Chapter 5

The following new characters appear in this chapter:

Ben Rust

Night Manager at Dragon Security, Miami, 5’-10’’ tall, 175 pounds, about 46 years old, dark blond hair, gray eyes

Dr. Chesney

Physician brought in to care for Aleshia, 5’-9’’ tall, 170 pounds, 40 years old, short brown hair and blue eyes.

The Spirit of Ley Line Magic, appeared as a tall, strong young man of about twenty-five years of age or so

The Spirit of Witch Magic, appeared as a young woman of medium height who is about twenty-one years of age or so

The drive back to the Dragon Security building was complicated by the presence of fire engines and fire fighters arriving at the buildings that we had set ablaze with our Dragon Fire. It seems that the fires had spread and rather quickly. We had considered this unlikely when we started, as Dragon Fire consumes what it is used against very quickly. It was apparent, however, that the fires had spread to other structures which were now on fire. The fires in the original buildings had already burned themselves out. We concluded from this, that there had been other items, accelerants of some sort that had been present in the buildings to spread normal fire to the surrounding ones.

The roads were now closed in many areas, and there was a lot of smoke and cinders being blown around by the wind that had come up. It was helping to spread the fires to the many closely packed buildings in the area. It appeared that these were now major fires. We needed to take several detours around the affected areas to reach our company’s building.

It was well after 5:30 before we arrived in their parking lot, but it was still well before sunrise, which would be at around 6:30 this time of year. Again, we had no trouble passing through the wards around the building, or opening the locked front doors. These would have been impediments to even other Magic users, but weren’t to us. On arriving on the floor with the operations center, our arrival startled one of those working there.

“How did you... ?” he started before realizing who we were.

“Sorry, Mistress Dragons,” he apologized in embarrassment on realizing who we were.

The night manager, Ben Rush, soon arrived when he became aware of our presence. He was not smiling. He was about 5’-10’’ tall, 175 pounds, about 46 years old, dark blond hair, gray eyes.

“May we presume that you ladies are the cause of the current commotion? There are several major fires in progress in the Latin Quarter,” he informed us.

“We started the initial fires with Dragon Fire, but they spread by themselves. There must have been things in the buildings that spread the fires. You know how quickly Dragon Fire works. The present fires and smoke are not our work,” I assured him.

“How is Aleshia?” Doreen asked getting us back to the reason that we were here and not at our hotel in bed at this time of the morning.

“The doctor arrived a half hour ago. He is still in with her,” Ben told us, leading the way to the rest area here.

“This is Dr. Chesney,” he told us on reaching the rest area. Dr. Chesney was a man of medium height, say 5’-9’’ tall, 170 pounds, 40 years old with short brown hair and blue eyes.

“How is Aleshia?” Doreen asked.

“Your friend’s condition is very severe,” he told us. “She is fortunate that you found her when you did. Much more of that drug would have killed her. How did she get in that condition?” he demanded.

“She was kidnapped, drugged, and used as a prostitute by some Mexican Cartel drug dealers. They won’t be doing that anymore. We put them out of business,” Doreen told him in a rather upset voice.

“I see,” he said without going any further. However, he didn’t look well on hearing it.

“We will need to see about removing the heroin from her system,” I told him following that.

“That can only be done by time. Even then, she will need to go into rehabilitation to kick the habit. She will be a long time recovering,” he told us.

“We’ll see if we can’t shorten that,” I told him. “Give us a little time alone with her, and can you recommend a treatment facility for her?” I asked. He gave us the name of a facility following that.

“Will we have any trouble getting her admitted?” I asked.

“You can give them my name as the physician of record,” he told us before Ben led him out of the room and then out of the building through their wards.

“Which do we start on first, the drugs or the spell?” Doreen asked as soon as they were out of hearing.

“We need to find out when they start opening businesses up. We may need to draw heavily on the Ley Line here to counter the Black Magic spell on her,” I told my twin. Ben soon returned.

“When do you get into serious opening operations?” I asked him.

“Usually around 8:00 in the morning,” he told us. “But that may be delayed some today because of the fires,” he added.

“So that gives us about two hours. We may need to draw heavily on the Lines to remove the Black Magic spell she is under and also to remove most of the drugs from her body,” I told him to a look of concern from him.

“Black Magic Spell?” he asked in surprise.

“Yes, that was the only way they could capture and hold a Witch. We will have something to say to the local Covens about that also,” I told him before he returned to his duties as night manager. Doreen cast a ward around the room to keep everyone out of it while we worked.

It required some time to evaluate the Black Magic Spell that Aleshia was under, but after a time, we recognized it from our studies of Book 5 and knew what was required to counter it.

“It will require the heavy use of Ley Line Magic to power the Black Magic Spell to remove the one on Aleshia,” I told Doreen after a time.

“You are correct,” was all she said before asking, “What about the drugs?”

“They will require the use of a powerful Witch spell to remove them. Where to send the drugs though is the question,” I told her.

“It’s too bad that all of those bodies were burned up in the fires. We could have sent it to one of them. Who don’t we like?” she asked with a smile.

“There were those two who tried to kidnap us, plus there was that bartender and the bouncer at the door,” I reminded her.

“Yeah, but we have already dealt with them,” Doreen acknowledged. “Who else?”

“I can’t think of anyone else that I dislike that much presently,” I told her.

“Well, I still dislike Manuel. We should send the drugs to his corpse, even if it has been burned up,” she told me.

With that decided, we sat on chairs on each side of Aleshia, and prepared to cast the necessary spells. We hadn’t pricked our fingers yet to draw blood to help power the Black Magic Counter Spell when suddenly we could feel the amount of Ley Line Magic available quadruple. At the same time, a tall, strong, young man appeared in the room with us, inside of our wards. He appeared to be about 25 years of age or so.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“How did you get in here, past our wards?” Doreen asked. The young man smiled.

“I’m the Spirit of Ley Line Magic. You will require more power than the Line here can provide, so I stopped by to lend a hand,” he told us with another smile. We were both stunned by this revelation.

“You were the Leader of the Spirits of Magic who our mother met on Stone Mountain,” we both said in awe.

“Yes, I met the Queen there with the rest of my family, who are the other Spirits of Magic,” he told us.

There was a loud knocking on our ward then, and we saw Ben Rush, the night manager, there. We dropped the ward on the doorway so he could enter.

“The amount of Ley Line Magic available has increased dramatically in the last few minutes,” he informed us.

“Of course it has, this is the Spirit of Ley Line Magic. He came by to aid us in removing the Black Magic Spell on Aleshia,” I told him.

“Really?” he asked in amazement before turning to look at the young man.

“The Line here wasn’t very strong, as there weren’t a lot of Dragons that visited here. I have reinforced it and will ensure that it has more Magic all of the time now,” the young man told us.

“Excuse me for interrupting you,” Ben asked before departing after hearing this good news.

We returned to our chairs after bringing the ward back up on the doorway. We each pricked a finger and started to cast the Black Magic Spell to counter the one that Aleshia was under. It was a somewhat powerful spell, but we needed to be careful how we countered it. We slowly added more and more Ley Line Magic to the spell that we had cast.

The Spirit had been correct. The original line here would never have been able to supply enough Magic to counter the other spell. Eventually though, the spell began to vibrate as we carefully added more Magic to our spell until it finally collapsed and was gone. The two of us needed to recover from all of the tension created working with the Black Magic Spell. We would need a break before beginning the removal of the Heroin.

Before taking a break, we turned to thank the Spirit of Ley Line Magic, only to discover that he was no longer here, and a young woman of medium height who appeared to be about 21 was sitting in his place.

“I’m the Spirit of Witch Magic. I’m here because those using my Magic here have become complacent and lazy. They need a good awakening,” she told both of us.

“Thank you for coming,” we both told her in Gaelic, which we had been speaking with both Spirits of Magic.

“We thought there was sufficient Witch Magic here for what we need to do,” I added after a few seconds.

“I’m sure there is at this time, but what you will be doing will upset the Covens here, and they will draw on most of it later. I am here to control how much they are allowed to draw, and to allow you to do what is required,” she told us, much to our surprise.

“You should take a short break before continuing and have something to eat and drink,” she continued. Food and several beverages appeared on one of the beds as she finished. Doreen and I sat down and had a snack and some cold water. After a time, we felt better and refreshed.

The spell that we were going to use wasn’t in any of the books for our Witch classes, not even the senior year books. Our mother had taught it to us. She had learned it from her mother and her grandmother. It was a powerful spell and required not just a lot of Magic but a strong Talent to cast it. There was presently plenty of Witch Magic available, and our Talents were more than strong enough.

Doreen and I again sat on opposite sides of Aleshia and started the spell with her as the focus. The spell is very long, and we needed to repeat it several times to ensure that most or all of the drugs were removed from her. When we were finished, we checked her before sending the accumulated drugs to the bar where the ashes of Manuel’s body were. The fire there had long been out, but the Fire Department still fought the fires in the surrounding buildings.

On finishing, we were both worn out. Using all of the Magic that we had is very taxing, plus we had been up for a lot of hours and needed some sleep. It was almost 8:00 in the morning when we dropped our wards around the room. The Spirit of Witch Magic had left shortly before that.

“I will be available when the Covens come looking for you. I’m sure they will sense what you were doing and will be upset,” she told us with a smile before vanishing.

We found Ben and Joe in the operations Center when we returned to it. It was time for the change of shifts, so both managers were there. We addressed both of them.

“We’ve finished all that we can do for now. Aleshia will sleep for a number of hours. We’ll be back before she awakens. We’re going to our hotel for some sleep ourselves,” I told them before we left, but using the normal way and not transferring.

At the hotel after parking, we went to their restaurant to get something more to eat before going up to the room for some sleep following a good shower. It didn’t take long for us to fall asleep.

We awoke after five hours, still a bit tired, but we had things to do yet today. Following dressing and a decent lunch, we returned to Dragon Security to take Aleshia to the rehab facility that the doctor had recommended. Joe knew exactly where it was and showed us on the big map in operations. Aleshia was awake by then but was very drowsy.

On arriving there, those at the facility were not happy to see us. The use of Dr. Chesney’s name didn’t seem to help any either. Finally, Doreen lost her temper and changed into her Dragon form at the 12-foot-tall level.

“You will admit our friend Aleshia, and will take excellent care of her,” she told those in charge there while looking them in the eye. “Or else!” she added and allowed a bit of smoke to drift from her nostrils. Those in charge there were frightened out of their wits.