The Bend-Bite-Shift Box Set

by Hardin, Olivia

  “Glad you don’t mind. I’ve found these old bones need a little night cap to put me to sleep.” He carried his glass towards another empty seat, passing close to Langston as he shuffled by.

  Langston could feel the pain emanating from him, and he instinctively reached out his palm and ran it from the back of Charlie’s head down his torso without touching him. His magical powers of healing were very well honed and he sensed the origin of Charlie’s illness almost like a Geiger counter ticking in his brain.

  “You have cancer,” the giant stated as the old man slowly bent at the waist to ease himself into a chair.

  “No need for that, big guy. I know about your powers. Jill was quick enough to tell me, but I want none of that. My Michelle’s been waiting for me in the hereafter. I’ll bide my time and let nature run its course. Besides, the cancer’s what took her from me – who I am to try to cheat it now and deny us eternity together?”

  Langston was quiet a moment, his cognac-brown eyes staring into the other man, then finally he nodded. “I understand. But I can do something to ease your pain during the time you’re biding. Will you allow me to help?”

  Charlie snorted into his glass of liquor before gulping a huge swallow. “Be pretty dumb to refuse, wouldn’t I?”

  “And you should understand, there would be no denying eternity with your wife. I am only a healer. I cannot give anyone everlasting life.”

  “Good damn thing,” he muttered, setting his empty glass aside with a far away look.

  Langston had an idea what Charlie was thinking at that moment. After all, if immortality were possible, it would be too late for the man’s beloved to be the recipient of such a gift. The giant waited for his companion to snap from his momentary reverie.

  Charlie tapped his cane as if to rouse himself from a dream, and looked back at Langston with liquor laden eyes. “I hired a gal to help out around here. She started a few weeks ago. Seems nice enough, if a bit skittish. Thought we’d need a lady’s help if we’re to make this place suitable for the kiddos.”

  “That was very wise of you. I think it would do good for Chelsea to have a female to interact with, at least until Jill returns.”

  The grizzled man eyed him keenly, looking for answers to some unasked questions. “How many children do you expect we’ll have?” Langston knew that wasn’t the question he wanted to ask. It was more likely Charlie wanted to know whether Jill would return.

  An old volume towards the bottom of a stack of books caught Langston’s eye and he got up slowly, leaning his heavy body forward and then standing straight. He spoke even as he squatted low to rub his finger along the worn, cracked spine. “I do not know yet. I was not expecting to have rescued any of them so quickly, but Gerry and Nicky apparently are taking this job very seriously.”

  “This job” was to rescue magical children from vampire captors who held them for the purpose of partaking their powerful blood. It was entirely possible this make-shift orphanage would be brimming with magical children before long. And Langston had agreed to take them all under his wing.

  “Whatcha looking at there?” Charlie asked, squinting as he glanced down at the crouched man.

  “It is a book I’m quite fond of. Strange. I had not thought of it in some time. May I?”

  Charlie waved his hand as he stood. “Take whatever you want. I only look at the medical books anyway. These old bones need to rest. I’m heading off to bed.” After a few shuffle-taps, Charlie stopped and scratched his head. “You ain’t picked out a room yet. You need me to show you ‘round some more?”

  Langston finished inching the volume of Gary Jennings’ Aztec from under the tall stack of other books, then stood with it clutched against his broad chest. “I believe I can manage. Sleep well, my friend.”

  Langston grinned to himself when Charlie yawned exhaustedly. He eased his mental magic on the old man until he was sure he was safely in his bedroom, then he used his powers to lull him to peaceful, pain-free sleep.

  She’d been a champ at keeping a 3500 square foot house spotless and she’d always insisted on doing most of the work on her own. With a little extra effort Kristana was pulling off the same feat with this hospital or children’s center or whatever it was.

  “Ah, good mornin’, Miss Curtiss.”

  “Good morning to you, Mr. Rhodes.”

  He was a kind old man and his smile put her at ease. He kept his own room neat and tidy. Mostly the place had been neglected. The floors needed a good mopping, the bathrooms a good scrubbing, the windows a nice cleaning. Now that all of the heavy work was finished a week or so ago, her tasks were just keeping up.

  She flinched and frowned, then touched two fingers to her temple. The voices were louder this morning. They were waves roaring in and out of her mind at a constant. Sometimes when she was just about to drift off to sleep she’d catch one single voice. She might hear a word or a phrase, but when she’d open her eyes to try and hone in on it the others would crowd in and overwhelm again.

  “We’ve got some newcomers, Miss Curtiss. The tiny one’s named Chelsea and she’s probably still asleep. She’s in the skyscape room.”

  Kris smiled to herself. He’d tagged the rooms by the murals that someone named Jill painted on the walls. As she understood it, Jill used to live here with him for some time, but was “away” at the moment. She thought he was probably either half in love with this Jill or considered her like a daughter.

  “And the other?”

  He stopped, tapping his cane on the floor. “Other what?”

  “Newcomer?”

  He frowned and shook his head before hobbling along through the hallway again. “The other is a giant. Name’s Langston.”

  He got quiet. She’d come to understand him a bit in just a few weeks. His mind was beginning to wander and he was having trouble keeping attention to things. He was a sharp man and she imagined it was quite difficult to accept. She watched him go into his study, the place he liked to enjoy his morning coffee. She’d offered to cook for him, but he’d refused, instead preferring to muddle through making his own simple meals.

  “Speaking of cooking,” Kris whispered soft to herself, raising her nose into the air and inhaling. The scent of some sort of pastry wafted strong, and as she felt her mouth water she heard the voices begin tittering wildly.

  There was only one full kitchen in the place. She figured it had at one time been just a “break room” but at some point it was outfitted with double ovens, a stove, a huge refrigerator and even a dishwasher. Kristana couldn’t understand why. To her knowledge there’d only ever been as many as three people living here. But there were really too many questions about this place to keep count. She figured it was best not to ask too many. She did her job and when the old man wanted to ramble to her, she listened. Charlie’s voice was always preferable to the others blaring in her head anyway.

  She followed her nose into the kitchen and moaned when she recognized the scent of fresh quiche. She’d been eating little enough that her stomach rumbled in pleading as she approached the steaming dish in the center of the little table. There was a setting for three, and beside each plate was a little bowl of fruit. She snatched a grape from the nearest setting, popped it in her mouth and chewed it just as she heard someone approach behind her.

  That pesky grape immediately got lodged in her throat when she caught sight of him. He was perhaps the largest person she’d ever seen. He was enormous. Tall but narrow of waist and broad of chest. The bones of his jaw and cheeks were strong and sharp, giving him a striking expression. But when his eyes caught hers an inner softness floated to the surface of his features. A very sparse sprinkling of gray invaded the blue-black of his thick hair. He wasn’t handsome, but there was something undeniably magnificent about him.

  Her entire body hummed to life, the nerves sparking, her pores absorbing everything about him. She’d never felt such instantaneous attraction in her life.

  Emotions flashed across his face in rapid successi
on. Surprise, relief, happiness, fear, and perhaps even regret. He knew her. But she was certain she’d never met him in her life. She’d remember someone like him.

  She recovered her faculties first, reaching a hand to introduce herself, but when she pulled in a breath to speak she recalled the grape stuck in her throat and began to choke. He patted her on the back a few times and she coughed in spasms until the offending morsel worked its way loose and she could swallow it down. She shook her head, then smiled. “You must be Langston.” Her voice was hoarse.

  “Kristin.”

  He breathed the name and she realized his hand was still at the small of her back. It was a huge hand, and the feel of it wrapped her heart in a blanket of warmth. She was afraid she’d make a fool of herself if she didn’t step away, but for a moment she thought she didn’t have the will power to do even that.

  “Actually, it’s Kristana. Kind of a strange name I guess, but most people call me Kris. You can call me Kris.” She managed to take a step back from the table and out of his arm’s length. Strange that she’d given him her nickname. Over the course of about three weeks she and the old man still only ever called each other Miss Curtiss and Mr. Rhodes.

  He watched her with piercing eyes and she felt naked under his gaze. She brushed a stray strand of hair from her face, then backed a few more steps away. “I didn’t mean to interrupt the breakfast you’re making.” It was an easy assumption. Two large floured handprints marked the sides of his jeans where he’d wiped them. She found herself staring at the shape of his legs hugged by those tight jeans.

  “You interrupt nothing,” he told her, slapping at his floured pants to knock the white powder away. “I would be pleased to set an extra place. Chelsea has only just awakened and should be here in due time. And I believe I can already hear Charlie making his way down the hall.”

  She heard it too. The tapping of the old man’s cane seemed slow and steady and she tried to focus on it to ease the rapid pounding of her heart.

  “It’s not really appropriate. I have things I should be doing.”

  He took a step towards her and she retreated two to match his one. She wasn’t afraid of him. No, everything in her said this man was of no danger. The danger was in herself. She wanted to fling herself at him and beg him to wrap those giant arms around her.

  “It is entirely appropriate. We – Charlie and I, that is – would like to discuss the children with you. We expect to have many orphans coming to live here. We would like to discuss your help in that area. Meeting Chelsea will be a start to that.” He paused and drew his brows together in a serious look. “You don’t dislike children, do you?”

  She shook her head. “No, I like children.”

  The truth was she loved children. She’d wanted to have a house full of them. When after a few years of marriage she hadn’t become pregnant she’d seen a doctor. The physician told there was nothing wrong with her. After Brock visited his doctor, he told her he couldn’t have children. It didn’t seem to bother him much and once the dream was snatched away from her, she moved on and focused on the other aspects of their life together. The thought of being childless caused a pain to slam into her chest as she wondered if his infertility had been just another lie.

  Langston smiled at her, looking like he was trying to read her inner thoughts with his piercing gaze. She realized that the voices were quieter. They were still muttering and murmuring somewhere in the recesses of her mind, but the overwhelming ebb and flow eased. She even thought she detected a calming in the tone of those voices, like the inner demons weren’t nearly so agitated anymore. Who was this man?

  “Do you know me?” she asked, unable to resist the question.

  When he grinned she came very close to swooning. Her heart began palpitating and her head began swimming. She wanted to take his hand and bring it to her cheek to feel his caress. He was a stranger. How could she have such sudden and uncontrollable thoughts about someone she didn’t even know?

  “Where is your husband, Kris?” The tone of his words was cautious, as if he meant to remind her of something she’d forgotten.

  And if she was swimming in her attraction to him before, his question doused her with cold water. She found herself drowning in the icy memory of Brock. It was a memory she didn’t want to surface.

  It was her. A new body, but the same woman just the same. Langston had met her in three prior lives and he always wondered why the gods would cross their paths so often when she could not be his. The last meeting had been just at the conclusion of the first World War. It was his longest period with her; she’d rescued him when he’d been injured. But his recovery hadn’t left him completely unscathed – when he left her that time, it was without a part of his heart.

  “Where is your husband, Kris?” He knew the words were said with an undertone of suggestion and he could see by her blanched expression that she heard him loud and clear. It wasn’t like him. He knew how to control his emotions and was always deliberate in what he said and did.

  But she’d always belonged to another. Each of her lives was the same. A short life of poverty and struggle, tethered to the man she loved. Marriage was serious and sacred. What was it the preachers said? What God has joined, let no man put asunder. But he wasn’t just a man. To his people he’d been a god himself, the last of the “Giants.” To later peoples he became a shaman, then a witchdoctor. Today, he was just a witch.

  She was older than he’d ever seen her, probably in her forties. The age was beautiful on her, taking nothing from the loveliness he’d long admired. Her dark brown hair, straight and fine as a child’s, hung well past her shoulders, and he remembered the feel of it. He’d dared to touch it just once. Touched it and inhaled it so that the memory could be locked forever in his soul when he left her. And he always had to leave her.

  Her very plump and pink lips puckered a bit as she chewed on her answer. Finally she looked down at her hand, the hand that would have worn a wedding band and rubbed that empty finger for a moment with her thumb, then locked her black eyes with his brown ones. “He’s dead. But he wasn’t really my husband. Our marriage was a farce.”

  She looked confused, like she wasn’t sure why she’d given away some secret. He suspected in the three weeks she’d been here she hadn’t once told Charlie about her husband.

  Her husband was dead. That wasn’t how it was supposed to be. They always died together. Each of her past lives ended in death with him. Once by Indians in Oklahoma Territory. Once by fire in a warehouse. The last time a messy murder over her husband’s gambling debts. He might have gone after the assailants if they hadn’t already been dispatched by someone else before he found out about it. But now things were different. She’d broken her destiny.

  Or perhaps she’d found her destiny. He was almost afraid to consider it. Afraid because he sensed something was wrong in her. He could see that her aura wasn’t right. In past lives it had always been a calm rose-colored halo surrounding her. Now it screamed to him painfully, flashing purple. He pressed his magic onto her and watched the spikes of her energy settle down just a bit.

  He never noticed it before, but she had a power. It would take time to learn what her specific gift was, but he could feel it just the same. How had he missed that in the three previous lives?

  Suddenly uncomfortable and unsure of himself, Langston shifted his weight from the balls of his feet to the heels and back again a few times. He spun quickly around and began arranging the little breakfast table to make a setting for her. He could feel her watching him and his blood rushed in his ears. The urge to touch her again was so strong he felt as if his resolve might shatter into a million pieces.

  “Damn, I sure am glad to have you here. Ain’t had a decent meal in–” Charlie stopped speaking when he saw Kristana standing towards the corner wringing her hands. She looked relieved to have a distraction, then her lips upturned just a bit.

  “Mr. Rhodes, you should be ashamed,” she chided sternly, but with a playful tone
. “You know I offered on more than one occasion to prepare meals for you. I’m an excellent cook.”

  Langston couldn’t help the laugh that rumbled up inside him. The sound caught Kris by surprise and she blinked at him. With a flourish of his hand he motioned that the two of them should be seated.

  “This place needs more work’n one woman should’ve been forced to do anyway. I hated to add to your plate.” Chelsea’s soft footsteps padded into the room just as Charlie finished explaining.

  “Oh for goodness sakes, man. Kids don’t eat quiche!” Charlie quipped. “Get this gal some chocolaty cereal or something.”

  Chelsea’s eyes were older than they should have been when she looked up at the old man. She reached out and tugged his sleeve to bring his ear closer to her. “I do like it.”

  Langston spoke as he distributed a hefty helping of food onto every plate: “Chelsea resided with the daughter of the former U.S. Ambassador to France. Their household was very French, was it not?”

  “Oui,” Chelsea murmured, digging hungrily into her meal.

  They finished eating and Kris cleared the table quickly. She’d taken to Chelsea and the girl was enamored of her in return. With the utmost patience, the woman instructed the little one on rinsing the dishes and loading the dishwasher, then the two of them sauntered off to do other “chores.”

  Langston and Charlie were left sitting at the small table, talking.

  “You want us to tell her the truth about the kids?” Charlie asked, rolling the palm of his hand along the knob of his walking cane.

  “I think the more magical children we have in this place the more likely it is that she will discover something about it anyway.” Although magical children generally didn’t come into their powers until puberty, there could be signs early. The act of propelling a ball without the use of one’s hands for instance. It was the major reason so many of these children became orphans and easy pickings for the Org – their parents were either unwilling or unable to nurture their special gifts. “Besides, I am fairly certain I read a power within her as well.”