Chapter 9

The following characters appear in this chapter:

Wlotrzewiszczykowycki

Polack’s actual last name. The reason he was known as alphabet in the Army

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Following their somewhat early dinner, the Chicago Four returned to the bar where they had been drinking previously for a few more drinks as it was early yet. It was after 9:30 before they remembered that they had a job to do that night.

“One last drink,” Polack told them before they ordered a final drink and left the bar somewhat later. They were still sober enough to find their vehicles and the road to Myles’ house.

“We need to stop before we reach his house so Wenzel can assemble the drone and attach the bomb,” Zelinka told them on the way to the car. They stopped at a convenient location well short of Myles’ house for the work.

“You sure that thing is going to fly?” Polack asked as Wenzel was extending the collapsed parts of the drone.

“Of course,” Wenzel answered in an annoyed voice. “They are always folded up for travel. They are too big to fit inside a normal vehicle in working order,” the drone operator assured him. The others had been readying the weapons they had brought with them while the drone was being prepared.

Once the drone was operational, Wenzel launched it, and they returned to their vehicles to complete the trip to Myles’ house. Wenzel guided the drone and Zelinka drove his vehicle. They stopped their vehicles in the middle of the road opposite Myles’ driveway. They could see the house clearly by the moonlight, as the drone circled high over the property.

“Where do you want me to drop the bomb?” Wenzel asked once they were ready.

“Drop it on the front of the house. They are probably in the back as I don’t see any lights,” Polack told him as the three of them chambered rounds in their weapons.

Wenzel brought the drone around to the front part of the property and started it on a course toward the front of the house. Zelinka had been watching it very carefully.

“Is the drone high enough?” he asked startling Wenzel who jerked in surprise and needed to circle the drone around again to restart the bombing run.

“Yes, it’s at 300 feet,” a vexed Wenzel answered. “The house is less than 50 feet tall. That’s enough of a safety margin,” the drone operator assured him, as he started the bombing run again.

As the drone neared the house, he released the bomb so it would strike the front of the house and explode after the drone had passed over it. There was an immediate explosion and the drone was blasted to pieces.

“We’ve lost the drone,” an upset Wenzel just had time to tell the others before the world stopped for them.

Doreen still has the Narrative

We were still sitting in the living room with the lights on but the drapes drawn and were relating tales of our adventures as Dragons when there was a loud

BOOM

from outside. Myles and Viv both dropped to the floor, but Keith and I were immediately up on our feet, and I cast a Freeze spell using Freeze as a Power Word. It was ’reoigh’ in Gaelic but came out of my mouth as ’CCah$%#Sec’ in the Dragon language. Everything within 600 feet (180 m) or so of me instantly froze in place, as I had put a lot of Magic into the spell. I needed to release Keith and the others before we could do anything.

“What the hell was that?” Myles demanded on being released, as he rose from the floor.

“That was those who don’t like you knocking at your front door,” Keith told him in a sarcastic voice.

“Remember what Doreen had said about a drone or aerial attack,” Chu reminded him. She and Franklin had also been on their feet and were caught in the Freeze spell.

“We need to find out who is responsible for this and deal with them, so I can cancel the Power Word before everyone in the area gets upset about the loss of time,” I reminded them.

“Everyone change into your Dragon form, and we’ll deal with those responsible,” Myles told us.

“Hold on, Myles. We need to see who these people are and why they are here. There were enough rumors of Dragons in Chicago to create a problem. We don’t need more here. Let’s just go out and locate whoever is responsible and bring them back here so we can interrogate them before we decide what to do. This isn’t Miami or Tampa, and you don’t want more of that sort of thing here either,” I told him. Although, I would have been as happy to change into my Dragon and go breathe Dragon Fire as he was, this appeared to require a more considered approach.

“Everyone cast your strongest wards around yourself before we go outside,” Franklin reminded us.

“Where can they be?” Viv asked when we were outside. I was surprised by the strength of the ward that Viv had cast around herself.

“I’ll change to my Dragon Form and check the area visually,” Chu told us. “I’ve already checked with my Magic senses, and there is no one with any Magic in the area but us,” she added.

“There are several men and two vehicles on the road in front of the house. Your vision hasn’t adopted to the dark yet,” she reminded us.

“There are lights in the garage,” Myles told us and vanished to reappear a number of seconds later with two large battery powered lights.

“Let’s check this out,” he said, turning on the first one and handing the other one to Keith. We found the four of them in the road nearly in front of Myles’ house. They were still frozen in place.

“Let’s cast a Freeze spell on each of them, and then move them to a place where we can interrogate them,” I told the others while looking at Myles.

“Let’s disarm them first. We can then move them to the garage initially until we decide what to do with them,” he told us. We removed the weapons from three of them, and a piece of electronic equipment from the fourth. I sent all of it to the Timeless Zone for safe keeping.

“We’ll need to move the vehicles also,” Keith reminded us.

We each cast a Freeze spell on one of the four gangsters before I canceled the Power Word spell and things returned to normal. Myles, Chu, Franklin, and I each moved one of the men to the outside of the garage, while Keith and Vivian moved the vehicles. They had no trouble passing through the Defensive Shell. Both vehicles were still running when the Power Word spell was canceled.

Myles needed to move the tractor and some other things out of the garage to have enough room for the four men and the rest of us. Keith and Viv parked the cars behind the house to keep them out of sight.

“Now, since we don’t want to use our Dragons to get the information that we want from them, we need something else, besides the Truth spell, to frighten them with and make them confess but what?” I asked. No one said anything for a time, as we all considered what to use.

“What about Demons?” Viv asked after a time. “They’re pretty scary,” she added.

“You’ve seen Demons?” Chu asked.

“She was here when I summoned John,” Myles told us.

I had been considering Demons also but not minor Demons. No, I was considering Major Demons.

“Demons, yes,” I said, “But Major Demons not minor ones.” Myles looked startled on hearing this.

“You’re going to summon Major Demons here!” he exclaimed in shock. I only smiled.

“Who said anything about summoning Demons?” I asked still smiling. Myles looked confused.

“WE, the four of us, know how the Major Demons appeared before they changed uniforms, and again after they changed back. They looked like Prohibition era gangsters with Tommy guns. We can use a glamour of them to scare these four as well as the Truth spell to learn what we want to know, but we’ll need someplace more appropriate than this garage,” I told them to smiles from the others.

“There’s the hideaway,” Viv said in an unsure voice.

“No, too small,” Myles said, rejecting the suggestion.

“Hideaway?” I asked, curious.

“I’ll tell you later. It’s much too small to interrogate this many people,” he told us, but he had a thoughtful look on his face.

“There is a warehouse in Chattanooga that has been empty for some time. The company that owned it went out of business, but no one has been interested in purchasing it. I looked at it some time ago, but it wouldn’t have fit in with what I had planned to do, and the plans have changed now,” he told us with a smile. “I could transfer there and check on whether it’s still empty,” he said.

“That sounds good. The only other place that I could think of was the Nest, and we really don’t want to go there at this time,” I told him. Myles vanished right after that. Several minutes later, he reappeared.

“The warehouse is still empty but has obviously been broken into. We will need to secure it with a ward and possibly with another spell to keep the lights that we use from being seen outside of it,” he told us. “I hope that you know a spell to do that,” he added. I just smiled at him.

“I take it that you have had this problem before,” he said on seeing my smile.

“Not this exact problem, but the solution that we used will work on this one too,” I told him. “A number of years ago, we had problems with the Chinese and the Iranians. Just prior to that, it seemed that every government in the world had people spying on us at our business, Dragon Security, and at our homes and our employees’ homes.

“We used a glamour of our building that we created when there was minimal activity to cover the building. The spies couldn’t see through the glamour to learn what we were actually doing. They saw the same thing all of the time, which was basically ... nothing.

“We can do the same thing with the warehouse. We’ll cast a glamour on all four sides of the building when it is dark before we move these people there and turn on the lights. No one outside will see the lights, only the glamour of the dark building,” I told him. Myles was staring at me with his mouth open.

“I would have never thought of that, and it’s so simple,” he said on recovering.

“Transfer Keith and me to the building. We’ll cast the ward around the building, and then the glamours while you return here to collect Chu, Viv, and Franklin plus those four turkeys,” I told him. “Give us a little time to get all of the spells cast,” I added. Vivian was the one now staring at me in shock.

“I get to go too?” she asked in amazement.

“Of course, dear. You’re on book 6 and will soon be a Dragon. You need to see and learn how to be one,” I told her.

Following that, Myles transferred Keith and me to the warehouse. It was quite dark in the area around it, but there were lights on down the street around other buildings and warehouses.