Chapter 1

The following characters appear in the opening chapters:

Madailein Kavanagh (Maddy)

Chief protagonist, former Earth Witch, Irish, 5’-6’’ tall, 135 pounds, 38DD-24-37, 25 years old, alabaster skin, long, lustrous black hair, violet eyes, some freckles, beautiful, Magic user

Al

Maddy’s Familiar, a large Manx cat, 16 inches long, white with large black spots, stumpy one inch tail, weighs about 16 pounds

The Guardian

Keeper of the Books, about 5’-6’’ tall, neither young nor old, very long blond hair, deep blue eyes

Kennith Sweeney

Ley Line Wizard, 6’-0’’ tall, 175 pounds, 28 years old, brown hair and dark eyes, very handsome

Alva

Kenneith’s Familiar, a large female cat, gray with black and white stripes, has a long tail

Kennith stopped me when we reached the sidewalk outside the Thai restaurant.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “You’re as pale as if you had seen a ghost.”

“The old man,” I said. “I thought he was someone I knew.”

“Old man? What old man?” he asked.

“You didn’t see the old man near the door as we left the restaurant?” I asked in surprise. “Am I the only one who can see a Dragon?” I wondered to myself.

“No, I didn’t see an old man. Are you sure he was there?” he asked, as if I was hallucinating.

“There was an old man sitting near the door. I thought that I recognized him, but the person who I thought he was died some time ago,” I told him.

“You’re mistaken, Maddy. There was no old man there,” he assured me, but I knew I had seen the Dragon or a Dragon. It was a matter of honor. I knew that I was right, but should I pursue it? My gut said that I should.

“It’s simple enough to prove. No one has come out behind us, so he must still be in there. Open the door,” I directed.

On entering, there was no old man or Dragon anywhere in sight. A waitress had seen us return and approached us.

“Is something wrong?” she asked on seeing the expression on my face.

“There was an old gentleman sitting near the door when we left. I thought I recognized him, but he’s not here now,” I told her. Her smile brightened on hearing my explanation.

“Oh, you must have seen Grandfather Chung. He comes in several times a week for ‘gairng som‘, our spicy vegetable soup. He is a Wizard and can disappear, but he has an account here and charges his meals to it. He is very forgetful and often leaves before paying,” she told us. I had to wonder how many other places the Dragon frequented and in what form. I also wondered why Kennith hadn’t seen him?

“Thank you,” I told the waitress, before we exited the restaurant again.

“You were right,” Kennith said on reaching the sidewalk again. “I never noticed him,” he admitted.

“There wasn’t any reason you should have. I was just surprised, as he looked like someone I had known some time ago but who died. He was rather old,” I lied, but not sure why.

“Shall we return to your house?” Kennith asked.

“Yes,” was all that I said, and we vanished from in front of the restaurant to appear inside the ward around my house. We were immediately met by trouble on arriving there.

There were two demons waiting for us inside my house ward when we appeared at my front door. They were not ones I had seen previously, but were dressed in early 20th century gangster style clothing, I quickly noticed. They both already had Magic Fire spells cast and directed the fire at both of us.

Instantly, before the fire could reach us, a strange powerful ward snapped into existence around both of us, before I could even raise the ward that I always carry around me now. The Magic Fire splashed and bounced off of the strange ward in all directions, but my house is constructed of brick, and it wasn’t affected and didn’t burn.

“Fill ar do thionscnand,” I quickly shouted in Gaelic casting a spell that returned the Magic fire to the demons who quickly vanished, their clothes being only slightly burned.

“Teine noun masenlin,” I said next to put out the vegetation that was on fire.

“Damn, I can see why Josh doesn’t want to hang out with you, but you sure returned their fire to them very quickly,” Kennith said, as he canceled the ward he had cast for protection. The strange ward, that had appeared out of nowhere, also disappeared then.

“How did those Demons get inside my house ward?” I demanded in an angry voice.

“I have no idea, but it does appear to be a bit strange. I thought I was the only one who could do that,” Kennith told me.

“Plus, how did they know when we would be back? They already had those Magic fire spells cast when we arrived,” I pointed out. “And where are our Familiars?” I asked. “Why didn’t they warn us?”

“It does seem strange that they would know when we would return. If we hadn’t stopped to check on your old man, we would have been here earlier. Perhaps even before they arrived or were ready. Could that old Wizard have sent them?” Kennith asked in an unsure voice.

“There is one more thing that I need to do,” I told him, before casting the spell to return everything that had burned to its previous condition.

“I don’t know,” I said following that, to answer his previous question. “Let’s find our Familiars and see what they know about when the demons arrived,” I told him, as the front door opened by itself, now that it was safe, or at least as safe as it was likely to get for the present.

“I’m wondering if that could have been something left over from Fritz Herkimer?” I speculated out loud on the way to the kitchen, as that was where Al and Alva were most likely to be. We found both of our Familiars in the kitchen still asleep.

I was surprised by this, as they should have been up and alert from what had happened, even if they hadn’t ventured out of the kitchen. They still didn’t move or awaken as we approached them.

“Something’s wrong!” I said in a wary voice on seeing this.

“But what?” Ken asked. I had decided to call him Ken instead of Kennith, now that we had faced our first Demons together, and he hadn’t run.

“I’m not sure yet,” I said and opened my Magic senses all of the way to check the area. What I detected shocked me.

“They’re under a spell, but I don’t recognize it or the Magic that cast it,” I told Ken.

“Let me check,” he said, and I could feel his Magic senses open and check the area, not just our Familiars. “It’s unknown to me also,” he told me after a number of seconds.

“What should we do?” he asked after several more seconds had elapsed.

A paragraph from the few pages of Book 4 that I had read came to me then. I would need to start that book over and pay more attention to it. In the meantime, I would try what had been written in that paragraph.

“I just remembered something that I read when I started Book 4,” I told Ken, and called, “Al, wake up.” Al sat up with a surprised look on his face, or as surprised as a cat can manage.

“Maddy!” he said in shock. “How did you get in here without me detecting you?” he asked in a confused voice.

“Someone or something put a spell on you,” I told him.

“Alva, wake up,” Ken said then, and Alva also sat up with a startled look.

“Master Kennith?” she asked looking around. “When did you arrive? Why didn’t I sense you?” she asked.

“Because both you and Al were under some kind of spell,” Ken told his Familiar.

“But how? That’s not supposed to be possible,” both Familiars said.

“We don’t know, but we were attacked by two Demons inside the house ward when we returned home,” I told them to even more shocked expressions on their faces.

“Who could have sent them, and how did they get inside the house ward?” Al asked.

“That is currently unknown, but there are a couple of suspects,” I told him. This was going to require a lot of explanations and a good bit of backtracking on my part, I thought to myself before enumerating them.

“The first is Fritz Herkimer. It could be something that he started before I killed him,” I said to shocked expressions from Ken and Alva.

“The second suspect is the old oriental man from the restaurant. He is more than he appeared to be, and way more than those at the restaurant suspect. He is a Dragon in disguise,” I said to even more startled looks from all three of them. Letting that cat out of the bag had really shaken them up.

“Wow ... wow ... wow,” Ken said on recovering. “Where did a Dragon come into this?” he demanded next.

“That’s going to take some explanation,” I told him, but he had another question.

“You actually killed Fritz Herkimer?” he asked.

“Let’s go into the large parlor. This is going to take a lot of explaining, but you need to know how all of this happened,” I told them, before we returned to the large parlor. The cats got up and stretched before following us.

In the large parlor, I checked the furniture before sitting on the sofa that hadn’t disappeared when the Dragon created Alva. Ken sat on the sofa with me, but on the other end. Our Familiars sat between us.

“Yes, I killed Fritz Herkimer and those with him, except for the Demon, who only got burned before disappearing,” I admitted.

“But how could you deny it so easily without the lie being detected?” Ken wanted to know.

“It’s simple, I didn’t deny doing it. David asked me if I had killed Fritz, and I quote, ‘the previous night’. I had the perfect alibi for that night, and his Demon corroborated that I was home all afternoon and all night that day,” I told them.

“David De Tocqueville had a Demon watching you at night?” Ken asked.

“Yes, he has,” I told him before continuing my explanation.

“The point is that I killed them the night before that, and cast a 30 hour preservation spell on the area. He didn’t ask me if I had killed them the night before that, as he was sure that it had been done the previous night,” I explained.

“But how could you do that out there?” Ken asked. “It’s a long way from any of the Ley Lines,” he added.

“Yes, it is, however, there is a Well of Ley Line Magic located on the driveway to the house there. I stopped my car on it and drew Magic from the Well to eliminate them. Fritz never knew that it was there,” I told him, but I didn’t mention the ancient Ley Line that ran under the river that I had also drawn Magic from. A girl has to have a few secrets, after all.

“There are wells of Ley Line Magic?” Ken asked in a questioning voice.

“Yes, there are. I discovered their existence and where they could be located near the end of Book 3,” I told him.