Alex Van Helsing The Triumph of Death - By Jason Henderson Page 0,37
it.
A muffled chorus of cheeping grew, and there was a burst of glass as the french doors gave way, and now a stream of chimney swifts swarmed in. “Hit the deck!” Armstrong ordered. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Alex lay on the floor and watched maybe twenty birds swarm, zipping through the room, in and out of the smoke. He could hear the birds bashing into cases.
A gun flash drew Alex’s eye and he saw Armstrong, a shadow in the soot, on her stomach, shooting several birds at the doorway, the brief light of her gun followed by the bursts of the creatures. They fell like little firebombs onto the floor. “They’re blocking the door!” Armstrong called.
“Astrid, how many of those magic, uh, cleanse shots do you carry?”
“It’s not a shot; I have to hit them to cleanse them.” Astrid cried out a few feet away as one bird cheeped madly and yanked at one of the ponytails on her head.
Alex coughed and blinked for an instant, seeing bright streaks of light against his eyelids. He opened his eyes, wincing with pain. His contacts were beginning to swim with the soot. The smoke had grown even darker, impenetrable.
Wait, go back, he told himself. He held his eyes closed and forced away the sounds of grunting and cursing and the bashing of glass and wood, filling his mind with static. With his eyes open, the static was just static, but closed, he could see it take shape, and he watched twenty streaks of red light zip across the black underside of his eyelids.
“Stop shooting, you’re going to hit someone!” He held out his hand, groping in the darkness. “Astrid, take my hand.”
Alex heard her crawl beside him and then she had his hand. Astrid’s was cold and small, and the static seemed to dissipate as she drew near. But the streaks were still there.
“I have to keep my eyes closed.” He grabbed her whole arm. “We’re getting up.”
They rose and Alex got behind her, his chest against the bird-like bones of Astrid’s back, holding her hand and her staff. “Okay, move with me.”
“What?”
“Just…trust me, and cleanse.” Soot slid down Alex’s cheek as he put his face next to her. “Move with me.”
Alex brought Astrid’s arm up and felt her body uncoiling as she stretched, but she was stiff. “Let me lead.” He saw a streak coming in fast. She seemed to relax and he began to spin, her leg following his.
“Here!” They swept their arms together, and Alex heard her utter the word cleanse as the staff touched the arc of light just as it reached them.
“Cleanse,” they said together, another step, their arms coming up, a streak coming in fast against his closed eyes. Another burst of flame. “Cleanse,” and another, and another, and another.
He could hear in the background holy water bursting in the fireplace as Sangster destroyed a handful of the creatures, and Armstrong was at the door, shooting at those that were swirling around there. Alex and Astrid concentrated on the streaks, Astrid swinging her staff as he guided her.
Finally they were still and there was a tiny cheep. Vienna gasped somewhere, and Alex saw a bird streaking, and he and Astrid swept toward it. Burst.
In the inky smoke, Sangster clapped out the fire on the table, and Alex felt everyone start to relax. Armstrong threw open the door and smoke began to pour out.
“Come on!” she coughed.
He opened his eyes and stopped, suddenly collapsing into a coughing fit. Astrid dropped next to him and grabbed his hand. “Come on.”
They ran down the stairs as the sound of fire engines filled the air.
On the front stoop of the building, Vienna hugged Alex as Sangster spoke rapidly into a Bluetooth device. Astrid stood by herself, watching them.
“Clearly the Queen’s people are watching us,” Sangster said as he got off the phone. “We need to get out of the street.”
Vienna watched in horror as firemen arrived and ran in and out of her building, and all the residents of the lower floors gathered and watched. “I need to go up there.”
Alex shook his head. “Don’t. Not yet. It’s not a fire anymore—it’s just a lot of smoke. We have to think of what you’re going to say.”
“Oh, who cares what I say?” Vienna said. “It’s what I know. My father will come back tonight, and he’ll see that it’s true.”
“What?”
“That no matter how much you people have helped me, I’m cursed.”