Chapter Nine
Charlie
I was concerned at the amount of blood Jake had lost and the struggle he had to breathe but when I tried to get up he pulled me back down shaking his head.
"Listen to me Charlie...there is a vampire after Bella...she'll go through us to get to her...if she gets in...keep shooting at the head...don't stop until you run out of ammo...pack is on its way."
His fight for breath was becoming harder and I knew the lad was dying in my arms, now he was hallucinating too, vampires indeed! I heard a noise upstairs in the house and cocked my rifle ready pointing it at the door. It sounded as if someone was throwing furniture around and I heard curses and snarls, what the hell was up there? Then the footsteps approached the cellar door and I heard a chuckle,
"Come out little wolfie, come and play. Did you really think you could defeat me?"
There was a short pause and then I heard a crack as something hit the door hard, once, twice, on the third attempt the lock gave way and the door crashed against the wall to reveal a beautiful red-head with glittering red eyes and a huge smile.
"Wolf boy, did I hurt you? Oh dear. Now, where's the bitch?"
I could see there were scars on her bare arms as if she'd been hurt recently but was healing.
I sent the first shot wide but she just laughed,
"Trying to frighten me human? You'll have to do better than that."
I started to shoot as she moved incredibly fast towards me sheltering Jake behind me.
The first couple of shots didn't even slow her but I did as Jake told me and aimed at her head and I knew they were hitting, I was a good shot, I'd won trophies. She hesitated only about ten feet from us, chunks of her face and skull missing but there was no blood and no sign it was really hurting her then I heard a roar from the top of the stairs and a pack of wolves poured down in to the cellar throwing themselves on her as she screamed her anger grasping my rifle and ripping it from my hands. She twisted it and struck me in the face as she fell. The pain was terrible and I heard the crunch of breaking bone then I lost consciousness amid the snarls and screams.
Sam
As soon as we got the call from Billy we set off at full run to Charlie's, leaving behind only Quil and Embry to find Paul. The stench of vampire was thick in the air when we entered the house. It looked like a tornado had wreaked havoc with the furniture, wooden chairs in pieces on the floor and huge gashes in the plaster walls where the table had been hurled against it. Seeing the cellar door hanging off I left Seth and Brady to guard our backs and the rest followed me down into the cellar to see Charlie firing a rifle at the leech who snatched it from him as we closed in on her and hit him in the face with it. She went down hard and we made sure she would never get up again, ripping her into tiny pieces which were then collected by the younger members of the pack and burned as I phased back to human form and lifted Charlie up. Behind him lay Jake and as Jared knelt down at his side I saw his lips move briefly before his eyes closed and his heart stopped beating. The leech had killed at least one of my pack and possibly two as we hadn't heard Paul's thoughts, but we had killed her.
"What did he say?"
"Bella's safe"
"Is that all?"
"Yeah and that was only a whisper."
Charlie lay limp in my arms and I decided to take him upstairs into the house so I could see just how badly hurt he was. I could hear his heart beating and his chest was rising and falling but his eyes were closed and there was a terrible open wound on his forehead. Wiping the blood away there was just enough time to see that his skull was fractured before the blood covered the sight again.
"Jared, get Jake's body out of here and set fire to the cellar. Its got to look like a home invasion gone wrong."
He nodded and with the help of the others they quickly carried out my orders. Now there was only Charlie and myself in the house. I grabbed the phone to call 911 when I heard Bella's voice. It was too late to stop her from coming in so I was glad she wouldn't be alone because I needed to leave. I wiped the phone and then putting Charlie down gently I ran outside phasing as I did so. There could be no trace of any Quileute connection, it would be too difficult to explain much as I hated leaving Bella to find her father like that.
Bella
We were almost at the house when I smelled smoke and looked around,
"Do you smell anything Mary?"
She nodded, then with a look of horror pointed to the corner of the house where the basement window usually let in some light only now it was letting out smoke. I screamed my dads name and ran for the front door relieved it was never locked. Inside the hall was as usual but when I got into the kitchen I looked around in horror. The place had been trashed and my dad lay on the threshold, his face covered in blood. Mary grabbed his arms while using her cell phone to call for the emergency services.
"Come on let's get him outside before the smoke fills the kitchen."
Between us we started to carry him out coughing and choking from the thick acrid smoke billowing up from the basement.
Once outside I put my dads head in my lap and used my jacket to wipe away some of the blood, relieved to see he was still breathing but horrified at the terrible injury to his head. I stayed like that as first the fire department and then Deputy Eddy turned up followed closely by an ambulance. Dad was rushed away to the hospital in Port Angeles while Eddy tried to find out from us what had happened but there was very little we could tell them. After satisfying himself that we had not witnessed the attack Eddy offered us a lift to the hospital but Mary told him she would drive me.
"You'd better wash and change first Bella."
I looked down at Eddy's words and saw what he meant. I was covered in my dads blood.
"I've got something that will fit you Bella, come on".
We went back to Mary's place and I showered quickly before pulling on the pants and jumper she left out for me. I hadn't cried I'd been too shocked to cry, who had done that to my dad? In the back of my mind something nudged at the edges of consciousness but didn't break through and I ignored it as we raced to the hospital praying dad would survive.
