# Misfortune Teller By Dima Zales Canonical: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller Misfortune Teller by Dima Zales is a 2018 romance. Tropes: Mystery, Psychic, Urban Fantasy. Heat 2/5. Book 2 of Sasha Urban. ## What happened So I’m a seer. A Cognizant under the Mandate. Life should be easy now, right? Wrong. With all the “accidents” that keep befalling me, I’ll be lucky to survive the week. That is, if my crazy boss doesn’t work me to death first… ## Chapters ### Chapter 2 Asha wakes to a catastrophic hangover after the Jubilee, her initiation into the secret Cognizant society. While nursing her headache alongside roommates Felix and Ariel, she faces a looming stock-research deadline from her boss Nero and learns that Saturday's Earth Club in the Otherlands will force her to confront her new identity openly. The domestic calm shatters when her pet chinchilla Fluffster displays a glowing Cognizant aura, revealing himself as a domovoi—a Slavic house spirit—who speaks directly into her mind with a Russian accent. Between comic relief, unspoken concern over Ariel's drug use, and the pressure of her Mentor's demands, Asha realizes her old life has ended; she is now irrevocably bound to a hidden world of psychics, vampires, and spirits, with Fluffster's revelation leaving her stunned and questioning everything she thought she knew about her pet. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-2 ### Chapter 3 Sasha wakes hungover to learn her pet chinchilla Fluffster is actually a domovoi—a Russian household spirit—who took the animal's body to save it from a fatal seizure, communicating telepathically all along. This revelation sparks a desperate search into Sasha's unknown biological heritage, possibly Russian, while roommates Felix and Ariel suggest meeting Felix's father, a domovoi expert, for lunch. After performing an elaborate card trick for the enchanted pet, Sasha rushes to work, reconciles with her estranged adoptive father Braxton over the phone, and schedules sushi on Monday. In the hallway, she encounters Rose, an ancient witch with a vampire paramour, who confirms Sasha's Cognizant status. Back at the office, Sasha submits a rushed stock analysis and faces a summons from her boss and new mentor Nero, her heart pounding with anxiety and lingering confusion over a recent dream-kiss with the shape-shifting Councilor Kit. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-3 ### Chapter 4 Financial analyst Sasha navigates a charged morning in her boss Nero’s office, where simmering attraction clashes with professional frustration as he dumps an impossible portfolio analysis—twenty-six stocks by 4:45 p.m.—on her desk. Their conversation veers into the supernatural when Sasha confesses her recent stress-induced prophetic dreams, including one where she dies, which visibly unsettles the usually stoic Nero. Dismissed with a mysterious Orientation card, she storms out, only to run into Lucretia, the fund’s empath psychologist, in the cafeteria. Their conversation reveals that pre-vamps like Lucretia cannot easily bear human children and hints at a possible future therapy session. Racing against the clock, Sasha submits her rushed research at 4:44 p.m., leaving her career hanging in the balance as she awaits Nero’s response. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-4 ### Chapter 5 Sasha receives suspicious praise from her hedge fund boss Nero while Felix reveals that their apartment building is owned by the same man, tightening his grip on her life. Sneaking out to escape the pressure, she visits a struggling magic store where she performs a routine for an admiring employee, then challenges the owner Timothy Bandicoot’s sexist remarks before leaving with a Russian Roulette booklet. Taking the subway to Battery Park, she reads by the marina as her paranoia about being watched intensifies, until she is suddenly plunged into the dark harbor waters, her head striking metal as the chapter ends on a violent cliffhanger. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-5 ### Chapter 6 The narrator survives a brutal plunge into the harbor after being pushed—or possibly falling—into the water, enduring a terrifying near-drowning that leaves her lungs burning and ribs bruised. Rescued by a mysterious figure who performs clumsy CPR before vanishing, she stumbles home soaked and paranoid, where her roommate Ariel, a med student with military first-aid experience, treats her injuries and urges her to report the attack. They deduce the assailant may be Chester, who lost his Council seat thanks to the narrator, and debate whether to contact her Mentor Nero despite recent tensions. To protect herself, the narrator decides to arm herself with a revolver, and Ariel insists on weekend shooting lessons. Exhausted, she finally collapses into bed with her telepathic pet domovoi, Fluffster, whose chatter provides small comfort amid the unresolved threat. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-6 ### Chapter 7 Sasha wakes feeling recovered from her injuries and shares a casual breakfast with Felix and Ariel, where they speculate about who pushed her into the water at the pier—Felix insists it wasn't Chester. At work, her demanding boss Nero floods her inbox with an impossible stock-research assignment, prompting her to gamble on instinct for half the list to earn workload relief. She also finally calls Dr. Hekima about a cryptic "Orientation" card, booking a Saturday meeting in Queens. Rushing to lunch with Felix's conservative parents in Brighton Beach—Little Odessa, alive with Cyrillic storefronts—Sasha wonders if her biological parents were Russian speakers. Suddenly, she senses mortal danger and dives aside as a brick smashes into the pavement inches from her head, ending the chapter on a jolt of violent suspense. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-7 ### Chapter 8 Sasha narrowly escapes death when construction debris rains down in Brighton Beach, then confronts a menacing foreman who denies the hazard. After fleeing, she meets Felix for lunch at an Uzbek restaurant with his Russian-speaking parents, Ruslan and Zamira Fokin, who pressure the pair about marriage and grandchildren while discussing the domovoi Fluffster. They reveal that consulting the local witch Baba Yaga might recover Sasha's lost memories of her biological parents—but at a steep cost. After leaving the restaurant, Sasha locates the witch's chicken-legged eatery, only to sense danger again as a black minivan barrels toward her. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-8 ### Chapter 9 When a minivan slams into a lamppost inches from Sasha Urban, she survives only to spot the muscular, Neanderthal-featured driver escaping unharmed. Convinced former Councilor Chester is orchestrating a string of deadly 'accidents,' she video-calls her boss Nero, who flexes his authority—and physique—while promising to 'remind Chester how to stay alive.' Between managing Nero's skyrocketing stock fund via uncanny intuition and arranging a midnight meeting with the reclusive Baba Yaga at the Izbushka Na Kurih Nojkah, Sasha's paranoia mounts. Walking home through Manhattan, she recognizes a third hulking man matching the predatory genotype and tries to evade him, only to have him unleash a massive mastiff in a terrifying final lunge. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-9 ### Chapter 10 Sasha barely escapes a pursuing beast into her apartment, where Ariel and Fluffster find her trembling in shock. Determined to confront the Baba Yaga with Ariel's protection, she debates arming herself with a gun after Ariel identifies her attacker as an orc—a green-skinned brute from the Otherlands linked to the suspect Chester. While deflecting questions about her own secret evening with Gaius, Ariel delivers a mysterious package from Darian containing a VHS tape, forcing Sasha to splurge on a vintage player. As night falls, exhaustion overtakes her, and she sinks into a dream of overwhelming, electrifying intimacy with a lover whose identity remains hazy, passing out from the intensity of the encounter. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-10 ### Chapter 11 Sasha wakes from a vivid erotic dream and suppresses her arousal before meeting her friend Ariel at a gun range, where she nearly triggers the Mandate's painful enforcement by almost speaking the forbidden word 'orc.' Despite the punishing recoil of a .44 magnum, she trains with grim determination and later receives the illegal weapon as a 'Jubilee gift,' naming it Harry. She then meets Dr. Hekima at Orientation, learning the dangerous secrets of the hidden Cognizant world and securing a place in tomorrow's class on Nero's recommendation. Over dinner with Felix and Fluffster, Sasha confronts an unexpected flutter of jealousy when Felix reveals a crush on a non-Cognizant woman. The chapter culminates as Sasha and Ariel prepare for Earth Club in Gomorrah, navigating the labyrinthine JFK hub and stepping through a plasma gate into the Otherlands, leaving the night's adventures unresolved. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-11 ### Chapter 12 Sasha arrives with Ariel at Gomorrah's gate hub atop a skyscraper that dwarfs Earth's tallest, gazing at a nebula sky and a megacity larger than the United States. Ariel reveals that Gomorrah is a Cognizant-only world where human-specific auras vanish and psychic powers slowly drain without humans present. Despite Sasha's rapid-fire questions about symbiotic world types and the origin of multi-world humanity, Ariel cuts off the interrogation and leads her toward the Earth Club, a neon-soaked venue boasting the best vodka in the Otherlands. When a green orc bouncer blocks their entry, Ariel invokes the name of Sasha's mentor, Nero Gorin, instantly clearing the way. The chapter closes on the threshold of the club, with the promise of a night of revelry and lingering questions about the nature of power, humanity, and the worlds beyond. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-12 ### Chapter 13 Sasha enters a fantastical multi-level Cognizant club with Ariel, overwhelmed by glass floors and supernatural patrons ranging from vampires to merfolk. Her worldview shatters when she discovers Councilor Kit shapeshifted into an exact duplicate of herself to kiss Darian, who claims he foresaw her arrival in a vision. After escaping that awkward encounter, Sasha confronts disgraced Councilor Chester at the bar, who denies involvement in recent assassination attempts and argues the Mandate now protects Sasha from direct murder. When Ariel's possessive companion Gaius arrives, Sasha is left alone and accidentally drinks Chimera's Fire, a capsaicin-laced cocktail that burns like pepper spray. She is rescued by Harper, an amber-eyed stranger whose pheromones and electric touch create intoxicating chemistry. They retreat to the ninth-level lounge, where intense passion and partial undressing build until Sasha abruptly stops, struck by a powerful, disorienting sense of déjà vu. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-13 ### Chapter 14 Sasha awakens from an intimate encounter to realize her dream was a prophetic vision of Harper, an incubus attempting to drain her life force. She fights him off just as Ariel and the vampire Gaius burst in to rescue her, driving the creature away. Weak and shaken, Sasha learns the attack was potentially lethal and accepts chocolate from Gaius while the group questions why the seer Darian summoned them to this specific time and place. After Ariel escorts Sasha toward the exit, Darian intercepts them and, despite her suspicions, persuades her to dance. During their sensual dance, he reveals he has experienced visions of their future together, only to abruptly freeze in terror at something behind her, leaving the chapter on a cliffhanger. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-14 ### Chapter 15 Sasha is dancing with the seer Darian at a crowded nightclub when he abruptly vanishes, leaving her exposed to her boss Nero's furious approach. Nero, who owns the club, radiates predatory intensity that triggers an overwhelming surge of attraction in Sasha—likely amplified by Harper's lingering magical mojo. As Ariel tries to explain that Darian's conversation may have looked like an attempt to poach Sasha as a Mentee, Sasha struggles to suppress her desires while Nero closes the distance between them. The chapter builds to a charged confrontation where anger and dangerous chemistry collide, leaving the romantic tension unresolved. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-15 ### Chapter 16 Sasha flees a nightclub after Nero abruptly abandons her mid-conversation, leaving her overwhelmed by conflicting emotions. Her best friend Ariel deduces that the seer Darian manipulated Sasha's perception using pheromones to provoke desire, and reveals that Kit once kissed Darian while wearing Sasha's face. Traveling through the JFK hub to Earth, they debate consent and coercion following Harper's mind-altering encounter, then endure an awkward elevator ride with Vlad, a vampire tied to their social circle. At home, Sasha struggles with lingering arousal from Harper's influence, relieving the tension through repeated use of her Copperfield device while fantasizing about Nero. Waking late, she finds Ariel missing and learns from Felix that vampire blood is addictive, sparking concern for her friend's safety with Gaius. Armed for protection, Sasha heads to a tense Orientation session in Queens, facing twenty hostile teenagers. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-16 ### Chapter 17 Sasha Urban, a grown illusionist posing as a teen, joins Dr. Hekima’s Cognizant support group and chooses to sit beside Maya, a shy psychometry student targeted by Roxy’s werewolf clique, the “beehive.” After trading barbed insults, Dr. Hekima arrives and lectures on the genetics of supernatural heredity—revealing that powers are DNA-encoded, that probability manipulators can influence dual-power offspring, and that forbidden research into Cognizant genes is monitored by Enforcers. When class ends, Roxy seizes Maya’s sketchbook of unflattering caricatures and corners her in the subway, transforming with her pack into monstrous wolf-beasts. Sasha, battling a paralyzing fear of canines, descends with a single bullet loaded, ready to defend Maya against the literal “dead” threat. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-17 ### Chapter 18 The narrator bluffs a pack of armed werewolves with an unloaded gun, staging a Russian roulette game to rescue Maya from attack in a subway station. Revealing themselves as a sleight-of-hand illusionist rather than the seer Maya assumed, they bond over their shared Cognizant status during the train ride home, where Maya offers to use her psychometry on the narrator's amnesiac domovoi, Fluffster, to uncover the narrator's unknown biological parents. Their easy camaraderie shatters when the narrator's boss, the legendary and terrifying Nero Gorin, demands an immediate emergency office meeting, only to end on a violent cliffhanger as a massive orc boards the train and threatens them at gunpoint. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-18 ### Chapter 19 A tense street confrontation spirals into a life-threatening charade when an orc ambushes Bailey and Maya, demanding cash under the barrel of a gun. Bailey, suspecting the “mugging” is actually a contract killing staged by Chester, plays along while mentally cataloging the impossibilities—orcs don’t usually rob humans, and the pay seems too low for murder. When Maya is threatened, Bailey’s protective instinct flares, drawing the creature’s rage until the money is surrendered. The orc then forces both victims to close their eyes and count to a thousand, leaving them suspended in terror, wondering if the Cognizant afterlife awaits. The chapter closes on a knife-edge of dread, the fake robbery revealing darker intentions and an unanswered question: who really hired the blade? Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-19 ### Chapter 21 Waking at her desk at 8:38 p.m., the narrator realizes a recent dream vision may be prophetic: Nero is in danger in a back alley. Though her call to him goes to voicemail, she grabs her gun bag—holding six bullets against five orcs—and races through the parking garage. Haunted by cowardly doubts and confusing intrusive feelings for Nero, she nonetheless charges toward the alley. Arriving breathless, she confirms the vision is real: Nero is surrounded by orcs, and one named Bogof waits to ambush him from behind. With no time to retreat, she raises her weapon and commits to the rescue, ending on the knife-edge of confrontation. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/misfortune-teller#chapter-21