The Glass Dagger (Afterlife Chronicles Book 1)

by Stephanie Hudson

“My guess is the first one, as I don’t think she would have gone to all that trouble decorating our rooms, like she said she had, if they were only going to lead us to our deaths…again.” Theo replied applying logic in what seemed like the weirdest conversation possible.

  “Righty lefty kidderly winkles, let’s get our wiggle on and bust a groove on this bad boy Mansion!” Pip said turning the simple ‘let’s go’ into the longest and most cryptically challenging sentence she had said yet.

  “Does little teacher want dancing for us?” Ivan asked giving each of them a quizzical look.

  “No, she is going to show us around,” Janie told him and looked back to Pip, who was skipping out the room and mumbled to herself,

  “I think.”

  As the group followed their colourful guide out the door, each of the teachers nodded in a friendly manner, putting the group at ease for the next time they would see them when classes began. They then travelled down the grand hallway that looked as if it was more suited to an English castle, not anywhere they ever expected to call home. Theo looked behind him as the door closed before he broke out into a short jog to catch up with their green haired guide. She was quick for such a little thing he thought with a smirk.

  “Ask away my young Padawan,” she said as Theo approached.

  “A what now?” Theo had to ask.

  “She means a Jedi apprentice,” Zane answered for her, making Pip’s hand go up as she shouted without looking back at him,

  “Bingo birdie!” Theo looked bewildered for a second before looking to Zane on his right, who had now caught up with him,

  “You’re a geek, you know that.” Zane smiled, pounded his fist to his chest twice and said,

  “And proud brother, and proud.” Theo rolled his eyes, like Ena often did but smiled all the same.

  “So, this question your booty is just burning to ask me?” Pip said reminding him. By this time the rest of the group had caught up and not only with their faster pace but with the conversation as well.

  Theo thought for a moment about asking her who this ‘Toots’ was but surprised himself when he opened his mouth and a different question came out,

  “Why did Carrick call Mr Draven ‘my Lord’?” The rest of the teens all looked to Pip, as though they too had been asking themselves the same question and were just thankful that Theo had been the one to bring it up. Pip, on the other hand, just giggled and shook her head before shocking them all with the answer,

  “Because you silly bunch of jellybeans…

  “He’s our King.”

  13

  Afterlife Tour

  “Rightybee my little supernatural newborns, now we get to the good stuff!” Pip said clapping her hands and spinning on her heel to face them. She had suddenly stopped under an ancient looking sign hanging from the ceiling. It looked like a demonic hand pointing to a pair of double doors on their left. Underneath the words read,

  ‘Hellish Fun

  This Way’

  It was easy to see that this was what Pip had wanted to show them all along but had first been obligated to get all the, in her words, ‘Stuffy boring stuff’ out of the way. And their first stop had been the library, which had been grand enough to rival the best libraries in the world. The place had been incredible and even without being a book worm, you had to admire it for its grandeur and beautiful craftsmanship, something the group collectively did…one more than the others.

  “This place is insanely cool,” Janie had whispered as if fearing at any moment to receive the wrath of some tight lipped, old crone of a librarian. Of course, she quickly learned that she had nothing to fear when Pip broke out into song, just to hear her echo.

  “I like big books and I cannot lie,

  You other books can’t deny,

  That when a book sits there all displaced,

  And a square thing in your face,

  They get sprung,

  From the shelf, first by the spiney scruff,

  ‘Cause you notice that book was stuffed,

  Deep in the words she’s seeing,

  I’m hooked and I can’t stop reading,

  Oh baby!”

  Pip had done this after grabbing the first big book to hand and dancing with it, smacking it in time with the beat against someone’s imaginary butt. As soon as she had finished the others had burst out laughing. However, Ivan had taken a little longer than the others to get it. When he did the singing echo from Pip was soon replaced by the booming sound of Ivan’s laughter, making his whole body jiggle up and down as he held on to his belly.

  “I be understanding at this time. Butts become books, she be clever this little one,” Ivan said patting Pip on the head like some kind of big brother figure. And just like that Pip had turned what would have been an intimidating and opulent room into something the teens could use with ease and comfort.

  Suddenly now the grand room, with its highly polished wooden floors and its elaborately carved spiral staircases, didn’t seem to be screaming at them all to leave. However, the menacing looking black fireplace dominating the centre of the room wasn’t something they were all eager to sit around telling Kumbaya stories. No, it looked more likely to swallow you whole the second you got close enough to it, as it looked like the gates of Hell themselves and for all the teens knew, it could have been!

  It even had two huge cast iron statues either side that were like sentinels guarding the realm, waiting to pass out judgement and strike them down with the swords they held with both hands interlinked around the handle, cradled to their chests.

  “And FYI, you will find the books about Demonology up there somewhere in between Dante’s Inferno, the 14th-century poem not the computer game and Dysentery.” Pip said flinging her arm out and waving it up and down pointing at the wall of books, manuscripts, journals, newspapers, and practically anything else that could be read. Ena and Theo were the only ones that screwed up their noses, so this time it was Janie’s turn to ask,

  “Uh…what’s dysentery?”

  “Oh, just some nasty little infection of the intestines that results in severe diarrhoea and blood and mucus in the faeces…in other words not the nicest of poos, certainly not one to be proud of like those phantom wipes!” Pip added making the boys laugh, all but Ivan who was still looking at the fireplace as if it was drawing him in. Pip noticed this and nudged him once saying,

  “Leave those voices alone big man, you will only get burned and by more than just the flames.” This seemed to snap Ivan out of whatever it had been that had captured his attention so intently and he shook his head as if banishing the rest of the dark cobwebs that had clung to his mind for a short time.

  The next stop on the list had been what Pip had called the games’ room. Of course, the five teenagers had all been expecting something close to an arcade or at the very least something with a TV and a pool table in it, but what they got couldn’t have been further from that dream.

  “Now this piece of prime real estate right here is where you will be doing your bad ass ninja training,” Pip said bouncing into the room, spinning once and then doing a round house kick into the chest of one of the training dummies, making it bounce back on its stand. She landed and just before the others could shout look out, she shouted,

  “Hi ya!” Then she slashed an arm out sideways, stopping the dummy before it sprung back and smacked into her and turned her head to the others and winked, saying,

  “Slippery little Budgerigar.”

  “Budgerigar?” Zane had to enquire.

  “Yeah, I mean I wanted to say the dude without a daddy but I have been told to keep my mouth PG 13, so I went with the cute little birdy instead.”

  “As you do,” Zane muttered under his breath making Theo chuckle.

  “Hey what are these for?” Ena asked walking over to a row of six wooden poles that each had three arms and a bent leg at the bottom.

  “Ah, now that little beauty right there is what we in the Kung Fu business like to call a Mak Yan Jong,” sh
e said over exaggerating the accent like she was in an old martial arts movie.

  “Although my man Takeshi, an all-round bad ass, will be teaching you all sorts of cool beans, even my fav the art of Wing Chun,” she told them as they all walked through what was clearly a training room, one that looked as though it could have also doubled as a movie set for one of those martial arts films or from the Matrix, Zane thought with a smirk, thinking back to when Neo was first in training.

  “What’s Wing Chun?” This time it was Janie’s turn to ask.

  “Oh, I just love how eager all you pickles are at being tasty. Wing Chun is best described by the master himself.”

  “You mean Takeshi?” Theo asked but Pip shook her head.

  “Nope, by the one and only legend, IP man.”

  “She be hiccupping now?” Ivan asked making her laugh.

  “Nah big dude, IP man isn’t a hiccup, it’s a way of life! I could explain it to you but way better to show you,” she said walking further into the room. The others stopped, expecting her to break out into some Kung Fu style moves but she kept walking. When she realised the others weren’t following she turned around and said,

  “Oh, you thought I meant now. No, no, I meant you will have to watch the movie, its wicked sick cool…I will add it to your movie collection, it should be here tomorrow…I got Prime,” she added whispering behind her hand as though it was some big secret Amazon were trying to keep to themselves.

  “Okay, let’s get a wiggle on people, this tour won’t show itself.” Pip said clapping and once again spinning on her heel before shooting imaginary guns at the door. They followed behind but as they walked past one wall Ivan looked up in awe and said,

  “I like walls here.” The boys both laughed and Ena did her usual eye rolling bit but it was Janie who looked up to the wall and shivered. Thanks to her past she hated blades, only remembering that brief flash of metal before feeling the pain, and then there was nothing. The memory was as though it had been snatched away and all that was left was the edges of puzzle pieces with the image missing.

  The wall had been covered in every type of edged weapon imaginable. Some even looked so far out there that they could have once been used as props off a Sci Fi movie as the only thing that looked to be missing was a Lightsaber. The number of swords alone would have been enough to fill the hands of every soldier fighting at the black gates of Mordor, or at least that was the way Zane saw it when he walked past.

  “Well you can’t say life here is going to be boring that’s for damn sure. Most exciting thing that happened at my old school was when my old biology teacher stole a turkey from our local supermarket and claimed aliens made her do it…to be fair, after today I feel a little guilty that I didn’t believe her,” Zane said talking mainly to himself as they followed Pip down a new hallway.

  “Seriously?” Theo asked,

  “Yeah dude, and you know the weird part?”

  “You mean it gets weirder?”

  “Yeah, like the whole time I was thinking, did she at least steal the potatoes to go with it or did she already have them at home…I mean it wasn’t even Christmas.” Theo shook his head and chuckled at his friend’s unique sense of humour. Ena on the other hand nudged Janie and said,

  “How could it be boring around here when Zane’s always able to entertain us with pointless stories like that one.” Janie smiled knowing she was joking and Zane turned to face them both and bent at the waist after saying in a posh voice,

  “At your service, Miladies.”

  After the weapons/training room there was only one place Pip needed to show them before they could finally relax in their own space, one Pip was most excited to show them. But first came the classroom.

  “I’m betting my Iron Maiden limited edition picture disc collection that it smells old and has a lot of wood in it,” Zane said and Theo had to agree,

  “I’m thinking, based on what we have seen so far, that it’s a safe bet.” They had all been expecting the same thing, but they soon discovered that in Afterlife it could be a dangerous thing, as Pip soon reminded them,

  “I would have taken that bet but it would have been like stealing candy from a sloth and those things are too cute for words! Have you ever seen the man taking a selfie with one, the sucker is actually smiling!” The teens all looked at her until she finally realised she hadn’t made her point yet.

  “Oh yeah, where was I? That’s it, Big Boss man…A very good friend of mine once said that ‘assumption is the mother from where all mistakes are born’. Of course, she got that from someone else but you catch my drift, so welcome to your first lesson in assumption.” Then she opened the door and proved that she was right, they had all assumed wrong.

  “Welcome to your new classroom,” she said letting them all walk in before her. The room was a massive open space that was flooded with light thanks to the wall of windows bouncing light off the pale grey walls. It was the first room they had seen that didn’t look like they couldn’t swing a cat without it hitting an antique.

  “Ho…ly…”

  “Cheese on a cracker Batman. Yeah, I know, it’s the bomb ain’t it?” Pip said coming up behind Zane, patting him on the back and finishing his sentence for him. Then she skipped right past him into the room and spun around with her arms out showing them the modern looking space.

  “Okay, so this nice and smooth here is where the teacher of the day sits,” she said after moonwalking backwards and running her fingers over a clear glass desk that was in the shape of a giant S on its side. It flowed back in on itself to create the flat part that was big enough for everyone in the room to sit on, all except Ivan of course. Currently, all it held was a fancy high tech screen that at a guess, the teens would have said was a computer. But with no mouse or keyboard for all they knew it could have been a security system to keep an eye on them working at their desks. And speaking of their desks, that’s what came next.

  The room didn’t have much in it, other than the awesome teacher’s desk, one piece of art work that hung over it and these strange looking pods. They were all joined together, making it look like a giant rounded piece of a honeycomb in the centre of the room, raised up on a slight platform.

  “Umm…Miss Pip,” Janie asked raising her one hand like class had already started.

  “Yes deary, oh and you don’t have to call me Miss Pip, unless you want to of course, but Pip is what most of my peeps and homies call me,” she answered.

  “Okay Pip…I was just wondering…umm, well…”

  “We want to know, if this is our classroom where we will all be sitting?” Ena said taking over from Janie and relieving her of her obvious shyness.

  “Ah ha, now this you are gonna like!” Pip shouted dancing back over to the desk.

  “Thanks for that,” Janie said taking a step closer to Ena.

  “I got your back, Jay,” Ena replied nudging Janie’s half arm and giving her a nickname for the first time in her life. So, the beaming smile she gave her wasn’t just for speaking up when she was struggling, it was also for touching her half arm, something that no-one had ever done and becoming the type of friend who would care enough to grant a nickname to someone they’d just met. For a loner like Janie, this was huge…in fact,

  It was way bigger than dying.

  “Tada!” Pip shouted after tapping on the screen a few times and suddenly the pods all started to move, making the group jump back as each of them rotated around on the platform until they all faced the front. Now they could see that they were like individual workstations, with big comfy seats integrated into the desks in front of them. They even had their own smaller touch screen computers and little multi-coloured pockets filled with stationary tucked away against the sides of the pod.

  “The different colours were my idea but you guys will only get to know which is yours on your first day of class,” Pip said looking proud and referring to the inside of each of the pods.

  “And when will that be?” Theo couldn’t help b
ut ask, which made him wonder…was it something he was actually looking forward to?

  “That glorious day will be only one sleep away from greatness…tomorrow,” Pip added when everyone was just left looking confused, especially Ivan.

  “Okkie dokkie, now time for the piece de resistance.”

  “I no understand.” Ivan said,

  “The best chocolate in the heart shaped box,” Pip simplified for him after grabbing his little finger and giving it an affectionate shake.

  “I see, best is last is better…yes?” Ivan said smiling now that he understood.

  “Something like that…so what’s next?” Theo said first answering Ivan and then turning back to Pip before she bounced out of yet another doorway.

  “Next…well my lovelies, it’s time you won the lottery…

  Supernatural style!”

  14

  Winning the Supernatural Lottery

  Finally, it came time for them to see their own personal spaces and by the end of the tour they were more than ready for it. It was a bit of an unnatural overload on the senses, as there was literally too much information to take in. For starters, they felt like they would need GPS just to get from A to B. And just thinking about how much time they would need getting between the two, well Zane had been right when asking how good they all were on roller-skates as they would most certainly be needing them if they didn’t want to be late for class.

  “Or better yet, Segway’s!” Ena had shouted popping her head in between the two boys, getting in on the conversation.

  “Erm, you know what, that’s not a bad idea, Blue streaks.” Zane agreed calling her by her unwanted nickname.

  “Whatever, skater boy,” she answered back before re-joining Janie. As usual, Ivan was at the back as it was obvious this was what he preferred. Janie couldn’t help but wonder if he hadn’t appointed himself protector of the group as he always seemed to be on rear guard. Which prompted the question, who was she to the group?