The Shroud of A'Ranka (Brimstone Network Trilogy) (11 page)

“No, he’s right,” Emily said, her large, powerful body trembling again. “It feels different now, stronger, more wild.”

Emily looked around the room. There was desperation in her gaze; desperation, and the fear of what she would become.

“It wants to hurt something … to rip it apart and taste its flesh … its blood….”

Bogey made a gagging sound and dropped his chips.

“And I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be able to hold it back.”

Gideon did not wish to sleep.

For millennia he had waited, trapped within the confines of the wooden box, unable to move.
All he could do was dream of the time when he would be free and able to take vengeance upon those who had done him such an injustice.

He’d always suspected it would be Vladek who came for him.

They had escaped their enemies, jumping through a magickal passage into a dwelling that reeked of sorcery. There was a magick user there, still held in the grip of the vampire’s spell, holding the passage open. Vladek had acted at once, slaying the sorcerer to close the passage so their pursuers could not follow.

Then they had found an ancient mausoleum on the property where the vampire could sleep, protected from the burning rays of the sun while his human lackey guarded the entrance.

Now, nestled in the protective crook of Vladek’s arm, Gideon was free to begin his plans anew, to pick up where he and his comrade in hate had left off so long ago.

The sorcerer closed his aged eyes—not for sleep, but to focus upon the world around him. Reaching out with his mind, he sought her, the goddess of the dust. The deity of death.

A’Ranka
.

She was the queen of an older time, before humanity even dropped from the trees, a time belonging to a powerful magickal race called the Yad’Zeen. This was a time of balance, a time when the goddess of death lived in harmony with the god of life itself. His name was Borphagal and he loved the goddess A’Ranka.

But A’Ranka grew restless with her followers, feeling as though their worship was not enough. She decided that she would end the lives of the Yad’Zeen by blotting out the life-giving rays of the sun with the dust of all that had lived and died upon the planet. The sun would be covered in a shroud of deathly remains, and this she believed would cause the creation of a new race of beings, a race that would exist only in darkness, and they would worship her to the extent she believed she should be worshipped.

The Yad’Zeen were terrified, abandoning their prayers to the dust goddess and devoting themselves entirely to the god of the sun. And even though Borphagal loved her, the god of life confronted A’Ranka.

A’Ranka grew furious, screaming that the Yad’Zeen needed to be destroyed to make way for followers that truly understood and respected the power of the gods.

Ignoring her lover’s pleas, A’Ranka called up the dust of
the dead, creating a swirling maelstrom comprised of the dusty remains of all that had lived upon the planet, had died upon the planet, and had been reduced to dust.

Borphagal was saddened by A’Ranka’s actions, and considered allowing himself to be swathed in ash—extinguishing his warmth as the fires of his love had been extinguished—but he heard the plaintive cries and prayers of the Yad’Zeen and had no choice but to listen.

Joining with the other gods of the early world, Borphagal came to challenge the madness of A’Ranka. There was a tremendous battle where the world shook, and sadly the Yad’Zeen were killed, but this only made Borphagal all the more angry, and he used the final prayers of his worshippers to increase his strength and finally defeat his onetime love.

The skies clear of the deathly remains, A’Ranka was imprisoned in a temple that had been erected in her honor, and that temple was hidden away.

With the Yad’Zeen no more, wiped out by her madness, A’Ranka was to suffer the most horrible of fates for a goddess.

She would be forgotten.

But, the goddess of the dust would only feel the full
extent of her punishment if all that had remembered her died along with her dreams of genocide.

It was not the case.

A Yad’Zeen had survived; a single member of the sorcerous species that actually believed that A’Ranka had been right. That the world needed to be enshrouded in darkness for a new, and far superior race to emerge.

Gideon was the last of the Yad’Zeen, and knew that the vampires were who his goddess believed would worship her best, and should rule a planet purged of light. Thus it was up to him to complete the desires of his goddess.

For countless millennia he had kept his goddess alive with his thoughts and worship of her. He could feel her, locked away in her temple prison, but knew that he did not have the power or strength to free her. It was when he met with the vampires, forming an alliance with the ruling body of the blood-drinkers, that he saw his success drawing closer.

Teamed with Vladek, they fought their way to his mistress, and imagined that their success was inevitable.

But it was not to be. An order of human zealots—an order of Brimstone—prevented them from reaching their
destination. Both he and the vampire Vladek were imprisoned, but it did not crush his spirit. Gideon knew that there would come a time again when he would be free, and the wishes of his goddess could again be realized.

Gideon never gave up thinking of her, praying to the goddess of the dust, but he feared that eventually it would not be enough, that A’Ranka would fade away, not strong enough to be remembered.

This had been his terror since obtaining his freedom; for no matter how hard he prayed, Gideon could not feel her.

The last of the Yad’Zeen was about admit that his goddess was no more, that no matter how hard he tried to keep the memory of her alive, he had failed miserably, and she had been sent tumbling into the abyss of forgotten deities, when he felt something.

It was so tiny and frail that it barely existed; a last spark of existence before an inevitable end.

Gideon blew upon the spark, watching as it grew brighter, pulling it up from the pit of oblivion.

He had found his goddess.

She was so weak, but she was alive, hungry to be nurtured by the prayers of countless worshippers. There was
only him now, but soon, when the sky was black, covered in a shroud of dust …

There would be more.

Bram lay upon the worn, leather couch in his father’s office at the Brimstone Network headquarters thinking about how nice it would be to go to sleep.

He was exhausted, his eyes burning from lack of rest, but he could do nothing to calm his frenzied mind.

Over and over again he reviewed his team’s failure.

His failure
.

Looking back, he could see all the mistakes they’d made, and realized how lucky they had been to be able to walk away.

The vampire was bent on retrieving Gideon’s remains, which meant he was up to something.

But what?

Bram sat up, resigning himself to the fact that there would be no sleep for him tonight. He considered going down to the basement to talk with the Archivist, but he was too restless. He needed to do more than stand around listening while a ghostly image of his father spouted information.
Bram wanted to flip over a few rocks and see what he could find.

And he knew exactly where those rocks might be.

The abandoned Brimstone instillation was huge. The middle floors of the renovated castle had been designed as living quarters for the brave men and women who had devoted their lives to the Network’s cause. As Bram strolled through the corridors, he tried to imagine them filled with agents going here and there at all hours, but could only think of the horrors that had been committed here not so long ago.

Now they were just silent, except for Bogey’s snoring.

Bram entered the Mauthe Dhoog’s room, his boots crunching on the crumbs of corn chips and various other foods that the snack-obsessed creature had been shoving in his mouth. There was a bed in the far corner of the darkened room, but Bogey did not sleep as one would imagine.

Bram dropped to his knees and reached under the bed for his friend.

“Hey,” Bram said, gripping his shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “Hey, wake up, I need you for something.”

“But it’s too early, I don’t want to go on a Bilesucker
hunt,” the Mauthe Dhoog grumbled, still in the grip of sleep. He rolled over and away, wedging himself farther into a corner beneath the bed.

Bram dropped to his belly and grabbed the seat of Bogey’s loose-fitting jeans, yanking the gray-skinned beastie out from under the bed.

Bogey’s solid black eyes suddenly came open. “Let me guess,” he said. “You need me for something and it’s got nothing to do with hunting Bilesuckers.”

“Good guess,” Bram said, climbing to his feet. He kept his voice low, not wanting to wake the others. “I want you to rift me back to the cave where they imprisoned Vladek.”

Bogey got up, picking up stray crumbs from the floor and popping them into his mouth. “Little morning pick-me-up,” he said. Then he took a deep breath and cracked his knuckles. “Why do we have to go back there?” he asked. “You’ve seen one cave full of old crap, you’ve seen ’em all.”

“I want to look around,” Bram explained. “I want to be sure we didn’t miss anything that might help us now.”

Bogey shrugged and, digging into his memory, opened a rift back to the musty old cave in the Ural Mountains.

The lighting that had been left behind by whoever had disturbed the vampire’s prison was still functioning, but the batteries must have been getting low. The deep chamber was slowly being consumed by darkness.

“Any idea what it is that you’re looking for?” Bogey asked as he picked up what looked to be an incredibly old statue of some ancient goddess and immediately broke off one of its arms. “Oops,” he said, a flush of red spreading across the gray of his cheeks. “Gotta be careful with this junk.”

“Exactly,” Bram said.

He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he’d know it when he saw it. He was drawn to the stone box where the vampire had been imprisoned for thousands of years.

“Can you imagine?” Bogey mused, hanging on the rim of the box, peering inside at the darkness contained within. “There’s barely enough room even for me in there. I’d probably lose my nut after the first five minutes. But at least they gave him something to read.”

Bram was already moving on to another area of the storage cave when he realized how odd Bogey’s last words were.

“They gave him something to read?” Bram asked.

Bogey nodded. “Yeah, there’s some books and stuff inside the box.” He hooked a thumb to the stone square behind him.

Bram darted back to the box and reached inside. Bogey had been right, there were books inside, ancient books, books so old that they could very well crumble if touched too roughly.

The young leader of the Brimstone Network ghosted his hands, making them as soft as air on the fragile tomes, but solid enough so that they could be gently moved.

Bram immediately began to read.

Unaware of how much time had passed, he was suddenly distracted by Bogey clearing his throat.

“So, anything good?” the Mauthe Dhoog asked.

Bram felt uneasy as he took his eyes from the ancient text. “Nothing really good, but it is helpful.”

“Helpful? Like the vampire’s current address helpful?”

Bram shook his head slowly.

“No, like the notes of my ancestor good,” he explained. “These books contain the information that they got from Vladek when they studied him … before they locked him away.”

“Cool,” Bogey said, reaching for one of the books.

Bram quickly moved the book out of his reach.

“Not cool,” Bram said, feeling suddenly queasy. “If what it says here is true, we’re in trouble.

“Really deep trouble.”

AIR BRAZIL FLIGHT 1406 WAS BUFFETED BY TURBULENCE
.

Lewis Tyker gripped the armrests on his seat in coach, listening to the large woman in the bright orange sweat suit across the aisle cry out with every shake and sudden drop.

He wanted to tell her that minor turbulence was the least of her worries, that if she knew what was resting in a transport crate inside the belly of the plane, or even what he was carrying in the small duffel bag stored beneath the seat in front of him, she would know the very definition of the word “fear.”

Lewis closed his eyes, attempting to focus on other things.

When his master had awakened, the head of Gideon had babbled excitedly about a goddess called A’Ranka. He had insisted that they go to her at once.

The man flinched at the memory of what happened next. Vladek had ordered Lewis to make passage for them, and foolishly the human had allowed his curiosity to get the better of him. He had asked about their plans.

He shuddered violently, remembering the vampire’s rage. Lewis had felt certain he was about to die, but the head—Gideon—had intervened, reminding Vladek that Lewis would be needed to deal with the human world.

“Are you cold?” somebody asked, and it took him a moment to realize that somebody was talking to him.

Lewis looked to his right, seeing the large woman offering him a blanket. “I saw you shivering … here, put this over you.”

She smiled, showing him large, white teeth stained with bright red lipstick.

“I’m fine,” Lewis snapped, touching a trembling hand to his throat. He was glad to still have one, as he thought of the vampire’s razor-sharp teeth.

He gazed at the night sky outside the window, the stars and darkness like twinkling diamonds laid upon black velvet.

Lewis had made the flight reservations and arranged to ship Vladek’s traveling crate without further hesitation,
nearly draining his own bank account. They were headed to the jungles of South America.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes again.
Maybe I can sleep
, he thought, and actually began to feel himself drift off.

Until he heard Gideon’s voice. He came awake with a start, looking around for the source of the muffled sound, before remembering that it was coming from under the seat in front of him.