help for her.”
Alex understood. They—the Polidorium, with Montrose—were helping Vienna with the scarf.
Minhi nodded, looking down. “Her stuff is still in her room,” she said. “I was wondering where she was.”
“Anyway, this place is looking great,” Sangster said. “Now that it’s livable maybe we can start working on the real Glenarvon.”
Alex’s heart sank at the thought. He kind of liked “Glenarvon-LaLaurie.”
“Don’t look so crushed,” Sangster said. “Otranto said months, but I’ll be surprised if it’s this year.”
Sid cleared his throat and said, “Mr. Sangster, I hate to cut this short, but I have to go work.” He had a yellow pad and a bunch of pens. He looked miserable.
“Pumpkin Show?” Sangster said, looking at his watch. “So tonight is the last one.”
Sid nodded, suddenly looking kind of pale. “It’s the first one I’m doing without using the book.”
“Who needs it? Anyway, I was just stopping by.” Sangster had an apartment now, in another wing of the house. Alex had heard it was about the size of three of these student rooms. “You guys have made good guests,” Sangster said. “Very good guests.” And with that he was gone.
Chapter 35
Sid’s story that night was called “After the Transfer.”
As Sid approached the chair, Alex knew that “After the Transfer” would be a disaster. Sid had lost his nerve since leaving the library. He had hunkered down in a bay window in New Aubrey House with a legal pad and pen, and started strong: Alex checked in on him and saw outlines taped to the window, and even outlines of how Sid was going to use the next few hours (“2:00–3:00 BRAINSTORM. 3:00–4:00 OUTLINE. 4:00–4:45 WRITE. 4:45–5:30 REVISE.”). Alex stopped in again around five, and Sid was sitting and scrawling amid piles of yellow wads of paper. He had no idea if Sid was in revise mode or not. The boy looked panicked.
And now Sid trudged toward the big chair with feet dragging, his arms swaying as though his hands were dull wads of meat, the papers weighing him down.
Sid sat under the candles and the room hushed. Alex heard the creak of wooden seats as students leaned forward. The yodeler girl, Ilsa, was not among them; a debutante with a highly placed parent, Ilsa was among those now recuperating in the Alps.
“‘After the Transfer,’” Sid read.
He was silent, then, for what seemed like a minute and a half.
Finally the tension broke, and Sid opened his mouth. Alex looked in his friend’s eyes and saw something like desperate panic. Sid’s hands shook, but when he spoke, he sounded still.
“It has been twenty-three years since I have spoken of our time in the garden,” read Sid, “and after tonight I shall not speak of it again.”
And off into the far reaches of story went Sid, and Alex realized he had been duped by his own eyes.
And also proven right after all: Sid did not need the spell in the book, for he had spells of his own.
About the Author
JANSON HENDERSON has written for games and comic books, including the Activision game Wolfenstein, the vampire action comic series Sword of Dracula, and the manga series Psy-Comm. He is also the author of ALEX VAN HELSING: VAMPIRE RISING. He lives with his family in Grapevine, Texas. You can visit him online at www.alexvanhelsing.com.
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Credits
Jacket art © 2011 by Don Sipley
Copyright
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Alex Van Helsing: Voice of the Undead
Copyright © 2011 by Jason Henderson
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Henderson, Jason, 1971–
Voice of the undead / by Jason Henderson. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Alex Van Helsing)
Summary: After a fire damages his boarding school in Switzerland, fourteen-year-old Alex and his friends move to the girls’ school across the lake, where supernatural happenings are disturbing the peace, and in the meantime, more Van Helsing family secrets are revealed.
ISBN 978-0-06-195101-5
EPub Edition © JUNE 2011 ISBN: 9780062084422
[1. Horror stories. 2. Vampires—Fiction. 3. Supernatural—Fiction. 4. Boarding schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. 6. Switzerland—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H37955Voi 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010045554
CIP
AC
* * *
11 12 13 14 15 LP/RRDB 10 9 8 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher