The Bend-Bite-Shift Box Set

by Hardin, Olivia

  “He was a powerful vampire, wasn’t he? Must’ve been a few centuries old at least.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he yelled and tugged to get his hand back. The woman’s grip was strong and she wasn’t willing to release him. “Why are you…”

  “Your father. Your vampire lineage is a strong one.”

  Then the crazy lady released her hold on him and stuffed her hand under her tunic. Her fingers emerged with a blood-red scarf which she wrapped around her head with a flourish. “Let’s see what we got up there then, boy. Your wife’s having a rough time of it. Let’s go.”

  He was so flabbergasted that he stood there a moment and watched her make her way across the street and toward the duplex. The wind kicked up and grabbed the tail of her scarf, billowing it out to the side. Silky waves caught the overhead light, making the material stand out as if it were a stream of blood flowing from her crown.

  When she reached the top of the stairs she placed her hands patiently behind her back and glanced down at him. He recovered his senses and ran between passing cars to get to her, opening the door and grabbing her hand to shove her roughly inside.

  The woman laughed, a shrill sound. “You seem surprised I’m here, but you were seeking help. ‘Ask and ye shall receive.’”

  “Son of a bitch. You’re a Voodoo queen.” He intended it to be a question, but by the time the sentence was out of his mouth it became a statement.

  The dark woman smiled then flinched and snapped her head in the direction of the bedroom. She lifted a hand, palm away from her, and waved it in a wide circle around her. She chanted under her breath as she moved closer into the room. Her words sounded French, but then again, not quite. One hand waving apparently wasn’t enough because just as she reached the doorway she lifted the other hand and began pumping it in and out in front of her even while continuing to circle the other hand.

  Nicky followed her carefully, not certain if she could be trusted, but without any other option at that moment. There were far more charlatans in New Orleans than actual magic-wielding people, but this women possessed knowledge she shouldn’t. His instincts told him she was the real deal.

  When she reached Gerry, she held her hands out in front of her and just over his wife’s head. Like she was moving against an invisible force she shifted the palms of her hands toward Gerry’s feet and began shoving at the air in that direction. All the while, she kept chanting in soft whispers.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Nicky demanded, too impatient to wait for whatever the woman was doing. She glanced quickly over her shoulder and shushed him before she proceeded with her ministrations.

  When she got to the foot of the bed she took a deep breath, her shoulders dropping hard in resignation. Then she turned her body and faced him with a hard look.

  “The battle’s just begun, boy. She’s got a lotta fighting left to do yet.”

  He shook his head and ran a hand through his dark hair before rubbing it hard against his face. “What do you mean ‘battle’? Who’s she fighting?”

  “Her blood, her mind, her soul. She’s fighting against ‘em. She’s fighting for ‘em.”

  “You damned crazy woman, all you do is speak in riddles. What am I supposed to do?” His resolve cracked, and he flew hard at the tiny voodoo lady, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her so that her teeth knocked against each other.

  “You can’t do anything, boy. This is her fight. She made it her fight when she took it within herself. Either she gets herself out or… or she doesn’t.”

  “I don’t understand what the hell you’re talking about,” Nicky muttered, releasing his hold on her. Even as he said those words he knew it wasn’t true. “She made it her fight when she took it within herself,” reverberated in his mind. He might not understand what Gerry was battling, but he knew his foolish wife all too well. If she saw some danger, she would certainly take it head on in order to protect him or anyone else.

  “There’s got to be something I can do.” This time his words were low. There was a resignation in the tone as he pleaded with the voodoo woman for help.

  She smiled, her bright and widely spaced teeth filling her dark face. When she reached her hand up to him, he was shocked to see it looked thin, wrinkled, and scraggly, like the hand of a very old woman. He flashed his gaze to her and for the blink of an eye, he saw a woman of at least ninety with deep lines and crevices in her leathery skin. When her hand touched his cheek she instantly transformed back into the younger, smooth-skinned woman he first saw on the street. She patted his face and used her hands to turn him around to face the door.

  “You go on and get some of that gumbo you were plannin’ for when I got here. And go by this place.” She slipped a card into his palm as she spoke, pressing him to leave the room. “Tell ‘em Mére Owa wants a fresh brown egg. Fresh, boy, fresh. If the gal at the booth squints her eyes at you when she gives it to you, then you hand it back to her and tell her I mean fresh. Got it?”

  All Nicky could do was nod his head as he was rushed out of the apartment and onto the busy New Orleans streets.

  A kindly older woman smiled lovingly up at Gerry as she made her way down the aisle. The small Catholic church was decorated for a wedding that would occur that evening. To Gerry, it wouldn’t have looked any more perfect if she had chosen the adornments herself. This was her wedding. Nothing about how she arranged it could change that.

  The priest wasn’t hard to convince. She could read deep down in his mind how much he enjoyed presiding over weddings, so she honed in on that inner desire. Pulling in the other attendants at the wedding was a bit more difficult, but in truth most people enjoyed a wedding. She just tickled that desire and it overrode any questions they might have had.

  Nicky looked terribly uncomfortable in his dark suit. Well, not his dark suit, and that probably had a tad bit to do with why he looked uncomfortable. It was slightly tight across his chest. She was pleased to see him suck in a breath when he saw her, the material becoming taut in the shoulders as he held his breath.

  Her gown wasn’t borrowed. No, she contrived it from memory, looking exactly as she had planned to look on her wedding day. It was her mother’s dress—classic and pure. She raised her dark eyes and imagined Mum gazing down at her.

  When she glanced back across the church, she noticed that Nicky was no longer looking at her, though his gaze was just as mesmerized as it had been before. She followed the direction of his stare to a woman in the front row. Who?

  Gerry kept moving, quickening her pace as worry started churning in the pit of her stomach. She stumbled, catching the hem of her dress with her toe.

  “Nicky…” she called. He appeared not to hear her, the goofy, dazed grin still on his face. He suddenly lurched forward, taking the steps down from the platform and approaching the woman in the aisle. When the figure stood and met him below the altar, the bottom dropped out of Gerry’s stomach.

  “No. No, you aren’t supposed to be here. This isn’t right.”

  The woman turned, and Gerry was astounded to look into a mirror image of her own face, except the eyes weren’t hers. No, those were the cold green eyes of her sister Dysis. A glimmer flashed in Dy’s eyes as she laughed and reached her hands out to Nicky.

  A chasm opened up in Gerry’s chest—a gaping, empty hole. It began to suck on her, crushing her resolve, her heart, her soul into its vacuum. She took a breath, trying to gain control of herself, when Dy took Nicky’s face between his hands and touched her lips to his. Gerry took several steps back in shock.

  Dy guided Nicky’s body, turning him around so she could peer at Gerry through narrow eyes. She held the kiss, slinking her hands down Nicky’s arms and clasping his rear to pull him tight against her. A few more steps back and Gerry felt her legs hit something solid. She plummeted backwards into the holy water font. The suction in her chest grew, and she swallowed water instead as she tried to fill it with air...

  The damaged memories she’d bee
n reliving came back to her in a flash. The swimming pool as children, the adolescent girls’ night out, the Sunday mass after her parents were killed, the earlier days of her relationship with Nicky … all her own memories but tainted by Dysis’ presence.

  Her sister was inside her mind. And it was wearing her down.

  She struggled to recover but a weight pressed upon her, keeping her under a foot or so of water. She flailed, swung her arms from side to side, and kicked her feet, but she couldn’t get out. Even with the splashing water muffling the sound she could clearly hear the words of the ceremony.

  “Do you Nicholas Craig take Dysis Penn as your lawfully wedded wife?”

  “No, no, no!” Gerry begged but only air burst forth in enormous bubbles from under the water.

  Wake up, Gerry, she told herself. Wake up, wake up, wake up…

  ~oOo~

  Nicky found Mére Owa asleep on the couch when he returned from his errand. He carried the precious egg wrapped in a paper bag to the kitchen and rested it on the counter, holding his hand out in front of it to be sure it wouldn’t roll away.

  The spicy scent of the Andouille sausage and chicken wafted from the Styrofoam container of gumbo in his other hand. He ignored his watering mouth and dropped the bowl on the counter opposite the egg before heading to the bedroom.

  Gerry was in the same position—still as death. She looked even paler and thinner. It was as if the life were oozing out of her body drop by drop. He placed his hand upon her forehead, feeling the cold clamminess of her skin under his fingers. It had been a few days, and her brown hair felt dirty and oily as he rubbed it away from her face. He had the urge to carry her to the bathroom and give her a full shower.

  His eye caught something glittering at her neck and he slipped his finger under the collar of her dress to feel a string of beads. At the end of the strand was a large silver cross. Not a cross actually—a crucifix. He snorted in derision.

  “Got that egg, boyo?” Mére spoke in her high-pitched voice, though the sound was slightly hoarse from sleep.

  “Where the hell did this come from?” he demanded, clinching his hand around the beads.

  “Come on, you know she’s a believer. Or at least she was at one time, and true believers never stop. They just become dormant, so to speak.”

  With a heavy breath, he turned to the black woman and nodded. “Yes, the egg’s in the kitchen. She gave me a funny face, so I made her get me another one. I hope it’s right.”

  “Fine, fine.”

  He heard her rummaging in the kitchen. She reentered the room carrying the egg casually in a single hand, swinging that arm from side-to-side. He grimaced, recalling how carefully he walked all the way back to the apartment with it tucked protectively in his palm.

  “‘Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world,’” she quoted then chortled with laughter as she winked at him.

  “What the hell does that mean? What contagion? She has an infection?” Nicky demanded, clasping Gerry’s limp hand and rising from the bed.

  “Ahahahah! I thought you were more up to date on your Shakespeare, my boy. Now, let’s see what we have here.” As she spoke, Mére rolled the blankets to Gerry’s waist and raised the still woman’s clothing so that her bare stomach showed.

  Nicky settled back onto the edge of the bed and watched as the voodoo woman placed the egg on his wife’s stomach and then rolled it around like she was kneading dough into a ball. The same French-like incantations emitted from the woman’s lips as she moved the brown egg round and round in circles. After just a few minutes, she scooped up the egg, slipped the blood-red scarf from around her head and carefully wrapped it within the silky folds.

  “She’s struggling. Her strength is waning, but she needs you near.” She dropped the wrapped egg into the deep pocket in her pants as she headed for the door. “I’ll return soon.”

  “Return? You can’t leave. Help her!” Nicky cried, jumping into the doorway to block her exit. Mére slipped under his outstretched arm and out of the room.

  “I can’t help her. At least not yet I can’t. I gotta make a consult. As soon as I know more, I’ll come back here, boyo.” She stopped with her hand on the front door and turned back to grin at him. “Don’t hover. Just be close by. And a shower might not be advised, but I’m bettin’ she’d appreciate having her hair washed.”

  With that she was gone. The air was hot and stale in the room, and Nicky didn’t think he had ever been more alone than at that moment. He gave his unconscious wife another long look before he went to the kitchen to retrieve his dinner.

  Nicky wasn’t sure what woke him, but he sat up in bed and pulled his knee up toward his chest. He checked on Gerry and smiled just a bit when he saw how her hair was curling around her face. He had taken the voodoo woman’s advice and washed her hair, carrying her to the bathroom so that he could hold her head back over the shower.

  Now her brown locks were nearly dry. He knew Gerry didn’t like the waves that appeared in her hair when it dried naturally and always brushed them straight. He thought she looked beautiful this way. Still, the dark circles under her eyes and the pallid complexion of her skin were beginning to terrify him. He didn’t know what he would do if she didn’t wake up from this state. He needed her.

  “Nicky?”

  “Son of a bitch!” he cried when he heard the voice, jumping from the bed and crouching low, ready for a fight.

  The giant, Langston, grinned and placed a heavy hand upon his shoulder to calm him. The giant’s soothing presence started to relieve the fear and tension in his gut almost the instant he touched him.

  “It is good to see that you are well.”

  “Hell, Langston. I didn’t expect to see you. How the hell did you find us? And how did you get in this room?”

  Instead of answering, the much larger man walked around Nicky and stood over Gerry. His frown was intense, and deep furrows were pressing into his brow.

  “She’s been like this since the day we all got separated. You’ve got to get her out of it.”

  “That may take some time, my friend. Tell me everything that has happened.”

  Langston led Nicky out of the bedroom so they could be seated in the main area of the apartment. Even as he listened to him speak, the shaman began mixing the packets and bottles of herbs he always kept with him in a satchel. He handed a cup with the mixture to Nicky, who drank it in between speaking.

  Nicky never even thought twice as he gulped down the drink. He knew Langston was a powerful witch with a talent for spells and concoctions. He learned some time ago not to question the man. He sucked down the tart liquid and continued talking, telling everything step by step. He hesitated when he considered whether to tell his associate that he and Gerry were married. In the end, he maintained their secret.

  After Nicky finished his story, he took a deep, cleansing breath and eased back against the couch. “So now what?” he asked, his body calm but his mind still racing with fear for Gerry.

  “You said this Penny-Pete expects you to do a job for him. It would be well for you not to get into anything that might cause trouble. Do you feel an obligation to complete the task?”

  Nicky waved his hand before holding his fingers out in front of him and marveled at how loose and limp they felt. After a moment he turned his attention back to Langston and shook his head. “No, I ain’t got any allegiance to him. I’m with Kent now. So let’s help Gerry get out of this trance she’s in.”

  “Well, if what this Mére Owa tells you is true, then I am not sure how we will help her. She likely needs sustenance, so I will prepare a broth with healing herbs for her.”

  “You can’t wake her up?” Bells went off in Nicky’s head, and he found he didn’t at all like that his body was completely relaxed while his mind was fraught with worry.

  “We will wake her, Nicky,” Langston told him, speaking as if he could read the other man’s thoughts. “Y
ou need to maintain focus, and we will wake her. Do you understand?”

  He understood, but he didn’t like it.

  “We should look for another location in which to stay so that this Penny-Pete will have less reason to expect your repayment. You know this city better than I. Can you locate a hotel that would be suitable?”

  Nicky frowned, licking his lips. “Should we move her?”

  “If you will find a close location, I should be able to orb her there. All will be well.”

  Nicky wrapped Gerry up in a ratty patchwork quilt while Langston collected his things and placed them back into his satchel. He wasn’t sure why he was tucking her into the blankets like a baby. The trip through Langston’s door would be no more complicated than walking her from one room to the next. His worry was getting the best of him. It was making him paranoid and he knew it.

  “She will be well, my friend,” Langston assured him. The giant man stood tall before the bed, a look of absolute composure and ease about him.

  “Yeah, you’ve been telling me that, but she isn’t awake yet, is she?” He knew his tone sounded bitter and gruff, but he thought it was better to cling to the anger churning within him than to give into the panic.

  Langston only smiled, and that made him want to punch the smug shaman.

  “Shall we?”

  Nicky lifted Gerry, astounded by how limp and dead her weight was in his arms. He nodded once to the big guy, and he watched as a pinprick hole appeared in the wall before them, the light within it opening up into a golden door.

  Beyond the door was the room he’d secured at the French Market Inn. He could tell it was the exact room by the thin crack in the ceiling just above the far window. Even in his fear-induced condition he found himself amazed that the giant could so clearly locate the appropriate place by mere directions.

  Heaving Gerry closer against him, Nicky stepped toward the door and was just about to walk through when someone pounded on the front door. He flinched and stopped in his tracks, but Langston motioned him with a little shove to hurry through the portal. He followed the big man’s directions and entered the hotel room. Then he looked back over his shoulder.