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

It was a miserable and cranky campsite that rose with the dawn. None of them had slept well, no-one except Ember, who had enough sense not to say anything, even if she had not found the ground too hard, or the night too cold. She was happy her boys were still with her because the long, dark tunnel that stretched out before them looked a little frightening. The light of their torches barely penetrated the darkness, only far enough to reveal the skeleton of some long-dead explorer. Gwen was mad at her when Crystal had discovered what she was staring at, which was hardly fair. How was Ember to know it was the body of Crystal’s lover, Vincenzo? She hadn’t even been alive three hundred years ago.

Crystal insisted that they bury Vincenzo before she would take another step. And since they could not dig through solid stone, it meant an hour of collecting rocks for a cairn. And for some reason, Cantara blamed Ember for the delay. Really! She wasn’t the one insisting they bury a collection of old bones. And at least her boys were helping, once they understood to look for rocks and not chew on the bones. After all, dogs were really good at burying bones, weren’t they? Far better at it than djinn, who stood around glaring at everyone and demanding they speed it up. She could at least get out of the way while they were lugging all these heavy stones, and lifting a few herself would make things go a little faster.

Ember really didn’t want to chill with any of these grumpy faces. Even Aiko was miserable, and when that girl wanted to put on her bitch, the world better lookout. They were slightly better once they got all their gear packed and had started off. All except Gwen, who kept complaining about spider webs no one else seemed to see or feel. Her and her spider conspiracies. How sweet could the blood of someone as sour as she be? One bite and every spider in the world would keel over, spider lips puckered for all eternity. Did spiders have lips? Face it, Ember, she told herself, you are having a really tough morning.

Cantara, who had the most spelunking experience, took the lead and Alex the rear. At least this once, Ember did not have to worry about her hounds wandering off – they did not want to go near the djinn any more than she did. How could someone as old as her be so snotty? Wasn’t that Ember’s job, after all, she was the one who was fourteen – almost fifteen? Ember had been excited when they had reached the tunnel, the end of their quest, and was puzzled why she seemed to be the only one who still was, well thrilled. It meant that soon they could look for the last piece of their weapon and then head home – or the closest thing to a home that they had in these mountains.

The tunnel was really spooky. It wasn’t really dark. Kind of more unlit, like a room before the sun came up. And no matter how deep they moved into the mountains, the light level never changed. It wasn’t natural for a cave. Weird, right? Of course, she had learned in class that some caves had phosphorous lichen that provided light, only Ember wasn’t sure what lichen looked like, and wasn’t about to ask one of her companions. A bunch of miserable bitches. They should learn to lighten up and get into the spirit of the adventure. They were surely ruining it for her. And they were all creeping about, frowning, and acting like the roof would cave in on them at any moment. Look at it! Massive fitted blocks of solid – well, some kind of rock. Satan’s farts couldn’t bring that shit down.

Ember began to mutter to her hounds. No matter how she tried to convince herself that her companions’ attitude was responsible for the oppressive atmosphere in the tunnel, there was something about the place that gave her the willies. She felt that someone was watching her, and every time she looked around, her companions’ eyes were on the wall or the floor or the ceiling, anywhere but on her. It made her skin crawl. Like when some creeper was staring at your cleavage, and you couldn’t catch him at it, you just had that uncomfortable feeling. Or maybe it was some ghost checking out the junk in her trunk, and that put goosebumps on top of her willies.

“Why are you always talking to your dogs?” Alex complained. “It’s not like they can understand you.”

“Of course they can,” Ember shot back. “My boys are smart. Besides, they listen to me.”

“Shhh!” Cantara snapped. “Do you want to let everyone on the mountain know where we are?”

“There’s nothing here but dust and bats,” Alex complained.

“Maybe some bat poop,” Ember threw in with a smirk.

Cantara glared at them, and they shut up. She could feel eyes on her, knew something was here waiting for her but could not sense it. It was something new, something she had never encountered before in all her years with the Brotherhood or before when she wandered this strange world alone hunting vampyres. And anything new in this world was dangerous. It was funny how it all reminded her of those early days here on Earth, stumbling around in the shadows looking for knowledge of an enemy few on this plane knew existed. Cantara felt now, as then, totally out of her element and alone in her ignorance. And it left her feeling edgy.

Crystal pushed her way up past Ember and the hounds to the front of the column. The tunnel had been shorter the last time she was through here, that much she was sure of, and she said as much. Cantara looked at her funny.

“The passage is running straight,” the djinn offered.

“I realize that at my age, memory is an iffy thing,” Crystal replied sardonically. “Last time, we made it through on one torch, and our flashlights are dying. And I put fresh batteries in mine this morning, and so did Alex.”

“Must be a bad batch of batteries,” Cantara shrugged. What could she say? There hadn’t been a single branching since they had entered the cave.

“Well,” Gwen offered, “let’s swap out the batteries in our flashlights. I wouldn’t want to be caught in here in the dark.”

Cantara fretted over the delay even though she saw the necessity. There was something about this place that made her want to be out of here as quickly as possible. Ever since her dreams last night, her thoughts had been full of her family, and the day they had died. She did not like the memories this place was evoking. And why was it that anything they needed seemed to find its way to the bottom of their packs? Were the gremlins back? She could have sworn she had packed the batteries in one of the little side pouches on her knapsack. Hadn’t they been there this morning?

Even with the new batteries, the light still seemed dim. Ember resented the need to haul everything out of the pack, again. She glared down at the mishmash of equipment, wondering why everything she put into her pack always became such a tangle while the others’ stuff stayed so neat. Even her clothes seemed to have more wrinkles in them, she thought gloomily as she balled up a tee shirt and jammed it down the side of her pack.

Damn these spider webs, Gwen cursed. She admired how the others could glide through them like they were not there, ignoring their creepy touch, like cold, clammy fingers crawling across your skin. She shivered as another brushed across her face. How many spiders did it take to make this many webs? Legions! Thousands upon thousands of the nasty buggers waiting in the shadows to pounce on their unsuspecting prey, always ready to do nasty things like suck your blood or lay their eggs in your brain. God, she hated spiders.

It seemed to be growing darker as if the curtain of cobwebs were shutting out the light. Maybe even the bodies of thousands of spiders, a wall of eight-legged little creepers. They had moved into a larger chamber, coming several yards into it before Gwen realized that they had left the tunnel. Too hung up with her fear of spiders to pay attention to her surroundings, she chided herself. She needed to get a grip on herself. The others were not giving into their childhood fears like some baby. She needed to be brave like Cantara and Aiko, or even Ember, who was two years younger than her for Pete’s sakes. Only April scared that girl, but then April scared them all, even sometimes Angel and Alvaro…

Gwen suddenly could not move. She was stuck in the webs. She started to call out to her companions for help and realized they were gone. Struggling to move her head and tangling her hair in the webs, she searched wildly for the others. She found nothing. No-one. Where had they all gone? Vibrations on the webs drew her eyes up to a dark corner.

The massive spider was covered in bristles as thick as her fingers. Black ichor dripped from its pincers, burning the stone below in smoking puddles. Dozens of eyes reflected her pale-faced image back at her, and the scream died in a throat whose muscled no longer moved of their own volition. Paralyzed by fear, Gwen searched the webs with her eyes, looking for those microscopic spiders she knew were out there, marching in their thousands to lay their eggs in her brain. Already she could feel their tiny feet crawling up the arm that still held her flashlight…..

Alex tripped over something on the floor and looked down. Whatever it was, it had skittered off into the darkness beyond the pool of light cast by her flashlight. Looking up again, she suddenly found herself alone. Where did Gwen and Crystal go? They had been in front of her only a second ago. Where were any of them? This was a large, open space as far as she could see through the gloom. She spun in a slow circle, letting her beam of light touch the darkness beyond and saw nothing but stone and shadows. It did not make sense. There was nothing to hide anyone from her sight, and so they should be here somewhere, someplace where she could see them. Even the darkness was not total, and they had flashlights of their own. Nothing.

Puzzled, she paused, facing God knew what direction. She was no longer sure where the tunnel lay, nor which direction was forward. And with that, her flashlight winked out. She slapped at it angrily. Didn’t she put fresh batteries into it not more than half an hour ago?

Suddenly she was two years old again, alone in a dark house. Her mother had put her to bed and then went out to the bar with her friends, unable or not caring enough to find a babysitter. It was dark, and she was alone and afraid. She wanted her mother. Somewhere in the empty house, something began making a strange noise. Alex stood at the front door, staring out at the night, crying for a mother who never was coming back. How long had she stood there? To her two-year-old self, it had seemed like days and days, alone and crying and cold. She remembered being thirsty – it had been the thirst that had awoken her – and no-one was there to get her something to drink. She did not understand this abandonment or the sense of helplessness it had left behind to trouble her throughout her life.

There was someone she remembered, someone who had always been there when she was feeling alone and frightened. After she left her mother, or her mother had left her life, he was always there. Since the first day, they met in kindergarten, awkward and stumbling, shy and sweet. He had been the first boy who had kissed her – one day during recess in Grade One when she and her classmates had been playing kissing tag. She had belted him so hard Alex had given him a fat lip. Back home, her grandmother had paddled her butt good, and she had stormed up into her room to sulk, where the fear and the loneliness and found her. And the terror, always the terror.

He was there, her Todd. Beautiful and salty in a way she had never seen him before. All those years wasted, all that time, they could have been together if she had only let herself notice him. But she had needed him too much to risk their relationship on something as fickle as love. Todd, her Todd, had always been the only one who could hold the terror at bay, and he came to her now when she needed him the most. Alex held out her hands, inviting him into her embrace, suddenly realizing they had never done anything more than a kiss in the short time they had been together before her death. She ached for his touch now.

Each step closer, he changed. Spikes erupted from his skin, black bristly hair that grew thicker and sharper by the moment. No, this was not right. Todd’s face began to distort, the flesh dissolving, his features blunting and swelling until they took on the cartoonish characteristics of a brute. His brow grew rigid and more pronounced, more primitive. No! No! No! Scales began to appear on the ridges and above this vestigial horns sprouted at each temple. Another step closer and these grew in size, twisting and growing sharper, blacker…..

The ground began to slope as soon as Aiko had left the tunnel. It never struck her as odd that there would be a mountain inside a cave. It was familiar territory. She knew this mountain, she had hunted here many times in the past. This was the proving grounds of her clan, the wild place where its young came to be tested. Only the strong, the fast or the cunning survived here. She looked down at herself and saw her blades in hands that were too small, the ground far too close for her four-feet eleven height. She was eight again, the youngest and smallest of her clan ever to go to the mountain.

Her prey was twelve, much larger than an eight-year-old Aiko. She would think of him as nothing more, even though they had shared a domo for the past three years. Being the smallest and youngest and only girl amongst them, she had been the natural target of their pranks and bullying. That she was better than any of them, more skilled and faster to learn had made their torments of her crueller. It helped her forget that they too were vampyres, orphans like her, and leeched any pity she might have had for their plight. On this mountain, it was kill or be killed, and only one of the twelve sent here would return to the domo and to the clan. Eleven of those she had grown to hate would die today.

There. He was there. Further ahead of where he hid was an outcrop that he would think was unscalable because he lacked the skill. It was dangerous to assume your prey could not do something because it was beyond your own skills. In life, there was always someone more skilled, faster and stronger than you. Arrogance was something for fools and the dead. Aiko had always been the best climber. Sheathing her blades, she crept down the mountain, keeping rocks between her and his line of sight as she approached the outcrop from his blindside. It worked like a charm. In his arrogance, he kept watching the downslope, ignoring the upslope as she scampered up above his hiding place.

She leapt down from above with her swords in hand. It was a perfectly executed move. She missed. Aiko frowned, puzzled. During her real testing, this move had crippled her prey, today he was as quick as the wind. She did not understand why she had this memory, but it was there nonetheless. Now, all his cronies stood on the rocks around them, pointing and laughing at her as they always had whenever they pulled one of their pranks. Angrily, she flipped over his head, stabbing at his back….

And with that, they were all gone but their laughter.

Aiko was too angry and upset to lend the improbability of the moment any credence. As she always had when she was eight, she was too caught up in events to give it any thought. Her prey had escaped her. That was impossible! She was the Black Lotus, killer of ancients and demons! She would hunt him, turn over every rock on the mountain to find him, and when she found him, she would kill him. There would be no escape this time. She would stuff his laughter down his throat with the blade of her sword….

Crystal looked up as they left the tunnel and found herself entering a room draped with sheer silk curtains. Scented candles stood on every surface, bathing the room with their soft light. That she could no longer see her companions did not bother her, nor did the fact that none of this had been here the first time she had entered the temple. She could smell the heady scent of her lover, male sweat mixed with sandalwood and cloves, and her need for him dominated her thoughts. Soft music played. It bounced between harps, violins and a modern guitar piece, but this incongruity did not bother her. He was there, waiting, and her hunger for him chased all other thoughts from her mind.

Movement in the shadows drew her eye, a vague silhouette behind the curtain of silk. Her imagination filled in the details – a hard and slightly sweaty chest, a flat stomach, arms rippling with muscles ready to press her body to his, soft, full lips that tasted salty… Without conscious volition, she moved forward, drawn impulsively towards her lover. Already she could taste his kiss, taste the sweetness of his soul as she fed. When the hunger for her lover came upon her, nothing else mattered. Only her hunger, her need to feed. Always the hunger.

The curtain parted, and he was there. He wore a thousand faces, but that did not bother her. Each was a face she was intimately familiar with, a face she loved. His body was as amorphous as his face, each new curve, slack muscle or taut a part she had kissed or licked in the past. She longed for those arms, ached for his touch as she rose the passion of a barely contained feeding frenzy.

They came together in an embrace of fiery passion, tongues and lips hungry and probing. The lust and passion on his face became pain, the fire in his eyes dying, replaced by a blank look. His face flaked off in a cloud of dust, becoming that of her second lover, and Crystal hesitated in her kiss, confused. What was happening here? It did not make sense, but her thoughts were a jangle of hormones and enflamed passions, and any real thought was impossible.

This man’s face fell away too. She knew his name at that moment, but as she satiated her hunger, it too fell away from her. One by one, the faces of her lovers swam before her eyes, first a mask of passion, and then a death mask – ashen and waxy. At first, in her hunger, the realization that she was witnessing their deaths was slow to come to her. And when it did penetrate her inflamed thoughts, the import of this realization failed to reach her. The faces of the men dying in her arms were more recent lovers, the pain of their passing fresher. The more poignant the pain, the sharper her awareness became. How many men had she slain? How many lovers had died in her arms over her many lifetimes? And now she was reliving each and every one of those losses without control. A single tear rolled down her cheek. When this cycle was over, she would be alone again…

A teenage Cantara moved from the tunnel to a wooded area outside her family crèche. No-one left the crèche after nightfall – no-one but a group of juvenile delinquents out for a taste of adventure. Night was the time of the Black Djinn, those who practiced the dark arts, using the blood of their victims to gain power and wealth. Every crèche was locked up tight each night, and in every crèche, there was a way for its teens to sneak out to hunt. What they hunted or who they could never say. Even the animals that roamed the djinn night had hearts as black as the darkest Black Djinn, killing, but for pleasure and not for food.

The Shadow Tiger was what had drawn Cantara and her companions out that night. For a month, it had raided their goat pens, and every young djinn warrior wanted to test their mettle against such a beast. Nearly seven feet long, standing eighteen hands at the shoulder, with powerful claws and teeth a sabre-toothed tiger would envy, it was nature’s perfect killing machine. What these young ones failed to realize was that where the Shadow Tiger hunted the Black Djinn lurked. Like a wizard’s familiar, the deadly beasts of the night existed as a by-product of their black rituals, the toxic waste of evil that warped nature.

When the others had returned to the crèche, Cantara had remained behind. She was the daughter of the clan matriarch, and she felt she had more to prove – to herself, to her mother, and to her clan. If only she had returned with her friends, perhaps her blades would have made a difference. Perhaps one or two would have escaped, and she would not have returned and found her entire clan slaughtered. And maybe she too would have died, as the Wandering Jew had often told her, but at least she would not have had to live with the guilt all these years.

The moment she made that fateful decision returned to her now. They had found nothing but shadows and rabbits after two hours of tramping through the cool hills. The others had announced their decision to return to the crèche, and Cantara stood alone with Dyan, her best friend.

“Go with the others,” Cantara urged. “I will be right behind you.”

“You should not be out alone at night,” Dyan replied. She was small and cautious, like a mouse, but fiercely loyal, and Cantara loved her for it.

“I’ll be right behind you,” Cantara lied. It was sad that the last thing she had said to her lifelong friend was a lie.

Cantara did not follow directly behind Dyan. Now, as then, she set off across the hills towards the ruins of the old Drendril crèche. It stood to reason that the crèche was the only place for the Shadow Tiger to lair for miles around. Not that Cantara was unwilling to share the glory, but if the crèche lost any more goats, it would be a hard winter. And the milk was often all the little ones had to eat during those long, cold months.

Shadows clung to the ruins, silhouetting the broken buildings in harsh relief. At night this place was different, not only darker but more sinister. Once, long ago, a strong clan had lived here. Strong, until they crossed the wrong group of Black Djinn and were slaughtered to the last goat and baby. She knew as she climbed down off the hillside that she would find the Shadow Tiger here. Djinn hunters only hunted its kind during the daylight hours, when it was more lethargic, and its black hide was easier to spot. Cantara figured it would be easier to find at night when it was more active, and she did not have to rely on luck to lead her to its lair. And find it she did.

Cantara was bloody and mauled when she turned back towards the crèche bearing her trophies of the Shadow Tiger’s tail and ears. The night was eerily quiet. She could not hear the chirpers or the night swallows that normally filled the hills with their chatter. At first, she had been too enraptured with her victory to notice anything was wrong. When she did, it hurried her steps towards home. Now she was running, knowing what she would find when the lead weights that were her feet finally carried her back to her clan. Now, as then, the night wore a bloody face, and its darkness hid creatures from another world – creatures who lived on the blood of the living.

Dark shadows moved amongst the quiet buildings of the crèche. This was different. Maybe this time she would arrive in time to save some of her family. The thought spurred her to greater speed. This time would be different. This time she knew the secret of killing these foul creatures. This time someone would live….

Ember and her boys stood facing a large winged creature that was all teeth and claws. She did not understand why the other five merely stood there like statues, staring off at something on the far wall that she could not see. Whatever it was, it was engrossing. Not only did they not see the large, toothy and very scary demon looming up before them, but they also did not even blink when she practically shouted in their ears. Ember and her hounds mirrored the demon’s movements, keeping it from her comatose companions, one side of this danse macabre hissing, the other snarling and barking.

It swept in towards Gwen. Standing with her arms outstretched, she would have looked funny if something were not about to chew off her face. Tangerine dodged in from the right, Strawberry intercepted it from the left. For Tangerine, it was a game, more training with his master, and he barked at the demon, tail wagging. Strawberry was all teeth and snarl. Sensing the girl’s worry, she was deadly serious in her intend to rent it limb for limb. Where the two large hounds were not, Ember and Huckleberry and his impish rider were. The demon could only hiss its frustration. Why could it not reach this one’s mind?

Ember was growing desperate. She couldn’t keep this up forever. “You know,” she snapped at her companions, “you could help instead of standing there like zombies. Some people’s children!”

She caught a flash out of the corner of her eyes and turned to find Jean-Claude standing at her elbow.

“Oh, it’s you,” she moped, “you silly old ghost.”

“And what are you doing, you silly little girl?” Jean-Claude countered.

“Trying to keep a demon from eating these blockheads,” Ember snapped. “They’re standing there like..like..like a bunch of space cadidiots!”

Jean-Claude studied the demon skeptically. “That little thing? What’s it going to do, nibble them to death?”

“With a mouth like that,” Ember scoffed, “it could swallow the mountain. Its teeth are bigger than you are!”

“What are you looking at, you silly little girl?” Jean-Claude demanded. “It’s small, and it’s injured. See, one of its wings are broken.”

Ember glared at him, tapping a finger on her head and circling it around and around to tell him what she thought of his mental state.

“Ember Guinevere Darkeyes, you should be ashamed of yourself!” Jean-Claude scolded. “Frightening something no bigger than your pinkie!”

Ember frowned and squinted into the shadows. It was looking a little smaller, and perhaps it did not have as many teeth as she had first thought. Still, how big did he think her pinkie was? Jean-Claude began to tap his foot impatiently the way adults sometimes did when they caught you doing something stupid, and you wouldn’t admit it. He desperately needed her to see the Nightmare for what it truly was before it was too late. A Nightmare would continue feeding on the fear it generated until it sucked the volition from a victim. Eventually, paralyzed by fear and unable to make a conscious choice, its victims would starve to death.

“Well,” Ember replied defensively. “It scared me first!”

She looked again and could see it was only the shadows that made it look so big and scary. And Jean-Claude was right, its wing was definitely broken. She took a step closer to get a better look. It was definitely a lot smaller than she had initially thought. Huckleberry and Strawberry crept to her side, hackles raised and growling deep in their throats as she took another step closer.

“Hush,” she scolded. “You’re scaring it!”

The dogs looked up at her, puzzled. Where was the large creature they were battling? Where did it go? They whined their confusion as collectively, they took another step closer. Finally, they sat back on the haunches at a signal from the girl.

“Awww!” Ember explained. “It’s a baby, and someone’s hurt its wing. Do you thing April can fix it?”

Jean-Claude watched, a disapproving frown on his face as the girl scooped up the demon and held it cradled in her hands.

“It’s a fairy, isn’t it?” Ember kept talking, completely oblivious to his lack of response. “I’ve never seen a fairy before, do you think it will get much bigger? I’m going to keep it…”

And there it was. If Jean-Claude let the girl collect one more demon, April would kill him in this world, apparently for the second time.

“Let’s find something to put it in and keep it safe,” Jean-Claude suggested gently.

“I can hold him in my hands,” Ember countered, “it’s not very big.”

“And how will you climb down the mountain without the use of your hands, you silly girl?” Jean-Claude urged.

“Can’t I hold him until we leave?” Ember pleaded.

“And when will we find time to search for a suitable carrier?”

The two began to root amongst the columns, the hounds sniffing at their heels. Ember found, and Jean-Claude rejected several clay pots as too heavy. Finally, they stumbled upon a small brass jar with a lid. Ember ripped up one of her shirts and lined the jar with it, and then carefully slid her new friend inside. The moment the lid was closed on the Nightmare, the other five came out of their stupor in a storm of confused babble.

“No!” Aiko’s denial echoed in the vaulted ceiling of the chamber.

“You can say that again,’ Crystal grumped. “Where are we, and better yet, what happened?”

“This large demon was attacking,” Ember explained, not taking a breath. “And you were all like standing there drooling like zombies, and my boys and I fought and fought it, and then I caught it and put it in this jar.”

“And how big was this demon?” Cantara teased, eyeing the jar with an amused smile.

“Well,” Ember admitted. “At first, it looked a lot bigger and scarier, but fairies can cast delusions and stuff.”

“Let’s find this thing and get out of here,” Gwen complained. “This place gives me the creeps.”

The spread out, but not that far apart given their recent experience. As Crystal explained it, they were looking for an intricately carved wooden chest. She led them to where she remembered they had found it on her last visit her and came away with nothing more than dust and cobwebs. For the third time, Cantara complained that they would cover more ground if they separated but made no effort to move away from the others herself. There was something about this place…

They found it in the last place they looked naturally. Crystal swore it was the same alcove she had originally led them to, and that was spooky. There were even footprints in the dust, and who else could have made them? As Ember set down her brass fairy jar to help the others with the lid, Jean-Claude unobtrusively slid it into the shadows of a corner. Just because he was a ‘ghost’ and the others could not see him didn’t mean Ember wouldn’t catch him at it. He couldn’t help the sigh of relief when he saw that the chest was engrossing her attention.

It took all six women to lift the massive slab of wood that formed its lid. Stepping back, they peered inside. The chest was empty except for two items: a dull strip of metal, one edge sharp and smooth, the other rough and pitted, and a glass vial whose liquid contents gleamed with a silver-blue light. Again Crystal frowned, puzzled. The first time they had found Pandora’s box, it was overflowing with gems and gold and artifacts. Nothing about this place made any sense.

“The elixir of life,” Gwen breathed.

All six froze, entranced. The face of a loved one flashed through five minds – for Ember, her cousin Morgana, for Crystal her lost Pope, for Cantara, her family, for Alex, her dead lover Todd, and for Gwen, Jean-Claude. Even knowing the consequences of a wrong choice, the temptation was compelling. Eyes locked on the elixir, on the power over death, they stood staring down into the near-empty chest. And then Aiko reached in and pulled out the flat piece of metal, and the choice was taken away from them. The lid slammed shut with a loud bang that echoed throughout the chamber, breaking the spell.

“It looks like metal and feels like stone,” Aiko commented. “What do you think, is this what we are looking for?

Cantara took it up and inspected it. “It looks like it could have broken off the blade of a sword. And it does feel like stone. I don’t recognize the metal.”

Suddenly the ground began to shake.

“Shit!” Crystal swore. “Not this again! We have to get out of here!”

“Wait!” Ember wailed. “Where’s my fairy?”

“No time, silly girl,” Jean-Claude retorted. “The ceiling’s caving in. Run!”

As the other five dragged the girl away, Jean-Claude turned and winked at Wandjina. The grinning godlet winked back. This was one demon the girl would not drag home, and it only took a bit of subterfuge…