Sky Ghosts: All for One (Young Adult Urban Fantasy Adventure) (Sky Ghosts Series Book 1) (7 page)

“You can’t bring girls here,” they drawled monotonously in unison.

“Exactly!” Marco exclaimed, snapping his fingers. “I already told Peter my opinion, and I won’t get tired of repeating this! If they let us bring girls here, we’d have twice as many fighters!”

“Don’t want to ruin your optimism,” Pain said, “but not everybody’s as sex obsessed as you are, Marco,” she made a sorrowful face. Marco waved his big hand.

“You see? They all keep saying that for some reason!” he shrugged and continued his meal, picking the biggest donut of a half-dozen on his tray.

After a couple of hours they headed to the gym, where the sisters and Chad worked out, and Dave examined all trainers with enthusiasm and chatted with the instructor; and to the pool after that. By the end of the day, the guys got used to the building and already knew the layout, though the sisters never let them out of their sight, except for the showers. At supper Marco joined them again, but this time instead of Jerry he was accompanied by his roommate, Ryan.

Ryan was a modest and polite person with something Nordic about his appearance, those high cheekbones, eyes of a clear blue color, and the square line of his jaw. His light hair was cropped short, soldier-like, and his arms weren’t painted with tattoos for a change. He stood about two meters tall, but wasn’t as huge as Marco, and during supper he was mostly silent, smiling from time to time and talking only when being addressed. He must have been a perfect partner for the restless Marco, listening to all his endless gibbering silently, Chad had thought. Coming up to join them, Ryan had only looked at the guys with calm interest, but didn’t even say anything. He seemed to be not only a young man of a pleasant appearance, but also of good company. After a daily dose of various jokes and curiosity to the new faces from what seemed like a hundred of fighters, Chad and Dave instantly felt sympathy toward the quiet and unobtrusive Ryan.

They went to bed early, and the next day was just like the previous, only instead of the gym it was the training hall this time.

Chad and Dave sat on a floor mat in a corner, watching the sisters practice. They weren’t surprised that the girls’ sparring partners were Marco and Ryan. The two fighters lived next door and seemed to be the sisters’ closest friends.

The training hall was a wide rectangular room, its ceiling very high, its small windows barred with iron rods. The room was pretty plain, with the walls painted white all the way up to the ceiling. And as soon as Chad and Dave saw the Ghosts practice, they realized why.

Every now and then, the fighters would grab their sparring partner and send them flying into a wall. If they were whitewashed, it wouldn’t be very helpful for the Ghosts to have plaster all over themselves, and for Peter to pay for whitening the walls every week. They wore their usual gear during the training: boots, pants, and jackets. Jane had explained that it helped them to get used to the clothes limitations so they wouldn’t be uncomfortable during the real fight. They used their swords, too, and got lots of cuts and scratches as they practiced, but it was inevitable and better than real wounds in a real fight. Their thick gear protected them pretty well, though, and Chad had noticed that after the fight with Eugene’s men that night, the sisters got new sets of gear in return for their damaged ones.

The training itself was kind of a spectacular show where ordinary combat techniques were mixed with moves that only Sky Ghosts could put into practice. Every now and again, the fighters leaped upward avoiding an attack and hovered in the air delivering a blow from above. Or the attacker suddenly was thrown back by an invisible shield, of which the guys could only know by peering intently from the distance. The air there looked like it was seething, its layers mixing and shivering, distorting the light. They noticed that the same effect was around any of the fighters when they used their power to hover in the air. And when Pain, for example, seized Marco with ease and threw him over her head in spite of his weight exceeding her own two or three times.

After a short warm-up, Jane and Ryan started to work on taekwondo techniques, which seemed to be new for her. Ryan clearly wasn’t holding back, showing Jane what he already knew about it, but at least he was cautious, which couldn’t be said about Marco. He and Pain fought like it was life and death matter, all fighting techniques mixed together, swords flashing in and out of sheathes, punches, kicks, blows delivered every split second without a single pause. The more they hurt each other, the more excited they seemed to get, their faces identical maniacal sneers, their movements faster and faster, getting tricky in effort to get back at each other. There were six more Ghosts in the training hall that day, who didn’t seem to be particularly happy to be there together with Marco and Pain. Every time Marco didn’t measure the strength with which he was throwing Pain back and forth, and got some of the other fighters knocked down, they would start a quarrel, complaining that those two were too much of an inconvenience, and maybe they should practice outside so the training hall and all the other Ghosts would stay intact. Marco and Pain barely seemed to care. At best, they would apologize and continue their fight from where they got interrupted, not paying any attention to what the others would say. And sometimes, they seemed not to notice them at all, not to even look at them after knocking them over or stomping on them.

Dave guessed this was what distinguished the best from the ordinary. The fight was too much of a passion for them to notice any minor inconveniences, to stop and estimate the factors that didn’t really matter at the moment. He wished he could see Pain and Jane practice together. Jane had said they practiced mostly with each other when they were younger. However, sparring with different partners was more effective. This way they could get used to fighting against opponents of all sizes and kinds.

She and Ryan took out their swords now and began to practice while Marco and Pain seemed to have a break from their crazy battle, only because he got mad at her. He was hovering under the ceiling, his eyes fixed on Pain down on the floor, his expression angry.

“Would you get down already?? I said I’m sorry!” she called out in an exasperated tone, putting her fists on her hips, as if she knew it could take a while.

“I ain’t coming down! Forget about me!” he snapped.

“It was nowhere near your head! Stop freaking out!”

“It touched my hair!!” he yelled, pointing his finger at the Mohawk.

“You ain’t got no hair, dummy! You’re overreacting!” she retorted.

“You and your katana! I told you to never, ever do that in front of me, and you never do what you’re told, and now you want me to come down? Like hell I will while that thing is still there with you!” he grumbled, his indignant voice echoing high above them. Pain watched him fly back and forth, her expression annoyed, her boot tapping a nervous rhythm on the floor. “
Marco! I wanna show you a cool trick!
” he squealed to himself, imitating her voice. “Look how I cut your ear off, tripping on my own feet!” he bawled, turning back to her with an accusing look.

She only exhaled with exaggerated weariness. A minute passed in silence before she gave up.

“Okay, let’s just practice some hand-to-hand then!” she suggested and unbuckled her back sheath. “See? I took it off, katana goes away.” She laid it on one of the benches, not taking her eyes off Marco.

He paused, assessing her actions with a narrow look. She didn’t seem to be trying to trick him, though, so he lowered to the floor, slowly and deliberately.

“Fine!” He came up to her and unbuckled his belt, taking off his scabbard. “Do that again, and I swear, I’ll tie up those teeny-weeny hands of yours and spank you like the bad, bad girl that you are,” he threatened, stabbing a finger at her chest.

While both Dave and Chad expected a toxic comeback, she only blinked at him innocently, rocking on the balls of her feet, hands behind her back, like a little girl.

“Okay,” was all she said.

Marco drew back, suspicious.

“Okay? That’s it? You won’t argue, won’t mind?” he asked, obviously at a loss.

The corners of her lips quirked in a little smile.

“Nope,” she said, not taking her gaze from Marco’s eyes. Something definitely was off about that face of hers, Dave thought, only he didn’t know what.

Marco’s face stretched out into a satisfied grin at that.

“Goooood,” he drawled, stepping closer to her with his arm coming around her shoulders. “So, been thinking about some S&M lately, huh?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

And then, before he could react, she grabbed the arm on her shoulder and jerked it to the side, sending him flying with his feet in the air, only to bang him flat on his side against the floor, hard.

“What have I told you about focusing??” she snapped. “Fuckin’ concentrate! You’re not taking it seriously, Marco! You should always, always be on the alert!” she bawled out furiously, like a raging marine captain, and the guys grimaced, watching Marco’s painful expression.

“Ouch!” he complained, sitting up. “Why so brutal?? Jeez, I banged my head!” He was looking at her cautiously now, struggling into the upright position with his long arms and legs.

“Good! It’ll be a lesson!” she said, folding her arms. “Now get me a couple of those mats, we’ve wasted enough time for today.” She jerked her head toward a pile of mats in the corner.

Marco didn’t even attempt on doing what she said. He advanced on her instead, head low, like a bull.

“Oh, I’ll get you mats, little annoying woman,” he muttered and leaped, suddenly gaining speed and catching her by the foot when she didn’t get away fast enough. She struggled inside his arms with a muffled snarl, and Marco laughed ecstatically, punching and squashing and pinching her in his grip. Dave wouldn’t say he didn’t get some satisfaction from watching her suffer, but still, he waited for her to break free and get back at Marco once again.

“Hey, does she remind you of ninjas, too?” he asked Chad in a remote voice.

Chad’s lips curved into a crooked smile.

“Still watching those ninja movies, aren’t you?”

“Yep,” Dave answered without a second thought. “But thanks to them, I happen to know that this particular katana of hers is the O-Katana. Did you know that?”

Chad shook his head lazily, his hair falling into his eyes.

“Couldn’t care less,” he muttered.

Dave gave him a worried look.

“What’s wrong with you? Aren’t you at all interested in all this? Just look at them: the girls fight like ninjas, Ryan’s all soldier-like, and I think Marco is like Wolverine… no, not Wolverine, he’s Blade!”

Chad shook his head again.

“That’s some vivid imagination. You don’t wanna tell Marco about it, though. Don’t encourage him, he’s savage enough. Just look what he’s doing to her, look!” He jerked his chin toward Marco just as he grabbed Pain’s feet and swung her into a wall with another outburst of laughter. She didn’t seem to be hurt, though, because the shimmering shield around her blazed up just in time for the impact. But she did seem to be out of breath, landing on the floor heavily as soon as he let her out of his hands.

Dave grunted.

“You don’t think she’s that mean because she bangs her head a lot? Because he gives her too many beatings?” he asked, and Chad chuckled silently. “I mean, if somebody was beating the crap out of me every day like that, I’d turn evil eventually, wouldn’t I?”

Chad glanced at his friend, who was looking at him with his big, brown, sincere eyes, his expression honest and questioning. He has always been like this, Chad thought. Talking all kinds of nonsense with absolute seriousness. He sighed and gave him a doubtful look.

“You? Evil? No, you’d just walk funny and drool on yourself.”

“Thanks,” Dave made a sour face.

“You’re welcome.” Chad chuckled at his offended expression, getting back to watching the fighters.

Another half-hour passed, and Pain and Marco had to pause their fight – she had a split lip, and blood was running from it in a dark-red trickle. She craned forward so she wouldn’t get it on her clothes and strode to a table in one of the corners. There were towels, tissues, water, and some things that fighters needed to keep somewhere while they practiced. She grabbed a few tissues and tried to wipe away the blood, but there was more right away. A couple of minutes passed, and when she wiped at her chin once again, Dave saw that the blood had stopped and her lip was absolutely intact, not even swollen. He frowned, watching Marco come up to her.

“Hey, did you know you broke my finger?” he asked.

Pain arched one delicate eyebrow.

“No, I haven’t noticed. Which one?”

Marco stared at his hand.

“Hmm,” he drawled, “I don’t remember. I think this one.” He wiggled his middle finger at her, and she grimaced. “I guess it must have knitted already.”

“Good,” she said with an approving nod. “You’re finally getting good at it if you didn’t notice which one you’ve healed.”

And that was when Dave realized.

“Hey, did Jane tell you anything about their healing abilities? While I was showering or something?” he asked his friend.

Chad looked at him incredulously.

“No, I’d remember something like that.”

“Didn’t you see what just happened? She healed her split lip.” He pointed at Pain, who was still talking to Marco by the table. “And two days ago, remember she had a wounded shoulder? It looked fine after she’d showered.”