Читать книгу Bloody Right - Georgia Evans - Страница 10

A partisan camp in southeast Germany

Angela looked up as Bela Mestan walked into the cave hideout. “Your sister is useless. She does nothing but eat our food.”

Bela looked Angela in the eye and glared. She hadn’t escaped the Nazis, rescued her sister from Flossenbürg, and fled into the mountains to put up with this. “My sister cooks and tends the fire.” When she wasn’t sleeping as she was now. “She was near death when we came here. As you would be if you’d been treated as she was. I do enough for you to repay her food.” Scanty as they were, the partisans’ meager rations were slowly restoring Gela’s strength.

Angela was unsatisfied. She scowled at the others clustered around the fire. “We cannot afford to feed useless mouths.”

Spiteful, stupid human! Bela wanted to shriek into Angela’s piglike eyes that Fairies were never useless. That they could do far more than humans, run faster, hide unnoticed, and move silently where mortals tramped and tripped.

She didn’t have to.

“Leave her be, Angela,” Rachel, the other woman in the group, said. “Rolf and Hans are coming back.”

Rolf was their leader and his support and acceptance of Bela and her twin rankled with Angela but she went quiet, seemingly contenting herself with scowling at the fire.

The fire that Fairy magic kept hidden from mortal eyes. Bela dreaded discovery even more than her mortal companions.

Both men came in, shaking the snow from their shoulders and depositing a large bundle on the floor.

“Turnips,” Hans said. “There’s not much else out there. We need to take Bela with us next time. She can always find something.”

Steal it, he meant, and yes, she could, sneaking into barns and villages unnoticed.

“We’re hungry and cold,” Rolf said, looking at the pot on the fire. “Stew?”

“Rabbit,” Angela replied.

“That Bela caught,” Rachel added and got a snarl for her pains.

The two men picked up enamel bowls and filled them from the pot resting on the campfire. Rolf sat beside Bela. “You and your sister speak English, don’t you?”

Bela nodded. “Among other languages.” French, Czech, German, and Romani, the language the Fairies shared with the gypsies. They, too, were being slaughtered by the Nazis.

“Who speaks it better, you or Gela?”

“English? Gela. My French is better than hers.”

“We’ll need both soon.”

“What’s going on?” Angela asked.

“We have two visitors headed our way. Coming from the group over by Tiefeswasser. They’ve been keeping them, now it’s our turn.”

“Visitors? Do we run a hotel now?” Angela asked.

“They’re escaped prisoners of war,” Rolf replied, almost snapping. “We’ll house them a few days then they move on. They can’t walk nonstop. They rest in safe places in between.”

“Heading for Switzerland?” Rachel asked. “They have a hard walk ahead of them in this weather.”

She was right. In summer the trip would have been long, but pleasant enough. This time of year it would be a very strong human who managed it on foot.

“So we’ve told them. They seem to think it would be easier to evade pursuit in this weather.”

“They are fools!” Angela muttered. “Idiots!”

“It’s worked for them so far,” Bela pointed out.

“Only with help from the partisans and underground.”

“How else would they escape?” Rachel asked. “We help them, they get home. After all, the British send us supplies.” She looked at Rolf. “Isn’t that how it works?”

Rolf nodded.

Angela let out a laugh. “We shall see. We do nothing but take in waifs who eat our food.” She looked across at Gela sleeping under a rug. “Look how much good taking in these two has done us.”

“Stop!” Rolf so rarely raised his voice that she went quiet. “Bela does more than her share, and now we need Gela.”

“To entertain visitors.”

Why did Rolf tolerate Angela? Bela wondered. Because they couldn’t afford to have her leave? She knew where they and other groups hid out in the mountains.

“Two escapees from a prisoner of war camp?” Bela asked.

Hans nodded. “I spoke to one of Klaus’s group. An Englishman and a Frenchman. The Frenchman is in a bad way. He’ll need to rest for a while when he gets here.”

Angela muttered something about the unit turning into a rest camp, but only Bela, with her heightened sense of hearing, caught it. She was wearied by the constant carping, and if it wore her down, how about Gela, who spent all day listening to the complaints and gripes?

“When will they get here?” Rachel asked. “We’ll need more food. Men eat a lot.” She gave Rolf a grin.

“Once we know they’re coming, I can set more traps,” Bela volunteered. Her traps seldom stayed empty for long. If they had noticed she never came back empty-handed, no one said anything. They were too glad for the meat.

“Let someone else take care of them,” Rolf said. “We’ll need you to come with us, once we get word.”