Charles' Choice (Penny's Choice)

by Annette Archer

  The Nixie smiled widely, exposing a full mouth of razor sharp green teeth. Charles looked to Thomas for help. Thomas just smiled back at him, showing off his own vampire teeth.

  (CHAPTER 2) The Arrow and the Note

  The calm waters of the Spree River flowed beside the wide pathway they walked on. Penny kept her eyes open, just like the entire Wolf family and the Nixie, trying to see everything and everyone around them all at the same time. Trying to stay this alert all the time was making her head hurt. When did her life get this crazy?

  Oh yeah, that’s right. When she had met Charli and Charles and Thomas.

  Charli and Charles walked up in front of the group. Most people stepped wide of them. One look at the expression on Charli’s face did it for most people. But Charles, with that brute strength of his, could put off the stay-away-from-me vibe almost as well.

  Thomas brought up the rear, his heightened senses hearing and seeing and finding everyone who came anywhere near them, and his logical mind deciding who might be a threat. Apparently, there were no threats. Yet.

  Penny wondered what she was going to do about Charles and Thomas. She knew in her heart that Thomas was the one for her. But the question was, would her being in love with Thomas wreck the friendship she had with Charles?

  And the answer was, she didn’t know.

  Mister Wolf was looking up at the tall, glass-fronted buildings that lined both sides of the Spree River here. Foot bridges connected the buildings over the water.

  “What are these?” she asked him.

  “Government buildings,” Mister Wolf explained, in that voice he used when his mind was somewhere else. “Houses of the German Parliament.”

  “We have something like that,” Lorelei said. “Back home. Only, you know, under water.”

  Penny still wasn’t sure if she could trust the Nixie Siren. Lorelei was beyond beautiful and Penny felt gangly and awkward just standing next to her. But that wasn’t why she had issues with the girl. Well. Not entirely why. It wasn’t her green teeth or the way she trailed water everywhere even after being on dry land now for hours.

  It was the intense interest she showed in Charles that bothered her. Maybe she and Charles were only friends. But as his friend, she wasn’t sure she liked the Nixie getting this close to him.

  Lorelei was walking beside Charles now, standing very close, and Penny could see the way her eyes were all over him. The mermaid said something in a low whisper to Charles, making him laugh.

  “You want to do what to my brother?” Thomas said from behind them. Of course his super-vampire hearing would have picked up on Lorelei’s whispers, Penny realized.

  Charles turned to Thomas with a frown. “Shut up. She’s not talking to you.”

  Thomas had a wide grin on his face. Penny wished she could have heard whatever was said, too.

  “Ah, come on now, Charles,” Charli said, bumping her shoulder into his. “You didn’t think we’d just let that one pass, did you?”

  “Let what pass?” Penny asked, unable to contain her curiosity any more.

  Charles looked at her and then quickly looked away.

  “Oh, wait.” Penny got it. “Is this about her saying she wants your…you know?”

  “His sperma,” Lorelei said in German. Penny didn’t have to be bilingual to know “sperma” meant exactly what it sounded like in English, too.

  Thomas burst out laughing, drawing more than a few looks from the people around them. Even at this hour, Berlin was a busy city.

  Mister Wolf rolled his eyes. “Okay, kids, that’s enough. Eyes and ears open. Don’t forget that we’re still being hunted. We need to get out of here and to our next stop. We can worry about what Lorelei needs from Charlie later.”

  Thomas laughed again.

  “It isn’t funny, Thomas!” Charles protested.

  Lorelei put a hand on Thomas’ shoulder. Penny noticed he didn’t try to move away.

  “You have to admit, it might not be funny but it sure is weird,” Charli said. She eyed a man walking toward them, tall and thin and dressed in black. But the man passed without saying or doing anything and Penny saw Charli relax again. “Who comes up to a total stranger and says, hey would you mind if I used you for your body?”

  “Charli!” Charles snarled.

  “What, that doesn’t ever happen to you, sis?” Thomas teased her.

  “No, dufus,” Charli answered back, “and it’s never happened to you either. I mean, seriously, Lorelei, I get the whole mysterious pretty girl thing. I’ve used it myself. Lots of times. But why my brother?”

  Lorelei chewed on her bottom lip and didn’t answer.

  “I’d kind of like to know that, too,” Charles stopped walking now and turned to the Nixie. “Why me?”

  Penny stepped closer to them, stopping along with everyone else. She wanted to hear whatever explanation Lorelei came up with.

  Lorelei fisted her hands and looked at Charles with a hard expression on her face. “I could have just sang you into doing it, you know. Ich habe diese macht. I’ve done it before.”

  “Yeah?” Charles looked like he didn’t know whether to hold Lorelei in his arms or push her into the water. “Then why didn’t you do that? And, yeah, I know me turning on the Brotherhood stooges bumped me up a few notches in your eyes. But, what I’m asking is why me?”

  The Siren opened her mouth, her eyes angry, and started to say something.

  Mister Wolf’s shout of alarm stopped her short.

  Penny turned to see Mister Wolf standing next to her, his hands at his chest. An arrow stuck through him at an angle. A wooden arrow through his heart. He gurgled, and blood pooled out of his mouth.

  “Dad!” Thomas yelled, rushing forward and catching his father as Mister Wolf’s knees buckled.

  “Crossbow!” Charli alerted them in a hushed tone. “Whoever shot it can’t be far. Thomas, can you hear anything?”

  Thomas didn’t answer. Penny saw the look of grief and anguish on his face as his father lay dying in his arms.

  Mister wolf reached up and touched Thomas’ face. And then his eyes closed, and his body sagged in his son’s arms.

  Tears were in Charli’s eyes, but she clenched her teeth tightly and knelt down next to Thomas. “Thomas. I know. He’s my dad, too. I can’t…I can’t do this without you, big brother.”

  Charles was suddenly on his knees, too. He laid his hand on the side of his father’s face. “He’s gone.”

  Thomas growled and hissed and bared his pointed fangs at Charles. “Don’t you say that!”

  Penny stood there, watching, frozen in fear. Someone had just killed Mister Wolf. Just like that. And whoever it had been was still out there. Close by.

  People around them started to notice what had happened. Some turned and ran. Some pulled out cell phones, probably to call the police. Some of them approached, concern on their faces, only to be warned off by a look from Thomas or a word from Lorelei.

  What were they supposed to do now, Penny wondered. What were they supposed to do without Mister Wolf?

  “We have to go,” Lorelei said.

  Charles was on his feet and menacingly close to the girl in less time than it took for Penny to blink. “We aren’t leaving him! He’s my dad! We’re staying right here!” His finger jabbed at the walkway stones beneath his feet.

  Lorelei calmly looked him in his eyes and shook her head. “We need to go.”

  “Why?” Charles demanded, losing some of his steam.

  “Charles,” Thomas said, his voice shaky. “She’s right. We have to go. I can hear them coming. They think they’re being clever but there’s too many of them to move quietly.”

  Thomas set his father’s head down on the walkway. Charli leaned over and kissed Mister Wolf’s forehead. “Goodbye, daddy,” she whispered.

  Penny thought her heart would break. She wanted to reach out to Thomas, hold him, comfort him. This conflict had taught them all that death was only a step behind them. But none of them ha
d ever expected this.

  “Wait,” Thomas said, reaching for the arrow in his father’s chest. For a moment Penny thought he meant to pull it out for some reason but instead she saw him untie something that had been wrapped around the shaft. Penny saw that it was a plastic tube, coated in Mister Wolf’s blood. Tipping the container up Thomas found a small rolled piece of paper inside.

  Thomas put his finger to his mouth and sucked it dry, tasting his father’s blood. Charli put her finger to Mister Wolf’s chest now too, coating it in the thick blood, licking it off with her long tongue. Penny looked over at Charles. His face was a little green and his mouth twisted in disgust. She guessed it was a vampire thing. Some way for the members of the family who shared the vampire trait to honor their dead father.

  “Uh, Penny,” Thomas said to her, handing her the piece of paper.

  She was confused. Why would he be showing it to her?

  “We have the grandmother of your friend,” the note read. “Charles can exchange himself for her. Come back to the Brotherhood, Charles. We’re waiting.”

  Penny put a hand over her mouth. “My grandmother? How did they…?” She couldn’t finish. Charles plucked the note from her hands and read it over. Twice. Penny watched as fires smoldered behind his eyes.

  “Those bastards just killed my father,” he said, quietly. “And now they want me to join them?” He crumpled the note and threw it into the Spree. “It’ll be a cold day in Hell, first.”

  “But they have my grandmother,” Penny said, stupidly. Mister Wolf was dead. The Brotherhood had her grandmother. How did things go so wrong?

  “We have to go,” Lorelei said again, in that same calm, dispassionate way.

  Penny had the strongest desire to slap her across her green teeth.

  “No, she’s right,” Charli said. “We have to go. And we have to leave dad.”

  Thomas stood up next to her. He nodded his agreement.

  Penny could tell that Charles wanted to argue it out, but he closed his eyes tightly and nodded instead. “Fine. But they’ll pay for this. I don’t care if I have to carve my way through every one of them myself.”

  “You won’t have to do it by yourself,” Charli said.

  Penny was shaking. She couldn’t catch her breath. She had thought this world she had been sucked into only affected her. She never dreamed it would reach out to hurt someone she cared about.

  “Hey,” Thomas said to her, suddenly standing next to her with his hands on her shoulders. “We’ll get her back. They won’t hurt her. I promise.”

  She blinked away her tears. Thomas had just lost his father. She should be the one comforting him. And yet, he was more concerned about her than he was himself. It made her smile to think about, in spite of all the evil and death around her, literally at her feet.

  “Lorelei,” Charli asked, “how far before the river can take us to your world?”

  “Not far,” the Siren answered.

  “Then let’s go.” Charli tugged gently on Charles’ arm. He looked at Lorelei, questions in his eyes, then he took up his position at the front of their group again with Charli.

  What Lorelei had in her eyes wasn’t questions. She really has feelings for him, Penny realized.

  Thomas gently touched her face and then let her go, walking behind all of them, ears pricked, eyes open. And just like that, they were moving on, scanning everywhere, looking for the danger that approached them like a storm front.

  “I don’t like leaving him there,” Charles protested a short time later.

  “Neither do I, Charles,” Charli hissed at him. “None of us do. But we can’t stay, and we can’t bring him with us. We’ll mourn him when we can. Now shut up!”

  They moved on in silence after that, passing tall stately buildings and museums and people who stared at them and moved out of the way. Behind them, they could hear approaching sirens.

  And bootsteps.

  “They’re here!” Thomas warned them. “Move!”

  Penny glanced behind and saw maybe a dozen men, all in black, all with short crossbows in their hands, running at a madman’s pace along the walkways of the Spree River, on both sides. They must have come up both banks just in case the family had decided to cross the river first.

  The first arrow flew so close to Penny’s head she could hear it. Charli caught it from the air and snapped it in two with her hand.

  Thomas produced two throwing knives from under his jacket. Turning midstride he threw one at the group on their side of the river, and one at the group on the other. Penny heard a man scream in pain. But only one.

  Thomas cursed as he caught back up to them. “I missed one.”

  “How can you miss with that many?” Charles called back to him.

  “You want to try, little brother?”

  Charles turned out from their group and knelt down on the paved sidewalk, raising two knives of his own. He threw both with as much force as his muscular arms could manage. And two men screamed and fell dead.

  And a crossbow bolt zipped by him, tearing open his left shoulder.

  He was up and running again. “Ha, Thomas! Got two!”

  “Yeah, and got clipped in the process. You keep up those odds and you’ll be dead, too!”

  Charles didn’t say anything back. Penny could tell how much his father’s death had upset him.

  “Here,” Lorelei said at last, coming to a halt at a spot along the river where train tracks crossed overhead to span the river.

  “Here?” Charles said. “Why here?”

  Arrows rained around them. Penny covered her head defensively. “Does it matter?” she said. “Let’s go!”

  Lorelei stepped to the edge of the water, and simply walked off the edge. She made a small splash as she went under.

  “Everyone, let’s go!” Charli called out, throwing a knife of her own before jumping off the edge.

  Charles followed her. And then Thomas was grabbing her by her hand, and together they dropped into the cold moving water of the Spree River. Arrows sailed past her when she opened her eyes, trailing bubbles, but all of their momentum disappeared underwater and they became nothing more than harmless sticks.

  The bullets that started zipping everywhere were another matter.

  Penny let Thomas tug her along in the direction that Lorelei swam. The girl now had a tail of shimmering scales poking out from under her dress.

  Wonderful, Penny thought as she held her breath. Just one more way that I’m inferior to her.

  (CHAPTER 3) Breakfast at Poseidon’s

  Penny held her breath until she thought her lungs would explode. Did the Nixie realize that she and Charles couldn’t breathe underwater?

  When Penny could no longer keep going, Thomas came up and breathed the stale air from his lungs into her. Charli did the same for Charles.

  Lorelei pointed ahead of them. All that Penny saw was a jumbled mess of seaweed and river junk. Penny assumed that it was just a cover for whatever was behind it. But whatever was behind the mess, Penny hoped that there would be air. She wasn't sure how long she could continue breathing recycled vampire air.

  The desperate desire for fresh air kept Penny from dwelling on the death on Mr. Wolf. While he had generally been a quiet man, he had always been kind to Penny, treating her like his own daughter.

  The mermaid reached the pile of seaweed and pulled it away, revealing a small tunnel. Charles made a desperate motion for air. Lorelei held up one finger. Penny hoped that mean that their destination wasn't much father. Thomas and Charli blew another round of stale air into the humans. It wasn't quite enough for Penny; she started to feel dizzy. Lorelei swam over and pressed her lips against Penny's. The mermaid's air was fresh and tasted like a fresh ocean breeze. When the mermaid pulled away, she saw Charles and Thomas grinning. Penny rolled her eyes and followed the water creature down the water filled passage. She didn't have time to deal with silly boys and their fantasies. She wanted to get to fresh air that she could breathe on her own.<
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  After following Lorelei down the tunnel for no more than a few seconds, they emerged in a large underground cavern. Penny emerged and gasped for air. A second later Charles emerged gasping as well. The two humans dragged themselves onto the rocky shore. They sputtered on and watched as the vampires calmly broke through the surface of the water. Thomas and Charli gracefully swam over to the edge and pulled themselves up onto the rocky shelf.

  “You two okay?” Thomas asked, crawling over to Penny. He rubbed her back as she continued to gasp for air.

  “Yeah, but let’s not do that again,” Penny said between gasps of air.

  “Well, you’ll have to do it again to get back to the surface,” Lorelei said, smiling. Her fish tail swished in the water.

  “Great,” Penny said, shakily rising to her feet. “Do we have any further to go?” She looked around barren, rocky cavern. This wasn’t quite what she had imagined as the homeland of the Nixen.

  “Not in the water,” Lorelei said, pulling herself onto the shore. She splashed the water off her tale and her legs appeared again. She was completely dry except for the hem of her skirt.

  She motioned for them to follow her straight into solid rock.

  “Oh wait a sec,” Charles said grabbing the mermaid by the arm. “We can’t walk through rocks.”

  “And neither can I,” Lorelei said, stopping right in front of the seemingly solid surface. “It’s not solid. Just looks solid.”

  Penny and Charles looked at each other in disbelief. “The things that we see,” Penny said stepping up to the wall.

  “Ah, come on, you’ve walked into plenty of walls before,” Thomas laughed as he stuck his hand through the wall. “We really need to get as hidden as possible right now and the Nixen world is a great place to hide while things cool down top side.”

  “Cool down?” Charles said, snorting. “They killed dad!”

  “Yeah,” Charli said narrowing her eyes in hate, “as far as I am concerned, things won’t cool down till every Brotherhood scum is dead.”

  “Hey, he was my dad too,” Thomas said walking straight through the wall without waiting for Lorelei. “Holy crap…”