Nic Tatano - The Adventures of Jillian Spectre

Welcome to the Mystic Quarter

NIC TATANO

A division of HarperCollins Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

HarperImpulse an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

77–85 Fulham Palace Road

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2014

Copyright © Nic Tatano 2014

Cover Photographs © Shutterstock.com

Nic Tatano asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International

and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

By payment of the required fees, you have been granted

the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access

and read the text of this e-book on screen.

No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,

downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or

stored in or introduced into any information storage and

retrieval system, in any form or by any means,

whether electronic or mechanical, now known or

hereinafter invented, without the express

written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © March 2014

ISBN: 9780007585281

Version 2014-08-18

Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

For Myra, my redheaded muse.

Contents

Cover

Title Page The Adventures of Jillian Spectre Welcome to the Mystic Quarter NIC TATANO A division of HarperCollins Publishers www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright HarperImpulse an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2014 Copyright © Nic Tatano 2014 Cover Photographs © Shutterstock.com Nic Tatano asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Ebook Edition © March 2014 ISBN: 9780007585281 Version 2014-08-18 Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Dedication For Myra, my redheaded muse.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Epilogue

Bonus Material

Chapter One

Coming Soon From Nic Tatano…

Also by Nic Tatano…

Nic Tatano

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

As after school activities go, seeing the future beats the hell out of soccer practice.

Yeah, that’s my gift, my blessing. Or, depending on your point of view, my curse. Because I can see everyone’s future.

Except my own.

Meanwhile, my gift just took a very strange, and frankly very frightening turn. More about that later.

I say later because I sense that since you discovered I have a window to the future, you’ll want to know about your own and couldn’t care less about my problem. But before we go any further and you start asking questions like, “Will the married man I’m dating really leave his wife?” (No, dumbass. You don’t need a psychic for that.) I should introduce myself. I’m Jillian Spectre, seventeen-year-old crystal ball chick of the neighborhood. Said neighborhood is a bit unusual in that just about everyone who lives here has some sort of otherworldly talent. It’s New York City’s paranormal section. Little Italy has its Italian food, Chinatown has Asian culture, Queens has its chop shops, and we’ve got the real version of the Sci-Fi channel. (Don’t correct me. I know they changed their logo to Syfy , but it looks like it should be pronounced “siffee” and I refuse to accept it.) Our block is your one-stop shop for mediums, mystic seers, telepaths, and, for you fans of Shirley MacLaine, past life regression hypnotists. Some legit, some not. The con artists who tried to open a ghostbusters shop down the street failed miserably and the place is now a pizza parlor.

Anyway, I’m sought after for my dead-on romantic readings of the future by every lovesick person in Manhattan, while my flaming red hair, sea foam green eyes and sparkling personality is Velcro to all the lovesick crash test dummies in my high school. I’m not the hottest girl on campus by any means, though this five foot five slender collection of freckles with a pug nose can turn a head when I get all gussied up. But for whatever reason I attract the shallow end of the male dating pool like a bug zapper draws in mosquitoes. I’m a teenage version of Miss Liberty; give me your tired, your poor, your geeky, your sophistication challenged…you know the type.

Back to my talent, which hit me like a ton of bricks when I turned fourteen. I come from a long line of mystic seers, and on that particular birthday my mother Zelda (yeah, I know, talk about a stereotypical name for someone who reads the future) presented me with my first crystal ball. The ensuing torrent of views from the future knocked me for a loop until she taught me how to focus and control things. At sixteen I was inducted into the family business, and now for two hours after school I endure a parade of sexually frustrated housewives, lonely single men, and generally unattractive people who don’t have enough personality to work at the Department of Motor Vehicles. (By the way, as an apprentice I can only read romance right now, so, unlike my mother, I don’t have clients who want to know about their careers.) I can see exactly five years into the future, so my talent is not all encompassing, but enough to satisfy those who need a romantic lifeline. As for the people with no shot at finding a significant other (or even a friend with benefits), I’ve developed a wonderful talent of giving them false hope, even though the crystal ball says, “Seriously, Jillian? Fuhgeddaboudit! Give this poor schlub his money back.”

Finally, back to the curse part of my talent. Can’t read my own future, but then again, neither can anyone with my talent. Sure wish I could, because after weeding out the parade of losers in high school, my heart is torn between two guys.