Page 43 of Grave Beginnings

“So I keep hearing. I don’t know what to tell you.” I headedinto the office to assess the space. Was it big enough for a bed? The only piece of furniture in the room was a wide, cluttered desk. I petted Ivan. His shivering had stopped in the car, but he still clung to me. “Do you want to explore? It’s not big, but the couch is comfy. We can rearrange, order some stuff for you. We’ll figure it out.” My place was bigger than Grandpa’s, but not by much.

Ivan hesitated, but after a moment, wriggled free and out of the blazer, plopping down on the floor and staring with wide eyes all around the apartment. I handed the borrowed jacket to Xavier. “Give that back to your friend, please.”

Peanut Butter approached Ivan, and the two met nose-to-nose, then PB rubbed his side all along Ivan’s. At least they were getting along okay. “Do all variant shifters change size like this?” I put my hand up to ward off a question about not letting Ivan stay here. “I genuinely want to know. In case you weren’t aware, there is shit for info in the supernatural handbook.”

“No,” Xavier answered. “Your brother, perhaps yourself, seem to be special cases. Hybrids, if you will. As the mutation expands through generations, we will see more of your kind.”

“My parents aren’t variant,” I said.

“Mhmm,” was all he offered. Xavier squatted down, holding his hand out to give Ivan the option to approach. “If he has questions, needs counseling, or becomes too much for you, I want you to call me.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why do you care?”

“Shifters are my responsibility. One I take very seriously.”

“Even if you don’t know him at all?”

Xavier raised his gaze to me, a touch of sadness crossing his face. “Humans abandon their young far too often.”

“I don’t plan to do that to Ivan. If I’d known he needed me sooner, I would have been there.”

Xavier stood, back straightening to his full height. Damn, the guy was a giant. Six foot eight, maybe? I had to look up and upand up to meet his gaze, but didn’t back down. “I like your resolve, necromancer. But youwillcall if your brother needs me.” He flicked his gaze to Ivan.

“You can help him learn more about being a shifter, right?” I asked, suddenly understanding why his swirling energy snapped and snarled at me. “’Cause you’re a shifter?” Why was his energy so much different from Angel’s?

“I am, and I can.”

I took his card out of my pocket and walked over to add it to the fridge. “Got it.”

Xavier stared at me a moment longer, assessing, but I wasn’t going to let him unnerve me in my own space. I had a little brother to take care of. First thing would be ordering food, as I’d forgotten to do so when I’d gotten home from Grandpa’s over the weekend.

I glanced back to find Xavier gone, and Peanut Butter was giving Ivan a bath. “Did he justpoof?”

I searched the apartment, as if I’d find the guy in a closet somewhere. The door was locked from the inside. “Holy fuck,” I told my little brother and my cat. “What do you make ofthatguy? Wow.”

Peanut Butter meowed at me like he had a lot to say. Ivan stared at him. Did he understand regular cat speak?

“What do you want for dinner, Ivan? I doubt wet cat food is top on your meal list.” And I had shit for stock in the pantry or fridge. “Let me see if Nikki is home. She’s my friend and neighbor across the hall,” I told Ivan. “She’s always got food. She comes from a big Hmong family and they are always over with food to share. Some parents actually like their kids. Novel, right?”

She replied with a text back of a short list of easy meals most kids liked. “Mac and cheese, frozen pizza, or ramen?” I asked Ivan.

He stared at me.

“We have got to find a better way to communicate,” I sighed. “Can you change yet? I don’t mind you being a cat…” He walked away, wandering the apartment. Okay, then. I sent Nikki a request for mac and cheese. What kid didn’t like mac and cheese?

When she knocked on the door, I had my computer open, ordering food for delivery, and glanced around for a sign of Ivan, but both he and Peanut Butter had vanished. The bathroom door was closed. Had I closed that? Or was Ivan changing? What had Xavier meant about hybrids? I wasn’t a hybrid. How did Ivan’s smaller size make him different? I let Nikki in, then unpacked my work bag and pulled out the updated manual. I really needed to catch up on whatever the fuck everyone wasn’t telling me.

“Everything okay?” Nikki asked.

“Survived my first day,” I told her. “Ended up across the Veil. The body in the bookstore was bad, but the worst part was seeing all the books the bookstore throws in the dumpster. What a waste. Did you know they tear the covers off and just toss them out? Perfectly good books.”

She stared at me like I’d grown two heads.

“What?”

“Body? Across the Veil?”

“Bodies are nothing new to me,” I reminded her. “The across the Veil thing… well, that was intense. My little brother is going to be staying with me.”