The Four Queens
Copyright© 2026 by Uncle Jim
Chapter 11
The following new characters appear in this chapter:
Eilean and Evelyn
Doreen’s Daughters, 5’-7’’ tall (1.70 meters), 132 pounds (60 kg), 23 years old, 34C-22-34, alabaster skin, medium length lustrous black hair, violet eyes, some freckles, already Dragons
Doreen Kavanagh
Maddy and Ken’s second daughter, Dallas’s twin, 5’-7’’ tall (1.70 meters), 140 pounds (63 kg), 36D-24-36, 41 years of age, alabaster skin, long, lustrous black hair, violet eyes, some freckles, beautiful, Magic user
Botum has the Narrative
Over the next couple of weeks, we had spent several days at both the Stone Mountain and Ft. Yargo parks. Stone Mountain was good for the walking trails that it has, and Ft. Yargo has the beach and also a number of walking trails. We had also met a number of cute guys. Unfortunately, most of them had little or no Talent, so they couldn’t do Magic, and they weren’t Dragons or at least near-Dragons. Such was our lot in life.
Deirdre had gone with us a couple of times as Morgan was usually at work except on the weekends, which he had off. She was with us on the day this happened, and we were at Stone Mountain Park on one of the walking trails. It was late morning. We had been walking for a good while and were thinking about lunch.
“Is anyone ready for lunch?” Daeva asked as it neared noon.
“I seem to remember there is a clearing a short distance ahead of us. We could stop there for lunch and to take a break,” Maly told us. We had been to this area previously.
“Good, I’m ready to eat,” Daeva said in agreement.
“Have you explored all of the walking trails here?” Deirdre asked.
“Not all of them, but this area is one of the best, and we have been here a couple of times,” I told her.
We came to the clearing about fifteen minutes later. The tall trees provided a good bit of shade which kept the weeds and underbrush down. We had also stopped here previously and had cleared away most of the remaining bothersome weeds.
“This is very nice,” Deirdre said on looking over the site. We, that is Daeva, Maly and I, were busy calling a small folding table and some folding chairs to us as well as baskets of food, drinks, and one with a tablecloth and cutlery from the Timeless Zone. We had things set up in no time and were ready to eat.
“You’ve done this a number of times,” Deirdre said on seeing how quickly lunch was ready.
“Yes,” we agreed.
Following a fine lunch, we sat there for a while relaxing. We were talking about things that we needed to do to prepare for our junior year of college, and some of those we had met at school, especially the cute near-Dragons. We had been out with a few of them, but nothing serious had developed yet. Most of them had known that we were the daughters of the Queen of the East, but not that we would follow her as the new Queens when she retired. It was nearing two o’clock when we heard the first faint noise.
“Are they having fireworks in the daytime?” Daeva asked on hearing it.
“I wouldn’t think so. They would be rather hard to see in the daylight unless they were different from the usual fireworks that they use at night,” I told her. I had no more than finished speaking, when the Queens in the Jewel appeared beside us. The four of us stared at them in shock.
“There is trouble, and you four are the closest ones to handle it,” they told us. “We will call others also, but action must be taken immediately,” they continued.
“What’s happened?” Deirdre asked recovering before the rest of us.
“Men have arrived with guns ... eight men. They spread out and a few minutes ago all of them started shooting at the other people here. A number have already been killed. Many have tried to run away or hide. These men must be stopped. You are the ones to do that. Hurry and make a plan, as even we can only stop the clock for a short time, maybe two minutes and part of that is gone already,” they told us in distraught voices.
“We’ll need teams of two to do this and to watch each others’ backs. Daeva take Maly, and I’ll take Deirdre. We’ll split up and attack them from two directions,” I told the others before addressing the Queens in the Jewel.
“Can you transport us to where these men are?” I asked them.
“Yes, we can do that. We know where they are. Cast your strongest wards around you as they have fast firing weapons,” the Queens told us, as we moved into our groups.
Maly takes the Narrative
Daeva and I appeared on the north end of what is called the East Shore of Stone Mountain Lake in our Dragon form at the twelve-foot-tall level (3.65 meters). The east shore has the main camping area of the park and includes two restaurants, the Evergreen Lakeside Resort, and the golf club. This is on the west side of Stonewall Jackson Drive. Stone Mountain Golf Course is located on the east side of the Drive, and the entire area is huge.
On arriving there, we couldn’t see much activity on the golf course. It was probable that on hearing the sound of shots, the golfers had sought refuge well away from the sound of them. The camping area with its 400 or so campsites for tents and RVs plus a number of Yurt sites was already a disaster. People were running in different directions and screaming. No one seemed to be in charge or directing them. Some were apparently hiding in their RVs or trailers. That didn’t appear to be such a good idea, as we could see a number of RVs that had numerous bullet holes in them and several of them were on fire. Daeva and I headed for the sound of gunfire.
“Watch my back. I’ll take out those firing. You remain about twenty feet or so behind me and make sure that no one sneaks up on us while I’m busy,” Daeva told me, as we began to jog toward the sound of gunfire. I dropped back behind her, as we approached the area that the firing was coming from.
We hadn’t gone far when we spotted a man with a gun ahead of us about thirty feet (9 meters) firing into an RV. Daeva raised her right arm and hit him with a blast of Magic from her middle right claw. He instantly exploded with a flash of light and a lot of noise.
“What the hell!?” she shouted, as the blast wave from the explosion had rocked us back on our feet but it hadn’t affected our wards. It did damage several of the RVs in the immediate area, however.
“It appears that, at least, some of them are wearing suicide vests, and possibly all of them are,” I told her.
“Shit!” was her response. “We had better expand our wards some to give us more room inside of them,” she added.
“Yes,” I agreed and expanded mine. We could still hear firing and moved to locate where it was coming from.
“Be careful. After that explosion, they may decide to pair up just as we are doing,” Daeva told me, as we jogged toward the sound of gunfire. It wasn’t hard to find, as people were fleeing from the location. Some were bleeding and others were being helped to get away. In fact, a couple of guys called out, ‘get them’ to us, as we passed them.
We needed to move off of the small camping area road that we had been following not only because it was now crowded by those escaping, but also the firing was coming from deep in the RV campsite area that extended out into the lake and had the Yurts and some special campsites. I stopped us short of where the firing was coming from to talk to Daeva.
“We need a better plan,” I told her. “We don’t need all of these guys blowing up on us, or those they may be holding hostage, if any,” I added.
“Yes, but what?” she asked.
“Maybe a Freeze spell,” I suggested.
“What do we do with them then? Suppose they have a trigger on the vest or it is set to go off at a specific time?” she asked.
“Send them to the Timeless Zone,” I told her. “It won’t allow the vest to explode. We can bring them back later at some place where no one will be hurt,” I added.
“That sounds good, but I really would like to just blast all of them,” she said with a big smile. “A lot of people could be injured or killed that way though,” she added with a frown.
“The Freeze spell will still be in effect when we bring them back from the Timeless Zone, and we will be able to check to see what they are wearing or have on them. Mom and Maddy will want to question at least a few of them before we dispose of them,” I reminded her to a grin.
We approached the area with the Yurts carefully and were checking to be sure that none of the men – terrorists - were hiding to ambush any rescuers or medical personnel. Daeva soon spotted one of them firing at the Yurts and large RVs in the area. We moved closer before casting the spells.
“I’ll cast an area Freeze spell in front of us to freeze everyone. Then we can send him to the Timeless Zone before canceling the spell on the others,” she told me. “Keep watch for any of his friends,” she added. This was a bit difficult to do, as none of the men had the Talent, and there were still many civilians hiding and moving around in the area. I kept watch as best I could.
Daeva cast the Freeze spell, and everything in front of us stopped moving as did the gunfire. She was ready to move up to the terrorist and send him to the Timeless Zone when I detected someone moving behind me. I had started to turn to see who it was when someone tried to grab me from the side. Instead of getting a hold of me, all they got was to be right up against my ward when there was the loud ‘BOOM’ of an explosion from right beside me. I didn’t feel anything through the ward, but the noise of the explosion was deafening this close to it.
On looking down, I could see blood and gore sliding down the exterior of the ward. There was blood, gore, and body parts scattered on the ground in the area on that side of me. That was when Daeva bumped up against me. I could see that she was shouting at me, but I couldn’t hear her.
“I can’t hear you,” I said in what I hoped was a loud Dragon voice. She appeared to still be talking to me, but I could hear nothing she was saying.
“Are you alright?” I finally heard after a time, but it sounded like a whisper. I could tell by how her mouth was moving that she was shouting in a loud Dragon voice. Dragons can be very loud when necessary because of our large wing span if we need to communicate while flying. I was sure that those in the immediate area had their hands over their ears because of her volume.
“Yes, I’m alright. I just can’t hear because of the noise from the explosion,” I told her in what I hoped was a loud enough voice. Following that, we just stood there staring at each other for a time not sure what to do. A few minutes later, an older man emerged from one of the RVs with a good size board of some kind. It looked to be about 24 x 36 inches (60 cm by 90 cm) in size. He approached Daeva and began talking to her, or at least, that is what it looked like. They appeared to talk for a couple of minutes. Finally, she smiled.
Following the smile, I could sense that she had dropped her ward, and she returned to her Human form. What in the world is my sister doing, I wondered. She was now writing on the board or whatever it was. She then turned the board so I could see what she had written.
“Drop your ward and return to your Human form. We can use this erasable whiteboard to communicate,” she had written on the white board. We certainly aren’t getting anywhere shouting at each other, I thought to myself and did as directed. Daeva had already started writing something else as I changed.
“Are you really okay other than not being able to hear?” she wrote and handed me the marker after I had read the message, and then she erased the board so I could answer her. While this would obviously be a slow way to communicate, it was a lot better than screaming at each other and quieter.
“Yes, I’m okay. I just can’t hear and won’t be much help in locating those doing the shooting,” I wrote to her and handed back the marker. While she was erasing the board, a couple of young guys approached us and started talking to her. I just waited to find out what they had said. Daeva was smiling when she turned back to me a couple of minutes later. She started writing on the board again.
“These three guys are offering to help us locate the shooters, if we will do the removal. They can point out where they are for us and use hand signals. They are in the Army and are trained Infantry men. Are you game to try this?” she wrote. I smiled and wrote, “okay” over her note.
We returned to our Dragon forms at the twelve-foot-tall level. The three guys moved out ahead of us, and we followed. Daeva had never written their names on the board, but I presumed that she knew who they were. I would have to wait to learn their names.
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