Bloody Right Page 27

  “Good luck! Can you see her abandoning her class?”

  No, he couldn’t. “Maybe not, but I’m sure as hell not planting radishes the rest of the war.”

  “Wrong time of year for radishes. You plant those in the spring. Good luck.”

  He’d need it. This was a bat-brained idea if ever he’d had one. On the other hand, if Mary could stake a Vampire and Gloria could rip out another one’s throat, he ought to be able to do as much. He’d sent him running last time. This time he’d get him.

  He couldn’t see Whorleigh anywhere; no doubt he was still slogging it up the drive or lurking in the shrubbery. Then a flicker of a shadow by the stable caught his eyes. A swift movement, then it was gone. Whorleigh was here and doing his invisibility thing.

  The back door was opened by a young woman about Mary’s age. “Hello,” she said. “You the new gardener?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Come on in. Hope you last longer than the last one. Odd bloke he was.”

  She had no idea how odd.

  “Ah, Mr. Pendragon,” an older woman said as he stepped into the kitchen. “I’m Edith Aubin. Sir James wants a word with you.”

  More than a word, no doubt. He must be wondering why he’d been so eager to take the job.

  He wasn’t. Not the least. But he was curious how Gryffyth knew the former gardener had left. Because my fiancée staked him seemed a little too honest. “I heard word, Sir James. After Alice Watson came back from taking care of Sam Whorleigh. Was mentioned in the Pig last night too.” Was bound to have been.

  “But you called yesterday afternoon?”

  “Yes, sir, after Alice mentioned he’d gone. She knew I was looking for something. I can’t sit around and do nothing and I like the idea of working out of doors.”

  “There’ll be odd jobs too, when the weather’s bad. Miss Aubin will tell you what’s needed. Would you mind helping in the house if we want you to?”

  “Well, no. What sort of help?”

  “Serving food when we have guests, helping Miss Aubin out.”

  What had he let himself in for? “No, sir, but I might need a bit of help with knowing what to do. And transport might be a bit tricky. Can’t ride a bicycle yet. Alice Watson gave me a lift up here.”

  “Don’t suppose you’d care to live in?”

  Good God, no! “Thank you, sir, but I think Dad’s counting on me being home awhile.”

  “Talk to Miss Aubin. She’ll tell you what’s needed.” He held out his hand. Not the usual greeting for a gardener surely. “Glad to have you aboard. Hope you last longer than the last one.”

  That wouldn’t be hard.

  Thirty miles away, Jude Clarendon sat in a wingback chair and looked at Baynes and Parish, the two men his controller insisted were anxious to meet him. Maybe they were, but Jude had no interest in meeting them. Just home off a mission, all he wanted was to go to earth and restore himself. Instead he was being polite.

  “We need your particular skills and knowledge,” the one called Parish said.

  Jude nodded. They always did.

  “Recently we encountered a difficulty,” Baynes said.

  So had he, several of them, and nearly lost two good resistance workers to boot. “So I was led to understand.” He knew he wasn’t helping them along, but why should he? He was tired of humans who were afraid of him. Most were, and once this damn war was over, he’d fade into obscurity.

  “We’ve a difficulty. Not far from here. A place called Brytewood.”

  Jude nodded and thanked Providence for a Vampire’s control. How had the men in suits learned about Brytewood and its interesting inhabitants? What had they learned? “Tell me what you want.” He wasn’t feigning the tiredness. He was worn to his soul.

  What they told him chilled what was left of his spirit. His brave friends and the delightful Mrs. Burrows were in imminent danger of discovery from their own side and attack from yet another Vampire. The third, wasn’t it? Although he had every confidence in that little cluster of Others when it came to disposing of the enemy, they might not be so nimble in escaping the notice of the British Secret Service.

  “So, you see,” Parish wound up, “we’re not the only side using Vampires.”

  “Using” being the operative word. When this was all over, there would be no medals for Vampires, no knighthoods, no honours. Just as well when you thought about it.

  “J?” Parish asked.

  Yes, he’d been woolgathering. He needed blood and rest and it looked as though he wasn’t getting either in the near future. “You want me to find this one and eliminate him?”

  “In a nutshell, yes,” Baynes replied.

  How nutshells came into it, Jude had no idea. “I will.” But on his terms. Protecting the Other identities of his friends was as important as stopping this Vampire. “But it will be tricky. I have to go alone. No helpful humans getting in the way.” They didn’t like that but too damn bad. “What’s the nearest station?” He knew, but let them think they could teach him something.

  “Box Hill,” Parish said.

  “I want train times. And remember, I go in on my own. I can’t be trying to save anyone who gets in the way.”

  “This is irregular,” Parish started.

  “I don’t have company back in France. I don’t need it here.” Wasn’t risking having Brytewood’s secrets exposed.

  “But…” The man didn’t give up.

  “You want this done? I go alone. I’ll find him and eliminate him.” Assuming it was a him, of course. The Jerries might just as well have sent in a Vampire Mata Hari. Now that was a thought. “He’ll disappear off the face of the Earth.”

  That was what they wanted to hear. “I want a workingman’s clothes and a violin case.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Tell me everything you have learned about him.”

  It wasn’t much. No doubt his redoubtable Mrs. Burrows could tell him more. But the kidnapping of a villager worried him. Still, he’d soon find out all there was to know. “I want to leave within a couple of hours.”

  “There is one difficulty,” Baynes said. “There will be a meeting of cabinet members at Wharton Lacey Tuesday. Nothing must interfere with that.”

  “Cancel it, until I tell you it’s safe.”

  “We can’t. There’s an important personage from overseas coming in,” Parish said.

  There would be. “Then I’ll need everything within an hour,” Jude said. Nothing like making things difficult, but he’d have some excellent allies.

  “We will. Anything else you need?” Baynes asked.

  Jude let himself smile, anticipating their reaction. “Yes, blood. Better stop by the nearest hospital.”

  Funny how mortals went pale like that.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Hans Weiss sat in the shabby easy chair beside the empty grate in this landlady’s front room and glowered. He really wanted to break windows, rip the mantelpiece off the wall and toss furniture at the mottled glass chandelier.

  Mayhem and destruction would have to wait.

  The puerile mortals who dubbed themselves his masters evinced little concern over the disappearance and destruction of three Vampires. Not that Weiss was mourning their passing. But he was concerned that he discover the identity of the murderer or murderers before anything else. The masters in Adlerroost might think the assassination of Churchill was of prime importance. Weiss put his continued existence far above that of any mortal. No matter how esteemed, loathed, or feared he might be.

  The prime minister of Great Britain was only mortal. Hans Weiss was Vampire. Someone, something, had been killing his brethren and he was on a mission to find out who.

  When he did, he would enjoy himself.

  Slowly.

  He was doing now what he should have done right after Eiche’s disappearance. Sifting very diligently through the clues and evidence, just like those English detective stories. If a fussy old woman like Miss Marple or a foppish Belgia
n refugee could do it, Hans Weiss had no doubt he could. It was just a matter of directing one’s thoughts. And all thoughts led in one direction: the village of Brytewood.

  Eiche had disappeared there shortly after the arrest of his contact. The word from Adlerroost was that the Fairy reported him dead. Most probably the truth. That nasty creature had been in and out of his head, and the others’ too. She’d have known if there was suddenly no head to pry into.

  Then Bloch. It had taken weeks to set up his cover, and what happened? He disappeared off the face of this accursed English soil. And now Schmidt. He’d been fine and active as long as he stayed at the estate. Venture into the village and he was gone.

  Coincidence was beyond the bounds of reason.

  He could eliminate the grocer, their first suspect. He’d been bound and helpless and under Weiss’s scrutiny all night. There was another malevolent entity there. Lurking.

  This danger had to be eliminated before the German forces arrived if the Vampires were to have complete security. He thought about reexamining the grocer, but he’d had nothing to tell, no matter what Weiss did to him. He was Other, yes, but a weak and puny Other. Weiss’s prey was a strong and powerful magic user.

  One might have perished by chance misfortune. Not three. It was tantamount to a declaration of war. This creature had to be annihilated.

  He might as well start where he last saw Schmidt. Pity he hadn’t kept the map to the cottage, but how many cottages could there be up a narrow country lane?

  Fewer than on Friday.

  It was midafternoon when he strolled up Bell Lane. A row of cottages on the righthand side was all but demolished. One cottage was half standing, the rest was a vast pile of rubble. Even the cottage across the road was boarded up in front with sheets of corrugated iron over a gap in the roof.

  Damage was always good to see, but in this instance it was somewhat inconvenient. Annoying, really. He’d planned on knocking on doors to ask where Schmidt might have delivered the damned flowers, only to discover there were no doors to knock on. But there were Inselaffen. A half dozen of them. All busy as ants scurrying around a destroyed anthill.

  “Good afternoon,” Weiss said to the closest one, a tall, broad-shouldered man.

  The man paused in shifting rubble and turned to fix Weiss with a confident eye. “Good to see you. Come to help?”

  Not in the slightest. “I was looking for a friend. An acquaintance.”

  “Oh?” Weiss did not like the man’s attitude. But he’d learn deference and servility in time. “Yes, he came to visit someone near here. On Friday.”

  “Then he’s most likely a goner, mate, if he were up here,” another man interrupted rudely. “The only ones we got out alive were Mr. and Mrs. Grant from the end cottage, and they’re both in a bad way in hospital. Doubt we’ll find anyone else alive.”

  Why bother digging then?

  “He’s right, I’m afraid,” the first man said. “It was a bad raid. Two direct hits, one after the other. What are the odds of that?”

  Weiss did not know and had little interest in the mathematics involved. Besides, he didn’t think Schmidt would have accepted an invitation to stay the weekend. Not with a fat juicy grocer waiting in the stables. Had everyone perished, except the two taken to hospital? If so, had the killer expired too? There was always the chance Schmidt had been attacked by the fire monster and gone to earth, but he’d have healed by now.

  “Want to lend a hand?” the first one asked.

  Why not? It was beneath him, but peasants gossiped and he was curious to learn more about the house across the street that was still half standing. Why hadn’t he looked at that damn map better, and learned if Schmidt’s destination was on the right-or-left hand side of the street?

  “How about it?” the impudent man went on, holding out a pickax.

  “Ta. I will, can’t stay long but might as well do my bit.”

  Howell was ready to jump up and down, wave his hands in the air and shout a few old Welsh battle cries. He didn’t. Instead he kept his eye on the newcomer, while maintaining a safe distance.

  Wasn’t every day you had the Vampire you were looking for right under your nose. Had to be him. It could be a nice neutral or friendly Vampire: the pleasant and helpful Mr. Clarendon came to mind, but Howell did not think so. The creature was asking about cottages up here and a friend who’d come this way on Friday night. Too darn much of a coincidence.

  This was the one they were looking for. But he couldn’t stake it in front of half a dozen people.

  Damn!

  Jude Clarendon walked up from the station, his stake-filled violin case in hand. He had to ask the way to The Gallop but as he climbed the hill leading out of the village, he recognized the road and the house standing back from the street.

  There was little question in his mind that the doughty Others of Brytewood could dispose of this last Vampire, or was it two? His personal mission was to make sure the eager beavers in the Security Service remained in ignorance about the cluster of Others in Brytewood.

  If they chose to join the Service, well and good, but he didn’t want them coerced into working for the government.

  They were needed here.

  As he walked between the brick pillars and up the gravel drive, he looked around for change. Not much. There was the sound of chickens somewhere. Mrs. Burrows must have taken up poultry keeping. Lines of laundry flapped in the breeze and the empty drive showed the doctor wasn’t home.

  Good. He wanted a quiet talk with Mrs. Burrows.

  He went up to the wide front door with its stained-glass panels on either side, and rapped on the door. Before it opened, there was the sound of bicycle tires on gravel and a young female voice said, “Hello.”

  He turned, smiled, and inwardly cursed. A pretty young woman, with a touch of Otherness, he suspected, smiled back.

  “Good afternoon,” he said. Why had she chosen this moment to pedal up that hill?

  “Here to see Mrs. Burrows, are you?” She dismounted and wheeled her bicycle. “Better come around to the back door. She usually has the wireless on when she’s working and doesn’t always hear the door.”

  Of course. His friend was Pixie. He walked with her round to the door, tempted to give her a compulsion to leave—but maybe she was expected. And he’d come to dispose of Vampires who hindered mortals, not become one of them.

  She opened the door as if she knew her way. “Mrs. Burrows,” she called. “There’s a visitor for you.” The aroma of baking wafted though the open door.

  “Oh, Mary, lovely to see you, and who is it? Oh!” She broke off as she saw him. “Mr. Clarendon! You are an answer to prayer.” He’d never been welcomed quite that way before. “Come in. Come in,” she insisted, stepping forward and brushing her hands on her apron, before clutching his in her slightly floury one. “It’s a joy to see you. I thought you were in France.”

  Indiscreet of her. Surprising. “I am here.”

  She sensed his caution. “Don’t worry about talking in front of Mary. She knows what’s going on. Mary, this is a good friend and ally. Mr. Jude Clarendon. He’s on our side.”

  Mary gave him a sharp look but took his hand. “I’m Mary LaPrioux. I teach at the village school.”

  “Now, now, no false modesty, my dear. She does a lot more than that. Mary, I just made a fresh pot. Be a love and pour me a cup, please. Mr. Clarendon, have a seat. You don’t know how glad I am to see you.”

  “I’m beginning to understand, my dear Mrs. Burrows.” As he took off his coat and Mary crossed to the other side of the kitchen, he asked in a low voice, “Is she privy to all?”

  “Oh! Yes! She killed one of them on Friday evening. She knows.”

  He should have guessed. The women around here, at least the ones who were Other, made a habit of it. They made fierce enemies. Rather reminded them of his dear Sylvia, who’d been as steadfast as any man on the King’s side during the Civil War. “I see.” It was almost the truth.

/>   Mary brought three cups over to the table. “Do you take sugar?” she asked.

  “Oh, Mary, my love, I should have told you. Mr. Clarendon doesn’t drink tea. Doesn’t drink anything. He’s Vampire.”

  The poor girl almost dropped the other cup. Half of it slopped into the saucer. She went pale and stared. He half expected her to reach for a stake from the stack by the back door.

  She stared at Mrs. Burrows, who stood up and took the spilled cup. “Never mind, my love. I should have told you first thing. Mr. Clarendon is on our side. He helped us a lot at first. You sit down. I’ll get you a fresh cup, and then we can talk.”

  A stiff drink might do her more good, but she sat down, giving him a distinctly wary look. “What does Mrs. Burrows mean by on our side?”

  He’d take Mrs. Burrows’s word that she was to be trusted. “I go back and forth to France, doing to the Germans what your Vampires are trying to do to you.” Baynes and Parish and his respected controller would have kittens if they heard that.

  She gave a cautious smile. “I hope you’re a lot more successful than this lot have been.”

  “I don’t have the opposition they have.”

  “Here you are, my love.” Mrs. Burrows put a fresh cup in front of Mary. “Best tell him about yourself too.”

  She took a sip. Then a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He couldn’t remember being able to do that. Had it helped him gather courage and marshal his thoughts back in his mortal days? Hell if he could remember that either.

  She smiled. “I’m Mary LaPrioux. I teach at the village school. I was evacuated with some children from Guernsey. I’m a Water Sprite.”

  That took him back a bit. “A Sprite, eh? You’re the first I’ve met in years. Centuries even. There used to be a colony here in Surrey, down near Frensham.”

  “You said used to be?”

  He nodded. “Cromwell’s lot burned them at the stake as witches.”

  “It happened at home too. I heard stories from my grandmother and great aunts. Makes me glad I was born when I was, even if I am in the middle of a war.”