Kate was no novice at making loveshe had been passionate with Tom and with a few lovers in the years before and after Tombut nothing had prepared her for the intimacy and excitement she felt now. Just when it felt like neither she nor O'Rourke could last another instant, that each would have to shudder to orgasm in the same movement, then their rhythm would change as if choreographed through long experience and they would begin rising through another circle of sensation.

They rolled together now, the blanket falling away unheeded, ending with Kate on top and O'Rourke's broad hand on her chest so that his fingers touched both breasts. He was looking at her, his face lost in that sensuous zone between pain and pleasure. She saw that he had bitten his lip and she lowered her face to kiss away the drop of blood there. He tried to slow her movements now with his hand firm on her hip, but Kate sensed that there could be no more slowing, no more waiting. Throwing her face back, she set both hands on his chest and moved with a rocking, downward shifting motion that brought them to the edge and beyond. For a throbbing second, Kate did not know whose impending orgasm she was feeling more strongly, hers or O'Rourke's.

Then O'Rourke's eyes closed, Kate's closed a second later, she came with a flood of warmth that echoed through her in widening ripples, and an instant after that she felt O'Rourke pulsing inside her as he groaned.

A moment later Kate lay full length on him while O'Rourke hugged her close and pulled the blanket above them. He remained in her, still hard, holding her with strong hands as she halfdozed with her cheek against his chest. It grew full dark. The cold was a palpable thing in the barn now. Somewhere far across the field, a goat bleated.

“Does this ruin everything?” Kate whispered at last, coming out of a halfdream. '

“It doesn't ruin anything,” whispered O'Rourke. His hands rubbed her back.

“But your vows . . .”

“I'd already decided to leave the priesthood, Kate. My trip to Chicago was to resign in person.” He turned his face to one side and freed his hand long enough to brush away a bit of straw that clung to his beard. He returned the hand to her back. “I've honored the vow of celibacy for eighteen years without believing in the reason for it.”

“Eighteen years,” whispered Kate. She touched his chest with her fingertips. When she lifted her face from his chest to whisper something, he kissed her.

“Did you feel . . .” she began.

“As if we had been lovers for years?” he finished. “As if we were remembering times we had made love in the past? Yes, I did. Do.”

Kate shook her head. She did not believe in the supernatural, had never believed in miracles . . . but this physical telepathy made her shiver. O'Rourke pulled the blanket tighter and kissed her ear. “We'd better get dressed and find out if the ceremony is happening tonight,” he whispered.

It rushed in then: the alien place, the cold, the dark, the nightmare of Joshua in the hands of cruel strangers. “Hold me just another minute,” she whispered back, lowering her cheek to his chest again.

He held her.

Chapter Thirty

THE strigoi security forces began arriving sometime after ten-thirty, their dark vans, Mercedes, and military vehicles rumbling down the empty side streets of Tirgoviste and taking up positions around the museum and old palace grounds. There had already been guards at the three gates, as well as razor wire atop the walls. Now the blackgarbed figures with automatic weapons guarded the approaches, commandeered rooftops across nearby streets, and lit the torches within the compound around the Chindia Tower. There were few homes around the palace groundsmost of the buildings there were small businesses or related to the factories which surrounded the old sectionbut those few homes and shops were dark and empty: the people of Tirgoviste, as. if forewarned, had cleared the area before nightfall.

Kate and O'Rourke watched through the shattered wall on the third floor of a halfrazed building half a block from the compound. They had seen the guards, checked the walls, and retreated before the rest of the security forces had arrived. Kate had been in favor of trying to get over the wall while there was still time, but O'Rourke had led her to a covered cistern behind the abandoned building. “This is a forgotten way into the compound. This dry cistern opens into a sewer that was part of the original complex. We can enter this way . . . one of the young priests crawled the entire way in as a lark. But it will be better if we try after dark.”

“How do you know this way in?” Kate had whispered.

He had told her then: His earlier trip to Tirgoviste had been as much to reconnoiter the palace compound and meet with the Franciscan monks here as to check on the orphanage. The monks had shown him the area, produced old maps and architectural drawings done during the restoration of the palace compound fifty years earlier, and led him to this cistern.

Kate had pulled away from him then. “You knew the ceremony was going to be here,” she said. “You knew all about this stuff.”

O'Rourke shook his head. “Not all about it. We guessed that this would be the site for the second night of the Investiture Ceremony. The palace grounds were closed to the public yesterday and there's been tight security.”

“Who's we?” asked Kate.

“The other Franciscans. I swear, Kate, I never heard of any of this until I came to Romania two years ago.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

O'Rourke started to speak, then stopped. He touched her cheek. “I'm sorry. I should have. When you left the country with Joshua, I thought it was over with.”

Kate had balled her fists. “But you knew the danger! You knew they'd come after me!”

“No!” He took a step toward her and then stopped when she backed away. “No, I didn't know the child had anything to do with the strigoi. You have to believe me on that, Kate.”

She stared at him. “You said that Lucian knew. He and the Order of the Dragon or whatever it's called.”

O'Rourke shook his head. “Some of the monks who were arrested here today belong to the Order of the Dragon. It's a real organization . . . secret all these centuries . . . but I had no idea Lucian had any contact with it. I'm still not convinced. It 's one of the reasons I called Father Stoicescu early this morning.”

“And what did he say?”

O'Rourke opened his hands. “He's not in the Order. The priest that was a member was picked up here in Tirgoviste. I don't know if Lucian is lying.”

“Why should he be? He's helped me, hasn't he?”

O'Rourke said nothing.

“All right,” Kate had said. “I'll trust you for now.” She closed her eyes. Her body could still feel the sensation of him inside her. My God, what have I done? “Let's get into the compound. “

“Later,” O'Rourke said, and she could see him shiver. Their clothes were not quite dry and the night wind was cold. “When the VIPs begin arriving.”

The VIPs began arriving an hour before midnight. The line of Mercedes glided between the barricades and guards and disappeared inside the main gate. Kate could see torchlight reflected on the top third of Chindia Tower visible above the compound walls. “It's time,” she whispered.

O'Rourke nodded tersely and led her down the shattered stairway to the cistern in the dark courtyard. Even in the dim light she could see how pale he was.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

O'Rourke bit his lip. “Tunnel,” he said.

Kate produced the single flashlight she had packed in her bag. “We have this.”

“It's not the darkness,” he said and clenched his jaws. Kate saw that his teeth were chattering and that there was a film of sweat on his forehead and upper lip.

“You're ill,” whispered Kate.