The Vampire Pendant by Sheri Whitefeather

Chapter One
    Tessa Clarins hated going out in public. She hated the way other people looked at her. The rude stares. The pity glances. But today she was braving her way into the magic shop.
    Again.
    This was Tessa’s fourth trip to The Chakra Circle. Luckily the shop was located close to home. Tessa lived in Old Town Orange, a quaint neighborhood in Southern California. Of course she rarely enjoyed its historic charm, as she rarely poked her nose out the door.
    But there was something about The Chakra Circle that drew her to it in person and kept her coming back. Otherwise, she would have bought what she needed on the Internet. Tessa did most of her shopping online. She also worked at home as a freelance book editor. In this day and age, it was easy to be a recluse.
    But she was tired of it. Tessa desperately wanted to be normal, to look normal, to have a normal life.
    She entered the magic shop and the little bell above the door chimed. The old man who owned the store glanced up and greeted her with a smile. He was behind the counter, rearranging things in the front display case.
    Tessa returned his smile. Hers was much weaker than his, but it was the best she could do. She hadn’t smiled for real since her face had caught fire.
    She was glad the old man never got in her business. Apparently he sensed that she wanted to be left alone. But it was obvious, she supposed, by the way she behaved.
    Eager to shop, she headed for the books section, hoping to uncover something she’d missed on her previous visits. Or maybe there was a new book in stock.
    Tessa loved books and she was certain that she would find the key to her survival in a book, and she was certain that she would find it here.
    Why else would she be drawn to this store? Why else would she feel compelled to keep coming back?
    So far none of the other books she’d purchased from this store had helped, and neither had the supplies, but she was determined to keep trying.
    She searched and searched, but there wasn’t anything she hadn’t seen before. Nothing new, either. Disappointed, she headed for the door.
    Then the old man approached her, stopping her before she could leave. “I apologize for intruding, but are you working on a glamour spell?”
    Damn. So much for him not getting into her business. He could obviously tell from her previous purchases what she was after. “Yes, but I’m not a witch or anything.”
    “Have you considered hiring a magic practitioner to help you?”
    “I don’t want anyone else to cast the spell.” She wasn’t comfortable letting a stranger control her destiny. Tessa wanted to be in charge of her own life.
    “Why don’t you let me read your cards and see what they say?”
    A Tarot Card reading? “How is that going to help?”
    “You can ask the cards if there is a spell that’s meant to work for you and how to go about finding it.”
    She was intrigued, but nervous, too. The spell she sought was extremely powerful. The idea was to “glamour” those around her and make them “see” her as normal. Basically, the spell would hide her scars, metaphysically speaking, and if it worked, she would see herself as healed, too.
    “I’ve never had a reading before,” she said.
    “It’ll be painless, I promise.”
    “How much will it cost?”
    “Fifty-dollars.”
    That wasn’t cheap, not by her standards, but maybe it was the reason she’d been drawn to this store. “Okay. I’ll give it a try.”
    He closed the shop, putting one of those old-fashioned clock signs on the door that showed what time it would reopen.
    He brought her into the back room, where she sat across from him at a tidy desk.
    Before they got started, he said, “My name is Darrin.”
    “I’m Tessa.”
    “Nice to meet you.”
    “You, too.” She studied his attractively aged face. She figured him for around seventy. With his longish white hair and naturally tanned skin, he looked as if he had some Native American blood in him. She hadn’t seen any