Voice of the Undead (12 page)

Chapter 17

It was one in the morning in the Kingdom of Cots, and Alex awoke suddenly to the sound of crashing glass in the distance. His eyes shot open and he was awake. For a moment he was confused about where he was, forgetting about the shrouds that hung around each bed on the riggings that had been put up, hospital style, throughout the gym.

Alex blinked, reaching for his new glasses underneath the cot and putting them on, and sat up.

The room was full of the sounds of snoring and slow, steady breath. He reached out to the sheet and pulled it aside to see Sid in the next bed, fast asleep.

Then he heard another sound, outside, beyond the back door of the gym. The scrape of metal, like an old window closing.

He slipped on his shoes and grabbed his jacket off the rack, putting it on over his pajamas.

Alex tiptoed into the corridor of white sheets that ran the length of the gym, looking up and down the line. No static in his head. But now he heard a door closing somewhere. He reached back into his sheeted cubicle and grabbed his go package just in case.

He began to step quickly to the back of the gym until he reached the metal door at the rear. He opened it and peered out into the night.

Across the lawn, under the moonlight, there were no lights on in the main house of LaLaurie. Off to the right was a gate, and beyond it the woods. He let the door shut behind him and pulled the jacket closer, wishing he had put on jeans over his flannel pajama bottoms.

In the darkness a shimmer of cloth gleamed, satin, legs moving steadily and slowly, next to the gate. Not just one. As his eyes adjusted, Alex became aware that he could see three different pairs of legs crossing the small drive beyond the gate, going into the woods.

A window scraped open at the house. Alex stuck to the wall and saw a girl in pajamas, climbing through an open window, rolling and dropping silently. He recognized her—she was tall with chestnut hair and Asian features. He'd seen her at the library. She began to walk, steadily and without a glance in any direction. Alex realized with shock that she was barefoot. He could see his own breath; she must be freezing.

Not far from her window he saw several more standing open. One of them was broken, and there was a robe caught on it.
What the hell?

He heard footsteps from around the gym, off to his right, and shrank back into the shadows. More girls, two of them, one about sixteen, the other about eighteen, both brunettes. Both barefoot, too. They walked steadily toward the gate, silently, moving through it. They came within fifty yards of him along the way and never cast him a glance.

For a moment Alex thought of running back to grab Paul and Sid, but the Asian girl and the two brunettes were still going, and he was about to lose them.

Alex ran across the lawn, looking back to see if there were any more coming. Not a soul.
Hurry.
He headed across the drive and into the woods, and was lost for a moment, perceiving no actual path. He was about to get on the ground to see if he could find footprints in the dark when he caught sight of another pair of legs in the distance, satin pajamas glimmering in the moonlight through the trees.

He made a beeline for the pajamas. He started to see more pajama'd legs, a procession up ahead. Alex headed off to the right, moving faster, until he was parallel to them. He stepped on a rotten branch. It snapped loudly, but not one of them noticed.

Now Alex saw them more clearly. There had to be a dozen or so young women, all walking neatly side by side. They seemed unconscious—he caught sight of the two brunettes he had seen earlier and they looked neither at each other nor at the girls ahead. Their eyes shimmered, unseeing, as they passed like ghosts between the trees.

Then he gasped when he saw Minhi. She was halfway up the line, and walking barefoot, wearing racing green pajamas. Her sleeve was torn where she must have had trouble getting out her window. He could see a rough scrape, visible on her exposed shoulder.

“Minhi!” he whispered. He dared to get closer to them, walking quickly, keeping trees between them. “Minhi!”

She didn't respond. He stopped for a second, hugging a tree and looking back at the procession. He stepped out, now right next to the girls as he let Minhi move on ahead. He walked for a moment alongside a pair of girls he vaguely recognized from his literature class. He waved his hand. No one glanced at him. Alex turned and stumbled up next to Minhi again. “What are you doing?” he asked.

Minhi was walking, her arms swinging slowly, a perfect automaton stride. She didn't look his way. He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Hey!”

Nothing.
All right, that's enough.
Alex stepped in front of her this time, grabbing her left shoulder.

Minhi struck his forearm with her right. Then Alex felt the flat of her left hand smack hard against his jaw and the side of his head. No sooner had he lost his grip on her when Minhi's right arm swung back, smacking him again and sending him reeling against a tree. This little demonstration of
Hung Gar
kung fu completed, she continued on her way. He stuck to the tree and stared. Minhi hadn't looked at him once.

Alex considered retrieving something from the backpack, maybe a flash-bang, of which he had two. They did no real damage but were loud and flashy, and he could set off one and maybe break them out of their trance. But if that worked, he might not learn just what this was about.

Alex changed tactics. He started walking alongside the procession again, passing it quickly on the right. He moved steadily until he drew near the front.

They continued into the woods, barefoot, feet squishy in the soft earth, gaining scratches as they occasionally stepped on twigs. Approximately fifteen minutes, about a mile.

Then Alex saw light—several lights, in fact, torches glowing yellow through the trees. He hunkered behind a tree, staring, as the procession passed him again. They were pouring into a clearing in the woods.

Alex crept forward slowly now because they were fanning out and he couldn't see past them. He heard someone clear her throat, and he realized that all along the way he had not heard that sound. The sleeping didn't do that.

Alex reached the clearing and circled around it, trying to find the edge of the group. He heard someone yell. It was a stifled scream, like someone shouting through a gag. He started moving faster until he finally reached the edge and saw what the procession was gathered around.

There was a chair in the grass, with a man of about fifty sitting in it—no, not just sitting: tied, bound, and gagged. The man was trying to get away, but the chair was reinforced at the back and it barely rocked as he fought against the binds. He was wearing slacks and a light jacket. His eyes swiveled in terror.

Next to him was a table, and Alex saw the glint of steel—no less than ten knives laid out in a row.

Behind the chair was another table, with what looked like a pair of speakers and a small device, something that might have been an iPod. There was a figure with her back turned to them, but the hiss of static in his head and the white robes she wore identified her instantly.

Elle turned around and looked at the crowd.

“I'm going to play something for you,” said Elle. “And then we're going to have a demonstration.”

Chapter 18

Elle hadn't seen him. Alex thought that she would normally be able to smell him, probably from memory, but he judged that the number of mortal humans around must have been overwhelming. All that hot blood, and he was just one of many.

The man in the chair was struggling, trying to break free. Elle said, “Shh.”

Alex needed to get in there and set the guy free. Right away. But what was his opening? Elle stepped back to the device that looked like an iPod and pressed its button. At once Alex heard a voice filling the clearing, liquid and golden.

“Good evening,” the voice said. “I am very pleased to see you all. You are going to do something that will set you free from all the forces that hold you down. Something you want to do—something I reveal that comes from within you.”

Alex knew that voice. It was the sound of Ultravox.

But the voice was not aimed at him this time—it held no purchase on his mind as it had on the train. The voice was working on the rest of its audience, though. Alex was amazed that Ultravox could aim his message so directly; it seemed that he was specifically targeting human girls. He wondered if Ultravox could tune it by age as well, and where the hypnotic effect came in—it wasn't in the mere words, surely, because Alex was hearing the same words. He had a suspicion that Ultravox's power was more complex than that—a mixture of words and sound and possibly even some kind of psychic “hook.”

And why not? Icemaker had been able to float off the ground and turn the air to ice—was it so hard to imagine vampires could learn to do all kinds of things that normal men could not?

Alex listened as the droning went on, repeating the basic idea several times,
freedom through doing what I say
. He had to admire the gall in that kind of doublethink.

“My assistant is going to give you the tools. What you want to do now is take this knife,” said the voice. Alex felt his eyes grow wide as one of the girls stepped forward. Elle held out one of the silver daggers. At the edge of the knife table was a silver box, and now Elle opened that as well, revealing many, many more blades.

The girl—a senior, by the look of her, with shoulder-length strawberry hair—took the knife and stared blankly.

“The person you see before you is one of those who has kept you in thrall, one of the rule makers, the slaveholders, the barriers to your freedom.”

Oh, boy. Alex looked at the man and wondered if in fact this guy was anything at all like that, a cop or an administrator. Probably not, and it didn't matter in the slightest, because this sleepwalking teenager was about to stab him.

“That's enough,” Alex shouted, bursting through the trees. Elle hissed at him as he went for the knife first, smacking the redheaded girl's hand. She barely registered the knife flying from her hand, but then dropped to the grass and began to look for it again. Alex pushed her back, sending her falling.

The voice was still talking, now taking on a repeating refrain: “
Freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice.
”

“Sorry, Al, but you're not invited,” said Elle, and she grabbed him by the collar, dragging him back. Alex smashed against the table that held the iPod and it toppled over with the speakers, still playing. The voice went on as he grunted in pain, crunching his ribs against the table. He rolled forward, kicking at her.

“Freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice.”

Alex picked up the table and swung it at Elle and she bashed it aside. Then she moved lightning fast and had his collar. She reared back her head, showing her fangs and driving toward his neck. Alex grabbed her chin, pushing, feeling the iron power of her neck muscles. He brought up his knees and caught her in the midsection, and as she fell back he reached through the seam in his backpack and drew out his stake, feeling the wooden handle and threading of silver that ran along its length.

He became aware of movement around him—the girls gathering close. The silver box clattered and they were groping for the knives that fell out on the grass.

“Freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice.”

Alex lunged at Elle when suddenly someone had him by the wrist and yanked him back, throwing him to the ground.

Alex's head smacked against the leg of the chair where the “sacrifice” still was trying to break free, and he tipped the chair over, allowing the man more protection, he hoped.

Then he looked back as a pair of legs came down around his and he saw glistening steel raised up high and ready to sink home.

It was Minhi.

Alex thrust his hands forward, grabbing her arm and her shoulder. “Minhi, no—”

Minhi was staring at him but not hearing his words. She was lost in
Freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice
, and because she was so athletic, she was already a little stronger than Alex. In the near distance, over the silent footsteps of the girls and the knives, over the voice of Ultravox, he heard Elle laughing.

Alex used all his strength to roll with Minhi, trying to push her away without doing any damage, but she came back at him, zombielike, raising the dagger.

“Minhi, it's me,” Alex said, as Minhi slammed him back against the toppled table.

“
He's
the vessel,” said Elle. “He is the one.”

“Minhi—” Alex said, catching her wrist. She was bearing down with the knife. “Wake up!” he shouted at her. There were others gathered around, because Elle had told them he was the one now, and they were waiting their turns.

Minhi was very close, and she drove her knees into his ribs, bringing the knife down slowly. “Minhi, wake up. It's me.”

He remembered the snowstorm and the other night's helicopter rescue. “Take my hand,” he said, using his other hand to reach for her free one. “Minhi, take my hand,” he said again, and he felt the tip of the edge of the knife press down against his chest.

Suddenly he had a sense for why he had seen his sister's hand through the snow, or seen the chopper through the haze of Ultravox on the train. Because lies are fog, and truth could burn through it. Right?

He slipped his fingers through hers. “Minhi, take my hand!” he shouted, and then he saw it, a blink, and the pressing stopped. He saw her blink again. “Wake up, it's me,” he whispered.

All at once Minhi gasped. “Alex?”

“Yes, can you get off me, please?”

She sprang off him like a rabbit, falling back, scrambling backward. Alex took the knife as Minhi dropped it and turned to the man in the chair. Alex had just reached the ropes binding the man when Elle hit him like a freight train, and he tumbled sideways with her.

Wasn't the first time he'd fallen with a knife, and his father's words echoed,
Keep the knife away from you always. If you begin to fall, remember where it is, and keep it pointed sideways.
In the microsecond he was falling Alex realized the tip of the knife in his hand was pointing toward his own ribs, and he twisted his hand out, landing hard on the forest floor.

The knife caught Elle in the side and she shrieked, spinning back in pain.

He returned to the task of freeing the man. He cut the binding ropes, saying, “Run, the road is that way.” He waved in the general direction of the road. One of the girls was about to plunge a dagger into the man when Minhi, shrieking, grabbed her and pulled her away. The man scurried into the distance, gone, sure to have a tale to tell that no one would ever believe, ever. Alex tossed away the knife and grabbed his stake from the ground, looking around frantically for Elle. But she was gone.

Minhi kicked one of the girls away. She looked at him with tears in her eyes. “Alex, what's going on?”

The glazed-eyed girls were drawing closer. The voice of Ultravox still droned, “
Freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice.
”

“They're asleep, just don't hurt them,” Alex said.

“They're not going to play that nice,” Minhi responded as they backed up against the overturned tables.

Alex felt someone grab him by the shoulder and he spun, stabbing at his attacker—Elle—with his stake. He connected at the chest but she was able to shrink back. Alex reached into the pack and drew out a glass ball. He hurled it at her, catching her square in the forehead. The glass sphere of holy water burst and she screamed as it burned her forehead and dripped down her body. She fell back, crawling.

Elle wouldn't stay down long. She never did. But they had twenty sleepwalking assassins to deal with. Alex thought again of the flash-bang and yanked one from his pack, pulling the pin. “Minhi, cover your ears,” he said. Then he shouted, “Wake up!”

He threw the flash-bang into the air as hard as he could and covered his ears just before it went off, but his ears rang anyway with the concussive force of the sound. Brilliant light shot through the clearing as the explosive noise reverberated, and he waited a second as the echo died down.

He looked back hopefully.

The glassy-eyed horde continued approaching, some of them reaching down to grab extra knives from the silver box.

Well, that's disappointing.

On and on the voice of Ultravox played and they pressed in.

Alex looked back at the iPod in the grass and leapt for it. “That's enough,” he said, and he snatched it up, ripping its cord loose from the speakers. Abruptly the voice stopped.

And so did the horde.

“Wake up!” he cried. Minhi was next to him, panting. The girls stood still, as if suspended on invisible wires.

And then Alex realized they were receding, turning, the ones in the back first, followed by the ones closer to him. Suddenly he remembered Elle and he turned with his stake at the ready.

But Elle was gone. And in a moment, so was the pajama horde, shrinking back into the distance.

Alex stood in the clearing next to Minhi. Suddenly she was hugging him. “Oh my God, I'm so sorry. Oh my God, I'm so sorry.”

“It's okay,” he said, hugging her back awkwardly. “We have to go.”

They followed the horde as it moved in the same antlike procession as before, through the woods and back to LaLaurie. Minhi clutched at Alex; he put his arm around her, though he was watching the girls pad their way silently, sleeping, even as they passed through the doors. One or two of them carried keys, surely on some unholy order, and Alex watched them unconsciously unlock the doors and enter. On up to their rooms, where, one and all, they returned to sleep.