Dead as a Doornail (The Journals of Octavia Hollows #6)

by Stacey Rourke

  Out of instinct, I started to take a step closer, the heel of one foot even lifting from the indoor/outdoor rug. But our harsh reality rooted me where I stood. Any nearer, and I would feel nothing but the chilly void between us. “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Is it the big guy?” Elba’s gaze shifted to the sleeping mass on the other side of the glass. “If it’s to say you have feelings for him, please don’t. There actually are some things worse than death, and I think that may be one of them.”

  Running my hands up and down my arms, I tried to fight off the chill of being near him. “It’s about him, but it’s nothing like that.”

  “Thank God. You can do better.”

  “Like you, for instance?”

  “I do like that I was still the first one to pop to mind.” While he offered me a smile, it came nowhere near reaching his eyes.

  I didn’t have to wonder why.

  It was the same thing I was feeling as we fell back into the familiar pattern of our easy banter. There was a distance between us now. One of time, space, and circumstance that morphed what was once an active, passionate love into something that existed only in the past tense. As much as I hated to admit it, death made us… exes.

  Clearing my throat, I fought past the acidic pain burning through my heart. “You know, if there’s any way I can bring you back, that’s still my goal.”

  Leaning back, his spirit sank through the table to the neighboring chair. The lines of his face sharpened with the topic. “I’ve never doubted that.”

  “That said, this guy coming after me seems to have a nasty vendetta and nothing to lose. I could be joining you on the other side of the ethereal veil sooner rather than later.”

  “Don’t say that. As much as I want you with me, it can’t be like that. Not yet.” Meeting my stare, the look in his eyes pleaded with me not to give up.

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong,” I corrected, leaning one elbow on the balcony railing. “I’m going to fight like hell. I don’t want this weird little fucker to win. But, he’s got my coven, Elba. I won’t let anything happen to them because of me.”

  Pressing his lips into a thin line, he begrudgingly followed me down the rabbit hole of dwindling hope. “What do you need me to do?”

  Tugging the ponytail holder out of my hair, I shook out my pink strands as a way to buy myself a minute to figure out how to describe my time with Reid to the man to whom I’d once pledged my forever. “I found Reid in New Orleans in a bad situation. Long story short, helping him out took a slathering of self-sacrifice I’m quite confident he’s going to feel obligated to return.”

  “And you don’t want him to?”

  “I don’t want him to,” I parroted. “If things start to take a turn for the worst, I need you to promise you’ll use any and all ghostly abilities you have to hold Reid back. This guy’s beef is with me. I want his vendetta to end there, without anyone else getting hurt.”

  Elba floated to standing, his image flickering like an old analog TV. “It won’t be easy. There’s only so much I can do.”

  Raising my eyebrows in expectation was my only response.

  With a sigh, he relented. “But, I’ll give you my word to do all I can… under one condition.”

  “Name it.”

  Elba began to fade, the exertion of manifesting forcing him back into the great beyond. His parting words wafted to me from somewhere between this realm and the next. “Don’t do anything stupid, Octavia. This world is a better place with you in it.”

  Chapter Six

  The burner phone rang at exactly nine a.m. Already fully dressed, with my boots laced up and hair hidden beneath a baseball cap, I leapt from the bed the second it gave that first, long awaited jangle. “Hello?”

  Seated at the table with Bacon on his lap, Reid eased my swinekick’s hooves to the floor before rising to full height with his hands curled into tight fists at his sides.

  On the other end of the phone, I heard an unintelligible whisper coaxing a sniveling woman. “O-Octavia?” Dina stammered. “Is that you?”

  Terror clenched my heart, my palms itching for my swords. “Dina? Are you okay?”

  “Octavia.” Her relief audible, an icy resolve seeped into the coven leader’s tone. “Whatever this maniac says, don’t listen to him! Do you hear me? It doesn’t matter what you do, he’s going to kill us! Please, sweet girl, stay away!”

  Feigning a shocked gasp, C.A.S.—the crazed lunatic—snatched the phone away. “Spoiler alert! I do hate it when people ruin the ending. That said… uh… yeah. Totally true. I’m absolutely gonna kill ‘em.”

  “If you harm one hair on their heads…” I forced the words through clenched teeth.

  His tone shifted like a flipped switch, morphing into a sing-song taunt. “Did I forget to mention I have a gun on them, and can hollow out their skulls the second I feel you aren’t being friendly enough? Because,” pausing, he sucked air through his teeth, “having that little piece of trivia makes threats completely nonsensical.”

  Swallowing down the lump of hatred lodged in my throat, I forced myself to play nice. “What… do you want me to do?”

  “What I want,” he giggled maniacally, “is for you to find them. Simple as that. See, I’ve spent a long time following you around and learning all your dirty little secrets. Speaking of, how you do laundry is ridiculous. Who washes absolutely everything they own in one load, without separating them? Really, it’s like you’re a caveperson.”

  “As much as I appreciate unsolicited advice, were you planning to get to your point any time today?”

  “My point…” groaning in annoyance, he pulled the phone away from his mouth to yell at a member of the coven sobbing in the background. “Quiet, please. I am on the phone!” He snarled the last word before popping back to his lighthearted titters. “My point, is that I took all that time to get to know you. And now, I want you to learn a little something about me. What I’m planning, what I’m thinking. We need to get intimately familiar.”

  “Without you buying me dinner first?” Bacon pawed at my leg, his beady little eyes peering up at me.

  I didn’t so much as reach for him, yet somehow C.A.S. knew. “Huh… looks like your little piggy needs to go wee-wee-wee. I’m a big fan of his, by the way. I really enjoyed that spectacle in Vegas where he started the stampede. I’m thinking after I kill you, I’ll keep him. Or… eat him. I haven’t decided. It’s really up in the air.”

  Eyes bulging, I spun in a slow circle, my gaze searching the room for some tell-tale red light indicating a camera. “I’ll bite, how do I get to know you?” I managed, my throat suddenly sandpaper raw.

  “I’m no mysterious man.” Lips mashed to the receiver, he emitted a wistful sigh. “I’m a simple man, with simple motivations. More than that, I’m eager for you to figure me out. So, I’m going to make this as easy for you as possible. I’ll leave the phone here, and connected. Heck, I’ll even let your whole coven try to help you out with clues and tips. Invite your wolf friend. Call in your undead beau—that looked like quite an intense conversation last night, by the way. Almost a shame wolfie slept through it.”

  The hot rush of guilt I felt when Reid’s gaze shifted my way made no sense. Yet, there I was with my cheeks burning bright red. “What’s the catch?”

  “Such a clever girl,” he gasped, something crinkling on the other end of the line. “Well, I did find a fun little ward that ensures your witchy friends are one-hundred percent magic free. Oh, and don’t forget about the small print! Where they are hidden has something to do with the path that led you here. It has a direct connection to a pivotal location along your journey. You have thirty minutes to figure out where that is, and save them. Even one second late, and you’ll get to listen to your entire coven die. I would tell you how, but that would ruin the fun. You ready, Octavia? On your mark… get set… GO!”

  Chapter Seven

  “Octavia!” Having spent quite a bit of time around the four-twenty m
ark with Tralynn, I easily recognized her panicked shriek. “He’s gone! He just left us here.”

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to focus through the warning sirens blaring through my mind. Nothing about this guy gave me any indication he was bluffing. In thirty minutes he would kill them, unless I could figure out how to stop him. “Everybody okay there? Sound off, ladies: who all is there?”

  One after another, they rattled off their names.

  “Beatrice.”

  “Tralynn.”

  “L-L-Lorelei.”

  “Gretchen. “

  “Ruby.”

  “I think we’re all okay,” the concern creeping into Dina’s voice made her maternal frown audible, “but it’s too dark to see anything.”

  For the moment at least, they were safe. I would count that as a small victory. I refused to accept that it would be the only one today. “Can you tell me anything at all about where you are? What you can see? Was there anything in particular you noticed when he brought you in? Even the tiniest detail could help.”

  “I don’t remember anything about when he brought us in.” Beatrice’s voice was always soft, always steady. Yet, now there was a tremble of a tremor quaking through it that I had never heard before. I was adding that to the growing list of things I planned to make this C.A.S asshole pay for. “Where we are now is pitch black. There’s a faint light filtering down from above, but it’s not enough for us to see anything.”

  “It’s cold,” Ruby hiccupped in between whimpered sobs, “and dank.”

  “Yes! Dank!” Dina jumped at the word. “That’s the perfect way to describe it. It smells rather wet and musty. Our voices are echoing enough that I’m guessing the walls are made of stone. And I can hear water dripping close by in the distance.”

  Shaking my head, I peered up at Reid, praying he was piecing this puzzle together in some way I missed. “That sounds like basically any basement anywhere.”

  “It would,” Reid rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, his features set in an intense scowl, “except this is Florida. Basements aren’t typically a thing here. Maybe an abandoned factory of some sort? That lunatic said it was connected to the places you’ve been. If you went strictly by your latest stops, where would they be?”

  Gaze flicking to the ceiling, I counted them off on my fingers. “I helped a family in the suburbs, swung through Vegas, stopped at a beachfront city, got abducted to a campsite in the middle of nowhere, picked up a wolf in New Orleans, and now I’m here.”

  Turning on his heel—and immediately having to hop to avoid tripping over Bacon—Reid paced the length of the room and back again. “It can’t be a campsite. That’s too out in the open. What about waves?” He raised his voice to address the coven. “Can you hear the ocean in the distance? Anything that would give any indication you’re near the shoreline?”

  Silence.

  “No, nothing like that.” If I had to guess, I’d say it was Gretchen who answered. She never smoked a day in her life, but had a gruff and raspy tone that made it sound like she had a pack-a-day habit.

  “Vegas…” Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I tried to work the riddle of a madman. “Are there any casinos in Tallahassee?”

  The stress of the moment getting to him, Reid’s words morphed to a menacing growl. “How would I know? You dragged me here!”

  “It was rhetorical!” I snapped back, easily matching the heat in his tone. I made the mistake of looking at the time read-out on the phone and cursed under my breath at the three minutes we had already wasted.

  “Maybe you could Google it?” Tralynn chirped, her voice breaking with bubbling nerves.

  “Better yet… Elba!” I shouted at the walls. “If you’ve got any strength left to manifest at all, we need you!”

  He appeared in a weak, silvery-blue shimmer that flickered in and out of focus. “I won’t last long. I haven’t recovered from my last appearances. I did hear what you were saying, though. I don’t know of a casino nearby, but there’s a dog track that has regular poker games. If I leave now, I could search the place and be back before I’m completely zapped.”

  “At the risk of sounding like a complete bitch—”

  “Why am I still here?” he finished for me, and vanished from sight.

  “That sounded like Elba,” Dina interjected. “If we make it out of this alive, we’re most definitely going to have a conversation about that.”

  “Elba’s looking into the gambling connection. That leaves us with—”

  “Lincoln Center Boxing Club!” Reid erupted, face brightening with a sudden epiphany. “I only trained there once or twice as I was passing through on my way to Tampa or Orlando, but it’s not far from here! If I go full canine, I can run there in five minutes flat!”

  I hitched one eyebrow in question. “As long as someone doesn’t shoot the rampaging wolf in the process.”

  Shoulders sagging, he glared my way, his topaz eyes already glowing in anticipation of his change. “Well, hello there, little gray cloud of negativity. Care to look on the bright side for a bit?”

  “Who’s that?” Tralynn’s voice dropped to a stage whisper. “I like him.”

  “Go, and don’t get shot. If you find them, don’t wait for me. Just get them out.”

  What remained of his shredded pants exploded into ribbons as Reid fell down on all fours like the majestic wolf he was. Jaws snapping at the air between us, the Reid-wolf treated me to a playful wink before sprinting off down the hall.

  Such a moment of dire circumstance, yet the first words to tumble from my lips in his absence were, “When he shifts back, he’s going to be completely naked.”

  A crisp clearing of Dina’s throat snapped me back on task. “Octavia, we are on a bit of a deadline.”

  “Right.” Bringing my hands together in a sharp clap, I prayed for some sudden flash of brilliance. “We ruled out two, and are investigating two. That leaves some place in the suburbs or the barn here in Tallahassee. The barn was my first spot when I came into town, and there was no sign of life anywhere around.”

  Beatrice’s voice grew louder and then faded, like she was turning her head to scan the room. “He moved us here in the middle of the night, but I’m not sure you can rule the barn out.”

  “It smelled like moldy hay there, and the grass was tall enough to lash at my legs when I walked in. Do you remember any of that?”

  “H-h-he m-m-must have d-d-done something to us b-b-before he moved us.” Lorelei only stuttered when she was nervous. I had never heard it that pronounced before. “Maybe d-d-drugs or a spell? It’s j-j-just a fuzzy blur. We w-w-woke up t-t-tied to folding ch-ch-chairs. I c-c-can’t speak for the others, b-b-but I can’t remember anything about wh-wh-what’s outside these walls.”

  “Shit!” Dragging my trembling hands through my hair, I glanced to the clock on the end table. Twenty more minutes. “If it’s not there, it could be literally any abandoned block structure! How do I narrow it down from there?”

  Dina was tied to a chair, her life hanging in the balance. Yet she was still able to adopt a soothing tone to try to talk me back from the edge of a full-fledged freak out. “Breathe, Octavia. You know the barn. It’s a place of importance to you. Start there.”

  “And if that’s not it? If we’re wrong?”

  The weight of the unknown hung in the air between us, ready to fall like the blade of a guillotine.

  A member of the coven whimpered, though I had no way to know who it was.

  Voice as sweet as fresh squeezed lemonade on a hot summer day, Dina offered nothing but hope. “You won’t know unless you try.”

  “Right.” With determined strides, I stalked across the room to grab my sheath from the desk on which it rested. Shrugging into its shoulder straps, I slid each blade into its leather holster. “Sorry, Porkchop, but you’re going to have to sit this one out. Mama doesn’t plan on driving the speed limit. Don’t worry, I’ll leave Animal Planet on for you.”

  I was reaching for th
e remote when a cold chill skittered down my spine.

  “Other than some greyhounds I desperately wish I had the corporeal fortitude to release, the dog track is empty from top to bottom.” Nothing more than a pale light, Elba’s face folded into a frown. “And there’s more…”

  Lips pressed in a tight line, I forced out the words I knew I would regret asking. “What is it?”

  “Just… look out the window,” was all he offered before fading from sight.

  “What’s happening?” Tralynn pressed.

  “Whatever it is, it can’t be good.” Pushing back the vertical blinds, I gaped down at the scene unfolding on the highway in the distance. Temples throbbing, I let my forehead thump against the glass. “Shit.”

  “O-O-Octavia, what’s h-h-happening?”

  Tipping my chin, I blinked up at the scene as if hoping it had magically changed. No such mercy was granted. “The highway is completely blocked off. There are cop cars everywhere. From here, I have a perfect view of them surrounding a freezer truck. It appears they are pulling a very frozen body out of the back of it. This was all a set-up. C.A.S. never intended to let me find you.”

  A chair screeched across the ground, signaling that at least one of them was trying to wriggle for freedom.

  “Who’s Cas?” Ruby wept. “What does that mean?”

  Palm to the glass, I pushed back to glance at the clock. “I’ve got fifteen minutes. I could still make it! The cops can’t get through any more than the cars stopped around them can. But, on my bike, I can zip right between them…”

  “Octavia, I need you to listen to me.” Even as the other members of the coven began to openly sob, Dina addressed me with nothing but genuine love and empathy. “Whatever happens from here, it isn’t your fault.”

  Tears burning behind my eyes, I blinked hard to hold them back. “Stop it! I can get to you! Don’t give up on me, damn it!”

  “I never, ever will, sweet girl. I have believed in you long before you believed in yourself.” Dina’s voice betrayed her by cracking. “But I can’t let you risk your life for a lost cause.”