Cursed [Book 1] ✔

Chapter 10.2 Minghan Again

I'm not sure if the sight of my bloody nose or the tone of my voice convinced Rafe that I was right. Either way, the next night, he brought me to Minghan. This time, he waited outside in the car. The last meeting with the old man, I should have asked him about Samael, but I didn't. Saying the name out loud was a incomprehensible. What little I knew of Samael told me he was dangerous, and he was powerful. In my meditative state, I knew, he had been the whirlwind.

While contemplating whether to knock or ring the doorbell, I silently hoped the shaman would clarify everything. He had to. Otherwise, the possibility that I really was crazy seemed entirely real. My gift had driven me insane, driven me toward this fruitless quest.

Of its own accord, the door swung ajar. Stepping over the shaman's threshold was much easier the second time 'round. I expected the door to open by itself. I expected a raging fire in an empty room. I expected the shaman to be smiling from ear to ear.

"I was expecting you sooner," Minghan said.

It was as if he had read my mind, and I winced at the reminder of Rosalind.

He spoke with his head still directed at a television set. He wasn't vegetating to baseball games or PBS documentaries. Instead, he watched the latest fashion reality show, one so bad that even Estelle refused to tune in.

I chuckled, waddling into the room. "Yes, but now I know what questions need to be answered."

Minghan turned the television off. "Let's begin."

"May I sit?"

"Of course."

"I hate to interrupt good television," I said.

He ignored my inflection. "I have it DVR'd. Ask your questions."

Ah, where to start? I decided to be as direct as possible, without injecting unnecessary background information.

"You said my baby was human, but that I carried a curse. Once it's born, won't my child be affected by that same curse?"

"Yes." He answered as if we were playing at a game in which he could enjoy himself.

"Why did you allow me to leave the other night with the belief that my child would be safe?" I masked my rage, lest he stop answering my questions.

Minghan scoffed. "You believed what you wanted to believe."

"Oh God," I murmured.

My mind whirled. Nothing could stop the spirits. I knew that now. My life with Rafe, the apartment, the stupid retail job...it was all so tenuous, and any hope I'd held on to seemed naive. 

"There is no God," Minghan said.

My heart stopped. "What? Why would you say that?"

"Isn't that what you believe?"

Goddamn it all if this gender-defying shaman couldn't read my mind at all intervals. He knew things about me that he shouldn't. Maybe he knew everything.

"Tell me what's going to happen. What's going to happen to my baby?"

"Don't demand anything of me, little girl." Light from the fire had dimmed, throwing off enough illumination to cast on odd glow on the old man's face. "Look to your own power to foretell the future. I'm no crystal ball, just a man."

His last sentence had included a cadence out of sync with his usual manner of speaking; he was lying.

"You're not being entirely truthful."

"I cannot see the future, unlike you."

"Not about that. Or the dozens of other things you've misled me on. You're not a man. Not really."