chapter 21
His first reaction was to scream, and that was something Alex Van Helsing didn’t actually do very much. He had been grabbed at in the dark by zombies and nearly eaten by giant dogs from hell, but screaming was not a part of the sequence. It was always, What’s next, what do you have? But when Vienna’s head popped off her body like the heaviest part of a china doll whose neck had gotten frayed, he actually did yelp and stagger back.
And then it kicked in, the same leveling in his blood, the same words his father had taught him when he found himself on a cliff and the branch he’d grabbed was starting to pull loose, when the rock he was on started to crumble, when he was faced with a test question he never prepared for. Breathe. That sudden rush of blood is your trigger to listen and look and breathe. The world will want you to be pulled along. You must breathe, and ask the questions.
What is happening?
The girl lay on the forest floor as though she had been knocked out, one arm underneath her and the other stretched out. As though she had simply dropped asleep.
Vienna’s head, as cleanly excised as a pat of butter, had rolled to a stop against a tree. There was zero gore. Instead, an inch below Vienna’s jaw, where the neck both began and ended, there shimmered a green field, almost like a violin bow resin.
On the body, the solid edge of Vienna’s neck was the same, neatly ending in another shimmering green field. Alex gingerly reached out and took Vienna’s wrist, feeling for a pulse.
Jiminy Cricket. The girl’s heart was beating. Okay. What is happening?
What is happening is that this is magic.
Magic. Just one more thing that wasn’t supposed to be, except now he knew that vampires used it all the time. They used it to hide the vast Scholomance under the lake, and used it to concoct worms of blood. His mother used magic, and there were others like her, apparently.
And Vienna, it appeared, used it to keep her head from rolling away from her body.
Alex reached over and delicately closed Vienna’s staring eyes. That was tough. The urge to lose it began again for a second. Think. You didn’t do this.
But you did! You made her—
You made her take off the scarf.
A breeze blew through the woods, lifting leaves, and Alex’s eyes darted to Vienna’s scarf, which picked up and began to blow.
She pulled off the scarf. She needs it.
And it was blowing away. Alex went after the scarf as it began to lift into the air. It blew a few more feet and hung on a tree, threatening to disappear into the woods.
He stepped over to the tree and took the scarf. Did it somehow, what, hold her head on? It wasn’t like tape or anything; it felt like a scarf, like something his twin sister would have picked up in Milan. Alex touched the scarf and it began to leap again, more deliberately this time, like a small animal. He barely closed his fingers around it when it broke free, shooting off onto the grass. The shimmering green scarf began to slide, snakelike, along the ground.
Alex had to jump this time to grab it before it disappeared under the leaves. It was headed deeper into the woods. He had the distinct impression it was heading for the lake.
Alex reemerged in the clearing with the scarf whipping about in his hands. It was strong, but still just cloth; it had no teeth to dig into his skin. It wanted to get away.
The scarf stopped struggling for a moment and it merely twisted, slowly, pulsing in his hands.
Who in the world was Vienna Cazorla? She had a beating heart, but was it even real? Was she some creature placed here by the vampires? Or maybe that thing Sid had mentioned—was she a thrall?
Don’t get distracted. You won’t know that unless you can help, and if her heart is beating you can help.
Alex felt something at his throat. He looked down to see that the scarf had almost inched its way out of his fingers and was tickling at his throat, trying to slide around it.
He clenched his fingers around the scarf and held it at a distance. It twitched in the air. He had a feeling that if he let it get to him, he’d be the one rocking a jaunty green scarf from then on out. Which might look swell, but there’d still be a headless girl with a beating heart in the woods, so—
Time to give it back?
Absolutely.
Alex approached Vienna’s body while he held the scarf away from him with one hand.
He was breaking all kinds of rules. Body in the woods, you call EMS, you don’t go rearranging it. Except every rule was finished now. He could have moved the head more easily, but he just couldn’t will himself to pick Vienna’s head up by her hair.
And anyway, he had a feeling it wasn’t a “body.” It was a girl with some explaining to do.
Now or never. Either this would work or he was absolutely screwed.
She was fairly light, especially missing about nine pounds. He knelt down into the grass in his dress pants—Crap, I’m missing class—reaching his arm under her shoulders and across her chest, and gingerly moved her lower six-sevenths, bringing it to rest just next to the head.
The scarf began to twitch again when he held it near her, reaching out. He released the scarf and stepped away. It wrapped instantly around Vienna’s neck and head. Silence.
Double crap.
Then, there was a faint static pop and Vienna blinked twice. She awoke as if she had dozed off and stared at Alex, before instantly scrambling back against the tree.
“What is going on?” Vienna demanded.
Alex dropped to his knees. I cannot believe that worked. “Oh, thank God. Oh my God.”
Vienna’s eyes widened with horror as she grasped for her throat.
“Say something,” he said. “Are you . . . I mean, are you okay?”
“What did you do?” Vienna demanded. She was reaching around her neck, feeling at it when Alex saw her remember. When she looked back up Alex was expecting her to blaze with fury, but what he saw was tempered with misery.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said. He helped her up, and Vienna brushed at her clothing. “I didn’t know. I had no idea.”
“Really?” Vienna asked, the r rolling with anger. She inspected the huge smudges on her elbows and heels. “All of that ‘Take off your scarf’ and you didn’t know?”
“I thought you were a vampire.”
“You can sense vampires,” Vienna said.
“Or a thrall or something. Okay, I’m sorry,” Alex said, but he was already past his relief. “Don’t make this about me, Vienna. Right now there’s something terrible going on, and it all started with a book that you put in Sid’s hands.”
Vienna stopped. “This shouldn’t have happened.”
Alex had to nod. “Yeah, I know. Vienna? Seriously. You have to tell me what’s going on.”
She said in frustration, “I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“So tell me you’re not working for the Scholomance.”
“I’m not working for them,” Vienna said at last. “But I guess you could say that I am in their thrall.”
And then she told her story.