by Phil Wohl
Blood Shadow
Book of Samuel
Phil Wohl
Copyright 2011 Phil Wohl
ONE
After over a century of one of the deepest blood feuds in the history of inhuman warfare, peace had finally descended on the sleepy coastal town of Beach Haven, New York. The unstable element of calm, however, is that it can retain its current form only when the variables remain relatively constant.
“Can you make them believe that we no longer have to pay taxes on the property?” Thaddeus Brewster said to Thomas Hartwell as they sat around a large round table at the Beach Haven Diner.
Hartwell looked around at Cal Brewster, Aaron Driscoll, Agent Blake Wallace, Daniel Thompson, Andrew Brewster, Garrison Phillips, Joe Winters, Brandon Justice - who dropped the Winters last name and went back to his original surname - and then at Thaddeus and replied, “I can do you one better. What if you lived in a house that doesn’t even exist?” referencing his own house, which was masked from mortal view.
The combination of vampires and their protectors with their natural enemies, the hunters, appeared to be working out on the surface. But would taking the big step of moving in together be prudent?
Cal looked over to his dad, Thaddeus, for some kind of age-old wisdom.
“That works for me! We have a few million left but I don’t want to go back to robbing banks again!”
One relative newcomer was a sponge for information.
“You robbed banks?” neophyte Maxwell Thompson excitedly asked as he glided in and took a seat at the table.
“Where did he come from?” Andrew Brewster questioned.
“Max, you have to stop sneaking up on us like that,” his father Daniel instructed.
“Maxie’s too fast for his own good,” Hartwell added in a somewhat proud tone of voice.
“I know, Kayla does the same thing to us,” Cal concurred. “It’s starting to make me feel old.”
Maxwell was a shade over two years old but had grown like a beanstalk into the strapping body of an 18 year old. Yet, it appeared that everyone was still talking to him as if he was a toddler.
“Why does everyone still talk to me like I’m a baby?” Max asked the collective.
Agent Blake stepped up, “No, that’s not true little one…”
The group watched as Max threw his hands up in disgust, then turned to Blake to convey that he blew it.
Daniel spoke for the group.
“All right, Max. Point taken. Now sit down and have a few cheeseburgers.”
Max was happy to be out and to be just one of the guys. Everyone at the table knew that no matter how accomplished and skilled they had become, Maxwell Thompson had the advanced physical and mental tools to eclipse them all.
The meal was a hearty and happy hour, and then Kayla walked in to say hello and pick up her man. She started by kissing her father, Andrew, and then greeted everyone else at the table until she got to her intended target. Kayla wrapped her arms around Max and said, “I love you” with a little more emotion than usual.
Max always felt loved by his girl and didn’t think much about the added emotion. But he was one of the few people at the table that didn’t sense that something was different.
When Kayla simultaneously put her hands on Daniel and Hartwell’s shoulders in greeting, they both got a flash that gave them a clear view into her inner being. As vampires, their lives were continuously connected to the heart and everything encompassing the bloodstream.
Daniel talked to Hartwell internally as Kayla walked around the table and she and Max left together.
“Two. Did you feel two?”
Hartwell wasn’t quite ready for the reality of the situation and his face turned a little paler than usual.
“Yeah, that was two.”
Cal the hunter never stopped pursuing Hartwell even in times of peace. He looked across the table at his rival and stared deep into his watery eyes. Hartwell wiped his eyes with his hand and then placed the ice shavings on his plate. The frozen tears of the vampire quickly melted into a small pool of water, but that didn’t slow Cal’s pursuit of the truth.
He rose from his seat and said to Drew, “I’ll be right back. I have to go to the can.”
Cal then glared at Hartwell and looked toward the bathroom area once they made eye contact. The eldest vampire was a little slow to the take, but decided to finally follow Cal once he incorporated a head flip with some rapid eye movement.
Hartwell trailed Cal right past the bathrooms and into the vacant back room.
“What the hell?” Cal exclaimed.
As usual, Hartwell refused to play along.
“What’s your problem? I don’t have to go to the bathroom.”
The old Cal would have punched first and talked second after a remark like that. However, these were different times and Cal was trying to work on a new look: anguished restraint.
“We have to get that internal communications thing going!”
Hartwell stood in front of Cal stone-faced, fully knowing that his communications preference could be fulfilled at any time.
“What do you have to say in private that you couldn’t say out loud?” he asked internally.
Cal was so worked up that he didn’t realize Hartwell had already complied with his wishes.
“I wanted to ask you…” Cal said before realizing that the vampire - and part-time ventriloquist - had communicated with him without moving his mouth.
“Okay! Cool!” he exclaimed once he caught on. “I like you a lot better when you don’t flap those sharp gums!” Cal said internally as the conversation went all-internal.
Hartwell nodded at Cal, “You think that face is pretty when your mouth is open and is catching flies?”
“Prettier than yours!” Cal shot back, stepping into the word trap.
Hartwell shook his head from side to side and replied, “That’s all you, Calvin.”
Cal laughed out loud instead of throwing down.
“Okay, blood-sucker. Just answer one simple question.”
“Shoot.”
“Ever since I’ve known you, and that is a lot longer than either one of us can remember, I’ve only seen you cry twice. So why the frozen water today? Was the chili spicier than usual?”
“Twice?” Hartwell contested.
“I saw you cry that one time you killed me after we returned from our mortality vacation.”
“How did you see that? Weren’t you dead?”
Cal replied, “We can see things for a little while before the system shuts down.”
“So you saw that one time I…” Hartwell started saying until Cal knowingly interrupted. “Yeah, and we’ll talk about that later. But the other time you cried was when Maxwell was born.”
“It isn’t every day that you become a grandfather,” Hartwell stated.
Cal then internally played the series of events that led up to the frozen waterfall. He saw Kayla’s hands resting on Hartwell and Daniel’s shoulders, and then the spontaneous combustion ensued.
“Or a great grandfather!”
TWO
Hartwell begged Cal not to say anything, at least not yet, as they returned to the table in a staggered fashion to try to avoid suspicion. But, the problem with trying to keep things on the down-low with a bunch of supernatural beings is that they’re a bunch of supernatural beings.
Thaddeus and Garrison knew something was up and everyone appeared to be grilling Daniel about what he knew. Hartwell turned back to Cal before they even had a chance to sit down and said, “I got this.”
There was a continuous audible buzz around the table until Hartwell said, “Settle down. Settle down,” as he used his hands to emph
asize his point.
“What’s going on here, Thomas?” a concerned Thaddeus asked.
Hartwell was always a fast thinker on his feet.
“Why don’t we all meet back at the house in two hours, and then I will explain everything,” he said looking at Cal and then Daniel.
These guys liked to eat, so they put their collective curiosity aside for a bit in order to put a small dent in their appetites.
The meal ended and everyone scattered to various parts of the town.
“Max, we need to talk to you,” Daniel said internally to his son.
Kayla was in town getting her hair done, so Maxed flashed over to the Beach Haven Sporting Goods to meet his dad and grandpa’.
Hartwell turned and Max was standing behind him in the golf aisle.
“My god, you’re fast!” Hartwell exclaimed in surprise.
“You rang?” Max panned as he picked up a driver from a large bin of golf clubs.
“This game doesn’t look so hard,” Max said as Daniel came behind him and took the club out of his hands.
“You gotta’ watch out here. You could kill someone with this thing.”
“Or poke their eye out,” a jesting Hartwell added trying to be a buffer between father and son.
“I have to work on my short game,”
