The Triumph of Death

by Jason Henderson

  “You go after the vamp,” Alex told Astrid. “I’ll take the leg-churning thing.”

  “Don’t stop!” The vampire pointed down at the ground as he yelled at the creature, whose bug-like eyes blinked. “That’s the coffin; just make sure you don’t tear it up.”

  The creature nodded and the legs began to churn once more. Alex had already started running for it.

  The creature had broad, humped shoulders and spindly arms, and Alex fired a bolt at it as he got within ten feet. The bolt caught the creature in the shoulder and stuck for a second, hissing before dropping off. It had thick armor all around, probably some kind of augmented, hardened blood, cast with magic in the Scholomance.

  Alex leapt on the thing’s shoulders and dirt began immediately smacking him in the face. Down below, through the churning legs and soil, Alex could see dark wood, the sturdy edges of the child’s coffin.

  The creature swiped at him with arms that reminded Alex of the near-useless claws on the sides of a Tyrannosaurus rex. He batted them away, holding on to the creature’s head, bringing a glass ball out of his go package and smashing it sideways into the holes that he judged to be ears.

  The creature howled as holy water gushed through its ear canals, and it stopped digging, whipping its head. Smoke was hissing out of the wound tracks, and Alex saw its teeth, which parted to let a long tongue dart out. The tongue extended and smacked at his chin and Alex grimaced against waves of static. He grabbed the tongue, felt it pulsing in his fingers. Then he jumped off the creature’s shoulders, and the creature staggered sideways, crawling out of the hole in pain.

  It was on him, then, swiping with its claws at Alex’s sides as Alex held the tongue and pumped a bolt into the creature’s mouth. He caught it on the cheek. He needed to hit the soft palate of the top of its mouth, to drive a bolt up into its brain.

  He saw a flurry of movement out of the corner of his eye as Astrid’s staff spun and she landed on a vampire, sending him back against the wall.

  On the ground outside the grave now, the creature no longer had to fight with its tiny forearms, and Alex saw the hind legs begin to churn the earth around him. One of the huge hind claws caught the edge of his jacket, sending shreds of cloth flying. Alex kicked at the legs and yelped in pain as the hind claw whacked his leg to the side. Forget its legs.

  In his peripheral vision, Astrid had the vampire pinned with her staff, and the vampire grabbed Astrid by the front of her jacket and whipped her up, smashing the witch against the wall above him. The vamp dropped around, rising and swiping his long nails at Astrid’s neck. Astrid parried the blow. All this in a moment when Alex was bringing his Polibow up again.

  Astrid and the vampire were still going at it around the grave when Alex heard a new sound—horses and wheels coming fast.

  The creature’s mouth was snapping and Alex breathed, aiming his weapon for one of the huge eyes. He felt one of the foreclaws dig into his jacket, scratching at his chest, and Alex quickly pumped a bolt into the creature’s eye.

  The bolt drove home, deep into the creature’s eye socket and into the brain. The creature began to shake, and Alex brought the Polibow down, point-blank at its chest. He fired, sending a bolt into the heart.

  In the explosion of dust and ash, Alex felt the heat soften the fibers in his own jacket and melt part of the bandage around his neck. He closed his eyes during the flash lest it melt the contacts to his corneas. Alex quickly got to his feet, searching for Astrid.

  She was holding her own, using her staff against the vampire, but she was evenly matched. Alex brought up his Polibow trying to draw a bead on the vamp, but they kept spinning. He wanted to shout to Astrid to give him room, break off, and let him just shoot the foe.

  But suddenly, something grabbed his arm tightly and nearly tore off his hand, and as Alex’s arm whipped wild, the Polibow spun away. He was dragged off his feet, his arm threatening to detach from his shoulder, and as he swung around, nearly sliding under a great wooden wheel, he saw Elle, at the reins of a wagon-like coach with a wide bed and several vampires, commanding one of the Queen’s skeletal horses.

  Alex heard a fwoosh sound and looked to see Astrid plunging her staff into her vampire’s chest and sending it into oblivion. But Elle was yelling something, and even as Alex untangled himself from her whip, he saw two more vampires, fast and huge, leaping for the grave.

  One of them dropped into the grave and had the coffin up in a second, and the other grabbed it, lifting it like something that weighed nothing at all. He was running with it now, and Alex saw Astrid go after him.

  The vampire leapt up onto the carriage with the coffin and dropped it into the back, and Elle snapped the reins again. The carriage was beginning to pull out and Alex ran after it. Elle looked back at him, catching his eyes.

  “They’ve got the coffin,” Alex said into his Bluetooth. “I’m going after them.”

  “I’m taking care of this one,” Astrid answered, and Alex looked back to see Astrid squaring off with the other vampire, whom Elle had abandoned in order to get away with Allegra’s coffin.

  “Sangster, what’s your situation?” Alex screamed as he ran. A thrill of grave fear rushed through him and Alex set it aside. Concentrate on what’s in front of you.

  Gotta move fast. Alex ran behind the bumping wooden trailer, which was painted in the reddish-brown colors favored by the Scholomance and the new Queen. There were iron bars across either side of the trailer and the coffin was rattling against them. Alex tried to speed up, judging where he would grab a bar. He would have one chance to get on.

  He leapt, hitting the top bar and gripping, and then lost it, falling, before grabbing the next bar down. Immediately his body yanked forward, the toes of his shoes dragging and kicking up grass and stones.

  The vampire in the back saw Alex now and came forward, reaching for his hand to pull it free, and Alex heaved his body up, getting a leg over the back. The vampire whipped its head and aimed for Alex’s shoulder with its teeth.

  Alex felt the teeth glancing against his jacket as he rolled, smashing against the vampire’s legs. Alex grabbed the vampire by the feet and pushed upward as he tumbled underneath him, and the creature sailed off the back of the trailer and into the grass.

  Alex climbed to his feet, fighting to keep his balance as the carriage barreled past the front of the church and headed for the road.

  Up ahead, they were about to hit the edge of the artificial night, and Alex wondered what would happen when they did. Elle whipped the reins and the skeletal horse picked up speed, and then as they reached the wall—

  The projection wall pushed back to accommodate them. Not bad, Alex thought. Even in this limited demonstration, the spell allowed the Queen’s vampires to carry night with them.

  They were on a road now, the carriage careening straight down a street where cars zipped around them. Where were they going?

  Alex crawled forward and tried to decide what to do. Throw the coffin off the trailer? It would shatter into a thousand pieces. He might even lose the body, the whole point of the operation. He needed to stop the carriage.

  Without a Polibow he couldn’t shoot. He had a long, dagger-like stake, but he wanted something to throw. He seized a glass ball and threw it at the back of Elle’s head. The jolting carriage killed his shot, the ball slamming into the dashboard of the carriage. Holy water splashed up and hissed against Elle’s face and she looked back at him through gritted fangs.

  Now the great enclosure of night seemed to stretch out, and Alex saw their path—there was an intersection up ahead, which was in darkness as well, cars suddenly coming into it without lights and swerving. But where were they going?

  Alex grabbed the back of the carriage seat, next to Elle, who looked at him and laughed, snapping the reins as they crushed a bicycle, its rider abandoning it as they came near. The skeletal horse clopped over the rear bumper of a small French car and the car swerved off the road, colliding with a mailbox.

  �
�Where are you going?” Alex demanded, holding his stake to the point on Elle’s neck just below her ear. She deftly grabbed his wrist and yanked him halfway over the seat.

  “What do you care?” He was reading her lips more than hearing her over the cacophony. “You have two days, Alex, before this is what the world looks like.”

  Beyond the intersection, Alex saw the running water of the Thames, about a hundred yards of it within the dark bubble.

  “You can’t go to the river,” Alex said. “You can’t cross running water.”

  “Why don’t you leave the logistics to the professionals?” Elle grabbed his ear and tried to smash Alex against the seat. He struggled to twist free.

  Something flashed on the dashboard, and Alex saw what looked like a radar screen, where a large red dot was coming in fast from the right up ahead. Alex heard a long, bellowing horn.

  Elle picked up speed, within an eighth of a mile from the intersection. Alex grabbed Elle by the shoulders, reaching his arm around her body, bringing the stake to her neck. “If you’re this afraid that we’re going to get Allegra’s DNA then you must really be worried about us,” he said.

  “We’re taking what’s ours.”

  Right then, Alex made a decision. The red dot on the screen and the sounding horn were probably someone Elle was planning to meet. He could keep trading blows with her until they reached whatever reinforcements were flying down the road up ahead, or he could change the game.

  “No, you’re not.” Alex dropped back and looked at the coffin. Screw it. They could grab what they needed after.

  The horn sounded again, and Alex looked over his shoulder to see an enormous red vehicle like an armored personnel carrier plunge into the intersection, bashing cars out of the way as it slowed.

  He looked back at the tiny coffin, all four feet of it, plain and wooden and ancient. “Bye, Elle,” he said, and put his fingers under the box’s end. With one solid heave, he lifted it and kicked.

  The coffin of Allegra Byron tumbled like a bowling pin off the end of the trailer.

  Alex felt something heavy collide with his shoulders, Elle’s claws grabbing him as she tossed him aside. She was screaming in rage.

  The carriage was still moving, out of control and heading into the intersection, as Elle left her seat and pushed past him, reaching out to the wooden casket.

  The casket hit the ground and began to roll and shatter, wood splintering. There was no time now. He had to get off and gather it. He looked for a soft landing, found a pickup truck traveling next to them, the driver staring in wonder, and leapt.

  Alex hit the metal bed of the pickup truck and felt the driver brake instantly. Alex quickly tucked his shoulders and rolled into the front of the pickup bed. He got to his feet, looking out onto the road and wincing as the coffin continued to pinwheel, its top flying off and its sides exploding. Pieces of it smashed into an oncoming car.

  Alex dropped out of the truck to the side of the road, wincing in guilt as he prepared for the grand finale of a tiny mummified body flying through someone’s windshield.

  But that didn’t happen at all. The coffin of Lord Byron’s daughter burst open like an old tomato and spat out a flurry of paper, straw, fluttering yellow ribbons, and cobblestones.

  Alex got out of the way of another vehicle and stood on the curb in shock, looking back to see Elle, who dropped to her knees in her wild carriage, arms outstretched toward the coffin, her black-painted eyes wide with rage.

  The carriage swept into the intersection and smashed into the enormous red vehicle, and the last Alex saw of Elle, her body was catapulted through the air into the open side of the personnel carrier as it zoomed past. She disappeared into it completely, leaving the bones of her horse.

  The carrier sped away, and Alex could still hear her screaming as he brought his eyes back to the obliterated, empty coffin.

  CHAPTER 20

  The coffin is empty. Alex ran into the street, daylight already streaming back in, the nightmare of darkness lifted. He held out his hands toward traffic in vain hope that this would somehow keep cars from running over him. “Astrid, help me get the pieces!” he called into his wireless.

  Get the pieces. He wouldn’t think about it until he recovered the pieces. Alex ran around, grabbing wood and tossing it to the side of the road. He ran after bits of straw and shredded paper that turned to dust in the damp air. Amazingly, at least one motorist hopped out of his car and helped him, and then Astrid was there, running, too.

  At the side of the road Alex had a stack of ruined casket—lid and bottom, pieces of all six sides, and the stuffing, a few bits of which he shoved into his pack.

  Something caught his eye, and Alex squinted, feeling his contacts swim as his eyelids squeezed his eyeballs, trying to drag a few extra feet of vision out of them. What looked to him like a paper flag was stuck in a corner of the casket, flitting in the wind against the opposite curb. Alex ran, dodging cars and delivery trucks, and when he reached the chunk of wood he saw that the paper was an envelope. There was a plug of wax on the back with a stamped indicia that looked to Alex like an early version of the one he saw every day: P, and below it: Talia sunt.

  In the coffin of Allegra Byron, he had found a letter from Dr. John Polidori himself.

  Alex picked it up and looked back across the street at Astrid, who stood with the other chunks of wood. He waved it.

  “What’s that?” he heard her say.

  “I think it’s a letter.” That was all there was. He turned it over in his hand—very thin and delicate, with a wax stamp on the back and a pressed, ornate letter P. He tapped his Bluetooth. “Sangster, we found—”

  Alex suddenly heard sirens ringing out. “Sangster, where are you?”

  A click finally responded in his ear. “Alex, are you hurt?” Sangster said with urgency.

  Alex was running back to the churchyard, waving at Astrid to follow. He ran back around the street, huffing as he made his way down the sidewalk. An ambulance was pulling to the curb next to the Polidorium van.

  Sangster was walking next to the gurney that two English paramedics were putting Armstrong on. Alex and Astrid met them as they were moving across the lawn.

  “What is it? Is she—?”

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” Armstrong screamed. She was lying on the gurney as the paramedics moved her quickly, trying to put an oxygen mask on her face. She tried to grab at her knee, which was bleeding profusely, and the paramedics were fighting with her. “This is not necessary; I have a van,” he heard her say.

  Sangster was bleeding from a wound in his shoulder, and he spoke rapidly to Alex in short spurts. “I’m fine, leave it,” he said as he waved off a medic. “There were reinforcements among the skulls; they wanted to keep us away from the grave. One of them caught Anne’s leg as she kicked him and bit into her knee. Did they get the body?”

  “What about Armstrong?” Alex asked as she was whisked into the ambulance. She was shouting muffled profanities at them as the ambulance doors closed.

  “Just a cluster—it happens all the time. Someone must have called the EMS, and they’re not gonna take no for an answer. It’s fine; they’ll get her checked in, and we’ll have someone kidnap her tonight and bring her back to the farmhouse.” Again he said: “Alex, did they get the body?”

  Alex made an open, helpless gesture with his hands. “There was no body. It was empty.”

  “What?!” Sangster’s question sounded as angry as it did shocked.

  “The Scholomance looked as surprised as we were. Elle screamed bloody murder. But I did get something…I don’t know; it’s a letter.”

  Sangster shook his head and doubled over for a second, breathing as he put his hands on his knees. Sangster stood up, as if beating back his stress with a poker. He turned and started to jog toward the Polidorium van. “We gotta go.”

  Alex and Astrid looked at each other and followed when Alex repeated, “I got a letter here!” The ambulance was pulling away, its s
iren wailing.

  Sangster stopped at the door to the van and turned back. “What?”

  “Well, like I said, the coffin was empty. But I got a letter here that fell out of it. No DNA, but we got the ribbons and stones that weighed it all down, and we got a letter.” He waved it idiotically, standing next to the open van door as the engine idled. “It’s from Polidori.”

  “So open it,” Astrid said.

  Alex looked at Sangster. “Maybe we should take it to the lab first.”

  Sangster shook his head. “What does it say?”

  Alex tore into the old paper, feeling it splinter in his hands.

  There was a battered and stained sheet of paper within. He sighed at the few words written there. “The coarsest sensations of men.” Alex paused, then shook his head. “Everybody get that? No body, but we got ‘the coarsest sensations of men.’ Why? Because nothing can ever be easy.”

  Sangster turned around and ran his hands along the roof of the van, as if answers would be found in the steel. “The coarsest sensations…?”

  “The coarsest sensations of men.”

  “Right,” Sangster said, pressing his forehead against the van.

  “It sounds like a pirate thing.”

  Sangster swore and smacked the van with his fist.

  “What?” Alex said.

  “It’s a line from Frankenstein.”

  CHAPTER 21

  “Alex, we’re out of time.” Director Carreras, a paunchy, middle-aged man with a Spanish name and a British accent, spoke the words flatly, as if to end an argument they had barely begun.

  Alex realized the moment he, Sangster, and Astrid slunk into the Polidorium headquarters below the woods surrounding Lake Geneva that the game was considered over. There were twice as many agents as usual in the halls, and when Sangster had driven their van in from the airstrip, they had been slowed by heavy traffic moving down through the tunnels. There were rocket launchers being prepared. He saw agents practicing formations and assaults in fake urban landscapes in the far corners of the cavern.