Bloody Good. Georgia Evans

      “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 wood 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