A Sharpness on the Neck

But no, he wasn't going to faint, not quite. No such luck. He raised his eyes, trying to look anywhere but at the machine, or at the man who was chewing on the dead cat's neck—and had to bite his lip to keep from crying out.

Because at the nearest of the barn's high windows he could see, in outline against the darkening twilight sky, the head and shoulders of a human figure. The figure was holding some kind of tool or weapon in one hand, and the watcher held his breath, for now from some unknown outdoor source there came a tiny flash of light, revealing the familiar features of Mr. Graves.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

At some time around midnight, on the night following his helpless journey to the scaffold, Radcliffe regained his senses.

He was roused from a state of nightmares and stupefaction by several unpleasant stimuli of increasing urgency, among them a brisk shower of cold rain.

Struggling to sit up, he discovered that his limbs were stiff, and the grass that had been beneath his body pressed down and dry.

Now in a seated position in the grass, grimacing with the pain of his pounding headache, he fought back a wave of dizziness and nausea. Where in hell or on earth was he…? What was he doing here?

He was in the open air, and the world around him was very dark and wet. The fact that he was still alive seemed to indicate that he had been turned into a vampire—he could think of no other possibility. But the evidence of this tremendous transformation aroused in him, at the moment, no particular emotion. It was as if he had none left.

Groaning, he made a great effort and stumbled to his feet, staggered a few steps this way and that, everywhere encountering more long, wet grass. Thunder grumbled somewhere overhead; clouds dripped. Well, a few things were obvious, giving him a kind of foundation from which to start thinking about his situation. It was near midnight, by the look and feel of things, and he was in a cemetery. The rows of graves, dimly perceptible, stretching away through darkness, the tall church in the middle distance looming against clouds and sky, testified to his location. It might well be the very cemetery where Melanie worked. The burial ground where the Revolution sent its dead, when Sanson was through with them… like Melanie's father, like… Philip Radcliffe, too?

The thought of Melanie drove even his own immediate problems momentarily from his mind. Oh God…

He rubbed his face with both hands. Was he ever going to see her again?

As her image rose before him in imagination, Radcliffe found that his feelings for her were stronger than ever. But when he imagined his beloved in his arms again, he was faintly surprised to discover that he experienced no special craving to bite her neck or taste her blood.

What his body wanted now, of hers, was much more commonplace.

Standing in the wet grass, he turned around, shifted his weight from foot to foot, and tentatively waved his arms. The power of flight did not seem to have been given him. Nor had he the faintest idea of how to turn his body into mist, nor did he enjoy any sensation of augmented muscular strength. In fact he felt weak after his ordeal, stumbling every time he moved.

But as horror began to recede, a great mystery took its place—somehow he had survived the guillotine. He came to a halt, rubbing the back of his neck where the muscles seemed to have clenched in a reflex bracing, still anticipating the impact of that razored weight… if he was not a vampire—and the transformation seemed at least doubtful—then the blade ought to have done the job with no trouble at all.

But here he stood, miraculously still in one piece. He began to tremble. What in the devil had saved him?

Dazedly, he seemed to remember Connie telling him that the transformation from breathing man to vampire, and all the changes which must accompany it, took a little time.

Oh yes, Connie. Oh God… how could he have done the things he did, with her? But there was no question that he had.

Maybe it was the brandy. He could try to blame his behavior on the drink.

However miserable his regrets, simply groaning over his situation was going to be no help. He was, or had been, under a sentence of death, and he had to find some practical answers to what seemed a hundred urgent questions. Shivering with the chill of rain (his trousers and torn shirt, almost his only garments, were soaked through), he made an effort to pull himself together.

Try to think! The last thing he could remember was… yes, of course, the scaffold. Oh God, yes. That would be the last thing he would ever forget.

The city streets were a good distance from him in every direction. The cemetery contained a large expanse of open ground, and no doubt that was the chief reason it had been chosen to meet the needs of the People for burying-space. Those needs had turned out to be enormous.

The summer night was not really cold, and Radcliffe's shivering soon ceased when he forced his body into a regular walk—not that he knew yet where he was going—waving his arms and beating them against his sides. His legs woke up and started to perform more normally. But his body still ached in every bone, and his head throbbed.

Only now did Radcliffe realize that the piece of cord that had secured his wrists behind his back had somehow been removed. He ceased thrashing his hands around for a moment and gazed at them in puzzlement. Did the gravediggers routinely perform that service for their customers? He doubted it. Phil wondered dazedly if he might have broken the cord, without realizing the fact, in an access of that new vampirish strength Connie had so vividly described and demonstrated with her own body. His wrists were still chafed from being bound.

The bell of a church clock was striking somewhere in the distance, but Philip was too muddled to count the strokes. Stranger sounds drifted to his ears from somewhere else, also far away—it sounded like some drunken mob, singing the Ca Ira.

If only his head would stop aching—not the least of Radcliffe's practical problems was an ugly hangover.

And this time the usual ghastliness that a hangover left in a man's mouth was compounded by an unmistakable aftertaste of blood—he remembered all too well that it was a woman's blood. Vampire blood, if the one who had called herself Constantia had been telling him the truth about anything. The thought of the gypsy woman, the vivid memories of what he and she had done together, now sent shivers of mixed repulsion and attraction along his spine.

The gall and wormwood in his mouth had subtle but important differences from the taste of his own nosebleed or knocked-out tooth.

There was also the savor of remembered ecstasy. But at the moment, all recent memories were predominantly horrible.

He spat. God, but he was thirsty. All this rain, and no water anywhere to drink—

Again the combination of taste and recalled experience provoked him to nausea, and his empty stomach retched.

But to hell with blood, and to hell with gypsy women, whether they were vampires or not. The fundamental fact that Philip Radcliffe had to bring himself to face was that he knew his head had been cut off.

He could remember, damn it! They had dragged him up there on the scaffold, and… he could almost remember the impact of the falling blade…

All right, everything wasn't exactly clear, just at the vital point. Go back a little farther. Far enough so that memory was plain and unequivocal. Somewhere sense and sanity must be attainable.

Very clearly the young man remembered having his hands bound by one of the jailers before he'd left the prison. Even now his wrists were sore, in evidence of that. Then he remembered being in the narrow courtyard where the great carts were loaded with the condemned, its stone walls seemingly threatening to crush him. No doubt about that either. Then the ride to the scaffold, in a large cart pulled by a team of horse and crowded with his fellow victims. There had been jeering crowds along the way.

Very little time had elapsed between the termination of that ride and the moment when the lights went out for Philip Radcliffe. It was the events just before the end of consciousness which were hard to pin down—like trying