Blood Shadow: Book of Manuel

and literally went to work for the other side after she stayed in love with Cal.

  Gary started the therapy portion of the night, “You abandoned us!”

  Sharon, to her credit, was about as succinct as she could have been with her reply.

  “Abandon this!” she yelled as she punched her father in the jaw with a massive right cross. She quickly changed into a ram and bucked him with her headgear on his way down, sending him low-flying only a few inches off the ground before he came to a stop after making a long trail in the park lawn.

  Perhaps the bitterest matchup of the night was Carla Brewster against Nicole Thompson. The two women had so much in common, being that they almost had the same baby-daddy and everything.

  “Why did you call him over that day Daniel broke up with you?” Carla asked, referring to her husband Drew.

  Nicole stepped as close to Carla as she could and whispered, “Because I could,” which was out of character for her since she was usually so nice.

  “That makes me sweat,” lifelong bird-dog Manuel said to Hartwell.

  “Yeah, I don’t think so,” Hartwell replied, trying to squelch any ideas Manuel had about his kids. “This one’s going to get ugly.”

  Aaron, the huge hunter, stood up from the bench because he was new and didn’t have as many issues with his opponents yet, and said “Ooh, a cat fight!”

  He was on the sidelines to watch after Maxwell and Kayla, who said “So that’s what a cat fight looks like,” even though her mother was in the middle of the action.

  FIFTEEN

  But the main event of the evening battle that would forge the direction of the future of the families—was Daniel against his father, Cal Brewster.

  “I don’t think a son should ever pick a hand up to his father, but it was the only way they could communicate at the time,” popcorn-eating Hartwell said to Manuel.

  Manuel nodded his head in understanding and thought to himself, “I think I learned more about life when I was in the dark under the ground than when I was actually living.”

  “I heard that,” Hartwell whispered as he leaned toward Manuel.

  Manuel smiled, “I know,” even though he really didn’t know that he was transmitting his thoughts. But the more he spent time with Hartwell and the family, the more he actually felt at home for the first time in his lives.

  As Daniel and Cal squared off in their boxing stances, Cal used the opportunity to throw his first verbal jab.

  “Did your father teacher you to stand like that?”

  Cal was quite an accomplished boxer and took offense to anybody but himself teaching the kid how to fight.

  Daniel said the first thing that came into his mind.

  “Yeah, at least the father I knew.”

  “That’s not going to be good,” Hartwell commented because he knew all about Cal Brewster, who landed a left jab to Daniel’s right eye. Daniel quickly countered with a right hook that surprised Cal.

  “No, but he taught me how to punch.”

  Cal absorbed the blow and then said, “You’ve been asking for this for a long time.”

  Daniel was in no mood to give in, “I never asked you for anything.”

  Four hours later, all of the combatants and bystanders were getting tired, including Hartwell and Manuel.

  “Good thing you played that movie the last two hours,” Manuel stated. “Otherwise, I don’t think I would have made it. How much longer?”

  Hartwell surveyed the landscape, “Now is the time to pay attention. We’re nearing the end of all of the battles.”

  “You gonna’ give up?” Carla asked Nicole, trying to make it seem like she was somehow in charge.

  “Give up?” Nicole replied. “Why should I give up? You give up!”

  “You’re always in my way!” Carla screamed as the women remained locked in a loose grip.

  “With Drew!” Carla clarified.

  “What about Drew? I don’t have any intention toward Drew!” Nicole replied as Carla loosened her grip and fell to the ground. Nicole didn’t know what to do at first so she went to the ground, sat up and faced Carla, who was covering her crying eyes with her scratched, dirty and bloody hands.

  “I thought I lost him,” Carla sobbed, proving that the years had not dulled her pain.

  “I thought I lost Daniel!” Nicole replied as she reached down with her left hand and clasped Carla’s right hand.

  Carla wiped her tears away with her left sleeve and replied, “Lost Daniel?”

  And then Nicole explained the chain of events that led to her brief rendezvous with Drew, including Daniel breaking up with her after he became a vampire and then turning to the one person in the world she could turn to—Drew—that could help her understand what had just happened.

  And after Carla gave Nicole a ‘you’re forgiven’ hug, they stood up and took a walk together away from the field.

  “That’s one down,” Manuel said.

  “How long can you keep this up?” Gary asked his daughter.

  Sharon replied, “As long as I’m alive, old man!”

  Gary saw the end in sight, so he instinctively positioned himself for the kill. He picked up Sharon over his head like a professional wrestler and then focused all of his energy on the downward motion, slamming an almost lifeless Sharon to the ground.

  She barely moved as Gary got her in a choke hold.

  “Finish me,” she whispered as he continued choking her until he changed into a wolf and surrounded her neck with his sharp fangs. And then, just as he was about to act, he had a lone rational and peaceful thought amidst a sea of rage.

  “What am I doing?”

  He changed back into his human form as his daughter slumped against his chest, beads of blood trickling from her punctured neck—her sad, watery eyes telling an all-too-familiar tale of family estrangement.

  He stopped the flow of blood as Hartwell’s wife Maggie zoomed in from the sideline and vacuumed the blood dry while he administered a tourniquet.

  “Thanks, daddy,” she said feeling better by the second.

  “No problem, pumpkin,” he replied, using the nickname he gave her when she was young because of her love of Halloween.

  SIXTEEN

  Andrew and Agent Blake continued to trade jabs and barbs, but neither man could seem to seize the upper hand.

  “When are you going to learn?” Blake asked as he used his massive lifeguard thighs to wrap around Drew’s midsection, effectively cutting off his air supply.

  Drew’s face was turning bright red from the lack of oxygen, but he still managed to poke fun at Blake.

  “What do you have to teach me, Willy?”

  “Oh, now it’s Willy! What are you gonna’ do, Andrew, free me?” Blake said in response to Drew’s whale reference.

  Blake was getting nowhere fast so he kicked Drew out of his grip, sending the young man spinning a few feet away on the ground.

  Blake stood up and Drew remained on the ground trying to regain his breath.

  “What is your problem, man?” he grunted.

  “What is my problem?” Blake asked, because he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “Drew, you do realize that there are other people in the world besides you?” He then followed up with, “You never respect the dead!” finally advancing the discussion to the heart of the problem.

  While Drew followed, and mostly agreed with the first point, Blake sort of lost him with the second observation.

  “What? Respect for the dead? You’re crazy!”

  Blake walked up to a now upright Andrew in a manner that suggested that the physical portion of the bash therapy was about to get going again. Instead, he simply took the index and middle fingers of his right hand and placed them on the right temple of Drew’s head—a trick he had learned from Daniel.

  Scenes of severing heads with his sword and then kicking the heads down the field and putting golf balls into the mouth were replayed. He also took several severed heads and s
hot baskets on the adjacent basketball court in the park.

  Blake removed his fingers and screamed, “I woke up the next morning tangled in the net of the basket! It took me 20 minutes to untangle my ears!”

  And then, suddenly, Blake felt better for having aired his grievance.

  “I was just thinking about what that must have looked like. My body looking for my head and all!” Blake exclaimed as he pulled his shirt over his head and stomped around the field to laughter.

  Drew followed Blake, who pulled his shirt back down and then put his arm around Drew while getting headlock, complete with nuggies.

  “I would have paid money to see that!” a gleeful Drew said after being released from the play-fighting.

  They kept walking and a still-laughing Blake added, “I was yelling at my body from the basket but it didn’t hear me!”

  The family reunion continued with the bitter battle of Emily versus Belinda.

  “Even when he was yours, he was still mine!” Emily grunted, referencing Cal, as she threw punch after punch like a machine.

  Instead of getting angry, Belinda referred to the sage wisdom of her vampirical martial arts instructor, Thomas Hartwell.

  “Opportunity presents itself through other’s aggression.”

  Belinda slapped Emily across the face and then left four, three-inch scratched from her hairline to her chin on the left side of her face.

  Emily was so tough that she barely noticed the blood staining her white shirt. She hauled off and punched Belinda in her kidneys with a vicious left hook.

  Belinda dropped down to one knee and Emily stepped forward and rammed her knee into Belinda’s face, sending her back toward the ground.

  “You were never good enough for him anyway!” Emily growled.

  Belinda