Alex Van Helsing The Triumph of Death - By Jason Henderson Page 0,20
a jelly bean?” Alex asked.
“Not so much; it’s a spell of seeing—you know, in case someone’s around a corner. But it might be close enough.”
She whispered something into the small bead and blew on it, and Alex watched the ephemeral material fly with her breath toward the screen and fluff away into nothing.
Astrid bounced expectantly. “I love puzzles.”
The green lines shimmered briefly and started to change, but then the screen went dark and cloudy. After a moment it returned, and Astrid frowned and harrumphed.
Armstrong nodded. “We’ll give it a shot.”
“Good, because I only have one of those.”
Alex was looking out into the street. Civilians were moving about, beginning to sweep up. An air of calm had taken over, and the place looked like it had been hit by a storm, nothing more. “What now?”
Sangster thought for a moment. “You’re undercover in the school?” he asked Astrid.
“Yes.”
“When do you have to report in?”
“Tonight.”
“Okay,” Sangster said. “I’m taking the day off. I’ll call in sick. You two need to go back to the school.”
“What?” Astrid cried. “We don’t know what she’s planning.”
“Look,” said the teacher. “I don’t know how you work, but do you understand that you’ve put us at risk? If your cover is blown, Alex’s could be, too. Until we have a chance to sort this out, you both need to get back.”
“Those are not my instructions.”
“Yeah, but are you here to cooperate with us or not?” Sangster demanded.
“With all due respect,” she replied, “I’m here to make sure you don’t foul this up.”
Sangster actually laughed. “Right. Right. Of course.” He looked at Alex. “Keep her out of trouble. You’re gonna be late, so the story is that you decided to cut class together.”
“What?” Alex asked. His mind spun. That wasn’t something he did every day. Plus another thought that didn’t have any business there at all.
“Just if anyone asks. Reveal her nature to no one. You liked her, you went for a ride. I’m not causing an incident between us and Hexen within four hours of contact. The story is simple and it works; you have an iffy reputation anyway.”
“I’m working on my reputation,” Alex responded. “What the heck kind of thing is that for a teacher to say?”
“Cut me some slack.” Sangster paused and looked at them both. “Midnight. Farmhouse.”
“You’re letting her in the farmhouse?”
“She could get in the farmhouse on her own,” Sangster said. Astrid shrugged.
Alex thought maybe that was the case and maybe it was not. Maybe she had another jelly bean that would open the false tin door in the front of the old house in the woods, the one that took you into a path that led a mile down into an underground bunker, or maybe she was not so prepared. Sangster clearly had decided that she was something to be treated gingerly.
Alex raised a hand. “I have a question. How are we getting back?”
Astrid turned to him. “You want a ride?”
CHAPTER 7
Alex rode to Glenarvon-LaLaurie on the back of Astrid’s motorcycle, which seemed to be a modified Italian design that she handled with expert efficiency.
Alex kept his fingers locked at Astrid’s waist as they rode, and he tried to process her presence in Secheron. Too much was happening too fast for him to follow it all. The girl had come into the school, bouncy and brash and strange, and all along she had been harboring a secret—a secret mission, in fact. There was nothing to hang on to here, he felt, nothing to trust. And Sangster had handed Alex over to her care as if everyone knew that she wasn’t a thrall, like Vienna Cazorla had been—a servant of the Scholomance, out to betray them. No one could know if that were the case. And yet here they were.
And the bike—the strangest thing about Astrid’s motorcycle was not the complete lack of controls but rather the unearthly sound the engine made, which he couldn’t get used to. She had almost parked it in front of the school before he had advised her that the proper way to deal with your undercover transportation was to stash it in the woods, which she did, right next to his own motorcycle.
“A Kawasaki Ninja.” She watched Alex drag several rough-cut limbs and cover up both bikes. “You go to a lot of trouble to hide what you are.”
Alex blinked. “I don’t think so.” He watched her standing there, her hands clasped together. He had a thousand questions and no idea where to start.