The Shroud of A'Ranka (Brimstone Network Trilogy) (18 page)

Bram moved to the last drawing, a depiction of the world, floating in space surrounded by a thick ring of black. He was about to explain what he had figured out, when suddenly he was falling.

It actually took him a moment to realize what had happened, falling down through the darkness, hearing the panicked voices of Dez and Douglas from far above. Then Bram allowed his ghostly nature to take control, halting his descent in the sea of black.

“I’m all right,” Bram yelled up to his companions as he slowly rose to meet them.

They were both kneeling at the edge of floor that had been broken away, shining their lights down into the passage.

“You nearly gave us a heart attack,” Douglas said, Bram
seeing the irony in the man’s statement as it was heart failure that had killed him first.

“Sorry, I got distracted and wasn’t watching where I was going.”

Bram peered down as he floated above the tunnel. In his Spectral form he was more sensitive to the paranormal. He allowed his body to become solid enough to reach into his pocket and remove the compass.

“What are you thinking, Bram?” Dez asked.

“I’m thinking that straight down might be where we want to go.”

He opened the lid and watched as the arrow of gold practically jumped from the case to point down into the pool of darkness below.

“I’m thinking you may be right,” Dez answered, moving a little closer to the edge.

Douglas reached out, grabbing hold of Dez’s shirt just in case he should get too close to the edge. “I believe Stitch packed climbing gear,” the boy’s father said. “If we take our time, we should be able to work our way down to—”

“No climbing,” Dez said, pushing himself up from the edge.

“Well how else do you expect to—” Douglas began, but
abruptly stopped as he found himself levitating above the floor.

Dez was using his psychokinetic abilities again, this time with more control, but Bram had to wonder if he was strong enough to pull this off.

“Are you sure about this, Dez?” he asked.

Tiny bolts of crackling power leaped from the top of Dez’s head, making his hair stand on end as if he’d had a fright. It wasn’t long before he was levitating beside his father. “No problem. Remember, I just drank a whole can of Liquid Surge.”

Bram said nothing more, although he noticed a trickle of blood forming just beneath the shadow of one of Dez’s nostrils.

There just wasn’t time for concern: If what he suspected was true, they had to move quickly.

Before it was too late.

“WHERE IS THIS GIFT TO ME?”

A’Ranka reared back upon her muscular snake body, a twinkle of anticipation in her beautiful dark eyes.

Gideon felt Vladek’s gaze upon him. “Where is the gift, Sorcerer?” the vampire prince asked.

Gideon bowed slightly. “The gift, as well as your worshippers, are a mere spell away,” he said, cracking his knuckles and wiggling his fingers in preparation.

The hunger at his core was excruciating, but he managed to control the agony with thoughts of the future, thoughts of how the world would soon belong to the vampires.

Belong to his kind
.

“I want my gift,” the goddess demanded. “And I wish
to see those who would worship me over all things. I want this now.”

“Your will be done,” Gideon said.

He felt the magick building as he spoke the timeless words that would open a passage on this side from Nocturnia. If all went as planned, the vampires would already be on their way.

Tendrils of crackling supernatural force streamed from the tips of his new fingers, swirling in the air like birds at play, faster and faster until the air at its center began to shimmer and bend. A section of time and space shattered like glass within the border of magick, revealing a long and winding tunnel of shadow on the other side.

Gideon smiled as he peered into the darkness, sensing the approach of the goddess’s new worshippers. “They come,” he announced. “They come!” he screamed as the vampires began to emerge.

The first to arrive was King Yorga, and he stepped from the magickal passageway, fangs bared, ready for danger. Queen Valara plucked at her hair as she emerged behind her husband, interdimensional travel having mussed it.

“You are safe here,” Gideon told them.

The vampire king whirled toward the sorcerer, but
stood down when he realized who had spoken to him. “Is it true?” he asked.

Gideon gestured across the chamber, and King Yorga turned.

“It has been too long, Father,” Vladek said.

Yorga’s eyes grew wide as he looked upon his son, and even wider at the awesome sight of the goddess beside him.

“Who is this?” A’Ranka demanded to know, her voice booming like thunder.

“This is the king of my kind,” Vladek announced to her. “And my father.”

The king dropped to his knees in awe of the goddess.

A’Ranka smiled, showing yellowed, razor-sharp teeth.

And Gideon smiled as well. The goddess seemed happy with the first of her new followers. He returned his gaze to the passage as more vampire travelers arrived, eagerly spilling out into the underground cavern. He was searching for one in particular, and finally through the growing crowd, through the members of the royal family and the priests of the blood-faith, he found the vampire he was looking for.

The high priest who carried the box.

The box that contained the warrior’s heart.

“They are here for you, my goddess,” Gideon announced over the excited din of the blood-drinkers.

They scurried about the chamber, examining their new surroundings.

The king was still upon his knees. Raising his head he commanded his people’s attention. “Bow before the goddess of dust,” he bellowed. “Bow before she who will deliver to us a world.”

The vampires dropped where they stood, the soft murmurings of prayer escaping their mouths as they began to worship her.

“Yessssssss,” A’Ranka hissed, black eyes twinkling with pleasure. “These are the faithful I have so long desired.”

Her serpentine form writhed in the air. “Already I feel my strength returning,” she roared, her voice raised in ecstasy. “And with each passing moment, I grow stronger than ever before.”

Gideon looked upon the goddess in awe. Indeed, her green skin was becoming more vibrant, her mass growing larger and more powerful. Their final gift would be all she needed to begin the transformation of the world.

To summon the Shroud of A’Ranka.

Vladek strode through those who knelt in prayer. “Where is the gift for my goddess? Who bears the chest that contains my life?”

The high priest rose from where he had dropped, the dark, wooden case still in his hands. “It is I, good prince.”

“Open it,” Vladek ordered, pointing at the box.

With trembling hands the high priest pulled back the lid to expose the writhing black muscle that was Vladek’s heart.

Gideon moved closer. The heart looked as it had so many millennia ago when he had first removed it, still beating, from Vladek’s chest.

“Take it, Vladek,” Gideon said, watching as the vampire reached inside the box and removed his beating heart. “Take it and give it to your goddess.”

Vladek stared at the pulsing organ—his very existence in his hand. He lifted his eyes from the beating heart and walked toward the goddess, who watched him eagerly.

“For you,” he said, offering it to her.

And the goddess A’Ranka reached down, taking the offering into her hand. Bringing it up to her face, she stared at it lovingly.

Gideon stood amongst the vampires, watching the goddess admire her gift.

She smiled at those kneeling around her. “As you have given me a gift,” she said, her voice dripping with benevolence, “so shall I bestow a gift unto you.”

And the goddess raised her arms and tossed back her head as she began to sing.

Gideon winced at the sound that seemed to dig into his brain and wriggle around like maggots feasting upon an infected wound.

The song filled the air, its disturbing harmonies stirring the very dust and dirt from the floor.

Gideon’s eyes widened in wonder as the dust grew thicker, some of it briefly coalescing into shapes—both animal and human—as it swirled in the air, the maelstrom growing larger and larger.

The goddess was weaving her shroud.

And soon the world would feel the touch of the damnable sun no more.

The darkness seemed to go down forever.

Bram looked above him as he continued to drift downward. Dez appeared to be doing
okay, the small sparks that crackled from his head providing them with the occasional kernel of light. Douglas seemed to be all right as well.

“Are we even sure this place has a bottom?” Dez asked.

“Good question,” Bram answered. He again took the compass from his pocket, watching as the golden arrow glinted in the sparks tossed from Dez’s mind and pointed straight down. “All I can say is we seem to be heading in the right direction.”

He returned the compass to his pocket, continuing their descent. Bram thought briefly of Emily, Bogey, and Stitch and felt a grip of doubt tightening about his chest.
Have I done the right thing in splitting up the team?
he wondered.
Or have I sent them all to their deaths?

Realizing that there was little value to that way of thinking, he quickly pushed the damaging thoughts aside and tried to focus on what they would do once they touched bottom.

A sudden gust of wind savagely blew up from somewhere below, carrying with it stinging particles of dust, sand, and dirt. Bram could barely feel them as they passed through his ghostly state, but Dez was a different story altogether.

“Ah!” he yelled as the wind touched him. “That freakin’ hurts.”

The boy and his father began to drop faster as Dez’s concentration became interrupted.

“Careful, Dez,” Bram warned. “Hold it together, it can’t be too much farther.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Dez said, spitting dirt from his mouth.

Bram wished that the sudden surge of fetid air was just a momentary fluke, but that wasn’t the case at all. The breeze intensified with a vengeance, growing so strong that he had to increase his density, making himself heavier, or be blown back toward the surface.

But the more dense he became, the more he felt the stinging particles flying within the abusive current of air.

They were trapped within a howling maelstrom of scouring flecks of dirt and sand. Bram heard Dez and Douglas screaming from above him, but he could no longer see them in the storm.

There was an eerie incandescence to the wind, and in that strange glow Bram could have sworn that he saw something.

Faces
.

Through squinting eyes he scrutinized the storm as he continued his downward journey. He was convinced that there were things with him in the churning air, ghostly memories of what had once been alive but now were only dust.

And Bram came to the sickening realization that they just might be too late.

The dust moved up the passage.

It was as if all the things that it had once been, all the countless plants, animals, and insects that had lived and died, were somehow alive again.

And obeying the wishes of A’Ranka.

The dust of the dead exploded up through the hole in the corridor floor with an excited moan, flooding the inside of the pyramid, eagerly seeking a means of escape from the confines of the ancient temple.

Through the opening broken in the side, through holes eroded in the stone over the millennia, the dust found its way out into the open air.

And from all over the planet, the dust of the dead answered the summoning of its mistress, tendrils of swirling particulate extending up from the earth like long skeleton fingers reaching.

Reaching up into the sky to take hold of the sun.

THE DUST OF THE DEAD THAT SWIRLED
around 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.