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

by Stacey Rourke

  “Another body could be a benefit.” Scowling at the vacancy from his missing digit, Elba shook his hand as if hoping it would reappear. “That was it. End of point.”

  “It could, you’re right. If zombie boy can fight.”

  All eyes shifted to Zombie Elba, who missed the mark of putting our minds at ease by clapping his palm down on a snail and popping it in his mouth.

  Shoulders sagging, my head lolled in Reid’s direction. “If all else fails, I can use him as a human shield.”

  Something that resembled hurt flashed in the depths of Reid’s gaze, yet he managed to force a tight smile. “Not sure Elba wants you peppering his body with bullet holes before you can figure out how to help him climb back in it.”

  Ghost Elba’s top lip curled in disgust as the other version of him noisily chomped on the snail’s crunchy shell. “Structurally speaking, there are some problems with the foundation that are going to have to be worked out before I can move back in.”

  The snail tried to squirm out of the corner of Zombie Elba’s mouth, causing him to awkwardly smack it back in with the back of his wrist.

  “And maybe some basic custodial work,” I added with a heave.

  With a roll of his meaty shoulders, Reid pulled the fabric of his t-shirt tight across his pecs. “If we move fast, we might be able to capitalize on some element of surprise. C.A.S. will expect you to be too devastated to act.”

  “If that’s true, he’s grossly miscalculating how pissed I am.”

  Flexing his fingers one final time, Elba finally managed to reroute his attention. “How do you plan to move the troop?”

  Filling my lungs to capacity, I jabbed my fists onto my hips, completely caught up in the bravado of the moment. “By getting over our fucking self-doubt. No longer will we focus on our flaws. We won’t give them another second to distract from the amazing things we’ve accomplished. Together, our power is unimaginably strong! It’s about damned time we stopped doubting it, and embrace the fact that we are badass forces of nature!”

  Blinking in my direction, Reid glanced at Ghost Elba in search of some sort of clarity.

  All Elba could offer was a shrug. “I don’t know, man. Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Huh?” It was the most eloquent response I could muster after being snapped out of what I thought was an awe inspiring motivational speech.

  Reid started to laugh, but cleverly masked it as a cough behind his hand.

  “While that little display was equal parts empowering and invigorating,” Elba chuckled, “I meant more in the literal sense of the term. I can blink to the barn, but how do you plan to move the rest of the troop? There are four bodies and one motorcycle. We need to figure out how to move all parties involved from location A, to spot B.”

  “Oh.” Just like that, my gusto deflated.

  With a rattle seeping from the back of his throat, Zombie Elba rocked in one direction then the other and hoisted himself to his feet.

  Biting his bottom lip, Reid battled to keep his expression a stoic neutral. A fight he failed miserably. “So, how do we get this ragtag team transported to battle?”

  “Ohhhhhhh,” I gushed, laying on the over-the-top dramatics. “They’re so snarky about my impromptu motivational speech, but missed the underlining message that actually contained the answer.”

  “You’re saying you have a real plan?” Tucking his chin to his chest, Ghost Elba offered me a charming grin to take the salt out of his slathered-on sarcasm. “Or should we expect another impromptu rah-rah cheer?”

  Whistling to Bacon, I called him over and fastened him back into his carrier. “Didn’t you get it?” Adjusting my piggy-pack into place, I gave the bottoms of his hooves a loving pat. “I’m going to cast a spell and whisk us there. Self-doubts be damned.”

  Jaw swinging slack, I could only imagine a live-action reel of all my incantations that went wrong in our short time together was playing behind Reid’s eyes. “And you’re not at all worried that we’ll end up with some of our parts on backwards, or stuck in an alternate reality run by emu overlords?”

  I let one shoulder rise and fall with a nonchalant shrug. “Whatever happens, we roll with it.”

  Reid raised his hand like a tentative schoolboy with a question. “I need to state up front that I’m not comfortable with this even a little bit…”

  Chapter Nine

  “I fucking did it!” I crowed after doing a quick pat down to make sure Bacon and I were both intact. Boots sinking into the dirt in one of the back pastures on the property, the barn sat to the north of us. “Sound off if you’ve still got a pair! Everyone have what they started with, and haven’t acquired anything new?”

  “That being a possibility was omitted before departure.” As discreetly as he could, Reid did a quick inventory check and then exhaled a sigh of relief. “Giggle-stick accounted for.”

  I was batting at the bottom of Bacon’s hooves, giving him celebratory pats that I finally had an incantation work, when that moniker brought all else to a momentary halt. “I’m sorry, what?”

  Any trace of emotion erased from his features, Reid’s head tilted. “Twig and berries? Frank and beans? Crown Jewels? Wedding Tackle? Meat Thermometer? Dingle Wallace? Jumbo Giblets? Take your pick. I’ve got more.”

  For a beat, I literally had no words.

  “Octavia Hollows stunned into silence? Now I can die happy. Oh, wait… already dead. Man, that is a reoccurring bummer.” Elba’s voice made it to the field before his haunting apparition did, a cat that ate the canary grin brightening his ghostly features.

  “If we’re about done with the twelve-year-old boy antics, there’s a minotaur around here that I’d like to find and stop before he—” Head whipping in one direction then the other, I searched for our missing team member. “Where’s Zombie Elba?”

  “Oh, shit! That’s what that is!” Hopping back, Reid hooked Zombie Elba by the elbow and hoisted him to his feet. “Thought the ground was just lumpy! Sorry, man!”

  Zombie Elba gave what can only be described as an appreciative grunt and swayed on unsteady feet.

  If the coven’s spell worked, a minotaur prowled these grounds. A beast powerful enough to bring about the end of days… and this was the group of dorks with whom I was marching into battle.

  I made it all of twenty-three years.

  That was a good run, right?

  Unfastening Bacon from his carrier, I eased him to the ground and clipped on his leash. “If at all possible, I would like very much not to die today—no offense, Elba.”

  “None taken.”

  Drawing both swords, I brought the blades together with a sharp clang of metal. “From here on out, we’re on full alert.”

  High-stepping over the tall grass, I led my team across the field towards the barn. The murmurs of the dead found me about twenty feet from the barn door that hung broken on its track. I couldn’t make out the words, I seldom could, but their whispers combined into a foreboding chant that sent shivers coursing down my spine. It was my coven, it had to be. Pausing, I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed down the rush of bile that burned up the back of my throat. I knew they sacrificed themselves. That wasn’t new information. But some small part of me had hoped something spared them at the last moment; maybe the Goddess intervening in all her merciful glory. Hearing their pleas squashed that pipe dream.

  I forced my eyes on the tragedy that had unfolded. The cistern on the side of the barn had been reduced to nothing more than a pile of rubble. “That’s where they were,” the words creaked from my throat, cracked and wavering. “Stone walls, water dripping… I could have saved them, if only I’d acted faster.”

  “You can’t do that, Octavia. There’s no place here for self-doubt.”

  I don’t know which of my boys spoke. I was only half listening. Adjusting my hold on the grips of my swords, I ground my teeth to the point of pain. “You’re right. There will be plenty of time for tears and an excessive amount of alcohol. Righ
t now, I need this to be over.”

  I took one step, only to be blocked by Reid’s arm darting in front of me to cut off my path. “It can’t be you.”

  Eyebrows darting into my hairline, I blinked his way in open challenge. “Oh yes, the hell it can. Did you not see the large blades I’m holding? Consider them my supporting evidence. I’m not the kind of girl who stands back and lets the big bad wolf fight her battles for her.”

  Arm drooping an iota, sadness softened Reid’s features. “That’s not why, Octavia.”

  Elba flickered into view behind him in a show of support. “That’s your coven in there. And we don’t know what the scene looks like. You don’t need to be the first to see it. Let one of us go in there for you. Please.”

  “I’ll do it.” Handing me back the leash, Reid tugged off his shirt in preparation for his change. “Elba needs to conserve his strength. We can’t have him popping in and out of sight and exhausting himself before the real fun starts.”

  “What about Zombie Elba?” I jerked my head in the direction of the animated corpse trying to bite the butterfly flittering past his head. “We could send him in and see if he sets off any supernatural alarms?”

  Arms crossed over his chest, Elba’s mouth twisted to the side. “Theoretically, he is me. Two parts of a very messed up whole. It seems I should be able to control him… somehow.”

  Floating to Zombie Elba’s side, he whispered a directive into his ear. I can’t say Z.E.’s eyes brightened, per se, because they stayed so darn dim, but they did achieve a state closer to cognitively aware.

  With a loud groan rattling from his chest like a war cry, he threw himself forward into a clumsy sprint. Bless his heart, he made it all of six strides before plowing into a large oak tree. Poor bastard didn’t even turn or pivot, but hit it head on and fell to the ground in a heap.

  “Well, that’s just embarrassing,” Ghost Elba muttered.

  “I’m not waiting. We need answers.” I heard the zip of Reid’s pants being undone and purposely averted my stare. Falling down on all fours, he morphed full lupine before his front paws crunched into the overgrown grass.

  Stalking through the foliage, he streamlined towards his target.

  I sheathed my swords for the wait, immediately feeling the heat of Ghost Elba’s stare boring into me. “Something on your mind, Elba?”

  “That guy’s an asshole,” he stated matter-of-factly.

  “Yep.” Untucking Bacon’s leash, I looped it around my hand. “Selflessly putting his life at risk for the good of the group. What a tool.”

  Elba’s voice softened with equal parts acceptance and regret. “That’s my point. I will never like him, Octavia. If for no other reason than he’s spending time with you that I can’t; laughing with you, sharing meals with you, touching you—”

  “The touching is purely platonic.” I don’t know why I lied. My brief encounter with Reid was completely magically induced. Still, guilt twisted my gut into anxious knots that wouldn’t allow me to utter any words that might bring Elba pain. Not after how I failed him.

  As if he could see the mistruth scrawled across my face, Elba offered me a sad smile. “Even so, he’s been with you when I couldn’t.”

  Tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear, I rose on tiptoe to watch Reid make the final dash across the open field to the barn. “You really think this is the best moment to play the part of jealous ghoul?”

  Stepping into my eyeline, Elba forced me to look at him. “No, I think it’s the best time for me to say that while I will never like the guy, I appreciate him. I love you too much to ever want you to face the world alone, and he obviously cares enough to look out for you. If you can’t ever find a way to bring me back, it will allow me some element of peace to know you have someone in your corner ready to take on the world with you.”

  Wrought with guilt, my gaze flicked to Zombie Elba, who was rolling side to side like a turtle on his back, struggling to get back on his feet. “I want to promise that I’ll bring you back, but… that,” I jerked my head in Zombie Elba’s direction, “has never happened before. I don’t know what went wrong, or how to fix it.”

  In that moment, the background whispers of the coven solidified into one booming voice from beyond the grave. “Don’t you?” Their hiss was punctuated by a malevolent chuckle.

  That seemingly simple question punched me in the gut, forcing the air from my lungs in a pained gasp. “Oh, Goddess…”

  Elba stepped forward, his hand instinctively raising to comfort me. Unfortunately, the cool mist of his ethereal form was all that brushed my arm. “Octavia, what is it?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to utter the words. Not now, not ever. Yet the doubt was there, rooted in my heart and sprouting veins of self-loathing that spread through my veins like wild-fire.

  Did I not really want him brought back? Was that why my power turned him into a meat puppet, instead of fully resurrecting him like I’d done for countless others? And if I was the kind of person who would inadvertently deny the man I claimed to love a second chance because of my own trepidation, what kind of monster did that make me?

  There it was again, the urge to run. Chest rising and falling in anxious pants, I toyed with the idea of bolting from this horrible truth about myself and never looking back.

  “Octavia, talk to me…” Elba coaxed, hand outstretched as if he was talking me off a ledge.

  Reid picked that moment to reappear. Crouching in the grass, he grabbed his pants to cover his no-no square before morphing back. Rising to his full height, he stood tall and proud with nothing but carefully placed fabric to cover him, his eyes glowing with canine intensity. “I didn’t see or smell anyone, but something is up.”

  Sniffling back the crippling self-doubt, I twisted Bacon’s leash in my fists. “What do you mean? What is it?”

  Picking up on the tension of the moment, Reid’s stare lobbed from me to Elba and back again. Clearing his throat, he opted to stay out of it. Smart man. “The last time we were here, this place was long-since abandoned. Moldy hay piles, dirt and debris everywhere; it was a mess.”

  I could feel Elba watching the exchange between us with interest, yet he didn’t utter a word.

  “And now?” Clearing my throat, I tried to remember what cool sounded like.

  “It’s been completely cleaned out. The arena floor has even been racked. But, Octavia, there’s more…” Reid trailed off, struggling with his last bit of intel.

  Looping my thumbs in my front pockets, I squared my shoulders. “We need to know everything before we rush in.”

  Clearing his throat, he reluctantly continued, “There are six shallow graves in the center of the arena. It looks like this entire thing has been staged… just for you.” Even speaking of the threat made hair sprout on Reid’s knuckles, his chest expanding as he prepared for war.

  Simple as that, the pendulum of my fight or flight mechanism swung in strong favor of a fight.

  “Someone went to a lot of work to arrange a spectacle just for me.” Freeing warrior pig from his leash, I unleashed both swords from their leather with a threatening hiss. “Let’s not keep them waiting.”

  We marched across the field like badass action heroes. If my life was a movie, we would have been swaggering in with a fan blowing on us, and Bacon would be played by Zach Galifianakis.

  Stepping into the barn, I was primed and ready. Secure in the blissful illusion that we were a force with which to be reckoned.

  That bit of bravado was shockingly short-lived.

  Two loud puffs of air broke through the barn’s heavy silence the second we stepped inside. Reid sucked in a shocked breath and crumbled to the ground. One high-pitched yelp, and Bacon flopped flat on his side.

  Don’t judge me… I dove for the pig first.

  “Porkchop!” Sliding on my knees in a kicked-up cloud of dust, I cradled his head in my lap. Only when he began to softly snore could I breathe even a momentary sigh of relief.

  “T
ranquilizer dart for the pig,” a male voice shouted from behind me, each word echoing through the cavernous barn. “The big guy’s dart was mixed with wolfsbane. That one was a real crapshoot. In New Orleans, he wasn’t able to shift fully. If that was still the case, the wolfsbane wouldn’t have touched him. Lucky for me, you sent him in first and I got to see this was going to work out exactly according to plan.”

  Reclaiming my swords from where they fell, I mashed my knuckles in the dirt and rose to my feet. I wanted to recognize his voice, to get one glimpse of him and have it trigger a memory that would make sense of why he loathed me.

  But life doesn’t always wrap things up in pretty little bows.

  There was a man standing in the center of the barn with a circle of graves around him, and I had no idea who he was. I guessed him to be about my age, with a slender frame and features that bordered on gaunt. The only thing that struck a note of familiarity was the Maine Bears baseball cap mashed over his hair.

  “Finally, it’s just the two of us.” Biting his lower lip, he let his gaze wander over me. “What can I say? I really value our alone time.”

  Alone wasn’t completely true. Elba’s ghost crackled into focus behind C.A.S. long enough to nod my way in a signal that he was there and would help in any way he could.

  Flipping my wrists over, I crossed my blades in front of me in an open threat. “You’ve got me here. Now what the hell do you want?”

  “Easy, now. We’re not going to rush this.” Clucking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, the stranger sauntered over to an oversized duffle bag sitting on the foot of one of the graves. “I’ve waited so long, I want to savor it and make it last.”

  I should have been worrying about what he planned to pull from the bag, yet I couldn’t stop my stare from drifting to that mound of dirt. Dark thoughts drifted in of which of the coven sisters was buried there, a musing that caused a red haze of rage to cloud the edges of my vision. The closest I could get to maintaining any element of self-control was to root myself where I stood and fight the impulse to sprint over and bury my blade in his gut. Even then, I could feel my resolve slipping by the second.