The Ambassador

Prologue

When I was a girl, my dad would take me for ice cream at the center of town. The shop was called Pete's Paradise. He would always order chocolate mint chip bowl and I always ordered a strawberry cone.

It was funny, strawberry was my mother's favorite flavor of everything and my grandmother's favorite. According to my Grandmother, it had always been a favorite of our past generations of the female decedents.

Ice cream day was my favorite day of the week, always on a Sunday right after my guitar lessons. Music ran in the family, my mom could play, my dad could sing. It was nice to have around because it always reminded me of Ice cream Sundays.

After Ice cream we would visit my grandmother, or as I and my cousins called her Mia.

Mia loved all her grandchildren equally but for some reason held a special bond with me. She'd ask me about the shadow people I saw and what I saw with them. She could see them, mom could see them, but dad couldn't.

Shadow people were around me since I could remember. They weren't a full physical figure but one that just kind of resembled a person. They walked through people or stuck to them like a real shadow, shifted around like black smoke, and occasionally messed with others.

Mia always said not to pay attention to them and to call mom if there was any nearby. I never told mom when they came around. I didn't know what the big deal was. Sometimes they would use a little energy to play with me. We had fun together, but they always left when mom came around.

There was one time, at Mia's house where a big shadow was scary. It became really big and opened a mouth I never knew it had. Its teeth were sharp.

Mia touched it with her old walking stick and the shadow seemed to burn away. She hugged me tightly but I didn't understand what was wrong.

I'd never forget that Ice cream Sunday.

It wasn't until I was older that I found out what Shadows were. Shadows were demons stuck between their plane of existence and our own. They were banished to hell with Lucifer and although he himself can't come to the earth the demons are able to slip through the cracks of our reality to torment the living, even possess them if they can.

Mia was a Protector, and a strong one. Shadows wouldn't come near her at all, they feared her, but many they did everything in their power to get to her, and that meant going through the ones she loved.

That's how my father died.

And that's when everything changed.