My butt was frozen from sitting on the concrete when I stood. I picked up his card, tearing it in half and going to a trash can, but as I held the ripped pieces over the hole, I hesitated. Slowly, I put them in my pocket.

An insurance adjuster? a small voice in my head mocked. Grimacing, I took the pieces out and dropped them in the can. Work for someone else again? No. Never.

Nine

Peace sat warm in me as I sprinkled the yellow sugar on the iced cookie shaped like the sun. Okay, so it was a circle, but with the sparkling sugar it could be the sun. I was tired of the long nights, and the physical affirmation of the turning seasons had always filled me with a quiet strength. Especially the winter solstice.

I set the finished cookie aside on the paper towel and took another. It was quiet but for music filtering in from the living room. Takata had released “Red Ribbons” to WVMP, and the station was playing it into the ground. I didn’t care. The refrain was the one I had told him fitted with the theme of the song, and it pleased me I had played some small part in its creation.

All the pixies were sleeping in my desk for at least two more hours. Ivy probably wouldn’t be up stumbling about in search of coffee for even longer. She had come in before sunrise looking calm and relaxed, self-consciously seeking my approval for having slaked her blood lust on some poor sap before falling into bed like a Brimstone addict. I had the church to myself, and I was going to squeeze every drop of solitude out of it that I could.

Swaying to the heavy beat of drums in a way I wouldn’t if anyone were watching, I smiled. It was nice to be alone once in a while.

Jenks had made his kids do more than apologize to me, and I had woken this afternoon to a hot pot of coffee in a sparkling clean kitchen. Everything shone, everything was polished. They had even scoured the accumulated dirt out of the circle I had etched into the linoleum around the center island counter. Not a breath of dust or cobweb marred the walls or ceiling, and as I dipped my knife into the green icing, I vowed to try to keep it this clean all the time.

Yeah, right, I thought as I layered frosting on the wreath. I’d put it off until I was back to the same level of chaos that the pixies had dragged me out of. I’d give it two weeks, tops.

Timing my movements with the beat of the music, I placed three little hot candies to look like berries. A sigh shifted my shoulders, and I set it aside and took up the candle cookie, trying to decide whether to make it purple for aged wisdom or green for change.

I was reaching for the purple when the phone rang from the living room. I froze for an instant, then set the butter tub of frosting down and hustled after it before it could wake the pixies. They were worse than having a baby in the house. Snatching the remote from the couch, I pointed it at the disc player to mute it. “Vampiric Charms,” I said as I picked up the phone and hoped I wasn’t breathing hard. “This is Rachel.”