Alex Van Helsing The Triumph of Death - By Jason Henderson Page 0,55

blocked the view of the daytime world beyond. “This way to the road! Look! Those burning buildings, that’s fake! It’s just a movie projected on a—a curtain; you can walk right through it!”

Alex’s attention was caught by Astrid, who had stopped at the next wall that led into the heart of the churchyard with Allegra’s grave. She was standing still, shaking her head, a strange, thin silhouette against the distant curtain of red and black. “What is it?” he called, and then he was at her side and saw.

Several images hit Alex at once, and at first he had no idea which to focus on.

There were two vampires, their faces painted like skulls, holding a child of about six or seven, one of the parishioners, by the arms. Their white arms rippled with blue veins and their nails were digging in as they squeezed her tightly by the wrists.

That flooding in your chest. It tells everyone else to be afraid and lose their stuff. It reminds you, if you let it, to slow down. Slow down. Take it in.

The vampires were staring at him, and Astrid and Alex ignored them for a second, daring to look away from the girl. Just a few yards beyond the screaming little girl in the green coat and the matching green hat, something strange was happening at the grave.

There was dirt flying, churning as if being rotor-tilled. At first it looked as though there were a great wheel moving of its own accord, but then Alex heard it breathing, seething and hissing with exertion. It was a creature half submerged in the soft earth, its great legs churning around and around, and each time its legs emerged from the ground, he saw its powerful claws, and saw it toss back a mound of earth. The creature had a bulbous, bald head and white, boiled-egg eyes, its skin a reddish tone made even more devilish by the strange gleam of the curtain of night.

Alex searched his brain. He had seen it before. It was a vampire of some kind, one of the ones he had learned about. It was known to dig up crops and spread plague.

“What is that?” Astrid asked.

“I am blanking on the name,” Alex said, wishing he had Sid with him. Sid would know as surely as Dr. DeKamp would. “But it’s digging up Allegra’s grave. Why would they be doing that?” Alex asked, but then it was obvious. If the Queen was vulnerable to DNA from her most beloved, she would want to get it before they did.

“We need to—” Astrid started to say.

“No closer,” one of the vampires hissed. “I don’t even have to say why.”

Alex didn’t look at the vampire but at the girl, studying her face. She was screaming, and he shut that out. He was checking for pain, and she seemed to be terrified but had some slack. If they were going to pull her apart, they hadn’t started that yet.

“Hey!” Alex shouted to the girl. “Hey! Don’t worry, we’re going to get you out of here.”

“Shut up,” the vampire on the right said, his eyes glistening under the black makeup.

“What’s the point of this?” Alex shouted at him. “You’re keeping me from the grave? And then what? You bite the little girl anyway?”

The vampire, not the sharpest, seemed to consider. “Just stay back.”

Alex held his hands at his sides and glanced at Astrid. They were about twelve feet from the vampires. Beyond lay the grave and the curious digger creature, another fifteen feet back.

“Have to be fast,” Alex whispered.

“Right or left?” she answered.

“I’ll take the right.”

Alex quickly drew his Polibow as he began to run, and he saw the vampire start to pull.

Astrid was in the air, leaping like a gazelle, and she had her staff up, its blade glistening with silver and emerald as she brought it up and back and then down.

The vampires were wide and exposed as they held the girl. Alex hit his vampire square in the forehead and he staggered, brain-dead once more; another bolt in the chest and he was dust. Alex caught the girl just as Astrid landed in the dust cloud that they had created of the two vamps.

Alex looked in the girl’s eyes and then pointed at the road, where Sangster was alternating between ushering more parishioners and fighting vampires who were all over the grounds. “You’re gonna be okay. Just run for the road.”

“But the fires!” the girl cried, looking at the distant curtains and the