The Book of Common Dread

by Brent Monahan

  While the rapist yanked up the unconscious woman's top and bra, Vincent hunted up a half dozen small rocks. He waited until the man had hauled the woman's bottoms off and had his own pants around his knees before firing the first missile. It landed two feet from the blanket.

  The man jerked around at the sound as if he had been doused with water. He grunted his surprise and thrust out one hand to steady himself. Then he listened intently.

  The second rock struck him squarely between the eyes. He went over backward, his pant legs collapsing around his ankles. He rolled off the blanket, yanking his warm-up pants up with both hands, dragging leaves and twigs into the crotch as he did.

  "Who is there?" he cried out.

  DeVilbiss laughed, just loudly enough to be heard.

  The man grabbed his razor and brandished it in front of him blindly. The third rock caught him in the left ear. He screamed and ran down the slope and onto the jogging path, stumbling northward.

  Vincent followed; the small sounds he caused were more than masked by the rapist's crash through the winter brush. He smiled when he realized his prey was heading deeper into the woods. About a tenth of a mile down the trail, the rapist stopped and whirled around, listening as best he could through his ragged breaths for what he assumed would be a pursuit as noisy as his flight. When he had listened for perhaps thirty seconds and heard nothing, he straightened out of his crouch and turned to find the path.

  Already ahead of his quarry, Vincent saw that his second rock had drawn blood. It would be nothing compared to the blood about to flow. He tossed another rock far over the man's head, so that it sounded from behind him. The man rushed down the path, away from the noise and toward his torturer.

  DeVilbiss gave the cry of a large, angry wolf. The now-frantic rapist shrieked and left the path, stumbling west toward Faculty Road. As Vincent hopped noiselessly from one mossy mount to another, he watched with delight as the man happened into a patch of brambles, their thorns grown winter-hard and sharp. Vincent stepped down into the thickly fallen leaves and glided though them, sending up a constant hissing noise. The rapist, fighting out of the thicket and making his own commotion with the branches, leaves, and his own heaving lungs, heard the other sounds but was too panicked to stop. He cleared the thorn bushes after many painful stops and starts, lowered his head and set his legs pistoning up the steep slope.

  Two stones struck in quick succession, striking the rapist on the chest and the hand that still clung tenaciously to his razor, inflicting more psychological than physical damage. The man's momentum failed.

  "I shall kill you!" the rapist screamed, both his accent and fright very clear.

  From a high-ground vantage, DeVilbiss saw that the brambles had dug long, crisscrossed scratches into the man's face and hands. Pieces of broken branches clung to his clothing, thorns deeply embedded. DeVilbiss angled down the slope toward his target, calmly hurling the last of his arsenal. The hunted animal turned tail and retreated, waving his arms blindly to prevent running directly into a tree. His precautions were useless when he reached a little ravine, dug into the slope by decades of heavy rains. His body hung for an instant in air, feet expecting solid earth and churning comically in their disappointment. He landed headfirst and turned a somersault before coming to a sudden stop, the wind knocked from him. The handle of the straight razor lay on the crest of the ravine where he had finally let it go; its blade dangled over the precipice.

  DeVilbiss picked up the razor, closed and pocketed it. He hopped into the ravine and squatted above the rapist, whose body suddenly remembered how to breathe. The man whooped air into his lungs. Shortly enough oxygen reached his brain to remind him of his peril. He sat bolt upright and threw his head left and right.

  "Back here, sport," DeVilbiss whispered, twisting the screw another turn.

  The rapist staggered to his feet and, bellowing his rage at having been tormented to his limit, threw himself at DeVilbiss.

  Jujitsu, the ancient Japanese art of self-defense, had been imported to England in the late 1920s, quickly becoming a fad. Vincent had taken it up with enthusiasm, regretting his ignorance of such skills for the first four hundred years of his existence.

  DeVilbiss calmly rocked back on his palms as his assailant encroached, drew up his leg and uncoiled it like a cobra striking, catching the man's knee, snapping it like old kindling. He howled in agony and collapsed to the ground.

  DeVilbiss stood with no haste and brushed himself off.

  "Got your blood up, have I?" he asked. "I hope so." He took his thoroughly beaten quarry by the hair and hauled him upward. "Like to get your bodily fluids into strangers? I'll be glad to help you." The rapist had one last ounce of fight in him, but it vanished when DeVilbiss kicked him again in his broken knee. DeVilbiss got no resistance when he pushed the head back, exposing the length of the swarthy, bramble-gouged neck. He sank his teeth deeply with a single thrust.

  The first taste of blood told DeVilbiss that this was not type B, with its acidic taste and the protein that made his skin itch until he wanted to crawl out of it. Moaning with pleasure, he sank his incisors deeper, ripping from side to side to increase the flow. The carotid artery severed. Blood spurted hotly into his mouth.

  A few minutes later, the lack of blood flowing into his brain sank the rapist into a coma. He was young, however, and his heart continued to pump with vigor for some time. DeVilbiss drank on, feeling the anger drain from him as his stomach filled. While he sucked, he gazed up at the impassive, unjudgmental moon.

  When he felt the heart begin to falter, the beating grow feeble, DeVilbiss withdrew his mouth. He lifted the man's limp arm and wiped his teeth clean with the sweatshirt material. He rolled up his sleeves, reached into his pocket and took out the straight razor, giving it a flick that made the blade snick through the air. Again he took the rapist's head by the hair, yanking it back so that his neck was fully exposed. He gave the hank of hair a twist, bringing the two puncture marks into direct moonlight. Then, with a cello virtuoso's elan, he drew the blade across the neck in one swift, deep stroke, obliterating the puncture marks within the larger, more gruesome wound.

  Sometimes Vincent covered his marks with one among many stab wounds, occasionally erased them with a shotgun blast, or in more remote days, when beasts of prey roamed in greater numbers, lugged the corpses bare-necked to favorite nighttime watering holes and let other hungers protect him. He reasoned that only a fictional Carpathian monster would possess enough hubris to leave behind his double-puncture-wound calling card. A few times in the distant past he had experimented by cutting victims' throats before drinking, to leave no tell-tale punctures. It was a thrill letting the warm stream shoot into the recesses of his mouth. But they died long before most of their blood was expelled; their death throes were disturbing, their limbs jittering and quaking like wind-up dolls gone mad as their brains suddenly became deprived of oxygen. The staining liquid also had a nasty habit of spraying on expensive new apparel. Old ways were the best ways. His victim's body hung limply, blood welling feebly from the long cut. For a moment, DeVilbiss regarded the dark rivulets pooling into the depressions above the man's collarbone. He had no desire to watch for the final pulsings, so he let the body fall. He wiped the razor clean on his prey's sweatshirt, then folded it up and stuck it back in his pocket. He patted along the would-be rapist's flanks, rolled him over and checked his backside in vain for a pocket which might hold a wallet. The man had been careful, perhaps practiced at rape; he carried not so much as a key. Grabbing the near-corpse by the ankles, DeVilbiss worked his way down the ravine, toward the mass of concrete that he had seen on his previous walk and which had been on his mind since first spotting the rape attempt.

  The barrel shaft of concrete, poking up through the ground for only three yards, revealed a large storm sewer that emptied into the lake. Access inside it could be gained via a waffle-faced iron manhole cover, the type only a physical specimen with a hook-ended tool could lift. DeVilbiss remove
d it by inserting his fingertips, dropped the body in headfirst and resealed the cover. Perhaps, when a heavy March snow melted in a hurry, a strong and persistent torrent of water would wash the corpse out into the lake, but by that time identification would have to be made by dental charts.

  Vincent hurried back to the scene of the attempted rape. He would have to make an anonymous phone call to the police if the woman still lay unconscious. He had rescued her without reflection, but he now weighed the risk of making his presence known in Princeton, linking himself to a violent crime. If she hadn't seen her assailant, he might even be considered as a suspect. The more he thought about the incident, the more foolhardy his altruistic act seemed. Two hundred years before, he would have watched the rape with the disconnected dispassion of one watching a spider devour a fly. Although he felt somewhat disquieted by this evolution in behavior, what he did made him feel so good that he refused to weigh its source or consequence.

  ***

  When DeVilbiss reached the blanket, he was relieved to see that the young woman had found her sneakers and pants and walked off under her own power. He was sorry that she would never know the fate of her attacker, but at least he knew that justice had been meted out. He strode down to the jogging trail and away from the storm sewer, in the direction of Washington Road. A little beyond the place of the attempted rape he came across the rotted trunk of a tree. He wiped the straight razor clean of fingerprints and dropped it down the trunk's hollow core.

  Destroying the well-protected Ahriman scrolls, while simultaneously preserving the life of a local scientist, was proving to be the greatest challenge of Vincent's long life. Killing Dieter Gerstadt had been a satisfying but physically painful triumph. He had needed an easy kill, to prove to himself that fate had not turned against him. Even better, this time he had slaked his bloodthirst while feeling supremely self-righteous about it. Vincent started to whistle "O Holy Night" as he walked out of the woods, but it was difficult; his smile was too broad. He glanced at his watch. The night was still young. As soon as he regained Nassau Street he would make a telephone call.

  DeVilbiss turned for a last look at the moonlit lake. In the dark sky beyond the water a flaming meteor plummeted earthward. He remembered the old superstition of making a wish on such a shooting star. His wish had already been formed minutes before. It centered on one blue-eyed, blond-haired Christmas angel.

  ***

  Simon was first to total his points. He took the idle moments to adjust his throw pillows closer to the blaze crackling within the mansion's living room fireplace. No stockings were hung by the chimney with care, but only an hour earlier Frederika had brightened the mantel with a red apple pyramid and festooned its white-enameled face with an intertwining of holly, plaid ribbons, and brass bells. Even earlier, she had come home burdened with other symbols of the season-a German nutcracker soldier, brass coronet candleholders, and a dappled wooden rocking horse whose hollow torso held greeting cards. Before lounging on the Persian rug in front of the fire, she had illuminated the Christmas tree and lit several candles. Yet even before the firewood crackled, her face had glowed. Simon knew from the dust gathered on the old decoration boxes that Christmas had not been celebrated in the old house for years.

  "Seventy-three points!" Frederika said, underscoring the number with a flourish of her pencil.

  One prize among Simon's few possessions was a word game called Got a Minute. It had the alphabet distributed among the faces of seven dice. These and a one-minute egg timer were encased inside a clear Lucite cube. The object of the game was to flip the cube and, in sixty seconds, combine the letters that faced upward into as many words as possible.

  Frederika's eyes darted to Simon's score. "Eighty-four?" she said skeptically. "Let me see your list!" She scooped up his writing pad and rolled onto her back. "Qat. Who are you kidding?"

  "It's an archaic spelling of k-a-t," Simon explained. "An Arabian plant used for tea. I can show you in the dictionary."

  "What kind of dictionary… Arabian?"

  "Don't be a sore loser," Simon said, peeking over the top of her head and holding out his hand for his pad.

  Frederika thrust the pad out of reach. "And what in God's name is tain?"

  "Very thin plating, used to back mirrors." Simon grabbed the pad and crab-walked back to his pillows.

  Frederika flipped over and regarded her opponent with narrowed eyes. "I've heard of weird fetishes, but you're some kind of word freak… aren't you?"

  "No. I read," Simon returned. "You oughta try it sometime."

  "I'll bet I can beat your smart ass at poker or pool."

  "I'd be glad to give you a chance." Frederika threw a pillow at him. Simon added it to his bolster. "Thanks. Had enough or are you still game?"

  "Game? I'm more like prey. I flipped it last time." Frederika snatched up the game and held it out. "Here."

  A moment after Simon set the shook cube down, the telephone rang.

  Frederika clambered up from the rug. "Darn it! I could have flown with those letters." She stepped to the telephone and answered it.

  "Hello?" she greeted brightly into the phone. "Hi. No, nothing special."

  Simon's shoulders slumped.

  Frederika glanced at Simon as she said, "Well, sure. When?" She was in role again, impossible to read. "No, no problem. Fine. Goodbye." After she hung up, she turned to Simon and offered a mildly apologetic smile. "You won for the evening. I've got to go out."

  "Emergency?" Simon asked, through his own expressionless mask.

  Frederika scudded into her shoes. "Yes. I teach reading for the Literacy Volunteers of America. One of the teachers got hung up somewhere and I've been asked to last-minute substitute."

  Simon glanced at his watch. "At quarter to nine?"

  Frederika shrugged. "We have to accommodate the learners. A lot of them have to work odd hours-the only jobs they can find."

  "Where do you teach?"

  "Trenton."

  "Downtown?"

  "Yes, downtown."

  Simon scrambled up from the pillows. "I'd better come with you."

  Frederika stopped him with a traffic cop's gesture. "It's perfectly safe, and there's no place for you to wait. Stay, Fido!"

  Simon leaned unhappily against the fireplace.

  Frederika grabbed her purse. "Bye." She disappeared into the hallway. Her car engine rumbled only seconds after the back door slammed.

  Simon waited until the motor noises faded into the night before he picked up the telephone directory and found the number of the LVA's Trenton office.

  "This is Literacy Volunteers of America," the recorded voice imparted. "Our office will be closed from Monday, December eighteenth until Tuesday, January second. Happy holidays, and keep reading!"

  Simon replaced the pillows on the couches. He told himself that just because the office was closed did not necessarily mean all tutorials had been suspended. He knew Frederika did not lie about her affiliation with the organization; he had found evidence of her association when he had ransacked her room. The knowledge reassured him. It would be nice to be able to mention that to the next person who tried to paint her all black. But Simon felt no pleasure now. She lied with such consummate skill that her words could just as easily have been responding to an invitation from the evil-auraed Vincent DeVilbiss. Simon sighed. He rejected the impulse to take another walk to Park Place. He had already spied on Frederika too often, and each time it had confused or saddened him. Jealousy had never been his weakness; he would feel especially stupid if he succumbed to it now. He did not own her, never would. He carried his game into the hallway and up the stairs. He decided he wouldn't leave the house tonight, but he would also not sleep until she had returned. If she came in later than midnight, he would know where she had been.

  Simon looked down at the letters in the cube. They spelled nothing.

  ***

  Frederika knocked on the now-familiar Park Place door, loudly enough to be heard over the classical mu
sic playing inside. She combed her fingers self-consciously through her hair, aware that she did not look her most alluring. Once she lied to Simon, it had been impossible to change out of her jeans and cotton sweater. She let her arm down. Don't sweat it, she told herself. The careful makeup and seductive clothing were no longer necessary with this man; she and Vincent were past that part of the dance. If her dress-down clothes and lack of makeup dampened his desire for sex, so much the better.

  Once she knew she had a man, she rapidly lost her taste for it; it had always been that way. Her enthusiasm for accepting Vincent's late-night invitation was to report the information on the Ahriman scrolls Simon had shared with her over dinner. She knew that was his priority as well. If his skills as a necromancer were genuine, she did not want him losing heart and leaving town or, worse, devising some way to get to those ancient rolls of vellum without her.

  Almost half a minute had passed since Frederika knocked. As she raised her fist again the door flew open. Vincent labored an easy smile; he was slightly out of breath.

  "Sorry," he said. "I didn't expect you so soon."

  "Then I should be apologizing," Frederika said, as she entered the house. "I should have allowed you more time. You called me from a pay phone, didn't you?"

  "Yes," he admitted. "I was out for a walk and found myself missing you." He had not changed out of his corduroy pants and sweater.

  "Isn't that nice?"

  Vincent lifted his hands to help her remove her coat. "Yes, having a someone to miss is quite nice," he said. "I'm brewing us tea."

  Frederika pulled her hands out of the coat sleeves. "No, thanks. It's too late."