Chapter 14

The following characters reappear from previous stories in this chapter:

Botum (Princess)

Craig and Jorani’s first daughter, 4’-5’’ tall, 69 pounds, 10 years old, long shiny black hair, violet eyes, very cute

Daeva (Angel)

Craig and Jorani’s second daughter, 4’-5’’ tall, 68 pounds, 10 years old, long shiny black hair, violet eyes, very cute

Maly (Blossom)

Craig and Jorani’s third daughter, 4’-5’’ tall, 68 pounds, 10 years old, long shiny black hair, violet eyes, very cute

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 were as black as coal

Around noontime, Steve and Dallas came by, and Steve wanted to take me and Sara to the Dragon Security Headquarters here in Atlanta to see how things operated, and to see if we would be interested in running the proposed branch office in North Charleston. I was interested in seeing how they operated, but Sara wasn’t at this time.

“You go ahead and see what it looks like. I’ll go at a later time. I’m more interested in studying for now,” she told me. I had gotten books from the safe to show Maddy earlier, and book 4 was what Sara was now studying.

After Dallas had passed Steve and me through the Nesting Ward, I was expecting to drive to the headquarters building. I was mistaken in this.

“We can just transfer from here,” Steve told me and gripping my hand, he cast the transfer spell. We appeared in a rather large but mostly empty parking lot of a modern five story office building with blue exterior glass walls. I looked around at everything before saying anything. I could detect the Defensive Ward around the property, but it was obvious that it wasn’t a sphere. There was also a very strong ward around the building itself. I turned back to look at Steve.

“Nice building, but the parking lot appears to be a bit of a waste,” I told him.

“It came with the building. The former owners had a lot of employees, and they all drove to work. We keep the vehicles here that we use to travel to new locations or for other things involving travel where it would be inconvenient to transfer. Nearly all of our employees transfer to work. A few of the newer ones need to drive here for a time anyway,” Steve told me before we turned to the building and entered it.

“You have a variation of the Defensive Ward around the property,” I said to Steve as I looked around the lobby of the ground floor of the building.

“Yes, that was necessary because of the shape of the property. Originally, the elliptical variation was created to be used around the property where the grown Kavanagh children have their houses. It isn’t square either,” he told me with a grin.

“Just where do you and the others live?” I asked.

“Oh, our houses are just across the road from Maddy’s house and property. She bought two of the houses and land there shortly after she became the Dragon Queen, because no one wanted to live near her. There was a lot going on when she first became Queen,” he told me.

“You said two houses. Aren’t there three grown children?” I asked.

“Originally there were two houses with an empty area between them. When Craig married Jorani, Maddy bought more land behind the original houses from a farmer. Their house was built there. It’s very similar to Maddy’s but larger. Craig and Jorani have three daughters – triplets. They also had a son, later,” he told me.

“WOW ... triplets, that’s a whole family in one go,” I said with a smile.

“Jorani had her triplets a couple of days after Maddy had Deidre. There were four newborns in their house, but things worked out okay,” Steve told me with another grin.

“So what do you do with five floors? Do you have that many customers?” I asked.

“Operations is on the third and fourth floors. The first two floors are admin and accounting. You wouldn’t believe how many accountants and admin people we have. Fortunately, many of them are the girlfriends or wives of our other employees. The fifth floor has the executive offices and maintenance and repair, plus the break room and the cafeteria,” he told me.

“Doreen is in charge of maintenance and repair of the electronic equipment. She has a couple of assistants who take care of normal building maintenance, plus we have contracts for other major maintenance problems. Dallas is still in charge of customer relations. She also now has a couple of assistants,” he explained.

We spent a few minutes in the admin and accounting areas before going up to the operations area. There were a large number of young near-Dragons and some Dragons in the operations areas. There were many rows of computer stations and a number of large maps. It being early afternoon, things were fairly quiet. Steve introduced me to the shift managers on duty on each floor. They have three shifts, and at least two managers for each shift. Following observing their operations for a time, we went up to the fifth floor.

“These are the executive offices,” Steve told me pointing to six separate offices. None of them were overly large.

“Behind them is the break room and the cafeteria,” he told me, and we moved in that direction. There were a number of employees in the break area. Their conversations died down when they saw us enter.

“May I have your attention for a few minutes?” Steve asked, and they all turned toward us.

“Some of you may have heard a rumor about the company establishing a branch office in the Charleston, South Carolina area. WE are looking at such an expansion. With me is Mr. Nicolae Maier, whom we are considering for the job of Manager of that office. He is here today and will be here for a number of days to see how we operate and to learn everything that is involved with running a branch office. Don’t be surprised to see him in the building checking on things,” Steve told them but paused. “Are there any questions?” he added. One young man with a strong Talent stood to ask a question or rather make a statement.

“You are a Dragon already, but how long have you been a Dragon?” he asked with a smirk. I was sure that he was expecting the answer to be only a short time.

“I became a Dragon in the early 1600s,” I told him and heard many of those in the room gasp in shock at this answer. It was obviously not the answer the young man was expecting, as he blanched and hurriedly sat down.

“But that would have been over four hundred and fifty years ago!” a very pretty but shocked young woman managed to say after a minute or so.

“Yes, just a bit over four hundred fifty years ago,” I told her with a smile.

“But you don’t look that old,” another young man objected. Steve smiled at him and answered for me.

“Nicolae is much older than that. He was born in 927 A.D.,” Steve told them to even more looks of shock and surprise.

“But ... but that was over eleven hundred years ago!” the same very pretty young woman exclaimed on recovering.

“Yes it was,” I answered. “I was 75 years old when I died for the first time fighting invaders and came back to life an hour or so later looking ten years younger and all of my wounds had healed,” I told them.

“The first time?” a sharp young man asked after more silence.

“I’ve died five or six times over the centuries before I learned sufficient Magic to avoid that. It’s difficult to keep track of exactly how many times I was killed,” I told them. No one said anything for several minutes as they digested all that they had learned. Steve smiled at the silence.

“We’ll leave you to your meals and break time,” he said shortly after that, and we turned and walked back to the executive offices. We never did look at the computer maintenance area.

“We each have a separate office, and sometimes we even get to use them when things are running well. Dad, Keith, and I all pull shifts when there aren’t any other things keeping us busy,” he told me with a grin.

“Things like going to Charleston?” I asked.

“Yes, that or other Dragon related things. There are also some political activities that we need to keep track of. Little things, like some politician wanting to hit us with a special tax in their city, county, or even the state government. We can cast a very big shadow when we need to,” he told me, as we entered what was obviously his office. It was sparsely furnished. There was a desk, a couple of chairs, and a small filing cabinet. There were two baskets and a picture of Dallas and their children on the desk. The baskets were marked ‘IN’ and ‘Out’. Steve didn’t look at them, but indicated the chairs and we sat.

“What do you think of the operation so far?” he asked.

“I think I will have a lot to learn to be able to run an office anything like this one,” I told him.

“The startup in Charleston will be a good bit smaller than what you see here. Maddy and Ken started with only a dozen or so near-Dragons to help them. The business has grown substantially in the last thirty years or so,” he told me.

“Is this your second or third building then?” I asked.

“No, this is the building they started in, as they had planned ahead. There was a lot of empty space back then,” he said with a chuckle. “There was still some empty space when I moved up here from the Miami office after meeting Dallas,” he told me before changing the subject.

“You may want to get back to the house. You can become more familiar with the operation later. There are still a number of details to be taken care of before a final decision is made about Charleston,” he told me.

“Maddy said that they were looking into how to get the books printed. I’ll try to lend a hand with that, since I am somewhat familiar with older printing methods,” I told him. Steve escorted me down to the parking lot, and I transferred to the parking area near Maddy’s house where my car was parked. Dallas arrived there shortly and passed me through the Nesting Ward.

On returning to the house, I found that Sara had become very popular. There were three new girls there in addition to Deirdre. They all appeared to be the same age, and they were gathered around Sara laughing and giggling when I entered the small parlor. Sara was the first to notice me.

“Nick come over and meet Jorani’s three daughters,” she called. As I moved toward her, the triplets backed up and moved closer together.

“This is Blossom, Angel, and Princess, Jorani’s daughters. Those are the translations of their names from Cambodian,” she told me pointing to each of the daughters as she named them. “They and Deirdre are just ready to start studying the Guardian’s First Book. They were amazed that we had a set of the books. Could they use our set, so they don’t need to return the Book they are working on each day to the Nest?” she asked.

“They can’t keep any of the Books at their house?” I asked.

“No, apparently the Guardian is very strict about where the Books are used, and who uses them,” Sara told me. I was somewhat uneasy about this request.

“Where would they use our books, or at least the book they are working on?” I asked.

“They would use it here in the Dragon Queen’s house. They have a study room upstairs,” she told me.

“Alright, they can use them here. I’m sure that Maddy will be able to protect whichever book they are working on. How are you doing on book 4?” I asked.

“I’m having a hard time believing in these Demons. The girls have assured me that they are real, and that their Mothers have used Demons on a number of occasions for different things. They also told me that they aren’t as fearsome as the book makes them out to be, at least, not when dealing with Dragons,” she told me with a smile.

“I’ll get the first book out and give it to Maddy. She will decide when they are allowed to use it,” I told Sara. The girls’ faces had brightened when I agreed to allow them to use the books, but their smiles had faded when I mentioned the Dragon Queen. We were interrupted following that by Maddy’s arrival.

“Good news,” she said with a smile on seeing all of us together, “Dr. Graham has agreed to see Sara tomorrow. Her receptionist sent some forms over the Internet for Sara to fill out. The appointment is for 1:00 in the afternoon,” Maddy told us and handed some papers to Sara.

“I have agreed to allow the young ladies to start using my set of the books to study. I will bring the first book to you, and you can determine when they may use it,” I told Maddy.

“Thank you. It was a bit inconvenient to always need to go to the Nest to retrieve one of the Books, and then to return it after a set time when someone was studying,” she told me, but had a question.

“Will you be going with Sara to see Dr. Graham?” she asked.

“Most definitely. I want to meet someone who is as old as I am. I’ve never found anyone that old before,” I told her. Following that, I called the safe to me from the Timeless Zone and removed the first book in the series and handed it to Maddy. The girls had been watching this closely, while Sara had started filling out the forms.

“What address should I use?” she asked after we had finished.

“Use my address, as you are staying here. You can also indicate your address and phone number in Charleston,” Maddy told her, and gave her the address of her house. In the meantime, the young women were practically bouncing off the walls in anticipation of seeing the first book. Maddy handed it to Deirdre.