Chapter 9

The following character appears only in this chapter:

Roscoe

Biker, 6’-0’’ tall, 240 pounds, mid thirties, long shaggy brown hair, needs to shave, hasn’t bathed in a while

“What are they doing?” Doreen asked me for at least the fifty-seventh time.

We and our parents had noticed the bikers camped in the field out near the end of our properties shortly after they had arrived to watch us.

“Whatever they think they are doing, they aren’t doing it very well, unless their intention is to bother us,” I told her in less than a pleased voice.

“Don’t they know that we can just use a silence spell and won’t hear the racket that their machines are making?” she asked.

“I would say probably not,” I told her in a more restrained voice.

By accident, we had seen that they changed watchers in the afternoon. The second set of bikers were just as noisy as the first pair had been, but they eventually left when it started to get dark.

They had been watching us, or whatever they were doing, for three days before we needed to go out for anything. We had been to work each day, but we simply transferred there. It was so much easier and quicker than driving would be. Still, we needed fuel for our car if we were going to drive anywhere with our guys.

“Let’s wait until they are changing shifts to leave and see what they do,” Doreen suggested once we had decided to get more fuel for the car.

“All right, but we’ll keep our wards around us and leave our Familiars at home,” I agreed. “Let’s see if they follow us, or if they try to access our property. Of course, they would need to be able to use Dragon spells to do that, and I haven’t detected even a hint of Magic or the Talent in any of them,” I added.

As soon as we detected the arrival of the second or relief shift, we got in our car and drove through the wards around our property before heading toward the town near where we live.

There was a fueling station on the road that went past our houses, but we never used it. It was small with only a few pumps, and it was usually more expensive than the station that we preferred.

The station that we liked had more pumps, was a bit cheaper, and had a larger and much better selection of tasty things to eat and drink even though it was a bit further to travel.

After passing their location, we noticed that only one of the bikers followed us immediately. We just continued on our way, paying him no attention.

Pulling up to an available pump at the fueling station, Doreen took charge.

“Go ahead and pay for the gas, and then get us something sweet to snack on. I’ll pump the gas while you make up your mind what to get,” she told me, as we both got out of the car. I was in line a short time to pay for the gas, as the station was a bit busy. After paying for the gas, I spent time looking over their large array of good things they had to eat. Many people stopped at this particular station to pick up something for lunch since they did have such a large selection of items available all of the time.

After picking out some sweet treats, I got back in line to pay for them. I could see through their large windows that Doreen had already started to fuel our car.

As soon as the metering panel on the pump reset, I dropped my wards, pulled out the nozzle, selected the correct grade of fuel, and began filling the car’s tank. I also noticed that the biker who had followed us had been joined by the others, and there were now six of them watching me and the car. The wonders of the cell phone, I thought to myself. Even dumb-asses can use them.

I didn’t pay any further attention to them and continued to fill the car with fuel. That is, I didn’t until one of them moved up behind me silently and licked me on the back of the neck!

Turning Dragon fast, I looked at him. He was a big guy at over six feet tall and broad at around two hundred and forty pounds. He also needed a bath or a shower, as he smelled of sweat and drugs that were more than three days old ... a lot more. He had long shaggy hair and a week or more of stubble on his face.

“Go away, turkey,” I growled at him.

“Don’t you have someone to do that for you?” he asked with a grin, aggravating me even more.

The car was nearly full, but I still had some gas indicated on the meter. This made up my mind, as I was pissed off already. Pulling the nozzle out of the tanks opening, I sprayed the remaining fuel on him and the one behind him as I changed forms and appeared as my Dragon at the twelve-foot-tall level. There was plenty of room for it under the roof covering the pumps.

“Go away turkeys, or I’ll turn all of you into extra crispy Thanksgiving dinners,” I threatened, as smoke drifted from my nostrils, before I leaned in and ran my long Dragon tongue over the entire face of the biker closest to me, much to his shock and disgust.

I was just coming out of the fueling station store when I saw the six bikers surrounding our car. Three were behind it, and there were three more in front of it. Apparently now there were three of them on a shift instead of just two. That was when I saw Doreen pull the nozzle out of the car and spray two of the bikers with fuel.

“Oh shit!” I groaned, as she also changed forms to appear as her twelve-foot-tall Dragon.

I had noticed the red emergency cutoff switch on the front of the store today as I moved toward it to pay for the fuel and food. I had never noticed it previously, but had presumed that it had always been there.

Turning quickly, I shot a blast of Magic at it to activate the cutoff switch, which would stop all of the pumps from dispensing fuel. Turning back to our car, I cast a quick freeze spell on the three bikers in front of it, even as Doreen was dealing with the three behind it. Two of them were covered in fuel, very flammable fuel.

“I don’t want to ever see or hear any of you again,” I heard her tell the three behind the car who were staring at her in absolute shock.

“LEAVE!” she shouted in a Dragon roar.

Those three turned and ran for their bikes like the devil himself was after them. I canceled the spell on the other three, and they also hurried to their bikes, and all six departed with a screech of tires.

In the meantime, Doreen was looking around at all of the others who had been fueling their vehicles.

“Just a little misunderstanding,” she said as she returned to her Human form, picked up the nozzle, and racked it back on the pump before screwing the gas cap back on the car’s tank inlet. I hurried over to our car and got in the driver’s seat.

“It’s best we leave now,” I told her, as I passed the food I had gotten to her. We left quickly, while most of the others there were still gazing at us in shock. I was sure that the people running the fueling station were upset with us.

“Whatever possessed you to do that?” I demanded of Doreen as we drove off.

“He licked my neck!” she said in an upset voice. “You think I was going to allow him to get away with that?” she demanded aggressively.

“No,” I answered, knowing my twin as well as I do.

“Think they’ll be back?” I asked.

“Not if they are smart, but I don’t believe that anyone ever accused those six of being smart,” she answered with a giggle.

“You licked his entire face in return,” I reminded her.

“Yes, and he tasted disgusting, even to my Dragon taste buds,” she returned. We drove the rest of the way home in silence, as we had started on the snacks that I had bought.

Later that afternoon, the six bikers from the watch detail confronted their Leader at the safe house in the southern part of Atlanta. He had recently returned there.

“Damned, Dog, one of them bitches turned into a Dragon!” their spokesman said in an upset voice. “She licked Roscoe’s entire face and told us to get the hell out of there, and that was after she had doused him and Bert with gasoline,” he continued.

“Yeah, Roscoe got Dragon snark all over his face! It did clean him up some,” another man said with a laugh.

“Why didn’t you tell us that them bitches was Dragons? We saw what they did to that sniper in Miami on the TV, and would have been a lot more careful if you had,” one of the others told him.

“Hell, if we knowed they was Dragons, we wouldn’t have come up here,” another one stated. Those who had not been on watch duty stared at them in surprise on hearing this.

“What the hell is going on, Dog?” one of them demanded also.

“Fucking hell, I didn’t know either until we got up here. It wasn’t until that fucking contact bitch met us that I learned that not only the two daughters were Dragons, but that the whole damned family is Dragons and Magic users. The Cartel never mentioned any of that when they set up this deal,” Dog told them.

“Yeah, set up. We were the ones set up alright,” one of the men said interrupting him.

“I still thought that we could spy on them if we were careful,” Dog continued. “It doesn’t look that way. The damned Cartel will have to settle for what we have learned already. We had best stay away from them for a while also after I make our report. Get ready, we’re leaving here tomorrow,” Cassius told his men. There was a lot of grumbling as the men moved away to ready their things.

That night, the safe house was very quiet. When Cassius awoke in the morning, he found that he was the only one remaining at the safe house. The others had departed silently overnight. He cussed up a storm, damning all of those who had left overnight as they hadn’t said shit before leaving.

“Those sorry, motherfucking bastards must have pushed those hogs a couple of blocks before starting them so I didn’t hear them leave,” he finally grumbled before preparing to leave himself. He had decided that he would wait to call their contact until he was back in Florida to arrange to pass on the information that they had gathered. It was a long, lonely ride back.

Cassius waited until he was near Lake City, Florida to call the Tampa contact. The phone rang several times before going to voice mail. He left a terse message.

“This is Dog. I’ll call again in an hour. If you want this information, you had better answer,” he said before turning off the phone. An hour later and somewhat drunker, he called again.

“Hello!” said the party on the other end of the call.

“This is Dog. The information that was gathered is on the following website. It includes pictures and written information. The website is... , “ and he gave him their website on the internet and the password for accessing it. “This is as much as we could get,” he finished. Turning off the phone and removing the battery, he smashed it and discarded the remains in a trash dumpster. He wasn’t about to tell anyone that they had been run off the job.

“I believe I’ll take a trip to Alabama. I know a few assholes there and can hide out for a time until all of this blows over. If those asses in the Cartel go up against those Dragons, they are all going to get their asses handed to them before they all get fried like the ones in Miami. Maybe I’ll return then,” he said to no one in particular, as he was alone. He got back on I-75 and took it to the interchange with I-10 where he headed west to Alabama.

Somewhat later, the Tampa cop, who was his contact, called Felipe and gave him the information that he had received. He wasn’t about to call Rosetta, as he knew her reputation. He had already turned in his issued cell phone and was using a cheap burner phone, which he would discard on finishing. His bags were packed, and he was already on the road. He wasn’t about to hang around and see what happened.

“Felipe, here is the information that Dog gave me,” he told him before relating all of it.

“That’s all that he told you?” Felipe demanded in disgust.

“That’s it. I don’t need to know what’s on that website. I tried to call him back but got no answer, and he didn’t indicate where he was when he called,” the contact told him before discarding the phone, getting in his car and driving off up the interstate on an extended leave of absence from the police force.

Felipe was definitely unhappy on hearing this, but took the website address and password to one of the men in the house who worked the internet for them. He pulled up the website, and they saw the many poor-quality pictures posted there and the written information that Dog had included. It was little enough and much less then they had been expecting, or at least, hoping for. It was apparent that they would need more information before doing anything and more reliable people to gather it for them.

Rosetta was absolutely furious when he showed her the website on her computer. She cursed bikers, all bikers, as the trash of the world, but cast no spells since she had no materials from the bikers in question. After she finally calmed down, Felipe had a suggestion when she was prepared to listen.

“We need someone more competent and professional,” he told her.