The Shroud of A'Ranka (Brimstone Network Trilogy)

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  15.

  THE DUST OF THE DEAD THAT SWIRLEDaround the vast underground chamber hummed like a swarm of angry bees.

  Bram had finally reached the bottom of the black pool and struggled to see through the blizzard of ashen remains. There was no sign of Desmond or his father. There was only the storm.

  He wanted to find his friends, but he could hear voices in the distance and knew that his time was short. The life of the planet was at stake. Bram hated this kind of thinking with every fiber of his being, but he knew he had no choice—as his father had had none.

  His emotions cried out as he moved through the maelstrom toward the sound of the voices and he forced himself to ignore them. This wasn’t the place or the time for feelings.

  He would search for his friends when the crisis was averted.

  If that was even possible.

  But he couldn’t think that way; there was always a chance.

  And as the dusty dead swirled around him, trying to make him part of the scouring maelstrom, he could have sworn that he heard it laughing, as if mocking him for even trying.

  And that just made him mad, eager to give them something to really laugh about.

  A’Ranka was growing larger by the minute.

  The more the vampires prayed, the stronger she became.

  It won’t be long now, Gideon thought, a joyous smile on his face. Soon all would be in darkness and he and his new brothers and sisters could claim the world in her most holy name.

  A’Ranka laughed, tossing back her head in joy, and Gideon could not help but do the same. All the time he had spent as a prisoner of the Brimstone Order, waiting for this day.

  At last it had come.

  But then, as if he had cursed the glorious moment with his happiness, the goddess of dust let loose with the most awful scream of pain, lurching to one side. The chamber fell silent, the dusty remains of the dead beginning to drift down to the floor as her concentration was broken.

  “Goddess?” Gideon asked, stepping away from the magickal passage that still hummed and sparked with activity even though the last of the vampire royalty had already crossed over.

  Vladek, too, went to his mistress. “Who did this?” the vampire howled with rage as A’Ranka turned to expose a shaft of wood protruding from her shoulder.

  The goddess appeared in shock, her glistening dark eyes bulging in horror and pain.

  The vampire turned away from her, his fangs pronounced as he challenged the shadows. “Come out,” he growled. “I know you are there.”

  A young man strode out from the darkness. In his hand he carried a weapon, a crossbow, and for a brief moment Gideon experienced the most unexpected sensation.

  Fear.

  * * *

  Bram planted his feet and waited, feeling the vampire’s eyes burning upon him.

  He’d made the decision to step from the shadows as soon as he’d seen that Vladek was still amongst the living … or as living as a vampire could be. It meant that Emily, Stitch, and Bogey hadn’t accomplished their mission.

  For a moment, the weight of despair threatened to crush him, but he shrugged it off. He could never let the sadness win. There was too much at stake. The world depended on him. If Emily, Stitch, and Bogey had failed, it was up to him now.

  He remembered something that his father had once said: Always go after the biggest opponent first, that it plants a seed of fear in the others.

  And so he’d decided to make A’Ranka his target. But it wasn’t fear he now saw in Vladek; it was rage.

  The vampire strode toward him.

  “I will make the death of this one a gift to you, Goddess,” he growled.

  Bram was ready. He could feel the excitement of the other vampires that filled the chamber as they waited for their champion to attack. He raised his crossbow, and although he knew it was useless, he fired three bolts in rapid succession.

  The wooden shafts plunged into the pale flesh of Vladek’s chest with hollow thunks. Any other vampire would have exploded to dust, but this one was different. He merely paused, gazing down at the arrows protruding from his body. A smile snaked across his face as he looked up at Bram defiantly.

  “Yeah,” Bram said, speaking out before the vampire could. “I knew they wouldn’t kill you, but it slowed you down so I could do this.”

  He moved, remembering the training he’d received at the P’Yon Kep monastery. He spun around with amazing speed and grace, and the heel of his work boot connected with the vampire’s jaw, snapping his head violently to one side.

  Bram darted forward to slam his fist into the center of the cross-shaped scar on the vampire’s chest, but Vladek had already recovered. He caught the punch with ease and began to squeeze.

  The pain was excruciating, and it was a few seconds before instinct kicked in and Bram was able to tap into his ghostly powers. The vampire was suddenly crushing nothing, a cool mist slipping through his fingers.

  “Two can play that game,” Vladek snarled, and began to transform himself into a gaseous state, swirling around Bram’s Spectral form.

  Bram could feel Vladek’s presence trying to overwhelm him. The two swirled upward toward the ceiling, locked in a bizarre form of combat, and in the background Bram could hear the enraged urgings of the dust goddess.

  “Destroy the one that would harm your most divine,” A’Ranka called out. She slithered closer, and Bram’s eye was caught by the object she held tenderly in her hand.

  Is it possible? he wondered.

  Momentarily distracted, Bram allowed himself to become more substantial and the vampire struck, driving him back against the temple wall. Bram tried to refocus, but he was too slow. An explosion of stars filled his vision as he hit the wall and dropped heavily to the chamber floor.

  He fought to regain his senses. But the vampire was suddenly there in front of him, his wispy body solidifying into a thing of pale flesh and sinewy muscle.

  “Kill him,” Bram heard the goddess command.

  Vladek reached down with a clawed hand, grabbing Bram by the hair and hauling him painfully into the air.

  “Your will be done,” the vampire snarled, pulling Bram closer as he opened his mouth and bared his fangs.

  Do it!” Gideon urged, his sense of impending doom suddenly intensifying.

  This youth was a threat, and they were far too close to victory to risk it now. “Stop playing with your food and end his life!”

  The magickal passage behind him suddenly began to vibrate and churn, the howl of a wild beast echoing through the conjured corridor freezing Gideon in his tracks. The odd sound brought an uneasy and sudden silence to the room as well, and all—sorcerer, vampire royalty, and goddess alike—turned toward the doorway from Nocturnia.

  “What was that sound?” A’Ranka demanded. “I did not like it.”

  And neither did Gideon.

  The last of the Yad’Zeen sorcerers began to conjure a spell that would slam the door shut on whatever was crossing over. The magick had just started to leave his fingers, accompanied by the drone of a powerful incantation, when the howl came again, only this time louder.

  And closer.

  Gideon sped up the process. His growing fear—nearly as strong as his intensifying hunger—was telling him to act quickly or all would be forfeit.

  Something was tossed from the passage, landing on the chamber floor in a writhing heap.

  It was a vampire, missing both its arms and one of its legs, and when it saw them, it screamed out a warning. “The wolf! The wolf is coming!”

  “The wolf?” Gideon repeated, not sure what his badly mangled brother meant.

  And then more vampire bodies, some torn apart so badly it was hard to identify what they were, began to fly from the opening, followed again by the howl and a savage roar.

  Gideon frantically continued the spell to shut the magickal doorway, but deep down, he knew it was already too late.

  It was here.

  The wolf was at the door.

&n
bsp; * * *

  Emily had never known such rage.

  Sure, she’d been pretty pissed when Sheila Walker wrote dweeb in cotton candy pink nail polish on the front of her locker at school, but never had she felt like this.

  The vampires had taken the heart through the magickal doorway, taken away her chance of ever being normal again, and she wasn’t about to let that happen.

  She was sure Stitch was going to be majorly ticked off as soon as she’d jumped into the crowd of vampires on Nocturnia, but it was the only thing she could think of. Besides, since Count Bite’alot had taken a nibble out of her throat, she hadn’t been thinking all that rationally.

  She knew that Bogey and Stitch had followed her through the crowd, fighting and killing vampires in her wake as they made their own way to the magickal doorway. She’d had no idea where they’d all end up and, come to think of it, she really didn’t care that much.

  That was mostly the wolf thinking.

  All she knew was that she had to follow the heart, take it, and destroy it if she even wanted to be remotely normal again.

  And she had to fight vampires … lots and lots of vampires.

  If there was one thing she had to admit, the bloodsuckers were persistent. She thought they would’ve backed down after she started to tear through them, ripping their limbs from their bodies as she waded through their number, but it only seemed to make them madder, and they kept after her. Even as she forced her way down the corridor of shadow, tearing them apart, they still tried to stop her … to bite her.

  This just made the wolf angrier, and Emily felt her grip on her humanity continue to slip through her fingers. The only saving grace she had was knowing that she followed Vladek’s heart.

  And maybe there was a chance she’d be able to destroy it.

  The passage of shadow ended with a flash, and a stink that reminded her of burning rubber. The wolf sprang from the magickal door, vampires clinging to her back, trying to sink their fangs through her thick, black fur.

  Emily was having none of it. She ripped them from their purchase, shaking them so violently that she could feel their bones break before she tossed them aside.

  It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, but she gazed about the cavernous chamber, searching for the vampire priest that had left Nocturnia with her prize.

  She saw a vampire standing to her left, wearing robes of dusty blue, and although he hadn’t had a body the last time she saw him, she recognized the sorcerer. He was raising his hands and they were crackling with intensifying power. She had just enough time to duck beneath his crackling whip of supernatural energy.

  Emily had no time for this. Her control over the wolf’s savagery was wearing her down. She grabbed the sorcerer by the front of his robes and tossed him violently out of the way.

  The chamber before her was filled with vampires that were slowly rising from their knees. They were baring their fangs, preparing to strike, when she saw him.

  The high priest.

  Emily tensed to attack, when she sensed it. She could feel it—hear it—in the room with her, the pulsing power of Vladek’s heart.

  Ba-Thump. Ba-Thump. Ba-Thump. Ba-Thump. Ba-Thump.

  She glared at the high priest as the other vampires came at her, and she realized that he no longer had the heart.

  But she could hear it … it had to be near by.

  And then her eyes fell upon the strangest of creatures, with the almost giant upper body of an exotic woman, and the lower half of a serpent. Emily guessed that this was the goddess A’Ranka, but more important was what she held in her hand, clutched to her chest.

  The heart … Vladek’s heart.

  Seeing what it wanted, the wolf plowed through the crowd of vampires as if they weren’t even there.

  Emily’s arrival gave Bram exactly what was needed: a chance.

  Instantly he felt hopeful again.

  “What is this?” he heard Vladek growl above the pounding in his head.

  “It’s the beginning of the end,” Bram managed to wheeze through a constricted throat.

  And then before the enraged blood-drinker could crush his neck to pulp, Bram went ghostly and slipped from the vampire’s grasp.

  Vladek hissed in rage, his fangs growing longer and sharper in his fury. Clearly he was in a quandary—would he continue his attack upon Bram, or go to the aide of his goddess?

  He did as Bram expected, darting across the chamber to A’Ranka’s aid.

  Bram coalesced and dropped to the ground upon his knees. His head still pounded, and it took most of his concentration just to see straight, but focused or not, here was his opportunity. He quickly removed his backpack and rifled through it.

  The Archivist had tried to talk Bram out of this, believing that Bram would be eliminating one problem only to potentially replace it with an even larger one. It was the reason that he’d kept this plan from the others. It was a risk, and one he would only take if absolutely necessary.

  Bram glanced around him. The chamber was in chaos, the fate of the world teetering on the edge.

  It could go either way.

  What choice do I have?

  Stitch held an automatic crossbow in one hand and a dagger in the other. He had followed Emily and her path of carnage through the magickally conjured corridor, from the frying pan and into the fire.

  At first he had no idea where they had ended up, but he soon started to put two and two together when he saw the serpentine goddess, and then Bram kneeling across the chamber.

  How convenient, the patchwork man thought as he fired his crossbow at attacking vampires, slashing at others with his holy blade. Our missions have become one.

  But his thought was interrupted by a bolt of energy singeing the air above his head. He dropped his weapons and grabbed Bogey, diving out of the way just as the next flash of supernatural fury struck the conjured doorway, and the passage from Nocturnia closed with an eye-searing flash.

  Stitch’s back smoldered, but he could not think about the pain right now. “Are you—,” he began to ask his Mauthe Dhoog companion as he rose, but Bogey was screaming, pointing a chubby finger over Stitch’s head.

  Stitch reacted on instinct, diving for his crossbow and flipping onto his still-smoldering back as another blast of magickal power lashed through the air to strike the ground where he had just been.

  A restored Gideon stood before them, hands raised, magickal fire leaping from his fingertips. Bogey scrambled to get away as Stitch took aim and fired at his foe. Three crossbow bolts hurtled through the air, plunging into the ancient sorcerer’s chest before he even realized that he had been hit.

  Stitch watched an expression of surprise appear on Gideon’s face just before the first bolt struck his heart.

  Just before his body exploded into ash.

  Emily had almost reached A’Ranka.

  Charging across the chamber floor, swatting vampires from her path, she was nearly to her prize when Vladek grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and threw her savagely to the floor.

  There was an explosion of color as her snout jammed into the ground, and she could sense the vampire looming above her.

  “Kill the beast, my love,” she heard the goddess coo. “Kill it for me.”

  It? Emily recoiled. She has a nerve! And this from a chick with a snake for a lower body.

  She felt the vampire’s hands upon her and allowed herself to go limp as he pulled her up from the ground.

  “I shall drain her dry and allow you to feast upon the meat,” Vladek growled.

  And when Emily sensed that he was close enough, she opened her jaws as far as she could and pushed her head forward, biting the vampire’s face with a mighty chomp.

  Vladek screamed out in pain, trying to pull away from her teeth. His form began to shift and change—morphing from mist to flesh as he tried to recover from the ferocity of her bite.

  “How do you like it?” Emily growled, springing up from the ground to face the goddess.

&nbs
p; “Animal!” the snake-bodied deity shrieked, and the dust and dirt of the ages blew up around her as if somebody had turned on one of those giant fans that they use in the movies to pretend there’s a hurricane.

  A’Ranka slithered backward, still holding her prize tightly against her green chest.

  There wasn’t much time left, and Emily knew it. Either the wolf was going to take over completely, or Vladek was going to drink her dry like Bogey sucking on a Slushie.

  She reached down and grabbed hold of the retreating goddess’s tail.

  A’Ranka screamed with the touch, her tail whipping around. But Emily held fast and began to climb the body of the dust goddess, the claws on her hands and feet giving her awful traction as she ascended.

  “You dare to touch my flesh?” the ancient goddess wailed.

  The storm of dust worsened, blowing ferociously, getting in Emily’s mouth, eyes, and ears. But she continued to climb, and no matter how hard A’Ranka shook and writhed, the wolf held fast.

  “To me, my faithful!” the goddess cried over the wail of the winds. “Your goddess has need of you!”

  From the corner of her eye Emily saw the vampires turn from their battle with Bogey and Stitch and come swarming toward their new god.

  And then a grip like a bear trap closed around her ankle. Looking down she saw a very angry Vladek, the flesh hanging from his face, but already healing.

  “I’ve had just about enough of you, beast,” he snarled.

  “No!” Emily roared as she wrenched her ankle from his grasp.

  She had to end this now.

  And for a moment—a brief and horrible moment—she let the wolf take over, trusting its instincts to do what had to be done.

  It was like watching a movie from the back of a theater. The wolf went wild with its sudden freedom. It dug its claws into the flesh of the goddess and scaled her like a cat going up the side of a curtain. No matter how hard A’Ranka flailed, or how loudly she screamed, the wolf held tight, determined to reach its—her—objective.

  A’Ranka slithered around the chamber, whipping her body from side to side, trying to dislodge her attacker. She was holding the vampire’s heart aloft, as if that would somehow protect it, but in a fit of panic, the goddess brought her arm down to swat away her assailant and the wolf leaped upon the opportunity.