Alex reached the clearing and circled around it, trying to find the edge of the group. He heard someone yell. It was a stifled scream, like someone shouting through a gag. He started moving faster until he finally reached the edge and saw what the procession was gathered around.

There was a chair in the gra.s.s, with a man of about fifty sitting in it-no, not just sitting: tied, bound, and gagged. The man was trying to get away, but the chair was reinforced at the back and it barely rocked as he fought against the binds. He was wearing slacks and a light jacket. His eyes swiveled in terror.

Next to him was a table, and Alex saw the glint of steel-no less than ten knives laid out in a row.

Behind the chair was another table, with what looked like a pair of speakers and a small device, something that might have been an iPod. There was a figure with her back turned to them, but the hiss of static in his head and the white robes she wore identified her instantly.

Elle turned around and looked at the crowd.

"I'm going to play something for you," said Elle. "And then we're going to have a demonstration."

Chapter 18.

Elle hadn't seen him. Alex thought that she would normally be able to smell him, probably from memory, but he judged that the number of mortal humans around must have been overwhelming. All that hot blood, and he was just one of many.

The man in the chair was struggling, trying to break free. Elle said, "Shh."

Alex needed to get in there and set the guy free. Right away. But what was his opening? Elle stepped back to the device that looked like an iPod and pressed its b.u.t.ton. At once Alex heard a voice filling the clearing, liquid and golden.

"Good evening," the voice said. "I am very pleased to see you all. You are going to do something that will set you free from all the forces that hold you down. Something you want to do-something I reveal that comes from within you."

Alex knew that voice. It was the sound of Ultravox.

But the voice was not aimed at him this time-it held no purchase on his mind as it had on the train. The voice was working on the rest of its audience, though. Alex was amazed that Ultravox could aim his message so directly; it seemed that he was specifically targeting human girls. He wondered if Ultravox could tune it by age as well, and where the hypnotic effect came in-it wasn't in the mere words, surely, because Alex was hearing the same words. He had a suspicion that Ultravox's power was more complex than that-a mixture of words and sound and possibly even some kind of psychic "hook."

And why not? Icemaker had been able to float off the ground and turn the air to ice-was it so hard to imagine vampires could learn to do all kinds of things that normal men could not?

Alex listened as the droning went on, repeating the basic idea several times, freedom through doing what I say. He had to admire the gall in that kind of doublethink.

"My a.s.sistant is going to give you the tools. What you want to do now is take this knife," said the voice. Alex felt his eyes grow wide as one of the girls stepped forward. Elle held out one of the silver daggers. At the edge of the knife table was a silver box, and now Elle opened that as well, revealing many, many more blades.

The girl-a senior, by the look of her, with shoulder-length strawberry hair-took the knife and stared blankly.

"The person you see before you is one of those who has kept you in thrall, one of the rule makers, the slaveholders, the barriers to your freedom."

Oh, boy. Alex looked at the man and wondered if in fact this guy was anything at all like that, a cop or an administrator. Probably not, and it didn't matter in the slightest, because this sleepwalking teenager was about to stab him.

"That's enough," Alex shouted, bursting through the trees. Elle hissed at him as he went for the knife first, smacking the redheaded girl's hand. She barely registered the knife flying from her hand, but then dropped to the gra.s.s and began to look for it again. Alex pushed her back, sending her falling.

The voice was still talking, now taking on a repeating refrain: "Freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice."

"Sorry, Al, but you're not invited," said Elle, and she grabbed him by the collar, dragging him back. Alex smashed against the table that held the iPod and it toppled over with the speakers, still playing. The voice went on as he grunted in pain, crunching his ribs against the table. He rolled forward, kicking at her.

"Freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice."

Alex picked up the table and swung it at Elle and she bashed it aside. Then she moved lightning fast and had his collar. She reared back her head, showing her fangs and driving toward his neck. Alex grabbed her chin, pus.h.i.+ng, feeling the iron power of her neck muscles. He brought up his knees and caught her in the midsection, and as she fell back he reached through the seam in his backpack and drew out his stake, feeling the wooden handle and threading of silver that ran along its length.

He became aware of movement around him-the girls gathering close. The silver box clattered and they were groping for the knives that fell out on the gra.s.s.

"Freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice."

Alex lunged at Elle when suddenly someone had him by the wrist and yanked him back, throwing him to the ground.

Alex's head smacked against the leg of the chair where the "sacrifice" still was trying to break free, and he tipped the chair over, allowing the man more protection, he hoped.

Then he looked back as a pair of legs came down around his and he saw glistening steel raised up high and ready to sink home.

It was Minhi.

Alex thrust his hands forward, grabbing her arm and her shoulder. "Minhi, no-"

Minhi was staring at him but not hearing his words. She was lost in Freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice, and because she was so athletic, she was already a little stronger than Alex. In the near distance, over the silent footsteps of the girls and the knives, over the voice of Ultravox, he heard Elle laughing.

Alex used all his strength to roll with Minhi, trying to push her away without doing any damage, but she came back at him, zombielike, raising the dagger.

"Minhi, it's me," Alex said, as Minhi slammed him back against the toppled table.

"He's the vessel," said Elle. "He is the one."

"Minhi-" Alex said, catching her wrist. She was bearing down with the knife. "Wake up!" he shouted at her. There were others gathered around, because Elle had told them he was the one now, and they were waiting their turns.

Minhi was very close, and she drove her knees into his ribs, bringing the knife down slowly. "Minhi, wake up. It's me."

He remembered the snowstorm and the other night's helicopter rescue. "Take my hand," he said, using his other hand to reach for her free one. "Minhi, take my hand," he said again, and he felt the tip of the edge of the knife press down against his chest.

Suddenly he had a sense for why he had seen his sister's hand through the snow, or seen the chopper through the haze of Ultravox on the train. Because lies are fog, and truth could burn through it. Right?

He slipped his fingers through hers. "Minhi, take my hand!" he shouted, and then he saw it, a blink, and the pressing stopped. He saw her blink again. "Wake up, it's me," he whispered.

All at once Minhi gasped. "Alex?"

"Yes, can you get off me, please?"

She sprang off him like a rabbit, falling back, scrambling backward. Alex took the knife as Minhi dropped it and turned to the man in the chair. Alex had just reached the ropes binding the man when Elle hit him like a freight train, and he tumbled sideways with her.

Wasn't the first time he'd fallen with a knife, and his father's words echoed, Keep the knife away from you always. If you begin to fall, remember where it is, and keep it pointed sideways. In the microsecond he was falling Alex realized the tip of the knife in his hand was pointing toward his own ribs, and he twisted his hand out, landing hard on the forest floor.

The knife caught Elle in the side and she shrieked, spinning back in pain.

He returned to the task of freeing the man. He cut the binding ropes, saying, "Run, the road is that way." He waved in the general direction of the road. One of the girls was about to plunge a dagger into the man when Minhi, shrieking, grabbed her and pulled her away. The man scurried into the distance, gone, sure to have a tale to tell that no one would ever believe, ever. Alex tossed away the knife and grabbed his stake from the ground, looking around frantically for Elle. But she was gone.

Minhi kicked one of the girls away. She looked at him with tears in her eyes. "Alex, what's going on?"

The glazed-eyed girls were drawing closer. The voice of Ultravox still droned, "Freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice."

"They're asleep, just don't hurt them," Alex said.

"They're not going to play that nice," Minhi responded as they backed up against the overturned tables.

Alex felt someone grab him by the shoulder and he spun, stabbing at his attacker-Elle-with his stake. He connected at the chest but she was able to shrink back. Alex reached into the pack and drew out a gla.s.s ball. He hurled it at her, catching her square in the forehead. The gla.s.s sphere of holy water burst and she screamed as it burned her forehead and dripped down her body. She fell back, crawling.

Elle wouldn't stay down long. She never did. But they had twenty sleepwalking a.s.sa.s.sins to deal with. Alex thought again of the flash-bang and yanked one from his pack, pulling the pin. "Minhi, cover your ears," he said. Then he shouted, "Wake up!"

He threw the flash-bang into the air as hard as he could and covered his ears just before it went off, but his ears rang anyway with the concussive force of the sound. Brilliant light shot through the clearing as the explosive noise reverberated, and he waited a second as the echo died down.

He looked back hopefully.

The gla.s.sy-eyed horde continued approaching, some of them reaching down to grab extra knives from the silver box.

Well, that's disappointing.

On and on the voice of Ultravox played and they pressed in.

Alex looked back at the iPod in the gra.s.s and leapt for it. "That's enough," he said, and he s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, ripping its cord loose from the speakers. Abruptly the voice stopped.

And so did the horde.

"Wake up!" he cried. Minhi was next to him, panting. The girls stood still, as if suspended on invisible wires.

And then Alex realized they were receding, turning, the ones in the back first, followed by the ones closer to him. Suddenly he remembered Elle and he turned with his stake at the ready.

But Elle was gone. And in a moment, so was the pajama horde, shrinking back into the distance.

Alex stood in the clearing next to Minhi. Suddenly she was hugging him. "Oh my G.o.d, I'm so sorry. Oh my G.o.d, I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," he said, hugging her back awkwardly. "We have to go."

They followed the horde as it moved in the same antlike procession as before, through the woods and back to LaLaurie. Minhi clutched at Alex; he put his arm around her, though he was watching the girls pad their way silently, sleeping, even as they pa.s.sed through the doors. One or two of them carried keys, surely on some unholy order, and Alex watched them unconsciously unlock the doors and enter. On up to their rooms, where, one and all, they returned to sleep.

Chapter 19.

Alex slapped the purloined Scholomance device down on the conference table, right in the center of the u in Talia Sunt. He had come to HQ immediately after dropping off Minhi, calling Sangster along the way.

"What have you got there?" Armstrong said, picking it up.

The door opened and Sangster came in, wearing a sport coat and chinos and looking like he was called into meetings in the middle of the night all the time. He tossed his jacket over a chair and sat next to Alex, gazing at the small white device in Armstrong's hands from across the table.

"It's an iPod," Alex said. "Basically, I think."

Armstrong turned it over and pitched it to Sangster. It was about the size of a deck of cards, with no video screen but ports for speakers and USB. Unlike the Apple device it resembled, it had only one b.u.t.ton.

"Elle left it behind when I disrupted her sacrifice, or whatever it was. Her directed killing."

"That was unwise of her." Sangster looked at Armstrong. "Let's have Monty look at this."

They headed out the door and down the carpeted halls until they came to an area Alex had never seen, a large bay of computers and screens and what looked like a studio mixing board.

A man with scant amounts of yellow hair and one arm looked up at them as they entered his area. He was wearing earphones and watching a screen where Alex could see various lines representing sound. The lines were pulsing, and Alex realized he was listening to music.

"Monty!" Armstrong called, and the balding man nodded distantly.

"What is it, I'm listening to-"

Armstrong tugged the earphone jack out of the mixing board and the room filled with techno. "I have actual work for you."

The guy looked at Sangster, Armstrong, and Alex, and rolled his eyes. "This is work. Look at this." He pointed at the screen, indicating a low, fluid line that ran below the others. "See that little line down there? It's a conversation. I'm listening to some recordings we got last week in Geneva. Got some stuff on your Ultravox. Not much, though. Vampires, man, they go into town and talk. Don't believe the hype; they do drink wine." He slid a lever and the volume receded. He turned to Alex. "Hey, you're the Van Helsing kid."

Alex nodded. Sangster said, "This is Monty Crief, he's a communications intelligence specialist with-another agency, but we've got him for Ultravox."

So that was what they were calling the operation, Ultravox, a whole rolling chain of events captured under one name. "What is that?" Monty said, suddenly interested. Sangster tossed the device again and Monty s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of the air with his one arm. "Cool."

Alex said, "About an hour ago a vampire from the Scholomance played whatever is on that thing for a bunch of girls in the woods. It told them to kill a man, and they almost did it."

Monty was plugging in the device. He tapped the b.u.t.ton and the voice of Ultravox began to play. "Freedom through sacrifice, freedom through sacrifice."

"Gotta admit, that is one mellifluous voice," Monty said. He started bringing up other windows.

Armstrong picked up a file off the desk area of Monty's station and flipped it open, showing Alex a pencil sketch based on the person he had seen on the train. "This is the person you saw. This is Ultravox."

"Have you matched him with anyone?" Alex asked.

"Not yet. So far this is just a guy in a peasant s.h.i.+rt."

Sangster looked at the picture. "If I didn't know better I'd think we were fighting Ernest Hemingway."

Alex thought of the Icemaker adventure. "Do you think we might be?"

Sangster said, "It's tempting, but no, Hemingway was not a vampire. Did some work for us, once, but that's a whole other thing."

"I'm running this through the database," said Monty. "Should just be a moment."

Alex was surprised. "You have a database of all the vampires' voices?"