Chapter 11

Following our meeting with Mother, where we explained about the second spying incident, and how we, actually Doreen, had settled it, we received some advice from Mom and from some of the senior people at Dragon Security here in Atlanta on what we should do to be prepared for whatever the Tampa Cartel tried next.

We three children presumed that they definitely would try something else against us. Doreen and I easily remembered that both Rafael and Romero had told us that the other members of their family would kill not only us but our entire family for what we were doing to them. Craig believed what we related to him on this.

We, therefore, prepared extra security and warning measures after being advised by our parents and the others. First, we cast a trigger spell around the outside of our property on all sides. A trigger spell is one that sets off an alarm when something crosses it, or steps on it. It doesn’t require Magic to set it off. Now, this can present a problem in some areas, especially along the back and ends of our property. We didn’t want it going off every time a bird, squirrel, rabbit, possum, or a deer crossed or landed on it from the fields and pastures surrounding that part of our property. To prevent that, we cast a keep away spell outside of the trigger spell. It would keep small animals away from the trigger spell. It wouldn’t affect humans and maybe large dogs.

The road presented a problem also. On the back and ends of our property, the trigger spell and the keep away spell could be very wide, say 30 feet or so each. The road side, however, was more narrow. What the county laughingly called the shoulders of the road were at best two to three feet wide in most places and not just on the front of our property. The right-of -way for the road, however, which was the land the county owned, extended for fifteen feet on either side of the roadway. This was where our wards were located just inside of our property line.

Most of the right-of-way was not cleared. There were trees, bushes, ditches, and downed tree trunks and branches as well as some trash on the right-of-way in addition to easement where the ground was either much higher or lower than the surface of the road. We didn’t have any easements on our property as the land was fairly flat and within a foot or so of the road surface. There was a shallow drainage ditch on our side of the road. It ran out into the fields when past our property.

Because of the width restrictions of the right-of-way, it was necessary for me to cast a narrower trigger spell beside the road than my siblings had used on the other sides of our property. I also didn’t cast it as one continuous spell, but as a block of four spells that stretched from one end of our property to the other. This would allow us to easily determine where the intruders, or at least their vehicles were. We didn’t need to worry about animals setting the spell off, and I made it less sensitive than the others around our property. Cars and other vehicles are much heavier than animals and people are, and that was what I expected would set off the spell.

Doreen and I needed to explain to our guys what we were doing and what we expected to happen This again caused both of us to go over what we needed to have our guys learn and do, and how we were going to handle it. The picture it presented wasn’t very pretty and there were a lot of holes and unknowns in it. We would definitely need to consider alternatives in the not too distant future.

With all of that taken care of, we all went back to our jobs at Dragon Security and the remainder of our lives, while we waited to see what would happen.

The evening of the attack, we were just sitting down to eat, having left work late. The four of us were ready for the meal that I had prepared at work between jobs that afternoon, when the trigger spells along the road all sounded, and they were followed in a couple of minutes by the sound of automatic weapons firing.

“It would appear that the Cartel has arrived and is calling,” I said with a grin at the sound of the trigger spell.

“Everybody outside to greet them,” Doreen said in the same vein with a matching grin.

Arriving in the front yard, we could see three SUVs and maybe a dozen men on the edge of the road, and they were firing at our wards with no success. Even as we watched, we saw one of the men hit by a ricochet and fall to the ground. The rest were looking spooked by this, so we had little time to act.

This was not what Doreen and I had wanted. We had hoped for an earlier warning of the Cartel’s arrival so we could transform our guys into their Dragons for the first time, and we could all deal with those from the Cartel. We were also expecting more men than were here ... actually we were expecting to face many more men. This was not the present situation, but we would need to deal with it.

“You guys stay here,” Doreen told them, as we two changed into our Dragon form at the twenty-five-foot-tall level and took off. Craig had also emerged from his house and joined us in the air.

He headed for the SUV and the men near his house. Doreen was already diving on the SUV near our house, and the men near it. That left only the middle SUV for me, but there weren’t any men near it. I swooped down at it from about 700 feet with Magic blasting from the middle claws of both of my hands. Before pulling up at about 100 feet above the ground, I breathed Dragon Fire on what was left of the wrecked SUV.

Turning then, I gained a bit of altitude before heading for the sedan that was quickly backing up to get away from the wreck of the last SUV before trying to turn around and get away. Shooting concentrated beams of Magic at it, I hit it with blasts from both hands, stopping it but not destroying it.

The men in the vehicle tried to exit it and finally managed to get one door open. One of the men spilled out and tried to run away, but a few blasts of Magic in front of and around him convinced him to stop and remain where he was.

In the meantime, Doreen had circled around and came over me flying up the road and breathing Dragon Fire on everything in front of our wards. In no time, there was nothing left but burned out SUVs and crispy corpses.

I still had the man who had escaped from the sedan and another one who was still trapped in it to deal with. Landing on the road wasn’t a problem, as all of the light traffic this time of the evening had stopped well before our property on seeing what was happening. I was sure that I heard sirens in the distance.

“Who are you?” I demanded in a loud Dragon voice on landing in front of the man.

“I am only the driver, Senor Dragon,” he managed to say in fear. “Felipe is still in the car,” he added.

“Who is Felipe?” I demanded in a quieter voice.

“He is Rosetta’s right hand,” he replied. I smiled on hearing this, but it didn’t reassure him.

“Steve, Keith,” I called, “come out here and take charge of this guy.” Those two quickly came through the property wards and took charge of the driver, while I turned toward the sedan. There was still a man trapped inside it, but I easily ripped the door off and pulled him out of the vehicle.

“What is your name?” I demanded in less than a roar but not by much.

“I am Felipe the driver,” he said before I looked into his eyes by lowering my head to gaze into his face. He winced as if slapped from my gaze.

“You’re the driver ... sitting in the back seat?” I asked as I blew a bit of smoke from my nostrils and into his face. He swallowed several times before answering.

“Yes, I’m Felipe, not the driver,” he finally said. I could hear that the sirens were much closed by now.

Snatching Felipe off of his feet and turning, I breathed Dragon Fire on the car for a number of seconds before transferring both of us onto our property to join the others.

The police arrived a minute or so later to find nothing but burned out vehicles and very crispy bodies on the side of the road in addition to a number of very upset citizens who had seen at least a part of what had happened. They also found the Dragon Queen standing in the entrance to her driveway, but behind her wards. I could see from the way she was standing that Mother was not pleased with what had happened ... not even a little bit.

It required quite some time for the police to question those who had witnessed what had happened. During that time, more police had arrived to set up a detour around the area. Ambulances and eventually the Coroner had also arrived along with tow trucks. The Coroner had no trouble pronouncing all of the gunmen dead but needed to send for bodybags.

During all of this, the County Sheriff finally arrived along with the press and went to speak with Mother who was still standing in her driveway entrance.

“Is this how you protect the citizens of this county?” she demanded in a loud voice before he could say anything. The sheriff swallowed on seeing her anger.

“Mrs. Kavanagh, can you tell us what happened here?” he finally asked.

“We were attacked by those men from the vehicles. My children dealt with them, as the attack was on their property. Do you think that they would do nothing and allow those criminals to escape?” she demanded in righteous anger.

“Did they need to use such extreme force?” he asked in a tired voice.

“Extreme force?” I heard Mother ask as it it were a foreign concept. “They made a Dragon’s response. They are much closer to being Dragons than I was at their age. If I had been the one responding, you would have only found melted steel and ashes along with melted and destroyed roadway. Even that wouldn’t have been an extreme response. An extreme response would have destroyed the area for a couple of miles around the site, but we are more restrained than our wild cousins,” Mother told him. The press was eating this up and had recorded the entire interview along with getting video of the scene along the road of burned out vehicles and crispy corpses.

All of this appeared on the late evening news and again on the morning news. The story was also picked up by some of the national networks. It created quite a stir for a while.

While all of the commotion continued outside, we had the two who we had captured in our house. Craig had joined us and our guys. Craig was in favor of interrogating them through the use of pain, as we had done with Rafael and Romero. Doreen and I were in favor of somewhat less violent means of interrogation. Steve and Keith just observed. Eventually, we settled on the truth spell and cast it on them one at a time.

It turned out that the driver was a spy for Rosetta as she didn’t trust Felipe to get the job done. Felipe was furious on learning this. He, after all, was the one in charge of the assault on us, he said in righteous indignation. We got the full story from both of them over the next hour. We thought that over half of their men deserting them was extremely funny.

“They were the only smart ones,” Doreen commented when we learned that. Considering what had happened to those who had stayed, Craig and I had to agree with her. We also learned where the drug house was.

The three of us went out the back way while Steve and Keith watched the prisoners. We moved far enough away through the fields behind our houses that we wouldn’t be seen taking off and flew to the location of the drug house.

After circling it several times in the fading evening light, we came in from three different directions and used Dragon Fire on the house and the van in the driveway. Those attempting to escape were hit by blasts of concentrated Magic killing them. Only smoking remains were left when we departed. The fire department had little to do when they arrived. That story was also on the local morning news the next day.

After returning home, we, that is Doreen and I, marched our two prisoners out to the road and handed them over to the deputies remaining there.

“This is the leader of the attack on us and his driver. We want them charged with attempted murder, possession of automatic weapons and explosives plus dealing in drugs. We will testify at their trial. You had better not lose them or allow them to escape. You wouldn’t want us to have to capture them again,” I told the sheriff’s deputies there. One of them was ready to get uppity with us for telling them what to do, but Doreen breathed just a second or so of Fire after changing into her Dragon form, and they all shut up. We returned to the house through the property wards startling them as they hadn’t been able to affect them at all.

At the Hacienda near Tampa earlier that afternoon, Rosetta was furious when the driver called her shortly before those remaining left the rendezvous location.

“Senorita, more than half of the men have not arrived at the rendezvous place. Felipe thinks they have deserted us. We have waited two hours for them, and they have not appeared. Felipe is determined to continue even without them. There are only a dozen men here. What can we do?” he asked. Rosetta screamed with rage for a time on hearing this. Finally, she collected herself enough to give him directions.

“Felipe is correct. Continue on with the attack, but do not return here immediately. Do not stay at the drug house there either. There is a place near Macon where you can stay. After they have completed the attack, leave there hurriedly and when you are on the road south again have Felipe call me. I will give him directions to where you are to stay for a time,” she told the driver before disconnecting.