Charles' Choice (Penny's Choice) (2 page)

Charles gave her a stern look.
“Just a regular human please.”

Charles and Penny strolled along the road until they reached the Spree
River
. Before the
German R
eunification, the Spree River was part of the border between East and West Berlin. Many people were killed trying to cross it.
The street was empty except for Charles and Penny and a pretty young girl slouched over on a bench. She looked like a gypsy with her slightly tattered, old fashioned clothing.

Penny leaned on the railing and looked over the river. “Where exactly did he say he was going to meet us?’ Penny asked.

“I don’t know,” Charles replied, leaning his back on the railing.

“Excuse me,” the gypsy girl said walking up to them, “but I was wondering if you could help me out.” Penny noticed that the hem of her dress was wet.

Charles and Penny looked at each. Gypsies approaching you in the middle of the night was never a good thing, but they had fought plenty more vicious creatures
than a
pack of gypsies, who were known to be non-violent.
Penny thought for a brief second that she could be Brotherhood, but the girl was not Brotherhood style in the least.

“Depends,” Penny said turning around and looking the girl. Something seemed a little off about the girl, but Penny couldn’t place her fingers on it. “What do you need?”

The girl smiled and revealed a row of green teeth. Charles jumped back slightly. Even with her green teeth, she was more than just your average pretty. She put her
hands
up peacefully.

“I am in need of mate,” she said, matter-o-
factly
.

“Well, there you go Charles,” Penny said, reaching behind to touch her dagger.

“I said human, right?” Charles said, taking on a defensive stature.

“Human? Of course I
am human,” the girl said, t
rying to look surprised.

“Look, whatever you are, we aren’t looking for trouble, okay?” Charles said, inching away from the beautiful green teethed creature.

“I don’t want trouble,” she said, beginning to look really desperate. “I just really need a mate. I can’t go back without one.”

Penny saw Thomas and his sister and father round the bend. They stopped when they saw the creature talking with Charles and Penny.

The woman stopped her pleading and sniffed the air. She slowly turned around and screamed when she saw the three vampires. She back
ed
up into Charles.
“Vampires!
You have to run!”

Charles wrapped his arms around her preventing her from getting away. “Don’t worry, lady,” he said. “Those are just my family. They won’t hurt you.”

The three vampires approached cautiously
and slowly, not wanting to spook
the other non-human among them.

The green teethed woman wriggled under Charles strength. “Look, I don’t want to hurt you. Like I said earlier, we don’t want any trouble, but it looks like you could use our help.”

She looked up at Charles and then back to the slowly advancing vampires.

“Hi there,” Thomas called over to them.
“Lovely night for a stroll.
Why don’t you put the poor Nix
ie
down before she
sings and drowns you
, okay?”

Penny had no idea what the girl was and the term Nixie didn’t mean anything to her either. But the green teeth intrigued her.

“You stay here okay? If I let you go,” Charles said as he lessened his grip. She stayed put, but looked like she was ready to jump in the Spree at any moment.

“Do you just attract supernatural creatures?” Thomas said to Penny as he approached the group.

Penny rolled her yes. “I think that Charles is the one that attracted this one
.” She gave Thomas a drawn out kiss on the lips. She sighed as she pulled away. She never got tired of kissing Thomas.

Thomas folded his arms around her. “I see that you missed me,” he said.

“So Chuck,” Charli said, ignoring the lovers, “You’ve attracted a Nixie. That’s a new one. So far all you generally attract is evil vampires and brotherhood scum.”

“Brotherhood,” the Nixie said, pressing her body against the river railing. “There aren’t here are they?”

“No,” Charles said shaking his head. “I left the Brotherhood along with my...Penny.” Charles hated explaining what had happened to him.

“Wait,” the Nixie said, pulling away from the railing. “You’re him, the Defector!”

“The what?”
Charles asked, wondering what was going on in this creature’s obviously fried brain.

“A defector is someone,” Thomas joked.

“I know what a defector is,” Charles said, slapping his brother across the head.

“Charles Wolf!” The Nixie said, triumphantly. “Wow, I can’t believe I am meeting you and your family. You are such an inspiration to all of his in the otherworld.
I am so glad that I didn’t drown you.
”

“You were going to drown me?” Charles said, looking hurt.

“Of course, I’m
eine
Nixe
, it’s what I do,” she said, reaching a slender hand up to Charles cheek. “Just like vampires eat people,
Nixen
drown them.”

“Um, why?”
Charles asked.

“Well, for me, I have a deal to uphold,” she said and sighed deeply. “My sister goes free if I bring back the semen of a young man.”

“That’s an odd trade,” Penny said, trying to hold back a smile, but failing and bursting out in laughter.

“Geez Charles, you must have some pretty potent semen to draw out a Nixie,”
Charli
said, joining P
enny in laughter.

“Shut up!” Charles said. He backed away suspiciously from the Nixie.
“Why on Earth do you need my…junk?”

“
Nixen
males are sterile,” Thomas said. “So in order to breed, the Nixie
have
to find human males.”

“Well, can’t they, you,” Charles looked at the female, “just do it the old fashioned way?”

“Well, first of all we need to remain hidden,” she said looking down at the ground. “You should know that. And second, would you want to give me a baby the ‘old fashioned’ way? Human men tend to be turned off by the green teeth.”

“Well, if
I had a choice between that or
drowning,” Charles said, relaxing
just a little
. “I would choose the green teeth. They aren’t really that bad.”

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.

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?”