Chapter 13

The following character appears in this chapter:

Aarush

Indian jewelry merchant, never actually seen, only communicated with by email and phone

Actually, it was two weeks rather than the ten days before we heard from Mom’s contact in Mumbai. He finally sent us an email. It started out fine but didn’t end well. It started like the previous one had.

“My dear Maddy, all of the merchandise that you sent has finally been sold, and the money for it has been received. Call me as soon as you can, even at night. There may be a problem,” the email said and ended with a telephone number.

“What could have gone wrong?” Mom asked calmly, but she sounded upset. “I’m not sure what the time difference is between here and India, but he did say call as soon as you can,” she told us.

“Perhaps you should call from Dragon Security. The phones there are more secure,” Dad reminded her.

“That sounds like a good idea,” she agreed. “You and Craig come with me. If there really is a problem, one of you may need to go to India to solve it,” she added, before we all transferred to the management offices at Dragon Security.

Mom punched in the international number from the email. The phone rang several times before it was answered.

“This is Madailein Kavanagh calling from the United States. I need to speak to Mr. Aarush,” she said.

“Just a minute, please,” we heard, as Mom had put the phone on speaker once she got through.

“Maddy, this is Aarush. I’m glad that you called so promptly,” we heard a man’s voice say with an Indian accent.

“The sales went very well. The total is two million, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, American. I was very nervous about keeping it all in my vault, and had considered hiring additional guards, but I was afraid that might alert someone to their being even more valuable merchandise than we usually keep here,” he explained in a worried voice before continuing.

“I called the number given me by those who delivered the merchandise. Several hours later, four men arrived to pick up the money. They were not the same people who had delivered the merchandise,” he continued in an even more worried tone of voice.

“The one was a tall Sikh from Kashmir. I could tell from his accent that he was from there. The other three men were Chinese, but they were much younger than those who brought the merchandise but not that young. They had the agreed upon password and the sign, but I’m worried they may have stolen the money. No one else, even my most trusted employees, knew the password or the sign. I have no idea how someone could have learned it,” Aarush finished in a very worried voice.

“Don’t worry, Aarush. Those three men, who you called Chinese, are Dragons. They can easily change their appearance. Also, if they had been thieves, and the Dragons learned they had stolen their money or anything else of theirs, they would use all of their considerable power to recover what was theirs and deal with those who had stolen it. Believe me, no one would want to be in that much trouble,” Mom assured him before thanking him for handling the sale of the jewels. After wishing him continued good health and success in business, they hung up. Mom had some words for us.

“In a week or so, we need to go to Tibet to check on how things are going and to make sure that it was Virupaksha and his associates that picked up the money. We also need to see that they are spending it wisely,” she informed us.

We all relaxed for the next week plus before preparing to return to the Nest in Tibet again, or we tried to.

There were still our jobs at Dragon Security to be taken care of, so we weren’t entirely free. Some of us had been away doing other things over the last year and a half or so. Everyone was glad to have the full crew back for a while at least.

During this time, I went to inspect the progress on our new house. I had been sorely remiss in checking on it for most of the summer. Its construction had not been without challenges for those working on it. Because of the wards around all of our properties, there had been no free access to the building site. At first, my Sisters had helped with access by the workers and the vehicles delivering material. As we became busier with other things, this had become more difficult.

The overall contractor arranged for the delivery of two trailers for the work crews to live in so they didn’t need to go home every night. WE made sure that they were taken care of for food and other things. They would go home on the weekends. The entire Clan had made sure that they received the materials they needed, and that other workmen such as plumbers, electricians, roofers, and carpenters had access to the property when they were needed.

The house is brick, but not the usual brick veneer that you mostly see today. No, this house was solid brick with sixteen inch thick (40 cm) exterior walls and six inch (15 cm) stud walls on the inside. The exterior of the building was mostly finished and the roof was on it. Many of the windows had been installed. On the interior, the rough floors had been installed on the ground level and the second story. All of the framing for interior walls had also been installed. The electricians and the plumbers had installed their lines and machinery before the plasterers had started putting plaster on the walls. This is where the current problem was.

Mother had insisted on plaster for all of the interior walls and ceilings. There would be no ’Drywall’ used in the house of the Queen of the East. Plaster is applied in several wet coats, all of which need to dry. This is a bit of a problem with Atlanta’s hot, humid summer weather. There were large fans running all of the time to keep the air moving in the house, but plaster takes its own good time drying.

Since the walls of all of the rooms and their ceilings needed to be plastered, the workers moved from room to room applying each coat or layer of plaster. By the time, they had covered all of the rooms and their ceilings, the plaster in the first rooms had dried sufficiently for the next finer coat of plaster. There were three layers or coats, so it is a slow process. This is why wallboard or drywall is used in most buildings and houses today. It’s much faster and can be installed by normal workers.

Until the plasterers were finished, the interior trim, the finished flooring, and the cabinets couldn’t be installed. The electricians and plumbers couldn’t finish their work either. There just wasn’t any way to make the job go faster when you used real plaster.

As it turned out, this wasn’t the problem that it at first appeared to be, as another problem soon appeared to require our attention. This new problem was protesters. People, a lot of people, appeared protesting the presence of Dragons, not only here in the United States but all over the world. Many of them had come to Atlanta to make their unhappiness with Dragons known. It all started with simultaneous demonstrations at Stone Mountain, Dragon Security, and our homes.

On seeing them arrive at Stone Mountain Park, the Queens in the Jewel immediately expanded the Nesting Ward around the Stone Mountain Nest to include the entire mountain, trapping a number of people inside of the Ward. This upset those running the Park.

I was on duty at Dragon Security at the time, and as soon as I saw the demonstrators assembling with their signs, I brought up Doreen’s Ward to reinforce our regular wards which included the Perimeter ward around the building’s entire parking area, and the modified House ward around the building itself. The demonstrators couldn’t get past any of our wards as they had no Magic or Talents. This aggravated them greatly. They did parade around the exterior of our wards chanting and carrying signs. They created quite a disturbance on Pleasant Hill Road which is always thick with traffic. Additionally, not all of the repairs of the damage from the tanks had been completed yet, causing even larger tie ups to traffic.

Having secured Dragon Security, I alerted those on duty to the problem before transferring home to alert the rest of the Clan to the problem. On arriving, I discovered that they were already aware of it. All of the adults in the Clan were already gathered in the large parlor at Mom’s house when I arrived. Doreen was the one speaking.

“What idiot thought up this bullshit?” she was demanding in an upset voice.

“While I haven’t checked, I can surmise that it could be the Chinese and possibly the Iranians plus any number of others who are unhappy with us. That includes members of the U.S. government and their supporters,” Mom told her and the others.

“Additionally, I had an alert from the Queens in the Jewel that there are a number of people trapped in the expanded Nesting Ward around Stone Mountain presently. That can be dealt with later when we have finished with those here.

“It appears that there is quite a large group of protesters that have surrounded all of our locations. I have no idea what they think they will accomplish by doing that. It certainly won’t keep us from doing what we normally do, however, it will be a distraction. I have already called the Sheriff to complain, but he says there is nothing he can do until they cause trouble. He is already setting up a detour around our properties.

“When I asked why he couldn’t do anything, he said that as long as they were peaceful, he couldn’t interfere. WE don’t have that problem,” Mom said but didn’t go any further ... then.

“They’re making a lot of noise with their chanting. They woke my Son before I left, and I had to get him back to sleep,” Dallas complained.

“You could use the reverse Silence spell to keep the noise out,” Mom reminded her Daughter.

“That’s what I did, but I shouldn’t have to do that in my own home,” Dallas told her in aggravation. Mom only smiled.

“While the Sheriff can’t do anything, we most certainly can. The weather report calls for rain this afternoon. I’m fairly certain that those outside our wards protesting will want to leave before it starts. That is, they would if they are able to move. I propose that we keep them from leaving and allow them to stand out in the rain. They can leave after it stops raining,” Mom told us with a smile.

Dallas and Doreen transferred to Stone Mountain to release those trapped inside the expanded Nesting Ward after bringing their Sons here for Mom and Jorani to watch while they were gone. Meanwhile, Dad, Steve, Keith, and I got together to organize the freeze spells that we would be using to keep the protesters out in the rain.

“We don’t want to use the total Freeze spell on them. A partial on just their feet and legs would be much better. That way they will be able enjoy the rain the entire time its falling,” Dad advised us, but he had more to say.

“Look for the leaders at each site. We’ll take them to the Nest in Stone Mountain to question them. The ones on the picket lines are probably only following orders and aren’t the real leaders who set this thing up. They probably know who the real leaders are, and we can visit them later. The Truth spell is very effective for learning things. We can leave them in Stone Mountain or send them to the Timeless Zone while we visit their leaders,” Dad told us. He would take care of those at Stone Mountain. Steve had those around our houses, and Keith and I would take care of those around Dragon Security. We would all keep an eye, or rather an ear, on the weather report app from our favorite news station.

The news station’s app was very good at keeping us informed of the progress of the storm that afternoon. Keith and I used the partial Freeze spell on the two sides of our property that abutted other buildings first, as they had the fewest protesters. Following that, we hit those on the other two sides of our property where the roads were plus the majority of the protesters. We had been watching them with the video cameras on the roof of our building and had easily picked out their leaders. After freezing all of them in place, we waited a short time, so they were all good and wet before we collected those we believed to be the leaders at our location. We made sure to use the total freeze spell on them, so they didn’t see the interior of our building or any of our employees.

Once the weather app indicated that the storm had reached the Stone Mountain area, we transferred them and us there. Mom was waiting inside the Nesting Ward for us, and she moved us and our prisoners through the Ward. Dad and his prisoners were already in there. Mom opened the Nest, and Dad, Keith, and I transferred our prisoners and ourselves up into the Nest. Steve and his two prisoners soon arrived. Jorani had come with him. Dallas and Doreen had stayed at Mom’s house to watch all of the babies and young children. Once we were all there, we went down to the Queen’s area with our prisoners.

The rain lasted for a good hour all across Atlanta before it began to taper off. It slowly ended starting to the west of the city and moving east, just as it had started. When it had stopped raining in the Stone Mountain area, we canceled the partial Freeze spell on the protesters at all three sites. They were all soaked through by the cold rain which had also cooled off the city, taking it from 86 degrees to 69 degrees in less than an hour. This left most of them shivering in their soggy clothing.

There were no buses to take them back to the city, as they had left during the storm. Most of their cell phones were as soggy as their owners were and no longer worked. Their banners and signs were also a soggy mess. They didn’t even miss their leaders but did try to locate some transportation, but there was little available. Firstly, they weren’t IN the city, but OUT in the suburbs. There were few taxis and only a couple of buses that ran intermittently. To make it worse, people were getting off from work now and the streets plus the interstate were jammed with traffic. A few of the protesters managed to get their phones working after a time and tried to call friends. However, most of them were from places other than Atlanta, and they didn’t know anyone locally.

Naturally, the protests had drawn the attention of the media. Quite a number of reporters from the various radio and television stations had appeared near Dragon Security to cover the story, as it had the largest demonstration. A minor number of reporters were covering the ones at Stone Mountain Park and at our houses. The reporters interviewed a number of the demonstrators as they marched back and forth around our sites and chanted.