“But you said once that you believed“ began Kate.
“In evil,” finished the priest. “But that hardly qualifies me to be a priest. To administer sacraments. To act as a sort of halfassed intermediary between people who believe much more than I and God . . . if there is a God.” He tossed the stick into the river and both of them watched it whirl out of sight in the steady current.
Kate licked her lips. “O'Rourke . . . why are you here? Why did you come with me?”
He looked at her then and his gray eyes seemed very clear and very honest. “You asked me to,” he said.
Tirgoviste was a town of about fifty thousand people set in the valley of another river, the Ialomita, and beyond it Kate could see the foothills of the Carpathians rising into cloud. At first glance, Tirgoviste was as polluted and industrial as the oil town Pitesti, but then they rumbled through the busy outskirts and found themselves in the old center of the premedieval city.
“That's the old palace,” said O'Rourke, taking his right hand off the throttle to point at ruins beyond a sixfoot wall. “It was founded by Mircea the Old back in the late thirteen hundreds, but Vlad the Impaler burned it down in a battle with the Turks in 14622. Just before he lost power, I think.”
Kate wiped mud from her goggles. '
“That's the Chindia Tower,” said O'Rourke, pointing to a circular stone tower visible above the compound wall. “Old Vlad built it as a watchtower and as an observation post to watch the tortures he held in the courtyard below. The new building just outside the wall there is the museum. “ O'Rourke pulled the motorcycle into a side street, but signs on the door proclaimed the museum closed. “Too bad,” said the priest. “I know the assistant curator there. He's an officious little prick . . . quite loyal to Ceausescu . . . but he knows an awful lot about Tirgoviste's history.”
Kate shifted her weight in the sidecar. Her feet were almost asleep. “Two shits and a little prick,” she said. “Your debits are adding up, Father.”
“And have been for years, sister.” He gunned the throttle and moved slowly down the side street. “My guess was that this is where they'd hold tonight's part of the ceremony, but I don't see any preparations.” All of the gates to the palace historical compound had been chained and padlocked with signs saying CLOSED in English and French.
“It's not dark yet,” said Kate. “Vampires don't come out until it's dark.” She closed her eyes. She felt very sleepy and very discouraged. But when she closed her eyes she saw a perfect image of Joshua laughing at one of his monthly birthday parties, his small hands clenching and unclenching in delight, his dark eyes luminous in candlelight .... Kate snapped her eyes open: “Now what?” she said.
O'Rourke stopped the motorcycle. “I think we need to find a place to hide the bike and ourselves,” he said. “And then we wait until the vampires come out.”
“And if they don't?” said Kate. “If this isn't the site?”
“Then we're well and royally screwed.”
Kate patted his arm. “Two shits, a little prick, and now a royally screwed,” she said. “You'd better get to confession soon, O'Rourke. “
The priest pulled off his leather helmet and vigorously rubbed his scalp. His hair stood in matted clumps. He was grinning through his beard. “I agree,” he said. “And since all of the priests in Tirgoviste have been rounded up by the Securitate, you may just have to hear my confession.”
Kate made a face. The motorcycle moved on through quiet side streets.
The barn was all by itself in an empty field less than half a mile from the palace grounds. It obviously had not been used in years except to store the remains of a tractor with iron wheels and no engine, although the hay in the loft was relatively new. There was no farmhouse around. Across half a mile of field, the towers of a petrochemical plant were visible through a renewed drizzle.
“Systematization,” said O'Rourke, looking both ways before pushing the motorcycle off the narrow lane and down the path to the barn. “Ceausescu probably bulldozed the farmhouse. “
“The hay is recent,” said Kate.
O'Rourke nodded to two scrawny cows far across the field, their ribs visible even at that distance. “With all the chemical dumping, their milk probably glows a nice toxic green,” he said.
“Nice thought,” said Kate, following him into the barn and pulling the sagging doors as closed as they would go. She was shivering visibly now. Her head felt warm and she was dizzy.
O'Rourke set his hand against her forehead. “My God, Neuman . . . you're burning up.”
She clutched her bag closer. “I've got antibiotics, aspirin...”
“What you need is to get warm,” he said, clambering up a rotted wooden ladder to the loft. “It's OK,” he called down.
The straw was not actually fresh, but it was relatively clean.
O'Rourke made a nest in it and set the sidecar blanket down. “Take off the raincoat and your outer layers,” he said. He was pulling his own sodden coat off.
Kate hesitated only a second. Then she shucked off her wet coat and scarf, found her cheap sweater and polyester pants soaked through, and tugged them off. Even her underwear was damp, but she left on her bra and white cotton pants. Her legs and arms were a mass of goosebumps and she knew that her nipples were visible through her unstructured bra. Kate dropped into the straw and pulled half of the blanket up and around her. The wool was scratchy and smelled of gasoline. “I have a change of clothes in the bag,” she said through chattering teeth. '
“You wouldn't have some for me in there would you?” asked O'Rourke. He was much wetter than she had been. He squeezed his black shirt and water ran out. The skin of his chest and upper arms was very white and Kate could see his fingers shaking with the cold. His black trousers were visibly soaked, but he hesitated a moment after unbuttoning them. “Close your eyes,” he said.
“Don't be silly,” snapped Kate, clenching jaw muscles to keep her teeth from chattering. “I'm a doctor, remember? Do you want a lecture on hypothermia?”
“No,” said O'Rourke and unzipped his pants. He put both their sets of clothes on a wooden railing where the weak sunlight could reach them through the single filthy window in the loft.
He doesn't wear underwear! was Kate's single thought. Only then did she notice the plastic of the prosthesis beginning just below his left knee and realized that his request might have come from something other than simple modesty.
Kate's eyes left the prosthetic leg and looked at the man. Father Michael O'Rourke was not as lean as Lucian, muscles not quite as well defined, but when he turned to spread the clothes on the railing, Kate found herself admiring his small rear end in a way that was far from medical. When he turned around, she followed the line of dark hair from where it covered his chest down to the thick patch of pubic hair. His penis and scrotum were contracted from the cold.
Kate turned away and fumbled in her bag for clothes.
“Don't get the other clothes wet,” said O'Rourke, slipping onto the blanket and pulling up the loose end. He was facing her, their knees not quite touching, and there was just enough extra blanket to cover him. “ feet warm first, then put them on.”
In other circumstances, with any other man, she would have known that was a line. Now, with Michael O'Rourke, she wasn't sure. “Just a sweater,” she said, pulling out a navy cotton sweater and tugging it on while undoing the clasp of her wet bra and slipping it off as subtly as she could before putting her arms through the arms of the sweater. She was not unaware that the motion made her breasts seem larger. “The rest is mostly jeans and skirts that would look out of place here,” she whispered, tugging the blanket tight again. “I'll have to wear the damn polyester stuff Lucian bought me if we're going back out on the street.” She pulled a dry pair of underpants from the bag and slipped them under the comer of the blanket. How to do this without being so obvious? She gave up being subtle, hunkered down in the blanket, slipped off the wet panties, and pulled, on the dry ones.