on one thing as Eloise Phillips rumbled toward them, “Let’s get this thing!”
They ran toward the oncoming ape and then changed into Grizzly bears a moment before contact, Carla extended her right arm and Drew his left arm, connecting across the face and neck of the ape in a vicious clothesline. They morphed back into their human forms and high-fived each other while Eloise was seeing little birds floating in a circle over her dizzy head.
Lowery was his ornery self even if it was behind the guise of an ape in extreme heat. Even though he was far from his prime as a master vampire, he still maintained much of the data and performance records from his golden days. That made it much easier to combat Agent Blake when he came at him with some weak karate move. Lowery punched Blake forcefully in his chest after moving his head to the left to avoid Blake’s first move. The blow was so severe that Blake’s heart stopped beating for a few seconds after he hit the ground.
All Belinda saw was red once her man was lit up and then turned off. She wasn’t thinking about strategy and how it was imperative to keep the apes alive at all costs - at this moment she had returned to her most pure form as a vampire, focusing on the jugular vein in Lowery’s neck and the lava ooze of blood flowing from his hyperactive veins. The supercharged flow was a veritable fountain of youth for vampires. Lowery was still following through on his violent body blow when Belinda used her super speed to blindingly-fast attach her now-exposed fangs to Lowery’s neck, which was a complete about-face in terms than what he was used to in his previous life.
Lowery struggled to break free of the mouth luck, but it appeared that the more he struggled the less strength he actually had to break free. Hartwell was watching the various fights, but he was drawn to this particular battle because of its vampirical nature. He looked deep into Lowery’s eyes and saw his strength being sapped from him as his blood was being consumed by Belinda. Hartwell took a deep breath and let the night air fill his lungs. The intoxicating aroma of the very fluid that was his lifeline was everywhere as he said aloud in a sobering revelation, “Blood. It has always been blood.”
Hartwell then switched his focus from Lowery to Belinda, “Please stop, my sweet B,” he said referring to his endearing nickname for Belinda, the mother of his child in this lifetime.
Belinda’s eyes were glowing from the euphoric impact of the electric blood, but the words were able to find the one shred of humanity she had left in her brain as Lowery was only a few drops away from being drained. His death would have also meant that he would be even stronger the next day. She pulled her fangs out of his thick, hairy neck and and let him fall backwards, limply toward the ground.
Hartwell then pulled aside his protective bubble partners, Maxwell and Kayla, and alerted them that a new strategy was in the offing.
“They key to this battle is blood,” he said trying to get them to elicit vital information out of him.
“Do you want us to send the order now?” an eager Maxwell asked.
“Should I change the protection scheme?” Kayla inquired with bright, inexperienced eyes.
Hartwell tried not to grow impatient with his young charges, so he gave a grandfatherly look of love and said internally, “It’s the questions that are important right now children, not the actions.” He was in no rush to impart the wisdom of Belinda’s actions to the rest of the group, who were in need of a good fight after so many quick endings.
TWENTY-TWO
Lowery was of no use for a good 20 minutes as the battle raged on around him. Blake and Belinda filled in throughout the field as the other fights appeared to be going on in concert, creating one big, seemingly orchestrated battle. The apes, to their credit, seemed to band together and were giving a great account for themselves even though they were greatly outnumbered and had only one facade to present to the opposition.
The seven apes created a box, a chain if you will, that would connect their efforts against the unyielding charge of their opponents. They were about as unaware of Lowery’s compromised condition as they were about the strategy imposed by their opponents to keep them alive long enough to weaken their steely resolve.
Just before Hartwell’s crew went on the attack, Kayla and Maxwell were vigorously campaigning to be released from the bench and sent into the game. Hartwell finally yielded because he figured that there would be no harm to let the kids play while he waited for the appropriate time to jump into the double-dutch jumprope of battle.
The blood strategy would not be employed until the apes were sufficiently weakened, and that would take a little time. Hartwell had his eye on Lowery and placed a huge straw in the vampire turned ape’s neck to take a little drink of the good stuff every time he started to come to. Cal stood by his side and said, “It still mystifies me that you live on that stuff!”
Hartwell smiled, “You want a sip?”
Cal waved him off, “No, but thanks for asking.”
With Hartwell and Cal predisposed, it was 18 vampires, protectors, hunters and hybrids against seven stationary apes at the height of their abilities, as Hartwell waited for his opportunity to enter the fray.
Bodies were flying everywhere as the apes tried to maintain a strong hold on their box of strength. It was quite a site to see as these apes fought off everything from Orca killer whales to Pit Bull terriers to Centaurs to rams to Hippos to Grizzly bears. Hartwell’s bunch were also working in concert as he relayed to his vampires - Maggie, Belinda, Daniel, Brandon, Maxwell and Samuel - that they should hold back some of their power until he gave the word to drain Billingsley, Mary Brewster, Eloise Phillips, Randy Prince, Gregory and Julie Justice, and Agent Terrence Carter. He also had a strategy on who would be performing each task.
It was like watching a supernatural ballet as Andrew, Emily and Carla focused their energies on keeping Randy Prince occupied. The circle of apes had grown wider in the 10 minutes since the battle began and Hartwell’s clan was able to isolate the apes it wanted to with suitable matches on both a physical and spiritual level. Having Drew battle the father he never knew along with his mother and wife, would help him work out some long-standing emotional issues and enable him to move on with his life. As the actions picked up, the apes reverted back to their human facades without even knowing it. Hartwell was able to get into the minds of the apes and make them believe that they were still fighting in their preferred exterior without even knowing that the change had occurred. Drew switched over to his favorite pit bull facade Carla picked him up with her hook-like talons as a hawk while Emily continued to pummel her ex-husband in her human facade. And, as Randy was about to go down from the accumulation of blows, Carla released pit bull Drew and he changed into a massive Grizzly bear about half-way from the free air to the ground. Prince looked up through almost-closed eyes and gazed up at the moonlit sky that was now obscured by the animal blocking its path. Drew made a huge impact on his father and the force of the blow rendered him unconscious and awaiting unimpeded blood extraction.
It would have been almost impossible for Brandon Justice to decide between his parents, so Hartwell made an educated guess and picked his father Gregory. He figured that boys usually have more trouble with their fathers than their mothers, or so he surmised, and it wound up be the right choice off the bat because Greg got his son’s blood boiling right away as Hartwell had the mountain known as Aaron by his side.
“It’s been a long time since I have been able to knock you down a peg, BJ.” Greg said seeing himself as an unbeatable ape not a man who was just about as beatable as the strongest mortal. “It’s nice to see that you have brought your big gorilla with you in case you can’t handle this all by yourself, he stated looking at Aaron.
The nickname BJ had always triggered the killer mechanism inside of Brandon and his first instinct was to bite his father so hard with his fangs that it would break his neck on contact. While Brandon was about to rip out his father’s jugular so the sound of his voice would be no more, his blushing
bride Valerie was squared off against his mother Julie.
“You never supported Brandon, even when his father made fun of him and made him feel less than worthy. He’s a brilliant man and he’s smarter than both of you combined,” Valerie said as she circled Julie.
Belinda stood by her side and added, “He’s such a special boy and you almost took him down.”
Julie ignored Valerie and decided to focus her energies on Belinda as she stepped closer to the only mother that Brandon cared to acknowledge. They were no only inches apart as Julie whispered with venom, “No matter how close you think you’re getting to him, I am still his mother. You could never be me.”
Belinda was a split-second away from taking a big drink of a Julie Martini, but she decided to strike first with words first and then drink second.
“I would never want to be you,” she replied in the most direct and concise manner that she could before the two went back to a classic boxing pre-fight stare-down.
Garrison Phillips and Thaddeus Brewster had some unfinished business left with their wives, Eloise and Mary. It had been some time since the men had felt wedded bliss, and they had moved on to greener and more active pastures since then. Both men felt that had taken the marriages as far