Alex Van Helsing The Triumph of Death - By Jason Henderson Page 0,45

poet.” He jabbed his finger against the glass.

As his fingertip touched the glass Byron’s eyes flashed, and Alex almost heard the word contact.

He felt a burst of static and something was suddenly wrong with his finger; it was hard and brittle, and he started to scream and found that the static was screaming inside him already. Byron had his palm against the glass, and Alex could see a stream, a crack, a frozen trickle that went straight through the glass and hissed in the holy water in between. Something pulled at his head, as if the blood in his head and the water in the blood were a magnet and he was diving against his will. Alex’s forehead smashed against the Plexiglas and he saw stars, blinding cold shooting through his brain. Byron had him.

In the distance, Sangster was yelling, pounding the electricity, and through a blue haze Alex saw Byron, laughing silently in the water, a whipping tentacle of ice a foot wide forming from Byron’s hand, through cracked glass and hissing holy water, to Alex’s forehead.

Ask the questions, Alex thought thickly, his vision a wild blur of spotted white.

I’m freezing…glass breaking…

What do you have?

Nothing.

Alex’s vision swooped wild and he was looking at the ceiling, aware that glass chunks and ice were flying. He heard popping sounds, gunfire; Sangster must be shooting. Water was rushing over him and stalks of ice were flying through the room. He heard a woman scream and saw a pair of legs fall across his body. There seemed to be tentacles of ice flying in all directions as the water came over him. He tried to move but his neck was stiff, and the water came up over his nose.

Alex tried to blow air out of his nose, but the water came anyway and his sinuses screamed with pain. His vision snapped to for a moment, and he saw a blast of ice tear the door off its hinges, and he heard growling. He smelled burning flesh where bits of silver in the water sparked against Byron’s chest.

Alex caught a glimpse of Astrid, swinging her green staff against Byron’s neck, and Byron turned, punching her with a column of ice that sent her into a cement wall.

Suddenly Alex was being yanked up, and he thought Sangster and then was aware that a powerful claw had him by the chest, gripping his shirt, which was caked in ice.

Alex saw the vampire’s fangs and felt blood gush from his neck.

Then, all went black.

CHAPTER 16

For a moment all Alex heard were voices and the slush of water rushing around his ears as he lay on the floor.

Forget Icemaker—

Kristatos?

Dead—

“Alex?” He heard Sangster call his name.

He blinked, light blazing into his eyes, and the shapes of Sangster and Astrid were washed out and filtered by light. There were red lamps flashing, and he had the delirious feeling he was in a nightclub.

What’s happening?

“You’re on the ground. Get up.”

His hands slipped under him and he tried to grip the tiles with his fingers, and his fingers were sausages, bags of peanut butter. He saw the flickering of light as his eyes blinked rapidly, and he was unable to stop them.

“…pressure on it!” Sangster shouted, and then he saw Astrid move over him, clamping her hand down on his throat. Something that looked black gushed toward her.

He was being carried, then he felt himself slamming down onto something like a bed.

“Out of the way. Where is the infirmary?” he heard Sangster call. A shadow of a scientist shouted something. There was blood on the walls, and Alex held his eyes open long enough to see a gash in the ceiling tiles, dripping with water, where something had punched clear through and kept going.

They turned a corner and the lights kept flickering.

“I’m sorry!” he rasped. “I’m sorry I went out!”

“Don’t worry about that now,” came Astrid’s voice. She brought her other hand to his forehead and leaned in close. “I’m here because of you. Don’t leave.”

Something squishy and oily crossing his forehead and dissolving under Astrid’s thumb. A flare, a burst of phosphorous. Unknown, ancient words. Then, darkness washed over him.

In the distance he heard voices:

Astrid’s voice. I have to take him.

Sangster: Absolutely not—

He has been bitten very badly. I can help him. We can help him.

He belongs with us.

You don’t know the first thing about who he belongs with! You have to trust me. There is no time. The poison will start to work the curse, and you know as well