A Sharpness On The Neck (Saberhagen's Dracula Book 9) Read online

  But when the young woman smiled at Philip from between her heavy silver earrings, both observers understood immediately that there was something truly out of the ordinary about her.

  * * *

  Philip’s job as a computer consultant, mainly helping companies to rid themselves of their mainframes in favor of smaller, relatively inexpensive hardware, involved a lot of travel. Begun with his wife three days ago in Kansas City, this trip had been designed with a combination of business and pleasure in mind. Already they had detoured considerably from the strict requirements of business, to do some sightseeing at Meteor Crater and the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert complex. They had visited Inscription Rock in New Mexico as well as the Very Large Array of radio telescopes mounted on railroad tracks, and were regretting the fact that they had been unable to work the Carlsbad Caverns into their itinerary. They were looking forward to the Grand Canyon and, if they decided to stretch the trip a bit, Zion National Park.

  * * *

  The sun had at last dropped securely behind the western peaks, whose long shadows now entirely claimed the road ahead. Automatically Radcliffe switched on his headlights—and at the same moment felt the weight and balance in the car change subtly.

  * * *

  The second vampire to put in an appearance came a lot closer to looking the part, as it has recently been portrayed in films, even though he wore no cape nor displayed any obvious great fangs. The last beams of direct sunlight had barely left the car when he appeared, hatless, clad in a dark suit, sitting in the rear seat beside Connie. His entry was accomplished without the vehicle having stopped again or even slowed down, without either of the doors opening even for an instant Radcliffe felt his presence, somehow, and heard him in the rear seat before he saw him.

  This latest newcomer, who had arrived so incomprehensibly, seemed to have blown in like a cloud of mist, or dropped in from overhead like an invisible bird. He materialized as a rather serious-looking man of indeterminate age, though certainly not gray or wrinkled. This well-built stranger—lean body slightly taller than average, face dark for a Caucasian and rather handsome—reached forward, unsnapped Philip’s and June’s safety belts, one with each hand, and pulled both breathers unceremoniously into the rear seat as if they had been no more than four years old.

  Somehow he accomplished this feat without breaking any of their bones, leaving any bruises, or even tearing any of their clothing. In the next moment the Radcliffes were flanking the stranger in the rear. He had one brotherly arm around each of them, holding them more utterly immobile than any seat belt. Had the vehicle in which they rode not been a convertible, top down, it would, according to the modern taste for economy in manufacturing, have offered barely room enough to occupy a seat let alone go changing front to rear. In that case, who knows what that forceful fellow might have done to get his kidnapping victims where he wanted them? But he’d have found a way.

  The three adults now sitting in the rear enjoyed sufficient room because, in the same instant as the Radcliffes were forcibly transported rearward, the young-looking woman with the gypsy eyes had somehow transferred herself to the front seat, where she had already grabbed the steering wheel with one hand. Radcliffe hadn’t really seen how Miss Gypsy had performed this feat of acrobatic stage magic, and he couldn’t really believe it. But there she was anyway, now sliding neatly under the wheel and assuming all the chores of driving. So smoothly was this change of command accomplished that the automobile hardly hesitated in its forward passage, hardly wavered from its central position in the narrow road.

  Almost before the Radcliffes had the chance to be alarmed, they were prisoners. Neither of their kidnappers had bothered to gag them, because neither cared in the least if the victims yelled.

  June let out a wavering sound. It seemed not so much a cry for help as a recognition that crying for help would do no good.

  No one paid her outcry any attention.

  Fear arrived, for both victims, with a strong rush of adrenaline, but much too late to do either of them any good.

  Philip Radcliffe thought: Violent kidnapping is something that happens to other people, not to me. Not to us. Therefore, this can’t really be going on.

  But it was.

  “What is this?” His own voice sounded strange and awkward.

  “For your own good,” said the couple’s new companion, who was now wedged in between them with an air of permanence, as if he’d been there for the whole trip. His deep voice carried some flavor of middle Europe. He sounded as if he were trying to be reassuring, and he gave Radcliffe’s shoulders a fraternal squeeze.

  Why am I letting this man restrain me with one arm? Who in the hell does he think he… Philip, at last energized by anger, willed himself to relax as a deliberate tactic—then in the next instant, struggled violently to be free.

  More precisely, he tried to struggle violently—actually he could not move an inch. The single arm which pinioned him felt like a steel cable. The next step in his plan had been to punch the man beside him, or maybe slam him with an elbow. But any such heroics proved utterly impossible. Both of Radcliffe’s elbows were being held immovably against his sides.

  While Phil was trying to think of something to do next, part of his mind took note of the fact that the young woman behind the wheel did not really seem to be concentrating on her driving. The car was going considerably faster now with her in control, but it seemed that the task was perhaps too trivial to hold her interest. She turned on the car radio and punched in one station after another until she came to a man on a talk show declaring loudly that there was obviously no chance of that other candidate, the wrong one, being elected in November. Voters would have to be crazy to pick that villain, declared the hectoring, annoying voice. Because of course if that scoundrel should happen to get in, America was doomed, and the children and grandchildren of everyone out there in the radio audience faced a future bleak beyond belief. They’d all spend the rest of their lives jobless but paying enormous taxes. Not only would they be buried in debt, national and personal, but half of them would be held hostage by domestic criminals or foreign terrorists.

  “Turn off the noise,” the man holding Philip immobile commanded harshly. (He had no wish to be mistaken for a hostage-taker, and might have allowed the radio to stay on if that word had not surfaced amid the babble. On the other hand, he might not.)

  The girl in the front seat did not turn her head, and Philip thought she hesitated briefly, on the brink of arguing. But within a couple of seconds she obediently punched the radio off again.

  Chapter Two

  June, writhing and straining, suddenly made her own effort to break free. But her first try fared no better than Philip’s, though her struggle lasted somewhat longer. Phil on observing what his wife was doing gamely made another try himself, but their captor had no trouble at all managing them both at the same time, one arm to each. The dark-haired intruder sat through this interlude with a thoughtful expression on his lean face, and seemed to be waiting, like an experienced parent, for the kids to get the nonsense out of their systems.

  June, gasping and tired, at last gave up, and breathed out a prolonged whine of frustration.

  “Phil, do something!”

  He grunted and strained again and muttered a few obscenities and oaths. But this time his heart wasn’t really in it. He understood, as he sat waiting for his lungs and heart to slow to normal, that he might as well have saved his energy.

  Glaring at their captor, June said: “I don’t see how you think you can just come into the car and—and…”

  “But I can.” His voice was calm, infuriatingly parental. “Depend upon it. Nevertheless, you have nothing to fear from me.”

  So, it seemed that they were well and truly kidnapped. Philip in the back of his mind was already running through a mental list of people who might be expecting to hear soon from either one of them. The list was short, and offered no comfort. The Radcliffes could be out of communication with the
world for a long time before anyone else became alarmed.

  * * *

  After a few seconds of silence, the girlish-looking vampire in the front seat turned her head long enough to call back cheerily: “Call me Connie. And you’re Phil and June. But you already know that.” And she giggled.

  “You may call me Mr. Graves,” said the somber man who sat, apparently relaxed but watchful as a statue, between his captives in the rear.

  “You’re hurting me,” June told him, in a tone of voice that suggested it was mainly her sensibilities which had been injured.

  “My apologies,” said Mr. Graves, sounding in fact not all that sorry. His voice suggested that of some Middle European diplomat with faultless yet not native English, and his dark suit did nothing to dispel this impression. He turned his face toward June. “I shall release you. But only on the condition that you must, for a while, accept my presence, and my guidance.”

  Evidently she gave some sign of her acceptance. Radcliffe, feeling like a fool in his helplessness, looked across and saw that his wife was now indeed free. She was rubbing her slender arms and shoulders, inspecting her wrists and hands, with a puzzled look, as if she were sure there must be someplace where she was really hurt.

  Phil let out a breath of partial relief. “Put on your seat belt,” he reminded his wife mechanically.

  She pulled the strap into place, and snapped the buckle, in a kind of reflex action.

  Graves had now turned his dark, compelling gaze to his left. “Mr. Radcliffe, will you also ride peacefully beside me?”

  “Doesn’t seem like I have much choice,” Phil gritted through his teeth.

  “An intelligent observation,” his seatmate observed.

  The numbing grip relaxed. It was Philip’s turn to rub his arms and shoulders, and to feel puzzled at the lack of damage. All that strength should have left something bruised or strained; but he felt only a faint tingling, like the aftermath of a good massage.

  No one man, especially one so thin, could be that strong. It had to have been some trick…

  “Please put on your seatbelt,” the trickster urged him solicitously.

  Radcliffe clicked the halves of the buckle into place. Then, summoning up his not inconsiderable courage, he demanded of his kidnapper: “And who the hell are you?”

  “You may call me Graves,” the dark-suited man repeated patiently. “Mr. Graves, if you are in a mood for formality. When we have reached our destination, we are going to discuss my identity more fully. It has a certain bearing on our business.” For the first time he smiled faintly, showing a glimpse of white teeth.

  Connie in the front seat turned her head briefly, glancing at Phil. Then she remarked: “He does look like him, doesn’t he, Vla… doesn’t he, Mr. Graves?”

  “A definite resemblance,” Graves agreed.

  “Who do I look like?” Radcliffe demanded.

  “You look a whole lot like a certain ancestor of yours,” Connie remarked; over her shoulder. “One who lived about two hundred years ago.”

  Philip, his mind still numb, mental faculties staggering off-balance and scrambling through trivia to try and find a foothold, decided that Connie appeared to be about a decade younger than Mr. Graves, who had to be at least thirty. And she sounded like a native English-speaker, which the male intruder did not.

  * * * * * *

  The man who called himself Mr. Graves had turned his gaze upon his male captive, and was studying him intently. Philip was the one, by all indications, in whom Graves was really interested. He didn’t know whether to be pleased or not that June was being virtually ignored.

  Connie, without looking round again, remarked: “Yes, this has to be the one that Radu wants.”

  “Really there can be no doubt.” Graves was nodding slowly. The resemblance is definitely there. The eyes, the mouth. Unusually strong, after so many generations.”

  “So I look like my ancestor?” Radcliffe’s own voice seemed surprisingly loud in his ears. “Does this mean I inherit the whole fortune?”

  Ignoring his comment and facetious question, the woman said: “I agree, as to that. And I have an excellent memory for faces.”

  June piped up: “So, you’re taking us to someone called Radu?”

  “Taking you to him? On the contrary!” Graves, turning his head to look at her, smiled in some private amusement.

  Connie, her mind still off on another pathway, muttered musingly: “I wonder—to how many ‘greats’ should that ancestor of his now be entitled?”

  June said: “Phil?” in a small, lost voice. But then she let it go at that. He looked past their kidnapper at her, and was vaguely relieved to see that she was bearing up, so far—and that she had her seat belt on.

  * * *

  Connie drove on for more than an hour, heading generally west and north, steering from one small road to another, never seeming to have the least doubt as to where she was going. They passed through no towns; here and there a lighted window appeared only in the distance, and other traffic was nonexistent. Phil kept formulating plans for sudden violence, for taking their captor by surprise—and giving them up. The attitude of the man beside him, the memory of that grip, were thoroughly discouraging.

  Twice he was on the point of telling Connie to turn the headlights on, and twice he held back. Let her hang up the car on one of these roadside rocks, if she thought she could see in the dark—anything to disrupt the kidnappers’ plan. But though the darkness deepened steadily, the driver proceeded unerringly and at the same speed.

  Now and then she turned her head to smile solicitously at her victims. Meanwhile Graves spent most of the time sitting motionless, as if lost in thought.

  Eventually, flicking on headlights at last, she pulled the convertible into what was obviously a prearranged rendezvous. A kind of rude driveway, no more than a set of rutted tracks, curved away from the thin road, leading behind a rocky outcropping to a building, some kind of abandoned shed, whose location effectively hid its presence from casual traffic. Here the deceptively flat-looking landscape had put up enough of a bulge to conceal till the last moment an isolated shed, surrounded by a small grove of trees. A dusty Suburban, two or three years old, was parked just beyond the shed.

  * * *

  As the car braked to a stop, Phil started at the sight of a small handful of masked figures, men and women, who suddenly appeared in the glare of his car’s headlights, standing around the shed. Radcliffe saw with a chill that these people, dressed in nondescript clothing, were wearing rubber Halloween masks over their heads; ghosts and witches were represented, smiling, along with Frankenstein’s monster, whose rubber features looked less happy. Radcliffe’s uneasy attention took note also of a mummy and a werewolf.

  So, the young man thought, with a sinking sensation. Numbers and organization proved that it wasn’t just a couple of crazed acrobats who were doing this. He and June were somehow victims of a real, professional plot, well-organized if fundamentally crazy, based on some total misunderstanding of who he was. He now began to understand, or thought he did. Somehow these people had convinced themselves that Philip Radcliffe was as wealthy as his name suggested. Well, they were in for a jarring disappointment.

  * * *

  One of the masked figures opened the car door, and spoke in a friendly male voice. “Mr. and Mrs. Radcliffe, we’re glad to see you. Please get out.”

  Others murmured assurances that they were not going to be harmed. Their spokesman handed June out of the car like a gentleman.

  Philip, encouraged by the mildness of the reception, was shaking his head at them, raising his voice, trying to get in a telling word before things went too far. “If any of you expect to collect a ransom—”

  “We don’t,” the masked spokesman assured him calmly. “Don’t worry about that.”

  Philip had time to notice that the license plates on the Suburban were so obscured with dried spattering of beige mud as to be unreadable.

  Simple but clean toil
et faculties were available just beyond the shed, in the form of a new portable chemical toilet of the type used on construction jobs.

  There was an interval of waiting, with people standing. Nobody was smoking. Radcliffe supposed that would have been hard, with the masks.

  While the kidnapped couple were being allowed a few minutes to use the facilities in turn, their baggage, including two or three backpacks and satchels, was transferred to the new vehicle. There was also some dirty laundry in a plastic garbage bag, and a small ice chest which now contained nothing but some cold, ice-melt water. All items were opened, with apologies, and inspected, before being loaded into the van.

  “Oh, that’s all right,” June responded to the second or third expression of regret. Her nerve was up again, and so was her temper. “If you’re going to kidnap us, what do we care if you search our baggage? I’ve been treated worse by airlines.”

  Rubber masks turned silently toward her. It was Graves himself who responded in a dry voice: “Your courage does you credit, madam. In fact, one would be virtually certain to be treated worse by airlines.”

  Not until Radcliffe’s nervous gaze had fallen two or three times upon the waiting Suburban did he notice that its windows were shaded or heavily tinted. Riding in the second or third seat of that vehicle at night, a couple of kidnap victims would be able to see very little of anything outside except for passing headlights.

  He kept trying to fight off moments of panic. Now might be his last chance to try to find out where he was, where they were being taken. Looking around him in search of a landmark, something that might later help him identify this location, Philip could see nothing familiar and nothing memorable.

  The sun had now been gone for almost two hours, but the last glow of sunset still clung to the western sky.