Drop Dead Gorgeous (The Journals of Octavia Hollows #4)

by Stacey Rourke

  Joan’s tongue clucked against the roof of her mouth as she jabbed her hand in the direction of the golden arches right across the street. “He could get an egg mcmuffin right there. Why the hell would you waste precious minutes checking here?”

  Throwing the car in park, I glanced her way from under my brow. “An egg mcmuffin meal is what? Three bucks? All you get with that is a drink and a hash brown. The sign out front says that this establishment offers and all you can eat breakfast buffet for five dollars. Trust me, I’ve learned how to get the most for my money, and have partaken in many a strip club buffet. They surprisingly good. I would bet money that he stopped here to eat.”

  Folding her arms over her chest, Joan pursed her lips in disdain. “Really? Because you’ve done it, you think everyone would know the hidden culinary secret that is Cheaters? Seems a long shot to gamble our time on.”

  “That,” I countered, purposely keeping my expression at a detached neutral, “and that’s my bike parked right over there.”

  A jerk of my chin directed her attention to my Scrambler parked by the door.

  “You could have led with that.”

  “How would that be any fun?” I winked, and opened my door.

  The throbbing beat of Lenny Kravitz’s American Woman welcomed us to the club. On the stage a visibly pregnant woman in a thong half-heartedly moved to the music. Three men lined the stage, peering up at her with mild interest for her efforts. As raunchy scenes go, it was surprisingly tame. Yet it was enough to set Joan off on a full snit.

  Lips curling into a snarl, rage flashed in the depths of her stare. “These humans are lucky I’m only half siren! If I had the full abilities I would spite each of these men by feasting on their souls for them daring to degrade a female in such a way!”

  Rising up on tiptoe, I scanned the dimly lit room in search of Bahari. “Simmer down, Xena: Warrior Princess. Girlfriend is making dollars and the boys are keeping their hands to themselves. Everybody is playing nice here, and we have more important matters at hand. Remember?”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that this same kind of scene is exactly how I guessed Arroyo would use all the pageant girls if given the chance. But, if need be, I was ready and able to throw that ace in the hole.

  “It’s disgusting,” she spat, still glowering. “I hate them all.”

  “Totally acceptable. I feel the same way about those bastards that spray perfume on you unprovoked in department stores.” Hooking my arm through hers, I tugged her towards the bar. “Use that aggression to help me find answers. Come on.”

  “Gladly,” Joan stumbled along behind me, just waiting for me to point her in the direction of who she could unleash on.

  Leaning on the bar, I jerked my chin in the direction of pretty-boy bartender. “Hey,” I shouted over the music.

  “Listen up, you worthless sack of testosterone!” Joan bellowed, slapping her hand down on the polished wood bar.

  “Simmer down,” I muttered out of the corner of my mouth. “We won’t learn much if we get kicked out.”

  “Right, get the information first. Then,” her eyes narrowed with vehement intent, “I can crush him with my words.”

  Ignoring her misplaced threat, I offered the confused bartender a toothy grin. “We’re looking black-haired beauty that seems uncomfortable in her own skin.”

  Before I could ask if he had seen her, her tipped his head toward the back wall of the club. “Ladies restroom. She’s been in there long enough, I was starting to get worried.”

  “You haven’t seen worried! Wait until you see the fury of hell I will bring down on this establishment!” Ignoring Joan’s rant, I kept my hold on her and tugged her towards the restrooms. “Where are we going? I wasn’t done!”

  “No, you made your point. Well done. Really scary stuff.” My tone was flat and uninterested as I rounded the corner and pushed open the door into the ladies room. “Clayton? You here?”

  “Pink-haired girl?” a sniveling voice responded.

  With the toe of my shoe I pushed open one door after another until I found the one Bahari/Clayton huddled in beside the toilet. Her eyes were red-rimmed, face blotchy from free falling tears. Releasing my hold Joan, I gathered Bahari in my arms and helped her up off the floor. Head lolling to the side, she sagged in my arms and let me guide her to the sink counter. I steadied her as she learned her hip against the sink counter, and didn’t move my hands away until I was sure she could support her own weight. Only then did I grab a paper towel, and run it under the tap to help her wipe her face clean. I asked no questions as I wiped away the tracks of tears that stained her cheeks, but gave her time to compose herself and steady her breathing.

  Only when I felt she could handle the question, did I venture, “You want to talk about it?”

  “It’s horrible,” she hiccuped, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. “I know this is my punishment, but I just can’t do it! I can’t! What happened to me …” her voice broke with emotion, “I can’t handle that level of degradation.”

  Filling my lungs to capacity, I tried to breathe my way to a steady calm.

  “Point me in the direction of your assailant!” Joan raged, face reddening. “I will gladly—”

  My head snapped in her direction. “What are you going to do, beauty queen? Give them a bad manicure? How about it you let her talk before you call in the cavalierly?”

  “I’m sorry I ran. There was just so much pressure you all were putting on me. But if I knew …” again she broke with a whimper, “what waited out here for a woman …”

  My hip bumped hers as I joined her leaning against the black granite countertop. “What happened? Someone want to squeeze in a Half-Minute Hero? Looking for a little Bangkok Dangerous? They try to introduce you to the World of Goo or Pole Position?”

  Joan recoiled in horror. “What do those mean?”

  I let my shoulders rise and fall. “I couldn’t think of euphemisms, so I named video games.”

  “I came into the club, because they have a surprisingly good breakfast buffet,” Bahari sniffed.

  “See!” I jabbed one hand in his direction, furthering my earlier point to Joan. “I’m sorry, that was inconsiderate of me. Go ahead, please.”

  “I came in to eat, and that man behind the bar,” Bahari said with yet another sniffle.

  “I knew he looked shifty,” Joan intervened.

  “He … called me sweetheart and asked me if I needed a job!” The words morphed into a fresh sob, leaving Joan and I exchanging matching masks of confusion. “Can you believe that?”

  “You came into a strip club at nine o’clock on a Tuesday morning,” I offered softly, “Not only does it make sense, I’m also kind of insulted that we didn’t get asked.”

  “I feel I need to point out how aggressive you were during our time together.” Leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, Joan’s lips screwed to the side. “It was far from gentlemanly conduct.”

  “That’s my point exactly!” Bahari erupted. Shoving off the counter, he threw his arms out wide. “I know what men are thinking, because I was one of them. I thought all the same vile things they are now, because those gross thoughts were mine! But now, they are directed at me! I get while women are leery with a man walking behind them now! I felt the same way when I stopped for gas about an hour ago.”

  Joan smacked herself on the forehead. “The bike was on E. I didn’t even factor that option into my equations.”

  “Yeah, that’s what was wrong with your figures,” I rolled my eyes in her direction, before turning to face Bahari and taking both his hands in mine. “Look, I know this is all a huge adjustment for you. But, you can do this—”

  Bahari snatched his hands away, and took a step back before I could consider reaching for them again. “See, you’re not listening! I can’t do this! I can’t!”

  “No, don’t say can’t.” Hands falling slack at her sides, looming panic drained Joan’s complexion chalk white. “The only can
’t here, is to us going back without you. You have no idea what the woman is like that would take power without you there. She was the commander in charge of the band of rebels that slaughtered the royal family. It was her blade that cut the throat of Princess Cherith. She said it was because she fell in love with a warlock, but—”

  Brow creased into a deep V, I tucked my chin to my shoulder to glance Joan’s way. “She doesn’t care about the pure blood BS.”

  “Exactly,” Joan dipped her head in a brief nod. “She doesn’t hide that little tidbit in the slightest. Which means, if she wasn’t fighting against the broken taboo …”

  Her sentence trailed off, waiting for us to catch up.

  “She just wanted the royals dead,” I filled in.

  “Since then, the power they held has been up for grabs.” Joan paced in a small circle, anxiously chewing on the inside of her cheek. “Arroyo hasn’t been a contender for the position, because of her lazy, self-serving ways. But now, it’s falling into her lap! If we allow her to take that position, we are literally appointing a sociopathic murderer as the leader of our pod.”

  Bahari backpedaled farther still, fat tears flooding his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You’re counting on me, but I can’t be this person for you. If it means I’m sentencing myself to the bowels of hell, then maybe that’s where I need to be. Because,” his chin quivered as tears streaked his cheeks in torrents, “I just want out. Please.”

  Spinning on the ball of her foot, Joan’s hands curled into fists at her sides. “You pitiful, pathetic man,” she spat the words as if it soured on her tongue. “You’re just going to have to suck it up, because out isn’t an option.”

  “Joan, shut up.” I murmured quietly. Swallowing hard, I forced down the bitter change of plans.

  “Shut up?” She snipped, challenging swirling in the depths of her stare. “You’re sentence our troop to a lifetime of servitude!”

  “I’m not sentencing anyone to anything,” I kept my tone calm and measured, as I glanced Bahari’s way with genuine understanding. “Clayton, you’ve been forced into a life that doesn’t fit, and it hurts. I get that. I can make it go away, because I’m the one that put you there.”

  His mouth opened with a pop, confusion creasing his features.

  My head bobbed at all his unspoken questions. “That’s right. Me. Not divine intervention, just a pink-haired necromancer trying to literally save her Bacon so she can get the hell out of Dodge. And since I’m the one that did it, I can undo it, if that’s what you want.”

  “Octavia, what the hell are you doing?” Joan rocked back on her heels, head shaking as if that could somehow stop things from unfolding.

  “What’s right,” I muttered to her as much as to myself. “If I do this, Clayton, you won’t return to your body. You’ll be gone. Passed on, and headed to whatever hereafter awaits for you. Is that what you want?”

  This time he was the one to catch my hand and squeeze it like a lifeline. “Please. Just let me go.”

  “Lock the door,” I ordered Joan, shoving my sleeves further up my arms.

  “This isn’t right! We can’t give up just because one person—”

  “I said lock the door,” I repeated, my tone living no room for further discussion.

  The moment I heard the lock click, I closed my eyes and plugged into the flow of my magic once more. “Spirit from beyond the grave, I brought thee into light. With your help, I cannot stave. Return thee into light.”

  Emerald wisps licked down my arms, crackling through Bahari’s form. Eyes rolling back, Clayton rode the waves coursing through him. I didn’t let go when I felt his spirit pass, but let the charge flow until all that remind of the departed siren beauty’s body was a pile of ash pooled on the ground.

  “You have no idea what you’ve done,” Joan mumbled, her voice eerily hollow.

  Brushing ash from my hands, I pulled myself to full height and turned to face her. “Actually, I know exactly what I’m doing. I let the fact that I may share some DNA with you people distract me from who I am, and what I’m about. I’m the reason Arroyo is around your troop in the first place. I’m the one that’s going to take her out.”

  Chapter Nine

  “She must be more human than siren, because she’s a complete moron,” Joan huffed upon our return to the troop’s camp.

  Eldoris dragged her fingers through her curls that exploded into a frizzy poof in retaliation. “I try to see the good in people, but she really must be. Octavia what are you thinking? Why would you even think about coming back without Bahari?”

  The hair and makeup trailer was bursting at the seams with pageant contestants readying themselves for yet another night of beaming under the spotlights. Tonight, however the mood amongst them was a somber one. No doubt the rumors about last night had spread far enough to fill them with the justifiable sense of dread. These were sad sparkles being applied to the apples of their cheeks, and melancholy up-dos their locks were twisted up in.

  “I didn’t bring Bahari back, because Bahari is dead.” At my bold proclamation even the slightest murmur of conversation died away, all eyes shifted in my direction. “Oh, don’t act surprise, you clucking hens probably knew about it the second it happened … last night.”

  Chin to her shoulder, Eldoris offered the girls a placating smile. When her attention snapped in my direction, any trace of pleasantries vanished. “She was dead once before, and you were able to cure her of that ailment. I’m wondering where she is now.”

  Folding my hands in front of me, I hitched one brow and met her stare head on. “This time, she’s deceased in the final sense of the word. Dead. Deceased. Dearly departed. Lifeless. Passed on. Toes up. Shall I go on, or are you getting the gist of this?”

  Hands balled into white-knuckled fists, Joan’s upper body leaned my way in full snit. “How can you be so cavalier about this?” Her attentions were momentarily distracted by Overly Botoxed in the end chair running a sparkling pink brush through her silky locks. “And that’s my hairbrush!”

  “Glad we’ve all got our priorities in order,” filling my lungs to capacity, I exhaled through flared nostrils. “Are we finished with question and answer period? Can we move on to the portion were we get you all out of here alive, now?”

  Eldoris’ eyes narrowed, her gaze fixating on my face. “You said ‘all of you’.’ Not ‘all of us’.”

  “Glad you caught that. It’ll save us some time. Where’s Arroyo right now?” Shoving my sleeves further up my arms, I craned my neck in one direction and then the other to pop it.

  Twisting her hair into puffy top-knot, Eldoris’ jaw tensed. “She’s in her trailer supposedly resting right now. But she’s been looking for Bahari all day. Basically every hour on the hour. Lucky for us, her attentions seem to wave rather easily when she gets even remotely bored. I guess if you’re going to have an evil nemesis you want one that lacks ambition and needs frequent naps.”

  “Fantastic,” despite that bold exclamation, my heart pounded against my rib cage. But I couldn’t let them see that, not if I wanted them out of here. “Everyone is in here for hair and makeup right now, how long does this painful monotony stretch on for?”

  “She would never fit in here,” one of the beauty queens snarked as she curled her eyelashes.

  Eldoris dragged her tongue over her teeth, her stare shifting to the digital clock on the vanity counter. “The girls’ … ahem … rituals usually take at the very least another hour.”

  “So, no one will really expect to see them before then?”

  “Not without some sort of major wardrobe catastrophe,” Eloris’s brows lifted, her mind visibly ticking back to each occurrence. “It’s, at the very least, a weekly occurrence.”

  “Out of curiosity, how long have they been at it so far? What kind of total prep time are we talking?” I didn’t actually need this information. I was just curious.

  Clucking her tongue against the roof of her mouth, Eldrois rolled her eyes. “The
y’ve been been here for an hour and a half so far.”

  Choking on a gasp, I spun on every one of the primping beauties in utter shock. “Seriously, ladies? Life is short, and I’m a friggin’ necromancer! Scale it down by—oh, I don’t know—like, a half-hour?” Realizing I was spiraling off track, I battled my way back to a place of Zen. “I parked the Lincoln right behind this trailer. Take the girls out, discreetly as you can, and pile them in. I don’t care if you have to stack them three high, get them in the car and get the hell out of here. You drive, and keep driving, until you hear from me. You got it?”

  Uneasy glances flicked between the pageanters, the magnitude of what I was saying crackling through the air in a palpable dread.

  “Arroyo took your phone, how will you …” Eldoris let her question trail off, her eyes widening as she fit the piece together.

  “I’m going to go get it back,” I simply stated.

  Alarm swinging her jaw slack, Joan pushed off the vanity counter she had been leaning against. “She’ll kill you! Offensive purposely intended when I say she will kill you. That’s not a threat but the absolute truth.”

  “Is that fear I detect in your tone,” I forced a half-smile I was in no way feeling. “And here I thought you didn’t like me.”

  “I don’t like you!” She exploded, throwing her hands out wide before letting them fall to her sides with a slap. “I think you’re infuriating indifference to masochistic men is maddening! But I respect all of my fellow goddesses of femininity enough not to want to watch you throw yourself into a kamikaze mission!”

  My face was a question mark. “Thank you?” Even then I wasn’t sure that was the correct response to what really sounded like an insult.

  Snatching the keys to the Lincoln off the counter where I dropped them, Elrdois weighed them in her palm. “She’s right, Octavia. This isn’t your fight.” Arm outstretched, she offered me the keys. “You should be the one to get the girls out, while I face off against her. This isn’t your fight. Your might have siren blood mingled in your veins, but you are knew to our customs and ways of life. Your,” she paused, the corners of her mouth sinking into an compassionate frown, “… not one of us.”