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

by Stacey Rourke

  Sniffing back my emotion, I snatched the phone off the bed and strode out the door. “Lucky for me, you don’t have a whole lot of say in that. You ladies are my family. I’m just sorry it took my stubborn ass so long to realize that. But now that I do, I’m not about to let some sick fuck tear us apart.”

  “Dina… what is that?” Tralynn gasped.

  “What? I don’t—” Seemingly bothered by the momentary interruption, Dina sucked in a sharp intake of air. “Oh… no. Goddess save us all.”

  In the beat that followed, the coven talked over each other.

  Whatever stole their attention was serious enough to knock thoughts of escape right out of their heads.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “No, it can’t be! We vanquished him!”

  “It’s g-g-glowing! The ritual has already b-b-begun!”

  “What do we do?”

  “There’s nothing we can do. It’s already too late.”

  Jogging down the hall, I glanced down at my phone as if the device could offer up some insight about what was happening. “A heads up about what I’m about to walk into would be great, ladies!”

  “No!” Tralynn snapped, with a harsh insistence uncharacteristic for her. “You can’t come here, Octavia! Stay away!”

  Reaching the elevators, I glanced to the stairwell in a quick evaluation of which would be quicker and decided to gamble on the elevator. “Okay, that’s it. No one else drink the damned Kool-aid! I’m on my way, and you’re all getting saved whether you like it or not!”

  Another hush fell, broken only by sorrowful sniffles.

  Talking amongst themselves, the downtrodden shift in mood injected a dose of icy fear into my veins.

  “Our magic doesn’t work in here. I already tried to use it on my restraints.”

  “If we can’t s-s-stop it, maybe we c-c-can contain it.”

  The elevator dinged open and I stepped inside, stabbing the button to the lobby roughly a dozen times in hopes that would somehow speed it up. “What is it?”

  “It’s a creature known as the minotaur.” Fear weaved through Dina’s words, making them rise and fall with palpable terror. “If allowed to walk the earth, it will leave a trail of death and destruction in its wake.”

  Tapping my fingers against the sides of my legs, my stare stayed locked on the slowly changing numbers as the elevator sank to the lobby. “Foreboding, but not a deal breaker. I get there, we break you free, and then you use your combined Wonder Twin powers to turn him into an ice-bull. Easy Peasy.”

  “There isn’t time.” Beatrice’s voice was muffled, like her chin was hanging to her chest in defeat. “If you show up, you’ll die along with us.”

  Holding the phone directly under my chin, I shouted, “No! No one is dying today! You are not allowed to give up. Do you hear me? I’m out here. You’re in there! Tell me what spell to do, and you got it! I’m not the best at incantations, but I’m a better option than giving up!”

  “She’s right,” Dina cautiously relented.

  “Finally!” I threw my free hand skyward, thankful to see common sense winning out.

  “Our magic is useless inside this physical structure, but it exists outside.” If she heard me, Dina didn’t let on, but rambled out her forming plan. “We can call forth the minotaur, under our own terms, and trap it within these walls with the right incantation.”

  “No! Call nothing forth! As a rule, that’s a bad idea! Not to mention, that’s not what I said at all! Are we losing something here in the English-to-English translation?” The doors dinged open and I sprinted out into the lobby, cutting off a bellhop who had no choice but to dive out of the way.

  “And the payment required for summoning it?” Ruby snorted in between her torrents of tears.

  Lorelei huffed a humorless laugh. “H-h-haven’t you figured that out, yet? W-w-we were put here to p-p-pay it, one way or the other.”

  Pulling up short, the world spun around me in a dizzying whirl. “What payment?”

  “The minotaur demands a sacrifice upon his awakening, in the form of souls he can gore from their vessels and devour whole,” Dina explained in a barely audible whisper. “That’s why you can’t come for us, Octavia. You’d get here just in time to die alongside us.”

  “Oh, hell no.” Bursting outside, I squinted in the sun, head swiveling in search of where I parked my Scrambler. “No one is dying, Dina! There has to be another way, damn it!”

  “You can’t let this man win, Octavia. Whoever he is,” Gretchen croaked. “We love you, sister Octavia. Under the goddess’s mercy, we will see each other again.”

  “Oh, son of the Cretan bull and Pasiphae, we call to thee. Come before us now, so mote it be.” Their voices rose up in unison, each syllable uttered ringing through my ears like nails being driven into their coffins. “Oh, son of the Cretan bull and Pasiphae, we call to thee. Come before us now, so mote it be.”

  Kicking one leg over my bike, I snatched my helmet off the handlebar it hung from. “Goddess be! If I have to speed there and clamp a hand over each of your mouths—”

  I never got to finish my idle threat.

  To the south of me, a gush of inky black energy belched from the ground, shaking the earth beneath my feet. It flooded the sky with thick, ominous clouds, blocking out the Florida sun.

  From the other end of the line came a gasp… then the call disconnected.

  I didn’t need confirmation they were gone.

  I could feel it.

  The world was suddenly a darker, more lonely place.

  Stumbling off my bike, the earth was rising to meet me when Reid appeared and caught me in the cocoon of his embrace.

  “You’re okay. I’ve got you,” he soothed, his mouth against my ear. Easing us both down on the curb, the bottoms he made for himself out of newspaper—to cover up his nudity—crinkled with the motion.

  My tears came in a blinding flood, yet they were unable to wash away the ugliness that unfolded. “My entire coven just died, and I’m pretty sure the police are now in possession of Elba’s body.” Hands curled into white knuckled claws of desperation, I gripped tight to his arms wrapped around me.

  “Then it’s a good thing I didn’t got shot, because now I can help you bring this asshole down.”

  Swallowing hard, I peered up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “The wolf doesn’t get to take him out. I do.”

  Chapter Eight

  After a short ride later to Tallahassee’s Memorial Hospital, Reid and I followed the signs to the morgue. A place that, from town to town, was fast becoming a regular haunt of mine.

  “What exactly is the plan here?” Sculpted physique hidden once more behind a fresh t-shirt and jeans, Reid lifted one eyebrow as his gaze swept over me. “You cleared all your belongings out of the hotel room and stuffed Bacon under your shirt. This really feels like preparation for a larger occurrence I should be in the know for.”

  “These people took something of mine, and I want it back.” Striding down the halls of the Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, I followed the signs to the morgue. Once I found it, I didn’t slow or stop, but shoved my way inside. “As of this moment, I’m done asking nicely.”

  Following me in, Reid sucked air through his teeth. “And we need dead people for that… as all good ideas require.”

  “You there! This is a restricted area! You aren’t allowed to be in here!” Not that I cared, but the medical examiner came marching straight for us, his face red with irritation.

  Completely ignoring him, I threw my arms out wide. “Spirits from beyond the grave, I bring thee into light. With your help, I cannot stave, join me this night!”

  “That can’t be a good sign.” Out of the corner of his mouth, Reid mumbled, “What exactly did you just do?”

  “You’ll see.” The doors to the body drawers began to shake, the inhabitants banging on them from the inside. “I’ve spent all this time hunting for Elba’s body. Seems to me it was about time for him to come to m
e.”

  The first door burst open, spilling out a middle-aged man with tire tracks across his chest. “How the hell did I get in here?”

  It was a simple enough question, yet it pushed the poor M.E. to his breaking point. A blood-curdling shriek tearing from his lungs, he fell to the floor and scrambled to escape in a backwards crab crawl.

  Another door popped open, this one releasing a woman who looked old enough to have had a pet dinosaur as a kid. Grabbing the frame of her door, she slid the drawer out and glanced around. “Son. Of. A. Bitch! I never took care of myself, smoked like a chimney, and ate like shit! Why can’t I die?”

  Let her figure that out on her own. I had bigger fish to fry.

  Stare sweeping across the drawers, I watched one after another fling open. The confused undead flooded the room, all with silver eyes and no clue how they got there.

  One was notably missing. Weaving my way through the bewildered huddle, I followed the banging sound coming from a drawer on the end.

  Wolf or not, this was not a situation Reid was comfortable in. “I’m new to all this. Are they going to want to eat my brains? Scale of one to ten, how concerned should I be?”

  “Of them? Not in the least. Of me if I can’t get Elba and my coven back? About an eleven.” Wiping the nervous sweat from my palm on the front of my jeans, I grabbed the drawer handle and yanked it open.

  Blinking into the white puff of cold air that was expelled, my heart gave a lurch of hope when I saw movement.

  It was tragically short lived.

  I knew something was wrong the second I saw him. Sure, Elba’s eyes were silver and he was blinking up at me. But there was nothing behind them. They were as vacant as doll’s eyes. Add to that the fact his skin maintained a sickly gray pallor with bruised, purple circles under his eyes, and it became clear something went wrong. Again.

  Rolling to his side, Elba emitted a throaty groan straight out of a cheesy zombie movie.

  At that, the brave wolf-man took an apprehensive step back. “Okay, that one needs a whole lot more mojo.”

  “Excuse me, sexy.” The little old lady steadied herself with a hand to Reid’s broad chest in her attempt to skirt around him. “I’m looking for my knickers. It seems I misplaced them. Keep an eye out, if you would. They’re blue and say Thursday on the front.”

  “It’s Tuesday,” Reid gagged, his face folding into a grimace.

  Seizing Elba’s shoulder, I forced him to meet my eye. “Elba? I know you’ve been dead for a little while, but I need some sort of sign that you’re in there.”

  He shifted his weight towards me, peering up into my face with what I thought was a spark of recognition… until he fell off the table like a sack of bricks.

  Filling my lungs, I exhaled a huff of frustration. “Shit.”

  “I knew you were a necromancer, but this display seems a little excessive.” Squatting down alongside me, Reid helped me lug a very pungent smelling Elba to his feet. “What do we do now?”

  Hooking Zombie Elba’s arms around our shoulders, we made a conscious effort to breathe through our mouths. Even Bacon seemed bothered by the stench, announcing his annoyance in a fury of snorts and wriggles under my hoodie.

  On the other side of the room, the M.E. managed to crawl to the wall phone and tug it down to his hiding place under a gurney. It was a good thing no one there actually wanted to eat him, because he was far from discreet as he punched the number for nine-one-one. “Hello? This is Dr. Jessup at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. I’m down in the morgue, and… all the dead people have come A-L-I-V-E!”

  “Did he just spell the word?” Tire-tracks clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, crinkling his nose in distain. “We’re dead, asshole, not morons!”

  “Please, send someone right away!” The M.E. blubbered, curling into the fetal position around the receiver.

  Shuffling forward, I guided my quartet of freaks out the door. “I don’t think we need to worry about them. Seems they’re going to have lots to talk about with the cops soon enough.”

  “So much so, that they won’t notice one of the bodies walking out?” Reid grunted, turning his head away from Elba to breathe.

  “With any luck,” I replied with a shrug.

  We made it out of the hospital and two alleys over before Reid’s dry heaves made it necessary to set down our slack cargo.

  “I’m sorry.” Hands on his knees, Reid’s shoulders hunched with another gag. “It’s the heightened wolf sense of smell. This guy reeks of old Thai food in a crap-filled diaper.”

  After easing Elba to the ground, I tugged off my hoodie to check on Bacon. Even my swinekick was snorting and shaking his little head at the stench. “You don’t say? And here I thought all he needed was a liberal spritz of Axe body spray.” Squatting down in front of Elba, I cradled his clammy face in my palms and turned his head in one direction then the other in a cursory inspection. “I don’t understand this. He looks like the meat puppets every other necromancer sparks to life.”

  Zombie Elba’s jaw swung slack, a low groan rattling from his chest.

  “Maybe you’re having an off day?” Unclipping the buckle around my waist, Reid freed Bacon from his carrier to give the little guy a chance to stretch his legs… away from our pungent new team member. “I mean, after everything, that wouldn’t really be too far-fetched an idea.”

  “But it doesn’t make sense! I woke up the entire morgue without batting an eye. Why didn’t it work on him?” Tilting my head from one side to the other, I tried to make him track my movements with his eyes. Which he did… kind of. He seemed to be stuck on about a ten second delay. “Elba? Are you in there? Are you—I don’t know—unable to break through the dead?”

  “Break through the dead?” Reid glanced down at Bacon as if my piglet could interpret for him. “Makes it sound like the guy can’t poke his straw through a Capri Sun… if you know what I’m saying.”

  Dropping my hands between my knees, I glanced back over my shoulder. “No, I don’t. What the hell was that supposed to mean?”

  Taking a knee, Reid scratched Bacon behind the ears. “I honestly don’t know, but it sounded unintentionally filthy.”

  Rolling my eyes, I turned back to the rotting corpse of my fiancé. “Elba, babe, if you’re in there, I need some sort of indication. Otherwise, I’m going to have to—”

  “No threats needed. I’m right here.” His voice came from behind me; cool, calm, and completely unaware. That all changed at break-neck speed. “Sorry for the delay. I came as quick as I could, but I needed time to recover from—holy fucking hell! What happened to my face?”

  Cringing, I looked to Zombie Elba with a face full of apology. Like that clueless bastard had any idea he had been insulted. Feeling very much like a kid with my hand caught in the cookie jar, I slowly turned in Ghost Elba’s direction. “I tried to bring you back. Something—obviously—went wrong. But now that you’re here, maybe you could just… you know… jump inside?”

  Elba jabbed one hand in the direction of his zombie counterpart. “Why would I want to? He’s rotting! I can see his skull in the fissure on his forehead.”

  “That one isn’t even the worst,” I snorted. “You should see the crack at the nape of his—”

  Leaning closer to block Ghost Elba’s view, Reid elbowed me in the ribs. “I think this situation is bad enough. No need to help it along.”

  Seeing us side by side, a goofy smile dawned on Zombie Elba’s face. Clapping a hand to the sides of our heads, he half-heartedly tried to shove our faces together.

  Ghost Elba’s face fell slack. “Isn’t that sweet? It seems my lesser half is a fan of you two.”

  Shoving Zombie Elba’s hand aside, I rose to my feet and spun on the snippy apparition. “He might not have your charisma, but he’s corporeal! Right now, that’s an asset. The guy you tried to warn me about? He just killed my entire coven, and summoned a demon hell-bent on death and carnage. If ever you were going to throw yourself into the g
ame, now would be the moment.”

  Elba’s features softened, anguish slicing a deep V in his forehead. “I’m so sorry about your coven. I am. But for what I’m about to say, I need you to hear me out and not get in your own way with your Octa-tude.”

  Rising to his full height, Reid tried the word on. “Octa-tude. That is a fantastic phrase I plan to add into my daily vernacular.”

  Shimmering sapphire stare fixed on me, Elba kept his tone calm and measured. “If you want to stop this guy and bring your coven back, you need numbers. You’ve got your powers. You’ve got wolf boy, here. When I’m at full strength, I can—” A glance to the other version of himself, and Elba stopped short. “What the hell? Am I missing a finger?”

  I had no reason to feel guilty, but I still found myself chewing on the inside of my cheek in a hunt for the right words. “Yeah, about that. The guy who stole your body kind of… well, he didn’t kind of, he actually did… cut off your finger and mailed it to me.”

  Nobody can go vacant of emotion like a dead guy, let me tell ya.

  “Your dad’s ring was still on it. I saved it for you.” I knew I was rambling, but could do nothing to remedy the matter. Digging into my back pocket, I pulled it out and showed it to him. “The ring, I mean, not the finger. We had to throw the finger out. Bacon thought it was a piggy snack and kept trying to eat it. He actually got ahold of it once. I had to wrestle it away from him. Reid was gagging the whole time.”

  “Thank you for bringing me into this,” Reid mumbled, scratching his knuckles over the scruff of his chin.

  Rapidly blinking—out of habit, not necessity—Elba glanced from his zombie version’s hand to his own… just in time to watch his own finger disappear to match. “Oh, come on! That’s not even fair!”

  “Not that I’m downplaying what you’re going through, at all, because it’s a regular shit show…” One corner of his mouth twisted to the side with a compassionate grimace as Reid glanced Ghost Elba’s way from under a brow made for brooding. “But I believe you were heading toward a point before the sudden and unexpected loss of a digit.”