Free Voice of the Undead by Jason Henderson Page B

thing people were trying not to talk about. LaLaurie was traditionally a girls’ school. It had its own concerned parents, parents of students whose school hadn’t been nearly burned down, and they needed soothing, too. They were bending over backward to help Glenarvon, and that meant everything about LaLaurie was having to change. There were boys in the cafeteria and boys in the locker rooms and boy clothes and boy aggression. Boy angst, because their school had been almost destroyed.
    Alex shook his head. “I’ve never asked.” It hadn’t occurred to him whether there were other Sangsters. Could there be more like him, teachers moonlighting as agents against darkness? That didn’t seem likely. Otranto was “connected,” but he didn’t seem connected to the Polidorium. Ms. Daughtry was kind, and he had a suspicion that Sangster and she might have something going on, but he didn’t take her for a spy. But that was how it worked, right? His head began to spin with paranoia.
    Vienna turned to Alex, shrugging out of his jacket and handing it back to him. “The girl knew you. She was looking for you. ”
    Paul chuckled. “That maniac knows all of us. She was our guard when we were taken.”
    Vienna continued, “But she really knew Alex. What did she want with you?”
    â€œHer name is Elle,” Alex said. “And, honestly, I’d tell you if I knew, but I have no idea what she wanted.”
    Paul asked, “What did she say?”
    â€œShe said the Scholomance wants me dead,” Alex confessed. He decided to gloss over the punishment part. At the dock he had been terrified that Elle was going to tear Vienna’s throat out, scarf and all. He couldn’t handle that; it would have been as if he had lured her down to the dock only to be killed. She would have died because these things seemed to follow him. Already he sensed he was bringing danger to his friends—after all, the school had burned because the Scholomance was out to get Alex . But Elle had shot right past Vienna. She had wanted to impart a message. Whatever the Scholomance had planned, they weren’t about to trip it up by killing a student in public.
    But there was definitely something strange going on that Alex couldn’t quite place. Elle had talked as though she were in some kind of disagreement with the Scholomance—whether to kill him or to torture him, apparently. But they had stepped up their attacks on him at the same time that the Scholomance began to prepare for whatever was coming, whatever this Ultravox would bring.
    The Scholomance had been around for hundreds—possibly thousands—of years. Dracula himself attended the school, when he first became a vampire, or so said the Polidorium, and so had reported Abraham Van Helsing, Alex’s great-great-great- (that was three greats) grandfather. Alex had seen the Scholomance personally, as had Paul and Minhi when they had been kidnapped as part of an elaborate vampire plan. The Scholomance had plans within plans within plans.
    â€œElle wanted me,” Alex said. “She didn’t want to hurt you, I think, or . . . or she would have.” Of course, Elle had actually said she wanted to make Alex suffer, and the truth was, making people suffer often involved hurting others. But he didn’t say any of that for now.
    Vienna took this in and sipped her chocolate, seeming to relax. “I guess I should say thank you,” she said finally.
    Alex became aware that someone was yelling down the hall outside the study. Paul went to the door and looked out.
    Alex asked, “What is it?”
    â€œIt’s Bill,” Paul said.
    Alex stepped past him into the hall, looking down the dim, cobwebby corridor. In the main foyer he saw Bill Merrill, waving a cell phone. “I did try! I did try!”
    Otranto said something in a hushed tone, using his hands slowly, palms down, as if to calm