The Brimstone Network (Brimstone Network Trilogy) (20 page)

It was over.

In more ways than one.

The magick user gathered his strength and concentrated on a deep patch of shadow in the corner of the room. He would open a passage back to Crowley’s lair and demand that his sister be cured.

And then he would leave this all behind him, all that he had done, all that he had become. These were his thoughts as he threw himself into the darkness.

He would leave the world and try to forget.

Forget the horrors that he had helped to forge.

14.
“WHAT DID YOU MAKE HIM SEE?” BRAM
asked Desmond. The boy’s father stood protectively by his side. Stitch had given him a new shirt so the rest of them didn’t have to look at the gaping chest wound.

“I made him see what he wanted to see,” Desmond said, looking up. “All of us dying at his hands.”

“Nice,” Emily said sarcastically. “Hope we gave him a fight.”

Desmond shrugged. “Little bit, but he pretty much took us down one after another.”

“Good job, Dez,” Bram told him.

“I wanted to kill him,” Desmond said. “And I could’ve, too. Could’ve made his brain pop like a balloon.”

Douglas beamed proudly. “That’s my boy.” He gave Desmond’s shoulder a proud squeeze.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Bram said, walking over to the shadowy area in the chamber where Tobias had disappeared. “Now hopefully we’ll be able to follow him back to Crowley, and put a stop to him once and for all.”

Bram felt his stomach grow tight with the thought of confronting the ancient sorcerer. Stitch had given him a brief—yet detailed—background on the ancient magick user, and his tumultuous history with the Brimstone Network. If the Network had a wanted list of their most dangerous enemies, this guy would most certainly be on top. There was actually little surprise that somebody like Crowley had been involved with the attack upon the Network; it was Tobias that was the surprise.

His father had been very trusting, and Bram doubted that he would have suspected betrayal from within.

“Following the guy sounds heroic and everything, but how we are going to do that?” Emily asked, stepping in front of him to kick at the darkness in the corner. “The guy dove into the shadows and disappeared. It’s not like he left a trail of breadcrumbs.”

“No breadcrumbs,” Bram said, looking over to where Stitch and Bogey were standing. “But he did leave something behind, something that we can use to follow him.”

“Earn your keep, lad,” Stitch said, swatting the boggart on the back, making him stumble as he approached.

Bogey studied the shadows with large, black eyes.

“What’s he going to do?” Emily asked.

“Magick leaves a trail … like, a residue. We may not be able to see it or feel it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.” He narrowed his gaze at Bogey. “And I’m guessing people who can manipulate magick to travel, can probably follow that trail. Right, Bogey?” Bram asked.

“Oh, yeah,” the little creature said. He reached into the shadow, fanning the darkness toward the two slits in his face that acted as a nose. “There it is.”

He turned to look at Bram. “Smells like dirty socks.”

“And that’s a good thing?” Bram asked his friend.

“Yep, easier to follow that way, though I would’ve preferred doughnuts.”

“So you think you can follow it?” Bram asked. “Think you can open a doorway to Tobias?”

The creature nodded. “Yeah, I think I can manage.”

They were all looking at him then, waiting for him to give the word. It made him feel weird to be thought of as a leader, but this was what his father had been preparing him for. It was time he rose to the occasion.

Bram locked eyes with Stitch. The artificial man smirked, as if he were reading his mind.
Go ahead
, Stitch’s eyes said, his powerful arms folded across his chest, waiting like the others.

A memory popped into Bram’s mind unbidden. He was standing in front of his home, devastated that his father was sending him away to begin what would be his whirlwind education. Elijah had come to stand beside him, silent at first, but then saying the words Bram had forgotten, until now.

“I know this is painful for you, son, but there will come a day when you’ll be called upon to lead. And you must be ready.”

He’d then touched Bram beneath his chin, tilting his face up so that their eyes would meet.
“You must be ready, Abraham.”

And on that day, Bram had made his father a promise, a promise that he had every intention of keeping.

“I’m ready,” he said suddenly. “I’m ready to take this fight to those responsible for the death of my father; ready to do battle with those who have crawled from the darkness to harm humanity. I’m ready to show them that the rumors of the death of the Brimstone Network have been greatly exaggerated.”

He paused, looking at each one of his team before asking the inevitable question.

“I’m ready, but are you?”

T
he lair of the sorcerer was eerily quiet.

Tobias stepped from his passage into one of the many caverns beneath the ancient cemetery and found it void of life.

“Hello?” he called out, his voice echoing off the damp, stone walls.

Immediately he was on edge; there wasn’t a goblin, or imp or even the smallest bloodcrawler to be found. Tobias left the chamber, searching the labyrinthine quarters for signs of monstrous life. Room after room he searched, finding not a sign of Crowley, or the beasties that served his every word.

Claire.

He thought of his sister and immediately became concerned. Tobias bounded from the last room, barreling down the winding stone corridors to the place where his sister was kept in stasis, awaiting Crowley’s cure.

Tobias came to a stumbling halt before the entrance to the special room constructed to house his ill family
member, a brief sense of relief rushing through him as he saw that he was no longer alone.

But that relief was short-lived.

The room was filled with monsters of every conceivable size and shape, and most appeared to be clad for war. Crowley stood at the side of a conjured gateway, supervising as his minions moved the red, crystal case into the pulsing black opening.

“What’s happening?” Tobias asked from the doorway.

Crowley turned his piercing black gaze upon him.

“Oh, dear,” the sorcerer growled, his four spidery limbs creeping out from beneath his robes to paw the air. “And I was just thinking how smoothly this was all going.”

The creatures moving the crystal stopped their activity, staring at their master.

“Continue,” the sorcerer told them, and the monsters obeyed.

“What are you doing?” Tobias asked, coming farther into the chamber. “Where are you taking her?” he demanded as his path was blocked by a sudden obstruction of monsters.

“I actually breathed a sigh of relief when I was told you were dead,” Crowley said, turning his eyes to Crackle-bones who stood armored beside him.

The troll shrugged. “A thousand pardons,” he growled, nervously switching his ax from one hand to the next. “He was tougher than I thought.”

“I was happy because I thought I was going to avoid this,” the sorcerer said, one of his spider legs waving in the air for emphasis.

Tobias stirred the magick inside him. “I’ll ask you again, Sorcerer, where are you taking my sister?”

“Your sister is to play a very important part in my plans, Tobias,” Crowley explained. “The full release of the magickal fury that she has been blessed with will bring about a new age to this pathetic world of humanity. A new age that has been too long in coming.”

Tobias was stunned. Here was a man—
a monster, really
—for whom he had betrayed everything he had known, and now, he was being betrayed in return.

Fitting
, he thought.

“I’m taking her to where the barrier is weakest,” Crowley continued. “Where humanity first became aware that their time of supremacy upon this world would someday be coming to a close.”

“Will this release hurt her?” Tobias asked, already thinking of the offensive spell he was about to unleash upon the room.

Crowley thought for a moment. “It will likely kill her,” he said. “But rest easy that in the state she’s in now, I doubt she’ll feel a thing.”

“Too bad the same can’t be said for you,” Tobias screamed, casting a magickal blast at the sorcerer and his small monster army.

Effortlessly, Crowley captured the sparking energy between two of his spider limbs. “There’s so much anger in you, young Tobias,” he said, hurling the magickal force back.

Tobias tried to deflect the blast, but it was too strong, hurling him backward against the wall outside the chamber. He hit the stone with incredible force, flowers of intense color blooming before his eyes. The taste of blood filled his mouth as he fought unsuccessfully to stay on his feet.

“Be careful that someone doesn’t turn around and use that against you someday,” Crowley said, moving toward the passage, following his sister in the pool of inky black.

“Give me back my sister,” Tobias managed as he struggled to get to his feet.

“I’m afraid not, boy.” The sorcerer began to merge with the fluid darkness of the gateway. “She still has her part to play in the greater scheme of things, while yours, I’m afraid, is at an end. Good-bye, Tobias, it was a pleasure
working with you. Go to death knowing that your achievements will see that your name goes down in infamy.”

And the dark magician disappeared through the floating tear in the fabric of reality.

Tobias could feel the evil stares of those left behind as he managed to climb unsteadily to his feet. His body screamed with agony, and he was sure that something important had been broken inside him. He didn’t know what would happen next, but was certain it wouldn’t be good.

Cracklebones spun his battle-ax standing at the front of the pack.

“You saved my life from the griffon back at Stone House,” the troll said.

“Yes,” Tobias managed, even saying a single word causing him blinding pain. “Yes, I did.”

“I’ll see what I can do about making this quick,” Crackle-bones said as he stopped twirling his gore-encrusted weapon.

“I appreciate the thought.” He stifled a cough, the metallic taste of blood overpowering in his mouth.

“’Least I can do,” the troll said.

And with what needed to be said between them out of
the way, Cracklebones charged at him, and the monsters attacked en masse.

T
he smell of Tobias’s magick had changed. Turning from the smell of dirty socks to hot dogs. Hot dogs dipped in gasoline, but hot dogs nonetheless.

And Bogey loved hot dogs.

The young Mauthe Dhoog closed his eyes and started to sing his rifting spell. He had to be careful with this one, certain to overlay his spell on top of the one that Tobias had already cast. It was tricky, but not for someone who was as skilled at rifting as he was.

He was the real deal.

Bogey had been rifting for as long as he could remember, opening passages from his home dimension to countless other worlds so that he could explore. His favorite was still the earth. He loved the energy, the clothes, the music, movies and, most of all, the food.

Bram and Stitch’s unexpected arrival to Guttswallow couldn’t have come fast enough. He had been losing his mind there, and even though he had been forbidden to rift since the treaties between the Mauthe Dhoog and humanity had been agreed upon and signed, it didn’t stop
him from visiting the earthly realm any chance he got.

The rift opened to the other side with a sound like a monster truck.

Bogey turned to his new teammates and gave them a sly grin.

“Next floor, villain’s secret lair,” he said, presenting the passage with a bow and a flourish of his hand.

“This is it,” Bram said, the first to step into the rift.

Stitch was right behind him, followed by Desmond, pushed by his Night of the Living Dead Daddy.

Emily was last and looked nervously at the pulsing rift before her.

“Go ahead,” Bogey said. “It won’t bite.”

“Not really looking forward to what’s waiting on the other side,” she said, still hesitating.

“You’ll be all right, you’re a natural at this,” he said, trying to make her feel better, though the facts were that they could very easily be walking into a death trap.

But those were the breaks when you were in the Brimstone Network.

“That’s what I don’t like,” she said. “The wolf side … this is all so natural for it … the killing and everything. Kind of makes me sick.”

Bogey nodded. “I can see it,” he said. “But this is probably kind of a big deal for the world and everything, so maybe you should go through the rift, help us to get this situation under control, and then we can worry about what to do about you not liking your wolf-self later. How’s that sound?”

“Whatever,” she said with an eye roll, entering the doorway that he’d conjured with a huff.

Bogey laughed, following through and sealing the entrance behind him.

He loved this stuff.

And there was no place he’d rather be.

E
xiting Bogey’s rift into the chamber, Bram’s foot caught on something and he nearly fell flat on his face.

It was a good thing that somebody had left a dead goblin there to cushion his fall.

“Careful,” he warned as Stitch came through behind him.

“What in the name of all that’s holy has happened here?” the patchwork man asked as he gazed at the carnage that had apparently unfolded in the chamber not too long ago.

The bodies were still warm.

Stitch took his arm, helping him to his feet.

“Looks like a massacre,” Bram said, taking it all in. These were the kinds of sights he was going to have to become used to, and for a moment he resented what his father expected from him.

“Did you start the party without us?” Dez asked as he and his dad came into the chamber.

“This certainly is a bit of a mess,” Douglas added.

“It was already like this when we got here,” Bram said. The corpses of dead beasties littered the floor, the walls seared black in places showing signs of powerful magicks unleashed.