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

      She would have appealed to Curtius to use whatever influence he possessed to free Franklin’s son. But by the time Radcliffe was arrested, Curtius the good republican was much too ill to help, or even to understand.

* * *

      When the men who had come to the museum to arrest her had given up and gone about their other business, calling to each other in loud voices and stamping their boots, she remained prudently in hiding and did not emerge until after the museum had closed for the day, when Marie signaled her that it was safe.

      This new threat meant that Melanie would have to move on, earlier than planned, to where the next step of Legrand’s plan called for her to be—move on, and hope for the best.

      “What word of Philip? In God’s name, tell me!”

      But there was no word as yet. Meanwhile, where was little Auguste? Melanie could only hope that her son had gone ahead of her, following Legrand’s instructions, and that the hunters were not after him as well.

      Making hasty preparations for her own flight, she asked Marie: “And how is Uncle Curtius today?”

      Too ill to know or care much about the affairs of the world. I think maybe he suspects something out of the ordinary is going on, but he doesn’t really want to know about it.”

* * *

      Radu, pleasurably reliving over and over again the memory of Radcliffe’s head falling into the red wicker basket, had immediately taken himself away from the place of execution, out of the bright morning sun and into the deepest shade that he could find, savoring what he thought to be his triumph.

      Exhausted by strain, weakened by sun-glare, he went into what he considered the best-hidden of his Parisian earths, meaning to rest until sunset, or even later. He had won, he had beaten his hated elder brother. Whatever happened now, there was no hurry about taking care of the details.

* * * * * *

      Emerging from his earth near midnight, Radu took time to go and sit on the frame of the now otherwise deserted guillotine. The night had turned chill and rainy, after the bright, hot day, and all the crowds had gone.

      Radu sat there apostrophizing the death machine, from which he had pulled back the oilskin cover. Tenderly he stroked the heavy blade. He murmured, in one of the old languages that he had learned in childhood: “It almost breaks my heart to see so much blood going to waste. To decay, and the breeding of flies in the hot sun.”

      With a little moan of satisfaction, he leaned forward and ran his tongue over the blade—yes indeed, it was still the wooden one, he noted. And no one had got around to cleaning it as yet. Old Sanson would be angry if he knew of such abuse of his equipment.

      This, Radu would be able to tell anyone who asked, was how he fulfilled, at least symbolically, his vow to taste the blood of Philip Radcliffe.

      There was an aftertaste of something strange, mixed with human blood … orange juice?—something like that. More likely some kind of vinegar, blended with unidentifiable substances and used as a cleaning fluid. Some attempt at cleaning had been made, then, but an abysmally poor job. The vampire spat.

      Now it was the middle of the night, and Radu felt well rested and wide awake. He would sit here and gloat a little longer, and then make his way to the wax museum. Vlad, evidently devastated by defeat, was keeping out of his way; and Radu had an idea as to how he might improve upon his triumph.

* * *

      He strode forth this time with a confidence that even prompted him to sing in his beautiful voice. Even if Vlad caught him again, and defeated him, there was no way the older brother could wipe out what he must see as a stain on his honor brought on by this defeat.

      He remembered something one of his aides had asked him, before that last fight in the countryside: “Why is your brother’s honor of any importance to you?”

      And Radu had replied: “Because it is of the utmost importance to him.”

* * *

      Philip Radcliffe was not awake, and he was dreaming.

      He had just been decapitated—and yet he hadn’t.

      In his strange mental state, he could, for the moment, consider dispassionately the fact that the blade had inexplicably failed to whack off the vampire’s head—or almost failed.

      Somehow, in Radcliffe’s feverish dream, only a thread of neck still held. This strand of tissue was broken manually, by one of the new vampire’s enemies, and the victim’s head was thrown at last into the coffin with his body.

      There he soon recovered consciousness, and he understood that reunion was quite possible—after all, other vampires had been decapitated before him, and had survived.

      It seemed to Radcliffe in his dream that the heads and bodies of a whole day’s output of victims had been thrown indiscriminately into a giant tumbril, and the whole bloody mess hauled away for burial. By now the medical schools of Paris were sated with disconnected heads and bodies, and could be prevailed upon to accept only a few choice specimens, those with something extraordinary about them.

      The body’s hands went on patiently groping for and trying on one head after another.

      Meanwhile, the vampirish brain lived on, thought, raged, experienced pain and sometimes pleasure, while still connected to the senses of sight, hearing, taste, and smell. The eyes could turn in their sockets, blink, and change their focus. Breathing was never a necessity for him. Meanwhile, as he had hoped, the trunk and limbs retained enough affinity with the disconnected brain to take the necessary actions.

      Groping through the charnel pit, the strong white hands at last found the proper head, only after rejecting several, and with an awkward movement lifted and tugged it into place … and the head had