A Sharpness On The Neck (Saberhagen's Dracula Book 9) by Fred Saberhagen (book suggestions TXT) 📕

      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 toilet 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