Changing Faces (Haven New Jersey Series #1)

Changing Faces

Haven New Jersey Series #1

A Short Fantasy Novel

Nancy Beck

Copyright 2011 Nancy Beck

Published by March Winds Publishing

Cover by Harris Channing

http://harrischanning.com/BookCoversDesignedByHarrisChanning.html

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Being magical isn't all it's cracked up to be;

it sure doesn't help when you need to pay the rent.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Connect With the Author

Chapter 1

Mornings are not my slice of pizza and are to be avoided whenever necessary. When I have a job assignment or something else that makes it worthy to kick off the blanket, I'm used to falling out of bed, washing up, and doing the make up and clothing routines. And usually I do it standing, at my own speed.

Not today.

Jane Ipcress, the landlady's demon daughter, had a hold on my ankle. Demons are real, occasionally stealing into our world, and I had no doubt Jane was from some distant bowels in Hell. I lay sprawled on the floor of my apartment, reaching over my head to hold onto something, anything anchored to the floor. What the hell? I said.

Jane's beady blue eyes were bright, which contrasted nicely with her red face and burnt-orange hair. Shut up, Tessa, she said. You know why. As if that explained everything. The rent ring a bell?

I blinked a few times, trying to get the blue-gray veil of sleep out of my face, my eyes. Recognition or a reasonable facsimile reared its head. March thirty-first. Damn. I told you. I haven't been able to find anything.

With a toss of her head, the strands of Jane's orange hair revealed her scowling face. She tightened her grip on my ankle, even as I grabbed one metal leg of my cot. The wheels of all four legs were locked, but that didn't keep the bed from straining toward Jane. Plenty of jobs out there. She leaned forward, her grip loosening enough to allow some circulation in my calf. Just find one.

I heaved away from Jane, my ankle coming free. I scrambled to my feet in record time. Like it's that easy? Let me ask you something. I glared at her, knowing what answer was coming, but I asked anyway. Why do you hate me?

I don't hate you, she said, panting, struggling to stand.

Yeah, sure. I'd heard that one a lot. A phrase heaved at me ever since I found out I was an aura cleanser.

I just hate that you're stringing Mom along. She crossed her considerable arms in front of her equally ample chest. Pay up for back rent, and I'm outta here.

I answered in my best Joisey accent. So all I gotta do is pay youse, and youse gone?

Scowling, she gave a quick nod.

I settled myself on the cot, which squeaked at the sudden weight. Seriously, I said, offering my palm to her, it's not that easy. I had a long-term temp position, but I, um--

Pissed off people? She said it with such certainty. Of course, she was right.

Because of my magical ability, I could sense people's feelings. Not strictly an empath, as my teacher explained. But the cleansing of dark, or bad, auras went hand-in-hand with people's emotions. My eyes sought the floor instead of Jane's ugly puss. Yeah.

Thought so. She came and sat next to me, the cot groaning. If it were up to me, I'd have thrown you out after the first missed month. She stood again. But the state doesn't allow that. It's only after three--or is it four?--months that we can evict you.

But, but--

Mom knows I'm doing this, and she's fine with it.

But, but--

I thought I'd, ah, move the process along by getting you out of bed, by getting you out the door before she's up.

But, but-- I held up my hand, wanting to contribute something more intellectual. I know you're lying. Although to see an aura I needed to go into a trance, I drew on my emotional sensing to stop her in her tracks.

Jane's face resumed its normal pasty look, but the red seeped back in. This is why you have no friends, this is why you can't hold on to a job, you damned freak! She turned, stalked to my apartment door, and slammed it behind her.

The hostility was a typical reaction here in Zauber, New Jersey, a small town by New Jersey standards. I hadn't made many friends here. Just three, to be exact, and two of those people were gone, one permanently.

I sat there, staring at the door. Jane was a rotund, lying sack of shit, but she was right. This was my life ever since I'd learned of my ability. Literally bumping into Maureen, my teacher (which seemed like a coincidence), she let me know I wasn't going crazy. She let me know I was the youngest aura cleanser she'd ever met. And she let me know she could teach me how to use my ability to see auras to help people, while she could teach me to keep my sensing in check.

She was only half right.

I put my head in my hands. I thought Maureen could teach me to be normal. The stereotype of the nice home with a white picket fence surrounding it. I equated that with normality, as corny and stupid as that sounds. All I wanted was to be normal, and that hadn't been my life since forever.

Ruminating like this wasn't getting me any closer to finding a job, so I took the three steps to my laptop, which sat on the chrome stand that also held my cell, a small printer, and a faux leather laptop case. I plopped into the secondhand chrome chair and turned on the computer, tapping my foot as it went through its slow opening routine.

Do I love chrome? If I could make everything but food and domesticated animals into chrome, I'd be in bliss.

The laptop connected to the nearest unsecured Wi-Fi hub, and I dove in, typing the url for my wonderful site, Palmisano's Paranormal Investigations. Lame. The colors were lame, the words on it were lame--therefore, I am lame trying to market myself online. I didn't want to do it, but my landlady, Mrs. Ipcress, mother of that demon, insisted I do something, especially since she was going to be paying.

Her insistence won out, even though my creation looked like crap.

A scritch came at the door, Mrs. Ipcress' telltale knock. Maybe she'd been a gerbil in a former life. I chuckled at my comedic genius before I got up and opened the door. Yeah? I yawned, despite being fully awake from the floor dragging at heaven-knows-what-hour of the morning.

Mrs. Ipcress stood in her green-and-red-flowered shift, her bright-orange hair adrift as if a hurricane ravaged it. She smelled of cigarettes and rancid rainwater and sweet perfume, an olfactory overload that always made me gag.

Tessa Palmisano, she said, and I knew I was in for something long winded; she never said my full name unless she had a lot to say. Oy vey.

Can you make this fast, Mrs. Ipcress? I jabbed a thumb behind me, hoping it was pointing at the laptop. I need to think up some promo stuff, since I can't find a regular job. Or keep one. I groaned.

Oh, Tessa. Mrs. Ipcress shimmied past me, the shift hanging like a limp rag on her needle thin body. I'm not going to take that long.

She looked as if she'd thrown up everything she'd ever eaten and fed it to Jane. I cringed. My best friend Allison was as big as Jane but she had style. Weird, Goth style, but she looked like a dark, bohemian piece of art. As opposed to me; I blended into walls very nicely.

What Allison ever saw in me, I haven't a clue.

I came back to Mrs. Ipcress a moment later. She stood before me, thankfully a few inches off. I've been talking to Lorraine, and we decided it was best to contact you.

This early? The light outside suggested somewhere between seven and ten in the morning. What have you two been talking about? Mrs. Ipcress gossiped with Lorraine Davenport daily for hours on end. How they managed to find enough things to talk about was a mystery for the ages.

The nice young man in the house on the corner? The one who's renting an apartment on the first floor?

What was this, ten thousand questions? She'd already pushed her way into my apartment, not that I minded all that much;