Eternal: More Love Stories With Bite (5 page)

Patrice could no longer meet Ivan's eyes.
"You've
heard
all the details I
intend to tell
you."

He laughed
so
loudly that Patrice tried to
shush
him, but
he
wouldn't be silenced.
"You
haven't
told
him!
This
Charlie thinks you're a sweet
young
girl from home. What will he think when you
appear
before him as the avenging monster you really are?"

"Charlie loves me." Her voice sounded overly sharp, even to her, but she wouldn't be mocked by Ivan—not about this. "And I love him. He's a good man who's sick and suffering
in
a camp run
by
people who think
he's
even less than an
ani
mal.
I'm
going to save him.
Nothing
else matters."

Ivan's smile had softened. This, too, reminded her of other days. "When
I
met you, I believed you cared about nothing but clothes and champagne and fun. Fun for me, too,
I
thought. But I did not fall
in
love with
you
until
I
learned how fierce you are."

Briefly Patrice remembered a long-ago sleigh ride in the snow, furs heaped around her to ward off the bitter chill of the Russian winter. She and Ivan had been running for their lives, and she had felt no fear, only the savage joy of the hunt. With Charlie, she had shared so much laughter and warmth, but never
a
moment like that.

But this could
change.

Ivan continued, "War brings this savagery out in
humans.
In your Charlie,
too. He's
not the
man
you once knew.
He
has
been to
war. He knows
what it is to
kill.
Be ready for
that."

Patrice tried not to listen. She closed her eyes and thought instead of dancing with Charlie in the USO canteen. Although she could bring every other detail to mind—the smell of cigarette smoke, the crispness of Charlie's uniform, the laughter of the other junior hostesses on the dance floor—she couldn't quite recall any of the music. The only sound was the crackling of the fire.

* * * *

Three hours after sunset, Patrice and Ivan huddled together at the edge of a grove of trees. The cold, hard ground that stretched out before them had been roughly cleared, and it was mostly a mess of frozen mud between them and the barbed-wire fences of Stalag VII-A. Searchlights periodically swept the perimeter, but by now she knew their pattern. Even with her knee still stiff, Patrice could move faster than any human. And if the barbed wire ripped her flesh as she climbed over, well, that would heal, too.

"There are occultists among the Nazis," Ivan murmured. His breath was cool against her ear; vampire's breath never fogged in the winter. "I should imagine no more than a few dozen of them in the entire Third Reich have any idea what they would truly be dealing with, if presented with a vampire. But if one of them is here tonight, it will go badly for us."

"Badly for me," she said. "You're staying out here."

"I thought you said you wanted my help."

"I do. If I get hung up inside the POW camp, I'll need someone to come in after me and Charlie. And if we're pursued afterward, you could cover us. But while I'm trying to sneak around in there? One more person is just double the noise."

"I hate it when you prove that you're smarter than I am."

"You know I can't help it."

They gave each other the mocking look that always used to make them laugh, but the humor was darker now.

Ivan said, "Have you any idea how to find him?"

"I know he's in the infirmary, so it will just be a matter of finding the sign."

"How did you discover this?"

"His mother wrote it in her last letter."

"You're writing to his mother!
Bozhe moi,
when you playact at being human, you don't stop halfway, do you?"

Scowling, Patrice said, "Do you want to keep making sarcastic comments, or shall we begin?"

Ivan stepped slightly back among the trees, silently indicating his acceptance of her plan. Turning her attention back toward the camp, Patrice waited for the searchlight to slide slowly past one more time—and then she ran.

Full vampire speed: she rarely used it, rarely had the need. But now she felt the joy of pushing her body beyond its old mortal constraints. Although her knee burned in protest, it was pain Patrice could easily bear. So were the stabs of barbed wire in her palms, against her knees. Her skirt ripped as she vaulted over the fence, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered except finding Charlie.

Patrice scrambled across the camp yard; if she understood the rotation of the guards, nobody would walk directly past her for a few minutes yet. Each barrack was neatly labeled, and hopefully the infirmary would be, too.

There!
Krankenstation
—that was the German word for it. No lights, no guard at the door; these prisoners weren't held captive by bolts or locks but by that barbed-wire fence around them.

For a moment, Patrice couldn't think about the danger they were in or the difficult explanations that lay ahead. All she could think about was that she was within moments of seeing Charlie again. How stupid of her to be happy—to be like a human girl about this—but there was no denying it.

Silently she stepped inside. Though the infirmary bunks were full, no doctor or nurse was on duty. These men were expected to heal or die on their own, at least at this hour of the night.

Immediately Patrice saw him—Charlie was the biggest man there. Though he was so much thinner than before—

She crept to his bedside, tears welling in her eyes. "Charlie?" she whispered. "Charlie, wake up."

He opened his eyes. He didn't show any surprise, only a slow kind of wonder. "Patrice."

"I've come to take you home."

"I—always knew—" His breath came shallow and fast, like his lungs couldn't take in air anymore. He was even sicker than she'd feared: pneumonia, or perhaps even tuberculosis. "Always knew—you weren't just a girl."

The shock felt like falling into the coldest snow, but she knew better than to overreact. "What do you mean, Charlie?"

"Knew you were—an angel."

"An angel come to take you home. Put your arms around my neck."

Charlie tried to do so, no doubt believing that this was merely a dream, or some kind of vision before death. Though
his
grasp was weak, it would do. Patrice called upon her vampire strength and lifted him from his sickbed. Though he
was
six inches taller than her and probably seventy pounds of muscle heavier, she could manage it easily. Getting him over the fence—harder, but still within her power. As she settled him in her arms, his rough black blanket fell to the floor. She considered trying to grab it but discarded the idea. No doubt the cold would be bad for him, but maybe that wouldn't matter for much longer.

She walked out of the infirmary, leaving the door open behind her; let them believe Charlie had escaped. Almost as soon as she walked into the yard, though, she heard a guard
call
out, "
Haltestelle!"

And then she could only run for the fence, knee stinging, Charlie strangely light in her arms. A searchlight panned toward her, almost blinding her with its sudden blaze, but she had senses beyond sight.

"What's . . . what's happening ..." Charlie rasped.

Patrice couldn't answer. She hoisted him to one side to get one hand free and vaulted for the fence. Barbed wire sank into her palm, tore at her knees, but she was moving almost too quick to feel it. Machine-gun fire rang out, but missed her.

She and Charlie slammed hard into the frozen ground as they fell outside the stalag fence, but Patrice didn't even slow
down, just
swung
him
back
into
her
arms
as she
continued
running.
Footsteps and
shouts
echoed behind
her, but she
never glanced
back.

As
she crashed
into
the grove
of
trees,
she
had to
slow
down,
and
she
heard
her
pursuers
gaining on them. Then
she heard their screams, and Ivan's laughter.

Yes,
it
was always good to
have
backup.

As
she
sank to her knees and settled Charlie upon the earth, Patrice sucked in a deep breath to soothe herself, and smelled blood.

The
machine-gun fire hadn't missed after all. Charlie was badly hit.

Patrice put one hand on his chest, which was wet and hot with blood.
He
was
all
but
unconscious now,
quivering
in
what were
likely to
be
his death throes.