Family Affair: The Dragon Cast Down--Book II

Family Affair

The Dragon Cast Down – Book II

A Novel

By James R. Cissell

Copyright 2013

Published by Karen Hall Books

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

I am so grateful to those who took the time to read through this manuscript in its various forms and made comment and assessment. I especially appreciate the support of my critique group at Black Hills Writers Group: Jim Coleman, Donna Coppedge, Patricia Griffin, Karen Hall, David Hazel and Lori Speirs.

Family Affair

The Dragon Cast Down—Book II

Prelude

When the dragons come

Then fight you must

‘Til one or t’other

Turns into dust

When the dragons win

You become their food

It matters not

How long you’ve stood

But when vict’ry’s yours

And the dragon’s slain

‘Tis time to regroup

‘Fore they come again

They never give up

These beasts of ours

They’re always in search

Of greater power.

So know this, my child,

The dragons b’gin

That which you ’nd I

Must put to ’n end

Xiuhcoatl hated to travel. It is a rarity to find a dragon that is not bound to some degree or another to a geographic area. Xiuhcoatl was a long ways from home to begin with, being originally Aztecan and now, more recently, from New York City. The trip with her current host fueled a mixture of fear and enjoyment. They were traveling in early November across Lake Superior. Her host was sicker than a dog and angry about that on top of the day-to-day anger that kept Xiuhcoatl well fed. The man’s anger was like finishing a meal with two desserts, both of them chocolate.

Even so, the dragon found herself in the unusual position of being fearful. Dragons much prefer routine, and travel always begets change of one sort or another, and change usually begets some form of uncertainty. Xiuhcoatl did not like not knowing what was going to happen.

Dragons usually don’t communicate with one another. Instead, each is pretty much content to stay in its own little world. Xiuhcoatl was getting strong and frequent messages, though, warming her that there was a Keeper of Dragons in Duluth.

* * * * *

Lake Superior was not particularly rough on this early November day, but the constant motion kept the man off balance. He couldn’t sit still but whenever he tried to walk, he staggered and lurched, which served to make the motion sickness that much worse. By the time the Carol Ann reached Duluth he was unable to manage his anger any longer. He hit one of the stewards, rudely shoved his way to the front of the line at the gangway, and from there proceeded to fall into the lake.

By the time he was rescued from the water, Duluth police had been called and he was arrested for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. He spent the next four days in jail, without a change of clothes, a shower, or a shave.

* * * * *

Above the jail, Xiuhcoatl joined a myriad of dragons, literally lapping up the emotion that oozed and seethed from her prey. Dragons seldom fear. For one thing, they don’t really have enough sense to. For another, they don’t often have to worry about being dismissed by their human host. The two things they do fear are: 1) having their host die, leaving them homeless; and 2) encountering a Keeper of the Dragons who has the ability to reject their claim on any human regardless of that person’s worthiness.

Xiuhcoatl, the dragon-who-hated-to-travel, knew that either of these scenarios was possible in Duluth. Even in the midst of feeding as she never had before, the dragon shuddered.

Chapter 1

3:00 a.m., Friday, November 7, 1884 –

Shuman slunk along Superior Street, her belly almost on the ground. Stealth was as natural to her as her own innate nature of avarice. At this time of night Duluth, Minnesota, was rolled up and locked tight. There was no one on the streets on which the dragon might feed. At least not yet.

Dragons are a curious creature. They draw their existence from human emotions that grow from the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Avarice, Lust, Envy, Sloth, Anger, and Gluttony. They are exceptionally easy to birth and exceedingly difficult to rid oneself of. Most human hosts don’t even try. In fact, most human hosts would adamantly deny the existence of dragons.

But exist they do. And they feed on their victim’s need to be satisfied. Most humans, and particularly most Americans of the nineteenth century, never are. The more they have, the more they want; the further west they travel, the further they want to go; the more they see, the more they claim for themselves. This allows the beasts to feed virtually forever.

For this specific dragon on this specific, coldish, November night, feeding was not an option. Shuman was searching for a new host. Bertram Cecil, age ninety-four, had died in his sleep barely five minutes ago. The dragon had been with Cecil since he was a boy of eight, an impoverished waif, the child of a not-really-very-attractive saloon girl. Young Cecil had vowed his poverty would end before his age doubled. And he had made considerable strides toward that end well before his sixteenth birthday.

Bertram Cecil died happy. Not that that matters in eternal realms. He was wealthy beyond his own expectations, having turned mountains of ore and timber into equally vast amounts of money. But dying happy has no impact on what one’s eternal future might hold in store.

A dragon can’t feed on a corpse. And an ever-present companion to the creatures is their hunger. So Shuman, on this particular night, went in search of fresh feeding, someone whose greed might be in its infancy. Dragons have the ability to implant themselves where a mixture of emotion is relatively undefined.

At times of death, for instance, when feelings of all sorts are stirred and raw, a beast of gluttony might attach itself to a bereaved one, and that person develops an appetite essentially insatiable. Or a beast of anger might insert itself into the life a loved one, and that person never again knows a moment of peace or contentment.

Such attachments take an effort on the part of the dragon, and dragons tend to be great creatures of sloth themselves. They are parasites, and it is easier for them to take up residence on someone with an already identifiable direction.

So it was that on this coldish and early November morning, a beast of considerable size, one that had fed quite comfortably for nearly ninety human years, desperately sought out a new host. The knowledge that it would be difficult to find someone at this hour of the day in Duluth played no real part in the dragon’s search. She was hungry—a constant state with a dragon—and she wanted to be satisfied.

For an hour and a half she roamed the streets, patient in her growing need to feed. She knew Duluth. She knew that someone would be awake soon. Duluth was a place where people came when they wanted more. There were riches to be taken from the mountains and the lake. There were riches to be taken from those who gathered the riches from the mountains and the lake. Someone would appear. Someone who wanted to make just a little more money, to provide just a little more for his family. Someone…

And the dragon’s acute sense of hearing picked up on a door closing, just a whisper of a sound. Someone’s leaving was being done in such a manner as not to disturb other members of the household.

The dragon slunk across Lake Street and turned left. She met her prey at the corner of West First and Michigan. Shuman was surprised to recognize the young man—surprised, but not enough to be dissuaded from her intention. Dragons were not much given to thought. They reacted.

Shuman, in fact, knew much of the young man’s family history. She would be undertaking quite a task to attach herself to this person for any great length of time. Anders Gadsby was a brother to Frances who, in dragon versions of history, descended from a great line of meddlers, so-called believers who had taken it upon themselves to dispossess dragons of their existence.

Knowing this, the dragon recognized the risk of attaching herself to a brother of a Keeper. But dragons are not ruled by knowledge anymore than thought, but by their own hungers. This particular dragon could live on her own, without a human host, for upwards to a century. She could afford to be patient.

But this particular dragon’s nature was avarice, greed. And what she wanted, she wanted now. So early on the morning of November 7, 1884, the dragon stepped out in front of Anders Gadsby as he headed off to work on the docks, his second job. Anders had ambition. He wasn’t going to be one to struggle through life by manual labor. He had plans.

The dragon settled itself onto the street beside the young man and draped one huge forepaw around Anders’ shoulder. The two began a partnership.

Chapter 2

Seventeen year old Frances Gadsby sat bolt upright in her bed. Something had just happened that brought a direct impact on her own life. The pounding in her head was familiar. She’d known it since she was small. A threat of some sort. An impending event that bespoke of danger and violence.

Dragons, she thought. Always it was dragons. What had happened? Or, what was about to happen? She had no way of telling until the events themselves began to unfold in such a way that she could actually see them, interpret them.

She eased herself back onto her pillow. Her neck and shoulders were tight, almost brittle. She rolled her head to the left, stretching muscles. Sometimes this helped. Most often it simply reminded her of the limitations of her physical body. She twisted her head to the right. The pain and tightness maintained their grip.

She would have Mrs prepare her something when she got up. Right now was the time to try to focus beyond the pain, to sort through what may have set off this attack. Of course, it could be anywhere in the city, but the swiftness and the intensity of the siege indicated a danger for herself or a family member.

A family member! she thought with sudden insight. Anders had just left for his second job. Had something happened to him?

She carefully moved to a sitting position and swung her legs off the bed. There was no use looking at the clock. When these headaches came on, her vision became grossly distorted. She would never be able to make out the hands of the clock.

In a similar manner, her sense of chronos deserted in such times. Pain was one of the very few things that could disrupt her connection to time. Much of the time, it was as though she had a built-in clock. She just knew what time it was.

Not so this morning. The pain was intense enough to shatter her link to any sense of time. She floated, disconnected from almost everything that was ordinary to her, including vision.

She slipped on her dressing gown and felt her way along the edge of the bed. Just three steps beyond the footboard was the doorway into the hall.

There was no light displayed from beneath any of the doors, so it must be early. Closing her eyes, Frances ran her hand along the chair rail that stretched the length of the hall on either side. She walked with some surety, having made the trip previously under the same circumstances. She pushed open the double-hung kitchen door and let it clack closed behind her. Spread out on the drain board at the sink was a dishrag from the night before.

Thankful that she always cleared away the dishes after they were washed and dried, Frances slid her hand quickly across the drain board in search of the water bucket. Too late, she realized that someone had been at the sink after her last night. Her hand sent a water glass sliding along the porcelain surface to topple the six inches or so into the basin of the sink.

The shattering brought Mrs to kitchen in a flash. Had Frances been able to see, she would have been confronted with a formidable sight: Mrs with a lantern in one hand and a fireplace poker in the other.

What in the world are ya doin’, child? The woman hissed.

Frances was embarrassed. She knew how hard the woman worked, and had an idea of how poorly she slept.

I have a headache. Frances thought it sounded pretty lame. I was after the washcloth for my forehead.

Mrs’ attitude changed in a twinkling.

Can ya see at all? she questioned.

Not really, Frances admitted.

Mrs leaned the poker in a corner and reached out to take hold of the girl’s arm.

Let’s get ya back to bed, and then I’ll fix up a potion for ya.

With that, she led Frances back to her room and tucked the covers in around her. I’ll be back faster than ya say ‘Jack Robinson.’ And she hurried back to the kitchen.

Frances was not at all eager to receive another of Mrs’ medicinals. She suspected a goodly amount of alcohol was involved, and she didn’t even want to think about what other ingredients there might be. But they worked. Or at least they seemed to. At times when Mrs had doctored her, relief had been fairly swift and long-lasting.

Within five minutes, the woman was back with a glass filled half full of a clear liquid. Frances knew better than to think it was just plain water. And she knew better than to sip whatever it was. With Mrs’ brews, gulping was the best policy. Get it over with. She was a no-nonsense Welsh-Irish Celt who had little time for sympathy and none for pandering.

Mrs was Katie Marie Waverly, the owner and operator of the boarding house on Michigan Street where Frances lived with her younger sister, two older brothers and their father. Mrs arrived in Duluth in the early 1870s, having fled New York City after killing her husband. At least she had believed then that he was her husband. Now she wasn’t so sure. It may have been that one of her older brothers had sold her to Michael Waverly.

Anger still bubbled to the surface whenever she thought too long about it, but that was one dragon she wasn’t going to let back into her life. She also wasn’t about to live under the shadow of a possible murder charge for the rest of her life. She had gone to a lawyer in Duluth with her story and he had contacted another in New York City. They were waiting to hear from him as to what his visit with the police rendered. If prison were in her future, then Mrs (if she really were a Mrs) was willing to pay that debt just to be free of the burden.

Not that she would admit to it being much, but a special bond