Specter Rising (Brimstone Network Trilogy) (10 page)

Bram had lost count of how many he had killed, and still they continued to come at him.

“How many of these things are there?” Bram asked, bringing his blade down on one of the grotesque things’ bald skulls, cutting it in two like a ripe melon.

“Barnabas is desperate to see our mother dead,” Lita answered breathlessly. She killed one of the beasts with a devastating blow through the shoulder, and then cleaved another’s head from its body. “He’s probably sent every one he had in his breeding pens.”

For a moment Bram thought there might have been a light at the end of the tunnel. The remaining Shriekhounds, their numbers severely diminished, were holding back, no longer attacking.

“This is good,” Bram said, taking the moment to catch
his breath.

“No it’s not,” Lita answered. “They don’t do things like this . . .”

The corridor was suddenly filled with the cries of reinforcements, their overwhelming presence like a wave of evil flooding down the rotting passage at them.

“We have to retreat,” Bram said to Lita, and then to the soldiers.

The armored warriors held their ground, refusing to listen.

“Listen to me,” Bram cried. “We have to move back or we’re dead for sure.”

The Specter soldiers looked to Lita, who struggled with Bram’s words.

“He’s right,” she said. “We have to go back.”

The soldiers acted at once, picking up the queen’s stretcher and carrying her back the way they had come.

The passage was too tight for the number of Shriekhounds pouring down it, and their foul bodies became wedged as they struggled to reach them.

Bram and Lita followed the soldiers, stopping every so often to dispatch a beast that managed to free itself from the logjam of Shriekhound bodies.

They were in the stomach again, searching for a place to
make their stand against their foes’ overwhelming numbers.

Bram wracked his brain, trying desperately to remember something—anything—that they could use in their defense. But no matter what he thought of, it just wasn’t enough.

The Specter soldiers hid the queen behind what looked like large, cancerous growths, and joined Bram and Lita.

They could hear the Shriekhounds bounding down the fleshy tunnel toward them and prepared for the horror that was to come. The soldiers raised their weapons, staring unblinkingly into the passage—looking the inevitable in the eye.

They had to be afraid, but they didn’t show it.

Bram wished he could have been so brave.

The Shriekhounds flooded the chamber, their screams and cries of excitement nearly deafening in the confines of the dead giant’s stomach.

This is it
, Bram thought, glancing quickly at his newfound sister. He was surprised to see that she was looking at him as well.

“Nice to have met you,” he said as he turned his gaze back to the shrieking wave coming at them.

“Likewise,” she responded. “It’s a shame that I wasted so much time hating you.”

If the current situation hadn’t been so dire, he would have taken a certain amount of comfort from her words, but now . . .

The Shriekhounds were upon them; maybe less than ten feet away. Bram braced himself, feeling his feet sink into the soft, spongy surface of the giant’s stomach.

At first he didn’t recognize the sound.

Multiple explosions like mini-thunderclaps filled the air, and he watched in shock as bursts of red appeared on the bodies of the Shriekhounds just before they fell dead to the ground.

More hounds stampeded into the room, stomping upon their dead, but it didn’t seem to matter.

The thunder continued, and more of the attacking monsters were torn up.

And suddenly Bram realized what he was hearing.

Gunfire.

Someone was firing guns at the attacking Shriek-hounds . . . but who?

The gunfire continued; staccato bursts of death that seemed as never ending as the Shriekhound hordes.
Bram spun around, his eyes searching for the source of their salvation.

The figure emerged from deep within the giant’s stomach, weapons the likes of which Bram had never seen clutched in each of its hands.

And as strange as the weapons were, their rescuer was even stranger.

At first Bram thought his eyes were playing tricks, but the closer their gun-wielding savior got, he knew that wasn’t the case.

Their rescuer looked like a turtle, although this turtle was at least six feet tall, walked upright, and was a really good shot.

Bram watched him blast away at the Shriekhounds, a blazing weapon in each clawed hand, and when the guns were out of ammunition, the turtle would drop them to the floor, its arms temporarily disappearing inside the shell, only to emerge with another piece of armament ready to dispatch death.

The gunfire seemed to go on forever, and the bodies of the dead Shriekhounds piled up to block the entrance.

Bram’s ears had started to ring, a high-pitched whine nearly drowning out the other sounds in the
chamber as the turtle’s guns finally went silent.

Lita and the Specter soldiers turned toward the strange creature that had saved them from certain death. From the way they glared at each other, though, Bram could already tell there were going to be problems.

“Boffa kill many, many Shriekhounds,” the turtle said, its voice loud, with a hint of an accent that strangely enough reminded him of Russian or one of the other Slavic countries.

Bram’s eyes grew wide as the shelled creature dropped its two smoldering guns and its arms disappeared inside its shell, emerging with two more weapons, only these were larger.

“And now he will add Specter to the pile.”

T
he Fthaggua leader nervously took a drink from a stone goblet by the side of his chair.

“I’m waiting,” Stitch growled, leaning his scarred face close to the demon’s and gripping the arms of its throne. “And I don’t like to wait . . . it makes me very . . .”

Stitch ripped the arms from the chair, one side and then the other.

“. . . impatient.”

The Fthaggua demon dropped its cup of fluid to the ground, its beady eyes glued to the ominous form of Stitch looming over him.

Using his crutches, Dez left the others to stand beside the patchwork man. “Do you want me to look around inside his head?” he asked.

The demon snarled, pointing a long, clawed finger. “You will stay out of my head!” it screeched.

Stitch dropped the chair arms and pushed his face even closer.

“Then tell us who hired one of your assassins to kill our leader,” Stitch growled. “Or I’ll tell him to take a walk through your head and to not be gentle.”

Dez noticed the creature’s beady eyes darting across to a table nearby. It wasn’t the first time that he noticed the beast looking over there. Leaning on his crutches, he turned to see what the Fthaggua was looking at.

“Perhaps a special arrangement could be worked out,” the leader said. “For a price I will reveal what you seek and—”

Stitch grabbed the demon by its throat, yanking it up from its seat.

“You actually think we’re going to pay to hear you talk?” he asked.

The demon choked, its scrawny legs pinwheeling in
the air as it attempted to find solid ground.

“I think he’s waiting for something to happen,” Dez spoke up.

Stitch looked over. “What do you mean?”

Dez pointed with one of his crutches. “I caught him looking over there a couple of times.”

They all looked.

It was an hourglass-shaped device, although this one was filled with something that looked an awful lot like blood dripping from one compartment down into another.

“Cool,” Bogey said, walking over for a closer look.

“Look but don’t touch,” Emily warned the Mauthe Dhoog.

Stitch shook the demon like a rattle. “Is that it?” he asked. “Are you waiting for something or somebody . . . an appointment perhaps?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the Fthaggua croaked. “I’m just a businessman attempting to keep the spawn of my seed in viscera and . . .”

Bogey clumsily stumbled against the table, knocking the blood-filled hourglass from its perch to the floor where it shattered.

Emily rolled her eyes and looked as though she was about
to chew the Mauthe Dhoog out when he began to speak.

“Incoming,” Bogey said, steadying himself on the small piece of furniture as if dizzy.

Dez’s heart skipped a beat.

“What do you mean incoming?” Emily asked.

Then Johanna’s invisible dogs started to growl, and he got a sense that things were about to get interesting.

“Felt as if I just got dropped fifty floors in a heartbeat; somebody is opening up a dimensional passage. I’m very sensitive when it comes to this stuff. We’re about to have company.”

Stitch shoved the demon back in his chair.

“Make him forget us,” the big man ordered Dez as they all started for cover.

Dez locked eyes with the Fthaggua. It was just about to speak—probably to beg him not to do what he was about to—when Dez forced himself into the demon’s brain.

He immediately felt sick to his stomach. Being inside a demon’s brain was like being inside a filthy toilet. Rummaging around in the most recent sections of its memory, Dez went about removing the images. The creature moaned as he did this, but time constraints did not allow him to be gentle.

And besides, this thing had sent one of its own to assassinate his friend.

The air in the chamber’s center suddenly began to crackle.

“Dez, c’mon!” Bogey yelled from behind a large clay pot.

He finished up the best he could and started to look for a hiding place of his own, but his legs were stiff, and even with the crutches, he was having a hard time getting around.

There was sudden movement beside him, and he felt himself swept off his feet.

“I’ve got you, lad,” Stitch said as he tucked Dez beneath his arm and headed to safety behind a statue.

Together they waited and watched as a passage to, and from, another world began to open.

Emily didn’t recognize the race of creature that emerged from the dimensional passage, but that was no big surprise.

As much as she tried to study, keeping up with the wide variety of supernatural creatures that hated the earth and especially all the humans that lived on it, was far more than she was able to manage.

This one was extremely pale, its white flesh almost blue, and most of its body covered in a black, metal armor. What really made her curious was the chain that it was holding as it emerged. Standing outside the crackling tear in space, the pale-skinned creature gave the chain a pull, drawing whatever was on the other end of the hole in space into the room with him.

The beasts bounded from the rip with a roar.

Emily immediately felt the wolf inside her stir, and had to take a few deep breaths to keep the transformation from beginning.

These were two of the most fearsome—and ugly—beasties that she’d ever laid eyes on.

Their bodies were large and muscular, with skin the color of a really thick callous. Their extra-wide mouths were overly crowded with razor-sharp teeth, and thick streams of drool leaked from the corners to pool upon the floor.

As disgusted as she was by them, she found that she couldn’t look away. There was something about the monsters, something strangely familiar. She decided that it had something to do with their eyes.

It was as if there was something more intelligent on the other side of the dark, animal-like orbs, crying to get out.

“Hail Darka of the most revered Fthaggua,” the white-fleshed visitor cried out in greeting to the demon. “I have come with your final payment in exchange for news of your assassin’s success.” He hefted a small pouch that jangled, and Emily had to wonder if the demon was being paid in pennies.

That’s what it sounded like, anyway.

The Fthaggua leader slouched on its damaged throne, still feeling the effects of what Dez had done to it. The demon stared at the visitor, squinting its beady eyes as it tried to pull itself together.

“I bid . . . I bid you equal greeting, O representative of the great Specter empire,” the demon managed.

Emily immediately perked up.
Did he say Specter?

Darka the Fathaggua slipped from his chair. “Please forgive my demeanor,” the demon apologized, swaying upon its thin legs. “It seems that I have been struck ill . . .”

The demon turned its head ever so slightly, noticing the arms of its chair lying upon the ground.

Not good,
Emily thought, her eyes darting over to where Stitch now hid with Desmond. The big man stared intently at the scene before them.

“What has happened to your throne?” the Specter representative asked.

“I . . . I don’t know,” Darka said. “Something . . . something is wrong,” he managed.

The two beasts on the end of the leash were becoming agitated, and the Specter’s eyes darted around the room. She guessed that maybe he was sensing that something wasn’t quite right.

The Fthaggua spun around to face the Specter. “Leave here at once . . . ,” the demon warned. “It isn’t right! It isn’t right!”

Shoot,
Emily thought as she triggered the transformation from human to wolf.
Why can’t anything ever go according to plan?

Their intention was to sneak onto the Fthaggua world, get the information they needed, and to get right back home.

She should have known better.

The Specter turned toward the still open dimensional doorway, preparing to escape.

“Keep the passage open!” Stitch roared, bounding from cover.

A throwing dagger had appeared in his hand and he hurled it with all his might as he ran to deal with the advancing situation.

That’s one of the creepiest things about Stitch,
Emily thought as she peeled away her skin to reveal the sleek
and powerful form of the wolf beneath.
He seems to have knives everywhere.

The Specter representative didn’t know what hit him. The blade found a place deep in his throat, hurling him backward to the floor before he even had a chance to ghost himself.