The Triumph of Death (12 page)

They called it Icemaker Station.

Very near the house on the shores of Lake Geneva where he had almost ended Alex Van Helsing’s life, the immortal vampire once known as Lord Byron and code-named Icemaker waited and slept in a chunk of ice. The curse that Byron had taken on himself near the end of his mortal life, the magic that enabled him to use and freeze the liquid in the air around him, had provided a final retreat when the Polidorium had caught up with him and doused him with liquid nitrogen, one of the coldest substances on earth. Byron opted to continue the process and encase himself in a protective chunk of ice, and there he stayed.

His captors didn’t take him very far. The seven-foot-tall, four-foot-wide chunk of ice that held Lord Byron rested in silence in a liquid-helium-cooled refrigerator the size of a small house securely reinforced in a cell built just for him, half a mile below Lausanne, Switzerland. Manned twenty-four hours a day by chemists and security guards, with extra chambers and cells both under construction and ready for future prisoners, Icemaker Station occupied three city blocks’ worth of space below the Olympic Museum, an access point chosen in part for its outward serenity and its complete lack of connection to either the world of anti-vampirism or the world of ultra-low-temperature experimentation. The fact that there were five world-class high magnetic field laboratories around Lake Geneva, providing a rich source of new hires to work on Icemaker Station, was a bonus.

Within seven hours of leaving Vienna Cazorla behind, Alex was getting out of a van at the edge of Lake Geneva at the Olympic Museum, a severe white-stone building set off by a much more inviting park. As Alex ran up the granite steps in a leather jacket that did nothing to stop the leaching cold coming off the lake, he took in a whole garden of sculpture dedicated to the constant search for human physical perfection.

“Every cell in my body is telling me this is a bad idea, so pay close attention.” Sangster was rattling off instructions as they walked. “Do everything the staff tells you. If a rule sounds stupid, do it anyway. Polidorium Incarceration are the most competent jailers on the face of the earth, so respect every word they say.”

“I got it,” Alex said, freezing.

“Astrid?” Sangster said.

She nodded. “Sure.”

Fir trees and rich green shrubbery nestled against the cold and blinding-white concrete museum. Around it, Alex saw huge gray figures that held aloft the Olympic circles and cyclists arrested forever in bronze and, of course, the Olympic torch. When he beheld a gray sculpture of a pistol with its barrel twisted into uselessness by the Olympic Spirit, Alex briefly envisioned the Olympic Spirit as some shot-putting Jolly Green Giant, thundering across the countryside, throwing train cars and spitefully knotting the barrels of perfectly good gun sculptures.

This was the kind of place where, as a young man of certain expectations sent overseas, Alex was
supposed
to be spending his time. If he were to call his mom right now and tell her that he was visiting Le Parc Olympique, Lausanne, she would think that he had finally become
the student she’d always wanted him to be. Extra points maybe if he said he was with the new girl from the Netherlands.

As Alex, Astrid, and Sangster walked swiftly through the glass doors and into the sweeping rotunda of the museum, where twenty-foot-tall wall screens ran constant loops of human victory, his heart sank.

They walked past the screens to a stairwell, to a staff elevator only Sangster could unlock.

“Here we go, then,” Sangster said, and they plunged liked stones into the secret world they had chosen.

The door of the elevator opened, and they stepped into a stark white hallway where a Polidorium security guard examined Sangster’s credentials before they could move on. Sangster was putting away the security card he carried in his wallet when they heard the approach of heavy heels smacking against tile.

All three turned around to see a tall woman with tightly curled short hair, wearing a white coat, approaching, swinging her arms like an automaton. “Agent Sangster, we’re almost ready for you,” she said. “You’re early. I don’t remember you ever being early for anything.”

Sangster’s mouth curled only slightly into a smile, and it might actually have been more of a grimace. “Alex,
Astrid, this is Dr. Bella Kristatos. She’s our director of cryogenics and altered states.”

“Altered states?” Alex asked.

Dr. Kristatos turned to Alex. “My field is cryogenics, but I have fifteen years in the study of matter transformation—werewolf stuff, teeth into fangs, and so on. So I’m covering the department.” She turned to Sangster. “But we do have an opening if you know an altered-state scientist who’d like to work underground on Lake Geneva.”

Sangster put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Most of my friends are teaching
Huckleberry Finn
.”

“And most of my friends are cutting his class,” Alex said, shaking the woman’s hand. Kristatos was two inches taller than Sangster and projected an air not unlike an Olympic giant herself. As she lowered her arm he saw her sleeve flutter and he caught a glimpse of the veins and sculpted muscles of her forearm.

“Where is he now?” Sangster asked.

Kristatos was shaking Astrid’s hand, and Astrid seemed to bounce with extra enthusiasm as if to make up for the doctor’s dryness; she kissed the woman on both cheeks, and Kristatos had to almost peel Astrid’s hand off hers. “We’re just transferring him to the interview tank.” She gestured and urged them all to follow.
“If we hurry you might get to see the heat vent.”

At once they were rushing to follow Kristatos’s long strides as she unlocked and moved through three different metal-mesh-windowed doors. They passed labs and double doors to what Alex briefly made out to be holding cells.

Now the doctor stopped at a final blue door and looked at them, a darkened window revealing distant track lighting over her shoulder. “Check it out; I really think this is pretty amazing.” She was human after all.

She pushed through the door and they all walked into a room the size of a two-car garage, with blue-gray concrete walls except for the back wall, which was glass. Alex stepped closer and saw that a glass wall separated them from the other half of the room.

Beyond the glass partition, the ceiling and floor were concrete but for a series of heavy-looking vents. It was a cage.

Alex saw what looked like scuba gear attached with suction cups to the inside of the cage. A mask with straps hung there, like he’d seen fighter pilots wear in the movies.

Within this room-within-the-shaft, visible through the glass partition, sat a tall chunk of ice that Alex had last seen on the night Icemaker almost killed him.

“Is that shatter-resistant glass?” Sangster asked.

Kristatos shook her head. “Plexiglas, and reinforced with silver.”

“What’s that?” Alex indicated a round black suction cup on the inside of the cage wall.

“It’s a microphone.”

“Don’t forget,” Sangster told Alex, “the quarry has been unconscious for three months, so remember this when you talk to him. Don’t reveal any events he wouldn’t already know about.”

Alex nodded. He got it: As far as Icemaker was concerned, the Queen was still dead.

Kristatos spoke a code, fished a headset out of her pocket, recited another series of numbers and letters, and put the device away.

Alex went over to the wall and tapped on it, confused. “We’re going to talk to the chunk of ice?”

Suddenly there was a sharp, loud
crack
, and Alex looked at the glass case in alarm.

“That’s the heat from the air in the shaft,” said Dr. Kristatos. “You might want to stand back.”

“What? Why?” Alex stepped back, trying to follow the sounds. He saw water beginning to trickle out of a vent in the ceiling.

“Because I hate to admit it, but this is the first time we’ve ever tried this.”

Water sprayed from the ceiling as though a pipe had
burst, and Alex heard an audible crack, distant and then sharpening as steam began to rise. A machine gun–like series of cracking sounds rattled beyond the glass as that section filled with steam.

Vents slammed open in the floor along the walls near Alex’s feet, and Kristatos said, “Don’t be alarmed. We’re just venting the steam to relieve pressure so the cage doesn’t explode.”

For a moment, they were all enveloped in steam. Alex made out Astrid pulling out her staff and he tensed himself, feeling as though they were back in the soot and smoke of Vienna’s pensione. A minute later, the steam began to thin, the haze opening, and the glass cage came once more into view.

Now it was full of milky fluid, mostly water, and there seemed to be water streaming down the front of it as well, maybe in some thin track between two panes. This gave the cage an even more dreamy appearance, and as Alex looked down at the vapor that still surrounded his feet, he felt completely isolated from the world as he knew it, even the crazy world he had come to know.

Alex heard Sangster blow out a long, steady breath he had clearly been holding in. Dr. Kristatos stood with them, and now even she seemed hesitant.

The milky, hazy cage, full from top to bottom with
water now, seemed empty, but the shadow moving in the back and the static howling in Alex’s brain told him otherwise.

Astrid and Alex each stepped forward, reaching out an arm to block the other. The milky substance began to churn.

The creature that was Lord Byron slipped like a shark through the water and crashed into the glass wall. His black hair swirled in the water as he flattened his claw-like hands against the glass. His eyes were open, and he was looking straight at Alex.

Kristatos held out a small microphone to Sangster and the agent shook his head, gesturing toward Alex.

Alex tentatively took the device in his hand, running his finger over a
talk
button. He looked up at the vampire, who whipped his head slightly to whisk away a strand of hair. He seethed, his unbreathing mouth open in the milky water. He had his nails against the glass as though he were planning to claw through it.

“Well,” Sangster said to Alex. “You wanted to talk to him. So talk.”

“Tell me again why the guy who uses water as his main source of power is in a water tank?” Alex whispered to Sangster and Kristatos.

“He uses
ice
as his power,” Kristatos corrected him.

“Yeah, so shouldn’t he be in, like, a dry sauna?”

“You don’t need to whisper.” The scientist looked at the vampire floating against the glass, watching them. “He can’t hear us. But to answer your question, it’s actually safer this way. By encasing him in a full tank, any freezing he does is likely to surround him with ice and overwhelm him.”

“Likely?”

Kristatos breathed deeply and crossed her arms. “Well—”

“Look, we tried the sauna in the fifties, okay?” Sangster cut in.

“Okay, okay.” Alex looked at his hands and thumbed the microphone. It was now or never. If he waited any longer, he was going to lose his nerve. The last time he had been this close to the vampire, Icemaker had been holding him aloft and starting to cut Alex’s throat.

Click.
“Hi, Byron.”

In the water tank, the vampire looked startled for a brief moment, then recovered. He flapped his arms, floating back and searching the wall with what appeared to be an amused curiosity. Then Byron spotted the black apparatus and pilot’s mask and floated toward it. He smiled a cruel, thin smile and made no attempt to respond.

Alex continued. “Long t—”

“Careful,” Sangster whispered, and Alex keyed the mike off.

“What?”

“Byron has no idea how long he’s been frozen; it’s better not to reference time.”

“Do
you
want to do this?”

“No. I’m actually sort of enjoying it like it is,” Sangster replied.

Click.
“I’d like to say I’m sorry to wake you.”

“He can talk,” Kristatos said. “If he puts on the mask.”

Alex nodded, wondering how strange his voice must
sound coming from a speaker under the water. He looked at Byron. “If you want to answer—”

“Van Helsing.” The voice came reedy and wet, burbling out of Byron’s mouth as he held the mask to his face. He had figured it out instantly, and sounded bored already. Alex shuddered, feeling as though his name had just been spoken by an evil wave.

Don’t you want to ask where you are?
Alex thought, but he was looking in Byron’s red eyes and realized that even if Byron did, he wouldn’t ask outright. That would show vulnerability. Byron was determined to show that they had him exactly where he wanted them.

Byron drew back at once and tucked his head, preparing to ram the wall. Sangster quickly snatched the mike.

“There is a flowing stream of holy water on the other side of that glass. I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Byron stopped himself, floating there, and came back to the mike. “Clever,” he uttered. He slipped the straps of the mask over his head so that it rested on his nose and mouth, leaving his hands free.

Sangster gave the mike back to Alex.
Why is he letting me do this?
Alex thought, not for the first time. He was always amazed that Sangster seemed eager to step out of the way.

Alex clicked on the mike again. “We want to ask you some questions.”

There was another click. “Why should I answer your questions?” came the ghostly water-voice.

“Better accommodations,” Sangster muttered.

“If you answer our questions, we might be able to move you into a better place.” Alex spoke the words calmly, but he wasn’t sure if they came across that way. He wasn’t sure if it was true, and a bald lie could be difficult to mask.

Byron pursed his lips, swaying his head back and forth as if to say,
All right.
“What is it you want to know, little Van Helsing?”

“What do you know about the Dimmer Switch?”

Byron narrowed his eyes, studying Alex. “I’m not aware of anything called Dimmer Switch.”

“You might know it as
Obscura Notte
,” Alex said helpfully.

“Oh.” Byron clapped his hands slowly, his arms sliding in the water. The gesture made his body bob in the milky substance. “Of course.”

“Yes?”

“I first learned about Obscura Notte in 1935,” he said.

Alex’s ears pricked up and he leaned forward.

“Obscura Notte was the finest nightclub in all of
Italy.” Byron laughed, creating a weird, gurgling sound in the mike.

“Hit it,” Sangster said, and Kristatos stepped on a button near the wall. There was a coarse, sizzling sound as electricity shot through the water. Alex saw a million tiny particles of silver light up in the fluid, and Byron’s body jolted uncontrollably. He raged at the glass as the shock died down.

Byron recovered as soon as the jolt passed, but it had made the point.

“I’m interested in real answers,” Alex said dully. “Do you know anything about it or not?”

“The Triumph of Death.” Byron was already composed, and when he clicked in, his gurgling voice sounded serene. “Why do you want to know?”

Alex looked at Sangster, who whispered, “Tell him it’s a random vampire.”

“There’s a threat,” Alex reported. “Some vampire is going to set it off. We want to know how to stop it.”

“Old or new?” came the answer.

“What?”

“Is this an
old
vampire or a
new
vampire?”

Alex thought. “We don’t know.”

“Don’t know or won’t say?”

“We don’t know.”

“Well, then you’re in trouble, because you need to know more.” Byron sounded amused, mocking.

“Why?”

“Well, after all, the spell is called the Triumph of Death. The end of light, of living, of love. Only love can conquer death.”

Alex frowned. “Come on.
You
conquered death. You’re alive.”

“We
are
death. There’s a
difference
.” Then Byron brought up his hand and a chunk of ice appeared in it, ready to shoot forward. But before it did, the ice went wild, shooting out in spirals around him. It encased his hand and he had to stop and pry the block off himself.

Now Alex understood how surrounding the Icemaker in water would foil him. There was too much water to control. Alex threw Kristatos an appreciative glance and she smiled slightly.

“Are you done?” Alex said into the mike. “So, go back—what do you mean, ‘Only love can conquer death’?”

“Don’t listen to me. I’m a poet.”

“I thought vampires don’t feel love.”

“It’s complicated.”

“So if we know the person casting this spell, we can maybe…stop them from casting it?”

“Well, how well do you know them?” Byron asked.

Alex stared calmly.

“Good lord, you’re thick,” Byron said. “Your father and I spent three days chasing one another through the sewers of Paris. Talking to you, I get the impression you’d have been looking for me in the wrong city to begin with. What I’m saying is, if
you
were the one casting the spell, I would be able to stop you. Do you know why?”

“Change the subject,” Sangster interrupted.

“You stop it by using the one whom the caster
loves.
So what I’m saying is that if it were
you,
I could absolutely stop it.”

“Why’s that, Byron?”

Byron put his hand flat on the glass, bringing his face forward. “Because I know you have a father who loves you. And a mother who loves you. And at least
three
of your four sisters love you. Don’t they, Alex? What do you think I could do to use them against
you
?”

Alex found himself stepping forward, pointing at Byron. “What I think is that you’re going to stay in this bath and shrivel up like a
raisin
while the world turns without you, you miserable excuse for a poet.” He jabbed his finger against the glass.

As his fingertip touched the glass Byron’s eyes flashed, and Alex almost heard the word
contact
.

He felt a burst of static and something was suddenly wrong with his finger; it was hard and brittle, and he started to scream and found that the static was screaming inside him already. Byron had his palm against the glass, and Alex could see a stream, a crack, a frozen trickle that went straight through the glass and hissed in the holy water in between. Something pulled at his head, as if the blood in his head and the water in the blood were a magnet and he was diving against his will. Alex’s forehead smashed against the Plexiglas and he saw stars, blinding cold shooting through his brain. Byron had him.

In the distance, Sangster was yelling, pounding the electricity, and through a blue haze Alex saw Byron, laughing silently in the water, a whipping tentacle of ice a foot wide forming from Byron’s hand, through cracked glass and hissing holy water, to Alex’s forehead.

Ask the questions,
Alex thought thickly, his vision a wild blur of spotted white.

I’m freezing…glass breaking…

What do you have?

Nothing.

Alex’s vision swooped wild and he was looking at the ceiling, aware that glass chunks and ice were flying. He heard popping sounds, gunfire; Sangster must be shooting. Water was rushing over him and stalks of ice were
flying through the room. He heard a woman scream and saw a pair of legs fall across his body. There seemed to be tentacles of ice flying in all directions as the water came over him. He tried to move but his neck was stiff, and the water came up over his nose.

Alex tried to blow air out of his nose, but the water came anyway and his sinuses screamed with pain. His vision snapped to for a moment, and he saw a blast of ice tear the door off its hinges, and he heard growling. He smelled burning flesh where bits of silver in the water sparked against Byron’s chest.

Alex caught a glimpse of Astrid, swinging her green staff against Byron’s neck, and Byron turned, punching her with a column of ice that sent her into a cement wall.

Suddenly Alex was being yanked up, and he thought
Sangster
and then was aware that a powerful claw had him by the chest, gripping his shirt, which was caked in ice.

Alex saw the vampire’s fangs and felt blood gush from his neck.

Then, all went black.