The Triumph of Death (11 page)

He could hear in the background holy water bursting in the fireplace as Sangster destroyed a handful of the creatures, and Armstrong was at the door, shooting at those that were swirling around there. Alex and Astrid concentrated on the streaks, Astrid swinging her staff as he guided her.

Finally they were still and there was a tiny cheep. Vienna gasped somewhere, and Alex saw a bird streaking, and he and Astrid swept toward it.
Burst.

In the inky smoke, Sangster clapped out the fire on the table, and Alex felt everyone start to relax. Armstrong threw open the door and smoke began to pour out.

“Come on!” she coughed.

He opened his eyes and stopped, suddenly collapsing into a coughing fit. Astrid dropped next to him and grabbed his hand. “Come on.”

They ran down the stairs as the sound of fire engines filled the air.

On the front stoop of the building, Vienna hugged Alex as Sangster spoke rapidly into a Bluetooth device. Astrid stood by herself, watching them.

“Clearly the Queen’s people are watching us,” Sangster
said as he got off the phone. “We need to get out of the street.”

Vienna watched in horror as firemen arrived and ran in and out of her building, and all the residents of the lower floors gathered and watched. “I need to go up there.”

Alex shook his head. “Don’t. Not yet. It’s not a fire anymore—it’s just a lot of smoke. We have to think of what you’re going to say.”

“Oh, who cares what I
say
?” Vienna said. “It’s what I
know
. My father will come back tonight, and he’ll see that it’s true.”

“What?”

“That no matter how much you people have helped me, I’m cursed.”

“You’re not cursed. Well, you might be cursed with the wrong friends.” Alex sighed, looking at Sangster and Astrid. “The Scholomance tried to kill us. Why didn’t they just come in themselves?”

“It was dusk,” Sangster said. “Most likely this was safer. Blood-magic-augmented birds. So we know the Scholomance is onto us, in Madrid looking for clues about the Triumph.”

“Just like the guy at the Prado was onto us.” Alex turned back to Vienna. “Listen, I think they wanted
us
,
and when we’re gone they won’t be interested in you.” He said this more because he desperately hoped it was true, not because he had any actual idea.

Alex paused, stood back, and looked around him, silently watching the firemen gathering and scratching their heads. The square near Vienna’s building was crowded, and the coffee and pastry vendors casually moved their stands closer to the building, scavenging for more customers.

What am I doing?
Alex found himself asking this again as he had done in the past. Was this his life now? Completely truant from school, off the grid as far as his parents were concerned, and doing life-or-death research in Spain? Getting his friends nearly killed—was there any friend he was going to have whom he wasn’t going to put in danger?

He shook his head, bringing himself back to the present.
No, no. Get in the game.
“The Scholomance knew we were at the Prado. They’re not stupid; they knew that we’d be looking into
The Triumph of Death
. But the rest—the altered colors on the lady’s dress in the painting, does the Scholomance know about that?”

“I’m still going with no. The custodian and the color alterers are on our side, in a funny way. There’s no reason to think the vampires would be clued into that.”

“Assuming you’re right,” Alex said, “there could be more.”

“More Scholomance vampires?” Sangster said. “You bet.”

“No, more Strangers,” Alex said. “This morning a man broke into the Prado just to point us in the right way to this painting. There is a conspiracy that the Polidorium has completely overlooked, that started at least as far back as Bruegel’s visit to this…castle of black towers. And that conspiracy knows what you people—what we—are doing.” He pointed at Sangster and Armstrong. “The Scholomance is following us, and there’s a conspiracy that knows what’s going on better than
we
do. But they
don’t get involved
.”

“Maybe they’re a rogue element
inside
the Polidorium,” Astrid said.

Sangster shook his head. “I can totally accept the theory of a rogue element that split off to place clues—but a rogue element that told Bruegel what to paint? That would predate the Polidorium by two hundred years.”

Alex peered down the mental chessboard. The game was all off-kilter now. There were three players. “The vampires put a virus in the Polidorium database to throw us off the trail. And someone else is trying to get us back on track. That supports the theory that they’re
friends, at least. Whoever this conspiracy of Strangers is, they’re on our side, not the Queen’s. But they are not talking, and they sure weren’t about to help us survive that attack.”

Armstrong gave it a shot. “Maybe it’s dangerous for them.”

“I don’t accept that,” Alex said. “The Triumph of Death is dangerous for everybody.”

“So they want to help but don’t want to force us to the conclusions.” Sangster shifted his weight.

Alex was looking at his watch. “The Dimmer Switch curse, the Triumph of Death, is a tool for sorcerers. And it’s being used by Claire Clairmont to fulfill a destiny. And we don’t know what’s going through her mind.” He shook his head in frustration. “I’m
sick
of being in the dark.”

“We’re all working on it, Alex,” Sangster said evenly.

“Well, you have your experts; I have a few of my own,” Alex said. He knew exactly who would be able to work through this stuff. He should have included them from the start. “I’m going back to school. There are some people I’d like to talk to.”

It was four o’clock in the morning by the time Alex stashed the Ninja motorcycle in the woods across from Glenarvon-LaLaurie. A bitter cold wind off Lake Geneva shot through him as he jogged out of the woods and across the street into the courtyard of the school, and as the front of the building came into view he saw a light on. In the second-floor drawing room that served as a small study, he could see silhouettes moving around. The hulking shadow of Paul turned to the window, and Alex waved quickly as he headed up the steps and inside.

“Oh, look, he’s not dead yet,” said Paul when Alex opened the door to the study hall.

Alex grimaced, letting his go package slide off his
arm and to the floor next to the door. He froze for a second, looking at Paul, Sid, and Minhi. They were all wearing jeans and sweatshirts, whatever they could throw on after he’d texted them in the middle of the night from the airplane. Paul was standing next to the window as if on guard while Sid fiddled with the old-fashioned fireplace, trying to get the wad of kindling started. Minhi was sitting at a heavy wooden cherry-red table with a stack of books opened and splayed out. She was picking up a large green thermos, but as he entered she put it down and rose, coming to hug him.

Sid stood up, brushing soot off his hands. “You are toast,” he said after shaking Alex’s hand. “I mean
toast
. Otranto is going to run you up a flagpole if you’re not back today.”

Alex raised his hands. “I’ve been gone a day and a half. Hang on, I’m just gonna shut the door.” Alex looked out into the hall, which was empty. The only people awake in the building were likely to be kitchen staff getting ready for the morning. He closed the door and then turned back to them. “Did he call my parents?”

“Of course not,” Paul said, leaning on the table. “Sid and I covered for you. We said you were sick in bed. But he’s suspicious; he said he’d better see you come down today.”

Minhi pointed at Paul and Sid as she scolded Alex. “You do realize that they’re lying for you without even knowing why. They could get in serious trouble.”

Alex nodded. Okay, that was true. “I totally did not ask anyone to do that,” he said, but he knew that was not the way to treat a friend.

Minhi shook her head. “Where have you
been
?” she demanded. “You completely disappeared; we might have thought you were
dead
.”

“Madrid,” Alex said.

“You were in Spain?” Sid sat down and threw his sneakered feet up on the table. “For a day?”

Paul snickered. “You get any paella?”

“Yeah, Vienna ordered some in.”

“You saw Vienna?” Minhi asked. Her mind seemed to trip through several options and suddenly she brought her hand to her throat and said, “Does she still have the…”

“Yeah, but she says it’s not holding her head on anymore.”

“You ask her to prove it or did you just take her word for it?” Paul asked.

“Totally learned my lesson on this.” Alex held up his hands.

“Wait, wait, back up,” Sid said, with a delirious sort of
smile on his face. “Why were you in Spain eating paella with Vienna?”

“Right,” Alex said, suddenly trying to decide where to start.

“Why don’t you start with, ‘I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve called you all here,’” said Minhi.

“Seriously?” Alex squinted.

Sid nodded. “Yeah, actually that would be very cool.”

Alex smiled. “Okay, let me start with this: I’m really sorry, guys. I shouldn’t have disappeared. There’s something terrible going on. We’re not really sure how to stop it. And I seem to be in a life now where the Polidorium snaps its fingers and I cross continents for them.”

“So, what is it, Alex?” Minhi asked, her tone softening slightly. She had leaned back on the table next to Paul.

“Actually it is what you said: the Triumph of Death. Apparently the painting is an illustration of what the world will be like after Queen Claire sets off a curse. She will plunge the world into darkness, and the vampires will be free to run wild.”

Paul exhaled. “So…how long do you have?”

“Till Monday, it looks like.”

“Are you mad?” Paul said. “The world goes dark in less than a week?”

“Should we call home?” Minhi asked. “My mother
could warn the government in Mumbai.”

“My dad might get home,” Sid said, his eyes darting. “He’s off consulting on something in Italy, I think. But he could get back to Canada. Everyone would need to get home.”

Paul seemed to be thinking and then he deferred to Alex. “But you don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Alex shrugged. “What would you say? ‘Hi, Mom, my friend the vampire-hunting spy wants you to know that there might be a global catastrophe next week?’ Without proof?”

“Right.” Paul nodded. “So that’s not the plan. But what is the plan?”

“We have to solve it.” Sid rose and went to a whiteboard, and the other two instantly seemed to snap into a different mode, going around to take seats and pop open laptops. From the whiteboard Sid said, “What do we know?”

Without hesitation, Alex began to pour out the facts and soon the whiteboard filled with key words,
CLAIRE
and
TRIUMPH OF DEATH
and
STRANGERS
and
HEXEN
.

All horrible, all awful, of course, but even so, a wave of relief washed over Alex because he was sharing it with them. They were his team. As sure as Armstrong
was Sangster’s partner, he needed Paul, Sid, and Minhi to feel less alone and to think.

“Hexen?” Minhi raised a hand. “I don’t recognize that.”

“Ah. Right,” Alex said. “That’s a whole other organization, made up of witches.”

“Wait. Astrid is one of them, isn’t she?” Minhi guessed this before any evidence had been laid before her. “That’s why she just turned up when Claire did. And so…that’s why she’s been missing, too.”

“Yes. Did you happen to cover for her?”

Minhi shook her head. “No—maybe if you’d
asked
. Maybe if you’d said, ‘Hey, Astrid and I are hopping over to Spain to see if Vienna can order us some paella.’”

“I totally did not know Astrid was involved,” Alex said. “But she was here to investigate Claire.”

“Claire,” Sid said. “
There’s
a nightmare.”

Alex turned his chair and rested his hands on the back, looking at Sid. “You told us some stuff about Claire when Icemaker was here,” he said. “Can you bring me up to speed?”

Sid leaned back and seemed to flip through pages in his mind. The boy was an encyclopedia of knowledge on vampires and everything related to them, and the group of vampires that circled around Lake Geneva
was a favorite topic. “Well, we all know that she was the queen that Byron, or Icemaker, was trying to raise when he came back. But at first, Claire Clairmont was just a young woman who followed Lord Byron here from England with Mary Shelley and John Polidori. And Byron was cruelest with her—they had a baby, Allegra, who Byron took with him even when he turned his back on Claire. And then he got sick of taking care of the baby and had her put in a convent.”

“Did Claire ever get to see either of them again?”

“No, and she was…enraged. But there was nothing she could do. And then she got word that Allegra had died without even hearing from her father. The girl died among strangers and was buried without Claire ever getting to see her again.”

“But we know that Icemaker went through an awful lot to bring Claire back to life to rule as his queen,” Alex said. “Why would that be? If he hated her so much.”

Minhi glanced at Alex. “Sometimes we’re obsessed with things we shouldn’t be. Maybe his hatred of her turned into a kind of obsessive love.”

“And he was a vampire,” Alex said. “His empathy centers are all damaged, and obsession is what you get instead of love. So: we’ve got Icemaker, obsessed with Claire and bringing her back—and he’s now safely
locked away. And we’ve got Claire, obsessed with Icemaker as far as we know, but also hating him. And now she’s trying to set off the Triumph of Death.”

“What did Claire’s warning say? What is lost will be found? And you said this spell would give her command over the dead. She’s lost Byron, but she also lost Allegra, her daughter,” said Sid.

Minhi said, “If she encases the world in darkness, maybe she can bring her daughter back.”

“Look, I feel as sorry for this lady as anybody. But sometimes we don’t get what we want.” Alex looked back at Minhi. “Sometimes we want something and the time for it just…passes. The thing we have to worry about now is how to stop it.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Minhi offered.

“I’m worried we’ll be too slow. We don’t have the tools. It’s like we’re being played. The custodian at the Prado knew something, but he’s part of the big conspiracy of not talking, the rogue element, the Strangers. Screw that. They’re playing with us, and we need to stop playing.”

Alex’s phone buzzed and he looked at it, then stepped to the window.

Down at the edge of the courtyard, Astrid was waiting on her Hexen motorcycle. Minhi and Paul
looked over Alex’s shoulder.

“You want to ask her in?” Paul said.

Alex shook his head. “I gotta go. There’s one more person who should know what the clues mean and can tell us how to stop the Triumph of Death,” Alex said. “We need to get the answers from him.”

“Alex,” Sid said, still at the table. “I know what you’re thinking and it’s crazy. ‘Too dangerous’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

“What?” Paul and Minhi asked at the same time.

Alex looked back at Sid. “He’s the only one who will know how to deal with her.”

Minhi asked, “Who?”

“Icemaker,” said Alex. “I need to talk to Lord Byron.”