The Brimstone Network (Brimstone Network Trilogy) Read Online Free

operators caught sight of him and seemed to sit taller, their voices taking on a sharper authority.
    “I’d say that things seem to be under control,” Tobias said, surveying the chamber.
    “And I would have to agree,” the Brimstone leader replied, feeling the young agent’s eyes upon him. He should trust them to do their jobs. “It’s late,” Elijah said to Tobias. “I think I’ll go home and get some sleep.”
    “An excellent idea, sir.” The young man placed his hand on Elijah’s back, gentle pressure pushing him toward the door.
    And then Elijah saw it, a flash of light in the corner of his eye, followed by the sound of static.
    One of the monitors had gone off-line.
    He stopped and stared at the screen.
    “It’s nothing,” Tobias said, and the pressure on Elijah’s back grew stronger. “Technical difficulty. It’ll be fixed in no time.”
    But Elijah did not move; that roiling sense of unease was back, and it had intensified.
    Is this it? Has the storm finally arrived?
    He watched the operators for a moment and caught an expression of confusion on one agent’s face. The Brimstone leader strode toward him. “What seems to be the problem, Agent?” Elijah asked, trying to keep the tension from his voice.
    “I’ve lost contact,” Agent Renfield explained, his eyes growing larger as Elijah loomed above him. “He was finishing his report and suddenly he was gone.”
    Elijah looked around. Other operators appeared to be having the same problem. A glitch in the communications systems? Perhaps, a technical problem?
    No, he knew it was something more.
    He scanned the room again and his eye caught Tobias, still standing by the door, watching him. He looked … disappointed.
    A small part of him had wanted the young agent to be right, that he was just being paranoid, overbearing, but now …
    “Commander Stone, you might want to hear this,” another operator called to the officer in charge. Her face wore a familiar expression. Elijah had seen that look on other agents in the field, and had even worn it himself.
    Fear.
    “Put it on speaker,” the commander barked, his eyebrows furrowed.
    “I’m under attack,” cried a voice above the sound of static. “Repeat, I am under …” But the agent’s voice became lost in the hissing white noise.
    And the roaring shrieks of something inhuman.
    “Open communications to all agents,” Elijah bellowed, his voice booming across the room as he grabbed a headset from the operator nearest to him.
    “This is Elijah Stone,” he said with great authority. “Abandon your posts immediately and proceed to the safe houses before—”
    The opened communication channels were suddenly filled with the tortured screams of Brimstone agents, and the horrible, unearthly sounds of the things that attacked them.
    This is it , Elijah thought, staring at the stunned faces of his communications officers.
    The storm had arrived.
    And it was a deluge.

2.
BRAM FELT AS THOUGH HE’D BEEN INJECTED with liquid fire.
    Never getting any easier, or hurting any less, the fire spread through him. He felt his body begin to change, but in an instant that felt like hours, it was over. He had given in fully to the transformation, and a voice in the back of his mind wondered what the big deal had been about.
    Bram lifted his head from the ground, just in time to watch a new barrage of blows head for his back.
    But this time, they didn’t strike him.
    The staffs passed through Bram’s body as if he were smoke, striking the stone floor upon which he knelt.
    “Satisfied?” Bram asked, a smile tickling the corners ofhis mouth. He reached down, consciously making his hand solid so that he would be able pick up the weapon that he’d dropped, and leaped up, his feet floating six inches above the ground.
    The monks were startled by the sudden transformation.
    “What’s the matter?” he asked them. “Isn’t this what you wanted me to do?” He hated the sound of his voice when he became