Dan Simmons - Children of The Night

I could stay here a few minutes. Rest.

The hell you can. Move!

She opened her eyes. Another thirty feet should put her where she wanted to be under the edge of the terrace where the ceremony chanted on. She carefully turned her head and looked at her watch.

12:19. She did not have time for the rest of the traverse.

What if my watch is slow? Kate shook with sudden giggles until she used her wrist to wipe her nose and bring her out of the hysterics. Her arms were shaking again.

She looked above her, picked out a route from crack to crack, stone to stone, and began climbing.

Kate came up over the battlements less than twenty feet from where she wanted to be. All eyes were on Radu Fortuna, who was holding Joshua above him like an offering. A strigoi with a black hood stood next to Mike O'Rourke with a curved blade lifted to the expriest's throat. The chanting was very loud.

Grunting despite herself, Kate leveraged her body up and over the last stone block and swung her scraped and bleeding legs off the battlement and onto a low ledge that ran along the inside of the wall. She did not take time to feel relief at being off the cliff face.

Heads turned her way. Some of the chanting halted. But Radu Fortuna and the man who called himself Vernor Deacon Trent were too intent on the ceremony to turn their heads.

Before anyone else could move, Kate sprinted toward Fortuna. Her legs, shaky from the traverse, almost went out from under her once but she gritted her teeth and covered the last ten feet in a flat run. She did not pause to think what she must look like to the hundreds of assembled strigoithis wild-eyed woman coming over the castle wall, her face still smudged with Lucian's blood, her hands bleeding, her clothes ripped and in disarray.

Vernor Deacon Trent saw her first, his heavylidded eyes widening, one hand rising from the carved arm of the heavy chair, and Radu Fortuna turned and saw her a second later.

Not in time.

Kate hit Fortuna hard with her shoulder, slamming into his rib cage and hearing the air whoosh out of him. He dropped Joshua.

Kate caught the baby and backed away. Joshua was not much heavier than when he had been kidnapped; his skin was pasty, his eyes too wide, too dark, and terrified. He began to wail.

The strigoi were assembled row on row. Now black and red cowls were shoved back, guards shouted and pushed forward from the rear wall fifty feet across the terrace, there were screams and curses from the crowd, and hands reached for Kate and the baby. She glanced at her watch. 12:20.

Kate hurriedly backed to the low ledge, leaped on it seconds before Radu Fortuna reached her, and then jumped to the lower ledge of the crenellated battlement wall.

Radu Fortuna and the others slid to a stop three feet from the wall.

Kate calmly stepped up on the higher stone and held Joshua out over the edge with both arms, her bruised and bleeding fingers tight under his tiny arms. The outer layer of red silk fell away, fluttering on the wind blowing up the castle wall.

“Not a step!” she shouted. “Or I drop him.”

“You crazy American cunt,” hissed Radu Fortuna, his face close enough that Kate could see the white spittle at the comers of his mouth, “you can't believe we are going to let you and the child go.”

“No,” said Kate. She suddenly felt very calm. This is where all of her efforts had brought her. This is where she had to be. Joshua had quit wailing and fidgeted only slightly in her hands. His tiny feet were bare and she remembered all the times they had played thislittlepiggy together before bedtime. He was looking at her with wide eyes.

“Give us the child,” ordered Fortuna, taking another step closer.

“If you don't get back,” said Kate, “I drop him.” She tossed Joshua slightly, catching him firmly under the arms. But not before the crowd of reverent strigoi gasped.

Radu Fortuna took a step back. The crowd was too dense and pressing to allow any more room. He turned and said something in rapidfire Romanian to Vernor Deacon Trent. The old man had stepped off his throne and was just another face in the crowd.

“Doctor,” Vernor Deacon Trent said to her, “there is no purpose to this.”

“Yes,” said Kate, “there is.” She could not see her watch.

Three minutes remaining perhaps. Not enough time for anything. But she would go ahead.

Vernor Deacon Trent shrugged. Two huge bodyguards were plucking at his sleeve in some haste, as if Kate's very presence were a threat. “If you are going to jump, jump,” said the old man, and turned away.

Kate licked her battered lips. “Release him.” She had to nod in the direction she meant.

Radu Fortuna turned slowly. “The priest?” He laughed out loud. “All this to save your lover?” He spat and looked behind him. A dozen strigoi guards had rifles or automatic weapons aimed at Kate's face. If they fired, Joshua would drop with her.

Kate's arms were very tired from holding the baby out above the darkness.

“Release him,” said Kate. “Release him and I will step down and give you the child.”

Radu Fortuna sneered. “No.”

Kate turned and looked down. It would be a long fall. She shifted her wrist so that she could see her watch. 12:22. Too late. She wondered if she and the baby would feel anything.

“Yes,” said Vernor Deacon Trent from deep in the crowd in his shaky, old man's voice. “Release the priest.”

“Nu!” shouted Radu Fortuna. “I forbid it!”

Vernor Deacon Trent's face seemed to Kate to shift then, from something merely old and wornout to something powerful and not quite human. “Release him!” bellowed the old man, and there was no'trace of weakness in his voice this time.

Radu Fortuna blinked as if he had been slapped. He gestured weakly to the executioner who stood next to O'Rourke at the stake. The long knife cut the ropes that bound the priest.

O'Rourke took off his blindfold, rubbed his wrists, and looked at her. “Kate, I don't“

“Shut up, Mike,” she said, her voice soft. The only other sound was the crackling of torches: “Just go.”

“But I“

“Just go, my darling.” She nodded toward the bridge and the steps leaving the castle. “Go down the trail . . . past the slick, all right? Past the slick and down to the bend we can see from here. Take one of the torches out when you get there and wave it back and forth so we can see that you are there. Then I will give the baby back to them.”

“Let it be so,” Radu Fortuna said in English and then in Romanian.

O'Rourke hesitated only a second. Nodding, saying nothing, he stepped down from the sacrificial dais, went around the table laid out with chalices, and made his way through the strigoi. He was limping, but his damaged prosthesis obviously still worked. The dense crowd parted for him; one guard spat as he passed, but no one interfered.

Kate leaned out farther and hugged the baby to her side. Anyone rushing her would send both of them plunging. If she were shot, the impact would knock her off. Joshua began crying softly, his pudgy hands gripping the wool of her sweater. He babbled syllables and Kate was sure that she heard “Mommy.”

“Hand us the child and we will let you go,” Radu Fortuna said smoothly, extending his arms.

Kate hunted for Vernor Deacon Trent but the old face was no longer visible in the crowd. “You won't let me go,” Kate said tiredly.

“Goddamn you, woman!” exploded Fortuna. “Of course we will not fucking let you go! Nor the fucking priest! Even if he leaves this mountain, we will find him, return him, and drink his fucking blood! Now give me the child!”

Kate held Joshua out over the abyss with straight arms. The pain tore at her muscles and shoulder sockets, but the movement froze Fortuna in his tirade.