Alex Van Helsing (7 page)

At seven o’clock the boys gathered at the front gate on their bikes. They figured it would take forty-five minutes to make it around the lower horn of the lake to LaLaurie.

“You look quite posh,” Paul said to Alex, who was wearing a school jacket he had borrowed from Sid—he hadn’t received his own yet—and a pair of dress pants he had managed to lug back with a bag full of his other clothes from his old room.

Sid’s jacket was a little small at the shoulders for Alex, but Paul’s only extra had surrounded Alex like a shroud when he put it on, so he had decided to go with too tight.

They benefited from another thing that Paul explained. On Saturday, the ten o’clock curfew check was notoriously lax for the simple reason that the older boys tasked with enforcing it tended to be out themselves.

Around the weaving road they pedaled, moving at a steady clip as the sun went down, talking all the way. Paul and Sid filled Alex in on classes, teachers, school traditions. Everyone agreed that the librarian was hot but could probably rip you in half, and that Sangster was easily the most demanding teacher they had. Sid said that Mr. Otranto was known to have powers beyond those of mortal men when it came to anything he needed for the school or its students; he had once procured Russian visitor visas for the Glenarvon mathlete team in less than forty-eight hours. The guy was connected, but had no social life—or none anyone had observed. This was no accident: Teachers and staff all lived in a garden-style apartment complex on the far side of the campus, and students were not welcome to roam there. Alex took all of this in, deliriously happy to be rid of the colossal strangeness of the past several days.

Finally, they reached a well-manicured drive under an archway that read
LALAURIE SCHOOL
. The boys fell silent as they passed by brilliant topiaries and into an
enormous parking area. They locked their bikes at a rack along a berm near the entrance. The lot was crowded with racing-green Jaguars and gray Rolls-Royces, Mercedes upon Mercedes.

Visitors were milling about the lawn as Alex, Paul, and Sid approached the front entrance. They reached the top of the wide, rounded staircase and hung to the side for a moment. “Let me do the talking,” Paul said under his breath.

“Guys,” came a voice.

They turned to see Sangster jogging up the steps in a dinner jacket and black pants. He was carrying an old, leather-bound book tied with a silver ribbon and bow.

“Mr. Sangster!” Sid gasped.

Alex was already trying to figure out how he’d followed them, but he realized that especially where Sangster was concerned, there were a thousand easy ways. “This is a surprise,” Alex said.

“Yeah, I wish I’d known you guys were coming!” Sangster smiled. It occurred to Alex that Sangster the teacher was a different person from Sangster the…
whatever that other Sangster was
. The differences were subtle but there. He wondered if Sangster even noticed himself. The teacher added, “So does
anyone
know you were coming?”

Paul looked at the others, and then tried, “What really do you mean by
know
?”

Sangster waved him off. “Stop while you’re ahead.”

“Are you here on…business?” Alex asked darkly.

“Not really. So do you have an invitation?” Sangster looked up at the front gate, where a woman in a silk blouse held a clipboard and was checking names.

“Alex, the note is in your pack, mate—”

“
Kind
of. Actually,” Alex said, “we were sort of winging it.”

Sangster nodded. “All right then.”

As they climbed the front steps, Alex quietly asked Sangster, “Did you really not know we’d be here?”

Sangster gave him a look that suggested Alex must think he had just fallen off a turnip truck. Then he pulled away and went up to the woman at the door. As Sangster approached, she showed a moment of confusion and then lit up with surprise. They hugged briefly and then Sangster indicated the book he’d brought. She registered more surprise, and then genuine appreciation.

Alex followed this few seconds of pantomime—they had met but didn’t seem to know each other that well.

Now Sangster gestured back at the boys, squirming in their dress shoes, and Alex did make out the words, “Little fans.”

Alex watched the woman wave her head from side to side,
Oh, all right.
She touched Sangster on the elbow.

And they were in.

The performance hall of LaLaurie School was off to the right. All in all it looked much like Glenarvon except with more flowers. The entryway to the performance hall spilled into a foyer where several of the students were rushing back and forth. There was excitement everywhere, and Alex felt a strange jealousy as he saw girls in uniforms introducing friends to friends and friends to parents and parents to teachers.

“I feel like an intruder,” said Alex to Paul, who was reading a program. Sid was turning pale.

Suddenly a figure was waving from near the entrance of the auditorium. It was Minhi. She gestured with long, skinny arms for them all to come, and Sangster led them through the throngs, smiling faintly to Alex as they went.

“Look at you gentlemen with the jackets,” she was saying.

“Yeah, I had to borrow mine, which is why it’s so small,” Alex volunteered idiotically. He sighed inwardly.
Moving along.
“You know Paul and Sid. This is our lit instructor, Mr. Sangster.” Minhi made a slight curtsy.

“What are you performing?” Sangster asked.

“It says here…” Paul held up a program he’d been handed. “Well, I see ‘ballet’ and ‘poetry’ and ‘singing,’ and then there’s you.”

“Then there’s me,” she said, smiling wryly.

“You’re not reading poetry, are you?” Alex asked.

“I’m not sure I’d invite you here for that,” she said with a smile. She looked at her watch and said, “There are some seats down right. See you after the show.”

Sangster, Alex, Paul, and Sid filed into the auditorium, found some seats, and settled in for a nightmare of several ballet pieces, three different solo vocal renditions of “Ave Maria,” and lots…and lots…of poetry.

And then came Minhi.

She bounded upon the stage in a black tunic, black leggings, and bare feet, and began to demonstrate her own art. She moved fluidly, muscles tight, sliding through a routine that looked like a performance of karate but brought all its force driven inward, intense and contained. Minhi drew imaginary bows, brought her fists in and out with a power that seemed to bend on itself. Above all it was slow, so slow that her muscles seemed ready to spring and pop, always controlled, every punch hypnotically glacial in its movement.

“Kung fu?” whispered Alex.

“Hung Gar,”
whispered Sangster back. “Don’t be fooled by the speed. She could knock your head off.”

There were other performances, but Alex would recall none of them.

After the recital, Paul, Sid, Minhi, Alex, and Sangster abandoned the crowds and headed out a pair of French doors onto the enormous lawn, which ended at the lake. The sun had mostly set, but lanterns were lit around the perimeter of the lawn, which itself was studded with classical statues.

Alex competed with Paul and Sid in sheer enthusiasm. “That was—that was fantastic.”

“You were like an action hero,” said Sid.

“Again!” Alex said. “That’s like the second time you’ve been an action hero. Hey,
he
said you could take someone’s head off.” Alex thumbed back at Sangster. Sangster raised an eyebrow, his hands in his pockets as he walked.

Minhi was leading them down to a floating pier at the edge of the water, smiling as she went. This had been her idea, to get away from all the families and alumni.

“Why isn’t your family here?” Paul asked Minhi.

“It’s a long way,” Minhi said. “Still, I’ll see them at the winter break.”

Alex dropped back next to Sangster and changed his tone as his thoughts returned to the hunt for the Scholomance. He asked quietly, “How are your friends?”

“They’re impatient,” Sangster said, watching the lake. “How does an entire fortress hide in plain sight?”

“Were you going to find out last night?”

Sangster glanced at Alex. “Maybe. Never can tell. But we went one way and the caravan went the other. We missed the entrance this time.”

“Could they be underground?”

“We’ve scanned,” said Sangster. “All around the lake.”

“What about”—Alex searched for the words—“extra-dimensional pockets?”

Sangster smiled. “You’ve seen too many movies.”

As they reached the shore and the start of the narrow pier that led to the larger floating platform, which had railings and iron loops into which to place fishing poles, Alex heard someone call, “Mr. Sangster!” They all looked back.

Alex asked Minhi, “Who’s that?”

“The assistant headmistress, Mrs. Daughtry,” Minhi replied.

The woman was moving rapidly across the lawn toward them, but she was smiling. Sangster gave a small
wave. “
Mrs
. Daughtry?”

The woman laughed. “It’s not; it’s Ms.,” she corrected. She was holding the book Sangster had brought her and she gestured with it. “I remembered you from the Coleridge panel at the Brussels conference, but I was shocked you’d remember—”

“That you were looking for a second edition Blake?” Sangster finished her sentence. “Ah, I ran across it. Will you join us?”

Ms. Daughtry took Sangster’s offered hand as they stepped over the pier onto the platform. “Why not?” she said. “Put yourself in my position. I’ve got four male visitors and one of my prize students.”

“Well, she is a kung fu masstah,” said Paul. Minhi punched him lightly on the arm.

Sangster turned to Alex, Sid, and Paul. “Ms. Daughtry is the assistant headmistress here at LaLaurie, but she’s also a Victorian scholar. I read a paper of hers that made me change how I taught half my class.” He leaned back on the railing and added, “Go ahead, admit it, the party was killing you.”

Ms. Daughtry laughed. “So have you been to LaLaurie before?”

Sangster shook his head.

Sid was peppering Minhi with questions about her
art. “Do you have any weapons? You know, like silver sai?”

“That’s really a different kind of kung fu,” she said.

“Can you show us some more?” asked Paul.

Alex found himself feeling uneasy for no reason he could put his finger on. He watched Minhi begin demonstrating the bow stance, knees bent and center of gravity low as she drew back, when a shock of static and vibration shook his brain. The temperature dropped—
ten degrees? Twenty?
Minhi, still drawing her imaginary bow, turned with everyone else toward the water.

At first it appeared that a strange wave was whipping across the lake, water lifting and separating like the wake of a speedboat, except for two things—there was no boat, and the water froze.

Static exploding in his mind, Alex watched the expanse of ice stretch across the lake, all the way into the dark distance, shooting directly toward them.

Alex started gesturing at the school. “Come on,” he said firmly, looking at his friends.
Get off the pier. Get inside.

“What?” Minhi asked, bewildered. They were all looking at the ice.

“Trust me!”

Alex peered over his shoulder as they reached the
shore, and he could make out shapes on what now appeared to be a jagged frozen bridge. There were figures running through the fog that lay low across the water and the ice.

Alex looked back at Sangster. “It’s him.”

Sangster shouted, “Everyone, inside!”

As one, they began running. Alex was passing an enormous statue, some goddess in a chariot surrounded by birds, when the static mixed with a new sound that was both in his brain and out of it. The intruders—attackers—were chanting. He turned back for a second, pausing, unable to do anything but listen.

And suddenly they were there, hitting the shore. A figure gliding in off the water seemed to be gathering mist around him. As he approached, the air around the goddess statue froze, covering the marble chariot in ice. The tall man was coming fast. Farther up the lawn and on the porch of the school, the crowd was scrambling for cover, diving into the building. Only Alex and those who had been on the pier were still on the grass. Alex broke and ran for the entrance, catching up with Minhi and Ms. Daughtry, Paul and Sid. He looked back to see Icemaker punch right through the frozen statue, sending shards of marble everywhere.

Nearby, Sangster reached into his dinner jacket,
grabbing a handset and bringing it to his ear. “Farmhouse, this is Sangster at LaLaurie School—we are under attack by the Quarry.”

After a second a voice shot back, “Describe force.”

“It’s dark; I see at least twenty, plus the big one,” Sangster said, drawing his handgun and trying to find a target. Alex, the boys, Minhi, and Ms. Daughtry made it up onto the porch.

Alex yanked at the French doors. Paul and Sid banged on the glass panels. Through the glass Alex could see the students and teachers staring in disbelief.

“Let us in!” Minhi called. “Let us in!” No one inside would move.

Alex grabbed a wicker chair and brought it forward, beating upon the rear entrance. Useless. He looked around. He would need something better. He scanned the porch, finding a heavy ceramic flower pot, roughly the size of a person’s head. He grasped it by the wire hangers and swung it against the French doors.

The glass crunched and the crowd stepped back, still frozen in panic, whatever sense of guilt they possessed leaving them as unwilling to hinder him as they were to help.

Alex said, “Okay,” and reached through the broken glass to turn the deadbolt, not caring about being cut.
He got the door open. To his right something grabbed Paul. Alex lunged for him but the vampire was too fast, dragging Paul toward the shore by the ankles. Sid and Minhi were watching in horror; on the lawn, Sangster was already pursuing the vampire that had grabbed Paul. Then another vampire struck Sangster hard from the side, sending him sprawling.

Slow motion: Sangster grunting as he hit the ground. Alex shouting, “Get inside” to Sid and Minhi, leaping off the porch in pursuit of Paul. The vampire that had tackled Sangster was dashing forward, zipping from the lawn to the porch, grabbing Minhi by the ankle.