“Oh, Jesus . . .” said Kate and turned away. She went and leaned against the Mercedes as Lucian did the same to Ion and the younger strigoi.
Lucian had dragged the headless corpses into the tumbledown shack. Now he picked up the heads one by one, carried them to the copse of trees, and tossed them far into the weeds. He took clumps of dried grass, rubbed blood from his pant legs and boots, and walked back to the car. Kate stood rubbing her arms, the shears unnoticed in her right hand. Lucian took them away from her and threw them into the high grass. “Stand right here,” he said softly, moving her away from the car.
He opened the door on the driver's side, brushed shattered glass from the slick leather, started the car, and drove the Mercedes under the tumbled roof of the shed. When he came out he pulled the ax from the soft dirt where he had buried the blade, hefted it, and walked to Kate. “I had to leave my car down the road and cross the field on foot. I kept the trees between me and the car. Come. “
He started to take her hand but Kate pulled back. Lucian nodded and started off down the lane. Kate waited a minute and then followed.
The white Dacia was much like the blue Dacia that Lucian had driven in Bucharest. It squeaked, rattled, and smoked the same, and there was no second gear. Kate settled back in the cracked vinyl seat and let Lucian drive her west and south.
“It was a temptation to take the Mercedes,” he was saying. “Everyone would have recognized it as a strigoi car and left us alone. But it would have been too visible from the air . . . and everyone would remember which way we went.”
“You followed me,” said Kate. It was not exactly a question.
Lucian nodded. “They drove me to Bucharest, I got my car, my father's target pistol, the ax, and binoculars and drove straight back. I saw them drive the priest east. They must be going to the castle by way of Brasov and Pitesti.”
“The castle?” Words seemed strange in Kate's mouth. Her mind kept replaying the moments of the rape, the helpless feeling as he pinned her down, the sense of becoming someone and something else than herself . . .
“Vlad's castle on the Arges River,”, said Lucian. “It's where tonight's ceremony is. They drove the priest the west way; they Were taking you via Sibiu and Calimanesti. It's just habit, in case they were followed. I only followed your car. “ He glanced at her.
Kate looked him in the eye for the first time. “You betrayed us.”
Lucian glanced back at the road where a Gypsy wagon was weaving ahead of him. He honked, passed the wagon, dodged some sheep, and looked back at her. “No, Kate. I never did...”
She clenched her fists. “You were working for them. For all I know, you're still working for them.”
Lucian took a breath. “Kate, you saw me kill those three“
“You said yourself that the strigoi fight among themselves!”' She had not meant to shout. “Factions! You may be with them and against them at the same time. You betrayed us. Lied to us. Informed on us.”
Lucian was nodding. “I had to . . . to keep you both alive. The strigoi knew you were coming. As long as I kept tabs on you, they were reassured . . .”
“You're one of them,” whispered Kate.
“You know I'm not!” snapped Lucian. “That's why I ran the assay test.”
“Blood tests can be faked.”
Lucian pulled the Dacia to the side of the road and turned toward her. “Kate, I've been fighting the strigoi since I was a child. My adopted parents died fighting them.”
“Adopted parents?” Kate remembered the old poet with his elegant manners, his gracious wife; she remembered the two bloodless corpses on the slab in the medical school morgue.
Lucian nodded. “I was an orphan. I was adopted by them when I was four. My parents were killed because of the medical experiments they were doing on strigoi . . . trying to isolate the retrovirus. “
Kate shook her head. “Your father was a poet, not a doctor. I met him, remember?”
Lucian did not blink. “My foster father was a poet. My foster mother was director of the State Virology Research Institute from nineteen sixtyfive until nineteen eightyseven. She was the reason I went to medical school. To learn about the strigoi. To learn how to destroy them but to isolate the retrovirus so that it could be used“
“The thing in the tank,” whispered Kate.
Lucian nodded. “Not the first. We needed to experiment to see how the strigoi survive what should be mortal wounds. Mother worked for years to isolate the virus.” Lucian turned and squeezed the steering wheel until his fingers turned white. “We never had the proper equipment . . . access to the proper journals. “ He looked away out his window. A truck roared by on the highway.
Kate shook her head slowly. “But you worked for the strigoi . . .”
“As a . . . what do you call them in your James Bond movies? A double agent.A mole. A flunky who observed things that had to be observed.”
Kate squinted at him. Her head hurt terribly. “You went to the United States.. Not with your parents, but as a guest of Vernor Trent's institute.”
Lucian was nodding with her words. “And to West Germany. And once to France. I ran errands for several of the more powerful Family members. The strigoi trusted me as a messenger. They helped pay for my medical schooling so that I could work with them on the human blood substitute they were helping to research in America and elsewhere.”
Kate folded her arms and moved away from him. “Why would they trust you?”
He stopped talking and looked at her for a silent moment. “Because my biological parents were strigoi,” he said at last.
“But you said . . .”
He nodded. “I am not strigoi. That is true. Remember, Kate, it's a very rare double recessive. Most of the Jvirus positive who mate have normal children. The regression is toward the norm ninetyeight percent of the time. Otherwise the world would be overrun by strigoi. And usually, when the strigoi have normal children, they do what normal parents in Romania do with retarded children, or diseased children, or malformed children . . .”
“They abandon them,” whispered Kate. She rubbed her temples. “So your foster mother and father found you, adopted you . . . “
“No,” said Lucian, his voice so soft she could hardly hear him. “I was taken out of the orphanage and placed with Mother and Father by someone who hates the Family more than you or I do. By someone who had decided to act against them. I've worked for this person and for our shared goal of destroying the strigoi family for most of my life.”
“Who is it?” said Kate.
Lucian shook his head. “This is the only thing I cannot tell you, Kate. I have given my word of honor never to reveal my mentor's identity.”
“But there is no Order of the Dragon?” said Kate.
Lucian smiled. “Only me. And the person who has sponsored me.” The smile faded. “And Mother and Father until the strigoi destroyed them.”
Kate looked askance at him. “Why would they trust you after they discovered your foster parents?”
Lucian had bitten his lip. “Because I informed on them. I had to. It was just a matter of weeks until they would have been discovered. We . . . I had to go to the strigoi so that I would be beyond suspicion. The stakes were too high this summer to allow everything to be destroyed at the last minute. “
“What stakes?” said Kate. “You mean Joshua? You helped' me adopt him and then you helped the strigoi steal him back.”
Lucian shook his head. “My hope was that you would find the secret of the retrovirus before they found you. You did.”
Kate lost it then, flying across the seat at Lucian, pounding at his chest with her fists. “They killed Tom and Julie, you lying son of a bitch! They killed them and burned my house and took my baby and . . . goddamn it!” Only when her fingers clawed toward his eyes did he restrain her wrists.