chapter 23
Vienna and Alex found Sid, Paul, and Minhi coming out of class and hurried them in the opposite direction of the moving crowds.
Sid was already walking with them but looked back. “Don’t we have to get to class?”
“Oh, we’re being all kinds of truant today,” Alex said. They snuck out the side exit and headed across the lawn to New Aubrey House, where no one would be working until the afternoon.
As Alex started a fire in the fireplace of the small, dusty study, Minhi beheld the scuffs and smudges all over Vienna with shock. “What happened to you?”
“I lost my head,” said Vienna.
Alex stoked the fire and looked back at Sid and his backpack. “Do you have the book?”
Sid somehow knew the one he was talking about and fished it out. It was dog-eared and full of papers he had stuck in it. Sid laid it on the table. “Yep.”
Alex explained bluntly. “The book is a plant,” he said. “It’s magic, vampire magic. The kind that powerful vampires have access to, just as powerful as the spells that keep the Scholomance entrance hidden. But this magic was aimed at us—at students. Sid, I’m really sorry, but the book has a sort of virus in it, and it’s been passing through you to students at LaLaurie.”
“It’s my fault,” Vienna said. “I gave you the book.”
“Randomly?” Sid asked evenly. He had a pale, sick look about him.
“No,” she said. “The vampire girl—Elle—made me do it. She saved my brother’s life and demanded that I do her a favor in return. That favor was to make sure that someone used the book in the Pumpkin Show.” She looked miserable. “I’m so sorry; I had no idea what she had planned.”
Minhi visibly shrank from her friend, but Alex held up his hands, as if somehow he could take fear away by waving his fingers. “It’s not Vienna’s fault,” Alex said. “We all know what the Scholomance is capable of. You all know—actually, I guess you don’t know all of it.” He looked at Minhi. “When you woke up this morning, was there anything strange?”
Minhi looked sheepish. “I’m sorry?”
“There was, wasn’t there?”
“Dirt. There was dirt. I couldn’t explain it, but there didn’t seem to be any reason to bring up to you that my feet were dirty.”
Alex folded over in his head how deep he felt like going into the narrative of the last twenty-four hours and finally said, “The stories Sid has been writing using the outlines in the book have put a posthypnotic suggestion in some of our heads. Which some would be: girls. It seems to have only affected girls, and I’m not sure why. Last night, Minhi, you and a lot of other girls walked into the woods. And came back and didn’t remember a thing.”
“I went into the woods?” Minhi asked. She pulled her jacket closer. “What did—what did I do there?”
“Nothing permanent,” Alex said.
“Were you there?” Paul asked. There was an edge of betrayal in his voice.
“Yes,” Alex answered. “And so was Elle. Elle was trying to give them . . . more instructions. I disrupted her and everyone went home,” he summed up.
“Oh my God,” Minhi said. “What are we going to do?”
“The book is by Ultravox, isn’t it? The guy on the train, who nearly talked you into throwing yourself off?” Sid said, rising to pick up the leather volume. “It says David Cracknell is the author.”
“A pseudonym.” Alex nodded. “His real name is Jonathan Frene.”
Sid snorted in frustration. “Gyahhh.”
“What?” Alex asked.
“Again with the superhero names throwing us off. Ultravox he’s gotta go by. And Cracknell. But Jonathan Frene? As in Algernon Blackwood’s The Transfer?”
Paul raised a hand. “Mind cluing us lesser intellects in, mate?”
“It’s a classic—very old—vampire story,” said Sid, pacing before the fire with the book. “The Transfer tells the story of Jonathan Frene, a man who sucks the energy out of everyone he comes close to. He’s a psychic vampire. He nearly kills the narrator’s family.”
Alex’s interest was piqued. “How do they defeat him?”
“They don’t.” Sid looked into the fire. “He’s a blank. All he is is what he takes. All he feels is what he makes others feel. In the end, he’s sucked away himself by a more powerful psychic force.”
“What kind of psychic force?”
Sid thought for a moment, clearly trying to explain it. “A dead spot,” he said. “I mean, it’s an allegory. They drag him to a place that’s desolate and can’t grow anything and all the energy flows out of him.”
“Anyone know where I can get one of these allegories?” Alex clasped his hands. “And can you put it on a crossbow?”
Sid clenched his fists. “I can’t believe it!”
“Hey, hey,” Paul said.
“I thought I was . . .” He shook his head, trailing off. His eyes were big and sad. “I mean, I thought I was good.”
“You are good,” Minhi said. “It’s an outline book. It can’t give you mad writing skills.”
“I agree,” Alex said. “Sid, I talked to people who know about this. The book passed a virus of sorts through you. But Minhi’s right; the talent behind the stories; that would be your own. It’s just a crutch,” Alex said.
Sid looked at the book for a moment, flopping it over on the love seat. “Then I don’t need it,” he said. He turned and threw it into the fire.
They all watched the book for a few minutes as the flames caught the edges. It writhed and curled as if alive, but unlike Vienna’s scarf, this was just an effect of old paper and leather and fire.
“Then that’s that,” Alex said. “Frene is not getting in this way again.”
“Not through us, he’s not,” Paul said.
“What now?” Minhi asked, looking at Alex. She was sitting on the edge of the couch as if ready to spring, but there was nowhere to spring to.
Alex sat back, feeling totally exhausted. He’d gotten almost no sleep the night before. “The Polidorium wants to know why Ultravox hypnotized a bunch of girls. They’re working on it.”
Sid picked up his backpack, shaking his head. “I’m going to have to write an all-new story for the last round. I don’t even know when there’ll be a chance to do it. Certainly not until after the ball.”
“The ball!” Alex slapped his forehead. “My God, is it me or do we keep an insane calendar?”
“All I know is if we don’t eat lunch I’m going to strangle someone,” Paul said.
“Good, because I’m starving,” Alex said.
As they walked back to the cafeteria, Alex felt his cell phone buzz in his pocket and retrieved it, reading a text message. He turned to Vienna and said, “Listen—do you like motorcycles?”