Voice of the Undead (6 page)

“We'll go into town,” Minhi said. “It'll be fun. We'll get some new stuff, maybe some books on how to write a story. Hey, I could use some actual instructions.” She smiled encouragingly. “Huh?”

Sid nodded and Paul folded his arms. “That sounds perfect.”

Minhi turned to Vienna, who was approaching as she moved away from Bill. “Vienna, you up for a trip to Secheron?”

“Anything to get out of here,” she said.

They got up and neared the front of the class, where Ms. Daughtry was erasing things on the chalkboard. A cloud of chalk dust rose and scattered, and Alex coughed. He felt a speck or two get into his eye. He squinted and rubbed at his eyelid.

“What is it?” Minhi asked.

“
Ow
—I got—” Alex doubled over, leaning on the desk. He could feel the specks swimming over his eyeball. His eye sang out with pain and he felt the plastic lens begin to wrinkle. “I got chalk in my contact.”

“Does it hurt?” Paul asked. Alex held up a hand, both in agony and almost wanting to laugh.

“Jeez—” He reached his fingers toward his eye. He needed the contact out right away.

“Do you have any solution?” Vienna asked, already rooting through her bag.

“Do you?” Minhi asked her.

“Not here.”

“I don't have any,” Alex said. “I need to get some. Don't worry, gimme a second, I can use spit.”

“Ew,” Minhi said.

Alex winced as he started to pry open his eye, and then felt it shut in defiance. “Please, don't make me laugh.”

“Good Lord,” Vienna said, “come with me.”

Still slightly hunched, Alex felt her take his sleeve and guide him out of the room. They walked down the hall and he heard the footsteps of the others behind him. It never ceased to amaze him how delicate the eye was, and how easily he could be rendered nearly powerless with a few specks of dust. It was the equivalent of bending someone's pinkie back—just a little bit of pressure and the subject is subdued. “Hang on, I can just take it out and hold it in my mouth.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” she said. “I have solution in my room.”

They reached a doorway on the floor level and Vienna stopped for a second, seeming to stare at the door as though she needed a key.

“He can't go up there,” Minhi said behind them.

“Eh.”
Vienna scoffed. “You three wait here.”

Up a short flight of stairs onto a second level, and suddenly Alex was in a different world, a hallway of wooden floors and throw rugs and warmly painted walls.

A girl in a robe was coming out of a bathroom and whispered, “Are you insane?” to Vienna, who rushed him to a door halfway down the hall.

Still blinking, Alex was barely able to take in the room. He made out two beds opposite each other. The two halves of the room were very different—one was done up in bright colors, and Alex made out blurred stacks of manga next to the bed. That must be Minhi's.

Vienna's half of the room reminded him in a blink of a madhouse for some reason, but he only had a moment to look before she led him to a vanity mirror and sink.

He washed his hands and pried his right eye open, pinching his thumb and forefinger against his eyeball. “Okay,” he said. Next to him, Vienna was rooting through various bottles around the sink. “Argh!” Alex hissed as the contact swam away from his fingers and slipped clean under his eyelid.

He tried to pry his eye open once more. Through the pain he became aware that she was clearing her throat, leaning patiently against the sink. He pressed his face very close to the mirror, trying to see the thin edge of the contact against the red eyeball. “Here,” Vienna said. She took him by the shoulders and turned him toward her. “Open your eye. Hold it open.” He relented and did what she said.

“Turn your eye around,” she said, and he was struck again by the cadence and throaty quality of her accent,
Torn jor aiyy arond.
“You know, all around. Now look down.”

Her delicate thumb and forefinger, their colored nails somehow avoiding the tender flesh of his eyeball, came close and in one swift movement plucked the contact from his eye.

She smiled, holding out the contact, and placed it in the palm of his hand. Then she handed him the lens solution.

“Thank you,” he said, holding the contact. His eye was red and he brought the contact up, his face very close to the mirror. He couldn't bear to put it back in. Not right away, anyway. “Gimme a second.”

Vienna clicked her tongue. “How long have you been wearing contacts?”

“A couple of months,” he said. “You?”

“About the same, but you seem to have a more complicated relationship with them.”

Alex had to laugh, careful not to drop the contact, which was swimming in a small puddle of solution in the palm of his hand.

“They may not be correctly fitted,” said Vienna.

“That or I'm just pathetic,” he said ruefully. He looked at her, drawn once more to the scarf around her neck. The décor that had said “madhouse” to him caught his good eye in the mirror and he turned around, looking at the walls on her side.

What had looked at first like a padded wall was in fact a wall of white sheets of paper with pencil sketches on them. He couldn't make them out very well from across the room. “What is all that?”

“Those?” Vienna said, the way someone might say,
this old thing?
“Oh, they change out all the time. It's whatever I'm working on.”

“For class?” Alex asked. Now he took the contact in his fingers and leaned in close to the mirror. He placed the contact back in his eye. He braced for a little bit of pain, since the eye was still sore, but swirled his eye around and the contact stuck.

“Not all of them,” she was saying.

After a moment Alex turned back and stepped closer to the wall over her bed. Indeed, they were pencil sketches, some of them clearly figure drawings for some art class or another, a few still lifes. But an entire two columns of sheets were broken up into squares, panels, and he caught images of characters with big eyes and spiky hair. “This is manga,” he said.

“They're Minhi's,” Vienna said when he looked at her.

“She drew these?”

“No, she does the stories, the plots. I'm working on the art.”

“You're doing a manga together?” He smiled, studying the characters. Now he could see the similarity—the pencil strokes in the subway stations and form of the hands of the characters did indeed look to be from the same creator as the more classical images. “That's really seriously cool.”

He blinked again and she came close, peering at his eye. “It's very red. Do you need to just take it out for the day?”

“I lost my glasses,” Alex said. “And I really like to see.” She was very close.

Someone cleared her throat and Alex looked at Minhi, who had come into the room. Minhi waved. “Get it all worked out?”

Alex nodded vigorously. “Oh, yeah, I'll live.”

“Then you need to get out of here before we all get kicked out,” Minhi said. “Come on, the coast is clear.”

As they headed down the hall, Minhi and Vienna whispered inaudibly behind him. Alex couldn't make out any of it. As they emerged into the main hall, Paul accosted him.

“How was the forbidden zone?” Paul asked.

“Surprisingly manga-esque,” Alex answered.

As Alex walked ahead he heard Paul say to Sid, “See, mate? I told you he wears them for the girls.”

Chapter 6

La Librairie Fahey lay on a side street of the village square in Secheron, and though it was not vast like the book superstores Alex knew in the States, it seemed bigger on the inside than from the outside. Alex and Sid meandered through its three narrow stories looking for reference material, up and down wooden stairs that were themselves lined with shelves. On the second floor the staircase opened out into a small café, where a number of visitors sipped espresso and pored over their books. As they moved up to the third floor, Alex paused, tilting a head for Sid's benefit. “
Birks,
” he whispered.

“What?”

“Birks. It's what my sisters and I call all the random guys in Birkenstock sandals.”

Sid looked, and Alex silently indicated a blond guy with dreadlocks and the eponymous sandals. “You don't like Birkenstocks? They're, like, totally comfortable.”

Alex nodded as they climbed. “They are that. What's the blond guy reading?”

Sid peered down.

“It's, uh—”

“Don't tell me.
L'Étranger
.”

“No . . .”

“
À la Recherche du Temps Perdu
.”

“Wow!” Sid marveled. “How do you do that?”

“Birkwatching, man,” Alex said, shaking his head. “Travel around enough, you gotta do something with your time.” He saw a paper sign tacked near the staircase that said,
LIVRES EN ANGLAIS / ENGLISH BOOKS
, and tapped it.

The third floor was better lit than the second, with some love seats and wooden chairs and a cushioned bay window that looked out on the street below. Past the bestsellers and necessary English translations of Camus and Proust they found collections of short stories.

“What are we looking for, exactly?” Sid asked.

“I have no idea. I probably would have done better with
your
library,” Alex said.

“My library is gone with the wind.” Sid shook his head in sadness.

“Oh God, I'm sorry,” said Alex. “I can't believe I keep forgetting that.” Sid had had two shelves of books, many of them nonfiction, but he had reams of vampire novels and stories. He was a connoisseur of all things vampire and was in the process of creating stacks of character sheets for a game that as far as Alex knew no one else at Glenarvon played—Scarlet World, a role-playing game about vampires. Sid liked to dig deep into primary texts, old stories. “I never rip off a movie unless I can find a book to back it up,” he had explained, and Alex wasn't sure what that meant but it seemed to mean something to Sid. Everyone had a hobby.

Sid scanned the floor-to-ceiling shelf in front of him. “These are stories, but—if we have to write something, I mean—we need something about, you know,
how
to write, don't we?”

They began to move around the shelf when they heard someone say, “That's
brilliant
,” in a pronounced British accent. As Alex and Sid stepped into the Language Arts section, they saw Paul, who was rummaging through books with Minhi and joshingly fighting over one.

“I spotted this!” Minhi said.

“But it's called
Master Plots
,” said Paul. “As in, all the plots. In one book.”

“What did you find?” Alex asked. Behind Minhi, he saw Vienna, wearing her jaunty green scarf.

Minhi turned around, letting Paul have the book with a shake of her head. “Hey, guys!”

“We're looking for something to help us write a story,” said Paul. “And we just found one called
Master Plots
.”

“Can I see that?” Sid asked, taking it. He thumbed through, showing it to Alex. Inside were countless outlines: “The Romance,” “The Action Story,” “The Mystery.” Sid shrugged indecisively.

“There's another one here,” said Vienna, taking another copy off the shelf.

“I don't know,” said Sid.

“What is it you were hoping to find?” Vienna asked him. Her eyes ran past Alex, and Alex felt himself trying to make eye contact, feeling mildly crushed that she failed to connect.

“Sid's something of a purist,” said Alex. “He reads old books, old stories. Am I right?” He looked at his Canadian friend.

“Something like that. I guess I'm looking for something less—mercenary.” Sid shrugged again.

Vienna scanned the books. Her scarf danced a little as she eyed something on the top shelf. She reached up to take the book, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. She pulled down a tattered, leather-bound book, inspecting it for a moment, and then turned around. “What do you think of this?”

Sid took it, reading the cover. “Do you know this book?”

“I just thought it looked old,” she said, smiling.

Sid read the title aloud. “
The Skein: A Study of Narrative Form
, by David Cracknell.” The book seemed to wheeze and crack as he opened it and he began gingerly flipping pages.

Sid looked up. “It's a theory book.”

“
Está bien
,” said Vienna. “We tried.”

“No, no,” Sid said, smiling. He seemed relieved. “No, this is the one for me.”

“Way to go,” said Alex to Vienna, and she curtsied slightly, jokingly. Paul and Minhi were reading through their own
Master Plots
books, and Alex began to search the shelves, looking for something that might call to him the same way. But his heart wasn't in it. In truth he had no intention of giving the story competition more than a cursory effort. There was too much going on in the off-hours. There was Ultravox, after all.

He turned, opening his mouth to ask Vienna if she would be entering the contest, and discovered she was no longer standing there.

Alex looked across the room and saw Vienna in front of the bay window, looking out into the street. Alex grabbed another copy of
Master Plots
off the shelf and walked over.

“So what about you?” he asked.

She didn't respond, and Alex followed her eyes through the window, moving closer to look down to the cobblestone streets below.

Someone was standing across the street, stock-still and staring up at the window.

Her again.
Elle wore black pants and boots and a pair of dark glasses, and had a white leather coat pulled close and tied with a belt.

Alex darted his eyes to Vienna, who had not diverted her gaze. “Do you know that girl?” he said softly.

Vienna spoke low after a second and he saw her scarf dance. “No.”

Elle pursed her lips in a smile. She had spotted him.

“Tell the others I had to run,” Alex said. He launched himself down the stairs, past the café, and onto the first floor. He slammed past shoppers in line at the checkout counter and hurtled outside, aware of the sound of the bells jingling on the door.

All up and down the street, people moved slowly, hands thrust in their pockets against the October chill. Elle was no longer there.

Alex looked down the block and saw the white coat disappearing around a corner. He ran for it.

Elle could be insanely fast. If Alex had seen her disappearing around a corner, there was a good chance it was because she was toying with him. So be it.

Alex turned onto an avenue called Matthias, which was lined with dark wood, bars, and restaurants. People were gathering, meeting one another for early dinner. As the street sloped down he saw it terminate at the docks of the marina, the gray water of the lake yawning in the distance.

There she was, running faster now, headed for the docks.

By the time Alex reached the docks, he had lost her. He nodded at a yacht's captain as he stepped out onto one of the narrow jetties, moving past a myriad of small craft, the sound of wind and the clanking of boats and lines filling the air.

What was she doing here? Alex ran through all that he knew about her from when he had faced her before, in the hidden school called the Scholomance. Was she watching for him? She had been staring at Vienna, though. Or she had been staring up and Vienna had spotted her.
Spotted
was an obvious and inexact word in this case—Elle had been standing out like a sore and bone white thumb; she had wanted to be seen.

Alex stepped along the boards, feeling the chill against his sport coat. He reached the end of the pier and turned left, looking around him, moving along a walk that led to other piers of the marina. A stone picnic table sat up ahead, a long, thick umbrella still piercing down through the center of it. The blue cloth of the umbrella fluttered, and he reached out to move it aside.

As he touched the umbrella, a white hand reached around and grabbed his wrist.

Alex saw his own reflection in Elle's Italian sunglasses as she dragged him off his feet, swinging him off the pier for a moment and around. She let go and he hit the boards, rolling and sliding, catching the brunt with his shoulders.

He got to his feet and into the warrior stance Sangster had taught him, half turned, weight evenly distributed, toes curled to provide extra balance, one foot forward.

“Why are you following me?” he demanded.

She stopped, putting her hands in her coat pockets, spiky blond hair lifting in the wind. As she smiled, her fangs showed. Elle's teenage look notwithstanding, there was no telling her age. She was out in the late daylight, so she could handle some sun. That meant she could be hundreds of years old, he had learned. The Polidorium hadn't told him that—Sid had, because when it came to knowing about vampires, the redheaded Canadian had some game.

“At this point it looks like you're following me,” Elle said, shrugging.

Alex looked around. He wasn't carrying any weapons. That didn't necessarily mean he couldn't handle her—without weapons he had defeated vampires before—but the odds were against him. And he had too many questions. If she wanted to talk, he was more than interested. He relaxed his stance a little, holding up his hands. “Why did you try to poison me?”

“Poison? Are you talking about the worms?” she responded. “Well, naturally because the Scholomance wants you
dead
.”

“You say it like you're not a part of them.”

She seemed to blur for a second and suddenly she was behind him, her arm wrapped around him, her dead hand up under his chin. Not squeezing. Just making a point. “Oh, I'm a part of them, boy. But let me tell you how this goes. They want you dead because they consider you a
threat
the way
nits
turn into
lice.
They don't want you to suffer; they want you out of the way.”

Alex grabbed her wrist and twisted, moving away, and she let him. Then she grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him against a metal pole.

“But that's just being shortsighted, Alex,” said Elle. “I actually would
prefer
that you suffer. At least a little.”

“Why? Because of my freaking
nam
e?” Alex brought up his knees and smashed at her leather-bound torso with his shoes, sending her backward. He scuttled in the opposite direction, moving farther away and into a fighter stance again. This was insane. She could rip out his throat any time she wanted, and she wasn't even trying.

He edged back against the umbrella and the table, ready to either fight or turn and head for the mainland.

“You don't know who you're screwing with,” she said through bared teeth. “And I'm not letting you destroy what's left of my life. Tell me—what do
you
care about?”

Alex was struck by the strangeness of what she was saying. This sounded personal, and that made no sense at all. “Care is a big word coming from you,” Alex said. “You said yourself that you guys don't give a damn about anyone, isn't that right? No empathy, no love?”

There was a rapid plodding of footsteps up the marina, and Alex heard someone calling his name. Alex glanced past the poles to the main pier and saw his friends. Minhi, Paul, Sid, and Vienna were coming down the dock, splitting up. He saw Paul and Minhi go off on one trail, Sid another. Vienna was coming his way. In a moment she would reach the end of the pier and she'd be able to see him.

Vienna reached the end and turned left, and suddenly she was staring at Alex and Elle. She backed up instinctively, stopping at the edge of the water.

“What about this one?” Elle said, looking beyond him with a knowing smirk, her eyes invisible behind the glasses.

Suddenly she lunged, breaking into a jaguarlike run; he actually caught a blur of her nails reaching all the way down to the boards of the dock as she moved, and as she drove past him it felt like he had been sideswiped by a train.

“No!” Alex shouted, turning. Vienna was frozen at the end of the dock. Alex was running after Elle, trying to catch up, but the vampire was too fast.

Vienna hadn't had time to move a step when Elle sliced by her, a small cloud of material puffing into the air as she ripped half of the girl's sleeve away.

And then with a barely audible splash the vampire in the white leather coat was gone. Alex was running to the edge of the dock. He saw Vienna twisting, about to fall backward, and he caught her.

Holding Vienna by the waist, he looked past her, searching the water.

Elle was nowhere to be seen.

Alex became aware of Vienna suddenly—she was shaking. He moved her a few steps from the edge and held up his hands. “It's okay,” he said
.
He looked back at the water and started searching the surrounding area. He was thinking he might catch her climbing up somewhere else.

This doesn't happen.
That was what his father used to say about anything paranormal, any movie about monsters or vampires or zombies.
Doesn't happen.
For a moment, Alex wished he could go back to the days when he clung to that mantra.