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

Aiko woke up with a hurricane blowing across the acid in her gut. She barely made it out of the tent before vomiting in the fire Gwen was busy trying to light. Gwen’s angry look turned shrewd and calculating as she studied the vampyre. Something was not right, and even the flu did not last this long. If she gave it some real thought, Aiko had been getting sick like this every morning for almost two weeks – and wasn’t that early for morning sickness? She was too young to have seen it in any of her friends, pregnancy was still a few years in their future, and Academy cadets were too aware and responsible not to take precautions.

“How long since you had a visit from Aunt Flo?” Gwen asked pointedly.

“I don’t have any family, let alone an Aunt Flo,” Aiko replied, confused, and promptly vomited at Gwen’s feet.

“Your monthly visitor who brings you cramps and bloating,” Alex offered as she climbed out of the tent and into the conversation.

As Gwen helped the vampyre clean up, she said quietly, “this is morning sickness, Aiko. You’re pregnant.”

“But I’m always so careful,” the vampyre complained.

“What kind of birth control were you using?” Gwen asked. “Most are not as effective as they lead you to think.”

The vampyre looked at her even more confused. “When I take a lover, I simply control my cycle. How else would I do it?”

Gwen raised an eyebrow. “Can all vampyres do that or just you?”

“All.”

“Talk about taking control of your biology,” Crystal cried. “Woot! You go, girl. Course, it doesn’t seem to have worked out too well.”

“What’s all this noise about?” Cantara grumped as she climbed out of the tent.

“Aiko’s preggo in her eggos,” Alex retorted.

“Well, don’t look at me,” Cantara complained, “I barely tolerate the girl.”

Aiko hissed at the djinn, not at all impressed. Her companions laughed, and Crystal gave her a playful shove. Aiko promptly deposited the rest of yesterday’s meal on Crystal’s boots.

Breakfast was a boisterous affair with Gwen trying to do the Wiccan version of an ultrasound and Aiko refusing to sit still. She swatted at the crystals several times, and absolutely rebelled at the revolting tea the human girl kept trying to force down her throat. She would rather vomit several times a day than swallow that vile concoction. The mere smell of it made the vampyre want to heave, and adding blood to it did not make it any sweeter. And the teasing of the other three girls only added insult to injury. Gwen absolutely glared at Cantara, who was old enough to know better than to say or even suggest something like that. Wait until she told her mother!

Cantara quickly had enough of the game of ‘bait the vampyre.’ It was time to start out again. At the first sign of mischief, they would stop and build another Gremlin trap – and certainly before they did any climbing. Gwen and Alex had been working on something with what they had on hand and had been collecting the tinfoil from their food wrapping, as well as rocks and twigs along the path. More rocks than twigs this high in the mountains and still, the girls were satisfied with what they had found. Cantara hoped it did not involve explosives and avalanches. At this point in her life, she could definitely do without avalanches, and she wasn’t all that fond of explosions either.

Ember was unusually quiet all day. She kept close to one of the other girls whenever the path allowed as if she were anxious about something. Having become the favourite victim of a pack of gremlins, Cantara did not blame her for feeling paranoid, knowing the true cause of her unease was the absence of her hounds. There was a link, an emotional bond between the girl and hounds that at times became an addictive craving. It was hard for those who cared about the girl to separate her emotions from those of the hounds, and the djinn imagined even harder for the girl. Fifteen, she understood from April, and some of the other human women she had spoken with was hard enough for a girl without having to deal with the emotions of a pack of baby demons.

Cantara exchanged a troubled look with Crystal. Despite April’s assurances that the girl was safe, neither immortal had ever seen demons and humans mix without tragic results. And they doubted Ember was the exception to the rule. She was a mere newborn next to the thousands of years between them, barely fifteen. Wisdom was a long road away, maybe an unobtainable goal, and yet, so far, the three demons had done no real damage – if you were not a vampyre or an inanimate object. Like, say, one of Alex’s favourite shoes. That was par for the course with demons. They could feign innocents, sometimes for decades to make the betrayal and the damage to their human prey all the more brutal.

A shower of pebbles began falling from a clear sky, and the women knew the gremlins were back with a vengeance. The stone rain hurt. Oh, not enough to cause any real injury, but when a marble-sized stone bounced off an exposed portion of their anatomies, it left a reminder. Aiko, already in a foul mood, was hissing. If she could get her hands on one of the slippery little buggers, she would make its death slow and agonizing, and she said as much with every third step. By the time the second pebble bounced off her nose, she was actively seeking a victim.

“We should stop when we reach that pile of boulders,” Cantara suggested. “You two can start working on your toy.”

“I was thinking it would make a good mobile for a crib,” Gwen commented.

“If you don’t want your kid surviving until the morning,” Alex threw in.

“Oh,” Gwen blushed, “I forgot. That is really nasty, isn’t it?”

“What?” Ember and Crystal demanded.

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Alex replied primly.

Reaching the shelter of the boulders was easier said than done. The closer they came, the larger the stones falling from the sky became, and soon they were all sporting painful welts. Aiko’s were not the only pair of red eyes amongst them. There was no worse feeling than helpless rage, and with these filthy djinn rats, the greater the reaction they got, the more they tormented you.

“When my puppies come back,” Ember sniffled, “I’m gonna have them eat every one of these rats. In very small bites!”

“Don’t worry,” Gwen assured her, “these critters are about to be spanked.”

They sat for a moment to have a drink and to enumerate and commiserate over their wounds. And then the two girls set to work on their mysterious project. While Gwen stretched a series of stings and wires to span two boulders, using pitons as anchors, Alex began to remove the batteries and wire from all the spare flashlights. Crystal always suspected they were there for another reason other than to weigh down her pack, she had pictured shadow puppets. None of the others understood electricity and electronics like Alex, but suspected there was an important difference between a power source in series and one in parallel. Current, not voltage kills, and in parallel, the current of these nine-volt batteries became fatal to a three-pound pest. These gremlins were about to learn the hard lesson not to mess with a Wiccan.

A lot of foil and wire went into their creation. Two IPods sacrificed their existence in its construction, and as one of them had belonged to Crystal, she felt she had more than a right to complain. At least a little. It was the first and only one she had owned, and it contained some kickass music. And Justin Bieber was way so cool, so quit laughing Miss Mylie-Cyrus-fan. So not cool!

It was done. Gwen was right, it did look like a ghetto baby mobile. Lots of shiny things, even a few blinking LEDs that you could see from feet away. And still, the two girls wouldn’t say exactly what it would do, only kept promising they would see. Satisfied, Cantara nodded and led the way towards a distant cliff they would soon be climbing. Even she wanted to stop and play with it, at least a little. It was nearly a two hundred foot vertical climb to the next plateau where they would spend the night. Two or three hours tops if they could climb unhindered. Twice that long if they had to contend with falling rocks and chewed ropes. Hopefully, the little toy they had left behind would capture and hold the gremlins’ attention.

Today, Cantara would lead the climb, and Aiko would anchor. Despite the content and secretive smiles of Gwen and Alex, she did not think they had seen the last of the gremlins. These creatures were like a plague or a nightmare that never ended – harder to get rid of than cockroaches. When you thought they are gone, they’re back, and you’re neck-deep in trouble and pain. And they would bedevil a victim into their grave, making it as long and painful a journey as only a demon could.

The climb was strangely peaceful. It gave Cantara the willies. Every time she looked up, she involuntarily flinched, waiting for a boulder to make her cliff-kill or a djinn pancake. Nothing. What had those two evil girls done? You had to be evil to out nasty a gremlin. Oh, a gremlin trap worked, and sometimes quite well, but never this well. Cantara would have to content herself with waiting until they reached the top of the cliff, and then she would get the secret from those two if she had to beat it out of them. The hard way. Please, let it be the hard way.

Gabriel had been shot and once had been bitten by a demon, but had never felt anything as painful as having his mind flayed. He did not know how long he could keep this up, or even how he had managed to hold out this long. The rags that remained of his clothes were soaked with sweat, and it smelled like he might have pissed himself. With torture, always a possibility. How bad did the pain have to be for him to have lost control of his bodily functions? He had screamed his throat raw, and could still hear the echoes of those screams ringing in his ears. Unless he was still screaming. Had he become unhinged from the pain already?

The sudden absence of pain was blessed relief. He had lived with it for so long now he did not remember a time when it did not hurt. Now the anticipation of its return was torture in itself. How long had he been here? The last thing he remembered before waking up in this room was swimming to shore after lightning had sunk their ship. Something had struck him down the moment he had waded to shore – he still had water running into his eyes and had seen nothing.

The last, what? Three days? He had no contact with the world outside these four walls, no frame of reference to give him a clue to the passage of time, not even the bare light bulb that never went out. Time was meaningless when that eyeless creature was manipulating the pain and pleasure centres of his brain. Eternity and agony were all that existed, searing pain that, at times, reached every nerve in his body.

A tormentor demon. Where had the Questioners gotten a hold of such a creature? Vulnerable because it was both deaf and blind, they barely ever left Hell. It fed on the pain and fear it inflicted on its victims, and its ability to access the mind of its victims made it one of the most powerful demons. Even the lords of Hell had to fear it, and legend said this was why Hsatan had stricken them blind and deaf – fearing, or perhaps jealous of their power.

An unseen door to his cell opened. He heard two sets of footsteps but could see nothing. Voices cut through his pain-dulled senses.

“This one still fights us,” one of his tormentors complained. “He is much stronger than I had anticipated.”

“He is only a mortal,” the Dark Angel hissed. He hated how this one’s voice sounded in his head and in the heads of everyone in the same room. “He must break soon. We have our work to complete.”

A secret smile stretched Gabriel’s parched lips. So he had not told them anything yet. It renewed his resolve to hold out until death released him. If it ever would. The Tormentor demon did no actual physical damage to its victim’s body. Still, maybe his heart would give out…..

The women stood on the lip of the plateau, watching the rocky draw below. They had made their camp a couple of hundred yards further into the plateau, where a peak and the broken rocks at its skirt provided some shelter. It and their half-finished meal lay forgotten as they watched the electric flashes from below.

“A ghetto bug zapper,” Ember breathed, latching onto the fur of Huckleberry’s scruff to prevent both from falling as the valley floor below was lit up with another flash of lightning.

“Yep,” Alex replied proudly. “It was Gwen’s idea.”

“Well,” Gwen demurred. “Only some of it. You figured out how to make it work.”

Attracted by the tinfoil and bobbles, and the complexity of its design, the gremlins drew around the trap to play. Every time one of them touched one of the electrified parts, enough amps went through them to light up their small bodies. There was perhaps not enough voltage or amps to kill them, but the repeated jolts were beginning to cook their flesh. Like moths to the flames, these tiny imps were irresistibly drawn to the Gremlin trap until the damage left them too broken to move. And then they became sport for their fellow imps, who mercilessly threw their limp bodies into the mobile until they were crispy little critters.

“Slow,” Cantara commented, “but effective. I like it.”

“Well,” Crystal yawned. “I’m tired, and it’s getting cold. I’m going back to camp.”

“Do you think I can reheat my beans?” Ember asked. “I’m still hungry, and they’re cold.”

“I doubt that blue nuisance has left a bean untouched,” Cantara shrugged. “Might as well cook something up to keep us warm.”

Not long afterwards, the girls and the hounds crawled into their makeshift shelter and fell asleep. All things being equal, tomorrow at midday, they would reach the temple. They all wanted to get a good night’s sleep, and thanks to Gwen and Alex’s Gremlin Zapper, it looked like they would.

Ember felt like she had barely closed her eyes when someone shook her awake. She swatted at a non-existent hand, and it persisted.

“What?” She complained sleepily.

“Tell your silly hounds to come with me,” Jean-Claude urged.

“But they’re keeping me warm, Jean-Claude,” Ember complained.

“Gabriel is in trouble, silly girl,” Jean-Claude insisted. “You want to help your friend, no?”

“But they’re scared of vampyres, you silly old man,” Ember wailed.

“They were born and bred to hunt vampyres, you silly little girl,” Jean-Claude cajoled.

“What is it?” Alex demanded sleepily.

“Jean-Claude wants to take my puppies to rescue Gabriel,” Ember retorted. “Why can’t he rescue himself, he’s an old fart?”

“Just let him take the puppies so we can all get some sleep,” Cantara grumped.

“Oh, all right,” Ember relented.

Jean-Claude nodded as he patted her head, and then pinched her back for good measure as he and the hounds disappeared. This new generation should know better than to sass their elders. This being a ghost had its perks. Her outraged squawk still echoed in his ears as he and the hounds rematerialized in a null fortress. At his side stood Wandjina, still wearing his lopsided grin. A leftover from some metaphysical war in the past, the null fortress and its two sisters sat outside of creation itself. Only a powerful planar traveller could reach it, so those using this one had not bothered to set wards or guards.

They were not expecting to be interrupted.

The room they materialized in was bare, its only furnishing was a single chair to which Gabriel was tied. Four figures loomed before him, and they turned at the intrusion.

“Bring Gabriel to here,” Jean-Claude instructed the hounds.

The Dark angel moved to stop them – a mistake. Hell Hounds were killing machines, bred to hunt down and punish those who betrayed the Lords of Hell. They cast no shadow for the Shadow Slayers to attack, were immune to the wiles of the Mind Flayers, and to most venoms and poisons. And having both the innate ability to temporally transport, and both training from Aiko and Ember, they were too swift and cunning for the Dark Angel’s blades. Strawberry ripped one of his wings off as he slashed at Tangerine, and when he whirled to face the new threat, she was gone. Huckleberry and the imp charged in as the Dark Angel turned to strike at Tangerine again. Both bit him on what Jean-Claude could only describe as his nether regions. Confused, Strawberry finally dropped her prize and took up the wolfhound by the scruff of the neck. All three disappeared with Gabriel.

The Dark Angel turned his rage on the last two intruders. Jean-Claude held a crumbling clay tablet in his hand. A covenant treaty, like the Ten Commandments, it was a celestial contract. This one held these creatures on Earth beyond the strictures set in place by God. How the church had come to create this pact Jean-Claude could not say? It had come about hundreds of years before his birth, but since learning of it, he had sworn to break it – on every plane of his existence.

“The covenant is broken,” Jean-Claude said mildly.

“You cannot do this,” the Dark Angel hissed.

“Oh, but I did not, silly demon,” Jean-Claude retorted. “You did when you interfered with a mortal.”

“No harm came to him,” the Dark Angel seethed.

“Mais, non?” Jean-Claude shook his head sadly. “Dozens came to harm while you delayed him. Deciding Brotherhood policy is not your place. We no longer require your services.”

The impact of his words finally registered. With horror, they realized they were about to be delivered gift wrapped to the Master they had betrayed. Without the power, to planar travel for another hundred years or more, there was no escape from the Null fortress. The babble of their denials rang in his ears as Jean-Claude and Wandjina returned to Creation. The Inquisition was at last ended.