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

      The acrid smell of burnt ammunition drifted in the air, a haze of wood-dust, and the residue of smokeless powder.

      The woman had let go of Philip’s legs; he saw her writhing on the floor and realized that a bullet had likely hit her. The man fought on doggedly but lost ground, gasping, lungs wheezing with the burden of a carload of cigarettes. Phil at last got a good grip on his throat and banged his head against the concrete floor.

      Then he was on his feet again. His own lungs were gasping now, but he wasn’t going to stop for breath. One more human obstacle loomed up. Radcliffe ran into a small man with his shoulder, ramming his foe with all his force, and knocked the villain sprawling.

* * *

      At last an open door was just ahead, and Radcliffe went out through it as if all the devils in hell were after him. He wasn’t armed or trained for combat, not this kind anyway, and he had no heroic notion about hanging around to claim a bigger share.

      There were several vehicles parked nearby, the same ones that had been parked here at the time of his arrival. Fighting down the nightmarish feeling that he had been through this before, he thought that if he could get to one of them, and then get to June—

      Before he had taken more than a couple of outdoor steps, a car he recognized as belonging to Graves’s faction came roaring up and screeched to a halt in a cloud of flying gravel. From the driver’s seat a figure beckoned to him—he recognized Constantia.

      Philip ran for the car, had almost reached it, when the woman inside reached out a powerful hand that swept him off his feet and pulled him in. A moment later they were roaring away, bouncing down the pitted and eroded road.

* * *

      I believe it necessary to report to the reader that one of my gallant breathing allies was killed in the gunfight in the barn, and two more were wounded—professional help was standing by to give them care. At this writing I am not at liberty to name names. As victors we carried away with us our dead, as well as our wounded, when we withdrew from the field.

      The habitation effect prevented my getting into the house. There was no compelling reason for my presence inside; I simply set fire to the building, and waited outside to finish off the small handful of Radu’s breathers who had been in the house when we attacked, and who preferred encountering me in the open air to burning to death. The inmates were about evenly divided in their choice. Ruthlessly—and why not?—I exterminated all who came to light. I suppose that one or two might have remained hidden in the basement of the house—to which the fire had soon spread—and come through alive. But I considered that the time and effort necessary to dig them out would have been a poor investment.

      Eventually we considered it best to burn the barn as well. But I made sure that the guillotine was carried to safety first. My brother had been taken alive, and the machine was going to be needed.

      Joe Keogh commented that when law enforcement eventually reached the scene, which might not be for many days, they would readily enough account for the killings by the presence of drug paraphernalia—another deal gone sour, nothing too much out of the ordinary, except for the numbers involved. In a house of drugs and violence, some overtones of satanism would be no great surprise to the investigators either.

* * *

      Again Radcliffe was driven across several miles of desert, including a stretch or two of offroad travel. Connie at the wheel chattered brightly through most of the journey.

      Once again on this ride, as on the first one he’d taken with these same people, the last embers of sunset were fading. How many sunsets ago was that? He couldn’t remember.

      The fight, which had seemed to go on forever while it was in progress, had actually taken only a few minutes.

      Inside the vehicle, the atmosphere was upbeat but still tense. Connie, looking in her driver’s mirror, murmured to Radcliffe: “You’re not safe yet. You won’t be, as long as Radu is still alive.” She sounded dead serious for once.

      “At the moment, this feels like being safe.”

      “Something of a rough time, huh? Sorry about that.”

      My own fault. Maybe he thought the words if he couldn’t yet bring himself to say them. “What’s happened to June?”

      “Little wifey is just fine.”

      “Thank God for that!”

* * *

      Gradually giving way to the shock of all that had happened to him, Philip clung to his wife when they were reunited in the mobile home that once had seemed a prison. At one point he blurted out to the masked Joe Keogh: “I thought—I thought I saw a—a guillotine just now. Set up right outside the window.”

      “Oh?” Joe sounded only mildly surprised. “I wouldn’t worry about it. I expect it won’t be there when you look out again.” And he reached out and closed the drapes.

* * *

      The Radcliffes listened to an explanation of how Mr. Graves and his associates had induced him to run away by leaving the window grill unlocked, and how they had kept June with them by working a little mild magic with a shoe. Tracking Phil had been easy, thanks to the wonders of modern electronics.

* * *

      Gradually, after sleep and food, he got up the nerve to look out of the window again, June standing beside him.

      The guillotine was gone, if it had ever really been there. In its place sat their own car.

Chapter Thirty

      Radu, still gloating over the delicious memory of Philip Radcliffe’s decapitation, decided that it might be very amusing to look up Melanie Romain, Radcliffe’s lover. He knew the young woman was employed at the wax museum. Perhaps she would be in