Alex Van Helsing The Triumph of Death - By Jason Henderson Page 0,40

to snap into a different mode, going around to take seats and pop open laptops. From the whiteboard Sid said, “What do we know?”

Without hesitation, Alex began to pour out the facts and soon the whiteboard filled with key words, CLAIRE and TRIUMPH OF DEATH and STRANGERS and HEXEN.

All horrible, all awful, of course, but even so, a wave of relief washed over Alex because he was sharing it with them. They were his team. As sure as Armstrong was Sangster’s partner, he needed Paul, Sid, and Minhi to feel less alone and to think.

“Hexen?” Minhi raised a hand. “I don’t recognize that.”

“Ah. Right,” Alex said. “That’s a whole other organization, made up of witches.”

“Wait. Astrid is one of them, isn’t she?” Minhi guessed this before any evidence had been laid before her. “That’s why she just turned up when Claire did. And so…that’s why she’s been missing, too.”

“Yes. Did you happen to cover for her?”

Minhi shook her head. “No—maybe if you’d asked. Maybe if you’d said, ‘Hey, Astrid and I are hopping over to Spain to see if Vienna can order us some paella.’”

“I totally did not know Astrid was involved,” Alex said. “But she was here to investigate Claire.”

“Claire,” Sid said. “There’s a nightmare.”

Alex turned his chair and rested his hands on the back, looking at Sid. “You told us some stuff about Claire when Icemaker was here,” he said. “Can you bring me up to speed?”

Sid leaned back and seemed to flip through pages in his mind. The boy was an encyclopedia of knowledge on vampires and everything related to them, and the group of vampires that circled around Lake Geneva was a favorite topic. “Well, we all know that she was the queen that Byron, or Icemaker, was trying to raise when he came back. But at first, Claire Clairmont was just a young woman who followed Lord Byron here from England with Mary Shelley and John Polidori. And Byron was cruelest with her—they had a baby, Allegra, who Byron took with him even when he turned his back on Claire. And then he got sick of taking care of the baby and had her put in a convent.”

“Did Claire ever get to see either of them again?”

“No, and she was…enraged. But there was nothing she could do. And then she got word that Allegra had died without even hearing from her father. The girl died among strangers and was buried without Claire ever getting to see her again.”

“But we know that Icemaker went through an awful lot to bring Claire back to life to rule as his queen,” Alex said. “Why would that be? If he hated her so much.”

Minhi glanced at Alex. “Sometimes we’re obsessed with things we shouldn’t be. Maybe his hatred of her turned into a kind of obsessive love.”

“And he was a vampire,” Alex said. “His empathy centers are all damaged, and obsession is what you get instead of love. So: we’ve got Icemaker, obsessed with Claire and bringing her back—and he’s now safely locked away. And we’ve got Claire, obsessed with Icemaker as far as we know, but also hating him. And now she’s trying to set off the Triumph of Death.”

“What did Claire’s warning say? What is lost will be found? And you said this spell would give her command over the dead. She’s lost Byron, but she also lost Allegra, her daughter,” said Sid.

Minhi said, “If she encases the world in darkness, maybe she can bring her daughter back.”

“Look, I feel as sorry for this lady as anybody. But sometimes we don’t get what we want.” Alex looked back at Minhi. “Sometimes we want something and the time for it just…passes. The thing we have to worry about now is how to stop it.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Minhi offered.

“I’m worried we’ll be too slow. We don’t have the tools. It’s like we’re being played. The custodian at the Prado knew something, but he’s part of the big conspiracy of not talking, the rogue element, the Strangers. Screw that. They’re playing with us, and we need to stop playing.”

Alex’s phone buzzed and he looked at it, then stepped to the window.

Down at the edge of the courtyard, Astrid was waiting on her Hexen motorcycle. Minhi and Paul looked over Alex’s shoulder.

“You want to ask her in?” Paul said.

Alex shook his head. “I gotta go. There’s one more person who should know what the clues mean and can tell us how to stop the Triumph of Death,” Alex said. “We