“Excuse me,” the gentleman said.“I wonder if I could have a moment of your time?”
Gary looked him over and thenreturned to tended to his crops. “We don’t talk tosolicitors.”
George knew that if he talked tohis wife first, she would do everything in her power to keep himfrom Garrison. “Just a moment of your time,” George repeated,knowing his bull-headed son wouldn’t appreciate hispersistence.
Gary turned around and grabbed hiswood-handled hoe in his strong right hand. “Now, I asked you nicethe first time, so this time isn’t going to be so nice.” While hewasn’t prone to violence, there were a handful of times whenGarrison had to defend his mom and their land over the years andthis left little doubt that trespassers would be properly thrashed.He walked toward George, who was so proud of his son that he smiledbroadly. Gary took this as a measure of either overconfidence orsome form of insanity, but that did little to deter hisadvance.
He took a mighty swing at what heperceived to be a man, but as he looked back all he saw was a caton the ground below. Gary then tried to wipe the crust from hiseyes, believing that he might be suffering from some sort of heatstroke. But when he refocused a snarling wolf was in front of him,causing a moment of pause. George turned back into his mortal formand said, “Why don’t you play along,son?”
George morphed into a series ofcreatures that Garrison had never seen in person: a hippopotamus,bottlenose dolphins and an Orca, the killer whale, which wasactually the largest species of dolphin. The whale was so big thatGary surmised that it would be easy to strike it, although hewasn’t sure what kind of damage he could do to such an enormouscreature with layers of protection. George took the opportunity totransform into his last iteration, a smaller aquatic mammal, andthen dove into a small pool of water and hid beneath theearth’s surface.
George reappeared out of anothersmall pool of water a few yards away, further startling hisalready-mentally decomposed son.
“This must be some sort of darkmagic!” Gary yelled. “I must ask you politely to leave theseparts!”
“You’ve always known that I existed,”George said as he walked toward his son and then cycled through hisprotector changes, spurring his son to do the same.
“What is happening?!” Garrisonexclaimed as he had lost control of his body contour.
“You are taking your rightfulplace in the universe!” George replied amid a bit of a windstormsurrounding them.
George turned back into a man andso did Gary, who looked over the person in front of him and feltreal emotion for the first time since he cried for a bottle as ababy.
“Dad, is it reallyyou?”
“You know it’s me, Garrison,”George replied and then hugged his son, who was hesitant at firstand then gripped his father tight. “I’m sorry I’ve been gone so long, butthat is the way your mother wanted it.”
They broke the hug a few momentslater and Gary asked, “What are you?” And then he quickly correctedwhen his father looked at him as if he had to modify the questionto better align with reality, “What are we?”
“We are protectors,” Georgereplied.
“Of what?” Garrison asked and thengot more specific, “Who do we protect?”
George stuck out his anvil of aright arm and touched it to Gary’s forehead, treating him to asimilar highlight reel that both Hartwell and Thaddeus had alsoseen.
“What is that?” Garyasked.
“It’s a vampire,” George replied.“Your only job now is to protect your vampire.”
Gary thought, “Protect him fromwhat?” and his father heard him loud and clear, as they were now onthe same frequency. “You have to protect him from being killed bythe hunter. If the vampire dies 100 times then you will loseeverything and return to being a mortal that will expire intime.”
“Do you mean that Ican’t die if I am a protector?” Gary asked out loud.
Georgelaughed, “Oh you’ll die, but thenyou’ll wake up as good as new the next morning!”
Gary smirked,“I think I’m going to like this.”
“I always knew you would,” Georgereplied.
DEPRESS
I had been killed more than 40 times by the end of the 1920s,mostly because Thaddeus had slowed down from initial fast pace. Theride of being a supreme being was not supposed to be a shortjourney of just a few decades, it was to be savored and enjoyedover centuries.
“You guys have definitely made ittougher on me,” Thaddeus said one day before we prepared tobattle.
“Did you hear that the stockmarket crashed yesterday?” Garrison said while trying to avoid thesubject of his previous ineptitude.
I had pretty much taken what hewanted in my years as a vampire to this point, but was instantlyintrigued by the financial markets. I had been very poor to thepoint of being homeless in his life and had no plans to go back tosuch a vagabond lifestyle. The reverse was also true, I had alsobeen quite wealthy as a mortal and definitely preferred a moreprivileged lifestyle.
“We should probably go to New Yorkand see what’shappening,” I stated.
While Garrison was used tolistening to me, Thaddeus had always been the big beast in ourrelationship and usually walked to the beat of his own song. Whilehe lived alone and he had taken a number of days to visit hisparents and travel the country. While there should have beenpressure on him to always be thinking of me and Gary, Thaddeus usedmost of his time and energy to become one of the greatest bankrobbers of all time.
Thad hesitated at first to respondto my request because he had plans to rob a local bank after thenightly festivities were completed. That was, if he survived thenightly festivities. While I had a cap on my deaths at 100, bothThaddeus and Garrison could perish as many times as physicallypossible. The nightly fights ended when either Thaddeus or I wereeliminated, but on this night it was highly questionable if anybodywas going to die. The battles had slowed to a crawl and were oftenreplaced with all-night bar-hopping and c*arousing.
I looked at Thad and then added,“You can’t rob a bank if thereis no money in the vault.”
Thad looked at me and smirked,“You got a point there, Thomas.”
So
