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Life After: The Complete Series

Page 47

by Julie Hall


  Hugo sat with his back to me in the middle of the gym. The top of his white head was bowed, and his hands were clasped in front of him. He was as still as a lifeless statue frozen in time. Was he meditating? Was there a chance he didn’t realize I was there?

  I quietly moved forward and skirted his body until I stood in front and to the side of him. His eyes were closed and his mouth moved in soft whispers too quiet for me to interpret. He prayed.

  Oh shoot. What was I supposed to do now?

  Taking his lead, I slowly lowered myself to the padded mats and tucked my legs under me. I watched Hugo with silent reverence. It was obvious he was communicating with the Creator. What wasn’t obvious was whether or not he was aware of my presence.

  On my knees, I bowed my head. How long had it been since I’d taken even a moment to do this? The forefront of Hugo’s training had been the importance of my relationship with the Creator. To him, that took precedence over even the physical aspects of the work we did together. But I’d never taken the spiritual side of his lessons as seriously as I should have.

  Why hadn’t I?

  I didn’t really know. Even after meeting God face-to-face, He had just seemed so . . . so big. I was easily overwhelmed by thoughts of Him. Time and time again, Hugo had urged me to learn more about Him, probably sensing my struggle, but I’d been so focused on being independent I’d gotten in my own way.

  Now was as good a time as any to start working on what should have been my focus on all along—the amazing Being who claimed to want an intimate place in my heart.

  As I sat with my head bowed, I reflected on how I’d done a pretty good job of keeping my heart locked up since I’d been given my memories back. I’d thought that was the only way to keep it safe.

  I was beginning to realize how wrong I was.

  I’d slowly been turning my heart into a heart of stone believing that was the way to keep it whole. But stone isn’t impervious to damage. It cracks and chips and can be broken to pieces. The only thing I’d really done was make myself hard. Flesh was soft and pliable and could endure wounds and be healed again, but stone could never mend like that. What might bruise flesh could take a chunk out of stone that would never regrow. Yes, flesh was more vulnerable, but also more resilient.

  I moved my lips in an apology to my Creator. As I was lost in my confession of hardheartedness, a gentle hand cupped my cheek. It startled me. I looked up and Hugo’s face filled my vision. His eyes brimmed with kindness rather than the condemnation I expected.

  “Welcome back, child.”

  Tears filled my eyes, and I flung my body at his deceivingly strong one. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered as silent tears tracked down my face. “I should have obeyed you. What I did was wrong, and I’m afraid I just made a bad situation worse.”

  I waited for the chastisement to come, but it never did. Hugo simply held me tight as I struggled with my emotions. After a while, I composed myself and sat back.

  “I thought you’d be mad.”

  My mentor gave my shoulders a squeeze before laboring to a stand. “Do you think I should be mad?” he asked with his back to me as he moved toward the weapons wall.

  “Well . . . yeah.”

  He turned his head so I had a view of his profile. “I have a complex range of emotions and feelings toward you right now that I don’t think you have the capacity to process.”

  My mouth dropped. “Did you just call me dumb?”

  “By whose standards?”

  “You are calling me dumb!”

  His laugh boomed. “No, I’m just messing with you.”

  I pressed on my temples, convinced a headache was starting to form. “What’s happening right now?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just an old man trying to lighten the mood. Let’s train a little before we get too deep today. I think your body could stand to burn off some energy first.”

  If I was going to get off without a lecture, who was I to complain?

  Two hours later, sweat rolled into my eyes and down my back. Hugo held his sword to my throat. I had yet to see anyone wield a sword with such excellence. He was more precise than Logan and deceptively strong and fast. He also possessed the energy of a sugar-hyped two-year-old.

  I stood with my sword in one sweat-slicked hand and the other resting on my knee, bent over to catch my breath.

  “How,” pant, “do you,” pant, “do that?”

  A secretive smile danced on Hugo’s face. It was a one-sided conversation we’d had numerous times.

  My breathing evened out. “Okay, so if you won’t answer, at least tell me why you aren’t a hunter. You fight better than anyone I know.”

  “I have many talents, Audrey.”

  “But with your fighting skills and strategic knowledge, it doesn’t make sense that you aren’t one.”

  “My talents are extensive. For now, I’m pleased to come alongside you and help you grow.”

  My eyes narrowed suspiciously and I pointed a finger at him. “You are a strange little man, do you know that?”

  Hugo’s laugh bellowed throughout the gym. “Oh, Audrey, so blunt. So perfectly you.”

  I’d heard that before.

  “You have improved immensely. I hope that’s something you recognize.”

  I nodded. “Although I’d feel a little more self-confident if you’d let me win every now and then.”

  “Where would be the fun in that?” He hobbled to the wall to put his sword up. He then took up his cane and shuffled back to me. I shook my head as my eyes followed him across the room. A strange little man indeed.

  “You had the chance to test your skills on Earth,” he said suddenly.

  Not a question. I nodded anyway. Oh boy, here was the conversation I’d been dreading.

  “And?”

  “And . . .”

  “And how did it go? What is your assessment of your skills?”

  “Oh.” No one had ever asked me how I thought I was doing before. What was a truthful answer? I tried to remember how the confrontations had gone. “Well, I can see some definite improvement. Especially with the technical part of my fighting,” I let out a short laugh, “and even with following orders. If only marginally with the latter. Logan was pretty surprised when I listened to him. Which is rather sad, when you think of it.”

  I frowned when thoughts of Logan entered my mind.

  “My backside would have been handed to me in a big way if it wasn’t for him and Bear. I struggled a lot with being distracted, but I’m not sure if it was because it was my family at stake, or if I just sidetrack easily. Probably a little of both. Fighting the demons was more . . .” I struggled for the right word, “instinctive than before. If that even makes sense. It’s not that I wasn’t thinking as much during the battles, but more like I was finally thinking the right way.”

  My eyes had fixated on a random point on the weapons wall while I gave my report. When I finished talking, I looked back to find Hugo watching me with a small smile on his face.

  “Well,” I shrugged out of a silly sense of embarrassment, “and my sword is kind of amazing, so it makes my tasks easier than the regular hunters’.”

  He chuckled. “It is a rather powerful weapon, but it sounds like things are clicking into place appropriately.” The way he said it implied he had a plan mapped out for me I wasn’t aware of. “I’d like to hear about everything from the beginning,” he went on before I could question him.

  “Everything?” My voice was a pitch higher than normal.

  “I’m sure I already know more than you think I do,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “but for now, I’d love to hear you recount your battles. We can talk about them and break down what went right and where you could improve.”

  “Oh, battles.” Phew, fighting. I could talk about that. Let’s stick to the safe topics. “Yeah, sure, no problem. I got dropped into the middle of the first one, like literally. I poofed down to Earth and wham! fighting all around me. Alrik was so mad when he found me
, even before I hitched a ride outta there with an evil ex-hunter and rode atop Satan’s back while he was in dragon form. Of course, I had no idea at the time that it was Satan.”

  Hugo sat down at one of the benches along the side of the gym and motioned me over. “I can already tell this is going to be an interesting tale.”

  17

  Trials Upon Trials

  I spent several hours recounting my stories to Hugo. He stopped me throughout my retelling to ask questions or point out specific things I’d done well or could have done differently to defeat my opponent.

  It was a happy surprise how helpful he was despite not having seen the fights himself. But what was truly unexpected was what never happened—the lecture I had been bracing myself for since the moment I made up my mind to go down to Earth without permission. Hugo listened carefully to my adventures and smiled broadly when I retold my victories, but sadness crept into his eyes when I recounted my time with Satan.

  My own eyes filled with unshed tears. I had been injured and alone when I’d faced off against, not only the physical manifestation of evil, but the fears gripping my soul. He seemed to understand how hard it had been.

  There was never any condemnation in his words or actions. He admonished me over some of my mistakes, but it was for the purpose of teaching, not to shame me. And for the ease with which he forgave me—I loved him all the more. His gentle teaching encouraged me to do better, to be better, for him. Not simply because I wanted accolades from him for my good deeds, but because he cared so much about me, I wanted to make him proud.

  We ended our long discussion with my confession of how perplexed and disturbed I was over Satan’s cryptic obsession with me and concerns about whether I’d made the right decision about my family.

  Hugo picked up my chilly hand and pressed it tenderly between his two withered ones. The heat from his hands immediately soaked into mine.

  “Audrey, Satan is the father of lies. His currencies are deceit and manipulation, and he liberally gives both to all he comes into contact with. Even those foolish enough to consider him an ally.” His hands tightened around my own. “Standing against him and holding on to faith in the Creator will never be the wrong choice, regardless of what you may predict the outcome to be. The forces working around you, and through you, are far greater than Satan’s.”

  A strange thing happened then. It was as if the warmth from Hugo’s hands spread from my hand up my arm and throughout the rest of my body, then wrapped itself around my heart, pressed tight, and sealed itself there. I gasped at the sensation, but rather than pull away from his hands, I turned mine so I was able to grasp him back—holding on tight not only to his hands, but to his words as well.

  “Is that true?”

  When I expected gentleness, fierceness radiated from his body. “Yes. And heed my words, Audrey, for the next time the temptation to surrender to his demands will undoubtedly be stronger.”

  “Next time?” I squeaked.

  “Fear not, little one.” Hugo released my hand and stood with a broad grin that didn’t match the tone of our conversation. “Today is not that day. Today is a day to rejoice in your safe return and in your resistance to the enemy.”

  “Rejoice?” I’d just poured my heart out and shared my concerns for my loved ones, and he thought this was a time to celebrate?

  A boisterous laugh to rival Alrik’s rumbled from his gut. “You think me dismissive?”

  “Am I that easy to read?”

  The smile on his face let me know he wasn’t offended. “To me, as easy as a book.”

  Several days passed, and I fell back into a routine—a familiar, Logan-free routine. There hadn’t been any coincidental sightings and I was too stubborn to seek him out. The sting of his most recent rejection was still fresh, and besides, if he truly wanted to see me, I could be easily found. I, unlike him, hadn’t sequestered myself away from the rest of the realm.

  Yes, he’d been keeping a low profile. I’d done some impressive Double-O-Seven work—meaning I’d pumped my friends for information on the sly. Just because I wasn’t planning on hunting him down didn’t mean I wasn’t curious. It would have been nice if my covert inquires had gone unnoticed, but in all likelihood my friends were probably one step away from having “obsessive stalker” tattooed on my forehead. I was almost past the point of humiliation, but not quite. Though futile, my new motto was ‘deny, deny, deny.’

  Romona was the only one to whom I’d confessed my hurt and confusion. The more time passed, the more it seemed as if Logan’s romantic interest in me really had only been a result of his prolonged exposure to Earth and boy hormones.

  And that stung.

  Yet . . . his indiscretions aside, there had been moments of gentleness and comfort that spoke of a genuine regard for me. It was those moments that made his avoidance truly confusing. Where was the friend I had grown closer to those few days?

  Jumping to my own conclusions would have been easy for me, but I was trying to heed Romona’s advice not to. My only alternative seemed to be perpetual confusion, so confusion was a constant friend.

  Then there was the guilt.

  It sat low and heavy in my belly, souring more every day that passed. I hadn’t seen Jonathon in days, and as much as I wanted to stick my head in the proverbial sand and pretend the issue would work itself out, we needed to talk. No, we’d never established the exclusivity of our relationship, and on a technical level I hadn’t done anything wrong—but deep inside I knew it was wrong to have let things go on with Jonathon as long as they had.

  The harsh truth was I’d used Jonathon as a Band-Aid for my heart, and he hadn’t deserved that. Logan or not, my feelings for him were never going to deepen, a certainty I was now aware of. He was a wonderful human being and deserved to be with someone whose feelings for him ran hotter than lukewarm.

  “You know, Hugo,” I started, “these nunchakus are starting to look mighty interesting to me.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, are they now?”

  “Yep. I’m not going to lie, I can’t really picture myself killing a demon by hitting it repeatedly with a couple of wooden sticks. I mean that’s a lot of work, right? There are much easier ways to dispatch them. But handing out a good bruising could be cathartic.”

  “Becoming a little bloodthirsty are we?”

  I shrugged. “I’m just saying.”

  “How about if we leave some of the advanced weapons training until after you finish the gauntlet? Then I can show you how those . . . wooden sticks can be useful for more than anger management in a fight.”

  I groaned and flopped to the floor. “Stupid gauntlet. I’m still on the hook there?”

  “You sure are. In fact, you’re on the schedule to run it again today.”

  I twisted in his direction. “What?”

  “Yep, we have about . . .” he checked his wrist where a watch would be, if he had one, “ten minutes, give or take, before we need to get going.”

  I jumped up and started to pace, my heart suddenly pounding hard. I wasn’t ready to run the gauntlet. “Oh my gosh. You’re just telling me this now? Oh my gosh. I’m freaking out. Can you tell I’m freaking out right now? It’s super obvious, isn’t it?”

  He laughed.

  Laughed. At. Me.

  “Oh yes. I can very much tell you’re freaking out. Come on.” He took my arm and hauled me out of the training gym. “I have a surprise I think will help bring the freak-out factor down a notch or two.”

  I followed along like a zombie. Full on foot-shuffling the entire way. When we arrived, Hugo squared my shoulders and looked me in the eyes. He patiently waited for me to focus on him. When he was satisfied, a smile broke his face that lit his eyes. “There she is.”

  “There who is?”

  “My little warrior. I knew she would break through.” He squeezed my shoulders and his smile dropped as he held my gaze. “Audrey, listen to me. You have got this.”

  I nodded woodenly.

  “
You stay focused. You listen to your instincts and rely on your training. It’s going to be a cinch this time.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “Can Bear come with me?”

  My dog was now coming to training with me daily. He’d followed me around almost everywhere since returning to our realm. He even made it a habit to sleep on the bathroom floor when I showered. We both looked down at the fluffy mop already half-asleep at our feet.

  “No, I’m afraid not. Besides, he wouldn’t be much help to you in there. He’ll only change when you’re in real danger. The gauntlet is only smoke and mirrors.”

  “Oh.”

  Hugo removed his hands from my shoulders and grasped mine. A jolt of energy shot up my arms, this time traveling the length of my body and dispelling stress in its wake.

  Oh my. That’s better.

  “Audrey, I am proud of you,” Hugo said. “Not only of what you’ve accomplished, but of what I know you still have to accomplish.”

  I warmed under his regard, and a genuine smile broke free. “Thanks, Hugo. You’re the best.”

  “That is what they tell me.” Only Hugo could get away with saying that without sounding proud. “Now get in there and do your thing.”

  “You’re not coming in with me?”

  “Of course, I’ll be with you. But you have some people who want to talk to you first. This one can stay out here and keep me company.” He patted Bear, who leaned into his touch.

  With an encouraging nod from my mentor, I turned and entered the monitoring room.

  Who was here to talk to me? No one had ever come to watch my gauntlet trials before. A few familiar technicians waved before turning back to their tasks. I knew they were loading the computers with the information for the simulations. After facing a plethora of real monsters on Earth, this shouldn’t be so intimidating to me, but it was. I’d failed it so many times already I was psyching myself out.

 

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