“Yeah. “ His voice sounded pained. He had hit harder than she had. Kate wondered if his artificial leg had been damaged.
“Are you all right, O'Rourke?”
“Yeah.” He took deep breaths in the darkness. “How about you, Neuman?”
She nodded, realized he could not see her, and said, “Yes.” Her nose was running and she craned to wipe it on her shoulder. Her wrists were still tied very tightly behind her; she could barely feel her hands now.
“We fucked up,” whispered the priest.
Kate said nothing. She wiggled closer until she could feel his right arm tied back. She moved until they were back to back, her hands reaching for his wrists. She had some idea of untying his bonds while he did the same for her, but she found unrelenting plastic there, clipped together with a snap like a hospital bracelet.
“It's no use,” he whispered. “Cops use these plastic restraints in the States. You can't break them or untie them. You can't even cut them with scissors. They've got a special shears that cuts them off.”
Kate folded her fingers into fists. “What are they going to do to us?” She realized how stupid the question was even as she had to say it.
O'Rourke leaned closer. It was cold and damp in the pit and his warmth was welcome. “Well, didn't Lucian say that none of the strigoi drank human blood until the last night of the Ceremony?”
“No,” whispered Kate. “He said that legends had it that the young prince who was being invested didn't drink blood until the fourth night . . . the last night.” She laughed out loud, a strange and somewhat frightening sound in the darkness. “Although I'd say that the veracity of some of the things Lucian told us might be a little suspect. Jesus . . .” Her laughter died.
“On the other hand;” O'Rourke whispered, his voice low and steady as if to calm her, “it does seem he knows a bit more about the strigoi than he let on. Maybe his information is accurate.”
Kate tried to laugh again but her mouth was suddenly too dry, her throat too constricted. She forced saliva into her mouth and licked her lips. “I'm sorry I got you into this, O'Rourke. “
“Kate, you don't have to“
“No, listen. Please. I'm sorry I got you into this, but I swear I'll get us out of it. And Joshua.”
O'Rourke said nothing. Suddenly a scrabbling was audible from several directions.
“Oh, shit,” breathed Kate, her skin crawling. “Rats.” She and O'Rourke huddled closer, their backs together and knees drawn up. Clumsily, with almost no feeling in their fingers as circulation ceased, they reached behind and between themselves and held hands in the darkness.
Time became unmeasurable except for the growing pressure in Kate's bladder. She halfdozed, felt O'Rourke sag against her in his own state of dull exhaustion, and awoke only when the pressure to urinate became more urgent. She closed her eyes and prayed to no one in particular that someone would come and let them out before she had to wet her skirt or crawl into a comer and try to pull her underwear down.
The darkness was too deep to reveal any detail, but they had moved around enough to know that the pit was, just that, a pit about ten feet by ten feet. There seemed to be no straw, no chains, no iron bracelets complete with dangling skeletons on the wall as far as they could tell from kicking out with their feet, only cold, wet stone and the occasional scurry of rats in the comers. I hope they're only rats.
Finally she could stand it no longer and whispered to O'Rourke, “Excuse me.” She hobbled into the comer that seemed to have had the least sound of rodent toenails on stone, squatted, managed to get her skirt up and underpants down, and urinated. The sound of her water on the stone seemed very loud.
“There doesn't seem to be any toilet paper,” she said aloud.
O'Rourke chuckled in the dark. “I'll call housekeeping.”
Kate managed to get everything rearranged and crawled back to the center of the pit on her knees, feeling damp, uncomfortable, a little embarrassed, and infinitely relieved.
She leaned against O'Rourke and rested her head on his shoulder. “Something will happen,” she whispered.
“Yes.” He kissed her on the cheek and she felt the comfortable rasp of his beard. If she nestled just right, she could feel his heartbeat.
Kate had dozed off when the trapdoor slammed up with a noise that made her heart freeze. She crashed out of a dream.
God, this is real.
The dim light from the 20watt bulb was as bright as sunlight in their pained and darkadapted eyes. Kate squinted up through tears at the silhouette of the man named Ion.
“You are to say goodbye to the other,” Ion said in heavily accented English. “You see one the other no more.”
Two men came down and dragged O'Rourke up and out.
Kate screamed and stood then, shouting at them, berating them, trying not to weep but weeping anyway. Two men in black came down the steep stairs and she kicked at them. One of them kicked her back, his heavy boots sending shock waves down her shin.
They lifted her roughly by arms that had gone beyond pins and needles to stilettos of pain. Kate was almost sick then, almost threw up as they lifted her up and out of the pit. She did not know if the nausea was coming from the pain, terror, anger, or from pure relief at being taken out of the pit.
Radu Fortuna was standing there. His dark eyes gleamed. “He wants to see you first, woman. “ He raised a hairy hand and lifted the back of it toward her. “No, do not speak. If you say anything to anger me, I will take a needle and deep-sea fishing line and sew your lips shut. You may speak only when He asks you a question. Do you understand?” He had not lowered his large hand.
Kate nodded.
“Good,” said Radu Fortuna. He snapped his fingers. “Ion, take her up to the house. Father wishes to meet the woman.”
Chapter Thirty-four
IT was night outside and the streets were absolutely empty. They took Kate to a tall old house on the corner not far from the clock tower. An elaborate sign hung over the single door in front. Kate glanced up and saw that it was a golden dragon curling almost in a circle, its talons extended and mouth gaping. Inside, the place looked like an abandoned restaurant or wine cellar. Cobwebs connected the dark bar counter to low beams.
The man named Ion walked ahead of her up the stairway while one of the nameless strigoi in black followed, occasionally pushing her when she faltered on the steep steps. The wooden stairs were so old that they were worn down in the middle. The carpet on the thirdfloor landing had been walked on until any color or pattern in it was long since lost.
On the thirdfloor landing, Ion removed a blunt shears from his pocket and clipped the plastic restraint free from her wrists. Kate raised her hands and tried to flex her fingers while hiding her agony from the two men.
“You speak not unless Father asks question,” said Ion, repeating Radu Fortuna's admonition. The intruder's eyes seemed black. “You understand, yes?”
Kate nodded. Despite her best efforts, her eyes had filled with tears at the pain in her hands.
Ion smiled and opened the door.
It was not a large room and it was lit by only two candles. There was a bed near the tiny windows against the east wall and Kate could see a bundled figure in it.
One of the shadows moved then and Kate jumped as she saw two huge men in opposite corners. They were gigantic, at least six-foot-four or five and massiveand their shaved heads gleamed in the weak light. Each wore black clothes and a long mustache. The closer of the two gestured for her to approach the bed. There was a single chair set near it.
Kate went closer and stood behind the chair. She tried to see the man lying under the covers as if she were just a doctor assessing a patient for the first time: only his head and shoulders and yellowed fingers were above the covers; he looked to be in his mid to late eighties; he was almost bald except for long strands of white hair which fanned out from above his ears and lay across the linen pillow; his face was heavily lined, liverspotted, and gaunt to the point of emaciation, with sunken eyes and the sharp turtle's beak mouth of the very old or very sick; his nose, underlip, cheeks, and chin were protuberant, the jaw prognathous; air rasped in and out of his open mouth with the terrible cadence of CheyneStokes breathing and the breath was sourKate could smell it from three feet awayas was often the case with people who had been fasting so long that the body was metabolizing needed tissue; he still had his teeth.