Minhi understood, but she looked a little saddened. "Remember you don't have to give us that stuff."

"Yeah, okay," Alex said. "It's Sangster."

"All right," Minhi said finally. "We're rehearsing. Sid? You want to come?"

Sid looked as though he'd been jumped. "Me?"

Alex was rising. He had to head back to the Kingdom of Cots and get his go package and his Bluetooth. "I think Vienna needs an escort."

"Excuse me, I do have a say in this," Vienna said, amused. "Sid, would you be my escort for the evening?"

"I have no idea what that-"

"Just come with us and we'll tell you what to do."

Alex smiled, but to do so he had to force the ends of his mouth up. He wanted to learn how to walk down a flight of stairs. "Go crazy, Prince." Alex slapped Sid on the back. "I gotta hustle."

Vienna looked at Alex. "Oh, Alex-Ah. My grandmother."

He turned. "Your what?"

"My name is unusual. It's Austrian. My grandmother was named Vienna," she said.

Alex felt himself blush despite himself. "Thank you."

Chapter 8.

Alex was standing alone at the gate for only about thirty seconds when he heard the sound of a van approaching. In the darkness it was invisible at first, coming around the bend, and then he saw the shape of a black Polidorium van bearing down on him. It pulled between him and the gate-he had to step out of the way to give it a few feet of room, though he suspected the driver had measured his s.p.a.ce with expert accuracy-and the van slowed to a stop.

A side door rolled open and Sangster was inside with a headset on, motioning quickly. "Come on, come on."

The slam of a door and they were zipping into the darkness again, no lights, the road illuminated by night vision on the winds.h.i.+eld.

"What's all this?" Alex asked.

Armstrong swiveled around in the pa.s.senger seat up front and addressed them both. "Alex, we haven't yet had an appropriate time to actually ask you to do something for us, but there's an opportunity coming up that calls for your special-skills."

"I know you're not talking about my awesome karaoke skills," Alex said.

"Ultravox is on a train," Armstrong said. She was surveying a wide printout-a schematic of some kind-and folded it, setting it on her lap. "After days of chatter, Polidorium agents spotted several vampires, security types, the types that guard an important figure, getting off the English Channel ferry and disappearing into a train station in Calais, France. That's where we lost them. But the Scholomance is expecting the crew-they've prepared a meal to greet him; we picked up a call for human gang leaders to turn over members they'd like to get rid of, calls to kidnap, etc. By our estimation Ultravox and his entourage crossed into Switzerland this afternoon, and the Scholomance is expecting them to reach Lake Geneva tonight by train."

Alex felt that adrenaline rush again and instantly scanned the van for materials. He spotted a go package netted to the wall behind Sangster. "Is that where we're headed-we're gonna grab him in Geneva?"

"They never make it to Geneva," Sangster said, and Alex felt the van lurch as it took a hairpin turn. "Every time we have one of these high-level visitors, they jump before they reach Geneva Station."

"Icemaker came in with his own caravan," said Alex, remembering the miles of trucks and other vehicles on the road when the clan lord came to the Scholomance.

"Icemaker was moving a whole army; whereas Ultravox is a high-level operative," Sangster explained, "a sort of master consultant. A string puller. He'll be in the luxury cars. So if we know he'll get off before Geneva-and he will, because they'll leap and head for some magical entrance to the Scholomance-"

"I might have something on that," Alex interrupted, thinking of Elle diving headlong into the water. The water hadn't opened up right there, no magic door-meaning whatever door she headed for was not on the surface.

Sangster leaned forward, and there was an edge of delight in his voice that Alex had never observed before. "Alex, with you-with you-we just might be able to catch one of the masters before he jumps."

Alex looked from one agent to the other. So this was the measure of his value to the Polidorium now; he was a vampire detector. Good enough for me.

"Where are we going?" Alex asked. Before Sangster could answer he felt himself thrown violently sideways as the van pulled into the driveway of what appeared to be a park or soccer field.

"Let's go," Sangster said. Armstrong slid out of the pa.s.senger seat and pulled open the side door. Outside, the air thrummed with the loud, whipping sound of a helicopter dropping onto the field.

"We're going to Zimeysa Station!" Sangster said as they ran. "Keep your head down."

The three of them crossed the forty yards or so to the waiting Black Hawk, which, like the van, bore a Polidorium emblem on its flank. "Why the chopper?" Alex yelled.

"It's forty-five miles west," Sangster shouted back. "We need every second we can get."

Alex had ridden in helicopters before-he and his sister had tagged along numerous times on rescue flights in the mountains of Wyoming-but the Black Hawk was a different affair. The heavy craft rumbled and ripped off the deck and suddenly they were shooting west. Alex was strapped into a seat along the wall.

"Alex! Look alive," Armstrong shouted from where she sat across from him. Behind her in the distance, the trees were dropping down as they rose. Alex felt the nose of the chopper dip as they picked up speed. He looked down and she was handing him the large printout. He unfolded it to see a map of what Alex judged to be a medium-size train station-nothing on the level of Geneva's or Rome's, but much bigger than a neighborhood station.

"This is Zimeysa Station!" Armstrong pointed. "It's the last major stop. There will be a lot to watch. Four platforms. Six tracks. There are arrivals and departures every fifteen minutes. He's gonna stop tonight, on the way to Geneva. Every train does."

"I don't get it!" Alex yelled, studying the map. "You expect him to hop off and grab a Snickers bar?"

"He's not gonna hop off," Sangster said, next to him. "We're gonna follow your lead. You're going to need to check every train that goes in or out."

"The window of opportunity is eight thirty to eleven thirty," Armstrong said.

"I don't know-I don't know if I can do this," Alex confessed. "I've never tried anything like this."

"Alex, this is the closest we've ever been to being able to catch one of these guys before they get to Demon Central," Sangster said, referring to the Scholomance. "And we know he's planning something. The closest. You are the closest. So I don't want to hear, 'I don't know' or 'what if whatever.' I want to hear, 'I'll do this d.a.m.n thing.'" Sangster locked eyes with Alex, and they were crinkling at the edges-that strange mixture of hardness and mirth.

Of course. This was what he was here for. "I'll do this d.a.m.n thing," repeated Alex. Armstrong nodded.

"Here we go!" shouted the pilot from up front.

Armstrong threw back the door of the Black Hawk, and wind instantly began churning through the craft. Alex saw the cement roof of a building coming up faster and felt the chopper pitch and slow.

"Zimeysa Station," Armstrong said, gesturing down. "Let's go."

Chapter 9.

The Zimeysa Station reminded Alex of the train station in Munich, Germany, where he and his father had once spent the night. That had been awful: The whole family had been vacationing in March, and it was very cold; and on this day Alex and his father had missed the last train out of Munich, which they were supposed to catch in order to meet up with Mom and the girls, who had moved on to a villa south of Rome. He and his dad had gone to visit the concentration camps in Dachau, a bus trip, and the Dachau bus had been late getting back.

Missing the train meant that they had to cool their heels till early in the morning, which meant walking. They visited a local university and watched some TV in the student union, moved on to watch the last round of the Glockenspiel in a square called Marienplatz, and then settled in at the station itself. Alex and his father had huddled together against a brick wall next to a closed postcard-and-soda kiosk, Dad's jacket thrown over them. The gaping maws at either end of the station, where trains entered and departed, let the air in, and no amount of heat lamps stopped the sensation that they were on the streets. Sleeping on tile, backs against the bare wall, the cold leached into Alex's entire body. It made socks and underwear, layers of s.h.i.+rts, gloves, all seem to disappear. They s.h.i.+vered together until seven in the morning, heading to Rome with the first train. Alex had been eight years old.

It had not occurred to him until he was ten that Dad was not without means and probably could have found them a hotel room if he had so desired. Alex actually asked his father about this-catching him as he was heading out to teach at Boston University, where they had been at that time. Dad had mumbled something about how fun it had been to relive his misspent youth, which was a terrible excuse for misspending Alex's youth as well, but then Dad had been out the door.

Of course now Alex knew that just as likely, Dad had spent many of his train-station-huddling days in the employ of the Polidorium, a fact he had decidedly failed to mention.

At any rate, even in October, the Zimeysa Station was frozen stone cold, and as Alex walked up and down the platforms, he was glad that whatever else may occur, he would not be sleeping here. He'd been trained to survive in Wyoming blizzards, but anyone who felt like doing that by choice had to be crazy.

Oh, what he could have done then with what he had now-even without his backpack, his go package, Alex's pockets were lined with useful accoutrements: Besides wooden stakes, hydraulic-powered Polibows, and grappling guns, he had nifty stuff like s.p.a.ce blankets that folded into the size of a deck of cards and small canisters of styrene that could be lit to provide warmth. And his dad probably had as well. Madman.

Nothing, not a whisper, not a bleat of static, no reverberations in his head, nothing. The only static Alex heard as he walked along the trains came off the occasional announcements, as a chipper female voice announced in French and lovely British English each arrival and departure and change of track.

Alex stopped at a magazine rack underneath an enormous white clock at the end of the station, pretending to scan the covers. He turned around to look down the six tracks. He glanced up to a spiderweb of stairs at the far end of the terminal, which allowed pa.s.sengers to travel up over the tracks and down to the central platforms. At the top of the stairs, on a sort of marble terrace, Alex saw Sangster sitting at a small table with Armstrong, sipping a coffee and reading a book. Alex went to the right and started walking down the line again, down one platform, up the next, and down. Nothing through the whole sweep, and the trains emptied out. In came the next batch.

Sangster spoke through the Bluetooth in Alex's ear. "Eastbound trains on tracks two, three, and six," he said. Alex nodded. Sangster was saying that those trains were likely to stop at Geneva next.

Alex headed for track 2. People were striding across the platforms and he b.u.mped into a woman by mistake. He kept moving. He lingered for a moment next to the first entrance to the train, where a station official eyed him for a moment and then ignored him, taking him for just another confused kid looking for his train. Alex could count on the man to not only ask him no questions, but to be silently hoping Alex wouldn't ask for any help, either.

Alex climbed up the stairs at the end and headed down to the center platforms, pa.s.sing Sangster and Armstrong as he went. Sangster didn't even glance up at him from his coffee and his copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. As Alex began to walk along track 3 on his left, he tried to reach out, cut away all noise and distraction. Nothing. Past the first ticket master and the next. Nothing.

Then he felt a whisper, a jagged hiss in his mind. Alex looked up the platform as various patrons of the station moved back and forth. "I felt something," he said, and Armstrong responded. "Where?" he heard her say in his ear.

There was a pale man in a coat at the end of the platform, just under the terrace where Sangster and Armstrong sat. He was holding a cell phone, and now took it away from his ear, staring at its screen.

Make that very pale. The static hissed, but the guy was fifty feet away and so close to Armstrong and Sangster that they could spill their coffee on him.

Sangster spoke sharply. "Turn around and walk, Alex, that guy is taking your picture."

Alex swiveled and started moving, scanning the trains. "How do you know?"

"He keeps sweeping the area with his phone."

"Maybe it's him I sensed," Alex whispered.

"Just look for the train."

Alex reached the end of the station, the end where he'd begun, and turned to begin the walk down the next couple of trains.

The clock chimed and the chipper voice bellowed across the cold station: "Attention: tracks two, four, and six departing immediately."

Alex started moving faster, reaching the end of train 5. "Anything?" Sangster said in his ear, from where he sat with his coffee, far behind him.

"Is the photographer still there?"

"He's moved on; I lost him in the crowd."

There was a loud cry and at the end of the station, a pair of double doors opened. A soccer team poured in, shouting as they ran, all bare legs and green shorts, down the platform. Alex headed to the entrance to train 6's last car, trying to listen, and was nearly knocked over by two Italian soccer players, both leaping up onto the train. He pushed back, shoving through the crowd.

A teenage girl in a long coat was hanging on to one of the soccer players. She laughed as she plowed into Alex, and Alex slipped around her. The crowd had grown larger. An older athlete, also in a soccer uniform but with a wool scarf over his shoulders, was shouting to the others in Italian, "Buona, ragazzi! Just a few minutes!"

Something hissed and buzzed in Alex's ear, in his mind but as if outside of him. He spun around as students and soccer players smashed past.

A porter was opening up a cargo panel and unloading an enormous stack of boxes onto a rolling cart. Alex tried to make eye contact with Sangster and Armstrong, but they were blocked behind the boxes and the train.

The static increased and Alex turned to face the entrance of the station, approaching train 6's entrance. The train official at the bottom of the steps did not notice him. The hissing was growing.

"Number six," Alex said, "it's number six."

Alex peered up at the windows into the train, at sleepy faces either dozing or gazing out the window. There was a man with blond hair and a leather baseball cap glancing past him, and Alex found himself staring into the man's eyes before he realized the hissing in his mind had forced him to stop.

The blond man stared back, and something like recognition came over him. He nodded, and Alex looked in the direction of his nod.

The porter slammed shut the panel on the side of the train and now he was approaching Alex at lightning speed. Alex felt something grab his collar. He opened his mouth, and a hand was placed over it. The ticket master moved away, looking elsewhere, and Alex tried to cry out as the porter dragged him onto the train, metal stairs smacking into the back of Alex's legs as he kicked.

He watched the eyes of the porter, milky and mottled and almost translucent like all the vampires'. As the porter's hand came free, Alex spoke.

"Guys!" and that was it, because the vampire porter smashed him in the side of the head and the Bluetooth went clattering onto the deck.

They were in the little entryway to the train car and no one else was coming; Alex could see that. The train lurched and began to move, and unless someone chose this moment to open the door from the pa.s.senger compartment, the porter was free to do what he did next.

He hissed like a cobra and went for Alex's throat.

Alex felt time freeze as he took in his tiny surroundings, the closed collapsing door of the train, the sliding door into the pa.s.senger section, the other sliding door into the narrow s.p.a.ce between the two cars. They were in an area about the size of a closet.

As the vampire lunged, Alex braced himself against the wall and kicked, hard, connecting with the vampire's chest and sending him back. He winced in pain; kicking a vampire always felt like kicking a sack of sand. He reached into his jacket and drew his Polibow, whipping it up and aiming at the porter. He was three inches away when he fired, and the vampire burst into flame, singeing Alex's eyebrows before he fell to dust.

Alex registered and ignored the acrid smell of burnt hair filling the compartment. He looked down to find that the Bluetooth had been destroyed, too, reduced to a lump of plastic under the vampire's ashes.

We're moving. Sangster must know he was on the train. Alex looked out the window and watched the station wall slide past as the train began to pick up speed, heading toward the lake.

Fine. It was time to visit the blond man.

Alex pushed the sliding door open and stepped into the train car, scanning the pa.s.sengers. Of those facing toward him he felt and observed nothing of interest. Those facing away were quiet, reading, talking on cell phones. Half of them were working on laptops, the train merely an extension of their offices.

Now Alex saw someone rise and head for the door at the end-the blond man, ponytail draped over a brown leather jacket, a brown leather cap on his head. He didn't look back as he grabbed the door and went through. Alex hurried after him.

Out the door and Alex found himself stepping into the flimsy, enclosed connector between cars. He looked through the gla.s.s and saw the blond man-the blond vampire-moving all the way into the next car.

His brain started to hiss as he raced along. He stepped through, and this time the car was different, and the winds in his brain began to howl.