Alex Van Helsing The Triumph of Death - By Jason Henderson Page 0,38
with the wrong friends.” Alex sighed, looking at Sangster and Astrid. “The Scholomance tried to kill us. Why didn’t they just come in themselves?”
“It was dusk,” Sangster said. “Most likely this was safer. Blood-magic-augmented birds. So we know the Scholomance is onto us, in Madrid looking for clues about the Triumph.”
“Just like the guy at the Prado was onto us.” Alex turned back to Vienna. “Listen, I think they wanted us, and when we’re gone they won’t be interested in you.” He said this more because he desperately hoped it was true, not because he had any actual idea.
Alex paused, stood back, and looked around him, silently watching the firemen gathering and scratching their heads. The square near Vienna’s building was crowded, and the coffee and pastry vendors casually moved their stands closer to the building, scavenging for more customers.
What am I doing? Alex found himself asking this again as he had done in the past. Was this his life now? Completely truant from school, off the grid as far as his parents were concerned, and doing life-or-death research in Spain? Getting his friends nearly killed—was there any friend he was going to have whom he wasn’t going to put in danger?
He shook his head, bringing himself back to the present. No, no. Get in the game. “The Scholomance knew we were at the Prado. They’re not stupid; they knew that we’d be looking into The Triumph of Death. But the rest—the altered colors on the lady’s dress in the painting, does the Scholomance know about that?”
“I’m still going with no. The custodian and the color alterers are on our side, in a funny way. There’s no reason to think the vampires would be clued into that.”
“Assuming you’re right,” Alex said, “there could be more.”
“No, more Strangers,” Alex said. “This morning a man broke into the Prado just to point us in the right way to this painting. There is a conspiracy that the Polidorium has completely overlooked, that started at least as far back as Bruegel’s visit to this…castle of black towers. And that conspiracy knows what you people—what we—are doing.” He pointed at Sangster and Armstrong. “The Scholomance is following us, and there’s a conspiracy that knows what’s going on better than we do. But they don’t get involved.”
“Maybe they’re a rogue element inside the Polidorium,” Astrid said.
Sangster shook his head. “I can totally accept the theory of a rogue element that split off to place clues—but a rogue element that told Bruegel what to paint? That would predate the Polidorium by two hundred years.”
Alex peered down the mental chessboard. The game was all off-kilter now. There were three players. “The vampires put a virus in the Polidorium database to throw us off the trail. And someone else is trying to get us back on track. That supports the theory that they’re friends, at least. Whoever this conspiracy of Strangers is, they’re on our side, not the Queen’s. But they are not talking, and they sure weren’t about to help us survive that attack.”
Armstrong gave it a shot. “Maybe it’s dangerous for them.”
“I don’t accept that,” Alex said. “The Triumph of Death is dangerous for everybody.”
“So they want to help but don’t want to force us to the conclusions.” Sangster shifted his weight.
Alex was looking at his watch. “The Dimmer Switch curse, the Triumph of Death, is a tool for sorcerers. And it’s being used by Claire Clairmont to fulfill a destiny. And we don’t know what’s going through her mind.” He shook his head in frustration. “I’m sick of being in the dark.”
“We’re all working on it, Alex,” Sangster said evenly.
“Well, you have your experts; I have a few of my own,” Alex said. He knew exactly who would be able to work through this stuff. He should have included them from the start. “I’m going back to school. There are some people I’d like to talk to.”
CHAPTER 13
It was four o’clock in the morning by the time Alex stashed the Ninja motorcycle in the woods across from Glenarvon-LaLaurie. A bitter cold wind off Lake Geneva shot through him as he jogged out of the woods and across the street into the courtyard of the school, and as the front of the building came into view he saw a light on. In the second-floor drawing room that served as a small study, he could see silhouettes moving around. The hulking shadow of Paul turned to the window, and Alex waved quickly