Lifebound (2 page)

Chapter Two

S
parks flew between the two siblings.

“She’s in a terrible state,” Cemil began gently. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t hurt anybody, but Adriana needs our help badly.”

“A lamia!” Sarka still sounded pretty angry. “Do you have any idea just how much havoc she can wreak around here?”

Myron flipped over another card—the three of clubs. Then she sighed, rose from her seat at the desk, and headed into the supply closet for a package of standard forty watt light bulbs.

“Where are you off to?” Sarka snipped.

“I’m going to change the CFLs in her room back to standard light bulbs. You might want to do that wherever she’s likely to go. The cleanup is less messy that way,” Myron said wearily.

An hour later, the booming sound of the opening portal signaled the arrival of the guests hailing from the paranormal portion of the spa’s clientele. A group of four rowdy teenage boys tumbled into the lobby, the tallest still riding one of the skateboards they had all brought along.

“Get off that thing in the lobby,” Rekkus, the burly head of security, shouted at them as they bounded into the room. “You cubs ought to be in the kennel anyway.”

“Lighten up, Rekkus.” Telly picked up his board. “We want a pizza. And where’s Josh Trenton? We want to meet him.”

“Yeah, I brought along
Josh Trenton X-Treme Skate VIII
for us to play on the GameStation.” Ben flipped back his shaggy hair. “Maybe he can give us some tips.”

The youngest of the Rowan siblings, blond-haired Sage, approached and shook her finger at the boys. “You kids leave Mr. Trenton alone for a while. He needs to rest.”

“Why?” Telly asked curiously. “Cemil only told us he was coming. What’s he here for?”

“That is none of your business,” Sage said, her no-nonsense tone completely at odds with her soft bohemian appearance. “I’ll have the kitchen make you a pizza and Rekkus or Cyrus will bring it later.”

The four boys sighed then headed back out the front door. The minute they opened the door, however, they hopped on their boards to race each other down the sidewalk to the barracks the young werewolves called home each full moon.

“One of them is bound to break an arm,” Rekkus growled.

At the door, the powerful weretiger stopped in his tracks and sniffed the air then backed away to allow a young woman inside. To Myron, she didn’t seem imposing or threatening in any way, but Rekkus took a step back from her as she entered.

As the woman approached the front desk, Myron reached over to unscrew the light bulb on the desk lamp.

Sage looked at her curiously. “Lamia,” Myron whispered.

“Welcome to Wiccan Haus.” Sage smiled and held out her hand. But as the woman drew nearer, Sage withdrew her hand and her friendly smile slipped a bit.

“I’m Adriana Velen.” The woman took a breath and closed her eyes briefly.

“Room 205.” Myron smiled, but was careful not to touch Adriana’s hand as she passed her the key. “Take the second elevator please.”

Adriana nodded and headed down the hall.

“You don’t have any luggage?” Sage asked, her voice gentle.

“I don’t have anything anymore,” the young woman said sadly as she pressed the button to call the elevator.

Adriana rode the elevator up to her room. She wanted to lie down for a while. She considered having a good cry too, but if she did that, the power to the entire building would probably go out.

Empty. Empty and hollow. That was the only way to describe how she felt.

She’d been Tom Bridges’s personal assistant for nearly ten years. He’d been her first host, and she’d taken him to heights of creativity and productivity the computing world had never seen before and likely never would again.

Now he was gone. Her ground was broken, her energies unbalanced.

Lamia thrived on the circulation of energy into and out of themselves. Unless paired with a host who could become the conduit of those forces, the lamia vacillated between starvation and overload with every shifting of the energy lines that crossed the planet.

Her host had given her stability, and in return, she’d given him a constantly renewing source of vitality.

But her host had died.

Adriana felt like some kind of rogue carousel, now slowing to a crawl, now spinning wildly out of control. If she couldn’t learn to cycle down her energetic needs without her host, she’d die before she could find a new one.

However, she had no desire to find a new host.

The Velen family’s reputation had suffered a serious blow when Tom had died. With proper acclimation, that should not happen. Indeed, she’d worked for him for years with only the most casual of touches between them enough to keep her energy needs balanced.

But he’d grown sentimental as he’d gotten older. Once his wife passed away, he couldn’t pass her desk without a touch to her shoulder. “You are the only one I can depend on, Adriana,” he would say as he patted her hand across the desk after a meeting. Loneliness hung over him like a gray cloud. She understood loneliness herself—the way it crept into one’s life, a feeling of separation from the world even in a crowded room. Those casual touches had drained him just a little every time, but she didn’t have it in her to stop him.

Then one night he’d had a stroke while working late in the office. She’d called for help, but until the paramedics arrived, he’d wanted her with him and had clung to her hand. She did all she could to pour life back into him, but the pull was always stronger than the push.

Though she was draining him, she couldn’t leave him, not when he begged her to stay. “You’re the only one I can count on,” he whispered softly as he held onto her hand so tightly. He’d died before they got him to the hospital.

She’d killed him.

He’d been like a father to her, and she’d killed him.

She’d walked the razor’s edge that every lamia before her had to negotiate—take only enough to keep herself balanced without weakening her host too much. Give back that energy in the form of creativity and innovation. The successes were legendary—Shakespeare, Newton, Edison, Einstein.

But so were the failures—Hannibal, Keats, Mozart, Gershwin.

And she’d failed. Tom Bridges had been an important person. Her backfeed of life into him had fueled the development of so many technical innovations that would benefit the world.

Now he was gone because she hadn’t been able to make herself let go of him.

She sat on the edge of her bed and put her face in her hands. On the dresser, the bedside lamp began to dim and glow as she drew on its power, then pushed it back again in deep breaths, not only of air, but of life itself.

She needed that push and pull, that tidal force of energy moving in and out of her. She needed to have a constant, steady stream of life to feed her. She needed her host to anchor her in the flow as it passed through her.

But she’d killed him.

Fury built in her, anger at herself for not being stronger, anger at Tom for needing her so much, but more than anything, anger at what she was. It built in her until she stood in the center of the room, her hands clenched so tightly that her fingernails cut into her palms, finally escaping in a loud cry of anguish and frustration.

“Why?”

With a loud pop, the lamp on the bedside blew into a thousand shards of glass and the room was plunged into darkness.

One floor above, Josh’s desk lamp suddenly blew with a popping sound. “Damn it, how am I supposed to read now?” He’d fully intended to eat his dinner in his room and had been studying the menu when the light blew.

He rose from his chair and hobbled to the light switch. The overhead light was out as well. What was the deal with that?

Fine, then. He’d go down to dinner, take a couple of ibuprofen, and try to go back to sleep. He’d had a really long nap that afternoon, which was completely out of character for him, but his room had smelled really good. Some kind of candles had been burning when he came in. It had been so peaceful. He’d have lit the candles again in the dark, but they were gone when he woke up from his nap.

Weird.

The whole place was a little weird. He headed out the door of his room. The ferry ride into the Atlantic had been interesting at first but had turned boring when they’d run into heavy fog just a short distance off the coast. On arrival, the fog had suddenly cleared to reveal the dock and this huge and completely unexpected Bavarian-style castle off the coast of New England.

Coming here had not been his idea. In her typical mother-hen fashion, Alicia had booked the trip for him, saying he needed rest and relaxation since physical therapy hadn’t healed his broken hip.

He’d thought Rob might back him, but his cousin had just shaken his head. “If I know anything, it’s physical therapy,” he stated firmly, patting the arm of his wheelchair. “Therapy ain’t working for you, dude. It’s time for something else. Maybe this is it.”

He’d given in reluctantly to a couple of weeks at this New England spa—Wiccan Haus. Maybe he’d get to drop in on the L.L.Bean store before leaving the area, so the trip wouldn’t be a total waste of time.

But at that moment, the growls from his stomach took precedence over everything else.

As he locked his door and headed to the elevator, he took in the unusual décor. The whole place had a “spa for Frankenstein” kind of vibe to it, lots of fresh flowers and gargoyles.

Josh walked through the lobby and into the dining room, feeling very much like he needed a stein of beer. A willowy blond girl—Sage, her name tag read—welcomed him and showed him to a table on one side of the room. He sat down and gazed over the menu, then over the other guests around him.

He recognized some of them from the ferry ride over. The grey-headed suit had changed into a golf shirt and khaki pants and already looked more relaxed.

But across the room were a group of guests he didn’t remember having seen at all. Some of them were dressed a bit on the odd side. In particular, a tall black-haired woman with dark red lips and a black dress that reminded him of Morticia Addams wove her way between the tables. When she crossed the room in front of him, he read her nametag: Sarka. He was a little relieved when she didn’t stop. Instead a slender silver-haired woman wearing what appeared to be yoga clothing stepped over to greet him.

“Good evening, Mr. Trenton. My name is Trixie.” The woman’s voice was a soothing cross between a preschool teacher and that curly haired painter on PBS—what was his name again? Oh, yeah, Bob Ross.

“I’ll be holding a deep breathing class outside after dinner if you would please join us,” Trixie said. “I think you will find it beneficial.”

Breathing? What kind of idiot needed to learn how to breathe? He just wanted some dinner and a copy of
Sports Weekly
. “I breathe okay now as it is.” Josh dismissed her firmly but politely.

“Just come when you are ready.” Trixie gave him a serene smile.

Sage came by the table then, a cup in her hand. “This is a tea I’ve brewed especially for you.”

“No, thanks. I drink mine iced.”

Sage took a step back like he’d insulted her or something.

“Can’t help it,” he continued. “I’m a Southern boy.”

She gave him a weak smile and left the cup anyway. He just looked at it. He didn’t drink hot tea.

His food arrived, but he didn’t recognize half of it and his hip was getting stiff and painful the longer he sat there.

The blond man, Cemil, came over and asked how his dinner was.

“It’s all right,” Josh said. “Just different.”

“I understand. So what brings you to Wiccan Haus?” Cemil took a seat at the table with him.

“That’s none of your business,” Josh snapped back.

“Au contraire,” Cemil said. “Your healing is our highest priority. So how did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“How did you hurt yourself?”

“That, too, is none of your damned business.” Josh pushed his chair away from the table and pulled himself to his feet. “Excuse me.”

He headed for the exit as quickly as he was able. He wanted to be left alone. He didn’t need these people fussing over him. If he’d wanted that, he’d have stayed home and let Alicia badger him about taking care of himself and doing his therapy.

However, he had only gotten halfway to the door when a young woman walked in. Sage pointed her toward a table in the far corner of the room. As she walked that way, the light in the room followed her, glinting off her smooth, straight hair. The color—dark blond but with an ashen sheen to it like the silver of birch trees—mesmerized him.

She sat down at the table and pulled a napkin across her lap. Her skin was fair, almost pale, with a translucent quality like she was illuminated from the inside. Her lips were a pale soft pink, her mouth tender yet sad.

Her eyes found his and his heart stopped. He fell into her gaze, the color of storm clouds over the ocean. He could almost sense the thunder inside them. He felt something pull at him, like the tide on the beach pulling at the shrimp nets, like a strong wind drawing him into the center of the storm.

He hadn’t been aware of walking toward her but found himself standing right beside her table. His breathing had quickened, and his heart pounded as he held out his hand in invitation. He didn’t know if he wanted to shake her hand, or kiss it, or just let her fingers rest in his.