Fred Saberhagen - Dracula 09 - A Sharpness on the Neck

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A Sharpness on the Neck by Fred Saberhagen

Chapter One

The world abounds in mysteries. But some of the marvels which at first sight strike the observer as most

impressive are susceptible to the most trivial explanations.

Allow me to offer an example. Charles Dickens, famed inventor of Christmas ghosts and Tiny Tim, when

visitingRome in 1845 chose to broaden his experience of the world by witnessing the beheading of a

criminal. Afterward Dickens wrote:A strange appearance was the apparent annihilation of the neck. The

head was taken off so close that it seemed as if the knife had narrowly escaped crushing the jaw, or

shaving off the ear. And the body looked as if there were nothing left above the shoulder.

In fact, the cause of this seeming annihilation is perfectly simple. When the living muscles of the neck are

suddenly cut in half, each end of each fiber contracts sharply, pulling with it the soft surrounding tissues,

as well as the small, newly disconnected bones which had made up the spinal column. Tiny fragments are

all one can expect to find of whichever vertebra lay directly in the path of the falling knife, which, at least

in the classical French guillotine, is not only extremely sharp but as heavy as a small anvil.

* * *

Now that we have arrived in Prance, let me mention, parenthetically, a puzzle that I—I, Vlad

Dracula—find somewhat harder to explain: In all the surviving bureaucratic paperwork of the Terror—I

mean the French Revolution of the 1790s—in all the volumes of court orders, prison records,

inflammatory speeches, in all the desperate accumulation of decrees and denunciations—the word

"guillotine" does not appear even once. Newspapers, of course, are a different story. Charles-Henri

Sanson, chief executioner and high priest of the device during much of that bloodstained epoch, as a rule

called it simplyla mecanique—"the machine."

I tell you that greedy and most fickle wench,la mecanique, consumed more blood in one year—nay,

perhaps in a month, or even in a single day—than I in a whole century.

The long, broad stream of human history has cast up a hundred variations on the beheading device, from

the simple headsman's axe or sword up through an infernal variety of complications. It seems safe to say

that the one the world knows best is the eponymous child of Dr. Guillotin, who more than two hundred

years ago, as a delegate to the French National Assembly, conceived his mechanical offspring, based on

the latest humanitarian principles, in the course of an enlightened search for greater efficiency in terror.

The guillotine in its classical French form counted its first live human victim on April 25, 1792, inParis ,

when used to dispatch a common murderer and thief, Jacques Pelletier. Some three years later, a

steam-powered guillotine, intended to achieve the mass production of justice, was on the drawing

boards—but by 1795 the number of beheadings, after averaging around twenty-six a day inParis alone

during the previous summer, had gone into a precipitous decline. The French Revolution, a monstrous

child of oppression, was choked on blood and stumbling over bodies. To the best of historians'

knowledge at the end of the twentieth century, that ultraefficient model ofla mecaniquehas yet to be

constructed.

Throughout a good part of the 1790s—those strenuous years which in France, at least, are never to be

forgotten— Sanson and his sons and their crew (there was never a shortage of volunteers) performed

their indefatigable labors, without benefit of steam, while elevated on a stage. Their Parisian theater of

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operations looked much like a prizefighters' square ring, and had the same reason for its existence: to

provide a good view for a large audience.

The tall narrow frame of the guillotine, extending almost fifteen feet above the platform, was essentially

composed of two stout wooden uprights a little more than a foot apart. The lunette at the bottom of the

uprights consisted of two pieces of wood, each with a smooth, semicircular notch, that when clapped

together formed a solid neckpiece pierced by a circular, neck-sized hole.

This hole was at the head of the plank bed on which the subject was placed facedown. The broad,

single plank, painted blood red like the lunette and uprights, slid back from the upright portion of the

frame, simultaneously tilting into an almost vertical position. First, as a rule, the subject's hands were tied

behind his or her back. Then the man— frequently a woman; sometimes a child—who was to experience

the full effect of the apparatus walked (or was dragged or carried) up to this plank, and was secured to it

by broad leather straps encircling the waist and legs.

The plank was then tipped forward on its central pivot, bringing its occupant to a prone position. Now a

precise adjustment by the machine's attendants, allowing for the subject's height—perhaps I should say

for the total length when horizontal—positioned the chin in a nicely calculated way, to overhang the end

of the plank by about three inches. The executioners, shifting their grip, slid the whole bed forward in its

greased grooves, so that the chin of the occupant just cleared the lower half of the lunette. The upper

construction of curved wood was then clamped down. A final adjustment, if necessary, was

accomplished by tugging on the subject's hair, or on the ears if there was insufficient hair to offer a good

grip. This part of the operation was not entirely without peril for the technician; more than one assistant

executioner lost more than one finger due to premature release of the heavy knife above.

Let us now briefly consider that weapon, its cutting edge poised ten or twelve feet above the waiting

neck. Attached to the top of the blade was amouton, a piece of iron weighing some thirty kilograms, or

over sixty pounds, intended to render more forceful the descent of the razor-edged cutter, which in itself

weighed about twenty pounds. The impact of all this metal, falling usually on the fourth vertebra, tended

to be decisive.

I can offer eyewitness testimony that it was Sanson's habit, each day after work, to bring home with him

only the blade of the guillotine, without themouton. His idea, that of a good workman, was to save the

most delicate part of the instrument from rain and rust. Also there was some thought of discouraging

curiosity-seekers from playing games withla mecanique, hurting themselves or some innocent victim.

Naturally Sanson, or more often one of his assistants, saw to it that the blade was cleaned very

thoroughly before it was brought into his house. Those in charge also took care that the cutting edge,

angled at about forty-five degrees from right to left for improved efficiency, was treated tenderly with file

and whetstone to keep it sharp.

Up on the platform, when Sanson's shop was open for business, there waited wicker baskets also

painted red, and made small and large, to receive, respectively, the heads and bodies of the corpses

which were the finished product of all this industry and ingenuity. The baskets were usually kept half-filled

with bran or sawdust, in hopes of making the cleanup easier.

How's this for a joke? Executioner to victim being dragged to the machine: "You don't want to do it? But

it will only take a second."

Yes, I quite agree. But at the very height of the Terror, in the summer of 1794 (Year 2 of the

now-almost-forgotten Revolutionary Calendar), one of Sanson's least intelligent assistants was wont to

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repeat this wheeze a dozen or a score of times a day. Of course each victim only had to hear it once; but

after a few weeks it seemed that the fellow's own co-workers, tortured beyond endurance, were on the

point of cutting their colleague's throat to shut him up… but I digress.

Where was I? Yes, there is one more point I wish to make about the guillotine, then on with the story,

which I trust you will find fully satisfactory… Whenever, in these post-Revolutionary times, a full-size

model ofla mecaniquebecomes available—this happens somewhat more often than you might

think—many people find something irresistibly attractive in the idea of trying on, as it were, that tillable

plank and even that lunette. (Few go so far as wanting to hear above their heads the speedy whisper of

the falling blade.) Some of these enthusiasts are found among the adventurous elderly, sometimes they are

young men, but for some reason the most susceptible to such temptations seem to be young women. All

of them want to know:How would it feel to lie down there?

But it would have been hard to conceive of anything more remote from the thoughts of Philip Radcliffe

and his bride of three months, the former June MacKenzie, on the late afternoon in the early summer of

1996 when those two young people encountered… no, not a guillotine, not yet… but their first vampire.

This particular drinker of blood made a first impression all sweet and girlish, with nothing at all in her

appearance to suggest, at first glance, the true nature of her being— unless one considered the dark

glasses, necessary armor against the day's last, relatively feeble rays of direct sunlight. She looked very

young (though actually well over five hundred years of age, as I can testify through personal

acquaintance) and was comely of face and figure. Her hair was curly, coloring on the dark side, more

gypsy-looking than African. Wearing faded jeans, a man's shirt, and long silver earrings, she stood at

roadside, one arm boldly extended, thumb up in the hitchhiker's time-honored gesture, flashing white

teeth— none of them at the moment particularly pointed—as Radcliffe's convertible, slowing to ten miles

an hour for a sharp curve on the winding, climbing, narrow western road, drew near.

The Radcliffes' kidnapping by the so-called undead took both of them completely by surprise. At the

moment when they first came in sight of the young woman, there had been nothing on their minds more

exotic than their choice of places, all hours of driving distant, where they might stop for the night.

But how could an even moderately adventurous young man, accompanied by a wife who invariably

wanted to stop for injured animals, resist an attractive young woman standing at roadside at sunset,

hitchhiking appealingly in an open area, typical of the westernUSA , where not even a single thuggish

male companion could possibly be concealed? One could see the mountains rising, almost a hundred

miles away, with not much of anything but distance in between. There was no broken-down car in

evidence, to offer an explanation for her presence.

The girl at roadside came into the view of Philip and June just as the sun was on the point of

disappearing behind the western mountains, on what had been till then a day of only minor surprises for

the young couple. The youthful-looking hitchhiker was barefoot, a condition made more noticeable by

her blood-red painted toenails. It seemed obvious that she had not been doing a lot of walking along the

desert road in that condition.

Philip's intention had been to coast on past the waiting figure for a few yards before coming to a frill

stop. But the hitchhiker, as if afraid he was going to get away, darted into the narrow road right in front of

his convertible, so that he had to slam on the brakes and curse violently to stop before hitting her. In the

next moment, he had the impression that his carhadhit the crazy woman; he thought he heard an alarming

thump, and believed he saw her body propelled backward a yard or two.

June, her pale blond hair and skin in marked contrast to those of the hitchhiker, screamed and said

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something. Afterward, no one could remember what.

But in the next moment, it seemed that the impression of a heavy impact must have been mistaken,

because the hitchhiker certainly was not harmed, had not even been knocked down. Almost before he

had completely stopped, she was at the side of the car, reaching for the right rear door handle.

Certainly whatever had happened was not his fault, but Philip was half-convinced that his auto had

struck her, and he couldn't refuse to stop and open the door for her.

Until that day, the young man would have given the year 1996 a mixed rating. Apart from the joys of his

recent wedding, it had not been, for various financial and business reasons, among the very best years of

his life. But on the other hand it was a comfortable distance from the worst. Career-wise, he thought it

might very well be described as one of the riskiest of times, with the life of a computer consultant in a

constant state of flux. But if you looked at the other side of the coin of rapid change, such an epoch was

also the most promising.

Philip Radcliffe was twenty-six years old, and almost exactly six feet tall, broad-shouldered but rangy

rather than massive in his build. He was blessed, or cursed, with a classically handsome face, which

added to the impression of aristocracy. A shock of dark brown hair tended to resist all efforts at

arrangement, lending its owner a romantic, windblown look.

Something in the young man's features or bearing, the look of his eye, the tilt of his head, along with the

lack of styling in his hair, suggested the aristocrat even to people who had no clear idea what an

aristocrat in the classic European sense ought to look like.

Having screeched to a halt, half on the road, half off, he opened his driver's door and started to get out

of his car. But then he aborted the motion, slamming his door shut again. Because the young woman was

already settling into the rear seat.

"Drive on!" his new passenger urged, slamming her door shut too—or at least thumping her hand on the

flat panel. Radcliffe couldn't have sworn that she had ever opened the door, but somehow she was in.

She gave a small but dramatic wave of one small hand, displaying long fingernails of the same color as her

toes, and laughed.

June, twisting round her slight frame to look from the right front seat, gaped open-mouthed at the

brazenness of this performance.

Philip, a trifle dazed by the rapidity of events, started to drive on. With automatic caution he reminded

his new passenger to put on her seat belt.

His new passenger only drew in a deep breath, ran her fingers through her curly hair, and laughed at the

idea, once more displaying her amazingly white teeth.

He snatched a couple of seconds from his driving to turn his head and look at her again. He said: "I

thought for a moment that the car had hit you, back there."

The reply was breezy: "You don't have to worry about that."

Well, thought Philip Radcliffe. Usually he was quite firm in his attitude toward passengers, requiring that

they all be belted in. But the laughter was like a jolt of reality. Illogically, seatbelts were suddenly

diminished in importance.

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Welcome a stranger into your car inAmerica these days, and a sudden accident is one of the least of

your worries.

"Where are you going?" Surely a reasonable and almost inevitable question to put to a hitchhiker.

"With you, Philip." And once more the dark-haired stranger laughed, this time more musically. She

turned her head a few degrees from left to right. "Hi, June."

Phil was sufficiently disturbed that his steering, or lack of it, briefly caused the vehicle to wander back

and forth across the road. The couple in the front seat looked at each other with stunned expressions,

both of them wondering where inside the car or on it their names might be visible. But of course the

names were not on display anywhere, and they knew it. The only reasonable explanation was that they

knew this girl from somewhere. But no, thought Radcliffe— she was certainly not of the type that he

could have forgotten.

For some reason he did not even notice that his new passenger was invisible in the rearview mirror; or

perhaps, as breathers tend to do sometimes, he unconsciously suppressed the knowledge. Dangerously

neglecting to watch the road, he turned his head to look at her. Numbly he asked: "How'd you know my

name?"

"Somebody told me," she answered playfully, turning her face toward him. With the dying of the last

sunspark on the mountainside, she slipped off the dark glasses, revealing warm brown eyes with nothing

overtly amazing about them. "Better watch where you're going." Then, as an afterthought: "Call me

Connie."

And Phil, even this early in the game, felt a secret pang of guilt at the impression this comely vampire

woman made on him.

Not that any suspicion of her status, her subspecies if you will, had yet dawned on the puzzled young

man. Neither he nor his bride had any clear idea of what a genuine vampire might be expected to look

like. Apart from the enjoyment of a few old movies, they really had no thoughts on the subject at all.

But when the young woman smiled at Philip from between her heavy silver earrings, both observers

understood immediately that there was something truly out of the ordinary about her.

Philip's job as a computer consultant, mainly helping companies to rid themselves of their mainframes in

favor of smaller, relatively inexpensive hardware, involved a lot of travel. Begun with his wife three days

ago inKansas City , this trip had been designed with a combination of business and pleasure in mind.

Already they had detoured considerably from the strict requirements of business, to do some sightseeing

at Meteor Crater and the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert complex. They had visited Inscription Rock in

New Mexico as well as the Very Large Array of radiotelescopes mounted on railroad tracks, and were

regretting the fact that they had been unable to work the Carlsbad Caverns into their itinerary. They were

looking forward to the Grand Canyon and, if they decided to stretch the trip a bit,ZionNational Park .

The sun had at last dropped securely behind the western peaks, whose long shadows now entirely

claimed the road ahead. Automatically Radcliffe switched on his headlights— and at the same moment

felt the weight and balance in the car change subtly.

The second vampire to put in an appearance came a lot closer to looking the part, as it has recently been

portrayed in films, even though he wore no cape nor displayed any obvious great fangs. The last beams

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of direct sunlight had barely left the car when he appeared, hatless, clad in a dark suit, sitting in the rear

seat beside Connie. His entry was accomplished without the vehicle having stopped again or even slowed

down, without either of the doors opening even for an instant Radcliffe felt his presence, somehow, and

heard him in the rear seat before he saw him.

This latest newcomer, who had arrived so incomprehensibly, seemed to have blown in like a cloud of

mist, or dropped in from overhead like an invisible bird. He materialized as a rather serious-looking man

of indeterminate age, though certainly not gray or wrinkled. This well-built stranger—lean body slightly

taller than average, face dark for a Caucasian and rather handsome—reached forward, un-snapped

Philip's and June's safety belts, one with each hand, and pulled both breathers unceremoniously into the

rear seat as if they had been no more than four years old.

Somehow he accomplished this feat without breaking any of their bones, leaving any bruises, or even

tearing any of their clothing. In the next moment the Radcliffes were flanking the stranger in the rear. He

had one brotherly arm around each of them, holding them more utterly immobile than any seat belt. Had

the vehicle in which they rode not been a convertible, top down, it would, according to the modern taste

for economy in manufacturing, have offered barely room enough to occupy a seat let alone go changing

front to rear. In that case, who knows what that forceful fellow might have done to get his kidnapping

victims where he wanted them? But he'd have found a way.

The three adults now sitting in the rear enjoyed sufficient room because, in the same instant as the

Radcliffes were forcibly transported rearward, the young-looking woman with the gypsy eyes had

somehow transferred herself to the front seat, where she had already grabbed the steering wheel with one

hand. Radcliffe hadn't really seen how Miss Gypsy had performed this feat of acrobatic stage magic, and

he couldn't really believe it. But there she was anyway, now sliding neatly under the wheel and assuming

all the chores of driving. So smoothly was this change of command accomplished that the automobile

hardly hesitated in its forward passage, hardly wavered from its central position in the narrow road.

Almost before the Radcliffes had the chance to be alarmed, they were prisoners. Neither of their

kidnappers had bothered togagthem, because neither cared in the least if the victims yelled.

June let out a wavering sound. It seemed not so much a cry for help as a recognition that crying for help

would do no good.

No one paid her outcry any attention.

Fear arrived, for both victims, with a strong rush of adrenaline, but much too late to do either of them

any good.

Philip Radcliffe thought:Violent kidnapping is something that happens to other people, not to me. Not to

us. Therefore, this can't really be going on.

But it was.

"What is this?" His own voice sounded strange and awkward.

"For your own good," said the couple's new companion, who was now wedged in between them with an

air of permanence, as if he'd been there for the whole trip. His deep voice carried some flavor of

middleEurope . He sounded as if he were trying to be reassuring, and he gave Radcliffe's shoulders a

fraternal squeeze.

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Why am I letting this man restrain me with one arm? Who in the hell does he think he… Philip, at last

energized by anger, willed himself to relax as a deliberate tactic—then in the next instant, struggled

violently to be free.

More precisely, hetriedto struggle violently—actually he could not move an inch. The single arm which

pinioned him felt like a steel cable. The next step in his plan had been to punch the man beside him, or

maybe slam him with an elbow. But any such heroics proved utterly impossible. Both of Radcliffe's

elbows were being held immovably against his sides.

While Phil was trying to think of something to do next, part of his mind took note of the fact that the

young woman behind the wheel did not really seem to be concentrating on her driving. The car was going

considerably faster now with her in control, but it seemed that the task was perhaps too trivial to hold her

interest. She turned on the car radio and punched in one station after another until she came to a man on

a talk show declaring loudly that there was obviously no chance of that other candidate, the wrong one,

being elected in November. Voters would have to be crazy to pick that villain, declared the hectoring,

annoying voice. Because of course if that scoundrelshouldhappen to get in,America was doomed, and the

children and grandchildren of everyone out there in the radio audience faced a future bleak beyond belief.

They'd all spend the rest of their lives jobless but paying enormous taxes. Not only would they be buried

in debt, national and personal, but half of them would be held hostage by domestic criminals or foreign

terrorists.

"Turn off the noise," the man holding Philip immobile commanded harshly. (He had no wish to be

mistaken for a hostage-taker, and might have allowed the radio to stay on if that word had not surfaced

amid the babble. On the other hand, he might not.)

The girl in the front seat did not turn her head, and Philip thought she hesitated briefly, on the brink of

arguing. But within a couple of seconds she obediently punched the radio off again.

Chapter Two

June, writhing and straining, suddenly made her own effort to break free. But her first try fared no better

than Philip's, though her struggle lasted somewhat longer. Phil on observing what his wife was doing

gamely made another try himself, but their captor had no trouble at all managing them both at the same

time, one arm to each. The dark-haired intruder sat through this interlude with a thoughtful expression on

his lean face, and seemed to be waiting, like an experienced parent, for the kids to get the nonsense out

of their systems.

June, gasping and tired, at last gave up, and breathed out a prolonged whine of frustration.

"Phil,do something!"

He grunted and strained again and muttered a few obscenities and oaths. But this time his heart wasn't

really in it. He understood, as he sat waiting for his lungs and heart to slow to normal, that he might as

well have saved his energy.

Glaring at their captor, June said: "I don't see how you think you can just come into the car and—and…"

"But I can." His voice was calm, infuriatingly parental.

"Depend upon it. Nevertheless, you have nothing to fear from me."

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So, it seemed that they were well and truly kidnapped. Philip in the back of his mind was already running

through a mental list of people who might be expecting to hear soon from either one of them. The list was

short, and offered no comfort. The Radcliffes could be out of communication with the world for a long

time before anyone else became alarmed.

After a few seconds of silence, the girlish-looking vampire in the front seat turned her head long enough

to call back cheerily: "Call me Connie. And you're Phil and June. But you already know that." And she

giggled.

"You may call me Mr. Graves," said the somber man who sat, apparently relaxed but watchful as a

statue, between his captives in the rear.

"You're hurting me," June told him, in a tone of voice that suggested it was mainly her sensibilities which

had been injured.

"My apologies," said Mr. Graves, sounding in fact not all that sorry. His voice suggested that of some

Middle European diplomat with faultless yet not native English, and his dark suit did nothing to dispel this

impression. He turned his face toward June. "I shall release you. But only on the condition that you must,

for a while, accept my presence, and my guidance."

Evidently she gave some sign of her acceptance. Radcliffe, feeling like a fool in his helplessness, looked

across and saw that his wife was now indeed free. She was rubbing her slender arms and shoulders,

inspecting her wrists and hands, with a puzzled look, as if she were sure there must be someplace where

she was really hurt.

Phil let out a breath of partial relief. "Put on your seat belt," he reminded his wife mechanically.

She pulled the strap into place, and snapped the buckle, in a kind of reflex action.

Graveshad now turned his dark, compelling gaze to his left. "Mr. Radcliffe, will you also ride peacefully

beside me?"

"Doesn't seem like I have much choice," Phil gritted through his teeth.

"An intelligent observation," his seatmate observed.

The numbing grip relaxed. It was Philip's turn to rub his arms and shoulders, and to feel puzzled at the

lack of damage. All that strength should have left something bruised or strained; but he felt only a faint

tingling, like the aftermath of a good massage.

No one man, especially one so thin, could be that strong. It had to have been some trick…

"Please put on your seatbelt," the trickster urged him solicitously.

Radcliffe clicked the halves of the buckle into place. Then, summoning up his not inconsiderable

courage, he demanded of his kidnapper: "And who the hell are you?"

"You may call meGraves ," the dark-suited man repeated patiently. "Mr. Graves, if you are in a mood

for formality. When we have reached our destination, we are going to discuss my identity more fully. It

has a certain bearing on our business." For the first time he smiled faintly, showing a glimpse of white

teeth.

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Connie in the front seat turned her head briefly, glancing at Phil. Then she remarked: "He does look like

him, doesn't he, Via… doesn't he, Mr. Graves?"

"A definite resemblance,"Graves agreed.

"Who do I look like?" Radcliffe demanded.

"You look a whole lot like a certain ancestor of yours," Connie remarked; over her shoulder. "One who

lived about two hundred years ago."

Philip, his mind still numb, mental faculties staggering off-balance and scrambling through trivia to try and

find a foothold, decided that Connie appeared to be about a decade younger than Mr. Graves, who had

to be at least thirty. And she sounded like a native English-speaker, which the male intruder did not.

* * *

The man who called himself Mr. Graves had turned his gaze upon his male captive, and was studying

him intently. Philip was the one, by all indications, in whomGraves was really interested. He didn't know

whether to be pleased or not that June was being virtually ignored.

Connie, without looking round again, remarked: "Yes, this has to be the one that Radu wants."

"Really there can be no doubt."Graves was nodding slowly. The resemblance is definitely there. The

eyes, the mouth. Unusually strong, after so many generations."

"So I look like my ancestor?" Radcliffe's own voice seemed surprisingly loud in his ears. "Does this mean

I inherit the whole fortune?"

Ignoring his comment and facetious question, the woman said: "I agree, as to that. And I have an

excellent memory for faces."

June piped up: "So, you're taking us to someone called Radu?"

"Taking you to him? On the contrary!"Graves , turning his head to look at her, smiled in some private

amusement.

Connie, her mind still off on another pathway, muttered musingly: "I wonder—to how many 'greats'

should that ancestor of his now be entitled?"

June said: "Phil?" in a small, lost voice. But then she let it go at that. He looked past their kidnapper at

her, and was vaguely relieved to see that she was bearing up, so far—and that she had her seat belt on.

Connie drove on for more than an hour, heading generally west and north, steering from one small road

to another, never seeming to have the least doubt as to where she was going. They passed through no

towns; here and there a lighted window appeared only in the distance, and other traffic was nonexistent.

Phil kept formulating plans for sudden violence, for taking their captor by surprise—and giving them up.

The attitude of the man beside him, the memory of that grip, were thoroughly discouraging.

Twice he was on the point of telling Connie to turn the headlights on, and twice he held back. Let her

hang up the car on one of these roadside rocks, if she thought she could see in the dark—anything to

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disrupt the kidnappers' plan. But though the darkness deepened steadily, the driver proceeded unerringly

and at the same speed.

Now and then she turned her head to smile solicitously at her victims. Meanwhile Graves spent most of

the time sitting motionless, as if lost in thought.

Eventually, flicking on headlights at last, she pulled the convertible into what was obviously a

prearranged rendezvous. A kind of rude driveway, no more than a set of rutted tracks, curved away

from the thin road, leading behind a rocky outcropping to a building, some kind of abandoned shed,

whose location effectively hid its presence from casual traffic. Here the deceptively flat-looking landscape

had put up enough of a bulge to conceal till the last moment an isolated shed, surrounded by a small

grove of trees. A dusty Suburban, two or three years old, was parked just beyond the shed.

As the car braked to a stop, Phil started at the sight of a small handful of masked figures, men and

women, who suddenly appeared in the glare of his car's headlights, standing around the shed. Radcliffe

saw with a chill that these people, dressed in nondescript clothing, were wearing rubber Halloween

masks over their heads; ghosts and witches were represented, smiling, along with Frankenstein's monster,

whose rubber features looked less happy. Radcliffe's uneasy attention took note also of a mummy and a

werewolf.

So, the young man thought, with a sinking sensation. Numbers and organization proved that it wasn't just

a couple of crazed acrobats who were doing this. He and June were somehow victims of a real,

professional plot, well-organized if fundamentally crazy, based on some total misunderstanding of who he

was. He now began to understand, or thought he did. Somehow these people had convinced themselves

that Philip Radcliffe was as wealthy as his name suggested. Well, they were in for a jarring

disappointment.

One of the masked figures opened the car door, and spoke in a friendly male voice. "Mr. and Mrs.

Radcliffe, we're glad to see you. Please get out."

Others murmured assurances that they were not going to be harmed. Their spokesman handed June out

of the car like a gentleman.

Philip, encouraged by the mildness of the reception, was shaking his head at them, raising his voice,

trying to get in a telling word before things went too far. "If any of you expect to collect a ransom—"

"We don't," the masked spokesman assured him calmly. "Don't worry about that."

Philip had time to notice that the license plates on the Suburban were so obscured with dried spattering

of beige mud as to be unreadable.

Simple but clean toilet faculties were available just beyond the shed, in the form of a new portable

chemical toilet of the type used on construction jobs.

There was an interval of waiting, with people standing. Nobody was smoking. Radcliffe supposed that

would have been hard, with the masks.

While the kidnapped couple were being allowed a few minutes to use the facilities in turn, their baggage,

including two or three backpacks and satchels, was transferred to the new vehicle. There was also some

dirty laundry in a plastic garbage bag, and a small ice chest which now contained nothing but some cold,

ice-melt water. All items were opened, with apologies, and inspected, before being loaded into the van.

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ASharpnessontheNeckbyFredSaberhagenChapterOneTheworldaboundsinmysteries.Butsomeofthemarvelswhichatfirstsightstriketheobserverasmostimpressivearesusceptibletothemosttrivialexplanations.Allowmetoofferanexample.CharlesDickens,famedinventorofChristmasghostsandTinyTim,whenvisitingRomein1845chosetobroaden...

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Fred Saberhagen - Dracula 09 - A Sharpness on the Neck

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