as it could go, being that their mortal wives had died of old age and disease, which was obviously an inevitability.
“I can’t believe you’ve been taking up with that tramp lately. Did our marriage mean nothing to you?” Mary Brewster said to Thaddeus as she tried to get him off his game.
He was about to defend his position but then he realized that the person in front of him really wasn’t his wife, but a reconstituted fraud of a being.
Mary Brewster stepped back and then hauled off and attempted to land a big right hand to Thad’s jaw, which he caught with his left hand.
“Not today, Mary Berry!” he yelled in met nickname he had given his wife shortly after they met decades earlier. He couldn’t bare to strike her as a mortal, because that would have been ungentlemanly, so he changed into a bear and bopped her over the head with his huge paw, knocking her out.
Eloise said to Gary, “Did all of our years together mean nothing to you?”
A tear rolled from his eye, being that he was always the more sensitive one out of he and Thad, and replied, “It meant the world to me, Weeze, but I had to flip the switch when you died.” He stepped back and changed into a Bottlenose dolphin and then said, “And now it’s time to flip you.”
He turned around and scooped up Eloise with his fin and threw her in the air before juggling her like a round ball with the peak of his nose until she was overcome by the g-force of the blindingly-fast revolutions.
Nicole stood by Blake’s side as he confronted an old friend in Agent Terrence Carter.
“You sold me out for this, Agent Wallace,” Carter said referring to Wallace’s daughter Nicole.
Blake looked at Nicole and she returned the look saying with her expression, “Oh no, he didn’t!”
So Blake took the cue and exclaimed, “Oh no, you didn’t!”
Carter countered, “Oh yes, I just did!” as the two men squared off in what can only be described as some form of Greco Roman Wrestling. Nicole stepped back to the enjoy the show as the two men started locking horns like two huge rams in the heat of the battle. Sparks flew off their bodies as they pounding into each other trying to gain some sort of competitive advantage. Blake being the teacher and Terry being the pupil became clear even in this dimension after Blake moved behind Terry and transitioned from the conventional to the unconventional, grabbing his opponent around the neck and deploying the move that launched many a career in the Sleeper Hold. Carter struggled to get out but Blake’s grip was vice-like and could not be broken. Once Nicole noticed that Agent Carter’s movements were slowing and his eyes were becoming sleepy, she walked up and raised his limp arm, which dropped back down as his world went black. She waved her arms signifying that Carter was out and then raised her father’s arm in victory.
“That was quite impressive, dad,” she said as they met in a loving hug.
The last fight involved Gabriel and Maggie, with Daniel as a not-so-innocent bystander.
“You think by starting your life with Hartwell and this boy twice, that eliminates every memory you had with me?” Gabriel pointedly asked.
Maggie had no more patience for such banter and went direct and internal to Hartwell, “Can I please drain this fool so he’ll stop babbling already?”
Billingsley kept talking but Maggie did not hear him, preferring to focus on the exact moment that her husband gave the order to bring peace through violence. Hartwell surveyed the field and saw that all of the battles had resulted in knockouts. He then said internally to everyone, “Our plan should be to inflict as much damage without actually ending life. I will make it so they believe that they won when they wake up tomorrow morning. We shall now commence with the draining, which will be followed by a trip over to their house where we will put them to bed and then go over as a family to the diner and get some desert.”
Everyone cheered internally as Hartwell gave the drinking orders to his vampires, including implicit instructions to leave enough blood - a few drops - in order to sustain life.
It was as choreographed as the crescendo of any beautiful symphony, only this symphony was revolutionary in its melody. Hartwell rearranged the blood-letting sequence based on the energy flowing in the park. Andrew morphed into a bear and growled as his massive teeth tore into the neck of of his father Randy Prince. Brandon Justice’s resentment was too strong for Hartwell to let anyone else finish the job on his father Gregory Justice, so the downtrodden kid formerly known as BJ drank at will.
Valerie then stepped up and flew over and sunk her teeth into the neck of Julie Justice as a hybrid creature, a half-bat half woman creature that was obviously her own creation. Garrison morphed into a wolf and then howled at the moon before ripping into his ex-wife’s prone neck, while his partner in vampire, Thaddeus swiped his huge bear paw and left a long claw mark on her back before extracted blood from her neck. It was not known until Ariel activated her recessive vampire gene that she was capable of such feats, as she drank enthusiastically from Agent Terrence Carter’s neck.
Maggie then ended Lowery’s night and Hartwell did the same to Gabriel Billingsley’s, as Maggie suggested that she had Billingsley blood coursing through her veins long enough now and didn’t need to be connected to it any longer!
The great lawn of Beach Haven Park was a blood bath until the vampires stepped in and clean the pitch until in was sparkling clean. They also cleaned up the barely alive apes, still in their human forms, and cauterized their wounds that would fully heal and show no residue once on the next sunrise. The apes would also feel rested, joyous and full of confidence from their victory on this night.
TWENTY-THREE
It was a joyous late-night snack for Team Hartwell at the 24-hour Beach Haven Diner. Stavros was the owner of the restaurant and always seemed to be present at the front desk no matter what time of day or night it was. This round-the-clock work ethic was the first topic of conversation after he escorted the group into their usual dining place in the restaurant’s back room.
“We have to find out if that guy is really human,” Drew said to his buddy Daniel as they sat next to each other.
“I’ll give him a scan once I get my full mojo back,” Daniel replied.
“He’s Greek,” Thaddeus stated.
“Yeah, we know he’s Greek. What does that mean?” Cal questioned his father.
Thad looked around the table and at least a few of the older set were smiling from recognition of what he was about to say.
“It means that the Greek’s have a tremendous work ethic. They live to work. Or is that, work to live?”
“I think it’s work to live,” Maggie stated.
“But it could also be live to work,” Garrison added.
Maggie nodded, “I see your point.”
Menus were passed around the table and a waitress that was obviously on the other side of her later in life change trudged into the room.
“What can I get you folks?” she said pulling a pencil out of her expansive bee-hive hairdo.
“I wonder how many pencils she has in there?” Samuel asked Ariel.
She threw her hands up and shook her head in a humorous “I don’t know?” gesture.
Hartwell made it easy on everyone, “Can you please bring us one of each desert on the menu and keep the coffee and tea coming.”
She looked around the table and there wasn’t a clean person to be found.
“You guys working late?” she asked Hartwell and he was mortified once he saw dirt everywhere. It was an odd site for a group of fastidious vampires to be surrounded by so much filth.
“Yeah, something like that,” he replied.
She left the room and Hartwell communicated with his fellow vampires.
“Clean up ourselves in the diner, people!”
The other vampires looked around and were equally as flabbergasted to be amidst so much unrest. Within seconds, both the room and all of its diners were clean from head to toe as if they had gone through some sort
of human car wash.
“There, that’s better,” Hartwell stated.
Cal could’t believe his eyes, “You guys must be slipping.”
“Spells are never foolproof. There are always gaps in translation. Don’t get too used to us being this way.”
“Come to think of it, the house has been a little less than tidy lately,” Emily Brewster said, just trying to be her usual strong-headed self.
The vampires zipped out of the room and were back within five seconds.
“Not any more!” enthusiastic Brandon Justice exclaimed, which got a big roar of laughter then applause from everyone at the table.
The party at the Beach Haven Diner went on for a few more hours and everyone was sleeping in the House of Hartwell when the sun came up. The same restful and peaceful condition was not present in the house of apes, though. Screams emanated from every room as the sun permeated the windowsills of the house. Pain was ever-present in the bodies of the the depleted apes, who woke up in their human form despite thinking they were still apes. By the time they all met in the main room of the house, the agony they were experiencing was no longer an issue in their mind, thanks to Hartwell who made them all believe that they were unbeatable and a force this planet could not recon with and survive.
The spell that Brenda Vinson initially concocted to bring back Gabriel Billingsley and then some well-sourced allies was now being shelved by her granddaughter Claire, who had neutralized the impact of the apes’ power