Alex Van Helsing Voice of the Undead - By Jason Henderson Page 0,47

continued approaching, some of them reaching down to grab extra knives from the silver box.

Well, that’s disappointing.

On and on the voice of Ultravox played and they pressed in.

Alex looked back at the iPod in the grass and leapt for it. “That’s enough,” he said, and he snatched it up, ripping its cord loose from the speakers. Abruptly the voice stopped.

And so did the horde.

“Wake up!” he cried. Minhi was next to him, panting. The girls stood still, as if suspended on invisible wires.

And then Alex realized they were receding, turning, the ones in the back first, followed by the ones closer to him. Suddenly he remembered Elle and he turned with his stake at the ready.

But Elle was gone. And in a moment, so was the pajama horde, shrinking back into the distance.

Alex stood in the clearing next to Minhi. Suddenly she was hugging him. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said, hugging her back awkwardly. “We have to go.”

They followed the horde as it moved in the same antlike procession as before, through the woods and back to LaLaurie. Minhi clutched at Alex; he put his arm around her, though he was watching the girls pad their way silently, sleeping, even as they passed through the doors. One or two of them carried keys, surely on some unholy order, and Alex watched them unconsciously unlock the doors and enter. On up to their rooms, where, one and all, they returned to sleep.

Chapter 19

Alex slapped the purloined Scholomance device down on the conference table, right in the center of the u in Talia Sunt. He had come to HQ immediately after dropping off Minhi, calling Sangster along the way.

“What have you got there?” Armstrong said, picking it up.

The door opened and Sangster came in, wearing a sport coat and chinos and looking like he was called into meetings in the middle of the night all the time. He tossed his jacket over a chair and sat next to Alex, gazing at the small white device in Armstrong’s hands from across the table.

“It’s an iPod,” Alex said. “Basically, I think.”

Armstrong turned it over and pitched it to Sangster. It was about the size of a deck of cards, with no video screen but ports for speakers and USB. Unlike the Apple device it resembled, it had only one button.

“Elle left it behind when I disrupted her sacrifice, or whatever it was. Her directed killing.”

“That was unwise of her.” Sangster looked at Armstrong. “Let’s have Monty look at this.”

They headed out the door and down the carpeted halls until they came to an area Alex had never seen, a large bay of computers and screens and what looked like a studio mixing board.

A man with scant amounts of yellow hair and one arm looked up at them as they entered his area. He was wearing earphones and watching a screen where Alex could see various lines representing sound. The lines were pulsing, and Alex realized he was listening to music.

“Monty!” Armstrong called, and the balding man nodded distantly.

“What is it, I’m listening to—”

Armstrong tugged the earphone jack out of the mixing board and the room filled with techno. “I have actual work for you.”

The guy looked at Sangster, Armstrong, and Alex, and rolled his eyes. “This is work. Look at this.” He pointed at the screen, indicating a low, fluid line that ran below the others. “See that little line down there? It’s a conversation. I’m listening to some recordings we got last week in Geneva. Got some stuff on your Ultravox. Not much, though. Vampires, man, they go into town and talk. Don’t believe the hype; they do drink wine.” He slid a lever and the volume receded. He turned to Alex. “Hey, you’re the Van Helsing kid.”

Alex nodded. Sangster said, “This is Monty Crief, he’s a communications intelligence specialist with—another agency, but we’ve got him for Ultravox.”

So that was what they were calling the operation, Ultravox, a whole rolling chain of events captured under one name. “What is that?” Monty said, suddenly interested. Sangster tossed the device again and Monty snatched it out of the air with his one arm. “Cool.”

Alex said, “About an hour ago a vampire from the Scholomance played whatever is on that thing for a bunch of girls in the woods. It told them to kill a man, and they almost did it.”

Monty was plugging in the device. He tapped the button and the voice of Ultravox began