Chapter 17

The following new character appears in this chapter:

Christopher (Chris)

Dragon Security employee, 5’-10’’ tall, 155 pounds, 26 years old, brown hair, blue eyes and a good Talent

On the way out of the Nest, I had a question for Maddy.

“We know an address and the general vicinity of the house, but how do we find it? Are you familiar with the East Point / College Park area?” I asked her.

“No, we have very seldom gone there. We’ll make a stop at Dragon Security. They have large scale maps of the entire Atlanta area. They’ll be able to tell us exactly where we need to go and how to get there,” she told me.

We transferred from the platform at the Nest’s entrance directly to the parking lot of the Dragon Security headquarters building. I helped Sara with the transfer, as she hadn’t been there before, and she was still learning how to transfer.

On entering the building, we went directly up to the third floor. Sara had been looking around at everything wide-eyed and had trouble keeping up with the rest of us, as Maddy set a fast pace. On the third floor, she approached the shift supervisor and spoke to him for a minute or so.

“Right this way,” he told her and led the way to the far end of the floor and to a somewhat less busy set of computer consoles and operators. He called one of the men over to us.

“Christopher, we need to speak to you for a few minutes,” he told the young man.

“Adam, would you watch my console for a few minutes?” the young man asked the man next to him before joining us.

“This is Christopher. He deals with the retail companies that we have contracts with in the East Point / College Park area. Most of the customers in that area are large industrial companies, but we do have some retail customers there also,” the shift supervisor told us. “He is usually called Chris,” he added.

Christopher was an average looking young man of about 26 years old. He was about 5’-10’’ tall, maybe 155 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes and had a good Talent. He seemed a bit startled to have the Dragon Queen of the West herself and her daughters at his station in addition to the Queen of the East and some strange man. Maddy took the lead. Well, it is her company after all.

“Christopher, we need to go to...,” and she gave him the address. “It’s off of Washington Road in the East Point / College Park area. Do we have any customers in that area and is there any transportation available there?” she asked.

Chris smiled and led us over to the large map near his station. He quickly located the street that we needed to go to off of Washington Road. I noticed that there were very few pins in the map in that area. Chris frowned looking at the map.

“That’s not our best area for customers. There are a lot of small businesses and churches in that area, but they don’t usually have a contract for security with anyone. Most of them are small, family run businesses,” he told us before looking up or north on the map. There was a pin near the perimeter highway and another major road.

“It looks like Greenbriar Mall will be the closest that I will be able to get you to where you want to go,” he told us.

“Weren’t they recently refurbished?” Dallas asked.

“Yes, they reopened early last year after the Mall was renovated and updated. They had been closed for over nine months. There had been talk about demolishing the old mall and building a newer facility, but it was decided to upgrade the existing building. Those in the area were opposed to tearing it down. It’s been a landmark for a long time,” he told us and was apparently very familiar with the area.

“What about transportation from there? It looks like a good ways from the mall to where we need to go,” Maddy asked. Chris smiled again.

“It won’t be a problem, Ma’am. I know a local taxi service. They can pick you up at the mall and take you to where you need to go,” he assured us.

“All of us?” she asked in a speculative voice.

“They have a number of vans and can easily carry all six of you in one van,” Chris told her. “I can call them now and arrange for them to pick you up in front of Greenbriar Mall,” he added.

“Yes, that would be fine,” Maddy told him. Picking up his cell phone, he made the call.

“Antonio, this is Chris. I need a van to pick up some people that work with me at Greenbriar Mall and take them to an address off of Washington Road. They will be paying cash for the service,” Chris told the person on the phone.

“How many people ... five or six,” he told the contact who must have said something else from the way Chris smiled.

“Yes, they work for Dragon Security. Right, thanks Antonio,” he said and finished the call.

“The van should be at the front of the mall in fifteen minutes or so,” he told us. “He asked if you were real employees,” he added with a smile.

“Hmm ... maybe just the five of you should go,” Sara told us. “I’d like to remain here and look around. I didn’t know that you had such a large administrative and accounting staff,” she continued. She had been talking to the shift supervisor while we were busy with Chris.

“That would be perfectly alright, dear,” Maddy told her with a smile. “We shouldn’t be too long, and we’ll pick you up before we decide what else to do,” she continued. Sara went with the shift supervisor to check things out, especially the admin and accounting area apparently.

In the meantime, Chris was eyeing the rest of us somewhat nervously.

“I never tried to transfer six people at the same time before,” he told us.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dallas told him. “We’ll all join hands, and you only need to think about where we are going and cast the spell. We’ll add sufficient Magic to take everyone along,” she added with a smile for him.

“Right, let’s go out to the parking lot. We’re going to need a lot of Magic for this, and they don’t like us to disturb the equipment in here,” he told us. A second later, we all appeared out on the parking lot.

We all joined hands there, and Chris cast the transfer spell. A second later, we appeared on a different parking lot. There was a large building behind us. Being new to Atlanta, I knew nothing about it, but it looked very modern to me. The others hadn’t said anything by the time the taxi van arrived, so they may not have given any thought to the appearance of the building.

Dallas told the driver where we needed to go. It was a couple of blocks from the actual address that we were interested in. That would give us time to recon the area and determine the best approach to the house. The driver said very little to us, but delivered us to where she had told him in a reasonably short time. Chris had returned to work as we got in the taxi.

After we had paid the driver and were out of the taxi, it quickly disappeared, as apparently he had another fare to pick up. The driver had pulled off of Washington Road which is two lanes in each direction and on to the street that Dallas had told him was our destination which was only two lanes wide. We looked around at the nondescript homes along the street with no interest, as this wasn’t our real destination.

“There’s not much to recommend the area,” Dallas said after looking at the houses along the street, but I was ready to move on to the reason that we were here.

“I believe that I should conduct the initial reconnaissance, as I have a lot more experience with that than the rest of you,” I told the four women.

“Alright, but what do we do in the meantime?” Maddy agreed while looking around again. There wasn’t a lot to see or do, and four women just standing around would draw someone’s attention quickly, especially dressed the way they were in expensive clothes.

“There is a small store up the street on Washington Road, and a church a bit further up from that I noticed on the way here,” I told them to looks of disappointment, but there really wasn’t much else for them to do in this area, which was mainly housing.

“I’m going with Nick as his backup and to watch his back,” Doreen announced in a determined voice. The others didn’t disagree. I had heard and read stories about Doreen when she was upset. You didn’t disagree with her, as she is a very determined and competent lady, so I agreed. The two of us set out down Washington Road while the others headed in the opposite direction to check out the store.

“How do you want to do this?” Doreen asked once we were alone.

“We’ll cast the Invisibility spell before we get close to the correct street. We’ll need to separate, and I’ll check the area for lookouts and guards. There are sure to be some of each. This Cartel has been in business for a long time, and they would be sure to take those precautions, if for nothing else than for the police,” I told her.

“I want you to keep an eye out for anyone arriving in a vehicle. We don’t need any surprises, like reinforcements,” I told her.

We cast the Invisibility spell when there was no traffic on the main road, and moved quietly down to the street that the truck driver had told us the Cartel lieutenant had a house on. On the way, I noticed that there were several teens, both male and female, standing or sitting around with little to do but talk on their phones.

“Lookouts,” I whispered to Doreen after we had passed them.

On the street where the house was located, there were more lookouts and guards. They weren’t on their phones and were paying attention to anyone who entered the area or moved about in it. The houses here were newer and larger than those on the street where we had arrived.

Leaving Doreen near the intersection of the two streets, I moved around the area checking on those posted as lookouts and guards. It wasn’t hard to identify the house belonging to the Cartel. It was larger than the others and had a recent garish paint job. There was a Mercedes and a BMW parked in the driveway. After checking the entire area around the house plus the entire street, I returned to Doreen’s location. She had moved, but I could locate her by her Talent even though she was still invisible.

“I’ve neutralized the lookouts and guards,” I told her quietly.

“I felt you using Magic, but I couldn’t tell what you were doing. Are they all dead?” she asked with a bit of a smile.

“Nothing that serious was necessary. I used a Sleep spell on most of them. That way if someone checks on them, or they are relieved, they are only asleep. A Freeze spell would be an obvious indicator that someone had been here. Being asleep will probably get them into enough trouble,” I told her with a chuckle.

“I counted four lookouts and a guard,” she said following that.

“Four lookouts and two guards,” I corrected her.

“Two guards?” she asked.

“One is no longer alive. It was necessary. Let’s find the others. I cast a marker at the front of the house, and we can all appear there,” I told her before we transferred back to the street where we had arrived. The others were easy to locate by their Talents, and we quickly joined them at the church they were looking at.

When we arrived, Maddy was explaining to Jorani about the multitude of various denominations in the Christian religion. Jorani didn’t appear to be terribly interested in the differences among the various sects. Maddy stopped as we approached.

“All finished?” she asked, as we joined them.

“Everything taken care of. We need to strike now before there are any guard changes, or something else occurs, They will be expecting a call from the driver, as you mentioned. I cast a marker at the front of the house. We’ll need to move a little closer for all of us to pick it up,” I told her.

“Alright, let’s move closer, and then we’ll transfer as a group to get everyone there at the same time. Dallas, you and Doreen cast a ward around the house and property as soon as we are all inside.” Maddy directed, taking charge.

After moving back to our original location, I located the marker as we joined hands and then cast the transfer spell. A second later, we all appeared in front of the garishly painted house. The two cars were still in the driveway. Moving onto the porch, we found the front door not only locked but it had a bar across it on the inside. A blast of Magic from my right hand quickly removed the obstacle. An alarm started sounding as we quickly moved into the house. We already had our wards around us and weren’t worried. I cast a Freeze spell on those in the house, while Dallas and Doreen were casting the Defensive Shell spell around the house and the property. Maddy found the alarm system and blasted it. The house was silent within fifteen seconds of our entering.

“We’ll need to search the house room by room. Blast any doors that are locked. We’ll sort out those here after everything is secured,” I told the others taking charge again. We spread out and went through the house. The women took the first floor and the second floor. I took the basement.

The basement door was metal and quite substantial. It was not, however, designed to be resistant to Magic, and I had the locking mechanism off with a cutting beam from my right middle finger in no time. I had discovered some time ago, quite by accident actually, that I could not only use Magic to blast things, but with a bit of thought, I could direct the Magic to cut things, especially metal objects, so that I didn’t need to blast them all of the time with the resultant noise and mess.

On going down the stairs, the basement proved to be quite interesting. There was an area with desks, computers, and printers. Near them was a large safe. It was large enough that it had twin doors that could be swung open to reveal its entire contents. There was also a large storage area and an armory. The computers weren’t of great interest to me, but Doreen could look at them later.

The safe, on the other hand, was of great interest. It was large, being some five feet wide, six feet plus tall, and a bit over two and a half feet deep. It was, however, no challenge to me to open it. After cutting out the locking mechanism, I cut the doors open by running the cutting beam down where they met. I needed to be careful, as I didn’t want to destroy what was in the safe.

On opening the doors, I found what I suspected it contained. Money ... lots and lots of money along with some papers. They were probably important papers, or they wouldn’t be kept in the safe. I quickly sent all of the safe’s contents to the Timeless Zone. We could examine the papers and split up the money later at our leisure.

The storage area was defined by chain link fencing walls that went up to the floor joists above. It was only designed to keep those with sticky fingers out. It held a number of various kinds of drugs: coke, marijuana, and Sentinel among others. Since I had no use for drugs, I set a Fire spell in there on stand by. After we left, I would activate it. I would also make sure that the basement door was wedged open so the fire would spread quickly to the entire house.

Lastly, there was another cage that held the armory. There were some two dozen AK-47s, a dozen Uzi style submachine guns, and numerous pistols, along with their magazines and ammunition. There were also explosives similar to C-4 and Semtex, a few hand grenades and some incendiary devices. I set another Fire spell between the ammunition and the incendiary devices. At the very back of the basement, there was another steel door. This one was made of armor plate and was four feet wide. It was obviously intended as a delivery entrance for the drugs and other things kept in the basement. With a little judicious use of the cutting ability, I managed to weld the door to its frame in a couple of places.