Blood Shadow: Book of Hartwell Read online

  “Well, that was different,” she stated.

  Andrew smirked, “Oh, there’s more,” he said as they kissed.

  Carla was a first-generation hunter born into the pursuit by a local vampire attack, and the subsequent turning of a 15 year-old boy.

  The 15 year-old boy hadn’t aged a day in the following 15 years since he became a vampire. As Carla got older her essence grew stronger, thus making it easier for Brandon Justice to keep her close.

  One night after ‘wrestling’ in the wilderness, Andrew and Carla had a real heart-to-heart talk while she rested her head on his chest while they gazed up at the stars from their earth bed.

  “You’re the first boy that I liked, that liked me back,” Carla stated. Andrew smiled, “That’s good to know, because I thought this girl at

  home liked me but she kissed my cousin instead.”

  “That sucks,” she empathized and then turned inward. “My boyfriend tortured me all year.”

  Andrew sat up and roared, “Bring me to him! I will tear him limb from limb!”

  Carla patted him on the back, “I don’t know, Drew Bear?” her nickname for him, which was meant to calm him down. “He’s pretty strong.”

  “What, I’m not strong?” Andrew said as he changed into a ram and butted a tree with his horns. He then changed into a bear and swiped the tree in half with his mighty paw.

  She was impressed, “No, wow! You are really strong.” She then turned into a ram and so they could butt heads.

  A few minutes later – after the fun – the humans were doing the talking again.

  “What else can we change into?” Carla asked.

  Andrew changed into a snarling pit bull, and then so did Carla. “Anything else?”

  “I saved the best for last,” Drew stated as he changed into a hawk and then flew away.

  Carla’s eyes widened as she transformed into a hawk and followed him. They flew around all night until returning to camp before the sun came up.

  “That was fun!” Carla exclaimed as they walked toward the campsite. “Where are we going to fly tonight?”

  Andrew was still fuming, “You are going to take me to see Brandon.” Carla smirked, knowing that she was finally basking in the warm glow

  of love, “Only of you take me to see that stupid girl in New York.”

  “Deal,” Andrew said as they met in another massive lip-lock.

  Drew agreed to fly to New York first, because his rage could not be contained once he unleashed it on Brandon Justice.

  So, a few nights later, Carla and Andrew were off to New York. There were still a few weeks left in the camp season and no one expected

  to see Drew until the last week in August. But, Drew was not going to waste another minute to show his girlfriend off. He wasn’t the most humble of sorts, and neither was Carla – at least, anymore.

  “Let’s stop here first,” Drew said as they walked up to Nicole’s house. Andrew took his phone out of his pocket and took a picture of them kissing in front of the house. He then attached the picture to a text message and then fired it off. While Drew still was mad at Nicole, he did not want any physical harm to come to her.

  “So, you’re not going to let me beat her down?” Carla asked.

  “No, not now,” Andrew replied. “I don’t think you’re ready for that just yet.”

  Carla was frustrated, “And I don’t think you’re ready to take on

  Brandon. His mind is too strong.”

  The couple was concluding their first minor disagreement. “I want to meet your parents,” Carla said.

  “It’s just me, my mom, and my grandpa’,” Drew said as they walked away from Nicole’s house.

  The ‘father’ question would have to wait for another time, he thought. “Well, I want to meet them.”

  “My mom would kill me if she knew I was home,” Andrew stated. Carla had a brain blast and was every bit of Drew’s co-conspirator. “Let’s turn into bears and take a picture in front of your house.” Drew thought about it then turned into a hawk and an excited Carla

  followed him into the sky.

  Carla and Andrew’s appetite for each other was insatiable. They would fly three or four times a week to see each other in the middle – which was usually the Midwest or destinations further south in the winter – once camp ended that summer between their sophomore and junior years of

  high school.

  Andrew learned much that first summer, including nearly getting killed by a nasty vampire named Brandon Justice. He thought, however, that there was no ‘justice’ in not being able to defend his girlfriend’s honor; at least, not yet. “He was so fast,” a bloodied and battered Andrew said while leaning on Carla in the streets of Portland, Oregon.

  “Please don’t die!” Carla said as she started crying.

  “Get me out of here,” Andrew said. “I can’t go to the hospital. My family never goes to the hospital. We’re quick healers.”

  Carla thought fast and texted their group leader back at the camp. “Andrew and I went on a long hike. We’ll be back tomorrow night.” The group leader, Mike Malone, had fallen hard for co-counselor,

  Gretchen Appleton, and he barely noticed they were gone.

  The reality of the fight – if you want to call it that – between Andrew and Brandon Justice played like a classic horror film. Carla pointed her beak toward Brandon on the crowded Portland Street and the vampire immediately recognized Carla’s scent, and the scent of another enemy. So, he continued walking quickly off the main street - because he didn’t want anyone seeing the other-world display - and into an adjacent alley.

  Andrew and Carla pursued Brandon as hawks and then Andrew changed into a bear as he was about to land, and Carla changed back into herself in order to gain satisfaction from her tormentor.

  But Carla experienced anything but satisfaction during the two-minute beat-down. First Brandon got into Andrew’s head and made him believe that he was a ballerina – albeit a happy ballerina.

  Then, while Andrew was up on his toes and pirouetting all over the ally as a bear, he got into Carla’s head and said, “Is this your new boyfriend? What would make you think that you could be with anyone else but me?”

  Brandon flipped Andrew over and then picked him up by both of his bare feet and repeatedly slammed him against a massive green, steel dumpster like he was wielding a light baseball bat.

  “Next time you think about coming at me,” Brandon suggested to Andrew, “this game of baseball will end and you will be out before the first pitch.”

  He then said out loud, “Why can’t they bring a major league baseball team to Portland?”

  Brandon then threw Andrew down the alley and near the crowded street and glided past Carla.

  “I’ll be waiting for you when you get back from playing house.” He then disappeared around the corner where his sire was unsuspectingly waiting for him.

  The large man in the trench coat was waiting behind a building, and put his arms around Brandon’s neck, like a boa constrictor tightening its grip on its prey.

  “You will leave that girl alone. The next time you go near her, you will have to answer to me. Understand?” the man stated.

  Brandon could barely breathe, but he still nodded his head in understanding.

  FOURTEEN

  Eighteen was everything. Life as Daniel, Nicole, and Andrew knew it would change once they reached the milestone birthday. Of course, in order for any significant changes to be propelled, Daniel would have to hit the magic number. Because, on June 28th, when the clock stroked past midnight, he would officially be vampire-ready.

  Going from a single life to a full complement of 100 had its advantages, but one of them was not being alive. It sounds like a contradiction in terms, but vampires are dead creatures and mortals are alive, at least for the most part.

  A big party was planned for graduation and the former ‘Three Slamigo’s’ were expected to be in the same place for the first t
ime since the sophomore dance. Drew had quit the volleyball team and nearly dropped out of school, because he had thrown his entire focus into Carla. When

  Drew attended school it was often to appease his mom and serve detention, which had ascended to a lifetime sentence with Mr. Mallory.

  Andrew sat in the back row of seats in the small all-purpose room and imagined easily snapping the neck of the dumpy science teacher with the walrus-like mustache.

  “Do you like lobster, Mr. Mallory?” Andrew mocked as he envisioned the teacher with a lobster body on a plate with butter.

  “Yes, why do you ask?” Mallory replied, somewhat interested to engage in conversation with a degenerate that rarely spoke.

  “You know the human neck cracks about as easily as the neck of a lobster if you apply pressure in just the right place,” Andrew said with all of the dementia of a serial killer.

  That was the abrupt end of the conversation and Mallory’s 20-year run as detention monitor. He also retired at the end of the school year and moved out of the country without leaving a forwarding address.

  The primary difference between Andrew and his counterparts was that he knew the big secret. He knew that he was a hunter. He knew that vampires were the enemy and their assistants, the mammals, were also on the other side.

  Besides the basic facts, however, he was just as blind as Daniel and Nicole were to who the players were. Obviously, he knew that his mom and grandpa’ were on his team, and he even knew that Uncle Cal was one of them. But he had absolutely no knowledge of Hartwell, or that Daniel

  was lining up to play for the undead. Hell, Daniel didn’t even know what his immediate future held.

  Before the June 28th graduation party, Emily pulled Andrew aside. “When you hit 18 next week, the show starts.”

  Andrew picked up his head and closed his laptop. “Finally! I thought you would never let me play!”

  Emily beamed, “No, my son. We’re counting on you to give us the edge we’ve been missing since Cal passed."

  Andrew felt a certain measure of pride in thinking that he could replace the great Cal Brewster.

  “We’re eight kills away from turning the corner,” Emily said without giving away too much of the landscape. She wanted to save the final kill

  for a special occasion – one that shouldn’t be wasted on her inexperienced son.

  Andrew was always confident in his abilities, “Then we’ll get eight kills.”

  Hartwell had waited patiently – at times – to alert his charge of his impending fate. He also knew that no one would be aware of Daniel’s vampiracy until he became aware of it himself. All of the attention and fire would be on Hartwell, and he was ready to withstand the pain if it meant moving his son out of harm’s way.

  “On your 18th birthday, I will cease being a mental image that guides you. Instead, I will reveal my corporeal self to you,” Hartwell said during their daily tai chi practice.

  Daniel was intrigued, but stayed within the motions, “When?”

  “In a few hours,” then he mumbled, “or eight kills, whichever comes first.”

  “Kills?” Daniel questioned.

  “No, I said hills, eight hills.” Hartwell was scrambling, “In the old country, it usually took weeks to scale the eight hills.”

  “Okay,” Daniel replied, putting the threat of a kill out of his mind so he could remain excited about finally meeting his mentor face-to-face.

  Sharon Phillips wasn’t as subtle as Hartwell. She needed her daughter to be ready for anything once the clock struck 12 that night.

  “At midnight tonight you will take the next step in life and join our mission to protect.”

  Before Nicole could say, “Protect who?” or “Protect what?” her mother continued.

  “I think you’ve known all along… ever since you first saw Daniel on that line outside of the school before you entered Mrs. Williams’ class.”

  A surprised and excited Nicole interjected, “Am I protecting Daniel?” “Haven’t you been all along?” Sharon countered.

  Nicole reflected on her time with Daniel and the first time she came to his aid on the playground. As Daniel flipped over the side of the play structure, the action slowed for Nicole as she reacted instead of panicking. Jumping over the side and spinning Daniel’s body so he could land safely on his feet was the first of many coordinated efforts.

  But the two major pieces of the puzzle that Nicole hadn’t unearthed were Daniel’s true nature, and why he needed to be protected. If she had known that Andrew was the enemy, it would have been highly unlikely that she would have made countless attempts to regain contact with him.

  The healing process had been quite slow for Andrew. His first love had scorned him and left a permanent scar on his heart. Meeting and falling in love with Carla also softened the blow over time, and gave

  Andrew the opportunity to give the appearance of being able to have casual contact with Nicole.

  Nicole, for her part, was always so focused on Daniel that she never really thought of Drew in a relationship kind of way, but she did periodically fantasize about him. Consciously, she just knew him as Andrew, but subconsciously, he was the forbidden fruit. He was a seemingly untouchable enemy that was to be scorned, not lusted after. But a whole host of ‘l’ words accompanied such mixed, amped-up feelings, such as lust, loathing, longing, and losing. And Nicole was just starting to realize how confusing all of those contrasting feelings could be.

  Special Agent Blake Wallace of the FBI’s Aquatic and Other Mammals Division was also quite familiar with the disquieting effect of contrasting feelings. Wallace had successfully made the jump from summer lifeguard to marine biologist in the years following his split from Sharon Phillips.

  But it was his obsession with his former wife’s other-worldly aquatic abilities that led him to a life as a virtual ghost and vampire tracker for the U.S. government. It also led him into discovering that he had a daughter named Nicole.

  Blake tailed the family as they followed Hartwell around the East Coast. He had hi-tech surveillance equipment set up throughout the Phillips and Brewster houses, but was not able to get near either Hartwell or Daniel. Vampires would easily detect the frequency of the sound equipment, and the previous attempts to record vampires had predictably proved fatal for other agents. In Daniel’s case, Blake was not even aware that he was headed for a life as a Prince of Darkness.

  Agent Wallace worked alone much of the past 10 years, and basically lived off the emotional scraps of life that his daughter unsuspectingly threw his way. When he read of the exploits of ‘The Three Slamigo’s’ years

  earlier, Daniel caught his eye as a potential person of interest. But Hartwell was already aware of Blake’s presence, and made him believe that Daniel was just a nice boy that was dating his daughter. He also made him

  believe that he enjoyed frolicking in women’s lingerie on Sunday’s.

  Blake’s plan was to confront his daughter when she turned 18 the following week, and also try to convince her to break the chain and lead a normal life. It was definitely an uphill battle, but he was more-than-ready to finally emerge from the shadows.

  FIFTEEN

  The end of the school year also brought graduation, or as older people call it, retirement, for several Beach Haven High School faculty members. One such retiree was Thelma McGuire, who was handing the library reigns over to a 34 year-old, technology-savvy, bibliophile named Melanie Craswell. She had been observing during the last few months of school and even helped Daniel research one of the last essays he had to write.

  Craswell was not invited to the year-end bash, which was being held at the Brewster house, and neither was Hartwell, who was persona non grata in hunter-ville.

  Hartwell spent the afternoon at his lair looking through an old box of photographs, including portraits he took with his family back in turn-of-the- century San Francisco. It was definitely a time to reminisce for the elder vampire, being that his son w
ould soon be his family again. Not that he really cared much about the conduit that was Belinda Thompson, Daniel’s mother in this life. But, on this day, he was more focused on his wife, Maggie.

  The master vampire had waited over a century for Maggie to return to him, but he now doubted that he would ever see her again. Although the eventual return of his son, in the form of Daniel, had kept him occupied much of the past few decades, it was the emptiness of his heart that kept him from ever loving another.

  Loving was never a problem for Daniel and Nicole. Their actions mirrored the words that so easily rolled off their tongues. The late afternoon party was expected to go for about five hours until about 11:00 p.m., and Nicole planned a special pre-birthday present for Daniel at the party's culmination.

  The Brewster’s were expecting an overflow crowd of about 100 parents and kids in their backyard, complete with three graduates that made up the band True Enemy. No alcohol would be served, and the smuggling of pot or other contraband would be closely monitored by Emily and Belinda, who had made her infamous potato salad for the event.

  When she and Daniel walked through the front door of the Brewster’s house, Emily greeted them and said, “Grab a fork, Drew! Our snack is here!”

  Of course, Emily wasn’t kidding – because they could polish off two huge bowls of potato salad and then move on to dinner minutes later – but the remark was met with smiles and laughs from Belinda and Daniel because they were all family.

  Nicole and her mock family were en-route, while Sharon and Garrison kept their eye on the prize, and that prize of course was Hartwell. Sharon knew that the families would become better acquainted, soon enough,