Page 23 of Vampire's Vixen

As I sat in my car, wondering what to do next, a ping sounded from my phone. I checked it and saw that a message had forwarded from my shop’s number. It was a client who wanted to book a reading for late afternoon. I texted back a reply, scheduling a three o’clock appointment. Then, deciding I could use another hit of caffeine and a brownie, I headed for the nearest espresso stand.

My afternoon reading showed up five minutes early, looking eager. He was human, and he was carrying a notebook. He was somewhere near college age, and he had that intense intellectual feel to him that some college boys had.

“Hi, I’m Derrick,” he said, shaking my hand before sitting down. “I’m so looking forward to this. It’s my birthday present to myself.”

I grinned. “I’m Maisy, and happy birthday! I hope that the reading lives up to your expectations. So, have you ever had your cards read before?”

“I have, but it’s been awhile.”

“So what can I do for you?” I picked up my cards and began to shuffle them.

“I’d like to know what to expect during the coming year. A birthday reading, so to speak.” He opened his notebook.

I handed him the cards and asked him to shuffle five times. As I began to lay out the cards, I found myself pulled into the reading—which, thankfully, showed a pretty good year in store for Derrick—and I forgot all about Zandre and Denise for the hour.

I was just packing up my purse to head home when I got a call from Astra.

“Did you see the breaking news?” she asked.

“No. I’ve been answering emails for the past couple of hours. What’s going on?”

“The woman you were talking about—Denise Rober?”

“What about her? I talked to her this morning.”

“Well,” my aunt said, “she’s dead.”

I froze. “How could that be? I talked to her this morning, shortly before noon. How could she be dead?”

“She was hit by a car, saving a little girl from the preschool. The girl ran out into the street in front of a car that was speeding through the area, and Denise managed to toss the girl out of the way but she couldn’t move fast enough. The car hit her, breaking her neck. She died instantly, the coroner said.”

I slowly lowered myself back into my chair. “I can’t believe it. She was so… Who was the driver?”

“Some drunken teenager taking a joy ride in his father’s sports car. The kid had drunk a bottle of whiskey, then decided to go for a spin. He’s fifteen, doesn’t even have his license yet. He was thrown from the car during the accident but he wasn’t hurt. That figures…the drunk ones always walk away and leave their victims dead or maimed.”

My aunt was part of a group lobbying to change the drunk driver laws to include stronger punishments. I didn’t blame her.

“Oh, man. I liked Denise. She’s…she was…” I stopped, suddenly thinking about Dan. My gut clenched and I bent my head, trying to breathe through the sudden trigger. This is about Denise, I thought. Focus on Denise. A moment later, I pulled out of the looming anxiety attack, breathing normally again.

Truth was, I didn’t know what Denise was like, except that I liked her, and then I thought about her wife. “Accident, or do they think he did it deliberately?”

“It was no accident, given the kid had a choice to drink and drive. He could have chosen to call a cab or a friend, but as far as whether he intentionally killed her, I’d say no.”

I realized that Zandre couldn’t be out in the daylight. And truly, he would have had no reason to target Denise, since I hadn’t talked to him yet about her note.

As I armed the security codes and locked the door, it suddenly hit me—Denise was dead. I’d had one conversation with her, and suddenly, she was out of my life forever. We weren’t friends, but she’d been nice, and I’d liked her, and now…she was needlessly gone.

I pressed my lips together as I headed for my car. If the little girl hadn’t gone running into the street, if somebody else had caught the kid before she left the sidewalk, if Denise had managed to roll out of the way a split second earlier…

Everything was so transient. And each moment offered a multitude of paths going forward. One step, and we forever altered our future. And every step was that one step. Every choice we made, every choice others made, it was all mutable, and there were thousands of potential futures. Some loomed more likely, but there were outliers that could come blowing through. And that’s what I felt had happened with Denise. She was looking at a bright future, a long life with her wife and family. And the dominos had stacked in such a way that she was an unlikely target.

As I pulled out of my parking space, I was hyperaware of the pedestrians around me. I didn’t ever want to be the reason for someone else losing their fragile hold on this thing we called life.

I stopped at the Fish House and ordered a bowl of clam chowder, an order of fish and chips, and decided to eat there, rather than in my car. By the time I was eating, the sun had set, and I decided to call Zandre. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I wanted to make sure he was aware of what happened.

He answered on the second ring. “Maisy, hello.”

“Hey. Listen, I have to tell you something. It’s rather upsetting, so I suggest you sit down.”

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