Children of The Night

Chapter Forty

“You crazy American cunt,” hissed Radu Fortuna, his face close enough that Kate could see the white spittle at the comers of his mouth, “you can't believe we are going to let you and the child go.”

“No,” said Kate. She suddenly felt very calm. This is where all of her efforts had brought her. This is where she had to be. Joshua had quit wailing and fidgeted only slightly in her hands. His tiny feet were bare and she remembered all the times they had played thislittlepiggy together before bedtime. He was looking at her with wide eyes.

“Give us the child,” ordered Fortuna, taking another step closer.

“If you don't get back,” said Kate, “I drop him.” She tossed Joshua slightly, catching him firmly under the arms. But not before the crowd of reverent strigoi gasped.

Radu Fortuna took a step back. The crowd was too dense and pressing to allow any more room. He turned and said something in rapidfire Romanian to Vernor Deacon Trent. The old man had stepped off his throne and was just another face in the crowd.

“Doctor,” Vernor Deacon Trent said to her, “there is no purpose to this.”

“Yes,” said Kate, “there is.” She could not see her watch.

Three minutes remaining perhaps. Not enough time for anything. But she would go ahead.

Vernor Deacon Trent shrugged. Two huge bodyguards were plucking at his sleeve in some haste, as if Kate's very presence were a threat. “If you are going to jump, jump,” said the old man, and turned away.

Kate licked her battered lips. “Release him.” She had to nod in the direction she meant.

Radu Fortuna turned slowly. “The priest?” He laughed out loud. “All this to save your lover?” He spat and looked behind him. A dozen strigoi guards had rifles or automatic weapons aimed at Kate's face. If they fired, Joshua would drop with her.

Kate's arms were very tired from holding the baby out above the darkness.

“Release him,” said Kate. “Release him and I will step down and give you the child.”

Radu Fortuna sneered. “No.”

Kate turned and looked down. It would be a long fall. She shifted her wrist so that she could see her watch. 12:22. Too late. She wondered if she and the baby would feel anything.

“Yes,” said Vernor Deacon Trent from deep in the crowd in his shaky, old man's voice. “Release the priest.”

“Nu!” shouted Radu Fortuna. “I forbid it!”

Vernor Deacon Trent's face seemed to Kate to shift then, from something merely old and wornout to something powerful and not quite human. “Release him!” bellowed the old man, and there was no'trace of weakness in his voice this time.

Radu Fortuna blinked as if he had been slapped. He gestured weakly to the executioner who stood next to O'Rourke at the stake. The long knife cut the ropes that bound the priest.

O'Rourke took off his blindfold, rubbed his wrists, and looked at her. “Kate, I don't“

“Shut up, Mike,” she said, her voice soft. The only other sound was the crackling of torches: “Just go.”

“But I“

“Just go, my darling.” She nodded toward the bridge and the steps leaving the castle. “Go down the trail . . . past the slick, all right? Past the slick and down to the bend we can see from here. Take one of the torches out when you get there and wave it back and forth so we can see that you are there. Then I will give the baby back to them.”

“Let it be so,” Radu Fortuna said in English and then in Romanian.

O'Rourke hesitated only a second. Nodding, saying nothing, he stepped down from the sacrificial dais, went around the table laid out with chalices, and made his way through the strigoi. He was limping, but his damaged prosthesis obviously still worked. The dense crowd parted for him; one guard spat as he passed, but no one interfered.

Kate leaned out farther and hugged the baby to her side. Anyone rushing her would send both of them plunging. If she were shot, the impact would knock her off. Joshua began crying softly, his pudgy hands gripping the wool of her sweater. He babbled syllables and Kate was sure that she heard “Mommy.”

“Hand us the child and we will let you go,” Radu Fortuna said smoothly, extending his arms.

Kate hunted for Vernor Deacon Trent but the old face was no longer visible in the crowd. “You won't let me go,” Kate said tiredly.

“Goddamn you, woman!” exploded Fortuna. “Of course we will not fucking let you go! Nor the fucking priest! Even if he leaves this mountain, we will find him, return him, and drink his fucking blood! Now give me the child!”

Kate held Joshua out over the abyss with straight arms. The pain tore at her muscles and shoulder sockets, but the movement froze Fortuna in his tirade.

She could see her watch. 12:25. She closed her eyes.

The white light, when it came, was a surprise. .The noise was very loud.

The Bell Jet Ranger helicopter just cleared the west tower and seemed to skim the east tower, its searchlight was on and flashing across the crowd, blinding the strigoi and Kate as well. The helicopter slewed sideways, seemed to be about to land in the middle of the strigoi throng, and sent the crowd shoving back toward the far wall, the wind of the machine's rotors pelting them with dust, gravel, and grit thrown up from the terrace. The chalices on the long table were blown off as red and white vestments fluttered and linens lifted into the sky like streams of toilet paper in a high wind.

Radu Fortuna screamed a curse that was lost in the incredible rotor noise. Guards tried to press forward and left their weapons in the crush of the retreating strigoi mob.

Kate caught the briefest glimpse of O'Rourke on the left side of the helicopter's steel and Plexiglas bubble, his face intent as he obviously wrestled with the controls, and then she was holding on to the baby with one arm and flailing to keep her balance with her right arm as the rotor wind threatened to tumble her off the wall into the canyon.

Radu Fortuna lunged forward and seized her ankle. Joshua screamed at the avalanche of light and noise.

The helicopter pivoted, its skids six feet above Kate, wand the entire machine moved sideways out over the canyon as if sliding on an invisible layer of ice. The rotor blast almost threw Kate back onto Radu Fortuna. The strigoi shielded his eyes with one hand and pulled at her ankle with the other. Several guards pushed through the mob.

The helicopter slid back toward Kate, the machine rocking like a rowboat in rough waves. Kate ducked as the slick's right skid bobbed where her head had been a second before. She started to rise and then ducked again as the door that O'Rourke had left open on the right side of the machine swung wider and almost took her head off. The rotor noise and gale was beyond belief.

Radu Fortuna snarled and grabbed the collar of her sweater. Kate did not look back as she swung her right elbow back, hard, into his teeth. His hand released her collar.

Kate stood up quickly while the door was open, leaned out over the emptiness, and set her baby in the right seat. O'Rourke shouted something she could not hear, lifted his right hand from the stick to reach across and keep Joshua from sliding out, had to return his hand to the controls, and bobbed the helicopter down and to the left to keep the baby from rolling out.

Kate pin wheeled her arms, could not catch her balance, and leaped as hard and as far as she could out into the abyss.