Dearly Departed

by Katie May

  Of course, it backfires, and I’m left with an Angel-sized footprint on my stomach.

  “You’re pathetic,” Master points out dutifully.

  No shit.

  “Don’t worry, little Dearly Departed. By the end of your first year, you’re going to be murdering people like the best of them.” He smiles at me so sincerely, so enigmatically, that I can’t help but believe him.

  “Great,” I respond weakly, nursing my injured shoulder. Angel glances at me with pity, wincing at the bruises I feel freckling my face, before she hurries over to a new partner.

  “Shouldn’t you, you know, teach us stuff instead of watching us beat the crap out of each other?” I ask Master with feigned nonchalance.

  “I need to test your skill level first. See what I’m working with. Frankly, Hadley, you look like a fucking Cabbage Patch Kid fighting Godzilla. Do you even know how to walk in a straight line, child? You’re worse than Preston, and that kid ran into more walls than anyone I have ever met...and that’s when we practiced outside.”

  Despite my pissy mood, I snort. Sounds like Preston.

  “Now, get back to work. I don’t want to see you fucking around.” His lips move awkwardly to reclaim his straw, seeming to forget he has hands. All the while, he’s glaring at me with an almost incandescent fury.

  Fuming, I turn on my heel to face my new opponent.

  A seven-foot tall man who looks like the center for a football team.

  “Fuck,” I grouse.

  At least when I’m getting my ass handed to me, I can forget that a girl’s dead.

  History of the Afterlife

  “I have a thing for men choking me,” Aggie comments, as I heave myself into an empty chair. Layla eyes me up and down, her eyes widening.

  “Holy shit, Hadley. What happened?”

  “Combat class,” I respond lifelessly, emotionally and physically drained

  Frankly, that’s answer enough in my mind. Layla glances at me sympathetically, patting my hand, but Aggie simply raises a white eyebrow.

  “And were you choked?” she inquires with mischief in her eyes.

  “What the fuck? No!”

  “Shame.” She tsks, turning back towards the front of the classroom. The teacher hasn’t arrived, and the class is still rowdy. I take a desk to the right of Layla, who sits with Aggie on her left.

  My body is a canvas of bruises and scrapes, with pain reverberating through every pore. Layla and Aggie had both fared better than me, neither of them bruised.

  Layla actually looks refreshed. She has pink coloring her cheeks, and her hair glows with a healthy sheen. The bitch had loved combat class, besting even Angel. Honestly, I’m not surprised she didn’t know how badly I got my ass whooped. She was too focused on her own fights and had left with Aggie immediately after class, while I opted to take a long, blistering hot shower. But damn, if it doesn’t make me self-conscious to lose to every single person I fought.

  As if she knows what I’m thinking, Layla tentatively offers, “I can tutor you.”

  “I might have to take you up on that. If you don’t, like, kill me. Again.”

  “Speaking of killing...” Aggie butts in, once more engaged in our conversation. The woman has an attention span that would rival even a dog’s. “What the hell was that this morning?”

  Any humor drains from my body.

  “It’s nothing,” I say too quickly.

  “It didn’t seem like nothing.”

  “Drop it, okay?” My voice comes out unintentionally scathing. Bitter. Even Layla, not the target of my anger, blanches.

  Aggie’s face is carefully impassive, but her lips pull back from her teeth.

  “Fine.”

  I want to apologize instantly, but my thoughts are chaotic, bouncing from one to another.

  I remember back in middle school when one of the students committed suicide. She was an athlete, a volleyball player, and a year older than me. I hadn’t even known she existed until the assembly the day after her death. I hadn’t mourned her then, hadn’t felt like my world was spinning off its axis.

  Why is this different? Why does it feel like I’ve been innately changed, and not necessarily for the better?

  I feel like my feet are no longer cemented to dry ground. Gravity has been suspended, and I’m floating, floating, floating. The disembodied sensation threatens to expunge the contents of my stomach.

  Is it because I’ve seen the body myself?

  No, that doesn’t seem right. I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies at the hospital. As a teenager in the cancer ward, people came and went before I could orient myself. Friends, enemies, acquaintances. They were all there one second and gone the next.

  Maybe it’s the finality of the dead soul’s life. She won’t be finding peace, won’t be heading to a better place. She just...stopped.

  Stopped existing.

  Stopped living.

  Stopped being.

  The thought unravels me, a thread held loosely between thin fingers just waiting to be tugged.

  As our Reaper professor enters the classroom and instructs us to turn to page 147 in our textbooks, I finally uncover what terrifies me the most:

  Being forgotten.

  Demonology and Angelology

  “Angels and Demons are not based on how dark your soul is,” Dominic states, pacing the front of the classroom.

  Unlike the other classes, we aren’t sitting in chairs, instead resting on pillows in a makeshift semi-circle. It’s supposed to increase communication and conversation.

  Frankly, it makes me want to nap.

  Though I won’t lie and say the lecture isn’t interesting.

  And it doesn’t hurt that Mr. Thumb—or Dominic, as he asked to be called—is sex on a stick gorgeous. He’s a Demon, with spidery wings emerging from his back and a shock of dark hair. His smoothly tanned skin, copper almost, is devoid of any blemishes except for a scar running through his lips.

  I’m not the only girl ogling.

  Aggie is literally panting like a bitch in heat. Only Layla seems unperturbed, faithful to the man she loves, even in death.

  “As you may have guessed, Demons are more prone to violence, but that doesn’t make them evil. Just as not all Angels are good. Angels are cockier than any of the divisions, always placing themselves on a pedestal.

  “As their duty dictates, Demons are sent to both Hell and Earth to capture and kill—if necessary—escaped creatures. Hellhounds, for one. They’re forged from Hell’s fire for reasons unbeknownst to us. A natural phenomena, like a baby being born. Other monsters include rogue demons and Afterworld creatures that have had their souls tarnished,” he explains matter-of-factly, almost as if he’s reciting something he read from a textbook.

  “Tarnished?” a woman in her mid-thirties echoes primly from the front of the room. She, of course, chose the seat closest to Dom and is batting her abnormally long lashes at him.

  “There are monsters out there you’re not ready to learn about,” Dominic supplies gravely. “When this monster grabs a hold of a soul, whether that’s Angel or Reaper or Demon or Ghost, it changes them. Turns them into monsters that give even me nightmares.”

  Almost absently, he scrubs a hand over his scarred lip, and I wonder if said monster disfigured his face.

  Clearing his throat, Dominic continues, “Angels can either be Guardian Angels or normal ones who work in Heaven as guides and housekeepers, so to speak. There is no guarantee you’ll become a Guardian. Think of it as a...promotion. The Fates allow some to be Guardians and others to be normal Angels. Some are even granted Guardianship before graduation.”

  “What’s the difference?” Aggie asks.

  Despite Dominic’s goal to initiate conversation, it feels as if he’s talking down to us. Him standing and us on the floor?

  I don’t like it.

  Even if it’s a prime napping position.

  “Guardian Angels are sent to Earth, usually to watch after a charge or charges. Normal
Angels are sent straight to Heaven to help keep order.”

  “So, does that mean you get to work with God?” a teenaged, mousy girl queries.

  Dominic’s smile widens, a flash of perfectly white teeth.

  Why does everyone in the Afterlife have to be so attractive? Is that a requirement to join? Must be this sexy to enter type of thing?

  Ignoring her question, Dominic turns back towards his leather-bound notebook. It serves as our textbook, having been written by the original Demon and Angel pair millions—billions?—of years ago.

  A long fucking ass time.

  The Afterworld preserves books pretty damn well, if I do say so myself.

  “Forget everything you know,” he advises. “Go in with fresh eyes, and I might be able to teach you something.”

  Reapers

  It’s in my second to last class of the day when things get interesting.

  Well…

  More interesting than dead souls, flying lessons, and sexy men.

  An older Reaper stands at the front of the class behind a podium. He must be in his late seventies, balding and chubby, with dark beady eyes and age spots dotting his face. Mr. Buttox—no joke, real name—is droning on about how Reapers guide souls to the Afterlife when the door is pushed open and an Angel enters, her white hair cascading down her back in soft waves and heels clicking.

  Ignoring the class, the twenty-something Angel produces a piece of paper and hands it to Buttox. His brows furrow as he reads what’s written before he glances up and locks eyes with me.

  “Hadley, if you’ll follow Amelia, please.” He nods towards the gorgeous Angel who glowers at me like I’m shit she stepped on. Frowning, I reluctantly stand and pack my bag.

  “Where am I going?”

  “It seems as if Administer wishes to speak with you.”

  The look he gives me?

  If I wasn’t already dead, I would be very, very soon.

  Chapter 13

  KARSTON

  The memory of the dead soul’s body crashing against the side of the deep ravine while it floated on top of the blue water plays in my head over and over again. She was the first dead soul I’ve come across since arriving in the Afterlife. A deep sickness had invaded my stomach, churning inside me, threatening to expel the meager contents from the snack I had earlier in the day.

  Still, I hovered closer, the water flowing just under my invisible body. Her skin was cracked and gray, as if all the color was drawn from her soulless corpse, like the photos you might have seen in an old newspaper. Her eyes were the most eerie thing about her appearance. They were missing, like someone had burned them right out of her face.

  Even as a Ghost, this shit was still scary. We get a bad rep, us Ghosts, but we don’t really go around haunting and scaring people. We can, don’t get me wrong, but we have a higher purpose.

  Just when I thought I couldn’t look at her for another moment without screaming, I glanced up to the bridge and saw her for the first time in the Afterlife, my Hadley. Her face looked so haunted, terrified even. The color drained from her pink cheeks when she spotted the dead girl. To my horror, Auston and Preston were there to comfort her.

  Stupid fucks, with their paws on my girl.

  Fuck that.

  I hadn’t planned on making myself known to Hadley until it was revealed that I was her Ghost mentor, but I might not want to sit idly by anymore knowing they had her as well.

  My stomach twisted when Preston wrapped his arm around her, when Auston brought her face into his broad chest. That should’ve been me with her. Me! Not them. They are undeserving of someone like her.

  As they hauled her off, her body shaking, I focused on slowing my breathing. Once I present myself to her, they will be yesterday’s news.

  My Hadley.

  Sweet, sweet Hadley.

  On Earth she was my favorite haunt. I didn’t know why, but I was drawn to her, as if she had a darkness to rival my own. Since I’d become a Ghost two years ago, I’d been watching her. I saw when she graduated from her online high school. I watched when she took two frat boys home with her and had her way with them.

  I watched her in the shower, cleaning her perfect body with soapy hands, touching all her intimate parts.

  I know how beautiful she looks when she reaches her climax, the color of her nipples, the flush that creeps up her skin in her ecstasy.

  It was me who was floating nearby the day she got her cancer diagnosis. I felt as though I almost died again that day.

  Not her.

  Not my Hadley.

  I allowed myself to pass under the bridge and watched her all day during her classes. I passed a few other Ghosts along the way, also translucent, just like me. As a Ghost, I can see others who have made themselves invisible and they can also see me. Except for when we’re on Earth. I couldn’t see my brothers...the brothers I only just realized had also been with Hadley when I was. We’re kinda loners, us Ghosts, voyeurs, preferring to watch than to actually be involved. We can’t hide from each other on this plane, something I’m trying to work around.

  I don’t want anybody to see me.

  No one.

  Except her.

  Hadley suffered a lot today. Master let that Angel bitch fucking lay into her. My girl didn’t stand a chance. She’s no fighter, not in the traditional way at least. The way he teaches his classes is rudimentary. No one learns by having their asses handed to them.

  I was so grateful when her second to last class ended up having Mr. Buttox as her professor. There’s not a bone in his body that isn’t boring.

  I let out a deep sigh, pushing down the memories of the day, and float about the class absently, watching others’ reaction to my Hadley and her friend, Layla. Even the women in the class seem to be drawn to them.

  That could be a fun night.

  My fingers dig into my palms when cuntface Amelia waltzes in like she owns the fucking place and summons Hadley to the Administer’s office.

  The Administer!

  What the fuck could that cock face want with her?

  This is bad news. Really bad.

  I head her off, floating through the walls of the Academy and making my way over the river to the Administer’s office. Sitting behind his large desk, Administer glares at Miss Celeste as she throws her arms about wildly, her high-pitched voice screeching in my ears.

  Stefan, Dominic, and Professor Malcom—who teaches the third year Demon students—watch in silence, shaking their heads.

  “Malcom, do you have any idea what caused her death?” Celeste asks frantically, her shrill voice bouncing off the walls. “It must be your fault. Your-your Demons are failing to corral the Darkness and its underlings.”

  “Whoa there, Angelface, this has nothing to do with us. Have you actually seen her body? I mean, really seen her?” Malcom defends. Like most Demons, Malcom has large, silky black wings hanging off his back and sharp horns protruding from his head.

  Celeste blanches and almost imperceptibly shakes her head.

  “I didn’t think so. Well, guess what? I did. Stefan, Dominic, and I studied her. Every… fractured… bit. There’s not a mark to be found. Not a claw wound or a tooth bite. Other than her eyes being burned from her skull, there were no missing organs or torn clothing. The victim appears in perfect condition.”

  “You mean, besides the fact that she’s stuck in the void forever?” Celeste cuts in, crossing her arms under her chest. “Just because there’s no evidence doesn’t mean the Darkness hasn’t returned. The body looks exactly the same as it did one hundred ye—”

  “Enough, Celeste,” Administer interjects. “We all know what you think, and frankly, I shouldn’t even have brought you in on this conversation.” Administer massages his temples with his hands while Celeste bristles, quite literally ruffling her feathers. “The Darkness should still be rotting in hell. There’s no way it could've gotten onto my campus without my knowledge,” he bites out.

  Celeste pales. “But, Administer.
Surely you can’t deny the similarities that—”

  “I said enough!” Administer shouts, slamming his fists down in front of him. He takes a deep, controlled breath and lets it out slowly. “The Dearly Departed who saw the last victim will be here any minute. I need you to maintain control of yourself, or I’ll ask you to leave this office. Do you understand?”

  She rolls her eyes, but shuts her big mouth and takes a seat. I have a moment of panic when Administer sets his icy green eyes on me, and I look down to ensure I’m still maintaining invisibility. I release a breath when he glances away and locks his eyes on the door.

  Malcom and Dominic sit on one side of him, Stefan and Celeste on the other. Administer steeples his hands on raised elbows and clears his throat. The faint clanking of heeled shoes reaches my ears a few moments before a soft knock sounds on the door.

  “Come in,” Administer barks.

  Amelia peeks her blonde head in, her eyes widening when she sees the very formal setup. It’s like a bloody inquisition. Her gaze lands on Malcom, and an emotion flashes across her face, but it’s gone before I can decide what it was. Keeping her eyes on him, she throws her hair behind her shoulders and saunters into the room.

  The door slams shut behind her before Hadley can even enter. Blushing, Amelia turns and pulls the door back open and ushers her inside. Hadley’s face pales when she sees the panel before her. Fuck, I probably would too, and that’s saying something. You know. Since I’m a fucking Ghost.

  Stefan brings out a sixth chair and sets it before Administer’s desk.

  “Why, thank you, Stefan,” Amelia croons, before tucking her skirt under her ass and sitting down.

  “That’s not for you,” Administer declares. “Amelia, you are dismissed. Hadley,” he gestures towards the chair and a blushing Amelia, “would you please take a seat?”

  Amelia huffs and stands before storming out of the office, giving Hadley the stink eye the entire time.

  Interesting.

  Taking the now vacant seat, Hadley sits and crosses her muscled legs. Those little knee high stockings accentuating her calves. I wonder what kind of panties she’s wearing today. I bet it’s a thong. Black lace hugging her skin in all the right places. It was always her favorite pair to wear with a skirt on Earth.