Dark Heat
By
Arianna Hart

Chapter One

    Talia hated snow. She hated schlepping through the dirty, sloppy mess just to get to the bus stop, and hated the ice that made walking on the sidewalks to the shop a trial for balance-challenged people such as herself. What the hell she was doing in New York City in the middle of winter was anybody's guess. Stomping her feet on the “welcome” mat that read “Go Away” she wished she could go away. Preferably someplace warm.
    As always, the instant she stepped into Strange Days, the occult bookstore where she worked, she felt a wall of peace fall between her and the outside world. It wasn't just the soothing harp music, or the sandalwood incense that permeated the air; it was the feeling of the store's psychic shields slipping into place. Once she crossed the threshold the store's wards surrounded her, barricading her from the whirling maelstrom of emotions that seethed in the city that never sleeps.
    Being an empath was hard enough in the tiny town in Maine where she grew up, and that only had a population of two thousand. Living in the city surrounded by millions of people broadcasting their emotions far and wide was like trying to read a book at a basketball game. During the Final Four.
    Her shields were adequate most of the time. It had gotten to where the emotional badgering she withstood living in her apartment building was almost like white noise to her now. She could ignore almost everything but the really heavy emotional meltdowns. Like the cry fest that came after her neighbor Patrice broke up with her boyfriend last night.
    If she was the type, Talia would have gone downstairs with a pint of ice cream and listened while Patrice cried out her angst. She definitely wasn't the type. Instead, Talia tossed and turned, feeling the guilt and remorse Patrice suffered over ending the relationship.
    It was bad enough Talia hadn't had a date in so long she'd forgotten what one was like, now she had to go through the emotional wringer because of someone else's break up. Sometimes she really hated her “gift”. Gift? Ha. Where was the receipt? She wanted an exchange.
    Talia had known she was different from the other kids in kindergarten. Her mother had kept her sheltered under wards that were as automatic for her as breathing. Talia didn't realize feeling someone's emotions was different until the teacher found her hiding under the desk, bombarded by so much emotional noise she could do nothing more than cry.
    Her strange reaction had been chalked up to first day of school jitters, but forever afterwards Talia had been labeled different. Growing up in a small town where you graduated with the same kids you watched eat paste in kindergarten didn't offer a whole lot of room for mingling cliques or exploring personalities.
    That certainly wasn't the problem here. There were so many diverse personalities in the Village alone that Talia didn't even score high on the weirdness scale. If for no other reason than that, it was worth putting up with the crappy weather and insane traffic.
    The door flung open behind her, carrying her friend Cassidy in with a gust of bone searing wind and cold.
    “Hey Talia. What're you doing here on a Saturday? Are the account books that bad you have to come in on the weekend too?” Cassidy, one of the many twenty-something's who came to the city to find themselves or -- in Talia's case -- lose themselves,   more >>