The Guest House Hauntings Boxset by Hazel Holmes (novel books to read txt) 📕

“You think Dudley Doright up there is going to be able to pull you out of trouble? Hell, I bet he’s already dead judging by the fact that you magically appeared in the center of the street, because whatever you’re dealing with seems more dangerous than anything I’ve done.”

It was true. What she’d experienced over the past few days was more evil than the man cuffed in the backseat. And it was because of the evil that she’d experienced in that time frame that she was even able to look the man wearing those cuffs in the eye without dissolving into a puddle of fear. There were bigger fish to fry out there, and if she was going to save Dell, she’d need one hell of a frying pan.

“Sarah?” The woman’s voice brought her attention back to the radio. “Sarah, are you still there?”

“I’m here,” Sarah answered.

“State troopers are en route,” she said. “Just stay put until they arrive, okay?”

But as Sarah was about to respond, she let her finger off the talk box. It was the phrase “stay put” that triggered the wheels in her mind to turn.

If the troopers arrived and detained her for questioning, it would cost valuable time she needed to figure out how to help Dell, and that wasn’t time that she could afford. There was no training manual for this, no instruction booklet. And she doubted there was anyone that she could turn to now for help, because the only person who would believe her was currently being tortured on the fifth floor of the house of the family that had started all of this.

No, the best thing for Sarah to do was to try and finish this herself. There wouldn’t be any strings attached to hold her back, no red tape for her to cut through. It would be her brains and will and cunning against the worst evil the world had ever known. And in order for her to defeat that evil, she needed to understand it.

The door to Pat’s—no, she thought. It had never been Pat’s place. It had belonged to the witch who had orchestrated this entire ordeal. Pat was nothing more than a shell, a ghost that had tricked her into friendship and then left her out in the cold to die.

Either way, Sarah shouldered open the witch’s house, surprised to find it open and empty but knowing that it wouldn’t remain that way for much longer. She hurried to the bed, dropping to her knees, skidding toward the edge, and reached beneath the bedsprings for the chest she knew was there.

Catching hold of the old piece of wood, Sarah pulled, her muscles straining as the big chest scraped against the floor.

It was still unlocked from their previous tries, and Sarah flung the top open, immediately rummaging through the clippings the witch had saved. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon. I know you’re here. I know you’re—”

Sarah froze when her fingers scraped against something hard, and she pushed aside the articles stacked on top of the notebook until she found the edges and heaved it out of the chest.

After that she scrambled for the letters that they’d studied, and then found a spare bag and chucked everything inside. She headed for the door, but then stopped.

Sarah turned back to the opened chest, and she walked back over, and searched inside. There might be something else inside that could help her, something that the witch didn’t want her to see, something—

Sarah’s fingers scraped against something hard, and she lifted a book from the random junk inside the chest. It was old, and worn, and holding it brought a mixture of awe, fear, and excitement that made her heart thud heavily against her chest.

“Codex Gigas.” Sarah ran her fingers over the title as she read it aloud, and a spine-tingling chill ran up her back.

She stuffed it in the bag, and then did one last scan of the chest before running out of the house and headed toward the forest. What came next wasn’t just a fight for her life anymore, it was a fight for the survival of humanity.

She was in the realm of good and evil, the lines clearly drawn. She only hoped that she had enough good in her to win the battle.

The cuffs around Brent’s wrists had caused both his shoulders to go numb, and his back was horribly stiff and tight. When he watched Sarah appear out of nowhere in the middle of the road and make her way over to the car, he couldn’t help but laugh at the situation.

But when she left, disappearing back behind the tavern without a word, leaving him locked up in the car, it was tough to stomach. A spasm of anger rippled through his body, and he slammed his back against the cushion, rocking the squad car back and forth.

“Fucking bullshit,” Brent whispered angrily to himself even though he was alone. Out of all the ways for his career and life to come to a screeching halt, he never would have thought it was going to end like this.

Despite the big talk he spit in front of Sarah, he knew that no matter how he came out of this, the investigation into his work and personal life would yield some unflattering results. He wasn’t going to walk out of this unscathed.

“Gah, dammit.” Brent stared down at his foot. Ever since he’d been shoved into the back of the squad car, he hadn’t been able to shake the cold, tingling sensation at the bottom of his heel. It was a perpetual itch that he hadn’t been able to scratch, though with his hands tied behind his back, the metaphor had turned into a reality.

And with his attention turned to the heel of his foot, he missed how the woman to his right got into the car without opening the door.

“Hello, Brent.”

“Shit!” Brent leapt, slamming his head into the roof before retreating to the driver’s side door. Hyperventilated breaths escaped his lips,