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

For thousands of years, before Europeans discovered its shores, these South American temples rose above sprawling cities, surrounded by jungle and field. Day and night, the smoke rose, and blood ran down channels, a crimson fall from the temple tops, where victims were sacrificed to celebrate great events, to the square below. In times of war or famine, these stones wept blood, crimson rivers that were the heartbeat of the crowds that gathered in the square. The smoke of burning hearts marred the heavens, feeding the hunger of a dozen gods. Famine, disease and the conjunction of the stars could give birth to another round of bloodletting. Always the blood, always the smoke, and always the people of these cities would be delivered from evil.

Some of these great temples had disappeared, pulled down by the vines of the jungles, or, as with those in the far south, washed away by the sands of a dessert. Tourist had flocked to some of these, those near or in cities still inhabited by Europeans and the ancestors of their builders. Others were buried and forgotten in lonely stretches of jungle. Great stone pyramids that had sat waiting a thousand years or longer for the blood and smoke that would one day pump life back into their stones.

One such temple, lost in the depth of the Amazon, slowly rose again from the jungles. Its time had come again. Thousands of men, women and children slaved under the gaze of Jaguar warriors whose headgear were not mere masks. These, in turn, were directed by others in robes of brightly covered feathers. These priests looked on, turning birds’ eyes left and right, rebuilding what had been lost during the long reign of the Europeans. Hooked beaks clicked as they spoke in a series of chirps and caws, understood only by the guards who worked under them. It was a nightmare the ancestors of their slaves and worshipers had long since forgotten, and the time to teach again the lessons of the past had come again.

Up until a week ago, Juan Carlos was a colonel with the Shining Path rebels, a group known as narco-terrorists by most of the world. In his position, he saw little combat, supervising their coca plantations in the jungles, and co-ordinating the kidnapping and ransoming of foreign workers. Even in the jungle, he was surrounded by every modern luxury, living in a mansion that had more rooms than all the huts of his workers. It was a good life, a life that paid well and helped fund a cause he still sometimes believed in. Until one week ago, he was the most dangerous man in the region, feared even by the cartels. And then they had come…

He was expecting a cartel lieutenant, a man he had never met before, but who had promised to double their trade. Around him, his guards and the workers of the plantation prepared the house and grounds for the visit, sprucing up the gardens and improving its security should the meet be a double-cross. And then the raid began. Thinking his camp had been sold out to the government, he had made his way towards the airfield and the helicopter he kept hidden there. His men would die, if necessary, to ensure his escape. That was their place in this life. In those early moments, he was more angry than frightened. The terror would come later, after he reached the helicopter.

When they came out of the jungle behind his jeep, Juan Carlos stared, puzzled. They looked like Inca or Aztec warriors, centuries out of date. With only bone and obsidian chip clubs, the modern arms of his men should have mowed them down like wheat. But bullets did not stop them. Had he spent too much time near the cocaine processing equipment? Surely he was hallucinating? Only this hallucination did not end. Unhindered by the bullets and rockets of his men, the creatures of his visions rolled over the workers and guards, ripping limbs from flesh with their bare hands, knocking others unconscious for reasons Juan Carlos would only learn of much later. Later, when his nightmares would teach him the true meaning of terror….

Safe in the helicopter, he ordered the pilot to take it up immediately. As it rose above the tree line, Juan Carlos looked down in time to see these creatures attack his driver. The man fired point-blank but must have missed in his panic. Could all his men have missed? Were these old M16s that bad? No, it wasn’t possible. But neither were the things his eyes were seeing.

Leathery wings rose to fill the sky. Claws the size of a house grappled with the helicopter. The creature raised its prey to its face, a black tongue hissing at those looking on in horror and disbelief from inside. It shook the helicopter until its occupants fell out. As he raced towards the ground, Juan Carlos had time for one thought. It was a half-formed prayer to Santa Maria to protect him.

He woke up sometime later here at the temple. For three days, he had laboured, stumbling in a daze as he hacked at the stubborn vegetation with a machete. Twice a day, the bird-like priests moved about the prisoners, sniffing. Whether for virtue or rot, he could not say. Those they chose looked no different than any of the other dirty, hungry and war-weary prisoners hacking away at the jungle, shuffling sightlessly from their labours to join a line rising to the top of the temple. What went on up there no one wanted to know, but those who went up never came down. A student of history, Juan Carlos had enough of an inkling to want to avoid the never-ending death march up to this temple of nightmares.

The screams that occasionally drifted down to Juan Carlos had long ago stopped setting his nerves on edge. Exhaustion and fear had long ago burned their course through his soul and left only ash and numbness behind, blinding him to the surroundings and the suffering of himself and others. Whenever the priests came near him, he redoubled his efforts, hacking at vines and brush for all he was worth. It did not matter. Work fast or work slow, work hard or not, the choice came when and where it would. The bird-head gave the woman next to him a sniff and turned away. When Juan Carlos thought he was safe for another day, the creature turned back to him. Taking a long sniff, it said something to the Jaguar warrior with it.

And so now Juan Carlos stood, seven stairs from the top of the temple. One more step and he would be able to see his fate, watch those ahead of him shuffle off this mortal coil without a struggle. Not wanting to see or admit what he would find up there, not quite yet, his curiosity would not let him look anywhere else.

For sixteen hours, he had stood on one of the narrow stairs of the temple. Always having a head for heights, he never feared falling. Until now. Three-quarters of the way up, a child had slipped and fallen. The bloody pulp that landed at the bottom no longer looked human, and if it lived, it hardly mattered. A pack of Jaguar creatures had fallen on the body and began to feed. He hoped the child had died before she had reached their bloody ministrations. Being eaten alive was something no one born near or in the jungles could face. The ants, the spiders, the anacondas, it brought to mind too many earthly dangers – and now, for however long he lived, it would always remind him of the unearthly dangers as well.

The line rose, and Juan Carlos could now see the altar. He watched in horrified fascination as a creature stood over a girl being held to its stone surface. Black as night, feather wings stretched out behind it, it looked like a dark angel. In one too human hand, it held a bloody obsidian knife. Unable to tear his eyes away, Juan Carlos was engrossed with every movement of this creature as it cut the girl’s heart from her chest, still beating. Raising it to its mouth, it ate the heart while her body was still shuddering.

Now, who should he pray to?

High in the Andes smoke hovered above one of the most famous Inca ruins. About its skirts, a teeming mass of humanity – human and inhuman – surged with restless energy. Even here, the smell of burning flesh perfumed the air as another heart was thrown on the brazier. A cheer went up, no longer as forced as it had once been. Blood could be intoxicating when it was not your own. At the altar, a twin of the same dark angel stood over its bloody stone. It cut the heart from yet another victim, raising it to the heavens. Rivulets of blood ran down channels, flowing from the sides of the temple until its steps were slick with the life of thousands of victims.

In Mexico City, a rumour circulated amongst the thousands shambling towards their doom. The police and the army were still battling these demons somewhere in the suburbs. Always somewhere, but not here, where they were needed the most. It was the Feast of the Dead come months too early. The dead were seen to walk again, many claimed as they prayed to gods old and new. For several hundred each hour, it made no difference. Here too, the same dark angel hovered behind a stone altar, continuing the reign of terror. Twenty such altars from Mexico City to Lima had come back to life in a holocaust of blood and smoke. And as it killed, always it looked north with lust in its eyes.

Soon.

Jean-Claude stepped back into Dream Time with a sad shake of his head. That one had never crossed his mind. He turned to thank Wandjina for showing this to him.