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."

Some of his anger was replaced with disbelief. "How do you know this?"

"When I looked into your future, all I saw was a black abyss."

I had brushed off the one occurrence with Rafe as a glitch. Yet, since it happened again with the shaman, it had to be more than a fluke. Once the shaman misspoke, the full picture came together for me.

"In my beastly form, I'm immune to supernatural influence." At my raised eyebrow, he continued, "I've learned how to harness that skill of shielding my mind, even in my human state."

"What's your beastly form?" My mind imagined several possibilities, none of them pleasant.

"If you want, I can show you." A multi-tone chord echoed in his voice, startling me.

"That's okay."

The shaman laughed at my obvious discomfort. "It requires too much in the way of meditation, anyway, to achieve full Ipotane conversion."

"Ipotane? What is that?"

"Someday you may find out. For now, concern yourself with the well-being of your child." He stressed the word child in a way that alluded to horrible outcomes.

"Why? What's going to be wrong with it?"

"Nothing, in a sense. He will be a blessing, but not for the world of white men." He laughed, but I missed the joke.

"For whom then?"

A whisper. "Uzita."

Stillness prevailed until I said, "They're all gone, slaughtered by de Soto, and disease."

"Not all, silly girl."

I grabbed him by the shoulders, forgetting he was far older and far more powerful. "Give me a straight answer! I've had enough!"

His eyes hardened. "So have I."

Suddenly, the fire extinguished completely, leaving the entire house in darkness.

"Leave." The shaman's voice echoed from different parts of the house, surrounding me, banishing me.

Unaware I had been squeezing my eyes shut, I opened them to find myself next to Rafe in the car. How I was instantly transported from the shaman's sitting room to the inside of the car remained a testament to the scope of his powers.

* * * * *

On the drive home, a frenzy built up inside. I needed the fetus gone, in anyway possible. The thought might have shocked me a few days before, but I was sure this was the only way. If I was crazy, I no longer cared.

A blessing for the Uzita tribe, that's what Minghan had said grew inside me. Any blessing for the Uzita translated to something awful for humankind. The shaman may have misled me once, but I believed he was trying to warn me in his roundabout way. An exorcism was my last option.

Both my mother and Rafe would do what they could to stop me, and after my meditation session and shaman visits, I wasn't about to place my fate in the hands of another spirit guide.

The frenzy stayed with me at home. Rafe had dropped me off to work at the store a few hours. He had not picked up on how upset I was, and for that, I was grateful. At first, I was not sure of my plan. I stood at the front door, panting and thinking. Thinking did not take up much time, because a whisper in my ear did the thinking for me.

Go to the room. You will find what you are looking for.

The nursery.

The door was open, the perfect welcome. Like before, the mobile was spinning with the music blaring. And just like before, an indiscernible thing gyrated in the crib. Light from the full moon illuminated the crib, like a spotlight. Whatever was underneath the blanket writhed faster and faster, but I was unafraid. I needed to know.

I reached to tear the blanket away, but two tiny hands wrenched it down first. I was confronted with two yellow shining stones. They belonged to the face from my nightmare, the demon child that had crawled inside of me. In the moonlight, I could see its face in detail, and I really wished I couldn't. Smooth was one word that came to mind. The cheeks, lips, and forehead were waxy smooth. It had no hair except for black bushy eyebrows wiggling over saucer eyes. The thing smiled up at me, pink blanket in hand.

"Momma," it moaned in a frog-like tone, a forked-tongue flicking out.

The frightful appearance startled me less the second time 'round, and I unfroze, telling myself to run. In a semi-conscious attempt, I backed out of the room one step at a time, my eyes on the crib. Nearly free, I pulled the door shut, but it stuck.

When I looked down, a flash of pointed teeth stole my breath. The little bastard clung to my leg. I tried to shake it off, but it wouldn't budge. If I was unafraid before, I sure as hell was scared shitless now. The thing kept moaning "Momma" over and over, and that scared me too.

Then inspiration grabbed me: the door was all the weapon I needed. I slammed the door on the creature, again and again. Sickening thuds resounded throughout the hallway, but it held tight. Ten thuds later, I had cracked its skull open, and then it let go.

Pregnant as I was, I ran down the hall to the kitchen. Tears flooded my vision in the dash to arm myself with a knife. Before searching for a weapon, I peered down the bedroom hallway. The creature crawled at a snail's pace, leaving a crimson trail on the carpet, mewling all the way. It sounded as if it were still trying to say "Momma," but it's jaw hung at an odd angle, impeding full-speech capability.

A knife. Had to find a knife. This drawer, no. That one, no again. God, where was it? Where was it? When I checked again, the hallway was empty. I expected the thing to be clinging to my leg, but nope. It was gone.

No, Momma, I'm already inside you.