Free The Triumph of Death by Jason Henderson Page B

and brought up the coded message that had been beamed into the van. “Bruegel was the key to deciphering the coded message that Claire sent. We were pretty sure that because Claire was a member of Hexen, that she would use the Hexen language.”
    “She hasn’t been one of us for a very long time,” Astrid said. “I just want to make that clear.”
    “Noted,” Armstrong said, nodding. “Anyway, this coded message she sent was in gibberish, just symbols.But all codes have a key, a way to start mapping one alphabet against another. Like I said, we knew that the Hexen language—or Dulle Grit, as you called it, a language developed in secret by the founders of Hexen deriving from a form of Druidic—was likely to be the language that we would be translating into. The keyword we used to decode the message was Bruegel. That got us to this.”
    The image changed to show a new stream of letters, and this time Astrid’s eyes lit up with recognition. “That’s Hexen.”
    Armstrong nodded. “Right, so that’s the Hexen version…and this is the English.” She pressed a button.
    This time the words shifted and glowed there. Alex read them with a sinking feeling.
    WHAT IS LOST WILL BE FOUND.
    YOU HAVE SEVEN DAYS UNTIL SUNSET.
    “Seven days until sunset?” Alex asked.
    “Here’s what we think,” said Sangster. “The Queen has gotten hold of a very powerful spell that can plunge the world into darkness, which she demonstrated amply this afternoon in Secheron. She’s threatening to use it in a big way, even taunting us by showing us the picture.”
    Astrid seemed surprised. “You’ve heard of this spell?”
    Sangster nodded. “Polidori left copious notes on thevarious magicks that the vampires picked up and trafficked in while he was alive. This one is called a lot of things, such as Obscura Notte , Dimmer Switch. And of course, the Triumph of Death.”
    “This would be completely forbidden. We’re not supposed to do stuff like that.” Astrid shook her head emphatically. “She’s going to need a week just to build up the reserve energy to do it.”
    “You said ‘forbidden’?” Alex was trying to get a feel for how the witches were organized. He wished his mom had been more forthcoming about her powers. He wanted to ask Astrid if his mother had been a member of Hexen, but set it aside. There were more pressing issues. “So, what, you have laws?”
    “Of course. Magic is about the use of the spirit. It takes energy,” Astrid said. “It’s one thing if you’re helping, if you’re in spirit with the earth, if you’re going with the natural flow of things. Those spells increase everyone’s energy. The world welcomes it. But conflict is harder. Huge spells that torment and cause pain to masses of people are costly to us. Pain leaves an ugly mark on the world. It’s not what magic is for. A spell like this is nothing but torment. It takes something out of everybody. But we suspected that Claire would want to do something like this.”
    Alex studied the painting. “So the painting is a sort of model for the Triumph.”
    Sangster shook his head. “Like I said, it goes the other way. We think the painting is a sort of report of the spell. A warning. Except that Bruegel was painting in the sixteenth century, long before there was a Polidorium, so he didn’t do it for us. But there were other organizations back then. Polidori made reference to an Order that we know Bruegel dealt with. We think the painting is a message left for us if we ever had to deal with the Triumph. But I was gonna say, there’s a problem.”
    “What?” Alex asked, turning toward Sangster.
    Sangster brought up the database that Alex had seen numerous times, a huge index with a search bar.
    Armstrong typed in “Dimmer Switch” and the entry came up, followed by its various other names. Alex saw “Triumph of Death” among them. Next, where he should have seen an article, Alex saw three words.
    File not found.
    “Where’s the file?