The Brimstone Network (Brimstone Network Trilogy)

  “If this one should be slain, I will send you another.”

  Bram glanced toward the young Mauthe Dhoog standing in the circle’s center. As his father spoke, he hung his head, refusing to look at them.

  Sensing that it would be a huge insult not only to the chieftain but to the entire Mauthe Dhoog tribe not to accept their young warrior, Bram made up his mind.

  He approached the chief’s son. If he was going to be the new Brimstone Network leader, these were the kinds of things that he was going to have become used to doing.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  The son of the chief raised his head.

  “Bogachan Sabhaill Britoomartis,” the young warrior said.

  “That’s certainly a mouthful,” Stitch commented.

  “Do you actually want to come with us?” Bram asked the youth.

  The young Mauthe Dhoog nodded.

  “Even though there will be a lot of danger?”

  He nodded again.

  “And it will probably be a very long time—if ever—before you see your family and village again.”

  The Mauthe Dhoog nodded even more emphatically.

  Harlethingus sauntered over to stand beside his son.

  “This one is very talented,” he said proudly, putting his arm around the boy’s shoulders. “He has a way with the rifting.” The chief’s eyes twinkled mysteriously.

  “Rifting?” Bram asked, not sure what that meant, but certain it wouldn’t be a mystery for long.

  “Show,” the chieftain said, nudging his child into action.

  Bogachan Sabhaill Britoomartis stepped back from his father and rubbed his hands together. He spread his short legs and extended his stubby arms. His fingers began to knead the air as he sang a strange, alien song beneath his breath.

  The air was suddenly split by what sounded like a crack of thunder, and Bram instinctively jumped back as a jagged, black gash appeared in the air.

  He knew what it was. The young Mauthe Dhoog had a natural ability to open passages from wherever he was, to someplace else.

  Rifting. It made complete sense to him now.

  The tear grew larger as if a knife had been plunged within time and space, and pulled down to cut it open.

  “Where would you like to go?” the chieftain’s son asked, brows furrowed as he concentrated to keep the doorway open.

  “Impressive,” Stitch said, folding his powerful arms across his chest.

  A talent like that sure could come in handy, Bram thought. “Bogachan Sabhaill Britoom … ,” Bram said aloud, then paused. “How about we just call you Bogey for short?” he suggested.

  “Bogey is awesome,” the chieftain’s son answered with an extra-wide smile that almost split his face.

  “Then welcome to the Brimstone Network, Bogey.”

  The gym lobby was empty, and the thought that she could still back out again crossed Emily’s mind.

  Nope. No way, she told herself, taking a few more deep breaths and using the glass trophy cases to check her reflection. She combed her fingers through her shoulder-length hair as she studied herself from various angles.

  “Knew I should’ve gotten it cut,” she muttered, not at all satisfied by what she was seeing, but then again, when was she ever?

  Before she became any more disgusted, Emily turned from the cases toward the double doors that would take her into the gym. Although the doors were closed, she could still hear the muffled sounds and feel the vibration of the dance music drifting out from inside.

  “At least I like the song,” Emily said, using the music’s beat to psyche herself up and push her toward the entrance.

  Pulling one of the double doors open a crack, Emily slunk inside. It was darker than she expected, but it took her eyes only a moment to adjust.

  A small stage had been set for the DJ over near the bleachers, a funky disco ball turned to the beat of the music, shooting beams of multicolored light around the gym area. She was surprised to see that nobody was out on the floor dancing, but remembered that some of her friends who went to these things had said that was usually the case.

  It took a few brave souls to get out there and look like they were having a good time before anybody else joined them.

  She walked farther into the gym, looking through the semidarkness, trying to find where everybody had gathered. Expecting boys to be on one side and girls on the other, Emily was shocked to see one large clump of kids standing directly across from her under the scoreboard.

  And to make matters worse, they all seemed to be looking at her.

  Emily suddenly felt more self-conscious than she had in her entire life. Well, other than that time in fourth grade when she got gum in her hair and tried to cut it out by herself so she wouldn’t get in trouble and ended up with huge bald spots on her head.

  But other than that, this was probably the worst.

  The song that had been playing ended, but another didn’t follow, plunging the gym into an eerie silence, which was in and of itself bizarre. She knew most of the kids that were here tonight, and they didn’t have the first clue on how to shut up.

  Nobody was talking.

  Am I so much of a dweeb that I can bring a room to silence? she wondered, forcing herself not to turn right around and run from the building.

  But it was weirder than that. The hair on the back of her neck was suddenly standing on end, which was never a good sign.

  “Hey,” she said, lifting her hand in a pathetic wave before bringing it right down again. She stopped about halfway across the gym, staring at the group. “Is … is something wrong?”

  It sounded stupid rattling around inside her head, and even more stupid coming out of her mouth. She expected them all to start laughing; laughing and pointing at what a spaz she was.

  But they didn’t say a word, and just kept on looking at her.

  Emily felt herself starting to get upset, which these days wasn’t a good thing at all. Her skin started to itch, and her heart began to race.

  She had to relax, or the situation would get a whole lot more embarrassing than it already was.

  Something on the floor, at her classmates’ feet, distracted her. Something moving in the shadows.

  There were bugs on the floor, large cockroach-things scurrying around the kids’ feet, attempting to stay in the shadows, as if trying not to be seen.

  She thought she might get sick.

  But it didn’t stop there; it just kept getting stranger. Emily pointed to the floor, her mouth moving to warn the others, but they didn’t seem to mind. She felt the beginnings of a scream in the back of her throat as she watched one of the fat-shelled insects crawl over Annie Ritchfield’s shoulder, up her neck, and onto her face, disappearing beneath her hair.

  And she might have done it, screamed louder than she ever had before, but the scream was put on hold by another terrible sight.

  A thin, pale-skinned man emerged from the shadows farther back in the gym, the sound of a toilet flush fading in the background as he came to stand before her schoolmates. He was wiping his hands on a paper towel.

  “I’m sorry,” the man said, his voice sounding strange, like he was talking underwater. “Had to use the little boys’ room.”

  The man seemed to be naked from the waist up, his skin so white that it glowed in the dark of the room. He had strange hair, dark—shiny—it looked bumpy on his head.

  And then his hair … the bumps started to move, and Emily saw that it wasn’t hair it all. The bumps on his head were bugs, and they were crawling down his body … down onto the floor.

  Emily started to back away.

  “Where are you going, Emily?” the man with the gargling voice asked. “You are Emily, right? Of course you are.” The bugs from his head had started toward her in a zigzag pattern and the pale, shirtless man started to follow. “Aren’t you going to stay for the dance?”

  “I … I have to go.” Her words again sounded really stupid and inappropriate, but at the min
ute, so true. She had to go, or something very, very bad was going to happen.

  “We all want you to stay,” the gargling man said. “Me … my babies.” He motioned toward the insects skittering across the gym floor. “Your friends.”

  And with those last words the kids in her class started to move as well. Walking stiffly toward her in unison, and she was reminded of one of those zombie movies that she’d watched with her dad last Halloween.

  Emily spun around and ran for the doors. Arms out before her, she grabbed for the handles, pulling on them so hard that she thought her arms would pop from their sockets.

  But the doors didn’t open all the way, and she let out a pathetic cry when she saw why. While she had been distracted, somebody had put a chain through the door handles and had padlocked them shut.

  Emily turned with her back pressed against the locked gym doors. The bugs were closer, as were the pale-skinned man and the kids from her class.

  “My babies will make you want to stay,” the man gurgled. She could see him better now, and saw that his skin was so white and thin that she could actually see through it—see his veins and arteries. This wasn’t a man at all, but something else.

  “They can make you do whatever I want,” the monster gurgled.

  She could see that the bugs were crawling on her friends, crawling on their shoulders, through their hair, without causing any reaction. Her eyes found Ben Turner in the crowd, his hair typically mussed, hanging down in front of his eyes. His mouth was moving as if he were struggling to speak, but multiple fat-bodied insects crawled out over his lips, to plop to the floor instead.

  “And I want you to come with me,” she heard the man that wasn’t a man say over the ear-piercing screams that now filled the gymnasium.

  Screams that she suddenly realized belonged to her.

  The rift opened onto the back of the convenience store, hidden away in the shadows where nobody was likely to notice.

  “What do you mean you need a map?” Bram asked Bogey as they all stepped from the tear in the fabric of reality.

  “It helps me figure out where I’m going,” the young Mauthe Dhoog explained. “I’ll just zip in here and get one.”

  Bram couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

  “You can’t find Emily Larch’s home in Covington, West Virginia, but you know a convenience store where you can buy a map?”

  Bogey’s smile was huge, showing off large, yellow teeth. “I know where all the QuickMarts are,” he said. “This is one of my favorites … they have the blue Slushies here.”

  “Blue Slushies?” Mr. Stitch questioned. “Why am I suddenly under the impression that this isn’t the first time that you’ve rifted over from Guttswallow?”

  Bram looked at how the young boggart was dressed.

  Just before they’d departed he’d run back to his own hut to gather his things, returning dressed in a hooded sweatshirt, faded blue jeans, and a pair of very white tennis shoes with the laces untied.

  The Mauthe Dhoog looked down, checking himself out.

  “Wonder what gave it away?” Bogey said with a chuckle. “I was rifting back and forth before I could even talk, but the cool thing now is that I get to do it without getting in trouble.”

  The boggart threw the hood up over his large head, pulling it down slightly in the front to hide his inhuman features.

  “You wait here. I’ll be right back,” Bogey said as he left them in the shadows behind the store.

  Bram didn’t know how to react, turning to look at Stitch.

  “Why am I suddenly regretting accepting Herlethingus’s offer?”

  “He’s still young, so we’ll need to cut him a bit of slack, but his talents will most definitely come in handy.”

  “But he had to get a map,” Bram complained just as an alarm started to sound from the convenience store.

  That can’t be good.

  Bram looked quickly at Stitch before both of them moved from behind the store to peer around the corner.

  Bogey came running out of the QuickMart, folded map tucked beneath his arm, his hands filled with two large drinks.

  “What happened?” Bram asked.

  “Not really sure,” Bogey said as he ran past. “My hood fell off when I was paying for my stuff and the guy behind the counter went kinda nuts.”

  Bram started toward the store entrance. “Maybe if I explain …”

  Stitch pulled him back toward the shadows.

  “We should leave it,” he said.

  “Yeah, leave it,” Bogey said. He had already conjured a new rift to take them away.

  “And besides,” the little creature said, holding up the two drinks proudly. “We’ve got Slushies.”

  12.

  EMILY DIDN’T WANT TO LET IT OUT, BUT SHE didn’t see where she had much choice.

  Her classmates shambled closer, crawling with bugs. There were bugs on the floor as well, and then there was the creepy guy that wasn’t a guy at all. He was closer, too, and she couldn’t decide which was more horrible, him or the bugs.

  “My babies will make it all better,” he said with a hint of excitement. “Let their delicate legs touch you, and everything will be just fine. Then you and I will go on a little trip. Yes, we will.” He nodded his bulb-shaped head. A bug fell out of his ear and bounced off his sunken chest to the floor.

  Emily was pressed against the doors to the gymnasium, eyes tightly closed, trying to keep herself calm. Her skin had begun to itch wildly, as if hundreds of tiny bugs were crawling all over her, bugs tinier than the ones skittering toward her.

  She had been through this before; it was one of the first symptoms of the problem she’d developed since she’d turned thirteen. A problem she tried desperately to hide from herself, and everyone around her.

  It had started with bizarre dreams, where she found herself running through the nearby woods, late at night, beneath a full moon. She was chasing a rabbit, darting between the trees at an incredible speed. And no matter how fast the rabbit ran, she was right there behind it. Eventually, she caught that bunny. She had bitten into its flesh, and its warm blood had filled her mouth.

  She remembered the relief she had felt that night when she had awakened to find that it was only a dream.

  And then the sheer terror when she realized that her hands and face were covered with dried blood.

  Rabbit blood.

  It was a terror very similar to what she was experiencing at that very moment.

  Emily felt the first of the large bugs crawl onto her shoe, and opened her eyes. They were all around her.

  The creepy guy with the white skin was smiling as he held out his cupped hands, overflowing with more fat, disgusting insects. “They like you,” he gurgled. “They like you even more than your friends.”

  Emily knew she had only two choices. She could pass out, allowing the bugs to do to her whatever it was that they had already done to her classmates …

  Or she could let it out.

  The creep tossed his handful of bugs onto the front of her new blouse, and immediately she screamed, not because of the bugs, but because of what she was about to become. Frantically she tore at her clothes, and the skin beneath.

  The creep was laughing, until it caught sight of the shiny black fur bristling beneath Emily’s torn skin. She reached up and ripped the skin from her face like a mask to reveal the beast she had become. It had been a long time since it was last free. Since the wolf was free.

  The creep was afraid; she could smell it wafting off his stinky pale flesh. Standing in a pile of clothing and skin, she tensed, powerful muscles rippling beneath sleek, black fur, feeling as though nothing could stop her.

  “My, you are full of tricks,” the creep said, stepping away from her fierceness. “But it does not matter. With fur or without, I will be bringing you to my master Crowley.”

  Crowley. She would remember that name.

  “Take her,” the creep ordered, and her classmates moved at her in a wave
.

  The wolf sprang at the crowd of students, wanting to be wild, to attack and destroy its enemies. But Emily knew that her attackers were innocent, somehow under the control of the white-skinned monster and his bugs. She didn’t want to hurt them any more than was necessary, but it was so hard to stay in control.

  She grabbed the kids by the fronts of their shirts and blouses, tossing them away with a ferocious snarl. Although the inner beast was not entirely satisfied, Emily found the sight of some of the girls who often made her life miserable, flying through the air and bouncing off the gym walls, totally amusing.

  Who’s cooler now? she thought with a certain amount of glee. I’m not the one being controlled by cockroaches.

  Then Ben Turner came at her. He was the whole reason she had come to this stupid dance. The wolf wanted nothing more than to tear him in half, but Emily forced the thought from her mind. Instead, she grabbed Ben by the front of his Fall Out Boy T-shirt, and slammed him down hard upon the floor. There was an explosion of bugs from his body, like dust from a dirty old rug. He remained still, so she turned her anger on the one that truly deserved it.

  The creep had retreated to the shadows. He seemed to be looking around, searching for someone to come to his aid, but most of her classmates were unconscious, and those who weren’t were in no condition to attack her again. Emily laughed, and was disturbed by the sound that came out of her.

  “Just you and me now,” she managed to say, her voice a nasty-sounding growl. “Too bad for you.” Barely able to hold back the wolf’s savagery, she charged the white-skinned monster, fangs bared in a savage snarl.

  The bugs swarmed her from around the room, abandoning the kids to protect their master.

  “That’s it, my babies,” she heard him say. “Make her suffer for the troubles she’s caused.”

  The bugs covered her like a squirming blanket. She ripped them from her body, crushing them in her hands and beneath the thick pads of her clawed feet, and even with her jaws as the insects tried to crawl inside her mouth.

  Finally Emily let the wolf go, losing herself in its rage as it attempted to destroy the swarm. She found herself dropping to the floor, rolling, crushing the mass of bugs upon her back.