 
Blood Shadow

Book of Ariel

Phil Wohl

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Phil Wohl

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ONE

Abraham Ellison dipped his sword in the pool and the red from the blood floated ominously across the water's surface. He had been waiting all night for his vampire to arise from his 100th death and take his place among the ranks of the mortals. There was no discussion, no words of parting, or speeches of regret, as Ellison held his former superior's head and made a powerful cut to his new life - a life of solitude as a normal man living on his own terms.

Thousands of confused vampires and protectors woke up the morning after the final battle of Hartwell and Lowery, wondering where their powers had gone and feeling the aches and pains associated with life as a human being. They instinctively walked back to the Beach Haven Inn and discovered what they already knew: that their reason for being so special was no more. Before scattering around the globe, the defeated army gave Alexander Lowery a proper burial, although a shady spot behind a dumpster in a hotel parking lot would hardly qualify as 'proper' in most circles.

Ellison had one more stop to make before he left town, although it was debatable whether he would receive anything less than a indifferent welcoming when he arrived. He knocked on the front door of Hartwell's house, which was one of the most unfamiliar sounds on what looked like an abandoned warehouse from the outside.

Samuel was up bright and early in a morning when most of the adults deciding to either sleep in or spend some quality-time with their significant others after a few difficult and intense weeks. He opened the front door without asking who was there, which immediately drew a light reprimand from his Great Grandma' Belinda who had become the unofficial den mother of Casa de Hartwell.

"Samuel, you know you're not supposed to open the door to strangers without asking who is on the other side of the door first," she said to the now 6'4" Samuel who had the potential to become the most powerful being on the planet.

"Sorry, Nana Belinda," Samuel said in his little kid voice, being that he only been in the outside world for a few weeks.

He slammed the door shut right in Ellison's face and started the exercise over.

"Who is it?" he said in his most formal voice as he looked over at Belinda for approval.

She nodded and smiled like a good teacher providing positive reinforcement for a job well done to her student.

Ellison rolled his eyes on the other side of the door forged from the finest wood and synthetic materials that Thaddeus formulated in his work room just off of the huge garage.

"It's Abraham Ellison."

Samuel looked at Belinda in a thought-provoking pose, squinting his eyes, "Where do I know that name from?"

Belinda was happy to fill in the blanks, even if her response was doused with sarcasm.

"Oh, he was the guy that got knocked down a bunch of times and was Lowery's protector up until about..." she looked at her left wrist, simulating where a watch would be if she needed one, "12:30 am this morning."

"Oh, that guy!" Samuel happily exclaimed. "Do you think he came over here to get knocked over again?"

Belinda was pleasantly amused, "I don't know? Why don't you open the door and let's see what happens."

Samuel smiled and then opened the massive, 14-foot door, and Ellison took his first steps inside of the abandoned warehouse.

This place looked a lot different a few weeks ago," he said, referring to his appearance to let everyone know that the battle would be moved up from two months to two weeks.

The very sound of Ellison saying his name a few moments earlier penetrated the senses of hunter Calvin Brewster like the world's most effective alarm clock. His eyes bulged open, his nostrils flared, and he kissed his wife Sharon as she rolled over and went back to sleep. Within the next seven seconds he got up, brushed his teeth, took a shower, put on some clothes, and then was flying through the main room with only the thought of a reunion of his right fist and Ellison's chin on his mind.

The protector had settled an earlier score only about eight hours earlier by taking a Louisville Slugger baseball bat and bashing it upside Cal's head, knocking him unconscious. Both Samuel and Belinda saw Cal coming, but by the time Samuel's "Beat down!" could be heard, Cal had already done just that and Ellison was out cold in the doorway.

Hartwell was next in the room and he surveyed the damage, "Looks like fun!"

Cal walked by him and said, "It's a great way to wake up in the morning. You should try it some time."

Belinda looked at Samuel, "The least we can do is drag him inside."

Samuel thought of the most effective way to complete the task, and then he turned into a small Bobcat dump truck and scooped the ex-protector up and dropped him on the couch. He then turned back into his human form and cleaned up any mess that he made.

"You see, that's what I love about Samuel," Hartwell said to Belinda. "He could have just grabbed him by his feet, but he has such a brilliant imagination!"

More weary bodies throughout the expansive ranch-style house heard unusual sounds of stirring in the main room, followed by a beeping sound as Samuel the Dump Truck backed up. What was anticipated to be a morning of rest would be interrupted for a few precious moments of clarification.

Thaddeus strolled into the main room, as the sight of Ellison unconscious and propped up on the couch both confused and delighted him.

"What is he doing here?"

"Looks like he was getting knocked out," Hartwell replied.

Daniel glided into the room, "Again?"

Cal was still angry but was now sipping some coffee. "You got to hand to this guy. He's been knocked out, what? Five times?"

"Why do you think he's here?" massive Aaron asked as he joined the discussion.

All of the other people in the room came up with the obvious answer, "Lowery!"

"I don't think he likes that guy at all," former FBI Agent Blake Wallace shed some light on the subject as he walked into the room.

"A protector not liking his vampire, how could that happen?" Hartwell's protector Garrison Phillips asked the collective as he entered the hot space in the house.

"I hear it happens,' Hartwell replied sarcastically.

Hartwell's wife Maggie glided in, "Who is that man sleeping on our couch?"

Andrew was exhausted but managed to put on an old hooded sweatshirt and matching sweatpants and did a whirl when he entered the room.

"THREE SLAIMIGOS!" everyone joyfully yelled at the sight of the high school volleyball outfit.

Daniel's wife Nicole entered the room and stood together with Drew and Daniel in their matching outfits, the combination that made them high school volleyball legends five years earlier.

Daniel asked his cousin, "Where did you find that? I thought you burned it a long time ago?"

"Once a slamigo, always a slamigo," Drew replied.

Drew's wife Carla entered the room with their daughter Kayla, "I thought he burned that outfit."

In reality, Drew did burn the sweatshirt and sweatpants combo from his days on the Beach Haven Volleyball team. But he had seen Daniel wearing his sweats a few days earlier and had Samuel recreate a pair for him, further perpetuating the awareness that the kid could duplicate just about anything.

There was so many good vibes and discussions when Emily Brewster, Joe and Valerie Winters, and Brandon Justice joined the party, that people barely noticed that Abraham Ellison was awakening from his Cal-induced slumber. He rubbed the side of his head as he felt the kind of lasting pain he hadn't experienced in more than a century. Ellison was still a little groggy as he groaned and stood up unsteadily, and then tried to focus on the crowd in front of him.

Maggie noticed his unstable condition and offered him a hand to help him walk and get something to drink before another hunter with the last name of Brewster started swinging at him again.

"Would you like some coffee, or maybe some nice green tea," Maggie said in a soft tone that was music to the former protector's ears.

Ellison was coming back to his senses as he replied, "The green tea would be divine."

She guided him toward a tall stool in front of the large, marbled breakfast bar and he rested his weary bones in the comfortable chair.

Cal had his back to the action and then he turned around to check Ellison's status but he was gone. He looked around and located him at the breakfast bar and made a bee-line toward him, but was headed off by Belinda, who was now in on the action.

"Easy there, Cal! Why don't we give the guy a minute to get re-oriented and then shed some light on why he would come to our house?"

The lively banter in the room subsided as all of the attention of the house had been funneled to the breakfast bar and why a recent enemy was now in their midst?

Maggie placed a steaming cup of hot tea in front of Ellison and asked, "Do you want any honey or lemon?"

Cal had seen enough of the overbearingly-accommodative talk, but it would his father Thaddeus that stepped up and put an end to it.

"No disrespect to you Maggie, but I would have knocked the tea on the floor if you hadn't such served it to him."

Even though Maggie was a vampire and could probably kick Thaddeus's butt, she took a few steps back and let the master hunter proceed with his investigation.

Thaddeus stepped around the breakfast bar so he could be face-to-face with Ellison and also be seen by everyone in the room.

"So, why would you show your face around here today, mate?" he asked, using language that harkened back to his brief stint in the navy.

Ellison was playing it for all he was worth, as he took a sip of the tea and then nodded toward Maggie that it was enjoyable. He put the tea down and started talking.

"As we all know, it was a long night and was an even longer morning. Once I awoke from my extended slumber, courtesy of my fellow protector..."

"The name is Thaddeus," Brewster sneered.

"Thaddeus," Ellison said as he extended his hand as a gentleman in greeting. And when Thaddeus rebuffed the handshake, Ellison simply continued, "Perhaps we'll get to that later. I then walked toward the pool area, where Mr. Lowery had been lounging ever since we entered this town. He wasn't in his usual lounge chair because someone had killed him for the 100th time."

"Do you know who that someone was?" Thaddeus asked, trying to lead him into the juicier section of the information.

Ellison thought it was rude to talk while his back was to everyone in the room, so he took another sip of his tea and then asked, "Is it all right if I stand up and address the others?" fearing that if he disrespected the hunters there would be a fist in his face before he could react.

Thaddeus was loathe to agree to anything Ellison, but he complied with the request because he didn't want to seem overly unreasonable and lacking grace.

"Thank you," Ellison said as he paced to the end of the breakfast bar and then faced everyone before continuing.

"I have a real good idea that it wasn't any of you." He then looked at Hartwell and stated, "Even you, Mr. Hartwell, although you had every reason to put an end to Lowery."

Hartwell digressed, "But without Lowery none of this would have been possible," he said as he looked around the room at his large family.

Ellison let the warm moment fill the room before he continued, "So, you knew about the list of all of the people Lowery sired, and how he started at the top and eliminated each person. The first 50 were relatively routine, being that we had buried all of the hunters in the spots in the bottom of the ocean and around the world."

He looked at Hartwell in a "Bet you never tried that one..." glance.

Cal stepped forward and said, "Atlantic Ocean, 15 years."

"How did you get out?" Ellison asked.

"The same way your boy Lawrence got out, "Thad replied as he looked over to the aquatics team who had changed into their alter-egos of dolphin, shark, whale, mermaid, merman, and Belinda. They waved with either their fins, tails or, in Belinda's case, her long fingernails.

"Impressive. Nice grouping." Ellison said.

"So, you knew that Lawrence got out?" Thad asked.

Ellison turned to Garrison and asked, "Would you know if he got out?" motioning to Thaddeus.

Gary smiled, "I am aware of where he is at all times."

Thad smiled back but he was a bit creeped out in a stalkish kind of way.

"Why didn't you tell Lowery?" Hartwell questioned.

"I couldn't bear to let this go on anymore!" Ellison said as he flung his arms in the air in frustration. "Although I had the prospect of eternal life, it was no life if I had to live like that! I hadn't done my job of protecting in 25 years! I felt more like a bartender making frozen drinks... did you hear that he liked to sing really bad karaoke?"

Hartwell had seen enough from a man that appeared to be broken, "Daniel and Drew, can you take him to the chi room for some realignment."

Even though Ellison was on the brink of a nervous breakdown, he still managed to anticipate Hartwell's next question. He turned around to face the group with Daniel and Andrew on either side of him and stated, "I was up all night waiting for him to wake up. The sun was coming up, and I knew that all of the hunters and protectors in the field would awaken and instinctively head back to the Inn before heading out. I must have sharpened the blade of my seldom-used sword for hours in anticipation of that moment when the sun ascended over the top of the building and infused Lowery with life again." He looked around the room and then said, "I couldn't take the chance that someone somehow would sire him and this whole thing would start anew, so I skillfully separated his head from his body and felt real peace for the first time in a long time."

TWO

A peaceful existence was not the way you would characterize Claire Vinson's life. She was separated from her parents as a baby and only knew her grandmother as her caretaker the first 18 years of her life. She was told of a mother who died of pneumonia and a father that had a rare blood disease, but only one of those stories had a shred of truth to it.

Claire awoke on the early morning hours of her 18th birthday in a cold sweat. She had been dreaming all night about creatures of which she had never seen or thought of before, and jumped out of bed just when the moon was still high in the sky. She then had a vision about where her next step should be, and quickly took a shower and was out the door.

Brenda Vinson knew that her granddaughter's 18th birthday would bring with it a lot of changes, the biggest of which would be her search for her heritage beginning and ending with her father and mother. So she let her go without any warning or explanation of what was to come. Eighteen years of nurturing the child ending in the blink of an eye, but the elder Vinson knew that in order for Clair to return one day, she would have to let her go to fulfill her destiny.

Claire was on the trail all night, crossing the border of Pennsylvania and entering into New York as she headed southeast toward the north shore of Long Island. While she had no idea why she was heading in this direction, there was absolutely no question in her mind that she had to be there. She moved with speed that she had never known before. Being a life-long asthmatic, she was usually limited in her physical activities and her puffer was never more than arms-length away, even when she was in the shower.

She entered the water and swam until she flashed on an abandoned warehouse, which flickered back and forth from its dilapidated form into a luxury home. Claire ascended out of the water after the sun came up and hid behind a row of bushes as a man knocked on the abandoned warehouse door, which opened briefly and then shut in his face before it reopened and he walked inside. Her clothes were tattered and dirty and she wore no shoes, but there wasn't a scratch, bruise or cut on her entire body.

Claire then located her puffer in her pocket and realized how obsolete the device now was. She stood up and walked around the warehouse, looking for a receptacle to through the device into, and she no longer feared being seen. Samuel had no interest in hearing the adults speak, so he walked outside and was testing out a few new facades. First he changed into a Volkswagen Beetle convertible, then a bald eagle. He soared through the air and then landed on the grand in front of Claire, as she threw the puffer in the air and it settled into the bottom of a garbage can. Samuel analyzed the object during its air flight and the changed into a five-foot puffer.

"What?" Clair simply said in astonishment.

Samuel was equally as astonished as he was extracted from his safe little word by the sound of another being. He quickly changed back into his human form and was instantly captivated by 5'10" beauty who also tossed her thick glasses into the garbage because they were no longer of us to her.

He would have changed into her form but he had the feeling that this wasn't the time for experimentation. Samuel was familiar with the female form and its differences from his human male form, but he had never felt all warm and fuzzy like this before.

With Ellison cycled through the main room to begin his detox period, many of the remaining inhabitants of Hartwell house were talking about his arrival and the apparent end of Lowery. But all of that chatter was stopped by the sight of Adonis-looking, 6'4" Samuel walking through the door with a red-haired beauty that no one had ever seen before.

"Who is that girl?" Kayla asked Maxwell.

"I don't know. I've never seen her before," he replied.

"That's not the kind of girl you would forget seeing," Garrison added.

Claire Vinson had lived a forgettable life before this day, and would have been voted "Most Likely to... whatever!" by the senior class of her high school if there was ever such a vote. She had grown five inches overnight and her hair turned from jet black to red, only she was oblivious to the changes. Her body also transitioned from that of a couch potato to a boot camp-worthy form. The changes were so dramatic that the only people that would recognize her were her grandmother and the woman that gave birth to her.

"Who do you have there, Samuel?" Hartwell asked, as he nodded to Daniel to give the girl a quick scan.

People rarely were allowed access into Hartwell's house because of the incumbent danger associated with such a breach. Claire Vinson surveyed the room and then anticipated Daniel's next moved by altering his thoughts.

"She's clean," Daniel said to Hartwell internally, as not to rouse suspicion for both guest and family alike.

Hartwell thought, "That still doesn't explain why this girl showed up on our property with worn clothing, bare feet, but not a single mark on her," but then his thoughts were converted over to these actual words, "She seems nice enough. We should give her a chance."

Samuel was set to answer Hartwell's initial question, but he didn't know the girl's name. He looked at her and turned all read, which was a direct result of his lack of experience with the opposite sex. Although he was 18 years old internally, his new friend had almost 18 years of real life experience to stack up against only a few weeks for Samuel.

"Claire Vinson," she stated. "My name is Claire Vinson."

Just as she was introducing herself to the group, a disturbing presence came across her radar screen. The sudden urge to act overcame her.

"Hello, Claire!" the much more jovial than usual group said in unison.

She shifted gears abruptly but her curtness went unnoticed, "Can you direct me to the nearest bathroom?"

Belinda replied, "Down the hall and to the left." Belinda was about to say, "Here, let me show you," but that was quickly replaced by the urge to merely stand in the same spot and wait for Claire to come back in the room.

Andrew had remained with Abraham Ellison in the chi room to sort of keep an eye on him.

Daniel said to Drew a few minutes earlier, "We should keep an eye on him."

Drew smiled, "I'm good at keeping an eye on people," harkening to his strength as a hunter.

Claire started walking down the hallway and then her feet left the ground and she was gliding. She located Ellison and then dispatched Drew to leave his post and go outside and chase after his imaginary tail. He followed the directive and spun around until he got dizzy and then fell to the ground.

Ellison was sitting down with his back to the doorway as Claire talked to him internally as she approached.

"Were you Alexander Lowery's protector?"

"Yes."

"What happened yesterday?" she asked.

"I knew his hunter was coming and I stepped aside and let him get killed for the 100th time."

"And this made him mortal?" she questioned.

"Yes."

She was most interested in the answer to her next question.

"What happened this morning?"

This was the one question that she was actually aware of that she was asking. She was hovering in front of Ellison for a reason and needed answers.

"I waited for Lowery to wake from his death, because I knew that he would be coming back as a mortal. There was no way I could take the chance of him ever becoming a vampire again, so I took my sword, and..."

Claire knew where the confession was going and wanted the noise from this infernal traitor to stop. She instinctively extended the nail on her left index finger and then efficiently swept it through the hitting zone. Ellison's head separated from his body and then rolled back into the doorway. Claire glided out of the room and spent a few seconds in the bathroom intently cleaning her bloody nail, before emerging and returning to the main room.

The message "Clean up in the chi room," was sent to Brandon Justice and he turned to his wife Valerie and said, "We have to check this out."

She said, "Viking Funeral," on the way to the room and Brandon replied, "What a great idea!"

Before long, everyone in the room was excitedly chatting up an event that was apparently long overdue.

"I've never been to a Viking Funeral before," Maxwell said.

Carla asked Nicole, "I wonder what you need to hold such an event.

Thaddeus chatted with Garrison, "We should start building that boat."

Then Gary said to Aaron, "We're going to need a few gallons of gasoline and a torch."

Fifteen minutes later, Ellison's remains were wrapped neatly and placed in the middle of a boat on the shore next to Hartwell's house. The entire family was outside, including Claire, who had been bestowed the honor of giving a man she had just beheaded, his eulogy.

As usual, what she said was a lot different than what the group actually heard.

Claire said, "This man, Abraham Ellison, was a traitor and a murderer, so it was with just cause on this day that his head was separated from his body and he was permanently removed from the ranks of the living."

Everybody heard this eulogy: "This man, Abraham Ellison, was a loyal guardian and protector of everything that is important in our world. So, we shall celebrate his life and not is passing on this day." She was then at a loss of what to fill in next, so she said, "And let us all say, amen."

The group said, "Amen," which was an extreme oddity from the pack of non-believers on this day of transition.

THREE

Claire was in such a revengeful mood that she rewound the tape and stripped every family member of most of their powers, except for the core abilities inherent with their being. This meant that vampires were now back to being simply vampires, the way Hartwell was most of his death. Daniel, Maxwell and even Samuel, who was always cozied up to Claire, would have start from the beginning and experience their vampiracy without unique abilities for the first time. It also meant that Sharon, who was a life-long protector before falling in love with Cal and becoming a hunter, would initially lose touch with her favored aquatic side. She always loved being in the water and was cherishing every moment of her rediscovered abilities.

Only basic changes were to be allowed in the new restrictive environment. Vampires could use their blinding speed, sharp teeth and extra-long fingernails only during nightly battles. The protectors and hunters were also limited to their set changes only after midnight. Protectors confined to house cat, wolf, hippopotamus, bottle-nose dolphin and Orca killer whale, while the hunters fell back on their pit bull, ram, grizzly bear and hawk roots. So, Cal and Hartwell went over to the boxing gym as two men, not two supernatural beings that could deliver and withstand almost unlimited levels of punishment.

Hartwell was the taller of the two men and would have a decided reach advantage over Cal Brewster, who was a back-alley brawler in every sense of the expression. Brewster got by on guts and determination, which was at the core of his broad array of fighting skills, and Hartwell had a thunderous left hook and equally as devastating right cross.

Daniel and his cousin Andrew came along to watch the fight and be seconds in the corner for their Hartwell and Cal, helping them drink water between rounds. Since the vampires could not veil their actions from the rest of the people inside of the gym, it meant that Hartwell couldn't take drinks of blood between rounds to help him maintain his energy. This lack of reinforcement leveled the competition on a more even plane, and even gave Cal a slight advantage because he was a better boxer.

Cal's old trainer Mortie was always hanging around the gym, training young fighters and giving tips to anyone who would listen to this old, miniature dinosaur with a raspy voice. His watery eyes lit up when he saw Cal walk in with Hartwell.

"Champ! You're back!"

He was also glad to see Hartwell, who was the perfect match in style to Cal. Their previous fight in the gym was an instant classic, and would have gone viral on Youtube if someone had the foresight to record it.

"Clear the main ring!" the prickly gym rat yelled at the two fighters that were sparring. The two men were annoyed at first to be asked to cut their sparring session short, but moved quickly through the ropes at the sight of seeing the two boxing legends walk through the airless gym.

Both of these men were extraordinary athletes whether they were fully powered up or completely powered down, as was the case on this morning. Mortie supplied both men with waist gear to protect their most vital of organs, as well as headgear to protect their currently underutilized hard drives. Cal was lacing up his well-worn boxing shoes, while Hartwell stood close to him with his eyes closed.

"Meditation is not going to help you today, my friend," Cal said in his usually cocky tone of voice.

Hartwell remained calm and kept his eyes closed, "I'd be worried less about my methods and more about more right hand if I was you, Calvin."

Cal grunted in laughter and would have jumped the vampire if he didn't respect the sport he loved so much. Besides his wife Sharon and his family, boxing was the one safe place he could always go to work out his problems or making a good day even better.

The rivalry between Thomas Hartwell and Calvin Brewster was as contentious this day as it was in the first day the squared off against each other. Hartwell's vampirical world had been fairly tight the first 20 years or so since he was introduced to his protector Garrison Phillips and the hunter that would track him until the ends of the earth, Thaddeus Brewster. As Hartwell and Phillips settled into their full capabilities, it became impossible for Brewster to get at Hartwell, so he waited for reinforcements in the form of his twin children, Emily and Calvin. Emily was always the more rational and stable of the two children, as Calvin would be prone to outbursts and fits of rage that went over typical irrationalities of a normal teenager.

Cal went at Hartwell just after his 18th birthday in his first official battle. There were a few instances leading up to the night when he anxiously approached Hartwell, but the vampire held back out of partially out of respect for Thaddeus but mostly because he had a son once and wouldn't want to see him killed before his time.

The first time Cal approached Hartwell during the day, he let it pass. But, the second time, he punched the would-be hunter in the face after Cal took an errant swing at him. Hartwell's incredible vampire speed was too much for the above-average strength and speed of the 17 year-old Brewster. What impressed Hartwell on that first day they actually fought was Cal's resilience and determination. Although Hartwell didn't put everything into the punch that landed on Cal's jaw, he thought it would be enough to send a message. That was, until, Cal stood up only a few seconds after hitting the ground.

Hartwell debated internally on whether he should either strike Cal again or just simply walk away? But that question was quickly answered when Cal hit him in the ribs with a thunderous left hook. He then blocked a left cross by Hartwell and then loaded up with his right hand to deliver the big punch. While Hartwell was amused by a little competition for a change, he was getting thirsty and had a previous engagement with a lovely neck and some fresh human blood. The vampire delivered a blindingly-fast one-two combination that sent Cal falling back to the ground of the vacant alley, as he was unconscious before going horizontal. He looked down on the man-child and thought, "This is going to be fun."

Of course, that was before Cal's full abilities came on-stream and he teamed with his sister to make his life even more of a living hell than it already was. Hartwell would have been thinking for 100 years straight about the return of his son, who wound up being Daniel, and his wife Maggie if not for the fierce competition with Cal. It wound up making at least half of that time bearable. In 1903, when Hartwell agreed to let Alexander Lowery turn him his options had whittled down to:

  1. Blow his brains out with a gun, or

  2. Trust a creature that he knew was going to kill him regardless

We all know that he chose 'b,' because of Lowery's promise that Hartwell "would be able to see his wife and kid again." Hartwell wasn't really thinking about becoming a blood-sucking creature with a superiority complex, as much as he just wanted to be whole again. He only recently had been able to fully enjoy his family life, while also embracing the expectations that came with being the central of his universe and the vampire that everyone had to kill.

FOUR

Cal stepped through the ropes with the assistance of his nephew Andrew, and Hartwell bent over and entered the ring being supported by his son Daniel. The seconds placed mouthpieces in their appropriate oral homes and then offered final instructions before becoming spectators.

"I think this would probably be a good time to knock his block off," Daniel said before he collected his second thoughts. "Why are we here again? And why are my two fathers fighting?" he said, sinking deeper in confusion with every word.

The fight between Daniel's original and vampire father, and his father in his middle life, Cal, was somewhat confusing to Hartwell as well.

"I feel you. All I know is that he is over there and about to punch me in the face. So, what do you want me to do?"

The hunters were a tad less cerebral with their approach.

"I would question why you guys are fighting, but I love seeing you beat the crap out of Hartwell," Andrew stated.

Cal was an original gangster at heart, "Word."

Mortie preferred his own raspy voice saying "Box!" to hearing the clanging of a bell in his gym, so he did just that. The main ring in the gym was elevated about four feet from the ground, so Daniel and Drew jumped down from the apron surface and stood together, at least at first, watching the action.

The fighters darted toward each other and Hartwell connected with the first punch, which was a long left jab to the right side of Cal's face. Cal used his face to block a few more jabs in order to connect with his first punch, which was a digging left hook to Hartwell's rib cage. All of the air in Hartwell's body escaped as he felt real sustained pain for the first time in a long time.

By the end of the first three-minute round, both men had delivered and taken significant punches. Mortie grunted, "TIME!" as the fighters stopped punching and turned to walk back to their corners, amidst applause from the crowd.

Daniel and Drew split off into the respective corners of their fighters armed with water bottles and towels.

"That was a long round," Hartwell said to Daniel after he spit out his mouthpiece.

Daniel couldn't believe his eyes, "Are you sweating?"

"Please take this thing off my head," Hartwell said in frustration, referring to the heavy leather headgear. "Is it hot in here?" he added, which was a stark admission from a being that usually had an extremely low body temperature.

Daniel whipped the sweat off Hartwell's face and then noticed some blood flowing from his lips. Hartwell caught on and said, "Don't even think about going after that."

To which Daniel replied, "I don't think I've ever seen you bleed like that."

Hartwell smiled, "At least not in this lifetime. There was this time when I cut myself shaving when you were a little boy..."

Daniel flashed back to his days in San Francisco and saw Hartwell with a flat razor in his hand and blood running down his chin.

"That was a long time ago."

Meanwhile, Cal was feeling a little winded, too, and tried to express that to his nephew.

"What round was that?"

"One," Drew simply answered.

"Wow!" was all Cal said as he tried to catch his breath. "I have to get back into shape."

Drew gave his uncle a simply strategy, "Then stop chasing him and make him come to you on the ropes."

Cal thought about the strategy and couldn't think of an alternative plan.

"Yeah, that sounds good," as Mortie bellowed, "Seconds out!" He then yelled "Box!"

Daniel and Drew repeated their action of the previous round and stood next to each other.

"Your dad looks tired," Drew stated.

"Which one?" Daniel asked, looking for some clarification.

Drew laughed, "Your father with the wings that drinks people's blood."

Daniel was not amused, "What? I think my other father who eats everything that isn't nailed down is a lot more tired than the one with incredible speed."

They looked at the fighters in the ring and were frustrated by the slow pace of the early action of the round. Cal came out of his corner and simply sat back on the ropes, waiting for Hartwell to bring the fight to him, which he did after slowly walking toward him. The vampire slowly pawed at Cal with a few light jabs and then landed a hard right hand to the hunter's upper left arm. Cal knew that this tactic of hitting him on the arms was meant to make his arms hurt and bring his guard down, so he knew he had to act before it was too late.

"I can fight better than that," Drew said to his cousin."

"No you can't!" Daniel said in a mocking tone.

Drew pushed Daniel and then Daniel pushed him back. The guys had to be separated until Mortie bellowed, "Take it in the ring!"

Hartwell stopped and turned around when he heard the ruckus outside of the ring. Cal couldn't hear as well because he still had that stupid headgear on. He stopped leaning on the saggy ropes and then stood straight up, pulling the headgear off clumsily with his boxing gloves. Daniel and Andrew climbed into the ring with no boxing shoes are protective gear. They were hungry and young, but they were also impulsive and short-sighted, just like Daniel's two fathers.

There was serious debate on who would drive home. Four men with full access to one key, and it was Andrew who finally agreed to take the wheel after some serious coaxing from his uncle.

"If you drive, I'll buy you that Shelby Mustang you've been looking at!" Cal desperately yelled.

"Really?"

Cal was as serious and as unsightly as a toe fungus, "Really."

The men piled into the four-door Mercedes SUV, groaning and nursing a multitude of bruises and cuts. Claire's plan of making the entire group suffer was off to an interesting start. It got even more interesting when the guys finally extracted themselves from the vehicle and walked gingerly through the front door of the house.

Maggie was astonished at the sight of her husband and son, "Oh my! Did you guys get into an accident?"

Sharon ran over to Cal, who said, "You could say that."

Nicole and Carla heard the noise in the main room and were quick to see what was happening. The flow of bad vibes had not reached these former antagonists just yet.

"I haven't seen you sweat like..." Nicole started saying to Daniel, "Come to think of it, I've never seen you sweat like this."

Carla was much more hot-tempered than Nicole, and she became instantly incensed at the sight of her battered and beaten man.

She turned away from Drew and yelled, "Who did this to him?"

Daniel had a black eye and his clothes were tattered like he had gone through a car wash with sharp blades.

"That would be me," Daniel said as he struggled to pick his hand over his head.

Then it was Nicole's turn to get angry as she looked at her husband, "Then who did this to my man?"

Drew had a fat lip and a bloody ear, "Yo!" he yelled in response to the question.

Carla removed her hoop earrings and Nicole took off her rings and bracelets, "We're going to settle this thing once and for all!" Carla grunted.

"Bring it, Brewster!" Nicole yelled back as the men and all of other people in the house had had entered the room stood between the two women so they couldn't get at each other.

The room was in perfect oppositional symmetry, as the hunters were on one side of the room shielding Carla, while the vampires and protectors stood in between Nicole and the hunters. A mini-brawl ensued as the four boxing men took a seat on the floor and watched everyone else push and shove and call each other bad names.

Hartwell looked over at Cal and said, "It's good to be home again."

"It was getting too quiet in here, anyway," Cal replied.

Hartwell, Daniel and Andrew started laughing, but quickly groaned over the pain.

"Don't make me laugh! It hurts too much," Andrew blurted.

"Next time I'll make it permanent," Daniel replied as the two guys came together and rolled around in on the floor in the poorest display of fighting either Cal or Hartwell had ever seen.

Hartwell looked knowingly at Cal, "How long do you want this to last?"

Cal nodded, "Just long enough for us to have a little more fun." He paused for a moment, "And get into better shape."

Hartwell laughed, "Much better shape."

FIVE

The battle was back on after a brief respite the previous night. Cal, Daniel, Hartwell and Andrew awoke with achy joints and bruised bodies, but were drawn to the healing powers of the sun room and a fresh slate for the new day. Hartwell extended his arms and yelled from the pain of renewal. Cal stood strong with his fists clenched by his side and grunted from the pain as his body was virtually reborn in only a few seconds. Relative youngsters Daniel and Drew had a much easier time of it, as their healing process and accompanying pain was less intense than their older counterparts.

Andrew was still angry at Daniel, so Cal ushered him out of the room before another wave of fighting broke out. He nodded at Hartwell, and the senior vampire nodded back at him in understanding that the show was now back on. Days and nights of banded together and fighting a common enemy was now a thing of the not-so-distant past for the vampires, protectors and hunters of the House of Hartwell.

Claire Vinson had moved in and was now cohabiting with Samuel in his room, which has transitioned in motifs from baby/toddler, to young boy, to tween/teen, to young adult, to a more modern adult look. The house was generally quiet except for a major change in the eating arrangements: hunters now ate separately from vampires and protectors.

"I'm not eating with them!" Emily Brewster said to her brother Cal as they stood in the main room staring at their immortal enemies.

Thaddeus chimed in, "We should go out to the diner."

"Yes!" Emily's huge husband Aaron concurred.

Sharon was no longer on speaking terms with her father Garrison, "Let's go! I might lose my appetite if we stay here any longer."

Andrew, Carla and Kayla piled out of the house, and were followed by Thaddeus, Aaron, Emily, Sharon and Cal, who looked back at Hartwell and talked to him internally.

"I guess we'll see you at midnight."

Hartwell smiled, "Park or high school?"

"Still having flashbacks of being used as a football, so go to the park and we'll be right behind you," Cal replied.

"Conventional weapons?"

"I don't think we have anything else?" Cal questioned.

"See you later," Hartwell stated.

Cal was in a jovial mood, "Not if I see you first."

Hartwell laughed and shook his head in disbelief that he and the person he despised most in the world were now on the same proverbial page.

Maggie noticed that he was laughing and sought clarification.

"What's so funny?"

"Those hunters will never change," Hartwell replied. "We're going to battle tonight."

"Yes!" Belinda exclaimed, as everyone else chimed in to support the offensive against the hated hunters.

Absent from any group were Samuel and Claire, who had effectively severed the son of Kayla and Maxwell from the collective. Her beef was with everyone else, at least initially, and then she would take care of Samuel who was perhaps the most powerful being in the house. In the interim, they would get plenty of rest while the house destroyed itself from within. Claire might have been controlled by alternate forces of the universe through her father's wishes of revenge, but she wasn't ready to take the next step with Samuel and have some fun in the meantime. All of this girl stuff was new to Samuel, who took the bait and surrendered his mind and abilities almost simultaneously when he saw Claire the previous day.

Claire envisioned the nightly battles to be an old school approach, which obviously was downloaded from the influence of Lowery. He wanted to maximize the potential difficulty in every match-up, which meant that warriors of equal skill levels would be squaring off. The following is a list of the individual fights:

Vampire/Protectors Hunters

Hartwell Cal

Garrison Thaddeus

Daniel Andrew

Nicole Carla

Belinda Emily

Maggie Sharon

Agent Blake Aaron

Maxwell Kayla

The last matchup was especially interesting, being that Kayla almost beheaded Maxwell before their internal 18 year-old birthdays. It was also feature the only husband-wife battle of the pairings, lending intrigue to who would get the best of that fight.

As the night wore on old habits were starting to reform, as the hunters were now trailing every move of the vampires and protectors. It had been months since the families had been split in two, but the familiarity of the role-playing made it easy to slide back into place. Thaddeus even thought for a moment that his family would move out of Hartwell's house and find their own space again. However, he still had enough sense left to recognize the savings of living in a house that was veiled in secrecy and didn't really exist in the mortal world. So, he would tolerate the collective "stench" of the vampires for now.

Spaghetti and meat sauce was on the menu for the vampire/protectors on night one of the renewed battle, and the hunters went for a grill-fest of any and every meat product they could find. Most people would have been slowed by the collective weight of the beef, but it appeared to have the reverse impact on the hunters. They were strong, poised and ready as ever for the fight on that night, which would neither contain strategy from Maxwell nor protection from Kayla. As always, the hunters had a decided advantage in the fact that they only had to kill Hartwell to end the night's activities, while every vampire and protector had to eliminate the hunter across from them.

SIX

The vampires and protectors headed out of the house just after midnight led as usual by Hartwell, who was looking forward to participating in a fair fight for a change. The days of a handful of people against a huge army were over, at least for now, and he couldn't be happier to exchange blows with Cal on a regular basis. The hunters trailed the vampire/protector group by less than a minute, led by Cal who was happy to be looking straight ahead after becoming disoriented in the weeks leading up to this night by having to always look over his shoulder.

The vampires and protectors spread eight across in a row looking directly at the hunters, who mirrored the lineup with warriors of their own. It was as if some huge whistle went off in the park, because the two sides then converged on each other without hesitation or fanfare. Bodies crashed together, and the crunch of bone on bone was replaced by the clanking of swords and very sharp fingernails.

Cal placed threw his sword into the soft grassy turf so it would be available to him in the next phase of his fight with Hartwell. The men were fully healed from their boxing match the previous day and were hoping to pick up where they left off. It was much easier to fight at night when their powers, at least partial powers, were at their disposal. Stamina was no longer an issue and neither was Hartwell's ability to find Cal's face with his long left jab or Cal's pursuit of his taller foe with a rainbow of digging body shots.

Garrison and Thaddeus had engaged in sword-play for almost a century together and knew each other tendencies, including every strength and weakness. This didn't stop these men from competing furiously with all of the flair and skill of swashbuckling musketeers. Gary came at Thad with a furious rally of his patented x-pattern, where he moved his blade diagonally from high to low through the hitting zone. Thad counteracted the moves with his own L-defense, moving his sword up and down through the hitting zone until he made contact with Gary's swords. When he had Gary's sword contained Thaddeus moved it down toward the ground and then to the right, effectively clearing the path for his offensive. The boot on his right foot then headed straight for Gary's chest, sending the protector flying backwards and to the ground after impact.

Andrew and Daniel had been in and out of their relationship ever since they became reacquainted when Daniel moved to Beach Haven in grade school. They appeared to be natural enemies back in those days and were competing for the affection of one Nicole Phillips, even after learning that they were first cousins. The boys were inseparable for part of high school, at least before the dance when Daniel kissed Nicole, and then were still friendly a few years later before they graduated high school. That was, until Daniel revealed to Drew at the beach that he was a vampire, crushing Drew's hopes that the two would fight vampires side by side for all eternity.

The boys loved to play the game of 'pirates' growing up, with Drew always assuming the role of a law-breaking desperado and Daniel assuming the character of the sea captain trying to bring him to justice. The first day of this renewed family-against-family battle was no different, as Drew wore an eye-patch over his left eye and a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball hat and Daniel tied a royal blue sash around his waist and a Kansas City Royals baseball hat backwards on his head. In these characters, Drew was prone to throw elbows, toss dirt in Daniel's face, kick him, pull his hair, and do virtually anything that a gentleman like Daniel was portraying would refrain from doing.

Drew started the fight by bowing to his cousin, which he knew would give him an immediate advantage. As a gentleman, Daniel was required to return the bow as a gesture of good faith. Andrew took the opportunity to break from his bow and then load up his right hand to deliver a jarring uppercut upside Lord Daniel's prone head, propelling him back-first toward the dewy turf.

Equally as riveting was the fight between the boys' wives, Carla and Nicole. Mortal and immortal enemies turned knitting buddies, they knew how to get under each other's skin as much as they could be supportive and loving. Nicole hated having her hair pulled, heck she was even sensitive to people touching her hair. Carla obviously knew this about Nicole from trial and error, and had to decide early in the fight if she was going to employ the tactic. A pull of the hair would draw rage out of Nicole, but it would also blind her in pain for a second or two. It must have been something about the sensitive nature of her root structure that sent shockwaves of agony throughout her central nervous system.

Former in-laws Belinda and Emily never saw eye-to-eye, but they did on this night when they gazed deeply at each other for some hidden meaning. Any remnants of deep thinking went out the window when Emily hauled off and slapped Belinda across the face. Belinda was shocked but reacted in the only way she knew how. She rubbed her face in the spot she was slapped and then returned the slap in kind across Emily's face. Open-handed slaps turned into close-fisted punches, and before long the two women were rolling on the ground kicking, biting and scratching each other.

The big guy and the fish had become good friends in recent days because of their shared fondness of sea shells. Aaron and Agent Blake would head to the beach in the late afternoon and comb the sand for interesting looking shells, which apparently made it easier for Blake to sucker-punch Aaron as he made the giant look at a shell in his left hand. Blake new from his days in the FBI that size wasn't everything in hand-to-hand combat, but it had to be neutralized immediately. The iridescent shell diverted Aaron's focus for the time it took Blake to clench his right fist and hit Blake with everything he had across the jaw.

The matchup of Maggie and Sharon was probably the least contentious of all of the pairings. The pair had sort of a big sister, little sister thing going, but that did little to deter Maggie from trying to seek the equivalent of a four move check-mate in chess. Hartwell's queen was seeking a quick end to a simple conflict, and the only thing standing between her and a night-one victory was a former protector turned hunter who was like her husband Cal in the way that she didn't like to lose.

The last of the eight duos was recently married couple and parents, Maxwell and Kayla. It would have been difficult for anyone, let alone the newlywed couple, to visualize a physical fight between these two. Kayla was such a peacenik that no one would even imagine them having a verbal confrontation. But that all changed when Claire rolled into town. Max unfurled the long nail on his right index finger to reveal his intentions, and his wife picked up her sword, which she had never used before. The shiny exterior of the silver blade reflected off the rays of the moon as she readied to make the first move. It was a good thing she was ready because Max hid his left hand behind his back and extended the index finger of this hand, too.

While all of this action was going on in the park, Clair rested comfortably on Samuel's chest sleeping in the bliss that was family control. As long as the two sides were fighting in the House of Hartwell, all would be good in her Lowery-inspired, revenge-seeking world.

Lowery's spirit was quite active between the time he was killed for the 100th time by his hunter Braden Lawrence and the time he woke up as a mortal the next morning. Even out of his corporeal state, Lowery knew that it would be unlikely that he would survive once his full transition to mortality was completed. While his ego told him that his scores of minions would still be faithful, it was the dark and onerous energy of his closest ally Abraham Ellison that was especially troubling. The vampire that had sired more than a thousand other vampires was so outraged that Thomas Hartwell had gotten the best of him, that all he could think about was revenge for the few hours he was in between physical states.

His energy was powerful and it was solely focused on the one living person that could get back at Hartwell. He also did so without fully knowing that his stream of angst would arrive on Claire's doorstep, since he didn't know that she existed for the first 18 years of her life. It wasn't until he walked through the door of vampiracy and was on the doorstep of mortality that he became aware that he had a daughter.

Lowery was seconds away from waking as a man for the first time in more than a century and-a-half at the side of the pool at the Beach Haven Inn. Ellison was standing behind him with gripping the handle of his razor-sharp sword and waiting to end his life once he came to. The pain of the transition was eased momentarily be a feeling of calm, peace and tranquility that he had never experienced in either his mortal life or his extended time as a vampire. A genuine feeling of accomplishment and fatherly pride overtook him like never before, making all of those years of siring recruits seem like an exercise in futility. Lowery awoke to the sunshine of the new day and smiled as he greeted that day... a day that would include his life as a father. The first thing he was going to do was find his daughter and reconnect with her, but that plan was short-circuited by Ellison, who's blade cleared the contact zone and efficiently separated his head from the rest of his body. This disconnect would make it especially difficult for him to pursue his new dream, as his head rolled down his body and proceeded to continue its short journey into the chlorinated depths of the pool.

While it appeared that Lowery's life had come to a tragic end, the joy that he experienced in that brief moment was more than most people experience in an entire lifetime. The vampire was chasing immortality for most of his vampirical existence by shielding himself with sired vampires that had been manufactured out of his desire to see forever. But he could have lived forever and never seen the real reason why he was placed on earth in the first place. Although Lowery had no knowledge of who was the mother of this child, because he had many trysts in his time as a vampire, he was nonetheless quieted by the fact that he had produced the single greatest thing the planet had ever seen: a daughter.

SEVEN

It was now closing in on one o'clock in the morning and the first battle of the renewed era of fighting between the vampires/protectors and the hunters were still going strong. Individual fights that started within close range of each other had spread out over the expansive landscape of territory on Beach Haven Park's Great Lawn. It was the longest any of these fights had lasted in some time, primarily because the matchups were designed with symmetry and prolonged anguish in mind.

Hartwell and Cal had just started the equivalent of the 15th round of their epic boxing match. Cal had penetrated Hartwell's defenses and was now making significant progress to wearing him down. Of course, the key to the entire battle was Hartwell's status, as a victory for the hunters would be achieved only through the vampire's death. Conversely, every hunter had to perish if the vampires and protectors would exit the pitch with a win. In such an even battle, the odds were obviously with the group of eight hunters.

Cal could have simply picked up his swords on several occasions and put an end to his fight with Hartwell, but something was stopping him from completed the task. He had sliced the vampires head off and skewered his heart so many times that it wouldn't have take much effort to simply pick up his sword and slice away. But the fight remained between Cal and Hartwell's fists, and the gentlemen showed no signs of slowing down like they did the previous day when they were only able to utilize mortal strength.

Hartwell was backed up against a tree, which was akin to lying back on the ropes in a boxing ring. Cal, with is sloping shoulders and granite chin, took as much punishment as necessary to get within punching range of Hartwell. He took a quick left-right combination to the head and then delivered a left hook to the body and then a right cross to Hartwell's chest, stopping his heart momentarily. The vampire had absorbed many hard knocks in his life, but this punch rendered him unconscious and careening off the huge tree and to the ground. While Cal had knocked out his share of opponents in the ring, it was the first time he did so with a punch below the neck.

The other seven battles stopped as soon as Hartwell ticker went off-line, as the 14 people stood and looked in Cal and Hartwell's direction. It took a good five seconds for the verdict on the rest of the evening to be delivered, as Hartwell's system was apparently rebooted once his heart started beating again. The vampire rose to his feet without ever using his legs and came at a surprised Cal, who was ill-equipped to fend off the kind of warfare Hartwell was about to spin his way. Hartwell extended the fingernail of his right index finger into a sword-like image and then lopped of Cal Brewster's head with blinding speed.

While revenge against Hartwell weighed heavily on the mind of Claire Vinson, her father had a score to settle with a couple of hunters first. The other seven fights continued after a short respite to process what was just witnessed, as Hartwell glided over from his spot next to Cal's two pieces toward Thaddeus, who had reengaged in swordplay with Garrison.

Gary looked over at an advancing Hartwell and yelled, "I got this one, chief!"

Hartwell was having sort of an out-of-body experience, as he had relinquished control of his being to a battle schematic that was now playing in his head. Thaddeus went to block Hartwell's advances as well as counter Garrison's offensive, but the collective force and skill of his foes proved to be insurmountable. The vampire/protector duo's first slice proved to be the deepest, halting any movement from Thaddeus and sending the left side of his body to the left side of the turf and the right side of his body to the right side of the turf.

Gary exclaimed, "Whoa!" and then also went on auto-pilot, dropping his sword to the ground and then walking directly toward Emily Brewster, who split from her battle with Belinda for a moment and was all-too-happy to jump in the air and take a huge swipe at Garrison's neck. Emily had always been known for her accuracy and handiness with a blade, and this night was no exception. As quickly as Gary triumphed over the splitting of Thaddeus, he was then done in by Thaddeus' daughter in a thrilling, yet non-suspenseful fashion.

A battle that had created little advantage in over an hour was now shaking out in a mere matter of minutes. Cal's death sparked a chain reaction that had progressed past his father and Garrison and was now infecting the remainder of the vampire and protector team like a fast-spreading contagion. With both Thaddeus and Cal getting the first payback for mistreating Abraham Ellison, it was time to focus on the primary target of the revenge plot, Thomas Hartwell.

Heads were literally rolling across the Beach Haven Park lawn with great regularity in the next moments. Drew ended Daniel, Carla put Nicole down, and Emily spun around after her conquest of Garrison and moved her bloody blade through Belinda. Agent Blake was administering a choke-hold to Aaron, but he was off the ground and lacked the necessary leverage to choke the big man out, especially after Aaron raised his two massive hands above his shoulders and took hold of Blake's head, basically pulling his noggin off his shoulders. Sharon and Maggie weren't getting anywhere until Sharon focused all of her energy on the location of Maggie's heart, and punched through her chest and extracted her life-source before Emily spun through and beheaded a now-lifeless Maggie. Kyla and Maxwell were matching each other shot for shot before spinda-rella came through with her magic blade spinning around. Kayla noticed the swinging blade at the last possible moment and ducked, clearing the way for Emily to cleave off yet another head of her opponents. Emily finally stopped spinning as Maxwell's head hit the ground.

"Wow! That was a rush!" she said as she looked around to survey the damage in the wake of her spin-cycle.

The remaining hunters – Andrew, Carla, Emily, Sharon, Aaron and Kayla – looked down at Hartwell, who was leaning against a tree in the distance, somehow compelled to wait until it was time for him to become active again. Hartwell came back to life and glided a few steps away from the tree and the shadows of the night. He smiled and then used his right hand in a "Come get some," gesture. It was one against six, but the master vampire couldn't have been happier.

Months earlier, a collection of vampires had circled Andrew Brewster during a battle. Drew was the lone remaining hunter left and had little chance to circle the wagons and beat this ring of fire. The vampires even mocked Brewster by utilizing long sippy straws to drink and drain him of his blood. But, before the last drop of the vital red liquid was consumed, Kayla jumped out of the stands and simply reacted. She picked up a sword and then ended Hartwell's blissful night by lopping his head off, snatching up a victory that was already being tallied in the loss column.

The tables were turned on this night, however, as the hunters made a circle of their own around Hartwell. The six hunters had the decided advantage, but that didn't start Hartwell from visualizing a way out of the predicament, a certain path to victory. He channeled his grandson and master-strategist Maxwell to envision a "Food Processor" strategy, in which he would extend all of his hand blades and spin wildly, thus dismembering any and all hunters in his circular path. It was the execution of this plan, not the plan itself that eventually did Hartwell in on this now early morning.

The hunters had a great deal of experience in dealing with Thomas Hartwell and weren't about to take the decided competitive advantage lightly. Although they had lost the two most senior members of the team, Cal and Thaddeus, it was Cal's junior – all two minutes of it – that stepped up to lead the group. Emily was the younger of the two fraternal twins and she was every bit the warrior of her brother.

She looked around the circle and said to her son Drew, "Give me a moment here," noticing both that her son was eager and there was a decided change in Hartwell.

Kayla being the ultimate harmony seeker made to move the close up the circle after Emily took a few steps toward Hartwell. She reached out her left hand and clasped Aaron's hand, he reached out to Sharon, she held Carla's hand, and she gently grabbed her husband Andrew's hand sealing the circle. Then, Emily did something completely out of character. She dropped her sword to her waist and walked right up to Hartwell, standing only inches away from his face, looking inside of his blank stare for any signs of intelligent thought.

There was a part of Hartwell in the deep recesses of his being that was in full motion and executing the plan to mow down the group of hunters, but that action was not occurring in the outside world.

"I think he's gone," Emily said as she studied Hartwell's eyes and try to look deeper into his soul. "I think we should put him out of his misery. I could just pull out his heart, unless anyone has any objections?"

Emily looked behind her and noticed that Andrew had his open hand raised, so she played along like a school teacher.

"Yes, Andrew."

Drew was having flashbacks about the day the vampires used him as a human sippy box and then looked at his daughter Kayla.

"You were so brave that day, Kay..."

It took a few seconds for the rest of the crew to realize what he was talking about. Kayla started crying, "I couldn't watch them do that to you, dad." Drew walked over a few paces and hugged his daughter, "We're a family, Kay."

Carla stepped into the hug with his husband and daughter, and then the rest of the group joined in as the circled was broken and Hartwell was now free to roam throughout the countryside. His internal vision had him gliding around the park, zipping past the big lake in the center and then moving past the playground and tennis courts. In reality, of course, Hartwell was a man standing in one spot in cement shoes.

The group of hunters slowly broke their hug and was now a pack of grizzly bears. The strength and intensity of the collective hug must have elicited a bear from deep in the recesses of this family. Emily grunted at Andrew, giving him to the green light to end the night's festivities. It had been a long night full of even battles that ended abruptly, and this final piece of the battle puzzle was no different. Andrew growled toward the sky and then took a huge swipe with his right paw at Hartwell's head. The grizzly's razor-sharp nails made quick work of Hartwell's head, which finally moved when it rolled off his shoulders and on to the moist grass. The vampire's body then collapsed to the ground like an unsupported bag of bones. The hunters then walked away from the carnage after separating the bodies of the two sides in adjacent piles in a remote and quiet wooded area of the park.

EIGHT

The Winters' family had settled back in to their comfortable existence once Joe, Valerie and Brandon arrived back in Portland, Oregon. The raw beauty of this Northwest haven made it easy for people to think peaceful and tranquil thoughts. It was the reunion of Valerie and her mother Katherine that carried the most weight in the days following their return.

"How are you feeling, honey?" Katherine asked her pregnant daughter as they sat down in the den to have some tea.

Joe and Brandon left minutes earlier to venture out Home Depot to do what men do, and the twins, Bryce and Cheryl, were out at school on this weekday.

Valerie was now huge with baby, as the forenamed Ariel was growing in size each day. She was now in the final stage of the pregnancy, which was replete with a generally forgetful nature and a complete love for mankind.

"Besides not sleeping for more than a few minutes a time because I can't get comfortable and having cravings for pickles dipped in mint chocolate chip ice cream, I'm pretty good."

"Have you heard from the people in New York since you got back?"

Since Valerie was in the throes of an advanced phase of pregnancy Alzheimer's, she searched the dark recesses of her brain and came up with, "No, I don't think so."

Katherine reached into her pants pocket and pulled out her cell phone, "Would you like to give them a call?"

Valerie repositioned herself in tandem with her daughter's movement.

"That won't be necessary, mom."

"I forget," Katherine chuckled, "you're able to talk internally with some of them."

It was the day after the first battle in Beach Haven, and the families had been taken off-line to each other and also outsiders. Valerie tried to mentally connect with some of the ladies of the Hartwell House Knitting Club, but her kind words of greeting went unanswered. She then tried Daniel, Maxwell and some of the men, but they were also unavailable.

"I think something is wrong," she stated.

"Why do you say that?" Katherine questioned her daughter.

Valerie paused to collect the information surrounding the hunch before she broadcasted the results.

"I'd like to say that it was my idea, but... she said as she gently caressed her belly. "Someone else is telling me that there could be a potential problem over at the other coast."

Katherine was a non-believer, partially because she was on a continuous quest toward world peace, and primarily because she had just gotten her family back and would in no way let them walk back out that door in search of more trouble and danger. She put her tea cup down and sat next her daughter on the couch, clasping her hands for added impact.

"I think the most important thing for you right now is to focus on the health of your baby and, most importantly, your health. Even if another vampire from the past and his army show up in Beach Haven, nobody can expect anyone from this house to participate at the moment," shielding her true feeling that forever and ever would be an appropriate amount of time between crusades.

Valerie had grown to love the group in Beach Haven and always wanted to be in the middle of helping people that mattered the most in her life. Even at her time when the skin of her stomach was looking like a balloon that had been over-inflated with helium, she was willing to put all of that aside because she knew that her baby was in perfect health and would soon be out in the world making a difference.

"Okay," she reticently replied. "But once Ariel comes out, we will be going to New York if there is still trouble."

Katherine was about to counter with the dreaded "We'll see" response, but she knew the situation called for calm not parental resistance.

"Okay, Valerie. If there are still problems, we will go help them."

Valerie smiled and rested her head on the cushiony comfort of her mom's shoulder.

Ariel chimed in and said internally to her mom, "Then pack our bags, because we're going to the big red apple!"

Back in the big red apple, relations between the two sides had downshifted from what could be termed as "icy" the previous day to a more robotic indifference after the first night and early morning of fighting. The six victorious and surviving hunters spent the night in their own beds, with Drew and Carla representing the only couple able to spend the early morning together.

It was commonplace in previous fights to bring home the remains of fallen comrades so they could awaken in the warmth of familiar surroundings. However, everything was different about this round of fighting. The survivors merely cleared away the debris of carcasses and walked home without really caring for the remains. It was like they no longer had an emotional attachment or connection to the happenings surrounding the house.

The vampires and protectors were the first group to wake up to the rising sun, because their bodies were dumped on a better angle to the first solar rays. Heads and bodies were inter-dispersed, so the reassembling procedure took a little longer than usual. Eight heads and associated body parts found each other and then the final stage – the healing stage – took place without any sign of reentry pain. The group slowly came to their feet as Garrison looked over at Hartwell and simply said, "I guess we lost that one," without even the hint of emotion.

The process was much simpler for the hunters in a small pile about 100 yards north of where the vampires and protectors had now vacated on their way home. Cal and Thad Brewster came back to life and surveyed an empty field at the crack of dawn. They were also alone, which was usually a good sign for their chances of victory the previous night.

"Just us?" Cal asked his father.

Thaddeus looked around, "Just us," he replied without any hint of giving away his feelings about the outcome.

The two men nodded in approval and then started the long, slow stroll back to the house without saying another word. A conflict that had always been infused with so much emotion had turned into a one-act melodrama devoid of feeling that was spilling over from the battlefield into suburban life. But the calm was definitely in preparation for the storm that was developing.

NINE

Night two of the battle followed a slightly altered script from the first night. Claire felt fairly satisfied that the necessary level of pain and suffering was inflicted on night one, but altered the match-ups for giggles and kicks and social misfortune the second night.

VAMPIRES/PROTECTORS HUNTERS

Hartwell Emily

Garrison Kayla

Daniel Carla

Nicole Andrew

Maggie Aaron

Blake Sharon

Belinda Cal

Maxwell Thaddeus

Hartwell and Emily had a very brief dating history in the early years, and this close association would do work on both Maggie and Aaron's jealousy database. Maggie and Aaron never had the occasion to either have much in common or enter into discussion of any length, but their relationship would make a complete u-turn at the sight of their loved ones in a warm embrace. Aaron had always admired Maggie from afar and would let his most latent feelings become known. Everyone in both families would be outraged that Gary and Thad would use their physical power and experience to harm Kayla and Max, who they now viewed as young, defenseless children.

As long as the flames were rising, the groupings of Daniel and Carla and Nicole and Drew would reignite jealous feelings that burned so bright between the couples. Speaking of couples, former married couples Agent Blake and Sharon - who produced Nicole as their offspring – and Cal and Belinda – who joined forces to create Daniel – would be crossing the streams and igniting old relationships in the most unnatural fashion.

The house was completely silent on day two until about 15 minutes before the usual dinner time in the house of 6:00 pm. Claire had Samuel going out for every meal and even when he was home, she made it seem that everything was copasetic in the house. He had absolutely no idea what was going on, especially during the battles at night. For all he knew, the house was calm and harmonious after the long struggle against Lowery's army.

Andrew strolled into the kitchen at 5:44 pm because he was hungry. In fact, Drew was always hungry and he was in and out of the kitchen about 30 times a day. Only this time, he was in the kitchen envisioning a full turkey dinner with all of the fixings when Nicole walked in.

"A huge turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce would look great on the table right now," he said, not even caring if anyone else was in the room listening to him. Drew felt if he thought hard enough about anything then it would eventually happen.

"What about those yams with the marshmallows on top?" Nicole added.

"Yeah, gotta' have those!" he exclaimed as he picked up his head from the vision and looked at Nicole without scorn for the first time in days.

Andrew and Nicole continued their Thanksgiving-themed discussion, as their spouses Carla and Daniel walked in on the conversation. Memories of a time just after high school flooded into both of their minds, as Drew and Nicole had had a brief affair – all 20 minutes of it – which put the father of Maxwell in question for many months after Nicole found out she was pregnant. Daniel was Nicole's boyfriend turned vampire, and he had already consummated his relationship with Nicole weeks before Drew entered the picture.

"What are you doing talking to that person?" Carla said to Drew in the most indignant and disrespectful tone she could muster.

Daniel was angry at Carla for talking to his wife in such a tone, at least at first.

"Why are you talking to my wife like that?" he said, before he shifted gears and turned his focus toward his wife, "And, why are you talking to that hunter?"

"Hunter? Hunter!" Drew yelled at his cousin and part-time best friend. "How dare to you refer to me in such a disrespectful way?"

Nicole was confused, "What's wrong with calling you a hunter? Because you are a hunter, right?" she said as she moved closer and inflected in a flirty tone.

Carla did not play that kind of game and wanted nothing to do with Nicole approaching her man. She started walking toward Nicole, but was quickly intercepted by Daniel, who initially grabbed her by the arms and then held her around her waist pressing their bodies together.

Daniel had never been that close to Carla and definitely had a different perspective on his cousin's wife as they were standing on top of each other. He mumbled under his breath as they ground against each other, "Well, that doesn't suck."

Nicole was furious when she saw her husband grinding against some ho, so she ran over and grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away and out of the house, "We have to go get dinner, now!" She looked back at Drew and winked, "Hey pimp, have your ho make the side dishes and we'll get the turkey!"

Nicole was still enthralled with Daniel until she saw the wink, "I'm gonna' close that eye later!"

Andrew watched Nicole as she cleared the doorway, "It's gonna' be an interesting meal. Let's get busy with the candied yams," he said to Carla, who put up her left hand in his face signaling that all systems were now on 'stop.'

Carla left the room and Sharon took her place.

"Did someone say candied yams?"

Andrew turned and said to Sharon, "We have to make yams for our turkey dinner," before he left the room.

Agent Blake walked in and said, "Turkey? Doesn't that make you all tired and sleepy? Not the best food to be eating before a fight."

Sharon used to look at Blake with the same loving eyes when she was a teenager and coming New England beaches. She had fallen in love with Blake the lifeguard and they were married, much to the chagrin of her father Garrison, who knew how tough it would be to let an outsider into their vampire protecting world. Gary's worries came to fruition as Blake was so frustrated at being an outsider in a world that he was not a part of, that he left one day not knowing that Sharon was pregnant with their baby, who turned out to be Nicole.

In Sharon's altered mind, Blake was once again the blond-haired ripped lifeguard patrolling the beach. Sharon was the best swimmer he had ever seen, primarily because she was able to utilize her protector skills to change into dolphins and Orca killer whales on command. They were the perfect physical match and this symmetry was on display in the kitchen as she moved in and kissed him passionately. There were no other thoughts at the moment in Blake's head other than Sharon at that moment. In his mind, she was the only person on the planet at that moment.

"What the..." Cal said as he walked in to the main room and spied his wife kissing her ex-husband.

His only thought when he saw the act of infidelity was to break up the smooch and then bust Blake's lip. But his progress to accomplish that goal was thwarted by Belinda, his ex wife, who was following up the play. Cal and Belinda had also experienced great love early on in their relationship before the obvious strain of hunting Hartwell swallowed them whole. It also put a sizable strain on the relationship, which had produced Daniel as an offspring, that Cal had fallen in love with Sharon and was having an affair with her, before Hartwell put an end to that by burying in the bottom of the ocean for 15 long years.

Belinda spun Cal around and then did the only thing that was on her mind: kissing the lips that made her knees weak when they first met. Cal transitioned from punching Blake in the lip to kissing Belinda's lips, and the familiar feel of her touch made him fall in love with her all over again.

Hartwell and Maggie glided into the room and were stopped in their flow by the sight of the mismatched couples.

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Maggie asked her husband.

Hartwell rubbed his eyes to make sure that the vision was not a mirage.

"That depends. What are you seeing?" he countered.

She was flabbergasted, "Chaos. What I'm seeing right now is pure chaos."

Hartwell grabbed hold of Cal and Blake and escorted them outside so they could clear their clouded heads with some fresh air. Maggie did the same with Sharon and Belinda, but their destination was the chi room, which was a place she would go often for some mental realignment.

Emily and Aaron walked in to the empty room and then decided to split up to see where everyone was hiding. He walked deeper into the house and she stepped outside on the off-chance that anyone had ventured beyond the friendly confines of their hallowed walls.

The main room of the house was once again vacant, until two familiar eating buddies strolled in to see what was happening.

"What's for dinner?" a jovial Thaddeus asked to the empty room.

"Doesn't look like there is anything on the menu," a disappointed Garrison stated.

"You want to go out and grab a bite to eat?" Thad asked.

Gary mocked, "With you?"

"Yeah with me, you Neanderthal!" Thad replied as they went back to the garage and drove Thad's 1964 ½ Ford Mustang Convertible into town to meet their new lady friends for dinner at The Beach Haven Diner. Gary thought about associating with the dreaded hunter and then succumbed to the power of food, which appeared to be superseding any heated rivalry. It was also the tie that bound them together beyond any mind tricks by Claire Vinson.

TEN

Aaron innocently walked into the chi room where Maggie had corralled Sharon and Belinda to cool off from the apparent house-wide estrogen explosion. It was as if he had walked into a work of Greek mythology and was a demigod being confronted by a group of seductive and deadly sirens. He knew the minute he stepped through the barrier of the hallway and into the room that there would be no turning back.

A similar dynamic was occurring outside in the waning sunshine, as Emily pulled up on a group consisting of her brother and Blake, being restrained by Hartwell. She tried to avoid the rampant infestation of testosterone but did little but exacerbate the situation.

"What are you doing to those men?" she confronted Hartwell, who was usually at the head of any problem or confrontation.

She then talked to her brother, because she really wasn't too concerned what was happening to Agent Blake.

"Are you okay?"

Hartwell turned around and the light of the setting sun must have hit him just right, because Emily was instantly smitten. The vampire looked at Emily and saw much of the physical qualities he lusted after when they were sort of an item for a brief time decades earlier. They instantly met in a heated embrace, which caused Cal to say, "Yuck! What is that?" as he walked away in obvious disgust and disdain.

Blake was right behind him and talking to himself, "Good thing I saw that before dinner," as he and Cal helped Drew and Carla bring food in from the car to the house.

Meanwhile, in the chi room, energy was flowing between Aaron and the ladies, but his appearance had a dazzling effect on one lady in particular. Maggie was so focused on calming Sharon and Belinda down that she didn't notice Aaron's entry into the room at first. But, when they finally did calm down, she turned around and then tuned out everything else that had been going on within the dimly-lit room. She stood up from the pillow-lined floor and glided over to Aaron, and then rose up a foot or so she their lips could be aligned.

"No way," an astonished Sharon softly said.

"Now I've seen everything," Belinda added.

Belinda knew that Armageddon would ensue if Hartwell got an eyeful of the love of his lives kissing the big guy, so she extracted Maggie away from Aaron after only a few seconds of intense lip-locking. Maggie reached back to reconnect with him, but Sharon was at the ready and holding him back.

It was Lowery's wish to not only bring pain to Hartwell and all of his extended family, but to also destroy everything that they cherished and was near and dear to them. Through Claire he was able to find a conduit after his passing that would be an unstoppable force at first destroying the tribe, and then turning on the offspring of hunter and a vampire. The revenge would not be finalized until Samuel first knew true love and then left the world feeling nothing but the ultimate betrayal.

The fight that night was probably the weirdest few hours ever witnessed in the history of vampire/protector and hunter battles. Yes, it was even more off the beaten path than the bash therapy the group experienced at the end of the last battle against each other.

The walk out to the Beach Haven Park great lawn that night was one of eager anticipation, but not the usual type of eager anticipation. This excitement found its origin in the loins, not the guts, and was more like a first date kind of anticipation then a fight to the death kind of anticipation. Bonds between loved ones had been severed and the pendulum of interest had shifted from the core to the unknown, with no real timetable for turning back the clock and rediscovering what had always been so right.

The vampires and protectors left the house first, engaging blow dryers, curling irons, cologne, makeup and perfume before getting dressed in their favorite outfits to lure the opposite sex. Garrison was also dressed 'to the nines' because he and Thaddeus were going to meet their new girlfriends for a late night AARP bootie call, which was similar to a normal bootie call but included some extra experience benefits for being over 50 years old.

The women were wearing short skirts and the men were adorned in their best suits. The initial party did not leave the house until 12:45 am, which was a good 45 minutes tardy of the usual departure time. The hunters were usually only minute or two behind the vampires and protectors, as was their custom, but they didn't leave the house until close to 1:00 am. Cal had changed his outfit at least five times and was apparently - and shockingly - holding up the group.

The vampires and protectors arrived at the field and, instead of taking their places in a neat row next to each other, they scattered throughout the park waiting to be found.

It was perhaps the quietest fight with the least blood spilled than any of these warriors had ever experienced. The hunters hit the park and scattered without any words of strategy or greeting being exchanged. The only action other than groping and giggling took place in the center of the field between four people, two of which were confused and two that were concerted in their efforts.

Thaddeus crossed the field in his best suit and walked straight over to Garrison, who was as eager as a jack rabbit on the first day of hunting season. The shook hands and then Gary said to Thad, "We have to get this over with as quickly as possible."

Thad was also concerned about time, but his primary focus was on his extremities.

"This is my best suit. How are we going to keep from getting blood on us?"

Gary wet his finger and then put it up in the air to gauge the wind direction and velocity/speed.

"North/Northwest breeze at about 4 miles per hour. If we stand over here," he stated as he moved a few paces to his left, "then any flying blood will flow behind the bodies."

Thaddeus nudged Gary upon visual confirmation of their intended targets walking towards them and coming into voice range. Kayla and Maxwell walked towards Gary and Thaddeus from opposite sides of the field, as the two hugged their respective relatives. And, just as the hugs broke, both men took two giant hops toward the spot that Gary marked off and cleanly separated their young protégés brilliant heads from their bodies.

There wasn't a hint of emotion from either man that could disrupt their attention from their now-nightly double dates. They walked away, bloody swords in hand and then dumped off their weapons in a secure spot in the woods on the way to town.

Thaddeus looked over his suit for blood stains.

"Not a drop! You are the master!" Thaddeus exclaimed as he joyfully bumped fists with Garrison.

Gary smiled, "Did you see the look on their faces?"

"Yeah, they didn't even know what hit them."

"You want the pullout couch or the bedroom tonight?" Gary asked Thad.

"Are we being a tad bit presumptuous?" Thad replied.

They looked at each other and easily reached middle ground, "Nah!"

Thad and Gary were well on their double dates by the time the other six matchups in the field came up for air. It had been an hour since the hunters met the vampires and protectors on the field and there was a visible heat, actual steam, rising off the outskirts of the field. The lusty behavior appeared to dissipate as the clock turned to 2:14 am. Belinda stood up and reached for her sword as a smiling and content Cal simply waited for her lips to return. But she replaced her lips for the kiss of a cool sword against his warm neck. She wiped the Cal's blood clean off the sword and the then walked straight home.

A similar dynamic unfolded with the five other couples: Sharon sectioned off Blake, Maggie used her deadly fingernail to pierce Aaron's heart, Nicole and Carla sliced and diced kissing cousins, Andrew and Daniel, and then the act that ended the night – Emily removed Hartwell's heart and stepped on it on her way out of the park.

There was an obvious bias against men coming from Claire Vinson that was her vision alone, with no assistance from her father. Lowery would have surely gone after whoever was in his way, regardless of sex, creed, or origin. She was sinking deeper and deeper into a controlled and angry state of mind, and now the inner rage stemming from her inability to escape the confines of her mental surroundings was starting to mount. She couldn't stand to look at Samuel face anymore, so she cut his head off with her long fingernails and then threw his body into the corner of the sun room so it would take longer for him to regenerate. Samuel was so smitten with Claire that he wouldn't even notice that she had killed him and that he had come back to life the next morning. Besides, she had implanted thoughts of a nice night together, just the two of them, to counteract any stray thoughts he might have had about the missing few hours in his short-term memory bank.

ELEVEN

Night three of the battle came only after some of the residue of night two finally settled. Conflicting emotions were all the rage after the usual wake-up, regeneration and walk back for the six guys that were terminated in the field. Thaddeus and Garrison completed the 'walk of shame' just before the sun rose and slipped into their beds undetected and feeling calm and confident.

Daniel caught up to Maxwell and Andrew tracked down Kayla as they walked separate paths back to Hartwell's house.

"I think Thaddeus cut my head off?" a confused Maxwell said questioning the events of the previous night.

Daniel was still clearing the cob-webs of waking up from his own demise.

"What? Did you just say that Kayla's great grandfather cut your head off last night?"

Max thought about the question and then played back the events of the non-fight in his head.

"Yes. That's what I'm saying."

Daniel was operating on half-a-brain, but he still was able to piece together that the act was something out of the ordinary. Hartwell joined the group with his son and grandson and put his two cents in.

"Did somebody say they were killed by a hunter?"

"Yeah, that was me," Max replied.

"Me, too," Daniel added.

Hartwell raised his hand and said, "Well, I guess that would be me three."

"Four," Agent Blake said as he jumped in to the conversation while the men kept walking through the outskirts of the park side-by-side in a scattered row.

"They all turned on us," Blake stated.

Max was confused, "The hunters?"

"No, the women," Daniel stated.

"So, what was the deal with Thaddeus?"

"I don't know, but we're going to find out when we get home," Hartwell said, as the focus immediately shifted off of the women and back to a hunter with a hot date.

The hunters were experiencing a similar dynamic on their walk home.

"Dad, I think Hartwell's protector cut my head off last night," Kayla said to Andrew.

"Do you mean, Garrison?" Drew questioned.

"Yeah, Gary," she replied.

"Why would he do that?" Cal asked.

"Because he's a protector and he hates us," Aaron gave the most simplified answer he could muster.

Kayla was the only female to lose her life in the second night of the battle.

"Where are mom and the other ladies?" Kayla said as she was both confused and hurt.

Drew was getting more anxious by the second, but sought to calm his daughter down, "I'm sure we'll find out all of the answers to our questions when we get to their house."

The hunters had settled in nicely to Hartwell's house and had considered it also be their house before the Claire's intended subdivision the previous night. Half of the house was still snoozing when the vampires and protectors entered the house, followed by the hunters about 40 seconds later.

Kayla went at Max before anyone could even think of starting something.

"Your grandfather's protector chopped my head off last night!" she yelled as she unsheathed her sword.

Max couldn't believe his ears. After all, he was the one who was really wronged the night before.

"Well, I didn't even have a chance to react before your great grandfather took a swipe at my head!"

Kayla was out of control when she swung her blade at Maxwell, only to have a surprising source stop the progress of the blade with his bare hands. Cal yelled, "I'm all for killing all of these people," Cal said as he motioned toward Hartwell, Daniel, Agent Blake and Maxwell, "but there is a no-sword policy in the house and I am going to have to hold you to that."

Kayla was confused that such a violent and vengeful group of people would actually have rules about when and where they could try to kill each other.

"Really? You people kill each other almost every day and you have rules about swords in the house?"

The vampires were neat freaks, "No need making the house all dirty."

"Shut up, vampire!" Kayla shot back, shedding her peace-making self for the opposite and darker end of her rainbow.

Kayla threw her sword to the floor and lunge at Maxwell, punching him in the face. Max became so angry that he absorbed the blow and then threw a punch back, but it landed on the side of Andrew's head. Andrew couldn't believe that his son-in-law struck him, so he punched back and hit Hartwell square in the nose as the scrum of men tightened and intensified. The melee spilled out the front door like a swarm of bees, only the two sections of bees were attacking each other.

The fight would have lasted a lot longer than the four minutes it took to extinguish the hate, but the group was on non-battle time and was once again fighting only with the strength of mortals. So, they mini-battle was contained to an exchange of trash in the form of words.

"When I get up I'm going to do something to you that won't be pleasant," Daniel said to Andrew.

"You and what army?" Drew replied.

As the grade school battle of the words hit a deafening crescendo outside, Thaddeus and Garrison woke up and staggered into the main room of the house to see what all of the commotion was about.

"Did you hear something?" Thad asked Gary.

"Yes, I heard a bang and then some yelling," Garrison stated.

Just as they were about to walk back into their rooms and go to sleep, the front door opened and the group of brawlers staggered back inside.

"There they are!" Aaron yelled as Thad and Gary barely knew whether to turn and run or look behind them in hopes that the gang was looking for some other people that deserved to be found.

"Why did you kill me?" a tiny voice could barely be heard above the din.

Cal realized that Kayla was trying to confront Garrison, so he put himself out there.

"Whoa! Settle down! The little lady wants to speak!"

In actuality, Kayla was almost as tall as Cal and could dwarf him if she wore heels of any significant height. But in real terms, she was still a relative neophyte and had yet to earn her real stripes within this veteran group.

Kayla smiled at Cal, "Thank you, Uncle Cal,' and then she turned on the anger when she approached Garrison. Under normal circumstances, she would have clasped her husband Maxwell's hand and they would have presented a united front in the face of their persecutors, Thad and Gary. However, this was the ultimate chaos and the members of the house were the primary chaotic players.

"Why in the name of all that is insane and unholy, would you chop off my head before I even had a chance to defend myself?" she asked Gary as she stood a good six feet away from him.

Thaddeus and Garrison were so in sync that it appeared that Gary's response exited from Thad's mouth.

"Because you were there!"

Gary looked at Thad and started chuckling, "Good one."

Gary then looked at Maxwell and said, "If you two show up at the field again tonight, we will do exactly the same thing because we have no time to waist babysitting children. We have more important things to do," he finished as he turned and bumped fists with Thaddeus.

"True that..." Thad said to Gary.

While it appeared that the rest of the House of Hartwell was being controlled and limited by the control of Claire Vinson, it had become all-too-obvious that the elder statesmen, Thaddeus and Garrison, were in sort of a time warp and flipped back to high school and their obsession of cars and girls.

"Let's go work on the Stanger," Thad said as he rolled up a pack of cigarettes in the sleeve of his t-shirt.

"Let's..." Gary concurred as the two men walked past the group and brushed a few shoulders on the way out of the house and a short walk back to the outer entrance of the garage to work on the 1964 ½ Mustang.

"Those guys are either really weird or really cool," Agent Blake stated.

The group as a collective thought long and hard about where Thad and Gary landed, but before anyone could offer their opinion Hartwell chimed in, "I don't like it. Those guys are infringing on our turf," hinting as if the men were part of a gang war.

"Come tonight, we make them eat dirt!" Hartwell raged as the rest of the group rallied around him as Claire Vinson smiled and then rolled over in obvious contentment and went back to sleep.

TWELVE

The women slept through most of the day and really didn't care what the men were up to. Hartwell had organized a group of his boys to track the whereabouts of Thaddeus and Garrison, who had barely left the garage area the entire day.

"We see you!" Gary yelled as he reattached the oil cap after Thad just topped off with a fresh quart of high-performance oil.

"What a bunch of tools," Thad said to Gary as Hartwell, Agent Blake and Aaron dove behind a few smaller bushes.

"These guys are the worst secret agents I have ever seen. Let's go teach them a lesson," Gary stated.

Gary and Thad put down their tools and walked over to the bushes, Thad grabbing Hartwell by his belt and Gary using both hands to grab Blake and Aaron by their belts.

Thad said, "It's wedgie time!"

Gary nodded as both men transitioned from the belt to the band of each man's underwear, suspending them in the air and propelling them into excruciating pain.

They dropped the men on the ground as Gary said, "If you go anywhere near is, next time we'll hang you from that tree!"

The fight that night took on a decidedly masculine turn after the wedgie incident, leaving the women happily on the outside looking in. Hartwell got the rest of the men that weren't Thaddeus and Garrison together, to discuss possible strategy for the evening.

"I want to get those guys tonight."

Blake was confused, "Are you going by yourself to the field, because I wouldn't recommend facing those guys alone.

Hartwell looked around the group with a little hint of fear in his eyes, "Would you guys go there by yourself?"

The other six men replied with a chorus of "No way!" and "Not if my life depended on it!"

"Why don't we all go together? "Daniel suggested.

Aaron was a little slow to the take and used his right index finger to count the group's numbers.

"That's seven against two."

Cal had moved back a few steps on the evolutionary chain in his mind but he was still as feisty as ever.

"Are you sure about that? I could fetch a calculator for you if you needed it."

Aaron thought about it and then replied after he rechecked his detailed calculation.

"No, I'm good."

Cal shook his head in disbelief and then offered his own feeble strategy, "We could run really fast through the field and then knock them down."

"And then what?" Daniel inquired.

Cal wasn't expecting a follow-up question and looked as inept as his counting-challenged friend Aaron.

"Oh... we could keep running right out the park?"

"What if they chase us?" Andrew asked his uncle.

"Then we should run faster," Cal replied.

It was about that time when some of the ladies overheard the men's conversation.

"Something tells me we should just stay home tonight," Belinda said to Nicole and Maggie.

Carla was trailing them and she said, "Sounds good to me," as the hatred they had for each other became neutralized in a single moment.

The first two nights of the battle featured the classic matchup of vampires and protectors versus hunters, only to transition to a third-night fight that would be called "Greasers vs. Dweebs." Thaddeus and Garrison happened to be walking through Beach Haven Park at midnight on their way to another double date with their new girlfriends. Normally, they would have driven to the apartment complex just outside of the park, but the Stanger was about a day or so away from running "just right."

They strolled through the park with their black leather jackets, jeans and black Converse All-Star high-tops.

"Do you think those morons will try anything tonight?" Thad asked Gary.

Gary looked around and used his full powers of detecting people that were following him, and replied, "I was going to say 'no' before I spotted them scurrying behind that big tree on the left about 200 yards from us.

Thad squinted as he looked to his left for confirmation. He barely saw the group until they moved closer and came into range.

"How can you see so far away? All I saw was a bunch of trees and some grass before they jogged into range."

"Did you bring your blade?"Gary asked.

Thad removed a black switchblade from his back pocket with his right hand and then put it up near his face before calmly clicking open the apparatus to reveal a black comb, which he used to further secure his slicked-back hair.

"I think if I just show them this without opening it, they will probably run home."

The men laughed with a level of confidence befitting a couple of bullies that felt completely indestructible.

"They have our backs to us. I say we ambush them," Maxwell said.

"Is that before or after we hit them over the heads with these baseball bats?" Hartwell asked.

Aaron once again stepped up to bring the group a little clarity but, as usual, it took him a few seconds to assess the situation. He envisioned the group running up to Thad and Gary with the baseball bats and doing nothing, which made it easy for the two men to thwart the lame ambush. And then he imagined the group running up and delivering a few key blows to the head of Thad and Gary as they crumpled to the ground.

"I think we should hit them prior to the ambush."

"But, isn't that the ambush in itself?" Blake asked.

"Yeah, what part is the ambush anyway? Is it the hitting or the running up and surprising?" Drew asked.

The group pondered the strategery dilemma and then Daniel mentally stepped forward, "I think it's both."

"What's both?" Drew asked.

"The ambush is both the surprise run-up and the hitting with the baseball bats," Daniel replied.

"So, it's like a combo strategy," Agent Blake said as the group extended the conversation because their collective fear precluded them from taking the first real step toward attacking their powerful foes.

Thad and Gary slowed their roll a little bit because they were interested in getting the blood flowing some before messing around with their ladies.

"I think we're about to be ambushed,' Gary said with a strong hint of sarcasm in this voice.

"They're all carrying baseball bats. Do you think they're headed over to the baseball field for a night game?" Thad countered.

Regrettably, Aaron was in front of the ambush and he would suffer the brunt of the push-back. He felt the breeze in his hair and forgot how fast he was running, while the other six members of the whack pack reduced their speed as the intended targets came into range. Thad turned around just as Aaron wound up and was about the strike him in the back of the head. Thad stopped the force of the bat with his bare left hand and then cocked his right fist as the euphoria in Aaron's face was wiped away by the sheer horror of being wildly unsuccessful in all aspects of the ambush.

Thaddeus grabbed the bat out of Aaron's hand as his fist impacted the left side of the big guy's face, knuckles digging into his cheek bone and turning the lights out almost immediately upon impact. Thad flipped the bat to Gary as the other six men stopped in their tracks and attempted to high-tail it on it of the park and a certain beat-down.

Since Hartwell was the intended target of any and all battles, Garrison flung the bat at the back of his long legs causing him to trip and lose his balance. The disorienting act caused a sort of domino effect, whereas Hartwell leaned into Cal, who bumped into Daniel, who grazed Andrew, who skimmed into Agent Blake, who hip-checked Maxwell, who fell to the ground while his bat became lodged into the field turf on impact. Hartwell followed the swaying of the group to the left as his momentum carried him a good 20 feet from his original spot.

"No way..." Thad said.

"Way," Gary replied confidently.

Hartwell tripped over his own feet and the collective momentum of the group sent him hurtling toward the ground. But his fall was stopped by a wood object that was fixed in the ground, and was apparently just as good at making contact with baseballs as it was with stopping the heart of a vampire.

"You are unbelievable!" Thaddeus exclaimed as he stuck out his fist.

Gary smiled and replied, "Let's go get some," as he bumped his buddy's fist and they walked away.

Aaron awoke from his restful slumber about 20 minutes later and collected Hartwell, whose heart was still attached to the baseball bat, and carried him home. He said as he walked slowly out of the park, "An ambush is both parts... not bad on the run-up, but my swing could use a little work," he said to an expired Hartwell, who would have surely rolled his eyes and walked away if he wasn't skewered by a 34-inch piece of lumber.

THIRTEEN

The women spent the second night of the battle as disgruntled spectators, not fulfilling the active participant role they were more accustomed to. Although they were vehemently disputed the word "active" as they sat around and knitted together.

"Why is it that we never get to plan any of these fights?" Kayla innocently asked as she held a spool of yarn for Belinda.

The simple question effectively scrubbed most of the barnacles off the brains of these obedient women.

"Yeah, why is that?" Maggie asked.

Emily stood up and pounded her chest, "Because man tell us woman what to do!" she said as she jumped around like a prehistoric women might do if she was either excited about something, or was about to be trampled and then eaten by Tyrannosaurus Rex.

"Isn't that always the way?" a very calm Belinda stated.

"Why does it have to be that way?" Carla questioned.

"What, that men tell us what strategy to use during the fights and we blindly follow their lead?" Sharon asked, looking for clarification.

"Yeah," Carla replied.

"I think we should start listening to our own hearts, our own voices," Nicole somewhat poetically stated.

"Ah, that was so nice!" former foe turned friend, turned foe, and now friend again Carla said as she hugged her friend in appreciation of her positive prose.

All of the other women chimed in words of encouragement and support as the momentum of feminine unity engulfed the knitting room.

Kayla started a new round of exploration, "We should do our own thing tomorrow night."

"What do you mean? Separate from the guys?" Sharon asked.

"Yes, but I was talking about fighting them," Kayla the former peacemaker stated.

"What a great idea!" Emily said.

"Do you think we'll have time to knit before we go tomorrow night?" Belinda asked.

"Oh, yeah!" Carla exclaimed. "Those little fights don't start until midnight."

Nicole chuckled, "Do you think we'll have time when we get back after the fight?"

The women all laughed and continued to knit blankets and sweaters and even baby booties in anticipation of their fellow sister in Portland, Valerie, giving birth to Ariel any day.

"How long do you think these baby booties will fit Ariel?" Maggie asked the group.

Kayla would have said something about Samuel, but Claire had virtually wiped the memory of her son from her mental database. Carla looked at Kayla and said, "Judging by this one, you'll have anywhere from ten minutes to 24 hours of fit from the little girl."

"At least her feet will be warm until I can make a bigger pair!" Maggie beamed.

The pink booties looked so comfortable that Emily was driven to ask the obvious question, "Hey, would those things be good as adult foot coverings, too?

"Yeah, we could start our own line of adult booties," Sharon added.

"We could call them footies or bippers," Carla chimed in.

"I like footies. Bippers sounds like a line of diaper bibs," Kayla said.

"Then footies it is! We'll start mass production tomorrow night and produce prototypes for each every one of us," Maggie stated, as everyone smiled from the collective, enriching experience of knitting garments together that would keep their feet warm and looking fashionable throughout the cold East Coast winter. It was too bad that the brain blast would be a one-night phenomenon that would be forgotten as quickly as hated each other.

Hartwell awoke the next morning with the baseball bat still lodged in his chest. At first he was happy to be on line again, but when he looked down at the wood object that was still perilously close to his heart it didn't sit well. Hartwell grabbed hold of the bat and pulled it slowly at first until it was clear of danger, and then he violently jerked it out of his chest and broke it over his knee once he was upright.

There was a strange feel to the morning in Hartwell's house, like someone had entered in the middle of the night and drawn an imaginary, but palpable line through the middle of the premises. On one half of the house were the men after being battered and mentally bruised by a couple of their own warriors, turned separatist bully tough guys. The fairer side of the house was populated by a group of confident, fulfilled women that appeared to have everything in their lives clearly in focus. And then there were the two bully tough guys, Thaddeus and Garrison, who spent the night with their lady friends and had no plans of returning during the day or in advance of the night four festivities.

The tone for the day was set shortly after Hartwell emerged from the sun room. The collective mood of the house appeared to be set each day by its leader, although neither he nor anyone else in the house realized that this trend was developing. Before the night one battle, Hartwell was obviously cultivating his long-standing dislike for the hunters and this came through in the fight. The second night must have been a dream flashback of times one by. On the third night, he had a dream about being bullied when he was a child and that's why the bully scenario came to fruition.

Hartwell went all the way back to the late 1800s and his mistrust of women in the Bay area for the day four setup. There were at least three opportunistic women that robbed him after he came back with small claims from his gold mining expeditions. He thought there was the potential for love in two of the three situations, although the 'relationships' were of the overnight variety and the women all exited while Hartwell slept. Of course, everything worked out for Hartwell after he made his big gold find, but things got a bit crazy the few weeks prior when he tried to rob Maggie's bank. But his thoughts on this morning were centered on the negative, not the wonderful life he initially built with Maggie and then rebuilt with her when she was reborn.

He sat alone in the kitchen drinking cup after cup of coffee for a few hours, which helped him slide further into depression and paranoia. The men were slow to get out of bed because they were all feeding off of Hartwell's horrendous vibe, while the women slept peacefully and felt refreshed for the first time in a long time in a non-death situation.

Claire Vinson made contact with the group for the first time in a few days, even though she already sensed that the collective mood was in flux and another division within the ranks had materialized. She walked into the kitchen and toasted a bagel and then got some almond milk and a few packs of blood for Maxwell. She didn't make eye contact with anyone and was about as far away from making eye contact as a pair of eyes and the floor could be. Her bagel popped out of the toaster, she placed it on a plate and then spread some vegetable cream cheese on the two open halves. She then smushed the two pieces together and walked out of the kitchen with the bagel, the blood and the almond milk without acknowledging all of the people around her. The truly strange part of the scene was that it didn't really register in the minds of the people around Claire that she was anything but a person getting some food and leaving the kitchen. Once she left the area, any thoughts of her were erased and her significance as Samuel's new girlfriend was basically a non-event.

As far as Samuel was concerned, his mind and body were in a holding pattern and he was incapable of accessing any of his powers. The key to Claire's plan was to neutralize him long enough to eliminate Hartwell and then turn against young, naive Samuel and take him out of the picture. However, the one thing that Lowery's daughter didn't realize, because her father was not aware, was that Hartwell was not the key to vampire life or death anymore.

Once Hartwell reached his 100th death, he was then attacked by Cal as a mortal in order to complete wipe him from the earth. Everyone associated with Hartwell – except Daniel – had lost all of their powers and were living as mortals. Daniel sensed that Cal would probably make a run at Hartwell, so he devised a plan to both counteract the siege and renew Hartwell contract as a vampire. So, while Hartwell was still the key to ending all of the fights, it was Daniel's death that had become the registry for the group in the race to 100 making it highly unlikely that Claire and Lowery's plans would come to fruition.

Back in the kitchen area, the women started making a healthy breakfast consisting of egg whites, wheat toast and assorted fruit. The men were as hungry as they were depressed and paranoid, but their collective cooking skills on this morning would have barely added up to a box of cereal drowned in milk. Cal looked at the group of happy, perky women and all he could think about was drowning his sorrows in plates of breakfast items that he didn't have to cook. Images of pancakes drenched in syrup, eggs, bacon, and waffles danced through his clouded mind. He looked around at his downtrodden brethren and said, "Anyone up for the diner?"

Hartwell replied, "Yeah."

Daniel added, "Let's drive, because I don't feel like walking."

"Yeah, my feet hurt," Drew said.

"I'm really achy and I have a ringing in my ears," Agent Blake stated.

"Can I drive?" Maxwell asked.

"Have you ever driven a car?" Aaron asked.

"No. Does anyone else want to drive?" Max asked.

A smattering of under-enthused "No's" went around as Hartwell flipped the keys of the large SUV to Maxwell and all of the joy of a first-time driver drained from his face - courtesy of Claire - and he was a walking zombie like the rest of the group as they made their way from the main room to the door to the huge garage.

The men went to the Beach Haven Diner and barely moved from their large table the entire day. Breakfast turned into lunch, which then turned into dinner as the sun set. The head waitress Trixie had only seen one other person accomplish that feat, but he had died of a heart attack after eating a greasy lunch and nobody realized that he was dead until she brought him a chicken parmesan dinner and he didn't ask for extra sauce, or "gravy," as he put it.

Back at the house, the women were involved in a crafting bonanza, scrapbooking in between some early morning knitting of footies and a late session of shirt appliquéing. Kayla proudly displayed the first shirt to come off the assembly line that read, "TEAM FOOTIES."

The men walked through the door and Maxwell flipped the keys to the gas-guzzling house on wheels on the counter and joked to the other guys, "What's a footie? Is it like a steaming doodie?"

The men were now fueled up and much of the down thoughts and terrible body language had vanished along with plates of pancakes, burgers and prime rib dinners. Kayla did a quick count of the men and whispered to her tight group of sisters, "Seven on seven. We can definitely take them."

Emily waked to the men and was flanked by Belinda and Carla on each side of her with the other four women in tight formation behind them.

"Midnight. Beach Haven High School football stadium. Be there or be..." she said as she changed into the only thing she could that would rhyme "bear," and then snarled for the added affect.

The powers of the house members were starting to resurface, which either signaled a waning of Claire's influence or a sick need for her to inflict additional damage on the inhabitants of the house by summoning more painful methods of inflicting pain.

While the action was heating up inside the house, it was also percolating outside of the friendly confines of the shore. The action was getting hot and heavy with Thaddeus, Gary and the Bernard twins, Ava and Theresa.

"We should take off to Vegas tomorrow and get married!" an enthusiastic Thaddeus said to the group as they rolled through the drive-thru at Beach Haven Burger.

Gary was on-board with anything that Thad suggested, especially if it involved more partying and anything his parents would get steamed up about.

"My parents are going to be so ticked off!" he exclaimed.

Fifty year-old divorcee Ava Bernard went along with just about every cool thing the boys suggested, but she needed a bit of clarity on this one, "Your parents are still alive?"

Gary thought about the question and it must have pierced a small hole in his subconscious, because he had a vision of first his father dying of a heart attack and then his mother dying of missing her father. His totally upbeat and radical demeanor downshifted and he replied, "No. They are both gone now."

"Oh, we're sorry to hear that," widower Theresa Bernard said as she poked her seemingly insensitive sister in the ribs. "We would be happy to go to Vegas with you tomorrow," trying to salvage a connection with the only two guys in town with both a heartbeat and money to burn.

FOURTEEN

With Thad and Gary less than 24 hours away from eloping in the devil's playground, all of the energy in the town shifted to the football field at the high school for a seven-by-seven battle of the sexes. The men usually would have adopted a "ladies first" attitude and let the women leave first, but they were in no mood to be polite on this night. Hartwell led the group out of the front door ahead of the women, who were all wearing colorful footies over their shoes. Cal pointed at the women's feet and sent out a mocking, cackling laugh that sent the rest of the men into teasing hysterics like a pack of vengeful hyenas.

Kayla put up her stop sign hand and said "Whatever!" to the boys as they looked back and then disappeared out of the front door and into the night.

Emily was always the defiant one, whether she was going head-to-head with Hartwell or scrambling for the last slice of pizza in an eight-slice pie.

"We're going to kick some footie tonight!"

The other six women danced up and down on their knitted foot covering that wasn't necessarily a sock or a slipper, but was more like an adult version of a baby bootie.

The men broke into their usual jog and then run on the way to the field, but the women walked most of the way making the men wait 25 minutes for their arrival. They grew so impatient that they almost started beating each other up and burning most of that testosterone-infused energy up.

"Here they come," Agent Blake said to the group as they broke from their scrum in a rugby match simulation.

The women appeared to be fairly subdued on the outside, but they were anything but calm on the inside. The bad blood between the sides had come to a boil during the night and was about to spill all over the field. The seven women broke their casual walk and darting at the men without provocation or warning, catching the males' off-guard and scrambling. There was no strategy other than "Footie Power!" that was being utilized, although the ladies were showing a very high level of teamwork as compared to the every man for himself credo of the club-draggers.

It was a strange sight to see two huge grizzly bears wearing rainbow-colored lower paw coverings, but Emily and Belinda looked right at home as they took turns pulverizing Agent Blake, who eventually snapped out of the surprise attack by changing into his Orca killer whale self and getting the women off him with a blow-hole full of sea water.

Cal was squared off with Nicole, who was beating him to a pulp as a human and then she switched to her dolphin form and swatted him across the face with her powerful tail. He used the slap as a wakeup call and changed into a ram and butted Nicole and sent her spinning half-way down the field.

Maggie went after Andrew and picked him up and slammed him to the turf four times, and then five and six times until Drew was almost unconscious. He turned into a pit bull, hoping that his alter ego would rev up his dulled senses, but all it did was get him kicked through the visitor's goal post and rolling out off the field.

And the trio of Carla, Kayla and Sharon formed a three-wide clothesline and took out the remaining men, Aaron, Daniel, Maxwell and Hartwell, who stood stiffly by while they were repeatedly hammered and fell to the ground. And now that the introductions between the two sides took place, in the form of a female-to-male beat-down, the real fight could officially begin.

Hartwell got up and got Carla in a headlock, while his son Daniel soared through the air with his expansive vampire wings unfurled and then crashed into her with great speed as Hartwell moved aside. Aaron was flipped into the air by Maxwell and then flattened Kayla as he came zooming down to the earth as a grizzly bear with incredible momentum. Then Daniel used his incredible speed and dexterity to wrap up Sharon and then furiously uncoil his arm to make her look like a spinning top headed for the chain-link fence between the field and the stands.

Sharon spun off the fence as Daniel yelled at his father-in-law Blake to take care of Sharon. The Former FBI agent switched from a whale back into cat and was propelled through the air by Hartwell, the breeze from his speed pushing his tabby hair back like a large fan. Just as Blake was over a dizzy Sharon, he made the transition back to the heaviest thing he could think of, which was his Orca whale self. He had thoughts about making the move to a hippo, but he waited to make that change until after he completed the squashing of Sharon. It was now seven on six, with the women down a body but definitely not out of the fight.

Emily quickly countered the loss by looking to even the sides. Blake got cocky when he changed into a hippo and then pranced around in his cat form before Emily tested the nine lives theory by jumping through the air and transitioning into a hawk and then a ram as she got closer to the track that surrounded the field. She angled her horns in such a way that she was able to spear Blake with her head down and then collect herself once her hooves touched down. She shook her head and the expired Blake the cat flew off her left horn and went flying through air, finally touching down under the home team stands on the left side of the field. It was now six on six.

Cal and Drew were confronted by Belinda and Maggie, as hunters surveyed the prospects of going against vampires. Cal and Drew were well-seasoned at combining their unnatural gifts and fighting in combination, just as Cal and his twin sister Emily were so adept at hunter teamwork. There were about 20 yards separating the two pairs, so Drew and Cal made up the gap by flying side-by-side as hawks, while the two vampires used wings of their own. It would have been an obvious mismatch between hawk and vampire, so the hunters participated in the game of chicken long enough to lure Belinda and Maggie into thinking that they had a decided advantage.

But instead of going through the hawk versions of Cal and Andrew, Belinda and Maggie pulled up at the last minute and extending their 20 fingernails as sword-like objects. Somewhere in between hawk and grizzly bear, the nails pierced through the two hunters effectively stopping the change and forcing them to revert back their mortal selves. The vampires floated back to the ground with their packages in toe and then released the holey men to expire on the stadium floor. Before Maggie and Belinda could move on to their next conquest, Hartwell and Daniel were returning the favor to the women - Hartwell using his deadly fingers to do in Belinda and Daniel doing the honors to his mother Maggie. Four on four.

Emily and Aaron were going at it, he as a grizzly bear and her using the experience and wherewithal to cycle through a series of changes that were intended to confuse him. He tried to keep up with her but when he couldn't keep up with her game of "match the hunter," his put bull was easily bested by his grizzly bear with one death-producing swipe of her huge right paw. Four on three in favor of the women.

Maxwell evened the sides in a flash as he channeled all of his new-age powers and basically flashed through Emily and shut down all of her vital organs, reducing her to a pile of bones and skin at midfield. There were now three people left on each side, with Nicole, Carla and Kayla remaining for the women and the dynamic lineup of ancestral development that was Maxwell, Daniel and Hartwell. Three on three.

Perhaps the women had lost sight of the fact that the only had to kill one person out of the seven for the fight to be over. Perhaps they were so confident and self-assured that they were going to let the scenario play out before acting on the obvious strategy. Whatever the case was the sight of Hartwell being flanked by Daniel and Maxwell prompted the women to be immediately inflicted with a severe case of tunnel vision, where all they could see was the man in the middle, Hartwell.

Nicole, Carla and her daughter Kayla went right at Hartwell like three cold-seeking missiles. They didn't even bother to change their facades to disguise their mission, preferring task completion over form and style points. The combined force of their inertia and strength had the impact of literally splitting Hartwell into three disconnected sections, but now before Maxwell and Daniel used their finger swords to disconnect the women's heads from their bodies. The women had affectively won the night's battle but none of them survived to bask in the spoils of victory. Only Daniel and his son Maxwell remained to pick of the pieces of the evening and respectfully deposit the other family members in the sun room to prepare for another wacky day of confrontation courtesy of Claire Vinson and her father Alexander Lowery.

FIFTEEN

Daniel and Maxwell went to sleep in their separate bedrooms and were fast asleep by the time the sun came up the next morning. The vampires usually slept very little, at least in a full horizontal and traditional kind of way. These new-age vampires could float for hours during the night and experience a great deal more than any mortal transitioning through a standard dream sequence. Traveling the globe and learning new things were the norm when all was quiet, as the vampires minds took them on a journey that few could ever experience.

Maxwell is in Egypt scaling the outside of the pyramids and testing its composition in order to calculate an accurate dating scenario, and Daniel was in Maine cracking open a few lobsters and dipping one of New England's favorite delicacies in clarified butter. Daniel always loved lobster as a teenager, and this fascination waned somewhat in the real world because of the creature's lack of blood, but did little to dull the craving in his subconscious.

Since the collective mood of the tribe was established by Hartwell's initial morning thoughts, the scene in the sun room would be indicative of which way the pendulum was swinging. The slate was wiped clean as various members of the family awoke from their peaceful slumber. That was, until Hartwell woke up and felt a little achy at first. It was obvious that the vampire was feeling his age on this day but really didn't want to hear about it because he was in complete denial.

"What's the matter old man, feeling your age today?" Daniel said to his father as he helped him stand up.

Of course the two of them could have just levitated to the position without actually physically using an appendage... but Hartwell pushed Daniel's hand away signifying that he didn't want or need his help in simply standing up.

"Did he just call you 'old man'?" Maggie asked in support of her husband.

"I believe he did," Hartwell replied.

"You're all looking pretty 'long in the tooth' this morning," Daniel's wife Nicole stated. "If you don't mind me using one of your old sayings?" she said to a group of eight elder statesmen and stateswomen that were now standing together with their backs to the foot-to-ceiling bank of windows. The group of younger people was now facing them, with Daniel, Nicole, Andrew, Carla, Maxwell and Kayla standing tall in the line of relative adolescents.

"Long in the tooth," Cal restated, trying to come to grips with the ageist message. "Why, I haven't heard that one since I was your age and didn't have to shave."

That elicited a chuckle out of the line of elders, which included Hartwell, Maggie, Emily, Aaron, Agent Blake, Sharon, Belinda and the aforementioned Calvin Brewster.

The pull from Hartwell's aging revelation was so strong that it awoke Thaddeus and Garrison from sound sleeps, as they were lying next to the women they were set to marry in Las Vegas later that day. Without any care for their new girlfriends, the men got up and threw on their clothes before hastily exited the premises without leaving a note of their whereabouts. What had been the only thing they thought about, besides how cool they were, was now buried in random thoughts behind defending the turf of the elder generation against a group of young upstarts trying to make a mockery of the separation.

"Maybe you want us to speak louder so you can hear what we're saying," Carla shouted at the top of her voice while trying to purposely over-annunciate what she was saying.

"She didn't just act like we're heard of hearing, did she?" a perturbed Emily said to her husband Aaron.

"I believe she did," he replied.

It was early in the morning but that didn't stop the neophytes from continue the all-out assault.

"I hear they have a good Early Bird Dinner Special at The Beach Haven Diner," Andrew said and then motioned at the group, "You might want to get in line now so you don't have to wait to get in."

Aaron ignored the slight and focused on the meal, "Do they have a special? What time does it start?"

The younger group broke out in laughter as Maxwell said, "We're out," and the group followed him out of the room.

"Out of where?" Maggie asked.

"I guess, out of the room," Agent Blake added, as his group slowly filtered out of the sun room because the glare was becoming excessive.

Thaddeus and Garrison arrived back at the house and were no longer a duo of bully greasers. The completion of the full restoration of the 1964 ½ Mustang Convertible would have to wait until quieter times or perhaps the next surge in mid-20th century nostalgia. Andrew was the first person they saw in the main room of the house.

"What's up, pops?" Drew asked with a tinge of disrespect.

Thaddeus was not going to let his grandson talk down to him so he grabbed him by the shirt and said, "Watch your tongue little boy."

Drew smiled because he had gotten inside of his grandfather's head. Garrison unhinged Thad's grip on Andrew and stood between them, saying to Thad, "You'll have your chance later, Thaddeus.

"Oh, you don't want any of this," Drew said with all of the bravado he used to display in his early years of high school.

Gary was the cool one until Drew stepped within range, so he extended his left hand and punched Drew in the nose. Drew backed up and Gary immediately got up in his grill, "Oh, I want all of that, little boy."

Thaddeus looked at his contemporary in confusion and then tried to break up the scuffle, pushing Drew away as he dabbed the blood flowing from his nose on the way to the bathroom.

"That didn't come out right," Gary explained.

Thad laughed, "You think?"

About an hour later, Belinda, Maggie, Emily and Sharon were busy making breakfast in the kitchen when Nicole and Carla strolled in to see what was happening. Egg white omelets, granola and yogurt blanketed the table, and fruit smoothies were being made by Sharon.

"What is all this?" a feisty Carla asked.

"It's breakfast," Maggie simply replied.

"For old people..." the usually-upbeat and supportive Nicole sneered.

Kayla, Daniel, Andrew and Max walked up to Nicole and Carla, and Max said, "Who made the social security spread?"

The group of youngsters laughed as Hartwell came in the room with Thaddeus, Cal and Garrison.

"Somebody's got to teach that boy some manners," Hartwell said as he stepped toward Max.

"Slow your roll, gramps," Max said to Hartwell, who had to be restrained by his counterparts to stop from killing his grandson.

"I won't be slowing my foot up your..." Hartwell started to say until his wife covered his mouth with her hand.

"Now Thomas, we don't need to talk to these toddlers this way. We'll just bring a few extra bars of soap with us later to wash their mouths out."

Kayla was confused, "Like I would use soap to clean my mouth out."

Hartwell looked at Maggie and he knew that whatever restraint she had was now gone. Maggie zipped over and grabbed Kayla, and then she brought her over to the sink where she proceeded to squirt liquid soap in her mouth and then use the spray attachment on the sink to literally wash her foul mouth out. She then looked at the five other youngin's and asked, "Anyone else want to say something disrespectful?"

Kayla spit out the remaining soapy bubbles and Daniel said, "Let's get out of here, this place is lame.

"Let's hit the drive-thru at The Burger," Andrew said, referring to Beach Haven Burger.

"Yeah, let's go. I'm buying!" Daniel said to the group as Carla fetched Kayla from the sink area and tripped Maggie as she walked by.

Maggie was still angry, "You're butt is mine later, little girl!"

"That did sound right either," Thad said to Gary.

"Tell me about it," Gary replied.

SIXTEEN

The six younger people spent the day out of the house, enjoying each other's company and hanging out at local teen hotspots including Beach Haven Coffee, Beach Haven Arcade, three meals at Beach Haven Burger, and then hours hanging out and making fun of people at Beach Haven 24/7.
In total and complete contrast, the ten older people were scattered throughout the town at Beach Haven Nails, Beach Haven Books, Beach Haven Hardware and Beach Haven Movies. Thad and Gary did not make an appearance at Beach Haven Bagel because of the calorie and fat content of the establishment's offerings.

The younger group didn't even bother to go home before the midnight fight, preferring to chug energy drinks and do radical tricks on their bikes over sitting around and watching themselves age. The older group enjoyed a huge dinner at the Beach Haven Diner at 5:25 pm, which was well within the Early Bird Special guidelines of the restaurant. Once a table was seated they were within the time of the special, even if they weren't served until after the 5:30 pm cutoff time. Hartwell paid for everyone and gladly displayed the 20 percent discount the group received off their meals.

"We got it!" he exclaimed as he came back to the table after he paid for the meal at the front counter.

"I don't know why you would ever eat after 5:30?" Agent Blake said.

If one of the people in the younger group were there they probably would have said, "Because I woke up at 11, ate breakfast at noon, ate lunch at 4, and then grabbed dinner at 8:30. I go to sleep after midnight, three hours after you pass out."

Of course none of the youngsters were at the diner, so such a counterpoint could not be made. They were at the arcade dancing in the revolution and driving cars off cliffs while their older counterparts were diving into salads with oil and vinegar dressing and overcooked chicken, bakes potatoes surrounded in tin foil and vegetables cooked beyond their nutritional value. Dinner at Beach Haven Tacos consisted of heaping orders of nachos with gooey cheese sauce, tacos and burritos with everything but the pileta, and sugary sodas that also elevated the blood pressure until crashing an hour or so later.

It was midnight and the energy drinks were flowing through the bodies of the younger generation. They were so pumped up that there started head-butting each other and beating each other up in preparation for the festivities about to take place. The action at Hartwell's house was a stark contrast to the action in the parking lot of Beach Haven 24/7. Out of the 10 older members, only two were still awake – Thaddeus and Garrison – and both of them drank too much water at dinner and had to go to the bathroom.

Gary noticed the time on the clock on his side night table – when he saw 11:54 pm, one and only one thought came to his mind.

"I wonder if anyone will notice if we skip this?"

That question was answered a few minutes later when the younger group starting making prank phone calls to the wireline phone in the house. The first few were hang-ups and then subsequent calls were of the full-prank nature courtesy of Andrew, who had experience with all aspects if deviant behavior in his youth and was putting these advanced skills to good use. By the time he was done with his five prank calls, everyone in the house was up and fully agitated.

"They coming?" Nicole asked Drew.

Drew smirked, "Oh, they'll be there!"

There was definitely a hop in the collective step of the older group just as Drew surmised. They arrived at the Beach Haven High School football field about 12:15 pm, which was five minutes earlier than the younger group who took their time and decidedly arrived fashionably late.

"So nice of you to come," Hartwell said upon their arrival.

Drew was still in a joking mood when he cracked, "So nice of you to wake up."

Daniel threw some more gasoline on the fire when he turned to Drew, "But they already got three good hours of sleep and we're about to put them to bed for the rest of the night," in true braggart form of the younger generation.

Hartwell turned to his group and said, "Well, let's say goodnight and put these brats to bed."

The other nine people roared and then turned toward the six younger people and charged. Daniel and his bunch were so confident that they didn't even flinch when presented with the visual of the stampeding herd of mature fighters. Andrew waited until the elders were about ten feet from them and then yelled, "Now, Kayla!"

Kayla was back to her protector self as her initiation of her three-fold shield effectively put half of the group out of danger and created instant match-up problems for the older group. The reactivation of her powers also had a trickle-down effect on the other 15 fighters, whose full powers were restored as they moved into action. The decided advantage swung to the side of the youth because of Daniel and Maxwell's advanced capabilities, but it also meant that the seniors had three people – Hartwell, Belinda and Maggie – that had all of the powers of the vampires, protectors and hunters.

The initial protected members were Nicole, Carla and Kayla, primarily because Daniel and Maxwell did not need protection and Kayla needed protection so she could continue to control the action with Max, who was back to being a master strategist. But what the elders lacked in supernatural skills they made up for with experience. What might have looked good on the drawing board in Max's mind had been played out on the actual battlefield by the members of Hartwell's group on several occasions.

Hartwell had the feeling that he and Daniel would hold the keys to victory on this night, because he was the only one focused on the fact that Daniel had sired him in his reemergence into the vampirical world. Normally, Hartwell obviously would have had a problem killing his own son, but he had taken the brunt of everyone's angst for so long that it wouldn't be so harmful to let the kid step up for a change. Besides, Hartwell thought that nobody called him old and got away with it!

Agent Blake, Sharon and Belinda were all rebuffed as the advanced on Nicole, Carla and Kayla, and instantly communicated the three-wide blockade internally to the rest of the group. Kayla then noticed a shift and moved one of the protections from Nicole to Andrew, who was now battling with three members of the other crew – Cal, Aaron and Maggie. Drew was about to give way right before Kayla made the move and swung his sword confidently and slashed Aaron's left arm and then Cal's right leg with the same swing and follow-through.

The fun really started after the initial cells of protection were moved. Everyone was becoming reacquainted with their abilities and also was more comfortable with the possibilities. Daniel set the stage for a flurry of activity as he rushed Hartwell as a vampire and then cycled through a series of changes that confused his father, at least at first. Hartwell was fighting only as a vampire with long nails extended from both index fingers until Daniel went from wolf bear, to Orca killer whale, to hawk, back to vampire with wings unfurled, to grizzly bear taking a swipe and connecting with Hartwell's back with the force of a thousand whips. Hartwell screamed in pain as Daniel continued to advance, changing into a hippopotamus, which was finally counteracted by Hartwell changing to his own version of the part land/part sea creature. They butted heads as hippos and then transitioned into rams doing the crashing head dance that looked like a tango, if two animals had occasion to dance.

Hartwell knew that the key to victory would be to take out Kayla, because her use of protection was a force that would be difficult to overcome. The implementation of such a plan required the elimination of at least one of the younger tribe, which would create a sense of disequilibrium that Hartwell hoped to capitalize on.

Kayla had switched the protection over to her original trio of her parents and herself, which left Daniel, Andrew and Nicole vulnerable for attack. Hartwell's first instinct as he continued to battle with Daniel was to take out Nicole, so he instructed Thad, Gary, Cal and Aaron to make a strong play at doing just that. It was perhaps the least conspicuous plan ever attempted in battle history. Sharon and Belinda made sure that Kayla was occupied, thus impairing her protection vision. Aaron turned into a grizzly bear and rumbled behind Nicole and secured her in a big hug. Cal thought about changing into a dolphin but he was much more efficient rapping his arms around Nicole's legs and impeding her attempts to run away. She desperately tried to escape by cycling through every creature she could think of: Orca killer whale, dolphin, grizzly bear, pit bull, wolf, hippo, hawk, and then back to her human form, which made it easier for Thad's sword to find the mark in her chest and Gary's sword to finish the job between her head and her neck.

It was 10 elders against five newbie's until Drew exited from his protection and squashed Aaron and Cal, who had switched back their human form and were unprepared to deal with the sheer weight of the closing Orca killer whale. Thaddeus and Garrison then attacked Drew, who picked up his sword from the ground and was taking them both on. Eight against five.

Kayla's group was down to only two levels of protection as a result of Nicole's death, which meant that Andrew, Daniel and Maxwell were now in play. With Hartwell and Daniel locked in the battle of their vampirical lives, it was up the other 11 fighters to make some headway. Belinda and Sharon continued to hammer away at Kayla and serve as a distraction, while Carla was being confronted by Emily who was blinding her younger, protected counterpart with a series of changes.

Maggie and Agent Blake were trying to penetrate Maxwell's superior defenses to no avail. By the time Blake had cycled through just about every exterior he could summon, he realized that this kid could not be defeated by conventional methods. He also figured out that he would probably have to risk his life for the greater good on this night. Just before Blake put himself on the chopping block, he imparted a kinder and gentler strategy to Maggie, who also just happened to be Maxwell's grandmother. Blake stepped toward Maxwell, shielding Maggie from the blinding speed of his sharp nails as sparks flew off the two swords he was defending himself with. Blake tumbled on the ground in order to split Max's focus between him and Maggie, who was manning the upper fighter quadrant.

Blake changed back into his human form and was sliced in the arm, then leg, and then heart, as Max immediately took advantage of the opening. But, before Maxwell could refocus on Maggie, she softly said, "I love you, Maxie," invoking his sensitivity and love for his grandma', which obviously wasn't buried perhaps as deep as he would have preferred. Maggie took advantage of the sensitive moment and used her extended nail to end Maxwell's night, her sharp nail interrupting his loving thought process. Eight verses four.

Another level of protection was knocked down, and Carla came out of the gates like a bucking bronco in a rodeo. She took out both Sharon and Belinda on her way to mauling an unsuspecting Emily, who was starting to get bored in fighting her and wasn't paying close attention to her movements. It was five against four until Thad and Gary wore Andrew down and forced him into changing into a hawk, which Gary consumed as a hippo. Five against three.

That advantage was short-lived as Gary and Thad changed back into their human form, only to have Kayla step out of her protection and finally get to swing her mighty sword. She sliced through both Thaddeus and Garrison with one incredible swoosh, and seemed to be styling during the follow-through, because before she could protect herself again she fell to the ground in two pieces, courtesy of Agent Blake Wallace. Three against two.

Carla piggy-backed her daughter and ended Blake, who also took too long to uncoil from his conquest of Kayla. Two on two. Daniel separated himself from Hartwell, and his father also used the break to be productive. Carla had no chance when Hartwell spun her way and snapped her neck. Daniel only saw a target, and had no emotion when he broke his mother Maggie's back from behind with her attention temporarily shifted toward Carla. Before the battle could come down to Hartwell versus Daniel, father against son, sire versus sire, the two men took to the air and arced around in a circle before coming at each other with great velocity and power. The action was so intense that neither man realized that they had a long-sharp nail puncture their skin and move clean through their hearts, effectively ending the battle for the night without the benefit of a real clear winner.

SEVENTEEN

Daniel awoke with his head resting on Hartwell's chest, both men still with their nails in each other's hearts. The morning sun was completing its bodily restoration but it wasn't until Hartwell uncoiled his nail that Daniel was able to breathe and return the favor. He gasped like he had just taken his first breath in life and Hartwell looked down at his son with great pride reverence.

He stroked the hair on top of his head and said, "We shouldn't be fighting against each other. Vampires have to stay together or we are doomed."

Daniel looked up and smiled as he hugged his father and was suddenly in complete agreement with the sentiment. Maggie, Maxwell and Belinda awoke from their early morning journey and joined the other vampires, who collectively zipped home in the time it would take a mortal to take a breath.

Normally, the protectors would always be close to the vampires but on this morning they were walking side-by-side with the hunters in an unusual display of non-vampire solidarity. The two sides had spent most of their non-mortal lives focused on Hartwell and anything that had to do with his vampire world. Once Hartwell's thoughts turned inward in a moment of introspection, the fate of the entire house was signed, sealed and delivered for the day.

The thoughts of the 18 people in the house, including Samuel and Claire Vinson, could not be further from the action in Portland, Oregon where Valerie Winters Justice was about to give birth. Her stomach was growing at such a rapid rate that it made it easy for a few of the people in the house to hearken back to recent days gone by.

"Do you remember how big Kayla got?" Brandon Justice asked his father-in-law.

Joe Winters laughed, "Yeah, we thought she was going to burst."

Valerie was not amused, "Mah, could you please remind these two that I am sitting here and my skin has expanding beyond its internal capabilities," she said to her mother.

"Katherine Winters looked over at the two men like they were little boys and scolded them, "She is sitting right there and he skin has expanded beyond its internal capabilities!"

Valerie smiled in approval of her mother's methods and then the satisfaction was wiped away by wave after wave of searing, mind-numbing pain.

"Daniel! Get Daniel!" Valerie screamed to her husband, as she had seen the miracle that Daniel had worked on Kayla. He had delivered the baby and then put the mother's insides back together in their pre-baby form.

Everyone looked at Brandon \- save for the twins Bryce and Cheryl, who were at school.

"I tried to get in touch with him! I tried to get in touch with everyone, but no one is there!"

"What?" Valerie screamed.

Brandon was despondent, "It's like they were wiped off the face of the earth."

"Can you go there and get him?" a concerned Katherine asked.

"Joe looked at his watch and then looked at his daughter, "He's fast, but I don't think he will make it back in time."

Joe, Katherine and a distressed Valerie then looked at Brandon for guidance. He had grown up with parents that demeaned his every move and then sought redemption after Hartwell turned him into a vampire. But the road for Brandon to feel better about his life turned out to be a slippery path, as he spent most of his time torturing Carla, who was to be his hunter. It wasn't until he left Portland for Beach Haven and lived in Hartwell's house, and was under Belinda's wing, that he finally understood what life was all about. This was also about the time that he reconciled with Carla, who had moved with Drew to Beach Haven and also met and fell in love with fellow arachnid lover Valerie.

Brandon once again looked inside for all of the answers and came up with the most simple of solutions.

"I'll do it."

As an original vampire in the House of Hartwell, Brandon called on his ability to summon certain powers of his fellow vampires. He couldn't have picked a better day to step up and play the part of the hero, because the vampirical energy between the five vampires in Beach Haven was flowing in a tight circle amongst them. It was a day of vampires versus protector and hunters in Beach Haven, which virtually guaranteed Brandon of being able to elicit the appropriate skills from his family in his wife's time of need. He never felt as close, or as distant, from his Beach Haven family as he did in that moment of clarity.

It was also a moment of extreme clarity for Ariel Justice, the still unborn child of Brandon and Valerie. As her father channeled powers that he previously only observed, Ariel got the immediate sense that there indeed was trouble in Beach Haven and she had to do something about it once she was able. Based on the chronology of the recent family births, it would take only a matter of days before she would make the trek across the country and view the coast on the right side of the map for the first time. Of course, she was in Beach Haven during her more formative womb days but she had no visual access to the Atlantic Ocean at that time.

Brandon stood over his wife, who was so strong that she had maintained her biting sense of humor.

"Aren't you going to wash your hands first?" Valerie grunted, knowing full-well that Brandon's hands would never actually touch her stomach or internal organs.

Brandon wasn't swayed by the request at first, but his overriding need as a vampire to be fastidious was becoming distracting. He zipped out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, where he scrubbed furiously with anti-bacterial soap. What seemed like minutes to him was only two seconds in real time, as he was back in the bedroom with his hands over Valerie's stomach just as Joe was saying, "Probably not the right time to tell a vampire that his hands were dirty."

The vampire put his hands up to show the trio that he was, in fact, a member in good standing of the Clean Hands Club. He then transitioned from the brief and much-needed moment of levity into full baby delivering mode. Daniel was at the hospital with his fellow vampires making a withdrawal from the blood bank, when Brandon tapped into his brain and channeled his capabilities. He felt light-headed and even lost his balance, which elicited an immediate response from his mothers, Maggie and Belinda, who said in tandem, "Are you all right?"

Hartwell also noticed that his son was askew and tossed him a bag of blood, which he immediately gulped down with great ferocity. Brandon also got a charge from the liquid refreshment and opened Valerie's stomach and raised his smiling daughter from the womb.

"I don't think I've ever seen a baby clean itself off after being born," Katherine Winters said in a completely flabbergasted tone of voice.

"You should have seen Samuel," Joe Winters said.

"Yeah, he cut his own umbilical cord," Brandon chimed in.

Ariel Justice would be the first creature ever born that spanned the spectrum of capabilities, from vampire to hunter, to protector and peacemaker. Her father was a vampire first and foremost, and he removed the umbilical cord before putting his daughter through his human car wash and then floating over to her adoring grandparents.

Daniel was still giving trouble getting his head straight even after Hartwell flipped him a second bag of blood.

"I wonder where this juice was taken from?" Daniel asked.

Hartwell floated the bag in Daniel's hand over to his hands and looked at the sourcing data on the bag.

"Skidmore Mental Hospital," Hartwell said out loud.

Daniel took the bait and said, "Really?"

Hartwell smiled, "No! This is from our good friends at the Wellshire Insurance Company."

The two men looked at each other and Daniel said, "Well, I guess that makes sense then."

Joe and Katherine Winters were snuggling with their 15-pound, 4-ounce granddaughter, who enjoyed the physical attention at first but then wanted to walk. What took most babies and infants over a year to accomplish, she had mastered in a little over three minutes. Valerie sat back comfortably as Brandon fused her insides and rearranged her organs and stomach to their pre-pregnancy condition. He then closed her up and eliminated any scarring that could potentially take place from the blood-less incision.

Brandon relinquished Daniel's powers and then Valerie popped back up off the bed and picked up her daughter, who had her arms out and was anxiously awaiting some outward physical contact with her mother. The two females put their heads together in a loving gesture, but the integration of their thoughts produced vivid images that were harder for the infant to understand than the mother.

Valerie moved back so she could see her daughter's face.

"Did you see that?" she asked, not even knowing if Ariel could form actual words yet.

"Yes," Ariel replied, "but what does it mean?"

"It means that we're going to Beach Haven next week as soon as you're of age," Valerie said as she looked around the room at her parents and husband. "We can't take the chance of exposing her to potential danger until she is 18," she added as she put her toddler down.

"Something isn't right," Daniel said to Hartwell and his group of fellow vampires.

His two mommies, Maggie and Belinda, stopped sipping the vital liquid for a moment and glided over the see if Daniel was all right.

"Are you still not feeling right, honey?" Maggie asked.

"Maybe you should sit down, Danny," Belinda suggested, as both women placed their hands in his broad shoulders.

The group walked into an empty hospital room after Maxwell thoroughly cleaned it up. He came out with a huge clear garbage bag filled with garbage.

"You can't believe how dirty these rooms are. How do they expect people to get better?" he asked the group.

The room was filled with discussions of dirt and filth until Daniel put his hand up to calm the conversations so he could speak. His head was clearing with each passing moment and the vampire was now at to his full capabilities again. He sat up on the bed and then stood up as everyone else took seats to listen to him.

"I can't quite locate it, but I feel that something is wrong."

"Wrong with what, dad?" Maxwell asked.

Daniel had regained his faculties but that did little to alleviate his confusion.

"I don't know, but I am going to find out," a determined Daniel stated even though he and the rest of his housemates were still under the spell of a clairvoyant being that also had other powers at her disposal.

EIGHTEEN

The vampire grouped talked some more and they all vowed to get the bottom of what was happening in their tight, little world. It was a novel experience for five creatures that were used to being in control of their world and the people surrounding them – at least for the most part. They returned to the house after making a sizable withdrawal from the hospital's blood bank just about the time when the hunters and protectors were gathering together for lunch. The five vampires glided through the main room and were greeted by a series of snarls and grunts, which told them that the best course of action would probably be to keep gliding past the hostility and to their rooms.

"What's up their butts?" Cal said to the group of 11 hunters and protectors seated around the large dining room table.

"We are," Aaron stated as Thad looked at Gary in disbelief over another statement that was aired and could be easily taken out of context.

"Do you think they'll have the guts to show tonight?" Andrew asked.

Emily joked, "What else do they have to do? Drink people's blood?"

Everyone laughed, revealing that the feelings of disorientation and confusion had not yet filtered to from Brandon and the vampires to the hunters and protectors. But the direction of each day was up to Hartwell, and it would be his responsibility going forward to moderate the collective mood in the house until something could be figured out.

The vampires stayed out of the hunters and protectors way until the scheduled battle at midnight. Although they were not fully committed to the fight because of the extemporaneous circumstances that arose earlier in the day, it was nonetheless their legacy to uphold the standards of being a vampire. While there were more than two hunters and protectors for every vampire, the night five tussle would prove to be the most highly contested struggle of the week.

This one proved to be a brawl from the opening bell, as the vampires ventured out the great lawn of Beach Haven Park as the hunters showed the protectors how the two-minute follow up was done. Apparently, it didn't matter if Claire was the puppeteer behind the production, because Cal still went right at Hartwell and clocked him with a strong right hand to the side of the head. The individuals were limited to their natural powers on this night: vampires focused on their blinding speed, huge wingspan and flying ability, and incredible dexterity and precision with their long nails; protectors with their innate ability to anticipate danger in between human, cat, wolf, bottle-nose dolphin, hippopotamus and Orca killer whale exteriors; and hunters, with obvious tracking and pursuing abilities in human, pit bull, hawk, grizzly bear and ram facades.

The hunters and protectors were working in pairs, using a floater to fill in wherever necessary as the flow of the fight dictated. The starting match-ups were as follows: Cal and Emily versus Hartwell; Blake and Sharon versus Belinda; Garrison and Thaddeus versus Maxwell; Nicole and Carla versus Daniel; and Aaron and Kayla versus Maggie, with Andrew serving as the able-bodied floater.

Emily and Cal had fought Hartwell in tandem so many times while awake and also in their sleep. The two would often dream about fighting Hartwell ever since they turned 18 and came on-line as his hunters. While their father Thaddeus was often preoccupied with Garrison, it was up to the twins to take down the nasty beast time and time again. And they had become so proficient in double-teaming Hartwell that he had to either do something to stop the momentum, or risk being killed 100 times and potentially miss out on seeing his wife and son again. So, Hartwell did what any cold-hearted, blood drinking vampire would do, he buried Cal in the bottom of the ocean and enjoyed 15 relatively peaceful years while he shadowed his son Daniel.

Since there was no real way to fight Hartwell straight up, unless you were Cal and had enough moxie in your fists to justify the insanity, there was always some element of trickery in the twins' strategy. Emily was usually the decoy to give Cal an open look at Hartwell, which was all he usually needed to finish the job. Cal provided the decoy on the occasion to Emily's knockout punch, but that approach was unsuccessful more than it was successful. Hartwell never took his eye off Emily because he knew that she would always be the key to any action that Cal would follow up with.

Hartwell was moved off his spot after the first Cal punch, but he made the loss of equilibrium work for him by flipping backwards through the air and then kicking an unaware Emily in the head, sending her airborne toward the ground. Cal usually talked with his fists but he was all about sword-play after the initial blow. Hartwell unfurled the nail on his right index finger and then engaged Cal by punching him in the head with a left hook and then kicking him to the ground next to his sister. Drew noticed the negative tone to the fight and tried to fill in, but Hartwell anticipated the move by flying into the air to avoid the extent of Drew's sword and then came down with a one-two kick to the side of his head that placed him next to his mother and uncle on the soft turf.

Agent Blake had studied Belinda's moves ever since he became her protector, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise that he seemed to anticipate her moves before she even consciously knew what she was doing. Sharon had logged many more years in the vampire and protector game even before the two of them had come along, and also had a view into what Maggie was going to, which created a mismatch at least at the outset of the fight.

Blake and Sharon both swung their swords at Belinda, who had the index fingers on both hands working to protect herself from the advances of her opponents. Blake kept moving to his right until he was behind Belinda, causing a sort of paralyzing situation for the vampire as it was virtually impossible for her to keep an eye on both people. Belinda tried to counteract their strategy by flipping through the air so she could land facing the protector and hunter. But Blake anticipated this move and told Sharon to use her hawk persona to ground the airborne vampire. If Belinda had used her wings to exert extra force, any advances by Sharon would have proved fruitless. Sharon jumped in the air as a human and then transitioned into a hawk with a massive wingspan, making up the gap between she and Belinda before the vampire came out of her flip.

Sharon grabbed Belinda's arm with her long talons and then hurled the off-balance Belinda toward Blake, who was waiting for her on the ground as an Orca killer whale waiting to swat her with his huge and powerful tail. Belinda sailed past Thaddeus and Garrison, who were trying to bring a little old-school brawling to Maxwell's new-school fighting tactics.

The old guys were working on a classic high-low attack, where Gary was going for the legs and Thad prepared to swing his right arm and strike the vampire in the head. Maxwell's mind moved so fast that he saw Garrison before he even hit the ground, and responded by immediately moving out of range of Thaddeus. With wings extended, he took the air about ten feet above the ground looking down and then mockingly waving at both Thaddeus with his arm extended and Garrison at the end of his flop on the ground.

Thad looked down at Gary and said, "Let's take this to the air," as he changed into a hawk, picked Gary off the ground, and then flipped him into the air in his human form and then watched him change into a smiling dolphin spinning Max around with his nose like a beach ball.

Daniel didn't take the challenge from his wife Nicole and Drew's wife Carla as seriously as he might have taken – let's say – a challenge from Drew and Cal. He smiled as the women confronted him with nothing but their bare hands. It had been quite some time since Daniel had witnessed an actual cat fight first hand. At the time he was a sophomore in high school when a fight broke out on the other end of the gym between two senior girls that were apparently having an issue with each other's pursuit of a certain starting quarterback of the football team.

The flashback of that nasty fight was quickly replayed in Daniel's mind and it was also playing out on the Beach Haven Park field. While Daniel didn't have long hair, it was obviously long enough to grab onto and make him scream in pain. Carla grabbed the back of Daniel's hair while Nicole stepped up and kicked him in the shins and then she leaned into a punch in the most sensitive of his areas, sending him in shock to his knees and then to the floor courtesy of a Carla elbow to the back of the head.

Aaron stepped up and threw a right hand at Maggie, but the vampire blocked the punch with her left hand and then countered with a right hand of her own to his exposed chin, sending the giant hunter to an early seat on the ground. She then stepped toward Kayla, and possibly underestimated the one known for peace by making the first move, a roundhouse kick. When Maggie's right foot sailed past Kayla head, the newbie quickly reacted with a elbow to the prone thigh and a straight right hand to the area surrounding the vampire's core, her heart, sending her astoundingly gasping for air on the ground.

Maggie momentarily wondered if she was going to be able to continue or if the blow would prove fatal and cause her heart to stop beating. A few seconds of normal breathing answered that question, but Kayla was on her with a combination to her back and head that was anything but peaceful. This girl had turned ninja for a day and was becoming Maggie's biggest nightmare with Aaron also getting up from the ground.

Drew was the last one to hit the deck but he was also the first one to race back and attempt to get at Hartwell. That was, until Cal pushed him aside and suggested he find another duo to accompany. Drew threw a parting kick at Hartwell's ribs, which was blocked and countered by spinning Drew's legs, propelling the hunter rotating through the air like a working drill bit.

Cal had enough with the whole trickery scene for the time-being, and picked up his sister by the hand as they both went in sword-first after Hartwell, who appeared extra attentive and motivated on this night. While Cal was always satisfied with his rugged human features, he had always been partial to his grizzly bear façade. He and his sister would often sit around the house as bears after they came of age, partially because it scared the crap out of their father and primarily because they thought the big creatures were cool. While the sight of Hartwell, with his wings and fangs fully out fighting two bears holding swords would have tested mortal comprehension, it was a welcome return to the very roots of this battle.

Belinda sailed half-way down the open field before she stopped her momentum by extending her wings. A few flaps later and she was back in front of Blake and Sharon, eager to take the fight to them. Instead of waiting for the duo to make the first move, Belinda made sure that she would make each of them feel uncomfortable. It had been hours since the vampires field trip to the blood bank and she was thirsting for a late-night snack. Belinda faked like she was going to punch Sharon, but instead made a break for Agent Blake's meaty forearm, sinking her teeth into top and bottom and then extracting a little sweet nectar.

When Sharon recovered she lunged at Belinda, but all she wound up with was a puncture mark in her thigh as the vampire had her second cocktail in a row and appeared charged up from the enhanced blood. The intoxicating aroma of fresh blood must have wafted through the air, because it helped Daniel get back in the fight as Nicole and Carla continued to scratch and kick him when he was down. First he took a bite out of his wife's leg as she kicked him in the stomach, and then he stopped Carla from scratching his face by sinking his teeth through her clothes and into her left side.

Daniel didn't realize it at the time but he was definitely channeling elements of the high school cat fight through his biting of human flesh. Drew then spun through the fight, only to have a voracious and eager Daniel bite him in the shoulder blade and then send him on his way.

"You fight like a girl!" Carla said as she held her side.

Daniel thought about the comment and then zipped toward her, as his fist connected with her face before she even had a chance to react. Luckily a limping Nicole counteracted that measure with a right hand of her own, or the night might have been over for Carla as Daniel would have surely drained the rest of her blood.

Maggie had more than enough of Kayla beating up on her, so she pretended to be more hurt then she was and played possum as Aaron came lumbering toward them to deliver the knockout blow. Both Maggie and Kayla were on their knees, with Kayla chocking Maggie out from behind her, as Aaron clenched his right fist and then wound up to deliver the haymaker to end all haymakers'.

Just as Aaron's long, muscular arm started its downward ascent toward Maggie's face she prepared to break free of Kayla clutch but was meeting with some tremendous resistance. She tried to test the limits of her bounds but was unsuccessful at providing enough space to duck at just the right time. So she did the only thing that she could think of at the time, as the scent of blood continued to infiltrate the nostrils of the five vampires across the park. Instead of continuing to resist to Kayla choke-hold, she simply extended her fangs and took a bite out of her bicep, which reduced the hunters' strength enough to enable Maggie to duck at the last moment as she felt the breeze of Aaron's fist whiz past her ear and continue toward Kayla's cheekbone where it found a more suitable landing place.

NINETEEN

Aaron bumped his head on the ground as he awkwardly rolled after his follow though, and he landed on top of a fully-dazed Kayla who probably wasn't sure what planet she was on at the time. This gave a suddenly blood-hungry Maggie a chance to take a crack at Andrew, who was reeling from losing most of his blood along the way. She went totally conventional by grabbing him, pushing his head over to the left side, and then sinking her teeth into his exposed neck. A few seconds later, Drew's blood stopped flowing and Maggie stopped drinking, which told her it was time to move on so she simply let go of him and let him drop limply to the ground. It was now 10 against five in favor of the hunters and protectors.

Grizzly bears Cal and Emily were giving vampire Hartwell all he could handle and more, throwing him quite a beating as a grizzly bear duo. They had rediscovered all of the fun and joy they experienced as teens and it was showing in their brilliant performance. While teens might have energy and willful spirits as their competitive advantages, the one attribute you could potentially view as detrimental is their relatively short attention spans.

Hartwell was not a big fan of eating bear over the years because he inevitably wound up fishing stray hairs out of his mouth for what seemed like hours. Human necks were so much easier and cleaner to extract blood out of, although there always was a lot more blood to be taken out of a bear than a human. Just as Emily and Cal thought they were on the verge of taking Hartwell out of the equation, thus ending the night for everyone, they morphed back into human facades in order to deliver the last cut with their swords. Hartwell smiled with his back to his would-be executioners as the pungent scent of bear was replaced by the faint smell of cologne and perfume. Cal and Emily wound up and were about to complete their infamous 'x-cut' on Hartwell's neck with their swords. The vampire waited until the breeze of the blades coming toward him was at the optimal level and then exploded into the air just above the hunters and flipped his long frame around the two sword-swingers, who didn't realize what had just happened until Hartwell had already drained both of the bodies of blood and they fell lifelessly to the ground, connecting in a last gasp as their favorite grizzly bears.

Eight hunters and protectors against five vampires was a little more manageable, especially with daddy Hartwell now on the loose and supercharged by hunter blood. Speaking of blood, Belinda had taken a great deal of blood from Agent Blake and Sharon, but that did little to slow Blake who appeared ready to do battle again. He used his superior strength to get close to Belinda and then picked her up over his head and then violently slammed her to the ground, which was both reassuring and pleasing to Sharon who was now ready to reengage back into the fight. She picked up her sword and then raised it over her head, preparing herself for the downward thrust of her blade through Belinda's back and heart. The vampire was on her stomach in a fuzzy haze when Sharon began her ascent to stamp Belinda's ticket "GAME OVER."

Belinda felt the faint prick of a sword on her back and wondered for a moment if dying had become a truly painless endeavor? Of course, Hartwell's mad dash across the field helped ease her anguish after he intercepted Sharon and then drove her into the ground while simultaneously sinking his teeth into her neck and reducing her blood gauge to empty. Hartwell shielded himself from the dirt and then emerged from the massive divot as Belinda struggled with a determined Blake. Hartwell zipped back over behind Blake and wrapped his arms around the protector so he couldn't move. The master vampire was difficult to beat under normal conditions, but was almost impossible to stop with a little fresh blood in him. He looked at Belinda and then aggressively looked at Blake's neck. She was eager to comply as she moved Blake's head over to his right, her left, and then hungrily fed off him until he was dry. Hartwell stepped back away from Blake and he fell with a thud on his back to the grass.

The six against five advantage was shaky at best for the hunters and protectors, because the blood that was flowing through Hartwell and Belinda's veins gave the vampires the decided momentum. Hartwell stood by proudly as Max was doing battle with Thaddeus and Garrison. The young vampire had ended his time as a beach ball and was now doing his impersonation of steam-roller, pulling a page out of his son Samuel's playbook of being able to impersonate just about anything. The vision of a young Samuel playing with a truck came into Maxwell's head and before he knew it, he was bulldozing his older counterparts.

It looked like Gary and Thad were about to expire, so Grandpa' Hartwell said, "Maxie, you might want to take a drink before the vintage loses its potency."

Maxwell was so consumed by his Samuel flash that he forgot that the focus of his existence was the red liquid inside of humans. Hartwell put his arm around Maxwell and pointed to Thad and Gary's necks, which was the equivalent making a bull see red! Max zoomed down above the men and held them down while he drank the liquid he so eagerly desired. He came back up when he was finished with blood all over his face, so Hartwell pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his grandson clean before depositing the soiled rag in an adjacent garbage can. Hartwell was so meticulous that he only used each one of his cotton handkerchiefs once before throwing them out like tissues. He had tried in vain to clean the garments on several occasions and found it more pleasing to simply replace the accessory after each use.

Belinda was as blood-thirsty as Maggie, as she propped up a drowsy Kayla and sunk her teeth into her neck. Maggie looked at her partner in crime as she hit the mother-load with unsealing of Aaron's long neck. Her eyes rolled in back of her head from the sheer pleasure and fulfillment of landing such a big catch. The big guy struggled for a moment before the gravity of his blood loss finally took hold. Belinda put her hand up and Maggie slapped it as they both hovered upright and released the useless vessels of Kayla and Aaron.

The four victorious vampires moved over to watch Daniel take on the bash sisters, Carla and Nicole. The fight was winding down as Daniel employed a 'small bites' strategy. He looked over at the master strategist of the group, Maxwell, and said, "So, what do you think of my small bites strategy?"

Max then watched his father take small drinks, or bites, out of various parts of the women's bodies from head to toe, until they were both so weak that they could barely stand. Daniel moved with the speed and hunger of a piranha, puncturing holes in arms, hands and legs, rendering the women helpless and very wobbly. He stood behind them and asked the group, "Anyone want a bite?"

Hartwell held his stomach and said, "I couldn't eat another bite."

Maggie replied, "I think I've already surpassed my Weight Watcher's points today."

Belinda nodded, "Yeah, me too.'

Max was buzzed by all of the new blood and was acting like a sloppily drunk college freshman.

"Yeah, daddio, let's chug this last one! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!" he yelled as he thrust his fist in the air.

Hartwell gave a fatherly look to Daniel and then put his arm around Maxwell, "I think he's had enough. Why don't you do the honors."

Daniel knew it was closing time and took the last few sips left in his drink and then put his two tall glasses back on earth's bar so they could be at rest and then be ready to greet the new day and another fresh start.

TWENTY

While the fight was ending at Beach Haven Park, a strange dynamic was unfolding back at the house between Claire Vinson and Samuel. She had been so focused on revenge since her father had died that the pressure and focus had taken its toll on this usually kind and soft-spoken soul. But as she slipped off into a deep sleep, she had the wherewithal to suggest to Samuel that he join her in dreamland.

When Claire felt into the equivalent of an unconscious world, it had the impact of suspending any deep animosity in the house that might be present and overlap it with a veil of soft and friendly competition that existed. Her deep snooze also effectively put an end to her brief, yet controlling relationship with an enamored Samuel, who was transitioned through the extensive and slow debriefing process while they were both out of pocket. It was Samuel's first relationship and it was one that he would always remember and everyone else would have trouble pieces together details of the week. The break also gave Claire the ability to let her vengeful father go and begin her search for her long-lost mother, who she was told was gone but she always knew was very much still in the here and now.

Linda Vinson had always been able to keep mental tabs on her daughter and up until the previous week, she had never detected any signs of stress or strife. Of course she did feel the emptiness in Claire's heart from not having grown up with her parents, but especially her mom. Brenda Vinson was always guarded in her comments to her granddaughter about who her father was, but was always flowing with nice things to say about her daughter because she knew deep down that one day they would reunite.

Brenda and Linda didn't dare talk to each other either by conventional methods or through their thoughts for fear that Lowery would find them all and eliminate the top two layers. His interest would obviously be in the daughter he never knew he had, and his scorn would rest squarely on the shoulders of the mother and grandmother that kept such a deep, bright secret from him.

The line of communication between Brenda and Linda was reestablished the morning that Ellison put an end to mortal Lowery. It was also about the time that Brenda Vinson noticed that her granddaughter had left the house, some 18 years to the day after her daughter had left in haste the morning of Claire's birth.

The delivery of a baby girl on the night was both a joyous and tumultuous event. Brenda was a trained mid-wife and quite capably delivered Claire into the world and then cleaned up the baby and her daughter before she spoke.

"I don't want to be the one to say this, but we have to separate in order to avoid his scorn."

Linda knew what had to be done but she had trouble forming the actual words.

"When?"

Mother looked at daughter and they both looked at Claire, who was swaddled in a pink blanket in the bassinet.

"If he gets even a hint of her, she will spend her entire life without the both of us."

Brenda then closed her eyes and got a flash of a future moment. She then flipped the images over to her daughter, who felt more reassured that the separation would be anything but permanent.

"Okay, let me just get my things together."

Brenda had obviously planned ahead as she pointed toward the door and a large suitcase that was filled with Linda's clothes.

"Wow. This really is goodbye," an emotional Linda stated.

She walked over to the bassinet and picked up her daughter, who smiled when she lifted her up to near her face and their cheeks touched. The bond between mother and daughter was forged and could not be shaken during Linda's extended absence.

Linda kissed Claire on the forehead and then put her back in the bassinet. She turned to her mother and jumped into her arms, as Brenda had to summon the strength to keep tears from flowing. While she had the distinct feeling that the separation would be temporary, it was not out of the realm of possibility to experience a shift of consciousness as time marched on. The wild card of the situation was Lowery, who made everything difficult down to his "courtship" of Linda Vinson.

"Hello little lady," a confident Lowery said to Linda as sat at a hotel bar in Delray Beach, Florida.

Linda nodded and then took a large swig of her glass of white wine, because the smell of the vampire and the vision she had of the two of them kissing was a more than she could process at that moment. She was down in Florida with her mother attending an informal convention of people around the world that had clairvoyant abilities. Brenda was giving a lecture in an adjacent conference room, when she flashed on the vampire doing a lot more than just talking to her daughter. Her first instinct was to run out of the room and rescue Linda, but she couldn't forgo the money she was getting for being a keynote speaker.

Lowery's interest in Linda was grounded in his insatiable appetite for all things paranormal. He had been through a variety of witches and werewolf's, and he even admitted that one woman he had been with could have been easily mistaken for the bride of Frankenstein. So it was no accident that he showed up at an informal clairvoyant convention, and had sampled the blood of many of the attendants when he realized the difficulty in turning them into vampires. He was about to use Linda a similar capacity, but Brenda was able to section her mind off with one side being used for the speech and the other in stopping Lowery from taking all of Linda's blood.

The only problem in making Lowery more sensitive was that he had to replace one appetite with another, so they need for blood was swapped for the next yearning on his personal list, which was a need for romance. Lowery made the transition from Dracula to Don Juan in the time he walked up to the bar and the moment he first spoke to Linda. She was less taken by his charms and more concerned that he would make her a mid-afternoon snack, which made the decision to share her bed that much more fundamental.

Her mother confronted her in a panic later that day, "What happened? I couldn't leave the room and help you!"

Linda had some time to think about the events of the day and let her brief romance with of all things, a vampire, to sink in.

She smiled at her mother and blushed like a school girl, "He was quite charming."

Brenda could not believe what she was hearing.

"What? He was charming because I turned him that way. It was either that or say goodbye to you."

"That's what I thought, so I just went with it."

"You just went with it?" Brenda questioned her daughter.

"When you're at close range with a vampire, what choice do you really have? He's going to get what he wants no matter what I see or what I want to do."

The wise elder smirked and responded, "Not necessarily."

TWENTY-ONE

Hartwell awoke the following morning after the fifth night of fighting in his own bed with his wife. He was calm and in a playful mood as the hunters and protectors shuffled through the door. This sense of calm and playfulness was distributed to the other members of the house, much as his moods on the other mornings wound up being blueprints for the remainder of the days. His upbeat disposition on this day would also serve as a template for the next several days of playful games and adventures between the housemates.

As the 16 active members of the house trickled into the main room, it became obvious that pairings would be in order for a few days of friendly competition.

Cal and Hartwell sat next to each other at the dining table and it wasn't like they ever needed too much incentive to go at each other. But this time, the furthest thing from their minds would be physical contact.

"You can't beat me at ping-pong! I was the three-time champion of my grade school!" Cal exclaimed.

Sharon chimed in, "And he has the trophies to prove it in a display case in our room."

"I studied under Great Master Kwon in Beijing," Hartwell stated. He zipped into his room and came back with a ping-pong paddle. "I bet you hold the paddle like a tennis racket," he added as he illustrated the 'shaking hands' method to holding a paddle. "The ancients held the paddle between their fingers..." he said as he moved the handle between the middle finger and the ring finger of his right hand.

Cal waved him off, "You can hold that paddle between your toes, because I'm still going to beat you!"

Thaddeus and Garrison were still all about cars after their day as greaser bullies.

"I can beat you in any car on any track or road!" Gary said to Thad.

"Please!" Thad replied. "Any car on any road? Have you ever been in a dune buggy?"

Gary turned to Hartwell and asked in a sarcastic tone, "Have I ever been in a dune buggy?" He then thought about it and really asked Hartwell the question, "Have I ever been in a dune buggy?"

Hartwell searched his mental database, "Remember that time we were in Baja, California..."

"Man, did I eat sand on that trip! How could I forget?" Thaddeus exclaimed. "Then dune buggies it is."

Daniel and Andrew were at the other side of the table comparing notes on their moves.

"Your handle is weak! I can dribble circles around you!" Daniel said to Drew.

Drew looked behind him, "My handle is week? You can't even dribble with your left hand, and my handle is weak?"

"There's only one way to settle it," Daniel said.

"Then I'll see you on the basketball court," Drew replied.

"You better bring that handle with you..." Daniel stated.

"Yeah, don't forget your left hand..." Drew countered.

"I can cook with one hand tied behind my back," Carla boasted to fellow cooking enthusiast Nicole.

"Blindfold me and I can tell what spices are in a dish," Nicole replied.

"You call that chili that you make, a dish?"

Nicole refused to stay down, "It's better than your chicken pot pie any day."

"Oh no you didn't! You know you can't talk about my chicken pot pie unless you're prepared to get your CPP cooked off," Carla laid it down.

"Then it's going to be chili first and then CPP," Nicole stated. "As long as we're being perfectly honest, I'm not really found of your pies either."

"My pies? At least I don't use pre-made crust in my recipes," Carla shot back.

"That's not true. I make all of my pie crusts from scratch," Nicole defended.

Carla wasn't having any of it, "Going to the supermarket and paying for a shell someone else made is hardly scratch baking..."

"I can hold my breath under water for like 20 minutes," Sharon said to Agent Blake, the self-professed center of the aquatic universe.

"With scuba gear? Because I've never even seen you hold your breath for five minutes."

"What? You must be blind!" Sharon yelled. "How long can you hold your breath under water?"

Blake didn't have an exact answer, "All I know is that can hold it longer than five minutes."

Sharon looked at the unsure expression on Blake's face and immediately challenged him, "No, you can't!"

"Yes, I can!" Blake said with all of the enthusiasm of a 10 year old.

"You can't knit a sweater faster than I can knit a scarf," Emily said to Belinda.

"Listen, I've seen you knit, Em, and speed is not one of your friends."

"I'm not that slow..." Emily countered. "At least I take my time and get it right the first time."

"Are you saying that I am careless and I make mistakes?" Belinda asked her former sister-in-law.

Since it was playful banter, Emily chose her words carefully, "What I am saying is that I can finish a scarf faster and with fewer imperfections than you can with a sweater."

"You've never played pong!" Aaron roared at Maxwell.

"Are you saying that I'm too young to have played it, or I have no idea what it is?" Max replied.

"Both!" the tallest person in the house replied.

Max tried a different tactic, "What do you know about pong?"

Aaron almost had a conniption on his way to answering the query, "What do I know about pong? Let me just say that I once beat the actual inventor of the game."

Max nodded his head in appreciation of the feat. "Why, what do you know about it?" Aaron asked.

Max smiled like true hustler, "Let's just say that I know enough about it to beat the guy who beat the inventor of the game."

"We should go help serve food at the Beach Haven Soup Kitchen," Maggie said to wide-eyed Kayla, who obviously had other ideas.

"Yeah, that would be fine, but why don't we actually make the food."

"Why don't you go in that direction, and I will go in my direction, and we'll see how many people we actually help by the end of the day."

"Sounds like a plan," Kayla replied, as the days of friendly banter and challenges were well underway.

TWENTY-TWO

The day after her birth, Ariel was now the size of a six year-old and her mother was scrambling to counteract the seemingly continuous expansion of her size.

"Did I grow like this?" Valerie asked her mother Katherine.

Katherine shook her head in disbelief, "From what you tell me, I don't think that Samuel grew like this!"

Ariel was acting just like a typical 6 year-old with a minute attention span.

"When are we going to New York?"

Valerie was suddenly thrust into the role as parent, but seemed to be warming to the task.

"Two more days."

"Then we will go to New York?"

Valerie looked at her mother, who had been through the child wars three times.

"Yes Ariel, then we will go to New York," Katherine Winters said in a soothing voice.

Back in the quaint town of Beach Haven, New York, the usual midnight battle was changed to an all-day format. Now that hostility was no longer present in the house, it was safe for the inhabitants to compete freely in more open and public spaces and fully blend in with the town's population.

Hartwell and Cal headed over to Beach Haven Games for a three-day marathon of leisure sports that included ping-pong, pool and bowling to rap the competition up on day three. If you were to handicap the events, a decided edge would be given to Hartwell in ping-pong because he did actually train with a master player in an Asian country. Pool has always been the sport of hustlers, and Cal Brewster was the consummate hustler, so he had the decided advantage on day two. The final challenge was American bowling, which both men had played in various forms. Whether you called it Candle Pin or Duck Pin bowling, the two men had experience but it definitely wasn't their strong suit. But, if the competitive history of these two men was any indication, then the victor would likely be crowned in the 10th frame of the last game.

The same could be said for Daniel and Andrew, who had competing against each other since they were boys and would now finally be enjoying the back and forth for a change after years of bitter opposition. The day one competition including some unfinished business on the basketball court, as Daniel often let his image lose to Drew, who thought he was actually beating his cousin.

Day two would be a rousing game of tennis, a sport that both guys really enjoyed and often played as teenagers, while the third day would place them where no man dare tread before the onset of winter, the golf course. While the Beach Haven Golf Course was still open, the fee to play an entire day of golf, or the equivalent of about 72 holes, was about the same as filling up the average car with a tank of gas.

Again, handicapping the three days was fairly straightforward: Daniel had a slight edge in basketball, even though he hadn't actually beaten his cousin in years, Drew's ground strokes gave him the advantage in tennis, and it was anyone's guess who would emerge victorious – or with a full set of clubs – at the end of the 72-hole golf marathon.

In the battle of the car buffs, there was no clear favorite in the category of passion for automobiles. Both men were out in the garage working on their cars after breakfast, because they were going to pick up a couple of dune buggies from a local dealer and then race without touching the vehicles. Gary was working on his Mustang Convertible and Thad was pouring over his Chevy Camaro, as day two would feature these two classic cars on racing at various venues throughout Beach Haven. And on day three the men would transition to motorcycles, Thad with classic Triumph bike and Gary with his Harley Davidson chopper.

This was perhaps the tightest of all of the confrontations to call. Both men had so much experience with cars, except for the dune buggies, that you could have flipped a coin and felt assured that you still had no clue who would win the days.

The cook-off between Nicole and Carla would be the only competition that would be decided by the other members of the household. They would cook all day and then have the other 14 people would eat the food and vote in a blind taste test, so not to show bias by knowing the origin of the dishes.

Day one was a chili cook-off, day two was chicken pot pie, and day three continued the pie theme to a more conventional level, where both women would make their versions of both apple and pumpkin pies. The smell in the house was going to be intoxicating!

Carla had the advantage in the chili cook-off because of her years being around the freshest ingredients in Portland, Nicole lived and died with her CPP, and the pie bake-off would be interesting especially if Nicole was able to perfect her crust recipe.

Sharon and Blake both loved being in the water so much that they really didn't need a competition to get excited. They would hold their breath in a series of challenges on day one, swim from Beach Haven to Connecticut and back on day two, and see who could find the most valuable stuff on the ocean floor on day three.

Day one was up Sharon's alley, day two was all about Blake and his days as a lifeguard, and day three was a complete crap-shoot with no clear winner to choose from. With a full collection of boots and anchors on the ocean floor, it would take all day to find buried treasure and then assess the value of these discoveries in town at Beach Haven Pawn Shop.

Emily was trying to get the rules down for the day one challenge with Belinda.

"So, is it just one sweater and one scarf or are we going for volume here?"

Belinda surveyed Emily and knew that she would make more mistakes if she was also focused on churning out the product and creating volume.

She smiled confidently and replied, "Let's go for volume."

So the advantage on day one decidedly swung to Belinda. The day two quilt challenge was tailor-made for Emily, as she was an expert at pieces things together. But the day three challenge was unchartered territory for both women. Thaddeus and Garrison often complained that their babies would be cold out in the garage – albeit a temperature-controlled garage – during the coming winter. So the ladies took it upon themselves to make separate car covers, Emily making a custom-fit Camaro cover for Thaddeus and Belinda doing a Mustang cover for Garrison, with no real odds on who would be victorious, or even how a winner would be decided.

Max and Aaron were heading into a battle of the ages, where the big guy was literally taking his younger counterpart back in time. Day one would be a pong battle, you know those two paddles on either side of the screen making a blip every time they connected with that small dot that doubled as a ball. Aaron obviously had the day one advantage, but there was no reason to discount Max's incredible learning ability and his tremendous eyesight and reflexes. The day two challenge was all about the game Centipede and the slithering monster within the huge game console. Max had fallen in love with the game during his research of everything trivial, and had been challenging Aaron's all-time scores in recent days before Claire Vinson showed up and effectively slowed his progress. The third day would put the two boys under the big dome of USA vs. USSR slide hockey. Aaron was the only one with experience on this game, but that was back in college some 20 years prior and he was always drinking a beer or three when playing.

The final battle was a charitable play with Kayla and Maggie, as they were quite possible the two nicest and most decent people in the house. Day one was all about feeding the homeless, with Maggie choosing to simply serve people at the Beach Haven Shelter and Kayla opting to hit the streets with her own food and feed as many people as she could find. The second day would be a house-building challenge working with Habitat for Humanity. The matchup was fairly even because they both had speed and strength, but Kayla was younger and had an eye for schematics and architecture. The third and final day would be a fundraising challenge, as Kayla would be raising money for families in need while Maggie would be soliciting funds for something very near and dear to her heart, new libraries for the entire Beach Haven School District.

TWENTY-THREE

Back in Portland, the twins came home for school the day after Ariel was born and were befuddled by Ariel's progress.

"Mom, she's the same size as us!" Cheryl yelled as Ariel met her cousins in the hallway.

Bryce didn't even have time to remove his backpack and Ariel was coming up to him to see if she was taller.

"How can she be taller than me already?"

The fifth graders were in the process of becoming peacemakers and hybrid creatures, but the process was a snails' crawl compared to the explosive start by Ariel, who was focused on only one thing.

"I'm gonna' be big by the time when we go to New York," she said to the twins in more of an excited than bragging tone.

Katherine Winters walked into the front hallway from her bedroom and greeted everyone her children.

"How was school today kids?"

The children were still fascinated by Ariel.

"How come she doesn't have to go to school?" Cheryl asked and then her brother piled on, "Yeah, why doesn't she have to go to school?"

Katherine was trying to as diplomatic as possible.

"Because she was born yesterday and tomorrow she will be a teenager and the next day she will look like your bigger sister. We were a little concerned how the school would react to her growth."

The twins took in the information and then Bryce asked, "Can she help us with our homework?"

"Yeah, I need help with math," Cheryl added.

Ariel had never opened a textbook let alone seen one, but she had the gift of information assimilation, and could download great amounts of data and be able to process and comprehend it in about the time it would take one of the kids to recite one of their multiplication tables. She was also able to explain the subject matter in such a way that connected with the individual capabilities of each child. They all sat together at the oval kitchen table and Katherine Winters smiled that her kids and new grandchild were getting along so well. She was also happy to be relieved of her home teaching responsibilities.

Back in Beach Haven, the day's events began just after everyone enjoyed a wonderful breakfast. The mood in the house had returned to the pre-Lowery siege and Claire mind control days as these special beings were fully engaged in some friendly competition.

Hartwell and Cal began the ping-pong marathon with a rousing 20-minute warm-up. It had been quite a while since Cal had played table tennis and even longer than he actually thought about the game. But the one thing that Hartwell appreciated about Cal was that he never stopped advancing, no matter how high the hurdle or vast the impediment.

Game one was an easy win for Hartwell, 21-11, but Cal got steadily closer in the subsequent games before lunch as the scores of 21-14, 21-17 and 21-19 indicated that the play in the afternoon would be of the tightly contested variety that both men had become accustomed to over the years.

While the outcome of the day one competition was no longer in doubt, the two men simply competed against each other after stopping for a bite to eat at the Beach Haven Games snack bar, which somehow had a limited healthy menu amidst frozen food that was either reheated or fried.

"What happened to us?" Cal asked Hartwell as they munched on grilled chicken sandwiches on seven grain bread.

Hartwell smiled, "You mean, as a couple?"

Cal nudged him and reiterated his point, "I mean the last few days."

"I don't know," Hartwell replied. "I thought we had it all under control then it all went blank."

"Do you think it has anything to do with Lowery's death?" Cal asked after thinking about the group's plight.

"I thought about that," Hartwell replied.

"Do you have any other things about your past you need to discuss?" Cal playfully asked, but he was really interested in the response.

Hartwell smiled, "I have some things like everyone, but nothing quite like that. The only other connection to the outside world I have is Brandon, and you know all about that."

"What about women?" Cal asked.

"What about them?" Hartwell panned.

"Have you left your mark anywhere?" Cal asked, implying of Hartwell had left his seed behind and was a baby-daddy to any kids.

Hartwell thought about the question and then figured out what Cal was getting to, "No, I made sure that none of my boys were swimmers."

Now it was Cal trying to interpret the somewhat cryptic statement by his counterpart, "Swimmers?" He then looked at Hartwell's best macho face and then side, "Oh, swimmers! Good call on that one!"

The two men had aided in the production of only one child in their long lives, and this child also happened to be the same person in various forms of Daniel.

"We did good with that one kid, eh..." Cal stated proudly.

Hartwell picked up his glass and Cal met him in a clank, "The best," Hartwell concurred.

The men finished lunch and then spent the rest of the afternoon until dinner playing only one more game of ping-pong. The over four-hour marathon tested each man's ability to concentrate and endure bad breaks and bounces. Cal served for the match about half-as-many times as Hartwell had his destiny on his racquet in the 104-102 marathon. Ping-pong games are scored by single points with the winner securing 21 points. However, the victor must be two points clear of an opponent once the score reaches 21 or the match continues until there is a clear winner. The men were both tired when the clock move past 5:00 pm, with Hartwell serving with the score at 103-102, but the next point of the match was probably its best-played and most dramatic.

Hartwell flipped the white ball up in the air and then sliced the ball with his paddle with all of the precision of a Chinese Hibachi Chef. Cal had become used to Hartwell's various spins and arm angles, and he aggressively moved to his left as the ball floated toward the middle of the table so he could set up for a forehand. It probably wasn't Hartwell's best serve of the day because Cal smashed the ball to the extreme left side of the table and past a surprised Hartwell, who had only one play on the ball so he dove to his right and made contact with the ball just as it was about to touch down about an inch from the floor.

Cal was ready to celebrate the win of the point, but the sight of the ball floating up from the floor back over to his side of the net made him transition from a restful to a completely aggressive state. Hartwell had recovered to his knees by the time that Cal whipped his right arm and smashed a thunderous forehand right down the center of the table and straight at the vampire's forehead. Hartwell simply reacted by protecting the spot between his eyes with his flat paddle. Somehow, he made enough contact with the speeding ball to not only send it back over the net but propel it with sidespin resulting from a slightly angled block. The ball started floating down the center of the table but then started to drift toward Hartwell's right and Cal's left, landing on the outside line on the extreme left of the table, which made it take a funny bounce away from the table.

It was Cal's turn to leave his feet as he shuffled around his end of the table and then dove toward the spot where he thought the ball was going to land. Hartwell recognized the shift in momentum and returned to his feet while Cal made contact with a desperate backhand return. Hartwell's experience in the game taught him that the ball would be coming over with an extreme amount of backspin, which meant that it would pull back toward Cal's side once it landed in his side. Instead of waiting behind his side of the table, Hartwell moved to his right and rushed to the side of the table, where he almost made contact with a sliding Cal Brewster. He stopped short as the ball was about to hit the surface, only two inches from the back line, and then waited as Cal rolled several times to his right and then scrambled to get back to an area where he could play effective defense.

Hartwell noticed that Cal still wasn't in position as the ball spun back toward him and he simply held his paddle in front of him, like he was a waiter serving a drink at a cocktail party. Cal slipped slightly as he was able to get to his feet as the ball gently touched Hartwell's stationary paddle and headed softly over the green mesh net. If this had been a regular fight in a field in the middle of the night, Cal would have given up his body and not even thought of the consequences. But, this was in the public eye at Beach Haven Games and there were 50-or-so spectators that had gathered to watch the later stages of the incredible game. So he made a last-ditch lunge for the ball, which had just barely cleared the net, because a full-out dive would have surely destroyed the table and looked particularly barbaric. Not that Cal was adverse to the occasional bought of barbarism, but this was not the place for that.

He arrived at the ball as it bounced for the second time on his side of the net, but managed to only push it into the net. Hartwell raised his arms in victory and then the two men shook hands and embraced.

"You know I could have gotten that ball," Cal imparted in Hartwell's left ear.

Hartwell laughed, "I think we have to put a table in the house."

The broke the hug and Cal smiled, "It would look perfect in the sun room!"

Hartwell nodded, "Yes it would."

TWENTY-FOUR

Daniel bounced the basketball on the ground of the indoor court and then flipped the ball behind his back, sailing toward the backboard, calling "Off glass," as the leather ball softly thudded off the backboard and nestled gently through the nylon net. Andrew stomped his feet as he had done repeatedly during the morning hours of their basketball competition. He then clumsily attempted to repeat his cousin's trick, but the ball went from behind his back and bounced off the padding on the wall behind the basket.

"That's HORSE," Daniel stated. "What do you want to lose at next?" he asked with a cocky, yet disinterested tone.

Drew had a short fuse, even on a day when the competition was supposedly friendly.

"Enough with these silly games! I don't want to do anything but play one-on-one the rest of the day."

Daniel was happy to oblige as he said, "I'll shoot for it," walking toward the top of the foul line and then taking a shot to see who would get the ball first. The ball swished through the net and Daniel's head was back in the game because he knew it would be a war, "My ball."

The ball spun back to Daniel and he flipped it up in his hands by using his right foot.

"Check," Drew said as he moved in front of Daniel, who bounced the ball to his cousin and then Andrew bounced it back to him. Game on. Drew was just like his Uncle Cal in the way they were able to take a beating, learn from it, and then come back even stronger. Daniel kept using his height advantage on Drew as he backed him down and would repeatedly shot over him, winning game after game. It wasn't until the last game of the day that Drew finally enacted some sort of revenge for the beating he was taking.

The boys were playing games to 15, with each score accounting for a single point. If you were soft enough to call a foul then you would simply get the ball out again, and if you made a shot you would keep the ball on offense, which was affectionately called "winners out." Unlike the ping-pong rules, the game only had to be won by a single point, so with the score tied at 14 the entire enchilada was on the line.

Drew had possession of the ball and decided to take a quick jump shot from behind the three-point line. He had clawed his way back into the game by using his speed to drive past Daniel and convert a bunch of layups. He must have been nervous about winning the game because he hoisted the quick shot, which never really had any chance of going in. Daniel turned and collected the rebound off the rim and then dribbled it back across the foul line, as the take-back rules dictated. Drew was kicking himself internally for choking and taking such a quick shot, so he slapped the floor and readied himself to play defense again. He was being quite physical with Daniel by placing his elbow in his cousin's back and making sure his body was always between him and the basket.

Daniel readied himself for a turnaround jumper, but Drew made a quick move and stole the ball as Daniel tried to complete his last dribble. He dribbled quickly back to the edge of the foul line and as Daniel came up to guard him, he stepped back like he was going to shot and then blew past Daniel as he fell into the trap and walked toward him. Drew's move was so fast that Daniel couldn't even reach out to foul him on the way to the basket, as is customary on game point in an open shot situation.

The ball dropped through the hoop and Drew yelled, "Game!"

Daniel smiled and said to himself, "Yes it is."

Garrison and Thaddeus had more fun than competition on the first day at the beach on the dunes with their buggies. After lunch they both agreed to work on their cars a bit to give them a little more oomph. A few hours later, they were really ready to race with cars that they made their own, Thad preferring to stock up with more horse power and Gary leaning more toward the side of agility and nimbleness.

The course was the entire 75-mile stretch of beach, which made the 150 miles a down and back race. Top speed of the average dune buggy was about 60 miles per hour, but Thad's buggy could go in excess of 75 miles per hour and Gary's car could run just under 70 miles per hour. The difference in power was evident off the start as Thad left Gary in the dust, but Gary stayed within striking distance as his car was much better at negotiating the many large dunes in their paths. These dunes were like giant hills of sand, which made it difficult for the cars to maneuver and then recover. Gary structured his car to handle these situations better and Thad was dominant on more level ground.

By the half-way point, Thad had stretched out his lead to at least ten buggy lengths. That was, until he reached the pylon and had to turn around for the second leg going home. Thad's buggy slid and slipped as he tried to cut the wide turn and Gary then made up the stagger by executing the extremely sharp curve in a tighter turning radius. Of course his lead was short-lived once Thad righted his buggy and got back on the straight path. Gary challenged him at times, taking to the higher ground and closing the gap to three buggy lengths with less than a half-mile to go in the race.

Gary made a key decision at that point to drive down and dune to build up speed and then climb back up another dune and go airborne. He did that just that with a ¼-mile remaining, so the element of surprise – Gary's buggy floated above Thad's and crossing the finish line – would be at its optimum strength. Everything was working perfectly for Gary as he hit the dune and took the sky, some 20 feet above the lower beach level. In fact, Thad never saw him coming but he did see him tilt over to the side and lose control of his vehicle, which sent the Gary's buggy spinning toward the finish line as Thad put the pedal to the medal. Gary's buggy finally stopped rolling about three feet from the line, enabling Thad to zoom across the line and win the day's events.

Thad came back around after he spun out in a victory buggy dance near the shore. He stopped right next to Gary, who had now regained his non-spinning mind but was obviously thrilled, yet happily disappointed with the finish.

"Are you all right, Gary?" Thad asked.

Gary smiled, "Just one more spin and I would have had you!"

TWENTY-FIVE

While Sharon and Agent Blake were holding their breath under water, Maggie was at the Beach Haven Shelter serving meals and Kayla took the streets to hand out her own sandwiches and cook vegan hamburgers on a portable grill down the block from the shelter. Belinda was busy knitting sweaters and Emily was needle-deep in scarfa-palooza. Maxwell and Aaron were sitting in the main room of the house all day playing pong and asking for samples of Nicole and Carla's chili, Aaron predictably liking Carla's recipe and Max preferring his mother's cooking.

The chili cook-off was in full swing after breakfast, as Nicole was making her famous Texas-style chili and Carla opted for her healthy vegetarian chili, which surprisingly would have a much bigger finishing kick than deep in the heart of Texas.

The women prepared their dishes and then let the ingredients blend together from about noon until dinner time at 6:00 pm when everyone came home after day one of the competition. That was about the time that Aaron finally got Maxwell to submit, after beating him in 10 straight games.

"You are truly the king of pong," Max said to Aaron. "They should rename the game Aaron or Aaron's pong. Dude, you are unbeatable!" he added as he gave him a high-five.

Cal and Hartwell walked in from their furious day of ping-pong and the scintillating final point to what would have been the longest match in ping-pong sanctioned tournament history. Both men heard the end of the Aaron and Maxwell conversation.

"We got to get a crack at him," Hartwell said.

Cal looked up at Hartwell and replied, "We should play him in Canadian doubles."

Hartwell extended his fist and said, "I'm down," as Cal completed the pound.

Daniel and Andrew followed them up, "I can't believe that you pulled that move out of your butt," Daniel stated.

"You couldn't check me all game with that move!" Drew defiantly replied.

Garrison and Thaddeus were next in the door, as Thad was recounting Gary's furious charge and roll and Gary, with a bunch of sand still in his hair, was coughing from having laughed so much. The guys sat down at the table as Nicole and Carla placed two different colored bowls on each place setting: blue was Nicole's chili and red was Carla's chili.

Maggie was listening to Kayla as they walked through the door, "I didn't realize that lighter fluid could create such a large fire!"

"Yeah, that stuff can be nasty," Maggie replied. "But at least it will give some of those people some warmth tonight."

Blake and Sharon had been sitting near the water drying off for the better part of a half-hour, but were still talking about Sharon's incredible lung capacity.

"There was a moment there that I honestly thought you were dead," Agent Blake said.

"I just go into a trance when I'm down there... it's hard to explain," Sharon replied as they walked over to their places at the table and sat down.

There were four spots still vacant at the table. Two spots were for Carla and Nicole, and the other two spots were for the knitters, Belinda and Emily, who had just finished their competitive day.

"Okay, I have a sweater for each and every one of you," Belinda said as she walked around the table and watch as each person put their sweater on. She looked at some of the happy expression, but then some of the mismatched sleeves and other dimensions.

"Might have to make a few modifications on those," she said to herself.

Emily then walked around and handed out scarves to each person, and they were just as well received, although it was probably more difficult to notice wrong dimensions on a scarf unless it was either too short or it hit the ground.

Belinda and Emily then took their seats and the two ladies observed how everyone was feeling with their garments on. Things appeared to be going well until the heat of the chili made wearing the cold-weather garments practically unbearable.

"Either this chili is hot, or this sweater and scarf combo is roasting me," Cal said as he finished Carla's chili and almost licked the bowl clean.

"Why don't you all take the sweaters and scarves off and we'll see how they fit after dinner," Belinda said as she looked at Emily for confirmation.

Emily nodded in approval and said, "Yeah, that's fine. I think we both have to do some alterations, anyway."

Agent Blake was always one to give credit where credit was due.

"Let's hear it for the fine effort these two women put into these pieces of clothing!" he exclaimed as he started clapping and the applause continue around the table.

With the sweater and scarf combo resting comfortably behind each person's seat, it was finally time to give the great chili cook-off everyone's undivided attention. Most people had consumed one of the steaming bowls in front of them and were now working on the second bowl after gulping down some of their favorite liquid refreshment.

"No, that was hot," Cal said as he picked up his napkin and wiped his sweaty brow. He then looked at Carla and said, "But I liked it!"

The older people tended to like Belinda's chili because it was more traditional and had less of a kick than Carla's vegetarian chili. Garrison and Thaddeus still had a little bit of the greaser bully left in them and were obviously looking for the blistering adventure that Carla's chili peppers sent the average eater through.

By the end of the meal it didn't really matter who won the chili cook-off, because everyone was having such a good time that the competition just slid away, perhaps with the Pepto Bismol that Thaddeus gulped down after the meal.

TWENTY-SIX

Day two of the side-by-side competition continued the good vibes from the end of day one and was an even friendlier day of competition and camaraderie. Hartwell and Cal headed back to Beach Haven Games and walked past the ping-pong tables to the pool tables for a day of what Cal Brewster called, "Payback." Daniel and Andrew were on their way to the tennis bubble at Beach Haven Tennis so they could finally settle the running debate of who's game was superior: Daniel's serve and volley game or Drew's grind-it-out baseline style? Thaddeus and Garrison had been working diligently on their cars and it was time to decide which of their cars were superior: Thad's 1969 Chevy Camaro or Gary's 1964 ½ Ford Mustang? Carla also focused on a healthier approach to Chicken Pot Pie, while Nicole was making her classic CPP recipe that was sure to please.

Day seven of the battle also featured Sharon taking on Agent Blake in a long-distance swim. While both of them loved to swim, it was Blake who had the most experience in the big pond from his years of lifeguard training. Maggie and Kayla were busy getting their hands dirty in a house building challenge, with the winner being the families in need of shelter. Emily and Belinda were into day two of their knitting challenge with quilts on the agenda, while Max and Aaron continued their classic video game battle, focusing on Max's favorite new game Centipede.

Cal was in control off the break in the first game of eight ball and Hartwell knew it. He sunk the first striped ball in the right corner pocket and then almost ran the table, leaving the vampire only one opportunity to gather his solids. Hartwell made a game effort of it, sinking four balls before missing and then leaving the door wide open for Cal to end the first game in only 20 minutes.

"Eight ball, side pocket," Cal said as not only called the pocket he also pointed to it.

Hartwell took a seat in the high-backed director's chair across from the table, and held that chair for the next 20 minutes as Cal ran the table in the second game after sinking the eight- ball just as he called it. The action was a little more competitive under the white bubble of Beach Haven Tennis. Daniel and Andrew decided that the first match would be a warm-up of the best two out of three sets, and then they would get into a best three out of five set match after lunch. Daniel won the first set six games to four, and then Drew snatched the second set in a tiebreaker, seven points to five. With the first two sets already taking two hours it looked like the guys would blow right through lunch with the hotly-contested third set tied at five games apiece and the clock easing past noon. That was, until, Drew got so hungry that he won the next two games and ended the match in only ten more minutes.

They shook hands at the net and Daniel said, "It's pretty hard to stop you when you get hungry."

Drew smiled, "I know. Let's get something to eat."

Gary and Thaddeus monitored the police scanner for their race window during the morning hours. They determined that one to two o'clock would be the optimum time to race throughout the town on a course they had collectively designed. Changing shifts, after-lunch naps, and pre-rush hour and school bus mania would be perfect to speed unimpeded through the town. The used the extra time to fine-tune their cars and shoot the breeze.

"I still can't believe that we're all living together," Thaddeus stated.

"Yeah, it's amazing how fast things came together."

Thad countered, "Do you think it will last?"

"C'mon, we both know that nothing last forever," Gary replied. "Besides, I think we both have learned that planning too far ahead is a pointless exercise."

"You are wise, my friend," Thad said. "So, what are we going to do about the girls?"

That put his hands palm-up to reveal that he had nothing but confusion to relay on the subject.

"I say we wait a few days and then go to Vegas," Thad stated.

"And get married?" Gary questioned.

"Let's just go and have some fun and see where the chips fall," Thad explained.

Gary smiled more out of relief than happiness, "No my friend, you are the wise one."

Nicole and Carla were hard at work on their Chicken Pot Pie cook-off and Agent Blake had already opened up a sizable lead on Sharon, who was being battered by the choppy waters and was fighting to keep up. Maggie and Kayla were working on separate houses on the other outskirts of Beach Haven, Belinda was in the knitting room and Emily was spread out in the chi room, as the quilts required as much space as possible for each woman. The last matchup of the day was taking place at Beach Haven Arcade, where Aaron was trying to establish a new record in the video game Centipede and Maxwell was trying to go there with him.

Just about the time the seven match-ups were moving into the full heat of the battle, energy was swirling around Claire Vinson. This force was guiding the necessary elements to converge on Beach Haven and bring the young women and the group out of the darkness and into the light.

It had been 18 years since Linda Vinson saw her mother, yet the two women had only aged about five years apiece. Brenda Vinson could feel the energy surrounding her house building all day, so she made her favorite beef stew in anticipation of a call-in order. She knew exactly what would happen before the events of the day unfolded and wanted to remain on track to fulfilling the pre-meditated prophecy.

Brenda took the large black top off her ancient cooking pot and set it next to the sink. Steam from the chunky stew spread from the pot to the ceiling, leaving only some condensation behind to signal of its arrival. She searched through a few drawers for her favorite ladle, stopping for a brief moment to gather the anxious thoughts that appeared to be precluding her from completing the task. After Brenda located the ladle, she grabbed a large bowl with her left hand and then scooped three or four heaping ladles full of stew and gently placed them in the bowl. She then left the ladle in the pot and walked slowly with the hot bowl over to the table and placed it down in the middle of a green and yellow-colored fabric place mat. Brenda then duplicated the process on the second bowl and placed it across the table on a similar mat, and finished the dishes off with some fresh rosemary, which always had guided her daughter home.

Linda Vinson's road home was a windy path that started in Australia and ended in what seemed like a blink of an eye. She managed to get on a private jet headed for the United States without knowing the actual destination of the plane. All she could get out of the wealthy business man's thoughts was that he had to make a meeting in just under 20 hours, so she jumbled his brain a bit and slept for most of the trip in the lap of luxury. She had lived in Australia for the past 12 years feeling safe in the knowledge that Lowery stopped traveling great distances and was limiting his siring mostly to the contiguous United States.

She had fallen in love with a rugged Aussie a few years earlier and had been living a relatively happy existence despite being unable to fill the void left by living without her mother and her daughter for many years. When she left Australia, she rearranged Dave Bentley's thoughts so he wouldn't even realize that she was gone. Linda wasn't sure that she would return to Australia because of the uncertainties of what awaited her when she returned to The States, so she did what she could to cushion the blow of the loss for both she and Dave.

The businessman's flight landed in Arizona, which meant that Linda was still a significant distance away from home but a lot closer than she was the previous day. She caught a few more flights and still a couple of more lifts before she could smell home, and then she let her scent guide her steps the last few miles, up the windy path to her mother's property and the acreage of the old family farm. Brenda Vinson had poured a few glasses of water and was now sitting in front of her place setting. She picked up her fork and lifted her napkin off the table before placing it gently in her lap. The front door opened and Linda walked through the foyer and into the kitchen where she sat down before acknowledging her mother.

"I'm famished," she said as she also picked up her fork and placed the cloth napkin on her lap.

The both started eating until Brenda Vinson looked up and a tear streamed out of her eye and rolled down the left side of her face. She was able to talk through her obvious joy, wrapped around a blanket of sadness, "It's good to have you home, dear.

Linda stopped shoveling for a moment and it appeared that the spell was broken. She fell to the floor on her knees and then crawled over to her mother's side of the table sobbing, "It's good to be home, mom," she said as the two women hugged each other like they had no intention of ever letting go.

TWENTY-SEVEN

A similar, yet less emotional, gathering was taking place in the Winters' kitchen in Portland, Oregon.

"We need to get in motion," Joe Winters said to his wife as they looked at their granddaughter Ariel, who was now a full-blown teenager. He was luckily passing through the kitchen and was spared the scintillating conversation that was about to take place.

"You know, like, when we get to New York, like will we by staying anywhere?" Ariel said in her best Valley Girl accent.

Katherine Winters was at a loss for words, because it had been years since she was confronted with a tween turned teen. She looked over at her previous attempt to survive the teenage years, her daughter Valerie, and deferred to her knowledge and wisdom for the first time.

"Yes, Ariel. We will, like, be staying with some people in a really large house."

Ariel was undaunted in her pursuit to get every self-centered question she had – and all of the inquiries she had were me-based – answered so she could obsess over the minute details for hours on end.

"Will I be getting my own, like, room?"

Valerie looked at her mother and could tell that her mother's head would explode if she used the word "like" in a sentence again.

"Yes, Ariel. We could arrange that."

"With a window?"

"Yes, with a window," Valerie replied, trying to keep it light and avoid raising her blood pressure and voice. That was, until, she could see Ariel loading up another insignificant question, the answer of which she would probably grow out of in the next 12 hours, or so.

"I have to talk to your grandmother, so why don't you go to your room and pack all of your clothes up..." she said and then continued when Ariel left the room, "that won't fit you in a few hours and then you'll have to repack an entirely different wardrobe."

"Are we flying or swimming?" Katherine Winters asked her husband as he came back through the kitchen.

Joe looked at his daughter and then asked, "Are you up for a swim?"

"Sure, but will Ariel be up for the long swim?" Valerie replied.

Katherine finally dove back into the shallow end of the conversation, "It will probably be the only way we can get her to stop talking."

Father and daughter nodded in agreement, "Good point."

"Then we leave first thing tomorrow morning, which means we should get there just after sundown," Joe stated as Brandon walked into the kitchen.

"What did I miss?" he asked.

His wife replied, "A whole lot of likes, and we are swimming back to Beach Haven first thing."

Mom laughed and dad and Brandon wondered what she meant, but had learned over time not to ask.

"So, let's just be clear about the rules," Garrison said to Thaddeus as he sat in his Mustang.

"Are you going to drive with the top up? I bet you can get an extra five to 10 miles per hour with the top down," Thad stated.

"Even though that's completely untrue, and an obvious attempt to get any advantage you can on me because you know that Ford is far superior to GM, I'm still going to grant your request and drop the top on this baby," Gary replied and then lowered the black convertible top on his Wimbledon white Mustang with burgundy interior.

"First one back and forth from the waste processing plant on the other side of town?"

"That's the rules,' Gary concurred.

Thad sat in his car and put on his sunglasses, "Maybe when we get back we can work on adding some horse power to that Smart Car your daughter bought a few weeks ago.

Gary put his sunglasses on, "Or that underpowered Prius your daughter has?"

"See you in the rear view," Thad said.

"Not if I see you first," Gary replied as they both started their roaring engines, thus putting an end to any additional banter.

Thad looked over at Gary, who held his fist up and then counted down, 3-2-1, and then the fist reemerged as both men skidded out of the driveway and onto the street.

About the same time the race got underway, Max played the initial Centipede game after lunch and shattered Aaron's all-time record. It was also about the time that the Beach Haven Arcade displayed their games on the big screen for everyone to see.

"Wow, you are getting better with each passing game. Well, I guess it's time to step up my game," Aaron confidently stated.

Aaron might have been the tallest in height and size in the group, but he usually was more of a follower than a leader due to his relatively inexperienced status within the tribe. But his demeanor was so much different when at the controls of Centipede, or flicking the ball back time and time again at pong. He slid four quarters into the machine and then proceeded to obliterate screen by screen of Centipede nation, changing colors and patterns and shuffling through various levels with tremendous ease until he passed his own record and then surpassed Max's last game, much to the delight of the few socially-challenged enthusiasts that had gathered to watch on the big screen.

Our after hour, game after game went by with both mean breaking the previous record with each subsequent try. It was 5:15 p.m. and Maxwell knew that this would be the last game of the day as he slid his quarters into the machine.

Aaron was a good sport, but he also like to be the Centipede record holder, "Last game before all of that delicious chicken pot pie," trying to see if he could get inside the head of his younger opponent.

Maxwell loved his mother's CPP, but put aside all thoughts of the fluffy crust and meaty and gooey center until after his game was over. That was more than could be said for Daniel, who was in the middle of the fifth set in his marathon tennis match with Andrew.

"We're never gonna' finish this match. All I can think about is chicken pot pie, and we only have a few more minutes before we have to be home."

"Are you quitting?" Drew asked.

Daniel barely even thought about the 'yellow' gesture, "Yeah."

Drew was relieved, "Cool! Me, too! I don't even know what the score is and I could care less anymore. Why were we playing so long anyway?"

"I have no idea. Let's get out of here," Daniel replied.

They dropped the balls on the court and then darted out of the bubble like they hadn't just played over eight hours of grueling tennis.

Sharon nearly drowned on the way back to the house, and Blake sensed something was wrong and went back nearly a mile to get her. Earlier in the day he would have been in complete competition mode and left her behind, but something was different now. He channeled all of his lifeguard spirit and rescued Sharon and brought her to shore, where he pumped the water out of her lungs and brought her back to life.

She opened her eyes after water funneled out of her mouth and said, "Did I win?"

Blake smiled and then replied, "Yeah, you won."

"Thanks Lifeguard Blake," she said with a smile.

"You're welcome, Sharon," he replied, feeling like his old self again, but this time he had actually saved the women that used to swim circles around him. The race in the water was definitely secondary to the race inside his head on this afternoon.

Maggie and Kayla started the day working on separate houses, but ended the day in a united effort to finish the last house. The winners on this day were the Jones family, who had lost their house in a hurricane and subsequent flood and had been living in the family's SUV for a few months. The women walked arm in arm out of the sight and on the way home, never saying a world and only enjoying the satisfying silence of each other's contentment.

Nicole and Carla set the table again, but this time they put their signature CPPs on two plates on each person's place mat. Nicole opted for red plates and Carla serving on blue. Hartwell and Cal walked in and Hartwell was lamenting on his long day watching Cal play pool, "At least you made a game of it yesterday. You barely even let me get out of the chair today."

"Good thing we came home for dinner, because I would have started to take your money," Cal stated.

"Good thing." Hartwell added.

Daniel and Andrew ran through the door and couldn't get to their chairs fast enough, "No running in the house, boys!" Belinda said as she dragged her giant quilt, folded quilt into the room and then helped Emily bring her quilt into the room for viewing after dinner.

Blake and Sharon dried off again before coming inside and he said, "Are you going to be up for the treasure hunt tomorrow?"

She smiled and replied, "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

Maggie and Kayla walked into the house still arm-in-arm, and then split off to wash their hands and take a seat next to each other. Max and Aaron were right behind them and everyone could hear Max's elevated tone.

"I had you until I started thinking about that Chicken Pot Pie! I tried to hold it off as long as possible, but I just couldn't do it."

Aaron still couldn't believe it, "But, you were only 10 points away! I can't believe that you let the CPP get into your head," the big guy said and then sat down next to Maxwell at the table. He then took one whiff of Nicole's chicken pot pie and his eyes rolled back in pleasure in his head. "Hold that thought... you might be on to something."

Everyone was seated around the table when Thaddeus and Garrison wobbled in through the garage entrance into the house and made their way into the main room. They walked into the bathroom and splashed cool water on their faces in an effort of rejuvenation. It was Garrison that pulled back into the driveway a split-second before Thaddeus, and it was Garrison that also had the foresight to load up the fridge in the garage with bear before the race.

"Good call on that fridge, Gary."

"No problem, Thad. It was the least I could do after whipping your butt."

Thad looked at Gary and the two sobered up as Thad said, "That still doesn't sound right," as they took their place at the table with the others.

TWENTY-EIGHT

While many people enjoyed Carla's chicken pot pie, it was Nicole's CPP that won mass appeal. Nicole's CPP made everyone feel like they were back at home as small children and the feeling was quite comforting for most. Of course, the competition was about which dish was enjoyed most, not the dish that stayed down the best. That distinction would belong to Carla's organic and healthy pie with reduced salt that contained only fresh vegetables.

After dinner, the two groups were instructed to sit down on the couch for some family time and TV watching. Emily and Belinda told the hunters to park on the left side of the room and the vampires and protectors to sit on the right, as the group fully expected to be shown quilts that once again separated them as a species. The two women were about to reveal their individual quilts for the group but they decided to get together for a brief moment and discuss something.

Emily whispered to Belinda, "Is your quilt about vampires and protectors?"

"Not really," Belinda whispered back. "Is yours about hunters?"

"Not really," Emily replied.

"Then I think we should make a few modifications," Belinda stated.

"I agree."

The women then dragged their quilts into the knitting room after they told the group to just hang tight for a few minutes, or "Talk amongst yourself," as Emily put it in her best Brooklyn accent.

They emerged five minutes later holding two ends of one very long and large quilt and walked in front of the group.

"We were in separate rooms most of the day and we didn't talk at all," Belinda said.

"Except for the time I said excuse me when I walked past you to go to the bathroom," Emily joked as the group laughed.

There was a warm feeling in the room that something special was about to happen. No longer was this group looking over its collective shoulder and waiting for something bad to happen.

Emily looked at Belinda, "We feel that this quilt symbolizes our struggle...

"and is a testament that good things can happen to good people," Emily continued, finishing the thought.

They unrolled the quilt and it spilled out over the sparkling clean floor as they displayed it at first and then had some help from the rest of the group. They joined the line along the couches and chairs being covered by the quilt as the entire family watched TV. The top of the quilt that Belinda completed read, "ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY!" with a few family members and the bottom half that Emily sewed had depictions of the remaining family members covering all of the various façade changes they all could make.

After the first good night of sleep in years, Linda and Brenda Vinson awoke and met each other in the kitchen over two nice tall cups of coffee. It wouldn't take them more than a three or four hours to drive from Brenda's home in Pennsylvania to the Hartwell residence in Beach Haven, so the women were taking their time.

"Did you sleep well?" Brenda asked her daughter.

"Yes," Linda replied, "but I kept having dreams about mermaids."

Brenda jerked her neck to the right side, as the two women were sitting next to each other at the round white kitchen table.

"Oh my, I had those dreams, too! I even saw a merman or two in the mix."

"But there was this one girl..." Linda said.

"Yes! She was all shiny and glittery."

"We have to go see her," Linda stated.

Brenda smiled, "Something tells me that it's going to happen today."

With the glittery girl and her family en route to Beach Haven, it was time for the third and final day of competition between the families at Casa de Hartwell.

"What are you guys doing today?" Daniel asked Hartwell and Cal as he sat next to Andrew at the breakfast table.

Hartwell looked at Cal, which showed how unfocused he was on the day's events.

"I think we're bowling," Cal stated, sounding somewhat sure of the plans.

"Cool!" Drew exclaimed.

"You don't want to play golf?" Daniel asked his cousin.

"Not really,' Drew replied.

Hartwell had a brain blast after sitting out most of the conversation.

"Why don't we play a few rounds of golf and then end the day with a few games of bowling?"

"Can we get in on that?" Aaron asked the group.

"Are you tired of playing against me?" Maxwell asked.

"No, I just thought it would be fun to be with the group for a change,' Aaron replied.

"What were you guys going to do?" Cal asked.

"We were on our way back to the arcade for a day of USA vs. USSR hockey under the big dome," Max stated.

"Why don't we all do that after bowling and golf? We could eat at the bowling alley and then head over to the arcade," Daniel said.

The six guys agreed and were excited to be together and doing such fun things for the day. Consolidation of activities was the name of the game on this day, as three groups next became one.

"What's up today, Carla?" Nicole asked her culinary friend.

"Pies. Apple and pumpkin pies," Carla replied.

"That sounds good," Maggie said. "We're supposed to do some fundraising today, but those families we built houses for yesterday need our help," she said looking over at her partner in philanthropy, Kayla.

"What kind of help?" Belinda asked.

Kayla replied, "All kinds of help. They need food, clothing, blankets and other assorted items."

The six women all looked at each other and a fusion of understanding took them over.

"We have so much leftover from the first two days, and we could bake a bunch of pies and bring those over, too," Nicole said.

"And we can knit blankets and sweaters for the families," Emily added.

"Sounds like a plan, ladies!" an excited Maggie said to the group.

Gary and Thad were talking about their motorcycles, and Blake and Sharon were getting ready to go on their deep sea scavenger hunt.

"So, you're saying that Triumph bikes are better than Harley Davidson bikes? I thought we had this discussion already?" Gary said to Thad.

"So, we have all of our scuba gear ready for the dive today?" Agent Blake asked fellow diver Sharon.

Thaddeus was distracted from his conversation with Garrison enough to divert his attention to the divers.

"What are you two doing today?"

Blake smiled, "We're going on a deep sea treasure hunt."

"Wow! Cool!" Gary exclaimed and then looked over at his all-things-motor partner Thad and said, "We have to get in on that!"

"Why don't we get our motorboats out and then use the bikes to get into town and price the stuff at Beach Haven Pawn," Thad added.

Blake looked at Sharon for confirmation of the revised schedule and she simply replied, "Happy for the company."

TWENTY-NINE

By 10:00 am, every person in the world of Hartwell was in full motion. All of the groups had begun their activities, the Winters' and Justice families were well into their big swim, and Linda and Brenda Vinson got an early start on their drive to New York, with a little antiquing and resale shopping thrown in for good measure.

Since there was nobody on the golf course because it was 44 degrees outside, the six men were able to play together in an unconventional grouping the likes of which were rarely seen in this world of foursomes.

"I don't think I have ever had the pleasure of sharing my round with five other players before," the experienced Hartwell said.

"It definitely makes things a little more interesting," Cal added. "Why don't you do the honors," he added, meaning that he wanted Hartwell to be the first one to hit off the first tee.

Hartwell nodded to Cal and then put his hand in his pocket to extract a long white tee and a ball. While he would rather have hit last in this group, because the sight of his ball exploding off the tee and sailing more than 300 yards down the fairway was likely to crush the confidence of the other players, he was happy to be outside playing the game he loved.

He bent over and pushed the tee into the ground, leaving ample room for club clearance, and then he gently set the ball on top of the tee. Hartwell stepped back to attain focus and took a smooth practice swing and then another, before placing his club behind the ball and then squaring his feet. His breath was more even now, save for a slightly accelerated heartbeat, as he brought the club back and then accelerated through the hitting zone as his new-age driver crashed into the ball and sent it racing through the air and down toward even greener pastures. The ball first connected with the tightly-cut grass some 305 yards from the tee and then rolled an additional 20 yards from the momentum of the strike.

Hartwell posed a bit in his follow-through as the other guys stood in awe before breaking into light, scattered applause, widely known as the "golf clap."

"Very nice,' Cal said, as the two men had played golf for years but never together.

Cal stepped up to hit next and Hartwell was intrigued as always about his muse, the hunter, who had the prototypical golfer build with his long body and shorter legs. He repeated a similar pre-drive ritual to that of Hartwell but only swung once in his preparation before lining up the shot. Cal's swing was much more compact than Hartwell's do to the shorter working parts. He inhaled and exhaled through his nostrils to shake any remaining jitters out of his body and then rocked his body back, placing the weight on his back foot, before he shifted all of his weight forward and exploded on the ball.

The other playing gasped, including Hartwell, at the sheer power of the man in front of them. The trajectory of Cal's ball was much lower and more direct than Hartwell's missile, which meant it would roll farther once it touched down in the fairway. The ball landed about 290 yards from the tee and then rolled an additional 30 yards and came to rest only a few yards behind Hartwell's ball.

Cal looked over at Hartwell and the duel for the day was on. You could have taken the other four players out of the equation at that point, because they were playing a different game than the other two, who were on a completely separate level.

Maggie and Kayla left their charitable counterparts, Nicole, Carla, Belinda and Emily, behind at the house and ventured out to Beach Haven Furniture to see if they could get some donations for the houses they built the previous day. Hartwell made sure that the duo had a positive experience by suggesting to the manager, one Richard Denton, that it would be a great idea for the company to donate a bunch of furniture. The vampire also suggested to a local news reporter that it would be even a better idea to capture the event on video and then play the piece on the news that night. Denton was so overjoyed with the publicity that he offered to provide furniture for any other houses that were built for families that were displaced by recent weather-related events. That was his idea... business tripled at Beach Haven Furniture the remainder of the year without the assistance of Hartwell.

The underwater scavenger hunt was also in full flight. Thad and Gary dropped off Agent Blake and Sharon in the middle of the ocean, and then came back to work on the boat motors. These guys were motor junkies, and never needed an excuse to get a few extra horsepower out of any vehicle. They raced back to the point where Sharon and Blake were and picked up the duo, with treasure, before lunch. Both divers appeared to have unearthed a significant haul, complete with many gold items in their nets. Thaddeus looked over at Gary as he helped Blake back in the boat, and Gary did the same as he easily lifted his daughter Sharon in his boat. The race was on back to the shore, as Blake's extra weight slowed their boat giving team Sharon a decided advantage. Of course, Thaddeus would make that stagger up when they got to the shore, because his Triumph bike was a good few miles faster than Thad's Harley chopper. It was lunchtime and there was no real need to get back to the house quickly from the pawn shop, so they both grabbed a few bagels and then raced home with more than $1,000 each.

The remainder of the day for the six golfers was much more leisurely until they reached the arcade to play a USA vs. USSR slide hockey tournament under the dome. It was difficult to get any juice up for bowling after Cal and Hartwell both shot a two under-par 70 and decided to let the tie stand instead of playing it out until the death. The vampires all received new bowling balls and shoes for the two hours of games, because the thought of touching anything in that place creeped them out. Maxwell, Daniel and Hartwell thoroughly cleaned the lanes and the seats in and around the two lanes the group was assigned and after that, the beer and food were continuously flowing.

The families in the freshly-built houses were overjoyed with the outpouring of generosity from Maggie, Kayla, the other women, and Beach Haven Furniture. The loss of everything near and dear to them tested their resolve, and this second chance gave them a renewed belief in their fellow man. It also gave Maggie a fresh perspective on what she and the group should be doing the rest of their lives.

"We should start a foundation that helps families."

"Like a charitable organization?" Emily asked.

"Exactly! Are you in?" Maggie asked."

"Yes, I'm in," Emily said.

"Me too," Belinda added.

"Us too!" Carla and Nicole yelled.

Kayla stood in front of the women with her hands on her hips, "Will we still get to knit together?"

Maggie smiled, "Of course, Kayla."

"Then I'm in, too!" she exclaimed.

THIRTY

Agent Blake and Sharon were so satisfied with their morning haul that they decided to back on the water with their drivers and continue their hunt in the afternoon. Only $15 dollars separated the two diving teams, with Agent Blake holding a slight advantage on the strength of a valuable serving tray. Thad and Gary took the opportunity to bask in the quiet of the ocean and lay out their future.

"What are we going to do when we get back with the girls?" Thad asked.

"You mean, are we going to get our own place?" Gary asked.

"Yeah, that's what I mean."

"I can't live in one of those senior communities. I already know that I'm over 55... in fact, I'm more like 155!" Gary stated.

Thad laughed, "Would you ever think of moving out of Beach Haven?" Thad asked.

Gary chewed on the question and had only one answer, "There was a time when I would consider doing just that, but I think we both know that our family has grown and now it's all about family."

Thad nodded in accord, "Agreed."

The hockey game was almost as physical as a regular game of ice hockey as the boys lined up two deep on both sides in this double-elimination, round-robin tournament. Picking the teams might have been a real chore on most other days but on this day, everything seemed to fall into place when the guys walked into the area with the big-domed hockey game.

"Wow! That thing is huge!" Max said to his new buddy and retro game enthusiast Aaron.

Aaron smiled and joked, "It's the biggest dome this side of Siberia."

"I'm playing with Aaron!" Max called out to the other guys to secure their spot, almost akin to calling "Shot-gun!" when you want to sit in the passenger seat of a car.

Cal looked at Hartwell and they shook hands even before Daniel yelled, "It's me and Drew!"

The game was first to 11 goals in the preliminary round and then a 15-goal game in the finals. Aaron and Max were the favorites going into the tournament for good reason, as they easily dispatched of Daniel and Drew 11-7 in the first game. The cousins were so confused by the movable slides and the goalie that they beat each other up trying to jockey for position during the game.

"I thought you knew how to play this game!" Drew yelled at Daniel.

"The video game not this invention of evil!" Daniel replied in an exasperated tone.

Aaron and Max stayed on to play again, and their determined rivals were none other than Cal and Hartwell, who had been planning strategy as they watched the previous game.

"You ever play this game before?" Cal asked Hartwell.

"Yes. Remember that summer we spent in Canada in the 1980s?"

Cal flashed back to bar fights and the same domed game in the corner of the bar, only it was Canada vs. USSR.

"Oh yeah, I played that a few times when I was drunk!" he said.

"But can you play it sober?" Hartwell asked.

"Well, we had a few beers at the bowling alley, so technically I am still a little buzzed."

Hartwell smirked, "Technically."

Aaron was more of a control-type player, so he manned the goalie and defense while Max was the wild man who wreaked havoc on offense, putting all kinds of pressure on their opponents. On the other side of the dome was Hartwell on defense and his hunter teammate on offense, which made perfect sense in the vampirical world but it remained to be seen if that would work in Cold War hockey.

Max was a scoring machine and Aaron was a brick wall as their team moved out to a commanding 7-0 lead. Hartwell and Cal were never about blame and always looked for solutions to problems, so they looked at each other and said, "Switch."

Hartwell was now on offense and Cal was manning the back line, as the switch paid immediate dividends and their team closed the gap in the next five minutes to 7-5. Aaron then stopped Hartwell on a breakaway in synthetic center ice and the puck spun up-ice to a streaking Maxwell, who made no mistake and deposited the puck in the back of the net behind Cal's goalie. The team's traded goals after that and the final score was 11-8 in favor of Aaron and Max, who would be watching the next do-or-die matchup from the sidelines. The winner of the match would face the undefeated pairing of Max and Aaron, while the losers would have to wait until the next surprise attack of an ex-vampire's daughter to get another shot at the title.

The matchup of Drew and Daniel against Cal and Hartwell was definitely a pairing bent on family pride. The younger generation with all of their love of video games against an older generation that was used to doing everything physical instead of sitting in one place. The switch of Hartwell to offense and Cal to defense in the previous game continued to pay immediate dividends in this game. They moved out to leads of 4-2 and then 7-5, before stretching the lead and then winning 11-8.

"We suck!" Daniel yelled.

"Speak for yourself!" Andrew shot back.

"Okay then, you suck!" Daniel said while laughing.

Drew had given up 11 goals and couldn't argue with such logic, "No question."

Hartwell and Cal were hot and continued that trend in the final game, taking an 11-8 lead against the undefeated duo of Max and Aaron.

Aaron turned to Max and said, "Centipede," and somehow Max knew exactly what he was talking about, although everyone else was clueless to the strategic deployment.

Max thought of the Centipede game and how he was so adept at slithering in and out situations and continuing to score. He started passing the puck between his forwards making it difficult for Cal to set up his goalie and follow the action. The neophyte, who was much older and wiser in gamer years, scored goal after goal as Hartwell and Cal were defenseless to stop him. The 11-8 lead quickly disappeared and the champions scored seven unanswered goals to take the title and prove that, at least for a few days, they were gaming champions of the vampirical world.

THIRTY-ONE

After a long, hard day of work and play it was time for everyone to come together in the main room of the house and have dinner. Nicole and Carla had been churning out food for people in need, and now were joined by Kayla, Maggie, Belinda and Emily, who had completed their philanthropic duties for the day and were happy to lend a helping hand to prepare dinner.

Somehow the six women preparing dinner also had enough time and energy to complete their initial tasks for the day, despite being dedicated to helping others for most of that time. Kayla and Maggie managed to raise funds for the group's new non-profit organization, The Haven; Belinda and Emily both stitched together covers for the Mustang and Camaro, complete with logos, while Nicole and Carla kept making their apple and pumpkin pies as the other women focused on the balance of the dinner menu.

The group of six guys coming from the arcade walked through the garage door and into the house, scattering for a brief moment to wash up before reassembling in the main room. And the last of the groups, the four people on a treasure hunt, were still on the course as Sharon and Agent Blake waited by the shore watching the last minutes of the sun reflect from the West on the Eastern shore.

"Did you hear that the ladies are starting a non-profit to help people?" Blake asked.

"Yes, and I think we should give them whatever money we earned today from our dive," she replied.

"Blake smiled, "Good deal."

"But, I'm going to beat you," Sharon said with a confident smile on her face.

Her former husband Blake returned the smile in kind, "In your dreams, Shar. In your dreams."

The calm of the sun setting was fractured momentarily by the piercing sound of two motorcycles coming closer at top speed. Thaddeus and Garrison had collected the money for the pawn shop in town and were now neck and neck about a quarter-mile away from the house and closing fast on an unimpeded path. Thad's Triumph was obviously the faster bike, but Gary had paid attention to the details again and had structured his Harley for superior maneuverability. They turned the corner on the way to the last section of the route to the house and must have been so locked in that they were not acknowledging the obvious barriers in their way.

Sharon and Blake stood up when they heard the bike engines, but became concerned when the two guys weren't slowing down.

"This doesn't look good," Blake stated.

"Thaddeus is not going to be able to stop because he built his bike for speed, not breaking."

Sharon's words proved prophetic as Garrison was able to avoid the opening of the huge barn-like garage and steer his bike toward the divers before braking. Thaddeus wasn't as fortunate, as he continued to accelerate with his 50 additional dollars while entering the garage. A huge crash and thud was heard and the house shook momentarily as if impacted by the aftershock of an earthquake.

"What was that?" Hartwell yelled, as everyone in the main room filtered through the front door and outside the see what all the commotion was about.

Gary jumped off his bike and ran into the garage as Blake stepped up to grab a hold of the Harley and put the kickstand down.

"What's happening?" Maggie yelled to Blake and Sharon.

"Thaddeus crashed his motorcycle in the garage," Sharon yelled back as she and Blake walked over and melted into the collective.

"I sure hope that he noticed the folded up bouncy hut I stored in the garage?" Nicole said.

"When did you get that?" Carla asked.

"There were so many babies being born that I thought it would come in handy for birthday parties. But these kids are growing so fast that they will probably outgrow it between the serving of the pizza and the cake."

It was difficult to miss the huge folded up bouncy hut, which was in Thad's path and surprisingly inflated on thunderous impact. Thad's bike stopped when it impacted the structure, but he continued to fly through the air and he landed so hard that it triggered the air mechanism. Gary ran into the garage and then dove into the rising hut, which started to take shape with a groggy Thaddeus in tow. Thad and Gary were swallowed into the hut, but Gary managed to get a hold of his friend and ask, "Are you all right, Thad?"

Thad was still shaking the cob-webs out of his head, "Did I win?"

The two men were so competitive that Gary had to back up and let it go for a change, "Yeah, Thad. I'm going to give you that one."

The crowd filtered from their initial spot near the water to the front of the garage, which was on the left side of the house. While all of the attention was focused on that one area, a flurry of activity was taking place outside of the garage and was about to converge on the unsuspecting group.

The timing of the crash and the near-sonic boom it created woke Clair Vinson and Samuel from their extended and peaceful slumber, but their brains still weren't fully back on line. The duo used their vampire senses to clean up and refresh their look before they walked like two zombies down the hallway and then out the front door. They stood side-by-side staring blankly into the surf and apparently waited for further instructions.

Linda and Brenda Vinson had obviously completed their full day of thrift shopping and antiquing, and were now headed down what appeared to be a dead end toward an abandoned warehouse.

"You sure this is the spot?" Linda asked her mother.

"First of all, that is not an abandoned warehouse," Brenda said as she took her right hand off the steering wheel and placed it on Linda's forearm, channeling a view of Hartwell's actual house replacing the dilapidated image that was previous dominating her daughter's view.

"Oh, that's better!" Linda exclaimed. "What are all of those people doing outside?"

"Are we almost there yet," a question from one of the children rained down on the adults as they approached the Beach Haven shores.

Four people were ready to answer the often-asked query but a surprising source stepped up to shed a little light on the group's status.

"We're here," Ariel Justice said as she flipped her mermaid tail in excitement of completing the long trip, which propelled her to the top of a huge set of rocks at the edge of the water.

Peaceful thoughts enveloped Claire Vinson as any remaining images and dark influences of her father we banished and replaced with everything her mother's side could offer. She instinctively turned to her right and walked away from Samuel and toward the lights of a car that had stopped about 30 yards in front of her.

The soothing thoughts of the Portland group also got inside of Samuel's head and relinquished Claire's hold on his mind. He looked out into the ocean and all he could see was a girl, a mermaid, her dark hair still wet but she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. A few days ago, the immature kid would have probably morphed into her image, but he now knew that it wasn't cool to change into things that were of the opposite sex. He zipped down toward the rocks and then held her hand as he glided back to the higher ground with their eyes locked on each other.

The full impact of the arrival of the peacemakers, and especially Ariel, slowly trickled into the garage area, where the adults were obviously having an impromptu party as the bouncy hut was now fully inflated and utilized, as Gary escorted Thad to level ground. The other people quickly set tables up in the garage and the food was brought outside, as the movable feast was underway.

Hartwell and Cal walked over to see if Thaddeus was all right, but his attention was being occupied by images that had come into his hunter's scope. Claire Vinson was walking toward her mother and grandmother and then she spotted her grandmother, who had exited the car and was walking toward her.

Daniel and Andrew exited the bouncy hut via the bounce, fly and land technique and were now standing next to the other guys. They were about to crack some jokes but noticed that the mood was not conducive to humor at that moment.

Thad touched the growing bump on his head and said, "I might still be a bit groggy but I smell that vampire again."

The other guys were trying to process what Thad was referring to, but Hartwell knew what the hunter was talking about because he had detected the scent, too.

"Lowery."

The sound of the dreaded vampire's name echoed off the water and then made its way into the garage, effectively putting a halt to the festivities. The remaining members of the family either put their plates down or stopped bouncing in the inflatable hut, and made their way outside full of concern and ready for anything that would come their way.

The rest of the peacemakers made landfall while Claire Vinson hugged her grandmother.

"Grandma, what happened? How did I get here?"

She was scared and disoriented until she connected thoughts with her mother, who was standing in calm silence only a few feet away. Claire stepped back from her grandmother and then looked straight at Linda Vinson and said, "Mom?"

Tears were streaming down Linda's eyes as her years of struggle and sacrifice had come to a dramatic end.

"Yes, it's me honey," Linda replied as a sobbing Claire literally jumped into her approaching mother's eyes.

Maggie walked up and stood next to her husband, "Who are those people?"

The same question was being asked by Katherine Winters, and her daughter briefly ended the gaze of love with Samuel long enough to step forward in her human form and said internally, "That is the daughter of Charles Lowery. But he is no longer with us."

Hartwell and the other vampires heard what Ariel said and Hartwell spoke for the group, "That glistening young lady over there just said that the girl is Lowery's daughter, but he is no longer with us anymore."

Thad looked over at Gary and said, "That explains a lot."

Gary smiled, "I'm still going to take you in any race you choose when that bump on your head goes away in the morning."

"Are we still going to Vegas?" Thad asked.

"Why not," Gary replied.

Samuel walked with Ariel as the rest of the peacemakers followed. The vampire/protector/hunter group followed Hartwell and Maggie toward the Vinson family. As half of the sun was swallowed up by the horizon, the remaining light reflected off of Ariel as she approached Brenda Vinson, who tapped her daughter on the shoulder, "It's the glimmering girl."

Linda wiped the tears from her eyes and face and then did her first motherly thing she did since she touched heads 18 years earlier with her daughter, by wiping away her daughter's tears.

Linda said, "It's you."

Ariel was an advanced being capable of almost anything her mind could grab onto. She channeled Claire Vinson's thoughts with her eyes closed and reached the depths of her mind for real understanding. Ariel then bypassed the first 18 years of her life and focused in on the events of the last week, opening her eyes when she finally located the source of the disturbance.

"This girl has been under the influence of a force that it no longer with us. The source of which was vampirical in nature and was seeking revenge on that man's family," she said as she pointed at Hartwell.

Brenda Vinson looked over at where her granddaughter was pointing and recognized a familiar face.

"Thomas?"

Hartwell could see the women just fine but he stepped closer to present a more dramatic look at the woman's face.

"Brenda? Brenda Vinson?" Hartwell replied.

The name sparked a few other men in the group.

"Brenda?" Thaddeus asked as Gary grabbed his shirt and said, "You know Brenda, too?"

"Yes, it's me!" Brenda exclaimed. She looked over at the second voice and said, "Thaddeus and Garrison, how long has it been?"

Maggie initially looked over at Hartwell like a jealous spouse, but was both relieved and confused that she also knew the other men. Belinda proudly stepped forward and beamed at the sight of her boy Brandon holding hands with his wife Valerie. She once again felt the pride of a grandmother as she stepped forward and said, "Brandon and Valerie, who do we have here?"

The couple stepped forward and grabbed hold of another hand on their way closer to the group. Ariel reached back for Samuel, like a child not wanting to leave the room without their favorite toy, and he latched on to her fingers and came along for the ride.

"It is with great pleasure that I introduce for the first time in Beach Haven, at least on the outside," Brandon announced, "our daughter, Ariel!"

Ariel flashed on Belinda's motherly contribution to her father's life and said internally to Belinda before the end of the introduction, "Grandma?"

Belinda cried cubes of joy as she and her granddaughter glided to each other as everyone else in the family greeted the newest addition to the family.

Samuel looked over at Claire Vinson and asked his father internally as everyone was mingling, "Dad, who is that girl."

Max looked at Claire and scanned her recent thoughts and replied, "That's not important right now, Samuel."

As thoughts of the previous days dissipated, sparks of various connections ignited when family members hugged each other over the relief of past conflicts and the hope of only good times ahead. Image after image of passionate liaisons floated through the people that had recently rekindled past romances – although under the influence – so Claire stepped in to try to right a wrong. She looked over to her mom and her grandma' and said, "Do you think they'll mind?"

Brenda Vinson replied, "That all depends on how much you cover up."

Linda Vinson smiled, and her previous angelic expression took a decidedly southern turn, "You'll be amazed at what you can do with such power."

Ariel was aware of her surroundings as she walked hand-in-hand with Samuel and talked to him internally, "We have to join forces."

Samuel lovingly looked at her and was also in on the potential scheme when he replied, "I thought you'd never ask."

