Chapter 7: The Search

New character appearing in this chapter:

Bruiser

Major Demon, Gang Leader, 5’-0’’ tall, tan skin and 6’’ long horns on his head, brownish hair, wearing a 1920s suit and a fedora, carrying a Tommy gun

Yes, I had prisoners to interrogate, but how to do that was the question. I was still twelve feet tall; more than twice the height of the prisoners. How was I to interrogate them and ensure that they were sufficiently terrified of me to tell the truth? Also, there were Bob and Cassius plus now Binne to keep track of. Even though they were helping me, sort of anyway, and were afraid of me, mostly, I would still need to keep an eye on them. So, the question was, how to do all of that and still remain a Dragon? I wasn’t sure that appearing as myself, that is as Maddy, would aid me in learning where Al was being held. The thought of appearing as the old Chinese man, who was a Dragon, had possibilities.

It was the Sword, Mandara, that offered a possible solution to my problem.

“You could remain in Dragon form down to about eight feet tall,” It told me in my mind.

“Really!?”

“Yes, but much below eight feet tall, you would return to your normal human appearance. Also at eight feet tall, I am still long enough to do serious work, Mistress,” It informed me.

At eight feet tall, I would still be larger than the Demons, but short enough to still frighten them. It sounded like a good solution, but what were the drawbacks, I wondered? Mandara spoke to me about them as well then.

“You could be overwhelmed at eight feet tall, if enough of them attacked you. You may not be able to use your Magic fast enough,” It told me.

“That’s why I always keep a ward around me. It only takes a word to bring it back up,” I told It, before asking, “How do I shrink to eight feet tall?”

“I can take care of that,” It returned, and the elevator ride this time was very short. I found myself eight feet tall in less than a second. Mandara had also been shortened to a blade length of 32 inches. I quickly expanded my wards to be sure that those with me were still covered before checking on them.

Bob, Cassius, and Binne were still seated at the table where they had been before the other Demons had burst in. They all looked like they’d been assaulted by something, but then I remembered using the Power Phrase and my Dragon voice. The invading Demons looked much the same. Still, they had been inside my ward and should have been protected.

“Are you three all right?” I asked. It took a number of seconds, but Bob finally answered me.

“Please don’t do that again. We can’t take any more of that,” he whined.

“What’s wrong? You were inside my wards. You shouldn’t have been affected,” I told them.

“You have no idea of the effect your voice has on others, even those your spells aren’t aimed at,” Cassius told me in little more than a whisper.

“Sorry, they didn’t give me much time to neutralize them, and I needed to decide what spells to use. We do have some prisoners now. Can you identify any of them? Which one is the leader?” I asked. Bob and Cassius both stood up on shaky legs and looked over the frozen Demons.

“The one near the back is a sub-chief. He would be the one you want to question. He should know more than the others,” Cassius told me after looking at the frozen Demons for a time.

“The one with the purple tie?” I asked.

“Yes, that one,” Cassius agreed. I moved toward the Major Demons then, but decided that I would cancel the effects of the Power Phrase but not the freeze spell. A single quiet word was sufficient to cancel it.

Nothing had moved while the Power Phrase was in effect, but with its cancellation, gravity decided to play a part in things. Even though the Demons were still frozen in place, there now rang out a single shot from one of the guns. It was a gun that one of the Demons was in the process of dropping when the Power Phrase stopped everything. His finger was still on the trigger, though he had released the weapon with his other hand. The spell had kept everything from moving, but gravity was still in effect and when the spell was canceled, it only required a slight movement from the pull of gravity on the trigger to fire the weapon, as it fell to the floor.

The sudden ‘BANG’ of it going off echoed through the building much like my words in the Dragon language had. Fortunately, the bullet didn’t hit anyone, only ricocheting off the wall to be lost in the back of the restaurant. It did scare all of us though. The clatter of the gun hitting the floor followed that.

This brought up a problem that I hadn’t considered. It was now obvious that the guns would have to be removed before I could question any of these Demons. Unfortunately, I didn’t know a spell to make all of them disappear at once. There was a spell in Gaelic that I knew to make things vanish. It was activated by ‘dimigh se as radharc’, but I would need to use it on each gun separately. The spell in Latin came to me as, ‘tenus vanescet in auras’, and I thought that if I spoke it softly each time, I could get rid of all of the guns without a lot of fuss or noise.

Reaching out for the closest gun, I started the spell in Latin, but again, I was defeated as the words that came from my Dragon mouth were nothing like the words in Latin.

“CCea#%fa Acc!!?su,” bounced off of the walls, floor and the ceiling, but in less than my usual Dragon roar. To my surprise, not just the gun I was touching vanished, but all of the guns the Demons had entered with, including the one that had fallen to the floor. There must have been a bit of a change in the translation.

“How did you do that?” came from behind me in Bob’s trembling voice. I turned to look at them. My tail at this height was much shorter, but I still knocked over the closest Demon with it.

“I just told them to vanish,” I told him and the others.

“I need to question these Demons but one at a time. I’ll start with the one with the purple tie,” I told them next, as I turned back to the Major Demons and moved toward Mr. Purple Tie.

Looking down at the Demon with the purple tie, I brought Mandara up so that Its point was only inches from the Demon’s chest. With my other hand, I traced a sign on the Demon’s coat while reciting the spell to cancel the Dragon Freeze Spell that he was under. He came awake with a twitch, and his eyes grew huge, as his gaze traveled from Mandara up my arm and body to my face and stared into my Dragon eyes above him. His expression changed from one of shock to one of terror.

“If you move, Mandara will steal your spirit, and I will use your body to practice cuts on until there isn’t anything left large enough to be cut,” I told him. He was shaking badly when I finished. So badly in fact, that I needed to grab his shoulder with my left hand to keep him in place. My claws went right through his suit and into his skin, drawing a bit of blood.

“Several days ago, some of you kidnapped my Familiar. I want to know where he is, and who is responsible for kidnapping him,” I told him looking into his eyes with mine. A puff of smoke came from my nostrils as I finished. The demon was so shocked that it took him several minutes to answer.

“It ... it was the boss who kidnapped the Familiar with some of his most trusted henchmen. They went with a Druj and a couple of Witches,” he finally managed to tell me.

“Where are they holding my Familiar?” I demanded, staring into his eyes. I could see him quiver in fear and could tell that he wasn’t lying, but was telling the truth as he knew it.

“Th ... the Familiar is in Bruiser’s apartment,” he stammered as Mandara moved closer to his chest.

“Is Bruiser the Boss?” I demanded.

“Yes, he has the best apartment on this level,” he replied still shaking.

“Where is the apartment?”

“It’s on the second level in the middle of our area and on the front row, so he can watch what goes on in the stores,” Purple Tie told me.

“Is that all?” I demanded, still looking into his eyes.

“You will never get the Familiar back. The Witches are watching it, and no one will get past them, at least not alive,” he told me in a petrified voice.

“We’ll see about that,” I told him before recasting the freeze spell on him but in a quiet voice using just Latin. Mandara was disappointed at not being able to drink his spirit.

“All right, we know where we need to go,” I told the others as I turned to look at them, but didn’t knock Mr. Purple Tie over as I remembered to control my tail this time. The three of them were just staring at me from behind the table where we had eaten.

“A Major Demon would never confess that easily. You can’t believe what he told you,” Cassius told me after a number of seconds.

“Have you ever looked into the eyes of a Dragon?” I asked. “Well, I have and believe me, they ... we can tell when or if you are lying. We can see into your very soul and know all that you have ever done,” I told him. I had been able to tell that Mr. Purple Tie wasn’t lying, but couldn’t see everything he had done ... not yet, but they didn’t need to know that.

“We know where to find Al. Let’s move. The sooner I get him back, the sooner all of you can go home, and I can return to my home,” I told them, before asking, “How do we get to the second level?”

“There are stairs. We passed one set on the way here. The main stairs should be near here,” Bob told me before drawing on all of his courage. “Couldn’t you go alone?” he asked in that whiny voice of his.

“What, and leave the three of you here behind me to make a deal with the Major Demons? You have to be kidding me. We all go together so I know where you are, and what you are doing. Besides Binne hasn’t had her revenge yet,” I told them and turned to the door.

“What about all of them?” Cassius asked, as they passed the other Demons who were still frozen in place.

“The spell will use up all of the Magic in it eventually, and they will be released, but it will be long after we are gone. Also, we won’t need to worry about them bothering us again,” I assured them.

It was a lot easier to get out the door to the restaurant and other places at eight feet tall than it had been at my larger sizes. Outside, there were stairs a couple of stores away.

These were not like the narrow stairs that had gone up to Bob’s apartment. No, these were wider and more grand having fine wooden handrails, polished treads and very good lighting. The problem, of course, was that there were stairs on both sides of the main aisle. Which side did Bruiser have his apartment on?

Since there were believed to be at least two gangs here, it was logical to assume that the leader of the other gang would have his apartment in the same high rent district that Bruiser did. Sending out my Magic senses, I searched the floor above on both sides of the center aisle looking for Magic in use. Both sides had Magic in use, but the side that we were on had the strongest Magic signature.