another man walking on his turf.
“Cal changed into a bear and tossed him in the ocean.”
Hartwell smiled and winked at Blake, “Go talk to Linda Vinson. I will tell her that you are coming. Let know no one know that I am playing possum.”
“Not even Daniel?” Blake asked.
“He already knows. We are bound by a stronger tie than you can even know, given that we have both sired each other at different stages.”
Blake put his hand on Hartwell’s shoulder to acknowledge that he was glad that the group’s leader hadn’t in fact given up.
Hartwell then talked internally to Blake, “This guy thinks he’s just going to come in here and pick up where he left off. I know Gabriel Billingsley. Maggie will see how self-centered he is when the truth finally comes out. It is a process she must get through to attain closure.”
As Blake walked out of the room, Hartwell contacted Linda Vinson through her mind before slipping back into the deepest form of transcendental meditation.
Daniel thought it was important for his grandson Samuel to get back in touch with Claire Vinson, but that would have to wait until after he talked to her about what was going on. They met again on their favorite bench on the boardwalk and the meeting was cloaked in secrecy via Daniel’s vast ability to do such things.
“He showed up at our house last night,” Daniel stated.
Claire turned to him like the little school girl that she was and said, “Really? Was there a fight?”
Daniel smiled, “Yeah, you could call it that. He tossed my cousin Andrew through the ceiling of the house and then Cal threw him in the ocean.”
“Wow! I wish I could have been there to see that!” she exclaimed.
“Well, today is your lucky day!” Daniel exclaimed as he replayed the scene in front of them after fetching some more popcorn and frozen drinks.
“I love going to the movies,” Claire said as she watched the action unfold.
And as the action unfolded, Claire’s future sight was triggered by seeing Billingsley in action. Her eyes went blank and her popcorn dropped toward the ground, as she was no longer in charge of her corporeal shell. Daniel was so fast that he caught the bucket of popcorn before it even hit the ground, put her drink aside and then put his hand on her head and broadcasted the image of her vision in place of the fight scene from the previous night.
Her vision focused on a volatile beast bounding through a wooded area, knocking trees down as he either swung on them or punched through them, and building up steam on his way to a bigger fight.
Claire came out of it and shook her head a few times to clear the cobwebs.
“I’ve never been with anyone else before when I have a vision,” she explained. “Can you play that back again so I can see it from a more critical point of view?” she asked Daniel.
“Sure. Rolling back tape!” he exclaimed as the images from her vision were displayed in vibrant 3D color in front of them.
Daniel slowed down the image that was initially hard to see because the ground shook as the beast pounded it so hard. He clarified the image and then used some new technology to identify the hulking figure. The following information was displayed.
HOMINOID
Member of the Hominoidea family
Genus: Giganthopithecas
Commonly known as an ape or gorilla
Measurements: 6’ tall, 400 pounds, 10’ wingspan
“Well, that was useful,” Claire said after the information was displayed over the picture of the ape.
“My dad said that Billingsley was a vampire when he was with him. How is that possible?”
Claire’s cheeks were infused with a fresh blush of red, “My guess is that it’s a little of what we would call magic.”
Blake was out in town and met up with Linda Vinson at Beach Haven Java. He knew it would not be preferable if they were seen together, so he sat across from her on a comfortable leather tub chair. He inconspicuously sipped some of his black coffee, the order of which disappointed the girl behind the counter who was more used to whipping up a latte or cappuccino.
“Good morning. What do you think we are up against?” he said internally to Linda, who was enjoying her half-calf, mocha latte with soy milk. “And, by the way, that drink you’re slurping on has more calories than a milk shake.”
She smiled and patted her stomach, “Never gain a pound. I’m able to adjust my metabolism any time I feel a little bloated.” She then shifted gears, “I still haven’t been able to determine what you are up against, but its energy is off the charts. I don’t think I’ve seen anything with that much concentrated rage. But, the one thing I can tell you is that there is more than just that a single creature that you’ll have to deal with. If I had to guess, I would put the total as somewhere between five and 10. How many people do you have in your house?”
Blake did a quick calculation and replied, “Twenty.”
“So it would appear that you would be at a distinct numbers advantage,” Linda said, restating the obvious.
“Numbers aren’t everything,” Blake replied. “We were severely outnumbered in our last unholy war and managed to emerge victorious.”
Blake broke character and looked directly at Linda, who returned the gaze, “I will be ready if Hartwell calls on me.”
He stood up and said as he walked out of the store, “We all appreciate your loyalty.”
THIRTEEN
It was a sleepy, 55-degree day in the town of Beach Haven and most of the inhabitants of the House of Hartwell were scattered in various locations throughout town. Family lines were upheld when traveling in packs to various destinations, with the intent being to be as much on guard as possible. Although there was no concrete plan in place, groups were established due to the unnatural order of a senior witch, and nobody was the wiser – at least at first.
Brenda Vinson created the groups at the behest of Gabriel to create the optimal exposure for maximum mental damage. It also left the door open for an old friend of Hartwell’s to pay him a visit.
Thaddeus Brewster and his twins, Emily and Cal, were out with Emily’s son Andrew for a bite to eat at Beach Haven Burger, although Thad’s first choice would have been Beach Haven Bagel where he dined every day. His frequent lunch partner Garrison Phillips was out at ‘The Bagel’ with his daughter Sharon and his granddaughter Nicole. Brandon Justice was at the Beach Haven Library, and was buried in the oceanography section for an unknown reason. Agent Blake Wallace loved a good meal just as much as the next person, but he was hanging out at Beach Haven Sporting Goods in the hunting and fishing section, although he neither hunted nor fished.
Maggie was eating lunch with the delightful Gabriel Billingsley at the Beach Haven Brasserie, and the other nine people in the house would have been sequestered to the house, but that needed to be left vacant for other reasons, so they ventured out to a familiar haunt, the Beach Haven Diner, where the soup of the day was Split Pea.
It was too bad that all of the hunters were at play during this lunch hour, because they would have surely reminisced about killing Hartwell in sync with the diner soup specials. But for some odd reason, Daniel decided to talk about the subject when he usually would have no part in talking badly about his father.
“I heard this story about this one time when the hunters killed my father synchronized with the soup specials… here.”
Max started laughing, “That must have been funny!” and everyone else at the table started laughing.
Belinda said, “That was the good old days before the kids were born and started having kids a few months later!”
There was more raucous laughter at the table as the remaining guests, Aaron, Carla, Valerie, Kayla, Samuel and Ariel really enjoyed the tales of days gone by, although some of it was at their expense.
Billingsley was waiting for his targets to get good and fat before pushing his bigger pieces into position on his chess board.
Emily and Cal were chomping on their third and fourth everything burger platters, and Thaddeus and Andrew were throwing all caution to the wind by starting their fifth order, complete with both a deluxe French fries and onion rings. The owner of Beach Haven Burger, Tad Musgrove, promised the trio that he would rename his everything burger on the menu as the Brewster Burger.
A similar dynamic was unfolding a few blocks south at Beach Haven Bagel, where Nicole, Sharon and Garrison had cleaned out all of the bagel baskets and were on the verge of shutting down the place as the lunch crowd died down and there were no more bagels either being boiled or then baked. After Gary downed a corned beef sandwich on a toasted everything bagel and then topped it with a potato knish sliced in two and black and white cookie – black on one side of the sandwich and white on the other side – owner Rick Rawlings promised to post the sandwich on the board and call it The Garrison.
Meanwhile at the library, Brandon Justice was almost finished with all of the 1,244 books in the aquatics section. It was obvious that someone wanted him to pointlessly reference all things that lived under the water for a reason. Brandon loved to read, but not that many books in only a two-hour period. The eye strain was extensive and he was starting to burn out.
Agent Blake Wallace didn’t get as much action on the sports fields following his days as a buff life guard. So spending an extensive amount of time in a sporting goods store – especially in the hunting and