Alex Van Helsing The Triumph of Death - By Jason Henderson Page 0,11

“It should have been. It should have been a tablet that was practically empty except for run-of-the-mill low-security info.”

“Yeah, I don’t think the Scholomance needs to know how many different kinds of vampires there are on the planet. Maybe they want to know what we know.”

“First,” said Sangster, “they probably have a decent feel for that. And second, this was a fairly complicated op considering they could have stolen one of those training tablets from any number of places, including half a dozen vans scooting around Europe.”

“Was it a terminal? Maybe hooked into the Polidorium network?” Alex asked.

“Absolutely,” Armstrong said, catching the implication. The vampires could have used the computer to introduce a virus into the system, one the Polidorium had not been alerted to yet.

Alex shrugged, opening his hands. “Sooo…”

“So all this is fascinating, but we already know that they were acting on big plans,” Sangster said.

Alex pursed his lips. “Well, maybe. How do you know?”

Sangster looked over his shoulder as they made another turn, and Alex gasped. Up ahead, the sunlight struck the concrete of the road and made shadows in the trees, and then the road and the scenery around it all…ended. At once.

They were rolling toward a suspended wall of blackness, a liquid barrier that rippled over the road.

“What is that?” Alex asked.

“That is the town of Secheron,” said Sangster. “And it is dark at noon.”

CHAPTER 4

As though going through an invisible tunnel, the van pierced an inky curtain of darkness and entered nighttime on the other side. Alex felt a wave of instinctual revulsion course through his body. Within moments they rolled on to the long, cozy main street that carried traffic into the town square and beyond, and the streets were filling up with people. Alex tried to take in everyone, shopkeepers and shoppers milling about nervously, eyeing the sky and one another, a pair of men fighting on the sidewalk outside a bar. He saw someone about to throw a chair through a window. The village of Secheron, which Alex associated with tourists, bookshops, and bars on piers at the fairly swank marina, was going insane. It looked like—

“It’s a war zone.” Sangster pulled a black hard-sided suitcase out from under his seat. He undid the buckles, the metal clasps clacking loudly. Outside, police sirens blared and darts of red and yellow light flickered through the windows.

“Whoa!” Alex said, scanning the horizon and momentarily confused. “What are those? Buildings?”

Sangster looked out. In the distance, there appeared to be flickering fires coming from cities that were near total destruction. Sangster tapped the window. “Huh.” He shook his head.

“What?” Alex asked.

“That’s due west. You know what’s there? Water. The lake. What you’re seeing is an illusion.” They appeared to be encircled by distant cities on fire. “And this illusion is surrounding us.”

“Like one of those three-hundred-and-sixty-degree movies at Disney World,” Alex said. “Amazing.”

“In as much as it’s big enough to encase this whole town, you bet it’s amazing.” Sangster sounded slightly alarmed.

“Driver, gimme the screen back here,” Armstrong called, and after a moment one of the windows darkened and filled with an image in gray and green, with splotches of orange.

“What’s that?” Alex asked. They passed a police car parked at the side of the street where a Swiss policeman was getting out, running to one of the shops.

Armstrong put a wireless mobile piece in her ear and swiped a hand over the image. “This is the village, satellite photography. The orangeish images you see are people.” She indicated the clusters of orange blobs on streets that Alex could identify by a faint blue map grid. “They’re gathering in the streets and the square; I see a lot of them at the marina. I don’t see any blues.”

By blues, Armstrong was referring to the way vampires appeared on Polidorium infrared systems, which were enhanced to make especially cold creatures pop. You couldn’t photograph vampires, but you could save an infrared image of them, and the Polidorium files were filled with pencil sketches and digital infrared shots. Alex had heard that the earliest attempts at field use of infrared had failed because the vampires simply blended in too much; the enhancements had been a major leap forward.

“There has to be.” Sangster sounded confused. “Could they be camouflaged?”

“Not against us.” Armstrong shook her head and took a heavy jacket that Sangster offered her, slipping it on over her blouse.

The van swerved as a man on an old motor scooter swooped in front of them, barely missing them.