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to worry about were the ones in my little black book, not the ones on the eleven o’clock news.
    When I glanced up, the elderly Fate was at the spinning wheel, and I braced myself, sure she’d jump on me for an answer. Yet she didn’t even look up. Just clipped off the length of yarn the middle Fate had measured out for her, then handed it to a wraith-clerk. Then the child Fate took over and threaded the spinning wheel. She lifted her eyes to mine, then quickly looked back down.
    So what was the connection between the two sets of murders? Or were they two sets? There was only one spirit missing from the nether regions. Two women, similar in appearance, both killing teens. So they had to be the same person. To a human, such a thing would be impossible, but supernatural minds are more open to other possibilities.
    I knew I should think through those possibilities, and come up with the most likely one, to impress the Fates with my astounding capacity for logical reasoning. I knew that…and I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
    “Vampire,” I said.
    The youngest of the Fates glanced around the spinning wheel, her face screwed up in a look every mother recognizes as “Huh?”
    “Two sets of murders, both committed by the same woman, who doesn’t age between the time of big hair and miniskirts and, well, big hair and miniskirts. Similar fashion styles, but definitely a twenty-five, thirty-year gap without so much as a wrinkle. She must be a vampire. Most vamps stick to their necessary kill quotas but there are always those who get a taste for it and—”
    The crone took over. “It’s not a vampire, Eve. We have our own ways of dealing with vampire spirits, which you would know if you took any interest at all in the world around you. Try again.”
    The old Fate’s bright eyes pinned me like a butterfly to a mat. In school, I’d had very little respect for my teachers, and for grown-ups in general. Only one teacher had ever been able to make me squirm. Grade six. Mrs. Appleton, the kind of sour old woman whose very gaze is acid to your self-confidence, who always looks as if she expects very little from you, and is never disappointed. The old Fate had that look down pat.
    “Uh, I, well…” I straightened. “Okay, well, I don’t know a lot about time-travel”—I caught her look—“but I do know that’s not what’s going on here. So the explanation must be…”
    I studied her gaze. No clues there. Forge ahead.
    “Reincarnation,” I said.
    The crone morphed into the middle-aged woman. “How much do you know about reincarnation, Eve?”
    A lightning-bolt switch and the old woman cut in. “Not nearly enough, considering she’s been here three years.” She fixed me with one eye, squeezing the other shut. “Well? Let’s hear it. Everything you know about reincarnation. Should take a good five, ten seconds.”
    “I know it’s possible,” I said. “Rare, but possible.”
    “Three seconds? I overestimated you again.”
    The middle Fate appeared. “Yes, it’s rare, Eve. Very rare. It’s allowed only under special circumstances, when a spirit meets certain criteria that lead the Creator to decide that the soul should be allowed another chance at life.”
    The old Fate cut back in. “And murdering children doesn’t qualify.”
    Again, the middle Fate pushed her sister aside. “What we want you to find is called a Nix. Do you know what that is?”

    I expected the hag to pop back and needle me again, but she didn’t.
    “Demi-demons,” I said slowly, as my memory banks creaked open. “In German folklore a Nix is a mischievous temptress spirit. A cross between a siren, an imp, and Mae West.”
    “That’s the mythical version,” she said. “And the reality?”
    “I—I’m not sure. I’ve never run into one, or anyone who has.” I thought harder, then shook my head. “I don’t remember reading any references to a real version.”
    “Probably because it’s very obscure knowledge.