Alex Van Helsing Voice of the Undead - By Jason Henderson Page 0,10

infiltrating Europe. That errand was their way to escape and figure out what on earth was going on.

Into the woods the Glenarvon van shot with Sangster at the wheel, heading toward Polidorium HQ. Alex was astonished that the instructor was able to find a path through the trees big enough for the van, but within ten minutes they were into the clearing he had come to know well, through the false door of the farmhouse, and down into the bowels of the earth.

Sangster brought the van to a stop in what amounted to a vast garage, big enough to house Humvees and cars and motorcycles and trucks with helicopters on their trailers. They bounded up the metal stairs at the back of the garage as Sangster gestured to a large clock on the wall. “We have an hour; that’ll leave half an hour to get the supplies.”

Through the doors at the top of the stairs lay a world of carpeting and glass walls. Alex heard the familiar clamor of agents moving from room to room, some listening to radio chatter, some drawing lines on enormous glass maps. Alex and Sangster moved past the commotion to a conference room, where two people waited impatiently.

At the head of a long, shiny black table sat Director Carreras, whose balding head and heavy-set frame fit his suit perfectly and made him look like the senior partner of a law firm. As they entered, Alex caught the eye of Agent Anne Armstrong, who was pacing near the projection screen at the front. She wore standard Polidorium togs, black pants and shirt, with shoulder holster. At least once in the month he’d been around, Alex had seen her in a U.S. Air Force uniform, and she had informed him she was actually a captain on detached assignment from that service. That was the way it worked, apparently. Some of these people were on loan.

“Can anyone tell me what is going on?” Sangster asked as Carreras bade them sit, and Armstrong’s look indicated she had hoped to ask the same thing.

“We think it’s retaliation against Van Helsing,” said Carreras in a smooth British accent. “For the attack on the Scholomance last month.”

For a moment Alex allowed it all to come back—the journey under the lake to reclaim his friends. But that adventure hadn’t ended with a daring escape, the way he had expected it to when they managed to bash their way out alive.

No, the adventure had ended, truly ended, with Alex alone, a heavy vampiric hand wrapped around his throat. For a moment Alex saw again the flicker of red light, felt the nail of the vampire called Icemaker digging into him. Icemaker had been trying to raise a long-dead woman who would be the new queen of the vampires, and at that moment, with everything in his plan falling apart, she needed more blood. Alex was their last chance and he had almost died right there. The inch-long cut on his throat had only healed recently.

Alex shook the memory away and shared what had happened, from the Mercedes to the fire. Sangster said, “Tell us more about the worm.”

Alex continued talking as Armstrong typed away. “It was about yea big,” he said, holding out his hands. “It started out small and then it split into kind of a starfish.”

“Did it have circular jaws?” Armstrong asked, not looking up. She tapped a key and on the screen appeared a three-dimensional diagram of the worm itself, slowly spinning, diagrammatic lines pointing to various parts of the creature.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Alex said.

“You ever seen one of these?” Armstrong said to Sangster.

“Only in Anzio,” Sangster said, looking at the diagram.

“It’s Italian?” Alex asked. Anzio was a coastal city where an enormous military cemetery stood. He had been there with his family.

“No, it’s—Sangster is talking about the Polidorium’s creature school in Anzio,” Armstrong told him. “Anyway: the worm is called a Glimmerhook. This is a very unusual thing for the Scholomance to haul out and throw at you. They would have had to procure it from one of the heavy-duty blood-wielding clans, the kind that can make enhanced creatures using blood. They come in an egglike, ah, grenade—so there are usually a handful of them, like you said. There’re only one or two clan lords who can make them, so it would be an expensive get.”

Alex remembered the worms crawling into his jacket. “What does it do?”

“Just two things,” Armstrong said. “It sucks your blood and expands to carry back