Specter Rising (Brimstone Network Trilogy)

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  “They’re not,” the boy answered. “There’s like constant white noise in my head . . . I can barely think straight without wanting to throw up.”

  “It’s your bonds,” Stitch explained. “They take away your strength.”

  “Just before I blacked out I saw an armored guy and somebody else . . . they were cloaked and hovering above the ground,” Emily said.

  “You saw the one called Trinity,” the old man said, joining their conversation.

  “Trinity?” Stitch questioned.

  “Nothing is known about the mysterious and powerful being,” the old-timer went on. “All that we of the Specter know is that the warlord Barnabas had been banished to the wastelands for crimes against the royal house, but he returned with the hooded one and everything began to crumble before their conjoined forces.”

  Bogey turned to face the old man. “And who exactly are you guys?”

  “We are those who believe in a better way . . . a Spectral world without violence and war . . . a world where the faithful have ascended as written in the ancient texts.”

  “How’s that workin’ for ya?” Bogey asked sarcastically.

  “It is not working, little beast,” the old man answered sadly. “With this mysterious being at his side . . . this Trinity . . . Barnabas has the power to crush our beliefs to dust, and to shape those who oppose him into hideous monsters of war. That, I’m afraid is our fate . . . and yours as well.”

  Bogey sighed. “That explains those two beasties we danced with back at the Fthaggua’s place.”

  Dez began to flop uselessly around on the floor. “Where is he?” he panicked. “Where’s my father?”

  “I’m afraid he didn’t make, it Desmond,” Stitch said sadly.

  “What do you mean he didn’t make it?”

  “The monstrous body that he inhabited was closest to the magickal blast that felled us,” Stitch explained. “I saw it destroyed . . . turned to ash.”

  The tent suddenly got very quiet.

  “Sorry, Dez,” Bogey said, compelled to say something. If he were able, he would’ve gone to his friend and put a comforting arm around him. It must’ve been tough for him to lose his father once, never mind three times.

  It was Emily’s turn to panic. “Johanna?” she asked. “Does anybody see her?” Emily struggled to look about the tent.

  “The younger of your group? She’s gone,” the old man said, averting his gaze. “Think of her no more.”

  “What do you mean think of her no more? Where did she go?” Emily roared.

  “Before you awakened, the guards came for her,” the old man spoke with a sad shake of his bald head. “Trinity was with them. She won’t be coming back.”

  And suddenly, Bogey wasn’t quite so hungry anymore.

  The Terrapene flipped over the stump of a long dead tree and helped himself to the squirming life he’d found beneath it.

  “A war against whom?” Bram asked him.

  Boffa sat on a large rock, reaching down to scoop up handfuls of worms the thickness of rope and bringing them up to his beaked mouth. He chewed the worms before answering, thick juices oozing from the corners of his mouth, running down his speckled neck.

  “Places beyond,” the turtle said, and then swallowed loudly.

  “Beyond the barriers, you mean,” Bram clarified as a sickening feeling formed in the pit of his stomach.

  Boffa picked up a large, shelled insect, carefully examining it before dropping it into his hungry maw.

  “Yes, beyond barriers. Yes.”

  Bram heard the disgusting crunch of the beetle in the Terrapene’s mouth and glanced at Lita, who appeared to be as grossed out as he was.

  “The barrier’s weak there,” Boffa added, bending over to search for more food.

  Lita looked worried.

  “What is it?” Bram asked her.

  “If I remember my history correctly, this is where the Specter army, under the command of Warlord Barnabas, first breached the barrier that separated the Specter world from your own.”

  She stopped as the realization of what was happening dawned on them both at the same time.

  “He’s trying it again,” she said aloud, horror growing in her voice. “With the queen no longer in power, and you believed dead, he’s going to break the treaty. Barnabas is going to attack the earth.”

  Bram felt his own panic on the rise, but immediately squelched it. “He’ll try,” he said with confidence, remembering the powerful friends he had left at home. “But the Brimstone Network will stop him.”

  Something Boffa had found hiding deep beneath the dirt let out a high-pitched squeal before it was crushed by his powerful jaws.

  “Do not forget weapon of great power,” the Terrapene reminded him.

  Bram hadn’t, already the commander in him beginning to formulate a plan. “It seems to me that this secret weapon is our major problem,” he said. “Whatever it is has given Barnabas the confidence he needs to try something like this.”

  “It is a terrible weapon,” Lita agreed. “Those faithful to the queen fell before they even had a chance to fight.” His sister hugged herself as she remembered what had come before. “I can still remember their screams as we escaped through the castle’s secret passages . . . screams that transformed into the sounds of something terrible.”

  There was movement nearby and Bram watched as the soldiers emerged from the queen’s hovel.

  “They say his weapon can turn the loyal into monsters,” Yosh said. “How are we to stand against something like that?”

  Their time was obviously short, and Bram could think of no other way to deal with the problem. His father had always believed that you make do with what you have in a situation, and that was exactly what Bram was going to do.

  “There’s really no other way to do this,” he said, running his hand through his hair and taking a deep breath. “We have to take away what gives Barnabas the upper hand.

  “We have to sneak down to that camp and destroy his secret weapon.”

  Johanna was dreaming.

  It was more of a nightmare, really. She was re-experiencing the time that her mother’s boyfriend—a real jerk by the name of Stanley—had slapped her around for mouthing off.

  It was also the first day that the dogs had come to her.

  Stanley never hit her again. In fact, Stanley stopped coming around all together, and Mom was forced to find another boyfriend, and another after that. They just never seemed to stay.

  As long as Johanna and the pack were around.

  She awoke as soon as the nightmare was over; like the lights coming on in the theater when the movie ended.

  At first she noticed that her hands were tied behind her back.

  And then she realized that her dogs were gone.

  It was looking up at the freak standing over her dressed in the hooded robes that reminded her of where she was, how she got there, and how even more bizarre her life had become in less than a day.

  “Hello,” the hooded figure said. It was a little girl’s voice Johanna heard, and not what she had at all expected from within the thick darkness of the hood.

  “Hi,” Johanna answered. “Where are my dogs?”

  A little girl’s laugh drifted out from within the shadows of the hood.

  “I made them go to sleep so that they couldn’t hurt anybody,” the girl-child answered. “I didn’t want to get bit.”

  Packman looked around the room. It wasn’t a room really, but a kind of tent. She could hear people outside—loud voices barking orders. She guessed that these were more of the soldiers that she and her friends had come up against.

  Her friends.

  “Where are they?” she suddenly asked. “My friends, I mean?”

  The figure just stared.

  “You didn’t kill them . . . did you?” she questioned, not sure she really wanted to know the answer.

  “They’re in another tent,” the little girl replied. “I’m gonna talk to them when
I’m done talking to you.”

  Johanna wiggled her wrists, trying to loosen her bonds, but felt them grow painfully tighter.

  “Well, if you’re thinking of torturing me or something for information, you shouldn’t even waste your time,” Johanna said. “I don’t know squat about anything.”

  The cloaked figure shuffled closer. “But you’re one of them . . . aren’t you? One of the Brimstone Network?”

  “Officially?” Johanna asked. “Not really. I think I’m still on probation or something.”

  “I . . . I remember them . . . ,” the little girl whispered. “The Brimstone people. My mommy and daddy . . .”

  The little girl paused, and Johanna imagined that the kid was remembering.

  “What about your mommy and daddy?” Johanna asked, hoping that if she kept the kid talking, maybe something would eventually come to her, and she could escape.

  At least that’s how it seemed to happen in the movies.

  “I remember . . . I remember that they got killed,” the child said, sadness in her quavering voice. “They were Brimstone people and they got killed . . . and I . . . and I got sick.”

  “But you got better . . . right?” Johanna asked, keeping her talking.

  The figure was suddenly still—remembering.

  “No,” she answered, the hood moving from side to side. “No, I didn’t get better. My brother tried to make me well, but he did some . . . some terrible things.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He made a deal with a bad man,” the little girl answered, her voice flat and emotionless. “A very bad man who wanted to use me to destroy the world.”

  Johanna realized that she was way over her head with this one. Where was Mr. Stitch, or that stuck-up Emily, when you really needed them?

  “But you didn’t, right?” Johanna said. “You stopped the bad man.”

  The hooded figure stood perfectly still.

  “Right?” Johanna prompted.

  “No,” the little girl’s voice answered breathlessly, trembling and filled with fear. “No we didn’t stop him . . . he’s still here.”

  Johanna was about to ask the child what she was talking about, when the hooded figure began to scream.

  It was one of the creepiest sounds she had ever heard, starting out high pitched—a little child’s shriek—but slowly becoming something else all together.

  Like a man’s scream of pain.

  “Are . . . are you all right, kid?” Johanna asked, using her legs to push herself away from the hooded figure still bent over, clutching itself in pain.

  “Don’t know how much time I have,” said a man’s voice from within the hood. “Don’t know how much longer I . . . we can keep him away.”

  “What’s going on?” Johanna asked in a panic. “Why do you sound so different now? Where’d the little girl go?”

  The figure rose slowly, stiffly. “No time to explain,” the male voice said. It brought its hands up to the hood and swiftly pulled it back to reveal the face beneath.

  At first she thought her eyes were playing tricks. The face had been that of a little girl, no older than eight years, but quickly morphed to that of a handsome, teenage boy.

  “She is here . . .”

  The face changed again to that of a smiling little girl.

  “And so am I.”

  The soft features of the girl child had become the handsome face of a young man again.

  “That is just weird,” Johanna said, staring at the boy’s face, waiting for it to change again.

  “Not sure how much time I have,” the boy said. He extended a hand, bolts of crackling magickal energy leaping from his fingertips to strike Johanna.

  It felt like a nasty static shock, and she let out a surprised yelp as her body experienced a brief numbness.

  Johanna suddenly realized that her hands were free, and her pack was back.

  They immediately began to growl at the boy.

  “Stop it,” she commanded the invisible ghosts. “He just brought you back and set me free.”

  The boy started to sway.

  “Are you all right?” Johanna asked. “Are you sick or something?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” he answered. “There’s so much that I don’t remember.”

  “Who are you?” she asked. “What’s your . . . you and your sister’s name? That’s who the little girl is . . . right? Your sister?”

  He nodded as he brought a trembling hand to his brow.

  “Yes . . . yes, she’s my sister. We seem to share this form.”

  “I had to share a room with my mom once, and that was bad enough. Can’t imagine what it would be like sharing a body.”

  “But there’s another,” he said, and the boy looked suddenly terrified.

  “Another?” Johanna asked. “You mean there’s somebody else in there . . . with you and your sister?”

  “Yes,” he said, bending over again in obvious agony. “And he’s waking up . . . fighting to take . . . control. . . .”

  Johanna looked around for an exit, seeing the flap of the tent moving in the night breeze.

  The boy screamed, tossing back his head in pain, and she watched as his appearance changed again.

  He did not become an angelic little girl this time, but a bald, older man, his yellowish pale skin pulled tight over his skull.

  This was one scary-looking dude.

  “I’m awake,” he said with a smile that made her skin crawl.

  And Johanna ran from the tent in search of her friends; there was no way she was going to face that guy alone.

  Lita said good-bye to her mother, leaning forward to place a kiss upon the cool flesh of her brow.

  “Be well,” she added, committing the sight of her to memory. This was why she was agreeing to Abraham’s somewhat ambitious but insane plan; it was the only chance they had, and Barnabas needed to pay for what he had done to her mother and the Specter people.

  With the fires of her anger again stoked, she left her mother, climbing up from the hole in the ground to the surface.

  The soldiers were waiting, unhappy expressions on their battle-worn faces.

  “We insist that you allow us to accompany you,” Stanis said. “The half-breed and the Terrapene’s plan is complete madness. At least with us along, your chances will be increased and . . .”

  “And who will stay with my mother?” Lita asked them. “Who will watch after our queen?”

  The soldiers stared at each other, remembering the oath that they had sworn to their queen when they became her royal guard.

  “With the queen ailing, I am the commanding voice, and I charge you two with the task of watching over her safety at any cost.”

  “But, Princess . . . ,” Yosh began.

  Lita stopped him with a steely stare.

  “I will not speak of what is expected of you again,” she said, and abruptly turned her back on them, proceeding toward Bram and the shelled beast, Boffa.

  She hated to treat them this way; they had been loyal to the royal family since before she was even born. For as long as she had existed, these two had been at her mother’s side. Their battle prowess would certainly have been a welcome addition for what was ahead, but her mother needed them first.

  As long as the queen still lived, they would be by her side.

  Boffa and Bram sat before the fire, and they both rose to their feet as she approached.

  “Are we ready?” Bram asked.

  At first she did not respond, folding her arms across her chest and staring at the boy.

  “Are we?” she asked, petulance in her tone. “You tell me.”

  “I don’t understand,” Bram said. “Is there something wrong? Something I haven’t thought of?”

  Lita’s anger sparked. She knew that something had to be done, but the more she thought of her brother’s plan, the more unsure she was.

  “I’m just not sure that this is the wisest of ideas,” she said. “The three of us against Barnabas, h
is soldiers . . . never mind his secret weapon.”

  Bram reached out, placing a supportive hand on her shoulder. “I know that this must seem overwhelming, but we can do this. The plan is sound.”

  She shrugged off Bram’s comforting hand. “You talk about sneaking down into the enemy camp and causing a distraction so that you can destroy Barnabas’s weapon. What kind of distraction can we cause?”

  Bram smiled. “That’s what we were talking about before you arrived. Show her, Boffa.”

  One of the Terrapene’s arms disappeared inside his shell for a moment and then returned with a round, metal device.

  “And what is that?” she asked.

  The Terrrapene gave the object a sudden twist and threw it into the woods.

  Lita was about to ask if that was supposed to impress her in some way, when a powerful and fiery explosion rocked the woods and two full-grown trees crumbled into kindling.

  “Do you think a few of them will be distraction enough?” Bram asked with smile.

  “You have more of those?” she asked Boffa, who nodded. “Inside your shell . . . you have more of those things?”

  The Terrapene laughed.

  “Inside shell I carry many instruments of war.” And then he proceeded to remove weapons of all sizes and shapes, as well as more of the round explosive devices from inside his shell, his arms disappearing to reappear holding more instruments of death. A pile soon formed at their feet.

  “How is that even possible?” Lita asked, amazed.

  The scaled warrior laughed again. “Terrapene magick,” he said. “Bigger on inside than outside.”

  “How did the Specter ever defeat your kind?” she asked, reaching down to pick up one of the guns that had been removed from within Boffa’s shell.

  “The Terrapene grew tired of war . . . tired of fighting. Could sense coming of change and waited for it to arrive, but it did not come fast enough and soon all were dead . . . except Boffa.”

  She admired the heavy metal gun in her hand. It was the first time she’d ever held one such as this, the Specter preferring bladed weapons to anything stinking of technology.

  “So I’m going to ask you again,” Bram said, addressing her. “Are we ready?”