Charles' Choice (Penny's Choice)

Table of Contents

(CHAPTER 1) I Dream of Djinni

(CHAPTER 2) The Arrow and the Note

(CHAPTER 3) Breakfast at Poseidon’s

(CHAPTER 4) Charles’s Decision

(CHAPTER 5) Charles Finds a Girl

(CHAPTER 6) The Chase to Ireland

(CHAPTER 7) Smell of Death

(CHAPTER 8) Things that go boom in the night

(CHAPTER 9) The Rakshashai

(CHAPTER 10) The Plan

(CHAPTER 11) The Attack

(CHAPTER 12) Sometimes Things Work Out

Crouching down at the edge of the clearing, Penny kept her back tight against Thomas.  She kept her weapon ready in her sweaty hands, waiting.

Her earpiece suddenly hissed to life in her ear.  “The coven approaches,” Charles whispered.

Behind them,
a
Djinn
leaned in between them.

A crashing through the trees on their right signaled the approach of the Brotherhood.  Penny couldn’t hear the vampires approaching.  But she knew they were there, slipping through the woods.

She was right.  With growling faces and bared fangs, dozens of vampires poured through the trees.  They were blurry impressions of movement, spreading out across the field.

From their right, roaring at the top of their lungs, came the Brotherhood, all in black and armed with short swords or other weapons.  Their leader caught sight of the vampires immediately, and even if their targets were Penny and Thomas and the others, they weren’t going to pass up the chance to exterminate the entire Brotherhood.  The two groups soared toward each other, blood in their eyes.

“Now!”
Thomas yelled over the sound of colliding enemies.

The Djinn raised both arms upward and soared into the sky, his greyish skin glowing.  Using his magic he now unleashe
d the traps he had set up earlier
.  Piles of earth exploded into the air underneath the charging feet of the Brotherhood.  Bodies lifted into the air from the force of the exploding magical charges, to come crashing back to the ground again, on top of their brothers if they were lucky, smacking hard against dirt and stone when they weren’t.  Either way, they didn’t get up again.

With a growl, Thomas’ eyes turned blood red and his fangs bared and he raced into the fray.

“Thomas, no,
wait
!” Penny called to him, but it was too late.  She set her lips in a thin line and raised her gun.  She tried to clear the approaching vampires out of Thomas’ way.  Every vampire that fell in her sights got a fire bullet through the middle of their forehead or their hearts.  The explosions of the modified bullets tore them open from the inside out.  She only missed twice.  Once her shot tore through a vampire’s knee to explode on the ground behind and sent her target falling to the ground just before Thomas got to it, grabbed it by the throat as it fell and ripped its head clear of its shoulders, turning it to dust. 

The second time her bullet grazed a vampire’s neck without impacting.  It turned and glared at her with blood pouring from the wound and then it raced across the moon-lit field straight at her.

Penny turned to the Djinn for help.  It was gone.

She pulled the trigger.  The gun made a sickeningly soft click sound.  She was out.

Black forms poured over and past her, leaping, jumping,
howling
. 
The werewolves.

The vampire who had set itself upon her faltered and slipped and fell to the ground only to be grabbed in the huge jaws of a large black werewolf that crushed its neck in a single bloody bite.

Penny let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.  “Thomas,” she whispered, remembering that he was out there, among the attacking vampires and the Brotherhood alone. 

She looked back out on the horrifying scene in front of her.  Death was everywhere.  Brotherhood agents turned raging vampires to dust as vampires and werewolves tore and rent everyone with tooth and claw.  And she stood there, watching, helpless.

Thomas.  He was a sight to behold. 
Beautiful and mesmerizing.
  She couldn’t take her eyes from him.

This was why she missed the vampire coming up behind her until it grabbed her arms and shoved her to the ground painfully, the air rushing from her lungs.

“Now,” she heard it rasp into her ear, “I will take your life, little human girl.  I will take your blood and soak my flesh in it.  I will—”

Then Penny was back in the closet at her home in Michigan. She tried to take a breath, but someone was on top of her, pressing the breath from her and suppressing the scream trying to escape her lungs. She could hear her family shrieking; their lives’ were drained from their bodies as she was helpless to protect them. She strained under her oppressor and saw that it was Thomas, in his full vampire glory bearing down on her. She wasn’t sure if he was hurting her or protecting her.

“Thomas,” she said in barely a whimper. He looked down on her and put his hands to his lips and poked her in the side, almost playfully.

The hand poked her again.

The pressure was letting up on her body. She moved from underneath his body as the screams from her family’s screams passed into the background.

He stroked her hair lightly. “Penny, Penny,” he said, as if he was trying to get her attention. She rolled over and he poked her again.

“
Mmmm
, Thomas,” she said barely able to expel the words from her mouth. She was
very
disoriented. How did she get back in the closet?

“It's Charles,” he said.

Penny popped up. It was her brother-in-law, who just also happened to be her ex-boyfriend.

“Charles, sorry,” Penny started to speak.

“Having another bad dream?” he asked. When they first met, Charles had told her that her dreams would go away eventually. But, since she had been with Thomas, the dreams only got weirder. They weren’t bad or good, just puzzling, melting together in a strange tie-dye of violent impressions and memories.

Penny’s still naked body was only covered by the thin sheet. If she knew Charles was going to be here in the morning, she would have remembered to put on at least a t-shirt.

“The vamps went to get a bite to eat,” he said, sitting down on the bed nest to her.

“Is that your only joke?” Penny asked, kicking him off her bed with her foot.

“No, I just never get tired of it,” he said, still standing over her. When Charles would tell a joke, his face was still dead serious.

“Charles, get out of here while I get dressed,” she said, throwing a pillow at him.

“Oh, right. Sorry,” Charles said as he walked out of the room and closed the doors to the bedroom.

Penny stood up and went to the hotel dresser and grabbed one of her few shirts and threw it over her shoulders and pulled a pair of black skinny jeans over her thin legs. The family traveled with only what could fit in a small backpack.  Living on the run caused her to consolidate her possessions.

“Thomas said that they would meet up with us afterwards at the Spree river,” Charles said, his voice muffled by the door.

“The Spree?
Why the Spree?”
Penny asked, brushing back her long blonde hair. She had suggested to Thomas that she should cut it off because it would make her less recognizable, but he said that he wanted to keep as much of her intact as possible. Plus, he added, she would be recognizable to bad vampires and the brotherhood with or without the long hair.

“I don’t know Penny,” he said. Penny could hear him leaning against the door. “Thomas always has his own weird agenda.”

“Well, whatever reason he has for us going there, I bet it will be a fascinating night,” she replied, throwing the door open. Penny slung her small purse around her neck and tucked it under her shirt.

“I think I could use a night that isn’t an adventure for once,” Charles said, walking through the sitting area.

Thomas always seemed to be able to pull money from nowhere.
Most of the accommodations that the family slept in where worthy of royalty.
Penny followed Charles out of the hotel room and down the hall.

“Are you hungry?” Charles asked as they exited the elevator.

Penny stood in the hotel foyer taking in the rich surroundings. So far Berlin was the favorite place that she had visited on her whirlwind worldwide hide and
seek
game.

“Yeah, I guess I am, but I just wished that for once I could have dinner with my boyfriend instead of his little brother,” Penny said, joking with Charles. Charles, while the younger brother by three years, was physically over a decade older than Thomas. Penny was the youngest of the group by eight years. This year she and Thomas were physically the same age.

“I’m sure you could, but I don’t think that blood is your style,” Charles said, seriously. Charles had not developed the sense of humor that Thomas had. He opened the door and the two walked out into the cool Berlin night. Penny and Charles had adapted to the nocturnal habits of their vampire family.

“Ugh, I just hate the thought of Thomas burying his face in some other girl’s neck,” Penny said, trying to shake the thought from her head. The two walked across the square to a small cart selling Donner
Kebap
.

“I doubt it’s a girl…you know he prefers men,” Charles said, looking over the selections at the street vendor.

“
Ein
Schweinfleisch
Kebap
mit
Rotkohl
,” Penny said in broken German, ordering her favorite pork sandwich.

“Yuck, I don’t see how you like that red cabbage mush,” Charles said and ordered a much more American style sandwich with only lettuce.

“You should really try to enjoy some local flavors,” Penny said as she paid the vendor.

“Oh, you mean like my brother and his German boys?” Charles said, turning up his nose. Penny and Charles both still had a hard time with the rest of their family being vampires. It helped some that Thomas, Charli, Charles’ twin sister, and their father never killed what they ate. But still, Charles and Penny were trained vampire hunters.

“Are you trying to make me feel better that my boyfriend prefers males or worse?” Penny asked, and then took a bite of her sandwich.

“Sorry,
I’m
still upset,” Charles said looking the other way.

“You’re still upset that I’m with Thomas?” Penny said with her mouth still full of pork and red cabbage. “We aren’t together to make you mad.”

Charles long legs strode forward much faster than Penny could keep up with easily. He was avoiding her question. Charles was terrible talking about his feelings. Penny ran up to him and trotted to keep pace with him.

“Come on Charles,” she said, trying to pry information out of him. “You’re never going to get over this if you won’t talk about it.”

Charles stopped quickly and then slowly walked over to a bench on the side of the cobblestone road. He took a couple bites from his dinner. She stood impatiently next to him, waiting for him to get his thoughts together.

“Well, why don’t I get anyone?” Charles said during a brief pause between bites.

Penny thought about trying to console him with the fact that he was with his family, which was the thing he really wanted. But she knew that Charles was the type that always had a girl. Being on the run so much, he hadn’t even been able to have a weekend fling since the family fled.

“Maybe we'll find you a nice vampire,” Penny teased him.

“Uh, yeah, no,” Charles said, shaking his head vehemently.

“Djinn?”
Penny laughed after she brought up the djinn. Ever since she had met her first djinn on the battlefield, she still wasn't sure she could trust them As long as they were allowed to be mischievous, they were mostly okay. Although there were some races of djinn, like the
Ghuls
, that enjoyed eating human flesh.