The plan seemed to be going without a hitch. Charli and Charles had set numerous traps and started spreading misinformation. Penny was finally able to take revenge for her family. Priscilla was not surprised that Thomas turned against her, but she was not expecting a human hiding in the dark to stab in the heart with a wooden stake. With Thomas by her side and Priscilla dead, Penny felt a sense of peace she had not known in over a year.
"Everybody ready?" Thomas said into his microphone. It was 4:30 and he and Penny were just inside the main door to the sanctuary. A chorus of yeses resounded through his ear piece. "Good, because as soon as the traps start to spring we need to get out of here."
The other three waited in a side passage that came out closer to the field, but Thomas wanted to sabotage the front door, and a vampire was needed for that.
"Fine," Charlotte said. "Let's just get this over with and get out of here."
"Okay, let's get the show on the road," Thomas said to the group. At Thomas's word, Charles set in motion a series of traps around the sanctuary. Thomas and Penny strolled up to the guards at the front gate.
"Hi, guys," Thomas said, keeping a conversational tone. "I was wondering if you could do me a huge favor?" Thomas leaned against the wall.
"Yes, sir," a guard said. They were on full alert and prepared to follow any order from their commander.
"Good. I've been told that there are two Brotherhood scouts that are just by the gates. Do you think that you could step out for just a minute and take care of it?" At that moment, there was an explosion in the center of the Sanctuary. The first of the twins' mischief had begun.
"What was that?" one of the guards asked.
"The Brotherhood must be causing problems already," Thomas said in an excited tone. "Take out those scouts. My thrall and I will watch here." Penny didn't exactly like being called a thrall, but it was fun to see Thomas expertly manipulate the vampires.
When the guards were outside, Thomas permanently disabled the gate and its associated charms. Anyone would be able to enter now, so even the vampires that didn't pursue the family would be left vulnerable to attack.
Thomas grasped Penny securely in his arms and ran with every ounce of his vampire energy. Even though Penny knew the danger of the moment, she still relished being buried in Thomas's chest. They fled the sanctuary knowing that a horde a vampires would be only minutes behind them. Hopefully they would have enough luck and talent to be able to take out both sides: the Brotherhood and the Wolf family's coven.
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.
And right after that transmission, Charli, on the other side of them, let everyone know, "So does the Brotherhood. And they don't look happy."
"Do they ever?" Thomas joked. Penny laughed and wondered how he could keep a sense of humor at a time like this.
Behind them, the Djinn leaned in between them. "I don't suppose we could just let them beat on each other? Work this out with their own fists and teeth?"
Penny still wasn't sure what to make of the Djinn. The fact that he had filled her shoes with strawberry Jello didn't really help her opinion of him.
"No, it wouldn't work," Thomas explained. "They won't stop until they get to us."
Mr. Wolf waved to them from across the clearing, behind two birch trees. The groups were getting close.
"You remember what to do?" Thomas said. Penny could hear the concern for her behind his words.
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.