Alex Van Helsing (12 page)

Minhi awoke in the dark and had no idea what time it was. For the first several hours of her captivity she had wrestled, she had pleaded and screamed. Then had come the—how best to call it? That pep rally of the damned? And since that moment she had sat in her cage, waiting, watching.

Now she could hear a great gathering in the auditorium and
he
was speaking again.

A great, thick curtain had been drawn on the backstage, so that she and Paul were hidden, as though awaiting the applause that would open the curtains once more.

Minhi was not accepting her fate. She was accepting
only that she lacked immediate options. Fate was far from decided.

Paul, meanwhile, had also awoken and was now pressing his back against the bars and trying to break the cage open.

“Are you really trying that again?” Minhi asked.

Paul dropped back to the floor of his cage. “I have to try
something
.”

“We’ll get a chance to try something,” said Minhi, “but it’ll happen when there’s a change.”

“What do you mean, a change?”

“Listen to that,” she said, indicating the muffled noise of what sounded like a call-and-response meeting. “I mean, we’re not going to sit here forever. They’re going to have to move us eventually.”

“I have news for you; that will not be a good time for us.”

“But,” she said, “that’s when lots of things will happen. Locks will be unlocked, and so on. It won’t be easy, but we might have a chance then.”

Paul looked at Minhi. “So how do we deal with them?”

Minhi was thinking. “What do we know about vampires?” she said, daring to use the word neither seemed comfortable with. “They’re strong, for one thing, like
superhero strong.” She sounded like she was making a list.

“They don’t like sunlight,” Paul said. “In those movies Sid makes me watch, the vampire always gets burnt up when the sunlight hits him.”

“That’s in movies,” Minhi said. “We don’t know if that’s true. I mean, for instance, in movies nobody ever has caller ID or cell phones that work. Do
you
have a cell that works, by the way?”

“Not down here. Are you suggesting that the movies are not a guide for life?” Paul asked. “Whatever will I do now?”

Minhi smirked. “Okay, so that’s an idea, though—if we can trick them into the sunlight—”

A sour, female voice hissed, “That only works
sometimes
.”

Minhi looked up in horror as a female vampire dropped silently from the rafters to the floor.

She had spiky yellow hair and white robes that fluttered as she descended. She looked no more than sixteen, but Minhi knew that vampires tended to measure their years in decades or even centuries. The vampire girl began to walk in front of the cages. Her bone white skin almost glowed in the dim light behind the stage.

“What’s the game we’re playing, chiclets? How to kill
a vampire? You can forget sunlight—the old ones can handle it—and anyway, you’re about two miles underground, sweetheart.”

“Who are you?” Minhi demanded.

“My name’s Elle,” she said.

“So sun doesn’t burn you?” asked Paul, defiant.

Elle raised an eyebrow and came close to Paul’s cage, showing her fangs. “Burn? Me? I’m not telling. Not as much as I’ll bet
you
do; you’re paler than Casper—but maybe that’s just fear.”

“What do you want?” Minhi asked.

“I’m watching over you,” the vampire answered, “until the moment you’re needed.”

Elle took a moment to study them silently, and then she spoke again. The lusty look in Elle’s eye suggested that she yearned to devour them herself.

Elle licked her lips, looking back and forth, then said, “Let’s play another game.”

Minhi crouched, watching, as Elle continued, “You’ve made me really curious about how much you all know, so I’m going to ask each of you a question:
myth
or
reality
.”

“About what?” asked Paul.

“About vampires!” Elle shook her head in disbelief that Paul would even ask. “Vampires are like Americans,
we
love
to talk about ourselves. Myth or reality?”

Paul asked, “What do we win if we get it right?”

“You get to live,” she snarled.

Minhi felt her eyes grow wide but she controlled her fear. “Oh, now, I know we’re here for something more than that. Sounded to me like your fearless vampire leader wants to use us for something else. I’ll bet his instructions were pretty clear.”

Elle looked thoughtful. “It’s amazing, you know; I have the
hardest
time with clear instructions.” She went back to Paul’s cage. Paul sat there with his arms folded, looking down, and she crouched to his level. “Man, you’re a big dude,” she offered. “You’ll be like two sacrifices’ worth of sacrifice. You’re like a supersize sacrifice. Myth or reality, big guy.” She leaned in. “Vampires can
fly.
”

Paul stared at her. Minhi started to whisper something and Elle turned around, holding up a shiny black fingernail. “No helping!”

Paul looked around him, then said, “Myth.”

“Not bad.” Elle stood up. “That’s another tough one, so I would have accepted ‘it depends,’ because there are some special cases.”

She went back to Minhi’s cage. Elle poked her through the bars. “Hey. Myth or reality?”

“Come on…”

“Vampires are burned by crosses.”

Minhi shut her eyes, then said, “Reality.”

“Wow,” Elle said. “Usually everyone gets that wrong these days. Yeah. Holy stuff burns like crazy; go figure.” She walked back to Paul.

“This game is totally not fair,” Paul spat.

“Why?” Elle asked, amused.

“Because we’ve seen everything in movies, and it’s all different from movie to movie.”

“Well, then why don’t you just restrict yourself to answers that reflect
reality
. Myth or reality: Vampires have to sleep in coffins.”

Minhi watched Paul catch this question and stop. He backed up, his eyes flying back and forth. Elle waited a few seconds, then put her hands on the bars, leaning toward him, her long black nails glistening in the dimness. “Well?”

“Myth.”

Elle reached out her arm and grazed a fingernail along Paul’s cheek. “Very good. Mounds of earth, yes—but there’s nothing special about a coffin. Some of the old-timers still like them, though.”

Elle moved again to Minhi. “That brings me back to you. Myth or reality.”

“That’s a stupid name,” Minhi said. “It sounds like Truth or Dare, like you’re asking me to choose. I’ll do a myth, please.”

“Myth or reality,” Elle said, wagging her finger. “Vampires can fall in love.”

Minhi stared for a long moment. “Reality.”

Elle clicked her tongue. “Ohh. No, no. Obsession, but not love. It’s just not there. It’s all burned out. No pity, no empathy. You’d be surprised how much you don’t miss that.”

Then, like a snake striking, Elle reached out, her steely fingers grabbing Minhi by the neck, dragging her to the front of her cage. Minhi was clawing at Elle’s pale arm and Elle hissed as her nails started to draw along Minhi’s neck.

“So let me ask you something,” came the voice of Alex Van Helsing.

Elle gasped and stared up into the rafters. Minhi twisted away from Elle as Alex dropped to the floor.

Alex continued, “Do you
paint
those nails black, or is that just a bonus that comes with the fangs?”

On the platform, Icemaker stood, the curtains behind him, vampire guards on either side.

“Now you will witness destiny,” he cried, and he
reached out his hand, his eyes on the keyhole. With one razor-sharp thumb he cut his hand, and soon a glittering kind of blood, his own cursed clan lord ichor, dripped down into the circle before him, flowing in grooves carved in the ice.

“This blood is not mortal blood,” said he. “It is not the blood you remember.” And he continued:

“Ye know what I have known; and without power

I could not be amongst ye: but there are

Powers deeper still beyond—I come in quest

Of such, to answer unto what I seek.”

After a moment a whisper came, lighting on the frozen air. Frost rose and swirled, up to the keyhole window, swirling in the stone and then bursting out. And then the demon Nemesis herself appeared, robed and winged, a glowing goddesslike humanoid form of clouds and ice. Her eyes were a deep void.

The demon said:

“Prostrate thyself, and thy condemned clay,

Child of the Earth! or dread the worst.”

Icemaker smiled. And stood, coming to his full height before the circle. He looked the demon in the void eyes and said, “I know it, and yet ye see I kneel not.”

“Thou art changed,” said Nemesis. “What wouldst thou?”

Icemaker beheld the grooves and said, “This is not the blood of a mortal, nor the blood of a lowly undead. It is the ichor of a lord, of one who has been tinged with that of the ancients. I make a sacrifice to receive what I desire.”

“And what is it that you desire?” responded the demon.

“At this proper time, at this hour of the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, I wish power over life and death,” he said, “beginning with my beloved, Claire.”

In the air the vampire formed a small image, a cameo of ice and blood that he held in his hand: Claire, treacherous mistress, mother of a child he had taken and then had taken from him, bearer of a love he no longer felt except as obsession.

Icemaker threw the cameo of blood and ice into the flowing grooves, and it hissed.

“Let it be done,” said Nemesis.

Backstage, Alex recognized the vampire he faced. It was the girl who had been spying on him through his window, who had thrown him onto the roof. The glimmering bolt flew through the air, grazing the top of Elle’s shoulder. Elle stumbled back.

“How did you know about me?” he demanded, firing again. This bolt impacted with her shoulder and drove
her back, sticking her to the wall.

“You?” she spat. “We’ve been
waiting
for one of you.”

Alex turned for a brief second to the cages. Minhi and Paul shrank back until Alex pulled down his hood, revealing his face.

Paul suddenly burst out laughing.

“What?” Alex asked.

Paul said, “I’m sorry, it’s just kind of ‘aren’t you a little short to be a stormtrooper?’”

Alex protested, “You should know I got silver bolts right here that—” and then Elle ripped away from the wall, slamming into him, knocking him sideways.

He struck the ground, exhaling sharply. He lost hold of the Polibow and the weapon fell. As he landed on his back, the vampire leapt on top of him and grabbed him by the shoulders, rolling back her head, her mouth open. She bared her fangs. Alex watched her whole body start to come forward.

Suddenly she jerked—Minhi had caught her by the hood that dangled behind her neck. Alex grabbed the bow. As he did so, he saw a fire extinguisher and what he would need: an ax.

The vampire growled, turning toward Minhi. Alex aimed and there was a quiet pumping sound of the Polibow, as two wood-threaded silver bolts went
toward Elle’s chest, but she spun, one of the bolts finding solid purchase in her shoulder, where it burned and hissed loudly. Elle growled and leapt backward, grabbing the curtains. She put all her weight into yanking at them viciously. Golden rings at the top of the rafters began to strain and pop as the curtains swayed. Elle disappeared into the dark rafters above.

Alex ran to the ax on the wall. He returned, moving quickly, tearing apart the locks of the cages and setting Minhi and Paul free. Just as their feet hit the boards they heard a thunderous sound.

The heavy red curtains were swaying violently, more of the rings popping and groaning, and then they gave out, crashing violently to the floor.

Alex, Minhi, and Paul turned to face the wrath of Icemaker and five hundred of his closest friends.

For a moment Alex felt the room spinning as he surveyed his chances. Still holding the ax, he turned immediately, shouting to Minhi and Paul, “This way, through the back.” The two started to move, but they were still stiff and couldn’t go as fast as he’d like.

A hissing sound had enveloped the room and Alex looked behind him to see the great vampire roar, “You!”

Vampires were leaping past the ice tower toward the stage. Alex fired the Polibow, taking one out from twenty yards. “You’ll never get out of here alive!” Icemaker bellowed.

As Alex ran through the back, past tall wardrobe
boxes, looking for a door, he heard Paul next to him.

“Where are we going, mate?”

“I have no idea. I’m making it up as I go along,” Alex said, before his eyes landed on a rear door. “There.”

Paul and Minhi were getting faster, spurred forward by the sound of vampire legs resounding behind them. The door was heavy and steel, and as he pushed down on the exit lever, Alex had an idea.

When they burst through and into the room beyond, Alex slammed the door shut. “Hold it!”

Paul put all his weight on the door as Alex stepped back, looking at the door. It had opened out and was made of metal. He still held the ax. “Step back,” Alex cried. Paul jumped away and Alex brought the ax down solid in the doorjamb, snarling the head of it deep between the door and the doorjamb. It would act as a doorstop, at least for a moment.

The room they were in was clearly intended to support dramatic performance—he saw enormous clothes racks with robes and doublets. Costume swords and knives lay on tables. There were footsteps at the door and Alex ran to an enormous wooden wardrobe and called to Paul and Minhi to help him push it.

The furniture piece was old, with rotting casters on the legs, but they shoved it rapidly and slammed it down
before the door. On its side it covered about three and a half feet of the door. It started to wobble as something began slamming against it.

“Is there another door out of this room?” Alex called.

“I see one,” Minhi said. Alex looked in her direction. There was indeed another door in the rear of the room, next to a stack of paint supplies and backdrop canvases.

The wardrobe shook again. Alex looked at the ax, held there in the door, quivering. “See if they have any paint thinner,” he said. “Hurry.”

Minhi and Paul ran back to the paint supplies and appeared again with cans of paint thinner, about a gallon each.

“Minhi, find a screwdriver and get the cans open. Paul, help me drag this wardrobe lengthwise.” He started pulling the wardrobe away from the door.

Paul paused. “It won’t block the door anymore.”

“When they get the door open we’ll only have a second,” Alex said. “It wouldn’t stop them anyway. So I’m going to give it to them.” They turned the wardrobe so that it lay like a great battering ram on the tile floor, aimed at the door.

Minhi had found a screwdriver on a shelf and was twisting rapidly around the seam of a can as the
pounding and yanking on the door increased. “Got it,” she said, handing him a can.

The smell of the paint thinner struck his nostrils and burned as Alex sloshed it along the top of the wardrobe and all around it. “Don’t let this get on you,” he said. For good measure he also sloshed it all over the door.

Then he grabbed the ax handle.

“Okay,” Alex said. “I’m gonna pull this ax out, and they’re gonna get the door open. And we’re gonna push this as far as we can through the doorway. Minhi, when that door opens, throw the other open can.”

They both nodded. Paul was studying the thinner. “Do we have a match?”

“We don’t need a match.”

The pounding increased, hissing audible and loud beyond the metal door. “Okay.”

Alex yanked the ax out of the door. He and Paul put their shoulders against the bottom of the wardrobe just as the door started to open. Beyond, in the backstage area, Alex could see hundreds of vampires.

“Minhi, now,” Alex said. He saw the other open can of thinner tumble through the air, sloshing backstage among the vampires. They were pushing toward him, stumbling over one another. With all their strength Paul and Alex shoved the wardrobe barely through the door,
jamming it into the doorway.

“Step back,” Alex said, as he raised the Polibow. There was a vampire coming over the wardrobe, ready to leap at them. He aimed at the heart and fired.

As the vampire pounded his claws on the wardrobe, framed in the doorway, he erupted into flame.

And then the whole wardrobe burst, and beyond the first vampire they could see the next vampire’s robes catching fire. A wall of flame shot up as thinner on the floor and curtains and boxes and vampires burst into a raging inferno.

“Let’s go,” Alex said, and they ran for the back door as the drama prep room itself began to catch fire. Smoke was filling the place. They reached the rear door.

It was locked. Alex brought the ax down on the handle, crushing the lock, and they poured through into a corridor, slamming the door behind them.

Alarms were erupting everywhere, but the corridor they found themselves in was empty. Alex looked back at the door into the drama room. “That fire might not keep them from coming this way; we gotta move.”

The three of them ran quickly in the direction Alex chose until they found a stairwell, then up. They headed down the next corridor, doubled back, and went up more stairs.

Paul slapped Alex’s shoulder as they came to a stop next to a door. “That was bloody fantastic.”

“What is all this?” Minhi indicated the Polibow and the stake. “I thought you said
I
was the action star, but you’re practically a manga character.”

Alex flushed, catching his breath. “What I lack are the very, very big eyes.” He peered out into a hall he recognized. It was the main corridor he’d come down from the cafeteria. As before, there were vampires everywhere, but with the clanging alarms ringing, many of them were looking around in confusion. Some of the Icemaker vampires ran past and disappeared into the distance.

“They’re looking for us,” Alex said. He pulled on his hood. “But most of them don’t know what they’re looking for. We’re gonna pretend I’m one of them and I’ve already got you. We’ll go out through the cafeteria. It’s not far.” Alex looked at his friends and said, “I’m going to need to tie you up.”

Paul and Minhi stared at him for a moment, but Alex felt instantly for the rope belt around his red tunic. He cut it in half with the sharp edge of one of the Polibow bolts.

“Put ’em out.”

“Relax.” Paul held out his hands as he looked at Minhi.
“I think I know what he has in mind.”

Alex tied the ropes lightly around each of their wrists. “This is meaningless if anyone looks at it carefully,” Alex said. “So let’s hope no one does.” After a moment Alex had his red hood pulled up over his head, and he arranged the two humans in front of him.

“Let me see if I got this,” said Minhi as they started to walk. “The two of us are supposed to be your captives.”

Alex poked her in the elbow. “Just look morose and defeated. Maybe you were softened up already.”

He looked at them both and put his hand on the door. “We’re going back among them now. Remember that all people—even vampires, I’m betting—will play along with what seems to be right. So act confident.”

“
We’re
morose,” Paul said. “
You
act confident.”

Alex nodded and shoved the door open, moving steadily into the hall.

Once they were in the hall, Alex got behind Minhi and Paul and escorted them as though he did this all the time.

The alarms weren’t ringing in the cafeteria. Many vampires were still there, having lunch. Alex moved steadily with his captives. Most of the vampires barely looked as he moved past.

“This is the cafeteria,” he said. “We’re gonna take a left
through there, out the glass doors on the other side, and onto the lawn.”

As they turned to move into the cafeteria, Alex saw two red-garbed vampires coming in their direction. He started shouting at Paul and Minhi and smacked Paul in the back of the head.

“None of thy lip, thou cattle!”
Whack.
“The Dark Lord demands your presence!”

They moved past the two vampires, past more tables. Alex whacked Paul again.

“Hey!” Paul whispered.

“Sorry,” Alex said, beneath his hood.

Minhi whispered, “I’m curious where you get this idea that vampires talk like Thor, God of Thunder.”

“SILENCE, FOUL COW!”

Minhi looked like she was about to laugh when she caught sight of the other captives, the sad humans in cages along the back wall of the cafeteria. “Oh my God.”

“Keep moving,” Alex said.

A loud PA system cut on and a woman began to speak.

“ATTENTION.”

Paul and Minhi looked back at Alex and he urged them on.

“TWO SACRIFICES HAVE ESCAPED WITH A HUMAN. A REVENANT TRACKER HAS BEEN RELEASED. DO NOT INTERFERE WITH ITS MISSION.”

Alex blinked.
A revenant what?

They were halfway across the cafeteria when they heard a deep, inhuman growl. Alex turned to look at the glass door into the corridor.

A metallic crunch ripped through the air as something blew the door clear off its hinges, sending it clattering across tables.

Amid a wave of glass and ice, a dog the size of a horse burst into the cafeteria. It stopped beyond the door, locking on to Alex and his captives.

No, more than a dog: Its muscular forelegs and haunches were bunched and spiked with shards of what looked like ice instead of fur, and it had a triangular head, like a chow’s, allowing maximum leverage and room for teeth. As the dog roared and snapped, Alex saw rows of dripping fangs in its mouth.

The six or seven vampires in the cafeteria looked up and then at Alex, understanding now who he was. One of them, a male, started to run for Alex, and as Alex reached for his Polibow the dog tore right through the vampire in his way, biting it on the shoulder and
sending it spinning off into the distance. The other vampires, learning their place, ran.

Alex let Paul and Minhi’s rope go, shouting, “Get behind some tables.”

With a growl, the dog headed for Alex. He grabbed a table and pushed it over on its side. Dishes and bottles clattered on the floor as he yanked the legs of the table and tried to raise it like a shield. The dog struck the table and sent Alex back, but he held on to the underside.

In his peripheral vision—
thank God I fixed my contacts
—Alex saw Paul and Minhi head for the back glass wall that looked out onto the white lawn. The dog was straddling the table, its paws reaching around it, and one of its claws plunged into the folds of Alex’s tunic. As the dog yanked its paw free, Alex felt himself come with it, and then he was flying.

He crashed against the metal roll-down curtain of the large window that separated the kitchen and the cafeteria. The curtain buckled, curling around him as he fell back into the kitchen.

Alex got unsteadily to his feet, looking through the window into the dining hall. Back among the tables, the dog stared at Minhi and Paul for a second, and then steered its head toward Alex. It started running.

Alex turned and slid over a long, stainless steel prep
aration table, landing next to an industrial convection oven. As he dropped his bow and whipped his tunic off and over his head to gain access to his pack, he caught a glimpse of himself in the oven door. In the glass, the dog cast no reflection.
Life would be better in the glass
.

He picked up the Polibow and the tunic, turned, and ran back toward the metal table just as the dog leapt across the back of the cafeteria and sailed halfway through the window, sticking there for a second. It started snapping wildly as it shoved with its hind legs to push itself through, crumbling and buckling the plaster tiles and the metal pane of the window.

Taking the tunic in his hands, Alex got up on the table and jumped, landing on the creature’s shoulders. Shards of ice drove into his leggings and thighs.

The revenant tracker growled angrily, bucking, coming through the window, as Alex brought the tunic down around its head. He wrapped the tunic several times and fell away as the dog burst free of the window. It lurched blindly into the kitchen, sending the table flying.

The dog’s triangular head was snapping under the cloth. Alex saw the cloth starting to give way, the creature’s harsh, snaking tongue trying to punch through. Alex brought up his bow and shot once at the breast of the creature, but the bolt barely connected as the dog
started to run around the kitchen, sending utensils and tables flying. The steel food prep table nearly smashed into Alex’s head.

Alex dropped back to the corner and rifled through his pack. He had silver knives. He was going to have to make this personal.

Alex grabbed a pair of the knives and rose, heading to the back of the kitchen, near the oven. “Here,” he said, “here, boy!”

The dog’s covered head whipped toward him and it leapt, and as it hit the air Alex saw the cloth of the tunic tear free. Its mouth was open as it slammed into the oven, crushing the oven door inward and lodging its head there.

For a second the dog was trapped. As the creature began scrambling for footing on the stainless steel, Alex drew close.

He only had a moment. He watched the muscles underneath the shards of ice that made up its fur. He thrust the first knife deep between the grooves of its fur, up into its breast.

Then he took the other knife and slammed it home.

The dog yelped, and Alex pulled out a glass ball of holy water and smashed it up into the wound.

A hissing sound and bubbling fire began to churn
beneath the icy skin. Alex didn’t wait to watch. He was running out of the kitchen as the dog erupted, sending splotches of ice and flame through the cafeteria.

Alex found Minhi and Paul and ran up to them, pushing open the glass cafeteria doors. There were footsteps coming from the corridor, but smoke kept them from seeing how many might be coming.

“Across the lawn,” Alex shouted. They made it out onto the white grass and ran for the wall.