Mack (King #4)(51)

King smiled in a sinister sort of way. “Something like that.”

“So why did Mack want to be buried here?”

King’s smile faded.

“Tell me,” I prodded.

We pulled up to the rickety shack, and King turned off the engine. “Because he wanted to be with you. We buried your bodies here—a few anyway.”

I blinked at him. Jeez. How morbid. And why did you even care where my body went?

King stared ahead, his eyes locked on the cabin, though he clearly wasn’t looking at it.

I waited. “Why, King?”

“Because this place is where souls who die with honor are laid to rest.”

I stared at the side of his face, unable to truly believe what this man had just said. “But you hunted me. You ruthlessly murdered me.”

He cleared his throat. “I did what I had to do to keep my brother alive. And I would do it again. But that doesn’t mean I discounted the love he had for you.”

I looked away and my eyes followed a little dust devil spinning next to my door. This was possibly the strangest confession I’d ever heard. King had ended my life and then taken great care to bury me somewhere he clearly felt was special.

“Errr. Thanks. That was very thoughtful of you. In a very cold-blooded kind of way.”

“Don’t mention it.” King nodded but didn’t look at me. Regardless, the torment in his eyes was obvious. “Let us get to work.” He opened the car door.

“Wait!”

King had already gotten out, so he bent over and looked at me through the open driver door.

“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t watch you dig him up.” The thought of looking at his pale, lifeless face was too much.

“I understand. I will return shortly.” He closed the door, and I watched that tall frame—now dressed in black jeans and a thin black sweater—disappear behind the cabin. From where I sat, yes, still wearing my stupid Vegas sweater, I saw nothing but a plain dirt field with rolling hills off in the distance. My guess was that there was a cemetery back there that could only be seen by certain people. Kind of like the inside of that cabin.

This place is so freaking weird.

Over a half an hour passed until King returned, the sleeves of his black sweater pushed up and his jeans covered in dirt. The icy look on his exotically sculpted face, a face I still saw as Mack’s, was undecipherable.

I popped open my door and hopped out. “Did he have it?” I asked anxiously.

King nodded his head of thick black hair.

“Yes!” I slammed the car door and did a little celebratory air box. We were going to get Mack back. But what’s with Mr. Dark and Dreary over there?

“Please, don’t tell me you have bad news,” I said.

King shook his head, and that was when I noticed deep blues shedding off him as if he were melting.

“Whatthef*ck?” I whispered under my breath.

King ignored me. “Come. I have him wrapped in cloth. We can perform the ceremony outside behind the cabin. Please grab the cooler from the trunk. It’s underneath Mack’s duffel bag.”

Cooler. There’s a cooler of…Don’t think about it! “You need to consider changing your profession, King. This is just not right.”

He dipped his head. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, Miss Valentine.” He disappeared behind the cabin once again, and I went to pop the trunk. Of course, I had to snoop in the bag.

I unzipped the thing and found clean clothes. It was a touchingly sweet thing to do, bringing fresh clothes for his brother. It was a sign of how much he cared.

I shoved the clothes back inside and zipped up the bag, going for the…the…cooler of…

Supplies. They are just supplies. What sort of people were these Incas that they’d make this blood part of the—

Any day now, Miss Valentine, I heard King’s voice resonate inside my brain.

I blew out a breath, prepared for anything. Okay, that was a lie. I wasn’t prepared for this at all.

~~~

Like before, King created a circle of blood with little symbols around it. Only now I realized that it wasn’t some satanic circle of resurrection, but a compass or a sundial meant to properly orient the chalice.

“So it’s like a combination lock,” I said aloud, completely fascinated.

“Precisely,” King said, once again down on his knees, fine-tuning the strange etching on the side of the chalice, which wasn’t really what I would call a holy grail or anything of the sort. It looked like a miniature wineglass made of metal.

Mack’s body was only a few feet away, wrapped in a white sheet. I could barely breathe anytime I looked at it. Truthfully, I could understand why I would heal myself and wipe away my memories. Some things were simply too painful to live with for an eternity, and watching Mack die was one of them. I guessed that was part of the reason he didn’t want to stick around either. He’d had to watch me go more than once and several of those times by his brother’s hand. Yet, he always remained loyal to King, despite all of the horrific things he’d done while cursed. Maybe because Mack was in no position to throw stones. And his heart was just really, really big.

King rose, dusting off his hands. “All right. It’s ready.”

I handed him the cooler, and he repeated the same bizarre ritual as before with the blood, the necklace, and the chanting. But this time, something different happened. The sky above us turned a deep purple and the wind kicked up, filling the air around us with several hissing dust devils.