***
The mayor saw Barbara walk out of her field of vision as she held her eyes on the figure in the middle of the room. It was the last clear thing she saw as the lights went out.
“Are you alright?” Barbara asked as she carefully made her way through the dark and through the destruction and approached the mayor.
Fragments of the police station crumbled beneath her feet as she reached the woman close enough to lay her hands upon her. “Mayor Peterson, are you alright?”
“What is that thing?” the mayor whispered, her voice laced with pain, shock and bewilderment. It was not due to fear, but rather due to her injuries. She was leaning against the glass because it had taken all of her efforts just to get her that far.
“That is the end of all of your troubles. As well as ours.”
5:36 a.m.
“That wasn’t the light I was referring to,” Mark said as Michael helped him up.
He did not need the help, but it was welcome nonetheless. He looked past his partner and reached out for Nathaniel. Michael watched the interaction and was perplexed by it. Nathaniel could see it very clearly because the room was no longer as dark without lighting as it had been seemingly just a few moments before. He glanced back over his shoulder and out the front door. The sky was a medium blue as the sun’s initial rays had begun to peek out over the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range to the east.
“Time is almost past for all of us,” Vincent whispered.
At the sound of the vampire’s words, Nathaniel gripped tightly the handle of the saber in his hands by his left, and gave Vincent a spin until the handle of the other saber came into view. He grabbed that one with his right and began to pull the vampire across the room as if he were the main course, hanging upon the rotisserie.
“Michael, we are leaving,” Nathaniel announced.
“Where are you going?”
“I need to finish this.”
“Finish what?” Michael said.
Nathaniel lifted Vincent off of the floor, using both blades to do so. The vampire screamed a pathetic spit-riddled whisper of a scream. The look on his face confirmed the pain that he was under, though the sound could no longer convey it. “The beast is not yet finished.” Nathaniel pulled the vampire around and brought his face close to his, nose against nose. “But it will be.”
“I’ll come with you,” Michael said, heading for the door.
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?” he said, surprised. “Whatever it is, you can’t possibly handle it by yourself. Not in your shape!”
“Mark is going to help me.”
“Mark?” Michael turned and faced his partner. “Why, Mark?”
“Tell him.” Vincent splattered blood upon Nathaniel in a fit of laughter, spitting out the words.
“Where’s the girl?” Nathaniel demanded to know, ignoring the instruction.
“What girl?” Vincent asked, but not convincingly.
“Tiffany?”
“Why do you want to know?” The words were coming out slurred now, and only Nathaniel could understand them. “She is dead! She has failed me for the last time!”
One more dead! Nathaniel thought. Having had quite enough, Nathaniel roared one last time and lifted Vincent into the air only to bring him back down, and slam his head into his knee. Vincent went limp immediately.
“Tell me, what?” Michael asked as Nathaniel dropped the vampire onto the carpet.
“We do not have time for this!” Nathaniel shouted, still full of adrenaline.
Mark stepped before his partner and addressed him fully. “Surely you knew all along, Mikey. I wasn’t coming back from injuries like that.”
“Jacks?”
“Don’t worry about it, Mikey. Everything worked out.”
“Mark, we leave now or we are all three dead!” Nathaniel warned. “Michael, attend to your family.”
5:45 a.m.
Michael smiled as the soft room door opened, revealing Vanessa Jackson and three out of four of the most beautiful faces in the world to him. All three smiled back at their father.
Everybody was standing.
Including the twins. They were still holding onto that coffee table, but now they were facing the open door.
“Is it over?” Vanessa asked. Michael acted as if he had not heard her. “Is it over?”
“It’s over.”
Michael knelt to see the amazing sight up close. “Barbara, honey?” he called out, never taking his eyes from them. They were smiling as if they, too, recognized the achievement that they had now realized.
“What is it?” Barbara asked, stepping into the doorway. “My God!” she murmured suddenly, bringing her hands to her face in shock. She knelt as well. “But they never even crawled!”
“Where’s Mark?” Vanessa waited as long as she could under the circumstances, but finally asked.
“Vanessa, he’s not here. He left with Nathaniel.”
“Why?” she asked and appeared extremely hurt that he did not wait to see her.
Michael stood and walked over to her. He leaned close to her, his mouth just inches from her right ear and whispered. “The vampire was not dead yet. Wounded, but not dead. They are taking care of that once and for all.”
“My babies!” Barbara cried as she quickly made her way to them.
Pent up emotions began to tear at the mental wall that they’d all erected in the last few days and mostly--hours. Tears welled up in her eyes but she did not cry… yet. But it was over, and there was no denying that she, like so many others, would need to let it all out and mourn for those that fell during the ordeal.
“Mom!” Jerod exclaimed. “We were just talking on the couch and suddenly there they were. Standing! All by themselves!”
Barbara looked up and motioned for her son to join her and his brother and sister in a giant hug. She kneeled between them all and swallowed them up in her arms.
To Michael, it was the most beautiful sight in the world.
Squeals of delight sounded out from all four of them as the pressure and tensions of the previous several hours let off like so much steam. Mayor Peterson entered the room just in time to witness the event. She was banged up, but she would be fine.
“Are you okay?” Michael asked her. He had met her before but could not say that he knew her very well. He almost wasn’t sure that she remembered his name.
“I’m glad you seem to understand all of this because I don’t.”
“Many have died, Your Honor,” he said gently. “The creature that you saw was responsible for all of it. Thanks to the efforts of all of those here, no more shall be added to that list.”
Slowly and delicately, Michael put his left arm through her right and patted hers a couple of times with his right hand. She glanced at the children before her and their mother, and then back at Michael. She wanted to smile, he could see, but he was unsure as to what exactly stopped her from doing so. If nothing else, he planned right then to smile a hell of a lot more from now on.
Just as soon as he got some sleep.
“Come on, Your Honor. Katherine,” Michael said, leading her gently to a nearby chair so that she might sit down. “Come sit with us and I’ll explain what we have just witnessed this past week. And then we’ll start making Swedish Festival plans.”
EPILOGUE