Chapter 146
A chuckle escaped Elliott’s lips, one he could not contain. Despite Peggy’s ultra-serious expression, he thought there was no way she could actually be serious, and yet, she continued to stare at him without cracking a smile. “I’m sorry. A what?”
Jimmy, on the other hand, exclaimed, “I knew it! I knew it!”
Peggy licked her lips and continued. “I know it is hard to believe, and I don’t blame you for being skeptical. But the fact of the matter is, Vampires do exist. And they are quite harmful to humans. In fact, those who go against the rules and hunt innocent humans have been known to wipe out whole villages. We have a lot of that under control now. Well, I say we. I don’t actually mean we….”
“Honey,” Frank interrupted. “Calm down. Start from the beginning. Explain it to them the way that Janette explained it to you.”
She nodded, but she was nervously tapping her fingers on the arm of the couch. “Basically, there are three types of creatures that exist beyond what you know about humans, and we call them Passels. There are Vampires, as I’ve mentioned. Some follow the rules and behave themselves. Others are very dangerous and can kill people. To protect people from them, there are two other kinds of creatures—Guardians and Hunters. Hunters, obviously, hunt down Vampires and destroy them. Guardians act as an in-between. We shield Hunters from harmful Vampires, and if it was necessary, we could also be used to protect Vampires from Hunters, though that’s never happened before.”
Her language didn’t escape him. “What—wait. We?” Elliott asked. “What do you mean by ‘we’ when you say Guardians? Are you under the impression that you’re one of these mystical creatures, Mom?”
She nodded. “I’m not under the impression, darling. I am a Guardian. I have been for decades. And… you could be, too. Both of you. That’s why you’re here, why you were brought to me. Because we are the same.”
“What?” Jimmy exclaimed. “Cool! You mean, I can kill Vampires and stuff?”
“Well, not yet,” Peggy replied as Elliott continued to stare at her, dumbfounded. “You have to undergo a Transformation process first, and that can’t happen until you’re seventeen. That’s why we didn’t want to tell you yet, but maybe Frank is right. If you’ve both seen a Vampire around town, maybe more than one, then… maybe this is the only way to keep you safe.”
There were dozens of questions floating around in Elliott’s mind, and he wasn’t sure where to start. “Mom, are you on any kind of medication…?”
She let out a loud sigh and got up off of the couch, calling, “I’ll be back,” over her shoulder. She headed into the room she used as a study, and Elliott turned his attention to Frank who had a smug look on his face.
“It’s true,” he said quietly. “All of it.”
“And what about you? You some kinda wizard or a fairy or somethin’? Maybe an elf?”
Frank chuckled. “I wish I was a magical creature. No, I’m just a measly human. No chance at changing into a superhero for me.”
Before Elliott could ask the myriad of questions tumbling into his mind about Frank’s comment, Peggy returned. She had a photo album in her hand and indicated she needed her sons to scoot apart so she could sit between them, which they obliged. “Okay. Here you go. Proof.”
She opened up the book and began to flip through the pages. “This is me when I was a little girl.”
Elliott stared at the old, crinkled picture. “What do you mean?” he asked. “That thing looks like it’s from the 1800s.” The girl did look a bit like Peggy, but it was hard to tell for certain since the photograph was so old, and Peggy looked to be nine or ten at the time.
“Yep,” she nodded. “I was born in 1893, and this photo was taken in 1901.”
“Shut up,” Elliott muttered, and then seeing his mother’s face, he hastily apologized. “Sorry.”
“But, Mom, that would make you…”
“Sixty-four,” she answered quickly before Jimmy could finish the math.
“There’s no way,” Elliott protested. “On your last birthday, you said you were thirty-four.”
“Well, I couldn’t hardly tell you the truth without explaining all of this to you, could I? Listen, boys Guardians don’t age much at all. I’ll still look like this, for the most part, in two hundred years,.”
“Two hundred years!” Jimmy’s excitement was obvious as he broke into a huge grin. “Are you immortal, like the Greek gods?”
Peggy actually giggled, despite her serious expression. “Not exactly, but I will live forever, so long as a Hunter never accidentally kills me.”
“Why would a Hunter do that?” Jimmy asked.
“Well, sometimes when we are hunting Vampires, there can be mix-ups, and occasionally, a Hunter has accidentally killed a Guardian. It doesn’t happen often. But nothing else can kill us—nothing.”
“That’s so cool,” Jimmy muttered.
Elliott was not as convinced. “What else you got in the book, Ma?”
She turned the page to an even older looking photograph, though this one appeared to be a copy. It was a man and a woman in clothes dating back to the early 1800s, from what Elliott could tell. “Do you recognize these people?”
“Oh, my gosh!” Jimmy exclaimed. “That’s the people that brought us here, isn’t it? Janette and Jordan?”
“It is,” Peggy nodded. Elliott thought the couple in the picture looked similar to the pair that had dropped them off at the Livingstone residence six years ago, but it had been so long since he’d seen them, he wasn’t thoroughly convinced. “Jordan is a Guardian, and Janette is a Hunter. In fact, they are the Leaders of this organization and conduct operations all over the world, coordinating attacks of Guardians and Hunters whose job it is to go out and fight Vampires and destroy them.”
“Unbelievable.” Jimmy’s head was shaking back and forth slowly.
“Yeah, it is. It really is,” Elliott agreed, though he was much more serious than his brother. “What else you got?”
Peggy continued to turn pages, showing photographs of herself dressed in what she called “hunting gear” mostly black, form fitting clothing, and holding various weapons—knives, guns, even an axe. In one picture, which was very blurry, she was actually in the process of decapitating a man with pale skin and short black, slicked back hair.
“Is that a Vampire?” Jimmy asked.
“It is. We were moving so fast, it was hard to take a picture, but Jordan has a man who works for him who is very good at technology, and he was able to enhance the camera so it could take better action shots. He can also make our cars drive faster. He even helped invent this.” Peggy reached into her pocket and pulled out a small black box.
“What is it?” Jimmy asked, looking at it suspiciously.
“It’s a type of telephone. We use it in emergencies,” Peggy explained, opening it up to reveal a dial.
“But it’s not plugged into the wall,” Jimmy reminded her.
“I know. Isn’t it fascinating? Christian Henry, the man who helped create it and did all of those other things I was talking about, was a Revolutionary War soldier. He makes all kinds of neat things like this.”
Elliott had never met this Christian person, but he already hated him. He sounded like a know-it-all prick. Not that he even believed the guy existed. Clearly, whatever this whole mess was, Peggy believed it. “So I can just call this guy right now, and he’ll confirm this is all real?”
“We could. But don’t you think it would be better to call Janette?” Peggy asked. “I mean, you know her and would recognize her voice, wouldn’t you?”
“I met her once, six years ago,” Elliott reminded her.
“We are really only supposed to use the phone for emergencies,” Peggy said, seeming to puzzle over it in her mind. “Tell you what, let me finish explaining, and then we can give her a call.”
Jimmy didn’t seem to want to wait, but he nodded, and Peggy continued taking them through the photo album, showing them pictures of other Hunters and Guardians.
