Seth by Nero Seal
Red sand shiftedbeneath his cloven hooves as Set1 stalked through the wilderness. The wind flirting with him licked his ulcerated, obsidian skin with a searing tongue. Wrapping around his thighs, it grabbed at his shendyt kilt2, trying to tear it from under the wide black sash embroidered with lazurite and turquoise. In his left hand, he held a Was-staff3, the head of a sha animal4 crowning it. With a down-turned pointed muzzle, tall square-tipped ears, and slanted red eyes, his totem animal head was a small copy of his own, except he only had one eye now. Forged of tungsten and gold, the staff was so intricate it almost looked alive. The same metals adorned his garments, heavy bracelets, armbands, and anklets.
On the top of a red dune, he halted. The air trembled in front of his eye as the sun burned the last vapors out of the ground. Above the sizzling earth, the horizon melted.
A yellow deathstalker5 rushed through the sand, raising its translucent legs high with every step as if trying to cool them in the boiling air. It curled by Set’s feet, seeking relief in the shadow he cast. Spread out on the sand, it lowered its tail in front of its master in a sign of submission.
Set raised his gaze to the heavens.
Ra6 raged today. It seemed like he intended to eliminate every living being from this forsaken ground, but in this barren soil, Set was home. The heat licking his body didn’t bother him, for he was the master of this land, the Lord of the Desert.
He listened to the air, the whispers in it, but only thirsty cries of withering life reached his ears.
Standing there for a moment longer, he turned east just to leave the sun behind. His claws sank into the sand as he descended the dune. The scorpion stirred and trailed after him as if knowing his master wouldn’t abandon those who were loyal.
Set drifted through the desert. The wind swept behind, erasing his footprints, and more often than not, burying the small deathstalker under the sand. Fighting nature, the arachnid kept stalking him, guarding him. Its tail hovered above its back, ready to sting as its grasping pedipalps snapped in the air.
The creature that instilled hatred and fear in any mortal being brought what would be a condescending smile to his muzzle if it had been capable of expressions.
The God of Chaos, the Master of Storms and Disorder, didn’t need protection for he was the name of war. With a swipe of his forked tail, Set could have lifted the scorpion on his shoulder, let it rest in the coolness of his collar piece, but every mortal creature needed a purpose in life, and this little fellow seemed to have just found one.
The red wind tossed a handful of sand at his face and brought a sharp, coppery smell. Set stilled.
The sha animal on his staff bared its teeth upon sensing blood. He mimicked the sneer, tugging dry air through his nostrils. Instinctively, he looked west. The golden disk of the sun rapidly fell into the red dust of the desert.
The sky will bleed soon.
As if hearing his thoughts, the animal head on the staff nodded.
Glaring at the falling sun, Set thrust the staff in the air.
“Be gone!” His voice, a whisper of a desert, roared through the wildness like a hollow wind. Dark clouds rose on the horizon, grim hands stretching toward the sun, swallowing it.
The desert dimmed, and the temperature dropped. The moan of relief, coming from every creature that had survived, rolled over the ground.
Turning his back to the defeated sun, Set rasped, “Let it storm.”
Small vortexes rose from the ground. Swirling around his legs, they lifted red sand, whisking it into thick clouds of an impenetrable shroud. Razor-sharp particles cut into his skin with every gust of hot air, ulcerating it more.
Set started walking again, guided by the smell. Even before he saw the tall construction erected in the middle of the desert, he knew what he searched for. Mimicking the curved form of a khopesh7 sword, it stabbed the sky. The red blood streamed down the edge. When he reached the entrance, the storm sat on his shoulders like a cloak.
His hand pressed against the glass door. It slid away from his touch, letting him in. The darkness wrapped around him. The scorpion, rushing inside, plastered its small body over the obsidian floor, chilling, enjoying the safety. Set felt its relief in his blood. It pleased him, but it didn’t slow his steps. He knew time was running out as his body was falling apart.
His hooves clanged against the stone as he entered the soul of the building. Through the gloom, the sinews and veins stretched from every side to the middle of the round foyer where something hung above the ground. For Set, this lusterless form was brighter than a beacon light.
Every fiber of his being recognized this object as he drifted toward it. Stretching out his palm, he touched the cold, smooth glass.
His heart pulsed in his chest, reverberating in his fingertips. It recognized the object too. BA-DUMP. BA-DUMP. BA-DUMP.
It’s time…
Set lifted his hand to his chest. The claw of his index finger stabbed into his ribs as he tore down, opening his ribcage. Golden blood streamed out of the wound, shimmering in the darkness. His claws sank deeper as he yanked the left side of his ribcage open, breaking the breastbone, revealing his heart. It glowed with warm, golden light, illuminating the empty space in his chest where his lungs once were.
The Was-staff came to life. Like a snake, it twirled around his forearm, crawling up to his shoulder, therefore freeing his hand.
His heart glowed in his palm as he took it out. Even when he snapped the arteries and veins with his claws, it didn’t stop beating. The hollow spot in his chest pulsed, wanting the heart back, but Set ignored it as Justin needed it more. It was his final gift to the boy he once loved.
He stretched out his hand, and the glass, liquefying in front of him, swallowed his hand. Taking away the heart, it let go leaving a chilling emptiness behind.
A pang of sadness pierced his chest, making him feel even hollower. There was almost nothing left of him to give, yet he hadn’t found the one made for him. The object came to life. Uncontaminated light streamed from within, pulsing, as the red glass glimmered. And with every beat, the sinews and veins attached to it flashed, pushing the light to every corner of the sleeping building as if breathing life into it.
* * *
Seth sat up,panting, then tore off the eye mask. Blinking through the gloom, he stared at the pale, smooth skin of his arms, then at the white, cotton gloves covering his hands. Pushing a breath out, he peeled the gloves off, then reached up and touched his face; his human features felt oddly unfamiliar under his finger pads but only for a split second.
In his dreams, he had walked this desert a thousand times, but never before had he stepped into this building.
He had worked on the project for a month, designing and redesigning the kaleidoscope of prisms that would reflect the natural light. Without losing a fraction, they were supposed to create corridors of beams that concentrated on the foyer’s center, but something had always felt missing. Until today.
The heart…
He slipped off the bed and darted out of the bedroom and into his studio. With a frantic swipe of his forearm, he cleared his desk then grabbed a sheet of paper and a pencil.
His hand moved in chaotic strokes, transferring the glass heart from his dream to the paper. It was a rough sketch, but in it, Seth saw the finest details of the future masterpiece.
* * *
For the second day,eyes followed him around. Glaring stares drilled his back. He feltthem wherever he went.
Somehow, it didn’t surprise him. No question rose in his mind as he knew who they were and what they wanted. A man who walked the streets at night with a security team must have many enemies, and Justin’s death, his body, had provided an opportunity to remove a few of them via Seth’s hands. The following gazes assured him of that.
While the man studied him, dissected him, Seth waited for a chance for one-sided surveillance to become an exchange of information. Sooner or later, someone would approach him to make terms. Seth preferred it to happen sooner rather than later as the bloodless sand refused to talk to him.
Days passed in vain as he locked himself in his glass studio in the basement. He tried to recreate the shape from his dreams but, despite the perfect form of the glass, the object felt hollow, soulless—nothing like in his dreams.
He knew he should stop, yet he was stuck in constant beginnings. With every failure, the emptiness and darkness oppressed his soul. In the black haze of his rancor, he continued mixing colors and textures, breaking and melting glass, breaking again to fuse everything together.
His breath became short, and the room swam as his smartwatch beeped and flashed red. He stepped away; focus chained to the black, ulcerated knot laying in front of him. Matte, it didn’t emit any light but absorbed it instead. Ugly and lifeless, it had the same texture and color as the ulcerated obsidian skin in his dreams. The skin of the dead, forsaken god cursed to roam the desert for centuries.
He didn’t know where the black color originated. He hadn’t added any, yet the glass was impenetrable and grim. It wasn’t the heart from his dream, pure and transparent, but a dead and hollow knot of soulless muscles putrefied with unhealed scars of betrayal.
Without a second thought, he lifted the glass heart and threw it at the wall. A loud shriek echoed through the basement, and a myriad of tiny shards, glinting with sharp edges, littered the smooth, gray floor.
Turning off the furnace, Seth rushed upstairs. He needed his sand back, and for that, he had to meet the man again.
* * *
Dressed in a blackbutton-up and slacks, Seth stood in front of the mirror. His fingers clasped the black belt buckle checking twin punch daggers hidden within. Short, sharp blades were a poor choice of weapon for combat, but they should be enough for self-defense or a surprise attack.
Strolling around the loud city didn’t appeal, especially as it was Friday evening and summer, but he wanted to provide his stalkers an opportunity to approach him in a public place.
He reached for the door handle when his cell phone rang.
“Mayr?” Portia, the personal assistant of the director of the Global National Bank, all but yelled out his name. His hand jerked away from his ear as he gave the device a scornful stare. “The presentation has already begun. Please, tell me you are just running late. I have to remind you that according to your contract you have to—”
Seth hung up, glanced at the date on the screen.
The presentation… He tsked, remembering the invitation Günter Wagner gave him the other day. He kicked off his shoes and strolled back into the bedroom to change. Having an eccentric reputation meant he could be unreasonably late as long as he showed up.
* * *
Today might have gone differentlyif only the last days hadn’t been this unbearably mundane. If Loco had left his villa for anything but groceries to provide Gustavo food for thought. If the endless paperwork hadn’t buried his desk. If his lovers hadn’t canceled on him at the last moment. If anything had gone differently, Gustavo wouldn’t go to the presentation, but he was bored.
The party was in full swing when Gustavo entered the chain of ballrooms. The doors stood wide open, creating two parallel corridors decorated with white marble arches. Soft music streamed in the air, accompanied by clinking glasses, laughter, and murmurs.
Even in the vast space, he instantly spotted Seth. Sipping his wine, the murderer kept to the side. Among the prim crowd, impeccably dressed according to the black-tie dress code, Seth’s unbuttoned black shirt underneath the modern three-piece suit was a fresh breeze of rebellion. The black snake of his tie hung lifelessly on either side of his neck. Even in the soft, orange light from the crystal chandeliers, his obsidian, messy hair, longer at the top, had a bluish glint. The darkness of his clothes, eyes, and hair only accented his smooth, alabaster skin.
A pearl among peas.Gustavo almost cringed from the cliché that came to mind, yet it suited Seth so well. The daylight softened his features, but at the same time, it accented his neurotic, aristocratic look. The suit he wore hugged his body so tight that it made him look almost supple, delicate. If Gustavo hadn’t seen him shirtless, he would have never believed muscles corded underneath his clothes.
Seth tilted his head, long fingers, full of languid sensuality, toyed with a napkin. His full lips parted, and Gustavo habitually compared him with the sculpture of Narcissus by Ernest Eugene Hiolle8. The same grace, beauty, and longing gaze.
Gustavo’s possessive instinct stirred as he remembered how he’d failed to obtain the sculpture. Now, the marble faded in comparison with the living thing.
Seth leaned one elbow against the tall, round table, his other hand dropped the napkin, lifted a fat glass, and swirled the red wine about it. An ephemeral illusion of lazy gentleness cocooned him.
Gustavo wavered. He’d half-expected to be disappointed by this meeting as the magic the blood and gore created in the shadows of the unfinished building would certainly vanish in the daylight.
Partially, his prediction came true.
That night, he saw a wild beast. The beast he could vie with, tame and break. His course of actions had been solely dictated by the adrenaline overflow and the fleeting impression he’d had that night. Now, he wasn’t sure what he wanted anymore as Seth was nothing like he’d imagined.
Propped against the wall, Gustavo folded his arms over his chest, opting to watch the man a little longer.
Someone whistled. Gustavo turned to see Diego lean against the wall, next to him, sipping his Dirty Martini. “He is gorgeous.”
“He is…” Gustavo replied without enthusiasm. He hated when beautiful things got broken. On the construction site, he’d wanted to play with and break the beast, just as he’d broken that beautiful boy. Right now, looking at the smooth movement of the man, his dignified features, he thought that breaking Seth would destroy another masterpiece and commit unforgivable vandalism himself.
“What are you going to do?” Diego pressed.
Conflicted, Gustavo didn’t reply. His gaze sank into the pale face.
In the rare moments when Seth was alone, his eyes hazed as if he drifted in the depth of his mind. Whenever people approached him, his attitude changed. His lips thinned out, chin lifted as Seth looked at everyone with a condescending expression. Even with Arnold Alby, the director of the Global National Bank and his employer, he comported himself with such autocracy that it was hard to say who hired whom. His fleeting smiles never reached his cold, dissecting eyes. Despite the haunting, neurotic air, his face rarely expressed anything but occasional amusement and contempt. He was bored, and he did a poor job of hiding it yet, for some reason, no one seemed to mind.
On Gustavo’s watch, many approached Seth, talked to him, but not even once did he condescend to reply. Somehow, that disappointed. For such an expressive murder, Seth lacked emotions.
A piece of cold marble indeed.
“What, not happy with what you see?” Diego nudged him with his elbow. “Not what you imagined?”
“I don’t know. He kind of lookslike a spoiled, rich brat patching up his biography with his daddy’s money.”
“Well, isn’t he?” When Gustavo didn’t answer, Diego added, “You are just like that boy who fell in love with the Moon, but once he ascended to the sky, he realized it was just a piece of rock, nothing more. He died, heartbroken, and we still can see the imprint of his crying face on the Moon’s surface.”
Gustavo turned his face, looking into the tawny eyes of his friend shimmering with laughter. “That’s a terrible story. Who wrote it?”
“I just did. Do you think I should publish?” Diego’s lips twitched.
Gustavo blinked. “How is this helpful?”
“I don’t know; you tell me?” When Gustavo didn’t say anything, he added, “Well, if you are giving up, I humbly accept your yacht as a cancelation payment. Also, if you aren’t going after him, may I? I agree he looks like a prick, but what a fucking gorgeous prick. Ten thousand says he’ll be in my bed in a week.”
The thought heated Gustavo’s blood. With a possessive instinct, he glared. “Roll your tongue back into your head. I never said I’m giving up. Bring the chest.”
“Here? Now?” Diego’s thick brows did a funny flip as if he wasn’t sure if he should frown or be amazed. “Okay. A thousand on the police arriving within an hour.”
“You’re on.” Parting from the wall, Gustavo drifted through the ballroom. On his way, he grabbed a glass of red wine from a waiter, then rested his forearm against the table next to Seth’s. Avoiding staring directly, he kept looking at the door, but still observed Seth from the corner of his eye.
Seth drained another glass of wine, his Adam’s apple bobbed. The neurotic air around him aggravated as the chain of people coming to chit-chat never subsided. Every time someone touched him, his neck corded. Gustavo thought that Seth hated physical contact too much for someone who had carved a heart out of a living person.
A few times, media representatives tried to approach Seth, but he waved them all away, ruining Gustavo’s last hopes of hearing his voice.
After doing a round of handshaking, Arnold Alby returned to Seth’s table and monologued the conversation. It looked like he didn’t need a debater but a listener. Seth, relaxing a fraction, seemed comfortable with that role.
Getting bored, Gustavo faced his friend. The chest stood by Diego’s feet, large enough to be a dog kennel if it had an entrance hole.
Gustavo nodded. Diego said something over his shoulder, and two bodyguards lifted the chest with effort and carried it through the room. They set it on the red carpet, opposite to Seth.
“Herr Mayr? A delivery,” one of them said in a rusty bass.
Seth gave them a slow once over, then examined the chest, one brow edged upward.
Gustavo tugged absently at the white tablecloth. His glass, slipping along, dangerously approached the edge of the table, but he barely noticed it.
Seth didn’t say anything but lifted his chin as if giving them permission to elaborate, explain themselves.
“We were ordered to open it upon delivery,” the same bodyguard said and creaked the lid open.
The color drained from Seth’s already pale face, stripping him of his permanent arrogant look.
