The Glass Dagger (Afterlife Chronicles Book 1)

by Stephanie Hudson

  However, all of this crude metalwork framed a small hooded figure who stood in front of it looking through the gaps as though they were listening to a God speaking.

  They couldn’t hear what was being said but the second they saw a hand moving towards the small dish, they both cried out.

  “NO, DON’T DO IT!” It was at this point that their question of who it was, was quickly answered as they turned and looked over their shoulder. Zane had been right. It was Janie but not as they knew her, not as anyone knew her. Because this Janie was clearly possessed.

  Her eyes were full of blood coloured fire and glowing as though she was drawing in a demonic energy from whatever was locked away behind that door. Then she started to speak to them, first opening her mouth a few times as though she was testing the action. Because the horrifying reality was simple, her body no longer belonged to herself but to the Demon that possessed her.

  And soon came it’s warning,

  “My time has come, time of the Blood Master to arise and you will all…”

  “Die. For. Me.”

  33

  Blood Rage

  Theo and Zane were both stunned into silence at the sight of little Janie possessed. It almost looked as though someone had draped an evil veil over her head and what they saw now was it mimicking her human side, using it as a host to do its bidding. A bidding that meant setting whatever was behind that door free. Something that Theo and Zane didn’t need to be a couple of genius’ to know was most likely a very bad thing indeed.

  “Janie? Janie it’s us, it’s Theo and Zane, can you hear us?” Theo asked slowly trying to approach without alarming her. At this she turned her head to the side and let out an ear-piercing screeching noise, like some demon underling was crying out to its master. Her eyes still weren’t her own but now neither was her skin, as it had started to crawl as though something was digging at her insides to be let out.

  The last time they had seen that was yesterday when Zagan had called forth his powers in the fight with Takeshi. Was this what was happening now? But better yet, was it the monster trying to get in or was it their Janie trying to get out?

  “I wouldn’t come any closer if I were you or your little friend here will smile at you while she slits her own throat,” the demon said, once again using Janie’s lips. It sounded as if it was from a foreign land, but one not of this Earth. Almost as though it was trying to remember how to use a mortal language, it had been that long.

  Theo would have called its bluff considering Janie didn’t have a knife but then, as though reading his thoughts, she lifted her arm, the one missing the hand, and folded back her sleeve using slow creepy stilted and mechanical movements. Then she twisted her body as though something was moving and writhing inside her before producing the same black smoke they had seen back in the nightclub. It seemed to seep out of her pores and combine at the end of her flesh, joining together creating a large point where a hand should have been.

  But surely it was only made of smoke, Theo thought, but then as if testing him with that knowledge her arm moved closer to her face and she grinned at them as she dragged the blade down the side of her face.

  “NO!” Theo screamed and was about to run forward when Zane stopped him. Theo hadn’t seen see what Zane saw as he was too clouded by his anger. But when that blade had cut her face it also carried on, slipping down to her own neck, threatening the life they both cared about.

  “Now you will watch me rise,” she said before plunging the black smoke dagger into the door, making it disappear up until it reached to her actual flesh.

  “But the door, surely that won’t be enough?” Zane asked Theo but he didn’t need to answer him with any predictions because in that moment nothing was on their side…not even fortified metal and magic combined.

  Janie’s body started to go rigid as her back bowed and her head shot up, looking to the stone ceiling as if she were trying to concentrate on drawing in more power. She screamed again and again, but once more the sound wasn’t coming from her but from the Hellish minion, whoever was behind that door.

  The next thing they knew even more black smoke started to come from within her, adding to the force that was trying to open the door. They didn’t know if it would work or not but if the sounds of metal splitting were anything to go by, then it didn’t look good.

  “What are we going to do!?” Zane asked, once more looking to Theo for answers.

  “I don’t know but it doesn’t look like we have long so we’d better think of something quick as that door won’t hold out much longer.” And Theo was right, for the metal looked to be heating up, turning red hot and making rivets and bolts burst out of their holes due to pressure building. One of them tore into Janie’s face but she obviously didn’t register the pain, not with the demon inside of her.

  “Look, now the symbols are melting away!”

  “We have to do something!” Theo said, seeing that Zane was right as not only was the magic nearly gone but now there was molten metal dripping from the door, creating a hole at its core.

  “What about the dagger? What if you…” Zane never finished his sentence as they were too late. Suddenly the centre of the door exploded inwards, thankfully causing most of the damage to fly inside the cell and not into Janie’s body. Now the hole was big enough, Janie bent her head slightly and disappeared inside the cell making both Theo and Zane scream out,

  “NO!” Then without giving it another thought, they ran towards the cell ready to discover who or what was behind this evil game. Because Theo knew now that was all it had ever been. Just some sick twisted game to get one of them down there so that Janie or himself could be manipulated enough to get close to them. Then once in range, bam! The game completed and the unwilling soul was trapped within themselves, ready to do the prisoner’s bidding.

  Well, they may have used Janie to set them free but Theo would do everything in his power to stop them from stepping one foot out of that cell and hurting anyone else. For Janie may have been lost to them already but he wouldn’t allow them to reach the others, not if he had a single breath left in his body!

  They had made it to the door, ducking inside themselves only to come face to face with what looked like death. They found a body hunched on the ground. It looked like the remains of someone who had starved long ago, as they were practically withered away to nothing. Janie was hunched over him and as soon as they entered she turned to look over her shoulder. They expected her to lash out at them in some way, but what they found was confused frightened tears.

  “Theo, I don’t understand,” Janie said to him as if a small part of her had just broken through and it sounded utterly heartbroken.

  “It’s alright Janie, we will figure this out, just…” Theo started to say but Zane’s panicked voice cut him off.

  “What’s that…on his arm?” Zane asked, sounding disgusted by the sight and Theo squinted in the low light, trying to make it out himself. It looked as though the withered body had once been some sort of human machine hybrid.

  One arm looked like rusted pieces of metal, and cogs that hadn’t turned in quite some time. Underneath this was dead flesh missing skin, as though that had been the part to wither first. It was like a skeletal body of flesh and bone had been experimented on and after dying it had been dumped in there as some kind of afterthought, throwing it away in some barren junk pile.

  “Janie... step back, walk towards us slowly,” Theo warned, not liking how this felt. Not one little bit. Janie shook herself as if something inside her still lingered there, hidden beneath the surface.

  “I don’t get it…why would something want this door open so badly, there is nothing in here but a mutated, rotting corpse and why now is Janie…” Zane was cut off when Janie screamed as that rotting corpse they had been so sure about, suddenly reached out and grabbed her ankle.

  “Theo! Theo help me!” she shouted and Theo reached out just as her eyes started to turn white.

  “Janie, no!” Theo w
as just about to grab her arm but Zane pulled him back quickly and just in time as those smoke serpents were back and snapped out at him, trying to take his hand off. They would have succeeded too if it hadn’t been for Zane’s quick actions. Theo fell back a step and watched wide-eyed and helpless as Janie’s face was frozen in a mask of horror as the energy was quickly drained from her.

  The colour of her skin started to fade into lifeless grey and the hand that had been drawing that lifeforce was now turning into more than a few strips of flesh against brittle bone. Theo and Zane started to take a few steps back as it started to gain enough strength to move its twisted limbs.

  “We need to get out of here…Zane run!” Theo shouted just as it lunged again, catching them unaware of the immediate danger. Theo moved out of reach but Zane tripped and cried out for his friend as he was quickly dragged backwards.

  “Zane!” Theo shouted, going back for his friend but soon scrabbling back as the figure rose up to his full height, taking Zane’s body with him, suspending him in the air by his throat. Zane’s eyes too seeped into a white void as though someone had just taken his soul.

  Theo was torn between running and screaming the place down until Draven or the others could hear him. Or he could do what he was born to do…to fight.

  “LET HIM GO!” Theo threatened, feeling his anger bubbling up inside him, ready to burst free when it reached its peak. The demon’s head was down, hidden by the shadows and just as it drained the last of his friend’s body he let him slump to the ground, discarding it like a useless dead carcass.

  The creature took in Theo’s threat and twisted its head as if it had amused him to hear such a thing from such a lowly being. Theo could now see, by draining the power from two people, what must have been the demon’s usual form. The man cracked his neck to the side before stepping out of the shadows and allowing Theo to take a good look at the enemy he faced…and it was terrifying.

  The creature looked like some kind of demonic version of a civil war brigadier with its double-breasted jacket, the colour of charcoal, that tapered down into a wide belt. One that looked to be made from demon skin and worn like a trophy as it was decorated with teeth and horns, held in loops of hellish leather.

  The buttons on his jacket held runes from some ancient language and were connected to leather straps that continued around his back. This also served the purpose, along with the strapping across his chest, of holding his mechanical arm in place. But there was nothing robotic about it as it looked more like someone had raided a junk yard in Hell and pieced together something in a hurry. It mainly consisted of large hammered brass plates, riveted onto pieces of leather, that fit various parts of his arm. This was then joined together by chains for stability and copper pipes that led back to a steam piston that hissed every time he moved.

  There was also a series of cogs that were fitted at the elbow which Theo gathered was supposed to aid in his movement there. This was also the same theme by his hand and once again, it looked like an unfortunate monster in Hell had been skinned, having its hide used to fashion a glove. Attached to this were chains that had been bolted straight through his fingers and these all gathered together at his wrist, which turned by a barrel of cogs.

  And if that wasn’t creepy enough, old bloodied, medical tubing ran the full length of his arm carrying some sort of oily red fluid. It was as though his veins were on the outside of his body, weeping black liquid at the joints that smelled like old blood mixed with oxidised copper.

  As he stepped further into the light, Theo felt revolted to see that the few patches of his own skin that peeked through looked burnt and deformed. Pieces of twisted flesh that barely looked useful enough for movement, let alone anything else. It seemed to weep a yellowish liquid at the cracks while other parts resembled what happened to skin when it had been submerged in water for too long.

  Theo wanted to gag but was too frightened when the rest of him came into view. Half of his face was covered by a metal plate that had been screwed into his skull. You could still see some of the flesh on the bolt heads that had risen when the metal had been driven deeper into his skull.

  A flexible coil framed up and over his bare eye and joined to moving cogs at his cheek. His covered eye was hidden behind a black mesh but the demonic iris could be seen glowing amber. As though he were some kind, of cyborg nightmare that was alerting you to the fact he had been switched on. His other eye was ice white, with a black ring around the outside of his iris and tiny dot of black at the centre, giving him a Marilyn Manson vibe.

  “I be General Gruen, second-in-command to the true Lord and Master of Hell, Ba‘al Zəbûl, for he will rise again!” A voice bellowed out, reminding Theo of a clip he once saw on YouTube of Adolf Hitler delivering a speech. He sounded of Germanic descent, mixing this with a demonic growl at the end of his words. Theo wasn’t ashamed to say that it made the hair of the back of his neck rise.

  But no matter how terrifying he was, Theo couldn’t extinguish the flames of rage building inside of him and he quickly acted on this before his fear could override his actions. He grabbed the glass dagger from his belt and ran at him. The General laughed, underestimating Theo and swung out his mechanical arm towards him, in hopes of knocking him off his feet.

  But Theo remembered his training from Zagan and ducked at just the right moment, following the defensive move by bringing up his dagger and embedding it in the demon’s shoulder. He managed to catch him just between the plates of metal, driving it deep enough into his mangled flesh, so that when Theo dived out of the way, the dagger remained.

  The demonic General first looked at Theo with a shocked expression, obviously surprised that he had actually managed to inflict damage with a weapon. Then he turned his head slowly towards the dagger still embedded in his flesh and his eyes started to glow in a way that were responding to the sight. The General bent his head to the side, turned back to face Theo and smiled, showing him that over half his teeth were metal.

  “The Pertinax, ÙRI ISKAKKU…” (Mean’s ‘Blood Weapon’ in Sumerian) He uttered the ancient words, this time as though they were the first words ever whispered from new born lips. It certainly flowed better than his English, that was for sure.

  “…My Master, Ba‘al Zəbûl will thank you for this… when your soul is rotting in Hell that is,” he said calmly before lifting a mechanical boot and kicking Theo square in the chest with it. Before he knew what hit him, Theo was flying backwards through the broken door, snapping the rest of it clean off its twisted hinges. His back smacked into the prison wall opposite the cell before he fell forward, his face landing on the dirty cobbled floor.

  “You younglings, so naive, so easy to manipulate…I knew at least one of you would release me and grant me access into the treasury, but never did I imagine you would deliver to me the very reason for my being here,” the General said sounding amused as he pulled the dagger from his shoulder. But that sadistic smile soon left his lips when he looked at the dagger more closely.

  “No…no…this can’t be…where is it?” he shouted and stomped his way to where Theo was lying against the cold stone. He saw him coming closer, only now noticing his limp thanks to his larger mechanical leg.

  “WHAT DID YOU DO?!” He screamed down at him in a purely demonic voice that sounded as if it had been bellowed from Hell itself.

  Theo spit out blood on the floor, landing on the General’s foot and started laughing before saying,

  “Take a good look asshole, it’s on your boot!”

  The General wasn’t in a laughing mood and picked him up by the back of his neck. He held him next to his face, lifting him from the ground.

  “YOU LIE!” he snarled, snapping metal teeth at him. Theo knew that he should have been scared in the face of death, but considering he had already faced that twice in the last few days, he just couldn’t find it in him. However, when he looked back into the cell and saw both Janie’s and Zane’s bodies lying there all lifeless, then what he did find was so
mething a lot more useful…rage.

  Suddenly a flash of memories invaded his mind all at once, every single time his touch had hurt someone or affected them in some way. It started with Sarah and became a montage of nameless faces, until finally it came to Carrick, the last person his touch had affected. Then something clicked into place. Like slotting the last puzzle piece into position, creating the clearest of pictures in his mind. He finally knew what he was…

  A Demon.

  34

  Stolen Power

  Theo felt the rage build up inside him as never before and even though hanging by this demonic mechanical hand nearly choking the life out of him, it couldn’t douse the flames fuelling his fury.

  “GIVE ME THE BLOOD OF A GOD!” The General roared in his face. Theo smiled and replied,

  “Try and take it from me, bitch!” Then he raised his hand up and thrust it onto the unprotected side of the General’s face. Theo didn’t know what he was doing at first, as he had spent most of his life trying to control what he always considered a curse. But now, well it was the first time he was considering it a gift, one he was willing to use to its maximum potential. So, he concentrated on drawing in on the energy he would always feel when touching someone, breathing deep as if mimicking the action his powers were inflicting.

  The General’s face went from rage to shock and finally to panic when he felt his own stolen power being drained back from deep within his dark soul.

  “You can’t do this…I am a God among mere men and you are but a youngling.” He felt the presence of Janie and Zane there as it flowed back into him and this only angered Theo further. He gripped his face and dragged it closer. Once there he uttered the same words the warrior woman had done from his visions…