Chapter 19

The following new characters appear in this chapter:

Si-Sawat

Jorani’s Familiar, a Korat Cat, 15 inches long, a blue/gray color, about 15 pounds, a long tail

Richard Smart - Craig’s alias while traveling

Angelia Smart - Doreen’s alias while traveling

Delaina Smart - Dallas’s alias while traveling

The following character returns from the previous stories:

Muadhnait Graham

Doctor, OB/GYN, an older woman of indeterminate age, but surely more than 70 years old, she is about 5’-6’’ tall and thin with short gray hair, her eyes are as black as coal

A few days after our exceptional dinner, Mother took Jorani with her to her appointment with Dr. Graham for a checkup. I went with them, as Jorani wasn’t sure if this was a good thing. Most women in Cambodia, especially the poor, only saw a Doctor when they gave birth if then. It was often handled by a midwife or a nurse.

The receptionist was a young woman, who greeted us cheerfully. Mother handed in the paperwork that they had sent us, and Jorani had filled out. There wasn’t anyone else in the reception room.

“That receptionist doesn’t look more than a year or so older than she did when I had you Craig,” Mom told us quietly while we waited to be seen. Shortly, a nurse appeared and called Mother and Jorani into the back. I had to wait out front for now.

Maddy has the Narrative for Now

“The Doctor will see both of you together,” the Nurse told us after closing the door. We moved to an area where she took our vital signs, weighed us, and drew blood. Jorani was nervous about the blood draw, but I told her not to worry. We were shown to a room together and told to change into gowns, and that they required a urine sample. This was all new to Jorani, but I talked her through it, and we went to give a specimen separately.

When Doctor Graham appeared, she still looked the same as she had when my Mother first brought me to see her as a teenager. She smiled on seeing Jorani sitting next to me on the examination table.

“So young Dragon Queen, you are having triplets, female triplets. That is a lot to carry for a small woman like you,” she said, much to Jorani’s surprise.

“How can you know these things? It wasn’t in the papers that I filled out,” Jorani asked.

“I read you when I came into the room. It’s an ability that I have had for a very long time,” the Doctor told her.

“I told you that Dr. Graham was very old. She is over a thousand years old and very wise,” I told a very surprised young Dragon Queen.

“And you, Maddy, are doing well. Your daughter’s growth is progressing nicely,” the Doctor told me but had more to add.

“On the other hand, you young lady are in need of some vitamins and more iron in your diet,” she told Jorani before looking at both of us in surprise.

“How can this be?” she asked in a questioning voice. “You will both have your children within a couple of days of each other,” she told us in surprise. “The births will be very close together,” she added.

“You’re sure of this?” I asked.

“How long have I been doing this, Madailein?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Long enough to know,” I replied with a sharp exhale of breath.

“Get dressed. Your son and her husband is nervous out in the waiting room. He needs to relax more,” Dr. Graham told her two patients after further examination.

The Narrative returns to Craig

After what seemed like an excessive amount of time, the Nurse returned and told me to follow her. She led me to a small office where Mother and Jorani soon arrived.

“Is everything all right?” I asked in a worried voice.

“They are fine, but your wife requires more vitamins and iron,” Dr. Graham told me, appearing like a ghost out of nowhere. She handed me a piece of paper.

“Get these vitamins and iron tablets. Make sure that she takes them every day,” the Doctor told me. “I will see both of you ladies again in four weeks. The receptionist will give you the appointments,” she added. We left after paying the bill and getting their next appointments. On the way home, Mother stopped at a drug store, so I could get the required vitamins and iron tablets.

While they relaxed at home, I transferred to the Dragon Security building. I still had a job that required my presence. Also, I wasn’t the one pregnant and carrying children.

The next item to be taken care of was a Familiar for Jorani. Mother brought that up in the kitchen the day after the Doctor’s visit.

“You need a Familiar. Everyone in the Family has one except you. What type of cat would you like for a Familiar?” she asked.

“Craig told me about Familiars. I can see that yours are very old. Are they all right?” Jorani asked. Al and Alva rolled over and looked at her before going back to sleep. They hadn’t said anything.

“Familiars can live a very long time, thanks to the Magic that created them. Much longer than ordinary cats or dogs. What type of cat are you interested in?” Mom asked again.

“I would like a Korat Cat. They are a blue-gray color and are very friendly but not too big. They are valued even in Cambodia as a good luck symbol,” Jorani told her.

“Oh dear, I don’t know if we can find a Korat Cat here. Let’s look on the computer,” Mom told her. It didn’t require long to look up Korat cats. There was a lot of information on them on several sites. All agreed that they were very affectionate and good with children, seniors, other cats, and families. Also, that they were highly intelligent. When Mother looked up how and where to adopt one, she was quite surprised.

“Goodness, there are a lot of them. In fact, the adoption center near here has a male and a female,” Mom told Jorani in a surprised voice. There were pictures on the internet.

“Can I visit them?” she asked.

“Yes, let me send them an email, and we will drive over there and check them out,” Mom agreed. “Craig, you are driving,” she told me. She had been uncomfortable driving yesterday.

At the adoption center, the lady on duty there was happy to see us and took us back to the cats’ cages. Jorani wasn’t interested in the male cat, though there wasn’t anything wrong with him. It was the female of the pair that interested her, as she wanted Familiars for her daughters just as my Nieces had. The female cat in question was the correct color and had green eyes but was larger than the sites had indicated.

“This is Gray. She is about two and a half years old. She is a bit large, as she isn’t a pure-bred Korat Cat. She is very affectionate and smart also,” the lady informed us. Jorani extended a finger for the cat to sniff, and it cautiously moved up and sniffed her before meowing. I could feel Jorani checking her with my Magic senses.

“Yes, I think this is the right cat. I will call her Si-Sawat,” she said before she and Mother went to do the paperwork to adopt the cat. They, of course, didn’t have her neutered. We have a spell to prevent our Familiars from getting pregnant until it was necessary to have more Familiars.

My Familiar, Bill, was very excited when we returned home, but Si-Sawat, the Female cat, was afraid of him and his aggressive behavior.

“No!” Jorani told him, and he backed off, aware that she was the Dragon Queen of the East and a very powerful Magic user.

The next morning, while I was at work, Mother and Jorani took Si Sawat into the large parlor together.

“As the Dragon Queen of the East, I believe that you are strong enough to be here and to hear everything involved in creating a Familiar. You will need to know how to do this for your daughters’ Familiars,” Mother told her. Both of the Dragon Queens of Old from the East and the West were present in their Medallions.

After changing the large parlor to the configuration for doing Major Magic, Mother began. The Lines were nearly dry for several hours that morning, but eventually they finished, and the parlor was returned to its normal appearance. When Si-Sawat awoke, Mother informed her of her new status.

“You are now the Familiar of Jorani, the Dragon Queen of the East. Go with her and obey her,” she told the new Familiar. Jorani picked up her new Familiar and held her to calm her for a time. Bill was allowed into the parlor then, and the two cats sniffed each other before going off for Bill to tell her about being a Familiar. (See the more lengthy description of this in Broken Witch, chapter 9)

Jorani explained all of this to me in detail when I returned from work that day, but she didn’t go into the spells used, which are very powerful.

Jorani needed to stay in her Dragon form for a good part of the day now, so she could get around. When we had time, we went to the Demon-lands here to fly. She wasn’t impressed with the Demon-lands, and preferred the Dragon-lands instead. She had become very adept at flying and enjoyed it greatly. Sometimes, she would go with Mom or my Sisters when I was busy but never alone.

Nearly a month had passed before we returned to the Nest in Tibet. We needed to check on conditions in Lhasa and learn what the Chinese government was up to. Tsepak was startled when I appeared in the office where we had deposited the foreign delicacies.

“You’re back!” he said on recovering.

“We are back for a short time. How are things going? Has there been trouble?” I asked.

“The various government agencies have recovered and received new computers and equipment. The police are still busy guarding them. The government is constantly busy telling everyone that the Dragons are gone. Some are starting to believe them,” he told me.

“It sounds like they need a strong reminder. What is the Army doing?” I asked.

“The Army moved many of their people to a new camp further from the city. Those remaining are on guard a lot. They keep many men on guard day and night even in the worst weather,” he told me.

“Are they still working with the police?” I asked.

“No, but they have brought in more police from other cities,” he told me.

“Do you know if the Army or the police have a radar working? We need to know if we are going to fly again,” I told him.

“I have no idea, but why would you need to fly? Can’t you move like you did before?” he asked.

“Yes, we can, but my wife likes to fly,” I told him with a smile. We had brought a radar detector with us. Doreen, my genius equipment Sister, had acquired one from a source she knew. I later learned that it had been Bob the Demon who had facilitated the acquisition. It seems that he had moved up in the Demon world since working with my Mother.

“Tell your people to remain out of sight tomorrow. We will be active then,” I warned him before vanishing. I had inspected the corridors before visiting Tsepak. They had not been disturbed from the way that we had left them. From there, I returned to the Nest to spend the day planning with Jorani and to get to sleep early that evening. We would be starting early in the morning.

We left the Nest for the corridors just after 4:30 in the morning. From the corridors, we took to the air to fly for a time for the simple reason that Jorani wanted to. I had the radar detector with me, but it produced no signal, and no helicopter or aircraft appeared to spoil our flight. We flew around the Red Mountain several times before landing near the food warehouse while invisible. We needn’t have worried. There were still police on guard there, but they were sitting in their vehicles under the flood lights around the building. They had no night vision because of the lights.

We transferred into the building still in our Dragon form. It was only moderately full, so we only liberated a quarter of its contents, sending them to the corridors to be dispersed later. From there, we transferred to the area near the Department of Public Security. Our previous visit had left it in ruins, though it wasn’t our fault. We could see that there had been a lot of recent construction there and part of it was still underway. We cast Mom’s improved property wards around the area before transferring, while still invisible, to the completed buildings. There, we cast the improved house ward around them along with the spell to cut off their electricity. The spells would last for three days.

From there we flew back to Red Mountain to await the start of the workday for government employees. While waiting, we had a snack prepared on one of the old heaters in a workroom. We also rearranged the food we had liberated into orders ready to be delivered.

About 8:30 that morning, we transferred, still in our Dragon forms but invisible, to the area near the office of the Regional Government. On appearing there, we could see that the area was still heavily guarded. On transferring to the top of the large government building, we cast the improved property wards about 50 feet (15 meters) out from the building on all sides of it before casting the improved house ward around the building itself, but left the power on this time.

Following that, we transferred to the Municipal Government’s building, and then the Chengguan District’s building and did the same thing. We had set the Region’s wards to last three days and the others to last two days. Having finished what we intended to do for the day, we returned to the corridors and then the Nest.

We were out again that night and visited the Department of Construction, the Department of Communications, and the Chinese language TV station to do the same things that we had to the others. We also cut the power to all three locations. Their wards would last two days.

Later that morning, I transferred to the office that Tsepak appeared to be in charge of.

“You have everyone in the government annoyed and upset again,” he told me on my appearing there. “You did all three government headquarters buildings in one night!” he added in surprise.

“Yes, plus the food warehouse. Last night we did several other facilities,” I told him.

“You have food?” the Black-marketeer asked in surprise to a smile from me.

“Are the three locations that we used previously still able to receive shipments?” I asked him next.

“Yes, food is in short supply this time of year,” he assured me.

“We will only be here for a few more days this time. The locations need to be ready to receive a good bit of food,” I told him.

“That’s not a problem. The shortages are very severe this year,” he told me before I left.

The next morning, Jorani and I moved a third of what we had liberated to the three stores. Over the next two days, we delivered the rest of it.

All of the wards around the government facilities had expired by then, and the senior officials raged and stormed about the police and the Army not being able to prevent things like that from happening. We returned to Atlanta after a week.