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

Morning was still four hours away when every alarm in the academy echoed off the valley walls, ringing and peeling in an endless choir that sowed the night with panic. Gabriel sputtered awake in a strange room in a strange bed. Where was he? And what was that infernal racket? Outside the doors running feet in sandals filled the halls with a swish, swish, swish of haste. Gabriel staggered out of his room, looking at the strangers with their bald heads and orange and yellow robes – most of them young children with no way to tell which were the girls and which the boys. Most of the older youths were carrying weapons, bamboo staves of a certain species, their centers lined with silver. The younger ones were carrying bundles.

He had woken from a pleasant dream into an academy amid an evacuation. Long years of training and combat experience kicked in, and he headed towards the central temple, where he knew he would find the academy’s staff and leaders orchestrating this chaos. Running against the flow of traffic in the halls, he ducked past a growing stream of students and soldiers heading towards the wall. When he reached the inner temple, he found the five oldest monks standing in a sea of calm, turning blind eyes towards messengers as they arrived from various points within the valley. The panic and frenzied activity radiated out from this centre but did not touch them.

“Pham?” Gabriel came to a stop, puffing for breath.

“We have a large party headed our way, Grand Master,” Pham replied calmly. “Many of them appear to be possessed, others maybe demons.”

“We can’t hold out here,” Gabriel assessed the situation quickly. “Many of these walls are nothing but vines.”

“The old and the young will escape across the rope bridges into the hills,” Pham explained. “We will take them the ancient Academy Pahale, where the demon fighters who came with Alexander the Great built their school. The others will remain behind to fight.”

“No,” Gabriel decided. “Go with the others to the school in Nepal. We will draw them off into the Dragon’s Gullet. Have every third man carry a bundle, let them think we are fleeing towards the tunnels.”

“What do you have in mind, my son?” Pham asked quietly.

“There was a large stalk pile of napalm and Agent Orange buried in those old tunnels,” Gabriel explained. “Once through the Gullet, we will blow the old cache. Might not kill them, but the possessed burn as well as any monk….”

“Napalm and other chemicals,” Pham replied. “Some claim maybe some chemical warfare agents your government never admitted to….”

“Anything’s possible,” Gabriel admitted, “but most conspiracies are nothing but hot air. Governments have never learned the lesson the churches have, and their secrets find their way onto the street faster than this week’s garbage.”

“There have always been rumours,” Pham offered.

“On both sides,” Gabriel replied, thinking of the long list of MIAs. “When we cached the stuff there in the weeks before the fall of Saigon, I saw no mysterious drums.”

“Still,” Pham warned, “tread carefully.”

Gabriel nodded and moved on to meet the hastily assembling rearguard. They would cross the rope bridges at that end of the valley, cutting them before slipping into the jungle. Stealing a few pages from the Viet Cong, they would lead the approaching horde towards the hills, where a squad was already en route to set up an ambush. Between the napalm and a few rockslides, the possessed in the group would be crushed and burnt beyond use. Unfortunately, the demons amongst their ranks would not be so easily stopped. A host of angels, a couple of lightning bolts tossed by God, any miracle would do for them….

They would take casualties. There was no help for it, not with demons. Each would have to be taken on by at least thirteen, and the larger ones with three times that number. And if Pham’s dragon showed up, well the Brotherhood currently had nothing in its arsenal to deal with flying demons. Maybe a couple of MIGs armed with hickory missiles, or an anti-aircraft battery loaded with holy relics. But that was a dream for another day. Today they only had crosses and bamboo staves, muscle and blood, and what courage they could scrape up from the bottom of their souls. And if this was not enough, well, there was always hope of a quick death and a quiet grave.

Out in the jungle, Gabriel set off with an escort of roughly fifty monks. Other groups scattered in a dozen directions. They had a quarter of a mile of open ground to cover before they reached the true jungle – one of the reasons Gabriel had never bought into the Zen of the academy’s location. It was right there on a hilltop that could be seen from a quarter of a mile away, and from even further away on higher ground. This was hill country with plenty of high ground. Even a blind man could see it. And if they could see the academy, those scattering from its walls were equally visible to anyone watching in the distance.

The horde currently numbered several thousand, but with the possessed that number could grow exponentially. It all depended on what percentage of its composition was demons, and how strong each demon was. Some of the demon lords could possess tens of thousands of humans, using these minions as a meat shield. And because each body was not their own, the possessed could absorb large amounts of damage before they were broken beyond use. It was the type of army that could surprise a modern force, as this one obviously had with at least one unit of the Vietnam army, judging by the number of torn uniforms their scouts had seen amongst the possessed.

His own force would use simple hit-and-run tactics. One squad would attack with arrows, leading a group of zombies off into the jungles, where other squads would be waiting in ambush. Strike often enough, and they would turn the horde away from the academy and towards the Dragon’s Gullet.

Gabriel and his team led the first raid. Even before they came in contact with the horde, he and the monks with him could hear the sound of snapping branches and breaking trees. It was like a herd of elephants rampaging through the brush. With sweaty palms, they waited, bows clutched in slightly shaky hands, not knowing what to expect. Pre-battle nerves. Whether your first battle or your hundredth, these jitters attacked in these moments of waiting, and when fighting demons that tension grew to fill your imagination and beyond. Because what you finally faced could be something so bizarre it defied even your wildest nightmares.

The first zombie to clear the brush was wearing a Vietnam army uniform, still dragging behind him the AK47 he had forgotten how to use. Gabriel held his order, waiting until a wall of flesh entered the clearing. The green fleshed creature had to be a demon, but it was hard to tell once disease and rot set in amongst the possessed. One creature had a hole the size of a fist in the centre of his chest, probably the work of a 50 calibre machine gun, but it was still on its feet. The two arrows that erupted from its eye sockets would finish the job. Blind, it was out of the fight and staggered into its fellow possessed until knocked to the ground and trampled.

Gabriel and his team raced away, a mixed bag of the possessed and their possessors on their heels. Zombified humans could be slow and clumsy, but such considerations as thorns and thickets did not enter the equation. Where Gabriel and the monks had to go around obstacles, carefully picking their path, the hordelings simply went through. Keeping them close on their tail while widening the distance between the main horde and their pursuers was not as hard as it seemed.

Master Pham leaned on a bamboo staff as he led the bulk of the Academy of Sardar Pagoda’s population across one of the three rope bridges. To reach the mountain sanctuary, their long column would have to cross several countries, travelling at night when the demons were most active all to avoid being seen. Much of their passage, as with the hill country of Vietnam, was sparsely populated wilderness. Some of it was over mountains where not even the goats dared. Secrecy demanded sacrifices he would not normally make – and Master Pham wondered if there was any point to that secrecy now that demons were wandering the countryside.

Like Africa, civilization in Asia was older than on the other continents. In some places, it was more settled and had been for longer than any other place on earth. Other places had seen an unending litany of atrocities that left the land with gaping psychic wounds. It was these places where Master Pham and ancestors stood guard, warding against the darkness that leaked into the world from other realms. Sometimes these creatures were demons, sometimes evil spirits, and almost always the evil that was bred in the hearts of men. Blood and hatred, lust and greed – these marked the land in ways that might never be healed.

Master Pham turned back to look at the Academy with blind eyes. For eight hundred years, the Brotherhood had sheltered in the temple. With only one brief period during World War II, when they had retreated into the mountain fastness of China and Nepal, students, masters and warriors had always lived here. Sadly, he turned back to the trail, knowing he would miss the sounds of its bells and the music of the wind whistling amongst the walls for a long time to come.

The final battle had begun with a death march, as had another in their not so distant past. The first stretch of their journey was up through the valley and into the higher hills of this range. Beyond this was a forested plateau that would lead them into Laos, and beyond that into the Yunnan province of China. To put distance between themselves and this horde, they planned to walk through the day and all through the night. He worried about the very young and the aged amongst them. There were also twenty-three blind individuals like himself amongst the column. There was a peculiar trait found amongst the Asians who are born blind, a talent to see into other realms, and this generation had seen more of these found than ever before.

As he marched, he thought back over a peculiar letter he had received from Jean-Claude shortly before his death. It posed a very interesting question: were there not more special and even new talents being found in this generation of recruits than in many generations before? It begged a second question. If yes, what did it mean? Jean-Claude was one of the most insightful men Master Pham had ever met. He was well-read and certainly well-travelled given their work. Master Pham had no doubt he meant to answer those questions before the crisis in New York and his death had interrupted his studies.

It bore thinking about. Perhaps he would meditate on it, and definitely, he would ponder it during their long journey. They would be days walking before they reached their mountain temple.

This time Gabriel and his people were one of the teams waiting in ambush. It was time to get up close and personal with a dozen zombies and maybe a demon or two. Swords and machetes were the best for this type of work. It wasn’t about killing the possessed so much as hacking limbs and heads from torsos. One never did kill the possessed, not in the traditional sense, no matter how small of pieces you chopped them into. Still, when the body became too broken or degraded by rot and disease that it was made useless, the demon lost interest in it and moved on to the next host. And there were always healthy hosts to be found.

It was bloody and disgusting work. Gabriel leapt out of a tree, his sword carrying off the forearm of the nearest zombie. His crucifix was in his belt, ready. The demon controlling this bunch had to be close at hand. At some point, it had to make an appearance. Already they had maimed five of its seventeen followers, and a second squad had slammed into the front of their column. Two more thirteens were lurking the bushes, waiting for the demon to make its attack. Now all they had to do was enrage it enough to overcome its natural reticence.

It looked like a Gila Monster if Gila Monsters were blood red and seventeen feet long. Its tail whipped out, slashing through a Brotherhood monk and the zombie he had been fighting. Gabriel drew his crucifix and turned to face the demon. It was three feet short of their trap, and with that tail, it did not have to move closer. The damn thing was twice as long as its body. Gabriel hated when shit didn’t work out.

There was nothing for it. Somersaulting over the tail as it snapped towards him, Gabriel drew out a vial of holy water. It was seeded with silver saint Christopher medals. Time to really piss the bugger off. It was a toss-up as to who this would hurt more, him or the demon. The vial left his hand before he rolled to his feet, and he was too busy dodging a backswing of the tail to watch its trajectory.

The demon bellowed in pain. Hissing, it lurched forward to follow its tormenter. The moment its foot hit the noose, it triggered the trap. Hoisted by its rear leg, it rose to meet a bed of sharpened hickory stakes swinging in from the right. As one of the stakes piercing its soft flesh found its heart, the possessed fell to the ground dead. The demon was banished, at least for the moment. It would be seven years before this one could make its way back to Earth, twenty-one if it was one of the more powerful variety. Gabriel counted the bodies in the clearing and figured seven years, and they would see this one again in some other manifestation. He could live with that.

“Let’s set up another mile to the west,” Gabriel called. “How many did we lose?”

“Just two, Grand Master,” one of the others called.

Gabriel nodded. At this rate, by the time they forced the horde into the narrow draw known as Dragon’s Gullet, there would be three of them left, and maybe only two would be crippled. Before the war, this barren patch of rock might have had another name, but Gabriel doubted it. It led nowhere, rising from a patch of thick jungle that was mostly swamp, mud and mosquitoes. It got its current name from the American GIs when a napalm strike missed its target and fell into the gulch. The narrow sides of the draw sent a plume of flames out that scorched a long narrow stretch of the jungle, looking for all the world like a dragon’s strike. In fact, outside his unit, Gabriel doubted anyone knew the name or the story. It was one of those strange moments that pepper every war, the spice of every war story.

It was now a foot race between the two forces. Everything depended on whether the Brotherhood reached the draw before the horde caught up with them, and with enough lead time to escape their own trap. In the swamp, neither side had the advantage. Waist-high water slowed both humans and zombies alike, and fortunately, none of the demons with this horde were swimmers. As he waded through the smelly water, collecting a personal army of leeches, Gabriel couldn’t help remembering how much he hated swimmers. Dry land was the only place for a fight, and the drier, the better. Better your enemy could only come at you from four sides, and he preferred to die standing up – or at least being able to identify which way was up.

He so wanted to set the swamp on fire. So much so he could taste it. Swamps burnt surprisingly well for something so wet. Between the blue plumes of methane gas and the yellow fields of burning vegetation, a swamp fire was something to see. And if he knew for sure where the other squads were, it would be the ideal way to slow their pursuers. Of course, there was always the danger the horde would miss the draw in the curtain of thick black smoke, and all of this would have been for nothing. So no swamp fire.

A splash behind him spun Gabriel around. A zombie was less than four feet behind him. Damn! Where did he come from? He fired his crossbow point-blank. The shaft struck in its neck with enough force to knock it off its feet. A miss. With a zombie, you went for the eyes or the knees, any shot that would incapacitate or cripple. As they continued their retreat, they turned, sending shafts into the vegetation. What he wouldn’t give for a flamethrower at the moment? Even a chainsaw would be more effective than this crossbow.

Rock. Solid rock under his feet. Four other squads were climbing into the draw, their retreat covered by those who were already here. Three weeks before the fall of Saigon, some army bean counter had discovered a large cache of munitions that had been left behind at an abandoned airfield. It contained two items considered classified at the time – Agent Orange and napalm. The army wanted it destroyed. Three squads were sent in, miles behind what was enemy territory at the time. The problem was that whoever blew the cache would bring down a world of hurt on their heads. It was rather like the pickle they were in now.

Gabriel was the one who remembered the draw and its pits. The Lord alone knew who or why they were dug. A collection of five deep shafts that dropped through the rock at a forty-five-degree angle. Yes, it did take a week of their ten days to haul the crap up here using carts, and they had to sprint for three days to make their rendezvous, but it was quiet. Nine hundred napalm bombs and twenty barrels of Agent Orange now lay in two of these shafts, forming a perfect cannon. It merely required the right match.

Climbing out of the draw, Gabriel turned back. It looked like his squad was the last to make it to the gulch ahead of the horde. Two were missing, and he hoped they had made it out of the swamp. If this worked, their sacrifice and the sacrifice of the others would be worth it.

“Keep them off the heights as long as you can,” Gabriel instructed. “I want to draw in as many of the demons as we can before we trigger the rockslide. We might get lucky and kill a few of the buggers.”

“There is no such thing as luck, only karma,” a serious young monk replied.

“Son,” Gabriel replied, “every soldier counts on a little luck to keep him alive for another day. Tell that to your Masters after you’ve fought a few battles.”

When a large humanoid creature with arms that ended in hammerheads entered the draw, Gabriel knew they could not wait any longer. One of the monks raised a flag attached to a pole and began waving it vigorously. Nothing happened. At first, only the sounds of battle could be heard. And then a loud crack echoed up the draw. Two massive slides rolled down both sides of the cliffs, sealing the far end of the draw as it settled with a dull rumble. A few hapless zombies were crushed beneath the weight, and the bulk of their numbers were trapped inside.

“Now,” Gabriel ordered, “before they figure out that was not a mistake.”

Again the monk signalled with the flag. On the cliff tops of the draw monks with lit bundles of dynamite raced to the lip of one of the pits. Tossing their package inside, they raced off towards safety.

The two explosions were small compared to what happened next. Two plumes of flame, like the engines of a massive jet, shot straight down the draw. Caught in its twin streams, the zombies and demons were lit up like Roman Candles. The possessed were charred to a crisp, their bodies burnt beyond use. Napalm stuck to their victims, searing flesh from bone. The demons they shielded were immune. It was time to make a run for it, the image of the mass of withering bodies indelibly etched into their minds.