Alex Van Helsing (4 page)

As though Alex had said his thought aloud, Paul cleared his throat. “So,” he said, looking at Alex. “Why
did
you leave your old school?”

Alex took a moment. The Merrills could think anything they wanted, but he actually cared how Sid and Paul felt—they were the closest thing he had to friends so far. Probably it could stay that way. And here was another one, Minhi, who he could already tell was one of the coolest people he’d ever met. And in the next sentence he could blow it, feel them move away from him from there on out. But he wanted to tell the truth.

“I was kicked out,” Alex said finally. “I was asked to leave.”

The three others shifted, listening. Sid asked, “Why?”

“I got into a fight,” Alex said plainly. “It went pretty bad.”

Paul wrinkled his brow. “I thought you said you couldn’t fight.”

Alex looked down. “He was a…yeah, a bully. Pretty much like these guys. They’re all the same guy.” He replayed it briefly in his head. There wasn’t much to tell, not that he remembered clearly. He had started feeling snippy and paranoid, had even confided in his father
about the paranoia, but in the end he had been cornered one night and snapped. It had been as shocking and frightening to him as to everyone else. “But that one went to the hospital.”

Minhi churned at her ice cream. “So you
could
have protected yourself.”

“Well,” Alex said, embarrassed, trying to change the subject, “if I
had
, we wouldn’t have met you.”

They sat in silence for a second, and then Paul spoke. Alex could not have been more grateful. “So, Minhi. Where did
you
learn to fight?”

Before Minhi could answer, Alex heard a noise and looked up.

Paul followed Alex’s eyes, saying, “What is that?”

The looping sound of a Swiss ambulance filled the air. Within moments a couple of police motorcycles and a white van tore in from the main road, scattering pigeons as they shot across the square to the clinic.

Alex was rising. He thought he knew what this was.

“They’re bringing someone in,” he heard Minhi say. Alex left the table area and moved across the square almost against his will as a crowd began to gather. He heard whispers from the bystanders:
Another one. Another one.

Alex stopped at the wall next to the clinic entrance as
two men in white wheeled a gurney to the van, yanking open the vehicle doors. Inside the van was a stretcher covered in a sheet. Another man in white ran back from the van and helped.

Alex wanted to look away, but something urged him to watch as they slid the stretcher out and onto the gurney.

He could see nothing of the person underneath until the gurney jolted over a bump in the entryway.

Drained, completely drained,
the man from the ambulance was saying in French.

For a moment the patient’s arm, delicate and female, fell down from under the sheet. One of the orderlies reached down and slipped it back in. Within seconds, they had all disappeared into the clinic.

The person’s arm had been white as bone.

Alex closed his eyes and turned away finally. When he opened them, Paul and Sid and Minhi were there.

“You don’t need to be seeing this stuff,” Minhi said. “
We
don’t.”

Alex composed himself. He nodded, and they all stood around for a moment.

Paul looked up at the clock tower. “We need to get back.”

“No kidding,” Minhi said. “With all this…with the
attacks around the lake, they don’t really like us going out at night.”

Alex felt depressed and sickened.
Why did I barge over here?

“Look,” Minhi was saying, changing the subject.

She pulled a notebook and pen out of her bag and started writing something. “This is my address at the school, and this is my email—okay? We should get ice cream again sometime when there’s, you know, not a fight.”

She tore out the sheet and stuck it in a manga. Paul took the book with a smile. “We thank you.”

She slung her bag over her shoulder. “You guys be safe.”

They watched her go. Paul was clearly impressed by Minhi. The unpleasantness of the ambulance had passed from his mind completely. “All told, mate, this was a fantastic afternoon. But no kidding, we gotta hustle.”

Then Alex remembered his roommates. “They’re going to be waiting for me.”

“Forget it,” said Paul, glancing at Sid.

“What?”

“Forget going back there. I don’t care what Otranto says, from here on out you’re bunking in our room.”

Unlike Bill and Steven, Paul and Sid did not have a three-man room. Theirs was smaller: smaller window, smaller shelves, smaller bathroom, and with only one bunk set, so they had to make out a pallet for Alex on the floor.

It was perfect.

As they prepared for bed, Alex wondered if the Merrills would report him, but then he realized they were unlikely to—they were still bruised and now they would have to answer questions. Besides, they wanted the room to themselves.

“You can go back in the daytime tomorrow and collect your stuff. I hope you don’t have much,” joked Paul
as he handed over some extra sheets and towels that had been in the closet.
Yeah, ’cause the Merrills will probably destroy it,
Alex thought.

“Not much,” he said, folding some extra blankets to make a pillow.

“Didn’t leave like a Nintendo or something?”

“I
wish
.” Alex shook his head. No video games were allowed at Glenarvon. Alex went to the sink in the bathroom and took out his contacts, emerging with his glasses on.

Alex on the floor, Paul and Sid on the bunks—lights out and they went to sleep, and Alex slept like a baby.

Until one thirty.

Alex must have been subconsciously listening for the sound of the garage door, because he was lost in a strange dream of the woman in white who fell to dust, and then came the gravelly roll of the garage door, far below. Alex blinked awake.

He grabbed his glasses and rose, pulling on his clothes and, this time, shoes. Downstairs and outside in seconds.

Huddling close to the school walls, Alex saw Sangster pushing a motorcycle across the yard toward the gate, moving faster than seemed possible as he walked the large machine on its sparkling wheels.

As he hustled around the building, Alex could hear the motorcycle starting. He rushed to the bike rack for Sid’s extra bike, unchaining it and hopping on. He headed for the road, listening for the sound of Sangster’s much faster machine. He wouldn’t be able to keep up with the instructor, obviously, but the roads were long and he might get lucky.

Sangster seemed to be headed for Secheron. Even with the muffling trees lining the winding road, Alex could see and hear the motorcycle ahead for a longer time than he expected. Then, after a few minutes, the noise was too far away.

But it was lovely on the road at night—the sound of frogs and owls and the gentle creak of the bicycle. He would head back into the tiny town and ride around, see if he could spot the motorcycle parked outside somewhere. It was a mission of curiosity, but he was so trans-fixed by the beauty of the ride that he realized he didn’t care whether he learned anything or not.
Why does Sangster sneak out at night? Well, why do I
?

Then his head filled with static and warning—quiet at first but building more rapidly than it ever had. In less than a minute the pitch inside his mind became almost deafening.

Ice-cold air shot down the road from behind and
enveloped him, a cold front dropping in so suddenly that Alex nearly fell over as his muscles tensed. His breath became visible as he kept pedaling. Then he became aware of a rumbling that he felt in his bones, vibrating up from the road and through his feet.

He heard what he thought was Sangster, a motorcycle engine’s roar, but then realized it was coming from behind, from the other direction.

The sound grew louder and Alex stopped, putting down his legs and standing on the bike at the side of the road, just around a curve.

He heard three, four, maybe even six motorcycles. There were no headlights visible anywhere. But they were coming fast.

Black shapes tore around the bend. Two motorcycles roared toward Alex, ridden by men in dark red clothes and face covers. Realizing he was still partly in the road, Alex dragged the bike off the shoulder, dropping it as he scrambled to crouch behind some bushes. The rumble was now insanely loud, and two motorcycles shot past, giving way to four, and then eight.

And more. Blasts of icy air seemed to roll with the engines’ roar. Then came trucks, armored personnel carriers, and modified Humvees, followed by more motorcycles, then SUVs, and more bikes. Some of the vehicles
had open sides, and there were dark-clad figures riding in them.

This would be one of those things that don’t happen.

Some three hundred meters away, on a tower built for observing fires, the man called Sangster brought a pair of infrared glasses up to his eyes. “I’ve got the caravan. They’re on the road to Secheron,” he said into the mike on his earpiece. Through the binoculars, the shapes on the vehicles on the road shone a brilliant, icy blue. He could make out the cold shapes of trees, a few woodland creatures—and there, an orange-and-red form, hunkered down next to the road.

“Guys, this is Sangster; do we have a second agent by the road?”

After a moment a voice came online. “Negative, we have no other operatives on this task.”

Sangster snarled in disgust. “There’s a human watching.”

The voice crackled on the radio. “Watching? Have they spotted him yet?”

“Doesn’t look like it.” Sangster chewed his lip. “Should I engage?”

“Negative, stay on task.”

“Copy,” Sangster replied, but he was already off task.
He moved in closer, trying to get a better look. He put on a pair of modified sunglasses, adjusted them for darkness and magnification, and looked for a clear view of the bystander.

The caravan was still moving, but Sangster adjusted his glasses back at the shape on the side of the road. The person was not a journalist: He didn’t hunker down the way an experienced man would. He or she crouched. Sangster allowed that given the shorter height of the figure, it could be a female.

Flicker of light—a reflector. The figure had a bicycle.

“It’s a kid,” Sangster said, aghast.

“Stay on task.”

The static in Alex’s head pounded now, and he clutched his head and stared, astonished at the size of the caravan. His brain swirled with thoughts of what in the world this could be—UN peacekeepers? A night invasion of Switzerland? What on earth lay on the road around Lake Geneva that would bring such an army? And why no lights?

And as he stayed down behind the bush, daring to stick his head out,
Why the freaking cold?

Alex bumped into the bike with his shin as he shifted his weight, barely noticing the flicker of light that shot
off the front reflector as the wheel adjusted.

On the caravan, peering out the door of a personnel carrier, a figure, bald and tall in an oxblood red leather jacket, turned his head as the flicker of the bike’s reflector shone next to the road. The bald man frowned and touched a button on an electronic device strapped to his wrist.

Alex watched as the caravan slowed a bit. Out of instinct he began to back up, crablike in his crouch. There was a Humvee opposite him in the road, and suddenly the black tarp that stretched across it shot back.

Two red-clad figures leapt from the vehicle. Alex took just a moment to watch them landing on their feet—just a moment to see they bore no weapons, but that as they opened their mouths to hiss, he saw enormous fangs.

Run. Get out. Run.
Alex sprang out of his crouch and into a sprint, leaping over Sid’s bike and hurtling deeper into the woods. He didn’t look to see if they were coming, but somewhere in the cold air he swore he could hear them laughing.

His luck was about to run out. He had twice faced just
one
such creature and barely survived. This was way beyond hurling clay tiles, sticks, and weather vanes.

He ran, not looking back until a moment when he paused by a tree.
Maybe they didn’t see me. Maybe the two in the street just stopped to look around. Or relieve
themselves. Or hiss at the moon.

Through the trees he saw the shapes moving, leaping, and not just two.

They were coming for him.

Alex started to run again but suddenly they were there, within fifty yards and closing in. One of them leapt and landed in front of him, slamming to the ground, leaves flying.

The vampire—male, long and slender in his red commando outfit—bent toward Alex and hissed.

At that instant there was a rapid staccato sound that tore through the air. The creature was still hissing as it burst into flame and turned to dust with a sharp, crackling sound.

There was another motorcycle roaring toward Alex, coming in fast from the side. Dirt and moss kicked up as the bike ground to a halt between him and the rest of the vampires.

Sangster—
Mr
. Sangster, his literature teacher—was still wearing his jeans and sweater, but had added a pair of silver-and-black, many-buttoned goggles, a Bluetooth device at his ear, and an assault rifle to the mix.

Sangster held out his hand. “Get on, Alex,” he said. He turned and shot at two more of the vampires. The gun made a violent, heavy sound,
buddabuddabudda.
“Get on!”

Alex’s head spun with a thousand questions but none of them would be answered if he died right here. He grabbed Sangster’s hand, swinging himself up onto the back of the bike. Sangster put Alex’s arms around his waist, and they were off like a shot.

“There are more of them coming,” Sangster shouted, tapping at a rearview mirror, and Alex saw with astonishment that it was not an actual mirror but a screen displaying infrared images. In the infrared, he could see the creatures leaping like jaguars behind the bike, each one a brilliant image of icy blue light.

“Put these on.” Sangster fished a second pair of goggles out of a satchel near his thigh. Alex clenched his knees together on the bike and took them. He struggled for a moment to pull the rubber strap over the back of his head, bringing the goggles to rest over his own glasses.

Suddenly, the whole world was in the negative, the trees brilliant white against a gray background. Alex tried to follow the path of the bike, barely able to keep his eyes open as Sangster tore through and over bushes, somehow managing to dodge trees. The double glasses violently wobbled on his ears. “I’m sorry!” he was shouting before he even realized it. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gone out!”

“Don’t worry about that now,” Sangster yelled over
the roar. “Hit the button next to your left eyebrow.”

Alex took a moment, his arm jolting.
Breathe
. He found the button and pressed.

“This way you can hear me,” Sangster said, and Alex heard the voice, gyrating through the bones of his own head, muffled but audible.

“Where are we going?” Alex asked.

He heard Sangster’s voice over the engine’s roar. “Someplace safe.”