The Shroud of A'Ranka (Brimstone Network Trilogy) (2 page)

Their partner’s struggles grew weaker, his screams trailed off to a pathetic whine, and his legs went limp. Then that terrible feeding sound stopped, and his body was cast aside like an empty soda can.

Lewis and Mason gazed in horror at their comrade, at his ravaged throat, and the withered, wrinkled flesh that made him look fifty years older than he was. Lewis could not look away from the jagged wound upon the man’s throat.

The jagged …
bloodless
… wound.

And then movement within the stone chest caught his attention. Two clawlike hands gripped the rim of the box, hauling up the horror that had, until then, remained hidden.

It was as if he was looking at the remains of some ancient corpse, its skin like tanned leather stretched over bone, its horrible mouth filled with knife-sharp fangs stained red with Prentiss’s blood.

And its eyes, its dark, bottomless eyes, looked at him, and he felt it exert its control upon his will.

Lewis found himself dropping to his knees. Beside him, Mason did the same.

“I am Vladek Sadovnik, dark prince of the vampire legions,” the withered figure wheezed. “And you will swear your allegiance to me, or your life-stuff shall fill my belly.”

ABRAHAM STONE STOOD UPON A HILL IN THE SHADOWS
of an old oak tree and watched the memorial ceremony in the cemetery below.

It’s a good-size crowd
, the thirteen-year-old thought as he witnessed the dedication of another monument in honor of the Brimstone Network and the work they had done to protect the world from harm over the countless years.

This statue was his favorite; it depicted an angelic figure, wings spread, robes flowing around it, one of its arms raised with sword in hand pointed toward the Heavens.

He was sure his father would have approved.

Just thinking about him brought a hard, nearly choking lump to Bram’s throat, and the burning of tears in his eyes.

Elijah Stone had been the leader of the Brimstone Network and had met his fate, along with all the other original members of the Network, in a fatal attack by the forces of the supernatural just over a month ago.

It was a time such as this that Bram could actually slow down for a moment, no longer in full motion with his assignment of restoring the Network to some semblance of strength. His father had given him this most special assignment, to make sure that the Brimstone Network would go on.

A hard task for sure, and one that he wasn’t completely sure he was ready for, but he tried nonetheless.

It was what his father had wanted, and what the world required.

“How come I’m the only lucky one who gets to go to these depressing things with you?” his companion Bogey asked, pulling a candy bar from the inside pocket of his Red Sox jacket. He tore away the top of the wrapper with his large, yellow teeth and spit it on the ground.

“Pick that up,” Bram scolded. “Littering is very disrespectful, and littering here is twice as disrespectful.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the gray-skinned creature muttered, picking up the wrapper and shoving it in his jacket pocket.

“These ceremonies help me focus on the job I have in front of me,” Bram said, listening as a small group began to sing some sort of hymn in honor of the organization.

“Ya gotta admit, they are pretty depressing,” Bogey said through a mouth full of candy.

“Which is another reason why I don’t ask any of the others to come,” Bram said. “The stuff we’re dealing with is upsetting enough without another thing being added to the pile.”

“So what, I’m just the lucky one?” Bogey asked as he peeled away more of the candy wrapper.

“And you’re also the quickest form of transportation,” Bram said, lowering his voice as the music below came to a stop.

“Nice,” Bogey grumbled. “It’s times like this that I wish I wasn’t such an awesome rifter.”

Bogey belonged to a race of supernatural creatures called the Mauthe Dhoog, and some of his species were born with the magickal aptitude for something called rifting. Those hatched with this talent had the ability to conjure doorways from one place to another—from the here to the there.

Bogey had a real knack for rifting, and was one of the most valuable members of the new Brimstone team
that Bram had managed to pull together.

“If you weren’t, you’d have been left behind in Gutt-swallow,” Bram added cruelly, regretting the words as they left his mouth.

“Harsh, dude,” Bogey said, finishing his candy. The Mauthe Dhoog put the empty wrapper in his pocket.

The crowd below bowed their heads in silent reflection. This was where Bram always ran into trouble, when he had the time to think about the huge responsibility that had been heaped upon him.

It had the tendency to make him sort of cranky.

“Sorry,” Bram said, looking away from the gathering.

Bogey shrugged. “That’s all right, I know you didn’t mean it.” The gray-skinned creature paused, gazing down at the group at the bottom of the hill. “Can’t imagine that these things are good for your mood—why do you insist on going to them? This must be, like, the fifth one in a week.”

From another pocket he produced a piece of beef jerky and started to gnaw on it.

“It helps me focus,” Bram said. “Whenever I think of quitting, I see the people down there in my head and I see how sad—how frightened—they are now that my father
and the Network are gone. It keeps me going.”

Bogey tore a large hunk of jerky from the stick and started to chew.

“Why are we still hiding?” Bogey asked him. “If the world is so afraid, why don’t we let them know we’re still around … that the Brimstone Network isn’t completely dead and gone?”

The crowd below had started to disperse. The sun would be setting soon, and nobody these days liked to be out after dark.

“I’ve thought about that,” Bram said. “But I don’t think we’re ready yet. There are too many enemies of the Network out there who would hunt us down and try to destroy us just to make a point. I think it’s better that we remain in hiding awhile longer, doing our job from the shadows.”

Bogey shrugged, still chewing on the last of his snack.

“I guess that’s true,” he said.

The crowd was gone, leaving only the memorial statue—the sword-bearing angel—behind.

“Want to get going?” Bogey asked, wiggling his fingers in preparation to rift them a passage back to their current headquarters in England.

“In a minute,” Bram said as he headed down the hill.
“I’d like a closer look at the monument.”

Bram didn’t even have to turn around to see that Bogey was probably rolling his eyes.

He had to give the Mauthe Dhoog credit; even though it was obvious that Bogey wanted to leave, he still gave Bram the time that he wanted to spend at the monument.

Up close the statue was even more impressive, and Bram found himself suddenly overwhelmed with emotion. It was all a huge jumble: the responsibility of what his father had heaped upon him, as well the ragged emotions that he still felt in regard to his loss—to the world’s loss.

He knelt before the warrior angel and actually found himself praying for some sort of sign from a higher authority that he was doing a good job.

The cackle of laughter wasn’t exactly what he expected.

“Who the heck is that?” Bogey asked, squinting into the darkness.

The sun had not yet fallen completely, draping the vast cemetery in an increasing shroud of twilight.

Bram slowly climbed to his feet, his eyes locked upon the shapes in the distance emerging from holes that had opened in the ground.

“Ghouls,” Bogey said with disgust.

Bram was immediately on guard, and then felt his anger surge as he watched what the pale-skinned beasties were up to.

Each of them was carrying a can of spray paint, and as they climbed from the earth they began to defile the cemetery headstones and monuments. The creatures were laughing hysterically as they made their way across the cemetery toward them—toward the Brimstone Network monument.

He could hear them shaking their spray cans, the metal bead inside the cans bouncing around, mixing the pressurized contents. The ghouls seemed to be getting more excited, more rowdy as they got closer to the cemetery’s newest edition.

“They’re not gonna do what I think they’re gonna do,” Bogey suddenly said, the sound of his voice stopping the ghouls in their tracks.

Bram stepped from the shadow created by the warrior angel, Bogey at his side.

The ghouls studied them with dark, shiny eyes. There were five of the creatures, and Bram watched their expressions of surprise change to amusement as they saw that there were only two of them.

The ghouls began to laugh, one after the other starting
to shake their spray paint cans again.

“I almost feel sorry for them,” Bogey said with a shake of his head as he started to roll the sleeves of his Red Sox jacket.

The ghouls charged them, the loose skin around their mouths peeling back to reveal pointy, sharp teeth.

“On second thought, they deserve everything they get,” the Mauthe Dhoog said, tensing to fight beside Bram.

Bram couldn’t have agreed more.

He wasn’t as afraid as he used to be. Bram Stone wasn’t entirely human, and it was his other side—his Spectral side—that used to terrify him so much.

To avoid a war with a supernatural race called the Specter, Bram’s father had married a member of the Specter royal family, which resulted in a treaty between the human race and the otherworldly Specter, as well as a child.

Him. Abraham Stone. Only part human; the other half part of a race of fierce, ghostly warriors.

It wasn’t easy to grow up this way, the Spectral part of him eager to embrace anger, eager to fight.

His father had seen Bram’s inner turmoil. The Spectral
side of his personality was becoming more and more intense the older he became. His father knew that the two sides of his dueling natures would need to come together as one if he was going to survive, so Bram was sent away to a secret monastery high in the Himalaya Mountains where he was to be trained by the priests of P’Yon Kep.

He had not yet completed his training when he was called from his studies. His father and the Brimstone Network had been murdered and, despite his fears, he had a job to do.

The priests of the monastery had given him all the knowledge he would require to join the two halves of his nature, and every day as he and his team took on more and more responsibilities as protectors of the world, he became a little less afraid.

And a little closer to becoming one with his inhuman side.

It was at a time like this when he could see how far he’d come.

The ghouls lumbered at them, clawed hands ready to slash and rip, needle teeth eager to tear into soft flesh.

Not too long ago Bram would have been terrified, not so much of fighting creatures such as these but of losing control of his Spectral nature.

But not anymore.

He willed his body immaterial, floating up from the ground and, with just a little bit of concentration, propelled himself toward their attackers.

By the looks on their monstrous faces, he could tell that the ghouls were surprised, which was perfectly fine by him.

He dropped down directly in front of them and allowed his body to become solid again. Not giving them a chance to gather their wits, Bram lashed out, the palm of his hand snapping out with incredible force, striking one of the ghouls in his piggish nose and driving his bald head backward.

The ghoul stumbled back two steps, eyes fixed upon the darkening sky above him before falling to the ground.

The remaining ghouls looked to their fallen member before turning their stares to Bram. They all began to roar at once, a horrible moaning sound accompanied by the unhinging of their jaws.

But Bram was ready as they tossed their spray cans to the cemetery grass and lunged at him as one.

He felt his pulse rate increase and a rush of excitement pass through him as his Spectral nature kicked in and
he welcomed the ghouls’ assault. It was all about control when dealing with the alien nature that was just as much a part of him as his humanity, and he reveled in its skills as he met the monsters’ attack head-on.

At first they attempted to assault him with their physical presence, supernatural strength, and jagged claws used for digging through the earth in search of the dead to feed upon. But these monstrous traits could not be used against him if he could not be touched.

Bram made himself a ghost. They clawed at him; tried to sink their needle-sharp teeth into his flesh, but their attacks fell upon nothing but air.

He saw them growing more furious, more bestial as they tried to take him down, but they would have had more luck if they were attacking the wind.

Wishing to bring the current conflict to an end as quickly as possible, Bram made himself suddenly solid. The ghouls practically howled with glee as they put their grimy hands upon him.

And it was the last thing that they did.

One after another they fell, the training from the priests of P’Yon Kep filling Bram’s head as if he were reading from a training manual. Spinning around with a roundhouse
kick, the heel of Bram’s foot caught the side of one of the beasties’ faces, knocking a spray of needle teeth from his mouth and rendering him unconscious.

Bouncing on the soles of his feet, Bram was ready for the next attack, but he quickly realized that there were no more. He counted three unconscious ghouls upon the ground and realized that two were missing.

He heard a commotion over to his left and spun around ready to face the next assault.

Two of the ghouls, having produced knives from somewhere on their body, were stalking toward Bogey. The Mauthe Dhoog had backed up against an old mausoleum door.

Bram could hear the dead-eaters begin to laugh when they realized that their prey could go no farther to escape them.

“Bogey!” Bram called out, not wanting his friend to be afraid. He started toward the ghouls when Bogey suddenly stopped him in his tracks.

“I’ve got it, Bram,” his friend called out.