He glanced over to where the representatives of the Circle had stood and saw that they had gone; four piles of ash was all that remained to show that they had been there.
He looked back at Crowley.
“Gone,” the sorcerer stated, as if reading his mind. “Back to their respective worlds to await confirmation of the Network’s demise. You have a large job to do.”
Tobias nodded. “Then I’d better get going.”
He picked a patch of shadow and concentrated upon it.
The magick teachers of the Brimstone Network had said that he excelled at spells of shadow traveling, that in all their years they’d never seen anyone who could wield the spells that opened doorways from one patch of darkness to another so expertly.
Tobias always believed that it had something to do with the amount of darkness that he kept bottled up inside him.
He tossed the words of a spell at the shadow and a passage opened, shimmering like a pool of water as he moved toward it, the foul creatures that he was to command close behind.
“Wait!” Crowley cried.
Tobias turned toward the sorcerer with an exasperated sigh.
“I’d like to go too,” he began, one of his hands reaching up to his left eye, the long fingers digging into the socket.
Tobias was repulsed as Crowley removed the eye. The sorcerer held it out before him, on the palm of his hand. The disembodied organ suddenly began to quiver and pulse, wings like those of a dragonfly emerging from the sides of the slimy orb. The wings began to flutter, drying the excess ooze from their veined, translucent surface and, within seconds, had taken flight, hovering in the air in front of Tobias.
“Just as good as being there,” Crowley said, his smiling face made even more grotesque by the missing eye.
Tobias simply turned away, heading toward the doorway into darkness.
A flying eyeball trailing close behind, and a gang of monsters at his heels.
The cottage was cozy, much larger on the inside than it appeared outside.
Stitch knelt by the stone fireplace, tossing in a few more logs to make the flames burn even higher to chase away the damp chill.
They’d found Stitch’s arm on their walk from the plane to the cottage. It had fallen in an enormous patch of pumpkins, some resembling huge, misshapen orange boulders lying amongst snaking vines and withering weeds.
Bram had thought it odd, knowing that the pumpkin wasn’t native to England, and wondered if his father could have had anything to do with the planting of the autumnal fruit.
“That should do it,” Stitch said, interrupting his thoughts. The artificial man stood there before him flexing his newly restored arm.
“Is it all right?” Bram asked.
“A little numb,” Stitch answered, making a fist. “Should be fine shortly, once the shoulder and arm get reacquainted.”
Stitch had sewn the arm on himself using a needle and some thick fishing line they had found in the cottage. He’d also used some screws and a piece of wood to repair his broken leg. Bram half wished that repairs to his own person could be so easy; maybe the thought of what was to come wouldn’t have been quite so scary.
The study where his father had planned for future generations of the Network was cramped, filled with multiple file cabinets, a wooden desk, and a chair the only furniture.
Bram reached out to one of the file cabinets and pulled open the drawer. It was stuffed with file folders, and he could imagine his father sitting behind the desk, reviewing the countless folders as he searched for just the right people to join his organization.
“This is where he did his reviews,” Stitch said from the doorway. “I guess nobody knew about this place. All the information in those files he gathered himself.”
Bram chuckled. “No computers.” He removed one of the thick files, leafing through it.
“He didn’t trust them,” Stitch said. “He believed it was too easy to pluck important information from the minds of machines or something to that effect.”
“I guess,” Bram agreed with a shrug, putting the file back. He pulled open more drawers; files, files and more files. “This is going to take forever,” he said, already feeling his eyes burn. “Did he leave us anything … any clues as to whom he might’ve liked better than others, or is it totally up to us to decide?”
Bram shook his head and ran an exasperated hand through his short hair. “I don’t even know where to start.”
He looked to Stitch for some words of wisdom and encouragement, but found the man staring off into space.
“Hello?” Bram asked, waving a hand in front of Stitch’s face. “Anybody home?”
Stitch blinked and shook his head. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I just remembered some stuff that was filed away for the appropriate time.”
“Anything to give us a hand with all this?” Bram asked, gesturing to the multiple cabinets.
“Oh, yeah,” Stitch said, and he left the study doorway.
Bram followed, curious.
“He was always a bit paranoid,” Stitch said from the living room. “But over the last year or so he suspected that something really wasn’t right, that something very much like what did happen, could.”
Stitch knelt beside the fishing tackle box that they’d found the needle and thread in, rummaging through it as he spoke. “He knew that if the old Network was somehow destroyed, a new Network would have to be formed, and it would have to be a new Network in more than just name.”
Bram didn’t quite understand. “More than just in name,” he repeated. “And what exactly does that mean?”
Stitch pulled a nasty-looking knife from the tackle box, one that would have been used to clean fish. “Exactly that, a new kind of Network would be needed.”
He strode back down the hall toward Bram, who backed into the office.
“All of these are fine specimens,” Stitch said, pointing at the file cabinets with the curved blade. “But not the kind of agents who could bring the agency back from the brink.”
“What’re you going to do with that?” Bram asked, eyeing the knife.
With one hand, Stitch started to unbutton his shirt. “I just remembered something.”
And before Bram could even utter a word, Stitch plunged the blade into his belly, cutting a long, vertical gash in his stomach.
“What are you doing?” Bram screamed, watching in disgust and horror as Stitch stuck his hand into his own stomach and pulled out something sealed in a plastic bag.
“Here are the people he was considering,” the patchwork man said, tossing sealed files onto the desktop.
“Here are the special agents of the new Brimstone Network.”
8.
TOBIAS COULD STILL HEAR THEIR SCREAMS.
He had just emerged from the passageway of shadow, into the now desolate Brimstone Network communications center.
Remembering how it had been.
Crowley’s winged eye hovered in the air beside his head—observing—its insect wings moving so fast that they appeared as a blur.
The bodies of the dead were gone—even though he could still hear them—removed by those the Network protected. He wondered how the world was feeling now, knowing that they no longer had anyone to help them against the things that went bump in the night.
Guilt roiled in his gut, almost painful. It wasn’t the world’s fault that his parents had been killed, his sister afflicted with a mutating curse, but it would have to pay the price for his misery.
The beasties swarmed from the darkness, eyes twinkling hungrily. They smelled the death in this room and were excited by it.
But that was all that could be found, the lingering aura of the lives that were taken. Tobias didn’t want to be there anymore, and besides, if he was going to find clues to a contingency plan, it wasn’t going to be here.
The monsters were wild, scrambling over the communications equipment, searching for anything to satisfy their bloodlust.
“We won’t find
anything in here, troll,” Tobias said to the stocky creature beside him, ax slung over his shoulder.
“Cracklebones,” the troll said as he moved toward the room’s exit.
“Excuse me?” Tobias asked, momentarily confused.
“Not troll … Cracklebones,” the leathery-skinned monster said, hooking a thumb at his broad chest.
The troll was telling him his name. Wonderful, Tobias thought. Now I’m on a first-name basis with the creatures of darkness.
“Fine, Cracklebones,” he said, striding across the floor, avoiding the gaping holes that had been made by the invading, monster forces. “You’re more than welcome to stay in here with your … friends, but if I’m going to find answers, it’s not going to be in here.”
He walked through the doorway, out into the hall, and thought for a moment that he might actually be left alone, but Crowley’s eyes buzzed around his head, and then he heard the scrabbling of claws, and the thumping of many feet as the monsters—his soldiers—followed.
Power had been cut from most of the building, emergency lights the only source of illumination. Of course with no power, there were no elevators, so they were forced to climb the stairs. There were signs of violence even there, bloody handprints decorating the white walls as they ascended.
Stone’s office was on the top level of the converted castle, and if there was going to be any sign of the leader’s plans, it would probably be there. Tobias stepped through the doorway, remembering the last time he’d done so, bringing the old man tea.
After his parent’s passing, Elijah Stone had taken him under his wing, watching out for him, making sure that all his needs were addressed. Tobias knew that most found Stone’s actions compassionate, but he had seen them as the actions of someone burdened with guilt.
The flying eye zipped past his face, the beating of insect wings humming in his ear. It darted around the room. The office had been torn apart, the desk smashed, furniture ripped apart by hands eager for destruction.
He’d tried to get Elijah to leave that night, but he refused, as Tobias was sure he would. He was a man dedicated to a cause—no matter the cost, no matter who was hurt.
He turned to see the beasties looking at him, standing in the doorway in a large clump, as if sensing the turbulence in his soul. “Don’t just stand there,” he barked. “Search the room.”
The monsters scrambled, darting around the office, sniffing at the ground, examining the wrecked pieces of furniture.
The troll, Cracklebones, simply stood, staring. “And what are we searching for?” he asked, his voice sounding as though his throat were filled with gravel.
“I don’t know exactly,” Tobias said, moving toward the remains of the desk. “But I’ll know when I see it.”
The point of his boot caught on the rubble of a desk drawer, and Tobias almost tripped, kicking something that slid noisily across the floor. It glinted in the semidarkness, drawing his attention. He squatted, picking up the silver picture frame, and remembered that Stone had been putting something away in a drawer when he’d come into the room that night.
He ran a thumb over the cracked glass of the picture frame. It was the photo of a child, a smiling little boy no older than four.
People had said that Stone had suffered a loss as well, and that that was why he had been so devoted to Tobias and Claire. He’d once had a child of his own.
He’d had a son.
Tobias had heard the story of the marriage to prevent a war with the Specter, of how the marriage had produced a child … a boy. Rumor had it that the child had been close to death for years, something about the biology of a Specter and a human being incompatible.
The boy … Abraham, Tobias remembered, was a few years younger than himself. If still alive, he would have been twelve or thirteen.
Tobias had always found it sort of strange that Abraham was never mentioned. It was almost an unspoken rule in the Network not to ask about the child’s condition.
“What is that?” asked a small, high-pitched voice. Crowley’s eye buzzed in the air above his shoulder.
“It’s a picture of Stone’s son.”
Elijah had quickly put the framed picture away as Tobias had entered the room. Why would he hide the picture? Tobias wondered. Is it a sign of weakness to care about your own sick kid? Is that why no one ever talked about Abraham? But if that was true, why would he have taken such an interest in our lives?
It didn’t make sense.
“The child was weak … sickly,” said the eye. “It died as it should have.”
“No,” Tobias said with a shake of his head. “As far as I know, Abraham was still alive, being cared for by doctors, somewhere … or at least that’s what we were meant to believe.”
The eye flew around his head. “Are you insinuating something, boy?”
A wild theory was taking root inside Tobias’s brain. “It’s probably nothing, but I’d like to follow it through.”
“You want to find the son?” Crowley’s voice squeaked.
“I want to see if he is as sick as they said he was,” Tobias answered.
The eye circled around again. “And if he is, we’ll do him a favor and put him out of his misery, the poor child’s suffered enough,” the eyeball said, wings flapping as it darted from side to side.
And then the orb started to laugh.
It was one of the most disturbing sounds Tobias had ever heard.
Tobias stepped from a deep passage of shadow cast by an ancient oak in front of the iron gates that circled the mansion, Stonehouse. It had been at least five years since he’d last paid a visit to Elijah Stone’s home, but from the looks of it, little had changed.
He remembered how afraid he’d been of the twin, limestone griffons that guarded the main entrance, their fierce eagle heads and muscular lions’ bodies, wings folded tightly upon their backs, ready to unfurl and take flight in search of prey. The years of exposure to the harsh New England elements had only served to make them all the more fearsome with ferocious faces covered in patches of black and green mold.
Beasties spilled out from the darkness behind Tobias, some jumping back with a hiss as their eyes fell upon the statues.
The flying eye hovered to the right of him. “And what do we expect to find here?” Crowley’s tinny voice asked from the surface of the orb.
“Perhaps something, likely nothing,” Tobias answered, staring through the gates at the large, Gothic house. “I just want to be sure.”
He and his sister had been brought here after the attack upon their home to live with the leader of the Brimstone Network in the days preceding their parents’ memorial service. Tobias closed his eyes, remembering how he had lain in a bed in one of the many guest rooms, listening to the sounds of the house, and how one night, unable to sleep, he had left his room to explore and had come upon Elijah entering his study.
Even now, the memory haunted him.
“What if his kid wasn’t sick? What if he was being raised in secret to carry on after his father’s death?” Tobias asked, opening his eyes and looking at the disembodied eye floating near his shoulder.
The bloodshot orb looked at him, the black of its iris constricting as it considered the possibility. “Yesssssssss,” Crowley hissed. “Yes, I can see Stone being that clever … that devious.”
“But then again, it might be just what he said.” Tobias shrugged.
The eye silently considered this as well, then flew to hover before the gathering of monsters at their back. “Search the house,” Crowley’s eye demanded. “Bring me anything that even smells suspicious.”
The monsters charged toward the gate as though a starting gun had been fired. An ogre, its body adorned in armor carved from solid rock, was first to lay its hands upon the gates.
And the first of the beasties to meet a horrible fate.
Talons slashed through the air, severing the ogre’s head with one powerful swipe, an attack so fast that Tobias had to wonder if the rock ogre was ev
en aware that it had been killed.
The griffon statues had come to life, eyes blazing a fiery red in their limestone sockets. The mythological beasts flew down from their perches, attacking the monsters that huddled, stunned, before the gate.
They didn’t stand a chance.
For all the ferocity of the creatures of darkness, they were nothing compared to the savagery of the stone griffons. One by one the beastie minions fell before the hooked beaks and razor-sharp claws. They tried to fight back, but stone flesh made the griffons impervious to harm.
Tobias stood, fixated by the scene unfolding before him. Some of the monsters were trying to get away, only to be pounced by the griffons dropping down from the air. He watched as Cracklebones planted his feet and raised his ax, ready to defend himself, or die in the attempt.
“What are you waiting for?” an annoyed voice buzzed in his ear as the flying eye circled excitedly around his head. “You’re a magick user, do something.”
“Right,” Tobias said, searching his mind for the magick that could counteract Elijah Stone’s security spell.
Cracklebones ducked beneath the griffons’ claws as they circled above his head. The clanging sound of his heavy ax striking their stone flesh shattered the air. The beasts were playing with the troll, wearing him down; it wouldn’t be long before they ended their game and killed the troll, as they had a good number of the others.
Thinking of a spell, he whispered the words beneath his breath. Tobias extended his arms, aiming the magicks that coursed through his body at the tiring Cracklebones. The magick danced from his fingertips to envelop the troll in a cocoon of crackling green energy. Like flexing a muscle, Tobias pulled the troll up into the air, just as the griffons pounced. They collided with a sound like a thunderclap as Tobias deposited the troll on the opposite side of the metal gates.
The griffons backed away from one another, eyes darting about, searching for their escaped prey.
“Hey,” Tobias yelled, capturing their attention.
The stone beasts spun around, ear-piercing cries shrieking from their open beaks as they started toward him.