A Sharpness on the Neck d-9

by Fred Saberhagen

  Stumbling through the house, on the verge of falling asleep, Phil and June halfheartedly discussed the possibility of taking turns standing watch through the night. As they were trying to decide who would have the first shift, exhaustion intervened, putting an end to the discussion. This time they at least made it as far as the bedroom where both, fully clothed except for their shoes, slept like the dead until daylight.

  On awakening, Phil quietly unlatched the bedroom door and looked out into a silent, sunlit house. Then in his stocking feet he tiptoed through all the rooms. There was no sign that anyone had even looked in on them during the night.

  In a few minutes, Constantia appeared. As in their previous daylight encounters, she was wearing her dark glasses, and this time, in deference to the day's full desert sun, had put on a broad-brimmed hat. Despite the growing heat, she was also wearing a kind of jacket, fringed in cowgirl-western style, with a high collar.

  June was polite with Connie, but spoke to her more frigidly than she did to Graves when he took his turn at dropping in. Phil didn't have to ask to know that his wife did not like the woman at all.

  This morning, as usual, Connie was ready to talk on a variety of subjects. Frequently she chattered, though what she said did not always make sense to her distracted hearers, especially when she harked back to events they had heard described on the tape as having taken place in a previous century. But today Connie tended to lapse into periods of moody silence.

  These usually began when she was looking at Philip Radcliffe. Connie would occasionally begin staring at him in a vaguely, unconsciously hungry way. The impression she gave, to June at least, was of a woman pondering whether she ought to seduce a man.

  And in this case first impressions were exactly right.

  After locking the door of the Radcliffes' domicile behind her, Constantia strode like a moody teenager, scuffing the earth with her fancy, rode-lady cowgirl boots, the few yards to the other mobile home, where she opened the unlocked door and walked right in. A small group of guardians, giving their heads a rest from rubber masks, sat tiredly talking in the small living room; their voices fell silent briefly as Connie passed.

  She made her way down a narrow hallway to the door at the far end. There in the smallest of the small bedrooms, a chamber heavily shaded and darkened, but already growing warm because it lacked a window air conditioner, Vlad was lying on his back on a folding camp bed, just about to go into a brief trance and get some much-needed sleep.

  The dark man, stretched out on his plastic bag of earth, roused himself long enough to ask his long-time friend and occasional associate how the two prisoners were doing.

  Connie, shifting to a language so old and rare that no one else in the Western Hemisphere was likely to understand, reported that they seemed all right.

  Then she added: "The young man is quite attractive—at least I find him so."

  Vlad raised himself on one elbow, the dry earth crackling in the plastic garment bag beneath his body. "May I remind you, my dear, that this is business?"

  "Of course." Connie's lower lip protruded, somewhat sulkily. She no longer appeared to be seventeen years old. Not quite fifteen, actually.

  "You also found his ancestor quite attractive, two hundred years ago. And we both remember what came of that infatuation—do we not?"

  "Of course, Vlad."

  "Of course. The result was difficulty. Unpleasantness. We are not going to have a similar contretemps here, are we?"

  "No, Vlad."

  "No, we are not. Now I require some rest." And with a breathless little groan he stretched himself once more at full length on the crackling earth.

  Letting herself quietly out of the darkened bedroom, going to the adjoining chamber where her own plastic bag of earth lay ready to afford her her daily rest, Constantia in the privacy of her own thoughts continued toying with the question of whether or not to begin the affair with Radcliffe. Now Vlad, for one of his fussy, honorable reasons, had flatly forbidden any such thing. And if she disobeyed him, his reaction, if he ever found out, was not going to be pleasant.

  June read the other woman's behavior more accurately than Radcliffe did, and June was not very good at concealing her feelings about anyone.

  Once June had called Phil's attention to Connie's behavior, he took notice of it, and the way the gypsy girl looked at him started to make him nervous. But he didn't want to admit the fact.

  After Connie had gone rather sulkily out into the heat of the day, the two prisoners, alternately sitting in the living room and hunched over the kitchen table, talked things over in whispers between themselves. They agreed that Mr. Graves in contrast to Connie seemed a perfect gentleman—when he was not actually in the act of kidnapping people. He was also considerably more frightening.

  Radcliffe said to his wife: "You know what the truly scary thing about these people is?"

  "I can think of several."

  "What I had in mind is that there are long stretches when what they're saying and doing almost seems to make sense. Or is it just me? Am I getting brainwashed? Junie, I tell you, minutes go by, even hours, when everything they tell us seems so reasonable, and they don't sound like crazy cultists. I mean Graves has a way of putting things that makes them sound convincing. But if you listen close and think about what he says… especially on that tape…"

  June was frowning. "Do you think that all this—all this about vampires and so on—can be only symbolic? I mean that we're not meant to take it literally?"

  Phil thought about it. But he didn't have to think very long. "No. No, I don't think that at all."

  While cleaning up the remains of another snack—so far the milk and cereal were holding out—the pair conferred between themselves. Now, with several hours of sleep behind them, it seemed at least possible that they would be able to think clearly about their situation, and maybe attain some useful insight.

  But anything of the kind eluded them, at least at first.

  "Phil, what are we going to do?"

  "I don't see what we can do, except watch their silly tape over and over again, and play along with their ideas. Next time we see Graves, we'll have to tell him we've seen the whole tape and we understand it. We're ready to have discussions with him and believe anything he tells us. Meanwhile we look for a chance to get away, though it doesn't seem likely that they're going to give us one."

  This time they watched the whole tape, almost three hours of content, all the way to the end, in one continuous session. It was a sobering experience, but when they had completed the chore, they still didn't know what to think. Except that Mr. Graves might know a lot about a great many subjects, but he was no ball of fire when it came to making a media presentation.

  Just sitting around and waiting quickly became unendurable. Radcliffe, when he felt reasonably sure that no one was looking, stalked through the house, quietly testing the locks and heavy bars on both doors, then examining the grill-work on all the windows. He discovered no weak points. The only real result was that now, having proven to himself that he was in a small and doubtless not fireproof building with all the exits locked, he began to feel a touch of claustrophobia.

  Once or twice, during the morning and afternoon of their second day of confinement, the two were invited out, by two or three of the masked monsters, for a walk. On these occasions they were always closely watched.

  June was nagged by the idea that there might be some significance in the identities of the individuals portrayed in the masks most of Graves's assistants had chosen to put on. They were plastic or rubber creations that covered the entire head, Halloween-costume imitations of various imaginary monsters of the Hollywood variety. Both prisoners got the impression that there were more masks than people, suggesting a deliberate attempt at preventing identification, for the same people didn't always wear the same mask.

  June could not entirely rid herself of the idea that some deep meaning might be found in the individual choices, and she began to jot down little d
escriptive notes on all their jailers. Then she decided this was a bad idea, tore up the sheets from the note pad, and burned them in the sink. Phil saw the assumed identities as purely accidental.

  Then June turned away from the sink with a quick motion, almost a little jump. "Something just occurred to me."

  "What?"

  "We've seen Frankenstein and the Wolf Man, right? And the Mummy, if I'm interpreting that funny-looking one correctly. I mean the one who looks like a bad case of sunburn, peeling."

  "Right. Plus a whole lot of others who I have no idea who they are. So?"

  "Well, it just occurred to me—Count Dracula is missing."

  Connie appeared more restless than usual the next time she showed up, around noon on the following day. The gypsy-looking girl made little or no effort to conceal the fact that she found it definitely boring simply to sit around all night and all day, especially when she was forbidden to taste this young breather's blood; she thought there ought to be some fun in this kidnapping business for her.

  Then the gypsy girl wistfully asked June how her hair looked. Even as she asked the question, she was twisting the dark curly strands around her finger, pulling them forward while she frowned up toward them with her eyes crossed. "It's not really long enough for me to see."

  "Why don't you go and look in the mirror?"

  Connie only giggled, as if the idea were somehow painful.

  By this time Philip and June had had the idea of vampires thoroughly drummed into their heads by the videotape. Now June asked their visitor point-blank if she was a vampire. Connie answered simply that she was.

  The other woman pursued the point. "And when Mr. Graves on the tape talks about a woman named Constantia, who is doing all these things in France, two hundred years ago…"

  "Oh, he means me. Oh yes, absolutely." Connie smiled, a cheerful conspirator. "Not that everything he says about me on the tape is necessarily strictly true."

  The captives, not knowing how to respond to this declaration, looked at each other. It sounded to them like this girl really believed what she was saying.

  "If you're a vampire," Radcliffe proceeded cautiously, "is there some way you can demonstrate the fact—I mean short of actually biting someone and drinking blood?"

  "I could, sweetie. Oh, it would be very easy. But Vla… Mr. Graves doesn't want me to do anything like that yet."

  Nervously Connie looked around. June was staring at her in an unsettling way. She was also afraid of Vlad's anger, and admitted as much to the prisoners.

  Spontaneously Connie added, in the manner of one impulsively giving good advice: "I wouldn't make him mad at me, if I were you."

  Graves had never uttered any threats, but Radcliffe found himself in full agreement. "Is he really five hundred years old?" he asked on impulse.

  "Just about." Constantia smiled; her look had undertones of wickedness. "I'm years younger than 'Mr. Graves.' " This time she pronounced the name with more than a hint. of mockery.

  "Oh?"

  With a giggle she delivered her punch line: "Not a day over four hundred and eighty."

  June and Phil had gathered from the tape, where the identification was strongly implied, that Mr. Graves and the story character called Vlad Dracula were supposed to be one and the same—now and then Graves, narrating on tape, even slipped into the first person without appearing to notice that he had done so. But like any rational breathers at the end of the twentieth century, the couple had been resisting the idea.

  Radcliffe wasn't ready to give up on the subject. "How old is he, then? Really?"

  "Oh-oh!" Her long lashes flickered at him flirtatiously. He couldn't tell if the gesture was serious or self-mocking. "You haven't been really studying your videotape, or you'd know."

  "That's not true, we have been watching it. I mean really." He looked at June for confirmation.

  June nodded vigorously.

  "Not the whole thing." Connie was dubious.

  "Yes, really." June added her assurance to her husband's. "We've seen it now from beginning to end."

  Their visitor shook her dark-curled head, marveling. "You see it and hear it, but you don't believe it." Now Miss Gypsy was about to pout. "We went to a lot of trouble to make that tape. I ran the camera most of the time."

  "I didn't know."

  "Well, I did. And I know some folk who'd give a million dollars to have it. Even to know half of everything that's on there. You're being given it for nothing and you won't even take it seriously." Now she was really pouting. Maybe, thought Radcliffe, she was perturbed because she thought the tape mentioned her only in a slighting way.

  June was following another train of thought. "Who? Who'd give a million dollars?"

  The girl in silver earrings smiled. "Some people I know. Men and women who study things like this."

  "Like what?"

  Connie's smile took on a different quality. "You know. So, you want me to go and look in the mirror? I will, if you come along with me. But maybe I'd better ask Mr. Graves first if it's all right."

  Once or twice when Radcliffe and Connie were out of earshot of the others, the young man, belatedly becoming aware of the attraction Connie felt for him, began hinting to persuade Constantia that it would be to her own benefit to help him and June escape from these crazy kidnappers.

  Connie answered playfully at first. He was just too cute and she wasn't going to let him go—things like that. But when Radcliffe persisted in being serious, the woman blinked and her face went sober. For once she was entirely serious, and her face, while still as unlined as ever, just might have been a hundred years of age. "You don't know Mr. Graves."

  "No," he admitted after a few moments. "No, I don't guess I do."

  Chapter Eight

  It may help the reader to an understanding of my relations with my brother, to be told that centuries ago I adapted a version of the Golden Rule to serve as my guideline: since the early years of our ongoing quarrel, I have striven to do unto Radu before he does unto me. So far, being slightly older, considerably stronger, and totally untroubled by any fear of consequences, I have been successful in the great majority of our clashes.

  But I regret to report that as yet there is no end to our conflict in sight. Sometimes I wonder: What would our father have thought, had he known the true nature of the burden he had placed on me, of responsibility for my brother? Had Father imagined that it might possibly continue for five hundred years and more?

  No, I simply cannot imagine the paternal reaction to such knowledge. My mind simply boggles—as, I am sure, father's would have done. To the best of my knowledge, my esteemed parent had never even the least commerce with vampires—though he must have been aware of their existence. I cannot imagine the supposition crossing our father's mind that either of his sons, let alone both, would ever become vampires—certainly he himself had never been granted that wondrous transformation. Or perhaps he had deliberately declined it. I should not like to think that of my father.

  Still, an oath is an oath. It was put to me as a matter of personal and family honor, and I as a dutiful son accepted it unquestioningly on its own terms.

  Having survived a serious altercation with my younger brother in 1705—remind me to tell you, sometime, the full story of that remarkable encounter—having survived that, as I say, and having firmly reasserted my proper position as head of the family, I considered what course of action to take next. Honor, as we have seen, precluded my having the scoundrel put to death outright. But at the same time, duty and prudence alike required some drastic action.

  The best compromise I could arrange with my conscience required devious and difficult arrangements. In the end, as we have seen, I had Radu put underground, alive (well, more or less alive. Just enough, as it seemed to me, to meet the minimum requirements of my pledge to our father.) in one of the quieter churchyards of London. The length of his confinement under these conditions was to be left to chance.

  When I gave orders to certain reliable a
ssociates of mine, specifying in some detail how Radu was to be transported and put away, I had thought I might look forward to as much as five hundred years of peace. But alas, even though my orders were carried out with remarkable fidelity, that was not to be.

  Whilst making the arrangements for this burial, I, as the responsible older brother, considered whether it would be somehow possible to arrange to be notified whenever my younger sibling should be awakened. But I could discover no way to make any such arrangement reliably, and in any case I was not really sure I wanted it. I have resolutely declined to spend my life looking over my shoulder.

  The news of Radu's revival—first in the form of a rumor, and then in independent confirmation—reached me in the summer of 1792. Coming decades before I expected it, it struck me with a forcible shock.

  Certainly I was disappointed to discover that the fiend was already above ground and prowling again; the punishment had not endured for even a hundred years. Oh, with any luck at all my younger brother might easily have remained inert, only groaning now and then in nightmare, for another fifty years or so. But though disconcerted I was hardly at all surprised. Luck was something that seemed usually to flow in my younger brother's favor.

  No doubt you are already thinking that simply condemning a vampire to a long trance must not in itself qualify as punishment. And you are right—there must be additional conditions. Sometimes putting the subject in a trance deprives him of the opportunity to do something above ground that he badly wants to accomplish. For example, achieving the seduction of a certain breathing person, or persons. And there are other ways of arranging matters so that his long and enforced sleep is far from pleasant.

  Here is one such possibility: Trance, as we know, is essentially a kind of sleep, and sleep is often stalked by dreams. A nightmare-filled catalepsy, which endures for a hundred years or more, is not at all the same as a long peaceful slumber. The specific details of the nightmare we need not go into here; I have no wish that my readers' own slumbers should be disturbed.