She got so caught up in the destruction of the insects, Emily barely noticed the horrible screaming that began to fill the gymnasium. She ripped the last of the bugs from her furry arms and saw that the pale-skinned monster had dropped to his knees, his hands clutching the sides of his head as he let loose a high-pitched wail of pain.
Emily strode toward the creep, nearly slipping in the mass of crushed bugs on the floor. She stood before the white-skinned thing, listening to his screaming and crying. She waved a clawed hand in front of his face, and he didn’t even blink.
A stray bug skittered across her path, and instinctively she brought her foot down and crushed it.
Creepy guy screamed all the louder.
His babies, she remembered what he’d called them. Good, she thought with a snarl.
And before she even realized what she was doing, Emily hauled back one of her powerful claws and slapped the creep, sending him rolling across the wooden floor.
Emily looked around, her animal eyes searching for other threats. All she saw were her classmates, their moans making the gym sound as though it were filled with ghosts instead of bug-controlled zombies.
Using all of her will, she pushed the wolf back to its hiding place in her mind and, with clawed hands, she reached up, ripping the fur from her body to reveal fresh, pink, human skin beneath. Naked and suddenly cold, she skipped across the gym to retrieve her clothes, careful to not step in any disgusting puddles of bug juice. She brushed the fine dust of the remains of her old flesh from the clothes and quickly dressed, hoping that none of her classmates would remember what she had become.
She was just slipping a foot into one of her socks when a sound that very well could have been a runaway truck filled the room. Fearing another attack, she spun around to see that three people had suddenly appeared.
“Emily Larch?” a kid about her age with spiky blond hair asked. He was flanked by a big guy with bad skin, and another, shorter kid whose face was mostly hidden in the shadow of his hoodie. For a minute she could have sworn that his eyes had flashed a bright red.
“I’m Abraham Stone … we’ve come to ask you to join us.”
“Who’s asking me to do what?” she questioned, hopping on one foot as she pulled on her other sock.
“Abraham Stone … Bram Stone … my father was the leader of the Brimstone Network and …”
“He was killed … wasn’t he?” Emily asked as she stuck her feet in her shoes.
The boy nodded, a shadow of sadness seeming to pass over his face. “We were afraid that the same forces that killed him could have come after you.”
“Could have?” Emily asked, crossing her arms. “I think you’re a bit late.”
The tall guy with the complexion like bad meat walked to where the pale-skinned creature lay.
“You might not want to get too close to that,” she called to him.
Ignoring her, he squatted beside the monster, then looked up at his companions. “An insecticus,” he said. “These foul things haven’t walked this side of the barrier for centuries.”
“We were right,” Abraham said to her. “You are in danger, and we’d like you to come with us.”
“Sure,” she scoffed, turning around and walking toward the doors.
The big guy was walking amongst her classmates.
“Are they gonna be all right?” she stopped to ask.
“They’ll be fine, eventually,” he said, picking a dead bug out of Alison McNulty’s hair. “The insecticus use these lesser insects to control the minds of their enemies, making it easier to enslave and eventually feed upon them.”
And to think how grossed out she’d been before.
“He said that he was going to take me to his master,” she offered.
“Did he mention a name?” Abraham asked.
“Crowley,” she said. “He said that he was going to take me to his master, Crowley.”
The three of them grew very silent.
“Does that name mean something to you guys?” Emily asked.
“It means that you should really be coming with us,” Abraham insisted.
“No way,” Emily answered, annoyed that a complete stranger would even think that he could tell her what to do.
She reached for the doors and then remembered that they were still securely locked with a chain and padlock. She kicked at the door in frustration, then spun around to head for the rear doors.
The boy blocked her way.
“Unless you want some of what I gave bug-man over there, I’d suggest you get out of my way,” she said, trying to sidestep him.
“I know what you are,” he said quietly.
She looked at him closely. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She was becoming annoyed, and wanted nothing more than to be away from the gym … and these weirdos.
The little guy in the hoodie tossed back his head, starting to howl like a wolf. And while doing his imitation, his hood fell away to reveal his face. He didn’t look to be too human, either.
“That’s Bogey,” Abraham said. “He’s not from around here. And this is Mr. Stitch,” he added as the tall man joined them. “My father kept a list of people with special … gifts. People he believed could be useful to the world and to the Network and …”
Emily had heard enough. The thought that her disease was anything but the worst thing that could have ever happened to her was enough to put her over the edge.
“A gift?” she yelled. “Is that what you’re calling it? If my turning into a wolf is a gift, then I’d like to bring it back for a full refund. My life has been hell since this stupid gift happened to me. Do you have any idea what it’s like? Always fighting to keep this thing inside me from getting out? Do you have any idea how awful it is to have an argument with your mother and want to rip her apart with your teeth?”
They remained silent, and she looked them each in the eye, even the little guy who looked like one of those gray aliens from UFO shows.
“I didn’t think so,” she said.
She walked around them, continuing on her way to the other door. Her plan was to walk home, go straight to her bedroom, lock the door, and never come out again. It wasn’t the greatest of plans, but it was the best she could come up with on such short notice.
“Should I tell her?” she heard Abraham say in a soft voice that only somebody with supersensitive animal hearing could pick up.
Emily spun around, her curiosity getting the better of her.
“Tell me what?” she demanded.
“Stitch says that there’s a chance we might be able to cure you.”
“Cure me?” she asked, walking back toward them. “Like, make it so I don’t have a wolf inside me anymore cure me?”
“It will take some time, but I do believe there’s a chance we can eliminate your affliction,” Mr. Stitch explained further.
Emily knew that they could be lying, saying anything to get her to go with them. But did she really want to take the chance of passing up this opportunity if they weren’t?
Folding her arms she stared at them, as they stared at her.
“Well?” Abraham finally asked.
Once again, she really didn’t have much choice.
“Think we can stop by my house so I can grab a toothbrush?”
Crowley had become aware of the child … Claire … Tobias’s sister almost as soon as she had manifested her terrible disease. He could feel her terrible power in the air … on his ancient skin.
It was a sickness they had no name for, and that turned a small child into one of the most dangerous beings on the planet, and most likely beyond.
Wonderful.
The sorcerer stood above the crystal coffin of magick, staring down at the small child asleep within, marveling at how something so frail could in fact be an instrument of ultimate destruction.
It just proved true another of the old adages: Looks could most certainly be deceiving.
The machines around him hummed like angry hornets. He had
created them to drain off the magickal power leaking from the child’s body, transforming the potentially devastating supernatural energies into the force required to fuel his ambitions.
And his ambitions where so very large.
The power leaking from the child was a force for change the likes of which the world had never seen. It was as if the supernatural virus had somehow opened up the child, making her a doorway—a conduit—for vast otherworldly energies to flow.
And they had plans for these energies, he and the Circle, plans that would transform the world.
Crowley placed his spidery hands upon the scarlet crystal, feeling the thrum of power within, and his body began to ache. He was starving again. He remembered when he’d realized, centuries ago, that only the life-force of others could sustain him through the passing of time. Using a combination of magick and science, he was able to construct the twisted devices that would allow him to feed.
And over the years his body had begun to change. Eventually, he no longer needed the specialized mechanisms to ingest the human life-force, but by then the simple energies contained within the human form could no longer provide him with the food that he needed to live. His body craved the tainted life energies of those with the power of magick.
Delicious.
It was this new hunger that had brought him to the attention of one of the first Brimstone orders so long ago. And he had hated them since.
Crowley sneered. How often had they attempted to deprive him of his thirst for life? Far too many times to count, but many an agent who had sworn their allegiance to the mysterious order had met their end by his hands, their magickally tainted life-forces supplying him with enough sustenance to continue to thrive.
And thrive he had.
His spider limbs stroked the crystal case. The gleaming claws that protruded from the ends of the bristly legs scraped its hard surface with a noise very much like that of fingernails on a blackboard.
Crowley had always loved that sound.
He wondered about the raw power flowing from the child’s body, and what it could do for him if he were to feed upon it. He smiled with the thought of being transformed into something even more wonderful than what he was.
A god, perhaps. Crowley’s mouth began to water. I wouldn’t mind being a god.
He was eager for even the smallest taste of that power. But it could not yet be released; to do so would most certainly bring about his end.
A sound like the flapping of bat wings and the skittering of insect legs across a floor was heard from a darkened corner interrupting his thoughts, and as he looked up, the shadows there seemed to swirl like smoke. He rolled his eyes with distaste, knowing only too well who was trying to communicate with him.
“Is that you, my masters?” he asked, forcing a smile on his face. Why can’t they just leave me alone? “To what do I owe this visit so very soon after the last time you blessed us here with your glorious presence?” the sorcerer addressed the four shadow shapes, trying to keep the sarcasm from his voice.
“We need to know your progress,” the Circle, now wearing bodies of darkness, spoke as one.
“All goes according to plan,” Crowley assured them.
“And the Brimstone Network? Have all traces finally been purged from existence?”
“As we speak, I have dispersed some of my prized operatives to deal with any threat to your inevitable glory and …”
“Even the slightest chance that the order still lives fills us with great trepidation, Sorcerer,” the Circle warned.
“I assure you,” Crowley said, “what little threat that exists shall soon be snuffed out like the dying embers of a fire.” The sorcerer imagined Elijah Stone’s young son gasping for breath, Crowley’s own hands around his neck. The thought made him smile.
“But there is always a chance … that even the slightest ember can be fanned to life again … and with it the roaring fire.”
Crowley sighed. “Yes, the roaring fire.”
He knew where this conversation was going, and when the Circle headed down this road, there was no reasoning with them.
“And what would you have me do,” he asked, “to put your fears at ease?”
The shadows glided across the room, passing through him on the way to the sleeping child within the scarlet crystal.
“The timetable … it must be advanced,” the shadows spoke. “The risk is great, but we’ve come too far to be thwarted now. We must use her now … we must use the child to bring about the end of mankind’s dominion over this world.”
Crowley remembered when he’d first detected the unusual spike in supernatural energy, and had realized that it originated from a sick child in the special care of the Network. It was an opportunity that he could not let pass. It was a power greater than any he’d encountered in his long lifetime, and he knew that with it in his possession, he could finally reshape the planet into something more to his liking.
But as powerful as Crowley was, he could not take on the Network alone. He had needed allies, and the Circle—made up of representatives from four of the most vile and dangerous supernatural species banished from the earth by his enemies—were just the partners he had needed.
Unfortunately, they had a tendency to be a bit high maintenance, but it was a price he was willing to pay.
“Very well, then,” Crowley agreed. “I’ll begin preparations to have the crystal and the child moved into place at once.”
The shadows seemed to calm.
His promise would require him, and those that served him to move quicker, to not be as careful as he would like, but what did it matter now? They had already come so far in their plans, these were but the last days of humanity’s supremacy.
As far as Crowley was concerned, the end could not come soon enough.
Tobias stood in the shadows that had provided transport for him and the beasties under his command, staring at the house across the street in this quiet residential neighborhood.
This would be the third place they’d searched for Desmond St. Laurent, a name that Crowley had read from a file that had been in the possession of the son of Elijah Stone.
The sorcerer had believed that the names in the files could be threats, potential operatives for a new Brimstone Network.
Tobias had to agree.
Crowley had given them three addresses. The first two places they’d visited, an apartment building in upstate New York where the kid had been staying with relatives while his father underwent therapy for an advanced heart condition, and a temporary rental house in Exeter, Maine, population 997, had not yielded him.
Tobias wondered if the third time would be the charm.
The house across the way was dark, except for a single light in the living room. He had seen no movement there, and wondered if anybody was even home.
The beasties were getting restless as they stood in the pool of darkness thrown by the houses and oak trees that lined the street. He knew what he should be doing; it had been the same at the other locations. He would knock at the door, or ring the bell, and when someone answered, he would present himself as a friend of Desmond and ask if he was around.
Tobias wondered how much luck the operative that Crowley had sent to find the other name on the list was having.
“Why are we waiting?” asked a low, grumbling voice.
Tobias looked down to see that Cracklebones now stood beside him.
“I’m not sure if anybody is home,” he replied.
“We will never know unless we go see,” the troll said.
Tobias knew that the creature was right, but he had started to feel the pangs of conscience again. He had not betrayed the Network to hunt down kids who were potential recruits for a new Brimstone Network. Crowley had ordered him to bring the boy in, but why? Tobias felt his skin crawl as he considered the possibilities, none of them pleasant.
He knew he would be bringing this boy and his father to their deaths, and struggled with how this made him feel.
/> “Do you want me to go?” Cracklebones asked.
Tobias looked down at the short, bald-headed creature dressed in armor and chain mail, carrying a blood-encrusted battle-ax.
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” he said.
“Then you’d better get going,” Cracklebones told him. “Before we get tired of waiting for you and decide to play trick or treat with the other houses on the street.”
Tobias looked to see that the creatures were staring at him intensely, the lust for blood evident in their inhuman gazes.
With a sigh he turned and started across the street, the creatures of darkness following in his wake.
13.
“THEY’RE COMING.”
Desmond St. Laurent opened his brown eyes and shifted in his wheelchair to gaze directly at his houseguests.
The tall guy covered in scars, the kid, probably not much older than he, the girl—hot in a tomboy kind of way—and the little monster dressed in the hooded sweatshirt and baggy jeans had stepped from a hole torn in the air of his kitchen, warning him that he could be in danger.
Duh!
Desmond had suspected that since his abilities … his powers, had started to develop. They would want him … to use him as a weapon. Desmond wasn’t really sure at the time who they were, but he knew that they were out there, and that eventually, they’d be coming for him.
The strange visitors to his kitchen immediately introduced themselves, the one no older than him being the son of that Elijah Stone guy who’d just been killed, and since they didn’t attack him, and the girl really was kind of cute, he hadn’t destroyed them where they stood.
And he could’ve too.
His talent was called psychokinesis, and it meant that his brain functioned differently from everybody else’s. Not only was Desmond really smart, but his brain could be used as a weapon. Pyrokinesis, the power to make things explode into flames; telekinesis, the ability to move, or throw stuff with only a thought, mental manipulation, or mind control—they were just some of the things that he could do that there weren’t even names for. And every day, his brain got stronger.
Desmond wished he could say the same for his body.