Alex Van Helsing The Triumph of Death - By Jason Henderson Page 0,49
would fight for good. That childhood story, that wasn’t the end of it, you know. When she was an adult she was the one to raise an army of women in Germany to open the gates of hell and win back her loved ones. She had a different name at that time—Mad Gretel. Mad Meg, some called her.”
Alex thought of Astrid’s name. “You’re Astrid Gretelian. So you’re related to Gretel?”
“Yes, my family are direct descendants of Mad Meg, the first Gretel.” She smiled, sipping her tea. “Somewhere back there, anyway.”
“Astrid’s one of those born into Hexen,” Amanda said. “Powerful adeptness just flows right down her bloodline.”
“Wait,” Alex said. “When you were here last month, you said you knew I was in trouble because you were meditating with another witch and she called your attention to the danger.”
“That’s right,” his mom answered.
“So you literally could be having a…session with a protégé from anywhere in the world.”
“Right!” Amanda said. “That’s why it’s not so bad living in the middle of nowhere.”
Alex became aware of Astrid smiling next to him and he pointed to her. “And you’re the protégé.” Astrid simply waved.
Alex shook his head. “Oh, come on, Mom! Seriously? You set me up? With a witch?”
“No, Alex,” Amanda said. “It’s not a setup. There was no better person to send to work with you. And only you merited a partner from the Orchard.”
Alex still wasn’t used to the idea that his mom was not just a witch but part of a community, an active part the way his father had been active with the Polidorium. As Alex considered this, he felt once more the mix of anger and betrayal and pride that he’d felt when he first saw pictures of his father fighting vampires before Alex was born. Anger and betrayal because both Amanda and Charles had insisted while Alex was growing up that there were no such things as vampires, werewolves, witches, or anything of that nature. But, in fact, Talia sunt, there are such things. They had decided to protect him by keeping the truth from him, even as Amanda allowed Charles to train Alex in every skill he would need when the time came to join the war.
That whole jumble of emotion, the anger and betrayal and pride, mixed in a kind of jagged, giddy excitement now. He was too happy to see her to be angry, too proud to be part of them to feel betrayed.
“Only me…because of my power, the static thing I have?”
“Give me some credit, Alex,” Amanda said. “I was also calling in a favor for my son, because the Polidorium was about to go up against Claire Clairmont.”
“You were…worried about me?”
Amanda scoffed. “Oh, come on. Of course I was worried. Just last month I almost forced you to come home. Yes. I was worried.”
“What about Dad…does he know about this whole thing?”
“He knows I’m here, and he knows I’m helping you.”
“He really is serious about staying out,” Alex said. “So you coming here didn’t merit him strapping on the old Polibow?”
“He never had a Polibow, but he’s not strapping anything on as long as we have children at home. That’s the deal.”
Alex was struck by the fact that his father might not have wanted to retire; this had never occurred to him. “What about you?”
“It’s not the same.”
“Well.” Alex looked around at the room. “I mean, the décor is different, but don’t you think it kind of seems the same?”
“It’s not,” Amanda said. “I promise.”
“Shall we get started?” Mother Laura cleared her throat and bade Alex and Astrid sit.
“Lights,” said Laura, and the windows darkened and lights dimmed as she picked up one of the pieces of parti-colored fruit. She turned to her spinning wheel and stabbed the fruit onto a spike above the wheel, and he heard wooden pedals begin to move at her feet.
For a moment the fruit dripped as the wheel spun, and then a line of thread shot through the air and began to mound upon itself at the center of the table.
“What’s this?” Alex whispered to Astrid.
“I said earlier that we store our knowledge in the fruit,” Astrid said. “We read the fruit by extracting the juice onto thread from the wheel.”
“Why can’t you just read the fruit?”
“Can you read fruit?” she asked with an arched eyebrow. “It’s easier with the thread.”
“So…what do you do with the thread?” Alex was wondering if Mother Laura was going to knit them a readable sweater.
“Alex, just watch,” Amanda whispered. Then she patted