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

Cantara and the Wandering Jew did not return to New York. Instead, they caught a flight into Turkey, one of an advance team sent ahead to scout out and prepare a site at the base of the Armenian mountain range. The village they were heading for was deserted, the only attraction in the area a ruined fortress that may have been built by a dissident faction of the Knights Templars, a place some believed survivors of the order sought refuge after they were outlawed. What they had been doing this deep in enemy territory was a mystery lost in antiquity? And perhaps their long-ago presence here helped explain why the locals still believed the area was cursed. One could never tell with these local legends – too many of them had a grain a truth that had a habit of coming back to bite the unwary.

In the local dialect, the name meant ‘place where infidels come to die,’ and it had long since fallen off the maps. Nothing thrived here. Crops would not grow, herds sickened and died, and the water tasted like sulphur. It was here they planned to bring two full Choirs. The logistics were a nightmare. Wells would need to be dug and lines with metal sleeves buried, and until then, water would need to be trucked in with the supplies and munitions. And all on the QT.

Moving so many people into the area was another problem. Most were coming from Europe, or from close by in the Middle East or Asia. Air travel in the days after the Pope’s assassination, when so many governments had placed the Brotherhood on the Terrorist watch list, could be dangerous. Worse, a good third of their numbers were coming from North America. And then some sharp Turkish member of their organization had struck up the idea of an archaeological dig, and had begun forging and applying for documentation, permits and licences from the Turkish government. And suddenly an old airport was at their disposal, and passports and travel visas became available. It took care of the people and the food and water, but bringing in munitions and weapons was still a job for skilled smugglers.

At the brownstone, the entire household was packing and making preparations for the trip. Everyone would fly out of a different airport in small groups. April and Gwen, because of her daughter’s dual citizenship, would drive across the border and fly out of Montreal. Aiko and Alvaro would take a train from New York and fly out from one of the western cities. Angel was left to chaperon Crystal, Alex and Ember. Her hounds and her ‘monkey’ would be shipped in a specially constructed crate, and because of this, they were flying out on a private charter from New York. It was a crapshoot whether it would be X-rayed at either end, but what choice did they have. Demons and girl were bonded and could not live apart.

Ember didn’t like it. She didn’t see why they couldn’t sit in the cabin with them, after all, they were chartering a private plane. They would sit pretty if she asked them to – mostly. And they wouldn’t eat any of the instruments, maybe just give them a lick or two. Angel was only being an old fart. And Jean-Claude was even worse. Why would they want to eat a couple of smelly old wings?

She made Jean-Claude promise to sit with her puppies through the entire flight. Ghosts didn’t get cold, and they didn’t need air either. Was there air back there? How did they know? Had any of them ever flown in the cargo hold? She didn’t think so! By the time they had reached the airport and were sitting in the plane, she had worked herself into such a state that Alex had to give up her seat next to Angel. She shared a look with Crystal. Neither of them had ever been that fifteen.

They had run into a problem at the airport almost immediately. The flight crew were having problems loading the special crate and some of their other equipment into the cargo hold. Already anxious facing her first ever flight, Ember was now fretting over her puppies – two of whom could have used the forklift as a chew toy. Finally, Angel reached out and touched the back of her head. One moment she was in the middle of voicing the same question for the twentieth time, the next, she was slumped over sound asleep.

Alex laughed at Angel’s contrite look. “What did you do to her, the Vulcan nerve pinch?”

“I put her asleep,” Angel confessed.

“If she asked me one more time if I thought her puppies were safe,” Crystal added, rolling her eyes, “I was going to rip out her tongue and beat her with it.”

“It’s not her fault,” Angel defended. “The Hellhounds are bonded with her and grow anxious when she isn’t there. Their anxiety feeds back through the bond.”

“And our already messed little friend becomes even more messed,” Alex replied sardonically.

They settled in for a long flight. The chartered plane would take them to an airport in Eastern Turkey, where they had hired trucks to take their gear the rest of the way. The little regional airport, and several like it, would see an increase in traffic over the next week that might attract unwanted attention. It all depended on how much bribe money they needed to spread around, and how blind it would make the officials. It could not be helped. There were only so many points of entry into the area, and although some effort was being made to cover their movement as an archaeology dig, their numbers were hard to hide. Twenty-five hundred made it one hell of an archaeology team.

This was a major mobilization, the largest since World War II. As he looked down at the girl with her head pillowed on his shoulder, Angel wondered where it would all lead them. Mortals were so fragile. Their life spans were a mere eyeblink in the flow of time, here one moment and gone the next. He looked over at Alex, and she smiled at him, a dazzling display that let a bit of her soul shine through her eyes. Only that part of her that was immortal, and that part alone was why he existed. That part of them all, these girls, April, the members of the Brotherhood. That, until recently, had been the only part he needed to protect.

Within an hour, all three of his companions were asleep, and he was alone with his thoughts. And for the first time in his existence, he felt lonely. He looked up again, and Wandjina and the Archangel Uriel were sitting across from him. The archangel looked much as he had when Angel had last seen him – a human’s grandfather with a few rough edges.

“It is hard for our kind to live amongst then,” Wandjina commented. “Their moments are so strange and confusing compared to ours.”

Immortals dropped out in all kinds of ways, Helmand thought as he turned to the aboriginal. Some, like Angel, hid amongst the mortals. Others chose a manner of existence so far removed from Human existence that it defied the imagination. He did not know which of the two he pitied more.

“Not so different, maybe,” the Archangel replied. “Maybe this is but a moment you have not spent enough time appreciating. And you too much…”

“There is much to appreciate,” Angel replied, looking over at Alex as he spoke. “Of all His creations, they are capable of the greatest beauty and the greatest courage.”

“And the worst evil.”

The three immortals fell silent as they watched the three girls sleep.

“The Great Deceiver’s hand lies heavy on the world,” Helmand said, breaking the silence. “He will not let us interfere directly. Open warfare between our hosts would destroy everything, and He did promise Noah not to break the world again. However, some of us have found ways to help indirectly.”

Angel nodded. Worlds died when Angels and Demons collide.

“This item you seek. When this is over, you will see it is returned. Such things are too dangerous to remain in mortal hands.”

“I am not ready to return,” Angel confessed.

“Do this for me,” Helmand returned, “and when her time comes, you may carry her home.”

At Angel’s nod, they disappeared. He was alone again but no longer lonely….

When the plane touched down, it was at an airport that suddenly had the look and feel of a staging area for an invasion. The plane had barely rolled to a stop when the control tower directed it off the runway and to one side to make way for another incoming plane. Workers bearing flags scuttled about the tarmac, directing planes and trucks everywhere. It was night when they exited the plane, blinded by a field of lights. Everything was a hurried chaos orchestrated by men shouting in a dozen languages – Turkish, German, French, Egyptian and a dozen African languages. Crystal and the two girls were too tired to care. What was so fascinating about trucks and planes and sweaty men? Okay, maybe the sweaty men, but all the rest was noise and light and smelly exhausts. What they needed, what they most wanted at that moment was some food and a soft pillow far away from any of this.

Ember was making a nuisance of herself. Anxious about her puppies, Angel had to take her to supervise the unloading of their crate, and she was currently scolding some good-natured African who was driving the forklift. He carefully backed away from the plane with a crate large enough to house a jeep and set it onto the tarmac. It had barely settled onto the ground when Ember attacked it, fighting with its latches. Nodding thanks to the African, Angel moved to give her a hand before she managed to hurt herself. No matter how much she kicked it, something that large and that well-built was not going to open up on its own.

And the tongue and tail orgy began. First, Strawberry leapt on the girl, pinning her to the ground, where her brother added his black tongue to the fray. And then the imp came, riding on the wolfhound, scolding everyone and everything. And of course, all three dogs needed to stretch their legs after the long flight, and off they ran, scooting in and out of traffic with the six hard on their heels. It was all great fun.

Jean-Claude stood by the truck, watching it all with a tolerant smile. How many of these innocent moments would there be in the days ahead? Let them have their fun. Shaking his head sadly, he raised two fingers to his mouth and gave a shrill whistle. All three hounds stopped short. Turning their heads towards the sound, Huckleberry bayed and led the avalanche of fur back towards the truck. Just how insubstantial am I? It was the last thought Jean-Claude had before the three hounds leapt on him and pushed him back into Dreamtime.

Crystal and Alex were pissed with Ember by the time they arrived at the old fortress. True, it really wasn’t her fault – dogs would be dogs, even Hellhounds. Still, they had all been en route for almost twenty hours, and some of them required sleep. Oh, the hounds were happy, able to sleep anywhere they could curl up in. And they had all been watered and fed – Tangerine had even managed to break into a crate of grenades and had swallowed a couple. Crystal hoped he got the explosive shits and April made Ember clean it up. That would teach her to collect demons instead of dolls. Whatever happened to little girls and Barbies?

The fortress was not much better. Everywhere men and trucks and equipment were making enough noise to wake the dead. Some bright bulb had gotten a hold of two bulldozers and a backhoe and was now attempting to recreate the Great Wall of China. Ember wanted to know why they couldn’t be more quiet about it, and the other two glared at her. What already?

Gabriel allowed them a whole five hours sleep. Gwen, who had arrived two hours before them, got a whole six hours in and was almost good to go. Just let her keep her eyes closed for the next four hours. And don’t forget the coffee, every hour on the hour, cream no sugar. It was only two o’clock in the morning back home in New York, and if it wasn’t, it should have the decency to be! Beautiful Princesses did not get up before noon, and they definitely did not dig – unless her mother was April Moonshadow. Then it was either dig or spend the morning washing a mountain of dishes and peeling enough potatoes to feed Ireland. Why couldn’t her mother be normal?

The girls were all out working with Cantara, burying some of the mines her friend Elliot had cooked up for them He had also been dragooned into service and was currently supervising the setting up of his shop so he could make more of these monstrosities for them to bury. Who knew you could be drafted by a non-existent organization to fight creatures you were repeatedly told did not exist? You only had to ask six girls wielding shovels with sore backs and blistered hands. It happened more often than you would think.

Cantara was a bear to work with. This hole was not deep enough, that one was too close to the other. As if it mattered. That’s when the lecture began. None of them could remember who it was who muttered their sentiments out loud, but each was sure it was one of the others. Little surprises like this might make all the difference should the vampyres discover their little project, Cantara was explaining. And at great length, which apparently took all her concentration and left the others to do all the digging. And everyone else was working equally as hard. Only now, Ember thought it would be cooler to be driving one of the pieces of heavy equipment, like the plough thingy, or the one with the shovel thingy on the front.

“I don’t think they’d let you drive it,” Gwen teased, “if you don’t even know what it is called.”

“Men are touchy about their toys that way,” Cantara muttered, “besides, you’d probably knock down one of the mountains, and the Turks are even touchier about their mountains.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Ember retorted, and then thought better about it. “Well, maybe just that small one.

“You should have been a boy,” Crystal laughed.

“Why?” Ember demanded suspiciously. “I make an awesome girl.”

It was almost dusk when the girls were finally released from their chores. They were almost too tired to eat. Almost twelve hundred of the expected Choir soldiers had already arrived, and the ancient fortress was coming back to life. Two of the fallen walls had been rebuilt, and the mortar was drying in the late afternoon sun. The main building had been cleaned out, and the worse of the leaks in its roofs had been patched. The main room on the ground floor had been converted into an army-style cafeteria, where the girls were nodding over a bowl of stew.

“I can’t wait to get up into the mountains so I can sleep,” Gwen complained.

“No way,” Crystal teased. “You’re carrying me all the way. That’s what besties are for.”

“In your dreams,” Gwen shot back, “and not even then.”

Ember muttered something sleepily as she nodded towards her stew. Blueberry, who had his face planted in the bowl, bobbing for chunks of meat, chattered angrily at her. Even he did not like hair in his food.

“Speaking of carrying,” Alex asked, “who’s going to help me drag her back to her room?”

They never did make it to their rooms or their beds. As true dark fell, alarms rent the night. All around them, men rushed around, grabbing up crossbows, swords and rifles. One look and Gwen knew it was vampyres, and if that did not convince her, all three of Ember’s dogs had shot out the door with the suddenly awake girl hard on their heels. And wearily she picked up her vampyre zinger, charging it with every crystal she could reach – and with two hundred Wiccans on hand, that was quite a lot.

Outside it was chaos. Dark shapes leapt over the ramparts onto Brotherhood soldiers. A dozen cross bolts followed each down, two dozen cross wielding warrior monks falling on each breach. Crystal waded into the fray, chasing after Ember, vampyres exploding into dust as she fed. Ember had, of course, waded into the thickest fighting. She and her hounds danced with three vampyres. And it did not look like a dance she could win. Sighting her, Cantara and the Ghost Sisterhood raced to her rescue – three under a compulsion to do so, one just annoyed.

Angel led Alvaro and the Wandering Jew to join them. His swords dripping blood and ichor, he leapt into a wedge of vampyres. Alvaro and the Wandering Jew picked off those who spilled out from the collision. The two groups came together in time to see Strawberry rip the throat out of one vampyre, Ember and Tangerine take out a second. The third had made the mistake of leaping after Huckleberry and ended up with a face full of imp. The little devil had plucked out one of his eyes and was plopping it in his mouth like a cherry. Imps were playful and mischievous, incredibly hard to kill, and deadlier than their largest cousins. Torment was their niche, and nothing could make a death longer or more painful.

“Don’t you still say it’s a monkey,” Gwen complained, turning a little green around the gills as she lowered her vampyre zinger.

“He’s a battle monkey,” Ember replied proudly.

Looking out beyond the girls, Angel frowned. “That doesn’t look good.”

It looked like a shambling hill. Even in darkness, it seemed all muscular flank and claws. It had already wandered into the first of the minefields, and the large explosions were doing little more than irritating it.

“A guardian. Does anyone have any bright ideas?” Cantara asked.

“I don’t think even Strawberry could swallow that,” Ember replied with an audible gulp. She suddenly had to pee really bad.

A patch of light burst forth directly in its path. Still grinning, Wandjina studied the mound of flesh rolling towards him. Tilting his head sideways as if listening to some unseen conversation, he nodded.

“Can ghosts get squashed?” Ember asked, her eyes growing as round as saucers.

“Why?” Gwen asked. She should have known better, but she just had to know.

“Because Jean-Claude kicked that thing, and I think it felt it.”

They laughed. Not that they believed her, it was only that they could all picture him doing something like that. At the moment, they were more worried about Wandjina. Could gods or ancestral spirits get squashed? That dizzy aboriginal was not making any move to get out of the way. In fact, at that moment, Alvaro would have sworn he was planting a seed. While he realized Wandjina did not live in the here and now, even he had to realize getting run over by a mountain of flesh was a major owie. And gardening at a time like this? While the godlet was certainly too different to be diagnosed, even by the brightest psychiatrist, Alvaro would give even odds the little aboriginal was a loony as they came.

It came from a probability where plants had become the dominant species on Earth. An offshoot of the Venus Flytrap, the plants had evolved in the Jurassic period, and were ambulatory, with an animal’s cunning. In a flash, it went from a seedling to a rustling monstrosity. In less than a minute, it matched its intended prey in size and strength, vine-like tendrils snaking out in a thousand directions. Even if it managed to eat the shambling mountain of flesh, those watching had only one question. Who or what was going to save them from it?

The two behemoths met, and the battle began. The field before the fortress became a dangerous place for anything under a hundred tons. When mountains fought, mere mortals cowered with the mice. The vampyre guardian ripped at the plant like a mad farmer weeding a field. The Venus Flytrap sent dozens of tendrils out for each one it lost. There was a reason mammals were extinct on its home plane. Nothing was more resilient than a weed, and nothing faster growing than this particular species.

Five shoots wrapped themselves about its prey, thickening as it sank roots into flesh. Three snaked around the vampyres neck, holding it closer to its own sharp teeth. The vampyre’s struggles began to lessen. And then a large red tongue struck like a viper, spearing the vampyres neck. And both the battle and raid drew to a close. As a storm of dust blew from the dying vampyre, a bright light flashed, and the two monsters disappeared….