Alex Van Helsing Voice of the Undead - By Jason Henderson Page 0,45
to the device that looked like an iPod and pressed its button. At once Alex heard a voice filling the clearing, liquid and golden.
“Good evening,” the voice said. “I am very pleased to see you all. You are going to do something that will set you free from all the forces that hold you down. Something you want to do—something I reveal that comes from within you.”
Alex knew that voice. It was the sound of Ultravox.
But the voice was not aimed at him this time—it held no purchase on his mind as it had on the train. The voice was working on the rest of its audience, though. Alex was amazed that Ultravox could aim his message so directly; it seemed that he was specifically targeting human girls. He wondered if Ultravox could tune it by age as well, and where the hypnotic effect came in—it wasn’t in the mere words, surely, because Alex was hearing the same words. He had a suspicion that Ultravox’s power was more complex than that—a mixture of words and sound and possibly even some kind of psychic “hook.”
And why not? Icemaker had been able to float off the ground and turn the air to ice—was it so hard to imagine vampires could learn to do all kinds of things that normal men could not?
Alex listened as the droning went on, repeating the basic idea several times, freedom through doing what I say. He had to admire the gall in that kind of doublethink.
“My assistant is going to give you the tools. What you want to do now is take this knife,” said the voice. Alex felt his eyes grow wide as one of the girls stepped forward. Elle held out one of the silver daggers. At the edge of the knife table was a silver box, and now Elle opened that as well, revealing many, many more blades.
The girl—a senior, by the look of her, with shoulder-length strawberry hair—took the knife and stared blankly.
“The person you see before you is one of those who has kept you in thrall, one of the rule makers, the slaveholders, the barriers to your freedom.”
Oh, boy. Alex looked at the man and wondered if in fact this guy was anything at all like that, a cop or an administrator. Probably not, and it didn’t matter in the slightest, because this sleepwalking teenager was about to stab him.
“That’s enough,” Alex shouted, bursting through the trees. Elle hissed at him as he went for the knife first, smacking the redheaded girl’s hand. She barely registered the knife flying from her hand, but then dropped to the grass and began to look for it again. Alex pushed her back, sending her falling.
The voice was still talking, now taking on a repeating refrain: “Freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice.”
“Sorry, Al, but you’re not invited,” said Elle, and she grabbed him by the collar, dragging him back. Alex smashed against the table that held the iPod and it toppled over with the speakers, still playing. The voice went on as he grunted in pain, crunching his ribs against the table. He rolled forward, kicking at her.
“Freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice.”
Alex picked up the table and swung it at Elle and she bashed it aside. Then she moved lightning fast and had his collar. She reared back her head, showing her fangs and driving toward his neck. Alex grabbed her chin, pushing, feeling the iron power of her neck muscles. He brought up his knees and caught her in the midsection, and as she fell back he reached through the seam in his backpack and drew out his stake, feeling the wooden handle and threading of silver that ran along its length.
He became aware of movement around him—the girls gathering close. The silver box clattered and they were groping for the knives that fell out on the grass.
“Freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice.”
Alex lunged at Elle when suddenly someone had him by the wrist and yanked him back, throwing him to the ground.
Alex’s head smacked against the leg of the chair where the “sacrifice” still was trying to break free, and he tipped the chair over, allowing the man more protection, he hoped.
Then he looked back as a pair of legs came down around his and he saw glistening steel raised up high and ready to sink home.
It was Minhi.
Alex thrust his hands forward, grabbing her arm and her shoulder. “Minhi, no—”