It had taken Radu some time and effort to make sure, he explained now, but in the end there could be no doubt—somehow the beheading he'd thought he'd witnessed had been a fake. "And I think I know now how that was accomplished."
Philip Radcliffe, bastard son of Benjamin Franklin, had survived the Terror in France, and—as Radu's subsequent research demonstrated—had returned to America with his French bride, Melanie Remain, to settle in the state of Virginia, where he founded a substantial family and eventually died in 1861 at the age of ninety-two.
Radu's words trailed off slowly, and he fell silent. He was looking at the guillotine.
The world seemed to be dissolving in horror and unreality around Philip Radcliffe. Tied down, unable to move more than one hand, he was surrounded by smiling and giggling enemies, all their attention now focused for a moment on the object they had brought him out here to see. The full-scale instrument of two hundred years ago, or so nearly so that it made no difference. Spruced up with a fresh coat of bright red paint.
"Demonstrations," said Radu at last, stroking a pale hand up and down one upright of the massive frame. "I wish to see how well it works. Just how reliable it is."
Murmuring their eagerness, his slaves got busy. The heavy blade, sharpened edge gleaming a little in the lantern-light, was hauled to the top of its track on a new rope. On the first trial, with nothing in the lunette, the blade fell with a startling crash, to be caught by the slot in the lower frame. The fall of the knife had a distinctive double sound, because the heavy metal bounced up and fell again.
On the second trial it became evident that parts of the death machine were not always going to work smoothly. When a head of lettuce, recently brought from town, was set in the lunette, the blade when triggered began to fall, then heart-stoppingly became stuck halfway down. As soon as someone touched the machine with the idea of making an adjustment, the blade recovered itself, plunging the rest of the way at the impulse of a very slight vibration. The jarring impact sounded just as heavily as before, and the lettuce fell in two, divided as neatly as if by some fine kitchen tool.
The second subject of the day's demonstration—Radcliffe was not sure who had made the choice—was the live cat. Sensing evil intent, the beast clawed and bit one or two people before they could get it under control. Two or three of Radu's breathing acolytes, ignoring their bleeding scratches—it seemed that no one, including themselves, placed any value on their blood—held the animal's four limbs in a practiced way, as if this were not the first time they'd done this trick, and pushed its snarling, screeching head in through the little window at the front end of the machine.
Once more the blade came down, putting an abrupt end to living noise. The sound of its fall was only subtly different than before, but it was to stay with Radcliffe for a long time. Somehow the smallness of the jet of blood was a surprise, a mark of the pettiness of evil that would spend its energy to kill a cat.
Someone at once snatched up the fallen head from the barn floor, and tossed it into Radcliffe's lap. Another apprentice vampire, heedless of crimson splashes, held up the dead cat and tried to drink the blood which had not yet entirely ceased pumping from the vessels in its neck.
Philip felt a wave of dizziness, gray faintness threatening to blot out the world, amid the sound of laughter. Coming and going, like the pulsing roar of blood in his own head, there came from outside the steady noise of the swift white water of the mountain stream.
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.