Bloody Good Page 9

  “Now, that would be a shame.” That was Mother Longhurst, reputed witch and village herbalist. She hadn’t yet poisoned anyone to Alice’s knowledge, but her potions and mixtures were decidedly suspect.

  “You seem to have plenty of wool,” Alice said. Better to discuss knitting than Peter Watson. “Weren’t you running short last week?”

  June chuckled. “Mrs. Burrows took care of that. Seems that they had a supply down at Worleigh’s but it never got onto the shelves until your grandmother had a word with them.”

  “I bet she did.” Alice had to smile. Sam Whorleigh was notorious for keeping choice stock under the counter and charging exorbitant prices. Gran must have shamed him into selling the wool at a fair price. He was probably still writhing over the loss of revenue. Really! Profiteering over wool for the troops was beyond the pale.

  “He said there was a lot of demand for it,” Gran said. “I agreed. After all, the troops need socks and gloves and what else can it be used for?”

  Alice had seen more than one baby tucked under a khaki blanket or wearing a knitted jacket of Air Force blue.

  “About that young man.” Mrs. Willows would not give up. “I wonder why he’s not been called up.” None of her business. Although why Alice felt so protective of him, heaven alone knew. The man was a CO after all. “You’d think he’d be off doing his bit somewhere.”

  “Instead, he’s doing his bit right here where we need him. Alice and Gloria are stretched thin what with all the newcomers and the plant up on the heath.” Bless Gran and what’s more, it was true.

  “What about the trouble up there last night? Did they ever find out what caused it?” Miss Downs, who lived next door to Miss Waite, set off a good five minutes of speculation.

  Speculation that led nowhere and stirred a good deal of invasion fever.

  “How are your charges doing, June?” Alice asked. It made a change from the “Huns among us” tempo of the current conversation.

  “Not too badly, really. A lot went home, parents missed them, and some of the children were miserable. When you’re used to London, Brytewood is a big change.”

  “A lot safer, if you ask me,” added Miss Downs.

  “To be honest, I’m not sure we’re safe anywhere,” June replied.

  Alice didn’t blame her caution. After the retreat from France, and the Germans had taking the Channel Islands, who didn’t wonder if the mainland was next? Alice shook that thought away.

  “You’re as safe here as anywhere,” Gran said. “And we’re glad you’re here. Mrs. Roundhill was just saying the other day what a help you were with the children at the vicarage.”

  “She’s so nice,” June said. “Never minds if I go out, but I hate to leave her with four children, plus the two older boys who can be a handful. She insisted I come here this evening. Said I needed to come and knit for her.”

  That stirred a few laughs. Eleanor Roundhill, the vicar’s wife, was a lovely woman and good at organizing the parish, but her sewing and knitting skills were notoriously lacking.

  “We’re glad you came, my love,” Gran said. “You’re welcome here any day you feel like riding your bike up the hill to The Gallop.”

  “Talking about riding bikes, I’d best be getting home,” said Miss Downs, and everyone took up the idea, leaving in pairs or riding bicycles with shaded lights.

  As Gran closed the door behind the last ones, she turned to Alice. “Everything go alright with young Mr. Watson, dear?”

  Alice took a deep breath. “Perfectly. He was waiting for me. We got back to Brytewood without mishap and Sergeant Pendragon was home and ready for him.”

  “That’s good to hear. You know, Alice, something tells me, before long we’ll all be very glad that young man came to Brytewood.” She shook her head as Alice was about to speak. “I know how you feel about him.”

  Alice forbore interrupting and telling Gran that if she knew exactly how Alice felt about Peter Watson, then Gran was one step ahead of her.

  “He’s a good man and with the trouble brewing we’ll need him.”

  Did Gran mean invasion? Or what? Did she want to ask? No doubt Gran had a “feeling” of impending disaster. Trouble was, Gran’s vague and often unspecified “feelings” of trouble on the horizon had a singularly amazing habit of coming true. But there was more than that—her grandmother looked really worn tonight.

  “What’s worrying you, Gran?”

  “Come and help me clear up the teacups, please, dear. I’m feeling tired. I hope that nice Miss Groves gets back safely.”

  “Gran, she has as much chance as anyone of getting home in one piece.” Brytewood was safer than many places these days.

  “I know that.” It was almost an irritated snap. “She just seems so young and so lonely. She spends day and night with those children. I wish we could have put her in another billet away from them. Never mind that, just give me a hand with the washing up. I’m feeling a little weary.”

  Small wonder. Gran had been awake most of the night while Alice was up at the camp taking care of minor injuries and, she had to admit, wishing she already had her assistant. Well, she had him now. Trouble now was, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do about that. “Why don’t you go up to bed and I’ll see to the washing up?”

  “I may go up and have a bath, but dear, I don’t think we should sleep upstairs tonight. Something’s in the air.”

  German planes headed for London, no doubt. “You want to sleep out in the air raid shelter, Gran?” They’d done that a few times early in the war. Alice felt it was like being shut in a tin can.

  “You need to be close to the phone, dear. How about we take pillows and things down to the cellar? We still have the old mattress down there.”

  “Alright, Gran.”

  Alice half pooh-poohed Gran’s “feelings,” but they’d been right often enough that she kept her skepticism to herself. “Go and have your bath and I’ll be up in a while. I’ll make us both a cup of cocoa.”

  “And I’ll be sure to save the hot water for you, dear.”

  Alice sighed. Once the war was over, she’d never share bath water again but now, it beat a cold bath.

  The milk—alright, dried milk reconstituted—was simmering when Gran came down wrapped in a thick toweling dressing gown. “I’ll finish drying the dishes, dear, you nip upstairs and I’ll see to the cocoa.”

  Alice soaked until the water went cold, got out, and glanced at her watch as she toweled off. Eleven-thirty, later than she’d thought. She hoped Gran was wrong about the air raid.

  Chapter 12

  Bela stood by the window. Closer than she’d ever been able to stand. She felt a slight tingling from the iron frame and bars but that was all. No stab of pain. Tentatively, she reached out and touched the iron band with the tip of a finger. No burning, no sizzling agony lancing her body, just a minor itch. Why?

  Was this a result of the strength that poured into her when Eiche killed the mortal? She backed away from the window, her stomach twisting. Was she becoming vampire? Had the bites infected her and turned her? Was it even possible? Almost all she knew about vampirekind she’d learned from her captors, and she had no reason to think they’d told her all, or even any, of the truth.

  But whatever they had or had not told her, she was changing, and by all the woodland gods and sprites, Zweiten and Zuerst were never ever to know. There had to be a way she could use this to help her family. Could she mind meld with them despite the iron perimeter? If they too were imprisoned in forged iron, could she penetrate that, too?

  There was only one way to find out. Tonight, when all was dark, she would test herself by passing her arms through the bars. Then she would attempt a mind meld.

  She sat on the floor a while, looking out of the window at the autumn sky and the changing colors of the trees on the distant hills. It had been spring when they brought her here. Five months, nearly six, ago. Where was her family now? Were they being used, too?

  In a shiver
ing flash of horror, Bela imagined them all imprisoned in iron girt cells and like her, bound to vampires spread all over the German dominions. What if they weren’t just linked to vampires? What if they’d been bitten by worse—werewolves or other vicious shifters? Bela shuddered at the thought. Were they all being used to further Nazi power?

  Zuerst and Zweiten threatened to kill her family if she refused to cooperate. Had her parents and sisters been coerced the same way?

  Her brain ached from worry.

  They were coming.

  She rose from the floor and turned to face them as the door opened, schooling her face to hide her turmoil and worry.

  “Sit down,” Zweiten said. “Focus and connect. We need to know what’s happening?”

  Why the sudden urgency? They’d answer that and tell her what was going on, wouldn’t they? She held back the smile. “Which one?”

  That gave him a second’s pause. “Weiss,” Zuerst answered. “Connect with him first. Then the others. What is each doing and where are they?”

  Something was definitely up. Bela walked over to the straight-backed chair by the bed and sat down. She’d invented this ritual for their benefit and drew a few meager beads of useless pleasure from watching their rapt fascination overcome their assumed indifference. She placed her hands palm to palm and rested them against her forehead, breathing slowly and shutting her eyes. She didn’t need to look at her captors to know they were fascinated, despite their air of superiority over a despised “Other.”

  Quietly, she whispered a few words in the ancient tongue of the Fairies. Zuerst and Zweiten no doubt imagined it to be a magic charm or spell. In fact, it was a plea to the wood sprites to lure them into the depths of the forest and let them wander lost forever.

  Unfortunately, with neither turned earth nor blood to offer, her plea would never be heard, but the simple act of defiance gave her a wisp of satisfaction before she opened her mind and the pain of linking with the bloodsuckers ripped through her.

  Letting the pain flow over her like an infection, Bela focused, blinked in shock, and refocussed, reaching out with her mind in surprise to confirm her first impression. She jerked as each vampire in turn felt her connection, let her in momentarily, then blocked her. Except Schmidt. He left her hovering on the rim of his consciousness, and through him, she heard everything that was said.

  She’d thought herself beyond shock.

  She had been gravely mistaken.

  Seemed the vampires were not entirely dedicated to the Third Reich but despised the Inselaffen even more. If this group had their way, the invasion forces had a few surprises in store for them.

  If…

  Did four people, even four vampires, think they could take on the power of the German war machine? They’d be crushed just as the foolish British were destined to be flattened into their fertile soil.

  Fascinated, she listened on. Seemed all the horror tales she’d heard about the walking dead were true, if not understatements.

  Pain ripped though her as Schmidt forced her out, then the others opened and she connected as they discussed problems with late buses and disruptions in telephone service due to bombing, and Eiche got a severe scolding for killing the pig farmer.

  Meanwhile Zweiten and Zuerst waited, their cruel eyes gleaming with excitement. They sensed something different had occurred. She had to play this to her advantage.

  She took several deep breaths, almost gasps. She needed to cleanse her mind. She yearned to swim in the clear waters of a mountain lake and wash the taint of vampire from her body. She contented herself with struggling to her feet, grabbing the end of the bed, and adding a theatrical wobble or two. Standing several feet from the window—better keep up the appearances of being repelled by the iron—she breathed slowly and deeply. Zuerst spoke and she shook her head and waved both hands, palm out, as if to beg a moment’s respite.

  To think fast and select the information to pass on. Her big question: Why had Schmidt let her listen in? Did the rest of them know? Or was he the rogue in the quartet. If so, why?

  “Well?” Zuerst demanded and Bela knew she could delay no longer.

  She turned to them, letting herself appear as confused and shocked as she felt. “Something has happened.”

  “What!”

  “Schieβe!” She’d never heard Zweiten swear before. They’d sensed something was different. Hardly surprising. She was still shaking and it wasn’t acting.

  She took another deep breath and focused the thoughts. If she told them the vamps were plotting mutiny, she’d be disposed of without delay.

  “It’s about the farmer Eiche killed. He was called to Weiss to explain himself. The others are worried he will draw attention and expose them all.”

  That last her captors could have deduced for themselves, but it never paid to appear too clever. A simple Wood Fairy was what they thought her and a simple Wood Fairy would deliver the news. “Seems he also injured his host. The spy in Brytewood.”

  “What!” they both snapped, almost in unison.

  “You did not hear that!” Zweiten said.

  “He cannot have!” Zuerst was as wrong as his partner.

  “He admitted it to the others. I heard clearly. He believes she is more use to him incapacitated. Seems he intends to use her as fodder.” That was the very word he’d used. Vampires sickened her.

  “That would explain why she failed to report in yesterday,” Zuerst said.

  Zweiten nodded in agreement, then they both scowled at her.

  “What else did you hear?”

  She looked Zuerst in the eyes. They would not know she was lying by omission, if she could help it. “That was most of it. They talked back and forth, they’re worried and all of them annoyed with Eiche and the attention his killing will draw.

  Zuerst laughed. “That the Inselaffen care about one dead peasant, while we rain bombs and kill them by the hundreds? They worry like old women.”

  And plot mutiny like vampires.

  Bela waited until the day faded and they’d taken away the tray from her supper. She would be alone until morning. As darkness fell over the hills and forest outside, she opened the windows wide and breathed in the clear night air. She yearned to run in it, to let the night breeze caress her and ease the torment inside.

  Now was not the time for ease of any sort.

  There was a war on.

  Several of them it seemed.

  The vamps could plot and scheme. She had a family to take care of. She couldn’t cross the iron bars but she could, miraculously, reach her arms between then, with only a shimmer of an itch over her skin. She pressed her forehead against the cold iron and opened her mind.

  Nothing.

  Was the distance too far? The lack of barrier in the iron an illusion? Her hope unjustified? There was nothing there, no connection, no flicker of existence. Hope faded. Maybe they were imprisoned in iron and her new strength inadequate to pass it, but she caught something.

  She focused all of her being of the faint senses of…Gela. Her sister. Unmistakable. As birth twins they were more strongly linked than even to their parents.

  “Bela!” It was so faint. Like a rustle of leaves in a gentle breeze, but it was her sister.

  “Gela! Yes, it’s me. Where are you?”

  “They told us you were dead!”

  “They lied.” She could say so much more but sensed Gela’s weakness. “What happened to you? Mamma and Papa? Dana, Jakub, and Jiri?

  She felt the pain in Gela’s soul. “They took Papa and the boys away when they brought us here. A week or so later, Mama said they were dead.”

  And Mama would know. Bela fought back the tears. So much for their promises. She’d agreed to work for them to save her family. “What about Mama?”

  Gela’s hesitation told everything. “She expired, Bela. A few weeks back. They told her you were dead and she gave up.”

  Revenge burned in Bela’s soul. One day these accused schwein would feel the full fury of
Fairy wrath but for that she and Gela had to survive, regain their strength, and gather power. How? That mattered little. “And you, Gela? Are you sick?”

  “I was. I believed you dead. Alone I could not go on, but now you live.”

  “You will live. We both will. We will live and avenge our family.”

  “Yes!” In that single word, Bela felt her sister’s growing resolve. “Where are you?” Gela asked.

  “I’m not sure exactly. In a schloss up in the hills beyond Munich. They drove me here in a car and I recognized the outskirts of the town as we drove through.” She wasn’t about to let her thoughts stray to that carefree time in Munich, just before the war, when she and Bela thought to spend time among humans. “Where are you?”

  “In hell! We are in a prison near Flossenburgh. You cannot believe this place, Bela.”

  With all she’d heard and overheard, Bela could, but didn’t want to. She couldn’t bear the thought of her sister—laughing, lighthearted Gela—in such a pit of misery. “Whatever horror is around you, Gela, you must survive, as I will.”

  “Why did they take you away, Bela?”

  “They are making me work for them.” She would not admit exactly how. “Gela. You must live and I will live, and when we can we will escape.” How, she had no idea, but will produced means. “Listen, we must connect, but not too often. It will weaken us and we may be discovered.”

  “At each full moon,” Gela said. “Once it rises, we will connect.”

  “As long as it’s dark.” She could not risk being discovered and Gela certainly couldn’t. “If the moon rises in the day, we wait until nightfall.”

  “Yes.” She felt her sister’s weakness. “Now I know you live. I will, sister mine.”

  “We will.”

  How could they escape and get together? Bela had no idea. but she had hope and the cold desire for revenge burning in her veins.

  Chapter 13

  Alice heard a few planes pass overhead. Headed for London no doubt. Poor, old London, but was Gran really serious about sleeping downstairs?