chapter 33
By the time they had climbed up three flights to the promenade deck, Alex and Minhi could hear a new sound—a warbling, hissing voice playing over the orchestra in the ballroom.
Alex stopped, holding up a hand.
“What?” Minhi asked.
“Minhi, you’re still infected. The vocal virus, something that was passed to you in the first of Sid’s readings.” He looked around at the pristine carpeting, looking for anything. What could he use? He looked at her handbag. “Do you have, like, tissues or something?”
She shook her head. “I can barely fit my room keys in this thing.”
“You need something to stuff in your ears.” Then he realized what he could use. He reached down and took off his dress shoes, ripping out the laces as he spoke. “Here.”
He knotted one lace, holding it up to check the size. He knotted it again. “Look, I know it seems weird, but you’ve got to trust me: You need to stick this in your ear.”
She took it, eyeing him. “And here I thought you were going to tie my hands again.”
“This one, too,” he said, handing her the second knotted string. “For the other one.”
“Alex, don’t be ridiculous.”
“Trust me,” he said.
Minhi shook her head and pulled back her hair, stuffing the knots in her eardrums. She drew the strings back so they disappeared behind her hair. “Okay?” she shouted.
“I think it’ll do in a pinch,” he said.
“What?”
Alex gestured. “This way.”
A scream lit up from the ballroom and he looked back at her with alarm. They reached the ballroom and saw bedlam.
Alex and Minhi ran onto the floor and found people looking about in shock. A voice was speaking over the intercom, whispering, “This is the moment of your freedom.”
In the rear of the room, a group of students and adults were beating on a pair of double doors that led to another dining hall. Alex didn’t see any of the debutantes, but he had a good idea where they had all gone.
Paul and Sid forced their way through the crowd. “Alex!” Paul shouted.
“Minhi, you’re here,” Paul said, showing visible relief. She didn’t hear him but nodded.
“She’s got her ears stuffed up,” Alex explained.
“What, why?” Paul asked.
“Because of that,” Alex said, pointing to the air and the droning, strange message. “What’s happening?”
Paul looked unnerved, which was unusual for him. “The music cut out and all of a sudden the girls pulled their Montblancs on their parents.”
“All of them?” Alex looked around.
Sid said, “All of the ones that got the pens. Well, not Minhi. So that means eleven of them.”
“Is Vienna one?”
Paul shook his head. “She and her father disappeared. She looked panicked, not robotic. But forget that for now: The rest of the girls moved like vampires, Alex; they grabbed their parents and dragged them back there.” He looked at Alex’s socks. “How did you get here?”
“WaveRunner,” Alex said, glancing up at the droning sound. “That voice is live. He’s here. Paul—grab an ax or a fire extinguisher or something and batter those doors down. Get those people out. Sid? We’ve got to find him and shut him down.”
Alex ran for the bar, Sid and Minhi following. A youngish bartender was on the phone trying to call for help.
“Hey!” Alex called. “Where’s the intercom?”
“The bridge,” the bartender said.
“Okay,” Alex said to Sid and Minhi, sure that Minhi could see his lips. “Wait,” he said, and ran for the orchestra, which was deserted, all the musicians having fled with the remaining parents. He emerged again with two drumsticks, their heads broken off to make them sharper, and a violin.
Sid said, “What, you’re hoping to subdue him with ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’?”
“I hate these things,” Alex said, bashing the violin on the bar, and handed Sid and Minhi the drumsticks. He brandished the jagged, splintered neck of the violin, its strings hanging from the tuning bolts.
As Paul began battering away at the blocked doors to try to rescue the parents from a horde of hypnotized girls, Alex, Sid, and Minhi hit the stairs.
The bridge was a large room at the prow of a ship on the second-to-topmost deck. Alex held up a hand again, stopping Sid and Minhi as they reached the metal door at the top of the stairs. A static charge had hit his brain. Alex put his hand on the door, waiting.
Calm down. Chill. In the past he had gotten static from a quarter mile away, but the Merrills in the van had completely caught him off guard. Just like how he had failed to listen to the static on the night of the worm, because he had been upset and distracted. Several times he had been too worked up then to listen to his own mind.
Alex was determined to master the static. He had to clear out the noise.
Alex listened, cutting through the droning of Ultravox, which wasn’t for him this time. Hear the static. Where is it? He felt himself pointing for Sid’s and Minhi’s benefit.
Ultravox had lied; he might not have an army but he’d brought protection. There was too much static for it to be just one vampire. Listen. This is what you were born to do. Pick them out.
One on the left. One on the right. One in the center, farther back, and powerful. He turned and said to Minhi, “You go right; I’ll go left.” To Sid, “You go for the microphone.”
One, two, why then, ’tis time to do it.
Alex turned the doorknob and stepped back, kicking the door, causing it to fly open.
Inside, the PA echoed a half second later than Ultravox, who was speaking live in the room. Alex saw the captain and one crewman, unconscious on the floor. He turned left as a guard vampire lunged for him, and Alex dropped, letting the guard slash over him. Alex rose and swept his leg, knocking the vampire off balance, and dived, driving the violin neck into the creature’s chest. Silver-and-wooden shafts from the Polibow were prime weapons, but in a pinch like this, any wood would suffice. He put all his weight on it and felt a crunch, and the vampire burst into flame.
Alex turned and looked behind him as Minhi kicked up, catching the other guard in the chin. She avoided his lunge expertly as though he were moving in slow motion. As she drove the drumstick home, she shouted, “What? I can’t hear you!”
Ultravox was at a control panel, watching a closed-circuit security feed. On the black-and-white screen, Alex could see the parents, the influential, targeted ministers, pleading with their daughters, who held them all at bay and had traded their Montblancs for flashing steak knives. They had not yet delivered the killing stroke, although Ultravox seemed to be working them up into a lather. Killing someone, especially a parent, would go against every instinct, so he had to build a symphony of emotion to mask over that, to go beyond merely threatening to actually delivering the final act, the killing blow.
On the security monitor, Alex saw a large figure go into the room carrying a huge amplifier. It was Paul. He lunged for one of the debutantes and she turned around, slashing at him.
“Yes, the terror they feel is the terror you can overcome, but don’t wait. Now is the time,” said Ultravox, showing his fangs. He had to keep talking for the spell to work.
Alex cleared his throat as the sound from the PA cut off, ceasing the echo. The vampire snarled as he saw Sid holding an unplugged microphone cord.
“You think you know everybody,” Alex said.
Ultravox swatted Sid aside and grabbed the cord, searching for an outlet.
“But you don’t,” Alex continued. “It’s a fake. You tell people things that hurt them because you know they’ll believe you.”
“Alex,” Ultravox said, as he turned to face him. Time slowed for a second as the vampire’s eyes burrowed into his. “You’re going to do something—”
“I don’t think so,” said Alex as he swept the violin handle, catching the vampire in the throat.
“Killthrrrmm,” Ultravox gurgled, and Alex plunged the violin neck home.
A burst of brilliant flame filled the bridge as they jumped clear.
For a moment, smoke and ash rained in the small metal room and they all stood in silence. Sid finally brushed a handful of ashes out of his hair and said, “Yeah, that and his book was overrated.”