The car still in the air, I figure this is an ambush, and act quickly. I tag Jessica and myself with Disguise Other so we trade appearances. The car hits the ground, hard, and I tap us both with Benign Transposition so we trade places. Jessica's unconscious, so I tap her with Protection From Arrows as well, in case of stray bullets. I hear boots on the gravel outside, so I add on Invisibility for her and a quick Cure Moderate Wounds before I undo my seat belt and force open the driver's side door.

I get a bullet in my back for my trouble. Doesn't stop me from climbing out.

"So they weren't high," - a man's voice.

I toss a quick Vocal Alteration on myself so I sound like Jessica as I stand up and look at the assassin a good sixty feet away, "Drop your weapon."

"Wrong one anyway," the man towers over me, a good six feet tall if I had to guess, heavily muscled, and dressed in camouflage (including facepaint), so it's unclear if I know him at all.  He does indeed drop his handgun, but he unslings a big green metal tube with a handle from his back and points it at me. As I'm staring down the red cone inside, I pause in shock just long enough for him to pull the trigger.

On his bazooka. SERIOUSLY?!

The missile flies at me, and thanks to my pause, hits me between my bosoms and detonates. I get a notice: "After Hardness, four damage."

Yeah, my Eidolon has 33 hit points - 29, now - and I have 98. How many of those can he have?

Still, the blast is real. It slams me into the car, wrecking it further and shoving it a good four feet off the road. Hopefully Jessica is OK. My illusion spell is maintaining the disguise and reflecting my state, so the assassin gets a showing of Jessica's bare chest as I cast. He's out of range of Admonishing Ray, so I use something less kind: Blindness. He actually beats the save on the first, but I get two casts a round, and the second gets him.

The spell is Permanent. Unless I take pity on him, or he finds someone else who can use magic, Jessica's jiggling jugs are going to be the last thing he ever sees.

He curses and stumbles around blindly, rubbing at his eyes until I close the gap enough to put him down with Admonishing Ray.

I get a notice in the corner of my vision, but I ignore it for now as I go check on Jessica. Casting See Invisibility so I can find her easily….

No.

I vomit up the meal I just ate on the side of the road. The beer, too. And whatever else might have been in my stomach, I'm at it for a while.

When I get ahold of myself, I walk over to the unconscious assassin, cast Charm Person on his sleeping form until it takes, then rouse him with a few castings of Cure Moderate Wounds. For now, he'll think I’m a good friend.

"Hey, buddy, you OK?"

"No, no I'm not. I can't see."  Yeah, I know. But I am going to manipulate this man for information, so him being stupid is good. And he's not exactly in his right mind right now.

"Eugh. Maybe the boss will know what to do? Remind me who he is and where I can find him?"

"Mayor Gary Constantine, should be at city hall. Help me up, would you? He'll know what to do."

My, didn't this just get complicated?  And honestly, exactly what I just did is why I don't want mind control in the hands of the police.

But that was all I wanted from this man. Rather than helping him up, I release my rage in the form of a Scorching Ray that doesn't miss. He's dead instantly - better than he deserves - but I keep going, burning his corpse until not even charred bones remain. I then cast create water to turn his ashes to mud, and Purify Food and Drink to turn his mud into simple water, which I let soak into the ground. It's the closest I can come to erasing him from existence right now.

Excessive force? Yes. Stupid? Probably. Murder? He was no longer an active threat, so also yes. But if it ever comes to court, which is unlikely, I'll claim temporary insanity. Should be a reasonable defense. It's my first time, after all.

I head back over to the passenger's side of the car. I bend down and mutter, "sorry Jessica," as I reach around, digging through her pockets for her phone.

I know she can't hear me. He head is three inches shorter than I remember, and the pinkish grayish matter that was previously inside her skull is seeping into the ground. The blast that barely scratched me collapsed her side of the car when it shoved it, broke her neck, and crushed her skull. Probably several other things as well, I'm not a doctor.  But she's very, very dead. She's also the first human corpse I have seen in person that wasn’t dressed up by a mortician.

That's no reason not to be polite, though.

I find her phone, and power it on. The screen is cracked, but it lights up. Looks like she's got a fingerprint unlock. I can work with that. I apologize again and find her hands, clean them off, and try her thumbs. Seems the left works. I then go through her contacts, and call James.

"Hey, Jessica, what can I do for you?"

"Not quite," I tell him, still using Jessica's voice, "We're on the side of the road between Reapers' Rest and home. Come alone, and bring a car that is not lowjacked. I'll explain when you get here."

The dead tone in "Jessica's" voice seems to convince him.

"I'll be right over."

We hang up, and I wait.

I dismiss the illusion and wait for vocal alteration to expire. James arrives reasonably quickly.

"Hey Chris why are you…."

"My shirt is easy to replace. We've more important matters. Jessica's still in the car," I point, "It's bad. I can fix her up, but it'll take me two weeks to build the tools, and I'll need you to run interference.  Let me know when you're ready for my perspective on the story."

James examines the car, looking at what's left of the back, he says, "Bomb…. outside the car, small, probably left on the road and manually triggered…" and he keeps going around. At the driver's side door, he says, "Another bomb? No…" he glances at the spent tube, "OK, how's the car this intact… wait, no, don't tell me. That's why you're missing your shirt: the missile hit you, and the car was splash damage, right?"

I nod.

He opens and closes his mouth a few times, then shakes his head, and keeps going. He stops when he gets to the passenger side.

"She's not just hurt, she's DEAD."

"You have my first corpse in the morgue. Death isn’t as final when I'm involved. I can fix her up, but I need two weeks to build the tools. But if people know she's dead, she won't have a life waiting for her. No ID, no house, no money. So I need you to hide this while I do what I need to fix her up and bring her back."

"You’re being very… curt."

"I might be in shock.  I might be focusing on getting her back so I don't focus on the woman who brought me back from the brink of insanity being dead."

"And the guy who did this?"

"He attacked, I have him a chance to surrender, he attaked again. I killed him." OK, I may be skipping some steps.

"So where's the body?"

"See that clean wet spot on the ground?"

"Yeah, it's weird, like someone scrubbed the rocks."

"There is no corpse. I was very, very angry with him, and reduced his body to less than ash. The dirt on the ground went with.  Does that pose a problem?"

He considers his answer very carefully, "It makes burying this event easier, tracking down the boss harder."

"His boss was Mayor Gary Constantine."

"And you know this how?"

"Magic," Technically true. I used magic to force him to tell me.

"That's… not going to be admissible in court."

"That's a problem for when we have Jessica back on her feet. Are you in?"

He takes a really deep breath, and lets it out slowly, "You promise me you can bring her back?"

"I need to be undisturbed to focus on my craft for two full weeks to prepare: If I can't make my tools, I can't pry open death's door for anyone else. I can open the door for her, but she has to walk through it herself. If she wants to stay in whatever afterlife she got, I can't force her to come back. But given those, I do promise you I can fix up her body and open the door to give her the option.  I can and will do that with or without you. What I can't do on my own is hide that she died, so that she'll still have her house, car, phone, and everything else when she comes back. For that, I need you. Are you in?"

"Yes, I'm in. Pretty sure I'm going to be breaking some laws, but I'm in.  So specifics… what do we do with the car and the body?"

"I can fix the car, and will take her body; having it makes it easier. Just… keep watch, manage her phone and property."

"Sounds good… you can fix this wreck?"

In answer, I walk over and use Gentle Repose to pause the decay of Jessica's body, then spam Make Whole on the car. It takes quite a few castings, but I have the car back in shape in a few minutes. It's so nice that I can bypass the casting times.

"I'll take her home, and set up there. You just hold up your end while I'm working. All right?"

He nods, I get in Jessica's car, and take her home.  Once there, I park her car, and load Jessica into my Sanctum. I then check the notice: Time to level up.

This one cost way too much. But I can’t start crafting until tomorrow, so I handle the level up now.