Grim Tidings Read Online Free Page A

down.
    Healing up from catastrophic injuries always took it out of me too, which is why the person waiting in the shadow of the snowbank outside was able to step behind me and slide a hand over my mouth.
    I didn’t scream, just opened my jaw wider and bit down, my teeth tearing through flesh and hitting bone. Blood spurted, the hot red kind that meant whatever had hold of me was something with a beating heart. Whoever it was let out a surprised grunt, but they didn’t let go. We stumbled backward into the bulwark of snow, me throwing an elbow into their gut that did absolutely no good. I felt the sting of a needle in my neck, and whatever the syringe held was even colder than the air around us. Ice spread through my veins, and everything was still and cold and white, silent as freshly fallen snow.

CHAPTER
3
    BUCHENWALD CONCENTRATION CAMP
    DECEMBER 1944
    Even the snow was gray. Not turned gray by the churned mud beneath it, crisscrossed by boots and jeeps until it was a vast plain of frozen sludge. It was like the flakes fell from the sky already muted and stained. In this place, even the snow had given up.
    I’d begged Gary not to send me. Give me a dirty trench in a French farmer’s field, a clear night in London with rockets falling—even the ghettos packed wall to wall with humanity, crushed together by sandbags and barbed wire, spotlights and dogs, were preferable to this. Gary had just smirked at me, brushing a piece of lint off his vest. “We all have our duties, Ava. There’s a war on.”
    Wilson chuckled at me, downing his fifth or seventh pint. Gary favored a rickety little pub in Knightsbridge for handing out assignments, which were fast and furious these days—every third-rate warlock who could draw a halfway decent summoning spell was itching to sell his soul to rake in more power before it all came crashing down.
    â€œNot for much longer,” I muttered. Unlike most of the hounds, I occasionally glanced at a newspaper. The Third Army was pushing across the Rhine and deep into Nazi territory, like a knife blade sliding closer to your heart inch by inch. Soon enough, all those German warlocks and Italian brujeria begging Gary to trade with them were going to turn off like a faucet. I kind of hoped I was around when it happened, just to watch that tight little smirk fall off his face.
    â€œAll the more reason to collect while we can. Herr Colonel Kubler has had a nice run with the bargain he made.” He flipped his ledger shut and stood up, fixing his tie in the mirror behind the pub’s bar. “Need I remind you that if he meets his end by bullet or rope before I can collect, then I get nothing?”
    I looked down at my shoes. They were covered in dust from the last time we’d all had to dash for the nearest bomb shelter. We were resilient compared to the people who huddled all around us, but nobody, including Gary, wanted to end up on the wrong end of a V-2. “No,” I murmured.
    Gary smacked me on the rear with a ledger as he gestured to Wilson, who slammed down his glass and grabbed Gary’s coat, scurrying after him like a pedigreed terrier. “Good girl,” he said. “Enjoy your time with the master race.”
    I fought the urge not to itch all over as I slogged through thegray, slushy snow, keeping my head down. I’d snagged the uniform from one of the bicycle couriers who spent all day pedaling between the vast acres of the camp complex, their leather satchels full of communiqués and cables for the officers. The bicycle courier herself was in her underwear somewhere south of the complex. If she were lucky, maybe somebody from the town out of sight behind the curtain of snow would pick her up. If she wasn’t lucky, well. Not my problem. Her uniform, crisp and spotless though it was, was made of wool that itched like fire ants and smelled like a wet dog.
    Colonel Kubler was a science officer. That much I’d found out