Chapter 16

Ian was awakened by his tablet ringing. ‘What time is it”, Ian thought to himself. He picked up his tablet to check the time: 5:30 a.m.. The night prior he had gone to sleep at midnight, too little sleep for a human, too little sleep for a dragon.

“Hello”, Ian said his voice still groggy, “Just a few more hours of sleep, William…”.

“I’m sorry Chief I know it is early”, William replied.

With just a lackluster apology Ian was satisfied, like any other dragon Ian loved to sleep. When he took personal time to refresh himself, he could sleep a whole twenty-four hours. Yet William would not call needlessly, sleep was almost sacred to dragons; besides, his head wasn’t filled with impulses like Glyn.

“We have an incident here, you need to come see this”, William said his tone tense, his voice urgent.

“What is it?”, Ian queried, all sleepiness broke like clouds under the assault of the blazing summer sun, it was rare for William to be agitated so.

“We have not identified it yet, but we have a body by the river. I’ll text you the location. We believe it may be Ponzo”, William responded.

“I’ll be there”, Ian said as he got up looking longingly behind him at his bed.

By now the dawning sunlight flashed green as it broke through the fir spruce trees around Ian’s house. Ponzo was released after being charged and processed; he was under probation, and had the probation app involuntarily downloaded onto his tablet. As he stepped into the shower, the hot water washed over his well-muscled pects and abdomen. His eyelids were irritated, and heavy from lack of sleep, yet still his mind was clear. This is certainly The Dark Wheel, but how did they notice his intent. Much to Ponzo’s chagrin, he was used as an informant a few times before. There was no way they could know.

“Hmmm, is it a provocation? Seems like a distraction”, Ian asked himself as the water swam around his eyes and brow, coalescing on his chin.

Ian was in deep thought as the minutes flowed like the water running down his frame into the drain. He felt obliged to pull on that string to unfurl them quickly, but patience was instinctive for a dragon. Furthermore, if he responded to this, he would be the one moving to their beckoning. The I.G.E. needed to move according to itself not to react to another group’s action. The motions of his morning routine blurred. Off in his world of deep ponderings, he had realized he was standing by his front door, fully dressed. Outside on his front step, Ian paused to light a cigarette. He turned on his tablet and began typing. Smoke spilled onto the cool morning air as he exhaled. The tablet did not float around him, because he was in sight of humans so he held it in his hands.

Ian: William, I will be going straight to the office. I won’t make an appearance there. I want a meticulous report, every detail documented. We can discuss it in my office.

William: Understood chief.

Ian was going to create his own music for his target to be swept up in.

Ian was re-watching the footage of Amy rising up, as her and her new friends were about to be ruthlessly devoured. He felt goose bumps on his arms, as she killed, then killed again. He was on a community forum, a fan forum about the pure human Amy. At first, he joined the forum under an alias to modulate the information, but the more he read about her, the more he became a secret fan of hers. One of those in the forum recognized her, surprisingly after some light investigation it was her neighbor of all people. She was an Old Woman, who had watched after her on occasions when she was little. The two became friends on the community forum, and after a while Ian began to learn a lot about Amy’s character, which made her recent exploits worthy of the highest praise he could muster. Sometimes she was too kind, and would be bullied, but she was stubborn, and would confront her overbearing mother who was equally stubborn. Ian recalled the story of her running away at the age of eleven, and hiding in the woman’s house, her username was ‘Serenity02’, her real name was Llychllowen Ffainyr, surname first like all Draegun. For centuries she had played the kindly, old, neighborhood grandmother. Ian had also become a secret fan.

Just as he was about to review the happenings, before his first encounter with Amy, William opened the door. Ian’s body tried to jump from the embarrassment to be found out, but like an experienced undercover agent he did not allow himself to react. He quickly, inconspicuously switched to his office app. William raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

“You should knock before entering it is only common etiquette”, Ian said with a nonchalant expression.

“And give up the chance of getting dirt on my boss, never!”, William retorted with a wry smile. His orange bright beard that went down to his sternum shook from a chuckle.

Even though William played the straight man in front of his siblings, in truth he was at one time the worst of them all. At one hundred and five years old, he was still young, but he had matured; however, his mischievous nature would occasionally manifest itself like in this current situation.

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Ian looked at all the data that had been delivered in the form of a folder, in his virtual office by William.

“Here’s what you asked for”, William said as he sat in one of the unoccupied chairs.

Five minutes of silence went by as Ian scanned the report.

“So, he was found on Hayden Island?”, Ian asked.

“Yep”, William replied casually, filling his pipe with tobacco from his family’s estate.

“Hmm…”, Ian responded as he looked at the pictures of the corpse that was still breathing yesterday.

The first time they crossed paths was many decades ago, in the 90’s. Ponzo was young and arrogant, he caused an incident that caused massive casualties amongst the Draegun and earthers alike. Ian and Liam were charged with their first mission from the clan and their respective guilds. It was the mission that gave them merits enough to form their own wing.

“‘Died due to a 9mm jacketed hollow point to the head’, unusual for an earther to be killed by the weapons of this world”, Ian mused to himself.

“I suppose whoever it was wanted it to look like a human had done it: a cover up”, William said as he lit a fresh bowl.

“Not a cover up, it’s a provocation, might as well be a declaration”, Ian corrected William.

“How so?”, William asked intrigued.

Ian sat back in his comfortable leather chair, pulled a cigarette halfway down to the butt, and exhaled a massive cloud that crept across the ceiling, “Well we already know Ponzo at least was aware of the group, and now we know they knew that he knew. Fresh from our offices to the outside again, it is obvious to assume that we would have watched him. The fact that he was killed by a gun is irrelevant. It is a shallow attempt to hide: a distraction so that we won’t notice it is a provocation”.

“Makes sense”, William said contemplatively taking long puffs from his pipe, smoke swirling around his olive green lensed sun-glasses, “What’s your orders?”.

“First I want half”, William’s eyes widened and Ian held up a hand to stay William’s words, “Yes half of available agents to heighten security in all Draegun and Earther communities across America. If something happens; although it is more of when, I want to have an initial report in my hand thirty minutes from the time the incident happened. The other half of guild members to be re-assigned will work on collecting information on all of Ponzo’s activities. Second, we begin by bringing all of his associates under arrest. They had a connection with him and we must study his life even to the most superfluous of meetings to find out what it was. Instead of investigating who done it, we’ll investigate who Ponzo was, and when we find why they did it we will have a lead on them and we can keep pulling on that string until that yarn ball comes apart”.

“Deceit for deception, an eye for an eye”, William nodded, his sparkling eyes seemed to say, ‘This is why chief is the chief’.

“A fang for a fang”, Ian nodded approvingly at William’s quick uptake, “I trust you know what to do regarding a public statement. We know the word has gotten out that he was murdered”.

Amy was sitting with Glyn on her perch, she had just finished using her app to send a letter to Jeremy. She did not, could not know if he received it, but she continued writing anyways.

Now she was reading some of the news articles of Arbell.

Scrolling through Amy saw the headlines, ‘Chief Inspector Ian and I.G.E. once again brings down a large ring of dangerous dark wizards’.

“DAU!”, Amy moaned aloud.

“Your arms still sore?”, Glyn asked her voice vibrating the floors.

Glyn was currently relaxing in her perch in her true dragon form, in her lair away from the guild tower; it was the night before their day off. Amy was leaning against her belly like she was a sofa.

Glyn chuckled, “He made you swing your wand around for four hours?”.

“Yeah it was frustrating! I was expecting to be taught spells. Then after the four hours, Liam explained that in battle I will be waving my wand around for hours like what he made me do. I need stamina to deal with heavy mana loads. And swinging my wand around was actually a good workout the first hour, the second hour was difficult, by the fourth hour my arms were aching, my back and shoulders hurt. He taught me ‘magic missile’, he said it was the first step to learning, ‘Mana Made Manifest’, but since I learned it, he said, ‘It’s still good to go back and understand the principles’. Then I fired once and blew up the wall. Liam wasn’t happy, but he didn’t scold me either”, Amy relayed her days events to Glyn.

Glyn started laughing, her long neck raised, her mirth shook the floors, smoke leaving her nostrils every time she giggled.

After her laughter subsided, Glyn set her head down on the white stone floor, shifting it so that one eye was looking at Amy.

“So, what happened next?”, Glyn asked her head moved up and her two eyes were focused on Amy.

For an average pure human, a dragon staring at them would instill a ghastly terror; however, Amy smiled warmly at Glyn’s inquisitive expression, and replied, “He grumbled a little bit about the costs of repairs, and the time it would take to enchant the new wall. Then we walked to an outdoor training ground with big sturdy targets. He explained to me the fundamentals of magic in this world. We got to the training area, I pointed at the target with my wand, and I blew that up too. But it regenerated itself”.

Amy’s face started to turn red from embarrassment, “Then I was happy towards the end, after repeatedly destroying the target after one shot, it took two shots to regenerate it. Then people ran outside saying the lights had turned off. Apparently, according to Liam, those targets require a lot of mana output to regenerate, and it must have blown a magic circuit somewhere causing a power outage. He sighed, saying he needed to purchase more mana generators for this wing. I felt bad because I was causing him trouble”.

Glyn shook her massive head, “Don’t feel bad, you are doing amazing. Liam is just lazy”, Glyn said imitating Liam in a mock tone, “Maximum efficiency with minimum effort”.

“Yeah, he smiled at me, and gave me a thumbs up when he saw my face; it made me feel a little better”, Amy looked up at the wide roof, then looked out at the lazy white clouds crawling across the sky.

Glyn too craned her neck to look at the sky, “You wanna go for a wee flight? I feel like stretching my wings a bit before I go inside. It’s such a nice clear day for a nice pre-dinner flight”.

“Uhm”, Amy nodded.