Penny's Choice (Book 1 of Penny's Choice Series)

Chapter 9 (The Day of Reckoning)

She leaned into Thomas more, placing her hand on his. "Yes, Thomas. I remember. Don't worry about me."

His hand gripped hers. "I do worry about you. Just remember that."

A crashing through the trees on their right signalled the approach of the Brotherhood. Penny couldn't hear the vampires approaching from the left. 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.

"Now?" the Djinn asked.

"Not yet," Thomas said.

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.

"Yes!" the Djinn roared a look of incredible happiness on his face. "NOW!"

The Djinn raised both arms upward and soared into the sky, his greyish skin glowing. Using his magic, he now unleashed the traps he had set up before. 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.

The same thing happened under the feet of the vampires, exploding them up and out and over each other.

The difference was, the vampires landed back on their feet and kept coming.

Thomas and Penny looked at the Djinn. The expression of triumph slid slowly from his face. "Oops," he said.

"Oops?" Thomas echoed. "Seriously?"

"It's not my fault!" the grey-skinned magic-wielder blurted out.

With a growl, Thomas' eyes turned blood red, 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's way. Every vampire that fell in her sights got a fire bullet through the middle of his forehead or his heart. 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. She had time for a single thought: she was going to die.

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 touched her earpiece. "Charles, Charli, where are you?"

"Oh, now you care?" Charles asked.

"Shush, Charles," Penny heard Charli say. "Just do your part."

"Yeah, yeah. Go soak your teeth."

Penny smiled at the playful banter between the two siblings. But then 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.

The Djinn appeared here and there around the battlefield, working mischief and mayhem. Here it appeared, and a vampire found itself sinking into the ground suddenly soft as quicksand. Here it popped into view long enough to blow dust into the face of one of the Brotherhood, blinding him painfully. Each attack of the Djinn was followed up by either the slashing claws of a werewolf or the furious attack of Charli or Thomas.

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—"

Its words cut off as a shower of dust fell around her, and the vampire was no longer holding her.

"Stupid vampires. Always talk too much."

Penny turned over to find Charles standing over her, a knife still in his hand, which he must have used to kill the vampire before it could take her.

"Thank you," she said. Everything that had been between them now hung heavy in the air. The love he had professed for her, the way she had felt for him, her choice to be with Thomas. It was there in his eyes as he looked at her. And then he blinked and waved a hand, as if to say it all didn't matter anymore.

And then he raised the detonator in his other hand and spoke a simple command through his earpiece. "Fall back."

The command went out from those who had the earpiece communicators to all of their allies on the field. The Djinn whisked here and there to give the signal. And almost as one, the clearing emptied of everyone who was not Coven or Brotherhood.

And Charles pressed the red button.