“Did you feel that?” Bram asked, looking at Lita and Boffa, who acknowledged his question with a nod.
The soldiers began to grumble, looking around for the source of what they were feeling—and now hearing. And then the cries came from somewhere in the back of the assemblage, screams of terror that started to spread through the warriors’ gathering.
Over the tops of soldiers’ heads Bram could see that dirt and dust filled the air as something approached the field from the south.
Something huge.
Then through the clouds of dust he saw it, even if his brain didn’t necessarily believe it.
The giant corpse wasn’t so much a corpse anymore.
It was alive, and stumbling toward Barnabas’s army.
It was alive.
It was taking everything Douglas St. Laurent had to keep this thing going.
Gazing out through the giant’s empty eye sockets, he propelled the corpse toward the enemy.
He had to focus to keep the rotting form of the giant together and moving along—one foot after the other. But he found himself distracted, worrying about his son and the others that he had learned to call friends.
Enormous pieces of rotting flesh dropped from the giant’s bones as birds and clouds of angry insects swarmed about its head. Raising the giant had obviously disturbed the fragile ecosystem within its body.
Douglas could see the army before him. He could also see what appeared to be a gigantic opening—a window in the very air that seemed to look onto another world entirely. And this thin barrier appeared to be breaking.
It didn’t take a genius to know what world that was, and what the bad guys were planning.
Douglas quickened the giant’s step. He began to focus on what remained of the giant’s vocal cords. Using precious energy he made them vibrate, moving the sound up through the neck and out of the mouth.
It was one of the most horrible sounds he had ever heard. He’d had a cat once that had choked on a particularly large hairball—this sound reminded him of that, only much worse, and much, much louder.
The horrific sound echoed through the air like the blast of a horn, and he watched as the gathering of warriors panicked completely.
Good, he thought, his thunderous footfalls shaking the very earth.
Now if only my boy is safe.
The army was in complete disarray.
In the midst of the panic, Bram surged forward, shouldering his way through the panicked crowd toward his sister and Boffa.
“How is this possible?” Lita asked, her voice filled with awe and fear.
“I don’t know,” was all Bram could say.
Riding his reptilian mount, Barnabas led his soldiers to attack. They swarmed at the giant like ants attacking an invader that threatened their colony. The giant dead thing looming above the encampment simply reached down and swatted them away with skeletal hands.
“Is this your doing?” screeched a voice nearby.
Startled by the shrillness, Bram looked over to see Trinity, still wearing the face of Crowley, shuffling toward them. Long skeletal hands flexed by his side; sparks of jagged supernatural energy were leaping from the tips of pointed fingers.
“When will you learn that I cannot be stopped,” the cadaverous face of the black mage warned. “When will you learn that all your fighting is just a lesson in futility.”
Instinctively, Bram found himself moving forward to protect his sister from the dark sorcerer’s wrath, when an answer to Crowley’s question bellowed through the air, propelled by a familiar voice.
“What I want to know is when you will learn to stay dead.”
Mr. Stitch was suddenly there, and in his arms he was carrying one of the reptilian horses used by the Specter army. The creature hissed and wailed in panic as it struggled in the patchwork man’s grasp, before it was thrown at Crowley, burying the evil mage beneath five hundred pounds of beastly flesh.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Bram said with surprise as his friend approached. “No, come to think of it, I should have known.”
“You’re a sight for these sore eyes, lad,” Stitch said.
Bogey had come up behind them with a small knife, freeing them from their bonds.
Lita and Boffa stared at the Mauthe Dhoog and the others with cautious eyes.
“Don’t worry, they’re my friends,” Bram reassured them. “How did you get here?” he asked, rubbing his chaffed wrists.
“We were searching for you,” Stitch said. “Or at least your killer.”
The giant corpse roared, filling the field of battle with its horrible cries.
“Does my dad know how to do things with style or what?” Dez asked from behind Bram.
Bram turned. “Your dad?” He looked back to the animated corpse as it continued to battle Barnabas’s soldiers. “But I thought . . .”
“Long story,” Bogey said.
From behind a grouping of tents Bram caught sight of a gathering of non-warriors: the old, men, women, and children.
“Who are they?” he asked.
“They’re my people,” Lita replied, going to them. They bowed as she approached.
“And who is that?” Bogey asked Bram.
“That’s my sister,” Bram said with a smile. “We need to get those people to safety,” he added.
“I tried that back in the tent, but they didn’t want to go,” the Mauthe Dhoog said, his hands thrown into the air. “They think they’re gonna be missing out on something.”
“Could you try again?” Bram asked. “Rift them to a place where they won’t be hurt?”
“I’ll try and be a bit more persuasive,” the Mauthe Dhoog said, cracking his knuckles. “All right you knuckleheads, it’s Disneyland for the lot of you!” the Mauthe Dhoog cried, clapping his hands to get the Specter citizens’ attention.
Bram was amazed by how suddenly complete he felt—how in control.
Too bad it didn’t last for very long.
There was a sudden, nearly overpowering smell of something burning, and from where the reptilian horse had landed atop Crowley, there was an explosion of white fire that ignited the very ground around it.
“Get back,” Bram screamed as Trinity rose up from the blaze, its body engulfed in fire.
“How dare you!” Crowley’s voice boomed with nearly immeasurable power. “How dare you!”
Certain that they would be facing the power of the black sorcerer, Bram braced himself for the worst. But he could see again the struggle for dominance on Crowley’s face as the features of the child briefly appeared.
Then, inexplicably, the dark mage soared past their heads, magickal fire trailing in his wake.
This was his curse: to be so close to victory, then have it all mercilessly snatched away.
As Crowley propelled his shared body up into the gray sky of the Spectral world, he remembered all of them—all the defeats handed to him by the accursed Brimstone Network throughout the ages, and he swore that it would not happen again.
The child inside had sunk her claws into his mind, dragging him back, allowing her brother the opportunity to come forward. Crowley could feel the flesh changing, and he would not stand for it.
From the dark recesses of his foul mind he brought forth painful images of Tobias’s involvement in the destruction of the last Network, images that showed what a monster the boy had become in the name of saving his sister.
The dark mage felt the teen’s strength falter, and immediately took advantage, swatting away the attempts of the girl-child with ease, and taking control of the powerful form again. He felt the surge of power within him and screamed in victory.
Riding waves of magick, Crowley hovered in the air before the ragged body of the giant corpse and smiled as the rotting monstrosity reached for him. The sorcerer did not move as the enormous mitt closed around him, attempting to crush him as a child might end the life of an annoying insect.
He let the power flow from his body unchecked.
&nbs
p; The magick was hungry and it immediately began to consume the bone and dead flesh of the giant’s hand. The giant shook its arm, attempting to extinguish the flame, but the magickal fire was not to be stopped. It continued to voraciously spread across the great body, until it was a threat no more.
Just smoldering ash, carried upon the wind.
“Not looking good!” Bogey cried out, gesturing for the last of the Specter to pass through the rift that he had opened to a safer world.
“Hurry up,” Bram ordered, watching in horror as the body of the corpse was completely consumed by Trinity’s magickal fire.
Dez lurched forward on his crutches. “Dad!” he screamed, coming to a halt as he realized the futility of it all. There was nothing he could do, the giant was gone.
“So what’s next, fearless leader?” Emily asked in her wolfen voice.
A good question, Bram thought as he silently gazed at the form of Trinity as it hung in the air above the battlefield, like some sort of evil star. He realized that was the key to their victory, and their potential defeat.
Trinity. Trinity is the answer.
Meanwhile, the surviving Specter troops were gathering themselves together again, turning back toward the Brimstone agents, falling in behind Barnabas who was somehow still astride his steed.
Crowley floated above them radiating destructive magickal power.
“I couldn’t find him,” Desmond said, suddenly beside Bram. “I reached out with my mind and I couldn’t find my father. It’s like the fire burned him up too.” He sadly dropped to his knees. “I’ve lost him again.”
But from Dez’s desperate words an idea began to form.
Bram squatted beside him. “Dez, we don’t have much time and I need you to do something for me.”
The boy looked at him, tears dripping down his face.
“There’s not a chance that we can stand up to him alone,” Bram said, pointing to Trinity hovering in the air. “The only way we can defeat Crowley is from within.”
Dez stared at Bram, the confusion obvious on his face.
“There are three beings in that body,” Bram continued. “Two of them oppose Crowley, but aren’t strong enough to take away his control.”
“What do you want me to do?” Dez asked, wiping the tears from his face.
“I want you to put my mind inside of Trinity’s,” Bram said.
Stitch stomped forward. “Abraham, you can’t—”
“It’s the only way,” Bram interrupted. “Crowley has to be stopped, and the only way that’s going to happen is if Claire and Tobias help us.”
No one could argue. They had all seen the extent of Trinity’s power, and with that strength under Crowley’s control, there was very little hope for anybody.
“Can you do it?” Bram asked urgently.
Dez sniffled, wiping his runny nose with the back of his hand. “Can’t promise that it won’t hurt.”
Bram accepted that with a nod. “They had a saying at the P’Yon Kep monastery—‘Knowledge is forged in the fires of pain.’”
“What the heck is that supposed to mean?” Emily growled.
Bram shrugged. “Usually it meant that I was about to have my butt kicked.”
Dez reached out with his mind. The fingers of psychic force wrapped themselves around Bram’s very consciousness and tore it from his brain.
And yes, it hurt very badly.
Riding the air beside Barnabas, Crowley tried to think of the most memorable and disturbing ways for his enemies to die. With the kind of power he had at his disposal, the choices were limitless.
What a day this will be, he thought. First he would at last see the end of the Brimstone Network, and then the beginning of the fall of humanity.
Glorious.
The dark mage summoned the vast magickal forces that resided within his new body. He was close enough to see them now, to read the expressions of fear upon their faces.
Crowley wanted Abraham Stone to suffer the most. The mage wanted him to watch his friends die, one by one falling to the superior magicks that were now Crowley’s to control.
An excited laugh stopped short in his throat as he saw the boy suddenly collapse and fall limply to the ground.
Crowley would have liked to believe that it was a reaction bred of sheer terror, but he doubted that was the case. Then he realized that the crippled member of the team was staring at him intently.
The boy’s eyes flashed just as Crowley sensed danger.
The mage tried to avert his gaze, but he was too slow. He screamed at the sudden agony in his head—as though something had been shoved through his eyes, and was now crawling through his brain.
14. BRAM COULDN’T BELIEVE IT WORKED.
He was standing on a sidewalk in an eerily silent suburban neighborhood. The street appeared damaged, the lawn in front of the quaint home charred and blackened.
Bram moved down the concrete path toward the house. It too appeared to have suffered some sort of calamity—maybe a fire.
Midway down the front path he stopped, looking around the neighborhood. There were two, maybe three other houses with an unfinished appearance, but beyond them was nothing but darkness.
He had to remind himself that he wasn’t anywhere that he’d ever been before, that this neighborhood was some sort of a mental manifestation of a memory. Taking the doorknob in hand he had an idea as to whom it belonged, and it certainly wasn’t Crowley.
The child’s sobbing came from somewhere at the back of the house. Bram heard it, softly moving on the still, stagnant air of the dream place, and left the walkway to check the back of the house.
“Hello?” Bram called out as he passed through the gate of a high wooden fence, entering a sprawling backyard.
The damage to the house was even worse back there; the entire side of the house had been blown outward and the yard was mostly charred black. At the far end of the property, where the explosion hadn’t touched, stood a children’s activity set—a clubhouse, slide, and four swings standing in a patch of still green lawn.
The crying child slumped on the middle swing, head bowed, tiny hands holding the chains.
“Hello?” Bram said quietly, not wanting to scare her.
The little girl slowly raised her head, and Bram’s suspicions were confirmed.
He’d only seen this girl briefly, but he knew she was Claire Blaylock and that this was her world.
He walked closer to the play area, his footfalls crunching upon the blackened ground, to the green. He was tempted to ask her what had happened, but he already knew the answer.
“The bad witches came and killed my mommy and daddy,” she said, starting to cry again.
In his father’s old files Bram had read about the rogue witches’ coven that had targeted Jeannine and Gareth Blaylock, two of his father’s finest Brimstone agents, and how the witches had attacked their home leaving Claire ill and her brother, Tobias, the only real survivor.
Bram stood beside the little girl as the swing slowly swung back and forth. “I’ve come to help you, Claire,” he said.
The child looked up, her face stained with tears.
“But the bad man said that the witches would get me if I left the yard.” Her voice shook with fear.
“I won’t let the witches or the bad man hurt you,” Bram said, holding out his hand.
She stared at it. “Where are we going to go?” she asked cautiously.
“Do you know where your brother is?” he asked.
She pointed to the clubhouse. “The bad man put him in there and told him not to come out,” Claire said. “I thought I heard him crying, but I didn’t want to leave the swings, if the witches . . .” She started to cry again.
“It’s all right,” Bram said, taking her hand in his. “Why don’t we go see if we can help your brother?”
The little girl jumped from the swing, and together they walked to the wooden ladder that would take them up into the darkened clubhouse.
“Are you re
ady?” Bram asked.
Claire nodded, and began to climb.
And Bram followed her, up the ladder and into the darkness.
Barnabas stared at Trinity lying still upon the ground.
“Get up!” the warrior screamed from atop his reptilian steed.
The robed figure didn’t move.
“Pick him up,” Barnabas ordered, and two of his soldiers scrambled to lift the unconscious being and toss it over the back of a mount.
The Specter warlord glanced ahead. He could see his enemies standing in the open, and felt a faint sliver of respect for them, no matter how foolish they were.
What chance do they have against me? he thought, gazing out over the surviving soldiers that awaited his command, never mind the ferocious beasts that had been created from Ligeia’s faithful by Trinity’s magick.
Barnabas looked beyond the enemies waiting to confront his forces and to the nearly fallen barrier that shimmered enticingly behind them. They were all that stood between him and the invasion of the human realm.
He pulled upon his mount’s reins, and the great beast reared up with a shriek. “Attack!” he bellowed to his foot soldiers, then turned his attention to the monsters’ handlers.
The transformed were kept on the end of thick chains. They sniffed at the air, some fighting amongst themselves in order to satisfy their voracious need for violence.
Some would call it overkill to use such savage beasts against so few, but today was a special day.
“Turn loose the beasts!” Barnabas commanded, grinning widely as the handlers released their hold upon the chains.
A special day indeed.
Bram knew this place and felt something akin to a knife twist in his gut.
“This is a sad place,” Claire said, still holding his hand as they walked from the darkness into the communications center of the Brimstone Network.
A chill ran up and down Bram’s spine as he climbed into the clubhouse only to find himself here. But it wasn’t how he remembered the place, it was how Tobias did.
The room was filled with the dead—those who had fallen to Crowley’s monsters—strewn about, their bodies cut, chopped and bitten. Bram hated to see them like this—these brave individuals who gave their lives for the protection of the world.