“This Sid?” Alex repeated indignantly.
“Is he a vampire fan, maybe could be turned?”
“No, no,” Alex said. “No, he—he’s a fan, but he thinks it’s all fiction. Or he did. But no, it can’t be that.”
“I agree,” Sangster said. “I’ve known him for two years. He’s a solid young man.”
Monty was nodding excitedly. “With a book—with a book, it’s easier. Here’s how this would work, in a nutshell: Your friend gets the book. He reads from the book. The spell gets into his head. He writes things down that are influenced by the book—maybe subtly, maybe just a few words, maybe just syllables. He reads them aloud and they get heard by the girls who were the targets. And, mind you, they would be targets. It would be aimed at them. The girls then do whatever simple task the virus told them to do—in this case, to go wait for further instructions.”
Monty opened his hands and smiled, pleased by the cleverness of this thing that Alex didn’t find all that pleasing. “With a book, it’s easier,” he said again.
There was a buzz in Sangster’s pocket and he fished his cell phone out, glancing down. “The victim just came in.”
“Came in?” Alex asked.
“Yeah,” Sangster said. “I’ll deal with that.”
“So you tell us,” Armstrong continued. “How is it that of all the gin joints in the world, Sid walks into Ultravox’s?” Alex looked puzzled, and she clarified. “Why did your friend pick that book?”
Alex replayed the moment in his head. They had been at the bookstore, and Sid and Alex had joined the others upstairs. Everyone was looking at Master Plots and Sid wanted something else. And suddenly, there had been a book thrust into his hands.
“He didn’t,” Alex realized. He threw his backpack over his shoulder. “Someone picked it for him. And you know what else? Vienna didn’t go in the woods, either.”
Chapter 20
Vienna’s scarf—that had to be the key. Chances are she was marked, already a—a thrall, was what Sid had called it, a live servant of the Scholomance who went about her day surreptitiously taking orders, waiting for the moment she would become a vampire. Sid had laid it out for him, without even knowing he was being used. She’d probably been bitten, poisoned. And set loose among them. And he’d sent Minhi up to sleep in a room with her!
In the morning Alex hurried to breakfast and the coming battle, prepared for anything. He even brought his go package just in case, tucked inside his school backpack.
When he entered the dining hall, his eyes swept the room, looking for the faces of the girls he had seen the night before. Here and there he recognized them, chatting and talking as though everything was normal. None returned his gaze with anything approaching recognition or guilt.
He spotted the table along the wall where Minhi was sitting with Sid, Paul, and Vienna. As Alex approached, two girls came up to Sid.
“Oh, hey,” Sid said, shrinking a little. The two girls giggled and one of them asked him to sign a program from the last Pumpkin Show. He smiled, his ginger hair flopping about, and obliged, shrugging and laughing as if embarrassed. When they scampered away Minhi reached over and punched him in the shoulder, giggling.
“Minhi,” Alex said, taking a chair at the corner. They all greeted him, but Alex didn’t hear, distracted. He was searching Minhi’s eyes for a signal, some remembrance of the nightmare they had shared.
“You look awful,” Paul said. “You should eat something before you blow away.”
“I didn’t get much sleep,” Alex said.
“You’re telling me,” Paul responded. For a moment Alex wondered if he was aware, if somehow Minhi had already told him. Paul continued, “Those sheets are driving me insane. I feel like we’re in some kind of hospital.”
Alex shrugged, looked back at Minhi. “How about you?”
“Me?” Minhi stopped, mid-chew. She gestured with her toast. “I swear you can hear the snoring coming all the way from Boys Town, but that might just be Vienna.”
Alex blinked. Vienna frowned with worry. “Alex, what’s wrong?”
“It’s, uh . . .”—he looked at Minhi again—“do you have a sec? I wanted to ask you about something.” He felt himself making a face that was obvious and huge, and she put down her toast.
“I’m gonna get some more juice,” she said slowly.
Paul watched them go with interest but then went back to talking to Sid.
Alex walked with her. “So?” he said. They reached the serving table where an orange juice dispenser sat next to a neat stack of glasses.
“So?” she repeated.
“So, what are we gonna say? How are we gonna do this?”
Minhi thrust her glass under the dispenser, her narrow face showing confusion and a hint of irritation. “What are you talking about?”
“Did you already tell Paul? Listen, Vienna might be compromised. I mean, you know, she might be in on it.”
“You’re acting really weird, Alex,” she said, and she poured him some orange juice.
Alex took the glass, staring at her. It was impossible to imagine that she didn’t remember a thing. “You walked back with me. You were awake.”
“What?” Minhi looked back at their table and for a moment he felt sure she was going to drop the facade; surely this was a ruse because she had already figured out that certain people couldn’t be trusted. “I don’t know what you’re trying to say or do, but I don’t like it.”
Alex’s heart sank with realization. He had to try once more. “You don’t remember any of it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Minhi said, and her eyes looked a little sad. “And it’s really kind of getting upsetting.”
“Okay,” he said. “It’s just . . .” What was there to say? She had erased the whole thing. The same vocal virus that had woken up the girls had also erased the entire event once they went back to sleep. He was certain of it; she wasn’t faking.
They got back to the table and Alex sat down with his orange juice.
“Look at this,” Paul said, gesturing at him. “A breakfast consisting entirely of liquid. I think maybe you’re a vampire.”
Alex dutifully smiled, but he caught Vienna’s eye. She looked concerned, as though she had been watching them the whole time. “I was just asking Minhi if maybe we can do something to celebrate Sid’s newfound celebrity,” Alex said as another girl tapped Sid on the shoulder and gave him the thumbs-up.
“There’s another reading this weekend,” Paul said brightly. “You got a new one, then?”
“There’s something new,” Sid said. “This one is about music.”
“Oooh, sounds cool,” Paul said, clearly proud of his friend’s accomplishments. “If it’s already written, maybe we can all hang out tonight. The ball’s not till tomorrow.”
“Perfect,” said Alex. Perfect, except that Sid was passing along a spell. He was Typhoid Sid.
“These stories you do are like music,” Vienna said, smiling. “But as a Spaniard I’m waiting for one about the tango.”
Everyone in the room started to jostle and rise, and Minhi looked at her watch. It was time for class. Alex realized on top of everything else, he was hungry after all. But it had to wait.
They began carrying their trays to the front of the dining hall, and Alex came up next to Vienna. “Vienna.”
“Alex,” she replied, almost officiously, responding to the tone he’d taken.
“Can we talk?” he said.
Vienna stopped and put down her tray, turning to him brightly. “Absolutely.”
Alex nodded good-bye to the others, and he and Vienna walked out of the dining hall in silence. He saw Paul throw him the thumbs-up and Alex rolled his eyes. They got out into the hall and he stopped by a tall window near a door. “I need you to do something.”
“I have already given up a sleeve,” Vienna said, laughing.
“I need you to take off your scarf.”
Vienna maintained her cheerful
grin. “Never, it’s my air of mystery.”
“Vienna,” Alex said seriously. “Please.” He knew exactly what he was going to see. He wasn’t sure if the marks—fang marks, delivering the poison—would be new or old, but he knew they would be there.
The smile drained from her face. “Alex, please, I can’t. Don’t ask me.”
“Please don’t say that,” Alex said. Opening the door, he led her outside where he was able to raise his voice. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but I think you’re not a . . . a bad person, but I need you to do this.”
She started walking away. “Leave me alone.”
“Vienna, if you’re in some kind of trouble, I can help. I can help you.”
“Leave me alone!”
“Take off your scarf!”
“You don’t know what you’re asking.”
Vienna was running now, and Alex chased after her. She ran across the lawn and picked up speed, and he followed. She ran until she had stopped in the woods, her back turned to him. He saw her head wobbling, as if she was crying.
Alex stopped behind her, panting for breath. “I just need to know if you’re one of them.”
“I can’t. It’s not time, maybe someday it will be time, but it’s not time.”
He came around in front of her. “Just this once.”
“Alex!” She seemed so vulnerable, and he kept his hands down.
He wasn’t about to take the scarf from her by force. “Look, I can’t make you,” Alex said. “I won’t make you. But I need you to show me. I need you to take off the scarf.”
“It’s not time.”
“I saved your life!” he said. “I thought Elle was going to kill you.”
“And what?” she said. “I owe you?”
This caught him like a slap in the face and he felt instantly ashamed. “They’re good people,” Alex said, looking down. “Sid and Paul and Minhi. I’m worried and I think this is the answer. Please.”
Vienna put her hands to her eyes. After a long moment, she sighed and reached down. In one deft flick she pulled the scarf loose. It flowed like a streamer to the earth, green and shimmering.
And then her head fell off.
Chapter 21
His first reaction was to scream, and that was something Alex Van Helsing didn’t actually do very much. He had been grabbed at in the dark by zombies and nearly eaten by giant dogs from hell, but screaming was not a part of the sequence. It was always, What’s next, what do you have? But when Vienna’s head popped off her body like the heaviest part of a china doll whose neck had gotten frayed, he actually did yelp and stagger back.
And then it kicked in, the same leveling in his blood, the same words his father had taught him when he found himself on a cliff and the branch he’d grabbed was starting to pull loose, when the rock he was on started to crumble, when he was faced with a test question he never prepared for. Breathe. That sudden rush of blood is your trigger to listen and look and breathe. The world will want you to be pulled along. You must breathe, and ask the questions.
What is happening?
The girl lay on the forest floor as though she had been knocked out, one arm underneath her and the other stretched out. As though she had simply dropped asleep.
Vienna’s head, as cleanly excised as a pat of butter, had rolled to a stop against a tree. There was zero gore. Instead, an inch below Vienna’s jaw, where the neck both began and ended, there shimmered a green field, almost like a violin bow resin.
On the body, the solid edge of Vienna’s neck was the same, neatly ending in another shimmering green field. Alex gingerly reached out and took Vienna’s wrist, feeling for a pulse.
Jiminy Cricket. The girl’s heart was beating. Okay. What is happening?
What is happening is that this is magic.
Magic. Just one more thing that wasn’t supposed to be, except now he knew that vampires used it all the time. They used it to hide the vast Scholomance under the lake, and used it to concoct worms of blood. His mother used magic, and there were others like her, apparently.
And Vienna, it appeared, used it to keep her head from rolling away from her body.
Alex reached over and delicately closed Vienna’s staring eyes. That was tough. The urge to lose it began again for a second. Think. You didn’t do this.
But you did! You made her—
You made her take off the scarf.
A breeze blew through the woods, lifting leaves, and Alex’s eyes darted to Vienna’s scarf, which picked up and began to blow.
She pulled off the scarf. She needs it.
And it was blowing away. Alex went after the scarf as it began to lift into the air. It blew a few more feet and hung on a tree, threatening to disappear into the woods.
He stepped over to the tree and took the scarf. Did it somehow, what, hold her head on? It wasn’t like tape or anything; it felt like a scarf, like something his twin sister would have picked up in Milan. Alex touched the scarf and it began to leap again, more deliberately this time, like a small animal. He barely closed his fingers around it when it broke free, shooting off onto the grass. The shimmering green scarf began to slide, snakelike, along the ground.
Alex had to jump this time to grab it before it disappeared under the leaves. It was headed deeper into the woods. He had the distinct impression it was heading for the lake.
Alex reemerged in the clearing with the scarf whipping about in his hands. It was strong, but still just cloth; it had no teeth to dig into his skin. It wanted to get away.
The scarf stopped struggling for a moment and it merely twisted, slowly, pulsing in his hands.
Who in the world was Vienna Cazorla? She had a beating heart, but was it even real? Was she some creature placed here by the vampires? Or maybe that thing Sid had mentioned—was she a thrall?
Don’t get distracted. You won’t know that unless you can help, and if her heart is beating you can help.
Alex felt something at his throat. He looked down to see that the scarf had almost inched its way out of his fingers and was tickling at his throat, trying to slide around it.
He clenched his fingers around the scarf and held it at a distance. It twitched in the air. He had a feeling that if he let it get to him, he’d be the one rocking a jaunty green scarf from then on out. Which might look swell, but there’d still be a headless girl with a beating heart in the woods, so—
Time to give it back?
Absolutely.
Alex approached Vienna’s body while he held the scarf away from him with one hand.
He was breaking all kinds of rules. Body in the woods, you call EMS, you don’t go rearranging it. Except every rule was finished now. He could have moved the head more easily, but he just couldn’t will himself to pick Vienna’s head up by her hair.
And anyway, he had a feeling it wasn’t a “body.” It was a girl with some explaining to do.
Now or never. Either this would work or he was absolutely screwed.
She was fairly light, especially missing about nine pounds. He knelt down into the grass in his dress pants—Crap, I’m missing class—reaching his arm under her shoulders and across her chest, and gingerly moved her lower six-sevenths, bringing it to rest just next to the head.
The scarf began to twitch again when he held it near her, reaching out. He released the scarf and stepped away. It wrapped instantly around Vienna’s neck and head. Silence.
Double crap.
Then, there was a faint static pop and Vienna blinked twice. She awoke as if she had dozed off and stared at Alex, before instantly scrambling back against the tree.
“What is going on?” Vienna demanded.
Alex dropped to his knees. I cannot believe that worked. “Oh, thank God. Oh my God.”
Vienna’s eyes widened with horror as she grasped for her throat.
“Say something,” he said. “Are you . . . I mean, are you okay?”
“What did you do?” Vienna demanded. She was reaching around her neck
, feeling at it when Alex saw her remember. When she looked back up Alex was expecting her to blaze with fury, but what he saw was tempered with misery.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said. He helped her up, and Vienna brushed at her clothing. “I didn’t know. I had no idea.”
“Really?” Vienna asked, the r rolling with anger. She inspected the huge smudges on her elbows and heels. “All of that ‘Take off your scarf’ and you didn’t know?”
“I thought you were a vampire.”
“You can sense vampires,” Vienna said.
“Or a thrall or something. Okay, I’m sorry,” Alex said, but he was already past his relief. “Don’t make this about me, Vienna. Right now there’s something terrible going on, and it all started with a book that you put in Sid’s hands.”
Vienna stopped. “This shouldn’t have happened.”
Alex had to nod. “Yeah, I know. Vienna? Seriously. You have to tell me what’s going on.”
She said in frustration, “I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“So tell me you’re not working for the Scholomance.”
“I’m not working for them,” Vienna said at last. “But I guess you could say that I am in their thrall.”
And then she told her story.
Chapter 22
Vienna Cazorla was rowing at dusk in the pond at Retiro Park when she first saw the vampire. It was summer in Madrid, and the evening air was cool, the water dark and motionless as her rowboat slowly edged across it. It was strange to be rowing alone, but then she felt strange.
Rowing was the only thing she had thought to do, the only thing that made sense. Vienna had rushed out of the hospital, feeling sick herself. She had been to see her brother, and now she wanted to do something that he should be doing with her. She was aching and wanted to act out the ache with her arms, using oars he should be using.
Carlos was dying. He was a National Guardsman and that had always been such a glorious thing; she had loved to see him in his dashing uniform, loved the chocolates he brought back from wherever he went. But he had been caught in a blast when terrorists in the north blew up a car next to a small bodega where he had been getting a take-out order of paella. Carlos had not even been on duty. It was chance alone that had struck him with chunks of concrete and fire and bashed in his skull. He lingered in the hospital in Madrid, maybe aware of his parents, maybe aware of Vienna. Maybe.
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