. She's your half-sister."
Hope you don't mind two in one day again! Comments welcome!
