“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.
“Whatthefuck?” 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.
“What’s happening?” I said loudly over the noise.
“The spirits are unhappy. They don’t want to let Mack through.”
I guessed if anyone would know that, it would be an ex-ghost. “What do we do?”
King mashed his lips together, and then his eyes locked on me. “Come here. Give me your hands.”
I didn’t want to because I knew I couldn’t trust this man, despite his now being healed. He was still ruled by a moral compass entirely his own, and loyalty to his blood was top priority.
“I give you my word; I won’t harm you. Yet.”
Damn that man. Always reading my thoughts.
“Fine.” I stepped around the circle and held out my hands.
“Very good,” King said. “Now, I want you to focus on your gift and try to move that light through me.”
“It didn’t work the last time!” I yelled over the growing hisses and whipping wind.
“The healing is not for me,” he explained. “I believe they’re upset. They don’t understand why it can’t be their turn.”