Alex Van Helsing The Triumph of Death - By Jason Henderson Page 0,16

would hold his weight. Satisfied, he scrambled up until he was across from the balcony.

It was just out of reach.

Six inches. Leap, grab, hold on. Do it now.

His arm sang with pain as he grabbed the rusted metal and swung wild beneath it, his legs churning in the air until he brought them up and stilled himself. He climbed up onto the outside of the balcony railing and began walking sideways along it.

When he was about even with Elle, who was four feet down and fifteen feet out into the street, he brought his Polibow up. He was ready to pump a bolt into her heart as soon as his arm found her chest. He turned to shoot.

Suddenly she was already in midair, a flash of white as she leapt across the distance, hitting him like a sledgehammer to the chest. Her white hands grabbed his throat and he felt weightless for a second. Then the wooden frame and plate glass of the shop’s french doors burst apart behind his shoulders, and they tumbled together into a storage room, landing in sacks of flour and glass.

“Alex!” Elle laughed. “I was genuinely wondering when you were gonna show up.”

Alex rolled away from her and grabbed a sack of flour, hurling it into her face. It hit her hard and she flipped back, the flour exploding around the room. Alex looked around quickly.

Mixer, metal bowls, flour, sugar, desk, letters, letter opener.

Alex reached for the desk, lifting himself up and grabbing the letter opener. He got to his feet and backed up. He had a stake in his go package, but he would have to reach around for it and she was fast.

Elle took a moment to brush the flour off, waving in the air in front of her.

“This is a new look for you,” Alex said.

“Don’t you just love it?”

“Is the whole Scholomance dressed up like the Day of the Dead now or just this crew?”

“This is a vanguard, Alex. We’re the front line. You are so screwed I can’t even tell you.”

“Come on!” Alex held out the letter opener. “Elle, what is going on? The Scholomance is supposed to be secret, right? You can’t take over a town and keep a low profile.”

“I’m sure you’ll clean it up.” Her legs coiled as she leapt. He thrust up with the letter opener and caught the folds of cloth under her arms. She flipped over him and brought him down to the ground, her arm around his throat. She whispered in his ear as she lifted him up off the ground. She was so incredibly strong. Elle dragged him toward the window. “Look.”

Down below, the cage was nearly full of captives. He heard the rumbling of trucks as a pair of Polidorium vans pulled onto the street behind the crowds farther up the avenue.

“Yeah, that’s the cavalry,” Alex said, his voice raspy from being in a choke hold. There were gunshots now, as agents poured into the streets from the vans. Alex watched puffs of fire go up as skull-faced vampires exploded.

“Aren’t you going to ask,” Elle whispered, “what it means?”

“What what means? The people, the captives?” Alex said, his mind racing. He felt compelled to play her game, if nothing else, to see if she would relax enough that he could reach into the go package she was smashing him against and grab the handle of his stake. “Are they sacrifices?”

“No.” She spoke as if she planned to count his answers.

“Hmm. You’re replenishing your stock.” Down in the Scholomance the vampires fed off captives, but they were usually carefully chosen from among people reported missing or otherwise already given up. It would be strange to grab a bunch of people off the street.

“No, for all the reasons you’re smart enough to figure out,” Elle said, as though she could read his mind.

Alex listened to the whine of the infernal engine of the carriage and the false, panting skeletal horses. The bone power was new, a big deal, Sangster had said. “It’s a show. A show of power.”

“Not bad,” she said.

“But what power?”

“The one you thought you could stop.” Elle seemed to shiver for a moment as a reedy, high-pitched call cut through the street, and the procession of vampires below parted.

Alex had his shot. As her body momentarily relaxed, he reached back with his right hand and found the hilt of his special silver-laced stake. He grabbed it and slammed it into her side, the nearest point he could. She shrieked as