The Shroud of A'Ranka (Brimstone Network Trilogy) (21 page)

“Enough!” the goddess screamed, her arms shooting out to either side as stiff as boards. Shock waves of magickal force radiated from her form, casting Bram and his friends violently away.

They were climbing to their feet to resume the struggle when the Yad’Zeen god of life spoke.

“No more, my goddess of the dust.” The very air rumbled with each of the life-god’s words.

Borphagal was glowing with the burning of a thousand
stars again. What remained of A’Ranka’s dust warrior dripped from his golden body, evaporating to nothing before it could even land upon the jungle below.

A’Ranka spun to look upward again, an angry ferocity upon her face. “I will not let you put me back in that hole,” she roared, her spindly fingers again manipulating the soil and decay around her.

“A demand that I am willing to acquiesce to,” the gargantuan god rumbled.

And he reached down to her with a burning hand.

A’Ranka tried to flee, her powerful serpent body attempting to squirm away, but the god of life was quick, catching her by the end of the tail and hauling her up into the air.

The goddess of dust was dwarfed by the enormity of life’s ancient representative.

“Let me be,” A’Ranka demanded, squirming in Borphagal’s burning grasp. “Haven’t I been punished enough? The world has all but forgotten me. Allow me my freedom … allow me the chance to be loved again.”

“You had your chance for love, dearest A’Ranka,” the life-god announced. “And with that love you were unsatisfied, and sought to bring about the end of those who worshipped
you. They are gone now … practically forgotten … as am I … as you should be.”

The goddess flailed in his grasp.

“I will not be forgotten!” she shrieked.

“It will be better this way,” the god spoke, and Bram heard a deep sadness in the low rumble of Borphagal’s voice.

And Borphagal tilted back his flaming, moon-shaped head and opened his mouth.

A’Ranka shrieked even louder as the life-god dangled her squirming form over his cavernous maw. “Please! I do not want to be forgotten … I want to be loved!”

Borphagal released his hold upon her tail and she dropped down into the yawning chasm of her former love’s mouth, her plaintive cries ominously cut short as Borphagal’s mouth closed.

The jungle was silent, and Bram found himself growing tense. He’d conjured the ancient god and was now unsure of what would happen next. Silently he hoped that the Archivist had been wrong, that he had not traded one problem for something far worse.

Borphagal gazed around at his surroundings. Bram was certain that his eyes saw far more than they appeared to,
viewing a world entirely different than the one he had left behind so many millennia ago.

“This is a sad place,” the god rumbled. “Not at all as I remember.” The gigantic god turned ever so slowly above the jungle, studying each and every corner of the world. “I do not wish to be here anymore … and, for that matter, ever again.”

Borphagal turned his attention back to them, his head burning so brightly now that it was practically blinding. “We go now,” the god said, patting his swollen belly. “And we will never return.”

The scroll lying amongst the dirt and rubble burst into flames, dissolving to nothing in an instant.

“This is not our world anymore,” Borphagal warned. “Do not call us again.”

With those final words, the Yad’Zeen god of life looked up into the dark heavens of night and it was as if dawn had come early, growing brighter and brighter in the sky above the tropical jungle.

And then it was gone, the night falling again, the sounds of jungle life slowly resuming.

“Was it just me, or did that guy have a bit of an attitude?” Bogey asked, and they all began to laugh.

* * *

The laughter did not last long.

Emily was the first to notice them, the surviving vampires emerging from pockets of shadow within the chamber.

Bram sighed as he rolled his eyes.

“My sentiments exactly,” Stitch said, cracking the knuckles on one of his large hands.

“Jeez,” Bogey complained. “We just can’t catch a break.”

Emily shook off her humanity, transforming back into the wolf. “Is this how it’s going to be from now on?” she asked nobody in particular. “Always fighting and killing things that want to eat you and your family?”

Bram was going to answer
yes
, but it was just too darn depressing.

A vampire dressed in the tattered robes of royalty led the remaining undead toward them. “You!” the king proclaimed, pointing a crooked, clawed finger at them. “It was you that took our goddess away.”

Bogey laughed. “Can’t fool this guy, can we?”

“You took away our chances for dominion,” the king went on. “And for that you must suffer, as we shall suffer.”

Bram attempted to shake off the nearly overwhelming fatigue, wondering if the others were feeling it too. But he couldn’t show it. He was their leader.

“Are we ready for round four?” he asked them.

“Four?” Bogey squawked. “At this point, try round forty-four.”

“Whatever the round,” Bram responded. “Are we ready?”

And before his team could answer, the vampires lunged, fangs bared, eager to feast upon their enemies’ blood.

Bram was just about to lunge, to throw himself into battle, when he noticed the vampires jerkily coming to a stop. They were no longer attacking, but instead looked fearfully toward the moonlit sky and began to scream. They covered their faces as they wailed and, one by one, they exploded into flames, their bodies turning to dust.

“What the …?” Bogey exclaimed.

“It’s the least I could do,” came a voice from deep within one of the chamber’s darkened passages.

Desmond St. Laurent emerged from the tunnel, his father helping him along. Both looked as though they’d gone through their own private war.

Their clothes were filthy and torn, the skin of their faces bright pink and sore looking. Douglas’s condition
appeared far worse, the claw marks on his face from his earlier meeting with the jaguar guardians made worse by the abrasive dust storm.

“Sorry I’m late,” Dez said.

Bram was happy to see them, his fears that they had been slain in the tunnel leading down to A’Ranka’s prison dissolving as quickly as the surviving vampires had.

“I was concerned,” Bram said.

Dez leaned heavily upon his father. “So were we,” he began to explain. “It got pretty bad in the tunnel; I couldn’t even concentrate long enough to create a shield to protect us. Blacked out and fell the rest of the way. Just woke up a little while ago, heard the commotion, and headed this way. What did I miss?”

Bogey shrugged. “Nothing much, saved the world again.”

“Is that all?” Douglas said with a dismissive wave. “You didn’t need us for that.”

Bram couldn’t help but be disturbed by the look of Douglas St. Laurent. No amount of makeup would be able to make him look natural now.

“But it did look as though you needed a hand with those vampires,” Dez added with a grin.

“What did you do to them?” Bram asked.

“I made them imagine that they were experiencing the brightest and most sunny of summer days.” Dez explained. “Their bodies did the rest.”

Bram nodded, impressed by the way Desmond had utilized his unique abilities, but again reminded of how dangerous the boy’s powers could be.

“WELL?” DOUGLAS ST. LAURENT ASKED
.
“How do I look?”

With his face covered in what looked to be inches of thick makeup, Dez thought that his father looked like something out of a horror movie.

As his father waited for his response, Dez thought about what he had promised Bram he would do.

After their return from the jungle, Dez knew that he had to talk to his father. He could see it in all his teammates’ eyes, and most especially in Bram’s.

Dez knew what he had to do, and would rather have faced a hundred vampires instead.

“That good, huh?” his father said, turning to look at his reflection in a mirror they’d propped against a stack of hardback books. “I just don’t heal like I used to. Maybe if I put a little bit more pink in my cheeks.”

Dez hated to see him that way, all torn up, trying
to hide the severity of his injuries. It wasn’t fair to him, and the sickening feeling in the pit of Dez’s belly continued to build as he got closer to doing the right thing.

His mind flashed with scenes of the future, how his life would be without his father by his side. Dez’s eyes started to burn with tears as he imagined not just a single day, but every day without him.

It was more painful than his debilitating medical condition, but he would have allowed himself to experience twice the pain if it meant keeping his father by his side.

But that wasn’t the case.

His father was doing something with the makeup kit, and Dez decided that it was time. He’d promised Bram that he would do this now.

“Dad?”

His father turned, one of his pale cheeks a brighter shade of artificial red. “Yeah, son?”

“I think we need to talk,” Dez said, already starting to feel his hold upon his father’s existence begin to loosen.

“Sure, what about?” his father asked, coming to sit upon the edge of the bed beside him.

Dez began to talk, the hardest words that he had ever spoken coming from his mouth.

He would rather have been fighting vampires.

Bram stood in front of the cracked mirror in his father’s old office and admired the cut of the uniform he was wearing. He turned to the side, stepping back a bit to check the length of the pants.

Stitch had done an excellent job, adding tailor to his many other skills.

He was wearing the uniform of a Brimstone Network officer. They had found the uniforms in one of the many storage closets after returning from their last mission, and it was then that Bram had made up his mind.

The world needed to know about them.

The world needed to know that the Brimstone Network was still alive and protecting them.

The newspapers and television broadcasts were electric with the latest calamity to besiege the world; the sun being blotted out—even temporarily—was enough to push civilization that much closer to utter despair.

That had only helped him to make his decision.

He’d told the others what he was thinking, and though
he was still a bit unsure about the safety to himself and to his team, he knew that it was the right thing to do.

Bram turned to look at himself from another angle. The uniform fit him well, and he wished that his father could be there to seeing him wearing the blue and gray of the Network.

There was a rapping at the door and he took the chance for one more look. He guessed he looked fine but was still unsure.

“Just about ready?” Stitch asked, coming into the room. The patchwork man was wearing his usual dark clothing, except for a Network jacket. He had a hard time finding a uniform that comfortably fit his unusually proportioned form.

“I think I am,” Bram said.

It itches,” Bogey said, squirming and pulling at the uniform collar around his neck.

“You can take it off just as soon as the press conference is done, all right?” Emily whispered, adjusting her own uniform jacket.

“Hope I make it that long,” the Mauthe Dhoog muttered, but Emily wasn’t listening.

They were standing on a platform outside the Brimstone Network Headquarters, in front of a horde of reporters, and Emily couldn’t imagine a worse place to be—although that pyramid in the jungle did run a close second. It was Bram’s idea to have a news conference.

And where the heck is he, anyway?

Her eyes scanned the crowed before her, searching for familiar faces.

She’d called her parents as soon as she’d returned from the mission in the jungle to let them know that she was all right, and when she knew what Bram was planning, had invited them to the ceremony.

She wanted them to know what they were doing … what
she
was doing. Emily wanted them to know that she wasn’t just a monster.

But as she studied each and every face in the crowd, she did not see them, and felt her mood begin to darken.

The crowd began to buzz as Bram finally entered. She couldn’t wait to get back inside, to go to her room and lose herself in the foul mood that was forming.

Bogey’s elbow suddenly connected with her ribs and she winced. She didn’t react, knowing that this was likely what the Mauthe Dhoog was looking for. When he nailed her
again, she almost allowed herself to transform, wondering if it was possible to swallow the little pain in the butt with one bite.

“Quit it, or I’ll bite your stupid head off,” she said, turning to glare at him. She felt her teeth become more pronounced, her skin begin to burn and prickle.

“Might want to hold off eating me until later,” the little creature said, pointing to her left.

She turned and nearly began to cry when she saw them.

Her mother and father waved from within the crowd, no fear or disgust showing in their eyes.

And they’d brought her flowers.

Stitch at his side, Bram headed for the platform, hearing the buzz of excitement as he passed through the crowd.

He stood before the microphone, adjusting it to his height, and then looked out over the crowd that had gathered. He saw the faces of reporters from all over the world, but he also saw the faces of everyday citizens eager to hear what he could possibly have to say.

Bram hoped that he didn’t disappoint them.

“Good afternoon,” Bram said, temporarily startled by the sound of his own voice.

“I’m Abraham Stone.” He paused, making eye contact with each and every one present.

“Leader of the Brimstone Network.”