Pandora's Box: Book 3 of the Crystal Raven Series
Chapter 6

The romance between Alvaro and Aiko had become a constant source of teasing within the brownstone. Already Gwen and Crystal sported matching black eyes, and the diminutive vampyre skulked about the apartment in a huff. When she was not with Alvaro, Aiko had taken to spending more and more time with Ember, who was too wrapped up in raising a set of demons to notice anything else in the world. Even Alex and Cantara, who should have known better – or at least pretend to at their age – were ready with a biting comment whenever she passed by. You couldn’t keep a secret in a den of vipers.

Her mood made her very unpleasant company tonight. After the third kiss became a hiss, Alvaro gave up. Rising, he planted a kiss on the top of Aiko’s head.

“I’m going for a walk to get some air. Try not to bite, hit or pinch any of the other girls while I’m gone.”

“That takes all the fun out of my evening,” Aiko muttered darkly.

Laughing, Alvaro strolled upstairs towards the roof. When a vampyre wanted to spend some time alone, he headed up to the rooftops, where humans could not always follow. Living in a household of young women could be crowded and noisy. There were times when Alvaro wanted a few hours of quiet to enjoy his own thoughts, and that illusion of freedom he found above the streets of New York that would come crashing to the ground the moment he returned to the brownstone. The last three days had been a tumult of bickering, crisis, and teasing that bordered on the cruel. Two straight minutes of peace felt like heaven at the moment. He stood facing a starlit sky and took a deep breath, enjoying his first female-free moment in what seemed like years. Sometimes he did not understand women at all – bundles of catty and unhealthy competition over relationships, clothing and social status that could drive a man to drink or to an early grave. If he was lucky.

Too obsessed in his solitude to pay much attention to the shadows, Alvaro set out, leaping from building to building as he followed the stars towards the harbour. No women. Ye Man’s Girl Hating Club, let the first meeting come to order, membership one. Behind him, five shadows followed in his wake. As silent as the breeze, they trailed the vampyre towards an industrial section of the city, equally anxious to replace solitude as the man they followed. Here, amongst the warehouses, they spread out to take their prey from all sides.

Still lost in thought, Alvaro moved into this lonely section of the city, where he often found himself when he wanted to escape his responsibilities. How did he get himself caught up in all this? Somehow he found it difficult to remember but seemed to recall an idiosyncratic Frenchman asking a small favour. So familiar was he with the area that he could move from rooftop to rooftop without paying his surroundings the least bit of attention, still focused inward and beating up on himself for forgetting how Jean-Claude’s small favours always grew into minor disasters. It was a dangerous habit to fall into, especially given the recent history of the area, and he was experienced enough to know better. Just not tonight…

They struck on a rooftop studded with chimneys. One moment Alvaro was a blur flashing through the shadows, the next, he was stopped cold by a hard blow to the back of the head. He dropped like a rock, unconscious before he hit the ground.

Aiko was lonely and suddenly felt the need for Alvaro’s company. Now that Ember was snoring like a bag full of angry cats, surrounded by three mounds of fur, she had no-one on whom to vent her spleen. Stupid mortals. That’s what she got for playing with her food. Vampyres were not much better. Alvaro was gone by the time she climbed to the roof, but having spent so much time in his company, she was familiar with his usual haunts. On a night like this, he would head towards the harbour, where he could watch the stars in the open skies over the water. And if he wasn’t there, he would be on one of the tall buildings downtown, standing over the street watching the mortals scramble by below like a plague of lemmings. The harbour she decided.

With an exasperated sigh, she set out. Alvaro should have known to wait for her, should have known her moods by now to realize that she would come to join him. Men could be almost as aggravating as mortals. When she caught up with him, she would give him a taste of her fangs.

Already searching for someone, Aiko was more aware of her surroundings when she moved into the warehouse district than Alvaro had been. Almost immediately, she sensed the presence of others of her kind, and as she drew nearer, she knew neither was Alvaro. There was something sour about their smell that wrinkled her nose. At first, she had thought she had caught him in a tryst with some hussy, and angry wondered about this sudden possessive streak. If the thought had not slowed her, she would have stumbled into them before she realized neither was her man. His scent, she knew intimately. That it was not his scent, she should have recognized immediately.

She slowed further. A shadow stepped out from the darkness.

“Kagawa sends his regards.”

“Tell that traitor he can do the honourable thing,” Aiko spat back, eyes red and hissing, “and fall on his sword.”

“We have the one you are looking for,” the shadow replied calmly. “Kagawa will return him in exchange for information about this weapon the mortals are building.”

“Very well,” Aiko hissed, “but harm one hair on his body, and I will drain the blood from the entire clan.”

“That is beyond even you, Black Lotus.”

“Test me,” Aiko snapped. “Meet me two hours before dawn on top of that abandoned building eight blocks from here. I will have the information detailing the full extent of Kagawa’s shame.”

Aiko turned, disappearing in a puff of smoke.

Something cold on the nape of her neck woke Ember with a start. Ready to scold one of her hounds for putting its nose where it did not belong, she turned to replace the translucent Jean-Claude and the grinning Wandjina standing over her.

“You know,” she complained to the godlet, “you can talk to me directly. You don’t need to haunt me with this silly old man.”

“Oh, you girls are hard on an old man, no?” Jean-Claude complained. “How many times do I have to explain to this silly little girl that I am not dead. Just visiting from one of the dimensions in Dream Time.”

“That’s what you ghosts all say,” Ember teased. “Usually right after they wake you up. Do you know what time it is?”

“It is every time,” the Aboriginal ancestral spirit replied. “Time has begun and has reached the end of its span.”

“Did you hear him, ma petite?” Jean-Claude urged. “He says its time for silly girls to get up and follow us.”

“You two are useless,” Ember complained. “You, you silly old ghost, are no more than an undigested bit of bacon. And you, you are a little spun.”

“Up, silly little girl,” Jean-Claude ordered. “And bring your silly little hippopotamuses with you.”

“They’re dogs!” Ember muttered. “You silly old man. What do you want me for?”

“Alvaro is in trouble.”

Ember liked Alvaro almost as much as Aiko, and for him, she was willing to miss a little sleep. Her only hesitation was this pair’s habit of getting her in trouble. If she got caught sneaking out at this time of night, April would ground her until she was a ghost like Jean-Claude, and even after, if she could figure a way how.

“Well,” she demanded. “Turn around while I get dressed. And no peeking, you silly old men!”

“I am a gentleman,” Jean-Claude teased. “I only peek if I won’t get caught. Now hurry, time is running short. And oh, the pants cover the bum.”

Ember stuck her tongue out at his back. She slipped out of her nightgown and into a tee shirt and a pair of jeans, stomping into her Doc Martins without taking the time to tie them up. She froze at the sound, suddenly remembering she was sneaking out. With a hand signal to her hounds, she followed the pair upstairs, only she had to take the time to open the door rather than walk through it. Just because you were a ghost or a god, you didn’t have to show off. And if they thought she was going to follow them through the floor, they would have to leave without her. Alvaro or no Alvaro, they would have to wait until she climbed the stairs like a normal person.

Jean-Claude’s ghost led her out to the garage behind the brownstone, and Ember stopped short when she realized he was luring her into a lot more trouble than she had ever been in before. The poop was rising up to her neck, and it wasn’t doggy do-do. If he was older than her, shouldn’t he know better? How old was a ghost anyway? Inside Jean-Claude’s battered old Forenza sat collecting dust and rust. No one had driven it, other than to park it since his death. If he took it now, April would skin Ember and whip him back to life with her hide.

“You can’t take this car!” Ember complained. “It’s Jean-Claude’s.”

“Am I not Jean-Claude,” he demanded. “Silly little girl, telling me I can’t drive my own car.”

“But April….”

“Bah! Who taught you to conduct a rescue mission, you silly little girl,” Jean-Claude scolded. “In every movie, it starts with the drive. Besides, I drive good, no?”

“No!” Ember wailed and climbed into the car despite her better judgement.

The ghost Jean-Claude was an even worse driver than his living counterpart. Perhaps in death he lost any caution he had had in life, or lost his marbles, taking corners on one wheel, slipping between the bumpers of cars and trucks with less than a hair to spare, and replaceing a way to fit his car down a flight of stairs. If Ember was not so busy pissing her pants, she would have lost her lunch. She did not know how he had managed to get this much speed out of the old crate. With the pedal to the metal and the brakes forgotten, he sped off into the night. Later, she would swear he drove through a narrow alley with all four wheels on one of the walls. When he put the car upright again, still at high speeds, she felt her kidneys rise up and punch her in the eye.

Like a sailor with jetty sickness, Ember staggered from the car the moment it squealed to a halt. Reeling like a drunk themselves, she struggled to control her anxious hounds. Suddenly Strawberry bayed. Before Ember could study her surroundings, all three hounds raced off down the street. She was in a part of the city she had never seen before, surrounded by brick industrial buildings, dark alleys, and even darker streetlights. Most of the area was poorly lit, and the odd streetlight cast more shadows than anything else. Leaving the old farts to sort themselves out, she raced after her hounds before they got lost - or worse.

It was worse, far worse. Strawberry had leapt on one of two shadowy figures, while the other two continued to chase the second. Before her horrified eyes, Strawberry finally did it. She bit the man’s head off and ate it. Ember raced up, grabbing a handful of his clothes. As she struggled to wrestle the body from her naughty puppy, it began to disintegrate in her hands. It was a bloody vampyre! Her heart began to beat again. Oh, Strawberry was a good puppy!

Ember was so relieved she nearly had a heart attack. When Jean-Claude and Wandjina caught up, that relief turned her limbs into rubber and sharpened her tongue to obsidian.

“It’s about time you old farts caught up,” she scolded. “I should have left you at home for all the help you’ve been.”

“Hush, ma petite,” Jean-Claude soothed. “Did you see where the other one went?”

“No,” Ember replied bitterly. “Most of this one went into Strawberry’s belly. Do you think she will be alright? Vampyres are kind of grodie.”

“Nothing on this Earth will make that one sick,” Jean-Claude soothed, his cold touch sending a chill down her spine.

“Easy for you to say,” Ember muttered. “You didn’t have to follow her around for a week when she swallowed Gwen’s cell phone.”

Jean-Claude smiled. “Come. Let’s replace where the others have gotten to. And bring that scrap of cloth. Aiko will recognize it.”

Aiko took her time returning home, taking wide lazy circles to make sure she was not being followed. The Hand was good, lacking only her skill and the experience she had acquired through years in Shadow’s band. Besides the four surviving Masters, Aiko was the strongest member in the Hand, and by far the most skilled. When her skills had surpassed Shadow’s, she became the most dangerous member of the clans. Only the ancients could offer her a true challenge, and she had killed more than one of these in her past. These she would kill slowly, bringing pain that would reach them even in the afterlife.

She was the Black Lotus.

After satisfying herself that no one was following, Aiko returned to the brownstone. She chose to re-enter the same way she had during those nights they had all snuck out after curfew – through the second-story window. The window she chose currently belonged to Cantara’s bedroom, and the djinn was who she was seeking.

“Cantara?” Aiko asked. “Are you up?”

“Do you know what time it is?” The djinn grumped.

“No. Is it late?”

Aiko was not leaving. Cantara levered herself up on an elbow and eventually managed to bring herself to a sitting position. “What is it?”

“The Hand has Alvaro,” Aiko bowed her head in shame, a peculiar Japanese thing that did not suit her well. “They want to exchange him for a copy of the plans for the new weapon.”

April and Ember arrived in the living room at the same time. Their loud voices drew everyone to that room.

“You have some nerve driving Jean-Claude’s car,’ April scolded.

“I didn’t!” Ember insisted.

“Then who did?” April demanded.

“He did!” Ember pointed to an empty space. “That silly old man!”

“Who did?” April asked, growing calm in her anger.

“Jean-Claude!” Ember sighed exasperatedly. “He’s right there, grinning at me like the Cheshire Cat. I told you we would get in trouble!”

“I’ve had enough of this ghost nonsense, little girl,” April warned.

“And I’m tired of him getting me into trouble and you blaming me!” Ember stormed. “It’s okay for Alex to be a poltergeist but not your precious Jean-Claude! I’ll prove it!”

Ember suddenly upended the coffee table. “Hold your horses, you silly old ghost! I’m doing it, aren’t I?”

Mystified, the others watched her struggle with one of the legs of the table. By this time, Gwen, Crystal and Alex had joined Cantara and Aiko, watching the tableau unfold in a sleepy stupor.

“Cantara!” Ember wailed. “Come, help me. It’s stuck.”

Cantara shrugged an apology at April and joined the distraught girl.

“We need to pull straight up and then turn counter-clockwise,” She explained to the djinn.

“Sweetie,” Cantara soothed. By now, angry tears were streaming down the girl’s face. “Counter-clockwise is the other direction.”

A sudden click punctuated the silence. A section of the table shot out, and papers fell to the floor. As Cantara bent to retrieve the contents from the hidden drawer, Ember confronted her accusers.

“See! That silly little ghost wanted me to give you these.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, you silly little girl,” Jean-Claude teased. “I am not a ghost.”