The Triumph of Death (19 page)

“All that is left of Allegra is this.” Alex gestured at the jar with the book in his hands. The cold, damp wind lifted Astrid’s hair as she listened, and he handed the book to her.

“Go ahead, read it,” Alex said. “But the gist is this: In 1822, John Polidori, the doctor who had worked for Lord Byron and broken off with him after Byron began to show signs of vampirism, was supposed to be dead. By this time he had already gone underground and formed the first team that would be known as the Polidorium. But he moved much of his work here, because he was determined to save Byron’s littlest victim, a victim Byron had not vampirized but had injured with neglect.
Byron’s daughter, Allegra. Polidori bribed the nuns at the Italian convent where Allegra had been placed, where she was wasting away, and he took her himself.

“Even as he gathered information on vampires and the movements of Lord Byron, Polidori fled the country with the five-year-old Allegra, and brought her to a modest home he built here, on the Brough of Birsay. Here he wrote letters to his growing list of comrades and researched vampires, and watched over the girl as she grew, not for a year or two, but for over ten years. For ten years Polidori stayed right here, studying and working by correspondence.

“Right here,” Alex said again, pointing at the meager foundation in the shadow of the Pictish stones, “was the nucleus of the entire vampire-hunting organization. And then in 1831, he made a mistake. That year, nine years after he had fled, Polidori returned to England to bargain with Mary Shelley, to convince her to put clues about Lord Byron’s plans to rule the earth into the new introduction to her long-awaited new edition of
Frankenstein
. When he returned, he must have felt very satisfied. He and the now fifteen-year-old girl were living a happy life while he received letters from hunters around the world, and he sent clues as to the whereabouts of Lord Byron and the other vampires whom he
would come to call clan lords.”

Alex tried to envision this life as he spoke. Were there many visitors for him and Allegra beyond the mail that came infrequently? Local farmers in other huts, fisherman? Were they part of the community? The short testament did not say.

Astrid was reading, but Alex went on. “It took another year for the catastrophic result of his visit to Mary Shelley to occur. The Scholomance, which Byron had taken over, tracked Polidori back to the Brough of Birsay and dispatched a small force to take vengeance. They did not even touch Polidori, though he begged them to. What they did was worse: They took Allegra.

“After that, Polidori never forgave himself. He returned to Europe and redoubled his efforts. What I know from Sangster is that in the late 1800s he met Abraham Van Helsing and was able to prepare him for the attempted invasion of England by the clan lord Dracula. And Polidori did face Byron again, several times.”

“And Allegra?”

“Never heard from,” Alex said. “Who knows? Killed. Turned into a vampire, and then killed. But Polidori’s greatest mistake was also his gift to the world: the clues he planted in
Frankenstein
to warn of Byron’s return.”

“I can’t believe she was
alive
when she was here.” Astrid was struggling with the same thing Alex was, that all this time they had been looking for a corpse, and it was a corpse that in all likelihood would never be found.

“Can you imagine? Polidori glosses over it, but imagine you’ve raised a child as your own, and then see her taken like that—and you know what’s going to happen. If she isn’t killed, she’ll be perverted, poisoned, made to tear the flesh of humans, drink their blood. And you’re powerless to stop it.”

“It’s horrible,” Astrid agreed.

“Yeah, but you know what’s even worse?” Alex continued. “Polidori did all this work while he knew that the vampires were watching him. He could have sent Allegra back to Claire, but he took it on
himself
to raise her. He put her at risk, even more than Byron had with his neglect. He was fixated on his work, the way all of his organization is still fixated on its work. And what’s most disgusting of
all—
” He paused.

“What?”

“He left this.” Alex held up the jar. “The one thing we need to stop Byron or Claire from using the Triumph of Death. Hair, DNA, from their loved one. Most likely he even picked this place to live because of the ley lines
here, because he thought this would be the place for the Triumph to be set off, if it ever was. So there you are: He’s overcome with grief, and he still thinks to leave us the hair.”

Astrid put down the book. “You’re being hard on him.”

“Only because I know the type.” Alex put the jar into his go package next to the vial gun. He heard them clank together. He felt weighed down by the jacket and the Polidorium, sullied by this work once again. He swallowed back an irrational welling of tears.

Astrid went to put her hand on Alex’s shoulder, and he looked up at her, and if she was about to say something, it was interrupted when Alex gasped.

An enormous red claw was swinging as a nuckelavee rolled up behind her, striking Astrid and then Alex across the head. He saw the earth he had disturbed rising up to meet him.

When he awoke, the Brough of Birsay had been transformed into a world of ice and death.

“Wake up, hon, or you’ll miss it.”

Woozily Alex felt his eyelids fluttering, and there was something caked in them. He realized he was seeing through mud and blood that had flowed down from his head wound. He blinked again, forcing his eyes open as though they were encrusted with sleep.

He felt numb, and cold, and didn’t wait to feel anymore because Elle was standing in front of him, the black marks around her eyes, a brown hood pushed back to reveal her spiky blond hair.

Ask the questions.

What’s going on?

I’m in a room, white, ice, ice all around. Elle is in
front of me and behind her I see sky. I see a wide window looking down on the island, and there’s a platform with vampires on it. We’re in an observation area, like a theater box seat. We seem to be in Antarctica—no. It’s the Brough of Birsay, and it’s covered in ice.

Where’s Astrid? There, next to me—waking up. She’s against the wall with a skull vampire watching her, and Elle is pacing, and Astrid’s hands are…my own hands are numb, encased in ice.

What do you have?

“Hey!” Elle yelled, snapping her fingers in front of his face. “It’s time. You get to watch.”

“Watch what?” Alex asked wearily.

“Out there,” Elle said, pacing on the ice floor, pointing out the viewing window. “The Triumph? It’s about to begin.”

Alex was watching past her, and even now he could see the platform where an even larger version of the satellite dishes in Bruegel’s painting had been erected, with stairs leading up to it, and a pulpit. There were vampires milling about.

Everything ice. The island covered in it, this platform and box seat structure. “Icemaker did all this?”

“Yes, he did,” Elle said. “Right here where the ley lines cross. I imagine the Queen would have done just fine on
her own, but you gotta admit, Lord Byron lends a certain style to the proceedings.”

Now Alex saw him, out the window and down below, about two hundred yards away—Icemaker himself, restored to his glory, his feeble leg replaced by an icy, thick hoof. He was waiting, like the rest of them.

“So you were right.” Alex started moving his fingers, or trying to, but they were stuck. He didn’t have much time or they would be frozen and lost, and he tried desperately to play it cool while he cursed at his blood, praying he could move it into his fingers. He was in a sweater, his jacket on the floor in the corner next to his go package and Astrid’s bag. “She is a Queen, huh?”

“The greatest we’re ever gonna have,” Elle said, “a master of magic and of vampirism.”

“Haven’t we done this before?” Alex asked. “I don’t get why you don’t just kill me.”

“Alex,” Astrid said, trying to pull her own hands free, “don’t tempt them.”

“Oh, I’d love to,” Elle said. “You know that. But Lord Byron has always known that the way to deal with the Polidorium is to make them suffer. You get to watch as your world plunges into darkness.” She leaned in close. “So it’s not up to me. But death does come next. And you won’t be first.”

“Make them suffer, the way Byron made Polidori suffer by stealing away his foster daughter?” Alex asked. He was moving his fingers, but not enough. The ice was curdled through the strands of his sweater cuffs and wouldn’t allow him to move.
Keep working on it.

Elle shrugged. “If you say so. I don’t get caught up in ancient history.”

He kept moving his fingers in the ice, feeling his blood begin to flow. “What are you gonna do when we’re gone? I thought I’m basically your whole purpose for being right now. Aren’t I your assignment?”

“Get over yourself, Al; I’ve had hundreds of assignments.”

“And yet you’ll never be a clan lord. Must be awful, at your age.”

“Clan lord? What, you’ve been studying up? You don’t know how we’re organized. It takes longer than—”

“Well, I mean, shouldn’t you want advancement? What was your first assignment? Watching someone like me, I’ll bet. You strike me as basically a good, loyal follower, but not much more.”

Elle was looking through the window and held up a hand. A small group of vampires, all in red robes, was approaching the platform, and among them the Queen, on horseback.

Alex watched her. “Why were you so upset about the empty coffin?”

“What?” Elle looked back at him. “The Queen wanted it intact.”

“Oh, so you knew it would be empty.”

“No…” Elle shook her head. “You want to know my next assignment? I have to find that damn corpse.”

She doesn’t know that Allegra was taken alive by the vampires.
Alex laughed, then. “Good luck. It’s dust.”

“What did you say?”

“I said it’s
dust
. Allegra Byron was taken by vampires. She probably
became
a vampire and was most likely killed a hundred years ago, probably by
my
people, and it was a dot on the register of vamps killed. The Queen will never get that daughter back, and you know what? They’re
both
lucky that way.”

“Taken by…
what
?” Elle seemed staggered by this, and Alex didn’t waste too long staring at her face. Instead, he spat.

Elle cursed and wiped the spittle off her face, and as she did so, the other vampire came forward, putting a clawed hand on Alex’s throat. “Settle down,” the vampire ordered Alex.

Alex brought one leg up and kicked the second vampire in his knee. The vampire fell and smacked into the
wall next to him. As Elle began to reach out, Alex twisted his leg again, pushing his weight on the vampire’s neck. There was a heavy crack as the vampire’s neck broke and he fell against Alex, shaking and disabled.

The vampire began to moan, and Elle was yelling, “Shut up!” as she looked out the window. Finally she went over to Alex’s go package and drew out his Polibow. Alex prayed the bolt wouldn’t go straight through the vampire, and it didn’t when Elle shot; the bolt went in the vampire’s back and he exploded.

Alex felt fire and heat push up around his sleeve and he yanked, feeling his skin scrape as he pulled his hands free of the ice.

“What’s the matter, Elle, something not seem right?” he asked as he dove for his go package, feeling inside. He grabbed his dagger and rolled out of the way as she shot at him with the Polibow. “You wanted that body to be in that graveyard pretty desperately. Because when it wasn’t you howled like a wounded animal. I think that’s when you realized something you’ve been told wasn’t true. I saw you, and when that casket flew open, something stopped being real for you.” He had the go package slung over his shoulder and reached in, pulling out the jar. “But
this
is real, isn’t it? This is her
hair
. This is the last of her human life, and I’ll bet all memory of
that has been ground right out of her.”

“Shut up!”

“And you know what? If she didn’t die, then Elle, I’m truly, truly sorry for what I’m going to have to do.” Alex kicked the Polibow out of her hands as she shook her head, distracted. Elle was not herself now; she was troubled and had been since she had seen that coffin fly apart in the streets of London.

He fired it once and watched as the bolt sailed straight through Elle’s shoulder, pinning her to the wall. She started twisting it, and Alex reached for Astrid’s bag. He needed to get her hands free; he needed a spell to melt her bonds. She had said she had one.
Find the right spell. Find the right freaking jelly bean.
He emerged with one of the spell cartridges that Astrid had made and held it up. “This one?” he asked.

Astrid shook her head. “No!”

Elle tried to yank the bolt free, but her flesh was sizzling against it. “Don’t move,” Alex said to the vampire, “or the next one goes in your heart.” He turned back to Astrid. “This one?”

Astrid nodded, and he ran over to her and held it near her hands. “
Fire,
” she whispered, and as Alex pulled his hand away she turned her head, and the spell erupted, freeing her hands in a melting blur.

Alex ran to the window. The Queen was talking now,
at a dais in front of the satellite dish tower. She was raising her arms, chanting.

Alex gave the Polibow to Astrid. “Would you watch her?”

“I don’t get it. Why don’t we just—”

“Because we might need her.” He was digging through his go package to find the vial gun. He brought it out, found one of the half-full vials, and then started to open the jar.

Suddenly Elle kicked out, smashing the Polibow out of Astrid’s hands and screaming as she pried herself off the bolt.

Astrid screamed, forcing her hands to move as she bent down to rummage through her bag. She emerged with a six-inch green baton that she flicked, and it telescoped instantly into staff-length. She brought the staff to Elle’s neck. “Now can we kill her?”

“No, we really might need her.” Alex slid the lock of hair into one of the vials and clicked it into the vial gun. “We have to get closer.”

They moved out of the box with Alex’s Polibow firmly to Elle’s back and into the open air. As they held Elle at the top of a stairway that ran down to the platform, Alex took a moment to admire the island, an eighth of a mile of ice and snow.

“It’s a vampire wonderland,” he said as Astrid forced
Elle down the stairs. They reached a plateau, behind a large crowd of vampires, who ignored them. The Queen was chanting still, her hands raised as she read from the text laid before her. The vampires were chanting in response,
Now is the time.

Over the platform, from the satellite dish, darkness was spreading out and seemed to be pulsing in waves. Soon it would be done, and every street throughout the world would be madness.

“That’s enough,” Alex muttered as they drew close. Alex held up the vial gun, aiming for the Queen.

“It’s not that easy,” Elle hissed, spinning. Alex heard the Polibow go off, missing Elle, because Elle was a blur now, her arm swiping and smashing against Alex’s, sending the vial gun flying.

All eyes turned, and a few of the vampires spotted them. Alex heard the chanting dissipate throughout the island.

He watched the vial gun with the sample of Allegra’s hair and holy water clatter to the ice and slide against the platform where the Queen stood. It burst, spilling.

Icemaker turned then, registering mild surprise, and his first move was to throw a bolt of ice and bury the weapon.

Next he beckoned to Astrid and Alex, and Alex felt
Elle grab him by the shoulder and drag him forward, shoving him roughly until he was brought to them. He felt Astrid pushed next to him and they stood, defiant.

Elle forced Alex to his knees, and he was staring now at the feet of the unholy couple, the skeletal feet of the Queen and the icy hoof of Byron.

“My Lord.” Elle bared her fangs. “It is time to be done with them.”

“I love how you get all formal around him,” Alex said. He was looking at the mound of ice where the weapon was buried. All that work by Polidori, all that work by some unseen force to lead them to the lock of hair, gone in a moment.

Oh, well.
“It doesn’t matter; I don’t need it,” Alex said. He had a dagger in his hand and a ball of holy water.

“Why’s that?” Elle asked.

“Because whether you want to admit it or not, whether they ever saw fit to
tell
you or not, you are Allegra Byron,” said Alex, suddenly rising and slicing at her forehead with the dagger. “And I’m taking some of your freakishly spiky hair.”

A few strands fell into his hands, and as she was staring, dumbfounded, he slapped the strands of hair into his palm with the ball of water, and then smashed the glass ball against the heart of the Queen, feeling her rib
cage crack as he pushed with all his might.

The Queen staggered, reaching out her hand to Elle, who was on the ground, trying to decide what to do. Icemaker was the first to regain his composure, and Alex felt a blast of cold slam into his chest and drive him back, sprawling across the ice, toppling handfuls of vampires. He heard Astrid, fighting already, and the Queen was screaming.

For a moment, Alex watched the Queen, Claire Clairmont, who had lived her whole life dedicated to finding power because what she had really wanted was to find a lost daughter, seem to grapple with all that she had learned in a few short moments. And then as she clutched at the holy water and the hair of the former Allegra Byron, she burst from the inside, and rained down on them all.

Elle ran toward the Queen, calling out, and flew to the blubbery, bony mass that remained of Claire. She threw herself at the feet of Lord Byron, her father.

“How much do you remember?” Alex yelled out. “Do you remember Polidori? There’s no record of you before about sixteen, so do you remember that human life? Did you know that these were your parents? Because I’ll tell you one thing.” Alex pointed at Lord Byron. “
He
did.”

And Byron, true to form, took one look at his child,
shot out a blast of ice, lifted off the platform, and fled into the winds.

Moments later, one of the vampires leaning over Alex exploded as Astrid’s staff went through him, and Alex got to his feet. They stood back to back as the vampires surrounded them.

“Ooookay.” Alex drove the silver-and-wooden dagger into the heart of one and turned, keeping his back to Astrid’s. Far behind them, Elle was sobbing alone on the stage. Sociopaths or not, they could be felled by betrayal.

“Okay,” Astrid echoed as she swiped with the staff, impaling a vampire.
Fwoosh
and
fwoosh
and
fwoosh
, and still they came. They were awash in a sea of skull-faced ghouls.

Not good.
“I…,” Alex said, feeling her bony shoulders against his. A vampire nearly caught his hand and he yanked free. “Okay.”

“Yep.” She made a fireball and pushed through a bunch of them, and still they came.

Something whistled in the air, high and growing. Not far away there was an explosion of ice and holy water, with shimmering streaks of silver flying out, and Alex watched twenty of the vampires burst into flame and explode, setting off several more until the explosion dissipated.