Pity he hadn’t coerced names from that cook when he had her under him.
He shouldn’t have lost his temper, but he’d been hungry and she was so annoying. She deserved it. And with Schmidt gone, what use was she?
Better concentrate on the other servant. Her fear had been quite appetizing.
Pondering that prospect as he surveyed the parkland, he saw a sight he could scarcely credit. Standing behind the stables was the Fairy grocer. Brazen as can be. What was he doing up here again?
And he had company too.
Making a move too near the house would be a mistake. He wasn’t quite ready to draw attention to himself. He could be patient. Sooner or later they’d move. Walk off home and he’d take them undisturbed on these quiet country roads.
He chuckled. As far as injuries and attacks went, they were busy country roads.
“What the blazes are we doing?” Whorleigh asked, in a tight voice.
“Looking for a Vampire.”
Were all Elves this skittish? Whorleigh’s anxiety came off him in waves. “I don’t know why I ever agreed to come up here. I’ve been attacked. I should be in bed recovering.”
Gryffyth ignored that. Yes, he’d had a awful experience but really, he was a proper wet dishrag of an Other. “Thanks for staying. Did you see anything?”
“Not a blessed thing, but I might have caught a cold. It’s no time of year to be outdoors.”
He wouldn’t argue with that. The afternoon was dank and cold and light was failing. A big contrast to the warmth of the kitchen. “I want to get a good look around.” He doubted that policeman in the house was armed to defend the premises against Vampires. “Then let’s take a stroll toward home. Dad said he suspected it was coming up this way.”
Alice met Sergeant Pendragon just outside the village. He was red in the face from pedaling uphill fast. “Want a lift?”
“I need to get up to Wharton Lacey. I called and warned Gryff, I think the bugger’s headed up there. Sorry, Alice, that slipped out.”
“Don’t apologize. I assume you mean the Vampire?”
He nodded. “Had to be him. Sensed he was Other right away. Came nosing down Bell Lane like a ghoul. Asking who lived there and who’d had flowers delivered Friday. Now I ask you?”
“It was him and he came this way and you’re right that he’s headed for Wharton Lacey.”
“Well, then let’s turn around and go after him.”
“Can’t.” She explained about Miss Aubin’s attack. “Got to get her at least to the ARP post. They can get an ambulance.”
“Right you are, Alice. I’ll go on. Can you take my bicycle and clothes up to The Gallop?”
“What?”
“I’m shifting. Don’t usually do it in daylight but it’s the fastest way and I’ll be ready to attack.”
Good thing Miss Aubin was halfway to unconscious. The sergeant moved her to the back seat, something Alice hadn’t had the strength to do on her own, and put his cycle in the back.
His clothes he put in a pile on the passenger seat and closed the door. She knew it was rude to look, but she was a doctor and he wasn’t the first naked man she’d seen. Not that she saw much: a pale streak across the field, then a flash of light and a shape like a giant bird streaking across the sky.
She hoped no one took a pot shot at him.
Weiss watched the two figures walk down the driveway. He considered letting them go their bucolic way, but decided the grocer merited attention. If he wasn’t the murderer, which now seemed apparent, he was Other and, as such, a menace. And as for that cripple walking awkwardly beside him, he’d be easily dealt with. Weiss’s attention was so fixed on the ground below, he never gave a glimpse to the sky.
He climbed down from the roof, ran across the sweep of lawn and leapt the wall that bordered the lane. And waited. Hearing the grocer squeal would be a nice beginning.
As they turned into the lane, he leapt and landed fifteen feet or so in front of them.
This was it.
Gryffyth Pendragon stared into the eyes of the Vampire and saw malevolence, hate and loathing. Whorleigh screamed and turned to run. Before Gryffyth could react, the creature had Whorleigh by the scruff of the neck. “Thought you’d escaped me, did you?” His laugh was icy cold and sent a shiver down Gryffyth’s spine.
Whorleigh appeared to have fainted.
“Let him go!” Gryffyth shouted, not having much hope that he would.
“Very well,” the Vampire said, letting Whorleigh drop. The fall appeared to have revived him so Gryffyth let the Elf take care of himself and hoped he had sense to move or do his invisibility thing.
Gryffyth stepped back as the Vampire smiled, revealing fangs and bad breath.
The smile faded to a scream as the sheet of flame hit him in the chest. Last time had been a warning gust, now he’d put all his Dragonpower behind it. The Vampire reared back as Gryffyth sent another wall of fire that engulfed him from head to toe. He stumbled, and screamed as he ran in circles. Not the thing to do when your clothes are on fire, but apparently his parents had never taught him about fire safety.
Just as Gryffyth was wondering how to end what he’d started, a dark shape swooped out of the sky. “Dad!” It could only be, and he was in full Dragon shape. With a toss of his great head and a little spark of fire in greeting, his father came low, seized the flaming Vampire in his jaws and flew off, a burning speck in the late afternoon sky.
Gryffyth vaguely wondered where he was taking the thing, but Whorleigh needed help right now. Dad would see to what was left of the Vampire.
Whorleigh looked pathetic, shaking by the hedge. “What happened?” he asked. “Where is it?”
“Gone for good.”
Now they had a long walk home.
Alice met them half a mile down the road. “Hop in,” she said.
He noticed clothes that looked very much like his father’s on the front seat.
Alice met his eyes with a smile. “He said he’d meet us at The Gallop. Everything taken care of?”
“Yes. Better drop Mr. Whorleigh off at his own home. I think he needs a nap.”
Chapter Forty-Four
“Gryffyth!” Mary enveloped him in a hug, as he walked into The Gallop. He’d have been even happier to greet her alone, and with fewer clothes on. Attacking Vampires did things to a Dragon, but they had an audience, and one of them a man (or maybe Other) he’d never seen.
“Is Dad back yet?”
“Yes,” a voice said from behind the door. “Got my clothes, son? I’m not sitting around in Helen’s dressing gown all afternoon.”
“I have them here,” Alice said, then caught sight of the stranger. “And hello, Mr. Clarendon. You’re here because of…”
“Yes,” the man, or whatever he was, replied, interrupting. “Best get the good Dragon his clothes first. Then we can talk.”
“Bring ’em here, son,” Howell said, reaching a pink fleece-covered arm around the door.
Mrs. Burrows introduced the mysterious Mr. Clarendon, and Dad was back, in his own, rather rumpled clothes.
“So. What happened?” Alice asked. “Gryffyth told me his end of it.”
“Not much more to tell. I picked him up after Gryff started a good job of incineration. Flew around a bit as he burned out, then dropped what was left in the woods up on the heath. Just a mouthful of ashes by then. He won’t trouble us anymore.”
“Are you alright?” Mary asked Gryffyth, her arms still around him.
He kissed her. Darn the audience. “Fit as a fiddle. All Vampires safely disposed of. We can get married.”
“Actually not,” Mary said.
“Eh, what? Not get married?”
“I’m all for getting married.” That was the nicest thing she could have said in a month of Sundays. “We have another Vampire.” If so, why she was grinning like a flipping Cheshire cat was beyond him.
“You’re funning, right? April fool’s come early?”
“Heavens n
o!” That was Mrs. Burrows. “Mary’s right. We do have another but he’s on our side. Meet Mr. Clarendon.”
“Jude Clarendon,” the man, no, the Vampire, said. “I was sent to dispose of the Brytewood intruders but seems you’ve taken care of everything.”
“With help from Dad. And Mary, she got the first one.”
“So I just heard,” he said, a wry smile on his face. “I am so delighted my Other friends have prevailed. The war’s not over. Not by a long chalk, but I think they lost this battle.”
“Can you stay, Mr. Clarendon?” Alice asked.
He shook his head. “I have a report to make. I hope you will forgive me if I take credit for the kill. Both of them. Not trying to steal the glory but I think it would be better than mentioning all of you.”
No one argued. Much, much better. Who wanted their Other nature made public?
“No, you keep mum about us and we’ll let things ride,” Dad said. “Best all around.”
“There is the matter of Miss Aubin’s injuries,” Alice said. “I hope they write her account off to nerves, shock and the effects of morphine. She had the presence of mind to activate a recorder she’d been given. I didn’t know what to do about that.”
“What happened?” Jude Clarendon asked.
Alice explained as much as she knew.
“Simple,” he replied. “A little verisimilitude never hurts. I found the creature just as he was attacking her, and disposed of him. He was therefore dead and evaporated by the time she was found. I think my superiors in the Service can take care of any inconvenient questions the hospital might have.” He reached for his coat from the back of the chair.
“They’re all gone, but what if there are more?” Mary asked. Gryffyth had been asking himself the same question.
Mr. Clarendon smiled at her. “There are more, but after four prized agents disappear without a trace, I imagine they might avoid Brytewood. I sincerely hope so.” He pulled on his coat. “I bid you all, a good afternoon.”
“Well,” Mrs. Burrows said, after the door closed behind Clarendon. “Now that’s over and done, who’d like a nice cup of tea?”
Chapter Forty-Five
A farmhouse in Southern Germany
“Another one died!” Bela whispered to Simon as they sat side by side, shredding cabbage for their host’s wife.
“What?”
“They are all dead! The last one has died. I can feel his power in my veins. It’s as if I could fly.”
“Forget about flying, I couldn’t keep up. But how about getting out of here? Whatever Fritz, outside milking the cows, says about sitting out the winter, I’ve a bad feeling about this place.”
She agreed, but they needed warm clothes, supplies and good skis if they were going to get any anywhere in this weather.
“Two days.” She hoped they were safe that long. “Then we go. I’ll go down into the town and take what we need. They’ve taken enough from me, it’s no theft.”
“It’s too dangerous to go out after curfew.”
“No one will see me.”
She was one stubborn Fairy, and he spent a long night worrying. She was back a little after four.
“I have everything. And I was right. I can truly fly. It won’t last long, but it got me what we needed. There have been several robberies in houses and shops, and in the morning when they discover the loss, there’s not a single footprint to be seen. Tomorrow night we leave. It’s all hidden up in the high meadow.”
It was one of the longest days of his life but the soft snow that started after dark was a gift from heaven worth waiting for.
They ran through the night, snow covering their tracks as if they’d ordered it as part of their escape. Bela had been more than efficient. Her cache was stacked in an abandoned sheepcote. The run had exhausted Simon but Bela was as lively and alert as ever.
“Better spend the day here,” she said. “They’ll think we headed for the station. If they care. No one in their right mind would travel in this direction.”
Maybe they weren’t in their right minds but they had skis, boots, warm clothes and rucksacks of food.
With a couple of weeks of travel and a little more larceny on Bela’s part, they might even reach Switzerland.
Try the other books in Georgia Evans’s fantasy series…
BLOODY GOOD
In the first of a supernatural trilogy, one Dr. Alice Doyle finds that the power to fight evil comes from places she’d never believe…
While the sounds of battle echo through the sky, a lady doctor has more than enough trouble to keep her busy even in a hamlet outside London. But the threat is nearer home than Alice knows. German agents have infiltrated her beloved countryside—Nazis who can fly, read minds, and live forever. They’re not just fascists. They’re Vampires.
Alice has no time for fantasy, but when the corpses start appearing sucked dry, she’ll have to accept help where she can get it. If that includes a lowly Conscientious Objector who says he’s no coward though he refuses to fight, and her very own grandmother, a sane, sensible women who insists that she’s a Devonshire Pixie, so be it. Indeed, whatever it takes to defend home and country from an evil both ancient and terrifyingly modern…
Alice Doyle was exhausted. Staying up half the night and all day to deliver twins will do that to you. The elation and adrenaline of her first set of twins had carried her this far home, but as she turned into the lane that ran through Fletcher’s Woods, weariness set in. It had been a good night’s work, though. She wouldn’t easily forget the rejoicing in the Watson farmhouse and Melanie’s happiness through her fatigue as she breast-fed her lusty sons.
“A fine brace of boys. Gives one hope for the future, doesn’t it, Doctor?” Roger Watson said as he smiled at his grandsons. “If only Jim were here to see them.”
The Watsons’ only son, Jim, was somewhere in Norfolk with the Army and Alice couldn’t help worry how Melanie, a Londoner born and bred, would fare with her in-laws in a farm as remote as any you could find in Surrey.
Still, Farmer Watson was right: Whatever the politicians did or however many bombs fell, life went on.
The numerous cups of tea she’d consumed through the night were having their effects and she still had several miles to go over bumpy country roads. She pulled over to the verge and got out. Other traffic was unlikely out here. Few locals enjoyed the supply of petrol allocated to doctors. Even so, Alice climbed over the gate and ventured into the woods for a bit of privacy.
She was straightening her clothes back when she realized she was not alone. Darn! A bit late to be worrying about modesty. Deeper into the woods, someone crawled toward her. Assuming injuries, Alice called, “I’m coming. I’m a doctor.”
It was a stranger. One of the workers from the hush-hush munitions camp up on the heath, perhaps? What in heaven’s name was he doing rolling on the damp ground? As Alice bent over him, he looked up at her with glazed eyes. Drunk perhaps? But she didn’t smell anything on his breath.
“What happened?” As she spoke, she saw the stains on his sleeve. Blood loss might well account for his weakness. She looked more closely at him and gasped. Part of the branch of a tree was embedded in his upper arm. How in heaven’s name? Had to be drunk. If there wasn’t enough to do, she had to cope with boozers who impaled themselves on trees. Seemed that was his only injury. No bleeding from the mouth or nose. Heartbeat was abnormally slow but steady, his breathing shallow, and his skin cold to the touch. Shock and exposure would explain all that. Best get him out of the damp.
“Look,” she said, trying her utmost to keep the fatigue out of her voice. “I need you to walk to my car. I’ve my bag there and I’ll have a look at your arm. Then I’ll take you down to my surgery in Brytewood and call an ambulance.”
The odd, glazed eyes seemed to focus. “Thanks,” he croaked.
“What’s your name?”
He had to think about that one. Definitely recovering from a wild night. “Smith.” Really? Aiming for
anonymity perhaps? “Paul Smith.”
Alice got behind him and propped his shoulders until he was sitting. “Come along, Mr. Smith,” she told him. “I’m going to give you a boost and you have to stand. I can’t carry you.”
They succeeded on the second go and made slow progress toward her car, Alice supporting Mr. Smith from his good side. He was a lot lighter than anticipated as he slowly staggered toward the road. He supported himself against the hedge as Alice opened and closed the gate, but once they emerged from the shade into the thin afternoon sun, he collapsed.
Thank heaven for her father’s old shooting brake. She got her patient into the back so he was lying against the sack of potatoes the Watsons had insisted she take with her.
“Mr. Smith, I’m going to examine your arm. I’m afraid I’ll have to cut your shirt sleeve.”
Taking the nod as agreement, Alice snipped off the sleeve. The shirt was good for nothing but rags anyway. Her first observation had been right: Several chunks of fresh wood had penetrated the flesh of his upper arm. “How did you do this then?” she asked as she opened her bag and reached for sterile swabs and Dettol.
And cried out as he grabbed her free hand in a viselike grip and bit her wrist.
He was more than drunk. He was insane. Alice tried to push him away but he held on, digging his teeth into her flesh. She finally grabbed his nose until he gasped for breath and released her.
“Behave yourself! I’m a doctor. I’m here to help…” She broke off when she saw he’d passed out.
Something was really wrong.
BLOODY AWFUL
In the second of Georgia Evans’s supernatural trilogy, Gloria Prewitt must reveal her greatest secret to have any hope of saving the people she loves…
Bloody Right Page 29
