Children of the Night

by Dan Simmons

  She and O’Rourke did not wait for Customs. Most of the remaining Hungarian passengers were disembarking in Lŏkŏsháza and she and O’Rourke joined them, hustling down the platform with the crowd, moving away from the streetlights when they got beyond the station. It was a small station and a small town, and two blocks from the railway they were nearing the edge of the village. It was very dark. A cold wind blew in from the fields beyond the empty highway. Dogs in the neighborhood were barking and howling.

  “That’s the cafe Cioaba described,” said O’Rourke, nodding toward a closed and shuttered building. The large sign in the window read ZÁRVA, which O’Rourke translated as “closed”; a smaller sign said AUTÓBUSZ MEGÁLLÓ, but Kate did not really believe that any buses would be along that night.

  They moved into the shadows of an abandoned cinderblock building across the street from the cafe and stood there, shifting from foot to foot to keep warm. “It feels more like December than early October,” whispered Kate after ten or twelve minutes had passed.

  O’Rourke leaned closer. Kate could smell the soap and shaving-cream scent of his cheek above the neatly trimmed beard. “You haven’t sampled a Hungarian or Romanian winter,” he whispered. “Trust me, this is a mild October in Eastern Europe.”

  They heard the train start up and move out of the station with much venting of steam and clashing of cars. A minute later a police car moved slowly down the highway, but Kate and O’Rourke were far back in the shadows and the vehicle did not pause.

  “I think maybe Voivoda Cioaba decided that four hundred was enough,” Kate whispered a moment later. Her hands were shaking with cold and frustration. “What do we do if—”

  O’Rourke touched her gloved hand. The van was old and battered, one headlight askew so that it illuminated fields instead of the highway, and it pulled into the closed cafe’s parking lot and blinked its lights twice.

  “Onward,” whispered O’Rourke.

  Voivoda Nikolo Cioaba drove them only ten or so kilometers from Lŏkŏsháza before leaving the paved highway and bouncing down a rutted lane, past a huddle of Gypsy caravan wagons that Kate recognized from storybooks, and then down to the edge of a gulley where the rough track ended.

  “Come,” he said, his gold teeth gleaming in the glow from a flashlight he held. “We walk now.”

  Kate stumbled and almost fell twice during the steep descent—she had the insane image of walking all the way into Romania through this boulder-strewn darkness—but then they reached the bottom of the gulley, Voivoda Cioaba turned off the flashlight, and before her eyes could adapt, a dozen shielded headlights were turned on. Kate blinked. Six almost-new Land Rovers were parked under camouflage netting hung from wooden poles. Twenty or more men—most dressed like Cioaba in heavy sheepskin coats and tall hats—sat in the vehicles or lounged against them. All eyes were on Kate and O’Rourke. One of the men came forward: a tall, thin man with no beard or mustache: he wore a heavy wool blazer with a ragged sweater beneath it.

  “My…chavo…son,” said Voivoda Cioaba. “Balan.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Balan with a vaguely British accent. “Sorry I wasn’t able to accompany my father to the meeting last night.” He extended his hand.

  Kate thought that there was something salesman-like in the handshake. Voivoda Cioaba showed his gold grin and nodded, as if proud of his son’s language ability.

  “Please,” said Balan, holding open the door of the lead Land Rover. “It is not a long voyage, but it is a slow one. And we must be many kilometers from the border by sunrise.” He took their bags from them and tossed the luggage in the rear of the vehicle as Kate and O’Rourke clambered into the backseat.

  The other men had gotten in their Land Rovers with a great banging of doors. Engines roared. Kate watched as women in long robes appeared from the rocks and pulled down the poles and camouflage netting with practiced speed. Balan sat behind the wheel, his father in the leather passenger seat, as their vehicle led the way down the gulley and then out onto a flatter stretch of river valley. There was no road. Kate glanced over her shoulder but the other Land Rovers’ headlights were almost completely covered with black tape, allowing only a thin crescent of light to escape.

  The rest room on the Orient Express had been miserable—one of the filthiest lavatories Kate had ever seen in her travels—but after a mile or two of kidney-jarring, spine-prodding travel, she was very glad that she had used it before reaching Lŏkŏsháza. It would be embarrassing to have this caravan stop while she ran behind some boulder.

  Kate was half asleep, the rhythmic bouncing and jarring almost hypnotic now, when Balan said, “If I may be so bold to ask…why do you choose to enter the People’s Paradise in such a manner?”

  Kate tried to think of something clever and failed. She tried to think of something merely misleading, but her mind had moved beyond fatigue to some region where thought flowed like cold molasses.

  “Were not sure we’d be welcomed properly via the usual routes,” said O’Rourke. Kate could feel his leg against hers in the cramped rear bench. There were boxes piled on the floor and seat next to him.

  “Ahhh,” said Balan, as if that explained everything. “We know that feeling.”

  O’Rourke rubbed his cheek. “Have things gotten better for the Rom since the revolution in Romania?”

  Balan glanced at his father and both men looked over their shoulders at the priest. “You know our name for ourselves?” said Balan.

  “I’ve read Miklosich’s research,” said O’Rourke. His voice sounded ragged with fatigue. “And I’ve been to India, where the Romany language probably originated.”

  Balan chuckled. “My sister’s name is Kali—an ancient Gypsy name. The man who wishes to purchase her for a wife is named Angar, also an honorable Gypsy name. India…yesss.”

  “What do you usually smuggle?” asked Kate. She realized too late that it was not a diplomatic question, but she was too tired to care.

  Balan chuckled again. “We smuggle whatever will bring us the best price in Timişoara, Sibiu, and Bucharest. In the past we have smuggled gold, Bibles, condoms, cameras, guns, Scotch whiskey…right now we are carrying X-rated videotapes from Germany. They are very popular in Bucharest, these tapes.”

  Kate glanced at the boxes next to O’Rourke and under their bags in the back.

  Voivoda Cioaba said something in rapid-fire Magyar.

  “Father said that we have frequently smuggled people out of Romania,” added Balan. “This is the first time we have smuggled anyone in.”

  They were crossing rolling pastureland. The dim lights illuminated only the slightest trace of ruts between rocks and eroded gullies.

  “And this route is secure?” said O’Rourke. “From the border guards, I mean.”

  Balan laughed softly. “It is secure only as far as the baksheesh we pay makes it secure.”

  They bounced along in silence for what seemed like hours. It began to rain, first as an icy drizzle and then hard enough that Balan turned on the single wiper blade in front of him. Kate snapped awake as the Land Rover suddenly bounced to a stop.

  “Silence,” said Balan. He and Voivoda Cioaba stepped out and closed the doors without slamming them.

  Kate craned but could barely make out the other vehicles pulled in behind low shrubs. A river was nearby: she could not see it in the dark, but could hear the water running. She cranked down her window and the cold air lifted a little of the fog of fatigue that hung over her.

  “Listen,” whispered O’Rourke.

  She heard it then, some sort of massive diesel engine. Sixty feet above them, an armored vehicle suddenly came into sight along a highway or railway bridge. A searchlight joggled on its forward carapace, but it did not sweep left or right. Kate had not even known the bridge was there in the rain and darkness.

  “Armored personnel carrier,” whispered the priest. “Russian-built.”

  Another vehicle, some sort of jeep, followed, its headlights illuminating the
gray flank of the armored car ahead of it. Kate could see the rain as silver stripes in the headlight beams. One of the men in the open door of the jeep was smoking; she could see the orange glow.

  They must see us, she thought.

  The two vehicles rumbled on, the sound of the diesel audible for a minute or more.

  Voivoda Cioaba and Balan got back in the Land Rover. Without speaking, the young man engaged the four-wheel-drive and they bounced down into the river itself. The water rose only to the hubs. They rocked and teetered along on unseen rocks, passing under the bridge. Kate could see barbed wire running down to the water to their right and left and then the fence was behind them in the darkness and then they were roaring up a grade so steep that the Land Rover spun wheels, slid, and almost rolled before Balan found traction and brought them over the lip of the bank.

  “Romania,” Balan said softly. “Our Motherland.” He leaned out his open window and spat.

  Kate did sleep for what might have been hours, awakening only when the Land Rover stopped again. For a terrible second she did not know where she was or who she was, but then the sadness and memory rolled over like a black wave. Tom. Julie. Chandra. Joshua.

  O’Rourke steadied her with a strong hand on her knee.

  “Get out,” said Balan. There was something new and sharp-edged in his voice.

  “Are we there?” asked Kate but stopped when she saw the automatic pistol in the Gypsy’s hand.

  The sky was growing lighter as Balan led O’Rourke and her away from the Land Rovers. A dozen of the other men stood there in a circle, their dark forms made huge by the large sheepskin jackets and caps.

  Voivoda Cioaba was speaking rapidly to his son in a mixture of Magyar, Romanian, and Romany, but Kate followed none of it. If O’Rourke understood it, he did not look happy at what he heard. Balan snapped something back in sharp Romanian and the older man grew still.

  Balan lifted the pistol and pointed it at the priest, “Your money,” he said.

  O’Rourke nodded to Kate and she handed over the envelope with the other sixteen hundred dollars in it.

  Balan counted it quickly and then tossed it to his father. “All your money. Quickly.”

  Kate was thinking about all the cash in the lining of her carry-on bag. More than twelve thousand dollars in American bills. She was reaching for the bag when O’Rourke said, “You don’t want to do this.”

  Balan smiled and the gleam of his real teeth was more eerie than his father’s gold grin. “Oh, but we do,” said the thin Gypsy. He said something in Magyar and the men in the circle laughed.

  O’Rourke stopped Kate from opening the bag with a touch of his hand on her wrist. “This woman is hunting for her child,” he said.

  Balan stared, impassive. “She was careless to mislay him.”

  O’Rourke took a step closer to the Gypsy. “Her child was stolen.”

  Balan shrugged. “We are the Rom. Many of our children are stolen. We have stolen many children ourselves. It is no concern of ours.”

  “Her child was stolen by the strigoi,” said O’Rourke. “The priculici…vrkolak.”

  There was a subtle stirring in the circle of men, as if a colder wind had blown down the river valley.

  Balan racked the slide of the automatic pistol. The sound was very loud to Kate. “If the strigoi have her child,” the Gypsy said softly, “her child is dead.”

  O’Rourke took another step closer to the man. “Her child is strigoi,” he said.

  “Devel,” whispered Voivoda Cioaba and raised two fingers toward Kate.

  “When we meet our friends in Chişineu-Críş, we will pay you an extra thousand dollars because of the danger you have faced tonight,” said O’Rourke.

  Balan sneered. “We leave your bodies here and we have all of your money.”

  O’Rourke nodded slowly. “And you will have shown that the Rom are without honor.” He waited half a minute before going on. The only sound was the unseen river gurgling behind them. “And you will have given the strigoi and the Nomenclature bureaucrats who serve them a victory. If you let us go, we will steal the child from the strigoi.”

  Balan looked at Kate, looked at the priest, and then said something to his father. Voivoda Cioaba replied in firm Magyar.

  Balan tucked the automatic pistol out of sight in his rumpled blazer. “One thousand American dollars cash,” he said.

  As if they had just stopped so that everyone could stretch their legs, the men returned to their vehicles. Kate found that her hands were shaking as she and O’Rourke followed Balan and his father back to the car, “What is a strigoi?” she whispered.

  “Later.”

  O’Rourke’s lips were moving as the Land Rover began rolling toward the weak sunrise and Kate realized that he was praying.

  The village of Chişineu-Criş lay on Romania’s E 671 Highway north of Arad, but the Land Rovers did not go beyond the edge of the city.

  Lucian’s blue Dacia was waiting at the boarded-up church on the west side of town, just where he said he would be. There was enough light to see the young man’s grin as he saw Kate.

  O’Rourke paid the Gypsies while Kate was engulfed in Lucian’s hug. Then he shook the priest’s hand vigorously and hugged Kate again.

  “Hey, cool, you really did it. You got in with the Gypsy smugglers. Outstanding.”

  Kate leaned against the Dacia and watched the Land Rovers bounce back into the wooded countryside. She caught a final glimpse of Voivoda Cioaba’s gold grin. Then she looked at Lucian. The young medical student’s haircut was more severe, almost punk, and he was wearing an Oakland Raiders baseball jacket.

  “Did you have a good trip?” asked Lucian.

  Kate crawled into the backseat of the Dacia as Lucian dropped into the driver’s seat and O’Rourke tossed the luggage in the rear.

  “I’m going to sleep until we get to Bucharest,” she said, laying her head on the cracked vinyl of the seat. “You drive.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  KATE was on the Orient Express again, but she could not remember how she got there or why. The compartment was even smaller than the one they had ridden in from Budapest to Lŏkŏsháza, and this one did not even have a window. She and O’Rourke were squeezed together even more tightly than before, their legs all but interlocked as he sat across from her on the low shelf. The bunk she sat on was larger, however, and it was made up with the gold duvet cover and oversized pillows that she and Tom had bought in Santa Fe years ago. And the compartment was warmer than before, much warmer.

  She and O’Rourke said nothing as the motion of the train rocked them back and forth and from side to side. With each motion, their legs touched more fully—first their knees, then the inside of their knees, and finally their thighs—not rubbing against one another of their own volition, but making contact passively, inexorably, insistently, through the gentle rocking of the train.

  Kate was very warm. She was wearing not the wool trousers she had actually traveled in, but a light tan skirt she had treasured in high school. The skirt had ridden up as their legs rubbed. She realized that each time she rocked forward her knee lightly brushed Father O’Rourke’s groin, and each time the rhythm of the train rocked him forward, his denim-clad leg brushed gently up her inner thigh until his knee almost touched her there as well. His eyes were closed although she knew that he was not asleep.

  “It’s warm,” she said and took off the blouse her mother had made for her when she entered junior high at a private Boston academy.

  There was a rap at the carved wooden door and the conductor came in to collect their tickets. Kate was not embarrassed that she was wearing only a bra and that her skirt was hiked up to her hips—after all, it was their cramped and overheated compartment—but she was a bit surprised to notice that the conductor was Voivoda Cioaba. The Gypsy punched their tickets, winked at her, and showed his gold teeth. Kate heard the lock click shut when he left.

  Father O’Rourke had not opened his eyes while the Gy
psy conductor was in the room, and Kate was sure that the priest was praying. Then Mike O’Rourke did open his eyes and she was sure that he had not been praying.

  There was no upper bunk, merely the queen-sized lower berth. Kate sank back into the pillows as O’Rourke stood, leaned forward, and laid his body half atop hers. His eyes were very gray and very intense. She wondered what her own eyes were revealing as O’Rourke rolled her skirt the final few inches to her waist and deftly slid her underpants down her thighs, past her knees, off her ankles. She did not remember him undressing, but now realized that he was wearing only Jockey shorts.

  Kate set her fingers in O’Rourke’s hair and pulled his face closer to hers. “Are priests allowed to kiss?” she whispered, suddenly fearful that she would get him in trouble with his bishop, who was riding in the next compartment.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered back, his breath sweet on her cheek. “It’s Friday.”

  Kate loved feeling his mouth on hers. She let her tongue slide between his teeth at the same instant she felt him grow hard against her thigh. Still kissing him, she lowered both hands to his sides, slid fingers beneath the elastic of his shorts, and tugged out and down with a movement so smooth that it was as if both had rehearsed it for years.

  She did not have to guide him. There was the slightest second of hesitation and then the slow, warm moment of his entering and her encircling him. Kate ran her hand down his muscled back and spread her palm on the warm crease of his buttocks, pulling him closer even when he could come no closer.

  The train continued to rock them so that neither had to move, merely surrender to the gentle swinging of their bed in the car on the clacking rails as the rocking grew quicker, the moist warmth more insistent, the gentle friction more urgent.

  Kate had just opened her mouth to whisper Mike O’Rourke’s name when the door slid open with a crack of the broken lock and Voivoda Cioaba stepped in with his golden grin. Behind him were four of the night men dressed in black hoods.