O'Rourke thought a minute. “No, I don't think so. I think I would have heard about it if the Church had been actively involved like that. The best the Church could do was tend to the victims all these years. I'm sorry, Kate . . . is this mentor thing important?”

“Perhaps not,” said Kate. They were flying through scattered clouds now, still climbing. The instrument lights were red. O'Rourke fiddled with something and a heater came on. The sound and feel of the warm air was soothing to Kate, like being a child again, out on a ride in her parents' car at night with the heater fan blowing gently. Despite the adrenaline still surging through her body, Kate actually felt sleepy.

“There is something important we have to talk about, though,” she said. She did not add the “us.”

O'Rourke nodded. She looked his way and saw him smiling at her. “I look forward to talking about that,” he said softly.

Joshua made the kind of vaguely troubled noise that babies make while dreaming, and Kate rocked him gently. Suddenly they came out of the cloud layer and it seemed to her that the tops of the clouds were like a sea and they were a submarine rising to the surface . . . and above it. The cloud tops gleamed beneath them as far as she could see in each direction. There was no sense now of national boundaries, or of nations, of the darkness that lay below those clouds. Kate would not mind staying above these clouds for a while. She rocked the baby, crooning very softly, and watched out the window as they leveled off and flew northwest.

“I've got the tail wind we needed,” said O'Rourke. “And I'm pretty sure the NavStar system is working right. We'll be following the Danube for part of the way.”

Kate nodded in a distracted way. She had just realized how bright the stars were up here in this moonless sky, so bright that they turned the cloud tops into a milky ocean of subtle white hues.

O'Rourke was holding the stick with his left hand now, turning a radio dial with his right. When he had found the channel he wanted, Kate reached over and gently took his hand.

Not speaking, still holding hands, they flew west under the canopy of stars.

Epilogue

When they opened my grave on Snagov Island, they found it empty. That was in 1932. In the winter of 1476, I had briefly regained the throne of Transylvania, but my enemies were legion and they would not cease their attempts until I was dead.

That winter, surrounded and outnumbered by foes, I was driven into the swamps near Snagov by those who would have my head. Instead, they found my headless and mangled body in the marshes there. They identified me by my royal clothes and by the signet ring bearing the sign of the Order of the Dragon on my finger.

I had taken only one loyal boyar ally in my flight to the marshes. He was loyal, but not terribly smart. He was my general size and build.

It was to be the first time I left Transylvania with one of my sons. It was not the last.

I admit that l was not sure whether I would stay at the citadel for the denouement. That morning, being outfitted in my clumsy robes and flown south in the machine, I decided that I would. I was very tired. If my body would not die of its own accord, I would give it peace by other means.

But when the woman showed up, the irony of the situation appealed to me. I supposed dear young Lucian had violated his orders and interceded to save her. I had half expected him to. Sometimes it is best to allow fate to play the last hand.

I had only met Lucian the two times I brought him to the United States to receive his instructions, but I will not forget him. At first the boy refused to believe that he was one of my sons, but I showed him the photographs of his mother, taken of course before she fled from me to return to her homeland. I showed Lucian the documents that proved that it had been Radu Fortuna who had killed his real mother and placed him in an orphanage. l told him that he was lucky, that most purestrigoi couples put their “normal” offspring to death.

Lucian's zeal served us well. He joined the Order of the Dragon. He never doubted my motives of purling the Family of its decadent branches. He understood my sincerity in finding a scientific answer to the family disease.

Which may be another reason that I did not stay for the final act. The morning of the ceremony, I had injected myself with the serum the woman doctor had brought all that way only to lose in Sighisoara. By evening I could feel the change. It was like the Sacrament without the hormonal ragings that had so tired me out over the ages. By the time the absurd woman pulled herself over the parapets of our citadel, I felt centuries younger. My long disgust at what Radu Fortuna and the others of his ilk have done to my Familynot to mention the people of my nationwas burning in my gut like the flames of pure anger I had not felt for many years.

So, in the end, I decided not to stay for the end.

The Dobrins whisked me through the crowd to the secret exit in the basement of the main hall. The German elevator I had installed there worked efficiently, as do all things German. I must admit that I thought of the tons of explosives set in the walls we were descending through. I thought of the Czech, Hungarian, and German engineers I had brought in to set those charges over the past two years, and about how their bones were now mixing with the new mortar there. The irony was inescapable, but we were running late and the Dobrins' obvious anxiety did not allow me to enjoy an old man's love of irony.

There were no horses waiting in the cave this time, only the golf cart and the third Dobrin brother. It took less than a minute to race down the paved tunnel to the river exit, but we only had a minute or two.

The black OH6 Loach helicopter was where I had directed it to be, the engine warmed, the rotors turning, the fourth Dobrin brother at the controls. We were away in thirty seconds. It was almost not in time. The entire mountain came apart above us as we roared up the canyon toward Sighisoara and home. I must admit, I have always enjoyed fireworks, and this may be the best show I have attended.

In the weeks and months since that night, I find that the hemoglobin substitute has other effects beyond renewing my capacity to enjoy life. It reduces the amount I dream almost to zero. This is not an unwelcome thing.

I have thought about the child of mine who was taken that night. At first I considered retrieving him, of raising him the way I raised Vlad and Mihnea. But then I remembered what potential he holds and I have decided to let the woman doctor raise him and learn from him.

I have been a source of terror to my people and employees many times in my long life. I know now that I would have welcomed being a savior to my people. Perhaps, through this child . . . just perhaps.

Meanwhile, I am considering returning to the States, or at least the civilized part of Europe, to be closer to the laboratories making my hemoglobin substitute. It occurred to me recently that Japan is a place I have never lived. It is an intriguing place, filled with the energy and business that is the lifeblood I feed on now.

In the meantime, I 'have given up thoughts of dying soon. Such thoughts were the products of illness, age, and bad dreams. I no longer have the bad dreams.

Perhaps I will live forever.