Marty's Horrible, Terrible, Very Bad Day Read online

Oooh, if she lived long enough to see Nina again, she was going to give her hell for not smelling deception mixed in with that stupid controlling spell!

  “Dr. Valentine?” she squeaked on a gulp.

  Out of the shadows, the voice came. Tank-like in size and ominous when he hovered over her, he said, “In the flesh, Miss McNally. In the flesh.”

  “Are you sure?” Hudson forced out the words, fighting to keep it together, but visions of Rocky dead somewhere made his stomach turn.

  “Am I fucking sure?” Nina yelled in her SUV as they drove to the location Rocky had texted him. “Yes, Birdman, I’m fucking sure! Dr. Valentine is an Ovitz! Don’t ask how the fuck I got so lucky, but when I was poking the hell around the family that one obituary said you were a doctor for, I found a picture of you and Dr. Valentine—and his real name is Martin Valentine Ovitz! He was the last living heir to the Ovitz fortune and what we know today as the Ovitz vacuum cleaner company. I’d bet my goddamn immortality he’s the one who’s been killing you before you make the five-hundred-year mark, dude. He wasn’t lying when he said he was a dying breed. How he’s doing it, I have no clue. How the fuck does a gargoyle get a spell?”

  Hudson ran a hand over his jaw, sick with worry he wouldn’t be able to get to Rocky in time. And the way they’d left things after she’d kissed him…

  Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit!

  “If that’s the case, then how the hell do I keep rising from the ashes? If he’s trying to steal my soul, what’s he been doing wrong?”

  “You’re fucking asking me? Dude, I was turned into a vampire because that man in the backseat nicked my hand with his tooth. I don’t know how the fuck you keep rising from the ashes, that’s not the GD point.”

  “And now he has Rocky,” he muttered dismally, gripping the steering wheel so tight, he had to be careful not to break it.

  “Yeah, but you have the five of us,” Nina said, thumbing the air toward the backseat, and the men who were more than willing to help him save Rocky.

  But fear settled deep in his belly. Rocky’s instructions were clear. “She said I should come alone. What if he sees you?”

  “That’s what every motherfucker who takes a hostage says, Birdman,” Nina reminded him. “We’ve done this before. We’ll figure it out when we get there. He’s got our kid. The kid who went against her whacked-out reaper kind and refused to take Marty’s soul. And she was right, and there’s no fucking way I’m gonna let him hurt her. Trust and believe.”

  Heath reached a hand over the driver’s seat and gave Hudson’s shoulder a quick thump. “We got you, okay? All of us. Whatever it takes, we won’t let him hurt her.”

  As Hudson came to a screeching halt at the location Rocky had allegedly texted him, he realized it was the abandoned part of the hospital they were preparing to tear down and rebuild. He’d just been to a fundraiser last month to raise money for it.

  “This shit looks like the psych ward out of some goddamned horror movie,” Nina commented.

  As he looked at the gray brick building with the glass doors blown out and a ragged curtain blowing from a window on the second floor under the ominous black sky, he said, “That’s because it was.”

  She had to give credit where credit was due. She’d totally believed him when he’d said he had no idea how he’d gotten inside Marty’s bedroom. Oh, the shame of her gullibility. She’d never be an honorary member of OOPS at this rate.

  Licking her dry lips, she looked up at him and asked, “Man, before you kill me, which I’m pretty sure is on your list of things to do, how the heck did you manage to make yourself smell like you were under a controlling spell?”

  He paused for a moment and looked at her thoughtfully. “How did you know I was under the influence of magic?”

  “Nina. She can smell magic because she’s half witch.”

  He made a face of disapproval. “That heathen. It’s a wonder her knuckles don’t scrape the ground when she walks. And if you must know, it wasn’t a controlling spell, Miss McNally. It was a spell designed to strengthen me so I could climb up the side of the house. I’m weak these days, as I’m sure you know.”

  Yep. She was going to wring Nina’s neck. One hundred percent sure, her eye!

  “So you were lying the whole time. Ohhh, you’re good, Dr. Valentine. So good. You had me hook, line, and gargoyle disease. I really believed you when you said you didn’t remember going to Marty’s. You looked so remorseful. Was that improv or did you practice those sad eyes? Have you ever considered acting? Because wow and wee—”

  Clearly, judging from the size of the veins bulging from his neck, he wasn’t open to answering more questions.

  “Shut up! Shut your stupid ill-bred mouth!”

  “You leave my daughter alone!” Clinton bellowed, but Rocky squeezed his fingers to quiet him.

  Rocky shrugged, though her stomach was on full tilt and her heart threatened to push through her rib cage.

  “Okay, so you’re not into kudos. I get it. Praise makes me uncomfortable, too. But still, I totally believed you when you said you didn’t remember what happened to you. Bravo. I’d stand and clap but, you know…” She struggled to lift an arm. “Restraints.”

  “Why did you interfere?” he groaned, his tank-like body hauling what appeared to be her father’s scythe by his side. “Why couldn’t you’ve just gone about your business and let me begin the process of stealing his rebirthing powers?”

  Begin the process… “You woke half the house up! How could I help but interfere?” she asked, a strange calm finding its way to her voice—one her belly and her pulse didn’t share.

  “Bah!” he bellowed his rage. “I knew Hudson would be near Marty’s room, but with my health failing the way it is, I’ve become woefully clumsy, even with magic on my side. I tripped and knocked her tube out, making a damn mess of things, just like every time before. I could never get the spells right, you know. So when that filthy heathen Nina said she smelled magic, I went along with it. And she wasn’t wrong, was she? It was magic I had on me. A powerful spell to induce an unconscious state.”

  Ah. It was all becoming clearer by the second as his wide mouth spewed his words of hatred.

  “So that night in the bar, you meant to hit Hudson with this crazy spell and it hit Marty by mistake, didn’t it?”

  That must have been why Nina saw what she did when she’d held Hudson’s necklace. That necklace had somehow deflected the spell and protected him, but hit Marty in the process.

  He leaned in close to her, his red nose flaring, his breathing heavy and thick. “Yes!” he thundered. “It was meant to render your doctor friend unconscious! Of course, I would be at the hospital to receive him in his unconscious state, and it would only make sense I’d be his doctor. Me being his mentor and all…”

  Rocky’s brow furrowed. “But I don’t understand. So what if he was unconscious? How could you steal his rebirthing powers?”

  Dr. Valentine’s whole face went red with rage, his bulky body trembling in anger as he reached into the pocket of his very fancy dress trousers and held up a vial with a crimson liquid inside.

  “With this! I’d inject it into his IV line and when he went into cardiac arrest, as he died, as his soul rose from his body, this would allow me to absorb his rebirthing powers as a phoenix and everything would be right again!”

  Moving in closer to her father, she placed her hand over his and nudged, hoping he’d know what she was trying to encourage him to do.

  Rocky’s stomach jolted, and she had to fight not to vomit, but she pressed forward—because her father was managing to cut through her duct-tape with his fingernails.

  “But you’ve tried this before, haven’t you? If the history books are right, you tried at least two times before the night at the bar. The problem is, whatever you did, he rose again and you didn’t get his powers of rebirth. What makes this time any different?”

  Dr. Valentine stomped through the room, his frustration ugly and angry. “You’re ab
solutely right, and every time he came back, I had to find him all over again, try and perfect the spell all over again. Over and over, that infernal man rose from the ashes, and I continued to become more and more ill. But this time is different. I know it’s different!”

  As her father’s fingers plucked with fury at the sticky tape, Rocky knew she had to keep Dr. Valentine engaged in conversation. “How did you get your hands on spells strong enough to take Hudson’s power?”

  He shook his block-shaped head. “Spells! Hah! More like dime-store lies I paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for, and when I get my hands on the putrid bastard who sold them to me, when I’m healthy and strong, I’m going to kill him!”

  Rocky blanched under the crackling fluorescent light. “The nerve, right? I mean, who does that? Sells you a spell you could get from a Cracker Jack box?”

  Dr. Valentine paused for a moment, as though he could enjoy a bit of sympathy, and then he raised the scythe high in the air. “Shut up! All you need to know is I’ve seen this spell steal another’s power. That’s all that matters. Now all we have to do is wait for your lover to show up.”

  Hudson. Her heart throbbed in her chest. “But he doesn’t even know where I am.”

  Now Dr. Valentine dug in his other pocket and pulled out her phone. “Of course he does, Miss McNally. I took the liberty of texting him, and he should be here any minute.”

  Now her entire body shook. How could she stop this screaming ball of fire from hitting Hudson and imploding?

  “So, what’s the plan when he get’s here?” she asked on a gulp.

  He winked and smiled, holding up her father’s scythe. “As I said, you’re my insurance. If your boy toy doesn’t drink this elixir? I’ll slice your father’s head off. And if he still won’t drink it? I’ll slice yours off, too.”

  Yep. That’s what you call insurance.

  Chapter 14

  “She’s in there. I can smell her,” Nina commented, her face angry in the eerie glow of the cloudy night. “That motherfucker. When I get my hands on him, I’m going to chew his legs off.”

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” Heath said, and he went about explaining what their plan was.

  “Got it. I’ll take this end of the building with Darnell and make sure it’s clear. Stay in twos in case he has some kind of reinforcements. You guys go wherever Nina’s nose takes you and text me the location,” Keegan said, heading toward the far end of the gray building with Darnell lumbering behind.

  “You okay?” Heath asked Hudson.

  His jaw clenched tight. If Nina didn’t get to Dr. Valentine first, he’d kill him. With his bare hands, he’d kill the son of a bitch. “I am. Let’s do this.”

  Nina grinned up at Greg from behind her hoodie. “Honey? You ready to kill a bitch?”

  “Now, now, my queen,” Greg said, dropping a kiss on her lips. “No entrails for you today. Remember your cholesterol.”

  She held out her hand to him with a wink and a smile. “God, I love date night. Let’s do this, Boo.”

  As they took off to follow Rocky’s scent and possibly create a diversion, he and Heath ran behind them at a slower pace, heading for the front doors of the abandoned facility.

  Heath moved like a jaguar, sleek and easy through the dark of night. Thankfully, Hudson was no slowpoke. He didn’t have the agility Heath or the others had, but he was pretty quick for a Birdman.

  Heath motioned to him to enter slowly, when all he wanted to do was barrel his way inside and find Rocky.

  Thank God for leveler heads prevailing, because what happened next could have killed him and horribly injured Heath.

  An explosion rocked the interior of the building, followed by several more throughout the facility. Rocks crumbled, and a stream of fire whooshed out in a gush of white-hot rage, knocking them both on their asses.

  Whoever this was, he wasn’t foolish enough to believe Hudson would come alone, so he’d wired parts of the building as a distraction.

  Heath’s phone pinged with a text from Keegan. “Guys! We’re stuck here!”

  Heath looked to Hudson, concern in his eyes. “You okay to go in alone? I’ll follow as soon as I get them the hell out.”

  Hudson nodded. “You bet.” He knocked Heath on the back before the man set off to find Keegan and Darnell.

  And then he heard Dr. Valentine yell from somewhere above them, “ Dr. Khalil, if you want your girlfriend to live, you’d better come in alone!”

  If he wasn’t so panicked over Rocky, he’d text Nina and tell her she’d been right about Dr. Valentine—with the tongue-out emoji for good measure.

  When Hudson appeared at the doorway, as everything crumbled around them, Rocky had to fight with every ounce of her being not to scream his name.

  “Rocky!” he yelled from across the room, and even from where she sat, she saw his relief.

  “Don’t move, Dr. Khalil! Stay right where you are because I have a little something for you!” Dr. Valentine said, his voice rich with menace as he held up a shiny instrument.

  Clinton continued to pluck at her restrained hands, digging and scraping her flesh until she thought she’d scream, but she managed to keep it together enough to call out, “Do what he says, Hudson!”

  She saw the tightening of his jaw, watched as he assessed the room with a mere glance. As he picked his way over the rubble, despite Dr. Valentine’s orders not to move, he called back, “Are you all right? Mr. McNally?”

  “They’re just fine, and they’ll continue to be fine as long as you do what you’re told, Dr. Khalil.”

  “It’s been you all along, hasn’t it, Dr. Valentine? All these years? What do you want from me?” he asked, his voice rock-steady as his gaze met hers and held, sending her all sorts of messages.

  But what good would Hudson’s calm demeanor do when there was no way anyone else could get in here to help them? The only way into this room was the door. There were no windows, nothing.

  So if Hudson had brought reinforcements, they were no good to him, because he might not get Hudson’s powers before they could arrive, but he’d surely slice her father’s head off, and hers to boot.

  Dr. Valentine’s eyes narrowed to slits in his head. “You know what I want, Hudson. Of course, you do. But I’ll repeat myself for the cheap seats. I want your rebirthing powers. I’ve tried time and again to steal then from you in order to keep my breed alive, to no avail—until now.”

  “My powers?” he said, still cool as a cucumber. “How do you plan to get my rebirthing powers when you’ve failed every other time?”

  Oh, sweet Jesus. He was riling the angry gargoyle. For sure they were going to lose their heads now.

  “He has an elixir!” Rocky blurted out as her father scraped deeper into her flesh, and she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming. “He has an elixir he’s going to make you drink that’ll send you go into cardiac arrest and when your soul leaves your body as you die, this elixir will enable him to steal your powers.”

  “And if I don’t drink it?” Hudson asked, his broad chest expanding under his brown leather jacket.

  But clearly, Dr. Valentine had had enough talking. He pressed the scythe to her neck, the cool blade humming against her skin. “Take this elixir or I’ll slice their damn heads off!” Dr. Valentine screamed at Hudson, saliva forming at the corners of his mouth as he waved the scythe around her head with a haphazard swipe in the air.

  And then Hudson was holding out his hand, walking toward Dr. Valentine, stepping over pieces of Sheetrock and fallen IV poles.

  “Give it to me,” he demanded, his lips a thin line, the muscles in his jaw clenched.

  “Hudson, no!” she screamed, just as Dr. Valentine grabbed the back of her chair with his block-shaped hand and lifted it up, slamming her down farther away from her father.

  “Shut up!” he shouted, his eyes suddenly hesitant when he looked to Hudson. “So help me, if you’re trying to trick me, Hudson, I’ll take her head off, and her father’s, too!�
�

  “I said, give it to me,” Hudson insisted, his eyes blazing and bright.

  And the moment he shoved his hand into Dr. Valentine’s space was the moment the building rumbled with an aftershock and the lights went out completely.

  Okay, so here was the thing. She didn’t have special abilities other than her scythe. She couldn’t see at night or smell a pot roast from the next state. She wasn’t strong as a football team or as fast as a big cat.

  But she was damn well scrappy, and when Dr. Valentine had physically picked her up in the chair and slammed her down, she’d used the force to pop the already-weakened duct-tape off her wrists.

  Pulling at the ropes that held her to the chair, she managed to free herself enough that she could slither to the ground and feel for her father’s foot.

  As Hudson and Dr. Valentine struggled, their grunts mingling with the rumble of the building, she reached her father’s foot and crawled her way up.

  “Daddy!” she yelled over the rumble of the walls.

  “Get out, Roxanne! Get out now!”

  Her fingers found the rope around his waist and by feel alone, she began to unravel the knots. “I’m not leaving you!”

  “Reaper!” she heard Nina call. Oh, thank God Nina was there! “Stay there! I got you!”

  As Rocky was about to turn toward Nina’s voice, something knocked her totally sideways, sending her flying across the floor, over crumbling stone and sharp glass, leaving her dazed and stunned.

  She heard Nina yell, “Darnell, catch! Throw him the fuck out the window to Greg below!” followed by her father’s piercing scream, and then someone was dragging her by the back of her shirt.

  “I’ll kill her Khalil! I’ll tear her damn head off!”

  As she struggled, digging her heels into the ground, as tears fell from her eyes and sweat seeped from every pore in her body, she heard voices everywhere, and the clank of something heavy, and then she heard Hudson.

  “Stop, Dr. Valentine! Let Rocky go and give me the elixir!”