The Dead King

by Pamfiloff, Mimi Jean

  My blood turned ice cold, and I stepped back. This was a turn I never saw coming. “Why? Why would you form something so fucked up?”

  “Perhaps someday, when I have a few thousand years to explain, I will. In the meantime, you’ll have to take my word for it; I believed I was doing the world a favor.”

  “How the hell would that be considered a favor?”

  “Evil exists everywhere. It always has and always will. If given the choice, Jeni, knowing you could never rid the world of such dangers, would you rather be at the helm—controlling them, sabotaging them, reining them in—or would you prefer to be standing right where you are? A victim. A life altered forever. No justice for your mother.”

  “I understand your point, but I don’t think it’s possible to surround yourself with those kinds of people and not come out unscathed.”

  “And you would be correct, little Seer—an error on my part that has cost me everything. It has cost you, too, and now they must pay.”

  I still wondered what had happened between him and these club members. They’d gone after his family.

  “It is not important,” he replied to my thoughts. “What matters is putting an end to Ten Club, and with that, you will finally have your justice.”

  Honestly, if King wasn’t the devil, he should be. The man was very adept at the art of persuasion, to a point where something you would never do, never consider, suddenly sounded like your only choice. In short, he was asking me to help kill these people, and now, I sorta wanted to.

  “I’m not saying I agree, because I would need proof, absolute proof, of everything you’re telling me; but if this is all true, how could I possibly help you end Ten Club?”

  He flashed a devilish smile. “A welcome-back party, of course. I would seal them in, and you would summon death.”

  That sounded too easy.

  “Trust me, it won’t be. The members are powerful and naturally suspicious, especially when their leader returns with scores to settle. But that is why you are so very important, Jeni. They would never see you coming. Not in a thousand years. It is the only way to go at such a cunning group of people who are on their guard with more than fists and guns. So you see, it was fate that brought me to you.” He stepped in closer, and the air grew colder, circulating around us. His delicious spicy scent filled my lungs. “I knew it before I had my memories back, and I know it now. So do you. You have felt the pull.”

  “I did. I mean, I do, but—”

  “No buts. You were born to set things right, Jeni. Ten Club is a monster I never should have created.”

  It was a lot to take in. Him. The mere existence of Ten Club. My mother’s killer being a member. King’s family murdered. Terrible. Awful. He still hadn’t told me why they were killed, but I imagined King’s “monster” turned on him somehow. Wasn’t that always what happened? Cartels, the mob, gangs, corrupt political groups—sooner or later, the leaders were eaten up by their own people. Power was just too tempting to be left alone or shared, like a wicked cherry on top of a sick sundae. Power seduced and corrupted.

  Not me. I would never want that sort of influence, mostly because I didn’t want to end up in a metal box. Speaking of, “And what about the person who threw you in the ocean? Will he or she be at this ‘party’?”

  “He will be there. So do we have a deal?” Still with the small wooden box in his hand, King stared for a long moment. I felt him digging around inside my mind. He wanted to gauge how I felt.

  “You won’t find anything because I honestly don’t have an answer for you, Jack—”

  “King.”

  “Sorry. King. I need time to think.”

  “Preparations will require a few days. You may use the time to come to grips with what you must do.”

  My compliance was not a forgone conclusion. “Whatever. I’m going to Florida. Alone. I need space.”

  “My private jet will take you.”

  Ah yes. The plane he’d mention earlier. I still couldn’t get over the contrast. Jack had nothing. King had everything.

  “You have it backwards, Miss Arnold. Jack was much better off. I’ll have a car meet you at the airport in Tallahassee to take you home. Just one last thing before you go.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll need your wrist for a moment.” He raised his hand, and I felt my body falling. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I heard the gurgles of those heads pleading for death. I felt King holding my wrist, burning me with something.

  When I finally came to, my vision was blurry, and a loud hum filled my ears.

  I slowly sat up, alone on an airplane. In the seat next to me, a note waited on top of my brown purse.

  I unfolded it, experiencing something between disorientation and bitter anger.

  Dear Miss Arnold,

  I will retrieve you at your father’s home in two days. The money is for him, should you not return from the party. And do not think of running. You belong to me now. It is for your own good. Show the tattoo to anyone from Ten Club who attempts to claim you as property.

  – K

  Tattoo? I rotated my wrist, finding red raised flesh and an elaborate K etched into my skin.

  “That sonofabitch!” He had no right to defile my body. I’m going to find him and tattoo “asshole” on his forehead.

  I opened my purse and found bundles of hundred-dollar bills. There had to be at least fifty thousand dollars there.

  I shoved the money back in my bag and pressed the heels of my hands over my eyes. My brain was throbbing, my wrist was burning, and fuck if I knew who was flying this plane.

  It’d better not be one of those damned heads.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Turned out that the pilot was an actual person with a body and head, though the head didn’t speak English. That or he’d been told not to talk to me and was faking a language barrier. I went with the former, however; from what I gathered, the pilot, who looked to be in his sixties, seemed as equally messed up over his boss’s resurrection. He kept waving his hands and yelling something that sounded like Necrose! Necrose vasiyas!

  According to Google translate, I thought it meant “dead king” in Greek. Nekrós vasiliás. So the pilot was Greek. And he hadn’t been expecting King to come knocking. His dead king.

  This was insane.

  After I confirmed we were heading to Tallahassee, I went back to one of the ten seats and kicked off a giant emotional stress dump. I cried and I cried some more. When I was done, I got out my phone and started making notes—every tiny detail King had given me from the moment we’d met. With that, maybe I could do a little digging for answers. Who was he really? Was he telling the truth about Ten Club, or was I being manipulated for his benefit?

  I stared at the skeletal list of facts on my tiny screen and grunted out a few curses.

  I had nothing.

  I knew King could die and come back. I knew he used to live in a house that didn’t legally exist. He owned a giant warehouse of expensive horror movie props that weren’t props, and he was, hands down, the scariest motherfucker on the planet. Oh, and also the most beautiful.

  Goosebumps erupted on my neck and arms. I’d been avoiding thinking about last night—those searing hot kisses, his lean hard body moving over mine, the way he made me feel like I was his. It was an experience that went beyond sex and left my body pining for more. The taste of his lips, his heat, and the scent of his fresh sweat would forever be etched in my brain. Even now, I felt a carnal ache deep inside. Yes, Jack was gone, but he’d been replaced by something far more addictive.

  No. You can’t do this. I couldn’t let my twisted sexual needs sway my decision about helping him. I had to stick to the facts, or at least try to think this through logically.

  He was a powerful man hell-bent on revenge. He’d lost his wife and children. How? By whose hand exactly? And why had they been murdered? I didn’t know, but he believed this Ten Club was to blame. If the organization protected the man who murdered my mother,
I wanted justice, too. But to find out that King was part of it? That he led this group of evil, depraved fucks? It was a lot to swallow.

  Fucking hell, King. I slid my hand over the K on my wrist. I knew I should walk away, but I couldn’t. I’d felt the pull from the first moment we met, just like he said.

  As I sat there, thinking about it—the path that led him to me—the tattoo started to tingle against my palm, and my mind began drifting. No, not drifting. Falling. Like a bird shot down from the sky.

  In the space of a heartbeat, I was somewhere else. All around me were tiers of stone benches under the glaring hot sun. The smell of salt, ocean, and coppery blood filled my nostrils. I was surrounded by hundreds of cheering people dressed in burlap—some red, some blue, some brown—belted at the waist or adorned with scraps of leather or seashells.

  Ohmygod. What’s happening? My gaze fell to the dirt of the arena’s floor beneath my feet. In my hand, I held a bloody head. In the other, I held a sword.

  I blinked and found myself staring aimlessly at the seat back in front of me, the sound of jet engines whirring in my head.

  Panting, I stood in the aisle and doubled over, planting my palms above my knees. That wasn’t real. That wasn’t real. But the ache in my head and the itching in my skull told me I had just been inside King’s head.

  I stood upright and placed my palm over the K again. The skin tingled, and I felt the falling sensation once more.

  What the hell? Whatever this tattoo was made of, it appeared to connect us. So if that gruesome scene had come from him, did it mean what I thought? He’d said something about needing a few thousand years to explain how he’d become the founder of Ten Club. I thought he’d meant it metaphorically.

  I took my seat and combed my fingers through my hair. Not a metaphor, Jeni. Real. King was possibly thousands of years old, which meant he might actually be a real king.

  After we landed at a private airport outside Tallahassee, I found another older gentleman—lanky with a silver buzz cut—waiting for me by the security area. And when I opened my mouth to ask how he knew King, the man simply held up his palm.

  “Don’t bother with the questions,” he said with a hint of an accent. Greek perhaps. “I’m here to drive you wherever you need to go. That’s it.”

  I scowled. What I needed were facts because my quicksand of reality was quickly becoming flypaper. A sticky death trap.

  After a thirty-minute drive, our shiny black sedan pulled up to my house. The front lawn had been mowed, the weeds were gone, and the trees had been pruned. It even looked like the windows had been cleaned.

  Had my dad done all this?

  “Thanks for the ride, um—sorry, what’s your name?”

  He turned around and handed me a card. “Mr. Spiros. Call this number if you wish to go anywhere. I won’t be far.”

  Another Spiros. Okay. I frowned. Not offended, just confused. I wasn’t sure if King wanted this guy to protect me or keep an eye on me. Both maybe. I was, after all, a Ten Club “collectable” according to him. I was also King’s presumed secret weapon.

  “Thank you.” I offered a polite smile and exited the vehicle.

  As I approached my house, I noticed how different the place felt. Like someone who gave a shit lived here.

  “Hey, I’m home!” I walked in the front door, noticing a pine scent in the air, and tossed my duffel bag and purse on the couch in the living room. “Hello?”

  “Jeni!” Dad called out from somewhere toward the back of the house.

  I found him in the laundry room just off the kitchen next to the back door. He was whistling, folding towels, and looking damned cheery about it, too. Nobody ever looked cheery about laundry.

  “How was the trip?”

  “Um, yeah. It was fun,” I lied. There were two living heads in a jar, so there was that.

  “Did you do any sightseeing?”

  I saw a lot of things. None of them I cared to think about. “A little. It rained most of the time.”

  “Ah. That’s a shame.”

  I glanced at the ring on dad’s index finger as he folded a dishtowel and set it on top of the dryer. “Maybe you’ll have better luck next visit.”

  “Sure. Maybe. Hey, I was wondering, where’d you get that ring? It’s really unique.”

  Dad lifted his hand and inspected his finger. “I found it in the backyard. Musta been there for decades. I was thinking of getting it appraised, but I kinda like it.” He rotated his wrist, looking at it from both sides.

  So King had planted fake memories in his head. I wondered how that trick worked. Could he get me to remember things that hadn’t happened, too?

  “Then you should keep it.” I had to wonder, though, if sooner or later King would want the ring back. Not if we both die, carrying out his mass execution. First, I had to figure out if I could trust King. Was he using me in some sort of revenge slash power grab, or was he telling me the truth about ridding the world of his “monster”?

  “Dad? Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “The man who killed Mom, did you ever see him after he was let go?”

  Dad stopped folding and turned to face me. “Why do you ask?”

  Because King said I should—to verify part of his story. “I don’t know. I just thought about that guy the other day, and it triggered an old memory. I was curious if it was real.”

  “Well, I don’t really like to talk about all that, but I never want to hide anything from you, honey.”

  I waited while he drew a deep breath.

  “He came to our house maybe a year after the incident.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “He was drunk. Ranting. Out of his mind.”

  “What did he want?”

  Dad shook his head of sandy blond hair, disgusted. “He claimed he wanted to make amends by taking you off my hands and caring for you—like I said, out of his mind. But I’m glad he showed up. I got to see how miserable and pathetic he was.” My father returned to folding, grabbing another towel from the dryer. “I realized he didn’t need to go to prison to be punished. Existing was torture enough for him.”

  I didn’t agree. Mostly because Victor was free, living a life of luxury and probably mowing down more innocent people. “But if you could’ve punished him some other way, if it had been your choice, would you have done it?”

  Dad paused for a moment and stared at the wall. “I think if it had been up to me, I would have him shot. But that’s not an option, so the next best thing is knowing he’s a piece of shit and will never be loved. He’ll never have a beautiful daughter who makes him proud and loves him. He’ll never know happiness. And from what I saw, that knowledge tormented him.”

  “But you don’t think he deserves to live. You think he should be dead.”

  My father turned his head and studied me for a moment. “Jeni, is there something you want to tell me? Did something happen?”

  What didn’t happen? “No. Um…Jack and I were talking about it, and the subject came up. You know—capital punishment, yea or nay. We’re still getting to know each other.”

  He smiled warmly. “I’m glad you found someone, honey. Jack seems like a really good guy.”

  Sure he does. I bet King planted that in my dad’s thoughts too.

  Dad added, “By the way, I was going to wait to tell you, but since you’re home early—I have a date tonight.”

  Date? He’d only been up and walking for a few days. “How’d you meet her?”

  “Funny. I was outside working on the yard, and she was walking her dog. We struck up a conversation, and she asked me to dinner.”

  “So she’s a neighbor? Which house?”

  He blinked. “Huh. I don’t actually know. I forgot to ask. She just said she’d swing by around eight.”

  “Did you get her number?”

  He gave me a strange look and then laughed. “No, I suppose I forgot that too.” He shook his head at himself.

  Something
didn’t feel right. A strange woman just showed up, asked him out, and he didn’t know anything about her.

  “Her name is Serina. Didn’t get her last name, though.” He leaned in a little, like he was going to tell me a secret. “I think she might be a little older than I like, but I can’t remember the last time a woman chased after me.”

  “Dad, I don’t know if you should go. It sounds kinda sketchy.”

  He grabbed his pile of towels. “I think someone’s worried that they’ll have to share my attention.” He chuckled and left.

  I groaned. He had no idea what was going on behind the scenes. I would definitely have to stick around and take a look at this woman.

  First, a nap though. I was running on empty after last night and the long flight home. I needed a fresh brain to figure out my next steps. Help King or cut ties—if I could find a way to resist him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  When I woke, it was pitch black outside and my clock read nine forty. I groaned and rubbed my tired eyes. I must’ve needed the rest because I only remembered lying down for a quick nap.

  Wait. Nine forty? I hopped from bed and jerked open my bedroom door. “Dad! Dad! Are you here?”

  I checked his room, the kitchen, and living room. He was gone. I hadn’t gotten a chance to meet that woman.

  I opened the front door and spotted that black shiny sedan parked on the street out front. It was the Spiros guy.

  I ran across the freshly mowed lawn and waved my arms to get his attention.

  He lowered the window. “Do you need to go somewhere?”

  “No. But did you see my dad leave?”

  “He went out a while ago.”

  “Did you get a look at her? Did he say where he was going?”

  Spiros gave me an odd look. “I did not get the opportunity to converse with him about his itinerary. As for the woman, she was blonde and thin. Oh. And she carried a large red purse.”

  My blood pressure dropped. That could’ve been her, the blonde woman. “Did she come to the front door?”