The Triumph of Death (6 page)

“Not bad,” she said.

“But what power?”

“The one you thought you could stop.” Elle seemed to shiver for a moment as a reedy, high-pitched call cut through the street, and the procession of vampires below parted.

Alex had his shot. As her body momentarily relaxed, he reached back with his right hand and found the hilt of his special silver-laced stake. He grabbed it and slammed it into her side, the nearest point he could. She shrieked as it hissed against her flesh.

He didn’t waste time once she let go of him. Alex climbed over the balcony and jumped, aiming for a skull-faced vampire and hitting him in the back with his knees. Alex rolled to the ground and got up, vampires
jostling around him. Everyone seemed to concentrate on the emerging, reedy call.

Then he saw it: As the crowd parted there came a long horse, this one not made of bone but instead somehow worse, alive and elongated, skeletal but stretched with skin. The horse was the length of the carriage Elle had driven.

Riding atop the horse was a figure in white, wearing a thin veil that shimmered in the darkness. One arm gripped a long, narrow, bony scythe.

Beneath the veil he could see a strange white visage, very nearly a skull, with shining glimmers where its eyes should be. It was Claire, the Queen of the Dead.

“It’s impossible.” Alex spoke into his microphone. “She’s supposed to be stuck and unable to come back. They needed my blood.”

“Looks like they got what they needed,” Sangster guessed.

The Queen swept her arms and Alex started at the sound of a cracking whip. Elle was back in the carriage now, and the Queen remained as Elle guided the carriage toward the marina.

The Queen drew what looked like a reddish spear and threw it to the ground, and Alex watched the staff stick there and vibrate.

After a second it grew taller, flowering out into a wagon-wheel-like shape at the top. The wagon wheel tilted and then began to revolve, suggesting a mechanism.

“It looks like a satellite dish.” Alex’s brain blazed with powerful energy passing over him as the “dish” swiveled.

A pair of heavily armed Polidorium agents pushed past Alex and aimed at the Queen and began firing. Vampires scattered and the Queen looked down, her skull-like face behind the veil leveling its gaze on them. She rode forward, their bullets pounding against her, sizzling but not exploding.

She whipped the scythe, catching vampires and agents alike. Screams rang out only to be cut short.

Alex moved backward, stumbling and falling to the ground.

He got to his feet and reached back, finding a silver knife and throwing it in one move. The knife bounced off the scythe as it came around, and then the Queen brought it around again, this time to strike him down.

No time to leap, no place to move.

He heard another high-pitched whine, like a motorcycle.

The scythe came sweeping down and a four-foot-long
green staff flashed before his eyes, coming from nowhere. The metal staff parried the scythe’s blow, and the Queen jolted her head sideways in surprise.

Alex felt someone grab him by the collar and pull him back, and a green motorcycle of no make he had ever seen before whipped around and in front of him.

The rider wore a blue helmet and was obviously female, wearing a light-colored jacket over her thin frame. Her back turned to Alex, the rider shrieked at the Queen in a language he couldn’t identify.

Suddenly the figure cried in English, “
Traitor!”

Silence. The Queen brought her free hand up to her scythe and touched her fingers, almost shrugging. There was a hint of merriment in her blazing veiled eyes.

“No
traitor
,” she said thickly, in English. “Triumphant.”

Something in the air popped, and Alex felt light filtering into his eyes from above. A great hole had opened where the dark curtain of night was retracting, and light clouds crossed the daytime sky as the great reddish horse turned, and the Queen galloped toward the lake like a fluid and screaming ghost. The last of the vampires that had not retreated with Elle’s carriage went with the skull-headed lady, surrounding the horse and moving just as fast. Within moments, the streets were
empty of the dead and gleamed with sunlight.

All that remained were the Polidorium agents and the rider of the green motorcycle, which churned with a muffled softness as near-organic as the engine of the Queen’s carriage. Alex saw that other than handlebars, the bike was devoid of controls.

The girl on the bike flipped her staff and it collapsed to about a foot long, and she stuck it in a saddlebag.

“Who are you?” Alex asked. But already he had a suspicion, an inkling he could not explain.

The girl took off her helmet, turned her head, and smiled. It was Astrid.

The avenue was awash in radio chatter as Sangster and Alex approached Astrid. “Who are you?” Sangster asked again, yanking off his gas mask. Alex was stunned and silent.

“Astrid Gretelian. I’m here about Claire.”

“About
Claire
?” Sangster repeated the name incredulously. “How did you even know there was a Claire?”

She looked around as though it might not be safe to talk. Sangster cast a glance back at the restaurant behind them. The door was open and he nodded in that direction. They began to walk, Astrid keeping her distance as she rolled her bike. Sangster shouted into his Bluetooth to the others.

“See if there are any vampires left in the village. I doubt it because of the sunlight, but make sure there aren’t any hiding indoors. Armstrong? Get with communications; find out what the deal was with that dish thing.”

The three of them gathered in the restaurant and stood next to a brick wall, surrounded by empty tables with white linens. Some of them had been overturned.

“All right, Astrid Gretelian,” Sangster said. “Answers.”

“You don’t have to talk to me that way.” Astrid frowned. “I just saved your friend.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Astrid—”

“She’s new at school,” Alex interrupted. “I met her this morning. She said she’s from the Netherlands, and I think that’s right.” He watched the girl with a mixture of distrust and admiration. She had saved his life, surely, but this morning she had pretended to be…what? Had she pretended anything at all?

“And she’s a witch,” Sangster said evenly.

A witch. Alex took the word like a slap to the face even though it wasn’t aimed at him, because it was the second time that word had come into his life in any real, magical way in a short time. His mother was a witch.

Alex thought of his mother, Amanda, who had the
tall, blond model good looks of a Swedish pop star—the same good looks his own twin sister had, but of which he judged he had inherited precisely none. His mom was many things—a charitable organizer, a professor sometimes, a deft manager of five children, and through it all she carried an ironic and whimsical tone that seemed to armor her against any kind of upset. She could be funny and sometimes cruel, but she was loving.

And yes, a witch, and not the let-me-figure-out-who-you’re-going-to-marry-with-this-Ouija-board kind, but a let-me-shut-these-windows-with-my-mind kind. But Amanda had given up an active life of witchcraft when she had married an agent of the Polidorium, Alex’s dad.

Astrid was a witch like his mother. She had beaten back the Queen with magic words and swung a weapon that didn’t act like anything he’d ever seen.

But Alex didn’t sense any static coming off Astrid. If she were evil, somehow, if she were something dark, wouldn’t his brain be buzzing?

He looked at her again, his eyes suddenly widening.
Holy crap, do you know my mom?

“What is Claire?” Sangster asked, bringing Alex back to reality. Alex wasn’t sure if Sangster was testing her or trying to figure out the real answer.

“Claire Clairmont,” Astrid said. “Born in 1798, half
sister of Mary Shelley and lover of Lord Byron.”

“And according to history, she died an old spinster governess,” Sangster added.

Astrid put her bony hands on her hips, looking impatient. “Well, according to history, John Polidori died a feeble drug addict in 1821, but we
know better
, don’t we?”

Sangster betrayed no emotion, but Alex knew the gears in Sangster’s head had to be turning as much as his own were. The fact that John Polidori, a British writer who had first identified Lord Byron as a vampire, had gone underground and founded the organization they worked for was far from common knowledge. How could she know this? But by itself it didn’t prove anything; even Minhi knew that much about the Polidorium, and Astrid had spent the night talking to Minhi.

Astrid went on. “Claire Clairmont was obsessed with Lord Byron, and after his death traveled to Russia in the 1820s. There she allowed herself to be recruited based on the power of her inborn abilities to seduce, and she learned the magical arts. But it was all for her own purposes: she wanted eternal life, with Byron, with whom she made an undead, unholy pact. She made him a more powerful vampire and sacrificed herself. But at the right time, he would revive her and they would rule together.”

“Rule together?” Sangster seemed to be trying to
decide whether he found that plausible. “Yeah, lemme throw out history again. Byron hated Claire.”

“Well.” Alex shrugged, but that was as far as he got.

“Oh, please.” Astrid turned to her reflection in a large glass wine jug against the wall and started unraveling one of her pigtails and rebanding it. As she held a rubber band in her mouth she went on. “Are you going to stand there and tell me that Lord Byron himself did not just three months ago attempt to resurrect Claire to be the Queen of the Vampires?”

Alex turned to Sangster with his hands open, as if to say,
So she knows everything.
“But that didn’t work,” Alex said. “Byron failed and he’s locked away. And then Byron’s disciple, Elle, tried her damnedest to get my blood to finish resurrecting her, and
she
failed.”

“Wait, she needed your blood, why?” Astrid asked.

Alex glanced at Sangster—was this secret? Did it matter? Sangster nodded and Alex continued. “Byron used some of my blood to start bringing Claire back from a pile of bones he’d summoned. But he didn’t get enough, so Elle came for more.”

“And that wasn’t enough, either?” Astrid kept her eyes on the glass jar, then took another pigtail apart and twisted it, splaying the rubber bands in her fingers. Her accent was so…odd and yet normal, just a hint of
non-English, causing
enough
to come out
ee-nahff.

“Well, I mean, I didn’t let her actually have any of it. It’s not free.”

Astrid chuckled, a high, cheery laugh that snorted out quickly as she finished rebanding the last stray pigtail. She tilted her head, surveying all of them in the curvature of the giant jug. “So it looks like they managed anyway—maybe they took a sample of your blood while you were sleeping?”

Sangster rubbed the back of his neck and turned to Alex, considering it. “Wouldn’t have to be blood. They have labs at the Scholomance; they might have used your DNA. All it would take is a strand of hair.”

“Not a strand of hair,” Alex said, sighing. “I lost a contact case with my lenses in town a few weeks ago. There could have been stuff on the lenses.”

“Right.” Astrid smiled awkwardly. “So however they got it, they got your DNA and used it to finish raising Claire. And now she’s back. And let me tell you, the moment she hit this realm, we heard about it. And I was sent to look into it.”

“We?” Alex asked. “Who’s we?”

Armstrong stuck her head through the front door of the restaurant. “Sangster? Come look at this.”

They followed her to the Polidorium van that still sat in the center of the road. Inside, a technician was
attaching long cables to a computer panel he’d opened in the side door. Over his head, on the screen, two lines shimmered. Alex did not recognize the language.

Sangster looked around, then at Astrid. “Can you read that?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“You spoke a language to Claire. Was it this one?”

“I spoke the language of Dulle Grit,” she said.

“What’s Dulle Grit?” Alex asked.

“Dulle Grit is
fascinating.
” Astrid’s shoulders bobbed with excitement, and she momentarily returned to the girl he had met a few hours before. “You’re going to love—”

Sangster held up a hand. “Save that for study hall, okay? So you spoke a language shared by your organization.”

“Doesn’t
your
organization have a language?”

“English.”

“Ours is a little older.” Astrid looked at the words. “But this isn’t Hexen verbiage. This is…coded.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Alex said. “Who’s the
we
you said, who’s your organization?” This was very strange.

“Hexen,” Sangster answered before Astrid could open her mouth again. “She works for an organization called Hexen.”

“See? Aren’t you glad we met?” Astrid said, touching him on the shoulder. “You’re going to need my help.”

“I’ve never heard of Hexen.” Alex eyed her warily.

“That surprises me.”

“Why?”

“He’s new,” Sangster explained. “But I don’t understand. We haven’t heard from Hexen in years. And as I recall you want it that way.”

“We protect the world in very different ways.”

“And they sent you to beat back an invasion from the Skull-Headed Lady? What are you, fourteen?”

Alex and Astrid both stared.

Armstrong talked more to the engineer than to them. “We can get these lines analyzed. We’ll figure out what it says. The Queen showed up and sent us a message. She won’t make it impossible to read.”

“Oh, hold on.” Astrid held out her hands excitedly. “Maybe I can do this.” She reached into a pocket and drew out a small bead, very light and waxy looking, like a soft jelly bean.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a spell. We prepare our tools with spells beforehand because sometimes they can get complicated and it’s useful to…how would you say it?—concentrate them in the field. But I might be able to use it.”

“You have a code-cracking spell in a jelly bean?” Alex asked.

“Not so much; it’s a spell of seeing—you know, in
case someone’s around a corner. But it might be close enough.”

She whispered something into the small bead and blew on it, and Alex watched the ephemeral material fly with her breath toward the screen and fluff away into nothing.

Astrid bounced expectantly. “I love puzzles.”

The green lines shimmered briefly and started to change, but then the screen went dark and cloudy. After a moment it returned, and Astrid frowned and harrumphed.

Armstrong nodded. “We’ll give it a shot.”

“Good, because I only have one of those.”

Alex was looking out into the street. Civilians were moving about, beginning to sweep up. An air of calm had taken over, and the place looked like it had been hit by a storm, nothing more. “What now?”

Sangster thought for a moment. “You’re undercover in the school?” he asked Astrid.

“Yes.”

“When do you have to report in?”

“Tonight.”

“Okay,” Sangster said. “I’m taking the day off. I’ll call in sick. You two need to go back to the school.”

“What?” Astrid cried. “We don’t know what she’s planning.”

“Look,” said the teacher. “I don’t know how you work, but do you understand that you’ve put us at risk? If your cover is blown, Alex’s could be, too. Until we have a chance to sort this out, you both need to get back.”

“Those are not my instructions.”

“Yeah, but are you here to cooperate with us or not?” Sangster demanded.

“With all due respect,” she replied, “I’m here to make sure you don’t foul this up.”

Sangster actually laughed. “Right. Right. Of course.” He looked at Alex. “Keep her out of trouble. You’re gonna be late, so the story is that you decided to cut class together.”

“What?” Alex asked. His mind spun. That wasn’t something he did every day. Plus another thought that didn’t have any business there at all.

“Just if anyone asks. Reveal her nature to no one. You liked her, you went for a ride. I’m not causing an incident between us and Hexen within four hours of contact. The story is simple and it works; you have an iffy reputation anyway.”

“I’m
working on
my reputation,” Alex responded. “What the heck kind of thing is that for a teacher to say?”

“Cut me some slack.” Sangster paused and looked at
them both. “Midnight. Farmhouse.”

“You’re letting her in the farmhouse?”

“She could get in the farmhouse on her own,” Sangster said. Astrid shrugged.

Alex thought maybe that was the case and maybe it was not. Maybe she had another jelly bean that would open the false tin door in the front of the old house in the woods, the one that took you into a path that led a mile down into an underground bunker, or maybe she was not so prepared. Sangster clearly had decided that she was something to be treated gingerly.

Alex raised a hand. “I have a question. How are we getting back?”

Astrid turned to him. “You want a ride?”