“Well, then,” the surly faced driver asked. “Where is he?”
A very good question.
Four of them, including the rather good-looking driver’s helper, crowded into the examining room. Gran looked bewildered—and worried. Sid Mosley, the older driver Alice had met before, shook his head. “Flown the coop has he? Can’t have been as hurt as you thought, Doctor.”
Obviously. “He certainly had me fooled. He could barely stand a few hours ago. I needed Sergeant Pendragon’s help to get him in here.” The discarded and bloody dressing tossed on the floor and the crumpled blankets were sure proof she had not dreamed the entire incident. How Mr. Smith had managed to stand and walk, much less disappear, was beyond her.
“He must have gone out through the house,” Gran said. “We’d surely have noticed if he’d come through the surgery.”
Odd that Susie, her spaniel, hadn’t barked but…“I’m sorry you had a wasted journey.” There’d no doubt be a round of laughs over this. She could just hear Sid Mosley: “You know that new lady doctor over in Brytewood? Called us out there because a chap was half dying and he got up and walked away before we arrived.”
“How about a nice cup of tea before you head back?” Gran asked. Trust her to offer the eternal panacea.
Sitting at the kitchen table while the kettle boiled and Gran lined up cups and saucers, Alice had a chance to sum up the other man. Not as young as she’d thought at first—close to her own age probably. Not bad looking either. Not that she was about to start ogling the ambulance crews. Quiet, not quite meeting anyone’s eyes, but when she did meet his gaze he returned her look, his calm brown eyes cautious and intelligent.
“I didn’t catch your name,” she said as Gran put plates and a custard tart on the table. More experiments with dried egg. Alice hoped it tasted better than the mayonnaise last week.
“Why that looks delicious, Mrs. Burrows,” Sid Mosley said, all but smacking his lips together.
“It’s Watson. Peter Watson,” the younger one replied, as if Mosley hadn’t spoken.
Alice took the hand he held out. His fingers were long, his grip strong, and when he smiled, his eyes crinkled at the corners. Nice smile too: even down to the little dimple in his chin. Definitely worth looking at twice.
“Watson?” Gran looked up from spooning tea into the pot. “There are a lot of Watsons around here.” And two more since last night. “Any connection?” Gran asked as she reached for the boiling kettle.
“No, madam,” Peter Watson replied. “My family is from Devon.”
The lid met the pot with a loud ding. “Really? Where? I’m from near Dunstead. Came here when my daughter—Dr. Doyle’s mother—married.”
When Peter Watson smiled his face lit up. “I went to Blundells but my home was in Broad Clyst, down near Exeter.”
Gran was positively beaming as she handed him a cup of tea. “The most beautiful county in England. What brought you up here? The war?”
“He’s a conscie. A bloody CO!” Sid Mosley muttered.
The tick of the clock over the door was the only noise, apart for the dull sound of a clinker of burned coke shifting in the boiler. Even Gran stared before pouring another cup and handing it to Alice.
As if she wanted to eat and drink at the same table as a coward! Gran should be offering him a white feather not a cup of tea.
“Yes,” Peter Watson replied, his voice tight but steady. “I’m a Conscientious Objector. I was a student in London when the war broke out, so I went before a review board in London. Did my nine months in Pentonville. When I got out, they looked at my records, saw I was a couple of years off qualifying as a vet, so decided I was fit to be an ambulance driver.”
Alice couldn’t miss the irony in his voice, or the tinge of defiance, daring her to pass judgment. Well, darn it, she already had. They should have found him fit to shovel sludge.
“The ambulance service always needs drivers.” Trust Gran to break the silence. “And we’ll need every one of you if the bombing gets worse. Alice was up in London last week…” She shook her head and reached for the custard tart.
They’d have eaten in silence if Gran hadn’t kept the conversation going, asking the darn CO about his family. He had two half brothers, his father was dead, and his mother was still living, and, hopefully, suitably ashamed of her eldest son.
Sid Mosley answered Gran, even volunteered or comment or two of his own, but never, Alice noticed, did he say a word to his assistant.
“That was wonderful,” Mosley said as he polished of the last few crumbs. “Very welcome before a drive back in the dark.” After a fruitless trip out here, Alice added to herself. “But we’d best be back.” Without a word or a nod to Peter Watson, he left.
Peter Watson thanked Gran and shook hands and darn it, she even invited him back to talk about Devon. He gave Alice a cautious look. How she felt was no doubt written all over her face. “Thank you.” He didn’t offer his hand but said quietly, “Don’t judge me too harshly.”
The cheek of him! Alice gave a curt nod. She’d judge him just however she pleased.
“Gran! How could you invite him to come back?” Alice was close to bursting by the time the ambulance pulled away. “He’s a…”
“Young man a long way from home and lonely. And I’m an old woman who likes to talk about my home.”
Point taken. Deep breath needed. “Gran, Simon is sitting in a prison camp in Germany. Alan is risking his life on the high seas, and you are inviting a coward to tea.” She had to make her understand.
“Alice, my love—” Somehow, the soft Devon burr in her voice seemed more apparent that usual. “I lived though the other war and let me tell you, cowardice is usually the last reason for a man to be a CO. The cowards go along with the committed, not willing to stand up and be noticed. Whatever drove that young man to declare himself, it wasn’t cowardice. It takes backbone to stand against the opinion of the entire country and be willing to go to gaol for your convictions. You should perhaps talk to him.”
Never. “Yes, Gran. Where’s Susie? She’s usually right here when we’re eating.” And scrounging shamelessly.
Susie was in the lounge by the open French windows. Stiff and cooling. She’d been Alice’s pet for twelve years, and as she picked up the surprisingly light body, she fought back tears.
“I’ll help you bury her,” Gran said. “Let’s put her under the plum tree.”
“I wonder what killed her?”
“She was an old dog,” Gran replied.
Old but not sick. Maybe she should ask the not-quite-a-vet-conscie to look at Susie. No way in hell!
Chapter 2
Adlerroost, Bavaria
Bela Mestan had expected them sooner. It was several hours since the vampires’ departure. This time, they brought a third man with them. He smelled of danger and other people’s pain and her heart caught as she feared he was here to kill her.
They did not introduce him; she expected that. She did not even know their names. She’d been instructed to address them as Zuerst and Zweiten, first and second. Was this one Dritten?
“She will tell us what we want to know,” Zuerst said to the nameless man. “Go ahead,” he told her. “What happened?”
She shuddered and he smiled. They both knew the pain her connection with the vampires caused. It amused them.
“They left the plane,” she replied.
“And?” Zweiten asked. “Where are they now?”
She took a deep breath to win a little time to choose her words. They would not be pleased at what happened. “Eiche, Bloch, and Weiss landed safely and dispersed to their contacts.” The three men stared at her, waiting for the rest. “Schmidt was injured.”
“Badly?” Zweiten asked.
“How is this possible?” Dritten snapped at the other two.
Bela took a brief pleasure in seeing them both quail under Dritten’s fury. “He recovered,” she said, keeping her voice level. “He fell onto a tree and the w
ood poisoned him. He was rescued and found blood.”
Her own chilled at Zweiten’s laugh. “So some peasant found him and suffered in the cause. Good!”
His amusement froze at a glance from Dritten. This man must be the one who drove the entire mission. “Did he kill?” he asked Bela.
“I felt him absorb the life,” she replied. “He was weakened. Without it, he might have expired.” Would that have mattered? There were three others and vampires were next to indestructible. If they avoided falling on trees.
“He regained his strength?” Dritten asked.
“He was restored and is moving.”
“In what direction?”
Would they ever give her peace? She knew the answer to that. She was their tool. Her compliance the price of her family’s lives. She looked Zuerst in the eye, knowing it unnerved him. “That I cannot tell. He is not with any of the others.”
“Is he approaching them?”
“I will know when he gets near them.”
That satisfied them. Until tomorrow, or maybe later that night, when they might visit her again. She was at their beck and call and they all recognized that.
Alone in her cell, Bela looked out of the window toward the mountains on the horizon. Maybe the vampires would prevail. They could fly, had no need to respect frontiers, and guns or weapons could not harm them permanently. But had the foul Germans taken on monsters who would destroy them in return? And how had mere mortals coerced vampires to their cause? Using the same threats they’d used on her? Except fairies were far more likely to succumb to the rigors of the camps than vampires. Maybe the vampires had joined of their own volition, to thrive on the carnage and the killing.
Bela could only guess. Just as she could only guess at the safety or otherwise of her kindred. Who knew if any survived? None possessed her strength of telepathic powers. Maybe they were all dead, but she dare not risk refusing to collaborate, just in case the Germans kept their word and did spare her family.
But the price came hard. Linking with vampires. The filthy undead. Foul was not the word for the dark creatures who’d ripped her skin with their fangs and sucked her blood as she shuddered and struggled under them.
Chapter 3
Paul Schmidt ran through the evening. He was kilometers away from his contact and his safe house, but he was alive. Thanks to the good Samaritan of a doctor and her dog. It hadn’t been enough blood to repair all his loss, but killing the doctor seemed rather churlish after she’d saved him, and anyway, it would bring unwanted attention to the area. Orders were to sit tight, take up his job, and mingle unobtrusively with the pathetic inhabitants until he got the signal to move. Once he reached his rendezvous point that was.
At a guess, he was a good twenty-five or thirty kilometers away. Maybe more. It would help if he knew where he was, but painted-out signposts weren’t much use, even to vampire sight.
On the off chance, he slipped into the unlighted and unlocked church at the edge of the village. The obscured name board gave no hint, but a stamp on the inside of a tattered hymnal clearly stated PROPERTY OF THE CHURCH OF ST. MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS, BRYTEWOOD.
It was all he needed.
Back outside, in the shadow of the church wall, he pulled the emergency maps from the inside of his jacket lining. He’d been right, twenty, perhaps twenty-five kilometers, and he’d be in Guildford. A day late but his contact would be waiting. Had to be waiting.
The best way was across country, and, with a little bit of luck, he’d find a handy farm with convenient livestock along the way.
Dead cows wouldn’t attract the same attention as a dead doctor.
Paul Schmidt set off across the churchyard, leaping over a couple of gravestones and a crumbling memorial before deciding conserving strength was a better idea. He did vault the gray flint wall and stepped into the middle of the narrow lane, looking up at the canopy of stars to gauge north.
And sensed a brother vampire nearby.
Who?
This was not, he was convinced, some foppish, effete English vampire. This was one of his Aryan brothers. The brain rhythm was strong and reassuringly familiar. He’d sensed the same in his homeland in the Hartz Mountains. Only one other vampire hailed from that part of Germany. Could it truly be Gerhardt Eiche, or as he no doubt posed himself: Gabriel Oak? What a foolish affectation, taking his name from a nineteenth-century English novel. Far more sensible to take a clearly anonymous name. A name matching countless numbers of the enemy.
But foolishness or not. If Eiche were nearby…
Paul stood and cast his vampires senses around. Just down the lane on the left was a pair of flint cottages, up on the right a large house, perhaps the vicarage? He sensed mortal life in all of them. The large house was pretty much teeming with it. Children, he suspected from the heartbeats.
What he was searching for was brain activity with a slow, voluntary heartbeat.
He found it behind the green painted door of the first cottage. The sort of bucolic residence featured on calendars and penny postcards and no doubt once inhabited by the sort of yokel represented by Eiche’s namesake. Not a trace of light showed through the tightly drawn curtains, but as Paul raised his hand to the brass knocker, a voice asked, “Who’s there?”
Female, mortal, old, and nervous. What had Oak been up to? “A friend of Mr. Oak. I need your help.”
Eiche opened the door enough to peer out. A slash of light shot into the dark, highlighting the path and the bushes by the door. “What the hell?” he muttered, grabbing Schmidt’s arm and yanking him inside, shutting the door behind him. “You’ve no business here. This is not your contact.”
“I was injured on landing and went off course. I was on my way to my contact when I sensed you nearby.”
“You’re hurt! And your clothes! What happened?”
Glimpsing himself in the mirror over the mantelpiece, Schmidt understood the shock in the mortal’s voice. He looked frightful; his shirt and jacket dark with blood, and his arm bare where the doctor had cut off his sleeve. “I was. We heal.”
She was tall for a woman and slender. Her hair gray and her face lined. Her eyes bright with the zeal of a mortal on a world-altering mission. “You are a second one?” she asked.
Paul Schmidt nodded and held out his hand. “I am.”
“Well, I never! Welcome. I am Jane Waite and honored to aid you and play my part in the victory.” Her hand was thin, the skin papery with age, but her clasp was firmer than expected for a mortal of her advanced age.
“Paul Smith, at least in these islands. I apologize if I presume, but I need to rest and stay out of sight. Too many mortals have seen me already.”
“You can’t hole up here,” Eiche said as the old biddy opened her mouth to speak. “This is my safe house.”
And he was not about to share. Bastard! “I only need a rest. A few hours. And blood. I can make it across country if I get blood.”
The old biddy stepped back. Seemed her commitment to the Third Reich didn’t include her blood. “We certainly don’t want you caught out in the open. I’ll put the kettle on and find you a replacement shirt and jacket. Mr. Oak will explain about the blood.”
She nipped out of the room at a speed impressive, given her age. Paul turned to Eiche. “Well then, Mr. Oak, would you kindly explain about the food supply.”
Gerhardt grinned, showing his half-descended fangs, and let out a sharp harsh laugh. “My friend, there is a pig farm just outside the village. I had the benefit of it yesterday, be my guest tonight.”
“I will. Should be fully dark soon. You’ll direct me?”
Oak nodded. “By all means. And once you have rested, I will open the door for you.”
Couldn’t be more pointed. “I’ll be gone before morning.” High time he make his own contact after all.
Eiche inclined his head. Not a muscle in his face moved. So much for brotherly concern and native connection. Even for a vampire, his movements were slow and his mien threatening
. How he planned on blending in with these yokels was beyond Paul. Not that that was any worry of his.
“Everything settled then?” Miss Waite bustled back, a dark shirt and knitted jacket over her left arm. “All sorted out? The kettle’s on. I’ll have us a nice cup of tea as soon as it boils and here”—she held out the clothes—“you can change in the downstairs cloakroom. I hope they fit. I knitted the cardigan myself. Try not to get any blood on the floor. I just polished it.” She was like a damned caricature of an English spinster.
As he discarded his torn garments and washed in the minuscule hand basin, he couldn’t help wonder how she came to be so committed to their side. Not that he really cared. She was good for a few hours’ refuge and that was all that concerned him. That and how many cups of her infernal brew she expected him to digest. It was blood he craved. The dog had brought him back from semicomatose but he needed more. If Eiche hadn’t been watching him like a hunter, he’d have had his teeth in her stringy neck. As it was…
Two weak cups of tea later, after full darkness fell, Miss Waite washed up the cups and pulled on a knitted jacket the color of sludge. “I’ll leave you gentlemen to see to yourselves. There’s a village whist drive to raise money for the French refugees.”
Would be better to let them starve, but he supposed she had to blend in, as he would.
Once she was down the path, Eiche grudgingly led Schmidt over to Morgan’s pig farm.
“Don’t take more than you have to,” the self-styled Gabriel Oak said. “I’ll need to come here regularly. Better preserve the food supply.”
Paul set his eyes on a fat sow. “Plenty of possible two-legged fodder in this village. I’ve seen a few myself.”
“Yes,” Eiche replied. “And weaken them too soon and some fool doctor will notice and start to investigate.”
Since he already knew the local doctor’s propensity to intervene and aid, and thanked Abel for it, Paul just grunted and laid a calming hand on the sow’s neck, holding her upright as she leaned to one side, preparing to lie down. Getting his feet murky was quite enough; he was not about to kneel down in the mud and muck. He fastened his fangs into her ample neck and drew the warm blood. The old sow bled easily and amply. She wobbled a little on her fat little legs after he released her but otherwise seemed none the worst.
Bloody Good Page 2