The Bloody Red Baron (Anno Dracula #2)

The Bloody Red Baron (Anno Dracula #2) Page 49

Resolutions

She would let him go, but first he owed her a debt which she insisted he settle. In a hotel room in Calais, after Kate and Edwin had made love, she bled him lightly. His taste was different now. The red thirst inside him was burned out. He warmed her, made her strong again.

Lulled by her, Edwin lay in a daze as she snuggled next to him. She was flushed, her freckles like pinpricks on her breast.

She was entitled to a little love. For almost all her life she had been too busy or timid. This time, even if she let her soldier go back to his rector's daughter, she'd have him for a while. If Catriona was the woman Kate thought she was, she wouldn't mind. This was France. This was the war. Different rules applied.

She ran her tongue over her teeth. Her fangs had receded with repletion.

Edwin held her close, murmuring the wrong name. She was used to that too. Everyone who got close mistook her for someone else.

Tomorrow they would both cross the Channel. But tomorrow was hours distant. Kate pulled herself on to Edwin's chest, pressing her face close to his neck. He stirred, responding. Her hair brushed across his face. His hands held her hips, settling her weight on to him. Her lips suckled his neck, but her teeth did not break his skin.

In England, things were different between them. Kate sensed an awkwardness in Edwin that gathered during the crossing. She was struck with a creeping melancholia. Knowing what would happen was not the same as being prepared for it.

In their nights together, she'd learned about his time with Condor Squadron. He had told her about his last flight. Officially, he made no claims, but she knew he had contributed to the shooting-down of Manfred von Richthofen. She had promised not to write him up as a hero.

This was a part of their lives they would always share. Others would never understand how they had allowed themselves to be changed so fearfully, to become bestial.

It was a fine moonlit spring night. In other circumstances, the voyage might have been romantic. Edwin was quiet, looking back at France from the railings. Europe would always be a cemetery for him, for all the survivors.

Sometimes, Edwin would go quiet and she could tell he was searching in himself for things irretrievably lost. She did not know if he was a broken man, or merely cracked. By the hour, he was cooling. There was still a speck of vampire in him, ice around his heart.

Neither of them had finished with the war.

At Victoria Station, Charles was waiting. For both of them. Kate was briefly worried he might have constables ready to place her under arrest and carry her off to Devil's Dyke. In the crowds, she spotted Sergeant Dravot.

Charles shook Edwin's hand and Edwin got out an apology which Charles waved away. He understood Edwin had not been himself.

'You have leave,' Charles told Edwin. 'I assume you will wish to spend it in the West Country.'

'I have to return from the dead.'

'That's not such a big thing as it's made up to be,' Kate said. J

'Easy for you to say. You don't have to explain to Miss Catriona Kaye.'

'Neither do you, Edwin. Believe me, she'll need no explanation. Having you back will be enough.'

All this nobility was choking her. She shook his hand and darted a swift kiss at him. It was all very friendly. Tears stabbed the backs of her eyes, but she refused to have a weepy spell.

What would the rector's daughter make of the man who came back to her? Kate knew Catriona would get the worst of it, being with him through a convalescence that could never really put him together again.

'I shall follow your career with interest/ she told him, scolding. 'So be on your best behaviour.'

'I have taken out a subscription to the Cambridge Magazine, so I'll know what fevers your busy brain.'

Edwin let go of her hand, picked up his kitbag and walked away.

Charles laid a hand on her shoulder. She had forgotten he would know what she was feeling.

'He is too young for you,' Charles said.

'So is everybody.'

'As you well know, there are far older creatures than you strewn about the world.'

She turned to face Charles. He was calm again. Secret wars had been fought and he had his balance back. She was encouraged by that.

Edwin disappeared from sight, lost in the crowds of soldiers and their sweethearts. Their link was broken.

Dravot let Edwin go. He was staying with Charles now.

'So, will you depart for the Russias and become a heroine of the bolsheviki?' Charles asked.

She shook her head. 'Not yet a while, I think. This corner of the world interests me still. The old men are not exhausted. It would be a sin to let them be just now. There's the war, and then there's the matter of Ireland. Countess Markowitz and Erskine Childers have asked me to be on a committee for Home Rule.'

'Tell me no more. We may be enemies.'

She stroked his lapel. 'I hope not, Charles.'

'Ruthven still reigns, even as his Cabinet conspires against him. Dracula, though demoted, remains close to the counsels of the Kaiser.'

Kate considered the situation.

'All Europe is stark mad with red thirst. All America, for that matter. All the world. But that's no reason to merge with the killing hordes, no reason not to struggle against the dead hands at the wheel.'

Charles was smiling. He looked younger. She knew he was on the ascendant. Edwin was dead to her, and maybe to himself. J But Charles soldiered on.

Fresh troops, conscripts and volunteers as yet unblooded, broke from disorderly queues and shoved past to board the boat train. Their open faces, warm or vampire, bothered her. All they : knew of war was fire and glory. Insanity would continue as long as lies were perpetuated.

'I should have you arrested,' Charles said, 'before you make more mischief.'

She thought of what she would write next. About the war, about the government, about the old men. She would write and shout and wheedle and nag until her voice was heard, drowning out the drumbeat of jingo and the blather of politicians. She could not be the last priestess of the truth. People would listen. Things would change.

'Mischief, my dear,' she said to Charles. 'You don't know the half of it.'