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 name?” 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.
Paul, Sid,
and Minhi came running up. “Bloody hell!” Paul shouted. “That was that—that—”
Alex turned to Sid. “Did you see?”
“Absolutely I saw,” Sid said, eyes wide. “She jumped in the water.”
Vienna was still shaking, staring at her sleeve. “What—”
“I didn’t know they could do that,” Alex said, frowning. According to lore, and according to Sid, vampires could be killed by holy water but were allergic to any running water, and would seek to avoid crossing it. They certainly wouldn’t jump into it.
Sid looked troubled to be caught off guard. “Well, you know, I guess the deal is this is a lake, so it’s standing water. As opposed to running.”
Minhi touched Vienna on the shoulder. Vienna screamed.
“Hey,” Alex said, snapping his attention back to her. “Did she get—are you hurt?” He looked from her sleeve to her face, the giant brown eyes staring at him. She was holding her arm close to her body. “I’m gonna touch your arm, okay?” She nodded.
Alex gingerly took her forearm and brought it forward, glancing over it. Her olive skin was slightly pale and blotchy from cold and fear. “Okay. It’s—she didn’t leave a scratch,” he said. He looked at the others and back at Vienna. “It’s okay; I do this all the time.”
Minhi rolled her eyes. “Let’s go,” she said, and hugged Vienna.
Paul and Sid turned their attention back to the water. “You think there’s one o’ those entrances right here?”
“Not on the surface,” Sid said. “I think she swam to it.”
Alex looked back toward the village. “We should go.”
Alex took off his sport coat and handed it to Vienna. She stared at the coat for a second, then slipped her own off and put his on, silently.
Now Alex felt cold, but valiantly so.
As they walked up the pier, Minhi was talking to Vienna. “We’ll tell you all about it,” she said. “As soon as we get you warm.”
Paul looked out at the water. “They must waterproof the bloody heck out of those leather jackets.”
Chapter 7
Alex took a deep breath. “Vampires are all around the lake,” he said.
They’d gathered in an old study in what was now-nicknamed New Aubrey House. The sound of thumping and hammering echoed through the building. They had passed countless students on the way in, and Alex had been happy to see them carrying chairs and bedding from the trucks that were parked all over the lawn. Otranto had set up a small office, a central nervous system for the house, and was running everything from there.
A sign-up sheet near Otranto’s office door, posted next to a desk already inhabited by his assistant, Mrs. Hostache, informed Alex and his roommates that they would be on duty painting and sweeping the next day.
“The sign-up sheet seems to have a mind of its own,” Paul observed.
So this was the new reality. Alex had only the faintest inkling of what an undertaking it must be, what kind of money had to change hands and what armies of lawyers had to be called in for two schools to merge so quickly. He had the impression, amid the crates and trucks, of Headmaster Otranto stretching to hold a school together with his bare hands. Alex wasn’t sure even Otranto was up to the task. Out of two hundred students they had shed at least twenty-five already.
There was a love seat in the library where Vienna sat shivering, even though Minhi had found a blanket for her. Sid brought in a tray of cups and hot chocolate.
“All of you knew about them?” Vienna asked. She took the chocolate in both hands, absorbing its warmth as she held it under her chin.
Alex indicated Minhi, Paul, and Sid, and said, “All of us? Yes,” he said. “But I’m not sure if anyone else does, among the students.” He looked at the others for help. He wasn’t sure how much to reveal. How far to go—yes, there are vampires, one of those things my father always said didn’t exist, and by the way, they have a giant school under the lake, and while we’re at it, I’ve more or less weaseled my way into an international G.I. Joe organization. . . .
Vienna gestured with her head toward the door, toward the grounds. “Last month, during the kidnapping—I’m sorry to bring it up—”
“No, it’s okay,” said Minhi. That would be Minhi and Paul’s kidnapping by what everyone in the school understood to be terrorists.
“Some of the girls said the terrorists moved fast, very fast.” Vienna’s eyes were searching. “I didn’t see any of it. Were they—were they these things, these vampires?”
“Yes.” Minhi nodded.
“Does the school know?”
Alex shrugged. “I don’t think the school knows,” he said. “Glenarvon, I mean. But we do have a friend in the school.”
“What about LaLaurie?” Minhi asked. “Does your friend have ‘friends’ in our school?”
Our school. That was the other thing people were trying not to talk about. LaLaurie was traditionally a girls’ school. It had its own concerned parents, parents of students whose school hadn’t been nearly burned down, and they needed soothing, too. They were bending over backward to help Glenarvon, and that meant everything about LaLaurie was having to change. There were boys in the cafeteria and boys in the locker rooms and boy clothes and boy aggression. Boy angst, because their school had been almost destroyed.
Alex shook his head. “I’ve never asked.” It hadn’t occurred to him whether there were other Sangsters. Could there be more like him, teachers moonlighting as agents against darkness? That didn’t seem likely. Otranto was “connected,” but he didn’t seem connected to the Polidorium. Ms. Daughtry was kind, and he had a suspicion that Sangster and she might have something going on, but he didn’t take her for a spy. But that was how it worked, right? His head began to spin with paranoia.
Vienna turned to Alex, shrugging out of his jacket and handing it back to him. “The girl knew you. She was looking for you.”
Paul chuckled. “That maniac knows all of us. She was our guard when we were taken.”
Vienna continued, “But she really knew Alex. What did she want with you?”
“Her name is Elle,” Alex said. “And, honestly, I’d tell you if I knew, but I have no idea what she wanted.”
Paul asked, “What did she say?”
“She said the Scholomance wants me dead,” Alex confessed. He decided to gloss over the punishment part. At the dock he had been terrified that Elle was going to tear Vienna’s throat out, scarf and all. He couldn’t handle that; it would have been as if he had lured her down to the dock only to be killed. She would have died because these things seemed to follow him. Already he sensed he was bringing danger to his friends—after all, the school had burned because the Scholomance was out to get Alex. But Elle had shot right past Vienna. She had wanted to impart a message. Whatever the Scholomance had planned, they weren’t about to trip it up by killing a student in public.
But there was definitely something strange going on that Alex couldn’t quite place. Elle had talked as though she were in some kind of disagreement with the Scholomance—whether to kill him or to torture him, apparently. But they had stepped up their attacks on him at the same time that the Scholomance began to prepare for whatever was coming, whatever this Ultravox would bring.
The Scholomance had been around for hundreds—possibly thousands—of years. Dracula himself attended the school, when he first became a vampire, or so said the Polidorium, and so had reported Abraham Van Helsing, Alex’s great-great-great- (that was three greats) grandfather. Alex had seen the Scholomance personally, as had Paul and Minhi when they had been kidnapped as part of an elaborate vampire plan. The Scholomance had plans within plans within plans.
“Elle wanted me,” Alex said. “She didn’t want to hurt you, I think, or . . . or she would have.” Of course, Elle had actually said she wanted to make Alex suffer, and the truth was, making people suffer often involved hurting others. But he didn’t say any of that for now.
Vienna took this in and sipped her chocolate, seeming to
relax. “I guess I should say thank you,” she said finally.
Alex became aware that someone was yelling down the hall outside the study. Paul went to the door and looked out.
Alex asked, “What is it?”
“It’s Bill,” Paul said.
Alex stepped past him into the hall, looking down the dim, cobwebby corridor. In the main foyer he saw Bill Merrill, waving a cell phone. “I did try! I did try!”
Otranto said something in a hushed tone, using his hands slowly, palms down, as if to calm the boy. “And we are trying as well.”
“I want answers; this is ridiculous,” Bill said. Abruptly he looked down the hall, catching sight of Alex. He turned instantly and began advancing toward Alex and Paul. “Have you called home?” he shouted at Paul.
Paul seemed confused by the question. “What? Yeah, several times.”
“With your cell phone?”
Paul said slowly, “Yeah, you need to borrow it?”
Bill waved his hand. “Agh. England. You! Did you call home?”
“With his phone, but there wasn’t a problem,” Alex said.
Bill turned back to Otranto, shouting. “You get through. I’m not gonna stand for this.”
“What’s going on?” Alex asked.
“Stay out of this,” Bill said, shooting him a snarling look.
Otranto was leading Bill outside. Alex had a sick, sympathetic feeling in his gut. Bill might be a jerk, but he was just like the rest of them in that he was a student and in theory he had parents somewhere. Every student’s parents were putting pressure on their sons, trying to decide whether to stay or to go. But if Alex was understanding Bill correctly, he hadn’t been able to contact his parents at all. With Steven in the hospital, that sounded like a nightmare.
Alex and Paul reentered the study as a clock in a high tower over the school began to chime, a quarter to eight. Minhi began to gather up the cups.
Alex asked, “What do you want to do now?”
Minhi shrugged. “Uh . . . well, it’s nearly eight. Vienna, are you up for rehearsal?”
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