Chapter 13

The following character appears in this chapter:

Agent Niles

Local FBI agent, 6’-1’’ tall (1.85 meters), 175 pounds (79 kg), 28 years old, hair, crew cut

Yuryi has the Narrative

I appeared in the small parlor at my house, startling Yvonne who was reading there.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she told me on recovering.

“It was the only way to get home, as I transferred to Cliff’s location originally. I suppose I could appear outside just as easily, and then come in through the front door,” I told her to a smile from her.

“Are you alright?” she asked in concern, as she moved up to me and began checking me for wounds and blood. There weren’t any.

“Are you hungry?” she asked following her examination.

“Yes, I could eat something. I needed to change into my Dragon form a couple of times while taking care of the problem with the clients,” I told her.

“There is food in the warming oven for you. The cooks have already gone to bed,” she informed me.

“Is it that late?” I asked before looking at my mechanical watch. It read 10:59. “Yes, it is. Time goes fast when you’re having fun,” I told her with a smile.

“How bad was it?” she asked. I started explaining what had occurred on the way to the kitchen and finished between bites of food in the breakfast room.

“So, you only killed one of them. What about the other two?” she asked, as I continued to eat.

“Yes, only the one. He was the wise ass, and doubted that I really was a Dragon. The other two threw up when I demonstrated what ’crispy’ was and then fainted when I incinerated him. Leaving the sign was something I had planned to do after incinerating all three of them. I left the other two with Cliff. He assured me they wouldn’t be a problem,” I told her.

We adjourned to our bedroom for the night after I finished eating. It was considerably later before we were ready for sleep. We were like rabbits when we lost our clothes and couldn’t get enough of each other. We both finished several times before we could no longer go on and rested for a bit.

“We definitely need a shower,” Yvonne told me when we had revived sufficiently to consider moving, but still didn’t move for a time.

“Yes, and a Cleaning spell for the bed linen,” I added when we finally got up. We slept very well on returning to bed. It was late when we awoke in the morning.

While Yuryi and Yvonne were enjoying themselves with sex, the Sheriff of St. Louis County and the Duluth Police were busy with the problem of an incinerated body and the sign behind it.

“Why the hell is it that I always have more trouble with this small area near Duluth than the other 90% of the county?” the sheriff demanded in a loud voice on arriving at the location on Martin Road. There were two of his deputies’ patrol cars parked there. Two Duluth police cruisers and an unmarked car were also there.

“Don’t go getting upset, Sheriff,” Captain Struzik told him before introducing the other man in plain clothes.

“This is Agent Niles from the regional FBI office. We brought him in as they have some experience with the Dragon thing,” he told him. Agent Niles was about 6’-1’’ tall, about 175 pounds, and appeared to be 28 years old with a crew cut.

“Are those the remains of a Human body?” the sheriff demanded pointing to the disturbed ashes in front of the sign.

“As far as we can tell, it is. One of your deputies found a small part of what we believe was from a leg bone under the ashes. It has been taken to our lab for testing. We should know something by tomorrow,” the Captain informed him.

“And the Feds?” the sheriff demanded.

“We have some experience with Dragons, as the Captain stated,” Agent Niles told him. “There was the problem of 9 missing policemen and 9 incinerated remains in Chicago a few years ago, and there was the problem in Charleston, South Carolina a couple of years before that. There were also the problems in Washington some ten years prior to those,” he finished.

“And what did you learn?” the sheriff demanded.

“It was never proven conclusively that there was any involvement by a Dragon or Dragons in Chicago. That still didn’t explain the missing personnel or the remains which did point to a Dragon being involved. The rumor persisted in Chicago for weeks. The mayor and the chief of police went on the news to deny it, but that had no real effect. There was no evidence, no pictures, and not even any DNA evidence. The only thing they eventually learned was that a couple of people who they kept tabs on vanished without a trace, and a couple of more moved out of the area,” he finished.

“There was one other thing the Bureau finally realized,” he continued. “The ‘Fixer’ seems to have dropped out of sight. No one has heard about him since then. Privately though, the Chief Agent in Chicago still believes that there was at least one Dragon involved in what happened there.”

“And the other locations?” the sheriff prompted.

“The Chief Agent in Chicago was the one who started the talk about a Dragon. He had been involved in the Charleston incident, and that definitely involved Dragons. An entire platoon of mercenaries was wiped out, and their vehicles were melted into scrap. Dragon Security opened an office there shortly after that. The individual in charge of it was the chief suspect in the incident, but nothing was ever done about that, and they still can’t get near his house.

“There are videos from the Atlanta area showing similar melted vehicles near the Dragon Queen’s property. There are videos from Miami showing Dragons aiding the police. No one has ever been able to hold the Dragons responsible for anything. Even the President went to Atlanta to apologize after the last incident in D. C.,” the Agent finished.

“And that was all?” the sheriff demanded, obviously less than pleased with what he had heard.

“If news of this gets out, it will cause all kinds of problems. As he said, the rumor persisted in Chicago for weeks. I don’t know what will happen here if word of this sign and these remains get out,” Captain Struzik told them. “It could be worse than Chicago, as this is a much smaller area.”

Unknown to them, a certain influential local blogger, who was also a very minor Magic user, had contacted the minor Demon who was in charge of things in the area around Duluth to do some work for him. He had put together what had happened at Yuryi’s store with the disappearance of Knut Melnikova and had come up with five instead of four. He had the Demon watch the lieutenants. The Demon was able to follow Yuryi and Cliff out to the lake road. The blogger had given him a high tech digital camera to take pictures with. The Demon had taken many pictures with it after Yuryi, Cliff, and the last two lieutenants had left, and also while the police investigators were at the scene taking their pictures.

Unfortunately, he was a bit sloppy with his Magic. Magic for glamour that he used to get some of the pictures while the police were there, and later when he cast the transfer spell that he used to leave the area, were a bit too strong. They not only wiped out the camera’s memory, they destroyed all of the electronics in the camera. The blogger was seriously unhappy when he learned that, and that he had nothing to put on his blog or to sell to the media after all he had spent for the camera and to get the Demon to work for him. The entire story, therefore, never reached the media.

It was late enough when we finally arose for breakfast that Grigor and the twins had been in the den for some time. Ingrid brought in our breakfast from the warming oven where they had been keeping it for us without any comment.

“We need to be at the apartment by four this afternoon to check it out and retrieve the keys,” Yvonne reminded me as we ate.

“When will you return the keys to the manager?” I asked.

“After he inspects the apartment,” she told me. “We need to make an appointment for him to do that, but after we see how it looks,” she added.

“Alright,” I agreed before asking, “What do you have planned for today?”

“I’m still working on your overseas accounts. I didn’t realize that you had so many,” she told me.

“That’s fine. I’m going to the building to see how things are going. I’ll be back in plenty of time to transfer us to the apartment,” I told her. At the building, things were fine. I spent some time with Paul going over a number of things and was back home in time for a late lunch. The twins passed me going to their rooms without saying anything, and Grigor smiled on seeing me.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“Fine. They are learning to be more precise and thoughtful. It’s a bit hard on them,” he told me before leaving.

“Are we ready?” Yvonne asked on joining me, as four o’clock approached.

“Yes, let’s go outside to transfer,” I told her. Arriving in the hallway near her apartment, Yvonne knocked on her apartment door. It was answered by the older woman on the cleaning team.

“Come in. You’re right on time,” she said. The apartment was spic-and-span. Everything had been cleaned, even the exterior of the windows.

“An excellent job,” I told the cleaning crew and handed the team leader an envelope.

“Thank you,” she said before adding, “It would help if you told the boss the same thing,”

“I certainly will,” I told her. As the cleaning team was leaving, Mr. Sinclair arrived unannounced.

“I know that this is a bit unusual Ms. Strupinski, but could we do the final inspection of the apartment now? I know that you still have a few days left on your lease, but I have some people who are anxious to move in as soon as possible,” he told her.

“I was going to call you about doing the inspection, but doing it now would save us a trip,” she agreed. Mr. Sinclair checked all of the rooms carefully before bringing out the release form, and they both signed it before Yvonne handed him the keys that she had received from the leader of the cleaning team.

“Thank you,” Mr. Sinclair told her. “The new tenants will be moving in tomorrow,” he told us. We waited until he was out of sight before I transferred us back to the entrance of the house.

“At least, that is taken care of,” she said, as I opened the front door.

Following lunch a few days later, Yvonne approached me with a distracted look.

“I’ve been working on your overseas business holdings. I’m not quite finished yet but am a bit amazed. Do you know that your net worth is approaching a billion with a capital ‘B’ dollars?” she asked in a shocked voice.

“Yes, it’s something like that,” I told her.

“You don’t seem surprised,” she returned.

“I thought your U.S. Holdings were a lot at $200 million plus, but your overseas holdings are more than four times as much. Not only that, but you don’t act like a billionaire,” she told me.

“No, why should I?” I asked. “I’ve been building my worth over a long time. It’s nothing new to me, and I don’t care for a lot of political power or causes,” I told her. “It might be best to not mention this to the twins,” I added.

“Yes, they would take it the wrong way,” she agreed.

“I’ll be a couple of more days working on the last of them, and I’ll have some suggestions for future changes then,” she added before I gave her a long passionate kiss.

Two days later, Yvonne received a letter from her auto insurance company. She read part of it to me.

“They say that the City of Duluth has agreed to pay 90% of the cost of the repairs to the vehicle. They will pay the rest of the repair costs. In the next paragraph, they tell me that since the accident wasn’t my fault, they will not be raising my insurance premiums.