Page 56 of Haunted By the Shadow of Death

“Did you think I’d choose a black hole just for theatrics?” He laughed softly. “Jaysa was a hack. She needed all the bells and whistles to scare people into thinking she was mightier than she was.” He turned to Kicks. “Would you mind giving us some time alone? Some conversations are easier one on one.”

Kicks looked at me.

“Go ahead. I’ll be fine.” It wasn’t a line. There was something about the energy around Fifo that put me immediately at ease.

“I’ll be waiting nearby,” Kicks said, then left.

Fifo walked to the couch and sat. “Please join me?”

The couch wasn’t that big. Did he really want me to sit that close to him?

I took a tentative step, but then paused, as if to be certain.

“Come,” he said, patting the seat.

I did, and there were only a couple of feet between us. “You’re not afraid of me?”

“I’m a guide. I can sense a threat, and you are not one.” He gave me a kindly smile.

He could? I couldn’t. He’d called Jaysa a hack. Maybe I’d gotten bad magic?

“There aren’t many of our kind, and never one such as you before,” Fifo said. “I think it best if you tell me what happened slowly, walk me through everything, even your life before.”

“Before I was turned into this?” I wasn’t sure I should call myself a guide anymore, considering I wasn’t sure what was happening to me.

“Yes. From what you remember of your childhood and also of your parents. No human has ever had a guide’s gift transferred to them, so I think we should start as early as you can remember. We didn’t know it was possible. Now tell me about your life. What’s been happening?”

I ran through most of it, which, up until recently, wouldn’t have shocked most. It hadn’t been a perfect life, but nothing out of the ordinary.

He nodded, asking follow-up questions here and there. Some of them seemed more nosy than meaningful, but I went along with it until there wasn’t much left to be dissected.

“So no missing members in the family tree you know of?” he asked.

“My father was mostly absent, but not missing,” I said. “I really don’t know much of his lineage, though, so hard to say if there was someone missing in the tree.”

He nodded. “I have a theory on why ten percent of humankind lived. It can’t be proven, at least not now with our limited abilities, so I hesitate to share it often, but I think, given your position, I should tell you. It might help to unravel this situation a bit if I’m correct. At this point, you realize that this world is full of creatures and races you might not have suspected existed.”

“I didn’t know for sure, but yes, I’m coming to realize that.” After all, if there were shifters, there had to be others.

“Shifters had a loss, but only about half, where humans nearly got wiped out. I believe that the ten percent of humankind who survived had genetics from other races that allowed them to make it past what happened on Death Day. That anyone who did survive has some sort of other DNA in them.”

“You’re saying I have some sort of shifter bloodline in my family tree? I didn’t think shifters could have children with humans.”

“I believe you’re correct, but it has happened,” he said, excitement in his eyes, as if he’d been dying to share this information with me. “And it might not be just shifter blood. Every creature you’ve read or heard about has some basis in reality, and it’s been very common for them to dabble with humans. Even if only one mating in a thousand produces offspring, with billions of people over thousands of years, that adds up. After all, many human genetic changes started with a single mutation in one person that was beneficial.”

“Would that affect what I might be able to do as a guide?” Was that why I could see the dead? Was this magic interacting with something in me that got all jumbled up?

He stared at my hands that were clenched in my lap. It was a position I now found myself in more often than not. “May I touch you? I’d like to see if I can get a read off your energy.”

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable—considering, you know…”

His hands hovered near mine. “I’m not concerned. This might help give you answers, and you won’t kill me.”

“Are you just saying that, or do you somehow know that?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I’d believe him even if he said he was sure.

“I’ve seen myself in visions beyond this moment. You won’t kill me.”

Visions? He got visions and I got dead people? Talk about getting screwed.

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