Alex Van Helsing The Triumph of Death - By Jason Henderson Page 0,2

They all suffered together through lectures on human vampires and their many variations—zombies, werewolves, and such—plus the myriad others broken into various parts of the plant and animal kingdoms. DeKamp also told them they all should take the training on vampire organizations, politics, and clans. Oh, and apparently witchcraft would take years.

This was a great weekend, and not a single thing that wasn’t already behind glass actually tried to bite him, which was a nice change for an Alex/Polidorium activity.

And then on the plane ride home it all came crashing down.

The cabin of the Polidorium C-130 in which Alex and six of his fellow agents began the flight home did not have the battered metal interior that Alex had seen in the movies, with long benches and no frills. The plane was dressed up for comfort, with TVs on shiny gray walls; big, padded seats; and thick gray carpet bearing the stitched-in Polidorium crest and the words Talia sunt. Like DeKamp had said, this motto meant, “There are such things.” It was an answer to a question, an answer to a doubt. Don’t tell yourself there are no such things. Of course there are, and we keep track of them.

Agent Hansen and Alex sat together in front of a middle wall, or bulkhead, so they could take the PIRT creature quiz on a Polidorium computer mounted on the wall. When they left Anzio there had been five more agents spread out across the plane, but they had departed in Venice. It was eleven forty-five P.M.; with the layover, Alex had been traveling for about six hours.

“I know this one.” Gunnar Hansen sat forward, wagging his finger. He had slightly curly, receding blond hair and a pug nose, and cheeks that were perpetually flushed. Alex always had the impression that Hansen was a Viking that someone had captured and shaved.

“Stikini.” Alex repeated the word, watching the silver letters rotate on the screen. A thirty-second clock had begun to count down. Stikini. “It sounds like pasta.”

“You’re just hungry.” Hansen gestured toward a go package, a Polidorium backpack usually filled with all manner of lethal and not-so-lethal stuff, which hung on a peg across from them, next to an emergency exit. “I have some granola bars.”

“Wasn’t there a steward?” Alex asked, looking up.

Hansen nodded. “That’s right; where is he?”

Alex looked over the back of the seat toward the rear of the plane. “No one in the galley.”

His neck was bugging him—Alex tugged at a collared shirt he had been wearing since Friday morning, a flexible polyvinyl “turtleneck” that was slightly bulky, threaded with strands of silver, and etched with crosses. They wore them all weekend at Creature School in case one of the captured creatures broke out. He’d need scissors to cut it off and hadn’t gotten around to it. A vampire, meanwhile, could probably tear it loose if sufficiently motivated. So Alex was uncomfortable.

And hungry. When he was twelve, on a dare from his father, Alex had survived three days on only what he could catch or pick near their farm in Oklahoma, one of a handful of estates his family had in the United States. This was in January, when the trees were frozen black and snow blanketed the ground. And he had done fine. But now it seemed like every three hours his stomach grumbled, making him distracted and angry.

Stikini, the silver circling word continued. Five seconds. Then they would see the answer and lose points.

As if hearing Alex’s mental howls, the cockpit door opened and a tall, wiry man with wisps of light brown hair and glasses emerged with an empty tray. When Alex saw the steward’s glasses, his own eyes itched; he was longing to take out his contacts.

“There he is,” said Hansen. The steward shut the cockpit door and glanced at them, heading toward the galley, presumably to get some food.

An image lit up in Alex’s brain, a vampire image that faded into view. “Choctaw.” Alex spoke to the computer. “Stikini is a Choctaw vampire that usually disguises itself as an owl.”

As soon as the keywords Alex spoke registered with the computer, the countdown stopped and a diagram of the owl-vampire appeared.

“Not bad,” Hansen said. “But it looks to me like an owl.”

“It’s an evil vampire owl.” Alex smiled. But there was something wrong.

When Alex had thought of the owl, it had come to him in a rush, as if a part of his brain had opened up and growled at him. Alex looked back at the