Page 87 of No Man's Land

“You…Haveyou?”

Her smile sharpened. “You’ve dipped your toe into a world you barely comprehend, Mr Shepel. We’ve lived in it our whole lives. Trust us.”

Violet grunted, standing up. “Besides, Lord B’s broken leg is the least of his worries. You won’t have time to bring him back here.”

“I wasn’t planning to. I’ll take the potion to him.”

“Like cough medicine?” She shook her head, apparently amused by his naïveté.

His turn to feel affronted. “Why not?”

“Because Lottie will need to perform the enchantment.”

He looked between the two of them. “The… what?”

“Magic spell,” Lottie said, “in layman’s terms. The potion must be enchanted. Otherwise it’s simply an unpleasant mixture of inert ingredients. Enchantments only last a few moments, you understand.”

He did not understand. Why should he? He didn’t understand any of this. “I thought—if I’d known I couldn’t just bring the potion back to him, I’d never have left him—” His voice cracked, and he stopped speaking.

“What would you have done?” Lottie said, not unkindly. “Slung him over one shoulder and run for it, fighting the ghoul with your free hand?”

He couldn’t answer; his throat had seized up.

“You did the right thing. If you hadn’t brought me this,” she indicated the vial of blood, “all hope would have been lost. Now we must hope we reach him in time.”

Thickly, Josef said, “He was already changing… He could see in the dark, and his eyes…” He shivered at the memory. “They had a… a blue cast to them.”

Lotti’s lips thinned. “Good.”

“Good?”

“It means the ghoul will probably see him as one of their own. Not prey.”

Josef’s heart thumped with a lumpen kind of relief. “Really? God, that’s what I hoped. They were ignoring him, going for me. That’s why I—” His voice failed, and he had to clear his throat. “That’s the only reason I left him.”

“And all we can do now is work as fast as possible.”

“I’ll fetch the first aid kit,” Violet said. “And we’ll need a splint.”

“We’ll need light, too.” Josef pulled out his useless hand torch. “This is dead, and you can’t get batteries for love nor money these days.”

But at that, Lottie smiled. “Light, I can provide. You should rest while you can, Mr Shepel.” She gestured at the plate of sandwiches. “Eat something. We’ll be off in under an hour.”

Josef didn’t want to eat. His stomach rebelled at the idea, but he’d learned at the front to eat whatever you could whenever you got the chance. He forced down a fishpaste sandwich, and then a second. They tasted of nothing, going claggy in his mouth, making it difficult to swallow.

Or maybe it was the guilt making it difficult to swallow, because how could he eat while Alex suffered?

If he’d brought Alex out, he’d be minutes away from a cure, not hours. Maybe he should have carried Alex out? Hecould have tried a fireman’s lift, couldn’t he? He’d seen men carry comrades on their backs from the firing line. Why hadn’t he tried to do the same?

You fucking coward!

Alex’s curse rang clear as a bell in his ears.

And perhaps he’d been right, too. Perhaps they’d all been right, everyone who’d called him a conchie coward, a yellow belly, a disgrace. Because dress it up how you liked, Josef had run away from the fight—be it for his country or for Alex. Oh, he had his reasons, and they were good reasons, but in the end maybe they’d just given him an excuse to run.

A better man would have carried Alex out or died trying. That’s what Alex would have done.

“Chin up,” Violet said, and he looked up to find her putting on her coat and hat, a large first aid satchel slung crosswise over her shoulder. “It might never happen.”

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