Pandora's Box: Book 3 of the Crystal Raven Series

“Go tell Crystal, you silly little girl,” Jean-Claude urged.

“No!” Ember huffed, stamping a foot. “They won’t believe me anyway!”

“Come,” Jean-Claude scolded. “A friend does not let harm come to another, no?”

“No!” Ember glared at him, realizing she had been tricked. “Even dead, you are a pain, you silly old man.”

“I am here,” Jean-Claude replied patiently, “and not in Heaven watching basketball. So how can I be dead? There is no such thing as ghosts, silly little girl.”

“Oh yeah!” Ember shot back. “Then how come you can walk through walls?”

“Mad skills,” Jean-Claude deadpanned.

Ember threw a shoe where he had disappeared. It bounced off the wall. Her hounds looked up, curious.

“I’d sick you on him,” Ember sighed, “but his old hide will probably give you the poops.”

Disgruntled, she stamped out of the room to find Crystal. It was bad enough that she had to share a room with a ghost, did she have to be haunted by a second one? It was hardly fair. She was so angry she could cry.

Even though she had saved Alvaro, she had still been grounded by April for a month. A month! And it was all that ghost’s fault. Worse, she could only take the dogs out if one of the adults came with her, not even to practice her katas. The last time had been with Alvaro, and now he was avoiding her. Remembering it now, her cheeks reddened with embarrassment.

“This is good,” Jean-Claude teased, “you spend too much time alone with your elephants, no?”

They were walking along the street towards the park; she, Alvaro, her three dogs, and of course, Jean-Claude. He followed her around more than the puppies.

“No!” Ember had screamed.

“No, what?” Alvaro asked gently, looking around to see what had upset her.

“That silly old ghost said I spend too much time alone with my puppies,” Ember stuck out her tongue at a patch of empty air. “And he called them elephants.”

Alvaro frowned, worried. Now she heard voices. Delusions were not healthy, even if April said children sometimes had imaginary friends. Voices and demons were not a good mix. “Is he here now?”

“Where else would he be?” She asked petulantly. “He would hardly be annoying me if he wasn’t. I wish he would haunt Aiko, he’d get a real kick out of her.”

“There are no such things as ghosts,” Alvaro began tentatively.

“What about Alex?” Ember countered. “She’s a ghost, and she’s real.

“She was never technically dead,” Alvaro explained patiently, “only trapped between two states of being.”

“Remind him about the night we spent in East Germany,” Jean-Claude suggested. “And a certain blonde-haired, blue-eyed fraulein.”

“A fraulein is a girl, right? Jean-Claude says to remind you about East Germany,” Ember sighed dramatically. “Oh, and wait until Aiko hears about that girl. Who was she anyway?”

“Someone a certain little Frenchman promised never to mention,” Alvaro returned darkly and would say no more. Neither would the silly old ghost. It just wasn’t fair.

Stalking upstairs, Ember burst into Crystal’s apartment without knocking. The succubus was reading some dusty old tome that had an annoying habit of flipping its own pages. And one of her bangs kept falling into her eyes no matter how she pinned it up. She was beginning to think they either had a mind of their own or Alex was pulling one of her pranks. She stared hard at the air in front of her, but it was no use. Alex was too busy giving Angel a hard time. Cantara and Gwen were talking quietly in the corner, and Aiko and Alvaro were sitting in a tangle on the other end of the couch, looking as if they had been wrestling. She suspected Aiko had tried to bite him again.

“The Brotherhood council is meeting in secret without you,” Ember announced with an excess of poor grace.

“How do you know?” Crystal demanded. “Have you been sneaking out again?”

“Let’s just say I’ve been having the same nightmare and leave it at that,” Ember replied sardonically, jumping a foot a Jean-Claude pinched her back.

“Where?” Gwen asked.

“At the Academy,” Ember sighed.

“I just came from the school,” Gwen objected. “There’s no one there. Well, almost no one.”

“One door down from Brendan’s old room,” Ember replied, rubbing her back. That one was a little too low for comfort. “Reach up above the light, there’s a lever. It opens the door to the secret council room.”

Crystal frowned.

“We better go,” Alvaro said into the silence, righting himself and Aiko. “I’ll be back soon, my love. And don’t worry, Crystal and Cantara will keep me safe.”

Still doubting Ember, Crystal led the way towards the academy. Ember’s story was too improbable, and even if Alvaro thought Ember was learning things from her two demon dogs and anthropomorphizing their voices into a ghost of Jean-Claude, could they ignore how easily she found Alvaro. Still, how could they trust anything she learned from a demon? And why would Jean-Claude haunt Ember anyway? Why not her, or Gwen, or even April? It did not make any sense. What was so different about Ember than any of the others? They could all see demons to some degree, all had the same training. The only difference Crystal could see was that Ember had once been bitten by a vampyre, and oh, she had those two wild garbage disposals that ate anything in sight like a pair of rabid goats. Alvaro had to be right.

At the academy, she led the way down into the basement. The building was never empty these days, and it wasn’t a place she would have chosen to hold a secret anything. As they passed Brendan’s old room, Crystal felt a stab of grief. It seemed like ages since she had first confronted him in that room when she had last been happy and not full of this rage and hatred that consumed her current life. Back before her memories of her past lives and the centuries-old war had returned to her, and she was once again the succubus who had for centuries led the Brotherhood in its war against the demons and the vampyres. Back when she was only a little girl crushing on Jean-Claude.

It was quiet down here. She didn’t see where the Brotherhood council could be meeting and turned to share a look with her companions. Had Ember sent them all on a wild goose chase? Was this her way of getting back at them for getting grounded? She entered the room Ember and her ghost had led them to, shrugging. It was a utility closet, barren and sparse. If this was Ember’s idea of a joke, she would kick her around the brownstone – her, her fury monstrosities, and her invisible friend.

“She said there was a lever above the light fixture,” Alvaro reminded her. “Let me look. I’m taller than you.”

The overhead fixture was a rectangular fluorescent unit. Up in behind was what looked like a lever-operated gas valve, a shutoff. Expecting it to be old and stiff, Alvaro put too much force on it and fell back into the women. The lights flickered and went out. In the darkness, a loud click and hum filled the small room.

Behind them, a section of the wall opened. Light spilled out into the room, and as they turned, a set of stairs faced them. Crystal looked at Alvaro, raising a questioning eyebrow before turning to the stairs. Ember was doing this too often. How could she know? Crystal had been coming to this school for several years now, and she and no-one she knew of had ever heard of this room. So why Ember? And if she was right about what waited for them at the end of this flight of stairs, it was a betrayal she could not forgive. Sensing her anger, Alvaro reached out a hand to forestall her, but she was already beyond his reach. He pitied whoever was hiding downstairs.

Crystal was a thunderhead of pent up violence when she burst into the room. Its occupants turned with a start. An argument fell off in mid-sentence, and the silence stretched on.

“I had thought we had settled this,” Crystal seethed. “We specialists are to have full seats on this council.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” April apologized. “I did not realize none of you had been informed of this meeting until after I arrived. In fact, Brother Jonas Fallon was about to explain why when you arrived.”

“We specialists will no longer be treated like second class citizens,” Crystal leaned her fists on the table, her eyes red and threatening. “The Church and the Brotherhood can no longer offer us protection. If you are not willing to accept us as equal allies, we will take out skills and set up on our own.”

“Do we have to vote on this again?” April warned. “Consensus was met. I will not have anyone try to hijack this council. No quorum will be considered met without the presence of the full council at the time of the vote.”

“April is right,” Gabriel added. “We agreed to give the specialists three seats, the same as any other group.”

“This meeting is Brotherhood business,” Brother Jonas complained. “Their presence is not needed.”

“Why was this meeting called anyway?” Miss Sweider complained. “I still have to find permanent quarters for over a hundred families.”

“To choose a new leader for the Brotherhood,” Brother Jonas snapped. “I’d think that would be obvious.”

“April is the leader,” Crystal replied. “Well, isn’t she?”

There was a moment’s silence. No one had really thought about it, they had all just taken her orders since Jean-Claude’s death. Gabriel broke it. “Crystal is right.”

“Of course she is,” Sister Harmony snapped querulously.

“It should be voted on to make it official,’ Mr. Rontgen sighed.

When the vote was called, only Brother Jonas and his two allies on the council voted nay or abstained. His faction was in bad odour with the others after the assassination of the Pope. Brother Jonas could only look on with a sour pout.

“Well, if that silliness is settled,” April began, “can we all get back to our work? I have twelve hundred people to settle in…”

“Since we are all here,” Crystal interjected. “We should talk about our plans. We need one more piece to complete the weapon, and we now know where it is.”

“Really?” Alvaro teased.

“What we need will be in Pandora’s Box,” Crystal explained.

“Pandora’s Box!” Brother Jonas scoffed. “Why not Jack’s beanstalk or Rumplestiltskin’s gold?”

“Pandora’s Box is real,” Crystal shot back. “I’ve seen it!”

“Where?” Brother Jonas demanded. “You are a child? Where have you ever been?”

Crystal laughed low in her throat. “I was old when your earliest ancestor was popping a squat in the trees. I have been everywhere at some point in time, crossing the land bridge across the Bering Sea ahead of the mammoths, in every mountain, and desert and plain. I was there when the first camel was domesticated. Do not try to match experience or wisdom with me, little boy.”

“He makes a point, Crystal,” Angel rebuked. “Pandora’s Box is only a fable.”

“Not entirely,” Crystal countered. “The box exists. How it works and what it contains differs for each finder, and it is nothing like the story you all know. Pandora’s Box will contain whatever you most need and also your greatest desire. These are not always the same thing. Choose wisely, and you find hope. Choose wrong, and your foolishness will bring disaster.”

“And where will we find it?” Cantara asked, knowing and not liking the answer.

“On the Eastern slope of Mount Arafat,” Crystal replied. “The only way in or out is through a small village. A party will need to climb up to a temple about three-quarters of the way up.”

“And if the enemy were to take this village,” Gabriel grumped, “whoever goes up will be trapped on the mountain.”

“We will need to move at least a choir and its support staff into the area,” Alvaro commented.

“I’m just a little curious as to what you hope to find?” April prompted.

“It will be a blade about fourteen inches long,” Crystal explained, “capable of killing my father.”

“The fragment from Archangel Michael’s sword,” Angel gasped, suddenly remembering.

Drake’s collar bone was broken. Several others sported injuries, two of them unable to continue the fight. If fight, you could call it. He had yet to see any sign that they had hurt or even weakened the water elemental in this one-sided brawl.

The thunder that rent the night knocked them all flat. For a moment, even the water was driven back by its sheer volume. A pinprick of light became a searing beam too bright to look into. Wider and wider, it tore a hole through the mass of clouds, chasing the darkness to the four horizons. Vaguely they could make out a figure, winged and wearing armour, drifting down from the heart of that light. A massive sword took shape, larger than the demon, a long jagged chip missing from near its tip.

“Now that’s what I call stomping on a mosquito with a nuke,” Angel breathed.

“Who is it?” Drake asked.

“He is the Archangel Michael.”

The figure grew too bright for any of those save Angel to watch. He landed on ground no longer covered with water, separating the water demon from the lake and the source of power it had crafted for itself. Desperately, the demon sent tendrils out in every direction, seeking to reconnect with the water. In one final act of desperation, it drove into the earth, seeking a hidden spring. Michael’s sword dropped like a collapsing mountain. It clove through the dirt, through the rock, and through the demon. A geyser of water and the death scream of the demon rose into the night sky.

Michael stepped back. Nodding to Angel and bowing to the bushmen, in a blink, he was gone.

“That’s it!” Jaime complained. “That thing mops the lake with us, and that blighter comes down and takes it out without working up a sweat.”

“We wore it down for him,” Drake wheezed. His bloody shoulder was killing him.

The paling sky was spreading, driving the clouds apart as it took over a larger portion of the sky. Looking up, Angel frowned.

“It’s almost dawn.” He instructed. “I’ll fly Alvaro back to the RV before sunrise. You others come along as best you can and meet us there.”

“Bloody hell!”