“All ready, Gran?” Alice asked. It was later than she’d hoped but somehow this Friday had produced a bumper crop of patients.
“Just about, my love. Peter, you help me load this lot into the car. Alice, don’t forget the corkscrew, just in case Gloria doesn’t have one. And Peter, leave the cake, that’s a surprise. We’ll bring it tomorrow.”
“You women are doing yourselves nicely,” he said as he hefted the hamper and made for the door. “I’m beginning to think we should join you.”
“No need. No need,” Gran replied. “Howell has a chicken in the oven for you lot before you repair to the Pig and Whistle.”
“How did you manage the cake?”
“Ways and means, Peter. We have eggs, I’d been saving up sugar for Christmas, and I shamed Sam Whorleigh into parting with some dried fruit. It’s little enough by all accounts considering what he could be doing to help. Now don’t forget the stakes.”
“Gran, we all have stakes. I took a batch to Gloria last night and there’s a bundle in the car.”
“Can’t be too careful, especially after dark, my love.”
“What’s this?” Peter asked as he picked up a carrier bag and looked inside. “You’re taking lingerie with you?”
“Something blue and borrowed for Gloria.”
“And red?”
Trust him to poke. She grabbed the bag and shoved everything back in. So much for ironing and folding them.
“Red and borrowed?”
He wasn’t going to give up. “For Mary, and don’t ask. It’s a woman thing.”
Especially since Gran chuckled behind her. “Taking the initiative, is she? Good for her.”
Poor Peter looked downright confused. Just as well. She didn’t quite trust him not to let on to Gryffyth.
“Be a love and get those two bottles,” Gran said. “It’s elderflower Champagne Alice’s father made before the war. Should be nice and ready by now.”
They loaded it all in, along with the carefully wrapped wedding presents they’d rushed into Dorking to buy earlier that afternoon. Alice dropped Peter at the Pendragons’ house and headed for Gloria’s. Funny how the sexes split up before a wedding. No doubt went back to prehistoric days when men went hunting for brides and women stayed home and tended the fires.
They’d do more than tend fires tonight.
It was a meal and half, Mary decided. Not just the food, although how Mrs. Burrows managed she’d never know. Must be Pixie magic. It was the company of friends and watching Gloria’s happiness that made the evening.
“This is incredible,” Gloria said, her face flushed with excitement with her first glass of Champagne as they insisted she sit while they put the food out. “It’s lovely. Thank you all so much.”
“It’s my pleasure, my love,” Mrs. Burrows replied. “If the men are off enjoying themselves, why shouldn’t we do the same? No point in Alice and me eating alone up in that big kitchen. Besides, I do love a wedding and this seems to be the year for them.”
Was that smile aimed at her? Mary suspected so. “What about yours?” Mary asked. Then wondered if she’d been too forward.
Seemed not. Mrs. Burrows laughed. “All in good time, my love. All in good time. He kept me waiting to ask me. He can hang on a bit. I told him I’d marry him after we’ve taken care of all these dratted Vampires.”
“How many are there?”
“And how,” Alice asked, “will you ever know if we’ve got them all? You could keep the poor man waiting until doomsday.”
“I don’t think so,” Gran replied. “It’ll all be taken care of before Christmas, you mark my words.”
No one called her optimistic or asked for clarification, so Mary didn’t either. “Are we ready for the pie?” she asked. A steak and kidney one was keeping warm in the oven.
“Good idea, my love. I think we’re ready.”
Alice was stooping to take it out of the oven when there was a knock on the door.
“I wonder who that is?” Gloria said, getting up to open the door.
“A surprise,” Mrs. Burrows said.
“A present from Sir James Gregory,” Alice said, with a big grin.
“Sir James?” Gloria echoed. “Why?”
“Not some of droit du seigneur, is it?” Mary asked.
Mrs. Burrows let out a laugh. “No, my love, not that.” There was another rap on the door. “Better let him in.”
Gloria lifted the blackout curtain and opened the door. “Yes?”
“Miss Prewitt? I was asked to deliver this.” He held out a basket.
“Come in.” Gloria lifted the curtain and a young man stepped inside.
“Here,” he said, handing her a basket of camellias.
They were lovely, but Alice and Mrs. Burrows were staring at the man.
“You!” Alice said.
He turned and stared at her.
It all happened so fast. He snarled, leapt at Alice, claws extended, then lurched back, staggering. Gloria dropped the basket and turned to grab a stake from the pile by the dresser.
Mary was closer and faster. She grabbed one and leapt across the kitchen and drove it deep into his chest.
The snarl became an ungodly shriek that echoed in the low-ceilinged room. He staggered backward, hands tugging at the stake. Seemed all of them had stakes in their hands by now, but it was Gloria who got him from behind. He staggered forward, knocking dishes off the table and overturning chairs until he collapsed on the floor with a hideous gurgle.
All four stood, horrified. Staring as he twitched and kicked and then went still.
“So that’s a Vampire?” Mary said, in a voice much higher than usual.
“Yes,” Gloria and Alice replied, almost in unison.
“Was a Vampire,” Mrs. Burrows said.
Then the stench came, in a great cloying cloud of foulness.
“Open the door,” Mary said.
“Can’t.” Gloria said. “What about the blackout?”
“Turn off the lights, grab a torch.” Trust Mrs. Burrows to think fast.
Mary grabbed the torch off the dresser. Gloria doused the light and opened the back door.
“How long do we stand out here?” Mary asked. “You’ve killed them before, I haven’t.”
“It was out of doors,” Gloria said. “I noticed the smell but it wasn’t as bad as this.”
“Best leave the door wide open. We should have brought out some chairs,” Alice said. “Got any deck chairs in the shed, Gloria?”
“Only one, and it needs new canvas. Sorry.” She gave a groan. “Here I was, anticipating a lovely dinner, and instead we’re standing in the flipping cold while the men are snug and warm.”
“Maybe we should join them?” Alice suggested.
“Why not?” Gloria asked. “It would be rather fun to troop in there, and when they ask what we’re doing, tell them my kitchen is out of bounds because it’s been stinked up by a Vampire.”
Mary capped it when she added, “I can just see it, years down the road, Gloria, when you have children at your knee and some little treasure looks at you and asks, What did you do in the war, Mummy?”
That set them all off. Alice felt tears running down her cheeks. Mary and Gloria were hugging each other for support and Gran was laughing so hard, Alice feared she’d have an attack.
“Pipe down,” she said. “At this rate we’ll have people coming out of their houses to see what happened.”
They calmed at last, laughed out and weary.
“Best laugh I’ve had in years,” Gran said, “but we need to go back and clean up. He should have dissolved by now.”
“Is that what happens?” Mary asked.
“Yes,” Alice replied. “It’s a bit disgusting. It was hard enough to get off the drive. I dread to think what it’s done to the floor.”
“Best get in and take care of it,” Gran said. “Before someone reports us as drunk and disorderly.”
“Oh, my,” Gloria said. “If Constable Parl
ett comes along and wants to know what’s going on, what could we say?”
“Sorry, Constable. We’ve just done in a Vampire. We won’t do it again,” Alice suggested.
Gloria let out another laugh.
“I hope I don’t have to,” Mary said. “It was nasty.”
No one disagreed.
And Gran had been right about the mess on the floor. There was a heap of foul-smelling black sludge right by the sink, half oozed over one of the upended chairs. Broken china and spilled food seemed minor by comparison.
Alice looked at the mess. It had been hard enough cleaning up outside. This was going to be ten times worse.
“Let’s get going then,” Gran said. “It’s a nasty mess, but nothing four women with mops and buckets can’t manage. Now. Gloria, we need a shovel and a mop, and where’s your bucket?”
Under the sink, and Mary fetched another from the bathroom. Using the coal shovel and a chamber pot, they scooped and filled both buckets. There was still a good deal left.
“What on earth do I do with it?” Gloria asked. “Think it will work on the compost heap?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Bela jerked as the rush of power hit her.
“Are you alright?” Simon asked. When she bumped him, he slopped stew over himself and on the ground.
“Yes. Just jumped, sorry I knocked you.”
“Not to worry, as long as I can get a second helping.”
Jurgen, who seemed to be chief cook and forager, refilled Simon’s dish from the communal cooking pot. “Don’t spill this,” he said. “Supplies aren’t limitless.”
“I’ll be careful.” Simon seemed stung by the comment, but Bela understood. Food was always scarce up in the mountains, doubly so this time of year, and the group had skinned and stewed two rabbits in their honor. Two extra mouths to feed was a burden. They couldn’t stay much longer.
Seemed Willi, the leader of the group, felt exactly the same.
“We have the first two stops arranged,” he said, later that evening. “After that they will give you contacts as you go. No one knows much, it’s safer that way.”
“What about papers for Bela?” Simon asked. “I’ve my fake set but she has nothing.”
It had been so long since anyone had even thought, much less worried, about her safety or danger, she almost gasped. “I can manage,” she said.
“Not if we go anywhere near a town or even most villages. Once they stop you and you don’t have papers, it’s all over.”
No one argued. He was right. “What if we keep cross country?”
“There’s bound to be times we need to go into a village, if only for food. And you’re not planning to walk all the way to Switzerland, are you?”
She had been, but “It might be the safest,” was all she said.
“Not in this weather,” Jurgen said. “Use the safe houses.”
“How safe is anywhere?” Simon asked. That she didn’t translate.
“How soon can we start?” she asked instead. They’d been undisturbed in the new hideout for almost two days but it was only a matter of time. Rachel might break, or they’d recapture the Frenchman. To say nothing of Rolf and Hans.
Every hour was a danger.
“Tomorrow, at dawn,” Willi said. I’ll show you the way. Pity you don’t have skis.”
“We’ll manage.” With the power surging inside, she could carry Simon, if needed.
“What happened back during dinner?” Simon asked, as they walked back toward the camp after their nightly stroll to the latrine pits.
“It’s complicated.”
“More complicated than both our natures?”
“Linked to them.” They were speaking in English, with little danger of being overheard and considerably less of being understood, and if he didn’t mind standing out in the cold, this was as good a time as any. “Let’s walk a bit more.”
They walked for almost an hour before they headed back.
“Good God!” he muttered from time to time, interspersed with the occasional “Blimey!” but he listened, and it was a strange sort of joy to speak of the fantastic and to be believed.
“So three are dead?” he said, when she finished. “That leaves one more.”
“I think he will fail too. The English must have a spell-caster or a powerful witch working for them.”
He was too much of a gentleman to argue, but the thought of the War Office conscripting witches and wizards almost had him laughing. What a thought! If they existed—but given that Bela and he existed, and so, apparently, did Vampires—who was he to offer a differing opinion? Old Mother Longhurst back home had been reputed to be a witch, but he couldn’t see her being anyone’s secret weapon.
There was one thing bothered him though. “When you had the mind link thingy with them, did you ever know where they were?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer, but damn it, a man couldn’t help worrying.
“Seldom. I was in their thoughts, that was all. I caught thoughts of London and Churchill more than once.” To be expected, if they were out to aid the invasion of England. “And they used to meet at one place. Where the leader, Weiss, lived. A place I’d never heard of before. Geelford.”
“God, no! Guildford?”
“That might be it. You know this place?”
Like the damn back of his hand. “It’s near my home. A big market town.”
In the silence of the woods, he heard her sigh. “You are worried. You have family, relatives there?”
“My sister, my grandmother. Our parents are dead.”
“I am sorry. Just the two of them?”
“I’ve a younger brother. He’s in the navy. Hope he’s alright.” Couldn’t think “safe.” How could he be, out on the high seas?
“But you worry for your sister and grandmother.”
“With Vampires tramping over the countryside, you bet.”
“But only one Vampire. Someone is killing them. I know when they die.”
He didn’t think a Vampire could die. Wasn’t the whole point that they were already dead? But Bela seemed so certain, and seeing the four monsters had as good as raped her, she was the expert here. “Maybe they’ve been on a killing spree?”
“No!”
“You sound very certain.”
“I am. Of that much. When I entered Weiss’s mind once, he was berating Eiche for killing, said it would draw unwanted attention.”
And if three Vampires were goners, maybe it had. “Still can’t help worrying. Think of the bombing.”
“There’s bombing here too,” she pointed out, “but I understand. I still worry about my family and they are all dead. All but Onkle Kurt and Tante Elise.”
He reached out for her hand. “We’ll get there.”
“I know. How can we fail together? My parents spoke of Elves and Sprites, but never Pixies. Now that we have formed an alliance, we will escape. I’m strong and will be stronger when the last Vampire dies.”
Couldn’t come too soon as far as he was concerned. “Do you know how they die?”
She shook her head. “I just know when they are dead. It must be the link the Germans forced us to forge. I take in their anima, their life force. I am very glad you English have this great spell-caster at your service.”
The thought of some Merlin-type figure traipsing over the North Downs and zapping Vampires was a bit hard to swallow. He chuckled.
“You laugh?” she asked. “Why?”
He told her.
“Someone must have great magic,” she insisted. “If not a spell-caster, then perhaps a strong Other. Your grandmother or perhaps your sister?”
This time he laughed aloud. The idea of Gran abandoning jam making and knitting to chase after Vampires, or brainy Alice—who’d told him as a child that Gran’s stories were just that: stories—taking up Vampire hunting, was just too much for words. “I don’t think so but I hope whoever it is, they take care of the last bloodsucker.”
“Why should
they fail with one when they’ve conquered three?”
Good point, but a man couldn’t help worrying at the thought of Vampires running rampant over his home. “Think we’d better go back before they send out search parties for us?”
“I don’t think they will. If we die of cold, they won’t weep over our graves.”
Maybe not, but they were greeted by what had to be ribald comments when they got back. Poor Bela blushed. Damn! “Put a sock in it!” he said, not having much hope they’d understand. Suddenly remembering a phrase learned from a German pupil at his school, he snapped, “Halt die Schnauze.”
“Ah. She kip you varm, Englander!” Jurgen snickered, as Simon reached for his sleeping bag.
But he did make a point of lying next to Bela. Just to make sure no one bothered her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Weiss felt like humming as he drove away. He had the grocer creature captive and the satisfaction of putting Schmidt in his place. He was getting a far too inflated notion of his worth. Let him deliver those flowers and get back by his own feet. Or he could fly, if he had enough reserves of energy.
Driving carefully, no point in inviting the inconvenience of being stopped by the local constabulary, Weiss drove back to Wharton Lacey, pulling the lorry up close to the stables. Hoisting the creature, who moaned rather pathetically, over his shoulder, he mounted the rickety steps to the loft and dumped his prisoner in the last room. It was dark, cold and dingy—so what? He wasn’t entertaining a valued ally but a creature he wanted to investigate. A creature who’d bested him once and, if reports were right, had evaded Bloch’s embrace and maybe even killed him. Although the idea of this pathetic specimen destroying a Vampire was beyond reason.
“What are you?” Weiss asked, looking at the cringing figure whimpering at his feet. Whorleigh had the effrontery to sneer. A good kick and a sharp jerk on the chain to tighten it took care of that. Still, he might recover, or be desperate enough to uncoil the chain.
Weiss lifted him onto the bed frame, looping the end of the chain through the wire springs and testing to be sure they’d last a few minutes. Foraging downstairs he found a chunk of concrete, used no doubt to prop open doors, but perfect for anchoring the two ends of the chain. Just in case the thing got its voice back, he gagged him with Schmidt’s spare shirt. Then he tore the creature’s trouser at the crotch and bit him in the groin. Just to let him know what was in store. He made laudable efforts to resist but didn’t have a hope against the power of a Vampire.
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