"Victor, stop!" I shouted, still invisible. Joseph tried to follow the sound of my voice but failed miserably. I kept moving to make it difficult. It was strange being in a room full of people and naked, but I had to remind myself they couldn't see me.
"Cass, you are alive?" Victor said.
"Yes, Victor. Don't kill Sylvia," I said. "She's not worth it."
He released her, and she fell to the floor with a thump, coughing.
In a raspy voice, she said, "How are you alive?"
"Surely this man is worthy of killing," Victor said, as he turned and faced Joseph.
"Yep, go for it," Jake said.
"That was a joke, right?" I asked, genuinely unsure.
Joseph's whole body trembled. His eyes darted back and forth, as if he were trying to see Jake and me. Then he bolted to the door.
"If you say so," Victor said in a morose tone. He followed Joseph to the door.
Joseph threw open the door and took off. I grabbed all of my and Jake's clothes and stuffed them into Sylvia's bag on the floor, with her laptop inside. I snatched it up and gave it to Victor.
Sylvia continued to cough, attempting to breathe.
"Maybe we can delete all the information on that serum," I said. "Can you track down her backups as well?"
"Of course, but it will have to wait," Victor said. "We haven't got much time; Joseph will return with more OCEI. They were dismissed because Sylvia was certain you were both dead."
"How do we get out?" Jake asked.
"Follow me," Victor said. "Now that my memory has been restored, I have the entire blueprint of this building. Oh, and I have disabled the GPS tracking and monitoring software. They won't be able to find me or spy through me again."
"Good." I felt around for Jake's hand—with us both invisible, it made sense to know where he was. I brushed his arm, and he guided my hand down to his, intertwining his fingers through mine. "Now let's get the hell out of here."
Epilogue
Only the two OCEI henchmen guarding the exit suffered injuries in trying to stop us, as Victor shoved them both so hard out of the way, they flew into the adjacent wall.
In the parking lot, I stole one of the cars. Victor took exactly 5 seconds to access and read everything on the internet about driving. He drove us out of there, while Jake and I got dressed in the back seat. Once our clothes were on, we became visible again.
Jake suggested we both choose different identities for now, just to be safe. He explained that in order to shift into someone, I had to have touched them first. I picked Stacey, that amazing personal assistant from Dynatech, only because she was the first thing to pop up in my head, and she was at least 800 miles away, so it was a safe bet I wouldn't run into her. Jake shifted into this body builder super scary looking dude. His clothes actually fit snugly.
We drove back to my beater car, and the place where we were taken. Once I was able to get on my laptop, Victor assisted me in wiping out all traces of the serum and Holmes, not only from Sylvia's computer, but also from the Genitech network. Victor investigated Sylvia's accounts and found the off-site storage backup company she used, and then hacked his way into their systems to delete everything there, too. I didn't know that it would stop what happened in the videos entirely, but I was sure we at least slowed the bad guys down.
We left the stolen car there and piled into my beater car. I got into the driver's seat, while Victor got in the back seat behind me and Jake sat in the front seat next to me.
"You have impeccable taste in vehicles," he said, his voice dripping in sarcasm. "I feel sorry for the person you stole this from."
"I didn't steal it!" I yelled. "God, you really do think I'm a criminal."
"It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world." The knowing grin that surfaced on his face led me to believe there was something more to that statement. And then it occurred to me that my powers weren't the only powers well-suited for criminality.
"Jake, what is it you do for a living, anyway?"
"Wouldn't you like to know..." He took hold of my free hand and kissed it.
I fired up the car, convinced I'd have to coax that answer out of him later, probably when we were both naked again. It made sense for us to stick together; we were all on the radar for both Genitech and the OCEI. I thought about disappearing somewhere else, but that didn't work for me. My home was in New Jersey, and I wasn't about to leave, even for murdering, genocidal assholes hell-bent on taking me out.
"You should stay with us," I said to Jake. "It'll be safer, if they're still after us."
"Is that the only reason?" he asked, with a flirty little smile on his lips.
"You know it isn't. It just sounds crazy to say, 'I love you' and 'Move in with me' on the same day."
"It does. For anybody else, it would be." The sweet smile on his face made me melt. "But only if Frog can come too."
I remembered his adorable dog. "Absolutely! I can't wait to see her again." Jake gave me directions to his hotel, which was only thirty minutes away from my house.
Victor leaned forward. "Do you think it's safe to return to your house, Cass?"
"Pfft!" I said confidently, and then added, "No, it probably isn't. Can you research the best security company and make arrangements, Victor? We'll hire a dozen guards if we have to."
Jake looked at me, his eyes huge. "What is it you do for a living?"
I laughed. "Let's just say, money isn't a concern."
"Oookay." A wicked grin surfaced. "Is it wrong to say that I find you even more desirable now?"
I smiled the sexy, confident smile only an IT geek worth millions could pull off. Victor rattled off the name of a security company, and then handled setting up an appointment.
At the hotel, Frog was overjoyed to see us. She took turns jumping on Jake then me. As Victor approached, she sniffed him, and then went back to jumping on Jake and me.
"She'll warm up to you, Victor," Jake said, as he crouched down to get on her level. She licked his face in a frenzy.
"It may be because I'm not human," Victor said. "I do not smell the same as you or Cass."
Victor held out his hand for her to sniff. She did so, and then nudged his hand as a sign to pet her.
"I knew it! She's a good judge of character," Jake said. He gathered up his things and the dog's things from the room and packed them in his car—the most gorgeous Mercedes I'd ever laid eyes on.
Now the comment about my little beater car made sense. "We are seriously discussing what you do for a living..." I muttered.
Jake went to the main hotel office to check out, so I took a second to check my voicemail. I'd been out of commission for a while, and although I didn't get many calls, I didn't want to miss any important client calls. I got one call, a solicitation to speak at an IT conference about programming languages of the future. I checked my email next and found one message from an unfamiliar sender. The address was [email protected], obviously a throwaway free email address.
* * *
I know who you are. What you can do.
And I'm coming to get you.
About Kat Stiles
Originally a Jersey girl, sunny Texas is where Kat now calls home, in a town called Wellington way up north in the panhandle. She writes superpowered urban fantasy that’s sexy, fun, and dark. For fun she likes to read urban fantasy, horror, and existentialist fiction, as well as watch cartoons, movies, and sometimes even cartoon movies. She tries not to take anything too seriously and tends to smile often.
To find out more about Kat and her novels, visit her website at www.katstiles.com.
The Poisoned Cup
By Kat Parrish
Poisoned Cup blurb: In the end, they blamed Guinevere for the downfall of a kingdom and the death of a king. Wed to Arthur but Lancelot’s lover, she was demonized and reviled for the tragic consequences of her betrayal. The story played out as a narrative of forbidden love and she was cast as the villain. That narrative was good for ratings and for selling newsp
apers, but it wasn’t anything like the truth. And despite all the words wasted by the media, spilling across pages and screens like so much black blood, the true story never came to light.
Until now.
Prologue
In the end, people blamed me for the fall of Camelot and the demise of the British monarchy. As if one woman could do in a thousand days what a thousand years of war, murder. Family feuds, and anti-royalist sentiment could not. Those who blamed me conveniently forgot that when Arthur took the throne, he inherited a kingdom already in disarray. The Brexit mess had weakened the economy, fractured the United Kingdom, and left his subjects demoralized and unhappy. They needed someone to blame for all of it, and they chose me for the scapegoat.
It wasn’t even personal.
Royals have always been a focus for “civilian” discontent, and in many cases, rightfully and understandably so. Royals are rich, after all, and therefore have no idea what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck or work more than one job just to be able to afford the basic necessities.
It grated on the public when a royal—usually some dotty dowager duchess—was praised for being “hard-working” when the work involved was mostly smiling pleasantly while listening to a boring speech about some issue of little practical concern to anyone outside the room. After all, no one wants to hear about the extinction of the skylark when their own jobs are in danger of disappearing even sooner.
And it doesn’t help that the royals are always so ubiquitously on display, with the press and the bloggers feverishly covering their every move, recording their every utterance, and memorializing their every fashion faux pas. And even then, in the face of nearly universal mockery, it took forever for the “fascinator” fad to die. I never could understand how a grown woman could wear something that looked like a toddler made it out of pipe cleaners and keep a straight face. Or sport one of those silly flat hats that are tilted at such an acute angle they look like tiny alien spaceships have just landed on the royal coif.
As a fashion designer myself, I always had problems with the overall royal “style,” but I never dragged anyone for it because I knew the women were stuck with all sorts of silly protocol, and not just practical rules like carrying purses in your left hand to keep your right free for handshakes and waves.
My best friend Suze, who is simultaneously fascinated and horrified by all things royal, used to send me links to articles like, “36 Unexpected Fashion Rules the Royal Family Must Follow.” It was a lot more amusing to read them before I was an actual member of the royal family.
Or as my cynical friend Jimi used to say, before I became “fresh meat.”
Tired of the boring, well-done hamburger of the royals they were used to, everyone pounced on me like I was a rare filet mignon. I couldn’t really say I wasn’t warned. It wasn’t like I didn’t know what I was getting into. I’d been around celebrity culture long enough to know how these narratives go. And “commoner marries the prince” is one of the most potent stories of all.
At first, people were charmed that a plucky American businesswoman had caught the eye of their favorite playboy prince. We were photographed everywhere we went—to the point where it began to seem like we were the twin leaders of some freakish cult. And that was the “honeymoon” phase. Soon enough, we all moved into the second phase.
Like a jealous mother, the British public had their notion of who a perfect mate for Arthur would be. Their stands were so exacting, there was no way a woman who could possibly live up to their expectations or be “good enough” for “their boy.”
They’d watched him and his older sister Anna grow up after all—seen him morph from a cheeky kid in short pants to a brooding teenager to a thoughtful adult who still enjoyed a bit of fun—and it felt like he was one of the family.
So long as the public thought I was just one of his girls du jour, everything was fine. But early on, royal watchers sensed that there was something different about our relationship, that it was more than serial hookups. And suddenly, a new narrative was born, one that cast me in the worst personal light.
I was body-shamed for wearing a size fourteen dress and size eight hoes, and criticized for coloring my hair, something I’d been doing since I was twelve and decided I wanted more fabulous hair than the lank dishwater brown I’d grown up with.
Then there were the snarky “intellectuals” who thought it would be amusing to mock my education, or lack thereof. I hadn’t gone to college because I was already working but over the years, I’d read a lot to fill in the blanks my schooling had left, and picked up a working knowledge of French, Italian, and Spanish to work with my suppliers and employees.
I was slammed for being part of the “landlord class” because I ran my own company. My bank accounts were hacked, and my financial details spread all over the tabloids with comments about how much I spent on travel, and comments about how large my carbon footprint was. I tried really hard not to take it personally, but the negativity was relentless.
So, I was the one everyone faulted. Nobody blamed Lancelot. Of course, they didn’t. Decades into the 21st century there was still that notion that “boys will be boys” and that bad behavior was just to be expected.
After Arthur was “off the market,” Lancelot became everyone’s favorite royal-adjacent bad boy. He combined the charisma of a movie star with the sexy athleticism of a soccer star, and there was that tinge of French in his accent that seemed to drive people wild. And not just the ladies.
And while he was a lot more than just a pretty face—so very much more than that—people were willing to forgive whatever sins he might have committed because he was Lancelot.
It was much easier to demonize me. I was pilloried as the instigator, not just a homewrecker but eventually a monarchy-wrecker as well.
It’s possible I could have outlived this reputation. After all, a real royal homewrecker had once become one of the most popular royals ever. It’s possible if I had any desire to return to England I could be rehabilitated too. But I can’t return to Camelot. Camelot is dead.
And the truth is, when you come right down to it, it really was my fault. Yes, Morgaine had a hand in it, and Mordred too, but in the end, it was me who handed Arthur the poisoned cup, it was my magic that went awry. I was the one who killed the dream.
Even now, remembering what happened is a feeling perilously close to drowning. I have to resurface in stages like a deep-sea diver, so I won’t get the emotional bends. And because memory is mutable, and unreliable, and fragile, I can no longer trust my own recollections.
And so, I have written this story to try to pin those memories down like butterflies, locking them in place even as they desperately try to change shape and fly away.
Others have told their version of the story and some of them have mentioned me.
Now it is my turn to tell my side.
This is what I remember. Make of it what you will. Judge me if you want. Pity me if you can. But take away the one truth that is not subject to the treachery of memory. I loved Arthur.
Chapter 1
I never wanted to be a princess. When other little girls were begging their mothers to buy them Cinderella and Jasmine costumes for Halloween, I was designing my own, copying garments I saw in art books and fairy tale illustrations, badgering my mother to help me put them together using an old Singer sewing machine she’d bought off eBay as a ninth birthday present for me.
When I got older, we’d go to thrift stores and buy outdated prom dresses and once-used wedding gowns and cut them apart for the fabric. We’d haunt garage sales and estate auctions looking for bits and bobs to embellish the dresses I designed. We once found an entire box of tiny, multi-colored mercury glass Christmas tree ornaments that we painstakingly sewed to the bodice of a red velvet dress I wore to a Christmas party at school.
Three different girls offered to buy it from me, and I sold it to the highest bidder after taking a picture of it for my portfolio. Even at twelve, I was thinking a
head.
My mother was an emergency room nurse who’d adopted me as a child and raised me as a single mother. Her workdays were filled with blood and pain, so she enjoyed the frivolity of my budding fashion career and enabled it and empowered me as much as she could. Because she spent her days in pastel green and blue “scrubs,” she loved dressing up and she became my first muse and model.
There were mishaps along the way, particularly before I got the hang of making my own patterns, but soon enough, I could reliably dream up a design and turn it into a finished garment in a matter of hours.
Long before I knew what “branding” was, I’d decided I’d name my fashion house “Chez Cherie” after my mother; and she went online and found someone on Fiverr to design a logo for me. Later, I would barter clothes for graphic design services, ordering up hang tags, shopping bags, and fabric labels I had printed at a funky little shop that was a neighborhood holdout struggling against Staples and FedEx office printing.
By the time I was fifteen I had my own online store; by the time I was twenty-one, I had an atelier in Los Angeles and an A-list clientele that included two Oscar winners, a rock goddess, a Congresswoman, and three Instagram influencers.
My designs were eclectic, retro, and lush. Think Janis Joplin in her velvet and pearls, Stevie Nicks in her leather and lace, Prince in his ruffles and metallics. I loved tissue lame and watered silk and chiffon and faux fur in jewel colors. And feathers. I loved feathers.
Beyoncé posed in one of my feathered dresses on the cover of Vanity Fair and liked it so much she bought it.
Venus Williams chose me to design her wedding gown as well as the matron of honor dress for Serena, which was anything but matronly. I designed for men as well as women. When Keanu Reeves won his supporting actor Oscar for his role in Mortal Thoughts, he accepted the statuette wearing a bespoke suit of my design. And he rocked it.
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