by Phil Wohl
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/ProtectorsHunters
HartwellCal
GarrisonThaddeus
DanielAndrew
NicoleCarla
BelindaEmily
MaggieSharon
Agent BlakeAaron
MaxwellKayla
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 t
he 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
