Blood Shadow: Book of Samuel

a carbon copy of his dad.

  “Yes, dear?” an unwitting Max replied as his attention was diverted away from his son, who he had asked to show him ‘what else he could do.’

  Transitioning from fire engines to airplanes, then to human beings seemed like a logical progression for Samuel, who was just copying what he saw.

  Max looked at his pale wife and stepped toward her in concern, but so did Samuel. Both Maxwell’s then asked simultaneously, “What’s wrong?”

  Kayla’s eyes were large as she nodded at Maxwell number two on a hunch.

  Max looked over, expecting to see Samuel doing something that would undoubtedly make his pulse race, but all he saw was… well, himself.

  “Dad! Everybody! Get in here!” they both shouted, as the contents of the big table dispersed into the playroom.

  “Holy, Maxwell!” Aaron exclaimed.

  The group wasn’t sure at first whether the Max copy was an intruder, or some kind of visual trick.

  Max quickly regained his faculties and said, “Samuel?”

  Kayla surprisingly asked, “Samuel?”

  Samuel changed back into himself.

  “Hello!” he playfully said and then sped around the room.

  Hartwell needed more, so he yelled, “Can you change into me?”

  Samuel stood next to his great grandfather as, his great grandfather.

  “How about me?” Belinda asked.

  Samuel was having fun so he quickly obliged the request.

  The requests were coming hot and heavy after that and Samuel was all about multi-tasking, but he decided to complete a batch order instead. On one side of the spacious room was the real family, and the other side was the Samuel version, which was an exact replica.

  “That could come in handy,” Thaddeus said.

  “I feel a little better about our chances,” Garrison added as he put his arm around Hartwell.

  Hartwell was the master at digging deep and uncovering a situation’s deepest meaning. He then unfurled the nail of his right index finger and attacked Samuel’s version of Cal Brewster.

  Cal never wanted to be left out of a fight, especially when it concerned Hartwell.

  “He always goes after me! No way he’s having all the fun!” he yelled as he fetched a sword and went after Samuel’s version of Hartwell.

  The real test was if Samuel could absorb the full characteristics of both Hartwell and Cal. Hartwell went at Samuel’s Cal and he changed into a pit bull to avoid the swipe of the vampire’s lethal blade. He then changed into a grizzly bear and went on the attack.

  Meanwhile, Cal was going after Sam’s Hartwell with his own sharp blade, but was being counteracted by the vampire’s long finger until he changed into a grizzly bear with sharp claws.

  The two sets of combatants went through a few more changes before Samuel’s attention span diverted him to the far-reaches of the room, where a Monarch butterfly had floated into the room and caught his attention. Samuel’s versions of Cal and Hartwell disappeared as he turned into a copy of the butterfly instead.

  Hartwell turned to the real Cal and said, “Maybe his attention span will improve by next week.”

  Cal smirked, “Either that, or I’ll be coming at you,” saying that he enjoyed going up against his one-time nemesis again.

  Hartwell always got the last word in, “The pleasure was all mine, hunter.”