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Authors: Jason Henderson
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we are to go forward,” Sangster said seriously. “There are two Polidoris. Theone we read about and the one we honor by serving this organization.”
Now below the portrait of Polidori appeared two columns—two sets of biographical data points.
The door opened and an agent brought a tray with their drinks. Sangster indicated the Dr Pepper and Alex took it as his mysterious teacher continued.
“According to the accepted literature, John Polidori fell out with his friend Lord Byron in 1816, shortly after they stayed here at Lake Geneva. Broke and depressed, Polidori supposedly died of a drug overdose just a few years later.
“Here is what any agent of the Polidorium will tell you if you have the right to hear it, and God help me, whether your father likes it or not, you do.”
As Sangster spoke, he tapped a button and another screen lit up, flashing images: helicopters and motorcycles, machinery and computers, the screens with GPS coordinates of agents moving across the globe.
“John Polidori was not a fool. He altered his life, starting after his book, The Vampyre , the first modern book on vampires.
“In 1818, as his book was coming out, Polidori faced his first coven of vampires, a group running an opium den in London. He traced those vampires to a clan running a newspaper and a publishing house. He killed several but the vampires began to turn public opinion against the doctor, who was obliged to keep his activities a secret. Polidori soon found his bad reputation useful. By now, he had a mission. He faked his own death and went underground.
“By 1831, when Mary Shelley wrote her revised Frankenstein , everyone remembered Polidori as an idiot—Mary included. She even changed her description of what he was writing about—nowhere does she use the word vampire ; instead she makes up a story about a skull-headed lady.
“But Polidori made friends. Among other people, in the late 1830s he met the young Abraham Van Helsing, who was a real person, despite what you’ve heard. Bram Stoker met him when Van Helsing was an old man and wrote his book Dracula based on Van Helsing’s story. A long time before that, Van Helsing had used some of his own considerable wealth to help Polidori create this organization. When Polidori did die—in 1851, thirty years after his reported death—the Polidori Society stretched across Europe and the United States and was receiving money from the black budgets of every nation. From time to time they continued to work with the Van Helsing Foundation—your father’s research foundation.”
“The VHF is made up of scholars and doctors,” said Alex. “They make malaria vaccines and run clinics in third-world countries. I don’t see any of those guys chasing vampires through the woods.”
“They do more than that, but the activities you are talking about give them reason to operate across the planet,” said Sangster. “And when they need firepower, they call the Polidorium.”
Alex stared at the image of the Italian doctor who had worked with his— what would it be? “So Abraham Van Helsing was my—”
“Great-great-great-grandfather,” said Sangster. “That would be three greats.”
“Do you know my father?”
“Not personally.”
“But he was an—he was what you are.”
“He was an agent, yes.”
“He never told me any of this,” Alex said, and now he flashed on the white-fanged creatures pursuing him through the woods.
And then on something else.
“If you did research on me,” Alex asked slowly, “then do you know about…”
“About your old school?” Sangster asked calmly, when Alex found that he couldn’t complete the sentence. Alex nodded.
Back at Frayling Prep, Alex had felt the jagged static for the first time. At the beginning he had put it down to being away from home at boarding school, the ache of homesickness for the six family members he’d left behind. But then he noticed that the static only seemed to occur in the presence of
Now below the portrait of Polidori appeared two columns—two sets of biographical data points.
The door opened and an agent brought a tray with their drinks. Sangster indicated the Dr Pepper and Alex took it as his mysterious teacher continued.
“According to the accepted literature, John Polidori fell out with his friend Lord Byron in 1816, shortly after they stayed here at Lake Geneva. Broke and depressed, Polidori supposedly died of a drug overdose just a few years later.
“Here is what any agent of the Polidorium will tell you if you have the right to hear it, and God help me, whether your father likes it or not, you do.”
As Sangster spoke, he tapped a button and another screen lit up, flashing images: helicopters and motorcycles, machinery and computers, the screens with GPS coordinates of agents moving across the globe.
“John Polidori was not a fool. He altered his life, starting after his book, The Vampyre , the first modern book on vampires.
“In 1818, as his book was coming out, Polidori faced his first coven of vampires, a group running an opium den in London. He traced those vampires to a clan running a newspaper and a publishing house. He killed several but the vampires began to turn public opinion against the doctor, who was obliged to keep his activities a secret. Polidori soon found his bad reputation useful. By now, he had a mission. He faked his own death and went underground.
“By 1831, when Mary Shelley wrote her revised Frankenstein , everyone remembered Polidori as an idiot—Mary included. She even changed her description of what he was writing about—nowhere does she use the word vampire ; instead she makes up a story about a skull-headed lady.
“But Polidori made friends. Among other people, in the late 1830s he met the young Abraham Van Helsing, who was a real person, despite what you’ve heard. Bram Stoker met him when Van Helsing was an old man and wrote his book Dracula based on Van Helsing’s story. A long time before that, Van Helsing had used some of his own considerable wealth to help Polidori create this organization. When Polidori did die—in 1851, thirty years after his reported death—the Polidori Society stretched across Europe and the United States and was receiving money from the black budgets of every nation. From time to time they continued to work with the Van Helsing Foundation—your father’s research foundation.”
“The VHF is made up of scholars and doctors,” said Alex. “They make malaria vaccines and run clinics in third-world countries. I don’t see any of those guys chasing vampires through the woods.”
“They do more than that, but the activities you are talking about give them reason to operate across the planet,” said Sangster. “And when they need firepower, they call the Polidorium.”
Alex stared at the image of the Italian doctor who had worked with his— what would it be? “So Abraham Van Helsing was my—”
“Great-great-great-grandfather,” said Sangster. “That would be three greats.”
“Do you know my father?”
“Not personally.”
“But he was an—he was what you are.”
“He was an agent, yes.”
“He never told me any of this,” Alex said, and now he flashed on the white-fanged creatures pursuing him through the woods.
And then on something else.
“If you did research on me,” Alex asked slowly, “then do you know about…”
“About your old school?” Sangster asked calmly, when Alex found that he couldn’t complete the sentence. Alex nodded.
Back at Frayling Prep, Alex had felt the jagged static for the first time. At the beginning he had put it down to being away from home at boarding school, the ache of homesickness for the six family members he’d left behind. But then he noticed that the static only seemed to occur in the presence of
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