Specter Rising (Brimstone Network Trilogy) (15 page)

At least that’s how it seemed to happen in the movies.

“I remember . . . I remember that they got killed,” the child said, sadness in her quavering voice. “They were Brimstone people and they got killed . . . and I . . . and I got sick.”

“But you got better . . . right?” Johanna asked, keeping her talking.

The figure was suddenly still—remembering.

“No,” she answered, the hood moving from side to side. “No, I didn’t get better. My brother tried to make me well, but he did some . . . some terrible things.”

“What did he do?”

“He made a deal with a bad man,” the little girl answered, her voice flat and emotionless. “A very bad man who wanted to use me to destroy the world.”

Johanna realized that she was way over her head with this one. Where was Mr. Stitch, or that stuck-up Emily, when you really needed them?

“But you didn’t, right?” Johanna said. “You stopped the bad man.”

The hooded figure stood perfectly still.

“Right?” Johanna prompted.

“No,” the little girl’s voice answered breathlessly, trembling and filled with fear. “No we didn’t stop him . . . he’s still here.”

Johanna was about to ask the child what she was talking about, when the hooded figure began to scream.

It was one of the creepiest sounds she had ever heard, starting out high pitched—a little child’s shriek—but slowly becoming something else all together.

Like a man’s scream of pain.

“Are . . . are you all right, kid?” Johanna asked, using her legs to push herself away from the hooded figure still bent over, clutching itself in pain.

“Don’t know how much time I have,” said a man’s voice from within the hood. “Don’t know how much longer I . . . we can keep him away.”

“What’s going on?” Johanna asked in a panic. “Why do you sound so different now? Where’d the little girl go?”

The figure rose slowly, stiffly. “No time to explain,” the male voice said. It brought its hands up to the hood
and swiftly pulled it back to reveal the face beneath.

At first she thought her eyes were playing tricks. The face had been that of a little girl, no older than eight years, but quickly morphed to that of a handsome, teenage boy.

“She is here . . .”

The face changed again to that of a smiling little girl.

“And so am I.”

The soft features of the girl child had become the handsome face of a young man again.

“That is just weird,” Johanna said, staring at the boy’s face, waiting for it to change again.

“Not sure how much time I have,” the boy said. He extended a hand, bolts of crackling magickal energy leaping from his fingertips to strike Johanna.

It felt like a nasty static shock, and she let out a surprised yelp as her body experienced a brief numbness.

Johanna suddenly realized that her hands were free, and her pack was back.

They immediately began to growl at the boy.

“Stop it,” she commanded the invisible ghosts. “He just brought you back and set me free.”

The boy started to sway.

“Are you all right?” Johanna asked. “Are you sick or something?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” he answered. “There’s so much that I don’t remember.”

“Who are you?” she asked. “What’s your . . . you and your sister’s name? That’s who the little girl is . . . right? Your sister?”

He nodded as he brought a trembling hand to his brow.

“Yes . . . yes, she’s my sister. We seem to share this form.”

“I had to share a room with my mom once, and that was bad enough. Can’t imagine what it would be like sharing a body.”

“But there’s another,” he said, and the boy looked suddenly terrified.

“Another?” Johanna asked. “You mean there’s somebody else in there . . . with you and your sister?”

“Yes,” he said, bending over again in obvious agony. “And he’s waking up . . . fighting to take . . . control. . . .”

Johanna looked around for an exit, seeing the flap of the tent moving in the night breeze.

The boy screamed, tossing back his head in pain, and she watched as his appearance changed again.

He did not become an angelic little girl this time, but a bald, older man, his yellowish pale skin pulled tight over his skull.

This was one scary-looking dude.

“I’m awake,” he said with a smile that made her skin crawl.

And Johanna ran from the tent in search of her friends; there was no way she was going to face that guy alone.

L
ita said good-bye to her mother, leaning forward to place a kiss upon the cool flesh of her brow.

“Be well,” she added, committing the sight of her to memory. This was why she was agreeing to Abraham’s somewhat ambitious but insane plan; it was the only chance they had, and Barnabas needed to pay for what he had done to her mother and the Specter people.

With the fires of her anger again stoked, she left her mother, climbing up from the hole in the ground to the surface.

The soldiers were waiting, unhappy expressions on their battle-worn faces.

“We insist that you allow us to accompany you,”
Stanis said. “The half-breed and the Terrapene’s plan is complete madness. At least with us along, your chances will be increased and . . .”

“And who will stay with my mother?” Lita asked them. “Who will watch after our queen?”

The soldiers stared at each other, remembering the oath that they had sworn to their queen when they became her royal guard.

“With the queen ailing, I am the commanding voice, and I charge you two with the task of watching over her safety at any cost.”

“But, Princess . . . ,” Yosh began.

Lita stopped him with a steely stare.

“I will not speak of what is expected of you again,” she said, and abruptly turned her back on them, proceeding toward Bram and the shelled beast, Boffa.

She hated to treat them this way; they had been loyal to the royal family since before she was even born. For as long as she had existed, these two had been at her mother’s side. Their battle prowess would certainly have been a welcome addition for what was ahead, but her mother needed them first.

As long as the queen still lived, they would be by her side.

Boffa and Bram sat before the fire, and they both rose to their feet as she approached.

“Are we ready?” Bram asked.

At first she did not respond, folding her arms across her chest and staring at the boy.

“Are we?” she asked, petulance in her tone. “You tell me.”

“I don’t understand,” Bram said. “Is there something wrong? Something I haven’t thought of?”

Lita’s anger sparked. She knew that something had to be done, but the more she thought of her brother’s plan, the more unsure she was.

“I’m just not sure that this is the wisest of ideas,” she said. “The three of us against Barnabas, his soldiers . . . never mind his secret weapon.”

Bram reached out, placing a supportive hand on her shoulder. “I know that this must seem overwhelming, but we can do this. The plan is sound.”

She shrugged off Bram’s comforting hand. “You talk about sneaking down into the enemy camp and causing a distraction so that you can destroy Barnabas’s weapon. What kind of distraction can we cause?”

Bram smiled. “That’s what we were talking about before you arrived. Show her, Boffa.”

One of the Terrapene’s arms disappeared inside his shell for a moment and then returned with a round, metal device.

“And what is that?” she asked.

The Terrrapene gave the object a sudden twist and threw it into the woods.

Lita was about to ask if that was supposed to impress her in some way, when a powerful and fiery explosion rocked the woods and two full-grown trees crumbled into kindling.

“Do you think a few of them will be distraction enough?” Bram asked with smile.

“You have more of those?” she asked Boffa, who nodded. “Inside your shell . . . you have more of those things?”

The Terrapene laughed.

“Inside shell I carry many instruments of war.” And then he proceeded to remove weapons of all sizes and shapes, as well as more of the round explosive devices from inside his shell, his arms disappearing to reappear holding more instruments of death. A pile soon formed at their feet.

“How is that even possible?” Lita asked, amazed.

The scaled warrior laughed again. “Terrapene magick,” he said. “Bigger on inside than outside.”

“How did the Specter ever defeat your kind?” she asked, reaching down to pick up one of the guns that had been removed from within Boffa’s shell.

“The Terrapene grew tired of war . . . tired of fighting. Could sense coming of change and waited for it to arrive, but it did not come fast enough and soon all were dead . . . except Boffa.”

She admired the heavy metal gun in her hand. It was the first time she’d ever held one such as this, the Specter preferring bladed weapons to anything stinking of technology.

“So I’m going to ask you again,” Bram said, addressing her. “Are we ready?”

“Will somebody teach me how to use this?” she asked, showing him the weapon.

Bram and the Terrapene both agreed.

“Then yes, we’re ready.”

11.
T
HE DARK SORCERER
C
ROWLEY WAS IN
control, but for how long, he did not know.

He knew that he had to find the Specter leader, the one called Barnabas, to let him know that the young member of the accursed Brimstone Network had escaped.

That she had the potential to ruin everything.

Crowley moved toward the exit of the tent, when his mind was suddenly wracked with excruciating pain.

“YAAAAHHHHH!” the evil one screamed, his senses under assault from one of the others with whom he shared this new, magickal body.

The sorcerer fell to his knees, fighting to maintain control.

He wasn’t sure what had happened back in the desert,
when his plans to tear down the magickal barriers that separated the multitude of supernatural worlds from the world of humanity was thwarted by the son of his most despised enemy, Elijah Stone, and his Brimstone Network.

Everything had gone according to plan, the Network had seemingly been destroyed from within—one of its own providing him with all that he needed to see them destroyed.

The traitor who he had enticed to work with him—Tobias Blaylock—had given the dark magick user the means to bring the barriers down. Tobias’s sister had been infected with a rare condition that caused her young body to produce destructive magickal energy—an energy so powerful that, if used properly, it could cause the barriers to be shattered.

The traitor to the Network wanted to see her cured, and would have sacrificed anything to have that happen. Crowley was happy to oblige him, having no intention of ever curing her.

The little girl—Claire—was the perfect weapon.

But something happened . . . something he had not expected.

Crowley screamed again as he knelt upon the floor.
Tobias was trying to take control, or was it Claire?

Somehow, when the little girl’s body exploded, all three of them had been joined together—her powerful magicks somehow fusing them into one all-powerful being.

Trinity.

But even though they shared one body, each still existed as an individual—and all were fighting to be the master of the new, magickal form.

“I will not let you take control,” the black sorcerer hissed, exerting every iota of his mental strength to keep the others at bay.

But he could feel his grip beginning to slip as the combined force of Tobias and Claire dragged him down.

Down. Down. Down.

Where the evil sorcerer began again his struggle for control.

B
arnabas stood before the mirror as his servants dressed him in his finest armor. He hated the thought of wasting precious time with the Circle, but knew that he must in order to continue with his plans.

“The Circle,” he said, watching as his scarlet cloak was attached to armored shoulders. “Where are they now?”

“They were taken to your dining tent, my lord,” his general told him. “And are now being fed the meal you had the cooks prepare especially for them.”

Barnabas smiled, deep scarlike wrinkles forming at the corners of his dark eyes.

“Excellent,” he responded.

The Circle never appeared in the actual flesh, often choosing instead to inhabit and animate dead bodies so as not to risk harm to their actual forms. The fact that they’d chosen to actually appear before him showed that they felt a certain confidence in his command of the current situation.

The Circle despised humanity, and wanted to see it crushed from existence, and Barnabas was more than happy to oblige their wishes if it would allow his newly formed empire to spread from the Specter realm, to the countless worlds beyond.

But they had become insistent of late, making demands the raised the warlord’s ire. Barnabas did not tolerate things such as this, and had decided to act.

The servants moved across his armored body with cloths, polishing the black armor so that it glistened splendidly in the lamplight.

“Enough,” he stated, and the servants stopped their
work, stepping back from him with eyes averted.

It was time for him to meet with his guests. He managed to tear his gaze away from the splendor of his reflection, and proceed toward the tent, where his guests were enjoying their specially crafted meal.

The Circle were eager, having heard of his secret weapon—his Trinity. He could only imagine that the foul beasts that comprised the Circle were eager to know how this all-powerful being could be used to best serve their needs.

If there was one thing they should have known about the Specter warlord—Barnabas did not share.

His general entered the tent before him, announcing his leader’s arrival. Barnabas paused for a moment, making his guests wait that much longer, then strode into the tent.

The four demons that made up the venomous Circle sat behind a long table, which was adorned with the finest dinnerware taken from the queen’s royal collection. These table settings were to be used only for the most refined of guests, and he had to wonder how the queen would react to see what was eating from them now.