Charles' Choice (Penny's Choice) (14 page)

Thomas threw open the door leading into the Grand Ballroom, reached up and sucked the guard underneath. He drained the blood from the guard and tossed him aside. Thomas knew the Brotherhood’s protocol: They would rain down wooden arrows. He calculated that he had .53 seconds to get out of the way before the crossbow arrows would pierce his skin. He threw himself to
the
ceiling and hung on as arrows sliced through the opening and into the agent that he had already killed. Thomas counted to three and then punched through the floor, grabbing the feet of another agent, and pulling him on to the floor below. Thomas emerged on to the ballroom floor and grabbed another agent, using him as a shield against the oncoming onslaught of expected fire bullet.

He ran from agent to agent collecting and tossing aside new human shields. When the bullet and arrows were spent, Thomas lunged at the last of the agents standing. His eyes were on fire and his lungs burnt with anger. He tore into the last of the agents when he looked over at Penny’s grandmother. She had a look of horror on her face. The look that Thomas saw whenever someone saw him feeding or killing. It was a look he hated and a look that he would never forget.

****

Charles slashed open the door. George stood in the middle of the room, getting his weapons ready. Charles didn’t wait for him to finish. With a quick slash, Charles removed the weapon belt from George’s waist. All that the old man had left was a large steel sword.

George acted quickly and disarmed Charles of his gun. Now Charles only
had  short
sword left. Charles looked on the ground.  George’s second sword was on the floor not more than a foot away from
Charles. He ducked as George swung at him and grabbed the sword at his feet. He stood up and parried the master agent
’
s
next
strike.

“What are you doing, Charles?” George said, choosing his next blow.

“You killed my father,” Charles said. He took his blow, but the old man dodged it.

“Your father was vampire scum. The Brotherhood dealt with it.”

“No, George, that kill had your name written all over it. You personally killed my father.” Charles leaped at the old man again with both of his swords. He managed to get a cut in on George’s upper arm.

“Okay, you’re right. I did kill your father.
But what about your brother?
He killed Penny!” Charles dodged George’s attack, but tripped backward over the rug and smashed in to the wall.
George
grabbed a knife from the floor and through it at Charles. He leaned to
the left. It missed his skin, b
ut stuck his shirt to the wall.

Charles laughed. “Ha, no, Thomas would never hurt Penny. That was all of trick. Right now, you have a house full of vampires, werewolves, and all other manor of nasty supernatural creatures that have a score to settle with you.”

Charles knew that he was cornered. If he didn’t think fast enough, George might have the upper hand. Just then another command came through the head phones.

“All Brotherhood agents
are
in
the sanctuary
. Send in
the
third wave.”

Charles smiled as the
N
ixen
song rang through the Brotherhood sanctuary again. This time it would only take out the
agents who were
at the Sanctuary for the first round
for a couple of seconds.
Charles jerked himself free from the wall. H
e only needed a couple of seconds to slice George’s sword through his neck. George’s head rolled to the floor. Charles felt a sense of relief. He had avenged his father’s death and helped secure
safety for his family.

Charles looked down and saw that there was blood coming from his side. The knife had not completely missed his side. He felt a little woozy and slid down to the floor. A banshee screamed and then burst through the door.

****

It only took Penny a minute to compose
herself
this time. Penny directed banshees coming out of the Winchester with wounded. So far there had been a few serious causalities and a just a few fatalities. Most of the otherworld races were still in play, which was more than the Brotherhood could say.

She heard the screaming of the banshees coming from the house. Every few minutes the house would shake or a mysterious mist would rise from the windows.

Morrigan floated out of the front of the house with Charles in her arms.

“Charles,” Lorelei said, rushing to meet the banshee.
Penny panicked as well. The fact that he being carried out by a healer was not a good sign. She couldn’t lose her human companion.

Charles,” Penny screamed. “What happened?” She looked over Charles, he was covered in blood. Some of it looked like it had been splattered on him, but the blood on his side looked like his own. Penny removed the shirt. The wound was already mostly healed.

“He’ll be okay,” Morrigan said, as she laid the boy down the ground. Penny reached to push away the strands of his curly hair that always fell into his during a fight. Then she remembered that the locks had been removed by the goblins.

“They’
re gone, remember?
” Charles said, opening his eyes.
He smiled weakly. “I was thinking about keeping this hair style. What do you think?”

“So it takes coming close to death to make your humor come out?” Penny punched him in the shoulder.

“Ah, I was never close to death,” Charles said. “I’m just happy because I cut George’s head off!” He smiled broadly and then looked at Lorelei.

“I’m so proud of you,” Lorelei said. She pushed Penny out of the way and gave Charles a well-deserved passionate kiss.

“I’ll just be over here,” Penny said. She left the lovers and went to check on other patients.

The Master crashed through the large window in the front of the house. He was followed by Thomas carrying Penny’s grandmother and two dozen or more Brotherhood agents. The Master deftly sliced through about six agents with his rotating scimitars, but they needed some help if Thomas was going to get Penny’s grandmother away safely.

Morrigan let out the most horrific scream that Penny had ever heard. It was followed by the stench of rotten eggs, rotting bodies, and spoiled food. Lorelei reached over and covered Penny’s ears. Lorelei sang her song with Morrigan and immediately the agents writhed over in pain,
blood dripping from their ears. The Master quickly cut down the rest of the ensuing agents and escorted Thomas and Penny’s grandmother to the relative safety of the hidden triage.

Thomas placed the older woman on the ground.

“She just passed out from fright,” Thomas said, trying to make her more comfortable.

Penny
say
next to her grandmother. She smiled. It had been a long time since she actually saw her.

“We’re winding up,” Thomas said. “The human authorities are already on their way. The Brotherhood doesn’t have many agents left and I think that they will all be arrested.”

Charles propped himself up. “So, it’s over? I mean really over?”

“All of the other houses came into help. I estimate that there aren’t any more than a couple dozen left everywhere in the world.”

“Thomas your plan was amazing,” Penny said throwing her arms around his neck.

“Alright, alright, but we do need to get out of here,” Thomas said, removing Penny from his neck. “Charles you take Grandma back to her house. Penny you stay with Morrigan while they get the wounded out. I’ll oversee the removal of the otherworld creatures.”

Charles stood up and picked the old woman off the ground. He headed a couple blocks down to a waiting car. It was going to be a long ride back to Michigan.

Penny helped Morrigan get the rest of the wounded out as she heard police sirens in the background. She looked back to see the last of her friends leaving the Winchester and Thomas shooting several fire bullets into house. As the creatures rode away, Penny saw smoke billowing from the direction of the Winchester. She hoped that Thomas had gotten everyone out okay.

“Penny, your grandmother will still love you,” Thomas said, reassuring Penny.

“But I ran away,” Penny said, looking out the window at her grandmother’s house. The last time she was here, she had walked out of the front door in the middle of the night with a small suitcase in order to join the Brotherhood. She hadn’t seen her grandmother in almost two years.

“Because you had a run in with vampires,” Thomas said.
He pulled a hood over his head to protect from the sunlight and put his favorite pair of shades over his eyes. He jumped out of the car and went around to Penny’s side.
He opened the door for
her
, trying to encourage her to get out of the car. “And now so has she.”

“She’s about to get another one,” Penny said as she slowly unbuckled her seatbelt.

“Plus, we didn’t just massacre the Brotherhood to get her back so you can just sit in your car sat outside of her house moping,” Thomas said, grabbing Penny’s hand.

Penny looked at the house again. It was still the same as the day that she left it. The house was still the same from her childhood. The two story house had old fashioned black shutters standing out from the stark white house. Her grandmother always had seasonal flowers in the beds just in front of the house and a few potted plants on the staircase leading up to the front door. One year, Penny and her sister had helped her grandmother plant one of the pots. She was couldn’t have been more seven. And now she was grown and her sister was dead; killed by vampires.

“I know,” Penny said and sighed.

“Charles is already in there with her,” Thomas said. “Apparently, she’s been showing her gratitude with cowboy cookies?”

“She made cowboy cookies?” Penny’s eyes perked up.

“Yeah, I guess that means something to you,” Thomas said, holding Penny’s hand.

“They’re my favorite,” Penny said. “They’re kind of like an everything cookie: oatmeal, raisins, coconut, chocolate chips, nuts,
craisins
.”

“Well, they’re Chuck’s favorite now too.”

Penny sprinted up the stairs to the front door. She hesitated with her hand on the door knob. Was she supposed to knock or just go in the house? She looked back at Thomas. “Does my grandmother know that you are a vampire?”

“Um, yes,” Thomas said, cringing. “We met before>”

“That doesn’t sound good…”

“Well, I did save her, but um, I think I was a little scary,” Thomas said as he grabbed the door handle and opened the door.

“Great,” Penny said, peeking her head in the house.
“
Gramma
?”

“Penny? Penny is that you?” Penny’s grandmother said running to the front door.

Thomas hid behind the door while Penny gave her grandmother a big hug. “Yes,
Gramma
, it’s me,” Penny said, holding her tiny grandmother in her arms.

“I thought that I would never you again,” her grandmother said. “When those awful men came and got me, I thought I was done for.”

“I’m really sorry about that
gramma
,” Penny said. “My life has been kind of crazy.”

“Yes, I know,”
Gramma
said. “That nice young man in there told me all about some of it. Is he your boyfriend?”

“No,” Penny said, trying to keep from smiling. She heard Thomas stifle a giggle on the other side of the door. “We broke up.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. He’s a nice boy; But you two are still talking so I can’t guess that things are going too badly,”
Gramma
said, continuing to be nosy.

“Penny dumped me for my brother,” Charles said, appearing in the doorway. He was holding a cookie in one hand and glass of lemonade in the other. He bit off another piece of the cookie and waved at Penny.

“What? I thought you said that the rest of your family was vampires,”
Gramma
said. She looked back at Penny. “I’m
sorry;
this whole vampire thing is a little much for me.” Penny’s grandmother sat down in a chair by the side of the hall. She put her head in her hands. “So does this mean your boyfriend is a vampire?”

Penny glared at Charles, giving him the silent “Shut up you insensitive jerk” look.

“Wait until you meet Charles’s new girlfriend,” Thomas said, still hiding behind the door. “She’s a mermaid.” Thomas laughed again. Penny was glad that Thomas broke the ice first.

“Oh, did you bring someone else with you?”
Gramma
said. She didn’t get out of her seat.

“Yes,
Gramma
, Thomas.
My boyfriend and Charles’s big brother,” Penny said, looking back at the door. She was a little unsure of how to introduce them.
Especially considering that Thomas had already met her grandmother.