Alex Van Helsing Voice of the Undead - By Jason Henderson Page 0,44

so young women, all walking neatly side by side. They seemed unconscious—he caught sight of the two brunettes he had seen earlier and they looked neither at each other nor at the girls ahead. Their eyes shimmered, unseeing, as they passed like ghosts between the trees.

Then he gasped when he saw Minhi. She was halfway up the line, and walking barefoot, wearing racing green pajamas. Her sleeve was torn where she must have had trouble getting out her window. He could see a rough scrape, visible on her exposed shoulder.

“Minhi!” he whispered. He dared to get closer to them, walking quickly, keeping trees between them. “Minhi!”

She didn’t respond. He stopped for a second, hugging a tree and looking back at the procession. He stepped out, now right next to the girls as he let Minhi move on ahead. He walked for a moment alongside a pair of girls he vaguely recognized from his literature class. He waved his hand. No one glanced at him. Alex turned and stumbled up next to Minhi again. “What are you doing?” he asked.

Minhi was walking, her arms swinging slowly, a perfect automaton stride. She didn’t look his way. He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Hey!”

Nothing. All right, that’s enough. Alex stepped in front of her this time, grabbing her left shoulder.

Minhi struck his forearm with her right. Then Alex felt the flat of her left hand smack hard against his jaw and the side of his head. No sooner had he lost his grip on her when Minhi’s right arm swung back, smacking him again and sending him reeling against a tree. This little demonstration of Hung Gar kung fu completed, she continued on her way. He stuck to the tree and stared. Minhi hadn’t looked at him once.

Alex considered retrieving something from the backpack, maybe a flash-bang, of which he had two. They did no real damage but were loud and flashy, and he could set off one and maybe break them out of their trance. But if that worked, he might not learn just what this was about.

Alex changed tactics. He started walking alongside the procession again, passing it quickly on the right. He moved steadily until he drew near the front.

They continued into the woods, barefoot, feet squishy in the soft earth, gaining scratches as they occasionally stepped on twigs. Approximately fifteen minutes, about a mile.

Then Alex saw light—several lights, in fact, torches glowing yellow through the trees. He hunkered behind a tree, staring, as the procession passed him again. They were pouring into a clearing in the woods.

Alex crept forward slowly now because they were fanning out and he couldn’t see past them. He heard someone clear her throat, and he realized that all along the way he had not heard that sound. The sleeping didn’t do that.

Alex reached the clearing and circled around it, trying to find the edge of the group. He heard someone yell. It was a stifled scream, like someone shouting through a gag. He started moving faster until he finally reached the edge and saw what the procession was gathered around.

There was a chair in the grass, with a man of about fifty sitting in it—no, not just sitting: tied, bound, and gagged. The man was trying to get away, but the chair was reinforced at the back and it barely rocked as he fought against the binds. He was wearing slacks and a light jacket. His eyes swiveled in terror.

Next to him was a table, and Alex saw the glint of steel—no less than ten knives laid out in a row.

Behind the chair was another table, with what looked like a pair of speakers and a small device, something that might have been an iPod. There was a figure with her back turned to them, but the hiss of static in his head and the white robes she wore identified her instantly.

Elle turned around and looked at the crowd.

“I’m going to play something for you,” said Elle. “And then we’re going to have a demonstration.”

Chapter 18

Elle hadn’t seen him. Alex thought that she would normally be able to smell him, probably from memory, but he judged that the number of mortal humans around must have been overwhelming. All that hot blood, and he was just one of many.

The man in the chair was struggling, trying to break free. Elle said, “Shh.”

Alex needed to get in there and set the guy free. Right away. But what was his opening? Elle stepped back