The man raised an eyebrow at me. “You are Pia Thomason?”

“Ack!” I said, and slammed the door shut in his face. “Oh, my God, Magda, it’s him!”

“Him? Him who?”

A shivery déjà vu sensation washed over me as I leaped over to the couch, shoving aside the curtain on the window just enough to peek out at the man. He knocked at the door again.

“Him the messenger. Good Lord, we’ve already done this!”

“We’ve done what?” Magda sounded confused.

“This, we’ve done this! This was the dream I had this morning.”

Muttered conversation was audible on the phone for a moment before Magda uncovered the mouthpiece and said, “Honey, would you go down to the basement and get me that bottle of olive oil? The Italian one. Pia’s having a crisis, and this may take a few minutes.”

I heard Ray say something as he moved off to do Magda’s bidding.

“I’m not having a crisis,” I hissed, peeking out at the man on my porch. “I’m just facing the messenger, that’s all. Just a vampire come to do God knows what to me.”

“Ray sends his love, by the way, and says he hopes your crisis isn’t a serious one,” she said in an aside before continuing. “How do you know the man is the messenger? Maybe he’s someone else. Maybe he’s another religious type. Or maybe he’s trying to sell Girl Scout cookies.”

I eyed the stranger again as he raised his hand to knock. “He’s around six feet tall and is wearing a very tailored black sports coat with matching pants, a scarlet shirt that looks like it’s made of raw silk, and shoes that probably cost more than my car.”

“That could be anyone,” Magda insisted, the sounds of chopping accompanying the words.

“And a fedora that’s angled to shade his face from the sun. I covered all this in the dream! Although that messenger turned out to be Andreas, and this guy is definitely not Kristoff’s brother.”