Excerpt: Undead

"I got the bastard!" Dori crowed, waving her shoe over her head in a mad dance that reminded him of a monkey on crack. He looked closely at the fly, and noticed a feeler moving weakly.
"I do not think it is yet dead," he said quietly. Dori's dancing stopped and she froze with one leg in the air.
"You're kidding," she said.
"No, look." He pointed. "Its feeler is wiggling. See? Wiggle wiggle. Wiggle wiggle."
She peered closely at the squished mess that was a fly once, and sure enough, its feeler was wiggling.
"But HOW? I squished it. Look, it is squished. How did it survive that?"
"Do you believe in reincarnation?"
"What has that got to do with anything? Reincarnation? What?"
"You know, the belief that upon dying one is reborn."
"Oh, so the fly was reborn into its own corpse? I sincerely doubt that."
"It was just a theory." The man looked downcast.
"Well, maybe we should kill it again."
His eyes lit up - he did so enjoy bloodsport.
"Allow me," he said, with a sudden burst of chivalry.
"By all means," she replied, stepping aside and curtseying.
He reached into a pocket in his pants and before she knew what had happened, a seven-pointed razor sharp throwing star had embedded itself in the fly goop.
"Haiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiya!" he shouted, a little late.
"Late, but effective nonetheless. And... What?!" Dori looked at him with new eyes, well, her own eyes but as if seeing him for the first time.
"Oh. Um... I probably should not have done that. Rule number one of being a ninja - Stealth and discretion. Well, rules six and seven, but you know..."
"Ninja?"
"Ah. Bollocks. Listen, um, do not mention this to anyone, please? You see, I am a new ninja and I would be killed - literally killed - for doing that in front of you if the leaders found out."
"Um. Ninja?!"
The fly's antennae twitched again.