The Triumph of Death

by Jason Henderson

  The door swung open an inch or two and they were still zooming toward it. “It’s protected against magic.”

  “I’m not stopping, do you hear me, sir? I’m not stopping.”

  The British voice sounded curious. “Oh? Where are you going?”

  “Scotland. Are you going to stop me because you don’t want me stealing a computer?”

  “Just turn around and we’ll talk about it.”

  “Talk about it? I am doing your job, sir!” Alex called. “Are you people insane? You’re falling back to babysitting a vampire apocalypse? No.”

  Alex looked back at the line of motorcycles and a truck behind him. An agent was hanging out of the side of the truck with a machine gun.

  “I am going to hit this door at sixty miles an hour,” said Alex. “And I’m gonna be jelly, but you know what? You’ll have a door to fix, and your defenses will be damaged, and you’ll have vampires coming in your front door under permanent nightfall.”

  The door was looming. Alex sped up.

  “You won’t get far, Alex,” came the response, and the door swung open, heavy and fast, and he burst through the exit into the night and the woods.

  The motorcycles followed him as he shot through the trees, keeping their distance, watching. “They have no idea what we’re doing,” Alex said.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Astrid shouted.

  Alex veered around a tree and zipped onto the road to Secheron village. After a moment he heard a new sound, a helicopter zooming in overhead. A searchlight opened up and surrounded them, so they cast a long shadow on the road.

  “You want me to take out the helicopter, maybe damage it a little?”

  Alex waved his arm. “No! For Pete’s sake, there’s no such thing as damaging a helicopter a little. And besides, that’s not the Polidorium.” He looked back and saw that his Polidorium escorts were still behind him, though. Alex waved at the helicopter, signaling Up ahead and left.

  Alex headed another quarter mile up the road, and then veered off near a clearing, a soccer field. With a loud, chutting sound of rotor blades, the helicopter chased past them and then swiveled in the field, dropping down and hanging a few inches off the deck.

  “Okay.” Alex ground the bike to a halt and hopped off, tossing his helmet. “Come on.”

  “Whose helicopter is that?” They were running across the field now.

  As they drew closer, Alex saw a huge red cross on the side of the chopper and the blazing words BRINGING HEALTH AND KNOWLEDGE TO THE WORLD.

  The pilot, whom Alex didn’t know, waved at him and Astrid as they scrambled into the side door of the chopper.

  Alex and Astrid sprawled on the inside of the chopper and were still getting into their seats as they lifted off the soccer field and into the air, a stream of motorcycles and vehicles following. Alex waved at them as they went.

  As the chopper pitched and they put on their seat belts, the waters of Lake Geneva sparkled and zipped by below them.

  Alex pulled a headset off the wall and spoke to the pilot. “Thanks very much.”

  “No problem,” came the voice of the pilot. “So you have humanitarian work to do in the middle of the night?”

  “We have an early morning.” Astrid was clearly full of questions, and Alex held up a finger to stall her for a moment. He asked the pilot, “How long till we get there?”

  “Three hours. That’s why the dispatcher ordered a long-distance unit. Were those guys chasing you?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Alex answered. “Thanks again.” He put the headset away and turned to Astrid. “I called the States and had my sister Ronnie fake a work order. If anyone asks, we’re doing a humanitarian visit on the Brough of Birsay. That’s what we do.”

  “Who?”

  Alex tapped a plaque on the wall above the window of the chopper as they crossed over the other side of the lake, and the trees and land of France came into view. In a little while, they would be over the ocean.

  The plaque read:

  THE VAN HELSING FOUNDATION.

  CHAPTER 22

  It was a cold, gray dawn, and the helicopter bearing Astrid and Alex came to the Brough of Birsay, a desolate green island barely an eighth of a mile long.

  As they neared, Alex’s eyes flickered open and he took in the island, where the Atlantic churned against rocky beaches and ancient ruins, and one structure was visible from miles away. “That’s the lighthouse,” the pilot yelled back to them. “Do you want me to put you there?”

  The lighthouse, not as tall as the lighthouses on the eastern seaboard of the United States but very similar in its white wood and squat adjacent building, sat on the north shore, across the island from where they would be coming over land.

  Alex blinked several times, coming awake from having allowed himself a couple of hours of sleep. “Hey.” He tapped Astrid’s shoulder. “We’re here.”

  The young witch opened her eyes and stretched, looking out at the island.

  Alex was watching the water around the island and then shouted to the pilot, “Wait, wait, hang back. Uh, keep your distance while we…decide.”

  “What is it?” Astrid asked.

  He had to raise his voice some for her to hear him. “This is Birsay. The Vikings called it Byrgisay, the fortress island. They built strongholds here, but as you can see most of those are ruins.” He swept his arm out across the island.

  “You’ve been reading,” she said, just as loudly.

  “Just a little after you fell asleep.” Alex was scanning the island, then realized he was looking for a hut or house like Mary Shelley described in the book, but of course that was absurd. He saw ruins scattered across the island, old stone foundations of Norse houses and churches. He had no idea where they would begin to look, but they could probably cover the whole island in an hour or less.

  There was another angle he was considering as the chopper pitched eastward into the sun, staying away from the island and running parallel to the scrubby beaches.

  “Where is Claire going to be?” he asked aloud. “If the Queen is going to set off her big Triumph, where is she going to do it?”

  Astrid looked out. “If I had to pick, I’d go with the oldest ruins.”

  Alex pointed to one end of the island. He saw a jumble of ruins, including a broch, a fortification of stones built by the Picts, ancient peoples who held the island until the Vikings drove them off. There were Christian and Viking ruins as well. “That all looks old.”

  Astrid shivered, and Alex watched her eyes take in the whole island as she looked out the window next to him. “Yeah, there’s magic there, but there’s magic all over here; if feels like…Rome.”

  “Ley lines?”

  She nodded. “Magic real estate.”

  “Yeah,” said Alex. He was eager to get a look at the ruins. But they also needed to set up their own HQ. He was about to tell the pilot to set them at the lighthouse when he looked down to the water, the gray foam churning with the heavy wind, and the chopper pitched and steadied. The long, dark shadow of a coral reef curved along below the surface. A rumble of static passed through Alex’s mind and he leaned forward instinctively.

  “Follow the reef,” he told the pilot, and the chopper continued the curve around the island.

  Alex felt it still, and he looked at Astrid. “They’re here already. Hiding among the coral.”

  An abrupt growl in his mind shocked him back an inch.

  This was cold water, and cold-water islands don’t have coral.

  Water was burbling next to the dark shadow, the not-coral.

  “Turn back. Turn back now!” Alex called, and the pilot threw him a look.

  “What?”

  “Turn back! Head to Mainland! Now!”

  But there was a growling in his mind and something bursting from the water, and then the helicopter pitched violently as a chunk of ice the size of a football slammed into the side of the chopper. Alex looked out.

  An icy shape
like a gun emplacement had risen from the waves and turned toward them, the ice folding in on itself and forming something like a cannon. Alex saw it spasm once, and then another white ball was flying toward them.

  The chopper spun for a moment and the pilot fought with it. “Someone’s shooting at us. What the hell is that?” the pilot screamed.

  “Move out farther, a quarter mile; we have to bail out.” Alex was up and ripping through panels in the back, searching for gear. He set a flare gun aside and found a life raft. He prayed whoever was shooting from the water would have limited vision if they got farther away. “You can go, but we have to bail. Does this raft have CO2?”

  “You’re crazy!” the pilot called, and then cursed as the ice slammed into them again. “We’re going back to Mainland.”

  Alex glanced at Astrid as he threw the door open, looking down at the water. They were fifty feet off the ground.

  “Take us lower, take us lower,” he said, and the pilot turned, zipping across the water as the ice gun discharged again, in the distance, too far to connect. “If we’re lucky they’ll think we went away. No way they know it’s us; this is just them holding everyone at bay while they get ready.”

  “What are we doing?” Astrid asked, joining him at the open door.

  “We can make that.” Alex judged the distance, which had dropped to thirty feet.

  He held the rubber raft out the door and shook it, letting it roll out and float limply behind the chopper. “On my mark, we’re going to jump. Pilot, then you’re clear. Tell no one. No one!”

  Astrid looked back toward the island. “Won’t they see us?”

  “If so, we’ll have a lot less rowing to do,” Alex said. “I’m going.”

  Alex breathed, then pulled the cord. He couldn’t hear the minor explosion as the raft filled with air, and he put his hands on the top ropes as Astrid did the same. The raft was about six feet wide and perfectly round. “Keep your hands on the ropes and land on the raft. It might turn over, it probably will turn over, so when it does, just swim out from under it, and we’ll turn it back over together. Don’t let go of the ropes.”

  She was looking down. “Uh…”

  “Listen,” Alex said, channeling Sangster. “We don’t live in a world where nothing goes wrong. We live in a world where we have a plan when it does. Okay? Now go.”

  Another lob of ice flew in the distance, and Alex and Astrid leapt with the raft.

  There was a half second of air until Alex felt the wind get smashed out of his lungs as the raft hit the waves, and he and Astrid both cried out involuntarily. They slammed against one another, and the waves caught the raft. Alex scrambled to stay on top of it, but they were caught in a wave and it tipped them over.

  Freezing water shot through Alex’s clothes as he found himself under the raft, sinking and holding on to the ropes. He held out his hand and felt Astrid, and kicked, moving back until he found the surface outside the side of the raft. After a moment she came up as well.

  The chopper was zipping off in the distance, and Alex hoped that there were no eyes looking out on the water to see them ditch. The gun emplacement hurled a few more ice chunks at the retreating chopper, and he judged that they had not seen him.

  As they hung there in the water, Alex’s teeth were chattering, and he said, “We have to turn it over. Then we paddle it to shore.”

  Astrid nodded rapidly, barely able to move her face. They each went to opposite ends of the raft and widened their arms. He felt the cold leaching his strength. “Pull this side, hard, on three,” he said, indicating his right. “One,” and he bounced in the air, “two,” and she did the same, “three.”

  They plunged hard on the edge, pulling the ropes and lifting with their other arms, and the raft strained against them. Alex felt his toes going numb as the raft swayed on its edge, and then finally fell back. “We get in at the same time, you on that side, me on this side,” Alex said. “Throw your leg up.”

  She copied his moves and they crawled up, icy water tugging at them.

  Finally they lay in the raft, exhausted, looking into the sunrise, freezing water pooling around their bodies.

  Exhaustion crept over Alex, his body shaking, his knees wanting to curl up. He pressed his forehead against Astrid’s for a second and they lay there, shaking.

  Needing to keep going, Alex forced his chattering teeth apart and spoke. “This thing has paddles. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 23

  The emergency hut on the Brough of Birsay was a government-maintained cabin attached to the lighthouse, and as Alex broke in, his body numb with cold, it seemed to him the most wonderful place he had ever seen. The hut was simple and unassuming, with cheap plastic furniture and linoleum tile, but it had a fireplace and kitchenette and even first aid supplies, rendering it perfect. It would make a good headquarters to begin their search for the remains of Allegra Byron. Somewhere on this island, John Polidori had secreted away a body. They had a day to find it.

  Wearing one of the dirty pairs of overalls he had liberated for himself and for Astrid from a supply closet, he surveyed their tools. They had laid out the material from Astrid’s bag and Alex’s go package on a countertop in the small building adjacent to the lighthouse. A fire crackled in the fireplace now, where some of their clothes hung drying, and he hoped that the vampires surrounding the island did not have sentries out to see the smoke of the fire.

  Astrid was chanting over a nearby table, rolling wax paper—also from the kitchenette—into small cartridges with each incantation. “How many can you make?” Alex asked.

  “I can do about ten push-backs,” she said. “That will stagger someone back, knock them off balance. If we were facing humans I could make about three heart-stoppers; those are costly. But our foes don’t have beating hearts. I have my staff, which is silver, wood, and enchanted metal. I can do about four fireballs.”

  “Those will help.” Alex stacked Polibow cartridges as he counted them. “I have four cartridges of sixteen bolts, eight glass balls.” Finally he set down the vial gun, which was open and empty, waiting for a vial of whatever agent he could place in it. Next to this were the two vials, each one half-full of holy water, still waiting for the active ingredient. “I should have raided the armory when I had the chance.”

  She looked up, smiling at his disappointment. “When? When you were stealing the computer or when you were trying to talk them into opening up the door?”

  He smiled back at her and nodded. “I suppose you’re right. Anyway, I don’t think having a machine gun is what will make a difference. Okay. We have our weapons. Any minute now we’ll have our clothes.” He padded over to the fire in his bare feet and felt at his jacket, shirt, and pants. They were still damp. Out the window, the Atlantic Ocean pounded against the rocky cliff beyond the lighthouse, and a thick fog lay over the land. “I don’t feel any static. I think they were watching for air traffic, but they’re lying in wait now.”

  He sat down in the blanket on one of the plastic chairs, leaning his shoulder against the table. “Do you think I’m crazy?” he asked her.

  Astrid looked up from rolling her spells, stopping the chant she had just started. “Why?”

  A teakettle sounded, and Alex started, and realized he was still jumpy. What he needed was more sleep, but there wasn’t time for that. The nap on the chopper would have to do. He went over to the stove and poured himself and Astrid a cup of tea with a couple of the tea bags he had found in the cabinets. “The Polidorium is already prepared for the next step. They’ve given up completely. And I have to admit, I’m not sure how we’re going to find this body, either.”

  Alex carried back the two cups of tea, placing them on the table. “So, am I? Crazy, I mean?”

  “You know what you are?” Astrid joined him. “You’re a person who doesn’t give up. You can fight when it’s all done, but as long as there’s still a chance, you’re going to keep working on it. You’re Mad Meg.”

  He nodded. “Okay, s
o now that we’ve established that it’s all okay because I’m a lot like your crazy Dutch aunt,” Alex said, “you tell me: How do we find this body? We don’t have a scanner, and I don’t think one would work, anyway. This island has a lot of old stone ruins, but none of the peasant huts that Mary Shelley described or that Polidori might have used. So what do we do?”

  Astrid thought a moment. “If we had something of Allegra’s it would be easier.”

  Alex shrugged. Then Astrid leaned forward, draping her blanketed arm over his shoulder. He felt her fingers behind his ear. “What’s this?”

  Alex was laughing in spite of himself. “What are you doing, finding a quarter?”

  She drew back, twisting a piece of black wood in her fingers, wrapped in a bit of yellow ribbon. “This is a piece of Allegra’s coffin,” she said. “And the ribbon is a piece of the ones that held the stones in place to weigh it down. I made a bet that the ribbon belonged to her. I guess we can find out.”

  Astrid took Alex’s teacup, set it on the counter with her own, and turned back to the table. There was a salt and pepper set, and she grabbed the pepper and set it on the counter as well, leaving just the salt.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Working.” Satisfied with the saltshaker alone on the table, Astrid went to the kitchenette and rummaged around. She brought back a bowl and dropped the chunk of wood in it. She looked around, grabbed Alex’s teacup, tossed the tea into the bowl, and began grinding the moist wood.

  “Is there anything I can—”

  “You can check the dryer.” By which she meant the clothes in front of the fireplace.

  Astrid was muttering to herself as she ground the wood and then she stopped, taking a knife from a drawer. Alex was about to protest when she cut herself on the finger, but he kept his mouth shut.

  Astrid squeezed a few drops of blood into the bowl and then ground on, and he noticed she kept her cut finger splayed out a little, favoring it. “Nothing in magic is free,” she said. “It costs in soul or in blood.”