The Bend-Bite-Shift Box Set Read online

  “I knew I could ferret you out. I could feel you, sense you even from inside this room. We’ve been searching for you for a very long time–yes, witch, you’ve been hunted for a very long time.”

  She heard the slamming of the broken door as he kicked it shut behind him.

  “I’m not a witch,” Devan hissed.

  Her attacker only laughed. She kicked against him again and tried to tear at his skin with her fingernails, but he just continued chuckling. “Ah–relax, witch–we’ve quite a show going on before us.”

  It was then that Devan finally saw what was happening. Langston was fending off three men at once. They had assorted makeshift weapons, chairs and table legs, but with his size he was easily holding his own. Nicky, brandishing a long, sharp knife, was facing off against only one foe, a very tall, pale-skinned man. But he too seemed to be doing all right, obviously practiced in the use of his dagger, holding it smoothly and loosely in his palm. She wondered where the women were. She’d seen at least three, including Gerry, enter the room, but none of them were here now.

  When her eyes finally focused on Kent, she became riveted. He held both arms out in front of him, ready for an attack, and his back was bowed, almost like an animal with its hackles up. He was faced off against a taller though much slimmer man, and the two of them were circling each other, making sharp movements towards each other, but neither fully engaging. She suddenly wondered where in the hell their weapons were. After all of the effort to ensure they’d have them, Nicky was the only one with any means of defense and his was only a simple dagger.

  Roon! Rooney, where are you? Help me!

  Nothing. No response at all.

  Roon, please! But still silence.

  Thinking perhaps her hostage-taker might have lowered his guard, Devan yanked on his arm, wriggled her body, and kicked her feet. The prick laughed at her again, a deep snicker, then he rubbed his head against hers, breathing against her neck. “Shall we have some fun, witch?” “Go to hell!” She fought harder when she felt his breath against her neck again, moving from her hairline towards her shoulders and back up. Panic welled up in her and she tugged to the side, trying to pull away. “Don’t touch me!”

  “Aha, no, no, witch. That wasn’t the sort of fun I was alluding to. Not that I wouldn’t like to have that sort of fun with you.” He lightly touched his lips to her neck. “But no, they wouldn’t like that. This is the fun I was suggesting.”

  With perfect balance, he reached a leg out and looped his foot around a chair leg. With dexterity she’d never imagined was possible, he flicked the chair into the air straight towards Kent, all of that without ever loosening his hold on her.

  With Kent’s attention suddenly distracted, his eyes darted in their direction, and when they focused on her, she watched a transformation occur in him. If he’d seemed like an animal before, he now became one. No more time for sparing, he reached for the tall man with his left hand and delivered a hefty punch to his gut with his right. Before his foe could even double over, he had him by the collar and tossed him aside.

  “Devan!”

  Devan could feel Kent’s blue eyes boring into her even as he stepped across chairs and other flotsam to bridge the gap between them. Her attacker seemed not too concerned, only laughed again like a hyena. Then from the corner of her eye she caught movement and saw that Langston was no longer using his hands to defend himself. He seemed to be propelling men away from him with just a flick of his wrists. As she watched closer, she could see that each movement of his hand emitted a green charge, like a spark, as one body after another was tossed aside.

  “He’s the one, Kent,” she heard Nicky shout, so her eyes darted in his direction. The weapon in his hand was slick with black-red blood, but when she scanned the area around where he’d been, she couldn’t seem to locate the pale-faced man he must have slain.

  “I know who he is,” Kent growled.

  Hyena laughed again. “I am the one, he says. And look what I found.” Again she felt the vile man’s lips against the side of her neck. “Quite lovely–and just what the Org has been looking for, you know.”

  “No, she’s just a girl. Let her go. No one is looking for her.”

  “A girl? She’s not just a girl. You should have seen the way she forced her way inside here. You know we have protections, but she broke through. No, Kent, this is not just a girl.”

  “Dammit, if you harm her, I’ll make you suffer. It will not be a quick death. I promise you that.”

  “Ah, but I’m the one. Then you already knew that. You should also know better than to think it will be an easy thing to kill me.”

  Kent’s entire body was coiled, his breathing rapid. Those crystal blue eyes of his began to flicker, almost the way stars twinkle the longer you stare into the night sky. Devan began to get the feeling that something was going to happen, and that anticipation burned hot in her stomach. She looked to Nicky and then to Langston standing just behind and on either side of their leader, and she could tell by their expressions that they too were waiting.

  And then Kent’s eyes rolled back into his head as he raised his arms in front of him, his fingers splayed, as if reaching for something. Devan watched in a mixture of horror and fascination as his eyes twitched and flicked within their sockets. Then he clenched his eyelids closed and contracted his fingers into tight fists all at the same time. She blinked as she watched the room twist. The images of everything, Nicky and Langston, the floor, the ceiling, all became contorted before her very eyes, like looking into the funny mirrors at a carnival. Nausea rose up in her when she felt the room move around her. But then her eyes turned to Kent and he remained solid and clear, firmly in place. She focused on him to keep from getting sick.

  Soon she felt herself and Hyena drop several feet into the floor as if it were made of quicksand, and in the blink of an eye, Nicky was behind them. She felt the arm holding her waist twist free and she began to fight to get fully away. The Hyena didn’t seem inclined to let go of her neck until Langston appeared in front and just above them. The bigger man, without warning, kicked the legs out from under the Hyena, and in order to compensate for his abrupt loss of balance, he released his hold on her. She was free, dropping to the floor and squirming as far away and as fast as she could.

  Crawling, she looked back at what was happening, the way the room and the floor had become coiled and warped. She looked at Hyena, marveling at how alabaster pale his skin was, especially with his long, wavy black locks falling against his forehead. His eyes were gray-blue, and against the palette of his white skin, he looked eerie and ghostly, but most of all evil.

  He shoved Nicky like he were batting a fly. Then he reached a hand out, took Langston by the scruff of his shirt, and lifted him into the air. Langston grabbed the arm that was holding him but screamed in agony as Hyena’s fingernails turned to long claws that buried themselves deep into Langston’s chest.

  The sound of his friend screaming seemed to wake Kent from whatever trance he’d been in, and at that moment his eyes opened and his hands fell to his sides.

  The distorted room suddenly righted itself, bouncing back into place like a rubber band. Nicky picked himself up from the floor and swung wide with his blade, but he failed to even graze Hyena.

  With an ugly laugh, their assailant tossed Langston to the floor, the giant clutching at his shredded and bleeding wounds. When Devan looked back at Hyena, she saw that his head was down, his chin close to his chest, and slowly he turned his barren, gray eyes towards Kent. Fury and fear surged within her, along with the desperate need to protect them from whatever the man intended to do next. She was now becoming familiar with the feel of that energy welling up from the pit of her stomach, so she focused on it, channeling it just as Langston had briefly shown her to do.

  A hissing whorled around her, rising from and through her head and whipping her hair around her. “No more! Stop!” she bellowed, deep and loud and with conviction. Her words could have been a wave direc
ted at Hyena because he was forced backwards, stumbling a bit. A brief look of puzzlement passed across his expression. Then he raised a foot as if intending to step towards her, to attack, but that leg remained frozen, stuck in the air.

  “I know who you are now, witch. We’ll find you. You cannot hide, and we will return for you.”

  And just like that, he reversed direction, pivoted towards the door, and was gone.

  The oblivious conference members, who had been milling about in the hallway outside the room, suddenly became aware of the commotion within and began to crowd the broken door. Gasps and screams soon followed as some of them noticed the disarrayed room as well as the bleeding man on the floor.

  Kent was momentarily riveted by what had just happened and by the vision of Devan standing there like a modern-day Amazon, her legs apart and both hands in tight fists at her side. Her back was straight and her shoulders squarely back as she continued to stare towards the spot where their attacker had been just seconds before. Her curly brown hair was voluminous and wild, longer now, flowing past her shoulders and midway down her back. She cocked her eyes towards him and he watched as their black pools slowly dissolved into their usual gold-brown color.

  “He ain’t gonna make it,” Nicky stated, his voice flat, unemotional, and Kent’s gaze was directed quickly to his friend on the floor. Nicky’s comment wasn’t an exaggeration. Blood had pooled on either side of Langston and his breathing was becoming shallow.

  “Oh, no.” Devan cried, and she was there on her knees almost as fast as was Kent.

  “Langston, you have to concentrate. You have to heal yourself,” Kent told his friend as he slapped both of his hands onto the wounds and tried to staunch the blood.

  Langston’s eyes opened wide and he looked up, glancing from Devan to Kent, then to Nicky and back to Kent. “I cannot. I have tried, my friend, but it is not working.”

  “He was different, Kent. I knew he was a vamp, but there was something unusual. He had to be Adriel, right?” Nicky said again, but now he had posted himself at the door to the room and was keeping an eye on the panic breaking out in the hallway.

  “Adriel? He’s a vampire?”

  You gotta get out of there, Devvie. You have to go.

  Where the hell have you been, Roon! I could have used you five minutes ago!

  Devvie, I’m not kidding here. You have got to go. They’re coming for you. They’re coming for all of you, and they mean business. You’re not ready.

  “We have to leave,” she said quietly, her face suddenly turning pale as she cut her eyes to Kent. “We have to go now.”

  Kent shook his head furiously as he watched Langston’s blood gush between his fingers, “Not without Langston.”

  She placed her hand on top of his. She spoke clearly, succinctly, as if explaining something to a child. “I’d never even suggest leaving without Langston. But we have to get out of here. All of us have to leave now.”

  Nicky strode to their side. “We’ll never be able to carry him. Can you bend him to the truck or at least to the room?”

  Kent shook his head. “On my best day I might get him to the elevator, but as it is now, I’m virtually spent.”

  Now, Devvie. Tell him they found Gerry. They have Gerry and they’re coming. You have to leave now.

  “Time, my friend,” Langston murmured, and his voice had become weak and small. “We need you to give us time. Devan will heal me.”

  “Me?”

  “Time?”

  Devan and Kent spoke simultaneously. Kent was quicker at recovering than she was. He immediately stood and headed towards the door, but upon hearing Devan’s voice, he stopped in place. “They have Gerry, Kent. Don’t ask me how I know that, but they have her and they’re coming for us.”

  It was Nicky who reacted, snapping his head towards her and giving her a cold look. “How can you know that?”

  “Enough,” Kent said. “Langston, I’ll try to slow things down out here. Nicky, you be ready to help Langston after he and Devan have finished. When he can walk, get him out of here and I’ll go look for Gerry.”

  Nicky’s voice was hard and offered no room for disagreement. “I’ll go for Gerry. I’ll wait until Langston’s ready, but I’m gonna go for her.”

  Kent wasn’t used to argument from his people, but the situation had unexpectedly spun out of his control, and he knew there was no time to waste. He gave Nicky a hard look and a curt nod before moving once again towards the door. Nicky and Devan both watched as he held his hands out in front of him, palms facing palm, and began to force them towards each other centimeter by centimeter. The muscles in his arms shuddered as if he were pushing against a great weight, and Devan’s eyes were drawn to the way the people running past the room suddenly slowed. Everything outside the doorway began to crawl along as if in slow motion.

  Devan! Snap out of it! You don’t have time!

  “Langston,” she whispered, reaching to touch his face and flinching when she rubbed his own blood onto his cheek. “I don’t think I can do this.”

  “Hush, little one. Remember what we did in the hotel room. I will help you draw it forth. Trust yourself and trust in your magic. Now close your eyes.”

  Devan’s expression was full of fear and uncertainty, but she did as he instructed and closed her eyes. As if by instinct, she slid both her hands along his torso until her palms were touching the bleeding gashes in his chest. The heat of those wounds was palpable, a throbbing she felt vibrating from him and into her own body. She raised her hands over him and then took several deep, trembling breaths. She waited, her heart beating faster. Waited for the heat to start in her belly and the hissing to sound in her ears. Waited for the magic to begin.

  After a few impatient moments, she opened one eye and looked down at Langston. He was deathly pale and his body completely still, blood continuing to ooze out onto the floor. Tears welled in her eyes and her lips began to tremble. “I can’t–I can’t do it, Langston.”

  Panic was quickly roiling up inside her as she looked and waited for him to open his eyes, draw a breath, or do something to let her know he was still alive. She clenched her lip between her teeth, biting until her incisors gnawed into the inside. A sob nearly tore through her when she saw Langston’s hand twitch slightly then lift slowly. He seemed very weak as she took his hand in one of hers and laid it gently on top of her own. With his palm supported, she closed her eyes again and tried to recreate the meditation she’d found with him in the hotel room that morning. She gained refuge from the weight of his hand on hers and she tapped into that, using it to force away her fears.

  It seemed to take an eternity, but finally she began to feel a fire building down deep inside her. And then a weightlessness washed over her, almost as if she were floating. She drew a cold breath into her lungs and allowed the air to slip out through her lips in smooth measure. And that was when the strangest thought came to her. She suddenly saw spiders. Hundreds of tiny, golden spiders spinning the most perfect and silkiest of webs. They were moving at rapid speed, scurrying atop one another and creating an impenetrable mesh.

  “Son of a bitch–”

  She recognized Nicky’s voice, but she held the power fully captive as it burned and raced through her veins, and when she opened her eyes, she refused to let it go. Her eyelashes fluttered as she focused, and when she looked down she saw hundreds of tiny threads moving back and forth across the gashes on Langston’s chest. Those little strands were sewing themselves into his flesh by some force unseen, and they were busily closing the wounds one by one. When he was completely stitched, she felt the heat within her belly ooze up through her chest to her arms and then her hands. A warm yellow glow sizzled across her fingers and surrounded Langston’s hand, and one last bit of her own energy ebbed into him.

  Langston said, sitting up and glancing down at her handiwork. “Quite remarkable really and very unconventional. I would never have thought of it, little one.”

  Upon releasing Langston’s
hand, Devan nearly tumbled over. Nicky stared at her a moment, his eyes narrowed in distrust and apprehension. Finally he reached down to her to help her rise. When she was on her own two feet, she peered down and saw that her hands were trembling. She clasped her fingers tightly closed and brought her arms back down to her sides. Nicky helped Langston to stand as well, and she could see by his movements that the giant was still very weak.

  Now, Devvie. It’s time.

  “We have to leave,” she told Kent. Upon hearing her voice, he slapped his hands together. She saw everything in the hallway halt altogether. People were frozen in mid-step, their mouths agape as if to speak or to scream, but all of them were completely still, “Why didn’t you do that earlier?” she scolded.

  Kent shook his head. “It won’t hold for long. We’ve got maybe one minute–ninety seconds at the most.” As he spoke, he strode towards Langston, cradling the huge man against his own body. “Nicky, call me when it is safe to do so. C’mon, Devan, let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “What about them?” Devan asked, motioning to the men unconscious throughout the room.

  They’re in the building, Devvie

  Kent refused to answer and instead led them along through the doorway, darting this way and that, past the immobile crowd and into the emergency stairwell. He started down the flight of stairs that would take them to the lowest level.

  No! Go up, Devvie. They’re down there. Go up to the next floor, down the hallway right, and then take the elevators back down.

  She didn’t hesitate. She tucked her body along Langston’s other side and wrapped her arm around his waist. “Follow me.” They turned all together and started back up the stairs.

  Kent gritted his teeth, tempted to argue. He wasn’t used to his plans going so awry, yet when they did he normally knew how to compensate. This was different. The known parameters were changing. The only thing Kent had to rely on at that moment was that he knew Langston trusted Devan and therefore he must trust her as well.