Children of the Night

by Dan Simmons

  On the third-floor 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 massive—and 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, liver-spotted, 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 Cheyne-Stokes breathing and the breath was sour—Kate could smell it from three feet away—as was often the case with people who had been fasting so long that the body was metabolizing needed tissue; he still had his teeth.

  Kate stood there, unable to think diagnostically, barely able to think at all. She had seen a younger version of this face not long before: in Vienna’s Kunsthistoriches Museum, in a portrait of Vlad Ţepeş on loan from Castle Ambras’ “Monster Gallery.”

  Then the terrible breathing stopped and the old man opened his eyes like an owl awakening at the sound of prey.

  Kate stood very still and resisted the impulse to flee. Her fingers, still pulsing with the pain of renewed circulation, grew white again as she gripped the back of the chair, her fingernails gouging splinters.

  For several minutes the two looked at one another. Kate noticed his eyes: how large and dark and commanding they were. Then his fingers flexed above the blankets and Kate noticed his nails were two inches long at least, and yellowed to the color of old parchment. The silence stretched.

  The old man said something in what sounded like Turkish or Persian. The words emerged softly, like the half-heard crawl of large insects in rotten wood.

  Kate did not understand and said nothing.

  The old man blinked slowly, licked his thin, cracked lips with a white tongue that seemed far too long, and whispered, “Cum te numesti?”

  Kate understood this simple Romanian. “I am Doctor Kate Neuman,” she said, amazed that her voice was as steady as it was. “Who are you?”

  He ignored the question. “Doctorul Neuman,” he whispered to himself and Kate felt her flesh crawl at the sound of her name in his mouth.

  She wondered if the old man was rational, or if Alzheimer’s had wreaked as much havoc on his mind as the years had to his body.

  He licked his lips again and Kate thought of a lizard she had once seen sunning itself in the Tortugas. “Are you the Doctor Neuman the hematologist from the Centers for Disease Control?” he whispered in unaccented English.

  Kate blinked her surprise. “Yes.”

  The old man nodded. The turtle beak turned up in the smallest of smiles. “I prided myself in knowing most of the major blood specialists in the country.” He closed his eyes for a long moment and Kate thought that perhaps he had gone back to sleep, but then his voice rattled again. “Are you comfortable here, Doctor Neuman?”

  Kate had no idea what “here” meant—Romania? His house? The pit in the clock tower?—but she knew her answer. “No,” she said flatly. “My child, my friend, and I have been kidnapped, I’ve been assaulted by thugs, and they’re keeping me against my will right now. If…when the American Embassy hears about this, there will be a major international incident. Unless…unless we are released immediately.”

  The old man nodded, his eyes still closed. It was hard to tell if he had heard. “Do you know me, Doctor Neuman?”

  Kate hesitated. “You’re Vernor Deacon Trent.” It was not quite a statement.

  “I was Vernor Deacon Trent.” The old man coughed with the sound of stones rattling in something hollow. “An indulgence, that name. After a while one feels that time and space are barriers to memory. Always a mistake.”

  One of the bald men in the shadows approached, lifted the old man’s head and shoulders with infinite tenderness, and helped him drink water from a small glass. Finished, the huge man returned to the shadows.

  “One of the young Dobrins,” whispered the old man. “Their ancestors were very helpful when…but never mind. What do you think will happen to you, your child, and the priest you traveled with, Doctor Neuman?”

  Kate opened her mouth to speak but a sudden terror gripped her bowels and throat. She had to sit down. “I don’t know.”

  The old man’s head nodded imperceptibly. “I will tell you. Tomorrow night, Doctor Neuman, your adopted son…my true son…will become the prince and heir apparent of a rather unique Family. Tomorrow night the child will be given the name Vlad and will taste the Sacrament. And then the family will disperse to a hundred-some cities in twenty-some nations, and the heir will grow to manhood here while his…uncle…will manage the vast and varied affairs of the Family while he waits for me to die. Is there anything else you would like to know, Doctor Neuman?”

  The old man’s voice had grown progressively weaker but his eyes were fierce.

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “Why what, Doctor Neuman?”

  Kate leaned closer and also whispered. “Why this insane ritual? Why the exercise in perversion? I know about your so-called Sacrament. I know about your family disease. I can cure it, Mr. Trent…cure it while offering you a substitute for the human blood you have had to steal. I can cure you while offering you a chance to help humanity rather than prey on it.”

  The old man’s head turned then, slowly, like a clockwork mannikin. His eyes did not blink. “Tell me,” he whispered.

  Kate felt a surge of hope. She kept her voice calm and professional even while the thrill in her grew. I have something to barter for our lives. All of our lives.

  She told him then: about the J-retrovirus, about Chandra’s studies, about the hope the applied retrovirus held out for curing AIDS and cancer, and, finally, about the success of human hemoglobin substitute with Joshua.

  “…and it works,” she concluded. “It provides the building materials necessary for the retrovirus to maintain its immunoreconstructive role without having to consume whole blood. With frequent doses, the hemoglobin substitute can be administered intravenously so that the hormonal and mood-altering effects of the blood-absorption mutation organ can be moderated, if not bypassed altogether.” She stopped, out of breath and terrified that she had gotten too technical and lost the old man. “What I mean to say,” she said, heart pounding, “is that I brought some of this experimental blood substitute with me. Your men took my bag, but I have medical supplies in it…several vials of the artificial hemoglobin that I tested on Joshua.”

  He blinked now, slowly, and when he looked at her again his eyes were tired. “Somatogen.”

  It was Kate’s turn to blink. “What?”

  “Somatogen,” said the old man, shifting slightly to find a more comfortable position. “It is a biotech firm in your own city of Boulder, Colorado. You should know it.”

  “Yes.”
Kate’s voice was weak.

  “Oh, it is not one of my corporations. I do not even own a majority of its stock. But I…we…the more progressive members of the Family…have been monitoring its research on artificial hemoglobin. You are probably aware of DNX Corporation and Alliance Pharmaceutical. They have announced their breakthroughs, although a bit prematurely perhaps…but Somatogen will make its announcement at the Tenth Annual Hambrecht and Quist Lifesciences Conference in San Francisco in January of the new year.”

  Kate stared at the old man.

  He raised a white eyebrow. “Do you think the Family would be uninterested in such research? Do you think that all of us live in Eastern Europe and keep orphanages stocked for our needs?” There came a rattling, rasping sound that might have been a cough or a laugh. “No, Doctor Neuman, I am aware of your miracle cure. I have tried the prototypes and they work…after a fashion. Most of all, I am aware of the commercial applications for it.” He smiled. “Did you know, Doctor Neuman, that the market for safe transfusions in the United States alone would be over two billion dollars a year…and that is now, while the AIDS epidemic is in its early stages?” He coughed or laughed again. “No, Doctor Neuman, it is not the addiction of blood that is so hard to break…”

  Kate sat back in her rough chair. Her body felt boneless, nerveless. “What is it, then?”

  The old man lifted a single finger with its long yellow nail. “The addiction to power, Doctor Neuman. The addiction to license. The addiction to the taste of violence without consequence. Did you bring a cure for that in your travel bag?”

  Kate stared at him but no longer saw him. There was a long silence which she was only dimly aware of. If I stand up and run now I might make it to the door of the room. If I make it out the door, the others might not be waiting on the landing. If I make it out of the building… At that second she saw all of Romania as a giant black extension of the lightless pit she had spent the last six or seven hours in. A pit with sides too steep to climb; a pit with police and military and customs people and an air force, all following orders to find her and kill her. Beyond Romania she saw the reach of the strigoi like a long black arm, as boneless as a tentacle but with no end to its reach, and the hand on that arm had razor claws instead of fingernails. If I magically escaped with Joshua, how long would it be until I awoke in the night to find a stranger in black in my room…in my child’s room? How many would they send after me? They would never stop. Never.

  “What…” Kate stopped and cleared her throat. “What is going to happen to Father O’Rourke and me?”

  The old man did not open his eyes again. His voice was vague, dreamy. “Tomorrow night you will be taken to a sacred place, you and the priest. The Family will be there. Young Vlad will be there. At the proper time, you and the priest will be impaled upon two stakes of gold. Then the new prince’s uncle… Uncle Radu…our new leader in all things…will open your femoral artery.”

  There was a ringing in Kate’s ears and her vision clouded with dark spots.

  “You will feed your child first,” whispered the old man. “And then you will feed the Family.”

  For several minutes the old man did not appear to be breathing at all, but then the tortured rasping began again. He was asleep. Kate did not stir until the door opened, Radu Fortuna beckoned the strigoi named Ion into the room, her hands were bound in front of her, and she was taken immediately back to the pit in the basement of the clock tower.

  O’Rourke was not there. She did not see him again that night. Whatever ceremony the strigoi held there in Sighişoara on that cold October midnight, they held it without Kate’s presence or understanding.

  Late in the unrelieved darkness of the next morning, they came for her.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  KATE had never been comfortable in the dark. As a child she had used a night-light until she was ten years old; even as an adult she preferred a tiny plug-in light in the bathroom or hallway—anything to lessen the darkness.

  The pit was absolute darkness. The single 20-watt bulb in the basement above her must have been turned off since not even the faintest glow crept around the cracks in the trapdoor. Even though it was dark up there, she sensed that one of the strigoi was up there. She could not hear him, but she felt a presence there. It was not reassuring.

  It seemed like hours passed and Kate knew that sunrise must have come, but the darkness and stench and scrabbling did not change. At other times she felt that time was not moving at all, that it had been only minutes since she had been returned to the pit. The next minute she would be sure that the next day had already come and gone, that Joshua had already been initiated into the clan of blood drinkers.

  No, it will be my blood he drinks first. I will be there.

  Kate dozed only once and awoke with a rat creeping across her skirt and bare legs. She did not scream, but her body rippled with revulsion in the seconds after she had flung the thing across the pit. It screamed as it hit the wall.

  By any sane measurement of mood, Kate knew, this should be the most despondent few hours of her life. Her realization that there could be no real escape for Joshua, O’Rourke, and her, that the strigois’ reach was too long, their evil too powerful, should have sent her spiraling into hopelessness and despair.

  It did not.

  In those black hours in the pit, Kate found all of her external identity stripped away: honored scholar, doctor, respected researcher, wife, former wife, lover, mother. What remained had nothing to do with identity, with who she was, but everything to do with what she was.

  Kate Neuman was a woman who was not about to go gently into that good night. She was not about to surrender the man she loved—the realization that she loved Mike O’Rourke was like a light slowly growing brighter in the dark—nor the child she had sworn to protect. It did not matter that the strigois’ power was almost beyond imagining. It did not matter that she had no secret weapon left after the old man’s dismissal of her “miracle cure”; it did not matter that no new plan had occurred to her yet there in the lightless pit. She would think of something. And if she did not think of something, she would act without thinking in the faith that the mere fact of acting would change the set of variables.

  So let the strigoi do their worst. Fuck them.

  When they opened the trapdoor to take her away an eternity later, she was smiling.

  Kate had not wept in the pit, but the sunlight outside, as weak and watery as it was, made her eyes brim over. She could not wipe them away because her hands were still tied. The plastic binding was the same, but they had secured her arms in front of her after her interview with the old man the night before and not so tightly as to cut off circulation this time.

  Ion and two smaller men, all of them wearing the kind of cheap, baggy suits which seemed the hallmark of Eastern Europe, led her outside to a waiting Mercedes. A second black car sat farther down the hill. The wind was cold and from the north. Radu Fortuna was standing in the middle of the street with his arms folded, looking quite pleased with himself.

  Kate glanced at her watch. It was 1:40 P.M. The early afternoon offered the kind of ebbing light that warned of winter’s approach. Am I really never going to see another season? Another sunrise? Are all of the experiences remaining to me to be suffered in the next twelve hours…and then nothing? Kate shook her head and pushed the thoughts away before they filled her chest with panic. She was pleased to feel that just underneath the fluttering surface of terror remained the iron core of resolve she had found in the darkness.

  “I hope you sleeped…no, slept?…yes, slept well last night,” beamed Radu Fortuna.

  Kate just stared at him. Suddenly her attention was drawn to four men walking up the cobblestone street from the direction of another stone tower beyond the grassy area. One of the men was Mike O’Rourke. Kate first saw that he was limping; then, as the four men drew closer, she realized that he was being supported by two of the strigoi guards. Even from thirty feet away she could see that his f
ace was bruised, one eye was swollen shut, and his lips were puffy and discolored.

  O’Rourke saw her, smiled through his swollen lips, and raised his bound hands in a salute. The guards opened the rear door to a second Mercedes and began shoving the ex-priest into the car. O’Rourke’s gaze never left her.

  “Mike!” she shouted, being restrained now by her own strigoi thugs. “I love you!”

  O’Rourke was crammed in the backseat of the car, doors slammed, and the vehicle moved away, passing under the arched gateway of the Old City and out of sight down the steep and narrow street. Kate did not know if O’Rourke had heard her.

  Radu Fortuna chuckled and nudged Ion. “How very touching,” laughed Fortuna. “How deeply moving.”

  Kate wheeled on him. “Why did you beat him?”

  Radu Fortuna said nothing, but Ion evidently felt he could add to the mirth of the moment. “The idiot priest, he have not-real leg. We do not know this. When men come last night to take him out of cell to see Father, idiot priest hit Andrei and Nicolae over head with leg he take off. He try to leave. Nicolae unconscious. Andrei and three others do not like and hit. Hit for long time and…”

  “Shut up, Ion,” snapped Radu Fortuna, no longer smiling.

  Ion shut up.

  So Mike also saw the old man.

  One of the strigoi guards opened the back door of the idling Mercedes. Kate made a mental note that if she somehow got out of this alive, she would never buy one these goddamn cars.

  “Well, I wish you good trip,” said Radu Fortuna, standing by the open door while one of the thugs shoved her inside.

  “Where am I going?” She was disappointed to see Ion going around the car to slide in the backseat with her. The strigoi thug with a scar above his left eye slipped behind the wheel while the other thug stood just outside.

  Radu Fortuna opened his hands in a dismissive gesture. “You wish to see Ceremony, yes? You have, I think, come a long way for this privilege. Tonight you have privilege.” He grinned at her and she saw a certain resemblance between Fortuna’s gap-toothed smile and the incessant TV images of Saddam Hussein from the previous winter and spring: both men’s facial expressions did not involve their eyes. Radu Fortuna’s eyes were as dead as black glass. Only the mouth muscles went through the motion of human emotions.