TWENTY
Agent Blake Wallace was a bit discouraged when he and his team returned to the house that night. There were a thousand hunters to unearth from the bottom of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and they had found only a few hundred in the week they had been searching. They were undermanned and running out of time.
Blake and his weary excavators, Andrew, Belinda, Brandon Justice, and Joe and Valerie Winters, collectively plopped in the chairs of the oversized dining table. No one was in the room, but the food was on the table and it was still steaming hot.
“Tacos!” Drew exclaimed, as he grabbed a couple of shells and started passing each successive dish of meat filling, cheddar cheese, and mixed greens around the table as the other people returned from the playroom and started to fill in the empty seats.
Carla saw the drained look on her man’s face and felt from what she had seen through Samuel that help was on the way.
“Help is on the way,” Abraham Ellison said to Alexander Lowery as they lounged as a duo at the vacant Beach Haven Inn outdoor pool.
Lowery had a pair of small goggles that were protecting his eyes from the rays of the almost full moon. He held a bright silver reflector shield under his skin and replied, “I am too pale. Hopefully this will give me some color,” copying what a mortal would do in the full sun of the day.
Ellison perked up, “Here is the delivery guy!”
“Oh, good deal!” Lowery stated. “I haven’t converted a soul in days!” he said as he mauled the neck of the first person one of his minions had extracted from the street.
Lowery was getting on in years and was long-in-the-tooth even for a vampire. While dining, he was having a Hartwell flashback from the early 1900s.
“My name is Alexander Lowery and I am here to offer you eternal life."
“CanI bring my video games?” the pimple-faced pizza kid asked.
“Your boy shall rise again on the moon of the new century. And your wife should be along in another eight to 10 months after that," Lowery said as he was fully immersed in Hartwell.
The guy was becoming agitated, “What is this freak talking about?” He then touched his bloody neck. “And why is my neck bleeding?” He looked up at Lowery and was all-excited, “Are you a vampire? Are you making me into a vampire? Cool! My reflexes will be even more awesome and I will stay up all night and play against people all over the world!”
Lowery snapped out of his Hartwell flashback long enough to fight the urge to snap the guys neck without turning him into a vampire.
“I don’t know, Abraham. This generation is so consumed with their virtual world that I’m not sure what value he would have as part of my army?”
“I hear you, but once he is transformed he will crave blood and do what you say. This means that he’ll be another of your minions that wants a shot at Hartwell and company.”
Lowery looked down at the prone kid and the kid smiled back, signaling that he was choosing a life as a vampire over a snapped neck and death. Ellison could see Lowery’s indecisiveness written all over his face, so he offered an amiable solution to the dilemma.
“I could flip a coin?”
“Head’s he dies, tails he dies but gets to drink some of my blood and fight for me next week,” Lowery enthusiastically stated.
“Hey, do I get a vote?” the guy asked.
“Flip the coin,” Lowery stated.
Ellison reached into his pocket and flipped the silver coin high into the Beach Haven night, surpassing the highest floors of some of the tallest buildings in town. The coin came spinning back down a few second later and gently landed in Ellison’s right palm. He quickly slammed the coin into the palm of his left hand and then revealed the result.
“It’s heads!”
Lowery was all set to snap the kids’ neck like the body of a cooked lobster, but Ellison interjected in the nick of time.
“Oh wait, this is my two-headed coin!” he said, inspecting the coin after making his initial pronouncement.
Lowery joked to his prey, “Head’s I win, tails you lose! Good one, Ellison!”
Ellison pulled another coin out of his right pocket and inspected it before tossing it in the air. It took a few seconds for it to settle back into his sizable palm, and then he turned it around and smacked it onto his other hand. He uncovered the coin and said, “It’s tails!”
Lowery looked confused, “Wait, what does tails mean again?”
The bloody guy under his elbow was quick to clarify the decision before he even considered the ramifications, “It means I get do die and then drink some of your blood!”
Lowery nodded his head in understanding, “Okay, as you wish!” he stated, making the full transformation into mortal façade into blood-thirsty predator. His teeth sunk into the man as he drained most of his blood in only a few hungry seconds.
“Wow! What a buzz!” Lowery exclaimed as he looked toward the moon, sunk his teeth into his wrist and then let his blood trickle into the man’s mouth.
“This is the part I like the best!” an enthusiastic Ellison said.
“Me too, my friend. Me, too,” Lowery concurred as the man came back to life and sat up.
“Wow! I feel great!”
“Yeah, about that…” Lowery said as he gripped the man’s head on both sides with his long fingers and then effortlessly snapped the neck rendering the man limp.
Lowery licked his lips and said to Ellison, “Have one of our people throw him in one of our holdings rooms until he snaps out of it in a few days.”
“Of course, your Excellency,” a jovial Ellison replied.
“It won’t be long now, Abraham,” a unusually candid and emotional Lowery said.
Ellison was touched by the comment, “I look forward to it, Alexander.”
TWENTY-ONE
The second week of preparation began for the House of Hartwell. The first week was a time of aquatic awareness for the hunters and the second week gave the hunters a turn at teaching everyone else about their aggressive, tracking world. That would mean that the vampires and protectors would be looking ahead instead of looking back for a change.
It was also a time of continued changes for Samuel, as well as Valerie’s growing stomach, which seemed to captivate everyone.
“How long do you think this one will take?” Belinda asked Maggie as they looked at Valerie’s stomach.
“I don’t think it will be as fast as Samuel, but at this pace that kid will be out of there within the month.”
“Is that where I was mommy?” a five-foot-plus Samuel asked as he sat on his mother’s strained lap.
“Well, you were in here, Samuel,” Kayla said rubbing her stomach.
As usual, Samuel said the first thing that popped into his head, “How did I fit in there?”
Everyone laughed, “I don’t know, Samuel. Why don’t you ask Aunt Valerie if you can talk to the person inside of her stomach?”
Samuel walked over to Valerie, “Aunt Valerie, can I talk to…” he then put his ear on her belly and said, “Ariel.”
“Why, Ariel?” Valerie questioned.
“She likes Ariel. You know, the little mermaid?” Samuel’s replied with a straight face.
Valerie smiled a sort of awkward smile, “Have any of you ever heard of a baby naming itself before?”
There was a lot of eye-rolling in the room, until Nicole said, “That big kid was in your stomach less than two weeks ago. What sense does that make?”
“Good point,” Valerie replied and then gently rubbed her stomach, “So, it’s going to be a girl. It’s going to be Ariel.”
Everyone picked up the nearest glass and Joe Winters proposed a toast, “Here’s to Ariel. Here’s to my beautiful daughter and granddaughter to be.”
Glasses were clanked all around at the inevitability of another female being added to the extended family.
“Here, here!” papa Hartwell said as unity within the house of Hartwell had ne
ver been greater.
Discovering, enhancing and talking occurred over the two weeks leading up to the anticipated siege. But now it was time for everyone to put all of the hours of preparation to good use and fight an evil that had walked into their backyard and threatened the peaceful and productive life they had attained.
This conflict was much different than all of the other battles the inhabitants of the House of Hartwell had experienced. The first thing that Hartwell, Thaddeus and Garrison noticed was the lack of a war council to meet in order to establish the rules of the battle.
“Thought that protector would show up again and invite us to dinner to discuss the terms?” Gary said.
“This vampire is presenting a front that he is going after you because your people broke some sort of unwritten code,” Thad stated.
Hartwell took all of the wisdom in of the two people he had known the longest in life and, subsequently, in death. He had been carrying the burden of an entire family for weeks and he was searching for a way to solve the riddle that was now before him.
“Do you think that Lowery came to my door to help me?”
Since Gary was his protector, he took the first shot.
“Do you mean now or back in San Francisco?”
“San Fran,” Hartwell simply replied.
“It’s been a while, refresh me,” Thaddeus the hunter said.
Hartwell formed a gun to his finger and put it to his head.
“Oh, sorry,” Thad apologized, not wanting to make Hartwell feel the loss of his wife and son again.
“In that case, he definitely wasn’t there for anyone but himself,” Thad followed up.
“Why do you say that?” Gary inquired. “Supposedly, his motivation was that he was there to procreate the vampire race.”
“Maybe,” Hartwell quietly interjected.
“What else could he be doing?” Garrison asked.
“Shielding,” Thaddeus interjected.
“Shielding?” Gary questioned.
“Shielding!” Hartwell exclaimed. “It’s a strategy based on the premise of eternal life.”
“Eternal life?” Gary again questioned.
The other two men looked at Gary to make sure that he would stop acting so dumfounded every time they spoke.
“Sorry,” Gary stated.
“He keeps adding to the ranks and using those minions to kill off the names at the top of his sire list, one by one,” Hartwell stated.
“And he’s also buried all of the hunters on the bottom of the ocean in order to live a completely unimpeded life. Who’s going to stop him when there’s no one after him?” Thad conjectured.
The look on Hartwell’s face turned from thoughtful to cold slab of stone.
“We are.”
Garrison was one of the greatest protectors in the long history of protectors primarily because of his attention to detail.
“How?” he asked, as the sum of the potentialities was not adding up in his head.
“It’s not going to be easy and we’ll have to take a real beating before we find our opening,” Hartwell pronounced. “You guys ready for it?”
Thaddeus clasped Garrison’s hand in brotherhood, and Hartwell took his hands and covered both of their hands in solidarity. “But the key to our strategy is keeping Samuel safe and away from danger until he comes of age.”
Thaddeus laughed, “By the looks of that, he should be ready at any minute.”
TWENTY-TWO
Battle day had finally arrived. Katherine Winters returned to Portland, Oregon, a few days earlier with the twins, Bryce and Cheryl, and final preparations were being made for dinner and the night’s strategy. The lighthearted mood of the past two weeks was exchanged for the tense quiet that usually accompanied the battle. The last real ‘game’ action these warriors had was now months in the rear view mirror, but the members of the house of Hartwell had trained hard over the past two weeks.
Brandon Justice had never participated in all all-out battle, because his own vampire family didn’t receive the necessary time it needed to grow. While he was aware of Carla as his hunter, he never reached his 18 years as a vampire in order to be presented with the greatest gift of all as a vampire – besides the sharp teeth, the blinding speed, and the keen fashion sense – a protector of their very own.
Valerie could always read Brandon’s thoughts – literally – so she was quick to back her man as usual.
“I’ll be your protector,” she said.
Justice broke out of his haze and replied, “Really? You would do that for me?”
“Who else would you want as your protector?” she innocently half-asked, until the reality of the question finally synched with her paranoia.
“Did you have someone else in mind besides me? Because that wouldn’t be good for us… we just got married.”
Brandon stopped thinking about himself for a second, which was easy for his peacekeeping half but a little more difficult for him as a vampire.
“No! No! You are the only person that I want protecting me!”
Nervous discussions were popping up all over the house, the most contentious of which could be found in Maxwell and Kayla's room.
“I can’t believe we’re still going back and forth on this!” Max said in an exasperated tone.
“It’s a big decision, Max! Do you want to lose your son? He’s only been around for a few days and already you want to get rid of him!” Kayla fired back in a harried tone.
“So, use one of your sources of protection on him and my father and I will veil him in a cloak of secrecy, too.” Then he mumbled something that, perhaps, he shouldn’t have let out. “Not even sure if that will work, either…”
“What? You’re not sure if you can protect Samuel?” Then she did what any toddler-aged kid would normally do.
She screamed, “Mom!”
Max was equal to the task, “Dad!”
Carla sped into the room, but was preceded by Daniel who was faster than everyone in the house but Max. They were followed into the room by their spouses, Andrew and Nicole.
“What’s wrong, honey?” Carla asked her daughter.
“Max, you rang?” Daniel questioned his son.
“Max isn’t sure that he and his dad can hide Samuel,” Kayla said, sounding like she was about to become unglued.
“She wants to use one of her powers to protect Samuel in addition to us blocking anyone from seeing him!” Max said to Daniel.
The generals, Hartwell and Cal, zipped into the room at the mention of a potential strategy change so close to the beginning of a battle. The plan called for Kayla to protect three of their best hunters, Cal, Emily and Thaddeus because it was thought that they would be most effective in turning back the initial charge of Lowery’s army on the front line.
One-by-one the remaining people not in Kayla and Max’s room entered because the rest of the house was quiet and all of the heat was focused there.
Agent Blake, who looked about as exhausted as he felt, asked “Have we even determined yet if Kayla can protect anyone outside of the hunters?”
Blake had been under the sea for the past few weeks and was not in on any of the strategic discussions. Neither were Andrew, Valerie, Brandon, Joe, or Belinda, and they all were looking for some answers.
Cal stepped forward and gave the most concise answer he could muster.
“Short of me taking a sword and killing a vampire…”
Hartwell clarified the position, “We won’t know until one of us is really under attack.”
“Yeah, you really can’t simulate a real attack, anyway,” Cal concurred.
“So why don’t we just try it tonight and see what happens,” the massive protector Aaron said, trying to be bold.
The group looked at Hartwell, Cal, Thaddeus and Garrison, who happened to be standing next to each other in a neat semi-circle.
“Nice grouping
,” Aaron said to Garrison, who looked around at his counterparts and said, “Thanks, big guy.”
“I’m not sure that this is the appropriate time to be testing something that could be risky,” a cautious Thaddeus replied.
“The first night of a battle should be used to gauge an opponent, not to play offense,” Cal added.
Garrison put his two cents in, “We’re not even sure what we’re up against?”
Hartwell knew he had to do something to cut the tension in the room. No fight had ever ended when he was nervous and unsure. The idea of having both a protector in Garrison and an impenetrable bubble from Kayla would obviously been appealing at a different point and place in his life, but not today.
“While I would love to be protected in this fight for our lives, I feel that it would be both cowardly and self-centered of me to accept such protection. After all, this fight is all about me and I have placed you all in the line of danger and peril.”
He then took a deep breath and waited as his words painted a vivid canvas of loyalty for his family to view. He looked around at each and every person and then said, “If it’s me they want, then ME they will get!”
Cal stepped forward, “But they’ll have to step through all of us to get to you, my friend.”
Hartwell shook hands with Cal, in what would have been considered the most improbable display of loyalty only a few months earlier.
“Me, too,” Hartwell’s protector Garrison added.
“And me,” long-time Hartwell hunter Thaddeus chimed in, as one by one, all of the people in the room expressed their individual loyalty until there was a wall of vampires, protectors, hunters and peacemakers in front of Hartwell.
Samuel was listening from the hallway and even he got into the act, albeit premature for a being under 18 years of internal age to participate in a battle. Everyone knew, including Samuel, that if he was fatally wounded during a fight before he turned 18 that there would be no going back, no life that would come anew when the sun came up the next day.
He zipped into the room and stood in front of House of Hartwell.
“Me, too!” the enthusiastic , almost six-foot young man said as he couldn’t wait to test out his plethora of new-age skills.
Hartwell talked internally to just Samuel and said, “You’re time will come, my amazing boy. But you have to let things go during the next group of days. Can you do that for me?”
Samuel calmly agreed as Hartwell was once again the driving force of one in the fight of his death.
TWENTY-THREE
Hartwell knew the moment that Samuel’s abilities surfaced, that he had to go off the grid and plan ahead. After all, no war was ever won or lost after the first battle, or so he thought. He figured that Samuel would age less in the last days of his transformation because of the complexities of his talents. Hartwell surmised that his great grandson was around 15 in internal years as of the first night of the battle, so he had to find a way to not only keep Samuel out of harm’s way but also focused on some future point in time when he could jump off the bench and contribute.
The second tier of Hartwell’s strategy was to not inform the other members of the house of his thoughts. While it sounded counter-productive to exclude everyone else from his planning, the lack of widespread knowledge was actually part of his