A Sharpness On The Neck (Saberhagen's Dracula Book 9) by Fred Saberhagen (most read book in the world .TXT) 📗

that I love Melanie!” And in that moment, when his passion for Connie had been momentarily satisfied, he experienced a burst of repentance, even of revulsion, for what he had just done.

      Constantia smiled benevolently. “But I am not jealous of what you feel for your Melanie. Is that what worries you? I am simply enjoying a good time with you.”

      “What worries me is that—if what you tell me about you nosferatu is true—then, when I am changed—what will happen to her?” Philip in his desperation took another drink from the brandy bottle that was not yet emptied. “She is so fine, so pure—” Now tears were running down his cheeks. “Ah, I am not worthy of her!”

      Connie tried to explain. But he was drinking—brandy, not blood—and not listening. And she has never been very good at explanations.

* * *

      Philip’s violent affair with Connie, indeed his whole acquaintance with her, lasted no more than a few days, but those few days were sufficient for our purpose. In them he lost track of time. More than enough happened, between him and Constantia, to teach Philip many things about the nature of vampires, and to afford him a real chance of becoming one.

* * *

      Meanwhile Melanie was lying low, doing what she thought she could do to protect her son. She had no idea that Philip was being seduced in prison, or even that there were such creatures as vampires—except that she was ready to concede that Citizen Legrand, who had pledged his help, was no ordinary man, and in fact could do some quite extraordinary things.

      Shortly after Marie had visited Radcliffe in his cell, Melanie at the museum received from the older woman a matter-of-fact report about the event. Melanie was able to take some comfort from it.

      But the great question still tormented her. “Can we really succeed in saving him?” she demanded of her cousin. “Can there be a rescue, from that prison?”

      “Why not? It is only a place, like other places. And Legrand has a scheme.” Marie, whose eyes had seen a great many things in the last few years, nodded slowly. “I think I trust Legrand … whoever he really is.”

      “Yes, I know. He is an impressive man. But the situation still terrifies me.”

      Marie patted her sympathetically. “Let us each do our part. Then, it is in the hands of the good God.”

* * *

      The fate of the man she loved was not Melanie’s only worry. She wondered also whether her young child, little Auguste, was ever going to bear a name other than that of a bastard. More urgently than that, she wondered whether she herself might be arrested on some charge and never see her son again.

* * *

      Radu, knowing that patience and caution were essential in a conflict with his brother, made no real attempt to get at Radcliffe in his cell. He approached no closer than was necessary to sense the habitation effect which guarded the occupant.

      Something of the same caution kept him from trying to approach Melanie, whom he might otherwise have attacked just to get at Vlad even more indirectly.

* * *

      And then, as almost unexpected as such days often are, came the morning when the stolid workmen came for Philip Radcliffe, without fuss or fanfare, just before dawn, and Connie had to fade into the stone walls and darkness to get out of the way.

      Radcliffe was once more well-fortified with strong drink, a condition that had become chronic over the last few days; and he had been affected also by Connie’s careless brush with converting him to vampirism. He could only stare around him stupidly. Where was she? But it was sheer fantasy to believe that they had done the things together that he remembered. It seemed to him that he remembered drinking blood from her veins; that she had tasted his was indelibly imprinted.

      In the harsh glare of outdoor daylight, dazzling after days in his dim cell, it seemed to him that he had only dreamed the presence of the gypsy girl.

* * *

      By the time Philip Radcliffe was hustled out of the prison into the light of day, he had more or less reconciled himself to his fate, whatever it was going to be—to everything, in fact, but the idea that he would never see Melanie again. Philip had no convincing reason to doubt that he was going to be guillotined. His knees felt weak as he was pushed, stumbling, this way and that.

      The people who had come to load the tumbrils for the day were cursing and fretting over their lists. “Where is the Englishman, Percy Blakeney? Name of a dog, but he is not here!”

      “But here is at least one of the foreigners, who will not escape us!”

      The combined effects of seduction, alcohol, and anxiety on Radcliffe rendered him semiconscious before his trip to the scaffold actually got started.

      The streets of Paris, and their jeering crowds, went by him as in a dream. Constantia had vanished, as dream-creatures were compelled to do in sunlight.

* * *

      A wave of despair washed over him. Madness, all madness, and he had betrayed his true love, Melanie, for the embrace of a satanic enchantress. Three weeks and I will be in London… and he had allowed himself to be convinced. What hollow nonsense, before the reality of the tall cart, and his bound wrists!

      He saw now, with unbearable clarity, that Constantia’s pledges were fantasies, were lies, and he, Philip Radcliffe, had thrown away his life, clinging to a hope that could be no more than sheer insanity…

      Radcliffe, mind spinning with the aftermath of brandy and exhaustion, jammed in among the sweating, trembling bodies of the other scheduled victims of the day, rode the jolting tumbril through the streets, with his hands already tied behind him, and his shirt torn open at the collar, and arrived at the Place de la Revolution to play his part in the great