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

It was a warm night. The starlit sky overhead helped Alvaro lure Aiko up onto the rooftop. The couple had had trouble finding time to be alone over the past three weeks, and even less since the death of the Pope and the rift between the Church and the Brotherhood. For the last hour, they had been strolling, leisurely leaping from building to building, pausing now and then to stare at the moon or stars or the city. Once or twice, Alvaro had caught her in some shadowy niche, and Aiko let him steal a kiss or nuzzle her neck. She did not know why she did not see it before, the manly ruggedness, the grace and nobility in his carriage and movements. There was a roguish quality to his character, and a certain confident swagger to his walk – the way he rolled like a swordsman when he skipped across the rooftop on her heels.

No one controlled him, not even the Church that had thrown him away like garbage. He gave his loyalty where and when he would. Aiko always thought she was the bad-ass demon killer - they called her the Black Lotus, Demon Slayer. He had slain or been in on the kill of ninety demons. He studied with sword masters and masters of unarmed combat, found time to complete three doctorates – including one in medicine - and had travelled to more places and in more times than Aiko even knew existed. Why had she ever thought he was weak?

“Maybe you are too old for me,” Aiko murmured.

Alvaro laughed deep in his throat. “I can still catch you, little Blossom.”

Traditionally, a male vampyre would chase his intended through the wilderness. It had been a way to ensure only the quickest bred in a time when swiftness meant survival. If he could not catch his love, he was not worthy of her – or she was not interested. Now, almost no clans kept up with the practice. Stepping back, Aiko gave him a playful shove and suddenly took off like a bat out of hell.

The hunt was on. Aiko was fast. She could leap to a building and cross its roof to the next in a blink of an eye. Alvaro was an old wolf, crafty and sly. He gave chase, but slower than his top speed. Let her get cocky, make a mistake. He let her keep two rooftops between them no matter how much she taunted him. Maybe he was too old and slow for her, Aiko was beginning to think. If this was the best he could do, it was a wonder he had ever found a demon, let alone killed the ninety he claimed. When she stopped to moon him, Alvaro knew she had been spending too much time with human teenagers. Maybe he did not want to catch her after all.

Aiko veered left, letting him catch up as he leapt to a building across the grain of her flight. It was almost time for this old hound to school the young pup. When she straightened out, he would not let her widen the gap no matter how she pressed. And then he narrowed the gap a little more, and she definitely did not like that. She began to get cute, at one point dropping to the ground and shooting through several alleys before climbing back onto the rooftops. None of which fooled her pursuer, who had kept to the rooftops well out of sight of the streets.

When she reached the rooftop, he was waiting for her. As his arms circled around her, she spun, startled. He met her with a deep kiss….

The smallest one was roughly the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, and at a guess, April would say was probably what the beast would have preferred for breakfast. April eyed her latest houseguest with a jaundiced eye. ‘A dog,’ Ember called it and its brother, and they and the wolfhound were why Ember had been kicked out of the house and was currently living in the basement of the brownstone. And they certainly were friendly enough in that ‘I’m-currently-not-hungry-enough-to-eat-you-but-just-let-me-get-a-taste’ kind of way.

‘Demon,’ she thought as a black leathery tongue gave her a sloppy taste. ‘One-hundred percent demon hound.’

“Uhm, sorry,” Ember apologized. “It’s just that Strawberry loves you so much.”

“As a tasty after-dinner snack,” April replied wryly.

“Only if you were a toaster,” Crystal threw in.

“Or the microwave,” Gwen shot back. How Tangerine had managed to fit that into his mouth, let alone swallow it, she would never know? It defied imagination.

“That reminds me,” Crystal said with a straight face. “The US Postal Service called. It seems one of your dogs ate the postman again. They want the truck he was driving back.”

“Tough,” Ember complained. “They can shift through their poop themselves. My days as an object retriever are definitely over. Besides, I said I would pay for the couch.”

“Just take them out for a walk and try to keep them from chewing on any more car tires,” April pleaded. “They’re causing traffic jams.”

“And don’t let them eat any joggers,” Crystal teased. “Even Anastasia won’t be able to explain that one away.”

When Ember and her pack had left, April put her hands on her hips and turned to her two girls. “You two are not helping. Those pups are definitely Hellhounds, and they’re only going to get bigger. Any luck tracking down the old man who gave them to her?”

“Not a hair,” Crystal admitted. “He disappeared in a puff of smoke. If it wasn’t for those two monsters, I would say he never existed.”

Outside, Ember let her three hounds propel her towards the park. She ignored the silly old ghost who was walking at her side. When your three dogs were bigger than you, it was easier to go with the flow. The Zen of dog walking. You may not get where you wanted to, but you always got somewhere. And she had no time to argue with someone who did not know well enough to stay dead, not when Tangerine was trying to go one way, and Strawberry and Huckleberry the other way. He would only get her in trouble again. Already April and Cantara were talking about sending her to a counsellor to talk about her delusions, and it didn’t help that that delusion would not go away and leave her alone.

“You need to tell your elephants to heel,” Jean-Claude suggested. “You should be walking them, no?”

“No!” Ember snapped. “And I am walking them, see?”

For puppies, her dogs were fairly disciplined. They listened to her, mostly. And anyway, when they had pulled her across the street, that car had stopped. If the driver couldn’t see something the size of Tangerine, he was too blind to drive anyway. Besides, you could hardly see the dent in his bumper. It was hardly worth crying over.

At the park, she found a quiet corner where they could practice their katas. Having Huckleberry with her helped. He was the undisputed pack leader no matter how much smaller he was than Strawberry and Tangerine. He mostly kept them out of trouble with the odd bark or a nip at their tails. Working on his katas with Ember was making him quicker and craftier. Whenever the three would play fight, he always seemed to end up on top, and he hardly ever took his eyes off the two. They hadn’t chewed the wheel off a car in over a week, and a tire in almost five days.

“Pay attention, Strawberry,” Ember scolded. “A blind kitten could box your ears at will.”

“It’s the name I think,” Jean-Claude offered. “Strawberry is not a proper name for a man-eating elephant. Killer is better, no?”

“No!” Ember rolled out of the path of two of her hounds and stuck her tongue out at the old man. “And she’s not an elephant, you silly old ghost.”

The hound in question lifted her head and gave her a big lick. One side of her hair was soaked with dog spit.

“See what you did now?” She demanded of Jean-Claude. “You distracted me.”

“How can I distract you?” Jean-Claude teased. “You just finished telling me I did not exist, no?”

“No!” Ember pouted. “Ghosts are too real. Alex is a ghost, and she’s real.”

All too real, Ember thought as she rubbed her jaw where Alex had slugged her after Tangerine had chewed on some of her shoes. They were puppies and teething. And besides, both the running shoes she wore the next day were white. Hardly anyone had noticed that they did not match.

She ignored the ghost and the dog, taking up her first stance. She barked a command. Two of her hounds took up position. The third alternately watched her, Jean-Claude, and a man on a bicycle. Ignore any and all distractions, Aiko’s voice came back to her, focus on the moment, on your Katas and on the flow of your Reiki. Concentrating on her katas, Ember only had time for a disapproving look before Huckleberry and Strawberry darted in. One went high, the other low, the tricky beasts. She had to leap and bend over backwards to avoid their jaws, and only Gumby was that flexible. Like it or not, she was getting bit – just one more dog hickey to add to the dozens she already had.

The bike looked more interesting. Left to his own devices, Tangerine put some of his training to use. Darting in as the cyclist passed by, he caught the back wheel in his jaws, ripping it from the frame. As the cyclist flew off the bike head over heels, Strawberry leapt in to defend her brother from this new threat. Huckleberry immediately set to dancing about, barking and herding the wayward puppies back towards their practice.

“Tangerine!” Ember scolded.

When the cyclist saw what was left of his four thousand dollar Swift bike, its titanium frame twisted into a knot, both tires ripped off and one missing, he added his own angry screams to the cacophony. The riot of sound attracted attention, and as an argument broke out between Ember and the cyclist, one of the bystanders alerted the police.

“I’m sorry, mister,” Ember pleaded her case, “bicycles scare them. And this is a dog park.”

“It’s the bicycles that should be afraid of them!” The cyclist replied sarcastically. “You should have them on a leash or in a cage!”

“I can’t train them if they are on a leash!” Ember persisted.

“You can’t train them at all!” The cyclist roared back. “Look at what they did to my bike!”

“I can too!” Ember screeched. “And besides, this is a dog park, I’m allowed to have them off their leashes!”

Two police officers arrived on the scene, one of them – Kraus – familiar with the girl. He had been to the brownstone once or twice in the past and had talked to the girl Ember before. He seemed to recall she had been a victim and not the perpetrator of a crime.

“What’s going on here?” Kraus asked in a quiet, calm voice.

“Just look at my bike!” The cyclist demanded angrily. “Her two monsters destroyed it!”

“I said I would pay for it,” Ember retorted. “Besides, what was he doing riding through a dog park and scaring all the puppies?”

Kraus looked at the cyclist and then the two hounds, two small fur hills lying in the grass, watching it all. He raised an eyebrow. “Were you riding your bicycle through this part of the park?”

“Yes,” the cyclist seethed, “but that still doesn’t give those monsters the right to do this!”

“No, it doesn’t,” Kraus agreed. “And the young lady has agreed to pay for the damages.”

“She should be arrested,” the cyclist demanded. “Her and those monsters.”

At the moment, the two monsters in question were lying quietly at the girl’s side, their black tongues hanging out.

“Did either dog bite you?” Kraus asked.

“Yes,” the cyclist stammered under his sharp glare, “I mean no. Only my bike.”

“And what would you have me charge her with?” The officer countered.

“Assault,” the cyclist demanded.

“Neither hound bit you?”

“No, but -.” And Kraus cut him off.

“It seems to me that you are the only one who broke the law,” Kraus cut in. “There is a good reason why bicycles are not allowed in this part of the park, and today you have learned why. I suggest you two exchange contact information before I am forced to write you a citation.”

Normally this was not the type of call a detective would handle, but he had been in the area on an investigation and had been catching a ride back to the station when the squad car was flagged down by a bystander. Now, Kraus decided to walk the girl and her dogs home and have a word with her parent or guardian. These elephants were really too much dog for this small girl to handle. And no matter how friendly or well trained, when frightened or excited, dogs this size could hurt someone – or something, as the state of the bicycle attested to. At one point, immediately outside the gate of the park, he was forced to take one of the leads when the three hounds almost pulled her off her feet.

“What breed are these two, anyway?” He asked curiously.

“We’re not really sure,” Ember admitted. “Some cross between a mastiff and a bus.”

“Tell him they are Hellhounds,” Jean-Claude offered. “It is not polite to lie to a police officer, no?”

Ember glared at him and mouthed the word no. Hadn’t he already gotten her into enough trouble for one day?

“Maybe only a Volkswagen,” Kraus teased. “Do you think they will get much bigger?”

“Maybe,” Ember squeaked. “They were really small when we first got them, and they are still puppies.”

At the brownstone, Detective Kraus gave the lead back to the girl and then asked to speak with one of her parents. He was not surprised when he found his request answered by April Moonshadow.

“Is there a problem officer?” April asked with a world-weary sigh.

“Kraus,” he replied. “No real trouble, although there was an incident with one of the dogs. I am concerned that the dogs might be too much for a girl Ember’s size to handle.”

“We are looking into having them trained,” April admitted. “We are having trouble finding someone who will take them. Their size and their age are making it difficult. The man who sold them to us said they would grow into medium-sized dogs.”

Kraus had seen it many times before. Get a small puppy and soon find yourself raising a pony. “I have a cousin who trains animals. Not just dogs. Here’s his card.”

“I appreciate this,” April replied. “Sorry about the inconvenience.”

“No trouble at all,” Kraus replied. “I’m just happy to see the girl looking so healthy. She kicked her drug habit, I see?”

“It was a rough couple of months,” April grimaced. “Clean and sober now for over a year.”

April said her goodbyes and headed directly upstairs, where her girls always went when they had been up to no good and were expecting trouble. And true to form, she found the three hounds lounging in the living room with several of her rascals pinned beneath them.

“What happened, Ember?” April asked quietly.

“Some fool rode his bike through the dog park,” Ember muttered.

“You are leaving a large part of the story out, no?” Jean-Claude chided.

“You stay out of it,” Ember muttered darkly. “You get me in enough trouble as it is.”

“Who are you talking to young lady?” April asked sharply.

“No one,” Ember cried.

“And?”

“Tangerine ate his bike,” Ember admitted through the laughter of the other girls. “At least part of it.”

“A peddle?” April asked, hopefully. She should have known better.

“One of the wheels, I think,” Ember whispered. “Maybe the handlebars too.”

“And so Tangerine is going to be up all night with a bellyache,” April scolded. “Rubber and steel are not good for a puppy – even a Hellhound. It’s time you get some training for those beasts.”

“They are not Hellhounds,” Ember protested. “They’re Romanian Elephant hounds. And I’m training them.”

“There are no elephants in Romania, sweetheart,” April soothed, handing her the card. “You will call this number first thing in the morning. I expect them to be enrolled in obedience class by the end of the week.”

“Great,’ Ember complained. “How am I going to pay for that and pay this guy for his bike?”

“I’ll lend you the money,” Crystal offered. “If you’ll get this overgrown fruit off of me. I got to go pee.”