that you?” Hartwell asked, thinking he was hearing voices of his past.
“Yes, it’s me dad. It’s me, Danny,” which was weird within itself because Hartwell never referred to his son in the less-formal greeting of Danny, preferring to use his given name of Daniel which sounded a lot more like his original name of Nathanial.
“You have to talk to Blake about what’s going on. He’ll know how to make all of this right.”
“Okay, but I’ll have to bring you home now,” Daniel stated.
“I don’t have a home anymore. Just leave me out here and come back and get me once you and your mother come back to me.”
Daniel wasn’t having any of the pity party and he certainly wasn’t leaving his father on the boardwalk and he sat and deteriorated. A half-hour must have elapsed because the rest of the family was en route to the beach while Daniel brought Hartwell back to the house and placed him on a comfortable seat in the sun room. He then returned to the main room where everyone else was waiting for him in the light-speed world of these special extra-special beings.
“He’s resting about as comfortable as he can in the sun room,” Daniel stated.
“How bad is it?” life-long antagonist Cal Brewster asked knowing that a part of him would die without Hartwell as his muse.
“Pretty bad,” Daniel replied and then pulled Blake aside as the group bemoaned the plight of its leader.
“You got a minute?” Daniel whispered to Blake as he grabbed him under the arm and guided him out of the room. Maxwell saw the move and knew that he had to be wherever the action was, so he followed Daniel and Blake to the workout room and said once the coast was clear, “I don’t know what you guys are up to, but I want in.”
Daniel smiled, “Okay, Max. We could probably use your special skills and expertise on this project.”
“Thanks dad and grandpa’!” an appreciative Maxwell said as he hugged the two men.
Maggie was still in town and closing down the Beach Haven Tavern, a place she had never been before this night. It wasn’t like the matriarch of the family to turn to drinking when times got tough, but she had passed her normal capacity to absorb new information even though she was a new-age vampire and her hard drive was quite vast.
“One more whisky, please,” she said to the aged bartender who was surprised that Maggie was still able to sit on her stool.
“What, is that 10 whiskies, sweetheart?”
“Eleven, but who’s counting,” she joked.
“You just passed my test,” the barkeep stated. “If you can crack a coherent joke and get a laugh, then you can have another drink!” the jolly, round man proclaimed.
“Pour me one of those, too,” a voice said from her left and then Gabriel Billingsley sat down in the seat next to Maggie at the bar. He placed a $50 bill on the bar, which solicited a chuckle from Maggie.
“You always knew how to make a splash.”
“I always say, if you’re going to roll you might as roll big,” Gabriel said in his smoothest Don Juan dialect.
They had a lot to talk about after being apart for more than 100 years, and Gabriel lifted a bottle of whiskey once the bar was closed and the large wood door was closed behind them. He instinctively walked her home, although some of his intention was to taunt his future opponents.
Gabriel was waiting by the front door as Maggie searched for a key that she really didn’t need to enter the house. It was an awkward almost first date scene where Maggie was trying to decide whether to give her suitor a small first date kiss? Only this suitor was an ex-husband who was presumed dead and very much in enemy territory.
Andrew looked in on Hartwell and saw two bodies near the front door moving closer together.
“Oh crap,” he said as he honed in the Maggie’s heartbeat and then another heartbeat of a beast he could not make out that obviously wasn’t Hartwell. Drew quickly put one and one together and got two, running through the front door and placing Maggie inside, her mouth puckered to deliver a good night kiss.
Drew took one step forward and was very much in a punch first, ask questions later mood. He usually didn’t think things out before he acted, and this case was the rule rather than the exception. He hauled off and belted Gabriel in the mouth, sending the somewhat surprised Billingsley falling backwards from a sucker punch rather than Maggie’s pucker. Drew immediately broke his hand on Gabriel’s steel jaw, but the injury healed by the time Gabriel did a series of forward rolls on the ground and pounded Drew with a wild right hand, which struck the hunter on the side of the head and sent him flying in an arc though ceiling of the man room, thundering loud when he landed just to the right of Cal Brewster on the floor.
Cal was the originator of the punch first, talk second action and his nephew had learned well. He rushed out of the door and attacked Gabriel by going after his midriff, talking his larger foe and the momentum sent the two men backwards. Cal’s first impressions were that this person was strong, real strong, and he felt like he was trying to tackle a large cement mixer.
Billingsley flipped Cal over until his head was facing the ground, which appeared to be his next destination until he figured that it would be a good time to get bigger, much bigger. So he changed into his Grizzly bear facade, which startled Gabriel because he expected to walk right through this human with limited abilities.
Cal tucked to protect his head and then landed on his huge lower paws, as his massive nails dug into the ground to give him stability. He reached back and then connected with a thunderous right paw, which sent Gabriel flying high and far into the air and then splashing down into the ocean.
Thaddeus and Garrison came outside to see what Call was up to and saw the intruder flying through the air.
“Excellent hang time,” Gary said to Thaddeus.
“We better get ready for war, because something tells me this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Mr. Billingsley,” Thad said to Gary and his son, who had now morphed back into his human form.
“I don’t know what that guy is but whatever he is, I have never felt that kind of rage or the strength from anything I’ve ever encountered,” Cal said.
“Not even Hartwell?” Thaddeus asked.
Cal looked at both Thad and Gary and shook his head in disbelief, “Not even Hartwell.
TWELVE
Gabriel fished himself out of the ocean, a place that he never enjoyed being, and was so angry that he thought of walking right back into Hartwell’s house and taking them all on at once. But somehow his head cooled enough to guide him to slowly walk back to his crew’s hideaway on the other side of town, about as far away from water that you could be in a coastal town.
He walked into the foreclosed house where the group was staying and slammed the front door behind him. The sound of thunder served as a wakeup call for everyone else in the house, as they assembled in the main room and stood in front of their leader.
“Let me get you a towel,” a person said to Gabriel, who was still dripping wet.
Gabriel said nothing in return, offering only a ferocious roar in reply to everything that had happened on this night.
He stood there, fists clenched, eyes glowing bright orange, breathing heavy. He was burning a hole through the floor with his intense gaze, until he picked up his head and simply said, “We initiate phase two of our plan tomorrow,” and then he walked out of the room without saying another word.
With Hartwell sitting in a daze in the sun room, Cal Brewster decided to gather the troops for a pep talk. Maggie was fast asleep in her room and he thought it was time for the group to talk about what was going on.
“We have to be prepared for just about anything at this point. If that guy’s strength is any indication of what is to come,” he said while pointing to the hole in the ceiling, “we are once again in for the fight of our lives.”
Andrew had recovered from his flight through space and subsequent rough landing just outside of t
he kitchen.
“What I just experienced wasn’t exactly supernatural, it was more primal.”
Blake was intrigued, “Like some kind of beast?”
“Exactly,” Drew replied.
Blake was already going back into full research mode with Daniel, who was keeping knowledge of Gabriel to himself, to try and uncover what kind of creature the group was up against. While he surmised that Gabriel was not a vampire because no one got the vampire buzz off him, he was still a good distance from determining the original of his enhanced powers.
Everyone readied for a potential siege the next day, working out and honing their battle skills as the day progressed. Maggie left the house early before breakfast after sleeping for the first night without her husband since they were reunited. She was less angry at him and more intrigued about the reappearance of her first love, Gabriel Billingsley.
Daniel and Agent Blake headed their separate but connected ways, as Blake went to talk to Linda Vinson after coaxing Hartwell into revealing what he should do next.
“Who should I talk to, Thomas?” Blake asked the night before with response. “I need to find out the origin of Gabriel Billingsley. He came here last night and tossed Andrew through the ceiling of the main room.”
Hartwell came out of it and looked straight in Blake’s eyes, expecting the former agent to recount a tale of excessive retaliation.
Blake smiled, knowing that his leader would not just sit and take