Specter Rising (Brimstone Network Trilogy) Read Online Free Page B

the people of earth and the supernatural warrior race.
    A treaty that had resulted in the marriage of his father to a princess of the Specter royal family.
    And Bram’s birth.
    He considered asking Stitch about the photo, or maybe even the Archivist down in records, as he closedthe book and placed it on the side of his desk.
    Bram liked the photo book and what it had captured, and began to think that maybe his tenure as the Brimstone Network commander should be recorded as well.
    A smile found its way onto his face. Maybe he could ask all of his friends to participate. He’d give them each a digital camera and . . .
    He noticed the smell before actually seeing the demon.
    It emerged from a patch of darkness beside the file cabinet where he’d found the photo album. Bram wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen a beastie quite like this one. It was short, no taller than Bogey, and its flesh was the color of an oil slick, reflecting different colors as it slid from the cover of darkness. But the strangest thing about it was its swollen belly.
    Bram tensed.
    But the beast simply smiled widely, rubbing its spindly fingers across the taut flesh of it glowing stomach.
    “Barnabas sends his regards,” the creature growled.
    And before Bram could react, the invader’s stomach detonated in a deafening explosion, and the office was filled with hungry fire.
    ***
    T otal chaos.
    Stitch dropped his coffee mug down upon the table in reaction to the sound of destruction.
    An explosion, somewhere in the facility.
    Alarms sounded as warning lights flashed in the ceilings of the winding corridors.
    He was moving quickly, sidestepping nervous agents frozen in place, fear upon their faces. Stitch knew what they were wondering.
    Is it happening again? Is the Brimstone Network under attack?
    “What’s going on?” asked a voice now running along side of him.
    He glanced over to see that it was Emily.
    “I don’t know,” he said. “An explosion of some kind.”
    In mid-stride she started to change, shucking off her clothes and skin to assume the form of the wolf.
    “Follow me,” she said, nose twitching.
    They took the stairs, her nose bringing them to the upper level, to where the commander of the Brimstone Network kept his office.
    “Where’s Bram?” Stitch asked, pushing aside a door that hung loosely from a broken hinge.
    “Not sure,” the wolf answered beside him. The sprinklers were raining water down upon them. The air was thick with the smell of smoke. “He might’ve gone back to his office after he ate. I was on the phone, I didn’t . . .”
    Stitch bounded down the corridor toward the office. There were agents stumbling around in the smoke, their features stained with smears of ash.
    “Get them out of here,” Stitch commanded, taking a moment to escort the dazed agents toward the waiting Emily.
    Alone, he turned his attention to Bram’s office. The doorway was nothing more than a jagged hole now, the frame, and even part of the wall, blasted away from the force of the explosion.
    Stitch did not hesitate, delving into the smoke and heat to crawl across the rubble of the Commander’s office space.
    “Bram!” Stitch called, squinting through the shifting smoke. “Are you in here? Bram!”
    The ground and walls were horribly charred, the desk and furniture reduced to awful, blackened shapes. The heat was intense, but he moved inside farther, searching for signs of their leader.
    “Abraham, it’s me!”
    Squatting down below the smoke, he searchedthe floor. Stitch held his breath so as not to take in the thick, noxious fumes, desperate to stay within the office—now an inferno—to be certain that his friend was nowhere to be found.
    There was a shape upon the floor, near the burnt remains of what was once a file cabinet, a shape that at one time could have been human.
    Stitch felt his powerful heart leap painfully in his chest.
    “No,” he said, his breath escaping in an emotional gasp.
    There was movement beside