THIRTEEN
“Did you grow this fast?” Belinda asked Daniel as if he would remember.
Daniel, or course, had no clue, being that he was a toddler at the time. It was also years before Hartwell infused him with his high-octane vampire blood.
So they turned to Hartwell, who always had a catalogue of Daniel’s accomplishments on the ready.
Max jumped off Nicole’s lap and made a huge thump, as his Nike’s hit the recycled material floor. She rubbed her leg as if pained by the experience.
“How old is he now?” Hartwell asked the group. “Eight months today!” Maxwell proudly beamed.
Daniel zipped into the kitchen and returned with the yard stick that was wedged between the refrigerator and the lower cabinets. Daniel vertically rested the wood stick on the ground as Maxwell inched closer to it. He was still a few inches from the top but lifted himself on his tippy-toes to try to meet the end of the stick.
“Three feet!” Max exclaimed.
Daniel placed his massive right hand on Max’s head and stated, “Not yet, little one.”
“Don’t be in such a rush to grow up, Maxie,” Hartwell stated.
“Yeah,” Nicole added. “We want to enjoy you small for as long as we
can.”
Max wasn’t buying it.
“I want to be able to do what you do,” Max said to Daniel and
Hartwell.
“In time,” Hartwell replied. “In time, little squire.”
As time progressed, Max went from sleeping in a crib to a bed faster than it takes to potty-train most toddlers. After he broke 10 beds in successive nights, Daniel decided to get the group together for a little video session.
“He’s obviously dreaming of the battle,” Daniel said as his six compatriots stood around Maxwell’s virtual bed, which was displayed in the main room.
Max started with the wings of a vampire, flying around the room for a few minutes, knocking over a stack of clothes and a few pair of shoes.
He then gradually went through the evolutionary tract of the protectors. First as a wolf, hopping around on four legs around the room. Then as a cat, rubbing himself at the end of his bed after jumping down off the dresser. His dolphin-self spun in mid-air changing into a hippo mid-
revolution, and then an Orca killer whale upon impact on the bed, smashing it to smithereens.
Good thing Max’s bedroom was on the ground floor of the expansive ranch house, or he would have surely broken through to the lower level.
“I think he’s both,” Daniel said at the end of the discussion after Hartwell opined, “Could it be possible that he testing his heritage?” referring to Daniel’s vampire DNA and Nicole’s protector genes.
“Both of what?" the now one-year-old Max asked as he walked into the room, all five feet of him.
“Did this kid grow again?” Hartwell asked the group trying to change the subject.
“The best of both worlds,” Daniel said diplomatically.
Maxwell knew something was fishy, so he went on the attack. “When am I going to be able to fight?”
Nicole was the consummate protector, “When you’re 18!” Max needed clarification.
“18 in real years or in 'Max' years?”
Daniel looked around the room and then smiled. “He’s got a point there.”
“The way he was he’s going, that may be next week,” Garrison stated.
Grandma’ Belinda wasn’t buying into it. She glided over to Max and eyeballed him, as the group looked on in great interest. Belinda surrounded her chin with her left hand, in the thought pose, and then gave her best guestimate.
“Two years.”
Max again needed clarification.
“Two years from now, or at two years old?”
“One year from now, at two years old,” Grandpa’ Blake the marine biologist/FBI agent said. “You are roughly a nine year-old right now. No body or facial hair, bone structure still developing,” he said showing a detailed view of Max’s body.
“Voice still on the high side. Reproductive organs still relatively undeveloped,” Belinda said while using a laser pointer to circle the appropriate areas.
“Whoa!” Blake exclaimed as all of the men became uneasy. Maxwell became even more confused.
“Is she talking about my…”
Nicole put her hand over Max’s mouth and said, “No need to talk about this anymore. I can still put you over my knee, Maxwell. So you better not use any foul language.”
Max tested all boundaries, except for the one that was still a threat to put her hand upside his butt.
“Yes, mommy,” he obediently replied.
The men started chuckling, partly from ribbing Max and partly from straight-up fear. She pointed at them as if to say, “You’re next!” so they piped down.
Belinda turned to Maggie and said, “She’s good.”
“Speaking of good, that boy is growing up way too fast for his own good,” Maggie stated.
FOURTEEN
The battles had slowed over the previous few months, mostly because the families wanted to hide the radical growth of Kayla and Maxwell. The fights leading up to the break lacked a certain punch that was present in the old days.
After viewing Maxwell’s bed-breaking transformations, the vampire- protector team was inspired to utilize some of their iterations against their foes. However, it mattered little because they still hadn’t figured out the key to beating the hunters.
“Let’s try the squeeze play,” Max said to the team as they were walking toward the great lawn of Beach Haven Park. After suffering a string of defeats at the high school football field, Gary asked Thad for a change of venue.
Usually, Cal would resist such a request on the grounds that he was loathe to break up a winning streak. But he was in love, and not solely focused on disposing of Hartwell for a change. He and Sharon had just come back from a long weekend in Las Vegas, where they were married at least once. The first time was sober and memorable, although subsequent trips to the altar were under the influence and much more humorous.
“Somehow, I get the feeling we’ve done this before,” Sharon slurred, barefoot and scantily-clad in a pair of tight shorts and a bikini top.
“Maybe we were here in a previous life?” a drunk Cal countered, trying to feebly tap into whatever depth he had left.
The justice of the peace turned to his faithful assistant and said, “They were here three hours ago. And last night, too.”
He nodded, “We’re not here to judge the bounds of love, my dear.” She replied, “They must like being married.”
The vampire-protectors still were trying to assess Kayla’s methods. She was now able to shield three of her people, which almost made it impossible for the vampires to break through. It was a good thing for the vampires that life was going so well and nobody really cared about the outcome of the game.
Kayla even suggested that they play with plastic swords so nobody would get hurt, but that ‘soft’ request fell on deaf ears.
“Plastic swords?” Max mocked as they took their usual spot on the sidelines.
“Why are you always picking on me?” she asked in an upset tone. “Because you think you’re better than me,” Max replied without
hesitation.
Max reached over and pulled Kayla’s long strawberry-blonde hair. “Ouch!” she yelled. “No violence, Max.”
He was not in listen-only mode, so he did it again and she retaliated in the only way that her hunter mind would allow.
Before Max could react, and god knows he was really fast, Kayla clenched her fist and socked him in his right eye, sending him falling off the bench.
Max had never been in a fight, so the sting of the punch was both painful and exhilarating.
Daniel and Carla happened to be in the area.
“Kayla Bailey Brewster! Did you just punch that boy in the face?” Carla said immediately challenging her daughter.
Daniel helped
Max off the ground - not that he physically had to - but to offer some moral support.
“Oh, he probably had it coming,” Daniel said to Carla. “He always calls me names!” Kayla yelled.
Max rubbed his injured eye. “She’s ugly!”
Kayla broke free from her mother’s grasp and punched Max in his other eye, sending him to the ground again.
“Kayla!” Carla exclaimed as the others started walking over from the commotion.
“Are you going to do it, or am I?” Hartwell said to Daniel, implying that
Max had to be talked to.
Daniel looked over at Carla, who returned the acknowledgement with a friendly glance.
Nicole saw the whole thing and angrily said, “Oh, hell no!” as she re- routed her path and was instantly in a fight-first, talk-second mode.
Carla had been completely off limits since Kayla always protected her. But, in the commotion, Kayla did not have time to re-focus on her usual assignment. Without warning, Nicole hauled off and decked Carla with one punch.
Daniel grabbed Maxwell by the scruff of his neck and was saying, “You don’t punch girls” when he heard the majestic thud of Carla hitting the ground.
The ‘squeeze play’ would have to wait for another night. Carla got off the deck and readjusted her jaw.
“Oh, it’s like that?”
Nicole was incensed, “It’s like that.”
“Kayla, let me do this,” Carla instructed her daughter.
“Everyone go sit in the stands,” Nicole said. “Even you, girl torturer!”
she yelled at her son, whose eyes were healing with each passing second.
Kayla was so angry that she bumped him again as they walked to the three rows of benches under a bank of shade trees. Maxwell had learned
his lesson this time, though. He put his hands over his eyes and did what amounted to a game of peek-a-boo to Kayla, showing his completely healed eyes. Instead of getting angrier, she was impressed with his abilities and then let off a welcoming smile similar to the one her mother had just displayed.
Nicole rushed Carla, turning into a wolf and exposing her fangs as she jumped into the air toward Carla’s neck. Carla instinctively turned into a huge grizzly bear and swatted Nicole away with her huge right paw. Nicole went flying through the air and had the presence of mind to change into a tabby cat, landing safely on her four padded paws.
Meanwhile, the making of a brawl was breaking out in the stands. “She wasn’t coming on to him,” Thaddeus said in an annoyed tone to
Garrison as they sat next to each other.
“Wait! Who was coming on to whom?” Andrew asked as he got wind of the conversation.
“Your wife was coming on to Danny,” Belinda said, looking at her nephew.
Maggie also chimed in as his mother, “She was definitely giving him the eyes.”
Emily took offense to the comments, “Carla would never cheat on
Drew.”
“No way! Not her,” Sharon backed her up.
As all of these dissenting points sprouted up, Cal looked over to the other side of the small bleachers where Hartwell was sitting. Love had clouded their vision and put an iceberg in what was always a hotly- contested rivalry.
He smiled at the vampire who returned the look, signaling that it was
‘on’ again. Cal ticked his head toward the field and flew out of the stands as a hawk. Hartwell had his own wings and caught Cal in his mouth and then flung him into an adjacent bank of trees.
Cal landed as a grizzly bear, which sent a huge vibration across the field and into the stands where the fight continued.
Combatants paired off: Drew vs. Daniel, Emily vs. Belinda, Sharon vs. Maggie, Aaron, vs. Blake, and then Thad and Gary figured they should tussle, as the battles spilled from the stands onto the open field, as Max and Kayla sat virtually unaffected in the front row of the makeshift bleachers.
Kayla blushed and stared at Max’s completely healed face. “I’m sorry I got angry,” Kayla the pacifist stated.
“That’s okay. I probably deserved a pop or two for teasing you.” Whales and wolves and rams were flying everywhere, yet the one
year-olds continued to talk like they were the only people in the park. “Why do you think we’re growing so fast?” Kayla asked.
“Well, it has to do with the acceleration of our molecular…” Kayla wanted a less clinical answer.
“Oh," Maxwell said, stopping his scientific hypothesis. Then he went for a more direct approach.
“I think we’re just special.”
Kayla felt things that she hadn’t experienced before. “You think I’m special?”
Max nodded and replied, “Yes,” as Kayla inched her hand over and clasped his hand.
Nicole as a hippo ran at Carla who was rumbling at her as a ram. Since the hippo outweighed the ram by something like a gazillion pounds, Carla was butted across the field, where she landed about ten yards from where Kayla and Max were sitting.
Kayla had turned to Max and puckered her lips while closing her
eyes. He thought about running at first, but then figured, “Why not!” So, he closed his eyes, puckered his lips, and then moved in for his close-up.
That was just about the time that Carla stood up and saw the development of the pending kiss - a site that only could have been rivaled in horror by her thinking of Andrew as the father of Nicole’s child.
“One down, one to go,” she thought.
She sped over to the bleachers in her human form and yelled, “Not today, Kayla!” as she separated the two children.
“We’re going home!”
Carla clenched her daughter’s hand and dragged her away from the field, as Kayla looked back and waved at Maxwell.
She then yelled over to Nicole, “Be back here tomorrow!”
The battles then continued for a few more seconds before they petered out.
“Well, that was unfulfilling,” Hartwell said.
Cal, bloodied but charged up, replied, “Tell me about it,” as the two sides retired to their separate lairs for the night.
FIFTEEN
“Why would you kiss that boy?” Carla questioned her daughter when they were first to arrive back at the house.
“I like him,” Kayla simply and sweetly answered.
Carla couldn’t believe it... she was so worked up on the way home that she couldn’t speak.
“You like him?” Carla asked. “You really like him?” Kayla nodded and said, “Yes.”
Carla took a deep breath and wiped some of the half-dried blood away from her mouth.
“Oh my,” she muttered as she walked away.
A similar dynamic was unfolding back the vampires' house. “You were going to kiss her?” Nicole asked Max, as the men
collectively cringed from the young boy's pain.
“She held my hand. What was I supposed to do?” Max replied. “What does that mean?” Nicole questioned.
Maxwell looked toward his male counterparts for support. “I’ve seen things.”
It took Nicole a few seconds to connect the dots. By then all of the men had scattered, except for Daniel who had to back up his son.
“No more Internet for you, mister!” Nicole exclaimed. Max was a punk with a capital ‘P’.
“Internet? I didn’t see that on the Internet,” Max defiantly proclaimed. Daniel glided toward the pairing and said to Nicole, “He didn’t get into
that stuff. I’ve put guards up against that,” trying to be discreet.
“I saw daddy hold your hand and then you kissed him,” Max said in his sweetest, most innocent tone of voice.
Nicole was still buying that voice - after all, Max was only one year’s old in chronological terms.
She gave him the “Oh that’s so sweet” face and then kissed him on the forehead.
“Good boy, Maxwell,” Nicole said completely forgetting about why she was yelling at her son in the first place. She walked away as Daniel
and Max had one of their father-and-son, non-speaking but fully communicating moments.
Daniel initially thought that Max had been blocked from seeing graphic images that were not age-appropriate for him, whatever actual age he was.
Max’s smirk of insolence was one of the few times he would ever challenge Daniel. Hartwell saw a look in Daniel’s eyes that he had not seen previously. Usually, the docile vampire was calm and composed, preferring to let his hunter foes and others blow off all of the emotional steam.
The one year-old in the body of a nine year-old saw the look of a thousand daggers and started running, and gliding, out of the back door.
“I’ll be right back,” Daniel said to Hartwell.
Hartwell laughed, “Take your time!” as Daniel moved off into the distance.
Daniel chased Maxwell – well it wasn’t much of a chase; more like an extended beat-down!
Max didn’t have all of his powers yet and with his lack of experience, he was still considerably less-skilled than Daniel.