King for a Day by Mimi Jean Pamfiloff
“Why bring me to this place?” I muttered.
“Everything is here, Mia,” I heard King’s voice whisper in my ear.
I gasped and turned my head, but there was no one there. Had it been my mind playing tricks on me?
My tattoo tingled, and I gave it a little rub. “King? King?” I spun and looked around the room. I felt him there with me.
Silence.
You’re crazy. Or maybe I wanted to believe that he’d magically appear and fix this mess he’d left Mack and me to deal with.
I walked over to the shelves and began inspecting. Most were old books, histories of ancient civilizations: the Anasazi, Olmec, Khmer Empire, Atlantis, and Minoans. I vaguely recognized some of the names, but being an advertising major in college and a product of the California public school system meant that I came up pretty darn short in the history of the world department.
I ran my fingers over the books as I read the bindings, hoping that one might jump out at me, and it did: a thick black leather book. I plucked it from the shelf and immediately felt the energy oozing from its pages.
It had to weigh over ten pounds, so I lugged it over to the armchair and sat, opening the enormous thing on my lap. I thumbed through the pages written in a language I didn’t recognize. However, toward the back half of the book, where the ink appeared to be fresher, the words were in English.
Lot #655. Cardamom from the garden of Partavi.
Origin: Parvati Temple at Khajuraho, India
Characteristics: aphrodisiac. 1/8 tspn administered orally = one day of effect
Lot #245. Chalice, Gold
Origin: unknown
Characteristics: produces a sense of intoxication even when filled with water
The lists went on and on. Some of the items had been crossed out with a name written beside it. I could only assume it meant that the items had been traded away for something else.
So this is King’s catalog for all the junk downstairs. I wished I had more time because I could only imagine what all of that strange and powerful stuff actually did.
My head started to pound as it did when my realities—the old versus the new—were at odds. What was my mind fighting with? I didn’t know, but the agonizing storm inside my brain was enough to make me want to fall over.
I stumbled my way to the couch and lay face down, cupping my face in my hands. Go away. Go away. But the pain only increased. My head felt like it might explode. “What’s the matter with you?” I screamed at myself. I rolled over and hit the floor, landing on my back. Red, black, blue. The colors bombarded my head, and I wailed in agony.
Was this King’s doing somehow? His last hurrah? Watching me suffer? “Ahhh. Please stop,” I cried, the tears pouring down my face.
Just then, I noticed a tan, leather-bound book sitting innocently on the floor underneath the coffee table. And just like that, the pain stopped.
Panting, I lay there for a moment staring at the ceiling and catching my breath. What the hell was happening? I felt like King was trying to connect with me, maneuver me from some distant location, although I knew it couldn’t be possible. Could it? Then why did I still feel like that rat being pushed through the maze? Finding the key, then the ring, and this room?
And now, this book? “Is this it?” I asked the empty space in the room. “Is this what you wanted me to find?”
~~
I see his pale gray eyes watching me through the crowded market, and I know I should look away, but I cannot. I have watched him since we were children playing together in the ocean while our fathers fished together.
My younger sister, Charis, catches me staring and thrusts her elbow into my ribs. “Hagne, you are marrying his brother. Look away.”
But I cannot. I have forever dreamed of belonging to Callias, lighting candles and reciting my words of power for as long as I can remember. Why did the gods not grant my wishes? Why? Because to marry Draco is death to my soul, to my heart.
Charis reminds me that I am lucky to be wanted at all, that our family serves Draco’s. We are Seers. They are chosen by the gods to rule us.
“Seers?” I whispered aloud.
“What the fuck is this?” a deep voice mumbled.
I glanced up at Mack hunching over in the open doorway just as he fell over.
CHAPTER FOUR
I helped a very weak, yet still conscious, Mack up off the floor and over to the couch. His face was bruised, his lower lip was puffy and split in two spots, and his clothes were torn in several places.
“What happened to you?” I asked, trying not to panic.
He rolled onto his back, groaning, his arms doubled at the waist.
“Okay. Don’t move. I’ll…” Dammit. I didn’t know what to do. “Get you some ice.”
I scuttled over to the kitchen and found a towel in a drawer. I pulled some ice from the freezer and bundled it up.
Mack winced when I placed it on his brow.
“Mack, who did this to you?”
“Talia,” he groaned.
“What? How? Why?” I moved the ice to his swollen lip.
“Because she’s fucking psycho, and I turned her down.”
He wasn’t making any sense. “Turned her down for what? Where were you?”
“She caught me leaving Anna’s hotel room.”
I was completely lost. “Anna? Who’s Anna?”
He groaned. “You met her at the 10 Club party. She was with Talia.”
I did remember her. She looked like Talia’s plastic surgery twin. “Is that who you went to see? Anna?”
He nodded. “She’s here in San Francisco with Talia.”
Well, I guess that’s what Mack didn’t want to tell me. Because I wouldn’t have let him go. Talia and Anna were friends. So why did he think he could go to Anna for help, let alone trust her? Idiot! Look what that got you. But…wait.
“Mack, you’re trying to tell me that Talia, who weighs a hundred pounds, beat the crap out of you?”
“Ahhhh…” he groaned. “I think she broke my rib.”
“Did she have a baseball bat?” I couldn’t comprehend how that anorexic twig had done this.
“No,” he grunted. “With her fists. She’s really strong—a spell she acquired from King.” He rolled to his other side. “Ahhh…I think she fractured my arm, too.”
I blinked. Okay…I made a mental note to be more respectful of Talia next time our paths crossed and to look up that “ability” in King’s catalog later.
“I think we should get you to the hospital,” I said.
“There’s no time,” he grunted. “Get the paper from my back pocket. I can’t reach it.”
He maneuvered himself a little to give me access. “No groping,” he said.
I smiled. At least he was feeling well enough to crack jokes. “You caught me.” I carefully slid my hand inside and pulled out a letter. I unfolded the sheet of paper and skimmed it. “Is this what I think it is?”
Mack nodded. “Yes.”
It was the list of King’s outstanding deals with the 10 Club members. “How did you get this?” Or more importantly, what was he forced to trade for it?
“Anna got it for me.”
“And?” I asked.
“And nothing.”
“Mack, what deal did you make to get this?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled with his eyes closed.
“Does she know King is missing?”
“She suspects, but part of the deal was that she wouldn’t say anything as long as you and I take out Talia.”
I blinked. “Huh? Did you say ‘take out’?”
“Yes,” he groaned.
“But aren’t they friends?” Why was this so confusing?
“Anna hates Talia. It’s a competitive thing.” Mack wrestled his way upright and opened his bloodshot eyes. “Keep your enemies close.”
“What a psycho,” I mumbled.
“I told you this wouldn’t be easy.”
“She really
“Yes. And I agreed. It’s a done deal.”
Oh crap. Mack was serious.
I blew out a breath. Kill. I have to kill someone. Me, Mia Turner.
“Don’t feel bad, Mia. She’s a piece of shit, not a human being.”
“But to kill—”
“She’s a monster,” he whispered. “She’s hurt hundreds of people. Nice people. Because she’s obsessed with staying young, and she takes people’s lives to do it.”
I shook my head in disgust. “How?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s either her or us.”
“I just wish we’d had the chance to discuss this. Killing someone, even a bad person, isn’t something I think I can do just to get a list.”
“No, killing Talia is the price for Anna’s silence. Getting the list cost me something else.”
“What?”
He winced and looked away, ashamed.
I cringed. Oh no! He didn’t. It was starting to make a little more sense. Talia spotted Mack leaving Anna’s hotel room. Talia was competitive. Talia propositioned Mack, and he turned her down. “You had sex with Anna, didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t that bad. I’m just not into sadistic, one-hundred-year-old women.”
“Anna is a hundred?”
“Give or take a decade.”
I couldn’t believe it. The woman only appeared to be…well, I wasn’t sure. Like Talia, she looked like one of those women from the tabloids who’d way overdone it with the plastic surgery, then piled on five pounds of makeup over that train wreck she called her face. But she didn’t look a hundred. Maybe fifty pretending to be twenty.
“Talia is a hundred and five,” Mack added.
“Okay. I’m officially impressed and disgusted.” The hundred-year-old surgery twins moved to the top of my “most creepy people alive” list.
Mack coughed. “Read the list. We don’t have much time.”
“Um…well, the first name on the list is Talia. She claims that King agreed to give her a youth serum in exchange for loaning her tracker for two weeks.” That was actually a deal that Mack put together while at the 10 Club party, so I was aware of it. “The next one is Vaughn. He says that King agreed to give…” I swallowed, “a young woman of unique abilities in exchange for an item of unknown power referred to as the Artifact.” My eyes snapped up from the paper. “Okay. Know any women of ‘unique’ abilities besides me?” I asked facetiously.
“That would want to become Vaughn’s next victim? No. But even if I did, Vaughn wants you. And he’ll be first in line if King’s property is confiscated.”
Dammit. These people were so warped, which reminded me that I still needed to find their infamous rules. Perhaps something in them could help me get out of this. If only King hadn’t kept me in the dark about all this stuff.
“Mack? Is it true that this “K” on my wrist means more than just being King’s property?”
Mack’s anguished face turned a sad shade of red. “What else is on the list?”
“Mack,” I warned, “don’t change subjects. My brother said it means that King claimed me as his…” I didn’t know what word to use, “wife or something?”
“Or something,” Mack said.
“Why did you lie to me?”
“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you everything.” Mack winced again, followed by a groan. “I’m sorry. King ordered me not to say anything.”
“Why? And are you sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?”
“You’ll have to ask him that. And no, I’ll be fine.”
If Mack wasn’t so injured, I might have belted him in the stomach for keeping this from me. However, part of me wasn’t surprised. Mack was extremely loyal to King. He’d do anything for the man.
You’d better remember that, Mia.
“Do you, at least, know why he picked me?” I asked.
“Mia, stop asking questions you know I can’t answer.” Mack glanced away and sighed; then I did the same.
Bottom line, Mack would never betray King. Not for me. Not for anyone. “Fine, but I’m warning you, if we fix this mess and find King, I’m not staying with him, Mack. You better not get in my way.”
He nodded quietly, not agreeing or disagreeing, but understanding what I was saying. “So, the list?”
I returned to the piece of paper in my hand. “A person by the name of Strong says that King has not delivered on a…” I had to read the words twice. “A hand?”
Mack groaned, but this time out of frustration. “Dammit. I forgot about that one. King mentioned the deal but told me he’d take care of it himself. This is the tenth one in two months.”
Crap. “Tenth hand? This is a regular request?”
“The people aren’t alive.”
I cringed. I knew that was supposed to make it better, but it didn’t for some reason. Probably because I imagined a rotting, boney hand. “Dead people’s hands. How lovely. And he wants dead hands because…?”
“Do you remember those powerbrokers you saw at the party?”
“How could I forget them?” I recalled seeing a large group of well-dressed people gathered around a congressman. That was when Mack had explained how each member of 10 Club—and there were many—had particular interests. Some wanted power, some were into women—rare, high-end women—some were into the occult, like King. The members all traded with each other to get things they wanted.
“A person’s hand,” Mack explained in a quiet voice, slightly above a whisper, “holds memories in the muscles. Generally, people are after particular hands that have written very particular things—secrets, letters, codes. Sometimes they use the hands to forge documents.”
“You’re serious?”
Mack nodded. “Yes. And I have no idea how King makes the hands work. I just pick them up.”
I blinked again. “You get the hands? From the bodies?”
“Mia.” He gave me an annoyed look as if trying to say, “Don’t mess with me.”
“Sorry. I know. I know.” It was just not the sort of thing I expected to hear, but thank goodness the hands were from already dead people.
“So what’s next?” I asked.
Mack looked like he was fighting some serious agony. “We have to get the serum for Talia and poison it. That needs to be done first. The serum is downstairs, and I’m sure there’s some poison in his arsenal, too.” Mack began pushing himself up, wincing and moaning. “I’ll go get the hand.”
I popped up from the couch. “You can’t leave. If you won’t go to a doctor, you at least need to rest.”
“I’ve been in worse shape.” He steadied himself on his feet. “Besides, you can’t go. It’s Vaughn’s hand they want.”
I covered my mouth. “Oh my God. You can’t be serious.”
He shot me a look.
He was serious! “You’re not going to try to go after Vaughn, are you?” Especially like this. It was a complete death wish.
“No. I’m going after that arm he lost. Vaughn is the sort of man who’d keep it, probably as a revenge memento.”
Ewww. I could actually see him doing that. He probably petted it and took it out for walks. The guy was seriously messed up. “Where would he put it?”
“I’ve heard from other members that he has a trophy case, a giant freezer.”
My heart cramped as the visual popped into my head. Vaughn—that fucking sick bastard—liked to collect people, mostly women, and then hurt them. He probably kept his favorites like some horrific game hunter would keep an animal’s head or antlers.
“I’m going to ask Miranda to get it for us.”
“Miranda?” I asked. “The psycho bitch King helped you get away from?”
He nodded yes.
Oh no. This just kept getting worse. Miranda was Mack’s previous “owner.”
“Why would psycho-bitch Miranda have access to Vaughn’s trophy freezer?” I asked. “And why in the world would you ask her for any favors?”
“Miranda is Vaughn’s wife.”
Holy crap. “And you used to be her ‘property’?” No wonder Mack hadn’t really flinched at sleeping with Anna. I was about to ask Mack if he had to…to…with…Vaughn, Miranda’s husband. Oh no. I can’t even think about it, let alone ask the question.
“They’ve been separated for about ten years,” Mack mumbled, “but they still maintain a relationship; they’re both active members in the Club.”
“You can’t go back to her.” I grabbed Mack’s arm, and he yelped. “Oh, sorry.”
“She hates Vaughn. She’ll help me for the right price.”
I couldn’t believe this. Mack was actually serious. He was leaving. “What are you going to trade?” I hoped that it wouldn’t be sex.
“Vaughn’s head.”
“What the hell?” I blurted out.
He glanced at me, and this was one of those moments when I could clearly see the other side of Mack—his deadly side. This was when I understood why he’d found a home in King’s employ.
“Mia, let me be frank. We’re not going to be able to fulfill King’s debt to Vaughn, and he knows it. So this is only going to end one of two ways: Vaughn wins, and we die. Or we win, and Vaughn dies. There are no other possible outcomes. None.”
“But now we are up to killing two people to survive.” I just couldn’t believe this was the only way. Because like it or not, I did believe in souls. I’d now seen evidence of their existence with my own eyes. And now I knew that something bigger than all of us existed out there in the universe. I didn’t want to tarnish my soul by taking another life, even a life that deserved taking.
Mack stepped toward me, reached for my hand, and held it tightly. “If Vaughn has taken King, he won’t give him up willingly. Vaughn has to die. But don’t worry. I won’t make you do the dirty deeds. I’m going to hell anyway.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Even if I’ve changed who I am, I can’t erase the past. I did things that can never be forgiven.”
I stared into his big blue eyes. “No one is beyond redemption, Mack. No one.”
He smiled. “Trust me. Some people are.” He shrugged. “Look at it this way, at least my past now serves a purpose: I can take a bad person’s life without worrying about the consequences. And…I can save you.”