Perhaps I was a bit too sensitive,but I followed him into the water and then chased him up and downthe East Coast for the better part of the day until I caught him inthe Carolinas. Man he was fast! He toyed with me until I realizedthat anger was not the way. Losing my family was a shock that Ihadn’t dealt with in almost a few decades, preferring to throwmyself into the pursuit of blood and all of its subtle andnot-to-subtle intricacies.
Needless to say, I was angry,frustrated and thoroughly confused. One hundred yearsdidn’t seem like such a long time especially when the alternativewas never seeing them again. At first, I thought that my time wouldhave gone quicker if I remained free and easy, but then I realizedin a flash that is was a blessing that Gary was by my side and thatwas pursuing me.
I grabbed Gary by the tail andthen flew him to shore. Well, actually I tossed him to shore wherehe transformed into a hippo before he thudded on the beach. Once hesafely used the extra blubber to cushion the fall, Gary changedback into his human form.
The intense look on my faceindicated that he was in a great deal more danger than what wasactually the case. I sped to the beach and then landed smoothly onthe beach as my vast wings collapsed and then disappeared into theback of my body. I reached my hand out and Gary grabbed it eventhough he wasn’t sure what would happen next. Ieasily lifted him to his feet and then we started walking on thebeach.
“I guess I should be thanking youfor…” I started but wasn’t sure how to finish at the riskof sounding soft.
And then I remembered how he hadtalked to me when I was still down and yelled, “But if you evertalk to me that way again I’ll break you in half before youcan utter another word!”
Garrison was feeling good for asecond, like he had done something right, but then realized that Iwasn’t kidding.
“Seriously? You heardthat?!”
I smirked,“I also heard all of those times that Thaddeushovered over my body and taunted me with the count of how manytimes he had killed me!”
Gary thought, “I was wonderingwhen you would finally get angry and grow a spine!”
I stopped walking and turned tohim, “My good man, I can also hear what you’re thinking.”
“You can?” he questioned. “Thatwasn’t in the training manual!”
I laughed,“I’m starting to discover that allof this stuff we’re experiencing is things we haveto learn on the fly. I don’t know about you, butI’mpretty tired of losing!”
“Definitely, boss!” Garyreplied.
“Then we have to start workingtogether instead of you just trying to stop Thad from killingme.”
“So we use our numbers to ouradvantage instead of creating a series of one-on-one match-ups,”Gary stated.
“Exactly!” I exclaimed. “We wereput together for a reason. He’s not supposed to kill me thateasy, or the life of a typical vampire would be less than 19years.”
We looked over at each other andconfusion set in.
“What is the average age of avampire?” he asked.
“Let’s hope it’s more than 100 years,” Ireplied and then we kept walking on the beach.
THADDEUS
We trained on that beach for thebetter part of a week before Thaddeus found us. He had been the bigbeast since coming on line as a hunter and was now steeped inoverconfidence. It was like one of those tired games ofhide-and-seek where the person is conducting a half-heartedsearch.
Thaddeuswasn’t stupid. He realized that the quicker he attained thehunter’s goal of 100 kills, the more expediently he would have toreturn to his ho-hum life as a mortal. In only a few months as ahunter he had hopped from state to state and seen things he hadnever known existing or had only heard musings about. He was bornThaddeus Montague Brewster more than 18 year earlier to a motherwho was a school teacher and a father who was a shoemaker. In fact,his mother was his teacher from the time he crawled into his firstclassroom until he finished up his education only a few monthsbefore changing.
While it appeared that most of thehunters and protectors came on line in a random fashion, theopposite was actually the truth. They usually came from a longlineage, which served to fortify the line and strengthen the bondbetween the generations.
Thad had never been out of hissmall town of Ogunquit, Maine, or so he thought. In actuality, thefamily had moved a handful of times before he was four and thensettled into the lobster haven. He worked in his father’s shop fulltime now that school was over and expected to be making and fixingshoes until the day he died.
Thad’s father, Virgil Brewster, was aman of few words, but when he did talk it was a really good time tolisten.
He was hammering in the sole of ashoe and had a few nails in his mouth, “There is something we needto discuss.”
Thad was used to hisfather’s grumbling with various pieces of metal, lace and leather inhis mouth, so he heard his father loud and clear.Thad’s initial reaction was that his father was going to schoolhim on something he was doing wrong, but he was surprised by whathe heard next.
He hammered the last two nailsfrom his mouth into the sole of the shoe and then put his hammerdown for one of the rare times in his life. Thiswasn’t a shop where employees got an hour for lunch and wereafforded a few breaks during the day. Work was steady andpersistent and endured from sunrise to sunset, because the familyhad little money to subsidize natural light.
Thad kept hammering because hewasn’t going to be the one to call a halt to theworkday.
“Put your hammer down, Thaddeus,”Virgil said in perhaps his most human and vulnerable tone to date.“We have to discuss some family business.”
Thad was in mid strike, so herecoiled his mighty right arm and then set the crude hammer down onhis work table.
“You’re going to turn 18 during thenext moon and…”
Thad grew embarrassed andinterjected, “I know all about the birds and the bees,dad!”
Virgil rolled his eyes and stareddown
