Thorn

by Fred Saberhagen

  For the moment she did not care. Freed hands, freed mind—for the moment it was enough, it was all that she could ask for, to enjoy both.

  Then Judy’s eyes opened, and she cried out again. Great wing-beats of throbbing sound were buffeting the roof above her head. For a moment she cringed from monsters. Then there was a glare of harsh electric light outside, and her own good sense came to her rescue. The light bobbed and probed with the throbbing roar, seeking a good place for helicopters to come down

  * * *

  Gliddon had at last maneuvered his Jeep as far as the highway. It was a dirt road, smoothly graded and two lanes wide, that could pass for a state highway in this part of the boondocks. Gliddon looked both ways into darkness, at zero traffic. He considered, then suddenly reversed the Jeep. A few yards back he had noticed a branching road, and now he found this again and backed into it for a few more yards, until he had reached a place that he was sure would be out of sight of the highway by day.

  He stopped the Jeep there, and grinned over at his young companion. “Afraid this is as far as you go, kid.”

  “I’m going to California,” the boy repeated vaguely. He rubbed at the dried mess around his lips, looked at his fingers, then touched one with his tongue. He appeared to be trying to remember something.

  “Sure. This is Hollywood and Vine. Hop out. I’m gonna fix you up with a job in the movies.”

  “I’m going to get a job out there making films. My home’s in Chicago.” But the kid got out on his side, obediently enough.

  As Gliddon stepped out of the Jeep on his own side, he remembered something else. “Hey, kid, you were pretty good that night in Phoenix. Better than any of the girls. I wish we could have finished good friends, the way we started.” He walked through the beams of the headlights and put a hand on Pat’s shoulder. “I wish we could get a little fun in right now. But I’m in a hurry.” And Gliddon, remembering the wounded finger on his own right hand, drew back his left arm and with a practiced, lethal snap sent the blade of his hand with full power against the youngster’s neck.

  And Gliddon shouted, blinded by the pain and shock. It felt like he had struck a thick wooden pole.

  Before he could begin to think of what to do next, the kid had taken him by the right arm. And somehow Gliddon, try as he might, could not pull free.

  “Your finger is bleeding, gosh,” the boy said. There was something in his voice that was not sympathy, and was certainly not fear either. Whatever it was, it made Gliddon look closely at the kid’s face, and then try again to pull away. When Gliddon saw those dried stains around the childish mouth. And how Pat’s teeth had changed. When the boy displayed them in a merry smile.

  Epilogue

  And then all at once the seat at Joe’s right hand was empty no longer. For a moment he wondered if he had dozed off, and so given the young lady a chance to sit down unnoticed. But then he understood.

  The brown-haired girl in the high-necked gown was smiling at Joe. She was quite attractive, and he at once caught the strong family resemblance to Judy. Glancing back at Judy briefly now, Joe saw that she was deeply asleep.

  He turned back. He wasn’t exactly used to this sort of an experience yet, but similar things had happened to him before and he could handle them. He returned the smile. “I think,” he said, “that I spoke to you on the telephone once, Miss.”

  “It’s Mrs. Harker, actually.” Her voice was soft and charming, slightly British. “But please call me Mina. Vlad has told me a good deal about you, and I really feel we are already friends. And since we are sharing a ride tonight I wanted to say hello. And to reassure you, perhaps, on one or two points in connection with these recent—events, that have been so distressing.”

  A stewardess, passing in the aisle, looked vaguely unsettled by the sight on an unremembered passenger. But the stewardess naturally had plenty of other things to worry about already— there was no problem, really, with a pleasant-looking, undemanding young woman who simply sat chatting with a man. No need to concern oneself; and Joe’s understanding grew of how the whole vampire business could remain a secret even while it went on and on and on.

  “Well,” said Joe, “I’m glad you say ‘reassure’. The one kid, Pat O’Grandison, is still missing, and the painting also. And Mr. Thorn, of course. Otherwise there are just bodies all over hell, in mansions, in Jeeps, in garages and old adobe ruins.”

  “Yes,” Mina agreed with a sigh. “It has been a terrible business. Just terrible.” She looked at her nails, as any young lady might. They were neatly manicured, Joe noted, and not very long. Certainly nothing at all talonish, not at the moment anyway. She added: “And I don’t think they are going to have any success in looking for the painting.”

  “Oh no?”

  “It is my feeling that the real owner might by now have put it away safely somewhere.”

  “Oh.” Joe turned his head to glance once more at Judy, who had not moved. “According to Judy, he was rather crazy, there at the end. She says it was very lucky that you showed up when you did. I was wondering…”

  Mina smiled again. “Vlad’s going to talk to you himself,” she said. “Say hello to Kate for me. If you think it wise.” She leaned back, and was gone. But the seat remained empty only for a moment.

  Joe flinched, just slightly. He couldn’t help himself.

  If Thorn noticed that infinitesimal recoil, he gave no indication. He smiled lightly at Joe and patted him on the arm. “Thank you, Joe, for your support.”

  Joe tried to make his arm relax on the seat divider. “You’re welcome. Er … ah … Mina told me there’s no use our looking for that painting any longer?”

  “Your sense of justice, Joe, may be soothed to know that for the first time in centuries, it is now in the hands of its true owner.”

  Joe didn’t have to ask who that might be. He wondered suddenly if the painting, disguised somehow, could be cargo on this very plane. He wasn’t about to try to find out.

  “There is one more point, Joseph, on which I wished to speak to you. I mean the young man, Pat O’Grandison, who has disappeared.”

  “Oh. You’re not through hunting yet.”

  “I detect a certain disapproval.” Then in a sort of parenthetical action Thorn leaned forward in his seat and slowly reached past Joe toward Judy. With one finger he very gently touched the burn on her cheek, and her puffy lip. She was sleeping deeply, and did not stir. Thorn sat back. “Actually this particular hunt is one that I should think you might want me to conduct. The youth has not wronged me; I am not seeking revenge.”

  “Sorry. What, then?”

  “He is … a runaway. In years, not a child any longer. But not a responsible adult. In fact he is intermittently mad.”

  “As I understand it, he’s been like that most of his life. So are a hundred thousand others running around loose. So what’s—”

  “Joseph, you do not understand. Remember how the body of the man Gliddon was found.”

  Joe had heard about that. The state police had said it looked like Gliddon had been half eaten by some animal. “Oh. I thought that was … not that I would have blamed you, after…”

  “Oh, I would have killed him, certainly. But his blood would have been carrion to me. Not to that boy though. That boy is nosferatu, now; or rather in a grotesque halfway state that may persist indefinitely. And he is out there somewhere, hitchhiking. If I were greatly concerned for the welfare of the breathing populace of this great nation, I would be anxious that he be found; I would concern myself about him. Of course, as you say, there are thousands of others—”

  “What?”

  “Oh, not insane vampires, not all of them, but just as dangerous sometimes. To themselves, if not…” Thorn’s voice trailed off.

  Joe stared into the pale face, and could see torture there.

  “As she was,” Thorn went on at last, whispering. “For centuries, it would appear. Since the day, perhaps, when she saw me fall to traitors’ swords and thought that
I was dead. Wandering the earth. Seeking to have a home again, and human contact … in, as I say, some kind of halfway state. Able to eat the food of breathing humans, to face the sun without distress, to find a kind of sleep anywhere on earth. But able to find real rest nowhere at all. They are mad, and they are outcasts from both worlds, and I do not know how many of them there are who wander the earth tonight. Too much happens to them in their breathing lives, and madness supervenes. Too much happened to me, but I was—very strong. Yes, very strong.”

  Impulsively Joe put a hand on the arm of the man, the human being, who rode in the seat beside him. Thorn looked at him. “It was she, though.” He paused. “I am almost sure.”

  About The Author

  Fred Saberhagen is widely published in many areas of speculative fiction. He is best known for his Berserker, Swords, and Dracula series. Less known are the myth based fantasies Books of the Gods. Fred also authored a number of non-series fantasy and science fiction novels and a great number of short stories. For more information on Fred visit his website: www.fredsaberhagen.com