by Phil Wohl
even more focused to complete the transition from growing young man to, perhaps, the most powerful force on earth.
Kayla smiled at the sight of her husband back in one handsome and usable piece.
“Oh, that was painful,” Max intensely whispered into Kayla’s ear as he kissed her cheek.
However, the pain he was feeling only moments earlier was now a thing of the past courtesy of his highly advanced central nervous and immune systems.
Kayla could sense that he was feeling better, “I hear it gets easier but I’m not sure if I care to watch all of this for too long.”
Max was still young and was basically clueless to the direction of the battle. He really had no idea what would happen that night, let alone what Kayla would say next. Max hadn’t fully tapped all of his capabilities yet because things had been happening too fast socially for him to be able to unleash his powers. It would be too rudimentary to believe that the son of a vampire and a protector would be limited to cycling through basic changes and be responsible for the positioning of the other supernatural beings during a battle. His father Daniel, in contrast, had the time and the guidance to unlock all of his inner workings and develop them further over time.
Hartwell was putting on a good face once the remaining members of the family came back to life, as the sun had made a full appearance and its brilliance could be felt in every crack and crevice of the room.
“That wasn’t so bad,” he said as he hugged and kissed Maggie.
“No, I thought we gave a fairly good account for ourselves,” she replied.
“Wow, I needed that sleep so badly!” Agent Blake moaned as he stretched his arms to the 30-foot ceiling. “I forgot how peaceful that time off can be.”
He hugged Belinda and said, “But I did miss you.”
Daniel turned to Nicole and said, “Yeah, it does get easier,” referencing a discussion they had months earlier about how dying did get easier over time.
Carla jumped on top of Drew in typical Carla style, and Aaron and Sharon raced out of the room to find Emily and Cal, and the couples were reunited a few seconds later. Valerie Winters admired her new engagement ring as she hugged fiancé Brandon Justice. Joe Winters was famished, so he decided to walk into the kitchen and prepare a huge batch of eggs, bacon, pancakes and waffles.
The men stayed behind in the sun room as Maggie, Belinda, Nicole and Carla decided to go back to their rooms and take showers.
“That was a lot of people at once,” the usually-composed Daniel stated to kick off the conversation.
“Is there any way you can short-circuit their gene pool?” Agent Blake asked.
“I’ll check into that,’ Daniel replied.
Cal was never one to take short-cuts.
“You don’t think we can beat them straight up?”
Blake didn’t have to cycle through calculations to come up with a direct answer to the question.
“No. Not if they come at us with everything at once, instead of delivering smaller packages to us on a silver platter.”
Garrison was always the voice of reason, “He’s got a point.”
Thaddeus, as usual, wasn’t too far behind, “If they swarm us, then we will have little chance of surviving.”
Hartwell was running out of bodies of varying temperature to support his campaign of false hope. But, there still was one man among them that could turn the tide with one completely delusional, yet wildly popular statement.
“Have you all become so soft that it’s over after one fight?” Andrew said as he angrily tore the sleeves off of his long-sleeve t-shirt. “I’ve seen all of you get knocked down time and time again, only to get up and fight and fight until… whatever! What does death mean to any of us, anyway? Let’s just go out there and do our best and see what happens!”
He looked around at the other men, “Is anyone with me?”
Just then, the intoxicating smell of a variety of breakfast foods – especially bacon – wafted into the room and invaded the nostrils of these highly sensed beings.
His cousin and best friend Daniel was the first to his aid, “Yeah, I’ll do whatever you want if I can get some of that bacon.”
“I’m with him,” Blake added
They all started walking out of the room, “A few stacks of pancakes would hit the spot right about now,” Thaddeus said.
“I have to tell him to put some cheese in my eggs,” Garrison voiced.
Hartwell was left in the room with Drew, who was trying to show some restraint for a change.
“I thought you made a very convincing argument, Andrew,” Hartwell said as he put his arm around Drew. “You know you want to get some of those waffles,” Hartwell said as they raced each other for the door.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Team Hartwell was back on track for the second night of the battle following Andrew’s surprising and inspirational remarks. However, things were not as copacetic at Team Lowery, as Abraham Ellison awoke from his five-hour dirt nap. It had been at least 25 years since Ellison had given his life to protect Lowery, so the renewed pain of being in the middle of Maxwell’s lawnmower was still fresh on his mind when he reassembled and was given fresh life of the dawn.
“What the…” Ellison shouted as he initially gasped for breath.
He looked around as hundreds of Lowery’s minions came back on line and were starting to internally review the night’s events. Ellison was in no mood to sit around and commiserate with the pack of hired hands. Instead of turning to a vampire and asking for a lift back the Beach Haven Inn, he took out some of his frustration and aggression and ran as fast as he could back to his temporary home.
Lowery was never hard for Ellison to find because, for as long as their vampire-protector status stayed intact, the bond between them would remain strong. Ellison focused in on Lowery and located him in a shady spot in the pool area, just about the same spot he was in when Ellison went to fight the night before. Lowery, for his part, wasn’t moving much these days but he did know the exact moment that Ellison’s life ceased to exist during the fight. This momentary concern, however, evolved into a smile when he discovered that Hartwell had also exhausted another one of his lives.
Ellison was all ready to fight with his vampire, but Lowery quickly diffused the potential volatility of the situation, at least initially.
“Great job of strategy, my friend!” Lowery yelled loud enough so that most of his minions would hear.
A smattering of applause turned into a big round of applause as momentum gained throughout the complex.
Ellison waived to acknowledge the acknowledgment of his last siege, although it was actually Lowery’s game plan that he had followed. Lowery then slapped Ellison with the same hand he had just patted him on the back.
“Let’s make sure that the events of last night never happen again,” he said in a tone that was meant for just one.
“What do you mean?” Ellison asked with a tinge of scorn and annoyance.
Lowery could sense that his protector’s questioning his orders had a deeper intent, and he must nip any and all insubordination in the bud.
“Well A-bra-ham,” he said with emphasis, “if you must know,” Lowery said, putting the purported lower death form in his place, “we lost many more people than we should have last night. I wasn’t sure of the outcome for a few moments and you know how much I hate to be in suspense.”
Ellison didn’t answer because it wouldn’t have been pretty.
“Do I like to be in suspense, Ellison?” Lowery said as he ditched the informalities for more pointed dialogue.
“No.”
“No, what?” Lowery demanded.
“No, boss.”
That was a sufficient enough level of graveling for the vampire. Ellison couldn’t believe that he was being reduced to this, “No, sir.”
“Ahh, that’s better. Was that so hard?”
Ellison succumbed to the moment but it did little to soften his resolve. All of the m
eaning of being a protector had been drained from Ellison over the years, to the point that he had been questioning Lowery’s procreation methods. And now it had finally come to a head in the sleepy town of Beach Haven, of all places.
After a few good meals and some quality times with loved ones, the inhabitants of Hartwell house were ready for the second night of war. Thanks to Andrew’s inspirational words, the collective mood on the way out was quite positive. The main difference from the previous night was a reduced level of concern for Samuel, who had run out of energy at 11:00 pm and was already fast asleep.
“That boy crashed early,” Agent Blake said to his wife Belinda.
“He reminds me a lot of Andrew as a boy. Always in constant motion until he passes out from exhaustion,” Belinda said.
Emily agreed with that observation, “Yes! That is so right!” She would know, as Drew’s mom she was constantly trying to keep up with his frantic pace.
Hartwell smirked because he knew that the boy had energy to burn, and he was only sleeping because he was in the process of of completing his full transformation. He was just as eager for Samuel to become of age, because that would mean that he would no longer have to take Lowery’s crap. In the meantime, he was going to look into tapping into his grandson Maxwell’s vast talent base.
He walked with Maxwell while Maggie strolled with Daniel and Nicole for the first few paces out of the front door. Hartwell decided to go internal with the conversation, seeking a more subliminal tilt to his words.
“Maxie, you must put aside all of your fears