Seti's Heart (23 page)

“I already have him,” Setekh laughed. “I must compliment you on your choice of whores. He was most…accommodating.” Setekh’s hand slipped to caress his grotesque erection.

Damn, but Logan was getting tired of not only hearing himself referred to in third person, as if he didn’t warrant first person status, but of hearing himself called a whore. “Liar!” He managed to cry, still not at full volume, but loud enough to be heard. Don’t believe him, Seti, he thought, trying to gather his legs underneath him and stand up. He failed, sliding back down the wall into a heap. His body, exhausted, battered and bruised, had reached the boundary of its endurance.

Setekh’s head snapped toward him as if suddenly aware that Logan was still in the room. “Silence! You have reached the limits of your usefulness, human!” He took one angry step toward Logan before Seti bellowed a chilling warrior’s cry and lunged.

Logan gasped as Seti flew across the room, a sharp bone dagger in his upraised fist. “No, Seti!” he screamed, his throat constricting in protest. In horror, Logan watched Setekh tangle his fingers in Seti’s braids, lifting him in the air and flinging him away in one smooth movement.

Seti hit the floor and skidded across the rush matting, lying facedown and frighteningly still. He didn’t seem to be breathing. Logan felt an icy wave of fear and black desolation sweep over him. “You finally did it, didn’t you?” he spat at Setekh. “You finally killed him. And why? To sooth your fucking ego? Because he bruised your pride? You’re a fucking god – what more do you want? How much of a greedy bastard are you?”

Logan pushed off the wall, trying to stand again. Failing that, he began to crawl toward Seti’s still form, dragging himself painfully over the floor to his side. Setekh’s shadow loomed over him, and he felt Setekh’s hot, rancid breath on his back before Setekh’s claws dug painfully into his flesh, hauling him to his feet.

“I was going to allow you to live, little human – at least, until I had tired of you. Now your fate will be his!” Setekh roared.

Logan frantically pushed at Setekh’s arms, beating on them with his fists, kicking for all he was worth, trying to free himself as Setekh’s jaws opened wide, but it was no use. Scrunching his eyes shut, he held his breath and stilled, waiting for Setekh’s long jaws and jagged teeth to tear out his throat.

A heartbeat passed, then another. Still another, and yet Logan breathed and his head remained firmly attached to his body. Cracking open one eye, he looked at Setekh, bewildered, not daring to hope for a reprieve from the death sentence Setekh had laid on his head.

The expression on Setekh’s face was one of shock and pain. He dropped Logan, clutching at his shoulder where Seti had managed to plunge the cobra’s tooth before Setekh had thrown him across the room. Roaring, Setekh spun away from Logan, cursing Seti. His bellows were earsplitting – it was all Logan could do not to cover his ears and scream himself.

Instead, he continued crawling toward Seti. Reaching him, Logan turned him over onto his back. Seti moaned, giving Logan hope.

“Seti? Seti, look at me,” Logan said, laying a hand on Seti’s scruffy cheek. His skin felt cold to the touch. “Seti?”

Seti’s eyes blinked open. “Ashai?” he breathed.

Behind them, Setekh continued to scream, his shrieks and howls echoing in the chamber.

“No, it’s me. It’s Logan.” Pulling Seti’s head onto his lap, Logan began to rock. Suddenly, it became too much. Everything seemed to catch up at once and he felt his sanity strain at its moorings. “I can’t do this anymore, Seti. Please, wake up and get us the hell out of here, okay?”

“Failed you.” Seti’s voice was weak, a mere shadow of its former deep, glorious strength.

“No, no you didn’t. Come on, Seti, get us out of here,” Logan said, shaking his head. He couldn’t believe that this was the end. He wouldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t let Seti give up.

“No. Weak. I was weak.”

Before Logan could protest again, he felt something whiz by, perilously close to his ear. The ivory fang, streaked with black gore, quivered in the floor where it impaled itself. An inch to the left and it would have bitten into Logan’s left thigh.

“I am through with you both!” Setekh roared. “Your very existence is a blight on me, a pestilence, and it ends now!”

Improbable thunder rumbled, the room flashing with electrically charged streaks of lightning as Setekh raised his arms to the ceiling. His eyes glowed a fearsome red, sparking with hate. The thunder built to a crescendo that made Logan’s ears ring painfully.

Time seemed to slow for Logan, each second bloating until it took up the space of a lifetime, and his vision sharpened until he could discern the fine hair on the legs of the small fly that buzzed lazily over Setekh’s left sandal and count each beat of its translucent wings.
 

Logan’s eyes darted toward Seti. His pain was painted clearly in his strained expression, shaded with fear and grief. Logan couldn’t bear to see him like this, his proud and mighty warrior beaten by a bully of biblical proportions.

Something inside Logan snapped. Anger unlike any he’d ever known before, greater even than that he’d felt with Jason’s death, sparked. It mushroomed instantly, like a nuclear explosion, rushing through his blood, carrying a payload of adrenaline.

As Setekh roared above them, Logan’s hand wrapped around the serpent’s fang that had bitten deeply into the floor nearby, pulling hard on the ivory shaft.

It pulled free. Logan pushed himself forward, his arm swinging upwards in an arc, and plunged the dagger into the heavy sac that swung beneath Setekh’s monstrous penis.
 

No creature of the earth could have made a sound like the one that exploded from Setekh’s throat as Logan twisted the fang, working its sharp, poisonous tip deeper in Setekh’s scrotum. Setekh’s scream filled the room like a solid entity, blocking out all other sound, even the beat of Logan’s own heart as it pounded in his skull.

Setekh backed away, hands cupping his savaged groin. “Swine!” he spat. “You will not find the path to paradise after I finish with you. Osiris will never weigh your heart, you bastard son of a pig-loving whore!” he shrieked. One long finger with a jagged, black nail pointed toward Logan. “I curse you to wander forever in the Underworld, your flesh fodder for my servants!”

“NO!” Seti cried. Logan felt his pain as if it was his own, white-hot and crippling. Seti pushed himself up and threw himself sideways across Logan’s lap, as if to protect him from Setekh’s curse. “Osiris!” he cried. “I beg you, help me! My soul for his! My allegiance, my life, my eternal servitude for your protection!”

“Osiris will not help you, you ungrateful son of a jackal! You turned your back on my blessings for want of this pathetic mortal! You have damned yourself and him along with you!” Setekh roared. “I am master here, not that sniveling coward, Osiris! He turns a deaf ear to those who walk my lands!”
  

“Enough.”

The word was softly spoken, and yet cut through the din raised by Setekh’s storm and howls. Immediately the thunder ceased and the lightning dissipated, the room falling ominously silent.

Turning his head toward the sound of the new voice, Logan saw a tall, bearded man, his skin an impossible shade of green, standing framed in the doorway. On his head he wore a conical crown flanked by two large black and white ostrich feathers, which Logan immediately recognized as the atef crown of Egyptian royalty. He carried a shepherd’s crook in one hand and a leather flail in the other.

“Osiris,” Setekh hissed, snapping his jaws at the new arrival. “This is none of your concern!”

“Enough,” Osiris repeated. His voice was rich with authority; the air seemed to crackle with its power. “Setekh, you are a total pain in my ass. Dude, you really need to get a life. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

Logan blinked, staring slack-jawed at Osiris. The contrast between his ancient Egyptian appearance and his use of curiously modern slang was incongruous. Logan liked him on sight. For the first time since he’d found himself in Setekh’s palace, he dared feel a glimmer of hope.

“Stay out of this!” Setekh bellowed, raising his arms threateningly.

“Bite me,” Osiris snorted, pointing his crook at Setekh. A blindingly bright flash erupted from it, sizzling through the air, hitting Set squarely in the chest. “What part of ‘enough’ didn’t you understand?”

Setekh flew backwards, his body hitting the wall behind him with such force that he cracked the sandstone. A shower of dust and debris fell with him as he crumpled to the floor. A smoldering, black scorch mark marred the skin of his chest where Osiris’ bolt had hit him.

“You need to learn to play nice with the other kiddies,” Osiris chided, shaking his head. “And don’t think I’m going to forget the ‘coward’ crack, either. You are so on my shit-list.” He turned his kohl-rimmed eyes toward Logan, smiling. He cocked his head, looking at the fang that protruded from Setekh’s sac. “Ooh…got him right in his moneymaker. Nice shot, kid,” he said, winking at Logan.

Behind Osiris, Setekh wailed, cupping his sac, his body undulating and shimmering, slowly disappearing until nothing was left but the dent his bulk had put in the wall of his palace.

Osiris smiled at Logan. “I’ll deal with him later. Honestly, sometimes I don’t think he has the brains Geb gave to a slug. Now, I’ll just bet that you’ve had your fill of the fun and games down here, huh? Ready to go home?”

Logan grinned in spite of himself. “You can say that again. You’re Osiris, aren’t you? The All-Father, god of the Underworld-”

“Lord of the Sky, god of fertility, yada, yada, yada. I’ve read the press releases, kid.”

“Great Osiris,” Seti moaned. He tried to sit up, but Logan kept him from moving, wrapping his arms around him tightly. “I humbly beg you to send Logan back to the mortal realm. He was stolen by Setekh. He did not pass through the Veil willingly.” It was obvious to Logan that speaking was taxing what little strength Seti had left, and that worried him.

“Shh. Rest, Seti,” he admonished, laying his hand against Seti’s cheek. Unshaved, the bristles of Seti’s scruff tickled at his palm. Turning back to Osiris, Logan said, “How about it, your…er…godship? Can you send us back?”

“You, Logan. Not me,” Seti whispered. “I cannot return.”

“What do you mean? Of course you can. You did it before. You’re not even mummified this time.”

“No, I cannot.” Seti’s skin paled further, dark circles discoloring the flesh beneath his luminous black eyes, the lines on his face cutting deeper into his skin. He seemed to age before Logan’s eyes, wrinkles forming, gray streaking through his black braids.

“What he means is that the big lug committed hari-kari to come down here after you,” Osiris said, clucking his tongue. “That’s a big time sacrifice. Assures him of brownie points at the weigh-in center.”

“No!” Logan cried, as the truth hit him with the force of a sledgehammer. Seti had killed himself? Over him? “Why, Seti? Why would you do something like that?”

“I swore to protect you. I failed.”

“You didn’t fail, Seti,” Osiris said, walking – or rather gliding, over to where Logan sat cradling Seti’s head. His feet never seemed to move or leave the ground. “You did protect him. If it wasn’t for you, Setekh would have killed him a few minutes ago.”

“He would not have been taken had it not been for me, my lord,” Seti said, his eyes drifting closed. “And I have pledged you my servitude.”

“No! Seti!” Logan cried. He looked up at Osiris, frantic. “Please, don’t let him die!”

“Technically, he’s already dead,” Osiris said with a shrug. “His ka is disintegrating, assuming its spirit form. It’s preparing to travel to my palace, to be weighed against the Feather of Life to determine if Seti gets the all-inclusive vacation in Paradise, or the one-way ticket to the Damnation Plantation.”

“Please,” Logan begged. “None of this was his fault! He deserves better than this! Didn’t he suffer enough for five thousand years? Take me instead!”

Osiris rolled his eyes. “You humans are so melodramatic. Personally, I don’t want either one of you. Look, I’ll give you one more chance, and Seti? Don’t screw it up this time.” He pointed his crook at Seti and another dazzlingly brilliant streak of light poured from it. The light enveloped Seti’s body from head to foot in a golden glow. It felt warm under Logan’s hands, like an electric blanket set to high.