The Glass Dagger (Afterlife Chronicles Book 1)

by Stephanie Hudson

  “Oh, Jiminy Cricket, this is gonna be awesome sauce on a hotdog!” Pip said before running out the room, leaving everyone looking as if they didn’t know what to do. An awkward silence fell upon the room and after three minutes waiting they all looked to Sophia and she could think of nothing to say, so instead she just shrugged her shoulders.

  The next thing they knew Pip was back, running into the room and this time carrying a huge 80’s style, silver boom box over one shoulder and a massive hot pink tutu fluttering behind her over the other.

  “It’s time to go to funky town!” she said placing the boom box down and looking to each of them before saying,

  “Now would a scary ass demon, gonna kill you dead and tear your faces off do this first…” Then she pressed play and the room quickly filled with the 80’s machine drum beat. Then she quickly kicked into her massive skirt, wiggling it up her body and threw her helmet to one side, letting it slide along the floor, releasing a mass of tight green curls. After this she snatched out a pink sweatband she had stashed in her leggings waistband and snapped it around her forehead, now looking like she was ready for some radical 80’s rave.

  “Lucifer help me now,” Sophia muttered, looking to the ground as if praying in her despair when hearing the twangy base sound, that was the unmistakable opening surf guitar riff with added cheesy synthesiser.

  “Seriously Squeak…Kenny Loggins’ Footloose?”

  “What, it’s a classic! And you freakin’ loved this song at last year’s Christmas party…come on, you remember that thing we did, with our feet…oh can’t you just feel that awesome beat infecting your brain!” Pip squealed as her hand went to the side of her head and her little bum started to shake to the side.

  “Not really” Sophia commented dryly but Pip just ignored her and started singing,

  ‘I been working so hard, I’m punching my card, eight hours, for what, oh tell me what I got, I got this feeling, like times still holding me down’…” Then she stopped and cocked her head to the side to tell Sophia to start dancing.

  Once again, the others couldn’t see thanks to her black eyes, but she certainly rolled them before her foot started to move. It was ever so slight at first but Pip lowered her hands, shaking them closer to the ground just before the chorus broke.

  And then she let loose! She raised her hands back up and started to shake them round in time with her behind, swinging her body out and back in again.

  “Oh, who am I kiddin’, I love this song!” Sophia shouted and just like Pip, she started to really let herself go on the chorus. The others seemed stunned and glanced first at each other looking before back to a sight they never thought they would ever see. A bad ass, scary demon, wearing a posh outfit dancing in time with the colourful, tutu wearing Pip.

  Their moves were in sync as if they had done this a hundred times before and the foot thing ended up with them linking their arms and stepping over each other’s legs, as though they were walking as one.

  Then Pip grabbed Sophia’s flaky hand and spun her round a few times before breaking free to do her own thing.

  Sophia’s wings followed her every move, clouding them both for a moment in black smoke before they formed wings once again. Even they looked like they were having a good time, swaying back and forth with Sophia’s sidesteps.

  Meanwhile Pip looked as though she could have been the star on some Broadway musical. She took off doing her own thing, kicking up her legs and clapping under them, all the while singing her little heart out. Sophia also started doing her own thing, letting herself go and swinging her arms from side to side, clapping her hands in time with the beat.

  The others watched fascinated, no longer able to find her scary and getting used to the way she looked in this form. Ena and Janie even started dancing along with them, laughing and giggling as they did. The boys just looked on in awe at what was the last thing they ever expected to witness in their first class.

  Then the song kicked it up a notch and Pip stepped it up a notch (if that was possible) and started going crazy, shaking her head round from side to side, making her massive green afro blur as it went around and around. Then the next thing they all knew she was on the floor break dancing.

  She spun her little body round in a tight ball and then landed up on her head, to kick her legs out, creating V shapes with her body. Then she spun back and flipped up just as the song was finishing, so that she could run into a power slide along the floor, pretending she was holding a guitar up in the air when coming to a stop near the door.

  It was at this point as the song was just about to finish that her husband walked in, followed by Sophia’s. Everyone froze, along with Pip, who looked to the door and said,

  “Too much?”

  “Are we interrupting something?” Zagan said with a smirk looking at Sophia and Adam couldn’t help but ask his own wife,

  “I didn’t know dancing was on the curriculum darling?” Pip backflipped up skilfully, walked over to her husband, patted his cheek, and said,

  “You don’t teach dancing sugar pop…you live it.” It was at this point that Ivan shocked them all and started clapping and with hands as big as his, it created quite an applause. The rest burst out laughing and joined in, clapping with him.

  She gave them all a graceful bow, raised herself up and then pushed her wild hair back with both hands before saying,

  “And my work here is done.” Then she left the room giving them all a salute. Adam shook his head, obviously used to his wife’s strange outrageous behaviour, and said,

  “I’d better go and make sure she doesn’t start dancing on the roof, like she usually does after that song.”

  Zagan watched them leave and then walked up to his own wife and said,

  “Nice moves beautiful, wish I had turned up sooner.” Then he placed a gentle hand on her cracked face and kissed her cheek being completely unaffected by her appearance. If her skin hadn’t been a deathly grey colour you might have seen her blush.

  “And what are you doing here so soon?” she enquired, unable to keep her smile to herself. And the teens soon realised something, what should have been a creepy, spine tingling sight was no longer something scary to them at all. Pip had been right, it had worked. They could no longer look at her and feel revolted but instead they just accepted it, as though this was a different part of her, one that didn’t change who she was inside.

  “Time’s up sweetheart, it’s time for their next lesson.”

  “Already? Wow, that did go quick,” she replied and the group had to agree, their first lesson went by in the blink of an eye.

  “Just give me a minute to finish up.” Zagan looked down at his wife, tapped her chin once and nodded with a smirk. Then he left the room, leaving them wondering what their next class was.

  “So, what do we think, did Pip make her point?” Sophia asked folding her arms and the second she did, she was back to her human form, looking as radiant as ever. Suddenly the teens all started to look a bit ashamed at their reactions to her demon form.

  “I think I speak for everyone when I say we are sor…” Sophia held up her hand and stopped Theo in his tracks.

  “There is no need to apologise Theo, for I know what I am and I know how it must look seeing me like that for the first time. My actions weren’t done to scare you all but to prepare you. I will not lie to you but my world can be a scary place to an unknown like each of you. However, given time and education, then I promise, there will come a day when seeing demons in their natural form will be like second nature to you and you won’t even flinch…” she said, pausing a moment at the end as if deciding whether or not to say what she wanted to say next.

  In the end she sighed and then went for it, knowing that to be forewarned was always better than to be blindsided.

  “…After all, soon there might come a day when you yourselves look in the mirror and gaze upon your own true forms…and they might not be pretty but one thing I am damn sure about and that is they will be ki
ck ass!” she finished, smirking at the boys grinning but also hoping that when the time came, the girls especially wouldn’t find this too difficult to grasp.

  They certainly didn’t look as convinced as the boys did but that was only to be expected. If a girl got a scar, it often meant she felt as though she was ugly, but if a boy did then in her experience it often meant they were cool. For her though, as someone unable to scar, she only had a dear friend to go by and they once told her,

  ‘Scars are just the diary you carry with you, showing you of your past mistakes to learn from, heroic actions to be proud of and past adventures to remember.’

  Oh yes, her sister-in-law and now queen was a wise woman indeed…although she had also seen her fall over trying to put two legs in one trouser leg by mistake, but she just assumed that everyone had their ‘off’ days…well humans that was anyway.

  “So, what is our next lesson, Miss?” Zane couldn’t help but ask and Sophia smiled, giving up asking them to call her Sophia and said something she knew the boys really wanted to hear…

  “Weapons training.”

  23

  DEMONstration

  The group soon found themselves walking into the huge training room that they had been shown on their tour with Pip, only this time they were dressed for the occasion. They had each been given light grey trousers to wear that were wide legged and tied at the waist, falling to their ankles.

  They were called Hakama and traditionally they were worn over a Kimono. These were jackets in the same colour and material that crossed over and were tucked into the high waistbands of the trousers. Theo and Zane looked at themselves in the mirror before walking out and both as if like they were about to star as extras in a martial arts movie. Whilst the girls looked at themselves and pulled awkwardly at their sleeves and collars, feeling out of place.

  Janie was particularly nervous, having no idea what awaited her and wasn’t looking forward to being made a fool of. But really, what other outcome was there for her in hand to hand combat seeing as the ‘hand to hand’ part was going to be a problem. Everyone would know she would be at a disadvantage in a class like this and she hated it, but what was worse was having to respond to those pitying stares.

  “You’ll do great,” Ena said nudging her shoulder knowing what dark place her friend’s mind was quickly wandering off to. It wasn’t hard to guess after watching the colour drain from her face when Sophia had first told them what their next class was going to be.

  Janie gave her a small smile that wasn’t reflected in her eyes, telling Ena very quickly that it was faked. Ena couldn’t say that she understood how she was feeling, as not many would unless they faced the same handicap, but she knew what it felt like to be looked at differently. She knew what it felt like to be pitied and at the same time ridiculed. But the difference here was that no-one in this room pitied Janie, they only wanted to support her and that meant not treating her any differently than any of the others.

  “I can’t even throw a ball without smashing a window, so God knows what will happen when they give me a weapon, but if I were you, I would stand well back,” Ena added looking to the far wall of weapons that decorated the large space with lots of shiny, sharp metal.

  This time when Janie smiled, she knew it was for real.

  “And besides, I don’t think we are the only ones who feel awkward,” Ena said nodding to the last one out of the changing rooms and Janie looked over her shoulder to see poor Ivan who looked as though he wanted to go run and hide. Janie bit her lip and felt bad that she had only been thinking of herself, when she clearly wasn’t the only one the thought of doing this class was affecting.

  Ivan walked in last and hated every step that took him closer to violence. He didn’t know how he was going to explain to his new teachers that he didn’t want to do this…that he couldn’t do this. In fact, he was so lost in the midst of his inner turmoil that he didn’t realise at first that someone was talking to him. He looked down, as he had to with most people, and saw little Janie looking up at him with a beaming grin on her face. He liked it when she looked up at him because all the loose hair she usually wore down to hide herself, fell back and he could see all of her beautiful face.

  It was a sight that made his fears slowly slip away until all he focused on was the way she touched his arm, pulling at it so that he would go with her. He let himself be led to the others and this was when he finally decided to ask what it was she had said to him.

  “I sorry, I no listen there.” She laughed once and repeated herself.

  “I said that Ena and I think you look great, very heroic,” she added winking at him, something she never did with anyone else. Well, hearing this was enough for Ivan to completely forget his fears and instead focused solely on trying to make himself look even more heroic.

  “So, what now?” Zane asked looking around the room like everyone else and wondering where their instructor was. Rue had been the one to show them down there and to their individual lockers, which not only had their names on but also had brand new training gear inside, which included everything from running gear and gym gear, to what they were wearing now. They had even got everyone’s sizing right, which wasn’t the most difficult task for most but then when you threw Ivan into the mix, then yeah, that couldn’t have been easy.

  They had asked where Pip was and Rue laughed once and said,

  “Busy with her husband.” Now none of them wanted to know what that meant but I think their faces said it all, which was when Rue laughed even harder and corrected them all by leaving the room saying,

  “Disco dancing on the roof.”

  It had been the first time any of them had been alone with Rue since the bus drive, but each of them had taken Draven’s advice and not held it against her. Knowing now of course, that she’d had little choice and was just following orders. And speaking of orders, theirs quickly came from above.

  “Welcome to your first lesson in weapons training and combat. If you would all please move to the sides, I think we should start with a demonstration, Takeshi, if you would be so kind,” Zagan said from a small balcony above the door they had just entered through. They looked towards the other side of the room to see the Japanese man entering, walking down the centre with purpose.

  He wore robes very similar to the ones he’d had on the day before when they had been introduced, only this time instead of wearing black, he wore red with white symbols embroidered with silk thread down the long panels at the front.

  “Uh…guys, I think moving would be a good idea,” Zane said as he looked back up to Zagan who looked like he was getting ready to do something. The others didn’t need telling twice and all moved to the side to watch this from a safe distance. Just as they did Zagan, who had backed up, ran towards the edge and jumped down to the fighting arena below, landing hard on one knee.

  The impact caused the floor to ripple around his knee before sending a shockwave of cracks outwards like vines growing beneath the bamboo floor. Shocked gasps came from the girls and they all looked for any damage to their new teacher, as there was to the floor beneath him. Although they were soon to find out that it would take a lot more than that to hurt a high-ranking demon like Zagan.

  He looked up at his approaching opponent and pushed his black hood back, reminding Zane of some of his favourite computer-generated assassins, in that bad ass awesome, superhuman way. His long white hair was half tied back by a thick band of leather cord and his pale white skin made for a startling contrast with the long black Kimono style jacket he wore. He stood up and as he did the deeply gouged floor started to repair itself, as if he was using his power to suck back the damage, and soon the cracks were no more.

  “What do you say my friend, shall we dust off those old Rōnin bones of yours?” Zagan said in jest and Zane, having seen a movie about the famous ‘Rōnin’, knew what this meant and the importance of the name. The name Rōnin was given to those who unfortunately became a samurai without a lord or master due to thei
r death or fall in combat.

  According to the ‘Bushido Shoshinshu’, also known as the Code of the Samurai, one suffering this loss was supposed to commit seppuku, a ritual suicide after his master’s death. Of course, not everyone was so quick to want to fall on one’s sword until disembowelment. So, those who chose not to honour the code were deemed ‘on their own’ and were meant to suffer great shame to their name and family.

  It meant that a lot of very skilled Samurai warriors ended up becoming mercenaries. However, Takeshi took a different path, one that led him down the supernatural road and pledging his loyalty to a very different master…Dominic Draven.

  In response to Zagan’s provoking banter, Takeshi held his hand out to some nearby staffs that were positioned in racks at the far wall with the rest of the weapons. The long pole shot out to his hand as though there were some physical connection the group couldn’t see. As soon as it was in Takeshi’s possession he spun it round like a propeller at an impossible speed then swept it low to the ground before coming back up into a ready stance. Then he blew some lint off his shoulder and motioned for his cocky opponent to come closer using two of his fingers that also had hold of the weapon.

  Zagan cocked his head to the side and smirked when Takeshi’s only response to his goading had been him showing off his skills with the weapon. Zagan not being one to keep a challenger waiting bowed at the waist, keeping his eyes on his opponent at all times as he’d been taught. Takeshi did the same and the second he rose back up ready for him, Zagan ran towards him full speed.

  He held his hand out as he went so that one of the staffs could swiftly gravitate to his hand just as it had done with Takeshi’s. Then he jumped the second he had it in his grasp, so that he could bring it down with the sole intent of cracking it over Takeshi’s head.